A king of Moab (a state centered in modern-day Jordan) named Muṣurī (written mMu-ṣur-i in Mesopotamian cuneiform) is mentioned in the royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) and Ashurbanipal (668–c. 630 BCE) as providing material resources to Esarhaddon and as participating in one of Ashurbanipal’s military campaigns (to Egypt). The name Muṣurī is often translated as “the Egyptian.” This paper is focused on how to understand the circumstance that a Moabite ruler is referred to with this ethnonym. After a presentation of the textual evidence in which Muṣurī is attested, and after justification of the translation of the name of Muṣurī as “the Egyptian,” some suggestions are put forward, either proceeding from the idea that Muṣurī was an ethnic Egyptian or from the idea that he was closely related to Egypt in some other way.
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