Historical basis for the Book of Exodus

by Damien F. Mackey NEW KING OF EXODUS 1:8 “… the Amen-em-hat [I] who was the FOUNDER OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY … makes NO PRETENSION TO ROYAL ORIGIN, and the probability would seem to be that he attained the throne NOT THROUGH ANY CLAIM OF RIGHT, but by his own personal merits”. John D. Keyser Eduard Meyer, the father of the “Sothic” theory mangling of ancient chronology, was one (amongst many) who would deny the very existence of Moses and his work. We read this information in the Preface to Martin Buber’s book, Moses (1946): “In the year 1906 Eduard Meyer, a well-known historian, ex¬pressed the view that Moses was not a historical personality. He further remarked”: After all, with the exception of those who accept tradition bag and baggage as historical truth, not one of those who treat [Moses] as a historical reality has hitherto been able to fill him with any kind of content whatever, to depict him as a concrete historical figure, or to produce anything which he could have created or which could be his historical work. One could reply to this that, thanks to Berlin School Meyer’s own confusing rearrangement of Egyptian chronology, an artificial ‘Berlin Wall’ has been raised preventing scholars from making the crossing between the text book Egyptology and a genuine biblical history and archaeology. Admittedly Moses - not a native Egyptian, but a Hebrew fully educated in Egyptian wisdom (Acts 7:22): “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” - has been most difficult for historians to identify in the Egyptian records. Impossible for conventional historians (thanks to the likes of Eduard Meyer), who will always be searching in the wrong historico-archaeological period, but also difficult for revisionists. According to John D. Keyser (http://www.hope-of-israel.org/dynastyo.html): Some say the Israelites labored in Egypt during the 6th Dynasty; while others claim the dynasty of the oppression was the 19th. Still others proclaim the 18th to be the one -- or the period of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt!” Keyser then concludes: “By turning to the Bible and examining the works of early historians, the dynasty of the oppression becomes very apparent to those who are seeking the TRUTH with an open mind! Keyser’s theory here is sound. However, it turns out to be much more difficult to realise in practice. Concerning “the period of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt”, mentioned here by Keyser, there is at least one very good reason why some have fastened onto it. It is because chariots - seemingly lacking to early Egypt - are thought to have become abundant at the time of the Hyksos conquest. The Pharaoh of the Exodus, we are told, pursued the fleeing Israelites with 600 war chariots (Exodus 14:7): “[Pharaoh] took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them”. That incident would have occurred in 1533 BC according to Philip Mauro’s estimate (The Wonders of Bible Chronology) - a date estimate that will ultimately need significant lowering in light of a revised Persian-Greek history. Yet, about two centuries earlier than that, we find Joseph riding in “a chariot” (Genesis 41:43): “[Pharaoh] had [Joseph] ride in a chariot as his second-in-command, and people shouted before him, ‘Make way!’ Thus he put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt”. Though this may simply have been a palanquin. Based on the extensive biblical evidence, it should be possible to find abundant traces of Moses in both history and mythology, for, according to Exodus 11:3: “… the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the people”. More sympathetic to Moses and the biblical Patriarchs was the Hellenistic Jewish author, Artapanus (C2nd BC, conventional dating), who claimed in περὶ ʾΙουδαίων (“On the Jews”), some extraordinary innovations and inventions by the Patriarchs and by Moses, as described at (http://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/artapanus): The purpose of this work was to prove that the foundations of Egyptian culture were laid by Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. When Abraham came to Egypt, he taught the pharaoh (Pharethothes or Pharetones) the science of astrology. Jacob established the Egyptian temples at Athos and Heliopolis. Joseph was appointed viceroy of all Egypt and initiated Egyptian agrarian reforms to ensure that the powerful would not dispossess the weak and the poor of their fields. He was the first to divide the country and demarcate its various boundaries. He turned arid areas into arable land, distributed land among the priests, and also introduced standard measures for which he became popular among the Egyptians (Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 9:23). But the one who excelled all was Moses, whom Artapanus identifies with Musaeus, teacher of Orpheus, and with Hermes-Thoth, god of Egyptian writing and culture. The name Hermes was given to Moses by the priests who revered him for his wisdom and paid him divine homage. Moses founded the arts of building, shipping, and weaponry, as well as Egyptian religion and philosophy. He was also the creator of hieroglyphic writing. In addition, he divided the city into 36 wards and assigned to each its god for worship. Moses was the founder of the cult of Apis the Bull and of Ibis. All these accomplishments of Moses aroused the jealousy of King Kheneferis, father of Maris, Moses' foster mother. He tried to kill Moses, but failed. …. Here, undoubtedly, we have an interesting blend of fantasy and reality. We have previously read that the famous account of baby Moses placed in a basket on the river bank (Exodus 2:2-10) was re-visited later in legends about the mighty Sargon of Akkad, who actually pre-dated Moses by some centuries. At: http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/Content/Detail/7 we read: “The parallel lives of Sargon and Moses are intriguing. Both were born to Semite mothers. Both were placed in reed baskets lined with pitch and set afloat. Both were reared in the homes of non Semites, one Sumerian, the other Egyptian. As young men, both became part of their respective royal courts. Both confronted rulers. And both became mighty leaders over a great nation”. About sixty-four (64) years are estimated to have elapsed from the death of Joseph at age 110 (1677 BC) to the birth of Moses (1613 BC): P. Mauro’s dates. That phase of time would probably be sufficient to explain why it is said of the Pharaoh of the Oppression (Exodus 1:8): “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph”. The great Imhotep (Joseph) – surely this “new” pharaoh ‘knew’ of him! The Hebrew (לֹא-יָדַע) here, translated as “did not know”, can also mean something along the lines of ‘did not take notice of’, which is not surprising if more than half a century had elapsed. Moreover, as we are going to find out from the testimony of Josephus, the crown of Egypt had, at this stage, passed into ‘a new family’. King Solomon, though, many centuries later, will be scathing in his Book of Wisdom about the Egyptian ingratitude (19:13-17). Now, if I have been correct in setting Joseph to a revised Third (Old) and Eleventh (so-called ‘Middle’) Egyptian phase, then the “new king” of Exodus 1:8, presumably a dynastic founder, would likely be the first ruler of the Fourth (Old) and the first ruler of the Twelfth (Middle) kingdom[s]. Beginning with the Fourth Dynasty, the “new king” would be none other than Khufu (Cheops), best-known pharaoh because of his Great Pyramid at Giza (Gizeh). Yet, for all this, he is surprisingly, unknown. In fact, we have only one tiny statuette representation of pharaoh Khufu qua Khufu. “Although the Great pyramid has such fame, little is actually known about its builder, Khufu. Ironically, only a very small statue of 9 cm has been found depicting this historic ruler. This statue … was not found in Giza near the pyramid, but was found to the south at the Temple of Osiris at Abydos, the ancient necropolis”. http://www.guardians.net/egypt/khufu.htm Thus Khufu, like the seemingly great, yet poorly known, Horus Netjerikhet (wrongly called Djoser/Zoser), at the time of Joseph, is crying out for an alter ego. And that we get quite abundantly, I believe, in the person of king Amenemhet [Amenemes] I, the founder of the mighty Twelfth Dynasty, Moses’s dynasty (along with the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth). John D. Keyser has, with his useful piece of research, arrived at the same conclusion as mine, that Amenemhet I was the Book of Exodus’s “new king” (op. cit.): In the works of Flavius Josephus (1st-century A.D. Jewish historian) we read the following: Now it happened that the Egyptians grew delicate and lazy, as to painstaking; and gave themselves up to other pleasures, and in particular to the love of gain. They also became VERY ILL AFFECTED TOWARDS THE HEBREWS, as touched with envy at their prosperity; for when they saw how the nation of the Israelites flourished, and were become eminent already in plenty of wealth, which they had acquired by their virtue and natural love of labour, they thought their increase was to their own detriment; and having, in length of time, forgotten the benefits they had received from Joseph, PARTICULARLY THE CROWN BEING NOW COME INTO ANOTHER FAMILY, they became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them; FOR THEY ENJOINED THEM TO CUT A GREAT NUMBER OF CHANNELS [CANALS] FOR THE RIVER [NILE], AND TO BUILD WALLS FOR THEIR CITIES AND RAMPARTS, THAT THEY MIGHT RESTRAIN THE RIVER, AND HINDER ITS WATERS FROM STAGNATING, UPON ITS RUNNING OVER ITS OWN BANKS: THEY SET THEM ALSO TO BUILD PYRAMIDS, and by all this wore them out; and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour. And FOUR HUNDRED YEARS [sic] did they spend under these afflictions.... (Antiquities of the Jews, chap. IX, section 1). Within this passage from Josephus lie several CLUES that will help us to determine the dynasty of the oppression of the Israelites. The Change of Rulership Josephus mentions that one of the reasons the Egyptians started to mistreat the Israelites was because “THE CROWN [HAD]...NOW COME INTO ANOTHER FAMILY.” Does Egyptian history reveal a time when the crown of Egypt passed into the hands of a totally unrelated family? Indeed it does! In the Leningrad museum lies a papyrus of the 12th DYNASTY, composed during the reign of its FIRST KING AMENEMHET I. The papyrus is in the form of a PROPHECY attributed to the sage Nefer-rehu of the time of King Snefru; and in it an amazing prediction is made: A king shall come from the south, called AMUNY [shortened form of the name Amenemhet], the son of a woman of Nubia, and born in Upper Egypt....He shall receive the White Crown, he shall wear the Red Crown [will become ruler over ALL Egypt]....the people of his time shall rejoice, THE SON OF SOMEONE shall make his name for ever and ever.... The Asiatics shall fall before his carnage, and the Libyans shall fall before his flame....There shall be built the ‘WALL OF THE PRINCE [RULER],’ and the Asiatics shall not (again) be suffered to go down into Egypt. Here the NON-ROYAL DESCENT of Amenemhet I. is clearly indicated, for the phrase “son of Someone” was a common way of designating a man of good, though not princely or royal, birth. According to George Rawlinson: “There is NO INDICATION OF ANY RELATIONSHIP between the kings of the twelfth and those of the eleventh dynasty; and it is a conjecture not altogether improbable, that the Amen-em-hat who was the FOUNDER OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY was descended from THE FUNCTIONARY OF THE SAME NAME, who under Mentuhotep II. [of the previous dynasty] executed commissions of importance. At any rate, he makes NO PRETENSION TO ROYAL ORIGIN, and the probability would seem to be that he attained the throne NOT THROUGH ANY CLAIM OF RIGHT, but by his own personal merits. (History of Ancient Egypt. Dodd, Mead and Co., N.Y. 1882, pp.146-147). “His own personal merits” probably included conspiracy: “We have to suppose that at a given moment he CONSPIRED AGAINST HIS ROYAL MASTER [last king of the 11th Dynasty], and perhaps after some years of confusion mounted the throne IN HIS PLACE. A recent discovery lends colour to this hypothesis. A Dyn. XVIII inscription extracted from the third pylon at Karnak names after Nebhepetre and Sankhkare a ‘GOD’S FATHER’ SENWOSRE who from his title can only have been the NON-ROYAL PARENT of Ammenemes I [Greek form of Amenemhet].” (Egypt of the Pharaohs, by Sir Alan Gardiner. Oxford University Press, England. 1961, p.125). The inscriptions on the monuments make it clear that his elevation to the throne of Egypt was no peaceful hereditary succession, but a STRUGGLE for the crown and scepter that continued for some time. He fought his way to the throne, and was accepted as king only because he triumphed over his rivals. After the fight was ended and the towns of Egypt subdued, the new pharaoh began to extend the borders of Egypt. The fact that the 12th Dynasty was a “maverick” dynasty -- one that did not conform to the royal blood line of the pharaohs -- was well known in the 18th Dynasty. According to information provided by the family pedigrees in several tombs of the 18th Dynasty, and by texts engraved or painted on certain objects of a sepulchral nature, the ANCESTOR of the royal family of this dynasty was worshiped in the person of the old Pharaoh MENTUHOTEP OF THE 11th DYNASTY, the 57th king of the great Table of Abydos. The royal family of the 18th Dynasty considered the dynasty of Amenemhet I. to be an aberration! According to Henry Brugsch: “The transmission of the PURE BLOOD of Mentuhotep to the king Amosis (Aahmes) of the EIGHTEENTH DYNASTY was made by the hereditary princess Aahmes-Nofertari (‘the beautiful consort of Aahmes’), who married the said king, and whose issue was regarded as the LEGITIMATE RACE of the Pharaohs of the house of Mentuhotep.” (A History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs. Second edition. John Murray, London. 