Exodus Riddle by James D. Long

The Riddle of the ExodusThe Riddle of the ExodusThe Riddle of the ExodusThe Riddle of the ExodusThe Riddle of the Exodus

Startling Parallels BetweenAncient Jewish Sources and theEgyptian Archaeological Record

by

James D. Long

Revised and Expanded

Lightcatcher BooksSpringdale, Arkansas

Table of ContentsForeword ..............................................................................xiPreface ............................................................................... xiiiIntroduction — The Passover That Never Was? .......... xv

— Section One — The Controversy1 Egyptology’s Dirty Little Secret ............................... 12 Why Ask the Chinese About the Irish? ................. 253 Help From Ezra ......................................................... 29

— Section Two — The Hebrews in Egypt4 The Hebrew Vizier ................................................... 415 “Let It Be Written...” ................................................. 496 Searching the Hebrew Annals,

A Book Endorsed by the Bible ............................... 637 Searching the Egyptian Records ............................. 698 Ten Plagues Over Egypt .......................................... 81

— Section Three — Leaving Egypt9 The Amazing Papyrus at Leiden ............................ 9310 Twilight of the Old Kingdom ............................... 10511 Splitting the Sea ...................................................... 11312 Monument to a Miracle ......................................... 13113 Dating the Exodus .................................................. 13714 Remembering Joseph ............................................. 149

— The Rest of the Story —AppendixA Circling Sinai ........................................................... 163B Truth Shall Spring From the Earth ....................... 185C The Splintered Reed ............................................... 211Index .................................................................................. 221

IntroductionIntroductionIntroductionIntroductionIntroductionThe Passover That Never Was?The Passover That Never Was?The Passover That Never Was?The Passover That Never Was?The Passover That Never Was?

I have always believed that the Exodus happened.Blame it on Cecil B. DeMille and his Paramount epicThe Ten Commandments. The narrative and accompanyingvisual spectacle had an undeniable impact on my theneight-year-old mind. Viewing The Ten Commandmentsas an adult, I had to chuckle at its creaky directing styleand stilted, operatic performances that were old-fashioned even by Hollywood standards of 1956.

Years later, I would stand on Jebel Siyagha in Jordan,looking towards Israel. Siyagha is the highest point onthe Nebo range of mountains and thought to be Pisgah(Hebrew for “peak”), the site where Moses viewed thePromised Land. Deuteronomy relates that Moses couldsee all the way from “Dan to Beersheba”— a panoramathat encompassed a region roughly 50 miles wide fromeast to west, and running approximately 165 miles fromnorth to south. I could see far less as I squinted througha smoky veil of pollution. Standing there it seemed tome that something had also clouded modern man’s viewof the momentous epic called the Exodus.

These days, professing belief in the Biblical account ofIsrael’s miraculous redemption by G-d is very often metwith outright ridicule. This situation reached its nadirwhen a Conservative rabbi in Los Angeles told the pressthat there was not one shred of evidence to prove theExodus had actually occurred.

He chose the Passover season to announce this to theworld.

If I had believed this, I would have contacted my obser-vant Jewish acquaintances in Israel and told them thatthere was no reason to rid the house of chametz, to putaway the matzah and forget about answering the fourquestions posed by Jewish children for centuries onPesach.1

Why bother? A newspaper story had banished Moses tothe realm of myth populated by Santa Claus and theEaster Bunny.

How could this be? Why would a son of Israel, in oneglib proclamation, wipe out thousands of years ofrecounted history? To accept his words would render thewhole Passover Feast empty and artificial, if not null andvoid.2 To me, that act was tantamount to one of our U.S.Congressmen stating that the founding of America andthe signing of the Declaration of Independence wasembellished by legend. The skeptic might counter thatwhile we can offer the aforementioned document asproof of America’s beginnings, no such evidence existsfor the Exodus account.

However, we do possess testimony that is ancient andunchanged. I am referring to The Torah, also calledthe Five Books of Moses. I would also add that itserved the same noble purpose as the legal instrumentdrafted by our American forefathers. For the JewishPeople the Torah is their Declaration of Independence,Bill of Rights and Title Deed to the Land of Israel —all literally rolled into one.

G-d did something at Sinai that was unique in humanhistory. He created a nation. Every country since timeimmemorial has emerged from migration, war, conquestor human mandate. Israel is the only nation formed byand under the auspices of the Creator of time and space.By declaring this, I have immediately positioned myselfas an extremist on the subject, for I have stumbled fromthe straight and narrow of science to the intangibleregions of faith.

