Cultural Sites of Al Ain (Hafit, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases Areas)

Palm oases have kept Al Ain alive in the desert for millennia. Around them, this serial site gathers circular stone tombs from about 2500 B.C., ancient wells, adobe forts, towers and palaces — and at Hili, one of the earliest known examples of the aflaj, ingenious channels that have carried water since the Iron Age. Together the sites trace humanity's desert passage from foraging to settled life. UNESCO inscribed Al Ain's cultural sites in 2011.