Ḥays

Hays stands on the Tihama plain south of Zabid, on a route between the coastal lowlands and Taizz. Its potters used the region's clay to make vessels valued throughout Yemen, including water jars, oil containers and small cups. The town was a stopping place for travellers and merchants; Rasulid rulers also passed through it between their centres at Taizz and Zabid.

In the eighteenth century the Danish traveller Carsten Niebuhr recorded the pottery workshops of Hays and the large part of Yemen supplied by their wares. He noted especially the cups used for drinks made from coffee and its husks. The kilns and workshops of Hays belonged to a craft tradition shared with other towns of the Tihama, where potters shaped and fired the clay of the plain into vessels for everyday use.