Endnote 24 – 3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt

Kitchen, KRI, vol. 4, p. 37, no. 17 (bowl), dated year 4, king unnamed. Merenptah has been proposed as the pharaoh under whom this bowl was inscribed partly based upon another similar bowl dated year 10 (or higher?), Mordechai Gilula “An Inscription in Egyptian Hieratic from Lachish,” Tel Aviv 3 (1916), pp. 107–108, also Redford “Egypt & Asia in the New Kingdom: Some Historical Notes,” JSSEA 10, no. I (December, 1978), pp. 66–67. This dating, however, has been challenged by Orly Goldwasser (“The Lachish Hieratic Bowl Once Again,” Tel Aviv 9 [1982] pp. 137–138), who would read the texts in a different order and date them to Ramesses III. As the bowl’s texts concern tax collection Ramesses III seems the probable date. Regardless of this problem with the dating of the bowls, Lachish remained firmly in Egyptian control at least into Ramesses III’s reign; see also David Ussishkin, “Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan,” BAR 13:01.