by
Damien F. Mackey
A Solid Starting Point
We are now in the C9th BC, about 500 years after the well-documented El Amarna [EA] period of two mighty Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs, AMENHOTEP III (c. 1390-1352 BC) and AMENHOTEP IV [Akhnaton] (c. 1352-1348 BC) - C14th BC, according to the Sothic chronology, but squarely within EA according to Dr. Velikovsky’s revision.
Note: The numbering of the pharaohs Amenhotep will be affected, however, if, as I have queried:
Can Amenhotep II and III be merged?
(4) Can Amenhotep II and III be merged?
Dr. Donovan Courville had accepted Velikovsky’s basic Eighteenth Dynasty scenario, without adding much to it.
My starting point here will be with what competent revisionists in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, who had followed Dr. Velikovsky, considered to have been a most convincing aspect of his EA restructuring: namely, his identification of the two chief EA correspondents from Amurru, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with two successive Syrian kings of the Old Testament in the C9th BC, respectively, Ben-Hadad I (c. 880-841 BC, conventional dates) and Hazael (c. 841-806 BC, conventional dates).
Thus Peter James had written, favourably:
With [these] two identifications [Velikovsky] seems to be on the firmest ground, in that we have a succession of two rulers, both of whom are characterised in the letters and the Scriptures as powerful rulers who made frequent armed excursions - and conquests - in the territories to the south of their own kingdom. In the letters their domain is described as “Amurru” - a term used, as Velikovsky has pointed out ... by Shalmaneser III for Syria in general, the whole area being dominated by the two successive kings in “both” the el-Amarna period and the mid-9th century.
From Assyrian evidence it is known that Hazael succeeded to the throne between 845 and 841 BC, and thus we have a reasonably precise floruit for those el-Amarna correspondents who relate the deeds of Abdi-Ashirta and Azaru [Aziru], particularly for Rib-Addi, whose letters report the death of Abdi-Ashirta and the accession of Azaru [Aziru].
Dr. John Bimson for his part, referring to the second of these two kings of Amurru, would write:
In the first volume of his historical reconstruction, Velikovsky argues that ... Aziru of Amurru, well known from the Amarna letters, should be identified with Hazael of Damascus .... The identification is well supported, and has implications for the slightly later period now being discussed.
The same writer, using the Hittite records for the late to post-EA period, would in fact take Dr. Velikovsky’s Syrian identification into even a third generation, his “slightly later period”, when suggesting that Aziru’s son, Du-Teshub, fitted well as Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad II (c. 806- ? BC, conventional dates), thus further consolidating Velikovsky’s Syrian sequence for both Amarna and the mid-C9th BC:
The Hittite treaties with Amurru also throw light on another issue raised earlier in this paper. It was noted that, according to the Old Testament, Ben-Hadad [II] was militarily active in the reign of Jehoahaz while his father Hazael was still king. It is gratifying to find this same relationship between father and son referred to in the treaty between the Hittite king Mursilis and Aziras’ grandson, Duppi Tessub. The treaty refers to Duppi-Tessub’s father (i.e. the son of Aziras) as DU-Tessub, and if Aziras is the Bible’s Hazael, this DU-Tessub must be Ben-Hadad [II]. The meaning of the ideogram which forms the first part of his name is obscure ….
But Tessub is the name of the Hittite/Hurrian Weather-god known to be the equivalent to Adad or Hadad. Part of the treaty refers to past relations between the two powers, and says of Aziras: “When he grew too old and could no longer go to war and fight, DU-Tessub fought against the enemy with the foot-soldiers and the charioteers of the Amurru land, just as he had fought …” …. This parallel neatly supports the double identifications, Aziras = Hazael; DU-Tessub = Ben-Hadad [II].
These scholars of the ‘Glasgow School’, as the new era of revisionism became known, including Martin Sieff, Geoffrey Gammon, and various others, were able, with a slight modification of Dr. Velikovsky’s dates, to re-set the EA period so that it sat more comfortably within its new C9th BC allocation.
Thus pharaoh Akhnaton, James argued, was a more exact contemporary of king Jehoram of Judah (c. 848-841 BC, conventional dates) - and hence of the latter’s older contemporary, Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates) - rather than of Dr. Velikovsky’s choice of king Jehoshaphat (c. 870-848 BC, conventional dates), father of Jehoram of Judah and a contemporary of king Ahab of Israel (c. 874-853 BC, conventional dates).
Correspondingly, Martin Sieff determined that:
The great famine of II Kings 8:1, found by Velikovsky to be a recurrent theme in the letters of Rib-Addi … was that of the time of Jehoram. The earlier drought of King Ahab’s time lasted 3½ years rather than 7 [cf. 1 Kings 17:1; Luke 4:25] … and was associated with the activities of Elijah, and not his successor Elisha, who figures in the famine of Ahab’s son.
With this relatively slight refinement in time, then the results could be quite stunning.
James, for instance, found that the king of Jerusalem (Urusalim) for EA, Abdi-hiba, an obviously polytheistic monarch, who had not identified well with the pious king Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem, Dr. Velikovsky’s preferred biblical choice, however, matched Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, seemingly down to the last detail.
Further on, I shall be taking a section of James’s important alignment of this Jehoram of Judah with Abdi-hiba.
At this early stage I must briefly mention, and attempt broadly to answer, a general objection that has been raised against any possibility of locating the EA era in the C9th BC. Conventional scholars have objected that the geopolitical situation at the time of Abdi-hiba of EA does not fit at all that of king Jehoram of Judah’s day, but is more appropriate in the context of the small states of the second millennium as reconstructed on the basis of second millennium Assyrian sources.
Also crying out for an explanation, it is suggested, is why rulers of Syro-Palestine at the time might have had Hurrian/Hittite elements in their names.
But let us quickly address that general objection regarding Velikovsky’s location of EA. Day, for instance, has argued for the division of the land into small states at this time:
The fundamental objection … is that the El Amarna letters clearly presuppose a time when Palestine was divided into a number of city states, each with its own king, whereas in the time of Jehoshaphat and Ahab to which Velikovsky assigns the El Amarna letters, there were simply two kingdoms, Israel in the North and Judah in the South.
While Sieff will, in support of Velikovsky, respond at some length to Day’s objection, I shall simply quote here from Cook - with some further, though unintended, support, later, from Aharoni - wherein are described from a conventional viewpoint the duplicitous tactics of Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim, “full of complaints against Labaya and other anti-Egyptian leaders”, but denounced by Shuwardata of Keilah as “another Labaya”, showing that the king of Jerusalem was under assault from the very same opposition as we are going to find in the next chapter James gives as having menaced Jehoram:
… we may recognize Jerusalem as an influential city with extensive interests, exposed to the attacks of hostile neighbours in the west and the north – corresponding to the Philistines and (north) Israelites of a later [sic] time – and ready to seize any opportunity to extend its influence.
This, a geopolitical structure quite reminiscent of that of the Divided Monarchy, is exactly what one might expect from Dr. Velikovsky’s relocation of EA.
Pharaoh Amenhotep so-called III, as Ben-Hadad I, had many allies.
We have learned that he had a most impressive 32 kings following him.
Here, we shall be focussing upon two of the foremost of the pharaoh’s colleagues, in their various guises: Tushratta of Mitanni and Amenhotep son of Hapu.
A close examination of the El Amarna correspondence will reveal that
certain significant letters attributed to one or other of the pharaohs name neither
the pharaoh himself, nor even use the term “pharaoh”, or “king of Egypt”.
Who were Egypt’s rulers during the El Amarna [EA] period?
And how do these connect chronologically with the biblical kings?
Perhaps three EA pharaohs, Eighteenth Dynasty (New Kingdom), are named in the vast EA correspondence:
1. Amenhotep ‘the Great
The first is Amenhotep known as III (but I have folded him into II).
Amenhotep, like the other EA pharaohs, is named in the correspondence by his prenomen, in his case as Nimmuria (or Mimmuria and other variations), a cuneiform rendering of the Egyptian Nb-m3ʽt-Rʽ.
According to my revised calculations, with Amenhotep’s father Thutmose III (= IV) dying perhaps slightly short of Year 20 of Asa, king of Judah, Amenhotep’s similarly (to Asa’s) long reign would have overlapped the latter part of Asa and on into the reign of Asa’s son, king Jehoshaphat of Judah.
2. Amenhotep - Akhnaton
The second is Amenhotep so-called IV, or Akhnaton (or Akhenaten, Ikhnaton), whose prenomen Nfr-ḫprw-Rʽ
is rendered in the cuneiform EA tablets as Naphuria (also Napkhororia).
El Amarna is the modern name for Akhnaton’s ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten (“the Horizon of the Aten”).
According to my revised calculations, Akhnaton’s reign must have overlapped with the latter part of Jehoshaphat and on into the reign of his son, Jehoram, king of Judah.
3. Tutankhamun
A third may perhaps be Tutankhamun: https://pharaoh.se/pharaoh/Tutankhamun “In Amarna letter EA 9, the king of Babylon wrote to the pharaoh of Egypt. The name transliterates to Ni-ib-hu-ur-re-re-ia, which transcribes to Nib-khurre-reya, which probably is the Akkadian cuneiform rendition of Neb-kheperu-ra. This is still debated among Egyptologists, and could instead belong to Akhenaten.
However, Akkadian nib only transcribes Egyptian neb and never nefer, which means it can't belong to Akhenaten, whose throne name begins with Nefer-.
The content of EA 9 itself fits better with Akhenaten though, so the identity can't be said to be final for sure”.
A close examination of the EA correspondence will reveal (as we shall discuss later) that certain significant letters attributed to one or other of the above-mentioned pharaohs name neither the pharaoh himself, nor even use the term “pharaoh”, or “king of Egypt”.
Elizabeth Knott, of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has provided this summary of the EA correspondence, attributing only “several letters” to Amenhotep senior. (I do not accept her inflated conventional dates, of course):
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amlet/hd_amlet.htm
The Amarna Letters are a group of several hundred clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) writing that date to the fourteenth century B.C. and were found at the site of Tell el-Amarna, the short-lived capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten (ca. 1353–1336 B.C.) (22.9.1; 21.9.13).
Since Egypt is outside the area where cuneiform writing developed, the Amarna Letters testify to the use of the Mesopotamian script and the Akkadian language across the eastern Mediterranean during this period.
The majority of the tablets are letters (hence the modern designation “Amarna Letters”) written from rulers of the lands north of Egypt, but a few are letters from the Egyptian king, and there are also tablets inscribed with myths, epics, syllabaries, lexical texts, and other lists—the kinds of texts that were used to learn cuneiform writing.
These texts are housed today in museums and collections across the world, including two examples in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum (24.2.11; 24.2.12). Most of the tablets were found in 1887, but details concerning their discovery are vague and contradictory. Secondhand accounts indicate that the tablets were uncovered either by a peasant woman or a group of local farmers; it is also possible that they came from private, undocumented excavations. Archaeologists working at Tell el-Amarna following the initial find tried to ascertain the exact spot of the tablets’ discovery but were met with conflicting evidence.
