Page 13 - Arabian Studies (V)

The Identification of the Wadi *l-Qura 3

The ruins of Dedan, the ancient principal city in Wadi ’1-Qura. Beyond the
palm-trees is the valley now called Danan.

of Dedan and Lihyan and the centre for the Minaean trading hege­
mony. From the remains of al-Hijr, we learn that it was an impor­
tant Nabataean centre.
The ruins of Dedan lie 3 km north-east of the building area in al-
‘Ula, at the base of the hill known thereabouts as ‘Jabal al-
Khuraybah\ khuraybah being the diminutive of kharibah which
means a ruined building.5 The first to identify this site as Dedan
was Edward Glaser in 1890, and this conclusion has become
generally accepted.6
I wish to point here to another piece of evidence which supports
this view. Doughty says that Wadi ’1-Qura was commonly known
as ‘Daidibban*7 which could be a corruption of the original Wadi
Dedan. Musil mentions that some of the Baliyy tribe still remember
the name Dedan8 but I doubt the accuracy of this report. However,
it is possible that they mistakenly referred to ‘Danan* which is a
small valley descending from the volcanic rocks known as Harrat
‘Uwayrid, facing Dedan and still known by this name, it seems
certain that the name ‘Danan* is derived from ‘DDN*.
The remains of Dedan and al-Hijr have been closely studied by
Jaussen and Savignac, whose work is still the basic source for the
archaeology of this region.9