Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 113
remains (Gran may have destroyed it too) in an underground chamber.
Across the road are the famous stelae marking the graves of Aksumite
kings, and beyond them is a great hill where the old city stood. A stream
passes near the stelae. Beside it is a road to a dam containing an ancient
pool known as the Queen of Sheba’s bath. Rows of seats have been carved
into the cliff overlooking the water. The road quickly deteriorates and
becomes a rocky track. On one side of the track is a small hut containing an
ancient stone block covered in Sabaean inscriptions. The track continues up
a hill to an open space overlooking valleys. There are large underground
tombs built with huge cut stones. One of them is the tomb of Caleb,
reached by descending a flight of stone steps into a spacious stone-lined
tunnel containing several rooms with stone coffins. But Caleb is not buried
here. He died and was buried not far away; in a monastery where he had
retired to seek peace from terrible humiliation.
Caleb and Aksum once hovered on the verge of global political power.
But for an extraordinary natural disaster, the name of Caleb might have
been as well known today as the Prophet Muhammad. The chance came
when Yusuf, King of Himyar, provoked a holy war.
There had been earlier Jewish-Christian disturbances in Himyar at the
beginning of the sixth century. The second, ca. A.D. 520, was far more
serious. Yusuf attacked an Aksumite garrison in Zafar and then campaigned
against Aksumite troops and Christian communities elsewhere, particularly
Najran. Refugees brought horrendous stories of persecution, murder, and
the destruction of churches. Whatever the truth, Yusuf expected retaliation
and blockaded the Arabian ports with chains against Aksumite warships
and troop transports. Caleb seems to have accepted a co-king named Alla
Amidas to rule in Aksum while he invaded Himyar.
From the very beginning the war was a religious and dynastic one.
Yusuf was a Messianic figure intent on restoring the greatness of Israel and
creating an empire. He adopted the title of Masruq, which the Sheban rulers
used in pre-Aksumite Ethiopia, but it was also used to insult his Christian
Aksumite enemies, for it could also mean “stolen,” a reference first to the
Aksumite theft of the Ark of the Covenant, and second to Christians as a
whole for allegedly stealing Christ’s body from the tomb in order to
convince doubters that he had risen from the dead.
Caleb defeated Yusuf, who died riding his horse into the sea rather
than face capture. Caleb’s Monophysite proselytizing priesthood
interpreted the destruction of the Jewish state as the first step to empire.
The road to the conquest of Arabia lay open. However, it was not to be.