Data gathering and evaluation: 1985-1987 - The ‘renaissance’ of the 1970s and work at B

2. The ‘renaissance’ of the 1970s and work at Barāqish 1976-1986: epigraphy and architecture

3.2. Data gathering and evaluation: 1985-1987

The direct acquaintance with Barāqish began for the Italian mission in 1985. On 23 October a visit to Barāqish and the Al-Ḥazm area, the first for A. de Maigret and several MAIRAY members, was kindly arranged by the French mission’s R. Audouin, then also head of the Centre Français d’Études Yéménites in Ṣanʿāʾ (CFEY) (cf. Figs 1, 9).⁷⁰ On that occasion also the extramural temple of ʿAthtar (ʿAṯtar) at Maʿīn was visited. Audouin intended to give the Italian colleagues an idea of both the work the French mission had accomplished and the considerable problems still open in the area, with a prospective view to a possible French-Italian cooperation. Three weeks later, on 16-17 November, the Islamist team of MAIRAY conducted by Umberto Scerrato visited Barāqish (Fig. 16), Maʿīn, and Ḥazm al-Jawf (often, briefly, Al-Ḥazm) in their systematic survey of Islamic architecture and archaeology.⁷¹ The mosque and other ruins were recorded⁷² and a collection of surface material was made.⁷³

When these visits took place, Barāqish and a broad perimeter zone had recently been protected with a wire mesh fence. In all probability the measure had been

68 See footnote 45, above; and, e.g., Fakhry and Ryckmans 1951-1952, plates LII, LIV; Doe 1983, fig. 55; de Maigret 2004, 6, fig. 7. The surfacing roof structure of what was later identified as the temple of Nakraḥ had long been known to the sharīf of Barāqish as al-siǧn, ‘the prison’, a nickname borrowed by the MAFRAY archaeologists and rendered into French as le cachot or la geôle (e.g., Robin 1981b, 152; de Maigret and Robin 1993, 458, 460–461). This spot seems to have been the scene of some of Ḥayyim Ḥabshūsh’s observations and adventures in 1870, see footnote 26. On the sharīf of Barāqish see footnote 78.

69 de Maigret 1991a, 1991b, 1993; de Maigret and Robin 1993. See section 3.3 for details.

70 In addition to de Maigret, the participants on the Italian side included G. Gnoli, ‘Chicca’ Gaja, and the writer (FGF). On this landmark visit see already footnote 63.

71 In addition to Scerrato the team was composed of Giovanna Ventrone Vassallo, Paolo Cuneo, young graduate Michael Jung, and Mario Mascellani in his double capacity of topographer and driver.

We thank M. Jung, now at Rome’s Museo delle Civiltà-Museo d’Arte orientale ‘G. Tucci’, for allowing the publication of the plan in Fig. 16.

72 The mosque is indicated as ‘mausoleum/mosque’ in Scerrato et al.

1985, 394.

73 Scerrato et al. 1985, 392, 395.

taken when GOAM opened its Mārib office, responsible for the Barāqish area, in the earlier part of 1985.⁷⁴ The Italian involvement with Barāqish effectively began in 1986. It climaxed during a short, hectic period of that field season between 10 August and the late October. As summarized in section 2, the French had already been conducting epigraphic and architectural work in the Jawf for several years, but the region remained difficult because of local tensions, in spite of the alignment with the central government, and the MAFRAY operations had been losing frequency and effectiveness. The whole Jawf, Barāqish included, was MAFRAY’s concession, but basically the French work had been restricted to above-ground observations and survey; also their idea of a cooperation with the Italian mission merely comprising a sondage and studies of pottery now appeared limited.⁷⁵ Ultimately it was qāḍī al-Akwaʿ who decided to entrust Barāqish to the Italian mission (October 1986), and the critical factor that tipped the balance in favour of MAIRAY was the Italians’ offer of restoration, supported by competent ad hoc excavation.⁷⁶

The immediate result has been outlined in the previous section: in a matter of days (21-25 October) MAIRAY was asked to undertake a conservation and study evaluation and was granted a permit to visit Barāqish for a photographic and topographic survey. Four successive operations at Barāqish were organized and conducted in October-December 1986.⁷⁷ The first one was carried out between 26-30 October in the form of a systematic reconnaissance of the site for producing basic documentation, including professional photographic coverage by A. Solazzi (Fig. 2).⁷⁸ As usual