I have not written this book for those happy in the conceitthat everything taught by the rank and file ofarchaeology is the truth and cannot be challenged. I haveundertaken this task ever since I discovered that thewhole study of antiquity is simply a house of theoreticalcards built on shaky ground. It is a modern frameworksuperimposed on the span of the centuries that is ill-fitting and often incomprehensible.

This work is for those who have searched for answersin publications like Biblical Archaeological Review and foundit a maddening experience. Every new disclosure ofevidence that might broaden our view of the Bible’shistorical aspect is met with howling rebuttal. Men ofscience will remind us that it is the acid test of peer reviewthat allows discoveries to be granted a seal of approval— but the seal is never granted.

A prime example is Tel Jericho, a site that possesses agenuine Biblical pedigree. It meets the geographiccriteria of the scriptural narrative and the excavated siteexhibits all the signs of a city demolished as describedin the book of Joshua. Still, many scholars maintain thatthe armies of Israel never destroyed Jericho. Britisharchaeologist, Kathleen Kenyon, was the foremostproponent of this view. She believed that the ruins at

Jericho could not be dated to correspond with Israel’sentry into the land. However, her thesis was faulty fromthe beginning. Kenyon’s proposed date of this event waspure conjecture and her conclusions were based not onwhat she found at Jericho — but what she did not find!Searching through her unpublished papers, researcherBryant Wood found that that the late Ms. Kenyon didindeed uncover potteryfrom the time of the Israelite conquest. But she chose toignore it.3

Those who march lockstep with Ms. Kenyon have createdan archaeological maze further complicated by a datingsystem that is terribly flawed.

Let us turn our attention to ancient Egypt during the timethat the Exodus saga unfolded. Surely an empire soterribly impacted by this event should have a record ofit. While the official line maintained by thearchaeological community dismisses the Exodus as a talltale, scholars (without realizing it) actually come toconclusions that harmonize with the Biblical record. Inthe study of Egypt and the Exodus there are certain factsthat are hard to dispute, and they will be revealed in thisbook.

This edition of The Riddle of the Exodus is the culminationof over eight years of research that I had done for mytelevision documentary of the same name. I am aprofessional researcher, who works with experts.I am not a card-carrying archaeologist, but that does nothinder me from being able to observe, analyze andmarshal data into what I hope is a coherent and readablework. I am not an archaeologist in the academic senseof the word. However, I could lay claim to that title as itwas originally coined in 1607. In fact, as late as 1879, the

word was still defined as research that, “investigates bystudying oral traditions, monuments of all kinds, andwritten manuscripts…”4

Much of what we know (or think we know) about ancientEgypt is still a matter of conjecture. That is why theconclusions offered in this book are just as relevant asthose held sacrosanct by most academics. Egyptologyand Archaeology have yielded some tangible but verybasic evidence from the past. But we must be vigilantfor speculation passed off as fact. John Anthony West,a controversial figure in Egyptology, provides someinsight into the official view of the field he describes as:

“….in a state of constant ferment and revision,though the outsider would never suspect it.”5

As an outsider, I would offer the reader a very radicalthesis: the Exodus did not take place in the New Kingdomera of Rameses the Great. Nor did it occur in the earlierMiddle Kingdom during the days of the Hyksos, theso-called Shepherd Kings. By going to the ancient Jewishsources, however, we find tantalizing clues that take usfarther back in time, directly to the end of the SixthDynasty, into the twilight of the Old Kingdom. This isan era that Bible scholars have completely ignored intheir search for the Exodus.

In the Sixth Dynasty, we discover Pharaoh NeferkarePhiops II, who ruled longer than any king in Egyptianhistory. He was succeeded by his son Neferkare theYounger, whose short reign was followed by QueenNitokerti, who may have been the first woman to sit onthe throne of Egypt.

The events which occurred in the days of these threemonarchs matches the account found in the JewishMidrash known as Sefer HaYashar. The Old Kingdomcame to an abrupt close during the reign of Neferkarethe Younger. Literally overnight, the powerful Egyptianempire was brought to its knees and chaos was the normfor hundreds of years. Though Egyptologists cannotagree on the reasons for this descent into calamity, theBiblical narrative offers a compelling answer in itsgraphic description of disastrous plagues, the demise ofthe firstborn, the primogeniture-privileged class, the lossof their elite cavalry and charioteers and an exiting laborforce.

You would rightly ask how a drama of such scope couldbe missing from the Egyptian annals. Yet, a tattereddocument known as The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage,written in the final chaotic days of the Sixth Dynasty,challenges the view that the Egyptians kept no record ofthe Exodus and its profound impact. The description ofdisasters found in this ancient document closely parallelsthe Biblical record in a manner that is both intellectuallyastonishing and personally heartbreaking.

What of the most dramatic event of all — the Splitting ofthe Sea?

