'Cities of Salih'), is an archaeological site located in the area of Al-'Ula[5] within Medina Province in the Hejaz region, Saudi Arabia.

[9][10] The Quran[11][12][1][13][14][15][16] places the settlement of the area by the Thamudi people during the days of the prophet Salih, between those of Nuh (Noah) and Hud on one hand, and those of Ibrahim (Abraham) and Musa (Moses) on the other.

Thus, the site has earned a reputation as a cursed place—an image which the national government is attempting to overcome as it seeks to develop Mada'in Salih for its potential for tourism.

[19] It was chosen for its well-preserved remains from late antiquity, especially the 131 monumental rock-cut tombs, with their elaborately ornamented façades, of the Nabataean Kingdom.

For example, the famous statue of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great made in Egypt and erected in Susa calls the Arabs hgr.

[28] Recent archaeological work has revealed numerous rock writings and pictures not only on Mount Athleb, but also throughout central Arabia.

[30] Archaeological traces of cave art on the sandstones and epigraphic inscriptions, considered by experts to be Lihyanite script, on top of the Athleb Mountain,[31] near Hegra (Mada’in Salih), have been dated to the 3rd–2nd century BC,[7] indicating the early human settlement of the area, which has an accessible source of freshwater and fertile soil.

[7] The Nabateans also developed oasis agriculture[7]—digging wells and rainwater tanks in the rock and carving places of worship in the sandstone outcroppings.

[10] Similar structures were featured in other Nabatean settlements, ranging from southern Syria (region) to the north, going south to the Negev, and down to the immediate area of the Hejaz.

[35] Supported by the lack of later developments based on archaeological studies, experts have hypothesized that the site had lost all of its urban functions beginning in late antiquity (mainly due to the process of desertification).

[35] Among the accounts is a description made by 14th-century traveller Ibn Battuta, noting the red stone-cut tombs of Hegra, by then known as "al-Hijr".

[38] A cistern supplied by a large well within the fort was also built, and the site served as a one-day stop for Hajj pilgrims where they could purchase goods such as dates, lemons and oranges.

[38] According to the researches of Al-Ansari, the Ottoman castle was found near the settlement dating to the year 1600 A.D in 1984[22] Following the discovery of Petra by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812, Charles Montagu Doughty, an English traveller, heard of a similar site near Hegra (Mada’in Salih), a fortified Ottoman town on the Hajj road from Damascus.

[38] In the 19th century, there were accounts that the extant wells and oasis agriculture of al-Hijr were being periodically used by settlers from the nearby village of Tayma.

[10][35] This continued until the 20th century, when the Hejaz Railway that passed through the site was constructed (1901–08) on the orders of Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II to link Damascus and Jerusalem in the north-west with Medina and Mecca,[10][35] hence facilitating the pilgrimage journey to the latter and to politically and economically consolidate the Ottoman administration of the centres of Islamic faith.

[40] Despite this, several archaeological investigations continued to be conducted in the site beginning in the World War I period to the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the 1930s up to the 1960s.

[42] By the end of the 1960s, the Saudi Arabian government devised a program to introduce a sedentary lifestyle to the nomadic Bedouin tribes inhabiting the area.

These conservative measures started to ease up beginning in 2000, when Saudi Arabia invited expeditions to carry out archaeological explorations as part of the government's push to promote cultural heritage protection and tourism.

Some façades had plates on top of the entrances providing information about the grave owners, the religious system, and the masons who carved them.

This is reflected in the varying motifs of the façade decorations, borrowing stylistic elements from Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt and Hellenistic Alexandria, combined with the native artistic style.

A narrow corridor, 40 metres (131 ft) long between the high rocks and reminiscent of the Siq in Petra, leads to the hall of the Diwan, a Muslim's council-chamber or law-court.

Salih and his monotheistic followers left the city, but the others were punished by God—their souls leaving their lifeless bodies in the midst of an earthquake and lightning blasts.

[23][49] Robert G. Hoyland suggested that their name was subsequently adopted by other new groups that inhabited the region of Mada'in Salih after the disappearance of the original people of Thamud.