Egyptian farmer discovers 2,600-year-old sandstone

A farmer in Egypt found a sand slab dating back 2,600 years, that is, to the era of Pharaoh, mentioned in the Old Testament, and he was killed by his subjects, according to the British newspaper, “Daily Mail”.

The tablet, or “witness,” is about 91 inches (2.3 meters) high and 41 inches (about one meter) wide, and was found earlier this month by a farmer plowing his land in Ismailia Governorate, about 60 miles northeast of Cairo.
Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, said in a statement that the sandstone appears to be linked to a military campaign in eastern Egypt led by Pharaoh Apris, who ruled between 589 and 570 BC.

At the top of the tablet is an inscription of a winged sun disk, possibly associated with the Egyptian sun deity Ra, with Apris represented and 15 lines of hieroglyphs below.

Archaeologists in Egypt are now working on translating the hieroglyphic writings of the witness tablet.

Apris became pharaoh after the death of his father Psamtik II in 589 BC. He is the fourth ruler of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and he was also known as “Wah-ib-Ra”, and was mentioned in the Old Testament book, the Book of Jeremiah (the second book of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Christian Old Testament), as “Hophra”.

But his rule was marred by internal strife and military failures, and his aid to King Zedekiah of Judah proved ineffective, and after a brutal 18-month siege, the Babylonians occupied Jerusalem only a few years after the rule of Apris, and destroyed the First Temple.

It is unclear whether the military campaign the minister referred to was a failed defense of Jerusalem or another battle.
The destruction of the city was followed by a rebellion among the military and a disastrous military defeat at the hands of the Greeks in Libya, which led to the outbreak of a civil war.

Many Egyptians gave their support to General Ahmose II, who proclaimed himself pharaoh in 570 BC.

Some historians believe that Apris was killed in a battle trying to regain the throne from Ahmose II.

But the Greek writer Herodotus, often called the “father of history,” suggested an alternative fate for the failed king: In his written inquiries nearly a century after the accident, Herodotus claimed that Apris had returned to Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, whereupon his vengeful former subjects strangled him to death. They buried him with his father.

Apris ruled during the Late Period of Egypt, which lasted from about 664 to 332 BC.

Most of what historians know about Apris comes from references to Herodotus and the Old Testament, with only a few relics from his reign being discovered.

Source: Daily Mail