Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar

by Damien F. Mackey “As we know from the correspondence left by the roya1 physicians and exorcists … his days were governed by spells of fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting, diarrhoea and painful earaches. Depressions and fear of impending death were a constant in his life. In addition, his physical appearance was affected by the marks of a permanent skin rash that covered large parts of his body and especially his face”. Karen Radner Introduction As we proceed, we shall briefly recall the biblical “Nebuchednezzar” likenesses of three mighty kings, two of whom - Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus - I have identified as alter egos of Nebuchednezzar so-called II, and one of whom, Cambyses, at least remarkably shares in these likenesses. And I can mention, in passing, Artaxerxes (so-called) III, who has been likened to Cambyses. But I now think that there is more to be said. ESARHADDON, supposed father of Ashurbanipal (= Nebuchednezzar), will be found to have suffered so profoundly from this “Nebuchednezzar Syndrome” as to force me consider (see Esarhaddon section in the latter part of this article) whether Esarhaddon needs to be merged into Ashurbanipal as I have merged Esarhaddon’s father, Sennacherib, into Sargon II. Ashurbanipal; Nabonidus; Cambyses; Artaxerxes III Keywords: Dreams; megalomania; massive building works; fiery furnace; illness-madness; revival and ‘conversion’; vindictive Egyptian campaign. Ashurbanipal Another common key-word (buzz word), or phrase, for various of these king-names would be ‘son of a nobody’, pertaining to a prince who was not expecting to be elevated to kingship. Thus I previously introduced Ashurbanipal-as-Nebuchednezzar/Nabonidus with the statement: “Nabonidus is not singular either in not expecting to become king. Ashurbanipal had felt the same”. I then continued: …. They [Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus] share many Babylonian building works and restorations, too. …. Ashurbanipal of 41-43 years of reign (figures vary) … Nebuchednezzar … the Great of an established 43 years of reign. …. The great Nebuchednezzar has left only 4 known depictions of himself, we are told. Ridiculous! …. The last 35 years of Nebuchednezzar are hardly known, they say. …. It is doubted whether Nebuchednezzar conquered Egypt as according to the Bible. … Ashurbanipal … certainly did conquer Egypt. …. Looking for a fiery furnace? Well, Ashurbanipal has one. His brother dies in it. “Saulmagina my rebellious brother, who made war with me, they threw into a burning fiery furnace, and destroyed his life” (Caiger, p. 176). …. Ashurbanipal also apparently had a lions’ den. For, according to Jonathan Grey, The Forbidden Secret (p. 102): “…. The biblical book of Daniel also records that the Hebrew captive Daniel was tossed into a den lions. (Daniel chapter 6) That such ‘lion’s [sic] den’ punishment was in keeping with the times is now proven by the discovery of that same inscription of Ashurbanipal that we just mentioned. It continues thus: The rest of the people who had rebelled they threw alive among bulls and lions, as Sennacherib … used to do. Lo, again following his footsteps, those men I threw into the midst of them. On one occasion, as the famed excavator Marcel Dieulafoy was digging amid the ruins of Babylon, he fell into a pit that appeared like an like an ancient well. After being rescued by his companions, he proceeded with the work of identification. How astonished was he to find that the pit had been used as a cage for wild animals! And upon the curb was this inscription: The Place of Execution, where men who angered the king died torn by wild animals”. I realise that the lions’ den episodes of the Book of Daniel pertain to the Dream-statue phase representing the Medo-Persian era. See my article: Was Daniel Twice in the Lions’ Den? https://www.academia.edu/24308877/Was_Daniel_Twice_in_the_Lions_Den’ but was it not Daniel’s “King Nebuchednezzar” who had threatened to ‘tear limb from limb’ his stalling wise men (Daniel 2:5)? See my article: How did Nebuchednezzar manage to tear offenders limb from limb? https://www.academia.edu/37307963/How_did_Nebuchednezzar_manage_to_tear_offenders_limb_from_limb Was Ashurbanipal a king of dreams? He was a typical superstitious and megalomaniacal Mesopotamian king. George Godspeed writes this of Ashurbanipal’s fanatical devotion to the gods: http://history-world.org/ashurbanipal.htm It is not strange, therefore, that in his finely wrought sculptures and brilliantly written inscriptions are depicted scenes of hideous brutality. Plunder, torture, anguish, and slaughter are dwelt upon with something of delight by the king, who sees in them the vengeance of the gods upon those that have broken their faith. The very religiousness of the royal butcher makes the shadows blacker. No Assyrian king was ever more devoted to the gods and dependent upon them. And Robert Moss writes in ‘Questioning dreams in ancient Mesopotamia”: http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/dreamgates/2014/07/questioning-dreams-in-ancient-mesopotamia.html#hzAzS0qrk6kGJHza.99 In Mesopotamia, as in most human cultures, dreaming was understood to be close kin to divination. The famous Assyrian dream book in the library of King Ashurbanipal — brought to Nineveh in 647 BCE [sic] from the house of an exorcist of Nippur — was filed with the omen tablets, the largest category in the royal collection. Among ordinary folk as well as in royal palaces, across most of history, dreamwork has never been separated from other ways of reading the sign language of life. …. Did he suffer an enduring illness, followed by a conversion? Well, this intriguing prayer was found in Ashurbanipal’s library: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iraq/article/new-fragments-of-gilgames-and-other-literary-texts-from-kuyunjik/1F360E8054C85DAC9FBF8B1BD322D416/core-reader …. 9. My bed is the ground! (penitential prayer alsīka ilī) The prayer alsīka ilī is one of the few extant examples of the group of the šigû-prayers, individual laments addressed to a deity in which the penitent acknowledges his sins and asks the god for absolution. …. …. 1. Incantation šigû: I have called upon you. My god, relent! 2. Relent, my god! Accept my supplication! 3. Harken to my weary prayers! 4. Learn at once the disgrace that has befallen me! 5. Keep listening to my lament, which I have made! 6. May the night bring you the tears which I weep! 7. Since the day (you), my lord, punished me, 8. and (you), the god who created me, became furious with me, 9. (since the day) you turned my house into my prison, 10. my bed is the ground, my sleeping place is dust, 11. I am deprived of sleep, distressed by nightmares, 12. I am troubled [in my ...], confused [in my ...]. B 9. I have been enduring a punishment [that I cannot bear.] …. Was Ashurbanipal a vindictive type? According to Lori L. Rowlett (Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis, p. 112): “’Ashurbanipal’s] treatment of his enemies (internal and external) is particularly horrible and vindictive …”. Nabonidus Scholars have noticed various “Nebuchednezzar” characteristics in King Nabonidus. Not least was the fact that, Nabonidus had, like “Nebuchednezzar”, a son named “Belshazzar”. There was also a seeming tendency on Nabonidus’s part towards a kind of monotheism – revering Sîn, the El of the Aramaeans – and a seeming rejection of the national god, Marduk. Coupled with this was, not unnaturally, a discomfort with the Babylonian clergy and wise men. {This tendency to ‘mess with the sacred rites’ is a further common link amongst our name-kings of this series} Nabonidus, like king Nebuchednezzar, had conquered Cilicia. We read about this at: https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/kue “KUE ku’ ĭ (קְוֵ֕ה). An ancient name for E Cilicia (Rom.: Cilicia Pedias), in SE Asia Minor. …. A document of Nebuchadnezzar II (dated between 595 and 570 b.c.), mentions the land of Hu-m-e, pronounced Khuwe or Khwe. It also occurs in the Istanbul Stele of Nabonidus”. One also encounters many cases of Nabonidus’s recounting his own dreams. I found so many similarities beginning to loom that I eventually came to the conclusion that Nabonidus was king Nebuchednezzar (or Nebuchedrezzar) – that what we have recorded of king Nabonidus simply represents the first phase of the long reign of Nebuchednezzar. As is apparent from Beaulieu, Nabonidus considered himself to be the successor of the great Assyrian empire – a viewpoint that would have more clout perhaps if he had ruled closer to that period (c. 605 BC) than Nabonidus is conventionally considered to have done (c. 556 BC). Then there is Nabonidus’s strange disappearance to Teima (Tayma) in Arabia for ten years. During some of this time he was ill. It is due to this situation that scholars think that the Book of Daniel has confused Nebuchednezzar with Nabonidus. Indeed a Dead Sea Scrolls fragment tells of a protracted illness suffered by Nabonidus. For more on all this, see the following article of mine, which, I think, serves adequately to cover the “Nabonidus” part of this present article: Daniel's “Nebuchednezzar” a better fit for King Nabonidus? (4) Daniel's "Nebuchednezzar" a better fit for King Nabonidus? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The Book of Daniel is charged with all sorts of historical inaccuracies, a fault more likely of the perceived history rather than of the Book of Daniel itself. Admittedly, some of the things that the author of Daniel attributes to “King Nebuchednezzar” appear to be better suited to Nabonidus, the supposed last king of the Babylonian (Chaldean) empire. Yet there might be a good reason why this is the case. “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him. This matter [is] by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the Holy Ones: to the intent that the living may know that The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men”. Daniel 4:16-17 The early career of the Chaldean king, Nabonidus, may be replete with parallel likenesses to that as written about the “Nebuchednezzar” in Daniel chapters 1-5. Though it would be much over-stating things to claim that King Nabonidus became a monotheist, there is a definite progression in that direction in the course of his reign. According to Paul-Alain Beaulieu, "The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556-539 B.C." (1989), p. 63: “… there is no evidence that the king [Nabonidus] tried to impost the cult of Sîn as supreme deity in his early reign”. But, as Beaulieu will interpret it (p. 62): “Upon his return from Arabia, Nabonidus imposed a major religious reform, resulting in the rejection of Marduk, the undisputed supreme god of Babylon of the past six centuries …”. Cambyses “The Chronicle of John of Nikiu who wrote of Cambyses[’] exploits after his name change to Nebuchadnezzar. He wrote of how Cambyses under his new name Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and desolated Egypt. It becomes apparent therefore that John gave credit to Cambyses for what Nebuchadnezzar accomplished”. http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/THIK59UKCUF68BLNL/evidence-indicating-egypts-40-year-desolation Previously I wrote, regarding likenesses I had perceived between Cambyses and my various alter egos for king Nebuchednezzar (including Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus): Common factors here may include ‘divine’ madness; confounding the priests by messing with the Babylonian rites; and the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia. I was then totally unaware of this name claim about Cambyses by John of Nikiu. … my enlargement of the historical Nebuchednezzar, through alter egos, to embrace Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus - and now, too, perhaps, Cambyses - provides a complete ‘profile’ of the biblical king that ‘covers all bases’, so to speak. For some time, now, I have suspected that the mad but powerful, Egypt-conquering Cambyses had to be the same as the mad but powerful, Egypt-conquering Nebuchednezzar. And now I learn that the C7th AD Egyptian Coptic bishop, John of Nikiû (680-690 AD, conventional dating), had told that Cambyses was also called Nebuchednezzar. This new piece of information has emboldened me to do - what I have wanted to - and that is to say with confidence that Cambyses was Nebuchednezzar. That Nebuchednezzar also reigned in Susa is evidenced by (if I am right) my identification of him with the “king Artaxerxes” of the Book of Nehemiah, who was a “king of Babylon”. Whilst critics can argue that the “king Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of Daniel may not necessarily be a good match for the historico-biblical Nebuchednezzar, but that he seems more likely to have been based on king Nabonidus, my enlargement of the historical Nebuchednezzar, through alter egos, to embrace Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus - and now, too, Cambyses - provides a complete ‘profile’ of the biblical king that ‘covers all bases’, so to speak. “In view of all this, I have no doubt that Cambyses was completely out of his mind; it is the only possible explanation of his assault upon, and mockery of, everything which ancient law and custom have made sacred in Egypt”. Herodotus When subjecting neo-Babylonian history to a serious revision, I had reached the conclusion that Nebuchednezzar had needed to be folded with Nabonidus, and that Nebuchednezzar’s son-successor, Evil-Merodach, needed to be folded with Nabonidus’s son, Belshazzar. That accorded perfectly with the testimony of the Book of Daniel that “Nebuchednezzar” was succeeded by his son, “Belshazzar”. Cambyses Books, articles and classics have been written about the madness of King