Locals identified a particular building—named “The Place of the Correspondence of Pharaoh, l. p. h.” on stamped bricks (also called the “Records Office” in modern scholarship)—as the site of the original discovery. A few fragments of letters and school texts were excavated in this administrative building, but tablets were also recovered from nearby buildings over the course of various archaeological expeditions. It seems likely that the Amarna Letters were discovered in these buildings, all part of a larger administrative complex located near the royal palace in what is now known as the “Central City” of Amarna.
Letters comprise the majority of the Amarna tablets and have been extensively studied in the modern period by scholars interested in ancient history and international relations.
Two types of letters can be distinguished. The first (more common) type comprises letters written from rulers of cities and small kingdoms in the Levant—an area controlled by Egypt in the New Kingdom period—that were vassals of the Egyptian king. These rulers write deferentially to the king (identifying him as “the Sun, my lord,” and referring to themselves as “your servant”) and relate squabbles with other Levantine rulers, list concerns with Egyptian administration, or discuss trade and tribute.
One letter in the Museum’s collection from Abi-milku, ruler of the coastal city of Tyre, shows how these Levantine kings depicted themselves as dependent upon their Egyptian overlord (24.2.12).
In addition to the many letters sent by Abi-milku of Tyre, the Amarna tablets include letters from the rulers of many Levantine cities from Ugarit in the north to Gaza in the south.
The second (less common) type comprises letters from rulers who were powerful kings in their own right and controlled large territories such as
Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, and Hatti. In both tone and content, these letters differ considerably from those of the Levantine rulers. These rulers use terms of equality, referring to the Egyptian king as a “brother,” and discuss the mutual exchange of gifts, including raw materials such as gold from Egypt and lapis lazuli from modern Afghanistan (26.7.21) and expertly produced luxury objects ranging in size from small jewelry items to chariots (27.6.1), as well as more direct exchanges, such as royal marriages. While most of the so-called great kings of the Amarna Letters could trace contact with Egypt back to their forefathers, the other letter in the Museum’s collection unusually claims to mark the beginning of correspondence between the king of Assyria and the king of Egypt (24.2.11).
Here, Ashur-uballit I indicates that his message is accompanied by gifts of a chariot, two horses, and a carved precious lapis lazuli stone, and requests that his messenger be allowed to visit the king and his country.
Like other rulers who wrote to the king of Egypt, Abi-milku and Ashur-uballit sought to achieve specific goals—one practical (i.e., the assurance of safety and protection), the other ideological and status-oriented (i.e., establishing contact with Egypt and acquiring knowledge of the foreign land).
These concerns, however, were presented only after a formulaic and sometimes elaborate address that could include the titles of the Egyptian king, expressions of the sender’s subject status (in vassal letters only), and good wishes for the king and his household (especially in the letters of the great kings). Such expressions were probably taught to scribes as part of their training.
While the Amarna Letters have been studied primarily as historical documents attesting to social and political developments in the ancient Near East, injunctions at the beginning of the letters to “speak” suggest that these messages were read aloud in the royal court and thus should also be studied as ceremonial objects.
Clay tablets inscribed in an abstract, wedge-shaped script would have been immediately recognizable as foreign missives, as Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was more picture-like (05.4.2; 21.9.9) and letters were typically painted onto papyrus with ink in a cursive script (22.3.516; 27.3.560). Some of the clay letters seem to have been made to be visually impressive, with larger tablet sizes and bold handwriting as well as carefully planned margins or marked-off sections. The careful production of many of the tablets may indicate that they were designed for viewing. It is even possible that particular clay colors, tablet shapes, and turns of phrase were features that could be identified with particular places or rulers.
Arriving in court with messengers in possibly foreign dress and language (1985.328.13), and accompanied by tribute or lavish gifts, the reading of a letter was probably an important part of courtly rituals related to diplomacy, and provided the Egyptian king an opportunity to demonstrate his power through contacts with the outside world.
The recovery of the Amarna Letters in modern times was the result, in part, of their storage in ancient times in the royal “Records Office.”
Several letters dating back to the rule of Akhenaten’s father, Amenhotep III (r. ca. 1390–1353 B.C.), were among those found at Amarna, meaning that they were brought to the new royal city from an older archive. The primary reason for the storage of some 350 letters may be explained practically by the information the texts recorded—recent promises, requests, and gifts and tribute—that may have needed to be checked or verified in the future. Yet the texts also may have served as mementos of correspondence with “brothers” and “servants” the Egyptian king might never meet, tangible traces of important political connections forged across long distances. ….
[End of quote]
Previously I have concluded - quite differently from the usual interpretations of EA - that some of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs of EA were actually the great Syrian rulers at the time, namely: Ben-Hadad I (Abdi-ashirta) = Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, and Hazael (Aziru) = Akhnaton.
We now arrive at one (i) of what have been identified as the three major problems confronting the Velikovskian revision, namely:
(i) The Assuruballit Problem (TAP);
(ii) Where to locate the long-reigning Ramses II;
(iii) How to resolve the complex Third Intermediate Period (TIP)
The Assuruballit Problem
Velikovsky, having chronologically lowered the EA era from the C14th BC
to the C9th BC, now found himself faced with some real difficulties.
One of them was king Assuruballit, writer of EA 15 and 16.
Some early revisionism, it began to be realised - as promising as it had initially seemed to have been - needed to be re-considered and modified.
For one, any connection of EA with the great Assyrian king, Shalmaneser so-called III (c. 859–824 BC, conventional dating), will turn out to be quite irrelevant.
Dr. Velikovsky, determined to find this imposing Assyrian king in the EA letters, chose to identify him with the significant Kassite king of EA, Burnaburiash, son of Kadashman-Enlil, who had corresponded with pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadashman-Enlil_I
“In another of his letters, EA 4 … Kadašman-Enlil complains to Amenhotep III [sic] about not being given one of his daughters as a wife, quoting Amenhotep’s earlier response that “since earliest times no daughter of the king of Egypt has ever been given in marriage [to anyone]” …”.
Velikovsky’s choice for the Assyrian king in this particular case was later roundly criticised by some revisionists, considering that the only Assyrian king mentioned in the EA correspondence was one “Assuruballit”.
This has led to the now celebrated revisionist TAP: “The Assuruballit Problem”.
I have written often before on Velikovsky and the Mesopotamians.
The following may just about cover it:
….
To account adequately for the EA rulers of Assyria and Babylonia in his revised context would turn out to be by far the greatest challenge to Dr. Velikovsky and to subsequent revisionists.
(a) Assuruballit (Ashuruballit)
Velikovsky, having chronologically lowered the EA era from the C14th BC to the C9th BC, now found himself faced with some real difficulties.
One of them was king Assuruballit, writer of EA 15 and 16.
Velikovsky asked the question: http://www.varchive.org/ce/assuruballit.htm
WHO THEN WAS ASSURUBALLIT, THE CORRESPONDENT OF AKHNATON?
Was Assuruballit I, son of Eriba-Adad of the 14th century, the king who wrote to Akhnaton?
In the Assyrian sources there is no reference to any contact of the king Assuruballit, son of Eriba-Adad, with Amenhotep III or Akhnaton, and nothing that would substantiate the claim that he was the author of two letters in the el-Amarna collection.
All her history long, Assyria was an important kingdom in the ancient world. Assuruballit, son of Eriba-Adad of the king list, is regarded as one of the greatest kings of ancient Assyria,(18) and his grandson Adad-Nirari was proud to be an offspring of this great king. The letters of Assuruballit in the el-Amarna collection do not convey the impression of their author being an important suzerain. It is worthwhile to compare the meek way of writing of Assuruballit, and the self-assured way of Burraburiash. And letters of other kings on the Near Eastern scene, extensive as they are, make it by contrast little probable that Assuruballit was an important king. But decisive is the fact that the author of very extensive letters, Burraburiash, clearly refers to his “Assyrian subjects”.
Assuruballit, son of Assur-nadin-ahe, could have been a provincial prince, or a pretender to the crown of Assyria. In a later age we find a prince Assuruballit installed by his brother Assurbanipal as the governor of the Harran province. Assuruballit could have been a provincial pretender in the days of Burraburiash; and Burraburiash actually complained to the pharaoh Akhnaton for entering into direct relations with some Assyrian potentates, despite the fact that he, Burraburiash, is the lord of Assyria.
Letter 9: Burraburiash to Amenophis IV
31 - Now as to the Assyrians, my subjects
32 - have I not written thee? So is the situation!
33 - Why have they come into the land?
34 - If thou lovest me, they should not carry on any business.
35 - Let them accomplish nothing.(19)
….
[End of quote]
The inconvenient Assuruballit, whom Velikovsky attempted to brush out of the way: “Assuruballit, son of Assur-nadin-ahe, could have been a provincial prince, or a pretender to the crown of Assyria”, cannot be so lightly dismissed, however.
In EA 15 and 16 he titles himself as “the king of the land of Ashur”; “king of Assyria”; and “Great King”:
EA 15
1 To the king of the land of Egypt 2 speak!
3 So (says) Ashur-uballit, the king of the land of Ashur ….
EA 16
To Napkhororia [1], Great King, king of Egypt, my brother, thus speaks
Ashur-uballit [2], king of Assyria, Great King, your brother ….
Those are not the words of some mere “provincial prince”!
….
We are dealing here with no lightweight king, but with one befitting EA’s description: “Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, Great King, your brother …”.
….
Dr. Velikovsky’s hopeful solution to EA’s Assuruballit has not at all convinced some of the best minds amongst the revisionist scholars - it having since become known as “The Assuruballit Problem [TAP]”.
(b) Shalmaneser III
The problem was that there was a very powerful and long-reigning king of Assyria, Shalmaneser so-called III, apparently sitting right in the middle of the C9th BC, wherein Velikovsky had located the EA era.
In my university thesis I summarised TAP as follows (Volume One, p. 230):
TAP is this:
If EA is to be lowered to the mid-C9th BC, as Velikovsky had argued, why then is EA’s ‘king of Assyria’ called ‘Assuruballit’ (EA 15 and 16), and not ‘Shalmaneser’, since Shalmaneser III – by current reckoning – completely straddles the middle part of this century (c. 858-824 BC)?
Velikovsky, never stuck for a solution of one kind or another, found typically ingenious ways to account for Shalmaneser III. ….
(c) Burnaburiash
In the following piece, “The Ivory of Shalmaneser III”, we read about Velikovsky’s ingenious ploy to absorb the mighty Shalmaneser III, occupier of Babylon, into EA’s strong Kassite ruler of Babylon (or Karduniash), Burnaburiash:
http://www.varchive.org/ce/assuruballit.htm
THE IVORY OF SHALMANESER
In Ages in Chaos, in chapters VI-VIII, it is claimed that Shalmaneser III, was a contemporary of Kings Amenhotep III and Akhnaton, and that Burraburiash must have been the Babylonian name of Shalmaneser III, who had actually occupied Babylon.
