Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Canaan in Egypt: Archaeological evidence for a social phenomenon

My friend, Stephen Smoot, made me aware of an article that has a lot of overlap with chapter 1 of the Book of Abraham:

Rachael Thyrza Sparks, Canaan in Egypt: Archaeological evidence for a social phenomenon (available on academia.edu)

Here is a relevant quote from page 38:

As contact between Egypt and the Levant increased, Asiatic deities came to be worshipped in Egypt. . . . Temples to Canaanite gods such as Reshef, Qadesh, Anat, and Astarte were established at Memphis, Giza, Pi-Ramesses, the Fayum and Deir el-Medineh, with some deities developing their own priesthoods. . . . In many of the above cases, Canaanite cult appears to have been practised in a largely Egyptian manner.