Cave of Treasures

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him and despatch him with his battle-axe. But as he came on in his mad rage Sanehat hurled his short javelin at his head, and it pierced his neck and remained fast in it. The man of Thennu uttered a prolonged shriek and then fell headlong on the ground, face downwards. Sanehat went to him, and, taking his foe's weapons from him, killed him with them. Then he took his stand on the dead body, and shouted the cry of victory, and the onlookers rejoiced in his triumph and applauded him.] David reigned over [Fol. 31a, col. 2] the children of Israel forty years, and Solomon, his son, reigned forty years. And Solomon did great and wonderful things, and it was he who sent to Ophir and brought gold from the mountains of gold, and the ships sailed the sea for thirty-six months, and then came forth (ie. returned). It was he who built Tadmor (Palmyra) in the wilderness, and he carried out there great and wonderful works. And when Solomon passed the borders of the mountain which is called Sâ`êr, he found there the altar which Piérzakhar, and Piérzandai, and Neznadhor had built. These were they whom Nimrod, the giant, sent to Balaam, the priest of the Mountain of Sã`êr, because he heard that he was wont to consult the Signs of the Zodiac, and when they were passing the skirts of the mountain they built there an altar to the sun. And when Solomon saw it he built a city there and called its name "Niap6lis" (more correctly, Heliopolis) [Fol. 31b, col. 1], that is to say, "City of the Sun." And Solomon also built Aradus (Arvad) in the midst of the sea, and he became so famous and renowned that the report of his wise acts went out into all the ends of the earth. And the Queen of Sheba went to hold converse with him. And Solomon loved Hiram, king of Tyre, greatly. And Hiram reigned in Tyre five hundred years, from the days of the kingdom of David to the [days of] the kingdom of Zedekiah and of all the kings of the children of Israel. And at length he forgot that he was a man, and he blasphemed and said, "I am God, and I sit upon the throne of God in the middle of the sea." And Nebuchadnezzar the king killed him. [Note: Solomon reigned over his large kingdom with the greatest wisdom ever found. But he did not keep his soul; but inclined his heart to the love of women, and forsook God, Who had created him and given him his kingdom. And he died in his denial of Him, and in his sins. Book of Adam (iv. 8.)] The purple linen of Tyre And in the days of Hiram the purple-[coloured] apparel worn by kings [first] appeared. As a dog was running along the sea-shore [at Tyre] he saw a purple shell-fish (i.e. the murex) coming up out of the [Fol. 31b, col. 2] water, and he bit it, and straightway his mouth was filled with the blood of that shell-fish. And a certain shepherd who saw the dog brought a piece of woollen cloth and wiped the dog's mouth with it. And he made that piece of woollen cloth into a crown (ie. a kaffyah or head-cloth), and set it upon his 78 of 130