A detail of the scarab found at Khirbat Hamra Ifdan. Credit: University of California, San Diego
Posted on 09/21/2014 11:21:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...The tiny artifact could attest to the fabled military campaign that Sheshonq I waged in the region nearly 3,000 years ago, researchers say...
The site, which was discovered during excavations in 2002, was home to intense metal production during the Early Bronze Age, between about 3000 B.C. and 2000 B.C. But there is also evidence of more recent smelting activities at Khirbat Hamra Ifdan during the Iron Age, from about 1000 B.C. to 900 B.C.
The hieroglyphic sequence on the scarab reads: "bright is the manifestation of Re, chosen of Amun/Re." That moniker corresponds to the throne name of Sheshonq I, the founding monarch of Egypt's 22nd Dynasty, who is believed to have ruled from about 945 B.C. to 924 B.C...
The scarab wasn't found during excavations; rather a grad student picked it up from the surface of the ground while Levy was giving a tour of the smelting slags at Khirbat Hamra Ifdan. Though the artifact was not discovered in its original archaeological context, it could provide evidence for the extent of Sheshonq I's legendary military campaign in this mineral-rich region, Levy and colleagues said...
...in a 2008 study... Levy and colleagues used radiocarbon dating to show that artifacts at Khirbat en-Nahas — another ancient copper mining and smelting site in the Faynan that's so huge it can be seen from space — were actually as old as the 10th century B.C.
"In my opinion, the debate over dating copper production in the Faynan region is over," Levy told Live Science in an email. "We produced over 130 high-precision radiocarbon dates for the main production sites and a range of other data. As for Solomon, without inscriptions, we still don't know who controlled the copper production at this time for sure."
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
A detail of the scarab found at Khirbat Hamra Ifdan. Credit: University of California, San Diego
Haremhab’s Contemporaries -- The excavations of Samaria, discussed above, revealed that the Libyan king Osorkon II was not a contemporary of Ahab, as is usually asserted, but reigned after the time of Jeroboam II—i.e., after ca. -744, which marks the death of Jeroboam II, but before the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians in -722... In the accepted scheme of history Haremhab is supposed to have reigned some six hundred years before the funeral chamber for Prince Shoshenk, son of Osorkon II, was built. But what incentive would the builder of the tomb have to decorate the monument with the figure of Haremhab and his cartouche? ...In this reconstruction Haremhab and Tirhaka, the Ethiopian, are contemporaries; in the conventional version of history they are separated by more than six centuries, Haremhab being dated to the late fourteenth and Tirhaka to the early seventh. A certain scene, carved on one of the walls of a small Ethiopian temple at Karnak, shows them together. The scene proves not only the contemporaneity of Haremhab and Tirhaka, but also permits to establish a short period in their relations from which it dates. De Rouge in his 1873 study of the monuments of Tirhaka, describes the relief...
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"The manifesting bed bugs at Re's place are really big."
Found on the ground, huh? I wonder what other, uncataloged objects didn't fall out of pockets during the excavation?
I find it hard to believe that nobody noticed it, unless it was mostly crusted over.
Didn’t, couldn’t possibly think this story was already posted, thought of sukenciv to share it with but I’ve learned the hard way that you never know.And there it was.
:’)
It figures that a site that had already been in use wouldn’t have a scarab just laying around, unless it was a quite late addition (or dropped by some college student out for some attention).
Kind of like the IZOD of the time?
:’)
These amulets were mass marketed for tourists! Probably say “Made in Ethiopia” on there somewhere....
Hurry, hurry, get your Pharaoh Brand Amulet before they sell out!
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