Digital Map
The most terrific aspect of the Catalan Atlas is the legends and characters that it chooses to illustrate—one of which being the Queen of Sheba. The placement of her character is important because the actual location of her kingdom is heavily disputed. According to Ethiopian tradition, the Queen of Sheba ruled in Aksum.1 However, the Catalan Atlas places her figure in South Arabia, roughly where the ancient kingdom of Saba would have been situated. This contradicts the Kebra Nagast’s declaration that Bayna Lihkim was raised in Ethiopia. Whereas the text states that the origin of his journey is Aksum, the map proposes that it is actually in modern-day Yemen.
It is important to note that the story is also about the movement of Zion from Jerusalem to Aksum. If the ark was actually transferred to Saba like the Catalan Atlas suggests, then any religious and political claims made using the Kebra Nagast cannot be validated.
By following the map’s suggestion to begin in Saba, we can deduce that Bayna Lihkim would have most likely followed the incense trade route.2 The Catalan Atlas illustrates the sheer distance that he would have had to cover to reach this point even and provides notes about the places that he would have encountered on this route.3 He most likely would have headed north toward Mecca and Medina, eventually reaching the capital region of the Nabateans (modern day Petra). After getting to Gaza, he would then be taken to his destination of Jerusalem.
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The Kebra Nagast is still widely accepted as an authoritative text in Ethiopian culture and literature. But despite its prevalence, the story still holds much ambiguity. Working on this assignment allowed me to explore a few of its mysteries:
When the Kebra Nagast Was Written and Its Author:
Biblical literature indicates that Solomon’s reign took place from 967 BCE - 928 BCE.4 However, it is a tricky endeavour to find biblical artefacts, let alone a relevant object from the Iron Age. To simplify this process, I set out to discover when the Kebra Nagast was written, rather than when it took place. The most compelling theory is that it was written in the 6th century by Monophysite Christians in Ethiopia.5 The story would have been continuously added to by different translators, making it a composite work.
The Location of the Queen of Sheba’s Kingdom:
Ethiopian tradition suggests that the Queen of Sheba reigned in the Kingdom of Aksum. Most scholars believe that she ruled in modern-day Yemen, just as the Catalan Atlas illustrated.6 Regardless of historical data, the Queen’s spiritual kingdom is undoubtedly in Ethiopia, where she is most honoured and revered.
The Queen of Sheba’s Race:
The Queen of Sheba is often depicted to be white in other literary and artistic works, including the Catalan Atlas. This is especially odd since the text states that she is Ethiopian.7 Seeing as Southern Arabia and countries on the Horn of Africa have been in contact since antiquity, she most likely would have been Afro-Arab.
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Rather than focusing on the story’s historical actuality, digital mapping allowed me to form insights on its historical significance instead. For example, Abraham Cresques’ choice to include the Queen of Sheba on the map suggested to me that she was a major symbolic figure in Mediterranean Europe in the 14th century. This means that regardless of how true the story is, having a claim over the Queen of Sheba provides a way for Ethiopians to have a stake in mainstream Christian culture, which was—and still is—very Eurocentric.
This experience also led me to believe that medieval maps have an inherently biased nature. They depict the world based on knowledge that existed at the time, which means that cartographers would have used their own views to represent the unknown. The inclusion of various characters, legends, borders, and places give us an idea of what society’s biases and thoughts were.
After using Omeka and Neatline, I was able to discover current gaps in digital mapping software. For example, it was not until I compared the Catalan Atlas to a Latin map made in the 1600s that I was able to discover that the toponym «Gazara» most likely indicates Gaza.8 Creating a software that is able to automatically transcribe, translate, and compare writing on digitized maps would be extremely useful, and make medieval maps more accessible to the general population.
Footnotes
1 This is stated throughout the Kebra Nagast excerpts from Norton, as well as in the preface (Puchner, et al. 2018).
2 The incense trade route was the path taken by merchants in South Arabia to cross the desert. It was controlled by the Nabataens during the time of Solomon’s reign in the 10th century BC (Erickson-Gini and Israel 2013).
3 The legends are written in Catalan, but if you are curious, you can read the translations by the Cresques Project.
4 “Solomon, the son of King David and Bathsheba, became king of Judah and Israel in the year 967 BCE at age twenty and reigned until his death in 928 BCE” (Green 2014, 151).
5 Based on the conclusions given by Tiruneh (2014, 65-66).
6 The Queen of Sheba’s geographical origin has been a subject of debate for decades. A valid conclusion is given by Monges: “The evidence that she was from Southern Arabia is convincing, . . . , However, her spiritual home is in Ethiopia” (2002, 237).
7 In the text, she is often referred to as the “Queen of Ethiopia”. One such example is on page 582 (Puchner, et al. 2018).
8 The map that I am referring to is the Accuratissima orientalioris districtus maris Mediterranei tabula (c. 1690-1699).