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ZEV RADOVAN / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

ISRAEL EMERGES. This imposing, 10-foot-tall granite stela commemorates the military exploits of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (r. 1213–1203 BC) against various peoples and kingdoms in Libya and the Levant. Most famously, near the end of the lengthy inscription, the name “Israel” appears as one of the conquered groups—the earliest use of this name ever discovered. By the end of the 12th century BC, the first Israelite settlements in the southern Levant had taken shape, and barely a century later, the early states of Israel and Judah had begun to emerge.