Yemen’s Renewed Conflict Threatens Ancient Heritage and Fuels Antiquities Trafficking Fears

LONDON: A renewed offensive by Houthi forces in Yemen has intensified fears for a cultural heritage already scarred by over a decade of war, destruction, and looting.

The full impact of recent hostilities on archaeological sites and museum collections is still unclear. Yet years of conflict, weakened institutions, and divided authority have fostered an environment where antiquities are vulnerable to theft, smuggling, and sale to international buyers.

Mohammed Ali Thamer, director general of cultural statistics at the Sanaa-based Ministry of Culture, estimates that roughly 477 of the 2,318 archaeological sites recorded in Yemen’s 2014 Archaeological Atlas have sustained total or partial destruction during the war.

His research for the Sanaa Center, an independent Yemeni think tank, draws on ministry records, statistical data, and the Yemen Data Project to document 775 destructive operations targeting cultural sites between 2014—the start of the civil war—and 2025.

Quantifying the illicit trade remains difficult. With no comprehensive national statistics on stolen artifacts, it is impossible to determine exactly how many objects have vanished, their origins, or who ultimately profits from their sale.

Yemeni antiquities have drawn foreign collectors for centuries, with the movement of artifacts abroad linked to the country’s colonial past. Today’s problem, however, extends well beyond disputed colonial acquisitions.

Thamer’s research describes a new wave of looting during the current conflict, especially in Marib, Al-Jawf, and Shabwa, where ancient tombs and archaeological sites have been targeted by individuals searching for gold and marketable artifacts.

Estimates cited in his research place the number of Yemeni artifacts held abroad between 10,000 and 14,000, while Yemen’s antiquities authorities have cataloged 8,000 objects allegedly smuggled out during the war.

Saleh Al-Baydani, president of the Anaween Center for Research and Transformation Studies in Aden, said deteriorating state institutions have created conditions conducive to trafficking.

“The war has weakened state institutions, fragmented authority, diminished protection for archaeological sites and museums, and fostered conditions where looting and trafficking can flourish,” he told Arab News.

The illicit trade, he added, “is rarely the work of a single individual or organization. It typically begins with illegal excavation or theft from archaeological sites, museums, or storage facilities. Objects then move through local intermediaries and cross-border networks before reaching dealers, auction houses, private collectors, and other buyers abroad.”

“Such networks may also benefit from corruption, political influence, or the protection of armed actors operating within the broader war economy.”

Houthi forces control several of Yemen’s most significant archaeological and historic sites, including the Old City of Sanaa, the historic town of Zabid, and locations tied to the ancient Kingdom of Saba in Marib. The walled city of Shibam in Hadramawt is another internationally recognized heritage landmark.

Al-Baydani fears renewed fighting could further endanger Yemen’s archaeological heritage.

“I am seriously concerned,” he said. “Yemen has already lost much of its archaeological heritage during the war, and renewed fighting could expose additional historical sites to destruction, looting, and smuggling.”

He warned that the threat extends beyond the direct consequences of combat, citing what he described as an ideological issue within the Houthi movement regarding Yemen’s pre-Islamic past.

Al-Baydani cited published lectures by Hussein Al-Houthi, the movement’s founder, in which he criticized Yemenis for celebrating their Sabaean and Himyarite history.

Al-Houthi dismissed the ancient monuments of Marib as little more than column ruins and characterized the promotion of pre-Islamic civilizations as an attempt to lure Yemenis back to their pre-Islamic past, according to Al-Baydani.

“I think this reveals a great deal about the ideological foundations of the movement,” he added. “We are dealing with a group whose founder regarded a significant portion of Yemen’s historical identity as something to be rejected rather than celebrated.”

“In my view, this makes the threat to our heritage more complex than the damage typically associated with war.”

In September, Mohammed Jumeh, Yemen’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, warned that the country’s heritage properties are “endangered due to the impact of war, which has caused extensive damage to cultural and historical landmarks across the country.”

He also highlighted threats to hundreds of other archaeological and heritage sites, especially from looting.

Thamer’s research documents the military use of archaeological locations by the Houthis, including the ancient city of Baraqish, seized by the militia in August 2014. Before withdrawing in early April 2016, Houthi forces reportedly planted landmines around its outskirts.

Al-Baydani also raised concerns about the financing of the illicit antiquities trade. He said a 2024 report by a UN panel of experts described an investigation into an organized smuggling network allegedly backed by the Houthis, through which artifacts were being sold abroad.

“So the concern is not only about what might happen in the future,” he said. “I believe further fighting could lead to more Yemeni antiquities appearing on international markets, although some may remain hidden for years before reaching auction houses or private collections.”

