by News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Broken granite sphinx statue is first such find in Israel but researchers are still unsure how it got there • The statue is the first ever found dedicated to Egyptian ruler Mycerinus, who built one of the three Giza pyramids around 2,500 B.C.E.
The broken granite sphinx
statue, including the paws and some of the mythical creature's forearms
|
Photo credit: Gil Eliyahu/JINI  |
Tel Hazor archaeological
site in the Galilee
|
Photo credit: Gil Eliyahu/JINI 
Part of an ancient Egyptian king's unique
sphinx was unveiled at a dig in northern Israel on Tuesday, Agence
France-Presse reported, as researchers struggled to understand just how
the unexpected artifact ended up there.
The small broken granite sphinx -- including
the paws and some of the mythical creature's forearms -- is displayed at
the Tel Hazor archaeological site in the Galilee, and is the first such
find in the region.
The discovery marks the first time ever that
researchers have found a statue dedicated to Egyptian ruler Mycerinus
(also known as Menkaure) who ruled circa 2,500 B.C. and was the builder
of one of the three Giza pyramids, according to the report.
"This is the only monumental Egyptian statue
ever found in the Levant, today's Israel, Lebanon, Syria," Amnon
Ben-Tor, an archaeology professor at the Hebrew University in charge of
the Tel Hazor dig, told AFP.
"It is also the only sphinx of this particular
king known, not even in Egypt was a sphinx of that particular king
found," according to Ben-Tor, who said that besides Mycerinus' name,
carved in hieroglyphics between the forearms, there are symbols reading
"beloved by the divine souls of Heliopolis."
"This is the temple in which the sphinx was
originally placed," Ben-Tor said of Heliopolis, an ancient city that
lies north of today's Cairo.
Tel Hazor, which Ben-Tor calls "the most
important archaeological site in this country," was the capital of
southern Canaan, founded circa 2,700 B.C.E. and at its peak covered
around 200 acres and was home to some 20,000 Canaanites. It was
destroyed in the 13th century B.C.E.
"Following a gap of some 150 years, it was
resettled in the 11th century B.C.E. by the Israelites, who continuously
occupied it until 732 B.C.E.," when it was destroyed by the Assyrians,
Ben-Tor told AFP.
He said the statue was about 50 centimeters
(20 inches) long, and the entire statue was 150 centimeters (60 inches)
long and half a meter (20 inches) high.
How, when and why it reached Tel Hazor remains a mystery.
"That it arrived in the days of Mycerinus
himself is unlikely, since there were absolutely no relations between
Egypt and this part of the world then," Ben-Tor told AFP. "Egypt
maintained relations with Lebanon, especially via the ancient port of
Byblos, to import cedar wood via the Mediterranean, so they skipped
[what is today northern Israel]," he said.
Another option is that the statue was part of
the plunders of the Canaanites, who in the late 17th and early 16th
century B.C.E. ruled lower Egypt, Ben-Tor said.
"Egyptian records tell us that those foreign
rulers ... plundered and desecrated the local temples and did all kinds
of terrible things, and it is possible that some of this looting
included a statue like this one," he said.
But Ben-Tor believes the most likely way the sphinx reached Tel Hazor was as a gift sent by a later Egyptian ruler.
"The third option is that it arrived in Hazor
some time after the New Kingdom started in 1,550 B.C.E., during which
Egypt ruled Canaan, and maintained close relations with the local
rulers, who were left on their thrones," he told AFP. "In such a case
it's possible the statue was sent by the Egyptian ruler to king of
Hazor, the most important ruler in this region."
Shlomit Blecher, who manages the Selz
Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin, was the
archaeologist who actually unearthed the finding in August 2012.
The statue's incrustation was meticulously
removed over a period of many months by the excavation's restorer before
the intricate carvings and hieroglyphics were fully visible.
"It was the last hour of the last day of the dig," she
told AFP of the moment of the find. "We all leapt with joy and
happiness, everyone was thrilled. We hope the other pieces are here and
that we find them in the near days."
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10605
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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