From the Desert Southwest to the Desert Middle East (Part 1)

(Posted January 11, 2026)—Greetings from Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia (KSA). I’m writing this on December 11 following a joint presentation with my colleague John Bello, Assistant Director of the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve (DVPP) in Phoenix, at the inaugural Digital Heritage Conference. This conference was developed and hosted by the KSA’s Heritage Commission. You might ask how we got here—I’ll explain.

In spring 2024, the Heritage Commission toured the US, visiting significant archaeological sites and networking with heritage organizations and professionals. This led them to Arizona State University (ASU), and the DVPP specifically, as ASU is contractually obligated to manage the petroglyph site.

John invited me, as a longtime friend and colleague of DVPP, to the occasion. Together we spent several hours with the Commission talking about petroglyphs and comparing the iconography and contexts across our similar though very distant locations. Given the unexpected convergence, the Commission proposed we collaborate on a rock imagery project in Saudi Arabia. While I thought that would be amazing, I also assumed it was more aspirational than actual. I was wrong.

The Commission stayed in touch and eventually invited John and I to the KSA to visit several large, extremely significant yet undocumented petroglyphs sites outside Ha’il, a sizeable city in the Ha’il Province in the northwest region of the Kingdom. Ha’il Province is renowned for its rich assemblage of petroglyphs and rock inscriptions, with two locations—Jabal Umm Sinman (“Umm Sinman Mountain”) near the small town of Jubbah and Jabal al-Manjor (“Cut Mountain”) and Jabal Raat (“Raat Mountain”) outside the town Al-Shuwaymis—presently honored with UNESCO World Heritage status.

Over a series of virtual meetings, Commission staff shared information and graphics of the two sites they wanted us to visit, Janine Cave and Al Kahafah, and the allure kept growing. In developing a visitation plan, the Commission suggested we schedule it to coincide with the Digital Heritage Conference so that John and I could highlight our collaborative work at the DVPP.

John and I entitled our paper “Applications in Digital Documentation and Management of Petroglyph Sites and Data: A Case from North America’s Sonoran Desert.” We compared our current methods—consisting largely of GNSS RTK spatial mapping, digital photography, and photogrammetry coupled with some experimentation with reverse transform imaging—to the analog techniques used by the Museum of Northern Arizona in its formal documentation of the site in 1980.

The conference was, quite simply, impressive. The two-day affair coupled papers on four themes—foundation, sustainability, innovation, synergy—with exhibits and workshops.

The digital theme permeated everything. This included the creation of facsimiles of artifacts, paintings, fossils, and even architecture and archaeological sites through applications of 3D printing and hyperspectral imaging. I was amazed to learn that facsimiles are being used to replace heritage objects and recreate places that have been lost to processes ranging from climate change to looting to war.

On the topic of war, one of the presenters highlighted their use of remote sensing to survey and document historic architecture in Gaza during the height of Israeli’s Operation Iron Swords in mid-2025—a race against time, it seemed, leaving me wondering just how many of those imperiled buildings (and their residents and tenants) were still with us.

One compelling facsimile I learned of was the recreation Kamukuwaká, a sacred cave in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, where the petroglyphs within it were destroyed to deny Indigenous claims that were impeding a development project. The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation worked with the local Xinguan community to literally recreate the cave and the carvings it contained, so now there are two caves—the original and the replica. As it was explained to me, the facsimile (built in Spain and moved to Ulupuwene village in Upper Xingu) is now the sacred cave while the original, defaced cave is used as an educational site to warn against such malfeasance.

Other applications on display at the conference included the integration of artificial intelligence in data management and analysis, as well as in visitor experiences to heritage sites and museums. Virtual reality was a hot topic, too, as the KSA and other countries are investing in developing immersive experiences with ancient sites that heritage professionals recreate and populate in virtual contexts.

This theme extended to gaming. Many of the exhibits focused on the integration of heritage themes and characters in video games as a way to connect youth with the rich cultural heritage of the Arabian Peninsula.

Overall, the conference certainly illustrated how invested the KSA and other Arabian states are in their cultural heritage.

The day following the conference, John and I were invited to the Heritage Commission’s headquarters in Riyadh, where we met some of the staff and toured the facility. We then took a quick guided tour of the National Museum. We will return to the Commission’s headquarters for a workshop at the end of our stay. We are now preparing for our trip to Ha’il, where the farwa I was gifted at a gala before the conference will come in handy. The Heritage Commission, and the Saudi people more broadly, have been incredibly hospitable—a cultural value for which they are proud.

I’ll share more from the trip in upcoming posts!