The dual cartouches of Ramesses III discovered in Jordan’s Wadi Rum. Courtesy Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Jordan.

The Jordanian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the cartouche of Pharaoh Ramesses III (1186–1155 BCE) carved into a rock face near Wadi Rum in southern Jordan. A first-of-its-kind discovery in the country, it has been hailed as “rare, tangible evidence of pharaonic Egypt’s historical presence in the region.” Although it is the first such inscription discovered in Jordan, a series of cartouches belonging to Ramesses III have been discovered elsewhere, marking out an ancient trade route between Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula.

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Leaving a Mark

Among the countless carvings found throughout Wadi Rum, the inscription features two cartouches, one with the birth name of Ramesses III and the other with his throne name. “This is a landmark discovery that enhances our understanding of ancient connections between Egypt, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula,” said Lina Annab, the Jordanian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities.

Several other inscriptions of Ramesses III have been discovered outside of Egypt, carved along a lengthy trade route that connected Egypt with the Arabian Peninsula. These inscriptions have helped archaeologists pinpoint the route itself, with several cartouches found throughout the Sinai and Israel and one as far south as Tayma in Saudi Arabia. The Wadi Rum inscription, which is located close to the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, provides yet another marker on that route.

According to Zahi Hawass, the former Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, “The discovery is crucial. It could open the door to a deeper understanding of Egypt’s interactions with the southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula over 3,000 years ago.”

Related reading in Bible History Daily

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Pharaoh’s Mummy Reveals Murder, Palace Intrigue

Identifying Pi Ramesses

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BAR Jr.: Gamma Rays Halt Deterioration of Mummy of Ramesses II

Egyptian Papyrus Sheds New Light on Jewish History

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Philistine Pottery. These pottery pieces from Ashkelon bear early Philistine decorations. Photo: © The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon.

The Philistines are best known from the Bible as the Israelites’ enemies, but they were much more than that. Recent archaeological discoveries help inform our understanding of their culture, economy, and even origins. In the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Daniel M. Master of Wheaton College looks at the biblical and archaeological evidence for the Philistines’ roots in “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines.”

Who Were the Philistines?

In the Bible, the Philistines are remembered as an uncircumcised people with advanced technology and a formidable military (Judges 14:3; 1 Samuel 13:19–20; Exodus 13:17). The Philistines frequently encroached on Israelite territory, which led to some battles, including the famous clash between David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine (1 Samuel 17). They were condemned for being idol worshipers (1 Samuel 5:1–5) and soothsayers (Isaiah 2:6). In short, the Philistines are portrayed quite negatively in the Bible.

They lived in the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza—the heartland of ancient Philistia on the Mediterranean Sea’s southeastern shore. Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath have been excavated in recent decades. The findings from these cities show that the Philistines had distinct pottery, weapons, tools, and houses. They also ate pork and had vast trade networks.

Philistine culture flourished during the Iron Age (12th through sixth centuries B.C.E.). Similar to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Philistines lost their autonomy toward the end of the Iron Age. They became subservient and paid tribute to the Assyrians, Egyptians, and then Babylonians, the great superpowers of the region who severely punished rebellion. For example, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed disloyal Ashkelon and Ekron and carried off many Philistines into exile.

Where Did the Philistines Come From?

In his article, Daniel Master looks at archaeological and biblical evidence for the Philistines’ origins. He considers the accounts at Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. In the 12th century B.C.E., during the reign of Ramesses III, a confederation of tribes from the “islands” of the “northern countries” attacked Egypt—several times, both on sea and land. The Peleset, whom scholars connect with the Philistines, was named as one of these tribes.

Battle Ships. This drawing of a relief at Medinet Habu shows a sea battle between the Egyptians and people from the “islands,” who had invaded Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. Photo: Public Domain.

On the way to Egypt, the confederation had traveled through the eastern Mediterranean and destroyed numerous cities, including Ugarit on the Syrian coast. Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, had written to surrounding kingdoms for help, when the “seven ships of the enemy” had arrived to ransack his kingdom. By the time help had come, though, it was too late: Ugarit lay in ruins.

