Solomon & Sheba, Inc.
New inscription confirms trade relations between “towns of Judah” and South Arabia
Footnotes
1.
See “
Endnotes
1.
Mario Liverani, “Early Caravan Trade between South Arabia and Mesopotamia,” Yemen 1 (1992), pp. 111–115.
2.
Israel Finkelstein, “Arabian Trade and Socio-Political Conditions in the Negev in the Twelfth-Eleventh Centuries B.C.E.,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 47 (1988), pp. 241–252; I. Finkelstein, Living on the Fringe: The Archaeology and History of the Negev, Sinai and Neighbouring Regions in the Bronze and Iron Age, Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 6 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 120–126; Michael Jasmin, “Les Conditions d’émergence de la Route de l’encens à la Fin du IIe Millénaire avant notre Ère,” Syria 82 (2005), pp. 49–62.
3.
See André Lemaire, “La Reine de Saba à Jérusalem: la Tradition Ancienne Reconsidérée,” in Ulrich Hübner and Ernst Axel Knauf, eds., Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnâri für Manfred Weippert, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 186 (Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2002), pp. 43–55.
4.
André Lemaire, “Wisdom in Solomonic Historiography,” in John Day, Robert Gordon, H.G.M. Williamson, eds., Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J.A. Emerton (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 106–118.
5.
See François Bron and André Lemaire, “Nouvelle inscription Sabéenne et le Commerce en Transeuphratène,” Transeuphratène 38 (2009).
6.
In my view, there is no question that the inscription is authentic. This view is shared by two South Arabian epigraphers who have been working in the field for more than 40 years each: François Bron, who has published the inscription with me, and Christian Robin, who recently cited the inscription in a communication to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris).
7.
Gaza is also mentioned later in Minaean inscriptions, in similar contexts, thereby making the reconstruction here quite certain.
8.
“New Perspectives on the Trade between Judah and South Arabia,” in Meir Lubetski, ed., New Inscriptions and Seals Relating to the Biblical World (forthcoming).
9.
“A Gateway Community in Southern Arabian Long-Distance Trade in the Eighth Century B.C.E.,” Tel Aviv 26 (1999), pp. 3–74, esp. 40–61.
10.
Bron and Lemaire, “Nouvelle inscription Sabéenne et le Commerce en Transeuphratène,” Transeuphratène 38 (2009), p. 51.
11.
Yifat Thareani-Sussely, “Desert Outsiders: Extramural Neighbourhoods in the Iron Age Negev,” in Alexander Fantalkin and Assaf Yasur-Landau, eds., Bene Israel: Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and the Levant During the Bronze and Iron Ages in Honour of Israel Finkelstein (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. 198–212 and 288–303, esp. 208 and 302.
12.
Maria Höfner, “Remarks on Potsherds with Incised South Arabian Letters,” in Donald T. Ariel, ed., Excavations at the City of David 1978–1985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh. Vol. 6, Qedem 41 (Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew Univ., 2000), pp. 26–28.