Overview
A large stone stela reused by Merneptah: the front carries a text and scene of Amenhotep III, which Merneptah's workmen took from Amenhotep's temple; Merneptah's own 28-line inscription is cut on the back. Petrie found it in 1896 in Merneptah's mortuary temple at western Thebes and recorded it as a single block of dark grey syenite over 10 feet tall. A fragmentary duplicate of Merneptah's text stood at Karnak.
Most of the text is a poetic celebration of Merneptah's Year-5 victory over the Libyans. The closing strophe (lines 26-28) turns to the Levant and lists defeated foreigners: Canaan, Ashkelon, Gezer, Yenoam, Israel, and Kharu (Hurru). Israel is the only name in that list written with the classifier for a people rather than the throw-stick-and-hill-country classifier used for Ashkelon, Gezer and Yenoam.
This is the earliest securely read occurrence of the name Israel outside the Bible. Breasted (1906) already noted that the Israel clause is short and built from stock phrases also applied to other defeated peoples.
In its own words
Carried off is Askalon; Seized upon is Gezer; Yenoam is made as a thing not existing. Israel is desolated, his seed is not; Palestine has become a widow for Egypt.J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt III (1906) §617, pp. 263-264
What the evidence shows
- Text dated Year 5 of Merneptah, 3rd month of Shemu, day 3 (Breasted ARE III §607).
- Stela is a reused Amenhotep III monument; Merneptah's text is on the back (Petrie 1897 §24; Breasted ARE III §602 n.).
- Petrie's measurement: 10 ft 3 in x 5 ft 4 in x 13 in, dark grey syenite with quartz veins, 'condition perfect' apart from one chip.
- Line 27 spells the name y-s-r-i-a-r (Breasted: 'Israel (Y-s-r-'-r)').
- Ashkelon, Gezer and Yenoam carry the foreign-land/city classifier; Israel carries the classifier for a people (man + woman + plural strokes).
- The Israel clause 'his seed (pr.t) is not' is a formula also used of other defeated enemies (Breasted ARE III §603-604).
- A second, fragmentary copy of the text exists at Karnak (Breasted ARE III §602 n., citing Dümichen and Erman).
Open questions
- Where is Israel and what kind of group is it? M. G. Hasel (BASOR 296, 1994) reads the closing strophe as a structured ring in which Israel sits inside Canaan/Hurru and, from the people-classifier plus the meaning of pr.t, argues Israel was a sedentary/agricultural socio-ethnic group. Readers who stress the scribal inconsistency of classifiers in Ramesside texts treat the people-classifier as weaker evidence of social form; the stone itself proves only that Egyptian scribes classed Israel as a people, not a city-state.
- Does Israel appear in pictures too? F. J. Yurco (JARCE 23, 1986) reattributed battle reliefs on the Cour de la Cachette wall at Karnak from Ramesses II to Merneptah and matched them scene-for-scene to Ashkelon, Gezer, Yenoam and Israel, identifying Israel with Canaanite-dressed chariot-less foes. D. B. Redford (IEJ 36, 1986) rejected the reattribution; A. F. Rainey (BAR 17/6, 1991) accepted the Merneptah date but argued Israel is the scene of Shasu-dressed captives. The reliefs carry no captions naming Israel, so every identification is a reading.
- Merneptah's own Levantine campaign: some doubt Merneptah campaigned in Canaan at all and read the strophe as conventional boast; Breasted (1906, §605-606) pointed to the Year 3 border journal and the title 'binder of Gezer' as independent indications that he did.
- What 'his seed is not' means: Breasted (1906) showed it is a stock phrase for devastation (grain/offspring), not a reference to killing Hebrew boys as some 1890s writers claimed.
Since 2024
- 2024R. C. Steiner publishes a long study linking Merneptah's Israel to Shasu militiamen and a copper caravan route (in A Master of Secrets in the Chamber of Darkness, 2024, 329-402). [5]
- 2025Studia Antiqua 24/1 (BYU) publishes Q. Adams's comparison of the stela with Merneptah's Karnak Hypostyle inscriptions, reading it as both record and royal propaganda. [6]
- 2025-11The Grand Egyptian Museum opened 1 Nov 2025. Searches found no report that JE 31408 moved there; last located reports place it in the Egyptian Museum, Tahrir. Unconfirmed either way.
Sources
- W. M. Flinders Petrie, with W. Spiegelberg, Six Temples at Thebes, 1896 (London: Quaritch, 1897), §24 and pls. XI-XIV link excavation report
- J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. III: The Nineteenth Dynasty (Chicago, 1906), §§602-617 link translation
- M. G. Hasel, 'Israel in the Merneptah Stela,' Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994) 45-61, DOI 10.2307/1357179 link study
- F. J. Yurco, 'Merenptah's Canaanite Campaign,' JARCE 23 (1986) 189-215; D. B. Redford, 'The Ashkelon Relief at Karnak and the Israel Stela,' IEJ 36 (1986) 188-200; A. F. Rainey and F. Yurco, 'Which Picture Is the Israelites?' BAR 17/6 (1991) 54-61, 93 link study
- R. C. Steiner, 'Merenptah's Israel, His Shasu Militiamen, His Copper Caravan Route...' in A Master of Secrets in the Chamber of Darkness (2024) 329-402 link study
- Q. Adams, 'Egypt, Israel, and the Levant: The Merneptah Stele's Role in Shaping Historical Narratives,' Studia Antiqua 24/1 (2025) link study
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'granite monument ... approximately 2 meters tall.' Petrie's own measurement is 10 ft 3 in (c. 3.1 m) high, of dark grey syenite (Six Temples §24).
- Old entry implies Merneptah erected the stela; it is a reused Amenhotep III stela with Merneptah's text on the back (Petrie §24; Breasted ARE III §602 n.).
- Old entry: the inscription 'details Merneptah's conquests across the Near East.' The bulk of the text is about the Libyan war; only the last lines (26-28) concern the Levant.
- Old entry: 'definitive proof' that a group 'identifying themselves as Israel' existed. The stela is an Egyptian scribe's label for a defeated people; it says nothing about the group's self-identification.
- Old entry: providing 'external validation ... supporting the historical grounding of the Exodus and Conquest traditions.' The text names Israel in Canaan; it does not mention an exodus or a conquest.
- Old entry links Exodus 16 (wilderness wanderings); nothing in the stela corresponds to the wilderness narrative.
Checked against new publications through 2026-09.