I was recently invited to an archaeological symposium at the site of AlUla in Saudi Arabia. I had known about AlUla since 2018 and seen photographs of the amazing Nabatean tombs from there. A conference was held at AlUla in 2023, but I was unable to attend, so I was delighted to have the chance to visit the stunning sites at last.

Before visiting Saudi Arabia, I had not really understood that the area of AlUla is made up of a number of archaeological sites. It was not until the symposium that I discovered that there are, in fact, 30,000 archaeological sites in this area, although there are only eight that are currently open to visitors, and more than a dozen active archaeological research projects.

The sites that can be visited at the moment are Jabal Ikmah, site of hundreds of inscriptions; Hegra, a massive site with Nabatean tombs (similar to those seen at Petra), a town and Roman fort; Qurh, an early Islamic city; Dadan, which dates from the 8th to the 1st century BCE; Tayma, another oasis settlement which has been continuous inhabited from the Bronze Age; Khaybar, also an oasis with continuous occupation from prehistoric periods through to today, and finally, the old town of AlUla which was occupied from the 12th to the 20th century CE.

Saudi Arabia, a notoriously closed country to outsiders until now, decided in 2017 that the country would have a major change in policy and actively invite tourists to visit. And one of the things that they can offer is their amazing archaeological sites.

And so there is a vision, and to enable the vision, which plans to bring 2 million visitors to AlUla by 2030, the Royal Commission of AlUla (RCU) was set up.

The RCU therefore has the most incredible opportunity when it comes to opening their archaeological sites to tourists. Unlike many other places in the world, which have grown haphazardly, the RCU can plan – plan for hotels, plan for visitor centres, plan for museums. They can control the numbers visiting the sites to keep them unspoilt, and they also have the space to plan, as the area is desert, and so far, has not been built up.

To help with the planning and spreading the word, the inaugural AlUla World Archaeology Summit was held in September 2023, where over 300 innovators from archaeology and other disciplines were invited to 'foster cross-cultural and interdisciplinary discussions'. The idea was to explore the value of understanding the past, to use that knowledge to inform the present, and to build a resilient future for AlUla.

The 2024 symposium, again organised by the RCU, was a much smaller affair with mostly archaeologists and scientific experts as delegates. The theme was areas of relevance to archaeology and cultural heritage, namely 'Moving forward: past, present and future in the archaeology and heritage of mobile communities'. I had envisaged that the attendees would be specialists in the Arabian Peninsula, but I was happily mistaken: there was a huge range of both specialties and areas covered by those invited, all leading academics in their fields, coming from all around the world.

The theme of mobile communities was an interesting one. The symposium wanted to explore the interactions between mobile and settled communities by looking at economic drivers, material culture, environmental adaptations, and the role of museums in preserving mobile heritage to discuss globally relevant research and best practice.

The symposium was held in the most stunning building in the middle of the desert, the Maraya Concert Hall. Designed by German and Italian architects, the building is mirrored and thus reflects the stunning desert environment around it.

Day one of the symposium opened with a welcome from Dr Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, Vice President of Culture of the RCU, and the first lecture was by Dr Willeke Wendrich, Professor of Cultural Heritage in Turin and also a research professor at the Department of Near Eastern languages at the University of California, Los Angeles. She looked at communities on the move, what motivated their movement, and aspects such as the distribution of mobile populations, percentages, and gender, age, social position, and so forth.

Dr Wendrich was followed by Dr Stefano Biagetti, from the University of Barcelona, looking at the theoretical and methodological approaches to the archaeology of mobile communities. They were followed by Dr Cyprian Broodbank, from the University of Cambridge, who looked at movement around the Mediterranean Sea, including genetic testing, which has led to some interesting results, and Dr Wang Rui, from the Palace Museum, Beijing, who explored how mobile communities could influence settled communities through interactions and exchanges of ideas.

After a wonderful lunch (the food throughout the symposium was superb), the speakers, Dr Valentaina Azzara, from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, Dr Khalid Alasmari, from the King Saud University, Riyadh, and Dr Emma Haitengi, from the University of Namibia, considered how trade, commerce and exchange were the economic drivers of mobile livelihoods, material culture of mobile societies, and heritage and the role of museums. Our final presentations of the day looked at traces of mobile communities in desert peripheries in Jordan (Dr Wael Abu Azizeh, University of Lyon) and the monumental structures at Khaybar and AlUla (Dr Ememy Crassard, CNRS France, and Dr Melissa Kennedy, University of Sydney, Australia).

On day two, after an interesting lecture by Mr Peter DeBrine, Senior Project Officer for Sustainable Tourism at UNESCO, there were three workshops offered: the legacies and impact of conflict and war on mobile communities; climate change, natural disasters and mobility patterns to the modern day; and roles of the local/indigenous communities in modern-day liminal zones and their involvement in cultural heritage sites.

I attended the first workshop, moderated by Fionnula Rogers, from Blue Shield International and a lawyer who advises on art law, including art and antiquities transactions, due diligence and repatriation, and import and export of art around the world. The second moderator was Jonathan Wilson, Collections Senior Manager from the RCU.

Jonathan started with some sobering statistics: there are 122 million displaced people today in the world, including 6.3 million from Syria, 6.1 million from Ukraine, and 6.1 million from Afghanistan. A delegate from Lebanon confirmed that many of the Syrian refugees in their country had settled at one of Lebanon's most famous archaeological sites, Baalbek. So this was at the forefront of our minds as we considered questions such as what can archaeologists do to protect mobile communities (in times of conflict), what more can be done to protect against looting, and finally, is the legal framework sufficient to protect mobile communities?

The first point is very difficult, just by the nature of the fact that mobile communities are just that, mobile. The second question was easier to discuss, as there is already something in place known as the ICOM Red Lists, where items that have been stolen or thought to have been stolen are listed. With regards to the final point, it is thought that legal frameworks probably need to be expanded to protect mobile communities, as this issue was not necessarily considered when they were originally drawn up. It was a fascinating discussion, and the results will eventually be the basis for a white paper.

With regards to the community workshop, it was suggested that archaeological projects should be long-term, so that community relations can be sustained and strengthened over time, foster community engagement through accessible public lectures and similar events, and engage with the community in order to discourage illegal sales of artefacts by local residents.

The climate change workshop recommended that archaeologists and heritage practitioners play a role by protecting archaeological sites with natural solutions, such as planting trees and mangrove forests, advocate for enhanced governmental protection of cultural heritage sites against environmental degradation and if necessary, create frameworks to enable such protection, and utilise ancestral wisdom, such as the Bedouin peoples' methods of harvesting water in the desert, to inform contemporary solutions.

It was a packed two days, and the organisers did a fabulous job both with regard to the conference and networking opportunities, as well as organising and looking after the delegates. The RCU is in an enviable position with regard to its archaeological sites; unlike many other countries in the world, they have the chance to plan what happens next. As Peter DeBrine from UNESCO acknowledged, tourism brings both benefits and risks for heritage sites, and "can warm up the soup or burn down the house. Better places to live are better places to visit," he said.

Dr Abulrahman confirmed that the most important aspect in opening up AlUla for tourism was the preservation of its cultural heritage. I have no doubt that they will succeed in this mission and will develop AlUla sensitively and in keeping with its heritage, whilst providing the best possible tourist experience as well.