Saudi Arabia Launches Awareness Campaign on Cultural Significance of Museums

Saudi Arabia Launches Awareness Campaign on Cultural Significance of Museums
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Saudi Arabia Launches Awareness Campaign on Cultural Significance of Museums

Saudi Arabia Launches Awareness Campaign on Cultural Significance of Museums

The Saudi Museums Commission announced the launch of “Telling Tomorrow’s Story” campaign, which aims at raising awareness of museums’ role in preserving history and cultural heritage, strengthening national identity, and promoting new forms of creative expression.

The campaign motto embodies the Museums Commission’s forward-looking vision centered on innovation, preservation of historical and contemporary cultural treasures and practices, and fostering creativity for generations to come. Through “Telling Tomorrow’s Story” campaign, the Museums Commission presents museums as spaces where the past is kept safe, and where the future takes shape, SPA reported.
According to a statement issued by the Museums Commission on Sunday, the campaign includes digital content that showcases the museums and cultural centers under the Museums Commission’s authority, including: the National Museum, Al-Masmak Palace Museum, Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art at Jax (SAMoCA@Jax), Diriyah Art Futures (DAF), in Riyadh, and the Tariq Abdulhakim Museum in Jeddah. It also introduces future museums under development that are poised to enrich the Kingdom’s cultural landscape, in particular the Black Gold Museum in Riyadh and the Red Sea Museum in Jeddah.
As part of its efforts to preserve Saudi heritage and highlight its diversity, the Commission also announced the development of museums in 11 regions of the Kingdom, as follows: Al-Qassim, Al-Jouf, Aseer, Tabuk, Hail, Najran, Arar, Dammam, Makkah, Jazan, and Al-Baha. Under the motto “Our Saudi Story,” the regional museums will celebrate the cultural elements that make up Saudi history, heritage, and identity, collectively weaving the story of the Kingdom’s diverse cultural tapestry and rich history. In addition to displaying permanent collections, these museums will offer temporary exhibitions, educational programs, and cultural events, thus becoming inclusive spaces of knowledge, wonder, and community for all.
The statement added that the motto “Telling Tomorrow’s Story” reflects the Museums Commission’s commitment to sustainability, be it through documenting and preserving cultural heritage for future generations, or through integrating environmentally friendly practices into the design and operation of museums.
With “Telling Tomorrow’s Story”, the Museums Commission presents museums as more than just spaces – they are gateways to the rich stories of Saudi Arabia’s past, present and future.



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.”