Triplicating woman ruler Khentkaus

 

Part One:

Her 6^th and 12^th dynasty manifestations

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

What happens when kingdoms, rulers and dynasties are set out in a ‘single file’ fashion, instead of being recognised as, in some cases, contemporaneous, is that rulers become duplicated and, hence, tombs, pyramids and sun temples, and so on, attributed to various ones, go missing.

See e.g. my article:

 

Missing old Egyptian tombs and temples

 

https://www.academia.edu/41538887/Missing_old_Egyptian_tombs_and_temples

 

This is not because these are missing in reality, but simply because they have already been accounted for in the case of a ruler under his/her other name, in a differently numbered dynasty.

 

However, with my revision of dynasties as presented in, for e.g., my recent:

 

From Genesis to Hernán Cortés. Volume Fourteen: Two Dynastic Kings

 

https://www.academia.edu/41617369/From_Genesis_to_Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s._Volume_Fourteen_Two_Dynastic_Kings

 

these ‘missing links’ can be satisfactorily accounted for.

 

According to an historical scenario that I am building up around the biblical prophet, Moses, the great man’s forty years of life in Egypt (before his exile to Midian) were spanned by only two powerful dynastic male rulers, with a woman-ruler rounding off the dynasty - presumably due to the then lack of male heirs.

Women rulers in Egypt, being scarce - and now even scarcer, due to my revision - can be chronologically most useful. For three of my four re-aligned-as-contemporaneous dynasties, the Fourth, Fifth and the Twelfth, have a powerful woman-ruler, or, in the case of Khentkaus (Khentkawes), Fourth Dynasty, at least a most significant queen who possibly ruled.

 

I can only conclude, in the context of my revision, that these supposedly three mighty women, Khentkaus (Fourth), Nitocris (Sixth), and Sobekneferu(re) (Twelfth), constitute the one woman-ruler triplicated.

And hence arise shocks and problems (e.g., the famous “Khentkaus Problem”), “amazement and even sensation” (see Part Two) for Egyptologists, as well as those exasperating anomalies of missing buildings to which I have alluded above.   

 

N. Grimal, writing about Nitocris last ruler of the Sixth Dynasty (A History of Ancient Egypt), tells of her yet to be discovered pyramid (p. 128): “Nitocris is the only genuine instance of a female ruler in the Old Kingdom, but unfortunately the pyramid that she must surely have been entitled to build has not yet been discovered”.

 

Yet there is another “instance” of an Old Kingdom female ruler, and that is Khentkaus.

Better to say, I think, that there was only one female ruler during Egypt’s Old-Middle Kingdom period.

The semi-legendary and shadowy figure of Nitocris needs to be filled out with her more substantial alter egos in Khentkaus and Sobekneferu(re).  

Grimal (on p. 89) tells of how archaeologically insubstantial Nitocris is:

 

….Queen Nitocris … according to Manetho was the last Sixth Dynasty ruler. The Turin Canon lists Nitocris right after Merenre II, describing her as the ‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt’. This woman, whose fame grew in the Ptolemaic period, in the guise of the legendary Rhodopis, courtesan and mythical builder of the third pyramid at Giza … was the first known queen to exercise political power over Egypt. …. Unfortunately no archaeological evidence has survived from her reign. ….

 

On p. 171, Grimal, offering a possible reason for the emergence of the woman ruler, Sobekneferu(re), at the end of the Twelfth Dynasty, likens the situation to that at the end of the Sixth Dynasty:   

 

The excessive length of the reigns of Sesostris III and Ammenemes III (about fifty years each) had led to various successional problems. This situation perhaps explains why, just as in the late Sixth Dynasty, another [sic] queen rose to power: Sobkneferu. …. She was described in her titulature, for the first time in Egyptian history [sic], as a woman-pharaoh.

 

Whist the conventional history and archaeology has failed to ‘triplicate’ as it ought to have (i) Khentkaus, as (ii) Nitocris, and as (iii) Sobekneferu(re), it has, unfortunately, managed – as we shall find in Part Two – to triplicate Khentkaus herself into I, II and III.  

Part Two: Khentkaus I, II and III

 

“Queen Khentkaus …. In almost every respect she is surrounded by mystery,

beginning with her origins and ending with her unusual tomb”.

 

 

Here I am following the intriguing discussion of Khentkaus as provided by Miroslav Verner, in his book, Abusir: The Necropolis of the Sons of the Sun (2017).

The “obscure and confused period which set in at the end of the Fourth Dynasty”, to which Verner will refer, is due in large part, I believe, to the failure to fill out the period with the other portions of contemporaneous Egyptian history that we considered in Part One.  

 

P. 91 Three Royal Mothers Named Khentkaus.

….

