Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 141, 1 (2009), 4–17

PUTTING SHESHONQ I IN HIS PLACE

Rupert L. Chapman III
In 1925 a key piece of evidence, a fragment of Sheshonq I’s victory stela, was discovered at Megiddo during
the preparations for the excavations of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Unfortunately it
was found on the surface, on one of the spoil heaps of the previous German excavations. The Chicago team
tentatively assigned the fragment to the lowest level reached in the area, initially called Stratum IV, but said
little more about it. In recent years, fresh information concerning both the location and the circumstances of
the discovery has been published, which, in the author’s view, makes it possible to locate the context in which
the stela fragment was found, both horizontally and vertically. It is now clear that the lowest level reached
in the area was Stratum V, and the author suggests below that the fragment was reused in Stratum VA, the
stela having originally been set up in Stratum V B, dated to the 9th century BC by the current excavators.

the discovery of the sheshonq fragment

When he was beginning the construction of the well-known Chicago Dig House in pre-
paration for the excavations in 1926, Clarence Fisher’s workmen discovered a fragment of
the victory stela erected by Sheshonq I of Egypt in the course of his Asiatic campaign. An
account of this discovery is given by J.H. Breasted in his foreword to Fisher’s The Excavation
of Armageddon. Breasted first mentions the fragment in discussing the work of Gottlieb
Schumacher:
That there was insufficient control of the native labor is evidenced by the fact that our workmen
picked out the important inscribed fragment of a great stela of Pharaoh Shishak (see Fig. 7) from
Schumacher’s dump. (Breasted 1929, ix)
He then goes on to give a more detailed account:
Early in the work of the expedition a significant indication of the important monuments which this
mound must once have covered unexpectedly appeared. On my first arrival at the mound after work
had begun in the spring of 1926, Dr. Fisher informed me that a fragment inscribed with Egyptian
hieroglyphs had been brought down from the top of the mound as a building block during the
construction of the house. It was with considerable satisfaction on the first sunny day after the rains
had diminished that I was able to make out the name of Shishak or Sheshonk I, in hieroglyphs very
dimly glimmering from a badly weather-worn and almost illegible inscribed stone surface. (Breasted
1929, xi)
Fisher then gives slightly more of the detail of the context from which the fragment
came, while generally dismissing its usefulness:
The fragment of the Shishak stela (Fig. 7) came from one of the old surface dump heaps near the
eastern edge. The original stela had been broken up and its fragments used for building stones for a
building subsequent to 930 B.C. If it had been found in a wall it would have determined one possible
limit of date for the building. Thus while interesting as proving the presence of Shishak at Megiddo,
it does not have any stratigraphical value. (Fisher 1929, 60–61)
The fragment (Figure 1) is approximately 51 cm long (representing the thickness of the
original stela), 30 cm wide, and 24 cm high, as recut for use, with the remaining portion of

Address correspondence to 7 Albert Rd., Benfleet, Essex SS7 4DJ, UK. E-mail: rupertl3@aol.com

© Palestine Exploration Fund 2009 doi: 10.1179/174313009X387617

p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 5

Fig. 1a. Photograph of the

Sheshonq fragment. Photograph
courtesy of David Ellis.

the inscription on one end of the block. The surface of this end of the block is considerably
degraded, so that the inscription is quite difficult to see.

the stratigraphy of the sheshonq fragment

1. New information on the findspot of the Sheshonq Fragment
This stela fragment has ever since provided the frustrating possibility of a fixed link to the
Egyptian chronology (with all of its problems!), if only the original context of the fragment
in reuse could be established, or, better still, the original context in which the stela itself
stood. Because this seemed impossible to Fisher at the time, he gave the fragment only the
most cursory publication, and very little further information has been forthcoming since,
until the recent publication of Megiddo 3 (Harrison 2004). In the prefatory section giving the
historical context to his report on the excavation of Stratum VI, Harrison gives the most
detailed information yet published on the location where the Sheshonq Fragment was
found:
To date Stratum IV more precisely, Guy drew significance from the description of Solomon’s building
legacy in 1 Kings 9.15–19. He was intrigued in particular by the reference to the construction of ‘cities
for his chariots’ and made a direct link to the northern complex of ‘stables’ his team had excavated.
6 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009

Fig 1b. Drawing of the Sheshonq fragment; Lamon and Shipton 1939: Fig. 70.

