Two kings “Tirhakah”?



 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“In 701, when Sennacherib had ravaged the whole land and had Jerusalem

under blockade (ch. 1:4-9), if words mean anything (“Why be beaten any more, [why] continue rebellion?” v. 5), [Isaiah] counseled surrender; and ch. 22:1-14 ...

suggests that nothing in the course of these events had caused him to alter his evaluation of the national character and policy. It is not easy to believe that in this very same year he also counseled defiance and promised deliverance”.

 

 J. Bright, A History of Israel

 

 

 

 

In Ch. IX of The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle, “The Identity of Tirhakah”, we read of this bifurcation of pharaoh Tirhakah: http://www.yahweh.org/publications/sjc/sj09Chap.pdf

 

The Tirhakah of Scriptures was not Khu-Re´ Nefertem Tirhakah of Dynasty XXV of Egypt. It is true that both were Ethiopians, and that the Ethiopians controlled Egypt during the latter half of the eighth and early part of the seventh centuries B.C.E. But here the similarity ends. Historians have simply ignored the fact that Kush was ruled by a confederation of kings and that two of these kings from the same general period both carried the name Tirhakah. A close examination and analysis of the relevant ancient records reveals the existence of two Kushite kings name Tirhakah – Khu-Re´ Nefertem Tirhakah and Tsawi Tirhakah Warada Nagash – one a pharaoh of Egypt and the other a  king of Kush. Evidence will also show that Tsawi Tirhakah is better known under the name Snefer-Ra Piankhi. ....

 

The author of this piece is of the opinion that Sennacherib king of Assyria, a contemporary of “Tirhakah king of Ethiopia” (Isaiah 37:9), had waged only the one campaign against Israel – a view that is completely at variance with the findings of my university thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

According to this thesis, king Sennacherib’s highly successful campaign against Judah, his Third Campaign, cannot possibly be equated with the disastrous campaign when 185,000 Assyrians marched to their demise in Israel.

Here is part of what I then wrote (Volume Two, pp. 1-2): 

 

Distinguishing Sennacherib’s Two Major Invasions

 

 

We are now well equipped it would seem to answer with conviction an age-long question as formulated by Bright:¹¹⁵⁶ “The account of Sennacherib’s actions against Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:13 to 19:37 (//Isa., ch.36f.) presents a difficult problem. Does it contain the record of one campaign or two?” The answer is, according to the revised history that was developed in VOLUME ONE, two campaigns. These are:

 

(i)                 Sennacherib’s Third Campaign (conventionally dated to 701 BC, but re-dated by me to 712 BC); and

(ii)               his campaign about a decade later, during the co-reign of Esarhaddon, after the destruction of Babylon.

 

These were not of course Sennacherib’s only western campaigns, for he (as Sargon II) had conquered Samaria in 722 BC, and had likely reconquered it in 720 BC. Sennacherib moreover claimed to have been taking tribute from king Hezekiah of Judah even before his Third Campaign (refer back to p. 145 of Chapter 6).

It remains to separate invasions (i) and (ii) as given in KCI [Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah]; a task that proponents of the ‘two invasions’ theory, myself included, have found far from easy to do. Bright, himself a champion of this latter theory, has referred to the “infinite variations in detail” amongst scholars trying to settle the issue.¹¹⁵⁷ He has rightly observed, as have others as well,¹¹⁵⁸ that there is a good match between Sennacherib’s Third Campaign account and the early part of 2 Kings. Beyond this, Bright has noticed a polarity in KCI - suggesting the telescoping of what were two separate campaign accounts - with Hezekiah on the one hand being castigated by Isaiah for resisting the Assyrians, by turning to Egypt for help, and on the other being told that the Assyrians would be defeated:¹¹⁵⁹

 

... Isaiah’s utterances with regard to the Assyrian crisis are, it seems to me, far better understood under the assumption that there were two invasions by Sennacherib. The sayings attributed to him in II Kings 18:17 to 19:37 (//Isa., chs. 36f.) all express the calm assurance that Jerusalem would be saved, and the Assyrians frustrated, by Yahweh’s power; there is no hint of rebuke to Hezekiah reminding him of his reckless policy which had brought the nation to this pass.

… Yet his known utterances in 701 [sic] and the years immediately preceding (e.g., chs. 28:7-13, 14-22; 30:1-7, 8-17; 31:1-3) show that he consistently denounced the rebellion, and the Egyptian alliance that supported it, as a folly and a sin, and predicted for it unmitigated disaster.

 

1156 A History of Israel, p. 296.

1157 Ibid, p. 300. B. Childs thinks that “a definite impasse has been reached” amongst scholars, with: “No consensus [having] developed regarding the historical problems of the [701 BC] invasion …”. Isaiah and

the Assyrian Crisis, p. 12.

1158 Ibid, p. 297. Cf. J. Pritchard, ANET, pp. 287f; Childs, ibid, p. 72 (he claims a “striking agreement …”).

1159 Ibid, p. 306. Emphasis added.

 

In 701, when Sennacherib had ravaged the whole land and had Jerusalem under blockade (ch. 1:4-9), if words mean anything (“Why be beaten any more, [why] continue rebellion?” v. 5), he counseled surrender; and ch. 22:1-14 ... suggests that nothing in the course of these events had caused him to alter his evaluation of the national character and policy. It is not easy to believe that in this very same year he also counseled defiance and promised deliverance.

 

One can easily agree with Bright when he goes on to say that “different sets of circumstances must be presumed”,¹¹⁶⁰ and that “telescoping” has been employed.¹¹⁶¹ For the ancient Jews, apparently, there was a strong link in the overall scheme of things between Assyria’s first and second efforts to conquer Jerusalem, though well separated in time. The KCI narratives read as if virtually seamless. In attempting to separate the two campaigns, we shall need to draw upon a variety of sources in order to determine where the actual break occurs. But, thanks to our findings in VOLUME ONE, we no longer have the problem facing proponents of the ‘two campaigns’ theory of having to establish the fact of a second Assyrian invasion into Palestine.

 

[End of quotes]

 

“The Identity of Tirhakah” article above arrives at a conclusion that I, too, had reached in my university thesis, based on Petrie, that Tirhakah was the same as the 25th Dynasty’s Piankhi (thesis, Volume One, p. 384).

For more on this identification, see my series:

 

Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah?

 

https://www.academia.edu/37451966/Piankhi_same_as_Bibles_Tirhakah

 

Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah? Part Two: 25th (Ethiopian) Dynasty not clear cut

 

https://www.academia.edu/37479175/Piankhi_same_as_Bibles_Tirhakah_Part_Two_25th_Ethiopian_Dynasty_not_clear_cut

 

Given this connection, which, if correct, would mean a significant expansion of the current length of reign attributed to Tirhakah (c. 690–664 BC, conventional dating), then it is surprising that the author of “The Identity of Tirhakah” would need to Procrusteanise poor Tirhakah.

 

Revolutionising Egypt’s 19th Dynasty

by

Damien F. Mackey

“Traces of a connection between the rulers at the end of the 18th Dynasty and Horemheb have not been found and ... Velikovsky gives Horemheb a different place in history”.

Henk Spaan 

Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had, partly based on an inscription pairing Tirhakah together with Horemheb, shifted the enigmatic Horemheb downwards from his conventional c. 1300 BC location to the C8th-C7th’s BC era of Tirkahah and the neo-Assyrian potentate, Sennacherib. We know from the Scriptures that at least Tirkahah and Sennacherib were contemporaries. E.g. Isaiah 37:9: “Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia [Cush], was marching out to fight against him”.

I had briefly touched upon this historical re-location of Horemheb in my university thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

at that stage conceding that “these two kings were far closer in time … than the “more than six centuries” gap separating them in the conventional history”.

My view at that stage was that the separation between the earlier Horemheb, and Tirhakah, was “approximately a century”.

This is what I then wrote (Volume One, pp. 252-253):

Ethiopians

The appearance of Horemheb in an inscription with Tirhakah ruler of Ethiopia, a contemporary of king Hezekiah and Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:9), led Velikovsky to conclude that Horemheb had belonged to an era much later than the late C14th BC accredited to him by the conventional chronology, and that he was in actual fact a contemporary of this Tirhakah of the 25th (Ethiopian) [dynasty] in the C7th BC. Thus he wrote in an unpublished work:

… In this reconstruction Haremhab and Tirhaka, the Ethiopian, are contemporaries; in the conventional version of history they are separated by more than six centuries, Haremhab being dated to the late fourteenth and Tirhaka to the early seventh. A certain scene, carved on one of the walls of a small Ethiopian temple at Karnak, shows them together. The scene proves not only the contemporaneity of Haremhab and Tirhaka, but also permits to establish a short period in their relations from which it dates. ….

