3200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt

clear that it is a battle against an enemy without a fortified town. We can deduce this
from the position of pharaoh’s horse and chariot team. Egyptian battle scenes follow a
standard compositional sequence, and this scene falls into the genre type of battle scene
without an enemy fortress. † (Incidentally, the inscriptions, rather than the scenes, give the
depictions their individual identity and historical context.) †
The Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago
Relief in the Beit el-Wali temple of
Ramesses II. If scene 4 on the Karnak
wall were complete, it might resemble
this relief.
The fourth battle scene in the wall can be usefully contrasted with the relief of the siege
of Ashkelon. In the latter, pharaoh’s horse and chariot on the right are balanced by a
carving of the fort of Ashkelon on the left, with a siege ladder resting against the wall and
two children being let down from the wall. In the fourth battle scene, by contrast,
although only half of it is preserved, we see pharaoh’s horse and chariot team directly in
the center of the picture. There is no balancing enemy fortress at the left, nor could there
be even in the missing upper half of the scene, for there would simply be no room for it
before the front hooves of pharaoh’s charging chariot team. In contrast to the other three
battle scenes, this scene depicts a battle with an enemy in open country with low hills.
Frank J. Yurco
“Israel is laid waste,” Merenptah boasted in his famous stele and also
illustrated in scene 4 on the Karnak wall. Although more than half
destroyed, this scene exhibits important differences from the other
three battle reliefs of Merenptah’s Canaanite campaign. The rear legs
of pharaoh’s chariot team, once again drawn on a larger scale, appear
at right in a rearing stance. If the scene were complete, pharaoh’s
horse would be seen looming over the confused jumble of Israelite
soldiers, left, and the Israelite chariot, center, in a manner similar to a
relief in the Beit el-Wali temple of Ramesses II. Unlike the other three
battle reliefs on the Karnak wall, this scene contains no city; even if
the relief were complete, there would be no room for a city. Instead,
the battle takes place in the open in a somewhat hilly countryside, a
setting that fits the non-urbanized Israelite tribes of the time.
Merenptah probably conducted his Canaanite campaign sometime
between 1211 and 1209 B.C.E. If author Yurco’s analysis is right,
scene 4 gives us the oldest known visual portrayal of Israelites, more
than 600 years earlier than the oldest previously known depictions
(showing the conquest of Lachish in reliefs on the wall of the Assyrian
king Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh), and only about 40 years after
the time when the Israelites are thought to have emerged as a distinct
group. The early date and the Israelites’ manner of dress combine to
† For a similar scene in complete form, see Herbert Ricke, George R. Hughes and Edward F. Wente, The
Beit el-Wali Temple of Ramesses I , Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition, vol. I (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1967), pls. 7–8.
† See Alexander Badawy, A History of Egyptian Architecture: The Empire (the New Kingdom) (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1968), pp. 448–474 for a discussion of fortress types found in
Egyptian reliefs and their patterning on actual buildings.