Atossa once again.
Allan Martens Andersen
in the area of ancient genealogy and DFA research. I have done some
thinking and I am just now reading the LGA book by Settipani, who
himself has been very helpfull to me. I have seen two charts in LGA, pg.
144, which shows that Atossa, the mother of Kassandane, was in fact
also the aunt of Kyros, father of another Atossa, the one who might be
the daughter of a certain Nitetis, daughter of the egyptian Pharaoh
Haibre. In another chart we see how a female name, namely that of Apama
spreads through the generation. See the chart on pg. 139 in LGA. That
means that girls were named after a grandmother or an aunt, or even a
more distant relative, this means further, that Atossa might have been
named after her own aunt, that is if Kambyses I, King of Anshan, had a
sister named Atossa, which he might have had, even though we dont know
anything about that. One cant expect to know every person in a family,
even a royal family, which lived 2500 years ago.
As to Herodotos, I guess that he must be the Herodias, mentined in my
encyclopedia. And this Herodias lived in the 400“s BC. That again means,
that he was 100 years away from the persons, whom he wrote about, he
must have had a source of some kind. Why would the historian have to
believe more in Herodias, than in an egyptian or persian historian, I
dont see why, but you are wellcome to enlighten me on that point.
Kyros may have named his daughter Atossa after a paternal relative, a
sister or an aunt perhaps, also named Atossa, but that doesnt say
anything about the mother of Atossa, Kyros“ daughter, and there I quite
follow the LGA-reasoning. That Atossa quite probably may have been the
daughter of Nitetis. We dont know, I agree, but we need more research on
this point.
Allan M. Andersen.
Francisco Antonio Doria
I think that the crucial point here (or one of few the crucial points,
perhaps) is: had Neithiti left issue, and given the exceptional character
of an Egyptian marriage, shouldn't we expect to find Egyptian names in
the immediate Achaemenid issue?
Notice that this would even strengthen dynastic claims.
Let me stress that I believe that there is an Egyptian link, but I now
agree that the claim through Neithiti is a weak one.
chico
Chris Bennett
Within Ptolemaic Egypt, for example, its very rare for Greek names to cross
over, and when they did they were very dominant names (Ptolemaios -- the
king; Arsinoe, Berenice -- names of deified queens with established cults).
A couple of ancestral Persian names did get incorprated into the Seleucid
onomasticon -- notably Apama -- but they are rare. Dougherty relied on this
characteristic when he argued that "Nitocris", an Egyptian name given by
Herodotus as a wife of Labynetos, could not possibly be the name of
Nabnidus' wife but must be a transference from the name of her mother, who
Dougherty supposed was an Egyptian princess daughter of Necho II married by
Nebuchadnezzar.
Incidentally, I am aware of two ancient Egyptian names still in modern
(though not common) use: Phineas (Panehasy) and Humphrey (via Onouphrios to
Wennefer), I would be interested to learn of more.
Where do you think an Egyptian link is most likely to be found?
Chris
Francisco Antonio Doria <fad...@rio.com.br> wrote in message
news:E11p8Fz-...@copa.rio.com.br...
Francisco Antonio Doria
>A couple of ancestral Persian names did get incorprated into the Seleucid
>onomasticon -- notably Apama -- but they are rare.
I was thinking of this example when I made my comment. Usually cognatic
names enter a family to stress an important relationship or even a
dynastic claim. An Egyptian link would fit the picture.
>Dougherty relied on this
>characteristic when he argued that "Nitocris", an Egyptian name given by
>Herodotus as a wife of Labynetos, could not possibly be the name of
>Nabnidus' wife but must be a transference from the name of her mother, who
>Dougherty supposed was an Egyptian princess daughter of Necho II married by
>Nebuchadnezzar.
I think this case should be better investigated. If we take a close look
there might be several such situations.
Frankly, I have no idea of where to look for an Egyptian link, but if I
were - someday, maybe - to look for it I would make a systematic search
through the genealogies of non-regal, noble Egyptian families as
documented e.g. in stellae and pay attention to possible royal marriages.
The idea is (I have already presented it) that of a connection through a
`buffer layer' - Royal family in Egypt - high nobility in Egypt - high
nobility in country A - Royal family in country A.
Even if Egyptology is a much explored field, I sincerely very much doubt
that one has looked at those families (exhaustively, systematically) in
search for the evidence of such a link.
Chris Bennett
duplication. Apparently I have dropped out of the mailing list, so my
original reply, which was copied to it, will not be seen by people who
subscribe to it.
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: Francisco Antonio Doria <fad...@rio.com.br>
To: Chris Bennett <cben...@adnc.com>; <GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 1999 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: Atossa once again.
> Chris Bennett remarked:
>
> >A couple of ancestral Persian names did get incorprated into the Seleucid
> >onomasticon -- notably Apama -- but they are rare.
>
> I was thinking of this example when I made my comment. Usually cognatic
> names enter a family to stress an important relationship or even a
> dynastic claim. An Egyptian link would fit the picture.
>
I don't think so. In the case of the Seleucids, their realm was the old
Persian empire, so the Iranian aristocracy continued to carry some weight.
In the case of the Achaemenids, Egypt was just a province. They had to make
nice to the Egyptians (sometimes), but the core of their attention was
Persia, they had no particular reason to stress an Egyptian connection.
<snip>
>
> Frankly, I have no idea of where to look for an Egyptian link, but if I
> were - someday, maybe - to look for it I would make a systematic search
> through the genealogies of non-regal, noble Egyptian families as
> documented e.g. in stellae and pay attention to possible royal marriages.
> The idea is (I have already presented it) that of a connection through a
> `buffer layer' - Royal family in Egypt - high nobility in Egypt - high
> nobility in country A - Royal family in country A.
