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00:00In the desert sands of the Middle East, an intrepid explorer has launched an extraordinary investigation to find a missing person, the legendary biblical figure known as the Queen of Sheba.
00:14Immortalized as the lover of King Solomon, who was she? What was her name? To this day, it's a mystery.
00:24Armed with the latest scientific techniques, this investigative team is determined to find some answers.
00:31Will they unearth archaeological evidence of Sheba and finally bring the legend to life?
00:38The Queen of Sheba is well known as a mythical beauty. But what is the truth behind the myth? Who was she? Did she really exist?
01:02For 3,000 years, her story has been handed down, retold in dozens of languages, fact and fiction blurred.
01:11The Hollywood version of the story presents Sheba as a scheming, godless temptress who seduces King Solomon.
01:18Good love I have for her. And out of love, I will attend her ritual.
01:25Many archaeologists accept that Solomon was a real historical figure, but Sheba's life is still an exotic legend.
01:34By fantasizing to a certain extent and making it more poetic, an ancient story, an ancient reality is preserved.
01:44Stories recur through the ages, but the Queen's name is missing from every source.
01:50She may be the memory of a genuine historical queen. She might be a composite memory of several different female figures who ruled the lands of the sands in ancient times.
02:04Scholars can't quite pin her down, and this is probably something that adds to her legendary status.
02:10This is Yemen, a volatile country torn apart by decades of bloody civil wars.
02:17An intrepid team has come here to find the real Queen of Sheba.
02:25The expedition's patron is Marilyn Phillips Hodgson. Her investigation starts here, in the ruined city of Marib,
02:36in a region the Arabs once called Saba and the Jews called Sheba.
02:41Close by the city, hidden beneath thousands of tons of desert sand, lie the remains of a temple.
02:50It's known as the Mahram Bilkis, the Temple of Sheba.
02:57Marilyn is here to continue the remarkable work of this man, her late brother Wendell Phillips.
03:05An adventurer who was in part the inspiration for the movie character Indiana Jones.
03:11In 1952, he led the first excavation here and brought along his own film crew.
03:18It was his personal quest to uncover archaeological evidence of the Queen of Sheba's life.
03:24He was convinced that the Mahram Bilkis Temple held the key to her identity.
03:30After just four months of work, and under much harassment and house arrest, this is what they revealed.
03:39Undisturbed for more than a thousand years, a grand courtyard emerged, an evidence of the forgotten empire of the Sabaeans.
03:49The inscriptions here suggest that the temple is dedicated to a fertility god, known as al-Makkah.
03:56Arabic folklore linked Sheba to an ancient fertility cult, so these findings were a major first step, reinforcing Wendell's belief that he was looking in the right place.
04:09What a magnificent area this must have been in the 10th century BC, when Her Majesty the Queen of Sheba reigned over this area.
04:17The temple of Mahram Bilkis, the richest remaining archaeological treasure house to be excavated anywhere in the Arab world and probably the entire Middle East.
04:26But not everyone was convinced by Wendell's discoveries.
04:31Some archaeologists believe that the temple dated to 700 BC, and was unlikely to have been built three centuries before Sheba's time.
04:42Undeterred, Wendell presses on, convinced he's on the verge of uncovering Sheba's identity.
04:48Then disaster strikes. The hostility of local warlords reaches breaking point.
04:56They issue death threats. The team pulls out, and Wendell's dream is over.
05:03I was tipped off one day that I was to be assassinated at 3 o'clock the next afternoon.
05:08We didn't know what was going to happen. A warrior tribe was racing down the Wadi Harib.
05:12The one fact that played in our favor, and I had counted on this, was that they couldn't imagine an American abandoning a million dollars in supplies and equipment just to save the life of a few fellow Americans.
05:24Well, we got away without a shot being fired, and then we raced across the sands, and we made our escape.
05:30Wendell Phillips never returns to Yemen. Struck down by a series of strokes, he is forced to abandon his search for Sheba forever.
