In our view Thutmose III was the biblical 'Shishak King of Egypt'
Predecessor: Mother in law Hatshepsut
Father: Thutmose 2
Mother: Iset, a harem girl
Nomen: Birth name: Thutmose: Born of the god Thoth
Praenomen: Throne name: Aakheperkare: Great is the soul of Ra
Consorts: - Thutmose's consort Hatshepsut-Merytre was the daughter of his father Thutmose 2 and mother in law Hatshepsut, and his own half sister. she survived him and lived as Queen Mother into the reign of her son.
- He also had several minor queens acquired in diplomatic exchanges, including Menhet, Menwi and Merti whose tombs were discovered at Deir el Bahri
Capital City: Thebes
Reign: Thutmose 3 (known as the Napoleon of Egypt) was a great Pharaoh, he succeeded his mother in law Hatshepsut with her death, and revenged himself by defacing her monuments
- He is regarded as one of the greatest of Egypt's warrior Pharaohs, ruling from 1458-1425 BC
- His battles were recorded in great detail by his royal Scribe and army commander, Thanuny, on the inside walls surrounding the granite sanctuary at Karnak, and inscriptions on Thanuny's tomb
- He decided that the Levant offered the greatest potential for glory and wealth if the trade routes dominated by Syrian, Palestinian and Aegean rulers could be taken, and started a series of military campaigns along the Syrian coast.
- During these campaigns he won decisive battles, and established Egyptian dominance over Palestine where he captured 350 cities.
- He also made campaigns into Nubia where he built temples and restored Senusret's 3 old canal so that his armies could pass safely on their return to Egypt.
- His vast empire stretched from southern Syria (Canaan) to Nubia. Egypt was at it's golden moment and the most important regional power
Top of PageThutmose built many projects in Egypt and Nubia, including a temple dedicated to the goddess Satet at Elephantine and a temple near Hatshepsut's temple in Deir el Bahri and a rock cut sanctuary to the goddess Hathor
- But of these many monuments the most important construction took place at the Temple Amun at Karnak
Wall relief near the sanctuary record the gifts of gold jewelry, furniture and rich perfume oils offered to the temple
He erected the Sixth and Seventh Pylons, as well as considerable reconstruction within the central areas of the temple, two obelisks and a black granite Victory Stele embellishing his military victories.
He also built a new temple at Karnak known the Festival Hall, In the rear is a small room with representations of animals and plants bought back from Syria during the 25th year of his reign. This room is known today as the Botanical Garden.
Burial: - After his death, he was buried in tomb KV 34 in the Valley of Kings.
- Royal masons concealed the tomb's entrance, but ancient robbers looted the tomb, all what remains is the carved sarcophagus and some remains of furniture and statues.
- He was reburied in Deir el Bahri cache, and his mummy was found
Successor: Son Amenhotep 2 out of Hatshepsut-Merytre
Your thesis on the Revised History of Hezekiah was brilliantly argued and should have resulted in a PHD so that your gift in complicated historical revisionism could have been more further developed. In this thesis, you covered an incredible amount of data but unfortunately one examiner has prevented you from achieving your full academic potential. The university will be poorer for not having awarded you a well deserved PHD for I surmise that you would have made hundreds of other connections in ancient history that would have shed more light in a field that is strewn with a great deal of confusion. Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology. I think the works of Velikovsky, Courville and Mackey and others will eventually unseat the modern Pharisees and Sadduccees who hold sway over the old orthodoxy which is dying as the revisionists get their ideas out in the internet. I hope that you are actively engaged in further research and I suspect you realize that the Hebrew Chronology which influenced three of the major religions in history is more critical than the Egyptian documents that are carved in stone as almost nothing in the Egyptian Chronology matches that of the Hebrews. Keep up the great research.
Great post, Rasputin.I am sure that your prophetic words will one day become a reality:"Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology".For much more of this kind of thinking, going way beyond Egypt, see "Other AMAIC sites" as listed in right hand column at: http://amaic1.blog.com/
My thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background can be accessed at the University of Sydney site: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973
My earlier MA thesis, The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar can be accessed at the University of Sydney site: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1632
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background was passed for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (a doctorate award) by 2 of the 3 examiners.
The essential parts of their lengthy comments were:
Examiner 1
Overall, this is a most impressive piece of work. Employing a true multidisciplinary approach, Mr. Mackey has amassed abundant evidence from the fields of history, art history, archaeology, geography, topography, biblical studies, and linguistics to support his chronological thesis. At times, his dissertation reads like a page-turning detective story.
Having said all that, this work should be regarded as primarily seminal in nature; it certainly cannot be construed as the final word on a subject that has confounded and occupied innumerable scholars over the past one hundred years. Yet, Mr. Mackey is to be applauded for a truly Herculean synthesizing effort that should keep a host of specialists busy for years to come - assuming their willingness to analyze, dissect, and evaluate his doctoral thesis fairly and objectively.
…. Mr Mackey’s historical and chronological construct is a solid endeavor and challenge that unquestionably needs to be taken seriously. One can only hope that this will be the case.
The sheer range and scope alone of Mackey's dissertation, right or wrong, is sufficiently worthy of scholarly attention and discussion. I unhesitatingly recommend that the doctoral candidate - Damien Mackey - be awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ….
Examiner 2
This two-volume revised thesis is a considerable improvement on the 2005 submission.
Much effort has been expended in this reworking to produce a substantially more sustainable piece of work.
Mackay [sic] states in the Preface that his thesis is an "in-depth chronological analysis and realignment of the era of Hezekiah and its background with a special focus upon trying to determine, in a revised context, who were the Judaean king's major contemporaries and what were their origins". To do so, he has based his arguments on the chronological revisions of the Sothic calender [sic] thus following the footsteps of Velikovsky and Courville. However, he has not been reticent to apply his critical ability, assessing and (where necessary) re-adjusting their datum.
To fulfill its stated brief in the Introduction, the thesis' subject-matter covered an enormous expanse from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Here Mackay has evaluated the arguments of so-called conventional scholars soundly. I see a major advance in the application of his critical abilities, over and above the previous attempt. Whilst his conclusions are sometimes tentative - and could not be otherwise - he has fulfilled the scholar's brief by showing his capacity to sift evidence carefully, as well as consulting mainstream opinion. I particularly appreciated his usage of archaeological data to support his arguments.
The study of the Book of Judith [Volume Two of thesis], in particular, showed promise. I appreciated the discussion of the book's placement (or non-placement) in the Jewish versus the Catholic canon. The accompanying commentary also was a good piece of work. I would recommend that, with judicious editing and some reworking, this part of the thesis be suitable for publication. Re the argument of historicity v. 'pious fiction', it might be worthwhile to consider the questions of 'intent and audience'.
The thesis still does show a tendency "to tie up loose ends", but the application was much more restrained and the accompanying argument highlighted the complexity of the problems that Mackay was attempting to unravel. These were generally worked convincingly within the framework of the thesis.
… In conclusion, the thesis fulfills the stated criteria necessary to achieve the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It makes an original contribution to knowledge, shows copious evidence of independent critical ability on the part of Mackey, as well as having discovered new facts. ….
Yet Examiner 3 could apparently find virtually nothing worthwhile (“only one minor strength”) in this 500+ pages (two-volume) effort:
….
This thesis sought to present 'a more acceptable alternative' to the conventional dating system for the era of Hezekiah. The thesis, however, fell far short of achieving its aim. There was a failure to assess both primary and secondary sources in a rigorous, critical and objective way. This meant that the conclusions reached were not merely non-conventional (this in itself should not disqualify anyone from an award), but extremely tenuous and very far-fetched. As such, the thesis failed to achieve its aim.
….
The thesis suffered from the same flaws as Velikovsky's approach, which exerted considerable influence over the argument, including lending it a starting point. In particular, the whole notion of 'alter egos' was simply not justified and, in fact, beggars the imagination. There was no attempt to explain why so many singular persons (many of them monarchs) could each possess so many distinctly different personas. I suspect the reason is because the entire notion of 'alter egos' has no real basis in history and, therefore, cannot be adequately explained. If there was a real notion of 'alter egos' in history, then it is odd that there has been no real overt reference in historical sources to explain it. …. The whole 'alter-ego' system overlooked all the cultural and religious distinctions apparent in the Ancient Near East, and defied credibility. Under the conventional system, these difficulties are easily overcome by the sensible and credible proposition that each name represents a distinct person. Indeed, the conventional system is also able to take in all the sources, including the ones ignored in this thesis. Therefore, the thesis did not give 'a more acceptable alternative' to the conventional dating system.
….
There was one minor strength in the thesis, though with some reservation:
1. The suggestion that the reigns of some of the Ramessides may have been concurrent was plausible, even though it ultimately cannot be confirmed. The chronological links made with other points of Ancient Near Eastern history on the basis of this surmise, however, appeared premature, speculative, and tenuous. Furthermore, this minor strength in no way provides an opening to salvage the thesis.
In light of this analysis, I cannot in good conscience recommend that the degree of PhD be awarded. The thesis was unfortunately ill-conceived and ultimately fatally flawed in its methods and conclusions.
Examiner 4
Though the Faculty of Arts apparently told my supervisor (Professor Rifaat Ebied) that the doctorate would be awarded, the university’s highest committee (Post-Graduate Matters Committee) then stepped in to say that a 4th examiner would be required.
This final arbitrator/examiner, completely ignoring the favourable Examiner’s 1 and 2, based his/her (I think) decision entirely on the unfavourable Examiner 3:
The thesis does not meet the necessary standards of an academic research. The methodology utilized is flawed through and through, the information dated and irrelevant to current research. The author is not aware of up-to-date bibliography and has ignored major basic studies in the field. His treatment of ancient texts - both biblical and non-biblical - is literal and naïve. He does not utilize tools such as dictionaries, nor does he show proficiency in basic biblical analysis. The thesis does not regard or address questions of possible sources, genres, accepted basic conceptions regarding the authors or ideological biases of the texts, or variants in different versions. His arguments are irrational and the conclusions he has reached are unsubstantiated and fanciful.
I fully agree with the detailed comments of the third examiner who has laid out the main weaknesses of the thesis, and they should be consulted for more detail on my position.
Damien F. Mackey's Defence of Post-Graduate Thesis Against 3rd Examiner's Criticisms
Appendix: Exposing the Inadequacies of the 3rd Examiner’s Points in the Context of my Proposed ‘More Acceptable Alternative’ Model The 3rd examiner, unlike the Assessor, does make some points that are specifically relevant to the thesis, though he/she, just like the Assessor, never exhibits having come to terms at all with the overall complexity of the thesis, as had the 1st and 2nd examiners. Many of the 3rd examiner’s key points of criticism ignore some of the most fundamental aspects of my PhD thesis. Nor is there the least admittance by either the 3rd or the 4th examiner that the conventional system has its serious flaws. The chronologico-historical and art-historical anomalies that have been addressed in this thesis - and that are acknowledged by many competent scholars from different fields (see e.g. p. 18 of my thesis) - are genuine problems. This will become further evident from the following pages. The 3rd examiner’s 15 paragraphs can be broken down basically into alleged “weaknesses” relating to: (i) methodology, four paragraphs (1-4); (ii) primary and secondary sources, three paragraphs (5-6, 12); (iii) ‘alter egos’, vague similarities or similar equations for place names, five paragraphs (7-11, also 5 again); (iv) ‘dark age’, one paragraph (13); and (v) footnotes/aesthetics, two paragraphs (14-15). Then there follows that ‘favourable’ final paragraph (1) pointing to “one minor strength”: “The suggestion that the reigns of some of the Ramessides may have been concurrent was plausible …”. My comment: As if any work that may throw light on the important Ramesside era could be regarded as “minor”! [Moreover, a revision of the history of the Ramessides in relation to king Hezekiah constituted a major part of my thesis, namely Volume One, Part III (pp. 188-372)]. The 1st examiner seems to have appreciated this, when commenting: “pp. 339-340 – admirable attempt to recast the latter part of the 20th Dynasty [Ramesside] which has always appeared as a somewhat gray area” Let us consider the 3rd examiner’s five areas of criticism in turn. (i) Methodology (paragraphs 1-4) Regarding methodology, a major criticism offered by the 3rd examiner was that “tentative” points “were used as significant foundations for further conclusions”. The 2nd examiner had also used the word “tentative”, but with some proper understanding. Thus: “Whilst [Mackey’s] conclusions are somewhat tentative – and could not be otherwise – he has fulfilled the scholar’s brief …”. This 2nd examiner had, like the 1st examiner, fully appreciated that a completely new model of history must be of a tentative nature. The 3rd examiner though gives the impression that the whole thesis was basically a castle built in the air. “The vast majority of the argument was premised on a series of unproved ‘if’ statements”. “… numerous tentative points were effectively treated as … pivotal …”. My comment: My entire thesis was in fact built upon the most solid of foundations, even if the superstructure atop this may be subject to some future alteration. As I have been at pains to demonstrate, my PhD thesis was built upon: 1. A successful MA thesis that showed the inadequacies of the conventional chronological scheme, and with an examiner pointing to the opportunity now for an ‘alternative’ model to be undertaken. [My Abstract justifies my blazing of this new trail based on comments made by an examiner of my 1993 MA. Then, on p. 8, I argue my new thesis as being a logical development of my MA. This is repeated on p. 10 of Chapter 1. To reinforce all of this, I give a summary of my MA, beginning on p. 11. Pp. 16-21 make clear how much chronology and archaeology currently hang on Sothic dating. I summarise my efforts on this in my Conclusion, pp. 103-106]. Moreover: 2. My thesis was built upon a credible archaeological/stratigraphical foundation, as the 2nd examiner also happily noted: “I particularly appreciated [Mackey’s] usage of archaeological data to support his argument”. The 3rd examiner seems to have completely overlooked the solid foundations of this extensive work. Next: 3. As the thesis progressed into (as it must) the “alternative” model realm, my higher level foundation (for the background to king Hezekiah’s era) - still anchored though securely on 1. and 2. - became the now quite vast body of revisionist publications, based initially on the research of Drs. I. Velikovsky and D. Courville. As the 2nd examiner could clearly see: “[Mackey] has based his arguments on the chronological revisions of the Sothic calender [sic] thus following the footsteps of Velikovsky and Courville”. But not in a slavish fashion: “However, he has not been reticent to apply his critical ability, assessing and (where necessary) re-adjusting their datum”. Continuing on now right into the era of king Hezekiah of Judah, my foundations (still dependent on 1-3) were: 4. Five interlocking biblical (cf. 2 Kings 18:10)/neo-Assyrian correspondences, coinciding with the Fall of Samaria (c. 722/21 BC), namely: (a) Fall of Samaria; (b) beginning of Sargon II of Assyria’s rule; (c) sixth year of Hezekiah of Judah; (d) ninth year of Hoshea of Israel; (e) year one of Merodach-baladan II as king of Babylon, according to Sargon’s testimony: “In my twelfth year of reign, (Merodach-baladan) .... For 12 years, against the will (heart) of the gods, he held sway over Babylon ...”