Look for the true origin of the magical flying carpet in Eastern fairy tales

The flying carpet is one of the most famous treasures of the Eastern fairy treasure. This type of animal has a great connection with the fanciful stories in the Middle East but is also mentioned in some legends of many different civilizations in history.

The animated film ' Aladdin and the Magic Lamp', produced by Walt Disney in 1992, has brought images of carpets flying around the world. The film is also misleading to make most people believe that the flying carpet comes from the Thousand and One Nights world.

Picture 1 of Look for the true origin of the magical flying carpet in Eastern fairy tales
The flying carpet in Walt Disney's 1992 movie Aladdin.

According to the Iranian Archaeological Institute (modern Persian name), the Galland manuscript, the oldest set of texts containing 282 pristine tales from the Thousand and One Nights' Dictionary, does not mention much of the carpet. fly.

Meanwhile, it is the stories of the King of Solomon that elicit more truths than the kind of magical flying carpet mentioned in fairy tales.

Through search and research, scholars have found at least one authoritative version of the magic carpet. It is a story written in the 13th century AD by Jewish scholar Isaac Ben Sherira.

King Solomon is a historical figure in ancient Jewish records. His wisdom, wealth, and peak development dynasty was revered as a legend by the Jews. The king had a mistress who was the queen of Sheba , who had invested a lot of money in alchemists and academics in the country. She brought in leading intellectuals and artisans to enable them to invent strange items.

Picture 2 of Look for the true origin of the magical flying carpet in Eastern fairy tales
The legend of the love affair between King Solomon and the queen of Sheba.

One day, one of the scholars brought to the queen a small brown carpet that could float below the ground. The Queen and the servants in the palace were very interested in this invention. They wondered if people could sit on this carpet and asked the scholar to continue to find ways to improve this treasure even more.

Years later, the scholar succeeded in putting people on the rug invented by him. In the text, Issac Ben Sherira did not mention whether the carpet could move or not, mentioning that it could let a person lie or sit on it. When the queen confirmed the good news, she made a magic carpet of blue silk, embroidered with gold and silver and sent to King Solomon as a gift of love.

But when the rug arrived, King Solomon was too busy building the Jerusalem Temple (the most important monument of the Solomon legend). He did not accept the gift directly, but instead gave it to one of his courtiers.

Picture 3 of Look for the true origin of the magical flying carpet in Eastern fairy tales
Perhaps the flying carpet was a well-founded invention of ancient inventors.

When news of the cold reception reached the queen of Sheba, she was heartbroken and no longer wanted to think of inventions. Without royal patronage and investment, academics were also not eligible to continue to create magical carpets, esoteric knowledge, and thus gradually disappeared.

There are many theories that some artisans of the royal family of Sheba scholars have ventured to the Middle East. Holding a portion of knowledge about creating flying carpets but not enough resources, they could only create low-quality suspended carpets but still caused curiosity to the popular people at the time.

This is considered the most true story to mention the origin of the flying carpet invention. In today's modern world, much of ancient knowledge is still in secrecy and many scientists have to decipher. Is the secret of the flying carpet in the story of King Solomon and Queen Sherira also among them?

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