• 1  For overviews of the project, see Keall 1983; 1994; 1999a; 1999b.

1This paper is based upon the results of surface reconnaissance survey and excavation by the Canadian Archaeological Mission of the Royal Ontario Museum (CAMROM) on the Red Sea Tihâma coast (see Fig. 1). The Mission’s mandate is to investigate the city of Zabîd and to explore its hinterland1.

• 2 Ibn al-Dayba‘, p. 47.

2The main aim of the Zabîd Project is to try to determine how the city evolved from the time of its reported foundation in the 9^th century: what was the basis of its economy that allowed sponsors to build citadels, mosques and madrasas? Who were its leading figures and most dynamic rulers? Who were the intellectuals, and what was the measure of its material culture? What was its relationship to the outside world? One might also hope to pass judgment on what was the quality of life for the ordinary people. Besides that there are some very basic urban issues like how was water delivered to the city; the effectiveness of its sanitary systems; the quality of its dwellings and industrial goods, and the nature of its consumer items. In other words, everything that makes for the definition of an impressive city. The 15^th century historian of Zabîd, Ibn al-Dayba‘ who was a native of the city, is a little guilty of hyperbole in its description, but his words give some sense of Zabîd’s former repute2: “It is the mother of cities and the centre of all kinds of arts, towards which scientists from all around the world travel to acquire from its knowledge.” The relationship of Zabîd to its port sites has been of major interest since the inception of the Project.

• 3 al-Mad‘aj, 1988, p. 9, n. 88.

3During the long history of Zabîd, several ports on the Red Sea were associated with the medieval city. Among them, Ghalâfiqa purports to have been Zabîd’s first port. Some modern historians have suggested that it was from here that fifty tribesmen of the al‑Ashâ‘ir set sail, along with Abû Mûsa al-Ash‘arî, in the year AH 7/628 AD, as a delegation to meet the Prophet in al-Madîna3. When the Prophet delivered his call to the Yemeni tribes to join the cause of Islam after the conquest of Mecca in AH 8/629 AD, the two agents he sent to Yemen were the aforementioned Abû Mûsa al-Ash‘arî and Mu‘âdh b. Jabal al-An/sârî. They, too, are likely to have arrived in Yemen by way of the port of Ghalâfiqa. But while one may visit today on the Tihâma coast a place called Ghulayfiqa (sic), with a natural shallow anchorage for small fishing boats, and observe pottery on the ground from the 9^th- late 11^th centuries, there is no tangible archaeological trace of remains of a port that has been discovered there from the first two centuries of Islam; nor do the early Islamic writers specify that it was actually Ghalâfiqa whence the delegation set sail and whither they returned.

• 4  For a recent review of the role of /Husayn Ibn Salâma, see Peli, 2008.

5One of the important early references to Ghalâfiqa appears in the Ta’rîkh al-Yaman, a text composed by ‘Umâra al-Yamanî before his execution in AH 569/1174 AD. Here we read about the impressive accomplishments of the late Ziyâdid wazîr /Husayn Ibn Salâma who put into place infrastructure to support the Hajj pilgrimage traffic through Yemen, around 1000-1010 AD4.

• 5  ‘Umâra al-Yamanī, p. 11.

6Along the coastal road in the CAMROM study area ‘Umâra cites amongst others the caravan stations of al-Khawkha, al-Ahwâb and al- Ghalâfiqa5. But the factual reality is that this work was being conducted over two centuries after Abû Mûsa’s epic mission to meet the Prophet, and we must be cautious about the validity of these statements without critical concern for ‘Umâra’s sources. However, ‘Umâra’s description of the coastal road invites us to consider Ghalâfiqa’s history in relationship to that of other ports accessible from Zabîd.

• 6  Cf. Jâzim, 2006.

7As part of CAMROM’s aim to document features in the hinterland of Zabîd, earlier work had targeted the area to the south of modern Ghulayfiqa, in the bay of al-Fâzza (see Fig.2), which is another name associated with a port that had served Zabîd in medieval times. Confusingly, the medieval writers speak of al-Ahwâb, al-Fâzza, and al-Buq‘a to denote coastal sites located in the same area6. The most problematic is the latter, which in Arabic simply connotes “place”, and which therefore could be anywhere. For instance, on the 1:50,000 topographic maps for Yemen there are several references to “al-Buq‘a” marked along sections of the coast to the south of al-Fâzza, so that it is risky to suggest a specific identification for this place. Yet, based on archaeological realities, CAMROM’s fieldwork in 1997 resulted in a hypothetical resolution of the conflicting evidence.

