Kingdom of Saba
THE
QUEEN OF SHEBA
Identified
as Sheba, Saba is the kingdom of the queen who travels to Jerusalem to experience
first-hand the wisdom of King Solomon (c. 970-931 BCE) of Israel. In the biblical tale, she
brings him a gift of 120 gold talents
(approximately $3,600,000.00) among other gifts (I Kings 10:10). The lavish
presents of the queen would be in keeping with the wealth of the Sabean
monarchy, which was legendary, but there is no evidence outside of the Bible, and the later works mentioned,
that she ever existed.
THE
LAVISH PRESENTS OF THE QUEEN OF SHEBA WOULD BE IN KEEPING WITH THE WEALTH OF
THE SABEAN MONARCHY BUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OUTSIDE OF THE BIBLE THAT SHE EVER
EXISTED.
The
story in the Targum
Sheni, an Aramaic translation of the Book of Esther with commentary, is a
highly embellished version of her visit, and this version, with some
differences, is repeated in the Quran, which is thought to have been written
later. The story then appears in the Ethiopian Kebra Negastwhich adds to it by having
Solomon seduce the queen who then gives birth to a son who will later transport
the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Ethiopia.
The
identification of the Queen of Sheba with the Kingdom of Saba has led some to
conclude that she was an Ethiopian queen from central Africa since there was a
Saba in Africa which seems linguistically, or at least culturally, associated
with the kingdom in Arabia. Whether she was or was not cannot be answered, but
it is most likely that if such a queen did exist c. 970-931 BCE, she came
from the region of southern Arabia which was growing wealthy at that time from
the Incense Routes it controlled.
THE
INCENSE ROUTES & SABA
The
Incense Routes (also known as the Spice Routes) were the paths taken by
merchants from southern Arabia to the port of Gaza on the Mediterranean. These
trade routes were most profitable between the 8th/7th century BCE and 2nd century
CE but were established earlier and still in use later. The Incense Routes
covered 1,200 miles (1,931 km) and took 65 days to travel one way. Caravans
would stop at a different city at
the end of each day, exchange goods and rest their camels, and continue on the
next morning.
Although
many goods passed along these routes, the most highly prized were the shipments
of frankincense and myrrh. The coast of southern Arabia cultivated these
aromatics from the sap of trees but also seem to have had access to others from Indiathrough the port of Qani (also
given as Qana and Qade, modern-day Bi’r `Ali, eastern Yemen). Goods were
transported from the coastal kingdoms north to Ma’in and from there onwards to
Gaza.
The
most successful merchants on these routes were the Nabateans (best known today
for their capital city of Petra in Jordan)
who were able to best their competitors through control of water supplies. The
Nabateans dug wells which filled with rainwater and then disguised them so that
only members of their caravans could recognize and make use of them. This
enabled them to travel more quickly, and cheaply, as they did not have to stop
at cities or towns to barter for
water. In time, the Nabateans became so wealthy that they were able to control
important cities along the routes such as Avdat, Haluza, Mamshit, and Shivta,
all of which became thriving trade centers in their own right.
The
Nabateans and others who profited from the routes could not have done so
without a central distribution center, and, initially, this seems to have been
the Kingdom of Ma’in from which the Mineans controlled the incense trade. The
Sabeans of Saba were already in the same region as Ma’in at this time and most
likely participated in trade but it is not until c. 950 BCE that the Kingdom of
Saba dominates trade and not until the 8th century BCE that they are firmly in
control.
THE
RISE OF SABA
The
Sabeans supplanted the Mineans in orchestrating trade and quickly became the
wealthiest kingdom in southern Arabia. Goods were sent from Saba to Babylon and Urukin Mesopotamia, to Memphis in Egypt, and to Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre in the Levant and, from the port at
Gaza, even further. By the time of the reign of the Assyrian king Sargon II(722-705 BCE), their trade
routes required his permission to operate in his realm and extend through
Assyrian lands. The Egyptians had been trading with the land of Punt(modern-day Puntland State of
Somalia) since their 5th Dynasty (c. 2498-2345 BCE), as well as their southern
neighbor Nubia but had since initiated trade with southern Arabia. Gold from
Nubia traveled north to the capital of Egypt at Memphis and then overland east
and south down to Saba.
Sabean
kings (known as mukarribs)
rose to power and commissioned great building projects from their capital at
Ma’rib (modern-day Sana’a, Yemen). The most famous of these projects is the
Ma’rib Dam, the oldest known dam in the world, blocking the ravine of Dhana
(the Wadi Adanah). The mountainous ravine would flood during the rainy season
and the dam was built to control and divert the water to the low-lying farms in
the valley.
