Smendes and Shoshenq I

by Damien F. Mackey With “Shishak” properly identified by Dr. I. Velikovsky … with Thutmose III, the mighty pharaoh of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty … then pharaoh Shoshenq I must needs be lifted right out of the C10th BC and located some centuries later. Conventional dates for Smendes, considered to have been the first ruler of Egypt’s Twenty-First Dynasty, are c. 1069-1043 BC. Conventional dates for Shoshenq I, considered to have been the first ruler of Egypt’s Twenty-Second Dynasty, are c. 945-924 BC. In terms of biblical chronology, pharaoh Smendes would probably have been a younger contemporary of Samuel; whilst pharaoh Shoshenq I has famously been identified (e.g. by Jean François Champollion) as the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” at the time of King Rehoboam (I Kings 4:25-26). However, I have – along with other revisionists – rejected Monsieur Champollion’s view of Shoshenq I as “Shishak”: Shoshenq I. A (i): Who Shoshenq I was not https://www.academia.edu/35837401/Shoshenq_I._A_i_Who_Shoshenq_I_was_not With “Shishak” properly identified (as I believe) by Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky with Thutmose III, the mighty pharaoh of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty: Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III’s march on Jerusalem (3) Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III's march on Jerusalem | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu then pharaoh Shoshenq I must needs be lifted right out of the C10th BC and located some centuries later. So significant a chronological shift must also impact upon Smendes who would also need to be lowered down the time scale. But then we start to get that awful crush of Third Intermediate Period (TIP) dynasties, 21-25, with which revisionists have to contend. https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/egypt02-05enl.html The Third Intermediate Period usually refers to the time in Ancient Egypt from the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI (reign 1107–1078/77 BC) during the Twentieth Dynasty to the foundation of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty by Psamtik I in 664 BC, following the expulsion of the Nubian rulers of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. …. Smendes, apart from being considered as the founder of the Twenty-First Dynasty, is also thought to have been the first ruler of TIP. A possible solution to early TIP would be to identify Smendes with Shoshenq I of supposedly a century later. That there was a degree of similarity between Smendes and Shoshenq I is apparent from this quote from N. Grimal (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell 1994, p. 332): “Shoshenq I immediately sought to prove that his claim to the throne went back to the preceding dynasty, and did so by adopting a set of titles based on those of Smendes I”. Names shared: Meryre; Sekhempehti; Hedjkheperre-setpenre. Similarity can – but does not always – mean identity. However, it is at least worth considering that Smendes and Shoshenq I were one and the same, with the possibility of aligning dynasty 21 with 22 to overcome at least some of the dynastic crushing of TIP. Shoshenq I considered a ‘new Smendes’ “… Shoshenq was, so to speak, ‘another Smendes’ … a ‘new Smendes’. Kenneth Kitchen As I noted above: “Similarity can – but does not always – mean identity”. And, just because someone is described as ‘a new’ someone else, or ‘a second’ someone else (e.g. ‘a new king David’; ‘another Solomon’, ‘a second Judith’) does not necessarily mean that the ‘second’ version is the same person as the original. Hitler, for instance, is considered to have been a new Haman (of the Book of Esther). But Hitler was not Haman, who was, though - like Hitler - an historical character. See e.g. my article: King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman) https://www.academia.edu/37376989/King_Amons_descent_into_Aman_Haman_ Previously, I quoted Nicolas Grimal who had likened Shoshenq I to his supposed predecessor, Smendes. K. A. Kitchen is more expansive on the similarities. As I noted in my university thesis (2007): A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf (Volume One, p. 335), with reference to Kitchen’s text, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, 1100-650BC, pp. 287-288): [Shsohenq I’s] very titulary exemplifies his qualities and policies. By taking the prenomen Hedjkheperre Setepenre, that of Smendes I, founder of the previous dynasty, Shoshenq proclaimed at one stroke both his continuity with the past – i.e. that he was, so to speak, ‘another Smendes’ - and a new beginning. Like Smendes, he now opened a new era. Nor is the concept of a ‘new Smendes’ limited to Shoshenq’s prenomen. He also adopted Horus, Nebty, and Golden Horus names reminiscent of those of Smendes I. Just as the latter had been Horus ‘Strong Bull, beloved of Re’ plus epithets (whose arm Amun strengthened to exalt Truth), so now Shoshenq I was Horus ‘Strong Bull, beloved of Re’ plus epithets (whom he (= Re) caused to appear as King to unite the Two Lands). [End of quote] Whilst similarity does not necessarily mean identity, there are reasons to think that, in this case, it might. For one, the obviously significant pharaoh Smendes is, yet, so poorly attested, is crying out for an alter ego. And, in the context of the revision at least, a crunching of Smendes with Shoshenq I would provide far more room for chronological manoeuvring. More room is needed. Smendes so poorly attested “… most of what we know of Smendes predates his rise to the throne”. “… we can only guess at Smendes' origins”. “… there is a great deal of confusion concerning the origin of Smendes”. Jimmy Dunn Statements like the above from Jimmy Dunn (Tour Egypt) would suggest that pharaoh Smendes, said to have reigned for as many as 26 years, may be sorely in need of an alter ego – with Shoshenq I being my suggestion for another face of Smendes. Jimmy Dunn has written: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/smendes.htm Smendes, the First King of the 21st Dynasty and the Third Intermediate Period …. Smendes (Smedes), who we believe founded the 21st Dynasty, ending the New Kingdom at the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period, is a very difficult individual with almost intractable origins and affiliations. His reign, which Manetho assigns 26 years, produced only a tiny handful of monuments and we have never discovered either his tomb or his mummy (though many believe his tomb to be NRT-I at Tanis, this structure offers up no clues concerning Smendes). Smendes is a Greek rendering of this king's name. His birth name and epithet were Nes-ba-neb-djed (mery-amun), meaning "He of the Ram, Lord of Mendes, Beloved of Amun". His throne name was Hedj-kheper-re Setep-en-re, meaning "Bright is the Manifestation of Re, Chosen of Re". In fact, most of what we know of Smendes predates his rise to the throne. From the Report of Wenamun, dating to Year 5 of the "Renaissance Era" during the last decade of the reign of Ramesses XI, we learn much of what we know of this future king. While on the way to Lebanon to obtain wood for the renewal of the divine barque of Amun-Re, Wenamun stopped at Tanis, which he describes as "the place where Smendes and Tentamun are". Smendes is specifically described as being the one to whom Wenamun gave his letters of credence from Herihor, the High-Priest of Amun and a powerful general in the south. Wenamun was then sent in a ship by Smendes to Syria. Smendes, along with Herihor and others, was cited as having contributed money to this expedition. Smendes, together with Tentamun, are therefore shown to be of great importance in Egypt's Delta, equals at least of the High-Priest of Amun in the south. Consider the fact that Ramesses XI at this time presumably lived at Piramesses, only about 20 kilometers to the southwest of Tanis, and yet Wenamun came to Smendes for assistance rather than to the king. In fact, Herihor assumed some royal titles even while Ramesses XI was still alive, and the implication would seem to be that Smendes had a similar standing in the north. Nevertheless, we can only guess at Smendes' origins. It has been suggested that he was a brother of Nodjmet, the wife of Herihor, but it has also been suggested that Nodjmet could have been a sister of Ramesses XI. However, Tentamun, who was presumably Smendes' wife, may have been a member of the royal family. She could have been a daughter of another woman named Tentamun, who may have been the wife of Ramesses XI (or possibly another Ramesside king). The older Tentamun was certainly the mother of Henttawy, who later became the wife of the High-Priest of Amun, Pinedjem I, who also acquired kingly status in the south. As a royal son-in-law, Smendes' status is more easily understood, though perhaps not his total eclipse of the king. Obviously there is a great deal of confusion concerning the origin of Smendes. Nevertheless, it is very probable that the families of Smendes and Herihor, or at least their descendants, were linked. Whatever his original status, after the death of Ramesses XI, Smendes became a king of Egypt, and is recorded as such in most reference material. However, only two sources specifically name him as pharaoh, consisting of a stela in a quarry at Dibabia near Gebelein (Jebelein), and a small depiction in the temple of Montu at Karnak. Interestingly, while there are no known unambiguously dated documents from his reign, the contemporary High-Priests of Amun used year numbers without a king's name, and it is generally believed that, at least through year 25, these refer to Smendes' reign. In fact, Smendes probably never ruled over a united Egypt as such, a condition which probably also existed at the end of the reign of Ramesses XI. During much of what we refer to as the 21st Dynasty, there was also a dynasty of High-Priests of Amun at Thebes who effectively ruled Upper Egypt, while the kings at Tanis ruled the north. However, there appears to have been a rather delicate balance of powers, and perhaps even a formal arrangement for this division of Egypt. The Priests at Thebes seem to have held sway over a region which stretched from the north of el-Hiba (south of the entrance to the Fayoum) to the southern frontier of Egypt, and their aspirations became apparent around year 16 of Smendes' reign, when Pinedjem I apparently began to take on full pharaonic titles, yet at all times he continued to defer to Smendes as at least a senior king. …. May Psusennes I and II be the actual same person? “On the Dakhleh Stela of the Twenty-second Dynasty reference is made to the 19th year of ‘Pharaoh Psusennes’. …. As Gardiner observes, one cannot determine from this statement whether Psusennes I or II is intended”. Beatrice L. Goff If my suspicion in this article that Smendes of Egypt’s Twenty-First Dynasty was the same pharaoh as Shoshenq I of the Twenty-Second (Libyan) Dynasty, then this is going to assist in the necessary curtailing of the difficult Third Intermediate Period (TIP), so-called, of Egyptian history. It will the open the door for further shrinkage, enabling, e.g., for the Psusennes I at the time of Smendes to have been the same as the Psusennses II at the time of Shoshenq I – as some have already suspected. Conventionally, the Twenty-First Dynasty is set out something like this: http://looklex.com/e.o/egypt.ancient.dynasty.21.htm About three decades separate Psusennes I from Psusennes II. Then follows the Twenty-Second Dynasty, commencing with Shoshenq I, a known younger contemporary of Psusennes (so-called II). According to the following site: https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/stamboom-homs/I6000000006758798461.php some have been suggesting an identification of Psusennes I and II: While some authors, including New Chronology followers claim that Psusennes I may actually be identical with Psusennes II, this is impossible because Psusennes II is clearly distinguished from Psusennes I by Manetho and is given an independent reign of 15 years in the author's Epitome. Moreover, Psusenness II's royal name has been found associated with his successor, Shoshenq I in a graffito from tomb TT18, and in an ostracon from Umm el-Qa'ab. This shows that Shoshenq I was Psusennes II's successor. In contrast, Psusennes I died almost 40-45 years before Shoshenq I's appearance as Chief of the Ma, let alone King of Egypt. [End of quote] “Psusennes I died almost 40-45 years before Shoshenq I …” according to the conventional calculations. But that would no longer apply if Smendes were Shoshenq I, and Psusennes I and II were also the same person.

Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans damaged our understanding of the past

by Damien F. Mackey “Ultimately, regardless of the extent to which Heinrich Schliemann’s and Arthur Evans’ actions can be exonerated, is clear that both men did intentionally deceive the world (and themselves) about the authenticity of their findings”. Whitney White Following on from my articles: Schemin' Heinrich Schliemann? (3) Schemin' Heinrich Schliemann? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu and (the six-part series): Good heavens, Sir Arthur Evans! beginning with: (3) Good heavens, Sir Arthur Evans! | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu (including a critique of Zahi Hawass), I came across an article by Whitney White, entitled: https://web.colby.edu/copiesfakesforgeries/files/2021/05/WHITE.pdf Desire, Expectation, and the Forging of History: A Reexamination of Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans Introduction Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans are two of the most well-known names in archaeology. Their excavations of Aegean civilizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dramatically influenced our understanding of the Bronze Age world. Though there is overwhelming evidence that at least some of their findings were faked and forged to varying degrees, tourists still flock to view their discoveries and even the most contested objects remain included in art historical canon. This continued mainstream acceptance of Schliemann’s and Evans’ findings has meant that the two are rarely considered within the context of another part of the artworld that they certainly could be associated with: that of forgers. Though the study of art forgers is relatively limited, the existing scholarship has revealed that most forgers have a consistent profile and share similar motivations—which are at odds with those of these amateur archaeologists. The question that emerges, then, is how do Schliemann and Evans fit into our understanding of forgers? In this paper, I argue that, as it stands, the current definition of forgers is far too limited. By introducing psychological understandings of desire and expectation as a new framework for considering the motivations of forgers, our understanding of forgers can be expanded to include Schliemann and Evans and our definition of forgeries can be complicated to critically reexamine the contested objects associated with these men’s excavations. …. Heinrich Schliemann was a hoaxer according to professor William Calder: Behind the Mask of Agamemnon Volume 52 Number 4, July/August 1999 IS THE MASK A HOAX? For 25 years I have researched the life of Heinrich Schliemann. I have learned to be skeptical, particularly of the more dramatic events in Schliemann's life: a White House reception; his heroic acts during the burning of San Francisco; his gaining American citizenship on July 4, 1850, in California; his portrayal of his wife, Sophia, as an enthusiastic archaeologist; the discovery of ancient Greek inscriptions in his backyard; the discovery of the bust of Cleopatra in a trench in Alexandria; his unearthing of an enormous cache of gold and silver objects at Troy, known as Priam's Treasure. Thanks to the research of archaeologist George Korres of the University of Athens, the German art historian Wolfgang Schindler, and historians of scholarship David A. Traill and myself, we know that Schliemann made up these stories, once universally accepted by uncritical biographers. These fictions cause me to wonder whether the Mask of Agamemnon might be a further hoax. Here are nine reasons to believe it may be: …. For the professor’s “nine reasons”, refer to: https://archive.archaeology.org/9907/etc/calder.html Whitney White concludes the article with: Desire-Driven Forgers From these concise overviews, it is clear that while Schliemann and Evans intentionally altered their findings to varying degrees, neither fit the typical forger profile. How, then, can we consider them within this context? It is useful here to explore the characteristic of their excavations that united them the most: each had a strong desire to prove a certain narrative about the past, coupled with the expectation that it was there to be proven. This desire-expectation combination can be used as framework to place these men into the context of art forgers and expand our understanding of forgers in general. Though psychological studies of desire are primarily dedicated to universal, tangible desires, like food and sex, and tend to explore issues related to self-control, the desire to know the past, as suggested by David Lowenthal, is also universal and compelling (Lowenthal 325), and can thus be viewed as functioning like other desires and studied in similar ways. Strong desire, as described by Wilhelm Hofmann, often clouds our judgement and can lead us to act out of character (Hofmann 199). This is especially true when we begin to overthink, as we find ways to justify the actions, however unsavory, we need to take to fulfill our desire (Hofmann 200). As educated men set out to prove a past they felt was (or should be) true, Schliemann and Evans would likely have overthought and justified their actions: in their minds, they were actually benefiting mankind (or at least, Europeans) by proving a past that they really wanted to exist; altering evidence here and there could thus be justified as a necessary means to give the world (and themselves) what it wanted. As Lowenthal explains, “we may be fully conscious, partially and hazily aware, or wholly unconscious of what prompts us to alter the past. Many such changes are unintended; other are undertaken to make a supposed legacy credible . . . The more strenuously we build a desired past, the more we convince ourselves that things really were that way; what ought to have happened becomes what did happen” (Lowenthal 326, emphasis added). The desire to change the past, even when intentional, can bring even those responsible for the changes—the forgers—to convince themselves of their own deceptions. While this, as Lowenthal agrees (Lowenthal 331), separates the desire-driven forger from the typical, revengedriven forger, the fact remains that all forgers nonetheless damage our understanding of the past through intentional deception. It should be noted that desire in this context is also closely tied to expectation. As described by David Huron, who studies the psychology of expectation in relation to music, expectations provoke strong emotional responses. When we successfully predict something we expect to happen, we are rewarded by our brains, and when we unsuccessfully predict something, we experience mental “punishments” (Huron 362). These psychological processes developed from a survival standpoint but can be used to explain behavior in many different contexts. Since Schliemann and Evans so clearly expected to find something that they desired, they perhaps felt the need to make their prediction true even more strongly (unconsciously or not) to avoid the double mental punishment of unfilled desire and incorrect expectation. While it has been established that both Schliemann and Evans were aware of their actions in altering the past at least to some extent, considering the psychology of expectation gives them some benefit of the doubt and further separates them from the typical forger. Conclusion Ultimately, regardless of the extent to which Heinrich Schliemann’s and Arthur Evans’ actions can be exonerated, is clear that both men did intentionally deceive the world (and themselves) about the authenticity of their findings. They thus can be tentatively classed as forgers, albeit of a different kind than are usually dealt with in the artworld. In any case, it is important to recognize that their forgeries, like all others, do indeed damage our understanding of the past. Expanding our understanding of forgers to include those who often slip under the radar because their intention to deceive, though present, is not as insidious, has a broader two-fold effect. First, it makes us more aware of the fact that forgers can exist and cause damage in multiple contexts. Sir Arthur Evans He may have been an inveterate racist, who fabricated a so-called “Minoan” civilisation. See also my article: Of Cretans and Phoenicians (3) Of Cretans and Phoenicians | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Sir Arthur Evans, a tyrannical, dictatorial type, seems to have his like successor in the incompetent Zahi Hawass.

Firmly standing by my opinion on Mohammed

by Damien F. Mackey “… Haaretz reported that during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded”.” Gunnar Heinsohn With reference to my article: Further argument for Prophet Mohammed’s likely non-existence (2) Further argument for Prophet Mohammed's likely non-existence | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu a reader has asked: Dear Damien, This is a highly controversial claim. Do you still stand by it? I cannot believe that you would. Best wishes . …. To which I replied emphatically: Damien Mackey …. A very happy and blessed Easter season to you …. Oh, yes, I absolutely stand by that claim. Apart from problems with an historical Mohammed, and with the Qur'an, there are massive problems associated with his so-called contemporaries, the supposed emperor Heraclius, for one, being a ridiculous composite figure. Somewhat like your Imhotep [the correspondent has written a magnificent account of massive preparations in 3rd Dynasty Egypt for a Famine]. See my: "Anachronistic contemporaries of the so-called Prophet Mohammed" https://www.academia.edu/116850671/Anachronistic_contemporaries_of_the_so_called_Prophet_Mohammed But wait, there is more .... Damien. …. The truly great bombshell is archaeology, see quote at the beginning of my article [see also above]: "Oh my, the Umayyads. Deconstructing the Caliphate" https://www.academia.edu/117122001/Oh_my_the_Umayyads_Deconstructing_the_Caliphate The Umayyad (caliphate) strata, thought by nearly all to follow on not long after Mohammed (600's AD), is found, instead, to lie at the same level of the Romans at about the time of Jesus Christ, some 6 centuries earlier. That wipes out Mohammed and the contemporary Rashiduns, and it terribly vitiates the Abbasids supposed to follow on from the Umayyads. On the strength of all of this, I now laugh at the suggestion that there was an historical Mohammed. ,,,,

Mighty Assyro-Chaldean kings mistaken for Hittite emperors

by Damien F. Mackey And this brings in the possibility, now, that Dr. I. Velikovsky was almost right in identifying Hattusilis with Nebuchednezzar. But I think that, instead, Hattusilis was Sennacherib. Responding to a Brazilian researcher concerning a series of letters of Sennacherib that are generally thought to constitute his correspondence, as Crown Prince, with the Assyrian king, Sargon II, I concluded that Sennacherib (who actually is my Sargon II) must instead have been writing, as King of Assyria, to a contemporary foreign brother-king of equal power with whom he shared a treaty: Some Letters from Sennacherib (3) Some Letters from Sennacherib | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu I then followed up this article with one on: Ramses II’s confrontations with Assyria’s Sargon II and Chaldea’s Nebuchednezzar (3) Ramses II’s confrontations with Assyria’s Sargon II and Chaldea’s Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu which enabled me to establish, for Sargon II/Sennacherib of Assyria, a “contemporary foreign brother-king of equal power with whom he shared a treaty”, namely pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’. He, the great pharaoh, would be, I believe, the only contemporary of Sennacherib (Sargon II) to whom the Assyrian king would deign to have shown such deference as to write (Letter # 029): [To] the king, my lord: [your servant] Sin-ahhe-riba [Sennacherib]. Good health to the king, my lord! [Assyri]a is well,[the temp]les are well, all [the king's forts] are well. The king, my lord, can be glad indeed …. in such a way as could suggest a treaty had been established between the mighty pair. Now, with the mention of Ramses II and a treaty with another Great King, one must think only of the famous treaty made between Ramses II and Hattusilis so-called III. And this brings in the possibility, now, that Dr. I. Velikovsky was almost right in identifying Hattusilis with Nebuchednezzar. But I think that, instead, Hattusilis was Sennacherib. Obviously there is a lot that must be worked out to solidify this identification. But there appears to be a parallel scenario between (a) Hattusilis, his formidable wife, (b) Pudu-hepa and (c) Tudhaliya so-called IV, on the one hand, and – {in my revision, according to which Sennacherib was succeeded by his (non-biological) son, Esarhaddon, a Chaldean, who is my Nebuchednezzar} - (a) Sennacherib, his formidable wife, (b) Naqī’a (Zakūtu) and (c) Esarhaddon (Nebuchednezzar). I need to note here that I have multi-identified each (a-c) of this second set. Thus: Sargon II/Sennacherib is, all at once, Tukulti-ninurta; Shamsi-Adad [not