Socotra Island

Actualités, p. 1
Obituaire, p. 1
nCmY, p. 3
Yémen, p. 3
Épigraphie, p. 37
Abou Dhabi, p. 38
Arabie, p. 38
Arabie p. 38
Émirats Arabes Unis p. 40
Sharjah p. 41
Revue de presse p. 42
ENCART :
Julian Jansen van Rensburg (Heritage Researcher Royal Botanical Garden
Edinburgh) The threatened cultural heritage of Soqotra: reports of subversion, looting and theft of antiquities and ancient manuscripts .p. 53

Articles
Carl Davila (The College at Brockport, SUNY, NY) & Anne Regourd (CNRS,UMR 7192)
Données sur les papiers à timbres secs des manuscrits d’al-āla p. 64

Alessandro Gori (Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies,
University of Copenhagen)
Yemenite mystic poetry among Ethiopian Muslims: a note on the case of
ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Buraʿī p. 82

Appel à contribution Lexicographie de la péninsule Arabique p. 107

Abdelhamid Drira (Doctorant en histoire contemporaine, Sorbonne Université) Lexicographie de la péninsule Arabique. 1.Genèse et sources du Dictionnaire arabe-français d’Albert de Biberstein Kazimirski (20 novembre 1808 Korchów-22 Juin 1887 Paris) : la question de la part des dictionnaires « yéménites » p. 115

The hūrī (pl. hawārī) is a traditional logboat, carved from a single tree into a double-ended vessel which can be propelled by either sail or paddle. Hūrīs are found throughout the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, yet little about this ubiquitous vessel is known. This paper builds on previous research undertaken on hūrīs on the island of Socotra, Yemen, and looks at how these vessels can help in understanding the traditional and cultural changes hūrīs have brought to Socotra.

First discovered in 2001, and fully published in 2012, a corpus of more than 200 graffiti from the cave Hoq on ancient Dioscourides, modern Socotra, constitutes an invaluable resource shedding a rare light on trade routes of the ancient Indian Ocean. Whereas more abundant evidence has previously been available to document the activities of Roman merchants, while evidence attesting the role of their Indian counterparts has been comparatively scarce, it now becomes possible to move beyond the traditional bias towards ‘Romano-centric’ narratives, thus, providing a fuller account of ancient long-distance trade in the region. Specifically, the graffiti introduce us to traders and travellers, Buddhist monks and Yavanas, hailing from Roman Egypt, Palmyra, Axum, Hadramawt, Western India, Bactria and Gandhara. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to appraise the importance of the Hoq graffiti for Indian Ocean studies, analyse the import of the evidence for our knowledge about the organisation of trade, and outline the resulting corrigenda to the orthodox picture of ‘Indo-Roman trade’.

K. Grønlund Evers, ‘Cave of Revelations: Indian Ocean trade in light of the Socotran graffiti,’ in "Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology" 10–11 (2014–15): 19–37.

Note1: This is a digital version 2.0 differing slightly from the printed article in that it contains some corrections and, most importantly, full references to graffiti.
Note2: This digital v.2.1. further corrects a minor misreading on p. 25, so that the corrected reference now reads "Burrows 1940: #324."

Paper for the 20th ICES, Mekele, 2018

A set of epigraphic and above all archaeological discoveries in Socotra, Hararge and Addis Ababa prompts me to elaborate on marine trade routes and cycles of wealth and poverty in the Horn of Africa. This is a full photo version more adapted to a magazine than the necessarily more restrictively formatted and less illustrated acts, still in preparation.

The author posted independently in his blog the answer that he gave to a viewer of a video-presentation of my article "Yemenis are Not Arab - Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis". The video is uploaded in many portals; indicatively:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpOx9xiHNGc
The author referred to me before replying and so his answer fully represents my opinion on the matter.
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/if-yemenis-are-not-arab-why-did-the-romans-call-yemen-arabia-felix/

Présentation à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres d’une tablette inédite inscrite en écriture et dialecte araméens de l’oasis de Palmyre (Syrie), datant de l’an 258 de notre ère, trouvée dans une grotte de l’île de Soqotra, Océan Indien ; traduction accompagnée d’une étude philologique et historique.

