TEL SHADUD, ISRAEL—An Egyptian-style burial has been discovered in Israel’s Jezreel Valley, which was under Egyptian control during the Late Bronze Age. The 3,300-year-old cylindrical clay coffin contains the remains of an adult who may have been a Canaanite employed by the Egyptian government, a wealthy person who imitated Egyptian customs, or an Egyptian who had been buried in Canaan. “An ordinary person could not afford the purchase of such a coffin. It is obvious the deceased was a member of the local elite,” excavation directors Edwin van den Brink, Dan Kirzner, and Ron Be’eri of the Israel Antiquities Authority told Haaretz. A gold signet ring with a gold-encased scarab seal bearing the name of Seti I was found near the coffin, along with food storage vessels, tableware, cultic vessels, animal bones, a bronze dagger, a bronze bowl, and the burials of two men and two women.