But, beside Shepesekaf, there was yet another figure who came to the fore during the obscure and confused period which set in at the end of the Fourth Dynasty. This figure was Queen Khentkaus. In almost every respect she is surrounded by mystery, beginning with her origins and ending with her unusual tomb.

 

P. 95

 

Among the many extraordinary discoveries from Khentkaus’ tomb complex in Giza, one in particular produced amazement and even a sensation.

This was the inscription on a fragment of the granite reading “Mother of two kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the god, every good thing she orders is done for her, Khentkaus”. The inscription contained the never before documented title of a queen, and its discovery immediately raised a fundamental controversy amongst archaeologists, since, from a purely grammatical point of view, two translations … were possible …. King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt.

 

Pp. 99-100

 

All the available evidence concerning the titulary of Khentkaus and the form and location of her tomb in the royal cemetery in Giza clearly suggests that she not only belonged to the royal line buried there but that, at the end of the Fourth Dynasty, she played a very important role in dynastic politics …. Importantly, in the vicinity of Khentkaus’ tomb were found several artifacts bearing the name of King Khafre which may indirectly suggest a closer relationship …. between the two personalities. This possibility seems to be supported by an (intrusive?) fragment of a stone stela, discovered in the adjacent building abutting Menkaure’s valley temple, with a damaged hieroglyphic inscription reading “[beloved of] her father, king’s daughter… kau”. According to some Egyptologists, the inscription might refer to Khentkaus and suggest that she could have been a king’s daughter. ….

… The confusing array of different but incomplete historical sources and theories attempting to interpret them finally earned the question its own telling title in Egyptological literature: the ‘Khentkaus problem’.

 

Khentkaus II

 

While Miroslav Verner will take the conventional line that centuries separated the Fourth from the Sixth Dynasty, my view is that ‘they’ were one and the same dynasty.

 

P. 105

The mortuary cult of Queen Khentkaus II lasted … for about two centuries up until the end of the Sixth Dynasty.

 

P. 106

 

The most significant result of the excavation of the pyramid complex of Khentkaus at Abusir was the surprising discovery that there were two different royal mothers bearing the same name as Khentkaus and the same unusual title “Mother of the two kings of Upper and Lower Egypt”, each of them enjoying high esteem and a high-level cult at the place of her burial – Khentkaus I in Giza and Khentkaus II in Abusir.

 

Khentkaus III

 

P. 108

 

Quite recently a third Fifth Dynasty queen named Khentkaus was discovered in Abusir. ….

Crete aligned with Egypt

Philistines of Crete

 

Part Two:

Crete aligned with Egypt

 

 

 

 

“The wealth of pottery, sculpture and jewellery that has been found in Crete was

so old that no one could accurately date it, according to Professor [Stylianos] Alexiou.

So many Minoan artefacts are in Egypt that experts are best able to date Cretan finds

by comparing them to Egyptian ones, whose chronology is better understood”.

 

Gavin Menzies

 

 

 

Gavin Menzies (The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed (HarperCollins, 2011), writing of the “highly prized”, distinctive Cretan pottery (pp. 41-44), will tell of how Egyptian chronology is the yardstick for dating Cretan pottery:

 

The pottery told us loud and clearly that the Minoans [sic] had traded much more than foodstuffs and olive oil. The Kamares designs are dramatic, a modern-looking black and red, and the pottery was first excavated here [Kamares cave] in the early 1900’s.

 

 

I’d learned by now it had been highly prized across the entire Mediterranean. It has been found across the Levant and Mesopotamia, from Hazor and Ashkelon in Israel to Beirut and Byblos in Lebanon and the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit, near what is now the sea-town of Ras-Shamra in modern-day Syria. Judging by the finds in Egyptian tombs and elsewhere across the region, the Minoan skill in art seems to have given the Minoans of ancient Crete a free pass to the glamour, science and civilisation of the two most advanced cultures of the Early Bronze Age, Mesopotamia and Egypt.

 

In the 14^th century B.C., said Professor [Stylianos] Alexiou, the bounty of Crete – its skilled metal-work, olive oil, pottery, saffron and so on – was exchanged as gifts between Mediterranean rulers. In return, the Egyptians sent exotica: gold, ivory, cloth and stone vessels containing perfumes.

 

The wealth of pottery, sculpture and jewellery that has been found in Crete was so old that no one could accurately date it, according to Professor Alexiou. So many Minoan artefacts are in Egypt that experts are best able to date Cretan finds by comparing them to Egyptian ones, whose chronology is better understood.

 

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: Whilst the following quote from professor Alexiou will show how the successive palatial periods of Cretan history are to be aligned with Egypt, on the basis of pottery finds, the problem is that Egyptian dynastic history itself has not been properly dated, meaning that, for instance, Cretan pottery synchronous with the era of pharaoh Thutmose [Thutmosis] III of 18^th dynasty Egypt, i.e., Neo-Palatial Cretan, will be dated about 500 years earlier than it should be.

