Marib

Marib was the capital of Saba, the South Arabian kingdom that grew rich from the first millennium BC on the caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh moving north towards the Mediterranean. Its wealth rested on water: a great dam thrown across Wadi Adhanah where it leaves the mountains, first built in about the 8th century BC and repaired and heightened for more than a thousand years, which diverted the seasonal floods through sluices onto two large irrigated oases. The temples of Almaqah, the Sabaean moon god, stood outside the city: Awwam, called Mahram Bilqis after the queen whom Arab and biblical tradition connects with Sheba, and the smaller Barran. Saba was later absorbed by the Himyarites, the incense trade shifted to sea routes, and the dam was overtopped for the last time in about 570 and left unrepaired; the Qur'an's flood of Arim and the tradition of a great tribal dispersal are both linked to its collapse.

Medieval and modern Marib was a modest walled town built on the mound of the ancient capital, its houses raised on reused inscribed blocks, in a district where tribal authority counted for more than the state. Oil was found in the region in the 1980s, and a refinery, a gas-fired power station and pipelines followed, along with a new dam built in the 1980s upstream of the ancient one. Seven of the ancient sites around Marib were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in January 2023 and placed at once on the list of World Heritage in Danger. Since fighting reached the governorate in 2015 the town has grown many times over as displaced people arrived from other parts of the country, and it has been repeatedly fought over.

Marib belongs to the tribal east rather than to the settled highlands, and identity here rests on descent, the tribe and the reputation of the family. Sheikhs mediate disputes, guarantee agreements and arrange compensation under customary law, which in practice carries as much weight as the courts. A guest's safety is the responsibility of the host, and hospitality — coffee, dates, a shared meal — is given as a matter of honour rather than trade.

Dress and bearing are traditional. Most men wear the futah, a wrapped kilt, or a long thobe with a jacket, and the jambiya in an embroidered belt; weapons are part of male dress at weddings and gatherings. Women wear covering black dress in public, and social life is largely separated by sex, with women's gatherings in the home running parallel to the men's afternoon qat sessions.

Oral culture is strong: tribal poetry composed and traded at gatherings and weddings is a recognised way of arguing, praising and settling scores, and dances performed with the dagger held aloft accompany the drumming at celebrations. The ancient past is present in daily life too, since stones carrying South Arabian inscriptions are built into old houses, and the Queen of Sheba is a figure of local pride as much as of scholarship. Both Eids are the year's great family occasions.

Before the war Marib was a small town of well under twenty thousand people, by the 2005 census, in a thinly populated desert governorate. Since 2015 it has become one of the most crowded places in Yemen: aid agencies have counted vast numbers of displaced people in and around it, living in camps and unfinished buildings on the desert fringe, and the town's population is now many times its pre-war size.

The local economy is unusual for Yemen because of energy. Oil and gas fields, a refinery and a gas-fired power plant lie in the governorate, and the trade, transport and services they generate, together with the markets that supply a huge displaced population and the aid operations that support it, provide most paid work. Farming continues in the oasis gardens along the wadi, where dates, fodder and vegetables are grown with water from wells and the modern dam.

Daily life follows the heat: markets and offices open early, activity fades in the middle of the day, and the afternoon and evening bring the qat sessions and family visits. Electricity, water supply and fuel are unreliable and expensive, prices swing with the currency and the state of the roads, and many families depend on aid, small trade and remittances from relatives working abroad. Schools and clinics operate under severe strain, and the fighting that has repeatedly come close has left mines and unexploded ordnance in the surrounding country.

Marib eats like a desert market town rather than like the highlands. The staple is bread baked against the walls of a tannur, the round clay oven, eaten with beans, eggs and tea in the morning and with stewed or grilled meat later in the day. Rice cooked with lamb, goat or chicken and warm spices is the dish of hospitality and of feasts, and roasting or slow-cooking a whole animal for guests is a matter of honour at weddings and on Eid.

The oasis gardens supply dates, eaten fresh in season and stored pressed for the rest of the year, along with fodder for the goats and sheep whose milk becomes buttermilk, yoghurt and clarified butter. Honey from the valleys east and south of the town is prized across Yemen and commands high prices; it is eaten with bread and butter, stirred into drinks and given as a gift. Flocks and camels mean meat is more central here than in the farming highlands.

Highland dishes travel down the road as well: saltah, the fenugreek-topped stew served in a stone pot, and fahsa, its shredded lamb version, are found in the town's kitchens, with bint al-sahn, the honeyed layered pastry, for celebrations. Qishr, the infusion of coffee husks with ginger, and very sweet tea are drunk through the day, and qat brought from the mountains is chewed in the afternoon. Alcohol is absent.