I]; Esarhaddon is, all at once, Ashur-bel-kala; Ashurnasirpal; Ashurbanipal; Nebuchednezzar [I and II]; Nabonidus; Artaxerxes of Nehemiah; Cambyses’; Naqia/Zakutu is, all at once, Semiramis (of Tukulti-ninurta’s era); Sammu-ramat; Adad-Guppi. But how can an Assyrian king, or a Chaldean king, become confused as a Hittite? Well, perhaps we may consider a few things here. For example: No such people as the Indo-European Hittites (3) No such people as the Indo-European Hittites | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu In this article I referenced Brock Heathcotte as follows: Brock Heathcotte has written on this in his article “Tugdamme the Hittite” (January 28, 2017): The theory espoused here is that Mursili II and Tugdamme were the same person. This does not mean that his subjects, euphemistically called the “Hittite” people in modern times were ethnic Cimmerians. They almost certainly were a people of many ethnicities including prominently Luwian, based on language. The cold hard fact that has been distorted by decades of talking about the Hittites is that there is no such people as the Hittites. The tablet people we spoke of never called themselves Hittites, and nobody else called them Hittites either at the time. This is actually not controversial. It is just obscured by convention. Academics could argue all day and night about the ethnic composition of the people who lived in Anatolia, and which of them were the rulers we know as the Hittite kings. The argument is not susceptible to resolution, especially not in the current mistaken historical context the Hittites are placed. The rulers called themselves the Great Kings of Hatti. They could be any ethnicity. We should think of “Hittite” as the same sort of location-based moniker for a people as “American.” It doesn’t make sense to say there is an American ethnicity, and it doesn’t make sense to say there is a “Hittite” ethnicity. Americans come in many different ethnicities, as did the Hittites. …. [End of quote] Moreover, some time before I wrote any of this, I had already penned this article about Ashurnasirpal, who is my Esarhaddon (Nebuchednezzar), a Chaldean: Hittite elements in art and warfare of Ashurnasirpal (3) Hittite elements in art and warfare of Ashurnasirpal | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu These Assyro-Chaldean kings, who conquered the lands of the Hittites, could easily have assumed titles akin to King of the Hittites. Tudhaliya’s accession like that of Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, Tudhaliya, had no real prospect of succeeding to the throne. The ancient term for someone in that position, not of the royal line, was “son of nobody”. And I found this characteristic in Esarhaddon’s alter egos, having written: …. Another common key-word (buzz word), or phrase, for various of these king-names would be ‘son of a nobody’, pertaining to a prince who was not expecting to be elevated to kingship. Thus I previously introduced Ashurbanipal-as-Nebuchednezzar/Nabonidus with the statement: “Nabonidus is not singular either in not expecting to become king. Ashurbanipal had felt the same”. …. And we read in the following Abstract that that was also the former status of Tudhaliya: https://academic.oup.com/book/36172/chapter-abstract/314550786?redirectedFrom=fulltext Abstract In his early years, the prince Tudhaliya could have had little thought that he would one day become king. But he was installed by Hattusili ‘in kingship’, that is, Tudhaliya probably now assumed the role of crown prince. This chapter examines the career path which Hattusili had mapped out for Tudhaliya in preparation for his becoming king of the Hittites, Puduhepa's effort to arrange her daughter's marriage to Tudhaliya, problems and potential crises inherited by Tudhaliya from Muwattalli as Hittite ruler, political developments in western Anatolia during Tudhaliya's reign, the impact of establishment of a pro-Hittite regime in Milawata on Ahhiyawan enterprise in western Anatolia, political problems that arose from the marriage alliance contracted between the royal families of Ugarit and Amurru, Tudhaliya's war with Assyria, possible coup instigated by Kurunta to wrest the throne from his cousin Tudhaliya, Tudhaliya's conquest of Alasiya, and the achievements of Tudhaliya IV as ruler of the Hittite kingdom. The whole thing seems to have been arranged by the formidable Queen, as was the case again with Esarhaddon and his mother Naqī’a/Zakūtu: Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis (3) Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu https://www.britannica.com/biography/Naqia “[Esarhaddon’s] energetic and designing mother, Zakutu (Naqia), who came from Syria or Judah [sic?], used all her influence on his behalf to override the national party of Assyria”. I would expect now to begin finding many parallels between Esarhaddon/ Nebuchednezzar, in his various guises (alter egos), and the so-called Hittite emperor, Tudhaliya.

Woman near Shechem crushes enemy’s head

by Damien F. Mackey “Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof. Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull”. Judges 9:50-53 Account of Abimelech Gideon’s illegitimate son, Abimelech (Abimelek), in killing the seventy sons of Gideon as his potential rivals to the rulership (see text below), was setting a precedent that the bloody Jehu of Israel would later follow, when he arranged for king Ahab’s seventy sons to be beheaded (2 Kings 10:1-11). Judges 9:1-57 Abimelek son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood’.” When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelek, for they said, ‘He is related to us’. They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelek used it to hire reckless scoundrels, who became his followers. He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding. Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelek king. When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you. One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king’. But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’ “But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’ “But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’ “The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’ “Have you acted honorably and in good faith by making Abimelek king? Have you been fair to Jerub-Baal and his family? Have you treated him as he deserves? Remember that my father fought for you and risked his life to rescue you from the hand of Midian. But today you have revolted against my father’s family. You have murdered his seventy sons on a single stone and have made Abimelek, the son of his female slave, king over the citizens of Shechem because he is related to you. So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelek be your joy, and may you be his, too! But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelek and consume you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelek!” For an account of Jotham’s tree imagery, see: Jotham’s Parable of Fig and Thorn (5) Jotham's Parable of Fig and Thorn | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Then Jotham fled, escaping to Beer, and he lived there because he was afraid of his brother Abimelek. After Abimelek had governed Israel three years, God stirred up animosity between Abimelek and the citizens of Shechem so that they acted treacherously against Abimelek. God did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelek and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers. In opposition to him these citizens of Shechem set men on the hilltops to ambush and rob everyone who passed by, and this was reported to Abimelek. Now Gaal son of Ebed moved with his clan into Shechem, and its citizens put their confidence in him. After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek. Then Gaal son of Ebed said, ‘Who is Abimelek, and why should we Shechemites be subject to him? Isn’t he Jerub-Baal’s son, and isn’t Zebul his deputy? Serve the family of Hamor, Shechem’s father! Why should we serve Abimelek? If only this people were under my command! Then I would get rid of him. I would say to Abimelek, ‘Call out your whole army!’” When Zebul the governor of the city heard what Gaal son of Ebed said, he was very angry. Under cover he sent messengers to Abimelek, saying, ‘Gaal son of Ebed and his clan have come to Shechem and are stirring up the city against you. Now then, during the night you and your men should come and lie in wait in the fields. In the morning at sunrise, advance against the city. When Gaal and his men come out against you, seize the opportunity to attack them’. So Abimelek and all his troops set out by night and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four companies. Now Gaal son of Ebed had gone out and was standing at the entrance of the city gate just as Abimelek and his troops came out from their hiding place. When Gaal saw them, he said to Zebul, ‘Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains!’ Zebul replied, ‘You mistake the shadows of the mountains for men’. But Gaal spoke up again: ‘Look, people are coming down from the central hill, and a company is coming from the direction of the diviners’ tree’. Then Zebul said to him, “Where is your big talk now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelek that we should be subject to him?’ Aren’t these the men you ridiculed? Go out and fight them!” So Gaal led out the citizens of Shechem and fought Abimelek. Abimelek chased him all the way to the entrance of the gate, and many were killed as they fled. Then Abimelek stayed in Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his clan out of Shechem. The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields, and this was reported to Abimelek. So he took his men, divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he rose to attack them. Abimelek and the companies with him rushed forward to a position at the entrance of the city gate. Then two companies attacked those in the fields and struck them down. All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it. On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of El-Berith. When Abimelek heard that they had assembled there, he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and cut off some branches, which he lifted to his shoulders. He ordered the men with him, ‘Quick! Do what you have seen me do!’ So all the men cut branches and followed Abimelek. They piled them against the stronghold and set it on fire with the people still inside. So all the people in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, also died. Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof. Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’” So his servant ran him through, and he died. When the Israelites saw that Abimelek was dead, they went home. Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers. God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them. After the death of Gideon his son Abimelech asserted authority in the land and ruled from Shechem, reigning for 3 years until his death. “MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech”. Dr. John Osgood SHECHEM OF ABIMELECH Back in 1980’s, I, then following a pattern of biblical archaeology different from the one that I would embrace today, had raised with Dr. John Osgood this query about the city of Shechem in its relation to the Joshuan Conquest: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j03_1/j03_1_124-127.pdf “Techlets”, EN Tech. J., vol. 3, 1988, pp. 125-126: …. I think too that Shechem might be a problem in your scheme of things. From the Bible it would seem that Shechem was a small settlement at the time of Abraham, but a city at the time of Jacob. It seems to me that according to your scheme Shechem would be the same size in Jacob's time as in Abraham's. Correct me if I am wrong. Also Prof. Stiebing, who has criticised at various times the schemes of all revisionists (see Biblical Archaeological Review, July/August 1985, pp. 58-69), raises the problem of the absence of LBA remains at Samaria as regards the EBA Conquest Reconstruction. Looking back now on Dr. Osgood’s reply to this, his view on Shechem, at least, makes perfect sense to me. He seems to have arrived at a proper overview of the archaeology of Shechem, from Abraham to Jeroboam I (and beyond). Here, again, is what Dr. Osgood wrote about it: Shechem: This is no problem to the revised chronology presented here, since the passage concerning Abraham and Shechem, viz. Genesis 12:6, does not indicate that a city of any consequence was then present there. On the other hand, Jacob's contact makes it clear that there was a significant city present later (Genesis 33 and 34), but only one which was able to be overwhelmed by a small party of Jacob's sons who took it by surprise. I would date any evidence of civilisation at these times to the late Chalcolithic in Abraham's case, and to EB I in Jacob's case, the latter being the most significant. The Bible is silent about Shechem until the Israelite conquest, after which it is apparent that it developed a significant