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Tutankhamun's death & the birth of monotheism


Still Waters

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I found a interesting link that highlights similarities between Vedic culture and Egypt/monotheism/tutenkhamen and Sun God though i am highly skeptical but would surely like your opinion on it Sesh.

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/India_and_Egypt.htm

Do you buy any of this this?

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As promised, here is a quote from the book by Barry Kemp. "The city of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Armarna and it's people" Thames and Hudson, 2012, ISBN 978-0-500-05173-3 available at all good bookshops and online sellers :)

This is page 21 complete and is the final part of the introduction. This transcript is not edited and does not remove any context to what precedes or follows this page, it stands on it's own. Any spelling errors are mine. For myself I agree with Barry Kemp 100%

" 'Religion' is the theme that I find the most difficult for Armarna. It is difficult because we are acutely aware of religion whereas the Egyptians were not, having no word for it. The evolution of consciousness has given human beings the strangest of powers, that of the invention within the mind, the power of imagination. Those things we invent, we arrange into patterns, the links taking the form of stories or logical flows of data. Gossip, religion, epic tales, philosophy, scientific constructs: they all flower in the imagination, cohabiting and intermingling. Modern knowledge - the list of '-ologies' - is an attempt to bring order by introducing partitions and definitions. Consciousness also delivers to the individual a personal measure of detachment and evaluation. An abundance brings the realization that the meaning of many things exists only in the imagination, and that many apparent truths are actually metaphors. At the other end of the scale stands belief, a condition in which something of what lies within the imagination is perceived as a reality that is also external, a truth that exists independent of humanity.

Among the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, the last centuries BC saw the appearance of self-consciousness in belief, when people began to distinguish between beliefs that seemed true to them and beliefs that, while true to others, were false in their view. In this way 'religions' emerged, collecting followers and thus the means to divide society. Writing in the fifth century BC, Herodotus said of the Egyptians that they were 'religious to excess, beyond any other nation in the world'. But a thousand years earlier, the Egyptians of the New Kingdom and of the Armarna period would not have said this of themselves or of anybody else. They were not conscious of religion as a seperate aspect of existence, and thus had no urge to distinguish between truth and falsehoods in beliefs, or between followers and the unfaithful. They lived with a less partitioned mind than we do. The gods were there, to be honoured, used, doubted and even mocked, a natural take-it-for-granted part of the universe and of a person's inner experience. How innocent it now seems!

'Religion' is thus one of many creations of the Hellenistic period. Akhenaten's replacement of one form of an all-powerful creator god (Amun or Amun-Ra) by another (the Aten) is an early pointer to one way in which the world's conflicts would develop in the future. Had he been successful, in time an Atenist religion might have developed. In this sense it is not unreasonable to see him as a prophet. Yet, in living when he did, Akhenaten developed his ideas in a milieu that is very different from anything we are familiar with. His world tolerated inconsistency of thought to an extent that it is uncomfortable in the modern world, and so provided less of a basis for intolerance and persecution. The normal terminolgy of religion (which includes the word 'monotheism') does not work very well. I have come to conclude that the very word 'religion', when applied to the ancient Egypt of this time, is mischievous. It brings into play unhelpful associations that belong to later times. I have therefore tried to avoid it, and to present instead a synopsis of an ancient approach to life that was rooted partly in the material world and partly in the imagination"

Edited by Atentutankh-pasheri
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I found a interesting link that highlights similarities between Vedic culture and Egypt/monotheism/tutenkhamen and Sun God though i am highly skeptical but would surely like your opinion on it Sesh.

http://www.hinduwisd...a_and_Egypt.htm

Do you buy any of this this?

Sesh will answer for himself of course, but timezones sometimes work badly. I read this page and draw attention to the section "Links with ancient Egypt". Here it only mentions Ptolemaic Egypt. Certainly Ptolemy I Soter had been to India, as one of Alexander's generals, though Ptolemaic Egypt is not ancient Egypt as is generally understood, it is Greek ruled Egypt. The hope of that site is to join India to pharaohic Egypt, and they do not show any realistic proof. Besides, all know that civilisation came from what is now southern Russia and spread out to the barbarians. That is why some cultures seem linked, it is because they come from the original culture situated in a wide area around Rostov on Don. So speaketh the Aten's living image (junior) who will not be moved from his position of truth :nw:

