Monday, April 13, 2009

Unwrapping the Ramessides


From Chapter 11 of Damien F. Mackey's thesis:
"A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background".

Chapter 11:
"From the Death of the Great Dynastic King
to the Dawn of Hezekiah’s Era"


A Preliminary Note

My revised chronology here of the Ramesside era and TIP, to the dawn of Hezekiah, largely based on what I have so far determined, will be controlled by the following factors: (i) my broad acceptance (though with significant modifications) of Velikovsky’s 18th dynasty revision; (ii) acceptance of the standard view that the 19th dynasty followed on from the 18th (beginning on p. 274, I shall give solid reasons, mainly genealogical, for rejecting Velikovsky’s separation of the 18th from the 19th); (iii) my identification of Horemheb with the biblical Jehu (d. 814 BC, conventional date), and so the Jehu-ide succession with the Ramesside succession (to be developed); and (iv) the three interregna, combined, for Judah and Israel prior to the fall of Samaria (as referred to in Chapter 5, p. 129).

Introduction

We left the previous chapter at c. 814 BC, as the conventional date for the death of Jehu, but not the date that I shall actually be following. (See next page for new calculations, based on my inclusion of the interregna as discussed by Anstey). Were one to follow this standard date (c. 814), then there would still be the need for bridging a gap of 8-9 decades (c. 814-727) in order to reach the beginning of the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah and his Egypto-Ethiopian contemporaries. I also, towards the end of the last chapter, proposed that Ramses I, the presumed founder of the 19th (Ramesside) dynasty,[1] was the actual son of Horemheb/Jehu, and so, possibly, was Jehoahaz. This would inevitably mean that Ramses II ‘the Great’ - the pharaoh who has perhaps been the most controversial major pharaoh in terms of the revision, and the most difficult for revisionists to assign an appropriate place to - the grandson of Ramses I, ought to span the greater part of this interim period (814-727), given his reign of almost seven decades. And this is indeed the approximate revised period to which Courville, with proposed dates of c. 792/791-726/725 BC for Ramses II,[2] and Gammon, with dates of 804-738 BC,[3] have assigned this pharaoh.
However, when Anstey’s chronological adjustments in regard to interregna are taken into account, then the standard Jehu-ide dynasty dates must be raised by some several decades. This has the advantage of course of providing a more expansive chronology; something for which revisionists are always most grateful.
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And though I noted in Chapter 5 that I am concerned with precise biblical dates for EOH only, I also stated that the interregna, combined, were too substantial a chronological factor to be passed over.
I also mentioned there that standard chronologists (including Thiele) have generally not taken into account these interregna. Nor, indeed, have revisionists Courville and Gammon; though other revisionists (e.g. Hickman, Sieff) have, as I shall discuss in a moment. Here is how Mauro has calculated the 22-year interregnum for Israel:[4]

There was also an interregnum in Israel between the reign of Jeroboam II and that of Zechariah; for Jeroboam’s 41st year, which was his last, coincided with the 15th of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Zechariah did not succeed until the 38th of Uzziah (2 Kings 14:29; 15:8). This makes an interval of 22 years.

Mauro had noted a paragraph earlier that “Uzziah did not come to the throne until the 27th year of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 15:1)”. He also calculated an 8-year interregnum period for Israel between Hoshea’s slaying of Pekah and Hoshea’s becoming king of Israel.[5]
Revisionists Hickman[6] and Sieff,[7] on the other hand - who have, like Courville and Gammon, accepted that the 19th dynasty followed on from the 18th - have taken into account the interregna periods. Whilst, as thus might be expected, Sieff has arrived at dates earlier than Courville and Gammon for Ramses II (I am presuming c. 850-780 BC in Sieff’s case, based on his assessment of Merenptah’s beginning at c. 780 BC[8]), Hickman surprisingly gives 775 BC (even later than Courville) for year 1 of Ramses II.[9] My own chronology for Ramses II will now be based on my new proposal (though perfectly in accord with the view that “many of Horemheb’s successors in the 19th Dynasty considered him to be the founder of their line”[10]) that Horemheb (my Jehu) was in fact Ramses II’s great-grandfather.
Now Horemheb’s year of death will need to be adjusted (based on Mauro’s inclusion of three interregna) from the usual c. 814 BC to 867 BC.[11] Starting now at 867 BC, the 95 years of Jehu-ide dynasty post Jehu (as calculated by Anstey and Mauro), i.e., Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II and Zechariah, should close at 772 BC; a mere 50 years before the Fall of Samaria. Taking Jehu as Horemheb, the father of Ramses I (or Jehoahaz), then that would likely mean that the main part of the 19th dynasty, including Seti I, Ramses II and Merenptah, would have ceased by 772 BC. It remains to be seen how well Jehu and his four descendants can be aligned, in a revised context, with Horemheb (already explained) and the four great Ramessides. Firstly I shall give (i) a general assessment, with pros and cons, of such a revised alignment. Then I shall (ii) specifically examine each individual pharaoh in relation to his proposed biblical counterpart.
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(i) A General Estimate

I have already, especially in Chapter 10, provided a detailed account of how our Dynastic King, Jehu/Horemheb, can serve as both a king of Israel and a pharaoh of post-Amarna Egypt. We even read that the biblical span of 28 years, applied to Jehu, is also accorded to the reign of Horemheb. And we learned that, since the mummy of Horemheb is unknown, there is no added complication in regard to the fact that Jehu was buried in Samaria. But does the same sort of consistency with A. Jehu, apply to Jehu’s four successors, when these are matched to Horemheb’s four successors in the 19th dynasty? Thus: B. Jehoahaz, as Ramses I; C. Jehoash, as Seti I; D. Jeroboam II, as Ramses II; and E. Zechariah, as Merenptah?

B. Jehoahaz = Ramses I

Though Ramses I is not thought to have been even a relative of the supposedly son-less Horemheb,[12] but merely an un-related official appointed by him to be his successor, Josephus seems to say otherwise:[13] “… his son Harmais [Horemheb?] for 4 years 1 month, his son Ramesses for 1 year 4 months, his son Harmesses Miamun for 66 years 2 months …”. Whilst, oddly, Seti I is omitted here, we seem to have the succession that I am tentatively proposing: namely, Horemheb, his son Ramses I (no Seti), then Ramses II. That is a promising start. “Historians like to think of [Ramses I] as the first king of the nineteenth dynasty and of the line of Ramesside kings although Horemheb really started the changes that could be seen as the beginnings of a new era”.[14]
Problems arise however after that. Whereas Jehoahaz reigned for 17 years (2 Kings 13:1), Ramses I is thought to have reigned for a mere 1-2 years. Moreover Jehoahaz, too, was buried at Samaria (13:9), whilst there is supposed to be an Egyptian mummy of Ramses I. Though I noted Ikram’s and Dodson’s objection to this on p. 248 of the previous chapter. And most recently Clayton has written that “Ramesses [I]’s mummy may not have survived (it certainly has not been identified) …”.[15]
Despite the fact that Jehoahaz was oppressed by the Syrians virtually all the days of his reign (13:3-7), the Second Book of Kings also speaks of “all that he did, including his might”, without however bothering to elaborate upon this. In other words, there was more to Jehoahaz than is recorded in the Old Testament. A possible explanation in my context is that Jehoahaz, like Jehu, reigned over Israel for a substantial period of time, but only effectively over Egypt for a short period (respectively, 28 and 7-8 years for Jehu; 17 and 1-2 years for Jehoahaz). A significantly longer than 1-2 years of reign for Ramses I would however serve to ease an art-historical problem (refer back to p. 247): namely, the apparent dissimilarity between the funerary equipment of Ramses I and that of his son, Seti I – extremely hard to explain if Ramses I had actually reigned for only 1-2 years.
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Also, Ramses I’s work in Egypt may have been effected right at the beginning of his reign. The ‘all that Jehoahaz did, including his might’, unelaborated upon in the Second Book of Kings, could now, for instance, incorporate his reign, however brief, over Egypt.

C. Jehoash = Seti I

With Jehoash and Seti I we gain a much better general fit than with B. The former reigned for 14 years, after a 3-year co-regency with his father;[16] while a “fourteen-year reign” is also the figure attributed to Seti I by Grimal.[17] Jehoash had some significant, though not total, success in a series of battles in Syro-Palestine (2 Kings 13:15-19), especially early in his reign, as did Seti I.
The mummy problem now definitely arises, though, with the well-known mummy of pharaoh Seti I in Egypt, whereas Jehoash was buried in Samaria (14:29). When I come to discuss “Ramesside Mummies” on pp. 310-313, though, I shall consider the possibilities of (a) wrong identification and/or (b) removal of mummies from a previous location.

D. Jeroboam II = Ramses II

Here, again, there is a generally encouraging fit, with, in both cases, a reign of more than four decades. Though Ramses II, of course, went even two decades beyond that. Both were glorious kings, builders and conquerors. Ramses II, a genuine megalomaniac, is the best known pharaoh of Egypt (with perhaps the exception of Tutankhamun for his gold), whilst Jeroboam II managed to extend Israel’s domains back to the extent that they had been during the glorious reign of king Solomon (2 Kings 14:25). “Although the Bible gives scant space to Jeroboam II (just three paragraphs), this king was perhaps the greatest of the post-Schism rulers of Israel”.[18] And, just as the last several decades of the reign of Ramses II were ineffectual, so was there a two-decade plus interregnum of confusion following Jeroboam II’s rule in Israel. The interregnum would perhaps account for the difference in reign lengths. The aged pharaoh had ceased to be able to retain his rule over Israel, but had continued rather ineffectually in Egypt for two more decades. The king’s great age might also provide one reason at least for the fact of this 22-year interregnum in Israel, about which the Bible offers hardly any detail at all.
Once again, there may be the mummy problem, with that of Ramses II being well-known in Egypt; whereas “Jeroboam slept with his ancestors, the kings of Israel” (14:29).

E. Zechariah = Merenptah

Zechariah, who reigned for six months, is completely obscure: Merenptah, somewhat so. According to David, Merenptah’s was a “ten-year reign”.[19] The more widely accepted figure is “just under a decade”.[20] In E. (beginning on p. 297), I shall consider more closely the suitability of Merenptah for Zechariah.
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The ‘Glasgow School’ of revision had done an excellent job in showing that the battles fought by Seti I, and Ramses II, were basically against the same sorts of enemies, Syrians and Hittites, in the same sorts of regions, as those of the early Jehu-ides.[21] The conclusion then was, not that the 19th dynasty Ramessides were Jehu-ides, as I think, but that the oppressed Jehu-ides received help from the more potent of the 19th dynasty pharaohs, Seti I and Ramses II ‘the Great’. So, even if I have gone too far in my bold suggestion that the 19th dynasty was in fact ‘Syrian’ Jehu-ide, I would nonetheless confidently accept the Glasgow view - now however discarded by its chief exponents - that the Jehu-ides were contemporaneous with the main 19th dynasty rulers. Though I myself would have Seti I more adjacent to Jehoash than to Jehoahaz, hence a little later than then proposed by Dr. Bimson. Now, most interestingly in regard to this, the biblical span for the Jehu-ides, 124 years,[22] is almost identical to Grimal’s estimate for (my equivalent era) Horemheb to Merenptah (1323-1202), 121 years.[23] Given my foundational argument, that Horemheb was Jehu, then my chronology for the 19th dynasty Ramessides is going to be very accurate indeed even if these were not - as I think they may well be - the Jehu-ides.

Summation

In general, then, we have a broad similarity amongst the succession A-E, at least, in that we have there five successive kings of Israel (including Jehu) loosely aligned to five successive pharaohs, over an approximately same period of time, with a certain feebleness in B. following the strong reign of A; a revival, though not complete, with C; a glorious and outstanding era of building and conquest, followed by a late period of weakness again, with D; and an obscure and relatively insignificant E.
Moreover, there is some overall degree of similarity in a Palestine at times under extreme pressure from the Syro-Hittites.
In terms of reign length, though, Ramses I is an extremely poor fit for Jehoahaz; whilst Jeroboam II, despite his exceptionally long reign of 41 years, still falls well short of Ramses II’s 66-67 years. The problem of mummies in A-E ranges from extreme, through uncertain, to non-existent. What I am firmly holding to is that the era of the main Ramessides was contemporaneous with the Jehu-ides. That at least provides us with a basic general chronology (revised) for these Ramessides all the way down to within comfortable range of EOH. Whether I can take things that step further though, to secure the Ramesside chronology by equating individual Ramesside pharaohs with individual Jehu-ides, as just outlined, still needs to be determined. Before specifically examining in detail each of the above four cases of Jehu’s successors (B-E), I should just like to suggest how I might begin to take steps to resolve the differences in reign lengths, in some cases, and also the mummy problem, in some cases.
Here, then, is the basic pattern of events as I envisage it.

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Jehu, a long-time governor and military commander in Syro-Palestine for the EA pharaohs, eventually became king of Israel where he ruled for 28 years, before he was buried in Samaria. He also directly ruled Egypt for a period of time, post-Amarna. Whilst this is also given as 28 years, his effective rule there is thought to have been more like 7/8 years (perhaps only 4 years), as we read. This establishes a general rule, that these Jehu-ides were actual kings of Israel, who also ruled Egypt (even Syria?) to a greater or lesser extent. The Old Testament scribes in their selectivity, as previously discussed, did not as a rule exhibit much interest in what was happening in Egypt at the time. In some cases I shall suggest that, depending on their strength, the rule of these Jehu-ides over the more prestigious Egypt was even more significant than was their rule over Israel.
The situation of mummies is rather more problematical. It seems that these kings were customarily buried in Samaria. That is not recorded, though, in the case of Zechariah; or even specifically (though implied) with Jeroboam II. Horemheb is not a problem, because there is no mummy attributed to him. Also, uncertainty apparently pertains to the alleged mummy of Ramses I. But with Seti I and Ramses II, especially, there seems to be a well-established mummy each in Egypt conflicting with the idea of a burial in Samaria; though I shall have some cause to query the case of Ramses II in particular. We know that the coffins and mummies of these pharaohs were moved around. My suggestion will be that, if I am right in identifying the Ramesside dynasty as Jehu-ide, then whatever genuine mummy of these Ramessides we do now possess must have been moved later from Samaria (where they were mummified due to close Egyptian connections) to Egypt.

(ii) A More Specific Account

The Ramessides

The accepted Ramesside 19th dynasty succession, spanning c. 1300 BC-1200 BC,[24] is:

Ramses I;
Seti (Sethos) I ‘the Great’;
Ramses II ‘the Great’;
Merenptah
Seti II Merenptah
Amenmesse
(Seti II)
Siptah, Queen Tausert, or Twosre (and Bay)

This mighty Ramesside dynasty is thought to have followed Horemheb (to whose line it apparently belonged), whom I have identified as the Great Dynastic Ramesside King, also re-adjusting the latter’s year of death downwards by almost half a millennium, from c. 1300 BC (1320 BC according to Meyer’s ‘Era of Menophres’) to 867 BC, to correspond with Jehu’s death (revised dating). Thus, as I shall outline in this chapter, the almost seven decade rule of Ramses II ‘the Great’, grandson of Ramses I, would span approximately the last third of the C9th BC and the first third of the C8th BC.
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In Chapter 12, 2, I shall consider that Hezekiah’s very mother, “Abi daughter of Zechariah” (2 Kings 18:2) may have been of Jehu-ide (king Zechariah’s) stock.
Thankfully, the conventional sequence of the early Ramessides, at least, is secure due to a known correlation with a sequence of contemporary Hittite kings. A peace treaty between Egypt and the Hittites was signed by Usermare Setepenre (royal name of Ramses II), son of Menmare (Seti I), grandson of Menpehtire (Ramses I); and by Khetasar (Hattusilis), son of Merosar (Mursilis), grandson of Seplel (Suppiluliumas).[25]

Table 2: Egyptian-Hittite Syncretisms

Egyptian
Hittite


Ramses I (Menpehtire)
Suppiluliumas (Seplel)
Seti I (Menmare)
Mursilis (Merosar)
Ramses II (Usermare Setepenre)
Hattusilis (Khetasar)

This early Ramesside order in relation to the Hittite succession for this era is a vital chronological link considering the dearth of such links that so often confronts the historian. This is a rock-solid synchronism that can serve as a constant point of reference; it being especially important in the context of the revision, given the confusion that arises with the names ‘Seti’ and ‘Sethos’ in connection with the 19th dynasty (see C. below). Without this established sequence one might have been tempted, for instance from an art-historical perspective, to experiment with a different order for these early 19th dynasty rulers. We recall, for example (from p. 247), the apparent dissimilarity between the funerary equipment of Ramses I and that of his son, Seti I.
We can be extremely grateful for this much certainty at least (Table 2 above). For I shall soon be arguing that the very last part of the 19th dynasty in the conventional scheme in reality pre-dates these kings. And of course I am also (as explained above) differing most significantly from convention (and indeed from other revisionists) regarding the nature of the Ramesside 19th dynasty (apart from VLTF), by my tentatively identifying its major rulers with the Jehu-ides of Israel. Soon, too, I shall be suggesting a similar sort of ethnic shift, with a biblical base, for the 20th dynasty Ramessides, who in my revision will not entirely follow the 19th dynasty as according to convention. Furthermore, I shall be, like Courville and Velikovsky, proposing a chronological location of the 22nd dynasty different from that of the conventional sequence. And, just as Courville did, I shall be identifying the origins of the 22nd dynasty differently from the conventional viewpoint. Moreover, I shall have cause to query radically the standard duration of the TIP.
Of course, to provide a comprehensive revision of this last, most complex era of Egyptian history (TIP) would be an extremely difficult and time-consuming project, and I would be highly presumptuous were I to imagine that I could master the situation - and that largely in the space of two chapters - I am nevertheless hoping to be able to set down at least the basic outline for a far ‘more acceptable alternative’ to the current scheme.

Let us now continue with our comparisons between the Ramesides and the Jehu-ides.
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Basically, I must be able to show how the long-reigning Ramses II especially can find his appropriate place during the Jehu-ide dynasty, down to an early phase of the C8th BC, king Hezekiah’s own century. Also to be keenly considered is how one may, in this revised context, account for the famous Victory Stele, or ‘Israel Stele’ so-called, of pharaoh Merenptah, son of Ramses II. This last is a document that conventional and revisionist scholars alike have found so difficult to interpret historically. (See my detailed discussion, “Interpreting Merenptah’s Victory Stele”, pp. 300-305).
This chapter and the next will thus afford me the opportunity of tackling those remaining two - apart from (i) TAP (refer back to discussion, pp. 230f.) - major problems for VLTF: namely, (i) where to locate Ramses II; & (ii) how to set in its proper perspective the TIP.

B. Ramses I = Jehoahaz

Ramses I is perhaps best known as the pharaoh thought to be connected with the Sothic “Era of Menophres”. He was formerly the vizier Pramesse.[26] Ramses I is considered to have been an aged official from a military background when he came to the throne of Egypt. ‘Aged’ and ‘military background’ would certainly also fit Jehoahaz, after the long floruit of his father. Unfortunately, as we read in the previous chapter, hardly anything is known of Ramses I. The same may be said for his possible alter ego, Jehoahaz. Generally, the Old Testament does not provide much detail at all about Jehu’s four successors in Israel. There is no hint of any co-regency between Jehu and Jehoahaz.
I suggest that Ramses I/Jehoahaz was largely concerned with the affairs of Israel, not Egypt, having to serve there against the Syrians as Jehu’s reign began to fall apart. “In those days [Jehu’s] the Lord began to trim off parts of Israel. Hazael defeated them throughout the territory of Israel …” (2 Kings 10:32). Though Hazael is mentioned here, the actual fighting would now most assuredly have been done by his son, Ben-Hadad II, as Du-Teššub - as we learned from Mursilis the Hittite - and perhaps also by his son, Duppi-Teššub, rather than by the aged Hazael.
Now this situation of oppression by Syria continued right through the 17-year reign of Jehoahaz, until the very end when there appears to have been some respite. “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, so that He gave them repeatedly into the hand of king Hazael of Aram (Syria), then into the hand of Ben-Hadad son of Hazael” (13:3). This led Jehoahaz to turn to God. “Therefore the Lord gave Israel a saviour [Heb: faywiOm] so that they escaped from the hand of the Arameans; and the people of Israel lived in their homes as formerly” (vv. 4, 5).
The identity of this “saviour” has been much debated by conventional and revisionist scholars alike. In the ‘Glasgow’ context, which is the closest to the one that I am now proposing, candidates for the “saviour” of Jehu-ide Israel are, variously, Jehoahaz’s son, Jehoash, or his son, Jeroboam II; or pharaoh Seti I; or king Adad-Nirari III of Assyria, who smashed Damascus; or Zakir of Hamath and Luash, who apparently defeated the Syrian, Ben-Hadad II.[27] Rohl would later propose Shoshenq I for this “saviour”.[28]
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My own preference for the “saviour” of Israel will be Jehoash himself (see section, C, “Israel’s ‘Saviour’”, pp. 269-270), which does not therefore rule out pharaoh Seti I who is my proposed alter ego for this Jehoash.
All in all, though, the reign of Jehoahaz himself was generally a miserable one: “Nevertheless … Jehoahaz was left with an army of not more than fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like dust at the threshing” (vv. 6, 7). A pitiful remnant for the once great Jehu-ides!

C. Seti I (‘Sethos’) = Jehoash

With Seti, at least with the name Seti, or ‘Sethos’, things can become rather complicated. According to tradition - albeit late (Manetho, Josephus) - the founder of the 19th dynasty, the Ramessides, was one ‘Sethos’; a name (including the variant, ‘Seti’) that can be the cause of quite some headaches when one is confronted with the attempted unravelling, in a revised context, of the Ramessides. But I shall endeavour to make some sense of it.
I had quoted Gardiner in the previous chapter to the effect that the father of Ramses I was Sety, a simple ‘captain of troops’. And Courville has told:[29] “Both Africanus and Eusebius give Sethos as the founder of Dynasty XIX”. As I have just said, though, this is a late tradition.
Josephus is thought to have told of the famed deed of this ‘Sethos’ in the following intriguing passage in which he also outlined an apparent dynastic sequence for the Ramessides, seemingly as far as one ‘Amenophis’:[30]

Sethos drove out Hermaeus and reigned for 59 years; then Rampses, the elder of his sons, for 66 years. Thus, after admitting that so many years had elapsed since our forefathers left Egypt, Manetho now interpolates this intruding Amenophis.

This information could also to some extent remind one of the situation at the beginning of the 20th dynasty, when the famed Seti-nakht (‘Sethos’) was reputed to have ‘driven out’ a usurper of some unspecified kind and to have restored order, and was also succeeded by a Ramses (‘Rampses’), in this latter case, Ramses III so-called. However, the identification of Josephus’s “Rampses”, who, based on his “66 years” of reign, could only have been pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’, seems at least assured. That is the beauty of the exceedingly long reign of Ramses II, at least, that he stands out in obscure texts like this, without any possible ambiguity; his identification being about the only certainty here. Rohl has attempted to offer a feasible interpretation of this text:[31]

[Josephus] is clearly referring here to the first half of the [19th] dynasty and the kings Horemhab, Seti I, Ramesses II, and Merenptah. Later he adds the name of Amenophis’s son – “… Sethos, also called Ramesses after his grandfather Rampses …” which gives us Seti II, grandson of Ramesses II.
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But did Seti I himself ‘drive out’ anyone, as Josephus says “Sethos drove out Hermaeus”? Josephus, it seems, may have confused Seti I with another of the pharaohs Seti, e.g. Seti-nakht or Seti II. To add to the confusion, the name ‘Hermaeus’ is very much like that of ‘Harmais’, referred to in a previous passage from Josephus. Rohl, who quotes this passage, confidently identifies this ‘Harmais’ with the presumed usurper Amenmesse, conventionally dated near to the end of the 19th dynasty:[32]

Earlier … Josephus cites the same list of rulers with the exception of Sethos who for some reason is omitted and is substituted by his father Ramesses I:

… his son Harmais for 4 years 1 month, his son Ramesses for 1 year 4 months, his son Harmesses Miamun for 66 years 2 months, his son Amenophis for 19 years 6 months, and his son Sethos, also called Ramesses, whose power lay in his cavalry and his fleet. This king appointed his brother Harmais viceroy of Egypt … When a considerable time had elapsed, Harmais who had been left behind in Egypt, recklessly contravened all his brother’s injunctions. He outraged the queen and proceeded to make free with the concubines; then, following the advice of friends, he began to wear a diadem and rose in revolt against his brother.

Thus, here we have the sequence of kings: Horemhab, Ramesses I, Ramesses II, Merenptah, Seti II and a certain usurper whom Josephus names as Harmais. This character must undoubtedly be Amenmesse, whose position in the dynasty has always been controversial. Josephus thus confirms in which reign the activities of Amenmesse took place.
[End of quotes]

In regard to these passages, and Manetho, I shall consider LeFlem’s view that:[33] “Manetho-Josephus confused the identities of Seti I (Sethos) and Seti II (Sethosis) …”, and also Rohl’s comment, in response to LeFlem, that “a certain usurper whom Josephus names as Harmais … must undoubtedly be Amenmesse”;[34] a view that LeFlem himself in fact supports. Despite the apparent similarity in name between “Harmais” and Horemheb, the latter cannot properly be placed after the “66 years” reign of Ramses II (‘Harmesses Miamun’).
I suspect that Gardiner, who claimed that the father of Ramses I was one ‘Sety, a simple captain of troops’, may also have been a victim here of a late confusion of ‘Seth’-ite identities. And who could blame him? Egyptologists in general may have become confused by the admittedly confusing traditions. However I must disagree with parts of LeFlem’s claim that this ‘Harmais’ is not the same as ‘Hermaeus’, who he says is Horemheb:[35] “… Armais (Amenmesse) should not be confused with the Hermaeus associated with Sethos, who corresponds to Horemheb, contemporary of Seti I”.
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All of this is extremely confusing!
It is doubtful whether pharaoh Seti I actually drove out any usurper - and least of all Horemheb the dynastic founder. I am going to suggest here that Seti I may have been confused here with the legendary Seti-nakht of the 20th dynasty. Soon also I shall be arguing that this Seti-nakht, the actual founder of that particular dynasty, was in fact king Joash of Judah (the latter bearing the same name as Jehoash of Israel, but it is customary to shorten one name so as to avoid confusion), whom we encountered in our discussions of the priest Jehoiada (Elisha). The ‘usurper’ who was driven out (more owing to the intervention of the priest than by the then child-king, Joash, who might nonetheless have taken the credit), was Queen Athaliah (and her minions); she being also the Queen Tausert of the time of Seti-nakht, thought to have reigned in the late 19th dynasty. However, since king Joash belonged late in the reign of Jehu (Horemheb), then he must pre-date the rule of Ramses I, the first Ramesside name. In this sense, then, a Seti (Seti-nakht = Joash) was the founder of a Ramesside line (but of the 20th, not the 19th dynasty); he being a younger contemporary of the founder of the 19th dynasty, Horemheb (Jehu). Amenmesse, who may not even have been a usurper, will be considered on pp. 306-309.
Probably some of these old legends contain a mixture of events anyway; for there were various ‘usurpers’ to be ‘driven out’, such as Akhnaton; perhaps Ay; and Queen Athaliah.

Fine Tuning the Revision for Seti I and the 19th Dynasty

As in the case of Ramses II, so with his father Seti I, have revisionists had a fair amount of difficulty in determining how the latter might be fitted into their new scheme of things. Courville for instance, in his attempt to make sense of Seti I in the light of tradition, seems to have greatly complicated the matter. Determined to preserve the ‘Sethos as dynastic founder’ tradition - which I have argued above was likely a confused tradition - Courville awkwardly made Seti I that which I think he almost certainly was not: namely, the founder of what Courville has called “a brief offshoot from Dynasty XVIII”.[36]
Velikovsky, too, would attempt to preserve the ‘Sethos as founder’ tradition; though his radical solution to the problem - and indeed to the very structure and location of the entire 19th dynasty - would differ greatly from Courville’s comparatively modest attempt (that is, within a VLTF context) to show how Seti could be the founder pharaoh.[37] Velikovsky renumbered pharaoh Seti I, whom he often calls ‘Seti the Great’, as Seti II.[38] The reason for this is that Velikovsky had moved the pharaoh conventionally known as Seti (or Sethos) II Merenptah (c. 1202-1196 BC) from his usual position at the end of the 19th dynasty to become a predecessor of Ramses I at the beginning of that dynasty; thereby preserving the tradition of a Seti (or Sethos) as founder of the dynasty. Velikovsky also removed the minor rulers, Siptah and Tausert, to the beginning of the 19th dynasty. I shall consider the merits or otherwise beginning on p. 307.
I have just noted that Queen Tausert at least most likely did belong to that revised era.
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Velikovsky’s scheme also involved the identification of the 19th dynasty with that normally known as the 26th (or Saïtic) dynasty of the C7th and C6th’s BC. According to Velikovsky’s radical proposal, Ramses II ‘the Great’ was the alter ego of the pharaoh Necho [II] who had opposed Nebuchednezzar II, the destroyer of Jerusalem (conventionally estimated at c. 587 BC). And Seti I, father of Ramses II, was to be identified with Psammetichus I, who reigned from the mid to late C7th BC.[39] Thus the so-called ‘Israel Stele’ of Ramses II’s son, Merenptah - whom Velikovsky identified with pharaoh Apries of the 26th dynasty - was now explained by Velikovsky as pertaining to the Babylonian Exile of the Jews by Nebuchednezzar, in the first half of the C6th BC.
Until the advent of Velikovsky’s Ramses II and his Time, in 1978, the US and British revisionists alike had generally tended to follow and accept his reconstruction of history as proposed in his Theses … and in his early Ages in Chaos series. But Velikovsky’s new proposal, which broke radically with standard archaeology, by separating the 19th dynasty from the 18th, inserting in between two foreign dynasties (Libyan and Ethiopian) of about 150 years duration, led to a great rift amongst revisionists with many (particularly British) finding themselves unable to accept this new interpretation of the archaeology.[40]
Courville’s scheme, on the other hand, which had embraced Velikovsky’s major 18th dynasty syncretisms with the biblical era, firstly of Israel’s Undivided Monarchy, followed by the early Divided Monarchy period, had retained the standard archaeological view that the 19th dynasty followed immediately the 18th. The ‘Glasgow School’ now began to test if it were possible to arrive at a revised history that would combine Velikovsky’s 18th dynasty revision with the conventional archaeological sequence. Naturally now also Courville’s own system, which did combine these two aspects, came under greater scrutiny. For a time, the efforts of the ‘Glasgow School’ basically converged chronologically with Courville’s on major aspects of the 19th dynasty: e.g. the location of Ramses II and Merenptah (and his Stele). Though Bimson soon modified Courville’s 721 BC date for the ‘Israel Stele’ (for more, see pp. 300-302), by re-setting it to a little earlier phase, to the Philistine campaigns of Tiglath-pileser III in the 730’s BC (conventional dates).[41]
However, with the passing of time, as serious difficulties were met especially in regard to finding a compelling location for the long-reigning Ramses II himself, and also for finding sufficient space for the five TIP dynasties (21st-25th), now that the Ramessides had been brought down some 500 years on the time scale, some of the most notable contributors to the ‘Glasgow School’ eventually looked to locate the 19th dynasty to an earlier period - about midway between Velikovsky’s and the conventional estimate. Whilst this new option now offered more chronological room in which to manoeuvre, it also meant inevitably the abandonment of all of Velikovsky’s promising 18th dynasty syncretisms, including the previously highly regarded sequence of Ben-Hadad I = EA’s Abdi-ashirta and Hazael = EA’s Aziru. That was, I believe, a fatally wrong move.
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Courville himself, though, persevered with a Velikovskian-based 18th dynasty, whilst rejecting Velikovsky’s 19th dynasty scenario. I think that perseverance was necessary here, and that the promising efforts of the ‘Glasgow School’ came to nothing, at least for many of its former proponents, due to the eventual complete abandonment of the original scheme in favour of an entirely new approach.
Now according to Courville’s system (which I first encountered in 1981, before I had actually read any of Velikovsky’s own writings), Ramses II, whose reign would have terminated in 726/725 BC, must have been the biblical “King So of Egypt” with whom Hoshea of Israel conspired against the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:4). Courville had plausibly (in his context) suggested that the reason why ‘So’ was unable to help Hoshea of Israel was because the Egyptian king was, as Ramses II, now right at the end of his very long reign, and hence aged and feeble. Courville had looked to find the name ‘So’ amongst the many names of Ramses II, and had opted for the rather obscure ‘So’ element in that pharaoh’s Suten Bat name, Ra-user-Maat-Sotep-en-Ra.[42] (See also pp. 286-287).
Far more compelling though, at least superficially, was Courville’s synchronising of Merenptah’s 5th year, ‘Israel Stele’, with 721 (722) BC, the year of the Fall of Samaria.
I personally believe however that Courville’s dates for Ramses II and his son, Merenptah, are about half a century too late, because of Courville’s failure to take into account the interregna periods for Judah/Israel. Moreover Courville, as it seems to me, was unable properly to accommodate the 22nd dynasty into his scheme. Admittedly, his identifying of these kings as governors appointed by Assyria (as I discussed in Chapter 9, pp. 199-202) was a clever way of relieving the ‘downward’ pressure on the TIP resulting from VLTF. But I am going to be rejecting this approach in favour of a new and original view of the 22nd dynasty that I shall be explaining later in this chapter (beginning on p. 315).
For Velikovsky, the problem of a chronological squeezing of the TIP, due to a radically lowering of the Ramessides (19th and 20th dynasties), was ingeniously avoided by his allowing for the TIP, in part, to sit between the 18th and 19th dynasties, with the latter (19th) now reidentified with the 26th dynasty (Ramses II and His Time), and with the 20th dynasty now located to as late as the Persian era (Peoples of the Sea). I have also rejected this proposed solution however, most notably on genealogical grounds which I believe render these later aspects of Velikovsky’s Theses biologically impossible. And I shall be giving a series of examples in support of this below (beginning on p. 274).
Over the years certain revisionists who have continued to follow the complete Velikovskian historical package have strongly urged me to reconsider my rejection of Velikovsky’s placement of the 19th-20th dynasties. And several times I have duly paused to give serious reconsideration to Velikovsky in this area. But on each occasion I have ultimately been convinced that the archaeological and genealogical facts just do not allow for Velikovsky’s bold re-location of the Ramessides.
Basically my own proposed solution to the Ramessides, which owes a lot to many, but which also has its own quite distinctive characteristics, is to recognize the 19th dynasty Ramessides as being of Jehu-ide (Zimride) origin. This now affords me an extremely solid base when I endeavour to account for the 20th dynasty and the most complex TIP.
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A revised system with which mine does converge here and there for this particular era of history is that of Sieff,[43] whose revision is based around three of the four points (i) - (iv) that I had listed in ‘A Preliminary Note’ right at the beginning of this chapter. Instead, though, of my anchoring point ((iii) in my list) of Horemheb as Jehu, Sieff has included Velikovskian catastrophism in his scheme. I believe that Sieff has come fairly close to the mark, chronologically at least, in his attempted realignment with biblical history of the late 19th dynasty, the 20th dynasty, and the early TIP. Though Sieff’s identification of ‘So’ as an Osorkon is no more convincing linguistically, I find, than was Courville’s Suten Bat name of Ramses II. Sieff has also made an initial attempt to accommodate the 22nd dynasty alongside the Ramessides, where I think chronologically it must be placed. Though, as it seems to me, he has not really managed to anchor and/or integrate the two.
Whilst Sieff and I seem to have based ourselves upon very similar foundations, and hence have arrived at some quite similar conclusions, I think that my system may benefit from the advantage of its having a firm anchor point insofar as I have identified the founding pharaoh of the 19th dynasty (Horemheb, in my case) with a biblical dynastic king for whom there are quite solid dates: namely, Jehu. Moreover, if the primary Ramessides can also be shown to be the same as the biblical successors of Jehu, then this would bring the revision of the 19th dynasty perfectly into alignment with the entire biblical scenario for the C9th and C8th’s BC.

