It is a granite Stele of more than 3 meters high, which is dated to 1210 BC.
It is the funerary stele of Amenhotep III, the back of which was used by King Minephtah to relate a victorious, albeit small, military campaign.
This stele is famous nowadays, because the word ‘Israel’ was read on it. This makes an unexpected link with the alleged epic of Moses, “dated” to approximately the same period by the Bible.
The word ‘Israel’ will appear again on a Stele only four centuries later, in the IX century B.C., with the Stele of Mesha (3).
The word ‘Israel’ is visible in the last stanza of the text of the Stele — (more readable version) Source : ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Israel_segment.jpg )
The same word ‘Israel’ — (but with mirror view) — Source : ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Israel_segment.jpg )
Minephtah is the son of Ramses II.
Shortly after he became king, a ‘rush’ of the ‘Sea Peoples’, formidable warriors, who had settled in Libya and advanced towards the Nile Delta, supported by the Libyans, started. Minephtah crushed them west of the Nile Delta. Then, he took advantage of this to make a punitive (or rather preventive?) raid in the Land of Canaan (2).
The back of the stele tells of this warlike episode:
The text of the stele begins with the account of his victory over the Sea Peoples.
Then the text briefly mentions some punitive actions in the Land of Canaan, in Ascalon, Gezer and Yeonam. This suggests a small-scale military raid, probably to Shechem. The mention of the Israelites comes at the very end of this story, in the final stanza. In passing, if I may say so:
“Israel is devastated; he has no more descendants.” (1) p. 95
The hieroglyphs are phonetic. Also, some read “Jezrahel” on the stele, not “Israel.” However, Jezrahel is a city. However, the determinative used is not that of a city.
Indeed, “The determinative of the word ‘Israel’ shows without a doubt that it refers to a tribe and not to a people or a city fixed to the ground. The royal armies will probably have wiped out, on their return from their Palestinian expedition, some Israelite tribe that happened to be in their way in the south of the country.” (1) p. 95
Then the text of the stele concludes that the area of Palestine is ‘at peace’ (= without defenses that could worry Egypt).
Since before the reign of Minephtah, the peoples of the sea had been landing sporadically on the Palestinian and Syrian coasts (in addition to their strong concentration noted in Libya). So it was probably necessary, after Minephtah’s victory in the Nile delta against these Sea Peoples, to clearly recall Egypt’s power as well as the vassal status of the Land of Canaan.
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….. (1) — La Civilisation de l’Égypte Pharaonique — François DAUMAS — Arthaud — 1965
….. (2) — The work of François Daumas recalls that, from the beginning of his long reign, Ramses II confronted the Hittites hard at Qadech where Ramses II “succeeded in winning, if not a complete victory, at least a sufficient success so that the Hittite infantry, massed east of the city, did not intervene.”
Later, “Syria remained under Hittite control. But it was caught in a pincer movement, on the southern coast, by the vassals of Egypt. Also the Hittites intrigued by their diplomacy to raise the cities of Palestine. But a crisis of succession will weaken the Hittites. “Ramses II took advantage of the situation to punish the Palestinian cities that were too sensitive to the advances of the Hittites, to reconquer the ports of the Lebanese and Syrian coast, and to advance as far as Tounip and even as far as Naharina where the Egyptians had not marched in victory since Amenhotep II.
The new Hittite king gradually re-established the Hittite power but came up against the Assyrians. He allied himself with Ramses II by a treaty written in Akkadian and Egyptian. The treaty guaranteed a definitive peace between the contracting parties, the borders (without defining them) and the alliance against the external enemies, etc
….. (3) — La Stèle Mesha / Moabite Stone et la Bible — Article de JPCiron — ( https://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/religions/article/la-stele-de-mesha-moabite-stone-et-213429 )
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Stele of Merenptah / Minephtah — (called Stele of Israel) — Cairo Museum — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merenptah_Israel_Stele_Cairo.jpg — Credit : ( Webscribe [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] )
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Original article by JPCqd (aka JPCiron) ( april 2019)::
https://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/religions/article/la-stele-de-merenptah-minephtah-213459
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