The Tel That Keeps on Giving: Beth-Shemesh

Update from Science Daily: Was A 'Mistress Of The Lionesses' A King In Ancient Canaan? ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2009) — The legend is that the great rulers of Canaan, the ancient land of Israel, were all men. But a recent dig by Tel Aviv University archaeologists at Tel Beth-Shemesh uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler. Tel Aviv University archaeologists Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations have uncovered an unusual ceramic plaque of a goddess in female dress, suggesting that a mighty female “king” may have ruled the city. If true, they say, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region. The plaque itself depicts a figure dressed as royal male figures and deities once appeared in Egyptian and Canaanite art. The figure’s hairstyle, though, is womanly and its bent arms are holding lotus flowers -- attributes given to women. This plaque, art historians suggest, may be an artistic representation of the “Mistress of the Lionesses,” a female Canaanite ruler who was known to have sent distress letters to the Pharaoh in Egypt reporting unrest and destruction in her kingdom. “We took this finding to an art historian who confirmed our hypothesis that the figure was a female,” says Dr. Lederman. “Obviously something very different was happening in this city. We may have found the ‘Mistress of the Lionesses’ who’d been sending letters from Canaan to Egypt. The destruction we uncovered at the site last summer, along with the plaque, may just be the key to the puzzle.” A Lady Ruler in Pre-Exodus Canaan Around 1350 BCE, there was unrest in the region. Canaanite kings conveyed their fears via clay tablet letters to the Pharaoh in Egypt, requesting military help. But among all the correspondence by kings were two rare letters that stuck out among the 382 el‑Amarna tablets uncovered a few decades ago by Egyptian farmers. The two letters came from a “Mistress of the Lionesses” in Canaan. She wrote that bands of rough people and rebels had entered the region, and that her city might not be safe. Because the el-Amarna tablets were found in Egypt rather than Canaan, historians have tried to trace the origin of the tablets. “The big question became, ‘What city did she rule?’” Dr. Lederman and Prof. Bunimovitz say. The archaeologists believe that she ruled as king (rather than “queen,” which at the time described the wife of a male king) over a city of about 1,500 residents. A few years ago, Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Nadav Naaman suggested that she might have ruled the city of Beth Shemesh. But there has been no proof until now. “The city had been violently destroyed, in a way we rarely see in archaeology,” says Prof. Bunimovitz, who points to many exotic finds buried under the destruction, including an Egyptian royal seal, bronze arrowheads and complete large storage vessels. They suggest a large and important city-state, well enmeshed within East Mediterranean geo-political and economic networks. Time for a New Interpretation of Biblical History? Tel Aviv University archaeologists say that the new finds might turn the interpretation of pre-biblical history on its head. The people of the time were pagans who had a very elaborate religious system. “It was a very well-to-do city,” says Lederman. “Strangely, such extensive destruction, like what we found in our most recent dig, is a great joy for archaeologists because people would not have had time to take their belongings. They left everything in their houses. The site is loaded with finds,” he says, adding that the expensive items found in the recent level points to it as one the most important inland Canaanite cities. The discovery of the plaque, and the evidence of destruction recorded in the el-Amarna tablets, could confirm that the woman depicted in the figurine was the mysterious “Mistress of the Lionesses” and ruled Canaanite Beth Shemesh. “There is no evidence of other females ruling a major city in this capacity,” Lederman and Bunimovitz say. “She is the only one. We really hope to find out more about her this summer.” Adapted from materials provided by American Friends of Tel Aviv University. **************************************************************************** Added 4/12/09: Judith Weingarten has provided background and analysis at her website, Zenobia: Empress of the East.

The Tel That Keeps on Giving: Beth-Shemesh

From Phyorg.com Was a 'mistress of the lionesses' a king in ancient Canaan? April 6th, 2009 Image: This is an illustration of the plaque found by Tel Aviv University researchers at Tel Beit Shemesh in 2008. Credit: AFTAU The legend is that the great rulers of Canaan, the ancient land of Israel, were all men. But a recent dig by Tel Aviv University archaeologists at Tel Beth-Shemesh uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler. Tel Aviv University archaeologists Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations have uncovered an unusual ceramic plaque of a goddess in female dress, suggesting that a mighty female "king" may have ruled the city. If true, they say, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region. The plaque itself depicts a figure dressed as royal male figures and deities once appeared in Egyptian and Canaanite art. The figure's hairstyle, though, is womanly and its bent arms are holding lotus flowers - attributes given to women. This plaque, art historians suggest, may be an artistic representation of the "Mistress of the Lionesses," a female Canaanite ruler who was known to have sent distress letters to the Pharaoh in Egypt reporting unrest and destruction in her kingdom. "We took this finding to an art historian who confirmed our hypothesis that the figure was a female," says Dr. Lederman. "Obviously something very different was happening in this city. We may have found the 'Mistress of the Lionesses' who'd been sending letters from Canaan to Egypt. The destruction we uncovered at the site last summer, along with the plaque, may just be the key to the puzzle." A Lady Ruler in Pre-Exodus Canaan Around 1350 BCE, there was unrest in the region. Canaanite kings conveyed their fears via clay tablet letters to the Pharaoh in Egypt, requesting military help. But among all the correspondence by kings were two rare letters that stuck out among the 382 el Amarna tablets uncovered a few decades ago by Egyptian farmers. The two letters came from a "Mistress of the Lionesses" in Canaan. She wrote that bands of rough people and rebels had entered the region, and that her city might not be safe. Because the el-Amarna tablets were found in Egypt rather than Canaan, historians have tried to trace the origin of the tablets. "The big question became, 'What city did she rule?'" Dr. Lederman and Prof. Bunimovitz say. The archaeologists believe that she ruled as king (rather than "queen," which at the time described the wife of a male king) over a city of about 1,500 residents. A few years ago, Tel Aviv University's Prof. Nadav Naaman suggested that she might have ruled the city of Beth Shemesh. But there has been no proof until now. "The city had been violently destroyed, in a way we rarely see in archaeology," says Prof. Bunimovitz, who points to many exotic finds buried under the destruction, including an Egyptian royal seal, bronze arrowheads and complete large storage vessels. They suggest a large and important city-state, well enmeshed within East Mediterranean geo-political and economic networks. Time for a New Interpretation of Biblical History? Tel Aviv University archaeologists say that the new finds might turn the interpretation of pre-biblical history on its head. The people of the time were pagans who had a very elaborate religious system. "It was a very well-to-do city," says Lederman. "Strangely, such extensive destruction, like what we found in our most recent dig, is a great joy for archaeologists because people would not have had time to take their belongings. They left everything in their houses. The site is loaded with finds," he says, adding that the expensive items found in the recent level points to it as one the most important inland Canaanite cities. The discovery of the plaque, and the evidence of destruction recorded in the el-Amarna tablets, could confirm that the woman depicted in the figurine was the mysterious "Mistress of the Lionesses" and ruled Canaanite Beth Shemesh. "There is no evidence of other females ruling a major city in this capacity," Lederman and Bunimovitz say. "She is the only one. We really hope to find out more about her this summer." Source: Tel Aviv University (news : web) Compare this seal depicting the goddess Astarte.

