The site of the great Dam of Marib, also called the Dam of 'Arim (, ''''), is upstream (south-west) of the ancient city of Maʾrib, once the capital of the ancient kingdom of
Sheba. The Kingdom of Sabaʾ was a prosperous trading nation, with control of the
frankincense and
spice routes in
Arabia and
Abyssinia. The Sabaeans built the dam to capture the periodic
monsoon rains which fall on the nearby mountains and so irrigate the land around the city. Some tentative archaeological findings suggest that simple
earth dams and a
canal network were constructed as far back as around 1750 BC, but the most reliable information dates the Great Dam of Marib to about the 8th century BC. It is counted by some as one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the ancient world. The medieval Arab geographer
Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī describes it thus: It is between three mountains, and the flood waters all flow to the one location, and because of that the water only discharges in one direction; and the ancients blocked that place with hard rocks and lead. The water from springs gathers there as well as floodwater, collecting behind the dam like a sea. Whenever they wanted to they could irrigate their crops from it, by just letting out however much water they needed from sluice gates; once they had used enough they would close the gates again as they pleased.
Construction of the
Emblem of Yemen The date of the first construction of a dam at Ma’rib goes back to somewhere between 1750 and 1700 BC. The earliest inscription on the dam is one placed there at the time of its construction or repair of parts of the dam undertaken by Yatha' Amar Watar I, son of Yada' El Zarih I, who reigned in 760–740 BC. The following repair was in the time of Yada' El Bayin II who reigned in 740–720 BC. that a dam breach occurred some 400 years before the rise of Islam, but Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī assigns it to the time of Abyssinian rule. Ancient South Arabian sources report that in about 145 BC, the dam suffered a major breach during the war between the people of Raydān and the Kingdom of Sabaʾ, and that is the very breach that many scholars consider to have caused the
Sayl al-ˁArim (, Flood of the ‘Arim) mentioned in the Quran; it is also mentioned in Arab proverbs which speak about the
hands of Sabaʾ having separated at that time. The fighting between the Raydānites and the Sabaeans delayed the repair of the dam, and this caused devastating losses of crops and fruit, leading large numbers of people to disperse in search of new land capable of supporting life, so huge migrations ensued. It is still uncertain though whether it was that particular breach that caused the "flood of ˁArim" or not, since some migrations certainly took place in the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE, and they are also ascribed to the breaking of the Dam of Maʾrib. Generally speaking, the dam was repaired twice shortly before the coming of Islam, once by
Sharḥabīl Yaˁfar bin Abī Karab Yasˁad in 450, and by
Abrahah in 543. The inscriptions on the dam explain the costs of repair and the large number of workers involved. The archaeology of the Ma'rib Dam shows the effects of
siltation behind dams in antiquity, and measures to extend the operational life of the reservoir. The same problems of siltation encountered in the ancient dam were also faced in the construction of the new dam. Despite the increases in height, the dam suffered numerous breaches (recorded major incidents occurred in 449, 450, 542 and 548) and the maintenance work became increasingly onerous; the last recorded repairs took place in 557.
Final breach Locals report that the final breach of the dam had been predicted by a king called ʿImrān, who was also a
soothsayer, and later by the wife of the king. According to legend, the breach was caused by large rats gnawing at it with their teeth and scratching it with their nails. In 570 or 575, the dam was again overtopped, and this time left unrepaired. The final destruction of the Dam of Maʾrib is alluded to in the Quran (
34: 15–17): The consequent failure of the irrigation system provoked the migration of up to 50,000 people from Yemen to other areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and even to the
Levant. ==Modern dam==