150 Ann E. Killebrew
who resided in the region defined as Canaan, and were referred to as Canaanites by
their neighbors, can be characterized as multi-ethnic groups with diverse ancestries.
Although one may speak of a cosmopolitan material culture orkoinéin the eastern
Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age of Internationalism, Egyptian imperialism
in Canaan, as evidenced by Egyptian military strongholds and administrative centers,
did not result in hybridity (i.e., a blending, or melting pot, of cultures and peoples).
However, in other regions of the Levant such as Cyprus, which served as an economic
hub connecting the Aegean and Levant, the “global economy” of the Late Bronze Age
resulted in extensive cross-cultural connections, inspiring a hybrid Aegean-style culture
that characterized the island beginning in the thirteenth centuryBCEand continuing
into the twelfth and later centuries (see the subsection titled “The Philistines” in
the following text). In this scenario, Cypriot identity was in a state of continuous
renegotiation, which resulted in the hybridity that characterized the later centuries of
the Late Cypriot period (see, e.g., Knapp 2008). In Canaan, with the withdrawal of
New Kingdom Egypt from the southern Levant in the mid-twelfth century, this ethnic
mosaic fractured, most likely along traditional tribal and/or “ethnic” lines. This is
archaeologically illustrated in the development of regionally defined material culture
assemblages and a dramatic change in settlement patterns (see the following subsection,
titled “Emergence of Early Israel”). The result is the gradual emergence, over a period
of centuries, of groups that were later known as Israel, Ammon, Moab, and Edom
(Killebrew 2005b).
Emergence of Early Israel
The starting point for any discussion regarding a people known from the biblical account
as Israel is the Hymn of Victory stela of the Nineteenth-Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh
Merneptah. His account of a military campaign to Canaan during his fifth year appears
on two stelae and dates to the late thirteenth centuryBCE, a period when Canaan was
still under Egyptian imperial influence. This inscription, also known as the Israel Stela, is
the earliest extra-biblical mention of a people that are referred to asysry3r/l. The major-
ity of Egyptologists have translated this term as “Israel,” which is accompanied by the
determinative that indicates a people (see, e.g., Hasel 1998: 194–204contraThompson
1997: 173–4). Four battle scenes incised on the western outer wall of Karnak’s “Cour
de la Cachette” have also been considered by some to be a depiction of “early Israel.”
Challenging the traditional attribution of these reliefs to Ramesses II, F. J. Yurco (1997)
redates them to Merneptah. Comparing the campaign depicted in these reliefs to the
one described in Merneptah’s Stela, he suggests that a damaged battle scene depicting
combatants in a hilly environment should be identified as representing the same Israel
mentioned in the Israel Stela (Stager 1985contraRedford 1986).
The biblical narrative of the emergence of Israel begins with the exodus, a tale
of enslavement in Egypt, subsequent escape, and journey via the wilderness to the
“Promised Land” under the leadership of Moses, as recorded in the Book of Exodus
(see Redford 1987 for an Egyptological perspective). The account continues with the
conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, which culminates in the Book of
Judges with the settlement of the Israelite tribes. Even a casual reading of Joshua and