DAVID ROHL : LEGEND
Aron
I'll say, it is full of absolute nonsense. In the preface alone, he decides
to revise the chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties so that they fit Bible
Chronology instead of the other way around. And on top of that, his Bible
chronology is completely wrong aswell. The result is that he has Abram to
Joseph around 1700-1600 BC and he places the Amarna period to around 1050
BC. All that with no evidence to back it up. This is just in his preface,
what follows is to some degrees worse, though there are some good
observations, much of his good work is simply borrowed from others. His own
work is not very good though.
Alan M Dunsmuir
<a.mal...@virgin.net> writes
and Kings' book and TV spectacular, would have confidently expected.
What was unexpected was that he actually had some supporters post here,
abusing us for expressing skepticism at his idiosyncratic chronologies
and identifications!
The man is an utter charlatan. Is he stil claiming an academic
association with University College, London, or have they by now managed
to dump him from the Ph.D. course he was supposed to be undertaking?
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
Kevin
Aron wrote in message <70g6ko$r8u$1...@nclient1-gui.server.virgin.net>...
>I'm currently reading this book and will post a review this week. So far,
>I'll say, it is full of absolute nonsense. In the preface alone, he decides
>to revise the chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties so that they fit Bible
>Chronology instead of the other way around. And on top of that, his Bible
>chronology is completely wrong aswell. The result is that he has Abram to
>Joseph around 1700-1600 BC and he places the Amarna period to around 1050
Both the title page and the Introduction to "Legend" make it clear that it
is
Volume 2 of a series. Rohl's evidence for revising Egyptian chronology is
given at great length in Volume 1, "A Test Of Time". Now you may choose
to agree or disagree with that evidence. But at least do him the justice of
reading it, before you condemn him for not giving the evidence all over
again in "Legend" !
Kevin Wright.
Aron
>Both the title page and the Introduction to "Legend" make it clear that it
>is
>Volume 2 of a series. Rohl's evidence for revising Egyptian chronology is
>given at great length in Volume 1, "A Test Of Time". Now you may choose
>to agree or disagree with that evidence. But at least do him the justice
of
>reading it, before you condemn him for not giving the evidence all over
>again in "Legend" !
Don't worry. I'll read it in full before giving my opinion here. But as a
person (me) who has studied the Egyptian's of the second millenium BC and
the evolution of Judaism and Hinduism extensively and extremely thoroughly,
I can't agree with Rohl and his work has alot of conjured up evidence that
doesn't work in the real world. Joseph, for instance, has been traced to
Yuya. Yuya and his title 'Sef' makes Yusef. There is no other period when
such a character can be found. Even his corpse suggests he was foreign (My
research suggests he was from Urkesh of Mitanni).
Rohl places the Exodus prior to 1500 BC, if that were the case, Israel would
have existed for a much longer period and there would be a lot of evidence
to suggest that, but there isn't! Rohl takes the Bible chronology far to
seriously. Any real study will show that the historical David and Solomon
were predecessors of Moses and the real identities of each of the were
Tuthmosis III, Amonhotep III and Akhenaten respectively. Just study their
lives with what is described in the Bible, they are identical. What's more
is, Rohl says that he has found the burial chamber of the Egyptian wife of
Solomon. This is nonsense as an Egyptian princess was never sent to marry
any man called Solomon. I could go on, but I'll finish this analysis of
Rohl's book later.
A
Stephen Heron
in london about the last book where he presented his views and the
others aginst him presented their. at the end of the day it was reconed
that he might have a point. while they disagreed over some points over
all they agreed that there was quite a bit of evidence for his points
and that he seemed to be able to back them up quite well. this was all
held at UCL under the osiris (may not be spelled right but they are a
group that debate archeology and have speakers in) group.
so over all after haveing seen this debate, and it wasent all a snow job
just to push his own agenda (unlike a certian mr hancock) as both the
pannel and some of the floor put him on the spot quite a few times, i am
more for him than aginst him. would love to hear some arguments aginst
him here.
--
Stephen Heron
Alan M Dunsmuir
<kev...@softhome.net> writes
>Both the title page and the Introduction to "Legend" make it clear that it
>is
>Volume 2 of a series. Rohl's evidence for revising Egyptian chronology is
>given at great length in Volume 1, "A Test Of Time". Now you may choose
>to agree or disagree with that evidence. But at least do him the justice of
>reading it, before you condemn him for not giving the evidence all over
>again in "Legend" !
How does this chronology of Rohl's stack up with the (now authenticated
- see Kuniholm et al. "Anatolian tree rings and the absolute chronology
of the eastern Mediterranean, 2220-716 BC", pp780-3, Nature, vol 381,
27th June, '96) date of 1628 BC for the Santorini eruption? With
'Pharoahs and Kings' he was all of 450 years out on that, because he was
insisting on a late absolute date for the Exodus.
Does he continue to ignore dendrochronological evidence, or has he
happily moved all his dates back by half a millennium without this
disturbing his story at all?
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
Nubkhas
>person (me) who has studied the Egyptian's of the second millenium BC and
>the evolution of Judaism and Hinduism >extensively and extremely thoroughly,
>I can't agree with Rohl and his work has alot of conjured up evidence that
>doesn't work in the real world. Joseph, for >instance, has been traced to
>Yuya.
Rohl says Joseph is Yuya? I don't think so.
That would not mesh very well with his placing the Exodus in the 13th Dynasty.
>. Yuya and his title 'Sef' makes Yusef. There >is no other period when
>such a character can be found.
I have never heard of a title called "Sef". What does it mean?
> Even his corpse suggests he was foreign >(My
>research suggests he was from Urkesh of >Mitanni).
Interesting. Could you elaborate?
>Rohl places the Exodus prior to 1500 BC, if that were the case, Israel would
>have existed for a much longer period and there would be a lot of evidence
>to suggest that, but there isn't! Rohl takes the Bible chronology far to
>seriously. Any real study will show that the historical David and Solomon
>were predecessors of Moses and the real identities of each of the were
>Tuthmosis III, Amonhotep III and >Akhenaten respectively.
Nonsense!
> Just study their
>lives with what is described in the Bible, they >are identical.
Utter rubbish!
> What's more
>is, Rohl says that he has found the burial >chamber of the Egyptian wife of
>Solomon. This is nonsense as an Egyptian >princess was never sent to marry
>any man called Solomon. I could go on, but >I'll finish this analysis of
>Rohl's book later.
Solomon was a very great king. The king's of Egypt, in his time, were far from
being great.
They would probably have been only too happy to oblige him with a princess.
Kevin W
<<SNIP>> Rohl takes the Bible chronology far to
>seriously. Any real study will show that the historical David and Solomon
>were predecessors of Moses and the real identities of each of the were
>lives with what is described in the Bible, they are identical. <<SNIP>>
Oh yes of course, I should have realized!!!
Obviously Tutankhamen was Jesus.
And maybe Hatshepsut was really the Queen of Sheba...
I look forward to reading your review.
Kevin Wright.
Aron
>Obviously Tutankhamen was Jesus.
No, but we have a similiar story when it comes to their demise.
>And maybe Hatshepsut was really the Queen of Sheba...
No, Queen of Sheba was actually Queen Tiye, Amonhotep III's wife.
Aron
>Rohl says Joseph is Yuya? I don't think so.
No I said that, Keith Sadler says it and so does Ahmed Osman. Rohl puts
Joseph six hundred years before Yuya. As for the rest of the stuff in your
reply, go study instead of saying 'rubbish'.
>
Aron
>Does he continue to ignore dendrochronological evidence, or has he
>happily moved all his dates back by half a millennium without this
>disturbing his story at all?
