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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
Posted at Apr 29/2007 04:33PM:
Zöe: Hail, formerly the capital of the Rashidi dynasty, is an oasis town just off the Darb al-Zubayda which played an important role during the time when the pilgrimage route was highly utilized. It was also a destination for Western travelers in the late 1800s as a way into Arabia. An 1863 account by Halgrave described the huge, spread out, semi-landscaped city as superior to the Ottoman model. Gertrude Bell's black and white photographs from 1913 show a large walled city made of yellow mud-bricks. Nowadays Hail is quite urbanized, through ruins and some of the buildings Bell photographed still lie within the modern city. The Saudi Embassy's website on Hail emphasizes both its history and its modernization and development.