Wrong to say that Ashurbanipal was the least cruel of the Mesopotamian kings

by Damien F. Mackey “His gloating knew no bounds. A relief found at his palace at Nineveh depicts Ashurbanipal leisurely dining al fresco with his wife and servants fanning them, while the severed head of an Elamite king hangs from a nearby tree”. I read a remark recently that Ashurbanipal was the least cruel of the Assyrian kings. Given my identification of Ashurbanipal with Ashurnasirpal (the names are almost identical in meaning), I thought that this statement was well wide of the mark, that Ashurbanipal, as Ashurnasirpal, was probably the most cruel of all of these kings. Ashurnasirpal is reputed to have been so, and he was happy to boast of it openly. Joshua J. Mark tells us much about this great and cruel king in his article, “Ashurnasirpal II”: https://www.ancient.eu/Ashurnasirpal_II/ some of which I give here with my comments added: Ashurnasirpal II (reigned 884-859 BCE) was the third king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. His father was Tukulti-Ninurta II (reigned (891-884 BCE) whose military campaigns throughout the region provided his son with a sizeable empire and the resources to equip a formidable army. My comment: If the revision that I am putting together here is heading in the right direction, then these dates for Ashurnasirpal and his father will be far too high. The “father”, Tukulti-Ninurta so-called II, who does not even rate an entry in the index at the back of Van de Mieroop’s book (as we have already found), stands sorely in need of a significant alter ego, that being, as I have suggested, none other than Sargon II-Sennacherib. Ashurnasirpal II is known for his ruthless military conquests and the consolidation of the Assyrian Empire, but he is probably most famous for his grand palace at Kalhu (also known as Caleh and Nimrud in modern-day Iraq), whose wall reliefs depicting his military successes (and many victims) are on display in museums around the world in the modern day. In addition to the palace itself, he is also known for throwing one of the most impressive parties in history to inaugurate his new city of Kalhu: he hosted over 69,000 people during a ten day festival. The menu for this party still survives in the present day. My comment: One of my alter egos for Ashurnasirpal is Esarhaddon, who was indeed interested in Kalhu: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/nimrud/ancientkalhu/thecity/latekalhu/index.html .... Esarhaddon, however, took a great deal of interest in the city. Around 672 BC, towards the end of his reign, he rebuilt part of the city wall and made significant improvements to Fort Shalmaneser. He added a new terrace and created an impressive new entrance consisting of a vaulted ramp which led from a newly-rebuilt postern gate TT directly into the palace through a series of painted rooms. Inscriptions on both sides of the gate commemorated this construction work, as did clay cylinders which were perhaps originally deposited inside Fort Shalmaneser's walls .... It is possible that Esarhaddon's activities at Kalhu were intended as a prelude to reclaiming it as royal capital. There is some, albeit very limited evidence, that he may have lived at Kalhu briefly towards the end of his reign: a partially preserved letter mentions that the king's courtiers "are all in Kalhu", perhaps indicating that the court had moved there from Nineveh (SAA 13: 152). .... My comment: As for Ashurnasirpal’s being “ruthless”, his cruelty is legendary (see below). And in this he resembles his other alter ego, Ashurbanipal (‘Ashur is the creator of an heir’), whose name is almost identical to Ashurnasirpal (‘Ashur is guardian of the heir’). The following piece tells of Ashurnasirpal’s, of Ashurbanipal’s, overt cruelty: https://searchinginhistory.blogspot.com/2015/02/cruelty-instrument-of-assyrian-control.html Many Kings of Assyrian had displayed proudly their cruelty towards their enemies. Sometimes in reliefs or in their annals, New Assyrian [kings] gave detail[s] of their gory exploits against their opponents. King Ashurnasirpal laid out many of his sadistic activities in one of his annals. He liked burning, skinning, and decapitating his enemies. When he defeated a rebelling city, he made sure they [paid] a huge price. Disobedient cities were destroyed and razed to the ground with fire, with their wealth and all material riches taken by the king. Their youth and women were either burned alive or made into slaves or placed into the harem. In the City of Nistun, Ashurnasirpal showed how he cut [off] the heads of 260 rebelling soldiers and piled it together. Their leader named Bubu suffered horrific punishment. He was flayed and his skin was placed in the walls of Arbail. In the city of Suri, rebelling nobles were also skinned and were displayed like trophies. Some skin were left to rot but some were placed in a stake. Officials of the city suffered decapitation of their limbs. The leader of the Suri rebellion, Ahiyababa, underwent flaying and his skin was then placed in the walls of Niniveh. After Ashurnasirpal defeated the city of Tila, he ordered to cut the hands and feet of the soldiers of the fallen city. Other than that, some soldiers found themselves without noses and ears. But also, many defeated soldiers had their eyes gouged out. The heads of the leaders of the Tila were hang[ed] in the trees around the city. Ashurnasirpal was not alone in having a psychotic mind. Many of his successors followed his brutality towards enemies. .... The intellectual King Ashurbanipal also had a share of cruelty. Although he was known for his great library in Nineveh, he was not as merciful as he seemed. One time, an Arabian leader name Uaite instigated a rebellion. Ashurbanipal managed to defeat Uaite and captured him and brought back to Niniveh. There, he brought upon a humiliating punishment. He was tied like a dog and placed in a kennel alongside with dogs and jackals guarding the gates of the great Assyrian capital of Nineveh. .... Early Reign & Military Campaigns ... by the time Ashurnasirpal II came to the throne, he had at his disposal a well-equipped fighting force and considerable resources. He put both of these to use almost at once. He was not so much interested in expansion of the empire as in securing it against invasion from without or rebellion from within. My comment: Ashurnasirpal was very much “interested in expansion of the empire”. When fitted with his alter egos, he becomes the conqueror of even the distant land of Egypt. He also was required, as an Assyrian king, to combat the forces of chaos and maintain order. The historian Marc Van De Mieroop writes, “The king, as representative of the god Assur, represented order. Wherever he was in control, there was peace, tranquility, and justice, and where he did not rule there was chaos. The king’s duty to bring order to the entire world was the justification for military expansion” (260). While Ashurnasirpal may not have considered expansion a priority, he certainly took order in his realm very seriously and would not tolerate insubordination or revolt. His first campaign was in 883 BCE to the city of Suru to put down a rebellion there. He then marched to the north where he put down other rebellions which had broken out when he took the throne. He was not interested in having to expend more time and resources on future rebellions and so made an example of the rebels in the city of Tela. In his inscriptions he writes: I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates. My comment: Interestingly, Joshua J. Mark (“Assyrian Warfare”) applies this horrific Suru episode instead to Ashurbanipal: The Assyrian kings were not to be trifled with and their inscriptions vividly depict the fate which was certain for those who defied them. The historian Simon Anglim writes: The Assyrians created the world's first great army and the world's first great empire. This was held together by two factors: their superior abilities in siege warfare and their reliance on sheer, unadulterated terror. It was Assyrian policy always to demand that examples be made of those who resisted them; this included deportations of entire peoples and horrific physical punishments. One inscription from a temple in the city of Nimrod records the fate of the leaders of the city of Suru on the Euphrates River, who rebelled from, and were reconquered by, King Ashurbanipal: “I built a pillar at the city gate and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins; some I walled up inside the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes." This treatment of defeated cities would become Ashurnasirpal II’s trademark and would include skinning insubordinate officials alive and nailing their flesh to the gates of the city and “dishonoring the maidens and boys” of the conquered cities before setting them on fire. With Tela destroyed, he moved swiftly on to other campaigns. He marched west, fighting his way through other rebel outbreaks and subjugating the cities which opposed him. The historian John Boardman notes that “a major factor behind the increasing resistance was probably the heavy tribute exacted by Ashurnasirpal…one has the impression that a particularly large amount of booty was claimed by this king and that corvee [forced labor] was imposed universally” (259). Ashurnasirpal II led his army on successful campaigns across the Euphrates River and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, where he washed his weapons as a symbol of his conquests (an act made famous by the inscriptions of Sargon the Great of the earlier Akkadian Empire after he had established his rule). My comment: Ashurbanipal, likewise, ‘washed his weapons in the Sea’ (Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts, p. 223): “Inscriptions from ... Ashurnasirpal II ... and Ashurbanipal ... record washing their weapons in the Mediterranean Sea and offering sacrifices ...”. Ashurbanipal: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/the-assyrians-of-ashurbanipals-time-were-just-as-into-pillage-and-destruction-as-isis/ Ashurbanipal overcame chaos by conquering Egypt, campaigning against Phoenician Tyre, and warring against the Elamites of south-western Iran. One of the most arresting sculptures in the exhibition shows him dining with his wife in the luxurious gardens of his palace in the aftermath of his victory over Elam. He reclines beneath a particularly luscious grapevine (his gardens were irrigated by a network of artificial channels); the head of the Elamite king is staked on the branch of a tree. .... Having accomplished what he set out to do on campaign, he turned around and headed back to his capital city of Ashur. If there were any further revolts to be put down on his march back, they are not recorded. It is unlikely that there were more revolts, however, as Ashurnasirpal II had established a reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness which would have been daunting to even the most ardent rebel. The historian Stephen Bertman comments on this, writing: Ashurnasirpal II set a standard for the future warrior-kings of Assyria. In the words of Georges Roux, he `possessed to the extreme all the qualities and defects of his successors, the ruthless, indefatigable empire-builders: ambition, energy, courage, vanity, cruelty, magnificence’ (Roux 1992:288). His annals were the most extensive of any Assyrian ruler up to his time, detailing the multiple military campaigns he led to secure or enlarge his nation’s territorial dominion. From one raid alone he filled his kingdom’s coffers with 660 pounds of gold an equal measure of silver, and added 460 horses to his stables. The sadistic cruelty he inflicted upon rebel leaders was legendary, skinning them alive and displaying their skin, and cutting off the noses and the ears of their followers or mounting their severed heads on pillars to serve as a warning to others (79-80). .... His famous Standard Inscription told again and again of his triumphs in conquest and vividly depicted the horrible fate of those who rose against him. The inscription also let the dignitaries from his own realm, and others, know precisely who they were dealing with. He claimed the titles “great king, king of the world, the valiant hero who goes forth with the help of Assur; he who has no rival in all four quarters of the world, the exalted shepherd, the powerful torrent that none can withstand, he who has overcome all mankind, whose hand has conquered all lands and taken all the mountain ranges” (Bauer, 337). His empire stretched across the territory which today comprises western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and part of Turkey. Through his diplomatic relationships with Babylonia and the Levant, he also had access to the resources of southern Mesopotamia and the sea ports of Phoenicia. In the understanding of the people of the Near East at that time, he really was “king of the world”. https://allmesopotamia.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/part-iii-ashurbanipal/ Ashurbanipal’s Cruelty Ashurbanipal was a nice and patient guy with his brother, but he definitely wasn’t a nice guy to his enemies (or to lions). You could argue that no one is particularly nice to their enemies, but Ashurbanipal was really really really mean to his enemies. We’re talking excessively cruel. We’re talking excessive cruelty. Read about this relief here. His gloating knew no bounds. A relief found at his palace at Nineveh depicts Ashurbanipal leisurely dining al fresco with his wife and servants fanning them, while the severed head of an Elamite king hangs from a nearby tree. The worst part is that Teumann, to whom the head belonged, didn’t just die in battle, but committed suicide at the battle scene, after which Ashurbanipal had his head cut off and taken back with him to Nineveh, where Elamite ambassadors freaked out. So freaked out were these guys by Ashurbanipal, that one of them actually killed himself. That makes three suicides that Ashurbanipal was responsible for, including his brother’s suicide. The guy had some major mind power. … Ashurbanipal celebrates in his garden with his queen the victory over Elam, while his enemy’s head hangs from the last tree to the left (your left) by way of a ring piercing the deceased’s jaw. (Source) The parading of Teumann’s head was depicted in several reliefs, each showing the head on display in various different public places, always serving as a reminder to all who dare to cross the Assyrian king and his empire.

Deuteronomy 28 influenced Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty

by Damien F. Mackey “… the Assyrian text inverts the common sequence of heaven and earth to ground and sky. The Hebrew scribe changed the sequence to heaven and earth, but kept the comparison of sky with bronze and ground with iron”. H. U. Steymans Introduction The following comparisons between the Hebrew texts and the Assyrian ones are taken from Hans U. Steymans “Deuteronomy 28 and Tell Tayinat” (Verbum et Ecclesia 34(2), Art. #870, 13 pages): https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/870/1867 Regarding the conventional BC dates that Steymans employs, these would now be greatly affected by my radical revision of late neo-Assyrian history, as outlined in e.g.: Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel (6) Aligning Neo-Babylonia with the Book of Daniel Moreover, by no means can I accept Steymans’ suggestion of very late authorship of the Deuteronomic texts, “… these Hebrew verses came to existence between 672 BC and 622 BC, the year in which a Torah scroll was found in the temple of Jerusalem, causing Josiah to swear a loyalty oath in the presence of Yhwh”. On this, see e.g. my series: Toledôt of Genesis beginning with: https://www.academia.edu/28730863/Toled%C3%B4t_of_Genesis_Introductory My own suggestion would be that the laws of the ancient Book of Deuteronomy became accessible to king Esarhaddon through the influence of his skilled ummanu, or Vizier, the biblical Ahikar (or Achior). On this, see e.g. my article: Correcting the common perception of “Achior” (6) Achior as Judith's Alter Ego Steymans writes: …. The discovery of Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (EST) at Tell Tayinat confirms the Assyrian application of this text on western vassals and suggests that the oath tablet was given to Manasseh of Judah in 672 BC, the year in which the king of Assyria had all his empire and vassals swear an oath or treaty promising to adhere to the regulations set for his succession, and that this cuneiform tablet was set up for formal display somewhere inside the temple of Jerusalem. The finding of the Tell Tayinat tablet and its elaborate curses of §§ 53–55 that invoke deities from Palestine, back up the claim of the 1995 doctoral thesis of the author of this article that the impressive similarities between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and curses from § 56 of the EST are due to direct borrowing from the EST. This implies that these Hebrew verses came to existence between 672 BC and 622 BC, the year in which a Torah scroll was found in the temple of Jerusalem, causing Josiah to swear a loyalty oath in the presence of Yhwh. This article aimed to highlight the similarities between EST § 56 and Deuteronomy 28 as regards syntax and vocabulary, interpret the previously unknown curses that astoundingly invoke deities from Palestine, and conclude with a hypothesis of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaties § 56 This section highlights the parallels between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, the curse of the great gods. Although lists comparing curse motifs in extra biblical texts with Deuteronomy 28 present a lot of motif parallels, a careful look at such lists shows that the paralleling of motifs destroys the sequence of elements in one text in order to fit it to the sequence of the other (eds. Kitchen and Lawrence 2012:244, Dt 1–32 being number 83 in their counting of ANE treaties). In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, however, the sequence of motifs is identical. In only two cases does a topic appear at a slightly different position, and in both these cases one can explain the difference as a deliberate scribal arrangement. Apart from the identical sequence of topics in both curses, there is an astounding parallel regarding the syntax. Curses invoking Yhwh or the gods as subjects causing calamity, alternate with curses in which natural forces are the subjects, or sentences that just describe the result of the preceding curse. In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, these alternations occur at parallel positions. There is still another syntactical parallel between the Assyrian and the Hebrew text. The curses invoking the divinity are optative sentences. In Assyrian, precative verbal forms mark the optative. In Hebrew, yiqtol-x formations mark the optative. Although most English translations render Deuteronomy 28:20–44 as indicative, the Hebrew text alternates between invocations of Yhwh that concede to him the option of punishing in optative yiqtol-x, and sections in the indicative dealing with the consequences of Yhwh’s punishments or the harmful effect of natural forces. The following translation will indicate an optative sentence by using ‘may’. A similar comparison has previously been published (Steymans 1995). The comparison presented here has been amended to highlight vocabulary and syntactical features common to both texts. There is not much need for the diachronic separation in Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Three verses show elements of later elaboration. Deuteronomy 28:20c Deuteronomy 28: 20c: ‘[because of your evildoing] in forsaking Me’. This ending of the first curse reads in Hebrew: mippenê rōac macalelê-kā ’ašer cazabtā-nî. The three words at the beginning do not appear elsewhere in Deuteronomy, however, they appear in Jeremiah three times (Jr 4:4; 21:12; 44:22). Since the curse section following in Deuteronomy 28:45–62 has a lot of links to Jeremiah, it is safe to suggest that the scribe who added the curses after verse 45 also added mippenê rōac macalelê-kā in order to point to the prophetic language (cf. Is 1:16; Hs 9:15) right at the beginning and prepare for the following links with Jeremiah. Nowhere else does the relative clause ’ašer cazabtā-nî follow rōac macalelê-kā in the Hebrew Bible. There is ’ašer cazābû-nî in Jeremiah 1:16 and ka’ašer cazabtem ’ôtî in Jeremiah 5:19. The relative clause in Jeremiah expressing that the people leave (forsake) Yhwh differs from the one in Deuteronomy 28:20. In addition, it does not occur in context with mippenê rōac macalelê-kā in Jeremiah. In Deuteronomy, the verb c.z.b is linked to the Levites in Deuteronomy 12:19 and 14:27. Deuteronomy 29:25 quotes the statements of people passing by giving the reason for the disaster that befell Israel: ‘Because they forsook the covenant of Yhwh, the God of their fathers’ (cal ’ašer cāzebû ’et berît Yhwh ’ælōhê ’abōtām). Deuteronomy 31 quotes the words of God, predicting that his people: … will begin to prostitute themselves to the foreign gods in their midst, the gods of the land into which they are going; they will forsake me [wa-cazāba-nî], and break my covenant, which I have made with them. (Dt 31:16) It is important to notice that Deuteronomy 28:20 is the first occurrence in Deuteronomy where the verb c.z.b means ‘leaving or forsaking Yhwh’, and that this meaning is taken up in Deuteronomy 29 and 31. Further use of the verb c.z.b speaks about Yhwh leaving or abandoning his people (Dt 31:6, 8, 16, 17; 32:26). Hence, c.z.b only means leaving Yhwh as a form of disobedience in Deuteronomy 28:20, the first verse of the curse section, and then in two quotations, namely in the words of other people (Dt 29:25) and of Yhwh (Dt 31:16). Prophetic language uses the verb in a similar sense, however, never in the context of rōac macalelê-kā. The verb ezābu, the Assyrian equivalent of Hebrew c.z.b, occurs in line 479 of § 56 with food and water as subjects. The only other occurrence of the verb in the EST is in line 172 of § 14, a stipulation closely linked to the whole treaty’s ‘first commandment’ in § 4 through the word repetition of a.šà ‘field’ (l. 49, l. 165), naṣāru ‘protect’ (l. 50, l. 168), uru ‘city’ (l. 49, l. 166), gammurtu ‘totality’ (l. 53, l. 169), libbu ‘heart’ (l. 51, 53, l. 169). The treaty’s addressees must protect Assurbanipal in country (field) and town (city), and advise him in total truth of their heart according to § 4. Then § 14, demanding them to protect Assurbanibal, repeats this order in case of a rebellion. The stipulation ends: ‘You shall Assurbanibal […] let escape [leave]’ [the dangerous situation tušezabā-ni-ni, ezābu-causative Š-stem]. Without claiming to be able to prove it, the verb c.z.b in verse 20c may have been inspired by the EST. The verb is rare in Deuteronomy and the EST, but it is existent in § 56 and the important stipulation of § 14 – and in Deuteronomy 28, it may be the relict of the conditional clause that opened the curse section in the Judean loyalty oath. The Judean scribe reversed the main offence against the overlord, using the same verb. As regards Assurbanibal, the main offence is not to let him leave (= rescue him from) any dangerous situation. As regards Yhwh, the main offence is to leave (= forsake) him in disobedience. Thus, the curse section of the Judean loyalty oath might have begun with something like: ‘If you leave [forsake] him [kî tacazbennû; cf. Dt 14:27], Yhwh may send on you curse’, picking up the conjunction kî of most conditional laws in Deuteronomy. When DtrL, a pre-exilic scribe (Braulik 2011; Lohfink 1997, 2000), added the blessing of Deuteronomy 28 to his account of a covenant in Moab and the conquest of the land – starting with the bārûk-formulas (Dt 28:3–5) together with the corresponding ’ārûr-formulas (Dt 28:16–19) and the alternative introductions of blessing and curse in Deuteronomy 28:1f. and 15 – the conditional clause kî tacazbennû was transferred to the end of verse 20 and the verb changed into perfect kî cazabtô (cf. Dt 13:11; 22:2, i.e. the taw moved from the front of the verbal form to its end and the nun energicum was deleted). A later scribe inserted the allusion to Jeremiah mippenê rōac macalelê-kā and replaced kî by ’ašer. The first person pronoun present in the Masoretic text today may be a technical mistake made by one scribe during the transmission process confusing waw with nun, letters that look similar in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet as they do in the Hebrew ‘square script’, because he knew Deuteronomy by heart and was influenced by the first person pronouns in Deuteronomy 29:15 and 31:16. One Septuagint manuscript has the third person pronoun, and Old Latin has ‘because you have forsaken the Lord’. Deuteronomy 28:21a Deuteronomy 28:21aI: ‘until he has put an end to you [on the soil, 21aR you are entering to possess]’. The phrase mēcal hā-’adāmâ ’ašer ’attâ bā’ šāmmâ le-rišt-āh appears similarly in Deuteronomy 12:1, 21:1, 30:18, 31:13 and 32:47. However, it appears absolutely identically in Deuteronomy 28:63. Verse 63 starts with a small poem later inserted in the curse section (Steymans 1995). The scribe who added the poem also added the phrase in verse 21 in order to bracket his addition in Deuteronomy 28:63–65 with the section Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Since a previous scribe already added to verse 20, the first verse of the oldest part of the curse section, this later scribe added to the second verse of this section, namely verse 21. Deuteronomy 28:36b Deuteronomy 28:36b: ‘There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. [37a] You will become a horror, a proverb and a byword among all the peoples, [aR] where the Lord will drive you’. Verses 36b and 37 assess worshipping of other gods as punishment, and not as sin. The same idea is present in Deuteronomy 4:28, 28:64 and 29:17. Thus, this passage may be an addition by the same scribe who added his poem in Deuteronomy 28:63–65. Italics mark the common vocabulary and syntactical parallels in Deuteronomy 28 and the EST. The Assyrian and Hebrew language only sometimes use common Semitic roots in exactly the same meaning. Identical or semantically corresponding Semitic roots are put in parentheses. Every sentence starts a new line. The Bible text indicates main and subordinate clauses according to Richter (1991): ‘I’ meaning infinitive and ‘R’ meaning relative clause. The Assyrian text follows Parpola and Watanabe (1988). Since both texts are rather long, they are divided into sections for convenience. The texts are arranged in tables (Tables 2–9) with three columns. Two columns parallel Deuteronomy 28: 20–44 with EST § 56, model for the sequential arrangement of topics. The third column gives the text of other inserted curse paragraphs, because the scribe composing Deuteronomy 28:20–44 considered their topic fitting to the topic indicated by § 56. Both curse sequences begin with the divinity as subject of the clause and the keyword curse taken from the Semitic root ’.r.r. (Table 2). The predicate of line 474 maḫāṣu [to strike] may have been the inspiration for the series of curses using the predicate n.k.h-Hiphil [to strike] in Deuteronomy 28:22, 27, 28 and 35 (Table 4, 7f.). TABLE 2: Divine curse using the semitic root ’.r.r. The divinities are the subject of the syntax of the curse. The ending of life is the common topic, in Hebrew it is expressed with an infinitive of k.l.h, and in Akkadian with the Mesopotamian vegetable metaphor of ‘rooting out’ (Table 3). TABLE 3: The deity brings existance to a termination. TABLE 4: Natural forces chase the cursed humans. Pestilence is the concluding illness in EST, line 480 of the following section of § 56 (Table 5). This section is marked in line 479 by a shift of the subject from divinity to natural entities. The Hebrew scribe transferred the topic of pestilence to verse 21, as the beginning of a series of illnesses unfolded in verse 22 (Table 4). Thus, he makes pestilence a heading, whereas it was a conclusion in the Assyrian text. The Hebrew scribe did not adopt the Mesopotamian concern for the ghost of the dead in accordance to the general reluctance of the Hebrew Bible in dealing with the afterlife. TABLE 5: Lack of food due to the impossibility of agriculture. The Judean scribe took up the verb ‘to strike’ from the first curse of § 56 together with the divine subject. Then he followed the shift from divine subject to natural entity by making the diseases the actors of the chasing, as are shade and daylight in § 56 (Table 4). The headwords ‘food’ and ‘water’, as well as ‘want’, ‘famine’ and ‘hunger’ in § 56 provide the topic for this section. The Assyrian curse of § 56 starts with entities (food and water) as subject of the sentence. The Judean scribe follows this by making sky and ground the subjects of the Hebrew sentences. He elaborates on the topic by inserting a curse from § 63. His attention was called to this curse whilst reading the EST through the co-occurrence of ‘ground’ and ‘sky’ together with ‘the great gods […] who are mentioned by name in this tablet’, which is similar to the beginning of § 56. The word kaqquru [ground, earth] is written in syllables in § 63, indicating the Assyrian pronunciation of the logogram ki.tim in § 56 (Parpola and Watanabe 1988:92, sub kaqquru). Hence, when read aloud there is a link (Table 5). Only one exemplar from Calhu has a dividing line between lines 529 and 530, thus counting a § 63 and a § 64, as do the modern editions. All other manuscripts from Calhu, as well as the tablet from Tell Tayinat, present lines 526–533 (= § 63 + 64) as one single paragraph (Lauinger 2012:120). It is one single curse and the Judean scribe was right in taking it up completely. However, he changed the sequence