3200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt

Kingdom period (1570–1070 B.C.E.). It is written like this: or . The name
of Israel, however, is written on Merenptah’s Stele using a different determinative—
—that is usually reserved for peoples without a fixed city-state area, or for
nomadic groups.
This is especially noteworthy because Merenptah’s scribes were very careful in their use
of determinatives in their other inscriptions made during year five of his reign, which
describe the defeated Libyans and Sea Peoples. †
As the case for a connection between Merenptah’s battle reliefs in the Karnak temple and
the victories described in Merenptah’s Stele began to look stronger, I looked for further
parallels between the battle scenes, on the one hand, and the description in the stele, on
the other.
The next thing I noticed was that the relief of the battle of Ashkelon (scene 1) showed the
siege of a fortified town. The pharaoh’s horse and chariot team are at the far right, with
the enemy fortress at the left in a balancing position. A siege ladder can be seen resting
against the town wall, which has a crenelated top. The two battle reliefs to the left of the
Peace Treaty also depict sieges of fortified towns, also with crenelated tops of walls.
Frank J. Yurco
† For the Libyan Victory texts, see Kitchen, KRI , vol. 4, pp. 2–12, esp. p. 8, lines 8–12.
Gezer succumbs. Although unnamed in the reliefs, the
besieged city in scene 2 is probably Gezer. The Merenptah
Stele lists Gezer as the second of Merenptah’s conquests
during his Canaanite campaign. For details of this scene, see
drawing.