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CHAPTER 1
Ali Baba's Map
'So geographers, in Afric-maps,
Jonathan Swift, 'A Rhapsody'
AN INKY HAND-DRAWN map hung on the back wall of Ali Baba's Tourist Emporium. Little more than a sketch, and smudged by a clumsy hand, it was mounted in a chipped gold frame and showed a river and mountains, a desert, a cave and what looked like a trail between them. At the end of the trail was an oversized 'X'.
'Is that a treasure map?'
Ali Baba looked up from the back page of the Jerusalem Herald and peered at me. He was an old dog of a man, whose pot belly hinted at a diet rich in fat-tailed sheep. His chin was covered with bristly grey stubble; he was bespectacled and he spoke through the corner of his mouth. Like all the other merchants in the bazaar, Ali Baba had gone from rack to ruin, but he didn't care. He lit a filterless Turkish cigarette and let his chest swell with the smoke.
'That is not for sale,' he said.
'But is it a treasure map?' I asked again.
The shopkeeper grunted and returned to his paper. You couldn't accuse Ali Baba of hard salesmanship. Times had never been worse for tourism since the fighting had flared up again, and all the other traders in Jerusalem's Old City were falling over themselves to do business. But then none of them had a treasure map hanging on their walls.
'Where's the treasure supposed to be?'
'Africa.'
'Diamonds?'
'No, gold.'
'Oh,' I mouthed with mounting interest, 'pirate treasure?'
Ali Baba glanced up again from his newspaper. Then he straightened his white skull-cap, scratched a broken fingernail through his beard and replied.
'Gold mines, it is a map for the gold mines.'
'The gold mines?'
'The mines of Suleiman,' he growled, 'King Solomon's mines.'
The Via Dolorosa is packed with poky shops touting the latest in Virgin Mary T-shirts, playing-cards bearing the head of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ bottle-openers and Last Supper baseball caps. Several merchants that morning had even offered me 'splinters' from the Cross, and one had shown me what he said were Christ's thumb bones. The prices mentioned suggested they were fakes: they only cost two hundred dollars each. Holy Land kitsch surpasses all other forms. It seemed amazing that anyone would ever buy any of the merchandise, especially since tourists were now few and far between. Most had been scared away by the renewed Intifada.
As anyone who's ever set foot in the maze of backstreets of Jerusalem's souk knows, everything has a price. After forty minutes of drinking dark sweet tea with Ali Baba, the map was mine. Wrapping it in his copy of the Jerusalem Herald, Ali Baba licked his thumb and counted my wad of notes. Then, after counting them once, he turned them over and counted them again, checking for forgeries.
'Six hundred shekels,' he said. 'Cheap at the price.'
'It may be little to you, but it's a lot to me. It's nearly a hundred pounds.'
'What do you mean?' exclaimed Ali Baba. 'This map could lead you to a treasure greater than the farthest limits of your imagination. It's been in my family for six generations. My father would slit my throat if he were alive. And my mother must be turning in her grave. I can hear my ancestors cursing me from the next world!'
'Why haven't you ever gone off to look for Solomon's mines yourself?'
'Hah!' said the merchant, recoiling. 'How do you expect me to leave my business?'
'Then why are you selling the map after so long, and why to me?'
'You seem an honourable man,' said Ali Baba, opening the door.
I thanked him for the compliment.
'You are wise too, I can see that,' he added, as I stepped into the street, 'so hang the map on your wall and leave it at that.'
All over the world unscrupulous shopkeepers have palmed me off with their most suspect merchandise. Most tourists instinctively avoid such objects, but I can't help myself. I have an insatiable appetite for questionable souvenirs. My home is filled with useless junk from a hundred journeys. The highlights include a lucky painted sloth jawbone from the Upper Amazon, a boxed set of glass eyes from Prague, and a broken boomerang purchased in a Moroccan souk, and supposedly once owned by Jim Morrison. I have a West African divining bowl too, made from whale bone, and a fragment of an Ainu warrior's cloak, a human hair talisman from Sarawak, and a ceremonial executioner's sword from the Sudan.
But Ali Baba's map was different. From the moment I saw it, I knew that a great opportunity was spread out before me. No names of places or co-ordinates were marked, but it was the first fragment of a journey. Such leads are rare in life, and must be seized with both hands.
Before Ali Baba could regret the decision to sell his heirloom, I hurried out into the web of streets, past the fruit stalls and perfume-sellers, the caverns heaped with turmeric, ground cinnamon and paprika, dried figs and trays of oily baklava. The Old City was full of life, moving to an ancient rhythm which could have changed little since the time of Christ.