A journey to the Egyptian town of Ismailia will lead to alocal museum that houses a nearly forgotten artifact. Itis a black granite monument covered in hieroglyphs thatrecount the drowning of Pharaoh’s army—from theEgyptian point of view.

If the Exodus had never happened…if millions ofHebrew slaves, accompanied by a mixed multitude, hadnot departed Egypt in the wake of signs and wonders

and if they had not received the Torah at Mount Sinai,then there would be no Jewish People. You don’t need adegree in theology to understand the furtherramifications. Without the Jew and his Torah therewould be no Christianity or Islam.

Even though the Pentateuch is part of the canon of theChristian Old Testament, some ministers will preach thatthe New Testament has replaced or “fulfilled” it. TheMoslem cleric will similarly insist that the Koran is thefinal revelation given to Mohammed. But they cannotdeny the basic historicity from Adam to Joshua as beingthe first revelation from the Creator. For millions ofJews and Christians, the book of Exodus is an accuratechronicle that details the release of the ancient Hebrewsfrom years of harsh Egyptian bondage and their eventualbirth as Israel — a nation then obliged to a nonhumantaskmaster and laws largely grounded in this historicalliberation.

The Exodus experience is rooted at the very core ofJudaism. If modern Israel and the Jewish people are tofulfill their manifest destiny as a Light to the Nations,then they must believe that their destiny was formed inthe crucible of the Exodus and that it was every bit asauthentic as the founding of the United States.

Endnotes

1 In preparation for Passover, the entire house must be rid of any trace of chametz orleavening, whether on the floors or in food products. The four questions are actually inresponse to another question, “Why is this night different than all other nights?” (a)Why on this night do we only eat unleavened bread? (b) Why on this night do we only eatbitter herbs? (c) Why on this night do we dip them twice? (d) Why on this night do werecline?

2 Ironically, the rabbi declared this from a synagogue called Temple Sinai.3 Bryant G. Wood, “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?“ (Biblical Archaeological Re-

view, Mar/April 1990)4 Barry Fell, America B.C., (Artisan Publishers, Muskogee, OK, 2001) p.305 John Anthony West, Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt, (Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1988) p. xiii

1

Egyptology’s Dirty Little Secret

— Section One — — Section One — — Section One — — Section One — — Section One —

The ControversyThe ControversyThe ControversyThe ControversyThe Controversy

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11111Egyptology’s Dirty Little Secrets

Despite lofty pronouncements from scholarly circles,Archaeology and Egyptology are really all about opin-ions. These disciplines actually shun ancient writtensources as unreliable and too subjective. Scholars oftenportray themselves as wholly objective and claim that theirconclusions are only based on hard evidence. Writing inthe Israeli newspaper Ha’Aretz, Professor Itamar Singer,from Tel-Aviv University, dispels such posturing with thisclear-eyed assessment:

“If this were the case, there would be no bitterarguments among archaeologists over theirinterpretations of various findings. True, the silentremains do not lie but the archaeologists who speakin their name are no less subjective than thephilologists who interpret the texts. Archaeologydoes not have the role of ‘supreme arbiter’ in thepolemic on bible history, but is rather an activeparticipant in the debate.”1

Witness the ongoing controversy surrounding the DeadSea Scrolls. The historic finds at Qumran are the purestexample of archaeology fueled by constant debate. It isscholarship with an agenda. Despite a massive libraryof scrolls and other relics, archaeologists still publish con-flicting views of the discoveries from this site. For yearsthe École Biblique hoarded the precious scrolls. Theyclaimed the texts were infused with the very origins oftheir church. Thankfully, access was granted to other

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scholars in 1991 allowing the true Jewish character of thescrolls to be revealed.

That sound you hear is derisive laughter issuing from thehallowed halls of academia. They are amused that some-one so lacking in archaeological credentials wouldchallenge their position. Do not misunderstand me; I amnot opposed to scholarship. I am opposed to intellectualchauvinism parading as scholarship. John Anthony Westis familiar with this curious mind-set that rejects any newconcepts even when backed by solid scientific data:

“To outsiders, the resistance to new and soundtheories in scientific and scholarly disciplines isoften incomprehensible, since these disciplines areostensibly dedicated to the discovery of theobjective truth…but in the case of the scholar orscientist, a sound theory that contradicts views heldand pursued for a lifetime pulls the rug out fromunder his or her ego, and a familiar paradoxicalsituation develops. The people professionally

One of the Dead Sea Scroll on display at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.

