With the devastating air and ground war in Yemen now in its seventh year, archaeological excavation, not to mention topographical surveys, have had to be abandoned throughout the country. So it is heartening to learn that new painstaking scrutiny of satellite aerial imagery by EAMENA researchers at Oxford University have revealed two previously unknown town sites on the eastern side of the Tihamah coastal strip. Satellite imagery of central Tihamah, where widespread farming disturbs the ground, has not revealed architectural remains. However on the east, two small towns previously unknown have now been discerned. One site is situated on the north bank of Wadi Mawr where it flows out from the foothills and enters the plain, and the other is a similar site against a spur of hillside on the southern flank of Wadi Shu'aynah east of Hays. Both these 'newly discovered' sites occur on major access routes leading into the foothills of the highlands of central Yemen. These two sites share certain architectural features including earthen rampart walls which could mean they are from the same period, if only we can learn more about them from afar. The panel speaker will discuss what era these sites might date from and thus who lived there. Textual sources rich in historical place names and/or tribal names have been collected in an unpublished Tihamah Gazetteer that might help. Notable are the chronicles of al-Khazraji, and local histories and biographies by Ibn al-Mujawir, al-Sharji, Watyut, Umarah, Ibn al-Dayba et al, and by early western travellers such as Carsten Neibuhr in the 18th century. Without the ability to collect ceramic remains on the ground at present, establishing habitation periods is speculative at best. As soon as hostilities cease and Yemenis return to peaceful coexistence, a program of topographical surveys could be coordinated with GOAM, the official historical research institute in Sanaa. Analysis of ceramic remains would tell us enough to date these sites using well established sherd sequences from the Royal Ontario Museum excavations at Zabid. The point is to encourage as broad a conversation as possible to help understand these finds in the aerial satellite record.