74 The fenced area was extended in 1990. We thank Khālid al-ʿAnsī (GOAM) for contributing information on this subject.

75 This was among the discussion topics on 16-17 September 1986, when de Maigret, with the assistance of C.J. Robin as head of MAFRAY and R. Audouin as director of CFEY, once again could visit the Jawf and archaeologically appraise five of its major sites. The occasion allowed de Maigret — and probably all the participants — ‘to form a better estimate of the archaeological position of Barāqish in Wādī Jawf’ (de Maigret 1986, 388). Shortly afterwards de Maigret noted: ‘Barāqish is beautiful, problematic — enormous, complete with Islamic’ (personal diary, 21 October 1986).

76 These developments of August-October 1986 are precisely and vividly recorded in de Maigret’s personal diary. In addition, one of us (Antonini) had first-hand knowledge of the context in which these facts unfolded. Fedele only caught a glimpse of the final stages and general excitement, having arrived in Ṣanʿāʾ for his field season on 16 October, and already on the 18th being on his way for Wādī aṯ-Ṯayylah, site WTH3. He learnt of the success concerning Barāqish when de Maigret visited the excavation on the 31st October. In the following pages of this chapter, for the sake of both neutrality and simplicity, the participation of the authors in the facts and events at and about Barāqish will be cited in the third person with our surnames.

77 Information after de Maigret’s ‘Exploration’ notebooks and personal diary, 1986. For a thematic list of the 1986 operations see de Maigret 1986, 388.

78 de Maigret 1986. In addition to de Maigret and Antonini, the

9 for MAIRAY, the creation of a topographic plan of the site was of paramount importance. This general plan (Fig. 3), the first professional mapping of the Barāqish mound, was accompanied by three topographic profiles (Figs 4–5) and an elevation view of the curtain wall (Fig. 6), all showing in realistic detail the monuments in the interior of the town.

Concerning the intra moenia ruins, the only Minaean structures emerging from the Islamic deposits were the monolithic pillars of three temples, already noted by previous researchers and visitors (see sections 1–2).

These temples were now labelled ‘A’, from subsequent excavations identified as consecrated to god Nakraḥ (Figs 7–8); ‘B’, similarly identified as a temple to god ʿAthtar dhu Qabḍ (ʿAṯtar ḏū-Qabḍ) (Fig. 9); and ‘C’ (Fig.

10). The visible pillars of temples A, B and C were clearly still standing in their original site. Three more prismatic monoliths could be seen within the precinct of the mosque (Figs 11–12), but in this case the non-uniform orientation of their faces suggested that a displacement had occurred. Some isolated blocks of similar appearance lying between Temple C and the mosque represented re-employed material. Unsurprisingly, large numbers of Minaean stone elements including squared and ornamented blocks, inscriptions, basins, drainage spouts or gargoyles, stelae, etc., occurred as scatters on the surface as a result of reuse in Islamic masonry (Figs 13–15). In the general survey of the town’s ruins the location and relative position of the Minaean architectural and epigraphic elements were recorded.

In the new plan of the site, the numbering of bastions in the curtain wall runs clockwise, whereas in the French provisional plans, derived from an aerial photograph, the numbering was counterclockwise.⁷⁹

participants to the operation were architect Vincenzo Labianca, topographer-surveyor Mario Mascellani, photographer Antonio Solazzi, draughtswoman and artist Patricia Smith, and the GOAM inspector-archaeologist Aḥmad Shujaʿ (Fig. 2). An arresting photograph of an ‘intact’ Barāqish from this time, showing the southern wall and adjacent plain, can be seen in the exhibition catalogue, Yemen (Robin 2000, 118). It was during this first sojourn at Barāqish that MAIRAY learnt of the deep-rooted struggle between the two ashrāf families of Āl-Ṣāliḥ and Jarfīl — the families of the Jawf claiming descent from grandsons of the Prophet Muḥammad — who considered themselves sharīf of Barāqish (‘owners’ of the site;

Ḥabshūsh 2018, 148, footnote [Verskin]; Verskin 2018a, 213, glossary;

cf. de Maigret and Robin 1993, 458, note 12). Since both families laid claims to the place, GOAM would pay for six guards from each family.

