Editing Sheba (section)

=== Marib ===
[[File:The great wall of Awwam.jpg|thumb|The [[great wall of Awwam]] in Marib]]
In the Kingdom of Saba, [[Marib]] was an oasis and one of the main urban centers of the kingdom. It was by far the largest ancient city from ancient South Arabia, if not its only real city.{{Sfn|Robin|2002|p=54}} Marib was located at the precise point that the wadi (of Wadi Dhana) emerges from the Yemeni highlands.{{Sfn|Robin|2002|p=51}} It was located along what was called the [[Sayhad|Sayhad desert]] by [[Geography and cartography in medieval Islam|medieval Arab geographers]], but is now known as [[Ramlat al-Sab'atayn]]. The city lies 135 km east of [[Sanaa]], which is the capital of Yemen today, found in the [[Wadi Dana]] delta, in the northwestern central Yemeni highlands. The oasis is about 10,000 hectares and the course of the wadi divides it into two: a northern and a southern half, which was already spoken of in records from the 8th century BCE, and this prominent feature may have been remembered as late as in the time of the [[Quran]] (34:15). A wall was built around Marib, and 4 km of that wall is still standing today. The wall, in some places, can be as much as 14 m thick. The wall encloses a 100-hectare area shaped like a trapezoid, and the settlement appears to have been created in the late second millennium BCE. Archaeological inquiries have uncovered a settlement plan that allocated different areas for different tasks. There is one residential division to the city. Another division containing sacred buildings but no residential development was probably a storage area for trade caravans and the shipment of goods. Immediately to the west was the great city temple Harun, dedicated to the national Sabaean god, [[Almaqah]].{{Sfn|Nebes|2023|pp=314–317}}

[[File:Arsh Bilqis, Ma'rib (2285842541).jpg|thumb|left|The [[Barran Temple]]]]
A processional road, known from inscriptions but not yet discovered, led from the Harun temple to the [[Temple of Awwam]], 3.5 km to the southeast of Marib, which is both the main temple for the god Almaqah in the Kingdom of Saba and the largest temple complex known from South Arabia. Hundreds of inscriptions are known from the Awwam Temple, and these documents form the basis from which the political history of South Arabia thus far reconstructable from in the first few centuries of the Christian era. The enclosure was built in the 7th century BCE according to a monumental inscription from the time of Yada'il Darih. South of the temple wall is a 1.5-hectare necropolis, in which it is estimated that about 20,000 people have been buried over a time period covering about a millennium.{{Sfn|Nebes|2023|pp=318–320}}

Shortly west of the Awwam Temple is another major temple in the southern oasis dedicated to Almaqah, which has been fully excavated and is the best studied temple to date from South Arabia: the [[Barran Temple]]. It is evident that predecessors to the Barran Temple went back to the 10th century BCE. The construction history is properly documented by inscriptions in the area. The temple was destroyed shortly before the beginning of the Christian eraddea. The exact cause is unknown, but it may have been linked to an (ultimately unsuccessful) siege of South Arabia by the Romans, under the leadership of the governor [[Aelius Gallus]] in 25/24 BCE. Inscriptions attest other temples dedicated to other gods but these have not yet been discovered archaeologically.{{Sfn|Nebes|2023|pp=320–323}}

[[File:Jemen1988-022_hg.jpg|thumb|Ruins of the [[Marib Dam]] of the former Sabaean capital of Ma'rib, amidst the [[Sarawat Mountains]] of present-day Yemen]]
The [[Marib Dam]] was one of the most well-known architectural complexes from Yemen, and was even mentioned in the Quran (34:16), and this construction made it possible to irrigate the 10,000 hectares of the Marib oasis.{{Sfn|Robin|2002|p=54}} The dam is located 10 km west of the main settlement. The dam successfully delegates and distributes water from the biannual monsoon rains into two main channels, which move away from the wadi and into fields through a highly dispersive system. This allowed the region to convert alluvial loads into fertile soils and so cultivate various crops. It took until the 6th century BCE for the full closure to be accomplished. The system required constant maintenance, and two major dam failures are reported from 454/455 and 547 CE. However, as political authority weakened over the course of the 6th century CE, maintenance efforts could not be sustained. The dam was therefore breached and the oasis was temporarily abandoned by the early seventh century.{{Sfn|Nebes|2023|pp=323–326}}