Research

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA:

Transformation of An Ancient Cosmology of Interconnectedness
By Miri Hunter Haruach

 Much of the research regarding this legendary queen reveals her through the patriarchal lens of the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. What we actually know about the woman called the Queen of Sheba is slight.  The following was arrived at by examining various religious sources as well as remnants from cultures that appear to be related to the Sabeans or Sheban people who lived in what are currently the geographical locations of Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia.  This essay looks at the history, and mythology around the specific Queen Makeda, who took the throne in 1005 BCE.

The Myths of the Queen of Sheba
            The various legends that have developed concerning the Queen of Sheba are retold here by weaving together the known stories.  This is followed by an examination of the elements of the story that demonstrate the way in which the Queen was used as an example,  by the patriarchy, for other women and other cultures. The composite of legends is drawn from traditional East African, and South Arabian folklore, as well as the Qu’ran , the Tanakh, the Christian Bible and the Kebra Nagast .  
            Once upon a time there lived, in the Land of Sheba, a fierce and terrible dragon.  The dragon was feared by all of the inhabitants of the land, but especially by the young girls, whom the dragon always took young girls away from their families.  One day, a peasant decided that he was brave enough to fight and kill the dreaded dragon.  He had a son and a daughter, and he did not want his daughter snatched away by the dragon.  So off he went.  He wrestled and defeated the dragon.  The people of the Land of Sheba were so delighted that they made him king.  He ruled for many years and then died, leaving his throne to his son.  After a very short reign, the son took ill and died.  Since the son had no heirs, the throne passed to his sister, Makeda.
            When she was twenty-two, she heard of a wise king who lived in the north, named Solomon.  One of her merchants, Tamrin, told her that he was the wisest man on earth.  Makeda, wise herself, was intrigued by this information and decided to test Solomon’s wisdom.  She prepared her caravan and made reparations for the arduous six month journey.  Meanwhile Tamrin had started out ahead of his Queen’s caravan with orders to let Solomon know the Queen’s plans.  When Solomon heard this news, he set about to make her stay a pleasant one.  He told his djinns (magical spirit helpers, genies) to build a palace for the Queen of Sheba.
             The djinns got together to discuss the situation.  They realized it was possible that Solomon would fall in love with the Queen, and then there would be two rulers for who the djinns would be forced to work.  So they came up with their own plan.  The djinns had heard that the Queen had hairy legs.  They decided to build the palace, but to make floors of glass above a lake, so that when the Queen saw the floor, she would be tricked into thinking that she was crossing water and then raise her skirts.  Solomon would see her hairy legs and be repulsed.
            On the day that the Queen arrived, Solomon escorted her to her new palace.  Upon seeing the floor, the Queen raised her skirts and revealed her hairy legs.  Solomon was so repulsed that he called upon the djinns and asked if they knew of any remedy for the queen’s hirstute condition.  First, the djinns said that she should shave.  Solomon thought it inappropriate for a woman to shave her legs as a man shaves his face.  So the djinns devised a sticky ointment called gypsum.  Applied to the Queen’s legs, the ointment, removed the hairs.  This being accomplished, Solomon agreed to have an audience with the Queen.  Makeda began to test Solomon’s wisdom.
            In the first test, a room was filled with thousands of flowers, hand-crafted to look real and then perfumed with flower essences.  Only one real flower was in the room.  Makeda, challenged Solomon to find it.  He opened a window and allowed a bee to buzz in.  The bee went directly to the real flower.
            In the second test, Makeda presented male and female youths dressed alike and asked Solomon to distinguish the boys from the girls.  Solomon had plates of roasted corn and nuts brought to the youth.  The males began eating eagerly with their bare hands while the females ate slowly revealing gloved hands.