 

According to Professor [Stylianos] Alexiou:

 

The absolute date in years of the various Minoan periods is based on synchronisms with ancient Egypt, where the chronology is adequately known [sic] thanks to the survival of inscriptions. Thus the [Cretan] Proto Palatial Period [2000-1700 BC] is thought to be roughly contemporary with the [Egyptian] XIIth dynasty [1991-1783 BC] because fragments of [Cretan] Kamares pottery attributed to Middle Minoan II [c. 1800 BC] have been found at Kahun in Egypt in the habitation refuses of a settlement found in the occasion of the erection of the royal pyramids of this [XIIth: 1991-1783 BC] dynasty. One Kamares vase was also found in a contemporary tomb at Abydos [Egypt - Valley of the Kings]. The beginning of the Neo Palatial period [Crete -1700 BC] must coincide with the Hyksos epoch [1640-1550] since the lid of a stone vessel bearing the cartouche of the Hyksos Pharaoh Khyan was discovered in Middle Minoan III [c. 1700-1600 BC] levels at Knossos [Crete]. Equally the subsequent Neo-Palatial Cretan period [1700-1400 BC] falls within the chronological limits of the new kingdom with particular reference to the Egyptian] XVIIIth dynasty [1550-1307 BC]: an alabaster amphora with the cartouche of Tuthmosis III [1479-1425 BC] was found in the final palatial period at Katsaba [Crete]. ….

Missing old Egyptian tombs and temples

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

  

 

A similar problem arises with the so-called Fifth Dynasty,

with four of its supposed six sun temples undiscovered.

 

 

 

 

A different approach is obviously needed when, after decades or more of searching, a famous ancient capital city such as Akkad (Agade) cannot be found; nor the tombs of virtually an entire dynasty (Egyptian Second); nor four whole sun temples (Egyptian Fifth).

 

The Second Dynasty of Egypt, however - whose beginning I would re-date to about a millennium later than does the conventional model - appears to overlap, in great part, with (according to what I have already tentatively determined) the very beginnings of Egyptian dynastic history.  

That the Second Dynasty may be, to a great extent at least, a duplication of the First Dynasty, may be supported by the disturbing (for Egyptologists) non-existence of Second Dynasty burials (Miroslav Verner, Abusir, p. 16. My emphasis): “The tombs of the rulers of the Second Dynasty, which for the most part have not yet been discovered, represent one of the greatest problems of Egyptian archaeology”.

 

A similar problem arises with the so-called Fifth Dynasty, with four of its supposed six sun temples undiscovered. Thus Jeff Burzacott, “The missing sun temples of Abusir”:

https://www.nilemagazine.com.au/2015-5-june-archive/2015/6/9/the-missing-sun-temples-of-abu-sir

 

There are some sun temples out there somewhere. 

Abusir is one of the large cemeteries of the Old Kingdom kings, around 16 kilometres south of the famous Great Pyramids of Giza. 

Although the history of the Abusir necropolis began in the 2nd Dynasty, it wasn't until King Userkaf, the first ruler of the Fifth Dynasty, chose to build here that the Abusir skyline changed forever. 

What Userkaf built here wasn't a pyramid; he nestled his final resting place close to the world's first pyramid, that of Djoser at Saqqara. What Userkaf raised at Abusir was something new - a sun temple.

The sun temple was a large, squat obelisk, raised on a grand pedestal, and connected with the worship of the setting sun. Each day the sun sank below the western horizon into the Underworld where it faced a dangerous journey before rising triumphantly, reborn at dawn. It was a powerful symbol of cyclical resurrection.
The obelisk shape is likely symbolic of the sacred benben stone of Heliopolis, which represented the primeval mound, the first land to rise from the waters of Nun at the dawn of time, and where creation began. This was the centre of the cosmos.

For the next 70 years, Abusir was a hive of activity as the pyramids of Userkaf's sons, Sahure (rightmost pyramid) and Neferirkare, (leftmost pyramid), as well as his grandson, Niuserre (centre) raised their own step pyramids and sun temples there. 

Buried in the Abusir sand are also the barely-started pyramids of Fifth Dynasty pharaohs whose short-lived reigns saw their grand monuments hastily sealed, just a few courses of stone above the desert.

Six sun temples are mentioned in inscriptions, although only the ruins of Userkaf's and Niuserre's have been discovered. Hopefully, buried out there somewhere lay four more sun temples, waiting to feel Ra's rays once again.

 

I do not think so.

It is my belief that the rulers of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt, just like those of the Second, have been duplicated - {a duplication of dynasties occurring at various stages of Egyptian history as well} - meaning that there were not six rulers who built six sun temples.

 

Most likely, then, all (two) of the sun temples that were built have already been discovered.