Sanctuary of the Queen of Sheba

The Awwam temple — popularly known as Mahram Bilqis, the 'Sanctuary of Bilqis (the Queen of Sheba)' — is one of the most important Sabaean sacred sites of the ancient world, set at the edge of the Rub' al-Khali desert near the ruined city of Ma'rib in Yemen. It was built under the Mukarrib Yada'il Dharih I., whose reign is placed between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, though archaeological evidence points to ritual use spanning more than a millennium. The temple was consecrated to Almaqah, the Sabaean moon deity, and its oval temenos with a monumental hypostyle entrance hall is architecturally unlike virtually any other pre-Islamic Arabian sanctuary. The legendary association with the Queen of Sheba — whose figure appears in the Hebrew Bible, the Quran, and Ethiopian royal chronicles — has shaped the site's popular name across centuries. Large sections of the complex remain unexcavated, their contents buried beneath the desert sand.