Glimpses of Yemen’s ancient architecture [Archives:2005/898/Culture]
Shapes of old Yemeni towns:
By examining the planning, it was known that a Yemeni town or city, had a rectangular area- shape such as Mareb. However, some historians thought the shape was square with round corners such as Shabwa and other ancient towns as Hareeb, Yaleet, Yaleet-Al-Oyoom, Saud Kharaba, and Maeen in Al-Jawf. Usually, each town used to be surrounded by square or rectangular walls such as Gharyoon, south of Al-Mash'had in Hadramout. Yet, towns like Al-Haz had an oval shape, whereas its height today ranges from 6 to 8 meters and its fence has five gates. Similarly, from the ruins of Qataban in Al-Naqab region situated northeast of Bayhan, this town was constructed in an oval shape. In other cases, Sokhum town was rounded; Sahreeb-Shamaal had a round fence with three gates only; and the ruins of Takhti-solomon show that it was also rounded. The latter was built in an area of 2100 square kilometer to the southeast of the Red Sea. So, the overall geometrical shapes of cities differed from one city to another.
Fundamental features:
Another aspect of the fundamental constructional features of the old Yemeni cities and towns is the fact that some of them were founded on highlands, such as Al-Baraber town in Wadi Girdan in the fifth century B.C. The town covered over 400 square meters area, and had a fence of three gates with corners of five angles. Yet, some towns were either of a highly -elevated bases, or were usually built on highlands and lofty mountains. In some cases, they were situated on level areas on hillsides such as those in al-Jawf region, ancient Mareb, Bayhan, Kahlan, Sheibn, and plateaus of Hadramout.
The castles and fortresses were often built for defensive purposes, as for example one situated in Maifan town of Naqab-al-Hajjar. This was described by the explorer R. Royan steade and by other expeditions to South Arabia since 1889. In regards their shapes, usually they were square and of a medium-size range, while the average height of the wall, that encompassed the residential complexes, ranged from 30 to40 feet, with prominent towers and two entrances on the northern and southern sides. Between those two entrances right at the middle was a water tank with a passage in front of them.
Al-Haz town represents an archeological site with a rectangular shape. On its northern side, there is an open yard with closed rounded sides rising two meters above the level of the street ground. The main town entrance was a gate in the middle of the front part.
According to Phillipy, the Nagran castle, located at the farthest end south-west of a long tunnel, was constructed with a wall of three meters in height, while the main town entrance was at the northeastern corner facing the town itself.
From the western and northern directions, the wall ran for 250yards, and the constructed part of the town was of 250 square yards in area.
Usually, the stones used in the construction were big in size – 3-meters long, 1,4 meters high, and one-meter thick. The extension of the buildings and area dimensions of the ancient towns / cities had exhibited magnificence and might. For example, Mareb, the Capital of Sheba kingdom, had an area, according to historian Glazer, that reached 1740 square meters, while Tamnu' was 50 acres only. Again, within the same description, Shabwa was measured between 320 to 500 meters (75 acres) as recorded by few historians, while others mentioned it 50 acres only.
Nevertheless, these are noticeable sizes when we compare them with ancient Jerusalem – from 4 to 5 acres only. At that time, the length of a town's extension was not countable, or known, to ancient Yemenis. Shabwa was extending from the northeast to the southwest, with a main entrance on its northwestern direction. Qarnaw had in view of one historian an extension from the west to the north direction when it began to have a curved passage Same-horam (later known as Dhafar) had its buildings sprawl in the west and east directions, while its area had no specific shape. Moreover, it had a strong gate as its main entrance along with a temple.
The buildings of ancient towns/ cities were not described in details in the history records. As it is the case with many towns, Mareb was encircled by a wall in the middle of whose four sides was a sideway entrance. Qirnaw's wall was 400 meters long and 250 wide, and the city inside was built 15 meters above the ground level in order to prevent inundations. On each of its four sides, stood a watch tower. As for Mareb, the western gate measured 2,90 meters wide and 2,4 high. Close to the strong sides of the main entrance gate ran a passage of 3,85 meters in length.