The feuds between Āl-Ṣāliḥ and Jarfīl affected MAIRAY’s activities during all and each of the Barāqish campaigns of 1987-1992, often severely and indeed causing disruptions. On these families and the tribal situation of the Jawf see Robin 1979b, 102, notes 2-3. The title of sharīf is restricted to the Jawf. The Latin-Greek bilingual stone YM 605, allegedly from Barāqish (see footnote 39), had been found by a man of the banū ashrāf (Costa 1977, 69).

79 Robin 1979b, fig. 1 on p. 109 (‘croquis redessiné par M. Hirschi’, p.

102); Breton 1994, pl. 15, and drawing of the plan on p. 110, fig. 42. The photograph was taken from von Wissmann 1976, pl. II between pages 488–489 (Robin 1979b, 107, note 5); in Breton 1994, 203, it was credited to the Swiss Technical Cooperation. Cf. footnote 54.

Bastion numbers were coded with a capital T, e.g. T5, from Italian torre, torrione (also bastione). Apart from the direction of counting, the discordance between the two systems is only noticeable in the area of the town gateway in the curtain’s southwest corner, where the wall plan was complicated by alterations and foreparts:⁸⁰ French bastion 2 (saillant 2) adjacent to the gateway did not receive any number in the Italian plan.

Details of numbering notwithstanding, there are 56 distinct bastions altogether, intercalated with recesses, to which two foreparts to the gateway must be added.

The 1986 photographic survey systematically covered the town and its remarkable wall. An additional, particular focus was a photographic record of wall inscriptions, both in situ and reused. A total of 246 inscriptions was personally recorded by de Maigret, who admitted possible omissions, as blocks or fragments located high up in the shadow were not easy to be seen or ascertained. 27 inscriptions were or appeared to be in situ, and the 13 longest and most important had already been published in Répertoire d’Épigraphie sémitique (RES).⁸¹ However, the majority of the inscriptions had been reused and haphazardly embedded in Islamic re-walling, often rotated 90 degrees or turned upside down. The curtain wall inscriptions recorded in 1986 are listed with their positions in Appendix B.

In order to understand the plan and construction of the Minaean wall, a geomorphological study of the site and its area was considered essential. This survey was carried out by Bruno Marcolongo (CNR, Padua) together with Alberto Maria Palmieri (CNR, Montelibretti, Rome) during two trips on 9-10 and 21 November. The only point of the curtain wall where its foundations were partly exposed was at the southeast corner of the city (Fig. 17),⁸² but from the surface no information on the substratum on which the wall rested could actually be gleaned. Following Marcolongo, de Maigret argued that Barāqish rested on a north-dipping sandstone mesa

— a tabular relief — similar to those present at some distance in the region (cf. Fig. 14).⁸³ With an eye to future excavations in the town’s interior, he made an elaborate drawing based on this reconstruction (Fig. 18), and readily sketched a series of propositions about the settlement’s development and stratigraphy (Appendix

80 Breton 1994, 68, 109–110, fig. 26.

81 On this subject see Robin 1979b; de Maigret and Robin 1993, 430;

Breton 1994, 67–68, 109–113; all with further references.

82 Cf. Breton 1994, fig. 6. Discussed in Fedele, Chapter 26 in Volume 2.

83 Marcolongo and Palmieri 1986, 462–463. The Barāqish relief was marked as such in Marcolongo’s ‘Geomorphological map of [the]

Barāqiš area’, 1986, unpublished, but presented at a smaller scale elsewhere (Marcolongo 1994, 1996, 2000). A different view was held by Vincenzo Francaviglia, who worked at Barāqish in 1987 (‘Geoarchaeological survey at Barāqish, Y.A.R.’, unpublished report in de Maigret et al. 1987). On this subject see Fedele, Chapter 26 in Volume 2.

