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Tempest Stele of Ahmose I

An Egyptian king's record of a great storm, darkness, and flooding at the start of the New Kingdom

Egypt & the Exodus · stele, inscription · Debated · found 1947

Found 1947 — Franco-Egyptian Centre at Karnak (French Archaeological Mission, directed by Henri Chevrier), 1947–1951

Where Karnak Temple, Thebes (modern Luxor) (Egypt)

Dates from c. 1550–1525 BCE (reign of Ahmose I; some place it 30–50 years earlier) · Late Bronze Age I (early 18th Dynasty) · Sojourn in Egypt / possible Exodus horizon

Now at Egyptian Museum, Cairo (access restricted; studied today mainly from casts, photographs, and digital scans)

How Tempest Stele of Ahmose I was found

Found broken into pieces, reused as fill inside the foundations of the Third Pylon at Karnak. The fragments were reassembled and first published by Claude Vandersleyen in 1967–68; a new edition and translation by Robert Ritner and Nadine Moeller appeared in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies in 2014.

What it is

A calcite (Egyptian alabaster) stele about 1.8 m tall, inscribed on both faces with roughly 40 lines of hieroglyphic text in the name of King Ahmose I, founder of the 18th Dynasty. The text is badly broken but readable in long stretches. It is one of the earliest detailed weather reports in human history.

Why it matters for the Bible

The stele says that 'the gods made the sky come in a tempest of rain,' with 'darkness in the western region' and the sky 'in storm without ceasing, louder than the cries of the masses.' Houses and temples were wrecked, and bodies were carried down the Nile 'like skiffs of papyrus.' Ahmose then restores the ruined shrines. Readers of Exodus have long noticed the fit with the plague of hail and 'fire flashing in the hail' (Exodus 9) and the three days of thick darkness (Exodus 10). Ritner and Moeller argued in 2014 that the stele actually records the far-off effects of the Thera (Santorini) volcanic eruption, and that Ahmose's reign should therefore be moved earlier, closer to the radiocarbon date of the eruption (c. 1620–1600 BCE). That same reign saw the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Semitic rulers of Avaris in the eastern Delta, which is why some link the stele's chaos to the Bible's account of Semitic people leaving Egypt.

Debated: The stele itself and its reading as a real storm are accepted by Egyptologists. What is debated is everything beyond that: whether it records the Thera eruption at all (Ritner and Moeller say yes; Malcolm Wiener and James Allen argued in 1998 that it was an ordinary if severe rainstorm), whether Ahmose's dates should shift, and whether any of it relates to the plagues of Exodus. No scholar has shown a direct link to the Israelites; the connection is a proposal, not a proof.

The Hebrew word: bah-RAHD

בָּרָד

בָּרָד is pronounced bah-RAHD and means hail — the seventh plague, 'very heavy hail, such as had not been in Egypt since it became a nation' (Strong's H1259).

People this discovery connects to

Places

Events

Plague of hail (Exodus 9) · Plague of darkness (Exodus 10) · Expulsion of the Hyksos from Avaris by Kamose and Ahmose

Tempest Stele of Ahmose I in Scripture

Exodus 9:23-24 Thunder, hail, and fire running down to the ground over all Egypt; the stele describes a sky in storm without ceasing, with rain wrecking houses and temples.

Exodus 10:22 Thick darkness over Egypt for three days; the stele reports darkness in the western sky during the tempest.

Exodus 9:31-32 Egypt's crops ruined by the hail; the stele's picture of a land needing restoration after the storm gives a feel for the damage such an event caused.

Questions people ask

What is Tempest Stele of Ahmose I?
A calcite (Egyptian alabaster) stele about 1.8 m tall, inscribed on both faces with roughly 40 lines of hieroglyphic text in the name of King Ahmose I, founder of the 18th Dynasty. The text is badly broken but readable in long stretches. It is one of the earliest detailed weather reports in human history.

When was Tempest Stele of Ahmose I discovered?
It was found in 1947 by Franco-Egyptian Centre at Karnak (French Archaeological Mission, directed by Henri Chevrier), 1947–1951, at Karnak Temple, Thebes (modern Luxor).

Where is Tempest Stele of Ahmose I today?
Egyptian Museum, Cairo (access restricted; studied today mainly from casts, photographs, and digital scans).

Which Bible verses does Tempest Stele of Ahmose I relate to?
Exodus 9:23-24, Exodus 10:22, Exodus 9:31-32.

Is Tempest Stele of Ahmose I authentic?
The stele itself and its reading as a real storm are accepted by Egyptologists. What is debated is everything beyond that: whether it records the Thera eruption at all (Ritner and Moeller say yes; Malcolm Wiener and James Allen argued in 1998 that it was an ordinary if severe rainstorm), whether Ahmose's dates should shift, and whether any of it relates to the plagues of Exodus. No scholar has shown a direct link to the Israelites; the connection is a proposal, not a proof.

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Sources

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