Yemen’s past a victim of war
Regional conflict threatens unguarded ancient wonders
MARIB: Along a narrow road in Yemen, choked by natural gas tankers and heavily armed soldiers, lies an ancient temple neglected and threatened in a nation now at war.
The Awwam Temple links a region now on the front lines of the Saudi-led war against Syiah rebels to Arabia’s pre-Islamic past, a time of spice caravans and the mysterious Queen of Sheba.
Experts fear the temple, as well as other historic and cultural wonders across Yemen beyond those acknowledged by international authorities, remains at risk as the country’s stalemated war rages on.
“All the villages are historic in a way,” said Anna Paolini, the director of Unesco’s regional office in Qatar that oversees Yemen and Gulf Arab nations.
“They’re still heritage of the country. It’s sad to see what’s happening.”
The nearly three-year-old Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced two million and helped spawn a devastating cholera epidemic in the Arab world’s poorest country.
Amid its humanitarian crises, Yemen’s culture and historical sites also have been affected.
Saudi-led air strikes have destroyed historic mud homes in Saada.
Airstrikes also have hit the over 2,500-year-old Old City in Yemen’s rebel-held capital of Sanaa, a Unesco World Heritage site for its intricately decorated burnt-brick towers.
Shelling and airstrikes also have struck museums and other sites in the country.
In 2015, air strikes damaged part of the Great Marib Dam, near the Awwam Temple and built by the same civilisation, according to Unesco.
Even shock waves from an explosion in the distance can be enough to damage delicate structures.
Unesco has shared coordinates of some 50 historical sites with militaries involved in the fighting to try to protect them, Paolini said, though many remain unguarded now in the chaos of the war.
“Although we’ve seen less collateral damage and targeting of heritage, it still happens,” she said.
Foreign historians and archaeologists also fled the country over the fighting, halting work at sites like the Awwam Temple, also known as the Mahram Bilqis.
Scholars believe the temple, with parts dating to the 7th century BC, served as a shrine to the god Almaqah.
The nearby city of Marib was the capital of the Saba dynasty, which ruled the area for centuries before the birth of Christ.
The kingdom built the Great Marib Dam and controlled spice and incense trade routes.
The legendary Queen of Sheba, said in the Bible to have visited King Solomon in the 10th century BC, has been linked to Saba, though Ethiopians claim her as their own.
“King Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for. ... Then she left and returned with her retinue to her own country,” the enigmatic Bible story goes.
The Sabaean dynasty succumbed to challenges from other kingdoms and the Great Dam gave away in the 6th century AD, and Islam spread across Arabia soon after.