Cambyses, he conventionally considered to have been the second (II) king of that name, a Persian (c. 529-522 BC), and the son/successor of Cyrus the Great. The tradition is thought to have begun with the C5th BC Greek historian, Herodotus, according to whom (The Histories) http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/herodotus/cambyses.htm [3.29.1] When the priests led Apis in, Cambyses–for he was all but mad–drew his dagger and, meaning to stab the calf in the belly, stuck the thigh; then laughing he said to the priests: [3.29.2] “Simpletons, are these your gods, creatures of flesh and blood that can feel weapons of iron? That is a god worthy of the Egyptians. But for you, you shall suffer for making me your laughing-stock.” So saying he bade those, whose business it was, to scourge the priests well, and to kill any other Egyptian whom they found holiday-making. [3.29.3] So the Egyptian festival ended, and the priests were punished, and Apis lay in the temple and died of the wound in the thigh. When he was dead of the wound, the priests buried him without Cambyses’ knowledge. [3.30.1] But Cambyses, the Egyptians say, owing to this wrongful act immediately went mad, although even before he had not been sensible. His first evil act was to destroy his full brother Smerdis, whom he had sent away from Egypt to Persia out of jealousy, because Smerdis alone could draw the bow brought from the Ethiopian by the Fish-eaters as far as two fingerbreadths, but no other Persian could draw it. [3.30.2] Smerdis having gone to Persia, Cambyses saw in a dream a vision, in which it seemed to him that a messenger came from Persia and told him that Smerdis sitting on the royal throne touched heaven with his head. [3.30.3] Fearing therefore for himself, lest his brother might slay him and so be king, he sent Prexaspes, the most trusted of his Persians, to Persia to kill him. Prexaspes went up to Susa and killed Smerdis; some say that he took Smerdis out hunting, others that he brought him to the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf) and there drowned him. …. [End of quote] And: http://www.livius.org/sources/content/herodotus/herodotus-comment-on- Herodotus’ Comment on Cambyses’ Madness [3.38] In view of all this, I have no doubt that Cambyses was completely out of his mind; it is the only possible explanation of his assault upon, and mockery of, everything which ancient law and custom have made sacred in Egypt. [End of quote] Scholarly articles have been written in an attempt to diagnose the illness of Cambyses, sometimes referred to – as in the case of Julius Caesar’s epilepsy – as a ‘divine’ or ‘sacred’ disease. For example (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11594937): Arch Neurol. 2001 Oct; 58(10):1702-4. The sacred disease of Cambyses II. York GK1, Steinberg DA. Abstract Herodotus’ account of the mad acts of the Persian king Cambyses II contains one of the two extant pre-Hippocratic Greek references to epilepsy. This reference helps to illuminate Greek thinking about epilepsy, and disease more generally, in the time immediately preceding the publication of the Hippocratic treatise on epilepsy, On the Sacred Disease. Herodotus attributed Cambyses’ erratic behavior as ruler of Egypt to either the retribution of an aggrieved god or to the fact that he had the sacred disease. Herodotus considered the possibility that the sacred disease was a somatic illness, agreeing with later Hippocratic authors that epilepsy has a natural rather than a divine cause. …. [End of quote] The character of Cambyses as presented in various ancient traditions is thoroughly treated in Herb Storck’s excellent monograph, History and Prophecy: A Study in the Post-Exilic Period (House of Nabu, 1989). Messing with the rites As was the case with King Nabonidus (= Nebuchednezzar), so did Cambyses apparently fail properly to observe established protocol with the Babylonian rites. Regarding the rebellious behaviour of King Nabonidus with regard to the rites, I wrote previously: Confounding the Astrologers Despite his superstitious nature the “Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of Daniel – and indeed his alter egos, Nebuchednezzar/Nabonidus – did not hesitate at times to dictate terms to his wise men or astrologers (2:5-6): The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.” And so, in the Verse Account, we read too of Nabonidus’ interference in matters ritualistic in the presence of sycophantic officials: Yet he continues to mix up the rites, he confuses the hepatoscopic oracles. To the most important ritual observances, he orders an end; as to the sacred representations in Esagila -representations which Eamumma himself had fashioned- he looks at the representations and utters blasphemies. When he saw the usar-symbol of Esagila, he makes an [insulting?] gesture. He assembled the priestly scholars, he expounded to them as follows: ‘Is not this the sign of ownership indicating for whom the temple was built? If it belongs really to Bêl, it would have been marked with the spade. Therefore the Moon himself has marked already his own temple with the usar-symbol!’ And Zeriya, the šatammu who used to crouch as his secretary in front of him, and Rimut, the bookkeeper who used to have his court position near to him, do confirm the royal dictum, stand by his words, they even bare their heads to pronounce under oath: ‘Now only we understand this situation, after the king has explained about it!’ [End of quote] Paul-Alain Beaulieu, in his book, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556-539 B.C. (1989), gives another similar instance pertaining to an eclipse (Col. III 2), likening it also to the action of “Nebuchednezzar” in the Book of Daniel (pp. 128-129): The scribes brought baskets from Babylon (containing) the tablets of the series enūma Anu Enlil to check (it, but since) he did not hearken to (what it said), he did not understand what it meant. The passage is difficult, but its general implications are clear. Whether Nabonidus had already made up his mind as to the meaning of the eclipse and therefore refused to check the astrological series, or did check them but disagreed with the scribes on their interpretation, it seems that the consecration of En-nigaldi-Nanna [daughter of Nabonidus] was felt to be uncalled for. This alleged stubbornness of the king is perhaps reflected in the Book of Daniel, in the passage where Nebuchednezzar (i.e. Nabonidus), after having dismissed the plea of the “Chaldeans”, states that the matter is settled for him (Daniel II, 3-5) …. But this does not imply that Nabonidus was necessarily wrong in his interpretation of the eclipse; on the contrary, all the evidence suggests that he was right. However, he may have “forced” things slightly …. [End of quote] According to Encyclopaedia Iranica on Cambyses II: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cambyses-opers A badly damaged passage in the chronicle of Nabonidus contains a report that, in order to legitimize his appointment, Cambyses partici¬pated in the ritual prescribed for the king at the traditional New Year festival on 27 March 538 B.C., accepting the royal scepter from the hands of Marduk in Esagila, the god’s temple in Babylon (III. 24-28; Gray¬son, p. 111). A. L. Oppenheim attempted a reconstruc¬tion of the damaged text (Survey of Persian Art XV, p. 3501); according to his version, Cambyses entered the temple in ordinary Elamite attire, fully armed. The priests persuaded him to lay down his arms, but he refused to change his clothes for those prescribed in the ritual. He then received the royal scepter. In Oppenheim’s view Cambyses thus deliberately demon¬strated “a deep-seated religious conviction” hostile to this alien religion (Camb. Hist. Iran II, p. 557). [End of quote] King Cambyses’ wanton treatment of Egypt-Ethiopia “A Jewish document from 407 BC known as ‘The Demotic Chronicle’ speaks of Cambyses destroying all the temples of the Egyptian gods”. Of Nebuchednezzar’s conquest of Egypt, well-attested in the Bible, it is extremely difficult to find substantial account in the historical records. Not so with the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia by Cambyses. Nebuchednezzar was, very early in his reign, militarily involved against Egypt – with greater or lesser success: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Nebuchadnezzar.aspx Early in 605 B.C. he met Necho, the king of Egypt, in battle and defeated him at Carchemish. A few months later Nabopolassar died, and Nebuchadnezzar hastened home to claim his throne. He soon returned to the west in order to secure the loyalty of Syria and Palestine and to collect tribute; among those who submitted were the rulers of Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, and Judah. Nebuchadnezzar’s Conquests In 601 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar attempted the invasion of Egypt but was repulsed with heavy losses. Judah rebelled, but Jerusalem fell in March 597 B.C., and the ruler, Jehoiakim, and his court were deported to Babylon. Eight years later another Jewish rebellion broke out; this time Jerusalem was razed and the population carried into captivity. [End of quote] This article then follows with an intriguing piece of information: “Expeditions against the Arabs in 582 B.C. and another attempt at invading Egypt in 568 B.C. receive brief mention in Nebuchadnezzar’s later records”. But sceptics say that Nebuchednezzar never actually succeeded in conquering Egypt, hence the Bible is wrong, and that it was Cambyses instead who conquered Egypt. For instance: http://www.sanityquestpublishing.com/essays/BabEgypt.html BABYLON NEVER CONQUERED EGYPT The Bible never says Nebuchadnezzar the Second (hereafter Neb-2) conquered Egypt. The idea Neb-2 conquered Egypt would never have been considered a serious historical possibility, but for 4 facts: 1. Jeremiah & Ezekiel both predicted that Neb-2 would conquer Egypt. 2. Jeremiah & Ezekiel are both considered true prophets. 3. According to Deut. 18:22, true prophets are never wrong about a prediction. 4. Jesus said (Mat 5:18) “One jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law until all be fulfilled.” b. Paul said (2Tim 3:16) “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” Both of these verses are erroneously interpreted by many Christians as meaning the entire Bible contains no errors. If you disagree with the preceding statement, the rest of this essay will be irrelevant to you, because you will be judging all historical evidence by its conformity to the Bible. This makes you literally not worth talking to outside of the company of others who do the same. Such Christians to try to muddy historical evidence that contradicts the Bible. e.g. One proposed that there were two Nebuchadnezzars, the second being Cambyses: http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/calvin/comm_vol24/htm/xiii.ii.htm (Actually there were two Nebs, but the first ruled Babylon c.1124-1104BC.) This essay is based on the assumption that the historical parts of the Bible should be judged for accuracy by the same rules as any other ancient historical document. …. Unlike any supposed conquest by NEB-2, the conquest of Egypt by CAMBYSES-2 is well attested. [End of quote] Cambyses in Egypt The above article is correct at least in its final statement quoted here: “… the conquest of Egypt by CAMBYSES-2 is well attested”. The article goes on to tell of the various ancient evidences for this great conquest: EGYPTIAN EVIDENCE We possess the autobiography of the admiral of the Egyptian fleet, Wedjahor-Resne. It is written on a small statue now in the Vatican Museums in Rome. After the conquest of Egypt, Wedjahor-Resne was Cambyses’ right-hand man. “The great king of all foreign countries Cambyses came to Egypt, taking the foreigners of every foreign country with him. When he had taken possession of the entire country, they settled themselves down therein, and he was made great sovereign of Egypt and great king of all foreign countries. His Majesty appointed me his chief physician and caused me to stay with him in my quality of companion and director of the palace, and ordered me to compose his titulary, his name as king of Upper and Lower Egypt.” In an inscription on the statue of Udjadhorresnet, a Saite priest and doctor, as well as a former naval officer, we learn that Cambyses II was prepared to work with and promote native Egyptians to assist in government, and that he showed at least some respect for Egyptian religion: “I let His Majesty know the greatness of Sais, that it is the seat of Neith-the-Great, mother who bore Re and inaugurated birth when birth had not yet been…I made a petition to the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Cambyses, about all the foreigners who dwelled in the temple of Neith, in order to have them expelled from it., so as to let the temple of Neith be in all its splendor, as it had been before. His Majesty commanded to expel all the foreigners who dwelled in the temple of Neith, to demolish all their houses and all their unclean things that were in the temple. When they had carried all their personal belongings outside the wall of the temple, His Majesty commanded to cleanse the temple of Neith and to return all its personnel to it…and the hour-priests of the temple. His Majesty commanded to give divine offerings to Neith-the-Great, the mother of god, and to the great gods of Sais, as it had been before. His Majesty knew the greatness of Sais, that it is a city of all the gods, who dwell there on their seats forever.” HERODOTUS Herodotus (who, to my knowledge, never mentions Nebuchadnezzar by name) describes his Hanging Gardens, but never mentions him in relation to Egypt, though Herodotus does talk about pharaohs Necho, Hophra, Ahmose, and Psamtik. [Necos, Apries, Amasis, and Psammis] and