3200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt

side of the Nile from Thebes. Thus the evidence from the visages reinforces the
epigraphic evidence.
Frank J. Yurco
Portrait of Merenptah. Found at the site, a stray block broken off of
the pharaoh’s triumphal scene (scene 10) provides additional evidence
that Merenptah, rather than Ramesses II, was the pharaoh whose
victories the battle scenes portray. The pharaoh pictured on this block
does not resemble the numerous depictions of Ramesses II that still
exist, but it does closely resemble images of Merenptah from his tomb
in the Valley of the Kings, including the painted wall relief from the
tomb entrance. The men in both images have a very similar profile.
What all this demonstrated was that the reliefs represent the military exploits of
Merenptah rather than those of Ramesses II. As we will see, this makes a great
difference. It will, among other things, allow us to identify the oldest pictures of Israelites
ever discovered, engraved more than 3,200 years ago, at the very dawn of their
emergence as a people.
Earlier scholars † who attributed the battle reliefs to Ramesses II were misled by the
Peace Treaty text between Ramesses and the Hittite king Hattusilis III that alone
occupied the panel between the pilasters and was framed by the four battle scenes.
Moreover, a horizontal hieroglyphic inscription that runs just under the cornice at the top
of the wall proclaims that the wall was built by Ramesses II. True, the wall was built by
Ramesses II, but that does not necessarily mean that all the carvings on the wall are his!
When I carefully examined the two battle scenes to the left of the Peace Treaty text, I
found that they were both carved over earlier reliefs, which the later engraver had
attempted to erase. The erasure was not very thorough, however, and many traces of the
earlier engraving were visible. Whoever had attempted the erasure then used plaster to
cover the deeper strokes in the original engraving. By a careful examination, the earlier
scene can be identified. It displays a concentration of horses moving to the left with water
at the bottom. This combination is well known as the subject matter of the battle of
Kadesh of Ramesses II. This material extends, however, only up to the Peace Treaty text,
and in any event was covered by the later battle scenes. To the right of the Peace Treaty,
the Merenptah reliefs were carved onto a blank, previously uninscribed, wall surface. The
erased earlier material under the scenes to the left is clear evidence that Ramesses II had
† See Yurco, “Merenptah’s Canaanite Campaign,” p. 196, n. 9.