Saudi Culture Exhibition in Paris Attracts French and European Visitors

The Saudi Culture Exhibition has attracted French and European visitors through the exhibition's various pillars in Paris. SPA
The Saudi Culture Exhibition has attracted French and European visitors through the exhibition's various pillars in Paris. SPA
TT

Saudi Culture Exhibition in Paris Attracts French and European Visitors

The Saudi Culture Exhibition has attracted French and European visitors through the exhibition's various pillars in Paris. SPA
The Saudi Culture Exhibition has attracted French and European visitors through the exhibition's various pillars in Paris. SPA

The Saudi Culture Exhibition, organized by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission in Paris, has attracted French and European visitors through the exhibition's various pillars.

Visitors' experience includes a photography exhibition by French photographer Terry Moujie, which includes a presentation of his most prominent work in the south of the Kingdom, his comic books, and a special stand for rare manuscripts and archaeological replicas.

The exhibition included an introduction to the "Translate" initiative, the philosophy conference, and the writers and readers festival, as well as a show of a number of local costumes to promote cultural exchange between the Saudi and French communities, as one of the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Culture under the umbrella of the Saudi Vision 2030.

The first week's events emphasize the quality of the cultural program prepared by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission in partnership with the Heritage Commission, Libraries Authority, the Music Commission, the Culinary Arts Commission, the Architecture and Design Commission, the Fashion Commission, the Film Commission, and Prince Mohammed bin Salman Global Center for Arabic Calligraphy.

Poetry evenings and short films produced through a competition supporting film-making were featured in the first week of the event.

The second week of the event will include eight symposiums, three poetry evenings, five short screenings as well as the screening of the documentary "Tarouq", a panel session on the King Salman Charter for Architecture and Urbanism, three performances demonstrations of handicrafts, and capacity-building and techniques in the heritage of handicrafts.

Through this participation, the cultural sector seeks to highlight the uniqueness and creativity of the Saudi culture's hundreds of years of history through delivering seminars on Saudi literature, translation efforts, and cultural and musical fusion, among others.



Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
TT

Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

Thousands of tourists, pagans, druids and people simply yearning for the promise of spring marked the dawn of the shortest day of the year at the ancient Stonehenge monument on Saturday.

Revelers cheered and beat drums as the sun rose at 8:09 a.m. (0809 GMT) over the giant standing stones on the winter solstice — the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. No one could see the sun through the low winter cloud, but that did not deter a flurry of drumming, chanting and singing as dawn broke.

There will be less than eight hours of daylight in England on Saturday — but after that, the days get longer until the summer solstice in June.

The solstices are the only occasions when visitors can go right up to the stones at Stonehenge, and thousands are willing to rise before dawn to soak up the atmosphere.

The stone circle, whose giant pillars each took 1,000 people to move, was erected starting about 5,000 years ago by a sun-worshiping Neolithic culture, according to The AP. Its full purpose is still debated: Was it a temple, a solar calculator, a cemetery, or some combination of all three?

In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University said the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had political as well as spiritual significance.

That follows from the recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site. Some of the other stones were brought from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) to the west,

Lead author Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology said the geographical diversity suggests Stonehenge may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”