1 00:00:13,887 --> 00:00:20,360 God made man, so the Africans say, because he loved to hear stories. 2 00:00:23,327 --> 00:00:28,355 Here in Ethiopia, they have a story which is nearly 3,000 years old. 3 00:00:32,047 --> 00:00:37,519 It's still told today in songs and fairy tales and sacred books. 4 00:00:41,287 --> 00:00:46,441 It's a legend which leads to lost cities and forgotten civilizations. 5 00:00:51,527 --> 00:00:56,157 We're inside the city here, a city of tens of thousands of people. 6 00:00:57,647 --> 00:01:02,437 This is a search for a great ruler who was also an evil genie, 7 00:01:02,607 --> 00:01:07,123 a worshipper of the sun and moon who believed in one god... 8 00:01:07,287 --> 00:01:10,245 and she's a woman. 9 00:01:13,007 --> 00:01:16,920 She's turned into a kind of fairy tale, demonised in Islam, 10 00:01:17,087 --> 00:01:21,478 and then, in modern novels and films, she becomes a femme fatale. 11 00:01:23,567 --> 00:01:27,685 This is a search for the Queen of Sheba. 12 00:01:56,407 --> 00:01:59,524 (PIPES AND DRUMS PLAY) 13 00:02:06,767 --> 00:02:10,396 - (FANFARE) - The legend begins in Jerusalem, 14 00:02:10,567 --> 00:02:13,718 with the arrival of a mysterious foreign queen. 15 00:02:13,887 --> 00:02:17,482 Do you think she will be as beautiful as we have heard? 16 00:02:17,647 --> 00:02:22,641 She's come to meet the wisest king in the world, King Solomon. 17 00:02:23,807 --> 00:02:26,844 Israel extends a warm welcome to Your Majesty. 18 00:02:27,007 --> 00:02:31,922 I am grateful for Your Majesty's permission to visit your country. 19 00:02:33,087 --> 00:02:35,647 (WOMEN ULLULATING) 20 00:02:40,527 --> 00:02:43,200 (SINGING, DRUM BEATING) 21 00:02:46,047 --> 00:02:49,437 Hollywood made Sheba a sex goddess, Solomon's lover, 22 00:02:49,607 --> 00:02:51,598 and they made her white. 23 00:02:53,367 --> 00:02:56,325 To Africans, she's black and a woman of power. 24 00:02:56,487 --> 00:02:59,923 In Arabia, she's half human, half demon, 25 00:03:00,087 --> 00:03:03,477 but everyone at least agrees that the tale begins here. 26 00:03:03,647 --> 00:03:08,084 This Easter in Jerusalem is the beginning of a journey 27 00:03:08,247 --> 00:03:12,763 to uncover the ancient links between Arabia, the Near East and Africa 28 00:03:12,927 --> 00:03:18,479 but also, perhaps, to uncover the life of an extraordinary person, 29 00:03:18,647 --> 00:03:23,243 who, it says in one version of the story, was not a woman but a world. 30 00:03:23,407 --> 00:03:25,762 (ULLULATING, BELL RINGING) 31 00:03:29,327 --> 00:03:34,799 As the Ethiopians tell it, the story begins 1,000 years before the time of Christ. 32 00:03:39,767 --> 00:03:43,601 Queen of Sheba came to pay respects. She met King Solomon 33 00:03:43,767 --> 00:03:49,239 and as you can see in the picture, she brought lots of valuable goods. 34 00:03:50,807 --> 00:03:56,677 Lots of gold, incense and ivory tusks and so forth. 35 00:03:56,847 --> 00:04:00,920 - So the treasures of Africa. - Treasures of Ethiopia. 36 00:04:01,087 --> 00:04:04,284 - And do know we why she came? - Her religion. 37 00:04:04,447 --> 00:04:06,199 - Oh, really? - Yes. 38 00:04:06,367 --> 00:04:10,519 - So this isn't a trade mission. - Not at all, it's religion. 39 00:04:10,687 --> 00:04:16,000 ''And when the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, 40 00:04:16,167 --> 00:04:19,603 ''she came to probe him with hard questions.'' 41 00:04:19,767 --> 00:04:23,806 - What were the questions? - I'll leave that to the monks! 42 00:04:23,967 --> 00:04:27,437 - Or to the priests! - Great, great. 43 00:04:28,007 --> 00:04:30,726 (SINGING, BELL TOLLING) 44 00:04:30,887 --> 00:04:33,196 (ULLULATING) 45 00:04:33,367 --> 00:04:40,398 So the story of two rulers, a woman and a man, both founders of their nations. 46 00:04:40,567 --> 00:04:47,040 Treasured by Christians, Jews and Muslims, their tale is in the Bible and the Koran 47 00:04:47,207 --> 00:04:51,200 and it's been retold by storytellers ever since. 48 00:04:57,447 --> 00:04:58,926 Now... 49 00:04:59,087 --> 00:05:02,796 the Queen of Sheba was beautiful and wise 50 00:05:02,967 --> 00:05:07,404 and wore a royal cloak with seven glittering stars. 51 00:05:07,567 --> 00:05:11,799 She entered Jerusalem with an immense caravan of camels 52 00:05:11,967 --> 00:05:16,438 laden with precious stones, gold and aromatic incense, 53 00:05:16,607 --> 00:05:22,159 the like of which had never been seen before in Israel and has not been seen since. 54 00:05:22,327 --> 00:05:27,401 Solomon greeted her and asked her, ''Why have you come?'' 55 00:05:27,567 --> 00:05:32,846 And she replied, ''I have heard that you are the wisest man on earth 56 00:05:33,007 --> 00:05:36,920 ''and I was curious to see if this could be so.'' 57 00:05:37,087 --> 00:05:41,319 And the queen tested Solomon with many clever riddles 58 00:05:41,487 --> 00:05:44,479 but he answered all her questions 59 00:05:44,647 --> 00:05:51,325 and, so the Bible says, satisfied all her desires. 60 00:05:58,687 --> 00:06:00,996 But is the tale myth or history? 61 00:06:01,167 --> 00:06:05,524 And why has it held such a fascination for so long? 62 00:06:06,727 --> 00:06:11,847 She first appears in the Bible, in the 0ld Testament. 63 00:06:13,287 --> 00:06:17,166 And this is the earliest surviving copy in the world. 64 00:06:20,007 --> 00:06:23,966 (SPEAKING HEBREW) 65 00:06:24,127 --> 00:06:28,678 - So it doesn't carry the headings at the top? - No, no, no, no. 66 00:06:28,847 --> 00:06:34,001 But there's a conundrum. The Bible was put together centuries after the events. 67 00:06:34,167 --> 00:06:39,446 No other evidence has ever been discovered that Sheba or Solomon existed. 68 00:06:43,887 --> 00:06:46,276 Yeah, here it starts. 69 00:06:46,447 --> 00:06:48,438 Here it starts, Chapter 10, verse 1. 70 00:06:48,607 --> 00:06:51,326 (READS IN HEBREW) 71 00:07:00,047 --> 00:07:02,925 The Queen of Sheba is arriving to Jerusalem 72 00:07:03,087 --> 00:07:06,875 and in this chapter, you hear that she's not the only one. 73 00:07:07,047 --> 00:07:10,323 All the kings of the world are coming to Jerusalem, 74 00:07:10,487 --> 00:07:15,845 fascinated by this wunderkind, by King Solomon, so they all come to Jerusalem. 