Troubled Yemen as isolated as ever

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 21

Troubled Yemen as isolated as ever

From the National Geographic News Service

In Aden, capital of South Yemen, red banners call for “Immortality to the Martyrs of the Revolution” and “Glory to the People and the Party.” Yet in most parts of the country, remarkably little has changed since the days of camel caravans. In the crowded Suq al Tam marketplace in Aden, the bouquet of frankincense and myrrh, of rose attar and sandalwood, mingles with the scent of cloves, cinnamon, coffee, cardamom, and thyme. People chew “kat”, a mild stimulant. Despite South Yemen’s new socialism, places like the medieval town of Al Mukalla still hark back more to Muhammad than to Marx. “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” (“God is great!”) calls the muezzin in his minaret at 4.30 each morning.

Retracing “Arabia’s Frankincense Trail,” the writer, Thomas Abercrombie, and his photo-grapher-wife, Lynn, found the entire area of South Yemen almost as isolated as in the first millennium 8.C., when herbs, spices and incense were coveted commodities.

The first American journalists to gain access to South Yemen, the Abercrombies followed remnants of the ancient incense road some 2400 miles through Arabia, from southern Oman, over Yemen’s high mountains, and across the dunes and black volcanic deserts of Saudi Arabia to Petra, a once wealthy Nabataean settlement lying in today’s Jordan.

“In Roman times a rugged journey of some 80 marches, the trail still offers challenges," reports Abercrombie. "People along the way, although hospitable, have their reasons to be chary of outsiders. Pro-Western countries astride the ancient soute shared it uneasily with the Soviet-backed regime in South

Yemen; Saudi Arabia militantly guards strict Islamic traditions. “Many areas bow to no government except local renegade sheikhs. Here, sub-machine-guns are part of everyone’s kit. All in all the journey was probably more convenient back in the first century.” Because of the restrictions on crossing international boundaries, Abercrombie was sometimes forced to backtrack. Once, he had to travel for two weeks to reach a point that was only 15 miles from where he started. Trade patterns as well as boundaries have changed. Today in southern Arabia, where the best of the frankincense trees grow, just a few tonne of the aromatic are produced each year, mainly for rituals and health uses. At the time of Christ, more than 3000 tonne may have been exported annually to consecrate temples, mask the odour of cremations, make cosmetics, and treat every ill from gout to a "broken head.” As a scholar in South Yemen explained: “It was a giant industry. The whole civilised world craved incense for their altars: South Arabia controlled the source. It developed a powerful cartel, a kind of OPEC of its time.” The first recorded mention of frankincense appeared on the fifteenth century tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, who had sent an expedition to the land of Punt (probably the Somali coast) to bring back frankincense. Myrrh, a darker, richer aromatic, perfumed the royal mummies of Egypt and was mentioned in the "Old Testament as a

main ingredient in the anointing oil of the Jews. In 450 8.C., Herodotus, the Greek Father of History, said of Arabia’s aromatics: “The whole country is scented with them, and exhales an odour marvellously sweet.”

The scarcity of water that made camels such a necessity on the frankincense trail may soon be alleviated in North Yemen. With financial aid from the United Arab Emirates, the Government is building a new dam near Marib, the capital of ancient Sheba, or Saba. Soon, oil may also help the North Yemeni economy. Abercrombie joined a convoy of trucks loaded with caustic soda and drilling mud for their twohour run to a well “in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s a wildcat all right,” the drilling foreman told him. “The nearest oil well is 600 miles away — on the other side of Arabia.”

Oil may easily eclipse the modest North Yemeni frankincense trade, and finance new ways of living, but one custom seems there to stay. The habitforming leaf called kat, chewed by most Yemenis, is the country’s most profitable crop. “Outlawed during the work week throughout most of South Yemen, kat is still part of the daily ritual in the north, at once a joy and a curse,” says Abercrombie, “Soon after midday the whole country closes down as men begin to shop for packets of leaves, then gather with friends for the camaraderie of the chew.”

Ancient Marib, which may have been the Queen of Sheba’s capital, lies partially entombed in the tell beneath, this arid town.