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engaged in discovering the ‘truth’ are thosepsychologically least capable of accepting the‘truth’ if it happens to contradict what they alreadybelieve…Nowhere is this more apparent than inEgyptology.”2

My point is this: I cannot conclusively prove my theories,but they cannot prove their theories either. I can presentyou with data that is reasonably sound and offer my owninterpretation. It is my hope that you will consider theevidence presented in this book and form your own con-clusions based on the merit of that evidence — not mylack of credentials.

Let’s begin by looking at some of the problems that plaguethis discipline.

The Chronological Conundrum

In the more honest literary efforts of its practitioners,we sometimes learn that one of the most important toolsutilized in Egyptology simply does not work. In theintroduction to his Pyramids of Egypt, author I. E. S.Edwards spills the beans:

“One of the first questions which occur to the mindof anyone looking at an ancient monument is itsdate. In the case of the Egyptian monuments it isoften difficult, and sometimes impossible, toanswer the question in terms of years before thebeginning of the Christian era, because ourknowledge of Egyptian chronology is still veryincomplete. We know the main sequence of eventsand frequently their relationship to one another,but, except in rare instances, an exact chronology

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will not be possible until the discovery of materialof a different and more precisely datable characterthan anything found hitherto.”3

Dr. Edwards is referring to the Egyptian Chronology. Itis a timetable that encompasses the whole of ancient Egyp-tian history by charting each pharaoh, his years on thethrone, and then divides the whole business into thirty-one individual time periods known as Dynasties. Thisamalgam is drawn partly from a record set down byManetho, an Egyptian priest who lived in the Third Cen-tury BCE. His work survives through secondhand sourcessuch as the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Others whoquote Manetho are Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius.4

ANCIENT EGYPTPeriods DynastiesArchaic PreDynastic

Early Dynastic 1st, 2nd, 3rd

Old Kingdom 4th, 5th, 6th

First Intermediate 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th

Middle Kingdom 11th, 12th

Second Intermediate 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th17th (The Hyksos)

New Kingdom 18th, 19th, 20th

Third Intermediate 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th

Late Kingdom 25th, 26th27th (Persian)

28th, 29th, 30th

Second Persian

Greco-Roman Macedonian KingsPtolemaic

Roman EmperorsByzantine Emperors

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The use of this chronology is very much a part of the studyof ancient Egypt. As Sir Alan Gardiner noted:

“In spite of all defects this division into dynastieshas taken so firm a root in the literature ofEgyptology that there is little chance of its everbeing abandoned.”5

The system is so pervasive that the uninitiated reader isoften left with the impression that this is a method of re-cording history employed by the pharaohs and theirscribes. If we could be transported back in time, to an-cient Menifir (Memphis), and ask someone on the streetswhat Dynasty we were in, they would reply, “What’s aDynasty?”

Archaeological discoveries such as the Kings List in thetemple at Abydos, the Turin Papyrus, the Palermo Stone,and the Tables found at Saqqara and Karnak are allchronicles that reveal the basic order of the pharaohs andtheir reigns. When Manetho’s list is compared to the TurinPapyrus we discover that these two separate chroniclesare slightly at odds with each other. The table of pha-raohs from Manetho reveals a total of forty-nine kingsduring the first six dynasties while the Turin documentrecords fifty-two.

The farther we search back into time the more problemsthat appear with the chronology:

“Nevertheless, there remain many areas ofuncertainty and, while dating is solid back to 663BC, margins of error before then may run in excessof a century.”6

These flaws might be overlooked, especially if this time-table were utilized only as a general reference tool. Most

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importantly, the Egyptian Chronology contains a seriousdefect that is rarely acknowledged: no one can agree atwhat point in time to begin the chronology.

Since the introduction of this methodology, it has beenrevised over twenty times! With each revision, the chro-nology has been severely reduced. At this writing,Egyptologists have now decreased the span within thethirty-one dynasties by as much as three thousand years.7

Modern scholars should have heeded sage advice offeredover 1,600 years ago when the historian Eusebius warnedthat Manetho’s dynastic roll call of kings should not beread as a sequential list.

It is apparent that Manetho, driven by national pride, at-tempted to create a false impression of high antiquity for

The Kings Gallery in the Temple at Abydos offers a nearly completelist of Egyptian rulers from the 1st to the 19th Dynasty. The list wascommissioned by Seti I.

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his country by stacking the reigns of the pharaohs so as topush back the foundation of Egypt. Another historian, acontemporary of Manetho known as Berossus, has beenaccused of the same trickery—attempting to shore upnational pride by artificially inflating the life-span of theBabylonian Empire by thousands of years.8 This creakydating system was adopted by modern scholars. It is acontrivance that has resulted in a cross-pollination of vari-ous disciplines that contaminate each other with circularreasoning. I challenge the reader to pick up any book onancient Egypt containing a list of pharaohs within thethirty-one dynasties and compare it with the same kindof table found in any other book on Egypt. None of thesecharts will match. Implementing this timetable has re-

There is a growing consensus that a number of the

pharaohs in Manetho’s timetable ruled during the same

time period but in various geographic regions of Egypt.

