Wadi Hadramowt and walled city of Shibam

Introduction

Almost in the very center of that [South Arabian] region are the Atramitae [Hadramis] - the capital of whose kingdom is Sabota [Shabwah], a place situated on a lofty mountain. At a distance of eight posts [days' travel] from this is the incense-bearing region inaccessible because of rocks on every side, while it is bordered on the right by the ocean, from which high plateaux shut it in. The forests extend eighty miles in length and forty in width.

Pliny (xii,30)

This ancient vision of a legendary green paradise miraculously blooming in the midst of desert wastes is still the popular Arab image of Wadi Hadramawt to this day. The Arabic word 'wàdi' actually means 'a dry riverbed'. But although a strictly accurate term for the great valley, it does not convey the effects of the reserves of water underground, nor what the Arabs could do by irrigation with floodwaters after rains.

Wadi Hadramawt is an immense valley which runs for 160 km from open plains in the west, where the cliffs of the rocky plateaux to north and south close in about it, near Shabwah, to- wards the east until it joins the much less fertile Wadi Masilah. This latter Wadi, dry and inhospitable, ultimately leads south- eastwards to reach the sea on a deserted coast. The main Wadi Hadramawt is 12 km wide in some places and an average of 700 m above sea level, and is fed by innumerable tributaries, i.e. smaller wadis of the same kind. Some 70 km beyond the west end of Wadi I3alramawt one comes to the site of the legendary city of Shabwah, from which the whole wadi was ruled in antiquity, and then one quickly reaches the desert of Saihad - 'an empty desert, a wilderness where the winds blow in all directions, a country where crows are king '. Only after traveling west across this desert for three days would one come to irrigated fields and settled lands once more, the beginnings of highland Yemen.

Map of South Arabia, showing the relationship of Hadramawt to be the Indian Ocean and neighbouring countries.

In ancient times Wadi Hadramawt, with its rich loam soil, must have been a virtual Garden of Eden. Its elaborate system of dams and irrigation channels harnessed the twice-yearly monsoon floods to produce the luxuriant groves of incense trees of which reports reached as far as Rome. Today, with nearly all trees but its palm forests gone, the plants and scents of the crops of the valley still amaze the visitor, their delight heightened by the bare sandstone of the endlessly varied cliffs behind them, and an awareness of the vast desert which begins above, on either side.

If one starts from the medieval port of either Mukalla or Shihr, on the somewhat inhospitable shores of the Indian Ocean, and travels some 160 km north across a rugged, arid plateau, one reaches the edge of Wadi Hadramawt. Here the ground seems to open at one's feet, a great rift in the flat, dry, rocky landscape, 300 m deep and an average of 2 km wide. Below the level of the world lies the hidden valley, much of its floor carpeted with luxuriant green vegetation. The sense of wonder at this secret world will be heightened by the abruptness with which it ends on the other side of the chasm, where the sterile landscape starts again, to fuse 30-50 km farther on in the immense, rolling sand- dunes of the Empty Quarter.

It used to be thought that the incense forests began farther east, in the land of Dhofar, now in Oman, but evidence is accumulating which justifies an interpretation of Pliny's description as Wadi Hadramawt, and suggests that harvesting of the other forests in Dhofar may have taken place only in later centuries, when the trade in incense spread and the demand for frankincense increased. The extraordinary richness and scale of the ancient ruins in the wadi are thus explained, and the legend of Hadramawt and its neighbouring lands as 'Arabia Felix' can be truly understood. But a consideration of the wadi's ancient glories should not distract us from appreciating those of its characteristics that still survive.

Here over many centuries has been created one of the breathtaking architectural achievements of mankind, the towering houses and palaces of Hadramawt. Entirely built of mud, and rich in form and decoration, they rise above the date-palm plantations in town after town of noble block-like massing. Of all these settlements, the supreme example is the ancient city of Shibam, elevated on an outcrop in the valley floor, at a narrow point halfway along the length of the wadi, so that until recently it commanded the passage of caravans in every direction.

But there are other beautiful old towns, such as Sai'un, with its immense palace, gaily striped with whitewash, far outstrip- ping even the highest houses of ordinary men; and noble Tarim, flanked by long walls and once-splendid gates; and Qatn, Hainin, Huraidah, and many others.

Throughout the wadi there are scattered sacred tombs and other enclaves, which are hawtah, that is, protected from tribal feuding. Their immaculate beehive-shaped domes, freshly paint- ed with whitewash every year, punctuate the landscape and mark the sites where once there were periodic fairs, at which the mountain tribes met to barter produce and buy the meagre quantities of luxury goods they could afford.

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