 It was the home of the biblical "Queen of Sheba", who is left unnamed in the Bible, but receives the names "Makeda" in Ethiopian and "Bilqīs" in Arabic tradition.The predominant scholarly view is that the biblical narrative about the kingdom of Sheba was based on the ancient civilization of Saba in South Arabia, in contradiction to several local traditions from different countries.Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman 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".