“And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions.” So begins the intriguing account in 1 Kings 10 of the visit of an unnamed queen from the mysterious land of Sheba to Solomon, king of Israel. Solomon was now at the height of his power and fame — he controlled all of Syro-Palestine, from the Euphrates in the north to Egypt in the south. He had finished building the great temple and his beautiful palace in Jerusalem, he had carried out building projects throughout the land, and his ships went out from Ezion-Geber to carry on trade along the Red Sea (1 Kings 9:15–28).
All of this sounded somewhat fanciful to sober-minded scholars of a generation or so ago. But now, archaeological discoveries have demonstrated the accuracy of the Bible’s description of Solomon’s reign, including the reality of a place called Sheba.
In the book Solomon and Sheba (James B. Pritchard, Ed., Phaidon Press Ltd., London, 1974), Gus W. van Beek of the Smithsonian Institution describes the land of Sheba in the days of Solomon. The following is a summary of Dr. van Beek’s remarks.
Sheba an Isolated Land
Sheba was located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula, with boundaries roughly corresponding to those of modern Yemen. It was more than 1400 miles south of Palestine, with the land in between consisting of a barren, almost waterless desert, with mountains near the coast of the Red Sea and a broken, sand — or rock — covered tableland to the east of the mountains. This enormous region is extremely difficult to cross unless one is well provided with camels and experienced guides. The coastal areas are treacherous with coral reefs, offer very few watering places, and were often infested with pirates in antiquity. These conditions made travel by land and sea between Sheba and the great empires to the north hazardous in the extreme and had the effect of isolating southern
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Arabia. Thus Sheba was free from military devastations and her culture developed, with the exception of trade contacts, independently from the other civilizations of the ancient Near East.
The Bible tells us little about the culture of Sheba. Since the state had a queen, probably Sheba was a nation little different in political organization from the other nations of the ancient Near East. The fact that a queen ruled is not surprising; it is well attested that women quite often rose to positions of prominence in Bible times. Assyrian inscriptions, in fact, refer to Zabibe and Shamsi, two queens of Arabia itself in the second half of the eighth century B.C.
References to Sheba (or Saba as it is also called) in the Bible indicate that the economy of the land was based on caravan trade in spices, gold, and precious stones. Being able to transport such goods over some 1400 miles of desert indicates that the country was a strong political state and had a well organized economic system.
Sketch plan of southern Arabia showing major archaeological sites and approximate locations of the ancient kingdoms.
Only one site in southwestern Arabia, Hajar Bin Humeid, has been excavated down to the level of Solomon’s time. It has revealed a cultural continuity and a chronological framework stretching from about the eleventh or tenth century B.C. to the early centuries A.D. Work at Marib, the capital of Sheba, and other sites, has brought to light more detailed information about South Arabian culture between the seventh century B.C. and the third century A.D. Surface
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surveys, moreover, have provided an overall view of the history of human habitation and patterns of settlement in southern Arabia from the Old Stone Age to the present.
Ingenious Irrigation Techniques
Sabaean civilization originated and thrived in silt-floored wadies east of the high chain of mountains which parallels the coast of the Red Sea. Run-off water from the mountains floods the wadies, compensating for the meager rainfall and making irrigation agriculture feasible.
The Sabaeans and their fellow South Arabs developed ingenious irrigation techniques which are without parallel in the ancient Near East. The systems employed in both the Nile Valley and the Tigris-Euphrates Basin utilized perennial rivers, and were solely concerned with the distribution of readily available water and associated flood control. In southern Arabia, however, there are no perennial rivers; there are only wadies, i.e. valleys that are dry throughout most of the year, and that carry water only when heavy rains in the mountains create flash floods during a few weeks each year. The South Arabs devised a system to distribute the flood as quickly and as widely as possible. It consisted of earthen dams to deflect the flood into primary canals, from which water was distributed by sluices and both secondary and tertiary canals to the fields.
