Who is Queen Makeda? Guide to the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba

Q: What is the Kebra Nagast?

The Kebra Nagast ("Glory of Kings") is a fourteenth-century Ethiopian text in Ge'ez, one of the foundational documents of Ethiopian national and religious identity. It preserves the extended account of Makeda, her journey to Solomon, the birth of Menelik, and the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia. The text draws on much older Ethiopian oral and written traditions.

Queen Makeda is the Ethiopian tradition’s name for the queen the Bible calls the Queen of Sheba and the Arabic tradition calls Bilqis. She is one of the most consequential figures in Ethiopian national and religious identity. In the Ethiopian account preserved in the Kebra Nagast (“Glory of Kings”), she travelled from her southern kingdom to Jerusalem to meet Solomon, tested his wisdom, married him, and bore his son Menelik I, who became the founder of the Solomonic dynasty that ruled Ethiopia (with interruptions) until 1974. She is preserved in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian tradition and in the broader cultural memory of Ethiopia as the ancestress of the Ethiopian imperial line.

Key Takeaways

Queen Makeda is the Ethiopian tradition’s name for the queen known in the Hebrew Bible as the Queen of Sheba and in Arabic tradition as Bilqis.
Her story is preserved most fully in the Kebra Nagast (“Glory of Kings”), the fourteenth-century Ge’ez text that is one of the foundational documents of Ethiopian national and religious identity.
In the Ethiopian account, she ruled a great kingdom in the region of what is now Ethiopia and travelled to Jerusalem to meet Solomon, drawn by reports of his extraordinary wisdom.
She tested Solomon with riddles and questions; he answered all of them. In return she was tricked (in the tradition’s telling) into sleeping with him and conceived a son.
Her son Menelik I returned to Jerusalem as a young man to meet his father; he brought back the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia, which remains (in Ethiopian Orthodox tradition) at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum.
Through Menelik, Makeda is the ancestress of the Solomonic dynasty that ruled Ethiopia from the thirteenth century until the deposition of Haile Selassie in 1974.
Her story is central to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and to Rastafarian tradition, which considers Haile Selassie the direct descendant of Solomon and Makeda.

Who is Queen Makeda?

Queen Makeda (also spelled Makueda, Magda, and other variants in different sources) is the Ethiopian tradition’s version of the queen who visited Solomon in the tenth century BCE. She is a queen of extraordinary wisdom, wealth, and political skill, ruling a great kingdom in what the tradition identifies as the region of Ethiopia and neighbouring lands.

Definition - Queen Makeda

The Ethiopian tradition’s name for the queen the Bible calls the Queen of Sheba and Arabic tradition calls Bilqis. Makeda ruled a kingdom in the region of Ethiopia, travelled to Jerusalem to meet Solomon, and bore his son Menelik I, who founded the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopian emperors. Her story is preserved most fully in the Kebra Nagast.

Three distinct traditions preserve the queen: the Biblical account in 1 Kings 10 (very brief), the Quranic account in Surah 27 (also brief), and the Ethiopian account in the Kebra Nagast (very extensive). The Ethiopian version is by far the fullest and gives her the name Makeda, her royal genealogy, her kingdom, her personal history, and her descendants. It is the version at the heart of Ethiopian national identity.

The Kebra Nagast was composed in Ge’ez (the classical liturgical language of Ethiopia) in the fourteenth century CE, though it draws on much older oral and written traditions - probably going back to Aksumite-era Ethiopian sources of the fourth to sixth centuries CE. The text is one of the foundational documents of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and of Ethiopian national identity.

Makeda hears of Solomon

The Ethiopian account holds that Makeda ruled a great kingdom in southern Arabia and northeast Africa (the boundaries of “Sheba” or “Saba” in the tradition are not precisely fixed - they extend from what is now Yemen across the Red Sea into what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia).

She was a young ruler, wealthy, and famous for her intelligence and administrative skill. Her kingdom prospered under her rule. She heard reports from her merchants about the wisdom of King Solomon of Israel. These reports intrigued her.

Her chief merchant Tamrin travelled to Jerusalem with gold, ivory, and precious woods to trade. He returned to Makeda’s court and described Solomon in detail - his wisdom, his court, his palace, the temple he had built for the God of Israel. Makeda, hearing these reports, resolved to travel to Jerusalem herself and see the king. Read Queen Makeda hears of Solomon.

Makeda’s journey to Jerusalem

She set out from her capital with an enormous caravan - camels loaded with gold, precious spices, incense, and gifts. The journey took months. When she arrived at Jerusalem, Solomon received her at his court with full royal honours.

She tested him with questions and riddles. Some of the tests preserved in the Kebra Nagast: she asked him philosophical questions about the nature of God; she posed puzzles about wisdom and justice; she asked him to solve mathematical problems. Solomon answered every question. She was, in the tradition’s phrase, “at a loss for words.”

She recognised that his wisdom exceeded her own. She began to worship his God. She spent months at his court, learning from him. She would have returned to her kingdom, but Solomon wanted a child from her - specifically, he wanted her to bear his son, so that his line would extend to the far south. Read Makeda and Solomon’s union.

The trick and the conception

Makeda had sworn not to sleep with Solomon. He agreed to respect this - on one condition. She must swear in return not to take anything from his household during her stay. She agreed easily. She had no need of his possessions; she had brought her own wealth.