For the terminal date of the stratum, he turned to the campaign of Sheshonq I and the chance
discovery of a stela fragment bearing Sheshonq’s cartouche made a few years before by one of Fisher’s
foremen. The fragment had been recovered from a dump next to one of Schumacher’s minor
trenches along the eastern edge of the summit, just east of the northern complex of stables (no. 409
in Square M14; see Guy 1931, fig. 17). Although the find spot was not precise, Guy noted that Schum-
acher’s trench had penetrated ‘barely below Stratum IV’ and used the presence of the stela to date
the destruction of the stratum to Sheshonq’s campaign (1931: 44–48). (Harrison 2004, 7–8)
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 7
I believe that this new information offers the possibility for a reconsideration of the
stratigraphic context from which the stela fragment came, and, from this, of the original
context in which the stela itself stood. It is essential to note that the argument presented is
intended to be a stratigraphic argument, not a chronological one, and that it does not,
therefore, enter into problems of text criticism and historicity. It is also essential to note that
the starting point is the elimination from consideration of the argument presented by Lamon
and Shipton:
Fisher noted similarities between the masonry of the podium building (338) at Megiddo and that of
the Omri and Ahab buildings at Samaria and was inclined therefore to attribute the Megiddo structure
to that period (see p. 58). However, if this were the case, the unstratified fragment of the Sheshonk
stela (Fig. 70), which must be dated to about 930 B.C., would have to be attributed to Stratum V. But,
since Stratum V could not have existed much beyond 1000 B.C. and in all probability was contem-
porary in its latter part with Saul (see p. 7), the Palestinian campaign of Sheshonk must have fallen
within the period of Stratum IV. (1939, 61)
This argument is both circular and non-stratigraphic, relying on the textual evidence to
assign a stratigraphic context to the Sheshonq Fragment.

2. Where was the Sheshonq Fragment found?

In narrowing down the area of the tell on which the Sheshonq Fragment was found, it is
tempting to read Fisher and Harrison’s descriptions as meaning ‘AT the edge’, rather than
‘NEAR the edge’, and forget that even ‘near the edge’ could be a contrast in the writer’s
mind with ‘in the centre’; therefore, one must not narrow the area down more precisely than
the one side or the other of the stretch of Schumacher’s north-east trench between ‘stable’
complex 403/404 and the break of slope of the tell. It is important to note that Schumach-
er’s plan (1908, Tafel II [Figure 2]) shows quite clearly that the north-eastern end of his
trench was against the inner face of a thick wall which ran along the edge of the tell, and
that he did not excavate beyond this wall, on the slope below. Thus the stone was not found
fallen down the slope of the tell, but, as its discoverers clearly stated, ‘near the eastern edge’
(Fisher 1929, 60–61). The line of Schumacher’s trench is shown very clearly on Guy’s pre-
liminary plan (1931, fig. 17 [Figure 3]), where the bottom of the centre of the silted-up trench
is given the locus number 409, as mentioned by Harrison.

