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The Queen of Sheba (Hebrew מלכת שבא Malkat Shva, Arabic ملكة سبأ Malikat sabaʾ, Ge'ez: ንግሥተ ሳባ Nigista Saba), referred to in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Qur'an, and Ethiopian history, was the ruler of the ancient kingdom of Sheba. The actual location of the historical kingdom is disputed between Ethiopia and Yemen.

Known to the Ethiopian people as Makeda (Ge'ez: ማክዳ mākidā, which, in Ethiopic languages, means "pillow"), she has been called a variety of names by different peoples in different times. In Islamic tradition she was Bilqis. To King Solomon of Israel she was the Queen of Sheba. She supposedly lived in the 10th century BC.

In the Old Testament genealogy of the nations (Genesis 10:7), Sheba, along with Dedan, is listed as one of the descendants of Noah's son Ham (as son of Raamah, son of Cush, son of Ham).

Contents 1 Biblical Hebrew account 2 Modern African account 3 Qur'anic account 4 Modern Arab view 5 Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Yemen 6 Ethiopian and Eritrean account 7 Christian interpretations 8 Medieval depictions 9 Renaissance depictions 10 Modern theories 11 The Queen of Sheba in popular culture 11.1 Songs 11.2 Operas 11.3 Ballets 11.4 Movies 11.5 Books 11.6 Poems 11.7 Sport 12 See also 13 Footnotes 14 Primary sources 15 Secondary sources

According to the Hebrew Bible, the unnamed queen of the land of Sheba heard of the great wisdom of King Solomon of Israel and journeyed there with gifts of spices, gold, precious stones and beautiful wood to test him with questions, as recorded in First Kings 10:1-13 (largely copied in 2 Chronicles 9:1–12).

The queen was awed by Solomon's wisdom and wealth, and pronounced a blessing on Solomon's God. Solomon reciprocated with gifts and "everything she desired," whereupon the queen returned to her country. The queen was apparently quite rich herself, as she brought 4.5 tons of gold with her to give to Solomon (1 Kings 10:10).

In the Biblical passages which refer explicitly to the Queen of Sheba there is no hint of love or sexual attraction between her and Solomon. The two are depicted merely as fellow monarchs engaged in the affairs of state.

The Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) contains some references which have been at various times interpreted as referring to love between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Thus, the female lover at 1:5 declares

However, the young woman of the Song of Songs continues to deny the romantic advances of her suitor, whom many commentators identify as King Solomon. In any case, other than the colour of her skin there is little to identify this speaker - who clearly regards "The Daughters of Jerusalem" as her peer group and is defensive about their teasing - with the rich and powerful foreign queen depicted in the Book of Kings.

Later Ethiopian tradition firmly asserts that King Solomon did seduce and impregnate his guest, and provides a detailed story of how he went about it (see later section) - a matter of considerable importance to Ethiopians, as their Emperors traced their lineage to that union.

Sheba is alleged to be one of two African queens mentioned in the Bible, the second being Kandake in the Book of Acts. Josephus refers to Sheba as "Queen of Ethiopia and Sheba". Both early church fathers Origen and Jerome considered her a queen of Black African nationality.

Indeed, according to Strabo, in the second century BC Ethiopians lived along both the Eastern African and Arabian coastlines. Homer further has this to say: "The Ethiopians that border Egypt are themselves, also, divided into two groups; for some of them live in Asia and others in Libya [Africa] though they differ in no respect from each other". There is no doubt that many peoples crossed the narrows of the Red Sea in both directions from an early date, and even in historical times, Ethiopian kings have held dominance over parts of southern Arabia, e.g., in the 6th century AD.

Main article: Islamic view of the Queen of Sheba

The Qur'an never mentions the Queen of Sheba by name, though Arab sources name her Balqis. The story is similar to the one in the Bible. The Qur'anic narrative has Solomon getting reports of a kingdom ruled by a queen whose people worship the sun. He sends a letter inviting her to come to him in submission to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds (Alamin). She replies with a gift after consulting her people. He replies threatening an invasion. Then one of the servants of Solomon (who had the knowledge of the "Book") proposes to bring him the throne of Sheba 'in the twinkling of an eye' (27:40). The queen arrives at his court, is shown her throne, and when she enters his crystal palace she accepts Abrahamic monotheism and the worship of God alone.