>--
>Alan M Dunsmuir
I mean, Rohl completely disregards all outside evidence. Mitanni went down
in the 14th C B.C because Akhenaten did not support them. This was why his
wife abandoned him at the same time, she was from Mitanni. Rohl puts
Akhenaten around 1022 B.C, three hundred years later!!!! What a moron!
Kevin W
>How does this chronology of Rohl's stack up with the (now authenticated
>- see Kuniholm et al. "Anatolian tree rings and the absolute chronology
>of the eastern Mediterranean, 2220-716 BC", pp780-3, Nature, vol 381,
>27th June, '96) date of 1628 BC for the Santorini eruption? With
>'Pharoahs and Kings' he was all of 450 years out on that, because he was
>insisting on a late absolute date for the Exodus.
As I recall, Kuniholm's paper did not conclusively identify the 1628 BC
climatic event with the Thera eruption. As a good scientist, he admitted
there was still room for doubt by stating that "definitive confirmation
must await the identification of Theran eruption products in a dated ice
core, as has now been achieved for several more recent eruptions."
Renfrew reiterated the challenge in the same issue of Nature.
In the 1997 Progress Report of the Aegean Dendrochronology Project,
at http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/97news/97adplet.html, Kuniholm
admits that as long as "archaeologists in the field and in the museums,
have misgivings about what radiocarbon and dendrochronology can do for
them, then whatever we do--however much we the 'producers' believe
in it--will be subject to nagging doubts, especially when our results do
not fit the established ceramic chronologies and king-lists." At least
he's working to change that situation.
So how about it? Has anyone yet identified that elusive single grain
of Theran tephra dateable to 1628 BC in a Greenland ice core?
If found, it would be the 'smoking gun' that destroys Rohl's chronology,
along with other revisionist chronologies such as Peter James et al.
And if it is not found... well, perhaps it just doesn't exist?
As long as there is any room for doubt, many Egyptologists will be
reluctant to accept the 1628 BC dating. Kuniholm admitted that his
"revision will lead to large changes in Old World chronology and
history in the 18th-15th centuries BC." Specifically, Theran pumice
found by Bietak at Tell ed-Dab'a synchronises the Thera explosion with
the start of the 18th dynasty. So it looks like Kuniholm's dating will
shift the 18th dynasty some 60-80 years earlier in time... and that has
the effect of breaking synchronisms between 18th/19th dynasty
chronology and the rest of the ancient Near East, and/or requires
the introduction of one or more completely unknown and unattested
pharoahs to fill a gap somewhere in the 18th dynasty royal line.
These changes will surely be as anathema to Egyptologists as
Rohl's proposed changes in the other direction. It looks like the
cure is as bad as the disease!
>Does he continue to ignore dendrochronological evidence, or has he
>happily moved all his dates back by half a millennium without this
>disturbing his story at all?
Rohl is unrepentent. The 'new chronology' dates he gives in the
Introduction to "Legend" look the same as those in "Test of Time".
However this is not really relevant to "Legend" which deals with
a much earlier time period. His date for the unification under Menes
is 2781 BC, which is not too divergent from the conventional dating
(e.g. 2920 BC - Baines and Malek.) Well within the margin of
disagreement among Egyptologists in fact! Mind you he arrives at
2781 from AD 139 (helical rising of Sirius on the first day of the
Egyptian calendar - Censorinus) minus two Great Sothic Years
of 1460 years. It is surprising how he accepts Sothic dating when it
suits him, but rejects it when it doesn't. Anyway, even if "Test of Time"
is all wrong, it doesnt automatically invalidate "Legend". So read it
with an open mind.
--- Kevin Wright.
Kevin W
>
>>Obviously Tutankhamen was Jesus.
>
>No, but we have a similiar story when it comes to their demise.
You mean, Tut was crucified? Wow, that will give Bob Brier the plot
for another book...
>
>>And maybe Hatshepsut was really the Queen of Sheba...
>
> No, Queen of Sheba was actually Queen Tiye, Amonhotep III's wife.
Whoops, my mistake. Now let me get something else straight.
If Akhenaten was Moses, then Smenkare must have been Aaron, right?
--- Kevin Wright.
Nubkhas
I have already done my "homework". I have done the prerequisite studying.
That's why I am able to say "rubbish" with so much authority. Sadler may have
his theory and Osman. You, too. So what? It's all purely
unwarranted speculation. It is already a stretch to conclude that Yuya was any
sort of foreigner at all. There is absolutely no proof that this man wasn't
born in Egypt. This I know for sure and there isn't one single argument that
any of you could give me that I would find compelling. That I know for sure,
too. So if you want to argue with an "uninformed" person like myself, I am
right here. I'' even start the ball rolling: The Bible says Joseph's mummy
was transported back to Canaan, the place of his birth. Yuya's mummy was found
in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV46), his funerary equipment covered
with representations of the gods of the Egyptians. Not much indication there
of a man who clung to his identity as a Hebrew. And, if Joseph and Yuya were
one in the same, why does the Bible, although it mentions the names of some of
Joseph's children, not mention that his daughter became a powerful queen of
Egypt?
Doesn't it stand to reason that this would have been too interesting and ironic
a part of the Joseph saga to omit if it were true? Because I really am
informed about ancient Egypt, I recognize many elements in the story of Joseph.
It is just like other Egyptian novels and Joseph is a fictional character.
Too bad you can't see this.
Aron
>I have already done my "homework". I have done the prerequisite studying.
>That's why I am able to say "rubbish" with so much authority. Sadler may
have
>his theory and Osman. You, too. So what? It's all purely
>unwarranted speculation. It is already a stretch to conclude that Yuya was
any
>sort of foreigner at all. There is absolutely no proof that this man
wasn't
>born in Egypt.
So a man that was born and raised in Egypt, whose name nobody could spell in
his burial chamber and who wasn't buried in the typical Osiran posture. I'll
remind you, if you have done any study at all, that he was actually living
at Akhmim on the otherside of the delta and his whole family was a non-royal
dynasty that lived there all the time. They in turn, I say, came from
Mitanni and it was they who forged the links between Egypt and Mitanni at
the time. In fact, there seems to be a alot of Mitanni blood in the 18th
dynasty itself, this cannot be refuted.
Aron
>You mean, Tut was crucified? Wow, that will give Bob Brier the plot
>for another book...
No!!!!! Evidence suggests they were both stoned and hung, but thats not
conclusive.
>>>And maybe Hatshepsut was really the Queen of Sheba...
>>
>> No, Queen of Sheba was actually Queen Tiye, Amonhotep III's wife.
>
>Whoops, my mistake. Now let me get something else straight.
>If Akhenaten was Moses, then Smenkare must have been Aaron, right?
We don't know! Maybe Aaron, like Moses, is completely fictional.
Alan M Dunsmuir
<kev...@softhome.net> writes
>These changes will surely be as anathema to Egyptologists as
>Rohl's proposed changes in the other direction. It looks like the
>cure is as bad as the disease!
Only to somebody who believes that previous subjective errors and
fudges, and accumulated misconceptions are to held to be as important as
objective scientific evidence.
Nobody other than dyed-in-the-wool traditional Egyptologists, with a
life-time reputation to lose, will for a moment hang on to the 'old'
chronology. Even Colin Renfrew admits that overwhelmingly, reason has
swung behind the 1628 date.
And absolutely nobody - other than Rohl and his blindest disciples -
would ever think of claiming that a scholarly argument about pushing
dates in the mid-second millennium back by about 100 years to
accommodiate the new dendrochronological evidence is in the same ball-
park as accepting his nonsensical chronologies.
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
SaddamHusseinsUncle
wrote:
>Now let me get something else straight.
>If Akhenaten was Moses
i havent got any evidence, just intuition....