1881, p. 314). Thus, with the ascension of Amenemhet I. of the 12th Dynasty, the crown had “NOW COME INTO ANOTHER FAMILY”. …. The implications of this choice for the “new king”, though, would necessitate that Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty needs to be shortened, as I have long realised. As with the revision of Abram (Abraham), slightly less so perhaps with Joseph, there are some compelling historico-archaeological features in support of our revised era for Moses - this being, in the case of Moses, during Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty (so-called Middle Kingdom). We also need to fill it out, though - as in the case of Joseph - with its Old Kingdom ‘other face’. I have mentioned Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty, and I shall be returning to him soon, but I find a more ready and striking alter ego for Amenemhet I in the founder of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti. Thus I have written previously: Starting at the beginning of the 6th dynasty, with pharaoh Teti, we have found that he has such striking likenesses to the founder of the 12th dynasty, Amenemhet (Amenemes) I, that I have had no hesitation in identifying ‘them’ as one. Thus I wrote in my “Bible Bending” article: Pharaoh Teti Reflects Amenemes I …. These characters may have, it seems, been dupli/triplicated due to the messy arrangement of conventional Egyptian history. Further most likely links with the 6th dynasty are the likenesses between the latter’s founder, Teti, and Amenemes I, as pointed out by historians. Despite the little that these admit to knowing of pharaoh Teti - and the fact that they would have him (c. 2300 BC) well pre-dating the early 12th dynasty (c. 1990 BC) - historians have noted that pharaoh Teti shared some common features with Amenemes I, including the same throne name, Sehetibre, the same Horus name, Sehetep-tawy (“He who pacifies the Two Lands”), and the likelihood that death came in similarly through assassination. This triplicity appears to me to be another link between the ‘Old’ and ‘Middle’ kingdoms!” I continued, adding Khufu to the mix: But Amenemhet I combined with Teti - shaping up remarkably well as the “new king” of Exodus 1:8 - may need further yet to include the alter ego of the Fourth Dynasty’s Khufu. Though, as noted earlier, “we have only one tiny statuette representation of pharaoh Khufu”, that one depiction of him finds a virtual ‘identical twin’ in a statue of Teti I have viewed on the Internet (presuming that this statue has rightly been labelled as Teti’s). Linking the 4th, 6th and 12th dynasties? We may be able to trace the rise of the 4th dynasty’s Khufu (Cheops) - whose full name was Khnum-khuefui (meaning ‘Khnum is protecting me’) - to the 6th dynasty, to the wealthy noble (recalling that the founding 12th dynasty pharaoh “had no royal blood”) from Abydos in the south, called Khui. An abbreviation of Khuefui? This Khui had a daughter called Ankhenesmerire, in whose name are contained all the elements of Mer-es-ankh, the first part of which, Meres, accords phonetically with the name Eusebius gave for the Egyptian foster-mother of Moses, “Merris”. “Merris, the wife of Chenephres, King of Upper Egypt; being childless, she pretended to have given birth to [Moses] and brought him up as her own child. (Eusebius, l.c. ix. 27)”. Earlier, we read a variation of this legend with “King Kheneferis [being the] … father of Maris, Moses' foster mother”. I shall be taking this “Chenephres” (“Kheneferis”) to be pharaoh Chephren (Egyptian Khafra), the son of Khufu, since Chephren had indeed married a Meresankh. “We know of several of Khafre's wives, including Meresankh … and his chief wife, Khameremebty I”. http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/khafre.htm Apart from neo-Assyrian literature picking up the biblical story of Moses and re-applying it, retrospectively, to Sargon of Akkad, the story would also become enshrined in later Greco-Roman accounts of Egyptian myth. Although, as we have found, the ancient gods tend to have originated from major antediluvian characters - and this may also apply to the Egyptian gods, Seth, Osiris, Isis and Horus - Greco-Roman authors were wont to tell variant tales of them. This is not the way “modern biblical scholarship” would explain it, however - as is apparent from the following article by Gary Rendsburg, according to which the Book of Exodus ‘borrowed’ from the pagan myths: http://forward.com/articles/9812/the-subversion-of-myth/ A major finding of modern biblical scholarship is the extent to which the narrative in the book of Exodus is informed by the ancient Israelites’ knowledge of Egyptian culture, religion and literature. The birth story of Moses in Exodus 2:1-10 provides an excellent illustration of both the extent of and the transformation involved in such borrowing. One of the core myths of ancient Egypt concerned the gods Seth, Osiris, Isis and Horus. Seth and Osiris were brother deities, the former representing evil and chaos, the latter representing good and fertility. The battle between the two resulted in the death of Osiris, but before he died Osiris had impregnated his wife, Isis, goddess of wisdom and beauty. Isis in turn gave birth to Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship. When Seth learned that his brother Osiris’s offspring had been born, he sought to kill the baby Horus. Isis prepared a basket of reeds to hide him in the marshland of the Nile Delta, where she suckled him and protected him, along with the watchful eye of her sister, Nephthys, from the snakes, scorpions and other dangerous creatures until he grew and prospered. Scholars have noted that the birth story of Moses is part of a larger motif of ancient literature, namely the exposed-infant motif. The ancients delighted in telling tales of their heroic leaders who at birth were exposed to nature, usually by their parents who, for one reason or another, did not desire their newborn sons. Among the most famous accounts are the stories of Oedipus from Greece and Romulus and Remus from Rome, along with the less well known but equally important story of Sargon of Akkad (in ancient Mesopotamia). There is a difference, however, between the Moses story and the other exposed-infancy narratives, for in Exodus, chapter two, the goal of Moses’ mother is not to be rid of the child but to save him. This occurs elsewhere in ancient literature only in the story of the baby Horus, whose mother, Isis, sought to protect him from his wicked uncle, Seth. The Hebrew and Egyptian stories share this crucial feature, which is lacking in the other parallels, and therefore beckon us to read the former in the light of the latter. The list of specific features shared by the two accounts is truly remarkable. In both stories, it is the mother who is the active parent (in the Egyptian version, Osiris is dead; in the Hebrew account, Moses’ father is mentioned in passing in Exodus 2:1, after which the role of the mother is highlighted). Both mothers construct a small vessel of reeds and place the baby in the marshland of the Delta. In both accounts, another female relative watches over the baby (Nephthys in the Horus story; Miriam in the biblical account). Significantly, in both stories the mother’s suckling of the child is emphasized: Isis’s nursing of the baby Horus is a prominent feature of Egyptian artwork, with many statues portraying this action; while in the biblical story, Miriam arranges for Moses’ mother to nurse the child. Most importantly, in both stories the baby is hidden and protected from the wicked machinations of the villain. The fact, noted briefly above, that Horus is the god of kingship is of critical importance. It means that every pharaoh was considered the living embodiment of Horus. …. Thus, if Moses is the baby in the bulrushes in the biblical account, he has become, as it were, Horus, and thus the equivalent of the pharaoh. And if the pharaoh of the biblical account is the one who commands that Hebrew baby boys be drowned in the Nile, and who by extension seeks the death of the baby Moses, then he has been transformed into the wicked Seth. The biblical author, in short, subverts the foundational myth of ancient Egypt by portraying Moses as the good Horus and by converting the pharaoh into the wicked Seth. Such subversions are typical of the manner in which a weaker people (in our case, ancient Israel) gains power, as it were, over the stronger nation (in our case, ancient Egypt). The story of Moses’ birth implies that not only did the author of our text possess a thorough knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture, religion and literature, but that his audience, or at least a significant portion thereof, did, as well. One can imagine the ancient Israelite reader, conversant with all matters Egyptian, delighting in such a tale portraying Moses, and not Horus or the pharaoh, as the hero, and depicting the pharaoh not as the good force but as the evil force identified with Seth. [End of quote] But, continuing our merging of kingdoms and dynasties, this family relationship may again be duplicated (though in garbled form) in that the Sixth Dynasty ruler, Piops [Pepi] I, had a daughter also called Ankhenesmerire, whom his son Merenre married. It probably should be the other way around, that Teti (who was Cheops-Amenemes I) had a daughter also called Ankhenesmerire, whom his son Piops-Userkare married. From the 4th dynasty, we gain certain elements that are relevant to the early career of Moses. Firstly we have a strong founder-king, Cheops (Egyptian Khufu), builder of the great pyramid at Giza, who would be an excellent candidate for the “new king” during the infancy of Moses who set the Israelite slaves to work with crushing labour (Exodus 1:8). This would support the testimony of Josephus that the Israelites built pyramids for the pharaohs, and it would explain from whence came the abundance of manpower for pyramid building. Cheap slave labour. Thus Josephus: ... they became very abusive toward the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them; for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating, upon its running over its banks: they set them also to build pyramids, and by all this wore them out; and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom them to hard labor. The widespread presence of ‘Asiatics’ in Egypt at the time would help to explain the large number of Israelites said to be in the land. Pharaoh would have used as slaves other Syro-Palestinians, too, plus Libyans and Nubians. As precious little, though, is known of Cheops, despite his being powerful enough to have built one of the Seven Wonders of the World, we shall need to fill him out later with his 12th dynasty alter ego. In Cheops’ daughter, Mer-es-ankh, we presumably have the Merris of tradition who retrieved the baby Moses from the water. The name Mer-es-ankh consists basically of two elements, Meres and ankh, the latter being the ‘life’ symbol for Egypt worn by people even today. Mer-es-ankh married Chephren (Egyptian, Khafra), builder of the second Giza pyramid and probably, of the Great Sphinx. He would thus have become Moses’s foster/father-in-law. Moses, now a thorough-going ‘Egyptian’ (cf. Exodus 2:19), must have been his loyal subject. “Now Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a man of power both in his speech and in his actions”. (Acts 7:22) Tradition has Moses leading armies for Chenephres as far as Ethiopia. Whilst this may seem a bit strained in a 4th dynasty context, we shall find that it is perfectly appropriate in a 12th dynasty one, when we uncover Chephren’s alter ego. From the 12th dynasty, we gain certain further elements that are relevant to the early era of Moses. Once again we have a strong founder-king, Amenemhet I, who will enable us to fill out the virtually unknown Cheops as the “new king” of Exodus 1:8. The reign of Amenemhet I was, deliberately, an abrupt break with the past. The beginning of the 12th dynasty marks not only a new dynasty, but an entirely new order. Amenemhet I celebrated his accession by adopting the Horus name: Wehem-Meswt (“He who repeats births”), thought to indicate that he was “the first of a new line”, that he was “thereby consciously identifying himself as the inaugurator of a renaissance, or new era in his country’s history”. Amenemhet I is thought actually to have been a commoner, originally from southern Egypt. I have thought to connect him to pharaoh Khufu via the nobleman from Abydos, Khui. “The Prophecy of Neferti”, relating to the time of Amenemhet I, shows the same concern in Egypt for the growing presence of Asiatics in the eastern Delta as was said to occupy the mind of the new pharaoh of Exodus, seeing the Israelites as a political threat (1:9): “‘Look’, [pharaoh] said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us’.” That Asiatics were particularly abundant in Egypt at the time is apparent from this information from the Cambridge Ancient History: “The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period [of the Twelfth Dynasty] must have been many times more numerous than has been generally supposed ...”