The Exodus, Moses and the Pharaohs
Part III
The Search for the Identities of the Pharaohs of Moses’ Time
Having identified the time of the Exodus to be circa 1546 b.c.e. (See The Date of the Exodus), the search for the identities of the pharaohs of Moses’ time is also narrowed. However, Egyptology is rife with conundrums in its royal genealogies whereby lists of pharaohs, co-rulers, regents, and nomarchs (sub-rulers of regional areas) are simply identified as successive pharaohs. This means that there are inconsistencies in the conventional listings of dynasties by succession and date, and so, a simple search by date will not quickly reveal the identities searched for.
Identifying the period in which the Hebrews inhabited Egypt as servants and slaves to the Egyptians should also reveal the pharaohs. It becomes apparent from archaeological and historical references that the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom is that period. The archaeological evidence of Asiatic culture integrated into the Egyptian culture in the Delta and Lower Egypt of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate period, contextualizes their presence. And in particular Asiatics were usually referenced as slaves to the wealthy Egyptians:
http://www.diggingsonline.com/pages/rese/dyns/yusef.htm
retrieved 30 Sept, 07
||........ From the historical records we learn that Asiatic slaves were used during the twelfth dynasty.
"The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period must have been more times more numerous than has been generally supposed. Whether or not this, largely slave, population could have played a part in hastening . . . the impending Hyksos domination is difficult to say." Cambridge Ancient History, vol II part I, page 49."Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households." Encyclopaedia Britannica 1964, volume 8, page 35. The buildings constructed in the delta under the twelfth dynasty were made of mud brick. Mountains of such bricks went into the city of Avaris and nearby cities.
Moreover the pyramids of Sesostris III and Amenemhet III were also made of mud bricks. The early dynasties' burial places were made of mud brick. The magnificent third and fourth dynasty pyramids were built of stone. For some strange reason these twelfth dynasty rulers reverted to mud brick. It is interesting in this connection to note that Josephus wrote:
"They (the Egyptians) set them (the Israelites) to build pyramids." Antiquities of the Jews, book 2, chapter IX, paragraph 1
On the assumption that the oppression took place during the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty [in the time of Ramesses II], this statement is regarded by scholars as a glaring blunder by Josephus, for by this time, according to their view, the Pyramid Age had ended. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom dynasties were buried in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor. But maybe it is the scholars who have blundered, for the kings of the twelfth dynasty did build pyramids, and what is more, they built them of mud bricks mixed with straw. "Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves." (Exodus 5:7) Especially relevant is the research done by Rosalie David whose book The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt was published in 1986. She researched the work done by Sir Flinders Petrie in the Faiyyum. Petrie worked in the Faiyyum in 1889 and he explored the pyramids of the 12th dynasty and identified the owners.
He also excavated the remains of a town that had been occupied by the workmen who actually built these pyramids. He wrote:
"The great prize of Illahun was unknown and the unsuspected by anyone. On the desert adjoining the north side of the temple, I saw traces of a town, brick walls, houses and pottery; moreover, the pottery was of a style as yet unknown to me. The town wall started out in a line with the face of the temple; and it dawned on me that this could hardly be other than the town of the pyramid builders, originally called Ha-Usertesen-hotep, and now known as Kahun. A little digging soon put it beyond doubt, as we found cylinders of the age, and no other; so that it was evident that I actually had in hand an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty, regularly laid out by the royal architect for the workmen and stores required in building the pyramid and its temple.||
The genealogies of the pharaohs and their reigns are particularly unreliable for the period of 1550 b.c.e., which according to conventional Egyptology is the end of the Second Intermediate period. Various king lists range widely in regnal dates or overlap other reigns or attribute unrealistically short periods of reign. Thus for the time of Moses’ adoptive father, whose reign, according to the Oahspe account, extended for a minimum of 44 years before ca 1546 b.c.e., there are at least 5 or 6 possible pharaohs for that time in the Second Intermediate period. Likewise, his successor, named Nu-ghan in Oahspe, is not simple to identify in Egyptian records, because for the time that he would have succeeded the throne, which was ca 1546 b.c.e. there are also a number of possible candidates besides Ahmose I, even though Ahmose I is positively identified as the first ruler of the New Kingdom.