Aron
>>Now let me get something else straight.
>>If Akhenaten was Moses
Akhenaten called himself 'the True Son', which is not to far from being
Moses/Mosis.
Nubkhas
>any
>>sort of foreigner at all. There is absolutely no proof that this man
>wasn't
>>born in Egypt.
>So a man that was born and raised in Egypt, whose name nobody could spell in
>his burial chamber and who wasn't buried in >the typical Osiran posture.
The only one I ever saw who said that Yuya's name was spelled differently in
attestations was Ahmed Osman--and I don't know how he knows this. Perhaps
he'll explain. The spelling of the name should have been fixed at the time of
the manufacture of the "Marriage " commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III, when
he introduced his new wife and her parents. By "Osiran posture" I take it you
mean with the arms crossed over the breast. Why should Yuya have been buried
in this attitude? He wasn't a pharaoh. Other Egyptians weren't mummified in
this attitude, either.
> I'll >remind you, if you have done any study >at all, that he was actually
living
>at Akhmim on the otherside of the delta
Akhmim, according to my map of Egypt, was nowhere near the Delta.
> and >his whole family was a non-royal
>dynasty that lived there all the time.
"Dynasties" are usually royal houses, although not all the members start out
as royal.
I can't see how the word "dynasty" would pertain to the family of Yuya.
> They in turn, I say, came from
>Mitanni
Perhaps they did--but to say so is only speculation, nothing more. There is
absolutely no proof of a connection between Yuya and Mitanni. And Joseph did
not come from Mitanni, either.
> and it was they who forged the links >between Egypt and Mitanni at
>the time. In fact, there seems to be a alot of >Mitanni blood in the 18th
>dynasty itself, this cannot be refuted.
It certainly can! There is not one scrap of evidence that there is even a
single drop of Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there
couldn't possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
Nubkhas
What "Moses"? Akhenaten's actual name was "Amenhotep". His elder brother's
name was Thutmose, actually "Djehutymes".
Steve Whittet
Hi Marianne,
In article <19981021113723...@ng103.aol.com>, nub...@aol.com
says...
>
>>...that Yuya was any sort of foreigner at all.
>>...no proof that this man wasn't born in Egypt.
>
>>a man that was born and raised in Egypt,
>>whose name nobody could spell in his burial chamber
>>and who wasn't buried in the typical Osiran posture.
>
>The only one I ever saw who said that Yuya's name
>was spelled differently in attestations was Ahmed Osman
>--and I don't know how he knows this.
>Perhaps he'll explain.
>The spelling of the name should have been fixed
>at the time of the manufacture of the "Marriage "
>commemorative scarabs of Amenhotep III, when
>he introduced his new wife and her parents.
>By "Osiran posture" I take it you
>mean with the arms crossed over the breast.
>Why should Yuya have been buried in this attitude?
>He wasn't a pharaoh. Other Egyptians weren't mummified in
>this attitude, either.
>
>>I'll remind you, if you have done any study at all,
>>that he was actually living at Akhmim on the other side
>>of the delta
>
>Akhmim according to my map of Egypt, was nowhere near the Delta.
I agree. I wonder if this misplacment will slow or daunt the
enthusiasm reflected in this remarkable string of speculations.
Akhmin, ancient Egyptian Ipu or Khent-min, Coptic khnin or Shmin,
hence Greek Khemmis is actually near Sohag (Sucoth) on the
outskirts of Thebes and was the center of the 9th upper
Egyptian nome.
There is a rock chapel to Min (Pan) by Thutmosis III, during the
reign of Aya it was decorated by the "1st prophet of Min. Other
temples of Ptolomaic date to Min and his consort Repyt can be
found at el salamuni nearby. Baines and Ma'lek p 109 provides a map
>
>> and >his whole family was a non-royal
>>dynasty that lived there all the time.
>
>"Dynasties" are usually royal houses, although not all
>the members start out as royal.
>I can't see how the word "dynasty" would pertain
>to the family of Yuya.
>
>> They in turn, I say, came from Mitanni
>
>Perhaps they did--but to say so is only speculation, nothing more.
>There is absolutely no proof of a connection between Yuya and Mitanni.
>And Joseph did not come from Mitanni, either.
The extremely speculative nature and basically incorrect
factual basis of the entire post to which you have responded
makes me wonder why you bothered. The suggestion that you
were afraid someone would take it seriously gives it too much
credit.
>
>> and it was they who forged the links between Egypt
>> and Mitanni at the time. In fact, there seems to be
>> a alot of Mitanni blood in the 18th dynasty itself,
>> this cannot be refuted.
>It certainly can! There is not one scrap of evidence
>that there is even a single drop of Mitanni blood in
>the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there couldn't
>possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
A minor wife of Thutmosis IV was Mitanni but she was
probably lost in the depths of his harem with the rest
of the diplomatic brides. Amenophis III married more
than one Mitanni princess but if that's it for the
whole XVIIIth dynsaty its unlikely that there was any
"Mitanni blood" in the royal line.
There were associations between the Mitanni and habiru
or apiru, but then there were association between
many early cultures at this time.
To suggest that there are any known relationships in this
morass of confusiuon and speculation is absurd.
regards,
steve
Frans
Aron wrote:
> I'm currently reading this book and will post a review this week. So far,
> I'll say, it is full of absolute nonsense. In the preface alone, he decides
> to revise the chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties so that they fit Bible
> Chronology instead of the other way around. And on top of that, his Bible
> chronology is completely wrong aswell. The result is that he has Abram to
> Joseph around 1700-1600 BC and he places the Amarna period to around 1050
> BC. All that with no evidence to back it up. This is just in his preface,
> what follows is to some degrees worse, though there are some good
> observations, much of his good work is simply borrowed from others. His own
> work is not very good though.
I hope you'll present some details of what you believe as completely wrong.
I'm reading the book also and for me his arguments are not bad, with a few
exceptions. There is an other volume that also attacks the conventional
chronology of ancient Egypt:
"Centuries of Darkness." Peter James, 1991, isbn022402647x
E. chronology is all but solid and is based on a to small body of evidence to
present it as fact beyond reasonable doubt.
Frans
Nubkhas
>The Egyptian king generally held to have given his daughter to Solomon is
>Si-Amen of Dyn. 21. He was quite militant and campaigned into Palestine,
>mainly against the Philistines and the Canaanites. (Kitchen suggests the
>attacks were in order to crush Philistine commercial rivalry.) After
>sacking and depopulating the Canaanite city of Gezer -- a task Solomon
>himself was unable to do, despite the fact that it is practically within
>spitting distance of Jerusalem -- Si-Amen gave his daughter and Gezer to
>Solomon, most probably to cement trade alliances, etc. It was easier to
>have a peaceful "friend" than an enemy. It has been suggested that
>Solomon's massive building campaign was due to a perceived military threat
>from Egypt. If so, he would have been right as Sheshenq I rolled right
>through Israel and Judea after Solomon died.
>
>> They would probably have been only too happy to oblige him with a princess.
>Egyptian princesses marrying commoners >foreigners was not terribly unusual
>in this period of history. Like Solomon, King >Hadad of Edom also received
>a daughter from Si-Amen.
Clayton says: "The little light that is thrown on the 21st Dynasty comes
largely from the Biblical record, since the period coincides with the struggle
of David in Israel to unite the tribes and destroy the Philistines.." He then
goes on to mention an Egyptian princess marrying the crown prince of the
kingdom of Edom and the son of this union, one Genubath.
