text: From the different documentaries, I have seen and the article from National Geographic, I'm inclined to conclude that Sheba was a territory in the South-West of the Arabian Penisula in an area that is now around the Yemen and Saudi Arabian border area. There was discussion of a lost city covered by sand dunes in this area, recently discovered by satellite imagery. The archeologists are now studying these ruins. I think that may be the key to Sheba. Hope this is of help.\n\nTo Arabs, Sheba was Bilqis, a queen of the incense-rich lands of ancient Saba in what is now Yemen. \n\nEarthly Queen \n\nScholars believe that if there were an actual Queen of Sheba and she did visit King Solomon, it would have happened about 950 B.C. \n\nEarly research dated Saba back to 650 B.C. By the time Clapp began his search for the historical queen, however, archaeologists had used carbon-14 dating to show that Saba had an alphabet, and thus civilization, that dated back to 1200 B.C. \nBut it was in Yemen where Clapp came closest to the object of his pursuit. Using space images and a device for global positioning system navigation, Clapp conspired with drivers dazed by qat (a narcotic leaf) to follow an ancient caravan route leading to ruins where Sheba's tomb may lie. \n\n"With that civilization now coming into focus, the biblical account of Sheba and Solomon assumes the marking of a real event and by association gives Solomon credibility as a historical figure," Clapp notes in his book. \n\nBibical Queen Revised \n\nThe Yemeni ruins of Ma'rib and Sirwah indicate that the Sabeans were an advanced civilization with characteristics that match legends about Sheba, said Clapp. The sites also allow for an archaeological interpretation of I Kings 10:1-13. \n\nAccording to Clapp, Sheba was probably a powerful merchant queen of Saba who capitalized on the domestication of the camel to open trade routes to the Fertile Crescent Israel, Damascus, Sidon, and Tyre. \n\nIn this interpretation, her visit to King Solomon, a hill country chieftain, was a high-powered trade meeting. \n\nThe "difficult questions" Sheba asks Solomon in their biblical meeting may have centered on long-range trade, said Clapp. And the gifts she is said to have given to Solomon "a hundred and twenty talents of gold and great quantities of spices and precious stones" are commodities for distribution. \n\nIn turn, Solomon gave Sheba "all she expressed a wish for." Clapp says that in mercantile terms, that wish might have been for passage to the lucrative markets of the Fertile Crescent. The phrase also raises the possibility of an affair of the heart, giving greater credence to the myth of Menelik. \n\nExcavation of the Ma'rib and Sirwah sites is ongoing. "Will there be a day when the Queen of Sheba's tomb is discovered?" Clapp asks. "[The civilization] went on for 1,800 years, not one of their tombs have been found yet. There is a huge trove of discovery to come." \n\nFrom the second link:\n\nSheba (from the English transcription of the Hebrew name sh'va, also Saba, Arabic: سبأ) is a southern kingdom mentioned in the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) and the Qur'an. The actual location of the historical kingdom is disputed between Ethiopia and Yemen. In the Old Testament genealogy of the nations (Genesis 10:7), Sheba, along with Dedan, is listed as one of the descendents of Noah's son Ham (i.e. son of Raamah son of Cush son of Ham). In Genesis 25:3, Sheba and Dedan are listed as sons of Jokshan. Another Sheba is listed in the Genesis 10 genealogy as a descendent of Noah's son Shem, i.e. a Semite. (There the genealogy lists Sheba as son of Joktan son of Eber son of Shelah son of Arphaxad son of Shem.) The nation makes its first appearance in world literature in the form of the Queen of Sheba (Bilqis, in Islamic tradition), who travels to Jerusalem to check out the fame of King Solomon (1 King