Irrigation
of these farmlands was so successful that Saba was consistently remarked upon
as a “green country” by ancient historians such as Pliny the Elder (c. 23-79 CE) who
called the region Arabia Eudaemon (“Fortunate
Arabia”), a term later used by the Romans as “Arabia Felix”. The dam, considered one
of the greatest engineering feats of the ancient world, was built under the
reign of the Sabean mukarrib Yatha’ Amar Watta I (c.
760-740 BCE).
The
economy depended on the trade of the Incense Routes but also on agriculture.
The Marib dam provided such ample irrigation to the fields that crops were
plentiful and were harvested twice a year. These crops were dates, barley,
grapes, millet, wheat, and assorted fruits. Wine was pressed from the grapes
and exported as well as consumed locally. The most important crop, however,
were the trees whose sap provided the people with the aromatics of frankincense
and myrrh which made the kingdom so wealthy. The historian Strabo (1st century
CE) writes:
By
the trade in these aromatics both the Sabaeans and the Gerrhaei have become the
richest of all the tribes, and possess a great quantity of wrought articles in
gold and silver, as couches, tripods, basins,
drinking-vessels, to which we must add the costly magnificence of their houses;
for the doors, walls, and roofs are variegated with inlaid ivory, gold, silver,
and precious stones. (Geography,
XVI.4)
Although
Strabo was writing much later, Saba seems to
have enjoyed a high level of prosperity from at least the 7th century BCE if
not earlier. Great cities rose across the landscape and stone temples were
erected in these cities and also outside their walls. Temples outside the
cities were used by merchants and nomadic tribes and those within the walls
were reserved only for the citizens of that city. The king seems to have also
been a high priest and would have presided over religious festivals and
supervised the operations of the temple.
SABEAN RELIGION
The
religion of the people was in many ways similar to that of Mesopotamia. The
gods were thought to have created the world and the people and provided them
with all good gifts. The Sabean moon god Almakah was the king of the gods and
similar in many ways to the Mesopotamian moon god Nanna (also known as Sin, Nannar,
Nanna-Suen), one of the oldest deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon. In the neighboring kingdom
of Hadramawt, in fact, Almakah was known by the Mesopotamian name of Sin. The
greatest temple in Saba – known as Mahram Bilqis, near the capital of Ma'rib –
was dedicated to Almakah and was revered as a sacred site in the region long
after the Sabean Kingdom itself was gone.
Almakah’s
consort (or daughter) was Shamsh, goddess of the sun, who shares many of the
attributes of the Mesopotamian sun god Utu-Shamash, another of the oldest
gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon dating to c. 3500 BCE. Other deities of the
Sabean pantheon, about which very little is known, seem to be aspects of
Almakah and Shamsh or Almakah only. These Sabean deities, as elsewhere in the
ancient world, each had their own area of expertise, and offerings would be
made to them by supplicants which included incense, livestock, and tracts of
land. It is possible that, as in Egypt, this practice would have resulted in a
very wealthy priestly class.
It
is unknown how the priests performed their duties or if there was a priestly
class, though it is assumed there was. If so, the priests would most likely
have followed the same model seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt, in which the
priests and priestesses cared for the gods in their temples and attended to
them, not to the people. As in other civilizations, the Sabeans believed the
gods were their constant companions through life and into the world which was to
come after death.
People
would then have forged their own personal relationship with their gods and most
likely only engaged in public worship during festivals. The people believed in
divination and that the gods and, perhaps, the spirits of the dead, could send
messages to the living. The dead were embalmed and buried with grave goods after being anointed
with myrrh, and frankincense was burned in the temples, but beyond that, little
is known of the religious practices of the Sabeans.
Although
the Sabeans were literate, they left very little behind by way of written
history. Scholar Kenneth A. Kitchen comments:
Once
the kings of Saba, Ma’in, and elsewhere began to build monumental architecture
– mainly stone temples – they soon began to adorn these with suitably
monumental texts, often in quite large Old South Arabian lettering. But (unlike
Egypt and Assyria), interestingly, scenes and
reliefs played very little part, and seem to disappear after the early 8th
century BCE, leaving only texts. (Millard, 182)
These
texts, however, are temple dedications, royal decrees, and acts of the court;
they are not history. They do not illuminate religious practices or beliefs,
the lives and achievements of the kings, the birth and activities of the gods,
and how the divine interacted with the mortal realm or any aspect of the
culture beyond the most basic information. If the texts were accompanied by
illustrations in reliefs it might expand upon their meaning but, as Kitchen
observes, they are not. They do, however, outline the basic reign of the kings
and the military campaigns which expanded Sabean influence in the late 6th
century.
