Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba (Hebrew: מַלְכַּת שְׁבָא, Malkaṯ Šəḇāʾ; Arabic: ملكة سبأ, romanized: Malikat Saba; Ge'ez: ንግሥተ ሳባ) is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for the Israelite King Solomon. This account has undergone extensive Jewish, Islamic and Ethiopian elaborations, and has become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in the Middle East.[1]
Modern historians identify Sheba with the South Arabian kingdom of Saba in present-day Yemen. The queen's existence is disputed among historians.[2]
Narratives[]
Biblical[]
The Queen of Sheba, (Hebrew: מַלְכַּת־שְׁבָא,[3] malkat-šəḇā in the Hebrew Bible, Koinē Greek: βασίλισσα Σαβὰ in the Septuagint,[4] Syriac: ܡܠܟܬ ܫܒܐ,[5] Ge'ez: ንግሥተ ፡ ሳባ[6]) whose name is not stated, came to Jerusalem "with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones" (I Kings 10:2). "Never again came such an abundance of spices" (10:10; II Chron. 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.[7][8]
The use of the term ḥiddot or 'riddles' (I Kings 10:1), an Aramaic loanword whose shape points to a sound shift no earlier than the sixth century B.C., indicates a late origin for the text.[7] Since there is no mention of the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, Martin Noth has held that the Book of Kings received a definitive redaction around 550 BC.[9]
Sheba was quite well known in the classical world, and its country was called Arabia Felix.[8] Around the middle of the first millennium B.C., there were Sabaeans also in the Horn of Africa, in the area that later became the realm of Aksum.[10] There are five places in the Bible where the writer distinguishes Sheba (שׁבא), i.e. the Yemenite Sabaeans, from Seba (סבא), i.e. the African Sabaeans. In Ps. 72:10 they are mentioned together: "the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts".[11] This spelling differentiation, however, may be purely factitious; the indigenous inscriptions make no such difference, and both Yemenite and African Sabaeans are there spelt in exactly the same way.[10]
The alphabetic inscriptions from South Arabia furnish no evidence for women rulers, but Assyrian inscriptions repeatedly mention Arab queens in the north.[12] Queens are well attested in Arabia, though according to Kitchen, not after 690 B.C.[7] 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.[13] This title may be derived from Ancient Egyptian m'kit (