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Riyadh International Book Fair Activities Draw Growing Number of Visitors

Riyadh International Book Fair activities draw growing number of visitors. (SPA)
Riyadh International Book Fair activities draw growing number of visitors. (SPA)
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Riyadh International Book Fair Activities Draw Growing Number of Visitors

Riyadh International Book Fair activities draw growing number of visitors. (SPA)
Riyadh International Book Fair activities draw growing number of visitors. (SPA)

The Riyadh International Book Fair continues to attract a large audience, solidifying its status as a key cultural event.
Its diverse activities cater to various segments of society and age groups, ensuring a distinctive and enjoyable cultural experience for all, said the Saudi Press Agency on Sunday.
Some 2,000 publishing houses from 30 countries are taking part in this year's fair, showcasing a diverse array of literary works and cultural offerings.
The fair, organized by the Literature, Publishing, and Translation Commission, is held at King Saud University from September 26 to October 5 under the theme "Riyadh Reads". It is a premier cultural event in the Kingdom and beyond that brings together local and international writers, publishers, translators, and readers, promoting cultural exchange and knowledge sharing.
It features a dedicated area for children that offers cultural and recreational activities, a special area that showcases the works of Saudi authors, and an area for book signings, enabling attendees to meet their favorite authors and obtain signed copies of their latest releases.

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Culture

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.”