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Royal Commission for AlUla Signs Cooperation Agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust

The Royal Commission for AlUla has signed a cooperation agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust to enhance the sustainable protection of ancient monuments. SPA
The Royal Commission for AlUla has signed a cooperation agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust to enhance the sustainable protection of ancient monuments. SPA
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Royal Commission for AlUla Signs Cooperation Agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust

The Royal Commission for AlUla has signed a cooperation agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust to enhance the sustainable protection of ancient monuments. SPA
The Royal Commission for AlUla has signed a cooperation agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust to enhance the sustainable protection of ancient monuments. SPA

The Royal Commission for AlUla has signed a cooperation agreement with Jordan’s Petra National Trust to enhance the sustainable protection of ancient monuments and encourage community participation in preserving landmarks of historical significance.
The agreement, signed in the Hegra area of AlUla, is part of a shared effort by both sides to care for and preserve their common human heritage. AlUla and Petra are both centers of the Nabatean civilization, which flourished in these areas.
The agreement includes the exchange of knowledge, skills, visits, and tours, as well as promoting education and community engagement in history, human heritage, and heritage preservation. It also explores new opportunities related to future strategies.
Both AlUla and Petra reflect the cultural creativity and architectural mastery of the ancient Nabateans. The Darb al-Bakrah route, which connects Hegra to Petra, reveals numerous inscriptions in languages such as Arabic and Nabatean, highlighting its significance and vital role in the area.
The agreement supports the Ruwat program, launched by the Royal Commission for AlUla, which offers cooperative training for citizens of AlUla.
Under the agreement, the Petra National Trust joins the commission's international partner network, which includes organizations such as UNESCO, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). These organizations contribute to preserving cultural and natural heritage.
This agreement further enhances partnerships with various Jordanian sectors, such as Royal Jordanian Airlines, which operates flights to AlUla, and Khammash Architects, part of the design and construction team developing the Sidrat AlUla project.

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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)
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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.”