Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have made a landmark discovery in a previously unexplored canyon near the Al-Ula oasis: a Nabataean-era scriptorium built directly into the sandstone cliffs. The site contains a library of nearly 100 papyrus and leather scrolls perfectly preserved by the hyper-arid desert environment, featuring texts in the rare Nabataean Aramaic script from the 1st century CE.
Preliminary analysis indicates the scrolls contain legal contracts, trade agreements with Roman and Indian merchants, and fragments of previously unknown poetic works. This find is expected to double the known corpus of Nabataean literature and provides a rare look at the intellectual and administrative life of the kingdom that built the wonders of Petra. The room also contains stone inkwells with dried mineral pigments and bone styluses used by ancient scribes.