Next to a former royal palace in Riyadh sits a museum holding 7,000 years of history: a meteorite older than memory, lost gold cities, and the birth of a kingdom.

From a mudbrick citadel that gave birth to a kingdom to a forgotten 1980s mall reborn as a hub for contemporary art, Riyadh hides some of its best stories in plain sight. Here is where to find them.

At Hegra, women owned property and commissioned their own tombs, carving their names into rock that remains legible after two thousand years.

In a desert valley where camels once carried fortunes in frankincense and myrrh, lion-guarded tombs still watch over an ancient city that time and archaeologists have only begun to uncover.

In a canyon in AlUla, a library with no roof, no shelves, and no librarian has stood open for over two thousand years.

Stargazing in the heart of the Gharameel Desert, I find myself connected to a distant past, shaped by generations of travellers whose imaginative tales remain scattered across the sands.

Somewhere in the desert of northwestern Saudi Arabia lies AlUla, a place where two thousand years of secrets are kept, and the stones do the storytelling.

Step into AlUla’s Old Town, where its winding alleys and sunbaked walls still hum with the footsteps of caravan traders, pilgrims, and settlers who once crossed path at this desert oasis.

Our journey continues westward to the Arabian Gulf, where desert kingdoms and coastal medinas whisper the legacy of a civilisation that is long overshadowed, yet integral to the making of the modern world.

This year, the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah returns for its second edition, inviting us on a pilgrimage through faith’s many expressions — traversing time, space, and all that is in between.