of course, Cambyses. Herodotus notes how the Persians easily entered Egypt across the desert. They were advised by the defecting mercenary general, Phanes of Halicarnassus, to employ the Bedouins as guides. However, Phanes had left his two sons in Egypt. We are told that for his treachery, as the armies of the Persians and the mercenary army of the Egyptians met, his sons were bought out in front of the Egyptian army where they could be seen by their father, and there throats were slit over a large bowl. Afterwards, Herodotus tells us that water and wine were added to the contents of the bowl and drunk by every man in the Egyptian force. “When Cambyses had entered the palace of Amasis, he gave command to take the corpse of Amasis out of his burial-place. When this had been done, he ordered [his courtiers] to scourge it and pluck out the hair and stab it, and to dishonor it in every other possible way. When they had done this too, they were wearied out, for the corpse was embalmed and held out against the violence and did not fall to pieces. Cambyses gave command to consume it with fire, a thing that was not permitted by his own religion. The Persians hold fire to be a god and to consume corpses with fire is by no means according to the Persian or Egyptian custom.” [Histories 3.16] MANETHO lists the pharaohs of the 26th dynasty, then cites the Persians as the 27th dynasty. “Cambyses reigned over his own kingdom, Persia, five years, and then over Egypt one year.” PERSIAN EVIDENCE According to king, Darius I’s BEHISTUN INSCRIPTION, Cambyses, before going to Egypt, had secretly killed his brother, Bardiya, whom Herodotus called Smerdis. The murdered prince was, however, impersonated by Gaumata the Magian, who in March 522 seized the Achaemenid throne. Cambyses, on his return from Egypt, heard of the revolt in Syria, where he died in the summer of 522, either by his own hand or as the result of an accident. (10) King Darius says: The following is what was done by me after I became king. A son of Cyrus, named Cambyses, one of our dynasty, was king here before me. That Cambyses had a brother, Smerdis by name, of the same mother and the same father as Cambyses. Afterwards, Cambyses slew this Smerdis. When Cambyses slew Smerdis, it was not known unto the people that Smerdis was slain. Thereupon Cambyses went to Egypt. When Cambyses had departed into Egypt, the people became hostile, and the lie multiplied in the land, even in Persia and Media, and in the other provinces. OTHER EVIDENCE A Jewish document from 407 BC known as ‘The Demotic Chronicle’ speaks of Cambyses destroying all the temples of the Egyptian gods. Greek geographer STRABO of Amasia visited Thebes in 24 BC and saw the ruins of several temples said (by local priests) to have been destroyed by Cambyses. [End of quote] Cambyses – in your dreams “Cambyses has a “Nebuchednezzar” like dream-vision of a king whose head touched heaven”. Our neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, was, true to form (as an alter ego for Daniel’s “Nebuchednezzar”), a frequent recipient of dreams and visions. For example, I wrote previously: Nabonidus was, like “Nebuchednezzar”, an excessively pious man, and highly superstitious. The secret knowledge of which he boasted was what he had acquired through his dreams. Another characteristic that Nabonidus shared with “Nebuchednezzar”. Nabonidus announced (loc. cit.): “The god Ilteri has made me see (dreams), he has made everything kno[wn to me]. I surpass in all (kinds of) wisdom (even the series) uskar-Anum-Enlilla, which Adap[a] composed”. …. [End of quote] In Beaulieu’s book … we read further of King Nabonidus: “I did not stop going to the diviner and the dream interpreter”. And of King Nebuchednezzar – with whom I am equating Nabonidus – the prophet Ezekiel writes similarly of that king’s omen seeking (21:21): “The king of Babylon now stands at the fork, uncertain whether to attack Jerusalem or Rabbah. He calls his magicians to look for omens. They cast lots by shaking arrows from the quiver. They inspect the livers of animal sacrifices”. [End of quote] Ashurbanipal, likewise - he being yet another alter ego - gave immense credence to dreams and used a dream book. Ashurbanipal was, like Nabonidus, more superstitious, if I may say it, than Nostradamus being pursued by a large black cat under a ladder - on the thirteenth. Karen Radner tells of Ashurbanipal’s reliance upon dreams, in Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and scholars (p. 224): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sargon/downloads/radner_fs_parpola_2009.pdf In the Biblical attestations, especially in the stories of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Joseph in Egypt, the ḫarṭummîm … [wizards] figure prominently as experts in the interpretation of dreams, and it may be this kind of expertise which the ḫarṭibē offered to the Assyrian king; dream oracles were certainly popular with Assurbanipal who used dreams … to legitimise his actions in his royal inscriptions … and whose library contained the dream omen series Zaqīqu (also Ziqīqu). …. [End of quote] Now, what of Cambyses in this regard? Well, according to Herodotus (http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/herodotus/cambyses.htm) [3.30.1] But Cambyses, the Egyptians say, owing to this wrongful act immediately went mad, although even before he had not been sensible. His first evil act was to destroy his full brother Smerdis, whom he had sent away from Egypt to Persia out of jealousy, because Smerdis alone could draw the bow brought from the Ethiopian by the Fish-eaters as far as two fingerbreadths, but no other Persian could draw it. [3.30.2] Smerdis having gone to Persia, Cambyses saw in a dream a vision, in which it seemed to him that a messenger came from Persia and told him that Smerdis sitting on the royal throne touched heaven with his head. [3.30.3] Fearing therefore for himself, lest his brother might slay him and so be king, he sent Prexaspes, the most trusted of his Persians, to Persia to kill him. Prexaspes went up to Susa and killed Smerdis; some say that he took Smerdis out hunting, others that he brought him to the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf) and there drowned him. [End of quote] This is actually, as we shall now find, quite Danielic. Cambyses has a “Nebuchednezzar” like dream-vision of a king whose head touched heaven. Likewise, “Nebuchednezzar” had a dream of a “tree … which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky” (Daniel 4:20). Now, given that this “tree” symbolised “Nebuchednezzar” himself, who was also according to an earlier dream a “head of gold (Daniel 2:38), then one might say that, as in the case of Cambyses dream-vision of a king whose head touched heaven, so did “Nebuchednezzar” touch the sky (heaven) with his head (of gold). Artaxerxes III Not only do scholars liken Artaxerxes (so-called) III in many ways to Cambyses (see e.g. N. Grimal in A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell), but Artaxerxes III, though “considered to be a mighty Persian king, is heavily based upon the Neo-Babylonian Great king, Nebuchednezzar”. Esarhaddon a builder of Babylon become strangely ill “At that time it had become increasingly clear that Esarhaddon's physical condition was poorly: He was constantly struck with illness, mostly of a rather severe nature. For days, he withdrew to his sleeping quarters and refused food, drink and, most disturbingly, any human company …”. Karen Radner A summary so far According to the findings in this article (and other related works of mine), Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’, the “Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of Daniel, had, as his alter egos, Ashurbanipal and Nabonidus (whose son was, like the biblical Nebuchednezzar, Belshazzar). A further alter ego of his may have been the mad, Egypt-conquering Cambyses. And Artaxerxes III - likely a composite character - appears to have been heavily based upon Nebuchednezzar, who bears the title “Artaxerxes” in the Book of Nehemiah. Recently I have found cause to include Esarhaddon in this “Nebuchednezzar Syndrome” mix. Here are the reasons why. Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, as a builder of Babylon, who, as we are going to find, suffered a protracted, debilitating and most mysterious type of illness, looms, from such a point of view, as a perfect alter ego for Nebuchednezzar. He, a potent Mesopotamian king, was, of course, a conqueror of Egypt. Added to this, it may be that the Ahikar (var. Achior) who thrived in the court of Esarhaddon, was present, as the high official Arioch, in the court of the “Nebuchednezzar” of Daniel. See my article: Did Daniel meet Ahikar? (4) Did Daniel meet Ahikar? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Yet there is more. Common to my “Nebuchednezzar Syndrome” candidates is a tendency to contrariness, or individualism, in the face of established religious or sapiential protocol. I have already written about this as follows: Messing with the rites …. Regarding the rebellious behaviour of King Nabonidus with regard to the rites, I wrote …: Confounding the Astrologers Despite his superstitious nature the “Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of Daniel – and indeed his alter egos, Nebuchednezzar/Nabonidus – did not hesitate at times to dictate terms to his wise men or astrologers (2:5-6): The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.” And so, in the Verse Account, we read too of Nabonidus’ interference in matters ritualistic in the presence of sycophantic officials: Yet he continues to mix up the rites, he confuses the hepatoscopic oracles. To the most important ritual observances, he orders an end; as to the sacred representations in Esagila - representations which Eamumma himself had fashioned - he looks at the representations and utters blasphemies. When he saw the usar-symbol of Esagila, he makes an [insulting?] gesture. He assembled the priestly scholars, he expounded to them as follows: ‘Is not this the sign of ownership indicating for whom the temple was built? If it belongs really to Bêl, it would have been marked with the spade. Therefore the Moon himself has marked already his own temple with the usar-symbol!’ And Zeriya, the šatammu who used to crouch as his secretary in front of him, and Rimut, the bookkeeper who used to have his court position near to him, do confirm the royal dictum, stand by his words, they even bare their heads to pronounce under oath: ‘Now only we understand this situation, after the king has explained about it!’ …. Paul-Alain Beaulieu, in his book, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556-539 B.C. (1989), gives another similar instance pertaining to an eclipse (Col. III 2), likening it also to the action of “Nebuchednezzar” in the Book of Daniel (pp. 128-129): The scribes brought baskets from Babylon (containing) the tablets of the series enūma Anu Enlil to check (it, but since) he did not hearken to (what it said), he did not understand what it meant. The passage is difficult, but its general implications are clear. Whether Nabonidus had already made up his mind as to the meaning of the eclipse and therefore refused to check the astrological series, or did check them but disagreed with the scribes on their interpretation, it seems that the consecration of En-nigaldi-Nanna [daughter of Nabonidus] was felt to be uncalled for. This alleged stubbornness of the king is perhaps reflected in the Book of Daniel, in the passage where Nebuchednezzar (i.e. Nabonidus), after having dismissed the plea of the “Chaldeans”, states that the matter is settled for him (Daniel II, 3-5) …. But this does not imply that Nabonidus was necessarily wrong in his interpretation of the eclipse; on the contrary, all the evidence suggests that he was right. However, he may have “forced” things slightly …. Again, in the case of Cambyses, we encounter this unconventional situation: A badly damaged passage in the chronicle of Nabonidus contains a report that, in order to legitimize his appointment, Cambyses partici¬pated in the ritual prescribed for the king at the traditional New Year festival on 27 March 538 B.C., accepting the royal scepter from the hands of Marduk in Esagila, the god’s temple in Babylon (III. 24-28; Gray¬son, p. 111). A. L. Oppenheim attempted a reconstruc¬tion of the damaged text (Survey of Persian Art XV, p. 3501); according to his version, Cambyses entered the temple in ordinary Elamite attire, fully armed. The priests persuaded him to lay down his arms, but he refused to change his clothes for those prescribed in the ritual. He then received the royal scepter. In Oppenheim’s view Cambyses thus deliberately demon¬strated “a deep-seated religious conviction” hostile to this alien religion (Camb. Hist. Iran II, p. 557). Now, Esarhaddon is found to have behaved in just the same fashion as had “Nebuchednezzar”, as had Nabonidus, as had Cambyses. He, in order to justify and facilitate his re-building of the city, Babylon, “turned upside down” the decreed number of 70 years, attributing his subterfuge to the intervention of Marduk: “Seventy years as the measure of its desolation he wrote (in the Book of Fate). But the merciful [Marduk] —his anger lasted but a moment— turned (the Book of Fate) upside down and ordered its restoration in the eleventh year”. Though the reign of Esarhaddon (c. 681 - 669 BC, conventional dating), like that of Nabonidus, is thought to have been relatively short, at least by comparison with that of Nebuchednezzar, I have suggested that what we have of Nabonidus constitutes only the early reign of Nebuchednezzar. The same may apply to Esarhaddon. “… in a society that saw illness as a divine punishment, a king who was constantly confined to the sick bay could not expect to meet with sympathy