7.2 The near east: 1000 to 700 b.c.

The near east

Back to The Near East: 1500 to 1000 B.C.

The arabian peninsula

North and south Arabia presented two separate ethnic groups, separated by a vast central desert. The northerners were nomads, but the south had an advanced culture with urban living, a high social organization, a unique irrigational system and a relatively advanced technology. Several kingdoms existed, such as the Minaean and Sabaean (Yemen). The Queen of Sheba, also called Queen Balkis, supposedly came from the latter country. It is generally supposed that this Queen, who has really never been further identified, came from the land of Sheba, or Yemen, yet there is no historical mention of the culture of the nation of Sheba until about two centuries after the Queen allegedly visited Solomon in Palestine. Exploration and excavation of that area of Yemen has been hindered by Islamic attitudes, for Sheba was cursed by the Prophet Mohammed as a pagan land, and all recent attempts at excavations have been totally thwarted by the present Moslem inhabitants. At the time of the legendary visit of the Queen of Sheba to Palestine, Solomon's power was at its peak. His garrisons controlled all the roads from the Euphrates to the Sinai and from the Red Sea to Palmyra. His army included 12,000 horsemen and 1,400 war chariots.

Camels, which had been used by the Arameans for a long time, came into common domestic use about 1,000 B.C. and became more and more important for desert trade routes and war. Four camels can carry a ton of merchandise and go for three days without water, covering twenty-five miles a day. A major camel route from Yemen to Palestine via Hejaz carried Arabia's resins (myrrh, frankincense and balsam) used in perfumes, incense and medicines, but also must have carried re-exported goods from East Africa and India. The trip required nearly three months by the coastal route. The nomad camel drivers of that era enjoyed a dish of camel hair and blood, mixed and cooked. Marib was the capital of Sabaea, one of the city-states of north Yemen which acquired wealth and power from this camel traffic. An irrigation dam, perhaps built there in that period lasted more than a thousand years. The natives of Sheba, Ma'in, Aqtaban and Hazarmoth were Semites from the north, worshiping the sun, the moon and Venus, which they called Ashtar, and their government was similar to that of Sumer. They were geographically isolated and tough. The city of Amman, in Jordan, gained independence from Solomon in the 10th century B.C., but 200 years later Jordan, as a whole, was conquered by the Assyrians. (Ref. 176 , 136 , 211 , 83 ) Additional Notes

Mediterranean coastal areas of israel and lebanon

The shore line of the Mediterranean assumed great importance in this period of world history, as several separate centers of civilization developed as the probable forerunners of our own civilization. The promotion of Hebrew monotheism forecasted the later development of Christianity, and the rise of the Greek Culture was the dawn of the Greek-Roman world which eventually took over that Christianity and bequeathed it to the western world. Professor Toynbee (Ref. 220 ) feels that the Phoenicians, Israelites and Syrians of that age, along with the Philistine refugees from the Cretan world and Hebrew nomads from Arabia, all together formed a separate and distinct society which he called the Syriac. He feels that it was the parent society of both western Christendom and the Islamic Society of later years. This is an interesting theory and convenient, but others do not associate these communities in this way. Toynbee dates the beginning of the breakdown of this group to the death of Solomon, but claims that it continued on to the Universal State in the 6th century B.C. under the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar.