Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Hancock's book is an entertaining account of an enthusiast who, from his own admission, was largely ignorant of his subject when he set out to discover the truth about it. The book has three main flaws. Whether by design or cultural self-centeredness, Hancock is too interested in searching for Knights Templar involvement, although the so-called Templar crosses in Ethiopia/Eritrea date from the 5th century AD. Linking the Ark to medieval Europeans sells books [Munro-Hay's Aksum (1991) and The Ark of the Covenant (1999) are far more informative but don't sell outside academia because European historical romanticism is absent in his works]. Secondly, Hancock had little understanding of the Kebra Nagast, which is a combination of two separate works, the Sheba-Menelik Cycle dating from oral (10th century BC) and written (pre-400BC) Semitic sources (Josephus summarises it (ca.90AD); and the Caleb Cycle (ca 518 AD). When Isaac's team compiled the Kebra Nagast around 1314 AD they used an Arabic Sheba-Menelik Cycle and a Ge'ez Caleb Cycle and then put in their own comments to try and make sense of the bizarre geography of the Sheba-Menelik Cycle. This included references to Cairo and Alexandria, which didn't exist in Solomon's day, something Hancock overlooked.Hancock is hardly alone in his third and major miscalculation. It is now generally accepted in mainstream archaeology that no evidence exists in Israel/Palestine of the events and places described in the Old Testament up until the Babylonian captivity. The site of modern day Jerusalem in Solomon's day was covered by a few small villages. There was no great city and nothing has been found of Omri's even more magnificent capital in Samaria. Historical linguistics, Tamil trade words in Hebrew, the lack of Egyptian words in Hebrew, the history of the Iron-Age (The Hebrews of Joshua were iron-age invaders of Canaan but were supposed to have fled bronze age Egypt), 11th century BC political-economic conditions, the name for the Ark in Ge'ez, the pattern of ancient Jewish settlement, the Saudi Gazette of Place Names, inscriptions on the Ethiopian plateau, remnant Judaic populations in northern Somalia and Eritrea, the history of the Queen of Sheba (three are mentioned in the Tigre inscriptions) and the extraordinary geographical references all point to the true location of Solomon's kingdom being between Taima and the Yemen border, in West Arabia, not Israel/Palestine. The Ark was probably stolen from a sanctuary near Abha in Arabia. If Hancock's hypothesis of a theft from the site of present Jerusalem it is difficult to accept that the Ark, reputedly the most dangerous weapon on the planet and in the hands of a small group of hunted desperadoes, would be casually waved all the way through tightly controlled Dynastic Egypt which was ruled by Solomon's own father in law. Hancock suggests the Ark was in the hands of the Elephantine Aramaic-speaking Jewish garrison in the 5th century BC who many commentators believe introduced Judaism to Ethiopia. However the Tigre inscriptions testify to a mixed Hebrew/Sheba population ruled by kings and queens of Shebans around 700 BC, which seems to corroborate the events in the Sheba-Menelik Cycle. Personally I believe the Sheba-Menelik Cycle pre-dates the Old Testament, which was first written around 400 BC without vowels and eventually standardised with vowels between 500-950 AD. Nevertheless, Hancock's work on the Ark in Ethiopia is very informative. What he has missed is a chance to show that the history of the Ark is the key to the true location of the Old Testament.
Dr Bernard Leeman Ethiopian Research Council Former Deputy Head of History, Asmara University sheba@archaeologist.com
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