Archaeological Evidence For Moses

[cormac mac airt]

Biblical apologetics, as well as fringe historical apologetics aside, one would be hard pressed to show that it was the eruption of Thira, specifically, that caused anything that could even be remotely misconstrued as the Biblical story. Especially as there were 2 plinian eruptions in the area within the 17th and 18th centuries BC. The other was the Avellino Eruption of Vesuvius c.1780BC.

A volcanic catastrophe even more devastating than the famous anno Domini 79 Pompeii eruption occurred during the Old Bronze Age at Vesuvius. The 3780-yr-B.P. Avellino plinian eruption produced an early violent pumice fallout and a late pyroclastic surge sequence that covered the volcano surroundings as far as 25 km away, burying land and villages. Here we present the reconstruction of this prehistoric catastrophe and its impact on the Bronze Age culture in Campania, drawn from an interdisciplinary volcanological and archaeoanthropological study. Evidence shows that a sudden, en masse evacuation of thousands of people occurred at the beginning of the eruption, before the last destructive plinian column collapse. Most of the fugitives likely survived, but the desertification of the total habitat due to the huge eruption size caused a socialdemographic collapse and the abandonment of the entire area for centuries. Because an event of this scale is capable of devastating a broad territory that includes the present metropolitan district of Naples, it should be considered as a reference for the worst eruptive scenario at Vesuvius.

The Avellino 3780-yr-B.P. catastrophe as a worst-case scenario for a future eruption at Vesuvius

cormac

Edited February 4, 2010 by cormac mac airt

[kmt_sesh]

Some additional considerations regarding the timeline of the Exodus. Can anyone expand on my Q&As?

...

Answer: The Hyksos (‘foreign rulers’) rose to power during the 14th Dynasty (c. 1750-1650 BCE), ruled from the 15th to the 17th dynasties (c. 1650-1550 BCE), and were driven from Egypt by Ahmose (c. 1550-1525 BCE). The Hyksos were therefore present in Egypt as ‘foreign rulers’’ for approximately 200 years. Many (50%, 75%?) of them would have been captured as slaves.

This is somewhat off. Even before the end of Dynasty 13 Egypt appears to have fragmented into rival dynasties, and Dynasty 14 marks a very brief period of only about 60 years of petty chiefdoms in the Delta; the only king for whom there is notable evidence in this period is an obscure Delta strongman named Nehesi. It appears there were Palestinians in control of other parts of the Delta, and while we can confidently identify them as the Hyksos, they did not yet have a stranglehold over Lower Egypt.

That happened in Dynasty 15 (1650-1535 BCE), otherwise known as the Hyksos period. In this span of 115 years the Hyksos controlled all of Lower Egypt and parts of Upper Egypt, including military forays as far south as Thebes. The Thebans fought back and were ultimately successful, of course. Dynasty 16 (1650-1590 BCE) ran concurrent with the Hyksos dynasty and occurred in Thebes. It is not well understood but many scholars argue that it comprised petty rulers who had been displaced in the Delta by the Hyksos; Dynasty 17 (1585-1549 BCE) is also partially concurrent with the Hyksos dynasty and marks the period during which the armies of Thebes ultimately drove the Hyksos out of Egypt (Dodson 2004: 114-122).

In other words, Dynasty 15, 16, and 17 were all happening more or less at the same time. You will see this in all three of the intermediate periods, and it merely signifies rival dynasties. While it's possible that some Hyksos warriors may have ended up as slaves, we know that slavery was not the main purpose of the campaigns of Ahmose I. His goal was the extermination of the Hyksos, and we know that after a siege of several years at Sharuhen in the Negev Desert, the Hyksos were all but decimated.

Following Graham Phillips’ argument that the Exodus occurred during the Amarna period and that Moses was the firstborn son of Amenhotep III, Prince Tuthmosis, these Hyksos slaves would have been led to freedom during the reign of Akhenaten (c. 1352-1336 BCE). Their period of enslavement would therefore have been approximately 200 years, rendering roughly 400 years in total, matching the biblical and rabbinical claims.

Not possible. We know without doubt that Prince Tuthmose predeceased his father, which is the only reason Amunhotep IV (Akhenaten) came to the throne. It is rather clear that Amunhotep III may never have even wanted his younger son to rise to the throne, because there is virtually no historical record of Amunhotep IV until he became king. It is as though he were being deliberately kept in the shadows--and as subsequent events revealed, Amunhotep III may have had very good reason for doing so.

But in any case, even in arguing this much I am neglecting a vital fact: it is a mistake to try to use the Old Testament as a work of history, which it is not, and moreover, we categorically know that the Hebrews did not yet exist in the time of Amunhotep III. I guess my earlier posts are being ignored because I've already established the simple fact that Jerusalem already existed, as well as the simple fact that a Canaanite vassal chief was ruling it. The Amarna Letters make that clear. I don't demand that anyone take my word for it alone, but I do ask that fringe writing such as Phillips's be fact-checked against the body of professional literature available to everyone.

Answer: During the Amarna period. This plague was so virulent that it forced Amehotep III to erect hundreds of statues to appease Sekhmet [Wikipedia; Phillips, Act of God p. 209], the Egyptian goddess who was seen as a bringer of disease as well as the provider of cures to such ills. It also decimated the Hittite population, as lamented in the Prayers in Time of Plague of Mursilis II [secret of the Hittites, Ceram, pp. 163-5].

Are there any other records of the presence of a plague of this magnitude in the history of Egypt?

There are no clear records of plague, period. Many scholars have posited that the many Sekhmet statues commissioned by Amunhotep III speak of plague, and on that note I personally agree, but that doesn't make it distinct from all of Egyptian history. The fact is, the plague probably came into the Nile Valley when the first human being set foot there, and it is no doubt still there. We can't even be sure what the "plague" was. The bubonic plague probably did not enter Egypt until the Muslim conquest, but it may have been pneumonic plague; such diseases kill so quickly that one does not expect to find evidence of them in Egyptian mummies (Nunn 2002: 75). However, what we call "plague" could have been any number of swiftly spreading diseases (Filer 1995: 17), from tuberculosis to cholera and even to influenza, any of which could've wipe out large numbers of people swiftly in the ancient world. Plague may have played a part in the collapse of the state at the end of the Old Kingdom, as well as the ability of the Hyksos to gain hegemony of Lower Egypt. It is also suspected to have struck more than once in the Ptolemaic Period. One thing's for sure: a plague in Dynasty 18, during the reigns of Amunhotep III and Akhenaten, would hardly have been an isolated event.

Answer: It is well known that the central hill country surrounding Jerusalem experienced an influx of people sometime during the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BCE) [it Ain't Necessarily So, Sturgis, pp. 70-78] or beginning of the Early Iron Age [A Test of Time, Rohl, pp. 366-369; The Ancient Near East, Kuhrt, pp. 432-437]). Various theories have been proposed for the origin of these settlers, anything but, it seems, the Hebrews returning from Egypt.

This dispersion throughout the Levant can be nailed down more precisely to around 1200 BCE and later, during the general collapse of Bronze Age cultures in the Near East. There is no evidence in the archaeological record of the Holy Land that the Hebrews came in as an outside force and conquered the native Canaanite inhabitants. In fact, the brunt of evidence points to the much more likely event that the Hebrews were simply an offshoot of the larger Canaanite population, having left the more inhabited regions near the coast for the wider spaces of the highlands of Judah. I suggest a perusal of the literature on this subject written by Israel Finkelstein, a prominent biblical scholar if more than a bit in the minimalist camp.

I regret that I do not have more time to address the other points drawn up by Riaan in Post #199. I've probably written too much here as it is, but I leave it to others to comment, if the desire strikes.

[Riaan]

Sorry, no help from me - I don't believe a word of it.

But I will comment on the following:

Maybe I misread, but isn't "perhaps a thousand years" before the year 1200 BCE the year 2200 BCE and not, as you say, "the time of the eruption of Thera?"

Harte

Absolutely, silly mistake. On the other hand, though, the Amenhotep III scarab found in the ruins of Jericho suggests that it it was ruined during his reign.

[Riaan]

Kmt, please see my comments below in bold

This is somewhat off. Even before the end of Dynasty 13 Egypt appears to have fragmented into rival dynasties, and Dynasty 14 marks a very brief period of only about 60 years of petty chiefdoms in the Delta; the only king for whom there is notable evidence in this period is an obscure Delta strongman named Nehesi. It appears there were Palestinians in control of other parts of the Delta, and while we can confidently identify them as the Hyksos, they did not yet have a stranglehold over Lower Egypt.

That happened in Dynasty 15 (1650-1535 BCE), otherwise known as the Hyksos period. In this span of 115 years the Hyksos controlled all of Lower Egypt and parts of Upper Egypt, including military forays as far south as Thebes. The Thebans fought back and were ultimately successful, of course. Dynasty 16 (1650-1590 BCE) ran concurrent with the Hyksos dynasty and occurred in Thebes. It is not well understood but many scholars argue that it comprised petty rulers who had been displaced in the Delta by the Hyksos; Dynasty 17 (1585-1549 BCE) is also partially concurrent with the Hyksos dynasty and marks the period during which the armies of Thebes ultimately drove the Hyksos out of Egypt (Dodson 2004: 114-122).

In other words, Dynasty 15, 16, and 17 were all happening more or less at the same time. You will see this in all three of the intermediate periods, and it merely signifies rival dynasties. While it's possible that some Hyksos warriors may have ended up as slaves, we know that slavery was not the main purpose of the campaigns of Ahmose I. His goal was the extermination of the Hyksos, and we know that after a siege of several years at Sharuhen in the Negev Desert, the Hyksos were all but decimated.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Hyksos , they began appearing in Egypt from the 11th Dynasty onwards. You are absolutely correct that they did not rule all of Egypt. There can be no doubt, however, that they were present in Egypt for at least 200 years before being evicted by Ahmose

Not possible. We know without doubt that Prince Tuthmose predeceased his father, which is the only reason Amunhotep IV (Akhenaten) came to the throne. I do not believe this to be true. It has certainly been speculated that he had died before his father, but can you provide any proof, i.e. references? It is rather clear that Amunhotep III may never have even wanted his younger son to rise to the throne, because there is virtually no historical record of Amunhotep IV until he became king. It is as though he were being deliberately kept in the shadows--and as subsequent events revealed, Amunhotep III may have had very good reason for doing so.