Solomon then had his cooks prepare a very salty, very spicy feast for their last dinner together. Makeda ate. Later that night, thirsty from the meal, she rose from her bed and looked for water. Solomon had ordered every vessel of water in the palace hidden except one, which he had placed near her bed. She reached for it and drank.

Solomon appeared. He accused her of breaking her oath by taking water from his household. She protested - water was not a possession, water was necessary for life. He argued that anything one takes without permission is theft. He held her to her oath. Since she had broken hers, she must now release him from his.

That night she conceived a son.

She left Jerusalem the next day and returned to her kingdom. She bore the son during the return journey. She named him Bayna-Lehkem, later called Menelik (“Son of the Wise”). Read Solomon’s wisdom test.

Menelik and the Ark

When Menelik was a young man, he asked about his father. Makeda told him. Menelik resolved to travel to Jerusalem to meet Solomon.

He arrived at Solomon’s court. Solomon recognised him immediately as his son. Solomon wanted him to remain and eventually inherit the throne of Israel. Menelik declined - his heart was with his mother’s kingdom in the south. Solomon anointed him as king of Ethiopia and sent him back with a large company of Israelites: the firstborn sons of the priests and nobles of Israel, who were to serve in Menelik’s new kingdom.

According to the Kebra Nagast, this company included Azariah, son of the high priest Zadok. Azariah - either at Menelik’s direction, or on his own initiative (the text preserves both readings) - stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple in Jerusalem and brought it with them to Ethiopia. Solomon, discovering the theft after they had left, pursued them but could not overtake them; the Ark was carried by supernatural means. Read Menelik visits Solomon, Menelik’s return to Ethiopia, the birth of Menelik, and the Ark of the Covenant brought to Ethiopia.

The Ark, in Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, remains at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum. Only one man - the Guardian of the Ark, chosen from among the Ethiopian Orthodox monks - is permitted to see it. The claim that the Ark is in Ethiopia is a matter of active religious tradition for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Makeda and the Solomonic dynasty

Through Menelik, Makeda became the ancestress of the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopian emperors. The Ethiopian imperial tradition held that every Ethiopian emperor was a direct descendant of Solomon and Makeda through Menelik. This claim was enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution of 1955.

The Solomonic dynasty ruled Ethiopia (with interruptions) from the thirteenth century until 1974, when the last emperor, Haile Selassie I, was deposed. Haile Selassie’s identification with the Solomonic line was central to his imperial legitimacy and to his religious significance in Rastafarian tradition, which considers him the direct descendant of Solomon and Makeda and, in some Rastafarian theology, a divine figure.

Read the stories

Makeda appears throughout Ethiopian tradition. Some entry points:

Makeda is what Ethiopian tradition kept as its founding female figure - the queen who travelled to test the greatest wisdom of her age, who bore the son who became a king, and through whom the Ark of the Covenant was said to have come to Ethiopia. Her story is not distant literature. It is the foundation of Ethiopian national and religious identity, active today in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and in the Rastafarian movement, and the reason the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum is one of the most sacred sites in the Christian world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Makeda the same as the Queen of Sheba?

Yes. Queen Makeda is the Ethiopian tradition’s name for the queen the Bible calls the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10) and the Arabic tradition calls Bilqis. The three traditions preserve the same essential story - a great queen visiting Solomon in Jerusalem - but with very different levels of detail and different narrative elaborations. The Ethiopian account in the Kebra Nagast is the fullest and gives her the name and biography she is known by in Ethiopian tradition.

Where was Makeda’s kingdom?

The Ethiopian tradition places her kingdom in the region that includes modern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and possibly parts of the Arabian peninsula across the Red Sea. The historical Kingdom of Saba was probably centred in what is now Yemen, but Ethiopian tradition strongly claims the queen’s kingdom as centred in the Ethiopian highlands. Modern scholarship debates the exact geography; the tradition itself is clear that she is Ethiopian.

What is the Kebra Nagast?

The Kebra Nagast (“Glory of Kings”) is a fourteenth-century Ethiopian text in Ge’ez, one of the foundational documents of Ethiopian national and religious identity. It preserves the extended account of Makeda, her journey to Solomon, the birth of Menelik, and the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia. The text draws on much older Ethiopian oral and written traditions.

Who is Menelik I?

Menelik I is Makeda’s son by Solomon and the mythological founder of the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopian emperors. He is said to have visited his father in Jerusalem as a young man and returned to Ethiopia with a company of Israelites, bringing the Ark of the Covenant. Through him, every subsequent emperor of the Solomonic dynasty (which ruled Ethiopia with interruptions from the thirteenth century until 1974) claimed direct descent from Solomon and Makeda.

Is the Ark of the Covenant really in Ethiopia?

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church holds that the Ark is at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, where it has been since Menelik brought it from Jerusalem. Only one monk - the Guardian of the Ark, chosen for life - is permitted to see it. Other Christian traditions do not accept this claim. The historical question is disputed. The religious claim is central to Ethiopian Orthodox tradition and is a matter of active belief for millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians today.

Is Makeda mentioned in the Bible?

The Queen of Sheba appears in the Bible (1 Kings 10:1-13 and 2 Chronicles 9:1-12), but she is not named there. She is called simply “the queen of Sheba” (Malkat Sheba in Hebrew). The names Makeda (Ethiopian) and Bilqis (Arabic) are given to her by later traditions elaborating on the brief Biblical account.