Egypt defeated the confederation, as recorded on one of the temple walls at Medinet Habu. A relief from that temple also depicts a sea battle between the island tribes and the Egyptians. In it, the islanders wear distinct headdresses, which clearly set them apart from the Egyptians. After being defeated, some of these tribes settled on the southern coast of Canaan—in what would become the land of the Philistines. Egyptian sources, thus, seem to record a migration of people from the “islands” to Philistia.

Philistine Portrait? A confederation of island tribes, including the Peleset (Philistines), attacked Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. This relief from Medinet Habu records a sea battle between the two forces. Photo: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Master also examines the evidence for Philistine origins in the Bible. The biblical authors remembered the Philistines as coming from a foreign land, from “Caphtor” (Genesis 10:14; Deuteronomy 2:23; 1 Chronicles 1:12; Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). Scholars have long drawn a connection between Caphtor and Crete. This is largely based on Egyptian inscriptions and paintings of “Keftiu” from the 15th and 14th centuries B.C.E., wherein the Keftiu are linked to the Minoan civilization, which was centered on Crete.

Migration Map. Who were the Philistines, and where did they come from? New archaeological evidence suggests that many of the Philistines originally came from Crete, called “Caphtor” in the Bible. Map: © Biblical Archaeology Society.

Excavations have shown that the Philistines had a distinct assemblage of artifacts. Master notes parallels between some early Philistine objects, especially from the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E., and Aegean and Cypriot artifacts. Elements of Philistine material culture, then, also hint at an Aegean or Mediterranean origin for the Philistines.

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New evidence from Ashkelon further supports this connection. The Leon Levy Expedition excavated at Ashkelon from 1985–2016 under the direction of the late Lawrence Stager at Harvard University; for the last decade, Daniel Master co-directed excavations. They found some infant burials from the 12th century B.C.E., as well as a Philistine cemetery with burials from the 11th through eighth centuries B.C.E. Teaming up with scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, they were able to analyze DNA from seven of these individuals. When they looked at the 12th-century infants’ DNA, they discovered that the infants had some European ancestry. Crete proved to be one of the best matches for the infants’ heritage—when considering all of their genetic material. Yet other places in the western Mediterranean, such as Iberia, also provided a good match.

Interestingly, in the later individuals from Ashkelon’s cemetery, this European ancestry had been so diluted to barely register. Master explains that, by the tenth century B.C.E., enough intermarriage had taken place between the Philistines and the local Levantine population that the Philistines looked a lot like their neighbors:

While there was some evidence of the same Western European Hunter-Gatherer genetic input, for all statistical purposes, it could not be identified for certain. The best models showed that these people [the tenth- and ninth-century individuals buried in Ashkelon’s cemetery] were descendants of both the 12th-century inhabitants and the earlier Bronze Age inhabitants. It appears from these results that so much intermarriage had taken place between the original immigrants and the people around them that the genetic makeup of Ashkelon’s inhabitants had lost its immigrant distinctiveness.

Yet Master clarifies that, at this point in history, the Philistines still thought of themselves as distinct, as evident in a seventh-century inscription from the Philistine city of Ekron. The inscription names Ekron’s king as Ikausu, which means “Achaean” or “Greek.” The name Ikausu (or Achish) also appears in 1 Samuel 21:10 as Gath’s king.

The Philistines remembered their foreign origins

Master concludes that the new DNA evidence, coupled with the biblical and archaeological testimonies, suggests that the Philistines originated in Crete. That is not to say that the Philistines were a homogenous group, all coming from the Aegean world, but it seems that many Philistines did indeed migrate from there, bringing with them vestiges of Minoan culture. Learn more about this ancient people in Daniel M. Master’s article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines,” published in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines” by Daniel M. Master in the Spring 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily

Illuminating the Philistines’ Origins

Who Were the Philistines?

The Philistines Are Coming!

The “Philistines” to the North

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

The Philistines

Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines

What We Know About the Philistines

The Other “Philistines”

Exploring Philistine Origins on the Island of Cyprus

This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on March 23, 2022.

The post Who Were the Philistines, and Where Did They Come From? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Michelangelo’s David (1504) carrying a sling over his shoulder.
Photo: George M. Groutas, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground” (1 Samuel 17:49). The biblical story of a lowly shepherd with no military training or experience and yet capable of defeating and killing a mighty warrior serves as a metaphor for facing and overcoming seemingly impossible odds.