But in any case, even in arguing this much I am neglecting a vital fact: it is a mistake to try to use the Old Testament as a work of history, which it is not, and moreover, we categorically know that the Hebrews did not yet exist in the time of Amunhotep III. I guess my earlier posts are being ignored because I've already established the simple fact that Jerusalem already existed, as well as the simple fact that a Canaanite vassal chief was ruling it. The Amarna Letters make that clear. I don't demand that anyone take my word for it alone, but I do ask that fringe writing such as Phillips's be fact-checked against the body of professional literature available to everyone.

I fully agree with you that Jerusalem existed long before the time of Ahmose. In fact, a remark by Tacitus, "Some say they [the Hebrews] were a people that were very numerous in Egypt, under the reign of Isis; and that the Egyptians got free from that burden, by sending them into the adjacent countries...” suggests that the Hebrew nation had existed since the earliest times. I have no doubt that they were the original Serpents of ancient mythology, but that is a different topic. I have earlier been accused of stating that 'many scholars' have theorized about Thera being the cause of the biblical plagues. You are in fact not doing any better - I have seen very few specific references (book, page number) for your sweeping statements, like "we categorically know" etc. You may furthermore do yourself the favour of actually reading the entire argument of David Rohl, that the biblical Saul (Labayu) and David (Dadua) are referred to in the Amarna letters - it is pretty convincing. But then again, you would also have to familiarize yourself with the biblical narrative, which you clearly reject. Statements like "no serious scholar would consider.." or "only the fringe" etc are a cheap cop-out. By the way, 70 000 Isrealites died of the plague during David's reign

There are no clear records of plague, period. This is absolutely not the truth. Read the Letter of Mursilis, in which it is stated clearly that the plague had been brought to their land by captured Egyptian soldiers (this may have been a deliberate ploy) and various accounts in Josephus Many scholars have posited that the many Sekhmet statues commissioned by Amunhotep III speak of plague, and on that note I personally agree, but that doesn't make it distinct from all of Egyptian history Please name other events by reference. The fact is, the plague probably came into the Nile Valley when the first human being set foot there, and it is no doubt still there Is this your personal theory?. We can't even be sure what the "plague" was Whatever it was, it decimated the population - Hittite records, etc. The bubonic plague probably did not enter Egypt until the Muslim conquest, but it may have been pneumonic plague; such diseases kill so quickly that one does not expect to find evidence of them in Egyptian mummies (Nunn 2002: 75). However, what we call "plague" could have been any number of swiftly spreading diseases (Filer 1995: 17), from tuberculosis to cholera and even to influenza, any of which could've wipe out large numbers of people swiftly in the ancient world. But we have specific records that it appeared during the Amarna period - name the othe reras Plague may have played a part in the collapse of the state at the end of the Old Kingdom, as well as the ability of the Hyksos to gain hegemony of Lower Egypt. It is also suspected to have struck more than once in the Ptolemaic Period. One thing's for sure: a plague in Dynasty 18, during the reigns of Amunhotep III and Akhenaten, would hardly have been an isolated event. This plague was more devastating than any other, if the Hittite records are to be believed. Furthermore, it was not only Manetho who recorded a plague in Egypt during the period of the Exodus, but also Cheremon, Lysimachus and Apion .

This dispersion throughout the Levant can be nailed down more precisely to around 1200 BCE and later, during the general collapse of Bronze Age cultures in the Near East. There is no evidence in the archaeological record of the Holy Land that the Hebrews came in as an outside force and conquered the native Canaanite inhabitants. Absence of evidence does not constitute proof of absence In fact, the brunt of evidence points to the much more likely event that the Hebrews were simply an offshoot of the larger Canaanite population, having left the more inhabited regions near the coast for the wider spaces of the highlands of Judah. I suggest a perusal of the literature on this subject written by Israel Finkelstein, a prominent biblical scholar if more than a bit in the minimalist camp. I have read his theory, but other differ, as I have quoted.

I regret that I do not have more time to address the other points drawn up by Riaan in Post #199. I've probably written too much here as it is, but I leave it to others to comment, if the desire strikes.

You have earlier rejected the association of Manetho's Achencres with Nefertiti :"It's considerably unlikely Manetho was referring to Nefertiti. I have Reeve's book and enjoyed it, and cannot remember all of the points he made, but it would not be the most reliable source to turn to on the subject of the Amarna Period. The recognized experts are Cyril Aldred and Aidan Dodson. Nefertiti as Smenkhkare is an old theory that had a strong following for many years, but most leaders in the field no longer consider it tenable. There are a myriad of reason but that's not the subject of this discussion, so I'll leave it alone."

Reeves' argument is anything but ridiculous. It is based on the letter of an Amarna queen whose husband had died to a Hittite king, asking him for a son to marry and become king of Egypt. The name of the deceased king, Niphururiya, can be linked directly to Akhenten, and the queen complained that she had no sons to appoint as king of Egypt. Nefertiti and Akhenaten had no sons, only daughters. This, together with Manetho's statement, make a convincing argument for Nefertiti having outlived Akhenaten.

[Harte]

Absolutely, silly mistake. On the other hand, though, the Amenhotep III scarab found in the ruins of Jericho suggests that it it was ruined during his reign.

Or after, I would say.

I mean, it suggest that it was ruined no earlier that that.

Harte

[kmt_sesh]

Or after, I would say.

I mean, it suggest that it was ruined no earlier that that.

Harte

It could've been during or after. More to the point, I don't think it's known for certain how that particular destruction layer at Jericho occurred. Through much of the reigns of Amunhotep III and particularly Akhenaten, the Levant was a highly unsettled and sometimes chaotic region. Amunhotep III was living off the fat of the warrior pharaohs who preceded him and engaged in very little military conquest, and Akhenaten presented even less of a presence to maintain control of the vassals. At this time the Hittites and Mitanni were slugging it out in northern Syria, and city-states were brawling with other city-states. The Amarna Letters make that clear. I do not think the Hittites make any mention in their own records of climatic phenomena such as a volcanic eruption, so it's much more likely that Jericho at this time was destroyed through invasion. I am pretty certain the identity of the invaders remains unknown. Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, other Canaanites--it could've been any number of people.

Also, the mere presence of a scarab bearing Amunhotep III's name might be misleading. We can't know, for instance, how long it had been there prior to the destruction level in which it was found.

I noticed your reply to my last post, Riaan. I will wait till this evening to respond, when I am home from work and have access to my library.

[Riaan]

Also, the mere presence of a scarab bearing Amunhotep III's name might be misleading. We can't know, for instance, how long it had been there prior to the destruction level in which it was found.

I noticed your reply to my last post, Riaan. I will wait till this evening to respond, when I am home from work and have access to my library. I have the same problem. Looking forward to your response!

Kmt, you and Harte are of course right, it could have been placed there after his reign. It does however to an extent defeat arguments that the Exodus had occurred earlier than that, e.g. 1440 BCE.

From the Wikipedia article on The Exodus :

"Traditional exodus

The traditional bible chronology dates the Exodus to c.1447 BCE. The traditional early date is based on Edwin Thiele's chronology for the reigns of the Israelite and Judahite kings[14] in the context of 1 Kings 6:1, which dates the start of the construction of Solomon's Temple to the fourth year of King Solomon's reign, which it says was 480 years after the Exodus. The identification of the pharaoh who was reigning at this time depends on the specific Egyptian chronology that is being used for this time period. The possibilites include three or four pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Thutmose II (c.1493-1479 BCE), Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE), Thutmose III (1479-1425 BCE), and Amenhotep II.[15]

Late exodus

In the mid-20th century the lack of evidence for the traditional early date led William F. Albright to propose an alternative, "late" Exodus around 1200-1250 BCE. His argument included: 1. Digs in the 1930s had failed to find traces of the simultaneous destruction of Canaanite cities c.1400 BCE as described in the Book of Joshua, and in fact Jericho, the first city to fall to the Israelites, was uninhabited at that time and for centuries after. 2. A mummy labeled as Thutmoses III was discovered in the Deir el-Bahri cache in the Valley of the Kings in 1881. Thutmose III's records do not mention the expulsion of any group that can be identified with over 2 million Hebrew slaves, nor any events which could be identified with the Biblical plagues. 3. Evidence of destruction had been found at Beitel (Bethel) and some other cities from around that period, and a distinctive round-collared jar was, in his opinion, to be identified with in-coming Israelites.

The theory enjoyed popularity around the middle of the 20th century, but has now been generally abandoned except by some conservative Christians, notably Kenneth Kitchen.[16] The arguments against the late date for the Exodus include: 1. The collar-rimmed jars have been recognised as an indigenous form originating in lowland Canaanite cities centuries earlier.[17] 2. While some "Joshua" cities, including Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo and others, have destruction and transition layers around 1250-1145 BCE, others have no destruction layers or were uninhabited during this period.[12] 3. The scholarly consensus is that Jericho, the first city to be destroyed according to the biblical story, was in fact destroyed ca. 1550 BCE and was not inhabited at the time of Albright's late date for the exodus.[18] 4. The Merneptah Stele indicates a people called "Israel" were already known in Canaan by the reign of Merneptah (1213-1203 BCE),[19]

Early exodus

A number of authors have advocated an "early" Exodus, prior to c.1440 BCE.

According to this view, the Israelites and the Hyksos are separate groups of people, and the first Exodus from Egypt occurred before the expulsion of the Hyksos. As a result, this interpretation of the exodus does not suffer from the difficulties that come from identifying the Israelites with the Hyksos rulers of Egypt. This book advocates the High Egyptian Chronology,[20][21] which dates the reign of Thutmose III to the time period from 1504 BCE to 1450 BCE rather than the time period from 1479 BCE to 1425 BCE that it occupies in the Conventional Egyptian chronology. Sivertsen also argues that the mummy from the Deir el-Bahri cache in the Valley of the Kings that was labeled as Thutmose III is actually the mummy of a different person.[22] As a result, it is possible that the second exodus occurred in 1450 BCE (which is close to the traditional early date of 1447 BCE) and it is also possible that the reign of Thutmose III ended at the time of this exodus.