Co-Regency Between Ramses I and Seti I

Just as Aziru (Hazael), when he had become old, had - according to Mursilis the Hittite – handed over military responsibilities to his son (who I believe to have been the biblical Ben-Hadad II), so, similarly, might Aziru’s later contemporary, Ramses I, have done in the case of his son Seti I. And, just as Mauro has calculated a three-year co-regency between Jehoahaz (my Ramses I) and Jehoash (my Seti I), so, in regard to Egypt, does Ramses I appear to have associated his son with him on the throne. This is borne out by Grimal’s claim that Seti I, upon his accession to the throne, “had already been closely linked with the kingship, probably from the very beginning of Ramesses I’s reign … a prior association with the throne [that Seti himself] stressed”.[44]
Newby has referred to a fascinating incident involving Seti I, occurring probably during the reign of Horemheb, even - according to Newby - before Seti was a pharaoh. This incident was recorded by Seti’s son, Ramses II, on a stele found at Tanis:[45]

Among the statues, the pillars, and the stelae thus transported [to Tanis] was a stela set up by Ramesses to honour his father, Seti I. The stela tells how Seti, when still a general and not yet a pharaoh, came to Avaris to do honour to the god Set after whom he was named. This visit, the stela said, was in the four-hundredth year of the god being established there, a reference now widely understood to mean that this was the period of time that had elapsed since the Hyksos built their great temple of Setekh.
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If Seti’s visit can be placed in the reign of Horemheb, in 1320 BC [sic], as seems likely, then 1720 BC is the date of the Hyksos first assuming full control of Avaris. For … Egyptian chronology this is an important piece of evidence but what is fascinating about the stela is the way it makes clear that for Seti and Ramesses the once hated Hyksos no longer had the power to stir any patriotic passions. They made a clear distinction [sic] between the Hyksos … and the cult of Set who, after all, was an Egyptian god long before the Hyksos were heard of. But it nevertheless seems oddly demonstrative to make a pilgrimage to Avaris on the four-hundredth anniversary of the setting up of a foreign power there.

[End of quote]

I shall return to this intriguing situation on pp. 285-286. And in D (on p. 292), we shall read of Ramses II’s actual likening of himself to Seth, and to the Canaanite god, Baal.
The son of Ramses I became ever more active as his father aged. He, Seti I (Menmare), would even conclude a treaty with Mursilis (Merosar) just as Ramses I (Menpehtire) had with Suppiluliumas (Seplel). We might recall too from Chapter 3 (p. 53) that Aziras’ [Aziru’s] grandson, Duppi-Teššub, son of DU-Teššub (Ben-Hadad II), had concluded a treaty with Mursilis.
Seti I became sole ruler after the 17-year reign of his father, hence in (867-17 =) 850 BC. His early series of northern campaigns, largely against the Syro-Hittites, may now be seen as being the same as those of Jehoash (rather than Bimson’s era of Jehoahaz, though there may have been some overlap) against the Syrians. Bimson has summarised these campaigns of Seti I, including the capture of the important Qadesh [Kadesh]:[46]

Along with the capture of Yanoam, the second register at Karnak depicts the submission of the Lebanese princes, which therefore presumably took place in the same year. With this particular phase of the campaign in Year 1 we should probably connect the capture of Acco and Tyre, listed on the Kurna sphinx.
.... the missing third register may have recorded a campaign through the Amorite coastland, taking Zimyra and Ullaza. The capture of Kadesh which survives on the fourth register may have been a phase of the same campaign .... [it] appears at the end of a wall as far as possible from the central doorway, and it has been pointed out by Breasted .... and Gardiner .... that the events placed furthest from the doorway are those which occurred furthest from the border of Egypt. ....

Grimal also tells of Seti I’s Qadesh - and subsequent - campaigns:[47]

Sethos [Seti] I drew on the experience of [his first] campaign to organize the second one in the following year, which took him to the city of Qadesh. The temporary pacification of the country of Amurru then enabled him to organize a third campaign, this time against the Libyans.
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It was only after his fourth expedition into Asia that Egypt was respected again in the Near East. There are few details about this fourth expedition, which was waged against the Hittites. After it the Egyptians felt assured that they had full control of Syria – their influence ended just south of Qadesh, which had resumed its traditional role of frontier town.

Seti I’s inauguration of wehem mesw.t in the first years of his reign may thus simply be based on his having re-established control of coastal Syria and Lebanon for Egypt and Israel against the Syro-Hittites. According to Gardiner’s estimate of the relationship between Seti I and his father:[48] “[Seti I, despite his having been] imbued with true affection and loyalty towards his father”, would proclaim a new era, ‘Repetition of Births’ (wehem-mesw.t). “Yet for all the recognition which Sethōs [Seti I] was prepared to pay his father, he was not averse to regarding himself as the inaugurator of a new period”.

Israel’s “Saviour”

I think that Seti I ought also to be recognized as the “saviour” of the prayers of Jehoahaz. We do not need to look then to Adad-nirari III, or Zakir of Hamath - neither of whom is even named (as such) in the biblical account - since the Second Book of Kings goes on to tell us that Jehoash (my Seti I) thrice actually defeated the Syrians. And, according to the Bible, Jehoash would have completely defeated this foe had he responded even more enthusiastically to the challenge offered to him by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 13:14-19). Bimson has considered the possibility that Jehoash, amongst other candidates, may have been this “saviour”, whilst also stating the objections to this view:[49]

There has been much discussion over the identity of the anonymous “saviour”. One view is that the verse refers to Joash [Jehoash], Jehoahaz’s successor, who defeated Ben-Hadad [II] three times and regained some of the lost Israelite cities (II Kings 13:24-25); or to Jeroboam II, son of Joash, who restored Israel’s Transjordanian territory and even conquered Damascus and Hamath (II Kings 14:25-28). But as J. Gray remarks: “The main objection to this view is that this relief is apparently a response to the supplication of Jehoahaz (v. 4), whereas relief did not come until the time of Joash and Jeroboam” … [Reference: I & II Kings: A Commentary, 2nd edn., 1970, p. 595, where references can be found to scholars who favour Joash and/or Jeroboam as the deliverer]. Other scholars do not acknowledge this difficulty, pointing to II Kings 13:22 (“Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz”) as evidence that deliverance did not come until after the reign of Jehoahaz … [Reference: K. A. Kitchen in NBD, p. 58].

My explanation of the situation would however be based on the previously mentioned three-year co-regency between Jehoahaz and Jehoash.
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The relief for Jehoahaz’s Israel could have begun to arise right near to the end of Jehoahaz’s reign, when there began the co-rule of the now more energetic Jehoash. However, this deliverance was only gradual and its proper effects would become manifest only after Jehoahaz had passed away. Correspondingly, with Jehoash as Seti I, the deliverance from Syria began at the end of the reign of the aged Ramses I.
Seti I was already proclaiming a new era.
Bimson has provided a most useful account of the similarities between Israel’s wars against Syria at this approximate time and Seti I’s campaigns into Syro-Palestine, leading him to consider the possibility that Seti I may in fact have been the “saviour” of Israel. This consideration of Bimson’s - which I in fact fully accept (given my combination: Jehoash = Israel’s “saviour”; Jehoash = Seti I) - I shall return to again after giving relevant parts of Bimson’s account of Seti’s I’s campaigns in this revised context. Bimson’s account may, in my context, require some degree of geographical fine tuning:[50]

In the chronology which we are testing here, the time of Jehoahaz [my comment: more exactly, I think, Jehoash] corresponds to the time when Seti I campaigned in Palestine and Syria. It therefore seems very probable that the Aramaean [Syrian] oppression of Israel is the event of which we have already read on Seti’s Beth-Shan stelae.
… Aram is “the wretched foe”. Several parallels confirm that we are reading about the same events in both sources. Firstly we have seen that the stelae refer, in Rowe’s words, to “an invasion by tribes from the east side of the Jordan”; the Old Testament records that in Jehu’s reign Hazael occupied all of Transjordan as far south as the Arnon; it was therefore presumably from there that he launched his further offensives into the centre of Israel in the reign of Jehoahaz.
Furthermore, we have seen that the attacking forces of Seti’s day were operating from a base called Yarumtu, or Ramoth, probably Ramoth-gilead. [My comment: or Jarmuth/Yarmuth?]. ….
Once west of the Jordan, the immediate objective of Seti’s opponents was apparently the capture of towns in Galilee and the Plain of Esdraelon. In the time of Jehoahaz this was part of the kingdom of Israel. II Kings 13:25 speaks of towns in Israel which Ben-Hadad “had taken from Jehoahaz … in war”. Unfortunately the captured towns are not named, but we know they lay west of the Jordan, since all the territory east of the Jordan had been lost in the previous reign.
The invaders whom Seti confronted also had objectives further afield; they were attempting “to lay waste the land of Djahi to its full length”. We have seen that Djahi probably comprised the Plain of Esdraelon and the coastal plain to the north and south, extending southwards at least as far as Ashkelon. The capture of towns such as Beth-shan was probably an attempt to gain control of the Plain of Esdraelon, which provided access from the Jordan to the coastal strip, both to the north and (via the pass at Megiddo) the south. The coastal plain to the south was certainly one of Hazael’s objectives.
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A Lucianic addition to the Greek text of II Kings 13:22, considered by H. Tadmor to be an “authentic tradition”, relates that Hazael took territory from Jehoahaz “from the western sea as far as Aphek” …. Presumably this is Aphek-Antipatris rather than one of the lesser Apheks mentioned in the Old Testament …, in which case this action by Hazael was a prelude to the taking of Gath (II Kings 12:17 …). The Lucianic addition shows, however, that Hazael did not simply march down the coastal plain in order to reach Gath and from there to threaten Jerusalem; he actually captured a considerable portion of the coastal plain itself.
In short, the movements and objectives of Hazael’s forces exactly parallel those of the forces opposed by Seti I, so far as they can be reconstructed. This is not to say that specific moves recorded in the Biblical and Egyptian accounts are to be precisely identified .… Seti’s two stelae from Beth-shan show that the invaders pushed westwards on more than one occasion, so it would be a mistake to envisage one invasion by the Aramaeans, repulsed by one attack by Seti. The important point is that in both sources we find the same objectives, the same direction of attack, and the probability that in both cases the enemy was operating from the same base.

According to 2 Kings 13:19, Jehoash would defeat the Syrians “three times”.
Bimson continues:

Furthermore, commenting on the text of the smaller stela, Albright notes that since the attacking Apiru [Habiru] “are determined in the hieroglyphic text by ‘warrior and plural sign’ [not merely ‘man, plural sign’], they were not considered ordinary nomads” …. The stela is not describing mere tribal friction, as is conventionally assumed, but an attack by an organised and properly equipped military force. This would certainly fit an attack on Israel by Hazael’s troops in the late 9th century BC.

Bimson now proceeds to consider other of Seti I’s inscriptions:

Turning from the Beth-shan stelae to the other sources of Seti’s campaigns, we may now suggest that some of Seti’s larger measures, not just his forays into northern Israel, were also directed against the growing power of Damascus. “… at the close of the ninth century, Hazael and Ben-hadad had imposed Aramaean rule upon vast South-Syrian territories, including Samaria, as far as the northern boundary of Philistia and Judah”. [Reference: H. Tadmor, Scripta Hierosolymitana 8, 1961, p. 241.]. It is logical that Egypt would see this expanding power as a threat to her own security and act to curb it. Seti’s military action in Palestine’s southern coastal plain (first register of his Karnak reliefs) may well have been aimed at establishing a bulwark against southward Aramaean advances along the coastal strip. …. His campaign into Phoenicia and Lebanon may have been to protect (or reclaim?) the coastal cities of that region (important to Egypt for supplies of timber and other commodities) from the westward expansion of Hazael’s rule. ….
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We have already noted Faulkner’s suggestion that the reference to a campaign by Seti into “the land of Amor”, on the damaged Kadesh relief, refers to the conquest of “an inland extension of Amorite territory into the country south of Kadesh, possibly even as far south as Damascus” [Reference: Faulkner, JEA 33, 1947, p. 37, emphasis added].

In all this, the Zimride Jehoash may have found support in the great king of Assyria, Adad-nirari III, whose predecessors, though related as Omride to Hazael, as I have argued, were at least sometimes extremely hostile to the latter. Adad-nirari III did in fact conquer Damascus, which would presumably have been to Israel’s advantage. However, according to Page’s rather convincing linguistic argument, it was Jehoash himself (my Seti I) who was the actual Jehu-ide king recorded as having paid tribute to this Assyrian king on the Rimah Stele.[51]
Seti I was indeed a great king, though perhaps one who fell short of total expectations. He:

(i) built extensively and lavishly, his tomb, for instance, being “the most magnificent in the Valley of the Kings”;[52]
(ii) “… [his] greatest achievement of [his] … reign was his foreign policy”;[53] and
(iii) “… the Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai had already been reopened under Rameses I, and their exploitation continued under Sethos I”.[54]

These are perhaps some of those great deeds of his (as Jehoash) about which the Second Book of Kings fails to elaborate, when it merely recalls “all that he did … the rest of the acts that Jehoash did, his might …” (13:12, 15). He was militarily powerful enough to have been in a position to have hired out “one hundred thousand mighty warriors from Israel for one hundred talents of silver” to Amaziah king of Judah (2 Chronicles 25:6). These were later discharged, however (v. 10). I shall be writing much more on this fascinating incident, e.g. in section: “Jehoash Sacks Jerusalem” (beginning on p. 276). The pharaoh could have loomed even greater, had Velikovsky been able successfully to have identified him also with Seti II. On the positive side, to have done so could have accounted for why, despite the fact that, as Grimal has written,[55] “Sethos II claims to have undertaken an extensive building programme”, there is, as he goes on to tell, “little indication that [Sethos’] words were transformed into actions”. Similarly:[56] “There is no evidence of foreign policy during this period, but it is no doubt significant that the Serabit el-Khadim mines were in use”.

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According to Bimson,[57] “Velikovsky’s order cannot be sustained”. For, he explains:[58]

Genealogical material surviving from the late XIXth Dynasty provides clear evidence that Usikheprure-setpenre Seti [II] reigned shortly after Merenptah. The genealogies of various non-royal families directly attest the contemporaneity of their members with certain XIXth Dynasty pharaohs. While this material still leaves some doubt about the precise order in which [Seti II], Amenmesse and Siptah came to the throne, it leaves no doubt whatever that all three, and … [Tausert], reigned within a short period after the death of Merenptah. …

Bimson here makes reference to Černý[59] and Bierbrier.[60] And I shall be discussing their contributions in a moment. I shall nonetheless be seriously considering whether it may be possible for Seti II and Amenmesse, along with Bay, Siptah and Tausert, to be re-located to a period significantly earlier than their customary place at the end of the 19th dynasty. (See pp. 308f.). Bimson then turns to this new consideration:[61]

The remains of a small temple at Hermopolis bear inscriptions by Merenptah and Usikheprure-setpenre Seti, in which both kings claim some part in building it. Velikovsky notes that Merenptah claims “to have completed the structure and to have dedicated it to the deity, presumably Thoth”. He then argues that this is an illogical claim if Merenptah preceded Seti, and that the temple’s inscriptions support the revised order, in which Seti precedes Merenptah by more than a century [ref to Kronos IV:3 (1979), pp. 20-21]. However, this argument is not strong enough to counteract the genealogical material which proves the conventional order. Faulkner’s understanding of the temple’s inscriptions, which Velikovsky rejects, is perfectly plausible: Merenptah completed the fabric of the building and dedicated it; a short while after, Seti II completed its decoration [ref to R. Faulkner, CAH, vol. II, pt. 2 (3rd edn), 1975, p. 237].

But I think Velikovsky may have a point here. And this would be reinforced by the fact that the mummy of Seti II (if it is in fact he) is, as we shall find, distinctly ‘Thutmoside’. According to Gardiner, though:[62] “There is little doubt but that Merenptah ̣was followed by his son … Sethōs II. Memoranda on ostraca mention both the date of his accession and that of his death, this latter occurring in his sixth year”. Gardiner’s statement alone, though, does not tell us how this relates Seti II to Merenptah. And van der Veen has claimed that:[63] “Hornung finally located Amenmesse’s reign before that of Seti II, in line with the inscription on the pylon of the Armant Temple where the cartouches of Merenptah hotep-hir-ma were firstly overwritten by the cartouches of Amenmesse but later by those of Seti II”.
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Unfortunately, though, van der Veen does not provide any actual reference here for Hornung. And, that Bimson could make so definite a statement, in regard to Černý at least, that: “The [late 19th dynasty] material … leaves no doubt …”, is surprising I find after having actually read Černý’s relatively brief article, in which one encounters, at regular intervals, Černý’s presuppositions in relation to un-named kings. Thus:[64]

“Ostracon Cairo J 49887 … dated in the year 5 of an unnamed king [presumed to be Sethos II]”.
And:[65] “… years 12 and 15 respectively, the king is not named but must be Ramesses III”.
And:[66] “… the Vizier Hori occurs on some unpublished Cairo ostraca dated in the first year of an unnamed king … either Ramesses III or one of his immediate predecessors”.

Moreover, Bierbrier’s painstaking and laudable attempts to establish a clear chronological framework for Egyptian officials and workmen for the most difficult phase of the 19th dynasty, the 20th dynasty, and the TIP, based on important genealogical lists - for which Bierbrier is most heavily reliant upon Černý[67] - ends up yielding a host of very aged personages indeed when estimated according to the conventional arrangement for this era of Egyptian history. But about 14 years will be shaved off if the supposedly post-Merenptah 19th dynasty rulers are subtracted and transferred to an earlier period.
Before listing some of Bierbrier’s actual case studies, I should like to make the point - using an example still from Bierbrier - that Horemheb cannot apparently be well separated in time from the 19th dynasty, as Velikovsky had attempted to do by assigning the 19th dynasty to the C6th BC, whilst making Horemheb a contemporary of Tirhakah (as we saw at the end of Chapter 10, on p. 252) - and, hence, of Hezekiah - in c. 700 BC. Bierbrier is here discussing the family of the foreman Neferhotep:[68]

The earliest known member of the family, the chief workman Neferhotep i, is attested in office under Horemheb and survived into the early part of the reign of Ramesses II since he is shown in the tomb of the scribe Ramose i …. He was also a colleague of the chief workman Kaha who is known to have been in office in the first half of the reign of Ramesses II ….

Bierbrier continues, now bringing Merenptah into the picture:

By his wife Iiemwaw i, Neferhotep i had at least two sons, his successor Nebnufer i and the army scribe Nakhy i. …. The chief workman Nebnufer i also appears in the tomb of the scribe Ramose so he must have succeeded his father in the course of Ramose’s term of office. …. Nebnufer i was also a contemporary of the vizier Khay, but by year 2 of Merenptah he seems to have been replaced by his son Neferhotep ii. …
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And I should like to couple this information with the following quote by Gammon in favour of the conventional sequence for the 18th-19th dynasties, including Horemheb, and against Velikovsky’s separation of these two famous dynasties:[69]

A further link between the Amarna period and not only Horemheb but also Ramesses II is provided by the account in the Memphite tomb chapel of Mose of a prolonged lawsuit over the ownership of some land …. This account was written after a hearing of this case in Year 18 of Ramesses II (against which Mose appealed) at which his mother, Nubnofret, widow of Huy, had failed to establish her claim to the land. An earlier stage of these proceedings, involving Huy’s mother Urnero and his aunt Takharu, is dated to year 59 under the Majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Djeserkheprure Setepenre [son of Re] Haremhab Meriamun”…. At this hearing, evidence was given about some activity by Sheritre, the mother of Urnero and Takharu. The text is mutilated but includes the following:- “… in the time of the enemy from Akhetaten … Akhetaten [where] one was … The Citizeness Sheritre, the mother of the citizeness …”. … The designation “enemy from Akhetaten” can only apply in this context to Akhenaten, from which one is bound to conclude that a grandchild and great-grandchild of one of this pharaoh’s subjects were living in the first half of the reign of Ramesses II.

Here now I list in brief some of Bierbrier’s series of case studies. Note the mathematical juggling that Bierbrier had found it necessary to undertake, in order to keep the ages of these officials reasonable within the conventional structure, using minimalised dates. My revision as it develops, especially pertaining to Merenptah - and I have already suggested the removal of Queen Tausert from the end of the 19th dynasty - will be found satisfactorily to ease this severe chronological pressure:

Mayor Paser of Thebes:[70] “Paser in year 16 of Ramesses IX …. It is barely conceivable that he is to be identified with Paser II …. If Paser II was born c. year 3 of Siptah when his father [mayor Amenmose I] was about thirty, then he would have been aged about eighty in year 16 of Ramesses IX”.

Prophet of Amun, Nesiamun I:[71] “If … Nesiamun I was born c. year 15 of Ramesses III, he would have been a minimum of 44 in year 2 of Ramesses IX when his father last appears and a minimum of 89 in year 25 of Ramesses XI”.

Workman Pashedu III:[72] “If Pashedu iii was born c. year 20 of Ramesses II when his father Hehnekhu would have been at least 30, he would have been 47 at the death of Ramesses II, 67 at that of Sethos II, and 75 at the beginning of Dynasty XX on minimum dates. … If ten years were added to the reign of Merenptah, or the reigns of Siptah and Tewosret [Tausert/Twosre] were counted separately, or an interregnum was accepted, then Pashedu iii would have been a nonagenarian when attacked in the Salt papyrus”.
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Workman Hay IV:[73] “The career of Hay iv is long and significant. He is first attested in office in year 1 of Amenmesse and continued to function throughout the reigns of Sethos II, Siptah, Setnakht, and Ramesses III …. He is last attested in year 19 of the reign of Ramesses III and probably died in year 21 or 22 since his son was a deputy in year 21 but chief workman in year 22…. On minimum dates his career spanned about 40 years. If he was 30 when he first appeared in office and was born c. year 47 of Ramesses II, he would have been a minimum of 70 at his death. The career of Hay iv again illustrates the unlikelihood of a long reign for Merenptah or an interregnum”.

Workman Anherkhawi II:[74] “On minimum dates Anherkhawi ii would have been about 72 in year 4 of Ramesses VII if not indeed older. Again the career of Anherkhawi ii demonstrates the impossibility of a long interregnum or separate reigns for Siptah and Tewosret since such circumstances would turn Anherkhawi ii into an octogenarian or more”.

[End of quotes]

I shall be looking at further case studies from Bierbrier later (beginning on p. 353), in relation to the TIP.
Unfortunately, “Dr Velikovsky does not discuss this material”, wrote Jones,[75] who has based his critique of Velikovsky’s later revision on Černý and Bierbrier. If this genealogical material might involve some mathematical stretching for the proponents of the conventional scheme, despite Jones’ rather optimistic claim that “the continuity of archaeological and linguistic development … finds comfortable accommodation within the framework of the existing chronology”,[76] then one must say that it all becomes quite biologically impossible in the context of Velikovsky’s revision, which separates the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasty sequences, the one from the other, by centuries.

Jehoash Sacks Jerusalem

I wrote above that the Second Book of Kings fails to elaborate, when it merely recalls “all that [Jehoash] did” (13:12). However, I had deliberately ignored what follows here, “as well as the might with which he fought against Amaziah of Judah”, as it – being of the greatest importance, since it involves also an assault upon Jerusalem itself – deserves separate treatment. Now Amaziah was the son of Joash of Judah, who I have suggested above was Seti-nakht founder of the 20th dynasty. Joash had come to the throne in Year 7 of Jehu (2 Kings 12:1). Amaziah would then be Ramses III. Since Amaziah began to reign “in the second year” of Jehoash (14:1) (my Seti I), then Amaziah (my Ramses III) must have been in fact an earlier contemporary of Ramses II (son of Seti I), who was co-regent with Seti I in the latter’s Year 7.
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It would have been with the death of the Omride Queen Tausert, that is, Queen Athaliah (Athaliah was “a granddaughter of King Omri of Israel”, 2 Kings 8:26), that the Judaeans would have been able to have assumed some degree of control also over Egypt, inaugurating what has become known as the 20th dynasty. However, this occurred, not at the end of the 19th dynasty (bringing that dynasty to an end), but during a weakened phase of the very first generation of the 19th dynasty. Judah was in fact then allied to the Jehu-ides, through Elisha (i.e., the priest Jehoiada) in common cause against the Baalists/Atonists. There is not much evidence of Seti-nakht (my Joash) in Egypt, despite his great reputation; for, according to Grimal, “Papyrus Harris I cites him as the reorganizer of the country”.[77] But Grimal here accords him “only two years” of reign. Rohl, however, more than doubles this:[78] “Setnakht ruled for seven years, crowning his son, Ramesses III, as co-regent in his third regnal year …”. The truth is, I believe, that Seti-nakht ruled Judah for 40 years, whilst a portion of this reign (say, 2-7 years) also involved his rule over Egypt. “Ramses III’s father Setnakht was the founder of the twentieth dynasty although how and why he came to the throne is uncertain as there is no firm evidence that he is related to the previous [thought to have been the 19th] dynasty …”.[79] Courville argued that the 20th dynasty kings were largely confined to the Delta region, claiming that even “the most outstanding of the [20th dynasty rulers, Ramses III] never claimed to be more than a local prince at Heliopolis [Haq An]”.[80]
This I think was likely to have been the case as a general rule.
Now, given that Ramses III (Amaziah) was an earlier contemporary of Ramses II - the latter’s sole reign of Israel, as king Jeroboam II, beginning about a third of the way through the reign of Amaziah, when he was about at his peak, as we are going to find - then the traditional view as espoused for example by Grimal, in relation to Ramses III’s great funerary temple in Western Thebes (Medinet Habu), as having “epitomized the outward grandeur of his reign as a second Ramesses II”,[81] may need to be seriously reconsidered. “From the very outset”, he also wrote, “Ramesses III’s role-model was Ramesses II. His successors also modelled themselves on the earlier Ramesses, but it was Ramesses III who went to the greatest lengths, from the choice of his titulature to the construction of a mortuary temple copying the plan of the Ramesseum”. Booth likewise thinks that “Ramses III, although not a son of Ramses II, greatly admired this king and tried to emulate him”.[82]
There is more to be said on all of this.
This Amaziah, after he had achieved a comprehensive victory over the Edomites (v. 7) - like Ramses III who had declared that he had “destroyed the Seirites [Edomites] among the tribes of the Shasu”[83] - sent his messengers to Jehoash of Israel with this bold challenge: ‘Come, let us look one another in the face’ (v. 8). To this Jehoash replied with a mixture of contempt and diplomacy:
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‘A thorn-bush on Lebanon sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son for a wife’; but a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thorn-bush. You have defeated Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Be content with your glory, and stay at home; for why should you provoke trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you?’

These words, however, failed to deter Amaziah (14:11-12): “But Amaziah would not listen. So King Jehoash of Israel went up; he and King Amaziah of Judah faced one another in battle at Beth-shemesh, which belongs to Judah. Judah was defeated by Israel; everyone fled home” (14:11-12). It is next recorded that Jehoash captured king Amaziah at Beth-shemesh. Jehoash then “came to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate, a distance of four hundred cubits”. Next: “[Jehoash] seized all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the House of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, as well as hostages: then he returned to Samaria” (vv. 13-14). The Second Book of Chronicles, which provides a very similar account of this famous incident (25:20-24), adds this unqualified statement about a certain Obed-edom: Jehoash seized all the Temple gold and silver “and Obed-edom with them” (v. 24).
This would presumably have been the end of the Judaean domination of northern Egypt, at least for a time, it seeing the rise of Ramses II especially in that land. This significant incident, too, should be recorded, even lavishly, in the Egyptian inscriptions if I am right in my reconstruction of Jehoash and his era. Can we find it?
Indeed, I think that we can. As, however, I believe that the record of Israel’s plundering of Jerusalem in the late C9th BC is to be found most graphically depicted in the inscriptions of Jeroboam II as Ramses II, son of Jehoash/Seti I, I shall be dealing with it in the next main section, D.

There is an interesting varying of Hebrew verbs to describe two separate of Jehoash’s journeys to Jerusalem: the first being when he came to visit the ailing Elisha, and the second being his march to Beth-shemesh against king Amaziah, on his way to Jerusalem. (I am basing this on my earlier identification of Elisha with the priest Jehoiada, thus presuming that Elisha had died in Jerusalem). On the first occasion (13:14), king Jehoash “went down” (Hebrew vylAx) to Elisha. On the second occasion (14:11), king Jehoash “went up” (Hebrew lfaya.va) to Beth-shemesh. The Latin Vulgate has, respectively, descenditque and ascenditque. Could this variation perhaps allow for one of these incidents (presumably the second one) to have commenced from Egypt, whilst the other (presumably the first one) commenced from Samaria? After his war with Amaziah, we are told that “[Jehoash] returned to Samaria”.
Or, is there more to be read into all of this?
Prior to Amaziah’s defeat, “the cities of Judah [extended] from Samaria to Beth-horon” (2 Chronicles 25:13). Yes, king Amaziah of Judah in fact ruled Samaria, and Jehoash (Seti I in Egypt), with his great victory over Amaziah, apparently took it back. It was presumably to Samaria, then, that he carried all the captured Temple and palace treasures.
He may also have returned there (from Egypt) to die.
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Seti I’s Death

The evidence from the mummy of Seti I, “the finest of the surviving royal mummies”, according to Clayton,[84] would seem to indicate that he, unlike his father, Ramses I, or his grandfather, Horemheb, had died at a relatively early age; for Seti was apparently less than forty years old when he died, possibly from heart trouble.[85] Thus passed away a revered ruler of Ramesside Egypt. Seti I died, as Tyldesley tells,[86] “before he could finalize his funerary preparations, and it would be left to Ramesses II to finish his father’s work”. This chronological factor would further account for the dissimilarity between Seti I’s and his father’s funerary equipment. Reeves et al. tell of Seti I’s mummy being restored several times, by - in Reeves’ order - the high priest, Herihor, by Smendes in Year 10 and possibly Year 15, by Psusennes I in Year 7. Moreover:[87]

A further docket on the king’s coffin records the removal of Sethos I from KV17 in Year 10 of Siamun … and another its reburial three days later in the kay of Queen Inhapi. …. By Year 11 of Shoshenq I, Sethos I … had been transferred yet again, to DB320 where [his mummy] eventually came to light in 1881.

Reeves also refers to the “Osirification of Ramesses III in Year 13 of Smendes”.[88]

Suggested Interrelationships between the 19th and 20th Dynasties

Is it realistic to suggest that these two powerful dynasties, the 19th and 20th, could have been contemporaneous? I think so, since they basically reflect (according to my revision) the actual historical relationship between Israel and Judah from the late reign of Jehu. Generally speaking, when one was strong, the other was weak. Occasionally both were strong together, and then there was either co-operation – albeit brief – or a clash.
It may have been during the last years of Jehu of Israel (Horemheb of Egypt) and during the reign of his son, Jehoahaz (Ramses I), when Israel was weak and under pressure from the Syrians, that Joash of Judah (Seti-nakht of Egypt) flourished.
My connection of Seti-nakht with Joash enables for some of the mystery to be lifted from whom Tyldesley describes as “the unknown Setnakht …the mysterious founder of Dynasty 20”.[89] Hence I cannot accept the first part of her further view that:[90]

It seems likely that the new king [Seti-nakht] was connected with the preceding regime [19th dynasty]. [Seti-nakht] himself, however, makes no effort to justify his rule by linking himself to the successful Ramesside kings, a surprising omission … [he] simply tells us, on a stele … at Elephantine, that he came to the throne via a divine oracle, and that in so doing he brought maat to a land of chaos.
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Seti-nakht in turn, towards the very end of his reign, became weak from Syrian pressure, and this then saw the rise of Jehoash (Seti I), who several times turned back the Syrians. Seti I’s main period of rule over Egypt, and building enterprises there, and wars, would have spanned the period of his co-regency with Ramses I to the rise of king Amaziah of Judah (my Ramses III) culminating in the latter’s victory over Edom, about a decade later, when Amaziah’s army slew 10,000 Edomites in battle and another 10,000 in captivity (cf. 2 Kings 14:7 & 2 Chronicles 25:12). Some of his father Ramses I’s works were actually completed by Seti I. Thus Tyldesley tells, in connection with Seti’s mortuary temple, of his incorporating “a small chapel for Ramesses I who had died before he could complete his own provisions for eternity”.[91] Moreover, at Abydos:[92] “Seti built a small mahat for his father, Ramesses I, and an enormous one for himself”.
There seems to be the suggestion, though, that Jehoash/Seti I, at a stage prior to his defeat of Amaziah, when he as Jehoash assaulted Jerusalem, was not actually the primary ruler of Israel’s cities (Samaria to Beth-horon). It was then Amaziah who ruled this region. So there is a certain amount of complexity. Amaziah of Judah (Ramses III) must have ruled the land, though in co-operation with Jehoash, from whom he hired a massive mercenary army. It appears also that Amaziah was trying to form a marital alliance with the House of Israel. It was most likely during this earlier phase of his reign that Amaziah, too, built in Egypt, from, say Year 8 (his victory over Edom and the ‘Sea Peoples’, see below) to Year 12. The temple at Medinet Habu was probably completed in his 12th year.[93] “His funerary temple of Medinet Habu stands as the ultimate indication of his achievement, but he also built at Karnak and prepared a fine tomb in the Valley of the Kings”.[94]
Amaziah may just possibly also, later, have had a secondary phase of building activity in Egypt, now as a servant of (or in partnership with) Ramses II; from, say, Years 18-24, corresponding to Years 10-18 of Ramses II, since, according to Thomas:[95] “Between the years ten and eighteen there are few documents that tell us what the king was doing”. One might suggest a possible collaboration between the two, as earlier between Jehoash and Amaziah, for this period. Indeed, Ramses III (… hekaon … ka-nekht) might even have been someone like Hekanakht, viceroy of Ramses II in the latter’s own years 18-24, equating to Ramses III’s years 24-30 (revised). One chronological factor that does need to be taken into special consideration is that, according to the so-called “Strike Papyrus”, preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, “an attempt was made by two individuals to enter the tomb of Ramesses II … in Year 29 of Ramesses III. They stripped stones from above the tomb entrance. One robber named in the papyrus as Kenena, son of Ruta, made a similar attempt on the tomb at KV5, the tomb believed now to hold the sons of Ramesses II”.[96] Considering that Ramses II’s funerary complex, the Ramesseum, was “begun early in the king’s reign”,[97] and his tomb as early as “year two of his reign”,[98] then this would not perhaps be so much of a chronological problem.
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Moreover, the tomb complex of Ramses II’s sons is thought to have been originally begun much earlier than the Ramesside era, in 18th dynasty times.
The Harris Papyrus, writes Tyldesley,[99] tells of Ramses III’s “impressive building works at Pi-Ramesse and at Tell el-Yahudiya, a successful trading mission to the mysterious Land of Punt, and the resumption of expeditions to the copper and turquoise mines”. The Syro-Palestinian influence of this Judaean king (as I am proposing) may perhaps be discerned from the fact that the eastern entrance portal to Ramses III’s Medinet Habu Temple was “built in imitation of a migdol, or Syrian fortress”.[100] Again, Ramses III married a woman named Isis, about whom Clayton has commented:[101] “Basically Isis was of Asiatic extraction since her mother’s name was Habadjilat, a distinctly un-Egyptian name”. If Ramses III were indeed Amaziah, then the latter’s mother, Jehoaddin of Jerusalem (2 Kings 14:2), must be Ramses III’s mother, Tiy-merenese.
An eventual happy working relationship between Ramses III and Ramses II, who had once defeated the former, might explain the apparent reverence thought to have been shown to Ramses II in the inscriptions of Ramses III and his sons. Though, given that (according to this thesis) Ramses III was himself a mighty king, who chronologically preceded Ramses II, then it could be partly the other way round: Ramses III influencing Ramses II. Amaziah was a great army organizer (cf. 2 Kings 14:9 & 2 Chronicles 25:5), and it may be that the 19th dynasty rulers even took some lead from him in developing their own skilled units. None of this though, of course, would be the conventional view. Thus Tyldesley:[102] “Ramesses III was a determined monarch who set out to model his reign on the reign of Ramesses II, without ever claiming direct descent from his great role model …”. Indeed there appears to have been no blood connection. Thus Clayton:[103] “Despite the grandeur of the name [i.e. Ramses], none of [the 20th Dynasty rulers] had any ancestral connection with their great predecessor, Ramesses II”.
Perhaps Ramses III ultimately managed to achieve that marital alliance for his House with Ramses II that he, as Amaziah, had previously sought with Jehoash/Seti I. But the exact interconnections between these two dynasties still need to be fully determined.
Seti I’s fairly substantial building work could have been continued by his grandiose son, Ramses II, who “restored, enlarged and rebuilt temples everywhere”.[104] Whilst building works of Ramses III could have been continued by his son, Uzziah, himself a great builder and most powerful king. The mortuary temple of Seti I for instance, located in the Theban necropolis, seems to have been constructed towards the end of the reign on Seti, and may have been completed by his son Ramses II after his death. Thus Tyldesley:[105] “On the architrave above the portico [Ramses II] claims to have ‘renewed’ and ‘erected’ his father’s monuments”. One of the chambers contained a shrine or sanctuary dedicated to Seti I’s father Ramses I, who did not construct a mortuary temple for himself.
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Some of Seti I’s buildings were completed - even built - by his grandson, Merenptah. David, writing of the Osireion, tells that it was “completed under Merenptah (the reliefs decorating some of the chambers date to his reign), although others would date it completely to Merenptah’s period”.[106] At Abydos, Seti “also allowed his son to start building his own smaller cenotaph. Ramesses II subsequently completed both [Ramses I’s and Seti I’s] monuments …”.[107]
Eventually, there occurred the major clash between the 19th and 20th dynasties, when Amaziah elected to take on Jehoash himself, and failed. Jeroboam II (Ramses II) was now leading the Egyptian armies, and he would become the main power, as Jehoash soon died and the remainder of Amaziah’s reign is not documented. Unfortunately, we lack individual regnal year dates for both king Jehoash of Israel and king Amaziah of Judah. However, Jehoash’s (as Seti I’s) early clashes with the Libyans (Year 4) resonate in Ramses III’s (as Amaziah’s) earliest clash with this people (Year 5).
What at first glance seems to be completely lacking from the biblical account is any mention of that major incident in the reign of Ramses III (presuming he is Amaziah): namely, the invasion of the ‘Sea Peoples’ (Year 8). However, I suspect that this is approximately the same as the incident of Amaziah’s discharging of Jehoash’s 100,000 mercenaries, who may well have been Greek-related peoples. Jehoiada had, as we read above, employed Carite mercenaries to overthrow Queen Athaliah and to establish Amaziah’s father on the throne. The mercenaries hired out by Jehoash, as Seti I, were more than likely an assortment of peoples whom he had conquered in his early campaigns against the ‘Syrians’ and Libyans - now to be considered as a combination - incorporating many of these into his army. His son, Ramses II, would do the very same (see next page). The Bible, most selectively again, tells only of their trashing of Judah’s northern cities. But it may be that the rampage of these disgruntled “mighty warriors” (Ramses III calls them “valiant warriors” in the Medinet Habu account) included, as in the case of the ‘Sea Peoples’, “… the Hittites, Cyprus and the coast of Syria [and] … Palestine”.[108] The strong army of Amaziah, returning from its great victory in Edom, his “frontier in Zahi [Djahi]”, was able, by land, to prevent the rampaging hordes from assaulting Judah proper. But the invaders were able to overflow into Egypt’s Delta by sea:[109]

… they joined cause with the Libyans to attack the Delta from the west. As they marched by land, they were accompanied offshore by a considerable fleet, so that Ramesses III had to face them on two fronts, mobilizing his forces in Palestine and preparing the troops in Egypt with the Palestine garrisons, and in a successful battle in one of the mouths of the Nile, the enemy fleet was … destroyed.