75 00:07:16,007 --> 00:07:20,762 But we concentrate and focus on the Queen of Sheba, a woman. 76 00:07:20,927 --> 00:07:26,206 So on the one hand it's a woman who comes but we hear nothing about her beauty, 77 00:07:26,367 --> 00:07:30,997 we hear nothing about any relationship between the two of them, 78 00:07:31,167 --> 00:07:36,287 but as you know very well, in later literature and in the Ethiopian tradition, 79 00:07:36,447 --> 00:07:40,804 that actually they had a relationship, they had a son together, 80 00:07:40,967 --> 00:07:42,764 the first king of Ethiopia. 81 00:07:42,927 --> 00:07:47,762 But the Bible is quiet about it because it was too delicate to deal with, 82 00:07:47,927 --> 00:07:53,957 the king of Israel having a relationship with a foreign woman and fathering a child. 83 00:07:54,127 --> 00:08:00,362 So as a textual archaeologist, then, what's your feeling about the story? 84 00:08:00,527 --> 00:08:04,998 Is it a fairy tale or do you think there's a historical kernel to it? 85 00:08:05,167 --> 00:08:09,718 I'm very careful when it comes to historical kernels. I don't know. 86 00:08:09,887 --> 00:08:12,117 It's a great fairy tale, anyway. 87 00:08:17,247 --> 00:08:22,526 But is that all it is? Doesn't history itself become myth over time? 88 00:08:22,687 --> 00:08:26,726 What we remember most is the power of the story. 89 00:08:26,887 --> 00:08:33,406 And stories build up in layers over the centuries, like human life itself. 90 00:08:35,487 --> 00:08:40,607 If Sheba was only a fairy tale, why did they remember her? 91 00:08:40,767 --> 00:08:44,476 But if she was history, how do we find her? 92 00:08:52,687 --> 00:08:55,326 I asked Israel's top archaeologist. 93 00:08:55,487 --> 00:08:58,445 Can you find Solomon and Sheba in history? 94 00:09:00,407 --> 00:09:04,241 The only thing that we can do is to go to Jerusalem, 95 00:09:04,407 --> 00:09:09,037 to Judah, to the Highlands, the sites mentioned in the story, 96 00:09:09,207 --> 00:09:13,598 and try to see whether there is evidence there to back the story. 97 00:09:13,767 --> 00:09:18,921 And the answer is no. The answer is completely negative. 98 00:09:22,207 --> 00:09:26,917 But don't despair. Professor Finkelstein thinks you can find Sheba 99 00:09:27,087 --> 00:09:32,639 if you look beyond the Bible and far away from Israel. 100 00:09:32,807 --> 00:09:39,280 What you have there in the story is a depiction of the great Arabian trade. 101 00:09:39,447 --> 00:09:43,326 - The world has opened up in that story? - In that story. 102 00:09:43,487 --> 00:09:47,036 And the world opened up only with Assyrian imperialism. 103 00:09:47,207 --> 00:09:51,564 The first globalisation was Assyrian globalisation, 104 00:09:51,727 --> 00:09:56,676 so it's the late 8th and early 7th centuries, the Assyrian century. 105 00:09:56,847 --> 00:09:58,917 (MICHAEL) Right. 106 00:10:01,767 --> 00:10:07,797 So you begin to see how the Bible story of Sheba might fit into a much bigger picture. 107 00:10:07,967 --> 00:10:13,644 Around 700BC when the Assyrian empire in Iraq ruled the Near East, 108 00:10:13,807 --> 00:10:16,401 trade boomed with Africa and Arabia. 109 00:10:16,567 --> 00:10:22,802 And it wasn't just commodities and luxuries that travelled but religions, ideas and stories. 110 00:10:27,167 --> 00:10:30,159 A foreign queen, exotic and mysterious, 111 00:10:30,327 --> 00:10:34,002 comes bearing precious things never seen before. 112 00:10:35,847 --> 00:10:40,477 So this is also a tale about how civilization grows, 113 00:10:40,647 --> 00:10:43,923 how distant worlds make first contact. 114 00:11:08,447 --> 00:11:13,077 But to find Sheba, do we head for Africa or Arabia? 115 00:11:13,247 --> 00:11:18,116 In the ancient world the link between them and the Near East was Egypt. 116 00:11:18,287 --> 00:11:20,437 (SPEAKING ARABIC) 117 00:11:29,127 --> 00:11:34,520 To understand the big patterns in history you have to get an idea of the geography, 118 00:11:34,687 --> 00:11:39,078 and this is a wonderful place to get an idea of the geography of Egypt. 119 00:11:40,647 --> 00:11:45,198 Here in Luxor are two of the great trade routes: 120 00:11:45,367 --> 00:11:48,598 the desert caravan route from Chad and Mali 121 00:11:48,767 --> 00:11:51,281 and the route over from the Red Sea. 122 00:11:51,447 --> 00:11:57,602 If the Queen of Sheba came from either place, these are the routes she might have taken. 123 00:12:05,567 --> 00:12:07,603 And she wasn't the first. 124 00:12:07,767 --> 00:12:13,160 Centuries before, the Egyptians had traded down to the Horn of Africa. 125 00:12:14,087 --> 00:12:18,478 And they were looking for one thing above all else. 126 00:12:23,367 --> 00:12:27,918 This is the mortuary temple of Queen Hapshepsut 127 00:12:28,087 --> 00:12:30,282 from the 15th century BC. 128 00:12:30,447 --> 00:12:35,202 In this place, there's a crucial clue to our story. 129 00:12:35,367 --> 00:12:40,441 It's the tale of another queen who sent an expedition to a fabled land, 130 00:12:40,607 --> 00:12:43,758 which sounds very much like the land of Sheba. 131 00:12:43,927 --> 00:12:45,599 Come and have a look. 132 00:12:46,367 --> 00:12:52,602 The journey was so remarkable that the queen had it depicted inside her house of eternity. 133 00:12:55,407 --> 00:12:58,444 Seven great ships were sent down the Red Sea. 134 00:12:58,607 --> 00:13:02,646 Their mission, to bring back incense, 135 00:13:02,807 --> 00:13:07,881 incense to be burned on the altars of their gods, just to please them. 136 00:13:10,367 --> 00:13:16,476 But as far as the Egyptians knew, incense trees only grew in one far-off land. 137 00:13:16,647 --> 00:13:19,480 The name of the land: we call it Punt, 138 00:13:19,647 --> 00:13:22,400 ''Puwanet'', perhaps, in Ancient Egyptian. 139 00:13:22,567 --> 00:13:26,879 But where was Punt? You have to follow the clues to see. 140 00:13:27,047 --> 00:13:29,607 The incense trees are the most obvious. 141 00:13:29,767 --> 00:13:34,363 You see the trees in their pots. This is what the Egyptians were after. 