by
Damien F. Mackey
“Moreover, for all their reported wealth and power, David nor Solomon
is mentioned in a single known Egyptian or Mesopotamian text.
And the archaeological evidence in Jerusalem for the famous building projects
of Solomon is nonexistent” (The Bible Unearthed, 2001, p. 128)”.
Israel Finkelstein
If Dr Stephen C. Meyers is correct about King Solomon, then I have completely wasted my time writing my articles on historical reconstructions of the great and wise king, including these latest ones:
King Solomon looming large in a reconstructed ancient history
(7) Reconstructing King Solomon's Ancient History
and:
House of Solomon
(7) House of Solomon
For Dr Stephen C. Meyers has written as follows in the Introduction to his 2020 article:
Solomon and Ramses II
(7) Solomon and Ramses II
Introduction
Solomon is said to have a great kingdom (from Egypt to the Euphrates River), great wealth, great wisdom, be a great builder and have many wives, yet there is no trace of Solomon in any ancient texts, or in the archaeological remains. This is a big problem if one follows the strict biblical chronology that Solomon ruled 971 to 931 b.c.
There are at least four different possibilities for understanding these stories of Solomon. The stories about Solomon can be taken literally, exactly as stated in the Bible, and then we say archaeologists just have not uncovered the evidence yet. The stories could be exaggerations of Solomon’s reign. This would mean the Bible is lying about Solomon’s greatness, and the stories of Solomon were all invented.
Another possibility is that these stories are based on the real stories about Ramses the Great and the Ramesside era. We will look at each possibility and see which is the most likely.
The best solution to this problem is to move Solomon to the Late Bronze Age where there is great peace and prosperity under the Ramesside rule in Egypt and the Levant, specifically under Ramses the Great. I will lay forth evidence to show that the best ft for the archaeological remains and oral stories behind Solomon is Ramses II (the Great).
[End of quote]
The ‘possibility’ above that best fits my reconstructions is the one according to which:
“The stories about Solomon can be taken literally, exactly as stated in the Bible, and then we say archaeologists just have not uncovered the evidence yet”.
It’s as simple as that!
For the received archaeology is completely out of kilter with the dates.
See, for example, the references in certain El Amarna [EA] letters to Bit Shulman, the “House of Solomon”, but mis-dated to half a millennium before King Solomon.
No need to follow Dr. Meyers’ “… best solution to this problem … to move Solomon to the Late Bronze Age where there is great peace and prosperity …”.
For Solomon is already there in the Late Bronze II Age, as I have shown in my articles.
Nor is Dr. Meyers’ era of Ramses II ‘the Great’ at all suitable for King Solomon, glorious as it may have been for Egypt. Pharaoh Ramses II does not belong to the Late Bronze. Moreover, he lived some several centuries after King Solomon. See e.g. my article:
The Complete Ramses II
https://www.academia.edu/108993634/The_Complete_Ramses_II
Dr Meyers then continues on to consider what he calls “The Great Problem” - great only in the minds of such biblical minimalisers as professor Israel Finkelstein:
The Great Problem
No archaeological evidence exists of a great Israelite kingdom in the 10th century.
Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein summarizes the problem: “Moreover, for all their reported wealth and power, David nor Solomon is mentioned in a single known Egyptian or Mesopotamian text. And the archaeological evidence in Jerusalem for the famous building projects of Solomon is nonexistent” (The Bible Unearthed, 2001, p. 128).
The famous gates attributed to Solomon at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer have now been dated to a century later. The pottery finds at Megiddo actually date to the 9th century, and Carbon 14 dating “now seems to clinch the case” (Ibid., p.141). Even if we do assume they are Solomonic gates, there is still the problem of the Bible exaggerating his rule. It is also problematic that King Hiram ruled both during David and Solomon’s reign (see Giovanni Garbini, 1988, pp. 22-23).
Finkelstein states, “The only certain historical Iron Age Hiram of Tyre was a king named Hirummu, who appears twice in the annals of the great Assyrian monarch Tiglath-pileser III in the 730s b.c. as paying tribute to Assyria” (David and Solomon, 2006, p. 173).
Peter James states that the Megiddo Late Bronze Age Stratum VIIA has luxury finds, but Stratum IV, Iron Age IIA, which is Solomon’s time [sic], is devoid of luxury—not a single gold item was found (Centuries of Darkness, 1993, pp. 191, 200). The excavations at Tyre did not find anything great at the time of Solomon (p. 192). The famous Solomonic Gates are also found at Ashdod, a Philistine city (p. 190). Solomon’s Temple matches the Late Bronze Age (p. 197). Ashlar masonry was also Late Bronze Age (p. 198), and the description of the furnishing of Solomon’s Temple corresponds to the 12th century (p. 198). Trade with Egypt and the Hittites described in I Kings 10:29 fts the Late Bronze Age. Mining at Timna with an Egyptian temple and materials are from 19th and 20th dynasties (p. 201).
Sir Mortimer Wheeler stated concerning the Timna or Solomon’s mines, “In spite of traditional associations of King Solomon with the mines and landscape, the great king is probably the most eminent absentee from the archaeological sequence” (James, 1993, p. 202).
