Field Book

The southern Levant

Areas of Habiru (Hapiru, Khabiri, Apiru) activity as reported in the Amarna letters corpus (LBIIA), Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The city wall and gate of Tell Balata, Shechem.

The Anubis portable shrine, Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

When a pharonic inscription declares the defeat of the 'nine bows,' a remarkably common motif in Egyptian royal texts, what is being stated is that Egypt's many enemies have been vanquished. Protection of the land of the Nile and conquest are secular and divine imperatives of the king - and so we find this declaration in royal and religious contexts. When he defeats the nine bows, an Egyptian king is doing is job right. Ma`at is maintained.

Here the number nine is symbolic of many. It is not a simple plural but a super-superlative plural; the 'many many' enemies of Egypt. It has the sense of the forces of chaos and all the many great dangers to the sacred order of the land of Egypt.

Ayman Waziry, Pedestal of Rameses II from Antinoopolis

In the Amarna Letters (14th c. BCE), the rulers of Canaanite city-states under Egyptian control are often called ḫazannū (Akkadian; sing. ḫazannū, pl. ḫazannūti). The term literally means “mayor” or “governor.” Unlike independent kings, these men were usually members of the native nobility appointed or confirmed by the Egyptian king to govern a city on his behalf. Their authority was fragile: they owed loyalty upward to Egypt and constantly struggled sideways against rival ḫazannū and the threat of ḫabiru raiders. The Amarna correspondence is full of these governors begging the pharaoh for military aid, lest their cities be lost.

A number of Egyptian texts dating from the mid-twelfth to the late tenth centuries BCE describe the raids of various so-called ‘Sea Peoples’ along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. From c. 1150 BCE an inscription on the mortuary temple of Rameses III at Medinet Habu, Papyrus Harris I (British Museum), and the Deir el-Medina Rhetorical Stela to Ramesses III (Chapel C) list a group known as the pwrვsვtj (the ‘Peleset’) among these invaders. They appear again, a century later, in the Onomasticon of Amenope (c. 1000 BCE), and on the inscription of the c. 900 BCE Padiiset's Statue where Padiiset ‘son of Apy’ describes himself as 'the impartial envoy of Canaan to the Peleset.' These texts paint a picture of a period of about 150 years from the invasion to the settlement of the Philistines along the southern Canaanite coastal plain from Gaza to Joppa.

The earliest firm archaeological evidence of a scribal culture in Judah comes from the late eighth century BCE, in Hezekiah's reign. The Siloam Inscription in Jerusalem, commemorating the completion of the water tunnel, shows skilled Hebrew writing in monumental form. By the seventh century, ostraca from Lachish and elsewhere reveal everyday written communication, while seals and bullae mark a growing literate bureaucracy.

There are earlier hints — like the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon (c. 1000 BCE) — but its language and context are debated. What we can say with certainty: by the late eighth century Judah possessed an active scribal culture, tied to both royal projects and administrative life.

Shoshenq I (ššnq; reigned c. 943 - 922 BCE), the founder of Egypt’s Twenty-Second Dynasty, was embroiled in the politics of early monarchic Israel and Judah. Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite, rebelled against Solomon qua the House of David in Jerusalem, was defeated and forced to flee into Egypt where Shoshenq gave him sanctuary.

Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam promptly fled to Egypt, to King Shishak of Egypt, and remained in Egypt until the death of Solomon. 1 Kings 11:40

However, the Bubastite Portal at Karnak, which records the military campaigns of Shoshenq in Judah and the southern Levant does not mention Jerusalem which, according to the biblical account, was his greatest prize:

In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the house of Yahweh and the treasures of the king’s house; he took everything. He also took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made. 1 Kings 14:25–26

Archaeology of the period does support the historicity of Egyptian raids into Judah and Israel in the middle of the tenth century BCE, and so this may indeed have been Shoshenq — who we know did campaign in the area. But the Twenty-Second Dynasty lacked the power to occupy cities in Canaan. This, then, was nothing more than a significant raid by which Egypt flexed its muscle in the region.

Rameses II, after the stalemate at Kadesh (c. 1274 BCE), consolidated Egypt’s hold over southern Canaan by placing garrisons in key cities like Gaza, Jaffa, and Beth Shean. Egyptian administration in Canaan lasted, with interruptions, until the late 12th century BCE—roughly 150 years. Their departure came with the broader collapse of the Bronze Age, as Egypt withdrew in the face of the 'Sea Peoples' and internal decline.

The legacy was lasting. Egyptian temples, stelae, and cults—dedications to deities like Hathor, Ptah, and Amun — had been planted in Canaanite soil. Even after Egypt withdrew, traces of Egyptian iconography, religious vocabulary, and artistic styles lingered in local culture. Canaanite elites had absorbed Egyptian prestige goods, motifs, and bureaucratic models. The hybridisation of local and Egyptian elements helped shape the cosmopolitan mix of Late Bronze and early Iron Age Canaan — fertile ground for the eventual rise of Israelite and Phoenician identities.

