Helena of Adiabene
Helena of Adiabene was a queen mother of Adiabene, a vassal state of the Parthian Empire. With her husband, and probably also brother, Monobaz I, she was the mother of Izates II and Monobaz II. Helena became a convert to Judaism about the year 30 CE. According to Josephus, Helena was the daughter of King Izates. Moses of Chorene makes her the chief wife of Abgar V, king of Edessa.
Biography
Helena of Adiabene was noted for her generosity; during a famine at Jerusalem in 45–46 CE, she sent to Alexandria for grain and to Cyprus for dried figs for distribution among the sufferers from the famine. In the Talmud, in Bava Batra 11a, this is laid to the credit of Monobaz II instead. Although Nehemiah Brüll regarded the reference to Monobaz as indicating the dynasty, Rashi maintained the simpler explanation—that Monobaz himself is meant. The Talmud speaks also of important presents which the queen gave to the Temple in Jerusalem. "Helena had a golden candlestick made over the door of the Temple," to which statement is added that when the sun rose its rays were reflected from the candlestick and everybody knew that it was the time for reading the Shema. She also made a golden plate on which was written the passage of the Torah which the kohanim read when a wife suspected of infidelity was brought before him. In the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Yoma iii. 8, the candlestick and the plate are confused.The strictness with which she observed the customs is instanced in the Talmud:
"Rabbi Judah said: 'The sukkah of Queen Helena in Lydda was higher than twenty cubits. The rabbis used to go in and out and make no remark about it'."
Helena moved to Jerusalem, where she is buried in the pyramidal tomb which she had constructed during her lifetime, three stadia north of Jerusalem. The catacombs are known as "Tombs of the Kings." A sarcophagus bearing two inscriptions was found there, the funerary epigram reading in Aramaic Ṣaddān Malkaṯā, and Ṣaddā Malkaṯā, interpreted by scholars to mean: "Our mistress, the Queen."
The sarcophagus of Helena was discovered by Louis Félicien de Saulcy in the nineteenth century. However, he believed the bones inside, wrapped in shrouds with golden embroidery, were the remains of the wife of a king of Judea from the First Temple period, possibly Zedekiah or Jehoash. De Saulcy was forced to suspend the dig when the news that human bones were being dug up drew the ire of the Jewish community of Jerusalem. The sarcophagus and other findings were sent to France and displayed at the Louvre.