Deux campagnes de prospections au Yémen: 1992 – 1993

The surveys carried out by the French Archaeological Mission in Jawf-?a?ramawt in 1992 and 1993 aimed to set up research programmes on specific themes, some of which have been carried out on the prehistory and the protohistory along the palaeo-river Jawf-?a?ramawt. Today, the documentation that had been collected by the members of the mission and kept in the archives, despite the very informal state of the data, constitutes a unique primary source of documentation. The security situation of the country, the modern cultivation of the ancient irrigated fields, the extension of housing over the last 30 years, have significantly changed the territories explored. The documentation gathered brings new elements to the archaeological map of Yemen, for the regions of al-?Abr, wadi Markha, Shabwa, and the western part of the wadi ?a?ramawt, from Bi?r ?amad to wadi Sar. Prehistoric sites are mapped, as well as many megalithic funerary monuments, some domestic sites could be identified as Bronze Age and some sites from the southarabian period show unprecedented characteristics. The inventory of the sites is completed by a study of the discovered inscriptions, and the presentation of a statue–menhir shown to members of the mission in 1996 in the coastal region of Balhaf.