Museums across Yemen have also suffered heavily during the conflict. Thamer identified 12 of the country’s 22 museums as looted or damaged. The Regional Museum in Dhamar, which held approximately 12,500 objects, was destroyed.

Museums in Aden, Taiz, Al-Mukalla, and Ataq were also affected by fighting and looting, while others in Ibb Governorate—including those at Al-Oud, Al-Mashneh, Dhafar, and Jibla—were almost completely looted. Much of the collection of the Military Museum in Sanaa was confiscated.

These losses have created opportunities for objects to enter illicit markets while making it harder for authorities to establish exactly what is missing. Once artifacts pass through multiple intermediaries, incomplete ownership histories can obscure when and how they left Yemen.

A case involving 77 ancient Yemeni artifacts seized in the United States illustrates the difficulties of recovering cultural property during conflict. In 2023, the U.S. State Department and Yemen’s embassy asked the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington to safeguard the objects.

“These pieces had been in the custody of the U.S. government,” Chase Robinson, the museum’s director, told Arab News.

“The question was how to return them, given the circumstances in Yemen, and the ambassador and the State Department asked if we would be willing to look after them.”

The objects were formally repatriated to the Yemeni government but remain with the museum under an arrangement allowing them to be preserved and, in some cases, displayed.

The collection includes 65 funerary stelae, or slabs, from northwestern Yemen dating to the second half of the first millennium B.C., and 11 pages from a 9th-century copy of the Qur’an. The pages had been concealed behind a photograph in a picture frame and were intercepted after being sent from Yemen to an address in the United States. They are believed to have originated from documents taken from the Great Mosque of Sanaa, one of the world’s oldest mosques.

Danielle Bennett, the museum’s deputy director for collections and exhibitions, described one smuggling tactic as the “Hobby Lobby method.”

She told Arab News: “You say they’re modern tiles, falsify the documentation, and hope the shipment isn’t opened.”

Robinson said larger objects present different challenges, explaining that “when you go to museums you see a lot of headless torsos, because if you chop off the head it’s much easier to handle than an entire statue.”

The museum has now adopted stricter provenance requirements, insisting on documentation proving that objects were legally and ethically removed from their countries of origin.

Yemen’s General Organization of Antiquities and Museums has also raised concerns about objects offered at auctions in London in July by Bonhams and Apollo Art Auctions.

Bonhams offered a South Arabian alabaster head of a woman, dated to approximately 2,000 years ago, with an estimate of £5,000 to £8,000 ($6,700–$10,600), and a large South Arabian male head valued between £20,000 and £30,000. Neither found a buyer.

Bonhams said the male head came from a private collection formed in Aden and exported before November 1967, when the British withdrew from the territory. The auction house told Arab News it had reviewed provenance and was satisfied the lots had been lawfully placed on the market.

Apollo Art Auctions also rejected allegations that it had knowingly offered unlawfully obtained or looted antiquities, citing its due-diligence procedures and screening of items against the Art Loss Register.

Neither allegation establishes that the objects were stolen, but the cases nonetheless highlight the importance of scrutinizing ownership histories, particularly for objects originating in a country affected by prolonged conflict and documented heritage losses.

Al-Baydani cautioned against attributing responsibility to individual institutions or buyers without evidence. “However, those dealing in antiquities have a clear duty to conduct rigorous due diligence,” he added. “They should be able to demonstrate a credible chain of ownership, produce relevant export records, and explain when and how an object first entered the international market.”

“Buyers willing to acquire objects with uncertain provenance, and intermediaries prepared to accept incomplete ownership histories, help sustain the financial incentive for further looting.”

Al-Baydani called on the British Museum and auction houses to publish provenance records for objects identified by Yemeni authorities and to cooperate with independent reviews. Any object shown to have been removed from Yemen unlawfully, he said, should be withdrawn from sale and returned.

Yemen’s antiquities authorities face a formidable task. Archaeological surveys have stopped, foreign missions have departed, and the country lacks a coordinated system for protecting sites and tracking missing objects.

Thamer said Yemen needs a comprehensive register of destroyed archaeological sites and antiquities smuggled and sold overseas. Such a record could help investigators trace objects, support restitution claims, and establish the scale of the losses.

Al-Baydani warned that the consequences of further losses would extend beyond the disappearance of individual objects.

“What troubles me is that Yemen could lose more of its history at a time when it is already struggling to preserve what remains,” he said.

“These objects are not simply valuable possessions; they are evidence of thousands of years of civilization, and once they disappear, part of our history disappears with them.”

Source link