. [I discussed points (a)-(e) in detail in Chapter 1, pp. 21-28, returning to this in similar detail in Chapter 5, pp. 125-129, and then fully supplementing it in Chapter 12, pp. 349-350, and finally summarising it all on p. 372, Summary of Volume One]. Thus, I set out a clear foundational progression (1-4), whilst the ‘alter ego’ methodology was firmly established at the outset of my PhD thesis as being a key method to be used therein. [See also Chapter 3, pp. 52-53, for the beginning of my explanation of my ‘multi-identifications’ methodology, based on a very solid Velikovskian connection; this then being taken further in Chapter 4, pp. 111-115. (See also pp. 7-8 below of this Appendix)]. Yet, typically, the 3rd examiner will write: “… the whole notion of ‘alter egos’ was simply not justified …”. Other criticisms of a methodological nature made by the 3rd examiner were: “The argument itself did not flow. It often changed subject suddenly …”. But no examples/references are given. By contrast, the 2nd examiner – once again appreciating the difficulty of the task, and the context – wrote that “the accompanying argument highlighted the complexity of the problems that [Mackey] was attempting to unravel. These were generally worked convincingly within the framework of the thesis”. 3rd examiner again: “The thesis did not engage adequately with more conventional scholars which was necessary in order to achieve the stated goal of providing ‘a more acceptable alternative’ to their widely accepted theories.” But, according to the 2nd examiner, I have indeed in my wide-ranging thesis “evaluated the arguments of so-called conventional scholars soundly”. Moreover: “[Mackey] has fulfilled the scholar’s brief by showing his capacity to sift evidence carefully, as well as consulting mainstream opinion”. [On p. 5 of my Introduction I told of my indebtedness to conventional scholars/archaeologists of the past. In Chapter 11, p. 276, I praised “Bierbrier’s painstaking and laudable attempts to establish a clear chronological framework for Egyptian officials and workmen for the most difficult phase” of the Third Intermediate Period [TIP]. Moreover, I make it quite clear, in my treatment of the Ramessides and the difficult TIP that I did not intend to be “dogmatic”, but “tentative”, and that “I would be highly presumptuous” were I to presume that I could fully master the situation, Chapter 11, p. 258. See also Volume Two, p. 106]. 3rd examiner again: “Problems with conventional dating were exaggerated and often not considered in full, especially in terms of the solutions proposed by scholars advocating more conventional dating (e.g., Thiele). This also revealed a failure to deal with the purpose and literary-theological devices inherent in biblical chronologies”. My comments: For one of my key historical re-identifications, concerning Esarhaddon in relation to the neo-Assyrian succession, in Chapter 6, I actually gave detailed points, headed, “Conventional Theory’s Strengths” (pp. 135-142) as to why - although I was going to propose reasons for considering a departure from the conventional view - I nevertheless appreciated why the conventional view had a firm claim to being right. I revisited this in summary fashion also on pp. 150-151. And I returned to this point again in my final thesis Conclusion at the end of Volume Two (pp. 104-105). Moreover, I actually discussed Edwin Thiele at great length, first introducing him into the discussion on pp. 14-15 of Chapter 1, then considering him in more detail on pp. 22-27; an analysis that I continued in Chapter 5, pp. 125-129, and also in Chapter 12, p. 349. Though critical of the fact that Thiele had, following a faulty neo-Assyrian chronology, completely eradicated those five interlocking biblical/neo-Assyrian and Babylonian correspondences [(a)-(e) in point 4. on pp. 2-3 above], I did however (on pp. 126-129) consider the merits of Thiele’s overall system, acknowledging the problems that he faced. Indeed I recognised the validity of Thiele’s points in regard to the difficulties of a chronological correspondence between kings Hoshea and Hezekiah. And I coupled this with Assyriologist H. Tadmor’s related arguments, as noted by Thiele (Chapter 1, p. 22; Chapter 5, pp. 127-128; and Chapter 12, p. 354). At the same time I pointed to the inadequacies of Velikovsky’s revision, p. 25, his “sometimes … embarrassing gaffes”, indicating also that I would significantly modify his reconstruction of the el-Amarna period in Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10. Thiele’s chronological problems with king Hezekiah though turn out to be artificial. Thiele is the one with the faulty methodology. Thanks to Thiele, Hezekiah has now become one of most vexed problems in biblical history, pp. 126, 129. Thiele, despite his “good intentions” (p. 129), ended up doing exactly what he intended not to do, when he had endeavoured to establish “a sound chronology for Old Testament times”, fitting it “into the events of the Near Eastern world” (p. 126). Consider what Thiele has now lost for us, pp. 23-24; also pp. 125-129. The 3rd examiner does not once allude to the fact that Thiele has completely eradicated an ancient multi-syncretism (a)-(e); one that the facts of modern archaeology have actually begun to support and further augment. I say (p. 128) that I shall attempt to enlarge this (a)-(e) correspondence even further by including, in Chapter 12, the Egyptian (f) and Ethiopian (g) contemporaries of the Fall of Samaria (a). Re biblical genre and purpose, I had definitely considered these throughout my thesis: e.g. Chapter 2, p. 33, where I had argued that the Bible was “didactic, not political science”; and p. 54 my explanation of el-Amarna’s geopolitical situation in relation to the Old Testament; and p. 55, on biblical perspective; and also pp. 72-73 on the Bible’s non-sophisticated attitude to geography. Then in Volume Two (pp. 89-91), I engaged in an in-depth textual analysis of the Isaian Denkschrift. (See also p. 6 of this Appendix). In conclusion, the 3rd examiner has completely failed to appreciate and understand the firm foundations upon which this thesis was built. This is in contrast to the 1st and 2nd examiners, who did not consider that my methodology was shallow. On the contrary, according to the 1st examiner: Mr. Mackey is very good at weighing alternatives … I … do not feel that he is “forcing a square peg into a roundhole”. His overall analyses and discussions are in depth and quite plausible. …. He has taken on a vast amount of material … and has dealt with it in considerable depth. If specialists and scholars with an open mind will approach his work dispassionately, [Mackey] has left a great deal to be studied and reconsidered. This is a seminal work – as it should be – and a door opened wide for further exploration. Whilst the 2nd examiner, impressed by my use of the archaeological data, also believes: … [Mackey] has evaluated the arguments of so-called conventional scholars soundly. … the thesis … makes an original contribution to knowledge, shows copious evidence of independent critical ability on the part of Mackey, as well as having discovered new facts. (ii) Primary and secondary sources (paragraphs 5-6, 12) 3rd examiner: “There was a failure to incorporate some key primary sources into the evidence, most notably the Babylonian Chronicles, the Assyrian King List, and Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty with Baal of Tyre”. By contrast, the 2nd examiner thought, regarding my “Bibliography. This was satisfactory – a testament to [Mackey’s] copious reading – and no changes are required”. And (3rd examiner): “The primary sources which featured in the thesis were never appraised or weighed in terms of genre, accuracy, reliability, purpose, and bias …. This was acutely apparent in the use of Assyrian annals, the canonical biblical literature, and the deutero-canonical books of Judith and Tobit”. My comment: I frequently in fact made use of the Babylonian Chronicles (e.g. Chapter 3, p. 78, Chapter 6, pp. 136-137, 147, 169), though being careful to note that this document is in fact a late source. I did indeed use the Assyrian King List (e.g. p. 131), but most notably in my discussion of “The Assuruballit Problem” [TAP], an Excursus dedicated to this very issue (pp. 230-253). I also used, extensively, the Taylor Prism, e.g. Chapter 6 (pp. 151-165); the Eponym Chronicle (pp. 144-145); the Assyrian Chronicle (e.g. p. 148); the Limmu Lists (p. 132); the ND4301 and ND4305 Nimrud fragments published by Wiseman (pp. 347-349). Moreover, the 3rd examiner here actually refers to my “use of Assyrian annals”. I also made extensive use of H. Tadmor and D. Luckenbill (Sargon II’s Khorsabad texts), with reference to the primary sources, especially throughout Chapter 6. In fact I went even deeper than merely using primary sources and had, following Tadmor, serious cause to criticize (in relation to the document that Tadmor called “Eponym Cb6”) the fact that Assyriologists, Winckler and Delitzsch, had presumed to add the name “Sargon” where it may not originally have been, pp. 137-138. Further to what I have already said above re my attention to genre, and to biblical perspective, much of my Chapter 1, in Volume Two (e.g., pp. 17-37), involved a discussion of the debate regarding the genre of the apocryphal Book of Judith, which I headed “A History and Critical Evaluation of [the Book of Judith]. A. Versions, Genre …”. See also my Chapter 3 (pp. 74-75) regarding how history has viewed this, and how history’s view of it has changed according to the different fashions or moral values of different epochs. In this I was notably successful, according to the 2nd examiner who wrote: The study of the Book of Judith, in particular, showed promise. I appreciated the discussion of the book’s placement (or non-placement) in the Jewish versus the Catholic canon. The accompanying commentary also was a good piece of work. I would recommend that, with judicious editing and some reworking, this part of the thesis be suitable for publication. Re the argument of history v. ‘pious fiction’, it might be worthwhile to consider the questions of ‘intent’ and ‘audience’. A significant amount of my Volume Two thus constituted a discussion of the textual nature of the Book of Judith, in which I concluded - following some millennia and a half of Judaeo-Christian tradition, I might add - that the book was in fact an ancient account of an actual history, and not just some sort of ‘pious parable/fiction’ (genre). My primary contribution was to show that this history was situated entirely within the era of Hezekiah. (iii) “‘alter egos’,” “equations of a similar nature for geographic place names”, and “vague similarities” or (paragraphs 7-11, also 5); Firstly ‘alter egos’ According to the 3rd examiner (a part of this we have already read): “The thesis suffered from the same flaws as Velikovsky’s approach, which exerted considerable influence over the argument, including lending it a starting point. In particular, the whole notion of ‘alter egos’ was simply not justified, and, in fact, beggars the imagination”. And: “… there was a distinct failure to look thoroughly at the linguistic problems associated with the various equations of names being proposed by the ‘alter-ego’ model. This led to some rather fanciful and improbable equations which are simply not credible linguistically, let alone historically …”. And: “… the thesis criticizes other scholars for failing to explain name correspondences (e.g., So = Saïs, p. 189) when it fails to do this many times over. This unfortunately reveals a scholarly double standard”. My comments: If one has, as I have, embarked upon a revision of ancient history based upon the view that Egyptian history has been grossly over-extended, thereby affecting the chronologies of the nations tied to it, then one has to determine upon a methodology that is appropriate towards rectifying this situation. This must of necessity involve a shortening of chronology. But it must not go against the evidence. As the 2nd examiner has noted, my approach was archaeologically-based, hence a sound foundation underpinned it all. This is in contrast, I believe, to the latter part of Velikovsky’s revision, where - in order to merge the entire neo-Hittite empire with the Babylonian (Nebuchednezzar II’s), and make the 19th Egyptian dynasty (that is concurrent with the Hittites) the same as the 26th Egyptian dynasty, concurrent with the Babylonian empire - Velikovsky had ruptured the true and well-established archaeological sequence which indicates that the 19th dynasty must follow on directly from the 18th. This bold plan of Velikovsky’s, to accommodate his chronological shrinkage, would have been wonderful had it been workable. But it was in fact doomed to failure right from the start because it went ruthlessly against the established archaeological evidence. Now the method of ‘alter egos’, and the merging of certain dynasties, is the one that revisionist scholars have tended to adopt to support the necessary chronological shrinkage. It makes good sense (where it does not violate the established evidence). And some very striking correspondences have already been made. I have built upon what I consider to have been the best of these, and have also significantly added to them, according to the 2nd examiner’s recognising that I have “discovered new facts”. In other words, the model that I have proposed seems to be fruitful and productive, not barren. But does not the 3rd examiner completely miss the point again by asserting, without qualification, that my equations are “simply not credible … historically …”, given that what I have produced is in fact quite a new model of history; one that according to both the 1st and 2nd examiners was convincing according to its context (e.g., 2nd examiner: “… problems [were] generally worked convincingly within the framework of the thesis”)? Some of my linguistic equations might indeed be controversial, with even the 2nd examiner saying, “occasionally I felt he rather stretched linguistic arguments”. I could have though, for instance, in my proposed equation of Jonah with Nahum (partly based on Tobit 14:4, versions of which variously give ‘Jonah’ and ‘Nahum’) ‘stretched’ the NAH element in both names (Jo-NAH-um) as part of my evidence for identifying Jonah with Nahum. However, I resisted this temptation, due to the fact that, as I would write (Volume Two p. 94), there is “only a superficial similarity between the names”, with ‘Jonah’ containing the letter h (Hebrew he), whilst ‘Nahum’ contains the letter ch (Hebrew het). Now, regarding name linguistics, the 1st examiner thought at least: On pp. 60ff., I found this to be a valiant effort to identify the EA correspondents and I especially like the linguistic equation of Abdi-ashirta with Dushratta [i.e., through Ab-DU-aSHRATTA, p. 67]. It is quite wrong for the 3rd examiner to claim that “there was a distinct failure to look thoroughly at the linguistic problems associated with the various equations of names being proposed by the ‘alter-ego’ model”. I especially justified my ‘alter ego’ connection for kings with the ADP (see Acronyms) or ‘Addu-principle’ (Chapter 3, pp. 68-71), according to which a king might use a different theophoric (‘god’ name) in a different region (e.g. Baal in Phoenicia; Hadad in Syria; Ashur in Assyria). This e.g. accounted for why the one king might have had dissimilar names. Another factor I suggested was the well-attested religious syncretism at the time (p. 91), with the likelihood of a Yahweh and a Baal name being used together. With ADP, el-Amarna names (presumably C14th BC) now appear abundantly in C9th texts (p. 71). Also: [On pp. 68 I gave an explanation of possible Semitic use of Indo European names. Also on p. 174 I made it clear that, whilst certain equations may connect the same name, my identification was not based on name similarity alone; though it is nice when that happens. On pp. 208-209 I applied the ADP to Tushratta]. There were many further arguments in favour of my ‘alter ego’ comparisons, e.g: [P. 65 Boutflower has shown the name Tabeel to have been comparable with Tab rimmon. P. 146, Tiglath-pileser III was also ‘Pul[u]’, both in history and the Bible. We know that Assyrians took different names as rulers of Babylon, p. 184. P. 179-180 my folding of the Middle Bronze I & II Ages also involved name folding. P. 138, explanation of Sargon II’s name as a throne name; Sennacherib, as a personal name. P. 139, Tobit clearly says who Sennacherib’s father was, “Shalmaneser”, not Sargon (p. 184, the name Sargon, meaning “true King”, is suspicious – he may well have been a usurper). P. 147 Tiglath-pileser is a throne name, not a personal name. P. 169 Esarhaddon was known to have had two different names. The biblical Hadoram is also Joram, p. 69, and the name Adda-danu = Balu shipti, p. 70]. In light of all this, one has to wonder if the 3rd examiner has properly read the thesis! And to make me question this even further there is the 3rd examiner’s mistaken comment re “So = Saïs, p. 189”; this being, incidentally, the only occasion in all of sixteen paragraphs where the 3rd examiner cites a specific page (let alone Chapter, or Volume) of my thesis. By the time we have come to this p. 189 (re “So = Saïs …”), I had already given pages (see above) of linguistic arguments and principles in support of my thesis, and these would continue on, including into Volume Two, Part II (pp. 37-46) and in the Excursus, pp. 87-102. So I cannot justifiably be flatly accused of ‘failing to explain name correspondences’. My particular criticism of the So = Saïs equation was that “So” was a biblical king of Egypt, whereas Saïs is well known to have been a city in the W. Egyptian Delta. However unconvincing scholars may find some of my own equations, be they of people or places, at least I cannot be accused of ever having attempted to force an identification of one designated as a person with a known place (city), as some conventional historians have proposed in the case of So = Saïs. That strange ‘osmosis’ (a person becoming a place) is the point of my argument here. As I claim, my ‘alternative’ historical model is not a barren one. At least the 2nd examiner, as we read, did not think so (“new facts”). Nor did the 1st examiner, who liked e.g. the following comparisons: p. 82 - good attempt to identify the enigmatic Kassites (who remain a real problem). pp. 88ff. – excellent point regarding use of Hebrew in [el-Amarna] correspondence. pp. 90ff. – a provocative and detailed discussion of the [el-Amarna] correspondence in order to identify the correspondents. pp. 133ff. –The Sargon II-Sennacherib equation is provocative, comprehensive and near compelling. It stands as a major challenge to traditional specialists in Mesopotamian history and archaeology. p. 180 – a tantalizing comparison between 12th and 8th century BC individuals. pp. 180ff. – good discussion of Kassite/Assyro-Babylonian similarities. pp. 300ff. – very good discussion of the meaning of the Israel Stele. pp. 316ff. – good attempt to unravel the relationship between the 21st and 22nd [Egyptian] dynasties; pp. 322-327 – drives home the point about objects identified as “heirlooms” owing to a misplaced chronology. This same 1st examiner, too, had fully appreciated the degree of difficulty involved with certain aspects of my thesis, particularly in relation to Egypt’s most troublesome Third Intermediate Period, or TIP [i.e., Dynasties 21-26]: pp. 358ff. – an interesting attempt to sort out “who was who” in the 21st & 22nd Dynasties. This seems to be one of the most confusing periods in Ancient Egyptian history (pace Kitchen) and may never be straightened out. Mackey is to be commended for his effort. [Indeed, the great Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner had despaired of this historical period’s ever being properly resolved. See quote on p. 338 of thesis]. My thesis in fact, as I made clear (Chapter 3, p. 51), would tackle head on the three most vexed problems for the Velikovskian based revision (none of which is problem free in the conventional system), namely: ‘The Assuruballit Problem’ [henceforth TAP]; where to locate Ramses II (in the new scheme); and the resolution of the complex TIP. And, whilst I thought ultimately (thesis Conclusion, pp. 103-106) that I had managed to propose a positive solution to (i) and (ii), I did not claim to have done more than to provide “at least the outline of a solution - rather than a comprehensive revision - for (iii)”. Generally, as I have said, my ‘alternative’ historical model can be fruitful, having the potential to solve some glaring, unresolved problems that have persisted in - even bedevilled - the conventional system. Some of these, which are a bit technical in full detail, I shall now illustrate in brief: One of the most glaring problems is the lack of archaeology for a supposed 400 years of Kassite history (see section ‘dark age’ for more detail on this), completely resolved in my chronological shrinkage and identification of the Kassites with Assyro-Babylonian kings. See also the 1st examiner’s favourable comments above on my treatment of the Kassites. The conventional system cannot explain why, whereas Assuruballit of Assyria’s father - as given in the el-Amarna letters - was called Assur-nadin-ahe, his father is named in the Assyrian King List as Eriba-Adad, not Assur-nadin-ahe. Yet so much is based on this supposed connection, as we read in Centuries of Darkness: “Thus the much vaunted synchronism between Akhenaten and Assuruballit I, the main linch-pin between Egyptian and Assyrian Late Bronze Age chronologies, is flawed and must be treated with caution” (cited on p. 231 of thesis). My multi-identification of Tushratta enabled for me to explain how this Mitannian king had been in a position to send the statue of Ishtar of Nineveh (Assyria) to pharaoh Amenhotep III in Egypt, in the hope of curing the latter’s illness. For Tushratta was also, according to my reconstruction, Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria, pp. 73, 76-81. [See also p. 80, art evidence for Ashurnasirpal II as a contemporary of Egypt’s Late Kingdom]. *** My equation, Tushratta = Abdi-ashirta (the 2nd examiner, as we saw, liked the linguistic connection here), serves to answer my persistent question (e.g. pp. 65-67, 73) as to why two contemporary kings, Tushratta and Abdi-ashirta, ruling the same regions, and with the same ambitions and aspirations (e.g. to consolidate rule over Mitanni), never clashed, nor do their names ever appear together in the el-Amarna correspondence. The mention in 2 Chronicles 21:16-17 of “the Arabians, who were near the Cushites [Ethiopians]”, who sacked king Jehoram’s palace in Jerusalem has bewildered biblical scholars (see my discussion in Chapter 4, pp. 112-114). E.g: “This curious verse can hardly signify that the Arabians took and plundered Jerusalem” (quote on p. 114). But it is perfectly explainable in a revised context. In fact we often meet with cases in which the conventional scenario leads to such statements of bewilderment or astonishment, e.g: p. 73, where Campbell had sought for “... a way to explain a Mitannian raid into upper Syria sometime during the final years of Amenophis [Amenhotep] III, carried out by Tušratta [Tushratta] while he was maintaining loyal friendship with Egypt”. But Campbell finally had to admit to having “no satisfactory explanation”. [See also Roux, p. 14 below, on Kassite archaeology]. The fairly recently published Tang-i Var inscription (see Chapter 6, p. 144, Chapter 12, pp. 350-351, 364) has thrown into complete and unexpected confusion the conventional syncretisms between Sargon II of Assyria and the 25th Ethiopian dynasty; a problem that does not exist in my renovation of neo-Assyrian history and the TIP. And, with Sargon II to be merged with Sennacherib, as I have argued, then Thiele’s problems with harmonizing the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah against the neo-Assyrian rule are no longer relevant. As the 1st examiner notes, this (Sargon II = Sennacherib) was “provocative, comprehensive and near compelling”. [For more on this, see p. 13 below of this Appendix)]. Art-historical problems of similarities between C12th BC (‘Middle’ Assyro-Babylonian) and C8th BC (‘Neo’ Assyro-Babylonian) art (pp. 80-81, also pp. 250-251) do not exist in my model, which provides a chronological folding of the ‘Middle’ and ‘Neo’ eras. [See also p. 250, for art of Horemheb, Egypt’s Late Kingdom, like that found in neo-Assyria; p. 251, for art depicting the ‘Sea Peoples’, again Late Kingdom, like that of Shalmaneser III of a supposedly later period]. Secondly, “equations of a similar nature for geographic place names” There were actually rather few such geographical “equations” proposed in the thesis, and the 3rd examiner mentions only two of these, namely: “… Lachish = Ashdod; Rages = Damascus”. Regarding the first, Lachish = Ashdod, I noted Chapter 6 (p. 154) that Sargon II had, in his Annals, actually referred simultaneously to two Ashdods: “Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath?], Ashdudimmu [Ashdod-by-the-Sea], I besieged and captured”. The conventional historians do not explain why. My thesis does. They are two separate locations, with ‘Ashdod-by-the-Sea’ being the conventional Ashdod; whereas ‘Ashdod’, unqualified, is Lachish. This identification solves a host of problems, including why Sargon II, who actually took the fort of Azekah in Judah (pp. 158-159) would have studiously ignored Azekah’s neighbour fort (p. 140), the mighty Lachish. Sargon II claims to have subdued Judah (as noted on p. 154). For other resolutions, and arguments in favour of this equation, Ashdod = Lachish, see pp. 151, 160-162. As regards the equation Rages = Damascus, the 3rd examiner has made the comment: “… simply contradictory … Rages, situated in a mountainous terrain, was equated with Damascus which was correctly noted as being located in a plain …”. Now this, the only occasion when the 3rd examiner has credited me with being ‘correct’, in fact mis-states what I had actually written. I discussed all this in Volume Two, Chapter 2, pp. 38-40, where I had specifically claimed that “Rages”, a city in the mountains, must be the city of Damascus that dominated the province of Batanaea” (p. 39). Damascus, almost 700 m above sea level, is actually situated on a plateau. Secondly, I gave there very specific geographical details in order to identify this “Rages” in relation to “Ecbatana” (Tobit 5:6), which I had in turn identified (following the Heb. Londinii, or HL, fragment version of Tobit) with “Bathania”, or Bashan (possibly Herodotus’ Syrian Ecbatana as opposed to the better known Median Ecbatana). According to Tobit, “Rages is situated in the mountains, two days’ walk from Ecbatana which is in the plain”. Now Damascus is precisely two days’ walk from Bashan in the Hauran plain, as according to Jâkût el-Hamawi who says of Batanaea’s most central town of Nawâ …: “Between Nawa and Damascus is two days’ journey” (as quoted on p. 39). What further consolidates the fact that Tobit’s ‘Ecbatana’ was in a westerly direction, rather than an easterly one, is that his son Tobias, leaving Nineveh, arrived at the Tigris river in the evening; an impossibility were he heading for Median Ecbatana in the east. And, according to the Vulgate version of Tobit, Charan, that is, Haran, is situated “in the halfway” between Nineveh and Ecbatana. The traveller is clearly journeying towards the west. Whilst Bible scholars today tend to dismiss the whole geography of the Book of Tobit as nonsensical, a simple adjustment based on a genuine version (Heb. Londinii), makes perfect - even very precise (“two days walk”) - sense of it. Thirdly, “vague similarities” 3rd examiner: “Vague similarities were used as a means of drawing identical equations. Thus, for example, the use of kohl was found to be a similarity between Jezebel (conventionally dated to 9th century BC) and Nefertiti (conventionally dated to 14th century BC), which was subsequently used to suggest that they were probably the same person. This appeared to make the evidence fit the desired outcome”. My comment: I hardly hung my reconstruction on this small point of the kohl. As part of my primary foundations, 1-3, I had re-located the el-Amarna period (Nefertiti’s age) from the C14th BC to the C9th BC. The 1st examiner, according to whom: “pp. 210-222 – While the equation of Nefertiti with Jezebel is intriguing, I don’t buy it”, had conceded that: “It is a better argument for their contemporaneity rather than identity”. Note here that the 1st examiner was fully aware that my reconstruction of Nefertiti far exceeds (“pp. 210-222”) the mere mention of “kohl” (p. 221). “Kohl” is an element that the seemingly “eye witness” (P. Ellis quote, p. 221) account of Jezebel’s death has included, and it is certainly a notable feature of Nefertiti’s cosmetic make-up. But I intended it merely as just one small piece in a large jigsaw puzzle, or possible Identikit. Now this is a typical ploy of the 3rd examiner, to minimize the evidence I used for a particular reconstruction. Indeed the very same procedure can be found in the following two instances of criticism: (3rd examiner): “Thus, for example, to propose that two Assyrian monarchs, Sargon II and Sennacherib … were not only one and the same person, but also identical with the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar I, is a simply stunning claim. One needs far more than chronological concurrence (which itself was not convincingly argued for) to make this claim, yet no further convincing grounds were given”. My comments: Apart from the fact that I had previously addressed the ‘dark age’ problem in ‘Middle Assyrian’ history Chapter 6, pp. 130-131, then applying this to Babylonia, Chapter 7, pp. 174-176, I had then begun to bridge the gap between ‘Middle’ and ‘Neo’ Assyrian history. I did this particularly by synchronizing the circumstances of Tukulti-Ninurta I and III, and then making a detailed comparison between Tiglath-pileser I and III, Chapter 7, pp. 181-184, accompanied also by comparisons between the Babylonian Merodach-baladan I and II (whose building works even archaeologists cannot clearly distinguish, p. 179). I also showed that a succession of supposedly C12th BC Elamite kings (known as the ‘Shutrukids’), encountered by Nebuchednezzar I, had virtually the same names as a succession of Elamite kings encountered by Sennacherib. Thus (my Table 1, p. 180): Table 1: Comparison of the C12th BC (conventional) and C8th BC C12th BC · Some time before Nebuchednezzar I, there reigned in Babylon a Merodach-baladan [I]. · The Elamite kings of this era carried names such as Shutruk-Nahhunte and his son, Kudur-Nahhunte. · Nebuchednezzar I fought a hard battle with a ‘Hulteludish’ (Hultelutush-Inshushinak). C8th BC · The Babylonian ruler for king Sargon II’s first twelve years was a Merodach-baladan [II]. · SargonII/Sennacherib fought against the Elamites, Shutur-Nakhkhunte & Kutir-Nakhkhunte. · Sennacherib had trouble also with a ‘Hallushu’ (Halutush-Inshushinak). “Too spectacular I think to be mere coincidence!”, I had remarked. The 1st examiner, as we read, appreciated this. [I also gave art-historical support for this ‘folding’ of eras (p. 181). And I identified, as the same person, a legendary Vizier common to both eras (p. 185-187). On pp. 184-186, I entered into a discussion of Sennacherib as Nebuchednezzar I]. Moreover, my explanation (Sennacherib = Nebuchednezzar I, pp. 184-186) solved the conundrum for the conventional history as to why the proud Sargon II, or Sennacherib, did not - like previous Assyrian conquerors of Babylon - adopt the title: “King of Babylon”, “preferring to use the older shakkanaku (‘viceroy’)” (p. 185). “That modesty however was not an Assyrian characteristic we have already seen abundantly”, I wrote. “And so lacking in this virtue was Sargon in fact, I believe, that historians have had to create a complete Babylonian king, namely, Nebuchednezzar I, to accommodate the Assyrian’s rôle as ‘King of Babylon’.” My point here is again that this construction was built on far more than, according to the 3rd examiner, “chronological concurrence”. Moreover, I was not averse to pointing to certain defects in my own reconstruction (e.g. p. 185, a major problem). And for the actual equation, Sargon II = Sennacherib, a matter of extreme controversy, no doubt, and one therefore requiring detailed attention, I had painstakingly throughout Chapter 6 (1st examiner used the word, “comprehensive”) gone through the successive regnal year events of Sargon II, comparing these with the successive campaign records of Sennacherib, showing that they compared remarkably well: too well, indeed, I thought, to have been mere coincidence. Here is my summary and comment on this (from p. 166): A Question By Way of Summary What are the chances of two successive kings having, in such perfect chronological sequence - over a span of some two decades - the same campaigns against the same enemies? Merodach-baladan (Sargon). Merodach-baladan (Sennacherib). 2. Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sargon). Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sennacherib). 3. Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sargon). Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sennacherib) 4. Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sargon). Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sennacherib). 5. (Not fully preserved) (Sargon). (Not fully preserved) (Sennacherib). 6. Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sargon). Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sennacherib). 7. Elam (Sargon). Elam (Sennacherib). [End of quote]. (iv) ‘Dark Age’ (paragraph 13); At the beginning of Chapter 6, I resorted to the testimony of Assyriologists re some crucial phases of Dark Age in Assyrian history. I drew some of this information from the book, Centuries of Darkness, by Peter James and other scholars from different fields. Though James is a revisionist, this book (which has a Foreword by Professor/Lord Colin Renshaw, archaeologist) is now being quoted favourably in text books, e.g. by N. Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell, 1992), p. 440. I continued this discussion of Dark Age into Chapter 7, as noted above, and also returned to it in detail when analyzing the TIP in Chapter 11 and Chapter 12. Here I would like just to take a section out of my Chapter 7, p. 175, re the Kassite archaeology, or lack thereof, to show clearly that there is something seriously wrong with the present structure: It is not I think too much to say that the Kassites are an enigma for the over-extended conventional scheme. Roux has given the standard estimate for the duration of Kassite rule of Babylonia: “… a long line of Kassite monarchs was to govern Mesopotamia or, as they called it, Kar-Duniash for no less than four hundred and thirty-eight years (1595-1157 B.C.)”. This is a substantial period of time; yet archaeology has surprisingly little to show for it. Roux again: Unfortunately, we are not much better off as regards the period of Kassite domination in Iraq … all we have at present is about two hundred royal inscriptions – most of them short and of little historical value – sixty kudurru … and approximately 12,000 tablets (letters and economic texts), less than 10 per cent of which has been published. This is very little indeed for four hundred years – the length of time separating us from Elizabeth 1. [Seton] Lloyd, in his book dedicated to the study of Mesopotamian archaeology [The Archaeology of Mesopotamia] can give only a mere 4 pages [i.e., pp. 172-175] (including pictures) to the Kassites, without even bothering to list them in the book’s Index at the back. [End of quote]. (v) footnotes/aesthetics (paragraphs 14-15) 3rd examiner: “… consistently incorrect use of such terms as ibid. and op. cit.” [para 14], and “consistently redundant use of ellipsis (…) in quotations” [para 15]. My comment: These are matters that can easily be tidied up before the thesis is bound. All three examiners had some comment to make regarding footnotes. Though I can see no other alternative than to using ellipsis - as I have continued to do in this Appendix – when employing only selected parts of a quote.