3. What strata were cut through by Schumacher’s trench in this area?

While, as Harrison observes, ‘Guy noted that Schumacher’s trench had penetrated “barely
below Stratum IV”’ (Harrison 2004, 8; Guy 1931, 44), it is also true that in these early pre-
liminary reports the excavators had not yet finalized their stratigraphic attributions of many
of the structures, and that building 402/431, shown as belonging to Stratum IV on Guy’s
1931 plan, was later assigned to Stratum VA, an attribution which has never been disputed
since. Thus, Guy’s comment of 1931 should be amended to say that Schumacher’s trench
had penetrated barely below the latest phase of Stratum VA–IVB.
The significance of the depth to which Schumacher penetrated is, of course, that it
provides a limit to how early in the stratigraphic sequence the context from which the
fragment was removed by Schumacher’s workmen could have been. In the area from which
it came, the fragment could, theoretically, have been included in any stratum from I at
the latest to V at the earliest. In attempting to assess the probability of any particular stratum
as the original context for the Sheshonq Fragment, stratigraphic considerations are
paramount.
8 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009

Fig. 2. Schumacher’s Plan (1908, Tafel II) showing his north-east trench. Courtesy of the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago.
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 9

Fig. 3. Guy’s plan showing Schumacher’s trench and the structures excavated by
the Chicago team in Grid Square M14 (1391: Fig 17). Courtesy of the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago.

While it is clear from the shape of the Sheshonq Fragment that it had been reworked
for use as a building stone in a wall, we have no evidence as to whether it was in such
secondary use at the time when it was removed to the dump by Schumacher’s workmen; it
is, therefore, not currently worthwhile to search for such a wall. What is worth considering
is the fact that in all of their statements concerning the context from which the fragment
was taken by Schumacher’s workmen, the Chicago team consistently ignored the possibility
that it had been found in Strata I to III, assigning it to Stratum IV. It is important to
understand why they took this view. As is now well understood, the reasoning which led
them to date Stratum IVA to Solomon was circular and non-stratigraphic, but as is clear
from the statement of Lamon and Shipton quoted above, while this reasoning prevented
10 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009
them from assigning the original context of the fragment (and the earlier context of the intact
stela) to a stratum earlier than Stratum IV, it certainly did not prevent them from assigning
the original context of the fragment to a stratum later than Stratum IV. The reasoning that
led them to ignore Strata I to III is given in the accounts by Breasted and Fisher of the
discovery of the Sheshonq Fragment. From these accounts it is clear that the fragment was
discovered by the workmen not in the course of the removal of Schumacher’s dumps, in
which case it could have come from, for example, the bottom of the dump, which would,
in turn, mean that it had been in one of the first, latest, strata to be excavated, but rather
that it was found by the workmen as they walked over the undisturbed surface of the site as
it was left following Schumacher’s excavations, scavenging for useful building materials.
This, in turn, means that the fragment was found on the top, that is to say, the surface
(although not necessarily the summit or apex) of the dump, which, since dumps always
exhibit inverted stratigraphy, consisted of the material from the lowest level reached
by Schumacher. It then becomes important to establish which level was reached by
Schumacher in the area in which the Sheshonq Fragment was found.
From the plans produced by the Chicago team it is clear that over the bulk of the length
of Schumacher’s north-east trench, between his main north–south trench across the centre
of the site and the eastern wall of stable complex 402–403, Schumacher’s excavations did
not penetrate deeply enough to cut the Stratum IV walls, or even the Stratum III walls
(Lamon and Shipton 1939, Fig. 71. Note that Stratum III pavement 400 in M14, the area
crossed by Schumacher’s trench, is undisturbed; Fig. 119 — Schumacher’s trench — is
clearly visible between building 402–403 and the letter ‘M’ designating Square M14; Kem-
pinski 1989, Plans 13 and 12). Further east, near the outer edge of the tell, Schumacher’s
plan shows three parallel walls. The inner pair of these walls have been convincingly linked
by Kempinski (1989, Plan 11. I am grateful to R.M. Porter for his assistance in checking this
connection.) to the two walls that extend northwards from building 402, which, in turn,
is assigned by both Lamon and Shipton (1939, Fig. 6) and Kempinski (1989, Plan 11
[Figure 4]) to Stratum VA. As already noted, it is not possible to say whether the Sheshonq
Fragment was removed by Schumacher’s workmen from a standing wall, or was in some
other, non-structural, context. What is clear is that Schumacher’s work in this area not
only reached Stratum VA, and removed it, but also that neither he nor the Chicago team
penetrated below Stratum V in this area (Kempinski 1989, Plans 11 (Stratum V) and 10
(Stratum VI)).
Some other possibilities that must be considered concern the question of whether or not
the Sheshonq Fragment came from the lowest level reached by Schumacher, or whether its
reuse was in Strata I to III. The first of these would be that the stone was removed to the
edge of the trench, where it was used to retain the spoil from the excavation and prevent it
from falling back into the trench. If this had been the case, the spoil from the lower levels
of the excavation would have overlain the stone on its northern side, and in the period
between the end of Schumacher’s excavations in 1905 and the discovery of the fragment
by the Chicago team in 1925 the material from the top of the spoil heap would have been
carried by erosion over the top of the stone. Yet it is clear that it was exposed on the
surface, and that it was not overlain by material from the lower levels of Schumacher’s
excavations.
Again, if the stone had been included in debris from Strata I to III placed near the apex
of the spoil heap, but overlain by material from the excavation of the lower levels of the
trench, and in the intervening period erosion had removed the overlying earlier material,
leaving the Shoshenq Fragment exposed on the surface, it might have given the false
appearance of having been one of the last objects to be excavated. While neither Guy nor
any other member of the Chicago team has left any record of having considered this
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 11

