Rainey’s Challenge

In a brilliant piece of detective work entitled “3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt,” BAR 16:05, Frank J. Yurco analyzes the reliefs on a wall of the Cour de la Cachette in the Karnak temple in Upper Egypt. But he points to the wrong picture as that of Israelites. This has disastrous results for his conclusions.

Yurco’s scrupulous examination of the cartouches is certainly convincing. He has clearly demonstrated that the original pharaoh to whom the battle reliefs on the western face of the western wall of the Cour de la Cachette must be ascribed is Merneptah,^a not Ramesses II.