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The Queen of Sheba, also known as Bilqis in
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and as Makeda in
Geʽez Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical langu ...
, is a figure first mentioned in the
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
, the fourth King of Israel and Judah. This account has undergone extensive elaborations in
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
, Ethiopian Christianity, and
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. It has consequently become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in
West Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...
and
Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or Northeastern Africa, or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, encompasses the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North Africa and East Africa, and encompasses ...
, as well as in other regions where the
Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
have had a significant impact. Modern historians and archaeologists identify
Sheba Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdoms in pre-Islamic Arabia, South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen (region), Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself f ...
as one of the South Arabian kingdoms, which existed in modern-day
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
. However, because no trace of her has ever been found, the Queen of Sheba's existence is disputed among some historians.


Narrative


Hebrew

The Queen of Sheba (, in the
Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
; ; ), whose name is not stated, came to
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
"with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones" (
1 Kings 10 1 Kings 10 is the tenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a ...
:2). "Never again came such an abundance of spices" (10:10; 2 Chronicles 9:1–9) as those she gave to Solomon. She came "to prove him with hard questions", which Solomon answered to her satisfaction. They exchanged gifts, after which she returned to her land. The use of the term or 'riddles' (
1 Kings 10 1 Kings 10 is the tenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a ...
:1), an
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
whose shape points to a sound shift no earlier than the sixth century BC, indicates a late origin for the text. Since there is no mention of the
Fall of Babylon Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern Hemisphere ...
in 539 BC,
Martin Noth Martin Noth (3 August 1902 – 30 May 1968) was a German scholar of the Hebrew Bible who specialized in the pre-Exilic history of the Hebrews and promoted the hypothesis that the Israelite tribes in the immediate period after the settlement in Can ...
has held that the Book of Kings received a definitive redaction around 550 BC. Sheba was quite well known in the classical world, and its country was called
Arabia Felix Arabia Felix (literally: Fertile/Happy Arabia; also Ancient Greek: Εὐδαίμων Ἀραβία, ''Eudaemon Arabia'') was the Latin name previously used by geographers to describe South Arabia, or what is now Yemen. Etymology The Latin term ...
. Around the mid-1st millennium BC, there were
Sabaeans Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree th ...
also in
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
and
Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...
, in the area that later became the realm of
Aksum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Regi ...
. There are five places in the Bible where the writer distinguishes ''Sheba'' (), i.e. the Yemenite Sabaeans, from ''Seba'' (), i.e. the African Sabaeans. In Ps. 72:10 they are mentioned together: "the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts". This spelling differentiation, however, may be purely factitious; the indigenous inscriptions make no such difference, and both Yemenite and African Sabaeans are there spelled in exactly the same way.


Arabic

Although there are still no inscriptions found from
South Arabia South Arabia (), or Greater Yemen, is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jazan, ...
that furnish evidence for the Queen of Sheba herself, South Arabian inscriptions do mention a South Arabian queen (''mlkt'', Ancient South Arabian: ). And in the north of Arabia,
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n inscriptions repeatedly mention Arab queens. Furthermore, Sabaean tribes knew the title of ''mqtwyt'' ("high official", ). ''Makada'' or ''Makueda'', the personal name of the queen in Ethiopian legend, might be interpreted as a popular rendering of the title of ''mqtwyt''. This title may be derived from
Ancient Egyptian Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
''m'kit'' () "protectress,
housewife A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which may include Parenting, caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; Sew ...
". The queen's visit could have been a trade mission. Early South Arabian trade with
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
involving wood and spices transported by
camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provid ...
s is attested in the early 9th century BC and may have begun as early as the 10th. A recent theory suggests that the Ophel inscription in Jerusalem was written in the Sabaic language and that the text provides evidence for trade connections between ancient South Arabia and the
Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...
during the 10th century BC. The ancient Sabaic Awwām Temple, known in folklore as ''Maḥram'' ("the Sanctuary of") ''Bilqīs'', was excavated by archaeologists, but no trace of the Queen of Sheba has been discovered in the many inscriptions found there. Another Sabean temple, the Barran Temple (), is also known as the '' 'Arash Bilqis' '' ("Throne of Bilqis"), which like the nearby Awwam Temple was also dedicated to the god
Almaqah Almaqah or Almuqh (; ) was national deity of the Sabaeans of the pre-Islamic Yemeni kingdom of Saba', representing the Moon or Sun god. He was also worshipped in Dʿmt and Aksum in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The main center for his worship was at th ...
, but the connection between the Barran Temple and Sheba has not been established archaeologically either. Bible stories of the Queen of Sheba and the ships of
Ophir Ophir (; ) is a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth. Its existence is attested to by an inscribed pottery shard found at Tell Qasile (in modern-day Tel Aviv) in 1946, dating to the eighth century BC, which reads "''go ...
served as a basis for legends about the Israelites traveling in the Queen of Sheba's entourage when she returned to her country to bring up her child by Solomon.


