Sanaa
Dar al-Hajar, the Rock Palace, stands on a pinnacle of rock in Wadi Dhahr, about 15 km north-west of Sana'a. A building was first raised here in the late…
Dar al-Hajar, the Rock Palace, stands on a pinnacle of rock in Wadi Dhahr, about 15 km north-west of Sana'a. A building was first raised here in the late eighteenth century by Ali ibn Salih al-Ammari, minister of Imam al-Mansur Ali, and the present palace was built in the 1930s by Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din as a summer residence. The palace seems to grow out of the rock, with several storeys of decorated windows and coloured glass, and it is now a museum. The green valley of Wadi Dhahr, with its orchards and grapevines, spreads out below.