📜 LEGEND · EXP. Nº0270 ACTIVE

The Queen of Sheba

Every version of the Queen of Sheba can be dated, and the dates do not agree with each other.

Where does the legend of The Queen of Sheba come from?

Location: Aksum (Tigray), Ethiopia
Kind of legend: Myth
Coordinates: 14.13, 38.72
Last updated: 2026-10-01

LOCATION

What is the legend of The Queen of Sheba?

The oldest surviving account, 1 Kings 10:1-13, runs to thirteen verses: a queen comes to test Solomon with riddles, brings gold and spices, and goes home. She has no name, no country beyond the word Sheba, and no child. Josephus, writing around AD 93, is the first surviving writer to call her a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. The Qur'an tells the scene with the hoopoe and the glass floor and never names her; Bilqis comes from later Arabic commentators. The Ark of the Covenant is described in Ethiopian hands in an Arabic text of about 1208, a century before the Kebra Nagast. And the son arrives only with the Kebra Nagast, where he is not called Menelik at all but Bayna-Lehkem. The chain does not stop at the manuscripts: in 1931 the Ethiopian constitution made the descent from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba an article of law, and it stayed on the books until the emperor was deposed in 1974.

The Queen of Sheba, Aksum (Tigray), Ethiopia — Queen of Sheba, attributed to the British etcher Edward Slocombe (1850-1915) and dated 1907. Public domain. The attribution and the date come from the Wikimedia Commons file, whose only stated source is a blog post; we have found no museum or catalogue record for the work. Image: Edward Slocombe · Public domain

What is the history of The Queen of Sheba?

The Queen of Sheba is usually introduced as a figure "of the ancient world", which sounds like a date and is not one. She can be dated, but only through the texts that tell her story, and those can be lined up one after another. This file does that: work, passage, date, and what each one adds. The oldest surviving account is 1 Kings 10:1-13, thirteen verses. A malkat Shəvaʾ, "queen of Sheba", hears of Solomon's fame and comes "to test him with riddles" (Hebrew bə-ḥidot). She arrives with camels bearing spices, gold and precious stones; Solomon answers everything; she gives him 120 talents of gold and "a large quantity of spices, and precious stones"; and in verse 13 "she and her attendants left and returned to her own land". That is the whole account: it gives no personal name, no date, no location beyond the word Sheba, no marriage and no child. 2 Chronicles 9:1-12 repeats the episode almost word for word and adds nothing to the queen; its one visible change is that Solomon's burnt offerings become "the procession with which he went up to the House of the LORD". The first surviving text to move her to Africa is not Ethiopian and it is not medieval. It is Flavius Josephus, writing in Rome around AD 93-94. In Antiquities of the Jews VIII.vi.5 he calls her "a woman queen of Egypt and Ethiopia", says she was "inquisitive into philosophy", and has her come to Jerusalem "in order to have a trial of his wisdom, while she proposed questions of very great difficulty". A few paragraphs earlier he had argued that the queen Herodotus calls Nicaule is the same woman. Josephus gives her a continent and a name from Greek historiography, and still no son. The Qur'an, in the seventh century, gives her the scene that most of the world now pictures: the hoopoe that reports a woman ruling in Sabaʾ (27:22-23), Solomon's letter, the throne fetched by one "who had knowledge from the Scripture", and the courtyard floor of polished glass that she mistakes for water and wades into, uncovering her shins, before she submits (27:44). Sura 27 has ninety-three verses and never names her. The name Bilqīs is not in it. It comes from the later Arabic commentators and story collections; Budge, summarising them in 1922, works from al-Bayḍāwī, a thirteenth-century exegete, and states flatly that "Arab writers call her Balkis, and Ethiopian writers Makeda; but neither of these names is ancient". The Ark reaches Ethiopia in the record before the Kebra Nagast does. The Arabic work known as Abū Ṣāliḥ the Armenian's Churches and Monasteries of Egypt, which its editor B. T. A. Evetts assigned to "the first years of the thirteenth century" because the latest event dated in it is a death of January-February 1208, describes the object as a going concern: "The Abyssinians possess also the Ark of the Covenant, in which are the two tables of stone... The Ark of the Covenant is placed upon the altar, but is not so wide as the altar; it is as high as the knee of a man, and is overlaid with gold; and upon its lid there are crosses of gold; and there are five precious stones upon it, one at each of the four corners, and one in the middle. The liturgy is celebrated upon the Ark four times in the year." What that passage does not contain is a queen, a son, or Solomon. The Menelik story appears on the same page of the 1895 edition, but in a footnote signed by the editor Alfred J. Butler, seven centuries later. The son arrives with the Kebra Nagast, and he arrives under another name. In Budge's complete 1922 translation the queen is Mākədā, and of the child the text says: "And the child grew and she called his name Bayna-Lehkem." At his anointing in Jerusalem he is renamed David. The form Menyelek is Budge's, on his own title page and in his chapter headings, where it appears as a gloss: "Bayna-Lehkem (i.e. Menyelek) is anointed King of Ethiopia, and is called David (II)". The book's own colophon, printed at pages 228-229, states its chain of transmission in the first person: "We have turned this book into Arabic from a Coptic manuscript belonging to the throne of Mark the Evangelist... We have translated it in the four hundred and ninth year of mercy in the country of Ethiopia, in the days of Gabra Maskal the king, who is called Lalibala." The Ethiopic translator signs it: "pray ye for me, your servant Isaac the poor man", and names the governor who authorised the work, Yaʿebika Egziʾe, who "approved and said unto me, Work". Budge places that year of mercy between 1314 and 1344. The last link is not a manuscript. On 16 July 1931 the first written constitution of Ethiopia made the descent a rule of law. Article 3: "the imperial dignity shall remain perpetually attached to the line of His Majesty Haile Selassie I, descendant of King Sahle Selassie, whose line descends without interruption from the dynasty of Menelik I, son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Queen of Sheba." The Revised Constitution of 4 November 1955 repeated it as Article 2 and quietly dropped the hedge: no longer "the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Queen of Sheba", but "the Queen of Ethiopia, the Queen of Sheba". The article lapsed with the dynasty: Haile Selassie was deposed on 12 September 1974.

