The Biblical Clues
The legendary mines of King Solomon made him the wealthiest ruler of his time (900 BC). The exact location or even the existence has been hotly debated, however the Bible itself is fairly well proven in historical data, moreover there is no mention of "King Solomon's Mines" - rather it states flatly that he contacted his friend and ally to the north, King Hiram to hire his men to build and man his fleet of vessels. Hiram was ruler of Tyre in Phoenicia, whose sailing men were renowned for their wide ranging travels. The fleet left from the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber, and returned to Joppa and Tyre, ports on the Mediterranean. The voyage took three years, each time returning laden with silver, gold, ivory, gems, spices and incense, and rare "almug" wood. The fleet had gone to the fabulous lands of Tarshish and Ophir, which are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as being rich in precious metals and other trade items. Tarshish is situated in southwestern Spain, and was known to the Greeks as Tartessus. The book of Jonah in the Old Testament provides further proof of the location of Tarshish, since Jonah fled to Joppa where he boarded a "ship of Tarshish" to flee there, so it is evident that voyages could depart in either direction, east or west from the Levant. Ophir has not been found, but the name itself is a clue to its origins. The Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians rarely (if ever) used a name for a city or town ending in "IR" - while the Phoenicians did - for example Agadir in Iberia, or Rusaddir on the north coast of Africa. Tarshish was a Celt-Iberian city, destroyed by Celts in the pay of Carthage in about 500 BC. Carthage soon became the pre-eminent sea power in the western Mediterranean, up to the disastrous wars with Rome. Josephus, a first century AD Hebrew historian who served the Romans thought that Ophir was merely Sophir, or India and that the "golden chersonessus" was also India. The Greeks proved that idea false, as little gold was found there by them and in fact most gold there was imported as well. Furthermore it would have been cheaper and faster to travel there overland rather than risk the lengthy 3 year sea voyage, a ridiculous length of time if the ships were merely traveling from the Red Sea to India and back.