| The British-Yemeni Society |
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Book
review
Queen of
Sheba: Treasures from ancient Yemen
edited by St John Simpson The British Museum Press, 2002. Pp. 224. 260 colour and 50 b/w
photographs. Notes. Index. Bibliog. Pb. £24. 99. ISBN
0-7141-1151-1. Some five years ago, members of the British- Yemeni Society
enjoyed the privilege of visiting the British Museum’s
(unexhibited) reserve collection of South Arabian antiquities. Some
of these are now at last, on display in the ‘Queen of Sheba’
exhibition which opened at the Museum on 9 June 2002. This beautifully illustrated, finely printed publication from the
British Museum Press is more than a just a catalogue of exhibits: it
contains twelve essays by leading scholars from Britain, the USA,
Canada and Europe on subjects ranging from ‘The Queen of Sheba in
Western Popular Culture’ (Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones); ‘Saba and the
Sabaeans’ (Christian Robin); ‘Kings, Kingdoms and Chronology’
(Robert Hoyland); ‘Trade, Incense and Perfume’ (Nigel Groom) to
‘Arts, Crafts and Industries’ (William Glanzman); ‘Architecture’
(Francois Breton); and ‘Death and Funerary Practices’ (Burkhard
Vogt). With its wealth of scholarship, historical background and
descriptive detail, this is a work to savour between visits to the
exhibition; it will add greatly to the visitor’s appreciation of
what is on display: for example new archaeological discoveries
(bronze objects from Jebel al-Lawdh in Ibb province unearthed in
1996) as well many items in the British Museum and private
collections never previously exhibited in this country, including an
exceptional bronze head of a male figure presented by Imam Yahya as
a coronation gift to King George VI in 1936 (p. 128). Anomalies of one kind or another are almost bound to occur in a
work of this scope. But it is hard to understand why Colonel (later
Brigadier-General Sir William) Coghlan, British Resident in Aden
between 1854 and 1863 and a major donor to the British Museum’s
collection, should be referred to throughout as ‘Brigadier-Colonel’,
a rank which never existed in the British Army. The Museum’s
registration note at the top of the bronze plaque from Shabwa
illustrated at Fig. 52 on p. 154, clearly and correctly identifies
Coghlan as ‘Colonel’. Meanwhile, some readers may flinch at the
mutation of time-honoured ‘Qana’ (Husn al-Ghurab) — the
transliteration still espoused by Professor de Maigret in his Arabia
Felix: An Exploration of the Archaeological History of Yemen (2002)
— into ‘Qani". It may also be worth mentioning that the
highland village pictured at Fig. 34 on p. 103, in Tony Wilkinson’s
article on ‘Agriculture and the Countryside’, is not near Dhamar’
but north-west of Sana’a, between Tawila and Shibam; a photograph
of the same village (taken by Mary Morgan) was published in the
Journal in July 2000. But these are very minor points, and this
finely produced ‘catalogue’ does more than justice to a major
and memorable cultural event. |