The search for a strong Egyptian leader leads to Tel Hazor

Historical discovery: Archaeologists from the Hebrew University discovered in excavations at Tel Hazor a one-of-a-kind sphinx fragment of an Egyptian king from the builders of the Giza pyramids

At a time when Egypt is going through a second revolution in two and a half years and its various parties are fighting for control of the country, archaeologists from the Hebrew University discovered a magnificent and ancient evidence of Egyptian rule precisely in Tel Hazor near Rosh Pina. A team of researchers led by Prof. Amnon Ben-Tor and Dr. Sharon Zuckerman from the Institute of Archeology found a unique Egyptian Spinach fragment in the Tel Hazor National Park. The sphinx carries between its front legs an inscription in the Khartoum script that includes the name of the Egyptian king Mikrinus, from the days of the ancient Egyptian kingdom, one of the builders of the well-known pyramids of Giza, who ruled the kingdom in the third millennium BC.
The fragment of the sphinx discovered in Hazor is an unexpected and amazing discovery in its importance, since the sphinx of this king is the only one so far known in the entire world, including Egypt itself. Moreover, it is the only fragment of a monumental royal statue discovered in the entire Levant. Besides the king's name, the inscription includes the titles "beloved of the divine incarnations...who gave him eternal life". According to Prof. Ben-Tor and Dr. Zuckerman, the inscription shows that the original location of the Spinach was probably in the city of Heliopolis, the biblical On, which is north of present-day Cairo.
The archaeological complex in which the Spinach is found is within the layer of ruins of the city that was destroyed during the 13th century BC, at the entrance to the city palace. The question that is now interesting to the researchers is when and under what circumstances the statue was brought to Hazur. According to Prof. Ben-Tor and Dr. Zuckerman, the probability that the sphinx was brought to Hezor already in the days of the king whose name is engraved on it is extremely small, since there is no information about the existence of any connections between Egypt and the Land of Israel in the third millennium BC. Two more likely possibilities: It is possible that the statue was brought to the Land of Israel in the second millennium BC during the dynasty of kings known as the Hyksos, which originated in Canaan. It is also possible that the Spinach was brought to Israel during the 15-13th centuries BC, when Canaan was under Egyptian rule, as a gift from the King of Egypt to King Hazor, the ruler of the most important city in the southern Levant at that time.

Tel Hazor is the largest and most important of the biblical mounds of the country and was designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO. The Israeli Hazor is a key site for testing the reliability of the biblical histography, and it was preceded by the Canaanite Hazor, who was called the "head of all these kingdoms" in the book of Joshua. The city had cultural and commercial ties with both Egypt and Babylon, and written documents discovered both in Hazor and in these two important centers clearly testify to this. Along with the written documentation, various artistic findings were also revealed, including those that were brought to Khor from near and far.

The Hebrew University excavated the site for the first time in the mid-1990s and also excavated it in the late 2006s. The excavations at the site were renewed in XNUMX, as part of the Saltz Foundation excavation project in memory of Yigal Yedin, by Prof. Amnon Ben-Tor, who was joined by Dr. Sharon Zuckerman in XNUMX. The current excavation in the area is managed by Shlomit Bacher, a doctoral student of the Institute of Archeology and is being conducted under the auspices of the Society for the Investigation The Land of Israel and its excavations in collaboration with the Antiquities Authority and the Nature and Parks Authority.