Mleiha: the Archaeological Centre and Mleiha National Park

The short answer

Mleiha is a protected stretch of desert in the central region of the Emirate of Sharjah, not a district of Sharjah city. Shurooq, the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority, says it became Mleiha National Park under Emiri Decree No. 16 of 2024, which made it the first protected area of its kind in the emirate, and that Shurooq develops and manages the park.[4] A visit is organised around two things: the Mleiha Archaeological Centre, a museum Shurooq calls the educational heart of the park, and a set of bookable desert experiences sold through Shurooq's booking site.[1][3]

XTOUR lists Mleiha under the Sharjah destination only as a base to plan it from. It is not inside Sharjah city, and XTOUR has no travel time for the journey; the park's home page carries its own drive-time counters from the Sharjah and Dubai airports, which XTOUR does not restate.[1]

Why Mleiha matters to archaeologists

Shurooq's 2024 announcement says that in parts of the park archaeologists found the earliest evidence of human occupation outside Africa.[4] Its description of its own Mleiha book traces a history from early human settlement to Mleiha's period as a trading centre and urban hub in the Arabian Peninsula.[5] Two official catalogues give concrete traces of that later period. The Sharjah Archaeology Authority lists a 3rd-century BCE silver coin from the site of Mleiha, modelled on the coinage of Alexander the Great and his Seleucid successors and found in a pottery jar with 408 others.[6] The Sharjah Archaeology Museum shows a golden bridle of 150 BC to 200 AD found in Mleiha, buried with the remains of a horse and a camel.[7]

The official figures for how far back that history goes do not agree. Shurooq's pages say "over 200,000 years" of human existence at Mleiha, and describe its book as starting from settlement "nearly 200,000 years ago".[5][3] The Sharjah Museums Authority's archaeology page says excavation reports show people settled in Sharjah for more than 125,000 years.[7] The two statements are not about exactly the same area, but they are the two numbers a visitor will meet, and XTOUR does not choose between them.

The Mleiha Archaeological Centre

Shurooq describes the centre as the park's educational heart, with exhibits running from prehistoric tools to the Bronze Age tombs of the Umm an-Nar period, and a cafe and restaurant.[3] The park's site sells entry to the centre as its own experience and also folds "access to the Mleiha Archaeological Centre Museum" into its sunset and family packages.[1]

It is a different institution from the Sharjah Archaeology Museum, which the Sharjah Museums Authority runs in the Al Abar area and whose page says it holds all the artefacts found in Sharjah since 1973; that museum displays Mleiha finds such as the golden bridle and lists a publication titled "Currency in Mileiha".[7] XTOUR does not know how Mleiha's finds are divided between the two. The Sharjah museum is compared with its neighbours in Sharjah's museums compared.

What the park lists for visitors

The park's English and Arabic home pages list the same offer.[2][1] Some entries carry a "Book" button and some are only descriptions:

• Bookable: the Archaeological Centre; guided stargazing "with one of our experienced guides"; glamping; the Moon Retreat; horse riding, which the site says is open to all experience levels; Sky Adventures; and packaged afternoons such as "Refreshing Mleiha Sunset", which the site says includes an air-conditioned desert drive and museum access.[1]
• Described, with no booking button: Fossil Rock, which the site calls a geological landmark, Camel Rock, a rock formation it says was carved by wind, and the park's wildlife, named as gazelles and desert foxes.[1]

Shurooq's campaign material adds named tours not shown on the home page: ArchaeoMOG tours to Fossil Rock, a Jebel Buhais Tour, a Mleiha Landscapes Tour by 4x4 and buggy, sand surfing and self-drive buggy tours. It describes Sky Adventures as the first official licensed paragliding centre in the UAE.[3] XTOUR does not know which of these run today.

On 11 October 2026 the home page was still promoting "Saturn Opposition – 4th October" with a Book button whose link names 2026.[1] That date had already passed; treat dated events on the site as history unless the booking page shows a future date.

How the park is protected, as Shurooq describes it

Shurooq says the park is divided into a Core Conservation Zone for wildlife and habitat, Ecotourism Zones for stays, adventures and education, and a Hybrid Zone between the two, and that the boundary fence was completed with the Directorate of Public Works.[3] Its 2024 announcement of the decree lists what the decree prohibits, including hunting or removing organisms, damaging geological formations, and operating vehicles in the park without a permit from the competent authority.[4] XTOUR reports this as Shurooq's summary of the decree, not as legal advice; it has not read the decree itself.

Shurooq's figures for the area also differ slightly: 34 square kilometres in 2024 and 34.2 square kilometres in 2025.[3][4]

Booking

The park's booking buttons lead to Shurooq's booking site, discovershurooq.ae.[1] When XTOUR opened those links on 11 October 2026 they returned only a page shell with no readable text, so XTOUR has not read any booking terms, prices or age rules for Mleiha's experiences. The home page also lists opening hours; XTOUR does not restate them.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not know whether the park can be entered without booking an experience, what the Archaeological Centre's ticket includes, which of Shurooq's named tours currently operate, or the travel time from any city. It reports Shurooq's 2024 statement that Mleiha was on a UNESCO nominee list only as Shurooq's, and Sharjah24's July 2025 report that the Faya Palaeolandscape was inscribed on the World Heritage List only as a news report; it has not read UNESCO's own page for that property and does not know whether its boundary falls inside the park.[8][4] For other parts of the country, see the United Arab Emirates.