Solomon and Sheba .......................................................................................4
Damien Mackey presents new evidence that Hatshepsut was the Queen of Sheba.
….
Society for Interdisciplinary Studies
CHRONOLOGY AND CATASTROPHISM
REVIEW
1997:1
Editor's Notes
Probably few articles caused more disappointment in SIS circles than John Bimson's 1986 `Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba', which presented strong evidence and argument against Velikovsky's proposal that the mysterious and exotic queen who visited King Solomon was none other than the famous Egyptian female pharaoh. This removed one of the key identifications in Velikovsky's Ages in Chaos historical reconstruction and was a key factor in the rejection of his proposed chronology by Bimson and others in favour of the more moderate `New Chronology'. It also took away what had seemed a romantic and satisfactory solution to the mystery of the identity and origins of Solomon's visitor, leaving her once more as an historical enigma.
In this issue, Damien Mackey returns to the question, challenging Bimson's conclusions, giving a new twist to Velikovsky's scheme - and throwing up some controversial identifications of other famous Egyptian (and Greek) historical figures. No doubt it will not be the last word on the matter but maybe it will stimulate fresh discussion about the identities and lives of these people whose names and stories have been handed down to us from ancient times ….
Damien Mackey (MA, BPhil, MA) has two Master of Arts Degrees, from the University of Sydney (Australia). His first thesis `The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar', was a ‘demolition job’ on conventional Egyptian dating. In his reconstruction (i) the Exodus occurred at the end of Egypt's Old Kingdom (EBA); (ii) the MBI people were the Israelites of the Exodus/Conquest and (iii) the early monarchy of Israel was contemporary with the early New Kingdom of Egypt. On these points his reconstruction is close to Donovan Courville's in his `The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications'. Mackey’s second thesis, ‘A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background’, was his attempt to develop a more acceptable alternative to the conventional chronology.
New evidence is brought forward in support of Velikovsky's ingenious thesis that Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh of Egypt's 18th Dynasty, was in fact the biblical Queen of Sheba. That new evidence is the presence of Solomon himself in the Egyptian inscriptions in the person of Hatshepsut's great Steward, Senenmut.
1.INTRODUCTION
A decade has elapsed since Dr. John Bimson wrote his probing critique [I] of Immanuel Velikovsky's thesis that Queen Hatshepsut was the biblical Queen of Sheba [2]. In the interim, there has been a succession of other critiques - and new chronologies - by James, Rohl, Sieff, Sweeney, and others. Dr. Bimson, by submitting Velikovsky's thesis to intense scrutiny, has done a great service, forcing those who would wish to defend the idea that Hatshepsut was the Queen of Sheba to dig deeper and to come up with more cogent arguments.
In The Queen of Sheba - Hatshepsut [3], Iendeavoured to answer objections raised by Bimson and bring forward some new evidence in support of Velikovsky's conclusion. There are reasons for believing that the biblical queen was not an Arabian queen from Yemen (as Bimson and others have proposed) but an Egyptian queen ruling over Egypt/Ethiopia, Hatshepsut.
Her Name
Contrary to Bimson's claim, there is no grammatical obstacle to Velikovsky's view that `Sheba' was actually the queen's personal name. The construct state is used in various places in Hebrew for an ‘Apposition’ - a proper name or a description of a proper name [4]. According to Velikovsky, Shebawas probably a nickname for Hatshepsut in the close relationships that existed between the 18th Dynasty and the House of David and in Ethiopian legend Solomon's visitor was called Makeda, a name almost identical to Hatshepsut's throne name, Make-ra (Maat-ka-re).
Her Nationality
Bimson argued that the biblical description had an Arabian flavour, with camels, gold, spices and precious stones but all the monarchs who came to hear Solomon's wisdom brought `silver and gold ... myrrh, spices ...' (cf.I Kings 10:25 & II Chronicles 10:24). Ever since the time of Joseph, an Arabian camel train had operated between Egypt and northern Palestine, carrying similar types of gifts (Genesis 37:25). The New Testament evidence that Solomon's visitor was a ‘Queen of the south [who] came from the ends of the earth ...’ (cf. Matthew 12:42 & Luke 11:31)supports an Egypto-Ethiopian identity. In the Book of Daniel, the phrase `of the south' was used with various rulers to designate rulership over Egypt and Ethiopia(cf. Daniel 11:5, 6, 9, 11, 25, 40). ‘Ends of the earth’ is an Egyptianism, in line with what Professor A. Yahuda has written about the influence of the Egyptian language on the Scriptures [5]. Both phrases point us in the direction of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Bimson suggested that the biblical queen was from Yemen in Arabia, but van Beek [6] has described the geographical isolation of Yemen and the hazards of a journey from there to Palestine and none of the numerous inscriptions from this southern part of Arabia refers to the famous queen. Civilisation in southern Arabia may not really have begun to flourish until some two to three centuries after Solomon's era, as Bimson himself has noted [7] and no 10th century BC Arabian queen has ever been named or proposed as the Queen of Sheba. If she hailed from Yemen, who was she?
Her Family
I accept Velikovsky’s basic alignment of Israel's early kingdom with the 18th Dynasty, with pharaoh Thutmose I as Solomon's father-in-law Thutmose I had only two daughters; Hatshepsut and another who died as a child.
The archaeological evidence for destruction at Gezer in Late Bronze I-II that Bimson [8] has equated with its sacking by Solomon's Egyptian father-in-law (cf. I Kings 9:16), well fits the era of Thutmose I [9].
Her Religion
During Hatshepsut's co-rulership with Thutmose III, there was a trend towards monotheism in Egypt, with Amon-Ra being identified in inscriptions as ‘King of All Gods’ [10]. The Egyptians were admittedly polytheistic, with a marked inclination towards idolatry but in the case of Amon-Ra, Mallon [11] has shown, this plurality was of titles rather than of gods. The devotion to Amon-Ra developed at the time Joseph [12], so the monotheism of Hatshepsut's time would have related specifically to the worship of the God of Joseph. Joseph's influence over Egypt must have been enormous. Pharaoh gave him for a wife the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis (Genesis 41:45), and the highly religious Joseph would undoubtedly have exerted a considerable theological influence on the system of Heliopolis [13].
The influence of Hebrew wisdom on the Egyptians did not end with Joseph. Hatshepsut's own inscriptions betray Israelite influence - especially from Genesis, the Psalms and, most interestingly, the writings generally attributed to Solomon (Proverbs, Wisdom, Song of Songs) [14]. From the perspective of Thebes there were several further interesting similarities between these two periods (apart from the prominence of Amon-Ra [or Ptah]) [15].
The Punt Expedition
Bimson's analysis of the Punt expedition (and the lack of reference in the Old Testament to Egypt in relation to the Queen of Sheba) constituted his most formidable argument against Velikovsky's thesis. Bimson made a detailed comparison in situ between the Egyptian bas-reliefs and the biblical description and concluded that the match was extremely poor. The gifts given by the Egyptians to the Puntites were insignificant compared with those given by the Queen of Sheba to Solomon. And Bimson also found no evidence in the inscriptions to support Velikovsky's view that Hatshepsut had actually gone in person to Punt (whereas the Queen of Sheba had most certainly gone in person to Jerusalem).
However, on the basis of Dorman's chronology of Hatshepsut's, era [16], the Punt expedition is actually irrelevant to the matter. Velikovsky had made a significant chronological miscalculation when arguing that Hatshepsut would have been influenced, in the design of her own temple, by what she saw in Jerusalem. Hatshepsut would already have commenced the building of her temple (and would a fortiori have been in possession of the plans for it) before she launched her Punt expedition as Pharaoh of Egypt. (See Appendix A for a revised explanation of the Punt venture.)
For, whilst Velikovsky was quite correct in his view that Hatshepsut had been influenced in her temple design by what she saw in Jerusalem, the fact is that she would have needed to have gone to Jerusalem before her having launched the Punt expedition, i.e. while she was still only ‘queen’ in Egypt. Both the Old and New Testaments specifically entitle Solomon's visitor ‘queen’, which is a significant chronological clue.
2. SENENMUT IN HATSHEPSUT'S
QUEENSHIP (Regnal years 1-6)
Velikovsky had claimed to have found in writings about the Queen of Sheba a profile of Hatshepsut, sovereign of Egypt. Can we find any trace of King Solomon in Egyptian records?
I believe that we can, and that Senenmut was Solomon himself (Heb. Shelomoh).Practically all the inscriptional evidence is favourable to this except for a snag in relation to Senenmut's tomb complex. Senenmut was honoured with a lavish tomb - two tombs in fact [17]. He was not buried in either of them and it has been argued that he was never intended to be [l8]. Senenmut's parents are supposed to have been buried together in one of these tombs - but Solomon's father, King David, was buried in Jerusalem (I Kings 2:10).
Furthermore, with the Punt expedition no longer chronologically convincing as the Egyptian record of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, there is no recorded venture to take its place.
Maybe it was not recorded - at least with the same sort of inscriptional magnificence as the Punt expedition - because it had occurred when Hatshepsut was still a ‘queen’, and not the ‘Pharaoh’, probably in the brief phase in Regnal Year 1 when Thutmose III ruled Egypt as a child-Pharaoh. Thutmose III was the son of Hatshepsut's husband, Thutmose II, by the concubine, Isis - but Thutmose III was a mere child and Hatshepsut soon intervened to assume the governance of Egypt. With Hatshepsut merely a ‘queen’ at the time of her trip to Jerusalem, it would have been a personal initiative, not recorded in the official inscriptions.
Perhaps the real evidence for the queen's visit to the Jerusalem of Solomon's time lies, not in any actual records of the expedition itself, but rather in the effects that Israelite religion and culture had on the Egypt of Hatshepsut's time.
Hatshepsut and Thutmose III
The architect Ineni described Thutmose as ‘the ruler upon the throne of him who begot him’ but says that ‘His sister, the Divine Consort, Hatshepsut, adjusted the affairs of [Egypt] by reason of her designs ...’ [19].Hatshepsut brought to the throne of Egypt some ambitious plans and historians agree she could not have carried them out without the support of Senenmut and powerful officials. Nevertheless, Budge says ‘... we are quite justified in saying that the interests of the country suffered in no way through being in her hands’ [20].
Senenmut's Call
Senenmut is a complete enigma to historians. His ancestry was not unequivocally Egyptian. According to one of his statues ‘Iwas in this land under [her] command since the occurrence of the death of [her] predecessor ...' [21]. His ‘ancestors were not found in writing’, or - variously translated ‘[whose name] is not to be found amongst the annals of the ancestors’ [22]. Both indicate that Senenmut did not hail from Egypt.
