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Highlights
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The oldest of the roads of Arabia reached from the shores of the Mediterranean to the mountains of Yemen. It was along these roads that the Queen of Sheba, then a Yemeni kingdom, brought King Solomon incense in such quantities as had never been seen before. According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, it was a journey of more than four million steps passing through the lands of no less than 28 Arabian communities and cities.
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If you followed the trail of the incense caravans, you would find yourself at Qaryat Al Faw in Saudi Arabia, the capital of Kindah, one of three great tribal kingdoms of pre-Islamic Arabia. The lavishness of the court is evident in the frescoed face of a man peering out from vine tendrils laden with bunches of grapes, part of a palace banqueting scene in which Arab kings reclined on Greek couches.
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From Qaryat Al Faw, the road split. One branch ran north-east to Thaj, or ancient Gerrha, taking the incense of Yemen to Mesopotamia and Persia.
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The other route from Qaryat Al Faw passed north to the Mediterranean along the Hejaz. This north-western region was dominated by the Lihyanites, whose thick brows and lumbering physiques provide much of the monumentality of the present exhibition.