He doesn't appear to say anything about Solomon's marriage to an Egyptian, but
yes, all these stories do indicate Egyptian princesses were now given in
marriage to foreigners. But what if "Shishak" isn't Sheshonk? Isn't this
identification one of the corner-stones of the construction of the Egyptian
chronology? Rohl seems to think Shishak is a twist on the hypochoristicon of
Ramesses II, but here's another idea: The great pharaoh, Ramesses III,
(1182-1151 BC by the conventional
chronology) had a chief wife named Isis, who was also called, by another name
which was "Hema Rozath". Her father apparently had the strange name of
"Hebuan-Rozenath". Her mother was called "Habadjilat" (which
seems to be some variation on the Hebrew "Chavatselet" or lily-plant) .The
first part of the queen's name is probably Egyptian and is a pronunciation
of "Heme-t" or "woman". The "Rozath" is probably supposed to be the same as
"Rozenath" with the "n" omitted. What "Hebuan" could possibly mean, I have
no idea, but in "Rozenath" I see a specific type of Semitic or Asiatic name.
I can say that the term "rozen" has the meaning of "prince" or "count" in
the Semitic languages. In Kings I, xi. 23-25, a certain "Rezon "a Syrian who
set up a
petty kingdom at Damascus, became an adversary of King David. It says,
also, that Rezon "was an adversary to israel all the days of Solomon, besides
the
mischief that Hadad did; and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Aram
(Syria).
This is the FIRST we hear, in the Hebrew Bible, of someone called by a name
like this, but I do not think the last. In fact, it rather begins to seem like
"Rezon" or "Rezin" is an actual title for a Syrian ruler instead of
just a first name. In Kings II, xv. 37, it says "In those days the Lord began
to send against Judah Rezin the king of Aram". So now we have the dual
kingdoms of Israel and Judah already established in the days of King Jothan
and his son, Ahaz. "Rezin" of Aram and the King of Israel seem to have been
allied
at this time. This name comes up again in the books of Isaiah, Ezra and
Nehemiah, saying the the descendants of a "Rezin" have returned from
captivity.
However, the pharaoh of Egypt is not going to take to wife the daughter of just
any Semite. Therefore, if this Hebuan-Rozenath has anything to do with a king
of Syria and is the "Rezin" of the Bible and Ramesses III married his daughter,
the *earliest* he could
have done so was during the time of King David (died 961 BC), king (1000-961
BC) of Judah and Israel, founder of the Judaean dynasty. Is it possible
Ramesses III and David could have been contemporaries?
That would require some chronological adjusting, all right, but not as much as
Rohl would have it. And there are some parallels. Ramesses III had problems
with a group called the "Peleset", thought by some scholars to be the
Philistines. The Philistines were strong at the time of David also. If
"Shishak" can be a nickname of Ramesses II (and I don't know that it reasonably
can, despite the nickname of "Sisi") then it can be for any other Ramessid as
well. Although I can't think of a viable candidate for such a conqueror.
Shoshenq raised his victory stele, but...who knows? It still leaves the
question of who was "Hebuan Rozenath" and why did Ramesses III find him an
important enough ally to marry his daughter?
Aron
>The only one I ever saw who said that Yuya's name was spelled differently
in
>attestations was Ahmed Osman--and I don't know how he knows this.
This si a fact that not only he but also historian, Joyce Tyldesley,
mentions in her book 'Nefertiti'.
Why should Yuya have been buried
>in this attitude? He wasn't a pharaoh. Other Egyptians weren't mummified
in
>this attitude, either.
You don't have to be pharoah. But to be buried along with Pharoahs in a
different posture begs questions.
>Perhaps they did--but to say so is only speculation, nothing more. There
is
>absolutely no proof of a connection between Yuya and Mitanni. And Joseph
did
>not come from Mitanni, either.
Well, I wont discuss that here.
>
>> and it was they who forged the links >between Egypt and Mitanni at
>>the time. In fact, there seems to be a alot of >Mitanni blood in the 18th
>>dynasty itself, this cannot be refuted.
>
>It certainly can! There is not one scrap of evidence that there is even a
>single drop of Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there
>couldn't possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
Really?? I can point out four famous Mitannis related to that dynasty.
Mutemwyia was the daughter of King Atratama, and she was the mother of
Amonhotep III. King Tushratta later sent a dughter of his to marry Amonhotep
but the Pharoah died at roughly the same time. This daughter was called
Tadukhepa, who some have thought to be Kiya, a wife of Akhenaten. But in
truth, Kiya is negroid in all depictions of her, so this Tadukhepa was none
other than Nefertiti and that would explain why she disappeared at the same
time as Mitanni's downfall. So take that! Four Mitannis! Mutemwiya,
Artatama, Tushrutta and Tadhukepa/Nefertiti.
>
Aron
>It certainly can! There is not one scrap of evidence that there is even a
>single drop of Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there
>couldn't possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
>
Lets see:
Query/comment:
>a) Evidence that Mutemwiya was Mitannian?
Daughter of Artatama, right? There's an attached pic to this with some
genealogy, but its not one I fully agree with as it names Nefertiti as Kiya.
>b) And as for Gilukhipa? There is a scarab that annouces her arrival to
the Court of Amerhotep III, along with 317 ladies in waiting. What of
her?
Yes, she was a daughter of Shuttarna, and it wasn't until Tushrutta that
there was a true friend to be found in a Mitanni king. Before that it was a
political and strategic alliance, then as the letter from Tushrutta
suggests, Amonhotep had found a very close friend. The letter says they had
'love' for eachother. Anyway, the fact that Gilukhepha and another 317
Mitanni ladies became part of that dynasty proves my point to that
gentleman, that the Mittani and Pharoanic bloodlines were very much becoming
tied together at that point.
>c) Tadukhipa was assumed by Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten as wife, as far as I
>know. Rather interesting arguments have been made that Tadukhipa was
>later called "Kiya," FWIW.
Well, in all depictions I have seen, Kiya has typical Egyptian features and
hairstyles such as the Nubian wig. She also is not the same person as
Nefertiti as some tried to suggest, I'm sure you agree with that. Nefertiti
had become Akhenaten's favourite wife to such a level that she seems of
equal importance at times. This could have happened if they knew eachother
for a long time and that points to her probably being the Tadhukepa that was
sent some time before. Her name and features suggest too that she was
foreign and the fact that she disappears without trace at the same time the
Mitanni disappear could mean that she had fled to find out what had happened
to her relatives. Phew!
>d) As for depictions of Kiya as "negroid", I would tend to disagree, but
>I will say that all such assessments are subjective.
Her profile shows her to have a flatish nose and full lips, this is not what
one would expect of Mitanni who, my research suggests, were Indo-Europeans
ruling and trying to fit in to some degree on foreign land, to help Egypt.
>The origin of Ay is not clear, but if, as speculated, he is related to
>Tiye (suggested as her brother), then he too would hail from Akhmim.
Possibly, I wouldn't disagree with that.
Kevin W
<al...@moonrake.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<<SNIP>>These changes will surely be as anathema to Egyptologists as
>>Rohl's proposed changes in the other direction. It looks like the
>>cure is as bad as the disease!
>
>Only to somebody who believes that previous subjective errors and
>fudges, and accumulated misconceptions are to held to be as important as
>objective scientific evidence.
Sir Alan Gardiner once described what we know of Egyptian history
as a collection of rags and tatters, and it still is. The tattered fragments
of the Turin King List are like a metaphor for the way the whole of
Egyptian history has been pieced together. Some of the pieces don't fit.
Rohl (and others) tried rearranging them, and then other pieces didn't fit.
But I hardly think the structure of the orthodox chronology is going to be
shifted 80 years earlier just yet, on the basis of a scientific result which
might itself be be overturned in a few years as new data comes along.
Of course objective scientific evidence is important. When we are sure that
we have it. As long as some C13 laboratories continue to ask excavators the
expected age range of their samples before they carry out the measurements,
and then quietly reject results which don't fall in that range as
'contaminated',
some doubters will continue to ask if C13 dates -- calibrated or not -- are
completely objective.
I draw your attention to this paper:
"The global impact of the Minoan eruption of Santorini, Greece"
by D. M. Pyle, Environmental Geology 1997, Vol.30, No.1-2, pp.59-61.
The abstract runs as follows -
"The Minoan eruption of Santorini was a large-magnitude natural
event. However, in terms of scale it ranks smaller in erupted
volume and eruptive intensity than the historical eruption of
Tambora in 1815 AD, and smaller in sulphur emission and, by
inference, climatic effects than both the Tambora and Mt.
Pinatubo, 1991, eruptions. Eruption statistics for the past
2000 years indicate that Minoan-size eruptions typically occur
at a rate of several per thousand years. Eruptions resulting in
a Minoan-scale injection of sulphur to the stratosphere occur
far more frequently - at a rate of one or two per century.
Inferences of massive sociological, religious and political
impacts from such eruptions owe more to mythology than reality."
If this is right, doesn't it throw considerable doubt on the claim that
the Thera/Santorini eruption was the event that caused the frost
damage to bristle-cone pines in California in 1628 BC?
It seems the whole issue is very far from settled.
>Nobody other than dyed-in-the-wool traditional Egyptologists, with a
>life-time reputation to lose, will for a moment hang on to the 'old'
>chronology. Even Colin Renfrew admits that overwhelmingly, reason has
>swung behind the 1628 date.
I don't see too many Egyptologists - dyed-in-the-wool or otherwise -
expressing enthusiasm or unconditional acceptance for the 1628 correlation.
As long as there is any lingering doubt about it, they won't jump
on the band-wagon.
If the Thera=1628 BC correlation is confirmed, it will establish an
absolute benchmark - for all time - for the chronology of the ancient
Aegean and Near East regions. And if, by some chance, Theran tephra
does turn up at other sites around the world, it will provide an
anchor-point in time for archaeologists world-wide. Once this benchmark
is accepted, it will be very difficult to shift it again even if contrary
scientific evidence comes along in the future. That's why it's so
important to get it right.
>And absolutely nobody - other than Rohl and his blindest disciples -
>would ever think of claiming that a scholarly argument about pushing
>dates in the mid-second millennium back by about 100 years to
>accommodiate the new dendrochronological evidence is in the same ball-
>park as accepting his nonsensical chronologies.
I'm interested to know if any established Egyptologist has committed
him/herself -- in print -- to a revised high chronology for the 18th-19th
dynasty period which accommodates the dendro. evidence. This is
one of the best known periods of Egyptian history. How is the
80 year lacuna to be filled? By inventing an extra pharoah?
Or by stretching the reign lengths of known kings far beyond the
numbers attested on the monuments?
Anyway, we're getting sidetracked here. This thread was supposed to be
about "Legend". I'm going away to read it.
--- Kevin Wright.
Aron
>What "Moses"? Akhenaten's actual name was "Amenhotep". His elder
brother's
>name was Thutmose, actually "Djehutymes".
I really don't know why you bother to challenge me with your ludicrous
knowledge. You still fail to answer my post where I proved that the Mitanni
had become relatives of the 18th dynasty. As for this challenge:
Akhenaten, after his name change, bore himself two titles, 'the True Son'
and 'The Beautiful Child of the Disc (aten)'. Both of these titles have
'mose/moses' in the title meaning child and son.
Nubkhas
>brother's
>>name was Thutmose, actually "Djehutymes".
>
>I really don't know why you bother to >challenge me with your ludicrous
>knowledge.
So you find knowledge and facts ludicrous?
Why am I not surprised?
>You still fail to answer my post where I >proved that the Mitanni
>had become relatives of the 18th dynasty.
To the best of my recollection, you didn't prove that at all. Amenhhotep III
and Akhenaten may have married women of the Mitanni, but who are their progeny?
Don't bother looking for the answer--you won't find it.
> As for this challenge:
>
>Akhenaten, after his name change, bore himself two titles, 'the True Son'
>and 'The Beautiful Child of the Disc (aten)'. Both of these titles have
>'mose/moses' in the title meaning child and >son.
What are the titles in Egyptian? Neither would necessarily have "mose/moses"
in them, as far as I know. If you're so anxious to have a king with this
element in the name--how about Amenmose?
Alan M Dunsmuir
<kev...@softhome.net> writes
>But I hardly think the structure of the orthodox chronology is going to be
>shifted 80 years earlier just yet, on the basis of a scientific result which
>might itself be be overturned in a few years as new data comes along.
>
what is likely to be an extremely long (and lonely) night of the soul.
>Of course objective scientific evidence is important. When we are sure that
>we have it. As long as some C13 laboratories continue to ask excavators the
>expected age range of their samples before they carry out the measurements,
>and then quietly reject results which don't fall in that range as
>'contaminated',
>some doubters will continue to ask if C13 dates -- calibrated or not -- are
>completely objective.
I believe that even some C14 laboratories do this <g>. The practice
doesn't appear, prima facie, to be anti-scientific to me - provided that
they warn thier clients that the samples which match the expected dates
are scarcely less likely to have been contaminated than the ones
rejected.
>
>I draw your attention to this paper:
>"The global impact of the Minoan eruption of Santorini, Greece"
>by D. M. Pyle, Environmental Geology 1997, Vol.30, No.1-2, pp.59-61.
>The abstract runs as follows -
>"The Minoan eruption of Santorini was a large-magnitude natural
>event. However, in terms of scale it ranks smaller in erupted
>volume and eruptive intensity than the historical eruption of
>Tambora in 1815 AD, and smaller in sulphur emission and, by
>inference, climatic effects than both the Tambora and Mt.
>Pinatubo, 1991, eruptions. Eruption statistics for the past
>2000 years indicate that Minoan-size eruptions typically occur
>at a rate of several per thousand years. Eruptions resulting in
>a Minoan-scale injection of sulphur to the stratosphere occur
>far more frequently - at a rate of one or two per century.
>Inferences of massive sociological, religious and political
>impacts from such eruptions owe more to mythology than reality."
>
>If this is right, doesn't it throw considerable doubt on the claim that
>the Thera/Santorini eruption was the event that caused the frost
>damage to bristle-cone pines in California in 1628 BC?
>
Not really. I refer you once more to the Kuniholm 'Nature' article,
which covers this.
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
Aron
>So you find knowledge and facts ludicrous?
Where are your facts that you have been challenging me with?
>
>>You still fail to answer my post where I >proved that the Mitanni
>>had become relatives of the 18th dynasty.
>
>To the best of my recollection, you didn't prove that at all.
Two strings up, and you still havent answered it.
>Amenhhotep III and Akhenaten may have married women of the Mitanni, but who
are their >progeny?
> Don't bother looking for the answer--you won't find it.
The six daughters are not the progeny of Nefertiti?
>>Akhenaten, after his name change, bore himself two titles, 'the True Son'
>>and 'The Beautiful Child of the Disc (aten)'. Both of these titles have
>>'mose/moses' in the title meaning child and >son.
>
>What are the titles in Egyptian? Neither would necessarily have
"mose/moses"
You see, youre a waste of time.
>-how about Amenmose?
Did Amenmose create a new type of religion based on worship of a single
'god' and no other?
Aron
Nubkhas
>>single drop of Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there
>>couldn't possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
>Lets see:
>Query/comment:
>
>>a) Evidence that Mutemwiya was Mitannian?
>Daughter of Artatama, right? There's an attached pic to this with some
>genealogy, but its not one I fully agree with >as it names Nefertiti as Kiya.
