Zev Radovan

The Egyptians were here. Located south of the Sea of Galilee, the Canaanite town of Beth-Shean housed an Egyptian administrative center in both the Amarna and Ramesside periods. Among the Egyptian-style artifacts from Beth-Shean is the only pharaonic statue ever found in Canaan, a basalt carving of Ramesses III (1185–1153 B.C.E.). The statue, whose head is shown, was found in the courtyard of one of the city’s temples, in a stratum that postdates the Egyptian departure from Beth-Shean in the late 12th-century B.C.E. Apparently the statue, moved from its original location, became a cultic object, revered by subsequent generations at Beth-Shean.