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Sesh will answer for himself of course, but timezones sometimes work badly. I read this page and draw attention to the section "Links with ancient Egypt". Here it only mentions Ptolemaic Egypt. Certainly Ptolemy I Soter had been to India, as one of Alexander's generals, though Ptolemaic Egypt is not ancient Egypt as is generally understood, it is Greek ruled Egypt. The hope of that site is to join India to pharaohic Egypt, and they do not show any realistic proof. Besides, all know that civilisation came from what is now southern Russia and spread out to the barbarians. That is why some cultures seem linked, it is because they come from the original culture situated in a wide area around Rostov on Don. So speaketh the Aten's living image (junior) who will not be moved from his position of truth :nw:

Your evidence for this assertion would be what? You have a citation for this?

cormac

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Your evidence for this assertion would be what? You have a citation for this?

cormac

Not on this thread. Elsewhere and another time :)

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Not on this thread. Elsewhere and another time :)

You opened the door by making the claim. So it's your responsibility to either support the claim, as is part of the rules at UM, or back away from it. Can we assume you're backing away from it then?

cormac

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You opened the door by making the claim. So it's your responsibility to either support the claim, as is part of the rules at UM, or back away from it. Can we assume you're backing away from it then?

cormac

Huh! what is this? I make lighthearted comment and you quote rules, perhaps expecting me to present doctoral thesis on a forum for wackiness! oi oi oi

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Huh! what is this? I make lighthearted comment and you quote rules, perhaps expecting me to present doctoral thesis on a forum for wackiness! oi oi oi

In other words, you can't support your claim. I guess I should have expected as much.

cormac

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In other words, you can't support your claim. I guess I should have expected as much.

cormac

And your problem is.......

Listen, I may be new to this forum, but I am not new to internet. I saw everything like this many times. I am not impressed with your rudeness and troll like activity. Try bullying somebody else. You understand

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And your problem is.......

Listen, I may be new to this forum, but I am not new to internet. I saw everything like this many times. I am not impressed with your rudeness and troll like activity. Try bullying somebody else. You understand

Well, I guess I have to agree with Cormac, so far on this forum everybody has been called to prove his claims, unless you want to be the next intermission clown I suggest you follow suit.

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Well, I guess I have to agree with Cormac, so far on this forum everybody has been called to prove his claims, unless you want to be the next intermission clown I suggest you follow suit.

Or......

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Or......

We will call you every time until the whole readership on this board knows what kind of fake you are.

Have a nice day.

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We will call you every time until the whole readership on this board knows what kind of fake you are.

Have a nice day.

Yet all can see you and your "friend" are trolls. Byee

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Yet all can see you and your "friend" are trolls. Byee

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

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A question for kmt - or anyone else that might have better insight to this period than I do (which would probably include my cat)...

Could the feminized forms in art have been a reflection of Akhenatens belief in a single diety? Both male and female represented in one body?

- just spitballing here....

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A question for kmt - or anyone else that might have better insight to this period than I do (which would probably include my cat)...

Could the feminized forms in art have been a reflection of Akhenatens belief in a single diety? Both male and female represented in one body?

- just spitballing here....

good question...

Could be or it also could be that, as many scholars maintain, that the idea was to represent equals, regardless if masculine or feminine. But for lack of written sources you can guess as well as me... or as well as Jan Assman.

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A question for kmt - or anyone else that might have better insight to this period than I do (which would probably include my cat)...

Could the feminized forms in art have been a reflection of Akhenatens belief in a single diety? Both male and female represented in one body?

- just spitballing here....

It's possible and makes more sense than some trying to make his family members out to be Coneheads or the like. Physical evidence for Tutankhamun and his biological father refutes that idea.

cormac

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A question for kmt - or anyone else that might have better insight to this period than I do (which would probably include my cat)...

Could the feminized forms in art have been a reflection of Akhenatens belief in a single diety? Both male and female represented in one body?

- just spitballing here....

First, you should never be afraid to ask your cat. Cats are wise. After all, they had the perfect symbiotic relationship in ancient Egypt: cats think they're gods to begin with. :D

Second, you're on the right track with what you're thinking about the odd appearance in artwork of the human form in the Amarna Period (the period during which Akhenaten reigned). Akhenaten's deity, the Aten, possessed no overt sexuality in its iconography, unlike the depictions of many other traditional deities. At the same time, creator deities which possessed a sense of sexuality, such as Atum and Khnum, did not necessarily require a deity-counterpart to create life.

