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Sunday 2007-04-08 - Sey’un, Yemen
The Sultan’s Palace
In the center of Sey’un, the old palace of Sultan Mansur bin Ghalib rises high above all buildings in the town, its whitewashed walls glittering in the sun. The enormous building, dating from 1873, is now museum, and a visit is well worth the 500 YR entrance fee. Stone steps lead halfway up the hill on which the palace is built, the imposing gate followed by more steps leading to an inclining courtyard. The building, already interesting in itself, houses several different exhibitions.
The first big room is for the archeology department, with many different artifacts from the Wadi Hadramawt area. I’m always interested in scripts, and here I find several pieces of stone with inscriptions in an early local Yemeni script especially interesting. (We also saw samples of that at the Almaqah temple of Bar’en near old Marib.) Then there is an ethnological department, where a bust decked out in bride’s clothes and jewelry (a including a silver “crown”), and a baby cot very like those used all over Central Asia (with a hole in the bottom to lead away the urine) drew my attention.
Farther up, two photo exhibitions are not to be missed. In the 1930s the Englishwoman Freya Stark made two trips (alone) through the Wadi Hadramawt area; unfortunately she had her travels cut short by sickness and had to be evacuated, but during both her trips she took many photographs, which later were donated to this museum. An interesting collection is on show here now — a unique document of life in the Hadramawt in that period, especially since she as a woman was also able to photograph other women.
Also in the 1930 the Dutchman Daniel van der Meulen, employed by the Dutch government, made many trips through the Hadramawt. He was looking to get to know the origin of many immigrants to the Dutch East Indies who came from this area, and came to wealth there. Together with the German Von Wissman, who surveyed the area and made the first usable map of Wadi Hadramawt, he made many trips which he documented with countless excellent photographs. Sadly, many of the prints exhibited in the museum are badly fixed and yellowing and fading, here and there clumsily “restored” by sticking a partial new print over the old one. This department of the museum badly needs a good curator who knows how to preserve photographic materials, or it all may be irretrievably lost.
A fourth department we visit is the customs museum with many coins, documents, etc. Finally, we go up to the roof on the 6th floor for a spectacular view of the city center and a wide area around it.
We round off the morning with a bottle of local lemonade from freshly pressed limes, sugar to taste (only a little for me): a very refreshing drink — though not everyone appreciates the sour taste like I do!
