The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the height of European colonial activity in the Middle East. This was a period during which the British were involved in the affairs of Egypt and the Sudan as they formed alliances in the region for economic purposes. In 1820 the British and the Gulf-region sheikhs established economic pacts that would guarantee the British access to Gulf-region resources and in 1839 they annexed Aden. The British went to war with Iran in 1856 over rights of way to India and China through Iran and later, in 1907, England and Russia would vie for power in Iran and divide it for their interests. The Italians entered the Middle East also at the beginning of the 20th century, establishing presence in Libya through a series of campaigns over a twenty year period.
The French, in turn, gained control over Algiers in 1830 and also pressed into Lebanon in 1860. In 1881 the French established a protectorate in Tunisia and would through the northern gateway of Africa establish a presence in what are today the modern nations Senegal, Mauritania, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Niger, Guinea, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, and Benin. France’s intention was to establish a firm east-west axis of control across the African continent in opposition to the British Empire’s north-south axis of power. The two imperial powers were at odds, though by 1904 the two had reached a series of agreements under the Entente Cordiale which eventually led the way for Britain to support France’s grab for Morocco as a French protectorate. Previously, in 1869, the French and British had collaborated with their financing to assist the Egyptians in construction of the Suez Canal. 
The colonies of the Middle East were exploited for their resources and their strategic location as well as for the wealth of their artistic traditions, brought back to Europe in the antiquities trade. Sometimes with the assistance of their hosts, the British and other European powers returned to their countries with cultural treasures 
The Bible tells us that its’ most fabled monarch, King Solomon, ruled the Holy Land from within the First Temple in Jerusalem. There he sat on a golden throne, surrounded by five hundred golden shields and effigies of golden animals. He dined on golden tableware. He drank from golden goblets.
What exactly was the source of this extravagant cache of wealth? The Old Testament relays that Solomon received a shipment of the precious metal – along with silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks - every three years from his personal mines in a faraway land named only as Ophir.
With biblical geography vague at best, the supposed location of Ophir remained a mystery for over a millennia, until Portuguese traders in 16th century stumbled upon the abandoned ruins of East Africa’s greatest sub-Saharan civilization, Great Zimbabwe. Thinking the freestanding, artfully constructed temples beyond the capabilities of the native “primitives,” they would go on to make erroneous attributions of the site to the Phoenicians, Greeks and Egyptians. Moslem traders who passed through the area circulated a different rumor: the city in the jungle was, in fact, the true location of King Solomon’s mines.
Surprisingly, that unchecked piece of information failed to circulate widely in Europe until the mid-19th century when a missionary named Merensky returned from Africa and published account claiming he had found the “gold fields of Solomon.” In 1885, the English author H. Rider Haggard cemented the conceptual link between “darkest Africa” and the wise king’s secret depot with King Solomon’s Mines – an adventure tale that also linked the legend with the Ethiopian traditional telling of a supposed sexual relationship between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Even today, the Lemba people of Southern Africa claim Semitic heritage – a fact recently confirmed by DNA testing.
| The ruins themselves told a different story, however. By 1905, archaeologist David Randall-MacIver had dated their construction to the 11th century – a thousand years after Solomon’s time – and deemed them to be of solely African origin. While that classification has severed the | ||||||||||||
| link between kingdom of Great Zimbabwe and Ophir for most, it hasn’t abated the tide of a speculation as to the mines’ true location. In the past century alone, the Timna Valley in southern Israel, the African side of the Red Sea, the coasts of Pakistan or India and Mahd adh Dhahab in Saudi Arabia have all been fingered as potential sites. The latter is the favored modern candidate, due to its proximity to an ancient trade route supplying Jerusalem…and evidence of long abandoned gold mining operation. |
|
|||||||||||
Tags: 16th century Portuguese Traders, 1885, 1905, 19th century missionary Merensky, 480 - 450 BC - Greek Lion Head Coins, Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Ancient History Store, Bible History, darkest Africa, First Temple of Jerusalem, Great Zimbabwe, H. Rider Haggard, Historic Israel on DVD, Holy Land Mystery, Jerusalem history, King Solomon, King Solomon's Mines, Lemba people, Mahd adh Dhahab, Merensky, Minoan Snake Goddess, Moslem traders, Mystery of Ophir, Old Testament mystery, Phoenicians, Queen of Sheba, Red Sea, Sword of King David, Timna Valley