• 7  See Ciuk & Keall, 1996, pls. 30-31.

9The settlement remains of al-Ahwâb lie on top of an old stabilized sand-dune, covered now with potsherds that are red from their iron-rich clay content, which explains the local toponym Kitf al-A/hmar (literally = “red shoulder”). Test trenches sunk in 1997 on top of the sand dune revealed no traces of any tangible structures. Only the pottery remained as evidence of a former settlement, one likely built of palm-fronds, in the manner of the fishing village huts of today. The pottery is limited in time range to the 9^th-10^th centuries. It includes the distinctive turquoise-glazed storage jars made in Iraq that are ubiquitous around the Indian Ocean in early Islamic times. The site assemblage also includes types of the classic wavy-lined decorated household wares that were produced in Zabîd after its 9^th century foundation7. A cautionary note is necessary here, to the effect that CAMROM has documented this pottery as having been made according to the Zabîd standard of function and design, but made with local clay, as has been observed at Ghalâfiqa as well (see below).

• 8  Cf. Rougeulle, 2005, p. 226.

11The proportion of imported foreign items in the ceramic surface record is very small, compared to that of other contemporary Indian Ocean port sites, such as Sharma8. Yet a huge, formally laid out cemetery to the immediate south of the Kitf al-A/hmar settlement, with which it is assumed to be contemporary, implies that al-Ahwâb functioned more than just as a modest fishing village. A thousand or more preserved graves speak of a sizeable population. The cemetery was laid out on the top of a large stabilized barchan dune that has resisted erosion until recently, simply because it had been covered by another barchan dune. The graveyard is notable for the consistent practice at the time of burial of covering each grave with a layer of beach pebbles, and keeping those in place by means of a border of clay. Today the clay retains more moisture than the surrounding sand, and in the first moments of daylight before the sun has dried the surface dew, the clay shows up for a moment as a positive outline of the grave.

• 9 al-Khazrajî, I, p. 133, 288.

13On the inland side of Kitf al-A/hmar, where run-off was trapped to furnish wet clay, there are the remnants of a brickyard, of which some over-fired examples remain unused and unusable in their firing stacks. Their dimensions show that they were made specifically for the building of a substantial structure to the site’s immediate west. The walls of that structure have been almost entirely systematically mined later for re-cycling of the bricks, as is the pattern of archaeological remains in all of the Tihâma. But single period pottery fragments recovered from the building site allow one to attribute the structure to Rasûlid times, and one may assume that this is the famous “beach-house” or “sea-villa” where the Rasûlid sultans resorted to from time to time, as frequently noted by al-Khazrajî9. Incidentally, visitors to the beach residence entered by way of al-Fâzza. The settlement of al-Ahwâb must have been deserted by then.

• 10  See Ciuk & Keall, 1996, pl. 37.

15Adjacent to the dûm-palm in the 1980s were visible relics of a past settlement, in the form of remnants of storage vessels preserved in situ to around one third of their original height. These storage vessels, in the so-called “Trackware” tradition, can be dated to around 11^th-13^th centuries10. A few potsherds were also recovered from the surface that can be dated to the 13^th-14^th centuries. But pottery of the 16^th century was entirely absent. Apart from the settlement itself, and the later saint’s grave, there was another vast cemetery contemporary with the settlement site and formally laid out precisely in the same manner with pebble-covered graves as the one south of al-Ahwâb, implying once again a sizeable population. It, too, could be documented by CAMROM in 1997 because of the movement off-site of a large barchan dune that had covered the cemetery in the 1980s. It can be observed that, once subjected to erosion by the strong on-shore winds, sites like this are badly deflated already after a decade of exposure. We may propose that the archaeological remnants adjacent to the dûm–palm / waliyya site represent the port settlement of al-Fâzza in the Rasûlid era.

