Sheba

Sheba (/ˈʃiːbə/; Hebrew: שְׁבָא‎ Šəḇāʾ; Arabic: سبأ Sabaʾ; Geʽez: ሳባ Sabaʾ) (1000 B.C- 275 A.D) is an ancient kingdom mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. It particularly features in the tradition of Orthodox Tewahedo in today's Yemen and is also asserted as the home of the Queen of Sheba, who is left unnamed in Jewish texts, but is known as Makeda in Ethiopian texts and as Bilqīs in Arabic texts. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Sheba was the home of Princess Tharbis, who is said to have been the wife of Moses before he married Zipporah.

There is no consensus on the exact location of Sheba, though modern scholars have placed it in the general area spanning South Arabia and the Horn of Africa.

The Encyclopædia Britannica posits that the biblical narrative about Sheba was based on the ancient civilization of the Sabaeans (Old South Arabian: 𐩪𐩨𐩱 S-b-ʾ‍) in South Arabia. This view is echoed by Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and American historian Neil Asher Silberman, both of whom write that "the Sabaean kingdom began to flourish only from the eighth century BCE onward" and that the story of Solomon and Sheba is "an anachronistic seventh-century set piece meant to legitimize the participation of Judah in the lucrative Arabian trade" with regard to the narrative of Solomon leading Israel to conquer Sheba.