Timeline: the documented record of The Queen of Sheba

c. 840-790 cal BC Radiocarbon dates from the German Archaeological Institute's excavation of the Almaqah temple of Bar'an at Marib - locally 'Arsh Bilqis, the throne of Bilqis - cluster here. The excavators report that the occupation of the basalt Temple 2 'is now reliably dated to end during the terminal 9th century BC'; the earlier Temple 1 is undated, and their abstract says the dating series 'extend from the 10th century BC'.
Reign of Sargon II (721-705 BC) The Assyrian royal inscriptions list tribute 'from Pir'u, king of Egypt, Samsi, queen of Arabia, It'amra, the Sabean'. It is the earliest external attestation of Saba we have read - and in it Arabia has a named queen while Saba is represented by a man.
c. 700 BC Approximate date of the Almaqah temple at Yeha, some 30 km north-east of Adwa in Tigray: one of the best preserved buildings of Sabaean architecture, according to the team that laser-scanned it in 2011.
1 Kings 10:1-13 The oldest surviving telling, thirteen verses long. A queen of Sheba comes 'to test him with riddles', brings spices, gold and precious stones, gives Solomon 120 talents of gold, and 'returned to her own land'. No name, no date, no son. 2 Chronicles 9:1-12, later, repeats it almost word for word and adds nothing about her.
c. AD 93-94 Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews VIII.vi.5-6, calls her 'a woman queen of Egypt and Ethiopia' and identifies her with the Nicaule of Herodotus. This is the first surviving text that moves her to Africa - twelve centuries before the Kebra Nagast - and it still gives her no son.
Seventh century Qur'an 27:20-44 gives the scene its lasting images: the hoopoe, Solomon's letter, the throne fetched in an instant, and the glass floor mistaken for water. Across the ninety-three verses of the sura she is never named; the name Bilqis belongs to the later Arabic commentators.
First years of the 13th century (latest event dated in the book: January-February 1208) The Arabic Churches and Monasteries of Egypt attributed to Abu Salih the Armenian describes the Ark of the Covenant in Abyssinian hands in physical detail - knee-high, gold-plated, gold crosses and five stones on the lid, liturgy celebrated on it four times a year. It says nothing about a queen, a son or Solomon: those come from the editor's 1895 footnote.
'Year of mercy' 409 - placed by Budge between 1314 and 1344 The colophon of the Kebra Nagast states its own chain of transmission: Coptic to Arabic 'from a manuscript belonging to the throne of Mark the Evangelist', then into Ethiopic by 'your servant Isaac the poor man', with the approval of the governor Ya'ebika Egzi'e. This is the first text to give the queen a son, and it calls him Bayna-Lehkem, not Menelik.
February 1922 E. A. Wallis Budge publishes the first complete English translation of the Kebra Nagast, and titles it The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek. The name is his editorial choice: inside the translation the child is Bayna-Lehkem. Budge also writes, of Balkis and Makeda, that 'neither of these names is ancient'.
16 July 1931 Ethiopia's first written constitution makes the descent a rule of law. Article 3 attaches the imperial dignity perpetually to a line descending 'without interruption from the dynasty of Menelik I, son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Ethiopia, known as the Queen of Sheba'.
4 November 1955 The Revised Constitution repeats the clause as Article 2 and drops the hedge: Menelik I is now 'son of the Queen of Ethiopia, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of Jerusalem'. The words 'known as' are gone.
1966-1968 Francis Anfray excavates the building west of Aksum that local tradition calls the Palace of the Queen of Sheba. David Phillipson's report on the British Institute in Eastern Africa's excavations at Aksum in 1993-7 calls it an edifice 'of probable sixth-century date'.
12 September 1974 Haile Selassie is deposed by the military committee that became the Derg, and the constitutional article that made the Queen of Sheba an ancestor of the head of state lapses with the dynasty it protected.

Is there a rational explanation for The Queen of Sheba?