142 00:13:34,527 --> 00:13:41,205 Another thing the Egyptians are bringing back is precious wood, ''wbny'': ebony, 143 00:13:41,367 --> 00:13:45,485 one of the words we still use that comes from Ancient Egyptian. 144 00:13:45,647 --> 00:13:50,277 Precious wood, incense, you see images of some of the animals. 145 00:13:50,447 --> 00:13:54,645 Baboons, the Egyptians even bring baboons back. 146 00:13:54,807 --> 00:13:59,358 The Egyptians were just brilliant at representing nature. 147 00:13:59,527 --> 00:14:05,363 And these fish... You can even see the waves, here, the little zigzags of blue. 148 00:14:05,527 --> 00:14:11,238 The fish are from the Red Sea, down at the point where Arabia and Africa meet. 149 00:14:11,407 --> 00:14:13,875 So this is a wonderful narrative 150 00:14:14,047 --> 00:14:18,962 of an Egyptian expedition, 500 years before the tale of the Queen of Sheba, 151 00:14:19,127 --> 00:14:25,441 to what sounds like the incense coast of the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa and Arabia. 152 00:14:25,607 --> 00:14:31,079 But where was the land of Punt? And was it the same as the land of Sheba? 153 00:14:43,927 --> 00:14:48,398 So my plan was to try to track the Queen of Sheba, if I could, 154 00:14:48,567 --> 00:14:51,127 all the way back to her homeland. 155 00:14:54,207 --> 00:14:56,880 The clues pointed towards Ethiopia 156 00:14:57,047 --> 00:15:02,246 and the first leg was the old caravan route from the Nile to the Red Sea. 157 00:15:02,407 --> 00:15:06,559 You can still find traces of the ancient trade with Africa, 158 00:15:06,727 --> 00:15:10,402 scratched by merchants and travellers so long ago. 159 00:15:13,607 --> 00:15:20,206 There's the fertility god Min. Somebody's chiselled his willy out, if I can put it that way. 160 00:15:20,367 --> 00:15:23,962 They stopped and had a sandwich and an Egyptian beer 161 00:15:24,127 --> 00:15:27,244 at the side of the road here back in the... 162 00:15:27,407 --> 00:15:33,243 So there's graffiti here extending from the 14th century BC, maybe the 15th. 163 00:15:33,407 --> 00:15:38,720 Somebody called Socrates has left his graffito over there. 164 00:15:43,807 --> 00:15:48,597 This is the debris of a kind of Roman period motel, 165 00:15:48,767 --> 00:15:52,316 you know, a kind of Roman period fast food joint 166 00:15:52,487 --> 00:15:54,284 on the route to Africa. 167 00:15:54,447 --> 00:15:57,598 It's absolutely fantastic, isn't it? 168 00:16:03,607 --> 00:16:09,842 But if you want to travel back in time, you have to try to see the world as they saw it. 169 00:16:11,167 --> 00:16:13,556 When we Europeans look at the map, 170 00:16:13,727 --> 00:16:19,916 we tend to see the Mediterranean and those familiar shapes of Italy and Greece. 171 00:16:20,087 --> 00:16:25,480 In fact, to really imagine... to imagine this world as it is out here, 172 00:16:25,647 --> 00:16:28,115 what you have to do... (LAUGHS) 173 00:16:28,287 --> 00:16:30,642 is turn the map upside down. 174 00:16:31,967 --> 00:16:34,401 Then you see how the world really is. 175 00:16:34,567 --> 00:16:39,595 Here's the Mediterranean world. Frogs around a frog pond, we are, said Plato. 176 00:16:39,767 --> 00:16:46,286 If you look at the ancient world from this way, it's Africa that looms large in the imagination. 177 00:16:51,367 --> 00:16:54,165 Solomon was renowned as a lover of women. 178 00:16:54,327 --> 00:16:57,956 His concubines and wives were too numerous to count 179 00:16:58,127 --> 00:17:01,278 and he loved many foreign women. 180 00:17:01,447 --> 00:17:07,682 Sheba agreed to stay in his palace only if he promised not to touch her 181 00:17:07,847 --> 00:17:11,635 and he made her promise not to touch anything of his. 182 00:17:11,807 --> 00:17:14,879 But Solomon was cunning. 183 00:17:15,047 --> 00:17:19,882 One night, he ordered a magnificent banquet of the spiciest foods 184 00:17:20,047 --> 00:17:23,960 and after it, Sheba was consumed with thirst. 185 00:17:24,127 --> 00:17:28,279 Thinking he was asleep, she stole into Solomon's chamber 186 00:17:28,447 --> 00:17:30,483 and took a glass of water. 187 00:17:30,647 --> 00:17:33,957 But he was awake and he gripped her by the arm. 188 00:17:34,127 --> 00:17:37,756 ''You broke your promise,'' he said, 189 00:17:37,927 --> 00:17:42,398 ''and now I may touch something of yours.'' 190 00:17:42,567 --> 00:17:46,799 And he took her to bed and they made love. 191 00:17:46,967 --> 00:17:50,403 And that night, Sheba had a dream 192 00:17:50,567 --> 00:17:56,756 that a light moved across the sky from Israel to Ethiopia. 193 00:18:15,007 --> 00:18:19,797 Massawa was once the haunt of Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. 194 00:18:24,007 --> 00:18:29,604 Now it's recovering from a terrible civil war which split Ethiopia apart. 195 00:18:31,847 --> 00:18:33,360 Salaam. 196 00:18:35,687 --> 00:18:39,726 Arab dhows like this have sailed these coasts for centuries, 197 00:18:39,887 --> 00:18:44,483 carrying incense between the Red Sea, Africa and Arabia. 198 00:18:50,527 --> 00:18:53,758 (SPEAKING ARABIC) 199 00:18:59,607 --> 00:19:01,279 Wow, wow. 200 00:19:01,447 --> 00:19:04,439 Mohammed's ancestors were also boatmen, 201 00:19:04,607 --> 00:19:11,524 he knows all about the India trade and trade from Iran, even in the 19th century. 202 00:19:15,967 --> 00:19:20,165 My idea was to follow the incense route down the Red Sea, 203 00:19:20,327 --> 00:19:24,366 hoping it would lead me to the kingdom of Sheba herself. 204 00:19:25,367 --> 00:19:30,236 You might think it's impossible to find vanished ports from so long ago 205 00:19:30,407 --> 00:19:36,755 but in fact an ancient traveller's guide survives, written by a Greek sea captain. 206 00:19:39,207 --> 00:19:42,483 It's called ''The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'', 207 00:19:42,687 --> 00:19:46,077 which means ''The Travel Guide to the Red Sea''. 208 00:19:46,247 --> 00:19:52,561 It lists the ports on the journey that we've come: Berenice, Ptolemais Theron in Sudan, 209 00:19:52,727 --> 00:19:56,686 and the most important of them, Adoulis. 210 00:19:56,847 --> 00:20:02,717 Now, in the Ethiopian legend, Adoulis was the port of the Queen of Sheba. 