The walled town of Barāqish in interior Yemen – ancient Yathill of the Sabaeans and Minaeans – was for Alessandro de Maigret (1943-2011) ‘one of the archaeological marvels not just of Yemen, but of the entire Near East’. Established as an oasis settlement in the semi-desert depression of the Jawf, it became in the 1st millennium BCE a thriving caravan station on the ‘incense’ route…