 | | |
| Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen | 
 enlarge | Author: Nicholas Clapp
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $0.62
You Save: $25.38 (98%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $0.62
Avg. Customer Rating:  (9 reviews)
Sales Rank: 721396
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0395952832
Dewey Decimal Number: 939.4
UPC: 046442952835
EAN: 9780395952832
ASIN: 0395952832
Publication Date: April 24, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Three thousand years ago, a dusky queen swept into the court of King Solomon, and from that time to the present day, her tale has been told and retold. Who was this queen? Did she really exist? In a quixotic odyssey that takes him to Ethiopia, Arabia, Israel, and even a village in France, Nicholas Clapp seeks the underlying truth behind the multifaceted myth of the queen of Sheba.
It's an eventful journey. In Israel, he learns of a living queen of Sheba -- a pilgrim suffering from "Jerusalem Syndrome" -- and in Syria he tracks down the queen's tomb, as described in the Arabian Nights. Clapp investigates the Ethiopian shrine where Menelik, said to be the son of Solomon and the mysterious queen, may have hidden the Ark of the Covenant. Then the "worst train in the world" (according to the conductor) takes Clapp to the Red Sea, where he sets sail for Yemen in an ancient dhow and comes perilously close to being shipwrecked.
As in his search for the lost city of Ubar, Clapp uses satellite images, this time to track an ancient caravan route that leads to the queen's winter capital in present-day Yemen. The quest is bolstered by new carbon-14 datings and by the discovery of an Arabian Stonehenge in the sands of the Rub' al-Khali. Finally, at the romantic and haunting ruins of Sirwah, the pieces of the queen of Sheba puzzle fall into place.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Follow-up April 23, 2008
This is not as interesting as the author's first work; 'The Queen of Sheba' remains as enigmatic as ever. It reads like a diary of someone's extended holiday and reveals little which is not available from other sources. I read 'The Road to Ubar' with interest and hoped that this would be equally engaging. I think that if I had read this one first I should not have bought the earlier book
 Desert travails March 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Books about Bible characters are aplenty, but most deal with the men. This is one of the few that deal with the queen of Sheba, neither Christian nor Jew, but probably more politically powerful than any of the other women in the Bible. The book is part history, part commentary and part travelogue. The author traverses the various lands mentioned in the Bible such as Jerusalem, Ethiopia, Arabia, etc..., with each chapter dedicated to one region in the area. In each region, the author explains how Sheba figures into local folklore and history. Throughout the book, the author also compares and contrasts the different interpretations of Sheba's life and relationship with King Solomon.
There are several areas where the book could have been improved. First, more pictures would have been nice. Second, the book should have had one table near the end that compares the relative veracities of the different interpretations given about Sheba's life. Instead, this is given over several paragraphs. Third, the book should have given one long time-line with competing dates marked out. But all in all, this was still an interesting and engaging book.
Good July 8, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a fun book to read. If you are looking for evidence of Sheba's existance than most of this book will be useless to you, but where it does provide evidence, it is very good and original, at least evidence I wasn't aware of.
There was one thing I didn't like, he talked much about Ethiopia, but did not mention or seem to realize how ancient Ethiopa was in a different location from modern Ethiopia. If he did mention it, I didn't notice.
 Arabian History Detective Extraordinaire April 5, 2003
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Nicholas Clapp may be better known for his remarkable discovery of the so-called "lost city" of Ubar in the 90's. What makes his discovery all the more remarkable, and entertaining, is that Clapp is a documentary filmmaker... not an archaeologist. Of course, one could say that a documentary filmmaker is something of a jack of all trades, a good description of Clapp, it seems, as he brought together a team of NASA scientists, a British adventurer in the Lawrence of Arabia vein, and his parole officer wife, among others, on an adventure he created from some serious, in-depth study of ancient texts and maps.Clapp's Sheba takes place in a similar area, and again deals with the murky mists that cover mankind's ancient past, and with the myths and legends that may, or may not, be based on fact. However, Sheba is notably different than "The Road to Ubar" in that his quest this time involves a person and not a place. Unfortunately, places last quite a bit longer than flesh-and-blooders like ourselves, and Sheba should be approached differently than Ubar-- if you've read it-- because here there will not be that "aha!" moment when the seeming lump of sand gives up its treasure. Clapp's quest for Sheba offers the tantalizing prospect of such "aha!" moments when and if Yemen becomes a safe place for large, organized archaeological digs. A vast, ancient city of 20,000 people awaits that intrepid Indiana Jones. Now, having said that, Clapp shows more of his wonderful storytelling ability, and his historical detective work, looking for the weave of fact amongst the warp of time. His mission takes him to Jerusalem, and a monastery on the Sinai peninsula where strange monks are put to pasture; to the wild highways and byways of Yemen, and Ethiopia, where he spends the night overlooking the Queen of Sheba Barbershop. His sense of humor makes for several laugh-out-loud-even-if-you're-alone moments (I'm thinking specifically of the border crossing where the lone working lightbulb is ferried from one official's office to another). This wry amusement, however, extends only to the living. For when Clapp does finally find himself in the land of Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, his awe is palpable, and the tale he eventually patches together is incredible. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history generally, the Middle East particularly, or anyone who likes fiction or non-fiction where each chapter, if not page, contains surprises.
Searching for a lost queen June 28, 2002
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Nicholas Clapp's search for the Queen of Sheba is one of the best non-fiction books I've read this year. The book is a travelogue, history, biblical study, analysis of Arabic mythology, and view of Middle Eastern and Eastern African politics all wrapped into one. Clapp is an engaging writer with a dry and subtle sense of humor that had me laughing out loud as I followed him on his often whimsical quest through Israel, Yemen, and Ethiopia. His frank, honest style and his ability to poke fun at and not take himself too seriously made the book and absolute pleasure to read. Like most books that focus on the world's great "unsolved mysteries," Clapp's journey often raises more questions than it answers. But that only added to my enjoyment of the story. When I finished the book, it felt as if I'd come to the end of a long stay with a good friend.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |