Arabia River
&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Arabia&River
Return of Arabia to being full of pastures & Rivers
Prophet Mohammad made a very significant
He prophesied in a Hadith (transmitted in 2
variations) that the land of the Arabs (Arabian Peninsula) will return to being
paradises and rivers. Through our analysis of numerical values of words in this
prophecy, we have managed to discover in which this is likely to happen.
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه أن
النبي صلى الله عليه و سلم قال : & لا تقوم الساعةُ حتى يكثر المال ويفيض ،
حتى يخرج الرجل بزكاة ماله فلا يجد أحداً يقبلها منه ، و حتى تعود أرض العرب مروجاً
و أنهاراً & . صحيح مسلم
لن تقوم الساعه
حتى تعود جزيرة العرب كما كانت جنات وأنهار
The Quran in verses 131-135 of Sura Al-Shu'ara
(Chapter 26)& mentions that the land of people of Aad in Arabia used to be
like paradise before God destroyed the city and turned Arabia into desert
because they disobeyed God. There are lots of indications that the U.S. is
similar to Aad and will receive a similar punishment from God:
أرض العرب كانت أرضاً خصبة ، و هي حقيقة أكدها القرآن الكريم فيما ذكره تعالى من
قول نبي الله هود عليه السلام و هو يدعو قومه عاد الذين كانوا يسكنون في الجنوب من
أرض العرب ، قال تعالى : { فَاتَّقُوا اللهَ وَ أَطِيعُونِ ( 131 ) و اتَّقُوا
الذَّي أَمَدَّكُم بِمَا تَعلَمُونَ ( 132 ) أَمَدَّكُم بِأَنعَامٍ وَبَنيِن ( 133
) وَجَنَّاتٍ وَ عُيُونٍ ( 134 ) إنّي أَخَافُ عَلَيكُم عَذَابَ يَومٍ عَظِيمٍ } [
الشعراء : 131 - 135 ]
(Chapter 26: 131-135)
This indicates that the Arabian Peninsula used
to be green pastures many centuries ago, instead of its current condition as a
desert. More importantly, this means we should expect a major cosmic event in
the upcoming years that will cause such a dramatic change in World climate.
This prophecy has started to
materialize:
A Muslim man named Zaheer has recently reported on his blog (
that he went to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah. He went to Madina first and then
Makka. On&June 27, 2010, on his way to Makka,&may be about twenty five miles
from it, he started noticing greenery. The whole desert looked like a faint
green meadow. This greenery was not the result of some intentional gardening or
landscaping. This is what used to be a bare desert and it is miles and miles of
Muslim, Faraz Omar, reported, in his March 16, 2010 article, noticing after
visiting Mecca that Saudi Arabia is becoming green. A long stretch of the
highway, for God knows how many kilometers, has unmistakably become quite green
with desert grass:
The following are photos taken by Faraz Omar
showing the new greenery in Saudi Arabia:
Furthermore, the following video below talks about a major crack in the earth in Ethiopia that
has formed in 2005, due to an earthquake, which may
lead Africa to split into two continents separated by an ocean. This will
make the Arabian Peninsula on the ocean. This will make the climate in Arabia
milder, turning Arabia into green pastures as Prophet Mohammad has prophesied.
Kuwait & Wadi
Al-Batin valley River
Dr. Farouq El-Baz, NASA scientist and Professor
at Boston University piqued the interest of Biblical scholars around the world
with his announcement of the so-called Kuwait River. The idea that a
river once flowed across the deserts of Arabia, and somehow connected with the
Tigris and/or Euphrates River, seemed far-fetched. Yet evidence for such a river
came from the satellite radar images taken during the 1994 mission of the Space
Shuttle Endeavor. Al-Baz studied the images, and noticed that traces of a
defunct river that crossed northern Arabia from west to east were visible
beneath the sands, thanks to the ground-penetrating capabilities of the radar
technologies. He called it the Kuwait River (believed to have ran through Wadi
Al-Batin valley in Northeastern Saudi Arabia, in ancient times) for that is
where it apparently connected with the Euphrates or emptied into the Persian
Gulf.New Scientist
magazine in April 3, 1993 reported the following article:
&Geologists studying remote
sensing images of Arabia have found a dry riverbed covered by desert sands. The
850-kilometre channel begins in the Hijaz Mountains of western Saudi Arabia and
ends in a delta that covers more than two-thirds of Kuwait, says Farouk El-Baz,
director of the centre for remote sensing at Boston University. Parts of the
ancient channel had been mapped as 'wadis', but no one had recognised it as a
large river system because large dune fields cut across it.
Arabia has had wet periods at
times over the past 200 000 years. Water last flowed in what El-Baz calls the
'Kuwait River' between 5000 and 11 000 some stretches of the river
may have been up to 5 kilometres wide. Then as the region became one of the
driest in the world, blowing sands covered the channel. The river runs along a
fault, so that there should still be ground water deep in the channel. El-Baz
says this water might be tapped by wells several hundred metres deep.
Sand-covered parts of the old channel may contain the remains of prehistoric
settlements, from the time before the river dried.
El-Baz sees signs to the south of
three other dry rivers that would have drained other parts of Arabia.&
Fig. 1 Map Showing Eden’s
Long-lost River
Four rivers are mentioned in the
narrative of the ordering of creation in Genesis 2, but as any commentary will
tell you, only three are known. The commentaries, it turns out, will have to be
rewritten.
Eden’s Pishon river, mentioned only in the Bible (Genesis 2:11), is said to have
flowed “around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold...” Three other
rivers which Genesis said were alongside the Pishon are known to us as the
centers of the world’s earliest civilizations, but the Pishon was a complete
enigma to readers for millennia, until recently. The earliest known
civilizations, Sumer and Egypt, knew nothing of it, and these civilizations were
flourishing over 1500 years before Abraham! Satellite imaging and later Space
Shuttle echolocation revealed a pock-marked section of the desert caused by
river stones which still lay buried deep under the desert sand. Blue is
limestone, yellow-o the pock-marked area in the yellow sand
(below left) is caused by the influences of subterranean topography and wind on
the desert sand. (the river was discovered by Farouk El-Baz of Boston University).
The imagery also overturned the
prevailing assumption of climactic stability since the end of the last ice age
(ending c. 9000BC) held by a majority of ancient Near Eastern scholars until
recently. It would appear, as James Sauer puts it, that Genesis contains some
very ancient historical memory about ancient Near Eastern geography. How
ancient? The presence of this river far predates the geography described by the
Sumerians and the Egyptians, which are the earliest civilizations known to
historians, yet its existence and location are just as they are found in the
This brings to mind an obvious question: where’s all that gold? It turns out
that the gold of that land is good! The ancient river, it turns out, runs right
by the best producing site in the world today. &Only one place in Arabia has
such a deposit -the famous site of Mahd ed-Dahab, the &Cradle of Gold.& This
mine, ancient and modern [it was re-discovered in 1932] currently produces more
than 5 tons of gold a year. The mining site is located about 125 miles south of
Medina, near the headwaters of the Kuwait River& (Sauer, op cit, p. 64).
“This quartz-sulfide-gold vein at
Mahd edh-Dhahab is still mined today. The mine, which some identify as King
Solomon’s mine (1 Kings 9:26–28), produces more than 5 tons of gold a year”
(Sauer, op cit).