The system varies in design according to the demands of the topography of the different wadies. At Marib, an enormous dam faced with stone was erected near the narrow mouth of Wadi Dhana. The flood pouring through this defile was deflected through stone sluices at each end of the dam into two huge canals from which hundreds of smaller sluices diverted a portion of the water into smaller canals, and these distributed it to the fields. Nowhere were the dams intended to impound water in a reservoir: for example, the sluices on either end of the famous dam at Marib could not be closed off; they were solely intended to carry the flood as rapidly as possible to the fields.
The fields between the dam and the mound of ancient Marib, some five miles to the east, are covered with small mounds which contain the remains of secondary and tertiary sluices built of rubble, and possibly some of the smaller canals. The fields themselves are now cut by rectilinear erosion which deepened the original canals, so that one can now determine the lines of these canals by studying aerial photographs of the erosiohal pattern of the silt. This system seems to have irrigated no less than about 4,000 acres.
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The southern sluice of the Marib Dam. The line of this canal is indicated by the wall. At the base of the tower are a number of vertical stones which probably represent the facing of the earthen dam and indicates where the dam abutted on this sluice structure.
Wherever the water table was less than about 80 feet below the surface, well irrigation was used to supplement the flash-flood system, making cultivation possible on a reduced scale throughout the year. In all probability, many vegetables were grown in plots irrigated by wells, while cereals were chiefly grown in the fields irrigated by flash floods. That these systems provided adequate food for the population is proved by classical authors who regarded the land as self-sufficient.
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Trading Frankincense and Myrrh
Sabaean wealth was derived from the production and distribution of frankincense and myrrh. In the first century A.D. Pliny the Elder described the Sabaeans as the wealthiest race in the world because they sold that which was of the lightest weight for the highest price and bought nothing in return. So valued were these commodities, Pliny tells us, that at Alexandria, in Egypt, where raw frankincense was processed, workmen in the factories were required to strip and submit to a search before leaving the premises. As we know from the Wise men’s presents to Jesus (Matthew 2:11), frankincense and myrrh were ranked with gold as gifts suitable for a king.
Frankincense and myrrh are gum resins which are exuded from the bark of trees. The trees are tapped and the gum resin slowly flows out, hardening on contact with air. It is then scraped off, packed in bags, and shipped to processing centers. These trees grow only in southern Arabia and in neighboring Somalia. The result was that the South Arabian states enjoyed an absolute monopoly on the production of these substances.
Frankincense “tears” forming on a tapped tree in Dhofar.
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Frankincense and myrrh had many uses in antiquity. Frankincense was a basic ingredient in most offerings given to the gods. Myrrh was used in preparing bodies for burial; Nicodemus, for example, wrapped the body of Jesus in linen with a mixture of myrrh and aloes (John 19: 39–40). But myrrh was chiefly used in making cosmetic lotions — a six months course of beauty treatment utilizing oil of myrrh was given to Esther as part of her preparation in the Persian King Ahasuerus’ harem (Esther 2:12). Both frankincense and myrrh were used extensively in various medicines of the ancient world.
The demand for these substances gave rise to a lively trade and to the development of both land and sea routes. To guarantee safe passage of these precious commodities along the caravan routes, either the South Arabs had to control all the tribes or groups through whose territory the road passed, or they had to negotiate treaties with these people, paying duty or customs to each group. Because of the enormous distances covered by the caravans, negotiated agreements for passage were probably the most common arrangement. Indeed, Pliny explains that the high cost of these substances at Mediterranean ports resulted in large part from taxation en route.
Egyptian records mention expeditions to Punt (the Egyptian name for southern Arabia or Somalia) to obtain incense and other exotic products. The most famous of these occurred during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1503-1482 B.C.), who graphically portrayed the land of Punt, its people and products — including myrrh and myrrh trees — in reliefs in her mortuary temple near Luxor.
Measuring myrrh in the Land of Punt. From Queen Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple reliefs at Luxor.
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Next we learn of Solomon’s expeditions to Ophir (1 Kings 9:28), whose products suggest that it is probably to be identified with Punt. Solomon’s fleet, built and manned by Phoenicians, perhaps obtained a concession to call at ports under Sabaean control to take on water (there are few water holes on either coast of the Red Sea) and cargoes as part of an agreement with the Queen of Sheba. Since Solomon controlled the largest land empire in the Near East in the tenth century B.C., including all termini of the major trade routes
Sketch plan showing the approximate zones in which frankincense and myrrh grow in southern Arabia and northern Somalia and the major shipping routes by both land and sea developed to distribute these products.