Nobody said that the kings of Egypt did not have foreign wives. How do you
know the name of the father of Mutemwiya? Nefertiti and Kiya are not the same
person, but regardless, no one knows exactly what their background might be.
The Amarna era abounds with mysteries. If you read somewhere that someone says
they know where these women came from--they don't. It is just speculation.
>>b) And as for Gilukhipa? There is a scarab that annouces her arrival to
>the Court of Amerhotep III, along with 317 ladies in waiting. What of
>her?
What of her? You said there was Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. Dynasties
are made up of kings. Which king was the son of Gilukhipa?
(snip)
>. Anyway, the fact that Gilukhepha and >another 317
>Mitanni ladies became part of that dynasty proves my point to that
>gentleman, that the Mittani and Pharoanic bloodlines were very much becoming
>tied together at that point.
No. You are wrong. All you can say with assurance is that some ladies came to
be part of the harem of Amenhotep III. Unless they had children with this king
or his successor, the bloodlines would not have been tied together.
Then, unless one of these children became king, this "new blood" would not have
affected the 18th Dynasty at all. Think about it. You began by saying that
Yuya was from Mitanni. What is the proof?
>>c) Tadukhipa was assumed by Amenhotep >IV/Akhenaten as wife, as far as I
>>know.
No--it is not "assumed" at all. "assumed" means taken for granted, which is
not quite the case here. Some Egyptologists feel that since Akhenaten may have
already been co-regent or needed a wife or whatever, he became the husband to
Tadukhipa instead of his father. We only know of two wives of Akhenaten,
Nefertiti and Kiya. If one of them is Tadukhipa, no one actually knows for
sure.
> Rather interesting arguments have been >made that Tadukhipa was
>>later called "Kiya," FWIW.
These arguments are not that "interesting" because there are so few facts to
support such a claim.
>Well, in all depictions I have seen, Kiya has typical Egyptian features and
>hairstyles such as the Nubian wig
What are "typical Egyptian features"?
>. She also is not the same person as
>Nefertiti as some tried to suggest, I'm sure you agree with that. Nefertiti
>had become Akhenaten's favourite wife to such a level that she seems of
>equal importance at times. This could have happened if they knew eachother
>for a long time and that points to her probably being the Tadhukepa that was
>sent some time before.
Akhenaten could have known Nefertiti even before Tadukhepa arrived. This is
all fairly meaningless speculation.
> Her name and features suggest too that she >was
>foreign and the fact that she disappears without trace at the same time the
>Mitanni disappear could mean that she had fled to find out what had happened
>to her relatives. Phew!
Please!
>
>>d) As for depictions of Kiya as "negroid", I would tend to disagree, but
>>I will say that all such assessments are subjective.
>
>Her profile shows her to have a flatish nose and full lips, this is not what
>one would expect of Mitanni who, my research suggests, were Indo-Europeans
>ruling and trying to fit in to some degree on foreign land, to help Egypt.
>
You are probably referring to the heads of the canopic jars found in KV55. It
is not absolutely certain these are portraits of Kiya. There is another
portrait I know of--a relief that was altered to become a representation of one
of Akhenaten's daughters--where she looks nothing like those stopper heads.
>>The origin of Ay is not clear, but if, as speculated, he is related to
>>Tiye (suggested as her brother), then he too would hail from Akhmim.
>
It's all speculation. That's why some Egyptologists don't like the Amarna Era.
Not much to go on there.
Nubkhas
>are their >progeny?
>> Don't bother looking for the answer--you won't find it.
>The six daughters are not the progeny of >Nefertiti?
Yes. But where is the evidence that Nefertiti was from Mitanni? To know that
for sure, you would have to have, say, a "marriage scarab" that says something
like "a great wonder was sent to us by the King of Naharin {Mitanni}. Her name
is Tadukhipa. The name of her father is X. The name of her mother is Y.
The king found her beautiful above all other women and has given her the name
of Nefertiti." Or, there could be a tablet sent to Egypt from the King of
Mitanni where he asks after "Queen Nefertiti, my sister"--something like that.
BUT THERE IS NO SUCH DOCUMENT. Try to absorb this fact without hostility.
That will be your first step on the road to acceptable scholarship.
>>>Akhenaten, after his name change, bore himself two titles, 'the True Son'
>>>and 'The Beautiful Child of the Disc (aten)'. Both of these titles have
>>>'mose/moses' in the title meaning child and >son.
>>
>>What are the titles in Egyptian? Neither would necessarily have
>"mose/moses"
>
>
>You see, youre a waste of time.
>
>>-how about Amenmose?
>
>
>Did Amenmose create a new type of religion based on worship of a single
>'god' and no other?
You are very naive. The monotheism of Akhenaten and that of the Hebrews is so
different that only a fool would try to compare them--much less insist
Akhenaten and Moses one and the same. Calling people names is not going
convince anybody of your position--just reinforce their impression of your
ignorance.
Nubkhas
>in
>>attestations was Ahmed Osman--and I don't know how he knows this.
>
>This si a fact that not only he but also historian, Joyce Tyldesley,
>mentions in her book 'Nefertiti'.
Maybe she got it from Ahmed Osman ;-)
>Why should Yuya have been buried
>>in this attitude? He wasn't a pharaoh. Other Egyptians weren't mummified
>in
>>this attitude, either.
>You don't have to be pharoah. But to be >buried along with Pharoahs in a
>different posture begs questions.
Like what? Yuya was "buried with pharaohs" obviously because he was the
father-in-law of a pharaoh and an important individual.
>>Perhaps they did--but to say so is only speculation, nothing more. There
>is
>>absolutely no proof of a connection between Yuya and Mitanni. And Joseph
>did
>>not come from Mitanni, either.
>
>Well, I wont discuss that here.
I wonder why!
>>> and it was they who forged the links >between Egypt and Mitanni at
>>>the time. In fact, there seems to be a alot of >Mitanni blood in the 18th
>>>dynasty itself, this cannot be refuted.
>>
>>It certainly can! There is not one scrap of evidence that there is even a
>>single drop of Mitanni blood in the 18th Dynasty. I am not saying there
>>couldn't possibly be. There could. But proof? None at all.
>
>Really?? I can point out four famous Mitannis related to that dynasty.
>Mutemwyia was the daughter of King Atratama, and she was the mother of
>Amonhotep III. King Tushratta later sent a dughter of his to marry Amonhotep
>but the Pharoah died at roughly the same time. This daughter was called
>Tadukhepa, who some have thought to be Kiya, a wife of Akhenaten. But in
>truth, Kiya is negroid in all depictions of her, so this Tadukhepa was none
>other than Nefertiti and that would explain why she disappeared at the same
>time as Mitanni's downfall. So take that! Four Mitannis! Mutemwiya,
>Artatama, Tushrutta and >Tadhukepa/Nefertiti.
Try to assemble whatever that jumble in your head is that you call a brain and
see if you can manage to absorb this one simple fact. The kings of Egypt took
foreign wives. However, taking foreign wives is NOT "mixing blood" unless you
know for sure that the progeny of these wives existed and you can actually
point to one king's son or daughter and say "That one is half Mitanni or
Hittite or Syrian or Bactrian." But you can't!
Nubkhas
>> Ramesses II
>
>/s/ = Hebrew /s/. Therefore, Egyptian Sesi cannot be related to Biblical
>Hebrew Shishak. Moreover, it is extremely common in Egyptian for <SSnq>
>to be written
><SSq>. No big mystery as to why Hebrew thus has "Shishak", and certainly
>much easier to accept than Rohl's fudging in order to make his chronology
>work.
Personally, I wouldn't have been able to think of a "good" reason for the "k"
on the end and can't say I am satisfied with the one Rohl gave.
However, when it comes to Egyptian, the rule is there's always the exception.
