The Sheshonq Fragment from Megiddo: A New Interpretation

The limestone fragment inscribed with the royal names of king Sheshonq I was found at Tel Megiddo by the Oriental Institute team in 1925. Since its discovery, the piece has been interpreted as part of a large royal stela, erected by the monarch at the site as a sign of Egyptian hegemony. A recent reexamination of the original fragment reveals several anomalies in comparison to the known corpus of Egyptian stelae. Among these is the fragment’s unusual thickness, more than 50 cm thick, and the absence of smoothed edges on either of its sides. A comparison with contemporaneous (early 22nd Dynasty) material from both Egypt and the Levant suggests that the fragment was part of an inscription embedded as an architectural element rather than a stela. The results of recent excavations at Megiddo allow for placing the Sheshonq block stratigraphically and perhaps to identify its original location at the site.