Some minimalists go to the extreme and say David and Solomon never existed, the stories are all made up, but in 1993, they found at Tel Dan a stela that mentions the “house of David.” Finkelstein takes the middle ground and concludes, “For the now familiar story of David and Solomon is neither a straightforward historical record nor a wholly imaginary myth” (David and Solomon, 2006, p. 22).
If we follow strict biblical chronology that Solomon ruled 971 to 931 b.c., the archaeological evidence shows the stories of Solomon are not true. There was no great kingdom from Egypt to the Euphrates River, and there is no evidence of great buildings or great wealth. So is the Bible completely wrong? The key is chronology. If we adhere to a strict chronology, we are in big trouble.
[End of quote]
We certainly “are in big trouble” if “we adhere to” the conventional Sothic-based chronology. Using that faulty alignment we are going to find virtually nothing.
Apart from the C10th BC King Solomon, well-known to us from the Scriptures, who belonged to the Late Bronze II Age of archaeology, we have various other historical manifestations of him as shown in my first two mentioned articles above. He was:
Gudea of Lagash (Lachish);
Ibal-piel, son of Dadusha (David);
Senenmut (Solomon) in Egypt;
Jabin (Ibni), perhaps, of Hazor;
Qoheleth of the OT.
Plus there are those all-important EA references to Bît Šulman, “House of Solomon” – these being on a scientific par with the Tel Dan evidence for the “House of David”.
The fictitious versions of King Solomon
While there are probably numerous of these, several have struck me.
The first one is a supposed BC character, and the others are supposed AD entities.
(i) Solon of Athens
In my article, “Solomon and Sheba”, written for:
Society for Interdisciplinary Studies
CHRONOLOGY AND CATASTROPHISM
REVIEW
1997:1
I proferred this suggestion:
APPENDIX B
SOLOMON IN GREEK FOLKLORE
There is a case in Greek ‘history’ of a wise lawgiver who nonetheless over-organised his country, to the point of his being unable to satisfy either rich or poor, and who then went off travelling for a decade (notably in Egypt). This was Solon, who has come down to us as the first great Athenian statesman. Plutarch [115] tells that, with people coming to visit Solon every day, either to praise him or to ask him probing questions about the meaning of his laws, he left Athens for a time, realising that ‘In great affairs you cannot please all parties’. According to Plutarch:
‘[Solon] made his commercial interests as a ship-owner an excuse to travel and sailed away ... for ten years from the Athenians, in the hope that during this period they would become accustomed to his laws. He went first of all to Egypt and stayed for a while, as he mentions himself
‘where the Nile pours forth
its waters by the shore of Canopus’.’
We recall Solon's intellectual encounters with the Egyp¬tian priests at Heliopolis and Saïs (in the Nile Delta), as described in Plutarch's ‘Life of Solon’ and Plato's ‘Timaeus’ [116]. The chronology and parentage of Solon were disputed even in ancient times [117]. Since he was a wise statesman, an intellectual (poet, writer) whose administrative reforms, though brilliant, eventually led to hardship for the poor and disenchantment for the wealthy; and since Solon's name is virtually identical to that of ‘Solomon’; and since he went to Egypt (also to Cyprus, Sidon and Lydia) for about a decade at the time when he was involved in the shipping business, then I suggest that ‘Solon’ of the Greeks was their version of Solomon, in the mid-to-late period of his reign. The Greeks picked up the story and transferred it from Jerusalem to Athens, just as they (or, at least Herodotus) later confused Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem (c. 700 BC), by relocating it to Pelusium in Egypt [118].
Much has been attributed to the Greeks that did not belong to them - e.g. Breasted [119] made the point that Hatshep¬sut's marvellous temple structure was a witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the later Greeks would be credited as originators. Given the Greeks' tendency to distort history, or to appropriate inven¬tions, one would not expect to find in Solon a perfect, mirror-image of King Solomon.
Thanks to historical revisions [120], we now know that the ‘Dark Age’ between the Mycenaean (or Heroic) period of Greek history (concurrent with the time of Hatshepsut) and the Archaic period (that commences with Solon), is an artificial construct. This makes it even more plausible that Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporaries of ‘Solon’.
The tales of Solon's travels to Egypt, Sidon and Lydia (land of the Hittites) may well reflect to some degree Solomon's desire to appease his foreign women - Egyptian, Sidonian and Hittite - by building shrines for them (I Kings 11: 1, 7-8).
Both Solomon and Solon are portrayed as being the wisest amongst the wise. In the pragmatic Greek version Solon prayed for wealth rather than wisdom - but ‘justly acquired wealth’, since Zeus punishes evil [121]. In the Hebrew version, God gave ‘riches and honour’ to Solomon because he had not asked for them, but had prayed instead for ‘a wise and discerning mind’, to enable him properly to govern his people (I Kings 3:12-13).
(ii) King Charlemagne
Here I can include only a small amount of what I wrote on the subject in my article:
Solomon and Charlemagne
(2) Solomon and Charlemagne
Emperor Charlemagne’s life bears some uncanny likenesses to
that of the ancient King Solomon of Israel and his family.