Rohl has even identified the Shosu Bedouin of the Edomite region with “the shepherds (Greek sos in Manetho’s Hyk-sos) who are expelled from Egypt with the Indo-European Hyksos rulers by Ahmose [18th dynasty]”.[110]
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Hence they, too, were probably part of the ‘Sea Peoples’ collective with which the Ramessides combined were now having to contend. For there is yet an extra factor to be taken into consideration here. This Year 8 of Ramses III, as Amaziah, corresponding with Year 9 of Seti I (Jehoash), will be found to be the same as Year 2 of Ramses II (according to co-regency calculations in D.). This gives rise to a most interesting correlation:[111] “In the second year of his reign, Ramesses II … had to deal with a raid by the Sherden pirates, whom he defeated in a sea battle and subsequently incorporated into his own army”. This must then be the very same incident as the famous sea battle attributed to Ramses III, against the coalition that also “included the Sheklesh, Sherden … mercenaries …”. Some of these later “took up residence in Egypt, first as soldiers and then as landowners”,[112] settling largely in the Delta. For now, Israel and Judah had been forced to unite against this tidal wave of foreign peoples. No doubt many of them also became an integral part of Ramses II’s (and Ramses III’s massive combined?) labour force. “It is doubtful”, wrote David,[113] “whether Ramesses [II] would have completed his ambitious building programme without the ‘help’ of foreign workers”.
If this reconstruction is basically correct (and obviously it is going to need refining), then we now know that a motivation for this particular movement of ‘Sea Peoples’, at least, was not so much famine or due to an earthquake (though these may have caused the initial mass movement – and some think that the Hekla-3 volcano in Iceland occurred close to the reign of Ramses III[114]). It was in fact due to their being disgruntled by the off-handed treatment of Amaziah; a factor that also occurs in the case of Ramses III.[115]
One may wonder whether Amaziah eventually challenged Jehoash in anger as a result of the mercenary revolt, or merely because the former was proud of his combined victory over Edom and the ‘Sea Peoples’ (in the latter of which Jehoash must have had some share) and now wanted to test his strength against his former business partner. Newby has called this “the first naval engagement in history … to be fully recorded. Judging by the evidence provided on the walls of Medinet Habu it took place in the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, some distance north of Per-Ramesse, where it entered the Mediterranean”.[116] Whatever the reason, the disastrous outcome led to a downturn in Amaziah’s prestige. And this decline in Amaziah’s fortunes from approximately mid-way through his 29-year reign is certainly paralleled in the case of Ramses III. “After [Ramses III’s] twelfth year, he was beset by both political and economic problems”.[117]
The 29-year reign of Amaziah also rather nicely, incidentally, matches the 31-33 years of Ramses III that includes a 3-year co-regency with his father.
In the end, king Amaziah of Judah was assassinated. We are given very little detail of it; but both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles use the word “conspiracy” in their identical accounts. “They made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. But they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there” (2 Kings 14:19; 2 Chronicles 25:27).
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Now, Johnson is quite sure that assassination, as the result of a “conspiracy”, was also the fate of Ramses III:[118] “The last really masterful king of independent Egypt, Ramesses III, was almost certainly murdered … the juridical investigation which followed revealed a ramifying conspiracy which went right through the court administration and army”. Tyldesley also entertains this idea:[119]

We do not know whether, after thirty-two years on the throne, Ramesses was indeed murdered. … The mummified body of Ramesses III show no obvious wound, but the hardened 20th Dynasty linen which still sticks to his limbs makes it difficult to be certain of this. Poison, often considered a woman’s weapon, need not of course leave any tell-tale signs. Ramesses’s head, freed from its linen mask by Maspero on 1 June 1886, revealed such a grim aspect that it has since served as the model of a number of mummy-based horror films.

Ikram and Dodson, writing in relation to the pharaoh’s mummy, consider assassination “likely”, but “impossible to check”. They have written:[120] “[The mummy of Ramses III] was found well wrapped by restorers in antiquity, the linen carapace over the body still being in place. It has thus been impossible to check the body for any wounds that might derive from his likely murder”. No mention of it is found in the Great Papyrus Harris.
Suspicious for the conventional view is the following strange situation as told by Clayton:[121] “Ramesses III himself commissioned [sic] the prosecution; however, since he is spoken of later in the papyrus as ‘the great god’, i.e. dead, he must have died during the course of the trial”. But I think rather that Ramses III could only have been ‘prosecuting the entire trial from the grave’, so to speak.
The age of Ramses III at death is estimated to have been between 55 and 65. The latter would be the correct age for him if he were Amaziah, who came to the throne aged 29 and reigned for 30-odd years. According to one source:[122] “Ramesses III died after a reign of 33 years, probably aged around 65 years old”.

Conclusion

From the above it appears that it is possible largely to synchronise these two strong dynasties, 19th and 20th, as, respectively Israelite and Judaean, owing to their already-established biblical alignment. For the most part there is no major clash, except in the case of a recorded one between Jehoash and Amaziah. What is most difficult to determine is just what was the exact status of Jehoash, particularly when Amaziah’s reign was strongest, when the former does not seem to have even been fully ruling the kingdom of Samaria - though he apparently had a large army of mercenaries there. This seeming ‘absence’ from the north at least assists my view that Jehoash was also a pharaoh.
And, did Ramses III eventually become the servant of Ramses II, but in a partnership?
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D. Ramses II = Jeroboam II

Ramses II, the son of Seti I, “can rightly be said to merit his popular title, ‘Ramesses the Great’,”, writes Clayton.[123] “During his long reign of 67 years, everything was done on a grand scale. No other pharaoh constructed so many temples or erected so many colossal statues and obelisks”. Collier tells of the enormous family this king sired:[124]

Ramses II of the 19th Dynasty produced two hundred children, of whom one hundred and eleven sons and fifty-nine daughters are known by name. Was this army of descendants all considered royal, as in European kingly houses, and thereafter their children and children’s children?

Revisionists have, however, experienced the most extreme difficulty in locating pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’ (conventionally dated to the C13th BC) within their new scheme of things, despite his uniquely long reign.
According to the revised system that is being developed here, this Ramses II was the great-grandson of Horemheb, a Syrian Zimride of ‘Indo European’, perhaps Libyan, origins. And his father was, as according to convention, Seti I. I have discussed now at great length in this thesis an ‘Indo European’ (coupled sometimes with Omride) influence upon the mid to late 18th dynasty rulers and the 19th dynasty rulers. This might, for one, account for the side locks worn by the Ramesside princes and princesses (and indeed by 18th dynasty ‘Mitannians’ before them), which was a distinguishing Libyan feature. It might also account for the apparently fair-skinned appearance of the Zimrides, as fairness was traditionally attributed to certain of the Libyans.[125] According to Gardiner:[126]

Colour on some of the sculptured reliefs [of Ramses III at Medinet Habu] shows prisoners with red beards, side-locks, and long richly ornamented cloaks. Three tribes are here mentioned, the Libu or Libyans … the Sped … and the Meshwesh … commonly thought of as the equivalent of the Maxyĕs located by Herodotus (iv. 191) in the neighbourhood of Tunis.

It would also account for the anomaly for Egyptologists, as expressed above by Newby (pp. 267-268), as to why presumably Egyptian kings like Seti I and Ramses II would go to such great lengths to honour, or commemorate, an incident relating to the hated Hyksos. For, as I had suggested in Chapter 2 (pp. 41, 44-45), the Hyksos themselves may well have been prominent amongst that ‘first wave’ of ‘Indo European’ immigrants into the ancient Near East, from whose stock arose the Syro-Mitannians.
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And it was from these latter, as I have gone on to argue, that there arose in turn the ‘Yuyides’ and the Ramessides (Zimrides) in Egypt. What is therefore quite an anomaly in relation to the conventional Egyptology is perfectly reasonable according to the ‘alternative’ model that I am proposing. Newby does however take his explanation further, thereby, as I think, getting closer to the actual situation:[127]

Old Delta families like the one Ramesses [II] came from may have taken pride in a more personal link with the past – a tradition, perhaps, of Hyksos blood in their veins which owed something to the same atavistic promptings that cause an American to talk of his Red Indian ancestry. As can be seen from their mummies, Seti and Ramesses belonged to quite a different physical type from the previous dynasty.

As with his father Seti I before him, Ramses II appears to have shared a co-regency with his father; although some prefer the term, ‘prince regency’. Gardiner has referred to “scenes at Karnak and at Kurna [that] confirm Ramessēs’s co-regency with his father”.[128] I am going to be suggesting a prince- or co-regency of about seven years.

A Basic, Revised Chronology for Ramses II

My tentative, revised dates for Ramses II, based on a broad acceptance of Velikovsky’s re-location of the 18th dynasty, but also maintaining the traditional view that the 19th (Ramesside) dynasty followed directly on from the 18th, will be somewhat earlier than those assigned to the same pharaoh by either Courville or Gammon, neither of whom had taken into consideration the periods of interregna for Judah/Israel. They will correspond fairly closely with Sieff’s dates. Sieff, who has taken into account the interregna periods, has also tried to build into his chronology an added element pertaining to a Velikovskian-based astronomical catastrophism. My chronological anchor, on the other hand, will be my identification of the 19th dynasty founder with the biblical Jehu (d. 876 BC revised).
All of these various revised sets of dates for the Ramesside era (Courville’s, Gammon’s, Sieff’s, mine) are of course, according to the VLTF factor, some 500 years lower than the conventional era for Ramses II; but they also differ somewhat from Velikovsky’s dates, for he, as we read on p. 265, had assigned Ramses II to the C6th BC.
Whereas Courville’s dates for Ramses II (792/791-726/725) had brought the final years of this important pharaoh to just within the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah, beginning in 727 BC (according to my estimate), mine now see the reign of Ramses II terminate about half a century before EOH.
Courville, not surprisingly, had concluded that Ramses II ‘the Great’ must also be the biblical ‘King So of Egypt’ (c. 727-725 BC) at the time of Shalmaneser V (who is also Tiglath-pileser III in my revision) of Assyria.[129] He had, as we have already read, dissected Ramses II’s Suten Bat name of Ra-user-Maat-Sotep-en-Ra, which name Petrie accepted as the throne name of Rameses II, and found a So element embedded in there.
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Ramses II did, however, use a name abbreviation. Thus, according to Newby:[130] “Alone [sic] of pharaohs [Ramses II] was regularly referred to during his lifetime by a nickname, Sesse”.[[131]] Rohl has in fact made much of this hypocoristicon name, plus the apparent fact that Ramses II did attack Jerusalem, to identify this great pharaoh as the biblical ‘Shishak’ at the time of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam.[132] A bit further on (p. 290), I shall have cause to criticise this choice, intriguing though it may be. I believe in fact that my identification of Ramses II ‘the Great’ in a biblical context will be an even more striking one; and it, too, will include a despoiling of Jerusalem.
Neither Courville’s, nor indeed Gammon’s, dates for the era of Ramses II, I find, are based on anything that one could really call ‘fixed’, in the sense of anchored. The two seem to have been arrived at from approximate estimations of the termination of the Amarna age (in Velikovsky’s revised context) in relation to the rise and progress of the 19th dynasty; which, according to Courville’s estimate at least - with Seti I being “a brief offshoot from Dynasty XVIII” (refer back to p. 264) - does not appear to be at all convincing. And, given his lack of a solid chronological anchor, one wonders if Courville might have subconsciously forced this convergence, attractive though it might at first seem to be, between Merenptah’s 5th year (‘Israel Stele’) and 721 BC (Fall of Samaria). With the three interregna taken into consideration, then Ramses II cannot be ‘So’, and nor can Merenptah’s Stele pertain to the fall of Samaria in 722/721 BC. See pp. 300-305 for a discussion of this stele (section, “Interpreting Merenptah’s Victory Stele”), including both modifications (by revisionists), and criticisms, of Courville’s thesis.
My revision for the Ramesside era, unlike Courville’s - and even Sieff’s superior version - has, I boldly suggest, a rather firm chronological anchor, as I have said, inasmuch as I have co-ordinated the death of the Ramesside founder, now Horemheb, with that of the biblical Jehu (revised from c. 814 BC to 876 BC). I have devoted many pages of this thesis to Jehu as a Dynastic King (most notably, Chapter 4 and Chapter 10). It seems to be generally accepted amongst conventional and revisionist scholars alike that Jehu died in the latter part of the C9th BC, with many favouring c. 814 BC.[133]
Most however, as has already been noted, do not take into account the three interregna, which, along with other chronological considerations, would raise Jehu’s standard date at death to 867 BC.[134] Following on from this anchor date of 867 BC, I have calculated that the 17 years of Jehoahaz (Ramses I) and the 14 years (sole rule) of Jehoash (Seti I), would then take one to 836 BC for the beginning of the reign of Ramses II; some 3-4 decades earlier than Gammon’s estimate of 804 BC for the beginning of Ramses II, and Courville’s 792/791 BC.

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However, this date of 836 BC may perhaps need to be raised a bit, to account for my proposed 7-year co-regency between Seti I and Ramses II, for Egypt (though there does not seem to have been a co-regency between Jehoash and Jeroboam II, for Israel – the two can be separate, however). Based on this co-regency, then the reign of Ramses II would span from c. 843 (-66/67 =) to c. 776 BC (843-776); still some five decades short of Hezekiah and ‘King So of Egypt’.
My estimation then for the era of Ramses II, revised (c. 843-776 BC), is very close to Sieff’s 850-780 BC, approximately, for Ramses II (refer back to p. 255).
The prince regency of Merenptah, son of Ramses II, is likely to have commenced in Ramses II’s 56th year, thus in c. 787 BC,[135] with his sole reign beginning in c. 776 BC, the year when his father died. This would mean that the famous Stele of Merenptah, the Victory or ‘Israel Stele’ in that king’s 5th year, approximately, would date to c. 771 BC, at least approximating - as according to Sieff - to the troubled years of interregnum. Whether Merenptah reigned for 10 years,[136] or somewhat less, then his death in c. 766 BC, would likewise fall short of EOH. And it would fall even somewhat short of the birth of Hezekiah himself since the latter, according to 2 Chronicles 29:1, “began to reign when he was twenty-five years old” (… hnAwA wmeHAv4 MyriW4f@-NB@ :jlamA …), in c. 727 BC, and must therefore have been born about c. (727 + 25 =) 752 BC.
Beginning on p. 297 (section E), I shall be considering Merenptah’s reign in more detail, in preparation for my detailed discussion of his Stele on pp. 300-305. Due to the chronological uncertainties (e.g. the likelihood of some co-regencies) in regard to the 19th dynasty, as well as to the complexities of biblical chronology, I dare not be so bold as to propose exact dates and time correspondences. I look to avoid claiming a neat convergence such as Courville had (5th year of Merenptah = 721 BC, Fall of Samaria), appealing though this may be. In fact, and this is an important point, none of this chapter, or the next, is to be regarded as being dogmatic. It is simply the best ‘alternative’ that I am able to propose at this particular point in time. However, if I am correct in recognising the main Ramessides as Jehu-ides, then this does enable for a very firm chronology indeed to be established for this most important era of Egyptian history.

Ramses II’s Assyrian and Syrian Contemporaries

From the Assyrian evidence we learn that Jehoahaz of Israel’s successor, Jehoash (Jehu’s grandson) apparently, gave tribute to Adad-Nirari III, grandson of Shalmaneser III.[137] This then would make Adad-Nirari III also a contemporary of Ramses II; as indeed would have been the former’s successor, Shalmaneser IV. It is therefore interesting (though it may be purely arbitrary) that Ramses II had also, conventionally, Assyrian contemporaries named Adad-Nirari [I] and Shalmaneser [I]; the former of whom I have identified with Adad-Nirari III - revised contemporary of Ramses II.
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Ramses II must also have been a contemporary of the Syrian king, Du-Teššub, or his son, Duppi-Teššub, referred to by Mursilis as the grandson of Aziras (Aziru). Other known Syrian contemporaries of Ramses II were Benteshina and Shaushka-muwa; the latter to become a key figure later in this chapter. Benteshina himself was a Hittite ally against Egypt in the 4th year of Ramses II.[138] I shall later propose that Benteshina and Shaushka-muwa belonged to a branch of the Syrian family related to that of the key Omrides.

Campaigns of Ramses II

Briefly, Ramses II’s campaigns, as summarised by Grimal,[139] were:

- against the Sherden pirates (2nd year);
- the Syrians (4th year);
- then the famous battle of Qadesh against the Hittites (5th year), “the military high point of his reign”;
- Judah (including Jerusalem), Edom and Moab (7th year);
- the Syrians, recapturing Qadesh (8th and 9th years);
- Edom and Moab (18th year).
- “Three years later he signed with Hattusilis the first [sic] state-to-state treaty in history …”[140] (21st year).

Ramses II’s earliest campaign against the Syrians would have taken place during the reign of his father, Seti I. The Hittite-backed Syrian foe was, as we saw, one Benteshina, who - I suggest - was at least related to the ‘Yuyides’. Following on from my previous, tentative suggestion that Pasenhor’s Buyuwawa was Yuya/Ben-Hadad I, and his son, Mauasa (var. Mawasen) was Ay/Hazael, then Mauasa’s son, Nebneshi, would likely, I think, be Ben-Hadad II. Duppi-Teššub could be Nebneshi’s son, Paihuty. Benteshina, I am going to suggest, belonged to this same family, but to a different branch; the branch to which the elusive Shoshenq I also belonged. From these two family branches, I suspect, there arose what we know as the first two TIP dynasties, the 21st and the 22nd, both therefore being Libyan ‘Syrian’.
What is the significance of Ramses II’s campaigns in my revised context?
It cannot be as according to Rohl, who has gone to great lengths in trying to identify Ramses II as the actual biblical ‘Shishak’,[141] whilst however emphatically rejecting the conventional view about ‘Shishak’:[142] “There is no getting away from it. Shoshenq I cannot be identified as the Bible’s Egyptian ‘king Shishak’, plunderer of Solomon’s temple”. Apparently in Rohl’s favour, though, is the fact that Ramses II had in his seventh year campaign - unlike Shoshenq I in his 20th/21st year campaign - actually marched on Jerusalem.[143]
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Moreover, Rohl has connected the name ‘Shishak’ to what he calls Ramses II’s “hypocoristicon – Sysa (Semiticised as Shysha)”, which he has apparently derived from “Ramesses-meriamun (pronounced something like … Riamashesha-miamana) …”. Murphie, however, has produced a strong point of criticism against this scenario, inasmuch as the most potent years of the long-reigning Ramses II would now clash with the most potent years of the expansionist king Asa of Judah:[144]

Firstly, given Ramesses’ 67 year reign, he would only have reached Year 22 when Asa of Judah, grandson of Rehoboam, ascended his throne. The significance of this date is that only one year previously Ramesses concluded his famous treaty with the Hittite King, Hattusilis. At this stage, with Egypt and the Hatti entering a long period of unprecedented harmony, consider the remarkably provocative actions of miniscule Judah [which] … under her new king, flouted the Egyptian/Hatti pact (which provided for mutual aid in just such an event), by starting the greatest fortress building phase of its entire history and developing a standing army of 540,000 men [II Chronicles 14:6-8] … and where did this military build up take place? Not in some distant corner of Egyptian/Hatti territory … but right in the demilitarised zone between the two powers, where all might see and not be under the slightest doubt that Judah meant business.

Murphie now adds a further dimension to this part of his critique:

To compound this difficulty, the Hebrew annals declare that in Asa’s 10th Year [II Chronicles 14:9-15] … (Ramesses’ 31st year in the New Chronology) Judah was invaded from the south. However the biblical record says the foe was neither Ramesses nor Hattusilis (as would be expected in Rohl’s scenario) but another character entirely: Zerah the Ethiopian. Would Hatti and Egypt stand back to allow this fourth party with a massive army (suggested as from Arabia rather than Nubia) to invade their territory? Moreover, Zerah’s expedition suffered a major thumping at the hands of the Judaean upstart, enhancing Asa’s reputation throughout the region. Still the New Chronology [Rohl’s] has us believe that Ramesses and Hattusilis did nothing! Even if Zerah was acting in some way as agent provocateur to take out the Judaean Maginot Line of fortresses, how could Ramesses have tolerated Asa’s humiliation of his agent?

One really does need to be circumspect in regard to with whom one is aligning this long-reigning and most potent of pharaohs, Ramses II. One might also argue that it would be disastrous to suggest a chronological alignment of Ramses II with Jeroboam II of Israel; that a huge clash between the two would be expected. If Ramses II were Jeroboam II, however, as I am proposing, then this major problem (and indeed the whole problem of placing Ramses II in a revised history) dissolves completely. Even if Ramses II were not Jeroboam II himself, but a related Jehu-ide, presumably a brother, then one could perhaps argue that there might have been a fraternal partnership of mutual support between the two relatives, to the detriment of Judah (a weakened Amaziah/early Uzziah).
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Rohl though, for his part, is able to raise a further telling argument against the conventional placement of Ramses II and Merenptah, as pharaohs of the Exodus and Conquest era, from Frank Yurco’s identification of chariots in the Israel blocks of the Ashkelon Wall at Karnak:[145]

I have a final point to add to the ‘Ashkelon Wall’ discussion which hammers one more nail into the coffin of the conventional chronology. The campaign scene which Yurco has identified as a battle against Israel (whether it belongs to Ramesses or Merenptah) presents a major problem for the orthodox dating of the Exodus. Beneath the horses of the pharaoh’s chariot you can just make out a much smaller chariot belonging to a fleeing enemy chieftain. This is a typical iconographic formula which is illustrated … in Egyptian battle scenes – the mighty king crushing his enemies under the hooves of his advancing chariot team. But just a minute! Is this not the time when Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt in the orthodox scheme? Even if we assume that Ramesses II was not only the Pharaoh of the Oppression but also the Pharaoh of the Exodus and the ‘Israel’ scene belongs to Merenptah … we could at best be in the time of the Conquest of the Promised Land and no later. So how come the Israelites are gadding about in chariots? There is no evidence whatsoever that the Israelites had chariots before the time of Solomon …. Indeed, their military tactics during the Conquest and Judges period demonstrate that they had no access to this form of military technology …. The appearance of a chariot in the ‘Israel’ register at Karnak is a complete historical contradiction within the conventional dating scheme.

But there is no contradiction with Ramses II and Merenptah re-set to the time of Jeroboam II of Israel, who had – initially at least – had to fight to reclaim the land of Israel from Syria as well as having to prevent king Amaziah of Judah from prevailing.
One can see that the campaigns of Ramses II were aimed mainly against the ‘Syrians’, backed by the Hittites. Ramses II was simply continuing the war that his own father (Israel’s “saviour”), Seti I, and grandfather before that, Ramses I, had had to wage against Ben-Hadad II (DU-Teššub) and now likely, too, Duppi-Teššub. But, in my context, the Libu (Libyans) with whom Seti I and Ramses III fought could also be classified as ‘Syrian’. These Libu were assisting the host of ‘Sea Peoples’ against whom Ramses III fought in his Year 8; a campaign that I had previously proposed to align, approximately, with Ramses II’s Year 2 war against the Sherden. These Hittite-backed ‘Syrians’ were again the target of Ramses III’s Year 11 campaign. Now this would connect chronologically with Ramses II’s most famous of all wars, his Year 5 against the Hittites, which must also – in my chronology – pertain to the late era of Seti I. The size and high organization of the Egyptian army at the time, a legacy of Seti I, was along the lines of what Amaziah (my Ramses III), was, for his part, organizing in defence of Judah (2 Chronicles 25:5). Ramses II, originally a king of Israel as I am claiming, also used elite Nearim troops of Israel in his battle against the Hittites according to Rohl:[146]
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“… Egypt’s troop levels [at the battle of Orontes had reached] thirteen thousand, plus the five thousand Nearim from Israel”.
May Ramses II have been fighting the Hittites in the north, whilst Ramses III engaged their allies in the south? But Ramses III himself also claimed to have fought Hittite and Syrian troops; a boast whose veracity the historians tend to dispute.
As with Ramses III, there are also certain apparent ‘Syrian’, or Syro-Palestinian, features pertaining to Ramses II. This is all to be expected in terms of my revision. For one, his celebrated wife Nefertari may have been of an important ‘Syrian’ line: namely, Ay’s. Thus Reeves:[147] “If the inclusion of Ay’s cartouche within Nefertari’s tomb was deliberate rather than accidental, can we hazard a guess that the queen was actually a member of [Ay’s] close family?” Moreover, some of the daughters of Ramses II had Syrian names. Clayton writes, for instance, of “…Bint-Anath (a definitely Syrian name meaning ‘Daughter of Anath’) …”.[148] And, according to Booth:[149] “It would … appear that there were Asiatic women in the royal harem as two of Ramses’ other children were named Meher-anath (Child of Anath) and Astarteherwenemef (Astarte is on the right) both Asiatic names”. Again, Ramses II honoured Baal, the god of northern Israel:[150] “In the moment of battle [Kadesh] Ramses is described as Seth or Baa’l (the Canaanite storm god) …: ‘I was after them like Baa’l in his moment of power …’.”

Epigraphical and Art-Historical Considerations for the Ramesside Era (Revised)

- Writing Styles

*Firstly a note of caution. Since Ramses II reigned for nearly 7 decades, one needs to be careful when talking about artistic and literary styles for his era; an era that was so long that it may have passed through several phases of stylistic development.

Velikovsky had shown that Hebrew inscriptions pertaining to Ramses II, and also to Shoshenq I, fall in a writing style that can be firmly dated stylistically between c. 850 BC and c. 700 BC (the time of Hezekiah). Now this is the very era within which, according to the Ramesside and TIP model that I am - and shall be in the case of Shoshenq I - developing, that Ramses II, c. 843-776 BC must have belonged!
In his chapter “The Tomb of King Ahiram”,[151] Velikovsky had provided strong evidence from inscriptions at the entrance to the tomb, and on the sarcophagus, of this king of Byblos, suggesting the need for a much later than conventional dating of Ramses II. Pierre Montet he wrote, digging at Byblos in 1921, had discovered the tomb of one king Ahiram (Hiram) that his son, Ithobaal (Ethbaal), had prepared for him. A short Hebrew inscription was cut into the southern wall of the shaft leading into the burial chamber:

“Attention! Behold, thou shalt come to grief below here!”
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Velikovsky told of the Ramesside connection with this Ahiram:[152]

Near the entrance to the burial chamber several fragments of an alabaster vase were found, and one of them bore the name and royal nomen of Ramses II. Another fragment, also of alabaster, with Ramses II’s cartouche was in the chamber .... The scholars had to decide on the time in which King Ahiram lived.
The Phoenician inscriptions on the sarcophagus did not reveal it. Montet ... assigned the tomb to the time of Ramses II, thus to the thirteenth century. He subscribed to the view that all the objects in the tomb, the Cyprian vases included, were of the time of Ramses II. But the age of the Cyprian pottery was claimed by other scholars to be that of the seventh century. Dussaud, a leading French orientalist, agreed that the tomb dated from the thirteenth century, the time of Ramses II, but he insisted that the Cyprian ware was of the seventh century.

Dussaud had concluded, based on obvious signs of intrusion and violation of the tomb, that, in the C7th BC, tomb robbers had broken in and left pottery of their own age. Velikovsky’s response to this was:[153]

Even if it were possible to explain the presence of the Cyprian vessels in the tomb of Ahiram as the work of thieves, there was something in the tomb that could not be attributed to the looters: the inscriptions. An inscription in Hebrew letters at the entrance warns against any sacrilegious act and invokes a curse on any king, soldier, or other person who should disturb the peace of the sepulchre. The other inscription, on the sarcophagus, says that a king, whose name is read Ithobaal and who speaks in the first person, built the sarcophagus for his father, Ahiram, king of Gwal (Byblos). The two inscriptions are carved in the same characters and are of one age. If the tomb was prepared in the days of Ramses II the inscriptions were written in his time. But inscriptions in Hebrew characters in the time of Ramses II, in the thirteenth century, were quite unexpected.

Velikovsky went on to tell of a hotly waged dispute ensuing upon Montet’s discovery that had not by then been concluded, and, in the process, he revealed the closeness in time between Ramses II, the Libyan dynasty, and, indeed, king Hezekiah of Judah:[154]

On one side were the archaeologists, who regarded the archaeological proofs of the origin of the tomb under the Nineteenth Dynasty, or in the thirteenth century BC, as conclusive. On the other side were the epigraphists, who would not concede that the inscriptions of Ahiram’s tomb were of a period as early as the thirteenth century; they found a close similarity between these characters and the characters inscribed by Abibaal and Elibaal, Phoenician kings, on statues of their patrons, the pharaohs of the Libyan Dynasty, Shoshenq and Osorkon respectively, presumably of the tenth to the ninth centuries.
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From the time the inscribed statues of Shoshenq and Osorkon came to the notice of scientists until the discovery of Ahiram’s tomb, the dedications on these statues in the names of Abibaal and Elibaal were supposed not to have been contemporaneous with the statues themselves: the letters of the dedication were intermediate between the Mesha stele letters of about -850 and the Hezekiah letters chiselled into the rock wall of a water conduit of the Shiloah spring near Jerusalem, of about -700, and must have been written between these two time points. ....

This epigraphical evidence, along with a perceived similarity between the great triumph scene of Shoshenq I at Karnak and that of Merenptah at Karnak,[155] might perhaps suggest a far closer proximity in time between Shoshenq I and both Ramses II and his son, Merenptah, than is allowable by the conventional chronology, which has both the 20th and 21st dynasties (a span of about two to three centuries) separating Shoshenq I from these two 19th dynasty pharaohs.
Velikovsky’s observation on the archaeological dilemma presented by Ahiram’s tomb was as follows:[156]

According to the conventional chronology, Ahiram, being a contemporary of Ramses II, must have lived and died almost four centuries before Shoshenq and Osorkon. In four centuries a script must have undergone considerable change. But there were no marked changes in the characters from the time of Ahiram to that of Abibaal and Elibaal.

In a later section, “The Byblite Succession” (pp. 325-326), I shall attempt to align the above-mentioned kings of Byblos with the Ramessides and the TIP.

- Art and Architecture

Professor Greenberg has, in his art-historical study of Mycenaean monuments, brought arguments from Greece in support of Velikovsky’s thesis that an over-extended Egyptian chronology has adversely affected the dating of ancient art and architecture. He begins:[157]

Chronological and Historical Considerations

Almost from the moment of its rediscovery, the Lion Gate [of Mycenae] and other adjacent material gave rise to “vehement disputes between 1880 and 1890 about the dating of the Mycenaean finds” [ref. to P. Demargne, The Birth of Greek Art, p. 8]. Dates were put forward assigning the monuments to either the years 1400-1100 B.C., 800-700 B.C., or Byzantine times …. The dating of the Lion Gate at Mycenae has had a “checkered career”, to say the least.

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Sherds found under the threshold have currently placed the gate towards the latter part of Late Helladic IIIB (ca. 1250 B.C.) [ref. to G. Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, pp. 20-21 and notes 23 & 26]. However, it was Egypt which provided the dates for LH III B, as well as LH IIIA [ref. to W. Taylour, The Mycenaeans, p. 57; A. Wace, Mycenae …, pp. 10-12; R. Higgins, Mycenae and Mycenaean Art, pp. 12-14]. The work of Furumark [The Chronology of Mycenaean Pottery, Stockholm, 1941] has further solidified the absolute chronology of the pottery categories, but again this was based upon “chiefly the synchronisms that can be established by comparison and correlation of Mycenaean objects found in datable Egyptian contexts and of Egyptian objects recovered in observed Mycenaean stratigraphic associations [ref. to C. Blegen, Troy and the Trojans, pp. 159-160]”.

Professor Greenberg proceeds from this to discuss Petrie’s presumed solution to the chronological problem, based on the latter’s Egyptian model. He also notes Velikovsky’s disagreement with this latter chronological scenario:[158]

… Demargne’s [ref. to op. cit, p. 8] statement that the Mycenaean chronological problem “was solved in an article by Flinders Petrie … in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (1890), which established an absolute chronology of the Greek civilization on an Egyptian basis” is a somewhat bare one.
… Actually, Petrie based his conclusions upon Mycenaean objects found with Egyptian ones in the Fayum, dating from the reign of Amenhotep III and his successors, as well as Egyptian items such as a scarab bearing the name of Queen Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhnaten, found at Mycenae. The assumption was made that the Egyptian works should be dated between the years 1400-1100 B.C., but Velikovsky [ref. to Ages in Chaos I, pp. 229ff; Theses …, pp. 12ff.] has argued the incorrectness of these dates, suggesting a ninth century B.C. date for the rule of Amenhotep III and his son Akhnaten. If true, this would invalidate the present belief that the Lion Gate may be dated to ca. 1300 B.C.

