When we hear about the Queen of Sheba our imagination immediately moves to a dream place full of riches and we visualize an imposing woman of great beauty who symbolizes the luxury and the opulence. We have seen it in medieval and Renaissance paintings and also in some movies, but… the Queen of Sheba. Who really was it? Did she exist? Come with us to find out!
The Queen of Sheba
To the queen of sheba She is known in the West mainly because of the references about her person in the hebrew bible. In it we are told of the visit that this extraordinary woman made to King Solomon approximately in the 10th century BC The Queen of Sheba receives different names according to traditions: for the Arabs she is Bilqīs, for the Ethiopians Makeda and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus mentions her as Nikaule or Nicaula.
Saba really existed. It was a kingdom located in the southwest of pre-Islamic Arabia. In addition to the Bible, it is mentioned by the Assyrians and by Greek and Roman writers between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. C. About the figure of the Queen of Sheba There are no historical records that confirm that the character really existed. and some historians believe that it was not a specific person, but rather a delegation that traveled from Saba to Israel to reach trade agreements. Other scholars believe that she could have been the wife of an Egyptian pharaoh who attended a meeting to discuss navigation permits through Africa for King Solomon’s ships.
The story of the meeting of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon tells us that an extremely rich woman visited Solomon, attracted by the monarch’s reputation as a wise man. As a present she brought him all kinds of spices, jewels and precious objects. In exchange, the king agreed to answer her questions and solve ten riddles that she proposed. Astonished with her wisdom, the queen did not stop praising God and the monarch promised to give her everything she asked for.
At that point in the legend we connect with the Ethiopian tradition that has its own particular history. The Ethiopians believed that the queen of Sheba was Makeda and that she had a son with King Solomon. That child became Emperor Menelik I. Solomon would have proposed marriage to her queen, but he was rejected by her because he already had several wives and she wanted to be his only one. However, she remained a few months in Solomon’s palace where she fathered her son before returning to his kingdom.
The best-known film about this queen is an American film that was filmed in 1959 and directed by Kim Vidor entitled «Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.» Years later, in 1995, another version starring Halle Berry and directed by Robert M. Young was filmed for television, also titled «Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.»
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