Fig. 4. Kempinski’s plan of Stratum V (1989: Plan 11).

possibility, it is one of the first that springs to the mind of any field archaeologist. Personal
observation of Megiddo indicates that it is not subject to such a high degree of erosion
as some other sites, and clearly in Guy’s judgement it was not the case that a high degree
of erosion of Schumacher’s spoil heap had taken place.

4. Could the Sheshonq Fragment have been reused in Strata I to III?

When considering the information recorded by the excavators concerning the stratigraphic
context of the Sheshonq Fragment it has been customary to concentrate on what they said.
12 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009
It is equally important to consider what they did not say. Since there was general acceptance
of the identification of Sheshonq I with biblical Shishak, the Sheshonq Fragment was dated
to 925 BC, and the destruction of Stratum IVA was attributed to Sheshonq I, who was
assumed to have set up the stela in the ruins of the city. On the recovery of control of
the area by Jeroboam I of Israel the stela was assumed to have been broken up and the
fragments reused as building material. On this basis, the most likely scenario would be that
the Sheshonq Fragment had been reused in one or more of the later strata — Strata I to
III. Yet this was never suggested by any of the Chicago team. From the standpoint of
their suggested dates, a stratigraphic context for the discovery of the Sheshonq Fragment in
Strata I, II or III would have been much better, as it would have allowed for the erection
of the Sheshonq Stela, its break-up and its reuse (possibly in more than one context), during
which cumulative period of time the detectable degradation of the face of the stone could
have taken place. On the contrary, the only suggestion made by Guy was that it came from
the lowest level reached by Schumacher, ‘barely below Stratum IV’ (later Stratum IVB —
see Harrison 2004, Table 1). Given the fact that Guy was actually quite a good field archae-
ologist, and that he had access to those who had actually been there at the time of the
fragment’s discovery as well as to any records they had left regarding the precise details of
its find spot, one must take his views very seriously indeed. On the basis of the stratigraph-
ic arguments stated above, I agree with Guy’s choice to attribute the Sheshonq Fragment
to what would later be referred to as Stratum VA, which constitutes a lectior difficilior as
regards the stratigraphy of the area, and that it is, therefore, preferable to a context in
Strata I, II or III.
It is, finally, crucial to note that according to the report of the Chicago team, no
remains of Strata I to III were found in the parts of Squares M14 and M15 crossed by
Schumacher’s trench, especially in the area of Square M15 in which the Sheshonq Fragment
was found (Lamon and Shipton 1939, Fig. 71; see also the schematic section through Area
BB in Loud 1948, Fig. 416; Kempinski 1989, Fig. 35 Stratum I, Plans 13 (Stratum III) and
14 (Stratum II)). Indeed, in the area in which the Sheshonq Fragment was found the latest
remains encountered by the Chicago team were those of building 402 of Stratum VA (Lamon
and Shipton 1939, Fig. 49; Kempinski 1989, Plans 11–14 and Fig. 35).