05:39When he was paralyzed and could hardly move, you know, and then I taught him how to walk again, and to use his hand, and he was getting all around.
05:48He would sit by the hour and plan the expedition.
05:54In the decades that followed, Yemen closed its borders to the outside world, and the desert reclaimed the temple.
06:00We never talked about me doing it. He was coming out. You know, he was going to do it.
06:07So when he got a second heart attack and suddenly it was over, there wasn't even any thought about it. You know, it had to be.
06:15Five decades later, Marilyn is taking up the reins of her brother's quest. This time, the archaeologists have scientific technology to help them.
06:26Her team has already reached the Mahram Bilkis. They are preparing to uncover the secrets behind the legendary figure.
06:35I believe that a queen of Sheba must have existed. Why would these stories permeate so many people's lives, especially in the Arabian Peninsula?
06:46They believe so strongly in this. And why would it have lasted all these centuries?
06:52Under heavy security, the excavation begins at the ancient site.
06:56It's a race against time. They have just one month. After that, the authorities can no longer guarantee their safety.
07:06Oh, I never saw that, huh?
07:10Wow.
07:12Leading Marilyn's team is Professor Bill Glansman, a Yemen archaeology expert.
07:16He's excavating new parts of the site, hoping to discover more about the Sabean people, thought to be the queen of Sheba's subjects.
07:22The sanctuary here, the Mahram Bilkis, is important because we have the ancient Sabean Kingdom centered here at Marib.
07:32This is a great historical center in that sense. It's also the largest pre-Islamic sanctuary that we've yet discovered in the Arabian Peninsula.
07:41But is this the site that will finally reveal the identity of the elusive queen of Sheba?
07:46Can the team find archaeological evidence of her existence beneath this sea of sand?
08:01This is Yemen, one of the most unstable regions in the Middle East.
08:04Intrepid explorer Marilyn Phillips Hodgson is here, risking her life to chase a myth.
08:12Continuing an expedition begun by her brother 50 years ago.
08:17Her team of archaeologists and scientists is digging for evidence of the queen of Sheba, a legendary beauty best known as King Solomon's lover.
08:27Her actual identity is still a mystery.
08:31Archaeologist Bill Glansman believes excavating new parts of the site might uncover clues about the queen herself.
08:39The Mahram Bilkis is important because we have the ancient Sabean Kingdom centered here at Marib.
08:45It's also the largest pre-Islamic sanctuary that we've yet discovered in the Arabian Peninsula.
08:52There were always very powerful queens. Some of them would rise up to fame and glory, such as some of the Egyptian queens like Hatshepsut and Cleopatra, for example.
09:03But this queen of Sheba is a little bit different. Without her name, we can't identify her actually as a historical figure.
09:09We need to find some link, if there is one, to find the historical reality of that queen and the stories that surround her.
09:22The site covers over 600,000 square feet, bigger than 11 football fields in size, and every inch is being cleared by hand.
09:31Progress is slow, and now a dust devil is on its way, forcing them to stop working.
09:39In Arabic folklore, these desert whirlwinds, sometimes called Jinn or Jini, are closely connected to the legendary queen of Sheba.
09:48In old Bedouin tales, Sheba's mother was a dust devil spirit.
09:53A fable set in the rich city of Marud describes how there lived among the merchants a beautiful spirit called Umayah.
10:03Umayah falls madly in love with an important advisor to the king, and from their secret affair, a daughter is born.
10:11Half human, half genie, they name her Bilkis and give her to the spirits of the desert to raise.
10:18Years later, Bilkis learns from a passing caravan that an evil king now rules Marib.
10:28One night, she slips into the king's chamber and plunges a dagger deep through his heart, saving the people of Sheba and replacing him as their ruler.
10:38At the dig, they have to work fast.
10:42There's less than four weeks to find evidence that links this temple site to Sheba.