211 00:20:02,887 --> 00:20:05,162 It's where she left for Jerusalem 212 00:20:05,327 --> 00:20:11,038 and the guidebook says it lay opposite a hilly island in a deep bay. 213 00:20:24,247 --> 00:20:27,319 We're inching our way in over a coral reef. 214 00:20:27,487 --> 00:20:32,766 You can see it breaking around us, it must be very shallow here. 215 00:20:32,927 --> 00:20:35,999 It's just... Oops, there we go. We've grounded. 216 00:20:42,087 --> 00:20:45,682 Oh, bloody hell! Nearly lost my boots then. 217 00:20:53,607 --> 00:20:59,637 It may not look much now but there was a big town here from the 3rd century BC, 218 00:20:59,807 --> 00:21:04,085 a trading post leading into the heart of Africa. 219 00:21:04,247 --> 00:21:06,203 Oh, a big herd of camels. 220 00:21:06,367 --> 00:21:08,562 A big herd. 221 00:21:08,727 --> 00:21:12,606 There were temples of volcanic stone dressed with marble. 222 00:21:12,767 --> 00:21:17,795 They drank wine and olive oil imported from the Mediterranean. 223 00:21:17,967 --> 00:21:21,960 And the locals here still tell stories about their decadence. 224 00:21:23,327 --> 00:21:27,286 (SPEAKS 0WN LANGUAGE) 225 00:21:29,567 --> 00:21:35,005 They... What, they wipe their bottoms with a fish, they had so many of them? 226 00:21:36,407 --> 00:21:39,319 What he's saying is that people were so rich 227 00:21:39,487 --> 00:21:44,197 that they can wipe their bottoms with fish. 228 00:21:46,007 --> 00:21:49,124 That's one ancient custom which never caught on. 229 00:21:49,287 --> 00:21:51,801 But in Ethiopian legend, 230 00:21:51,967 --> 00:21:57,564 this is the place where the Queen of Sheba set foot again in her own land. 231 00:22:00,007 --> 00:22:03,522 When the Queen of Sheba returned to Ethiopia, 232 00:22:03,687 --> 00:22:05,757 she brought two special gifts. 233 00:22:05,927 --> 00:22:11,524 The first was a golden ring, given to her by Solomon as a token of his love. 234 00:22:11,687 --> 00:22:17,637 The second was far more precious: a child in her belly, 235 00:22:17,807 --> 00:22:20,446 her son by Solomon. 236 00:22:20,607 --> 00:22:25,886 His name was Menelik, which means ''son of the wise''. 237 00:22:26,047 --> 00:22:30,086 Now, Menelik would become the king of Ethiopia 238 00:22:30,247 --> 00:22:33,444 and the first of the Lions of the Tribe of Judah 239 00:22:33,607 --> 00:22:37,566 from whom all the later kings of Ethiopia were descended. 240 00:22:37,727 --> 00:22:40,002 And because of Menelik, 241 00:22:40,167 --> 00:22:45,241 a new Jerusalem was built in Africa. 242 00:23:04,127 --> 00:23:09,884 So Sheba's story isn't the usual fairy tale, where the princess marries her prince. 243 00:23:10,047 --> 00:23:16,600 Sheba stays the woman of power and goes back to rule her own kingdom. 244 00:23:17,727 --> 00:23:19,683 (BELL TOLLS) 245 00:23:25,927 --> 00:23:31,604 That story of the Queen of Sheba is enshrined in the nation's holy book, 246 00:23:31,767 --> 00:23:34,520 without which their kings couldn't rule. 247 00:23:34,687 --> 00:23:40,922 But in 1867, I'm sorry to say, the book was stolen by the British. 248 00:23:41,087 --> 00:23:44,523 Hello! Hello. Nice to meet you again. 249 00:23:44,687 --> 00:23:46,439 Hello. Hello. 250 00:23:46,607 --> 00:23:49,758 Now, I have brought with me from England 251 00:23:50,887 --> 00:23:53,526 here, this is the letter... 252 00:23:56,127 --> 00:24:01,042 ..from Yohannes, King of Ethiopia, 253 00:24:01,207 --> 00:24:03,243 writing to Queen Victoria. 254 00:24:03,407 --> 00:24:08,435 He's saying the British have taken the book from Ethiopia, please return it. 255 00:24:08,607 --> 00:24:12,202 (MAN SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE) 256 00:24:12,367 --> 00:24:14,597 This is the book! The very book. 257 00:24:14,767 --> 00:24:19,283 ''This volume was returned to the King of Ethiopia 258 00:24:19,447 --> 00:24:22,996 ''by order of the trustees of the British Museum, 259 00:24:23,167 --> 00:24:27,319 ''December 14th, 1872.'' 260 00:24:27,487 --> 00:24:30,126 The central story of this book, 261 00:24:30,287 --> 00:24:33,677 whose name, after all, is ''The Glory of Kings'', 262 00:24:33,847 --> 00:24:37,362 is the story of the affair between Solomon and Sheba, 263 00:24:37,527 --> 00:24:43,796 because the dynasties of the kings of Ethiopia all trace their ancestry back to Solomon and Sheba. 264 00:24:43,967 --> 00:24:47,960 Could he read just a little bit of this for us? 265 00:24:48,127 --> 00:24:52,325 - It's in Geez, no? - It's in Geez! It's in Geez! 266 00:24:52,487 --> 00:24:55,877 This is the oldest language of Ethiopia. 267 00:24:56,047 --> 00:25:00,006 (KESSIS READS) 268 00:25:00,167 --> 00:25:04,399 (MAN) First she went to Jerusalem and she met Solomon 269 00:25:04,567 --> 00:25:09,163 and he treat her very nicely and she stay, like, six months there. 270 00:25:09,327 --> 00:25:13,559 Is it true that Solomon fell in love with the Queen of Sheba? 271 00:25:16,407 --> 00:25:21,925 The centre of the book is the love relationship between Queen of Sheba and Solomon. 272 00:25:22,087 --> 00:25:28,356 - While she was in Jerusalem, she got pregnant. - And the name of the child is Menelik. 273 00:25:28,527 --> 00:25:32,486 - Yeah! - His name was Menelik. 274 00:25:41,287 --> 00:25:47,840 So that's how the Queen of Sheba came to be the mother of the Ethiopian nation. 275 00:25:49,367 --> 00:25:55,556 But the Kebre Nagast, the Book of Kings, also names the city where she ruled. 276 00:25:55,727 --> 00:25:59,686 And our search now takes us north from Addis Ababa 277 00:25:59,847 --> 00:26:05,285 to the spiritual heart of Ethiopia and the centre of a forgotten empire, 278 00:26:05,447 --> 00:26:09,918 the legendary capital of the Queen of Sheba, Aksum. 279 00:26:23,487 --> 00:26:29,596 When we think of the ancient world, we tend to think of Aztecs and Incas and Babylonians. 280 00:26:31,847 --> 00:26:34,122 The Ethiopian empire of Aksum 281 00:26:34,287 --> 00:26:39,407 has been the last of the ancient civilizations to enter Western consciousness. 282 00:26:39,567 --> 00:26:44,960 And yet it's the first great civilization of sub-Saharan Africa. 