JERUSALEM: A mysterious queen known as the Mistress of the Lionesses, may have once ruled the Holy Land, according to Israeli archaeologists who based their findings on a plaque dating to the Canaanite period.
If true, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region, Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman of the University of Tel Aviv say in an article published on the university s website.
The plaque found at a recent dig in Tal Beth Shemesh, near Jerusalem, depicts a figure dressed the way royal male figures were depicted in Egyptian and Canaanite art, but sporting a woman s hairstyle and holding lotus flowers, a feminine attribute the archaeologists say.
We may have found the Mistress of the Lionesses who d been sending letters from Canaan to Egypt, said Lederman.
Clay tablets sent to the Pharaoh in Egypt reported unrest and destruction and requested military assistance.
Two of 382 such tablets found came from a Mistress of the Lionesses who wrote of bands of thugs and rebels roaming the region.
The archaeologists have uncovered remains of what they believe was a city of about 1,500 inhabitants that was violently destroyed and which they say may have been a well-to-do city-state ruled by the queen.
The ancient land of Canaan covered present-day Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as adjoining coastal lands and parts of Lebanon and Syria.
The Hebrew people, following their liberation from exile in Egypt recounted in the Bible, moved into the area around 1,200 BC and began to conquer it. -AFP