Some modern Arab academics have placed the Queen of Sheba as a ruler of a trading colony in Northwest Arabia, established by South Arabian kingdoms^{[citation needed]}. Modern archeological finds do indeed confirm the fact that such colonies existed, with south Arabian script and artifacts, although nothing specific to Belqees has been uncovered.

Recent archaeological discoveries in the Mahram Bilqis - pronounced Mah-ram Bill-kees - (or Temple of the Moon God) in Mareb, Yemen support the view that Queen Sheba ruled over southern Arabia with evidence suggesting the area to be the capital of the Kingdom of Sheba. A team of researchers funded by the American Foundation for the Study of Man (AFSM) and led by University of Calgary archaeology professor Dr. Bill Glanzman has been working to "unlock the secrets of a 3,000-year-old temple in Yemen." "We have an enormous job ahead of us," says Glanzman. "Our first task is to wrest the sanctuary from the desert sands, documenting our findings as we go. We're trying to determine how the temple was associated with the Queen of Sheba, how the sanctuary was used throughout history, and how it came to play such an important role in Arab folklore." ^[1]

The imperial family of Ethiopia claims its origin directly from the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba^[2] (Ge`ez: ንግሥተ ሣብአ nigiśta Śab'a , who is named Makeda (Ge`ez: ማክዳ) in the Ethiopian account,(which, from the Ethiopic languages literally translates to English as "pillow").

The etymology of her name is uncertain, but there are two principal opinions about its source. One group, which includes the British scholar Edward Ullendorff, holds that it is a corruption of "Candace", the Ethiopian queen mentioned in the New Testament Acts; the other group connects the name with Macedonia, and relates this story to the Ethiopian legends about Alexander the Great.

The Italian scholar Carlo Conti Rossini, however, was unconvinced by either of these theories and believed the matter unresolved.^[3]

The Ethiopian narrative Kebra Negast ('the Glory of Kings'), is supposed to record the history of Makeda and her descendants. King Solomon is said in this account to have seduced the Queen, and sired a son by her, who would eventually become Menelik I, the first Emperor of Ethiopia.

The account given - which has no parallel in the original Biblical story - is that during one of the Queen's visits, King Solomon said she could not take anything without asking first. That night, after eating a spicy meal the king had given her, the Queen of Sheba experienced a great thirst and drank the cup of water next to her without asking. When King Solomon found out, he demanded that she sleep with him as punisment.

The tradition that the Biblical Queen of Sheba was a ruler of Ethiopia who visited King Solomon in Jerusalem in ancient Israel is supported by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who identified Solomon’s visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.

While there are no traditions of matriarchal rule in Yemen during the early first millennium BC, the earliest inscriptions of the rulers of Dʿmt in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea mention queens of very high status, possibly equal to their kings.^[4]

For the Ethiopian Monarchy, the Solomonic/Sheba lineage was of considerable political and cultural importance. Ethiopia had been converted to Christianity by Egyptian Copts, and the Coptic Church strove for centuries to keep the Ethiopians in dependant and subservient condition, which the Ethiopian Emperors greatly resented.

The Solomonic descent made the Ethiopians senior by far to the Kopts, their involvement in Biblical affairs long predating Christianity itself. Indeed, since The New Testament starts with Jesus' genealogy back to Kings David and Solomon, the Ethiopian Emperors were in effect Jesus' own cousins (albeit distant ones).

The Queen of Sheba is mentioned as the "Queen of the South" in the Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31 in the New Testament, where Jesus indicates that she and the Ninevites will judge the generation of Jesus' contemporaries who rejected him.

