Al-Bayad
Al-Bayad
A vast flat desert south of al-Kharj famed for petrified tree trunks millions of years old, recorded by Yaqut al-Bakri and Ibn Khamees and described by early Arabs as perilous to cross without a guide.
Plan your visit
Practical information verified separately from the historical record.
Before you go: Check with the operator or a local guide before departure; field access details have not yet been verified.
Why visit?
Witness a rare geological archive of ancient forests in a white, stoneless plain that classical geographers knew by name across the southern Yamama.
The Bayad is a rectangular desert about thirty kilometers جنوب al-Kharj city, running roughly 190 kilometers toward the wadi mouths of the Afif district and no more than thirty kilometers wide. Its extreme whiteness and level surface led early Arabs to say that no mountain, prominent stone, or wadi breaks it, making the plain deadly for anyone who entered without a knowledgeable guide.
Classical geographers including Yaqut al-Hamawi, al-Bakri, and Ibn Khamees recorded its name and qualities in their heritage works, proof of sustained Arab awareness of the region across centuries. The desert holds abundant petrified tree trunks and plant remains that testify to a radically different environment in deep geological time.
The Bayad petrified forest جنوب al-Kharj therefore joins natural history to human cartography: a stark white sea of sand and stone that preserves the trunks of ancient forests and the cautionary geography of pre-modern Arabian travel.