Religious interpretations


In Judaism

According to
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
( Ant. 8:165–173), the queen of Sheba was the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia, and brought to Israel the first specimens of the
balsam Balsam is the resinous exudate (or sap) which forms on certain kinds of trees and shrubs. Balsam (from Latin ''balsamum'' "gum of the balsam tree," ultimately from a Semitic source such as ) owes its name to the biblical Balm of Gilead. Ch ...
, which grew in the
Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...
in the historian's time. Josephus (''Antiquities'' 2.5‒10) represents Cambyses as conquering the capital of Aethiopia, and changing its name from Seba to Meroe. Josephus affirms that the Queen of Sheba or Saba came from this region, and that it bore the name of Saba before it was known by that of Meroe. There seems also some affinity between the word Saba and the name or title of the kings of the Aethiopians, Sabaco. The Talmud (
Bava Batra Bava Batra (also Baba Batra; ) is the third of the three Talmudic tractates in the Talmud in the order Nezikin; it deals with a person's responsibilities and rights as the owner of property. It is part of Judaism's oral law. Originally it, to ...
15b) insists that it was not a woman but a kingdom of Sheba (based on varying interpretations of Hebrew ''mlkt'') that came to Jerusalem. Baba Bathra 15b: "Whoever says ''malkath Sheba'' (I Kings X, 1) means a woman is mistaken; ... it means the kingdom (מַלְכֻת) of Sheba". This is explained to mean that she was a woman who was not in her position because of being married to the king, but through her own merit. The most elaborate account of the queen's visit to Solomon is given in the Targum Sheni to
Esther Esther (; ), originally Hadassah (; ), is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, which is set in the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus falls in love with Esther and ma ...
(see: Colloquy of the Queen of Sheba). A
hoopoe Hoopoes () are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "Crest (feathers), crown" of feathers which can be raised or lowered at will. Two living and one extinct species are recognized, though for many y ...
informed Solomon that the kingdom of Sheba was the only kingdom on earth not subject to him and that its queen was a sun worshiper. He thereupon sent it to Kitor in the land of Sheba with a letter attached to its wing commanding its queen to come to him as a subject. She thereupon sent him all the ships of the sea loaded with precious gifts and 6,000 youths of equal size, all born at the same hour and clothed in purple garments. They carried a letter declaring that she could arrive in Jerusalem within three years although the journey normally took seven years. When the queen arrived and came to Solomon's palace, thinking that the glass floor was a pool of water, she lifted the hem of her dress, uncovering her legs. Solomon informed her of her mistake and reprimanded her for her hairy legs. She asked him three ( Targum Sheni to Esther 1:3) or, according to the
Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
; or ''midrashot' ...
( Prov. ii. 6; Yalḳ. ii., § 1085, Midrash ha-Hefez), more riddles to test his wisdom. A Yemenite manuscript entitled "Midrash ha-Hefez" (published by S. Schechter in ''Folk-Lore'', 1890, pp. 353 et seq.) gives nineteen riddles, most of which are found scattered through the Talmud and the Midrash, which the author of the "Midrash ha-Hefez" attributes to the Queen of Sheba. Most of these riddles are simply Bible questions, some not of a very edifying character. The two that are genuine riddles are: "Without movement while living, it moves when its head is cut off", and "Produced from the ground, man produces it, while its food is the fruit of the ground". The answer to the former is, "a tree, which, when its top is removed, can be made into a moving ship"; the answer to the latter is, "a wick". The rabbis who denounce Solomon interpret
1 Kings 10 1 Kings 10 is the tenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a ...
:13 as meaning that Solomon had criminal intercourse with the Queen of Sheba, the offspring of which was
Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...
, who destroyed the Temple (comp.
Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
ad loc.). According to others, the sin ascribed to Solomon in 1 Kings 11:7 et seq. is only figurative: it is not meant that Solomon fell into
idolatry Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic ...
, but that he was guilty of failing to restrain his wives from idolatrous practises ( Shab. 56b). The Alphabet of Sirach avers that
Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...
was the fruit of the union between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In the
Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...
, the Queen of Sheba was considered one of the queens of the demons and is sometimes identified with
Lilith Lilith (; ), also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, theorized to be the first wife of Adam and a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Eden ...
, first in the Targum of Job (1:15), and later in the
Zohar The ''Zohar'' (, ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material o ...
and the subsequent literature.


In Christianity

Christian scriptures A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning ' rule' or ' measuring stick'. The use ...
mention a "queen of the South" (, ), who "came from the uttermost parts of the earth", i.e. from the extremities of the then known world, to hear the wisdom of Solomon ( Mt. 12:42; Lk. 11:31). The mystical interpretation of the
Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...
, which was felt as supplying a literal basis for the speculations of the allegorists, makes its first appearance in
Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...
, who wrote a voluminous commentary on the Song of Songs. In his commentary, Origen identified the bride of the Song of Songs with the "queen of the South" of the Gospels (i.e., the Queen of Sheba). Others have proposed either the marriage of Solomon with the Pharaoh's daughter, or his marriage with an Israelite woman, the Shulamite. The former was the favorite opinion of the mystical interpreters to the end of the 18th century; the latter has obtained since its introduction by
Good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil. The specific meaning and etymology of the term and its ...
(1803). The bride of the Canticles is assumed to have been black due to a passage in
Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...
1:5, which the
Revised Standard Version The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation is a revision of the American St ...
(1952) translates as "I am very dark, but comely", as does
Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...
(
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
: ''Nigra sum, sed formosa''), while the
New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in American English. It was first published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirt ...
(1989) has "I am black and beautiful", as the
Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
(). One legend has it that the Queen of Sheba brought Solomon the same gifts that the
Magi Magi (), or magus (), is the term for priests in Zoroastrianism and earlier Iranian religions. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Per ...
later gave to
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
. During the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, Christians sometimes identified the queen of Sheba with the
sibyl The sibyls were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophet, prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by Pausanias (geographer), PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he desc ...
''Sabba''.


Coptic

The story of Solomon and the queen was popular among
Copts Copts (; ) are a Christians, Christian ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious group native to Northeast Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are, like the broader Egyptians, Egyptian population, des ...
, as shown by fragments of a Coptic legend preserved in a Berlin papyrus. The queen, having been subdued by deceit, gives Solomon a
pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
on which all earthly science is inscribed. Solomon sends one of his
demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, occultism, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in Media (communication), media including f ...
s to fetch the pillar from Ethiopia, whence it instantly arrives. In a Coptic poem, queen Yesaba of Cush asks riddles of Solomon.


