Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Israel News

3,300-Year-Old Coffin From Time of Pharoahs Unearthed in Israel

(Haaretz) — A 3,300-year-old Egyptian coffin from the time of the pharaohs has been discovered in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.

The cylindrical clay coffin from the Late Bronze Age, which was discovered with the skeleton of an adult inside, has a cover fashioned in the image of a person, called an anthropoidal lid. It is the first anthropoidal coffin found in the country in 50 years.

A rare gold signet ring was discovered near the coffin, with the gold-encased scarab seal bearing the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I. That Egyptian ruler is the father of Ramses II, identified by some scholars as the pharaoh mentioned in the biblical story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, which Jews around the world will be celebrating on Passover next week.

The coffin, dating to the 13th century B.C.E., was discovered near Tel Shadud amid the skeleton of an adult and objects that appear to have been meant as religious offerings, including food storage vessels, tableware, cultic vessels and animal bones.

“As was the custom, it seems these were used as offerings for the gods, and were also meant to provide the dead with sustenance in the afterlife,” excavation directors Edwin van den Brink, Dan Kirzner and the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Ron Be’eri said in a statement.

The skeleton of an adult was found inside the clay coffin, and the researchers said the corpse appears to have belonged to an official of Canaanite origin who was engaged in the service of the Egyptian government, or to a wealthy person who imitated Egyptian funeral customs.

“An ordinary person could not afford the purchase of such a coffin,” the researchers said. “It is obvious the deceased was a member of the local elite.”

The discovery of the coffin at Tel Shadud is evidence of Egyptian control of the Jezreel Valley in the Late Bronze Age, the Israel Antiquities Authority said. During the period when the pharaohs governed the country, Egyptian culture greatly influenced the local Canaanite upper class.

The antiquities authority is looking into the possibility of sampling the DNA from inside the coffin to see if the deceased was originally a Canaanite or an Egyptian who was buried in Canaan.

The graves of two men and two women who may have been members of his family were also located near the coffin.

Next to the skeleton were buried pottery, a bronze dagger, bronze bowl and hammered pieces of bronze.

For more stories, go to Haaretz.com or to subscribe to Haaretz, click here and use the following promotional code for Forward readers: FWD13.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.