The kingdom of Saba, or Sheba, is among the oldest names in the history of Arabia, and its landmarks are scattered across the desert margin around Ma'rib. They form a group that includes the great dam, the temples of Awwam and Barran, the old city, and the sites of Sirwah and others in the highlands. Together they illustrate a civilization that rose around the first millennium BC by harnessing floodwater and controlling the incense route, one of the busiest trade arteries of the ancient world.
Incense was the engine of the economy. Frankincense and myrrh, gathered in the dry hills of Hadramawt and Dhofar, were in demand in temples and palaces from Egypt to Rome, and camel caravans carried them north through oases like this one. Saba taxed the trade and spent the proceeds on stone temples, canals and walls. The Sabaeans left thousands of inscriptions in their own script, many of them on bronze plaques and stone, and these give historians an unusually detailed view of kings, gods and irrigation rights.
The landscape between the sites is austere and wide. The Ramlat as-Sab'atayn desert lies to the east, the highlands rise to the west, and between them the wadi systems carve out the corridors where people lived. In the heat of day, the horizon shimmers, and in the evening the cliffs turn rose and amber. The area has a few acacia trees and tough shrubs, and the occasional herd of goats.
Practical advice here is sobering. Yemen's civil war has centered on Ma'rib for years, and the region has seen front-line fighting, mines and a large displaced population. Foreign travel advisories are firm in advising against visits, and nobody should plan a ride in this area without reliable and current information, which at present argues for staying home. The sites are best understood through books, museum collections and the work of archaeologists who documented them in calmer times.
In earlier years, travelers came by road from Sana'a, about a hundred and thirty kilometers away, over mountain passes and then desert tracks, and stayed in Ma'rib, where fuel and simple meals could be found. It remains one of the great ancient landscapes of the Arab world.