Archaeologists unearthed an ancient coffin in northern Israel, and linked it to the age of pharaohs and the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, officials said.
Scientists at the burial site also found a golden scarab which had the seal of Egyptian pharaoh Seti I, who ruled in the late Bronze Age, according to Israel’s Antiquities Authority.
Seti I was the father of Ramses II, whom some scholars have identified as the pharaoh who ruled during the Israelites’ escape from slavery in ancient Egypt.
“We discovered a unique and rare find: a cylindrical clay coffin with an anthropoidal lid surrounded by a variety of pottery, consisting mainly of storage vessels for food, tableware, cult vessels and animal bones,” according to a statement by the antiquities authority.
The mystery man inside this coffin was most likely a regional official who served under his pharaoh ruler around the 13th century BC.
Or he could have been a wealthy local man who wanted a funeral fit for a pharaoh.
“Since the vessels interred with the individual were produced locally, we assume the deceased was an official of the Canaanite origin who was engaged in the service of the Egyptian government,” according to researchers.
“Another possibility is that the coffin belonged to a wealthy individual who imitated the Egyptian funerary customs.”
The sarcophagus was discovered in recent months during digs in northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley.