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By the 1st Century BCE, the Nabataean civilisation from the southern Levant (modern-day Jordan) had expanded into north-west Arabia. While Petra remained the kingdom's capital city, the Nabataeans' most important city to the south was Hegra – Saudi Arabia's first Unesco World Heritage Site. 

For some 200 years, skilled masons worked inside Hegra's necropolis on majestic monuments like Qasr al-Farid, an unfinished, yet beautifully preserved tomb which, according to inscriptions, likely belonged to a prominent member of Nabataean. Hegra's sprawling 1.6-hectare archaeological complex contains 111 tombs that travellers to AlUla can visit today.

One of Hegra's largest tomb clusters, Jabal Al-Banat (pictured), contains 29 tombs commissioned by or dedicated to women. It was another outcrop like this, called Jabal Ahmar, where the tomb of Hinat was found. Hinat, a local woman, was wealthy enough to have a tomb made for her and her 80 descendants. Alongside human remains, textile and leather were excavated, giving archaeologists a better glimpse into Nabataean life. In 2023, a team of scientists wrapped up a months-long project of reconstructing Hinat's face which now greets visitors at Hegra Visitor Center.