…. Velikovsky himself actually maintains an eighth century date for the buildings and fortifications of Mycenae and Tiryns [ref. to Ages in Chaos I, p. 182; Theses …, p. 11]; Ramsay had already proposed a similar dating in 1888 [ref. to W. Ramsay’s ‘A Study of Phrygian Art’ (Part 1), JHS 9, pp. 351; 369-371] and again in 1889 [ref. to his ‘A Study of Phrygian Art’ (Part II), JHS 10, p. 147] for the Lion Gate as a result of comparisons made with art in Phrygia [ref. to Ramsay’s ‘Studies in Asia Minor’, JHS, pp. 19-25; 256-263]. …

Such a later dating for the Mycenaean architecture was already envisaged by late C19th scholars:[159]

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Murray in 1892 [ref. to A Handbook of Greek Archaeology, pp. 177-178] also placed the Lion Gate and walls of Mycenae in the eighth to seventh centuries B.C. on the basis of Mycenaean gem comparisons and apparently believed in the possibility of following a “stream of Greek art backward without interruption to a powerful source in an age of great popular activity [ref. ibid, pp. 178-179]”.

Gardner also in 1892 observed close analogies between Mycenaean and Phrygian lions [ref. to P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, pp. 81-82]. It is interesting to note that both Murray and Gardner held to their own convictions pertaining to Mycenaean chronology even after Petrie’s “solution” to the problem.

Professor Greenberg now asks the question:[160] “If, in fact, the lions - actually lionesses … - of the Lion Gate at Mycenae do indeed date from the eighth to seventh centuries B.C., what would or could have been their source of artistic inspiration and execution?”
He then, by way of answering it, goes on to highlight the dilemma that arises from the conventional dating of this monumental sculpture, the Lion Gate:[161]

Ramsay … argued that the Mycenaean gateway most likely belonged to the eighth century B.C. due to the lively intercourse which took place between Argos and Asia Minor at that time, during which the Argives would have learned “to fortify their city in the Phrygian style with lions over the gate”. He also raised the logical question, “Is it probable that all traces of the greatest period in Argive history have altogether disappeared, while numerous remains exist of Argive glory during the unknown period 1500-1000 B.C., and again of Argive bronze work of the sixth century B.C. …?”

… There seems to be no doubt of Greek and Anatolian as well as Levantine contacts in the eighth or seventh century B.C. on the basis of literary [ref. to D. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad, p. 40, n. 63] as well as artistic [ref. to E. Akurgal, The Art of Greece …, p. 162] documentation, but as to the specific identity of these “Greeks” there is still considerable debate ….

Ramsay … assumed that they were Mycenaeans who were artistically influenced by their Asiatic (Phrygian) encounter. But Ramsay was referring to people now placed five to six hundred years earlier in time. Unfortunately, there is a terrible confusion “who was where when” and “who was influenced by whom” among scholars due to the existing state of chronological affairs ….
The Gordian knot of art historical controversy is not so easily cut, either. As Demargne has asked, “to what extent was the Mycenaean world influenced by Syria or Egypt either directly or via Cyprus ….


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Conversely, to what extent were the civilizations of the Syrian towns, of the Egypt of Amarna and the XIXth Dynasty, accessible to Aegean influences …?” Nevertheless, one thing is certain and that is the fact that according to the now accepted art historical framework, we have a renowned work of monumental sculpture which timewise exists in apparent “splendid isolation” and alien in spirit to the Cretan artistic temperament ….
[End of quotes]

To re-locate the approximate ‘centre’ of the long reign of Ramses II at c. 800 BC, as I have done, is thus apparently right in accord with the findings of art history and ancient epigraphy.

E. Merenptah = Zechariah

Merenptah, son of Ramses II, is thought to have been well over 50 years of age when he succeeded to the throne. Rohl gives his own version of this unique situation:[162]

… the rule of Ramesses the Great had finally come to an end. Twelve crown-princes had died before their father. The thirteenth in line – Prince Merenptah – had been crowned as Ramesses II’s co-regent in the old and ailing kings fifty-sixth regnal year ….
The last few years of Ramesses’s life had seen the mighty warrior humbled by infirmity. Egypt’s neighbours sensed a weakness and sought to test Egypt’s resolve. King Merenptah (already himself in his fifth decade of life) successfully fought off invasion by Libyans and Aegean/Anatolian sea-farers whilst his father was still alive. But the power and influence of the pharaonic state seemed to be on the wane. The ancient world was entering a new era ….

Faulkner tells more of Merenptah’s early trouble with the Libyans:[163]

... [Merenptah] inherited a difficult situation, for during his father’s old age the vigilance of the frontier patrols had slackened and the army had fallen into neglect, with the result that, driven by famine in their own land, roving bands of Libyans were raiding into the western Delta and terrorizing the people. With the threat of invasion from the west steadily growing, the first task to which the new king had to set his hand was the reorganization of the army, and the effectiveness of his work was demonstrated when in Year 5 the storm burst.

These Libyans belonged to the ‘second wave’ of ‘Indo-European’ immigrants, contemporaneous with the ‘Sea Peoples’, as opposed to the Ramessides who I believe were the descendants of the earlier ‘first wave’ immigrants. The 22nd dynasty Libyans may, as we shall see, have had connections to both ‘waves’.
298

We need also to understand them as, in part, geographically ‘Syrians’. The coalition that Merenptah now faced was a continuation of the invasion(s) by the ‘Sea Peoples’ that had occurred during the early reign of his father, Ramses II. Rohl tells of it:[164]

A coalition consisting of Libu, Meshwesh, and Kehek, together with certain ‘peoples of the sea’, to wit, Sherden, Sheklesh, Lukka, Tursha, and Akawasha, led by a prince named Mauroy, overran Tjehenu and advanced on the Delta. These ‘Peoples of the Sea’ who allied themselves with the invading Libyans seem to have come from the coasts of Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea, and as Gardiner wrote, were ‘forerunners [sic] of the great migratory movement about to descend on Egypt and Palestine from north and west’.
.... At the news of this threat Merenptah consulted the oracle of Amun at Thebes. The god expressed his approval of the war, while Ptah of Memphis appeared to the king in a dream, seeming to hand him a scimitar. A fortnight was taken up with the mobilization of the army …. Contact was made on the western frontier at an unidentified place named Pi-yer, and after a 6 hour battle the invaders were routed. Over 6000 were killed and many prisoners … taken. The Libyan prince Mauroy fled ....

The Libyan name, Mauroy, here, has an element of identicality (Mau-) with the name, Mauasa (Mau being an abbreviated form of Ma or Meshwesh), mentioned second in the Pasenhor Genealogy. This Mauasa I have tentatively identified as Ay.
Faulkner links this war with that recorded in, amongst other documents, the famous Merenptah Stele:[165]

The principal sources for the Libyan War are a long inscription at Karnak and a stela from Athribis, but there is a third inscription that must be mentioned, the so-called Israel Stela. The information it yields concerning the cause of the war adds nothing material to what is known from the other sources, but it expresses at length the intense relief felt by the Egyptians at the defeat of the invaders. ....

Trigger et al. tell of consistent 19th dynasty (Seti I to Merenptah) encounters with the Libyans (variously Libu, Meshwesh and Tjehenu/Tjehemu).[166] I proposed in Chapter 2 (pp. 41-43) that plague had been a possible catalyst for some movements of peoples associated with the ‘first wave’ of migrations. And, according to the quote above from Faulkner, “famine” drove this later wave of peoples encountered by Merenptah. Trigger et al. seem to concur with such a view, at least in connection with the Libyans:[167]

What were the causes of this unprecedentedly intense and long-sustained interaction between Libya and Egypt? …
299

There may have been pressure upon Cyrenaica’s food supplies, due to climatic change or to a population increasing … by immigration. The texts of Merenptah’s reign suggest that the Libyan invasion of his time was caused by famine, and the Mashwash [Meshwesh] invasion under Ramesses III had the character of a true migration, since substantial numbers of women and enormous numbers of animals accompanied the fighting men.

“It is plain that Merenptah himself took no part in the struggle”, wrote Gardiner; “he must have been already an old man when he came to the throne. Still, the victory was naturally credited to him …”.[168] As with Ramses before him, Merenptah was able to incorporate a number of captive Libyans and their allies into the Egyptian army, to defend Egypt’s Delta.
Rohl goes on to tell of what he considers to have been the next subsequent phase, when Amenmesse arose in Egypt:[169] “With the death of Ramesses II … things now got decidedly worse. Egypt was plunged headlong into civil war – one faction supporting the legitimate king, Merenptah, another backing a royal usurper called Amenmesse”. Previously (p. 263) we had read read about the presumed misdeeds of this Amenmesse if he were the Harmais of Josephus’s account. Harmais had been appointed by, presumably, Seti II, as “viceroy of Egypt”, but – apparently in the absence of the legitimate line of rule – he rose in revolt against his brother, outraged the queen, and began to wear the royal diadem. Whilst it is extremely difficult to disentangle this incident from other seemingly similar situations, perhaps involving usurpation, that occurred during phases of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, I shall endeavour, in the next section (which also includes my discussion of the Merenptah Stele), to offer an explanation for it. There I shall try to establish whether the era of Amenmesse and his presumed contemporaries, apart from Merenptah whose era in history is - I think most would agree - well established, were of the same approximate era as Merenptah, or earlier, as I have suggested that Queen Tausert most likely was.
To move all of the conventionally post-Merenptah 19th dynasty rulers as a whole piece away from the end of this dynasty, as I shall be contemplating, would mean that Merenptah was in fact the last ruler of the 19th dynasty. This, in my context, would then leave Merenptah as the only available candidate for the last of the Jehu-ide rulers - the apparently ephemeral king Zechariah of Israel. Merenptah was, at least, a son of Ramses II - fitting in my context, since Zechariah was the “son of Jeroboam [II]” (2 Kings 15:8); Jeroboam II being of course my alter ego for Ramses II.
Finally, if Merenptah were to be identified as Zechariah king of Israel, then the former’s ‘Israel Stele’ would take on a whole new meaning.





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Interpreting Merenptah’s Victory Stele

Relevant Strophe of Stele:[170] “The princes are prostrate, saying ‘Peace!’. Not one raises his head among the Nine Bows. Desolation is for Tjehenu; Hatti is pacified; plundered is Pa-Canaan with every evil; carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer, Yanoam is made non-existent; Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more; Kharru has become a widow because of Egypt. All lands together are pacified. Everyone who was restless has been bound”.

Obviously this, “the first time that Israel is mentioned in Egyptian annals” according to Hunt,[171] makes of this stele a document of primary importance for biblical historians.
But today, particularly with revisionist scholars adding their point of view about the import of this stele to the conventional one(s), there are now various datings - hence interpretations - amongst which to sort, in order to try to ascertain to which era, precisely, Merenptah and his famous stele actually belonged. For example:

In (i) conventional history, with Merenptah, son of Ramses II (both 19th dynasty pharaohs), dated to the C13th BC - an era to which the Exodus of Israel and the early Conquest of Canaan are now perhaps thought to belong[172] - the reference to ‘Israel’ in the stele can be interpreted as being either an attack on Israel in the Sinai by the pursuing Egyptian army, or an attack on Israel newly settled in Canaan. Though Gardiner, even in his day, could say that:[173] “The explanations [of the stele] now given are very various”. And this same statement of Gardiner’s can currently be applied, too, to (ii) the revisionist schemes. For example:

- According to Courville, as we have seen, the stele’s inscription pertains to the Assyrian deportation of Samaria in c. 722/721 BC.
- Velikovsky would later look to connect it with the deportation of the Jews to Babylon after the sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchednezzar II;[174] though Bimson has estimated Velikovsky’s date for the 5th Year of Merenptah at “no earlier than 564 BC … 23 years after the fall of Jerusalem”.[175]
- Bimson thought (at least as late as 1980) that Merenptah’s Stele had pre-dated the fall of Samaria by about a decade, to c. 734-733 BC; it being a reference rather to the earlier Assyrian deportations of Israel by Tiglath-pileser III.[176]
- Rohl has in turn dated the conquests described in the stele to those effected by Seti I and Ramses II, his candidate for the biblical ‘Shishak’, himself regarding the stele as being Merenptah’s merely basking in the glory of what these, his great predecessors, had achieved before him.[177]
- And Sieff, as we read, related Merenptah’s victory to what he called the “time of troubles in the northern kingdom of Israel after the death of Jeroboam II”.
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So which of the above, if any, is right?
The weakness of any conventional interpretation of Merenptah’s Stele lies in the fact that such would be, according to what I have written at length about the Sothic dating system (esp. Chapter 1), anachronistic (by about 500 years) to the document itself. We also found that the early wars of Ramses II coincided with chariot-riding Israelites; clearly an anachronism in a conventional context.
For their part the revisionist versions listed here, bar Rohl’s and Sieff’s, suffer from their pertaining to non-Egyptian (namely, Mesopotamian) victories over Israel/Judah. Rohl, whilst he has indeed considered the stele to be a record of Egyptian victories, in line with the conventional view, does not generally attribute these to pharaoh Merenptah himself, but to his more illustrious predecessors. Sieff’s is thus the only revised version that allows for an Egyptian victory over Israel that was actually achieved by Merenptah.
Conventional scholar Day has attempted to bring a note of cold realism to the discussion by revisionists when he, in a critique of Bimson’s interpretation of the stele as referring to conquests in Palestine in the 730’s, by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III, argued:[178]

Bimson’s views on the date of Merenptah and the so-called “Israel stele” are no more sound than those of Velikovsky .... First of all I would note that everything supports the view that the oft-quoted lines from the stele refer to an Egyptian victory in Palestine. This is supported by the following: -

(i) The whole stele clearly relates to Merenptah’s victories: cf. the references to his defeat of the “Nine Bows”, the Libyans, Tehenu, etc. earlier in the stele, paralleling the references to the “Nine Bows” and Tehenu in the section in question. It is most natural to suppose that the Palestinian references also therefore relate to Merenptah’s victory.
(ii) This is further supported by the fact that we read that “Hurru [Greater Palestine] is become a widow for Egypt”.
(iii) Immediately following the famous lines cited by Bimson, we read: “Everyone who was restless, he has been bound by the King of Upper Egypt: Ba-en-Re Meri-Amon; the Son of Re: Mer-en-ptah hotep-hir-Maat, given life like Re every day”. The reference here to Merenptah’s binding all who were restless immediately after the famous passage referring to Israel, etc., only makes sense if we are to understand Israel, etc., as having been bound by Merenptah.
(iv) Very interestingly, Merenptah is elsewhere, in an inscription from Amada in Nubia, described as “Binder of Gezer”. This is independent corroboration of Merenptah’s invasion of Palestine, specifically Gezer, as in the “Israel stele”, and on any natural understanding they must refer to the same event.
This is further supported by the fact - unmentioned by Bimson - that the reference to Merenptah as “Binder of Gezer” on the Amada inscription is parallel to a reference to Merenptah as “Seizer of Libya”, the latter certainly referring to his victory over the Libyans in his 5th year, the same event recounted at length in the “Israel stele”....
302

The reference to the seizing of Gezer on the “Israel stele” in conjunction with the victory over Libya must refer to the same event - Merenptah’s capture of Gezer, not an Assyrian one as Bimson argues. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that if, as Bimson supposes, the invaders are the Assyrians, Merenptah would certainly have no cause to rejoice over it! In the 8th century BC Egypt and Assyria were deadly rivals, and any Assyrian invasion of Palestine, reaching as far as the very doorstep of Egypt (Ashkelon, Gezer) would represent a threat to Egypt itself, not a thing to rejoice over as in the “Israel stele”.

Though Bimson would vigorously defend his view against Day,[179] his location of the document to the era of Tiglath-pileser III, in the 730’s BC, is, I believe, somewhat too late. And I would very much doubt if Bimson would stand by his reconstruction today.
That leaves us with Sieff and his thesis that the stele pertains to Merenptah’s own victory over Israel, during a time of trouble after the cessation of the reign of Jeroboam II in Israel, when there prevailed in that land a 22-year interregnum. I would accept that Merenptah’s Victory Stele belongs to this approximate time. It is dated to his 5th year,[180] and thus to the era of c. 771 BC according to what I calculated back on p. 288. This would place the Stele right at the end of Israel’s interregnum and close to the very brief rule of the last of the Jehu-ides, Zechariah, for six months in 772 BC.
If Merenptah reigned for a decade, and this is by no means certain, then he would have died some several years after the publication of his famous Victory or ‘Israel Stele’. A supposed Year 8 for Merenptah is apparently dubious. My own view is that Merenptah reigned from 5-6 years, dying therefore not long after the publication of his stele.
We are now in the time of the prophets Amos and Hosea, contemporaries of Jeroboam II, and, later, of Hezekiah of Judah. These long-lived prophets then emerge from our background study of EOH as the first actual contemporaries of king Hezekiah. I shall be discussing them in real detail in Volume Two of this thesis. There, and in the Excursus on Isaiah (beginning on p. 87), I shall claim that Amos and Hosea were, respectively, a father and his son combination. Hickman thinks that the prophet Amos was actually even referring to the violent death of Jeroboam II in one of his proclamations:[181]

The prophet Amos, a contemporary of … Jeroboam II, adds another perspective to the matter when Yahweh states: “I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” (7:9), a symbol of war. Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, interpreted this statement as predicting that “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land” (7:11).

This Amaziah might even be Ramses II’s famous son, Khaemwaset, High Priest of Ptah.
King has suggested, however, that Amaziah had misrepresented Amos here:[182] “By taking Amos’ words out of context, Amaziah distorted them and accused Amos of conspiracy against the king’s person”.
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Perhaps Amos had actually foretold the passing of the House of Jeroboam by violence. Such, as we are going to find, was to be the fate of the last Jehu-ide, Zechariah.

My own preferred interpretation of the ‘Israel Stele’ - which accords quite well, at least chronologically, with Sieff’s view - is that it represents the scene that greeted Merenptah’s army upon Egypt’s return to Israel after more than two decades of hiatus, and shorty after the death of Ramses II. The stele’s celebrated phrase, “Israel[‘s] … seed is no more”, could well be then, as Sieff had noted, a reference to Israel’s then state of kinglessness; a disaster that seems to have been foretold by the prophet Hosea, when he proclaimed: “For the Israelites shall remain many days without a king or prince …” (3:4; cf. 10:3). For some reason, Jeroboam II, as Ramses II, had ceased to be present in Israel, but had passed the latter part of his rule entirely in Egypt. And it is possible that Israel as a whole went with him. Hosea seems to be referring in part to an Egyptian ‘captivity’ of Israel, when he exclaims: “... their officials shall fall by the sword because of the rage of their tongue. So much for their babbling in the land of Egypt” (7:16); but more especially: “They shall not remain in the land of the Lord, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt ...” (9:3). “For even if they escape destruction, Egypt shall gather them, Moph [Memphis] shall bury them” (v. 6). Merenptah had in fact “increased the importance of Memphis”, according to Grimal.[183] Also, as Sieff has written:[184] “Hoshea [Hosea], who started to prophesy in Jeroboam II’s reign … predicted a time when “all would be carried into Egypt” as tribute [his ref. is to Hosea 12:1] …”.
The impression that one gets from reading Hosea is that Israel will go once again into captivity in Egypt, as it had of old. Merenptah, it seems, could truly write, upon his campaign arrival in Palestine:

Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more ….

The Old Testament tells us little in concrete, non prophetically-cast terms, about the 22-year interregnum period for Israel. Anstey, who had chronologically identified this interregnum period in Israelite history, attempted to fill it out somewhat despite the meagre details available:[185]

No account is given of the events which occurred in Israel during this interregnum which lasted 22 years. But the history indicates very plainly the straitened character of the times, and suggests a reason for the interregnum, for we are told that the country was overrun by enemies, and the name of Israel was in danger of being “blotted out from under heaven” (2 Kings 14 26. 27). Some mystery seems to hang over this period. During the first part of it Assyrian history is also a blank.

According to Anstey this was also the time of the prophet Jonah’s intervention in Nineveh.
304

(But see my discussion of this in the Excursus on Isaiah, according to which Jonah’s intervention in Assyria was probably much later).
Here, nevertheless, is Anstey’s description of this troubled era:[186]

It is the time of the earthquake, two years before which Amos began to prophecy (Amos 1 1), an earthquake that was remembered even to the days of Zechariah, nearly 300 years later, the terror of which Zechariah uses as an image of the terror of the Day of Judgment. It was a time when the affliction of Israel was bitter, for there was not any shut up nor left in Israel (2 Kings 14 26). The author of the Companion Bible suggests that the words “shut up” are to be interpreted as meaning “protected”, like those shut up in a fortress, and the word “left” is a mistranslation. He derives the word so translated from the Hebrew word bazAfA ΄azab, to fortify, not from the Hebrew word bazAfA ΄āzab, to leave, to forsake. The meaning then is “there was no fortress and no fortification”, or “no protection and no defence” against their foes. The bitterness of Israel’s affliction at this time may possibly be connected with the Civil War by which the Kingdom of Israel was torn asunder from the reign of Jeroboam II to the close of its history.

[End of quote]

The “earthquake” to which Anstey referred, that so dramatically heralded the prophetic ministry of Amos, Courville had looked to connect with the cataclysmic Thera (Santorini) eruption, whose conventional alignment with the Amarna period (though now an earlier 18th dynasty phase seems to be favoured) Courville thought to have been based on no solid evidence.[187] The catastrophe (whether or not it was also the Thera incident), would most definitely have added further to the chaos of these troubled times. It may also be possible, chronologically, to link this disaster with an earthquake known to have affected Egypt about mid-way through the reign of Ramses II; hence approximately at the beginning of the interregnum. Tyldesley has estimated it to have occurred in the pharaoh’s 30th year:[188] “Year 30 [of Ramses II] saw an unexpected catastrophe – earthquake – at Abu Simbel …. The Great Temple was badly affected”. Year 30 of Ramses II as ruler of Egypt would correspond to his Year 37 as Jeroboam II of Israel, hence very close to the beginning of the interregnum in Jeroboam’s Year 41.
The earthquake, which could have been far more severe in the north, may have been at least a cause of Israel’s leaving the land, to take up permanent residence in Egypt.
When Egypt finally returned to the land of Israel, under Merenptah - during a late phase of Uzziah the leper’s reign, when his son, Jotham, was still a boy (so with Judah perhaps in a temporary phase of weakness) - a depressing scene of desolation (to which Merenptah presumably would have added further misery) may have greeted these ‘Syrian’ Egyptians whose fathers had ruled Israel.

“Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more …”.
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Hosea, though, seems to have been referring to an actual military defeat for Israel at the time of Jeroboam II when he stated, in connection with the naming of his new male child, ‘Jezreel’ (Hosea 1:4-5): “And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel’.” This utterance so early in Hosea, and therefore almost certainly in the reign of Jeroboam II (cf. Hosea 1:1), was an announcement of the demise of the latter’s kingdom, and of a substantial period of kinglessness in Israel. But it also may be meant to include, ab extenso, the final termination of the Jehu-ide line, with the assassination of Zechariah.
We have read that famine was also a problem in Syro-Palestine at the time of Merenptah. This may perhaps have been an effect of whatever cause, or causes, had actually triggered the interregnum period mainly prior to Merenptah’s rule. Later, I shall also suggest that the ‘Syrians’ (Libyans), specifically Osorkon II - possibly backed by Judah - had again been active in the land prior to Egypt’s revival there. This will enable me later to account also for an archaeological correlation between Osorkon II and Jeroboam II.
Merenptah may eventually have been able to rise up with the assistance of the Ethiopians, as the ‘Amenophis’ legend (presuming it refers to Merenptah and not to Akhnaton) may suggest, and re-take Syro-Palestine for Egypt. Merenptah, if he were Zechariah, was a ‘child (albeit aged) of destiny’, because it had been prophesied that yet one more Jehu-ide would reign on the throne of Israel.
Did Merenptah come back to Israel to ensure that that prophecy would be fulfilled? According to my reconstruction, Merenptah himself was of the Jehu-ide line of Israelite kings, a ‘Syrian’. His secondary wife at least, too, was apparently of the same nationality; for, according to Tyldesley, she was “of Syrian origin named Sutailja”.[189]
More specifically perhaps, in my context, Merenptah could have been intending with this famous statement that there the Jehu-ides, his very family, had ceased to rule over Israel. Was his campaign then an inspired mission to fulfil the prophecy that the Lord had given to his great ancestor, Jehu: “Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation”. (2 Kings 15:8-12)? Merenptah was, according to my reconstruction, of this very fourth generation. Anyway, the prophecy itself was apparently fulfilled, for: “In the thirty-eighth year of King Azariah [Uzziah] of Judah, Zechariah son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months” (15:8). Now, this Zechariah continued his ancestors’ policy of doing “what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (v. 9).
However, Merenptah’s triumph was to be short-lived, if he were indeed Zechariah, son of Jeroboam II. Then: “Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck him down in public and killed him, and reigned in place of him” (v. 10).

I wish now to try to determine if all of the conventionally reckoned post-Merenptah rulers of the 19th dynasty can actually be moved as a block to an earlier period. This would mean that the 19th dynasty would now terminate with Merenptah himself. It would also shave off more than a dozen years from those genealogies with which Bierbrier had had to grapple. And, in my context, it would enable for the last 19th dynasty ruler (Merenptah) to coincide with the last Jehu-ide ruler (Zechariah).
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The Time of Amenmesse
Conventionally, Amenmesse is assigned to the period directly post-Merenptah, as a contemporary of Seti II, thought to be Merenptah’s son. Whilst Amenmesse is generally thought to have been a usurper - equated variously with ‘Harmais’, or Osarsiph, or even Bay - Reeves seems to leave open the possibility that Amenmesse, sometimes considered to have been a son of Ramses II,[190] may actually have been a legitimate successor:[191]

Whether [Seti] II was by-passed, however, and the throne passed directly to a rival claimant, Amenmesse (possibly the son of a daughter of Ramesses II …), or whether Amenmesse established himself as an independent king in the south, is at present unclear.

This is also thought to have been the time of Manetho’s (through Josephus) rebel Osarsiph. Here is LeFlem’s account of this Osarsiph, locating him, “as Siptah”, to the time of Merenptah:[192]

Manetho ascribes almost 20 years to the reign of Merenptah (Amenophis), a reign which was disrupted by the incursion of the rebel Osarsiph …. These rebels called for help from the “shepherds” of Jerusalem, who sent a 200,000 strong army to their aid. …. Since Osarsiph’s rebellion succeeded, he must have become a king, and I would therefore identify him as Siptah.

Rohl has, quite understandably, come to light with different preferences, on different occasions, for the enigmatic Osarsiph, who is said to have changed his name to “Mose”. Firstly Rohl opted for Ramesses-Siptah:[193]

The proposition on offer here is that the original view of two pharaohs called Siptah is correct …. Ramesses-Siptah would then be the usurper Osarsiph/Moses, the “Mose” being a derivation of Ra-“mose”-ses coupled with the obvious similarities of Osarsiph and Siptah.

then, later, Amenmesse. I shall take some of Rohl’s account of the legend here, as it may serve to summarise Manetho’s tale for us:[194]

Manetho tell us … that Amenmesse – here called by his hypocoristicon Mose – was a priest of Heliopolis who had previously borne the name Osarsiph. Mose seized Avaris and requested support from Jerusalem in his bid to overthrow Merenptah – here called Amenophis son of Rampses (i.e Ramesses II) by Josephus but Amenophthis in all the other redactions of Manetho. ….
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Here Rohl gives this explanatory footnote: “Manetho’s Amenophthis is almost certainly a corruption of Menophtah where the ‘r’ of mr(y)-n-Pth (‘beloved of Ptah’) has been dropped in the foreign (Greek) vocalistion of the Egyptian name”. Rohl continues:

Mose reminded the people of Jerusalem that they had once lived at Avaris (a direct reference to the Israelite sojourn in the eastern delta …). And so, according to Manetho, the Jerusalemites (i.e. Judahites) sent troops to fight on behalf of Mose who, as a result, was able to overthrow Amenophis. The old king fled into exile, heading south into Kush where he found refuge under the protection of the friendly Kushite ruler. There, Amenophis and his son Sethos prepared an army to retake their rightful inheritance. [This …] apparently took thirteen years ….

But, as Rohl rightly goes on to point out, it is not entirely clear that all of the Osarsiph legend even finds its place comfortably in the era of Merenptah. It seems to be, as he calls it, “a conflation” of eras:[195]

Josephus’ legend of Amenophis/Amenophthis seems to be a conflation of at least two separate characters and eras. The story surrounding Ahenaten (Amenhotep IV) and his religious revolution is certainly one element - especially the part of the story dealing with the polluted people settled in the quarries on the east bank of the Nile (i.e. el-Amarna) and the role played by Amenophis son of Paapis (i.e. Amenhotep son of Hapu). However, the sequence of rulers given by Josephus – Sethos (Seti I) – Rampses for 66 years (Ramesses II) – Amenophis/Amenophthis (Merenptah) – Sethos – appears to set the story at the end of the 19th Dynasty. So the civil war between Mose and Amenophis/Amenophthis which produced 13 years of instability must be a quite separate tradition from the Akhenaten heresy which was dated to well over a century earlier.

Before we can even begin to unravel this story, we need clearly to distinguish in this ancient account what might be 18th dynasty (EA era) elements from 19th dynasty ones. On p. 264, I had proposed the entirely new idea that the ‘driving out of the usurper by a Sethos’ pertained to Seti-nakht as Joash of Judah. Actually this ‘driving out’ action was really the work of the priest Jehoiada (my prophet Elisha) in deadly opposition to the Baalist Queen Athaliah; a ‘second phase’ (in Judah) of the ‘first phase’ work of reform already done (in Israel) by Hazael and Jehu – who also acted in Egypt, as Ay and Horemheb, against the Atonist regime.
Amenhotep son of Hapu I had tentatively proposed as being Elijah himself (Chapter 10, p. 239).
Now, with the news that the mummy of Seti II (presuming that it is really his), is clearly ‘Thutmoside’[196] (see pp. 312-313 below for an account of this) then it becomes quite anachronistic I think to talk about Seti II in terms ‘post-Merenptah’. And the same must then apply also to his contemporary, Amenmesse.

308

So, along with my previous suggestion that Bay and Tausert be connected with, respectively, Ay and Queen Ankhesenamun - hence at the end of the EA period, and not at the end of the 19th dynasty - I should now like to re-unite them with their presumed contemporaries anyway, Seti II and Amenmesse. But not with Merenptah.
Seti II, so-called (Userkheperure Setepenre), the same as Sethos Merenptah,[197] would probably now be Seti-nakht (Userkhaure Setepenre), my Joash of Judah. Tyldesley has written of Seti II, that: [198] “His titles are strongly militaristic …”. This extra dimension to the pharaoh, as Seti-nakht, would at least serve to fill him out. The ‘Thutmoside’ aspect, too, would even be appropriate, given my identification elsewhere[199] of the Thutmoside dynasty as Davidic Judaean. Amenmesse would now not be “Harmais”, who possibly pertains to Ay again; but he could just perhaps be Elisha/Jehoiada, the real force behind Seti-nakht, as Joash of Judah.
Osarsiph, who changed his name to ‘Mose’, could also – as a priest of Heliopolis – be the influential Elisha/Jehoiada again, whose reform, like that of Ay and Horemheb, must have reverberated in Egypt – though he was based in Jerusalem. I have already suggested that Elisha was the same as Ramose of EA (p. 239); this giving us the ‘mose’ element (Amen-‘mese’ perhaps being a variant). He certainly, like Osarsiph, relied on Judaean forces. And the siph element of the name could pertain to shaphat (the name also of Elisha’s father). I have talked about the shaphat-police. But if the Osarsiph incident had in fact occurred at the time of Merenptah, as I think more likely, then my candidate for Osarsiph instead would be Osorkon II (to be discussed on pp. 343-345), presumably backed by the large military force of king Uzziah of Judah. Certainly the “200,000-strong army” would be far more appropriate at the time of Uzziah, than in the EA era.
If Seti II Merenptah were, under the auspices of the priest Jehoiada, involved in the same reform as was Horemheb, then this may serve in part to explain the association of both Horemheb and Seti-Merenptah in the tomb of a Shoshenq, at Saqqara, as I had discussed in Chapter 10 on p. 253.
Tomb of Amenmesse
Certainly, in my context, Amenmesse must have pre-dated (been an older contemporary of) kings Joash and Amaziah of Judah, since Amenmesse’s tomb, clearly pre-dated that of Ramses III (my Amaziah) and the time of his father, Seti-nakht (my Joash). Clayton tells of this situation:[200] “[Seti-nakht] had begun to excavate another tomb (KV11), but this had intruded upon the tomb of Amenmesse (KV10) and been abandoned. Subsequently it was to be realigned and used by his son, Ramesses III”. There was, however, no evidence of an actual internment here. Thus the ‘Amenmesse Project’:[201] “Most significant for the early history of the tomb, there was nothing discovered which could be attributed to the burial equipment of either Amenmesse or Baketwerel”.
309

Whilst, according to Reeves:[202] “… it is not yet known if Amenmesse was ever interred in this tomb, or what relationship, if any, Amenmesse bore to the ‘king’s mother’, Takhat or the ‘great royal wife’ Baketwerel, for whom parts of the tomb were redecorated”.
The priest Jehoiada, whom I am most tentatively identifying with Amenmesse, was - we might recall - at least married to royalty; his wife being the very sister of Queen Athaliah.
I have re-identified Bay with Ay, and Queen Tausert (Ta-sherit) with Ankhesenmaun ta-sherit. Presumably, in this context, Siptah would be Ankhesenamun’s son. Though Rohl claims that “there is direct evidence to confirm that Siptah succeeded Seti II …”,[203] he does not offer any reference. And we have just considered that there may have been two pharaohs Siptah. The case of the deformed Siptah, with a “distorted left foot and an atrophied lower leg, possibly the result of cerebral palsy”, according to Tyldesley,[204] may be medically harmonious with the fact that Ankhesenamun had, according to Tyldesley “two still-born daughters”, one of whom was deformed. Thus she tells:[205] “… Professor Harrison … [claimed that] the older child may have suffered from a condition known as Sprengel’s deformity, which would have led to spina bifida and scoliosis”. Patients with cerebral palsy indeed have a high incidence of scoliosis.
The following conundrum for archaeologists in relation to Siptah’s supposed funerary equipment (tomb KV47), as described by David, may take on a different perspective in my context:[206] “However, some of the coffin fragments are said to carry the name of Merenptah, and be associated with the anthropoid coffin fragment of this king now in the British Museum. Their presence within KV47 has not yet been explained”. In both the conventional context, and mine, Siptah would be considered to have been close in time to Seti-nakht (my Joash of Judah), hence the similarity between Seti-nakht’s coffin lid and Siptah’s.[207] But, conventionally, one should not expect any intrusion of Siptah into Merenptah’s funerary equipment.
Names of female characters, supposedly at the time of Amenmesse, such as Tausert (or ta-Sherit), or Beket-wer-El, may in fact recall Amarna, and, respectively, Nefertiti’s daughter (Ankhesenamun ta-Sherit[208]) and Beketaten (the presumed daughter of Tiy[209]). Beket-wer-El could conceivably, in a revised context, have been this obscure Beketaten. Now Ay himself, as we have read, had been married to a Tiy, usually called Tiy or Tey II, to distinguish her from the more famous Tiy. Though, amidst all the intrigue that was Amarna, one would even have to consider the possibility that Ay had married his very own sister, Tiy, and that their child was Beketaten. Ay, as Bay in terms of my revision, according to Grimal “seduced the pharaoh’s widow, who then - if tradition is to be believed - gave him total control of the Treasury”.[210]
Grimal adds the note here: “Both Bay and Twosre had evil reputations”.
310

Ramesside Mummies

A potential trap for a revision of Egypt, often involving alter egos, will be mummies. Obviously a certain ruler can have only one genuine mummy. When proposing multi-identifications for a pharaoh, as I have already done, one must make sure that, for example, there is not a well-identified mummy each for that ruler plus his proposed alter ego(s). And, in the case of someone like Horemheb, identified with Jehu, whose burial place is recorded as being Samaria, there should be no mummy at all in Egypt.
Whilst there has been publicity over the supposed mummy of Ramses I (my Jehoahaz), I have already (refer back to p. 248) pointed out that there is significant doubt as to the reliability of this particular identification. Hence my specifying ‘well-identified’ mummies. The latter may be relevant, though, in the case of Seti I, Ramses II and Merenptah.
But as we have already noted there is now, at least in the case of Seti II, a well-established anomaly within the 19th dynasty mummy sequence.
So far there is no problem of mummy or burial duplication in the case of Horemheb, of whom Tyldesley has written:[211] “Horemheb’s body has never been recovered”. Though Luban thinks that the mummy attributed to Seti II may actually be Horemheb’s.[212] But the mummies of Seti I, Ramses II and Merenptah, seem to be well known and publicised.
In the case of Ramses II, however, Velikovsky, at least, had argued that there was significant doubt in regard to the mummy attributed to that pharaoh. Velikovsky, following certain specialists, insisted that the mummy reputedly of Ramses II was nowhere near the required age of “late eighties or nineties at his death”.[213] For instance Rudolph Virchow, “the renowned anatomist”, he wrote, “investigated the skull of Ramses’ mummy and wondered at the form of the jawbone; it could not be that of a very old man”. And “G. Elliot Smith, anatomist at the University of Cairo … wrote …. It is a curious problem to determine why this exceedingly old man should have healthy and only slightly worn teeth”. Tyldesley, though, reminds us that Smith had made his diagnosis “without the benefit of X-ray analysis”, and that modern scientific tests have led to the conclusion that “[Ramses II’s] teeth were badly decayed and, in his final years, must have caused him constant pain”.[214]
Lastly, Velikovsky told of:

Dr William Krogman, working with the University of Michigan team that performed the X rays, [who] interprets the result as indicating that Ramses II was in all likelihood “between 50 and 55” years old at the time of his death. This figure was obtained from a careful study of demineralization of the pelvis.

