The Queen Of Sheba

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• 1. Layers of the legend
• 2. Jewish legend
• 3. Unpicking the clues
• 4. Islamic tradition
• 5. Ethiopian tradition
• 6. An enigma
• 7. Find out more
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Layers of the legend

The Queen of Sheba - an exotic and mysterious woman of power - is immortalised in the world's great religious works, among them the Hebrew Bible and the Muslim Koran. She also appears in Turkish and Persian painting, in Kabbalistic treatises, and in medieval Christian mystical works, where she is viewed as the embodiment of Divine Wisdom and a foreteller of the cult of the Holy Cross. In Africa and Arabia her tale is still told to this day and, indeed, her tale has been told and retold in many lands for nearly 3,000 years.

'The sources and history of the legend, however, are elusive.'

Hollywood, too, has fallen under her spell, releasing its own polished epic version of her story in the glossy Solomon and Sheba of 1959. The sources and history of the legend, however, are elusive. No other popular heroine is so celebrated but so puzzling.

Trying to ascertain who she may really have been is an arduous task, and a question soon arises. Why, if so little is known about her, has she become such an important figure? The tales of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba have, after all, even provided the founding myths for the modern states of Israel and Ethiopia.

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Published: 03-02-2005