             Makeda then asked Solomon to identify the following
Seven there are that issue, and nine that enter; two yield the draught, and one drinks. Said he to her, seven are the days of a woman’s menstruation, and nine the months of pregnancy; two are the breasts that yield the draught, and one the child that drinks it. 1

She also asked riddles of Solomon that pertained to the story of Lot, which he answers correctly. After he successfully met her tests, the King and Queen felt that they had met their equals and fell madly in love.  The Queen stayed for six months being wined and dined by the king.  Solomon even gave her the Gaza strip as a present.  They even managed to discuss trade routes and territorial boundaries.  This was especially important, since Solomon was having a fleet of ships built that could navigate the seas.  The building of this fleet would have meant that the Queen, whose realm had a monopoly on the land routes of the spice trade, would have been facing economic downfall if Solomon completed the building of his fleet.
            At the end of the six month period the Queen prepared to take her leave of Solomon.  The King was heartbroken and attempted to coax her into staying.  She was firm, stating that she must return to her people.  Solomon proposed that she share his bed with him on her last night in Jerusalem.  The Queen refused.  The King seemed resigned to not being able to physically consummate this relationship.  He prepared a lavish and spicy feast for the Queen’s last meal.  As the two retired, the King told her that if during the night she should take anything of value from him that he would then be entitled to sleep with her.  The Queen assured him that there was nothing that she desired of him. 
            Both went to their respective beds.  Solomon only pretended to sleep.  In the middle of the night the Queen arose from her bed to relieve her thirst from the evening’s feast.  As she was drinking, Solomon came up to her and said that he now had the right to have his way with her. The Queen answered by saying that she had not taken anything from Solomon.  He responded by asking her what could be more valuable to the king of an arid country than water?  Still, the Queen declined the offer of his bed and offered her hand-maiden in her stead.  Solomon accepted this offer.  After his liaison with the hand-maiden, he returned to the Queen.  They spent the rest of the night together.  The Queen leaves the next morning with her entourage for her homeland of Sheba.
            The Ethiopian story continues to say that the Queen returned to her homeland and gave birth to a son, Menelek.  When Menelek became of age, he went to visit his father, Solomon.  Knowing the revelatory dream that his kingdom was doomed because he had chosen to worship the deities of his wives rather than the one god of Israel, Solomon re-named him, David II after his own father, and anointed him King of Zion.  Supposedly, Solomon was aware that his Kingdom was doomed because Solomon had chosen to worship the idols of his wives instead of the one true God of Israel.  The fall of the nation of Israel had already been revealed to Solomon in a dream.
             In a Yemeni story, the Queen’s brother was too young to be king, when their father died. Upon returning to her home, the Queen abdicates her throne to her brother.  In both stories, there is clearly a passing of women’s power to a male.
            There are variations of the above story.  The first is a folktale from Tigray, a province in Northern Ethiopia.
The Tigrean version states that there was a girl named Eteye Azeb (Queen of the South), who was to be sacrificed to a dragon.  Just as she was to be killed seven saints appeared and saved her life.  The saints also slayed the dragon and in this process some of the dragon’s blood dropped onto the girl’s foot.  The foot became a donkey’s hoof or perhaps a dragon’s foot.  The townspeople were so delighted with the death of the dragon that they made the girl Queen.2
Eventually, the Queen traveled to Solomon who cured her foot.  Another Ethiopian folktale states a girl was sacrificed annually to the dragon, which was finally killed by the brave queen -to-be.3
            Another legend regarding the Queen’s hoofed foot says that once there was mother bird, the neser , whose child was taken off by a predator.  The mother bird flew to the garden of Eden and took a branch from the Tree of Life.  She carried the limb in her beak to where her child was  held,  then dropped the limb onto the predator and killed him.  She then took her child to safety.  Years later the Queen of Sheba was en route to Solomon.  Solomon, having heard about her foot, wanted to cure her.  He ordered the bird to lay the branch from the Tree of Life across a small pond.  When the Queen arrived, she touched her hoofed foot to the branch and her foot was transformed.
