Hail Regional Museum...A Tour Through Time During 'Saudi Winter'

The exterior design of Saudi Arabia's Hail Regional Museum - Asharq Al-Awsat
The exterior design of Saudi Arabia's Hail Regional Museum - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Hail Regional Museum...A Tour Through Time During 'Saudi Winter'

The exterior design of Saudi Arabia's Hail Regional Museum - Asharq Al-Awsat
The exterior design of Saudi Arabia's Hail Regional Museum - Asharq Al-Awsat

Hail Regional Museum has been garnering more attention since it was highlighted among the Saudi Winter’s list of private sector tourist sites.

The museum, whose identity is influenced by the Hail urban and heritage identity, is home to antiquities and its other historical items from the governorate. They are displayed according to their chronological sequence, starting with the prehistoric era, then the epoch of the first civilizations that settled in each region, and finally with the modern era. The historically comprehensive exhibit features various crafts and traditional industries, and it is designed to attract audience of all ages.

Around 1,500 square meters large, the museum has many sections. A section of the museum is dedicated to Hail’s geology, with samples of its rock formations on display, accompanied by explanation of their chronology and the region’s natural diversity.

The museum, with its beautiful art pieces, unique historical objects, ancient scripts and artifacts, is a significant addition to the cultural and art scene in the region that gives visitors the opportunity to stroll through different eras and learn about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s civilizational heritage.

The museum has several halls, each of which exhibits a diverse “historical narrative.”

The hall dedicated to Hail’s history and geology shows samples of rocks from the region, with a focus on metallurgy sites, mines and the region’s botany and zoology. Visitors can also go to the pre-Islamic era in the hall dedicated to it, which starts from the stone ages and ends with Jahiliya; this hall includes tools and pottery, as well as inscriptions and engravings, from the stone age.

As for the Hail Through History Hall, it exhibits paintings, texts, pictures and scripts. And the region’s heritage, with its traditional industries, is on display in Hail Heritage Hall, as are its folkloric clothing, jewelry, cooking utensils and agricultural tools... as well as other components of local heritage. Education also has its own hall; the Education in Hail Hall tells the story of the first schools to open in the region and an array of old books, films and letters.

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage included over 17 sites in its Saudi Winter campaign, which offers over 300 touristic experiences provided by over travel and tour agencies so that visitors can discover the Kingdom’s diverse geography and attractive winter climate.



Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland, Estonia Hit by Outage

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
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Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland, Estonia Hit by Outage

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

A power cable linking Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea suffered an outage, prompting an investigation, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Wednesday.

Writing on X, Orpo said that power transmission through the Estlink-2 cable stopped Wednesday and that authorities were “investigating the matter.” He said the interruption would not affect electricity supplies in Finland, according to The AP.

Estonian network operator Elering said there was enough spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side, public broadcaster ERR said on its website.

Authorities have been on edge about undersea infrastructure in the Baltic. Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November.

Germany's defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was “sabotage," but without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible. The remark came during a speech in which he discussed hybrid warfare threats from Russia.

The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that once brought natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities have termed it sabotage and launched criminal probes.

The Estlink-2 cable was down for much of this year to repair damage from a short circuit that may have been caused by the cable's complex positioning, ERR reported.