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Sheba and Sammuramat

Posted By: Charles Pope
Date: Sunday, 12 January 2003, at 2:57 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Queens of Sheba (Ronald L. Hughes)

Speaking of Semiramis, Georges Roux writes in "Ancient Iraq" (p 301-2):

"How this queen, whose reign has left hardly a trace in Assyrian records, acquired the reputation of being 'the most beautiful, most cruel, most powerful and most lustful of Oriental queens' is a most baffling problem. The legend of Semiramis, as told in the first century B.C. by Dioduorus Siculus - who drew his material from the now lost Persica of Ctesias, a Greek author and physician at the court of Artaxerxes II - is that of a manly woman born of a Syrian goddess, who became queen of Assyria by marrying Ninus, the mythical founder of Nineveh, founded Babylon, built astonishing monuments in Persia, conquered Media, Egypt, Libya and Bactria, conducted an unsuccessful military expedition in India and turned into a dove on her death. This legend contains many ingredients, including a possible confusion with Naqi'a/Zakutu (the wife of Sennacherib, who supervised the reconstruction of Babylon destroyed by her husband), as well as reminiscences of the conquests of Darius I, of the Indian war of Alexander the Great, and even of the Achaemenian court with the terrible queen-mother Parysatis. Semiramis also shares some traits with Ishtar as a war goddess who, like her, destroyed her lovers. At first sight, all this has nothing to do with what we know of Adad-nirari's mother. Yet both Herodotus and Berossus, who said very little about Semiramis, have indirectly made it clear that she and Sammuramat were one and the same person. Where, then, is the link between the two women? The whole story has a strong Iranian flavour. Perhaps Sammuramat did something which greatly surprised and impressed the Medes (she might have led a battle against them), and her prowess was transmitted through generations, distorted and embroidered, by Iranian story-tellers, until they reached the ears of Ctesias. But this, like other hypotheses, cannot be substantiated. Presented in many forms, Diodorus's account of the Semiramis legend has met with an enormous success, notably in Western Europe, until the beginning of this century. And thus, by an ironical trick of fate the memory of the virile Assyrian kings has passed to posterity under the guise of a woman."

It seems to me that Sammu-ramat is a variant of Ka-ramat/Maatkare and a form of the name of Isis/Ishtar. It was the chosen throne name of Hatshepsut and also the title/epithet of Tiye. There are a number of Biblical women referred to as "Maacah" (Hebraized form of Ma'atkare). That is why I suggest that the legend of Semiramis is probably a composite of many great queens in addition to Hatshepsut and Tiye, both before and after their time.

Ninus, "mythical founder of Ninevah" in my chronology would possibly be Adad-nirari II and a contemporary of Hatshepsut. He is perhaps the prince/king who was induced by Hatshepsut to travel to Egypt and become her consort. If so, he was known in Egypt as Senenmut.

In the Bible, the emphasis is not on an Israelite (or Egyptian) queen traveling to far off Sheba/Punt, but to a great queen coming to visit Solomon. I don't think that the inscription of Hatshepsut's Punt expedition is especially relevant. As I said, she is not the Queen who came to visit Solomon. Like Tiye, Amenhotep III was ruler of Sheba/Punt and every other "foreign" land. At least this is what Amenhotep III claimed to be!

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