Given, though, that Egyptian monuments sometimes represented two pharaohs of completely different eras, together, e.g. “… Egyptian artwork shows [the 12th dynasty’s]

Sesostris I seated side by side with [the 18th dynasty’s] Amenhotep I …” [a ref. to C. McDowell, ‘The Egyptian Prince Moses’, p. 5, fig. 1.] … I cannot agree with Velikovsky that the particular carving to which he referred necessarily “proves the contemporaneity of Haremhab and Tirhaka”.

Though I do believe that these two kings were far closer in time (approximately a century

apart) than the “more than six centuries” gap separating them in the conventional history,

and that there was some sort of relationship between them. ....

[End of quotes]

Henk Spaan also has something to say on the subject in “Velikovsky and ancient history”, at:

http://www.henkspaan2.nl/velikovsky/14assyrian.php

….

Part 4. The Assyrian conquest

In Ages in Chaos Velikovsky shifted the end of the 18th Dynasty from about 1300 to 850 BC. Akhnaton was a contemporary of King Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem and of Ahab of Samaria. After the end of the reign of Akhnaton the 18th Dynasty fairly soon came to an end. Egypt was weakened for some time.

According to the prevailing view of history, it was Horemheb who succeeded Ay at the end of the 18th Dynasty. Traces of a connection between the rulers at the end of the 18th Dynasty and Horemheb have not been found and we will see that Velikovsky gives Horemheb a different place in history. The section on the Assyrian conquest was not published, but can be found in the Internet archive of Velikovsky's work.

....

Assyria conquers Egypt

The power of Assyria was growing and the Assyrian annals report the payment of a tribute by the king of Egypt. Some time later they reported that power in Egypt had been seized by the king of Ethiopia who lived far away. It is the beginning of the Ethiopian dynasty in Egypt which ruled for fifty years and which, as we shall see, was several times interrupted by Assyrian campaigns.
The successor of Sargon was Sennacherib ...

Mackey’s comment” According to my revision, Sargon was Sennacherib.

... who continued the conquests of his predecessor. He captured the coastal areas of Palestine and fought a battle with an Egyptian / Ethiopian army at Eltekeh. He also besieged Jerusalem, but was finally satisfied with payment of a huge penalty. At this point the question arises whether Sennacherib conquered Egypt too. Jewish historians report a conquest of Egypt and Herodotus mentions that Sennacherib invaded Egypt with a large army during the reign of Sethos. Modern historians say that Herodotus must be mistaken because Sethos (Seti) was one of the most important kings of the 19th dynasty, who lived around 1280 BC.

....

There is an Egyptian king who is not easy to place in history. It is not clear who his parents were and how he became king. His name was Horemheb and he is usually placed in the transition period between the 18th and 19th Dynasties. On his tomb he bears all the signs that normally only the kings of Egypt bore and he is named something like the head of state and commander of the army, but at the same time we read that he was chosen by the king and a delegate of the king. He is also depicted in a reverential attitude toward a greater King, whose image was removed in a later period. Who was the person who appointed Horemheb as king or head of state? It seems that this greater king is not Egyptian (there is an interpreter represented at the meeting), and the text states that he was the boss of Syria and that his conquests were accompanied by putting complete towns to fire and displacing entire populations from one place to another. These are characteristics of Assyrian domination and it seems that the Assyrian king Sennacherib appointed Horemheb as commander in chief. Horemheb was later crowned king on the day he married Mutnodjme, someone who, according to the text on a statue, had royal status herself. ....

The intriguing Nahr al-Kalb inscription depicts Esarhaddon together with Ramses II.

If this inscription is meant to indicate contemporaneity between Esarhaddon and Ramses II, then I would have to reconsider Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s extraordinary view that

pharaoh Ramses II was a contemporary of (my Esarhaddon =) Nebuchednezzar II.

We read about the Phoenician located inscription at, for instance:

http://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/289-esarhaddons-nahr-al-kalb-inscription/

 

Esarhaddon's Nahr al-Kalb Inscription

Esarhaddon's Nahr al-Kalb Inscription: inscription, just north of Beirut in modern Lebanon, documenting the Assyrian conquest of Egypt in 671 BCE.

