Merneptah Stele

Merneptah Stele

The Merneptah Stele in its current location
Material	Granite
Writing	Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
Created	c. 1208 BC
Discovered	1896
Present location	Cairo Museum
Identification	JE 31408

The Merneptah Stele—also known as the Israel Stele or Victory Stele of Merneptah—is an inscription by the Ancient Egyptian king Merneptah (reign: 1213 to 1203 BC) discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1896 at Thebes, and now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.^[1][2] The text is largely an account of Merneptah's victory over the Libyans and their allies, but the last 3 of the 28 lines deal with a separate campaign in Canaan, then part of Egypt's imperial possessions.

While alternative translations have been put forward, the majority of biblical archeologists translate a set of hieroglyphs on Line 27 as "Israel", such that it represents the first documented instance of the name Israel in the historical record,^[2] and the only mention in Ancient Egypt.^[3] As a result, some consider the stele to be Flinders Petrie's most famous discovery,^[4] an opinion with which Petrie himself concurred.^[5]

Description and context

Flinders Petrie's 1897 mirror image copy of the main part of the inscription (all 28 lines)

The stele was discovered in 1896 by [6]

Now in the collection of the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, the stele is a black granite slab, over 3 meters (10 feet) high, and the inscription says it was carved in the 5th year of Merneptah of the 19th dynasty. Most of the text glorifies Merneptah's victories over enemies from Libya and their Sea People allies, but the final two lines mention a campaign in Canaan, where Merneptah says he defeated and destroyed Ashkalon, Gezer, Yanoam and Israel.

Egypt was the dominant power in the region during the long reign of Merneptah's predecessor, Ramesses the Great, but Merneptah and his own successor, Ramesses III, faced major invasions. The problems began in Merneptah's 5th year (1208), when a Libyan king invaded Egypt from the West in alliance with various northern peoples. Merneptah achieved a great victory in the summer of that year, and the inscription is mainly about this. The final lines deal with an apparently separate campaign in the East, where it seems that some of the Canaanite cities had revolted. Traditionally the Egyptians had concerned themselves only with cities, so the problem presented by Israel must have been something new – possibly attacks on Egypt's vassals in Canaan. Merneptah and Ramesses III fought off their enemies, but it was the beginning of the end of Egypt's control over Canaan – the last evidence of an Egyptian presence in the area is the name of Ramesses VI (1141–33) inscribed on a statue base from Megiddo.^[7]

Significance

Line 27

Petrie called upon Wilhelm Spiegelberg, a German philologist in his archaeological team, to translate the inscription. Spiegelberg was puzzled by one symbol towards the end, that of a people or tribe whom Merneptah (also written Merenptah) had victoriously smitten—"I.si.ri.ar?" Petrie quickly suggested that it read: "Israel!" Spiegelberg agreed that this translation must be correct.^[1] "Won't the reverends be pleased?" remarked Petrie. At dinner that evening, Petrie who realized the importance of the find said: "This stele will be better known in the world than anything else I have found." The news of its discovery made headlines when it reached the English papers.^[1]

While alternatives to the reading "Israel" have been put forward since the stele's discovery – the two primary candidates being "Jezreel",^[8][9] a city and valley in northern Canaan, and a continuation of the description of Libya referring to "wearers of the sidelock"^[1] – most scholars accept that Merneptah refers to "Israel".^[2] It is not clear, however, just who this Israel was or where they were located.^[3] For the "who", if the battle reliefs of Karnak show the Israelites, then they are depicted in Canaanite costume and Merneptah's Israelites are therefore Canaanites; if, on the other hand, the Karnak reliefs do not show Merneptah's campaigns, then the stele's Israelites may be "Shasu", a term used by the Egyptians to refer to nomads and marauders.^[13]

Similarly, if Merneptah's claim to have destroyed Israel's "seed" means that he destroyed its grain supply, then Israel can be taken to be a settled, crop-growing people; if, however, it means he killed Israel's progeny, then Israel can be taken to be pastoralists, i.e., Shasu.^[14] The normative Egyptian use of "wasted, bare of seed" was as a repeated, formulaic phrase to declare victory over a defeated nation or people group whom the Egyptian army conquered and had literally destroyed their grain supply in the specific geographic region that they inhabited.^[15] MG Hasell, arguing that prt on the stele meant grain, suggested that "Israel functioned as an agriculturally based or sedentary socioethnic entity in the late 13th century BCE"^[16] and this in some degree of contrast to nomadic "Shasu" pastoralists in the region. Others disagree that prt meant grain, and Edward Lipinski wrote that "the "classical" opposition of nomadic shepherds and settled farmers does not seem to suit the area concerned".^[17] Hasel also says that this does not suggest that the Israelites were an urban people at this time, nor does it provide information about the actual social structure of the people group identified as Israel.^[16] Biblical scholar Thomas L. Thompson writes that "this name in the Merneptah inscription of the late thirteenth-century might conceivably understand it as the name of a region, in polarity with the clearly geographical name: Canaan." Also, "The group "Israel" ... are rather a very specific group among the population of Palestine which bears a name that occurs here for the first time that at a much later stage in Palestine's history bears a substantially different signification." For, "References to the Merneptah stele are not really helpful. This text renders for us only the earliest known usage of the name 'Israel.'" So, "to begin the origins of biblical Israel with Merneptah ... on the grounds that we have extra-biblical rather than biblical attestation is willful. These texts are, mirabile dictu, even less relevant than the biblical traditions."^[18]

As for its location, most scholars believe that Merneptah's Israel must have been in the hill country of central Canaan, but some think it was across the Jordan, others that it was a coalition of Canaanite settlements in the lowlands of the Jezreel valley (the potential Israelites on the walls of Karnak are driving chariots, a weapon of the lowlands rather than the highlands), and others that the inscription gives very little useful information at all.^[19]

Karnak reliefs

The stele was found in Merenptah's funerary chapel in Thebes, the ancient Egyptian capital on the west bank of the Nile. On the opposite bank is the Temple of Karnak, where the fragmentary copy was found. In the 1970s Frank Yurco announced that some reliefs at Karnak which had been thought to depict events in the reign of Ramesses II, Merenptah's father, in fact belonged to Merenptah. The four reliefs show the capture of three cities, one of them labelled as Ashkelon; Yurco suggested that the other two were Gezer and Yanoam. The fourth shows a battle in open hilly country against an enemy shown as Canaanite. Yurco suggested that this scene was to be equated with the Israel of the stele. While the idea that Merneptah's Israelites are to be seen on the walls of the temple has had an influence on many theories regarding the significance of the inscription, not all Egyptologists accept Yurco's ascription of the reliefs to Merneptah.^[20]

Text of lines 26–28

Overview

Libyans (Tjeḥenu) are described by determinatives: foreign person + people + foreign country (=state/country of Libyan people)

A portion of line 27, translated as "Israel [foreign people]"

The bulk of the inscription deals with Merneptah's victory over the Libyans, but the last 3 of the 28 lines shift to Canaan:^[21]

The princes are prostrate, saying, "Peace!"
Not one is raising his head among the Nine Bows.
Now that Tehenu (Libya) has come to ruin,
Hatti is pacified;
The Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe:
Ashkelon has been overcome;
Gezer has been captured;
Yano'am is made non-existent.
Israel is laid waste and his seed is not;
Hurru is become a widow because of Egypt.

The "nine bows" is a term the Egyptians used to refer to their enemies - the actual enemies varied according to time and circumstance.^[22] Hatti and Hurru are Syria/Palestine, Canaan and Israel are smaller units, and Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam are cities within the region; according to the stele, all are, or should be, under Egyptian control.^[23]

"Israel is laid waste"

According to The Oxford History of the biblical World, this "foreign people" "sign is typically used by the Egyptians to signify nomadic groups or peoples, without a fixed city-state home, thus implying a seminomadic or rural status for 'Israel' at that time." The phrase "wasted, bare of seed" is formulaic, and often used of defeated nations – it implies that the grain-store of the nation in question has been destroyed, which would result in a famine the following year, incapacitating them as a military threat to Egypt.^[15]

Original translation

Below is the first transaction of the stele:

See also

• List of artifacts significant to the Bible
• Mesha Stele
• New Chronology (Rohl)
• Tel Dan Stele
• Shasu

Notes

References

Sources

• Davies, Philip R (2008). Memories of Ancient Israel. Louisville, Kentucky, USA: Westminster John Knox Press. 
• Drews, Robert (1995). The End of the Bronze Age. Princeton University Press. 
• Drower, Margaret (1985). Flinders Petrie: A life in Archaeology. Victor Gollancz. 
• ——— (1995) [1985]. Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology. .
• Hasel, Michael (2008). "Merenptah's reference to Israel: critical issues for the origin of Israel". In Hess, Richard S.; Klingbeil, Gerald A.; Ray, Paul J. Critical Issues in Early Israelite History. Eisenbrauns. 
• Killebrew, Ann E (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity. Society for Biblical Literature. 
• Margalith, Othniel (1990). "On the Origin and Antiquity of the Name Israel". Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 102 (2): 225–237.  
• Moore, Megan Bishop; Kelle, Brad E (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past. Eerdmans. 
• Nibbi, Alessandra (1989). Canaan and Canaanite in ancient Egypt. Discussions in Egyptology.  
• Petrie, WM Flinders; Spiegelberg, Wilhelm (1897). Six temples at Thebes, 1896. London: Quaritch. .
• Redmount, Carol A (2001) [1998]. "Bitter lives: Israel in and out of Egypt". In Coogan, Michael D. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. pp. 58–89. 
• Smith, Mark S (2002). The Early History of God. Eerdmans. 
• Sparks, Kenton L (1998). Cognitive Perspectives on Israelite Identity. Eisenbrauns. 
• Strahan, A (1896). "The contemporary review". The Contemporary Review 69: 624–626. Retrieved 19 Jan 2011. 
• Whitelam, Keith W (1997). "The Identity of Early Israel: The Realignment and Transformation of Late Bronze-Iron Age Palestine". In  

•  
• Hasel, Michael G (1998). Domination and Resistance: Egyptian Military Activity in the Southern Levant, 1300–1185 BC. Brill. 
• Metcalfe, William Musham; Erskine, Ruaraidh (1897). "The Scottish review". The Scottish review 29: 125. 
• Nestor, Dermot (2010). Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel. Continuum. 
• Nibbi, Alessandra (1996). "Some Remarks on the Merenptah Stela and the So-Called Name of Israel". Discussions in Egyptology, Oxford 36: 79–102.