David Rohl's 1995 A Test of Time attempts to reconcile Biblical and Egyptian history by shortening the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt by almost 300 years, making the 13th Dynasty pharaoh Djedneferre Dudimose (Dedumesu, Tutimaos, Tutimaios) the pharaoh of the Exodus.[23] Rohl's theory, however, has failed to find support among scholars in his field.[24]

There are numerous difficulties with views that equate the Israelites with the Hyksos.[25][26] There are obvious differences between Egyptian history in the period of the Hyksos and the story told in the Torah: the Hyksos were in Egypt for only a little over a century, against the 400 years described in the Bible, they left Egypt as defeated foreign rulers rather than as fleeing slaves, and the Pharaoh Ahmose pursued them across northern Sinai and into southern Canaan, where their arrival c.1500 BCE (if the Exodus story of 40 years of Wilderness wandering is followed - Ahmoses's own account implies a much shorter period, and he obviously was not lost in the Red Sea) would leave a 250-year gap before the first appearance of proto-Israelite artefacts in the archaeological record. Nor does the Bible story give any impression of the fact that Egypt had more than one Pharaoh at this time, the Hyksos 15th dynasty ruling in the Delta, the native Egyptian 17th dynasty in the Nile valley to the south, with the 16th dynasty as a line of petty kings on the margin.

An alternative "early" date links the Exodus with the eruption of the Aegean volcano of Thera in c.1600 BCE, on the grounds that it could provide a natural explanation of the Biblical "Plagues of Egypt" and some of the incidents of the Exodus, notably the crossing of the Red Sea.[27]"

[Harte]

Well, since I see no reason whatsoever to believe the exodus occurred at all, I therefore do not. So I'm not troubled with dating it.

If it is ever discovered that the exodus did occur, I'll just be interested to read about it.

IOW, I really don't have much investment in it either way. I'm good if it didn't happen, and good if it did.

Harte

[questionmark]

Well, since I see no reason whatsoever to believe the exodus occurred at all, I therefore do not. So I'm not troubled with dating it.

If it is ever discovered that the exodus did occur, I'll just be interested to read about it.

IOW, I really don't have much investment in it either way. I'm good if it didn't happen, and good if it did.

Harte

But...but...there is this infallible book that seeez it happened....

[kmt_sesh]

I've had a little time to dig around and can address the points to which you responded earlier, Riaan.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Hyksos , they began appearing in Egypt from the 11th Dynasty onwards. You are absolutely correct that they did not rule all of Egypt. There can be no doubt, however, that they were present in Egypt for at least 200 years before being evicted by Ahmose

Yes, I concur the Hyksos were in Egypt long before they wrested control of the north. I am familiar with evidence dating to Dynasty 12 and not Dynasty 11, though I do not discount the latter. I simply can't recall evidence from Dynasty 11. Small matter, really. I always think of the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan, and to illustrate the point I'm going to borrow a couple of images I prepared from a post I wrote in another forum. Note the red circle in this image from one of the walls in the tomb. The glyphs I've circled refer to the elaborately garmented man bending over the ibex or gazelle (whatever the animal is) as a HKA-xAst, or "foreign leader." It is the singular form of the more familiar HKA-xAswt, "foreign leaders," the original term from which the word "Hyksos" comes. This man and his retinue are dressed in the garb by which the Egyptians typically depicted Asiatics (Palestinians) at that time. Khnumhotep II lived in early Dynasty 12 during the reign of Amenemhat I (1994-1964 BCE), so around 280 years before the Hyksos gained power over Lower Egypt and points south.

That establishes the background. The point is, playing with arbitrary figures preserved in the Old Testament will not prove much. The Old Testament is not a history book and should never be used independently as one. More importantly, however, this early "foreign leader" seen in Khnumhotep II's tomb and all of the Hyksos who followed him cannot be tied to the Hebrews in any archaeological or textual context. They were worshipers of Baal and other pagan Canaanite deities, and practiced the Canaanite religion. They even went so far as to blend Egyptian religion into it and also worshiped the Egyptian god Set, whom they saw as similar to their Baal. The material culture the Hyksos left behind in the Delta--and they left an enormous amount--simply shows a markedly different culture from the Hebrews in almost every notable way. There can be no connection.

I do not believe this to be true. It has certainly been speculated that he had died before his father, but can you provide any proof, i.e. references?

As far as I know the tomb of Prince Tuthmose has never been found, so I won't try to pull your leg there. However, he is well attested in the historical record during the reign of Amunhotep III and is thought to have died sometime during the third decade of that king's reign. That, then, would've been around 1358 BCE. I say this because no monuments depicting the living prince can be dated to after that time. He was dead.

The reason I am certain of his death is this object:

The inscription running along the side reads: sA nswt smsw sm DHwtyms mAa-xrw, "Eldest king's son, Sem-priest, Tuthmose, the justified."

This object is in the collection of the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin and is displayed among other artifacts belonging to Prince Tuthmose. It depicts a mummy lying upon its sarcophagus or on a funeral bier, and with a ba-bird draped over its chest. The ba was the divine aspect or soul that returned to the tomb every night and represented the person's character or personality in life (the non-corporeal elements of the individual). Mummiform figures such as this include a ba-bird to ensure that the ba will find its way back before sunset (actual mummies have been found with carved ba-birds affixed to their chests, too).

There was only one reason to prepare such an object for a person: that person was dead. No other explanation is possible. It would serve no purpose to the living.

The titles fit with this prince, too. Tuthmose was the oldest son of Amunhotep III and was a Sem-priest who was prominent in the Serapeum cult at Saqqara. This large necropolis southwest of Cairo is probably where Tuthmose's tomb will be found one day. A number of artifacts belonging to him have been found in and around the Serapeum.

It's important to note that we have no definitive identification for the prince's mother, but she was almost certainly Tiye, the principal wife of Amunhotep III. In the New Kingdom, as with other periods, the oldest son borne of the king and the king's chief wife was almost always the crown prince, next in line for the throne. Other inscriptions confirm that Tuthmose was sA nswt n Xt.f, "king's son of his body," establishing Tuthmose's father as, of course, Amunhotep III.

In other words, there is nothing whatsoever in the historical record to suggest that Tuthmose was a foundling or an adopted child. The evidence clarifies he was of royal Egyptian birth. Furthermore, the evidence clarifies he was provided a traditional Egyptian burial, and most likely in Saqqara, sometime in the third decade of his father's reign. There is no cause to try to identify Prince Tuthmose as the biblical Moses.

You are in fact not doing any better - I have seen very few specific references (book, page number) for your sweeping statements, like "we categorically know" etc. You may furthermore do yourself the favour of actually reading the entire argument of David Rohl, that the biblical Saul (Labayu) and David (Dadua) are referred to in the Amarna letters - it is pretty convincing.

I will not trifle myself with Rohl, who has made sweeping and unsupported revisions to a rather well-established timeline. I am familiar with the basics of his premise, which is along the lines of Ahmed Osman though not quite as daft. This is a typical fringe maneuver: if known facts don't fit your theory, twist the facts to make them fit. This is not how proper research protocols are observed. Look deeper into the academic research on the Amarna Letters, Labayu, and Dadua: you will see where the argument falls apart.

If you wish a specific reference to a statement I make, please ask for one. I admit I do not always provide one because often I am working from memory and twenty-five years of research. However, if you review my posts, you will see that I do often cite my sources. I have a couple to cite momentarily. I appreciate that you do often cite your sources, which is laudable, but an orthodox fellow such as I also takes note of the dubious source of some sources. Such as David Rohl. And the Old Testament. And Manetho.

By the way, 70 000 Isrealites died of the plague during David's reign

The empirical data for this would be? we can't even be sure how much truth exists behind the legend of David. There is some evidence to suggest he was real, and as Israel Finkelstein has posited, he may have actually been a warlord who rose to power in the Early Iron Age. I suggest reading Finkelstein's David and Solomon. It will tell you about the Tel Dan inscription mentioning the House of David (2006: 264-65), and you will also learn what all respected biblical scholars have to admit: there is no extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Solomon, any more than there is for Moses.

This is absolutely not the truth. Read the Letter of Mursilis, in which it is stated clearly that the plague had been brought to their land by captured Egyptian soldiers (this may have been a deliberate ploy) and various accounts in Josephus

Point taken. I was thinking of Egypt only, but the Hittites have to be taken into account.

Please name other events by reference.

We can't even be sure what the plague was, which was the point of my argument. Our word "plague" as applied to the ancient Near East simply means some sort of swiftly spreading and rapidly killing illness. This happened throughout dynastic history, and often when Syro-Palestinians were migrating into Egypt. The sickness in the time of Amunhotep III is thought to have happened this way but no one can be sure what started it or exactly where it started. Yes, it appears there was a dangerous sickness inflicting the Nile Valley in the time of this king. As I mentioned, it is thought to have occurred not long before the Hyksos gained power (Dodson 2004: 114). I suggest John Nunn's Ancient Egyptian Medicine and Joyce Filer's Disease for a good grounding on sicknesses in ancient Egypt, as well as the realities of what we have called "plague." I cited both of these authors in my earlier post.

Is this your personal theory?

I have personal theories like everyone else, but when I write about one, I will describe it as such. Plagues have always been found in the ancient world wherever human populations existed. That's basic fact. I think you know that as well as I do.

But we have specific records that it appeared during the Amarna period - name the othe reras

What are these specific records? They might mention sicknesses but that doesn't tell us much. Famines and plagues were more of an issue in Anatolia and Syro-Palestine, whose migrants, as I stated, are thought to have brought sicknesses into Egypt repeatedly through dynastic history. Syro-Palestine was much more susceptible to drought, famine, and plague. Those three go hand in hand.

This plague was more devastating than any other, if the Hittite records are to be believed. Furthermore, it was not only Manetho who recorded a plague in Egypt during the period of the Exodus, but also Cheremon, Lysimachus and Apion .

It may have been particularly devastating to Hatti, but there is no means to clarify if the sickness reaching into Egypt in the time of Amunhotep III "was more devastating than any other."

