Alphabet and acknowledgements
We wish to thank the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Sana‘a and the General
Organization for Antiquities, Manuscripts and Museums for their support.
Our work would not have been possible without the help of Dr. Yusuf Abdullah,
Ir. Arend J. Meerburg, Ms. Djoeke G. Koekkoek, Abdel-Habib al-Dhubany and
Mr. Abdel-Basset No‘man. We would furthermore like to express our gratitude
to the Centre Français d'Études Yéménites, for
their hospitality during our stay in Sana‘a. We benefited greatly from the
knowledge and experience of Dr. Burkhardt Vogt and would like to thank him
for allowing us to use the equipment of the Deutsches Archäologisches
Institut. The authorities in Dhamar showed their support for this project,
assigning Mr. Aly Sanabany and sheikh Mohamed al-Magdeshy to assist us, for
which effort we would like to thank them. Special words of thanks should
go to sheikh Ahmad al-Azizi as well as to Claire and Jacques Veerman, without
whom this project would have neither started nor finished. During the preparation
of our reports Dr. Jacques Ryckmans, Dr. Vittoria Buffa, Dr. Harry Stroomer
and Mr. Ronald Kon provided valuable information, Mr. Maurits Berger commented
on the Arabic, Mr. Jarek Dobrowolski on the drawings and Dr. Roberta Tomber
on the pottery. These acknowledgements are not complete without stating that
we are greatly indebted to the people of Thawban, who not only shared their
houses and food with us, but also their intimate knowledge of the area.We
would like to thank all of them, and everybody that supported us but can
not be named here, while at the same time emphasizing that we take full responsibility
for the final result.
