attractions HISTORY & CULTURE
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The largest museum in Saudi
Arabia is the National Museum in Riyadh, which opened to the public in 1999. It was built to commemo- rate the centennial of the seizure of Riyadh by King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman in 1902, an event which led to the re-establishment of the Al-Saud family as rulers and to the foundation of the modern Saudi state in 1932. Other museums in Riyadh
include the King Saud University Museum, which has a display of fi nds from archaeological digs and Murabba Palace, with exhibits of traditional clothing and crafts. Further to this, museums can
be found all over the country, each unique and showing different facets of a diverse cultural history. The village of Rijal Al Ma’a in the Asir province is where local people have preserved 60 traditional stone dwellings dating back 500 years and the Al-Tayibat City Museum for International Civilisation in Jeddah is a vast palace containing 300 rooms crammed with a collection built over a merchant’s lifetime. SCTA is also working to est ab-
lish an Islamic heritage museum in Makkah and a Qur’an museum in Madinah.
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CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS The Jenadriyah Heritage & Cultural Festival, organised every year by the National Guard, is the most famous cultural event in Saudi Arabia. First held in 1985, it attracts more than one million Saudis each year, all keen to deepen their knowl- edge of the traditional culture and crafts of the nation.
The event opens with a
traditional camel race and is followed by artisan displays, such as pottery, woodwork and weaving. Visitors can also take a stroll through history thanks to the heritage village, which resides permanently in Jenadriyah, just outside Riyadh. Visitors can also watch
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blacksmiths smelting iron, then hammering out traditional swords and daggers. More attractions include metalsmiths creating traditional brass and copper coffee pots, potters using traditional foot-powered wheels, tailors hand-sewing cloaks and basket weavers shaping harvested palm fronds. There are also traditional dancers performing the ardha, the national male sword dance. Saudi folk music, shaped
and infl uenced by the nomadic Bedouins and the travelling pilgrims, is also a highlight, as is poetry. Considered to be one of the highest expressions of literary art in Saudi Arabia, poetry is traditionally passed down from the days of the Bedouin, when travellers would gather around a storyteller to listen to tales of love, bravery, chivalry and war.
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