….

In the first quarter of the seventh century BCE, king Esarhaddon (r.680-669) tightened the Assyrian grip on the cities of Phoenicia. In the winter of 677/676, he was able to subdue the powerful coastal city of Sidon and in the next year, he started to demand tribute from the other Phoenician cities.

Having in this way secured his rear, and no doubt with the support of a Phoenician fleet, the Assyrian king decided to attack Egypt (674/673).

After a first setback, he was more successful in 671 and forced the Egyptian king Taharqo to abandon Egypt and retreat to his homeland, Nubia. However, Esarhaddon was forced to suppress insurrections in the north. Among the rebels were Ashkelon and Tyre, which Esarhaddon forced into submission. After Essarhaddon's death in 669, his successor Aššurbanipal would in 667/666 gain full control of Egypt, even sacking Thebes.

Esarhaddon (R) facing Ramesses (L)

To make sure that the Phoenician cities better understood that Esarhaddon was and would always be victorious, the king left an inscription at the mouth of the Nahr al-Kalb, opposite one of the reliefs that the Egyptian king Ramesses II had once made to commemorate his Syrian campaigns. Everyone traveling along the coast from Byblos to Beirut would see Esarhaddon's relief and understand that Esarhaddon was a greater conqueror than the heroes of the past.

The inscription

Exposed to the elements, Esarhaddon's relief is now badly damaged, but the general meaning of the text is sufficiently clear, and we're certain that the text ended with a reference to the insurrection of Askhelon and Tyre. 

The text, known as ANET 289, was translated by Daniel David Luckenbill.

[End of quote]

The dates for Esarhaddon given above, conventional dates, I would be inclined to reject based upon my view, now, that Esarhaddon was Nebuchednezzar II: See e.g. my articles:

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar

https://www.academia.edu/38017900/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar

and

https://www.academia.edu/37525605/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar._Part_Two_Another_writer_has_picked_up_this_possible_connection

Earlier, we found that an Egyptian pharaoh (Horemheb), supposedly belonging to the C14th BC, had been depicted with an Ethiopian pharaoh (Tirhakah) belonging approximately half a millennium later.

Now we find that an Egyptian pharaoh who is thought to have arrived on the scene somewhat less than a century after Horemheb, the long-reigning Ramses II ‘the Great’, is depicted in an inscription (though very much the worse for wear, or mutilation) alongside Esarhaddon, who is my Nebuchednezzar II.

If this inscription is meant to indicate contemporaneity between Esarhaddon and Ramses II, then I would have to reconsider Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s extraordinary view that pharaoh Ramses II was a contemporary of (my Esarhaddon =) Nebuchednezzar II.

Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky appears to me to have been a scholar of immense intuition.

He managed to arrive at some extraordinary conclusions that absolutely revolutionise the study of ancient history, though his methodology could sometimes be questionable.

Revisionists have rightly dismissed his separation of the 19th Egyptian dynasty from the 18th, based on the archaeological and genealogical data. Velikovsky thought that his new approach had enabled for him to identify Ramses II’s Hittite ally, Hattusilis, with Nebuchednezzar II. But this was a wrong archaeology, a wrong geography and a wrong ethnicity.

The secret may be, instead, to collapse the late neo-Assyrian period into the early neo-Babylonan period, thereby making Esarhaddon (as I have) Nebuchednezzar II. Then, by this means, and not by wreaking havoc with established Egyptian archaeology, to make Ramses II and Nebuchednezzar II (= Esarhaddon) contemporaries based upon, e.g., the Nahr al-Kalb inscription.

Velikovsky had interpreted the Nahr al-Kalb (or Dog River) inscription most unconventionally, with his Ramses II coming after Esarhaddon. Emmet Sweeney writes of it in his book, EMPIRE OF THEBES (or Ages In Chaos Revisited, p. 20): “In Ramses II and his Time, Velikovsky mentions the Dog River inscriptions but, contrary to accepted ideas, makes Ramses II’s carving come after that of Esarhaddon. This is because he accepted the traditional date of Esarhaddon (early 7th century) whilst placing Ramses II in the early 6th century”.

Now, Esarhaddon was (like his father, Sennacherib) a known contemporary of pharoah Tirhakah, whom Velikovsky had accepted as being a contemporary of Horemheb.

Tirhakah                                                        Ramses II