History of the Ma'rib Dam
In ancient times, the Ma'rib Dam was called the Spa Valley, and it was built in a pyramid shape in cross-section, with a delicate infrastructure of masonry and stone, and its length is about 550 m. The dam controls the flow of water because it contains gates, as it carefully conserves water to supply dense agricultural areas with water And the irrigation system is based on more than 4000 acres (16 km2), and although the rulers of Sheba and Himyar carried out the development of the dam in the fifth and sixth centuries AD, it contained fractures, and in the seventh century there was an earthquake that led to its last demolition, but it was Translated in Islamic myths and legends as a dam flood or a dam burst.
Dam breakthrough
In 632 AD, the dam was breached between the middle of the sixteenth century and the death of the Messenger Muhammad, peace be upon him, in 632 CE. This incident was described in the Holy Qur’an as a punishment from God because the people of Sheba refused to believe in it, and by a raid in the civil war in Yemen, the images revealed The destruction of the 7-meter high tower in the northern dam, which was built of limestone, and most of it appears to have been reused from the construction of previous dams, and it has ancient Sabaean and Donkey carvings
Dam construction
The city of Ma'rib is the ancient capital of Spa, and one of its rulers was Queen Belqis, and it was talked about in European literature alongside the legendary Queen of Sheba, and the city is 8 km away from the site of the Ma'rib Dam located at the mouth of Wadi Ubaida, and the need to expand the dam increased as the dam was raised and re-established. The construction of drainage structures, due to the expansion of the irrigated areas, and during the rule of Yassin Yekhanem (1st century BC) the first massive reconstruction was carried out, and the second reconstruction was carried out in the year 30 BC under the government of Al-Sharji, Bel Yafar Ibn Karab Asad and construction work was carried out on The dam during the year 450 AD, and the last reconstruction process was completed under the government of Abraha al-Ashram in 557 AD, and after the completion of all construction work, it became a land dam 18 meters long, and its extension reached a maximum of 750 meters, and it was covered with stone to strengthen The water slope, in the places where the dam borders the valley, there are two northern and southern irrigation outlets, which are well preserved at present, and as for the volume of water, it is 15 cubic meters per second and is discharged from the outlets to the right bank. The amount of water discharged to the left bank is 30 cubic meters per second through the main channels.