Archaeology

Nicholas Clapp, Sheba | Exhibit: Queen of Sheba, Legend and Reality | Yemen | Ethiopia travel | Sheba in Nigeria? | Other issues | Fringe archaeology

Nicholas Clapp, Sheba

Amazon. Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen by Nicholas Clapp; also in hardcover. Publisher's Weekly blurb:

""In this charming investigative account, filmmaker and archeology lecturer Clapp … creatively seeks to unravel the myth and surprisingly, his search bears some fruit."

The Connection: "The Queen of Sheba." Boston-based NPR interview show hosted by Tom Ashbrook spends an hour with Clapp (author of Sheba), Carole Fontaine, a Feminist theologian/scholar[1] and Ephraim Isaac, the director of the Institute of Semitic Studies at Princeton. The Connection is one of my favorite NPR shows. This one is a little frustrating. Clapp is a natural, entertaining and inspiring communicator[2], who would have been set off well by a less ebullient scholar. Instead Prof. Fontaine attempts to out-popularize Clapp, "talking down" in a singularly grating way. Isaac, who joins the conversation later, comes off a pedant—he keeps mentioning that he wrote something about something—but is refreshingly disdainful of "spin" and sloppy talking, correcting Clapp and Fontaine for calling the queen just "Sheba." I also like what I took as a dig at Clapp, that yes he too had been to all the places Clapp had. When Isaac presses the unparalleled stature of the Queen of Sheba in Ethiopian culture Ashbrook cuts him off and is later clearly relieved to get him off the phone.

Excerpt from Sheba, provided by January magazine.

"Chasing Sheba" by Mary Korr, Brown Alumni Magazine (May/June 1999). Profile of Brown-alumnus Clapp, and his (then) upcoming Sheba book.

Brief description/review in Saudi Aramco World (September/October '03). Scroll down.

National Geographic News: "Search for Queen of Sheba Lures Writer to Arabian Desert" by John Roach (June 18, 2001). NG blurbs the question, and Clapp's work.

Press Release: "Author to Lecture on Queen of Sheba's Mysterious Left Foot" (February 11, 2005), from The Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CA. Whoever wrote this wins the prize for best press-release title.

Blog of Jarkko Hietaniemi, a Finnish Perl-proponent weights in with a positive blog review.

"No conclusive results, but in archaeology one rarely gets those, but one gets an interesting travelogue at least."

Exhibit: Queen of Sheba, Legend and Reality

Introduction: This section covers a 2002 British Museum exhibit which also stopped by the Bowers Museum in California (October 2004 &ndash' March 13, 2005). The exhibit included both objects illustrating the shifting image of the Queen of Sheba in world cultrue and the considerably more earth-bound remains of the Sabean culture of Yemen. This created a certain tension—remarked upon by many reviewers—between objects as diverse as 1920s movie posters adorned with Betty Blythe's lithe, inviting form and the Sabean's static, distant grave stelae with their peculiar script.

Amazon. Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen, edited by John Simpson.

Publisher's blurb, with a list of the essays and authors, and an excellent introduction to the reality and the "reception."

Site for the book "Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen" (exhibition companion-book). Attractive, well-planned and written website gives a good introduction to the Queen of Sheba and her "reception."

Arabian frights: Ned Denny digs through a curatorial mess to find the splendours of the Yemen by Ned Denny, New Statesman (June 24, 2002). Devestating critique of the exhibit, despite its entrancing Sabean material:

"A powerful air of deja vu hangs round this exhibition like a cloud of Yemeni frankincense, a feeling that, though the names and faces might have changed, we've been this way before. The grouping of ancient artefacts around the coquettish figure of a semi-mythical queen-check. The attempt to add spice by including melodramatic Victoriana and stills from Hollywood films featuring said queen-check. The awkward blend of sensationalism and scholarship -- check. The sloppy extension of the exhibition's remit to include things from previous, neighbouring and sometimes barely related cultures -- check. What the British Museum's 'Queen of Sheba: treasures from ancient Yemen' does, in fact, is to repeat the exact same formula that made last year's Cleopatra show so trite. Same set-up, different woman."

AP: "Museum features legendary Queen of Sheba" by Ben Fox (October30, 2004), on the Bowers Museum show. Also here and elsewhere.

Review by Liz Goldner, OC Metro. Positive review of the exhibit or, as Goldner writes, "perhaps it is two exhibits."

Review by Daniella Walsh from ArtScene, "The Guide to Art Galleries and Museums in Southern California," "this blockbuster's pretensions and matching admission prices aside, the show is indeed a worthy destination."

Bower's Museum Press kit, includes inter alia Alan Riding's New York Times review "Out of Sheba Came a Queen (Maybe Not)" (September 17, 2002). Considering the press back is meant to promote the show, the review is a bit unexpected: "In truth, the show, which runs through Oct. 13, is a bit of apples and oranges."

"The British Museum can be forgiven for using the Queen of Sheba as a bait for visitors, but she is of little relevance to fully half of the show, which focuses on continuing archaeological discoveries in the Saba region of Yemen, notably in ancient tombs."

"Entranced by the Queen of Sheba" Time Magazine Europe. The "story" is broken, but the art gallery is not.

Description of the British Museum show, from from Yemen Gateway.

