page_title: Timeline of the name "Palestine"
section_title: Egyptian period
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the name "Palestine" / Historical references / Ancient period / Egyptian period
caption_attribution_description: English: A remarkable example of the re-use of a work of art, reflecting the course of Egypt's long history, this statue was originally carved to commemorate a powerful government official. A thousand years later the inscription naming this unknown man was erased, and a carved scene was added depicting its new owner, Pa-di-iset, son of Apy, worshipping the gods Osiris, Horus, and Isis. From a text on the rear of the statue we learn that Pa-di-iset was a diplomatic messenger to the neighboring lands of Canaan and Peleset (Palestine).
context_page_description: "
  The term "Peleset" is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from circa 1150 BC during the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. The first known mention is at the temple at Medinet Habu which refers to the Peleset among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, and the last known is 300 years later on Padiiset's Statue. The Assyrians called the same region "Palashtu/Palastu" or "Pilistu," beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BC through to an Esarhaddon treaty more than a century later. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term.
  The first appearance of the term "Palestine" was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories. Herodotus applied the term to both the coastal and the inland regions such as the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.
context_section_description: c. 1150 BC: Medinet Habu (temple): records a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset) among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III's reign.
  c. 1150 BC: Papyrus Harris I: "I extended all the boundaries of Egypt; I overthrew those who invaded them from their lands. I slew the Denyen in their isles, the Thekel and the Peleset (Pw-r-s-ty) were made ashes."
  c. 1150 BC: Rhetorical Stela to Ramesses III, Chapel C, Deir el-Medina.
  c. 1000 BC: Onomasticon of Amenope: "Sherden, Tjekker, Peleset, Khurma."
  c. 900 BC: Padiiset's Statue, inscription: "envoy – Canaan – Peleset."
caption: Padiiset's Statue "the impartial envoy/commissioner/messenger of/for Canaan of/for Peleset"
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