Christian interpretations of the Queen of Sheba scriptures in the Hebrew Bible typically have emphasized both the historical and metaphorical values in the story. The account of the Queen of Sheba can be interpreted as Christian metaphor and analogy. The Queen's visit to Solomon has been compared to the metaphorical marriage of the Church to Christ where Solomon is the anointed one or messiah and Sheba represents a Gentile population submitting to the messiah.

The Queen of Sheba's chastity has also been depicted as a foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary, and the three gifts that she brought (gold, spices and stones) have been seen as analogous to the gifts of the Magi (gold, frankincense and myrrh), which is consistent with a passage from Isaiah 60:6; And they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring forth gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord.^[5]

Art in the Middle Ages depicting the visit of the Queen of Sheba includes the Portal of the Mother of God at the 13th Century Amiens Cathedral, which is included as an analogy as part of a larger depiction of the gifts of the Magi.^[6]. The 12th century cathedrals at Strasbourg, Chartres, Rochester and Canterbury include artistic renditions in such elements as stained glass windows and door jamb decorations.^[7]

Boccaccio's On Famous Women (Latin: De Mulieribus Claris) follows Josephus in calling her Nicaula. Boccaccio goes on to explain that not only was she the queen of Ethiopia and Egypt, but also the queen of Arabia. She supposedly also had a grand palace on "a very large island" called Menroe which was located someplace on the Nile "practically on the other side of the world." From here Nicaula crossed the deserts of Arabia, through Ethiopia and Egypt, and up the the coast of the Red Sea, to come to Jerusalem to see the great King Solomon. Boccaccio also explains that Nicaula was also known as the Queen of Sheba in the "Sacred Scriptures".^[8]

Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies continues the convention of calling the Queen of Sheba, Nicaula. Piero della Francesca's frescoes in Arezzo (ca 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. See the Piero della Francesca entry for images. The Renaissance continuation of the metaphorical view of the Queen of Sheba as an analogy to the gifts of the Magi is also clearly evident in the Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1510 by Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch chooses to depict a scene of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon in an ornately decorated collar worn by one of the Magi.^[9] For some reason, the Queen of Sheba is usually depicted as having hairy feet, or being entirely cover in hair, thousands of years after the fact. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus refers to the Queen of Sheba as "Saba", when Mephistopheles is trying to persuade Faustus of the wisdom of the women with whom he shall supposedly be presented every morning.^[10]

A theory has been voiced that the meeting between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba was not for love or admiration but a discussion about trade. According to the Bible Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber. The theory is that Solomon intended to routinely sail to East Africa and there trade, bypassing the South Arabian kingdom of Sheba which previously acted as middleman in this trade.^{[citation needed]} The revisionist historian Ralph Ellis suggests that the Queen of Sheba (Seba) may have been the queen of Pharaoh Psusennes II, who ruled in Lower Egypt in this same era and whose Egyptian name was Pa-Seba-Khaen-Nuit. He suggests that the link between this queen and Ethiopia may have been derived from the Kebra Negast, which indicates that the eastern borders of Ethiopia terminated at Gaza and Jerusalem (KN 92).

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In Britain, and Canada, there is a common colloquial remark "And I'm the Queen of Sheba." or "If (that is so), then I'm the Queen of Sheba.", meaning "I do not believe that statement."

Another common colloquial usage in the UK and North America is to poke fun at another person who has dressed up fancily, or has perhaps displayed superior behavioral traits, resulting in someone remarking, "Who does she think she is, The Queen of Sheba?".

• Bonnie Raitt makes a reference to the Queen of Sheba in the song "Thing Called Love" by saying "Baby, you know I ain't no Queen of Sheba." The song was written by John Hiatt.

• Dolly Dots make a reference to The Queen of Sheba in the song "Leila Queen of Sheba" by saying "this day about a story talk by Leila Queen of Sheba"

• Cassandra Wilson refers to the Queen of Sheba as Makeda in the second verse of the song "Solomon Sang".

• Nas makes a reference to the Queen of Sheba in the song "Big Girl" from his Nastradamus CD, saying "I need her, I'll eat her / Do anything to please her / My ghetto queen of Sheba".

