Then, the experts say it was ‘violently destroyed.’ It continued to expand until roughly the 13th century, at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The ‘upper city’ was first settled in the third millennium BCE, during the Early Bronze Age, followed later by the lower city around the 18th century BCE. Hazor is said to be the largest biblical-era site in Israel, and was once the ‘largest and most important city in the entire region,’ according to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ‘The person depicted wears a short, close-fitting curled cap-wig, topped by a urateus, the solar cobra that rises above the forehead of Pharaoh in ancient Egyptian iconography, thus identifying our character as a king of Egypt beyond any doubt,’ the authors wrote. This provides firm evidence of its Egyptian origin, according to the researchers, with facial characteristics suggesting it may be from the 5th Dynasty.īased on the nature of the statue itself, the researchers also say it depicts royalty.
The statue was crafted from a type of metamorphic rock known as greywacke, which was commonly used in ancient Egyptian art dating back to the end of prehistoric times. ‘Although most of the broken edges are sharp, suggesting, along with the fact that the head could be reconstructed almost in full, that it had been broken close to where it was found, the helix – or outer rim – of the right ear shows more weathered fractures, suggesting multiple phases of damage.’
‘The cracks indicate that the nose had been broken and the head detached from the rest of the sculpture before being shattered,’ the authors wrote.
While the smashed-up sculpture is, ‘beyond any doubt,’ the representation of an Egyptian pharaoh, just who it is remains a mystery
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