Review by David Tresilian, Al-Ahram Weekly.

Bowers Museum Unveils Queen of Sheba: Legend and Reality from Welcome (to Southern California) magazine. Unsigned; indeed, it may be a press release.

British Museum site, mostly moot or broken.

Yemen

"Arabian desert surrenders Queen of Sheba's secrets", press release from the University of Calgary (September 12, 2000), on recent excavations at the Mahram Bilqis, a.k.a. "Temple of the Moon God."

Amazon. Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D. by Jean-Francois Breton, translated by Albert Lafarge (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000)

Reviewed by Joy McCorriston, Yemen Update (2002). Reviewing Breton's work with Klaus Schippmann's Ancient South Arabia: From the Queen of Sheba to the Advent of Islam the Ohio State University Anthropology professor comes down strongly in favor of Breton:

"Breton's skillful integration of archaeological and epigraphic (historical) data offers a balanced general introduction to the civilizations of Southwest Arabia"

1912 Catholic Encyclopedia: Saba and Sabeans entry by J. A. Hartinger, giving scholarly opinion at the beginning of the century. Surprisingly, the Catholic Encyclopedia doesn't have a Queen of Sheba entry. Other related entries include: Solomon, Axum.

Sheba from William Smith's 1868-1870 Dictionary of the Bible. There isn't too much on the Queen of Sheba, but there is some. Other interesting entries include Riddles.

The American Foundation for the Study of Man. AMFSM is (or was) excavating the Mahram Bilqis in Mahrib, Yemen. The "future expeditions" page is stuck with 2001 being the future. I am guessing that September 11th scotched their plans.

Amazon. Ancient South Arabia: From the Queen of Sheba to the Advent of Islam by Klaus Schippmann, translated by Allison Brown. (Publisher's blurb.)

Ethiopia travel

In Search of the Queen of Sheba by Barnaby Rogerson. Travel article on Ethiopia and its relationship to the Queen of Sheba. The following is very perceptive:

"This lack of a precise record in no way interferes with the passionate relationship of the Queen Sheba to Ethiopia. In fact it rather frees her up to spiritualise and make sacred the entire landscape. Sheba's son by Solomon, Menelik I, is believed to have first brought the worship of the One God and the law of Moses to Ethiopia. It is Menelik I who stands as the grand patriarch of that long, long dynastic line of three thousand years of Ethiopian emperors that only finally ended in a dark palace cellar in September 1975 when the old and revered Emperor Haile Selassie was strangled on the orders of Colonel Mengistu."

Sheba in Nigeria?

BBC: "Searching for the Queen of Sheba" (May 31, 1999), on enormous earthworks found in south-western Nigeria, ascribed by locals to the Queen of Sheba. The ascription is, of course, quite fanciful, but interesting. As one of the archaeologists, Patrick Darling puts it:

"The local people believe it and that's what is important. … Hundreds or thousands of pilgrims come to this area every year to honour what could be her grave, a magical shrine grove under tall trees."

PaleoJudaica: Did the Queen of Sheba rule in Nigeria? PaleoJudaica is a highly-respected biblical archaeology and philology blog by Jim Davila. Davis writes:

"It would certainly be interesting to collect information about Nigerian traditions about the Queen, but the case for her actually ruling there doesn't sound very strong to me."

Other issues

"Jerusalem in the 10th / 9th centuries BC" by Leiden University archaeologist Margreet Steiner (August 2004) from the website The Bible and Interpretation . Popularizing article details current academic doubts about the size and importance of Solomonic Jerusalem. The Queen of Sheba is only mentioned in passing, but the substance is obviously relevant for our understanding of the historicity and significance of the event.

"What has been found from the 10th (or 9th) century BC... are remains of public buildings and fortifications only. Jerusalem was only a small town then, maybe 12 hectares large, and it harbored certainly no more than 2000 inhabitants. Maybe the Queen of Sheba would still have enjoyed her visit to Jerusalem, but I doubt that she would have been greatly impressed."

See also Steiner's "David's Jerusalem: Fiction or Reality?" Biblical Archaeology Review (July/August 1998), this time on an atheist site.

Fringe archaeology

Amazon. Solomon, Falcon of Sheba: The Tombs of King David, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba Discovered by Ralph Ellis ("Adventures Unlimited Press," 2003). Ells turns them all into Egyptians.

Excerpt from the book on "Far Shores."

"Surprisingly, given the stakes at issue here, there is a great deal of compelling evidence to suggest that this thesis is absolutely true, and that millions and millions of people down the millennia have been completely and utterly deceived by a few Israelite scribes who deliberately set out to alter history."

Author's website includes the essay "Gilgamesh the Hunter," where he reveals how he spends his time:

"I have been working on the theory that the bulk of the biblical Old Testament is, in fact, a story of the constellations. It is an epic tale of a battle between Taurus and Aries - between the biblical patriarchs, (who were known as shepherds - Arians) and the Apis Bull worshippers."

Review from Ancient Egypt Magazine (October/November 2004). Negative review:

"For those without direct knowledge of both Hebrew and hieroglyphs these "connections" might seem superficially convincing. However, those with more detailed knowledge of these two languages are likely to be much more cautious about the plausability of such direct correspondences."