A Queen's Desperate Cry for Help

From Haaretz.com Last update - 21:43 27/07/2008 'The land, my lord, will be lost forever' By Ran Shapira "To the king my lord and my sun: These are the words of your servant, Belit-nesheti [literally, "mistress of lions/lionesses"]. I fall at the king's feet seven times over. I must tell the king that this country is witnessing [acts of] hostility and that the land of the king, my lord, will be lost forever." A Canaanite queen from one of the cities in Palestine's lowland sent this desperate request in the 14th century B.C.E. to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The name of the city ruled by Belit-nesheti is not mentioned in this letter or in others that depict violent acts that aroused in her a justified feeling that she was facing a dire threat. During that period, the city of Gezer, and the Ajalon and Sorek valleys were the scene of events that seriously challenged the rule of Belit-nesheti and other monarchs. In another letter, she conveys the following information: "The Apiru have written to Ajalon and Zorah and the two sons of Milkilu [king of Gezer] have been almost beaten to death. I must inform the king of this act." In yet another letter, she relates that one of the cities in the area under her rule has fallen to the Apiru, and she calls to the king, "I beg the king to save his land from the hands of the Apiru, before it is too late." The Apiru, mentioned in various documents from different parts of the ancient Near East, were a people that had been uprooted from society and which had abandoned its native land. They formed bands that engaged in robbery and in the collection of protection money, and they served as mercenaries whom the rulers of the various Canaanite cities under Egyptian rule at the time recruited as a military force when they wanted to attack their enemies. The Apiru were supported by the powerful rulers of neighboring cities who sought to seize control of her city. Her cries for assistance from Pharaoh, who was during this period the supreme ruler of the region and of a number of Canaanite cities, elicited no response, as indicated by the findings that have recently been discovered in Tel Beit Shemesh, about a half-hour's drive from Jerusalem. Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman, both of Tel Aviv University's Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, have been conducting excavations there since 1990. In their scholarly opinion, the city was devastated in a monstrous wave of violence; the remnants extant from that massive act of destruction have been uncovered in the past few weeks. In Tel Beit Shemesh, site of this ancient Canaanite city, archaeologists have discovered entire walls that collapsed in a huge fire, which apparently occurred in the mid-14th century B.C.E. Evidence of the desperate attempt made by Belit-nesheti and her subjects to defend their city is provided by bronze arrowheads discovered among the fallen bricks. They perhaps indicate that the capture of the city was preceded by a battle. Belit-nesheti's letters are part of a collection of letters written in cuneiform in the Akkadian language (the lingua franca of that era) on clay tablets, that was discovered in the late 19th century in Egypt in Tel Amarna, which is located midway between Cairo and Luxor. The letters belong to the royal archives of King Amenhotep IV, the husband of the celebrated Nefertiti. He carried out a religious revolution, transferring the royal capital from No-Amon (present-day Luxor) to Amarna. The king, who changed his name to Akhenaten, deposited in the archives of the new capital some of the royal correspondence dating from the reign of his father, Amenhotep III. After Akhenaten's death, his son, the boy-king Tutenkhamun, abandoned the new religion, which was a form of sun worship, and returned to the old capital. Apparently, the clay tablets that were left at Amarna, which are the remnants of what the Egyptian foreign ministry's archives contained in the 14th century B.C.E., bear the texts of letters that dealt with matters that had already been agreed upon; the Egyptian officials no longer needed them for their contacts with neighboring world powers or with the governors of the Canaanite cities that were under Egyptian control. The archives also contain letters that, like those from Belit-nesheti, were sent by governors of these Canaanite cities to the Egyptian king. The letters are primarily complaints about neighboring rulers and about the precarious security situation in Canaan under Egyptian rule. They also contain numerous reference to the Apiru. Most of the letters are signed by men; thus, Belit-nesheti, the female governor of a city (a very high position), is an exception in this male-dominated environment. Scholars have noted that, except for the letters quoted here, we have no information on Belit-nesheti's family or biography or on the circumstances that led to her playing such a high-profile rule; what is clear that she was extremely unusual for women of her era. Full article.