The Beisan steles are five Ancient Egyptian steles from the period of Seti I and Ramesses II discovered in what was then known as Beisan, Mandatory Palestine by Alan Rowe in the late 1920s and early 1930s. [1] [2] [3] [4]
They are known as
The First Stele of Seti I has been described as "the most impressive find from Egypt’s rule over Canaan". [7]
The first stele is considered to testify to the presence of a Hebrew population: the Habiru, which Seti I protected from an Asiatic tribe. [8] [9]
Today they are in the Penn Museum, [10] Philadelphia, and the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, East Jerusalem.
Two other important steles from the same period were found in the same area. Today these are both at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. [11]
One of the steles, discovered in 1928, [12] states that the temple was dedicated to “Mekal, the god, the lord of Beth Shean”; [13] an otherwise unknown Canaanite god – the stele itself is our main source of knowledge about Mekal. [14]
Mekal is seated on a throne, receiving lotus flowers from the builder Amenemapt and his son Paraemheb, holding an ankh and was-sceptre.
A Canaanite stele showing a lion and lioness at play was found in the excavation of the "governor's house".
A number of Stelae or Stele fragments derive from LB IIB-Iron IA Palestine. Five came from Beth Shan, four from Deir el-Balah, and two from sites on the east bank of the Jordan. All were made of local stone basalt, kurkar (sandstone), or limestone. Three of the Beth Shan Stelae contain lengthy inscriptions, which were discussed in chapter 2 in the sections on the reigns of Seti I
One stele discovered from Seti i is called the "Large Stele" and is considered the most impressive find from Egypt's rule over Canaan.
The stela of Seti I discovered at Beisan indicates that the Apiru or Hebrews were certainly in the neighbourhood at that time, c. 1300 B.C. and they seem to have come from the East of Jordan. This is not absolutely certain because the words on the stela are partly obliterated, but it would seem to be confirmed by the second stela of Seti I found at the same site, which distinctly refers to an invasion from the east side of Jordan.
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The Philistines were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age. The Philistines originated as an immigrant group from the Aegean that settled in Canaan circa 1175 BC, during the Late Bronze Age collapse. Over time, they gradually assimilated elements of the indigenous Semitic Levantine societies while preserving their own unique culture. In 604 BC, the Philistine polity, after having already been subjugated for centuries by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. After becoming part of his empire and its successor, the Persian Empire, the Philistines lost their distinct ethnic identity and disappeared as a people from the historical and archaeological record by the late 5th century BC.
Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.
Philistia was a confederation of five main cities or pentapolis in the Southwest Levant, made up of principally Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, and for a time, Jaffa.
Menmaatre Seti I was the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the New Kingdom period, ruling c. 1294 or 1290 BC to 1279 BC. He was the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II.
Beit She'an, also Beth-shean, formerly Beisan, is a town in the Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m below sea level.
Habiru is a term used in 2nd-millennium BCE texts throughout the Fertile Crescent for people variously described as rebels, outlaws, raiders, mercenaries, bowmen, servants, slaves, and laborers.
The New Kingdom, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, was the ancient Egyptian nation between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty, and the Twentieth Dynasty. Through radiocarbon dating, the establishment of the New Kingdom has been placed between 1570 BC and 1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was the most prosperous time for the Egyptian people and marked the peak of Egypt's power.
Shishak, also spelled Shishaq or Susac, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.
Tel Rehov or Tell es-Sarem, is an archaeological site in the Bet She'an Valley, a segment of the Jordan Valley, Israel, approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Beit She'an and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west of the Jordan River. It was occupied in the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Merneptah or Merenptah was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 BC until his death on 2 May 1203 BC, according to contemporary historical records. He was the first royal-born pharaoh since Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum, is an archaeology museum located in East Jerusalem, next to Herod's Gate, that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in the region of Palestine, mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, under the British authorities.
The Shasu were Semitic-speaking pastoral nomads in the Southern Levant from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age or the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. They were tent dwellers, organized in clans ruled by a tribal chieftain and were described as brigands active from the Jezreel Valley to Ashkelon and the Sinai. Some of them also worked as mercenaries for Asiatic and Egyptian armies.
Tell el-Hammeh is a medium-size archaeological tell (mound) in the West Bank, at the southern fringe of the Beit She'an valley. It has been identified with the Canaanite city state of Hammath, mentioned in a late-13th century BCE Egyptian inscription.
Many place names in Palestine were Arabized forms of ancient Hebrew and Canaanite place-names used in biblical times or later Aramaic formations. Most of these names have been handed down for thousands of years though their meaning was understood by only a few. The cultural interchange fostered by the various successive empires to have ruled the region is apparent in its place names. Any particular place can be known by the different names used in the past, with each of these corresponding to a historical period. For example, the city of Beit Shean, today in Israel, was known during the Israelite period as Beth-shean, under Hellenistic rule and Roman rule as Scythopolis, and under Arab and Islamic rule as Beisan.
Ramesses II, commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt's most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate.
The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, it is now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Tell Shihab is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located northwest of Daraa on the Jordan-Syria border. Nearby localities include al-Shaykh Saad and Nawa to the north, Muzayrib, Da'el and Tafas to the northeast, and al-Yadudah to the east. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Tell Shihab had a population of 9,430 in the 2004 census.
The commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb are a group of over 20 inscriptions and rock reliefs carved into the limestone rocks around the estuary of the Nahr al-Kalb in Lebanon, just north of Beirut.
The Egyptian Stelae in the Levant are the approximately 25 Ancient Egyptian stelae discovered in the Levant, today known as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The most notable examples are the Stelae of Nahr el-Kalb and the Beisan steles.