of the similes. The EST lists the metals in a sequence of decreasing hardness – from iron to lead – in the following § 65. By doing so, the Assyrian text inverts the common sequence of heaven and earth to ground and sky. The Hebrew scribe changed the sequence to heaven and earth, but kept the comparison of sky with bronze and ground with iron. Both curses change their subjects. EST § 63 starts with the gods who turn the ground into iron. The subjects of the next sentence are natural entities, namely rain, dew and burning coals. Mixing both Assyrian syntactical structures, the one with divine subject in lines 526–529 and those with natural elements as subject in line 530 (§ 63) and lines 479 and 480 (§ 56), the Hebrew text starts with sky and ground as subjects, following the vocabulary of lines 526–529 and the syntax of lines 479 and 480. Then Yhwh is the subject causing harmful rain, following the syntax of lines 526–529, where the gods are the subject. Military defeat is the topic of § 65, a curse using the simile of lead in order to denote military weakness. The sons and daughters taken by the hand by their fleeing parents link this paragraph to the young women and young men of § 56, whose bodies are mutilated in the squares of Assur before the eyes of their parents, relatives and neighbours. EST § 56 does not describe military defeat, however, the scene of line 481f. presupposes deportation because the mutilation of bodies takes place in the city of Assur. This might be the finale of a triumphal procession in which captives of rebellious countries were carried through the streets of Assur. Thus, the topic of military defeat only alluded to in § 56 and the topic of corpses being food for animals then expressed in § 56, probably has lead the eye of the Judean scribe to § 41: the curse invoking Ninurta, which clearly speaks of defeat. He conflated § 41 and § 56 in order to create verse 25f. He began his curse by invoking Yhwh instead of Ninurta and expressing defeat. He kept the Semitic root ’.k.l present as verbal form in the Š-stem in § 41 (feed) in form of the noun expressing the effect of the curse in verse 26a (food). In addition, he changed the subject. The addressees of the curse are the subject of verse 26, as are the addressees’ young women and men in § 56. The Hebrew curse continues to have the corpses being the subject of verse 26, whereas the Assyrian one of § 56 has the earth as subject. Both curses share the topic of refused burial. Both curses have an international flavour by becoming a horror to foreign kingdoms, as well as a spectacle in the capital of the multi-ethnic Assyrian empire. The combination of birds and beasts in verse 26 conflates the birds (eagle and vulture) of § 41 and the beasts (dog and pig) of § 56 (Table 6). TABLE 6: The results of military defeat using the semitic root ’.k.l. It has long been noticed that Deuteronomy 28:27–29 parallel the Sin and Shamash curses of Assyrian treaties. However, being aware of the topic indicated by § 56 line 485, one realises that the Judean scribe rearranged the complete sequence of Anu-Venus curses, that is §§ 38A–42, in order to elaborate on the topics he found in § 56. The headwords ‘sighing’ and ‘sleeplessness’ link § 56 with the Anu-curse in § 38A, and the skin disease rendered ‘leprosy’ links the Sin-curse § 39 with the skin disease translated ‘scurvy’ in Deuteronomy 28:27. Loss of eyesight (blindness), as well as darkness, link Deuteronomy 28:29 with § 56 and the Shamash-curse in § 40 (Table 7). TABLE 7: The curse motifs of Anu, Sin, and Šamaš. The subjects change. Verse 27 starts with the divinity as subject, as do §§ 38A–40. Verse 29 shifts to the addressees as subject, as do the Sin-curse (roam in the desert) and the Shamash-curse (walk about). Both the biblical and the Assyrian curses focus on the desperate way the people move (grope about). Having elaborated on the topic of military defeat by using imagery of § 41 to create Deuteronomy 28:25, the Judean scribe now elaborates on § 42. This curse invokes Venus, a manifestation of Ishtar, and offers the headwords ‘eyes’ taken up in verses 32 and 34, ‘lying’ as a metaphor for sexual intercourse and rape taken up in verse 30, ‘sons’ taken up in verse 32, and ‘enemy’ taken up in verse 31. The loss of possession to spoiling soldiers is the common topic. The metaphor of an irresistible flood in § 56 also denotes military defeat. The Biblical text is enriched by futility curses that add the topics house and vineyard, as well as curses that focus on cattle. It is not before Deuteronomy 28:31e and 32a that the Assyrian headwords are taken up again. The Venus curse focuses on the impossibility of transferring property as a heritage to the next generation. There is no deportation from the land. However, the enemy is in the land and takes all goods. The biblical curse goes one step further in making the sons themselves a chattel to be taken by the spoiling army. Their parents remain in their land, consumed by the yearning for their children (Table 8). TABLE 8: The motif of plundering enemies followed by baleful wishes. The return to illness in Deuteronomy 28:34 and 35 is inspired by the term ‘ill’ in § 56. The Tell Fekhariye inscription reveals that the rendering of curses that are mere invocations in Assyrian as futility curses in a West-Semitic text is not uncommon (Steymans 1995:156–161, 181–185). There is no curse in EST that deals with deportation. Deportation, however, is the topic of § 25, an admonition that the oath-takers must enounce. Thus, Judeans who were bound by the EST had to say this to their children. Any Judean scribe must have been aware of this admonition. The headword ‘son’ links it to the topic of several curses of the EST. The most striking correspondence between Deuteronomy 28:36 and EST § 25 is the combination of setting a king over oneself and deportation (Table 9). TABLE 9: Deportation and appointment of a king. After the topic ‘lack of food’ in verse 26 in correspondence to line 479, the fact that the topic reappears with the root ’.k.l ‘to eat’ in verse 39 and line 490 is a further indication of the common structure of both curse sections. Another identical root connects both texts, namely c.l.h [to come up, rise]. In § 56, the root occurs in line 489 with the metaphor of a flood that symbolises enemies. In Deuteronomy 28, the root occurs three times in verse 43, turning the stranger (a person to be cared for according to the biblical law) into an enemy. The Judean scribe elaborated on the topics given in § 56 by creating futility curses. He kept the sequence of food, drink, and then ointment. However, he discarded clothing and repeated deportation of sons and daughters instead. The last line of § 56 lists three types of spirits that haunt the dwelling places. The Assyrian verb ḫīaru means ‘to choose, to select’, and exists also in the noun ḫā’iru/ḫāmiru/ḫāwiru [spouse]. The verb can mean ‘to marry’. The spirits are not evil per se – they may even have protective power (Wiggermann 1992:69, 96, 218f., 221). The point being made in both the Assyrian and the biblical curse is that entities that are not harmful in general and must be protected (as the stranger in the Bible) or may be protecting forces (as the spirits in ANE belief) turn out to be harmful and threaten the intimate space where one dwells (‘in your midst, your houses’) (Table 10). ….

Can Amenhotep II and III be merged?

by Damien F. Mackey Similar patterns emerge, again, with the course of the reign of Amenhotep II, III – some early military activity followed by years of peace and prosperity, allowing for major building projects. This article follows on appropriately from my earlier one: More to Thutmose III? (4) More to Thutmose III? As well as Thutmose III and IV needing to be merged into just the one pharaoh, as I have done, so also, do I think, the same may just apply to Amenhotep II and III. The first (II) is rightly considered to have been the son of Thutmose III, whilst the second (III) is thought to have been the son of Thutmose IV. Here, though, I shall be arguing that Amenhotep II = III was the son of my Thutmose III-identified-as-IV. STRONG, A SPORTSMAN, HUNTER Some patterns of similarity emerge also with Amenhotep II and III. For example: Being fathered by a predecessor “Thutmose”. And sharing the name Aakhepeh[-erure]. Having as wife: [Amenhotep II] “Tiaa (Tiya) "Great Royal Wife" Daughter of Yuya and Thuya”. http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn18/07amenhotep2.html [Amenhotep III] Having a Great Royal Wife, “Tiy, daughter of Yuya and Tuya”. http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn18/09amenhotep3.html Having as son-successors a Thutmose, and then an Amenhotep: [Amenhotep II] “Children Thutmose IV, Amenhotep …”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_II [Amenhotep III (and Tiy)] “Their eldest son, Thutmosis … died as a child. This left the kingdom to their second son, Amenhotep … who changed his name and is better known as Akhenaten”. https://study.com/academy/lesson/amenhotep-iii-biography-family-death.html Well known about Amenhotep II is that he was a very physically strong sportsmen and hunter. But so, too, was Amenhotep III: https://681308714824908458.weebly.com/hunter.html …. Amenhotep III's reign encompassed peace and because of this there was no real need to have a 'warrior' pharaoh to protect Egypt, so instead the role of 'Hunter' became more prominent. Amenhotep still needed to seem strong and powerful. Skills taught to pharaohs previously to fulfil the role of being a warrior were transferrable to the role of being a hunter. Hunting was an important role as the representation of a hunter was Ma'at. Inscriptions praised the pharaoh for his physical power as a sportsman giving emphasis on his strength, endurance, skill and also his courage. Two scarabs were also issued promoting his success as a hunter. One scarab is pictured on this page from 1380BC [sic] in the 18th Dynasty. To the Right is the bottom of the scarab presenting the hieroglyphics and below is the picture of the detailed top of the artefact with markings indicating the head, wings and scorching on its legs imitating its feathering. This scarab records that the king killed 102 lions within his first ten years of his reign. He stated that he did this with only a bow and arrow. This presents his strength and power without having to win thousands of wars. Historian A. Gardiner wrote in 1972 a quote the relates strongly to the topic of a hunter 'with the accession of Amenhotep III, Dynasty 18 attained the zenith of its magnificence, though the celebrity of this king is not founded upon any military achievement. Indeed, It is doubtful whether he himself ever took part in a warlike campaign'.' This quote is explaining further how Amenhotep III was more involved with a warrior role than a military role. He may of [have] not had war but he managed to keep his magnificence through hunting as the skills were transferrable. Hunting was an important role in the 18th dynasty and specifically during Amenhotep's reign as it was up to him to withhold the concept of ma'at. It was significant as the role of being a warrior was not necessarily needed throughout his reign, so the role of a hunter arose to ensure that the pharaoh was presented as strong. Amenhotep contributed to this role by creating the commemorative scarabs and recording any hunting successes. This provided the people with reassurance that their pharaoh could protect them and also it is significant because it provides historians and archeologists with evidence about the pharaoh and hunting. Sometimes the strength and sporting prowess of Amenhotep II are presented as if being his main claim to fame. The following piece exemplifies the pharaoh’s outstanding sporting skills: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep2.htm Notably, Amenhotep II was well known for his athletic abilities as a young man. A number of representations of him depict his participation in successful sporting pursuits. He lived in the Memphite region where he trained horses in his father's stables, and one of his greatest athletic achievements was accomplished when he shot arrows through a copper plate while driving a chariot with the reins tied about his waist. This deed was recorded in numerous inscriptions, including a stele at Giza and depictions at Thebes. So famous was the act that it was also miniaturized on scarabs that have been found in the Levant. Sara Morris, a classical art historian, has even suggested that his target shooting success formed the basis hundreds of years later for the episode in the Iliad when Archilles is said to have shot arrows through a series of targets set up in a trench. He was also recorded as having wielded an oar of some 30 ft in length, rowing six times as fast as other crew members, though this may certainly be an exaggeration. …. The Odyssey, which (like The Iliad, “Achilles” above) has borrowed many of its images from the Bible, no doubt picked up this one of Amenhotep II also and transferred it to its hero, Odysseus (Latin variant: Ulysses). (Book 21): Penelope now appears before the suitors in her glittering veil. In her hand is a stout bow left behind by Odysseus when he sailed for Troy. ‘Whoever strings this bow’, she says, ‘and sends an arrow straight through the sockets of twelve ax heads lined in a row -- that man will I marry’. The suitors take turns trying to bend the bow to string it, but all of them lack the strength. Odysseus asks if he might try. The suitors refuse, fearing that they'll be shamed if the beggar succeeds. But Telemachus insists and his anger distracts them into laughter. As easily as a bard fitting a new string to his lyre, Odysseus strings the bow and sends an arrow through the ax heads. …. Similar patterns emerge, again, with the course of the reign of Amenhotep II, III - some early military activity followed by years of peace and prosperity, allowing for major building projects. Amenhotep II: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep2.htm Some references refer to his first expedition taking place as early as his 2nd year of rule, though others provide that it was during his 7th. Still other references indicate that he made both of these campaigns. Regardless, he fought his was across the Orontes river and claims to have subdued all before him. One city, Niy, apparently had learnt their lesson under his father, and welcomed Amenhotep II. But at Tikhsi (Takhsy, as mentioned in the Theban tomb of Amenemheb - TT85), he captured seven prices, returning with them in the autumn. They were hung face down on the prow of his ship on the return journey, and six of them were subsequently hung on the enclosure wall of the Theban temple. The other was taken south into Nubia where his was likewise hung on the walls of Napata, "in order to cause to be seen the victorious might of His Majesty for ever and ever". According to the Stele recording these events, this first campaign netted booty consisting of 6,800 deben of gold and 500,000 deben of copper (about 1,643 and 120,833 pounds respectively), as well as 550 mariannu captives, 210 horses and 300 chariots. All sources agree that he once again campaigned in Syria during his ninth year of rule, but only in Palestine as for as the Sea of Galilee. Yet these stele, erected after year nine of Amenhotep II's