. Dr David Down gives the account of Sir Flinders Petrie who, working in the Fayyûm in 1899, made the important discovery of the town of Illahûn [Kahun], which Petrie described as “an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty”. Of the ‘Asiatic’ presence in this pyramid builders’ town, Rosalie David (who is in charge of the Egyptian branch of the Manchester Museum) has written: It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may have reflected the situation elsewhere in Egypt. It can be stated that these people were loosely classed by Egyptians as ‘Asiatics’, although their exact home-land in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined .... The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear. Undoubtedly, these ‘Asiatics’ were dwelling in Illahûn largely to raise pyramids for the glory of the pharaohs. Is there any documentary evidence that ‘Asiatics’ in Egypt acted as slaves or servants to the Egyptians? “Evidence is not lacking to indicate that these Asiatics became slaves”, Dr. Down has written with reference to the Brooklyn Papyrus. Egyptian households at this time were filled with Asiatic slaves, some of whom bore biblical names. Of the seventy-seven legible names of the servants of an Egyptian woman called Senebtisi recorded on the verso of this document, forty-eight are (like the Hebrews) NW Semitic. In fact, the name “Shiphrah” is identical to that borne by one of the Hebrew midwives whom Pharaoh had commanded to kill the male babies (Exodus 1:15). “Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households [prior to the New Kingdom]”, we read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Amenemhet I was represented in “The Prophecy of Neferti” - as with the “new king” of Exodus 1:8 - as being the one who would set about rectifying the problem. To this end he completely reorganised the administration of Egypt, transferring the capital from Thebes in the south to Ithtowe in the north, just below the Nile Delta. He allowed those nomarchs who supported his cause to retain their power. He built on a grand scale. Egypt was employing massive slave labour, not only in the Giza area, but also in the eastern Delta region where the Israelites were said to have settled at the time of Joseph. Professor J. Breasted provided ample evidence to show that the powerful 12th dynasty pharaohs carried out an enormous building program whose centre was in the Delta region. More specifically, this building occurred in the eastern Delta region which included the very area that comprised the land of Goshen where the Israelites first settled. “... in the eastern part [of the Delta], especially at Tanis and Bubastis ... massive remains still show the interest which the Twelfth Dynasty manifested in the Delta cities”. Today, archaeologists recognise the extant remains of the construction under these kings as representing a mere fraction of the original; the major part having been destroyed by the vandalism of the New Kingdom pharaohs (such as Ramses II). The Biblical account states that: “... they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick”. (Exodus 1:14). …. John D. Keyser, again, has written very interestingly, in a compatibly revised context, of the oppressive pharaonic labour demands upon the Israelite slaves, he now incorporating pharaoh Amenemhet III into the mix. Thus (op. cit.): Josephus’ description of the type of labor the Israelites were forced to endure under the new pharaoh is REMARKABLY SIMILAR to the observations of DIODORUS SICULUS, the first-century B.C. Greek historian: Moeris ... dug a lake of remarkable usefulness, though at a cost of INCREDIBLE TOIL. Its circumference, they say, is 3,600 stades, its depth at most points fifty fathoms. Who, then, on estimating the greatness of the construction, would not reasonably ask HOW MANY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MEN MUST HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED [?], AND HOW MANY YEARS THEY TOOK TO FINISH THEIR WORK? No one can adequately commend the king’s design, which brings such usefulness and advantage to all the dwellers in Egypt. Since the Nile kept NO DEFINITE BOUNDS in its rising, and the fruitfulness of the country depended upon the river’s regularity, THE KING DUG THE LAKE TO ACCOMMODATE THE SUPERFLUOUS WATER, SO THAT THE RIVER SHOULD NEITHER, WITH ITS STRONG CURRENT, FLOOD THE LAND UNSEASONABLY AND FORM SWAMPS AND FENS, nor, by rising less than was advantageous, damage the crops by lack of water. BETWEEN THE RIVER AND THE LAKE HE CONSTRUCTED A CANAL 80 STADES IN LENGTH AND 300 FEET IN BREADTH. Through this canal, at times he admitted the water of the river, at other times he excluded it, thus providing the farmers with water at fitting times by opening the inlet and again closing it scientifically and at great expense. — The Pyramids of Egypt, by I.E.S. Edwards. Viking Press, London. 1986, pp. 234-235. These engineering marvels are noted by author J. P. Lepre: “Amenemhat III is also credited with the mighty engineering feat of constructing the irrigation canal now known as the Bahr Yusif, and of using this canal to REGULATE THE FLOW OF WATER FROM THE NILE to Lake Fayum during the flood season. This water was held there by sluices, and later let out again, at will, back to the section of the Nile from Assyout down to the Mediterranean Sea, REGULATING THE HEIGHT OF THE RIVER in that area during the dry season. This irrigation system was the PROTOTYPE for the modern High Aswan Dam.” Although Amenemhat III was involved in several great engineering works, the Bahr Yusif endeavor is of special note. For here, two 20-mile long dykes -- one straight and the other semicircular -- were constructed so as to aid in the ADJUSTMENT OF THE WATER LEVEL through the use of sluices, and to reclaim 20,000 acres of farmland by enriching the soil." (The Egyptian Pyramids. McFarland and Company, Inc. Jefferson, N.C. 1990, pp. 217-218). Obviously, both Josephus and Diodorus Siculus are talking about THE SAME construction project carried out during the reign of AMENEMHET III. OF THE 12TH DYNASTY! Apart from the Era of Moses involving the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Twelfth Egyptian dynasties, we need also to factor in the Thirteenth, based on some known correspondences of its officials with the Twelfth Dynasty. Dr. Courville had provided these most useful connections, when writing of the Turin list which gives the names of the Thirteenth Dynasty officials (“On the Survival of Velikovsky’s Thesis in ‘Ages in Chaos”, pp. 67-68): The thirteenth name [Turin list] (Ran-sen-eb) was a known courtier in the time of Sesostris III …”. “The fourteenth name (Autuabra) was found inside a jar sealed with the seal of Amenemhat III …. How could this be, except with this Autuabra … becoming a contemporary of Amenemhat III? The explanations employed to evade such contemporaneity are pitiful compared with the obvious acceptance of the matter”. “The sixteenth name (RaSo-khemkhutaui) leaves a long list of named slaves, some Semitic-male, some Semitic-female. One of these has the name Shiphra, the same name as the mid-wife who served at the time of Moses’ birth …. [Exodus 1:15]. RaSo-khemkhutaui … lived at the time of Amenemhat III. This Amenemhet III, as we pick up from reading about him in Nicolas Grimal’s book (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, 1994), was a particularly strong ruler, renowned for massive projects involving water storage and channelling on a gargantuan scale. He is credited with diverting much of the Nile flow into the Fayuum depression to create what became known as lake Moeris (the lake Nasser project of his time). The grim-faced depictions of the 12th dynasty kings, Amenemhet III and Sesostris III, have been commented upon by conventional and revisionist scholars alike. Cambridge Ancient History has noted with regard to the former …: “The numerous portraits of [Amenemhet] III include a group of statues and sphinxes from Tanis and the Faiyûm, which, from their curiously brutal style and strange accessories, were once thought to be monuments of the Hyksos kings.” For revisionists, these pharaohs can represent - and rightly so - the cruel taskmasters who forced the Israelites to build using bricks mixed with straw (Exodus 5:7, 8). In fact, this very combination of materials can clearly be seen for example in Amenemhet III’s Dahshur pyramid. Amenemhet III, according to Grimal …: … was respected and honoured from Kerma to Byblos and during his reign numerous eastern workers, from peasants to soldiers and craftsmen came to Egypt. This influx of foreign workers resulted both from the growth in Egyptian influence abroad and from the need for extra workmen to help exploit the valuable resources of Egypt itself. For forty-five years [Amenemhet] III ruled a country that had reached a peak of prosperity … and the exploitation of the Faiyûm went hand in hand with the development of irrigation and an enormous growth in mining and quarrying activities. The Faiyûm was a huge oasis, about 80 km S.W. of Memphis, which offered the prospect of a completely new area of cultivable land. Exodus 1:14 tells of the Israelite slaves doing “all kinds of work in the fields.” Mining and quarrying also, apparently, would have been part of the immense slave-labour effort. Grimal continues …: In the Sinai region the exploitation of the turquoise and copper mines reached unprecedented heights: between the ninth and forty-fifth years of [Amenemhet III’s] reign no less than forty-nine texts were inscribed at Serabit el-Khadim …. The seasonal encampments of the miners were transformed into virtually permanent settlements, with houses, fortifications, wells or cisterns, and even cemeteries. The temple of Hathor at Serabit el-Khadim was enlarged …. The expeditions to quarries elsewhere in Egypt also proliferated …. Amenemhet III was, it seems, a complete dictator … (my emphasis): The economic activity formed the basis for the numerous building works that make the reign of [Amenemhet] III one of the summits of state absolutism. Excavations at Biahmu revealed two colossal granite statues of the seated figure of [Amenemes] III …. Above all, he built himself two [sic] pyramids, one at Dahshur and the other at Hawara…. Beside the Hawara pyramid were found the remains of his mortuary temple, which Strabo described as the Labyrinth. …. From the birth of Moses to the Exodus 80 years later, the Twelfth Dynasty rulers sorely oppressed Israel, beginning with an infanticide that Herod in Israel would later emulate. King Solomon tells - in what ought to be a wake-up call for our own times - how Egypt paid for this pharaonic “decree of infanticide” (Wisdom 11:5-16, emphasis added): Thus, what had served to punish their enemies became a benefit for them in their difficulties. Whereas their enemies had only the ever-flowing source of a river fouled with mingled blood and mud, to punish them for their decree of infanticide, you gave your people, against all hope, water in abundance, once you had shown by the thirst that they were experiencing how severely you were punishing their enemies. From their own ordeals, which were only loving correction, they realised how an angry sentence was tormenting the godless; for you had tested your own as a father admonishes, but the others you had punished as a pitiless king condemns, and, whether far or near, they were equally afflicted. For a double sorrow seized on them, and a groaning at the memory of the past; when they learned that the punishments they were receiving were beneficial to the others, they realised it was the Lord, while for the man whom long before they had exposed and later mockingly rebuffed, they felt only admiration when all was done, having suffered a thirst so different from that of the upright. For their foolish and wicked notions which led them astray into worshipping mindless reptiles and contemptible beetles, you sent a horde of mindless animals to punish them and to teach them that the agent of sin is the agent of punishment”. Adopted into the royal household of the mighty and prosperous Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, the Hebrew Moses would grow up to be a great man in the land of Egypt. So far I have identified the “new king” of Exodus 1:8 with all of: KHUFU (Cheops), 4th Dynasty; TETI, 6th Dynasty; and AMENEMES I, 12th Dynasty (with likely inclusions of other kings “Amenemes”). However, even more names need to be added to the list. (I cannot go into the degree of detail here that I have done in other associated articles). {Most of the following quotes will be taken from N. Grimal’s A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, 1994} SNOFRU This (somewhat semi-legendary) ruler seems to me to connect well with Cheops and Amenemes I in various ways. For instance: Great “legendary” reputation P. 67 .... Snofru soon became a legendary figure, and literature in later [?] periods credited him with a genial personality. He was even deified in the Middle Kingdom, becoming the ideal king who later Egyptian rulers [sic] such as Ammenemes I sought to emulate when they were attempting to legitimize their power. Snofru is also associated with a Meresankh, though she is considered to be his mother. P. 67 [She was] one of Huni’s concubines. There is no definite proof of this .... Meresankh has become something of a golden thread, linking the traditional “Merris” of Moses’ childhood to the 4th Dynasty (Meresankh) and to the 6th Dynasty (as Ankhenesmerire). Like his alter ego Cheops, and his alter ego Teti, and his alter ego Amenemes I .... P. 67 [Snofru’s] reign ... appears to have been both glorious and long-lasting (perhaps as much as forty years). Less positive picture of the king P. 71 ... it is difficult to accommodate within this theory [building immoderation = unpopularity] the fact that Snofru’s reputation remained untarnished when he built more pyramids than any of his successors. Pp. 69-70 [Cheops’] pyramid transforms him into the very symbol of absolute rule, and Herodotus’ version of events chose to emphasise his cruelty. Taken from: https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh2120.htm 124. ... Cheops became king over them and brought them to every kind of evil: for he shut up all the temples, and having first kept them from sacrificing there, he then bade all the Egyptians work for him. So some were appointed to draw stones from the stone-quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he ordered to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those which are called the Libyan mountains; and they worked by a hundred thousand men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid; for the length of it is five furlongs and the breadth ten fathoms and the height, where it is highest, eight fathoms, and it is made of stone smoothed and with figures carved upon it. For this, they said, the ten years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile. For the making of the pyramid itself there passed a period of twenty years; and the pyramid is square, each side measuring eight hundred feet, and the height of it is the same. It is built of stone smoothed and fitted together in the most perfect manner, not one of the stones being less than thirty feet in length. Moreover: 126. Cheops moreover came, they said, to such a pitch of wickedness, that being in want of money he caused his own daughter to sit in the stews, and ordered her to obtain from those who came a certain amount of money (how much it was they did not tell me); but she not only obtained the sum appointed by her father, but also she formed a design for herself privately to leave behind her a memorial, and she requested each man who came in to her to give her one stone upon her building: and of these stones, they told me, the pyramid was built which stands in front of the great pyramid in the middle of the three, each side being one hundred and fifty feet in length. Menkaure, or Mycerinus, who will also figure (below) as an alter ego of the “new king”, may have been similarly disrespectful to his daughter: https://analog-antiquarian.net/2019/01/11/chapter-1-the-charlatan-and-the-gossip/ Legend had it that Menkaure had a daughter who was very special to him. One version of the tale said that