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In the summer of 1992 they began to build anew minaret for the Imam 'Ali Mosque in the middle of the souk inSanaa, and for this purpose sunk a trench into the courtyard, about 6x 6 m, and more than 6 m deep. The direction of the GeneralOrganization for the Preservation of the Historic Cities of Yemen(GOPHCY) kindly arranged for a temporary halt to the construction, sothat a few workers could be permitted to clean one of the faces ofthe pit. All the walls were covered with cement, which had clung tothe walls when they were pouring in the first cement for thefoundations, and thus we had no idea of what lay behind the cement. When the first face was cleaned, we had a glimpse into the history ofSanaa that no one had ever seen. At the top, below the remains ofthe houses, which had been built up against the walls of the SamsaraMuhammad b. Hasan, were mixed deposits, below which were two canals,one super-imposed above the other, below which were the remains ofwalls, below which were sedimentary clay deposits, below which weremixed material, and then the remains of a wall, which rose from thecement surface at the base of the pit. Although I had no idea of thechronology of the sequence, it was clear that the wall at the base ofthe pit was part of a house, and that a leveling action had occurredwhen the house was abandoned, and that a street had followed, beforeanother change, when a house was built there. When the house wasdestroyed, the area was transformed into a garden, the canals servingto distribute water. After a period of abandonment, some more houseswere built. The view provided by this foundation trench wasextraordinary, and one that no one could have expected.
Still unclear about the chronologicalsignificance of the sequence, the workers cleaned off all four walls,and three of them were drawn, while the Swiss Mission in the Old Citybrought some other workers who collected sherds from each layer. There is a legend that 'Ali Abi Talib stayed at house on the edge ofthe souk in Sanaa, and that the mosque was built on the site of thishouse, so I was understandably anxious to know if the section took usdown to the beginning of the Islamic period. Initially we thoughtthat some of the sherds from the lower section were roughly XIIcentury AD, which would have given us a sequence for eight centuries,and thus not have been at all bad. There was nothing later than theXV century in the lower layers, and thus it was probable that thecanals could be associated with the Samsara Muhammad b. Hasan, theconstruction of which began in 1651 AD. It was only after quite awhile that it began to look as if the lowest wall visible in theeastern face may have belonged to a house dating to the VIII centuryAD. As the southern and western faces had traces which predated thiswall, the sequence seemed to go back to the beginning of Islam. Among the sherds present in various levels were some prehistoric andpotentially pre-Islamic ones indicating that pre-Islamic Sanaaextended even to the area on the edge of the modern blacksmiths'souk, which is far removed from the Cathedral, and to the North ofwhere the ancient Himyaritic Ghumdan Palace should havebeen.
It is well known that Sanaa has been settledfor a long time, and thus no surprise to find evidence of it. Adenis likewise known to have existed in Antiquity, yet the famous tanksare the only trace of the ancient city, so - following my usualhabit, I dropped into a couple of pits in Aden, to check for anythingthat might be lying around. In one, a mere two metres deep, therewere the foundations of but one house, albeit a large one. Thesherds were however a real surprise, for in the foundations of ahouse which must date to the second half of the XIX century AD, weresherds which probably date to the XVIII century, and perhaps evenearlier. The site of a British colonial hospital built in the early1960's likewise produced some interesting sherds. I have not not yetseen any, but XVI/XVII century Ming and Thai wares can probablylikewise be found in Aden. On the coasts of Arabia oriental potteryis completely normal, as the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Arabswere all busily trading throughout the Indian Ocean basin, at a timewhen the Yemeni Highlands were deriving their income from the coffeetrade, exporting their own products, and receiving gold in exchange,which was being hoarded in places like the Samsara Muhammad b. Hasan,next to which our Sanaa trench was sunk. The gold has since beenmelted down, but the potsherds remain in the earth in Aden, and otherplaces along the coast.
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