and understanding”. Here, though, I - with Nebuchednezzar well in mind - want only to focus upon the illness aspect of Esarhaddon, as it has been wonderfully laid bare by Karen Radner, in “The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC”. (The BC dates are her dates not mine): https://repositorio.uam.es/bitstream/handle/10486/3476/24522_10.pdf?sequence=1 Esarhaddon became king of Assyria in the year 681. Despite the fact that his father and predecessor Sennacherib (704-680) had made him crown prince two years earlier and had had the whole country take an oath on behalf of his chosen heir, this happened against all odds: Esarhaddon had not been Sennacherib's first choice and in order to have him installed as crown prince, the old king first needed to dismiss another of his sons from the office …. Mackey’s comment: Thus Esarhaddon had not expected to become king as we found to be the case with Ashurbanipal, with Nabonidus. Karen Radner continues: This son, Urdu-Mullissi by name, had been crown prince and heir apparent to the Assyrian empire for well over a dozen years when he suddenly had to resign from the prominent position; the reasons for his forced resignation are unknown, but were obviously not grave enough to have him pay with his life. Despite the fact that Urdu-Mullissi had to swear loyalty to his younger brother, he opposed his elevation to the office of crown prince, conspired against Esarhaddon and tried to cause Sennacherib to take back the appointment; the king did not comply, but the situation was clearly very precarious, and the new heir was sent into exile for his own protection. Sennacherib does not seem to have realised just how dangerous his decision to back Esarhaddon's promotion was for his own life; otherwise it is a mystery how the former crown prince Urdu-Mullissi could be allowed to stay in his father's closest proximity where, right under his nose, he plotted to become king. Sennacherib seems to have been caught completely off-guard when Urdu-Mullissi and another son of his attacked him with drawn swords in a temple of Nineveh: On the 20th day of the tenth month of 681 … Sennacherib was killed by the hands of his own sons whose deed caused a stir all over the Near East, best witnessed by the report found in the Old Testarnent …. Yet the kingship that Urdu-Mullissi craved for was not to be his. The aftermath of the murder saw fiction between him and his conspirators; his accession to the throne was delayed and ultimately never took place at all. Assyria was in chaos when Esarhaddon, leading a small army, entered the country from his western exile and marched towards the heartland of the empire. He managed to drive out the murderers of Sennacherib … and, two months after the assassination, he became king of Assyria …. These bloody events shaped the new king profoundly. It comes as no great surprise that after his accession to the throne Esarhaddon ordered all conspirators and political enemies within reach to be killed; yet he could not touch the leader of the conspiracy as Urdu-Mullissi had found asylum in Urartu …. That Assyria's northern neighbour would harbour the murderer of Sennacherib is not at all unexpected: The two countries had been in an almost constant state of war for the past two centuries. At that time, chances were that Urdu-Mullissi still might become king and in that event, the Urartian king could reasonably expect to gain substantial influence over Assyria. In the meantime, Esarhaddon made an effort to ensure that his brother would not have any powerful allies at home, should he ever try to stage a coup d'etat from his exile: Many officials throughout the country who were suspected of entertaining sympathy for the enemy fraction were replaced. To give but one example, the complete security staff at the royal palaces of Nineveh and Kabu was dismissed … it is of course understood that these men were not sent into retirement: They will have been executed. Henceforth, Esarhaddon met his environs as a rule with overwhelming distrust. Routinely, he sought to establish by means of oracular queries whether certain courtiers, officials and even members of the royal family wished him ill or actively tried to harm him …. Mackey’s comment: Hence that complete distrust of “Chaldean” sages in the Book of Daniel? Karen Radner continues: If he seems to have been wary of his male relatives, he appears to have entertained less suspicions about the women of his family. This is certainly one of reason why Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, his wife Ešarra-ḫammat and his eldest daughter Šerua-eṭirat were able to wield an amount of influence that has few parallels in Ancient Near Eastern history …. The power of his wife was much noticed even outside palace circles; it is quite extraordinary that her death in the year 673 is mentioned prominently in two contemporary chronicle texts". The devoted widower had a mausoleum erected and special rites for his wife's funerary care installed …. Even more remarkable, he did not get married again … Mackey’s comment: But is that statement true only under his guise of Esarhaddon? Karen Radner continues: … the vacant position of the Assyrian queen was hitherto occupied by his mother Naqi'a … who had already played an important role in Esarhaddon's appointment as crown prince and in his eventual taking of power: This is most obvious from a prophecy which records the encouraging words of Ištar of Arbela to Naqi'a during the time of Esarhaddon's exile …. That also the daughter Šerua-eṭirat occupied a prominent position at her father's court is known from some letters that speaks of her self-confidence …. Her far-reaching influence is apparent from the fact that in later years she acted as a mediator in the conflict between her brothers, the kings of Assyria and Babylon …; this is without parallel for any Near Eastern woman of that time. Esarhaddon's general distrust against his environment is also mirrored by his choice of residence. He had a palace in the city of Kalbu … adapted which his forefather Shalmaneser III (858-824) had constructed as an armoury some two centuries earlier. This building was situated far from the administrative and cultic centre of the city, on top of a seperate [sic] mound that protected it well from its surroundings. In the years between 676 and 672, Esarhaddon had the old building renovated and enhanced, turning it into a veritable stronghold: The gateways especially were turned into strongly fortified and impregnable towers that, if needed, could be used to seal off the palace against the rest of the city. The only access to the building was through a narrow entrance, leading into a long and steep hallway inside the enclosing wall which was protected by a sequence of severa1 heavy doors and which steeply ascended towards the palace. Esarhaddon had a similar palace erected in Nineveh, also far removed from the acropolis proper at Kuyunjik on the separate mound of Nebi Yunus …; however, as this is today the site of one of Mossul's most important mosques, the building is only insufficiently explored …. In the first years of his rule, Esarhaddon proved himself a successful regent who, after a chaotic start, was able to consolidate his kingship and efficiently prevented segregation and territorial losses. Treacherous vassals, who had thought Assyria weakened and had tried to benefit from this, had to come to the painful realisation that Esarhaddon fully controlled his governors and his army and was able to take revenge for treason in the same way as his predecessors had done: As a consequence, the vassal kingdoms of Sidon and of Šubria were conquered and turned into Assyrian provinces …. The completion of a peace treaty with Elam, Assyria's long-standing rival in Iran, in the year 674 must be seen as a skilful political manoeuvre, and the securing of the Eastern border provided Assyria for the first time ever with the chance to attempt and exploit the power vacuum in Egypt to its own advantages - Assyria's first invasion into Egypt, however, ended with a defeat against Taharqa the Nubian, and a hasty retreat …. At that time it had become increasingly clear that Esarhaddon's physical condition was poorly: He was constantly struck with illness, mostly of a rather severe nature. For days, he withdrew to his sleeping quarters and refused food, drink and, most disturbingly, any human company … Mackey’s comment: (Daniel 4:24-25): ‘It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men …’. Karen Radner continues: … the death of his beloved wife in the year 673 may well have further damaged his already fragile health. For the all powerful king of Assyria, this situation was bizarre. Esarhaddon's counsellors witnessed his deterioration first with apprehension and then with increasing objection, but were of course not in a position to actually change the state of affairs. It is a testament to Assyria's sound administrative structure that the country could take the king's continuing inability to act his part. Modern day man may well be able to muster considerable sympathy for Esarhaddon whose symptoms were indeed rather alarming: As we know from the correspondence left by the roya1 physicians and exorcists … his days were governed by spells of fever and dizziness, violent fits of vomiting, diarrhoea and painful earaches. Depressions and fear of impending death were a constant in his life. In addition, his physical appearance was affected by the marks of a permanent skin rash that covered large parts of his body and especially his face. In one letter, the king's personal physician - certainly a medical professional at the very top of his league - was forced to confess his ultimate inability to help the king: ,,My lord, the king, keeps telling me: 'Why do you not identify the nature of my disease and find a cure?' As 1 told the king already in person, his symptoms cannot be classified." While Esarhaddon's experts pronounced themselves incapable of identifying the king's illness, modern day specialists have tried to use the reported symptoms in order to come up with a diagnosis in retrospect?'. However, it is not entirely clear whether the sickly Esarhaddon contracted one illness after the other or, as would seem more likely, suffered from the afflictions of a chronic disease that never left for good. Be that as it may, in a society that saw illness as a divine punishment, a king who was constantly confined to the sick bay could not expect to meet with sympathy and understanding. He could, however, reasonably presume that his subjects saw his affliction at the very least as an indication that the gods lacked goodwill towards their ruler, if not as the fruit of divine wrath, incurred by committing some heinous crime. Therefore, the king's condition needed to be hidden from the public by all means, and that this was at all feasible was very much facilitated by the ancient tradition that whoever came before the king had to be veiled and on their knee. Because of his failing health, Esarhaddon saw himself permanently in death's clutches; this alone made it necessary to provide for his succession: Who would be king after him? There were a great many possible candidates: Esarhaddon himself had fathered at least 18 children but, some of them suffered, like their father, from a frail condition and needed permanent medical attention". It would appear that sickly sons were, just like all the daughters, deemed unfit from the start: After all, only a man without fault could be king of Assyria. …. Another writer has picked up this possible connection “Both Nebuchadnezzar and Esarhaddon were repelled in their first attempt to conquer Egypt, and in the same location”. Charles Pope Charles Pope, would-be revisionist, who can propose some of the wildest biblico-historical correlations (which he manages to do frequently), such as this one regarding Abraham (2002): http://www.domainofman.com/cgi-bin/bbs62x/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=653 …. A similar scenario played out in the early New Kingdom when three princes named Djehuty competed for dominance. The eldest Djehuty was Abraham. The younger half-brother of Abraham was also a Djehuty, but is better known to us by the Greek form of Thutmose (I). A son of Abraham’s brother Nahor became pharaoh Thutmose II. These were the three "fathers" of yet another Thutmose, Thutmose III (Isaac). Djehuty was the legal father of Thutmose III. Thutmose II was the adoptive father of Thutmose III. Thutmose I was the biological father of Thutmose III. …. can sometimes come up with a bit of a bell-ringer. For instance, I have, in various recent articles, referred to Pope’s Chart 37: “Comparison of Hezekiah and Josiah Narratives”: http://www.domainofman.com/book/chart-37.html Now, in the same 2002 article in which Pope had ridiculously tried to turn the patriarch Abraham into an Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty prince, Djehuty, Pope also ‘explores the possibility’ that Esarhaddon can be Nebuchednezzar: …. I spent all day yesterday exploring the possibility that Nebuchadnezzar is one and the same as Esar-Haddon. For some time now, it has been bugging me that the Babylonian conquest of Nebuchadnezzar is described in the Biblical narrative, but the Assyrian conquest of Esarhaddon is not. When you look at each of these conquests, they appear to be identical. Both Nebuchadnezzar and Esarhaddon were repelled in their first attempt to conquer Egypt, and in the same location. In each case, they succeeded three years later in conquering Egypt when they bypassed the Delta. In each case, there was a third assault five years after the second one. This has me quite intrigued at the moment. If it turns out to be correct, then Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian name of Esarhaddon. It is known that Esarhaddon became king in