population until the destruction of the city in the days of Abimelech. If the scriptural silence is significant, then no evidence of occupation would be present after EB I until MB I and no significant building would occur until the MB IIC. Shechem was rebuilt by Jeroboam I, and continued thereafter until the Assyrian captivity. Moreover, Shechem was almost certainly the Bethel of Jeroboam, during the divided kingdom. So I would expect heavy activity during the majority of LB and all of Iron I. This is precisely the findings at Shechem, with the exception that the earliest periods have not had sufficient area excavated to give precise details about the Chalcolithic and EB I. No buildings have yet been brought to light from these periods, but these periods are clearly represented at Shechem. MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech. The population's allegiance to Hamor and Shechem could easily be explained by a return of descendants of the Shechem captives taken by Jacob's son, now returned after the Exodus nostalgically to Shechem, rather than by a continuation of the population through intervening periods (see Judges 9:28, Genesis 34). For Jeroboam's city and after, the numerous LB and Iron I strata are a sufficient testimony (see Biblical Archaeology, XX, XXVI and XXXII). …. [End of quote] The city of Shechem, which has already figured prominently in this book, will become of most vital significance when, in the era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. C8th BC, conventional dating), I proceed to discuss the opposing kings, Hezekiah and Sennacherib, and Israel’s famous defeat of the 185,000-strong Assyrian army. A combination of Dr. Osgood’s identification of Shechem with the northern Bethel, and Charles C. Torrey’s early identification of Shechem as the strategic town of “Bethulia”, which was Judith’s city, has enabled me to bring a full biblico-historical perspective to both the Book of Judith and the Assyrian incident. [Jan] Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (Judith 3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans ... Gabaa”. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain. Let us follow the march of the Assyrian commander-in chief through the eyes of Charles C. Torrey, in his article “The Site of Bethulia” (JSTOR, Vol. 20, 1899), beginning on p. 161: When the army of Holofernes reached the Great Plain of Jezreel, in its march southward, it halted there for a month (iii. 9 f.) at the entrance to the hill country of the Jews. According to iii. 10, "Holofernes pitched between Geba and Scythopolis." This statement is not without its difficulties. We should perhaps have expected the name Genin, where the road from the Great Plain enters the hills, instead of Geba. The latter name is very well attested, however, having the support of most Greek manuscripts and of all the versions. The only place of this name known to us, in this region, is the village Geba (Gěba‘) ... a few miles north of Samaria, directly in the line of march taken by Holophernes [Holofernes] and his army, at the point where the road to Shechem branches. It is situated just above a broad and fertile valley where there is a fine large spring of water. There would seem to be every reason, therefore, for regarding this as the Geba of Judith iii. 10; as is done, for example, by Conder in the Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, ii, p. 156, and by G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 356. There is nothing in the sequel of the story to disagree with this conclusion. According to the narrator, the vast 'Assyrian' army, at the time of this ominous halt, extended all the way from Scythopolis through the Great Plain to Genin, and along the broad caravan track … southward as far as Geba. Torrey will proceed to make excellent sense of the geography of this impressive (but ill-fated) Assyrian campaign. Jan Simons (The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1959) will later do a reasonable job of accounting for the earlier part of the Assyrian campaign, from its leaving from the city of Nineveh until its arrival at the plain of Esdraelon – the phase of the campaign that Torrey will dismiss as “mere literary adornment” (on p. 160): With regard to a part of these details, especially those having to do with countries or places outside of Palestine, it can be said at once that they are mere literary adornment, and are not to be taken seriously. Such for example are the particulars regarding Nebuchadnezzar’s ... journey westward .... I quoted Simons, for instance, in Volume Two, pp. 49-51 of my university thesis: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf Commentators have not found it easy to unravel geographically, in its various stages, the [Book of Judith] narrative of the Assyrian army’s march westwards (2:19-3:9). A difficulty is that the account of its route, from Nineveh to its eventual arrival in northern Israel, varies from version to version. .... Nevertheless, Simons has made quite a good attempt to unravel [Book of Judith’s] geography here. He begins with the Assyrian army’s departure, from Nineveh: …. a) v. 21: after mentioning NINEVE [Nineveh] as Holofernes’ starting-point this verse deals with the first stage of the expedition, i.e. a “three days march” which brings the army to the border of the enemy country, viz. to “the plain of Bectileth”, which was apparently the site of a base-camp close to the general area of military operations (similar to the camp on the plain (of) Esdrelon [Esdraelon] … before the final stage of these operations: iii 10); b) v. 22 relates the opening proper of the military operations, viz. by saying that the army leaves the base-camp on the plain and moves up the mountain-land εἰς τὴν ὀρεινήν c) V. 27: (from this mountain-land) the army “descends into the plain of DAMASCUS”, the territory first to suffer; d) V. 28: the chastisement of the land of DAMASCUS causes a panic in the “coastland” (παραλία) from where several cities mentioned by name send ambassadors to offer submission (iii 1 ff.). As regards the cartographic interpretation of this part of the expedition preceding that attack on Judaea … itself we submit the following remarks: Independently of every hypothesis or reconstruction of Holofernes’ expedition it appears that the transmitted text does not mention Cilicia … (v. 21) as its objective or partial goal. Moreover, “Upper Cilicia” as an indication of the location of “the plain Bectileth” (“Bectileth near the mountain which lies to the left – north – of Upper Cilicia” or Cilicia above the Taurus Mountains) is completely out of the way which starts at NINEVE and is directed towards Syria-Palestine. We suspect, therefore, that τῆς ἄνω Κιλικίας has been inserted (perhaps in replacement of some another original reading) in order to adjust the account of the campaign to the terms of I 7 and I 12. Secondly, “the plain of Bectileth” mentioned as the terminus of the first stage of Holofernes’ advance seems to us simply the Syrian beqã‘ ... between Libanos and Antilibanos … mentioned in I 7. Holofernes’ base-camp was not in the centre of the plain (“ἀπὸ Βεκτιλὲθ” must have developed from or be the remaining part of a statement to this effect) but “near the mountains on the left (north) side”, in other words: at the foot of the Antilibanos … (cp. Its modern name “gebel esh-sherqi”: …). It is this mountain-ridge (ὀρεινή) which the army has to climb (v.22) before “sweeping down (κατέβη) on the plain of DAMASCUS” (V. 27). In the third place the text names (v. 28) the coastal towns, where the fate of DAMASCUS raises a panic. Most of these names create no problems: SIDON = saidã TYRUS = sûr JEMNAA = Jamnia …. AZOTUS = isdûd …. ASCALON = ‘asqalãn …. Some mss. add: GAZA = ghazzeh. Though Simons does not specify here to which particular ‘mss.’ he is referring, Moore tells us that “LXXs, OL, and Syr add “and Gaza”.” …. Simons continues: The remaining two are obscure. OCINA seems to have been somewhere between TYRUS and JEMNAA and is for this reason usually identified with ‘ACCO = ‘akkã …. which neither because of the name itself nor on the ground of its location … can be reasonably considered to render Hebrew “DOR” … is probably but a duplicate of TYRUS (cp. Hebr: SOR). It is possible that the distinction between the island-city and the settlement on the mainland (Palaetyrus) accounts for the duplication. [End of quotes] Further down p. 51, and continuing on to p. 52, I wrote – again making reference to Simons: The next crucial stopping point of the Assyrian army after its raids on the region of Damascus will effectively be its last: “Then [Holofernes] came toward Esdraelon, near Dothan, facing the great ridge of Judea; he camped between Geba and Scythopolis, and remained for a whole month in order to collect all the supplies for his army” (v. 9). Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans ... Gabaa”. …. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain. (It has of course no connection at all with the ‘Geba’ discussed on p. 6 of the previous chapter, which was just to the north of Jerusalem). Judah’s reabsorbing of this northern region (Esdraelon) into its kingdom would have greatly annoyed Sennacherib, who had previously spoken of “the wide province of Judah” (rapshu nagû (matu) Ya-û-di). …. Naturally the Israelites would have been anticipating (from what Joel called the “northern army”) a first assault in the north. And that this was so is clear from the fact that the leaders in Jerusalem had ordered the people to seize the mountain defiles in Samaria as well as those in Judah ([Book of Judith] 4:1-2; 4-5): When the Israelites living in Judea heard how Holofernes, general-in-chief of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians, had treated the various nations, first plundering their temples and then destroying them, they were thoroughly alarmed at his approach and trembled for Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord their God. … They therefore alerted the whole of Samaria, Kona, Beth-horon, Belmain, Jericho, Choba, Aesora and the Salem valley. They occupied the summits of the highest mountains and fortified the villages on them; they laid in supplies for the coming war, as the fields had just been harvested. Here we encounter that “Salem valley” region that I believe was, rather than Jerusalem, the location of the great Melchizedek. I continue now with Charles Torrey’s article, where he has just noted the crucial strategic importance of Bethulia (p. 162): This city could 'hold the pass' through which it was necessary that Holofernes, having once chosen this southward route, should lead his army in order to invade Judea and attack Jerusalem. This is plainly stated in iv. 7: …. "And Joachim wrote, charging them to hold the pass of the hill-country; for through it was the entrance into Judea, and it would be easy to stop them as they came up, because the approach was narrow”. When the people of Betylūa comply with the request of the high priest and the elders of Jerusalem, and hold the pass. (iv. 8), they do so simply by remaining in their own city, prepared to resist the approach of Holofernes. So long as they continue stubborn, and refuse to surrender or to let the enemy pass, so long their purpose is accomplished, and Jerusalem and the sanctuary are safe. This is made as plain as possible in all the latter part of the book; see especially viii, 21 ff., where Judith is indignantly opposing the counsel of the chief men of the city to surrender: "For if we be taken, all Judea will be taken … and our sanctuary will be spoiled; and of our blood will he require its profanation. And the slaughter of our brethren, and the captivity of the land, and the desolation of our inheritance, will he turn upon our heads among the nations wheresoever we shall be in bondage. And we shall be an offence and a reproach in the eyes of those who have taken us captive .... Let us show an example to our brethren, because their lives hang upon us, and upon us rest the sanctuary and the house and the altar." That is, the city which the writer of this story had in mind lay directly in the path of Holofernes, at the head of the most important pass in the region, through which he must necessarily lead his army. There is no escape from this conclusion. After making this emphatic statement, Torrey will refer to two other sites “which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh” (see below). The latter of these, Mithiliyeh, or Mithilia, was my own choice for Judith’s Bethulia - following Claude Reignier Conder - when writing my thesis, but it was based more on a romantic view of things rather than on any solid military strategy – though the name fit had seemed to be quite solid. Thus I wrote (pp. 70-71): Conder identified this Misilya - he calls it Mithilia (or Meselieh) - as Bethulia itself: … Meselieh … A small village, with a detached portion to the north, and placed on a slope, with a hill to the south, and surrounded by good olive-groves, with an open valley called Wâdy el Melek (“the King’s Valley’) on the north. The water-supply is from wells, some