SHIBAM

Shibam (Arabic: شبام‎) is a town in Hadramawt, Yemen with about 7,000 inhabitants. It has been the capital of the Hadramawt Kingdom for several periods of time. (There is also a town by the same name outside Yemen's capital of Sana'a. To avoid confusion, the town of this article is therefore often referred to as Shibam Hadhramaut.) Shibam owes its fame to its distinct architecture, which now is on UNESCOs programme to safeguard the human cultural heritage. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks, but about 500 of them are tower houses, which rise 5 to 11 stories high,[1] with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family.[2] This technique of building was implemented in order to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has existed for around 2,000 years, most of the city's houses come mainly from the 16th century. However, many have been rebuilt over and over again during the last few centuries. Shibam is often called "the oldest skyscraper-city in the world" or "Manhattan of the desert", and is the earliest example of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction.[2] The city has the tallest mud buildings in the world, with some of them being over 100 feet[3] (over 30 meters) high, thus being the first high-rise (which need to be at least 75 feet or 23 meters) apartment buildings and tower blocks. In spanish: Shibam, es una ciudad de Yemen, situada en la Gobernación de Hadramaut y poblada por unos 7.000 habitantes. Su arquitectura con edificios de varios pisos, de ladrillos de tierra, separados por un laberinto de callejones estrechos, le vale el sobrenombre de Manhattan del desierto. Fue en numerosas ocasiones la capital del reino hadramaut. Se inscribió en el Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la UNESCO en el año 1982. El método de construcción con adobe es bien singular alcanzando algunos edificios los mas de 23 metros de altura, los más antiguos datan del siglo XVI. Para proteger las edificaciones de las inclemencias, las fachadas son recubiertas con un baño espeso que hay que renovar regularmente. En Shibam es donde Pier Paolo Pasolini rodó su famosa película Las mil y una noches