Lecture Summaries: 21 January, 2004

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Joint Annual Lecture to the Society for Arabian Studies, the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Council for British Research in the Levant

The Arabian Spice Trade
by
Alexandra Porter
Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

The Biblical story of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, provides a very good framework with which to examine the beginnings of the Arabian spice trade because it is often understood to be the earliest reference to the South Arabian incense trade with the Near East. 1 Kings 10 says that the Queen of Sheba travelled to Jerusalem to visit King Solomon with a great camel caravan laden with gold, spices and precious stones. As her name indicates, the Queen probably came from Sheba, the anglicised word for ‘Saba’, a powerful incense-trading kingdom that existed in Southern Arabia. The term ‘spices’ includes frankincense and myrrh, the main export of Ancient South Arabia.

How historical is the Biblical story of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon? Was large-scale trade of frankincense and myrrh established as early as the 10th century BC, when King Solomon is traditionally thought to have reigned? Although we can conclude that Saba was in its infancy in the 10th century BC, archaeologists have yet to find any evidence in South Arabia for the Queen of Sheba or that the overland incense trade was established this early. Archaeological and historical evidence have shown that large caravans of camels were already in use by the 8th century BC, and that the use of camels as pack animals was developing throughout the 9th century BC. The earliest reference to the Sabaeans and the caravan trade is in an Assyrian text dating to the mid- 8th century BC. The text describes the seizure of a caravan of two hundred camels carrying wool, iron, alabaster and purple dyed wool and one hundred people from Tayma and Saba. The governor of Suhu and Mari apprehended them at Hindanu. It has been suggested that the traders from Saba and Tayma were exchanging their incense for Phoenician textiles (i.e. purple dyed wool), iron etc.. in the Levant and then were travelling eastwards to exchange some of these goods with the Assyrians. Considering that there were Sabaean traders at Hindanu in the 8th century BC, it has been suggested that trade relations between Mesopotamia, the Levant and Southern Arabia may have been established even earlier. The Annals of Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884) state that myrrh and dromedaries were collected as tribute in the Hindanu area. Thirty to forty years later, Suhu gave ivory and incense to Shalmaneser III (858-824). Given this evidence it is probable that trade links were developing between Southern Arabia, Mesopotamia and the Levant as early as the 9th century BC.

What can we say about the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah? The archaeological evidence suggests that Jerusalem was not an international trading centre in the 10th century BC. Solomon’s temple and royal palace in Jerusalem have not been discovered and the very existence of the Judean kingdom in 950 BC is still open to debate. There are archaeologists working in the Levant who challenge the reality of Solomon as an historical character and the existence of the United Monarchy as it is represented in the Biblical narratives. Providing that a Sabaean Queen ever made the journey to the Levant it has been suggested that she would not have travelled to Jerusalem but to the court of Omri and Ahab based at Samaria. A 9th century context for a Sabaean spice caravan corresponds much better with the evidence that we have for the development of the South Arabian civilisation, the use of camel caravans, and the Assyrian texts. The anachronistic elements in the Biblical story may be explained by the fact that the passage was not written down in the 10th century BC or even in the 9th century BC. The story was probably written during, or after the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC, when the South Arabian incense trade was very well established.

The archaeological and historical evidence from across the Near East does not support the existence of a large scale South Arabian incense trade in the 10^th century BC. It is highly unlikely that the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon engaged in trade relations during this period.By the 9th century BC, however, the South Arabian incense trade was beginning and by the 7th and 6th century, it was in full swing. With regard to the visit of the Queen of Sheba, we cannot say that she never made the journey to the Levant. The Biblical writers in the 6th century BC, were drawing on various oral traditions and historical documents and it is possible that the story could hark back to the arrival of a Sabaean Queen in Ancient Israel. This event could have occurred as early as the 9^th century BC when the incense trade between Southern Arabia and the Ancient Near East was beginning to develop.