5. Time and the degraded surface of the Sheshonq Fragment

From the moment of its discovery it was observed that the inscribed surface of the Sheshonq
Fragment was badly degraded — which probably accounts for the failure of Schumacher’s
workmen to notice the inscription — and it has been largely taken for granted that
Breasted’s judgement that it was ‘weather-worn’ (1929, xi) was correct, which would imply
that it had been exposed to the effects of weathering for some considerable time before
being buried where it was discovered. This requirement for the passage of a long period
between the carving and setting up of the Sheshonq Stela and the final burial of the Sheshonq
Fragment, coupled with the information given above as to its stratigraphic context, and
the further observation that the Rameses VI statue base was recovered from Stratum VIIA
(which demonstrates that the end of this stratum cannot date earlier than the beginning
of this king’s reign), could cause problems of dating. But this interpretation of the surface
damage to the Sheshonq Fragment is not necessarily correct.
Since the fragment itself is the result of the destruction of the stela, it is possible that
the surface was severely battered, as we see it in the published photographs, during the
process of breaking up the stela, in which case the requirement for a long period of peaceful
weathering is removed. Fresh photographs (thanks to T.S.N. Moorhead and D. Ellis) have
allowed a closer examination of the fragment, which reveals that the stela was both hastily
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 13
and crudely carved (personal communication from Susanne Woodhouse and Marcel Maree,
Department of Ancient Egypt and the Sudan, British Museum), and that the inscription is
cut through the unaltered surface of the stone as it came from the quarry. Certainly the
inscribed surface was never smoothed, as would normally have been done in a finished
Egyptian royal stela. In addition, the inscribed surface of the fragment is heavily blackened,
while the other surfaces, including the small remaining curve of the ‘shoulder’ of the stela,
retain the original light creamy colour of the stone. Without scientific tests it is not possible
to say with certainty what has caused this blackening, but it is possible that part of the pro-
cess of the destruction of the stela consisted of building a fire on the stone, which might
account for the discolouration, then dousing it with cold water to fracture it. Close examina-
tion of the photographs reveals that the inscription was carved by drilling, not with chisels,
and that the marks of this work remain quite sharp below the level of the surface itself. With
all of these considerations in mind, the weathering visible on the surface of the fragment is
likely to be irrelevant to any consideration of the length of time between the carving of the
stela, the breaking up of the stela, and the burial of the fragment at the end of its secondary
use.

6. The stratigraphic context of the Sheshonq Fragment

Given all of these stratigraphic considerations, it seems to me most likely that Sheshonq’s
expedition took place within the life of Stratum VA–IVB, the Sheshonq Stela was set up
during his presence at Megiddo, and that following Sheshonq’s return to Egypt, the stela
was defaced and broken up, the Sheshonq Fragment then being reused within the life of
Stratum V.
I would further suggest that, on analogy with the Egyptian stelae discovered at Beth
Shan, the Sheshonq Stela stood in front of one of the major public buildings of this stratum,
a context in keeping with Egyptian practices more generally. An obvious potential context
would be in front of Palace 1723. Placement of the secondary use in which the Sheshonq
Fragment was found by Schumacher in Stratum V would appear to be consistent with the
dating of the current excavators (Finkelstein, et al. 2000, 599: Table 24:1; Finkelstein, et al.
2006, 822: Table 42.1, 850–851; Franklin 2006, 108; Ussishkin 2008, 68–69) as well as that
of Samaria (Crowfoot 1940; Crowfoot, Kenyon, and Sukenik 1942; Crowfoot, Crowfoot and
Kenyon 1957).

where is the rest of the stela?