Yes, that is what is attractive about the HPM connection. If the Ptolemaic
HPMs could be connected to the earlier family, and the Berlin genealogy of
that family be proved to be more reliable than it appears to be, then in
essence you would have just such a bridge. There is also a fair bit of
evidence for the Egyptianising of foreign families -- the Rio catalogue
edited by Kitchen contains an example of a Hurrian family IIRC -- and a
little evidence of the farming out abroad of daughters of Egyptian familes
(e.g. the marriage of an apparent Egyptian aristocratic lady to the king of
Ugarit). Still, getting a pharaonnic descent out of all this is quite a
trick, since there are very few cases where we can trace the descents of
royal sons and daughters. I know of a vizier Hori, great grandson of Ramses
II through Khamwese and Hori both HPMs, and the number of such descents
available definitely picks up in Libyan times, as you can se from Kitchen's
book.
>
> Even if Egyptology is a much explored field, I sincerely very much doubt
> that one has looked at those families (exhaustively, systematically) in
> search for the evidence of such a link.
>
I think you are right. However, where we do know of family intermarriage it
usually comes from the descendants of that marriage, who must therefore be
in the Egyptian cultural sphere. Its not at all clear to me howthis dynamic
of the record is going to allow us to get back out of Egypt.
And (for some reason I have lost the standard > indentations patching
Chico's two notes together)
> My last message was abruptly cut by a bug, so please add this last remark
to it. Kenneth Kitchen once showed me several rather long genealogies of
noble, non-royal Egyptian families that he had been able to piece up from
several primary sources. I well recall that one of those extended over 15
generations - I counted them in front of him. So, there may perhaps be a
database to delve upon. (The book, a collection of articles, was offered to
my friend and colleague Prof. Maria Beltrão, head of the archaeology sector
in my university; Kitchen came here to this country to prepare the catalogue
of our Egyptian collection - the stellae form the second or third largest
collection outside Egypt & Europe, so he told me; I acted as a kind of
liaison officer between this project and several agencies. I have asked
Maria about the book; she told me she misplaced it. We are going to have
dinner together on Monday; I'll ask her about it again.)
CJB: I would be interested in the reference, I don't recall having seen
it. As to the 15 generation family, that could be the Neseramun family
discussed in Kitchen's Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, which is 15
generations long?? There is now a longer one, the family of Basa Third
Prophet of Hathor at Dendera, 25 generations long, but all local to Dendera
(except for his 18th ancestor, Nebwennef, High Priest of Amun at Thebes
under Ramses II), hence isolated and in principle unverifiable, although on
internal evidence very plausible.
Chris
Chris Bennett
> > were - someday, maybe - to look for it I would make a systematic search
> > through the genealogies of non-regal, noble Egyptian families as
> > documented e.g. in stellae and pay attention to possible royal
marriages.
> > The idea is (I have already presented it) that of a connection through a
> > `buffer layer' - Royal family in Egypt - high nobility in Egypt - high
> > nobility in country A - Royal family in country A.
>
Further to this: I have recently come across an article which may be of
interest (R. C. Steiner, "Bitte-Ya, daughter of Pharaoh, and Bint(i)-'Anat
daughter of Ramses II" Biblica 79:3 (1998) 394 -- Biblica is now available
online at http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/index.htm, but this particular
article is the only article omitted from the 1998 online collection).
Steiner discusses a certain Bithiah, daughter of pharaoh, mentioned as the
wife of Mered in a collection of genealogies of the tribe of Judah. He
argues that the name Bithiah disguises an original "Bint-Anath", known as a
daughter of Ramses II. Noting that the ancestor of the line discussed,
Ezra, is in some way a relative of Caleb, who was a companion of Joshua, and
that Mered's grandsons were named as founders of the cities of Gedor, Socor
and Zanoah, he argues that Mered must be dated to the 12/11th centuries BC.
On this basis, he suggests that Bithiah was a D20 princess Bint-Anath,
perhaps a [grand]daughter of Ramses III.
FWIW there is at least one known case of an Egyptian princess, Nebetia
daughter of the king's son SiAtum, who was almost certainly a king's
granddaughter (likely, of Amenhotep III), bearing the title s3t nsw --
king's daughter -- probably indicating that she was born in the lifetime of
her grandfather. However I see no reason the Judahites would have
conformed to this nicety of Egyptian practice, I think they would have been
happy to accord the title to any descendant of a pharaoh.
Anyway, I've just been checking what Chronicles actually has to say about
her. Its not much. The relevant text is as follows (KJV):
(17) And the sons of Ezra were, Jether , and Mered , and Epher , and Jalon :
and she bare Miriam , and Shammai , and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa .
(18) And his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor , and Heber the
father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah . And these are the sons
of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh , which Mered took .
(19) And the sons of his wife Hodiah the sister of Naham , the father of
Keilah the Garmite , and Eshtemoa the Maachathite .
It is clear that she was a mother of Mered's sons, but the wording is
unclear (at least in the KJV and to me) as to exactly who they are, it
rather looks like they have been elided at some point. However, one online
interpretation I found suggests that Bithiah is the "she" of verse 17, and
certainly this works if you assume the genealogies are constructed according
to a nesting principle. OTOH, Steiner clearly regards the descendants of
Ishbah listed in verse 18 as descendants of a second wife of Mered,
presumably Hodiah. Whatever, these genealogies are totally outside my
expertise to evaluate and I present them solely FWIW.
Nevertheless, there does appear to be a prima facie case here for an
Egyptian princess with descendants amongst the Judahites. Link her up to
the line of David somehow, and the problem of an Egyptian DFA becomes
reduced to that of a Davidic DFA. Whether we're better off or not is up to
you to judge!
Chris