The Amarna tablets are the perfect example of such important Bible artifacts found without a stratified context, as the result of archaeological looting. In 1887 a Bedouin woman searching among ancient ruins near the Nile River discovered some inscribed clay tablets. This site, located 200 miles south of Cairo, was later named el-Amarna, and ...
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The Merneptah Stele has long been touted as the earliest extrabiblical reference to Israel. * The ancient Egyptian inscription dates to about 1205 B.C.E. and recounts the military conquests of the pharaoh Merneptah. Near the bottom of the hieroglyphic inscription, a people called “Israel” is said to have been wiped out by the conquering ...
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Egyptian King Akhenaten, meaning “Effective for Aten”—his name was originally Amenhotep IV, reigned from about 1352 to 1336 B.C.E. In the fifth year of his reign, he moved the royal residence from Thebes to a new site in Middle Egypt, Akhetaten (“the horizon of Aten,” present-day Tell el-Amarna), and there ordered lavish temples to be built for Aten.
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Since the Arab Spring and the revolution in Egypt, the new Egyptian government has learned of this archaeological discovery and made a formal demand for the return to Egypt of the two Tablets of the Law, claiming that they were recovered in territory under the sovereignty of Egypt. There can be no doubt is where they were found.
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Discovered at Akhenaten’s capital city of Akhetaten (known today as Tell el-Amarna) in Middle Egypt, the nearly 400 tablets in the archive offer a window into relations between the Egyptian court and the kingdoms and empires of the Late Bronze Age world. In particular, the documents written on behalf of Canaanite kings and then sent to Egypt ...
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By contrast, in Exodus 10:15 we are told that “nothing green was left of tree or grass of the field in all the land of Egypt.”. Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the plagues is darkness, the ninth plague. In Exodus 10:21–23 we read that a thick darkness descended upon all the land of Egypt for three days.
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Among the photographed tablets are several letters (EA 285-288) written by Abdi-Heba, king of Canaanite Jerusalem, to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. * In the surviving letters, the ever-loyal Canaanite king implores Pharaoh to send more troops to Jerusalem so that he can defend the city against the machinations and plots of neighboring Canaanite kings.
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THE EARLIEST EGYPTIAN ROYALTY chose to be buried at Abydos in southern Egypt. The extensive necropolis at desert’s edge contains royal tombs that predate the first Egyptian dynasty. The most impressive structures at Abydos, however, are the massive mudbrick enclosures identified as funerary sites for the kings of the first and second dynasties (c. 2925–c. 2650 B.C.E.), at the site known ...
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The Rosetta Stone refers to a fragmented Egyptian stela discovered near the Mediterranean port city of Rasheed (also known as Rosetta), in the western Nile Delta. Inscribed in three different languages, the famed artifact contributed significantly to the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the language of the pharaohs.
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Evidence of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. Dated to c. 1219 B.C.E., the Merneptah Stele is the earliest extrabiblical record of a people group called Israel. Set up by Pharaoh Merneptah to commemorate his military victories, the stele proclaims, “Ashkelon is carried off, and Gezer is captured. Yeno’am is made into nonexistence; Israel is ...
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