rule, that provide us with this information do not bear hostile references to either Mitanni or Nahrin, the general regions of the campaigns. This is probably intentional, because apparently the king had finally made peace with these former foes. In fact, an addition at the end of the Memphis stele records that the chiefs of Nahrin, Hatti and Sangar (Babylon) arrived before the king bearing gifts and requesting offering gifts (hetepu) in exchange, as well as asking for the breath of life. Though good relations with Babylon existed during the reign of Tuthmosis III, this was the first mention of a Mitanni peace, and it is very possible that a treaty existed allowing Egypt to keep Palestine and part of the Mediterranean coast in exchange for Mitannian control of northern Syria. Underscoring this new alliance, with Nahrin, Amenhotep II had inscribed on a column between the fourth and fifth pylons at Karnak, "The chiefs (weru) of Mitanni (My-tn) come to him, their deliveries upon their backs, to request offering gifts from his majesty in quest of the breath of life". The location for this column in the Tuthmosid wadjyt, or columned hall, was significant, because the hall was venerated as the place where his father received a divine oracle proclaiming his future kingship. It is also associated with the Tuthmosid line going back to Tuthmosis I, who was the first king to campaign in Syria. Furthermore, we also learn that Amenhotep II at least asked for the hand of the Mitannian king, Artatama I, in marriage. By the end of Amenhotep II's reign, the Mitanni who had been so recently a vile enemy of Egypt, were being portrayed as a close friend. After these initial campaigns, the remainder of Amenhotep II's long reign was characterized by peace in the Two Lands, including Nubia where his father settled matters during his reign. This allowed him to somewhat aggressively pursue a building program that left his mark at nearly all the major sites where his father had worked. Some of these projects may have even been initiated during his co-regency with his father, for at Amada in Lower Nubia dedicated to Amun and Ra-Horakhty celebrated both equally, and at Karnak, he participated in his father's elimination of any vestiges of his hated stepmother, Hatshepsut. There was also a bark chapel built celebrating his co-regency at Tod. …. Amenhotep III: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep3.htm While as usual, an expedition into Nubia in year five of his reign was given grandiose attention on some reliefs, it probably amounted to nothing more than a low key police action. However, it may have pushed as for as south of the fifth cataract. It was recorded on inscriptions near Aswan and at Konosso in Nubia. There is also a stele in the British Museum recording a Nubian campaign, but it is unclear whether it references this first action, or one later in his reign. There was also a Nubian rebellion reported at Ibhet, crushed by his son. While Amenhotep III was almost certainly not directly involved in this conflict, he records having slaughtered many within the space of a single hour. We learn from inscriptions that this campaign resulted in the capture of 150 Nubian men, 250 women, 175 children, 110 archers and 55 servants, added to the 312 right hands of the slain. Perhaps to underscore the Kushite subjection to Egypt, he had built at Soleb, almost directly across the Nile from the Nubian capital at Kerma, a fortress known as Khaemmaat, along with a temple. The Prosperity and International Relationships However, by year 25 of Amenhotep III's reign, military problems seem to have been settled, and we find a long period of great building works and high art. It was also a period of lavish luxury at the royal court. The wealth needed to accomplish all of this did not come from conquests, but rather from foreign trade and an abundant supply of gold, mostly from the mines in the Wadi Hammamat and further south in Nubia. Amenhotep III was unquestionably involved with international diplomatic efforts, which led to increased foreign trade. During his reign, we find a marked increase in Egyptian materials found on the Greek mainland. We also find many Egyptian place names, including Mycenae, Phaistos and Knossos first appearing in Egyptian inscriptions. We also find letters written between Amenhotep III and his peers in Babylon, Mitanni and Arzawa preserved in cuneiform writing on clay tablets.From a stele in his mortuary temple, we further learn that he sent at least one expedition to punt. It is rather clear that the nobility prospered during the reign of Amenhotep III. However, the plight of common Egyptians is less sure, and we have little evidence to suggest that they shared in Egypt's prosperity. Yet, Amenhotep III and his granary official Khaemhet boasted of the great crops of grain harvested in the kings 30th (jubilee) year. And while such evidence is hardly unbiased, the king was remembered even 1,000 years later as a fertility god, associated with agricultural success. …. Estimated reign lengths vary somewhat, with 38 years commonly attributed to Amenhotep III, whilst figures for Amenhotep II can range from, say, 26-35 years: https://www.crystalinks.com/Amenhotep_II.html “The length of [Amenhotep II’s] reign is indicated by a wine jar inscribed with the king's prenomen found in Amenhotep II's funerary temple at Thebes; it is dated to this king's highest known date - his Year 26 - and lists the name of the pharaoh's vintner, Panehsy. Mortuary temples were generally not stocked until the king died or was near death; therefore, Amenhotep could not have lived much later beyond his 26th year. There are alternate theories which attempt to assign him a reign of up to 35 years, which is the absolute maximum length he could have reigned. …”. Complicating somewhat the matter of reign length is the possibility of co-regencies - even perhaps quite lengthy ones: (a) between Amenhotep II and his father, Thutmose III, and (b) between Amenhotep III and his son, Akhnaton. The most extreme estimate for (a) is “twenty-five years or more” (Donald B. Redford): https://www.jstor.org/stable/3855623?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents whilst for (b): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_III#Proposed_co-regency_by_Akhenaten “In February 2014, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities announced what it called "definitive evidence" that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least 8 years …”. Apart from Asa’s (as Abijah’s) significant war with Jeroboam I, the King of Judah would also have to deal with a massive invasion from the direction of Egypt/Ethiopia: Zerah’s invasion. Dr. I. Velikovsky had aligned this biblical incident with the era of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Amenhotep II, son of Thutmose III. This is very close to what I think must be the right biblico-historical synchronisation. My own historical preference for this biblical character is: Viceroy Usersatet my favoured choice for Zerah the Ethiopian (7) Viceroy Usersatet my favoured choice for Zerah the Ethiopian According to my own estimate, with the Shishak campaign (in King Rehoboam’s Year 5) approximating to Thutmose III’s Year 25, then the 54-year reign of Thutmose III would have extended beyond Rehoboam’s reign, his Year 17 (I Kings 14:21), and would have penetrated as far as Asa’s (identified as Abijah) (54-25-12 =) Year 17. That Year 17 occurred probably a little after Zerah’s invasion, which Raymond B. Dillard estimates to have taken place in Asa’s Year 14 (2 Chronicles, Volume 15). Peter James and Peter Van der Veen (below) - who will include in their calculation the 3 years attributed to King Abijah (who is my Asa) - will situate “the Zerah episode in a fairly narrow window, between the years 11 and 14 of Asa”. Now, with the distinct likelihood that Amenhotep II shared a substantial co-regency with his long-reigning father, even as much as “twenty-five years or more”, as we read above, then Dr. Velikovsky may be entirely correct in his synchronising of the Zerah invasion with the reign of Amenhotep II – to which I would add that Thutmose III was also still reigning at the time. Once again Dr. Velikovsky had – as with his identifications of the Queen of Sheba and Shishak – the (approximately) right chronology. But once again he would - as we are going to find out - put it together wrongly. In this particular case, Zerah, Dr. Velikovsky would actually identify the wrong (as I see it) candidate. In this article I have enlarged pharaoh Amenhotep II to embrace also the one known as Amenhotep III ‘the Magnificent’. I have also (elsewhere) enlarged King Asa of Judah to embrace his supposed father, Abijah (Abijam): History of Asa, King of Judah, filled out by Abijah (Abijam) (7) Abijah's Influence on Asa's Kingship And, as already noted, I have enlarged Thutmose III, the father of my expanded Amenhotep, to embrace Thutmose IV.

Slow rise of Thutmose III’s obelisk

by Damien F. Mackey Much like the Missing Link, the most enlightened thing about which one could say is that it is still missing (G. K. Chesterton) much is missing from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. For example, the megalomaniacal Cheops, famous for the Great Pyramid of Giza is supposed to have left us this one and only representation of himself. Likewise, with the long-reigning Djedkare of the so-called Fifth Dynasty - a dynasty for which some four of its supposed six sun temples have never been discovered. See e.g. my article: Missing old Egyptian tombs and temples (4) Missing old Egyptian tombs and temples | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And certain mighty Mesopotamian kings of long reign, such as Ashurnasirpal (so-called II) and Nebuchednezzar (so-called II), have virtually no (or none), statuary and/or bas-relief depictions. See e.g. my article: More ‘camera shy’ ancient potentates (5) More 'camera shy' ancient potentates | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Unlike with the Missing Link, however, which is missing and which, according to the common sense G.K. Chesterton, “won’t be missed either”, I do miss the missing pieces of Egypt and Mesopotamia. And I want to find them. And I do find them through alter egos and alter dynasties. In other words, there was much, much more to Cheops than just under this particular name, and just in the so-called Fourth Dynasty. Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose chronology regarding the Lateran Obelisk (tekhen waty) seems to me to be most unusual, I had already regaled with his alter ego, as Thutmose so-called IV: Enlarging ‘Shishak’? (5) Enlarging ‘Shishak’? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And this supplementation, I find, will make all the difference in the case of his obelisk. The problem was that this giant obelisk is supposed not to have been erected until 35 years after it was cut. And erected by Thutmose III’s presumed grandson, IV. Thus article “Thutmose III”, New World Encyclopedia: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Thutmose_III “East of the Iput-Isut, [Thutmose III] erected another temple to Aten where he was depicted as being supported by Amun.[57] It was inside this temple that Thutmose planned on erecting his tekhen waty, ("unique obelisk.")[57] The tekhen waty was designed to stand alone, instead as part of a pair, and is the tallest obelisk ever successfully cut. It was not, however, erected until Thutmose IV raised it[57] 35 years later.[58] It was later moved to Rome and is known as the Lateran Obelisk”. However, the situation changes dramatically when Thutmose so-called IV, is, as I have argued, a Thutmose III alter ego. Then, no need whatsoever to have to wait “35 years later” for that great obelisk to have been raised. And no need to make such an extended mess of ancient Egyptian chronology. Thutmose IV Thutmose III

House of Solomon

by Damien F. Mackey “‘House of Solomon’ meant not merely the capital [i.e., Jerusalem], but the whole kingdom of Judah, approaching even more closely the use of ‘House of Omri’ for the kingdom of Israel”. P. Friedman A broad range of surprising characters was presented for the historical King Solomon in my recent article: King Solomon looming large in a reconstructed ancient history (4) Reconstructing King Solomon's Ancient History These proposed alter egos for King Solomon were: (i) Gudea of Lagash (Lakish), or Lachish; (ii) Ibal-piel of Eshnunna (Ashnunna), or Ashduddu/Ashdod, again, Lachish; (iii) Jabin (Ibni) of Hazor, Mari letters era; (iv) Senenmut, in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt; (v) Qoheleth, Old Testament Book title. Of these five, (iii) Jabin is only a tentative suggestion. Now, I would like to add here the striking archaeological evidence for King Solomon that the intuitive Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky was able to uncover within the context of his revision, according to which Abdi-hiba (-heba), King of Urusalim (Jerusalem) in the El Amarna (EA) letters, belonged to the mid C9th BC. This was already a huge step (half a millennium, in fact) away from conventional ancient history which dates EA to the c. 14th BC. What we find is on a par with the famous Tel Dan evidence, telling of the House of David, the father of King Solomon. Reference is made in EA letters 74 and 290 to a place that professor Julius Lewy read as Bet Shulmanu - House (or Sanctuary) of Shulman (“The Sulman Temple in Jerusalem”, Journal of Biblical Literature LIX (1940), pp. 519 ff.). EA 290 was written by the King of Urusalim, Abdi-Hiba, who had to be, according to the conventional chronology, a C14th BC pagan ruler of what we know as Jerusalem. This standard view of Abdi-Hiba is summed up by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdi-Heba: Abdi-Heba (Abdi-Kheba, Abdi-Hepat, or Abdi-Hebat) was a local chieftain of Jerusalem during the Amarna period (mid-1330s BC). Abdi-Heba's name can be translated as "servant of Hebat", a Hurrian goddess. Whether Abdi-Heba was himself of Hurrian descent is unknown, as is the relationship between the general populace of pre-Israelite Jerusalem (called, several centuries later, Jebusites in the Bible) and the Hurrians. Egyptian documents have him deny he was a ḫazānu and assert he is a soldier (we'w), the implication being he was the son of a local chief sent to Egypt to receive military training there. …. Also unknown is whether he was part of a dynasty that governed Jerusalem or whether he was put on the throne by the Egyptians. Abdi-Heba himself notes that he holds his position not through his parental lineage but by the grace of Pharaoh, but this might be flattery rather than an accurate representation of the situation. …. [End of quote] From a revisionist point of view, this is all quite incorrect. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky was able to show in his Ages in Chaos, I (1952), that the EA era actually belonged to, not to the C14th BC, but the C9th BC era of Israel’s Divided Kingdom. And it is from such a revised perspective that Dr. Velikovsky was able to make this epochal comment about professor Lewy’s reading: [http://www.varchive.org/ce/sultemp.htm] The Šulmán Temple in Jerusalem …. From a certain passage in letter No. 290, written by the king of Jerusalem to the Pharaoh, Lewy concluded that this city was known at that time also by the name “Temple of Šulmán.” Actually, Lewy read the ideogram that had much puzzled the researchers before him. …. After complaining that the land was falling to the invading bands (habiru), the king of Jerusalem wrote: “. . . and now, in addition, the capital of the country of Jerusalem — its name is Bit Šulmáni —, the king’s city, has broken away . . .”