            Another tale, related by Pritchard, tells the story of Adam as he lay on his deathbed. Adam persuades his son, Seth, to return to the Garden of Eden and to beg Gabriel for the oil of mercy.  Gabriel took a branch from the tree of which Adam and Eve had eaten and gave it to Seth.  The tree had dried up since the couple had left the Garden.  When Seth returned to Adam, Adam had already died.  Seth planted the branch on Adam’s grave.  There it grew into a mighty tree.
...Solomon cut it down to build, but it always changed shape and was thrown down as a bridge.  When the Queen came to cross the water, she knelt in adoration at the sacred wood and prophesized that it would be used to nail a world savior who would defile and end the Jewish heritage. 4

The Queen forms a bridge:  a bridge between the old testament and the new testament; a bridge between the past and the future.  She serves as the link, to what was and what is.
The Elements
            The dragon story is the first remnant of a martrifocal culture to be discussed.  The queen’s slaying of the dragon parallels her statement from the Kebra Nagast, that never will a woman rule Ethiopia again.5 It clearly shows the changeover from matrifocal to  patriarchal culture.  Women’s knowledge and power are not deemed important by the emerging patriarchy.   In short, she, herself is shown to put an end to the matristic society by killing the dragon, (i.e. abdicating the throne to a son or a brother).  In the patriarchal overlay of the Queen’s story, she is shown as a betrayer of other women as she clearly states that no other women will rule.  With this betrayal women in her realm became subjugated to the expansion of patriarchal culture.
            In another legend, the Queen-to-be, is rescued from the dragon by Christian saints.  After her rescue she is crowned.  Undoubtedly, her allegiance would be to those that saved her life.  Psychologically, to betray or in any way threaten the loss of those who have saved your life would be dangerous.  Even though the saints rescued her, it is never mentioned whether or not Makeda had a positive or negative connection to the dragon.  Since the dragon was worshipped in pre-monotheistic Ethiopia, 6 Makeda’s “rescue” consisted of replacing the values of pre-monotheism with the values of her “rescuers.” 
            Another version of the Queen of Sheba story states that each year the Queen saved a girl from being sacrificed to the dragon.  This is another indication of societal changes.  The original sacrifice would have been the king/consort of the Queen.  In pagan cultures, each year the Queen selects a king/consort, who is sacrificed during the summer solstice.  It should also be noted that pagan sacrifice is symbolic, not literal and represents the waning of the light of the sun.
The Sun King grown embraces the Queen of Summer in the love that is death because it is so complete that all dissolves into the single song of ecstasy that moves the worlds.  So the Lord of the Light dies to Himself, and sets sails across the dark seas of time, searching for the isle of light that is rebirth. 7
            Important in the interpretation of this is the way in which Makeda’s last evening with Solomon is always romanticized. Solomon did prepare a lavish going away celebration for her, but only with the intent to trick her into his bed.  Not only does she take the religion of Solomon to the Land of Sheba, but she abdicates her throne to her son who was conceived through an act of coercion.
            Lastly, the Queen has hairy legs or in some versions she has an animal’s hoof for a foot. The hair must be removed or the queen’s foot cured. Both instances suggest that the Queen was magical. “Curing” her is another way of taking her power. 
            The power of a woman’s hair has been linked to love spells as well as forces for creation and destruction.  From folklore to St. Paul to the Rastafarians hair is synonymous with character.  The first book of Corinthians, chapter eleven states that hair symbolizes strength, the ability to control spirits and wealth.  A Rastafarian story states that one should not keep a lock on their money, but one should keep locks on their head.  Witches were known by their hair.  Medusa’s hair was said to be made of serpents.  To remove Makeda’s hair was to take her power.
            The above collage of tales represents themes and ideas that have been told regarding the Queen of Sheba. Within these stories, we can see that her original role was that of priestess to her people.  The importance of the Land of Sheba and the Queen herself cannot be denied.  Why else were she and her people chronicled by all three major mono-theistic religions?  She is used in these stories as an example of patriarchal womanhood.  In each story, she submits, her power is removed, she is coerced into bed with her conqueror, she gives birth to a new order.  Behind all this is the notion that this woman and the women who ruled before her were powerful – too powerful to co-exist with patriarchy.