The Earliest Civilization and the Bible
By Carl Olof Jonsson, G?teborg, Sweden, 2002
Disclaimer:
This article is authored by a non-Muslim. We do not endorse this article, but it
is informative and worth reading.
According to the first chapters of the Bible, the earliest human civilization on
earth began in and around Mesopotamia in the Near East. If this is correct, we
should expect to find in this area traces of the earliest human settlements and
villages, the earliest traces of stock-farming and agriculture, the earliest
metallurgy and handicraft, the earliest cities, states, trade and writing. How
does this tally with the findings of modern archaeology?
A. &THE GARDEN OF EDEN
According to the Bible the earliest dwelling-place of the first human couple was
a ”garden” located in an area called ”Eden”. &Scholars generally dismiss this
story as a legend or myth. Dr. E. A. Speiser, however, who before his death in
1965 was Chairman of the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, in a careful examination of the story noted that
at least its physical background is authentic. In an article originally
published in 1959 he stated:
&”Although the Paradise of the Bible was manifestly a place of mystery, its
physical setting cannot be dismissed offhand as sheer imagination. To the writer
of the account in Gen 2:8ff., in any case, and to his ultimate source or
sources, the Garden of Eden was obviously a reality.” – E. A. Speiser, ”The
Rivers of Paradise,” reprinted in R. S. Hess & D. T. Tsumura (eds.), ”I Studied
Inscriptions from Before the Flood” (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994), p. 175.
The geographical details given by the Biblical writer helps to at least
approximately identify the location of the site:
”Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in E and there he put
the man he had formed. … A river watering the garden flowed from E from
there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the P
it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of
aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the
second river is the G it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of
the third river is the T it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the
fourth river is the Euphrates.” – Genesis 2:8, 10-14, NIV.
The names of the last two rivers are easily recognizable as the two great rivers
flowing toward southeast from eastern Turkey in the north through the modern
country of Iraq. About 180 kilometers north of the Persian Gulf the two rivers
join into one river, Shatt al-A’rab, which empties its waters into the Persian
Gulf. What about the other two rivers, Pishon and Gihon?
1. &Gen. 2:10: The four ”heads” or ”headwaters”
Before attempting to identify the Pishon and Gihon rivers, it must be determined
whether the writer means that the four ”headwaters” started out from a common
source somewhere in eastern Turkey, or whether they converged into a common
river channel in the south.
Normally, a river does not break up on its way downstream from its source into
several rivers that reach the sea separately, although such a break up may occur
in a delta area near the sea, as in the Egyptian Nile delta. Rather, a river is
joined during its downstream course by other rivers or tributaries to form one
common river channel that finally empties its waters into the sea. This is
clearly the case with the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris today. That Eden, where
the four headwaters or rivers converged was located in the south also has
linguistic support, as Dr. Speiser argues:
”It would seem to follow, then, that the ’four heads’ of which the text speaks
(v. 10) are meant to be viewed upstream rather than down, something very few
authorities appear to have realized. Yet both Akkadian and Hebrew usage support
such a view. Thus Akk. ina re? Uqnê stands for ’on the upper Kerkha.’ And A.
Ehrlich has pointed out that the Hebrew term for the lower course of a stream is
qatsê [’mouth’] (cf. Josh 15:5, 18:19); hence ro? [”head”] must refer to the
opposite end, the upper course or headstream.” – Speiser (1994), pp. 178-179. &
Thus Speiser, on page 20 of his commentary on Genesis (The Anchor Bible:
Doubleday, 1962), concludes that ”the term ’heads’ can have nothing to do with
streams into which the river breaks up after it leaves Eden, but designates
instead four separate branches which have merged within Eden.”
Very interestingly, the ancient Sumerians, too, who inhabited southern
Mesopotamia, located the original paradise, which they called Dilmun, at the
mouth of the rivers, in an unknown territory to the east of the Sumerian cities.
– Theresa Howard-Carter, ”The Tangible Evidence for the Earliest Dilmun,”
Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 33 (1981), pp. 217-220.
All of this means that the area where the four rivers converged should be sought
in the south. We have already seen that the Euphrates and Tigris rivers join
into one river not very far from the Persian Gulf. If the region of Eden
embraced or adjoined this area, the other two rivers, Gihon and Pishon, also
merged with the other two somewhere in the same general region.
2. &Gihon, the river of Cush
The ”land of Cush”, through which the Gihon river is stated to have wound, is
most often used in the Bible of the region south of Egypt, i.e., Nubia or
Ethiopia. However, in ancient times there was also another ”land of Cush,” which
lay to the east of Mesopotamia in what is today western Iran. Speiser explains:
”The source of most of our geographical troubles with the biblical Paradise is
the mention of a land called Cush in Gen 2:13. Normally, the Bible understands
by that term the region of the Upper Nile, cuneiform Kus/?u, Kas/?i, Eg[yptian]
K’?. But there was also another, and wholly unrelated, C the Nimrod fragment
(Gen 10:8-12) connects this homonym unmistakably with Mesopotamia, by assigning
it to the father of the hero who is said to have founded a number of Babylonian
and Assyrian capitals. This particular Cush, then, is the eponym of the Kassites,
Akk. Ka???; its Nuzi form Ku??u- and its Greek derivative Kossa?oi, actually
contain the same vowel as the biblical name.” – Speiser (1994), pp. 176-177. &
Much later, these Kassites conquered Babylon and ruled Babylonia c.
Today, two major rivers flow from the Iranian mountains in the east down to the
southern part of the Mesopotamian flood-plain, viz., Kerkha and Karun, the
latter joining Shatt al-A?rab about 50 kilometers north of the Persian Gulf,
while Kerkha, ancient Choaspes, flows past the site of ancient Susa down to the
marshes north of Shatt al-A’rab.
The Samaritan version actually ”renders Gihon, the name of the river of Cush, by
’Asqop, evidently the Choaspes, modern Kerkha.” (Speiser, 1994, p. 177) Owing to
variations of the river flows, changes of the sea level prior to the third
millennium BCE, and the marshy flood-plain in southern Iraq, the lower courses
of these rivers have changed considerably since ancient times. It is even
possible that the two adjacent rivers amalgamated into one river before reaching
the Gulf area. If one of them, or perhaps both jointly, is the Gihon river, as
seems likely, where is Pishon?
3. &Pishon, the river of Havilah
According to Genesis 2:11-12, Pishon ”winds through the entire land of Havilah,
where there is gold. (The gold
aromatic resin and onyx are
also there.)” Speiser first considered either Kerkha or Karun as possible
candidates. But as the land of Havilah is most commonly connected with the
Arabian Peninsula (Gen. 10:26-29; 25:18; 1 Chron. 1:20-23), he also suggested
that one of the now dry wadis (dry riverbeds) that slope down from the south,
could be identified with the Pishon river, adding: ”It remains to be shown,
however, that any of the present wadis was sufficiently active during the period
in question to constitute a sizable and perennial river.” – Speiser (1994), p.
That a ”sizable and perennial river” once did exist in this area that in every
respect meets the description of the Pishon river has, in fact, been clearly
demonstrated in later years by modern climatological research and satellite
studies. James A. Sauer, former curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum’s
archaeological collections and up to his death in the late 1990’s a leading
excavator of various sites on the Arabian Peninsula, has summarized these
findings in his article, ”The River Runs Dry. Creation Story Preserves
Historical Memory,” published in the Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22:4,
July/August 1996, pp. 52-57, 64.