Therefore, the theory is that Amarna statues and reliefs of royals lacked a strong sense of sexuality because Akhenaten was trying to pass himself off as part of the divine, himself. He was like the Aten. He and he alone could pass your personal prayers on to the Aten, so Akhenaten and the Aten were inexorably linked in his own mind. That's the theory, anyway. There is no conclusive answer but it's the scenario that best fits the evidence. Old arguments such as a disorder like Marfan's syndrome have been abandoned because none of the Amarna Period mummies (Tutankhamun included) show any signs of such a disease. And Akhenaten and family as aliens is not something a rational person takes seriously, so we needn't even go there.

If you don't believe me, just ask your cat.

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My cat said "You can't handle the truth! - It's enough that I let you live in my house with me! Now feed me and leave me alone!"

Thanks for the responses everyone...

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Thanks for writing that excerpt from Kemp's book in the earlier post, Atentutankh. That you have the book makes me quite envious because I checked Amazon and another source again and it still hasn't been released. :hmm: I aim to buy it, as well as another new one called The Pharaoh: Life at Court and on Campaign, by Garry Shaw.

Sesh will answer for himself of course, but timezones sometimes work badly. I read this page and draw attention to the section "Links with ancient Egypt". Here it only mentions Ptolemaic Egypt. Certainly Ptolemy I Soter had been to India, as one of Alexander's generals, though Ptolemaic Egypt is not ancient Egypt as is generally understood, it is Greek ruled Egypt. The hope of that site is to join India to pharaohic Egypt, and they do not show any realistic proof. Besides, all know that civilisation came from what is now southern Russia and spread out to the barbarians. That is why some cultures seem linked, it is because they come from the original culture situated in a wide area around Rostov on Don. So speaketh the Aten's living image (junior) who will not be moved from his position of truth :nw:

Unfortunately things got a little heated earlier in the day. It's regrettable. I must admit, however, the bolded portion jumped out at me as it did at cormac. Is it possible your comment was misconstrued? The oldest civilization by the criteria of historical studies is still Sumer, in southern Iraq. The Sumerians rose in the Uruk period in the fourth millennium BCE. It must be admitted that the exact ethnicity of the Sumerians is still obscure, and the fact that their tongue was a language isolate only adds to the mystery. However, there is nothing linguistically or culturally to connect them with prehistoric peoples of southern Russia, of which I'm aware. There is a working linguistic theory that the Sumerians originated from the east and were perhaps of some relation to peoples of ancient India, but it is only a theory and has not been developed much yet.

Cormac can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there's also something in the genetic record to suggest as eastward origin for Sumerians. I recall some discussion about that a long time ago here at UM but can't recall the particulars. It may have been more to do with the general population of that whole region.

The next civilization to emerge was the Egyptians, and there is no doubt that theirs was an African origin. While the people who created dynastic Egypt were a mixture of ethnicities, I know of no research connecting them with any sort of European origin.

All the others were asking for was a source for your information. It's something I frequently ask of posters, too. It's good to defend your position and share your source for evaluation by other posters. If the source is flawed, so be it. If it turns out to be of some veracity, it will do us all good to evaluate. Was it perhaps one of those Russian websites about which I issued a cautionary note?

I tell ya, for all the Russians have contributed to science and historical studies, they seem to unleash a lot of wackos on the internet. Like I said, I've seen quite a few nut-job Russian web pages posters have sourced at UM. Methinks they imbibed in too much vodka (the Russians, not the posters, although who can tell?). :w00t:

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Thanks for writing that excerpt from Kemp's book in the earlier post, Atentutankh. That you have the book makes me quite envious because I checked Amazon and another source again and it still hasn't been released. :hmm: I aim to buy it, as well as another new one called The Pharaoh: Life at Court and on Campaign, by Garry Shaw.

Unfortunately things got a little heated earlier in the day. It's regrettable. I must admit, however, the bolded portion jumped out at me as it did at cormac. Is it possible your comment was misconstrued? The oldest civilization by the criteria of historical studies is still Sumer, in southern Iraq. The Sumerians rose in the Uruk period in the fourth millennium BCE. It must be admitted that the exact ethnicity of the Sumerians is still obscure, and the fact that their tongue was a language isolate only adds to the mystery. However, there is nothing linguistically or culturally to connect them with prehistoric peoples of southern Russia, of which I'm aware. There is a working linguistic theory that the Sumerians originated from the east and were perhaps of some relation to peoples of ancient India, but it is only a theory and has not been developed much yet.

