About 90 kilometres northwest of Ha'il, the town of Jubbah sits at the foot of Jabal Umm Sinman, a sandstone hill that once overlooked a freshwater lake at the southern edge of the Great Nafud Desert. The lake is long gone, but the carvings left by the people who lived beside it remain, and they are extraordinary. The Jubbah petroglyphs span some 10,000 years of human occupation, from Neolithic cattle herders through Bronze Age nomads to Nabataean traders and Islamic-era camel riders.
The carvings cover the cliff faces in dense layers — human figures in elaborate ornamentation, cattle with distinctive horns, ibex, ostriches, and hunting scenes. Some of the inscriptions are in ancient Arabian scripts that took decades of scholarship to decipher. The site has a visitor centre that provides useful context and an elevated walkway that lets you view the most important panels without damaging the rock surfaces. There is no entry fee as of 2024, but the site opens only during daytime hours. A guide from the visitor centre is strongly recommended — many of the most interesting panels are not immediately obvious.
Getting to Jubbah requires a car. The road from Ha'il is straightforward and well-signposted, taking about an hour each way. The landscape along the route — red Nafud dunes giving way to pale sandstone — is worth the journey on its own.