James Sauer starts by saying that he speaks ”as a former skeptic.” He had long
doubted that archaeology could uncover evidence of the earliest Biblical
stories, having previously written numerous papers in which he had criticized
the optimism of W. F. Albright and many of his students. ”Now I am recanting,”
he says. ”My current work on climate change had led me to conclude that Albright
and his students were clearly correct to look for connections between the
archaeological evidence and early Biblical traditions.” (Sauer, p. 52)
Contrary to the previously prevailing view, recent research has shown that
dramatic climatic changes have occurred within historical times in the Near East
and elsewhere. According to carbon 14 datings (that are very rough and uncertain
at this early period), a global wet phase began in about 7500 BCE that lasted
until about 3500 BCE. The warm wet humid climate during this period encouraged
the growth of subtropical vegetation in the areas around the Persian Gulf. In
southern Saudi Arabia, ancient lakes existed in what is today the largest sand
desert in the world, and further north, a river originating in the Hijaz
Mountains in the west run toward northeast across the whole Arabian Peninsula
into the head of the Persian Gulf.
This large river, which in places was 3 miles wide, was discovered in the early
1990’s by Boston University scientist Farouk El-Baz while studying a satellite
photo of central Arabia. Much of the river channel is today concealed by sand
dunes. It has been named the ”Kuwait River”, as it reached the Persian Gulf via
the now dried riverbed called Wadi Al-Batin that runs along the northern border
of Kuwait.
In about 3500 BCE, the climate suddenly changed, and a drier period followed
that peaked in the period
BCE, causing the ”Kuwait River” to dry out.
(This climatic disaster also brought the Akkadian empire to an end. See the
Science magazine, Vol. 261, 20 August 1993, p. 985: ”How the Akkadian Empire Was
Hung Out to Dry”, and ibid., pages 995-1004: ”The Genesis and Collapse of Third
Millenium North Mesopotamian Civilization.”) &
Sauer concludes that the ”Kuwait River” most probably was the Pishon River.
Citing Genesis 2:11-12, he gives the following interesting comments:
”Although the meaning of some of the details in this passage is uncertain, it
does seem to describe a river flowing into the head of the Persian Gulf from the
low mountains of western Arabia, the path followed by the recently discovered
Kuwait River. An important key is the Biblical phrase ’the gold of that land is
good.’ Only one place in Arabia has such a deposit—the famous site of Madh Ed-Dahab,
the ’Cradle of Gold.’ This ancient and modern gold mining site is located about
125 miles south of Medina, near the headwaters of the Kuwait River.
”The Biblical text also mentions bdellium and onyx. Aromatic resins (bdellium)
are known in Yemen to the southwest, and, although they are not thought to have
been produced in the vicinity of Medina, they could easily have been brought
there. Semiprecious stones such as alabaster also come from these areas, but it
is uncertain whether other precious stones, such as onyx, do.” (p. 64)
Sauer adds:
”In any event, no other river would seem to fit the Biblical description. I am
therefore inclined to think that the Kuwait River could be the Pishon of the
Bible. If so, it implies extraordinarily memory on the part of the Biblical
authors, since the river dried up sometime between 3500 and 2000 B.C.E.”
4. &Under the Persian Gulf
Most likely, the region of Eden included parts of which is now the Persian Gulf.
That the Persian Gulf now covers areas that once have been inhabited has been
known for a long time. Referring to an article published in 1957, Speiser says:
”Significantly enough, aerial photographs still show traces of ancient
cultivation under the present northwest reaches of the Persian Gulf.” – Speiser
(1994), p. 180 + note 26 (P. Buringh, ”Living Conditions in the Lower
Mesopotamian Plain in Ancient Times,” Sumer 13, 1957, p. 36).
The Persian Gulf is shallow, only about 25 meters deep on the average, the
deepest place being 102 meters. At the end of the last Ice Age, now usually
supposed to have occurred some time between 12000 and 9000 BCE, the sea level
was more than 100 meters, perhaps up to 150 meters below the present level,
meaning that the Persian Gulf back then must have been an entirely dry basin.
This was confirmed by the researches in the Gulf area performed in the 1960’s by
the German exploration ship Meteor. It was found that the Gulf had been an 800
kilometers long valley, along which the extended Shatt al-A’rab river carved its
course all the way to the Straits of Hormuz and debouched directly into the Gulf
of Oman. – Theresa Howard-Carter, ”The Tangible Evidence for the Earliest Dilmun,”
Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 33 (1981), p. 213.
In recent years, evidence has been accumulating to show that the end of the last
ice age was a surprisingly sudden event. Professor Richard A. Muller and Dr.
Gordon J. MacDonald, two leading experts on the Ice Ages, explain:
”The abruptness of the termination is startling. Agriculture, and all of our
civilization, developed since this termination. The enormous glacier, several
kilometers thick, covering much of North America and Eurasia, rapidly melted.
Only small parts of this glacier survived in Greenland and Antarctica, where
they exist to this day. The melting caused a series of worldwide floods unlike
anything previously experienced by Homo sapiens. … The flood dumped enough water
into the oceans to cause the average sea level to rise 110 metres, enough to
cover the coastal areas, … The water from melting ice probably flooded down over
land in pulses, as ice-dammed lakes formed and then catastrophically released
their water. These floods left many records, including remnant puddles now known
as the Great Lakes, and possibly gave rise to legends that persisted for many
years.” – Richard A. Muller & Gordon J. MacDonald, Ice Ages and Astronomical
Causes (Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag, 2000), page 4.
It is believed that the earliest inhabitants in Mesopotamia originally lived in
this valley that is now the Persian Gulf. The examination of drowned coast lines
and sea plateaus shows that the Gulf was filled from the Indian Ocean in the
south in carefully-measured stages, forcing the inhabitants to retreat
northwards to higher grounds. About 5500 BCE, most of the Gulf basin was
evidently filled, although the sea level was still 17 meters lower than that of
today. (W. Nuetzel, ”On the Geographical Position of as yet Unexplored Early
Mesopotamian Cultures,” Journal of the American Oriental Society [JAOS], Vol.
99, 1979, pp.288-296; also J. Zarins, ”The Early Settlements of Southern
Mesopotamia,” JAOS, Vol. 112:1, 1992, pp. 55-77.) This was the time of the Ubaid
culture. During this whole period, the climate was temperate and pleasant.
Then, in about 3500 BCE, an enormous flood catastrophe occurred in the area that
suddenly brought an end to the Ubaid civilization. Most probably, this event is
that reflected in the Mesopotamian and Biblical Flood stories. – &Howard-Carter,
op. cit., pp. 214-216, 220-222.
Before this catastrophe, however, the civilization of man had spread all over
the Near East, and also to other parts of the world. The earliest traces have
been found in Mesopotamia, western Iran, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine.
The Edenic Pishon River (Pison
River) is Wadi Bishah (Bishain) and Wadi Baish (Baysh)
Havilah (Hebrew: H Targum: Chavila) is the Khaulan/Khawlan/Haulan/Hawlan
Yemeni Tribes
by Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
Disclaimer: This article
is authored by a non-Muslim. We do not endorse this article, but it is
informative and worth reading.
16 June 2006 (Revisions through 30 July 2010)
This article in a nutshell:
Since 1875 (for over 100 years) the Pishon/Pison River associated with the land
of Havilah has been identified by some scholars with Wadi Baish (Baysh) and
Havilah with the Khaulan in SW Arabia, present-day Saudi Arabia near the Asir
mountains. Two wadies, Bishah (Bisheh) and Baish (Baysh) are understood to have
been conflated and identified with the Pishon/Pison.
