Endnote 7 – When Pharaohs Ruled Jerusalem

Two figurines of Sekhmet were found in Jerusalem, one on the Ophel (in Gate House C) and the other one above Area G in the City of David. Both figurines approximately date to the 12th–9th centuries B.C.E. See Eilat Mazar, The Palace of King David—Excavations at the Summit of the City of David—Preliminary Report of the Seasons 2005–2007 (Jerusalem: Shoham Academic Research and Publication, 2009), pp. 39–40; Eilat Mazar, Discovering the Solomonic Wall in Jerusalem: A Remarkable Archaeological Adventure (Jerusalem: Shoham Academic Research and Association, 2011), pp. 46–47. As for the statuette (of which only the lower half has been preserved), we prefer to identify it with a female deity. While Gabriel Barkay and Raphael Giveon have suggested a male deity (Amon or Ptah), we think that the pronounced upper leg section identifies “her” as a female. My colleague Christoffer Theis has suggested an identification with the goddess Sekhmet (who is attested on other items from Jerusalem), but this equation must remain tentative, as too little remains of the statuette to be certain.