TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

Fossilised piles of faeces, called middens, have revealed that a desert valley in Yemen was once a tropical oasis, which may have lasted in the dry region because of human land management practices.

Amid the vast deserts, rugged highlands, and fertile oases of the Arabian Peninsula, the religious landscape of the early 5th century was remarkably diverse. A recent historical map depicting the ...