Before I get to Sheba, the actual subject of this review, I'd like to take a moment to explore a parallel that occurred to me about halfway through the book. It's a parallel that Nicholas Clapp never addresses directly, but which he must be aware of, because it is what makes his book cohere.

There is a striking similarity between what happens to very old stories and what happens to very old monuments. Imagine an ancient Arabian temple or palace as it was in its heyday, perhaps 3000 years ago. It's a grand, imposing structure, brilliantly engineered, lavishly appointed, and famous throughout the civilized world. Built by real people out of real stone, it is full of hidden passageways and chambers that all have their day-to-day purposes. And then, let's assume, centuries pass. Perhaps invaders sweep through, or a dam breaks; at any rate, the civilization that built this structure dwindles and falls. The site is abandoned. Enticing ornaments are looted and sold; blocks of masonry fall and are carted away to be used in new constructions. The desert sands shift and the original structure is all but buried, all but forgotten — except that some people remember having heard of a great city that used to be there, its legendary wealth. In another thousand or so years, explorers, intrigued by these fragmentary tales, find the site and begin to dig, but can only guess at what the structure was. They know it was impressive, and might be able to deduce what it looked like, but they'll never know how it came to be, or how it was used. In the meantime, they're in hostile territory; the natives, for religious or secular reasons, don't want outsiders defiling their ground, and will defend it through misinformation and force.

Now imagine a story from that ancient world. The story originates somewhere: an actual event to be commemorated, or a monarch to be glorified, or a moral or political lesson to be imparted. The story has its period of currency, when everybody in the region knows it and knows what it signifies. It spreads through cultures, and through time, until it seems that everybody in the world has heard it, or some version of it, but to them it's just a story, free of signifiers. As more time passes, nobody remembers what the story originally referred to, but the characters or the events contained in the story have become part of the world's collective wealth. New storytellers will spin ever more fabulous tales with these characters or these episodes, borrowing elements of the original to teach new lessons, and now we've entered the realm of myth. A few more centuries go by, and perhaps we don't hear these stories much anymore. If a character is mentioned, it's in a context with absolutely no relation to that first story. Ultimately, some curious scholar or historian might try to reconnect the dots, to trace back to the original story and what it might have meant, but they really can't do much more than dig and guess. And meanwhile, there are others who have claimed parts of this story as their own, who will try to defend it against inquisitive interlopers