Mysterious carvings in Al Widd
By Khaled H Abdul Malak — Last February I asked my friend Marhoun from Halhal if he came across any petroglyphs in the mountains near his village. “Khaled, my uncle told me that he saw some carvings near the abandoned village of Al Widd” Marhoun told me on the phone. On Saturday, 22 February at 6.30 am, I packed my bag with some food, drinks and all the lenses for my camera, formatted the SD memory card, and hit the road to Wadi Halhal, a branch of Wadi Bani Kharus, one and a half hours drive from Muscat. Marhoun was already waiting to guide me to the place where his uncle saw the carvings in the mountain. I visited the village of Al Widd in 2009. It was the first time I met Mrahoun. The hike to Al Widd is very strenuous. The abandoned hamlet being situated almost 700m higher in altitude than Halhal.
There are many trails going up in the mountain but Marhoun chose the steepest as it is the shortest. The ascent was tough for my old age but not for Marhoun who could be my son’s age! The temperatures were not high compared to my first visit in August 2009. We stopped midway to have something to drink at a place where I saw some old structures, that according to my young local friend were inhabited way before his great grand parents. Two hours later we could see a green spot in the mountain that represents the well-maintained gardens of Al Widd. We reached the terraces around noon. The trees of apricot and peaches were in blossom. The pink flowers of the apricot trees made a magnificent contrast with the blue skies. We left our bags with food in the shade of a lime tree and I took only my camera and lenses further to the place where the petroglyphs are supposed to be.
Marhoun said that according to his uncle the carvings are situated at the ledge of a waterfall near the hamlet. The approach was quite difficult as the terrain was quite unstable. We spread apart and started looking for the “mysterious engravings” on the boulders in the wadi bed just above the waterfall. “KHALED!!!” yelled Marhoun so excited. “They’re here Al hamdoulillah” he added.
I joined him very slowly as they were just at the edge of this 100 plus meters free fall. The carvings are representing human-like drawings as well as animals and some letters that I could not recognise. I was so excited about the discovery and took plenty of pictures of these enigmatic figures and letters. We went back to the terraces where we had something to eat before starting our long descent to Halhal. We took another trail to check another site with some other inscriptions. We found them as well. The last part of the hike was quite difficult and we had to progress extremely slowly because any mistake can be fatal. We reached Halhal just before dark. I thanked Marhoun for his help and drove back to Muscat. All the way to our house in Al Mawaleh, I was thinking “who were these people and how many years ago they carved these mysterious drawings!”
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