Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (48 page)

orders exist, as is witnessed every year
at Stonehenge on the summer solstice
by the appearance of the Ancient Order of Druids. Founded in London in
1781 (along the lines of a Masonic society), this Order once boasted William Churchill as a member, who
appears to have joined their Albion
Lodge in Oxford in 1908.

It is difficult to say what, if anything, of original Druidic belief or
ritual survives in some form today.
Practically everything in modern
Druidery has its roots in 18th and 19th
century romanticism. Perhaps echoes
of the ancient British Druids are still
to be found in folkloric beliefs related
to well-worship, and certain practices
connected with celebrations, such as
Halloween. The wearing of masks at
Halloween to scare away evil spirits
goes back to Celtic Samhain ceremonies, traditionally celebrated at the
beginning of winter, on the 1st of
November. Another major Celtic celebration was Beltaine, a festival held
on April 30 or May 1 celebrating the
coming of summer and the origin of
May Day. On May Eve great fires were
lit on hilltops and Druids drove cattle
through the flames to purify them;
people would also leap through the
fires to secure a plentiful harvest. Perhaps even the mythical woodland folk,
such as the fairies and woodwoses
(hairy wildman of the woods) are the
last vague survivals of the sacred traditions of the once great Druids.

Exotic and mysterious, the Queen of
Sheba is best known
from the biblical
story of her celebrated meeting with
King Solomon. Sheba
is also celebrated in
the Islamic world as a
powerful queen under
the name Balgis or
Bilqis, and in Ethiopian tradition as
Makeda. In the annals
of ancient history, perhaps only Cleopatra
has achieved more
fame as a potent female ruler, yet so
little is known about
the the enigmatic
Queen of Sheba that
archaeologists and historians are not
even sure whether she existed at all.
However, recent archaeological discoveries are begining to throw a glimmer
of light on the possible identity of
history's most perplexing figure. The
Queen of Sheba is referred to in the
Bible in the Book of Kings simply as
the "Queen of the East." No more specific details than that are given of her
origin. The text describes how the

queen, having heard
of the renown of
Solomon, travels from
her homeland at the
head of a caravan
loaded with spices,
large amounts of
gold, and precious
stones, to visit the
great king at Jerusalem. According to the
Biblical account, it is
her intention to test
Solomon's renowned
wisdom with difficult
questions. After meeting with the great
king she is awed by
his wisdom and the
grandness of his
royal court, and so
bestows rich gifts on
him. Solomon, in turn, offers her great
treasures and "all that she desired,"
after which she returns to her own
land. That, in essence, is the story of
Solomon and Sheba.

The Queen of Sheba.

Although this is the last we hear
of the great queen in the Bible, in postbiblical times Jewish and Muslim legends elaborated on the basic Solomon
and Sheba narrative and also added
new-often highly fantastic-elements to it. According to Jewish historian
Josephus, writing in the first century
A.D., Sheba was the queen of Egypt and
Ethiopia. Arabian folklore, and the
Qur'an provide more imaginary stories
involving the Queen of Sheba. The
Qur'an narrative tells of Solomon receiving reports from a hoopoe bird of
a rich kingdom ruled by a queen whose
subjects worship the sun. Solomon
sends a message to the queen via the
bird, to the effect that she should come
and pay him homage, threatening to
annihilate her kingdom if she refuses.
Sheba agrees to visit and is converted
by Solomon to the worship of the one
true God.

The question of whether there is
any historical truth behind such legends has perplexed researchers for
hundreds of years. The main problem
is that so little is known about the
Queen of Sheba. There seems to be no
independent evidence for her existence outside of the Bible, and the historical record is silent on the great
queen. Yet, she has become such a significant figure to so many cultures that
it is difficult to imagine that her story
is all fantasy. Modern archaeology has
conjectured that if Sheba existed as an
historical figure, then the ancient
territory of Sheba which she ruled over
would have been located either in the
Kingdom of Axum in Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia), or the Territory of
Saba (in Yemen). Perhaps even both, as
there is only a 15 miles strait of the Red
Sea between them. The basis for this
assumption is that when she visited
Solomon, the gifts she brought with her
included frankincense, which only
grows in these two areas, and neighboring Oman. A date for her reign of
around 950 B.C. is generally agreed
upon.

But is there any evidence that Saba
and Axum could have been the rich
kingdom ruled over by an exotic queen
as described in the Bible? There is evidence for a market for perfumes and
incense in the Near East and Egypt at
least as early as the third millennium
B.C. The Kingdom of Saba was a prosperous trading nation, with control of
the caravan routes that carried
frankincence and spices across the
desert to perfume the temples of the
Mediterranean and beyond. The capital city of Saba was called Marib, and
was built on the edge of the southern
Arabian Desert in the dry delta of Wadi
Adana. In this and area, the Sabaens
needed a water supply. Consequently,
beginning somewhere between 750 and
600 B.C., they constructed a dam to capture the periodical monsoon rains
which fall on the nearby mountains, to
irrigate the parched land around the
city, making it possible to grow crops.