According to the biblical Exodus narrative the Hebrews were forced to build the city of Pi-Rameses (Exodus 1:11) and it was from here they were said to have begun their exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:37). This would date the Exodus to the reign of Rameses II (d. 1213 BCE), but the fortress city of Pi-Rameses (or pr-rꜥmssw the 'House of Rameses') functioned as an Egyptian royal centre until about 1000 BCE when it was dismantled and removed to Tanis.

Following the Battle of Kadesh and Rameses II's treaty with the Hittites (1275 BCE) the Egyptians garrisoned the cities of rṯnw (Retjenu - southern Canaan) with troops and began the process of Egyptification in which Egyptian religion was introduced to the Canaanite cultic centres (temples and bamot shrines). An example of this was discovered at Beit She'an, an important strategic town at the meeting of the Jordan and Jezreel Valleys. Here the Egyptians built a temple to the goddess Ashtoreth.

Canaan is a frequently attested demonym in the Bible referring to the land of the 'Canaanites' - a catch-all term for the various ethnic groups who lived in the Levant from as early as the fourteenth century BCE. We find it first in the Amarna Letters as 𒆳𒆠𒈾𒄴𒈾 (KUR ki-na-aḫ-na) where KUR (a Sumerogram) is the conventional Akkadian determinative for a land or country. It appears to means something like the 'low' or 'subjugated' land, and seems to have been the term Egypt used for this northern borderland of its empire.

Retjenu or rṯnw, on the other hand, was the toponym the Egyptians used for southern Canaan - the territory from Gaza and Askalon in the south to Mount Lebanon in the north and in-land as far as the Sea of Galilee.

After Thutmose III’s famous victory at the Battle of Megiddo (c. 1457 BCE), Egypt incorporated Canaan into its imperial sphere. From then on, Egypt held sway over the Canaanite city-states. The system was not direct annexation but a network of vassal rulers bound by tribute and garrisons, monitored by Egyptian officials (as seen in the Amarna Letters, c. 1350 BCE). Egyptian hegemony over Canaan lasted from roughly 1457 to around 1130 BCE (the later years of the New Kingdom). The last strong assertion of Egyptian power was under Ramesses III (early twelfth century BCE). After that, Egyptian control collapsed amid the wider Bronze Age collapse and the rise of new powers (the Philistines, Israelites, and Arameans).

Israel, as a people group in Canaan, is first attested in writing on the Merneptah Stele which records the campaign of Merneptah into the Levant. The inscription says little of this group other than it was a people group and not a polity, and that they were defeated by Merneptah. This reliably places a nomadic people known as 'Israel' in the southern Levant at about 1213 - 1203 BCE.

Khufu (d. c. 2566 BCE) was the second king of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period (26th century BCE). He succeeded his father Sneferu as king. His mother was likely Hetepheres I. He is generally accepted as having commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but many other aspects of his reign are poorly documented.

The Khufu Statuette. Historically and archaeologically significant, it was found in 1903 by Sir William Petrie during excavation of Kom el-Sultan in Abydos. It depicts Khufu, a king of the Fourth dynasty (Old Kingdom, c. 2613 to 2494 BCE), and the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, though it may have been carved much later, in the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, 664 BC–525 BCE.

Khufu's known children are Kawab, Djedefre, Khafre, Djedefhor, Hetepheres II, Minkhaf I, Khufukhaf I, Babaef, and Horbaef. It was Khafre who succeeded him to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. Khufu is perhaps best known for being the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

r-u-f-u

The Diary of Merer (also known as the Wadi al-Jarf Papyri or Red Sea Scrolls) is the name for papyrus logbooks written over 4,500 years ago by Merer, a middle-ranking official with the title inspector (sḥḏ, sehedj). They are the oldest known papyri with text, dating to the 26th year of the reign of Khufu (reigned in the early 26th century BCE, estimated c. 2589 – c. 2566 BCE) during the Fourth Dynasty.

Levites with the Ark of the Covenant

Egypt's presence in Canaan ended during the Late Bronze Age collapse, around 1200 BCE, as a consequence of seaborne invasions, internal instability, and severe drought, leading to the gradual disintegration of Egyptian colonial rule. While the precise nature of the departure is debated, evidence shows that Egypt's power in the region declined significantly, and the region's name, Canaan, largely disappeared from use after this period.

Given the preponderance of Egyptian names associated with the biblical Levites (Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, etc.), it is quite possible that the Levites were Egyptian priestly functionaries 'attached' (לֵוִי lewi literally means 'one who is attached') to local Egyptian shrines in occupied Canaan. Such a theory would have it that after the withdrawal of Egyptian power from the region, Levites were integrated into the southern Canaanite groups of Ḫapiru as a landless priestly caste.

Richard Elliott Friedman (2015). The Historical Exodus. TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/the-historical-exodus