To the reader of these lines, if unfamiliar with Ages in Chaos (and he should judge the discussion only upon its reading), it is not superfluous to report that the kings of Mesopotamia regularly applied to themselves different names in Assyria and in Babylonia. In the el-Amarna correspondence, he signed his Babylonian name (used more in the sense of a title) also on the tablet in which he referred to his Assyrian subjects (letter no. 9).
Our identifying Shalmaneser III as Burraburiash of the letters and as a contemporary and correspondent of Akhnaton(20) could receive direct archaeological verification. In the section “The Age of Ivory”, I quoted from the letters of Burraburiash in which he demanded as presents, more in the nature of a tribute, ivory objects of art, “looking like plants and land and water animals”, and from letters of Akhnaton in which he enumerated the very many objects of ivory art, vases, and carved likenesses of animals of land and water and of paints that were sent by him to Burraburiash.
Calakh (Nimrud) was the headquarters of Shalmaneser: what could we wish for more than that ivory objects made in Egypt in the time of Akhnaton should be found there. This also happened.
The excavation project at Nimrud on the Tigris in Iraq was initiated by M. E. L. Mallowan (1959) and continued by David Gates. Recent excavations there have been carried on in Fort Shalmaneser III that served as headquarters from the ninth to the end of the eighth century before the present era.
The reader of The New York Times of November 26, 1961,(21) must have been surprised to find a news story titled “Ancient Swindle is Dug Up in Iraq” . The report carried news of the finds of the British School of Archaeology’s Nimrud Expedition:
When archaeologists dug into the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq earlier this year, they were surprised to find not Assyrian but “Egyptian” carvings. . .
The explanation given . . . by David Oates, director of the British School of Archaeology’s Nimrud Expedition, is that the archaeologists had dug into an ancient Assyrian antique shop. The “Egyptian” carvings had been cut by local craftsmen . . . to satisfy their rich clients’ demands for foreign “antiquities”.
There could be no question that this was Shalmaneser’s loot or collection, for in one of the storage rooms was found his statue and an inscription attests to the king’s approval of the portrait as “a very good likeness of himself”.
Although the cut-away skirts worn by the bearers are typically Assyrian, the carvings are of a style that antedates by hundreds of years the period in which they were made. If found elsewhere, they would have been identified as Egyptian . . . they are considered to be “manufactured antiquities”, designed to satisfy a rich man’s taste for antiques.
The quantity of ivory found was so great that, in three seasons, the excavating team did not empty the first of the three storage rooms.
The excavators strained their wits to understand why so much ivory work reflecting Egyptian styles of over five hundred years earlier should fill, of all places, the military headquarters of Shalmaneser III. Mallowan and his representative archaeologist on the site, David Oates, could not come up with anything better than the theory that, in the military headquarters of Shalmaneser, a factory for manufacturing fake antiques had been established.
No better explanation was in sight.
Neither did the late Agatha Christie (the spouse of Mallowan), who took an intense interest in the archaeological work of her husband, know of a better solution to the mystery. Yet, the first volume of Ages in Chaos, with its el-Amarna chapters, had been on the shelves since 1952.
In complete accord with our historical scheme, Egyptian art of Akhnaton was found in the headquarters of Shalmaneser III. I could not say, “as we expected”, because this was too much to expect. From the point of view of the reconstruction, we could only wish that these objects would be found in Assyria, but we could hardly expect that they would be found almost intact in the fort of Shalmaneser III.
Again it is too much to expect, but maybe there will still be found, in the same compound or in a room of archives to be discovered in Nimrud, original el-Amarna letters. ….
[End of quote]
At the time of writing of my university thesis this explanation of Dr. Velikovsky’s for Shalmaneser III was the one that I had accepted, then thinking that Shalmaneser III was absolutely anchored to the mid-C9th BC - where the conventional history also has him. Shalmaneser’s Annals, as it then seemed to me, fixed him to several biblical characters of that era, such as Ahab and Ben-Hadad I (Battle of Qarqar); Hazael (Damascus); and king Jehu of Israel.
I have since had reason to question all of this ….
Far less compelling, though, was Dr. Velikovsky’s view that the ‘Shalmaiati’ of the EA correspondence was also Shalmaneser III.
(d) Shalmaiati
EA 155 is a letter from king Abimilki of Tyre. The phrase found therein, “Servant of Mayati”, which name Velikovsky took as being Shalmaiati, hence Shalmaneser III (= Burnaburiash), is generally considered to be a hypocoristicon reference to an Egyptian princess, to Meritaten, a daughter of pharaoh Akhnaton.
See also
http://www.freethinker.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2407&start=90
Comments: In line 41 (Mercer, line 44 others) the cuneiform transliteration is given as "ù àš-šù mârti-ka mimma i-ia-[a-n]u ki-i eš-mu-ù". The form in red is also given as "ma-i-ia-[(a)-ti]mi" which Albright translated as Mayati to be read as Meritaten, daughter of Akhnaton, and Velikovsky as `Shalmaiati' to mean `Shalmaneser III'.
Velikovsky’s lack of a detailed or forensic knowledge of Egyptology would sometimes (as also in the case of the booty of Thutmose III) vitiate his sincere efforts to construct a more accurate ancient history.
TAP solved?
My own solution to TAP will be, finally - after all this time - to take Shalmaneser, so-called III, right out of where convention places him, straddling the mid-C9th BC, and lower him on the timescale by about a century.
Shalmaneser III not of
the El Amarna era
Re-stating the Assyrian problem
The problem is that, according to the revised system that I follow, the long
reign of Shalmaneser III, conventionally situated as it is in the mid-C9th BC,
ought to coincide with the revised El Amarna period of Egyptian history
of pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhnaton, (Smenkhkare) and Tutankhamun.
Shalmaneser so-called III was without a doubt a truly mighty king of Assyria, able to rally an army of 120,000 men. Conventionally, this king is dated to c. 858 - 824 BC. And, conventionally again, he is thought to have fought against Ben-hadad I of Syria and king Ahab of Israel, and later to have taken tribute from king Jehu of Israel and to have overcome king Hazael of Syria.
Since all four of the above-named opponents of Shalmaneser III were, according to convention, biblical kings (Ben-hadad; Ahab; Jehu; Hazael), then it would seem that we have here a most rock-solid and indisputable biblico-historical foundation.
The problem is, however, that, according to the revision - at least the system that I follow - the long reign of Shalmaneser III, situated as it is in the mid-C9th BC, must coincide with the revised (downwards from the C14th BC) El Amarna [EA] period of Egyptian history of pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhnaton, (Smenkhkare) and Tutankhamun.
Well established, I believe, is Dr. I. Velikovsky’s identification of the Syrian succession, from the Bible, of Ben-hadad and Hazael, with EA’s Amurrite succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru.
So, as far as I am concerned this fixes EA to the biblical mid-C9th BC (conventionally dated).
But now, most worryingly, nowhere in the extensive EA correspondence to and from these pharaohs is there mention of a king Shalmaneser of Assyria.
The only contemporary Assyrian king to be found in the EA correspondence is one “Assuruballit [Ashuruballit] … king of Assyria”, he being the writer of EA letter no. 15, addressed: “To the king of the land of Egypt”, and EA letter no. 16 addressed: “To Napkhororia … Great King, king of Egypt”.
Napkhororia was, as we read, the praenomen, Nefer-khepru-re, of pharaoh Akhnaton.
Many ingenious attempts have been made by the best of the revisionist scholars to account for “The Assuruballit Problem” [TAP].
I, myself, have considered various different approaches and combinations in articles, including the following introductory piece in my postgraduate thesis, where I wrote.
“The Assuruballit Problem”
According to the Velikovskian revision of the El Amarna [EA] period, which I accept in general, though by no means in all of its details, the vast correspondence of the EA archives belongs to the mid-C9th BC period of the Divided Kingdom of Israel and Judah.
Whilst Dr. I. Velikovsky managed to lay down a set of biblico-historical anchors that have stood the test of time, e.g., the sturdy synchronism of EA’s Amurrite kings with C9th BC Syrian ones, he also left unresolved some extremely complex problems.
At the beginning of Chapter 3 of my thesis (Volume One, p. 52):
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
I named what I then considered to be:
… the three most problematical aspects of the [Velikovskian] matrix: namely,
(i) ‘The Assuruballit Problem’ [henceforth TAP];
(ii) where to locate Ramses II in the new scheme; and
(iii) the resolution of the complex [Third Intermediate Period] TIP.
And I think that I can fairly safely say that these are still amongst the three most vexing problems. Here, though, I am concerned only with (i) TAP, towards the resolution of which difficulty I dedicated an Excursus: ‘The Assuruballit Problem’ [TAP], beginning on p. 230 (Chapter Ten) of my thesis. Whilst I did not shy away from discussing in detail any of the above (i) - (iii) in my thesis, I do not claim to have provided perfect solutions to any of them. However, I am hopeful that my revision has laid down some sort of basis for a full resolution of these problems in the future. ….
Dr. Velikovsky’s part solution to the problem was to identify Shalmaneser III, as ruler of Babylon, with EA correspondent and Kassite ruler of Babylonian Karduniash, Burnaburiash (so-called II).
At the time of writing my thesis, I had considered that suggestion of Velikovsky’s to be quite plausible.
I no longer do.
There is no doubt that the Kassites, albeit most powerful kings, are so sorely lacking an archaeological culture within conventional history as to demand alter egos.
And, regarding EA’s Assuruballit, James (op. cit.) told of:
…. Velikovsky's Unpublished Solution.
Although he has yet to publish in full his own answer to the problem, Velikovsky does consider, like Courville, that the differences in the paternities of the el-Amarna Assuruballit and Assuruballit I cast doubt on their assumed identity and relieve the problem - there must have been another Assuruballit in the mid-9th century who wrote to Akhnaton. Velikovsky stressed this point in a letter to Professor SAMUEL MERCER, author of an English edition of the el-Amarna letters, as long ago as 1947. He has also considered the possibility that Assuruballit was not a king of Assyria, but a Syrian ruler, perhaps an Assyrian governor of Carchemish, albeit one not mentioned in the contemporary records [14].
Such a solution would have to explain the usual reading "King of Assyria" in EA 15 and 16 [15], and how, "within the ethics of that day", an Assyrian governor could write to the king of Egypt on equal terms and describe himself as a "great king". ….
[End of quote]
Quite a new approach to TAP now, I think, is needed.
Meritaten, not Shalmaneser
The phrase, “Servant of Mayati”, which name Velikovsky took as being Shalmaiati,
hence Shalmaneser III, is generally considered to be a hypocoristicon reference
to an Egyptian princess, to Meritaten, a daughter of pharaoh Akhnaton.
TAP (see next section) would have been well on the way to being solved, no doubt, had Dr. Velikovsky, as he thought he had, actually found the name “Shalmaneser” in the EA archives, as “Shalmaiati” (Ages in Chaos, I, pp. 318-322).
Returning again to TAP, or:
“THE ASSURUBALLIT PROBLEM”.
Ideally, a revised El Amarna [EA] - with the Egyptian Eighteenth dynasty rulers for this period lowered on the time scale from the C14th BC to the C9th BC - would feature an Assyrian king, “Shalmaneser”, ruling contemporaneously with pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhnaton, etc.
