The Saad Al-Sowayan Collection

Dr Saad Al-Sowayan is a prominent Saudi academic and anthropologist specializing in oral history and Nabatean poetry in the Arabian Peninsula. He has authored a number of valuable works, including The Epic of Human Evolution and an Encyclopedia of Traditional Culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as An Index of Nabatean Poetry, Horseshoes, and Nabatean Poetry: Popular Taste and Textual Authority (all in Arabic). He led a project to compile Nabatean poetry from its oral sources. The project produced an audio collection, now preserved in the Saudi Memory Unit, recorded in the various regions of the Kingdom from the most prominent transmitters and desert poets from 1403-1410 AH.

The Center acquired this collection from Dr Saad Al-Sowayan in 2015.

The audio collection consists of 585 recordings, with a duration of 378 hours and 14 minutes.

The Marcel Kurpershoek Collection

Dr Marcel Kurpershoek is a Dutch diplomat with interests in the Bedouin communities and Nabataean poetry of the Arabian Peninsula.

Dr Kurpershoek studied Arabic at Leiden and Cairo University. He has worked in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1974 and headed its Middle East Department.

In 1989 he began his fieldwork, undertaking research on the Bedouin community of central Arabia on the fringes of the Empty Quarter. Among his books is Arabia of the Bedouins.

He recorded the poetry of the Bedouin poet Abdullah al-Dandan and was similarly interested in the poetry of Abdullah al-Subail.

The Center acquired this collection from Dr Saad Al-Sowayan in 2015.

The audio collection consists of 249 recordings, with a duration of 37 hours and 6 minutes.

The Alison Lerrick Collection

This collection includes recordings of performances of epics on the westward migration of Bani Hilal and the wars of the Daigham family from Shammar. Alison Lerrick carried out fieldwork in northern Arabia in the course of researching a doctoral thesis, submitted to Princeton University in 1984.

The Center acquired the collection from Dr Saad Al-Sowayan in 2015.

The collection consists of 74 recordings, with a duration of 33 hours 25 minutes.

The Ibrahim Al-Khalidi Collection

This collection features an audio library, a collection of books in Arabic, English and French, and a rare photo library.

The Center acquired the collection from Ibrahim Al-Khalidi in 2017.

The collection consists of 18,888 images, and a visual library of 153 items.