Ophir
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Ophir (Hebrew: אוֹפִיר, Standard Ofir Tiberian ʾÔp̄îr) is a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth. King Solomon is supposed to have received a cargo of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks from Ophir, every three years. Ophir is also one of the children of Joktan.
"Ophir" is a common first and last name in Israel as well as amongst people of Jewish heritage living in other countries. Ophir is also occasionally spelled Ofir. The best known person of this name is Ophir Pines-Paz, a former Interior Minister of Israel, a Knesset Member and a prominent member of the Israeli Labour Party.
Biblical scholars, archaeologists and others have tried to determine the exact location of Ophir. Most modern scholars assume that it was somewhere in southwest Arabia in the region of modern Yemen. This is also the assumed location of Sheba. Another possibility is the African shore of the Red Sea, with the name perhaps being derived from the Afar people of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti.
Other assumptions vary as widely as the theorized locations of Atlantis. In the nineteenth century Max Müller and other scholars identified it with Abhira (see yadav), at the mouth of the Indus River. Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) adds a connection to "Sofir," the Coptic name for India. Josephus connected it with "Cophen, an Indian river, and in part of Asia adjoining to it," (Antiquities of the Jews I:6), sometimes associated with a part of Afghanistan.
Proponents of pre-Columbian connections between Eurasia and the Americas have suggested locations such as modern-day Peru.
Biblical references to Ophir: 1 Kings 9:28; 10:11; 22:49; 1 Chronicles 29:4; 2 Chronicles 8:18; Job 22:24; 28:16; Psalms 45:9; Isaiah 13:12.
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- Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
- Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
- With a cargo of ivory,
- And apes and peacocks,
- Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
- —John Masefield, "Cargoes"
[edit] In fiction
Ophir is the subject of H. Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines, which places the lost city in South Africa.
Ophir is also a kingdom in Robert Howard's Conan the Barbarian series of stories; see Hyborean Age for more information.
Several of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels happen in and around the lost city of Opar, deep in the African jungles — with Opar evidently being another name for Ophir. The city appears in The Return of Tarzan (1913), Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1916), Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1923), and Tarzan the Invincible (1930).
Philip José Farmer took up the theme from the Tarzan books and wrote two books of his own, taking place in Opar at the height of its glory thousands of years ago: Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar.