Ethiopian

The most extensive version of the legend appears in the ''
Kebra Nagast The Kebra Nagast (, ), or The Glory of the Kings, is a 14th-century national epic of Ethiopia, written in Geʽez by the nebure id Ishaq of Aksum. In its existing form, the text is at least 700 years old and purports to trace the origins of the ...
'' (Glory of the Kings), the Ethiopian national saga, translated from Arabic in 1322. Here
Menelik I Menelik I ( Ge'ez: ምኒልክ, ''Mənilək'') was the legendary first Emperor of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty. According to '' Kebra Nagast'', a 14th-century national epic, in the 10th century BC he is said to have inaugurated the Solomonic d ...
is the child of Solomon and ''Makeda'' (the Ethiopic name for the queen of Sheba; she is the child of the man who destroys the legendary snake-king Arwe) from whom the Ethiopian dynasty claims descent to the present day. While the Abyssinian story offers much greater detail, it omits any mention of the Queen's hairy legs or any other element that might reflect on her unfavourably. Based on the Gospels of Matthew ( Matthew 12:42) and Luke ( Luke 11:31), the "queen of the South" is claimed to be the queen of Ethiopia. In those times, King Solomon sought merchants from all over the world, in order to buy materials for the building of the
Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
. Among them was Tamrin, great merchant of Queen Makeda of Ethiopia. Having returned to Ethiopia, Tamrin told the queen of the wonderful things he had seen in Jerusalem, and of Solomon's wisdom and generosity, whereupon she decided to visit Solomon. She was warmly welcomed, given a palace for dwelling, and received great gifts every day. Solomon and Makeda spoke with great wisdom, and instructed by him, she converted to Judaism. Before she left, there was a great feast in the king's palace. Makeda stayed in the palace overnight, after Solomon had sworn that he would not do her any harm, while she swore in return that she would not steal from him. As the meals had been spicy, Makeda awoke thirsty at night and went to drink some water, when Solomon appeared, reminding her of her oath. She answered: "Ignore your oath, just let me drink water." That same night, Solomon had a dream about the sun rising over Israel, but being mistreated and despised by the Jews, the sun moved to shine over Ethiopia and Rome. Solomon gave Makeda a ring as a token of faith, and then she left. On her way home, she gave birth to a son, whom she named Baina-leḥkem (i.e. bin al-ḥakīm, "Son of the Wise Man", later called Menilek). After the boy had grown up in Ethiopia, he went to Jerusalem carrying the ring and was received with great honors. The king and the people tried in vain to persuade him to stay. Solomon gathered his nobles and announced that he would send his first-born son to Ethiopia together with their first-borns. He added that he was expecting a third son, who would marry the king of Rome's daughter and reign over Rome so that the entire world would be ruled by David's descendants. Then Baina-leḥkem was anointed king by Zadok the high priest, and he took the name David. The first-born nobles who followed him are named, and even today some Ethiopian families claim their ancestry from them. Prior to leaving, the priests' sons had stolen the
Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...
, after their leader Azaryas had offered a sacrifice as commanded by one God's angel. With much wailing, the procession left Jerusalem on a wind cart led and carried by the archangel Michael. Having arrived at the
Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...
, Azaryas revealed to the people that the Ark is with them. David prayed to the Ark and the people rejoiced, singing, dancing, blowing horns and flutes, and beating drums. The Ark showed its miraculous powers during the crossing of the stormy Sea, and all arrived unscathed. When Solomon learned that the Ark had been stolen, he sent a horseman after the thieves and even gave chase himself, but neither could catch them. Solomon returned to Jerusalem and gave orders to the priests to remain silent about the theft and to place a copy of the Ark in the Temple, so that the foreign nations could not say that Israel had lost its fame. According to some sources, Queen Makeda was part of the dynasty founded by Za Besi Angabo in 1370 BC. The family's intended choice to rule Aksum was Makeda's brother, Prince Nourad, but his early death led to her succession to the throne. She apparently ruled the Ethiopian kingdom for more than 50 years. The 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia claims that Makeda reigned from 1013 to 982 BC, with dates following the
Ethiopian calendar The Ethiopian calendar (; ; ), or Geʽez calendar (Geʽez: ; Tigrinya: , ) is the official state civil calendar of Ethiopia and serves as an unofficial customary cultural calendar in Eritrea, and among Ethiopians and Eritreans in the dia ...
. In the Ethiopian Book of Aksum, Makeda is described as establishing a new capital city at Azeba.
Edward Ullendorff Edward Ullendorff (25 January 1920 – 6 March 2011) was a British scholar of Semitic languages and Ethiopian studies. Biography Ullendorff was born on 25 January 1920 in Berlin, Germany, to an upper-class, secular Jewish family. His parents ...
holds that ''Makeda'' is a corruption of Candace, the name or title of several Ethiopian queens from Meroe or Seba. Candace was the name of that queen of the Ethiopians whose chamberlain was converted to Christianity under the preaching of
Philip the Evangelist Philip the Evangelist (, ''Philippos'') appears several times in the Acts of the Apostles. According to the work, he was one of the Seven chosen to care for the poor of the Christian community in Jerusalem (). He preached and performed miracl ...
( Acts 8:27) in 30 AD. In the 14th-century (?) Ethiopic version of the Alexander romance,
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
of
Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...
(Ethiopic ''Meqédon'') is said to have met a queen ''Kandake'' of Nubia. The tradition that the biblical Queen of Sheba was an ingenuous ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem is repeated in a 1st-century account by
Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
. He identified Solomon's visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia Historians believe that the Solomonic dynasty actually began in 1270 with the emperor
Yekuno Amlak Yekuno Amlak (); throne name Tesfa Iyasus (; died 19 June 1285) was Emperor of Ethiopia, from 1270 to 1285, and the founder of the Solomonic dynasty, which lasted until 1974. He was a ruler from Bete Amhara (in parts of modern-day Wollo and ...
, who, with the support of the Ethiopian Church, overthrew the
Zagwe dynasty The Zagwe dynasty () was a medieval Agaw monarchy that ruled the northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the ...
, which had ruled Ethiopia since sometime during the 10th century. The link to King Solomon provided a strong foundation for Ethiopian national unity. "Ethiopians see their country as God's chosen country, the final resting place that he chose for the Ark – and Sheba and her son were the means by which it came there". Despite the fact that the dynasty officially ended in 1769 with Emperor Iyoas, Ethiopian rulers continued to trace their connection to it, right up to the last 20th-century emperor,
Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...
. According to one tradition, the Ethiopian Jews (
Beta Israel Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, is a Jewish group originating from the territory of the Amhara Region, Amhara and Tigray Region, Tigray regions in northern Ethiopia, where they are spread out across more than 500 small villages over a wide ter ...
, "Falashas") also trace their ancestry to Menelik I, son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. An opinion that appears more historical is that the Falashas descend from those Jews who settled in Egypt after the first exile, and who, upon the fall of the Persian domination (539–333 BC), on the borders of the Nile, penetrated into the Sudan, whence they went into the western parts of Abyssinia. Several emperors have stressed the importance of the ''Kebra Negast''. One of the first instances of this can be traced in a letter from Prince Kasa (King John IV) to Queen Victoria in 1872. Kasa states, "There is a book called ''Kebra Nagast'' which contains the law of the whole of Ethiopia, and the names of the shums (governors), churches and provinces are in this book. I pray you will find out who has got this book and send it to me, for in my country my people will not obey my orders without it." Despite the historic importance given to the ''Kebra Negast'', there is still doubt to whether or not the Queen sat on the throne.