The paper is devoted to a historical reconstruction of cultural and commercial contacts which took place between Egypt and India at the peak of the maritime Silk Road to the West in antiquity, i.e. from the first to the fifth century A.D., and to how these contacts were reflected by the Roman authors of that time. It is shown that in this context the story of Siddhārtha Gautama can have been transmitted to the West from the first to the fifth century A.D. This study is based on the world-systems approach to late antiquity and it has the following two complementary dimensions: (i) reconstructing archeological evidences for the contacts of that time; (ii) cross-cultural textual analysis. As a result, it was detected that almost all the main claims of late antique authors about Buddhism and the ways of its expansion are well confirmed by archeology.

La crise diplomatique créée par le blocus du Qatar par l'Arabie Saoudite et ses alliés depuis le 5 juin 2017 s'est enlisée : l'Arabie et ses alliés n'ont pas réussi à soumettre le Qatar malgré leurs ultimatums successifs ; les mesures d'embargo diplomatique et de blocus économique n'ont pas conduit le Qatar à résipiscence. Elles ont au contraire conduit celui-ci à nouer ou renforcer des alliances avec d'autres acteurs régionaux rétifs aux ambitions de Riyad, et à développer une contre-offensive qui élargit les enjeux à toute la région environnant la péninsule arabique. Une opération concertée Le défi lancé au Qatar par le prince héritier Mohamed bin Salman d'Arabie a sans doute été décidé lors de la visite que Donald Trump avait effectuée à Riyad deux semaines plus tôt 1. Le but recherché était de restaurer la suprématie menacée de l'Arabie Saoudite sur le monde arabe et musulman et de restaurer le partenariat stratégique des Etats-Unis avec l'Arabie Saoudite 2. A la suite des accords de Genève sur le contrôle du programme nucléaire iranien, l'Iran, plus peuplé, à la main d'oeuvre mieux formée, à la gouvernance moins opaque que le royaume saoudien, offrait désormais plus d'attrait aux milieux d'affaires occidentaux. La Coalition réunie en 2015 pour écraser la rébellion houthiste au Yémen devait montrer que le royaume wahhabite gardait la capacité de protéger les intérêts de l'Occident dans la Péninsule arabique, et pouvait mobiliser nombre d'amis et d'obligés au sein du monde arabo-musulman. Il s'agissait aussi de rappeler la prééminence saoudienne aux partenaires mineurs au sein du CCG, Mais l'incapacité de Riyad à vaincre la rébellion au Yémen jetait un doute persistant sur l'avenir du Royaume, et de la monarchie qui avait donné son nom à un pays géré comme une propriété privée. L'élection de Donald Trump a donc été pour MBS une divine surprise : le nouveau président a immédiatement confirmé le retour à la position américaine traditionnelle dans la région. Parmi les prétextes invoqués pour mettre fin au rôle de trublion régional joué par le Qatar depuis une vingtaine d'années, celui du soutien de celui-ci aux "mouvements terroristes islamistes", Frères Musulmans, Al-Qaida et Daesh confondus, peut paraître surprenant, dans la mesure où ces soutiens, ne sont que des instruments d'une politique d'influence qui a son pendant en Arabie Saoudite et en reflètent en rien une position idéologique en faveur de l'islam politique. Quant à la mansuétude de l'émirat à l'égard de l'Iran, elle n'est que l'expression d'une politique réaliste fondée sur une histoire et des intérêts communs, en particulier le gisement gazier off shore du North Dome, partagé entre les deux pays, et d'une politique d'équilibre entre ses deux puissants voisins. 2 Le "pacte du Quincy" scellé lors de l'entrevue entre le président Roosevelt et le roi Abd el Aziz Ibn Séoud, le fondateur du royaume, en février1945, fragilisé par les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, avait été remis en cause par l'administration Obama.

