1500 Tombs of The 3rd Millennium BC Discovered in Yemen [Archives:2000/49/Reportage]

Mohammad H. Al-Qadhi
Yemen Times
This site was surveyed and explored in 1999 by Tara Steimer – Herbert who was kidnapped in December last year by a group from Al-Zaidi clan which is now putting the Swedish expert Anders Salinuis in captivity.
Mr. Braemer told the Yemen Times “We are working on prehistorical sites. There are some preliminary work when Safer-Al-Abr road was built. We made a survey in 1999 in Al-Jawf and Remlat Al-Sabaatain. Last year we did a detailed survey of the area and we chose the site for work”, adding, “There are 1000 tombs all of which the team can not excavate. Eleven tombs are excavated this year by pluridisciplinary team of archaeologists and physical anthropologists and, a topographic survey to check the organization of the necropolis was also conducted.”
He also said that they have taken some samples, which will give a more detailed chronology, “We study the samples in order to understand the system of the funerary furniture of the necropolis””We have got samples to have make detailed analysis in labs in France. He said that he had taken 30 samples with him during his last visit to France and that Tara left Yemen for France last week with some samples to get them studied there.
But the main part of the scientific work has been conducted in the field and at the French Center for Yemeni Studies in Sana’a. He added that all the ceramics drawings and files of the study are kept in Marib Museum.
The tombs are collective (from 2 to 10 bodies), their architecture is very homogenous: stones crobelled cylinders. They are often associated with spectacular monuments, lines upto hundred meters of stranded stones or piles of stones.
“Some tombs were intact; they show differentiated funerary rituals – at least three different bodies and potteries displays. The funerary furniture is composed of bone beads. Animal and vegetable remains show a desertic climate not different from today.”
The team primary report reads.
“I am trying to understand the societies of the third and forth millenniums and societies of this area are shepherd settled on the arid margin in Yemen at 80 km from oases like Marib. These groups are possibly seminomads and some dwellings are known close to the necropolis”, Mr. Braemer added.
The grouping of thousands tombs in this area and the absence of clear signs of social status in the architecture and the funerary furniture shows the homogeneity of those human groups and a low social complexity.
Mr. Braemer said that he worked for ten years in Syria and Jordan on sites of the same periods at the limits of the deserts, in the black desert of South Syria. He was able to compare those societies in Jabal Jidran with those in Syria and Jordan which developed in parallel to the agrarian and urban Early Bronze Age societies.
He also pointed out that it is very interesting to compare the two societies as they have the same historical phenomena, the same kind of settlements of shepherds in this area adding that he is interested in the social organization of these groups. “It is interesting to compare each group with its economy and social organization” he observed.
“During the same time a geological team studied a fossil lake which has been watered time to time from 2000 BP to 6000 BP (Bronze Period). More than 200 samples were collected in a 7 m deep trench which records the full stratigraphic sequence. The variation of the climate during the last 200 centuries will be enlighted by polynological, geochemical, sedimentological and micromorpholigical analysis.” the report says.
The French team is faced with some problems like the weather on account of which it can carry out its works only in November or March. The team also finds it difficult to explain to the people in the area how much such excavation are important.
This project of Al-Jawf Hadramaut is financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Center for Scientific Research.
It is important to point out that there are other French archaeological teams working in Shabwah under Jean Francios Breton, another in Timna’a-Baihan under A. de MAIGRET and C. Robin (Italian-French team) both working on pre-historical period. There are also two other teams working on the Islamic period: one under Claire HARoy GWILBERT and another working on the coast between Mukalla and Dhafar under Axelle ROUGEULLE.

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