Merneptah Stele: Earliest Mention of Israel (c. 1208 BC)

The Merneptah Stele is a granite monument inscribed around 1208 BC for the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah, son and successor of Ramesses II. Most of its text celebrates his victory over a Libyan invasion, but near the end it names a people called Israel among the defeated enemies in Canaan. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, it is the earliest widely accepted reference to Israel outside the Bible, which is why it is often called the Israel Stele.

Background: Egypt after Ramesses II

Ramesses II died around 1213 BC after a reign of about 66 years. So many of his elder sons had died before him that the throne passed to his thirteenth son, Merneptah, who was probably already in his sixties. Merneptah ruled until about 1203 BC.

Egypt still controlled Canaan, the region of modern Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, through local rulers and garrisons. The peace with the Hittites held, and Merneptah even sent grain to the Hittite kingdom during a famine. But new pressures were building on Egypt’s western border.

The Libyan invasion

In Merneptah’s fifth year, about 1208 BC, a Libyan king named Meryey, son of Ded, led his people, the Libu, into the western Nile Delta. They came with their families and possessions, apparently hoping to settle, and were joined by groups that Egyptian texts call the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden and Shekelesh. These are among the peoples later grouped by historians as the Sea Peoples.

Merneptah’s army met the invaders at a place called Perire in the western Delta. According to Egyptian records, the battle lasted about six hours and ended in a crushing Egyptian victory. A long inscription at Karnak lists thousands of enemies killed and captured and large quantities of weapons, cattle and other booty. Meryey fled, and the Libyan threat was halted for a time.

The stele and its text

The stele was originally carved for Amenhotep III, who reigned about 150 years earlier. Merneptah’s craftsmen reused it, carving their new text on the back. It is a slab of black granite about 3.18 metres high and 1.63 metres wide, topped by a scene showing Merneptah before the god Amun, with the goddess Mut and the god Khonsu.

Below are 28 lines of hieroglyphic text, dated to year 5, third month of the summer season, day 3. Most of the inscription is a victory hymn in poetic style. It praises the king as the protector of Egypt, describes the flight of the Libyan chief and paints a picture of the peace that followed, when people could travel freely and sing again.

The line naming Israel

The last lines turn to Canaan. They say that the princes are prostrate begging for peace and that none raises his head among the Nine Bows, a traditional term for Egypt’s enemies. Then come short lines naming defeated places: Canaan has been plundered; Ashkelon has been carried off; Gezer has been seized; Yanoam is made as though it never existed. The next line reads, in a common translation, “Israel is laid waste, its seed is not”.

The phrase “its seed is not” was a standard boast in Egyptian texts, meaning that the enemy’s crops or descendants had been destroyed. It should be read as royal rhetoric rather than as a report of total annihilation.

The key detail lies in the writing. Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam are written with a hieroglyphic sign (a determinative) marking them as foreign cities or lands. Israel, by contrast, is written with the determinative for a people. Most scholars conclude that around 1208 BC Israel was a group of people living in the hill country of Canaan, not yet a kingdom with a capital city.

Discovery in 1896

The British archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie found the stele early in 1896 while excavating the ruined mortuary temple of Merneptah on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. It lay in the temple area, still largely complete.

Petrie asked the German philologist Wilhelm Spiegelberg, who was working with him, to read the inscription. Spiegelberg recognised the name Israel, a discovery that caused great excitement. Petrie published the find in his report Six Temples at Thebes in 1897. The stele was taken to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where it remains one of the best-known objects in the collection.

A second, damaged copy of the same text was later identified on a stele at the temple of Karnak.

Debates and interpretation

Historians agree that the name on the stele is Israel, but many questions remain. Scholars debate whether Merneptah really fought a campaign in Canaan or whether the final lines are simply a conventional list of subdued lands. Reliefs at Karnak showing battles in Canaan, once attributed to Ramesses II, have been argued by some Egyptologists to belong to Merneptah’s reign, which would support a real campaign.

The stele also contributes to debates about the origins of ancient Israel. It shows that a group with this name was recognised by Egypt as a significant presence in Canaan by the late thirteenth century BC. It does not, however, confirm or refute the biblical account of the Exodus, which it does not mention.

Inscriptions such as the much later Mesha Stele of the ninth century BC, which mentions the kingdom of Israel and its king Omri, show how Israel later developed into a state.

Myths and facts

Myth: Merneptah was the pharaoh of the Exodus. Popular books and films have often linked Merneptah or his father Ramesses II with the biblical Exodus. No Egyptian source records such an event, and the stele itself presents Israel as an enemy already living in Canaan.

Myth: the stele shows Israel as a kingdom. The determinative for a people, rather than a land or city, points to a tribal or population group, not a state with a king and capital.

Myth: the stele is the only early reference to Israel. It is the earliest widely accepted one. A few scholars have proposed older readings on other Egyptian objects, but these remain disputed.

Consequences

Merneptah’s victories kept Egypt secure for the rest of his reign, but the wider world was changing. Within a few decades, the Hittite kingdom and many cities of the eastern Mediterranean collapsed during the Late Bronze Age collapse, and Ramesses III had to fight new waves of Libyans and Sea Peoples. Egypt’s control over Canaan faded in the twelfth century BC, while Israel and other new peoples emerged in the region.

Timeline

• c. 1213 BC: Ramesses II dies; his thirteenth son Merneptah becomes king.
• c. 1208 BC: In year 5, Merneptah defeats the Libyans under Meryey at Perire.
• c. 1208 BC: The victory stele naming Israel is set up in Merneptah’s mortuary temple.
• c. 1203 BC: Merneptah dies and is buried in the Valley of the Kings.
• 1896: Flinders Petrie discovers the stele at Thebes; Wilhelm Spiegelberg reads the name Israel.
• 1897: Petrie publishes the find in Six Temples at Thebes.

Why it matters

The Merneptah Stele is a key source both for Egyptian history and for the history of the ancient Near East. It records a major Libyan invasion during the years leading to the Late Bronze Age collapse. Above all, its single line naming Israel gives historians a fixed point: by about 1208 BC a people called Israel lived in Canaan and was known to the pharaoh’s court.