But, as we found out, it doesn’t.
The Assyrian king at the time was, instead, “Assuruballit”.
For this particular pattern of revision (based on Dr. I. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos) to survive, either the significant Shalmaneser so-called III must be found somewhere in the EA series; or, the revision must take the further step of shifting Shalmaneser right out of the middle of the C9th BC where he is conventionally fixed.
As we have learned so far, this Great King of Assyria does appear to be firmly fixed there on the basis of his apparent contemporaneity with at least four biblical potentates: Ben-Hadad; Ahab; Jehu; and Hazael.
Velikovsky’s “Solutions”
Dr. Velikovsky had a few tricks up his sleeve for ‘finding’ Shalmaneser III in EA.
One was, as we read, to identify him with the powerful Kassite king, Burnaburiash (Burraburiash) II, who claimed to have some control over Assyria.
Dr. Albert W. Burgstahler tells of this in “The El-Amarna Letters and the Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia”:
http://mikamar.biz/Pensee%20V/0503-el-amarna-letters.htm
In the closing chapters of Volume I of Ages in Chaos (Doubleday, 1952), Velikovsky presents extensive evidence and arguments to support his view that the famous el-Amarna tablets or letters date not from the fourteenth century B.C., as is commonly believed, but rather from the ninth century B.C.
These remarkable clay tablets, written in cuneiform, were discovered by accident in the late 1880's at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, lying buried amid a portion of the ruins of ancient Akhet-Aton, the ill-fated capital of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton).
….
Within this framework, Velikovsky also correlates various conquests and military exploits of the ninth century Assyrian monarch Shalmaneser III with information contained in the letters.
He suggests, moreover, that Shalmaneser himself sent a number of letters to Egypt under the name "Burraburiash [Burnaburiash], king of Karaduniash" (Babylonia), after his occupation of Babylon, which occurred about 850 B.C. in the ninth year of his reign.
However, despite the many items of evidence for such ninth century identifications of persons, places, and events in the letters, there remain a number of unresolved difficulties, especially in connection with Babylonia and Assyria. In fact, one of the major obstacles to a more favorable reception of Ages in Chaos undoubtedly stems from independent available evidence indicating that certain fourteenth century B.C. rulers of these lands were actually contemporaries of Akhnaton and/or his father, Amenhotep (Amenophis) III, in the Amarna period.
….
From King Burnaburiash (Burraburiash) of Babylonia, six letters (Nos. 6 -11) have survived in the el-Amarna collection.
In addition, there are two extensive gift or tribute lists: one (No. 13) evidently from Burnaburiash to Akhnaton (text badly broken) and the other (No. 14) to Burnaburiash, apparently from Akhnaton. Moreover, there is a short Babylonian letter (No. 12) from "the daughter of the king," commending the safety of her lord to "the gods of Burraburiash."
Because it refers to an earlier time when the addressee (name no longer legible) and Burnaburiash's (fore)father "were on good terms with one another," letter No. 6 is considered to have been sent to Amenhotep III, whose long reign appears from hieratic dockets found at his palace area in Thebes to have lasted at least 38 years (4). The other letters, with the possible exception of letter No. 9, are directed to Akhnaton (Naphuria). Letter No. 9, addressed to "Ni-ib-hu-ur-ri-ri-ia" may not have been intended for Akhnaton (written as "Na-ap-hu-ru-ri-ia" in the other letters from Burnaburiash to Akhnaton) but rather for his youthful successor, Tutankhamon, whose throne name is transliterated as "Nibhururiya" (3). Although quite conjectural and open to considerable doubt (5), this interpretation is consistent with the fact that a contract of Burnaburiash is known which dates from the 25th year of his reign (6). ….
In EA letter no. 9, Burnaburiash writes to pharaoh of Burnaburiash’s “Assyrian vassals”.
[End of quote]
We also read above of “Velikovsky’s Unpublished Solution”:
“Velikovsky … also considered the possibility that Assuruballit was not a king of Assyria, but a Syrian ruler, perhaps an Assyrian governor of Carchemish, albeit one not mentioned in the contemporary records”.
Thirdly, Dr. Velikovsky thought that he may have actually found the name “Shalmaneser” in the EA archives, as “Shalmaiati” (Ages in Chaos, pp. 318-322).
With the benefit of hindsight, I think that none of these ingenious efforts by Velikovsky is really convincing.
Shalmaneser king of Assyria is just too large a ruler, and too long-reigning, for him to be hidden behind such lesser known male rulers (as above), and he was certainly not an Egyptian queen (Meritaten).
Perhaps the better approach for handling the difficulty that is Shalmaneser III of Assyria is to follow what Emmet Sweeney has done in his article, “Shalmaneser III and Egypt” (http://www.hyksos.org/index.php?title=Shalmaneser_III_and_Egypt) and that is, to remove Shalmaneser III entirely out of the EA period.
This further unconventional move will mean that, considering our determination to retain Velikovsky’s Ben-hadad and Hazael as, respectively, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru of EA, the traditional link connecting Ben-Hadad; Ahab; Jehu; and Hazael to Shalmaneser III must now be ruptured.
Emmet Sweeney’s bold solution
“We see that, without exception, the Mitannian levels are followed immediately,
and without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones; and the Neo-Assyrian material
is that of the early Neo-Assyrians, Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III.
Now, since the last Mitannian king, Tushratta, was a contemporary of Akhenaton,
this would suggest that Ashuruballit, who wrote several letters to Akhenaton,
was the same person as Ashurnasirpal II, father of Shalmaneser III”.
Emmet Sweeney
Emmet Sweeney, who never takes a backward step, had come up with this interesting solution to TAP, archaeologically based as he had thought:
… Ashuruballit seems to have been a great builder, and we hear of many new monuments raised by him and many old ones renovated. Strangely, however, none of these structures have been found by excavators.
What they have found, right on top of the monuments built by the last of the Mitannians, are the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, supposedly five and a half centuries after the destruction of Mitannian power.
[End of quote]
Emmet’s hopeful solution to TAP was to identify EA’s Ashuruballit with the powerful neo-Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, whose son (conventionally speaking), Shalmaneser III (the root of so many revisionist problems), would then be eased out of the EA era.
I very much like Emmet’s idea of revising that king right out of the El Amarna [EA] period. Indeed, I had already once attempted this, though differently from Emmet – and unsuccessfully at the time. As one of my options for solving TAP I had tried to shift Shalmaneser III down a full century, to merge him with his Assyrian namesake Shalmaneser V (who was also, I believe, Tiglath-pileser III).
I am now strongly re-favouring that earlier idea.
I also greatly appreciate Emmet Sweeney’s comment on the Velikovskian revision: “What was needed was fine tuning, not complete rejection”.
Let us read what Emmet Sweeney had to say on all of this in the flowing article:
http://www.hyksos.org/index.php?title=Shalmaneser_III_and_Egypt
Shalmaneser III and Egypt
…. Immanuel Velikovsky argued that roughly five and a half centuries needed to be subtracted from New Kingdom Egyptian history to bring it into line with that of Israel; and indeed in Ages in Chaos (1952) he demonstrated many striking synchronisms between the two histories once these extra years were removed.
In line with that system he suggested that Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah were two of the correspondents of the Amarna documents who exchanged letters with Amenhotep III and Akhnaton.
He also argued that Shalmaneser III of Assyria, a contemporary of Ahab, was the “King of Hatti” who threatened northern Syria in the time of Akhnaton. This part of his reconstruction however was not well received, and always remained problematic.
We know, for example, that the King of Hatti named in the Amarna Letters was Suppiluliumas I, whilst the King of Assyria at the time was called Ashuruballit, a man who was very definitely not the same person as Shalmaneser III.
For all that, a host of other evidences suggest that Velikovsky was broadly correct in his demand for a five and a half century reduction in Egyptian dates, and that the errors he made in his reconstruction of the Amarna period were errors of detail. What was needed was fine tuning, not complete rejection.
All attempts at historical reconstruction must be based firmly upon the evidence of stratigraphy; and it so happens that the stratigraphy of Assyria fully supports Velikovsky. A whole series of sites in northern Mesopotamia show the following:
Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians (860-550 BC)
Mitannians (1550-1350 BC)
Akkadians (2350-2250 BC)
We see that, without exception, the Mitannian levels are followed immediately, and without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones; and the Neo-Assyrian material is that of the early Neo-Assyrians, Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III.
Now, since the last Mitannian king, Tushratta, was a contemporary of Akhenaton, this would suggest that Ashuruballit, who wrote several letters to Akhenaton, was the same person as Ashurnasirpal II, father of Shalmaneser III.
The end of the Mitannian kingdom is documented in a series of texts from the Hittite capital. We are told that Tushratta was murdered by one of his sons, a man named Kurtiwaza.
The latter then fled, half naked, to the court of the Hittite King, Suppiluliumas, who put an army at his disposal; with which the parricide conquered the Mitannian lands. The capital city, Washukanni, was taken, and Kurtiwaza was presumably rewarded for his treachery.
The region of [Assyria] … was a mainstay of the Mitannian kingdom. A few years earlier Tushratta had sent the cult statue of Ishtar of Nineveh to Egypt. So, if Kurtiwaza was established as a puppet king by Suppiluliumas, it is likely that his kingdom would have included Assyria. We know that immediately after the overthrow of the Mitanni lands we find a supposedly resurgent Assyria reasserting itself under King Ashuruballit.
The latter’s domain included the Mitanni heartland, for we find him plundering the Mitanni capital of Washukanni and taking from there various treasures with which to adorn his own monuments in Nineveh and Ashur.
Indeed, Ashuruballit seems to have been a great builder, and we hear of many new monuments raised by him and many old ones renovated. Strangely, however, none of these structures have been found by excavators.
What they have found, right on top of the monuments built by the last of the Mitannians, are the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, supposedly five and a half centuries after the destruction of Mitannian power.
Strange as it may seem, Ashurnasirpal II was also a great builder. He too raised monuments throughout Assyria. These included a new capital named Calah. In Calah archaeologists found numerous [artifacts] … of Egyptian manufacture.
There were, for example, many scarabs of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty, especially from the time of Amenhotap [Amenhotep] III. (See Austen Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853) p. 282)
So, just in the place where we would expect to find the monuments of Ashuruballit, who was a contemporary of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty, we find the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, whose buildings are full of artifacts of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty. This would strongly suggest, even demand, that Ashuruballit and Ashurnasirpal II are one and the same person. Furthermore, since Ashuruballit, the new king of Assyria after the death of Tushratta, seems to be an Assyrian alter-ego of Tushratta’s parricide son Kurtiwaza, this would imply that Ashurnasirpal was yet another alter-ego of Kurtiwaza, and was himself the murderer of Tushratta.
Is there then any evidence to suggest that Ashurnasirpal II was a parricide?
The Babylonian Chronicle tells us that a “Middle Assyrian” king named Tukulti-Ninurta was murdered by his own son. The name of the murderer is given: it is Ashurnasirpal.
