Non-PRO English to Russian Art/Literary Linguistics phrase

I spent an afternoon with Peter Lasco at his house in the village of Montaigu de Quercy. A distinguished, grey-haired man in the his sixties, I had met him several times before he knew that, as a writer, I specialized in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. He therefore began asking me why I had suddenly taken an interest in medieval French cathedrals.
I replied by outlining my theory that the sculptures I had seen in the north porch of Chartres might in some way have been influenced by the Kebra Nagast: ‘Melchizedek with his cup could represent Old Testament Israel,’ I concluded. ‘He was priest-king of Salem, after all, which a number of scholars have identified with Jerusalem. Then the Queen of Shub-ad with her African servant could represent Ethiopia. And then we have the Ark between the two.’