Egyptian artifacts are found in virtually every occupation layer of Israel, indicating that Egypt was present for most of Israel’s ancient history.  More proof has come to light today:

A man our for an excursion with his family discovered a 3,500-year-old seal while hiking at the Horns of Hattin in the Lower Galilee, the Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday.  While walking with his children, the farmer from Kfar Hittim spotted the engraved, beetle shaped object and called the Antiquities Authority in order to learn what was written upon it.

Dr. Dafna Ben-Tor, curator of Ancient Egypt at the Israel Museum, identified the seal as a scarab amulet from the New Kingdom, the period stretching from the 16th-11th centuries BCE.  According to Ben-Tor, the amulet shows “shows King Pharaoh Thutmose III seated on the throne” alongside the monarch’s name, she said.

It was Thutmose, who ruled Egypt from 1379-1425 BCE, expanded his empire to encompass the land of Canaan, defeating a Canaanite army in Megiddo which is memorialized in huge bas-reliefs on the walls of Karnak temple in Egypt.

As evidence continues to be unearthed it becomes more and more clear that Israel was merely an Egyptian buffer zone for its entire ‘biblical’ history.  During some periods Egypt let it be and it exercised a little autonomy but in other periods Egypt clearly dominated (when in its best interest it felt the need to do so).  But Egyptian power always hovered, like the Sword of Damocles, over the populace.