of which have an ancient appearance. They are mainly supplied with rain-water. In 1876 I proposed to identify the village of Meselieh, or Mithilia, south of Jenin, with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, supposing the substitution of M for B, of which there are occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature. The indications of the site given in the Apocrypha are tolerably distinct. Bethulia stood on a hill, but not apparently on the top, which is mentioned separately (Judith vi. 12). There were springs or wells beneath the town (verse 11), and the houses were above these (verse 13). The city stood in the hill-country not far from the plain (verse 11), and apparently near Dothan (Judith iv. 6). The army of Holofernes was visible when encamped near Dothan (Judith vii. 3, 4), by the spring in the valley near Bethulia (verses 3-7). ‘The site usually supposed to represent Bethulia – namely, the strong village of Sanûr – does not fulfil these various requisites; but the topography of the Book of Judith, as a whole, is so consistent and easily understood, that it seems that Bethulia was an actual site’. Visiting Mithilia on our way to Shechem … we found a small ruinous village on the slope of the hill. Beneath it are ancient wells, and above it a rounded hill-top, commanding a tolerably extensive view. The north-east part of the great plain, Gilboa, Tabor, and Nazareth, are clearly seen. West of these are neighbouring hillsides Jenin and Wâdy Bel’ameh (the Belmaim, probably of the narrative); but further west Carmel appears behind the ridge of Sheikh Iskander, and part of the plain of ‘Arrabeh, close to Dothan, is seen. A broad corn-vale, called “The King’s Valley”, extends north-west from Meselieh toward Dothan, a distance of only 3 miles. There is a low shed formed by rising ground between two hills, separating this valley from the Dothain [Dothan] plain; and at the latter site is the spring beside which, probably, the Assyrian army is supposed by the old Jewish novelist to have encamped. In imagination one might see the stately Judith walking through the down-trodden corn-fields and shady olive-groves, while on the rugged hillside above the men of the city “looked after her until she was gone down the mountain, and till she had passed the valley, and could see her no more”. (Judith x 10) – C. R. C., ‘Quarterly Statement’, July, 1881. [End of quotes] But Torrey tells us why neither Mithilia, nor Sanur, would even have figured in the march of Holofernes (p. 163): This absolutely excludes the two places which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh, both midway between Geba and Genin. Sanur, though a natural fortress, is perched on a hill west of the road, and "guards no pass whatever" (Robinson, Biblical Researches, iii. 152 f.). As for Mithiliyeh, first suggested by Conder in 1876 (see Survey of Western Palestine, ‘Memoirs’, ii. 156 f.), it is even less entitled to consideration, for it lies nearly two miles east of the caravan track; guarding no pass, and of little or no strategic importance. Evidently, the attitude, hostile or friendly, of this remote village would be a matter of indifference to a great invading army on its way to attack Jerusalem. Its inhabitants, while simply defending themselves at home, certainly could not have held the fate of Judea in their hands; nor could it ever have occurred to the writer of such a story as this to represent them as doing so. He the proceeds to contrast the inappropriateness of these sites with the significant Shechem: Again, having once accepted the plain statement of the writer that the army during its halt extended from Scythopolis to Geba, there is the obvious objection to each and all of the places in this region which have been suggested as possible sites of Betylūa (see those recorded in G. A. Smith, /. c, p. 356, note 2; Buhl, Geographie des alien Paldstina, p. 201, note), that they are all north of Geba. From the sequel of the story we should be led to look for the pass occupied by Betylūa at some place on the main road not yet reached by the army. It is plainly not the representation of the writer that a part of the host of Holofernes had already passed it. And finally, Betylūa is unquestionably represented as a large and important city. This fact is especially perplexing, in view of the total absence of any other mention of it. Outside of this one story the name is entirely unknown. On the other hand, nothing can be more certain than that the author of the book of Judith had an actual city in mind when he wrote. Modern scholars are generally agreed in this conclusion, that whatever may be said of the historical character of the narrative, the description of Betylūa and the surrounding country is not a fiction. Shechem, he says, “meets exactly the essential requirements of the story” – it and no other site in the entire area (p. 164): … no other city between Jezreel and Jerusalem can compete with [Shechem] for a moment in this respect. When the advance guard of Holofernes' army halted in the broad valley below Geba, it was within four hours' march of the most important pass in all Palestine, namely that between Ebal and Gerizim. Moreover, this was the one pass through which the army would now be compelled to proceed, after it had once turned westward at Bethshan and chosen the route southward through Genin. We see now why the narrator makes Holofernes encamp "between Scythopolis and Geba." It is a good illustration of the skill which he displays in telling this story. Having advanced so far as this, it was too late for the ‘Assyrians’ to choose another road. As for the city Shechem, which was planted squarely in the middle of the narrow valley at the summit of the pass … its attitude toward the invaders would be a matter of no small importance. As to why Shechem might be called “Bethulia” in the Book of Judith, the explanation may be in the following statement by Dr. John Osgood: “W. Ross in Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1941), p. 22–27 reasoned, I believe correctly, that the Bethel of Jeroboam must be Shechem, since it alone fills the requirements”. https://creation.com/techlets Both the unidentified woman of Judges 9, and Judith, will slay a male foe, attacking the enemy’s head, in the environs of Shechem. God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them. Judges 9:56-57 ‘Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever’. Judith 16:17 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; she will crush your head, and you will strike her heel. Genesis 3:15

My book, “A History of the Fertile Crescent”, swamped by a new and unforeseen geographical paradigm

by Damien F. Mackey “This distribution has interesting features that tend to validate the basic premise of Chaldaean location. It forms a coherent and compact geography that makes sense. The towns of the various tribes are located in specific areas that match Assyrian description, with Bit-Yakin closest to the sea, Bit Amukanni in the obviously geographically correlated modern Amuq Valley, with Bit Sa’alli and Bit-Silani towns just to the north where Tiglath Pileser III described them on his way to attack Dur-Atkharas, capital of Bit-Amukanni. The Amuk Valley has been known by that name from earliest times until the present”. Royce (Richard) Erickson While I had expected this book to be primarily about a revision of ancient history and archaeology, the geographical factor became more and more imposing until it began to rise up and swamp The Fertile Crescent like a new Flood. When writing the early part of my book, A History of the Fertile Crescent, I had been dissatisfied with the thought that “Chedorlaomer king of Elam” of Genesis 14 had been able to hold in check for 12 years the kingdoms of Pentapolis (14:4) – all this achieved from far distant Elam. Sumerian Geography in Chaos (6) Sumerian Geography in Chaos | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Having already moved the kingdom of Akkad - a coalitional ally of Chedorlaomer’s - much further to the NW than is conventionally held, with Akkad itself now being recognised as the N Syrian port city of Ugarit (IKAT), I had wondered if the “Elam” to which Chedorlaomer was connected might be a place different from the usual Elam. Was there another Elam, I wondered, geographically closer to the land of Canaan? Such would facilitate Chedorlaomer’s conquest of the Pentapolitan Canaanites. Helam, against which King David had marched in his war with the Syrian, Hadadezer (2 Samuel 10:16-17), was one consideration for a re-located Elam that came to mind. But, without anything more substantial to support my view of two places called Elam, I had to let the matter rest for the time being. It may no longer rest. As I wrote last year: Just three days ago (First Friday, 7th July 2023), I came across a tectonic article by Royce (Richard) Erickson that, instead of positing two countries “Elam”, picked up holus bolus and re-located the whole of Elam (and Susa with it) to southern Anatolia. I refer to his article at academia.edu A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY (5) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson - Academia.edu potentially the most important article ever written on ancient geography (as I noted in a Message to the author). Below I shall take some key parts of Royce Erickson’s article with a few comments included where I think these might be useful: Introduction – A Geographic Anomaly …. The concept that Persia (Parsua) and Media may have originated at a radically different location from what history tells is completely unlooked for by the scholarship of the last 2000 years, not to mention present day Iranians. The ultimate cause of this confusion is a mistaken idea of the location of ancient Elam, which had cascading effects on the geographic concepts of not only Media and Persia, but also on those many other nations and cities of that era and region, including Kutu, Ellipi, Pekod, Lullubi, Zamua, Karalla, and Mannae. Additionally, this distortion strongly affects the modern historical narratives of post-Hittite Anatolia and Syria. …. According to Greek tradition, other Median major cities were Laodicea, Rhages ,and Apamea, all three not far from Ecbatana. These are their later classical Greek names; their original Median names are unknown. Modern scholars tentatively locate these sites near Tehran, based on the assumption that Agbatana was in Iran, but with admittedly very sparse historical or archaeological support. Mackey’s comment: I can’t help noticing that Apamea and Laodicea also occur in Syria. Regarding Persia, Royce Erickson writes: …. we find in central Anatolia today two towns with the modern Turkish names of Pazarkaye and Khorasi not far from Abadaniye. I propose that Pazarkaye is the modern site of ancient Persian Pasargadae, and Khorasi (pronounced Khorashi) is on the site of a proposed Persian town named after either Cyrus I or Cyrus II, Persian kings whose names were pronounced “Kurush.” …. Chaldaea, Elam and the Neo-Assyrian Empire The path to this realization started with a general interest in Bronze Age history, and a specific interest in the ancient Chaldaea, a somewhat mysterious land associated with Mesopotamia and mentioned a few times in the Old Testament, primarily as the land from which Abram migrated to Haran, then Canaan. The accepted location and ethnicity of ancient Chaldaea always posed serious problems for reasons not initially pertinent to the thrust or this paper, but they soon served to touch off a cascading series of inquiries that were heading in a totally unexpected direction. Further investigation of these issues led to the strong conviction that conventional accepted Chaldaean geography was very questionable. This conviction rapidly grew to involve Elamite geography as well. Finally, the problem spread to a large part of the Near East. ‘ …. Among the most effective and stubborn enemies of Assyria during most of this period were the Chaldaeans and Elamites. These two nations, close geographic neighbors, sometimes vied with Assyria for the prize of Babylon, the great center of wealth and culture for all of Mesopotamia. As time went on these conflicts became increasingly a fight for mere survival against the Assyrian juggernaut, driving Chaldaea and Elam into frequent alliance, often enlisting other nations as well. Despite these combinations, the Chaldaean and Elamite homelands were devastated repeatedly by Assyrian armies. Suffering near complete destruction on multiple occasions, elements of both nations survived to participate in the final complete destruction of Assyria and its cities, in alliance with the Medes, Scythians and probably Persians as well. Seemingly the whole world combined for this effort, but it was only possible because Assyria was suffering from a long-term civil war. …. In the particular case of Chaldaea, this Assyrian penchant for detail brings us to the crux of the problem. With all the Neo-Assyrian data available for study, none of the dozens of Chaldaean urban sites identified by the Assyrians have been positively located by modern