- Gezer [גזר]
- Bethhoron [בית חרן] in the Lower [תחתון]
- Baalath [בעלת]
- Tamar [תמר] in the arid land [מדבר בארץ]
-Store cities [המסכנות ]
Solomon built (2 Chronicles 8:4)
- Tadmor [תדמר] in the arid land [מדבר]
- Store cities [המסכנות] in Hamath
- Bethhoron in the Lower [בית חורון התחתון]
- Bethhoron in the Higher
- Baalath [בעלת]
Sherah [שארה] daughter of Ephraim [אפרים] built (1 Chronicles 7:24)
- Bethoron the lower [בית־חורון התחתון]
- Bethoron the higher [בית־חורון העליון]
- Uzzensherah [אזן שארה]
These are three accounts of the building of these places, according to 1 Chronicles 7:24, they were built by a female "Sherah" [שארה], must have being a Queen or a powerful consort of a King and prior to 1 Kings 9:17, it reads as follows.
'Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife'
The store cities are called המסכנות [mickĕnah] is the very word in Exodus 1:11.
Semiramis is given allot of attention however, according to Herodotus, there was a more powerful later Queen called Nitocris
Herodotus 1.184 - The first of these lived five generations earlier than the second, and her name was Semiramis
Herodotus 1.185 - The second queen, whose name was Nitocris was a wiser woman than the first. She left such monuments as I shall record; and moreover, seeing that the kingdom of Media was great and restless and Ninus itself among other cities had fallen to it, she took such precautions as she could for her protection.
[2] First she dealt with the river Euphrates, which flows through the middle of her city; this had been straight before; but by digging canals higher up she made the river so crooked that its course now passes one of the Assyrian villages three times; the village which is so approached by the Euphrates is called Ardericca. And now those who travel from our sea to Babylon must spend three days as they float down the Euphrates coming three times to the same village.
[3] Such was this work; and she built an embankment along either shore of the river, marvellous for its greatness and height.
[4] Then a long way above Babylon she dug the reservoir of a lake, a little way off from the river, always digging deep enough to find water, and making the circumference a distance of fifty two miles; what was dug out of this hole, she used to embank either edge of the river;
[5] and when she had it all dug, she brought stones and made a quay all around the lake.
[6] Her purpose in making the river wind and turning the hole into marsh was this: that the current might be slower because of the many windings that broke its force, and that the passages to Babylon might be crooked, and that right after them should come also the long circuit of the lake.
[7] All this work was done in that part of the country where the passes are and the shortest road from Media, so that the Medes might not mix with her people and learn of her affairs.
Herodotus 1.185 - The second queen, whose name was Nitocris was a wiser woman than the first. She left such monuments as I shall record; and moreover, seeing that the kingdom of Media was great and restless and Ninus itself among other cities had fallen to it, she took such precautions as she could for her protection.
[2] First she dealt with the river Euphrates, which flows through the middle of her city; this had been straight before; but by digging canals higher up she made the river so crooked that its course now passes one of the Assyrian villages three times; the village which is so approached by the Euphrates is called Ardericca. And now those who travel from our sea to Babylon must spend three days as they float down the Euphrates coming three times to the same village.
[3] Such was this work; and she built an embankment along either shore of the river, marvellous for its greatness and height.
[4] Then a long way above Babylon she dug the reservoir of a lake, a little way off from the river, always digging deep enough to find water, and making the circumference a distance of fifty two miles; what was dug out of this hole, she used to embank either edge of the river;
[5] and when she had it all dug, she brought stones and made a quay all around the lake.
[6] Her purpose in making the river wind and turning the hole into marsh was this: that the current might be slower because of the many windings that broke its force, and that the passages to Babylon might be crooked, and that right after them should come also the long circuit of the lake.
[7] All this work was done in that part of the country where the passes are and the shortest road from Media, so that the Medes might not mix with her people and learn of her affairs.
Herodotus mentions Ἀρδέρικκα (Ardericca) and again in Herodotus 6.119
When Datis and Artaphrenes reached Asia in their voyage, they carried the enslaved Eretrians (Greeks) inland to Susa. [2] Before the Eretrians were taken captive, king Darius had been terribly angry with them for doing him unprovoked wrong; but when he saw them brought before him and subject to him, he did them no harm, but settled them in a domain of his own called Ardericca in the Cissian land; this place is two hundred and ten stadia distant from Susa, and forty from the well that is of three kinds. [3] Asphalt and salt and oil are drawn from it in the following way: a windlass is used in the drawing, with half a skin tied to it in place of a bucket; this is dipped into the well and then poured into a tank; then what is drawn is poured into another tank and goes three ways: the asphalt and the salt congeal immediately; the oil,1 which the Persians call rhadinace, is dark and evil-smelling. [4] There king Darius settled the Eretrians, and they dwelt in that place until my time, keeping their ancient language. Such was the fate of the Eretrians.
In the Persian Empire Cissia（Κισσία) was a very fertile district of Susiana, on the Choaspes
Esther 1:2 - in the city of Shushan
Nehemiah 1:1 - I was in the city of Shushan
Daniel 8:2 - I was at Shushan in the palace
-the historical Esther?-
The ancient writer Plutarch mentions a woman of Eretria, "who was kept by Artabanus" at the Persian court of Artaxerxes, who facilitated the audience that Themistocles obtained with the Persian king.
Ερέτρια and Ἀρδέρικκα both resemble ἐρυθρίας (Eruthrias) 'of ruddy complexion' and Jews came from "Red"
as did the Phoenicians.
Herodotus 1.1.1
The Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the dispute. These (they say) came to our seas from the sea which is called Red,1 and having settled in the country which they still occupy