Discovery of the Merneptah Stele
Descubrimiento de la Estela de Merenptah
- Date
- 1896 · confidence high
- Place
- Thebes (mortuary temple of Merneptah), Luxor, Egypt
- Credited to
- Flinders Petrie
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Flinders Petrie found in Merneptah's mortuary temple at Thebes a large granite stele carved around 1208 BC; its final lines contain the earliest known mention of Israel outside the Bible.
The reading 'Israel' in the final line was proposed by Petrie himself to his colleague Wilhelm Spiegelberg, who initially doubted the hieroglyph; scholars still debate the term's exact scope in the text. Wikidata flags a date/person mismatch: the stele itself is 13th century BC, but Petrie's discovery of it was in 1896.
What it led to
- Historiographical debate on the chronology of early Israel
- Comparison with other Late Bronze Age sources on the peoples of Canaan