The notes on the stela by Breasted make it very clear that the original stela was very
large:
The fragment preserved was part of the top of a large round-topped stela, and the round top could
be restored on the basis of the portion preserved, so as to show that the great slab was about 5 feet
wide. Judging from the proportions of similar monuments, such as the famous ‘Israel Stela’, Shishak’s
monument at Megiddo will therefore have been some 10 feet high. As the preserved fragment is
about 20 inches thick, the monument must have been a massive and impressive memorial. (Breasted
1929, xi)
Breasted’s reconstruction of the original stela (1929, Fig. 9 [Figure 5]) shows what a tiny
part of the whole the surviving fragment actually is, which makes it all the more remarkable
that no further fragments have been found, either during the extensive excavations of the
Chicago team or in the renewed excavations under the auspices of Tel Aviv University.
Where, then, is the rest of the Sheshonq Stela?
The first consideration should be the pattern of dispersal of the fragments into which
the original stela was broken. An initial assumption would be that, whether or not they were
14 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009

Fig. 5. Breasted’s
reconstruction of the
Sheshonq I Victory
Stela (1929: Fig 9).
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 15
reused in any way, more of the fragments of a broken-up stela would remain in the occupa-
tion debris of the stratum in which the stela had been destroyed than would migrate up the
stratigraphic sequence to later strata. A second assumption would be that the normal pattern
of dispersal of a broken-up stela would follow a statistically normal decay-curve, with the
greatest number of fragments remaining close to the site of the destruction of the stela, with
a decline in the numbers found with distance, both horizontally and vertically, from the site
of the destruction. In the case of the Dan Stela, several of the fragments were immediately
reused in a restricted area around the spot where the stela would originally have stood, but
many pieces, most of the stela in fact, were sufficiently widely dispersed that they have not
yet been found. Some may have been moved far away from the gate area immediately after
the stela was broken up, while others may have been reused in the same structure in which
the first fragment was found, higher up in the same wall for example, only to be moved
elsewhere at a later date when the wall was demolished. These fragments may have been
dumped off the site as rubbish, or reused in another, as yet unexcavated, building on the
tell. Given that only one fragment of the Sheshonq Stela was found at Megiddo, and allow-
ing for the possibility that other fragments were missed by both the Schumacher and
Chicago excavation teams, perhaps due to the extremely degraded state of the surface of the
stone, it would appear that the dispersal pattern of the fragments of the Sheshonq Stela was
at least as widespread as that of the Dan Stela. Either the fragment found was remote from
the rest of the fragments spatially, or, with time, the fragments have been widely dispersed,
so that only this one has been discovered, or perhaps even both.
In considering which of these two alternatives is more likely, another factor that should
be considered is the extent of the area of each of the strata that has been excavated. As has
been noted repeatedly, Strata I–III were completely removed over the whole of the tell by
the Chicago team. This means that either there were no further fragments in any of these
strata, or that any such fragments were missed. In the former case, this reduces both the
likelihood that the fragment which was identified came from one of these late strata, and
the likelihood that any of these formed the original context for the stela. The only way to
eliminate the latter possibility would be to excavate the Chicago dump and carefully
examine every fragment of worked limestone (the material from which the Sheshonq Stela
was carved) to determine whether any fragments had been missed. This would be a vastly
expensive operation, and not necessarily decisive. Strata IV and V were less completely
excavated, indeed some areas of each remain unexcavated to this day. It seems more prob-
able that the Sheshonq Fragment had been reused in one of these earlier strata uncovered
by Schumacher, in his north-eastern trench.

