Yoram Getzler takes us on an ancient journey.
If we go back; just over a hundred years ago (1896), in Egypt, a 7.5ft
high black granite stone slab was discovered in the runs of the
ancient funerary temple of Mernepatah's (son of Ramesses The Great)
in western Thebes (modern Luxor and site of the Temple of Karnak,
cross the Nile from the Valley of the Kings). The stone, an inscribed
stone monument, known as a stele, was named “Menepath Stele”, was
moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The hieroglyphics
date the inscription.
It has been dated to the year 1207 BCE (before the Common Era
(BCE), that is it is older than
three thousand years. (actually, 3317 years ago)
On this black granite slab are hieroglyphic writings, messages from the
distant past meant for all future generations to know about
the exploits of the Pharaoh Merneptah. It was important for
Meneptah that for all time his defeat of enemies during by the fifth year
Of his reign be remembered. Who and where were these enemies?
Among others, they included a Syrian-led rebellion against his father
Ramesses the Great’s erstwhile enemy and eventual treaty partner,
were primarily the Hittite empire centered in what is now southern
Turkey. Along the way the army of Menepath passed through Canaan and
also encountered another peoples, between Egypt and Turkey, which
would be in what today is Israel. So it is not totally surprising that
included in the recording of heroic deeds we find mention of a
victory over the people who lived in what had been Canaan.
So we read the hieroglyphic message:
>
> “Hatti (the Hittite empire) is at peace.
> Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe.
> Ashkelon has been overcome.
> Gezer has been captured.
> Yano'am was made non-existent.
> Israel is laid waste, and his seed is not.”
One of the interesting factoids is that the glyphs
include determinatives
(signs indicating a word's category) that classify Hatti,
Canaan, Ashkelon, Gezer and Yano'am as city-states;
but the determinative
attached to “Israel” identifies it as a people, apparently not
yet possessing a distinct city.
This is the first known extra-biblical (outside of the bible)
reference to a people named “Israel”.
It also reaffirms the names of ancient cities,
which you can visit, even today.
This reference to a people called Israel, living between Egypt
and Turkey was made more than two thousand years before the birth of
Mohammed and the development of Islam and the Arab conquest of
the Middle East. If we contemplate the final
statement of Merneppatha,
("Israel is laid waste, and "his seed in not”) we realize he
was probably the first (though not the last) to proudly declare
responsibility for putting an end to the Jewish people.
