Citadels of the High Yemen

Perhaps the greatest work of the Arab historian, al-Hamdani, who died in 945 AD, was al-Ikhlil - 'The Crown' - a book of which little survives except a small section, called 'The Antiquities of South Arabia'. Here is truly the stuff of legend, the tales of those kings of Himyar [in what is now Yemen], to whom the later Arabs attributed all sorts of marvels and miracles. He mentions too the greatest glories of the kings of Himyar, their splendid palaces, which remained for their descendants the abodes of wonder, an eternal theme for the Arab poets.

The memories of the Arabs are long, and it is their delight to recite the poetry of old times. Many wrote of the palaces of Silhin at Marib, Raydan at Zafar, or of Ghumdan in San'a, capital of ancient Saba and now the capital of Yemen. Ghumdan especially was a place of legend, the fairy-tale palace of the kings of San'a, high amid the mountains of the Yemen. The Arab poets repeatedly sung its beauty - their verses were to be remembered long after the kingdom of Himyar itself had passed into complete oblivion.

Storey upon storey Ghumdan rose into the skies, built of solid stone but so delicately decorated that it seemed merely a mesh of arabesques, arches and friezes of frail plasterwork, a structure raised by the power of the djinn to confound mere mortal men. From the rows of high arcaded windows the evening lamps sent forth a kaleidoskopic glow of colour through panes of rose, blue, green and yellow-stained glass. Fretwork screens of stone were filled with milky alabaster panels carved so thin as to transmute the harsh glare of the sun outside into a soft orange glow, cool and ethereal. The upper storey, legend claims, contained the royal bed-chamber, roofed with a single sheet of alabaster so fine that the kings of Himyar, lying on their golden couches, could watch the birds flying above. "Amuse yourself with drinking sherbet, the crown on your head, reposing on a couch at the summit of Ghumdan, your abode", counselled the poet. While they slept the Himyarite kings were soothed by the soft humming of the wind passing through specially-contrived mechanisms of bronze in the shape of animals, whose mouths caught and amplified every breeze. All around, "beside its wall the palm-trees fine, with ripening fruit in clusters shine."

He who had not seem Ghumdan, the poets implied, had seen nothing of splendour in this world. The last to hold his court in these fabled halls, the Arab historians record, was the king of Himyar, Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, who, with his entire kingdom, fell before the power of King Kaleb of Aksum nearly 1,500 years ago. When he saw that defeat was inevitable, Yusuf spurred his horse into the Red Sea and vanished beneath the waves. The Arab historians recall that one Aryat, an Abyssinian general, destroyed the "castles Silhin, Baynun, and Ghumdan, unique in their splendour."

Gently! Tears cannot recall what is sped.
Fret not thyself for those who are dead.
Of Baynun no stones nor trace remain,
And after Silhin, shall men build such houses again?

These were the words of Dhu Jadan the Himyari, recalling his nation�s glorious past. He wrote of Ghumdan, the symbol of Himyar itself, as it had been, and as it now was;

You have heard of Ghumdan's towers:
From the mountain top it lowers
Well carpentered, with stones for stay,
Plastered with clean, damp, slippery clay;
Oil lamps within it show
At even like the lightening's glow.
This once-new castle is ashes today
The flames have eaten its beauty away.

The poet Adiy b. Zayd al-Hiri added his own lament for Ghumdan;

What is there after San'a in which once lived
Rulers of a kingdom whose gifts were lavish?
Its builder raised it to the flying clouds,
Its lofty chambers gave forth musk.
Protected by mountains against the attacks of enemies,
Its lofty heights unscalable.
Pleasant was the voice of the night-owl there,
Answered at even by a flute player.

The stuff of romance indeed. Yet we know much of it was true. For example, we have dated inscriptions from the time of King Yusuf, which recount his doomed struggle with Kaleb. The Aksumite emperor�s gold coins have often been found in the antique sands of Yemen. As for the palaces, one might easily think their splendours were exaggerated, particularly after viewing the formless mound near the Great Mosque in San'a which is all that remains of Ghumdan. But it is not so. The ruins of some of the ancient south Arabian buildings have been excavated, and indicate an astonishing mastery of stonework. No wonder the Arabs who later saw the ruins of the dwellings of the kings of Himyar were awed.

Nor is this ancient architectural tradition dead today. Even now, strolling in the evening through the twisting narrow ways of San'a, one can see structures which easily evoke old Arab poems about Salhin or Ghumdan. As dusk falls, in each twisting lane, or across the palm-gardens which still flourish in the old walled quarter of the town, the multi-coloured windows of the tall tower-like mansions of San'a come to life. By day their facades glitter dazzling white in the sun, elaborately decorated with plasterwork friezes and painted decoration. Their tops soar skywards, six or seven storeys high. They are Ghumdans in miniature, still exhibiting the Yemen�s unique architecture as it flourished fifteen hundred and more years ago, still lived in, still well-maintained in the old heart of the modern concrete and tarmac city.

The lower storeys, cool, solid and secure, are stone built, supporting an upper part of plastered mud brick. The ground floor is for sheltering animals and for storage of fodder and the like. A staircase winds up throughout the edifice, giving onto different rooms as one goes ever higher. Inside, all is smoothly plastered and painted. The chief room in the entire structure is the mafraj, or reception room, usually on the second floor. This is a large and splendid chamber, generally decorated with some of the beautiful alabaster or stained glass windows, and with niches or alcoves for lamps and ornaments. Often mirrors or pictures of the Kaaba at Mecca hang at sharp angles from the walls, designed to be seen from the seating places on the low cushioned divans which occupy three sides of the room. This is the men�s reception room, where the householder will welcome his friends for conversation, tea or coffee drinking, or the quiet pleasures of contemplation.

Buildings of this sort are not uncommon in the Yemen. They can be seen not just in the major cities, but in many lesser towns, enhanced by the magnificent mountain scenery, and the elaborate terracing of the hillsides for agriculture. Ibb, on the way south to Taizz is a good example. The southern province of the Hadhramawt is a show place for such structures. The small town of Shibam is spectacular, a solid mass of imposing 'skyscraper� houses rising direct from the wadi floor. Mukalla, too, its white buildings overlooking the Indian Ocean, has a special attraction; so has Seiyun, centred on the massive towered palace of its former sultans. On a more modest scale, but truly a glimpse of something out of the old legends, is the palace of the imams of Yemen just outside San'a. The castle, where the rulers came to relax from the cares of state, is comparatively small, but it is extremely elegant, constructed with an extraordinary sense for the dramatic on the top of a single huge rock lying in a valley.

With these buildings as modern equivalents, the yearnings of the Arab poets for "the lost glory of Himyar" seem less insubstantial, evoking instead something solid and real. Today�s structures may be nothing in comparison to mighty Ghumdan, or to Salhin, or to Shaqir, the palace of the Hadhrami kings at their capital of Shabwa. We may never know what Ghumdan was really like, though the recent excavations at Shabwa have revealed a good deal about Shaqir, with its frescoes and its carved griffins, and the luxurious appointments of its interior. But the buildings surviving today in old San`a and other places are worthy of respect; they are both beautiful and impressive, and the standard-bearers of a fine tradition. In them, to some measure, mighty Ghumdan still survives.

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