I've just been studying the pAnastasi toponyms because I have a lot of interest
in foreign terms in Egyptian texts and I saw "<ks3pw" for what was probably
"Achshaph". Probably, if I checked in Hoch's "Semitic Words in Egyptian
Texts, etc." I might find another example of mismatch of what is usually good
correspondence.
>> Is it possible
>> Ramesses III and David could have been contemporaries?
>> That would require some chronological adjusting, all right, but not as much
>as
>> Rohl would have it.
>
>No, but it is still very significant and totally destroys the synchronisms
>with the ANE that are sure. All in all, a pretty thin excuse that ignores
>the historical information that we do have.
I don't know how "sure" these synchronisms would all be.
But that there was a group of Syrian rulers called "Rezin"
is attested in the Bible and otherwise and not heard of before the time of
David. I find it disturbing that Ramesses III married a woman whose orginal
name and that of her father contained this "rezin" element, but I wouldn't
exactly propose this as an excuse to change the chronology. In fact, I
wouldn't propose those things Rohl asserted, either, and I certainly don't
agree with him that a character called Joseph had ever existed except for
perhaps in the parallel of another person of Asiatic background who had done
well in Egypt or perhaps that "Joseph" was a composite of all such successful
Asiatic types. Meanwhile, though, I would certainly like a look at the
spellings of those names of the relatives of Ramesses III.
>> And there are some parallels. Ramesses III had problems
>> with a group called the "Peleset", thought by some scholars to be the
>> Philistines. The Philistines were strong at the time of David also.
>
>The Philistines were about until circa 600 bce when the Neo-Babylonians
>destroyed their cities and deported the population. So the existence of
>Philistines doesn't prove anything here.
Did you mean to say "the Philistines were strong about until"
or just that they were around. I don't know that they were much of a force
after the time of David. When they attacked Egypt in the era of Ramesses III,
they, of course, did so as a confederacy. The Philistines had five princes,
who ruled over the five cities of Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath, and Ekron. Under
the last of the judges of ancient Israel, Samuel, their rule was terminated by
the Battle of Mizpah. At Mount Gilboa', Saul, the first king of ancient Israel,
and his sons fell in battle against them. David, king of Judah and Israel,
routed them repeatedly, and under Solomon, David's son and successor, their
country seems to have been incorporated in the Jewish Empire. The internal
troubles of Judah emboldened them once more to resistance, but Hezekiah, a
later king of Judah, subdued them in the 8th century BC with the aid of the
Egyptians. The Assyrians afterward took Ashdod, and in the time of the
Maccabees (2nd and 1st century BC) the Philistines were Syrian subjects;
thereafter the name of the country became lost in that of Palestine.
Kevin W
>doesn't appear, prima facie, to be anti-scientific to me - provided that
>they warn thier clients that the samples which match the expected dates
>are scarcely less likely to have been contaminated than the ones
>rejected.
There's a problem, if genuinely anomalous results which are not due to
contamination, get filed away and forgotten on the convenient grounds that
they are contaminated. In that case, those results which make it through the
'acceptability filter' are bound to reinforce preexisting conceptions about
chronology, whether they are right or not. The tighter the filter is
applied,
the more meaningless the positive results will be.
>>I draw your attention to this paper:
>>"The global impact of the Minoan eruption of Santorini, Greece"
>>by D. M. Pyle, Environmental Geology 1997, Vol.30, No.1-2, pp.59-61.
<<SNIP>>If this is right, doesn't it throw considerable doubt on the claim
that
>>the Thera/Santorini eruption was the event that caused the frost
>>damage to bristle-cone pines in California in 1628 BC?
>>
>Not really. I refer you once more to the Kuniholm 'Nature' article,
>which covers this.
Indeed? I don't actually see Pyle's paper cited in Kuniholm's Nature
article.
Which is hardly surprising since Kuniholm's article was published in 1996,
and Pyle's paper in 1997. <g>
Kevin M Wright.
Aron
Thaks for the insult. Apparently I'm not the only one you point your
arrogance to as my Email box tells me.
and
>see if you can manage to absorb this one simple fact. The kings of Egypt
took
>foreign wives. However, taking foreign wives is NOT "mixing blood" unless
you
>know for sure that the progeny of these wives existed and you can actually
>point to one king's son or daughter and say "That one is half Mitanni or
>Hittite or Syrian or Bactrian." But you can't!
>
Yes, Amonhotep's mother was Mitanni and Nefertiti, a mitanni, was mother to
six Egyptian princesses. I'll ignore you from now on as you clearly are the
rocks on fertile ground.
Aron
so
>different that only a fool would try to compare them--
How is is different? One just led to another and there was continual
progression after that which is why the hebrew version seems different.
Aron
Nubkhas
Proof, please, and a source outside of pseudo-scientific publications.
> and >Nefertiti, a mitanni
Proof , please, and a source outside of pseudo-scientific publications.
> was mother to
>six Egyptian princesses. I'll ignore you from >now on as you clearly are the
>rocks on fertile ground.
The rocks are you-know-where. Do they give you headaches? Fertile ground? Is
that what happens when you throw too much bullshit around?
Katherine Griffis
wrote:
>>b) And as for Gilukhipa? There is a scarab that annouces her arrival to
>the Court of Amerhotep III, along with 317 ladies in waiting. What of
>her?
>
>Yes, she was a daughter of Shuttarna, and it wasn't until Tushrutta that
>there was a true friend to be found in a Mitanni king. Before that it was a
>political and strategic alliance, then as the letter from Tushrutta
>suggests, Amonhotep had found a very close friend. The letter says they had
>'love' for each other. Anyway, the fact that Gilukhepha and another 317
>Mitanni ladies became part of that dynasty proves my point to that
>gentleman, that the Mittani and Pharoanic bloodlines were very much becoming
>tied together at that point.
It is known that Gilukhipa arrives to the Court of Amenhotep III in Year
10 of his reign, with the entourage of the 317 ladies-in-waiting, with a
scarab issued that acknowledged her as a royal princess, saying
"A miracle brought to his Majesty Kirgipa [Gilukhipa], the daughter of
the prince of Naharin, Sutarna, and the members of her harem, some 317
women."
(Marriage Scarab of Amenhotep III, as cited in Joyce Tyldesley's
_Daughters of Isis_, (New York, 1994), p. 185)
It is also known from the Amarna Letters that in the negotiations of
this royal foreign princess, and that of her niece, Tadukhipa, every
scrap of prestige and advantage was negotiated for them. These
contracts are not easily ignored as a 'matter of form' only, for the
relationships of two countries hinged upon the contracts'
implementation. Gilukhipa's marriage negotiation had been subject of
rather long and extended correspondence between Shuttarna and Amenhotep
III, and the entourage referenced indicates that Gilukhipa arrives with
some promise of prestige within the Royal Harem of Medinet el-Ghurab.
In the case of Gilukhipa, her marriage relationship appears to have
forged some actual close relationship between the two kings, Amenhotep
III and that of her brother, Tushratta, beyond that of mere "brother
royals." (see Redford: _Akhenaten: The Heretic King_, pp 41-42), citing
her role in the warm relationship between the regents; Troy: _Patterns
of Queenship_, p 77 (citing Kemp's harem study citing Gilukhipa as
"destined to be one of Amenhotep III's queens...")
Later, Tushratta {Gilukhipa's brother} stipulates in the marriage
contract negotiation with Amenhotep III (conditions of which were then
imputed to A II's successor, Akhenaten) that his daughter, Tadukhipa,
was to be acknowledged as "Mistress of Egypt" and as a principal queen.