MILITARY
CONQUESTS & DIPLOMACY
There
were 31 makarribs between
the reign of Yatha’ Amar Watta I and the man considered the greatest of the
Sabean monarchs, Karib'il Watar (7th/6th century BCE). Karib'il Watar is the
first ruler to reign under the title of Malik (translated as 'king')
rather than the earlier makarrib designation; future
kings of Saba would continue this practice.
KARIB'IL
WATAR IS THE FIRST RULER TO REIGN UNDER THE TITLE
OF MALIK (TRANSLATED AS 'KING').
Malik
Karib'il Watar was accorded the epithet “He Who Destroys Buildings” in the
course of his military campaigns against the Kingdom of Awsan and was also
known as “He who Carries Out the Will of El” following his slaughter of the
nomadic tribes and establishment of the borders of Saba. The “El” in this
latter epithet refers to the god Almakah. Following Almakah’s divine will,
Malik Karib'il Watar slaughtered thousands in Awsan and then invaded Ma’in
where he killed an equal number of Mineans and then imposed a tribute on
them which further enriched the great temple of the god near his capital.
If
it is true that the king of Saba was also the high priest of the god, then this
action would have made Malik Karib'il Watar incredibly wealthy. However the
king profited personally, however, there is no doubt the Kingdom of Saba
benefited greatly from these wars; the kingdom is regularly referenced for its
opulent wealth. Caravans from southern Qataban and Hadramwat, which had to stop
in Saba on their way north, were required to pay an exorbitant tax on their
goods to Almakah, as is attested to through complaints by these merchants which
have been preserved.
DECLINE
& FALL
Saba
continued to thrive until the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt began favoring water
routes for trade over land routes. Sea and river travel was nothing new and was
actually favored by the ancient civilizations because one could travel faster
on water than on land. Trade up and down the Nile and across the Red Sea had
been going on for millennia by this time and was engaged in throughout the
height of the Incense Routes. What suddenly made a difference to Saba was
Egypt’s decision to cut out the middleman and deal directly with the coastal
city of Qani.
Instead
of goods flowing into and out of Egypt by way of Alexandria-Gaza, an Egyptian barge
could now sail down the Red Sea, around the southern coast of Arabia between
Punt in Africa and Qataban in Arabia, and arrive at Qani to trade directly with
merchants from the Far East; Saba was no longer necessary. During the reign of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BCE), Egyptian colonies were founded on the
western coast of the Red Sea which could easily conduct trade with Qataban,
Hadramawt, and Qani on the southern Arabian coast without ever bothering with
the kingdoms inland. Saba began to decline along with the Incense Routes which
had made it wealthy.
The
end of Saba was not economic decline, however, but military conquest. The Himyarites of the region
around Raidan on the Arabian Peninsula began to gain in power, perhaps through
trade, c. 200 CE and conquered their neighbors in Qataban. Once they had
consolidated their rule, they then turned on Saba which fell c. 275 CE, and
then Hadramawt was taken c. 300 CE. The Himyarite monarchs took the title “King
of Saba and of Raidan”, rejected polytheism, and embraced Judaism. As Christian
missionaries made more converts in the region, the Himyarite kings launched a
policy of persecution and may have slaughtered thousands of Christians. In c.
525 CE the Christian kingdom of Aksum in Africa invaded and conquered the
Himyarites, establishing Christianity.
In
c. 575 CE the Ma'rib dam failed and Saba was flooded. The Quran attributes the
flood to an act of God (Surah 34:15-17) as punishment for the Sabeans refusing
to accept his gifts. If so, said punishment was severe and resulted in the
abandonment of towns and cities as the people were forced to leave the area or
starve. A more rational explanation for the dam’s failure is simply its age and
lack of maintenance, although secular legends claim it was due to rats
weakening the dam’s supports by chewing on them.
Saba
as a kingdom was long gone by the time the dam failed but the flood ensured
that any coherent history of the culture would be wiped away for future
generations. The Arab Invasion of the 7th century CE, establishing Islam,
further obscured Sabean history which only began to attract the interest of
scholars and archaeologists in the 19th century CE. At its height, however,
Saba was one of the greatest kingdoms in antiquity and ruled over a land that,
to many, was considered blessed by
the gods.
Kingdom of Saba
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