Statue, Likely to be Biblical Joseph, Found in Egypt

This is 7 year old article, but I heard about this watching the Patterns of Evidence series.

Statue of Biblical Joseph found: Story covered up!

They call the statue the “Asiatic” i.e., he is not Egyptian, rather he is a man who comes from the area of Canaan/Israel. They might as well call him the “Ish Ivri”. Not much is left of his face because after his rule, as with the Biblical Joseph, his people seem to have experienced a downfall. Put differently, someone in ancient times took a hammer to his face. But his hairdo is still intact. They call it a “mushroom” hairdo and it’s specifically related to non-Egyptians from the area of ancient Canaan/Israel. Interestingly, it’s quite the “do”, and the Talmud goes out of its way to tell us that Joseph was quite the fashionista (Genesis Rabbah, 87:3). In fact, the Rabbinic Midrash Tanhuma Vayyesheb 8 specifically talks about Joseph curling his hair.

The statue was found in a layer corresponding to the year c. 1,700 BCE. In other words, if we take 1,500 BCE as the date for the Exodus, and if the Israelite sojourn in Egypt was around 200 years, the statue of this ruler perfectly fits the story of the Biblical Joseph who ruled around 215 years prior to the Exodus.​