• 11  Cf. Keall, 2001b, p. 222-223.

16The third port settlement in the bay of al-Fâzza is next to the al-Fâzza mosque. It is an iconic feature for the entire area. Stylistically the mosque is likely to have been built no later than the middle of the 16^th century, for the zone of transition used to transfer the square shape of the ground plan to the round shape of the dome, employs a squinch. This squinch (hooded niche) technique was generally phased out in the Tihâma by the middle of the 16^th century through the adoption of a pendentive, comprising superimposed layers of bricks laid in a saw-tooth pattern11.

• 12  Cf. Keall, 2001a, p. 42-43, pls. 4 & 5.

17Sadly the sea is in the process of undermining the al-Fâzza mosque, as the soft sediments it is built upon are eroded away by relentless wave action on the shore. Twenty-five years ago the shore was fifty meters or more distant. Now the waves lap at the base of the mosque. Pottery on the surface of the ground next to the mosque can be dated to the 16^th century Ottoman occupation of Yemen, and to more recent times, through identification of ceramic materials produced in the workshops of Hays12. Again, most significantly, there is an extensive cemetery adjacent to the mosque, to its east, that by far exceeds in extent the needs of the inhabitants of the handful of today’s fishing huts. In other words, it seems reasonable to claim that the mosque site provides the evidence for the third of the al-Fâzza bay ports settlements. It is worthy of note that, as with other medieval Islamic cemeteries in the coastal reaches of the Tihâma where significant graves often sport headstones that are recycled from Late Prehistory, some of the graves in the al-Fâzza cemetery have headstones of basaltic pillar fragments, likely from nearby al-Midamman where in the 2^nd millennium BC they had been set up as menhirs.

• 13  ‘Umâra al-Yamanî, p. 4, n. 5.
• 14 Ibn /Hâtim, I, p. 248; Vallet, 2006, p. 330.
• 15 Ibn al-Dayba‘, p. 49.

18For clues as to the naming of this settlement site and its large cemetery, one may turn to Kay’s footnotes to ‘Umâra’s text where Kay refers to al-Khazrajî’s description of the city of Zabîd13. It was a round city, he cites, with four gates of which one (the western one) is called Bâb al-Nakhl (for the date-palm plantations to the west). But, according to al-Khazrajî, writing in the middle of the 14^th century, it used to be called Bâb Ghalâfiqa whence the road led to Ghalâfiqa and al-Ahwâb. The last author to refer exclusively to the west gate as Bâb Ghalâfiqa is Ibn /Hâtim, who died in 130514. Ghalâfiqa is cited as having been once the port of Zabîd, but it fell into decay and was superseded by al-Ahwâb, which (at the time of al-Khazrajî’s writing) was called al-Buq‘a. Writing at the end of the 15^th century, Ibn al-Dayba‘ has the same observation15. The name of al-Buq‘a, then, can be associated with the last phase of major settlement in the bay of al-Fâzza.

• 16 Niebuhr, 1968, p. 323.
• 17 Niebuhr, 1969, pls. 7 & 8.

20The explanation of this natural process offers the chance to make sense of the archaeological remains that have been recorded at Ghalâfiqa. In 1763 Karsten Niebuhr spoke disparagingly of the run-down conditions of the village, as well as the difficulties of reaching the port because of the coral reefs16. Chances are that the coral reefs were always there, even in Ghalâfiqa’s heyday as a port. In all likelihood, small craft would have been needed to ferry people and goods from shore to larger vessels that stood in deeper water outside of the reefs. What had probably changed well before Niebuhr’s time was that sandbars had made the sheltered anchorage for small craft no longer viable. Sandbars in the vicinity of Ghulayfiqa today extend now well beyond the original bay (cf. Fig.1). But a reflection of Ghalâfiqa’s former grandeur is to be seen in the two Kufic-inscribed tombstones that Niebuhr documented during his visit17.

• 18  For an overview of the architecture of 6^th century Yemen, see Costa, 1992 and Finster, 1996.
• 19  On Pre-Islamic Ghalâfiqa, see also Beeston, 1988, p. 1-6.