10 A, Document A1). In this writing he explicitly spoke of a ‘Sabaean-Minaean occupation’, which indicates his belief that stratified evidence for the Sabaean control and the epigraphically attested walling by mukarrib Karibʾīl Watār (c. 700-680 BCE) might exist.⁸⁴

From an inspection of the collapsed curtain wall in the recess between bastions T43 and T44, de Maigret recognized ‘a double layer, the upper one being the Islamic level, and the lower one a compact layer made of uniform, grey mud bricks which go down behind the Minaean outer face of the preserved city wall recess’

(Fig. 19, with details); ‘a row of blocks parallel to the outer face of the recess, but about 3 m towards the inside of the wall, might be the inner casing of the curtain’.⁸⁵ In 1992 and 2003-2004, the excavations of bastion T45 confirmed that such mudbrick indeed constituted the fill of the ashlar walling. Finally, de Maigret in his 1986 notes tried to figure out the defensive working of the Minaean curtain wall. An elaborate passage on this subject is here reproduced in Appendix A as Document A2, to be read in conjunction with Figs 20–22. Already J.-F. Breton in his 1994 monograph had come to the conclusion that the mudbrick fill of the wall probably supported a walkway.⁸⁶

B. Marcolongo devoted most of his work in November-December 1986 to reconstructing the hydraulic features and neotectonic interference in the alluvial territory west and south of Barāqish, aimed at the town’s irrigation history and carried out by photointerpretation (Figs 23–24);⁸⁷ unfortunately ground control, with Palmieri’s assistance, could only be limited. An independent account of ancient irrigation at Barāqish was later published by geologist and geophysicist Vincenzo Francaviglia.⁸⁸ The trip to Barāqish on 21 November was partly connected with an appraisal, by local firms, of the state of decay of the town’s structures and of the works necessary to preserve them.

84 A long pre-Minaean occupation, although not precisely the

‘levelling layer’ hypothesized by de Maigret in 1986 (‘livello pareggiante’ in Document A1), was eventually revealed by Fedele in 2005 as a result of the extramural excavations in Area C (Fedele 2010;

Chapter 17 in this book, Volume 2) and by de Maigret’s deep sounding in front of Temple A in 2006 (de Maigret 2009b, 63–67; 2010a); see sections 4.4–4.5 below. Whether Wall F4 of extramural Area C is indeed Karibʾīl Watār’s wall is best considered an open question (Fedele, Chapters 17, section 6.2, and 18, section 3.1, in Volume 2).

85 A. de Maigret, 1986 Explorations notebook, ‘Barāqish’: see Appendix A, Document A2.

86 Both de Maigret and Breton focussed on the only fully preserved Minaean bastion, T48 (= French saillant 11): see Breton 1994, 51–53;

1999, 78. Two rows of loopholes, or embrasures, can be seen in the bastion from the outside, located at heights of 10.0 m and 12.55 m (Figs 20–21); according to Breton the inner face of the mudbrick fill should not have exceeded a height of 7.0-7.7 m.

87 Marcolongo and Palmieri 1986, 462–463; Marcolongo 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000.

88 Francaviglia 2002.

The fourth and last operation at Barāqish took place on 7-8 December and was a major expedition virtually involving all mission’s members then present.⁸⁹ On the occasion an Italian Television (RAI) team recorded the site and some of the activities for a documentary on the archaeology of Yemen. Chief scientific goals were the checking of the general topographic plan, the completion of the curtain wall records, and archaeobotanical sampling. A new survey for a distribution map of Sabaeo-Minaean and Islamic ceramics from the ground surface around Barāqish was also made, supplementing the collections begun on 26-30 October.

This latter survey also encompassed a number of non-ceramic artefacts (cuboid burners, for instance).

Conducted by one of the authors (Antonini), it was intended as a first approach to the extramural archaeological evidence within the fenced area of the site.

In the eastern quadrants this evidence was emphasized by existing structures such as an extramural well (Fig.

