3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt, Frank J. Yurco, Biblical Archaeology Review (16:5), Sep/Oct 1990.

Temple at Karnak. By René Hourdry – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83565824

Winter of 1976–1977. I was in Luxor, in Upper Egypt, site of the ancient city of Thebes. As a member of the University of Chicago’s Epigraphic Survey, I was there studying the magnificent reliefs and recording the hieroglyphic inscriptions that almost cover the site.

In my spare time, I would work collecting whatever data I could find that might elucidate the late XIXth Dynasty (1293–1185 B.C.E.a), on which I was then writing my doctoral dissertation. It was in this connection that I found myself regularly studying a set of battle reliefs accompanied by extensive hieroglyphic inscriptions located in the famous Karnak temple.

This particular scene is on the outer western wall of the Cour de la Cachette. The wall itself was originally about 158 feet long and 30 feet high and is composed of blocks about 50 to 63 inches long and 40 inches high. Time, unfortunately, has not been kind to the sculptors who created this monument. Except at the extreme left (north) end, the top of the wall is missing. Three scenes at the right (as one faces the wall) are no longer in place.

Read the rest of 3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.