• Les Nubians make reference to the Queen of Sheba as the subject of their song "Makeda"

• Jandek refers to the Queen of Sheba in the song "Sheba Doesn't Have". ("The Queen of Sheba/Doesn’t have nothing on you/You dance on my necktie/Like it was your tattoo/i fall on my face here and dribble all about"). Its on Newcastle Sunday recorded live at the Sage Gateshead in Newcastle.

• The Poor Righteous Teachers include the Queen of Sheba in a list of important black women throughout history in the film clip to their song "Shakiyla"

• The Raii musician Cheb Khaled also describes Aicha's glamor as that of the Queen of Sheba, "Elle est passée a cote de moi. Sans un regard, Reine de Sabbat."

• The Norwegian blues-rock band "Divin´Ducks", have a song called "Queen of Sheba". Where they sing about the queen of sheba and king salamon.

• World Wide Message Tribe has a song titled "Return of the Queen of Sheba" on their 1997 titled album Revived.

• The Queen of Sheba is referred to in U2's newly released song "Wave of Sorrow", which was originally written during the 1980s as a reflection of lead singer Bono's experiences volunteering with the Ethiopian famine.

• George Frideric Handel, oratorio Solomon (1749). The Act III symphony is entitled 'The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba' and is probably the best known piece from this work.
• Charles Gounod, Reine de Saba (1862)
• Karl Goldmark, Die Königin von Saba (1875)

• Ottorino Respighi, Belkis, regina di Saba (1930–31)

• Queen of Sheba's Pearls (2004), starring Swedish actress Helena Bergström and Nathan Eby, who played the Princess of Sheba.
• The Queen of Sheba (1921), starring Betty Blythe
• Solomon and Sheba (1959), starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida
• The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man (1963), directed by Ron Rice
• Solomon and Sheba (1995), starring Halle Berry

• Wisdom's Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba (2005), written by India Edghill.
• Small explicitly sexual role in American Gods (2002), as Bilquis, written by Neil Gaiman.
• "Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholarship", written by Dr Bernard Leeman, Queensland Academic Press 2005, (3rd edition 2007) ISBN 0-9758022-0-8
• "Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen" (2001), written by Nicholas Clapp
• Brief appearance in The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874), by Flaubert
• "Sandstorm", a novel written by James Rollins. The Queen of Sheba is featured prominently.
• "Queen Sheba's Ring" (1910), by H. Rider Haggard.
• The Butterfly that Stamped: one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, featuring the queen "wise Balkis of Sheba" who is said to be married to the polygamist King Solomon son of David. She is the only one of 1000 wives who does not quarrel with Solomon, out of her adoration for him, and so is herself sad when the incessant quarrels of the other 999 wives saddens their husband. She eventually tricks Solomon into making all the other queens frightened of his power, so that they will not argue again.
• "Menachem's seed", a novel published by Carl Djerassi in 1996 features the Queen of Sheba, when Menachem—the main male character of the novel—uses his interpretation of Solomon's relationship to the Queen as a vehicle to impress Melanie—the main female character.
• Made mention to briefly in The English Patient (1993) by Michael Ondaatje

• "Poem for Flora" by Nikki Giovanni
• "Solomon to Sheba" by W.B. Yeats

• Queen of the South, a football club in Scotland.

• Sheba
• Minaean
• Bilocation
• King Solomon
• Old Testament
• Teleportation in Islam
• Islamic view of the Queen of Sheba

• Joseph, Antiquitates iudaicae viii.6.2
• Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historis vi.32.154

• Makeda, Queen of Sheba by Torrey Philemon.
• Queen of Sheba Temple restored (2000, BBC)
• The Queen Of Sheba by Michael Wood and the BBC.
• The Queen of Sheba, web directory with thumbnail galleries
• Jewish Encyclopedia with information on Jewish and Muslim legends
• "Queen of Sheba mystifies at the Bowers" — Gladys Rama's review of a museum exhibit for UC Irvine's 'New U' publication