The emperor Charlemagne has indeed been likened to King Solomon of old, e.g. by historian H. Daniel-Rops (The Church in the Dark Ages, p. 395), who calls him “a witness of God, after the style of Solomon …”, and he has been spoken of in terms of the ancient kings of Israel; whilst Charlemagne’s father, Pepin the Short, was hailed as “the new king David”.
Charlemagne, too, appears sometimes as a larger-than-life king, almost too good to be true. His coronation on Christmas Day of 800 AD can seem to be just too neat and perfect. He was, according to Daniel-Rops (ibid., p. 390), “… the heaven-sent man, for whom Europe was waiting …”. And: (p. 401): “Who in the world fitted this role more than this glamorous personage, who set every man’s imagination afire and who seemed so much larger than life?”
Charlemagne is assigned to the period known as the Dark Ages (c. 600-900 AD); a period somewhat lacking in archaeology – and there is precious little evidence for the many buildings that this famous king is supposed to have had erected. (See further on)
Admittedly, the anomalies and contradictions associated with virtually every aspect of the life of Charlemagne, from his birth to his death, are evident for all to consider.
Other striking likenesses to the persons of the Old Testament, apart from that of Charlemagne’s father king Pepin’s being like king David; are his mother, Bertha or Bertrada, reminding of Bathsheba; Charlemagne’s wife, “Desideria”, reminding of the “Queen of Sheba”; and Charlemagne’s colourful eastern friend and ally, Harun al-Raschid, most definitely like Solomon’s ally, King Hiram of Tyre. The last I believe to have been - as King Solomon most certainly was - a real historical person.
See how King Solomon’s glorious Jerusalem, with the technical assistance of the great King Hiram, became medieval Baghdad, under the direction of Harun al-Raschid:
Original Baghdad was Jerusalem
(4) Original Baghdad was Jerusalem
This archaeologically non-existent Baghdad, Madinat-al-Salam, “City of Peace”, was merely an appropriation of Solomon and Hiram’s Jerusalem, meaning “City of Peace”.
Charlemagne’s Father, Pepin, “the new David”
D. Fraioli tells of Pepin at his peak (Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War, p. 46): “An aura of prestige now surrounded the king, whom the pope called the “new king David” …”. Gregory of Tours had, as we shall read below, spoken similarly of king Clovis I, of the Merovingian dynasty. This traditional likening of Frankish kings to the ancient Davidic kings immediately raises the important point to be considered in this article concerning a sacred attitude held in regard to French kings, and this might go a long way towards accounting for the phenomenon of Charlemagne.
Let us take a relevant section on this from Fraioli’s book (pp. 43-45):
THE FRENCH TRADITION
France developed by far the most sacred mythology around its kingship of all the kingdoms in western Europe, although the earliest known coronations occurred in Visigothic Spain and Ireland.
The sacred mythology of French kingship, which became known as “the religion of the monarchy”, first emerged during the Merovingian dynasty, in the context of a baptismal anointing rather than a sacred coronation, when Clovis, king of the Franks, converted to Christianity. ….
Fraioli will however, in a later section on Hincmar (d. 882), suggest that this whole notion of sacred kingship was a late tradition, both mythical and “fabricated”.
Here is what she has to say about it there (pp. 47-48):
Hincmar, archbishop of Reims from 845 to 882, was a learned theologian and nimble politician, whose fame in the development of sacred kingship rests on his introduction of the legend of the Holy Ampulla into the history of Clovis, four centuries after the fact.
In an effort to prove the continuity of Frankish kingship and, it is commonly believed, to challenge the influence of the abbey of Saint Denis – then successfully fusing its own history with that of the monarchy – Hincmar authorized a new myth. He is often believed to have fabricated the story himself in an attempt to expand the importance of the see of Reims. In all likelihood, he did not invent it, although he had confessed to forging other documents. The myth made the astonishing assertion that the liquid used to consecrate Frankish kings was of divine origin. A dove, the Christian symbol of the Holy Spirit, had allegedly delivered the Ampulla, or vial, of sacred liquid in its beak, when the bustling crowd at Clovis’ baptism had prevented the bearer of the baptismal oil from a timely arrival at the ceremony. Through this myth the election of French kings was seen as the will of God. Furthermore, the continuity of their rule was guaranteed by an inexhaustible supply of anointing balm in the Holy Ampulla, which could anoint French kings to the end of time.
[End of quote]
This charming story may have Old Testament origins in the miraculous preservation, in liquid form, of the sacred fire as recorded in 2 Maccabees 1:18-36, for the time of the biblical Nehemiah, whom we have found apparently making an anachronistic ‘return visit’ at the time of the Prophet Mohammed, BC dragged into AD time:
Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time
https://www.academia.edu/12429764/Two_Supposed_Nehemiahs_BC_time_and_AD_time
The legend of Hincmar may perhaps have arisen out of a confused transmission of the original true historical account relating to the governor Nehemiah.