scholars in the areas one would expect: at the head of the Persian Gulf for Chaldaea; and in what is now southwest Iran for Elam. …. Scholarly Consensus on the Location of Chaldaea Based on Assyrian and Babylonian annals, the consensus of modern scholarly opinion is that the Chaldaeans were a Semitic people from the south, perhaps Arabia, who emigrated to Mesopotamia around 900 BC. They are first mentioned in Assyrian records by Shalmaneser III around 850 BC. He called them “Kaldu.” The exact location of their settlements in relation to Mesopotamia is not clear from the evidence. Modern scholars believe they settled in southern Babylonia adjacent to the north end of the Persian Gulf, in the large marshy delta area formed by the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. We know for certain that whatever area the Chaldaeans operated out of, it was conveniently located for what happened next. They gradually infiltrated Babylonian lands, politics, business, religion and government over a period of decades. They eventually achieved the kingship on several occasions only to be ejected by the Assyrians, who felt they had a proprietary interest in Babylonia, the cultural center of Mesopotamia. The Assyrians deeply resented “foreign” rule in Babylon, preferring to dominate it themselves from a distance. The Biblical figure Merodach Baladan was one of these intermittent Chaldaean kings of Babylon. He confronted the Assyrians politically and militarily on numerous occasions. They removed him from the Babylonian throne twice. Always in a search of allies against Assyria, he tried to recruit the Judaean king Hosea, who wisely declined. He ultimately failed, but other Chaldaean kings and nobles continued the struggle. As the conflicts intensified over time, the Assyrians made increasing efforts with varying success to eradicate the Chaldaeans and their allies in their various homelands. Returning to the question of Chaldaean geography, many factors led historians inexorably to the consensus view: 1. Proximity to Babylon. Chaldaea had to have been near Babylonia, where Chaldaeans were present as outsiders in considerable numbers, and played a significant role in Babylonian culture and politics, to some extent as a dominant caste. 2. Proximity to Elam. If we believe detailed Assyrian records, it is clear Chaldaea was also located directly adjacent to Elam, as shown on the map (Figure 2). Since the large and powerful kingdom of Elam has always been unquestionably been located by historians in southwest Iran and along the Northern Persian Gulf, the only feasible location for Chaldaea seemed to be the area at the northern end of the gulf and the Tigris-Euphrates delta, near ancient Ur. 3. Proximity to a sizeable body of water. From Assyrian narratives we know that in addition to their common land border, Chaldaea and Elam were separated in part by a fairly large navigable body of water which played an important role in the struggles between Assyria and both Chaldaea and Elam. The Assyrians referred to named ports on either side of this body. The northern Persian Gulf seemed to fit this description perfectly. 4. Direction and Endpoint of Chaldaean Migration. The Chaldaeans are assumed to be Semites who migrated to Mesopotamia from the south (Arabia), making settlement in southern Mesopotamia a natural development. 5. Biblical Ur of the Chaldees. Abram’s home city, Ur of the Chaldees, is assumed by scholars to be the same as Sumerian Ur (or Uruk), located and excavated close by to the conventional location of Chaldaea. These are persuasive points, but despite knowing the names of dozens of Chaldaean cities and towns from Assyrian records, none has ever been located, not to mention excavated, despite the fact that many of them are known to have been walled and strongly fortified. Mackey’s comment: This unfortunate situation had led professor Gunnar Heinsohn (RIP) to identify the enigmatic Chaldeans as the (similarly enigmatic) Sumerians, a view that I would follow for a time. Royce Erickson continues: Neither have any of the hundreds of Chaldaean villages reported to have surrounded them. No archaeological remains or texts have been uncovered in the area that can be identified with any certainty as “Chaldaean.” Matching the geography of the proposed homeland with references in Assyrian military accounts proved difficult. In the same area where masses of earlier Sumerian and archaeological finds and texts have been recovered, the absence of Chaldaean material evidence is mystifying. Some assume Chaldaean sites were buried under the mud of the growing swamps of the Tigris-Euphrates delta, or swallowed up by the Persian Gulf itself. This lack of evidence has been unresolved for so long than many accept unsupported early assumptions almost without question. Alternate locations for Chaldaea have never really been considered due to the apparent historical necessity demanded by the factors listed above. Mackey’s comment: Now, as he tackles the problem of the Chaldeans, and then Elam, Royce Erickson’s article becomes really compelling: Proposed Actual Location of Chaldaea Figure 4 below illustrates my proposed alternative location for Chaldaea in comparison to the currently accepted consensus. Figure 4 – Comparison of currently accepted location of Chaldaean land and tribes with the proposed alternative: Consensus View – Tagged in yellow; Proposed Alternative – Tagged in White Not fully convinced of the conventional view due to this lack of material evidence and other factors, I decided to search an area I considered particularly likely, Syria and southern Anatolia, for Chaldaean cities, towns and geographic features referenced in numerous campaign accounts. The rationale was a suspicion that the Chaldaean people and language were not Semitic, but Hurrian. This view is not unprecedented but rare in modern accounts. Therefore I used Google Map and other available historical maps and data to search known modern Turkish and Syrian site names in the area just south of the center of gravity of the ancient Hurrian nations and tribes – the land centered on northwest Syria. The idea was to match modern with ancient sites based on name matching and matching geographic relationships. Other internet resources and books provided databases of later Armenian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine names for the same location that could also be used to match Chaldaean names. From Assyrian campaign narratives I collected a list of Assyrian place names for Chaldaea and allied Aramaean tribes numbering more than seventy sites, some mentioned on several occasions by multiple kings during separate campaigns. I looked at the campaign records of Ashurnasirapal, Shalmaneser III, Tiglath Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennecherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal dating from approximately 850 to as late as 640 BC. A total of 70 Assyrian names of Chaldaean and Aramanean sites were identified from these sources. There are undoubtedly additional site names that were missed. But working with the limited list available, 32 certain or very likely matches based on name correlation and other geographic factors were very rapidly identified. …. Figure 5 – Chaldaean Sites in Northwest Syria Fig 5 above provides a visual representation of this data. It is the distribution of the Chaldaean and associated Aramaean sites in northwest Syria and adjoining Turkish areas that were recorded by the Assyrians during their Chaldaean campaigns. This distribution has interesting features that tend to validate the basic premise of Chaldaean location. It forms a coherent and compact geography that makes sense. The towns of the various tribes are located in specific areas that match Assyrian description, with Bit-Yakin closest to the sea, Bit Amukanni in the obviously geographically correlated modern Amuq Valley, with Bit Sa’alli and Bit-Silani towns just to the north where Tiglath Pileser III described them on his way to attack Dur-Atkharas, capital of Bit-Amukanni. The Amuk Valley has been known by that name from earliest times until the present. Assyrian accounts describe numerous sieges and battles in Bit-Yakin and Bit-Amukanni occuring in an area of extensive marshes. Scholarly opinion has used this information to support its identification of the northern end of the Persian Gulf, which has extensive marshes, as the land of Chaldaea. But the area I have identified as Chaldaea was also famous for its large area of marshes, represented on the map (Figure 5) by the large lake. The lake was drained during the 20th century but remains a waterlogged area to this day. In the bronze and iron ages it was a large marsh/swamp area, formed by the confluence of several rivers into the Orontes River immediately north of Dur-Yakin. An arm of the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Iskenderun, provides the body of water bordering Chaldaea per Assyrian description. Bit-Agusi lands centered around the strong fortress of Arpad, which blocked the westward path of Assyrian armies heading for Bit Yakin and Bit Amukani, the heart of Chaldaean resistance to Assyria. Allied Aramaean tribes, which Assyrians also locate in the path from Assyria to the Chaldaean tribes, show up right where they are expected to be. These include the Puqudu, Yatbur and Khindaru lands just north of Bit-Amukanni. According to the current scholarly consensus all but one or two of the sites listed and displayed should be found in the area centered on the north end of the Persian Gulf in Iraq, but none has ever been located there. Attempts to deduct their locations at the north end of the Persian Gulf has met with no success. Despite the availability of detailed Assyrian military accounts, modern scholars often find it very difficult to reconcile specific campaign accounts with the accepted Chaldaean and Elamite geography. In the case of Sargon IIs lengthy and wide-ranging campaign against Merodach Baladan, the Chaldaean king of Babylon, eminient historians could not make Sargon’s narrative of his maneuvers work without postulating that he or his scribes mistook the Euphrates for the Tigris on two occasions, which seems highly unlikely, and that Sargon had divided his forces in order to conduct two or more independent simultaneous campaigns, when in fact, Sargon himself wrote nothing to justify this assumption. When Sargon’s campaign is viewed in light of the proposed alternate location of Chaldaea in northwest Syria and Elam in Anatolia, confusion between the Tigris and Euphrates goes away, as does the necessity to postulate the division of Sargon’s army and the conduct of two independent campaigns. Where Was Elam? The Assyrian political and geographic data, when correlated with north Syrian and Turkish sites, provides more than enough evidence to propose a Chaldaean geography as discussed. However, this location is hundreds of miles from the putative Elam in southwest Iran, where it has long been located by historians, perhaps for over 2000 yrs. Chaldaea cannot possibly have been so far away from Elam. We know from many Assyrian campaign accounts that Chaldaea and Elam were close allies, sharing a common border. Assyrian campaigns travelled across the borders of the two countries from one to the other, and back again. Some Chaldaean towns were described by the Assyrians as near or on the common border. Assyrian campaign accounts simply did not make sense with these two nations separated by a vast distance, not to mention the absence of a shared body of water between the two. The proposed location of Chaldaea seemed unsupported, until it gradually became clear that the only way it could work was if the accepted historical location of Elam was itself greatly displaced from its actual ancient location. In their campaigns against Elam the Assyrians had also named dozens of Elamite cities and provinces by name, the vast majority of which historians have not been able to convincingly locate in western Iran. Susa, the capital of the Elamite Empire at the time of the Neo-Assyrian kings, has been identified by historians with a recently discovered complex of religious and palatial ruins located in Iran at the foot of the Zagros mountains. Although the site structures are impressive and some excavated Elamite documents were uncovered there, the amount and quality of identifying evidence gives the impression of being inadequate even to the archaeologists working the site. With a growing suspicion the Elam was misplaced in accepted historical geography, a breakthrough was needed to provide a geographic starting point for further research. The story of the port of Nagite provided that breakthrough. The Port of Nagite In 705 BC the great Assyrian King Sennecherib, son of Sargon II, was coronated in Ninevah. He was an aggressive and very active monarch, whose first priority after securing the throne was to march on Babylon to overthrow the Chaldaean king, Merodach Baladan of Bit-Yakin, who had taken advantage of Sargon II’s death to reclaim the throne of Babylon with the aid of high-ranking sympathizers in the city. He had done this before at