Biblical History – ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA

*Bedu playing a form of draughts with petrified camel turds*…

In 1978, my oldest friend Simon and I spent the summer as volunteers on a kibbutz in northern Israel. Although our labour was voluntary we were paid a weekly amount to cover basic needs such as cigarettes, booze and staples from the kibbutz general store. Fortunately, we didn’t smoke; the beer was cheap, and we were sufficiently content with the food produced in the members’ dining room that we’d spent relatively little, and by the end of the stay had a reasonable amount of money saved up. We decided to pool our savings with another couple of English guys, Tim and Ben, hire the cheapest car available (which happened to be a typical 70’s yellow Fiat 127) and drive down south to spend a week in the Sinai Desert.

*Our trusty yellow “horse with no name” above the Valley of the Inscriptions*…

The Sinai was still under Israeli rule back then, free to roam almost all the way to the edge of the Suez Canal. Little did we appreciate then, that a uniquely peaceful era in the modern history of the Sinai was nearing its end and that we were about to enjoy privileged access to virtually the entire peninsula.

These days, most travellers associate the Sinai primarily with its exotic beach resorts and scuba diving and snorkelling. And little wonder, as the peninsula is blessed with a sublime coastline both above and beneath the waves. Even now, the beach at Dahab remains the most beautiful I have ever seen, and the Sinai’s coral reef―as regards accessibility and quality―is a match for any other in the world.

*My old mate Simon, on salt flats near Ras Mohammed*

But for me, from the moment we passed through Eilat and entered the peninsula its superlative watery attractions notwithstanding, the feature which most grabbed my attention was the equally extraordinary landscape. The combination of desert plains and craggy mountains in a myriad of different colours; from white, to golden ochre through deep umbers and sienna, and culminating in blues and purples, was simply astonishing. The changing light; the chromatic sunrises; the intense sapphire of the day and the copper-tone sunsets reacted with the multi-surfaced sand and rock, presenting an optical feast of shifting tones and colouration.

*The southern Sinai range erupting from the flat desert plane “like brooding granite ice bergs above a gravelly, sandy ocean…*“

In the south of the Sinai Peninsula in particular it was easy to see how its awesome visual dramatics gave birth to Yahweh―the eventual supreme divinity of the Israelites, and which would gradually evolve into the monotheistic Judeo-Christian concept of “God”. And funnily enough, of all the many remarkable aspects of the Sinai, the one which struck me most had an appropriately biblical reference: I recalled, even back then, the passage (Exodus 19:12) where Yahweh warns the Children of Israel not to touch the sacred mount (Mount Sinai / Horeb) “or they shall certainly die”. Until witnessing for myself the “biblical wilderness”―familiar then, only with the mountains of Europe which have nothing like defined parameters, but rather evolved from their neighbouring foothills which themselves slowly emerged from undulating plains―I had always found that to be an odd warning. I even recalled as a child in Synagogue on a Saturday morning, when first reading the relevant passage, asking my grandfather how the poor Israelites were supposed to know where the sacred mount began. But now, looking at the actual mountains of southern Sinai, thrusting forth from ironing-board-flat plains like brooding icebergs above a gravelly, sandy ocean, I could immediately attest to the voracity of the biblical author’s knowledge of the geography he was describing. And it sent a shiver down my spine.

*Snorkelling off the southern Sinai coast was beautiful and awesome in equal measure…*

Presented here are a handful of the dozens of photos I took on that trip with my old Cannonet 28 on high-speed Ektachrome film. Sadly, most of the transparencies were too damaged to convert, but I think these few, in their raw, scratched and grainy condition, begin to convey to sheer wonder of what we saw on that wonderful trip to that “great and terrible wilderness”.

Finally, and on a lighter note, I recommend viewing these images to the sound of America and their iconic track The Horse With No Name . This song became a kind of unofficial anthem to our trip, and thus the adoptive name of our trusty little Fiat…

or PERHAPS king saul…?

Since the publication of my book, King Saul in 2007, I’ve occasionally been asked about my cover illustration and the inspiration behind it. I’ve even given talks to universities, and more recently an online presentation, to the Mosaic Reform Jewish Community in which the cover came up, although I never fully explained the thinking behind it.

When envisioning the first kings of Israel of the late 11th and early 10th centuries BCE we have very little archaeological evidence to help us, and that’s why I got so excited the first time I saw a grainy, black and white photo of the limestone bust below. The picture was in Moshe Dayan’s (otherwise unremarkable) book, Living With the Bible, and listed by him as possibly the head of an Israelite monarch – perhaps even King David. However, since then, the academic consensus feels it is more likely an Ammonite relic (Dayan obtained it from a dealer in Jordan), and of a deity, not a mortal ruler. In addition, whereas Dayan dated the bust to the late 11th century BCE, the scholastic majority decided it was of a later provenance – late to mid 8th century BCE.

*The bust, as it stands today in the extraordinary Israel Museum in Jerusalem*.

Nevertheless, there remains a minority of respected academics who agree with Dayan, that this is indeed a “portrait” bust, of a very human king, and from the time of Israel and Judah’s first three kings; Saul, his son and successor, Ishboheth, and David. And although the majority of this minority maintain the bust is Ammonite, and not Israelite, there are a few voices who tentatively suggest this could actually be a likeness of one of Israel’s first kings.

Sadly, as an amateur biblical historian, I can add little to the debate over dating the relic (although I would say that the stylisation of the beard looks earlier than 8th century BCE to my eyes), as an artist however, with a familiarity with the archaeology of the ancient Levant I can dare to say very firmly, that this is definitely a representation of a powerful human being, and not a god. And given that, and the fact it is indisputably Ammonite or Israelite, it must therefore be a likeness of anyone from Saul of Israel (circa 1020-1010 BCE) to Uzziah of Judah (circa, anything from 783-736 BCE).

*My cover design, based upon the bust, and assuming the side wings were metallic, like the helmet itself, and not in fact feather plumes.*

A major factor in my identifying the bust as a human likeness is the headgear, which seems to me to be a typical ceremonial crown of the time and the region. In my book, I went so far as to describe it – with its central helmet and side-wings – a form of “double crown”, resembling the Egyptian “pschent” worn by the pharaohs, to symbolise their rule over Upper and Lower Egypt – but in this case, possibly symbolising the wearer’s dominion over All Israel – i.e. both Israel and Judah. More recently however, I’ve considered the possibility of it being in fact, and more obviously, a triple crown, with the helmet representing Israel, and the two wings, Judah and trans-Jordan Israel respectively. And in which case, given it’s Ammon-geographical provenance, combined with a consideration of the biblical/historical context (far too involved to go into here), I feel certain that we are actually looking at a likeness of Saul’s son and heir, Ishboheth.

At first, this realisation disappointed me. After all, I had so wanted this to be Saul, even adapting it for the cover of my book. But in retrospect, the irony of this being the bust of the one early king of Israel virtually no one has ever heard of, has it’s own level of satisfaction, and moreover, if Ishboheth looked like his father, which is highly likely, it does offer us a fair idea of what All Israel’s first king looked like too. In any event, given it’s general dating and where it was discovered, at the very least, it gives us a damn good idea of what Saul or David would have looked like, and to someone like me, this is a thrilling concept.