These stunning hats chart all of the phases of the moon and sun.
Interestingly these wonderful gold hats are exactly the same shape as those of the women of Yemen.
The gold leaf calendar hats are fragile and would have needed a straw support very similar
in shape and structure to the traditional high hats of Hadramaut, Yemen seen below.
So why would a straw hat from rural Yemen be important?
Well … Yemen (& Ethiopia) is none other than the magical land of Sheba.
The Queen of Sheba of legend 'Bilquis' was the wealthiest woman of her age.
She controlled all of the annual harvest of frankincense and myrrh;
which was essential to any ceremony of the ancient world.
Pliny the Elder said that the Emperor Nero burnt the annual frankincense harvest
(approximately 7000 tonnes) in a single day at the funeral pyre of his wife Poppaea (65 AD).
3000 years ago the kingdom of 'Sheba' or 'Saba' as it is known in the Arabic world
was an architecturally innovative and culturally advanced Queendom.
It's cleverly constructed dam irrigated all of Yemen's farmland
and Saba's adobe high rise towers were the envy of all.
This futuristic economy run with foresight and intelligence would be why King Solomon was so keen
to invite Queen Bilquis to his kingdom (his father 'King David' also married a Sheban; 'Bathsheba').
Archaeology and textual history attests that rather than converting Bilquis to Judaism;
Solomon became an ardent worshipper of the Goddess Asherah (guardian of fertility and forest groves).
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