Cultural Anthropology — Full Article

Solomon's Wisdom and Riches — Fact or Fiction?

FACT OR FICTION -startling evidence that should silence doubt

Voyages to the New World at around the time of King Solomon of Israel now seem more likely than not. Some twelve years' research for the book Dead Men's Secrets finally convinced me that these colonists of a forgotten age were indeed part of a great network of ancient civilizations that once maintained a flourishing trade between Europe, Asia, and the Americas, some 3,000 years ago.

I was surprised to discover that Harvard professor Dr. Barry Fell, from his own research as one of the world's foremost epigraphers, had reached the same conclusion. He considered the ancient visitors to North America were probably not explorers, but rather merchants, trading with well-established fur trappers and very likely also mining precious metals on those sites where ancient workings have been discovered.

Fell states:

Because of the depth of ignorance into which Europe fell during the Dark Ages, at times we are apt to forget how advanced were the ideas of the ancients, and how much they knew about the earth and about astronomy and navigation. (Barry Fell, America BC: Ancient Settlers in the New World. London: Wildwood House Ltd, 1978, p. 88) Fell is also convinced that "America shares a history with the Old World, and ancient Americans must have been well acquainted with much of that history as it took place."

Between 1850 and 1910, travellers in the Amazon region and other parts of Brazil were reporting the finding of old inscriptions on rock faces. Former rubber tapper Bernardo da Silva Ramos, in a now rare book in Portuguese, has published 1,500 reproductions from such rock carvings. They are all covered over with the letters of the Phoenician alphabet. Phoenicia, is the Greek term applied to the Eastern Mediterranean, Biblically this was home to the Alliance between King David and Hiram of Tyre. Often it is erroneously applied to only Tyre and Sidon. This friendship and Alliance extended into Soloman's reign and is well documented in scripture. Commonly artifacts that are discovered that relate to this alliance are called Phoenician. We shall use this term also.

One by one competent scholars who hold responsible positions in universities and museums are now coming forward with confirmations of the decipherments. We know that Hiram I, king of Tyre, shared a friendship with Israel's King David, and with his son Solomon. There was also a religious sympathy. These early Phoenicians (Biblically Tyre and Sidon) contrary to the now current notions of popular writers --- were monotheists. As a result of a commercial treaty, Hiram assisted in the erection of Solomon's Temple and Israel granted Tyre the two ports of Eilat and Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Aqaba. There is mounting evidence showing that these ships contained both Phoenicians --( Tyrians and Sidonians) and Israelites. As well as other crew members from the ancient world.

So where was this legendary Ophir? Before pursuing that further, I shall share with you some information which is both unexpected and startling. From Ethiopia to India to Mexico to South America, we find pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that one by one fit together to form a picture consistent with the Bible account of the greatness of King Solomon of Israel. In these widely scattered regions we discover local people independently speaking of the greatness of this man Solomon (Samon) and of a great temple.

1. India: In Srinagar, India, is a mountain called Tahkti Suleiman ("Solomon's Mountain"). Think about that for a moment. Is it not strange that a mountain in far away India should be named Solomon's Mountain -- after a Hebrew king? Except that an ancient Moslem tradition declares that King Solomon came there and arranged for the construction of the temple on the summit. It also speaks of the high technology that Solomon used. Indeed, Solomon's fame reached to India.

2. Ethiopia: The Bible recounts the visit to King Solomon by the queen of Sheba. And did you know that an ancient Ethiopian epic has been discovered, the Kebra Nagast (from about 850 BC), which tells that very same story from the other side? But it goes further. It records that King Solomon lavished on a visiting Ethiopian queen enormous riches and gifts. Here is evidence that Solomon's fame reached to Ethiopia. May I ask you this question: Why would we find two different reports, or claims if you wish --FROM TWO DIFFERENT CONTINENTS - one from Africa, the other from Asia, concerning Solomon of Israel and flying machines? Doesn't that make you wonder? But there is more...

3. Mexico: Votan, historian of the Maya, living around the time of King Solomon, recorded his visit to a magnificent temple being built. If one believes the biblical record, the splendour of Solomon's Temple would defy comprehension. Nowhere on the face of this planet did a structure of such size and beauty command the awe of man.

The Bible states that visitors from many lands would travel great distances just to set eyes on this Temple, never to be disappointed. And now, from the other side of the world, we have the independent record of Votan, the first historian of the Maya, who lived around 1000 63 BC. Votan had come originally from the Phoenician city of Chivim, on the eastern Mediterranean coast.