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used by Sabaean caravans, it seems likely that he may have assured freedom of passage for Sabaean trade in return. It is therefore plausible to interpret the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon as an economic mission whose primary purpose was the conclusion of a trade agreement governing both land and sea routes.
First century B.C. and first century A.D. classical authors describe a bustling sea commerce in the Near East, some of which was involved with incense trade. This was part of the normal scene in ancient Saba, and there can be no doubt that it had its beginning during the reign of the Queen of Sheba, if not slightly earlier. It brought not only an unparalleled level of prosperity to the kingdom, but also put the geographically isolated Sabaeans in almost constant contact with the mainstream of ideas running through the great civilizations of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean basin.
Sabaean Material Culture
Owing to the lack of written documents in Saba, our reconstruction of its civilization and cultural institutions can only be based on the material evidence recovered through archaeological research. From this evidence, much can be learned about the world of the Sabaeans.
On the north side of the Wadi Dhana, Marib, the capital city, was surrounded by a large alluvial fan which, during the flood season, was covered with green fields of waving grain. To the north-west and north, a sloping ridge of black volcanic rock provided both a real and a picturesque border for the green of the foreground, while to the east and south, the gold of the sands and the brown of the occasional rocky knoll rolled in receding waves to the horizon. The city itself was constructed of a yellowish-white limestone.
In its general appearance, Marib probably differed little from the great cities of Syro-Palestine and Mesopotamia. Its size was probably comparable, since it measured approximately two-thirds of a mile long by one-third of a mile wide at its greatest extent. Its monumental architectural style utilized straight lines and flat, often receding planes. Except for the use of ornamentation, Sabaean buildings in many ways resemble the clean functional lines of much of western architecture in our own time.
Sabaean Language
The language used by the Queen of Sheba is called Sabaean, one of the dialects of ancient South Arabic. Other dialects were used in the neighboring kingdoms of Ma’in, Qataban, and Hadhramaut. None of
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these dialects is used today, having been replaced, following the conquest of Islam, by North Arabic, which belongs to a different branch of the Semitic language family. South Arabic is the oldest member of the south Semitic branch, the major modern survivor of which is Ethiopic, which was derived from South Arabic in antiquity.
Sabaean was written with an alphabet which consisted of 29 consonants, more than any other Semitic language. The origin of its script is still somewhat obscure, but it perhaps derives from one of the earliest Semitic scripts, the Proto-Sinaitic script of about the 17th century B.C., with some Canaanite influence. It seems to have split off from its northern progenitors no later than the 13th century B.C.
The South Arabic script appears in an elegant monumental style and in a cruder graffito form. The monumental script is characterized by symmetrical, somewhat elongated letters formed with clean and simple lines. This style was used in inscriptions on buildings, sculpture, reliefs, and on utensils and tools of everyday life such as stamps, incense burners and pots. That it was in use by the time of the Queen of Sheba is certain, since it already appears in contemporary pottery inscriptions. Through the centuries the script evolved, becoming increasingly ornate with the addition of serifs and the splitting of strokes that make up the letters. By the first half of the first millennium B.C., its well-porportioned letters have a beauty and grace that exceed that of any other script from the Mediterranean world, including early Greek. The graffito script is much more irregular and variable, owing no doubt to the fact that such inscriptions were hastily written without the benefit of good tools, and by people who were not professional scribes.
Known South Arabian inscriptions now number more than 10,000, but unfortunately they tell us very little about the history, economy and culture of the region. They consist mainly of monumental inscriptions concerned with building, votive, and funerary texts, and graffiti. There are only a few texts known that record historical events, and no annals, economic texts, laws or mythological reflections have as yet appeared. Many of the graffiti are found on isolated rocks and in places sheltered from the wind, suggesting that they were probably carved by shepherds and caravaneers, as well as the occasional traveller. If this suggestion is correct, it would indicate a high percentage of literacy in the population, higher than today in fact, when shepherds and caravaneers are almost never able to read and write.
