The Merneptah Stele
A people called Israel existed in Canaan by about 1208 BC — named by a hostile Egyptian king with no interest in flattering them.
Außerbiblisch genanntInschriftc. 1208 BC
A black granite victory stele of the pharaoh Merneptah. Its closing lines list places and peoples defeated in Canaan — Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam — and among them "Israel", written with the hieroglyphic marker for a people rather than a settled city-state. It is the earliest known mention of Israel anywhere outside the Bible.
Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.
- Gefunden
- Merneptah's mortuary temple, Thebes, Egypt, 1896 — W. M. Flinders Petrie
- Heute in
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo (JE 31408)
- Sprache
- Egyptian (hieroglyphic)
- Wie es zu uns kam
- Ausgegraben oder noch dort stehend, wo es errichtet wurde.
Was er zeigt
The reading "Israel" is near-universally accepted. What the stele does not tell us is Israel's size, origin or organisation; those remain debated.
Wie Historiker es nutzen
Standard fixed point in the archaeology of Late Bronze Age Canaan, cited in secular handbooks as the terminus ante quem for Israel's presence in the land.
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