My trip to Dhayah fort and the Queen of Sheba Palace!
If you have read my post about the forts of Al Ain then you know that I love visiting archeological sites and learning about ancient history in general, and that's why today I am taking you to the Dhayah fort and the Queen of Sheba Palace in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK). Dhayah fort and the Sheba palace are not extremely well known to people not living in RAK, especially the Sheba palace, and as a result I found it relatively hard to find a proper location that you guys can get directions to. So instead I am just giving you the google map links to both places and hopefully you should be able to work it out from there- Queen of Sheba palace: click here, Dhayah fort: click here. Ok so now let's move on to the visit; now I will say that I have been to both of these places before but the Sheba palace was a very long time ago.
The first place that we decided to stop by was the Dhayah fort and it's safe to say that the government has blessed this site a good bit more than the Sheba palace.
Not only is the fort mentioned online and in guide books more than the palace, but it also has had a serious restoration that has made it a much more appealing place to visit. The fort itself was used as a fortified defensive post to fend off the occasional British or Arab tribe attack and was otherwise pretty useless, considering that it is too small and has no immediate source of water. It did however do a pretty good defensive job as it is almost impossible to safely climb up the sides of the mountain and the fort itself is too high up for any cannon from that time to effectively hit. It is supposed to have lasted through quite a few British invasions until they managed to wheel a cannon a little higher up the base of the hill after which it only took two shots for the defenders to surrender.
Down to the side of the mountain there is a second fort-looking structure that has almost completely fallen apart, which archeologists believe was a safe place for the villagers to retreat to in times of attack.
Once you climb up the never ending flight of stairs to reach the top there isn't really a whole lot to see in the fort itself, all it is is a small walled in circular area with two small towers on either side looking down over the valley which is the real attraction. After almost dying trying to get up all those stairs the real satisfaction for me was the amazing view that you get over the Shimal valley.
After taking in the view of the defensive area around the fort we moved on to our next site, the Queen of Sheba palace. Now the palace as I mentioned earlier in the post has been relatively forgotten by most of the local inhabitants, and as a result it has simply been decaying for the few centuries that it's been around. The palace itself is shrouded in mystery and all that is really known about it is that it is there and it dates back to 13th-16th century AD. Even its name (Sheba palace) is a from a legend of a queen that ruled an area nearby who people believe visited the palace, but the archeological evidence shows that she would have already been dead by the time the fort was built. Instead it was most probably just a summertime getaway area of the ruler of the Julfar area, which is just a couple miles away and can actually be seen from the palace.
There are a few stairs that have been made that will take you about two thirds of the way up the mountain but the rest of it is just rocks. The palace itself is surrounded by an almost unnoticeable wall that was built later by the inhabitants of the area so that they could retreat up to it in times of danger.
Also lying around the palace ruins are a couple of cisterns and huts that were probably also added by villagers at a later date.
Much like the fort, my personal favorite part of this site was the view over the Shimal and Julfar areas. It was without a doubt, absolutely breathtaking.
Well, that does it, hope you all enjoyed the post and make sure to check out the vlog because I got some much better clips in there of the astonishing views. So thank you all so much for reading and make sure to come back next time!