10:48The archaeologists carefully record the exact position of each find, then use a technique called stratigraphy to date them.
10:57Dust and dirt particles are continuously settling on all surfaces.
11:02Eventually, they form a layer.
11:04With time, new layers are formed on top of the older ones, slowly piling up like a stack of pancakes.
11:12Each layer corresponds to a specific time period.
11:17The objects found within that layer, which can be dated with some certainty, for example, by using carbon dating, then help to reveal the age of other artifacts found at the same depth.
11:27It's been a long day digging under a burning sun, but just when they least expect it, an inscription emerges from the sand.
11:37Oh, my God.
11:39This is really a big structure, isn't it? Solid.
11:43It mentions a king here, the name of a king, and we have here also...
11:49The inscription suggests that the temple is a royal building.
11:54We have Damar Ali, king of Sabah.
11:57Inscriptions are like billboards, announcing royal commands and offering devotion to the temple's god.
12:04It's a kind of decree.
12:05Wendell never saw this, or never saw the inside.
12:09It's a new discovery, never unearthed by Marilyn's brother.
12:14And it's big news, because royal inscriptions could mean royal graves.
12:19Wendell Phillips was unable to prove his belief that the temple dated back to the time of the Queen of Sheba.
12:26But results from modern dating techniques have done just that.
12:29We do know that the sanctuary goes back at least as early as the time of King Solomon, around 950 to 900 BC.
12:38And actually much earlier than that, for over 500, 600 years earlier, would suggest that if there is any connection at all to be found with a single historic figure, a single Queen of Sheba, it would be found here.
12:52So the final resting place of the real Queen of Sheba could be just feet away.
12:59But will they find it in time?
13:10In the middle of the Yemeni desert, a team of scientists and archaeologists is excavating a stunning ancient temple known as the Mahram Bilkis.
13:19They're hoping it holds the key to the identity of the unnamed Queen of Sheba.
13:26But what is it about her that holds so much fascination?
13:31The legends tell us she ruled the land of Sheba in the 10th century BC.
13:38At the center of her kingdom was the capital, Marib, a thriving commercial center.
13:43But the most talked about adventure of her life lay far to the west, Israel and its ruler, King Solomon.
13:53Traveling across this vast open landscape, merchants swapped stories, gossip and news.
14:01And it would not have taken long for word to spread of King Solomon.
14:07The construction and grandeur of his temple was famous all over Arabia.
14:12The Ethiopian holy book, the Kebra Nagast, recounts how Sheba first learned about the king.
14:18In this version of the story, it's said that a merchant named Tamrin has been to Jerusalem, heard all about the wisdom of Solomon,
14:29and naturally he reports all matters of a foreign nature that might impinge on his world to his queen.
14:36Sheba is intrigued.
14:37She says, this is marvelous. The more I hear about this wisdom, the more I have to hear it in person.
14:44I really have to go and find out if this man is indeed wisdom's child.
14:49Think of everything we could learn from him.
14:54And the Koran recounts a story of how Solomon first heard about Sheba.
14:59Solomon's pet raven is sent to find a missing hoopoe bird,
15:03a prized animal that has become lost in a far off land.
15:08Guided home by the raven, the hoopoe tells Solomon of a distant oasis ruled by a rich and beautiful pagan queen.
15:16Well, at this point, Solomon wonders why someone that beautiful and that rich doesn't know who the real god is,
15:25and further has never come to him to pay tribute.
15:27So he sends a letter hung around the hoopoe's neck, who delivers it to Sheba.
15:33She then takes it to her council of courtiers and says, what should we do about this?
15:39However the letter reached her, it seems pretty clear. The message is an ultimatum.
15:45Sheba must pay tribute to Solomon or risk offending him.
15:49She decides that Solomon is a fairly dangerous man and it would be a good idea if she had good relationships with him.
15:58But she isn't all that anxious to go meet him and pay tribute and to subjugate herself to him.
