[06 July 2003] Yemen is famous for its great history and ancient civilization. Hence, it has a wide variety of historical sites and monuments distributed all over the country.
Yemen’s historical heritage of antiquities can be classified into the following categories:

- Ruins of ancient cities
- Old historical cities
- Old dams, and water reservoirs
- Historical mosques and ruins of old temples.

-- Ruins of the Old cities
There are a lot of historical sites in Yemen attributed to ancient Yemeni cities. The most famous old cities which their ruins are still seen are: Marib, Shabwa and the old city of Amran

- Marib: the most famous old city in Yemen. It was well known as the capital of Sheba Kingdom. Its history dates back to the10th century BC. And it is located around 165 km eastern the capital Sana’a. The city contains a large variety of antiquities and historical sites.

- Serwah: another famous ancient city its history attributed to the reign of Sheba and it was the capital of Sheba before Marib as historians said.

- Qrenow: it is a very well known old city. It was the capital of Maeen state, one of the old Yemeni states had flourished in the 4th century BC.

The ruins of the city are still seen in the governorate of Al-Gouf some 140 km away northern the capital Sana’a.

- Barakish: it is a very important old city in Yemen, situated around 125 km away from Sana’a. the fence of the city came up to 8 meter high in some facets, it has 57 towers and two gates-eastern and western. It is said that the fence was restarted in 450 BC. It is worthwhile, mentioning that the Romanian leader Eloise Gallous arrived in Barakish in 24 BC.

- Temna: It was the capital of Kataban kingdom which had flourished in the 4th century BC. Currently it is called huger Kahlan, sets in the mid of the distance between the old city of Shabwa, capital of Hadhramout kingdom and Marib capital of Sheba kingdom.

The American foundation mission carried out an excavation activity in the site in 1951 and found out large number of antiquities scriptures and statues.

- Shabwa the capital of Hadhramout kingdom and the largest of its cities. There is a controversial argument on the history of the city. Some historian attribute the beginning of Hadhramout kingdom’s booming to the 11th century BC. And the mid of the 4th century BC.
It is worth mentioning that Shabwa was a religious center in the old Hadhramout and the city contained more than 60 temples
sabanet