she died of natural causes, whereupon in his grief he had a life-size wooden cow gilt with gold built as a repository for her remains. This, Herodotus claimed, could still be seen in his time in the city of Sais, “placed within the royal palace in a chamber which was greatly adorned; and they offer incense of all kinds before it every day, and each night a lamp burns beside it all through the night. Every year it is carried forth from the chamber, for they say that she asked of her father Mykerinos, when she was dying, that she might look upon the sun once in the year.” Another, darker version of the tale had it that Menkaure had been rather too enamored of his daughter. She sought refuge from his unwelcome advances with his concubines, but they betrayed her, and her father proceeded to “ravish” her. She hanged herself in the aftermath, whereupon a remorse-stricken Menkaure buried her in the gilt cow and her mother the queen cut off the hands of the concubines who had betrayed her. This explained why, in a chamber near that of the cow in Herodotus’s time, there stood many statues of women with the hands lopped off, “still lying at their feet even down to my time.” P. 170 Ammenemes III ....This economic activity formed the basis for the numerous building works that make the reign of Ammenemes III one of the summits of state absolutism. Recall: “[Cheops’] pyramid transforms him into the very symbol of absolute rule …”. DJEDEFRE P. 71 The first [presumed son of Cheops] was Djedefre (Didufri or Radjedef) …. His personality and his reign are still obscure; it is not even possible to say whether he reigned for only eight years, as the Turin Canon indicates, or a longer period (without going as far as the sixty-three years suggested by Manetho). I find it most interesting that Grimal had written almost identically (just before this) re the reign length of Cheops: “It is not even known whether Cheops’ reign lasted for twenty-three years, as the Turin Canon suggests, or sixty-three years, which is the length ascribed to him by Manetho”. A possible sixty-three years of reign each! Djedefre himself may have been murdered: http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp455-fs14/2014/10/09/djedefre/ “Djedefre later married. He was later succeeded by his brother Khafre, and one theory is that Khafre killed Djedefre …”. http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp455-fs14/2014/10/09/djedefre/ If so, then this is perhaps another similarity between Djedefre and Teti (murdered?), Amenemes I (murdered?). MENKAURE We recall Menkaure’s allegedly shameful treatment of his own daughter, reminiscent of Cheops’ own prostituting of his daughter, at least according to Herodotus. Grimal continues: “Manetho is uncertain about the length of his reign, which was probably eighteen years rather than twenty-eight”. Whilst this may not accord so well with some of our longer-reigning (say forty years) alter egos, it is fascinating, nonetheless, that Phouka (http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn04/05menkaure.html also has for Menkaure a Manethonian figure of sixty-three years, a figure that we have already met in the case of two other of our alter egos, Cheops and Djedefre. While, initially, I had omitted Fifth Dynasty kings as being irrelevant to the era of Moses, I shall now knit these in as well. Menkaure, for instance, may enable us also to incorporate into our revisionist mix his Fifth Dynasty virtual namesake, Menkauhor, whose reign is otherwise “poorly known” (p. 74). Grimal continues: “… like Neuserre [Menkauhor] sent expeditions to the Sinai mines …”. As did our other “new king” alter egos. We read above that Menkauhor is “poorly known”, a phrase that – along with “little known” – one encounters time and time again in ancient history. That is because kings, kingdoms, have been split up into pieces by historians and scattered. The fact that (p. 74): … Menkauhor’s pyramid has not yet been identified, and it is difficult to decide whether it is likely to have been at Dahshur, or at northern Saqqara where a personal cult was dedicated to him in the New Kingdom … could lead us now to the conclusion that Menkauhor’s missing pyramid may have been Menkaure’s (far from missing) pyramid at Giza. (Later we shall read about a supposedly missing sun temple as well). SAHURE The following description of the Fifth Dynasty expansion by N. Grimal could just as well have been written of the Sixth, the Twelfth, Egyptian dynasties. It is apparently all one and the same. P. 76 During the fifth Dynasty Egypt seems to have been opened up to the outside world, both northwards and southwards. The reliefs in the mortuary temple built by …. Sahure, include the usual … conquered countries …. To which Grimal adds: “… (belonging more to rhetoric than to historical evidence)”. This is another observation that we frequently encounter in ancient history, a failure to believe a straightforward record only because the limited knowledge of historians prevents them from grasping the bigger picture. However, as Grimal then goes on to tell: “… but they also show the return [sic] of a maritime trading expedition probably from Byblos, as well as forays into the Syrian hinterland; if the references to bears in these region are to be believed. A campaign against the Libyans has also been dated to Sahure’s reign …”. Grimal then becomes negative again, adding: “… although there is some doubt surrounding this “. Re trade to Byblos, we find M. Bernal (Black Athena, p. 149) mentioning three Old Kingdom names in connection with it, all of whom are “new king” alter egos of mine: “… the names of Menkauḥōr and Izozi [= Isesi, to be discussed] as well as that of Sahureˁ …”. Sahure’s trade and exploits read like Snofru again, as well as others: … primarily economic: the exploitation of mines in the Sinai, diorite quarrying to the west of Aswan and an expedition to Punt, which is mentioned in the Palermo Stone and perhaps also depicted on the reliefs in Sahure’s mortuary temple. That “diorite quarrying” no doubt served to provide the material for superb 4th dynasty statues. In one of Sahure’s names, Sephris (Manetho), I think that we might come close to Cheops’ name of Suphis (Manetho): http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn04/02khufu.html DJEDKARE Just as in the case of the mighty and long-reigning Khufu (Cheops), one may find it very hard to imagine that a ruler of the significance of Djedkare Isesi (Assa), whose reign may have been as long as forty years - a figure that we have already found connected with the reign of Snofru - has only one image of which to boast: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/djedkare/ “The only image of the king is from a temple to Osiris …”. N. Grimal tells: P. 79 [Djedkare’s] reign was long: Manetho suggests that it lasted about forty years, but this figure is not confirmed by the Turin Canon, which suggests a reign of only twenty-eight years. I am now of the view that Djedkare, too, is an alter ego of the (now most substantial) “new king” of Exodus 1:8, and that his name is compatible with that of the previously considered Djedefre (with whom Djedkare also shares the name elements Bik-nub, djed). Fittingly (with Djedkare as an alter ego, I think, of Fourth Dynasty names), we find Djedkare Isesi adhering to “the Heliopolitan dogma”. P. 78 [Isesi] … without … moving away from the Heliopolitan dogma. He chose the name Djedkare – ‘The Ka of Ra is Stable’ – as his nsw-bity (king of Upper and Lower Egypt) title, thus placing himself under the protection of Ra …. Grimal proceeds to add here, “… but he did not build a sun temple …”. Neuserre, though, upon whom I have only briefly touched, and who “is remembered mainly for his sun temple at Abu Ghurob”, may be an alter ego of Djedkare. At: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/djedkare/ a connection is made between Neuserre (Niuserre) and Menkauhor (a previous alter ego): “[Djedkare] may have been the son of his predecessor Menkauhor, but there is no positive evidence of this and it is also proposed by some that he was the son of Niuserre”. More likely, I think, Djedkare was Menkauhor, was Neuserre. The Turin Canon’s estimation of Djedkare’s reign length, “twenty-eight years”, comes close to Neuserre’s estimated (p. 77), “about twenty-five years”. The name Meresankh, our ‘golden thread’, also re-emerges in connection with the Fifth Dynasty: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/djedkare/ “[Djedkare] may have been married to Meresankh [so-called] IV who was buried in the main necropolis in Saqqara, but it is also possible that Meresankh was the wife of Menkauhor”. As with Khufu/Cheops, Meresankh (“Merris”) would have been, instead, the daughter (not wife), who married the succeeding ruler. Djedkare can remind one also of the previously discussed Sahure – the latter’s Horus and Nebty names, respectively, Neb-khau and Neb-khau-nebty, are replaced by just the one element (Djed) in Djedkare’s corresponding names, Djed-khau and Djed-khau-nebty. Grimal makes this comparison between Sahure and Djedkare Isesi: P. 79 Like Sahure, [Isesi] pursued a vigorous foreign policy that led him in similar directions [also, again, like Snofru]: to the Sinai, where two expeditions at ten-year intervals are recorded at Wadi Maghara; to the diorite quarries west of Abu Simbel; and further afield to Byblos and the land of Punt. There is also a Merenre connection – {for more on Merenre, see (f)}: “Isesi’s expedition to Punt, mentioned in a graffito found at the lower Nubian site of Tomas, was evidently still remembered [sic] in the time of Merenre”. But this (e.g. Nubian site of Tomas) also connects perfectly with Teti (founder of the 6th Dynasty), whom I have already linked with the “new king”, especially akin to his persona in Amenemes I. Moses will emerge during this dynasty as (the semi-legendary) Sinuhe, and as the solidly historical Vizier and Chief Judge, Mentuhotep. On Teti, Grimal has written: P. 81 [Teti] … was able to continue [sic] many of the international links of the Fifth Dynasty: he maintained relations with Byblos and perhaps also with Punt and Nubia, at least as far as the site of Tomas in northern Nubia. As with Djedkare, so with Menkauhor (Menkaure?), so with Teti, the chief officials and governors appear to have been allowed greater power. MERENRE Needless to say, I am instinctively fusing Merenre I and II - the latter thought to have been little known: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/merenreII/ “His name appears on a damaged false door inscribed with Sa-nesu semsu Nemtyemsaf (“The elder king’s son Nemtyemsaf” – i.e dating to the period before he became king) near the pyramid of Neith. His name as a king also appears on a decree protecting the cult of queens Ankhesenmerire and Neith, also from pyramid complex of Neith in Southern Saqqara. We know little else about this king”. Merenre, like Djedefre, is thought to have reigned for only a short time, “a reign of only about nine years” (p. 84). We recall that Djedefre was accredited with only eight years (p. 71), but that there was also to be considered for him Manetho’s sixty-three years. Finally, just as we have found that our founder king (Djedefre?; Teti; Amenemes I) had come to a sticky end, having been murdered, so, too, it may have been with Merenre. https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/merenreII/ “However, according to Herodotus, Merenre was murdered, forcing his queen, Nitocris, to take revenge before committing suicide”. In the course of this article, the following names all became potential candidates for reconstructing the “new king” of Exodus 1:8: SNOFRU; KHUFU; DJEDEFRE; MENKAURE (MENKAUHOR); SAHURE; DJEDKARE; TETI; MERENRE; AMENEMES I (AND PERHAPS II-IV) That is a conventional time span of some (2600 – 1800 =) 800 YEARS! MOSES FLEES KING CHENEPHRES The Story of Sinuhe, which seems to recall in rough fashion the flight of Moses from Egypt, may help us here by locating this famous incident to early in the reign of Sesostris I. With the “new king” of Exodus 1:8 now firmly established as, among many names, Teti-Amenemes I, the founding dynastic king (who was murdered) whose land was becoming overrun by foreigners, then the ruler from whom Moses fled to Midian - some time after the murder of Amenemes I, according to Sinuhe - can only have been the (son-) successor of that first dynastic king, Sesostris I. To jump ahead of our story, by taking account of the C2nd BC Jewish historian, Artapanus, Moses was the foster-son of the Egyptian queen “Merris”, who had married “Chenephres”: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/which-real-story-moses-was-he-criminal-philosopher-hero-or-atheist-008008 Moses, according to Artapanus, was raised as the son of Chenephres, king of Upper of Egypt. Chenephres thought Moses was his own son – but, apparently, the bond between a father and a son wasn’t enough to keep Chenephres from trying to kill him. Chenephres sent Moses to lead his worst soldiers into an unwinnable war against Ethiopia, hoping Moses would die in battle. Moses, however, managed to conquer Ethiopia. He became a war hero across Egypt. He also declared the ibis as the sacred animal of the city – starting, in the process, the first of three religions he would found by the end of the story. He started his second religion when he made it back to Memphis, where he taught people how to use oxen in agriculture and, in the process, started the cult of Apis . He didn’t get to enjoy his new cult for long. His father started outright hiring people to assassinate him, and he had no choice but to leave Egypt. .... [End of quote] With “Merris” already identified as Meresankh - of whom Egyptology may have unnecessarily created several, not to mention her alter egos in Ankhesenmerire I-II - then the “Chenephres” of legend, apart from being Sesostris I (Story of Sinuhe), must also be the Fourth Dynasty’s Chephren (Khafre), who married Meresankh: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Khafre-king-of-Egypt “Khafre was the son of King Khufu and succeeded the short-lived Redjedef, probably his elder brother. He married his sister Khamerernebti, Meresankh III”. Khufu (Cheops) I have already identified with the founder king of Exodus 1:8. But I have also identified him with Redjedef (Djedefre), who was not (as I think) a ruler distinct from Khufu. Let us now recall, very briefly, some of our many versions of the first dynastic king, to determine if each of these may have a (son-) successor who is appropriate for “Chenephres”: Snofru His appropriate successor, I think – though it does not follow conventionally – would be the (albeit poorly known - parentage uncertain) Huni. Huni’s nomen may enable us to link him up with the Sixth Dynasty’s Pepi. “[Huni] may have had the Nomen Neferkare ...”: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/huni/ “Kerpheris” the name given to Huni, apparently, by Manetho is not unlike Kenephres/ Chenephres. Khufu (Djedefre) His highly appropriate (son-) successor was Khafre (Chephren), a name that will be reflected amongst the Twelfth Dynasty’s Sesostris’s praenomina (Kheperkare, Khakheperre, Khakaure). Menkaure The Kaf- element (Khafre) now becomes significant. The successor in this case can only be Shepseskaf (Manetho’s Sebercheres), who, like Khafre, was closely associated with (married to) a Khamerernebti. Shepseskaf continued his predecessor Menkaure’s building works, “... he completed the pyramid of Menkaure ...”: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/shepseskaf/ Merenre As in some of the other instances, the Sixth Dynasty is out of sequence (my opinion), with Merenre - my dynastic founder king (= Teti) - following Pepi (Neferkare), who is, in fact, the son-successor. The life of Moses before the return from Midian knew of only two long-reigning Egyptian monarchs, the “new king” of Exodus 1:8, and the ruler from whom Moses fled to Midian. That one dynasty died out (Exodus 4:19) - its last ruler a woman - and Moses returned to Egypt. The Story of Sinuhe, which professor Emmanuel Anati, for one, has recognised as having “a common matrix” with the Exodus account of Moses’ flight from pharaoh (Mountain of God, p. 158), will be essentially based upon the similar, but different, Exodus 2:11-15: One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your companion?’ He answered, ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid, and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known’. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. This famous incident is also the origins of the Buddha, the privileged one who left the life of the palace, who saw suffering, and became a wandering ascetic (famously known as “The Great Departure”). Professor Anati has written on The Story of Sinuhe (THE TIME OF EXODUS IN THE LIGHT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL TESTIMONY, EPIGRAPHY AND PALAEOCLIMATE): https://www.harkarkom.com/exodustimeVERS1.htm The Midianite episode of Moses shows numerous analogies with an Egyptian account, which in the form in which it reached us, refers to the XX century BC (ca. 1960 BC) Sinuhe, an official of the Pharaoh Amen-em-het I, lived in the royal harem and served the hereditary princess. He committed some infraction and when the Pharaoh dies, he fears the successor. He flees to Asia “in the land of Yaa where figs and grapes are grown and wine is more abundant than water” where he is welcomed in by a local chief. He gets the elder daughter as a wife, and creates a family, and from his father-in-law he receives animals and pastural land and finally he is called back to Egypt to cover an important task. The narration of Sinuhe has so many elements in common with the biblical story of Moses who flees to Midian and of his father-in-law Jethro, that we may hypothesise a common matrix of the two accounts. Obviously this matrix can only be of the same age or earlier than the oldest of the two versions and therefore, it cannot be later than the XX century BC The term “Land of Yaa” would be worth a dissertation but it would lead us away from the main point of this text. …. A major difference between the Exodus account and Sinuhe is that, whereas, the latter will be welcomed back by the Twelfth Dynasty ruler of Egypt, Moses will not. Nor will the Twelfth Dynasty still be continuing to rule by the time that Moses has returned to Egypt (Exodus 4:19): “Now the LORD had said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead’.” For the geography, climate and tribes of Midian at this time – and for much more, including the holy mountain of Sinai (Horeb) – one could do no better than to read professor Anati’s books on the subject, such as The Mountain of God. The various Old Kingdom candidates whom I have presented for “Chenephres” - Chephren; Huni; Shepseskaf; Pepi [I-II] - all crystallise in the Twelfth Dynasty’s Sesostris I, the various kings Sesostris needing, in turn, to be fused into one as was the case with the kings Amenemhet (Amenemes). And that there are yet Thirteenth Dynasty manifestations as well of Amenemhet and Sesostris will now become apparent. The Crocodile god, Sobek name - associated with Thirteenth Dynasty rulers (Sobekhotep I-VIII) - was already in use on the throne during the Twelfth Dynasty. The last ruler of that dynasty, for instance, was the female, Sobekneferu(re). I think it most unlikely, however, that there were actually eight kings Sobekhotep in the Thirteenth Dynasty. Sobekhotep so-called II is thought to have had, as his predecessor, Amenemhat. This would indicate to me, once again, the succession of rulers during the first 40 years of Moses, Amenemhat and Sesostris (= Sobekhotep). Sobekhotep so-called IV was Neferkhare, and Khaneferre, names of Pepi (= Sesostris). At this stage, therefore, with Amenemhat and Sobekhotep, we still appear to be in the Twelfth Dynasty. But once the male rulers had died out and the woman pharaoh, Sobekneferu(re), had completed her short rule, the Thirteenth Dynasty will commence. And Moses will return to Egypt from Midian. This will now be the era of the Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus. Moses came back to Egypt from Mount Sinai with a holy name upon his lips, YAHWEH (EXODUS 3:14): “God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’.” God is the Supreme Being. We are merely contingent beings. The perennial philosophy of being has been built upon this Exodus text. Do follows Be - we must exist before we can act. René Descartes, and many modern thinkers, have this completely wrong. Cogito ergo sum. ‘I think, therefore I am’. No, I am, therefore I think. JANNES AND JAMBRES The tendency, a natural one, is to suspect that the two characters to whom St. Paul refers in 2 Timothy 3:8, “Jannes and Mambres [Jambres]”, were Egyptians (e.g., magicians) who had ‘resisted Moses to his face’ when Moses was still back in the land of Egypt. Here it will be suggested, instead, that the pair were Israelite troublemakers for Moses, whose bitter opposition to the great man would lead to their terrible demise. In the course of my attempts over the years to set Moses in an historical Egyptian setting I have generally tried also to take into account “Jannes and Jambres [or Mambres]” as Moses’ contemporaries. But this has hardly been an easy task – especially when one does not know who were this pair, Jannes and Jambres, or what was their nationality, or their status. Were they, as according to long-standing tradition, Egyptian magicians, a pair of brothers? Or were they themselves actual rulers of Egypt? The latter was the conclusion to which I had come, that Jannes and Jambres must have been separate Egyptian kings, both of whom had been inimical to Moses. Jannes In my revised context, Unas (Manetho’s Onnus, Jaumos, Onos), who fitted into my scheme as an alter ego of Moses’ foster/father-in-law, Chenephres (= Chephren, Neferkare/Pepi, Sesostris), and who appropriately was a magician king: “It was Unas who created the practice of listing some magic spells on the walls of the tomb” (https://www.ask-aladdin.com/egypt-pharaohs/unas/), had a name that accords very well linguistically with Jannes. This has often been pointed out. Jannes, then, would be that king who was, according to Artapanus, highly jealous of Moses, a military genius, who kept upstaging the king in his exploits. “Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on a military expedition to Ethiopia, where he won great victories”. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Moses Theirs was very much a Saul-David kind of relationship (I Samuel 18:7): “Saul has his thousands, David his tens of thousand”, which, of course, infuriated King Saul (vv. 8-9): “Saul was very angry; this refrain displeased him greatly. ‘They have credited David with tens of thousands’, he thought, ‘but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?’ And from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David”. Thus it could be said, as of Jannes (2 Timothy 3:8): “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith”, that Chenephres “opposed Moses”. After Moses had killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew (Exodus 2:11-12), we read that (v. 15): “When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian …”. There was no love lost between these two men, and so I had imagined that the first of St. Paul’s pair, “Jannes”, could be this particular ruler of Egypt, with “Jambres” to be, as I expected, a late one. Jambres [Mambres] This name, it seemed to me, had something more of an Egyptian ring to it, say e.g., Ma-ib-re. By now I was locked in to believing that Mambres, too, must have been a ruler of Egypt, and the most likely candidate for him - a standout, I thought - was the “stiff-necked” king who refused to let the people of Israel go away from Egypt. He “opposed” (Gk. antestēsan) Moses and Aaron even in the face of the Ten Plagues. That scenario meant that I now must identify an Egyptian ruler of the Plagues and Exodus who had one of his names resembling Mambres (or Jambres). That, I thought, had to be Maibre Sheshi of the Fourteenth Dynasty. Whether or not Maibre Sheshi was the king ruling Egypt at the time of the Plagues and Exodus, a matter to be discussed further on, I would now regard this as being quite irrelevant to the identification of Paul’s Jannes and Jambres. These I now consider to be Israelite (Hebrew) personages, who had opposed Moses even in Egypt, and who would continue to oppose him most bitterly during the Exodus. “Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, ‘We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves No, we will not come!’” Numbers 16:12-14 Dathan and Abiram, two Reubenite brothers, were the pair, “Jannes and Jambres” of whom Paul wrote so disparagingly in 2 Timothy 3:8. Nahum Sarna well describes the troublesome pair in his article, “Dathan and Abiram”, for: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dathan-and-abiram DATHAN AND ABIRAM (Heb. דָּתָן, cf. Akk. datnu, "strong"; and Heb. אֲבִירָם, "my [or 'the'] father is exalted"), sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben, leaders of a revolt against the leadership of Moses (Num. 16; 26:9–11). According to these sources, they joined the rebellion of *Korah during the desert wanderings. Defying Moses' summons, they accused him of having brought the Israelites out of the fertile land of Egypt in order to let them die in the wilderness (16:12–14). Moses then went to the tents of Dathan and Abiram and persuaded the rest of the community to dissociate themselves from them. Thereafter, the earth opened and swallowed the rebels, their families, and property (16:25–33). Modern scholars generally regard this narrative as resulting from an editorial interweaving of originally distinct accounts of two separate rebellions against the authority of Moses. It is noted that verses 12–15 and 25ff. form a continuous, self-contained literary unit and that the former contains no mention of Korah, who is likewise omitted from the references in Deuteronomy 11:6 and Psalms 106:17. The event described served as a warning to Israel and as an example of divine justice (ibid.). Ben Sira (45:18), too, mentions it. However, no further details are given about the two rebels, and the narrative is clearly fragmentary. It is not unlikely that the rebellion was connected with the series of events that led to the tribe of Reuben's loss of its earlier position of preeminence. …. Apparently Dathan and Abiram had ‘form’, going back to their days in Egypt, being traditionally “… identified with the two quarreling Israelites (Ex. R. 1:30) …”: In the Aggadah Dathan and Abiram are regarded as the prototype of inveterate fomenters of trouble. Their names are interpreted allegorically, Dathan denoting his violation of God's law, and Abiram his refusal to repent (Sanh. 109b). They were wholly wicked "from beginning to end" (Meg. 11a). They are identified with the two quarreling Israelites (Ex. R. 1:30) and it was they who caused Moses' flight from Egypt by denouncing him to Pharaoh for killing the Egyptian taskmaster, and revealing that he was not the son of Pharaoh's daughter (Yal., Ex. 167). They incited the people to return to Egypt (Ex. R. 1:29) both at the Red Sea and when the spies returned from Canaan (Mid. Ps. 106:5). They transgressed the commandment concerning the manna by keeping it overnight (Ex. R. 1:30). Dathan and Abiram became ringleaders of the rebellion under the influence of Korah, as a result of the camp of their tribe being next to that of Korah, and on this the rabbis base the statement "Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor" (Num. R. 18:5). When Moses humbly went to them in person in order to dissuade them from their evil designs, they were impertinent and insulting to him (mk 16a). In their statement to Moses, "we will not come up," they unconsciously prophesied their end, as they did not go up, but down to hell (Num. R. 18:10). …. If they were, in fact, “the two quarreling Israelites” (Exodus 2:13-14): “The next day [Moses] went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, ‘Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?’ The man said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’,” then the retort ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ perfectly reflects what Dathan and Abarim would say to Moses later in the desert (Numbers 16:13) ‘And now you also want to lord it over us!’ then, clearly, Dathan and Abiram had an inflated sense of their own self-importance. Moses had officially been appointed, by the king of Egypt, as “ruler and judge over” these people. For Moses was at the time, according to my revision, ‘Chief Judge’ and ‘Vizier’ of Egypt. Can the names, Dathan and Abiram, be merged with Jannes and Jambres? I believe that they basically can. We read above that, in the Aggadah, the names Dathan and Abiram are interpreted allegorically. The other pair of names, Jannes and Jambres, can be rendered as “John and Ambrose”, according to R. Gedaliah (Shalsheleth Hakabala, fol. 7. 