In Islam

The Temple of Awwam or "Mahram Bilqis" ("Sanctuary of the Queen of Sheba") is a Sabaean temple dedicated to the principal deity of Saba, Almaqah (frequently called "Lord of ʾAwwām"), near
Ma'rib Marib (; Old South Arabian: 𐩣𐩧𐩨/𐩣𐩧𐩺𐩨 ''Mryb/Mrb'') is the capital city of Marib Governorate, Yemen. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of '' Sabaʾ'' (), which some scholars believe to be the ancient Sheba of bibl ...
in what is now
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
. In the above verse ('' ayah''), after scouting nearby lands, a bird known as the ''hud-hud'' (
hoopoe Hoopoes () are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "Crest (feathers), crown" of feathers which can be raised or lowered at will. Two living and one extinct species are recognized, though for many y ...
) returns to
King Solomon King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...
relating that the land of Sheba is ruled by a queen. In a letter, Solomon invites the Queen of Sheba, who like her followers had worshipped the sun, to submit to
God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
. She expresses that the letter is noble and asks her chief advisers what action should be taken. They respond by mentioning that her kingdom is known for its might and inclination towards war, however that the command rests solely with her. In an act suggesting the diplomatic qualities of her leadership, she responds not with brute force, but by sending her ambassadors to present a gift to King Solomon. He refuses the gift, declaring that God gives far superior gifts and that the ambassadors are the ones only delighted by the gift. King Solomon instructs the ambassadors to return to the Queen with a stern message that if he travels to her, he will bring a contingent that she cannot defeat. The Queen then makes plans to visit him at his palace. Before she arrives, King Solomon asks several of his chiefs who will bring him the Queen of Sheba's throne before they come to him in complete submission. An ''
Ifrit Ifrit, also spelled as efreet, afrit, and afreet ( ), plural ), is a powerful type of demon in Islamic culture. The ''ʿafārīt'' are often associated with the underworld and identified with the spirits of the dead, and have been compared t ...
'' first offers to move her throne before King Solomon would rise from his seat. However, a man with knowledge of the Scripture instead has her throne moved to King Solomon's palace in the blink of an eye, at which King Solomon exclaims his gratitude towards God as King Solomon assumes this is God's test to see if King Solomon is grateful or ungrateful. King Solomon disguises her throne to test her awareness of her own throne, asking her if it seems familiar. She answers that during her journey to him, her court had informed her of King Solomon's prophethood, and since then she and her subjects had made the intention to submit to God. King Solomon then explains that God is the only god that she should worship, not to be included alongside other false gods that she used to worship. Later the Queen of Sheba is requested to enter a palatial hall. Upon first view she mistakes the hall for a lake and raises her skirt to not wet her clothes. King Solomon informs her that is not water rather it is smooth slabs of glass. Recognizing that it was a marvel of construction which she had not seen the likes of before, she declares that in the past she had harmed her own soul but now submits, with King Solomon, to God (27:22–44). The story of the Queen of Sheba in the
Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
shares some similarities with the Bible and other Jewish sources. Some Muslim commentators such as
Al-Tabari Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...
,
Al-Zamakhshari Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (; 1074 –1143) was a medieval Muslim scholar of Iranian descent. He travelled to Mecca and settled there for five years and has been known since then as 'Jar Allah' (God's Neighbor). He was a Mu'tazi ...
and
Al-Baydawi Qadi Baydawi (also known as Naṣir ad-Din al-Bayḍawi, also spelled Baidawi, Bayzawi and Beyzavi; d. June 1319, Tabriz) was a jurist, theologian, and Quran commentator. He lived during the post-Seljuk Empire, Seljuk and early Mongol Empire, Mon ...
supplement the story. Here they claim that the Queen's name is ''Bilqīs'' (), probably derived from or the Hebraised ''pilegesh'' ("
concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal relationship, interpersonal and Intimate relationship, sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarde ...
"). The Quran does not name the Queen, referring to her as "a woman ruling them" (), the nation of Sheba. According to some, he then married the Queen, while other traditions say that he gave her in marriage to a King of Hamdan. According to the scholar Al-Hamdani, the Queen of Sheba was the daughter of Ilsharah Yahdib, the Sabaean king of South Arabia. In another tale, she is said to be the daughter of a jinni (or peri) and a human. According to E. Ullendorff, the Quran and its commentators have preserved the earliest literary reflection of her complete legend, which among scholars complements the narrative that is derived from a Jewish tradition, this assuming to be the Targum Sheni. However, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica Targum Sheni is dated to around 700 similarly the general consensus is to date Targum Sheni to late 7th- or early 8th century, which post-dates the advent of Islam by almost 200 years. Furthermore, M. J. Berdichevsky explains that this Targum is the earliest narrative articulation of Queen of Sheba in Jewish tradition.


Scholarly interpretations


Folding of the Hebrew Bible's story

The dating of the story of the Queen of Sheba is not well established. A significant number of biblical philologists believe that an early version of the story of the Queen of Sheba existed before the composition of the Deuteronomistic history () and was revised and placed therein by an anonymous redactor labelled the
Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deutero ...
(Dtr) by textual scholars. However, many scholars believe that the account from the Third Book of Kings in its present form was compiled during the so-called Second Deuteronomic Revision (''Dtr2''), produced during the
Babylonian Captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...
(c. 550 BCE). The purpose of the story seems to be to glorify the figure of King Solomon, who is portrayed as a ruler who enjoyed authority and captured the imagination of other rulers. Such an exaltation is dissonant with the general critical tone of the Deuteronomic history towards King Solomon. Later, this account was also placed in the Second Book of the Paralipomenon (II Chronicles), written in the Settlement era.Jan Retsö
''The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads.''
-
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
:
Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, 2003. - Pages 134-135, 171-175.