16:05So she tries something else first. She tries diplomatic gifts and she sends fabulous treasures to Jerusalem in hopes that this will in fact buy Solomon off.
16:15buy Solomon off.
16:16But the plan fails. Solomon is insulted. God's gift of wisdom is more valuable to him than riches.
16:24Sheba on the other hand knows that whenever there's a war on your own soil, everyone suffers.
16:31And she decides against the council of her men that she should actually go to Jerusalem and deal with this matter herself.
16:38It's simply too important to be allowed to degenerate into a border war.
16:42The Bible says that Sheba's servants packed many gifts for Solomon, including gold, gemstones and spices.
16:51But were they gifts or were they for sale?
16:55I think you look at the Bible, there's some stuff about the power of Solomon and Sheba admiring his wisdom.
17:02But if you just scratch that surface just a little bit, you see the record of a trade agreement.
17:06And the vast amount of goods that she brings Solomon and the account does not say their presents.
17:13It just says she brings them.
17:15So I think there's two things going on.
17:17They exchange presents, but at first she is bringing enormous amount of trade goods and saying basically here you are, you know, let's work out a deal.
17:24One of the trade goods Sheba carries to Israel is frankincense, an aromatic resin burned as incense in the ceremonies of many ancient religions.
17:35Frankincense can still be bought in Yemeni markets today.
17:38Harvested from trees that only grow in the southern Arabian Peninsula and parts of East Africa, the ancient Sabaean kingdom would have had a virtual monopoly over this resin, generating enormous wealth.
17:52To thank their god, Al Maka, for their good fortune, the Sabaeans built this, the Mahram Bilkis Temple, at the time the largest holy site in Arabia.
18:05At the dig, a Bedouin worker makes a startling discovery, a carving that has been hidden from view for over 1,500 years.
18:15Could this latest find reveal something new about the royalty who worshipped here?
18:22Could it be the clue to Sheba that Marilyn and her chief archaeologist have been searching for?
18:27The legendary Queen of Sheba is thought to have lived in the 10th century BC in a country now called Yemen.
18:46But in every story about her life, her actual name is never mentioned.
18:51Who was she?
18:52A team of specialists is excavating a magnificent, buried temple, hoping to uncover archaeological proof of her identity.
19:03And they've just made an exciting find.
19:07Approximately six minutes ago, the workman was cleaning up in here, and he came upon, as you can see down here, a very large freeze with ibex heads.
19:16No one has seen these carvings since they were swallowed up by the desert sands over 1,500 years ago.
19:24This is a real exciting moment. I'm almost at a loss for words.
19:31Wow.
19:33Bill is overwhelmed by the find.
19:35The ibex is one of the two zoomorphic representations of the deity of Makkah.
19:41He's generally represented here by the bull in the inscriptions and by figurines, but here we have him represented also by the ibex.
19:50The importance of the inscription is tremendous also because it mentions the king's name.
19:55It's another royal connection for the team.
20:01To reveal more of this incredible structure, geophysicist Brian Moorman has a trick up his sleeve.
20:07A way to detect what lies beneath the millions of tons of sand, and crucially, where to dig.
20:15Ground-penetrating radar.
20:16Today, we're able to use geophysics to pinpoint locations that might be of interest and limit the amount of digging and limit the amount of disturbance and the amount of effort that goes into a site.
20:28When Marilyn's brother Wendell first excavated this site in 1952, he could only dream of access to this kind of technology.
20:37The ground-penetrating radar work that we do here allows us to map the features underneath the surface in three dimensions.
20:43So we're able to reconstruct all the structures that are on the site as if all the sand had been taken away.
20:51Ground-penetrating radar works by firing high-frequency pulses of energy into the ground.
20:58Different structures beneath the surface reflect these pulses in different ways.
21:03The position and strength of these reflections are picked up and recorded by a receiver.
21:07Plotting this data forms a virtual underground map.