They were co-existent rather than consecutive. For

instance, in the Old Kingdom, the pharaohs of the Third,

Fourth and Sixth Dynasties all ruled from Memphis. But

the Fifth Dynasty kings governed from Elephantine, near

the southern border of ancient Egypt. This appears to be

an odd shift back and forth between seats of power

especially when we learn that, until the final years of the

Sixth Dynasty, much of this period was noted for its stability.

The Elephantine kings could have been co-regents with

their Memphite counterparts. This would explain what first

appears to be an anomalous shift between two ancient

capitals.

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The tiny figure of Fourth Dynastypharaoh, Khufu, known to the Greeksas Cheops. This king is credited withbuilding the Great Pyramid.

sulted in collateral damage that disrupts the entire dat-ing for the histories of Assyria, Babylon, Persia and evenancient Israel. Another problematic method of researchis Sothic Dating, one of Egyptology’s favored parlor tricks.

Sothic Dating took on the weight of dogma when JamesH. Breasted published his Ancient Records of Egypt in 1906.Not only did this influential work canonize Sothic Datingbut it also laid the groundwork for accepting Manetho’schronology as it was originally structured.

All Egyptologists agree that the GreatPyramid was built by the Fourth Dynastypharaoh, Khufu (Cheops), but this isbased on one cartouche containing hisname found within the monument.

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Sirius Business

Once, in Jerusalem, I had an unforgettable encounter witha well-known Bible scholar. We both happened to be leas-ing cars at a small rental agency near the King David Hotel.I recognized him from his placid, bearded visage thatI had often seen in the pages of Biblical Archaeological Re-view. While waiting for our paperwork to be processed, Istruck up a conversation and the talk turned to our re-spective fields. When he asked about my work, I toldhim that I recently had come from Cairo where I wasshooting footage for a documentary on the Exodus.

As I shared my radical views, citing the end of the OldKingdom being linked to the Exodus, the look of interestin his eyes began to retreat and his smile froze. His men-tal tuner was rapidly dialing out the sound of my voice.He stopped me with an upraised palm. He insisted thatthe Egyptian Chronology did not allow for such a theory,that the chronology was set in stone and the proof of itsworth was the Sothic dating. With that he collected hisrental contract and his wife and drove away.

To ward off my evil influence, the good professor hadchanted the holy mantra of Sothic Dating. It attempts tofix a firm date for the beginning of the 18th Dynasty basedon observing the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog Star,called Sothis by the Greeks. Somehow, using this systemis supposed to allow us to align the ancient Egyptian civiccalendar with the astronomical calendar (they only lineup every 1450 years!) thus locking the whole of Egypt’shistory into an exact year-by year chronicle.

Author Hilary Wilson warns that this system is far frombeing set in stone:

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“In the course of dynastic history, several scribesmentioned the occasion of the heliacal rising ofSirius, but only once, as late as AD 139, was theabsolute coincidence of the two calendars recorded.Calculating back in units of 1450 years, orthereabouts, this gives the possible date for theinitiation of the civil calendar somewhere between2780 and 2760 BC. But since it was almost certainlyin use before that date, another 1450 years backtakes the creation of the Egyptian calendar into thepredynastic age. On the papyrus from the templeat el-Lahun at the entrance to the Fayum, theheliacal rising of Sirius is said to have occurred onthe 25th day of the first month of winter in theseventh year of the reign of Senusert III. Thistranslates to a date around 1872 BC. This is one ofthe very few dates on which modern Egyptologistshave built their chronology.”9

Am I the only one bothered by the liberal sprinkling ofphrases like “or thereabouts,” “possible date,” and “a dateof around,” in the above explanation?

We are supposed to be talking about fixed dates and ex-act alignments of calendars and constellations.10 Somebreathing room is fine when pulling back the pages of thepast. But my Bible scholar friend parades this flabby con-struct, called Sothic Dating, as if it were a precisemathematical model. I suspect that he was simply spout-ing what I call dinner party data: casual informationgleaned while clinking glasses with other like-mindedtypes. In his view, I was so low on the academic foodchain that my viewpoint simply had no weight.

