Landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba
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How it came to be
From the 1st millennium BCE until the arrival of Islam around 630 CE, the Kingdom of Saba flourished with Marib in Yemen as its capital. The kingdom controlled much of the incense route across the Arabian Peninsula and played a key role in trade with the Mediterranean and East Africa. The World Heritage property consists of seven archaeological sites, including urban remains, temples and ramparts.
The earliest inscription on the Marib Dam dates from the time of Yatha' Amar Watar I. The dam and its irrigation system worked on a scale unparalleled in ancient South Arabia and created the largest ancient man-made oasis. At the Temple of Awwam, an inscription on the enclosure wall records its building by the mukarrib Yada'il Dharih I in the mid-7th century BCE, and the temple remained in use until the 4th century AD.
After floods in 1982, a new dam was built in the 1980s with funding from Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. Since 2015 Sirwah has been on a front line of the civil war, making excavation almost impossible. In January 2023 the World Heritage Committee, at an extraordinary session, used an emergency procedure to inscribe the property and place it at the same time on the List of World Heritage in Danger, citing threats of destruction from the ongoing conflict.
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