Further possible hints that Senenmut was a foreigner were his fascination with the Egyptian language, his ‘idiosyncracies in regard to the Egyptian language - the uncommon substitution of certain hieroglyphs' and his penchant for creating cryptograms, e.g. in relation to Hatshepsut's throne name, Make-ra [23]. His appearance, as depicted on statues does not provide any clues. The most outstanding feature is ‘his massive wig’ [24], an Egyptian feature. However, Solomon was thoroughly Egyptianised - two of his high officials in Jerusalem bore Egyptian names Shisha and Eli-horeph (IKings 4:3). Peter James [25] refers to an ivory plaque found at Megiddo, ‘showing a monarch holding court’, depicted in Egyptian guise. Megiddo was one of Solomon's great forts in northern Israel, where he had built a ‘monumental palace compound’ (I Kings 9:15). According to James, the ‘material culture of Palestine at the end of the Late Bronze Age [Solomon's era by the revision] is best seen’ at its site and the ivory plaque ‘... is of particular interest. [The monarch] is seated on a throne decorated with sphinxes. If it was intended to represent a specific rather than an idealized ruler, would it be too much to imagine that in this ivory we actually have a depiction of the Egyptianized King Solomon?’ Solomon may indeed have worn an Egyptian wig [26].
I believe that Senenmut's arrival in Egypt was a direct result of Queen Hatshepsut's visit to Jerusalem as the Queen of Sheba. ‘King Solomon gave to the queen of Shebaall that she desired, whatever she asked ...’ (I Kings 10: 13). She was so convinced by what he told her that ‘there was no more spirit in her’ (cf. I Kings 10:3,5). Hatshepsut regarded Senenmut as her mentor and he claimed to have been an influence in Egypt ‘since [Hatshepsut's] youth’ [28]. One of his Cairo statues says he was one ‘whose opinion [Hatshepsut] has desired for [herself], who pleases the mistress of [Egypt] with his utterance’ [27] and he was both ‘chief spokesman of her estate’ (i.e. the material wealth and properties of the royal household were under his supervision) and ‘judge in the entire land’ of Egypt. Similarly, Solomon was called ‘judge' of Israel (Wisdom 9:7). Wilson [29] recognised that Hatshepsut perceived Senenmut as ‘an adviser’, though ‘In what manner he forged the bonds which brought him into close relations with his royal mistress and by which he won not only her trust but possibly even her love is a closed page of history’. Dorman notes, in relation toWinlock [30], that Queen Hatshepsut gave Senenmut his first government posts, ‘linking him closely to the royal family by giving him charge of princess Neferura'.
What had impressed the young queen during her visit toJerusalem? It was Solomon's civil and religious administration. His military organisation was also efficient, and - despite enemies later like Hadad in Edom and Rezon in Damascus (1 Kings 11:14-25) - he was never really seriously challenged during his entire 40-year reign. In fact, the era of Solomon and Hatshepsut (in revisionist terms) was one of singular peace.
Hatshepsut would also have noticed Solomon's magnificent fleet (I Kings 10:11) and the parks and gardens in Jerusalem with their exotic myrrh trees (Song of Songs 5:1; 6:2). Presumably these were what later inspired Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition.
Hatshepsut asked Solomon for help in governing her land. She probably also sought military back-up in case other forces in Egypt took advantage of the initially fragile situation in Egypt, to engineer a coup against young Thutmose III [32]. Perhaps, too, there were some who did not dispute his accession but were ready to dispute any intervention by the queen as co-ruler. Winlock [33] suggests that Hatshepsut required Senenmut’s assistance for her own coup d'êtat. Hayes says [34]: ‘The person who probably contributed most to Hatshepsut's success was her Chief Steward, Senenmut, a canny politician and brilliant administrator who ... rose [sic] to be the queen's most favoured official’.
‘Greatest of the Great’
Most historians would agree with Baikie [35] that Senenmut ‘was by far the most powerful and important figure of [Hatshepsut's] reign’. Few supposedly non-royal personages in pharaonic Egypt have caused as much ink to flow [36], and his statues and inscriptions are still abundant despite the campaign of destruction waged against them after his death.He boasted ‘I was the greatest of the great in the land …’ [37]. According to Baikie [38]: ‘... we have sufficient evidence to make it manifest that a good deal of it was simple truth, and that [Senenmut] was by far the most powerful and important figure of the reign’.
He even seems to have eclipsed Thutmose III who - after his death - went on to become perhaps the most potent of all Egypt's rulers.
Given Solomon's generous disposition (cf.Wisdom 7:13-14); his opportunism in trading matters (cf.I Kings 10:28-29), his love for beautiful foreign women (1 Kings 11:1), he could have found it hard to refuse Hatshepsut's requests. There may have been much behind the statement ‘King Solomon gave to the queen of Shebaall that she desired, whatever she asked ...’. On the Cairo statue of Senenmut, it says he ‘was one who entered in love and came forth in favour, making glad the heart of [Hatshepsut] every day ...’ [39]. Even during her lifetime, there were rumours that Senenmut owed his power to his relations with the Queen. Ironically, because there is no record in Egypt of his having had any offspring, Senenmut is thought by Egyptologists to have been a life-long bachelor.
My reconstruction of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon would answer the question of how Senenmut came to power in Egypt and became the might behind the throne there, pursuing ‘one of the most amazing careers in ancient Egypt’ [40]. Had historians realised who he was, they might not have puzzled over why Hatshepsut ‘during her lifetime ... faced less opposition than might have been expected’ [41].
Senenmut as Tutor of Neferure & Thutmose III
Senenmut was a renowned ‘judge’ in the land - and also Steward of Hatshepsut. Steward of Neferure and Steward of Amon - the latter considered to be ‘his most important position’ [42]. There are various statues of him cradling Neferure in his arms, or with her peeping out from the folds of his cloak. Senenmut was also tutor to the young Thutmose III. On a stela discovered in North Karnak, he applies to the child ruler for deed, of transfer of land for institutions within the estate of Amon-Ra [43]. The application was granted. There is nothing conclusive in inscriptions to support the traditional view that Thutmose III held a deep-seated grudge against Hatshepsut or Senenmut. However, the biblical scenario shows that, towards the end of Solomon's life, serious cracks began to relationship with the young Pharaoh (as the biblical ‘King Shishak of Egypt’).
Senenmut's ‘Floruit’
In this revision, Senenmut's floruit in Egypt would correspond to the mid-to-late phase of Solomon's reign = Years 1-16 of Thutmose III. (N.B. Hatshepsut's reign is dated by the regnal years of Thutmose III). Just prior to this period, Solomon completed his great building projects in Jerusalem, and, towards its end, he fell away from pure Yahwism into a decadent phase, building shrines to pagan gods for his foreign wives (I Kings 1:18). In perfect accord this. Grimal says Senenmut ‘was a ubiquitous figure throughout the first three-quarters of Hatshepsut's reign' [44]. He oversaw some of the most famous temples and shrines built during the co-reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, and Neferure's name also figures in some of these.
Solomon's years of service to Yahweh and also his apostasy from Yahwism ought both perhaps to be reflected in Senenmut's inscriptions [45].
Solomon's Administration
The Queen of Sheba visited Solomon at the peak of his power. Bright [46] has provided a realistic account of how he organised and administered the land of Israel. Much of it is favourable, but there is also a negative side to it. Increasingly, he laid a heavy hand on his subjects in the form of taxation (1 Kings 4:7-19), appointing governors throughout the land to collect it. The state eventually faced a chronic financial crisis. When one thinks of Solomon's building projects, his army, his lavish support of the liturgy, of the worship of Yahweh, his burgeoning private establishment and the administration of the state and its undertakings, this is understandable.
Solomon, unlike his father David, embarked upon no significant military conquests - so, while expenses mounted, revenue from tribute did not. Trade was profitable, but not enough to balance the budget. Solomon took drastic measures and resorted to the hated corvée. State slavery and forced labour were common in the ancient world, especially in Egypt. However, when the Canaanite population proved inadequate, Solomon even inaugurated the corvée in Israel [47]. Labour gangs were levied and worked in relays in Lebanon felling timber for his building projects (I Kings 5:13f.).
This was a bitter dose for freeborn Israelites to swallow. The prophet Samuel had warned of the hardships if they opted for a king to rule over them (1 Samuel 8:11-18). Moses had predicted that a future king of Israel might cause the people wrongfully ‘to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses’ (Deuteronomy 17:16). Ultimately, it was the corvée that made Israel rebel against Solomon's son, Rehoboam, who had threatened ‘My father made your yoke heavy, but I shall add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I shall chastise you with scorpions’ ( I Kings 12:14).
When the administration of Israel spilled into Egypt, Hatshepsut apparently enforced the same harsh system there. Egypt ‘was made to labour with bowed head for her ...’ [48]. Not surprisingly, she put Senenmut in charge. ‘I was a foreman of foremen’, he tells us, ‘... overseer of all the works of the house of silver [treasury?] .... I was one to whom the affairs of [Egypt] were reported; that which South and North contributed was on my seal, the labour of all countries was under my charge’.
The taxation system that Hatshepsut introduced was based upon ‘a Middle Kingdom prototype’ [49]. It would not be surprising if this were the same stern model by which Joseph had reduced the Egyptians to servitude (cf. Genesis 41:34,35). Interestingly Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who led the revolt against Rehoboam, was previously appointed by Solomon in ‘charge of all the forced labour of the House of Joseph’ (I Kings 10:28). Archaeologists have discovered evidence of Senenmut's work gangs - e.g. an ostracon dated to Regnal Year 16 records the division between two foremen of a group of labourers apparently conscripted by Senenmut [50] and ‘two of Senenmut's pay sheets with three or four of the men struck off the lists’ [51].
Senenmut's Religious Functions
Historians claim ‘Steward of Amon’ was the most illustrious of all Senenmut's titles. This would be fitting if he were Solomon, and Amon-Ra were the Supreme God, the ‘King of Gods’, as the Egyptians called him. Senenmut was also ‘overseer of the garden of Amon’ (see Appendix A). Like Solomon, a king who also acted as a priest, Senenmut's chief rôle was religious. He was in charge of things pertaining to Amon and was ‘chief of all the prophets’. Solomon, at the beginning of his co-regency with David, had prayed for wisdom and a discerning mind (I Kings 3:9). On the completion of the Temple, he stood ‘before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, [he] spread forth his hands towards heaven’ (I Kings 8:22). Likewise, Senenmut is depicted in Hatshepsut's temple with arms up-stretched to heaven, praying to Hathor, the personification of wisdom.
Acting Abroad
Solomon must have spent a fair amount of time in Egypt - from approximately his 22nd/ 23rd year of reign (corresponding to Regnal Year 1 of Thutmose III) to late in his 40-year reign, when Jeroboam turned against him and sought protection with Thutmose III (‘Shishak’). Is this a realistic scenario?
The Bible gives far less detail about the latter part of Solomon's reign. In I Kings, only 15-16 verses separate the account of the Queen of Sheba’s leaving Jerusalem (10:13) from chapter 11, which informs us that ‘Solomon loved many foreign women’ who turned his heart away after other gods (vv. 1,4), and that he began to build shrines for them (vv. 7-8), so that God snatched most of the kingdom away from the House of David (v. l1). Next we read about the election of Jeroboam and his flight to Egypt to escape Solomon, who sought to kill him (v. 40). The verses in between describe Solomon, not so much as a ruler of Jerusalem, but as the great businessman and world trader
·sharing, with Hiram of Tyre, the trade of the ‘ships of Tarshish’ (10:22);
·receiving gifts from the ‘kings of the earth’ (vv. 23-25), who no doubt wanted a share in his trade; and
·importing horses and chariots from Egypt and Cilicia and exporting them to Hittite and Syrian kings (vv. 28-29).
This far-reaching commercially-based type of scenario seems to be backed up by Senenmut's claim that ‘the labour of all countries was under my charge’. During this period, the Scriptures do not say specifically that King Solomon was in Jerusalem, so there is perhaps scope for his having spent a fair amount of his time abroad, e.g. in Egypt. Israel would have been in a position to run itself. His government was in control and unchallenged, his bureaucrats well paid and much of the population was in a kind of subjection. Israel's fortifications were formidable, as was its army, which would have been allied with the armies of Egypt. So Solomon may well have been free to travel and to influence other countries (see Appendix B).
3. SENENMUT IN HATSHEPSUT'S
KINGSHIP (REGNAL YEARS 7-16)
Hatshepsut's Coronation
In about the 7th year of Thutmose III, according to Dorman [52], Hatshepsut had herself crowned king, assuming the name Maatkare or Make-ra (‘True is the heart of Ra’). In the present scheme, this would be close to Solomon's 30th regnal year. From then on, Hatshepsut is referred to as ‘king’, sometimes with the pronoun ‘she’ and sometimes ‘he’, and depicted in the raiment of a king. She is called the daughter of Amon-Ra - but in the picture of her birth a boy is moulded by Khnum, the shaper of human beings (i.e. Amon-Ra) [53].
According to Dorman, Senenmut was present at Hatshepsut's coronation and played a major rôle there [54]. On one statue [55] he is given some unique titles, which Berlandini-Grenier [56] identifies with the official responsible for the ritual clothing of the Queen ‘the stolist of Horus in privacy’, ‘keeper of the diadem in adorning the king’ and ‘he who covers the double crown with red linen’. Winlock was startled that Senenmut had held so many unique offices in Egypt, including ‘more intimate ones like those of the great nobles of France who were honored in being allowed to assist in the most intimate details of the royal toilet at the king's levees’ [57]. The rarity of the stolist titles suggested to Dorman [58] ‘a one-time exercise of Senenmut's function of stolist and that prosopographical conclusions might be drawn’, i.e., he had participated in Hatshepsut's coronation.
It would be fitting for Hatshepsut to have wanted Solomon, greatest king alive, to crown her as Pharaoh. The most recent statue of Senenmut to be found was of alabaster, unlike the rest which were granite. ‘Alabaster, used very much in the statuary of Thutmose III, is essentially, it seems, a stone reserved for royal monuments’ [59].Perhaps Hatshepsut had even intended Senenmut to become legitimate ruler of Egypt with her. According to Redford [60], Hatshepsut planned to insert Neferure into the line of succession, as demonstrated by the Sinai stela dated to the 11th year of Neferure, behind whom is portrayed ‘Senenmut, who may well have been the ‘evil genius’ behind this and many other novel moves’. However, maybe it was simply Hatshepsut acknowledging that Senenmut was a legitimate king in his own right.