The question might still legitimately be asked: Do we have here the true mummy of Ramses II?
311

Specialists Ikram and Dodson, though, have not queried the identification.[215]
Strangely, details of Ramses II’s death are completely missing. Moreover, the alleged mummy of Ramses II was certainly moved about a lot, and was apparently not processed near the Nile, as Tyldesley tells in various places:[216]

… examination of [Ramses II’s] mummy has revealed marine rather than riverine sand within his bandages; a clear indication that he was not mummified on the banks of the Nile. No official document preserves the details of his passing ….

Unfortunately very little [of Ramses II’s funerary] equipment has survived.

By now Ramesses rested in his nest of coffins. None of these has survived ….

And, in the case of Merenptah:[217]

The body of King Merenptah … was, when recovered from the Valley of the Kings, coated in salt. At first this was interpreted as absolute proof that Merenptah had drowned in the Red Sea, or in the Reed Lakes, while chasing Moses and the Israelites. Today it is realized that this salty deposit is an unexpected and unexplained side-effect of the mummification process. Merenptah was eventually discovered by Victor Loret lying with other members of the royal family in the tomb of Amenhotep II ….

Was Merenptah slain, as in the case of his presumed alter ego, Zechariah? Certainly the mummy (whether his or not) revealed extensive damage, thought to be by tomb robbers. According to an Internet article:[218] “… thieves … had broken his right clavicle, tore off his right arm, chopped through the anterior abdominal wall, and generally hacked at the mummy with an adze … Merenptah’s penis and his scrotum are missing …”. According to this article, he may even have been castrated “before … his death”. If such be the case, then this would probably signify that he had suffered a violent death, as indeed Zechariah had.

Reeves has, I think, asked the relevant question: “Royal mummies: are they what they claim to be?”, in relation to which he provides the following assessment:[219]

Seeds of doubt were first sown when, in the summer of 1881, the DB [Deir el-Bahri] 320 mummies arrived in the British Museum and it was found that several of the bodies had become separated in antiquity from their intended coffins and replaced in cases to which they had no legitimate claim. In 1898, Loret discovered that the occupants of the KV35 cache had been similarly mixed up.

312

It was clear, therefore, that none of the mummies could be determined with complete confidence from the formal inscriptions of the coffin in which they were contained – a conclusion few would argue with. Rather it was the labelling directly on the mummy bandages that gave the reliable identification.

At least so thinks Reeves, who goes on to blame Maspero for confusing matters:

Unfortunately, the waters were muddied considerably a short time later by Maspero, who argued that one of the DB320 mummies was not the lady she purported to be. Though clearly labelled across the bandages covering the breast as ‘The King’s daughter and King’s Sister, Meryetamun, may she live!’, Maspero claimed that this was, in fact, a mummy of the Middle Kingdom, rewrapped as a replacement of the original, 18th dynasty mummy, which he suggested, had been destroyed in antiquity. The anatomist Eliot Smith demonstrated in 1912 that this was an aberration on Maspero’s part. But too late; a precedent had been set for dismissing the ancient attribution out of hand where the anatomical data for the corpse seemed to contradict the evidence of the dockets.

Reeves’ optimism does not accord with the facts, however. The recent research by both Weeks[220] and Forbes[221] clearly testify to the fact that some important mummies, at least, have been mixed up. To illustrate this, here is what they both have to say regarding the alleged mummy of Seti II. Firstly Forbes:[222]

When Smith physically examined the Royal Mummies for the purpose of preparing his Catalogue Général volume, he noted certain discrepancies, among them that the mummy labeled “Seti II” by the Twenty-first Dynasty necropolis priests — who rescued and rewrapped the desecrated New Kingdom royalty — bore no facial resemblance whatsoever to the heavy-jawed Ramesside kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty (of whom Seti II represented the fifth generation), but instead had the skull shape, small aquiline nose and pronounced dental overbite characteristic of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Likewise, Smith felt that the mummification technique employed on “Seti II” was consistent with that of the early part of the latter dynasty rather than of the Nineteenth.

Similarly Weeks:[223]

… statistical comparisons demonstrated that some of the royal mummies in the [Cairo] museum had been mislabeled by ancient priests when they moved the bodies from their original tombs to protect them from thieves. For example, the mummy labeled Seti II (Twentieth Dynasty) is more likely to be that of Thutmosis II (Eighteenth Dynasty), because it shows far greater craniofacial similarity to the Thutmosid series than to pharaohs of later times.
313

This reattribution is supported by the age at which our pathologists said this mummified man had died.

Thus there must be some serious doubt as to proper identification of mummies.
But, if we do in fact have the true mummies of some of the important 19th and 20th dynasty Ramessides, then I can only suggest that they were later moved from their original burial place in Israel - where, given the prevailing Egyptian influence of the time, they could still have been mummified - and taken to Egypt. No one doubts, at least, that these mummies were moved around. We have already discussed the several movements of the alleged mummy of Seti I. And one finds that, in the case of Ramses II’s mummy as well, it was moved at least once in antiquity. Thus Booth:[224]

The funeral [of Ramses II] was problematic ….
Ramses’s body rested in the tomb [KV7 in the Valley of the Kings] for 200 years before being moved to the Deir el Bahri cache, where he laid for a further 2000 years before being moved again to his new home in the Cairo Museum ….

According to Weeks, the tomb of Ramses II, KV7, is “a tomb that remains one of the valley’s great puzzles”.[225]

‘Syrian’ Origins

Further to my remarks above about certain Syro-Palestinian aspects of Ramses II and III, I should like to add a general but important note in regard to the physical appearance of the Syrian ‘Yuyides’ and Jehu-ides. I have already (in Chapter 9) alluded to the fact that the very well-preserved mummy of Yuya (Ben-Hadad I), who may have been ethnically related to Horemheb (Jehu), is considered to have been of foreign, northern, even perhaps European, appearance (refer back to p. 206). Yuya I have identified as an Omride, and - through his alter ego, Tushratta - as being of ‘Indo-European’ background. Thus I would not be surprised to learn that he did not have typically Egyptian, or Semitic, features. Yuya’s mummy has been described as “one of the best-preserved examples known”,[226] had a “Caucasian facial structure” and may have had blonde hair.[227] According to Ikram and Dodson:[228] “The body has flaxen hair …. It is unknown if the hair colour is natural, or a result of henna and chemicals mixing over time”. “… Yuya has been interpreted as having an unusual, almost European, physiognomy …”, writes Tyldesley.[229]
Tyldesley however has dismissed:[230] “The suggestion that Tiy and Yuya were blue-eyed blondes … the blue eyes were the unfortunate result of a modern misinterpretation of an ancient portrait”.
314

I had already though, in Chapter 9, referred to Nefertiti’s apparently classical Greco-Hittite profile (p. 207).
Certainly the ‘white’ aspect of the Ramessides can be over-stated, especially by Aryan-ists.
Points to consider, though, are the seemingly clear Caucasian features of Seti I, another very well-preserved mummy[231] (presuming that we have the right one). Seti I was the son of Ramses I, hence of the Zimride Horemheb/Jehu, according to my reconstruction. There is also the possibility that Ramses II had red (or silky yellow) hair and Nordic features (once again depending on right identification of the mummy).
Now, just as we found in Chapter 3 that there is fairly consistent scholarly opinion that Omri was a foreigner, so, correspondingly (in my context), there appears to be some generally consistent evidence that the Ramessides, too, tended to be fair-haired, presumably fair-skinned, rulers, of possible Nordic-like appearance. Smith, according to Tyldesley,[232] observed in the case of Ramses II, “… many alien [Asiatic] traits, curiously blended with Egyptian characters …”.

And:[233]

… modern scientific analysis of [Ramses II’s] hair-roots has confirmed that in his youth the king was indeed a natural red-head … considered to have an affinity with Seth.
Given the link between the god Seth and the colour red it is tempting to speculate that red hair was a Ramesside family trait, with Seti (or Seth) I, the father of Ramesses, being named with reference to his auburn tresses.

Also to be re-considered in our ‘Syrian’ context are the singular names of the ‘Yuyide’ family:[234] “‘Yuya’ – perhaps because it was a nickname – was certainly an unusual name in ancient Egypt …”, pointing I think to this family’s foreign origins. And Inen (Inini) we found to have been a Libyan name. (Refer back to discussion, “The Origin of the ‘Yuyide’ Names”, beginning on p. 198).
Soon we are going to read also of the apparently un-Egyptian features exhibited by sculptures of a late 20th Dynasty pharaoh; a dynasty that I am claiming to have been of Judaean origins.

We have now come as far as the year 772 BC (temporary revised date), the 38th Year of Uzziah of Judah. This year signalled the end of a most vibrant era: the Jehu-ides in Israel and the corresponding 19th dynasty in Egypt.



315

The Third Intermediate Period [TIP]: How Does It All Fit In?

Petrie - as explained in a useful, recent analysis by Rohl[235] - may have succeeded in unravelling the proper progression of the highly important for TIP, but rather troublesome, Pasenhor Genealogy. Rohl’s Petrian outcome, with its careful observation of the hieroglyphic signs, is also critical of Kitchen, about whom Rohl begins in response to a colleague:

First, in his criticisms of [Rohl’s Chronology] published in the revised introduction to his TIPE book (3rd edition) Kitchen does not mention the Pasenhor genealogy. I think you [i.e. Rohl’s colleague] may feel it is important (and you are probably right) but Kitchen has never, to my knowledge, either privately or in print, introduced it into the discussion.

Rohl then goes on to explain:

These are the FACTS:

(1) There is no genealogical link between the anonymous King Shoshenk (i.e. without determining prenomen) at generation 9 and the Great Chief Nimlot and his wife Tentsepeh (Kitchen’s generation 10). This is the ONLY place in the whole genealogical sequence where the goose sign (s3) for ‘son of’ is completely missing. The stela inscription therefore categorically does not say that King Shoshenk was the son of Nimlot and Tentsepeh. This is indisputable as has been confirmed by both Manley and Collier.

(2) Earlier in the genealogy (at generation 5) we also find a couple named Nimlot and Tentsepeh. And, strangely enough, here too we have an anomaly in the text. For instead of the s3 goose (found everywhere else in the genealogy except generation 9) we have the s3 egg sign. Given the fact that there is plenty of room in the line and that this generation appears mid-text, there can be no argument that the scribe was hard pressed for space and used the smaller egg sign instead of the goose sign. So there has to be another reason for employing a different sign to link this 5th generation to the 6th generation. The 6th generation is where the royal part of the genealogy ends with Osorkon II (who can be confirmed as Osorkon II via the name of his wife in the genealogy … Djedmutesankh). Thus the sequence from generation 9 down to generation 6 is King Shoshenk, father of King Osorkon, father of King Takelot, father of King Osorkon II. I have argued that the change from s3 (goose) to s3 (egg) suggests a different affiliation between Nimlot and his father … Osorkon II … i.e. that he is not a direct son of Osorkon but rather a son-in-law through his marriage to Tentsepeh. And this is the reason why the genealogy breaks at the second occurrence of Nimlot and Tentsepeh.
316

Pasenhor wished to record that his ancestors were connected with the royal blood line of the 22nd Dynasty through his great, great, great grandmother Tentsepeh. Having taken the genealogy back through four generations of kings (to the founder of the dynasty - Shoshenk I) he then, at the break following generation 9, continued the genealogy of his great, great, great grandfather Nimlot (generation 5) whose ancestors formed the line of Great Chiefs as far back as Buyuwawa … the Libyan….

Thus we have:

Pasenhor --- Hemptah --- Pasenhor --- Hemptah --- Djedptahefankh --- Tentsepeh (wife of Nimlot) --- Osorkon II --- Takelot (I) --- Osorkon = (I) --- Shoshenk (I), where the Tentsepeh line ends.

Then, starting again from the couple Nimlot and Tenstepeh, we have Nimlot --- Shoshenk --- Paihuty --- Nebneshi --- Mawasan --- Buyuwawa, where the Nimlot line ends.

This construction of the genealogy (first proposed by Flinders Petrie) is absolutely in line with the text, whereas Kitchen’s interpretation (followed by you) requires the assumption that a s3 sign has been inadvertently left out of the genealogy just at the crucial point where the identically-named couple reappear. So, I am entitled to argue that the twin-stem genealogy, branching off from one couple named Nimlot and Tentsepeh, represents a perfectly reasonable reading of the original stela inscription and is more consistent with the text than Kitchen’s version.

Rohl goes on to tell of:

The consequences:

Nimlot’s father, the Great Chief Shoshenk, now becomes a contemporary of Osorkon II and not his ancestor by 5 generations. Shoshenk’s wife, Mehtenweskhet … called Mother of the King (mwt nsw) … is both the mother of the Great Chief Nimlot and a king … otherwise identified by an inscription on the roof of the Temple of Khonsu at Karnak as a King Osorkon (no prenomen). Kitchen has no satisfactory explanation for Mehtenweskhet’s claim to be the mother of a king two generations before the start of the 22nd Dynasty. And there is absolutely no proof that the anonymous King Akheperre of the Karnak Priestly Annals is one and the same person as the Osochor of Manetho’s 21st Dynasty. So it is an assumption that Osochor is Akheperre Osorkon … the elder … (a non-existent pharaoh in my opinion).
…. Thus we have two branches of the family, (i) Nimlot’s, from Buyuwaya down to Nimlot son of a Shoshenq; and (ii) Tentsepeh’s, from Shoshenq I all the way down to Pasenhor himself.
[End of quote]

317

It may be a situation similar to the sometime Mitannian divide between branches of the same family, e.g. that between Tushratta and Artatama; whether, in this case, hostile or not. Apparently there was intermarriage between these two lines, or “branches” (or ‘genealogical stems’) of the family.
I am going to be identifying these two branches as two of the TIP dynasties.
Petrie’s, if it is indeed the correct interpretation of the Pasenhor Genealogy, establishes, in my own context, that the elusive Shoshenq I, who cannot be “Shishak” at the time of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam (as Rohl would also agree), belongs to the same family as the major ‘Yuyides’, but in a separate branch. Thus the so-called 22nd dynasty is a branch parallel to that of pharaoh Ay, represented by Mauasa (Mawasan above), the second name in the Pasenhor list. In fact, following Rohl’s estimation, with Osorkon II parallel to ‘the anonymous Shoshenq’, then Shoshenq I would be of the same generation as Mauasa. However, given the longevity of Mauasa, and presumably that of his immediate successors, then Shoshenq I may actually have seemed to be of another generation comparatively speaking.
So how are we going to fit into our scheme of things (a) this extra dynasty (22nd), given that we already have (b) Ay (Mauasa) close to Horemheb (and hence to the 19th dynasty Ramessides), and also close to (c) Seti-nakht (and hence the 20th dynasty Ramessides)? And what of (d) the 21st dynasty, that is conventionally thought to have followed the 20th dynasty, but to have preceded the 22nd? I shall consider the 21st dynasty shortly.
Who, then, was the Libyan pharaoh Shoshenq I, if he were not ‘Shishak’, as already argued at length, but who apparently cannot now be ‘So’ either, given that I am now proposing for Shoshenq I a proximity at the time of Ay, well before the time of ‘So’?

Who was Shoshenq I and how did he get that Name?

From what we have just decided, Shoshenq I, the founder of the 22nd (Libyan) dynasty, was (as according to convention) a Libyan ‘Syrian’. He was related to the ‘Yuyide’ line whose founder was the biblical Omri, but whose best known representative was the master king, Ben-Hadad I, or Yuya in Egyptian terms. Yuya’s son was the devious Ay, the biblical Hazael, a partner of the Zimride king, Jehu, or Horemheb, the founder of the Ramesside 19th dynasty. Shoshenq I would be a younger contemporary of Ay’s and Horemheb’s, probably being closer in age to Horemheb’s son, Ramses I (biblical Jehoahaz) and perhaps the latter’s son Seti I (biblical Jehoash). This would mean that Shoshenq I was also an older contemporary of Ramses II (biblical Jeroboam II). We read on pp. 293-294 of the epigraphical evidence for a far closer proximity in time than according to the conventional separation by three centuries, approximately, for Ramses II and Shoshenq I.
Well now, accordingly, I am giving the two as actual contemporaries.

From whence comes the ‘barbaric’ name, Shoshenq, to use Gardiner’s appellation? Despite appearances, it is not Assyrian, as Courville had suggested. Our reconstruction, if it has any value, ought to give us the clue. And I think it does; not only for the origin of the name, Shoshenq, but also as to the actual identification of Shoshenq I. He ought to be (i) a ‘Syrian’, at least geographically, but (ii) of ‘Indo-European’ origins.
318

As to ‘Syrian’, an alleged brother of the Benteshina against whom we read that Ramses II had campaigned, was one Shaushka-muwa. He is my candidate for Shoshenq I. The name ‘Shoshenq’, I suggest, is simply that of the Luwian goddess, Shaushka (var. Shaushga). It would not be surprising that the Egyptian scribes, who had had such difficulty when rendering the name, Yuya, might have turned Shaushka into Shoshenk. This Shaushka-muwa would, like his ‘Yuyide’ relatives, make a treaty with a great Hittite king, in this case, conventionally, Tudhaliyas IV.
Further on, though, I shall have cause to query the identification of this Hittite king as Tudhaliyas IV.
As to ‘Indo-European’, Shoshenq I could now be the great ‘Greek’ hero, Mopsus, or Mopshush (Muwa-Shaushka), or Mukshush, who – according to some – led the massive invasion of the ‘Sea Peoples’ in Year 8 of Ramses III. I have already reconstructed this famous event according to my revised context, which saw Seti I, Ramses II & III all having to fend off the ‘Sea Peoples’, who had run amok in Palestine. This would make Shoshenq I also a younger contemporary of Ramses I, my Jehoahaz. Here my reconstruction accords perfectly with that of Rohl, chronologically speaking, insofar as Rohl has designated Shoshenq I as the ‘saviour’ of Israel at the time of Jehoahaz.[236] My own view, though, was that this ‘saviour’ was Jehoahaz’s son, Jehoash (my Seti I).
Just as the ancients referred to a ‘House of Omri’ and a ‘House of Hazael’, so too apparently did they know of a ‘House of Mopsus’. Thus Wikipedia:[237]

Historical Person

Since the discovery of a bilingual Luwian-Phoenician inscription in Karatepe (in Cilicia) in 1946-7, it is assumed that Mopsos was an historical person …. The inscription is dated to c. 700 BC, and the person speaking in it, ‘-z-t-w-d (Phoenician)/ Azatiwataš (Luwian), professes to be king of the d-n-n-y-m/ Hiyawa and describes his dynasty as “the house of M-p-š/ Mukšuš”. Apparently he is a descendant of Mopsus. The Phoenician name of the people recalls one of the Homeric names of the Greeks, Danaoi, whereas the Luwian name Hiyawa probably goes back to Hittite Ahhiyā(wa), which is, according to most interpretations, the “Achaean”, or Mycenaean Greek, settlement in Asia Minor. Ancient Greek authors ascribe a central role to Mopsus in the colonization of Pamphylia ….

Now there also seems to be evidence that this Mopsus belonged to the same century as Ramses II, conventionally the 13th. Wikipedia continues:

The existence of a 13th-century date of the historical Mopsos is confirmed by a Hittite tablet from Boğazkale which mentions a person called Mukšuš in connection with Madduwattaš of Arzawa and Attaršiyaš of Ahhiyā. This text is dated to the reign of Arnuwandaš III.
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Therefore, some scholars … associate Mopsus’ activities along the coast of Asia Minor and the Levant with the famous Sea Peoples attacking Egypt in the beginning of the 12th century BC, one of those peoples being the Denyen, cf. the d-n-n-y-m of the Karatepe inscription. ….

Of course I am re-dating this 13th century era to approximately 800 BC, which would make it roughly half a millennium closer than according to the conventional estimate to the c. 700 BC Karatepe inscription.
The two names with which Mukšuš here is said to be ‘connected’ are most interesting. Madduwattaš may remind one instantly of Mattiawaza (var. Kurtiwaza), the assassinator of Tushratta; that is, respectively (according to my revision), Hazael and Ben-Hadad I. The name recurs, I suggest, in Pasenhor’s Mauasa¸ with whom I have already identified Hazael (Ay), as a contemporary of Shoshenq I. (And I had also told of a possible Arzawan connection, Chapter 9, p. 204). And the element ‘Attar’ in the name Attaršiyaš (thought by some to be the very Atreus, father of Agamemnon[238]) is the same as the first part of the name, Attar-hamek, which – as we read back on p, 57 (n. 15) – may be an alternative name for Tab-rimmon (my Omri), grandfather of Hazael.
Now, one who does “… associate Mopsus’ activities along the coast of Asia Minor and the Levant with the famous Sea Peoples attacking Egypt …”, is Rohl:[239]

The Lydian historian, Xanthus, tells us that, having left Colophon and established his power base in Cilicia (south-east Anatolia) – where he founded several cities – Mopsus eventually led a mighty invading army down the Levantine coast … to the Philistine city of Ashkelon. In turn, the Egyptian records of Ramesses III tell of a great invasion by the ‘Peoples of the Sea’ in the pharaoh’s eighth year ….

As noted in Wikipedia, there is uncertainty as to the precise nationality of this Mopsus:[240]

The ethnicity of Mopsus himself is not clear. The fragmentary Lydian historiographer Xanthus has made him a Lydian campaigning in Phoenicia …. If we may believe the transmission of Nicolaus of Damascus who quotes him, Xanthus wrote the name with –ks- like in the Hittite and Luwian texts; given that Lydian also belongs to the Anatolian language family, it is possible that Xanthus relies on a local non-Greek tradition according to which Mukšuš was a Luwian.

Are Luwian and Libyan therefore interchangeable: yet a further ‘extension’ of ethnicity for the ‘Yuyides’?
With all of this in mind, one might sympathise with the Egyptian scribes – as in the case of the name, Yuya – when having to render this ‘barbaric’ name (Mopsus/Muksus) in the hieroglyphics. It is no wonder that they sometimes chose to abbreviate the name simply as Shosh. (Refer back to p. 191 of Chapter 8).
Because of the extreme complexity of the TIP, we need to begin to establish a definite archaeological/art historical, epigraphical and genealogical perspective for Shoshenq I.
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We are going to find that some of this is most favourable to our proposed reconstruction, whilst some of it is, at first sight, not so encouraging, or even, sometimes, seemingly impossible.

TIP Archaeology and Art History

Shoshenq I was a great pharaoh in his own right, and so I - and also Sieff with his reconstruction - might need to be able to explain how this pharaoh could have achieved all that he did achieve if he were in conflict with the (late, in Sieff’s case) 19th dynasty Ramessides. Shoshenq I is thought to have built on a grand scale, along the lines of the powerful Ramesside pharaohs; his constructions apparently continuing their work. Jones tells of their splendour and magnificence:[241]

The buildings of Shoshenq I at Karnak are among the most magnificent and grandiose monuments surviving from ancient Egypt. He constructed there an open court surrounded by colonnades and entered through a vast stone pylon gateway, which completely transformed the existing façade of the temple. At the end of the New Kingdom the approach to the Great Temple of Amun-Ra, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, King of the Gods, led from the east bank of the river Nile by way of a canal, to a stone quayside and jetty, from which the sacred barques of the Theban deities were launched during the Festival of Opet every year. From the quayside an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, which were originally dedicated by Ramesses II, lined a ceremonial roadway to the doors of the huge pylon at the entrance of the great Hypostyle Hall constructed during the reigns of Horemheb, Seti I and Ramesses II.

Incidentally, it is in relation to these building by Shoshenq I that Rohl has produced what appears to me to be a most convincing architectural proof that the 22nd dynasty could not, as a whole entity, have preceded the 19th dynasty as Velikovsky had maintained; “a third argument”, as Rohl has called it,[242] following on from earlier historical and genealogical criticisms of this part of Velikovsky’s revision. Thus Rohl explains:[243]

It is difficult to conceive, let alone suggest, that, even from these basic plans, it is possible for the Great Court colonnades and the Portal itself to have been built before either the pylon gate of Ramesses II or the mini temple of Ramesses III. The existence of the latter must have been a prerequisite for the design and placement of the Portal itself which could not have stood in isolation, detached from any supportive structures on either side. Equally, what sense is there in building a courtyard if neither the hypostyle hall of Seti I nor the pylon gateway of Ramesses II existed at the time?

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The Great Court of the Libyan era would then have been detached from the rest of the earlier temple (built predominantly by Thutmose III and his immediate successors) by an open space of some 100 metres – a stranger architectural scheme would be hard to find, let alone within the confines of the strict laws of proportion which governed the building of sacred temples in Egypt at this time!

Confirmation of Rohl’s view is that “cartouches of Ramesses II [can be seen] disappearing behind the left buttress of the Libyan structure, unequivocally indicating that the pylon inscriptions were carved before the building of the Portal”. From this it would seem apparent that Shoshenq I post-dated Ramses II and, apparently even, according to the conventional view, Ramses III (hence also Merenptah).
One must not in one’s eagerness to revise history, go against hard archaeological evidence. Velikovsky, as now seems apparent, did in fact do this in the case of his reconstruction of the 22nd dynasty in its relationship to the 19th. However, it may be difficult to establish that Shoshenq I himself actually built these “magnificent and grandiose monuments”. De Meester gives this account:[244]

David Rohl writes about the first courtyard in an answer to Frank Yurco, who had written that there was nothing wrong with the traditional chonology. In his opinion ‘there is no proof whatsoever that Shoshenk I built the Great Court at Karnak. He did build a gateway (the Bubasite Portal) upon which he recorded his campaign aganst Israel and the Negev fortresses, but the rest of the Great Court is completely uninscribed and unfinished. The construction work may well have continued thoughout the Third Intermediate Period and very little of it, in fact, need be attributed to Shoshenk I of the 22nd Dynasty’.
Could it be that Sheshonk built only the gate? That is only possible, of course, if the temple of Ramses III already existed or was built at the same time.

Possibly the situation in the case of architectural works attributed to Shoshenq I may have been somewhat akin to what we found in the case of Seti I. For some of Seti’s major projects were completed by his son, Ramses II, with even Seti’s grandson, Merenptah, completing (and perhaps in some cases building entirely) Seti’s monuments. In other words, there may have been a long hiatus (especially given the length of the reign of Ramses II) between Seti himself and the last constructed monument in his name. And so too may have been the case with Shoshenq I, with the major 22nd dynasty work being completed at the time of, say, Osorkon II and his descendants, when much Ramesside work in the Delta region was dismantled and re-used for 22nd dynasty purposes.
Even the Bubasite Portal itself, dated to Year 21 of Shoshenq I, may have been a later addition, given that Shoshenq I is thought to have died at about this time, based on the Manethonic figure of 21 years of reign for him.[245] Though Wente has argued for a 33-year reign for Shoshenq I,[246] and I myself shall actually be favouring this estimate.
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According to this explanation, works attributed to Shoshenq I - though a contemporary of Ramses III and II – could nevertheless have post-dated the works of these two great Ramessides.
Whatever of Shoshenq I’s work in Egypt was actually contemporaneous with him is most likely I think to have been undertaken by him during the reign of the highly obscure Ramses I (my Jehoahaz), when Israel was hard pressed by these ‘Syrians’. It was for this very reason that Jehoahaz had stood so desperately in need of a ‘saviour’, who - as I have argued - arrived late in his reign, in the form of his very son, Jehoash. This would have been a phase when these ‘Syrians’ could have had something of a free hand in Egypt before the rise of Seti I (my Jehoash), who had then managed to harnass these foreign troops to his own advantage. It could have been during this pre-Seti I phase that Shoshenq I had managed to set up an initial 22nd dynasty infrastructure in the land.
Initially, Seti I/Jehoash managed to defeat, repeatedly, these ‘Syrians’, many of whom must have come to make up the host of mercenaries that he was then able to hire out to king Amaziah of Judah (Ramses III). They would also have provided labour forces for the Egyptians. These mercenaries, later disgruntled as we read, went on a rampage through the land. And I have related this to the activities of the ‘Sea Peoples’ in Year 8 of Ramses III. But I should now like to propose that the wild march of the mercenaries, from Beth-horon to Samaria, was indeed the very same incident as that most celebrated of campaigns (thought to be ‘Shishak’s’) in Year 21 of Shoshenq I (to be developed below). If so, then this would provide us with an important approximate correlation between Year 8 of Ramses III and Year 21 of Shoshenq I.
Though the Egyptians eventually managed to defeat these foreigners, the latter may have been far more troublesome to the land than the inscriptions actually concede.

As primarily a coastal power, it is not surprising to find that Shoshenq I and his son, Osorkon I, had meaningful contact with the kings of Byblos.
Further to Velikovsky’s epigraphical evidence in relation to both the tomb of Ahiram and the Byblite dedications of Shoshenq I and Osorkon I - indicating the latter to belong to midway in the era c. 850-700 BC (i.e. 775 BC as an approximation) - is James’ re-dating of 22nd and 23rd dynasty rulers to the C8th BC, based on Libyan finds outside Egypt.[247] James begins by discussing the Byblite dedications and the Byblite succession in relation to the 22nd dynasty. I have already quoted Velikovsky on this (p. 294), and shall have more to say in my section: “The Byblite Succession” (pp. 325-326). When reading James here, we shall need mentally to adjust his dates upwards by about half a century (due the interregna factor), in accordance with our re-dating (beginning of this chapter) of the death of Jehu from the conventional c. 814 BC to c. 867 BC.
James writes:[248]




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Other evidence for a lowering of 22nd Dynasty dates comes from the find of a relief chalice fragment at Buseirah in Edom, southern Palestine. The distinctive style of the piece means that it must belong to the early 22nd Dynasty, conventionally the 10th to early 9th centuries BC. However, the date of its context is some 200 years later. The major occupation at Buseirah is currently dated to the 8th to early 7th centuries BC, agreeing with the fact that the earliest biblical references to Bozrah (Buseirah) were made by the mid-8th-century prophet Amos (1:12) and Micah (2:12) …. The excavator Crystal Bennett was certainly correct to state that ‘there is still no evidence to support a sedentary occupation of Buseirah before the beginning of the 8th century BC’ ….
Angela Milward, a specialist in Egyptian chalices invited by Bennett to comment, could only assume that the find was part of an ‘heirloom’. Nevertheless, since Buseirah was of so little importance before the 8th century, she had to add that: “… it is rather remarkable that an Egyptian chalice, which would have been a rare and costly item even then, should have found its way to Buseirah at such an early date, possibly the tenth or ninth century …”.

James now moves on to consider “Osorkon I or II”:[249]

Moving later into the 22nd Dynasty, a scarab of Osorkon I or II was found in a tomb at Salamis, Cyprus, the other contents of which were dated by Karageorghis to around 700 BC. It is assumed to be another heirloom …. At Samaria, the conventional dates for Osorkon II (Kitchen: 874-850 BC) have been used to support a 9th-century date for the famous ivories (to the time of Ahab) through an associated find of an imported alabaster vase bearing the name of this pharaoh. However, specialists in ivory-working have long noted the close resemblance of the Samaria examples to 8th century BC ivories from Phoenicia, Syria and Assyria. …. A similar date should be given to the Samarian material. If the ivories are allowed to date the alabaster, rather than the converse, then the Egyptian vase would belong to the mid-8th rather than the mid-9th century BC ….

The next example given by James connects TIP with Esarhaddon of Assyria:[250]

Finds of Libyan material with more direct Assyrian links confirm this pattern of ‘late’ contexts. At Assur an alabaster vase was found with an inscription of a Libyan prince called Takeloth … whose titles suggest that he was the son either of Shoshenq III (825-773 BC) or of Osorkon III (787-759 BC) ….
But the vase also bore a secondary inscription of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon … stating that it was looted from the palace of the King of Sidon, a city which he sacked in 677 BC [sic]. On the analogy of the Byblite statues, we can assume that the vase arrived at Sidon as a gift, probably in the early 7th century BC.

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Similar alabaster vases are known from Nimrud, also from a 7th-century BC context, linked with Esarhaddon, which may also have been looted during Esarhaddon’s attack on Sidon, or perhaps his conquest of Egypt in 671 BC [sic] ….

Turning now to Spain:[251]

Further alabaster vases bearing the cartouches of Osorkon II (874-850 BC), Takeloth II (850-825 BC) and Shoshenq III (825-773 BC) come from Spain. They occur as cinerary urns in the graves at Laurita (Cerro de San Cristobal near Almuñécar) associated with Greek and Phoenician pottery datable to c. 700 BC. For example, the burial with the Shoshenq vessel was accompanied by two Early Protocorinthian vases which cannot date any earlier than the first quarter of the 7th century BC …. A scarab of Pedubast I (818-793 BC) comes from a similarly dated Spanish grave at Baixo Alentejo …. A comparable date is suggested by the discovery of an alabaster vase fragment with the name of ‘Pashedenbast son of [King] Shoshenq’ from the royal cemetery at Nuri in Sudan, in which the earliest burials are from the reign of Taharqo [Tirhakah] (690-664 BC) [sic]. …. Whilst much of the other TIP material from Nubia can be associated with the 25th Dynasty conquest of Egypt ….
There are some earlier small objects including scarabs of Shoshenq I and III from the cemetery of Sanam, which is supposed to have begun with the reign of Piye [Piankhi], and a scarab of Shoshenq I from Gebel Moya ….

And again, now in northern Africa:[252]

At Carthage a number of Libyan period scarabs were found in tombs, along with pottery from the earliest days of the city. The scarabs carry the names of Pedubast I (eight tombs), Pimay son of Shoshenq III (one tomb) and Osorkon III (one tomb) …. Cintas attempted to use these finds to date the tombs to the early 8th century BC, supplying the evidence needed to take the history of Carthage back to its traditional foundation date of 814 BC. Unfortunately for Cintas, the Greek and Phoenician pottery also excavated from the lowest levels shows that they can be no earlier than about 720 BC …. which would leave the scarabs, now rarely mentioned, as another collection of ostensible ‘heirlooms’.
Individually, these finds of 22nd-23rd Dynasty material in ‘late’ contexts (Byblos, Buseirah, Salamis, Samaria, Assur, Nimrud, Almuñécar, Baixo, Alentejo, Nuri, Sanam and Carthage) can conceivably be explained as valued objects treasured for many years after their manufacture.



