The brief report of what must have been an important meeting leaves many questions unanswered and so it is not surprising that in the course of time it became embellished with a vast accumulation of legends. A comparison could be drawn with the story of Queen Esther, whose activities at the Court of King Ahasuerus (who is often identified with Xerxes) were recorded some three centuries after the events described. (1) There is, however, a significant difference for the story of Esther looks today more like a piece of fiction, a kind of historical romance with a moral attached. The Queen of Sheba's visit to the King of Israel has a greater ring of historical truth and the fact that it has continued to the present day to inspire confidence and national pride among the people of Ethiopia places it in an entirely different category. While there is no question about Solomon's existence in the tenth century BC, no archaeological evidence has so far been presented to prove the generally accepted view that there is 'no reason to doubt the historical reality of the Queen of Sheba(2)

Who, then, was this elusive lady who captivated King Solomon, whom the royal house of Ethiopia proclaimed as their ancestress and whom the Falashas see as the cause of their presence in Ethiopia? It is strange that the Bible omits to tell us the queen's name or the location of the land of Sheba ( or Saba).(3) Possibly these details were not regarded by the scribes as important and, as regards the location, it could no doubt be assumed that the people for whom the story was written knew (or thought they knew) near enough whence the queen came. We are told that she arrived in Jerusalem by camel, or at least in a caravan of camels, but that is

(1) Peake's Commentary on the Bible, 331i.
(2) Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible, p. 134.
(3)The Hebrew form is Sheba while in the Greek Septuagint it becomes Saba.