Chief Architect
Now that Hatshepsut was Pharaoh, nothing could stop her grandiose plans. As queen, she had seen fantastic thing in Israel - the King enthroned in splendour, the palace, the Temple with its magnificent liturgy and gardens, and the Red Sea fleet, which may have arrived at Solomon's port while she was visiting him (cf. 1 Kings 10:1 & 10:11). Solomon could provide the same for her in Egypt. Significantly he, as Senenmut, was also Hatshepsut's chief architect [61].
Egypt could be efficiently reorganised on the same stern system that Solomon had imposed upon his own country. The work gangs would be employed everywhere, with Senemut both their ‘foreman [and] overseer’. We recall how cruel were the Egyptian ‘foremen’ in Moses' time, and that Moses had killed one of them for beating an Israelite (Exodus l:11 & 2:11-12). Yahweh had ultimately delivered his people from this ‘iron furnace’ of slavery in Egypt. How ironical, then, that a king of Israel, a believer in Yahweh, would now force the Egyptian people into servitude - but now with the Pharaoh's blessing! In return, Solomon could play the rôle of trading middleman, e.g. between Egypt and Syria.
Hatshepsut's Temple
Hatshepsut naturally enlisted Senenmut to plan her temple, ‘The Most Splendid of Splendours’, at Deir el-Bahri. He no doubt, in turn, as Solomon, sought expert assistance from the Phoenicians, just as he had done more than two decades earlier in the case of the Temple of Yahweh, in Jerusalem. Accordingly, Velikovsky had referred to Mariette's view that Hatshepsut's fine building betrayed ‘a foreign influence’, possibly from ‘the land of [Punt]’ [62]. If the Puntites were the Phoenicians [63] - and (according to the Bible) Phoenician craftsmen had assisted Solomon in his building of Yahweh's Temple - then it is most interesting that Mariette had observed that Hatshepsut's temple ‘probably represents ... a Phoenician influence’ [64]. From this, Velikovsky had concluded that the design of the latter was based on the Jerusalem model.
Bimson, however, would then reject this view, saying that Hatshepsut’s temple was clearly based on the layout of smaller 11th Dynasty temple nearby. Baikie [66], for his part, admitted that the 11th Dynasty temple would have offered Senenmut ‘the suggestion of how it would best to treat such a site ...’, but he was adamant that Hatshepsut’s temple was no slavish imitation of the older building. Senenmut, he said:
... appreciated a good suggestion when he saw it - all the more credit to him for his commonsense; but to say that he must therefore be denied any credit for originality is to set up a canon of criticism which would deprive Shakespeare of the credit for the creation of Hamlet, and Donatello of that for the creation of the Gattamelata statue. Having got his suggestion, he proceeded to glorify it, until he had produced a building which is infinitely superior ... to that of the earlier architect.
Baikie regarded the 11th Dynasty effort as ‘stumpy and sawn-off looking compared with the grace of the successive terraces, the long ramps and the graceful colonnades of the XVIIIth Dynasty artist’.
Senenmut's Tomb Complex
At about the same time, Hatshepsut also ordered a magnificent tomb complex [67] to be built in Senenmut's honour, on the highest hill in the private necropolis, at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna (No.71), with a subterranean passage at Deir el-Bahri down through the friable tafl to the fine limestone (No.353).
Helck [68] has suggested a novel purpose for tomb 353 (that all agree was the intended place of burial), claiming that it was meant - like the subterranean gallery below the temple of Mentuhotep II (11th Dynasty) - for the burial of a jubilee (heb sed) statue of the ruling monarch on the eve of the celebration of jubilee. The curious presence of Senenmut in the decorated chamber signified to Helck that it was also destined to hold a statue of Hatshepsut's Great Steward, as a ‘mock burial’. Strangely, the intended sarcophagus was found shattered in pieces on top of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. Although its exterior surface was carefully polished, carved and given a coat of red varnish, the lid was never completed. Was Senenmut/Solomon really meant to have been interred in it?
Senenmut's Astronomical Ceiling
The versatility of Senenmut is revealed in the paintings of his funerary complex. As Grimal has noted [69]:
‘[Senenmut's] constructions show that he was an architect, but other dimensions of his career are suggested by the presence of an astronomical ceiling in his tomb at Deir el-Bahri and about 150 ostraca in his tomb at Qurna, including several drawings (notably two plans of the tomb itself), as well as lists, calculations, various reports and some copies of religious, funerary and literary texts ...’.
Senenmut's tomb complex has some significant features:
·the lowest chambers of tomb 353 were within the sacred precincts of Hatshepsut's temple.
·in numerous niches there are reliefs depicting Senenmut praying on behalf of Hatshepsut. This usurpation of royal property and/or privilege has amazed historians [70],
·at the same time, a new corpus of funerary texts - what Assmann [71] calls ‘liturgies’ - was introduced into Egypt. [Interestingly, in the light of my claim that Egypt was at this time influenced by the era of Joseph, these liturgies are based upon ‘sequences attested only on Middle Kingdom coffins’ [72].
·among the literary texts was the famous Egyptian folktale, the Story of Sinuhe. I have argued [73] that this story is a conflation of biblical stories pertaining to Moses (especially), but perhaps also to David and to Joseph. Senenmut enjoyed the Story of Sinuhe [74].
·of special interest is the astronomical information in tomb 353, particularly the ceiling of Chamber A [75]. Senenmut's ceiling is the earliest astronomical ceiling known. We are reminded again of Solomon's encyclopaedic knowledge of astronomy and calendars (Wisdom 7:17-19). The ceiling is divided into two parts by transverse bands of texts, the central section of which contains the names ‘Hatshepsut’ and ‘Senenmut’ [76]. The southern half contains a list of decans derived from coffins of the Middle Kingdom period that had served as ‘a prototype’ for a family of decanal lists that survived until the Ptolemaïc period; whilst ‘The northern half is decorated with the earliest preserved depiction of the northern constellations; four planets (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) are also portrayed with them, and the lunar calendar is represented by twelve large circles’. [77]
In tomb 71 at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna,
·the sarcophagus itself is carved of quartzite in a unique oval form adapted from the royal cartouche shape. Dorman [78] says ‘... the sarcophagus seemed to be yet another proof ... of the pretensions Senenmut dares to exhibit, skirting dangerously close to prerogatives considered to be exclusively royal’. Winlock [79] would similarly note that it was ‘significantly designed as almost a replica of royal sarcophagi of the time’,
·one of the painted scenes features a procession of Aegean (Greek) tribute bearers, the first known representation of these people [80] - the only coherent scene on the north wall of the axial corridor portrays three registers of men dragging sledges that provide shelter for statues of Senenmut, who faces the procession of statues.
Senenmut had presented to Hatshepsut ‘an extraordinary request’ for ‘many statues of every kind of precious hard stone’, to be placed in every temple and shrine of Amon-Ra [81]. His request was granted. Meyer [82] pointed to it as an indication of his power.
Senenmut's ‘Parents’
In part 2 I had referred to the problem for this reconstruction of the burial of Senenmut's parents in Egypt. Beneath the collapsed artificial terrace in front of tomb 71 excavators in the 1930’s had found the small rock-cut chamber with the mummies presumed to be Senenmut's family, including Ramose (father), Hatnofer (mother), near the funerary monument of their illustrious son. However Solomon's father was King David, who was buried in the city of Jerusalem (I Kings 2:10). Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, was probably much younger than David, and we know nothing about her death - the last that we hear of her is at the beginning of Solomon's reign, when his brother was illicitly bidding for the throne (v. 19).
It is possible - in the context of the revision of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty - that Bathsheba was this same Hatnofer, whose mummified corpse shows that she was elderly when buried with great pomp in Egypt, in approximately Regnal Year 7 (c. Year 30 of Solomon's reign). Bathsheba may thus have remarried after David's death [83]. Moreover, all of the mummies in this chamber, except Hatnofer's, had been disinterred and re-located there. That is always a problem with regard to one’s making proper identifications. Ramose (the husband) was about 50 or 60 years old (notably younger than David). Just possibly he was her original husband, Uriah the Hittite, for whom she had made lamentation (2 Samuel 11:3, 26), though his age would be a factor. Of the eight mummies, Hatnofer alone ‘had been carefully mummified in linen from Hatshepsut's royal estate and equipped with a complete funeral outfit ...’ [84]. On two walls Senenmut is depicted with one of his parents - Hatnofer. Historians presume Ramose may have accompanied him on a wall that is damaged. But we cannot be sure of that.
‘The origin of [Senenmut's] family must ... remain uncertain ...’ [85], it is thought, so firm conclusions cannot be reached about them in a standard Egyptian context. However, this study has revealed evidence completely refuting the usual view that Senenmut was of common origin.
Commemorative Obelisks
Can we pinpoint when Solomon, as Senenmut, was actually present in Egypt?
He would definitely have been there during Hatshepsut's coronation in Regnal Year 7, and, again, on the occasion some time after Regnal Year 9, when she summoned Senenmut and the her Nubian official, Nehesi, gave them places of honour, and proclaimed to the assembly the success of her Punt venture, and again on several occasions during Regnal Year 16. Senenmut may often, of course, have delegated tasks to his foremen (like Jeroboam) while he was elsewhere.
In Regnal Year 16 Senenmut opened the Silsileh quarries, ‘probably in preparation for a planned intensification of construction at Karnak under Hatshepsut’ [86]. For Hatshepsut's jubilee, she entrusted to Senenmut the task of acquiring two commemorative obelisks. From the record engraved on the rocks at Aswan, in the far south of Egypt, it is likely that he went there in person. Baikie [87] says ‘The great man [Senenmut] set off at once, and carried out his commission with characteristic energy’. Getting the two huge shafts of granite out of the quarry at Aswan occupied seven months and was an extraordinary feat of engineering. Raising the obelisks in Thebes must have been a tremendous task. The survivor is almost 100 feet and weighs over 320 tons.
Thutmose III in the Ascendant
Thutmose, far from having engaged in damnatio memoriae, actually placed a statue of Senenmut in his Karnak temple and was ‘willing to see honor done to him, at least posthumously’ [88]. Thutmose III's apparent respect for his mentor might explain why such a military-minded Pharaoh left it 5 years after Solomon's death before invading Jerusalem and sacking the Temple [89] (as the biblical ‘Shishak’).
However cracks in their relationship surfaced near the end of Solomon's life when Jeroboam, chosen by God ‘to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon’, feared for his life and fled to ‘Shishak’ in Egypt, where he remained until Solomon's death (I Kings 11:26, 31, 40). Perhaps during the last few years of Hatshepsut's reign, with Solomon in decline, ThutmoseIll began to assert his independence. He may have realised that it would fall to him to rectify Egypt's economic problems. He accomplished this after Hatshepsut's death, by embarking upon a series of mighty military conquests.
Senenmut's Decline and Death
‘Senenmut's continuing goodwill at court seems to have continued unabated during most, if not all, of Hatshepsut's floruit’ [90]. In this reconstruction, Senenmut died in about Regnal Year 18/19. Hatshepsut died in about Regnal Year 21. Neferure may have lived well beyond both of their deaths [91]. There have been all sorts of intriguing guesses about Senenmut's demise. Schulman [92], who estimated Senenmut's age at over 50 in Regnal Year 16, thinks ‘it would not at all have been surprising for [Senenmut] to have died from natural causes at a relatively old age, without our having to suppose a fall from the royal favour which resulted in his death’.
4. ISRAEL'S INFLUENCEON
NEW KINGDOM EGYPT
At the time of Hatshepsut, Amon-Ra probably equated to the Supreme Lord, Yahweh. Any Yahwistic influence in Egypt would be due to Solomon. Neither the Old or New Testament accounts of the visit by the ‘Queen of Sheba/Queen of the south’ specifies that she was converted to the God of Israel. She still said ‘Blessed be the Lord YOUR God’ (1 Kings 1l0:9) - for her Yahweh was not yet ‘my God’. Whether she converted to Yahwism in the end is not clear but the scriptural accounts show she was profoundly impressed and influenced by all that she had seen in Jerusalem.
Successor of the King
There is an early parallel between Solomon and Hatshepsut in the ways their fathers presented their children to the assemblies of their respective countries, to designate them as their successors.
(i) The Assembly is Summoned
‘David assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of tribes, the officers of the divisions that served the king, the commanders of thousands ... of hundreds, the stewards of the property ... and all the seasoned warriors’ (I Chronicles 2:81). Likewise Hatshepsut's father, Thutmose I ‘... caused that there be brought to him the dignitaries of the king, the nobles, the companions, the officers of the court, and the chief of the people’ [93].
(ii) The Future Ruler Presented
Next, King David presented Solomon to the assembly, saying ‘... of all my sons ... the Lord ... has chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord, over Israel. He said to me, ‘It is Solomon your son .... I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father’’ (vv. 5-6). So did Pharaoh present his daughter to the assembly ‘This my daughter ... Hatshepsut .... I have appointed her; she is my successor, she it is assuredly who will sit on my wonderful seat [throne]. She shall command the people in every place of the palace; she it is who shall lead you …’ [93].
(iii) The Assembly Embraces the King's Decision
In Israel, ‘... all the assembly blessed the Lord ... and bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord, and did obeisance to the king .... And they ate and drank before the Lord on that day with great gladness’ (29:20, 22). Similarly, the Egyptian officials [93] ‘kissed the earth at his feet, when the royal word fell among them .... They went forth, their mouths rejoiced, they published his proclamation to them’. Also, just as Solomon was presented as ‘son’ of God (cf. II Samuel 7:14), so in Egyptian inscriptions Hatshepsut was called ‘daughter of Amon-Ra’.
Temple
Some of the most notable features of the majestic 18th Dynasty temple were its sweeping terraces. Velikovsky [94] pointed this out in relation to the Psalmic ‘song of the ascent’ (Shir ha-maaloth), and then noted that a Jerusalem style of liturgy was instituted in Egypt, even with a high priest officiating. It ought not to surprise us that Hatshepsut, Queen of Sheba, would have wanted to copy the Temple o Yahweh. Does not the Bible tell us that she drank it all in with astonishment (e.g. II Chronicles 9:3, 4-5, 6, 12)?
Scriptural Influence
(i) An Image from Genesis
After Hatshepsut had completed her Punt expedition, she gathered her nobles and proclaimed the great things she had done. Senenmut and Nehesi had places of honour. Hatshepsut reminded them of Amon's oracle commanding her to ‘... establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of God's Land beside his temple in his garden, according as he commanded’ [95]. At the conclusion of her speech there is further scriptural image ‘I have made for [Amon-Ra] a Punt in his garden at Thebes ... it is big enough for him to walk about in’; Baikie [96] noted that this is ‘a phrase which seems to take one back to the Book of Genesis and its picture of God walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening’. This inscription speaks of Amon-Ra's love for Hatshepsut in terms almost identical to those used by the Queen of Sheba about the God of Israel's love for Solomon and his nation.