The History of the Sabean/Sheban People
The Sabeans began in what is now Ethiopia and spread out in four directions:  Arabia to the north, the Sudan to the west, India to the east and south throughout Africa. There are legacies of the Queen of Sheba in places such as Zimbabwe, Chad, India and Nigeria.   The Sabeans,  went into Arabia, settled there.  Those that traveled to the west became wanderers, spending just enough time in a region to leave behind a cultural or religious legacy.  Eventually the wandering Sabeans traveled into Egypt and Canaan and Sumer, then made their way into southern Arabia, where they encountered members of their original tribe.  They settled there until they were forced by invading tribes from the north to move back across the Red Sea.  They left Arabia for the city of Axum.   From Axum, they moved further south into the mountains of Gondar, finally settling in modern day Ethiopia.
Sertima, in Black Women in Antiquity,  gives the following history for Queen Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
The dynasty that Makeda belonged to, according to tradition, was established in Ethiopia in 1370 B.C.  It was instituted by Za Besi Angabo and lasted 350 years. 8
Sertima further states that Makeda followed her grandfather and father on the throne.  Her brother, Prince Noural, died at an early age leaving the throne to his sister.   Makeda assumed the throne in 1005 BCE.  She ruled for fifty years over a land of unknown size. 
The various lands ascribed to her empire included parts of Upper Egypt, Ethiopia, parts of Arabia, Syria, Armenia, India and the whole region between the Mediterranean and the Erythraean Sea. 9
During her reign, she established extensive trade relations to maintain the economic status of her empire.  Her throne was passed on to her son Menelek I, first ruler of the Solomonic Dynasty.  The Solomonic Dynasty consisted of rulers of Ethiopia who were descended from the lineage of Makeda and King Solomon of Israel.  The last ruler of the Solomonic Dynasty was Halle Selassie, who died in 1993 CE.  Makeda died in 955 BCE.   The ruling city of the Solomonic Dynasty was, by then, Axum.  Axum lies in the modern day Tigray region of Ethiopia.
In The African Origin of Civilization, Cheikh Anta Diop states that
the Adites, descendants of Cush from the line of Ham, lived originally in Arabia. Cheddade, a son of Ad and builder of the legendary ‘Earthly Paradise’ mentioned in the Koran, belongs to the epoch called that of the ‘First Adites.’  This empire was destroyed in the eighteenth century B.C. by an invasion of coarse, white Jectanide tribes, who apparently came to settle among the Blacks. 10
  Diop states that the Adites soon regained power and that the Jectanides were absorbed into the Adite cultural and political climate.  The saga continues in the eighth century BCE when the Jectanides again seized power and control over the Adites.  This, according to Diop, occurred at the same time that the Assyrians were gaining control over Babylon.  Diop asserts that the Babylonians were also Cushites.  After the Jectanide victory in Arabia, many of the Adites crossed the Red Sea and settled in what is modern day Eritrea....
the other remained in Arabia, taking refuge in the mountains of Hadramaut and elsewhere.  This is the source of the Arab proverb:  ‘As divided as the Sabeans,’ and why Southern Arabia and Ethiopia became inseparable linguistically and ethnographically. 11
During the reign of the Queen of Sheba in the tenth century B.C., the land enjoyed an unparalleled time of prosperity.  Perhaps because the Queen of Sheba and her people worshipped the Sun, the Moon, the stars and the planets, they were able to use their appreciation of these natural elements in their own kingdom. 12
Sheba was rich and prosperous, a prosperity, due to its monopoly over the spice trade and a strategic location around the trade routes to and from countries further east.  When ships began to navigate the Red Sea, the Sabean monopoly along the trade route was broken, thus ending their economic success and cultural prosperity.
