President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday began the first visit of an Israeli head of state to Ethiopia, telling a welcoming party at the airport that he was “returning the visit of the Queen Sheba, and coming on behalf of King Solomon.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 14, 2016
In the Bible’s Old Testament there is an unusually erotic chapter, nestled in there between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah: the Song of Songs, also known as Song of Solomon.
As a girl sitting in church, reading through the Bible, this one immediately caught my eye. I spent many a Sunday morning reading it, wondering at the beautiful language, the poetry of love and longing, the sexual attraction that rose through the pages. You can read the full text here, but below are some snippets that stirred me during my churchgoing adolescence:
…Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine…
…I am dark, but lovely, you daughters of Jerusalem, like Kedar’s tents, like Solomon’s curtains…
…As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banquet hall. His banner over me is love.Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples; For I am faint with love. His left hand is under my head. His right hand embraces me…
…How beautiful are your feet in sandals, prince’s daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your body is like a round goblet, no mixed wine is wanting. Your waist is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, that are twins of a roe. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bathrabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. Your head on you is like Carmel. The hair of your head like purple. The king is held captive in its tresses.
…How beautiful and how pleasant you are, love, for delights! This, your stature, is like a palm tree, your breasts like its fruit. I said, “I will climb up into the palm tree. I will take hold of its fruit.” Let your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the smell of your breath like apples, Beloved, Your mouth like the best wine, that goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding through the lips of those who are asleep…
Hot stuff, right? (Especially if you’re reading it during an otherwise staid Presbyterian church service.) Of course, I had the same thought you did: what the hell is it doing in the Bible?! According to many Church sources, it was decided that this erotic union between a man and a woman – so clearly depicted in the love poem – was an allegory for God’s love towards the Israelite people. Though I am not a theologian, I find this hard to buy. For me, it’s clearly all about a passionate young couple, dreaming of one another and their future together in the most poetic words they can.
Which begs the next question. Who wrote it? And who is it about?
As usual, history is unclear. The song is generally attributed to the celebrated King Solomon – as famous for his skills as a lover as he was for serving God. And one of his most famous visitors was the enigmatic Queen of Sheba.
As imagined by medieval Europeans, from an illustrated manuscript in Prague.The Queen of Sheba on horseback, as depicted in an Ethiopian fresco.
Sheba itself is a mysterious land, so ancient that people are not even sure exactly where it was. Some scholars have suggested it’s in the Southern Arabian Peninsula, around modern-day Yemen. In Arabic legend she is named Bilquis; a name as lovely as the woman was reported to be. However, most believe that Sheba was an ancient name for the (also ancient, and fascinating) country of Ethiopia. There, she was known as Makeda, which is the name I chose for the queen in my story.
Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s legendary wisdom and knowledge, so she went to Jerusalem with an astonishing retinue. There, she tested King Solomon with hard questions, all of which he answered to her satisfaction. And, after giving her “all that she desired,” the queen went home.
Ethiopian tradition completes the story, stating that the queen gave birth to a son – Menelik – on the way home to Sheba. When he had grown into a young man, Menelik went to visit his father on his own, and ended up making off with the Ark of the Covenant. According to legend, the Ark’s final resting place is in Ethiopia. In addition, the Kings of Ethiopia are considered, to this day, rulers by divine right of their direct descendance from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Emperor Haille Selassie even enshrined the fact in the Ethiopian Constitution of 1955. This legend is also supported by the strength of the Jewish and, later, the Christian faith in Ethiopia. It is one of the oldest Christian lands on Earth, despite being surrounded by neighbors of different faiths. And the fascinating story of Ethiopian Jews is also one of the world’s many mysteries. Food for thought…
The beautiful Queen of Sheba
The idea of a beautiful, intelligent, strong foreign queen, who takes all she wants from Solomon and then caravans home in style, is of course an appealing one for an erotica author. After a while, though, you get tired of writing about royalty; they get more than their share of the limelight. So I decided to focus instead on the unmentioned characters of Sheba’s magnificent entourage: the servants.
She is also an empowering Black character of the Bible – one of many who go far too often unmentioned.
By placing Sheba in Ethiopia, I was able to draw on my experiences with the large Ethiopian-American community here in Seattle. I go out for Ethiopian food a lot. The spices, the tang of injira bread, the sensuality of eating with your hands, all brings to mind a country of rich history. And the women are beautiful, with their rich brown skin, dark eyes, curling black hair, and white traditional dresses. In designing the Sheban women, I thought of them and all the strength, beauty, and independence they portray.