21:12And Brian's analysis pays off.
21:15It reveals a sprawling layout.
21:18And a network of man-made structures still lies hidden beneath the sand.
21:23Could they reveal the missing link to Sheba?
21:27You know, who knows what we're going to find?
21:29You know, we didn't expect to find over here in this trench yesterday this Ibex Freeze.
21:37Who knows what's there?
21:38Hmm?
21:40The pace of work ramps up.
21:43The site is bigger than anyone had predicted.
21:46The team is running out of time and their bodyguards are getting anxious.
21:49Ryan focuses all the team's efforts on the newly discovered expanses.
21:57And makes a significant find.
22:00When we were doing our ground-penetrating radar surveys here,
22:04we found a very small but very distinctive reflection coming from this location.
22:10Some kind of underground void.
22:11This pile of stones represents the most important feature that we can easily understand inside the sanctuary.
22:20The structure is a well.
22:22And the well here was used for possibly getting the water for ritual ablutions.
22:28It's approximately three meters below the surface and we're just about to begin the excavation to try to uncover the well head.
22:34This well would have been the epicenter of the Sabaean Empire and a place of great significance for Sheba herself.
22:42It contained the sacred waters of Almaka, the water-giving fertility god, whose blessings were vital to the city of Marib.
22:50In this kind of harsh environment, water is everything. It's a life-giving force.
22:55It's the most important thing that you can have out here.
22:58It may also explain why our sanctuary is located where it is.
23:03It's not in the city where most of the people would have easy access to worship at the temple.
23:09Rather, it's right in the middle of an ancient field system.
23:12I think that stresses the importance of the deity, Almaka, who controls that fertility of those fields.
23:19The Sabaeans believe that Almaka was responsible for water and the life it created around Marib.
23:25And their own ingenuity played a vital role in the fertility of the region.
23:30Five miles away from the site is the great Marib Dam.
23:35Described in Arabian folklore as a miracle of engineering, it spanned nearly 2,000 feet.
23:42Almost twice the width of Colorado's Hoover Dam.
23:45It was built to contain the region's twice-yearly flash floods, captured on film by Wendell Phillips 50 years ago.
23:55The floods brought tragedy to his expedition.
23:59The great floods or sails swept down the Wadi Behan.
24:04Two of our workmen were drowned in attempting to get across this area.
24:07Surging off the nearby mountains, the dam waters created a fertile oasis of 24,000 acres.
24:17They built at Marib an agricultural scheme that has really not been equal to our day.
24:24A single dam that could water enough cropland to feed upwards of 40,000, 50,000 people.
24:30Relying strictly on seasonal flash floods, you know, an amazing achievement.
24:34This highly sophisticated irrigation network allowed Marib to flourish as a wealthy and important center of trade.
24:43Once that was in place, their living was pretty easy.
24:47And it got a lot easier when they realized that on top of that, they had these luxury goods,
24:53which the Romans and the Greeks and others further north lusted for.
24:56And with their caravans, they could make staggering profits, enough so that the Romans said that these were the richest people in the world.
25:07Nurturing the commercial interests of the Sabean Kingdom was an important duty for the monarch.
25:13So perhaps the real motive for Sheba's 1,500-mile journey to King Solomon was to initiate a trade agreement.
25:21One on which her city depended.
25:26Today, Marib lies empty, the consequence of a civil war over a generation ago.
25:31Now, its only occupants are occasional Bedouin families who make temporary homes among its ruined towers.
25:39But at the nearby archaeological site, Bryan's underground scan reveals a dramatic new find.
25:46A direct link between this ancient city and the royal temple.
25:51Will it help them unravel the Sheba mystery?
25:54This team of archaeologists is excavating an ancient temple in the desert sands of Yemen,
26:08in search of the mythical Queen of Sheba.
26:11Ground-penetrating radar is helping geophysicist Bryan Moorman and the team to plot the site,
26:18and they make a remarkable discovery.