            Despite the decline of the Sabean culture, the story of the Queen of Sheba remained, holding a connection to a lost matrifocal culture.  The story of the Queen of Sheba has many different tellings. It has been maintained, told and re-told.  In Ethiopia, her greatness has been codified into a national document that has shaped the history and culture of a nation. 
            Demonized by Christianity, Islam and Judaism, she was nonetheless a queen, who held sway over the greatest king of Israel, Solomon.  It was to her heir that Solomon transferred the seat of Zion, the Ark of the Covenant.  The Ark of the Covenant was a container built to hold the original ten commandments that were given to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai.  Wherever the Ark was stored was the seat or the home of the Jewish people, the people of Zion.  In Islam, she submits to the God of Solomon, but not by choice, but by trickery.
Language contains and maintains cultural elements that clearly depict a link, a code, to a pre-patriarchal time. The ancient language of the Queen of Sheba’s realm was Himyaritic, which evolved into the East African language called Ge’ez.Ge’ez is the parent language of the modern Ethiopian language Amharic.  Amharic is the language of the ruling class of Ethiopia called the Amharas.  All of these languages are considered to be part of the Semitic family of languages, which also include Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. The word Saba/Sheba is analogous to the word Sabbath, the day of rest observed by all three major monotheistic religions.  It is also the name of the seventh day of the week in Hebrew. The word Sheba has been translated into English as the word south.   This, however, is an incomplete translation.  This occurred because the Land of Sheba was south of Israel as well as of Europe.  The following analysis suggests a more accurate definition.  Semitic words have three letter roots.  The root of Sheba (transliterated into Latin letters) is Sh (s), B(v), and ah.   This root corresponds to the word Sheba/Saba.
            The following words have that same three letter root: Sabbatical, an extended period of rest); Shavua, Hebrew word meaning week; Sheva, Hebrew word for the number seven; Saba Amharic word for the number seventy; and  Shayba, Arabic word meaning old woman.
            According to Ethiopian Jewish tradition Sabbath or Shabat is not a day or a number, but the name of the daughter of God.  In the Ethiopian Jewish book, entitled Teezaza Sanbat (Commandment of the Sabbath), we are told of the creation, but primarily the book is focused on the
            greatness and glory of the Sabbath of Israel, her adventures, acts, punitive expeditions and intercession with God.  She is described as the daughter of God, a divine princess, to whom all angels pay homage and who is exceedingly loved by God Himself. 13
           Compare this to the description of the Sumerian Goddess Ni-Saba   Ni-Saba is  the Sumerian goddess of grain, writing and wisdom.  The pre-fix Ni means Lady or Queen.  Ni-Saba literally means Queen or Lady of Sheba.
            It was the role of this Goddess to give wisdom to kings.  Further, the Queen is depicted as the Lady of the Mountain. Numerous hymns were composed in her honor which describe the totality of her functions:
O Lady coloured like the stars of heaven, holding the lapis lazuli tablet born in the great sheepfold by the divine Earth... born in wisdom by the Great Mountain (Enlil), honest woman, chief scribe of heaven, record-keeper of Enlil, all knowing sage of the gods. 14
Again looking at the Sumerian texts of hymns to Ni-Saba, we have these references for Ni-Saba or the Queen of Sheba:  She is called woman born in the mountains; You who are granted the most complex wisdom; Dragon emerging in glory at the festival;  and Aruru (mother goddess) of the Land.
            As mentioned earlier, the word Sheba/Saba is also connected with the number seven (7) which has a long, complex history as a spiritual number.  The Pythagoreans, who considered the number seven holy and divine, specifically state that Sheba (70) is divine and holy.  In numerology, an occult science used by the Pythagoreans, the value of a number is its total when all of the numbers are added together.  For example, the number 12 has a numerological value of 3 since 1+2=3.  The value of 70 (7+0) is 7. Westcott, a member of the Rosicrucian Society of England, summarized the meaning of the number seven as seen in his study of various mystical traditions including the Kabala, the teachings of the Egyptians and the Rosicrucians.   The following is a sample of his findings.
