But in recent years, Saudi Arabia's monarchy appears to have been quietly defying the clerics who provided legitimacy to the regime ever since the founder of the dynasty, Mohammad bin Saud, signed a pact with the religious zealot Mohamed Ibn Abdul-Wahab in 1744 Saudi and French archaeologists are, for example, working in Maidan Saleh, the site of the ruins of a 2,000 year old city which once marked the southern limits of the Nabataean civilisation. The more than 100 tombs at Maiden Saleh, Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is open to tourists.