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However, taken together there seems to be a disturbing number of such finds. There also seems to be a pattern in the ‘late’ contexts running from c. 800 BC for the founder of the 22nd Dynasty through the mid-8th century to a late-22nd Dynasty group around 700 BC ….

James will later conclude, on the point of TIP genealogies:[253]

…. A general lowering of Libyan period dates can be effected, which would suit the evidence from private genealogies showing a much shorter time between the contemporaries of Osorkon III and individuals of the late 25th/early 26th Dynasties.
…. The genealogical and related evidence establishing that Osorkon II and III were separated by no more than two generations … means that the dates for the mid-22nd Dynasty as a whole should be considerably lowered.

The Byblite Succession

A strong reason why revisionists tend to have both Shoshenq I and his son, Osorkon I, ruling prior to the 730’s - hence militating against any possibility of revising Shoshenq I from convention’s ‘Shishak’ to ‘So’, in about 725 BC - is due to their interpretation of the known connection between these 22nd dynasty pharaohs and the kings of Byblos thought to be prior to Tiglath-pileser III. I give here first of all Dirkzwager’s explanation of all this:[254]

Now we will turn to more evidence on the times of Sheshonq [Shoshenq] I and Osorkon I. Statues of these pharaohs were used by kings of Byblos in Phoenicia in order to dedicate them to Baalat, the goddess of Byblos. The inscriptions of the Phoenician kings are made by Abibaal (statue of Sheshonq I) and by Elibaal (statue of Osorkon I). Elibaal is a son of Yehimilk; of Abibaal no father’s name is known. Moscati made him the predecessor of Yehimilk, whereas Albright put him between Yehimilk and Elibaal. Abibaal and Elibaal are made contemporaries of the pharaohs of the statues they used. .... For our purpose it is not very important where we place Abibaal. About Elibaal we know more: he had a son called Shipitbaal. So we have three generations of kings of Byblos: Yehimilk, Elibaal, and Shipitbaal. Abibaal must have lived somewhere before Elibaal. ....
In the annals of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III we read, in the account of the year 739, about King Sibitti-bi’li of Byblos! This Sibitti-bi’li, who is of course identical to Shipitbaal, was the son of Elibaal, the contemporary of Osorkon I.

A connection between Shipitbaal, son of Elibaal, and the Byblite king, Sibitti-bi’li, contemporary of Tiglath-pileser III, allowable according to Dirkzwager’s chronology, is one of course that cannot possibly be made in the context of the conventional scheme, according to which the Sibitti-bi’li of Tiglath-pileser’s time must be a Shipitbaal II.
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From information such as Dirkzwager’s, revisionists arrive at a Byblite succession somewhat along the lines of this one given by Rohl:[255] “Zikarbaal (14? years); Abibaal (14? years); Yehimilk (8? years) Elibaal (30? years) Shipitbaal (25? years)”, with the last Byblite king here being the one contemporaneous with Tiglath-pileser III. Rohl does not include in his sequence Ahiram of Byblos, whose tomb I discussed archaeologically, in a Velikovskian context, on pp. 292-294. Furthermore, not all revisionists would agree with Rohl’s view that the Byblite king, Zakar-baal [Rohl’s ‘Zikarbaal’], whom Wenamun would visit in his famous adventure, had actually preceded these other kings. (For my discussion of the era of Wenamun and Zakar-baal, see Chapter 12, 7).
If indeed, not only Shoshenq I’s, but even Osorkon I’s, contact with Byblos belonged before Tiglath-pileser III’s encounter with Sibitti-bi’li [Shipitbaal] of Byblos, in aproximately the 730’s BC, then this would definitely seem to negate the Velikovsky-based view (that I myself have also long favoured) that Shoshenq I, father of Osorkon I, could have been ‘King So of Egypt’, due to the very tight and seemingly impossible chronology (as explained by Dirkzwager above) that would require Shoshenq I as ‘So’ at c. 730 BC, but his son, Osorkon I, still before c. 739 BC. And thus we have found Sieff, who does accept the basic Byblite synchronization with the Libyan pharaohs as outlined by Dirkzwager, logically (in Sieff’s context) locating Shoshenq I to an era about half a century earlier than ‘So’. Similarly, Rohl has placed Shoshenq I and Osorkon I much earlier than the era of Tiglath-pileser III, and has instead designated Shoshenq III - as separate from Shoshenq I - as biblical ‘So’. I shall be returning to this in Chapter 12, 1.
The Byblite succession in relation to the chronology of the 22nd dynasty (and its presumed link with the Old Testament for those who equate Shoshenq I with ‘So’) is certainly a problem with which I, too, have had to grapple. But with my re-dating now of Shoshenq I to c. 800 BC, then there is plenty of chronological space for he and his son, Osorkon I (still to be considered) to have reigned before Tiglath-pileser III, an older contemporary of Hezekiah.
There is yet another dimension to be included in the era of Shoshenq I; one which now forces us to turn our attention also to the 21st dynasty, the TIP’s first dynasty. I refer to a documented alliance between a Psusennes/Psibkhenno of the 21st dynasty and Shoshenq I of the 22nd dynasty. TIP is thought to have begun with Smendes I, the 21st dynasty successor of the very last of the Ramessides, the 20th dynasty’s Ramses XI, with whom Smendes and Herihor had formed something of a triumvirate. According to how my revision is developing, however, the era of Ramses XI is of a somewhat later date, to be considered in Chapter 12, 7. The Smendes contemporaneous with Ramses XI may be Smendes II, not I – as is usually thought. Or, the order of Smendes I and II may perhaps need to be reversed. Smendes I, or II Nesubanebjed, could also be the Nebnesha of the Pasenhor Genealogy, the third entry following Mauasa, whom I am tentatively identifying as Ay/Hazael. That would mean that the 21st dynasty was ‘Yuyide’, and of the main Mitannian branch, whilst the 22nd was of the secondary branch.
Indeed, the little-known Smendes[256] would benefit from an alter ego, to flesh him out.

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For: “[Smendes’] origins are unknown”, according to Grimal,[257] who adds, “… the familial links which he claimed to have with Herihor seem unlikely …”. Grimal also wrote here of Smendes’ “apparent lack of royal blood”, despite which, “his authority was openly acknowledged in Thebes”. And he thinks it “probable that [Smendes] legitimized his power by marrying a daughter of Ramesses XI”.
Anyway Rohl tells of the apparent alliance - a further embarrassment to the conventional system - between a Psusennes/Psibkhenno and Shoshenq I, presumed to have post-dated the 21st dynasty:[258]

The possibility of an alliance between Shoshenk I and a Psusennes is indicated by a problematic (for the conventional chronology) statue inscription found at Thebes. It appears that Shoshenk had the cartouche of a Psusennes inscribed along with his own on an old statue of Thutmose III … a peculiar action if Psusennes was already deceased at the time!

A further embarrassment pertains to Siamun, as Rohl adds here:

… the mummy of Djedptahefankh who died in Year 10 of Shoshenk was found in the secret royal cache at Deir el-Bahari along with the great kings of the 18th to 20th Dynasties, re-interred there during the reign of Siamun. Not only is this an embarrassing problem for the orthodox chronology, which places Shoshenk I 80 years after Siamun but it is also significant that Djedptahefankh is called “King’s Son of Ramesses and King’s Son of the Lord of the two Lands” … which must surely point to a close relationship to one of the last Ramessides of the 20th Dynasty. This is only satisfactorily catered for in a chronology which assumes Shoshenk I to have followed on soon after the Ramesside period [sic] and therefore at a time when Psusennes was also on the throne in Tanis. The Horus and Golden Horus names of Shoshenk also closely reflect those of king Smendes giving us another reason to place the Libyan king at this time.

Velikovsky had shown just how dubious was the presumed link between Psusennes II, the last ruler of the 21st dynasty, and Shoshenq I, the first ruler of the 22nd dynasty.[259] Velikovsky’s potential disengagement of the 22nd dynasty from the 21st may now spur one to reassess the 21st dynasty (Tanite) in its relationship to the 22nd. Shoshenq I may indeed have married a Maatkare, given by Grimal as the daughter of Psusennes II.[260] But the standard order of the pharaohs Psusennes may need to be reversed.
Anyway, these were just the two branches of the ‘Syrian’ family, intermarrying.

For Rohl to have attempted a king-by-king and priest-by-priest revision of the TIP (dynasties 21-25) was a very courageous undertaking.

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Rohl, with some initial help from James,[261] is the only revisionist so far I think to have attempted this.[262] Other revisionists, e.g. Sieff[263] and Clapham,[264] have provided a basic alignment of the TIP and the Ramessides, dynasty by dynasty, but without entering upon the sort of detailed, ruler by ruler, and priest by priest, analysis that Rohl has. For anyone today embarking upon a Velikovskian-based (broadly speaking) revision of TIP, and who must therefore reject the conventional models - most notably Kitchen’s, whose time span the revision cannot possibly accommodate - they can at least use Rohl’s charts as most useful points of reference.
I myself, though, have no intention of embarking here upon a king to king revision of the TIP - any more than James has decided to do (see Towards a new Egyptian chronology, on pp. 357-358). My intention for TIP is, as I have reiterated in this thesis, to lay down a basic pattern for a ‘more acceptable’ arrangement than the conventional one. And, here, I am endeavouring to grasp some archaeological perspective on this most complex period of Egyptian history. I have already begun to suggest how the 22nd dynasty must sit in its relationship to the most important of the 19th and 20th dynasty Ramessides. And I am now considering how it might sit in its relation to the 21st dynasty. Let us firstly look at the 21st dynasty’s archaeology and art history, which also seems to be fraught with problems.

Dearth of 21st Dynasty Artefacts

The 21st dynasty, to which at least two pharaohs Psusennes are assigned, is extremely problematical, as we saw in the previous chapter. So much of it seems to be missing, archaeologically speaking. Ways have to be invented to ‘explain’ this dearth of information. Rohl for instance, according to de Meester,[265] “thinks that the 21st and 22nd Dynasties coexisted in the same period, but in a different way. …. He … thinks [for example] that Siamun was not a king but a Theban high-priest”. De Meester though, regards this as being “unlikely because Siamun left buildings in Memphis and Tanis and did not bear the title of High Priest of Amun”. “Velikovsky”, de Meester adds, “thought that all kings of the 21st Dynasty were only High Priests in the western oases”.
The TIP is thought, as we read, to have begun with a Smendes. This Smendes, according to Gardiner, “can have had no personal right to the throne”.[266] And James, who, firstly having noted that the 22nd dynasty pharaoh “Osorkon I is attributed thirty-five years (924-889 BC) on the most equivocal evidence”, then adds:[267] “Equally suspect is the twenty-six years of sole rule accorded to Smendes (1069-1043 BC), whose reign is thought to have bridged the transition between the 20th and 21st Dynasties”.
Just as Smendes may be lacking substance, so, too, is the dynasty to which he belongs, the 21st, lacking in archaeological information.
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The way I now see it, the 21st and 22nd dynasties were virtually parallel, even integrated in places; as two branches of the one ‘Syrian’ family, at times intermarrying. And the sometime lack of archaeology of these kings would be due to the fact that they, like Horemheb, mainly inhabited regions (e.g. Syro-Palestinian) to the north of Egypt.
Bierbrier has written about the dearth of 21st dynasty material:[268]

With the advent of Dynasty XXI the copious sources of information which were available in the previous two dynasties vanish. Administrative papyri and ostraca prove practically non-existent. Votive statuary would seem to disappear almost totally. Graffiti and inscriptions decline to a few badly preserved examples. Most important of all, tombs which have provided the basic material for the study of the families of Dynasty XIX and Dynasty XX are for the most part no longer built but are replaced by small intrusive burials in older tombs or by large caches of coffins secreted in obscure tombs in the rock cliffs of Thebes. … Because of this dearth of material, it is not possible as in Dynasty XIX and Dynasty XX to present a coherent outline of the descent of various families and their interrelations”.

Bierbrier thought that:[269] “This paucity of information is partly due to the shift of political power to the northern cities which have been less well preserved and excavated than those of the south and partly due to the less prosperous and more unsettled times”. James refers to the lack of stone statues at the time as described by Bierbrier as “a bizarre absence not encountered in other periods of Egyptian history”.[270] And he adds here: “Yet with the advent of the 22nd Dynasty, ‘a wealth of data on the priests and officials of Thebes’ is known ...”. A ‘coherent genealogical outline’ for the 21st dynasty, which Bierbrier deemed impossible to arrive at, may well be achievable however, I suggest, via the Pasenhor Genealogy (to be further reconsidered in section: “Linking the Pasenhor Genealogy with the Namareth Inscription”, beginning on p. 331).

- Apis Bulls

James again, in his discussion of Apis bull burials at Saqqara - which burials he considers to be “potentially one of the most important sources of chronological information for the TIP” - gives this yet further example of the lack of 21st dynasty evidence:[271]

The most striking gap in this sequence [of Apis burials] is for the 21st and early 22nd Dynasties, so far totally unattested. On the conventional dating this period was some 210 years, during which time there should have been about 12 Apis burials, based on the average life expectancy of eighteen years, as calculated by Jean Vercoutter. An ‘embalming table’ with the name of Shoshenq 1 suggests that there may have been one 22nd Dynasty burial which has not been recovered, but the complete lack of records for the 21st Dynasty is still extraordinary.
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- Tanis Royal Tomb Complex

A further clear indication that something is seriously wrong with the usual reconstruction of this early TIP phase is provided by the tomb evidence at Tanis. Thus James again:[272]

Striking evidence that something is amiss with the conventional placement of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties comes from the royal tomb complex at Tanis, discovered by Pierre Montet. In the south-western corner of the main temple enclosure he uncovered the underground burials of Psusennes I and Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty, Osorkon II and Shoshenq III of the 22nd Dynasty, as well as three unattributed tombs. Montet and his architect Lézine were clearly puzzled by the relationship between Tomb I, belonging to Osorkon II, and Tomb III, containing the burials of Psusennes I, Amenemope and others. After careful examination they reluctantly concluded that Tomb I had been constructed after Tomb III - this in spite of the usual understanding that Osorkon died more than a century later than the reign of Psusennes.

Whilst, according to the conventional arrangement, the 22nd dynasty followed on in succession from the 21st, I have already begun to propose that these dynasties were largely concurrent. Basically these early TIP royals were, I suspect, part of the large family generated by the Omrides of Libyan origins. What is striking is how similar the two TIP dynasties (21st and 22nd) appear when lined up side by side as follows:

Table 3: Comparison of Names of 21st & 22nd Dynasty Kings

TANITE KINGS (21st dynasty)

1. Hedjkheperre Setepenre
Nesu-ba-neb-djed Beloved of Amun
2. Akheperre Setepenamun,
Psibkhanno I, Beloved of Amun
3. Neferkare Heqa-Waset,
Amenemnisu Beloved of Amun
4. Usimare Setepenamun,
Amenemope Beloved of Amun
5. Akheperre Setepenre
[...]
6. Neterkheperre Setepenamun,
Siamun Beloved of Amun
7. Tyetkheperre Setepenre
(har)-Psibkhenno II, Beloved of Amun
THE SHOSHENQS (22nd dynasty)

1.Prenomen, Hedj-kheper-re (Setepenre)

II. Prenomen, Heqa-kheper-re Setepenre



IIIa. Prenomen, Usimare Setepenamun

V. Prenomen, A-kheper-re (Setepenre)

VI. Prenomen, Was-neter-re Setep(en)re

VII.Prenomen, Sekhem-kheper-re Setepenamun

In most cases above there would appear to be an almost perfect match between the names on the left and those on the right; the only substantial difference being the variation of the theophoric suffixes, Re and Amun.
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Linking the Pasenhor Genealogy with the Namareth Inscription

We have seen that certain personages listed in the Pasenhor Genealogy were concurrent; that (working from top to bottom) Shoshenq I aligns generationally with Mauasa; Osorkon I with Nebnesha; Takelot I with Paihuty; and Osorkon II with a Shoshenq. As the 19th dynasty waned, these two (foreign) family lines managed to take control of Egypt to a greater or lesser extent. Now, according to Rohl’s revised system (the 1986 version)[273], Osorkon II (and also his son, Takelot II) and Shoshenq III reigned, in part, contemporaneously (while Pedubast I reigned contemporaneously with the latter two). It is thus possible that, given that Osorkon II now aligns with the anonymous Shoshenq, he in turn being followed by a Nimlot - the name common (with his wife Tenstepeh) to both family lines - then it is at this particular point in history, during the TIP, that the Namareth Inscription becomes relevant.
Here is my tentative reconstruction of it.
The ‘Syrians’ of the 21st and 22nd dynasties had, as in the days of their ancestors, ruled both Syro-Palestine and Assyria (the kingdom of Mitanni), with the dominant branch, the 21st, being the sometimes rulers of Assyria – just as Assuruballit (Mauasa of Pasenhor) had been. The weak Assyrian phase after Adad-nirari III might have been an opportune time for this. In Chapter 9 (see p. 201), I introduced the Namareth Inscription where we learned of the death of a prince ‘Namareth’ in Egypt and the visit there by his father, the King of Assyria, ‘Pallashnes’ or ‘Pallashnisu’ - whose Egyptian wife was ‘Mehtenusekh’ - to examine his son’s tomb. We also leaned that this ‘Pallashnes’ was called ‘Shoshenq’, as was his grandson, who became ruler of Egypt. I should like to identify the grandfather, Shoshenq, with both a Psusennes and the anonymous Shoshenq’ of Pasenhor, approximately contemporaneous with Osorkon II. I accept Rohl’s reconstruction according to which the Psusennes contemporaneous with Shoshenq I was Psusennes II, not I.[274] The short-lived Namareth would then be Nimlot, the common denominator of the Pasenhor list. The Shoshenq who succeeded him (and who became a ruler of Egypt) would then be Shoshenq III, who was not a descendant of Shoshenq I’s. Rohl more recently gave this revised account of Shoshenq III and connected TIP characters:[275]

I also argued in 1982 that Takelot II (son of Osorkon II) and Shoshenk III (father unknown) were contemporary rulers and not sequential as Kitchen has it in his TIPE. Other Egyptologists then came to the same conclusion … later and this parallel rule between the two kings is now widely accepted within Egyptology. As a consequence, Shoshenk III belonged to the generation following Osorkon II and therefore the generation of Nimlot and Tentsepeh. Mehtenweskhet, grandaughter of Mehtenweskhet (mother of Nimlot), was thus of the generation following Shoshenk III. This second Mehtenweskhet married Shedsunefertem who was a contemporary of the second King Hedjkheperre Shoshenk (IV) whose reign fell in the years immediately after the reign of Shoshenk III.
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The name Psusennes would by no means be the worst possible candidate for Pallashnes. I have just explained how he might have been a (sometimes) king of Assyria, as according to the ‘Namareth’ inscription. Courville, in his discussion of this inscription has provided a most interesting piece of information, with reference to Brugsch-Bey, that “Assyrian kings had consummated marriages with daughters of the Ramessides”.[276]
Pasenhor himself was a priest who lived under a king Shoshenq, normally identified with Shoshenq V (c. 767-730 BC, conventional dating), but whom Dirkzwager has implied might have been the Susinqu mentioned in the Annals of Ashurbanipal (see Chapter 12). Pasenhor traces his origins back to one ‘Tahenbuyana’; the element ‘Tahen’ here of course representing the Egyptian name for ‘Libyan’ (Tehenu or Tjehenu). ‘Tahenbuyana’ is one of those “barbarous” Libyan names, as we saw Gardiner had called them (refer back to p. 198); Buyana being variously given as Buyuwawa and Buiuaua (my Yuya).
When the Hittite king forbade Shaushka-muwa to ally himself with the King of Assyria, he was likely referring to Shaushka-muwa’s own relative, just as in the case of Aziru who had made a treaty with Hatti against his own half-brother.

21st and 22nd Dynasties Concurrent

Sieff would insist, following Jones, on placing the 21st dynasty later than the 20th:[277]

Michael Jones has clearly noted that the Twenty-First Dynasty most definitely follows immediately after the Twentieth …. It was the time when the children and grandchildren of the very workmen who had produced the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty tombs in the Valley of the Kings now plundered these same vaults in a period of upheaval …”.

According to my system, though, the 20th and 21st dynasties were largely concurrent. To suggest at least a substantial contemporaneity between the 21st and 22nd dynasties is to return somewhat to the view of Lieblein (1914)[278] - one of the earliest scholars to make an extensive examination of the complex genealogical material for the TIP. Lieblein considered there to be at least a large overlap between the 21st and 22nd dynasties. Kitchen, on the other hand, connects the 22nd dynasty with the 21st only at the very end, making Shoshenq I the son-in-law of the supposed very last 21st dynasty king, Psusennes (Psibkhenno) II.

The TIP in general is most complex and difficult in the extreme, and no one I am sure would argue with Grimal’s view, which he gives interestingly with reference to revisionist Peter James’ Centuries of Darkness, that the TIP is “one of the most confused periods in Egyptian history, a period which historians have still not been able to disentangle satisfactorily from the fragments of evidence (James 1991)”.[279]

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Certainly this most arduous and intricate Chapter 11 has provided me with far more problems in the writing of it than have any others in this entire thesis, and it has been most difficult to present it in a way that might make it reasonably coherent for the reader. But, whilst it should require future updating, I am still hopeful that it has served to create a useful matrix for TIP. Gardiner, for his part, revealed a degree of frustration (bordering even on despair of ever finding a proper resolution) in this following statement of his:[280]

Here we encounter one of the principal difficulties confronting study of the [22nd dynasty] period, the recurrence over and over again of the same names in both parts of the country; this applies even to the royal Prenomen, no less than eight kings using that which long before [sic] had been employed by Ramessēs IV, namely, Usima‘rē‘-setpenamūn [setepenamun]. … The problems are most baffling, nor can they be tackled with much profit until the scattered and fragmentary inscriptions have been collected anew, accurately copied, and properly edited; and even then it is extremely doubtful whether a coherent account will emerge.

In regard to this interesting statement by Gardiner, I should like to make the following comments or suggestions pertaining largely to methodology. A revised approach to this admittedly problematical era of history - an approach that, like the revision being employed in this thesis, has the potential to align dynasties and propose the occasional alter egos - can well serve to ‘collect anew, into a coherent account’, and therefore to fill out, what Gardiner has called “scattered and fragmentary inscriptions”. And what Tadmor (as quoted on p. 1 of this thesis) - referring to the Egyptian era that pertains to EOH - had called “the poorly documented period in Egypt”, is largely the case because ‘poor’ and ‘fragmentary’ is what is left when the habitually linear approach of convention is applied to the dynasties of Egypt, stripping these to the bare bones.
I have opened up for consideration the possibility of a 20th dynasty Ramesside contemporaneity with the 22nd Libyan dynasty, thereby serving to erase Gardiner’s notion of Ramses IV’s being “long before” these Libyan rulers, and hence providing at least an historical context for a common use of the prenomen, Usimare Setepenamun. The same explanation would account for Psusennes I’s “renaming himself ‘Ramesses-Psusennes’”;[281] most appropriate now considering that he was contemporaneous with some of the latter Ramessides.

I might now begin to attempt to gather together my own ‘scattered’ and ‘fragmentary’ threads by trying to summarise - in a general fashion - with much assistance from James, what has so far been determined in relation to Shoshenq I and his dynasty, before tackling more specific points on the way to concluding this discussion of the TIP (including the remainder of the 20th dynasty), so as to take this thesis right into EOH.
I give here my slightly simplified version of James’ summarizing chronological Table[282] (conventional dates on the left, revised dates on the right):
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Table 4: Revised Approximate Dates for 22nd and 23rd Dynasty Kings

Shoshenq I (945-924 BC) - c. 800 BC (Byblos)
Osorkon I (924-889 BC) - early 8th century BC (Byblos)
Osorkon II (874-850 BC) - mid-8th (Samaria); c. 700 BC (Spain)
Takeloth II (850-825 BC) - c. 700 BC (Spain)
Shoshenq III (825-773 BC) - c. 720 BC (Carthage); c. 700 BC (Spain)
Pedubast I (818-793 BC) - c. 720 BC (Carthage); c. 700 BC (Spain)
Prince Takeloth (c. 800 or 765 BC) - early 7th century BC (Sidon/Assur)
Pimay (773-767 BC) - c. 720 BC (Carthage)
Osorkon III (789-759 BC) - c. 720 (Carthage); c. 700 BC (Spain)

From what we have learned so far from archaeology and epigraphy about the correct location in time for pharaoh Shoshenq I, he must be (i) dated to c. 800 (+ 50 years for interregna =) 850 BC (Table 4 above); (ii) epigraphically within range of Ramses II, at approximately 775 BC (+ 50 years for interregna =) 825 BC (refer back to p. 322), with works attributed to him having been (iii) built over the works of both Ramses II and Ramses III, and he must have been (iv) somewhat close to Merenptah, son of Ramses II, based on the likenesses between their respective Karnak victory inscriptions (see p. 294).
Since all the indicators would seem to be strongly in favour of a c. 800 plus BC date for Shoshenq I - coupled with the Byblite data – then he most definitely could not be the ‘King So of Egypt’ of the time of Hoshea of Israel and Hezekiah of Judah (c. 730 BC).

Now to the attempted clarification of some specific points and problems relating to my reconstruction of the early TIP; especially the 22nd dynasty.

Firmly Dating Shoshenq I and Specifying his Contemporaries

That Shoshenq I perhaps had some trouble in securing the throne, could be indicated by the following evidence from his 5th year as provided by Gardiner:[283] “… a stela from the oasis of Dâkhla … dated in Shōshenḳ’s fifth year speaks of warfare and turmoil as having prevailed in that remote province”. This, 856 BC as I should calculate it, would have been very late in the reign of Ramses I (Jehoahaz), died 850 BC, when – quite appropriately – the latter was under the most extreme pressure from the Syrians.
Gardiner goes on to tell here of the foresight of Shoshenq I: “Several sons of the new ruler are known and he seems to have assigned to them positions as would most likely secure the permanence of his régime”. Amongst these sons was Iuput whom Shoshenq appointed “simultaneously to the offices of chief priest of Amun, commander-in-chief of the armies and governor of Upper Egypt …”.[284] Another son may have been “Djedptahefankh, acting in the role of third prophet of Amun”. And we have frequently referred to the important son, Osorkon I.
As for the duration of his reign, both inscriptional and traditional evidence might seem to converge in supporting a 21-year reign only for Shoshenq I. Thus Gardiner:[285]
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A rock-inscription at Silsila West … records the opening of a new quarry to supply the sandstone for this projected court and pylon; the inscription is dated in Shōshenḳ’s twenty-first year, his last according to Manetho, but it is difficult to believe that the first step, namely, the building of the portal, had not long since been taken. The decoration of its wall illustrates the event to which Shōshenḳ I, the Biblical Shishak [sic], owes a unique celebrity.

But I shall have cause to query this below.
Now Kitchen has described the Libyan Shoshenq I at his accession as “another Smendes” and a “new Smendes”, which would not be at all surprising, either, if - as I am arguing - these two rulers both hailed from the same ‘Syrian’ family:[286]

[Shoshenq I’s] very titulary exemplifies his qualities and policies. By taking the prenomen Hedjkheperre Setepenre, that of Smendes I, founder of the previous dynasty, Shoshenq proclaimed at one stroke both his continuity with the past - i.e. that he was, so to speak, ‘another Smendes’ - and a new beginning. Like Smendes, he now opened a new era. Nor is the concept of a ‘new Smendes’ limited to Shoshenq’s prenomen. He also adopted Horus, Nebty, and Golden Horus names reminiscent of those of Smendes I. Just as the latter had been Horus ‘Strong Bull, beloved of Re’ plus epithets (whose arm Amun strengthened to exalt Truth), so now Shoshenq I was Horus, ‘Strong Bull, beloved of Re’ plus epithets (whom he (= Re) caused to appear as King to unite the Two Lands).

I have no doubt at least, based on the archaeological and epigraphical studies of this chapter, that the Ramessides and the TIP need to be lowered considerably on the time scale (the VLTF factor), with Ramses II to be relocated in the region of 850 BC, and the 22nd Libyan dynasty largely to the C8th BC. Thus I concur with all revisionists that the conventional estimate for the duration of the TIP will have to be significantly shortened.
Rohl, by rejecting Velikovsky’s 18th dynasty scenario and replacing Thutmose III with Ramses II (19th dynasty) as his candidate for ‘Shishak’, has given himself more room within which to accommodate a revised TIP. Despite this, his beginning date for Shoshenq I (and hence for the 22nd dynasty), at c. 833 BC,[287] is not all that much earlier than is Sieff’s estimate for Shoshenq I’s beginning, at c. 780 BC, and that not withstanding the fact that Sieff has retained Velikovsky’s 18th dynasty syncretisms.
That the Bubasite Portal at least was built later than the temple of Ramses III at Karnak would seem to be apparent from what Gardiner has written:[288]

A third son of Shōshenḳ I was Iuput, whom he appointed to be a high-priest of Amen-Rē‘ at Karnak, thus breaking with the tradition of heredity previously observed for that post. This was a particularly wise move, bringing that … office under the close control of the sovereign, and the same policy seems to have been pursued for several generations to come.
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That the position was fraught with danger is clear from the retention of the title ‘great commander of the army’; the high-priests were not merely priests, they were also military men. The outstanding achievement of Iuput, or perhaps … rather … of his father, was the erection of an entrance into the precincts of the main temple of Karnak continuing westward the south wall of the vast Hypostyle Hall. The Bubasite Portal, as it is generally called, was squeezed in between the Second Pylon and a small temple of Ramessēs III standing in the way of a huge first court which Shōshenḳ undoubtedly planned from the start, but which he did not live to accomplish.

Though we read above de Meester’s tempering of this standard view following Yurco.
Shoshenq I’s and his dynasty’s real emergence would seem to me to be most appropriate during the reign of Ramses III, the latter part of whose reign was a time of “general malaise”, according to Newby.[289] So far I have concluded that Shoshenq I could be the ‘Syrian’ king Shaushka-muwa, of the same Mitannian family as the biblical Hazael and his famous successors, and I have tentatively dated Shoshenq I’s celebrated 21st year Syro-Palestinian ‘campaign’ to approximately Year 8 of Ramses III (my Amaziah of Judah). I have also co-ordinated this Year 8 of Ramses III with Year 10 of Seti I (my Jehoash of Israel) and with Year 2 of Ramses II (my Jeroboam II of Israel).
The year would be c. 840 BC.
This would mean that Shoshenq I began to reign in c. (840 + 21=) 861 BC, about a decade before the death of Ramses I (my Jehoahaz of Israel) at 850 BC, and approximately the same in relation to Seti-nakht (my Joash of Judah). If Shoshenq I died close to his 21st year, then his death would have been about 840 BC. But, if Wente is right, then the death of Shoshenq I may have been as late as c. (861 - 33=) 828 BC. All of this accords with our Table 4’s c. 800 (+ c. 50) for Shoshenq I.
By no means, then, could the mummy of Seti I, who died in 836 BC (refer to p. 287), have been transferred to DB320 in the 11th year of Shoshenq I (refer to p. 279). This Shoshenq must have been the later Shoshenq 1(B)/IV Hedjkheperre (see pp. 331, 341f.).
In terms of the 21st dynasty, if Year 33 of Psusennes did indeed correspond with Year 3 of Osorkon I, son of Shoshenq I, then - presuming the shorter chronology for Shoshenq I – Psusennes must have begun to reign in c. (840-3 = 837 + 33 =) 870 BC, about three years before the death of Jehu in 867 BC. Psusennes would thus have been a close contemporary at least of Hazael’s son, Ben-hadad II, but probably also of the latter’s son. Or, presuming the longer chronology for Shoshenq I, then Psusennes’ reign would begin in c. (828-3 = 825 + 33 =) 858 BC, about a decade after the death of Jehu in 867 BC.
However, if Shoshenq I did reign for 33 years, then it must be considered that he, and not Psusennes, is the un-named ruler being referred to on the bandage epigraph. The dating for Psusennes and Smendes would then need to be recalculated. It is this version of events that I should favour. According to what I have argued re the Namareth Inscription, Psusennes was a king of Assyria, contemporaneous with Osorkon II.
I have tentatively identified a Smendes with Nebnesha of the Pasenhor Genealogy.
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Now in need of an explanation - given my identification of Shoshenq I with Shaushka-muwa - is the known syncretism between the latter and one of the Hittite kings; particularly considering that the Hittite king is thought to have been Tudhaliyas IV, a contemporary of the very late period of the reign of Ramses II. This, if correct, would appear to militate against my proposed location of Shoshenq I early in relation to the Ramessides. However, there must be some serious doubt as to the true identity of the Hittite king who had conferred a treaty with Shaushka-muwa. The document, as given by van de Mieroop, seems to be most obscure as to the name of the Hittite king, as it is heavily bracketted just as we found in Chapter 6 to have been the case with some of the broken neo-Assyrian genealogies. Van de Mieroop renders it as follows:[290]

[Thus says Tabarna, Tudhaliya], Great King, [King of] Hatti, hero, beloved of the Sun-goddess of Arinna, [son of Hattusili, Great King, King of] Hatti, hero, [grandson of] Mursili, Great [King], King of Hatti, hero [descendant of] Tudhaliya, [Great King, King of] Hatti, hero.

