Sheba

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WESTERN ARABIA AND THE SHEBA-MENELIK CYCLE
rival powers. In addition, they were Iron Age states, which meant they
would have had a powerful impact on a fragile environment.
An example of the Iron Age effect on the environment can be seen
opposite Arabia across the Red Sea in Sudan as the railway line from
Khartoum to the north passes by some curious flat-topped pyramid
structures in a barren desolate landscape. These date from the ancient
kingdom of Cush (or Kush), an African kingdom that not only absorbed
much of Egyptian culture but also provided a ruling dynasty. The pyramids,
which have a distinct style of their own, built with a sharper angle than the
Egyptian model, stand over subterranean royal tombs. The Sudan has other
structures, also resembling squat flat-topped pyramids. These were
constructed by the ancient iron smelters of Cush and Meroe. The area once
produced so much iron that European historians referred to it as the
“Birmingham of Africa” after the English industrial center. It seems
unbelievable to realize that long ago this desolate area, now exposed, was
heavily forested, providing charcoal for the iron-smelters. The forests
vanished, the iron smelters could no longer operate, and the whole
countryside was reduced to desert.
A similar pattern seems to have occurred in Saudi Arabia, where the
Tehama mountain ridge was once heavily cloaked in giant junipers.
Agricultural clearing, shipbuilding, and house construction disposed of
many of these huge trees, but the presence of iron deposits in the Jeddah
region suggest most of them were reduced to charcoal for iron-working,
which ultimately devastated the landscape as in Sudan. It is significant that
the Qur’an refers to David and Solomon as great armorers. Certainly there
is nothing in Palestinian archaeology to support the presence of an ancient
iron industry of such magnitude, although McGovern’s research in the
Transjordan uncovered an iron smelting center that utilized oak forests in
the Baq’ah Valley. McGovern concluded that this development had been
uninfluenced by societies west of the Jordan, i.e. Palestine.
Much further to the west, in the western African savannah, is wellrecorded
historical, economic, and geographical evidence that serves as a
model of what must have happened in western Arabia in earlier years.
Medieval European coins were made from the red gold of western Africa.
The western African savannah was a belt of territory on the southern edge
of the Sahara desert free of malaria and insect-borne horse disease. The
western African savannah peoples lived between rock salt-producing desert
northerners who wanted gold, and gold-producing forest southerners who
wanted rock salt. The savannah, which was also served by the navigable