Strong notes Havilah is pronounced in Hebrew with a Ch or Kh sound Khav-ee-law':
&Strong # 2341, Chaviylah, khav-ee-law', probably from # 2342 Chuwl, khool or
Chiyl, kheel, a primitive root, to twist or whirl in a spiral manner.& (James
Strong. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Complete and Unabridged. Hebrew and
Chaldee Dictionary. Waco, Texas. Word Books. 1977)
I note that Hebew &w& can also be rendered &u& or &o& and that Chuwl/Khool is
the possible &root form& of
Havilah/Khav-ee-law, if this be so, then the Arabic form Khaulan/Khawlan on the
below maps seems (?) to preserve the Hebrew Havilah's root of Chuwl, Khool and
the Hebrew Ch/Kh sound rather than the English &soft& H pronounciation of
Below, a map showing Havilah (Hebrew: Hawilah) which was associated in Genesis
with the Pishon river, one of the four rivers of Genesis' Garden of Eden (Ge
2:10-12). This region of South West Arabia (the Yemen and vicinity) also has the
kingdom of Sheba and a region called Hazarmaveth (Arabic: Hadramawt). Genesis
portrays Havilah as a land of gold, bdellium (a resin) and precious stone.
Queen of Sheba brought Solomon much gold, spices and incense (resins) and
precious stones (1 Kings 10:1-13). Genesis portrays Havilah as being the son of
Joktan and his brothers are Sheba and Hazarmaveth (Ge 10:26-30), localities
associated with SW Arabia, the Yemen and Dhofar areas. So, Havilah and Sheba are
not only brothers, their lands have similar valuable products (for the below map
cf. p. 59. James B. Pritchard. Editor. The Harper Concise Atlas of the Bible.
New York. HarperCollins Publishers. 1991). I have superimposed an earlier map of
1851 (&Arabia,& R. M. Martin & J. & F. Tallis, New York) showing in greater
detail the location of Havilah as Khaulan/Khawlan, south of Wadi Bisheh/Bishah
(the Pishon River?); note that the great trade route road from Jerusalem to
Havilah/Khaulan/Khawlan passes over Wadi Bishah (Note: Hebrew &-on& is a
sufformative word ending and when dispensed with renders the Pishon river as the
Pish); so to get to Havilah/Khaulan from Israel, one must cross the Pishon/Bishah
River via this spices and incense trade route. The Jewish Targum renders Havilah
as Chavilah/Khavilah, a pronunciation closer to the Arabic tribal territory and
federation of Khaulan, Khawlan. Wady Bishah's headwaters drain ENE from the
mountain heights of Asyr (modern: Asir). Genesis' knowledge of the Pishon and
Havilah probably is a result of trade with the Queen of Sheba in the Yemen in
King Solomon's time. Modern Yemeni Jews claim their Jewish ancestors came as
&traders& from Jerusalem in Solomon's days and settled in the Yemen. Please
click here and here for maps showing Joktan's sons as Tribal groups today.
Professor Hess on Joktan's association with South Arabia:
&Joktan...Son of Eber, brother of Peleg, and father of thirteen descendants,
whose settlements ranged from Mesha to Sephar, in the hill country to the east
(Gen 10:25-30). As a descendant of Shem, Joktan represents that part of the line
which, in the Table of Nations, is found in South West Arabia. There is a
possible relationship between the name and a figure remembered as the ancestor
of the Southern Arabs, Qahtan (Winnett ; Simons GTTOT, 48-49).
Although it is unclear whether Joktan is a prefixed verbal form of the Sabaean
root qtn (cf. Ryckmans ; Biella ), its meaning, &to be small,&
is associated with this root in West Semitic and appears in geographical names
such as Qatna.& (p. 935. Vol. 3. Richard S. Hess. &Joktan.& David Noel Freedman.
Editor. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York. Doubleday. 1992)
Professor Sayce (1898) on Havilah being the Khaulan of SW Arabia:
&Havilah...A son of Cush according to Gn 10:7, 1 Ch 1:9, of Joktan according to
Gn 10:29, 1 Ch 1&23...A district of Khaulan (Haulan) is mentioned in the
inscriptions of South A this is either Khaulan in Tihamah, between Mecca
and San'a, or another Khaulan SE of San'a...The name, in fact, was widely spread
in Arabia, and Yakut states that Hawil was the name of a dialect spoken by the
people of Mehri in the east of Hadramaut [biblical Hazarmaveth]. The Mehri is
the modern representative of the language of the Sabaean inscriptions.& (p. 311.
Vol. 2. A. H. Sayce. &Havilah.& James Hastings. Editor. A Dictionary of the
Bible. Originally published 1898 by T& T Clark of Edinburgh, Scotland. Reprinted
1988 by Hendrickson Publishers. Peabody, Massachusetts in 5 volumes)
Below two locations within the Yemen bear the geographical
designation Khawlan (Khaulan, Haulan). A Khawlan just east of the capital of
Yemen, San'a, and the other Khawlan lying further south near Radman and Himyar,
said area(s) being proposed by some scholars to be Havilah (the Targum's
Chavilah) of the Bible. Strangely, no Khawlan lies between San'a and Mecca as
stated above by Hastings in 1898. However Muller (cf. below) cites Halevy about
gold being found at Sirwah in stream beds in the Khawlan and Sirwah does appear
on the below map between Saba and Khawlan, so apparently Muller favors the &gold
of Havilah& to be the Khawlan east of San'a (for the below map cf. p. 37. Map 3.
&South Arabia& Robert G. Hoyland. Arabia and the Arabs, From the Bronze Age to
the coming of Islam. London & New York. Routledge. 2001).
Special note: Muller
states that there is a THIRD tribal federation in the Yemen called the
&Northern& Haulan near Sa`dah. Unfortunately the below map does
not show the
city of Sa`dah and this tribal federation. Sa`dah lies south of Najran and north
of Nashq on the below map. Sayce (1898) noted a Khaulan in Tihamah between Mecca
and San'a (cf. above).
I have established that this Khaulan is today in Saudi
Arabia in the province of Asir. It appears in a Google Saudi Arabian Gazeeter as
a &Tribal Region& located to the south of the city of Abha, east of the port of
Jizan on the Red Sea and west of the village of Aba Saud. The Saudi &Khaulan
Tribal Area& is very near the northern border of the Yemen in the Asir mountains
which border the seacoast plain called Tihamah.
All this is to say that Hoyland's below map shows only TWO of the FOUR tribal federations known as the
Haulan, Khaulan, Khawlan Tribal Areas. Note: Wadi Baish and Wadi Bishah are both
in Saudi Arabia not the Yemen.
Could the Ma'Afir be biblical Ophir, a brother of Sheba (Yemenite: Saba) and
Havilah (Yemenite Khawlan), and Hazarmaveth (Yemenite: Hadrawmawt) the sons of
Joktan (South West Arabian: Qahtan) (cf. Ge 10:29)?
Wadi Bishah is some 300 miles in length and it begins in the coastal mountains
of Asir, the headwaters beginning near Khamis Mushayt east of Abha and draining
northwards to Qal'at Bishah (cf. the below map for these two locations),
emptying into the desert sands of the Nafud Ad Dahy to the ENE of Qal'at Bishah.
