ired innumerable supplies. A central part of the Egyptian campaigning policy in Palestine was to provide food for the troops and horses.[67]b. Evidence related to the reign of Amenhotep II. Even stronger evidence demonstrating that Thutmose III did not burn the city to the ground is that Hazor was a functioning city during Amenhotep II’s reign, and that Amenhotep II himself could not have burned the city to the ground either, despite his own claim to have destroyed Hazor. This conclusion is based on both archaeological and epigraphical evidence. Archaeologically, Hazor’s stratigraphy reveals a notably long period of non-habitation that occurred between the city’s Late Bronze I and Late Bronze II occupations, thus demonstrating that Hazor sat deserted for a considerable time after its conflagration at the close of Late Bronze I. Yadin writes in reference to the findings in the lower city, “In view of a considerable accumulation between Stratum 2 and Stratum 1B above it, it may be assumed perhaps that there was a gap in the history of Hazor, some time in the middle of the fifteenth century” BC.[68]This “considerable accumulation” attests to a period of multiple decades in which the once-glorious Hazor sat abandoned, unused, and uninhabited. Since Amenhotep II mentions Hazor on the conquest list of his Year-3 campaign, the city cannot have been destroyed by his father and then abandoned throughout the entirety of his own reign. If Amenhotep II’s claim to have destroyed Hazor is accepted as trustworthy,[69] this renders a conflagration under Thutmose III and a subsequent invasion/conquest under Amenhotep II mutually exclusive, an impossible chain of events. There had to be an occupied city of Hazor for Amenhotep II to conquer!Important archaeological evidence exists in the form of a royal scarab from the reign of Thutmose IV (ca. 1418–1408 BC).[70] This son and successor of Amenhotep II reigned for a modest “eight-plus years,” though most scholars assign ten years to his reign.[71] During Yadin’s second year of excavations, he began work in what became Area F, which is located in the lower city between Area C and Area D.[72] While digging in Stratum 1B (Late Bronze IIA, = 1400–1300 BC), his team found a burial cave, designated 8144, which yielded the critical scarab. The cave was buried under Stratum 1A (Late Bronze IIB, = 1300–1200 BC), so the stratified scarab was placed there at the end of the 15th century BC, indicating roughly when this cave was first used for burials.[73]The final period of the cave’s use, which further defines the chronology of the cave and the stratum, is indicated by an unusually great yield of imported Mycenaean pottery, along with datable imported Cypriotic ware (Milk Bowls, a Base-ring, and Bucchero Ware) and local pottery, none of which dates beyond the 14th century BC.[74] Yadin draws special attention to “a large group of imported Mycenaean vessels of the late stage of III A: 2,”[75] noting also that this abundance of IIIA:2 pottery was complemented “with [a] few A: 1” vessels.[76] According to the pottery specialist whom Yadin consulted, Mycenaean IIIA:2 pottery dates to ca. 1400–1375 BC in its early forms and dates to ca. 1375–1300 BC in its late forms, while Mycenaean IIIA:1 ware dates to ca. 1425–1400 BC.[77] In Yadin’s discussion of LB-I-Age pottery found in Hazor’s caves during his expeditions, he describes numerous types of late Mycenaean IIIA:2 wares, but he makes no mention of any early Mycenaean IIIA:2 pottery that would date to the short period from ca. 1400–1375 BC.[78] This dearth of early Mycenaean IIIA:2 pottery matches well with the period of non-habitation—as revealed by the noted occupational gap—that occurred after the city was destroyed on Joshua’s northern campaign in ca. 1400 BC. Thus the cave was in use during the years shortly before ca. 1400 BC, and throughout the years from ca. 1375–1300 BC.The stratified, royal scarab of Thutmose IV cannot be considered a later reproduction or a mere family heirloom that was passed down from one generation to the next. As Yadin carefully explains, “All Thutmose IV scarabs are rare and a boon to archaeologists in this country because we know that they were made exclusively during his reign (the names of some Pharaohs continued to be inscribed on scarabs after their death, but the popularity of Thutmose IV was buried along with him). We can therefore conclude that the cave was first used sometime during his eight-year reign, from 1410 to 1402 BC, or immediately thereafter.”[79] The significance of this royal scarab to the present debate is that it confirms the existence of Hazor as an occupied and functioning city in the last quarter of the 15th century BC, immediately after the reign of Amenhotep II. Due to the subsequent occupational gap after the destruction of Late-Bronze-I Hazor, which was discussed above, the city could not have been occupied during the modest reign of Thutmose IV if Amenhotep II truly had destroyed the city. Therefore, Amenhotep II’s “destruction” of the city was immediately followed by continuous occupation.Epigraphically, one piece of evidence that argues conclusively against the destruction of Hazor under Amenhotep II is Papyrus Hermitage 1116A, which contains a list recording the allocation of beer and corn to messengers from Djahy, who are envoys to cities such as Megiddo, Chinnereth, Achshaph, Shimron, Taanach, Ashkelon, and Hazor. This list, which demonstrates the trading relations between these southern Canaanite towns and the Egyptian government, is variously dated to the reign of Thutmose III, to the coregency he shared with his son, and to the sole reign of Amenhotep II.[80] However, dating the papyrus to the reign of Thutmose III can be eliminated from the realm of possibility,[81] given that the manuscript is attributed to a regnal Year 18 and bears the praenomen of Amenhotep II—the sign that provides the pharaonic throne-name, and is given to the Egyptian monarch upon his ascension to the throne—enclosed in a royal cartouche.
As Redford concludes,A date for the two Leningrad
papyri shortly after eighteenth year would satisfy all the evidence. But there is no reason to believe that Thutmose III was still alive and reigning at the time.”[82] Given that Hazor was one of the thriving cities involved in the trading of commodities at this time, it had remained unharmed at least into the 18th year of Amenhotep's reign, coinciding to 9 years after the Israelite exodus.Because Amenhotep II’s Year 18 (ca. 1438/1437 BC) was a time when Hazor thrived, it must be emphasized that he launched only two campaigns into Asia: the first in Year 3, and the second in Year 9.[83] This grossly diminished number of Asiatic campaigns is especially startling given that the Egyptian empire was at its height during the reigns of Thutmose III and Amenhotep II.[84] Immediately after these were waged, a sharp decline in the Asiatic campaigning of the pharaohs transpired. Aharoni attributes this to an underlying diminishment of Egyptian power: “Already in the days of Amenhotep II, the son of ThRosetta Stone
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