283 00:27:12,287 --> 00:27:15,085 (WOMEN SINGING) 284 00:27:15,247 --> 00:27:19,001 Ethiopia has been Christian since Roman times. 285 00:27:19,167 --> 00:27:23,638 It may be the earliest Christian country in the world. 286 00:27:23,807 --> 00:27:25,525 (SINGING) 287 00:27:31,447 --> 00:27:36,157 It's the night of Mary, tomorrow is the day of the Virgin Mary, 288 00:27:36,327 --> 00:27:40,525 and over in the old church, there's something else going on. 289 00:27:47,207 --> 00:27:51,883 (DRUMS BEAT SLOW RHYTHM BENEATH LOW, DIRGE-LIKE SINGING) 290 00:27:53,447 --> 00:27:55,961 Listen to this! 291 00:27:58,327 --> 00:28:00,682 It's unearthly, isn't it? 292 00:28:21,327 --> 00:28:27,197 All night, the priests will stand in vigil, guarding the holiest relic in Africa, 293 00:28:27,367 --> 00:28:31,042 a divine gift from Solomon's Jerusalem. 294 00:28:42,207 --> 00:28:47,440 And the little chapel over there is the place where, all Ethiopians believe, 295 00:28:47,607 --> 00:28:50,326 is the Ark of the Covenant, 296 00:28:50,487 --> 00:28:55,163 the little wooden box containing the two marble tablets 297 00:28:55,327 --> 00:28:57,795 given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. 298 00:29:01,887 --> 00:29:06,836 When Menelik grew up, he desired to meet his father, King Solomon, 299 00:29:07,007 --> 00:29:10,761 so he went to Jerusalem and presented himself to the king. 300 00:29:10,927 --> 00:29:16,206 ''Greetings, Your Majesty, from my mother, the Queen of Ethiopia,'' he said. 301 00:29:16,367 --> 00:29:19,200 ''I am Menelik, your son.'' 302 00:29:19,367 --> 00:29:23,918 At first, Solomon doubted the boy and refused to accept him as his own, 303 00:29:24,087 --> 00:29:29,115 but when Menelik showed him the golden ring, the token he had given to Sheba, 304 00:29:29,287 --> 00:29:34,645 Solomon rejoiced and invited Menelik to stay and rule with him. 305 00:29:34,807 --> 00:29:41,280 But Menelik's heart lay in Africa with his mother and he insisted on returning home. 306 00:29:41,447 --> 00:29:47,886 And with him, he took the most precious relic in the temple of Jerusalem, 307 00:29:48,047 --> 00:29:51,278 the Ark of the Covenant. 308 00:29:52,247 --> 00:29:54,920 (BIRDSONG) 309 00:30:01,247 --> 00:30:04,922 The Ark of the Covenant, or the Tabot as they call it, 310 00:30:05,087 --> 00:30:08,602 is still here, protecting Ethiopia. 311 00:30:08,767 --> 00:30:15,605 No-one may see it and the guardian can never leave the shrine until he dies. 312 00:30:15,767 --> 00:30:21,046 The closest you or I can get is to drink holy water from his teapot. 313 00:30:30,967 --> 00:30:34,926 It's amazing how powerful these mythologies are, isn't it? 314 00:30:35,087 --> 00:30:40,639 No Ethiopian doesn't believe that this is a true story 315 00:30:40,807 --> 00:30:45,642 and that the Ark of the Covenant is not inside that building. 316 00:30:50,647 --> 00:30:54,196 (SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE) 317 00:30:57,047 --> 00:31:01,518 At the period of King Menelik I, he brought the Tabot to Ethiopia, 318 00:31:01,687 --> 00:31:05,646 Menelik, son of Solomon, son of David. 319 00:31:11,007 --> 00:31:14,682 How was it that such a sacred item came back to Ethiopia? 320 00:31:24,527 --> 00:31:28,440 - (TRANSLATOR) God's will. - (MICHAEL CHUCKLING) Great! 321 00:31:28,607 --> 00:31:34,557 The discretion of the priesthood everywhere. ''It was God's will that it came back here.'' 322 00:31:38,087 --> 00:31:41,284 But does Aksum really go back to Bible times? 323 00:31:41,447 --> 00:31:46,237 All around you, there are traces of an older, pre-Christian world. 324 00:31:48,847 --> 00:31:54,763 Everywhere you look, there's column tops, great pieces of masonry, 325 00:31:54,927 --> 00:31:59,876 monolithic pieces of sculpture, huge columns, here. 326 00:32:02,407 --> 00:32:08,357 Just look at this over here. It's all built out of the remains of the ancient world. 327 00:32:12,687 --> 00:32:18,478 The giant stones of Aksum include the biggest obelisk ever carved. 328 00:32:18,647 --> 00:32:23,038 The legend says they go back before the Pyramids and Stonehenge. 329 00:32:23,207 --> 00:32:27,086 But in reality, Aksum starts only in the 1st century, 330 00:32:27,247 --> 00:32:31,559 far too late for the Bible story. 331 00:32:31,727 --> 00:32:36,403 So where was the city of the Queen of Sheba? 332 00:32:37,927 --> 00:32:41,124 (AFRICAN MUSIC 0N CAR RADI0 ) 333 00:32:43,247 --> 00:32:47,763 Where in Ethiopia can we get back to the time of the Bible? 334 00:32:49,527 --> 00:32:54,157 In order to get back to that time, say the 7th or 8th century BC, 335 00:32:54,327 --> 00:32:58,957 we've got to go now to an obscure village on the road to the Red Sea. 336 00:33:04,967 --> 00:33:07,322 (CHILDREN SHOUTING) 337 00:33:08,407 --> 00:33:11,205 (MICHAEL) Hello, hello, hello, hello! 338 00:33:19,727 --> 00:33:23,083 This is the sacred hill of Yeha. 339 00:33:28,407 --> 00:33:35,358 According to a local legend, this, not Aksum, was the palace of the Queen of Sheba. 340 00:33:39,887 --> 00:33:43,675 This is one of the most mysterious places in Africa. 341 00:33:43,847 --> 00:33:49,604 A Portuguese missionary came here in the 1520s and says inside this circle of walls 342 00:33:49,767 --> 00:33:54,283 were noble buildings and the remains of a giant tower. 343 00:33:56,607 --> 00:33:59,167 But he was wrong: it's not a tower, 344 00:33:59,327 --> 00:34:02,558 it's actually the remains of an ancient temple, 345 00:34:02,727 --> 00:34:07,005 one of the most ancient buildings in Africa south of the Sahara. 346 00:34:13,447 --> 00:34:20,922 The date of this amazing structure, it's before 600BC, could just be right. 347 00:34:21,087 --> 00:34:26,844 This wasn't just a sort of provincial temple, it's a great royal building, isn't it? 348 00:34:32,047 --> 00:34:37,644 But the other clues here are a baffling, tantalising surprise. 349 00:34:38,807 --> 00:34:45,758 This is part of a frieze that ran around the inside wall of the ancient temple 350 00:34:45,927 --> 00:34:49,681 and it shows ibex heads, stylised ibex heads. 351 00:34:52,487 --> 00:34:54,523 What does that mean? 352 00:35:00,887 --> 00:35:04,562 You see, those friezes are not African but Arabian. 