Hopefully, the Sothic Calendar nonsense is falling out offashion among honest practitioners since the publication

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of the ground-breaking Centuries of Darkness, written byPeter White aided by fellow troublemakers Nick Thorpe,Nikos Kokkinos, Robert Morkot, and John Frankish.These formidable researchers explode the Sothic Datingmyth with their revelation that the Holy Grail of Sothicdating, the Ebers Papyrus, has no calendar dates in thetext! The document found near the temple at el-Lahun(the Illahun Papyrus) is supposed to locate a fixed date inthe Middle Kingdom era. It seems that the lunar calcula-tions in the papyrus are in error.11

As for investigating the Sixth Dynasty, the Sothic calen-dar is useless. There is no Sothic data available from theOld Kingdom, and it seems that the ancient Egyptians ofthis era employed at least three calendars. The defects inthe Egyptian Chronology are critical, but the field isplagued by other lapses.

The Three Age System

Dating any archaeological find is always tricky business,but those working in the discipline have often resorted toshoving round pegs into square holes in their efforts tomake some sense of it all. This frustration gave birth toa system introduced by Christian Jurgensen Thomsen,first curator of the Danish National Museum in 1816.Sorting through a jumble of artifacts culled from variousancient grave sites, Thomsen decided to classify anddate the material according to the composition of theimplements and weapons found at the site. He reasonedthat an ancient culture could be dated by the level ofadvancement evidenced in their implements. It wasreasoned that a culture progresses from stone tools,then to copper — eventually abandoning the latter foriron. In other words, it was thought that our ancestors no

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longer made crude stone utensils when someone discov-ered how to make metal ones. Thus was born the conceptof Stone Age, Bronze and Iron Ages which gave us theThree Age System.

Obviously it brought a sense of order to Thomsen’sancient clutter — but this scheme fails to account for theanomalous and often stubborn behavior of humankind.Have you watched the Discovery Channel lately? Thereare countless tribes around the globe today who continueto toss spears at one another. In reality, separate cultureshave developed at different rates. Witness the hunter-gatherers near the Arctic Circle in Alaska who allegedlybegan crafting a specific array of small stone tools around4000 B.C. and did not abandon them until recently!12

What the experts fail to tell you about the Three AgeSystem is that it only works as a relative dating methodand that it was designed for prehistoric sites. You cannotpinpoint specific dates of a discovery with this method-ology. For our purposes, it is even less useful, becauseit was developed specifically to catalogue artifacts inNorthern Europe. Despite the fact that all of this is com-mon knowledge to any first-year student of archaeology,those digging in the Near East have arbitrarily adoptedthe Three Age System — treating it like an exact scientifictool.

Like unwrapping a rotting mummy, the task of unravel-ing the secrets of ancient Egypt is complicated bycrumbling conventions instituted ages ago. Scholarswill not change them; treating them as sacrosanct and un-touchable. As we have seen, most of these methods haveonly been useful in a generalized context, but excavatorshave continually employed them to specifically date theirdiscoveries. I will have to bow to those conventions in

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small measure, but only as a general reference tool. Inthe previous pages my aim was to expose you to all of thevarious failings in the present methodology to demon-strate that we are still dealing with a very inexact fieldof study which parades whole theories as fact. Again, Iwill quote John Anthony West who sums up this situa-tion with this simple warning:

“When it comes to Egyptian history, take whateverinformation you may be given with a pinch of saltand keep an open mind to conflicts of opinion.Beyond a reasonable certainty of the succession ofthe kings, very little that passes for Egyptian historyis fact.”13

Even though the succession of the kings is not always a“reasonable certainty,” we can find some alignment be-tween Manetho’s list and the archaeological record. Forcenturies, much of that information was denied us becauseof a long forgotten language.

Can You Speak Hieroglyph?

Today you have to converse with someone on the streetsof modern Cairo in Arabic. That has been the nationaltongue since the Moslems swept into the country around640 CE. But three hundred years earlier, Egypt was stillpart of the Byzantine Empire. The largely Christian popu-lace of that day spoke a language known as Coptic andwrote using Greek letters. This latter Hellenistic influ-ence can be traced back to the time of Alexander the Great.The language and writing became infused with Greek.Modern Coptic Christians claim a lineage back to the timeof the pharaohs. Coptic could still be heard in obscurepockets of the country as late as the 1930's.14

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Egypt’s oldest written language survives in three distinctforms: hieroglyphs, hieratic and demotic. The ability toread hieroglyphs had disappeared completely by 500 CE.Translating these obscure pictographs would not occuruntil centuries later. The first breakthrough came in 1799when soldiers with Napoleon’s army discovered what wenow call the Rosetta Stone, in the village of el-Rashid,about 40 miles east of Alexandria. Britain later took con-trol of Egypt and the artifact was sent to England, whereThomas Young, a professor of Natural Philosophy at theRoyal Institution, is credited with the initial ground-break-ing work of deciphering the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta stonewas found near thevillage of Rashidby soldiers inNapoleon’s army.It would provide thekey for translatinghieroglyphs.