Babylon before succeeding Sennacherib in Assyria. Esarhaddon sacked Thebes in his 9th year. Nebuchadnezzar did the same in his 18th year. I will continue to pursue this correspondence until it is conclusive either one way or the other. Although it seems to complicate matters, in reality it will probably end up simplifying things considerably. This is like playing a game of Tetris. You just keep moving blocks around until you get rid of all the dead space! ‘The Marduk Prophecy’ “The original work was almost certainly written during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125-1104 BCE) as a propaganda piece. Nebuchadnezzar I defeated the Elamites and brought the statue back to Babylon, and the work was most likely commissioned to celebrate his victory”. Joshua J. Mark ‘The Marduk Prophecy’, although conventionally dated to the neo-Assyrian era (c. 700 BC), is thought to pertain originally to the so-called ‘Middle’ Babylonian period centuries earlier. That is what we read, for instance, at: https://www.ancient.eu/article/990/the-marduk-prophecy/ by Joshua J. Mark published on 14 December 2016 The Marduk Prophecy is an Assyrian document dating to between 713-612 BCE found in a building known as The House of the Exorcist adjacent to a temple in the city of Ashur. It relates the travels of the statue of the Babylonian god Marduk from his home city to the lands of the Hittites, Assyrians, and Elamites and prophesies its return at the hands of a strong Babylonian king. The original work was almost certainly written during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125-1104 BCE) as a propaganda piece. Nebuchadnezzar I defeated the Elamites and brought the statue back to Babylon, and the work was most likely commissioned to celebrate his victory. The author would have constructed the narrative to place the events in the past in order to allow for a 'prophetic vision' in which the present king would come to restore peace and order to the city by bringing home the statue of the god. This form of narrative was commonplace in the genre now known as Mesopotamian Naru Literature where historical events or individuals were treated with poetic license in order to make a point. In a work such as The Curse of Akkad, for example, the historical king Naram-Sin (2261-2224 BCE), known for his piety, is presented as impious in an effort to illustrate the proper relationship between a monarch and the gods. The point made would be that if a king as great as Naram-Sin of Akkad could fail in piety and be punished, how much more would a person of lesser stature fare. In The Marduk Prophecy, the events are placed far in the past in order for the writer to be able to 'predict' the moment when a Babylonian king would return Marduk to his rightful home. This piece, then, also deals with the responsibility a monarch has to his god. …. [End of quote] According to Takuma Sugie, this document, supposed to have been written during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchednezzar so-called I, who conquered Elam, was “re-interpreted” to apply prophetically to Ashurbanipal of Nineveh, who conquered Elam: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/orient/49/0/49_107/_pdf The Reception of the Marduk Prophecy in Seventh-Century B.C. Nineveh The Marduk Prophecy is a literary composition in the guise of prophetic speech by Marduk. It is supposed to be written to praise Nebuchadnezzar I’s triumph over Elam during his reign. However, all the three surviving exemplars of this text are from the seventh-century B.C. Assyria: two from Nineveh and another from Assur. This article discusses how the Marduk Prophecy was read and re-interpreted in Nineveh at that time. Between the Marduk Prophecy and the royal literature during the reign of Ashurbanipal, the following common themes can be recognized: (1) reconstruction of the Babylonian temples, above all Esagil; (2) conquest of Elam; and (3) fulfillment of divine prophecies. On the basis of these, the author proposes that in the seventh-century Nineveh the Marduk Prophecy was regarded as an authentic prophecy predicting the achievements of Ashurbanipal, and that this is the main reason why this text was read at his court. …. [End of quote] The simple answer, I think, as to why a document written in praise of a Babylonian king was later considered to apply to an Assyrian ruler reigning about four centuries after the Babylonian king, is that Nebuchednezzar I and Ashurbanipal were one and the same king. See e.g. my article: The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar (7) The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The necessary ‘folding’ of conventional C12th BC Assyro-Babylonian history into the C8th-C7th’s BC serves to bring great kings into their proper alignment. Nebuchednezzar so-called I’s conquest of Elam now sits in place, where it should, as Ashurbanipal’s famous devastation of Elam in 639 BC (conventional dating), when “the Assyrians sacked the Elamite city of Susa, and Ashurbanipal boasted that “the whole world” was his”: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ashurbanipal#Nineveh.2C_Babylon_and_Ela Striking parallels with Esarhaddon “[Matthijs J. de] Jong lists the motifs shared by the Marduk Prophecy and Esarhaddon’s inscriptions …”. Takuma Sugie Nor is there any surprise in learning that ‘The Marduk Prophecy’ bears striking parallels with Esarhaddon’s inscriptions for the same reason (Esarhaddon is Ashurbanipal). And, according to this present series, Esarhaddon (Ashurbanipal) is Nebuchednezzar. Takuma Sugie continues on, writing of the similarities that de Jong has picked up between the ‘Prophecy’ and the inscriptions of Esarhaddon: III. Were Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal Interested in the Marduk Prophecy? Recently, Matthijs J. de Jong inferred that two [sic] Assyrian great monarchs in the seventh century, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, had a particular interest in the Marduk Prophecy. …. He draws parallels between the Marduk Prophecy and the inscriptions of Esarhaddon. To take the most striking similarity, the Marduk Prophecy iii 25'-30' foretells that an ideal king “will make the great king of Dēr (šarra rabâ ša urudēr) stand up from a place not his dwelling … and bring him into Dēr and eternal Ekurdimgalkalama (ana urudēr u é-kur-UD(dimx?)-gal-kalam-ma ša dā[r]âti ušerrebšu).”14 This closely resembles a phrase recurring in Esarhaddon’s inscriptions, which represents this king as the one who “brought the god Great-Anu (i.e., Ištarān) into his city Dēr and his temple Edimgalkalama and had (him) sit upon eternal dais (danum rabû ana ālišu dērki u bītišu é-dim-gal-kalam-ma ušēribuma ušēšibu parakka dārâti).”15 In addition to this, de Jong lists the motifs shared by the Marduk Prophecy and Esarhaddon’s inscriptions: (1) ascension of the Babylonian gods to heaven;16 (2) fulfillment of the days of absence;17 (3) renovation of the Esagil temple in Babylon;18 (4) Babylon’s tax exemption;19 (5) gathering of the dispersed Babylonian people;20 and so on. Furthermore, de Jong points out a community of themes shared between the Marduk Prophecy and Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions too; Ashurbanipal continued and completed his father’s [sic] project to send back Marduk’s statue and restore Esagil. Ashurbanipal also conducted several military campaigns against Elam. In the light of these parallels, de Jong supposes that Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal were profoundly interested in the Marduk Prophecy, and he proposes the possibility that the Marduk Prophecy was elaborated during the reign of one of these kings. …. The Siege of the City of Tyre “But as Steinmann points out ... the method of attack (vv. 8-9) is not that employed by Alexander but is similar to that of attackers previous to Nebuchednezzar (e.g., Esarhaddon in 673)”. Arnold J. Tkacik Fr. Arnold J. Tkacik (OSB) has written what I would consider to be a most helpful and enlightening commentary on the extremely complex biblical Book of Ezekiel in his article, “Ezekiel”, for The Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968). I refer more especially to the exegetical (or religious-spiritual) aspect of his commentary than to the historical side of it. Though, even in this latter regard - or at least as regards the chronology of the book - Fr. Tkacik has arrived at what I think are some telling conclusions. However, if this present article is correct, according to which Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ is to be enlarged and greatly filled out with the potent king, Esarhaddon, then any conventional commentary for this particular period of biblico-history must needs be somewhat one-dimensional rather than being able to present a full picture of the times. Regarding the siege of the Levantine Tyre in the Book of Ezekiel, or what Fr. Tkacik heads, THE TIDAL WAVE AGAINST TYRE (26:1-21), the author will suggest that “the method of attack” in this case is more along the lines of Esarhaddon’s modus operandi against Tyre than, as according to some, that of Alexander the Great. Thus he writes (21:60): Some authors (e.g. Holscher and Torrey) maintain that the poem describes the capture of Tyre by Alexander in 332, because it speaks of a complete destruction of the city (vv. 3-6, 14). But as Steinmann points out ... the method of attack (vv. 8-9) is not that employed by Alexander but is similar to that of attackers previous to Nebuchednezzar (e.g., Esarhaddon in 673). [End of quote] The “method of attack” is described in Ezekiel 26:8-9 like this: He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons. Instead of his writing “similar to that of attackers previous to Nebuchednezzar (e.g., Esarhaddon ...)”, though, Fr. Tkacik could well have written “similar to that of attackers Nebuchednezzar, Esarhaddon”. For, unlike Alexander, the neo-Assyrian/Babylonian besiegers failed to complete their work even after years of effort. Compare the following two items (Esarhaddon, Nebuchednezzar): https://www.internationalstandardbible.com/E/esarhaddon.html The capture of Tyre was also attempted, but, the city being differently situated, a siege from the land was insufficient to bring about submission, as it was impossible to cut off the commerce by sea. The siege, after several years, seems to have been lifted. Although on a great monolith Esarhaddon depicts Ba`al, the king of Tyre, kneeling before him with a ring through his lips, there is nothing in the inscriptions to bear this out. http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=1790 Several aspects of this prophecy deserve attention and close scrutiny. The prophet predicted: (1) many nations would come against Tyre; (2) the inhabitants of the villages and fields of Tyre would be slain; (3) Nebuchadnezzar would build a siege mound against the city; (4) the city would be broken down and the stones, timber, and soil would be thrown in “the midst of the water;” (5) the city would become a “place for spreading nets;” and (6) the city would never be rebuilt. In chronological order, the siege of Nebuchadnezzar took place within a few months of Ezekiel’s prophecy. Josephus, quoting “the records of the Phoenicians,” says that Nebuchadnezzar “besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of Ithobal, their king” (Against Apion, 1.21). The length of the siege was due, in part, to the unusual arrangement of the mainland city and the island city. While the mainland city would have been susceptible to ordinary siege tactics, the island city would have been easily defended against orthodox siege methods (Fleming, p. 45). The historical record suggests that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the mainland city, but the siege of the island “probably ended with the nominal submission of the city” in which Tyre surrendered “without receiving the hostile army within her walls” (p. 45). The city of Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, who did major damage to the mainland as Ezekiel predicted, but the island city remained primarily unaffected. It is at this point in the discussion that certain skeptics view Ezekiel’s prophecy as a failed prediction. Farrell Till stated: “Nebuchadnezzar did capture the mainland suburb of Tyre, but he never succeeded in taking the island part, which was the seat of Tyrian grandeur. That being so, it could hardly be said that Nebuchadnezzar wreaked the total havoc on Tyre that Ezekiel vituperatively predicted in the passages cited” (n.d.). Till and others suggest that the prophecies about Tyre’s utter destruction refer to the work of Nebuchadnezzar. After a closer look at the text, however, such an interpretation is misguided. Ezekiel began his prophecy by stating that “many nations” would come against Tyre (26:3). Then he proceeded to name Nebuchadnezzar, and stated that “he” would build a siege mound, “he” would slay with the sword, and “he” would do numerous other things (26:7-11). However, in 26:12, the pronoun shifts from the singular “he” to the plural “they.” It is in verse 12 and following that Ezekiel predicts that “they” will lay the stones and building material of Tyre in the “midst of the waters.” The shift in pronouns is of vast significance, since it shifts the subject of the action from Nebuchadnezzar (he) back to the many nations (they). Till and others fail to see this shift and mistakenly apply the utter destruction of Tyre to the efforts of Nebuchadnezzar. Furthermore, Ezekiel was well aware of Nebuchadnezzar’s failure to destroy the city. Sixteen years after his initial prediction, in the 27th year of Johoiachin’s captivity (circa 570 B.C.), he wrote: “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw; yet neither he nor his army received wages from Tyre, for the labor which they expended on it” (29:18). Therefore, in