…. Beth Šulmán in Hebrew, as Professor Lewy correctly translated, is Temple of Šulmán. But, of course, writing in 1940, Lewy could not surmise that the edifice was the Temple of Solomon and therefore made the supposition that it was a place of worship (in Canaanite times) of a god found in Akkadian sources as Shelmi, Shulmanu, or Salamu. The correction of the reading of Knudtzon (who was uncertain of his reading) fits well with the chronological reconstruction of the period. In Ages in Chaos (chapters vi-viii) I deal with the el-Amarna letters; there it is shown that the king of Jerusalem whose name is variously read Ebed-Tov, Abdi-Hiba, etc. was King Jehoshaphat (ninth century). It was only to be expected that there would be in some of his letters a reference to the Temple of Solomon. Also, in el-Amarna letter No. 74, the king of Damascus, inciting his subordinate sheiks to attack the king of Jerusalem, commanded them to “assemble in the Temple of Šulmán.”…. [End of quote] Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of the idolatrous Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim with the extremely pious King Jehoshaphat of Judah needed the slight modification, as provided by P. James, that Abdi-Hiba was actually King Jehoshaphat’s evil son, Jehoram - a modification that I fully supported in my article: King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of Revised History (1) King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of Revised History Apart from that, though, the EA evidence completely favoured Dr. Velikovsky’s revision, as he himself hastened to point out (op. cit., ibid.): It was surprising to find in the el-Amarna letters written in the fourteenth century that the capital of the land was already known then as Jerusalem (Urusalim) and not, as the Bible claimed for the pre-Conquest period, Jebus or Salem…. Now, in addition, it was found that the city had a temple of Šulmán in it and that the structure was of such importance that its name had been used occasionally for denoting the city itself. (Considering the eminence of the edifice, “the house which king Solomon built for the Lord” … this was only natural.) Yet after the conquest by the Israelites under Joshua ben-Nun, the Temple of Šulmán was not heard of. Lewy wrote: “Aside from proving the existence of a Šulmán temple in Jerusalem in the first part of the 14th century B.C., this statement of the ruler of the region leaves no doubt that the city was then known not only as Jerusalem, but also as Bet Šulmán.”—“It is significant that it is only this name [Jerusalem] that reappears after the end of the occupation of the city by the Jebusites, which the Šulmán temple, in all probability, did not survive.” [End of quote] The conventional system has the habit of throwing up such “surprising” historical anomalies! On this, see my article: Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology (4) Solomon and Middle Bronze in Archaeology Dr. Velikovsky continues here: The late Professor W. F. Albright advised me that Lewy’s interpretation cannot be accepted because Šulmán has no sign of divinity accompanying it, as would be proper if it were the name of a god. But this only strengthens my interpretation that the temple of Šulmán means Temple of Solomon. In the Hebrew Bible the king’s name has no terminal “n”. But in the Septuagint — the oldest translation of the Old Testament — the king’s name is written with a terminal “n”; the Septuagint dates from the third century before the present era. Thus it antedates the extant texts of the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls not excluded. Solomon built his Temple in the tenth century. In a letter written from Jerusalem in the next (ninth) century, Solomon’s Temple stood a good chance of being mentioned; and so it was. [End of quote] P. Friedman, however, writing for a British revisionist journal, soon insisted upon another necessary modification of the Velikovskian thesis. The description, “Temple of Solomon”, he explained (in “The Temple in Jerusalem?” SIS Review III:1 (Summer 1978), pp.7-8), is in fact a modern English rendition which is never actually found in the Hebrew as used in the Old Testament. There, King Solomon’s Temple is constantly referred to as the “House of Yahweh” or, simply, the “House of the Lord”. Friedman also drew attention to the fact that, in Assyrian records, the Kingdom of Israel is called the “House of Omri” in deference to Omri’s dynasty. He therefore suggested that Bet Shulman should, in like manner, be understood to refer to the Kingdom of Judah in deference to King Solomon’s dynasty (p. 8): “‘House of Solomon’ meant not merely the capital [i.e., Jerusalem], but the whole kingdom of Judah, approaching even more closely the use of ‘House of Omri’ for the kingdom of Israel”. Another possible interpretation of the phrase Bet Shulman is, as S. Dyen would later argue, that it should be understood literally as “the House”, that is the Palace, of King Solomon (“The House of Solomon”, KRONOS VIII:2 (Winter 1983), p. 88). This, I think, is a reasonable possibility. The apparent reference back to his great (x 3) grandfather, King Solomon, by Abdi-hiba/ Jehoram of Urusalim/Jerusalem – [e.g., Matthew 1:7-8: Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram …], serves to vindicate the Old Testament against the reckless biblical minimizing of the likes of Israeli archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein. (First written) Easter 2015

William Foxwell Albright a conventional fox with insight ‘outside the box’

by Damien F. Mackey Both directly and indirectly, I have found certain insights of William Foxwell Albright to have been enormously beneficial in helping to piece together the biblico-historical (archaeological) picture puzzle. In one particular case, though, I consider his proposed reconstruction to have been an unmitigated disaster. 1. The big positives (a) - (d) “W.F. Albright, in full William Foxwell Albright, (born May 24, 1891, Coquimbo, Chile—died Sept. 19, 1971, Baltimore, Md., U.S.), American biblical archaeologist and Middle Eastern scholar, noted especially for his excavations of biblical sites”. https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-F-Albright I find that professor W. F. Albright - though being a scholar working within the restricting confines of the conventional model of archaeologico-history - had the unusual ability, at times, to burst through the seams of that tight model and to produce some very insightful new observations. (a) His smashing impact on early dynastic chronology One of his (as Dr. Albright) most remarkable forays beyond the suffocating walls of convention was his important synchronisation of the first ruler of Egypt, Menes, or Min (conventionally dated to c. 3100 BC), with the latter’s conqueror, Naram-Sin (conventionally dated to c. 2250 BC), of the famous Sargonid dynasty of Akkad. On this, see my article: Dr. W.F. Albright’s Game-Changing Chronological Shift (3) Dr. W.F. Albright's game-changing chronological shift | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu This synchronisation by Dr. Albright involved a massive shift in time, one to the tune of about a millennium, of conventional ancient dating. That was bold, indeed! It all at once brought into synthesis, the First Dynasty of Egypt; the Akkadian Dynasty; and the era of Abram (Dr. John Osgood’s research) and everything associated with that Patriarch (all of this, though, more accurately to be dated downwards to c. 1900 BC). The importance of such a right synchronisation of this early (Patriarchal) period of biblico-history cannot be over-stated. And we must be grateful to W.F. Albright for having been prepared to make this courageous leap well out of the conventional box. However, as we are going to learn later on, in 2. (b), he, in 1922, wrongly re-set, back, also by about a millennium, later phases of the Bible such as the Joshuan Conquest and Jericho. (b) Shifting the goalposts for biblical “Shinar” W. F. Albright also was an early one to suggest a location, otherwise than southern Mesopotamia, for the biblical “land of Shinar”. This may perhaps, in part, have prompted various Creationists more recently to transfer their attention for Shinar away from that southern region. See, for example Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White’s: An Upper Mesopotamian location for Babel (11) An Upper Mesopotamian location for Babel | Kenneth Griffith - Academia.edu leading to their prize discovery – as I would regard it – of the Mountain of Noah’s Ark’s landing: A Candidate Site for Noah’s Ark, Altar, and Tomb (11) A Candidate Site for Noah's Ark, Altar, and Tomb. | Kenneth Griffith and Darrell K White - Academia.edu W.F. Albright had newly situated the land of Shinar to the N. Syrian kingdom of Hana: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/370017 Critical Notes SHINAR-ŠANḠAR AND ITS MONARCH AMRAPHEL Until recently no one seems to have suspected that the biblical Shinar might not have been identical with Southern Mesopotamia - using this term in its wider sense, following a classical usage which has now become all but universal. This view was only natural, since the identification of Shinar with Babylonia was practically required by the LXX translations of Is. 11:11, Zech. 5:11, to say nothing of the direct equivalence in Dan. 1:2. Until the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions most scholars associated the name with that of the classical district of Singara, modern Jebel Sinjâr, though the geographical equivalence appeared to be only approximate, since Singara is west of Assyria and considerably to the north of Babylonia. The discovery of the native Babylonian term Šumer, "Southern Babylonia," altered the situation, especially since Šumer was then believed to stand for an older *Sungir, for *Sugir, assumed to be the more correct form of Girsu, the name of a town near Lagaš (if not a quarter of the latter). Mackey’s comment: But see my re-identification of Girsu and Lagaš (Lakish) as, respectively, Jerusalem and Lachish. For example: Yahweh, Solomon, Jerusalem - Ningirsu, Gudea and Girsu (4) Yahweh, Solomon, Jerusalem - Ningirsu, Gudea and Girsu | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Albright continues: The combination with Singara was now given up in favor of that with Šumer, hardly anyone attempting the paradoxical identification with both. It is the writer's purpose here to point out that the old identification with Singara is not only correct so far as the name is concerned, but also geographically. In the Amarna correspondence of the king of Cyprus with the Pharaoh (EA, No. 35, 49 f.) the former warns the latter to avoid entangling alliances with the king of the Hittites and the king of Šanḫar. While most scholars have agreed with Weber's view that Šanḫar is Šincar, "Babylonia," the recent tendency has been to accept his later view (WA 1082) that it represents Mitanni. Knudtzon's suggestion (loc. cit.) that it was the district about the Sagûr river, in Northern Syria, has not found favor. In a Hittite list of countries published by Weber, after Winckler, Šanḫar is mentioned after Aššur and Bâbilu, before a gap which presumably contained the name Mitanni, since it is followed immediately by Alzîya and Papaḫḫi in Northern Mesopotamia. In the Egyptian inscriptions of the fifteenth century B.C. Sngr appears as an autonomous Mesopotamian state, along with Babylonia, Assyria, and Mitanni (Nhrn). At first sight Sngr seems rather remote from Šanḫar, but we must remember that the Egyptians often represented a š which came to them through west-Semitic channels by s, and that cuneiform ḫ often stands for ḡ. The Egyptians wrote the name of the important district of Nuḫašši in central Syria as Ngs, pointing to a pronunciation Nugaš. In the Aramaean monument of Zkr, king of Hamath and Nuḫašši the name is written Lcš, pronounced approximately Luḡáš - the old identification of Lcš with Luḫuti is hardly acceptable, though phonetically possible, since the Aramaeans often replaced š by t, on the principle of back-formation (Assûr - Atûr, etc.). From a number of other illustrations we may take the name Gilu-Hepa, written in Egyptian as Kr(l)gp, i.e., Gilu-Ǧepa. It is therefore certain that the forms Šanḫar, Sngr, and Šangar (Šincar has its i-vowel by Philippi's Law) of the Hebrews all represent the correct Šangar, the name of an important state or province in Mesopotamia, between Assyria, Babylonia, and Mitanni. What could this state have been? In a paper in the Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, I, 72-4, the writer has endeavored to show that Šanḡar represents the land known to its own sovereigns as Hana, on the Middle Euphrates. The capital of Hana, was situated at Tirqa, which has been located at a mound just south of the mouth of the Hâbûr. …. [End of quote] (c) Recognising the closeness of Ugaritic to biblical Hebrew W. F. Albright even went rather close to realising that some of the El Amarna [EA] correspondents were writing in Hebrew. Here is what I wrote about it 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, pp. 87-88): Lab’ayu’s Speech Lab’ayu is thought to have been no timid lackey of pharaoh, at least according to Albright:221 “The truculence of Labaya’s tone in writing to the court contrasts oddly with the grovelling subservience of most Palestinian chieftains”. Most grovelling of all perhaps was Abdi-Ashirta himself, who had written to pharaoh during a time of crisis: LETTER 64: To the king, my lord, say. Thus says Abdi-Ashtarti [Ashirta], the servant of the king: At the feet of my king, my lord, I have fallen seven times ... and seven times in addition, upon breast as well as back. May the king, my lord, learn that enmity is mighty against me .... Like Lab’ayu, the biblical Ahab [with whom I have identified Lab’ayu] could indeed be an outspoken person, bold in speech to both fellow kings and prophets (cf. 1 Kings 18:17; 20:11). But Lab’ayu, like all the other duplicitous Syro-Palestinian kings, instinctively knew when, and how, to grovel …. Thus, when having to protest his loyalty and readiness to pay tribute to the crown, Lab’ayu really excelled himself:222 “Further: In case the king should write for my wife, would I refuse her? In case the king should write to me: “Run a dagger of bronze into thy heart and die”, would I not, indeed, execute the command of the king?” Lab’ayu moreover may have - like Ahab - used Hebrew speech. The language of the EA letters is Akkadian, but one letter by Lab’ayu, EA 252, proved to be very difficult to translate.223 Albright,224 in 1943, published a more satisfactory translation than had hitherto been possible by discerning that its author had used a good many so-called ‘Canaanite’ words plus two Hebrew proverbs! EA 252 has a stylised introduction in the typical EA formula and in the first 15 lines utilises only two ‘Canaanite’ words. Thereafter, in the main body of the text, Albright noted (and later scholars have