Image Details

Fragment of an Egyptian stele discovered in Jerusalem. The limestone stele measures 5.4 by 4.8 inches. Arrayed in three vertical columns on the front are 13 hieroglyphic signs, including the title “the foremost of the westerners,” a reference to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. Despite 150 years of intensive digging that have made Jerusalem the most excavated city in the world, very few Egyptian remains have been found there. Could this relic, Barkay speculated, indicate that an Egyptian temple once stood nearby?