Shirly Ben-Dor Evian
Dr. Shirly Ben-Dor Evian earned her MA (cum laude) and PhD from the Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures at the Tel Aviv University. Her MA research on the distribution of Egyptian pottery in Iron Age Israel and Judah shed new light on the understudied phenomenon of the relations between Egypt and Ancient Israel during the first millennium BCE. Continuing her research on the Egypt/Levant interface Shirly wrote her doctoral dissertation, as laureate of the Tel Aviv University presidential scholarship, on the emergence of the Sea-Peoples in both the Egyptian texts and the archaeological record. She then proceeded to conduct her postdoctoral research at the University of Lausanne on Egypt’s role in the Hebrew Bible, funded by a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship. Since 2016 she has served as the curator of Egyptian Archaeology at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and she will join the new department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Haifa as a senior lecturer in October 2022.
Presenter at
Bible & Archaeology Fest XXVII, November 22 – 24, 2024
The Archaeology of Sheshonq I in the Levant: Tracing an Elusive Empire
The archaeological remains that attest to Sheshonq I’s campaign in Ancient Israel have been persistently difficult to find. This is largely due to the stratigraphic problems involved in identifying the ‘Sheshonq horizon’ in the Levant and to the overall assumption that the campaign was a mere raid, resulting in no meaningful Egyptian interventions. However, a closer look at the ‘Sheshonq horizon’ in the Early Iron Age IIA reveals changes in settlement patterns, introduction of technological innovations and an increased material connectivity between Egypt and the Levant. These aspects, together with the building inscription left by Sheshonq at Megiddo, suggest that the campaign was not a mere raid, but rather an extended and significant imperial encounter
