The heritage villages spread across the Emirates play an important role in introducing the country’s authentic heritage and preserving it generation after generation, as they remain alive and vibrant, drawing an integrated picture that blends authenticity and modernity, and forming a balcony overlooking the traditions of our ancestors and the authentic past, to ensure communication between parents and children and work to enhance Sustainability of cultural heritage across generations.
The heritage villages display the details of traditional life in the Emirates, introducing the nature of the ancient professions practiced by the fathers, and redrawing the picture of the social fabric with its customs and traditions and the diaries of the Al Furjan corridors. It also does not overlook the gathering of visitors and tourists with entertainment shows of authentic Emirati folklore, in addition to traditional restaurants and game areas. The ancient folk children's school, in addition to its educational and educational role in strengthening national identity among generations, in addition to the rich addition it constitutes to the tourism and cultural sector in various emirates.
The UAE is keen to support heritage villages and introduce them as one of the most prominent tourist destinations, because these villages provide an important social message that restores the bonds of communication between the people of the present generation and memories of the time of their ancestors, and acquaints local visitors and tourists from all over the world with the nature of authentic traditions and customs that are still entrenched. Among the people of the Emirates.
Introducing heritage villages is at the heart of “The Most Beautiful Winter in the World,” a comprehensive national campaign, which in its fourth edition this year gains special importance based on its slogan “Unforgettable Stories” and the connotations it carries that highlight the beauty of Emirati tourism from the natural, geographical and heritage components that leave the tourist and the citizen with them. And the resident has memories that are difficult to forget.
A heritage full of beauty
The Heritage Village in Abu Dhabi is characterized by the tranquility of the past and the magnificence of the present and future. It stands tall on the breakwater in Abu Dhabi after it became one of the most important cultural landmarks of the emirate after it was officially opened in 2001 on an area of 16 thousand and 800 square meters. Since then, it has become a destination for visitors and enthusiasts. With the ancient history of Abu Dhabi, it combines history and heritage in an architectural form that exudes the beauty of heritage architecture, telling generations and visitors alike the stories of the “time of the good people.”
The heritage village enjoys a tourist location that qualifies it to be part of the memory of the place about which its historical stories are told, which remained faithful witness to an era that will never disappear, and these stories appear as a reality through the immortal facilities that the village includes.
The village museum includes many heritage treasures, such as old women's toiletries, jewelry, old pictures embodying historical stages, old Islamic silver, bronze, and paper coins, hunting tools, and old weapons, especially rifles, with a special corner for rare manuscripts and a historical archive corner.
As for the most important facilities and contents of the heritage village, they are the historical archive, the women’s workshop for Emirati crafts, the mosque, the wild environment, the marine environment, Al-Arshan Market, the Al-Saman Museum, and the craftsmen’s shops: bashut, auctioneer, glass, pottery, boats, textiles, daggers and swords, leather. Wood engraving, the Islamic Museum, the agricultural environment, Al-Yazra, and the archaeological area.
Unique model
The Heritage Village, which is located in the heart of the historic Shindagha neighborhood in Dubai, embodies life in Dubai before the Renaissance, as it presents a unique model of the friej, the market, and various crafts, as it recalls to the new generations the way of life of parents and grandparents, and reminds them of the distant past.
The Heritage Village was established in Dubai in the year 1997 AD, to showcase the traditional lifestyles in the emirate. It also provides the opportunity to live and learn about various traditional local lifestyles, from coastal, desert, rural and mountainous, as it displays many types of buildings made of stone, palm fronds, and tents.
The village offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy live the performance of various types of traditional professions and to watch the “Yazra” and “Maghrafa”, which are considered traditional methods of irrigating farms. The village also provides a popular clinic where treatment is carried out by traditional doctors who have inherited high experience in folk treatment methods.
The village includes a popular market containing traditional professions such as whistlers, jewellery, blacksmithing, and Qatana. Visitors also enjoy the performances of singing groups and performing arts such as “Al-Razfa”, “Al-Ayyala” and “Al-Harbiyya”.
The “Hatta Heritage Village” is also considered one of the most prominent historical places in Dubai and the UAE in general, as it showcases the ancient model of village life, providing the visitor with an image that mimics the ancient reality through the models, documents, sculptures, and handicrafts it contains. The village was opened in 2001 to revive Dubai's heritage through traditional huts and buildings that the city had in the past.
Rich legacy
The “Heart of Sharjah” is a cultural destination that embodies the beauty of the past between its roads and architectural edifices, the authenticity of the city and its ancient heritage. It is here that the first houses of the ancestors were built, as they were homes of major merchants. They were restored and their former beauty was restored to them to become a rich, vibrant legacy and an artistic area, where the tourist or visitor can… He spends a whole day in this area, wandering around and discovering the artistic spaces and museums that are rich in their collections.