The “Middle Assyrians” were a mysterious line of kings who ruled Assyria before the time of the Neo-Assyrians and supposedly after the time of the Mitannians. Yet we know of no Assyrian stratigraphy which can give a clear line from Mitannian to Middle Assyrian to Neo-Assyrian. On the contrary, as we saw, the Mitannians are followed immediately by the Neo-Assyrians of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III.
This can only mean that the Middle Assyrians must have been contemporaries of the Mitannians, and were most likely Mitannian kings using Assyrian names. We know that ancient rulers often bore several titles in accordance with the various nations and ethnic groups over which they reigned. Since the Mitannian royal names are Indo-Iranian, and therefore meaningless and probably unpronounceable to the Semitic speakers of Assyria, it is almost certain that they would also have used Assyrian-sounding titles.
That the Middle Assyrians were in fact contemporary with the Mitannians is shown in numberless details of artwork, pottery, epigraphy, etc. (See for example P. Pfalzner, Mittanische und Mittelassyrische Keramik (Berlin, 1995)
Thus it would appear that Tukulti Ninurta, who was murdered by his son Ashurnasirpal, was one and the same as Tushratta, who was murdered by his son Kurtiwaza. This latter, upon being appointed king of Assyria by Suppiluliumas, first used the Assyrian name Ashuruballit, but later changed it to Ashurnasirpal. Such adopting of new titles to mark different stages in one’s life and career was by no means uncommon in ancient times.
The kings who followed on the throne of Assyria, from Shalmaneser III onwards, all bore typically “Middle Assyrian” names, and these are the rulers who were contemporaries of the Egyptian Nineteenth Dynasty. It was thus Adad-Nirari III (Shalmaneser III’s grandson), and not Adad-Nirari I, who exchanged letters with the Hitttite Hattusilis III during the time of Ramses II.
All of this helps us to place the reign of Shalmaneser III fairly precisely within the context of Egyptian history. We know that the parricide Ashurnasirpal (Ashuruballit) became gravely ill and incapacitated in some way (a plaintive prayer to the gods of his exists) in the ninth year of his reign, and that after this time he associated his son with him on the throne, who then became sole ruler in all but name.
Since Ashuruballit wrote his first letters to Akhenaton about midway through the latter’s reign, this would suggest that Ashuruballit became ill near the end of Akhenaton’s life, and consequently that Shalmaneser III must have assumed power in Assyria within a year or two of the accession of Tutankhamun in Egypt. Since Shalmaneser III reigned thirty-five years, he would then have reigned contemporary also with Ay, Horemheb and Seti I. ….
[End of quote]
No doubt Emmet Sweeney is broadly on the right track here in his laudable attempt to shorten the archaeological and chronological gap between the Mitannians and the neo-Assyrians.
My own view, though, would be that the gap between EA’s Tushratta of Mitanni and the likes of Tukulti-Ninurta, Shalmaneser III and Ashurnasirpal, is somewhat broader than that which Emmet has proposed.
Tukulti-Ninurta I, for instance - who I think will almost certainly turn out to be Tukulti-Ninurta II - is to be found quite a bit later than Emmet’s alter ego for him, Tushratta.
See e.g. my article on this:
Can Tukulti-Ninurta I be king Sennacherib?
https://www.academia.edu/40246318/Can_Tukulti-Ninurta_I_be_king_Sennacherib
And that radically revised setting would seem to support my earlier view (now re-visited) that Shalmaneser must have been, not an EA potentate, but a later neo-Assyrian king (such as Tiglath-pileser III = Shalmaneser V).
But I take Emmet Sweeney’s point that: “We see that, without exception, the Mitannian levels are followed immediately, and without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones …”, and I intend to make use of it.
I shall be arguing further on that King Ahab of Israel could not have been present at the Battle of Qarqar as is commonly thought.
YUYA, TUSHRATTA, ASSURUBALLIT
We have begun to understand why the early Old Testament reflects such an Egyptian influence. Some of its writers, Joseph, Moses and Solomon (Senenmut), were also key figures in Egypt’s destiny. Strictly speaking, the influence was from the side of Israel. Thus Islamic scholar, Ahmed Osman, might have found rather more fertile subject matter had he chosen to write about Israel’s influence, rather than Egypt’s, upon ancient to modern culture. But his prejudices weighing against that may be too strong.
Ahmed Osman, when attempting to explain the mysterious foreigner in EA Egypt, Yuya, tries to identify him – and others have followed suite – with the biblical Patriarch Joseph: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history/mysterious-mummy-cairo-surprising-true-identity-joseph-coat-many-colors-008681
UPDATED 21 JANUARY, 2021 - 23:09 AHMED OSMAN
A Mysterious Mummy in Cairo: The Surprising True Identity of Joseph with the Coat of Many Colors
Who was the king who appointed Joseph, of the legendary coat of many colors, as his minister? And during which period of Egyptian history did he live?
Mackey’s comment: I have previously determined, as have others, that Joseph was (among others) Imhotep, Vizier of Horus Netjerikhet of Egypt’s Third Dynasty, and contemporaneous with the Eleventh Dynasty long pre-dating the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Osman continues:
Since the start of archaeological digging in Egypt more than a hundred and fifty years ago, scholars have been trying to answer these questions. These were questions to which I devoted twenty-five years of my own adult life.
Patriarch Joseph is said in the Bible and the Quran, to have been sold as a slave into Egypt. It was his own brothers who handed him over to a trade caravan, as they became jealous when Jacob, their father, gave him a coat with many colors. An Egyptian official bought the young Hebrew boy and made him overseer over his house, but when the official’s mistress falsely accused Joseph of trying to seduce her, he was sent to prison. Two years later, Joseph was set free by the Pharaoh, who also appointed him as one of his ministers, when he was able to interpret the king’s dream.
Father to Pharaoh
Later, as a result of a famine in the land of Canaan , the story goes that Joseph’s brothers went down to Egypt to buy corn there. Joseph recognized Jacob’s sons when they arrived, but they did not recognize him in his Egyptian costume; he kept his identity secret.
The famine in Canaan persisted, however, and caused Joseph’s half-brothers to return to Egypt on a second corn-buying mission. On this occasion Joseph invited them to have a meal in his house and, in an emotional moment, he revealed his identity to his brothers. They were ashamed of what they had done to him, when they sold him as a slave, but he asked them not to feel any sense of guilt: “For God did send me before you to preserve life, and He has made me a Father to Pharaoh,” he said.
“Father to Pharaoh”! It was this title that attracted my attention. Egyptian officials were usually given the title “Son of Pharaoh,” but “Father to Pharaoh” was a rare title, and only few people had it. Immediately the name of Yuya came to my mind.
Yuya served as a minister and commander of the military Chariots for Amenhotep III (circa 1405-1367 BC) [sic] of the 18th dynasty.
Among his many titles, Yuya bore one that was unique to him, it ntr n nb tawi , ‘the holy father of the Lord of the Two Lands’ , Pharaoh’s formal title. The reason for Yuya to get this unique title was the fact that the king Amenhotep III had married Yuya’s daughter, Tiye, and made her his great wife, the Queen of Egypt.
Painting depicting a scene in the Biblical myth of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. (Public Domain)
….
Could Joseph the Patriarch and Yuya be one and the same person?
Yuya’s Tomb
The tomb of Yuya and his wife Tuya was found in 1905, three years after Theodore M. Davis had obtained a concession to excavate in the Valley of the Kings. The site of the tomb, the only one in Egypt to be found almost intact before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s seventeen years later, occasioned some surprise.
Outer coffin of Yuya’s mummy. Excavation assistant beside 2.75-meter (9 feet) outer coffin, shortly after excavation, circa 1905. (Public Domain)
Davis provided the money, while the actual work was carried out by British archaeologists.
There is a narrow side valley in the Valley of the Kings, about half a mile long, leading up to the mountain. Eight days before Christmas of 1904, James Quibell started the examination of this side valley. A month later, he decided to transfer the men back to the mouth of the side valley, and by February 1 they had exposed the top of a sealed door that blocked the stairwell. Within a few days Davis and his group were able to enter the tomb, in which they found the sarcophagus of Yuya and of his wife, Tuya (or Tjuyu, Thuya), including their mummies.
….
Although both Yuya and his wife were known from Egyptian texts, neither was considered particularly important. Nor, as far as anyone was aware, did either of them possess royal blood—which one would expect when they enjoyed the privilege of burial in the Valley of the Kings.
Yuya a Semite
Other than sharing the unique title of “Father to Pharaoh,” both Joseph and Yuya were of foreign origin, and many scholars have commented on Yuya’s foreign appearance . Arthur Weigall, one of the archaeologists involved in the discovery of Yuya’s tomb, wrote: “He was a person of commanding presence . . . He has the face of an ecclesiastic, and there is something about his mouth that reminds one of the late Pope, Leo III.”
Henri Naville, the Swiss Egyptologist, took the view that Yuya’s “very aquiline face might be Semitic.”
The difficulties scribes had with his name also point to Yuya’s foreign origin. Eleven different spellings were found on his sarcophagus, three coffins and other funerary furniture. Egyptian names usually indicated the name of the god under whose protection a person was placed: ‘Ra-mos’, ‘Ptah-hotep’, ‘Tutankh-amun’, and so on. It therefore seems that Egyptian scribes must have named him after his own god, Yhwh (Jehovah) [sic], and that is what the scribes were trying to write, with spellings that included Ya-a, Yi-ya and Yu-yi.
The way Yuya was buried also points to his not having been Egyptian. His ears were not pierced, unlike those of most royal mummies of the 18th Dynasty, the time when Yuya saw service under both Tuthmosis IV and his son, Amenhotep III, and the position of his hands, facing his neck under the chin, is different from the usual Osiris form in which the dead man’s hands are crossed over his chest.
Grafton Elliot Smith, the British anatomist who examined Yuya’s mummy in 1905, raised the question of his non-Egyptian appearance. Smith wrote in his report:
“His (Yuya’s) face is relatively short and elliptical . . . His nose is prominent, aquiline and high-bridged; . . . The lips appear to be somewhat full. The jaw is moderately square . . . When we come to enquire into the racial character of the body of Yuya, there is very little we can definitely seize on as a clear indication of his origin and affinities . . . The form of the face (and especially the nose) is such as we find more commonly in Europe than in Egypt.”
Pharaoh also gave Joseph an Egyptian wife and an Egyptian name, the first element of which is “sef.” Manetho, an Egyptian historian who wrote the history of his country to Ptolemy I during the third century BC, mentions that Amenhotep III had a minister called Sef. It seems that the name “Jo-sef” or “Yo-sef” in Hebrew and “Yu-sef” in Arabic, was composed of two elements: one Hebrew, “Yu,” which is short for Yahweh, and the other Egyptian, “sef.”
Gilded cartonnage mummy mask of Tuya, wife of Yuya and mother of Queen Tiye. (Public Domain)
In the biblical account of Joseph the Patriarch, on his appointment as minister, he received three objects from Pharaoh as insignia of office, a ring, a gold chain, and a chariot. These three objects were also found in Yuya’s tomb.