http://theworldshistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/difficulties-of-dating-ancient-egypt.html
retreived 30 Sept, 07.
||....As well as using inconsistent Greek forms of Egyptian names, occasionally repeating kings, the preserved king lists of Manetho also omit many rulers and the reign lengths rarely agree in the different versions. As his work survives, it is hopelessly garbled in places....The most important of these king lists was found carved on a corridor wall in the temple of Sety I at Abydos.....This list is perfectly preserved but there are certain political omissions such as the entire Second Intermediate Period, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten and his immediate successors.||
The exclusions of the Sety I king list speak volumes, since it excludes the two legitimate rulers, Hatshepsut and Arkenaten, who were pariahs in the eyes of their successors. Therefore it appears that only “true” pharaohs made it to that exclusive list. Since the entire 2nd Intermediate Period is missing from the important Sety I temple wall it is highly significant, and would indicate that the dynasty lists from the so called 2nd Intermediate period contained no legitimate Egyptian pharaohs at all!
The inaccuracy of the Egyptian records at that time, are also mentioned in Oahspe. The record keepers used two calendars, one had two solstices or two suns (12 months) in a year and the other had one solstice or one sun (six months) and a system of genealogies that led to the corruption of birth dates and ages. As a result, the records of the time were in confusion and no coherent record was available to be passed down into history.
Oahspe, Bk of the Arc of Bon,
||27/14.1. In these days in Egupt there were houses of records, where
the affairs of the state, and of the king and governors, were recorded;
and there were recorded also the births and marriages and deaths of
people.
2. The languages of the learned were Fonecean and Par’si’e’an; but the
native languages were Eguptian, Arabaic and Eustian and Semis. The
times by the learned gave two suns to a year, but the times of the tribes
of Eustia gave only six months to a year. Accordingly, in the land of
Egupt what was one year with the learned was two years with the
Eustians and Semisians.
4. To events of prophecy there was also another calendar, called the
ode, signifying skytime, or heavenly times…..there three hundred and
sixty-three days in one year, besides the two days and a quarter when
the sun stands still on the north and south lines.
5. In consequence of these three calendars, the records of Egupt were
in confusion. The prophecies and genealogies of man became
worthless. And as to measurements, some were by threes, some by
tens, and some by twelves; and because of the number of languages,
the measurements became confounded; so that with all the great
learning of the Eguptians, and with all the care bestowed on the houses
of records, they became even themselves the greatest confounding
element of all.||
|| 27/20.19. Touching genealogies, in which men seemed to have lived
to so great an age, this, then, is the explanation for it:
27/20.20. Thothma had said to his recorders: In searching for the truth
of legends, give the latitude of it. For one legend will say, such a man
lived seven hundred years ago; another legend will say he lived one
thousand fifty years ago. The latitude between them is, therefore, three
hundred fifty years, which shall be the time of that man's life. || And in
this way latitude became confounded with fact, and with no intent to
deceive.||
Even Moses’ age was computed differently in Egyptian time compared to Hebrew time (See The Mythical Conquest of Canaan):
||27/20.15.
At the time Moses reached Shakelmarath he was forty-four
years old by the
Hebrew sun, but by the Eguptian he was eighty-eight years old.||
From what Oahspe reveals, the records of the pharaohs had been in confusion for some time, and even dating back to Thothma’s time (when the Great Pyramid was built). Biblical scholars trying to match events in the Ezra bible with surviving Egyptian historical records, (The early parts of the Ezra bible originate from Egypt, See Who was Thoth), identify an anomaly of some 600 years they consider to have been added to the Egyptian records. But this does not mean that it is the Ezra bible which is accurate. In dating the Exodus according to time computed by events in the Ezra bible, the date of 1446 b.c.e. has lost 100 years of time in Hebrew history between the Exodus and the foundation laying of Solomon’s temple (See The Date of the Exodus).
