New Hail-Sakaka highway crossing the Great Sandy Desert, An Nafud.

The new highway reduces the distance between Hail and Sakaka by more than 500 kms. Due to the barrier of An Nafud desert, the old Hail-Sakaka route was through Tayma in the Tabuk Province.

Qasr Ma'arid is a huge structure built of rough stone and mortar construction technique. It has four slender corner towers.

Two types of construction techniques can be found in the fortress: one ancient with fine cut stone walling, corbelling and use of stone lintels and the other by the use of mud-brick superstructure. Even though the castle was occupied in recent times, archaeological study shows that the foundations of Qasr Ma'arid go back to the period of Nabataens in the first century AD.

Partially destroyed ancient walls of the castle.

Qasr Ma'arid has been rebuilt by Nawwaf bin Nuri bin Shalan in 1913.

The travelers like Alois Musil (Czech explorer) and St. John Philby (British explorer), who visited Dumat al Jandal in 1915 and 1922 reported that the mud-brick superstructure and four slender corner towers had been built by Nawwaf.