Figure 70

Sheshonq I scarab

Drawing of the Sheshonq I scarab discovered at Khirbet Hamra Ifdan, Jordan. The hieroglyphs on the scarab read: “bright is the manifestation of Re, chosen of Amun/Re,” and corresponds to the throne name of Sheshonq I, who ruled from 943 to 924 BC.

A rare scarab seal or amulet was found that provides support for the military campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq I (945–924 BC; ca. known in the Bible as Shishak, 1 Kgs 14:25; 2 Chron 12:1–12),1.  who controlled the region after Solomon’s death in ca. 931 BC and even invaded Jerusalem (ca. 925 BC; 2 Chron 12).2.  Thomas Levy, the director of the excavations at Khirbet Hamra Ifdan (see Map 2 and Map 4), states:

The scarab from Khirbat [sic. Khirbet] Hamra Ifdan contributes to understanding of what Kenneth Kitchen describes as the “flying column”  of Sheshonq I’s forces during their Asiatic campaign when they made their way across the northern Negev, to the southern end of the Dead Sea and then south through the Wadi Arabah. Thomas E. Levy, Stefan Münger, and Mohammad Najjar, “A Newly Discovered Scarab of Sheshonq I: Recent Iron Age Explorations in Southern Jordan,” Antiquity, 2014.

Footnotes
1. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, 588; Contra Rupert L. Chapman III, “Putting Sheshonq I in His Place,” Palestine Excavation Quarterly 141, no. 1 (2009): 4–17.
2. Tiffany Fox, “A Scarab from a Biblical Pharaoh,” Artifax 29, no. 4 (August 2004): 4–5.