1): https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/2-timothy-3-8.html “It is commonly said by the Jews F15, that these were the two sons of Balaam, and they are said to be the chief of the magicians of Egypt F16; the latter of these is called in the Vulgate Latin version Mambres; and in some Jewish writers his name is Mamre F17 by whom also the former is called Jochane or John; and indeed Joannes, Jannes, and John, are the same name; and R. Gedaliah F18 says, that their names in other languages are John and Ambrose, which is not unlikely”. In this case, Dathan would better be rendered as Jathan, a contraction of Jonathan, hence Ἰωάννης (Iōannēs) in Greek. We can easily see the connection here with Jannes (Iōannēs). Ambrose, obviously not a Hebrew name: “The later Jews distorted the names into John and Ambrose” (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_timothy/3-8.htm), is a very good fit for Jambres. But less so a fit for Abiram. Since it occurred to me (in 2019) that Jannes and Jambres may be identifiable with Dathan and Abiram, I have not yet read if, and where, others may have expressed this same idea. From the following, which rejects any such connection, it would appear that some may have proposed that the two pairs might equate (“as some have thought”): https://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_timothy/3-8.htm …. These were not Jews, who rose up and opposed Moses, as Dathan and Abiram did, as some have thought; but Egyptian magicians, the chief of those that Pharaoh sent for, when Moses and Aaron came before him, and wrought miracles; and who did in like manner by their enchantments, Exodus 7:11 upon which place the Targum of Jonathan has these words: "and Pharaoh called the wise men and the magicians; and Janis and Jambres, the magicians of the Egyptians, did so by the enchantments of their divinations.'' MOSES IDENTIFIED “Mentuhotep, prince in the seats of … Splendor … at whose voice they (are permitted to) speak in the king's-house, in charge of the silencing of the courtiers, unique one of the king, without his like, who sends up the truth …”. Inscriptions of Mentuhotep Dr. Courville, whose revision could not accommodate the Vizier Imhotep as the most likely candidate for Joseph, selected instead for his identification of this great biblical Patriarch another significant official, MENTUHOTEP, vizier to pharaoh Sesostris I, the second king of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty. And some very astute revisionists have followed Courville in his choice of Mentuhotep for Joseph. With my own system, though, favouring (i) Imhotep for Joseph; (ii) Amenemes [Amenemhet] I for the “new king” of Exodus 1:8; and (iii) Amenemes I’s successor, Sesostris I, for the pharaoh from whom Moses fled (as recalled in the semi-legendary, The Story of Sinuhe), then Mentuhotep of this era must now loom large as a candidate for the Egyptianised Moses. In 1981 I began a search for Moses in the Egyptian records. The first lesson that I had to learn (and Courville’s two-volume set served as my guide in this) was that the history books and the Bible just did not align. Now, after four decades of effort on this work of revision, I have been blessed to have encountered - and sometimes to have made - exciting discoveries, including, as I think, the appropriate era for Moses and the Exodus, and the true archaeology for the Israelite (Joshuan) Conquest of Palestine. But Moses himself, the person, has proven to be most elusive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I now think that - and it took me only about 34 years to realise it - this Mentuhotep may be Moses staring revisionists right in the face. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my most recent excursions into this era of biblico-history. I have returned to the view - in line with the thinking of professor Emmanuel Anati, in his classic, The Mountain of God - that the famous Egyptian “Sinuhe” tale carried a reminiscence of the historical Moses: “I accept that this famous Egyptian tale is based upon a real biblical event. The semi-legendary Sinuhe may at least provide us with the time of the flight of Moses from Egypt to Midian, during the early reign of Sesostris I”. And I as well, in line with my revised Old to Middle Kingdom parallelism, tentatively making contemporaneous: 4th Dynasty 5th Dynasty 6th Dynasty 12th Dynasty 13th Dynasty would also suggest a possible connection of Sinuhe with the Sixth Dynasty’s Weni. There is a famous Sixth Dynasty official, Weni (or Uni), who may be the parallel of the Twelfth Dynasty’s Sinuhe as a candidate for the elusive Moses. I have previously written on this: Now, given our alignment of the so-called Egyptian Middle Kingdom’s Twelfth Dynasty with the Egyptian Old Kingdom’s Sixth Dynasty (following Dr. Donovan Courville), then the semi-legendary Sinuhe may find his more solidly historical identification in the important Sixth Dynasty official, Weni, or Uni. Like Weni, Sinuhe was highly honoured by pharaoh with the gift of a sarcophagus. We read about it, for instance, in C. Dotson’s extremely useful article (“…. The Cycle of Order and Chaos in The Tale of Sinuhe”) (https://journals.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/StudiaAntiqua): “…. The king gives Sinuhe a sarcophagus of gold and lapis lazuli as a housewarming gift. The gift of a coffin by the king was considered a great honor and a sign of respect. In the Autobiography of Weni from the Old Kingdom, Weni records that the king had given him a white sarcophagus and “never before had the like been done in this Upper Egypt.” …. [End of quote] Naturally, Dr. Courville’s radical proposal that the Egyptian Sixth and Twelfth dynasties were contemporaneous - whereas, according to conventional history some four centuries separate the end of the Sixth (c. 2200 BC) from the end of the Twelfth (c. 1800 BC) - has not been well received by conventional historians, such as e.g. professor W. Stiebing who has written: “There is simply no textual support for making the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties contemporaneous, as Courville does”. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Yf2NWgNhEecC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=co: However, as I have previously noted: …. [Dr.] J. Osgood proposes a possible close relationship between the 6th and 12th dynasty mortuary temples ....: Edwards certainly opens the possibility unconsciously when referring to the pyramid of Sesostris the First ....: “... and the extent to which its Mortuary Temple was copied from the Mortuary Temples of the VIth dynasty, as illustrated by that of Pepi II ... is clearly evident.” The return of a culture to what it was before ... after some three hundred years must be an uncommon event. The theoretical possibility that the two cultures, the Twelfth and the Sixth Dynasties were in fact contemporary and followed a common pattern of Mortuary Temple must be borne in mind as real. [End of quotes] That there is in fact some impressive evidence to suggest that: Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms [Were] Far Closer in Time than Conventionally Thought The following samples are taken entirely from Nicolas Grimal’s text book (op. cit.): P. 67: “Like his Third Dynasty predecessors, Djoser and Nebka, Snofru soon became a legendary figure, and literature in later periods credited him with a genial personality. He was even deified in the Middle Kingdom, becoming the ideal king whom later Egyptian rulers such as Ammenemes I sought to emulate when they were attempting to legtimize their power”. P. 71: “… texts that describe the Fourth Dynasty kings …. It was … quite logical for the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom and later to link those past rulers represented primarily by their buildings with the greatest tendencies towards immoderation, thus distorting the real situation (Posener 1969a: 13). However, it is difficult to accommodate within this theory the fact that Snofru’s reputation remained untarnished when he built more pyramids than any of his successors”. P. 73 “A Twelfth Dynasty graffito found in the Wadi Hammamat includes Djedefhor and his half-brother Baefre in the succession of Cheops after Chephren”. P. 79 “The attribution of the Maxims to Ptahhotep does not necessarily mean that he was the actual author: the oldest versions date to the Middle Kingdom, and there is no proof that they were originally composed in the Old Kingdom, or, more specifically, at the end of the Fifth Dynasty. The question, moreover, is of no great importance”. Pp. 80-81 {Teti, I have tentatively proposed as being the same pharaoh as Amenemes/Ammenemes I, based on (a) being a founder of a dynasty; (b) having same Horus name; (c) being assassinated. Now, Pepi I and Chephren were married to an Ankhesenmerire/ Meresankh – I have taken Chephren to have been the foster father-in-law of Moses, with his wife Meresankh being Moses’ Egyptian ‘mother’, traditionally, Merris. Both Pepi I and Chephren had substantial reigns}. Grimal notes the likenesses: “[Teti’s] adoption of the Horus name Sehetep-tawy (‘He who pacifies the Two Lands’) was an indication of the political programme upon which he embarked. … this Horus name was to reappear in titulatures throughout subsequent Egyptian history, always in connection with such kings as Ammenemes I … [etc.]”. “Manetho says that Teti was assassinated, and it is this claim that has led to the idea of growing civil disorder, a second similarity with the reign of Ammenemes I”. P. 84: “[Pepy I] … an unmistakable return to ancient values: Pepy I changed his coronation name from Neferdjahor to Merire (‘The devotee of Ra’)”. P. 146: “The words of Khety III are in fact simply the transposal into the king’s mouth of the Old Kingdom Maxims”. P. 159: [Ammenemes I]. Like his predecessors in the Fifth Dynasty, the new ruler used literature to publicize the proofs of his legitimacy. He turned to the genre of prophecy: a premonitory recital placed in the mouth of Neferti, a Heliopolitan sage who bears certain similarities to the magician Djedi in Papyrus Westcar. Like Djedi, Neferti is summoned to the court of King Snofru, in whose reign the story is supposed to have taken place”. P. 164: “[Sesostris I]. Having revived the Heliopolitan tradition of taking Neferkare as his coronation name …”. P. 165: “There is even evidence of a Twelfth Dynasty cult of Snofru in the region of modern Ankara”. P. 171: “Ammenemes IV reigned for a little less than ten years and by the time he died the country was once more moving into a decline. The reasons were similar to those that conspired to end the Old Kingdom”. P. 173: “… Mentuhotpe II ordered the construction of a funerary complex modelled on the Old Kingdom royal tombs, with its valley temple, causeway and mortuary temple”. P. 177: “… Mentuhotpe II’[s] … successors … returned to the Memphite system for their funerary complexes. They chose sites to the south of Saqqara and the plans of their funerary installations drew on the architectural forms of the end of the Sixth Dynasty”. …. The mortuary temple was built during the Ammenemes I’s ‘co-regency’ with Sesostris I. The ramp and the surrounding complex were an enlarged version of Pepy II’s”. P. 178: “The rest of [Sesostris I’s el-Lisht] complex was again modelled on that of Pepy II”. Pp. 178-179: “[Ammenemes III’s ‘black pyramid’ and mortuary structure at Dahshur]. The complex infrastructure contained a granite sarcophagus which was decorated with a replica of the enclosure wall of the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara (Edwards 1985: 211-12)”. “[Ammenemes III’s pyramid and mortuary temple at Harawa]. This was clearly a sed festival installation, comparable to the jubilee complex of Djoser at Saqqara, with which Ammenemes’ structure has several similarities”. “The tradition of the Old Kingdom continued to influence Middle Kingdom royal statuary …”. P. 180: “The diversity of styles was accompanied by a general return to the royal tradition, which was expressed in the form of a variety of statues representing kings from past times, such as those of Sahure, Neuserre, Inyotef and Djoser created during the reign of Sesostris II”. P. 181: “A comparable set of statures represents Ammenemes III (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 385 from Hawara) … showing the king kneeling to present wine vessels, a type previously encountered at the end of the Old Kingdom (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 42013 …) …". After having recalled some striking similarities between the Sixth Dynasty founder, Teti, and the Twelfth Dynasty founder, Amenemes I, as follows: “…. {Teti, I have tentatively proposed as being the same pharaoh as Amenemes/Ammenemes I, based on: (a) being a founder of a dynasty; (b) having same Horus name; (c) being assassinated. ….}”, I continued on to point out: Grimal notes the likenesses [Pp. 80-81]. “Weni’s famous “Autobiography” has been described as, amongst other superlatives … “… the best-known biographical text of the Old Kingdom and has been widely discussed, as it is important for literary and historical reasons; it is also the longest such document”. Comparing Weni - (and Sinuhe) - with Vizier Mentuhotep About Sinuhe, we learn (http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/sinuhe.htm): “I was a henchman who followed his lord, a servant of the Royal harim attending on the hereditary princess, the highly-praised Royal Consort of Sesostris in the pyramid-town of Khnem-esut, the Royal Daughter of Amenemmes in the Pyramid-town of Ka-nofru, even Nofru, the revered”. We have already learned something of the greatness of Mentuhotep. Weni has, for his part, been described - like Imhotep (Joseph) - as a “genius”. This little excerpt on the “Autobiography of Weni” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Weni) already tells us a lot about the man: Weni rose through the ranks of the military to become commander in chief of the army. He was considered by both his contemporaries and many Egyptologists to have been a brilliant tactician and possibly even a genius. His victories earned him the privilege of being shown leading the troops into battle, a right usually reserved for pharaohs. Weni is the first person, other than a pharaoh, known to have been portrayed in this manner. Many of his battles were in the Levant and the Sinai. He is said to have pursued a group of Bedouins all the way to Mount Carmel. He battled a Bedouin people known as the sand-dwellers at least five times. Weni’s famous “Autobiography” has been described as, amongst other superlatives (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=sgoVryxihuMC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352): “… the best-known biographical text of the Old Kingdom and has been widely discussed, as it is important for literary and historical reasons; it is also the longest such document”. This marvellous piece of ancient literature, conventionally dated to c. 2330 BC - and even allowing for the revised re-dating of it to a bit more than half a millennium later - completely gives the lie to the old JEDP theory, that writing was not invented until about 1000 BC. Here I take some of the relevant inscriptions of the renowned Vizier, Mentuhotep (http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Ancient_Records_of_Egypt_v1_10000750), and juxtapose them with comparable parts of the “Autobiography” of Weni (in brown) (http://drelhosary.