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Jean-Francois Champollion would further unlock the mys-teries of the text in 1822. The stone bore the same decreeinscribed in Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic. The French-man was able to locate the names of Ptolemy andCleopatra in the Greek text on the stone, and then matchthem with their counterparts in the other two languages.

Translating hieroglyphs is one thing, but verbalizing thesesigns is something that linguists still wrestle with today.We can only speculate as to the character and sound ofthe ancient Egyptian tongue. Part of the problem stemsfrom an attribute common to the ancient Middle Easternlanguages: there were no vowels. Egyptologist Dr. Bar-bara Mertz, who has a genuine knack for clarifying thecomplexities of this discipline, explains:

“Hieroglyphic writing expresses only consonants— and since hieratic and demotic are derived fromhieroglyphs, the same is true of them. Thereforewhen Egyptologists transliterate Egyptian, theywrite a word with only the consonants. Whenstudents read the texts aloud in class, they followthe accepted practice of inserting an “e” between

Hieroglyphs can beread one of threeways. The directionthat the animal orhuman figures facewill determine whetherto read from the rightor left, otherwise theyare read from the topto the bottom.

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the consonants to facilitate articulation. If youlisten to someone reading Egyptian aloud,following this convention, you will not hearEgyptian as spoken in the days of the pharaohs.The convention is allowed only because the truevocalization is still in doubt.”15

With so many hieroglyphs at their disposal, it wouldseem that the ancient Egyptians had all of the phoneticbases covered. The language of the Old Kingdom wasdifferent from that of the New Kingdom era and actuallylimited to some degree. As far as we can determine, therewas no “l” sound in the Old Kingdom tongue. When theyencountered that sound in foreign names or words,the glyph representing the “r” sound was generally sub-stituted for a compound of “rw.” The letter translated asa “t” was rendered with a hieroglyph that carried a “d”sound.16

If we were to climb back into our imaginary time machine,go back to ancient Thebes, and ask one of the locals fordirections to the palace of Pharaoh Thutmose, we wouldbe greeted with a blank stare. We should probably beasking for someone whose name sounds more likeDhwty-nht.

How do you actually articulate a series of consonantswhen you really don’t know which vowels to stick inbetween them? The name Thutmose is problematic forother reasons. The first element, “thut,” is from the Greek“thoth,” the god of wisdom. The remainder of the appel-lation, “mose,” is said to come from the Egyptian “sonof.”17

Thutmose is actually a hybrid form, half Greek and halfEgyptian, and sounds as though it was created in a lan-guage lab. According to John Anthony West, one of the

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difficulties in trying to uncover the mysteries of Egypt isthe linguistic impact of the Greeks:

“While it is true that scholars today do not reallyknow how ancient Egyptian was pronounced,the Greeks appear guilty of any number ofetymological crimes, producing “Cheops” out ofKhufu, “Thoth” out of Djehuti and “Ozymandias”out of User-maat-re, at the same time causingalmost inextricable confusion even among scholars,since certain Greek names, such as Memphis, havetaken such prominence that the proper Egyptiannames are seldom used, while in other cases theEgyptian name prevails and in still other cases, theGreek and Egyptians are freely interchanged.”18

The impact of the Greeks is demonstrated by the fact thatthe name we still attach to the country is derived fromthe Greek Aigyptos. Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner be-lieved that the word might be a Hellenistic corruption ofHikupta, an early alternate name for Menifer (Memphis),the famous capital near the Nile Delta.19

The Greeks have hada profound effect onour study of ancientEgypt. The titles ofthe pharaohs andthe modern name ofthe country are fromGreek.

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The Hellenizing of Egypt began with the arrival of thePtolemaic line of rulers following the death of Alexanderthe Great. Naturally their influence extended into everyarena of Egyptian culture, including their pantheon ofgods. Ever heard of Wsir? You don’t recognize the namebecause we all know the deity as Osiris. We cannot evendiscuss the stone monuments that are so synonymous withEgypt without invoking the Greek idiom. Possibly thesefirst Ionian visitors were Epicureans since they seemed toequate everything with food. For example, the word“pyramid” comes from Greek tourists who thought themassive triangular piles of stone resembled their ownwheat cakes. The sky scraping “obelisks” reminded themof the spits on which they roasted meat.20

Even though historians and archaeologists appear tofavor the Greek sources, they are reluctant to acknowl-edge the Biblical influence on their respective fields. Theword “pharaoh” is a perfect example. Most scholars main-tain that the title was derived from the Egyptian perahtranslated as “great house.” It is believed that “greathouse” was used in the same way as our modern idiomfor the president, as in, “The White House issued a state-ment today….”

