The Queen of Sheba is reduced to the ranks

Press, 9 April 1981, Page 19

The Queen of Sheba is reduced to the ranks

The Queen of Sheba was not a queen. 1 Sven more disappointing, shp did not even live in the gabled land of Sheba — SaHa -in the Yemen — which she is supposed to have ruhsd. These unromantic deductions are the work of a phlegmatic Belgi an priest and archaeologist, Father Albert Jamme, a pr ofessor at the Catholic University in Washington D.C. He outlined hiS theory recently in Sana’a, North Yemen’s capital, where he was preparing for an expedition to Marib, the 30 00-year-old walled city on <he edge of the desert which, t with its huge dam, has been regarded as the jeweh of the Queen of Sheba’s otherwise long-lost realm. i The story of the iiqueen’s visit to Solomon is onfi. of the most appealing parts< of the Old Testament. However, Father Jamme begun to

question Sheba’s queenliness when he discovered that in Ethiopia, where she was believed to be an ancestor of the emperor, she is also called Queen Maqweda or Maqeda. He is now convinced that this is, in fact, a mistranslation of the Arabic word maqtuwiat — not a personal name, but a title meaning “chieftain” and that Sheba was only the head of a small tribe. Father Jamme links these deductions with three references in Assyrian annals to the effect that Sabaean kings paid tribute to the Assyrians in the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. But the Sabaeans never went near Assyria; the two empires were 1500 miles apart, and throughout history tribute was paid only when countries or empires bordered on each other. This suggests, says Father Jamme, that the "Sabaeans had a trading outpost much further north, on the fringes of the Assyrian empire — a privilege for which the Sabaeans would probably have

hadd to pay tribute. Its purpose would have been to aid the distribution of frankincense, myrrh, and spices which came up from the south of the Arabian peninsula. • . At some point in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia, the route must have split into three. One route went west to Egypt, another north to Palestine, and a third north-east to Mesopotamia. Religions in all these areas made wide use of incense, especially in funeral rites. The trading post where the incense route split into three was clearly important; and it was there, Jamme believes, that “Sheba” was the chieftain, or maqtuwiat. Sheba’s journey to see Solomon has always puzzled scholars. Many archaeologists regard it as pure invention because the journey from Saba to Palestine was long and formidable. If, however, she was stationed in the north-west corner of Saudi, the journey would have been much

shorter. And a role as director of incense distribution would have made a visit far more plausible. If Sheba was not a real queen, why all the fuss about her visit to Solomon in the

Bible? “Simple,” says Father Jamme. “Solomon was really a very small king. The Old Testament propagandists played up the importance of Sheba to boost Solomon’s reputation.”

By

PETER WATSON,

“Sunday Tinies”