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/weni-elder-and-his-mor) (all emphasis added): INSCRIPTIONS OF MENTUHOTEP …. 531. Hereditary prince, vizier and chief judge The exterior face of the north wall incorporates a large niche, and during excavations here a damaged false door inscribed for Weni the Elder was discovered in situ. Not only does this false door provide a nickname for Weni ("Nefer Nekhet Mery-Ra"--Egyptian nicknames were often longer than birth names!), but it also documents his final career promotion, a fact not recorded in his autobiography: Chief Judge and Vizier. attached to Nekhen, judge attached to Nekhen, prophet of prophet of Mat (goddess of Truth), giver of laws, advancer of offices, confirming … the boundary records, separating a land-owner from his neighbor, pilot of the people, satisfying the whole land, a man of truth before the Two Lands … accustomed … to justice like Thoth, his like in satisfying the Two Lands, hereditary prince in judging the Two Lands …. supreme head in judgment, putting matters in order, wearer of the royal seal, chief treasurer, Mentuhotep. Hereditary prince, count the count … chief of all works of the king, making the offerings of the gods to flourish, setting this land … according to the command of the god. the whole was carried out by my hand, according to the mandate which … my lord had commanded me. …. sending forth two brothers satisfied pleasant to his brothers with the utterances of his mouth, upon whose tongue is the writing of Thoth, I alone was the one who put (it) in writing …. more accurate than the weight, likeness of the balances, fellow of the king in counselling … giving attention to hear words, like a god in his hour, excellent in heart, skilled in his fingers, exercising an office like him who holds it, favorite of the king I was excellent to the heart of his majesty, for I was pleasant to the heart of his majesty before the Two Lands, his beloved among the companions, for his majesty loved me. his majesty appointed me sole companion and superior custodian of the domain of the Pharaoh. powerful among the officials, having an advanced seat to approach the throne of the king, a man of confidences to whom the heart opens. his majesty praised me for the watchfulness and vigilance, which I showed in the place of audience, above his every official, above [his every] noble, above his every servant. 532. Hereditary prince over the … the (royal) castle (wsh't) … finding the speech of the palace, knowing that which is in every body (heart), putting a man into his real place, finding matters in which there is irregularity, giving the lie to him that speaks it, and the truth to him that brings it, giving attention, without an equal, good at listening, profitable in speaking, an official loosening the (difficult) knot, whom the king (lit., god) exalts above millions, as an excellent man, whose name he knew, true likeness of love, free from doing deceit, whose steps the court heeds, when preparing court, when preparing the king’s journey (or) when making stations, I did throughout so that his majesty praised me for it above everything. overthrowing him that rebels against the king, hearing the house of the council of thirty, who puts his terror … among the barbarians (fp^s'tyw), when he has silenced the Sand-dwellers, pacifying the rebels because of their deeds, whose actions prevail in the two regions, lord of the Black Land and the Red Land, giving commands to the South, counting the number of the Northland, His majesty sent me to despatch [this army] five times, in order to traverse the land of the Sand-dwellers at each of their rebellions, with these troops, I did so that [his] majesty praised me [on account of it]. When it was said there were revolters, because of a matter among these barbarians in the land of Gazelle-nose, I crossed over in troop-ships with these troops, and I voyaged to the back of the height of the ridge on the north of the Sand-dwellers. When the army had been [brought] in the highway, I came and smote them all and every revolter among them was slain. His majesty sent me at the head of his army while the counts, while the wearers of the royal seal, while the sole companions of the palace, while the nomarchs and commanders of strongholds belonging to the South and Northland …. in whose brilliance all men move, pilot of the people, giver of food, advancing offices, lord of designs, great in love, associate of the king in the great castle (wsfi't), hereditary prince, count, chief treasurer, Mentuhotep, he says: 533. …'I am a companion beloved of his lord, doing that which pleases his god daily, prince, count, sem priest, master of every wardrobe of Horus, prophet of Anubis of … the hry ydb, Mentuhotep, prince in the seats of … Splendor … at whose voice they (are permitted to) speak in the king's-house, in charge of the silencing of the courtiers, unique one of the king, without his like, who sends up the truth …. One to whom the great come in obeisance at the double gate of the king's-house ; attached to Nekhen, prophet of Mat, pillar … 'before the Red Land, overseer of the western highlands, First of the Westerners …. leader of the magnates of South and North … advocate of the people … merinuter priest, prophet of Horus, master of secret things of the house of sacred writings …. Never before had one like me heard the secret of the royal harem. [Sinuhe, too, was] servant of the Royal harim attending on the hereditary princess …. governor of the (royal) castle, governor of the South prophet of Harkefti, great lord of the royal wardrobe, who approaches the limbs of the king, chamber-attendant …. overseer of the double granary, overseer of the double silver-house, overseer of the double gold-house, master of the king's writings of the (royal) presence, wearer of the royal seal, sole companion, master of secret things of the 'divine words’ (hieroglyphics) …. 534. Here follows a mortuary prayer, after which the concluding lines (22, 23) refer specifically to his building commissions at Abydos …. I conducted the work in the temple, built of stone of Ayan I conducted the work on the sacred barque {nlm * /), I fashioned its colors, offering tables His majesty sent me to Hatnub to bring a huge offering-table …. of lapis lazuli, of bronze, of electrum, and silver; copper was plentiful without end, bronze without limit, collars of real malachite, ornaments (mn-nfr't) of every kind of costly stone. of the choicest of everything, which are given to a god at his processions, by virtue of my office of master of secret things. [End of quotes] I recall (but do not currently have access to the reference) that professor A. S. Yahuda had, in his Language of the Pentateuch in Its Relation to Egyptian (Vol. 1, 1933), when discussing the Exodus 5:5 encounter between Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron: “Then Pharaoh said, ‘Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working’”, referred to the rank of Moses and Aaron (differentiating them from the common people) as something akin to new men. Anyway, that (“new men”) is precisely how Weni is classified in this next piece: http://drelhosary.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/weni-elder-and-his-mortuary.html Everyone who has studied ancient Egyptian history is familiar with the autobiography of Weni the Elder, an enterprising individual who lived during the 6th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2407-2260 BCE). His inscription, excavated in 1860 from his tomb in the low desert at Abydos in southern Egypt, enthusiastically describes his long service under three kings, culminating in his appointment as "True Governor of Upper Egypt." Scholars have hailed it as "the most important historical document from the Old Kingdom" and have used it to illustrate the rise of a class of "new men" in Egyptian politics and society--persons whose upward mobility rested in their abilities, not in noble birth. Early in the season, we excavated a number of inscribed relief fragments from this area, including two pieces that, when joined together, furnished the name "Weni the Elder" and a fragment providing the title "True Governor of Upper Egypt," the highest title recorded in Weni's autobiography. Further evidence emerged supporting this association. The exterior face of the north wall incorporates a large niche, and during excavations here a damaged false door inscribed for Weni the Elder was discovered in situ. Not only does this false door provide a nickname for Weni ("Nefer Nekhet Mery-Ra"--Egyptian nicknames were often longer than birth names!), but it also documents his final career promotion, a fact not recorded in his autobiography: Chief Judge and Vizier. [End of quote] Weni was, just like Mentuhotep, “Chief Judge and Vizier”. Weni was also, as we read above, “commander in chief of the army”. And Mentuhotep was also “Chief of Police”. Was this also the historical Moses, whose Judgeship, whose Rulership, some of the Hebrews chose to reject (Exodus 2:14): ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ WOMAN RULER OF EGYPT At the approximate time of Moses’s impending return from his exile in the land of Midian, the rulership of Egypt had fallen into the hands of a woman, due, apparently, to the lack of male heirs (Exodus 4:19): “And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go, return to Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead’.” The Hebrew specifically says “the men” (הָ֣אֲנָשִׁ֔ים) here. I would now identify this woman ruler variously with Khentkaus of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasty; Nitocris of the Sixth Dynasty; and Sobekneferu(re) of the Twelfth Dynasty, thereby further securing my amalgamating of these supposedly four Egyptians dynasties (and kingdoms) into the one era. 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. 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, 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; Nitocris; and Sobekneferu(re); constitute the one woman-ruler triplicated. And hence arise shocks and problems (e.g., the famous “Khentkaus Problem”), “amazement and even sensation” (see below) 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. 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 now find – to triplicate Khentkaus herself into I, II and III. 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. 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. …. PHARAOH OF EXODUS With the confusing kings (supposedly plural) “Sobekhotep” now tucked out of the way, as belonging to the now-finished Twelfth Dynasty, the ruler who must loom as the Pharaoh of the Exodus would be, as others have already determined, Khasekemre-Neferhotep [I] of the Thirteenth Dynasty. This identification is made, for instance, at: https://vineyardlabourer.info/chronology_of_egypt_and_israel.html THE OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph." Exodus 1:8. Not that he was ignorant of Joseph's services to the nation, but he wished to make no recognition of them, and, so far as possible, to bury them in oblivion. Josephus wrote, "having in length of time forgotten the benefits received from Joseph, particularly the crown being now come into another family, they became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them." Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, chapter IX, paragraph 1. By this revision this Pharaoh would have been Sesostris III [Mackey. Actually the composite Amenemes, then followed by the composite Sesostris]. …. From his statues we may conclude that he was a nasty character. From the historical records we learn that Asiatic slaves were used during the twelfth dynasty. "The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period must have been more times more numerous than has been generally supposed. Whether or not this largely slave population could have played a part in hastening . . . the impending Hyksos domination is difficult to say." Cambridge Ancient History, vol II part I, page 49. "Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian house holds." 