Hypotheses and archaeological evidence

Researchers have noted that the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem could conceivably have been a trade mission related to the Israelite king's efforts to settle on the shores of the
Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...
and thereby undermine the monopoly of Saba and other South Arabian kingdoms on caravan trade with
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
and
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
. Assyrian sources confirm that South Arabia was engaged in
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.) In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...
as early as 890 BC, so the arrival in Jerusalem in Solomon's time of a trading mission from a South Arabian kingdom is plausible. There is, however, debate about the chronological plausibility of this event: Solomon lived from approximately 965 to 926 BC, while it has been argued that the first traces of the Sabean monarchy appear some 150 years later.Secrets of the Queen
// zagadki.claw.ru.
On the other hand, Peter Stein argues that archaeological and epigraphic evidence indicates that the Sabean kingdom had already emerged by the
10th century BC The 10th century BC comprises the years from 1000 BC to 901 BC. This period followed the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Near East, and the century saw the Early Iron Age take hold there. The Greek Dark Ages which had come about in 1200 BC cont ...
. In the 19th century, explorers I. Halevi and Glaser found in the
Arabian Desert The Arabian Desert () is a vast desert wilderness in West Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula with an area of . It stretches from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It is the fourth largest desert in the ...
the ruins of the huge city of
Marib Marib (; Ancient South Arabian script, Old South Arabian: 𐩣𐩧𐩨/𐩣𐩧𐩺𐩨 ''Mryb/Mrb'') is the capital city of Marib Governorate, Yemen. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of ''Saba’, Sabaʾ'' (), which some scholars beli ...
. Among the inscriptions found, scientists read the name of four South Arabian states: Minea,
Hadramawt Hadhramaut ( ; ) is a geographic region in the South Arabia, southern part of the Arabian Peninsula which includes the Yemeni Governorates of Yemen, governorates of Hadhramaut, Shabwah Governorate, Shabwah and Al Mahrah Governorate, Mahrah, D ...
,
Qataban Qataban () was an ancient Yemenite kingdom in South Arabia that existed from the early 1st millennium BCE to the late 1st or 2nd centuries CE. It was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ, Maʿīn ...
, and Sawa. As it turned out, the residence of the kings of Sheba was the city of Marib (modern
Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
), which confirms the traditional version of the queen's origin from the south of the
Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...
. Inscriptions found in southern Arabia do not mention female rulers, but from
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n documents of the
8th Eighth is ordinal form of the number eight. Eighth may refer to: * One eighth, , a fraction, one of eight equal parts of a whole * Eighth note (quaver), a musical note played for half the value of a quarter note (crotchet) * Octave, an interval b ...
-
7th century BC The 7th century BC began the first day of 700 BC and ended the last day of 601 BC. The Neo-Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the Near East during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last ...
, Arabian queens in the more northern regions of Arabia are known. In the 1950s Wendell Philips excavated the temple of the goddess Balqis at Marib.Oparin, A. А
Kingdoms. Archaeological study of the Third Book of Kings
// nauka.bible.com.ua.
In 2005, American archaeologists discovered in Sana'a the ruins of a temple near the palace of the biblical Queen of Sheba in Marib (north of Sana'a). According to the American researcher Madeleine Phillips, they found columns, numerous drawings and objects dating back three millennia. Researchers attribute the origin of the legend about the son of the Queen of Sheba in Ethiopia to the fact that apparently in the
6th century BC The 6th century BC started on the first day of 600 BC and ended on the last day of 501 BC. In Western Asia, the first half of this century was dominated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which had risen to power late in the previous century after ...
the Sabaeans, having crossed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, settled near the
Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...
and occupied part of Ethiopia, 'capturing' the memory of its ruler with her and transplanting it to new soil. One of the provinces of Ethiopia bears the name Shewa (Shawa, modern.
Shoa SHOA or Servicio Hidrográfico y Oceanográfico de la Armada de Chile (Spanish for Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy) is an agency of the Chilean Navy managing situations dealing with hydrography and oceanography, includin ...
). The viewpoint according to which the birthplace of the Queen of Sheba or her prototype was not South Arabia but North Arabia is also quite widespread. Among other North Arabian tribes, the Sabaeans are mentioned on the
stela A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...
of Tiglath-Pileser III. These northern Sabeans can be associated in a number of ways with the Sabeans (Sabeans) mentioned in the book of Job (), the Sheba of the book of the prophet Ezekiel (), and with
Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...
s grandson Sheba (, cf. also , ) (the name of Sheba's brother Dedan, mentioned next to it, is associated with the oasis of El-Ula north of
Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...
). According to some scholars, the Kingdom of Israel first came into contact with the northern Sabaeans, and only later, perhaps through their mediation, with Saba in the south. The historian J. A. Montgomery has suggested that in the Xth century BC the Sabeans lived in northern Arabia, although they controlled trade routes from the south. The famous Arabian explorer Harry St John Philby also believed that the Queen of Sheba did not originate from Southern Arabia, but from Northern Arabia, and that the legends about her at some point blended with the stories of
Zenobia Septimia Zenobia (Greek: Ζηνοβία, Palmyrene Aramaic: , ; 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner, and she married the ruler of the ...
, the warrior queen of
Palmyra Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...
(modern Tadmor, Syria), who lived in the
3rd century CE The 3rd century was the period from AD 201 (represented by the Roman numerals CCI) to AD 300 (CCC) in accordance with the Julian calendar. In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor S ...
and converted to Judaism. For example, it is told (by one of Mohammed's biographers) that it was in Palmyra, in the
8th century The 8th century is the period from 701 (represented by the Roman numerals DCCI) through 800 (DCCC) in accordance with the Julian Calendar. In the historiography of Europe the phrase the long 8th century is sometimes used to refer to the peri ...
during the reign of Caliph Walid I, that a sarcophagus was found with the inscription:'' 'Here is buried the pious Bilqis, the consort of Solomon...'.'' Jewish Kabbalistic tradition also considers Tadmor to be the burial place of the Queen, an evil deviless, and the city is considered an ominous haven for demons. There are also parallels between Sheba and another eastern autocrat, the famous
Semiramis Semiramis (; ''Šammīrām'', ''Šamiram'', , ''Samīrāmīs'') was the legendary Lydian- Babylonian wife of Onnes and of Ninus, who succeeded the latter on the throne of Assyria, according to Movses Khorenatsi. Legends narrated by Diodorus ...
, also a warrior and irrigator who lived around the same time, in the late
9th century BC The 9th century BC started the first day of 900 BC and ended the last day of 801 BC. It was a period of great change for several civilizations. In Africa, Carthage is founded by the Phoenicians. In Egypt, a severe flood covers the floor of Luxor ...
, which can be traced in folklore. Thus, the 2nd-century AD writer
Melito of Sardis Melito of Sardis ( ''Melítōn Sárdeōn''; died ) was a Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Sardis, near Smyrna in western Anatolia. He held a foremost place among the early Christian bishops in Roman Asia due to his personal infl ...
retells a Syrian legend in which the father of Semiramis is called Hadhad. In addition, the Hebrew legend made the queen the mother of Nebuchadnezzar and Semiramis his wife.