conclusions
The single most fundamental problem in all archaeology of periods for which there are
historical records is the correct linkage between the evidence of the documents and the
evidence from the excavations. This problem is intensified when the amount of directly
datable, inscribed objects from stratified contexts is limited, and doubly so when part of the
documentary record, in this case the biblical account, is not contemporary, but has suffered
from the vicissitudes of transmission for a considerable period before achieving the form in
which it survives, and cannot, therefore, be treated as a primary historical source.
It has been clear for more than 60 years that the argument which led the Chicago team
to link Sheshonq I to Stratum IV was fallacious, and that this stratum must be dated sub-
stantially later than they thought (Crowfoot 1940). It was also long thought that the Sheshonq
Fragment came from Stratum IV A, with the wider implication that the Sheshonq Stela
came from Stratum IV B (or, if preferred, from Stratum V A- IV B), and that the ceramic
16 palestine ex ploration quarte rl y, 141, 1, 2 009
assemblage associated with it in this stratum, the Iron II A culture (Chapman 1989, 106:
Table I, Columns X and Y; Chapman 1990, 16–17: Table 3), must, therefore, date from the
second half of the 10th century BC. My own ongoing work on the stratigraphy of Samaria
suggests that Kenyon was correct in assigning the Period I pottery, dated by Albright and
Wright to the late 11th to early 10th centuries BC, to her Period I, the construction of the
first phase of the palace of the kings of Israel by Omri in the early 9th century BC, thus
placing the Iron II A ceramic horizon into a post-Sheshonq I chronological horizon on the
conventional chronology.
On the basis of the purely stratigraphic argument set out above, it becomes clear that
Sheshonq I and his expedition should also be dated to the 9th century BC. The conven-
tional dates for Sheshonq I given by Kitchen (1986, 588: 945–924 BC; 2007, 166–167: 945–924
BC) have, however, been repeatedly challenged. In the first place, it has been suggested that
the placement of Sheshonq’s Asiatic expedition in regnal year 21 may be incorrect, and that
it might, instead, have taken place early in his reign (Dodson 2000, 8). Further, it has been
pointed out repeatedly that the absolute date for Sheshonq I relies on his assumed identifica-
tion with the biblical Shishak, who invaded Judah c. 925 BC (as reckoned by modern biblical
chronologists):
Egyptian chronologists, without always admitting it, have commonly based their chronology of this
period on the Biblical synchronism for Shoshenq’s invasion. (Hughes 1990, 190)
And
Although the present scholarly consensus seems to favour a date c. 945 B.C.E. for the accession of
Shishak . . . apart from the biblical synchronism with Rehoboam (which as I have noted above remains
problematic at best) there is no other external synchronism by which one might date his reign, and
the Egyptian chronological data themselves remain too fragmentary to permit chronological precision.
(Barnes 1991, 66–67)
In addition, in 1991 P. James and colleagues challenged the identification of the biblical
Shishak with Sheshonq I and suggested a date in the late 9th century for the latter (James,
et al. 1991, 257; P. James and R. Morkot have now raised that date to c. 835–815 BC —
personal communication from P. James).
This reinterpretation would also fit well with the observation, which has puzzled gen-
erations of scholars (Grabbe 2007, 81), that Sheshonq’s list makes no mention of places in
Judaea, but only those in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Negev in the far south.
The placement of Sheshonq’s Stela in the Omride Stratum VA–IVB at Megiddo, together
with the list of names on his Karnak inscription, clearly indicates Sheshonq’s interest (regard-
less of the nature of the town-list in his inscription) was in the kingdom founded by Omri
in the north, rather than the Kingdom of Judah in the south as stated in 1 Kings 14.25-28,
as recognized by Tubb (2006, 114–115) and Finkelstein (Finkelstein and Silberman 2006,
105–106). The reassignment of the Sheshonq I Fragment to Stratum VA–IVB, therefore,
gives scope for both a general chronological reassessment of the linkage between the pri-
mary and secondary documentary sources and the archaeological record, and a reassessment
of the history of relations between the Levant and Egypt in the early Iron Age.

acknowledgements
I am grateful to Jonathan Tubb and Peter James for their critical comments, and especially for the
improved title of this paper. This paper is the result of nearly 20 years of discussions with Robert
Porter, for whose meticulous scholarship and friendly criticism I am also grateful. All errors of fact
and interpretation remain my own.
p u tt i n g s h e s h o nq i in h is place 17
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