Day 284: Sakaka (سَكَاكَا)

Jan 12 - Today we head east and north for about 40 km to Sakaka. This is another urban area, larger and busier than Dumat al-Jandal. On the road between the two we pass several large and brand new university complexes. The Saudi government has been sending a great deal of money to Sakaka to try and improve services, as this region has been historically starved for development.

We are denied an easy drive to the Rajajil stones by road construction, and are obliged to take a detour down some dirt roads and eventually wind our way back around to the entrance. It is yet another brand new visitor’s center with a mini-museum of artifacts found at the site. The site manager’s desk, where I go to do the standard sign-in, is littered with lithics, that is, chert fragments fashioned into scraping and cutting tools.

The Rajajil (in Arabic it means something like ‘men shapes’) are groups of tall, narrow stones (about three meters high by 60 cm across), placed in upright positions and with flat sides facing the rising sun. They are thought to have been emplaced in the 4th millennium BCE. This put them in a roughly equivalent era to Stonehenge. The best explanation for their presence is that they served some religious ritual function. I could imagine that they also were gravestones, and that this area was reserved only for burial of people deemed sufficiently important.

There are about ten groups of columns like these. They appear to have been placed more less like in the photo above, but straight up. There are four in this example, but others laying on the ground suggest that originally more stood here. The flat sides, decorated with symbols and some writing, always face east. The back sides are unworked.

There is very little explanation in the visitor’s center about what is here, but I’m guessing that the above collection of stones was more complex , with a group of standing stones in the center, surrounded by long stones placed horizontally. Perhaps it was a full-on temple with some sort of alter.

In this particular ‘group’, only one column survives. Or perhaps there was only ever just one here. While some of the symbols on the east side look old, there is also a lot of more recent graffiti.

As interesting as this cluster of columns looks, it appears that it has just been slowly been collapsing over time.

One of the wildflowers seen on site.

While walking around the site, I notice, more than anywhere we’ve walked around before in KSA, the presence of chert fragments like those I saw in the visitor’s center. This place is littered with possible tools and tool fragments.

Take a different route out if the site and into Sakaka town itself. Its a busier and more chaotic place than Dumat al-Jandal, not nearly as relaxing to drive in. We head to the old town area, which (of course) is in the process of being renovated for the coming tourist boom.

Zaabal Castle. The current structure form (since renovated) is about 400 years old, but the hill itself shows evidence of a fortress dating from Nabataean times.

We just sort of wandered around in the tiny paths of old town, where a great deal of effort has been made to reconstruct a facsimile of what this place probably looked like centuries ago.

The castle itself, way up on the top of the hill, is not actually accessible from the old town. We had to drive around to the back side and up a hill where the real entrance is, manned by a park gate. If someone had not gone out of their way to tell us about this, we would not have known.

Zaabal Castle towers specialize in kid-sized doors.

The graveyard (maqbara) of the castle, with a nice sandstone outcrop as a backdrop.

The castle has some of the most picturesque views of Sakaka.

Detail of the mud brick walls.

We leave the castle and head downtown. Stop at a playground for a bit. There is a group of women in black niqab having a picnic by one of the play structures. When Odette finishes on the swing, one of them takes a turn, robes flowing, while another films her with a cellphone.

Next to the playground was the Sakaka Water Tower. Notable only because it can be seen from everywhere in town, and a lot more ornate than your regular water tower.

Downtown, we stop at a huge bookstore to look for new math exercises for Odette. I really don’t know what to expect, but am amazed at the number of children’s books in English, including a whole section of school workbooks. There is plenty here to round out her 4th grade school year.

Walk through a nearby mall that feels like a ghost town. None of the escalators are operating, and about 80% of the stores are closed. We find a noodle place open and eat something besides chicken and rice.

Saudi Arabia