Powered By Blogger

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Joseph’s Zaphenath Paaneah—a chronological key





Patrick Clarke

The origin and meaning of the name Zaphenath Paaneah, given to Joseph during his rise from obscurity to national prominence, has proved to be problematical for translators and Bible historians alike. New research reveals the name’s unusual archaic Egyptian roots, giving the true meaning of Joseph’s Egyptian name. Joseph’s three other titles mentioned in Genesis 45 also help to place him in the Early Middle Kingdom Period and consequently point to the likely pharaoh under whom he served.

….

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Gods, Heroes and Tyrants: Greek Chronology in Chaos


 
By Emmet Sweeney


Is it possible that the history of ancient Greece as found in the textbooks is seriously misdated? Emmet Sweeney is not the first to make such a proposal. That honor goes to Immanuel Velikovsky, whose series Ages in Chaos (1952) held that the whole of ancient Near Eastern history before the classical age was a fabrication.

Velikovsky identified Egyptian chronology as the source of the problem; and indeed the chronology of early Greek history, during the so-called Mycenaean period, was constructed along the lines demanded by Egyptian history. And, in a multitude of ways, legend and tradition agreed. For example, Homer's Iliad is full of references to the Phrygians, who were evidently close allies of the Trojans. Indeed, so intimate is the connection that we might suspect the Trojans themselves of being a branch of the Phrygian nation. Yet Phrygia, it is known, did not exist until the eighth century BC, when the Moschians, or Bryges, a Thracian people, migrated across the Bosphorus and settled in Asia Minor. Greek tradition is explicit that Priam, king of Troy during the famous siege, was a contemporary of Gordius, the first Phrygian king and founder of the capital city Gordion.

In this volume Sweeney explores the contradictions and "coincidences" that support a whole new view of ancient history.

Much of Greek myth is about the natural events of 850 BC and natural events which preceded them. This being the case, it seems reasonable to assume that the inhabitants of the region at the time were most probably at least in part ancestral Greeks. The culture of these Early Helladic folk was maritime and warlike. They raised great fortifications around many of their settlements settlements which tended to lie along the coast. They were already familiar with tin-bronze, which speaks of trading relations with Atlantic Europe.

When considering the source of the military threat against which the Early Hellads raised their huge coastal fortifications, we need to think of Atlantic Europe and Atlantic North Africa, where a mighty seafaring culture, contemporary with Early Bronze Age Greece, is also attested. And this of course brings us into altogether deeper water, in more ways than one.


....

Monday, February 17, 2014

Amenhotep III Shared Power With Akhnaton



CAIRO (AFP).- Egypt's antiquities ministry on Thursday revealed what it called conclusive evidence that revolutionary pharaoh Akhenaten shared power with his father.

Scholars had long debated whether Akhenaten, who tried to revolutionise ancient Egyptian religion, had shared power with his ailing father Amenhotep III.

The evidence came from the tomb of a pharaonic minister in the southern city of Luxor, inscribed with the cartouches of both pharaohs.

It was traditional for a minister's tomb to be adorned with the cartouche of the ruler.
The inscriptions found in the minister's tomb by an Egyptian-Spanish team dated back to a religious celebration marking Amenhotep III's 30th year in power, roughly eight years before his death and Akhenaten's ascension ....

....

Taken from: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=68015#.UwJjy2J_vko