Die Königin von Saba: Kunst, Legende, und Archäologie zwischen Morgenland und Abendland. Edited by Werner Daum. pp. 216, illus. in col. and bl. and wh., 2 maps. Stuttgart and Zürich, Belser Verlag, 1988. DM 98.

Abstract

grow in the Dhofar coastal plain, nor anywhere on the coast, but in the high plateau and ravines of the interior. Apart from this, and even allowing for the qualification " mainly", the reader must gain the impression from these two passages that the habitat of the tree has contracted over the centuries, and now grows only in the Dhofar province of the Sultanate of Oman, but in the time of the PME extended much further west. This impression is fortified by the map on p. 119, showing the habitat as exclusively Dhofar. But it is certainly not so. What is true is, that Dhofari incense is esteemed the best quality and is today the only crop harvested for export; but, as many present-day travellers can attest, the tree still flourishes freely in eastern Hadramawt from approximately the longitude of Kane, though in this non-Dhofari area the product is used only for local consumption, not for export. There has been a contraction, not of the area where the tree grows, but of world demand, now making only the superior quality worth producing for export. But that Hadramawt, as well as Dhofar, is "frankincense-bearing" (Ai/kvcoTo^opo?) is as true today as it was in the time of the classical writers.