Saudi Arabia's Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) has announced an agreement with the Louvre Museum in Paris to display a statue dating back to the Lihyan or Dadan period.
The statue, weighing more than 800 kilograms and carved from sandstone, will be displayed in the museum for five years. This comes after the RCU signed a deal on Tuesday to begin a collaboration with French museums of heritage.
The statue, which is more than two metres long and 2.3 metres high and is missing its head, dates back to the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE. It represents a rendering of a masculine figure standing upright in a frontal pose.
Experts say it most probably depicts a Lihyanite king, if not a priest or a praying figure.
The statue was unveiled in the Louvre’s hall of Oriental Antiquities.
The statue was discovered at the Dadan archaeological site in AlUla, north-west Saudi Arabia, during excavation work by teams overseen by Riyadh's King Saud University.
About 2,800 years ago, Dadan was one of the most important trade route stations of the ancient world. In about the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, the Dadan kingdom was ruled by the kings of the Lihyan tribe, who stayed in power for many centuries.
The statue was previously displayed as part of Roads of Arabia, a travelling exhibition that first appeared at Louvre Abu Dhabi from November 2018 to February 2019. The exhibition was then held in Rome, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, St Petersburg, Houston and Tokyo.
Series information
Pakistan v Dubai
First Test, Dubai International Stadium
Sun Oct 6 to Thu Oct 11
Second Test, Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Tue Oct 16 to Sat Oct 20
Play starts at 10am each day
Teams
Pakistan
1 Mohammed Hafeez, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Asad Shafiq, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Babar Azam, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed, 8 Bilal Asif, 9 Yasir Shah, 10, Mohammed Abbas, 11 Wahab Riaz or Mir Hamza
Australia
1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Shaun Marsh, 4 Mitchell Marsh, 5 Travis Head, 6 Marnus Labuschagne, 7 Tim Paine, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Peter Siddle, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Jon Holland
All%20We%20Imagine%20as%20Light
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPayal%20Kapadia%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Kani%20Kusruti%2C%20Divya%20Prabha%2C%20Chhaya%20Kadam%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The five types of long-term residential visas
Obed Suhail of ServiceMarket, an online home services marketplace, outlines the five types of long-term residential visas:
Investors:
A 10-year residency visa can be obtained by investors who invest Dh10 million, out of which 60 per cent should not be in real estate. It can be a public investment through a deposit or in a business. Those who invest Dh5 million or more in property are eligible for a five-year residency visa. The invested amount should be completely owned by the investors, not loaned, and retained for at least three years.
Entrepreneurs:
A five-year multiple entry visa is available to entrepreneurs with a previous project worth Dh0.5m or those with the approval of an accredited business incubator in the UAE.
Specialists
Expats with specialised talents, including doctors, specialists, scientists, inventors, and creative individuals working in the field of culture and art are eligible for a 10-year visa, given that they have a valid employment contract in one of these fields in the country.
Outstanding students:
A five-year visa will be granted to outstanding students who have a grade of 95 per cent or higher in a secondary school, or those who graduate with a GPA of 3.75 from a university.
Retirees:
Expats who are at least 55 years old can obtain a five-year retirement visa if they invest Dh2m in property, have savings of Dh1m or more, or have a monthly income of at least Dh20,000.
