Almajmmah

I can't figure out how to get these photo's from beginning to end  rather than end to beginning. I tried highlighting from the top and then from the bottom and it still turns out the same, i could understand that if I was in the southern hemisphere but I'm here still in the north. I am open for suggestions on how to fix this problem and please no, move to Australia.

A large dam that will fill with water during a rain storm. I need to see that it must be awesome all that water running into this huge basin.

Many people are letting the palm trees die  because you can't just cut them down here (against the law) to build a larger place to spend the weekend and grow a few dates and vegetables.

Well

A butter or yogurt maker in a stall for people.

More of the same camp or home it's hard to tell here.

55 year old pelts left in the butchers area in the old city.

What hangs here?

The troughs used in hide tanning. The guide said the bigger one was for camel skins and the other for goats, sheep and cows.

A wealthy persons garden in the old mud city.

The following photos are a personal museum in the old city. The family collected all the things left when the government move the people to the modern part of the city. He has just about everything from A-Z.

We were treated to coffee, tea and snacks on the top of the house the museum is housed in. The owners son told us that four families lived in the house each one in a room with communal cooking, well and  toilet facilities.

The old cities well still used today with the modern convenience of a pump.

Most of the mud city lays in ruin and the government is slowly restoring it to its former glory.

Another city well.

Windows to the winter room in the mosque/school.

The summer room where the students and teacher would sit durning Koranic classes held for only the boys of the city.

The old and new.

The guard house on the hill over looking the old city.

A religious police with his son. They were very nice the father told us about how similar  christians, jews and muslims are through the Quran. his son translated for his father in a very good American accented english.

Climbing to the top of this tower below.

A Mosque in one of the mud villages. This one is being redone by a local family and is really well done.

A whole lot of work to be done.

Below is a date storage bin found in every house. One side is used for the new dates that will weep the date molasses to the bottom where it was collected for bread making, drinks, sweetening cakes and sweets. The dates after they dried were placed on the other side for storage.

This is one of the old dams found in the oasis where water was collected durning the raining season. It's now a camel feeding ground it seems.

Our host in the first mud village we visited. The people of this village were moved 35 years ago about 2 kilometers away into large cement villas. The towns people are slowly restoring it and trying to make it a tourist stop and teaching the children of the old ways. He is burning a scented wood to sweeten the smell of the bus as we are on our way. It was camp fire flavor.

Our hosts making tea and coffee on a fire near the common square.

Wheat! A meal was cooked for us by the local village women and was served by the men, we never saw the females. Starting top right wheat pancakes with sautéed onions, then fried wheat bread, to the right of that old wheat bread soften with a mixture of onions and tomatoes, then wheat and date molasses mixed and crumbled, finally wheat cooked till its the consistency of dried out pudding a staple of the diet here and much loved. I'll pass on everything but the fried bread and old bread with onions and tomatoes.

A room of the museum showing where the men would sit. The women got one in the back closer to the kitchen.

Boys selling cookies made by their mothers, they were made of what?  If you guessed wheat and date molasses you're right.

The children aka boys demonstrated school in the old times (like 50 years ago) when the Iman was teaching the boys. They had their feet wrapped in the rope-on-a-stick then the souls of their feet beaten with a switch if they got something wrong or misbehaved. The boys loved this I guess they have other methods today.

Mud villages of central Saudi Arabia.

The only female we saw.

This is a site slatted to be uncovered in the near future ?. It is believed to be a settlement of the new stone age. There are many many sites to be uncovered, discovered and worked on. It will be an archeologist dream when the government opens some these sites to visiting group of archeologists from abroad.

denotes historical site