In the end, this story emerged as one of the most romantic in the Ancients collection. A fitting tribute, I hope, to the eternal beauty of the Song of Songs; and the mystery of that fabulous, mysterious, ancient Queen of Sheba.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 21, 2012
Researchers have started to unveil the genetic heritage of Ethiopian populations, who are among the most diverse in the world, and lie at the gateway from Africa. They found that the genomes of some Ethiopian populations bear striking similarities to those of populations in Israel and Syria, a potential genetic legacy of the Queen of Sheba and her companions.
The team detected mixing between some Ethiopians and non-African populations dating to approximately 3,000 years ago. The origin and date of this genomic admixture, along with previous linguistic studies, is consistent with the legend of the Queen of Sheba, who according to the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast book had a child with King Solomon from Israel and is mentioned in both the Bible and the Qur’an.
Ethiopia is situated in the horn of Africa, and has often been regarded as one of the gateways from Africa to the rest of the world. The Ethiopian region itself has the longest fossil record of human history anywhere in the world. Studying population genetics within this diverse region could help us to understand the origin of the first humans.
“From their geographic location, it is logical to think that migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago began in either Ethiopia or Egypt. Little was previously known about the populations inhabiting the North-East African region from a genomic perspective. This is the first genome study on a representative panel of Ethiopian populations,” explains Luca Pagani, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge. “We wanted to compare the genome of Ethiopians with other Africans to provide an essential piece to the African — and world — genetic jigsaw.”
They found that the Ethiopian genome is not as ancient as was previously thought and less ancient than the genomes of some Southern African populations. There were also links with other populations.
“We found that some Ethiopians have 40-50% of their genome closer to the genomes of populations outside of Africa, while the remaining half of their genome is closer to populations within the African continent,” says Dr Toomas Kivisild, co-author from the University of Cambridge. “We calculated genetic distances and found that these non-African regions of the genome are closest to populations in Egypt, Israel and Syria, rather than to the neighbouring Yemeni and Arabs.”
The team found that these two groups of African and non-African people mixed approximately 3,000 years ago, well before the historically-documented Islamic expansions and the colonial period of the last centuries.
An earlier study found that Ethio-Semitic, an Ethiopian language belonging to a linguistic family primarily spoken in the Middle East, split from the main Semitic group 3,000 years ago, around the same time as the non-African genomic component arrived in Ethiopia. All this evidence combined fits the time and locations of the legend of the Queen of Sheba, which describes the encounter of the Ethiopian Queen and King Solomon.
“None of this research would have been possible without the superb fieldwork of our Ethiopian colleagues Professor Endashaw Bekele and Dr Ayele Tarekegn over many years. The outstanding genetic diversity present within the peoples of Ethiopia is a rich resource that will contribute greatly, both to our understanding of human evolution and the development of personalised medicine.” says Dr Neil Bradman, co-lead author from UCL (University College London). “The Ethiopian Government has a practice of encouraging genetic research, a policy that bodes well for the future.”
“Our research gives insights into important evolutionary questions,” says Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, co-lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. “We see imprints of historical events on top of much more ancient prehistoric ones that together create a region of rich culture and genetic diversity. The next step for our research has to be to sequence the entire genomes, rather than read individual letters, of both Ethiopian people and others to really understand human origins and the out-of-Africa migration.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on August 22, 2009
Solomon was born to King David and Bathsheba the Ethiopian. The name of Solomon (Sol-Om-On) means Sun, as well as peace. Solomon was a very wise and versatile man. His wisdom was not only political and theological; he was also an expert on natural history. A gardener, he planted olive, spice and nut trees as well as vineyards; he admired and studied spiders, locusts and harvesting ants. According to the Bible, “he could talk about plants from the cedar to the hyssop growing on the wall; and he could talk of animals and birds and reptiles and fish.