1 - An English translation by the author, 2015 (Revised and updated) of his article first published in Russian in "W MIre Nauki" Mahazine,
N2-2012 ;

2 - This English translation-article:  'Tahrir - Myth or Reality?'
by *Vladimir Agafonov -  the abridged version by Dr. Sue Christie
with Photos by Vladimir Melnik, 2016 - TAYF iss. 13  July 2016

Soqotra, the largest island of Yemen's Soqotra Archipelago, is one of the most uniquely diverse places in the world. A UNESCO natural World Heritage Site, the island is home not only to birds, reptiles, and plants found nowhere else on earth, but also to a rich cultural history and the endangered Soqotri language. Within the span of a decade, this Indian Ocean archipelago went from being among the most marginalized regions of Yemen to promoted for its outstanding global value. Islands of Heritage shares Soqotrans' stories to offer the first exploration of environmental conservation, heritage production, and development in an Arab state. Examining the multiple notions of heritage in play for twenty-first-century Soqotra, Nathalie Peutz narrates how everyday Soqotrans came to assemble, defend, and mobilize their cultural and linguistic heritage. These efforts, which diverged from outsiders' focus on the island's natural heritage, ultimately added to Soqotrans' calls for political and cultural change during the Yemeni Revolution. Islands of Heritage shows that far from being merely a conservative endeavor, the protection of heritage can have profoundly transformative, even revolutionary effects. Grassroots
claims to heritage can be a potent form of political engagement with the most imminent concerns of the present: human rights, globalization, democracy, and sustainability.

Eurema brigitta (Stoll, 1780) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) is recorded for the first time from the Socotra Island (Yemen). The specimen represents either a wet season form of a subspecies originating from Africa or a form with its usual occurrence in Madagascar, Mascarenes, Aldabra and Comoros. The current number of butterfly species known for Socotra is now 27.

Yemen museums recently displayed two stone reliefs with animal couplings, one from Wâdî'Abadân (south of Shabwa) with two bulls, and a second one from Aden area with lions. In the center, the driver is their master, an astral divinity, probably a lunar one.
The motif of "deployed coupling"(french: attelage déployé) is a series spread over a large geographical area from Eastern Mediterranean to India. It spread to South Arabia, around the 3rd cent. AD, along sea routes used by Syrians and especially by Palmyrenians merchants.

First posted here:
https://profmegalommatistextsinrussian.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/обширная-дискуссия-о-моих-статьях-о-йе/

Published on 12th November 2006 here:
http://forum.jordanclub.ru/cgi-bin/forum.pl?board=10002;action=print;num=1163337901

Extensive discussion about my articles on Yemen, Hadhramaut, Somalia, Socotra, Abyssinia, East Africa and Mesopotamia

Ссылка на мою презентацию Древнего Йемена как морской сверхдержавы
Reference to my presentation of Ancient Yemen as a Maritime Superpower

Ссылка на мое предложение о возвращении сабейского алфавита для написания языка Сокотри
Reference to my suggestion to reintroduce Sabaean alphabet for the writing of Soqotri language

Bu çalışma Brleşk Arap Emrlkler’nn(BAE) Yemen poltkasını, Yemen Cumhurbaş
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kanı Abdurabbu Mansur Had’nn hükümetnekarşı İran destekl Hus hareket ve Yemen’nnesk Cumhurbaşkanı Al Abdullah Salh’e bağlıgüçlern Eylül 2014 darbesn gerçekleştrmessonrasını merkeze alarak ncelemektedr. Suu
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d Arabstan öncülüğündek Arap Koalsyonu,darbeclere karşı 25 Mart 2015 tarhnde “Ka
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rarlılık Fırtınası” adıyla br asker operasyon başlatmıştır. Yemen’dek ç karışıklıkları gder
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mek çn Arap Koalsyonu dahlnde Yemen’deasker müdahaleye katılan BAE, ülkedek ççatışmanın önüne geçmedğ gb Yemen meş
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ru hükümetnn varlığının korunması yönünde br adım da atmamıştır. BAE’nn Yemen mü
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dahales boyunca temel motvasyonu Kızılde
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nz ve Bab’ül Mendep’n rakp br gücün elnegeçmemes doğrultusunda güneydek ayrılıkçıhareketlern desteklenmes şeklnde özetleneb
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lr. BAE’nn 2015’te Yemen’e asker müdahalekararı almasında, bölgedek güç rekabet olgu
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sunun etkl olduğu ve BAE’nn Yemen’dekfaalyetlernde ekonomk çıkar, güç ve bölgeselhegemonya arayışını devam ettrdğ gözlem
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lenmektedr. Geçen 5 yılın ardından, BAE’nnde dahl olduğu Arap Koalsyonu se Yemen’dehedeedğ sonuçları elde edememştr.

