Shibam

Shibam, is an ancient Yemeni town with roughly 7,000 inhabitants. The earliest written reference to it is found in an inscription that dates back to third century AD.

photo credit Martin Sojka

Shibam, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today, owes its fame to its diverse architectural design. All the houses in this town are made of mud brick. Five hundred of these houses are towers that reach five to eleven stories high, with one or two apartments in each floor. The tower houses have been designed this way so that the inhabitants would be protected from Bedouin attacks.

Shibam is often called "the oldest skyscraper city in the world" or "the Manhattan of the desert", and is one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction.

One of the most popular attractions in Shibam is its big and ancient mosque. This mosque is also one of the oldest in all of Yemen. Gradually, it was made bigger and many of its parts were destroyed eventually until the first Ottoman rule of Yemen, when renovations began to take place. Non-Muslims are not allowed to enter the mosque; they can get the best view of it, particularly of its minaret, right under the mountain, from the edge of town.

In order to protect the buildings from rain and erosion, the walls must be routinely maintained by applying fresh layers of mud.