Cob: Shibam

[Mike Holland]

I saw something on TV the other day that I found fascinating, as a person
that lives in an old cob house.  It was a documentary about a city named
Shibam, also known as the 'Manhattan of the Desert', in Yemen.  It's a
walled city, at least 500 years old, rebuilt on the ruins of a previous city
destroyed by deluges.  The old part of the town consists of massive high
rise buildings constructed from wood, adobe and cob, with mud and lime
plastering.  Most of the buildings are 5 storeys high, while the largest is
some nine storeys.  Originally a whole extended family would live in one
building, but with the changes in demography most buildings now have several
familes in them.  Some of them have internal plumbing and sanitary
facilities, but even for those that don't, there is a complex and well
designed public water and sewerage system.  In the buildings that belonged
to the richest families, floors, walls and ceilings were plastered in skim
after skim of lime plaster mixed with camel hair and eggshells (to aid the
carbonation of the lime), until the surface is so smooth that it shines: a
person's wealth was gauged by how many eggs were used in the plastering.

Sadly, some of the buildings have fallen in the last few years, because of
lack of maintenance.  Because of this, Unesco has put it on the Heritage
list and is paying for restoration of some of the buildings using
traditional techniques.

It's well worth a look - you should find some references if you do a search
for 'Shibam'.  I guarantee you it will put the buildings that we live in and
that we are constructing in perspective.

Mike