And added to this confusion, is the practice of subsequent pharaohs to have history rewritten to extirpate the memory of earlier “pariah” rulers, and altering details of events unflattering to the pride of Egyptian Hegemony.
However, even though the identities of the two pharaohs of Moses’ time cannot be known with certainty, Oahspe has provided details which can be correlated with surviving historical accounts and archaeological references, making possible some startling connections to individuals within the periods associated with the Israelite Faithists' inhabitation of Egypt and their migration led by Moses.
Among these details are:
· particular events and their chronology
· contextual references to the Kings’ laws, relationships with foreign and subsidiary kingdoms
· descriptions of the designs and construction of the king’s palace and pyramid complex
· the impact of the presence of the Israelites on Egyptian culture, including the work they did and the materials they used.
· the pharaohs’ actions which can be contextualized in historical and archaeological references
· personal details about the individual identities of Moses and the two pharaohs
1550 b.c.e. was the dawn of a new 3000 year cycle, as detailed in Oahspe. At such a time, and some time leading up to it, the earthly histories of nations would be expected to reflect the effects of the great changes involved in the ending and disintegration of old established dominions, and the beginning of new orders in the lower heavens of the earth. Egyptian history is no exception, for ca 1550 b.c.e. is a time when several significant events converge in a nexus of great change:
1)
It was at the end of a period
named, by Egyptologists, as The Second Intermediate Period, believed to be an unstable
period between the Middle
Kingdom and the New Kingdom, supposedly being about 250 years. The latter 108
years of this period was supposed to have seen Egyptian domination by the
Hyksos rulers (foreigners/Asiatics) of the Eastern
Delta regions of the Nile,
with a number of dynasties running concurrently in Nubia to the South, the
Western
Delta and Eastern Delta Regions in Lower Egypt and Theban Egyptan Rule
in Upper Egypt. The New Kingdom began
around 1550 b.c.e. with Ahmose I, after
the so called expulsion of Hyksos eastward out of Egypt.
2)
Ahmose I was the first ruler of a
new dynasty and a new period, The New Kingdom, which also represented the power
of the Theban princes. Ahmose I was the first of a new era of Egyptian
Warrior Kings.
3)
Part and parcel of this
transformation, was the rise of the power base of Thebes over all of Egypt and displacing the
previously more powerful rule of Lower Egypt and the Delta regions. This coincided with a new location for the
burial places of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom. They would now no longer be buried with their pyramids in
the southern Delta
regions as they had been in the Middle Kingdom, but as God Kings in
the tombs
of the Valley of the Kings near Thebes.
4)
This was also the end of the
Pyramidal Age. It was around 1550 b.c.e. that the last of the royal pyramids
was built at
Abydos, historically attributed to Ahmose I, it is now just a pile of rubble.
5)
These changes were also associated
with the end of the Egyptian Osiris cult (which was connected to pyramid
building)
and the establishment of Amun/Re as the supreme deity of the newly
transformed Egyptian religion of the New Kingdom and
its power base in Thebes. This change of religious cults was also historically attributed to Ahmose I.
By placing Ahmose I into his correct position in relation to the legitimate Egyptian throne, a clearer understanding of the events that were occurring in the last few hundred years of the Middle Kingdom will emerge. The “sub-dynasties” of the Southern/Theban nomarchs/princes have been mistakenly attributed to Pharaonic dynasties by Egyptologists and given a separate time period called the 2nd Intermediate period. The corrected time periods that accord with details given in Oahspe will illustrate how the rising of the nomarchs (regional sub-rulers) of Amenemhet II's time, some 200 years before the end of the Middle Kingdom, caused the existence of concurrent sub-dynastical lists incorrectly attributed to an independent time coined "The 2nd Intermediate Period".
All Oahspe references are from the Standard Edition Oahspe of 2007
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