What does the Louvre participation mean in terms of civilisation?

In 2006 a team of archaeologists from King Saud University made an astounding discovery as they excavated a site at the Dadan oasis in AlUla. It was a sandstone sculpture of a man, broad-shouldered and straight-backed, with a muscular torso, and a rounded bracelet wrapped tight around his thick left arm. And at 2.3 metres tall and 800 kilograms in weight, what a colossus!

This is the masterwork we now know as Monumental Statue. In the years since our Monumental man was unearthed, he has travelled to galleries from St. Petersburg to San Francisco as Saudi Arabia shares AlUla's cultural heritage with the world. Our work to unearth similar artifacts continues now in AlUla, with around 120 archaeologists from around the world excavating sites throughout the region.

As of this week, the sculpture has found a happy home for the next five years: the Louvre museum in Paris. He will be the focal point of a room at the Near East Antiquities Gallery, where the Louvre’s nine million annual visitors can gaze upon his magnificence. This is a treatment worthy of a king … which is what we believe the man in the statue was: a king of the Lihyanite people circa the 5th?to 3rd?centuries BCE.?

I was honoured to participate in a ceremony this week, as we presented the Monumental Statue to the Louvre. This mighty king represents a milestone for The Royal Commission for AlUla : the first item of global archaeological interest from AlUla to go on long-term public display at the Louvre.?

Overlooked for too long, the richness of the ancient civilisations of north-west Arabia is now being shared with the world. As we pursue this history, RCU is committed to working globally to ensure the implementation of best practices in excavations, conservation and knowledge transfer. To this end four of my RCU colleagues are spending time at the Louvre to share knowledge on installations and restoration.?

The Lihyanites in particular have been overlooked. This is a real shame, because they were a fascinating people. For starters they were masterful sculptors, not only for big pieces but also small statues, figurines, altars, incense burners, and tombs carved into mountains. And they were open to the outside world. They prospered from the incense trade – frankincense, myrrh, and so on – and their exchanges were cultural as well as commercial: the Lihyanite style of sculpture seems to incorporate influences from Egypt and Greece. At the Dadan oasis they even hosted a well-integrated and peaceful community of Minaean traders from Southern Arabia.?

When the king depicted in Monumental Statue ruled his people, they inhabited a crossroads of civilisations.?

At RCU we honour and value this legacy of exchange – and we believe it must go both ways. In the cultural sphere this means that we all learn from one another – it is not one side deciding what history is, but all sides. In the Middle East we don’t want to be bystanders in relating our history; we must participate in the telling.?

We at RCU have found that France offers fertile soil for rewarding two-way partnerships. Saudi and French archaeologists have worked side by side for 20 years now to deliver a clearer image of Arabia’s long-forgotten kingdoms. And since 2018 we have worked closely with Afalula, the French Agency for the Development of AlUla, on areas from culture to investment. French companies are assisting in the development of our infrastructure, such as the sustainable tram network that will span more than 50 kilometres of AlUla.?

Looking ahead, this collaboration will be the first of many with leading international institutions, providing fresh opportunities to share AlUla’s heritage, culture, and place in history with a global audience. As we invite the world to explore our living museum in AlUla, we foresee more international museums following the Louvre’s example. We also invite archaeological communities to work closely with RCU through strategic partnerships, research projects and exhibitions of artifacts. These efforts are essential as we fulfil our ambitious plan to create the Kingdoms Institute as a hub of archaeological knowledge at AlUla.?

In this way, Monumental Statue represents our past, present and future: the glory of antiquity, the partnerships of today and the discoveries still to come.?