And once again, there is no possible way Manetho, Lysimachus, or any other Classical writer could have possessed a true working knowledge of events that occurred millennia before their own time. You can look at them as historians as we look at historians today, but it's not realistic. A reading of Manetho's or Herodotus' accounts of Egypt will reveal how far off the mark they tended to be.

Absence of evidence does not constitute proof of absence

You're absolutely right, but there is plentiful evidence to suggest the Hebrews arose within the Levant and did not come from without at any point. Read Finkelstein and Dever.

Reeves' argument is anything but ridiculous. It is based on the letter of an Amarna queen whose husband had died to a Hittite king, asking him for a son to marry and become king of Egypt. The name of the deceased king, Niphururiya, can be linked directly to Akhenten, and the queen complained that she had no sons to appoint as king of Egypt. Nefertiti and Akhenaten had no sons, only daughters. This, together with Manetho's statement, make a convincing argument for Nefertiti having outlived Akhenaten.

At no point did I call Reeve's argument ridiculous. As I stated, and as you quoted me, I read and enjoyed his book. I merely said that there were better specialists to turn to, and that remains true. Reeves is a solid historian and researcher, but you should know his book Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet is not well accepted by his colleagues. In fact it's controversial for numerous reasons. That may be appealing to the layperson, but this is why I mentioned Cyril Aldred and Aidan Dodson, who are two of the leading figures in the study of the royal lines. It's not just the letter to the Hittites but a number of other issues with which Egyptologists have taken exception to Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet. The seminal work on Akhenaten's reign is till Aldred's Akhenaten: King of Egypt, although Aidan Dodson has made significant inroads.

Reeve's presents a good argument for Nefertiti as the letter writer (2001: 174-177). Many scholars before him have done the same, and no one can outright dismiss Nefertiti for this role. I myself do not dismiss her outright, but I do not agree with Reeves. Most specialists on the Amarna Period and the years following Akhenaten also disagree with the argument.

The Hittite rendering of "Nibhuruiya" is a better linguistic fit for Tutankhamun's throne name Nebkheperure than it is for Akhenaten's Neferkheperure-Waenre, in my opinion, but ultimately I agree the name is a minor matter. The letter lists the Egyptian queen as "Dahamunzu," which as Reeve notes fits no known Egyptian queen and is in fact most likely a rendering of the Egyptian ta Hmt nsw, "the king's wife."

It's the situation itself at which we must look closer. We know that the Hittite King Suppiluliuma was besieging the Syrian city of Karkamis when the letter reached him, and the year was around 1327 BCE based on Hittite chronology (Collins 2007: 48). Akhenaten reigned 1353-1336 BCE and Tutankhamun 1333–1324 BCE, so the seige of Karkamis clearly fits better with the time of Tutankhamun and his queen, Ankhesenamun.

But of course these chronologies are not picture-perfect and can be fudged a number of years in either direction. I understand that. Certainly not as drastically as Rohl would have us believe, but there is a margin for error. More telling is what the mystery queen says in her letter:

My husband has died, a son I have not. But to thee, they say, the sons are many. If thou wouldst give me one son of thine, he would become my husband. Never shall I pick out a servant of mine and make him my husband. I am afraid!

This cannot describe the situation in which Nefertiti found herself at the death of Akhenaten. Two male heirs were still alive: Smenkhkare and Tutankhaum. They may or may not have been her sons and probably were not--the weight of evidence is against that--but the fact remains that they were still legitimate heirs. Many have posited that Smenkhkare may have predeceased Neferiti and that is indeed possible, even though we have him definitively listed as King Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu Ankhkheperure in an inscription found in Tut's tomb which also lists his wife as the "Chief Wife Meritaten, may she live forever." Meritaten was Akhenaten and Nefertiti's eldest daughter.

The letter fits much better with the situation in which Ankhesenamun found herself, however. Tut was the very last in the long line of Tuthmoside kings, and there were no male heirs, period. The line died with Tutankhamun. That left only powerful courtiers to assume the throne, an idea clearly distasteful to Ankhesenamun, who did not want to take a "servant of mine" as a husband. And as it happened, a "servant" ended up taking the throne: the powerful official named Ay. After that Ankhesenamun disappeared from history, so her fears were realized.

[Riaan]

Hi Kmt, your effort is much appreciated. I have been studying your earlier posts in this section and you certainly devote a lot of time to your answers. I've likewise had to spend quite some time formulating my responses.

Yes, I concur the Hyksos were in Egypt long before they wrested control of the north. I am familiar with evidence dating to Dynasty 12 and not Dynasty 11, though I do not discount the latter. I simply can't recall evidence from Dynasty 11. Small matter, really. I always think of the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan, and to illustrate the point I'm going to borrow a couple of images I prepared from a post I wrote in another forum. Note the red circle in this image from one of the walls in the tomb. The glyphs I've circled refer to the elaborately garmented man bending over the ibex or gazelle (whatever the animal is) as a HKA-xAst, or "foreign leader." It is the singular form of the more familiar HKA-xAswt, "foreign leaders," the original term from which the word "Hyksos" comes. This man and his retinue are dressed in the garb by which the Egyptians typically depicted Asiatics (Palestinians) at that time. Khnumhotep II lived in early Dynasty 12 during the reign of Amenemhat I (1994-1964 BCE), so around 280 years before the Hyksos gained power over Lower Egypt and points south.

That establishes the background. The point is, playing with arbitrary figures preserved in the Old Testament will not prove much. The Old Testament is not a history book and should never be used independently as one. More importantly, however, this early "foreign leader" seen in Khnumhotep II's tomb and all of the Hyksos who followed him cannot be tied to the Hebrews in any archaeological or textual context. They were worshipers of Baal and other pagan Canaanite deities, and practiced the Canaanite religion. They even went so far as to blend Egyptian religion into it and also worshiped the Egyptian god Set, whom they saw as similar to their Baal. The material culture the Hyksos left behind in the Delta--and they left an enormous amount--simply shows a markedly different culture from the Hebrews in almost every notable way. There can be no connection.

One may argue that there is no historical value in the Old Testament, but when aspects of history proclaimed in the OT matches actual history, it cannot be sumirally dismissed. Your approach seems to be that the Old Testament has no historical value and, by implication, that everything in it was invented. Secondly, if the Hyksos rulers had been enslaved for 200 years, very little of their original culture would have remained, I would assume. They would have become 'Egyptianized'.

As far as I know the tomb of Prince Tuthmose has never been found, so I won't try to pull your leg there. However, he is well attested in the historical record during the reign of Amunhotep III and is thought to have died sometime during the third decade of that king's reign. That, then, would've been around 1358 BCE. I say this because no monuments depicting the living prince can be dated to after that time. He was dead.

The reason I am certain of his death is this object:

The inscription running along the side reads: sA nswt smsw sm DHwtyms mAa-xrw, "Eldest king's son, Sem-priest, Tuthmose, the justified."

This object is in the collection of the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin and is displayed among other artifacts belonging to Prince Tuthmose. It depicts a mummy lying upon its sarcophagus or on a funeral bier, and with a ba-bird draped over its chest. The ba was the divine aspect or soul that returned to the tomb every night and represented the person's character or personality in life (the non-corporeal elements of the individual). Mummiform figures such as this include a ba-bird to ensure that the ba will find its way back before sunset (actual mummies have been found with carved ba-birds affixed to their chests, too).

There was only one reason to prepare such an object for a person: that person was dead. No other explanation is possible. It would serve no purpose to the living.

The titles fit with this prince, too. Tuthmose was the oldest son of Amunhotep III and was a Sem-priest who was prominent in the Serapeum cult at Saqqara. This large necropolis southwest of Cairo is probably where Tuthmose's tomb will be found one day. A number of artifacts belonging to him have been found in and around the Serapeum.

It's important to note that we have no definitive identification for the prince's mother, but she was almost certainly Tiye, the principal wife of Amunhotep III. In the New Kingdom, as with other periods, the oldest son borne of the king and the king's chief wife was almost always the crown prince, next in line for the throne. Other inscriptions confirm that Tuthmose was sA nswt n Xt.f, "king's son of his body," establishing Tuthmose's father as, of course, Amunhotep III.

In other words, there is nothing whatsoever in the historical record to suggest that Tuthmose was a foundling or an adopted child. The evidence clarifies he was of royal Egyptian birth. Furthermore, the evidence clarifies he was provided a traditional Egyptian burial, and most likely in Saqqara, sometime in the third decade of his father's reign. There is no cause to try to identify Prince Tuthmose as the biblical Moses.

Granted, the object you refer to presents an excellent argument for Tuthmosis having been known to have died. I also reject the OT notion that Moses was an adopted child. This brings me to the 10th plague, the death of the firstborns. I intend to later post this as a separate topic, but for now, several researchers (e.g. Ian Wilson), whether fringe or not, have speculated that the death of the firstborns may have been related to the ultimate sacrifice that could be made in ancient times, the sacrifice of a firstborn. In context of the Amarna Exodus, the hundreds of statues erected by Amenhotep would have had no effect on the plague, leaving only one way to appease the gods, this ultimate sacrifice. According to Josephus, several historians of that time recorded the role of Amenhotep's high priest in the affairs of the Exodus - this priest most likely instructed Amenophis to issue the decree for the sacrifice of the firstborns.

First in line would have been the firstborn of Amenhotep, this very Prince Tuthmosis. No doubt he would have learned about this beforehand, and would have escaped. He would have ensured that his 'death' was made public, otherwise nobody else would have done the same.

You often reject Manetho's version of accounts as inaccurate, but seem to have missed the fact that Manhetho (3rd century BCE) would have had access to the vast records of the Library of Alexandria. This library was partially destroyed by the Romans in 48 BCE and finally by the Muslims in AD 642.

