Shasu^{[pronunciation?]} is an Egyptian word for pastoral nomads who appeared in the Levant and Arabia from the fifteenth century BCE all the way to the Third Intermediate Period. The name evolved from a transliteration of the Egyptian word š3sw, meaning "those who move on foot", into the term for Bedouin-type wanderers. The term first originated in a fifteenth century list of peoples in Transjordan. It is used in a list of enemies inscribed on column bases at the temple of Soleb built by Amenhotep III. Copied later by either Seti I or Ramesses II at Amarah-West, the list mentions six groups of Shashu: the Shasu of S'rr, the Shasu of Lbn, the Shasu of Sm't, the Shasu of Wrbr, the Shasu of Yhw, and the Shasu of Pysps.^[1][2]

"Shasu of Yhw"[link]

Regarding the "Shasu of Yhw," Astour has observed that the "hieroglyphic rendering corresponds very precisely to the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH, or Yahweh, and antedates the hitherto oldest occurrence of that Divine Name - on the Moabite Stone - by over five hundred years."^[3] Donald B. Redford^[4] concludes that the people who would eventually be the "Israel" recorded on the Merneptah Stele, and that later formed the Kingdom of Israel, were at one time known to the Egyptians as a Shasu tribe. Rainey supports this view with texts from the el-Amarna letters.^[5]

The proposed link between the Israelites and the Shasu may, however, be undermined by the fact that in the Merneptah reliefs, the group later known as the Israelites are not described or depicted as Shasu. Some scholars like Frank J. Yurco and Michael G. Hasel identify the Shasu in Merneptah's Karnak reliefs as a separate entity from Israel since they wear different clothing, hairstyles, and are determined differently by Egyptian scribes.^[6] Moreover, Israel is determined as a people, or socioethnic group. The most frequent designation for the "foes of Shasu" is the hill-country determinative.^[7] Thus they are differentiated from the Canaanites, who are defending the fortified cities of Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yenoam.^[8] At the same time, the hill-country determinative is not always used for Shasu, as is the case in the "Shasu of Yhw" name rings from Soleb and Amarah-West. A common viewpoint (e.g. Dever) is that the proto-Israelites arose from the local Canaanite population as a process of large scale settlement of the highlands around the 12th century BCE. At most this would allow the Shasu to be a cultural and religious influence, rather than a significant ancestral population to the Israelites.

Notes[link]

1. ^ Sivertsen (2009), p. 118
2. ^ Hasel (1998), p. 219
3. ^ Astour (1979), p. 18
4. ^ Redford (1992), p. 272-3.
5. ^ Rainey (2008)
6. ^ Yurco (1986), p. 195, 207; Hasel (2003), p. 27-36.
7. ^ Hasel (2003), p. 32-33
8. ^ Stager (2001), p. 92

References[link]

• Dever, William G. (1997). "Archaeology and the Emergence of Early Israel" . In John R. Bartlett (Ed.), Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation, pp. 20–50. Routledge.
• Hasel, Michael G. (1994). "Israel in the Merneptah Stela," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 296, pp. 45-61.
• Hasel, Michael G. (1998). Domination and Resistance: Egyptian Military Activity in the Southern Levant, 1300–1185 BC. Probleme der Ägyptologie 11. Leiden: Brill, pp. 217-239. ISBN 90-04-10984-6 [1]
• Hasel, Michael G. (2003). "Merenptah's Inscription and Reliefs and the Origin of Israel" in Beth Alpert Nakhai ed. The Near East in the Southwest: Essays in Honor of William G. Dever, pp. 19–44. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 58. Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research. ISBN 0-89757-065-0
• Hoffmeier, James K. (2005). Ancient Israel in Sinai, New York: Oxford University Press, 240-45.
• Horn, Siegfried H. (1953). "Jericho in a Topographical List of Ramesses II," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12: 201-203.
• Sivertsen, Barbara J. The Parting of the Sea Princeton University Press. Princeton University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-691-13770-4 [2]
• Rainey, Anson (2008). "Shasu or Habiru. Who Were the Early Israelites?" Biblical Archeology Review 34:6 (Nov/Dec).
• Astour, Michael C. (1979). "Yahweh in Egyptian Topographic Lists." In Festschrift Elmar Edel, eds. M. Gorg & E. Pusch, Bamberg.
• MacDonald, Burton (1994). "Early Edom: The Relation between the Literary and Archaeological Evidence". In Michael D. Coogan, J. Cheryl Exum, Lawrence E. Stager (Eds.), Scripture and Other Artifacts: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Philip J. King, pp. 230–246. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-22364-8
• Redford, Donald B. (1992). Egypt, Canaan and Israel In Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00086-7. 
• Stager, Lawrence E. (2001). "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel". In Michael Coogan (Ed.), The Oxford History of the Biblical World, pp. 90–129. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508707-0
• Yurco, Frank J. (1986). "Merenptah's Canaanite Campaign." Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 23:189-215.

See also[link]

• Habiru
• Shutu