I continue now with Fraioli’s earlier section on The French Tradition, where she briefly considers Clovis I (pp. 44-45), and then proceeds on to Pepin (p. 46):
Clovis I (d. 511) and the Franks
…. At his baptism, King Clovis was anointed with a holy balm, or salve … in a ceremony blending kingship and religion. According to the contemporary chronicle of Gregory of Tours, the anointing of Clovis occurred by the grace of God, prompting Gregory to draw an analogy between Clovis and the sacred kingship of David in the Old Testament. ….
Pepin the Short (d. 768)
…. Pepin the Short … receives the credit for introducing the ritual of sacred anointing, or consecration, into the installation ceremony for French kings. …. As Patrick Simon has stated, Pepin’s innovation consisted of “legitimizing through a religious ceremony a power obtained by force ...”.
….
The union of king and clergy provided mutual benefit …. An aura of prestige now surrounded the king, whom the pope called the “new David” ….
[End of quotes]
Again, we recall the famous anointing with “the horn of oil” of David the shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse, by Samuel the high priest and prophet, after Samuel had rejected one by one David’s seven older brothers (1 Samuel 16:1-13). After the death of Saul (Samuel was also dead by now) David was anointed again, at Hebron, as king of all Israel (2 Samuel 5:3).
Now Pepin, likewise, was twice crowned (Fraioli, p. 46): “The second coronation, celebrated at Saint-Denis in 754 [AD], cleverly reconnected Pepin’s reign to the Merovingians through his wife, big-foot Bertha, a descendant of Clovis, which provided fictional continuity to French kingship”.
King David is sometimes found going so far, it seems, as to act out the priest’s rôle, as for example when he had triumphantly returned the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and he subsequently offered “burnt offerings and the offering of well-being before the Lord” (2 Samuel 6:17).
Both David and Pepin were warrior-kings and men of great personal courage. Pepin is famous, in his youthful days, like David, for his courage against wild animals, including lions.
Daniel-Rops (op. cit., p. 387) tells of it: “A well-known picture, which was already very popular in the Middle Ages, has impressed on our minds the features of this thickset, broad-shouldered little man who, for a wager, amused himself by separating a lion and a bull who were in the middle of a fight in the circus arena”.
In the case of David, this courage is manifest, not “in the circus arena”, but in the field. More serious, and we might say less frivolous, was David’s situation, when the giant, Goliath, was challenging the armies of Israel.
Then David said to Saul (1 Samuel 17:34-36):
‘Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God’.
Pepin was nicknamed “the Short”.
Was David also short? He probably was not of very tall stature.
When the prophet Samuel came to Jesse’s boys, to anoint the one amongst them whom God had chosen, Samuel had been most impressed by Eliab, who was apparently of a good height (1 Samuel 16:6-7). So, we could probably draw the conclusion that, when the Lord advised Samuel not to look on “the height of [the candidate’s] stature” in making his choice, that David, the youngest of the boys, who eventually was chosen, was not that very tall.
But David was of fine appearance, nonetheless: “Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome” (v. 12).
Charlemagne, “after the style of Solomon”
His Beginnings
Like Solomon, the young son, Charlemagne (said to be 26 at the time), succeeded his father. But some hazy legend seems to surround Charlemagne’s mother and the king’s own early years. Thus Daniel-Rops (op. cit., p. 391):
What had he done, this boy who was promised to such a lofty destiny, between that day in 742 when Bertha, the daughter of the Count of Laon – the ‘Bertha of the big feet’ of the chansons de gestes – brought him into the world in some royal villa or other in Austrasia, and the premature hour of his succession?
No one really knows, and Einhard of all people, who faithfully chronicled his reign, is strangely discreet about his hero’s early years.
[End of quote]
In the case of Solomon, he was not born out of wedlock, as it is thought of Charlemagne. Rather it was Bathsheba’s child who had died as a result of king David’s sin of adultery with her (2 Samuel 12:16-23). Solomon himself was the child of ‘consolation’ for the pair after the sad death of this un-named child (v. 24).
Now were, perhaps, the French 'Songs' (or Chansons), the Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) and the "Songs of heroic deeds [or lineages]" (Chansons de gestes), inspired by, or even in part based upon, the biblical “Song of Songs” or “Canticle of Canticles” (also known as the “Song of Solomon”); a love poem that could well have inspired some of the famous French chivalric notions?
Was the ‘wisdom of Oliver’ in the Song of Roland inspired by the Wisdom of Solomon? “Oliver urges caution; wisdom and restraint are part of what makes him a good knight”: http://www.gradesaver.com/song-of-roland/study-guide/section2/
Did the “giants” in these Chansons perhaps arise from the encounter between David and the giant Goliath? Wikipedia tells (article “Chanson de geste”):
Composed in Old French and apparently intended for oral performance by jongleurs, the chansons de geste narrate legendary incidents (sometimes based on real events) in the history of France during the eighth and ninth centuries, the age of Charles Martel, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, with emphasis on their conflicts with the Moors and Saracens. To these historical legends, fantasy is gradually added; giants, magic, and monsters increasingly appear among the foes along with Muslims. ….
[End of quote]
His Birthplace
More than a dozen places are claiming the honour to be the birthplace of Charles.