But I wonder. If we look at the Hebrew root of “pha-raoh,” can we find a connection to Egypt’s ancientreligion?

Holy Cow

In 1850, Auguste Mariette discovered a site called theSerapeum, near ancient Memphis. It was an undergroundburial chamber for the sacred Apis Bulls. The site stillranks as one of the great discoveries of Egyptology.

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Though this sanctuary was from a later period in Egyp-tian history, the worship of their blessed bovine waspracticed from the First Dynasty down through the cen-turies. The king was believed to personify this creatureand in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, the pharaoh isreferred to as the bull of the sky:

“The early dynastic kings were frequently shownas bulls and it would appear that for politicalreasons they adopted the bull cult of the north,particularly Apis who perhaps existed long beforethe first king of united Egypt.”21

The sky goddess known as Hathor represented the femi-nine aspect of this religion. The deity had the body of awoman topped by the head of a cow. The Apis Bull wasthe blending of Osiris and the Divine Cow.

Worship of the bull can be traced to Egypt’s earliest period of history.

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In the Hebrew of the Torah, the word “pharaoh” is closelyrelated to the word parah which means cow.22 The Torahmay be alluding to this ancient practice of the king beingpersonified in the form of a cow. That allusion is aptlydemonstrated in Genesis, Chapter 41, when the king, inJoseph’s time, experiences a prophetical dream. Sevenyears of plenty and seven years of famine are symbolizedin the ruler’s dream as cattle coming from the depths ofthe Nile. Pharaoh’s dream reveals the Egyptian cosmol-ogy in which the sacred Nile and the sacred cow areassociated with the Pharaoh himself.

A linguist might take exception to linking the Hebrewparah with “pharaoh.” They would rightfully explain thatthe Hebrew word for bull or ox is shor. The affinity be-tween the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew could allow forthis association. After all, the general term for the animalwhether male or female is still a par or cow.23

In the ritual of the Apis Bull, the animal was completelyblack, except for special markings on its forehead. Uponits death the animal was mummified and interred withgreat ceremony. This deification of livestock calls to mindthe infamous episode of the Golden Calf in Chapter 32 ofthe book of Exodus:

“G-d declared to Moses, ‘Go down, for the peoplewhom you brought out of Egypt have becomecorrupt. They have been quick to leave the waythat I ordered them to follow, and they have madethemselves a cast-metal calf. They have boweddown and offered sacrifice to it, exclaiming, ‘This,Israel, is your G-d, who brought you out of Egypt.’”— Exodus 32:7-8

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Endnotes

1 Prof. Itamar Singer, “Bible as History?” (article in Ha’Aretz , December 28, 2001)Sect. B p.6

2 John A. West, The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt, (Alfred A.Knopf 1988) p. 393 I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, (Viking Press 1971) p. 114 Manetho’s History of Egypt was lost when Julius Caesar accidentally torched the

famous Alexandrian Library in 47 BCE.5 Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, (Oxford University Press 1961) p. 466 Aidan Dodson, The Hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt (Barnes & Noble Books, NY,

2001) p. 1327 Paul Rothstein, Review of Ancient History, (privately published, Telz Stone,

Israel) p. 38 Peter James, Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronol-

ogy of Old World Archaeology, (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,1993) p. 292

9 Hilary Wilson, Understanding Hieroglyphs, (Michael O’Mara Books 1995) p. 17710 The ancient Egyptians were notorious for having several calendars.11 Peter James, Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronol-

ogy of Old World Archaeology, p. 22612 Brian Fagan, “In the Beginning, An Introduction to Archaeology”, (Little Brown

and Company, Boston, 1978) p. 38213 John A. West, The Travelers Key to Ancient Egypt, p. 714 Barbara Mertz, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs, (Peter Bedrick Books 1990)

pp. 253-25415 ibid, p. 25516 Hilary Wilson, Understanding Hieroglyphs, (Michael O’Mara Books Ltd. 1995) p.

3217 Exodus 2:10 relates that Moses was so named by Pharaoh’s daughter because

she drew him from the water. In the Oral Tradition, when Moses is born, his ownfamily gives him the name of Toviah, literally, G-d is good.

18 John A. West, The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt, p. 19519 Memphis is the Greek variant of Menefir (beautiful place).This Hellenistic distor-

tion of names extends to many other ancient sites and especially the names ofthe pharaohs.

20 Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, p.221 W.B. Emery, Archaic Egypt, (Penguin Books 1961) p.12422 By adding the letter ayin to the Hebrew word, parah.23 Linguist Isaac Mozeson points out that shor really refers to oxen. Shor later

morphed into the Latin taurus and the Spanish tauro.

Exodus Riddle by James D. Long

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