The Pleiades, a group of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, was thought to rule over earthly destiny;... “astro-Theology,” gives seven stages of life with associated planets.... Clean beasts were admitted into the ark by sevens, whilst the unclean only in pairs....Note also the number of 7 pipes in the Musical instrument at the mouth of the old deity Pan….15
Makeda’s title, the Queen of Sheba, refers to a tradition of mysticism and sacredness. Sheba, Saba, Ni-Saba are all names of the Goddess.  The Sabeans of Arabia and East Africa, the Sumerians and even the Israelites and Canaanites worshipped this figure in one form or another. Bathsheba, mother of King Solomon may be read as one of her priestesses, for her name translates as  “daughter of Sheba.”
The consciousness of the Queen of Sheba is emerging at the beginning of the new millennium as our consciousness as a planet is turning or re-turning to values that exemplify the concepts of respect and honor for the feminine, for nature and for our planet.  There is a desire to re-turn to the ancient cosmology of interconnectedness.

 ENDNOTES
1(Koltuv,  1993, 84), 2 (Chwaszcza,  1992, 84),  3 (Chwaszcza, 1992, 85), 4 (Pritchard, 1974, 21), 5 (Brooks, 1995, 25), 6 (Hancock,  1992, 141), 7 (Starhawk, 1979, 177), 8 (Sertima, 1988, 16), 9 (Sertima, 1988, 17), 10 (Diop, 1974, 124), 11 (Diop, 1974, 125), 12 (Koltov, 1993, 29), 13 (Leslau, 1951, 19), 14 (Fryman-Kensky, 1992, 42), 15 (Westcott, 1984, 72-77)
Bibliography
    E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek, London: Oxford University Press, 1932.
    Cheikh Anta Diop, Mercer Cook, trans., & ed., The African Origin of Civilization: Myth orReality, Chicago:  Lawrence Hill Books, 1974.
    Joachim Chwaszcza, Yemen, Singapore:  APA Publications, 1992.
    Brian Doe, Southern Arabia, New York:  McGraw-Hill, 1971.
    Charles Finch et al, African Origins of the Major World Religions, London:  Karnak House, 1988.
    Tikva Fryman-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses, New York: Fawcet Columbine, 1992.
    John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology, New ork:  Peter Bedrick Books, 1969.
    Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, London:  The British Printing Company, 1992
    Miri Hunter Haruach, The Queen of Sheba Wisdom Oracle, Los Angeles: Project Sheba, Inc., 2005.
    John G. Jackson, Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization, Baltimore:  Black Classic Press, 1939.
    Barbara Black Koltuv, Solomon and Sheba, York Beach, Maine:  Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 1993.
    Jacob Lassner, Demonizing the Queen of Sheba, Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1993.
    Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology, New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1951.
    Harold Marcus, A History of Ethiopia, Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1994.
    Jacques Mercier, Ethiopian Magic Scrolls, New York:  George Braziller, Inc., 1979.
    Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, Detroit:  Wayne State University Press, 1978.
    Wendell Phillips, Qataban and Sheba:  Exploring the Ancient Kingdoms on the BiblicalSpice Routes of   Arabia, New York:  Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1955.
    James B. Pritchard,  ed., Solomon and Sheba, New York:  Praeger Publishers, 1974.
    Ivan Van Sertima, ed., Black Women In Antiquity, New Brunswick:  Transaction Publishers, 1988.
    Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, San Francisco:  Harper and Row, 1979.
    Emilie M. Townes, ed., Embracing the Spirit:  Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation and Transformation,  Maryknoll, New York:  Orbis Books, 1997.
    W. Wynn Westcott, The Occult Power of Numbers, Hollywood, CA:  NewcastlePublishing, 1984.
Excerpted from the anthology "Goddesses in World Culture, Volume 1, Asia and Africa, ed. Patricia Monaghan, Praeger Press, Santa Barbara CA, 2011.   www.praeger.com

Other Research, coming soon!