The Jerusalemites became subjects of Egypt which had conquered Palestine in 1458 BC. Egyptian garrisons guarded nearby Jaffa and Gaza. In 1350 BC, the frightened King of Jerusalem begged his overlord, Akhenaten, the pharaoh of the New Kingdom of Egypt, to send him help – even ‘fifty archers’ – to defend his small kingdom from the aggression of neighbouring kings and bands of marauding outlaws. King Abdi-Hepa called his citadel ‘the capital of the Land of Jerusalem of which the name is Beit Shulmani’, the House of Well-being. Perhaps the word Shulman is the origin of the ‘Shalem’ in the name of
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