Daily Dose 1840

The walled city of Shibam

Daily Dose Monographic Images 1840 | The walled city of Shibam "Located in an irrigated agricultural land, Shibam is built on a rock basement. This basement has let the city to survive to the floods of the area. Most of its buildings were built during the XVI century, after the massive flood that destroyed the previous settlement in 1532-3. Shibam has been a rich city due to farming and the trading of spice and incense and this is the reason that city suffered continuous attacks and invasions. The morphology of the city and its buildings respond to the necessity to be protected from these attacks. The rectangular plan of Shibam (330 meters long by 240 meters wide) is surrounded by a wall that protected the city from the Bedouin attacks. The compactness and verticality of its buildings is also a consequence of the defensive nature of Shibam. Many of the towers are connected by bridges among them to allow the citizens to escape in case of an enemy attack. Each building is usually occupied by one family: the first and second floors are used as a stable for animals (the animals were kept within the house if there was an attack) and storage and the third floor used to be the home of the family. Shibam buildings were built with mud bricks, using a technique that has remained intact during the last centuries. They have a trapezoidal section in order to reduce the weight of the walls on the upper levels. The floors are built with wood and are beard by the outer walls; inside, wooden columns reduce the light of the beams. As the façade is eroded by wind and rain, the walls are periodically covered with mud." Via Hidden Architecture, Nicole Smoot.