Merneptah Stele

An Egyptian victory inscription commissioned by Pharaoh Merneptah in the late thirteenth century BCE. Its final lines contain the earliest widely accepted Egyptian reference to Israel.

Merneptah: An ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty who ruled in the late thirteenth century BCE. He commissioned the inscription and is named in its royal claims.
Egyptian victory stelae: Monuments inscribed to commemorate and legitimize Egyptian military victories. The Merneptah inscription belongs to this genre of royal commemoration.
Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt: An ancient Egyptian dynasty that ruled during the thirteenth and early twelfth centuries BCE. Merneptah ruled near the end of this dynasty.
Mesha Stele: A ninth-century BCE Moabite inscription recounting King Mesha’s victories and conflicts with Israel. It is a later inscription that names Israel in a different political setting.
Israel–Merneptah Stele inscription: The closing inscriptional passage on the Merneptah Stele that includes the name Israel. Its wording and damaged signs anchor debate over the passage’s precise translation.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: A writing system used in ancient Egypt, combining phonetic signs, logograms, and semantic classifiers. The stele’s Egyptian text uses hieroglyphic writing.
Karnak: A major ancient Egyptian temple complex at Thebes, now part of Luxor. The stele was erected at Karnak as a monument to Merneptah’s victories.
Ramesses II: An Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty who ruled before his son Merneptah. Merneptah succeeded Ramesses II, whose long reign preceded the stele’s creation.
Tel Dan Stele: A fragmentary ninth-century BCE Aramaic inscription that mentions the ‘House of David.’ Its later evidence concerns Israel’s monarchy, unlike the stele’s earlier people-name.
Early Israelites: Ancient communities in the southern Levant associated with the emergence of Israel during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages. Scholars debate which population the stele’s name Israel designates.

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