To give you yet another example of an accurate account by Manetho, he recorded the following:

"Josephus, AA I.26 (229)]:

"as if he [Manetho] would have the Egyptian multitude, that had the leprosy and other diseases, to have been mixed with us, and that they were condemned to fly out of Egypt together; for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious king's name, though on that account he dared not set down the number of years of his reign, which yet he had accurately done as to the other kings he mentions; he then ascribes certain fabulous stories to this king, as having in a manner forgotten how he had already related that the departure of the shepherds for Jerusalem had been five hundred and eighteen years before; for Tethmosis was king when they went away. ... This king wanted to become a spectator of the gods, as had Orus, one of his predecessors in that kingdom, desired the same before him; he also communicated that his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake in of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and the knowledge of future events ... how this namesake of his told him that he might see the gods, if he would clear the whole country of lepers and of the other impure people."

The reference to a priest called Amenophis serving a king of the same name unequivocally equates the pharaoh Amenophis with Amenhotep III. Amenhotep III had a much loved scribe and courtier called Amenhotep, son of Hapu, whom the king greatly honoured by granting him his own funerary temple, overlooking the funerary temple of Amenhotep III himself [Oxford History of Ancient Egyypt, p. 271]. This scribe’s reputation as sage survived well into the Ptolemaic period [britannica, Egypt, Ancient, Amenhotep III]. The names Papis and Hapu are similar but not be identical, which most certainly is merely a matter of semantics. The affection the pharaoh had for this servant of his seems to have been widely known." This priest was referred to by other historians as such as Cheremon (Phritiphantes) and Lysimachus (Hammon), and in the Koran (Haman) [Koran, XXVIII.6, XXIX. 39] (I listed them here . Manetho's reference to Amenhotep's high priest places the Exodus in the time of Amenhotep III.

I will not trifle myself with Rohl, who has made sweeping and unsupported revisions to a rather well-established timeline. I am familiar with the basics of his premise, which is along the lines of Ahmed Osman though not quite as daft. This is a typical fringe maneuver: if known facts don't fit your theory, twist the facts to make them fit. This is not how proper research protocols are observed. Look deeper into the academic research on the Amarna Letters, Labayu, and Dadua: you will see where the argument falls apart.

If you wish a specific reference to a statement I make, please ask for one. I admit I do not always provide one because often I am working from memory and twenty-five years of research. However, if you review my posts, you will see that I do often cite my sources. I have a couple to cite momentarily. I appreciate that you do often cite your sources, which is laudable, but an orthodox fellow such as I also takes note of the dubious source of some sources. Such as David Rohl. And the Old Testament. And Manetho.

I do not agree with Rohl's general revised chronology, only with his identification of Labayu etc. Can you refer me to specific refutations of Rohl's theory on Labayu?

The empirical data for this would be? we can't even be sure how much truth exists behind the legend of David. There is some evidence to suggest he was real, and as Israel Finkelstein has posited, he may have actually been a warlord who rose to power in the Early Iron Age. I suggest reading Finkelstein's David and Solomon. It will tell you about the Tel Dan inscription mentioning the House of David (2006: 264-65), and you will also learn what all respected biblical scholars have to admit: there is no extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Solomon, any more than there is for Moses.

Rohl's argument about Labayu and Dadua would present a historical record of their existence. Solomon is reported to have received as wife a daughter of a pharaoh of Egypt. This unprecedented event is possibly alluded to by Manetho, who recorded that Moses (Osarsiph) sent ambassadors to the 'shepherds' in Jerusalem, explaining the situation in Egypt and asking for their assistance in his war against Egypt. If Egypt had indeed been in dire straights due to the devastating plague, it would make sense that an Egyptian delegation may have approached these 'rulers' and made a pact, possibly sealed by the exchange of women in marriage. That brings me to my argument that Nefertiti and the fabled Queen of Sheba (the daughter of Sheba who became queen of Egypt - there is no place or country called 'Sheba') were one and the same person (read here ). Bathsheba was taken by David from Uriah, the Hittite. Nefertiti, who was given to Amenhotep/Akhenaten as bride, would therefore have known much about the Hittite kingdom - this may very well be the reason why she approached the Hittite king for a husband.

Point taken. I was thinking of Egypt only, but the Hittites have to be taken into account.We can't even be sure what the plague was, which was the point of my argument. Our word "plague" as applied to the ancient Near East simply means some sort of swiftly spreading and rapidly killing illness. This happened throughout dynastic history, and often when Syro-Palestinians were migrating into Egypt. The sickness in the time of Amunhotep III is thought to have happened this way but no one can be sure what started it or exactly where it started. Yes, it appears there was a dangerous sickness inflicting the Nile Valley in the time of this king. As I mentioned, it is thought to have occurred not long before the Hyksos gained power (Dodson 2004: 114). I suggest John Nunn's Ancient Egyptian Medicine and Joyce Filer's Disease for a good grounding on sicknesses in ancient Egypt, as well as the realities of what we have called "plague." I cited both of these authors in my earlier post.

Thanks, but the fact remains that a particularly devastating disease or plague had struck the Middle East, including Egypt, during the reign of Amenhotep III.

I have personal theories like everyone else, but when I write about one, I will describe it as such. Plagues have always been found in the ancient world wherever human populations existed. That's basic fact. I think you know that as well as I do. What are these specific records? They might mention sicknesses but that doesn't tell us much. Famines and plagues were more of an issue in Anatolia and Syro-Palestine, whose migrants, as I stated, are thought to have brought sicknesses into Egypt repeatedly through dynastic history. Syro-Palestine was much more susceptible to drought, famine, and plague. Those three go hand in hand. It may have been particularly devastating to Hatti, but there is no means to clarify if the sickness reaching into Egypt in the time of Amunhotep III "was more devastating than any other." And once again, there is no possible way Manetho, Lysimachus, or any other Classical writer could have possessed a true working knowledge of events that occurred millennia before their own time. You can look at them as historians as we look at historians today, but it's not realistic. A reading of Manetho's or Herodotus' accounts of Egypt will reveal how far off the mark they tended to be.

See my note above regarding the Library of Alexandria. He would have had access to the best sources one can imagine.

You're absolutely right, but there is plentiful evidence to suggest the Hebrews arose within the Levant and did not come from without at any point. Read Finkelstein and Dever.

I have. Their arguments make sense, but are not beyond questioning.

At no point did I call Reeve's argument ridiculous. As I stated, and as you quoted me, I read and enjoyed his book. I merely said that there were better specialists to turn to, and that remains true. Reeves is a solid historian and researcher, but you should know his book Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet is not well accepted by his colleagues. In fact it's controversial for numerous reasons. That may be appealing to the layperson, but this is why I mentioned Cyril Aldred and Aidan Dodson, who are two of the leading figures in the study of the royal lines. It's not just the letter to the Hittites but a number of other issues with which Egyptologists have taken exception to Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet. The seminal work on Akhenaten's reign is till Aldred's Akhenaten: King of Egypt, although Aidan Dodson has made significant inroads.

I will get myself a copy of Aldred's King of Egypt.

Reeve's presents a good argument for Nefertiti as the letter writer (2001: 174-177). Many scholars before him have done the same, and no one can outright dismiss Nefertiti for this role. I myself do not dismiss her outright, but I do not agree with Reeves. Most specialists on the Amarna Period and the years following Akhenaten also disagree with the argument.

The Hittite rendering of "Nibhuruiya" is a better linguistic fit for Tutankhamun's throne name Nebkheperure than it is for Akhenaten's Neferkheperure-Waenre , in my opinion, but ultimately I agree the name is a minor matter. The letter lists the Egyptian queen as "Dahamunzu," which as Reeve notes fits no known Egyptian queen and is in fact most likely a rendering of the Egyptian ta Hmt nsw, "the king's wife."

It's the situation itself at which we must look closer. We know that the Hittite King Suppiluliuma was besieging the Syrian city of Karkamis when the letter reached him, and the year was around 1327 BCE based on Hittite chronology (Collins 2007: 48). Akhenaten reigned 1353-1336 BCE and Tutankhamun 1333–1324 BCE, so the seige of Karkamis clearly fits better with the time of Tutankhamun and his queen, Ankhesenamun.

But of course these chronologies are not picture-perfect and can be fudged a number of years in either direction. I understand that. Certainly not as drastically as Rohl would have us believe, but there is a margin for error. More telling is what the mystery queen says in her letter:

My husband has died, a son I have not. But to thee, they say, the sons are many. If thou wouldst give me one son of thine, he would become my husband. Never shall I pick out a servant of mine and make him my husband. I am afraid!

This cannot describe the situation in which Nefertiti found herself at the death of Akhenaten. Two male heirs were still alive: Smenkhkare and Tutankhaum. They may or may not have been her sons and probably were not--the weight of evidence is against that--but the fact remains that they were still legitimate heirs. Many have posited that Smenkhkare may have predeceased Neferiti and that is indeed possible, even though we have him definitively listed as King Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu Ankhkheperure in an inscription found in Tut's tomb which also lists his wife as the "Chief Wife Meritaten, may she live forever." Meritaten was Akhenaten and Nefertiti's eldest daughter.

The letter fits much better with the situation in which Ankhesenamun found herself, however. Tut was the very last in the long line of Tuthmoside kings, and there were no male heirs, period. The line died with Tutankhamun. That left only powerful courtiers to assume the throne, an idea clearly distasteful to Ankhesenamun, who did not want to take a "servant of mine" as a husband. And as it happened, a "servant" ended up taking the throne: the powerful official named Ay. After that Ankhesenamun disappeared from history, so her fears were realized.

The real issue is the name of the deceased pharaoh in the Queen's letter: Reeves suggests that it was Niphururiya (matching Akhenaten's throne name) that had died [Reeves, p. 175], while other sources quote Niphuria/Bibhuria (Internet sources). Can you clarify this?

[Riaan]

Found a good article on the topic, which can be purchased on the Internet:

The Death of Niphururiya and Its Aftermath

Author(s): Trevor R. Bryce

Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 76 (1990), pp. 97-105

Bryce presents a good overview of current theories up to that point, namely that Niphururiya referred to 1) Akhenaten 2) Smenkhare and 3)Tutankhamun.

He states that "Niphururiya / Nibhururiya is a precise rendering in cuneiform of Tutankhamun's prenomen, Nebkheperure; by contrast, Akhenaten's prenomen was Neferkheperure." He does not elaborate on the difference translations of the pharao's name (Niphururiya vs Nibhururiya), but uses the former throughout the text. The 'f' of the former certainly seems to correspond to Akhenaten's pronem, while the 'b' would match Tutankhamun's. As I have stated before, the exact translation is probably the key to the identity of this pharaoh.