26:20We're standing right on top of the western doorway right now,
26:25that is perfectly in line with the ancient city of Marib.
26:30It's hypothesized that there was some kind of processional way along here
26:34that would lead the people from the city to the temple itself.
26:39After doing our geophysical surveys out in the western side of the site,
26:43we've done a couple of trial investigations and found three and a quarter meters below the surface,
26:49and two of the holes so far, a stone surface, that might be the processional walkway.
26:55What might this processional path have meant for Sheba herself?
27:00The symbolic significance of a processional way might be that it takes a long ways to get here,
27:07so you have time to think about what it is that you want to ask of the deity,
27:11or thank the deity for intervening, but also along the way, as in our own cultures today,
27:19we have billboards and tall buildings that are icons and symbols of all sorts of issues of wealth and marketing and all of that.
27:27We have to imagine similar kinds of symbolism along the way here to make the pilgrim feel like they're coming into a place of holy sanctity.
27:38On important days in the Sabaean calendar, pilgrims and their queen would have walked along this two-mile path.
27:44Inscriptions on the temple walls tell us that many of them had traveled from distant lands, bringing with them an offering for their god.
27:55At the temple, Bill Glansman believes they now have the most complete picture yet of how the ancient people of Saba worshipped at their holy shrine.
28:03We're standing here in front of the main entrance to the sanctuary known as the Mahram Bilkis, the sacred precinct of Bilkis.
28:12And Bilkis, of course, is Arab folklore's name for the otherwise nameless Queen of Sheba.
28:17We're right now coming through the central part of the peristyle hall, which was a large open hall with pillars around the sides and behind me that once had a covered walkway or portico around it.
28:30And imagine, four meters below the sand beneath my feet, there were all sorts of dedications of the pious pilgrims laid all around in here.
28:39So many offerings made to al-Makka, the most important deity of the ancient kingdom of Saba.
28:45It was along the temple's processional path 3,000 years ago that the Queen of Sheba might have walked the night before she set off on her journey to Jerusalem.
28:54Queen, High Priestess, and now Trade Envoy, Sheba would enter the temple through the 40-foot-high columns of the peristyle entrance.
29:07Imagine going through that, smelling the fragrance of frankincense burning on altars, perhaps hearing the bleeding of goats and sheep and other animals as they're being ritually sacrificed to the deity.
29:19Sculptures and gleaming bronze staring down at you, showing the presence of the deity. This must have been overwhelming.
29:26Walking through the great hall, a set of doors leads to the most holy place of all, the temple's sacred enclosure.
29:34Fragments of bronze recovered from the enclosure suggest that contained within, towering over them all, was the most sacred idol of Sabean culture, a huge bull.
29:45The bull, in ancient Semitic cultures, is a storm god, or a representation of a storm god.
29:54We have to think of the snorting of a bull and the hoofs trampling on the ground and that thunderous roar.
30:00It emulates the sound of thunderclaps, which always bring in rain, and the rain is absolutely critical because it's that water, that rainwater that falls, that helps to irrigate fields.
30:13After offering a final blood sacrifice, the queen of Sheba leaves her temple, beginning an epic 3,000-mile round trip to Jerusalem.
30:27But what evidence exists that this journey to meet Solomon takes place?
30:35The existence of a trade route between the ancient kingdoms of Saba and Israel is confirmed by modern discoveries of Sabean pottery in Jerusalem.
30:43So it is possible that a Sabean queen ventured on this important diplomatic mission.
30:50The incense route to Jerusalem saw heavy traffic, with merchants carrying exotic goods from all over the Middle East.
30:57But for a queen to make such an adventurous journey would be unusual.
31:04Snaking along dried-up riverbeds, known here as wadis, the caravan would travel north, past the Red Sea, and over the Jordan River.
31:13This exhausting expedition could take six months or more, crossing some of the most hostile terrain on earth.