Cormac can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there's also something in the genetic record to suggest as eastward origin for Sumerians. I recall some discussion about that a long time ago here at UM but can't recall the particulars. It may have been more to do with the general population of that whole region.

The next civilization to emerge was the Egyptians, and there is no doubt that theirs was an African origin. While the people who created dynastic Egypt were a mixture of ethnicities, I know of no research connecting them with any sort of European origin.

All the others were asking for was a source for your information. It's something I frequently ask of posters, too. It's good to defend your position and share your source for evaluation by other posters. If the source is flawed, so be it. If it turns out to be of some veracity, it will do us all good to evaluate. Was it perhaps one of those Russian websites about which I issued a cautionary note?

I tell ya, for all the Russians have contributed to science and historical studies, they seem to unleash a lot of wackos on the internet. Like I said, I've seen quite a few nut-job Russian web pages posters have sourced at UM. Methinks they imbibed in too much vodka (the Russians, not the posters, although who can tell?). :w00t:

This would tend to be more suggestive of the later Gutians, who are believed to originate in the area of the Zagros Mountains just to the East of the Tigris River. There are AFAIK two different but equally plausible theories for the Sumerian origin. The first, based on similarities in pottery, etcetra, suggests an origin in or around the city of Samarra/Tell es-Sawwan some 260 miles north northwest of Eridu along the Tigris. The second, based on tales of the land of Dilmun and supported in part by the fact that the Persian Gulf was predominantly dry between c.14,000 and 5500 BC, would be somewhere along the dry plain of the gulf in or near Bahrain. As far as genetics, there has never been any testing of Sumerian remains on which to base a claim. However, it is known that the area of Mesopotamia and much of the Levant falls under Y Chromosome haplogroup J and is mainly J2, which would most likely include Sumerian DNA as well, from either area.

cormac

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I found a interesting link that highlights similarities between Vedic culture and Egypt/monotheism/tutenkhamen and Sun God though i am highly skeptical but would surely like your opinion on it Sesh.

http://www.hinduwisd...a_and_Egypt.htm

Do you buy any of this this?

I agree with Atentutankh's comments in Post 28 about Ptolemaic Egypt. This was really the first point in dynastic history when Egypt might have had connections with and an awareness of India.

Many posters through the years have posited some contact between Egypt and India going far back in time. I disagree. I believe most historians would, too. It must be remembered that prior to the eastern campaigns of Alexander, most people in the Mediterranean world did not really even possess a working knowledge of India. The territory encompassed by the modern nation of India was largely unknown to peoples living farther to the west. An exception might be made with the Persian empire, which encroached on the Hindu Kush in the sixth century BCE and managed to institute some administrative control of the area; but it did not last, and was in fact long gone by the time Alexander came on the scene. Even to the Greeks, "India" was not the modern nation we think of but basically more of the Hindu Kush.

Tutankhamun lived in Dynasty 18, late in the second millennium BCE. While India was experiencing a vibrant culture and civilization at the same time, I cannot think of any extant evidence that might imply the two knew of each other.

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This would tend to be more suggestive of the later Gutians, who are believed to originate in the area of the Zagros Mountains just to the East of the Tigris River. There are AFAIK two different but equally plausible theories for the Sumerian origin. The first, based on similarities in pottery, etcetra, suggests an origin in or around the city of Samarra/Tell es-Sawwan some 260 miles north northwest of Eridu along the Tigris. The second, based on tales of the land of Dilmun and supported in part by the fact that the Persian Gulf was predominantly dry between c.14,000 and 5500 BC, would be somewhere along the dry plain of the gulf in or near Bahrain. As far as genetics, there has never been any testing of Sumerian remains on which to base a claim. However, it is known that the area of Mesopotamia and much of the Levant falls under Y Chromosome haplogroup J and is mainly J2, which would most likely include Sumerian DNA as well, from either area.

cormac

Thanks, cormac. Not surprisingly my memory has failed me and I was thinking of something else. Perhaps it was genetic information about people of the Levant (who would eventually become the Hebrews) in some discussion where we were trying to shed some light on an afrocentric topic. That seems familiar...but again, I could be mistaken.

It sucks getting old.

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Thanks, cormac. Not surprisingly my memory has failed me and I was thinking of something else. Perhaps it was genetic information about people of the Levant (who would eventually become the Hebrews) in some discussion where we were trying to shed some light on an afrocentric topic. That seems familiar...but again, I could be mistaken.

It sucks getting old.

Says the kid with dessicated skin and no hair. I told you to use more moisturizer. :w00t:

cormac

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