Distinguished design of houses:
So far, we know that ancient Yemen's architecture had two types of houses with square structure. In general, this shaping can also be defined as the one of a right-angle position. From the breakthroughs made until the present day, we can infer that they consisted of two floors, with the front-exterior having a wide area. The upper floor had a number of windows towards the exterior entrance. Usually, the first floor was vertically divided by three internal passages. This vertical separation of the house's front area was the determining factor, while the frontier portion itself was divided into three horizontal parts each extending to the front direction of the main door of the house. Such a construction pattern was found applicable to one sort of houses.
Another pattern of re-organized plan could also be detected in other two-story houses of a wholly extended square shapes, whereby both the floors were connected by walls of equal lengths and widths. The plan design of every house, similar to the houses built in northern lands of Arabia, included a basement situated below the first floor.
The Ottoman Museum in Istanbul is displaying one inscription of an outer aspect of an old Yemeni house consisting of 14 floors, the center of which has passages going all through the length of that whole exterior. As from the center of each equal portion of the whole length, there were small opening serially going down in descendant. They constituted one separately isolated group of holes based on five horizontally shaped sections, three of which were originating from the middle of that length. These five also keep the upper floor in one unifying shape through one common bridge-layer.
At the core of this group, the central opening contained three other yet smaller openings, and by which it was extending in perpendicularly. The lower opening was higher compared to the rest. It was occupied by a set of six windows arising out of the total 14 windows of the whole house. Those were located in the two neighboring vents of the house. The other neighboring venting structure carried the base structure of the house's ceiling. The pattern of the most-upper closing of the house may remind us of a closely confirmed prison room that resembled a defensive compartment of a tower structure. From the lower part stretched one teeth-structured extension, on which were built the six rooms of the house. There were right-angle structures rising right to the extending beams of the siding walls of the house. Three horned bull heads were prominent on their sides with horns: the trinity of ancient Yemen's faith, one of which was the moon goddess. They constituted the crown-image of the house which was considered the symbol figure of the “God” known in ancient Yemen. This architecture sheds light on the religiously-followed deity of southern Arabia.
Architecture has bearings on history:
It is important to note the historical date of such houses. Similar inscriptions on such houses were discovered in north Ethiopia which shows the strength of political and cultural relationship between ancient Sheba of Yemen and Eksom dynasty of Africa. Concerning the idols, they were rock stele with height ranging between 15-30 meters, raised either in straight line or as fronts posing in bending formations.
Each house had approximately eleven windows for the ground floor. Upon the top floor stretched a level area with crown structure at its endings.
Isolated house resembling towers appeared as residential units of ancient Arabs of Yemen in order to defend themselves against the frequent tribal raids. These houses had very thick and folded walls with single entrances sufficiently protected from all sides. The upper parts were erected with hard stones, while certain parts were augmented by certain pieces of uranium metals.
Some ruins of these hones are still present. In addition to the stony material, other substances were used in architecture. While the towers, or fortresses, constituted the basics of the dwellings and were cleverly integrated within the framework of the town's defensive walls in order to protect the city during Maeen's dynasty, which had its capital Maeen (also known as Qirnaw). Such structures are recorded in Maeen's inscriptions, one of which was found on a wall not far from its western gates. It particularly described the towers. The inscription mentioned the names of the builder who masterminded the plan of building towers. They belonged to the higher groups who were known as the king's friends. They constructed six building roofs and six towers which were placed on the wall of Qirnaw. These erections were meant to be gifts for their god. Moreover, there are the labels of the various sections of the construction. The inscription also provided the measurements for the area built. It also indicated the source of financing and cost of construction. These were gathered from the taxes, contributions from the King's income, nominal inputs, etc.
Another inscription was also discovered on the eastern wall of the city of Maeen. It contained data on one tower structure built by certain group of men from Habban known to be among the cronies of Maeen's king. Its funding was collected from the duties gathered by the tribal representatives and customs and excise revenues imposed on the commercial activities between the traders and foreign states like Egypt, Gazza and Ethiopia.
A third inscription found on the wall in the region of Naqb-al-Hajjar. It is said to have interesting technical information about the architecture. It elaborated on the fences and gates of the towers built out of stones and tree logs.
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