In art and culture


Medieval

The treatment of Solomon in literature, art, and music also involves the sub-themes of the Queen of Sheba and the Shulammite of the
Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...
. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba was not a common subject until the 12th century. In Christian iconography Solomon represented Jesus, and Sheba represented the gentile Church; hence Sheba's meeting with Solomon bearing rich gifts foreshadowed the
adoration of the Magi The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings or Visitation of the Wise Men is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having fo ...
. On the other hand, Sheba enthroned represented the coronation of the virgin. Sculptures of the Queen of Sheba are found on great Gothic cathedrals such as
Chartres Chartres () is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in the Centre-Val de Loire Regions of France, region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 1 ...
,
Rheims Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...
,
Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; , or ) is a city and Communes of France, commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme (department), Somme Departments of France, department in the region ...
, and Wells. The 12th century cathedrals at
Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
,
Chartres Chartres () is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in the Centre-Val de Loire Regions of France, region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 1 ...
, Rochester and
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...
include artistic renditions in stained glass windows and doorjamb decorations.Byrd, Vickie, editor; Queen of Sheba: Legend and Reality, (
Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...
: The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2004), p. 17.
Likewise of
Romanesque art Romanesque art is the art of Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic Art, Gothic style in the 12th century, or later depending on region. The preceding period is known as the Pre-Romanesque period. The term was invented by 1 ...
, the enamel depiction of a black woman at
Klosterneuburg Monastery Klosterneuburg Abbey () is a twelfth-century Augustinian monastery of the Catholic Church located in the town of Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria. Overlooking the Danube, just north of the present Vienna city limits at the Leopoldsberg, the monas ...
. The Queen of Sheba, standing in water before Solomon, is depicted on a window in
King's College Chapel, Cambridge King's College Chapel is the chapel of King's College in the University of Cambridge. It is considered one of the finest examples of late Perpendicular Gothic English architecture and features the world's largest fan vault. The Chapel was bu ...
.


Renaissance

The reception of the queen was a popular subject during the
Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...
. It appears in the bronze doors to the
Florence Baptistery The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John (), is a religious building in Florence, Italy. Dedicated to the patron saint of the city, John the Baptist, it has been a focus of religious, civic, and artistic life since its ...
by
Lorenzo Ghiberti Lorenzo Ghiberti (, , ; 1378 – 1 December 1455), born Lorenzo di Bartolo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence, a key figure in the Early Renaissance, best known as the creator of two sets of bronze doors of the Florence Baptister ...
, in frescoes by
Benozzo Gozzoli Benozzo Gozzoli (; born Benozzo di Lese; 4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festi ...
( Campo Santo,
Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...
) and in the Raphael Loggie (
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...
). Examples of Venetian art are by
Tintoretto Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( ; , ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized th ...
(
Prado The Museo del Prado ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on ...
) and
Veronese Veronese is the Italian word denoting someone or something from Verona, Italy and may refer to: * Veronese Riddle, a popular riddle in the Middle Ages * Veronese (moth), ''Veronese'' (moth), a moth genus in the family Crambidae * Monte Veronese, ...
(
Pinacotheca A pinacotheca (Latin calque, borrowing from = + ) was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or ancient Rome. The name is specifically used for the building containing pictures which formed the left wing of the Propylaea (Acropolis of Athen ...
,
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
). In the 17th century,
Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in I ...
painted '' The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba'' (
National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...
,
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
).
Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca ( , ; ; ; – 12 October 1492) was an Italian Renaissance painter, Italian painter, mathematician and List of geometers, geometer of the Early Renaissance, nowadays chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is charact ...
's
fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...
es in
Arezzo Arezzo ( , ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the Province of Arezzo, province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of Above mean sea level, above sea level. As of 2 ...
(c. 1466) on the '' Legend of the True Cross'' contain two panels on the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. The legend links the beams of Solomon's palace (adored by Queen of Sheba) to the wood of the crucifixion. The Renaissance continuation of the analogy between the Queen's visit to Solomon and the adoration of the Magi is evident in the '' Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi'' (c. 1510) by
Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ;  – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...
.


Literature

Boccaccio's ''
On Famous Women ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...
'' () follows Josephus in calling the Queen of Sheba ''Nicaula''. Boccaccio writes she is the Queen of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
and
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, and that some people say she is also the queen of
Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...
. He writes that she had a palace on "a very large island" called Meroe, located in the
Nile river The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river i ...
. From there Nicaula travelled to
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
to see
King Solomon King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...
. O. Henry's short story ''
The Gift of the Magi "The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by American writer O. Henry, first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little mone ...
'' contains the following description to convey the preciousness of the protagonist Della Dillingham Young's hair: "Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts."
Christine de Pizan Christine de Pizan or Pisan (, ; born Cristina da Pizzano; September 1364 – ), was an Italian-born French court writer for King Charles VI of France and several French royal dukes, in both prose and poetry. Christine de Pizan served as a cour ...
's ''
The Book of the City of Ladies ''The Book of the City of Ladies'', or ''Le Livre de la Cité des Dames'', is a book written by Christine de Pizan believed to have been finished by 1405. Perhaps Pizan's most famous literary work, it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan u ...
'' continues the convention of calling the Queen of Sheba "Nicaula". The author praises the Queen for secular and religious wisdom and lists her besides Christian and Hebrew prophetesses as first on a list of dignified female pagans.
Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...
's '' Doctor Faustus'' refers to the Queen of Sheba as ''Saba'', when
Mephistopheles Mephistopheles ( , ), also known as Mephostophilis or Mephisto, is a demon featured in German folklore, originating as the chief devil in the Faust legend. He has since become a stock character appearing in Mephistopheles in the arts and popular ...
is trying to persuade
Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...
us of the wisdom of the women with whom he supposedly shall be presented every morning.
Gérard de Nerval Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855), the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, was a French essayist, poet, translator, and travel writer. He was a major figure during the era of French romantici ...
's autobiographical novel, ''
Voyage to the Orient ''Voyage to the Orient'' () is one of the works of French writer and poet Gérard de Nerval, published during 1851 in literature, 1851, resulting from his voyage of 1842 to Cairo and Beirut. In addition to a travel account it retells Oriental tales ...
'' (1851), details his travels through the Middle East with much artistic license. He recapitulates at length a tale told in a Turkish cafe of King Soliman's love of Balkis, the Queen of Saba, but she, in turn, is destined to love Adoniram ( Hiram Abif), Soliman's chief craftsman of the
Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
, owing to both her and Adoniram's divine genealogy. Soliman grows jealous of Adoniram, and when he learns of three craftsmen who wish to sabotage his work and later kill him, Soliman willfully ignores warnings of these plots. Adoniram is murdered and Balkis flees Soliman's kingdom.
Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor ( , , ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. Ideologically an African socialist, Senghor was one ...
's "Elégie pour la Reine de Saba", published in his ''Elégies majeures'' in 1976, uses the Queen of Sheba in a love poem and for a political message. In the 1970s, he used the Queen of Sheba fable to widen his view of Negritude and Eurafrique by including "Arab-Berber Africa".
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
's book '' Just So Stories'' includes the tale of '' The Butterfly that Stamped''. Therein, Kipling identifies Balkis, "Queen that was of Sheba and Sable and the Rivers of the Gold of the South" as best, and perhaps only, beloved of the 1000 wives of Suleiman-bin-Daoud, King Solomon. She is explicitly ascribed great wisdom ("Balkis, almost as wise as the Most Wise Suleiman-bin-Daoud"); nevertheless, Kipling perhaps implies in her a greater wisdom than her husband, in that she is able to gently manipulate him, the afrits and djinns he commands, the other quarrelsome 999 wives of Suleimin-bin-Daoud, the butterfly of the title and the butterfly's wife, thus bringing harmony and happiness for all. The Queen of Sheba appears as a character in '' The Ring of Solomon'', the fourth book in Jonathan Stroud's
Bartimaeus Sequence The ''Bartimaeus Sequence'' is a series of young adult novels of alternate history, Fantasy literature, fantasy and Magic (paranormal), magic. It was written by British writer Jonathan Stroud and consists of a trilogy published from 2003 to 2005 ...
. She is portrayed as a vain woman who, fearing Solomon's great power, sends the captain of her royal guard to assassinate him, setting the events of the book in motion. In modern popular culture, she is often invoked as a sarcastic retort to a person with an inflated sense of entitlement, as in "Who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?"