As such, neither female was said to be quickly set aside or forgotten,
and Tyldesley (_Daughters of Isis_, (New York, 1994), p. 186) indicates
that while they were given the title of a "secondary wife", /Hbsw.t/,
this position was not legally an insignificant one.* If the Chief
(first) Wife of the Pharaoh proved barren, in example, these "secondary
wives" and their children could stand next in line for succession.
I would like to merely to point out that we are not sure about how the
Egyptian royals viewed their family relationships with these multiple
"royal wives", and I think that we could have an interesting point here
if someone like one of the foreign wives of Amenhotep III were
Tutankhamen's mother (Gilukhipa, for example). There seems to be no
indication that A III did not think her worthy of "royal status", as he
published a scarab of his marriage to her (as he had with Tiye, and
named her affiliation with the Mitanni king, thus naming it a "royal
marriage").
However, beyond the fact that she was a foreign royal in the Harem, we
do not know how children of foreign marriages were treated by the Royal
House, IMO. Were they considered to be in line for succession, should
all children of the Chief Royal Wife and/or lesser Egyptian wives not
survive?
I could see that an argument could be made that a son of Amenhotep III
(or Akhenaten) and a foreign wife, would emphasize only his affiliation
with the king, especially in the time period after Akhenaten's heresy
period, when it perhaps would not have been politically wise to
emphasize any foreign affiliations with his lineage. Egypt appears to
have been in a weakened state, internally and internationally, in the
post-Amarna period.
Let us hypothesize, for the sake of this post only, that Tutankhamen was
born of Amenhotep III and a foreign royal (but not a Chief Wife [such
as Tiye]). I am basing this theory partially on the Amarna stela
which named Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen as a "son of the king's own body",
but does name the king or (more importantly) the mother.
For the people of Egypt, his "royal" bloodline would be sure,if his
lineage was via A III and a "royal" (but unnamed) wife. Perhaps
acknowledging the mother, since she was "foreign", was to be avoided to
maintain domestic harmony and not give any foreign power reason to think
that claim could be made to Egypt. There could be very good reasons for
NOT naming a foreign mother, for example, and the Amarna Letters give us
a clue as to why.
I think in the Mursilis accounts of the letters from the "Egyptian
queen" after the death of "Bibhururiyas" [(parallel accounts [KUB XXXIV]
call it "Nibhuruiyas", which is identified as Tutankhamen (ANET:319))]
it shows that asking for a "foreign king" was considered "...humiliating
to myself and to my country..." (Goetze translation). If that was the
prevalent attitude after the death of Tutankhamen, then could it also
not be considered that _not_ mentioning a foreign royal mother may have
been done for the same reason?
We know that "lesser <Egyptian> wives" had children with the king and
these children were placed upon the throne, but ONLY when these sons
came upon the throne do we hear about them. What if this was _not_ true
about foreign wives of the king, particularly for political reasons?
Please understand that I am NOT advancing this as a theory for
Tutankhamen's maternal affiliation, but only saying that we do not have
a clear idea of how a king with a _foreign royal mother_ treated her in
royal inscriptions. We also do not know how royal wives were dealt with
by their (later) royal progeny, either, if they had "fallen from
(political) grace" due to heresy or crime, or merely "divorce" of sorts.
Finally, we just do not seem to know (beyond the examples of recarved
names of wives) how, in their contemporary times, Egyptian kings handled
members of the family who were "outcast" or removed from the Royal House
"genealogy" for any reason.
*In William Ward's _Essays on Feminine Titles of the Middle Kingdom and
Related Subjects_, (Beirut, 1986), the title /Hbsw.t/ is a "special
term for a legal second (or third, etc.) wife." The terms Hbsw.t and
Hm.t are also used interchangeably, since the Middle Kingdom.
The title also seems to confer a "special status" possibly upon foreign
wives as well, with Ward citing in example of a legal hearing on the
disposition of property of a man to his "second wife", the Vizier asks
the sons of the first wife, "What do you think of this plan which your
father is making for the Citizeness Inkau(nedjem), this Hbsw of his? If
it had not been [she was] his wife (Hm.t), but a foreign woman, would
you still agree?"
Regards --
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Member, American Research Center in Egypt
International Association of Egyptologists
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Special Studies
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/1692/index.html
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Nubkhas
>(or Akhenaten) and a foreign wife, would emphasize only his affiliation
You can't argue this until you make up your mind who Tut's father was. If it
was Amenhotep III, then it would have been okay to be affiliated with * him*,
wouldn't it?
>period, when it perhaps would not have been politically wise to
>emphasize any foreign affiliations with his lineage. Egypt appears to
>have been in a weakened state, internally and internationally, in the
>post-Amarna period.
Perhaps it would have been a good time for the king to pull the old "My father
was the god Amun" routine ;-)
>Let us hypothesize, for the sake of this post only, that Tutankhamen was
>born of Amenhotep III and a foreign royal (but not a Chief Wife [such
>as Tiye]). I am basing this theory partially on the Amarna stela
>which named Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen as a "son of the king's own body",
>but does name the king or (more importantly) >the mother.
Why "more importantly"? Why do you think it
was so important who the king's mother was?
>For the people of Egypt, his "royal" bloodline would be sure,if his
>lineage was via A III and a "royal" (but >unnamed) wife.
How do you figure that in this case? Katherine, Queen Tiye was a commoner,
herself. Who would the "royal" wife have been in this instance?
>Perhaps
>acknowledging the mother, since she was >"foreign", was to be avoided to
>maintain domestic harmony and not give any >foreign power reason to think
>that claim could be made to Egypt.
Huh? What would the claim be? I have news for you: Several "foreign powers"
laid claim to Egypt over the centuries. What did their claim consist of?
Military might. If there was a foreign land who thought they had the
wherewithall to over- power Egypt, they needn't need the excuse of a half-breed
king to do so. If they couldn't do this by military means, they were not
going to make any "claim". Or did you think maybe there would be a lawsuit or
something?
> There could be very good reasons for
>NOT naming a foreign mother, for example, and the Amarna Letters give us
>a clue as to why.
>
>I think in the Mursilis accounts of the letters from the "Egyptian
>queen" after the death of "Bibhururiyas" [(parallel accounts [KUB XXXIV]
>call it "Nibhuruiyas", which is identified as Tutankhamen (ANET:319))]
>it shows that asking for a "foreign king" was considered "...humiliating
>to myself and to my country..." (Goetze translation). If that was the
>prevalent attitude after the death of Tutankhamen, then could it also
>not be considered that _not_ mentioning a foreign royal mother may have
>been done for the same reason?
I hope you're joking. Why would you conclude that a widowed queen writing to a
foreign ruler to send an alien individual to become the king of Egypt was
anything comparable to someone who was already pharaoh taking a foreign wife
who was not going to have any official power? As for king's mothers being
named--many named their mothers and there is not much way to know if these
women were Egyptian born or not. Foreign wives could have been given Egyptian
names. Earlier in this thread I mentioned another foreign name of Queen Isis,
the wife of Ramesses III. Ramesses II's Hittite wife received the name of
"Maathorneferure" and his second Hittite wife probably did, too. Also, I
don't know why, just because Tutankhamun's mother wasn't named in any text that
has come down to us, you have to assume that he was ashamed of her. The father
isn't mentioned, either. In fact, there's a lot we don't know about
Tutankhamun, period.
His reign simply isn't particularly well-documented--he isn't even mentioned in
the classic king-lists.
Katherine Griffis
Griffis) wrote:
> I am basing this theory partially on the Amarna stela
>which named Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen as a "son of the king's own body",
>but does name the king or (more importantly) the mother.
That should read:
"... I am basing this theory partially on the Amarna stela
which named Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen as a "son of the king's own body",
but does NOT name the king or (more importantly) the mother."
Sorry for the confusion.