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QuoteReplyTopic: Incredible Yemen Posted: 10-Feb-2013 at 04:52
Incredible Yemen
Situated in south-west Arabian Peninsula, along the coast connecting Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean (on the maritime road between ancient Egypt and India), opposite Somalian coast, Yemen is one of the oldest and most fascinating countries in the world, although almost unknown to most outsiders.
Its beauty is given by the impressive mountainous landscapes, the ancestral cities and villages perched on rocks (there is very little modern architecture in Yemen) and maybe most than anything, about the out-of-time way of living of the people, as result of isolation.
Sana'a, Yemen's capital city, 1,937,451 inhabitants. One of the oldest human settlements in the world. In 1972, the oldest manuscript of Quran was discovered here, dated no late than 647.
Is situated 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula.
The island measures 132 kilometres (82 mi) in length and 49.7 kilometres (30.9 mi) in width.
Socotra is one of the most isolated landforms on Earth of continental origin. The archipelago was once part of the supercontinent of Gondwana and detached during the Miocene (23 to 5 millions years ago).
Socotra is considered the jewel of biodiversity in the Arabian Sea. The long geological isolation of the Socotra archipelago and its fierce heat and drought have combined to create a unique and spectacular endemic flora. 307 out of the 825 (37%) plant species on Socotra are endemic,they are found nowhere else on Earth.
Developing isolated from the rest of the continents, the flora on Socotra has preserved very old plant species, whose strange appearance makes the island one of the strangest places on earth.
Because of its unique flora, it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
In 10th century CE,most of inhabitants were still Christians, perhaps one of the oldest Christian groups in the world.
In 2001 a group of Belgian speleologists of the Socotra Karst Project made a spectacular discovery. Deep inside a huge cave on the island Socotra they came across a large number of inscriptions, drawings and archaeological objects. As further investigation showed, they were left by sailors who visited the island between the 1st c. BC and the 6th c. AD. The majority of the texts is written in the Indian Brāhmī script, but there are also inscriptions in South-Arabian, Ethiopian, Greek, Palmyrene and Bactrian scripts and languages. This corpus of nearly 250 texts and drawings thus constitutes one of the main sources for the investigation of Indian Ocean trade networks in the first centuries of our era.
Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of a dormant volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a low isthmus. This harbour, Front Bay, was first used by the ancient Kingdom of Awsan between the 5th and 7th centuries BCE. The volcanic peninsula of Little Aden forms a near-mirror image, enclosing the harbor and port on the western side.
A local legend in Yemen states that Aden may be as old as human history itself. Some also believe that Cain and Abel are buried somewhere in the city.The port's convenient position on the sea route between India and Europe has made Aden desirable to rulers who sought to possess it at various times throughout history. Known as Arabian Eudaemon in the 1st century BCE, it was a transshipping point for the Red Sea trade.
Fascinating pictures. I always loved the architecture of Yemen, it's very special. I heard before that the Yemenis were the first to build apartments with more than one level for the purpose of living in them. I suspect they might have adopted and developed this knowledge from Babylonians or Sumerians.
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