Evidence Of Woman "King" In Ancient Canaan Discovered

A female 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?'" say Lederman and Bunimovitz. 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, Prof. Nadav Naaman, also of TAU, 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 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.