353 00:35:04,727 --> 00:35:06,922 Oh! Thank you, thank you. 354 00:35:07,087 --> 00:35:12,639 So was Yeha built by an Arabian empire? Was Sheba herself an Arab? 355 00:35:14,567 --> 00:35:21,120 The next clue was shown to me inside the storeroom by a very proud guardian. 356 00:35:21,287 --> 00:35:24,723 This... Oh, look at this! Look, look, look. 357 00:35:26,447 --> 00:35:29,917 Fantastic. Fantastic. 358 00:35:31,127 --> 00:35:35,518 - Where were these found? - (SPEAKS NATIVE LANGUAGE) 359 00:35:35,687 --> 00:35:38,121 (TRANSLATOR) By the temple. 360 00:35:38,287 --> 00:35:40,596 These were found right by the temple. 361 00:35:40,767 --> 00:35:44,362 Just look at the wonderful cutting of these here. 362 00:35:47,207 --> 00:35:52,406 This is the Sabaean script, the script of the ancient kingdom of Saba in the Yemen 363 00:35:52,567 --> 00:35:54,558 in south Arabia. 364 00:36:05,447 --> 00:36:08,519 It's turning out to be quite a detective story! 365 00:36:08,687 --> 00:36:14,842 Here we are in the middle of Africa with a great temple built in the south Arabian style, 366 00:36:15,007 --> 00:36:18,397 with inscriptions in the ancient script of the Yemen 367 00:36:18,567 --> 00:36:22,321 and cult images of the kingdom of Saba. 368 00:36:22,487 --> 00:36:28,357 At some point, these two lands were ruled by the same dynasty 369 00:36:28,527 --> 00:36:34,124 and it suggests that the next stage of our journey should take us to the Yemen. 370 00:36:59,087 --> 00:37:02,363 (PIL0T) Good morning and welcome... 371 00:37:02,527 --> 00:37:07,203 (MICHAEL) Modern borders so often just divide us, don't they? 372 00:37:07,367 --> 00:37:11,485 You might think Arabia and Africa are separate worlds 373 00:37:11,647 --> 00:37:16,516 but in fact their cultures have intertwined for millennia. 374 00:37:16,687 --> 00:37:22,683 Just look at the map. At their closest, Arabia and the Horn of Africa are 15 miles apart, 375 00:37:22,847 --> 00:37:27,477 less than the English Channel between France and Britain. 376 00:37:27,647 --> 00:37:31,083 In ancient times, the Yemen ruled in Ethiopia 377 00:37:31,247 --> 00:37:33,238 and then Aksum ruled in Arabia 378 00:37:33,407 --> 00:37:39,004 and their people have shared myths and heroes ever since. 379 00:38:01,807 --> 00:38:04,924 These old caravan cities of the Yemen 380 00:38:05,087 --> 00:38:09,126 have traded with the Near East overland for 3,000 years. 381 00:38:15,127 --> 00:38:18,324 This is the Great Bazaar of old Sana'a 382 00:38:18,487 --> 00:38:21,047 and a fantastic place it is, too. 383 00:38:21,207 --> 00:38:25,519 And...I'm looking for the incense bazaar. 384 00:38:26,567 --> 00:38:31,118 This is Arabia Felix, ''Arabia the Happy'', 385 00:38:31,287 --> 00:38:36,600 and the Incense Coast here was the great producer of myrrh and frankincense. 386 00:38:36,767 --> 00:38:39,918 We're going to try and find the incense market. 387 00:38:45,087 --> 00:38:49,000 And this rocky lump is what they coveted most. 388 00:38:49,167 --> 00:38:52,125 (LAUGHS) Instant testing! 389 00:38:52,287 --> 00:38:57,202 This is what the people of the ancient world burned for their gods. 390 00:38:57,367 --> 00:38:59,198 Ah! 391 00:38:59,367 --> 00:39:02,677 So that's myrrh. 392 00:39:02,847 --> 00:39:06,157 And it's what the Queen of Sheba brought to Solomon. 393 00:39:06,327 --> 00:39:08,795 Absolutely fantastic. 394 00:39:08,967 --> 00:39:13,165 It is the densest, drowsiest, thickest, 395 00:39:13,327 --> 00:39:16,205 perfumed scent that you ever imagined. 396 00:39:17,487 --> 00:39:21,446 There's one of the Roman writers, he says that people here, 397 00:39:21,607 --> 00:39:27,045 so many incense caravans came through, that the people became easy-going, 398 00:39:27,207 --> 00:39:31,519 drowsy with the beautiful scent of the incense. 399 00:39:33,767 --> 00:39:38,557 And here in the Yemen, there's another tale of the Queen of Sheba. 400 00:39:41,927 --> 00:39:45,761 King Solomon could command even the djinns and spirits 401 00:39:45,927 --> 00:39:48,885 and he could talk to the birds. 402 00:39:49,047 --> 00:39:54,246 One day, he was flying through the skies on his magic carpet of green silk, 403 00:39:54,407 --> 00:39:57,444 a flock of birds wheeling around his head, 404 00:39:57,607 --> 00:40:01,395 when he realised his favourite lapwing was missing. 405 00:40:01,567 --> 00:40:05,446 ''Where were you?'' he asked the lapwing when it returned. 406 00:40:05,607 --> 00:40:09,839 ''I have come to you from the land of Sheba,'' the lapwing replied, 407 00:40:10,007 --> 00:40:16,958 ''and listen to this, I'm telling the truth, there I found a woman reigning over the people. 408 00:40:17,127 --> 00:40:22,963 ''She is possessed of every virtue and has a most splendid kingdom 409 00:40:23,127 --> 00:40:29,441 ''but she and her people do not worship God. They worship the sun. 410 00:40:29,607 --> 00:40:34,522 ''Satan has seduced her and taken her from the true path.'' 411 00:40:47,327 --> 00:40:50,717 So in Arabia, there's a new slant on the tale. 412 00:40:50,887 --> 00:40:56,564 Sheba is a dangerous female spirit from the land of djinns and genies, 413 00:40:56,727 --> 00:40:59,525 whose power must be contained. 414 00:41:04,367 --> 00:41:07,996 This is where the Yemeni knife comes in useful. 415 00:41:36,767 --> 00:41:40,999 And what a place to find the best restaurant in the world. 416 00:41:42,487 --> 00:41:47,436 So we've been travelling all day, we've had a breakdown, nothing to eat 417 00:41:47,607 --> 00:41:52,761 and you arrive in a place like this and it's absolutely wonderful. 418 00:41:52,927 --> 00:41:56,203 This is Bir Ali on the Arabian Sea. 419 00:41:59,247 --> 00:42:02,717 It's the start of the incense route into the interior 420 00:42:02,887 --> 00:42:06,766 and you can see the history in the faces of the people, 421 00:42:06,927 --> 00:42:11,443 faces that look Malaysian and Indian, faces that look Arabian. 422 00:42:15,367 --> 00:42:16,925 Oh, thank you. 423 00:42:34,127 --> 00:42:37,085 Well, we've been suitably fed. 424 00:42:38,167 --> 00:42:41,876 We're on the beach at Bir Ali near to the ruins of Qana. 425 00:42:50,367 --> 00:42:56,476 Qana was the great port in the days when Arabia's wealth was not oil but incense... 