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PHOTOGRAPH BY T. ROGOVSKI

SIGNS OF EMPIRE. Pieces of an elaborately decorated Egyptian bronze vessel, known as a situla, were uncovered near the temple’s holy of holies. This fragment preserves bits of gold coating and an engraved hieroglyphic inscription containing the name of Ramesses II (1279–1213 B.C.E.), whom some scholars identify as the pharaoh of the Exodus. Egypt’s pharaohs controlled Canaan through much of the Late Bronze Age, though their authority had waned significantly by the mid-12th century B.C.E.