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The story of the Queen of Sheba appears in Christian, Jewish, & Muslim tradition, as well as in Turkish & Persian paintings, Kabbalistic treatises, & in medieval Christian works. She is powerful, exotic, mysterious, &, depending on who you ask, had very hairy legs.
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The Queen of Sheba is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, where she brings King Solomon gifts of ‘spices, and very much gold, and precious stones’. There is considerable debate around where ‘Sheba’ was.
The Biblical ‘Sheba’ has been identified as the Kingdom of Saba in present-day Yemen. In Islamic tradition, the Queen of Sheba is known as Bilqīs. She appears in the Qurʾān & her story was later embellished by Muslim commentators.
According to one legend, when Solomon learnt that Bilqīs worshipped the sun he sent her a letter trying to convert her. (Bilqis reclining in a garden, Persian miniature, c.1595).
Bilqīs didn’t convert but sent Solomon many gifts & finally went to his court. A genie worried the king might marry Bilqīs so told him that she had hairy legs & the hooves of an ass. (Attributed to Ira, Solomon & the Queen of Sheba from an illustrated manuscript,19th century.)
Intrigued, Solomon had a glass floor built in front of his throne so that Bilqīs thinking it was water, would raise her skirts to cross it. The plan was successful & it was revealed that the legs of the Queen were truly hairy. (Hans Vintler, Solomon & the Queen of Sheba, (1411)
Solomon ordered his genie to create a depilatory for Bilqīs. Bilqīs then coverts and marries either Solomon or a Hamdānī tribesman (depending on which account you read). Other scholars have suggested Sheba was in Ethiopia, East Africa.
The Queen of Sheba (called Makeda) plays a prominent part in the Kebra Nagast (“Glory of King”), the Ethiopian national epic and foundation story. (King Solomon & Queen of Sheba as depicted in an illuminated manuscript of Speculum Humanae Salvationis (c.1430)
According to this tradition, the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon’s court after hearing about how wise he was. She stayed for six months and on her last night was tricked into bed with the King and became pregnant. (The Queen of Sheba Meeting Solomon, Ethiopia, mid-20th century)
She later gave birth to a son, Menilek, who became King and founded the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia. (17th-century painting of the Queen of Sheba from a church in Lalibela, Ethiopia and now in the National Museum of Ethiopia)
Whether there ever was a real Queen of Sheba, how hairy her legs were, & indeed where Sheba was, remains a mystery. But there is no doubting the power of her legend - or possibly her genetics. (From Bellifortis by Conrad Kyeser, c.1405)
In 2012, research published in American Journal of Human Genetics, 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.
Researchers found that Ethiopians and non-African populations started to mix approximately 3,000 years ago - and that gene flow into Ethiopia is 'consistent with the legend of Makeda, the Queen of Sheba' https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(12)00271-6