When stripped down, the only actually preserved names of kings here are: Mursilis … Tudhaliyas, with the Hittite king who signed this treaty probably being an unidentified grandson of a Mursilis, descendant of a Tudhaliyas. He could therefore be Suppiluliumas. This Hittite king, whoever he may have been, had rated as his equals “… the King of Egypt, the King of Babylonia, the King of Assyria, and the King of Ahhiyawa”, with the latter being erased from the tablet. And, since he was at war with the King of Assyria, he had charged Shaushka-muwa also with treating the King of Assyria as an enemy. It must have been a situation similar to when Aziru had signed a treaty with Suppiluliumas against Tushratta’s line. And the King of Assyria here may have been of the other branch of the Mitannian family, related to Shaushka-muwa (Shoshenq I), during the anarchical phase of Assyrian history after Adad-nirari III. But Shaushka-muwa may have broken this treaty with the Hittites since the ‘Sea Peoples’ are said to have attacked even the land of Hatti. (See section: “Shoshenq I and his Famous ‘Campaign’”, beginning next page).
Interestingly, Shoshenq I claimed in his Karnak list to have defeated the armies of Mitanni. This may have been achieved with Hittite help. According to de Meester:[291] “Mitanni was … wiped off the map shortly after Ramses II. According to the usual chronology Mitanni had ceased to exist some 400 years before Sheshonk lived”.
Shoshenq I also apparently, to commemorate his victories, set up a great stela in Megiddo, a fragment of which has been excavated. According to Rohl:[292] “…the Shoshenk stela fragment belongs to Stratum V-B (Iron Age I-B)”. Archaeology though is by no means an exact science. Thus, whilst my placement basically fits with James’ relocation of IA II (A & B) to c. 800-700 BC,[293] Rohl may also be correct in saying:[294]
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“In … [Megiddo Shoshenq I] set up a great stela commemorating his victory over [the Aramaeans], a fragment of which was recovered from the excavation debris of Megiddo. … the Shoshenq stela fragment belongs to Stratum V-B (Iron Age I-B)”. Shoshenq I, who was certainly not the biblical pharaoh ‘Shishak’, can neither be pharaoh ‘So’ of the time of kings Hoshea of Israel and Hezekiah of Judah, in the last quarter of the C8th BC.
Shoshenq I and his Famous ‘Campaign’
The period of Ramses III appears to have been a time of great mobilization of western peoples against Syro-Palestine and Egypt, when the ‘Sea Peoples’ had attempted to overrun Egypt. This, the ‘second wave’ of ‘Indo-Europeans’ - as opposed to the ‘first wave’ more than half a millennium earlier, in Exodus times, affected both the 19th and 20th dynasties. “[Ramses III] was convinced that the great pincer movement on Egypt was a conspiracy”, wrote Newby.[295] “He declared that foreigners in their islands to the north – he was still unclear that Anatolia was not a group of islands – had plotted to invade Egypt”. These same western peoples, notably including Philistines, were thus part of a far more vast movement than one merely affecting Israel and Judah, as recorded in the Old Testament. Once again the Bible, as observed earlier in this thesis, offers only the limited view that was relevant to Palestine. But, according to Ramses III:[296] “No land could stand against them. Khatti, Cyprus, Arzawa, and the city states of Syria, Carchemish, and Qode had already fallen”.
It was therefore the Philistines of the late C9th BC (revised dating) I suggest, and not Velikovsky’s hopeful C5th Persians, who were the Peleset of Ramses III’s Medinet Habu inscriptions. Though, as I shall be considering on pp. 352-353, the Persians, and presumably their Egyptian name, Pereset [PRST], arose from this very stock; hence the distinct similarities between the two as so keenly discerned by Dr. Velikovsky.
Whilst the 20th dynasty pharaoh was able to prevent this tidal wave of peoples from overwhelming Egypt, and Judah, its activity now in Syro-Palestine would greatly affect the socio-political situation there for decades to come, including EOH.
Shoshenq I’s campaign was a most important chapter in this massive upheaval. I have identified and dated it in a biblical context, though it is less apparent how, precisely, it might fit into the overall action of the ‘Sea Peoples’. Also, enigmatic in my context, is Shoshenq I’s boast to his god Amun in his great triumph scene at Karnak – reminiscent of a similar scene of Merenptah at Karnak – that:[297] “When I made it as thy tribute of the land of Palestine [Khuru] which had turned away from thee”. Was he reclaiming the land for Egypt and Syria from the Ramessides?
As we have discovered, neither Jerusalem nor Samaria appears to have been specifically listed in Shoshenq I’s celebrated ‘campaign’. The pharaoh’s forces marched from Gaza up through the Beth-horon pass, to Gibeon (as all agree no mention of Jerusalem here), to the north, moving through the Esdraelon (Jezreel) Valley into Galilee, also into Transjordanian Ammon (e.g. Penuel, Mahanaim).
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They also coursed through the Jordan valley and spent substantial time in the Negev. The Libyan pharaoh’s ‘campaign’ covered all the major points of the Palestinian compass: W (Philistia), S (Judah, the Negev, Edom), N (Esdraelon, Galilee) E (Ammon); locations that Ramses II would soon recover.
As for Moab, where the forces of Ramses II also campaigned, it seems to me that the various name rings that Shea had attempted to associate with Jerusalem and its environs[298] may actually have been Moabite place names. Thus Goren (Nr@go.Heb. for “threshing floor”) was not, I suggest, Shea’s hopeful ‘threshing floor of the Temple Mount at Jerusalem’ - which would hardly still be referred to as a threshing floor now with a massive Temple standing there - but was more likely, say, the southern Transjordanian site of Goren ha Atad to where the body of Jacob had been carried on the way to his burial at Machpelah (Genesis 50:11). Abel may then be the corresponding Abel Mizraim, place of mourning, and not Shea’s proposed ‘field of Bethlehem’. El-Mattan could now be the Moabite Mattanah, having nothing to do with Jerusalem. Macaleh, ‘ascent, pass’ could possibly refer to ‘the ascent of Luhith’ (tyHiUL.ha hlef3ma) (Isaiah 15:5), which latter might then be the [ ]-R-H-T to which Shea refers. Beth Anath could still be the place of that name near Hebron; the Egyptian army perhaps having crossed from Abel Mizraim in the direction of Hebron just as the party from Egypt carrying Jacob’s body had done (Genesis 50:11-13) about a millennium earlier.
In deference to Danelius, according to whom:[299] “[Shoshenq I’s] list is most fragmentary, and it is doubtful whether it refers to a campaign at all”, and to Mazar’s view of it as more of “a circular ‘Cook’s Tour’”,[300] I have always referred to this above as a ‘campaign’ in inverted commas. This would perhaps be appropriate according to my view that it constituted a rampage, not a properly organised campaign, through Israel, by Jehoash’s mercenaries disgruntled at their treatment by Amaziah of Judah. The primary area covered by Shoshenq I and his marauders (ignoring Moab and the Negev, Biblical selectivity again?) is exactly the same as described in 2 Chronicles 25:13: “… [they] fell on the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon”.
The campaign of ‘Shishak’ against Jerusalem, however, this most definitely was not.
Osorkon I
Rohl has elaborated as follows upon the apparent link (already referred to) between Osorkon I and a Psusennes:[301]

Our primary fixing point between the 21st and 22nd Dynasty is the bandage epigraph which associates the year dates 33 and 3 with king Sekhemkheperre Osorkon ….

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As we have previously argued, the Year 3 should be attributed to Osorkon I of the 22nd (Libyan) Dynasty whilst the only suitable candidate for the Year 33 is the first Psusennes of Manetho’s 21st Dynasty …. This fairly secure anchor provides us with a neat little calculation which leads to our second fixing point. According to Manetho, Osorkon I reigned 15 years and was followed by Takelot I for 13 years – a total of 25 years from the former’s Year 3. On the other hand, after Year 33, Psusennes continued to rule for another 16 years before being succeeded by his son Amenemope for 9 years (Amenemnisu being only a co-regent either at the beginning or end of Psusennes’ long reign). Thus the time interval between Year 33 to the beginning of the reign of Osochor, the successor to Amenemope is also 25 years. From the Pasenhor genealogy we know that Takelot I was succeeded by Osorkon II and hence our identification of Osochor with the latter. Is it really just coincidence that the independent calculations of the reigns in two different dynasties (from the common starting point of the Year 3 = Year 33 bandage epigraph) end up, exactly 25 years later, with an Osorkon ascending the throne in both dynasties – especially considering that this Osorkon was also buried within the temple precinct at Tanis, home of the 21st Dynasty?

Osorkon I’s 3rd year appears to have corresponded with Psusennes’s 33rd year; though I have suggested that this latter may even refer to a late year in the reign of Shoshenq I. The date would be (c. 840-3=) 837 BC (short), or 825 (long). This accords with our Table 4’s early C8th BC (+ c. 50) for Osorkon I. I am favouring the long version. Osorkon I’s presumed 35-year reign would then have concluded at [either c. 802 BC (short)] or 790 BC (long). These dates are about midway into the reign of Ramses II. Revisionists tend to limit the reign of Osorkon I to 15 years, the figure that Manetho gives for Osorkon I in his Aegyptiaca, on the basis of the presumed link with a Psusennes; whereas Wikipedia,[302] thinks that “[Manetho’s figure] is most likely an error for 35 Years based on the evidence of the Heb Sed bandage, as Kenneth Kitchen notes”. But if a Psusennes is not the personage on the Heb Sed mummy bandage epigraph, but Shoshenq I is, then there would be no reason why Manetho’s figure for Osorkon I cannot be retained.
Genealogy of Nespaherenhat
There is, however, a very impotant Egyptian document, the Genealogy of Nespaherenhat (Statue 42189 in the Cairo Museum), dedicated by his son Ankhefenkhons, the conventional interpretation of which would appear to suggest that the chronology that I am developing here is completely impossible. This detailed genealogical data would seem to suggest that the 22nd dynasty (specifically Osorkon I) was significantly closer in time to Ramses II than is conventionally allowed. Thus van der Veen has noted, with reference to Rohl:[303]

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Rohl has elsewhere discussed the Genealogy of Ankhefenkhons (BGA V, 4, p. 5) and shown that the reigns of Osorkon I and Ramesses II were separated by only nine generations [A Test of Time, pp. 379-381]. Rohl argues that when Ipuy served at the funeral of Baenre Merenptah he was probably already an old man. Ipuy’s father, Roma, had served as 2nd Prophet of Amun during the early years of Ramesses II. In the conventional scheme, nine generations between Osorkon I in c. 920 BC and Ramesses’ early years in the first quarter of the 13th century BC is impossible unless we are prepared to consider 38-year generations! …. The Ankhefenkhons Genealogy strongly supports the proposal that the interval between Ramesses II and the 22nd Dynasty was considerably shorter than is currently accepted.

But considerably longer than is the case with my scheme.
According to Rohl’s explanation of this genealogy, as discussed in an appendix,[304] there were nine generations back from Nespaherenhat, a contemporary of Osorkon I, to a Second Prophet of Amun, Roma, a contemporary of Ramses II. This span of nine generations is quite impossible according to my revision, which has Osorkon I as a younger contemporary of Ramses II himself. And Rohl thinks that, based on a 20-year generation, the conventional chronology offers about 170 years too many (c. 1270-920 BC) for Nespaherenhat’s genealogy, which “strongly indicates that the interval between the 19th and 22nd Dynasties must be radically reduced …”[305]. On the other hand, Rohl believes that his own revised dates of 970-790 BC can satisfactorily accommodate this.
I have already argued, however, against Rohl’s identification of Ramses II ‘the Great’, as the biblical ‘Shishak’. And his separation of Ramses II from Osorkon I by about two centuries does not conform as closely as does my system to the epigraphical and monumental data that would suggest a greater closeness in time between Ramses II and Merenptah, on the one hand, and Shoshenq I and Osorkon I, on the other. On this basis, I must suggest that the Osorkon Sekhemkheperre, during whose reign Nespaherenhat died, cannot be Osorkon I, but must be a later Osorkon. Rohl had, in the previous appendix of the same book,[306] identified a second Shoshenq Hedjkheperre (other than Shoshenq I). He was actually Shoshenq IV, as now determined. And De Meester may have done the same in the case of Osorkon Sekhemkheperre, when arguing for a likeness between the names of Osochor and Osorkon IV:[307]

The last king of the 22nd Dynasty was Osorkon IV (called Osorkon V in the Atlas of Ancient Egypt) who had as his throne name ‘A'akheperre Setepenre’ [de Meester apparently meant ‘Setepenamun’ here?]. The Osorkon or Osochor of the 21st Dynasty had a very similar throne name: ‘A'akheperre Setepenre’. The only difference is the last part: - re/amun. According to the Atlas all pharaohs of the 22nd Dynasty had one of these throne names and Sheshonk III and Pami [Pimay] used both forms.
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So it appears that ‘Setepenre/amun’ (Chosen by Re/Amun) was no more than a tradition postfix. Could the last pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty perhaps be the same pharaoh as the Osorkon of the 21st Dynasty? To find that out I have copied their cartouches from Chronicle of the Pharaohs:


On the left the names of Osorkon IV, on the right those of Osochor or Osorkon the Elder of the 21st Dynasty. The names on top are exactly the same, the names below should be ‘A'akheperre Setep[en]amun’ and ‘A'akheperre Setepenre’. Apart from the name of the god (the sitting figure is Amun, the circle represents the sun god Re) there is one important difference: on the left is the sign for ‘A'a’ (a column, here horizontal: this sign can be written both horizontally and vertically), on the right there is the sign of ‘sekhem’ (a kind of staff). That must be a mistake, because ‘Sekhemkheperre’ is the throne name of Osorkon I, the son of Sheshonk 1. Apart from that, everything else is practically the same.

Another vitally important list is the Memphite Genealogy. Rohl[308] has interpreted this, in favour of his own revision, as indicating that two generations (of about 40-50 years) separated Ramses II from the beginning of the 21st dynasty. Whilst I basically agree with him thus far, Rohl then - though admitting that “the conventional chronology allocates 117 years to the 20th Dynasty …”[309] - goes on to claim that the 20th dynasty must fit into this small space between the 19th and 21st. The 20th dynasty though, I believe, was at least as long as the conventional figure, 117, and not Rohl’s less than half (in fact, I should extend it significantly longer than even the 117 years). Moreover, no 20th dynasty name is to be found in the Memphite list, which I take (according to my on scheme) as indicating that this dynasty was contemporaneous with the 19th, and not in linear succession to it.
The 21st dynasty sequence: Amenmnisu; Akheperre; Psusennes (2 generations), and, about three generations later, Shoshenq, seems to be apparent. These could represent, respectively: Amenmnisu; Osorkon the Elder; a Psusennes; and Rohl may be right in his proposal that ‘Shoshenq’, listed about 9 generations after Ramses II, was Hedjkheperre Shoshenq 1B (see p. 346 below).
According to Kitchen, Osorkon I followed the tradition of his father, Shoshenq I, and also of Psusennes I in his choice of titles:[310]
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[Osorkon I] took official titles much in the style of his father. He also was Horus, ‘Strong Bull, beloved of Re’, augmented with epithets - in this case, ‘whom Atum placed on his throne to provide for the Two Lands’. More original was his Nebty name, ‘magnifying Forms, rich in marvels’, while his Golden Horus name was closer to those of his father and of Psusennes I: ‘Strong in might, subduing the Nine Bows, Sovereign who conquers all lands’. His prenomen, Sekhemkheperre Setepenre, combined originality with formation on his father’s pattern.

I calculate Osorkon I’s 15-year reign to c. 828-813 BC, making him contemporaneous with part of the first half of the reign of Ramses II.
Takelot I
His approximately 12-13 years of reign would bring us down to c. (813-13 =) 800 BC.
Takelot I would therefore have died about a quarter of a century before Ramses II did.
Osorkon II
Osorkon II, as we discovered, has to be contemporaneous with the Jeroboam II stratum at Samaria; a syncretism that is quite impossible, however, according to the conventional sequence that has Osorkon II ruling about mid-way through the C9th BC (about a century earlier than Jeroboam II). Van der Veen has explained the situation as follows:[311]

In Samaria a house has been found containing a seal with the name of Osorkon II. On the same spot ostraca … have been found which were first dated to the time of King Ahab …. That was evidence that Osorkon II and Ahab were contemporaries. But Velikovsky writes that the ostraca were later dated to the time of King Jeroboam II of Israel …. Also the archaeologists discovered that the house with the ostraca had been demolished before the building of the Osorkon house. That fits perfectly if Osorkon II lived around 730 [van der Veen’s date for Osorkon II].

This also well accords with our Table 4’s range for Osorkon II between the mid C8th BC (+ c. 50) and c. 700 BC (+ c. 50), as I should place Osorkon II in the early C8th BC. It now seems that he must have reigned for somewhat longer than was earlier thought. His reign length is discussed in Wikipedia:[312]

Osorkon II … is now believed to have reigned for more than 30 years, rather than just 25 years. The celebrations of his first Sed Jubilee was traditionally thought to have occurred in his 22nd Year but the Heb Sed date in his Great Temple of Bubastis is damaged and can be read as Year 30, as Edward Wente notes ….


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Recently, it has been demonstrated that Nile Quay Text No. 14 (dated to Year 29 of an Usimare Setepenamun) belongs to Osorkon II on palaeographical grounds …. This finding suggests that Osorkon II likely did celebrate his first Heb Sed in his 30th Year as was traditionally the case with other Libyan era Pharaohs such as Shoshenq III and Shoshenq V. In addition, a Year 22 stela from his reign preserves no mention of any Heb Sed celebrations in this year as would be expected ….

With Osorkon now re-dated from c. 800-770 BC, or a bit later, then he would be contemporaneous with the last quarter of a century of reign of Ramses II, the brief rule of Merenptah, and the latter’s ‘Israel Stele’. He would also be contemporaneous with the mid to late rule of the powerful king Uzziah of Judah.
Now, if Merenptah were the Amenophis of the Osarsiph legend, then Osorkon II, a powerful ruler in his own right, would also be the most likely candidate for the rebel priest Osarsiph himself. Perhaps he, like Psusennes I, would change his name to ‘Ramses’ (having intermarried with the Ramessides?), Osorkon II being a possible candidate then also for Ramses-Siptah.
The name Osarsiph might thus be a combination of Osorkon and Siptah.
Osorkon II had, according to Clapham, also opted for a traditional Ramesside titulary:[313]

Osorkon II of the 22nd Dynasty possessed a Golden Horus epithet “great of strength, smiting the Mentyu [Asiatics; var., Enemies], Rich in Splendour”. His expanded Golden Horus name is reminiscent of Osorkon I and Psusennes I, “subduer of barbarians, sovereign who conquers all lands”.

Certainly this Osorkon II did usurp some of the great monuments of the late 19th dynasty Ramessides. And he could have done it with Judaean help, as in the case of Osarsiph, devastating Egypt in turn as according to the Osarsiph legend. I should suggest that this was the era when the most significant of the 22nd dynasty works were undertaken in Egypt. Like Shoshenq I early, Osorkon II would have had the opportunity to have set up a 22nd dynasty infrastructure in Egypt. Rohl has suggested, in connection with Osorkon II’s son prince Harnakht, that the eldest son of the pharaoh, for instance, was early given the title of ‘High Priest of Amun’:[314] “… this ‘High Priest of Amun’ [Harnakht] was only about eight years old when he died. What this suggests to me is that it was customary, if not obligatory, at this time for the eldest born son of the reigning monarch to be given this title, almost from birth!”
The complexities surrounding the TIP priests certainly need to be explained. I am going to make the tentative suggestion that Osorkon II may have been descended from the great Elisha himself, who had in fact married into the Omride family (refer back to p. 237). This might explain why, if the former were also the priest Osarsiph, he received help from the pious king Uzziah of Judah.
In Chapter 12, 7, I shall in fact be going so far as to propose that the greatest of the 25th dynasty rulers were actual priests serving king Hezekiah of Judah.
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Astute revisionists like Dirkzwager and Sieff had recognised that the beginnings of the 22nd dynasty must have occurred during the first half of the C8th BC, as the 19th dynasty began to weaken. Though it might seem like they were now stuck with a profusion of strong dynasties together, this is actually a scenario that accords with Uzziah’s rise whilst a powerful dynasty of Israel was still ruling. Sieff, who follows the conventional view that the 22nd dynasty was Libyan, is again fairly close to the mark when he writes:[315]

… I would suggest the Libyan Dynasty [22nd] incursion be dated from within the reign of Menreptah [Merenptah], specifically, from where he first records his problems with the Libyans. After their eventual triumph over the Nineteenth Dynasty it would be understandable for Shoshenq I to count his reign-length from the establishment of his first bridgehead in the land of the Nile. …. Dirkzwager [op. cit.] suggested that “during the late years of Ramses II … a prominent role could have been played by Sheshonq [Shoshenq] I and Osorkon I”.

I should simply adjust Dirkzwager’s estimate of the Libyans back by about a generation.
Osorkon II now becomes the 22nd dynasty ruler late during the long interregnum in Israel. He may have staged a rebellion against Merenptah, whose contemporary he likely was, given the Samaria evidence associated with Osorkon II. If he were Osarsiph as well, then the Jerusalemite help that he received would most certainly have come from the powerful Uzziah of Judah, out to take back Syro-Palestine from the 19th dynasty rulers.
Takelot II
According to Wikipedia:[316]

[Takelot II] has been identified as the High Priest of Amun Takelot F, son of the High Priest of Amun Nimlot C at Thebes and, thus, the son of Nimlot C and grandson of king Osorkon II …. Most Egyptologists today … also accept David Aston’s hypothesis … that Shoshenq III was Osorkon II’s actual successor at Tanis, rather than Takelot II ….
Takelot II rather ruled a separate kingdom that embraced Middle and Upper Egypt, distinct from the Tanite Twenty-second Dynasty who only controlled Lower Egypt. Takelot F … served for a period of time under Osorkon II as a High Priest of Amun before he proclaimed himself as king Takelot II in the final three regnal years of Osorkon II. This situation is attested by the relief scenes on the walls of Temple J at Karnak which was dedicated by Takelot F – in his position as High Priest – to Osorkon II, who is depicted as the celebrant and king ….

Takelot II’s presumed 25 years of reign, beginning in the last three years of Osorkon II, would now date to c. 773-748 BC. This accords well with our Table 4’s estimation of Takelot II at c. 700 BC (+ c. 50). Takelot II will re-emerge in Chapter 12, 7, as a figure of possible dynastic importance.
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Shoshenq III
With Shoshenq III (a slightly later contemporary of Takelot II) following Osorkon II, his long reign (whether 39 or 52 years) would have commenced in c. 770 BC and fnished in c. 731 BC (short - 39 years), or c. 718 BC (long - 52 years). I shall be favouring 39 years.
The longer figure may be an artificial one. Thus Wikipedia:[317]

Shoshenq III did live to reign a long time - fifty two years**, but by the end of his reign not only were there effectively two pharaohs ruling in Egypt, but the various chieftains of the Ma across the Delta were slowly acquiring authority and power and forming close family dynasties of their own. (** - David Rohl points out that the highest regnal dates found for Shoshenq III date to Year 39 – Kitchen assigns 52 years to Shoshenq III in order to keep the Old Chronology correct).

The reign of Shoshenq III would probably have terminated then in c. 731 BC. This accords very well indeed with our Table 4’s range for Shoshenq III between c. 720 BC (+ c. 50) and c. 700 BC (+ c. 50). Shoshenq III’s reign (c. 770-731 BC) would have terminated on the very eve of EOH. Was Shoshenq III, then, the biblical ‘King So’?
Rohl, not surprisingly, since he has Shoshenq III’s beginning at c. 755 BC[318] - hence chronologically ideal for ‘So’ - has designated Shoshenq III as ‘So’. I shall be taking up this matter again in my discussion of ‘So’ in Chapter 12, 1.
To complicate matters, it seems that there is now, at this aproximate time, another pharaoh Shoshenq with whom we have to contend. For Rohl has discovered a second Hedjkheperre Shoshenq (whom he designates IB), reigning for about a dozen years - contemporaneously with Shoshenq III, according to Rohl.[319] This Shoshenq IB, whose existence Egyptologists now tend to accept, is now designated as Shoshenq IV.

Continuing with the 20th Dynasty Ramessides

The 20th Dynasty, which conventionally follows the 19th - though I have argued for a fair degree of overlap - spanning an extra century plus (c. 1188 BC-1069 BC, conventional dates),[320] is considered to have comprised:

Seti-nakht;
Ramses III;
Ramses IV- Ramses XI

Though the Jehu-ide and 19th dynasty had now faded out, these 20th dynasty Ramessides, whose origins I have identified as Judaean, would thus continue on until Ramesses XI, right into EOH. (See Chapter 12). I firstly take part of Gardiner’s account of this era:[321]
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Although Ramessēs III reigned for full thirty-one years … and celebrated a Sed-festival … there are signs of various internal troubles … towards the end of his life …. [Ramses III] was followed by eight kings … each of whom bore the illustrious name of Ramessēs, now so firmly associated with the thought of Pharaonic grandeur that even when his descendants had long relinquished any pretensions to the throne certain functionaries of high station still prided themselves upon the title ‘king’s son of Ramessēs’. …. That Ramessēs IV was a son of Ramessēs III is clear both from the Harris papyrus and from other evidence, but the insistence with which he introduced into Prenomen and Nomen the goddess of Truth whilst protesting that he had banished iniquity arouses the suspicion that his claim was not substantiated without some difficulty. Of his successors at least two appear to have been his brothers.
The reigns of all eight kings except Ramessēs IX and Ramessēs XI were short, so that the total for the dynasty works out at less than the figure given by Manetho.

Whatever the real length of the 20th dynasty, it seems most unlikely that it could be squeezed into the estimated two generations between the 19th and 21st dynasties of the Memphite Genealogy. Moreover, we are going to consider in the next chapter archaeological evidence that the 20th dynasty may have been, at least in part, quite later - closer to the 25th dynasty - than has so far been allowed. We are now going to need to align these remaining Ramessides presumably with Uzziah’s successors, and even identify king Uzziah himself as one of the sons of Ramses III. After all regarding Uzziah, 2 Chronicles 26:8 tells, “… his fame spread even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong”. So we should certainly expect some degree of recognition in Egypt for this Uzziah as well. Whilst, surprisingly, most versions of history, conventional or revisionist, do not find any significant rôle for Uzziah in Egypt, Dirkzwager and Sieff have at least done so, regarding him as the mysterious Aziru of the Harris Papyrus. Though I have already proposed an alternative, earlier historical identification for this Aziru, I should nevertheless expect that Uzziah and his son Jotham, at their peak, woud have made a very profound impression upon Egypt. We read that (vv. 6-8):

[Uzziah] went out and made war against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath and … Jabneh and … Ashdod; he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines … against the Arabs who lived in Gurbaal, and against the Meunites. The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and his fame spread even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong.

The narrative then tells of the work that the king did in Jerusalem, before describing the might of his army (vv. 11-15):

Moreover Uzziah had an army of soldiers, fit for war, in divisions according to the numbers in the muster made by the secretary Jeiel and the officer Maaseiah, under the direction of Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders. The whole number of the heads of ancestral houses of mighty warriors was 2,600.
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Under their command was an army of 307,500, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging. In Jerusalem he set up machines, invented by skilled workers, on the towers and the corners for shooting arrows and large stones. And his fame spread far ….

In some of this at least Uzziah, who became leprous, was assisted by his equally capable son, Jotham.
Logically, following my view that the 20th dynasty was Judaean, Uzziah (son of Amaziah) must be a son of Ramses III. Despite Velikovsky’s view that the latter 20th dynasty Ramessides (VIII on) had no connection with the earlier ones, I should now expect that the most important amongst Ramses III-XI were all C8th BC Judaean kings.
But which one of these in Egyptian history was the great Uzziah of 52-years reign?
Though, logically again, one might expect Uzziah to have been Ramses IV, the son of Ramses III, who succeeded his father, this cannot have been the case, as Ramses IV would have been older than Uzziah upon the death of his father. Whereas Uzziah came to the throne at the age of 16 (2 Chronicles 26:3), after an interregnum of 11 years (as calculated by Anstey), Ramses IV, according to Wikipedia[322], “was appointed the crown prince by Year 22 of his father's reign when all four of his elder brothers predeceased him …”. This means that Ramses IV would have been well past 16 years of age when he came to the throne.
And it is highly unlikely that Ramses V could have been Uzziah, since a mere 4 years are attributed to this ephemeral pharaoh,[323] who, moreover, may have been a son, not of Ramses III, but of Ramses IV (and, despite the fact that his mummy exhibited small pox - like Uzziah’s leprosy?).
It is thought that there may have been civil war raging at the time of Ramses V and VI. Thus Clayton:[324] “On the evidence of the fragmentary hieratic papyrus in Turin, there appears to have been a civil war raging during Ramesses V’s short four-year reign”. This, as well as the fact that some of Ramses III’s sons had died during their father’s reign, may have been a further reason for the unexplained interregnum.
Since Ramses VI died in early middle age, then he too is unlikely to have been king Uzziah of Judah.
Nor could Ramses VII have been Uzziah, since he was the son of Ramses VI, not III. The mummy of Ramses VII “has not yet been identified”, according to Clayton,[325] and his burial place is “unknown”.
Ramses VIII was apparently a son of Ramses III, but his reign lasted only 3 years according to Grimal.[326]


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Ramses IX, who is in fact my tentative choice for king Uzziah of Judah, may indeed also have been a son of Ramses III. Sitek has included this possibility amongst other ones:[327]

Descent of this ruler is not well established. Presumably he was son of Montuherchopshaf, who in turn was son of Ramesses III by Takhat. However E. F. Wente states that Ramesses IX was son of Ramesses VIII, while according to one of the K. Kitchen’s hypotheses his father was Ramesses VII. Additionally some scholars believe that he was son of Ramesses III and a queen of unknown name, he could also be a brother of Ramesses VIII.
... Burial place – tomb KV6 in the Valley of the Kings. Mummy of the king was discovered in the DB320 cache at Deir el-Bahari.

Ramses IX is seemingly the only 20th dynasty ruler in range of Ramses III to have reigned long enough to qualify, in my revised context, for the very substantial Uzziah. Clayton tells of the improvement in the situation of the dynasty at this time:[328]

With Ramesses IX Egypt returned to a degree of stability in as much as the king enjoyed a reign of some 18 years. Building work in Ramesses’s name at the ancient sun centre of Heliopolis in the Delta indicates the greater emphasis being placed on Lower Egypt. This was probably one of the reasons why the High priests of Amun at Thebes were increasingly able to assert their own power in Upper Egypt and to sow the seeds for the final insurrection to come during the 21st dynasty. Ramesses IX’s tomb is a long one in the tradition of the ‘syringe’ tunnels of the later [sic] 19th and 20th Dynasties.

Prior to this, Clayton had quoted John Gardner Wilkinson in regard to the very unusual and un-Egyptian appearance of the sculptures of Ramses IX:[329] “The features of the king are peculiar, and the form of the nose, so very unlike that of the usual Egyptian face, it becomes very probable that their sculptures actually offer portraits”. And, if this is indeed Uzziah, might we even go so far as to suggest that this ‘peculiar form of nose’ may have been an effect of leprosy?
Unfortunately, the mummy of Ramses IX has not been properly examined.
The reign of Ramses IX was apparently an era of growing Libyan (Meshwesh) influence; for Gardiner has written, with reference to work sites at Medinet Habu and the neighbouring Deir el-Medina:[330] “The picture disclosed by the day-to-day journals of work in the necropolis is one of great unrest. Long stretches of time found the workmen on the royal tomb idle, and there are ominous references … many of them dating from the later years of Ramessēs IX, to the presence at Thebes of foreigners or Libyans or Meshwesh, though we do not know exactly how these ought to be interpreted”.
In this regard, we might recall Uzziah’s constant need for vigilance with the Philistines.

350

We have read that, because king Uzziah had turned leprous, his son Jotham took over the reins of government. However, that could not have been immediately; for Jotham was only 16 years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned singly for 16 years. Uzziah’s (as Ramses IX’s) main years of power could have been approximately the same as those 18 years recorded for him as pharaoh of Egypt, particularly of the Delta region (or, “even to the border of Egypt”, as the Bible puts it). Since we hear about Uzziah up to Year 38, when Zechariah came to the throne in Israel, then it could be that the greater part of the former’s 18 years of power had occurred during the interregnum, after Jeroboam II had quit ruling Israel in about Uzziah’s 16th Year (794 BC). According to a revised scenario, the peak phase of Uzziah’s reign would have been from this approximate date, 794 BC, until c. 772 BC (‘Israel Stele’), including the rebellion of Osorkon II/Osarsiph, after which Merenptah/Zechariah briefly regained control of Syro-Palestine. Since Uzziah would then have flourished during the early part of Merenptah’s reign (and also during a phase of his pre-pharaonic career in general), then Uzziah (Ramses IX) would be well placed, chronologically to have been associated with the rebel Osarsiph (Osorkon II?) who had risen up against Amenophis (Merenptah). This Osarsiph was, in Rohl’s words, “an individual of great authority throughout the later reigns of the [19th] dynasty”.[331] He was anti the Egyptian gods and allied to Judah.
A Brief Outline for Ramses IV-XI
Ramses IV, according to Grimal:[332]

… considered himself to be a temple-builder of such stature that he asked the gods to grant him a reign longer than Ramesses II’s in exchange for everything that he had done for them during the first five years of his reign. But the gods were evidently deaf to his prayers, for he died two years afterwards, leaving unfinished a construction programme that was still far below his ambitions.

Ramses IV apparently abandoned some of his construction work, due, it is thought to his death. Grimal tells here of Ramses IV in this regard:[333]

[Ramses IV] was forced to abandon the construction of a gigantic mortuary temple in the vicinity of the causeway of the temple of Deir el-Bahri and instead had to content himself with a small establishment between the temple of Amenhotpe son of Hapu and Deir el-Medina. Nevertheless, he also built at Abydos, Heliopolis and Karnak, where he dedicated statues and decorated part of the Temple of Khonsu. He left his name in the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, as well as Luxor, Deir el-Bahri, the Ramesseum, Memphis, Koptos, Medamud, Armant, Esna, el-Tod, Edfu, Elkab, Buhen, Gerf Hussein and Aniba, while scarabs bearing his cartouche have been found as far afield as Palestine.
351

He sent expeditions to the Wadi Hammamat quarries and the Sinai, and the village at Deir el-Medina was at its peak in the Twentieth dynasty, when the size of its work teams doubled to a total of 120 workmen.

The 6-7 year reign of Ramses IV would date approximately to 757 -750 BC. This was during the 11-year interregnum, now for Judah, following the death of Uzziah, after which Uzziah’s son Jotham became sole ruler of Judah.
Hezekiah (b. 752 BC) would first have seen the light of day during this era.
Grimal tells now of two branches of the Ramesside family vying for supremacy, after the short reign of Ramses V, who he says was not a son of Ramses III:[334]

The situation did not improve with the reign of Ramesses VI Amonhirkhepeshef II who, unlike his predecessor, was actually a son of Ramesses III. The two branches of the royal family – those claiming direct descent from Ramesses III and those descended from his sons and nephews – fought for power among themselves until the end of the Twentieth Dynasty.

Since Uzziah reigned for 52 years, then Jotham, who was then 16, could not have been born until his father’s 34th Year. Jotham must therefore have substituted for his father rather late in the latter’s reign.
This situation may perhaps be viewed in tomb KV19, where the son of Ramses IX, Mentuherkhepshef, appears unaccompanied by his father. Thus Clayton:[335]

The 20th dynasty occupant of the tomb had been Ramesses Mentuherkhepshef, a son of Ramses IX … who appears to have been interred here during the reign of Ramesses X. The decoration of KV19 is very similar to that found in the tombs of royal sons in the Valley of the Queens, except for the fact that … as an adult son, Mentuherkhepshef is shown alone rather than escorted by his father.

It would now follow logically on my view that the 20th dynasty comprised Judaean kings, that the remaining two Ramessides, X and XI, were, too, kings of the dynasty of Joash (Seti-nakht). I tentatively propose that Ramses X was Jotham’s son, Ahaz, the very father of Hezekiah, and that Ramses XI, of about 27 years of reign, was none other than king Hezekiah himself, of 29 years of reign. I shall be taking all this up again in Chapter 12. For the remainder of this chapter we simply need to bridge the 30-year gap now between the death of Uzziah (757 BC) and the first year of Hezekiah (727 BC). But firstly:

More Genealogical and Art-Historical Anomalies

On a genealogical note, Courville has made a telling point in regard to what had appeared to be the following severe genealogical problem with the current chronological setting of Ramses III in relation to the early 19th dynasty:[336]
352

The case of Bokenkonsu, the architect under Seti I, presents another anomaly, by current views, which is eliminated by the altered placements …. Bokenkonsu lived to have his statue carved under Rameses III …. By current views, Bokenkonsu must have lived at least to an age of 118 years … even if the “many years” of the Harris Papyrus are limited to the brief reign of Siptah as proposed by Petrie. The more time that is allotted to this “many years” only makes the necessary age of Bokenkonsu more and more improbable.

Bierbrier had also included treatment of Bokenkonsu and his family amongst his case studies (“The Bakenkhons Family”[337]). And here, once again, we encounter the apparently extreme age of an Egyptian official even when minimal conventional date estimates are used. There is no stretch at all, though, with my arrangement that has Ramses III a slightly later contemporary of Seti I.
But what might appear to be a significant difficulty for the conventional chronology becomes a complete impossibility in Velikovsky’s context, as already argued.
More positively for Velikovsky, both he[338] and Courville[339] had rightly insisted upon a dating much later than that conventionally given for Ramses III on the basis of Greek writing on the backs of Ramses III’s building tiles.
I take here Courville’s very brief account of it, beginning with his quoting of Petrie:

“… A subject of much difficulty in the earlier accounts of the objects was the marking of “Greek letters” on the backs of many of the tiles; but as we know that such signs were used long before the XXth dynasty, they only show that foreigners were employed as workmen in making these tiles”.

About which Courville then commented:[340] “The difficulty with this explanation is that it does not explain the use of Greek letters centuries before the Greeks adopted the alphabet …. Hence the dating of Rameses III in the 11th century is a gross anachronism”. With Ramses III re-located to about the mid C8th BC though - and given also the influx during his reign of ‘Sea Peoples’, likely including Greeks - then the ‘anachronism’ readily dissolves.
Velikovsky had brought some surprising evidence in support of his sensational view that Ramses III had actually belonged as late as the Persian period, with his identification of the Peleset arm of the ‘Sea Peoples’ - generally considered to indicate Philistines - as Persians.[341] This Velikovsky did through comparisons between the Peleset, as shown on Ramses III’s Medinet Habu reliefs, and depictions of Persians for instance at Persepolis, both revealing a distinctive crown-like headgear. And he also compared Ramses III’s references to the Peleset to the naming of Persians as P-r-s-tt (Pereset) in the C3rd BC Decree of Canopus.