426 00:42:58,407 --> 00:43:02,798 ..days recalled in the Holy Koran, ''the glittering kingdom of Saba, 427 00:43:02,967 --> 00:43:07,006 ''whose queen worshipped the moon and the stars. '' 428 00:43:13,447 --> 00:43:16,519 When the Queen of the South entered Jerusalem, 429 00:43:16,687 --> 00:43:21,203 Solomon had been warned that she was no ordinary woman. 430 00:43:21,367 --> 00:43:26,441 Her face and body were beautiful but she had a dark secret. 431 00:43:26,607 --> 00:43:33,922 Solomon had the glass floor of his palace polished until it shimmered as if it were water. 432 00:43:34,087 --> 00:43:39,798 When the Queen entered his palace and stood on the floor, she thought it was a pool 433 00:43:39,967 --> 00:43:44,961 and fearing that her silk skirts might become wet, she lifted them up 434 00:43:45,127 --> 00:43:48,836 and the whole of Solomon's court gasped with astonishment 435 00:43:49,007 --> 00:43:53,558 to see she had a hairy leg and a cloven hoof 436 00:43:53,727 --> 00:43:55,763 like a goat. 437 00:44:04,527 --> 00:44:07,644 - You just chew it slowly? - Yeah. 438 00:44:07,807 --> 00:44:13,245 After a night dreaming of genies, we had a morning pick-me-up, a mouthful of khat. 439 00:44:16,887 --> 00:44:20,197 Another custom shared by Arabia and Africa. 440 00:44:23,567 --> 00:44:25,797 An acquired taste, obviously. 441 00:44:27,367 --> 00:44:32,122 Chasing the Arabian story of Sheba, we headed into the Wadi Hadramaut. 442 00:44:36,247 --> 00:44:40,320 I'm hoping to get to speak to an imam, a religious scholar, 443 00:44:40,487 --> 00:44:44,196 to ask him about the Muslim legend of the Queen of Sheba, 444 00:44:44,367 --> 00:44:47,723 the Queen of the South, as the Holy Koran calls her. 445 00:44:47,887 --> 00:44:54,076 But it may take a bit of negotiation because this is the heartland of Yemeni Islam 446 00:44:54,247 --> 00:44:58,923 and it's not easy for outsiders to get to talk to key religious figures. 447 00:45:04,927 --> 00:45:07,600 Nice people, they have respect for you. 448 00:45:07,767 --> 00:45:11,601 The south people, they're respectful of British people. 449 00:45:11,767 --> 00:45:18,605 Think of what's happening internationally and there's still respect towards the British. 450 00:45:22,327 --> 00:45:25,399 We went to the great mosque in Shibam, 451 00:45:25,567 --> 00:45:31,244 hoping to find a scholar who would explain the meaning of the Koran's story of Sheba. 452 00:45:41,407 --> 00:45:46,481 So it sounds as if this isn't the best place to talk to a religious scholar, 453 00:45:46,647 --> 00:45:48,478 we can't go inside, 454 00:45:48,647 --> 00:45:54,916 so I think to find out more about the Islamic legend, we need to look elsewhere. 455 00:46:05,607 --> 00:46:09,566 Shibam. It's one of the most beautiful of ancient cities, 456 00:46:09,727 --> 00:46:15,245 with its skyscrapers of mud brick, a Manhattan in the desert. 457 00:46:28,127 --> 00:46:30,641 Salaam, salaam. 458 00:46:31,727 --> 00:46:36,642 Finally, we were invited into the home of Imam Jafar. 459 00:46:37,367 --> 00:46:39,801 (MICHAEL) What a beautiful room. 460 00:46:41,127 --> 00:46:45,359 The room of a scholar. They're all the same, aren't they? 461 00:46:45,527 --> 00:46:48,758 A big mess with thousands of books everywhere! 462 00:46:48,927 --> 00:46:51,725 I love the wind-up gramophone. 463 00:46:51,887 --> 00:46:55,084 (IMAM CHANTING) 464 00:47:02,047 --> 00:47:07,917 And very sweetly, the Imam sang to me the verses from the Koran about Sheba. 465 00:47:08,087 --> 00:47:10,681 (CONVERSATION IN ARABIC) 466 00:47:13,727 --> 00:47:17,402 Yeah. And her name is mentioned clearly with the Koran, 467 00:47:17,567 --> 00:47:23,039 the Bilqis, or Queen of Sheba, in the Koran. 468 00:47:23,207 --> 00:47:25,675 - ''Balqa''. - ''Balqa''. 469 00:47:25,847 --> 00:47:28,202 (MICHAEL) This is her name? 470 00:47:28,367 --> 00:47:33,566 And in the Koranic tradition, she is from south Arabia, no question? 471 00:47:33,727 --> 00:47:38,198 Yes. (SPEAKS ARABIC) 472 00:47:41,207 --> 00:47:46,565 - Yes, yes, yes. - So in sura 27 in the Holy Koran, 473 00:47:46,727 --> 00:47:53,565 isn't there some tradition that when she came to Jerusalem her legs were hairy? 474 00:47:53,727 --> 00:47:57,163 For Jafar, it was a deformity cured by faith. 475 00:47:57,327 --> 00:48:01,400 She's like a genie and during the stay with King Solomon, 476 00:48:01,567 --> 00:48:06,595 she becomes a worshipper of the one true God and then she is cured. 477 00:48:06,767 --> 00:48:10,316 And the scholarly tradition, the imam is saying, is 478 00:48:10,487 --> 00:48:15,038 that this is not a symbolic narrative but a literal narrative. 479 00:48:22,167 --> 00:48:27,116 So here in Arabia, another name for the queen and another story. 480 00:48:27,287 --> 00:48:30,359 But here she's the queen of a real kingdom. 481 00:48:30,527 --> 00:48:36,796 For Arab scholars, the Koran shows that she ruled in Saba, in the heart of the Yemen. 482 00:48:36,967 --> 00:48:41,358 To get there, we needed to follow one of the great caravan routes, 483 00:48:41,527 --> 00:48:46,806 a route old when even the youthful prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, 484 00:48:46,967 --> 00:48:50,277 led his camels across the sands of Arabia. 485 00:48:52,007 --> 00:48:57,161 And the only way was to cross the edge of the desert of the Empty Quarter. 486 00:49:19,127 --> 00:49:25,362 Just imagine it, a giant caravan with 1,000 camels and 20,000 people 487 00:49:25,527 --> 00:49:29,122 looming out of the heat haze like a moving city. 488 00:49:49,647 --> 00:49:55,404 You can see how you can get lost in the desert like you can get lost at sea. 489 00:49:55,567 --> 00:50:00,004 That's why we've taken a Bedouin guide, Abdul Karim. 490 00:50:00,167 --> 00:50:03,364 Unfortunately, it's Abdul Karim who's screwed up. 491 00:50:27,367 --> 00:50:31,804 When you think that the Arabian desert is as big as western Europe, 492 00:50:31,967 --> 00:50:37,485 you can see why the kingdom of Saba remained hidden for so long. 493 00:50:39,207 --> 00:50:43,962 The further we go along this trail, the closer we get to the history. 