В монографии рассматриваются основные источниковедческие вопросы, связанные с трактовкой античной литературной и эпиграфической традиций, демонстрирующих процесс освоения эллинистическим и римским миром южных окраин ойкумены. В книге впервые предлагается полный перевод на русский язык сочинения Агатархида Книдского «Об Эритрейском море» с историческим и литературоведческим комментарием, проводится сравнительный анализ древнегреческих рукописей корпуса сочинений «Малых греческих географов», в которых сохранился «Перипл Эритрейского моря», дается анализ происхождения рукописей, а также новый, уточненный перевод этого источника, устанавливается чтение и обсуждается исторический контекст
латинских надписей из Северо-Западной Аравии и из южной части Красного моря (архипелаг Фарасан), греческих и индийских – с острова Сокотра, реконструируются связи Сокотры с Римом и Восточной Африкой. Также предлагается анализ происхождения понятия «Красное море».
Хронологически исследование ограничивается рамками эллинистической и римской эпох (последняя четверть IV в. до н.э. – IV в. н.э.).

Data on the prehistoric biota of the Socotra Archipelago (Yemen) are scarce. We report on the first extinct vertebrate ever recorded from this western Indian Ocean island group. An exceptionally preserved adult specimen of Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus was found in a calcite flowstone in Hoq Cave on the NE coast of Socotra Island. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating on bone fragments estimates the fossil at ca. 7600–7400 cal a BP (radiocarbon age 6669 ± 70 14C a BP) corresponding to an early Holocene wet period in southern Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Morphometric analysis of the skull compared to Recent specimens from the neighbouring mainlands finds the fossil morphologically most similar to Egyptian (Nile Valley and Libyan Desert), not to East African or Middle Eastern populations. The species is currently absent from the Horn of Africa (Somalia and Eastern Ethiopia). Although potentially a stray individual, we also discuss the palaeoenvironmental implications under the hypothetical scenario that the fruit bat is a remnant of an extinct resident population. If so, the extinction of an important pollinator and seed disperser may have impacted the Socotran terrestrial ecosystems.

Eurema brigitta (Stoll, 1780) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) is recorded for the first time from the Socotra Island (Yemen). The specimen represents either a wet season form of a subspecies originating from Africa or a form with its usual occurrence in Madagascar, Mascarenes, Aldabra and Comoros. The current number of butterfly species known for Socotra is now 27.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:22DB5AA9-883A-43B0-A233-2CBBBFE75785 Redescription of the percoid fish Symphysanodon andersoni Kotthaus (Symphysanodontidae) from the northwestern Indian Ocean, based on the holotype and the second known specimen

This research focuses on assessing the socio-economic impact of the case study: The Ghubbah Mangroves Restoration Project. Such assessment is essential to explore the positive and negative impacts of such projects and determine if the project effectively achieves its goals. The Study is the first of its kind on the Socotra Archipelago. It collected quantitative and qualitative data through the status assessment of the Planted Mangroves, interviews and household surveys conducted in October 2021. Using the "Social Assessment of Protected and Conserved Area" (SAPA) tool, the study provides evidence that the project has achieved its primary goal, and the positive impacts have already begun to emerge in the community's livelihoods.

The study concludes that to achieve sustainability of its activities any conservation project needs to consider economic and social implications of these activities. The local communities are the key driver behind the success of any project of this kind. The project has met four Sustainable Development Goals (1, 2, 13 and 14).

It is recommended to thoroughly document the project’s processes and develop guidelines for good practice in planning and implementing conservation projects, especially mangroves restoration projects. The study recommends adopting the sustainable development approach in disaster response actions.