He records that he later made four or more visits to his former home on the eastern Mediterranean coast. On one of these trips, he visited a great city wherein a magnificent Temple was in the course of construction, thought by a number of researchers to have been Jerusalem. Was it Solomon's Temple that visitors from as far away as the Americas came to see? According to the Bible record, "all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom." (2 Chronicles 9:23) It appears that Solomon's fame did reach to Mexico.

4 Brazil:

And now we pick up the Ophir story again. In the barely explored eastern Andes region of north-west Brazil's Amazon jungle live the Ugha Mongulala tribe. These people, now primitive, have within their possession records written by their ancestors that mention an ancient city called Ofir (Ophir) which once stood at the mouth of the Amazon River. The Bible says that Solomon's ships went to Ophir to obtain gold. This primitive Amazon tribe (with no knowledge of the Bible) says that ships from the east, from Samon's -that's not a misspelling - empire, came to their city of Ofir to trade for gold.

Their tradition states that: Lhasa, the prince of Akakor... commanded the construction of Ofir, a powerful harbour city at the mouth of the Great River \[the Amazon\]. Where ships from Samon's (Solomon's) empire docked with their valuable cargoes. In exchange for gold and silver... (Karl Brugger, The Chronicle of Akakor. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977, p.58)

It appears that like Tarshish, the name Ophir became displaced, and as the trade of the Phoenicians moved further eastward and westward, it moved with the trade, until in course of time it came to be applied to a more distant region controlled by the Phoenicians. Corroborating this, the Phoenician Ophir or Ofir means, in their language, the Western Country. (Fontaine, How the World was Peopled. Cited 64 by Bancroft, Works of Bancroft, Vol. V, p.65)

And what land lay to the west? The Americas, no less. Yes, Solomon's fame reached to South America. My very first expedition was into the Amazon. I was greatly astonished to learn about this Ugha Mongulala tribe preserving written records of an ancient city of their ancestors called Ofir (Ophir) which was related to the gold trade. To my knowledge this was the ONLY independent mention of a specific locality called Ophir, of the Solomon period, outside of the Bible.

5. Peru:

Then I learned of the explorations of Gene Savoy. In the 1960s this intrepid explorer achieved international fame with a series of daring expeditions into the dense Peruvian jungles of the eastern Andes and Amazon region. Numerous ancient and mysterious stone cities and settlements were discovered where none were thought to exist, including the now well known Vilcabamba, one of the most dramatic and important archaeological finds of the 20th century. In the winter of 1966, Savoy found in Amazonas, Peru, a series of figures inscribed on the wall of an ancient tomb. High up in the Andes, in the region of the legendary Chachapoyas, the largest and most imposing of the glyphs resembled a figure that Savoy knew to be of Middle Eastern origin. He translated the glyph as saying "Ophir". After Savoy had discovered that enigmatic glyph in the Andes, another inscription appeared, but this time in Israel, at Tel Qasile, an ancient site near Tel Aviv that dates from King Solomon's time.

The inscription, on a potsherd unearthed by archaeologists, bears this message in Phoenician Hebrew, Gold of Ophir, the possession of Beth-Horon, thirty shekels. The inscription once marked a pot of gold stored in the hold of an ancient Phoenician merchant ship. At its centre was the same symbol Savoy had found cut into the cliff face of the mountain in South America.

The inscription on the potsherd in Israel verifies two important facts:

\(1\) Voyages to Ophir actually took place.

\(2\) Phoenician ships acquired gold there during the time of Solomon.

It is believed that this symbol marked all the ships that travelled to Ophir in Solomon's navy. For years, Savoy's expedition team had called the South American glyph a "ship figure" because it resembled the shape of an ancient vessel at sea. Now it is simply referred to as the "Ophir symbol."

Then, in 1985, a startling announcement was made to the world: the discovery in Amazonas of a vast ancient metropolis that may prove to be not only the largest pre-Columbian city in South America, but also one of the largest and most unique ancient cities yet discovered in the history of archaeology. This intricate network of well over 24,000 round, ovaline and walled cut-stone structures covers an estimated 100 square miles in the Department of Amazonas west of the Utcabamba River and east of the Maranon.

Savoy named the city, centred on and around the Vilaya River drainage, Gran Vilaya, and from 1985 through 1994 led six expeditions into the region. Near the end of the 1989 Gran Vilaya expedition, the explorers came upon a set of inscribed tablets on the outskirts of the city, hidden away high in a cliffside cave. Among the many inscriptions contained on these large dolmen-type tablets was a symbol similar to the previously discovered "Ophir symbol" as well as the one discovered in Israel.

So, here we have conclusive evidence, from a Cultural Anthropological and an Archeological perspective that supports the Biblical claims concerning Solomon.

Solomon's Riches

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