Take a journey through the remarkable oasis known as AlUla, a spectacular landscape nestled deep within the ancient sands of northwest Saudi Arabia.The history of the vast and fruitful valley of AlUla, also known as Wadi al-Qura (Valley of Villages), can be traced back to the Paleolithic period, around 200,000 BCE, when humans first settled there, to the modern populations who explore it today. Presented in all its stark beauty, Assouline’s newest Spring title AlUla leads readers through this beautiful land’s rugged mountains and striking canyons, a fertile valley that formed a natural passage for caravans and travellers on the Incense trade route, with plentiful groundwater and soil that allowed many civilizations to thrive for thousands of years. Each page delves into this land’s ancient mystique while highlighting the people who have also left their powerful mark on the land. From prehistoric hunter-gatherers, to the Dadanites, the Nabataeans, the Romans, early Muslims, to present-day populations who have mingled and exchanged cultural ideas, AlUla is filled with countless traces of age-old sites, languages, culture and economic prosperity.
Available in Assouline’s exclusive Ultimate and XXL formats, this oversize luxury volume is a true historic treasure of human milestones and natural wonders, sharing the majesty of AlUla.
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Robert Polidori began his career in the mid-1980s, when he photographed the Restoration of Versailles, and he has since documented sites across the globe. The New Yorker commissioned him to photograph New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the images were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Preferring the beauty and stillness of working with a large-format camera and slow shutter speeds, Polidori thinks of rooms as vessels for memory. He has twice won the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, he has published over a dozen photo books, he has had major solo exhibitions in important galleries, and his work is held in the collections of many prominent museums around the world.