Thee Ain

Thee Ain rises in tiers up a pale hill of white marble in the mountains of south-western Saudi Arabia, its stone houses stacked so closely that from the valley the whole village looks like one carved outcrop. Below it, a year-round spring feeds a stream and a green ribbon of banana trees, palms and lemon trees, in sharp contrast with the dry slopes of the surrounding Sarawat Mountains. The village takes its name from that spring: ayn is the Arabic word for a spring or source.

The settlement is around four hundred years old, its origins placed at the end of the 10th century of the Islamic calendar, roughly the late 16th or early 17th century. Several dozen multi-storey houses and a small mosque by the stream make up the old core, with forts nearby that once guarded it against raids. The builders used local stone laid course upon course, finished with mud, and bound the structure with timber beams that carry the floors; walls are around 70 to 90 centimetres thick, some houses reach four storeys, and in the larger rooms columns support the ceilings. The pale stone reflects the sun and helps keep the interiors cool. Before the unification of the kingdom the area saw frequent fighting between tribes, and the Zahran and Ghamid tribes of the region fought against the army of Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt.

The terraced fields along the stream, watered by the spring, have long supported crops such as bananas, basil, lemons, date palms and the fragrant kadi plant, and local tradition holds that the spring was found by a man who followed the valley to recover a stick he had lost upstream. Saudi authorities have put the village forward for the UNESCO World Heritage List as a distinctive cultural and natural landscape and an example of human adaptation to a mountain environment.

Getting there

Thee Ain lies in the Al Makhwah governorate of Al Bahah Region, below the escarpment and about 10 km in a straight line from the city of Al Bahah; the road between them descends the mountains through a series of tunnels. King Saud Bin Abdulaziz (Al Baha) Airport (ABT) is about 46 km away.