25) and a weir (Figs 26–28; for topographic reference see Fig. 3). Four main collection spots coinciding with concentrations of artefacts were recognized: BARi, in gullies below bastions T4 and T5; BARii, on a small hill to the west of the Minaean gateway; BARiii, on a raised bank more than 100 m north-northeast of bastions T15–T18, where human bones were also surfacing; and BARiv, immediately inside the entrance to the fenced area near its northwest corner. Their plan and details are illustrated in Chapter 2, this volume (Antonini). The operations of 1986 and particularly the last one ‘also led to the discovery of important satellite monuments around Barāqish’, including probable Sabaean tombs in the northern sector (cf. findspot BARiii) and temples and dams associated with irrigation works in Wādī Shaqab to the southwest (Figs 29–32).⁹⁰

Concerning archaeobotany, IsMEO’s L. Costantini was able to sample both pottery sherds, for seed and fruit imprints, and dried and charred macroremains from sediments. The latter were particularly retrieved extramurally from an erosion gully below bastion T5 (cf. findspot BARi, above). Such a precise topographic identification was made possible three decades later by a comparison of the photographs of the sampling (1986)

89 Including, in addition to de Maigret and Antonini, G. Gnoli, assyriologist Giovanni Pettinato (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’), archaeobotanist Lorenzo Costantini, Palaeolithic archaeologist Maria Grazia Bulgarelli, architects V. Labianca and Edoardo Gatti, M. Mascellani, restorer Mario Picchi, and the GOAM inspector-archaeologist Muḥammad Halabi. The great enthusiasm that accompanied this first Italian season at Barāqish, on its completion, can perhaps best be read in Gnoli (1988, xii), writing from Ṣanʿāʾ on 6 December 1986 to preface the first book-length publication of MAIRAY — another significant success.

90 de Maigret 1986, 388. On Wādī Shaqab, where on 8 December an important new inscription was found, see Gnoli 1986a, 1986b, 1993b;

and section 5 below.

11 with the detailed records afforded by the excavations in Area C (2005); in turn, a stratigraphic attribution of the plant material from in situ deposits became possible.

The details, together with a list of identified plant remains,⁹¹ are given in Fedele, Chapter 19 in Volume 2.

The Italian mission continued its reconnaissance of Barāqish in 1987, the last season of the first five-year cooperation programme.⁹² During this season a single operation was carried out, whose scientific return fully repaid the organizational investment: the subsurface testing of the town’s deposits. The equipment and expertise were supplied by the Lerici Foundation (Rome) in conjunction with the National Research Council (CNR, Montelibretti, Rome), and the operation took place from 26 August to 3 September.⁹³ An extraordinary series of difficulties and misadventures befell the team.⁹⁴ In the end, however, a total of eight usable cores were obtained, made by mechanical drilling with continuous coring. For comparison, one of the drillings was actually made in the plain outside the southern city wall. Furthermore, geoelectric and magnetic prospections were performed, which were unsuccessful.⁹⁵ A second coring operation would take place in January 1990 in conjunction with the 1989-1990 excavations of Temple A (see below). The results of both coring campaigns, and information on the geophysical

91 Original lists in Costantini 1986; Costantini and Costantini Biasini 1986, 362–363, figs 9–14; and a summary and evaluation already in Fedele 2010, 144–145.

92 de Maigret et al. 1987, an unpublished report. After 1986, unfortunately, the IsMEO journal East and West discontinued its ‘IsMEO activities’ section, which for a few years had been a customary and highly useful news vehicle. As a consequence, the MAIRAY/MAIRY operations at Barāqish in 1987 and 1989-1992 could not be speedily reported in print. Here, in addition to the above cited report, we are using information derived from de Maigret’s ‘Exploration’ notebooks and personal diary for 1987.

93 The participants to the operation were V. Francaviglia and Dario Monna (CNR), Mauro Cucarzi and Franco Brancaleoni (Lerici), V.

Labianca, M. Mascellani, and the GOAM inspector-archaeologists ʿAbd al-Ahad and Aḥmad al-ʿAṭṭab (from the central office) and Aḥmad Abdʿ al-Raḥman al-ʿIzzī from Mārib. Mascellani, Cucarzi and Labianca came back to Ṣanʿāʾ on 29 August; Mascellani returned to Barāqish on 31 August when de Maigret and several mission’s members visited the site (including Antonini, G. Pettinato, A. Solazzi, and GOAM’s Khālid al-ʿAnsī).

94 Here is a selection, as penned by de Maigret in his diary of 29 August after listening to the accounts by the returning team members: their car tyres went flat five times on the road to Mārib; at Barāqish, the heat was unbearable and the tools could not be touched

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