In European art, David is often portrayed as carrying a sling, even when it is the only thing he has, as demonstrated by Michelangelo’s masterpiece—the nude statue of David outside the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The larger-than-life marble hero carries a sling over his left shoulder while holding a stone in his right hand.

How realistic is the biblical narrative? How were slings made in antiquity? What ammunition did they use? And what do we know about the real-life capabilities of slings and their usefulness in combat?

Boyd Seevers and Victoria Parrott answer these questions in their article “Taking a Sling: How David Defeated Goliath,” published in the Fall 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. They provide a technical description of the weapon and discuss the different techniques. Although slings were very common across the ancient world, hardly any examples have survived in the archaeological record. Luckily, ancient artistic representations offer some clues.

Egyptian slingers attacking the Sea Peoples from the crow’s nests of their ships, around 1200 BCE.
Photo: Alexander Schick/Bibelausstellung.de

Possibly the oldest depiction of slings comes from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu (across the Nile from Luxor), where large wall reliefs celebrate the pharaoh’s deeds, including the battles against the coalition of the so-called Sea Peoples, who invaded Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in about 1190 BCE. A section of the northern outer wall of the temple shows the Egyptian navy engaged with the invaders, who are identified by their characteristic feathered headdresses. Atop every Egyptian ship’s mast, in the crow’s nest, is an Egyptian slinger launching projectiles at the enemy.

Assyrian slingers and archers during the siege of Lachish in 701 BCE.
Photo: Zunkir, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As for slinging techniques, “some pictures appear to show slingers whirling the sling horizontally over their heads, as depicted in an early 12th-century BCE relief from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. By contrast, other pictures seem to show slingers whirling their slings vertically at their sides,” write Seevers and Parrott. The latter technique is well illustrated in the gypsum reliefs from the Southwest Palace of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Celebrating Sennacherib’s military exploits, some of the reliefs show Assyrian slingers among the Assyrian infantry during Sennacherib’s 701 BCE siege of the fortified Judahite city of Lachish. It seems that at least six different techniques can be used to launch stones from a sling.

Lead pellets from Cyprus.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76

Like in the biblical story of David and Goliath, the most common and most readily available type of projectile was a simple fieldstone or a pebble collected from a riverbed. But because fieldstones tend to be irregular in shape, which causes the projectile to curve during flight, people often shaped sling ammunition. “Shaped, spherical sling stones first appear in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3300–2000 BCE). In Israel, these were typically fashioned from locally available flint or limestone, usually to a size of 2–3 inches in diameter (about the size of a plum or baseball). During the later Hellenistic and Roman periods, sling pellets were also molded from lead.” This ammunition was usually shaped like an almond, as demonstrated by the examples from Cyprus shown here. These projectiles often featured symbols or inscriptions that mocked or taunted the enemy with phrases like “Take that!” or “for Pompey’s backside.” The advantage of such ammunition was its regular size, shape, and weight.

We don’t need to go any further than the story of David and Goliath to appreciate the effectiveness of the ancient sling. Although concise, the biblical account accurately reports that the throw’s force was such that “the stone sank into [Goliath’s] forehead.” The impact did not kill Goliath immediately (David actually finished off the Philistine giant with his own sword) but it did incapacitate him, and the internal damage caused by the blow would have caused the giant’s death eventually.

The biblical story of David and Goliath depicted on a Byzantine silver plate.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917

The famous silver plate discovered in 1902 at Karavas, Cyprus, illustrates the biblical story, starting with the initial encounter between David and Goliath in the Valley of Elah (top register), where the sitting figure in the middle represents the river from which David collected his stones. In the center, both combatants engage using their respective weapons, followed by their respective armies. The bottom register shows David decapitating Goliath, while his sling and remaining three stones lay on the ground behind him. Manufactured sometime around 620 CE, the plate is now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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Greek and Roman authors attest to the capabilities of slingers as part of ancient armies. From their witnesses and modern testing, it appears that “practiced slingers could have had military effectiveness as far away as 200–400 yards,” conclude Seevers and Parrott. Slings could be highly accurate and potentially lethal at shorter distances (up to 70 yards) and also allowed slingers the advantage of maintaining a safe distance from infantrymen armed with shorter-range weapons like the javelin. And that is how the lowly, untrained shepherd was able to defeat the seasoned and more heavily armed Philistine warrior.