concurred) that Lab’ayu used only about 20% pure Akkadian, “with 40% mixed or ambiguous, and no less than 40% pure Canaanite”. Albright further identified the word nam-lu in line 16 as the Hebrew word for ‘ant’ (nemalah), נְמָלָה, …the Akkadian word being zirbabu. Lab’ayu had written: “If ants are smitten, they do not accept (the smiting) quietly, but they bite the hand of the man who smites them”. Albright recognised here a parallel with the two biblical Proverbs mentioning ants (6:6 and 30:25). Ahab likewise was inclined to use a proverbial saying as an aggressive counterpoint to a potentate. When the belligerent Ben-Hadad I sent him messengers threatening: ‘May the gods do this to me and more if there are enough handfuls of rubble in Samaria for all the people in my following [i.e. my massive army]’ (1 Kings 20:10), Ahab answered: ‘The proverb says: The man who puts on his armour is not the one who can boast, but the man who takes it off’ (v.11). “It is a pity”, wrote Rohl and Newgrosh,225 “that Albright was unable to take his reasoning process just one step further because, in almost every instance where he detected the use of what he called ‘Canaanite’ one could legitimately substitute the term ‘Hebrew’.” Lab’ayu’s son too, Mut-Baal - my tentative choice for Ahaziah of Israel (c. 853 BC) … - also displayed in one of his letters (EA 256) some so-called ‘Canaanite’ and mixed origin words. Albright noted of line 13:226 “As already recognized by the interpreters, this idiom is pure Hebrew”. Albright even went very close to admitting that the local speech was Hebrew:227 ... phonetically, morphologically, and syntactically the people then living in the district ... spoke a dialect of Hebrew (Canaanite) which was very closely akin to that of Ugarit. The differences which some scholars have listed between Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic are, in fact, nearly all chronological distinctions. But even these ‘chronological distinctions’ cease to be a real issue in the Velikovskian context, according to which both the EA letters and the Ugaritic tablets are re-located to the time of the Divided Monarchy. …. (d) Balaam as an ‘Edomite sage’ “Balaam was an ancient Edomite sage”. W. F. Albright In his article, “The Home of Balaam” (JAOS, Vol. 35, 1915, p. 387), W. F. Albright stated: Balaam was an ancient Edomite sage. The reading Aram in Num. 23, 7 is simply a corruption of Edom, a confusion which is common in the OT. The Koranic Iramu, or Aramu, which, according to the commentators, was situated south-east of Elath, apparently owes its existence to the same misunderstanding. The two passages in Num. 22, 5, and Deut. 23, 5, where the alleged Aramean home of Balaam is more definitely located at Pethor, represent late glosses. This localization may perhaps be due to a popular etymology of Pethor, connecting it with Heb. פִתְר֣וֹן . interpretation of dreams … which exhibits a ת in Hebrew, while in Assyrian and Aramaic we have a שׁ (pašâru, פשר). … [End of quote] Thanks to this new appreciation of the ethnicity of Balaam, I was able to progress on to identifying the conqueror, Cushan-rishathaim as, not Aramean, but, like Balaam, Edomite. Thus I wrote in my article: Cushan rishathaim was a king of Edom (3) Cushan rishathaim was king of Edom | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu …. Having previously thought to have identified Balaam in that Edomite list (following Albright) … and knowing that Balaam (at the time of Joshua) to have pre-existed Cushan (the time of Othniel), I checked for an appropriate name not far below King No. 1 in the list, Bela ben Beor (or Balaam son of Beor): 1. Bela ben Beor from Dinhabah 2. Jobab ben Zerah from Bozrah 3. Husham from Teman 4. Hadad ben Bedad from Avith 5. Samlah from Masrekah 6. Saul from Rehoboth 7. Baal-Hanan ben Achbor 8. Hadar/d from Pau King No. 3 looked perfect for Cushan, or Chushan: namely, Husham (or Chusham, חֻשָׁם). Later I would learn that other scholars … had already come to this same conclusion (i.e., Husham = Cushan). …. [Ends of quote] At about this time I was given, in an e-mail, some rather sobering information about W. F. Albright that I shall be taking up in 2. (b): …. Hi Damien. I am just coming up to the Balaam material in my thesis-writing, so this is welcome. I have had my sympathy for Albright considerably reduced, however, to find he was among those present at the secret meeting in Jerusalem in 1922 that 'fixed' the wrong dates to the archaeological eras ... Fr Pere Vincent's initiative, but Albright was complicit. …. Continuing on with Balaam for the moment, W. F. Albright would also in his article, “The Home of Balaam”, conclude that Islam’s sage, Loqmân (Lukman), was based on the biblical Balaam. “Loqmân seems to be a translation of Balaam, as both Hebrew baláʹ and Arab. láqama mean to swallow”. W. F. Albright Regarding this I had written previously: …. We have already found that the sage Loqmân (Lukman, Lokman) of the Islamic sura is based on (at least in part) as to his wise sayings the famous sage, Ahiqar, who was the nephew of the Israelite (Naphtalian) Tobit of the Book of Tobit. Like Mohammed, Loqmân, emerging from the unreliable Qurân, would no doubt be a non-historical character, a composite, perhaps bearing likenesses to both Ahiqar and Balaam, centuries before Ahiqar. W. F. Abright, following Dérenbourg et al., linked Loqmân to Balaam in his 1915 article, “The House of Balaam” (Jstor): In 1850 Joseph Dérenbourg, in his Fables de Loqmân le Sage, following the suggestion of Ewald and Rödiger, identified the pre-Islamic prophet, Loqmân, mentioned in the thirty-first sura of the Qurân, with Balaam. …. Loqmân seems to be a translation of Balaam, as both Hebrew baláʹ and Arab. láqama mean to swallow. Translations of proper names from Hebrew are not infrequent; e. g. the modern Tell el-Qáḍî represents the ancient Dan. In the same way, the modern name of Megiddo, which means garrison, is Lejjun = Lat. Legio. …. Mohammedan commentators say that Loqmân belonged to the tribe of tribe of ‘Ad, and lived at Elath in Midian. Other reports concerning him, e. g., that he was a Nubian freedman, and was born in the tenth year of David’s reign … are late inventions. …. [End of quote] Today (30th January, 2025), Donald Keith Mills informed me, regarding my article: “Sailing to Punt in peace, but without pharaoh Hatshepsut”, based on his research, “Ophir and Punt”, that: “My one quibble is that you might have included credit to Albright for having made the association much earlier than I did”. “The American archeologist William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971) identifies Ophir with Punt in Somalia”. https://ohr.edu/8859 2. The big negatives (a) - (b) According to the New World Enyclopedia article, “William F. Albright”: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/William_F._Albright …. Despite his focus on the archaeology of the Bible, Albright was not a biblical literalist. He accepted the basic idea of the documentary hypothesis and the mainstream opinions of the preceding two centuries of biblical criticism: Namely, that many of the books of the Hebrew Bible are comprised of various literary sources, each with its own theological view and agenda. In Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, he expressed the view that the religion of the Israelites had evolved out of Canaanite polytheism into the biblical monotheism that saw God acting in history through the Jews as His "chosen people." However, unlike some other bible scholars and archaeologists, Albright held that archaeology confirmed the basic historicity of the Bible. In this, Albright's American Evangelical upbringing was clearly apparent. He insisted that "as a whole, the picture in Genesis is historical, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the biographical details" (Finkelstein, 2007, 42). Similarly, he claimed that archaeology had proved the essential historicity of the book of Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. …. [End of quote] It was inevitable that W. F. Albright, as a follower of the JEDP documentary hypothesis and, as we shall learn, of the conventional (Sothic-based) chronology, would fail miserably in some areas to bring convincing evidential support to his view that the historicity of the Bible was validated by archaeology. Take, for instance, the two cases of: (a) King Hammurabi, and Pharaoh Shoshenq as the biblical “Shishak” According to the same New World Encyclopedia article: …. Although primarily a biblical archaeologist, Albright also made contributions in many other fields of Near Eastern studies. For example, his … work on the Mari letters helped established an accurate date for Hammurabi, and a paper titled, "New Light from Egypt on the Chronology and History of Israel and Judah," established that Shoshenq I—the Biblical Shishak—came to power somewhere between 945 and 940 B.C.E. His work also laid the foundation for the understanding of ancient West Semitic culture in general, including the study of Canaanite religion as distinct from biblical literature. …. [End of quote] Yet something of a pioneer, W. F. Albright can be excused for not having been able - just like so many others - to secure a right date for King Hammurabi. It would take until 1986 for Dean Hickman to establish that Hammurabi was a contemporary of King Solomon of Israel. On this, see e.g. my recent article: King Solomon looming large in a reconstructed ancient history (5) King Solomon looming large in a reconstructed ancient history Almost half a century before Hickman, in 1938, W. F. Albright dated King Hammurabi to 1800 B.C., which is about 800 years too early. Still, this was - like his synthesis of Menes and Naram-Sin - a very significant downward re-setting of King Hammurabi by some 275 years from his former place. And he fully realised it, entitling his article, “A revolution in the chronology of ancient Western Asia” (BASOR 69, Feb., 1938). W. F. Albright made another fateful choice when he embraced François Champollion’s identification of the biblical Shishak, at the time of King Rehoboam of Judah, with pharaoh Shoshenq I. This, a rare occasion when non biblically-minded historians insist upon a biblical connection with an historical person, has disastrously offset the history of the Bible against a wrong Sothically estimated date. What Dr. David Rohl had said about the EA letters: “It is a pity that Albright was unable to …” applies here as well, because Dr. Rohl has, as well as anyone else, managed to debunk the conventional (Sothic) view that Shoshenq I could have been Shishak (A Test of Time: The Bible—from Myth to History, 1996). Shoshenq I has been Sothically mis-dated and mis-identified. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky would get the identification right in Ages in Chaos I (1952), when he showed that Shishak was the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III. For my development of this important identification, see e.g. my article: Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III’s march on Jerusalem (4) Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III's march on Jerusalem | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu (b) Back-dating the Joshuan Conquest by a millennium Returning to my friend’s concerned e-mail: …. Hi Damien. I am just coming up to the Balaam material in my thesis-writing, so this is welcome. I have had my sympathy for Albright considerably reduced, however, to find he was among those present at the secret meeting in Jerusalem in 1922 that 'fixed' the wrong dates to the archaeological eras ... Fr Pere Vincent's initiative, but Albright was complicit. …. Mathilde Sigalas will recount how W. F. Albright came to be in Jerusalem in 1922, there connecting with “a French scholar from the École biblique, Father Louis-Hugues Vincent”: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-55540-5_10 Between Diplomacy and Science: British Mandate Palestine and Its International Network of Archaeological Organisations, 1918–1938 …. The collaboration was also effective in terms of archaeological methodology at the beginning of the 1920s. The Presidents of the BSAJ, John Garstang (1920–1926), and of ASOR, William F. Albright (1920–1929/1933–1936), joined by a French scholar from the École biblique, Father Louis-Hugues Vincent, reflected together on a new dating method to classify antiquities.Footnote71 This classification was designated as that of the “Three Ages”Footnote72; dating of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Modern period was modified to adapt to recent discoveries and ethnographic information on Palestine. The three scholars submitted their method to the scientific community during meetings of the POS. Adopted in 1922, the classification was implemented in archaeological sites for antiquities registration and analysis. The political context was also a reason for the policy, in an attempt to avoid subjective interpretations in favour of a particular civilisation. This classification is an example of the effects of international collaboration within a foreign intellectual knowledge network, which developed in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1920s. The three scholars were from “the three archaeological Schools in Jerusalem”Footnote73 and two were on the Board of Directors of the Palestine Oriental Society in 1922, Albright as President and Garstang as Director. The “New Chronological Classification of Palestinian Archaeology” was published in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (no. 7. October 1922) and the Revue Biblique (vol. 32. 1923) of the EBAF. This example demonstrates the openness of the scientific community based in Palestine and the shared aim of anchoring Palestinian archaeology as a scientific and formal discipline. …. [End of quote] My friend has since corrected the original description, “secret meeting in Jerusalem”, by clarifying that it was not actually “secret”. The outcome of all this, a most unfortunate marrying of the Sothic chronology of Eduard Meyer with the skewed Palestinian chronology of père Vincent, has been to set back by a millennium real historical events such as the Conquest of Canaan by Joshua and his forces (the Middle Bronze I people of archaeology) and the overthrowing of (Early Bronze III) Jericho. For my poor opinion of Dominican (OP) biblical research, see e.g. my article: Père M-J. Lagrange’s exegetical blancmange (5) Père M-J. Lagrange’s exegetical blancmange This was a great mistake on the part of W. F. Albright, whose correcting of conventional history by a millennium, which would work so well in the case of Menes, now backfired spectacularly on him in the case of the Fall of Jericho. Had W. F. Albright been consistent in his view about the reliability of the Bible, he would have realised that the entire history of the Book of Joshua is verified by archaeology, the Bible being the key for accurately dating the archaeology. Now we have the sad situation that it must be insisted that there was a Book of Joshua type of scenario, but occurring a millennium before Joshua, whose story must have been based upon this earlier set of archaeologically verifiable events. Madness! Critics are prepared to concede a ‘Proto-Joshua’, to ‘explain’ this, but heaven forbid that they should connect that vague entity to a real biblical Joshua.