The “Heart of Sharjah” is the largest heritage and tourism project in the region, and it presents to visitors and residents the emirate’s culture and ancient history through a large group of interactive cultural, heritage and historical museums that provide a window to learn about the lives of previous generations in an innovative way.
The buildings of the Heart of Sharjah area, its markets, ancient houses and alleys provide a valuable opportunity for visitors to experience the authenticity of the emirate and learn about its most prominent landmarks, its system of social values and its most important historical events, with the presence of 9 museums that reflect this historical momentum, the most prominent of which are Bait Al Naboodah, Sharjah Fort, Al Islah School Museum, Sharjah Heritage Museum, Folk Games House, and others. .
Fragrant past
The Heritage Village in Fujairah is considered an open space to the history and heritage of the ancestors and fathers, as it carries the fragrance of the past, including the social and economic characteristics and manifestations that the ancestors lived in all their details.
The heritage village in Fujairah was officially opened in 1996 on an area extending to 6,000 square meters in the Madhab area. It includes several sections that represent a clear picture of the features of the way of life in the past and the most important traditional crafts, including the master (barber), tailor, carpenter, al-Saffar, al-Attar, al-Hawai, and others. It also includes a special corner. In the marine environment, it includes boats made of palm leaves and machines and tools used in fishing with nets in the past.
The heritage village in Fujairah allows its visitors to learn about the heritage and traditions of the peoples who lived in the region, as the village speaks of the past, telling history through the folds of its walls through the village’s many heritage pillars, models of old houses, archaeological collectibles that bear witness to the past and traditional lifestyles, and tools. An ancient story that tells the story of the struggle that the ancestors fought through the heritage activities that are continuously organized in the village.
The mountainous environment in the Heritage Village is characterized by various houses made of gravel, clay, and other materials extracted from the mountainous environment. The agricultural environment also forms an artistic painting that attracts visitors through an exhibition of some old tools used in the agricultural profession and a model of the yazra, which is the ancient method of extracting water from wells to irrigate farms, which was It is mixed with the ancient chants of farmers, in addition to the presence of aflaj in the village, which is the ancient method of distributing water to trees and palm trees.
Gateway to history
Al Jazeera Al Hamra in Ras Al Khaimah is the last of the authentic heritage cities whose residents relied on pearl fishing in the Arabian Gulf region, and it still remains as it is to this day, which awakens nostalgia for ancient beginnings.
The island constitutes an exceptional witness to the greatness of ancient architecture and city planning, as it embraces all the traditional elements of an ancient Gulf city, including the fort, watchtowers, mosque, market, and houses with spacious courtyards in their various designs. It is also characterized by a unique mix of small and simple house styles, houses with wide courtyards, and composed buildings. It has two floors and a house with a large courtyard belonging to a wealthy pearl merchant. This village consists of about 500 houses inhabited by the Zaab tribe.
Within the framework of the balanced tourism strategy pursued by the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, the Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority invested in the village of Al Jazirah Al Hamra through a three-stage restoration program without affecting the history of the archaeological site, in order to present it to visitors in a way that allows them to discover the local culture of the region.
Festival villages
The heritage festivals that are organized throughout the country include special pavilions for heritage villages, including the Al Marmoom Heritage Village, which is one of the main events of the Al Marmoom Heritage Festival in Dubai, which celebrates the authentic heritage and the ancient sport of camel racing, as the village organizes many events and activities in addition to the proliferation of shops. Commercial stalls offering various products and traditional handicrafts, in addition to popular restaurants.
The Liwa Dates Festival and Auction also presents the stages of benefiting from the palm tree and the date harvesting season in an exciting story narrated by the “Heritage Village”. The village paints a vivid picture of the use of palm tree extracts, methods of benefiting from dates, and the method of washing and storing them for years, in addition to methods of presenting them using natural ingredients from the local environment.
The “Heritage Village”, located in the heart of the Sheikh Zayed Festival, showcases the ancient heritage of the UAE through the four environments of Emirati civilization. It is the marine environment with its components and heritage, the desert (wild) environment with its clear sand, the mountainous environment with its strength and the fortitude of its owners, and the agricultural environment with its vegetables and trees, through designs that match the reality of those environments. It also includes many diverse crafts such as pottery making, daggers, and sewing.
The Heritage Village of the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Center for the Revival of Heritage, which is held in the Global Village in Dubai, embodies a living example that reshapes the reality of the Emirati social fabric of customs and traditions deeply rooted in history, as it revives many authentic Emirati professions and crafts.
The heritage village carries a renewed content every year, with creative touches in its harmonious architectural design that is completely inspired by the authentic Emirati environment, as its design takes into account the smallest details as it embraces the coastal, desert and mountainous environment and includes the original and primary contents of these environments from houses such as “Al-Krain, Bayt Al-Sha’ar and Bayt Al-Saffa” with A distinctive presence of craftsmen who practice all traditional crafts and professions in the UAE.
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