About forty minutes by car from Sana'a, the Rock Palace of Wadi Dhahr is the most photographed image in Yemen — an imam's summer residence built directly on and around a pinnacle of rock, rising from the valley floor as if growing out of it. The building is five storeys and was constructed in the 1930s on the foundations of a much older structure. The valley below is green and terraced, a striking contrast to the arid plateau. The interior is open to visitors and gives a vivid sense of how Yemeni elite architecture looked at its most theatrical.
Dar al-Hajar (Rock Palace)
Five-storey imam's palace built atop a single rock pinnacle
A story
The palace was built in the 1930s by Imam Yahya as a summer residence, but the pinnacle itself had been built on for centuries — the foundations include earlier structures going back to the 18th century. Imam Yahya was assassinated in 1948 by tribal opponents while travelling back from this very palace, an event that triggered a brief civil war.