494 00:50:47,607 --> 00:50:52,522 And the next stop on this trail is the real-life kingdom of Sheba. 495 00:51:02,767 --> 00:51:06,760 Now, because of its remoteness, 496 00:51:06,927 --> 00:51:10,237 the kingdom of Sheba had never suffered war 497 00:51:10,407 --> 00:51:13,399 and its people were fabulously wealthy. 498 00:51:13,567 --> 00:51:20,006 For according to the Holy Koran, God himself had given a special sign of favour to its people, 499 00:51:20,167 --> 00:51:22,078 long ago. 500 00:51:22,247 --> 00:51:27,719 Eat of the sustenance provided by your lord and be grateful to him. 501 00:51:27,887 --> 00:51:32,085 For you live in a land which is beautiful and fortunate. 502 00:51:33,047 --> 00:51:39,316 And Sheba was so fertile that it looked like an earthly paradise. 503 00:51:39,487 --> 00:51:44,641 Two great gardens, one on the right hand, one on the left, 504 00:51:44,807 --> 00:51:48,846 and everywhere, the air was heavy 505 00:51:49,007 --> 00:51:52,841 with the scent of frankincense and myrrh. 506 00:52:07,527 --> 00:52:12,920 At dawn, we arrived at last in the fertile valley of Marib, 507 00:52:13,087 --> 00:52:15,920 the ancient kingdom of Saba. 508 00:52:21,767 --> 00:52:25,237 Saba's wealth came from the incense trade 509 00:52:25,407 --> 00:52:30,083 but its secret was this giant dam, the biggest in the world. 510 00:52:30,247 --> 00:52:35,446 This is what made Saba into the earthly paradise remembered in the Koran. 511 00:52:39,687 --> 00:52:42,326 This is just one of the sluice gates. 512 00:52:50,607 --> 00:52:53,679 A stupendous piece of architecture, isn't it? 513 00:52:54,767 --> 00:52:58,726 It's 750 yards across to the northern end, 514 00:52:58,887 --> 00:53:02,004 the water would've been 50 yards deep. 515 00:53:02,167 --> 00:53:08,003 Just from this dam alone they could create 100km of agricultural land 516 00:53:08,167 --> 00:53:11,603 that fed 50,000 people. 517 00:53:14,327 --> 00:53:16,716 So the story comes full circle. 518 00:53:16,887 --> 00:53:19,879 A search which began with a fairy tale 519 00:53:20,047 --> 00:53:26,122 has brought us to a real civilization from the time of the Bible legend. 520 00:53:35,407 --> 00:53:40,276 In the fields near the city, they found the temples of the gods of Saba, 521 00:53:40,447 --> 00:53:43,757 the moon god Almaqah, lord of the ibexes. 522 00:53:46,247 --> 00:53:50,081 And on the walls, the same script we saw in Ethiopia. 523 00:53:52,847 --> 00:53:57,477 In around 700BC, growing in self-confidence, 524 00:53:57,647 --> 00:54:01,959 the civilization of Arabia reached out to a wider world. 525 00:54:03,287 --> 00:54:09,442 The rulers of Saba began to send out embassies to the Near Eastern world, 526 00:54:09,607 --> 00:54:14,761 sending treasure and spices and frankincense to the powers of the day, 527 00:54:14,927 --> 00:54:18,317 just as in the Biblical story of the Queen of Sheba. 528 00:54:28,687 --> 00:54:30,564 (HORN HONKS) 529 00:54:34,887 --> 00:54:39,677 Now Marib is just a truck stop on the road between Saudi and 0man. 530 00:54:46,167 --> 00:54:52,083 The fabulous civilization remembered by the Bible, the Ancient Greeks and the Koran 531 00:54:52,247 --> 00:54:54,920 has been forgotten. 532 00:55:01,847 --> 00:55:05,476 Except, that is, for the Queen of Sheba herself. 533 00:55:05,647 --> 00:55:11,517 Alien and exotic, she is the eternal female, fantasy mother and lover, 534 00:55:11,687 --> 00:55:15,566 woman of power, cloven-footed demon. 535 00:55:18,727 --> 00:55:22,436 She has passed beyond history and become a myth. 536 00:55:40,567 --> 00:55:44,640 We've been on this extraordinary journey around the Red Sea, 537 00:55:44,807 --> 00:55:50,439 searching for a legend and trying to put that legend into a real history. 538 00:55:50,607 --> 00:55:57,524 But the final goal of our journey isn't the famous monuments of Marib, it's this derelict hill, 539 00:55:57,687 --> 00:56:01,885 which is still inhabited after 3,000 years. 540 00:56:05,087 --> 00:56:08,238 0nly it's not a hill, it's a ruined city, 541 00:56:08,407 --> 00:56:11,479 built on top of the ruins of earlier cities... 542 00:56:13,887 --> 00:56:16,321 ..layer upon layer of human life. 543 00:56:18,847 --> 00:56:22,886 These are the last people of ancient Saba. 544 00:56:24,127 --> 00:56:29,838 Does the little boy know where there are pieces of stone with old Sabaean writing on? 545 00:56:30,007 --> 00:56:32,362 (MAN SPEAKING ARABIC) 546 00:56:40,127 --> 00:56:43,437 So further up? OK. Let's go and have a look. 547 00:56:45,247 --> 00:56:48,922 0ld Marib's days as a living city are almost over. 548 00:56:49,087 --> 00:56:52,443 Its crumbling towers are due for demolition. 549 00:56:52,607 --> 00:56:55,121 Oh, yes! Come and look at this! 550 00:56:55,287 --> 00:56:57,517 The archaeologists are waiting. 551 00:56:57,687 --> 00:57:00,599 Fantastic. How about that? 552 00:57:00,767 --> 00:57:06,842 It's the entire city. At Shibam, you see the houses built in the traditional mud brick way, 553 00:57:07,007 --> 00:57:10,761 but here, there's so much stone because this was the capital, 554 00:57:10,927 --> 00:57:13,077 the buildings were stone built. 555 00:57:13,247 --> 00:57:20,119 And so, even though what you're looking at is the last 300 years of the existence of the city, 556 00:57:20,287 --> 00:57:24,200 it's built out of the remains of... 557 00:57:24,367 --> 00:57:27,484 more than 2,500 years of the city's past. 558 00:57:27,647 --> 00:57:33,199 And these are the last people living on the site. When they're gone, that'll be it. 559 00:57:38,727 --> 00:57:41,036 How about this? 560 00:57:44,247 --> 00:57:47,080 But that's not the end of the story. 561 00:57:47,247 --> 00:57:49,920 For one thing this journey has taught me 562 00:57:50,087 --> 00:57:53,966 is that myths live on above all in the hearts of the people. 563 00:57:54,127 --> 00:57:59,406 - So what is this here? - (MAN SPEAKING ARABIC) 564 00:57:59,567 --> 00:58:01,956 (SPEAKING ARABIC) 565 00:58:02,127 --> 00:58:07,838 Down there, little Mohammed told me, the Queen of Sheba had her palace 566 00:58:08,007 --> 00:58:10,760 and I think she probably did.