Ṣanʿāʾ

Now the capital of the Republic of Yemen, the city of Ṣanʿāʾ appears in textual sources around the 1st cent. CE. It gradually emerged as one of the centres of power of the kingdom of Sabaʾ before becoming one of the main cities of the Yemeni highlands in late antiquity and early Islam.

Location

The city of Ṣanʿāʾ, ancient Ṣanʿā (Sab. Ṣnʿw), is located on the western highlands of Yemen, at an altitude of 2250 m, on a north-south trending rift plain bordered by volcanic escarpments to the east and the west. The plain is covered by Quaternary alluvial sediments. Combined with frequent rainfall (over 600 mm/yr), this soil cover allows for dry agriculture.

History of research

The ancient city of Ṣanʿāʾ is covered by the modern city, and has only been archaeologically excavated through a single test pit in the courtyard of the Great Mosque (Warburton 1998).

The most significant research has focused on Ghumdān’s palace and the church through the analysis of the texts of Arab historiographers, South Arabian inscriptions and the identification of reemployed ancient architectural elements (Lewcock 1979, 2005; King 1980; Beeston 1983; Serjeant & Lewcock 1983; Piotrovsky 1988; Finster & Schmidt 1994; Keall 2005; Robin 2015; Daum 2021).

History

The first textual mentions of the city of Ṣanʿāʾ date from the 1st century (Gl A 452, Ja 644).

At the beginning of the 3rd century, the establishment of a royal palace in the city of Ṣanʿāʾ transformed it into the second capital of Sabaʾ, along with Maʾrib. In the early 3rd cent., the king of Kinda was captured during a Sabaean military campaign and held prisoner in the city (DAI Barʾān 2000-1). The establishment of this new political capital may be explained by the growing power of Ḥimyar in the southern part of the highlands and the need to establish a political and military Sabaean presence to oppose Ḥimyarite power. It was also a consequence of the growing strength of highland tribal aristocracy within the Sabaean elite from the beginning of the Christian era onwards (Arbach et al. 2021).

The location of Ṣanʿāʾ is strategic: the city controls an area at the junction of the northern and central highlands, through the Yakār Pass. The city also controls the axis of communication from the Jawf and Maʾrib regions to the Tihāma and the Red Sea.

After the annexation of Sabaʾ by Ḥimyar (c. 275 CE), the city lost its status as a political capital. We have no records of the city during the period between the end of the Sabaean kings and the middle of the 6th cent. Only an inscription from Ṣanʿāʾ (CIH 6) mentions the construction of a building in the year 463.

In the mid-sixth century, Abraha transferred the seat of power from Ẓafār to Ṣanʿāʾ, which became the political centre of the various successive governments, including the Persian satraps who settled in Ṣanʿāʾ. According to al-Hamdānī, the city continued to develop during the first two centuries of the Hegira. The pre-Islamic walls probably no longer existed, as traditionalists describe a city with no fortifications before Ibn Yuʿfir’s rebellion in the 9th century (Lewcock 2005). It remained an administrative centre hosting the headquarters of Umayyad and Abbasid governors.

The monuments of ancient Ṣanʿāʾ

The rampart

Several clues suggest the presence of a rampart during antiquity. Firstly, the toponym Ṣanʿāʾ may derive from the Sabaean root ṢNʿ, ‘fortified’ (Beeston 1983). Secondly, according to ʿAmr b. Isḥāq al-Ḥaḍramī, quoted by al-Hamdānī, the Sabaean king Shaʿr Awtar (early 3rd cent.) had a rampart built around Ṣanʿāʾ. Lewcock (1986, 2005) proposes to identify its base in two bastions of the medieval citadel and in the lower part of Bāb al-Sitrān.

The Ghumdān palace

In the early 3rd cent., South Arabian texts recall the presence of the royal palace Ghumdān. The first mention dates from the reign of Shaʿr Awtar (Ir 11). Al-Hamdānī provides a description of the palace in the 10th cent., where he refers to the presence of remains in front of the western entrance of the great mosque, the looting of building stones and its destruction under Caliph ʿUthmān (Piotrovsky 1988).

In the late 3rd cent., after the annexation of the Sabaean kingdom, Ṣanʿāʾ lost its status as the seat of royal power. Nevertheless, the city probably remained an administrative centre for some time. At the end of the 3rd cent., Ja 655 indicates the presence of a governor at the head of the Maʾdhin tribe. Ṣanʿāʾ appears to have been one of the main urban centres in the territory of this tribe; it could therefore have been a residence of the governor. Ṣanʿāʾ again became the seat of royal power from the reign of Abrahā (mid-6th cent.) onwards.

The church

During the second half of the 3rd cent., a temple Awwām, in the vicinity of the city (CIAS 39.11/o 3 no 6), was consecrated to the Sabaean god Almaqah and bore the same name as his great temple in the Sabaean capital Maʾrib. However, the place of worship that made a lasting impression on Arab-Muslim traditionists was the church of Ṣanʿāʾ (Gajda 2009: 123-126, Robin 2015).