The names can be compared as either

Ni-phururiya

Neferkhe-perure

Ni-bhururiya

Nebkhe-perure,

or

Niph-ururiya

Neferkhep-erure

Nibh-ururiya

Nebkhep-erure,

but in either case there is no equivalent 'f' in Tutankhamun's prenomen.

Bryce concludes with the statement "Chronological and historical considerations clearly rule out the identification of Niphururiya with either Akhenaten or Smenkhare. We are left with only one acceptable conclusion - that Niphururiya is to be identified with Tutankhamun."

He makes no mention of Manetho's kinglist (yes, I know, no searious researcher would consider anything written by Manetho), which clearly lists a proper female ruler during the Amarna era (I have listed the rulers here ). That female ruler could only have been Smenkhare, which would then have been Nefertiti.

To repeat, Manetho as priest would have had access to the records stored in the Library of Alexandria, which would arguably have been more accurate than the scraps of information that remained for us to decipher.

[Riaan]

Found a good article on the topic, which can be purchased on the Internet:

The Death of Niphururiya and Its Aftermath

Author(s): Trevor R. Bryce

Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 76 (1990), pp. 97-105

The 'f' of the former certainly seems to correspond to Akhenaten's pronem, while the 'b' would match Tutankhamun's. As I have stated before, the exact translation is probably the key to the identity of this pharaoh.

Did not read the footnotes properly - according to Bryce, the correct form of the name can be transcribed as either Niphururiya or Nibhururiya. Can anyone explain, specifically in context of the sigificance of the transcription?

[Riaan]

Final note, from Wikipedia page on Dakhamunzu

Alternative Egyptian[18] or Hittite[19] chronologies however make Akhenaten a more likely candidate for Nibhururiya. Comparison between the probable times of death for Akhenaten (after the vintaging of wine, i.e. at the end of September or the start of October) and Tutankhamun (in December, based on floral and faunal evidence from his tomb) with the account found in the Hittite annals (which places the reception of Dakhamunzu's first letter in late autumn) also seems to favour the identification of Nibhururiya with Akhenaten[20]. Further evidence to support this identification might come from one of the Amarna letters which seems to deal with the same military actions against Amqu that are reported in the Hittite annals. Since the Amarna archives seems to have been abandoned and closed by the end of Tutankhamun's reign, the presence of this letter there suggest he cannot have been the recently deceased pharaoh from the annals[21]. The recently proposed identification of an Egyptian official named Armaa, who appears in a Hittite document relating events from Mursili II's regnal years 7 and 9, as Horemheb in his function of viceroy and commander in Asia (i.e. before his accent to the throne) would also rule out Tutankhamun as possible candidate for Nibhururiya [22].

[18] McMurray, W., Towards an Absolute Chronology for Ancient Egypt, downloadable in pdf here

[19, 22] Miller, J.L., "Amarna Age Chronology and the Identity of Nibhururiya in the Light of a Newly Reconstructed Hittite Text", Altorientalische Forschungen, 34 (2007), downloadable in pdf here

[20,21]: Reeves, Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet

[Riaan]

Came across a good discussion on the identity of the female ruler who succeeded Akhenaten here (Wikipedia: Neferneferuaten), including Manetho's account.

In Ref. 13 of this article it is claimed that "A funerary shabti of Nefertiti was found at Amarna in the 1980s and showed that Nefertiti died and was buried as only a Queen or 'King's Wife' rather than as a pharaoh in her own right."

As far as I am aware, though, here mummy has never been found.

An interesting comment was made on Asia, the wife of the Pharaoh [George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, LXVI, vs. 11]

"Asia, daughter of Mozahem. That commentators related that, because she believed in Moses, her husband cruelly tormented her, fastening her hands and feet to four stakes, and laying a large millstone on her breast, her face, at the same time, being exposed to the scorching beams of the sun... At length, God received her soul".

Asia is "tradionanlly known as Asiya, one of the four perfect women, the other being Mary, the mother of Jesus, Khadija, the wife of the holy Prophet, and Fatima his daughter" [The Holy Quran, Yusuf Ali, note to same verse].

Nefertiti was certainly one of the most beautiful women of her time and would certainly have qualified as a 'perfect woman'. If she had indeed been the queen who wrote to the Hittite king for husband (and was discovered), she may very well have been murdered, most likely by Ai.

[kmt_sesh]

My apologies for taking so long to reply, Riaan. I haven't had time for substantial posting over the last several days, but I appreciate your patience. I'm stealing some time now only because I'm home early from work, due to another tiresome Chicago snowstorm.

One may argue that there is no historical value in the Old Testament, but when aspects of history proclaimed in the OT matches actual history, it cannot be sumirally dismissed. Your approach seems to be that the Old Testament has no historical value and, by implication, that everything in it was invented. Secondly, if the Hyksos rulers had been enslaved for 200 years, very little of their original culture would have remained, I would assume. They would have become 'Egyptianized'.

I don't know of any evidence in the archaeological or historical record to support that a sizable number of Hyksos were enslaved, only to grow in power again and leave Egypt for Jerusalem. Many definitely were enslaved--we have that in the historical record--but for the most part the Hyksos were wiped out. The events are recorded in inscriptions such as that preserved by Ahmose, son of Abana, an admiral or general under Ahmose I. The inscription mentions in part:

Then Sharuhen was besieged for three years. His majesty despoiled it and I brought spoil from it: two women and a hand. Then the gold of valour was given me, and my captives were given to me as slaves.

The war ended there for the Hyksos, at Sharuhen in the Negev Desert (in ancient Egyptian terms, Sharuhen was a border town in south-western Canaan). After that time, Ahmose I and the kings who succeeded him in Dynasty 18 went on attacking the Levant (as well as Nubia) and took back many prisoners of war as slaves, but subsequent Asiatics should not be confused with the Hyksos, although the culture and background were the similar.

I also don't want to say that the Old Testament has no historical value. Even I am not that much of a minimalist. What I do stress, however, is that one should never use the Old Testament as a source unto itself. It is not that reliable, even though it does contain kernels of fact. A couple of other examples might help to illustrate this.

• As you know, Exodus (and other Books) specifically mention the Delta city of Pi-Ramses, sometimes simply referred to as Raamses or other variations. This is one of the cities where the Jews were said to have been forced into labor. Exodus 1:14 speaks of how the Egyptians "made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field." Archaeology has of course identified this ancient city in the eastern Delta, at the modern site of Qantir (ancient pr-ramss, "City of Ramesses"). If we hold the Old Testament to its word, then, we know historically that the town was founded by Seti I (1296-1279 BCE) and was made the administrative capital by his son Ramesses II (1279-1212 BCE). Given that, we cannot date the Exodus to before this time because Pi-Ramses did not exist before then (Shaw & Nicholson 1995: 237; Tyldesley 2001: 95-96). This is in fact one of the reasons scholars have tried to place the Exodus in the time of Ramesses II even though the Old Testament does not provide the name of the pharaoh, and the argument is substantiated by archaeology of the Holy Land that clarifies the Hebrews did not exist in the fourteenth century BCE when the Old Testament tries to place it (1 Kings 6:1).
  
• As you probably also know, 1 Kings 14:25-26 speaks of "Shishak king of Egypt" invading Judah, sacking Jerusalem, and taking away the treasures of the temple in the time of Rehoboam. This Judaic king is the first, if I remember correctly, for whom scholars have extra-biblical proof, and "Shishak king of Egypt" is none other than Sheshonq I Hedjkheperre-setepenre (948-927 BCE), who reigned from Tanis in Dynasty 22. We know from his commemorative inscription at Karnak that Sheshonq I did in fact invade the Levant at that time, but the unusual fact is, in this extensive Karnak relief in which Sheshonq I lists all of the cities and peoples he conquered in the Levant, not a single Judaean site is among them, including Jerusalem (Finkelstein & Silberman 2006: 73). The most likely scenario is that Jerusalem at the time was at best a backwater settlement not worthy of Sheshonq I's time and expense to assault, so he skipped it. The Book of Kings is filled with such inconsistencies--the sorts of things written at a later time, probably post-exile, to manufacture some of the history of Judah.
  

I'm sorry I took us far afield but I wanted to illustrate how the Old Testament preserves at least some actual historical events, but usually not with accuracy. The careful researcher must look beyond the Bible to flesh out the whole truth and obtain a reliable understanding of events.

Granted, the object you refer to presents an excellent argument for Tuthmosis having been known to have died. I also reject the OT notion that Moses was an adopted child. This brings me to the 10th plague, the death of the firstborns. I intend to later post this as a separate topic, but for now, several researchers (e.g. Ian Wilson), whether fringe or not, have speculated that the death of the firstborns may have been related to the ultimate sacrifice that could be made in ancient times, the sacrifice of a firstborn. In context of the Amarna Exodus, the hundreds of statues erected by Amenhotep would have had no effect on the plague, leaving only one way to appease the gods, this ultimate sacrifice. According to Josephus, several historians of that time recorded the role of Amenhotep's high priest in the affairs of the Exodus - this priest most likely instructed Amenophis to issue the decree for the sacrifice of the firstborns.

In my earlier translation of the brief inscription on this figurine, I must clarify that I made a mistake. It was not sA nswt smsw sm DHwtyms mAa-xrw, "Eldest king's son, Sem-priest, Tuthmose, the justified" but sHD sA nswt sm DHwtyms mAa-xrw, "Inspector, king's son, Sem-priest, Tuthmose, the justified." I came across a formal translation subsequent to my earlier post and saw the mistake I had made.

I know of no evidence from ancient Egypt in which the firstborn was given up for sacrifice. There is only limited evidence for human sacrifice in prehistoric Egypt, and in the entire 3,000-plus years of the dynastic period we have certain evidence of human sacrifice of Egyptians only in Dynasty 1, when harem women, servants, and perhaps family members were sacrificed and buried with their kings (Wengrow 2006: 218-219; Wilkinson 1999: 265-266). The Egyptians appeared hesitant in their culture to sacrifice or kill their own kind, and the same thing is mirrored in other cultures of the ancient Near East, but of course this kindness was not always extended to foreigners; there is pretty firm evidence to tell us the Egyptians would sacrifice prisoners of war, for example, to deities like Amun.

