“... So much for figures at present—what about “poetry?” Alongside prosaic listings of revenues (1 Kgs 10:14) and of palace furnishings (1 Kgs 10:18-21), the Hebrew narrator proudly includes rhetorical flourishes to emphasise Solomon’s fame and fortune, as in 1 Kgs 10:21 (silver, of no account) and 10:23-24 (unequalled wealth and repute). [...] However, again, no valid judgment can be made without employing external (and objective) standards of comparison. Then we may better see the relationship between rhetoric and reality. [...] And over a century later (ca. 1153 BC) Ramesses [...] left through his son Ramesses IV a statement of wealth given to Egypt’s temples during his reign, in the Great Harris Papyrus. [...] To temples, he gave offering-altars of gold and silver, and says to the god Amun: “I made for you great tablets of hammered gold, ... bearing my (hymns of) worship, .... [...] and much, much more besides. [...] Great Papyrus Harris I, 78: 1ff. (Atika), and 6:5-8 (tablets; with these, cf. Solomon’s shields of “hammered gold,” 1 Kings 10:16-17). ...”