Yurco’s Response - The BAS Library
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Scholars Disagree: Can You Name the Panel with the Israelites?

Yurco’s Response

By Frank J. Yurco

Anson Rainey’s article is most welcome. He presents strong support for my overall interpretation of the battle reliefs on the western outer wall of the Cour de la Cachette in the Karnak temple in Egypt. He has interpreted the evidence much as I did, including an overall consideration of Merenptah’s work in the decoration and inscribing of these reliefs. He disagrees, however, with my interpretation of what I called scene 4 and its identification with Israel. As Rainey acknowledges, the parallels and precedents for my reinterpretation of the sequence of the battle scenes are valid, but he doubts that […]

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Footnotes

1.

Lawrence Stager, “The Song of Deborah: Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not,” BAR 15:01. Reuben (pastoral) was occupied with his sheepfields, while Dan was enmeshed among ships (either subject to the Philistines, or actually part of them).

Endnotes

1.

Lawrence Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 (Nov 1985) 1–35.

2.

Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel.”

3.

In the return-to-Egypt scenes, the fragmentary texts do mention the Shasu, but not Israel. Traces of prisoners in Canaanite dress are also preserved. While Other evidence may point to some Israelites as pastoral, or derived from pastoral society, what survives of Merenptah’s reliefs does not add to that evidence.