31:20The Bible records that when Sheba entered Jerusalem, she was overwhelmed by Solomon's temple.
31:29Its purpose was to house the Ark of the Covenant, the Jewish faith's holiest relic.
31:36The moment when the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon finally meet has been immortalized by artists for centuries.
31:43Often portrayed as an exotic and mysterious woman, Sheba is contrasted with Solomon, the man of wisdom.
31:53The Ethiopian holy book, the Kebra Nagas, describes their first meeting.
31:58The first time that he saw her, he was totally taken by surprise.
32:03She's an extremely beautiful woman, and he received her in such a way that he recognized her greatness, and then he treated her accordingly.
32:15During her stay, which in some accounts lasts three years, Sheba and Solomon discuss many subjects, including Solomon's God.
32:24But Sheba resists Solomon's sexual advances.
32:27As summer temperatures soar, Maryland's four-week expedition is almost over.
32:34And the Yemeni authorities are nervous about the increasingly restless local warlords.
32:40Then suddenly, the team makes a last-minute discovery, a face in the sand.
32:47Could the Queen of Sheba be closer than they think?
32:57Maryland Wendell Phillips is leading an extraordinary expedition.
33:02It's the fourth and final week of excavations on a temple linked to the legendary Queen of Sheba,
33:08and the team makes a startling discovery.
33:14This is the last couple of days on the site, and of course this is when the exciting stuff always starts to pop up.
33:21Could it be evidence of a royal grave?
33:24What we have here, in fact, is a grave steely that has been recycled as part of masonry construction into this wall.
33:37It would have originally been set vertically.
33:41Grave steelies would indicate somebody of prominence who's buried in the cemetery.
33:46This is not Joe Average Sabian.
33:49No two of these heads are identical, so it looks like there's a sense of realism.
33:52Could its owner be buried nearby?
33:56This is a female's head.
33:59I'll have to have our specialist look at the inscription to give us a full translation of the individual's name.
34:05Was this a queen?
34:07We have quite a few steely like this from the cemetery.
34:11Maybe some are queens, but there's never a title associated with these inscriptions yet.
34:16At least not yet.
34:18Once again, the team's quest to put a face to the Queen of Sheba is tantalizingly close.
34:25And just as they unearth a human likeness for the first time, it seems the desert wants to protect its secrets.
34:32A dust devil sweeps across the site.
34:40The Bible tells us that in Jerusalem, Sheba tests Solomon with hard questions.
34:46The Koran says they took the form of riddles.
34:48It's like our version of small talk.
34:52It was like testing the waters.
34:54It wasn't, I'm going to determine is Solomon's wisdom beyond belief or not.
34:59It was more like when business deals are done now, there's a lot of chit chat that goes on for a while before you get down to the matter of the day.
35:07You find this in other cultures as well, particularly Mesopotamian culture.
35:10There's a long tradition of riddles between monarchs.
35:14Not only do diplomats exchange riddles.
35:17And the Jewish historian Josephus told us that Solomon had riddle contests with Hiram, the king of Tyre.
35:23So Solomon likes this sort of thing.
35:25But in fact, we find that riddles are often exchanged at wedding feasts.
35:30So the very act of exchanging riddles shows that you are fit partners.
35:34The Kebra Nagas holy book describes how Sheba and Solomon became inseparable.
35:42But eventually, Sheba decides she must return to her own people.
35:47Tormented by his desire for her, Solomon pleads with Sheba to stay.
35:52But reluctantly, she refuses.
35:55On the night before Sheba's departure, Solomon fed her a very spicy dinner.
36:00And then kept her up very late so she couldn't return to her own palace.
36:03Sleep here, he says. Everything will be fine.
36:06Now, Sheba is very noble in this story and very proper.
36:10And she makes Solomon swear that he will not force her to any sort of encounter.
36:16And he says, fine, if you'll swear to me that you won't take anything from my palace.
36:22Well, Sheba's outraged. They've spent three years in each other's company.