The Intifada might have frightened away the package tourists but, as I saw it, a visit to Jerusalem in a time of peace would strip it of a vital quality — danger. My wife has grown used to hastily planned holidays in the world's trouble-spots. As soon as there's a bomb, an earthquake, a tidal wave or a riot, I call the travel agent and book cut-price seats. I'm no fearless war correspondent, but I have come to realize that the news media has a knack of exaggerating the perils of even the worst national emergency. In any case, a little danger is a small price to pay for ridding a place of tourists. We spent our honeymoon in Alexandria, living it up in the presidential suite of a grand hotel a couple of days after a bomb had wiped out a tourist bus in the Egyptian capital. At first my wife grumbled — she had been looking forward to Venice — but over the years she's got used to holidays that come with a Foreign Office health warning. But even she wasn't prepared to accompany me to the West Bank during the worst fighting since the Six-Day War.
In more peaceful times I would have had to fight my way through the crowds to get up to the Dome of the Rock, which stands on an outcrop known to Jews as Temple Mount, and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. The small plateau is one of the holiest sites in Islam and is revered by Jews as well.
The Cotton Merchants' market, which was built by the Crusaders and which leads up to the sanctuary, was deserted. A pair of Israeli soldiers were standing guard at the far end of the tunnel, lit by octagonal skylights in the vaulted stone roof. Their fatigues were well-pressed, but their expressions were heavy with the boredom that only conscripts know. In a synchronized movement they lifted automatic rifles to my chest and told me to turn back. Tourists were not welcome, they said. If I took another step towards the shrine, I'd be arrested and charged.
I explained that I was no tourist but a pilgrim. My father, my grandfather and his father before him had prayed at the Dome of the Rock. Now I had come to continue the tradition. Nothing would make me leave without fulfilling my duty. As I delivered my harangue, a beggar with no legs swam desperately over the flagstones, his arms flailing. He kissed my feet, rejoicing at the sight of a tourist. Until my arrival his livelihood must have been in doubt. I handed him a few small coins, for charity is one of the central pillars of Islam.
The conscripts lowered the barrels of their weapons to groin height. They were giving me a moment to persuade them of my faith.
'Tourists degrade what is holy. They are the agents of the Devil,' I exclaimed, as I spat on the ground.
The guards' eyes widened and, perhaps worried that I was a lunatic and would give them trouble, they let me through the cordon. A pair of great doors were swung open on rusting hinges, and I caught my first sight of the fabulous golden dome.
Before I had taken a single step towards the shrine, an old Arab guard hurried over and insisted that I required his services. Only he could keep me safe, he said, and besides he needed the money. His honest eyes were pale green, the colour of rock opals, his unshaven cheeks leathery and walnut brown. His front teeth were missing, causing him to whiffle when he spoke. His name was Hussein.
'My seven sons have been hungry for many weeks,' he said. 'Thank God that you have come! You were sent by God to help restore my family's fortune. I have been blessed by your arrival, and my family have been blessed! May you live for a thousand years!'
After such a welcome I had little choice but to hire the guide. He motioned to the dome and clamped his hand to my forearm, so that I might pause to savour the moment. Resting on an octagonal mosaic-tiled base, and framed in the brilliant blue afternoon sky, the great golden dome blinds all who look upon it. We shaded our eyes in the sunshine and then began to climb the steps up towards the shrine.
The floor of the main chamber is almost entirely taken up by the Rock — a broad rolling slab of stone — which Muslims call Kubbet al-Sakhra. It is from here that the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to Heaven on his Night Journey to receive the Quran. Hussein pointed out the hoof-print of the Prophet's steed Buraq where he leapt into the air to carry his master heavenward. The Rock is sacred to Judaism, too, supposedly the very spot where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac, long before the rise of Islam.
Hussein had tears in his eyes as he led me around the shrine. I was unsure whether his emotions were stirred by the thought of my custom or if, like me, he was genuinely affected by his surroundings. Perhaps it was a mixture of both, for you could stare upon the Dome of the Rock for hours and never tire of it.
As he led me down to the Well of Souls, the subterranean chamber where legend says the dead congregate to pray, Hussein wiped his eyes.
'God rewards all believers,' he said. 'Islam is the true path, of course, but we do not frown on those of the other faith. Hostility is bad for us all and it's an affront to what is sacred. Abraham is after all a prophet mentioned by the Holy Quran, just as Suleiman — whose great temple stood here — is honoured by Muslims.'
'Suleiman, Solomon ... his temple was built here?'
Hussein paused to show me the niche where a strand of the Prophet's hair is kept. It is brought out only during Ramadan.
'Solomon, the wise king,' he said slowly, 'he built the most spectacular temple right here where this sanctuary now stands. How it must have looked, its walls and roofs covered in fine gold!'
'Gold ... from the mines, from Solomon's mines?'
'Yes, of course,' said Hussein.
