A 3,300-year-old Egyptian papyrus written in the Bronze Age is attracting fresh attention for a detail that scholars can’t easily smooth over.
The document is called Anastasi I. It has lived in the British Museum since 1839, minding its business while generations of scholars cataloged it as part of Egypt’s New Kingdom paper trail. Lately, it’s been reread with fresh attention because of one specific detail that keeps catching in the throat. Height.
Written around the 13th century BCE, the papyrus appears as a letter attributed to a scribe named Hori. It covers military routes, hostile terrain, and the hazards of travel through contested regions. Nothing mystical. Nothing strange. Then it mentions the Shosu, a nomadic group encountered along a narrow mountain pass, and notes that some of them measured four or five cubits from head to foot.
An Egyptian cubit ran about 20 inches. That means these people stood between roughly 6’8” and over eight feet tall. In a world where most adults stood several inches shorter than that, these figures wouldn’t have blended into the scenery. They would have dominated it. The text adds that they were aggressive and resistant to persuasion. They didn’t provide a backstory or explanation. Just the warning.
That detail has reignited interest from the Associates for Biblical Research, who see parallels with Old Testament descriptions of large figures appearing throughout Hebrew scripture. Genesis 6 refers to the Nephilim as “men of renown.” Numbers 13:33 describes Israelites encountering the sons of Anak and comparing themselves to grasshoppers by contrast.
Supporters focus on the fact that Anastasi I describes the same figures, written by people who weren’t telling biblical stories at all. That idea makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
Skeptics have plenty to say. The late biblical scholar Dr. Michael Heiser told the Daily Mail UK that people approaching seven feet tall exist today without divine parentage. The Shosu also appear throughout Egyptian records as people soldiers didn’t enjoy dealing with, and, like many stories, that reputation tends to snowball. Some scholars see the letter as an instructional exercise, exaggerating danger to make a point about competence and preparation.
There’s still nothing you can point to in a museum case. No skeletons. No tools sized for massive hands. No architecture built to scale. What remains are accounts that repeat across cultures and centuries, written by people who exaggerated plenty of other things. So, it might not be proof, but it does keep the question alive.
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