King Solomon looming large in a reconstructed ancient history

by Damien F. Mackey “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” Israel Finkelstein Historians and archaeologists have managed to make such a mess of things that now it is necessary to visit several supposed eras widely separated in time, and geographies, to locate the vital bits and pieces that go to make up the true King Solomon of Israel. The same thing can be said for pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’, except that, to find him, requires a search even more wide-ranging than in the case of Solomon - as I have observed before - a search spanning over an entire millennium of conventional history: The Complete Ramses II (1) The Complete Ramses II This is all a complete disaster - something urgently needs to be done about it. So, starting with the earliest (in conventional terms) manifestation of King Solomon, let us work our way down from there to the C10th BC king in Jerusalem, who is the one far more familiar to us. Solomon’s BC Manifestations (i) As Gudea of Lagash This will, of course, immediately seem ridiculous. How could a priest-king dated to c. 2100 BC, ruling from Lagash supposedly in Sumer, be the same person as a C10th BC king of Israel (Jerusalem)? Firstly, it needs to be noted that the dating of the enigmatic Gudea has been almost as liquid as has that of the famous Hammurabi of Babylon, who, commencing at c. 2400 BC, has since been dragged all the way down to c. 1800 BC by conventional historians - but whose correct historical era is, in fact, as a contemporary of our King Solomon, in the C10th BC: Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon (2) Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon This re-location of Hammurabi is by now, to my way of thinking at least, very well-established revisionism (see below). Gudea, for his part, is variously dated to c. 2144-2124 BC (middle chronology), or c. 2080–2060 BC (short chronology). I am going to be locating him closer to c. 950 BC – about 1200 years lower than is the earliest conventional estimate for him. Regarding geography, something very strange has happened to have led to the building up of a fictitious land of Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, with places set there such as Lagash, Girsu and Eshnunna, that do not rightly exist in that region. Amazingly - though not really surprisingly under the circumstances - Lagash (Lagaš) and Girsu seem to ‘fall permanently off the political map’, according to ancient historian Seth Richardson (and that is because they do not belong on this map): Ningirsu returns to his plow: Lagaš and Girsu take leave of Ur (2008) (5) Ningirsu returns to his plow: Lagaš and Girsu take leave of Ur (2008) | Seth Richardson - Academia.edu These three locations, and various others, are actually Judean: Girsu being Jerusalem; Lagash (Lakish) being Lachish; and Eshnunna (Ashnunna) being Ashdod (again, Lachish). On this, see e.g. my article: As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish, so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash (3) As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish, so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash Appropriately (as King Solomon), Gudea ruled Girsu (Jerusalem) as well as ‘the second most important city of Judea’, the strong fortress of Lachish (Ashdod). A possible explanation for how such a horrible hash of inharmonious history has come about is that later historians - and I am thinking chiefly of the Ptolemies/Seleucids - romantically re-cast (and re-located?) ancient history and some of its most astounding characters - especially those associated with the miraculous or wonderful, such as Imhotep, Amenhotep son of Hapu, and Ahikar (Achior) - deifying these in the process, and turning them into polymathic thaumaturgists. And this may likewise, perhaps, have been what happened in the case of the wise and miraculous King Solomon, who re-emerges as the semi-divine Gudea of Lagash and Girsu, dutifully serving the god Ninĝĩrsu, “Lord of Girsu” (read “Lord of Jerusalem”). Following this massive correction of history, chronology and geography, we can now quite confidently extract from the semi-fictitious (?) Gudea the biblical King Solomon. “Parallels between Gudea’s and Solomon’s account include … taxing the people; costly imports; divine word requiring obedience; detailed description of opulent furnishings; consecration; installation of divine majesty into temple; speech by ruler at consecration imploring divine bounty; specification of ruler’s offering …”. Diane M. Sharon Having the ancient city of Lagash (var. Lakish) rudely transferred from deep in supposed Sumer, to be re-located 1300-plus km (as I estimate it) westwards, as the fort of Lachish, as I have proposed to be necessary, then it comes as no surprise - in fact, I would have expected it - to learn that Gudea’s Temple hymn has Jewish resonances. It just remains to be determined with which prominent Jewish builder, Gudea – {a name that looks like Judea, but supposedly means: “the messenger or the one called by the god, or “the receiver of revelation”, meaning “the prophet”} – may have been. Diane M. Sharon, who has dated the era of Gudea about a millennium too early, has nevertheless written most interestingly at the beginning of her 1996 article, “A Biblical Parallel to a Sumerian Temple Hymn? Ezekiel 40–48 and Gudea”: Ezekiel’s remarkably detailed vision of the future temple as described in chapters 40–48 is unique in Biblical literature. …. However, it bears undeniable resemblance to the ancient Near Eastern genre of Sumerian temple hymns, and to one example in particular. …. This example, commonly referred to as the Gudea Cylinders, was written at about 2125 B.C.E. to commemorate the building of a temple to the god Ningirsu by Gudea, king of Lagash. …. It recounts a vision received by Gudea in a dream, in which he is shown the plan and dimensions of the temple he is to build. While in fundamental ways these texts are quite different, this paper will focus on the common features of theme, structure, and detail shared by these two documents. …. it is worthwhile noting that the structure and details of Gudea’s building program also bear great resemblance to other temple construction accounts in the Bible, specifically Solomon’s activity described in 1 Kgs. 5:1–9:9 and Hezekiah’s reconstruction and repair of the temple outlined in 2 Chronicles 29–31. While a deeper analysis must wait, a summary of the parallels might be illuminating for the reader of the present paper. Parallels between Gudea’s and Solomon’s account include: … taxing the people; costly imports; divine word requiring obedience; detailed description of opulent furnishings; consecration; installation of divine majesty into temple; speech by ruler at consecration imploring divine bounty; specification of ruler’s offering; feast of seven days; and divine exhortation to moral and ethical behavior by ruler and subjects. …. [End of quote] Conclusion One: Gudea was King Solomon of Israel. Somewhat more tentative and circumstantial will be my next proposed manifestation of King Solomon. (ii) As Ibal-piel [I/II] of Eshnunna The well-documented Hammurabic era, the Mari letters, should make some mention, at least, of the contemporaneous (as now determined) King Solomon. Why I had lauded above the revised placement of King Hammurabi of Babylon is because of this formidable set of pillars now able to be set in place: - Hammurabi’s older contemporary, Shamsi-Adad I, was King David’s Syrian foe, Hadadezer (Dean Hickman); - whose father, Rekhob, was Shamsi-Adad’s father Uru-kabkabu (-rukab-) (Dean Hickman); - Solomon’s persistent foe, Rezin, was Zimri-Lim (Mackey); - whose father, Iahdulim, was Rezin’s father, Eliada (Mackey). - this leaves the most powerful king of the era, Iarim-Lim, as the biblical Hiram (Mackey). That Iarim-Lim (Yarim-Lim) was an ancient master-king is apparent from a letter from Mari which gives the pecking order at the time: 10-15 kings follow Hammurabi, the man of Babylon, Rim-Sin, the man of Larsa, Ibal-Piel, the man of Eshnunna, and Amut-Piel, the man of Katna. However, 20 kings follow Yarim-Lim, the man of Yamhad. {It is very tempting to identify Hammurabi himself as Hiram’s and Solomon’s highly-skilled artisan ally, Huram-abi} Why have I tentatively picked out Ibal-piel for King Solomon (who is known to have had various names), whom we would expect to be named as a notable king of the day? Well, this Ibal-piel: - is chronologically appropriate in a revised setting; - he belongs to Eshnunna, which was shown to have been Lachish, and which was closely associated with Girsu (Jerusalem); - and he follows, as son and successor, a David-like named king, Dadusha, of Eshnunna, who must surely have been King David himself. Ibal-piel, about whom we do not know much, comes across as somewhat idolatrous. But, for one, we ought to recall that King Solomon himself had apostatised. Of Ibal-piel we read briefly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibal-pi-el_II Ibal pi’el II was a king of the city kingdom of Eshnunna in ancient Mesopotamia [sic]. He reigned c. 1779–1765 BC). … [sic] He was the son of Dadusha and nephew of Naram-Suen of Eshnunna. Mackey’s comment: I suspect that Naram-Sin of Eshnunna was, again, King David, Naram-Sin apparently sent Shamsi-Adad I into exile, while David defeated Hadadezer. David means “Beloved”, and so does Naram mean “Beloved”. The Wikipedia article continues with Ibal-piel: …. He was a contemporary of Zimri-Lim of Mari, and formed powerful alliances with Yarim-Lim I … Amud-pi-el of Qatanum, Rim-Sin I of Larsa and most importantly Hammurabi of Babylon, … to appose [sic] the rise of Shamshi-Adad I in Assyria (on his northern border) who himself had alliances with Charchemish, Hassum and Urshu … and Qatna. …. [End of quote] This bountiful revision - as opposed to what I had called above ‘such a horrible hash of inharmonious history’ - may thus have yielded us this galaxy of biblical characters: King David; King Hiram; Rekhob; Hadadezer; King Solomon; Huram-abi; Eliada; Rezin Conclusion Two: Ibal-piel was King Solomon. Archaeologically, for King Solomon, we are in the Late Bronze II (LB II) Age. And that is why the likes of professor Israel Finkelstein have been unable to find any trace whatsoever of him, expecting his kingdom – if such there was – to be identifiable in the early Iron II Age. Hence Finkelstein’s dismal conclusion: “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” We learn from the Scriptures that (I Kings 9:15): “King Solomon conscripted [forced labor] to build … the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer”. This building work pertains to LB II stratigraphy, as Dr. John Bimson has so well explained (“Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?” (S.I.S. Review Journal of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. VI Issues 1-3, 1978): …. I Kings 9:15 specifically relates that Solomon rebuilt Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. In the revised stratigraphy envisaged here, the cities built by Solomon at these sites would therefore be those of LB II A. More specifically, these three Solomonic cities would be represented by Stratum VIII in Area AA at Megiddo … by Stratum XVI at Gezer, and by Stratum XIV of the Upper City at Hazor (= Str. Ib of the Lower City) …. The wealth and international trade attested by these levels certainly reflect the age of Solomon far more accurately than the Iron Age cities normally attributed to him, from which we have “no evidence of any particular luxury” …. The above-mentioned strata at Megiddo and Gezer have both yielded remains of very fine buildings and courtyards …. The Late Bronze strata on the tell at Hazor have unfortunately not produced a clear picture, because of levelling operations and extensive looting of these levels during the Iron Age; but the LB II A stratum of the Lower City has produced a temple very similar in concept to the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem, as described in the Old Testament …. [End of quote] For LB II Megiddo, I would strongly recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkYtYokj3Qg Discovering the Real Gate of Solomon: The David Rohl Lectures - Part 4 (iii) As Jabin of Hazor Could King Solomon also have been the contemporary ruler of the strategic Hazor, King Jabin (of the Mari letters), who has been the cause of no small amount of chaos for some of the best (Christian) revisionists. Drs. Donovan Courville, David Down and John Osgood, amongst others, earnestly striving to establish the elusive King Hammurabi of Babylon in a more reasonable historical setting, all fastened on this particular King Jabin (Ibni) of Hazor, a known contemporary of Hammurabi, identifying him with the Jabin of Hazor whom Joshua defeated, and so fixing Hammurabi to c. C15th BC, about half a millennium too early. Obviously this blunder must have dire consequences for the balance of their revisions. This particular Jabin of Hazor, a contemporary of King Solomon, is actually the third ruler bearing this generic name, the previous two being Jabin at the time of Joshua, and Jabin at the time of Deborah. On this, see e.g. my article: Several Kings of Hazor used the generic name of Jabin (4) Several kings of Hazor used the generic name of Jabin To confuse these three kings Jabin must surely have disastrous ramifications. Now, and this is also tentative, if Mari’s Jabin of Hazor was contemporaneous with King Solomon, and knowing that the latter had rebuilt the strategic city, Hazor, could Solomon himself, then, have been this very Jabin king of Hazor? Previously I had written on this: Since the ‘destruction’ of Jabin of Hazor at the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:23-24), the site should have fallen under the jurisdiction of Israel. And that situation would have continued until, and including, the time of David and Solomon – which is the era I consider (following Dean Hickman) to synchronise with Hammurabi, Zimri-Lim, and the Mari archive. So I must conclude that the only hope of salvaging Dean Hickman’s thesis is to identify Jabin (3) of Hazor with King Solomon himself. And that would not seem to be immediately promising, considering that the two predecessors of Jabin (3) of Hazor were both hostile to Israel. What would King Solomon be doing adopting a name like Jabin (Ibni), or Yabni? To my own surprise, there is a name amongst the seven legendary names of King Solomon: https://ohr.edu/8266 “Midrashic Tradition tells us that King Solomon appears in the Bible under several different names. His parents, King David and Batsheba, named him Shlomo, while the prophet Natan named him Yedidyah (see II Sam. 12:24-25). Actually, the name Shlomo was already given to him before his birth in a prophecy to King David (see I Chron. 22:9). Two of the twenty-four books in the Bible open by explicitly ascribing their authorship to Shlomo: Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) and Mishlei (Proverbs). A third book, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), ascribes itself to somebody named Kohelet, son of David, king of Jerusalem. According to tradition, Kohelet is another name for Solomon. So far, we have three names for King Solomon. The early Amora, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi adds another four names to this list. …” [,] that can serve to bring a completely new perspective - and in favour of Dean Hickman’s thesis - to the conventional view that Mari’s Jabin of Hazor belonged to the C18th BC, and also to Dr. Courville’s view that this Jabin was the one at the time of Joshua. Could King Solomon be the Ibni-Addu [or Jabin] king of Hazor as referred to in the Akkadian tablet ARM VI, 236? To suggest that would seem to be a very long stretch indeed, given that the Mari tablets are conventionally dated to c. 1800 BC, and given also that the kings Jabin of Hazor were Canaanite kings inimical to the Hebrews, whether of the Joshuan or the Judges eras. What, however, makes far more plausible a connection between the Solomonic era and a king referred to in the Mari tablets is Dean Hickman’s thesis - previously considered - that the Mari archives, Zimri-Lim, and king Hammurabi of Babylon, must be re-dated to the actual time of King Solomon. What makes even more possible a connection between King Solomon and the Ibni (Yabni) of Hazor, at this particular time, is the fact that King Solomon had built up the important city of Hazor (I Kings 9:15). But, if Solomon were this Ibni (Yabni), or Jabin, why would he not have been said to have been “of Jerusalem” (or Girsu)? Well, geographically the Mari tablets do not go further SW than Hazor, which is in fact “the only Canaanite site mentioned in the archive discovered in Mari …”: http://www1.chapman.edu/~bidmead/G-Haz.htm Similarly, the foremost king of the Syro-Mesopotamian region, the Amorite king, Iarim-Lim, is connected with Aleppo. He, I have argued, was David and Solomon’s loyal friend, referred to in the Bible as “Hiram king of Tyre” (e.g. I Chronicles 14:1). It seems that these mobile ancient kings of wide-ranging geographical rule were referred to by fellow monarchs in relation to the closest of their cities. Hazor was, even as early as Joshua’s day, a city of immense importance (Joshua 11:10): “The Head of all those Kingdoms" (Joshua 11:10). At a later time: “The Mari documents clearly demonstrate the importance, wealth and far-reaching commercial ties of Hazor”: http://www1.chapman.edu/~bidmead/G-Haz.htm There is a lot to recommend the impressive Late Bronze Age Hazor as that which Solomon rebuilt: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:142088/FULLTEXT01.pdf “Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with Syria, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian domination and exploitation during this period, a position that also influenced the city’s international relations. Methodologically the thesis examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence. Cultic influences are also considered. … A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’ describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content. The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan. Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that established networks along the main trade route …”. [End of quote] King Solomon, like Ibni-Addu (Jabin) of Hazor, had great need of tin, which had become scarce in the Mediterranean at that time. Much has been written on this. For example: http://helpmewithbiblestudy.org/17Archeology/InscriptionJabin.aspx#sthash.jFPTabMN.dpbs “One Akkadian tablet (ARM VI, 236, dated to the 18th century B.C.) recorded a shipment of tin to "Ibni-Addad king of Hazor." Translated from Akkadian into its West Semitic form "Ibni-Addad" becomes "Yabni-Haddad," and "Yabni" linguistically evolves into "Yabin /Jabin" in ancient Hebrew”. https://www.c4israel.org/news/did-british-israeli-tin-trade-supply-solomons-temple/ Did British-Israeli Tin Trade Supply Solomon’s Temple? Dr James E. Patrick - 28 November 2019 Scientists recently found evidence suggesting that Solomon’s Temple may have been built with bronze made from British tin. Late Bronze Age tin ingots found in Israel have been analysed and shown to have originated in the tin mines of Cornwall and Devon. The Bible records Solomon sending trading ships to Tarshish, returning along the African coast (1Kings 10:22). Jonah fled on such a ship away from Nineveh, confirming that Tarshish was far to the west of Israel (Jonah 1:1-3). Ezekiel 27:12 later tells us that the wealth of Tarshish was ‘silver, iron, tin and lead’. The mineral-rich kingdom of Tartessos did exist in south-west Spain, but the tin it traded was not indigenous, coming instead by sea from Cornwall. Britain had supplied tin for bronze-making to all of Europe for centuries, hence its prosperity during the Bronze Age. As such, Britain would have traded tin with Israel using ‘ships of Tarshish’. But that biblical detective work has now been confirmed with hard evidence. In the second-millennium BC, known as the Bronze Age, the name itself illustrates how widespread and important bronze was to societies all across Europe and the Middle East. Bronze is made from copper and tin, but tin is very rare in Europe and Asia, giving it a value and strategic importance in those times similar to oil today. …. [End of quote] Traditionally, one of King Solomon’s various names was Bin, thought to indicate: “Bin = "he who built the Temple".” A thirteenth century AD scholar (so I seem to recall) translated this Bin as Yabni, which is our Jabin. Whatever reason had prompted Solomon to take (or to have been given) this name - and it may have been simply because this had become the traditional name for a ruler of the city of Hazor - the choice of name is a most fortuitous one, for it perfectly describes the wise and discerning Solomon: The name Jabin comes from the verb בין (bin) meaning to understand or have insight: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Jabin.html#.XkncEW5uKUk Jabin (Hebrew: יָבִין‎ Yāḇîn) is a Biblical name meaning 'discerner', or 'the wise'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabin Conclusion Three: King Jabin (Ibni) of Hazor may possibly have been the biblical King Solomon. Concerning my next manifestation of King Solomon, (iv), I am far more confident, as I was in the case of (i) Gudea of Lagash (Lachish). (iv) As Senenmut in Egypt “Then, in 1995, this scholarly skepticism over the historicity of the Bible was suddenly challenged when Egyptologist and historian, David Rohl, burst onto the scene with a new theory”. The Lost Testament (flyleaf) Many revisionists today embrace the so-called New Chronology (NC) as promoted by Dr. David Rohl and Bernard Newgrosh. This, I think, is most unfortunate. There are two critical things I want to say about NC at this point: - Its conclusions are inferior to those of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s famed series, Ages in Chaos, which basic revision NC rejects. - I bristle at the fact that the proponents of NC, a late comer on the revisionist scene, present NC as if it is the beginning and the end of it all. And I wrote an article expressing my strong views on this: Distancing Oneself from Velikovsky (3) Distancing oneself from Velikovsky saying: .… But the UK (in particular) revisionists, aware that Velikovsky was regarded with contempt by the conventional scholars, whose system they themselves were completely undermining – though perhaps also seeking some academic respectability – and aware that Velikovsky’s latter phase revision, e.g. the 19th dynasty of Egypt, was archaeologically untenable (though loyal Velikovskians have clung to it), sought to distance themselves from Velikovsky completely, they hardly at all, or at least very scarcely, even mentioning him in their later books and publications. And when they did mention him, they laughed him off as a “wayward polymath”, or “maverick”. Now, whilst these epithets can be appropriate in the right context, they are mean and miserable when revisionists fail to admit their owing a debt to Velikovsky. The most arrogant example of this, which is not only unjust to Velikovsky but which demeans all those others who have put a lot of effort into a revision of ancient history – as well as the writings of “Creationists” – was this piece in the flyleaf introducing David Rohl’s The Lost Testament (Century, 2002) as if the revision recognizing the over-extension of chronology by modern researchers had begun with him in 1995 (forgetting Velikovsky’s beginnings in the 1940’s): The earliest part of the bible is recognised as the foundation-stone of three great religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – yet over the last century archaeologists and historians have signally failed to find any evidence to confirm the events described in the ‘book of books’. As a consequence, many scholars took the view that the Old Testament was little more than a work or fiction. The testimony of biblical history had, in effect, been lost. Then, in 1995, this scholarly skepticism over the historicity of the Bible was suddenly challenged when Egyptologist and historian, David Rohl, burst onto the scene with a new theory. He suggested that modern researchers had constructed an artificially long chronology for the ancient world – a false time-line which had dislocated the Old Testament events from their real historical setting. The alternative ‘New Chronology’ – first published in A Test of Time: The Bible From Myth to History – created a world-wide sensation and was fiercely resisted by the more conservative elements within academia. Seven years on, however, the chronological reconstruction has developed apace and numerous new discoveries have been made. Now, in his new book, The Lost Testament, David Rohl reveals the entire story of the Children of Yahweh – set in its true historical context. An astounding number of references in the literature of neighbouring civilizations are shown to synchronise with the Old Testament accounts, confirming events which had previously been dismissed as mythical. In addition, this contemporary literature – combined with the archaeological record – reveals new information and new stories about personalities such as Enoch, Noah, Nimrod, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David and Solomon. The Bible has at last been recovered from the ruins of the ancient past as the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘who’ are explained – throwing unforeseen and fascinating new light on the world’s most treasured book. [End of quote] By rejecting Dr. Velikovsky’s important identification of pharaoh Thutmose III as “Shishak king of Egypt”, a younger contemporary of King Solomon, in favour of his (NC’s) view that Shishak was the later pharaoh, the great Ramses II, Dr. Rohl has disenabled NC of ever finding a suitable candidate for the biblical Queen of Sheba. Dr. Velikovsky had intuitively recognised her as Hatshepsut, ruler of Egypt (c. 1480 BC conventional dating). As I wrote in my critique of Dr. John Bimson, who had been commenting on Velikovsky in the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) well before Dr. Rohl became a key player there: Solomon and Sheba (2) Solomon and Sheba …. Bimson suggested that the biblical queen was from Yemen in Arabia, but van Beek … has described the geographical isolation of Yemen and the hazards of a journey from there to Palestine and none of the numerous inscriptions from this southern part of Arabia refers to the famous queen. Civilisation in southern Arabia may not really have begun to flourish until some two to three centuries after Solomon's era, as Bimson himself has noted … and no 10th century BC Arabian queen has ever been named or proposed as the Queen of Sheba. If she hailed from Yemen, who was she? [End of quote] “If she hailed from Yemen, who was she?” That is the thing about constructing a radical revision of biblico-history. It is not sufficient to make an identification simply in isolation. One needs also to be able to demonstrate how this affects what precedes, and what follows, it. The NC revisionists might have their new Shishak (and, admittedly, it is well argued), but they no longer have a Queen of Sheba. In the process of writing this article for the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies CHRONOLOGY AND CATASTROPHISM REVIEW (1997:1), I had the good fortune of discovering the polymathic King Solomon in Egypt at the very time, as SENENMUT, considered to have been ‘the real power behind the throne’ of Hatshepsut. King Solomon, who had participated in, had veritably created, a Golden Age for Israel, was also involved in a Golden Age for Egypt, the Eighteenth Dynasty’s glorious era of co-rule between pharaoh Hatshepsut and the brilliant Thutmose III. The chronology is perfect. Solomon, as Senenmut, was prominent in Egypt until the co-pharaohs’ Year 16, approximately. And Thutmose III launched his First Campaign, Years 22-23, the Shishak event, a handful of years later, in the 5th year of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam: Yehem near Aruna – Thutmose III’s match on Jerusalem (3) Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III's march on Jerusalem Conclusion Four: Senenmut was King Solomon of Israel. (v) As Qoheleth In those, his latter years, King Solomon had come to realise the futility of much of life, his life, despite all of the earlier glories. And he accordingly, as Qoheleth, wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes, as Nathan Albright well tells it: https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011/06/20/a-case-for-solomonic-authorship-of-ecclesiastes/ A Case For Solomonic Authorship of Ecclesiastes Posted on June 20, 2011 by nathanalbright The traditional view of the authorship of Ecclesiastes is that Solomon wrote it at the end of his life, reflecting on his life and mistakes and coming to a conclusion that obedience to God is the duty and obligation of mankind. However, there are many people who claim that Ecclesiastes was instead a second temple forgery by a scribe who wrote as if he was Solomon. This view is troublesome because the Bible has the harshest opinion of forged letters (see Paul’s comments in 2 Thessalonians 2:2), and nowhere includes a forgery among the canon of scripture. Nonetheless, in the absence of Solomonic autographs (which we do not possess and are not likely to possess) for Ecclesiastes, the best way to demonstrate the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes is to examine the internal evidence of the material to see how it squares with Solomon’s perspective, and to see if we can create a sound case on internal evidence for Solomon writing Ecclesiastes. That is the point of this particular entry, to at least provide a way to square the distinctive nature of Ecclesiastes with the life of Solomon. Let us pursue three avenues of demonstrating Solomonic authorship by inference from the internal evidence. First, let us look at the distinctive name by which Solomon calls himself. The word “ecclesiastes” in Latin means “speaker before an assembly.” The title that Solomon uses for himself in the book is Qoheleth, a word that only appears in Ecclesiastes (in 1:1, 2 12; 7:27; 12:8-10) in the entire Hebrew scriptures, and which is often translated “Preacher.” Let us note, though, that the author (Solomon) is pictured as writing a book on the wisdom of kings that is spoken to an assembly. There is only one kingly assembly that we know of in the entire era of the Israelite monarchies, and that occurs in 1 Kings 12. We may therefore take Ecclesiastes as the position of Solomon at the end of his life, which would explain the mild advice given to Rehoboam by Solomon’s counselors (see 1 Kings 12:7) about serving the people rather than exploiting them. Ecclesiastes may therefore be seen as a part of the tradition of ethical and constitutional monarchy within Israel rather than the heathen and satanic model of authoritarian rule. The similarity between Ecclesiastes’ view and that of Solomon’s advisers right after his death would indicate that Ecclesiastes represents his “last words” on the subject of kingship in a specific historical context where an assembly was taking place to determine the next king. Let us also note that Solomon very well may have called this assembly specifically to ensure the continuity of the Davidic line. Second, let us note some concerns that Solomon shows about his heir that are recorded that accord very well with what the Bible has to say about the foolish Rehoboam. Ecclesiastes 2:18-21: “Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” Here is the “succession” problem of leaders and organizations (and nations) dealt with openly and squarely. The passage would be of special relevance to a wise father of a son whose wisdom he doubts and is concerned about (with good reason). Finally, let us note a passage that would seem to indicate Solomon’s own bitterly ironic view of his response to the warning of God, expressed in Ecclesiastes 4:13-16: “Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more. For he comes out of prison to be king, although he was born poor in hi kingdom. I saw all the living who walk under the sun; they were with the second youth who stands in his place. There was no end over all the people over whom he was made king; yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind.” This is a fitting prophecy of the reign of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who was “in prison” as a youth in Egypt for his rebellion against Solomon (given by the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite), and whose rule began with great popularity and the support of “all Israel” at Shechem, but whose name became a byword for sin, as all of the kings of Israel in the divided kingdom “followed in the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin” through the establishment of an official state religion with heathen golden calves and a counterfeit religious festival around the time of Halloween. The bitter tone of Ecclesiastes and the knowledge it speaks of the politics of the 10th century BC, during the time when Israel divided into two hostile and warring states, ending their brief “mini-empire” of glory that they had known under the reign of David and Solomon, reflects better the times that they describe, where the ironic references to the division of Israel are particularly powerful, rather than to centuries later when the monarchy was a distant and fading memory, and when Solomon’s greatness was being consigned to the oblivion that he feared. If Ecclesiastes really is Solomon’s last words as a king, and his parting advice to his son, one wishes that his son had not been such a fool as to give it so little respect, for Ecclesiastes is truly a wealth of wisdom, even if it is wisdom gained at the price of much weariness and sorrow. Conclusion Five: Qoheleth was King Solomon of Israel. I began this article with these words: Historians and archaeologists have managed to make such a mess of things that now it is necessary to visit several supposed eras widely separated in time, and geographies, to locate the vital bits and pieces that go to make up the true King Solomon of Israel. To locate those ‘vital bits and pieces’ for our C10th BC king, we have had to range all the way back to c. 2100 BC, and supposedly to Mesopotamia, then down to c. 1800 BC, Syro-Palestine, then all the way down to c. 1480 BC, Egypt. A staggering millennium or more, as was the case also with Ramses II ‘the Great’! All of this trouble to provide a complete portrait of King Solomon of C10th BC Israel, and to refute the naysayers.