Sayce's Tihamah Khaulan in Asir lies south of Abha near which are the headwaters
of Wadi Bishah.
If Bishah is the Pishon River, then the FOUR Khaualan Tribal
Areas all lie to the south of the Bishah. In other words to get to the Khaulans,
Wadi Bishah must first be crossed, perhaps this is why the Pishon encircles the
land of Havilah in Genesis?
The Bible takes note of another great river that
served as a border to a region (Judah), the &river of Egypt& a wadi like Bishah,
today called Wadi el Arish in the midst of the Sinai peninsula. The Septuaginta
Bible written in Greek at Alexandria, Egypt in the 3rd century BC by Jews for
Jews identified the Nile with the Gihon that flows through Cush (Ethiopia of the
Septuaginta). Like the Bishah, the Nile drains &northward& too.
As regards the possibility of Wadi Bishah (conflated with Wadi Baish/Baysh)
being the Pishon river (Pison river in the King James Version of the Bible), and
Arabic &b& possibly preserving &p&, cf. the late professor Yohanan Aharoni's
remarks on &p& becoming &b& in Arabic and the loss of the Hebrew sufformative
&-on& (Beth-Horon losing its &-on& sufformative to become Beit Ur in Arabic):
&Pe (unaspirated p) when coming by the gradual process, appears in Arabic as fa
(ph), e.g. (Beth-)tappuah -Taffuh, Sippori (Sepphoris) -Saffuriyeh. In the
immediate borrowing pe becomes beit (b) in Arabic, e.g. Mizphah -Tell en-Nasbeh,
Pharpar -Barbar. By the same token, Greek pi in Hellenistic names always becomes
Arabic beit. This is not a matter of rapid or gradual transmission, but rather a
straight phonetic shift in the transcription of non-Semitic words, e.g. Tripolis
-Tarabulus, Neapolis -Nablus, Paneas -Baniyas...Sufformatives were not permanent
elements of the name, that is to say, many names were formed by the addition of
sufformatives which can be changed without altering the geographic meaning of
the term, e.g. Geba, Gibeah, Gibeon...Thus the sufformatives are usually changed
in the Arabic form...a few examples: Almon, Almeth -Khirbet 'A Shaalbon,
Shaalabbin, Shaalbim -S Dothan, Dothain -Tell D Shiloh (Shilon) -Seilun...(Beth-)nimrah
(the waters of) Nimrim -Wadi en-Numeirah. Sometimes the sufformative disappears
entirely, e.g. Chesulloth -I Beth-horon -Beit 'Ur.&&
(p. 120. &The Study of Toponymy.& Yohanan Aharoni. The Land of the Bible, A
Historical Geography. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Westminster Press. 1962
(Hebrew text); English texts: )
How does a &dry& wadi in SW Arabia &link& to Eden's river, the progenitor of
three other streams, the Gihon (Nile) of Cush (Sudan) and Hiddekel (Tigris) and
Euphrates of Mesopotamia? The answer will surprise you. In Mesopotamian myths,
the Sumerian god called Enki (Akkadian Ea meaning &house of water& according to
some scholars) lived at Eridu in Lower Mesopotamia (Sumer) and it was he who
filled the Tigris and Euphrates with clear sparkling water in the form of
&sperm& from his penis! He is THE ONE SOURCE OF the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
in Mesopotamian myths. On cylinder seals Enki is shown with two streams erupting
from his shoulders suggesting his body as Ea, &the house of water,& is the ONE
source of the waters for the Tigris and Euphrates. He dwells in the midst of a
freshwater stream called the apsu or abzu that &in the beginning,& before any
land existed, erupted to the surface of the briny sea and the &first land&
gathered about this freshwater stream and Eridu was built by Enki. He is the god
all the kings and princes of Sumer seek out to provide their cities with
freshwater via various wells, springs and rivers. Enki (and his subterranean
apsu abode) is THE ONE SOURCE of all the world's rivers, springs and wells. Ipso
facto I understand that he is the &one source& of the Nile and and Wadi Bishah
as well as the Tigris and Euphrates.
The Homeric Greeks believed that a freshwater RIVER OCEAN encircled the world
and it was in the midst of the briny sea. From this mythical freshwater stream
subterranean rivers flowed which emerged in various parts of the world as
rivers. So the Homeric Greeks, somewhat similarly to the Mesopotamians had a
mythical SINGLE STREAM as the source of all the world's rivers via subterranean
streams or channels. Greek mercenaries served in Judah under the Saitic pharaohs
who slew King Josiah and hauled off his successor Jeho'ahaz in chains to Egypt,
appointing in his place Jehoi'akim. Perhaps via Greek mercenaries the Jews
learned of a Freshwater stream called River Ocean the source of all rivers via
subterranean channels?
Smith (1898) on Josephus' (A 1st century AD Jewish historian) notion the Edenic
stream is River Ocean:
&That the ocean stream which surrounded the earth was the source from which the
four rivers flowed was the opinion of Josephus.& '
(p. 220. &Eden.& William Smith. Editor. A Dictionary of the Bible. Hartford,
Connecticut. S. S. Scranton & Co. 1898)
So, via either Mesopotamian notions of a single freshwater apsu stream at Eridu
or Homeric River Ocean the 7th/6th century BC Jews could in good conscience
portray a single river as the source of rivers appearing in Cush (Sudan), SW
Arabia and Mesopotamia. Egyptian myth claimed the Nile emerged from the
underworld from two caverns or spring holes near Aswan (the Nile's first
cataract as one goes &upstream& from the Egyptian delta). Please click here for
a picture of the god of the Nile Hapi within a subterranean cavern, holding two
vases from which pour the waters of the subterranean Nile. Please click here for
pictures of the Nile as a great circle flowing in heaven as well as &under& and
&atop& of the earth. The Egyptian sun-god Ra rode in a solar bark or boat on the
heavenly Nile and at night he rode in this bark, the Nile of the underworld.
Some, but not all, scholars have thought the Pishon and its land of Havilah as
being somewhere near Mesopotamia, or the mountains of Armenia as the Euphrates
and Tigris (biblical Hiddekel) flow through these regions. They apparently are
unaware that in Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Homeric Greek myths (8th-6th century
BC) of a single stream whose many channels, flowing underground, could give
birth to rivers all over the world. Because these scholars could not find a
stream on the earth's surface linking any stream in SW Arabia or the Nile in Cush (Sudan) with the Tigris and Euphrates, they dismissed as &nonsense& the
clues preserved in the Septuaginta that Cush was Ethiopia, and they dismissed
Genesis' statements about Havilah being a son of Joktan and brother of Sheba and
Hazarmaveth (Hadramawt) who in Arabic traditions are assoicated with SW Arabia.
Muller on the Pishon being possibly a conflation of wadies Bishah and Baish/Baysh:
&Pishon. The first of the four rivers into which the stream that springs from
the Garden of Eden is divided (Gen 2:11). The Pishon surrounds the land of
Havilah, where there is gold. Several proposals have been made to identify this
country and its river. If, however, Havilah is to be equated with the large and
old tribal federation of Khaulan in SW Arabia, the Pishon likewise is to be
localized in that region...A. Springer (1875:49) was the first who compared the
biblical Pishon with the Wadi Baish in the SW of the Arabian peninsula. Al-Hamadi
(1884:73) nevertheless writes that the Wadi Baish is fed from tributaries from
the north of the land of Khaulan before it flows into the Red Sea. As was
probable already in antiquity, in the 10th century the wadi Baish, abounding in
water, formed the north boundary of the densely populated and terraced
mountainous region of Khaulan (and until 1934 it was the border between the
kingdom of Yemen and Saudi Arabia). Moreover, it is quite possible that the
names of the rivers Baish and Bishah are contained in the name Pishon, since
both rise not far from each other in the mountains of `Asir.& (p. 374. Vol. 5.