The year of birth varies between 742 and 747 AD. Bertrada, the mother of Charles, was said to be a Bretonian princess, an Hungarian noble woman, or a member of the imperial family of Byzantium.
The competition for the throne between Charles and his brother, Carloman, is also very much like what we find in the biblical account of the challenge to the throne by Solomon’s brother, Adonijah (1 Kings 1:5-10).
The mother may perhaps have been complicit in this (cf. 2:9). According to Daniel-Rops (op. cit., p. 395): “At the time of [Charles’] accession this question [of Italy, Rome and the Lombards] had been considerably confused owing to the political mistakes of Queen Bertha, his mother”.
Solomon, like Carloman, seems to have been twice elected king (accession and coronation), and in the first case, in both instances, the mother appears to have played an ambiguous part.
Again, when Adonijah’s bid for the throne had failed, he cunningly approached Bathsheba to ask Solomon to give him the beautiful Abishag for his wife (2:13-18). When Bathsheba did approach Solomon, the latter acted out the pretence of complying with his mother’s request (2:2): “King Solomon answered his mother, ‘And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom as well! For he is my elder brother; ask not only for him but also for the priest Abiathar and for Joab the son of Zeruiah!’ [both of whom had supported Adonijah in his revolt against David and Solomon]”.
This situation can perhaps be likened to the case of what Daniel-Rops (op. cit., ibid.) has referred to as “these manoeuvres when Queen Bertha had married her elder son … to Desiderius’s [King of Pavia’s] daughter, Desideria”. Though, in the biblical story, Adonijah apparently was not actually a son of Bathsheba’s (1 Kings 1:5), nor of course did he manage to fulfil his wish of marrying Abishag, despite his desire for her.
“Desideria” is certainly a most appropriate appellation for the much-desired Abishag.
And soon I shall be showing, from another parallel situation between Solomon and Charlemagne, that Desideria well equates with this Abishag.
Of course Solomon was being completely sarcastic in his reply to Adonijah’s request via Bathsheba. The wise king fully appreciated the implications of the scheming Adonijah’s attaining the hand of David’s favourite, Abishag. Thus he added, chillingly (vv. 23-25):
‘So may God do to me, and more also [a typical idiom of the time], for Adonijah has devised this scheme at the risk of his life! Now therefore as the Lord lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of my father David, and who has made me a house as he promised, today Adonijah shall be put to death’. So King Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he struck him down, and he died.
Conveniently, likewise, Charlemagne’s brother died suddenly (Daniel-Rops, p. 391): “But scarcely three years had elapsed when an unexpected death completely broke these shackles …. Charles claimed his brother’s heritage and thus rebuilt the unity of the paternal realm under his leadership”.
Solomon’s sarcasm in the face of Bathsheba’s request may even have its faint glimmer in the case of the chaffing compliance of the young Charles towards his own mother (ibid., pp. 394-395): “Despite his twenty-five years Charles had appeared to defer to his energetic mother’s wishes. But he fretted under the restraint”.
His Natural Qualities
Like Solomon, Charlemagne was a most gifted individual, and the perfect king material (Daniel-Rops, p. 392):
Charles was … throughout his life – quick, far-sighted, and energetic. In these instinctive qualities lies the secret of his incomparably fruitful labour, and, to their service, a never-failing vigour lent an activity which was truly prodigious.
….
And he had other complementary qualities, which decisively defined his grandeur: prudence, moderation, a realistic appreciation of the possible, a mistrust of unconsidered actions. It is the Emperor Augustus whom Charlemagne recalls, rather than Caesar or Alexander.
Or is it rather king Solomon “whom Charlemagne [most closely] recalls”?
As for “prudence” and his other cardinal virtues, as mentioned in the quote above, well, was not Solomon the first person to list these virtues (Wisdom of Solomon 8:7)?
….
Archaeological considerations
For AD history to be fully convincing and to be made to rest on firm foundations,
it will need to undergo a rigorous revision similar to the one that scholars have
been undertaking for BC history, with the application of a revised stratigraphy.
There may be some indications that the history of Charlemagne is yet far from having been established on such firm stratigraphical foundations.
The following will be based upon the research of some pioneering European revisionists (Illig; Niemitz; Topper) who have bravely embarked upon a re-assessment of AD time. Whilst I may not necessarily agree with all of their conclusions, or their revised models, I would applaud them for having undertaken so necessary a revision.
Charlemagne’s Economy
The findings of historians regarding Charles’ economy show extreme contradictions: Some concede abundant wealth to Charles, while others have to complain economic decay.