To further explore the capabilities of ancient slingers and how their humble weapons compared to other ancient weaponry, read Boyd Seevers and Victoria Parrott’s article “Taking a Sling: How David Defeated Goliath,” published in the Fall 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

——————Subscribers: Read the full article “Taking a Sling: How David Defeated Goliath,” by Boyd Seevers and Victoria Parrott, in the Fall 2022 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Read more in Bible History Daily:

From the Days of King David

Giant Goliath Slept Here

Iron Age Gate and Fortifications Uncovered at Philistine Gath

All-Access subscribers, read more in the BAS Library:

Excavating Philistine Gath: Have We Found Goliath’s Hometown?

The Saga of the Goliath Family—As Revealed in Their Newly Discovered 2,000-Year-Old Tomb

The David and Goliath Saga

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The well-preserved mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu celebrated the pharaoh’s earthly achievements and allowed priests to nourish his soul so he could live forever as a god. The temple is best known for wall carvings providing information about the Philistines, nemeses of the ancient Israelites.

Wall at Medinet Habu Showing Ramses III Battling the Sea People
Photo by Don Knebel

Ramesses III ruled Egypt from 1186 B.C. until his death in 1155 B.C. Colorful columns in the hypostyle hall of his 150-meter-long temple near Luxor show Ramesses III among the gods. Statues in a courtyard portray him as Osiris, god of the afterlife. Wall carvings show him delivering enemies to Amun, Egypt’s highest god at the time.The most famous carvings are on the north exterior wall. They portray Ramesses, bow stretched, and his troops battling a confederation of invading “sea people,” predominantly people the Egyptians called Pelesets and the Bible calls Philistines. The carvings show the Philistines riding three-man chariots pulled by two horses, wielding double edged swords and long spears, carrying round shields and wearing feathered headdresses. According to the hieroglyphic account, Ramesses defeated the invaders, taking many of them prisoner. The carvings also show women and children in ox carts, suggesting an entire population on the move.

Most scholars believe the sea people described at Medinet Habu left the Aegean Sea area in about 1200 B.C. for reasons unknown and sought to settle in Egypt. After Ramesses III beat them back, they moved into nearby areas. The Philistines took what is now the Gaza Strip area along the eastern Mediterranean coast. According to the Bible, as the Israelites entered their Promised Land they stayed clear of the Philistines, apparently because of their superior iron weapons and fighting skill. The Philistines later moved aggressively into Israel’s heartland until young David killed their champion Goliath and they retreated to five cities along the coast.

The Philistines are remembered today in the name “Palestine,” first used by Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. to describe the area that is now Israel. They are also remembered on the wall at Medinet Habu for battles that help shed light on much more recent events.

Flushed with Curiosity; 101 Travel Tales with a Twist

From the author’s website:

For years, Don Knebel, an Indianapolis attorney, law professor, speaker and civic leader, has traveled with his wife Jen to interact with the world’s people and learn about their customs and their religions. The idea for this book came when he discovered that not all people find western bathroom plumbing an improvement. From that exposure of his cultural bias, he began looking in the places he visits for stories and pictures reflecting our common humanity and the beliefs and traditions that both divide and unite us. Some of the stories describe people we can never forget. A few are about bodies that end up in more than one place. Some of the stories are quirky, some are inspirational and some contradict common assumptions. All help show our connections to each other and only one is about toilets. The 101 stories are arranged in roughly chronological order, providing a quick and fascinating tour through the 10,000-year history of western and near eastern civilization. If you plan to travel, this book can suggest where to go. If you don’t plan to travel, this book can tell you what you’ll miss.

Related content in Bible History Daily:

The “Philistines” to the North

Where Did the Philistines Come From?

Philistine Cemetery Unearthed at Ashkelon

Adornment in the Southern Levant

The Philistine Marketplace at Ashkelon

The post Medinet Habu: Philistines in Egypt appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.