Tell el-Hesi Hieratic Brit Bowl

Tell el-Hesi Hieratic Brit Bowl is a fragment of a Late Bronze Age bowl from Tell el-Hesi in southern Israel, inscribed in Egyptian hieratic with a record of a grain delivery dated to regnal year 60, or possibly 66, of Ramesses II, about 1220 BC. It was published in 2026 by Wimmer, Greene, Doyle and Blakely in the journal Tel Aviv.

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Discovery

The Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi found the sherd on 22 June 1979, in Locus 41.305 (IAA 79-691). It lay in an Iron IIA constructional fill (Stratum VIIID) that had been redeposited from earlier levels, about 5 m above the Pilaster Building excavated by Flinders Petrie. The inscription went unread for some 40 years, until reflectance transformation imaging (RTI), multispectral imaging and DStretch colour enhancement made it legible.

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Physical Description

The main sherd measures 8.2 x 9.8 cm and preserves about two-thirds of the bowl's base; three small fragments join it.

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The Inscription

The text is written in black and red ink on the bowl's exterior, over an off-white slip. The scribe held the bowl upside-down and began below the base. It opens with the standard brit-bowl formula, "The brit, which is in it", and records grain amounts, perhaps barley. The best-preserved figure, 660 khar and 2 heqat, is written in red ink, which the authors suggest may mark emmer or an outstanding debt.

According to the authors, brit denotes a treaty of submission, or the corvée imposed on subordinated parties. They also note an alternative view, Higginbotham's, that such bowls may record goods moving from an Egyptian institution.

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Historical Significance

The bowl adds to the evidence that Tell el-Hesi was an Egyptian outpost in the 13th century BC, one of the so-called "Governor's Residency" sites in Canaan. The authors suggest that it reached the site while the settlement Frederick Jones Bliss called City IV was in use.

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Biblical Significance

The bowl documents Egyptian administrative control in southern Canaan in the 13th century BC, the period of the Judges on OT in Context's chronology. The authors relate the Egyptian word brit etymologically to Hebrew berit, "covenant".