Where was Ophir?

Question

Where was Ophir?

Accepted Answer

Ophir, the land of Solomon's gold, has never been found. Three regions are proposed: south-western Arabia, where the map point stands, about 1,471 km from Ezion-geber in a straight line; the African coast of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, the Punt of the Egyptians; and India, the answer of the ancient translators. Each rests on a different clue, and none is proved. Kings says that “king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea”, manned by Hiram's sailors, and “they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents”; the same fleet brought “great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones”. The gold of Ophir became proverbial, and an ostracon of the eighth century BC from Tell Qasile near Tel Aviv records “gold of Ophir for Beth-horon, thirty shekels”, so the name was a real mark of origin. Genesis 10 lists Ophir among the sons of Joktan beside Sheba and Havilah, the tribes of southern Arabia, which is the ground for the Arabian answer. The Septuagint renders Ophir with forms such as Sophira, and Josephus says outright that the land of old called Sopheira, now the land of gold, was in India; the apes and peacocks of Solomon's trade come from that direction, though the text ascribes them to the ships of Tarshish. The African answer rests on Egypt's voyages to Punt for gold and incense, which must have gone the same way down the Red Sea. The nineteenth-century claim that Great Zimbabwe was Ophir has long been abandoned. The map shows Arabia and names the other candidates on the place card.