Compare the italicised parts of Hatshepsut's
‘... according to the command of ... Amon ... in order to bring for him the marvels of every country, because he so much loves the King of ... Egypt, Maatkara [i.e. Hatshepsut], for his father Amen-Ra, Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, more than the other kings who have been in this land for ever ...’ [97].
with the italicised words in a song of praise spoken to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba ‘Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne as king for the Lord your God! Because your God loved Israel and would establish them for ever ...’ (II Chronicles 98) [98].
(ii) An Image from the Psalms
When Hatshepsut's commemorative obelisks were completed, she had the usual formal words inscribed on them. However, Baikie states that [99]:
‘The base inscriptions ... are of more importance, chiefly because they again strike that personal note which is so seldom heard from these ancient records, and give us an actual glimpse into the mind and the heart of a great woman. I do not think that it is fanciful to see in these utterances the expression of something very like a genuine piety struggling to find expression underneath all the customary verbiage of the Egyptian monumental formulae’.
In language that ‘might have come straight out of the Book Psalms’, the queen continues,
‘I did it under [Amon-Ra's] command; it was he who led me. I conceived no works without his doing .... I slept not because of his temple; I erred not from that which he commanded. ... I entered into the affairs of his heart. I turned not my back on the City of the All-Lord; but turned to it the face. I know that Karnak is God's dwelling upon earth; ... the Place of his Heart; Which wears his beauty ...’.
Baikie continues, unaware that it really was the Psalms and the sapiential words of David and Solomon, that had influenced Hatshepsut's prayer:
‘The sleepless eagerness of the queen for the gloryof the temple of her god, and her assurance of the unspeakable sanctity of Karnak as the divine dwelling-place, find expression in almost the very words which the Psalmist used to express his ... duty towards the habitation of the God of Israel, and his certainty of Zion's sanctity as the abiding-place of Jehovah.
‘Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids. Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
- For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it’.’
(iii) An Image from Proverbs
In another related verse of the Punt reliefs about Amon-Ra leading the expedition to ‘the Myrrh-terraces ... a glorious region of God's Land’, the god speaks of creating the fabled Land of Punt in playful terms reminiscent of Solomon's words about Wisdom's playful rôle in the work of Creation (Proverbs 8:12, 30-31). In the Egyptian version there is also reference to Hathor, the personification of wisdom [100]: ‘... it is indeed a place of delight. I have made it for myself, in order to divert my heart, together with ... Hathor ... mistress of Punt …’.
Interestingly, the original rôles of Hathor and Isis in the Heliopolitan ‘theology’ were similar to those of Moses's sister and mother (the god Horus reminding of Moses). Grimal [101] says ‘Isis hid Horus in the marshes of the Delta ... with the help of the goddess Hathor, the wet-nurse in the form of a cow. The child grew up ...’. In The Queen of Sheba - Hatshepsut, I had compared this Egyptian account with the action of Moses's mother and sister in Exodus 2:3-4, 7, 10.
(iv) Images from the Song of Songs
In the weighing scene of the goods acquired from Punt (i.e. Lebanon), Hatshepsut boasts [102]:
‘[Her] Majesty [herself] is acting with her two hands, the best of myrrh is upon all her limbs, her fragrance is divine dew, her odour is mingled with that of Punt, her skin is gilded with electrum, shining as do the stars in the midst of the festival-hall, before the whole land’. Compare this with verses from King Solomon's love poem, Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon), e.g. ‘My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh; Sweeter your love than wine, the scent of your perfume than any spice; Your lips drip honey, and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon’ (4:10-11; 55). (cf.4:6, 14; 5:1, 5).
Maccoby [103] went so far as to suggest that the Song of Songs was written by Solomon for the Queen of Sheba/Hatshepsut. Clearly, the poem is written in the context of marriage (e.g. 3:11). We read, partly following Maccoby [103]:
l. ‘To a mare among Pharaoh's cavalry would 1 compare you, my darling’ (1:9). This reference to Egypt is strange for an Israelite girl, but natural if the beloved was an Egyptian.
2. ‘Black am I but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Qedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has blackened me’ (16). A darker complexion would not be surprising in an Egyptian woman.
3. Perhaps the sentence ‘Who is she that cometh out of the wilderness ... perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?’ (3:6), refers to the visit by the Queen of Sheba, who brought a great store of perfumes. She gave Solomon ‘a very great store of spices ... there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon’ (I Kings 10:10).
4. ‘My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard I have not kept’ (1:6). It is a puzzle that the female here is represented as a humble vineyard-watcher but elsewhere she appears as a great lady. Maybe here she is speaking metaphorically about her country (and her native religion?) as a ‘vineyard’? The anger of her ‘brothers’ would be understandable, perhaps, if she were a princess of Egypt. Her involvement with Solomon would have unwelcome political and religious implications.
5. ‘O that you were as my brother ... I would lead you and bring you to my mother's house’ (8:1-2). She perhaps regrets that Solomon is not an Egyptian, who could live permanently with her.
Concluding Remark
Unfortunately, most of Solomon's greatest works in Jerusalem are now lost because of the successive destructions and looting of that city and because it is impossible at present to excavate the Temple Mount. Thanks to Velikovsky, however, we can now recognise much of the Temple and palace wealth of Solomon's era in the bas-reliefs of Thutmose III and his officials. Thutmose III, as ‘Shishak’, eventually divested Jerusalem of its greatest treasures and carried them back to his own land. How ironic that perhaps the most complete records of Solomon's achievements are today to be found in Egypt!
APPENDIX A
PUNT RECONSTRUCTION
According to the Bible, the Queen of Sheba made at least the latter part of her journey to Jerusalem by camel train, probably taking the same route as had the Ishmaelite traders who carried Joseph to be sold in Egypt. Contrary to Velikovsky, she did not come to Jerusalem via the Red Sea and Solomon's port of Ezion-geber. The gifts she brought were of enormous value but Solomon allowed her to take them all back with her (II Chronicles 9:12).
I suggest that the Punt expedition was a venture entirely separate from the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem, undertaken about 9 years later, when Hatshepsut had made herself Pharaoh. Its chief purpose was to obtain myrrh trees for the garden (or park) surrounding the temple of Amon-Ra at Deir el-Bahri, to provide a continuous supply of this rare plant in Thebes. Hatshepsut, recalling the magnificent parks and gardens she had seen in Jerusalem, wanted to create the same for her capital city.
Hence, unlike in Velikovsky's scenario, Hatshepsut's temple must already have been built, or was being built. The Egyptian inscriptions show Punt as a land of trees - e.g. the c-s tree that Nibbi equates with the pine [104]. This is consistent with the view that Punt was Phoenicia/Lebanon, Lebanon being the most noteworthy place for trees in the ancient Near East. Solomon had a free hand building in Lebanon (I Kings (9:19, 20), where he used forced labour. The Song of Songs refers to a ‘mountain of myrrh’, apparently in Lebanon(cf. 4:6 & 4:8). Solomon's palace was actually called ‘The House of the Forest of Lebanon’, because it was ‘built upon three rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars’ (1 Kings 7:2). All this priceless timber could have been obtained from the Phoenicians.
Bimson - whilst favouring Velikovsky's chronological view that Hatshepsut's Punt expedition dated to about the time of Solomon - argued that the expedition had travelled southward on the Red Sea, to NE Africa (modern Eritrea). (Velikovsky argued that the fleet had sailed northward on the Red Sea, to Ezion-geber.) Bimson claimed that myrrh trees were to be found there, and he explained how the fauna and flora of the Punt reliefs reflect a NE African location [105]. Interestingly, in Solomon's own naval expeditions to Ophir (which certainly were southward voyages on the Red Sea) his servants brought back mainly gold (1 Kings 10: 11), and there is no mention at all of myrrh trees. Hatshepsut informs us that in her Year 9 an oracle of Amon-Ra inspired her to dispatch a naval and land expedition to Punt [106]:
‘Maatkara [Hatshepsut] ... made supplication at the steps of the Lord of the Gods; a command was heard from the great throne, an oracle of the god himself, that the ways of Punt should be searched out, that the high-ways of the Myrrh-terraces should be penetrated ‘I will lead an army on water and on land, to bring marvels from God's land for this god, the fashioner of her beauty’.’
Was Solomon/Senenmut the oracular voice that spoke on behalf of Amon-Ra? One of Senenmut's titles was ‘overseer of the garden of Amon’. He may have been the brains behind the entire Punt expedition. Hatshepsut credits Amon-Ra with leading the expedition. Five ships were equipped, provided with an armed guard of Egyptian troops commanded by one of the queen's officials, Nehesi. In the wonderful series of reliefs illustrating the adventure, we see them setting sail.
Since my writing of The Queen of Sheba - Hatshepsut, Ihave revised my views about the logistics of the Punt expedition in the light of points raised by A. Nibbi [107], especially her insistence that the Egyptians did not travel on the open seas. This helps solve a problem with which both Velikovsky and Bimson had grappled: namely, that the Punt reliefs provide no evidence that the Egyptian fleet had at any stage been transported overland, from the Nile to the Red Sea. This led Bimson to assume that something must have been left out of the reliefs [108]. In the present scenario this would no longer be a problem, as the Red Sea was not involved at all. If Hatshepsut's fleet never left the Nile, there wouldhave been no need for overland transportation of boats.
I suggest that Hatshepsut's expedition was northward bound, for Lebanon, but it was an expedition ‘on water and on land’. The fleet simply sailed northwards to the Nile Delta. There, Nehesi and his small army disembarked and marched northward through friendly territory to Lebanon. Admittedly, the inscriptions at first give the impression that this fleet sailed all the way to Punt. ‘Sailing in the sea, beginning the goodly way towards God's Land, journeying in peace to the land of Punt ...’. However this only really says that the naval leg was the ‘beginning’ of the trip to Punt.
Early Egyptian expeditions to Punt were generally connected with a place they called kpn; commonly thought to be Byblos on the Phoenician coast. Nibbi [109] has disputed this and has identified this kpn with a port in northern Egypt. She first mentions Canopus but prefers El Gibali in Sinai. In my opinion, however, Canopus would have been the ideal place for the Egyptian fleet to have dropped anchor, close to the Mediterranean(cf. Appendix B).
Hatshepsut stressed that the travelling was peaceful. Trips to Punt had ceased for many centuries, presumably because the ‘Hyksos’ had controlled the Nile Delta, making it impossible for ship from Thebes to land there (see e.g. Hatshepsut's ‘Speos Artemidos inscription’ [110]). However, prior to the Hyksos era, the Egyptians are known to have made several expeditions to Punt. Egypt's revival of interest in Punt must have coincides with Solomon's maritime ventures, which had only become possible in David's generation (at least in Velikovskian terms, after the combined Egyptian-Israelite slaughter of the Hvksos/Amalekites).
Any maritime venture would have needed the co-operation of the Phoenicians, making King Hiram of Tyre a third important power. The Phoenician ports were international marts where all sorts of exotic merchandise could be acquired - all that Hatshepsut did in fact acquire from Punt.
Now, contrary to Velikovsky,
·Hatshepsut did not go in person to Punt. Again the Punt venture does not match the visit to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba;
·In stark contrast to the gifts given to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, the presents that Egypt gave the Puntites were poor indeed. They comprised an axe, a poignard in its sheath, two leg bangles, eleven necklaces and five large rings. ‘The poverty and meanness of the Egyptian gifts’, wrote Mariette [111], ‘are in striking contrast to the value of those which they receive’.
I suggest that Hatshepsut's fleet would have laid at anchor at the mouth of the Nile, awaiting the outcome of Nehesi’s negotiations with the Puntite/Phoenicians, who then transported the goods via barges or rafts to Egypt, to be loaded on to Hatshepsut's ships. It is clear from Hiram's own words to Solomon (I Kings 5:8-9) that the Phoenicians did transport cedar and cypress timber in this fashion to southern ports. It the Punt reliefs, we see barges depicted beside the ships of Hatshepsut's fleet. Henri Gaubert gives an account of negotiations between the Egyptians and the Phoenicians in those days [112]:
‘In all these scenes the illustrator takes good care to depict these men from far off countries as tributaries or dependants of Egypt. Braving the dangers of the seas, they have come especially to Egypt to pay homage to the mighty Egyptian monarch. The artist has deliberately omitted the next stage, but we know from other sources what happened. The vessels which had arrived at one of the mouths of the Nile, laden with raw materials or manufactured goods, would soon leave again for their home port with cargoes of wheat or millet, lentils or beans. On the coast of Lebanon ... or in the isles of the Aegean sea ... there was a shortage of these foodstuffs, and it was precisely to barter for cereals or dried vegetables that these merchants had come to Egypt’.
In this context, it should not surprise us that Hatshepsut's fleet had brought its produce to ‘one of the mouths of the Nile’. We know from the Punt reliefs that the Egyptians brought ‘bread, beer, wine, meat, fruit, everything found in Egypt’ [113]. Most of the interesting flora and fauna of the Punt reliefs - of which Bimson had made so much - could be accounted for by the combined exotic locations of
(i) Canopus at the mouth of the Nile, near the Mediterranean Sea, and
(ii) Phoenicia/Lebanon.
Hatshepsut's fleet, loaded with produce from Punt, simply sailed back to Thebes ‘Sailing, arriving in peace, journeying to Thebes with joy of heart ...’. [114]. The story was inscribed on the walls of her new temple and Senenmut was present when Hatshepsut - some time after Regnal Year 9 – announced to the Egyptian court the expedition's success.
APPENDIX B
SOLOMON IN GREEK FOLKLORE
There is a case in Greek ‘history’ of a wise lawgiver who nonetheless over-organised his country, to the point of his being unable to satisfy either rich or poor, and who then went off travelling for a decade (notably in Egypt). This was Solon, who has come down to us as the first great Athenian statesman. Plutarch [115] tells that, with people coming to visit Solon every day, either to praise him or to ask him probing questions about the meaning of his laws, he left Athens for a time, realising that ‘In great affairs you cannot please all parties’. According to Plutarch:
‘[Solon] made his commercial interests as a ship-owner an excuse to travel and sailed away ... for ten years from the Athenians, in the hope that during this period they would become accustomed to his laws. He went first of all to Egypt and stayed for a while, as he mentions himself
‘where the Nile pours forth
its waters by the shore of Canopus’.’