Film

* Played by Gabrielle Robinne in ''La reine de Saba'' (1913) * Played by Betty Blythe in '' The Queen of Sheba'' (1921) * Played by
France Dhélia France Dhélia (born Franceline Berthe Léontine Délia Benoît; November 9, 1894 – May 6, 1964) was a French film actress. Dhélia appeared in more than forty films, mostly in the silent era A silent film is a film without synchronized ...
in ''Le berceau de dieu'' (1926) * Played by Dorothy Page in ''King Solomon of Broadway'' (1935) * Played by
Leonora Ruffo Leonora Ruffo (13 January 1936 – 25 May 2007) was an Italian film actress. Career Born in Rome as Bruna Bovi, the daughter of Angelo Bovi, basketball coach of Ginnastica Roma, Italian Championship pluri-winner, Ruffo failed to obtain the main ...
in '' The Queen of Sheba'' (1952) * Played by
Gina Lollobrigida Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida (4 July 1927 – 16 January 2023) was an Italian actress, model, photojournalist, and sculptor. She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, a period in which she was an international ...
in '' Solomon and Sheba'' (1959) * Played by Winifred Bryan in '' Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man'' (1963) * Played by Anya Phillips in ''Rome '78'' (1978) * Played by
Halle Berry Halle Maria Berry ( ; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant of 1986 and also placing six ...
in '' Solomon & Sheba'' (1995) * Played by
Vivica A. Fox Vivica Anjanetta Fox (born July 30, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She began her career on ''Soul Train'' (19821983) and played roles on the daytime television soap operas ''Days of Our Lives'' (1988) and ''Generations (American TV s ...
in ''
Solomon (film) ''Solomon'' is a 1997 television miniseries for RAI that retells the Bible's story of Solomon.''The Ancient World in the Cinema'' Jon Solomon - 2001 0300083378 p173 "in Italy, RAI's Solomon (1997), starring Ben Cross as Solomon and Max von Syd ...
'' (1997) * Played by Aamito Lagum in '' Three Thousand Years of Longing'' (2022)


Music

* ''
Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
'' (composed in 1748; first performed in 1749), oratorio by
George Frideric Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, H ...
; "
The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba", also known as "The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba" and "The Entry of the Queen of Sheba", is the sinfonia that opens Act III of George Frideric Handel's 1749 oratorio ''Solomon''. It is marked ''allegro'' and ...
" from this work is often performed as a concert piece *''
La reine de Saba ''La reine de Saba'' ('' The Queen of Sheba'') is a grand opera in four or five acts by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré inspired by Gérard de Nerval's ''La Reine de Saba'', in '' Le voyage en Orient''. It was premi ...
'' (1862), opera by
Charles Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
*'' Die Königin von Saba'' (1875), opera by
Karl Goldmark Karl Goldmark (born Károly Goldmark, Keszthely, 18 May 1830 – Vienna, 2 January 1915) was a Hungarian-born Viennese composer. Peter Revers, Michael Cherlin, Halina Filipowicz, Richard L. Rudolph The Great Tradition and Its Legacy 2004; , p ...
* ''La Reine de Scheba'' (1926), opera by
Reynaldo Hahn Reynaldo Hahn de Echenagucia (9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer. He is best known for his songs – ''mélodies'' – of which he wrote more than 100. Hahn was born ...
* ''Belkis, Regina di Saba'' (1931), ballet by
Ottorino Respighi Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. List of compositions by Ottorino Respighi, His compositions ra ...
* ''Solomon and Balkis'' (1942), opera by Randall Thompson * ''The Queen of Sheba'' (1953), cantata for women's voices by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco * "Black Beauty" (1970), song by
Focus Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...
* "Leila, the Queen of Sheba" (1981), song by Dolly Dots * "Throne of Gold" (1984), song by
Steel Pulse Steel Pulse are a roots reggae band from the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. They originally formed at Handsworth Wood Boys School, and were composed of David Hinds (lead vocals, guitar), Basil Gabbidon (lead guitar, vocals), and Ro ...
* "Sheba" (1989), song by
Bad Brains Bad Brains are an American punk rock band formed in Washington, D.C., in 1976. They are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an ade ...
* "The Original Queen of Sheba" (1991), song by
Great White Great White is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. The band is named after both the shark with the same name, and guitarist Mark Kendall's former stage nickname. In August 2008, Great White estimated they had sold aroun ...
* "Machine Gun" (1993), by
Slowdive Slowdive (stylized in lowercase) are an English people, English rock band that formed in Reading, Berkshire, in 1989. The band consists of Neil Halstead (vocals, guitars), Rachel Goswell (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Christian Savill (guitars) ...
* " Aïcha" (1996), by Khaled * " Makeda" (1998), French-language R&B by French-Cameroonian duo
Les Nubians Les Nubians is a French musical duo, composed of sisters Hélène and Célia Faussart from Paris, France. In 1985, the sisters moved with their parents to Chad. Seven years later, they returned to Bordeaux, France, and began singing a cappella, p ...
* "Balqis" (2000), song by
Siti Nurhaliza Siti Nurhaliza binti Tarudin (Jawi script, Jawi: سيتي نورهاليزا بنت تارودين, ; born 11 January 1979) is a renowned Malaysian singer, songwriter, and actress, celebrated for her significant contributions to the music and ...
* "Thing Called Love" (1987), song by
John Hiatt John Robert Hiatt (born August 20, 1952) is an American singer-songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New wave music, new wave, blues, and country music, country. Hiatt has been nominated for nine Gramm ...


