Packed up and ready to hit the road…View image…wondering if we’d ever be in another nice hotel like the Taj Sheba during this trip…it was into the caravan of 4WD’s, heading to ancient Thula (also spelled “Thilla”), a walled town in the mountains. Thula’s mountaintop fortress perfectly defended this town from invaders for centuries. It had well-preserved walls, stone-tower houses, narrow street, aqueducts and unique concrete architecture. At one time, Thula also had been home to a community of Jews in ancient times, some of the more than 50,000 that once lived in Yemen. Yemen is Teman in Hebrew. Job’s friend Elifaz (in the Old Testament) came from Teman, and many Prophets also spoke of Teman).
The Queen of Sheba is said to have heard about King Solomon from Jews in Yemen. I freely admit that my religious and geographic history is pitiful. This why I’ve always maintained that you have to travel to really learn in a appealing manner. All those dry facts, biblical or otherwise, mean something when you actually have a chance to see with your own eyes and stand on the same ground.
There was also a street called Jesus Street and our guide explained that some people in Thula still speak Aramaic and from the 6th century BC on, there was a gradual shift from Hebrew to Aramaic. The Christians in these areas also spoke Aramaic and we ended up buying an “old” piece of alabaster with Aramaic writing on it. What does it say? Who knows. When was it made? Probably yesterday by some enterprising Yemeni who knew a sucker like me would come along to buy a piece of ancient history.
Thula also had very ancient windows made of alabaster set high in the houses above us. The Arabic name for alabaster is: qamari – “moonstone,” and sculptors of Saba were carving inscriptions and sculpture from at least the 5th century BC. Alabaster is mined from deep shafts and is a type of fine-grained gypsum. A slab could be two inches thick and weigh at least 35 kilos/80 pounds, and camels hauled the slabs to Sana’a, two big blocks on each side of the camel. This reminded me of the Salt Route in Timbuktu, Mali. Those huge salt blocks were also carried by camels the same way. The completed alabaster window or dome was nearly always set in walls facing east or west because alabaster cuts the dazzle without reducing the amount of light.
The group had plenty of time to tour Thula with our excellent guide and to interact with the children, always interested in talking to strangers…finding out about us while we learned a little about their lives…
There was a small souk in Thula selling djambias, the ornate hook-shaped knives that serve as status symbols for Yemeni men. Most men that we saw during the trip wore them and Hans immediately went on a pilgrimage to find perfect, older djambia. He succeeded toward the end with our guide’s help.
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