Furthermore, regular assessments of projects' social and economic impacts ensure better effects and outcomes. There is a need to enhance the communication and outreach strategy of the project because they are critical to promoting conservation projects and obtaining community and government advocacy.

ABSTRACT The ecological land scape classification (ELC) allows the identification of homogeneous land units (LUs), which are fundamental for investigation and management purposes. ELC is particularly relevant in international cooperation programmes targeting areas characterized by very scarce and scattered thematic information. In this study, three techniques are compared to find the best classification of LUs of Socotra Island (Yemen): a Self-Organizing Map neural network, the Clustering LARge Applications method and a Two-Step clustering algorithm. In this way, three LU maps of Socotra Island were produced and the relationship between LUs and plant communities, as identified by a phytosociologiacl investigation, was analysed. Based on evaluation procedures, TS method emerged as the most suitable being able to better discriminate the plant communities so as to reach a trade-off between classification complexity and class homogeneity. Even though the identification of LUs depends on the selection of the classification method and criteria, the scale adopted and the specific management and planning purposes, this study represents a contribution towards a standardization of ecological classification systems thanks also to the worldwide availability of georeferenced environmental data.

If the world knows little about Yemen, and more particularly about Ancient Yemen, so do the Yemenites and the Yemenite schoolchildren. Why does this happen?

If the world knows little about Yemen, and more particularly about Ancient Yemen, so do the Yemenites and the Yemenite schoolchildren. The subject is not properly studied even in Yemeni universities, and consequently it is maladroitly incorporated at the level of primary and secondary education; as expected this affects the average Yemenite culture. In brief, the Yemenites, contrarily to Turks, Greeks, Persians, Russians and Italians, ignore quasi-totally their past.
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First published on 22nd April 2007 in American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles

Dahaisi cave is one of only two known parietal rock art sites on Soqotra, and the first to provide evidence into the lives of the ancient indigenous inhabitants of the island. This paper presents the latest discoveries that were made during a National Geographic-sponsored expedition undertaken in March 2015.

Recent fieldwork on the south coast of the island of Socotra, Yemen, has revealed a hitherto unknown petroglyph site. This site represents the first rock art to have been recorded on the south coast, an area generally regarded as being unpopulated up until the recent past. The corpus of recorded petroglyphs includes feet, cupules, anthropomorphic figures and geometric motifs, whose designs parallel those from known rock-art sites on the north coast. The importance of this site is that it provides us with the first glimpse into the religious and socio-political lives of the inhabitants of the previously unknown southern half of Socotra. Placing these petroglyphs within the broader context of rock-art studies on the island of Socotra has also allowed us to begin to disentangle the skewed view of Socotra's inhabitants.

В статье публикуются шесть образцов сокотрийской в ной сказки, впервые переведенных на русский язык. Публикация знаменует собой начало масштабного проекта по созданию антологии сокотрийских фольклорных текстов на русском языке, инициированного авторами в 2021 г. Предполагается, что антология – первая в своем роде в истории отечественной и мировой науки – будет доступна как широкому читателю, так и специалистам, интересующимся культурами Юга Аравии. Приведенные в статье образцы сокотрийского фольклора ранее публиковались в серийном издании Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature на языке оригинала, а также в переводе на английский и арабский языки. В ходе работы над Корпусом участники проекта разработали для сокотрийского языка – ранее бесписьменного – систему письма на основе арабского алфавита. Использованные в настоящей статье фрагменты сказок на языке оригинала приведены в этой графической системе, разработанной под руководством академика РАН В. В. Наумкина.

The article features six fairy tales from the island of Socotra in Russian translation. The publication marks the beginning of a large-scale project of creating an anthology of Socotri folklore in Russian, initiated by the present authors in 2021. The first of its kind in the history of Semitic philology, the anthology is intended for a broad Russian readership, but also for specialists interested in folklore traditions and popular religion of today’s Southern Arabia. The samples of Soqotri oral literature presented in this paper were collected by the participants of the RussianYemeni working group. They have previously been published in the Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature in transcription, English and Arabic translations, as well as in the Arabic-based graphic system developed in 2014 by the Russian-Yemeni team led by Acad. Vitaly Naumkin.