36:26Why does he think she's a thief?
36:28So naturally, she says, of course I won't take anything.
36:30But she wakes in the night and she's thirsty.
36:33And Solomon has left wonderful clear water right by her bed.
36:37And as she reaches out to take a cup of water, Solomon's hand grabs her.
36:42And he says, you've broken your oath. I can break mine.
36:45And they sleep together.
36:46When the queen of Sheba returns home, she carries with her the light of wisdom.
36:53The Quran explains that this light represents her conversion to Solomon's faith,
36:58making Sheba the first person to bring the worship of a single god to Arabia.
37:02And according to the Kebra Nagast, the light of wisdom is not all she is carrying.
37:09Nine months after leaving Jerusalem, Sheba gives birth to her first and only son, Menelik.
37:16And when he comes of age, he journeys to Jerusalem to visit his father, Solomon.
37:22Returning with the Ark of the Covenant, Menelik takes it to Ethiopia, where he founds a new dynasty.
37:28Menelik's departure for Ethiopia is the last reference any of the religious sources make to Sheba.
37:37From here, she simply vanishes.
37:42Her city would continue for another 1500 years until the 6th century AD.
37:48The end of the Sabine culture was pretty coincidental to the rise of Christianity.
37:53As part of Christianity, there was a belief now in burial rather than cremation.
38:00As a big part of cremation, frankincense was sprinkled on the funeral pyre.
38:05And we know, for instance, from Nero's wife, Popeya, when she died,
38:10Nero used all the frankincense of Arabia for the entire year for her funeral.
38:13So with the rise of Christianity and burial rather than cremation, the demand for frankincense just fell way, way off.
38:24And without the frankincense industry, Marib's survival is under threat.
38:30Then, a catastrophe.
38:32The final blow came when their great resource, agriculture, was wiped out by a collapse of the Great Dam.
38:44And they pretty much went out of business probably in almost like in a year.
38:49And that was the end.
38:50The great fields that once fed 50,000 people revert to desert.
38:57The shimmering oasis of Marib becomes a mirage.
39:01For the people of Arabia today, where one of the most common names for little girls is Balkis or Bilkis,
39:17which is the legendary name of Sheba.
39:20Sheba is a memory of a glorious time.
39:23A time of wealth, a time of international trade, and a time before Islam.
39:28Sheba perhaps represents for the people there their pride in their ancient history, but also their new commitments to monotheism.
39:38One of the exciting things about the archaeology of this sanctuary is that if there is a way to solve this riddle,
39:45it almost certainly will be from the discoveries made at this site.
39:50The team's discovery indicates that royal graves could be found at this site.
39:54I'd be very surprised if she didn't show up in inscriptions and that if eventually her great was not found.
40:05Marilyn's excavation of this temple ruin has revealed new information about the Sabaeans
40:11and come closer to finding evidence of Sheba's existence, keeping her brother's quest alive.
40:16When I think of Wendell, I think one of the most important components of his character was his never-say-die spirit.
40:29My purpose is to continue his work and to see this great temple come alive.
40:37For now, work here has stopped, but the team has shown that this sanctuary was the focal point of the region's miraculous artificial oasis,
40:49a forgotten wonder of the ancient world.
40:52And the team's findings point to it being a royal building where the Queen of Sheba may have worshipped the fertility god, Almaka.
40:59It's now apparent that in the 10th century BC, a Sabaean ruler would have a powerful motive for braving a journey to Solomon in Israel.
41:11Trade was Marib's lifeblood.
41:15And it's likely that the head of this kingdom is a woman.
41:19Sheba lived in an era when women often became rulers in Arabia,
41:22and there are many references to a queen in ancient sources.
41:27Without her real name, every detail the team knows about the queen is a vital clue in the unsolved puzzle of Sheba,
41:35a remarkable woman whose efforts to secure a trade link are immortalized in a legend that has survived for 3,000 years.