regard to the prophecy of Tyre as it relates to Nebuchadnezzar’s activity, at least two of the elements were fulfilled (i.e., the siege mound and the slaying of the inhabitants in the field). Neither account above allows for the total destruction of Tyre that Alexander the Great would later manage to achieve. Previously, I also included the mighty Ashurbanipal amongst my alter egos for Nebuchednezzar. Thus I wrote: The simple answer, I think, as to why a document written in praise of a Babylonian king was later considered to apply to an Assyrian ruler reigning about four centuries after the Babylonian king, is that Nebuchednezzar I and Ashurbanipal were one and the same king. …. The necessary ‘folding’ of conventional C12th BC Assyro-Babylonian history into the C8th-C7th’s BC serves to bring great kings into their proper alignment. Nebuchednezzar I’s conquest of Elam now sits in place, where it should, as Ashurbanipal’s famous devastation of Elam in 639 BC (conventional dating), when “the Assyrians sacked the Elamite city of Susa, and Ashurbanipal boasted that “the whole world” was his”. …. So what of Ashurbanipal and Tyre? If I am correct, then he should have experienced the same outcome there as had his alter egos, Esarhaddon, Nebuchednezzar. Well, it seems that my view is solidly supported by the following statement according to which “scholars attribute ... to Esarhaddon” what Ashurbanipal himself would claim regarding Tyre: Esarhaddon refers to an earlier period when gods, angered by insolent mortals, create a destructive flood. According to inscriptions recorded during his reign, Esarhaddon besieges Tyre, cutting off food and water. Assurbanipal's inscriptions also refer to a siege against Tyre, although scholars attribute it to Esarhaddon. And so they should if I am correct: Ashurbanipal was Esarhaddon – was Nebuchednezzar! https://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/295-assurbanipal-cylinder-c/ Esarhaddon's son [sic] Aššurbanipal (r.669-631?) inherited this situation. In his third year, he tried to capture Tyre, occupied the mainland, but - like his predecessors - failed to capture the island city itself. Note the absence of tribute: it seems that a marital alliance was concluded. ... In my third campaign I marched against Ba'al, king of Tyre .... Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, Nebuchednezzar, tried to take Tyre but failed to take it completely even after a long siege. The king of Tyre at the time was Ba’al, or Ithobal (Ithoba’al). More recently, I have added yet another king to the list of alter egos for Esarhaddon/ Ashurbanipal/Nebuchednezzar: Ashur-bel-kala as Ashurbanipal (4) Ashur-bel-kala as Ashurbanipal | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu

Monday, September 23, 2024

Pharaoh of the Exodus greatly influenced by Twelfth Dynasty

by Damien F. Mackey “A significant set of evidence suggests the particular interest that Neferhotep I had both in the cult of Osiris at Abydos, and in Senwosret [Sesostris] III in particular”. Josef Wegner and Kevin Cahail Introduction Recapitulating who I think was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and how he was positioned in relation to Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty: While Moses was in exile in the land of Midian, the mighty Twelfth Dynasty, which had dominated his entire life of some eight decades, had come to an end with a briefly reigning female ruler. This dynasty, which “knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8), and which worshipped the Crocodile god, Sobek, may have been of foreign stock. The female ruler, Sobeknefrure bore the Crocodile (Sobek) name. Moses had been run out of Egypt by his foster father-in-law, “Chenephres”, who had married the woman, “Merris”. She was “the Daughter of Pharaoh” (Cheops-Amenemehet), who had drawn the baby Moses from the water (Exodus 2:1-10). “Chenephres” and “Merris”, of multiple identifications, span various dynasties, and even kingdoms. “Chenephres” is the Fourth Dynasty’s Chephren (Khafre), who married Meresankh (“Merris”). He is, again, the long-reigning Pepi Neferkare (= Kanefere/“Chenephres”), and the Sesostris who pursued Sinuhe (the semi-fictitious Moses character) from Egypt. As Sesostris so-called III, he was the last-reigning king of the Twelfth Dynasty. But Sesostris and his predecessor, Amenemhet (Amenemes), are also the Crocodile worshipping Sobekhoteps of the so-called Thirteenth Dynasty. We meet Sesostris again as Sobekhotep IV Nepherkhare/Khaneferre (“Chenephres”), who was a contemporary of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, Neferhotep (so-called I). The hard-hearted Pharaoh of the Exodus, Neferhotep, was already well established by the time of Moses’ return from Midian. This would suggest that he had been a well-known and active high official in the late stages of the Twelfth Dynasty. Sesostris may even have made Neferhotep co-ruler with him as his lengthy reign began to fade. Closeness of late Twelfth Dynasty and Thirteenth Dynasty In the following article: Co-Author with Josef Wegner: "Royal Funerary Equipment of a King Sobekhotep at South Abydos: Evidence for the Tombs of Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I?" (2) Co-Author with Josef Wegner: "Royal Funerary Equipment of a King Sobekhotep at South Abydos: Evidence for the Tombs of Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I?" | Kevin M. Cahail - Academia.edu we learn of Neferhotep’s profound veneration for Sesostris (III), and of his close association with Sobekhotep IV, who was also this Sesostris (III): …. Another important issue for consideration is the implications of the fact that [tomb] S10 does not stand alone. S10 is located adjacent to the similarly designed tomb S9. The king Sobekhotep (N) associated with S10 is likely to be connected in some distinct way with another king who reigned in close temporal proximity and who was also able to build a comparably large subterranean tomb at South Abydos. Recent excavation by Dawn McCormack on tomb S9 shows it too was completed and used for a royal burial, although S9 has, as yet, yielded no evidence on the identity of its owner.72 Consequently, these tombs should relate to two longer-reigning kings, quite possibly with familial connections, one of whom, we can now establish with a reasonable degree of certainty, bore the nomen Sobekhotep. Despite the disjunctions that characterize the Thirteenth Dynasty royal succession, there are a number of clear examples of familial succession associated with the Sobekhotep kings that could be reflected in such a tomb pairing. The two tombs could represent a father-son pair who ruled in sequence, or possibly one of the examples of brother-brother succession. This latter mode of succession occurs prominently at the beginning of the Thirteenth Dynasty during the shorter reigns of the first two Thirteenth Dynasty kings (Sobekhotep I-Sonebef) as well as in the long stable reigns of Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV. The other longer reigning candidates, Sobekhotep III and Sobekhotep VI would appear to be weaker options from this angle. Sobekhotep III stands alone in the royal succession, a military official who after his seven year reign was not succeeded by any offspring or family members; similarly Sobekhotep VI appears to be unrelated to both the preceding and succeeding kings. Would either Sobekhotep III or VI have built a tomb at South Abydos, perhaps placing it adjacent to that of an unrelated Thirteenth Dynasty king? This appears possible, but the close proximity and similarity of design between S9 and S10 suggests the greater likelihood of a pair of more intimately connected kings. From this angle of consideration Khaneferre Sobekhotep IV, already the strongest candidate on the basis of regnal length and building activity at Abydos, emerges yet again as a good option. His predecessor [sic] was his brother [sic] Neferhotep I whose eleven-year reign (ca. 1742–1731 BC) [sic] initiated the phase of long, stable reigns that continued through the period of Merneferre-Ay. Sobekhotep IV appears to have been a coregent during his brother’s reign after the early death of a third brother, Sahathor, who never became king.73 The close connection and long duration of both king’s reigns provides both a temporal and familial context that would accord well with tombs S9 and S10 at South Abydos. Beyond considerations of regnal length and familial associations, we need to bring under scrutiny the political and religious motivations that may have underlain two Thirteenth Dynasty kings choosing to build tombs at Abydos. While, in theory, the large mortuary complex built by Senwosret [Sesostris] III at the base of Dw-Inpw may have offered an attractive nucleus for later kings seeking to associate themselves with earlier Twelfth Dynasty rulers, it may have required a unique set of circumstances for this to actually happen. It is clear that many Thirteenth Dynasty kings built—or at least initiated—pyramid tombs on the post-Hawara model in the Memphite necropolis and in proximity to the residence at Itj-Tawy. However, what might have propelled two kings of this era to build their tombs at Abydos instead? Inscriptional sources paired with monumental remains show that a significant number of Thirteenth Dynasty kings were active at Abydos and invested in differing ways in the Osiris cult. Indeed, royal patronage of the Osiris cult may have been the norm rather than the exception even across the numerous short reigns of the Thirteenth Dynasty. In the case of Tombs S9 and S10, however, we should be looking at two closely associated Thirteenth Dynasty kings who display an unusually high level of interest in Abydos and perhaps kings for whom we can discern other motivating factors that could have led to their decision to build tombs in Upper Egypt. Among Thirteenth Dynasty kings, Neferhotep I stands out through the breadth of textual sources reflecting his investment in the Osiris cult. These include most prominently the now-lost Neferhotep stela (formerly in the Boulaq Museum) dating to year two of that king’s reign. The stela details how, after consulting documents relating to the Osiris temple, Neferhotep dispatched his custodian of royal property to Abydos to undertake work on the Osiris temple and its cultic equipment. The royal commission was followed by the king’s own visit to Abydos and participation in the Osirian rituals. This remarkable document indicates a level of personal interest in Abydos unparalleled by any Middle Kingdom ruler since Senwosret III. Neferhotep I is also associated with the well-known group of boundary stelae that he rededicated (after the earlier Thirteenth Dynasty king Wegaf) that demarcate the bounds of the private cemeteries on either side of the processional route to Umm el-Qa’ab. Fundamentally, these sources show how Neferhotep I initiated substantial rebuilding of the Osiris temple precinct in a mode that echoes the earlier investment in that temple conducted by the chief treasurer Ikhernofret on behalf of Senwosret III. Could this enhanced investment in Abydos under Neferhotep I—like that of Senwosret III a century before him [sic] —have had an additional expression in the king’s construction of his tomb at South Abydos? Interestingly, there is evidence that Neferhotep I sought to connect himself concretely with Senwosret III at another site besides Abydos. Three inscriptions at the island of Sehel demonstrate Neferhotep I’s desire to associate himself with the earlier pharaoh. In two instances, Neferhotep I placed his titulary directly on the left side an earlier inscription of Senwosret III (ig. 29). The Thirteenth Dynasty artists copied the layout and content of the earlier inscriptions, and positioned the copy as close as possible to, and at the same scale, as the original Senwosret III text. An implication of temporality might even be implied by the position of Neferhotep’s text to the left presenting the king as a direct successor of the Twelfth Dynasty pharaoh. In a more complex vignette also at Sehel (ig. 30), Neferhotep I’s artists copied a scene showing the goddess Anukis offering life to the king. Again, the addition by Neferhotep is positioned to the left of that of Senwosret III. As with the titular inscriptions, the two images are virtually identical in artistic layout, orientation and textual content. Taken together, these sources from Sehel and Abydos seem to indicate that Neferhotep I consciously chose to associate himself with Senwosret III. Might this mimicry have extended to funerary architecture at Abydos as well, leading Neferhotep I to construct his tomb (S9) directly next to that of Senwosret III, linking the enclosure walls of the two structures? The reigns of Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV together represent ca. twenty-three years, more than a third of the stable phase of the middle Thirteenth Dynasty that extends from Neferhotep I to Merneferre Ay (ca. 1742–1677 BC). The Neferhotep I family, like that of Sobekhotep III, made no pretentions about royal origins. The descent of the family from the God’s Father Haankhef and his wife Kemi has been well documented.79 The family appears to have been of Theban origins as stated in Sobekhotep IV’s donation stela at Karnak.80 Both Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV built extensively at Karnak and the Neferhotep stela provides strong testimony that the Theban activity of the kings was matched with an Abydene component. Also significantly for our present discussion, it was during the reigns of Neferhotep I–Sobekhotep IV that we see a visible resurgence of economic and royal administrative activity in Upper Egypt. Some Egyptologists have viewed the indications for a growing emphasis on the south as reflecting the loss at this time of the Nile Delta