We recall Solon's intellectual encounters with the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis and Saïs (in the Nile Delta), as described in Plutarch's ‘Life of Solon’ and Plato's ‘Timaeus’ [116]. The chronology and parentage of Solon were disputed even in ancient times [117]. Since he was a wise statesman, an intellectual (poet, writer) whose administrative reforms, though brilliant, eventually led to hardship for the poor and disenchantment for the wealthy; and since Solon's name is virtually identical to that of ‘Solomon’; and since he went to Egypt (also to Cyprus, Sidon and Lydia) for about a decade at the time when he was involved in the shipping business, then I suggest that ‘Solon’ of the Greeks was their version of Solomon, in the mid-to-late period of his reign. The Greeks picked up the story and transferred it from Jerusalem to Athens, just as they (or, at least Herodotus) later confused Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem (c. 700 BC), by relocating it to Pelusium in Egypt [118].
Much has been attributed to the Greeks that did not belong to them - e.g. Breasted [119] made the point that Hatshepsut's marvellous temple structure was a witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the later Greeks would be credited as originators. Given the Greeks' tendency to distort history, or to appropriate inventions, one would not expect to find in Solon a perfect, mirror-image of King Solomon.
Thanks to historical revisions [120], we now know that the ‘Dark Age’ between the Mycenaean (or Heroic) period of Greek history (concurrent with the time of Hatshepsut) and the Archaic period (that commences with Solon), is an artificial construct. This makes it even more plausible that Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporaries of ‘Solon’. The tales of Solon's travels to Egypt, Sidon and Lydia (land of the Hittites) may well reflect to some degree Solomon's desire to appease his foreign women - Egyptian, Sidonian and Hittite - by building shrines for them (I Kings 11: 1, 7-8).
Both Solomon and Solon are portrayed as being the wisest amongst the wise. In the pragmatic Greek version Solon prayed for wealth rather than wisdom - but ‘justly acquired wealth’, since Zeus punishes evil [121]. In the Hebrew version, God gave ‘riches and honour’ to Solomon because he had not asked for them, but had prayed instead for ‘a wise and discerning mind’, to enable him properly to govern his people (I Kings 3:12-13).
Notes and References
l. Bimson, J., ‘Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba’, C&C Review Vo1.VII1, 1986, pp. 12-26. Bimson previously wrote some very fine articles supporting the revision, e.g. ‘Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?’, SIS Review VoI.VII-3, 1978, pp. 16-26 and ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, SIS Review Vol.Vl(1980/1981), pp. 13-27.
2. Velikovsky, I, Ages in Chaos, VoI. I, ch.3, Abacus, 1973.
3. Mackey, D., ‘The Queen of Sheba – Hatshepsut’, in CompuServe's Living History Forum (Ancient/Archaeology library, 1996).
5. Yahuda, A., The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian, Oxford UP, 1933. See also Mackey, Calneggia & Money, ‘A Critical Re-Appraisal of the Book of Genesis’, C&CWorkshop, 19871:2. See also my ‘Moses as Compiler of Genesis’ in CompuServe's Living History Forum (Ancient/ Archaeology library, 1996).
6. Van Beek, G., Solomon and Sheba, ch. l, ‘The Land of Sheba’, p. 41.
7. Bimson op.cit. [1], p. 22.
8. Ibid. pp. 16-17.
9. See in relation to this, Bimson’s ‘Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?’
10. See e.g. CAH II,Part I, 2nd ed., p. 323, Cambridge, 1973.
11. Mallon, A., ‘The Religion of Ancient Egypt’, Studs. in Comparative Religion (CTS,London, 1956), p. 3: ‘... this multiplicity [of gods] was but superficial it was a multiplicity of titles, not of gods. The supreme Creator god was called Atum at Heliopolis; at Memphis, Ptah; at Hermopolis ... Thoth; Amon at Thebes; Horus at Edfu; Khnum at Elephantine; but if we examine them minutely, we recognize at once that these divinities have everywhere a like nature, the same attributes and properties, an identical role. They differ only in external imagery and in a few accidental features’.
12. Tom Chetwynd's identification of Joseph as Imhotep, great Vizier to Pharaoh Zoser (Djoser) of Egypt's Third Dynasty during a seven year famine (in C&AH, January 1987. Vo1. IX, pt. 1, pp. 49-56), fits nicely into my revised scheme, with the Exodus at the end of the Old Kingdom (with which the Middle Kingdom was partly concurrent). This allows possible Middle Kingdom references to the Famine and Joseph, which there are during the late 11th Dynasty, which ruled at Thebes in the south (whereas Zoser and Imhotep were at Memphis in the north). The Pharaoh ruling Thebes at the time was Mentuhotep IV, the last of the 11th Dynasty rulers. During his reign Egypt ‘was evidently left in a confused state. At this point the Turin Canon mentions ‘seven empty years’ …’. (N. Grimal A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, Oxford, 1988, p. 159 (cf. Genesis 41:54). The priest Hekanakht describes ‘the problems of his time, including the onset of famine in the Theban region’. As in the biblical scenario (cf. Genesis 41:53, 54), this famine came after a prosperous period.
13. Heliopolis was the ancient religious capital of Egypt and a great centre for sciences. At Heliopolis, (cf.Mallon, ibid., p. 4) ‘Moses received his education’. Acts 7:22 states that ‘Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ...’.
14. Some of these books, e.g. Wisdom, are supposed to have been written many centuries later than Solomon. If so, they may be compilations of what he originally wrote, just as Genesis is a collection (or series) of ancient histories that Moses compiled or edited into its present form.
15. A temple was built at Deir el-Bahri at the time, and a trip was made to the Land of Punt.
16. Dorman, P, The Monuments of Senenmut, Kegan Paul, London, 1988. Dorman seems to have worked out the proper sequence of events during Hatshepsut's co-rulership with Thutmose III. He has shown fairly conclusively that Hatshepsut became ‘king\, or Pharaoh, in the 7th year of Thutmose III.
17. Tombs No.71 & 353.
18. See e.g. Dorman, op. cit., p. 103, ref. W. Helck's Zum thebanisehen Grab Nr. 353, GM 24 (1977), pp. 35-40.
20. Budge, E., Books on Egypt and Chaldea. Egypt Under the Amenemhats and Hvksos, Anthropological Publications, Netherlands. 1968, p. 4.
21. Dorman. op. cit.,p. 175.Emphasis added.
22. Baikie, J., A History of Egypt, A. & C. Black Ltd., London, 1929, Vol. 11, p. 80. Historians tend to interpret it as meaning he rose to power through the ranks.
23. Dorman. op. cit., p. 138, p. 165.
24. Ibid. p. 93.
25. James. P. Centuries of Darkness, JonathanCape, London, 1991, p. 200. Emphasis added to last part of quote.
26. There is another possible interpretation.Solomon, as a true brother of Absalom, may simply have had a luxuriant crop of hair. Absalom used to cut his hair ‘at the end of every year ... when it was heavy on him ... [and that it weighed] 200 shekels by the king's weight’ (Samuel II, 14:26). The Song of Songs says of Solomon ‘His locks are wavy, black as a raven’ (5:11). In another version, his hair is likened to ‘palm fronds’. If Senenmut were Solomon, it may not have been a wig.
27. See Dorman, op. cit.. p. 124. Cairo, statue, JdE 47278. Emphasis added.
28. Ibid., p. 116.
29. Wilson, .L, The Burden of Egypt, Chicago, 1951, p. 177.
31. Solomon was apparently co-regent for a time when he was appointed as sole ruler of Israel, it was referred to as a ‘second time’ (cf. I Chronicles 22:6-17 & 29:22).
32. Solomon's brother, Adonijah, tried to usurp the kingdom at the beginning of Solomon's reign (cf.1 Kings 5-10 & 5:17).
33. Op. cit., 52. Winlock was actually referring not to Hatsheput's intervention as co-ruler, but to her usurpation later in becoming chief Pharaoh.
34. Hayes, W., ‘Egypt Internal Affairs from Tuthmosis I to the Death of Amenophis III’, in CAH, ibid., p. 319.
35. Op. cit., 81.
36. Hari., R., ‘La vingt-cinquieme statue de Senmout’, JEA 70 (1984), p. 141.
37. Baikie, op. cit., pp. 80-81.
38. Ibid., P. 81.
39. See footnote [27]. Emphasis added.
40. Grimal, op. cit., p. 209.
41. Ibid.
42. Dorman, op. cit.,p. 120.
43. Ibid., p. 29.
44. Op. cit., p. 211.
45. Solomon's apostasy phase would be reflected in Senenmut’s shrine at Silsileh, in which he is shown being embraced and welcomed by the gods themselves. Baikie, op. cit., ibid., calls it ‘an honour frequently represented as being accorded to Pharaohs and their queens; but never, save in this one instance, to commoners [sic]’.
46. Bright, J., A History of Israel, SCM Press, 1972, pp. 21f.
47. Bimson has also discussed the corvée in a revised context in his ‘Revised Stratigraphy’, with reference to W. Dever in EA. 438.
48. Breasted, op. cit., ibid.
49. See CAH, ibid., p. 385.
50. Dorman, op. cit., p. 176.
51. Ibid., p. 69.
52. Ibid., p 171. 53. For the equation between Amon and Khnum, see [11].
54. Op. cit., pp. 129f.
55. Ibid. The Sheikh Labib statue.
56. Berlandini-Grenier. J., ‘Senenmout, stoliste royal, sur une statue-cube avec Neferoure’. B1FAO 76 (1976), pp. 111-132
57. Winlock, op. cit., ibid.
58. Op. cit., pp. 129-130.
59. Ibid., p. 143. (My translation, emphasis added.)
60. Redford, D., Historv and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt Seven Studies, Toronto, University of Toronto, 1967, p. 85.
61. See e.g. Dorman, op. cit., p. 126. According to S. Wachsmann, Aegeans in the Theban Tombs (Uitgeverij Peeters), p. 27: ‘[Senenmut] was responsible, if not actually the architect, for Hatshepsut's principal architectural accomplishments such as her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri and her two great obelisks’.
62. As referred to in G. Maspero's The Struggle of the Nations, p. 241, n.2.
63. See footnote [3].
64. Mariette, quoted in Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Introductory Memoir, p. 1.
65. ‘Hatshepsut’, p. 16.
66. Op. cit., pp. 67-68.
67. ‘Tomb complex’ may be a better description than ‘two tombs’ in the light of Dorman's remark (ibid., p. 99) that ‘tombs 71 and 353 [though separated by the entire width of the Asasif valley] are but two parts of a unified whole’. Architecturally they complement each other and only together do they function as a typical, private Theban tomb.
68. Op. cit., pp. 35-40.
69. Op. cit., p. 211.
70. See Dorman, op. cit., p. 6, p. 173 ‘without parallel Egypt in proper’.
71. Assmann, J., ‘Funerary Liturgies in the Coffin Texts’, referred to by Dorman, op. cit., p. 82.
72. See Dorman, op. cit., p. 83.
73. Cf. [5], ‘Moses as Compiler of Genesis’.
74. See e.g. Grimal, op, cit., p. 159.
75. Neugebauer. O. & Parker. R., Egyptian Astronomical Texts, London. 1969. Vol. l. pp. 22ff; VoI. III, pp. 10-12.
76. Dorman, op cit., pp. 83-84. Much has been made of Senenmut's ceiling, including claims that it shows evidence for a reversed sky, as in the catastrophic events proposed by Velikovsky in Worlds in Collision (Abacus, 1972) – e.g. P. Warlow. ‘Return to Tippe Top’, C&C Review Vol. IX (1987), pp. 2-13.
77. Ibid., p. 84.
78. Ibid., p. 7. Emphasis added.
79. Winlock, op. cit., p. 22. Emphasis added.
80. Dorman, op. cit., p. 100. Wachsmann, op. cit., identifies these Greeks as Mycenaeans and (Cretan) Minoans.
81. Ibid., p. 125.
82. Meyer, C., ‘Senenmut eine prosopographische Untersuchung’, HAS 2 (Verlag Borg, Hamburg, 1982), p. 170.
83. Since Bathsheba was originally married to Uriah the Hittite (2 Samuel 11:3)(the Hittites and Egyptians were both Hamitic), she may have had some affinity with Egyptfrom the start.
84. Dorman, op. cit., p. 168.
85. Ibid., p. 166.
86. Ibid., p. 176.
87. Op. cit., p. 83.
88. Lesko, B., ‘The Senmut Problem’, JARCE 6 (1967), pp.113-117. Note the variations in the spelling ofthe name ‘Senenmut’ (Dorman), ‘Senmut’ (Lesko). Other variations give ‘Senmout’ and ‘Sennemut’.
89. Thutmose III was a man of such culture and refinement that one might well believe that he had been taught by Solomon.
90. Dorman, op. cit., p. 172.
91. Ibid., pp. 78, 79.
92. Schulman, A., ‘The Alleged ‘Fall’ of Senmut’, JARCE 8 (1969-70), p. 48.
93. See Baikie, op. cit., p. 63.
94. Op. cit., pp. 121, 122.
95. Breasted, J., Records, Vol.ll, Sec. 295.
96. Op. cit., p. 74.
97. Dorman, op. cit., p. 99.
98. This particular phraseology, spoken in honour of a royal person, must have been a convention of the time because it also resembles the way that Hiram of Tyre greeted King Solomon (e.g 2 Chronicles 2:11-12).
99. Baikie, op. cit., p. 89.
100. Ibid., p. 70.Emphasis added.
101. Grimal, op. cit., pp. 42-43.
102.Breasted, Records. p. 274.
103. Maccoby, H., ‘The Queen of Sheba and the Song of Songs’, SISR IV, No. 4(1980). pp. 98-100.
104. Nibbi, A., Ancient ByblosReconsidered, DE Publications, Oxford, 1985, p. 60.
105. ‘Hatshepsut’, pp. 16-21.
106. See Baikie, op. cit., p. 70.
107. Nibbi, A., Ancient Egypt and Some Eastern Neighbours,Noyes Press, N.J., 1981.
108. ‘Hatshepsut’, p. 18.
109. ‘Ancient Byblos’, pp. 59-72.
110. See Baikie, op. cit., p. 77.
111. Mariette, op. cit., ibid.
112. Henri Gaubert. Solomon the Magnificent,Longman, London, pp. 125-126.
115. Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Athens (Life of Solon),Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1964, pp. 68-69, emphasis added.
116. According to these authors, Solon had to be instructed by the Egyptians, the Egyptian priesthood claiming to have historical knowledge going back far beyond that of the Greeks.
117. See Plutarch, ibid., p. 43 (parentage) and pp. 69-70 (chronology).