21Close to the modern village of Ghulayfiqa is a large enclosure, with a mi/hrâb in the qibla wall, indicating its role as an open-air mosque (mu/sallâ). The enclosure is distinguished by a row of four standing columns made from sea-coral that have capitals carved from the same blocks of stone as the columns themselves (Plates 1&2). Without question, these columns date from before Islam. In addition, they have a markedly Byzantine look to them, and arguably reflect the 6^th century Abyssinian occupation of the region18. It is even conceivable that they are still in situ, representing the remnants of a temple that was converted into use as a mu/sallâ in Islamic times. The villagers describe how, from time to time, winds scour away the sands that cover the ground, revealing a paved floor. It speaks of investment in a building feature far beyond the aspirations of the residents of today’s modest settlement. Conceivably the 6^th century port-site lies beneath today’s village, just to the east19. The sea has long since migrated far away from the immediate vicinity, and fishermen must cross up to a kilometre of sabkha flats to reach the shoreline.

• 20 Stone, 1985, p. 35; Keall, 1983, p. 389-390.

22To the north, over one kilometre distant from the village of Ghulayfiqa, there is extensive saltpan activity for the production of sea-salt, as in Niebuhr’s day. Here there is a shallow lagoon, and grass flats that likely reflect the scenario of the gradual in-fill of the former harbour. Very close to the flats is the potsherd-covered ground that became the focus of CAMROM’s fieldwork in 2008 (Plate 3). The sherd site had been first identified in 1982, following a tip-off from Francine Stone whose Tihâma expedition had fortuitously camped at the site20. The sherds she produced for CAMROM to observe in Zabîd – classic so-called Hatched Sgraffiato – provided even then the vital clue that she had found a site that likely reflected a medieval settlement site of the famed Ghalâfiqa. Subsequent sherding by CAMROM in both 1982, and as confirmed during casual later visits, with the recovery of identifiable Chinese and Egyptian imports, further revealed that the sherd site could be placed in the relatively narrow time-frame of 9^th - late 11^th centuries. In fact, in 1982, this reality was pivotal in terms of the ability of CAMROM to develop its ceramic typology for the entire study area. For the imported materials, in their limited time frame of production, allowed for the attribution of similar dates to the locally produced pottery found at the site of Ghalâfiqa. It is important to note that as a result of the 2008 work it can be stated that the fabrics present in these wares found at Ghalâfiqa are slightly different than those recorded at the kiln-site in Zabîd. There is a greater incidence of reduction firing in the sherds found at Ghalâfiqa, indicating production in the style of Zabîd, but using an inferior firing process. The same principle was observed in the 9^th-10^th century pottery recorded at the Kitf al-A/hmar site of al-Fâzza bay, as described above.

• 21  Cf. Ciuk & Keall 1996, pl. 32d.
• 22  Readers of this article should be aware that many of the dates suggested for pottery illustrated i (...)
• 23  So-called “Trackware”, as seen in Ciuk & Keall 1996, pls. 15, 37, 41-42.

26Amply present also at Ghalâfiqa are jars with 3-prong combing used to effect a simply wavy-line decoration21, rather than the complex patterning of later Trackwares.Because of its occurrence after the single groove wavy-line of the Zabîd kiln site wares, but beforethe later more complex combed patterns, this simple 3-prong combing has been dubbed by CAMROM as “Transitional”, with an 11^th century date22. But noticeably absent are the Zabîd Project 3-pronged combed Trackwares23, which are present at Sharma. So we may assume that this particular settlement at Ghalâfiqa ceased to be inhabited around 1100.

• 24  Ibn al-Mujâwir,p. 240.
• 25 Stone, 1985, p. 35 & n. 16.

27This leaves as elusive the second most famous Ghalâfiqa reference, namely the citation by Ibn al-Mujâwir of activities at the port by Persians arriving from Jidda who built a mosque with a minaret at the end of the 11^th century. Later, wooden panels taken from the minaret after it had fallen into decay were used for reconstruction work in the al-Ashâ‘ir mosque in Zabîd24. Francine Stone refers to Geniza documents in which there are references to the port of Ghalâfiqa in the 1130s and 1140s25. But no material recovered by CAMROM can be attributed to the 12^th century. It is obvious that if these historical reports are true, the settlement lies somewhere other than what has been observed so far.