Jan Beaufort writes (“Illig’s Hypothesis on Phantom Times – FAQ”: http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/hollstein/hollstein0/beaufort/index.htm):
Economy: The findings of historians regarding Charles' economy show extreme contradictions: Some concede abundant wealth to Charles, while others have to complain economic decay. [DeM 161 ff.] As Heinsohn has shown recently, coins attributed to Charles (or, likewise Charles the Bald-head) cannot be distinguished from the coins of Charles the Simple (898-929). According to Illig, Carolus Simplex has been a real Carolingian and the model for Charlemagne. The attribute "simplex" (= stupid, but likewise single, not-duplicated) has been used for the first time following the turn of the millennium. [Heinsohn (2001)]
Charlemagne’s Capital City
and His Cultural Achievements
‘The Carolingian Renaissance’, as Daniel-Rops calls it (The Church in the Dark Ages, p. 422), centred on Aix-la-Chapelle. But Aix-la-Chapelle is considered to have been a rather unusual geographical choice anyway:
The vital centre of this Renaissance was Aix-la-Chapelle, the ancient ‘villa’ of Pepin the Short’s time, which was situated some distance off the great Roman roads. From 794 onwards Charlemagne made it into a Carolingian Versailles, judging from its intellectual atmosphere and the splendour of its appearance. The geographical position of this new capital has given rise to much discussion: why was this Rhineland area chosen, rather than some town in Gaul, or even Rome itself? ….
Aix was the centre of the intellectual Renaissance; and the centre of Aix, and especially the Palatine school, was a kind of general headquarters of the mind, which influenced the entire empire ….
[End of quote]
Amongst this august group was Charlemagne himself, now “known as David”; this being about the only seemingly eastern factor in what comes across as a very European ‘club of gentlemen’ (ibid., p. 424):
The leaders of this pleiade of scholars and cultured men formed a sort of club, a small, self-contained group. Historians are accustomed to call this group the Palatine Academy. Each of its members bore a pseudonym borrowed from antiquity. Charlemagne himself, who was not a whit averse to residing over this learned assembly, was known as David, which overestimated the power of the cantor of the Psalms and overrated even more outrageously the poetic talents of the son of Pepin!
[End of quote]
Charlemagne is also, like King Solomon, famed for his architectural achievements. Thus Daniel-Rops, p. 425:
…. Because the building, decoration, and beautifying of the House of God was one of the major preoccupations of the master, architecture and the plastic arts developed so much that Dawson has been able to write: ‘Charlemagne founded a Holy Roman architecture as well as a Holy Roman Empire’. In fact, it was not only Roman, but followed tendencies which we have already noticed in the Merovingian epoch, mingling Eastern and remote Asiatic influence with the revival of classical features.
But sadly - as somewhat also with king Solomon (but in his case due to centuries of destruction and looting, and also to the failure by archaeologists to identify Solomon’s era stratigraphically): “We no longer possess many examples of the architecture of this great reign”.
[End of quote]
Beaufort would concur with the fact of this dearth of architectural evidence (op. cit.):
Buildings: As we know from the ancient texts, between 476 and 855 AD more than 1695 large buildings were erected, including 312 cathedrals, 1254 convents and 129 royal palaces. The historian Harald Braunfels: "Of all these buildings [until 1991] only 215 were examined by archaeologists. Artefacts were found only at a fraction of these buildings. One may count with ten fingers the number of buildings that still exist as a whole or as a significant fraction." [DeM 208]
Publisher Heribert Illig, who has advanced the historical conspiracy theory known as the phantom time hypothesis, has made this observation about the “masterpiece of Carolignian architecture” (as told by Beaufort):
Pfalzkapelle Aachen: The masterpiece of Carolingian architecture, the Chapel of St. Mary at Aachen (about 792-799) is unique. Its direct predecessor (Ravenna's San Vitale) had been erected some 200 years earlier. Buildings comparable to Aachen in style and technology were not erected until the advent of the Romanesque style in the 11th century.
Consequently, Illig assumes the Pfalzkapelle to be a Romanesque building of the 11th century.
[End of quote]
In other words, Illig claims it to be quite anachronistic.
His Burial and Tomb
Jan Beaufort tells about this (op. cit.):
Burial: Charles' burial place is the Pfalzkapelle at Aachen (his explicit will to find his grave beneath his father at Saint-Denis had been ignored). This contradicted the general prohibition of burials within churches, proclaimed by councils held under Charles at Aachen (809) and Mainz (813). [DeM 44 f.]
And again:
Tomb: Charles' tomb had been camouflaged so well (in fear of the raiding Normans) that it could not be localized for two centuries. In the year 1000 the emperor Otto III discovers the tomb. He finds Charles sitting on his throne.
Again the tomb became forgotten until it was found once more and reopened by Friedrich Barbarossa. Then again, the tomb disappeared and was never found again. For comparison: The tomb of Otto I in the dome of Magdeburg has always been honoured - despite of all destructions and rebuilds of this church. [DeM 44 ff.]
(iii) Suleiman the Magnificent
As I wrote in my article:
King Solomon and Suleiman
(4) King Solomon and Suleiman
King Suleiman I as “a second Solomon”, and “a new Solomon”.
Suleiman the Magnificent,
King of the Ottoman Turks
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“Suleiman … is therefore called the second Solomon
by many Islamic scholars …”.
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King Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’, a supposedly C16th AD Ottoman emperor, was, according to this source
http://everything2.com/title/Suleiman+the+Magnificent
“a new Solomon”.
And, similarly, Suleiman was “the second Solomon”.