353

My explanation though for this undeniable similarity would be, not that Ramses III had belonged to the classical Persian era, but that the ‘Indo-European’ Persians were related to the waves of immigrants, hence to the Mitannians (who may therefore connect with the Medes), but perhaps to the Philistines in particular. These ‘Indo Europeans’ had, as we read in Chapter 2, gradually progressed from Anatolia in a south-easterly direction. Eventually we find for instance Kurigalzu [II], set up on the throne of Babylon by the ‘Mitannian’ Assuruballit, conquering Elam (Persia) and ruling there for a time.[342]

Jones has I believe produced some solid genealogical or bureaucratic evidence for why Velikovsky’s late location of Ramses III to the Persian era is impossible.[343] The career of the Chief Workman Paneb for instance, according to the Salt Papyrus, “can be traced from the 66th year of Ramesses II to the 6th year of Ramesses III”, Jones has written.[344] This, a span in conventional terms of a bit over thirty years (c. 1212-1180 BC), is most reasonable. But Velikovsky’s span for Workman Paneb, with Ramses III located by him to the Persian era, would be biologically impossible. And the same applies to the situation of other workmen (e.g. Neferhotep and Sennedjem) investigated by Jones, following Bierbrier, the connections of which workmen are between the 18th and 19th dynasties that Velikovsky had also well separated. Thus Jones can rightly conclude in this instance:[345]

… the earliest members of these two families, Neferhotep and Sennedjem …. link the reign of Horemheb and the XVIIIth Dynasty with the reigns of the XIXth Dynasty, without any intervening years. A similar condition can be observed in the transition from the XIXth to the XXth Dynasty. If an interregnum had occurred then, the workmen first attested under Ramesses II, Merenptah and Seti II would all have been extremely old men by the time they ended their lives in the later years of Ramesses III …. If the hundred years proposed by Dr Velikovsky had taken place, none of them would have been alive at all.

Bierbrier also has case studies this time affecting TIP. Note again that the chronology of this period seems to have been over-stretched.

Nesipakashuti iii:[346] “The genealogy of the family of Nesipakashuti iii has been needlessly confused by Kees. Since Nesipakashuti iii’s father is known to have married a daughter of a Pharaoh Shoshenk and the reign of Shoshenk III began a minimum of 73 years after that of Shoshenk I, Kees argued that Nesipakashuti iii was the grandson of Shoshenk III …. In view of his long reign Shoshenk III must have come to the throne when he was under thirty, and it is thus physically impossible for him to have been the grandfather of an elderly vizier in the early part of his reign …”.

354

Nebneteru iii:[347] “The statue of Nebneteru iii was dedicated by his ‘son’ Hor viii, and Kees has suggested that in fact Hor viii was none other than his grandson Hor vii/ix/xi who had the same name and titles …. Kitchen has rejected this identification on the grounds that a contemporary of Osorkon II whose name also appears on this statue would hardly have married a granddaughter of that king and lived into the reign of Pedubast …. However, there is no evidence that Hor viii was close in age to Osorkon II, and it is uncertain when in the reign the statue was made, probably not as early as Kitchen implies. In any case, Nebneteru iii who had died at ninety-six should certainly have had an adult grandson unless both he and his son married very late.
…. if the statue was dedicated c. year 15 of Osorkon II as has already been postulated, the grandson of Nebneteru iii … could have been about 30 at that time. He could easily have married and survived the lady Shebensopdet i, who may have been much younger than him, by the end of the reign of Osorkon II. Either before or after her death, he would have married Merutamun i daughter of a colleague or relative. At the end of the reign of Takelot II, he would have been aged 64 and would have been preparing his tomb so his funerary cones would have been inscribed early in the reign of Shoshenk III. In year 8 of that reign when aged about 72, he would have switched his allegiance to Pedubast I and died some time afterwards. On Kitchen’s dating he could not possibly have survived until the reign of Osorkon III some 40 years later …. If he was a decade younger and Osorkon III came to the throne a decade earlier, he might conceivably have lived until then if he emulated his grandfather’s longevity”.

Nebneteru iv:[348] “Between Pedubast I and Osorkon III, Kitchen places a ten year reign of Iuput I … and a six year reign of Shoshenk IV. On this reckoning, Nebneteru iv would have been a minimum of 83 on the accession of Osorkon III and still survived for an unknown length of time, while Nakhtefmut B would have been alive at least 72 years after the death of his maternal grandfather Takelot II.
… The careers of Nebneteru iv and Nakhtefmut B also make it unlikely that Osorkon III could have succeeded as late as the death of Shoshenk III. Indeed, he may have started to reign about year 39 of Shoshenk III when Osorkon B disappears from history, but it is difficult to believe that Osorkon B would have been proclaimed pharaoh at the age of c. 65 and then reigned until the age of c. 93.”
[End of quotes]

And James gives the following evidence in support of his view “that the length of the 22nd Dynasty has been greatly overstretched”:[349]


355

The chronicle of Prince Osorkon lists the offerings he made as High Priest of Amun at Thebes between year 11 of his father, Takeloth II, and year 28 of Shoshenq III …. There is nothing recorded after year 24 of Takeloth or before year 22 of Shoshenq III. Unless we assume a gap of twenty years in his career as High Priest, there must have been a considerable overlap between these two reigns. Such an overlap is supported by the Apis data, where there are no known bulls between year 23 of Osorkon II and year 28 of Shoshenq III. A compression of the chronology at this point would also remove the only obstacle to the otherwise attractive identification of Osorkon the High Priest of Amun with the future Osorkon III, assumed by earlier Egyptologists … but incompatible with Kitchen’s long chronology. To have served under both pharaohs (without any overlap of reigns) his pontificate would have had to have lasted for fifty-five years, and if twenty years old when appointed, Osorkon would have been seventy-five years old at his accession and, after twenty-eight years of reign, about 103 at his death ….

A New Era For Israel and Assyria

Irvine, basically following Procksch’s interpretation of Isaiah 9:7-10:4, gives us a lead into the period extending from the late phase of Jeroboam II’s reign to the Syro-Ephraïmitic conflict that shook Palestine during the reign of Ahaz (some of his dates, though, would need to be raised due to the interregnum factor):[350]

While the details of Procksch’s interpretation may need adjustment, it correctly tries to understand 9:7-10:4 against the background of the recent past leading up to the Syro-Ephraimitic crisis. As in 8:23-9:6, the range of Isaiah’s vision extends from the last years of Jeroboam II to the current situation in 734. This was a stretch of history which the prophet and his audience themselves had experienced and could vividly recall. The episodes which Isaiah describes all damaged Israelite society. These, we suggest, include the earthquake that struck Palestine during the 750s or 740s (vv 7-9); the encroachment of Syrians and Philistines on Israelite territory toward the end of Jeroboam’s reign and during the years of Menahem (vv 10-11a); Shallum’s coup and the fall of the house of Jehu (vv 12-16a); the civil war and internal strife in the Shallum-Menahem-Pekah conflicts (vv 17-20); and perhaps the current activity of Pekah and Israel in the anti-Assyrian rebellion (10:1-2). The end of the speech turns to the future and anticipates the forthcoming attack of the Assyrians against Israel and the rest of the anti-Assyrian coalition (10:3-4a).

Irvine’s view of “the encroachment of Syrians and Philistines on Israelite territory toward the end of Jeroboam’s reign” is fully in accord with my view of ‘Syrian’-Libyan (‘Indo-European’) activity towards the end of the 19th dynasty (Jeroboam II = Ramses II).

356

I shall be discussing fully in the next chapter (in 1.), the Syro-Ephraïmitic activity later than the reign of Jeroboam II - a union eventually of Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel, as we shall see. And there I hope also to offer an indentification for this powerful ‘Syrian’, Rezin.
The Syro-Ephraïmitic crisis was in turn, I believe, a forerunner to the Syro-Palestinian revolt of 720 BC against Sargon II (see Chapter 12, 3.), in which the rebels would now be supported by Egypt. “Syrian aggression continued after the death of Jeroboam”, writes Irvine.[351] “During the reign of Menahem, Rezin encroached further on Israelite territory from the east, whilst his Philistine allies “devoured Israel with open mouth on the west” (Isa 9:11)”. Menahem of Israel (771-761 BC), who is - along with Uzziah of Judah - referred to in the campaign records of Tiglath-pileser III, belongs to the decade following the death of Zechariah’s murderer Shallum, who was in turn slain by this Menahem (2 Kings 15:14). In the 38th and 39th years of king Uzziah of Judah, Israel had been in complete chaos, with the murders, respectively, of Zechariah and Shallum. At least the regicide, Menahem, seems to have brought some sort of stability to Israel, as he reigned there for ten years (771-761 BC), until the 49th year of Uzziah, when Jotham was no doubt by now at the helm in Judah. It was during the reign of Menahem, presumably late, that the mighty Tiglath-pileser III first arose on the scene. This at last brings us to a ruler (apart from the important prince, Isaiah) who will also be an older contemporary of king Hezekiah of Judah (not yet born in 761). Tiglath-pileser III also mentions Uzziah - in the latter’s declining reign - and even Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, and Hezekiah’s Israelite contemporary, Hoshea. Anstey tells of this, using, of course, non-revised dates:[352]

Tiglath-pileser III … mentions (1) Azariah of Judah (= Uzziah, 806-755) as a great military power to whom certain cities turned when they revolted from Assyria; (2) Menahem of Israel (768-758) as one who paid tribute to him; (3) Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel (755-735, dethroned 736) as defeated and deposed by him; (4) Yauhazi or Joachaz (Ahaz, 739-723) as submitting to his dominion and paying tribute; and (5) Hoshea (736-719, King of Israel 727-719) as set up by him, not as king but as governor, as Gedaliah was set up later by Nebuzaradan for Nebuchednezzar. Thus altogether no fewer than five Kings of Judah and Israel are mentioned by Tiglath-pileser III … in those of his Inscriptions which have a bearing on the Chronology of the Old Testament ….

With Tiglath-pileser III, we find ourselves firmly in EOH. However, there is also a new chronological problem now to be dealt with. Tiglath-pileser III is known to have reigned for 17 years, until 722 BC (hence c. 739-722 BC) according to my revised chronology. Yet here we find him active as early as the reign of Menahem of Israel, 761 BC at the latest, about 2 decades before he is supposed to have come to the throne. Anstey gives Schrader’s account of this discrepancy, and then provides his own resolution to it:[353]
357

Schrader says: “The Azariah (Uzziah) here mentioned must be a contemporary of Tiglath-pileser III …. The date of Uzziah’s death according to the ordinary Chronology (of the Bible) is 758, while Tiglath-pileser, according to the Assyrian fivefold guaranteed Canon [sic], did not ascend the throne till B.C. 745. There gapes here a chronological discrepancy which refuses to be explained away. If the Assyrian Chronology, certified as we have said fivefold, be the correct one, the Biblical cannot be correct”.

There is no discrepancy whatever. The Inscription does not say when these 19 Cities revolted to Uzziah, but only when Tiglath-pileser destroyed them. It does not say whether he destroyed them before he ascended the throne of Assyria, as General of Ashur-dân III (773-754), or as General of Ashur-nirari (754-745), or after he ascended the throne B.C. 745. On the one hand, there is no reason why these cities should not have revolted to Uzziah long before the campaign of Tiglath-pileser III …; and on the other, there is no reason why Tiglath-pileser III … should not have made his military expedition long before he came to the throne of Assyria, B.C. 745, for he exacted tribute from Merodach-baladan of Babylon in 751, six years before he came to the throne. And to crown all, this Inscription, like every other Inscription of Tiglath-pileser III … yet recovered, is an undated, mutilated fragment, the date having been given to it, and not derived from it.

[End of quote]


Towards a new Egyptian chronology

With the demise of Sothic dating and the apparent untenability of the equation of Shoshenq I with the biblical ‘Shishak’, the entire basis for the conventional length of time estimated for the TIP collapses. A throng of evidence from almost every area of the Mediterranean, and from Nubia on the very doorstep of Egypt, calls for a lowering of the Egyptian dates and a radical shortening of the TIP. Indeed, my review of the internal evidence from Egypt itself suggests the same. At this stage, having finally completed my detailed study of the background to EOH, most of which has, of necessity, involved the complex matter of Egypt (and Ethiopia), I should like here to quote the following words of James, since I think that these basically sum up much of the Egyptian aspect of my own thesis to this point:[354]

It is too early to offer a complete revised scheme, with every king slotted neatly into place. The sheer bulk of the material to be assessed requires lengthy re-examination. But without giving precise dates for each pharaoh, broad lines of a new construction already emerge from the evidence. ….



358

To which I should like to add, and apply to my own effort, these related words of Sieff:[355] “I have no doubt this will not be the last word on an immensely complex subject; it would be presumptive indeed to make such a claim”.
But I should also hope that the new pillars that I have established are, as Sieff has added here, “the necessary pillars on which to build a lasting solution to this most complicated and mysterious of the chronological problems of ancient Egypt”.


Table 5: A Revised History for the C9th and C8th’s BC

Conventional

C14th BC (18th Dynasty)

Thutmose IV
Yuya/Abdi-ashirta =
Amenhotep III
Akhnaton
Ay/Aziru =
Horemheb =
Nefertiti =
Revised

C9th BC (dates now to be revised upwards)

Omride era
Ben-Hadad I (Ashurnasirpal II)


Hazael
Jehu of Israel (d. 867 BC)
Jezebel


Conventional

C13th BC (19th Dynasty)


Horemheb =
Ramses I =
Seti I =
(Ramses III) =
Ramses II =

Merenptah =
(Anarchy)

Ramses IX =
Osorkon II (Osarsiph?)
Shoshenq III =



Ramses XI =

+Revised

C9th-8th BC (dates now to be revised upwards)

Jehu of Israel (d. 867 BC)
Jehoahaz of Israel (d. 850 BC)
Jehoash of Israel (d. 836 BC)
(Amaziah of Judah)
Jeroboam II of Israel (d. 776 BC)
22-Year Interregnum
Zechariah of Israel (d. 772 BC)
End of Jehu-ides

Uzziah of Judah (d. c. 758 BC)

Rezin of Syria (?)
Syrian and Philistine activity
Tiglath-pileser III and Ahaz

Hezekiah of Judah (d. 699 BC)

[1] Coincidentally, Gammon has revised the one year reign of Ramses I to 814-813; though with no intention whatsoever of identifying Ramses I with Jehoahaz. ‘The Place of Horemheb in Egyptian History’, p. 56.
[2] The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, vol. I, cf. pp. 292 & 297. Courville would give slightly different dates for Ramses II in ‘On the Survival of Velikovsky’s Thesis in Ages in Chaos’, p. 71, but his historico-biblical conclusions would remain the same.
[3] Op. cit, ibid.
[4] The Wonders of Bible Chronology, p. 59. He also discusses there an 11-year interregnum for Judah.
[5] Ibid, pp. 57, 59-60.
[6] ‘The Chronology of Israel and Judah’.
[7] ‘The Libyans in Egypt: Resolving the Third Intermediate Period’.
[8] Ibid, cf. pp. 29 & 31.
[9] Op. cit, p. 18, Table 5.
[10] Dunn, ‘Horemheb, the Last King of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty’.
[11] Mauro, and revisionist Hickman, both of whom follow Anstey, give approx. 145 years as the span from the fall of Samaria back to the death of Jehu. Cf. Mauro, op. cit, pp. 55, 57; Hickman, op. cit, ibid.
[12] According to Booth, People of Ancient Egypt, p. 159: “The body of what is thought to be Mutnodjmet [Horemheb’s wife], appeared to have died in childbirth and the pelvis suggests that she had given birth many times. This would suggest that they had only girls …”.
[13] Op. cit, citing Josephus, ibid (fr. 50 97/98).
[14] Booth, op. cit., ibid.
[15] Chronicle of the Pharaohs, p. 141.
[16] Mauro, op. cit., p. 55.
[17] A History of Ancient Egypt, p. 247. 13-15 years seems to be the general estimate.
[18] Rohl, The Lost Testament, p. 443.
[19] Discovering Ancient Egypt, p.163.
[20] Thus Grimal, op. cit., p. 268.
[21] Most notably J. Bimson, ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’ and ‘An Eighth-Century Date for Merenptah’, including a section on Ramses II co-authored by Bimson and P. James, pp. 60-61.
[22] Mauro’s estimate, op. cit., pp. 55-56.
[23] Op. cit., pp. 392-393.
[24] Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 445, gives BC 1309-1194? N. Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Appendix, pp. 392-393, gives BC 1295-1188.
[25] List taken from I. Velikovsky’s, Ramses II and His Time, p. 65.
[26] Grimal, op. cit., p. 245.
[27] Bimson discusses the merits of all of these possible candidates for Israel’s “saviour” in his ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 22.
[28] The Lost Testament, pp. 440-442.
[29] The Exodus Problem, I, p. 279.
[30] In Contra Apionem (I. fr. 54 231-232), as cited by Rohl. ‘Comments by David Rohl’, p. 17.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Op. cit, citing Josephus, ibid (fr. 50 97/98).
[33] ‘Amenophis, Osarsiph and Arzu’, p. 14.
[34] Op, cit, p. 17.
[35] Op. cit, ibid.
[36] Op. cit., p. 284.
[37] Velikovsky’s long-awaited revision of the 19th Egyptian dynasty was the subject matter of his book, Ramses II and His Time.
[38] See e.g. ibid, p. 10, n. 1.
[39] Ibid, pp. 206, 212-217.
[40] Some notable early criticisms of Velikovsky’s re-location of the 19th dynasty to the Babylonian era were P. James’ ‘A Critique of “Ramses II and His Time”,’ M. Jones’ ‘Some Detailed Evidence From Egypt Against Velikovsky’s Revised Chronology’, and J. Bimson’s ‘An Eighth-Century Date for Merenptah’.
[41] Bimson, ‘An Eighth Century Date for Merenptah’.
[42] Op. cit., p. 297. Courville more recently seemed to drop this chronological coincidence of Ramses II with ‘So’. ‘On the Survival of Velikovsky’s Thesis in Ages in Chaos’, p. 71.
[43] Op. cit.
[44] Op. cit, p. 246.
[45] Warrior Pharaohs, p. 167.
[46] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, pp. 16ff.
[47] Op. cit, p. 247.
[48] Op. cit, p. 249.
[49] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 22.
[50] Ibid., pp, 20, 22.
[51] See the strong linguistic argument for this as provided by Page, ‘A Stela of Adad-Nirari III and Nergal-Ereš From Tell Al Rimah’.
[52] Newby, op. cit, p. 142.
[53] Grimal, op. cit, p. 247.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Op. cit, pp. 269-270.
[56] Ibid, p. 269.
[57] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 13.
[58] Ibid, p. 25.
[59] ’Papyrus Salt 124’, pp. 251-258.
[60] The Late New Kingdom in Egypt, pp. 4, 16, 22, 23, 26, 37 & 121, n. 104.
[61] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, ibid.
[62] Op. cit, p. 276.
[63] ‘Sethosis: the Seti II from the Kinglists?’, p. 20.
[64] Op cit, p. 252. Emphasis added.
[65] Ibid, p. 255. Emphasis added.
[66] Ibid, p. 256. Emphasis added.
[67] Bierbrier, op. cit, pp. 145-146, lists 17 of Černý’s publications in his Bibliography, including Černý’s ‘Papyrus Salt 124’.
[68] Ibid, p. 21.
[69] Op. cit., p. 56.
[70] Op. cit, pp. 5-6.
[71] Ibid, pp. 12-13.
[72] Ibid, pp. 25-26.
[73] Ibid, p. 37.
[74] Ibid, p. 38.
[75] Op. cit, p. 27. Jones has actually misrepresented Velikovsky, factually, in regard to certain points relating to the latter’s Peoples of the Sea. Gammon has called attention to these inaccuracies in his ‘Michael Jones and “Peoples of the Sea”: Some clarifying comments’, p. 33.
[76] Ibid, p. 32. Emphasis added. For D. Courville’s critique of Bierbrier’s genealogical study, see his ‘On the Survival of Velikovsky’s Thesis in Ages in Chaos’, pp. 71-72.
[77] Op. cit., p. 271.
[78] The Lost Testament, p. 409.
[79] Booth, op. cit., p. 217.
[80] The Exodus Problem, I, p. 308.
[81] Op. cit., ibid.
[82] Op. cit., p. 217.
[83] Levy, et al., Archaeology and the Shasu Nomads, ch. 6.
[84] Chronicle of the Pharaohs, p. 145.
[85] Cf. Ikram and Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt, p. 325; and Wikipedia’s ‘Seti I’.
[86] Ramesses: Egypt’s Greatest Pharaoh, p. 43.
[87] The Complete Valley of the Kings,p. 138.
[88] Ibid., p. 161.
[89] Ramesses, p. 193.
[90] Ibid., pp. 193-194.
[91] Ibid., p. 43.
[92] Ibid., p. 44.
[93] Grimal, op. cit., p. 275.
[94] David, op. cit., p. 164.
[95] Rameses II, p. 69.
[96] Parsons, Tomb Robbery.
[97] Thomas, Rameses II, p. 161.
[98] Booth, op. cit., p. 180.
[99] Op. cit., p. 199.
[100] Grimal, op. cit., p. 274.
[101] Op. cit., p. 164
[102] Op. cit., p. 194.
[103] Op. cit., p. 168.
[104] Ibid., p. 93.
[105] Op. cit., p. 90.
[106] Op. cit., p. 77.
[107] Ibid., p. 44.
[108] Ibid.
[109] Ibid.
[110] The Lost Testament, p. 442.
[111] Grimal, op. cit., p. 250.
[112] David, op. cit., p. 164.
[113] Ibid., p. 56.
[114] See e.g. Wikipedia, ‘Ramesses III’.
[115] See e.g. Tyldesley, op. cit., p. 195.
[116] Op. cit., p. 187.
[117] Grimal, op. cit., p. 275.
[118] The Civilization of Ancient Egypt, p. 209.
[119] Op. cit., p. 200.
[120] Op. cit, p. 327. Gardiner has written boldly: “… no trace of wounds is reported. Nor is there any reason for dating the plot towards the end of the reign; it may have occurred much earlier”. Op. cit, p. 292.
[121] Ibid., p. 165.
[122] Egyptian Art.
[123] Chronicle of the Pharaohs, p. 146.
[124] King Sun, p. 46.
[125] According to Newby, for instance: “The Libyans were … rather lanky people with some, particularly in the north, who were fair-headed and blue-eyed, the result of migration across the Mediterranean …. Judging by the way they were represented in Egyptian art [they] wore their hair braided with a prominent side-lock …”. Op. cit, p. 179.
[126] Op. cit, p. 283. Cf. Herodotus, The Histories, Bk. 4, p. 334. “… the Maxyes [Libyan tribe = Meshwesh?], a people who grow their hair on the right side of their heads and shave it off on the left”.
[127] Op. cit, pp. 167-168.
[128] Op. cit, p. 257.
[129] The Exodus Problem, p. 297.
[130] Op. cit, p. 168.
[131] This, Ramses II’s nickname, which Rohl gives as “Sysa … Semiticised as Shysha”, is one of Rohl’s key arguments for Ramses II’s being the biblical ‘Shishak’. The Lost Testament, p. 392.
[132] A Test of Time, ch. 7.
[133] E.g. G. Roux, Ancient Iraq, “Chronological Tables”, VI, gives 814 BC for the year of Jehu’s death, as does E. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, p. 103. And so, too, does revisionist, D. Rohl, The Lost Testament, p. 421.
[134] I have based my biblical chronology, in outline, on time spans estimated by Mauro and Hickman. See also footnote 104.
[135] Rohl gives the 56th Year of Ramses II as the year when “Merenptah … had been crowned as Ramesses II’s co-regent …”. The Lost Testament, p. 402.
[136] Gardiner accredits Merenptah with 10 years of reign, op. cit, p. 276; and so does Grimal, op. cit, p. 393.
[137] For what may be a conclusive linguistic argument on this, see S. Page’s ‘The Tablets From Tell Al-Rimah’.
[138] Grimal, op. cit, p. 253.
[139] Ibid., pp. 250, 253, 256, 257.
[140] Ibid, p. 257.
[141] The Lost Testament, ch. 16: “Schism”, pp. 389-414.
[142] Ibid, p. 390.
[143] Grimal, op. cit, p. 256. Whereas Grimal has dated the Jerusalem campaign to the seventh year, Rohl seems to have placed it here in Ramses II’s seventeenth year.
[144] ‘Critique of David Rohl’s A Test of Time’, p. 31.
[145] A Test of Time, p. 171.
[146] The Lost Testament, p. 380.
[147] Op. cit., p. 125.
[148] Op. cit., p. 147.
[149] Op. cit., p. 172.
[150] Ibid., p. 176. Emphasis added.
[151] Ramses II and His Time, ch. iii.
[152] Ibid, p. 81.
[153] Ibid, pp. 82-83.
[154] Ibid, p. 83. Emphasis added.
[155] See Clapham, ‘A Solution for the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt’, p. 2.
[156] Ramses II and His Time, ibid.
[157] ‘The Lion Gate at Mycenae’ (1973), p. 26.
[158] Ibid, p. 27.
[159] Ibid.
[160] Ibid, p. 27.
[161] Ibid, pp. 27-28.
[162] The Lost Testament, p. 402.
[163] ‘Egypt: From the Inception of the Nineteenth Dynasty to the Death of Ramesses III’, ch. ix: “Merneptah: Egypt on the defensive”, pp. 232-234.
[164] The Lost Testament, p. 409.
[165] Op. cit, p. 234.
[166] Ancient Egypt: A Social History, p. 275.
[167] Ibid, p. 276.
[168] Op. cit, p. 272.
[169] The Lost Testament, p. 405.
[170] As quoted in D. Rohl’s A Test of Time, p. 168.
[171] ‘Excursus: Israel and Her Neighbours’, 11:21, p. 219.
[172] See e.g. Newby, op. cit, pp. 175, 182.
[173] Op. cit, p. 273.
[174] Ramses II and His Time, pp. 189-196.
[175] ‘An Eighth Century Date for Merenptah’, p. 57.
[176] Ibid. See also ‘John Bimson replies on the “Israel Stele”,’ pp. 59-61.
[177] A Test of Time, ch. 7, pp. 164-171.
[178] ‘An Eighth-Century Date for Merenptah? A Colloquium on John Bimson’s Proposals’, p. 58.
[179] ‘John Bimson replies on the “Israel Stele”.’
[180] Cf. Gardiner, op. cit, p. 270; B. Trigger et al., Ancient Egypt: A Social History, p. 272.
[181] ‘Evidence of the Prophets in Egypt’, p. 141.
[182] “Amos”, JBC 14:24.
[183] Op. cit, p. 268.
[184] ‘The Libyans in Egypt’, p. 31.
[185] The Romance of Bible Chronology, p. 185.
[186] Ibid.
[187] Op. cit, vol. 2, pp. 122-132.
[188] Ramesses, p. 107.
[189] Ibid., p. 191.
[190] Grimal refers to this Amenmesse as “the son of an otherwise unknown daughter of Ramesses II called Takhat”. Op. cit., p. And Tydelesley thinks similarly that Amenmesse was “most likely to have been the son of either Merenptah or Ramesses II”. Ramesses, p. 170.
[191] Op. cit., p. 150.
[192] ‘Amenophis, Osarsiph and Arzu’, p. 14.
[193] ‘Comments by David Rohl’, p. 18.
[194] The Lost Testament, p. 405.
[195] Ibid., footnote *.
[196] Luban, Where is the Mummy of King Horemheb?
[197] Grimal, op. cit., p. 268.
[198] Ramesses, p. 191.
[199] ‘The House of David’.
[200] Op. cit., p. 161.
[201] Amenmesse Project.
[202] Op. cit., p. 150.
[203] ‘Comments by David Rohl’, p. 17.
[204] Ramesses, p. 192.
[205] Nefertiti, p. 182.
[206] Op. cit., p. 156. Emphasis added.
[207] Ibid., p. 158.
[208] Courville has written of 2 rulers (one male) by the name of Tausert (or Thuoris). Op. cit, pp. 284-286.
[209] Collier, op. cit, p. 79. “… the little Princess Beketaten, child of Tyi’s [Tiy’s] middle age”.
[210] Op. cit, p. 270.
[211] Ramesses, p. 36.
[212] Where is the Mummy of King Horemheb?
[213] Ramses II and His Time, p. 216.
[214] Ramesses, p. 15.
[215] Op. cit, p. 326.
[216] Ramesses, pp. 179, 182.
[217] Ibid., pp. 57, 188-189.
[218] View 19th Dynasty Royal Mummies ….
[219] Op. cit., p. 202.
[220] The Lost Tomb.
[221] Tombs. Treasures. Mummies.Addendum to Appendix Three, “Catalogue of the Mummies of KV35”.
[222] Ibid.
[223] Op. cit., pp. 28-283.
[224] Op. cit., pp. 180, 181.
[225] The Lost Tomb, p. 162.
[226] Ikram & Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt, p. 122, n. 124.
[227] Lissner, ‘Red Haired Mummies of Egypt’, section: “Blue Bloods. What Does It Really Mean?”
[228] Op. cit, p. 324.
[229] Nefertiti, p. 22.
[230] Ibid, p. 21.
[231] According to P. Newby, “[Seti I] was a handsome man with a firm, almost peaked jaw and an expression that could verge on the genial”. Warrior Pharaohs, p. 145.
[232] Ramesses, p. 14.
[233] Ibid., p. 15.
[234] Tyldesley, Nefertiti, p. 21.
[235] Pasenhor Genealogy.
[236] The Lost Testament, pp. 440-441.
[237] Mopsus.
[238] E.g. Rohl, The Lost Testament, pp. 409-410. He gives the name as Atarisiyas (Atreus).
[239] Ibid., p. 412.
[240] Op. cit.
[241] ‘Shoshenq I and the Traditions of New Kingdom Kingship in Egypt’, p. 31. Emphasis added.
[242] ‘The Bubasite Portal’, p. 34.
[243] Ibid, p. 35.
[244] The Relief of Sheshonk in Karnak.
[245] Kitchen certainly has the great triumph scene of Shoshenq I at Karnak dated to the very final years of that king, The Third Intermediate Period of Egypt, p. 73.
[246] E. Wente JNES 35 (1976), 275-278, as cited by J. Korbach, ‘Dirkzwager’s Revision Questioned’, p. 95.
[247] Centuries of Darkness, pp. 247ff.
[248] Ibid, p. 251.
[249] Ibid, pp. 251-252.
[250] Ibid, p. 252.
[251] Ibid, pp. 252-253.
[252] Ibid, pp. 253-254.
[253] Ibid, p. 255.
[254] ‘Pharaoh So and the Libyan Dynasty’. p. 22-23.
[255] Op. cit, p. 453.
[256] Ibid, p. 255, par. 2.
[257] Op. cit, p. 311.
[258] “David Rohl replies”, p. 20.
[259] Peoples of the Sea, pp. 188-189.
[260] Op. cit, pp. 321-322. In Rohl’s New Chronology, the conventional order of pharaohs Psusennes “is changed in chronological terms”. ‘David Rohl replies’, p. 19.
[261] For a while this was known as “the Rohl/James revision”. See e.g. ‘David Rohl replies’ to the ‘Rejoinder from Lester J. Mitcham’, p. 17.
[262] Rohl’s tables of complete TIP kings, revised, can be found for instance on ibid, pp. 19 & 21.
[263] ‘The Libyans in Egypt’.
[264] Op. cit.
[265] ‘The relief of Sheshonk in Karnak’, section: “The end of the 22nd Dynasty”, (un-numbered pages).
[266] Op. cit, p. 316.
[267] Centuries of Darkness, p. 232.
[268] Op. cit, p. 45.
[269] Ibid.
[270] Op. cit, p. 235.
[271] Ibid, pp. 236, 238. Emphasis added.
[272] Ibid, p. 243.
[273] ‘David Rohl replies’, p. 21.
[274] As discussed for instance in ibid.
[275] Pasenhor Genealogy.
[276] Op. cit, p. 318, with reference to H. Brugsch-Bey’s Egypt Under the Pharaohs, vol. II, pp. 203ff.
[277] ‘The Libyans in Egypt’, p. 35, with reference to M. Jones, op. cit.
[278] As referred to in P. James’ Centuries of Darkness, p. 242.
[279] Op. cit, pp. 331-332.
[280] Op. cit, pp. 333-334.
[281] Grimal, op. cit, p. 315.
[282] Ibid, p. 253. His Table 10:3.
[283] Ibid, p. 327.
[284] Grimal, op. cit, p. 322.
[285] Op. cit, pp. 328-329.
[286] The Third Intermediate Period of Egypt, pp. 287-288.
[287] The Lost Testament, p. 441.
[288] Op. cit, p. 328.
[289] Op. cit, p. 195. According to Grimal: “Ramesses III’s reign … was not without its troubles. After its twelfth year, he was beset by both political and economic problems”. Op. cit, p. 275.
[290] A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 157, Document 8:1 Excerpts from the treaty between Tudhaliya IV of Hatti and Shaushga-muwa of Amurru.
[291] The Relief of Sheshonk in Karnak.
[292] The Lost Testament, p. 441.
[293] Op. cit, p. 195, Table 8:3.
[294] The Lost Testament, p. 441.
[295] Op. cit, p. 187.
[296] As cited, ibid.
[297] Kitchen, op. cit, p. 302.
[298] ‘The Military Strategy of Shishak/Sheshonk in Palestine’, pp. 6-10.
[299] ‘Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?’, p. 67. Emphasis added.
[300] Kitchen, op. cit, p. 444, is critical of Mazar at least for having given such an impression of Shoshenq I’s campaign.
[301] ‘David Rohl Replies, ibid.
[302] Osorkon I.
[303] Op. cit, section v: “Nine Generations”.
[304] A Test of Time, Appendix B, pp. 379-381.
[305] Ibid., p. 381.
[306] Ibid., Appendix A, p. 378.
[307] Op. cit, section: “The end of the 22nd Dynasty”.
[308] A Test of Time, Appendix B, pp. 381-384.
[309] Ibid., p. 384.
[310] Op. cit, pp. 302-303.
[311] Op. cit, section “Pianchi and Osorkon”.
[312] Osorkon II.
[313] Op. cit, p. 4.
[314] ‘David Rohl replies’, p. 18.
[315] Ibid, pp. 30-31.
[316] Takelot II.
[317] Shoshenq III.
[318] ‘David Rohl replies’, p. 21.
[319] Ibid.
[320] Grimal’s dates, ibid, p. 393. Gardiner has 1184-1087 BC. Op. cit, p. 446.
[321] Op. cit, pp. 288, 294.
[322] Ramesses IV.
[323] Here I am basically following Grimal, op. cit., p. 393.
[324] Op. cit., p. 167.
[325] Ibid.
[326] However, Reeves et al. give him only 1 year. Op. cit., p. 167.
[327] Ancient Egypt: History and Chronology. My emphasis.
[328] Op. cit., pp. 169-170.
[329] Ibid., p. 168.
[330] Ibid, p. 299.
[331] “Comment by David Rohl”, p. 18.
[332] Op. cit, p. 276.
[333] Ibid, p. 277.
[334] Op. cit, p. 288.
[335] Ibid., pp. 170-171.
[336] Ibid, p. 307.
[337] Op. cit, pp. 2-5.
[338] Peoples of the Sea, pp. 7-13.
[339] The Exodus Problem, p. 307.
[340] Ibid. Emphasis added.
[341] Peoples of the Sea, ch. II: “Persians and Greeks Invade Egypt”.
[342] Cf. M. van de Mieroop’s A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 171; G. Roux’s Ancient Iraq, pp. 257, 260, 262.
[343] Op. cit.
[344] Ibid, p. 29.
[345] Ibid, p. 30. Emphasis added.
[346] Op. cit, p. 65.
[347] Ibid, pp. 76-77.
[348] Ibid, pp. 100, 101.
[349] Centuries of Darkness, pp. 255-256.
[350] Ibid, pp. 236-237, with reference to O. Procksch, Jesaja I, pp. 100-107.
[351] Ibid, p. 105.
[352] The Romance of Bible Chronology, pp. 200-201.
[353] Ibid, p. 201-202.
[354] Centuries of Darkness, p. 254.
[355] ‘The Libyans in Egypt’, p. 38.