In all honesty I cannot think of a single bit of evidence that would lead us to suggest a king of Egypt would have sacrificed one of his own children, particularly a first-born son (who in most periods was the crown prince and in direct line for the throne). Sacrificing a first-born son would, in fact, most likely create possible dangerous contentions over who would next ascend to the throne. This was just not something done in the ancient Egyptian culture.

The closest thing I can think was a criminal case in Dynasty 20, the so-called harem conspiracy of Ramesses III in which a secondary queen named Tiye plotted to get her son, Pentaweret, on the throne. He was not the crown prince of Ramesses III and probably had no realistic expectation to be crowned king, so his mother went to extremes and planned to assassinate Ramesses III. We really can't be sure if the plot worked but we know the conspirators were revealed, because the records of the court case in which they were tried and convicted have survived to our time. As with the other highest-ranking members of the conspiracy, Tiye included, Pentaweret was not executed but was allowed to take his own life, which the court records preserved for us (Vernus 2003: 113). I mention the harem conspiracy of Ramesses III because it is the only case in dynastic history as far as I'm aware in which we know a prince was forced to lose his life.

I tend to take a more prosaic approach to the tenth plague, which I agree is the most difficult to explain historically and scientifically. This is my own personal belief, so take that for what it's worth, but I believe the actual event was a severe plague or sickness in which many children died. Children were often the first to go when sickness struck the Nile Valley. Much later, when the biblical Exodus was being recorded in Judah, I feel the scribes who penned it were drawing on an event far in the past but dimly remembered, the details lost.

You often reject Manetho's version of accounts as inaccurate, but seem to have missed the fact that Manhetho (3rd century BCE) would have had access to the vast records of the Library of Alexandria. This library was partially destroyed by the Romans in 48 BCE and finally by the Muslims in AD 642.

The Library of Alexandria was a Greek affair. It did not even exist until early in the Ptolemaic Period, under the commission of either Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II. It's important to understand that this sort of institution, in which knowledge was stored and shared among the public at large and visiting scholars and thinkers of the day, was not at all something the Egyptians themselves would've appreciated. Their approach was quite the opposite, in fact: knowledge was power, and it was not shared except among the elite. Few people in Egypt were even literate. The closest the Egyptians came to this was the pr-anx, "House of Life," which was a portion of all large state temples in which religious writings and other sacred literature were stored, and where temple scribes were probably trained. The Library of Alexandria was built around 1,000 years after the time in which we situate the Exodus--even farther back if we push it back to the reign of Amunhotep III. While I have no doubt that the Library contained writings about Egypt and its historical events, and while it's certainly possible Manetho conducted research there (depending on exactly when he lived and exactly when the Library went up, neither of which are clear), I also have no doubt that reliable records of events from a millennia earlier were not to be found in the Library. I stress "reliable." Histories were not written, kept, and maintained in the ancient world in the same way we do today. The Library of Alexandria probably had more literature pertaining to foreign cultures, given the many great foreign thinkers who went there.

...he also communicated that his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake in of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and the knowledge of future events ...

I can accept that "Papis" is a memory of Amunhotep son of Hapu. You were correct in your information about him and about how he was revered a millennia after his own time. I have no argument there. Now, this is my own speculation because I have not studied the nature of the phenomena in enough detail to comment authoritatively or to provide citation, but I've always believed Manetho and Josephus and other Classical writers were not drawing on Egyptian records when discussing the Exodus, but on Jewish records. Many of these writers were probably well acquainted with the basic precepts of the Judaic religion. The earliest versions of the Old Testament had been penned long before their own time and many of them were probably familiar with it. I believe they were trying to make it fit into Egyptian history rather than working from evidence that any of it had actually occurred.

I do not agree with Rohl's general revised chronology, only with his identification of Labayu etc. Can you refer me to specific refutations of Rohl's theory on Labayu?

LOL I was trying to do that from the same night I had written that post. I have poked and prodded my library since then and have come up empty, so I cannot as of yet cite my source. I'm still looking. If I remember correctly Kenneth Kitchen has disputed Rohl's claims about Labayu and Dadua, so it may lie in one of Kitchen's books (he wrote the seminal study of the Third Intermediate Period, a copy of which I have, but a perusal of that book didn't help me).

That's about all the time I can set aside tonight, Riaan. I am going to try to return to our debate because you wrote more than I responded to, but for now other matters require my attention--and I've already compiled yet another mind-numbingly long post.

[Riaan]

Hi kmt, your effort is tremendously appreciated! Must confess, I almost suspected that you had become fed-up with this topic! I am also quite busy at present, but will study your latest response and see if I can add something meaningful.

Best, Riaan

[mlauzon]

I mean no disrespect to Jewish tradition or those who believe in it and I hope this does not become a brawl but is there any archaeological evidence that Moses was a real person? Do any details of his life correspond with established facts? There have been some posts here recently that directly challenge his existence. I have never had a reason to question the stories and always assumed there was real person or persons behind them. It is clear though that the issue is far from settled.

I'll state this first, I am an Atheist, so I obviously don't believe in that book of fairy tales. However, check out the following documentary if you haven't already seen it:

The Exodus Decoded (2006)

[kmt_sesh]

...

He states that "Niphururiya / Nibhururiya is a precise rendering in cuneiform of Tutankhamun's prenomen, Nebkheperure; by contrast, Akhenaten's prenomen was Neferkheperure." He does not elaborate on the difference translations of the pharao's name (Niphururiya vs Nibhururiya), but uses the former throughout the text. The 'f' of the former certainly seems to correspond to Akhenaten's pronem, while the 'b' would match Tutankhamun's. As I have stated before, the exact translation is probably the key to the identity of this pharaoh.

...

I kept reading this over and over and was wondering where you were getting the "f" from. I think I got it now, but please correct me if I am not stating the case correctly. I'm thinking you're reading the "ph" in Niphururiya as an "f" sound, as is common in English (philosophy, photograph, etc). Now, I admit upfront I have never been trained in cuneiform, much less the version used by the Hittites to write their own Indo-European language, but I am quite certain these should be read as specific sound units: Nip-huru-riya (or Nib-huru-iya). The phonemes "p" and "b" are very similar in pronunciation and can be somewhat indistinct, which explains the possibility of either the "p" or the "b" in the way this name was recorded in Hittite.

The "h" that follows the "p" or "b" is most likely not spoken like a standard "h" in English, but is simply being used as a placeholder for one of numerous h-sounds that existed in all of these languages. The ancient Egyptian language contained four distinct "h" sounds, for instance, ranging from softly puffed to gutturally voiced. In the manuel de codage employed for transliterating ancient Egyptian, we use the characters h, H, x, and X to represent these sounds. Manuel de codage exists so that we can use a standard computer keyboard to represent certain characters with diactritics that otherwise cannot be typed, at least without special fonts.

I am quite certain the same is true for representing characters in the transliterations employed for writing languages preserved in ancient cuneiform, although from what little experience I've had with cuneiform, it is a quite different system from what we use with Egyptian hieroglyphs. I'm willing to bet "Niphururiya" is simply how the name is written informally in the literature, and that the "h" is meant to represent a guttural sound. In transliterating ancient Egyptian Tut's throne name could be written as nb-xpru-ra (sometimes also as nb-xprru-ra, depending on the linguist's preference). I think this is very close to either Niphururiya or Nibhururiya, neither of which actually contain the "f" phoneme. And even if the "h" represents a standard "h" sound as in "hotel" or "hot," it is not meant to be voiced as a voiceless labiodental fricative "f" with the "ph" pronounced together.

Of course, it would be extremely helpful for someone with extensive training in Hittite cuneiform to pop in and say yes or no, but I doubt that will happen. Moreover, this may not be where you were getting the "f" in the first place, in which case I've just wasted the time of everyone who's had to suffer through this post.

[kmt_sesh]

I'll state this first, I am an Atheist, so I obviously don't believe in that book of fairy tales. However, check out the following documentary if you haven't already seen it:

The Exodus Decoded (2006)

Yes, The Exodus Decoded, our gift from Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici. This special gave me a headache, as well as a lot of laughter. It was really bad and I hope no one takes it as fact. Jacobovici is obviously not a trained historian and knows how to make a splashy TV special, but not a coherent historical theory. While he does draw on certain aspects of factual history and old theories to which others have turned to explain the Exodus, some of his arguments are simply absurd.

The best example is Jacobovici's explanation for the tenth plague, which both Riaan and I have discussed a bit. It is the most difficult of the plagues to explain scientifically and historically. Jacobovici? In his TV special he argued that the firstborn was given the cozy bed while the other children of the family had to sleep any old place, higher up than the bed. The sickness that invaded Egypt hung in vapors or such low to the ground, and so the firstborn breathed them in and died, while the other kids were spared.

This is complete nonsense. It has absolutely no basis in fact. It did, however, give me a hell of a chuckle.

[TheSearcher]

Yes, The Exodus Decoded, our gift from Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici. This special gave me a headache, as well as a lot of laughter. It was really bad and I hope no one takes it as fact. Jacobovici is obviously not a trained historian and knows how to make a splashy TV special, but not a coherent historical theory. While he does draw on certain aspects of factual history and old theories to which others have turned to explain the Exodus, some of his arguments are simply absurd.

The best example is Jacobovici's explanation for the tenth plague, which both Riaan and I have discussed a bit. It is the most difficult of the plagues to explain scientifically and historically. Jacobovici? In his TV special he argued that the firstborn was given the cozy bed while the other children of the family had to sleep any old place, higher up than the bed. The sickness that invaded Egypt hung in vapors or such low to the ground, and so the firstborn breathed them in and died, while the other kids were spared.

This is complete nonsense. It has absolutely no basis in fact. It did, however, give me a hell of a chuckle.

You do realise that some people will take it as fact, just because it was shown on television, right?

[kmt_sesh]

You do realise that some people will take it as fact, just because it was shown on television, right?

