If you believe the Bible, and not the results of conventional methods of archaeological research, then King Solomon was fabulously rich. The Third Book of Kings says that the gold that came to Solomon every year weighed six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold … Descriptions of various precious metals and stones, as well as other luxuries and exotic things clearly indicate that Solomon exported them, and, obviously, from distant countries. The Egyptian bas-relief depicts countless treasures looted from the temple and palace of Solomon by the successor of the Queen of Sheba, Pharaoh Thutmose III.
Much of these treasures are now believed to have been of copper or bronze, as listed in the Third Book of Kings and the Chronicles. Large-scale copper mining was carried out in the Negev desert, and the recently found Egyptian tablet of Thutmose III confirms that copper mining was carried out there actively and at a time that corresponds to the revised chronology of Velikovsky.
Nevertheless, the location of the mythical mines is still shrouded in a veil of secrets and omissions. The Bible offers seductive but subtle clues. It names two areas - Ophir and Tarshish. Ophir was the land from which gold came, and Tarshish was associated with the ship that set out for him. In the same Third Book of Kings it is said:… and they went to Ophir, and took from there gold four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.
The ship that brought gold from Ophir is again mentioned in the legend about the visit of the queen of Abba to Jerusalem, which also brought from Ophir a great deal of mahogany and precious stones.
Thus. The Bible does not give a clue where Ophir was, it only states that he existed. At first glance, the texts related to Tarshish seem to be more useful, since some of them speak of ships sailing to Tarshish, and others - about ships from Tarshish. From the Third Book of Kings it follows that Solomon sent expeditions for gold and jewelry in cooperation with the Phoenicians, who are skilled sailors, under the leadership of Hiram 1, king of Tire. The ships sailed from the port of EzionGaver on the Red Sea. It also indicates that Solomon was at sea … a Tarshish ship with the ship Hiramov; in three years a Tarshish ship came once, bringing gold and silver, and ivory, and monkeys and peacocks.
But where was Tarshish located? The book of the prophet Ezekiel says that the Phoenicians traded there in silver, iron, timber and lead.
About a hundred years after Solomon, when the wealth of the kingdom of Israel diminished significantly, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, attempted from Ezion-Geber to reach Ophir, but a storm crashed his ships right at the port of departure. Another (and last) biblical mention of Tarshish is found in the Book of the Prophet Jonah, who tried to flee there when his famous adventure happened to him. He paid for his carriage at the port of Joppa, on the Mediterranean, where the ship was bound for Farens. Thus, a number of possibilities arise.
1. There were several places called Tarshish (it can also be translated as smelter), all of which were associated with the places from which Solomon exported minerals.
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2. The Hebrew historian Flavius Josephus in the 1st century AD. e. in the translation of the Old Testament identifies the word Farsi with the name of the famous port of Roman times - Tarsis. His version of Solomon's voyages is as follows: … since the king had many ships in the Tarsis Sea, he ordered to bring all kinds of goods from the most distant countries. This may not contradict the first version, if we assume that Solomon had a Tarshish (Tarsis) ship, that is, specifically for sailing to Tarshish (to various smelters).
3. However, since Solomon was definitely associated with the Phoenicians, leading the maritime trade, the third version, based on various accounts of their history, identifies Tarshish as Tartessus, an ancient kingdom near Cadiz in the territory of modern Spain, vividly described by the ancient Greeks as a mine of silver. It is known that the Phoenicians traded with Spain and then colonized it, so Tartessus could well have been one of the sources of minerals delivered to Solomon.
However, none of these three versions (hypotheses) can be completely acceptable. Tarsis, of course, could serve as one of the dispatch points for ores mined on the Black Sea coast, just as Tartess could supply his silver. But what about monkeys, ivory, peacocks and blacks? Discounting the monkeys of Gibraltar, it can be argued that neither Spain nor Tarsis could have been possible sources of all this commodity.
And why did Solomon's ships need three whole years to sail to one of these places and back?
The meaning of the word Tarshish is unclear, and if this is the name of a place, then it was probably farther away and, perhaps, it was about several places, but not about one. Excavations at Mahd ad-Dhabad in Saudi Arabia have uncovered a giant gold mine that operated during the time of Solomon. Perhaps it was Ophir, where the latter sailed with King Hiram (according to the Bible, the kings themselves did not go there, but sent their subjects).
As for exotic goods, Tartess could be the starting point for longer and more risky sea voyages around Africa and presumably America. The testimony of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus that the Phoenicians, leaving the Red Sea in about 600 BC. e. in a southern direction, were able to sail around Africa and back across the Mediterranean Sea along the northern shores of Egypt to the Nile delta, did not cause the slightest distrust among ancient historians. Their path lay through the Strait of Gibraltar, in the immediate vicinity of Tartessa. Similar voyages could be undertaken in the time of Solomon, during which ships took on board monkeys, ivory, peacocks and blacks, along with silver from Tartess himself, which gave the name to all such voyages in general and the type of ships involved in them.
However, there is another hypothesis on this score, which can be considered either instead of the previous one, or in addition to it. There is more evidence today to support the possibility of travel to the New World during the same period than against it. Their route could run in the opposite direction, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic through the Pillars of Hercules.
Many hypotheses have been put forward regarding the location of the mythical mines of Solomon. A new look at the navigational abilities of the ancient navigators makes it highly likely that they were in Central or South America.
Nepomnyashchy N. N.