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Donate here to help with emergency relief like food and water.When donating, select "people in specific country" and choose Yemen! This organization provides a lot of aid to a lot of places that you can help too!
PLEASE consider donating whatever you can if you have the means! We wish we were able to donate the money we receive through sticker sales to all of the causes that we care about and that matter, but unfortunately at this time, our sales are just starting off. While every dollar counts, we would like to ensure that we are donating a good amount to each organization and not spreading everything too thin. You may not get a cute sticker out of it this time, but your donation is still important :).
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This city was built almost 1700 years ago.
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Shibam, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is known for its distinct architecture. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud brick, and about 500 of them are tower blocks, which rise 5 to 11 storeys high,with each floor having one or two rooms. This architectural style was used in order to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has been in existence for an estimated 1,700 years, most of the city's houses originate from the 16th century. Many, though, have been rebuilt numerous times in the last few centuries.
Shibam is often called "the oldest skyscraper city in the world". It is one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction.[16] The city has some of the tallest mud buildings in the world, with some of them over 30 m (98 feet) high, thus being early high-rise apartment buildings. In order to protect the buildings from rain and erosion, the walls must be routinely maintained by applying fresh layers of mud. The city is surrounded by a fortified wall, giving it the name "the walled city of Shibam". The nearby town of Tarim contains the tallest structure in the Wadi Hadhramaut valley, the mudbrick minaret of the Al-Mihdhar mosque. It stands at a height of approximately 53.53 metres (174 feet). This is the tallest minaret in the southern Arabian peninsula. The foundations of many of the buildings in the city were compromised by the flood waters, eventually leading to their collapse. It was also the target of an Al Qaeda attack in 2009.In 2015, Shibam was added to the list of World Heritage sites in Danger when violent civil war erupted in Yemen. Historic buildings were significantly damaged during heavy bombing in Sana'a, and remain at risk from armed conflict. |