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Original photograph
Person
Marianna Klar
Scholar of Quranic narrative in its late-antique literary contexts.
Ninth-century North African Qur'an folio with Sura 54:13–27. It illustrates later manuscript transmission, not Dhul Qarnayn's passage or Marianna Klar. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.39.2.a
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Illustration
Person
Yasin Kara
Author of a 2026 study comparing Dhul Qarnayn with the Syriac Alexander tradition.
Original diagram of two models discussed in Kara’s study: direct dependence between texts (01) or a shared narrative milieu feeding two versions (02). The arrows are hypothetical, not evidence of a documented transfer
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Original photograph
Person
Kevin van Bladel
Philologist and historian of the Near East and the transmission of learning across languages.
A Persian scene of Alexander building the wall, dated 1481. It is a later witness to the story, not the Syriac text studied by van Bladel or his portrait. Walters Art Museum, W.604.315A
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Original photograph
Person
Lysimachus
A successor of Alexander who ruled Thrace; his coins showed Alexander with Ammon’s horn.
Gold stater issued in the name of Lysimachus, 286–281 BCE; the horned head is Alexander, not Lysimachus. The Met, 52.127.4
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Original photograph
City
Tangier
City in northern Morocco by the Strait of Gibraltar, proposed in one interpretation of the Quran's meeting of the seas.
Tangier and its port from the sea, 18 September 2008; a modern city view, not a confirmed location of Moses' story
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Original photograph
Person
Heraclius, Byzantine emperor
Byzantine emperor who ruled 610–641 CE; his victory over Persia informs dating proposals for some Syriac Alexander texts.
Gold solidus of 629–631 CE bearing official representations of Heraclius and his son Heraclius Constantine; a Byzantine coin, not a photographic likeness
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Person
Person
E. A. Wallis Budge
British Egyptologist and ancient-language scholar (1857–1934) who published a historical English translation of Syriac Alexander texts.
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Person
Person
Brannon M. Wheeler
Scholar of the history of religion and early Islamic exegesis.
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Person
Person
Herod the Great
Late-first-century-BCE king of Judaea in the journey-to-Egypt story.
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Person
Person
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
Italian artist (1727–1804) who depicted the Holy Family resting beside a palm.
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Person
Person
Callimachus of Cyrene
Third-century-BCE Greek poet whose Hymn to Delos evokes Apollo's birth.
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Person
Person
Suleiman A. Mourad
Islamic-history scholar who proposed a comparative route for Mary and palm narratives.
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Person
Person
Stephen J. Shoemaker
Scholar of early Christian Mary traditions and late-antique Near Eastern religion.
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Person
Person
Brandon W. Hawk
Scholar of medieval literature and Christian apocrypha.
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Person
Person
Mary Dzon
Medieval-literature scholar who studied Jesus and clay birds across traditions.
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Person
Translator
Paul Peeters
Scholar and translator who published Syriac, Arabic and Armenian infancy texts in 1914.
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Entity
Entity
North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature
Research society maintaining a guide to Christian apocryphal texts and witnesses.
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Person
Person
Irenaeus of Lyon
Late-second-century Christian writer who mentioned the child Jesus and a teacher.
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Person
Translator
Alexander Walker
Nineteenth-century English translator of several apocryphal infancy narratives.
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Person
Person
Tony Burke
Scholar of Christian apocrypha who edited Greek and Syriac infancy traditions.
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Person
Person
Gabriel Nocchi Macedo
Greek and Latin papyrologist who co-edited the Hamburg fragment.
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Person
Person
Lajos Berkes
Papyrologist who co-edited a papyrus with the clay-sparrow episode.
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Person
Person
Richard Kalmin
Professor of Talmud and rabbinics who studies rabbinic narratives and Jewish Babylonia.
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Person
Person
Jillian Stinchcomb
Scholar of biblical reception who studies the Queen of Sheba across Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions.
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Person
Translator
Aaron Bernstein (translator of Cassel)
Named translator of the 1888 English edition of Paulus Cassel's Esther commentary.
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Person
Person
Paulus Cassel
German theologian and writer (1821–1892) whose Esther commentary included an appendix on the Second Targum.
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Person
Person
Michael Beshay
Scholar of late-antique religions who studies traditions about Mary and Solomon across communities.
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Person
Person
Nils Arne Pedersen
Aarhus University scholar of church history and early Christian literature, coauthor of a study of Solomonic rings.
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Person
Person
Ittai Gradel
Roman historian (1965–2026) and coauthor of a study of rings bearing a Solomonic formula.
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Person
Person
Dennis C. Duling
Scholar of ancient Jewish and Christian texts who studied the Solomon-as-exorcist tradition.
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Person
Person
F. C. Conybeare
British scholar and translator (1856–1924) who published the Testament of Solomon in 1898.
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Person
Person
Sarah L. Schwarz
Religion scholar who has studied the textual diversity and demonology of the Testament of Solomon.
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Person
Person
Benaiah son of Jehoiada
A court figure in Kings under David and Solomon, reused in the Talmudic tale as the man who brings Ashmedai.
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Entity
Entity
Ornias
A harmful spirit named in the Greek Testament of Solomon, whose capture begins the ring-and-Temple narrative.
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Person
Person
Eleazar in Josephus's exorcism report
A Jewish man whose exorcism Josephus says he witnessed before Vespasian; distinct from the biblical Eleazar son of Aaron.
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Original photograph
Person
Vespasian
Roman emperor from 69 to 79 CE; Josephus names him among the audience of an exorcism linked to Solomon.
Roman gold aureus bearing Vespasian's portrait and name, minted in 70 CE. A contemporary witness to the emperor, not to Josephus's exorcism scene. Met 99.35.154; public domain
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Original photograph
Ancient text
Babylonian Talmud
A large rabbinic compilation in Hebrew and Aramaic, formed in Mesopotamia through stages; its final redaction remains debated.
A page from Daniel Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud, printed in Venice between 1525 and 1539, photographed by Warburg. This page is from Sukkah, not Gittin 68, and the edition postdates the Talmud's composition. Public domain
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Entity
Entity
The shamir in the Talmudic story
A remarkable stone-cutting creature in Gittin 68's Temple-building story, not an identified archaeological tool.
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Entity
Entity
Ashmedai
The 'king of demons' in the Babylonian Talmud's Gittin 68 story about Solomon and the shamir.
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Original photograph
Person
Queen of Sheba
The ruler in narratives of Solomon's encounter with Sheba; neither First Kings nor the Quran gives her a personal name, and her historical identification is unresolved.
Solomon's meeting with the Queen of Sheba in British embroidery, ca. 1700: later artistic reception, not a historical portrait. Met 64.101.1307; public domain
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