Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

I am now back in Amman, Jordan, where I am spending a few days at the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, and I now have the opportunity to get caught up with my blog entries about my past month in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh

On the night of July 31-August 1 I flew from Frankfurt to Riyadh, which entailed several less than thrilling wee hours of the morning in the transit area of the Cairo airport. At noon on August 1 I was met at the airport by people from the US embassy, who took me to an apartment in the US embassy housing compound. All of the foreign embassies are located in a separate diplomatic quarter of the city with tight security. A couple of blocks away from the apartment is a small shopping complex with some fast-food outlets. Otherwise there is nothing of interest in the neighborhood. It was not possible for us to leave the diplomatic quarter without having embassy drivers take us, so we did not see much of the city. In general Riyadh is a hot, dusty and remarkably uninteresting city with only a few skyscrapers in a flat desert landscape. I must say that Riyadh is the first large city that I have been in, where I have no interest in spending any more time.

The next day, August 2 the dig team went to the US embassy to meet the deputy chief of mission and then we had a meeting with people at the Saudi ministry of tourism and antiquities. That evening the US embassy hosted a dinner for us; curiously wine and some other hard liquor was available. The degree of security around the US embassy is very tight and has some elements of overkill to it. We would be taken to the embassy in an embassy vehicle and at the entrance to the parking garage we passangers would have to show our US passports, while the vehicle got thoroughly searched. Our embassy minder, a Syrian national who has been working for the US embassy in Riyadh for seven years and who always prominently wears his security clearance badge, however, would have to get out of the vehicle and go through a security clearance office, before rejoining us to escort us through the embassy.

On August 3 we were to fly to Abha, the capital of the province of Asir in the southwest part of the country. However, our embassy minders had us fritter away so much time chatting over breakfast that we missed our flight. Saudi airlines cuts off check-in for flights 45 minutes before departure, and we arrived at the counter with only 37 minutes before departure. So we went back to the embassy apartments, while the embassy staff made arrangements for us to get on another flight to Abha that evening. That worked out okay. The deputy chief of mission accompanied us to the airport to be sure we got on the flight. It was interesting to observe the security precautions for him. His car had a vehicle full of Saudi security personel in front and another behind, who made sure that no other vehicle got close to his car as we drove down the highway to the airport. They came close to causing accidents as the hind car would swerve out to cut off cars that would attempt to overtake the convoy.

After the end of the project the dig team returned to Riyadh for a couple of days, and we had further meetings with US embassy people and people at the Saudi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. We also had the opportunity to visit the spectacular new Saudi National Museum.

I flew to Amman on Thursday August 25; two other members of the dig team, however, were not allowed to leave, because they had not noticed the fine print on their Saudi visas that restricted their allowed period of residence to 14 days, while I and the others had received one month. Paying a fine for overstaying their visas was not an option, so they had to return to Riyadh and wait until the weekend of Thursday and Friday had passed, before they could apply for permission from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities sponsors to leave the country.