A new Solomon is risen
Süleyman I was everything a magnificent ruler should be. He was just, making the right decisions in cases set before him. [Cf. I Kings 3:16-28] He was brave, leading his armies in battle until he had greatly expanded his sultanate. He was wealthy, living in luxury and turning his capital Istanbul into a splendid city. And he was cultured, his court teeming with philosophers and artists, and the Sultan himself mastering several arts, especially that of poetry.
….
Süleyman ascended to the throne in 1520 and stayed there for all of 46 years. During his reign he furthered the work of his forefathers until he had made the empire of the Ottomans into one of the world’s greatest.
The Sultan was named after Solomon, who was described as the perfect ruler in the Quran. Like the legendary king of the Jews, Süleyman was seen as just and wise, and a worthy follower of his namesake. He is therefore called the second Solomon by many Islamic scholars, although he was the first of that name among the Ottomans. Like the Solomon of old, this ruler was surrounded by splendour and mystery, and his time is remembered as the zenith of his people. ….
[End of quote]
Problems with Islamic ‘History’
In some cases, Islam and its scholars have shown a complete disregard for historical perspective. I had cause to discuss this in my review of Islamic scholar Ahmed Osman’s book, Out of Egypt. The Roots of Christianity Revealed, in my series:
Osman's ‘Osmosis’ of Moses
(4) Osman's Radical Reinterpretation of Moses
(4) Osman's 'Osmosis' of Moses. Part Two: Christ The King
his books being a diabolical historical mish-mash in which the author, Osman, sadly attempts to herd a millennium or more of history into the single Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.
But getting right to the heart of the situation, the historical problems pertaining to the Prophet Mohammed himself are legendary.
My own contributions, amongst many, to this subject, are, for example:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
(4) Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
Scholars have long pointed out the historical problems associated with the life of the Prophet Mohammed and the history of Islam, with some going even so far as to cast doubt upon Mohammed’s actual existence. Biblico-historical events, normally separated the one from the other by many centuries, are re-cast as contemporaneous in the Islamic texts. Muslim author, Ahmed Osman, has waxed so bold as to squeeze, into the one Egyptian dynasty, the Eighteenth, persons supposed to span more than one and a half millennia. Now, as I intend to demonstrate in this article, biblico-historical events that occurred during the neo-Assyrian era of the C8th BC, and then later on, in the Persian era, have found their way into the biography of Mohammed supposedly of the C7th AD.
Added to all this confusion is the highly suspicious factor of a ‘second’ Nehemiah, sacrificing at the site of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem during a ‘second’ Persian period, all contemporaneous with the Prophet of Islam himself.
The whole scenario is most reminiscent of the time of the original (and, I believe, of the only) Nehemiah of Israel. And so I wrote in an article, now up-dated as:
Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time
https://www.academia.edu/12429764/Two_Supposed_Nehemiahs_BC_time_and_AD_time
This … later Nehemiah “offers a sacrifice on the site of the Temple”, according to Étienne Couvert (La Vérité sur les Manuscripts de la Mer Morte, 2nd ed, Éditions de Chiré, p. 98. My translation). “He even seems to have attempted to restore the Jewish cult of sacrifice”, says Maxine Lenôtre (Mahomet Fondateur de L’Islam, Publications MC, p.111, quoting from S.W. Baron’s, Histoire d’Israël, T. III, p. 187. My translation), who then adds (quoting from the same source): “Without any doubt, a number of Jews saw in these events a repetition of the re-establishment of the Jewish State by Cyrus and Darius [C6th BC kings of ancient Persia] and behaved as the rulers of the city and of the country”.
[End of quote]
So, conceivably, the whole concept of a Persian (or Sassanian) empire at this time, with rulers named Chosroes, again reminiscent of the ancient Cyrus ‘the Great’, may need to be seriously questioned.
Coins and Archaeology
And how to “explain inscriptions on early Islamic coins – the ones that showed Muhammed meeting with a Persian emperor [Chosroes II] who supposedly died a century before”? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/plain/A85654957
Emmet Scott, who asks “Were the Arab Conquests a Myth?”, also points out major anomalies relating to the coinage of this presumed period, and regarding the archaeology of Islam in general, though Scott does not go so far as to suggest that the Sassanian era duplicated the ancient Persian one:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/160197/sec_id/160197
Note the remark [in Encyclopdaedia Iranica]: “The Arab-Sasanian coinages are not imitations,” but were “designed and manufactured by the same people as the late Sasanian issues.”
We note also that the date provided on these artefacts is written in Persian script, and it would appear that those who minted the coins, native Persians, did not understand Arabic. We hear that under the Arabs the mints were “evidently allowed to go on as before,” and that there are “a small number of coins indistinguishable from the drahms of the last emperor, Yazdegerd III, dated during his reign but after the Arab capture of the cities of issue. It was only when Yazdegerd died (A.D. 651) [in the time of the Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya] that some mark of Arab authority was added to the coinage.” (Ibid.) Even more puzzling is the fact that the most common coins during the first decades of Islamic rule were those of Yazdegerd's predecessor Chosroes II, and many of these too bear the Arabic inscription (written however, as we saw, in the Syriac script) besm Allah. Now, it is just conceivable that invading Arabs might have issued slightly amended coins of the last Sassanian monarch, Yazdegerd III, but why continue to issue money in the name of a previous Sassanian king (Chosroes II), one who, supposedly, had died ten years earlier? This surely stretches credulity.
