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Photo: The Mistress of the Lionesses

Photograph Courtesy: Dr. Zvi Lederman, Tel Beth-Shemesh Excavations

National Geographic News is reporting that archaeologist may have discovered the city where a female king known as the “Mistress of the Lionesses” lived. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Archaeologists digging in the ruins of the Canaanite city-state Beth-Shemesh last summer found a decorated plaque with what could be the first known depiction of a ruler known as the Mistress of the Lionesses.

The plaque—which is slightly smaller than a cigarette pack—shows a bare-chested figure wearing a kilt, with short-cropped hair and bent arms holding up two long-stemmed lotus flowers.

The figure is standing on a basket called a neb, which in ancient Egyptian iconography signifies a ruler or deity.

Although the tablet bears no writing, the figure’s hairstyle and the fact that it is holding lotus flowers suggests it is a woman, said Tel Aviv University archaeologists Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman, who made the discovery.

Mistress in Distress

Before it became the Promised Land of the Hebrews, Canaan was a collection of city-states ruled by mostly male kings who paid tributes to their more powerful neighbors the Egyptians.

Around 1350 B.C., several Canaanite kings sent clay tablets to the Egyptian pharaoh requesting military help from nomadic marauders known as the Habiru.

Of the 382 tablets that have been found, two were signed with the feminine epithet “Mistress of the Lionesses.”

“The Mistress complained to the Egyptian court that the Habiru were around and that her city was in danger,” Lederman said.

Some archaeologists believe the Mistress was a female ruler of a Canaanite city, but which city has remained an open question.

The new plaque could link the Mistress to the city of Beth-Shemesh, Bunimovitz and Lederman suggest.

Read the news release in its entirety by visiting the web page of National Geographic News.

Although other archaeologists disagree with the assumption that the ruler depicted in the picture is the “Mistress of the Lionesses,” that is, that the picture depicts a woman, the article concludes that a woman could reign in Canaan as the king (or queen) of a city state.

UPDATE:

Two very important posts have been published that provide historical background to the “Mistress of the Lionesses” or the “The Lady of the Lionesses”:

Judith Weingarten at Zenobia: Empress of the East: “The Lady of the Lionesses and a Pharaonic Wimp.”

Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests: “What/Where Was Belit-nesheti’s City?”

Both posts are very important because they provide more information on the historical background of this important woman’s struggle with the Hapiru and the king of Egypt’s reluctance to come to her help.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Beth-Shemesh, Habiru, Mistress of the Lionesses, Shlomo Bunimovitz,
Tell-Amarna, Zvi Lederman

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