Sheba

64
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
cathedral of later importance, the snake motive is probably a relic of an
ancient but widespread religion linked to ruling houses. Across the Red Sea
in Ethiopian Aksum, the city that launched Caleb’s sixth century A.D.
Christian crusade to Najran after its Christian inhabitants had been
slaughtered by Yusuf, the Jewish king of Himyar, there are a number of
large stelae marking the graves of ancient rulers. Several of them have
toppled over. One has an engraved outline of a house or box, which some
people believe depicts the Ark of the Covenant. This stele has fallen on
uneven ground, so it is possible to look under it and see the engraved
outline of a giant serpent. No one knows with any certainty the origin of
giant snake cults there. It is possible the Egyptians were influential in their
proliferation, because in dynastic Egypt large snakes symbolized royal
power and wisdom, and this belief was echoed in other parts of Africa and
Arabia. An ancient story tells of a shipwrecked sailor washed up on an
island, probably Socotra (whose name, incidentally, is Sanskrit in origin),
where he encounters the ruler, a giant serpent covered in gold, that helps
him find his way home and declines offers of gifts because it is too rich to
need any.
If the snake god cult was inspired by Bronze Age Egypt, it is
significant that replacing it with the Sabaean sun god in southern Arabia
occurred at the beginning of the Iron Age, for the Sabaeans, like the
Hebrew, were an Iron Age people. This change also took place across the
Red Sea in Aksum, a city centered in an area with Sabaean links. Aksumite
traditions say that their city was once ruled by a dynasty of the snake-god
king of foreign origin named Arwe. Around 1370 B.C.E. under Za Besi
Angabo this dynasty was replaced by a local ruling house. This new
dynasty ruled for about 350 years and it is from that Makeda, Queen of
Sheba, descended.
Makeda may not have been the queen’s original name. Josephus
referred to her as Nikaule, which in Greek means conqueror. Arab
traditions say her name was Bilqis (Bilkis/Belkis/Balkis), perhaps a
corruption of the Hebrew word pilgesh (concubine). However Bilqis was
probably a Himyarite princess of the fourth century A.D., not the Queen of
Sheba. Professor Bill Glanzman, a Canadian archaeologist specializing on
Sheba, reports that Bilqis may be a contraction of Bi al-Qos, meaning a
woman connected to al-Qos (or Qosh), a north Arabian deity. The earliest
record of this name is the ninth century A.D. Azariah, the Zadokite high
priest, is reported to have given the queen the name Makeda after his
arrival in her capital explaining its meaning as “not this way”. Conversely,