by the kings of Itj-Tawy. This southward focus during the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty has been seen as leading up to the eventual (presumed) abandonment of Itj-Tawy and shift of the capital southwards to Thebes during the last phase of the dynasty.81 However, the possibility that the Thirteenth Dynasty had already lost control over the north, paired with the minimal evidence for the transfer of royal capital, suggests what we witness is rather a phase of economic stabilization at the helm of which were successful Upper Egyptian families including that of Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV. Could it be in this political milieu that we have two Thirteenth Dynasty brother kings investing in tombs of the post-Hawara design at Abydos? Returning to the archaeology of South Abydos itself, another possible index to administrative activity during the reigns of Neferhotep I–Sobekhotep IV derives from the temple of Senwosret III and nearby settlement site of Wah-Sut. Archaeological evidence demonstrates this site was a thriving community through the middle Thirteenth Dynasty. Abundant examples of administrative sealings naming high officials contemporary with Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV have been recovered in the temple and town site. Among these we may highlight the frequent impressions in multiple scarab variants of the prominent treasurer Senebsumay whose career spans the reigns of Sobekhotep III and Neferhotep I, as well as other royal officials of the mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty.82 Indeed, the most frequent royal name seal impressions recovered in the deposits associated with the Senwosret III mortuary temple are those of Neferhotep I. Later identified examples include Sobekhotep VI and Merneferre Ay.83 Wah-Sut at that time was an administrative center that would have formed an ideal context for Thirteenth Dynasty kings who may have wished to construct tombs in Upper Egypt. In view of the recent discovery of the funerary stela and cedar coffin of a king Sobekhotep at South Abydos, we now have indications for the identity of the Thirteenth Dynasty pharaohs who built tombs near that of Senwosret III at the site of Dw-Inpw/ Anubis-Mountain. The nature and scale of tomb S10 provides strong evidence for identifying Sobekhotep (N) as Sobekhotep IV. S9 may well in that case be attributed to his brother Neferhotep I. A significant set of evidence suggests the particular interest that Neferhotep I had both in the cult of Osiris at Abydos, and in Senwosret III in particular. The renaissance represented by these mid Thirteenth Dynasty reigns, paired with their Upper Egyptian origins, interest in the Osiris cult, as well as the resurgence of monument building may have been expressed in the addition of their tombs near that of Senwosret III at South Abydos. …. adjacent to and is even physically bonded to the Senwosret III enclosure wall, for brief discussion see: Wegner, The Mortuary Temple of Senwosret III, 377–81. 79 Ryholt, The Political Situation, 225–31. Primary discussions are: M. Dewachter, “Le roi Sahathor et la famille de Neferhotep I,” RdE 28 (1976), 66–73; L. Habachi, “New Light on the Neferhotep I Family,” 77–81. 80 W. Helck, “Ein Stele Sebekheteps IV. aus Karnak,” MDAIK 24 (1969), 194–200. 81 The abandonment of Itj-Tawy is generally assumed to have occurred during or immediately following the reign of Merne-ferre Ay. Evidence for a southward retreat of the Thirteenth Dynasty is, however, extremely tenuous. It appears likely the kings grouped under this dynasty ruled from Itj-Tawy until the end of the dynasty. 82 Wegner, The Mortuary Temple of Senwosret III, 343–51. 83 On the royal name sealings: Wegner, The Mortuary Temple of Senwosret III, 313–15 and 340–43. 162 Observations on the Reuse of the Funerary Equipment of Sobekhotep (N). One of the notable results of recent work in and around tomb S10 is the evidence for the short time frame that elapsed between the original burial of king Sobekhotep (N) and the dismantling of his tomb and its equipment for reuse by Senebkay and other Second Intermediate period rulers buried at South Abydos. The evidence for the probable date of S10 in the mid-late Thirteenth Dynasty, and its possible attribution to Sobekhotep IV (ca. 1732–1720 BC) would place this tomb approximately half a century before the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty. The adjacent tomb of Woseribre-Senebkay represents a Second Intermediate period king whose reign we may attribute to the beginning of the unnumbered “Abydos Dynasty.” Senebkay may be one of two kings whose prenomina, Wsr///ra, are partially preserved at the beginning of Column 11 in the Turin Kinglist. The evidence appears to place the reign of Senebkay contemporary with the final disintegration of the Thirteenth Dynasty coeval with the emergence of the Theban Sixteenth Dynasty. Senebkay and his successors engaged in the wholesale stripping of S10 for construction of their own tombs. As we have seen above, this process includes the appropriation of cedar planks from Sobekhotep (N)’s coffin as well as (possibly) the use of Sobekhotep’s funerary stela as part of the masonry construction of Senebkay’s burial chamber. The reuse of portable elements of the burial assemblage of S10 is further amplified by the extraction and reuse of the massive quartzite sarcophagus from S10 to form the burial chamber of tomb CS6, the northernmost tomb of the Second Intermediate period “Abydos Dynasty” group. The process of denuding S10 and cannibalizing its materials thus proceeded within a short time frame from reuse of the tomb equipment to the wholesale deconstruction of the tomb’s interior architecture. Are these patterns of reuse indicative of opportunistic appropriation of valuable materials from an already plundered royal tomb, or are the “Abydos Dynasty” group of kings themselves implicated in the process of despoiling S10 and other late Middle Kingdom royal tombs at South Abydos? In view of the narrow chronological parameters, it is crucial to observe that Sobekhotep (N)’s burial appears to have survived intact for only a short period. How likely is it that the massive blocking system of S10 was penetrated and the tomb plundered, leaving in the wake of the robbery a random assemblage of materials of sufficient quality to be gathered up by Senebkay and his successors for reuse in their own tombs? Successful tomb robbery aimed at extracting precious metals, semi-precious stones and other materials and typically resulted in the extensive damage to the funerary equipment. Moreover, the plundering of S10—a prominent monument visible across the entirety of the Abydene landscape— would have required a large work force and explicit support by any authorities present at Abydos. Consequently, it appears that Senebkay and associated Second Intermediate period rulers themselves may have initiated the initial entry into S10’s still-intact substructure along with the acquisition and reuse of the materials and equipment located therein. Significantly, it is during this same timeframe of the later Second Intermediate period that the tomb of Senwosret III at South Abydos appears to have been entered and plundered. Senebkay and his contemporaries appear to have been making use of a rich array of materials deriving not just from the tomb of Sobekhotep, but also from Senwosret III as well as Tomb S9 and perhaps others. Along with the reused cedar coffin of king Sobekhotep N, the tomb of Senebkay furnishes additional evidence for the purposeful dismantling of monuments associated with the kings and royal officials of the late Middle Kingdom. The burial chamber of Senebkay is entirely built of reused limestone blocks that once belonged to one or more mortuary chapels of a prominent, extended family dating the mid- to late Thirteenth Dynasty. Senebkay’s builders dismantled blocks from three different tomb chapels belonging to members of this family, which include the royal seal bearer and overseer of fields, Dedtu, his son Ibiau who was overseer of the altars of Amun, and another individual, also likely connected to the Amun temple at Thebes, named Senebef. The evidence suggests the presence at Abydos of a Thirteenth Dynasty elite cemetery possibly located in North Abydos that was denuded by Senebkay’s builders. This evidence for state-supported tomb robbery that includes the dismantling of both royal and elite mortuary structures appears fundamentally to reflect the severely circumscribed economic and political context of Senebkay and other members of the “Abydos Dynasty” group. This activity appears symptomatic of the poverty of Upper Egypt during the Hyksos period and after the final dissolution of the Thirteenth Dynasty. The phenomenon broadly parallels situations such as occurred during the late Ramesside period at Thebes where the highest levels of local administration actively supported the looting of tombs. What is most striking, however, is the extent to which materials from those earlier burials were being actively incorporated into the funerary assemblages and tomb architecture of the Abydos Dynasty rulers. From that respect an instructive parallel to South Abydos occurs during the Third Intermediate period when the construction and furnishing of the royal tombs at Tanis made extensive use of spolia, as well as precious metals and royal funerary equipment that had been taken from the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. Objects that had been despoiled, in particular, from the Ramesside royal tombs at Thebes, made their way into the Twenty-First Dynasty burial assemblages at Tanis. This includes the granite third sarcophagus of Merenptah reused as the outer sarcophagus for Psusennes I. Although the scale of burial and distance involved is greater in the case of the Tanite tombs, the royally sponsored reuse of materials we see at South Abydos seems in many respects to parallel the phenomenon of reuse that occurs later at Tanis. It appears probable that during the Second Intermediate period, tomb S10 and the burial of king Sobekhotep (N) was opened and denuded under authority of Senebkay and his contemporaries. This may have been part of a wider process of robbery of known royal and elite Middle Kingdom tombs at Abydos that may have included the large subterranean tomb of Senwosret III. Regarding S10, however, it is striking the degree to which this particular monument appears to have been targeted at the hands of the “Abydos Dynasty” rulers. This raises an additional possibility to be considered. Conceivably there may have been a more sinister set of motivations in play: a conscious attempt at damnatio memoriae aimed specifically at the Abydene mortuary structures of king Sobkehotep (N) and his contemporaries. It seems possible that the systematic denudation of Thirteenth Dynasty royal and elite tombs and monuments may reflect a more carefully pursued program of desecration aimed at members of the Thirteenth Dynasty ruling elite. Could the challenging economic and political pressures concomitant with the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty have precipitated regional and familial rivalries, even vendettas, amongst certain members of the Upper Egyptian elite class? These motivations could perhaps be rooted in the events that led to the disintegration of the Thirteenth Dynasty and the formation of local lines of kings at Thebes and Abydos during the later Second Intermediate period. Thirteenth Dynasty kings with Theban origins—Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I—along with other high-ranking royal officials with Upper Egyptian origins such as the Dedtu family—might in this case have become targets for a concerted program of damnatio memoriae. If so, the very nature of the Thirteenth Dynasty, not as a dynasty in the classical sense, but as a discontinuous succession of elite families ascending to the rulership centered on Itj-Tawy may be of relevance. It appears possible that the rise to power of the Theban family of Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV could have resonated in negative ways that persisted a generation or two later during the time of the decline of the Thirteenth Dynasty. Alternatively, as visible statements of Thirteenth Dynasty associations with Abydos, Tombs S9 and S10 could have been targeted through another form of politically motivated rationale. Recent discussion has highlighted the possibility that Thirteenth Dynasty kings based at Itj-Tawy may have continued even in the context of an increasingly fragmented internal political situation that included the secession of the Theban region and the growth of the Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty. For regional kings now using Abydos as their burial ground, and perhaps even in conflict with the vestiges of the Thirteenth Dynasty, there may have been a desire to sever associations with rulership emanating from Itj-Tawy. While the evidence at present opens up a series of possible scenarios to explain the nonharmonious relationship exhibited between Tomb S10 and the Second Intermediate period tombs near it, we see clear evidence for the short interval that S10 must have survived as an intact royal tomb. Second Intermediate period kings building their tombs at South Abydos evidently had no desire to associate themselves with Thirteenth Dynasty predecessors and indeed themselves engineered the robbery of those earlier royal tombs. It is to be hoped that continued excavations at South Abydos may shed further light on king Sobekhotep (N)—confirming or not the increasingly probable identification with Khaneferre-Sobekhotep IV- and illuminating how and why his burial, “S10” at South Abydos was so extensively dismantled by Senebkay and his successors during the Second Intermediate period.