The gilded cartonnage mask of Yuya, the father of Queen Tiye. Was Yuya more than just the father-in-law of pharaoh Amenhotep III – could he have been the Biblical Patriarch Joseph? (Public Domain)
Although the royal ring was not found in Yuya’s tomb, written text was found to show that Yuya was bearer of the king’s ring. This is clear from Yuya’s titles, “bearer of the seal of the king of Lower Egypt” as well as “bearer of the ring of the king of Lower Egypt.” A significant find in the tomb also was a gold chain that had fallen inside Yuya’s coffin, and come to rest beneath his head when the tomb robbers cut the thread that held it in place. A small chariot was also discovered in the tomb.
Age of Wisdom
Of Joseph’s death and burial, the Book of Genesis says that he died at the age of a hundred and ten : “They embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.” Since as long ago as 1865, when the British scholar Charles W. Goodwin suggested the age the biblical narrator assigned to Joseph at the time of his death was a reflection of the Egyptian tradition, this idea has become increasingly accepted by Egyptologists.
Sir Grafton Elliott Smith, the anatomist who examined Yuya’s mummy after its discovery, said in his medical report that Yuya was not less than sixty at the time of his death.
Smith was unable by facial appearance alone to judge the exact age, but Henri Naville, who translated Yuya’s copy of The Book of the Dead , wrote in his subsequent commentary on it that “. . . the artist wished to indicate that Iouiya (Yuya) was a very old man when he died: therefore, he made him quite a white wig . . .”
Such apparent discrepancies about age are easily resolved. As the average age to which people lived at the time was about thirty-five, ancient Egyptians considered old age to be a sign of wisdom, and those who attained long life were looked upon as holy figures. Both Joseph and Yuya were considered wise by Pharaoh.
Of Joseph he said: “There is nobody as discreet and wise as you.” Yuya is described on his funerary papyrus as “the only wise who loves his god.” The age Egyptians ascribed to those who lived to be wise was one hundred and ten, irrespective of how old they actually were.
Amenhotep son of Habu, an Egyptian magician in Yuya’s time, was said to have lived one hundred and ten years, although the last information we have about him puts his age at eighty.
Egypt - Temple of Seti, east entrance, Thebes. (Public Domain)
The City with Many Gates
It is not only a comparison between the Old Testament account of Joseph the Patriarch and Egyptian historical records that point to both being one and the same person. According to the Quran, the sacred Muslim book, before their second visit to Egypt, Joseph’s half-brothers were given some advice by Jacob, their father:
“O, my sons! Enter (the city) not all by one gate: enter ye by different gates…”
This advice indicates that the city they visited on their trade missions, which had many gates, was either Memphis, the seat of the royal residence south of the Giza Pyramids, or Thebes, on the east bank of the Nile.
The same story is found in Jewish traditions: “His brothers, fearing the evil eye, entered the city at ten different gates” (Midrash Bereshith Rabbah 89). As Jacob is said to have voiced his concern before his sons set off on their second mission it is reasonable to assume that he heard about the nature of Thebes on their return from their first visit.
Thebes was known throughout the ancient world as “the city with many gates,” and the Greek poet Homer mentioned it around the eighth century BC as “the hundred-gated city.” These were not references to gates through a profusion of walls, but to entrances belonging to its many temples and palaces.
The Time of Yuya and Joseph
As the name of Pharaoh who appointed Joseph as his minister is missing in the holy books, scholars looked for some other details in the story of Joseph, to help them in fixing his time. They noticed that the “chariots,” were mentioned three times in the Book of Genesis:
1 – When he was appointed as a minister, Pharaoh gave Joseph a chariot,
2 – Joseph used a chariot to go out to welcome his father Jacob and the rest of the tribe of Israel when they arrived in Egypt,
3 – When the Israelites went to bury their father Jacob in Canaan, Joseph took with him “both chariots and horsemen.”
The Bible story of Joseph’s elevation to high office states that Pharaoh provided him with a second chariot to ride in. This suggests his responsibility for the Chariotry, a view supported by the fact that a chariot was found in Yuya’s tomb. It was the custom in ancient Egypt to place in a tomb objects that had a special significance in the life of a dead person.
Early Egyptologists, however, were deceived when they attempted to fix Joseph’s time in the light of this information. For up to a decade or two ago, it was thought that the Hyksos kings who ruled Egypt for about a century and half before the 18th dynasty kicked them out, were the first to introduce the chariot into Egypt. As the Hyksos were themselves of Canaanite origin, it was easy to place Joseph the Hebrew during the period of their rule in Egypt.
However, all Hyksos sites at the eastern Nile Delta have now been excavated, and no remains of chariots have been found in any of them; neither any written nor drawn reference to chariots. It is now generally accepted that the Egyptian kings of the 18th dynasty were the first to introduce the chariot.
On the other hand, it has also been established that it was only in the later 18th Dynasty, the time when Yuya lived, that Chariotry became separated from the infantry as a military arm, and that Yuya, as chief minister to Amenhotep III, was the first person we know of to bear the titles Deputy of His Majesty in the Chariotry.
Thus, the similarity between Yuya of the Egyptian 18th Dynasty and Joseph of the Bible, indicates that both characters must have represented one person. ….
[End of quotes]
Some time ago I wrote about Ahmed Osman’s:
… Joseph = Yuya
Osman maintains that Joseph was the highly credentialled Yuya, Syrian relative of Akhnaton. Yuya, like Joseph, he states, was the only official in Egypt ever to be called “Father of Pharaoh”. And he optimistically claims that the details of Joseph’s life after his interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams “are matched by only one person in Egyptian history - Yuya, the minister of Amenhotep III (p. 39). But again Osman’s apparent ignorance of pre-18th Dynasty Egyptian history lets him down. Professor A. Yahuda (op. cit., pp. 23-24) had already found the equivalent title, “Father of Pharaoh” in Old Kingdom Egypt; the Genesis expression, ab, ‘father’, a title borne (centuries before Yuya) by the Vizier, Ptah-hotep, who was itf ntr mryy-ntr, ‘father of god, the beloved of god’; god here indicating Pharaoh.
Now, since Ptah-hotep was also a wise sage, whose writings resemble the Hebrew Proverbs, and since he – like Joseph – lived for 110 years, then it is worthwhile considering - as some scholars already have - that Ptah-hotep was Joseph in his guise as scribe and sage.
Osman’s identification of Joseph is a classic example, I think, of where revisionists would think that they could easily trump him.
T. Chetwynd, for instance (in “A Seven Year Famine in the Reign of King Djoser with Other Parallels between Imhotep and Joseph”…” C and AH, 1987, pp. 49-56), has found numerous parallels between Joseph and the celebrated Vizier, Imhotep, of the 3rd dynasty (Old Kingdom), who supposedly saved Egypt from a 7-year Famine.
Imhotep, who according to J. Hurry (Imhotep, p. 90) was “one of the few men of genius in the history of ancient Egypt … one of the fixed stars of the Egyptian firmament”, is portrayed as a kind of ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ of Egypt: mathematician, scientist, engineer, architect. He was more besides. Carved on the base of a statue of Horus Netjerikhet in the Cairo Museum is a short inscription describing Imhotep as: “The seal-bearer of the King of Lower Egypt … the high priest of Heliopolis ... the chief of the sculptors, of the masons …”. Imhotep has also come down through history as a thaumaturgist, healer and Egyptian patron saint of medicine.
Joseph also, according to Yahuda (op. cit., p. 24), would have been “of the high priestly caste” of Heliopolis – like Imhotep.
Chronologically, 3rd dynasty Vizier Imhotep is perfectly situated in relationship to my 4th dynasty Moses connection.
Concluding Remark
Really, the presence of Israelites in positions of great power even in Old Kingdom Egypt is my answer to Osman’s belief in the Egyptian roots of the Chosen People. It was in fact a Hebrew influence that permeated Egypt and then came back to Israel. Would not Jacob have carried all of the treasured toledôt scriptures of his forefathers into Egypt, where they would have been handed on to the influential Joseph? He, as priest of Heliopolis and Vizier of Egypt, would have preached them to the Egyptian people. The theology of Heliopolis became pre-eminent in the land.
Imhotep-Joseph was one of the real geniuses of Egyptian history.
Yuya as Tushratta?
My own very tentative suggestion for an extra identification of Yuya, one figuring in the EA correspondence, would be as the Great King of Mitanni, Tushratta, apparently a close personal friend of pharaoh Amenhotep and his wife Tiy(e).
For thus he writes to Nimmuria [Nibmuaria]: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ea17/
The Amarna Letters; Tushratta, King of Hatti (Mitanni)
EA17; From Tushratta, King of Hatti to Nibmuaria (Amenhotep III)
To Nibmuaria, King of Egypt, my brother, say: Thus says Tushratta, King of Mitanni, your brother. It is well with me. May it be well with you; with Kelu-Heba (wife of Amenhotep III), my sister, may it be well; with your household, your wives, your sons, your nobles, your warriors, your horses, your chariots, and throughout your land may it be very well.
When I sat upon my father’s throne, I was still young, and Tuhi did evil to my land, and he killed his lord. And, therefore, he did not treat me well, nor the one who was on friendly terms with me. I, however, especially because of those evils, which were perpetrated on my land, made no delay; but the murderers of Artashumara, my brother, along with all that they had, I killed.
Because you were friendly with my father, for this reason I sent and spoke to you, so that my brother might hear of this deed and rejoice. My father loved you, and you loved my father still more. And my father, because of his love, has given my sister to you. And who else stood with my father as you did? The very next year, moreover, my brother’s . . . the whole land of Hatti. As the enemy came to my land, Teshub (a Hurrian storm-god), my lord, gave him into my hand, and I destroyed him. And not one of them returned to his own land.
Behold, one chariot, two horses, one male servant, one female servant, out of the booty from the land of Hatti I have sent you. And as a gift for my brother, five chariots (and) five teams of horses I have sent you. And as a gift for Kelu-Heba, my sister, one set of gold pins, one set of gold earrings, one gold idol, and one container of “sweet oil.” I have sent her.
Behold, Keliya, my sukkal (an official) along with Tunip-ibri, I have sent. May my brother quickly dispatch them so that they may quickly bring back word so that I may hear my brother’s greeting and rejoice. May my brother seek friendship with me, and may my brother send his messengers so that they may bring my brother’s greeting and I may receive them.
EA23; From Tushratta, King of Hatti to Nibmuaria (Amenhotep III)
To Nimmuaria, King of Egypt, my brother whom I live and who loves me.
Thus speaks Tushratta, King of Mitanni who loves you, your father-in-law. For me everything is well.
May everything be well for you, for your house, for Tadu-Heba, my daughter, your wife whom you love. May everything be well for your wives, your sons, your noblemen, your chariots, your horses, your soldiers, your country and everything belonging to you. May everything be well, very well!
Thus speaks Shauskha (the goddess Ishtar) of Nineveh, Lady of all the lands: I wish to go to Egypt, a land I love and then return from there.