In 2002, Los Angeles-based documentary filmmaker, photographer,
and amateur archaeologist Nicholas
Clapp published Sheba: Through the
Desert in Search of the Legendary
Queen. Clapp proposed that the Queen
of Sheba was the renowned Yemeni
Queen Bilqis, the ruler of the kingdom
of Saba, probably the most influential
and prosperous of the five ancient
southern Arabian states. Clapp also
suggested, in contrast to the Biblical
description, that Sheba was actually a
much more powerful ruler than
Solomon, whom he sees as more of a
local chieftain than a mighty king. According to Clapp, the reason for the
long trek to Jerusalem by Bilqis and
her retinue was to take part in important trade discussions. These talks
were particularly centered on bargain ing for a route through lands controlled
by Solomon to facilitate long-range
spice and incense trading. In effect,
Sheba's embassy to Israel (as described
in the Bible) could be a distorted
memory of one of the first great trade
missions anywhere in the world.

Bilqis is also the name given to a
recently excavated temple located nine
miles outside the ruins of Sabean capital Marib. The Mahram Bilqis, or
Temple of the Moon God, was according to the project's field director, University of Calgary archaeology
professor Dr. Bill Glanzman, a sacred
site for pilgrims all over Arabia from
around 1200 B.C. to A.D. 550. This huge
ovoid-shaped-temple has a circumference of around 900 feet, although much
of the ancient site now lies buried under the wind-blown sand. Finds from
the site include bronze and alabaster
statues, and large amounts of animal
bones, indicating that the sanctuary
was used for animal sacrifices. There
is actually some written evidence in
Assyrian texts of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. that kings named
Itamru and Karib-ilu were rulers of
the kingdom of Saba. These kings are
mentioned in connection with tributes
or presents from Saba, including incense and precious stones, reminiscent
of the Queen of Sheba's gifts to
Solomon. However, these are references to kings and not queens; there
is no specific mention of a queen of
Sheba in these texts. There is also no
reference to any Queen of Sheba in the
many surviving Sabean inscriptions,
including those from the temple site of
Mahram Bilqis. Another difficulty with
a Sabean origin for the 10th century B.C.
biblical queen is that the kingdom of

Saba does not seem to have been fully
developed by this time. While Solomon
is undoubtedly an influential and
noted historical ruler, we only hear of
the Queen of Sheba in connection with
him. Consequently, the biblical account is viewed by some researchers
as an unhistorical episode written
down hundreds of years after
Solomon's reign, to emphasis the great
king's glory and legendary wisdom.

Among the Christians of Ethiopia,
located across a narrow strip of the
Red Sea from Saba, there is a story (included in their epic history of kings,
the Kebra Negast), that they are descended from Menelik I, the son of
Sheba and Solomon, and the beginning
of the Ethiopian royal dynasty. According to the tale, Menelik traveled
to Jerusalem to see Solomon, his aging father, who begged him to stay and
become king after his death. But
Menelik rejected his offer and instead
secretly returned home at night, taking with him the kingdom's most valuable relic, the Ark of the Covenant.
Apparently Menelik brought the ark
back to Aksum, in northern Ethiopia,
where it remains today, in a treasury
in the courtyard of the Church of Our
Lady Mary of Zion. In the Kebra
Negast, Makeda (as Sheba is known),
was born in 1020 B.C. in Ophir, a port
mentioned in the Bible and thought to
have been somewhere in Yemen.
Makeda was educated in Ethiopia, and
when her father died in 1005 B.C., she
became queen at the age of 15, ruling
for 40 years, though other accounts
have her ruling for six.

In May 1999, a team of Nigerian
and British archaeologists discovered
massive ramparts hidden away in Nigeria's rain forest, which they believed could be evidence for the center of one Africa's most renowned
kingdoms and the possible burial place
of the Queen of Sheba. The monument
at Eredo is the largest in Africa, and
consists of a boundary ditch and 45 foot
high rampart extending for an incredible 100 miles. Local people in the area
say that Bilikisu Sungbo, another name
for the Queen of Sheba, is supposed to
have dug the vast Eredo kingdom
boundary, and there is an annual pilgrimage to what is believed to be the
site of her grave. Though the area has
a long history of gold and ivory trade,
which could be connected with Sheba's
commercial activities, there is no direct archaeological or textual evidence
to link Sheba with Aksum. In spite of
the local legends, the monument itself
seems to have been erected at least
1,000 years after the Queen of Sheba's
supposed reign in the 10th century B.C.

Despite the uncertainty of the archaeological and historical evidence
in support of the reality of the Queen
of Sheba, the image of a woman of
power combined with wisdom and
beauty has continued to be an inspiration for artists, storytellers, and movie
makers for hundreds of years. From the
art of the Renaissance period to the

glossy epics of Hollywood, Sheba's influence has been considerable. Indeed,
the Queen of Sheba has been a favorite theme in the movies throughout
their entire history. Some of the best
known versions and variations of her
story include J. Gordon Edwards' 1921
silent The Queen of Sheba with Betty
Blythe in the title role, which tells the
story of an ill-fated romance between
Solomon, king of Israel, and the Queen
of Sheba; Solomon and Sheba (1959)
with Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida; The Queen of Sheba Meets the
Atom Man (1963); and Solomon and
Sheba (1995), in which Halle Berry
played the first black Sheba.

Though concrete evidence is at
present lacking, it remains entirely
possible that there was a historical
Queen of Sheba, as portrayed in the
Bible story and later legend. There
were certainly powerful female rulers
in ancient Arabia, and perhaps further
excavation and research in the area of
the ancient kingdom of Saba will one
day reveal the real woman behind the
Sheba story. Regardless of the archaeological and historical evidence,
in parts of Africa and Arabia the story
of the Queen of Sheba is still told, as it
has been for perhaps 2,000 or 3,000
years.