Sargon’s accession only to be promptly thrown out by that monarch. This was not the first or the last time the Chaldaeans would succeed in doing this, nor was it the first or last time the Assyrians would throw them out. Merodach was nothing if not persistent. Sennecherib’s first attempt failed. In 703 BC, after some preliminary maneuvering by the armies of both sides, Merodach Baladan was forced to flee to his homeland of Bit-Yakin, where he and his Aramaean allies were soon besieged by Sennecherib. After a bloody battle outside the walls the fortress city was stormed and captured, but Merodach Baladan managed to escape to the nearby coast and flee a short distance by ship to the Elamite port of Nagite, where he was given asylum by his Elamite allies. Years later he would emerge to challenge the Assyrians once again, but for the time being he was safely out of their reach. According to multiple Assyrian records Nagite was one of several seaports on the Elamite coast across the body of water from Chaldaea. Historians assume Nagite and the other ports were located somewhere along what is now the Iranian coast on the east side of the Persian Gulf, but predictably none of them has ever been found. There are many historical maps of pre-Ottoman Anatolia displaying towns with their classical Greek and Roman names, as well as later Armenian variants. There I found along the south coast of Cilicia the fortified port city of Nagidos, also referenced on Google Maps as an archaeological site at the modern Turkish town of Bozyazı in Mersin Province. This apparently Greek port is a short distance by sea from the proposed Chaldaean coast. The significance of this find cannot be overestimated. Further research of the area revealed that this site was known to archaeologists to be the much older Hittite town of Nahite. These unarguable geographic facts pointed to the possibility that the Anatolian Cicilian coast was the actual Elamite coast. Fig. 6 below contrasts the conventional and actual locations of Nagite (Nagidos) and the implications for the location of Elam. Once a fairly accurate location for Elam was posited based on this information, the correlation of Assyrian names of Elamite cities, towns and regions with modern locations in and around Anatolian Cilicia came thick and fast. As before, the sheer volume of convincing matches was astounding. Of the 160 Assyrian names for Elamite sites I collected, 85 of them can be correlated with modern sites in Turkey based on a convincingly close similarity of names and locations combined with revealing details of the Assyrian campaigns. As with the earlier catalogue of Chaldaean and Aramaean sites provided in Table 2, the table below provides original Assyrian site names, variations of those names, including later Armenian and Greek variants, modern matched site locations in Turkey by name, matching criteria, Assyrian kings attesting to the site, and national/provincial subgroup affiliation. I will precede the presentation of this data with a few notes on the historical, political and military significance of Elam in the ancient Near East. Figure 6 – Consensus Versus Proposed Route of Flight to Nagite The word “Elam” is an Akkadian term meaning “highlands” or “highlanders.” This term was used by Assyrians, Babylonians and Jews, among others. The earlier Sumerian name for Elam meant the same thing. The Elamite name for themselves was “Haltamte,” meaning unknown. None of these appellations provides much information on location, since the Near East is surrounded by highlands on the northwest, north, northeast and southeast. These are the Taurus, Armenian and Zagros mountains, a near continuous chain over a thousand miles long. As stated previously, the Elamites have long been thought to have inhabited southwest Iran, where the plains to the East of the Tigris meet the Zagros mountains, and along the Eastern side of the Persian Gulf: a long held universal belief that this paper attempts to refute. Elamites were first recorded by Sumerians and Akkadians before 2500 BC, almost as soon as when accurate written records first emerged. They spoke a unique language unrelated to any other as far as we know and enjoyed a level of civilization similar, if not quite equal to, that of the Sumerians and Akkadians, sharing many cultural traits. They were also at times an expansive and militaristic society, equal players in the great power games of Mesopotamia and surrounding areas. During certain eras Elamite political and military power was dominant over the whole area, although they never successfully achieved a “world empire” like the Sumerians and Akkadians, or the much later Neo-Assyrians or Persians. They were known to be warlike and competent in military affairs. Ancient Sumeria and the Akkadian Empire were often in conflict with them. Elam was the greatest power for hundreds of years after the fall of the Akkadian and Ur III empires around 2000 BC. Later, the great Hammurabi of Babylon, at first a vassal and ally of the Elamite King, threw off his yoke before establishing the first Babylonian Empire in approximately 1760 BC. During other lengthy periods of history Elam was for one reason or another quiescent, barely mentioned in the documents of the time. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire period starting around 900 BC Elam reemerged as a powerful nation, but definitely at a disadvantage against ferocious Assyria. As described earlier they allied themselves with nearby Chaldaean and Aramaean tribes in desperate resistance to Assyria. Below is the data collected on Assyrian-attested Elamite cities, towns and regions that can be matched with a high level of confidence to modern locations in Turkey. …. A review of the Table 2 and a quick glance at the supporting map demonstrates that an extremely large number of Assyrian-reported Elamite sites have classical and modern name equivalents in Anatolia. As with the Chaldaean exercise, the distribution of these sites is coherent, representing almost the whole southern half of central and western Anatolia, an area previously dominated by the Hittite Empire. Furthermore these sites share spatial relationships to each other that are confirmed by Assyrian records. For instance, the Elamite towns listed by the Assyrians as within a district called Rashi all appear in modern locations in close proximity to each other, just as would be expected of towns within a common district. These include Bubilu, Raza, Raba, Kummana and Durmishamash, all in the Adana region of Cilicia. A further look at Figure 7 demonstrates that there was a very well-defined border between Elam and Chaldaea (and its Aramaean allies) as demonstrated by the relative positions of towns, and that the two nations were separated by a common body of water, now referred to as the Gulf Iskenderun. All five of the most important historically important Elamite towns can be located in Anatolia: Susa, Madaktu, Hidalu, Awan and Anshan. Susa, the capital during the Neo-Assyrian period, and known to be the closest of these Elamite cities to Chaldaea and thence to Babylon and Assyria, is represented by Sis (Shishan) in Cilicia. Madaktu (Kayseri) and Hidalu (Kundullu) were described by the Assyrians as being in the distant Elamite hinterland from Susa. The equivalent modern sites of Kayseri and Kundullu agree with this description, being 90 miles to the north and 230 miles to the east of Kozan, modern Sis, respectively. Awan was a very early Elamite capital well known to the Akkadian King Rimush about 2400 AD, who campaigned there. He described Awan as being separated from Susa (Sis) by 3 rivers. He pursued the King of Elam between the two cities and defeated his army by the “Middle River.” The modern Turkish town of Avanos is in fact the proposed site of Elamite Awan. It is separated from modern Kozan (Susa) by three north-south running rivers, the Goksu, Zamanti and Damas, over a total distance of 100 miles – a very good fit to Rimush’s narrative. Anshan was the capital of Elam before Susa. It’s supposed location in southwest Iran has long been guessed at, but until now never determined. Recently it has been linked to some finds at an archaeological site in the area of Shiraz and the ruins of Persepolis. Even more than the supposed ruins of Susa in Iran, the evidence for its identification to date is meager. According to the Assyrians, Anshan lay beyond Hidalu when travelling from Madaktu, and close to part of Media. There is a town in Turkey that meets this description, being beyond modern Kundullu (Hidalu) when travelling from Kayseri (Madaktu). Its name is Avgan, a possible name match for Anshan, but more compelling is its location, which sits amidst the modern sites of several proposed Median towns (Arakuttu, Ushu, and Zibiya) in Anatolia. …. [End of quote] It is yet far too early even to begin to grasp the ramifications of this massive geographical plate tectonics movement as set in motion by Royce (Richard) Erickson. What does it mean for Babylon, for instance? But what is certain is that I shall have, geographically, to re-cast my book, A History of the Fertile Crescent

Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate

by Damien F. Mackey “… Haaretz reported that during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded”.” Gunnar Heinsohn The major Caliphates of Islam are listed as these five (1-5): • 1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) • 2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) • 3 Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) • 4 Mamluk Abbasid dynasty (1261–1517) • 5 Ottoman Caliphate (1517–1924) It will be my purpose here - abstracting from the immense problems already associated with the Qur’an (Koran) itself (e.g.): Dr Günter Lüling: Christian hymns underlie Koranic poetry (2) Dr Günter Lüling: Christian hymns underlie Koranic poetry | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Islam according to Jay Smith (6) Islam according to Jay Smith | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Durie’s verdict on Prophet Mohammed (DOC) Durie's verdict on Prophet Mohammed | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Sven Kalisch out to expose true nature of Islam (6) Sven Kalisch out to expose true nature of Islam | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu - to show that virtually none (if any at all) of this presumed history of the successive Caliphates is properly historical, and, hence, underpinned by a reliable archaeology. Abbasid Caliphate Aiming right at the centre, the middle one (No. 3 above), the famed Abbasid Caliphate: “The Abbasid caliphs established the city of Baghdad in 762 CE. It became a center of learning and the hub of what is known as the Golden Age of Islam”: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/cross-cultural-diffusion-of-knowledge/a/the-golden-age-of-islam I have already disposed of this supposedly the most glorious age of Islam by arguing that early Baghdad (not the modern city of that name), known as Madinat-al-Salam, “City of Peace”, was actually Jerusalem, meaning just that, “City of Peace”: Original Baghdad was Jerusalem (6) Original Baghdad was Jerusalem | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu In the same article I noted that the imagined early Baghdad had, unsurprisingly, left no discernible archaeological trace. There I wrote: The first thing to notice about ancient Baghdad is that it has left “no tangible traces”: “Built of the baked brick, the city’s walls have long since crumbled, leaving no trace of Madinat-al-Salam today”. “While no tangible traces have yet been discovered of the eighth-century Madinat-al-Salam, and as it is currently impossible to conduct excavations in Baghdad, one can only hope that one day material evidence may be discovered”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Baghdad “The Round City was partially ruined during the siege of 812–813, when Caliph al-Amin was killed by his brother,[a] who then became the new caliph. It never recovered;[b] its walls were destroyed by 912,[c] nothing of them remains,[d][6] there is no agreement as to where it was located.[7]” [End of quotes] And just as I have shown, time and time again, that the Prophet Mohammed was a fictitious, largely biblical, composite, so, too, basically, I believe, were the luminaries of the so-called Abbasid Golden Age. Thus, for instance, the fairytale (Arabian Nights), Hārūn al-Rashīd, who is said to have built the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, is an appropriation of the great king, Hiram, ally of Solomon, who helped the wise king of Israel build the Temple of Yahweh and Solomon’s Palace in Jerusalem, “City of Peace”. And in the names of a handful of presumed Islamic scholars of the Golden Age, the polymathic Al-Kindi (c. 800); Al-Farabi (c. 900); Avicenna (c. 1000); and Averroes (c. 1150), I found what I would consider to be elements of Ahikar’s (Tobit’s nephew) Assyro-Babylonian names: respectively, Aba-enlil-dari and Esagil-kinni-ubba. Thus: AL-KINDI – ESAGIL-KINNI; AL-FARABI – ENLIL-DAR-AB(I); AVICENNA – UBB-KINNI(A); AVERROES – ABA-(D)AR(I) In these famous names is largely encompassed Islamic philosophy, science, astronomy, cosmology, history, demography, medicine and music for the Golden Age. Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism (8) Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu If the glorious and lengthy Abbasid Caliphate can be thus expunged from history, and the very originator of Islam, Mohammed, found to have been an artificial construct - not to mention Loqmân and Abu Lahab (see below) - then we appear to have no firm archaeological foundations upon which to erect a plausible history of the Caliphate. And things, apparently, do not get much better. Rashidun Caliphate Let us go back for a moment to Mohammed and his presumed era, more than a century before the so-called Abbasids. Not only has Mohammed been shown to have been a non-historical entity, a fictitious composite based upon real historical (biblical) characters: Mohammed, a composite of Old Testament figures, also based upon Jesus Christ (3) Mohammed, a composite of Old Testament figures, also based upon Jesus Christ | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu but the historicity of some of Mohammed’s supposed contemporaries, too, is highly suspect. Mohammed’s very uncle, Abu Lahab, for instance, has been found to have had suspiciously (biblical) Ahab-like traits, as, correspondingly, does Abu-Lahab’s unbelieving wife, Umm Jamīl, somewhat resemble Queen Jezebel: Abu Lahab, Lab'ayu, Ahab (8) Abu Lahab, Lab'ayu, Ahab | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And Mohammed’s supposed contemporary, Nehemiah ben Hushiel, would seem to be a direct pinch from the biblical Nehemiah: Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time (3) Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And their (Mohammed and Nehemiah’s) contemporary, the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, is a most bizarre character, somewhat like a frog in a blender, whom I have described as being “a composite of all composites”: Heraclius and the Battle of Nineveh (3) Heraclius and the Battle of Nineveh | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Again, there is the Islamic sage Loqmân (Luqman) of the Qur’an (31st sura), who quotes from the wisdom of Ahikar, an Israelite nephew of the biblical Tobit: Ahiqar, Aesop and Loqmân (2) Ahiqar, Aesop and Loqmân | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu Ahikar’s influence, as we read above, also permeates the Abbasids. But Loqmân has been compared as well with the venal biblical seer, Balaam, more than half a millennium before Ahikar: Islam’s Loqmân based on biblical Balaam (3) Islam’s Loqmân based on biblical Balaam | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Oh yes, of course, the story of Mohammed also has (like Balaam) a talking donkey: A funny thing happened on the way to Mecca (2) A funny thing happened on the way to Mecca | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu With so insecure an archaeologico-historical base, beginning with Mohammed himself, the entire Caliphate period, from, say, 650-1250 AD (Rashidun to Abbasid), must needs be looking very shaky indeed. At this stage I have not analysed the four caliphs closely associated with Mohammed (the Rashidun Caliphate), Abū Bakr (reigned 632–634), ʿUmar (reigned 634–644), ʿUthmān (reigned 644–656), and ʿAlī (reigned 656–661). But, based on the cases of Mohammed and Abu Lahab, I would strongly suspect that these four, too, can be identifiable with one or more biblical characters ranging from, say, Moses to Tobit (possibly also embracing the New Testament). Let us switch now to the Umayyads (661-750 AD). Umayyad Caliphate As with the 1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), so, too, in the case of the 2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), I have not yet analysed the various caliphs with an eye to biblical comparisons. But the great shock about the Umayyads came at the very beginning of this article, with archaeologist Moshe Hartal’s observation that the Umayyads existed on the same stratigraphical level as the Romans of the period approximating to Jesus Christ. How shattering! According to professor Gunnar Heinsohn’s interpretation of the Umayyads, these were none other than the Nabataeans (era of Maccabees and Jesus Christ): https://heinsohn-gunnar.eu/mt-content/uploads/2021/08/arab-coinage-hiatus-between-nabataean-1st-c-and-jewish-style-of-umayyad-8th-c-heinsohn-21-august-2021.pdf Professor Heinsohn is followed in this by The First Millennium Revisionist (2021) https://stolenhistory.net/threads/revision-in-islamic-chronology-and-geography-unz-review.5581/ I do not necessarily agree with every detail (e.g. date) of the following. …. “Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models”. The First Millennium Revisionist In Heinsohn’s SC chronology, the rise of Christianity in the first three centuries AD and the rise of Islam from the 7th to the 10th century are roughly contemporary. Their six-century chasm is a fiction resulting from the fact that the rise of Christianity is dated in Imperial Antiquity while the rise of Islam is dated in the Early Middle Ages, two time-blocks that are in reality contemporary. The resynchronizing of Imperial Antiquity and Early Middle Ages provides a solution to some troublesome archeological anomalies. One of them concerns the Nabataeans. During Imperial Antiquity, the Nabataean Arabs dominated long distance trade. Their city of Petra was a major center of trade for silk, spice and other goods on the caravan routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. In 106 AD, the Nabataean Kingdom was officially annexed to the Roman Empire by Trajan (whose father had been governor of Syria) and became the province of Arabia Petraea. Hadrian visited Petra around 130 AD and gave it the name of Hadriane Petra Metropolis, imprinted on his coins. Petra reached its urban flowering in the Severan period (190s-230s AD).[18] Mackey’s comment: I actually date the Trajan-Hadrian period to the Maccabean age, not c. 106 AD: Hadrianus Traianus Caesar - Trajan transmutes to Hadrian (5) Hadrianus Traianus Caesar - Trajan transmutes to Hadrian | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And yet, incredibly, these Arab long-distance merchants “are supposed to have forgotten the issuing of coins and the art of writing (Aramaic) after the 1st century AD and only learned it again in the 7th/8th century AD (Umayyad Muslims). ” …. It is assumed that Arabs fell out of civilization after Hadrian, and only emerged back into it under Islam, with an incomprehensible scientific advancement. The extreme primitivism in which pre-Islamic Arabs are supposed to have wallowed, with no writing and no money of they own, “stands in stark contrast to the Islamic Arabs who thrive from the 8th century, [whose] coins are not only found in Poland but from Norway all the way to India and beyond at a time when the rest of the known world was trying to crawl out of the darkness of the Early Middle Ages.”…. Moreover, Arab coins dated to the 8th and 9th centuries are found in the same layers as imperial Roman coins. “The coin finds of Raqqa, for example, which stratigraphically belong to the Early Middle Ages (8th-10th century), also contain imperial Roman coins from Imperial Antiquity (1st-3rd century) and Late Antiquity (4th-7th century).” …. “Thus, we have an impressive trove of post-7th c. Arab coins lumped together with pre-7th c. Roman coins of pre-7th c. Roman times. But we have no pre-7th c. Arab coins from the centuries of their close alliance with Rome in the pre-7th c. periods.” …. The first Islamic Umayyad coins, issued in Jerusalem, “continue supposedly 700 years earlier Nabataean coins.” …. Often displaying Jewish menorahs with Arabic lettering, they differ very little from Jewish coins dated seven centuries earlier; we are dealing here with an evolution “requiring only years or decades, but not seven centuries.” …. Architecture raises similar problems. Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models. …. “How could the Umayyads in the 8th c. AD perfectly imitate late Hellenistic styles,” Heinsohn asks, “when there were no specialists left to teach them such sophisticated skills?” …. Moreover, “Umayyad structures were built right on top of Late-Hellenistic structures of the 1st c. BCE/CE.” …. One example is “the second most famous Umayyad building, their mosque in Damascus. The octagonal structure of the so-called Dome of the Treasury stands on perfect Roman columns of the 1st/2nd century. They are supposed to be spolia, but . . . there are no known razed buildings from which they could have been taken. Even more puzzling are the enormous monolithic columns inside the building from the 8th/9th c. AD, which also belong to the 1st/2nd century. No one knows the massive structure that would have had to be demolished to obtain them.” …. Far from rejecting the Umayyads’ servile “imitation” of Roman Antiquity, their Abbasid enemies resumed it: “8th-10th c. Abbasids bewilder historians for copying, right down to the chemical fingerprint, Roman glass.” Heinsohn quotes from The David Collection: Islamic Art / Glass, 2014: The millefiori technique, which takes its name from the Italian word meaning “thousand flowers”, reached a culmination in the Roman period. . . . The technique seems to have been rediscovered by Islamic glassmakers in the 9th century, since examples of millefiori glass, including tiles, have been excavated in the Abbasid capital of Samarra. …. I included in “How Long Was the First Millennium?” one of Heinsohn’s illustrations of identical millefiori glass bowls ascribed respectively to the 1st-2nd century Romans and to the 8th-9th century Abbasids. Here is another puzzling comparison: …. Heinsohn concludes that, “the culture of the Umayyads is as Roman as the culture of early medieval Franks. Their 9th/10th century architecture is a direct continuation of the 2nd c. AD. The 700 years in between do not exist in reality.” …. “The Arabs did not walk in ignorance without coinage and writing for some 700 years. Those 700 years represent phantom centuries. Thus, it is not true that Arabs were backward in comparison with their immediate Roman and Greek neighbours who, interestingly enough, are not on record for having ever claimed any Arab backwardness. . . . the caliphs now dated from the 690s to the 930s are actually the caliphs of the period from Augustus to the 230s.” …. This explains why archeologists often find themselves puzzled by the stratigraphy. For example, Haaretz reported that during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded.’” …. Heinsohn argues that the Umayyads of the Early Middle Ages are not only identical with the Nabataeans of Imperial Antiquity, but are also documented in the intermediate time-block of Late Antiquity under the name of the Ghassanids. “Nabataeans and Umayyads not only shared the same art, the same metropolis Damascus, and the same stratigraphy, but also a common territory that was home to yet another famous Arab ethnicity that also held Damascus: the Ghassanids. They served as Christian allies of the Byzantines during Late Antiquity (3rd/4th to 6th c. AD). Yet, they were already active during Imperial Antiquity (1st to 3rd c. AD). Diodorus Siculus (90-30 BC) knew them as Gasandoi, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) as Casani, and Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 AD) as Kassanitai.” …. In the Byzantine period, the Ghassanid caliphs had “the same reputation for anti-trinitarian monotheism as the Abbasid Caliphs now dated to 8th /9th centuries.” …. They also, like the Islamic Arabs, preserved some Bedouin customs such as polygamy. …. [End of quotes] In a most interesting twist, Taycan Sapmaz identifies: THE NABATAEANS AND LYCIANS (6) THE NABATAEANS AND LYCIANS | taycan sapmaz - Academia.edu Who could argue against the Nabataeans and Lycians at least sharing commonalities? Ottoman Caliphate For further apparent anachronisms, this time with the early (only) Ottoman Caliphate, I simply refer the reader to my article: King Solomon and Suleiman (6) King Solomon and Suleiman | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu with more, hopefully, to be written on this subject in the future. Conclusions The Prophet Mohammed is clearly a non-historical, composite entity based on a bunch of real historical figures from a vast range of eras. Mohammed’s relatives, contemporaries, likewise are biblico-historically-based, e.g. uncle Lahab as Ahab; Nehemiah ben Hushiel as the biblical Nehemiah; emperor Heraclius as possibly literature’s most composite of composites. This necessitates that the closely associated Rashidun Caliphate could have no real historical reality in AD time. This view being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate, The Umayyad as belonging archaeologically to a Roman period, some six centuries prior to the supposed era of Mohammed. This being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate, The Abbasid, as having no archaeological trace for its epicentre, ancient Baghdad, Madinat al-Salam, which is really ancient Jerusalem.