Now I am sending you this letter and She is on the way […] Then, in the times of my father (Shuttarna) She was in that country, and just as on other occasions She stayed there and was honoured. May my brother honour Her now ten times more than the other time. May my brother honour Her. May you let Her leave when She pleases, so She may return. May Shauskha, Lady of the Heavens, protect us, my brother and myself, one hundred thousand years, and may our Queen grant us both great joy and may we treat each other as friends. Is it because Shauskha is my only Mistress? Maybe She is also the Mistress of my brother?
…..the year 36, in the fourth month of winter, on the first day. The king staying in the southern city, in Per Hai.
Tushratta also wrote to Queen Tiy, after the death of her husband:
EA26; From Tushratta, King of Hatti to Queen Tiye (widow of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten)
To Tiye, Lady of Egypt. Thus speaks Tushratta, King of Mitanni
Everything is well with me. May everything be well with you. May everything go well for your house, your son (Akhenaten), may everything be perfectly well for your soldiers and for everything belonging to you.
You are the one who knows that I have always felt friendship for Mimmuriya (Amenhotep III), your husband, and that Mimmuriya, your husband, on his part always felt friendship for me. And the things that I wrote and told Mimmuriya, your husband, and the things that Mimmuriya, your husband, on his part wrote and told me incessantly, were known to you, Keliya and Mane. But it is you who knows better than anybody, the things we have told each other. No one knows them better…
You should continue sending joyful embassies, one after another. Do not suppress them.
I shall not forget the friendship with Mimmuriya, your husband. At this moment and more than ever, I have ten times more friendship for your son, Napkhuria. You are the one who knows the words of Mimmuriya, your husband, but you have not sent me yet the gift of homage which Mimmuriya, your husband, has ordered to be sent to me.
I have asked Mimmuriya, your husband, for massive gold statues … But your son has gold-plated statues of wood. As the gold is like dust in the country of your son, why have they been the reason for such pain, that your son should not have given them to me? …
Neither has he given me what his father had been accustomed to give.
And Tushratta wrote to the new king, Akhnaton:
From Tushratta to Akhenaten (Napkhuria, Naphuria)
To Napkhuria, king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, thus speaks Tushratta, king of Mitanni, your father-in-law who loves you, your brother.
I am well. May you be well too. Your houses, Tiye your mother, Lady of Egypt, Tadu-Heba, my daughter, your wife, your other wives, your sons, your noblemen, your chariots, your horses, your soldiers, your country and everything belonging to you, may they all enjoy excellent health.
Tushratta could easily have been one of those many kings who had followed the mighty Syrian king Ben-Hadad I/Amenhotep, with horses and chariotry (I Kings 20:1).
He was obviously a close personal friend of the family, and could well have been, as Yuya, the father of Queen Tiy, thereby making her a Syro-Mitannian princess.
Tensions over gold apparently began to arise between Tushratta and Egypt, with the Mitannian king eventually becoming very angry and ceasing to address the Great King of Egypt with proper respect – no longer treating him as an equal.
This is well explained in Dr. Briana Jackson’s excellent video:
The TRAGEDY of TUSHRATTA (Episode 2, Ancient Lives on the Nile)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkd6BeC-yGo
….
Tushratta was not Abdi-ashirta
I had once been very convinced that Tushratta and Abdi-ashirta were one and the same, and others had liked this identification of mine as well.
I had then been asking this question:
So, my question persists: How is it that there is no record of a clash,
or a treaty, between Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta?
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had convincingly identified the successive C9th BC Syrian kings of the Old Testament, Ben-Hadad I and Hazael, with, respectively, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru of the El Amarna [EA] correspondence, kings of Amurru conventionally dated to the C14th BC (see Ages in Chaos, I, 1952).
This twin identification of Dr. Velikovsky’s I have fully accepted.
With a certain degree of reluctance, though, I have had to drop my somewhat popular - including with a thesis examiner - extension identification of Ben-Hadad I/Abdi-ashirta as Tushratta, the ‘Great King’ of Mitanni of the EA series.
I had made this hopeful connection in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(2) (DOC) Thesis 2: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Volume One, pp. 65-68:
Now, an apparent anomaly immediately strikes me in regard to this connection between Ben-Hadad I and Abdi-ashirta, though it is not one of Velikovsky’s making but one that pertains to the EA structure itself. It is this: Why do we never hear of a conflict - or perhaps an alliance - between this Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta (var. Dushratta) of Mitanni? Why, in fact, do we never hear any mention at all of these two kings together in the same EA letter? I ask this firstly because, as Campbell has shown, Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta were exact contemporaries, reigning during at least the latter part of the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III and on into the reign of Akhnaton, and, secondly, because their territories were, at the very least, contiguous.
At about the same time (judging that is by Mercer’s numbering of the EA Letters) as Tushratta’s raid on Sumur, generally considered to be Simyra north of Byblos, Rib-Addi made the following famous protest about Abdi-Ashirta (EA 76):
“... is he the king of Mitanna [Mitanni] or the king of Kasse [Babylon] that he seeks to take the land of the king [Pharaoh] himself?” This huge region covetted by Abdi-ashirta (Mitanni to Kasse) would have, even in the most minimal terms, spanned from eastern Syria to southern Babylonia. Either Tushratta was trespassing all over Abdi-ashirta’s region, or vice versa. Whatever the case, we should thus expect some mighty clash between the forces of Abdi-ashirta and those of Tushratta, who ruled Mitanni.
Yet we hear of none.
Proponents of the conventional system would probably have a ready-made answer to this, insofar as experts on the EA period, such as Campbell, tend to divide the kings of the EA correspondence into ‘Great Kings’ or ‘vassal kings’, depending upon their status in relation to the EA pharaohs. For instance those kings who could aspire to call pharaoh, ‘brother’, having given the latter a sister or daughter[s] to marry - and hence meaning ‘brother-in-law’ (e.g. as in the case of the kings of Mitanni, Arzawa, Karduniash) - are classified by commentators as ‘Great Kings’, whilst the rest are said to be merely ‘vassal kings’. Nonetheless, even the Great Kings were expected to toe the pharaonic line, and commentators express surprise when they (most notably Tushratta) do not thus comply. With Tushratta rated as a ‘Great King’, and Abdi-ashirta as a ‘vassal king’, it might be argued that there was never going to be any clash or coincidence between them; for Abdi-ashirta was simply subservient to Tushratta. Though I myself have not actually read where anyone has specifically written this.
Nor, as far as I am aware, has it been explained why Abdi-ashirta’s aspirations to become ‘king of [Mitanni]’ would not have caused some major preventative action on the part of Tushratta, the ruler of Mitanni.
Anyway, whatever might be the standard answer to my query above, the Velikovskian equation of EA’s Abdi-ashirta as Ben-Hadad I would seriously contradict the view that the latter was a relatively minor, though problematical, king in the EA scheme of things; for Ben-Hadad I was no lesser king: “King Ben-hadad of Aram gathered all his army together; thirty-two kings were with him, along with horses and chariots” (1 Kings 20:1). Thirty-two kings!
The great Hammurabi of Babylon, early in his reign, had only ten to fifteen kings following him, as did his peer kings. Even the greatest king of that day in the region, Iarim Lim of Iamkhad, had only twenty kings in train. But Ben-Hadad’s coalition, raised for the siege of Ahab’s capital of Samaria, could boast of thirty-two kings. Surely Ben-Hadad I was no secondary king in his day, but a ‘Great King’; the dominant king in fact in the greater Syrian region - a true master-king.
…. And by whatever status in the EA scheme of things one might like to designate Abdi-Ashirta and his successor, Aziru, and however much at times they might appear to grovel to the EA pharaohs, these kings were quite a law unto themselves.
This is attested by Tyldesley when she writes: “Abdi-Ashirta and his son Aziru – both nominally Egyptian vassals – were able to continue their expansionist policies unchecked”. Such would hardly have been the case, however, if these really were merely abject vassal kings as they are generally presumed to have been.
With all of this in mind then it might not be so surprising that Ben-Hadad I, in his EA guise as Abdi-ashirta, whose kingdom, at the very least, must have been adjacent to that of EA’s ‘Great King’, Tushratta, was bent upon ruling Mitanni.
It was, after all, a natural extension of Syrian territory into the Upper Khabur and Balikh regions. And he even apparently covetted rule over Babylonia.
So, my question persists: How is it that there is no record of a clash, or a treaty, between Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta?
Not only that, but they are never mentioned anywhere together in any context. Tushratta was the king of Mitanni, that apparently buffer state between Syria and Assyria which however scholars have found somewhat difficult to circumscribe, and it is even thought sometimes that Tushratta must have controlled part of Assyria itself, given that he was able to send Amenhotep III the statue of Ishtar of Nineveh, in the hope that it would cure the declining pharaoh of his serious illness. I shall be returning to this in (b) (on p.76).
And my answer to the puzzle is that the reason why history has left us no record of any encounter of whatever kind between the contemporary EA kings Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta is because this was one and the same king.
The so-called ‘Mitannians’ were in their origins, as we shall soon discuss, an ‘Indo-European’ people, and their names, such as Tushratta, Shuttarna and Artatama, are thus thought to have been likewise ‘Indo-European’.
However, whilst Singh has given a highly plausible ‘Indic’ interpretation of the name Tushratta, from Tvesh-ratha, ‘one whose chariot moves forward violently’ (some echo of Dashrath), as he says, I would nonetheless like to venture an alternative suggestion: namely that the seemingly ‘Indo-European’ name, Tushratta, or Dushratta, is simply a variant form of Abdi-Ashirta, var. Abdi-Ashrati, meaning ‘slave of Ashtarte’, being simply Ab-DU-aSHRATTA, or DUSHRATTA.
This, I propose, was basically a western Semitic name; but perhaps written by ‘Indo-European’ and/or Hurrian scribes (see comments on the name Intaruda on next page), and so it was just the one king ruling Syro-Mitanni.
Thus, we now have the extension: Ben-Hadad I = Abdi-ashirta = Tushratta.
[End of quotes]
In more recent times it has become apparent to me, however, that the reign of the Syrian king, Ben-Hadad I, would have fallen a bit short of the reign of Tushratta, whose EA letters overlap Amenhotep III and on into the reign of the latter’s successor, Akhnaton.
I then went on to suggest:
Tushratta can perhaps be Ashuruballit
Ashuruballit, like Tushratta, was one of the Great Kings of the EA series,
who will write to the pharaoh of Egypt as an equal, “my brother”.
Tushratta, it appears, had come into control of the important Assyrian capital city of Nineveh. For in El Amarna [EA] letter # 23, Tushratta will write of sending the statue of Ishtar of Nineveh to pharaoh Amenhotep III (“Nimmuaria, King of Egypt”):
Thus speaks Shauskha (the goddess Ishtar) of Nineveh, Lady of all the lands: I wish to go to Egypt, a land I love and then return from there.