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Where the Exodus and the Conquest belong

by Damien F. Mackey “Assuming that the Exodus was followed a generation or two later by the Conquest, could these events correspond, as will be proposed here, to the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the end of EB III in Canaan?” Robert M. Porter I fully agree with the following conclusions about the Exodus and the Conquest as arrived at by Robert M. Porter, who introduces as follows his article: Towards an Alternative Reconciliation of the Old Testament with History and Archaeology: Exodus at end of Old Kingdom and Conquest at end of Early Bronze III (2) Towards an Alternative Reconciliation of the Old Testament with History and Archaeology: Exodus at end of Old Kingdom and Conquest at end of Early Bronze III | Robert M Porter - Academia.edu …. without worrying too much about dates, what point in the archaeology of Canaan best fits a literal interpretation of the biblical Conquest story? At the end of the Early Bronze Age III period (EB III), Jericho and most of Canaan’s other walled cities were destroyed or abandoned and there then followed a period variously named as EB IV, MB I (Middle Bronze I), EB-MB or IB (Intermediate Bronze). …. The varying nomenclature reflects the strangeness of the transition – pottery styles changed although not greatly but the civilisation changed from city dwelling to villages and nomadism. Assuming that the Exodus was followed a generation or two later by the Conquest, could these events correspond, as will be proposed here, to the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the end of EB III in Canaan? …. [End of quote] Dr. Donovan Courville (in The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971) had arrived at a rather neat, tucked-in model whereby Egypt’s Old and Middle kingdoms were, in part, synchronous, and the succeeding First and Second intermediate periods were one and the same. Thus: Old Kingdom – Middle Kingdom First Intermediate – Second Intermediate I had embraced this neat set of equations, without, however, having really bothered to probe the supposed Intermediates. Robert M. Porter has accepted the First Intermediate Period as being a time of collapse for Egypt, despite our knowing little about the period – especially in its earliest phase: “The end of the Old Kingdom (end of Dynasty 6, typically dated c. 2200 BC) was a time of Egyptian collapse, followed by the so-called First Intermediate Period for which, in its early stages, we have little historical or archaeological information”. I. The First Intermediate Period So, what is exactly is the First Intermediate Period? Well, according to Joshua J. Mark: https://www.worldhistory.org/First_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt/ The First Intermediate Period of Egypt (2181-2040 BCE) is the era which followed the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE) and preceded the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) periods of Egyptian history. The name was given to the era by 19th-century CE Egyptologists, not by the ancient Egyptians. Stable eras of Egyptian history are referred to as 'kingdoms' while eras of political strife or instability are known as 'intermediate periods.' This period has long been labeled a 'dark age' when the central government of the Old Kingdom, which had been built on the model of the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (c. 3150-2613 BCE) collapsed and plunged the country into chaos. Recent scholarship has revised this opinion, and now the First Intermediate Period is seen as a time of change and transition, where the power and customs dictated by the monarchy at Memphis, capital of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, were disseminated throughout the country to those of traditionally lower status. Probably the best way to understand the First Intermediate Period of Egypt is to consider modern retail capitalism and mass consumerism. In the mid-19th century CE (c. 1858) the American department store Macy's in New York City boasted that they sold "Goods suitable for the millionaire at prices in reach of the millions" (14th Street Tribune, 2). Prior to the Industrial Revolution and mass consumerism, certain goods were available only to the wealthy who had the disposable income to spend on such purchases. With the rise of department stores like Macy's, following the Industrial Revolution and mass production, these kinds of goods, though of lesser quality, were available to anyone at a much-reduced cost. This is precisely what happened during Egypt's First Intermediate Period. Those who previously could not afford elaborate homes, gardens, tombs, tomb inscriptions, or their own Pyramid Texts to guide them through the afterlife now found that they could because wealth was no longer only in the hands of the upper-class nobility. Whereas once only the king was provided with tomb inscriptions in the form of the Pyramid Texts, now nobility, officials, and ordinary people were also provided with a guide book to the underworld through the Coffin Texts. This was possible because of the collapse of the central government at Memphis and the rise of individual nomarchs (governors or administrators of nomes, Egyptian districts) who finally held more power than the king of Egypt. …. [End of quote] More prosaically, Wikipedia tells of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt The First Intermediate Period, described as a 'dark period' in ancient Egyptian history,[1] spanned approximately 125 years, c. 2181–2055 BC, after the end of the Old Kingdom.[2] It comprises the Seventh (although this is mostly considered spurious by Egyptologists), Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and part of the Eleventh Dynasties. The concept of a "First Intermediate Period" was coined in 1926 by Egyptologists Georg Steindorff and Henri Frankfort.[3] …. [End of quote] The First Intermediate Period therefore “comprises the Seventh … Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and part of the Eleventh Dynasties”. But let us take a closer look at this. The Seventh Dynasty, for its part, is considered spurious, even non-existent: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/143lp1s/ancient_egypt_the_unknown_7th_dynasty_15th_hyksos/ “According to Manetho, the 7th dynasty contained 70 kings who ruled for a total of 70 days. Given the implausible nature of this claim, and the lack of other evidence to support the idea of the existence of the 7th dynasty, Egyptologists have traditionally viewed the 7th dynasty as being something that did not actually exist”. Not much better, we find is: The Eighth Dynasty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Dynasty_of_Egypt): “The Eighth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty VIII) is a poorly known and short-lived line of pharaohs reigning in rapid succession in the early 22nd century BC, likely with their seat of power in Memphis”. Same again for the “extremely obscure”: The Ninth Dynasty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Dynasty_of_Egypt): “The Ninth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty IX) is often combined with the 7th, 8th, 10th and early 11th Dynasties under the group title First Intermediate Period.[1] The dynasty that seems to have supplanted the Eighth Dynasty is extremely obscure”. Discounting the virtually non-existent Seventh Dynasty, the Eighth Dynasty, I find, has a predominance of names, Neferkare, which is the prenomen of Pepi, who is my “Chenephres” (Kanefere), the foster father-in-law of Moses. Even more suspiciously, one of the supposedly Eighth Dynasty names is Neferkare Pepiseneb. And there are also Fifth Dynasty names in there, such as Neferirkare and Djedkare. With the Seventh and Eighth dynasties we may not even be in an Intermediate Period. And the same comment may well apply to the Ninth Dynasty, which swings us back, at least in part, to the time of Abram and the ruler, Nebkaure Khety, whom I have identified with Hor-Aha (Menes), right at the beginning of Egyptian dynastic history: Pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac (2) Pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu But the great name, Imhotep (the biblical Joseph), also emerges here in the Ninth. The Tenth Dynasty reproduces Neferkare and the name Khety. And, with the Eleventh Dynasty, synchronous with the Third Dynasty, we have arrived at the time of Jacob and Joseph (and Famine) in Egypt. After the most obscure Eighth Dynasty (of suspicious Neferkare names), which supposedly follows the virtually non-existent Seventh Dynasty, we find ourselves back in the era of Abram, and then of Jacob and Joseph. Therefore the pattern of the so-called First Intermediate Period of Egypt is that it - supposedly arising out of a real dynastic kingdom, the Sixth Dynasty – ghosts its way back to the Sixth, then all the way back to Abram, then on to Jacob and Joseph. The so-called First Intermediate Period of Egyptian history cannot at all, therefore, be construed as a collapse of Egypt following on from the end of the Old Kingdom. Instead, it is a confused mixture of eras preceding any major collapse of the country. II. The Second Intermediate Period Joshua J. Mark again: https://www.worldhistory.org/Second_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt/ The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782 - c.1570 BCE) is the era following the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2040-1782 BCE) and preceding the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE). As with all historical designations of the eras of Egyptian history, the name was coined by 19th-century CE Egyptologists to demarcate time periods in Egypt's history; the name was not used by ancient Egyptians. This era is marked by a divided Egypt with the people known as the Hyksos holding power in the north, Egyptian rule at Thebes in the center of the country, and Nubians ruling in the south. As with the First Intermediate Period of Egypt, this time is traditionally characterized as chaotic, lacking in cultural advancements, and lawless, but as with the earlier period, this claim has been discredited. The Second Intermediate Period of Egypt was a time of disunity and records of the time are confused or missing, but it was not as dark a time as later Egyptian writers claimed. This period begins as the Egyptian rulers of the 13th Dynasty move the capital from Itj-tawi (in Lower Egypt near Lisht, south of Memphis) back to Thebes, the old capital of the late 11th Dynasty in Upper Egypt, loosening their control over the north. In the beginning of the 12th Dynasty, the king Amenemhat I (1991-1962 BCE) founded the small town of Hutwaret (better known by the Greek name Avaris) in the far north, which grew into a trading center with easy access to the sea and connected by land routes to Sinai and the region of Palestine. In the course of the 13th Dynasty successful trade and immigration brought an influx of Semitic peoples to Avaris who eventually gained enough wealth and power to exert political influence in the country. These people were known to the Egyptians (and themselves) as Heqau-khasut ('Rulers of Foreign Lands') but were called 'Hyksos' by the Greek writers, the name they are known by in history. The later Egyptian writers depict the Hyksos as brutal conquerors who destroyed Egypt, ransacked the temples, and oppressed the country until it was liberated and unified under the reign of Ahmose of Thebes (c. 1570-1544 BCE). Archaeological evidence and records of the time, however, strongly suggest a very different story. The Hyksos, far from the cruel conquerors of later histories, admired Egyptian culture greatly and adopted it as their own. They lived cordially, if not exactly peacefully, with the government at Thebes until a perceived insult drove the Theban kings to declare war on them and they were driven out. Ahmose I's victory signaled the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom. …. [End of quote] More prosaically, Wikipedia tells of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt The Second Intermediate Period dates from 1700 to 1550 BC.[1]: 123  It marks a period when ancient Egypt was divided into smaller dynasties for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a Second Intermediate Period generally includes the 13th through to the 17th dynasties, however there is no universal agreement in Egyptology about how to define the period.[2] It is best known as the period when the Hyksos people of West Asia established the 15th Dynasty and ruled from Avaris, which, according to Manetho's Aegyptiaca, was founded by a king by the name of Salitis.[3] The settling of these people may have occurred peacefully, although later recounts of Manetho portray the Hyksos "as violent conquerors and oppressors of Egypt".[4] …. [End of quote] The Second Intermediate Period “generally includes the 13th through to the 17th dynasties …”. More can be made of this, I think, than with the First Intermediate Period. An early view of the Second Intermediate Period may have had the Twelfth Dynasty collapsing and then, immediately following this, the emergence of the supposedly weak Thirteenth Dynasty - just as the standard view tends to have the Sixth Dynasty collapsing, immediately followed by the First Intermediate Period. But, then, researchers came to appreciate that the Thirteenth Dynasty rulers, the Sobekhoteps and Neferhoteps, who presumably followed those of the Twelfth, were rather significant kings in the own right, giving no indications of an immediate collapse of Egypt. My own solution, wrapped around the life of Moses, is that ancient Egypt did collapse almost immediately after the demise of the mighty Twelfth Dynasty. Here is the new scenario simplified (referencing only the Sixth and Twelfth dynasties): The thoroughly Egyptianised Moses (cf. Exodus 2:19) had fled from the wrath of pharaoh Pepi Neferkare-Sesostris (“Chenephres”) after his killing of the Egyptian (2:12-15). After spending 40 years as an exile in the land of Midian, Moses was told by an angel that all those seeking his life had died (4:19). This means that the Sixth/Twelfth dynasty (that ended with the brief reign of a female) had come to an end. Now we need to bring in the Thirteenth Dynasty. The Crocodile worshipping Sobekhoteps, thought to have reigned in strength after the passing of the Twelfth Dynasty, I believe to have actually been of the Twelfth Dynasty. And that includes the female Crocodile, Sobeknefure, the female ruler: Dynastic anomalies surrounding Egyptian Crocodile god, Sobek (3) Dynastic anomalies surrounding Egyptian Crocodile god, Sobek | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Moses saw nothing of the now defunct Twelfth Dynasty upon his return from Midian, but only the Thirteenth Dynasty king, the hard-hearted (cf. Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 14:4) Neferhotep, Pharaoh of the Exodus. Thus it was a very short period of time from the demise of the mighty Twelfth Dynasty to the Exodus during the Thirteenth Dynasty, which ushered in the beginning of an Intermediate Period that would deteriorate even further, presumably, in the reign of Dudimose (“Tutimaeus” – Josephus following Manetho) when the foreigners invaded Egypt ‘after a blast from God’.