W. W. Muller. &Pishon.& David Noel Freedman. Editor. The Anchor Bible
Dictionary. New York. Doubleday. 1992)
Below, Wadi Bishah, divided into three maps for clarity. (cf. Map titled
Africa, North East Arabia. Michelin. No. 954. Paris, France. Scale: 1:4,000,000.
Below, another map showing Wadi Bishah as Wadi Bishain. If Bishain is not an
&error,& and if it is a legitimate alternate rendering of Bishah, could the &n& preserve
the Pishon? (cf. Map titled Near & Middle East. Hammond World Atlas. Scale:
1:4,000,000. Langenscheidt Publishing Group. Munich, Germany. 2006)
Below, Wadi Baysh (Wady Baish on earlier maps), a possible contender for the
Pishon river according to Muller. Wadi Bishah is the blue dotted line above
Khamis Mushayt going by Al Maddah (cf. map titled Africa, North East. Map number
954. Paris, France. Michelin. Map scale: 1:4,000,000. 1 centimeter: 40
kilometers. 1990). This map suggests Wadi Baysh/Baish is about 60 miles or 100
kilometers in length. Sayce's Tihamah Khaulan between San'a and Mecca is
apparently today in the Asir province of Saudi Arabia just south of Abha which
appears on the below map. That is to say Wadi Baysh/Baish flows through this
Khawlan, hence the reason Muller suggests it might be the Pishon associated with
the land of Havilah. The border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen is the line of
crosses (+++++++) on the below map.
Below, another cartographical rendering of Wadi Baysh/Baish, the Pishon? (cf.
map titled Near & Middle East. Hammond International. Scale: 1:4,000,000.
Langenscheidt Publishing Group. Munchen [Munich], Deutschland. 2006). The map to
the viewer's right reveals that Wadi Baysh (Wadi Baish on maps before 1970) is
in the midst of the Khaulan (Havilah) area, draining it and providing it water,
it is a very remarkable river in that it has water year-round, a rare sight in
this part of the world (compare the location of Sabya on the left map with
Sabiya on the right map). Also note Havilah is the &son of Joktan& in Genesis
10:26-29 and how close Khaulan is to the Beni Kahtan &Sons of Joktan& tribal
federation on the below map (1929, Milan, Italy).
The below extracts on Havilah the person and Havilah the region by W. W. Muller
Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992. Volume 3. pp. 81-82. New York. Doubleday):
HAVILAH (PERSON) [Hebrew hawila]
Two individuals with this name, whose identities are closely associated with the
place which bears this name, appear in the Bible.
1.A son of Cush listed in the so-called Table of Nations (Gen 10:7; 1 Chr 1:9).
2.A son of Joktan listed in the so-called Table of Nations (Gen 10:29; 1 Chr
Havilah is the biblical form of the name of the large and old tribal federation
of Haulaun in SW Arabia, which is divided into two or three branches. The
identification originates from Niebuhr (f.), who associated Haulan to
the SE of San'a with Havilah, the son of Joktan, and Haulan to the W of Sa`da
with Havilah, the son of Cush. He found it remarkable that two tribal districts
in different regions of Yemen have the same name and are also mentioned twice in
the Table of Nations (Gen 10:7, 29).
Two tribal groups of Haulan continue to exist today. The E (or S) branch are the
Haulan al-Aliya or Haulan al-Tiyal, the territory of which extends from the E of
San`a over Tan`im to Sirwah and into the Wadi Dana just before reaching the
oasis of Marib. The N branch is the federation of the Haulan bin `Amr or Haulan
Quda`a, the territory of which lies to the NW of Sa`da. The Haulan were probably
originally one single tribe, the territory of which was later separated when the
Minaean realm arose and the Hasid and Bakil invaded the Yemenite highland and
settled there. Place names in the region of these two tribes still indicate the
former presence of the Haulan. Also, in other parts of Yemen, dispersed groups
of the Haulan are encountered at a later date.
The earliest epigraphic attestation of Haulan is to be found in the Old Sabean
record of the ruler Karib`il Watar, set up at Sirwah, RES 3946,3, where vassals
of a certain Ya`tuq of Haulan (`dm y`tq dhwln dyrrt) are mentioned. In the
Minaean inscription M 247 = RES 3022,2 from Baraqis from the time about 340–330
B.C., the donors of the text give thanks to their gods for having saved them and
their possessions from the raids which Saba` and Haulan undertook against them
on the caravan route between Ma`in and Ragmatum (Nagran). Also in the Qatabanian
inscription RES 4274,1 a member of Haulan (dhwln) is attested as a person who
makes a dedication to the goddess Atirat.
In the Sabean inscriptions from the time of the kings of Saba` and Du-Raydan
there are numerous references to Haulan, which can be subdivided into three
different groups. The E branch is the tribe which settles around Sirwah and is
called the tribe Haulan Hadilim (s` e.g., Iryané 28,1); through
common leaders it is closely connected with the tribe of Sirwah and Hainan (s`bn
s e.g., Fakhri 3,2). In the genealogy of the N Haulan
around Sa`da, which in Islamic times are the Haulan bin `Amr, the older name
Banu Gudad or al-Agdud is still quoted by al-Hamdani (–45). In the
inscriptions these are the tribe Haulan Gudadim (s?` Ja 577,8) or
the tribe Haulan Gudadan (s` Umm Lailà 1,1–2) or the groups of
Haulan `Agdudan (`s?r hwln ` Ja 658,13); the largeness of Haulan is
sometimes expressed by the plural `s`bn placed in front of the name (“the tribes
of H” Ja 601,10) or by the designation “the tribes and groups of Haulan
Gudadim” (`s`b w` Ja 616,12); their territory is the land of Haulan
Gudadim (` Ja 2109,4) or Haulan Gudadan (` Ja 601,5)
respectively, or the land of Haulan `Agdudan (`rd hwln ` Ja 658,10). Once
the term Haulan Gudadatan ( Ja 671,5) is found. In pre-Islamic times
there existed in SE Yemen around the town of Wa`lan in the ancient district of
Radman a further branch of Haulan, which is often attested in the inscriptions
of the 2d and 3d centuries A.D., namely, the tribe of Radman and Haulan, the
leaders of which came from the clan Ma`ahir and Du-Haulan (bn m`hr wdhwln qyl
e.g., RES ).
HAVILAH (PLACE) [Hebrew hawila]
The rich land surrounded by the river Pishon according to the story of the
Garden of Eden (Gen 2:11). Its richness derives from the gold, resin bdellium,
and onyx stones present there. All three of these products point to S Arabia as
the location of Havilah, since S Arabia is the homeland of valuable resins and
precious stones. According to Pliny (Natural History 12.23), the tree which
yields bdellium also grows in Arabia, and the resin from Commiphora mukul,
Arabic muql, is up to now a Yemenite product (cf. Schopen f.). Onyx
(Arabic gaz`) is found at all times in various places in Y and among the
sorts which were usually named after the places where they were found, there was
also a “Haulanite onyx” (al-Hamdani –3). Among the gold mines of the
Arabian peninsula, the mine of `Asam in the region of the Quda`a is attested,
the gold of which
also attested are the mines of al-Qufa`a
in the land of Haulan, which yield gold of a superior quality (cf. al-Hamdani
–41). J. Halévy reports that, as an eyewitness in 1870 in Sirwah in
Haulan, he saw Arabs washing gold and noted that gold was found in small grains
in the sand and in the river bed (1872: 54) (p.
