Israeli archaeologists have found a large fragment of a limestone Egyptian statue dating to the third millennium BC at Tel-Hazor, site of the Biblical city Hazor.
A fragment of a limestone statute of a top Egyptian official from the Middle Kingdom. Image credit: Shlomit Bechar.
Only the lower part of the statue survived, depicting the crouching feet of a male figure, seated on a square base on which a few lines in the Egyptian hieroglyphic script are inscribed.
The fragment measures 18 x 16 inches (45 x 40 cm). The complete statue would equal the size of a fully-grown man.
“The title and name of the top Egyptian official are not yet entirely clear,” the archaeologists explained.
“The statue was originally placed either in the official’s tomb or in a temple – most probably a temple of the Egyptian god Ptah – and most of the texts inscribed on the statue’s base include words of praise to the official who may have served and most probably practiced his duties in the region of Memphis, the primary cult center of the god Ptah.”
This statue fragment, together with the sphinx fragment of the pyramid-building pharaoh Menkaure (who ruled Egypt in the 25th century BC) recovered three years ago, are the only monumental Egyptian statues found so far in second millennium contexts in the entire Levant.
The discovery of these two statues in the same building indicates the special importance of the building (probably the administrative palace of the ruler of the city), as well as that of the entire city of Hazor.
“Hazor is the most important site from the Biblical period,” said team member Prof. Amnon Ben-Tor, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“In the course of close to 30 years of excavation, fragments of 18 different Egyptian statues, both royal and private, dedicated to Egyptian kings and officials, including two sphinxes, were discovered at Hazor.”
“Most of these statues were found in layers dated to the Late Bronze Age (15th-13th centuries BC) – corresponding to the New Kingdom in Egypt.”
“This is the largest number of Egyptian statues found so far in any site in the Land of Israel, although there is no indication that Hazor was one of the Egyptian strongholds in Southern Canaan nor of the presence of an Egyptian official at Hazor during the Late Bronze Age.”
“Interestingly, most Egyptian statues found at Hazor so far date to the Middle Kingdom (19th-18th centuries BC), a time when Hazor did not yet exist,” the scientists said.
“It thus seems that the statues were sent by an Egyptian king in the New Kingdom as official gifts to the king of Hazor, or as dedications to a local temple (regardless of their being already antiques). This is not surprising considering the special status of the king of Hazor who was the most important king in Southern Canaan at the time.”
“The extraordinary importance of Hazor in the 15th-13th centuries BC is indicated also by the Biblical reference to Hazor as ‘the head of all those kingdoms’ (Joshua 11:10).”
“All the statues at the site were found broken to pieces and scattered over a large area,” the archaeologists explained. “Clear signs of mutilation indicate that most of them were deliberately and violently smashed, most probably in the course of the city’s final conquest and destruction sometime in the 13th century BC.”
“The deliberate mutilation of statues of kings and dignitaries accompanying the conquest of towns, is a well-known practice in ancient times (I Samuel 5:1-4; Isaiah 11:9).”