The Persian-looking Islamic coins are of course believed to date from the time of Umar (d. 664), one of the “Rightly-guided Caliphs” who succeeded Muhammad and supposedly conquered what became the Islamic Empire. Yet it has to be stated that there is no direct archaeological evidence for the existence either of Umar or any of the other “Rightly-guided” Caliphs Abu Bakr, Uthman or Ali. Not a brick, coin, or artifact of any kind bears the name of these men. Archaeologically, their existence is as unattested as Muhammad himself. ….
[End of quote]
But surely what Scott alleges about these early Caliphs, that: “Not a brick, coin, or artifact of any kind bears the name of these men”, cannot be applied to Suleiman the Magnificent himself, evidence of whose building works in, say Jerusalem, are considered to abound and to be easily identifiable.
A typical comment would be this: “Jerusalem’s current walls were built under the orders of Suleiman the Magnificent between the years 1537 and 1541. Some portions were built over the ancient walls from 2,000 years ago. The walls were built to prevent invasions from local tribes and to discourage another crusade by Christians from Europe”:
http://www.generationword.com/jerusalem101/4-walls-today.html
Previously, I have discussed Greek appropriations of earlier ancient Near Eastern culture and civilization.
But might Arabic Islam have, in turn, appropriated the earlier Byzantine Greek architecture, and perhaps some of its archaeology?
There appears to be plenty written on this subject, e.g.: “The appropriation of Byzantine elements into Islamic architecture”, by Patricia Blessing, “art and architecture of the Muslim World, focusing on trans-cultural interactions in the Middle Ages, the appropriation of Byzantine elements into Islamic architecture, the transfer and authentication of relics in East and West, historical photographs of architecture and urban spaces”:
http://cmems.stanford.edu/tags/appropriation-byzantine-elements-islamic-architecture
And, again: http://www.daimonas.com/pages/byzantine-basis-persian.html
“This page is related to the Byzantine origins of what are claimed to be "Islamic" ideas. This page is limited to showing the Byzantine/Greek basis of Sassanian ideas which were absorbed by the even less original Arabs who replaced the faith of Zoroaster with one more brutal; that of Mohammed”.
A rock relief of Chosroes II at Taq-I Bustan “clearly shows the symbol which was to be appropriated by Islam, the crescent moon …”.
As for the archaeology of the walls of the city of Jerusalem itself, relevant to Sultan Suleiman the supposed wall builder there, the exact identification of these various wall levels is highly problematical, as attested by Hershel Shanks, “The Jerusalem Wall That Shouldn’t Be There. Three major excavations fail to explain controversial remains”:
http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=13&Issue=3&ArticleID=5
So perhaps art and architecture attributed to the direction of Suleiman the Magnificent might need to be seriously re-assessed for the purposes of authentication.
Words are put into the mouth of a supposed Venetian visitor to the glorious kingdom of Suleiman the Magnificent that immediately remind me of the remarks made by the biblical Queen of Sheba upon her visit to the court of the truly magnificent King Solomon.
Compare (http://everything2.com/title/Suleiman+the+Magnificent):
“I know no State which is happier than this one. It is furnished with all God’s gifts. It controls war and peace; it is rich in gold, in people, in ships, and in obedience; no State can be compared with it. May God long preserve the most just of all Emperors.”
The Venetian ambassador reports from Istanbul in 1525
with (I Kings 10:6-9):
Then [Sheba] said to the king [Solomon]: “It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom. However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed be the Lord your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”
And in the article, “How Sultan Süleyman became ‘Kanuni [Lawgiver]’”, we find Suleiman likened to, not only King Solomon, again, but also to King Solomon’s law-giving alter ego, Solon, and to Solomon’s contemporary (revised) Hammurabi:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/how-sultan-suleyman-became-kanuni.aspx?pageI
The first written, complete code of laws is nearly 4,000 years old, from the time of Hammurabi, the king of Babylon (r. 1792 B.C. to 1750 B.C.), although fragments of legal codes from other cities in the Mesopotamian area have been discovered. Hammurabi is still honored today as a lawgiver. In the Bible, it was Moses whom the Jews singled out as a lawgiver and among the ancient Greeks, Draco and Solon. ….
….
Süleyman oversaw the codification of a new general code of laws. Not only were previous codes of law taken into account, new cases and analogies were added. Fines and punishments were regularized and some of the more severe punishments were mitigated.
….
The kanunnames are collections of kanuns or statutes that are basically short summaries of decrees issued by the sultan. The decrees in turn were made on the basis of a particular individual, place or event but when issued, these particular details were not included. The publication of such a general kanunname throughout the empire was the responsibility of the nişancı, an official whose duty it was to attach the sultan’s imperial signature on the decrees issued in his name.
….
The sultan held the judicial power and judges had to follow what he decreed.
….
What Kanuni Sultan Süleyman did to earn his sobriquet as ‘lawgiver’ has often been compared to the just ruler King Solomon, from the Old Testament.
[End of quote]