Television

* Played by
Halle Berry Halle Maria Berry ( ; born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. She began her career as a model and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant of 1986 and also placing six ...
in '' Solomon & Sheba'' (1995) * Played by
Vivica A. Fox Vivica Anjanetta Fox (born July 30, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She began her career on ''Soul Train'' (19821983) and played roles on the daytime television soap operas ''Days of Our Lives'' (1988) and ''Generations (American TV s ...
in ''
Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
'' (1997) * Played by Andrulla Blanchette in ''
Lexx ''Lexx'' (also known as ''LEXX: The Dark Zone Stories'' and ''Tales from a Parallel Universe'') is a science fiction television series created by Lex Gigeroff and brothers Paul Donovan (writer), Paul and Michael Donovan (producer), Michael Dono ...
'', Season 4, Episode 21: "Viva Lexx Vegas" (2002) * Played by Amani Zain in ''Queen of Sheba: Behind the Myth'' (2002) * Played by Yetide Badaki in ''
American Gods ''American Gods'' (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana (culture), Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shad ...
'' as Bilquis


See also

*
Arwa al-Sulayhi Arwa al-Sulayhi (), () was a long-reigning ruler of Yemen, firstly as the co-ruler of her first two husbands and then as sole ruler, from 1067 until her death in 1138. She was the last of the rulers of the Sulayhid dynasty, Sulayhid Dynasty and ...
*
Banu Hamdan Banu Hamdan (; Ancient South Arabian script, Musnad: 𐩠𐩣𐩵𐩬) is an ancient, large, and prominent Arab tribe in northern Yemen. Origins and location The Hamdan stemmed from the eponymous progenitor Awsala (nickname Hamdan) whose descent ...
* Barran Temple, also known as "Throne of Bilqis" * Belkis * Belqeys Castle *
Biblical and Quranic narratives The Quran contains references to more than fifty people and events also found in the Bible. While the stories told in each book are generally comparable, there are also some notable differences. Often, stories related in the Quran tend to co ...
*
Bilocation Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is an alleged psychic or miraculous ability wherein an individual or object is located (or appears to be located) in two distinct places at the same time. Reports of bilocational phenomena have been made i ...
*
Hadhramaut Hadhramaut ( ; ) is a geographic region in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula which includes the Yemeni governorates of Hadhramaut, Shabwah and Mahrah, Dhofar in southwestern Oman, and Sharurah in the Najran Province of Saudi A ...
*
List of legendary monarchs of Ethiopia A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
Minaeans Ma'in (; ) was an ancient South Arabian kingdom in modern-day Yemen. It was located along the strip of desert called Ramlat al-Sab'atayn, Ṣayhad by medieval Arab geographers, which is now known as Ramlat al-Sab'atayn. Wadd was the national ...
*
Qahtanite The Qahtanites (; ), also known as Banu Qahtan () or by their nickname ''al-Arab al-Ariba'' (), are the Arabs who originate from modern-day Yemen. The term "Qahtan" is mentioned in multiple Ancient South Arabian script, Ancient South Arabian ins ...
*
Qataban Qataban () was an ancient Yemenite kingdom in South Arabia that existed from the early 1st millennium BCE to the late 1st or 2nd centuries CE. It was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ, Maʿīn ...
* Sudabeh


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Kisāʾī, ''Qiṣaṣ'' (1356 A.H.), 285–92 * G. Rosch, ''Die Königin von Saba als Königin Bilqis'' (Jahrb. f. Prot. Theol., 1880) 524‒72 * Thaʿlabī, ''Qiṣaṣ'' ̣(1356 A.H.), 262– * G. Weil, ''The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud ...'' (1846) * M. Grünbaum, ''Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sagenkunde'' (1893) 211‒21 * E. Littmann, ''The legend of the Queen of Sheba in the tradition of Axum'' (1904) * L. Ginzberg, ''Legends of the Jews'', 3 (1911), 411; 4 (1913), 143–9; (1928), 288–91 * H. Speyer, ''Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran'' (1931, repr. 1961), 390–9 * E. Budge, ''The Queen of Sheba and her only son Menyelek'' (1932) * J. Ryckmans, ''L'Institution monarchique en Arabie méridionale avant l'Islam'' (1951) * E. Ullendorff, ''Candace (Acts VIII, 27) and the Queen of Sheba'' (New Testament Studies, 1955, 53‒6) * E. Ullendorff, ''Hebraic-Jewish elements in Abyssinian (monophysite) Christianity'' (JSS, 1956, 216‒56) * D. Hubbard, ''The literary sources of the Kebra Nagast'' (St. Andrews University Ph. D. thesis, 1956, 278‒308) * ''La Persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle'' (1956) * Bulletin of American Schools of Oriental Research 143 (1956) 6–10; 145 (1957) 25–30; 151 (1958) 9–16 * A. Jamme, ''La Paléographique sud-arabe de J. Pirenne'' (1957) * R. Bowen, F. Albright (eds.), ''Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia'' (1958) * ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible'' (1963) 2067–70 * T. Tamrat, ''Church and State in Ethiopia'' (1972) 1270–1527 * W. Daum (ed.), ''Die Königin von Saba: Kunst, Legende und Archäologie zwischen Morgenland und Abendland'' (1988) * J. Lassner, ''Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam'' (1993) * M. Brooks (ed.), ''Kebra Nagast (The Glory of Kings)'' (1998) * J. Breton, ''Arabia Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D.'' (1999) * D. Crummey, ''Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century'' (2000) * A. Gunther (ed.), ''Caravan Kingdoms: Yemen and the Ancient Incense Trade'' (2005)


External links

* * * {{Authority control 10th-century BC monarchs 10th-century BC women Arab queens Beta Israel Books of Chronicles people Books of Kings people Converts to Judaism from paganism Ethiopian Jews Jewish monarchs Jews and Judaism in Ethiopia Jinniyyat Legendary monarchs Lilith Monarchs in the Hebrew Bible Monarchs of Yemen People of the Quran Race-related controversies in art Solomon Unnamed people of the Bible Witches in folklore Women in the Hebrew Bible