In archaeology, Saudi Arabia has been something of a slow starter, but a Washington exhibition of more than 200 statues, funerary objects and other relics shows that the study of the region’s past has come of age.
Saudi archaeology “really goes back only 40 years,” says Massumeh Farhad, chief curator and curator of Islamic art at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. “So not only is [the material] being seen here in the U.S. for the first time, but some of it has just come out of the ground two years ago. There are very few places you can say that about their past.”
