The Egyptian Garrison Town at Beth-Shean Amihai Mazar The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Abstract The paper summarizes the results of the excavations of the New Kingdom Egyptian garrison town at Tel Beth-Shean. The stra- tigraphy, architecture, monuments, and various finds are analyzed, and questions related to social structure and interrelation with the local population are raised. Main results of a variety of studies published in three volumes of the final excavation reports of the Hebrew University expedi- tion are integrated in the survey. The paper emphasizes different aspects of the Egyp- tian presence in the three main periods: the 18, 19 th and 20 th Dynasties, and raises questions relating to the strength of the Egyptian empire during the 20 th Dynasty. Introduction Tel Beth-Shean is the most exten- sively excavated Egyptian New Kingdom garrison town in Canaan. It was excavated on a large scale by the University Museum of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania (henceforth UME) from 1921-1933, 1 and by 1 Directed consequently by Clarence Fisher, Alan Rowe and Gerald FitzGer- ald. The main publications relating to the New Kingdom are Rowe, The Topography and History of Beth-shan and The Four Canaanite Temples of Beth-shan; James, The Iron Age at Beth Shan; Oren, The North- ern Cemetery of Beth-Shean; James and McGovern, The Late Bronze Egyptian Gar- rison at Beth Shan. For summary see Mazar “Beth Shean” (1993). the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1983 and from 1989-1996. 2 In the following paper, I summarize the evidence related to Beth-Shean during the New Kingdom based on written sources and the results of the archaeological research. The UME excavations uncov- ered large parts of the summit of the mound and revealed many 2 Yigael Yadin and Shulamit Geva con- ducted a short season in 1983, published in Yadin and Geva, Investigations at Beth Shean; large scale excavations were directed by the author on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and sponsored by the Israel Min- istry of Tourism through the Israel Antiqui- ties Authority and the Beth-Shean Tourist Development Authority. Processing of the finds and publication were sponsored by Mrs. Gita Hoffmann through Mr. Stewart Silbert (Perth, Australia), Mr. John Camp, Shelby White and Leon Levy Publications Fund, and the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Biblical Archaeology in the Hebrew University. Among the many staff members and researchers who contributed to this research Robert Mullins and Nava Panitz-Cohen were pivotal in both exca- vation and publication. See Mazar, “Beth Shean in the Iron Age”; “Beth Shean” (1993; 2008); “Four Thousand Years of History”; “Beth Shean in the Second Mil- lennium B.C.E.”. For final reports see TBS I, TBS II, TBS III. Much of the material in the present paper is based on the author’s introduction (Chapter 1) in TBS III.