We left the Dome of the Rock and walked towards the El Aqsa mosque which stands at the southern end of the plateau. Hussein was talking, extolling the merits of Islam, but I wasn't listening. The mention of Solomon and his golden temple had distracted me.
I asked Hussein to stop for a moment. I'd stashed the map from Ali Baba's Tourist Emporium in my rucksack. We sat on the ground beside the fountain where ablutions are performed while I rummaged. Hussein was eager to tell me that Anwar Sadat had come to pray at the mosque, and to recount the day King Hussein of Jordan's grandfather, King Abdullah, was shot dead as he entered El Aqsa. With his own eyes he, Hussein, had seen the bullet enter the old king's head, his turban fall and the dignitaries scatter like rats.
I unwrapped the gilded frame and stared at the map. Hussein glanced at the image, the bright sunlight reflecting off its glass, and fell silent.
'Solomon's mines,' he said, 'the mines in Ophir.'
I was surprised that he could recognize the map so easily, especially as there were no place names marked.
'What is Ophir?'
'The land of gold,' said the guide, 'from where the finest gold on earth was brought.'
'Where is it, this land of Ophir?'
Hussein hunched his shoulders and shook his head.
'Read the Bible for your answers.'
King David was a man of war and so was forbidden by God to construct a great temple in honour of his faith. God guided David's hand as he drew the plans, but he decreed that it would fall to his son, Solomon, to build the temple, for such a building needed a man of peace to craft it. David paid fifty shekels in silver to a man called Araunah for a piece of land on Mount Moriah, and there, four years after David's death, Solomon began work on the temple.
First he sent word to the Phoenician king Hiram of Tyre, ordering him to fell cedar trees from his forests in Lebanon. The cedars, a symbol of strength and power in biblical times, were the most highly prized trees in the ancient world. Hiram sent timber as instructed and also skilled metalworkers, carpenters and masons. The masons knew the secret science of geometry, some of whose cryptic codes are kept alive today by the Brotherhood of Freemasons, and it was they who cut and polished the immense stone blocks. The accuracy of their work was so great that no hammers were used while the temple was being built, or so the Bible relates.
The temple was built on a conventional Phoenician design, suggesting that King Hiram's draughtsmen helped with the plans. It comprised an outer hallway, the ulam; a central courtyard, the heikal; and an inner sanctum, the debir, or 'Holy of Holies'. It was here, in the inner sanctum, sequestered away from the eyes of laymen, that the Ark of the Covenant was to be kept.
The stone for the temple is thought to have been quarried from beneath the city of Jerusalem. In 1854 one of the royal quarries was discovered by an American physician, Dr. Barclay, who was taking an evening stroll with his dog. The dog suddenly disappeared down a narrow shaft. Barclay enlarged the hole and found himself peering into an immense cavern. The entrance to the cave, known today as Zedekiah's Grotto, can still be seen not far from the Old City's Damascus Gate.
When the temple was finished, its decoration began, as the Second Book of Chronicles records:
And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold. And the greater house he cieled with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains. And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parviam. He overlaid also the house, the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, with gold: and graved cherubim on the walls. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was, according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold. And in the most holy house he made two cherubims of image work, and overlaid them with gold.
The temple was completed in the seventh year of Solomon's reign and on the day of its dedication the Ark of the Covenant was carried from Mount Ophel in a grand procession, led by King Solomon himself. Priests dressed in pure white linen followed the king, blowing their trumpets, and behind them came a jubilant cavalcade. Every six paces oxen were sacrificed, drenching the road in blood. By the time the Ark was in place in the Holy of Holies, and the temple was dedicated, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep had been slaughtered.
The temple served the people of Jerusalem for almost four centuries after the death of Solomon in 926 BC, but Solomon's successors lacked his wisdom and the land was misruled. The final blow came when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, almost annihilating its population and laying waste its cities. Jerusalem itself was besieged for a year and a half, and when the starving defenders finally capitulated, their capital was plundered. Solomon's temple was destroyed and every ounce of gold was stripped away, and carried back to Babylon.
In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem, a gaggle of nervous Russian tourists were taking in the sights and trying to remain calm. Gunfire was ricocheting off the walls outside, but the priests said there was nothing to worry about. They'd seen much worse. One at a time the Russians stooped to kiss the Stone of Unction, where Christ's body is said to have been anointed after his death. Then they filed into 'Christ's tomb', the holiest site in Christendom.
The mood in the church was subdued, the air filled with the smell of burning beeswax and incense. The walls were filthy, especially at waist height where millions of pilgrims' hands had stroked them as they filed past. I sat on a low wooden bench and waited for the gunfire to stop, but it didn't.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "In Search of King Solomon's Mines"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Tahir Shah.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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