King Solomon, the queen of Sheba and the enigma of the legendary land of Ophir
David, Saul's successor, was the second king of Israel and reigned from 1010 to 970 BC. David's son, Solomon, who was proclaimed king by his father, reigned for approximately 40 years and expanded Israel's dominion. Under his command the kingdom extended from the Euphrates River to Egypt and, in addition, he had two very important allies: King Hiram, at the head of the Phoenicians, great navigators of antiquity, and the queen of Sheba, who dominated a kingdom located in present-day Yemen and Ethiopia, which provided gold, incense, perfumes and spices.
King Solomon's most important work was the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, where the Ark of the Covenant was, which contained the tables of the Law, which, according to tradition, Jehovah had given to Moses.
To build the Temple in Jerusalem, Solomon needed a disproportionate amount of gold and silver, which he obtained, according to the Bible's Book of Kings, in the legendary country of Ophir.
His fleets, led by expert Phoenician navigators, left the Red Sea and returned after three years of navigation, full of gold, silver, precious stones and perfumes.
Solomon, who in a few years had become the most powerful and wise king in the world, admitted dignitaries and ambassadors from all the nations of the Earth to his court, but one day a wonderful woman named Makeda (or Balkis) came into his presence. She was the queen of Sheba, a powerful kingdom that included modern-day Yemen and Ethiopia, whose capital was Aksum.
Makeda gave Solomon an incredible amount of gold and silver, as well as perfumes and precious stones, but she did not give her to him. She was a virgin and she wanted to preserve her purity. Solomon, who had three hundred wives and a few other concubines, desired her, but he did not want to insist.
Legend said that on the last day before leaving to return to her kingdom, Makeda was invited by Solomon to a last banquet. Solomon asked her if she would ever take anything from his property without asking permission. She replied no, that she would always have to ask permission for anything she wanted.
Then Solomon proposed a pact: if she took anything of his property without asking his permission, he could ask for (and obtain) what interested him most. The Queen of Sheba accepted the deal.
Dinner consisted of numerous platters of highly salted fish and meat, bathed in red wine. When Makeda retired to her chambers, she noticed that on the nightstand next to her bed was a large crystal glass filled with water, but she did not pay attention to it and she fell into a deep sleep. Just at midnight she woke up very thirsty, caused by the salty dinner. Without thinking, she took the glass and drank that water to quench her thirst.
Solomon, who was behind the curtains, saw her and reminded her of the pact: she had taken something of his (water, the most important good) without asking his permission. This is how Solomon obtained from Makeda what he wanted, but she agreed without remorse.
When Makeda returned to Aksum she gave birth to a son who was named Menelik. He later become the first emperor of Ethiopia. The legend narrates that Menelik, once he came of age, visited Solomon, who was old and not as brilliant as twenty years before. Solomon welcomed him with the highest honors and gave him, according to tradition, the Ark of the Covenant, which is still preserved in Ethiopia today.
Returning to King Solomon's fleet and the ocean voyages to the legendary land of Ophir, many historians have tried to locate this mythical country in Africa, in India and also in Peru (thesis of Benito Arias Montano), but until today there has been no evidence exhaustive of its location.
In my opinion, it is possible that the legendary country of Ophir was actually Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia), with its enormous silver mines of Potosí. One of the first supporters of the theory of the ancient presence of the Phoenicians in Brazil was the Austrian history professor Ludwig Schwennhagen (20th century), who in his book “Ancient History of Brazil” cited the studies of Humphrey IV of Toron (19th century), who in turn had described the voyages of Phoenician ships to the estuary of the Amazon River.
As we know, there are several archaeological and documentary evidences of a possible ancient presence of the Phoenicians in Brazil: the Paraíba stone, the pictograms of the Gavea Stone and the petroglyphs of the Pedra do Ingá, in addition to the mysterious document 512.
There is, however, other archaeological evidence that suggests a possibility about the probable coincidence of the land of Ofir with Upper Peru: the existence of an ancient and very long road, called in Portuguese “Caminho do Peabirú”, which from the current coasts of the State of Sao Paolo and Santa Catarina (Brazil), leads, after approximately 3000 kilometers, precisely to Potosí, and continues to Tiahuanaco and Cusco.
In the Tupí Guaraní language, the word “Peabirú” means: “round trip path”, which means that someone in the past traveled it to trade and obtain silver and gold.
According to my interpretation, Peabirú could mean: “road to Peru”, since it means path or path in the Tupí Guaraní language, while Birú is the name of ancient Peru.
The Peabirú road was recently studied by Brazilian archaeologists who clarified that it started from the San Vicente area. Another trunk of the trail began in the current state of Santa Catarina. Both entered the jungle, called Mata Atlantica, which has almost completely disappeared today. Then, the two branches of the road joined in the current state of Paraná where its width reached 1.4 meters. The road continued to the current city of Corumbá and entered present-day Bolivia in the city of Puerto Suárez. Then, after having crossed the Chaco prairies, he headed to Potosí.
In historical times, the Portuguese Aleixo García (1524) traveled the road to Peabirú and arrived in Upper Peru, nine years before Pizarro arrived in Cusco.
The existence of the old Peabirú road is very important because it proves that it was possible, from the coasts of Santa Catarina or San Vicente (Brazil), to reach Cerro Rico de Potosí (the richest mountain in silver in the world), in a trip of approximately two months. Is it possible that the Phoenicians and even King Solomon knew the road to Peabirú? Is it possible that Ofir really was Upper Peru?
If we consider that King Solomon's ships left the Red Sea and returned after approximately three years of travel, the coincidence of Ophir with Upper Peru may not be just an assumption.
But who would have provided King Solomon with the valuable information about the location of the very rich country prolific in silver and gold?
Going back in time again, we can hypothesize that the Sumerians already knew the path to Peabirú, based on the famous discovery of the Fuente Magna, the ceremonial vessel preserved today in La Paz.
Only further archaeological studies of the Peabirú road will be able to bring to light other important discoveries of this fascinating story that opens new possibilities regarding geographical knowledge and ocean voyages of antiquity.
YURI LEVERATTO
