Image Details

PHOTO BY JAMES K. HOFFMEIER

STELA OF KING APRIES. In 2011, archaeologists discovered this inscribed stone at Tell Deffeneh (ancient Tahpanhes). Set up in 582 BC—four years after Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem—the stela attests to Egyptian military activity in the northeastern Nile Delta aimed at eliminating the Babylonian threat. Another recently uncovered and remarkably similar stela of King Apries explicitly mentions the Egyptian army passing by the fort of Tjaru (Hebua), confirming the northern coastal road’s routine use in the time of Jeremiah.