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A portion of a long building inscription on the oval wall of the Marib Temple. The text, written by a priest, is a dedication of the wall and dates to about 500 B.C.
Sabaean Religion
No temple or religious text from the time of the Queen of Sheba has as yet been found, and most of what is known of the contemporary religion is derived by inference from later religious structures and from dedicatory inscriptions. As in most contemporary Semitic cults, the Sabaeans and other South Arabs worshipped stars and planets, chief among whom were the moon god, variously known as Sin, Amm, Anbay, or Ilumquh; the sun god, called Shams; and Athtar or Astarte. There is no reason to doubt that this pantheon was also revered by the Sabaeans in the tenth century B.C. Indeed, the Queen of Sheba may have served as a priest, or even the chief priest, of the faith, since the title of the early rulers — Mukarrib, which probably means “priest-king” — denotes a significant role in the cult. Presumably there was a body of mythology and a calendar of religious holy days and festivals as in Mesopotamia and Canaan where somewhat similar cults were in vogue.
The earliest temple known is the Mahram Bilqis, meaning “the precincts of the Queen of Sheba,” at Marib. The oldest parts of this structure go back to the seventh century B.C., but its substructure may incorporate remains from still earlier centuries. As it now stands, this temple is a large complex consisting of a peristyle hall,
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which opens on a large area enclosed by an oval wall. The hall featured a large, paved, open court, surrounded by a stone-roofed ambulatory supported by 32 square monolithic piers about 16 feet tall. The walls are decorated with false lattice windows carved from stone. Piers and walls must have been covered with votive plaques of bronze and stone, judging from the numbers found in the debris and from the many attachment holes cut in the stone. There must also have been a number of free-standing votive statues in bronze and alabaster set on bases around the hall and in the court.
Some of the 64 false windows in the peristyle entrance hall of the Marib Temple. Holes in the walls mark places where stone or bronze votive plaques were attached.
Burial Practices in Saba
Tombs from as early as the tenth century have not yet been found. From the seventh century on, however, burials were made both in caves and in stone-built mausolea. At Marib, adjacent to the oval enclosure wall of the Mahram Bilqis on the east side, is a mausoleum constructed of well-cut limestone on an almost square building plan, whose roof was supported by four monolithic piers like those of the peristyle hall.
Grave goods were put in the tombs, and offerings were placed
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outside the burial chambers, indicating a belief in an afterlife, and the continuing reverence for the dead by the community. We can reasonably assume that these burial customs and beliefs existed at the time of the Queen of Sheba, and perhaps one day archaeologists will be fortunate enough to find her own tomb.
While her tomb and documents of her time have yet to come to light, and while remains of the tenth century B.C. are still largely unknown to archaeology, the recovery of a small amount of contemporary evidence together with a considerable amount of material from only three or four centuries later enables us to reconstruct a general outline of the Queen of Sheba’s culture with considerable probability. She would have lived surrounded by the accoutrements of an affluent civilization: a thriving trade that brought unparalleled prosperity; an irrigation agriculture that provided ample subsistence; a distinctive architecture in stone that was second only to that of Egypt in the ancient Near East in its execution and variety of ornamentation; a richness in metallurgy and stone carvings as well as an abundance of artists and artisans who pursued these vocations; a high degree of literacy among the people, who had a keen appreciation of the importance of a written language and of their beautiful alphabetic script; and an art that is representational in a symbolic archaic manner. This unique civilization had its roots in the high cultures of the north, but its growth took place in the isolated region of the south-west corner of Arabia. There it developed in its own way and largely at its own pace in the peace and security of its isolation. Yet the Sabaeans were never out of touch with the intellectual and artistic trends of the great empires of the Near East and the Mediterranean world, because of their fabulous commercial activities which chiefly centered on the exotic products of their land.
ERRATUM
Please make the following changes to the last issue of Bible and Spade (Spring-Summer 1975). Page 74, 8th line from the bottom: change American School of Classical Studies to American Institute of Archaeology. Page 74, 5th line from the bottom: change Adramyttium to Assos.
Our thanks to Donald Burdick, professor of New Testament at the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado, for bringing these errors to our attention.
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