When the Queen of Sheba visited him as the first woman, he was a very gracious host to her and her people. Solomon gave her a luxurious home in a palace next to his, and provided her with fruits, rose trees, silks, linens, tapestries, and 11 bewitching garments for each day of her visit. Daily, he sent her (and her 350 servants) 45 sacks of flour, 10 oxen, 5 bulls, 50 sheep (in addition to goats, deer, cows, gazelles, and chicken), wine, honey, fried locusts, rich sweets, and 25 singing men and women. But, Sheba was more interested in his wisdom. Power and riches could not satisfy Sheba’s soul, for she possessed an ardent hunger for truth and wisdom. She said:
“ I am smitten with the love of wisdom…. for wisdom is far better than treasure of gold and silver….. I will follow the footprints of wisdom and she shall protect me forever. I will seek asylum with her, and she shall be unto me power and strength…..wisdom is sweeter than honey….. Let us seek her, and we shall find her; let us love her, and she will not withdraw herself from us, let us pursue her, and we shall overtake her; let us ask, and we shall receive; and let us turn our hearts to her so that we may never forget her.”
When Sheba met Solomon, not only did she ask him theological and philosophical questions; she also tested him with different riddles.
In one theological riddle, she asked: “What is the ugliest thing in the world, and what is the most beautiful? What is the most certain, and what is the most uncertain?” Solomon replied, “The ugliest thing…is the faithful turning unfaithful; the most beautiful is the repentant sinner. The most certain is death; the most uncertain, one’s share in the World to Come.”
Solomon showed showed a great desire to please Sheba. He showed her his gardens of rare flowers ornamented with pools and fountains, and the architectural splendors of his government buildings, temple and palace. She was awed by his work on the temple, by his great lion-throne and sandalwood staircase, and by his enormous brass basin carried by the twelve brass bulls which symbolized the twelve months of the year. She sought astronomical knowledge, for which he was known; Solomon had developed a new calendar which added an extra month every nineteen years.
The visit of the Queen of Sheba was the highlight of Solomon’s life. The six wonderful months she had spend with him were the most important times of his life. After she left, Solomon continued to write and speak words of wisdom, but he and Israel dimmed and deteriorated. Some speculate that this deterioration was triggered by Solomon’s preoccupation with building a glorious palace and temple. But others say it was his obsession with Sheba. Never again would Solomon encounter or love a woman he could call his equal. Sheba was known to be beautiful (despite her ankle and leg), intelligent, understanding, resourceful, adventurous and gracious.
Early in his reign, after the Queen of Sheba left him, Solomon become polygamous, and took 700 wives and 300 concubines. Many were foreign women who eventually “turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God.
Although Solomon was known for his internationalism and open-mindedness to foreign cultures and their beliefs, this same religious tolerance contributed to his downfall. Not only did he anger God; he also failed to unify his people, who needed their monotheistic practices in order to maintain religious identity and national pride.
The completion of his luxurious Temple became more important to Solomon than the practice of his religion. Then his luxurious Palace – built for personal rather than collective use – took precedence over the Temple. Finally, his writing and preaching of wisdom became increasingly vague.
Solomon no longer lived by the humane principles for which he had become respected and honored. Some historians even view him as a tyrant who became devoted to his own glory, and whose greed and extravagance led him to build his kingdom on injustice, oppression and misery.
Solomon drew tax lines across the old tribal borders, alienating tribal elders. For his costly architectural projects, he taxed mercilessly, forcing those who could not pay into slavery, and seizing their lands. Many starved and died. Raising a levy of 30,000 men for forced labor from Hebrews and non-Hebrews of his northern kingdoms, rather than his own people of Judah, Solomon divided his country. His people, including his own sons, became increasingly resentful, and began to revolt.
After his death, the northern kingdoms of Israel stopped tolerating the forced labor and high taxes which had fed Judah, and refused to accept Solomon’s son Rehoboam as king. Civil war resulted; ten northern tribes set up their own kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam, leaving only the kingdoms of Judah and Benjamin to Rehoboam. Such internal strife only made the Israelites weak and vulnerable to invasion. Eventually, the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians conquered them, and carried them off into exile. But before his kingdom was pillaged, Solomon moved the sacred Ark of the Covenant to a safe and protected place, before it was transported down to Ethiopia.
“When I reflected in my mind
That in kinship with wisdom there is immortality,
And in her friendship there is pure delight…
I went about seeking how to win her for myself.
I loved her and sought after her from my youth up,
And I undertook to make her my bride,
And I fell in love with her beauty….
So I decided to bring her to live with me,
Knowing that she would give me good counsel,
And encouragement in cares and grief…..
If the possession of wealth is to be desired in life,
What is richer than wisdom, which operates everything?
She understands the tricks of language and the solving of riddles;
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