It is said to have been built (or embellished) during the reign of Abraha to fulfil his wish to divert Arab pilgrims to it (al-Ṭabarī/Bosworth, 217). The magnificence of the church described by al-Azraqī (al-Azraqī/Malḥas, I, 138) is indicative of its splendour and the attraction it certainly held for the surrounding populations. The church was destroyed between 753 and 755 CE. Several hypotheses have been formulated for its location. Lewcock (1979, 2005) locates it south of the old town of Ṣanʿāʾ, equating the polygonal depression Ghurqat al-Qalīs with the martyrion of the church. On the contrary, Robin proposed to situate it at the site of the Great Mosque (Robin 2015). The presence of a Christian community is last attested in Ṣanʿāʾ in the 9th century, through the mention of Bishop Peter (Robin 1991: 148).

Jérémie Schiettecatte

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad / Bosworth, C.E. (ed.). 1999. The History of Al-Ṭabarī. 5. The Sāsānids, The Byzantines, The Lakhmids and Yemen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Al-Azraqī, Abū ʾl-Walīd Muḥammad / Malḥas, R. (ed.). 1983. Akhbār Makka wa-mā jāʾa fī-hā min al-āthār, 2 vol. Mecca: Dār al-Thaqāfa.

References

• Arbach, M., J. Schiettecatte & M. al-Hajj 2021. The kingdom of Sabaʾ in the second century CE — A reassessment, in C. Darles, L. Khalidi & M. Arbach (eds) Contacts between South Arabia and the Horn of Africa from the Bronze Age to Islam: 69–84. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi.
• Beeston, A.F.L. 1983. Pre-Islamic Sanʿāʾ, in R.B. Serjeant & R. Lewcock (eds) San’a. An arabian islamic city: 36–38. London: World of Islam Festival Trust.
• Daum, W. 2021. Abraha’s Cathedral in Ṣanʿāʾ: When was it built and why?, in C. Darles, L. Khalidi & M. Arbach (eds) Contacts between South Arabia and the Horn of Africa from the Bronze Age to Islam: 279–288. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi.
• Finster, B. & J. Schmidt 1994. Die Kirche des Abraha in Ṣanʿāʾ, in N. Nebes (ed.) Arabia Felix. Beiträge zur Sprache und Kultur des vorislamischen Arabien. Festschrift Walter W. Müller zum 60. Geburtstag: 67–86. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Gajda, I. 2009. Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste. L’histoire de l’Arabie du Sud ancienne de la fin du IVe siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’islam (MAIBL, 40). Paris: AIBL, De Boccard.
• Keall, E.J. 2005. Was there a Round City in Ṣanʿāʾ under Sasanian Rule?, in S.A. Bāṣurra (ed.) Ṣanʿāʾ. History and Cultural Heritage. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Yemeni Civilization. Vol. 2.: 59–70. Sana’a.
• King, G.R.D. 1980. Some Christian Wall-Mosaics in Pre-Islamic Arabia. PSAS 10: 37–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41222963
• Lewcock, R. 1979. La cathédrale de Ṣanʿāʾ. Dossiers d’Archéologie 33: 80–83.
• Lewcock, R. 2005. Early and Medieval Ṣanʿāʾ — The evidence on the Ground, in S.A. Bāṣurra (ed.) Ṣanʿāʾ. History and Cultural Heritage. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Yemeni Civilization. Vol. 2.: 71–85. Sana’a.
• Piotrovsky, M.B. 1988. The Fate of Castle Ghumdan, in S. Bersina (ed.) Ancient and Mediaeval Monuments of Civilization of Southern Arabia: 28–38. Moscow: Nauka Publishers.
• Robin, C.J. 1991. Du paganisme au monothéisme, in C.J. Robin (ed.) L’Arabie antique de Karibʾīl à Mahomet. Nouvelles données sur l’histoire des Arabes grâce aux inscriptions (REMMM 61): 139–155. Aix-en-Provence: Edisud.
• Robin, C.J. 2015. La Grande Église d’Abraha à Ṣanʿāʾ. Quelques remarques sur son emplacement, ses dimensions et sa date, in V. Christides (ed.) Interrelations between the Peoples of the Near East and Byzantium in Pre-Islamic Times (Semitica Antiqua, 3): 105–129. Córdoba: Oriens Academic.
• Serjeant, R.B. & R. Lewcock 1983. San’a. An arabian islamic city. London: World of Islam Festival Trust.
• Warburton, D.A. 1998. Stratigraphic section in the Old City of Ṣanʿāʾ. PSAS 28: 271–285. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41223634

_{Alternate spellings: Ṣnʿw, Sanʿā, Sana'a, Sanaa, San’a’, Ṣanʿāw, San’â, Qalis, al-Qalīs, al-Qalîs, Ghumdan, Ghumdân, Ghumdān}