Yes, sad but true. And both the History Channel and Discovery Channel have a penchant for passing off all programming as hard-core fact, which truly annoys me. I suppose it's meant to be in the spirit of giving everyone a pulpit to share their views, but it's easy to carry that too far. The producers of these programs need to clarify a lot more distinctly when something being presented is not supported by science and evidence, and I usually don't see that happen.

Jacobovici's stuff is not so bad compared to a lot of garbage, like the alien astronaut special that the History Channel tends to regurgitate over and over for the viewing pleasure of the intellectually vacuous, but still, The Exodus Decoded was about as factually reliable to ancient Egypt as the movie 300 was to the Spartans at Thermopylae--the main difference being, 300 was a damn entertaining movie.

[Riaan]

Of course, it would be extremely helpful for someone with extensive training in Hittite cuneiform to pop in and say yes or no, but I doubt that will happen. Moreover, this may not be where you were getting the "f" in the first place, in which case I've just wasted the time of everyone who's had to suffer through this post.

Hi Kmt, you are right - this was indeed my assumption ('f'). It would indeed help if an expert could comment!

[Riaan]

...we know historically that the town was founded by Seti I (1296-1279 BCE) and was made the administrative capital by his son Ramesses II (1279-1212 BCE). Given that, we cannot date the Exodus to before this time because Pi-Ramses did not exist before then (Shaw & Nicholson 1995: 237; Tyldesley 2001: 95-96).

I can't really comment - is this argument irrefutable? Note that 1279 BCE is only 60 years or so after the reign of Akhenaten. The laying of bricks could then very well have referred to the latter period of enslavement.

As you probably also know, 1 Kings 14:25-26 speaks of "Shishak king of Egypt" invading Judah, sacking Jerusalem, and taking away the treasures of the temple in the time of Rehoboam. This Judaic king is the first, if I remember correctly, for whom scholars have extra-biblical proof, and "Shishak king of Egypt" is none other than Sheshonq I Hedjkheperre-setepenre (948-927 BCE), who reigned from Tanis in Dynasty 22. We know from his commemorative inscription at Karnak that Sheshonq I did in fact invade the Levant at that time, but the unusual fact is, in this extensive Karnak relief in which Sheshonq I lists all of the cities and peoples he conquered in the Levant, not a single Judaean site is among them, including Jerusalem (Finkelstein & Silberman 2006: 73). The most likely scenario is that Jerusalem at the time was at best a backwater settlement not worthy of Sheshonq I's time and expense to assault, so he skipped it. The Book of Kings is filled with such inconsistencies--the sorts of things written at a later time, probably post-exile, to manufacture some of the history of Judah.

In my scenarion, the following. According to several ancient historians (summarized here ), the slaves successfully revolted against Amenhotep under the leadership of Moses, and plundered the Egyptians. The book of Exodus informs us that the Egyptians were so relieved to see the Hebrews leave Egypt, that they showered them with 'gifts'. [Ex 12:33-36], "The Israelites asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favourably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians." This appears to be nothing but a poorly disguised rationalization and attempted refutation of the well-known fact at the time when the Book of Exodus was being written, that the Hebrews had plundered Egypt of its riches exactly as described by the historians quoted by Josephus.

David (Dadua) must have wrestled control of Jerusalem from the 10 tribes of Israel and his son Solomon later built the Temple. An obvious place for the riches taken from the Egyptians would have been this very Temple. The name Shishak is phonetically similar to Sheshonq, but that is the only link. The name Shishak [strong's #7895, Shiyshaq or Shuwshaq] can be translated either as destuction [strong's Hebrew #7591, sheiyah, or #7722, show] + humbled [#7807, shach] = Destroyer and humbler, or more likely joy/rejoicing [#7797, siys] + destroyed [#7807] = Humbler of the joy, with an obvious implication. That person most likely would have been Horemheb, who must have known where the plundered riches of Egypt were stored.

[qoute]I know of no evidence from ancient Egypt in which the firstborn was given up for sacrifice.

You are right, and neither did the Hebrews. However, Amenhotep's statues erected to placate Sekhmet would have had no effect and the Egyptians (along with the slaves) continued to die in hordes. I have no doubt that he resorted to this ultimate sacrifice, which would explain why Tuthmosis as the firstborn would have had to flee for his life.

A very interesting reference to an Egyptian king named Busiris is made by St Augustine [City of God, p. 774-5]. Busiris lived during the period 'from the departure of Israel down to the death of Joshua' [i.e. he was associated with the Exodus]. According to St Augustine this king sacrificed his guests to his divinities (Zeus), 'to avert drought' as stated in the comment. Several references are given: Apollodorus: Bibliotheca 2,5,9; Diodorus Siculus: Bibliotheca Historica 4,18; Ovid: Metamorphoses 9,182; Ars Amat. 1, 647-52. The fact that he can name several ancient references implies that it was widely known what had taken place in Egypt. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that famine had been raging in Egypt for nine years when a seer of Cyprus, called Phrasius, arrived in Egypt and advised him to sacrifice a stranger to Zeus every year. The name Phrasius is similar to the name sacred scribe Phritiphantes, another name for Amenophis' scribe [Josephus, AA. I.32 (289)].

The name Phritiphantes appears to be derived from the Greek word emphreto [Greek #1714], meaning to set of fire or burn up, and Phantes. Phantes was the son of Aegyptus, which can be argued to be the same as Amenhotep III (this again is a long story and I have not yet had time to post it on my website). Phritiphantes would then mean "Burn Phantes", or in terms of the names we know, "Burn Prince Tuthmosis, your firstborn".

In all honesty I cannot think of a single bit of evidence that would lead us to suggest a king of Egypt would have sacrificed one of his own children, particularly a first-born son (who in most periods was the crown prince and in direct line for the throne). Sacrificing a first-born son would, in fact, most likely create possible dangerous contentions over who would next ascend to the throne. This was just not something done in the ancient Egyptian culture.

Desparate times call for desparate measures. This plague threatened the survival of the Egyptian nation, so Amenhotep would have resorted to any means possible to appease the gods. This sacrifice would have been the greatest shame in the history of Egypt, as the firstborns would have been killed to no avail. No wonder every attempt was later made to erase Amarna from Egyptian history. Manetho recorded that Amenhotep did not engage the slaves in battle, but fled to Nubia. It would seem that sanity did prevail in the end, and Amenhotep 'invaded' Nubia with all Egyptians who had not yet contracyed the disease. If Manetho is to be believed, the period from the biginning of the nightmare to the return of the Egyptian army from Nubia lasted 13 years (Busiris' nine years).

The Library of Alexandria was a Greek affair. It did not even exist until early in the Ptolemaic Period, under the commission of either Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II. ... While I have no doubt that the Library contained writings about Egypt and its historical events, and while it's certainly possible Manetho conducted research there (depending on exactly when he lived and exactly when the Library went up, neither of which are clear), I also have no doubt that reliable records of events from a millennia earlier were not to be found in the Library. I stress "reliable." Histories were not written, kept, and maintained in the ancient world in the same way we do today. The Library of Alexandria probably had more literature pertaining to foreign cultures, given the many great foreign thinkers who went there.

It seems to be well known that the Library of Alexandria flourished in the thrid century BCE, but can it be proven that it did not exist before Ptolomy I or II? The rest of your argument remains speculation, in my opinion.

I can accept that "Papis" is a memory of Amunhotep son of Hapu. You were correct in your information about him and about how he was revered a millennia after his own time. I have no argument there. Now, this is my own speculation because I have not studied the nature of the phenomena in enough detail to comment authoritatively or to provide citation, but I've always believed Manetho and Josephus and other Classical writers were not drawing on Egyptian records when discussing the Exodus, but on Jewish records. Many of these writers were probably well acquainted with the basic precepts of the Judaic religion. The earliest versions of the Old Testament had been penned long before their own time and many of them were probably familiar with it. I believe they were trying to make it fit into Egyptian history rather than working from evidence that any of it had actually occurred.

I find it extremely odd that Manetho could be 100% correct in one half of a sentence, but entirely wrong about the rest. There is no evidence whatsoever in the Bible of a scribe or high priest advising the Pharaoh to drive the polluted slaves from the country.

LOL I was trying to do that from the same night I had written that post. I have poked and prodded my library since then and have come up empty, so I cannot as of yet cite my source. I'm still looking. If I remember correctly Kenneth Kitchen has disputed Rohl's claims about Labayu and Dadua, so it may lie in one of Kitchen's books (he wrote the seminal study of the Third Intermediate Period, a copy of which I have, but a perusal of that book didn't help me).

It is often stated that Rohl's revised chronology is not accepted by scholars. If you do happen to come across a more specific rejection of Rohl's Labayu argument, please let me (us) know!

[Riaan]

A very interesting reference to an Egyptian king named Busiris is made by St Augustine [City of God, p. 774-5]. Busiris lived during the period 'from the departure of Israel down to the death of Joshua' [i.e. he was associated with the Exodus]. According to St Augustine this king sacrificed his guests to his divinities (Zeus), 'to avert drought' as stated in the comment. Several references are given: Apollodorus: Bibliotheca 2,5,9; Diodorus Siculus: Bibliotheca Historica 4,18; Ovid: Metamorphoses 9,182; Ars Amat. 1, 647-52. The fact that he can name several ancient references implies that it was widely known what had taken place in Egypt. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that famine had been raging in Egypt for nine years when a seer of Cyprus, called Phrasius, arrived in Egypt and advised him to sacrifice a stranger to Zeus every year. The name Phrasius is similar to the name sacred scribe Phritiphantes, another name for Amenophis' scribe [Josephus, AA. I.32 (289)].

The name Phritiphantes appears to be derived from the Greek word emphreto [Greek #1714], meaning to set of fire or burn up, and Phantes. Phantes was the son of Aegyptus, which can be argued to be the same as Amenhotep III (this again is a long story and I have not yet had time to post it on my website). Phritiphantes would then mean "Burn Phantes", or in terms of the names we know, "Burn Prince Tuthmosis, your firstborn".

PS The name Phantes seems to be a variant of the Greek word Phantazo (Strong's #5324), meaning to appear, a sight. This word is used to describe the sight which Moses saw (the so-called burning bush), implying that Phantes was a (mocking) nickname given to Moses after his burning-bush revelation.