The chain above can be filled in without a gap from 1 Kings to Article 2 of 1955. It is at the other end that it stops, and saying where is more useful than repeating that her origin is a mystery. The kingdom is real and it is documented. In the Assyrian royal inscriptions of Sargon II (721-705 BC), Saba appears in a tribute list beside Egypt and Arabia: "From Pir'u, king of Egypt, Samsi, queen of Arabia, It'amra, the Sabean, the kings of the seacoast and the desert, I received gold, products of the mountain, precious stones, ivory... horses, and camels, as their tribute" (Luckenbill's translation; a second Sargon text in the same volume spells the Sabaean Ithamar). In it Arabia is represented by a queen with a name, and Saba by a man. Assyrian scribes were perfectly willing to write down a reigning Arabian queen - Assurbanipal's inscriptions name another, Adia - so the absence of a Sabaean one in the surviving lists is at least worth noticing. The two great Sabaean sanctuaries at Marib carry her name in Arabic today - Maḥram Bilqīs, "the sanctuary of Bilqis", and ʿArsh Bilqīs, "the throne of Bilqis" - and both were temples of Almaqah, the god of Saba. The German Archaeological Institute excavated the second of them, the Almaqah temple of Barʾān, from 1988 to 1997 and published twenty-four radiocarbon dates, the oldest around 840-790 cal BC. The excavators conclude that the occupation of the basalt Temple 2 "is now reliably dated to end during the terminal 9th century BC", that the date of the earlier Temple 1 "remains unclear but needs to antedate Temple 2", and that "the beginning of ritual practices is now evidenced for a period prior to the late 9th century BC"; their abstract says the dating series "extend from the 10th century BC". The foundation of the sanctuary is therefore still undated, and the paper connects it with a queen only through its local name, which the authors translate as "Throne of the Queen of Sheba". On the Ethiopian side, the Almaqah temple at Yeha, about 30 km north-east of Adwa, is a Sabaean building dated to about 700 BC, which the team that laser-scanned it in 2011 counts among the best preserved buildings of Sabaean architecture. The building at Aksum that local tradition calls the palace of the Queen of Sheba, Dungur, was excavated by Francis Anfray between 1966 and 1968. David Phillipson's report on the British Institute in Eastern Africa's excavations at Aksum in 1993-7 calls it "the adjacent Dungur edifice of probable sixth-century date", and notes that a stela baseplate was re-used in building it: an Aksumite building some sixteen centuries younger than the encounter it is named for. Two negative findings, with their controls, because a zero proves nothing on its own. Bilqīs and Balqīs appear zero times in the ninety-three verses of sura 27; in the same pass, "Solomon" appears twelve times, "hoopoe" twice, "throne" five times and "glass" once. And in Budge's 1922 translation of the Kebra Nagast, once the 110 running page-headers are stripped out, the form Menyelek survives only in Budge's own index and chapter titles; the narrative names the child Bayna-Lehkem, and later David. Control in the same pass on the same file: "Solomon" 501 occurrences, "Ark" 172, "Mākədā" 42. None of this touches what anyone believes. The Kebra Nagast is a living text of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and every Ethiopian church keeps a tabot, the replica tablet at the centre of its liturgy. What the evidence does settle is narrower and duller: a story with no name in its oldest telling acquired a continent in AD 93, a name around the thirteenth century, a son in the fourteenth, and a constitutional article in 1931.

Can you visit The Queen of Sheba?

The pin on this file is Aksum, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, which is where the tradition is kept. The archaeologically documented kingdom of Sabaʾ lies at Marib in Yemen, about 725 km east-north-east across the Red Sea. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office page for Ethiopia, last updated on 29 May 2026 and unchanged when it was consulted on 22 September 2026, states that “FCDO advises against all travel to Tigray region”, and says the same of the neighbouring Amhara region. The war of 2020 to 2022 reached Aksum directly, and a massacre of civilians took place in the town in November 2020. Everything written below about opening hours or access is provisional on that. Aksum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980 for ruins that run from the first to the thirteenth century AD: monolithic obelisks, giant stelae, royal tombs and the remains of ancient castles. Three points on the standard circuit carry the queen's name without any evidence attaching her to them — the “Palace of the Queen of Sheba” at Dungur, an Aksumite elite residence west of the town; the “Bath of the Queen of Sheba”, a large rock-cut reservoir; and the “Tomb of the Queen of Sheba”. The names are traditional and the buildings are Aksumite. The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion stands in the centre of the town, and in its precinct is the Chapel of the Tablet, built under Haile Selassie in the middle of the twentieth century, where the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church holds that the Ark of the Covenant is kept. Its appointed guardian monk is the only person admitted, whatever a caller's nationality or faith, and the old church alongside it admits men only. Reporting that the chapel exists and that access is refused is the whole of what can honestly be said about it. The textual chain is easier to reach than the site. Budge's complete 1922 translation of the Kebra Nagast, Evetts's 1895 edition of Abū Ṣāliḥ, Whiston's Josephus and Luckenbill's Ancient Records of Assyria are all online in full and searchable, and the links sit in the references below. The Almaqah temple of Barʾān at Marib and the Almaqah temple of Yeha, some 38 km east of Aksum, fall inside the same travel advisories.

Sources consulted

Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-08-16 · How we verify our content

📎 Source: Enigma Atlas