Fouilles de Shabwa VI

Standing against the main gate (no. 3), north of the citywall, and thus integrated into the city's defensive system, it occupies a prominent strategic position. Consisting in a main building (known as A), on a high-rise finely dressed stone podium, associated with a building (known as B) surrounding a rectangular courtyard, it belongs to an architectural formula common to many buildings in Southern Arabia. If the building has not delivered any dedication of construction, it can be – due to epigraphic and numismatic clues – identified as the Shaqîr (S2QR) palace. Probably built at least during the fourth century BC, several times redesigned, the palace has been burnt down at 225/230 AD, rebuilt and embellished shortly thereafter
after, occupied during the fourth and fifth century AD and then definitively destroyed by the fifth century. It was thus for several centuries the seat of the hadhrami power. Its layers of fire have delivered an impressive number of pieces of wood, sometimes in good condition, allowing a fairly faithful restitution of a tower house associated with a courtyard building. In the third century, the palace delivered fragments of stone decoration and wall paintings of Syrian or even more oriental influence. The palace bears witness, at least in the early centuries of our era, to the extent of the commercial and artistic relations of the
Ḥaḍhramawt rulers, and to a court art, similar to that of other residences.