82. Vol. 3. W. W. Muller. &Havilah.& David Noel Freedman. Editor. The Anchor
Bible Dictionary. New York. Doubleday. 1992)
Since in Old South Arabic dhb does
not only mean gold but also a type of incense, it is possible that zahab tob in
Gen 2:12 does not refer to “good gold” but rather to a fragrant resin (cf. de
Langhe ).In Gen 25:18 hawila, which by the Israelites might have been
connected with Hebrew hol, “sand,” designates presumably the SE desert border of
the region where the Ishmaelites settled. From this fact and from the reference
to the Chaulota?oi by Eratosthenes (Strabo, Geog. 16.4.2), H. von Wissmann
(–80, esp. 947–54) concluded that there must have existed a colonial
Sabean Haulan in NW Arabia along the incense road before or perhaps still during
the Minaean period in the oasis of Dedan. Probably this N Arabian hawila is to
be distinguished from the S Arabian Haulan and perhaps to be compared with the
tribe of hwlt, which is repeatedly mentioned in the Safaitic inscriptions and
which might be identified with the Avalitae of Pliny (HN 6.157) and the later
Arabian tribe of Hawala. Possibly the old biblical name of this region survives
in the name of the N Arabian town of Ha`il (cf. Knauf 1985: 64). The borders of
the Ishmaelites in Gen 25:18 with the local destination hawila have also been
taken over in 1 Sam 15:7 and transferred to the Amalekites.
It should also be noted that other less convincing identification of hawila have
been proposed, e.g., in the central Arabian Yamama, in NE Arabia at the Persian
Gulf, or even with Avalites (Periplus maris Erythraei 7; Ptolemy, Geog. 4.7.10),
the later Zayla` at the NE African coast. For further bibliography, see
Westermann (–15).
W. W. Muller.
According to Genesis 10:26-30 Joktan and his progeny are enumerated as Joktan,
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael,
Sheba, Ophir, Havilah and Jobab, living in a region described as extending from
Mesha to Sephar and the hill country of the east.
The below maps showing the locations of various Arab tribes (as of 1968) and may
be of some help in identifying the location of some of Joktan's &sons.&
The tribe called Qahtan (in the province of Asir, Saudi Arabia) might be Joktan.
Of interest is that Wadi Bishah lies just about where the word Qahtan is.
Genesis suggests the Pishon river surrounds the land of Havilah (Hebrew: Hawila)
which might be the tribal group called Wayliah, south of Wadi Bishah (the Pishon?),
which lies _north_ of Sana'a the capital of Yemen. Note: Muller (cf. above)
places a &northern& Haulan tribal federation in the area of the city of Sa`dah,
which although not on the below map is just about where the tribal group called
the Wayliah are located. Another tribal group is the Al-`Awaliq _south_ of
Sana'a near Radman which does not appaear on the below map. &Missing& from the
below map is the tribal &south& federation of Haulan centered to the east of
Sana'a and extending towards ancient Marib (cf. p. 54. &Tribal Map of the
Arabian Peninsula.& Aramaco Handbook, Oil and the Middle East. Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia. Arabian American Oil Company. Revised Edition 1 July 1968. Library of
Congress Catalog Card Number 68-24022. Printed in the Netherlands by Joh.
Enschede en Zonen-Haarlem. Note: no author or editor's name is given for this
Could Ophir, identified with the fine gold of Ophir in the Bible be recalled
in the tribal group called al-'Ifar, in Dhofar (Zhufar on some maps), west of
Wadi Hadrhramaut (some scolars identifying Joktan's son Hazarmaveth with
Hadhramawt)?
Could the tribal lands of Joktan and his sons said to extend from Mesha to
Sephar and the hill country of the east be alluding to present-day Khamis
Mushayt, in the mountains of Asir (Saudi Arabia) lying just south of Qahtan (and
north of Najran) and could Sephar and its eastern hill country be modern-day
Dhofar and its hill country (famed for its frankincense trees), alternately
rendered on some maps as Zufar or Zofar? This region is a land of precious
stones, incense and gold, items associated with Joktan's patrimony (Sheba,
Havilah, Ophir). The main caravan route appears to have left the Yemen heading
north to Najran and Khamis Mushayt. That is to say &if& Mesha is Mushayt, it was
a major stop on the caravan route to Israel from the Yemen?
Below, a &Metallic Minerals Map& of the Yemen showing some 19 locations
possessing GOLD as a mineral resource (the small olivedrab green circles mark
gold bearing lodes). Is it any wonder Havilah was &the land of gold& with 19
locations? The Wayilah are located north of San'a and in this same general area
are approximately 6 or 7 locations for gold. Please click here for an
&interactive version of the below map which allows one to scroll through the
various regions of the Yemen. The Google internet search engine by keying in
&Yemen Gold& offers numerous articles by Geologists on this region's gold
bearing sites including articles on Iron Age Gold-processing Camps of the first
millennium BC (the World of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba).
Below is Yemen's Gold Map:
A report assessing potential gold lodes in the Yemen made in 2007 has
identified some 12 locations, cf. &Investment Opportunities in the Metallic
Minerals Sector in Yemen. Evaluation and Promotion.& Republic of Yemen. Ministry
of Oil and Minerals. Geological Survey and Minerals Resources Board. 2007(Please
click here for the report).
Twelve locations in the Yemen have been surveyed as possibly being gold-bearing:
(Note: Wadi al Jawf and its tributaries lies southeast of Sa`dah and northeast
of Sana`a)
1. Wadi Rubaq (Al Jawf)
2. Wadi Al Mamasah (Al Jawf)
3. Al Matammah (Al Jawf)
4. Wadi Falahan (Al Jawf)
5. Shaharah (Amran)
6. Bahrah (Marib)
7. Khowlan (Sana'a)
8. A'ithayn (Dhamar)
9. Waraqah (Dhamar)
10. Magrebah (Dhamar)
11. Al Waz'yyah (Taiz)
12. Am Surrah-Habalain (Abyan)
The report noted:
&Metallic minerals are not currently (2006) being mined in Yemen. During ancient
times...silver was mined...and gold from small quartz veins scattered over
northern and western Yemen.&
Cf. below a report on Iron Age gold mines in the Yemen, King Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba were Iron Age monarchs, Note: the al Maraziq area is located
within the al Jawf region northeast of Sana'a, the capital of Yemen:
Leanna Mallory-Greenough, John D. Greenough & Charles Fipke. &Iron Age Gold
Mining: A Preliminary Report on Camps in the Al Maraziq Region, Yemen.& Arabian
Archaeology and Epigraphy. Vol. 11. No. 2. Nov. 2000. pp. 223-236.
