The walled city of Shibam

[الدكتور أحمد باذيب]

	The walled city of Shibam Character of the city Shibam. The west side of the old city seen from a distance. The old walled city of Shibam stands on an elevated mound to the north of the main wadi bed, not far below a point where a number of tributary wadis converge. It is slightly on the west side of the 'middle lands' of Wadi Hadramawt. Its site is the best strategic situation in the whole area, at a point where the wadi rows, and yet with an extensive hinterland of fertile side valleys. Shibam. Characteristic tower houses on the northern side of the city, with the city wall in the foreground. The city is unique in its concentration of tall houses upon the elevated mound that rises out in the valley floor; the mound is surrounded by a fortified city wall at its base. The tallest house rises 29.15 m above its entrance on street level and 36.51 m above the wadi bed. This house has eight floors; many others have seven storeys if they are on low-lying ground, but the average number of storeys is five. The highest houses crowd to the edge of the mound, to form more or less solid walls facing roughly east, south, west and north, of which the north and south sides are the longest. Surrounding the town on three sides are date plantations. On the fourth, the south side, lies the wadi bed.