Great Dam of Marib
Gran presa de Marib
- Date
- c. 700 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Marib, Marib Governorate, Yemen
- Credited to
- Kingdom of Saba (inscriptions of Yatha'amar Bayyin)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Earth-and-masonry dam about 580 m long that diverted the floodwaters of Wadi Adhanah towards two sluice-gated canals with spillways, irrigating some 9,600 ha. For more than a millennium it sustained the agricultural oasis that enriched the kingdom of Saba.
There have been diversion works at Marib since the 2nd millennium BCE; the great sluice-gated dam is dated by inscriptions to the 8th-6th centuries BCE and was repeatedly repaired until its collapse, recalled in the Qur'an (Surah 34).
What it led to
- large-scale irrigation agriculture in the Arabian desert
- prosperity of the incense trade
- Arab migrations after its final collapse (c. 570 CE)