&Abstract:
Ancient geologists in Yemen and Egypt recognized that quartz veins surrounding
caldera-collapse complexes (exhumed explosive volcanoes) were gold bearing and
actively sought out these geologic environments. Rock hammerstones, anvils and
grinders are found in camps on both sides of the Red Sea, indicating that mining
and metallurgical extraction technology and knowledge were also widespread
during the Iron Age. The technology and overall layout of the Yemen sites is
equivalent with New Kingdom to Late Period Egyptian sites, and there is no
evidence of smelting, which is a Greco-Roman Period development. It is not known
who controlled the Yemen mines, but the large number of adits in the Al Maraziq
area suggests that these gold mines may have been important to local, regional
and possibly international economies.&
An internet map search for al Maraziq gives the following co-ordinates:
Latitude: 14 degrees 25' 0
Longitude: 46 degrees 34' 0
These co-ordinates place al Maraziq in the al Jawf region ENE of Sana'a (cf. the
below map for al Jawf).
Leanne Mallory-Greenough et al. (My thanks to her for providing me a copy of her
below article):
&The Yemen ore deposit may have been discovered because it was close to trading
routes, or trade route proximity may have been a product of gold exploitation.&
(p. 223. Leanne Mallory-Greenough et al. &Iron Age Gold Mining: A Preliminary
Report on Camps in the Al Maraziq Region, Yemen. Arabian Archaeology and
Epigraphy. Vol. 11. No. 2. Nov. 2000. pp. 223-236.)
&Five ancient mining sites were visited in the Al Maraziq area, Al Jawf region,
northern Yemen...A tape measure and compass were used to survey building and
artefact positions...Excavations were not attempted. Al Maraziq inhabitants
contend there are over 200 ancient adits in the area and at least one ancient
community we did not visit...& (p. 225. Leanne Mallory-Greenough et al.)
&The ore processing technology found in Yemen was widespread in the Near and
Middle East at about 1000 BCE, and can be found at Egyptian/Nubian sites ranging
from the New Kingdom to Late Period, reaching a peak during the twenty-sixth
Dynasty.& (p. 233. Leanne Mallory-Greenough et al.)
&Based on the technological similarities with Egyptian gold mines, Yemen sites
may range from Bronze to Iron Age. Preliminary thermoluminescence measurements
on pottery from site 4 are consistent with the presumed antiquity of the site.
The stone block bearing South Arabian script (Sabaean) suggests site 1 was
occupied at some time between 800 BCE and 600 CE although mining may have
occurred earlier. There is no information about how long mining went on at the
Yemen sites. Mines in southeast Egypt and Nubia were mined for over two thousand
years with individual mines first opened during the Middle Kingdom, re-opened in
the New Kingdom, Late Period and Greco-Roman times.& (p. 234. Leanne Mallory-Greenough
&It appears that the Yemen mining camps are close to the frankincense trade
route. It is not known if the trade route existed because of the gold or if the
deposits were discovered as a result of through traffic. Legend (Sheba's gifts
to Solomon) suggests the gold trade was internationally important. Regardless of
whether these stories are true, processing and geological (prospecting)
similarities between Iron Age gold mines in Yemen and Egypt suggest ties and an
exchange of technological knowledge between distant places in the Near and
Middle East.& (p. 234. Leanne Mallory-Greenough et al.)
Below, a map (figure 1. p. 224. Leanne Mallory-Greenough, et al.) showing the
location of the gold mines marked off as &Study Area& (NE of Sana'a) and a
close-up map showing a Wadi Kuhayl in the area of the mines. To the degree that
Strong derives Havilah from Chuwl, khool or Chiyl, kheel (Strong 2342), might
Wadi Kuhayl preserve the Hebrew Chaviylah, khav-ee-law'' English, Havilah and
A Google search turned up a listing of semi-precious stones found in the
Yemen: carnelian, sky agate, honey agate, opal, gasber, flourite and onyx. Note
that Sauer (below) understood onyx was associated with Havliah. Onyx is found in
the Yemen. Perhaps these represent the precious stones associated with the lands
of Havilah and Sheba?
(cf. Yemen Geological Survey & Mineral Resources Board. Yemen Geological Museum.
&Local semi-precious stones found in the Yemen.&)
http://www.ygsmrb.org/museum.htm
Below, a map showing Yemeni Rock Quarries for &Building and Ornamental Stone.&
Please click here for an &interactive version of the below map which allows one
to scroll through the various regions of the Yemen.
Please click here for a &Rough Tribal Map of Arabia.& 1949. H. R. P. Dickson.
The Arab of the Desert. London.
To &enlarge& this map place your mouse on the map's lower right corner and a
square will appear to click on, enlarging it.
The Queen of Sheba brought Solomon gold, incense, spices and precious stones.
According to the below article by Bouton such items are attested for the Yemen
in the Iron Age (Note that the Iron Age Gold Mines of the al Maraziq region are
located in the al Jawf/Jof region northeast of Sana'a on the above minerals
&At present there is no archaeological evidence to prove that the meeting of
Solomon and Sheba took place, or that the queen actually existed. But, recent
excavations have found that some aspects of the story can be verified. This
exhibition investigates these aspects and aims to shed light upon the mysterious
but magnificent civilization of ancient Yemen, the land of Sheba.
Some scholars have disputed the Old Testament passage on the basis that the
Queen of Sheba’s gifts - spices, gold and precious stones - are inconsistent
with her homeland in southern Arabia. However these are not as incongruous as it
may at first seem. The ‘spices’ mentioned are likely to be a reference to
aromatics principally burnt in religious rituals in the temple and the home.
Foremost among these were frankincense and myrrh, both natural gums which exuded
from their
trees after the bark was scraped away. A number of ancient incense burners found
in Yemen are even inscribed with the names of different aromatics. In terms of
the ‘gold’, geological surveys (most recently in the Maraziq area of the Jawf
region of northern Yemen) have uncovered the remains of ancient camps and
ore-crushing and grinding equipment. These have been found close to ancient test
pits and mines running along quartz veins exposed on the surface. In addition, a
small collection in the British Museum of high-quality gold beads, earrings,
bracelets and appliques suggest these are the work of a previously unrecognized
high-quality goldworking tradition. Examples of this goldwork can be seen in the
show. Detailed depictions on funerary sculptures of necklaces, earrings, armlets
and finger rings offer a further glimpse of the types of high-status jewellery
worn by men and women alike. Certain ‘precious stones’ such as coloured
chalcedonies occur naturally in Y other types were probably imported from
India and Somaliland. These stones were popular across the Near East for carving
beads and seals.&
(cf. Ms. Hannan Bouton, Press Officer for the British Museum, London.
&The Queen of Sheba: Treasures from the Ancient Yemen.&
9 June-13 October 2002 Exhibition sponsored by Barclays PLC)
/PDFs/Issue%204/English/Ancient%20Yemen%20English.pdf
My&Critique& of the Pishon River being the &Kuwait River& (Wadi al Batin) as
proposed by the late James A. Sauer in 1996:
The late James A. Sauer (died 1999) suggested in 1996 that the Pishon river
might be Wadi al-Batin also called the &Kuwait River& because it drains from an
area near Mahd adh-Dhahab,&the cradle of gold,& an ancient gold bearing region
worked in antiquity in western Saudi Arabia, this river ends near modern Kuwait.
Below a map showing the so-called &Kuwait River& alternately, Wadi Batin, which
Sauer proposed might be Eden's Pishon River, draining from the area of Mahd
adh-Dahab (viewer's lower left). The Gihon is identified on the below map with
the Iranian Karkheh River draining from the Zagros mountains and ancient Susa
(viewer's right):
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