1964 Encyclopaedia Britannica volume 8, page 35. Gardiner wrote, "it should be noted, however, that on stelae and in papyri Asiatic slaves are increasingly often mentioned, though there is no means of telling whether they were prisoners of war or had infiltrated into Egypt of their own accord." Egypt of the Pharaohs, page 133. From the Scripture records, we can say that they did infiltrate into Egypt of their own accord, but were subsequently enslaved. There was an extensive building program carried on in the Delta where the Israelites were located during this dynasty. The temples of the eighteenth dynasty at Luxor were too far away from the delta to have been built with Israelite save labour, and they were built of stone. The buildings constructed in the delta under the twelfth dynasty were made of mud brick. Mountains of such bricks went into the city of Avaris and nearby cities. Moreover the pyramids of Sesostris III and Amenemhet III were also made of mud bricks. The early dynasties' burial places were made of mud brick. The magnificent third and fourth dynasty pyramids were built of stone. For some strange reason these twelfth dynasty rulers reverted to mud brick. Josephus wrote, "they (the Egyptians) set them (the Israelites) to build pyramids." Antiquities of the Jews, book 2, chapter IX, paragraph 1. On the assumption that the oppression took place during the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty, this is regarded by scholars as a glaring blunder by Josephus, for by this time, according to their view, the pyramid age had ended. The Pharaohs of these dynasties were buried in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor. But maybe it is the scholars who have blundered, for the kings of the twelfth dynasty did build pyramids, and what is more, they built them of mud bricks laced with straw. "Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves." Exodus 5:7. Especially relevant is the research done by Rosalie David whose book "The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt" was published in 1986. She researched the work done by Sir Flinders Petrie in the Faiyyum. Petrie worked in the Faiyyum in 1889 and he explored the pyramids of the 12th dynasty and identified the owners. He also excavated the remains of a town that had been occupied by the workmen who actually built these pyramids. He wrote, "The great prize of Illahun was unknown and the unsuspected by anyone. On the desert adjoining the north side of the temple, I saw traces of a town, brick walls, houses and pottery; moreover, the pottery was of a style as yet unknown to me. The town wall started out in a line with the face of the temple; and it dawned on me that this could hardly be other than the town of the pyramid builders, originally called Ha-Usertesen-hotep, and now known as Kahun. A little digging soon put it beyond doubt, as we found cylinders of the age, and no other; so that it was evident that I actually had in hand an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty, regularly laid out by the royal architect for workmen and stores, required in building the pyramid and its temple. After a few holes had been made, I formed up the workmen in a line along the outmost street, and regularly cleared the first line of chambers, turning the stuff into the street; then the chambers beyond those were emptied into them; and so line after line, block after block, almost every room in the town was emptied out and searched." Ten Years Digging In Egypt, pages 112 - 113. From the unidentified pottery and other evidence, Petrie concluded that the occupants had been foreigners. Expanding on this thought Rosalie David has an entire chapter headed "The foreign population at Kahun." She wrote, "From his excavations at Kahun, Petrie formed the opinion that a certain element of the population there had come from outside Egypt." The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt, page 175. "It is undeniable that the inhabitants used foreign wares which were derived from the Aegean islands or from Syria-Palestine." page 188. "It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may reflect the situation elsewhere in Egypt. It can be stated that these people were loosely classed by Egyptians as 'Asiatics', although their exact homeland in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined. . . The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear." pages 190 - 191. Neither Petrie nor David guessed that these Asiatics were the Israelites because Velikovsky's views have so far not been widely accepted by the archaeological world, but obviously the evidence fits the Biblical records in a remarkable way. The book of Genesis tells how and why they got there, and what they were doing in Egypt. "Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little ones, and their wives, in the carts which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. So they their livestock and their goods, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him." Genesis 46:5 - 7. "But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them." Exodus 1:7. No doubt the heaviest concentration of the Israelite immigrants was in the Delta, but knowing the Hebrew capacity for industry, trade and enterprise, there is no reason to conclude that they would all confine themselves to the same location, and the tomb paintings at Beni Hassan depicting Asiatic immigrants in the twelfth dynasty indicate that they had spread as far as central Egypt. The Hebrews have always had remarkable ability to maintain their identity, and this would explain the foreign settlement at Kahun which Petrie investigated. Evidence is not lacking to indicate that these Asiatics became slaves. "A famous papyrus (the Brooklyn Papyrus) was left to the Brooklyn Museum . . . On the verso of this papyrus, a woman named Senebtisi attempts to establish her legal rights to the possession of Ninety-five servants. A list of them is included which states their titles, names and surnamed, and their occupations. Of the seventy-seven entries which are presented well enough to enable the individuals nationality to be read, twenty-nine appear to be Egyptian while forty-eight are 'Asiatics' . . . Although the foreign names were not precise enough to enable the exact homeland of these Asiatics to be identified, it can be said that they were from a 'Semitic group of the north west' . . . The Brooklyn Papyrus is important here because it shows that one household employed a large proportion of Asiatics and this household was situated in Upper Egypt (The south) and not in the Delta; therefore it is apparent that Asiatic servants were by now disseminated throughout the community." pages 189 - 190. "Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households." (during the twelfth dynasty). Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1964, volume 8, page 35. "The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period must have been many times more numerous than has generally been supposed. Whether or not this largely slave population could have played a part in the hastening, or the paving the way for, the impending Hyksos domination is difficult to say." Cambridge Ancient History, volume II, part 1, page 49. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century AD, wrote that the Egyptians "became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them . . . They set them to build pyramids." Antiquities of the Jews, page 55. It is generally considered that Josephus blundered in this statement, because it is assumed that the Exodus took place in the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasties, and by then the Pharaohs were being buried in tombs in the Valley of the kings, not in pyramids. But the kings of the twelfth dynasty built pyramids, and they built them of mud bricks mingled with straw. "Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, 'You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves'." Exodus 5:6, 7. An intriguing aspect of Petrie's discoveries was the unusual number of infant burials beneath the floors of the houses at Kahun, a tragic reminder of the harsh edicts issued by the cruel tyrants of the oppression. "Beneath the brick floors of the rooms was, however, the best place to search; not only for hidden things, such as statuette of a dancer and a pair of ivory castanets, but also for numerous burials of babies in wooden boxes. These boxes had been made for clothes and household use, but were used to bury infants, often accompanied by necklaces and other things. On the necklaces were sometimes cylinders with the kings' names; and thus we know for certain that these burials, and the inhabitants of the town, is of the twelfth dynasty, from Usertesen (Sesostris) II onward." Ten Years Digging in Egypt, pages 116 - 117. We have the Bible what is probably a partial record of the efforts of the Pharaohs of the oppression to curb the growth of the Israelites. "Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, 'when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him'." Exodus 1:15, 16. These were probably only the midwives in the vicinity of the royal palace. Obviously a large population such as the Israelites then were, scattered all over Egypt, would require more that two midwives. These two midwives evaded their grim responsibility to Pharaoh by claiming that the Hebrew women gave birth before they arrived. But we do not know how many other midwives were obliged to carry out the edict. Later, when Pharaoh found that these measures were not effective, he ordered the Egyptian neighbours to see that the babies were killed. "Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, 'Every son who is born you shall cast into the river'." Exodus 1:22. Some parents managed to conceal their newborn babies for some months. Moses mother "when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months." Exodus 2:3. But many babies must have been drowned. Whether the parents retrieved the bodies, or whether some babies were put to death by other means we do not know. There must have been many traumatic scenes as babies were torn from their mother's arms by hostile neighbours. But this could account for the many infant burials at Kahun. In her book, beneath a picture of a wooden box, David says, "Larger wooden boxes, probably used to store clothing and other possessions, we discovered underneath the floors of many houses at Kahun. They contained babies, sometimes buried two or three to a box, and aged only a few months at death . . . internment of bodies at domestic sites was not an Egyptian custom, although such practices occurred in other areas of the ancient Near East." Mackey’s comment: Now we come to Neferhotep, ruling at the very time that the Egyptianised Asiatic slaves suddenly departed from Kahun (Illahûn). Finally there is the striking evidence pointing to the slaves' sudden departure. Up to the time of Khasekhemre-Neferhotep I of the middle thirteenth dynasty, who would thus be identified as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, there was evidence of continuous occupation. Then it suddenly all stopped. "There is every indication that Kahun continued to flourish throughout the 12th dynasty and into the 13th dynasty . . . It is evident that the completion of the king's pyramid was not the reason why Kahun's inhabitants eventually deserted the town, abandoning their tools and other possessions in the shops and houses . . . There are different opinions of how this first period of occupation at Kahun drew to a close. . . The quantity, range and type of articles of everyday use which were left behind in the houses may indeed suggest that the departure was sudden and unpremeditated." The Pyramid Builders, pages 195, 199. "And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years - on the very same day - it came to pass that the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Exodus 12:41. The last ruler of the 12th dynasty was Queen Sebekhnefrure who died childless. …. The 13th dynasty followed and Khasekemre-Neferhotep I was probably the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He was the last king to rule before the Hyksos occupied Egypt "without a battle”; according to Manetho. Without a battle? Where was the Egyptian army? It would have been at the bottom of the Red Sea. Exodus 14:28. https://www.flickr.com/photos/menesje/27735543505 1742-1733 473 PHARAOHS OF EGYPT- Two Statues of NEFERHOTEP I from his first Naos, found in Karnak. Egyptian Museum, Cairo - photo Hans Ollermann 2016. Khasekhemre Neferhotep I was an Egyptian pharaoh of the mid Thirteenth Dynasty ruling in the second half of the 18th century BC [sic] during a time referred to as the late Middle Kingdom or early Second Intermediate Period, depending on the scholar. One of the best attested rulers of the 13th Dynasty, Neferhotep I reigned for 11 years. The grandson of a non-royal townsman from a Theban family with a military background, Neferhotep I's relation to his predecessor Sobekhotep III is unclear and he may have usurped the throne. Neferhotep I was likely contemporaneous with kings Zimri-Lim of Mari and Hammurabi of Babylon. Mackey’s comment: Zimri-lim and Hammurabi actually lived roughly half a millennium after the Exodus. Little is known of his activities during his decade-long reign and the most important document surviving from his rule is a stela from Abydos recounting the fashion of an image of Osiris and Neferhotep's determination that it be made "as instructed by the gods at the beginning of time". …. Neferhotep I seems to have come from a non-royal family of Thebes with a military background. His grandfather, Nehy, held the title "officer of a town regiment". …. REIGN Neferhotep I is known from a relatively high number of objects found over a large area, from Byblos to the North to the Egyptian fortresses of Buhen and Mirgissa in Lower Nubia to the South through all parts of Egypt, especially in the southern portion of Upper Egypt. A single attestation is known from Lower Egypt, a scarab from Tell el-Yahudiya. Other attestations include over 60 scarab seals, 2 cylinder-seals, a statue from Elephantine, and 11 rock inscriptions from Wadi el Shatt el-Rigal, Sehel Island, Konosso and Philae. The inscriptions record the members of Neferhotep's family as well as two high officials serving him "The royal acquaintance Nebankh" and the "Treasurer Senebi". Two stelae are known from Abydos one of which, usurped from king Wegaf and dated to his 4th regnal year, forbids the construction of tombs on the sacred processional way of Wepwawet. Two naoses housing two statues each of Neferhotep as well as a pedestal bearing Neferhotep's and Sobekhotep IV's cartouches have been found in Karnak. There are also a few attestations from the Faiyum region where the capital of Egypt was located at the time, in particular a statuette of the king dedicated to Sobek and Horus of Shedet, now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Bologna. …. King lists. Beyond these contemporary attestations, Neferhotep is listed on the 34th entry of the Karnak king list as well as the 7th column, 25th row of the Turin canon. The Turin king list credits Neferhotep with a reign of 11 years and 1 to 4 months, the second or third longest of the dynasty after Merneferre Ay (23 years) and Sobekhotep IV (9–12 years). Whether Neferhotep I usurped the throne at the expense of Sobekhotep III or inherited it, he possibly acceded to power over a fragmented Egypt. …. Manfred Bietak, Daphna Ben-Tor and James and Susan Allen … contend that Neferhotep I reigned over the whole of Egypt. Possible vindications of this are the several attestations of Neferhotep found northeast of Egypt, in the Levant, in particular the stela of the Governor of Byblos Yantinu and 4 scarab seals from Canaan, indicating that he retained enough power to maintain trade relations with this region. ….