According to the book written by Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Ansari and Dr. Hussein Abu Al-Hassan said; “Al-Ula and Madain Saleh about Al-Hijr: Al-Hijr was settled by man from the most ancient times for the availability of the essential ingredients for stability such as water and fertile soil in addition to its location on the trade route road.

Some texts in the Holy Qur’an affirms that Al-Hijr was populated in the third millennium BC at the very least and it was settled by the people of Thamud in that period depending on the chronological sequence of events in the Qur’an where the people of Thamud are mentioned after Noah and before Moses. Some historians open that the period of Moses is that of Ramses II (1224 - 1290 BC) that he was Moses’ Pharaoh and that Thamud, which mentioned in the Ashuri works and in some Greek and Latin texts is not related to people of the Prophet Saleh (PBUH). However, we can consider them as remnant of that ancient nation who later became Bedouins after they had lived in civilization.

Al-Hijr witnessed a presence for Lehyans in first half of the first millennium BC as there is a group of inscriptions written on top of the Athleb Mountain on which Lehyans used to monitor the movement of commercial convoys coming from the east, north and south.

Such existence continued until they defeated by the Nabataeans who took Al-Hijr as their second capital in the south after Petra at the beginning of the first century AD or a little earlier in the reign of King Al-Harith IV (9 BC - 40 AD).

Al-Hijr enjoyed a huge urbanization movement that turned the area into city according to the concept prevailed in that era. The tombs constructed almost match those in Petra or better in some technical and documentary aspects.

It used a large number of such graves as tombs for the military men of various ranks such as the commander of 100, the commander of 1,000 and Calvary Commander and Higher Commander indicating that the Nabataeans took Al-Hijr as a military base, which might not be access by the Romanian troops.

It is also likely that such base was intend to protect trade convoys coming from the south of the Arabian Peninsula and secures them against neighboring tribes, which had no opportunity to participate in the movement of trade.

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