Now I am sending you this letter and She is on the way […] Then, in the times of my father (Shuttarna) She was in that country, and just as on other occasions She stayed there and was honoured. May my brother honour Her now ten times more than the other time. May my brother honour Her. May you let Her leave when She pleases, so She may return. May Shauskha, Lady of the Heavens, protect us, my brother and myself, one hundred thousand years, and may our Queen grant us both great joy and may we treat each other as friends. Is it because Shauskha is my only Mistress? Maybe She is also the Mistress of my brother? ….
This would suggest that Mitanni had, by now, come to occupy at least some part (if not all) of the nation of Assyria.
The Kassite ruler of Babylonia, Burnaburiash, would later write contemptuously about the Assyrians to the successor pharaoh, Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton) (EA # 9): “The Assyrians, vassals of mine, I have not sent to you, as they claim. Why have they been received in your land? If I am dear to you, do not let them conclude any business. May they return here with empty hands!”
With Tushratta in control of Nineveh, apparently, then his logical alter ego (since I have had to drop my equation of him with Abdi-ashirta) would be as king Ashuruballit of Assyria, from whom we have only the two letters: EA #’s 15 and 16.
But there is enough in these two short letters for us to detect a distinct similarity of language and purpose.
Ashuruballit, like Tushratta, was one of the Great Kings of the EA series, who will write to the pharaoh of Egypt as an equal, as “my brother”.
While EA # 15 is addressed to an un-named pharaoh:
“To the king of the land of Egypt – speak!”, EA # 16 is specifically addressed to Akhnaton: “To Napkhororia [Nefer-khepru-re], Great King, king of Egypt, my brother, thus speaks Ashuruballit, king of Assyria, Great King, your brother: may well-being reign over you, your house and your land!”
Compare Ashuruballit’s opening:
To Napkhororia [Nefer-khepru-re], Great King, king of Egypt, my brother, thus speaks Ashuruballit, king of Assyria, Great King, your brother: may well-being reign over you, your house and your land!
with that of Tushratta:
To Napkhuria, king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, thus speaks Tushratta, king of Mitanni, your father-in-law who loves you, your brother.
featuring these common elements: “… Napkhororia [Napkhuria] … king of Egypt, my brother … thus speaks … your brother …”.
Just as in EA # 16, Ashuruballit lists gifts he has sent to Pharaoh:
I have sent you a beautiful royal chariot, two white horses, an unfurnished chariot and a beautiful stone seal as gifts.
so, in EA # 17, does Tushsratta do likewise:
Behold, one chariot, two horses, one male servant, one female servant, out of the booty from the land of Hatti I have sent you. And as a gift for my brother, five chariots (and) five teams of horses I have sent you. And as a gift for Kelu-Heba, my sister, one set of gold pins, one set of gold earrings, one gold idol, and one container of “sweet oil.” I have sent her.
And, just as in EA # 16, Ashuruballit will ask for Egyptian ‘gold like dust’:
Of the Great King… it is said: The gold is in your land like the dust; Why is there …. in your eyes? I have begun a new palace, and I want to have it ready soon. Send me as much gold as is required for its decoration and for what is needed.
so, in EA # 26, does Tushratta complain to Queen Tiye about the new pharaoh, Akhnaton:
You are the one who knows the words of Mimmuriya [Amenhotep III], your husband, but you have not sent me yet the gift of homage which Mimmuriya, your husband, has ordered to be sent to me. I have asked Mimmuriya, your husband, for massive gold statues … But your son has gold-plated statues of wood. As the gold is like dust in the country of your son, why have they been the reason for such pain, that your son should not have given them to me? … Neither has he given me what his father had been accustomed to give.
Both sets of letters also indicate paternal family relationships.
Moreover, in Assyrian history, Adad-nirari I (c. 1305-1274 BC, conventional dates) had boasted that his great-grandfather, Ashuruballit, had subdued Egypt.
Did that apply to Yuya, possibly as Assuruballit?
A. Harrak gives the relevant text as follows:
Adad-narari [Adad-nirari] I had summarized in an inscription the achievements of his royal predecessors. He said the following about Ashur-uballit:
(31) mušekniš mât Musri museppih ellât (32) mât Šubârê rapalti murappiš misrî u kudurrî
Subduer of the land Musru, disperser of the hordes of the extensive land of the Shubaru, extender of borders and boundaries.
AMENHOTEP SON OF HAPU
Amenhotep son of Hapu had rôle like Senenmut
The career of Amenhotep son of Hapu appears to have been
modelled closely on that of the great man, Senenmut.
Amenhotep son of Hapu was a highly influential figure, whose fame reached down even into Ptolemaïc times. Horemheb, for one, may have been stylistically influenced by Amenhotep. For according to W. Smith and W. Simpson (The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt, Yale UP, 1998, p. 195): “The large grey granite statue of Horemheb in the pose of a scribe … is related stylistically to those of Amenhotep son of Hapu … Horemheb has the same plump, well-fed body and wears a long wig similar to that of the aged wise man …”.
Who really was this Amenhotep son of Hapu, upon whom there were bestowed “unprecedented” honours, investing him with virtually regal status?
Statuary and Privileges
Egyptologist Joann Fletcher offers us a glimpse of his extraordinary power (Egypt’s Sun King. Amenhotep III, Duncan Baird, 2000, p. 51):
In an unprecedented move, Amenhotep III gave extensive religious powers to his closest official and namesake, Amenhotep son of Hapu, not only placing the scribe’s statuary throughout Amun’s temple, but also granting his servant powers almost equal to his own: inscriptions on the statues state that Amenhotep son of Hapu would intercede with Amun himself on behalf of those who approached. The king’s chosen man, who was not a member of Amun’s clergy, could act as intermediary between the people and the gods on the king’s behalf, bypassing the priesthood altogether.
[End of quote]
In light of what we have learned, however, in our discussions of King Solomon as Senenmut, the powers accorded by pharaoh Amenhotep III to his namesake, the son of Hapu, were not “unprecedented”. All of this - and perhaps even more - had already been bestowed upon Senenmut, the ‘power behind the throne’ of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
We read in “Solomon and Sheba” of Senenmut’s quasi-royal honours (compare the son of Hapu’s “virtually regal status” above):
3. SENENMUT IN HATSHEPSUT'S
KINGSHIP (REGNAL YEARS 7-16)
Hatshepsut's Coronation
In about the 7th year of Thutmose III, according to Dorman [52], Hatshepsut had herself crowned king, assum¬ing the name Maatkare or Make-ra (‘True is the heart of Ra’). In the present scheme, this would be close to Solomon's 30th regnal year. From then on, Hatshepsut is referred to as ‘king’, sometimes with the pronoun ‘she’ and sometimes ‘he’, and depicted in the raiment of a king. She is called the daughter of Amon-Ra - but in the picture of her birth a boy is moulded by Khnum, the shaper of human beings (i.e. Amon-Ra) [53].
According to Dorman, Senenmut was present at Hatshep¬sut's coronation and played a major rôle there [54]. On one statue [55] he is given some unique titles, which Berlandini-Grenier [56] identifies with the official responsible for the ritual clothing of the Queen ‘the stolist of Horus in privacy’, ‘keeper of the diadem in adorning the king’ and ‘he who covers the double crown with red linen’. Winlock was startled that Senenmut had held so many unique offices in Egypt, including ‘more intimate ones like those of the great nobles of France who were honored in being allowed to assist in the most intimate details of the royal toilet at the king's levees’ [57].
The rarity of the stolist titles suggested to Dorman [58] ‘a one-time exercise of Senenmut's function of stolist and that prosopographical conclusions might be drawn’, i.e., he had participated in Hatshepsut's coronation.
….
And even more startling is this:
…. of special interest is the astronomical information in tomb 353, particularly the ceiling of Chamber A [75]. Senenmut's ceiling is the earliest astronomical ceiling known. We are reminded again of Solomon's encyclopaedic knowledge of astronomy and calendars (Wisdom 7:17-19).
The ceiling is divided into two parts by transverse bands of texts, the central section of which contains the names ‘Hatshepsut’ and ‘Senenmut’ [76]. The southern half contains a list of decans derived from coffins of the Middle Kingdom period that had served as ‘a prototype’ for a family of decanal lists that survived until the Ptolemaïc period; whilst ‘The northern half is decorated with the earliest preserved depiction of the northern constellations; four planets (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) are also portrayed with them, and the lunar calendar is represented by twelve large circles’. [77]
In tomb 71 at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, · the sarcophagus itself is carved of quartzite in a unique oval form adapted from the royal cartouche shape. Dorman [78] says ‘... the sarcophagus seemed to be yet another proof ... of the pretensions Senenmut dares to exhibit, skirting dangerously close to prerogatives considered to be exclusively royal’. Winlock [79] would similarly note that it was ‘significantly designed as almost a replica of royal sarcophagi of the time’,
• one of the painted scenes features a procession of Aegean (Greek) tribute bearers, the first known representation of these people [80] - the only coherent scene on the north wall of the axial corridor portrays three registers of men dragging sledges that provide shelter for statues of Senenmut, who faces the procession of statues.
Senenmut had presented to Hatshepsut ‘an extraordinary request’ for ‘many statues of every kind of precious hard stone’, to be placed in every temple and shrine of Amon-Ra [81]. His request was granted. Meyer [82] pointed to it as an indication of his power.
[End of quotes]
Titles
Amenhotep son of Hapu, likewise, had some most imposing titles
(http://euler.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings%20and%20Queens/Amenhotep-Hapu.html):
Hereditary prince, count, sole companion, fan-bearer on the king's right hand, chief of the king's works even all the great monuments which are brought, of every excellent costly stone; steward of the King's-daughter of the king's-wife, Sitamen, who liveth; overseer of the cattle of Amon in the South and North, chief of the prophets of Horus, lord of Athribis, festival leader of Amon. ….
Several inscriptions outline his career and show how he rose through the ranks.
Amenhotep started off as a king's scribe as mentioned on his statue:
I was appointed to be inferior king's-scribe; I was introduced into the divine book, I beheld the excellent things of Thoth; I was equipped with their secrets; I opened all their [passages (?)]; one took counsel with me on all their matters.
After distinguishing himself, Amenhotep was promoted to the position of Scribe of Recruits.
... he put all the people subject to me, and the listing of their number under my control, as superior king's-scribe over recruits. I levied the (military) classes of my lord, my pen reckoned the numbers of millions; I put them in [classes (?)] in the place of their [elders (?)]; the staff of old age as his beloved son. I taxed the houses with the numbers belonging thereto, I divided the troops (of workmen) and their houses, I filled out the subjects with the best of the captivity, which his majesty had captured on the battlefield. I appointed all their troops (Tz.t), I levied -------. I placed troops at the heads of the way(s) to turn back the foreigners in their places.
Amenhotep mentions being on a campaign to Nubia.
I was the chief at the head of the mighty men, to smite the Nubians [and the Asiatics (?)], the plans of my lord were a refuge behind me; [when I wandered (?)] his command surrounded me; his plans embraced all lands and all foreigners who were by his side. I reckoned up the captives of the victories of his majesty, being in charge of them.
Later he was promoted to "Chief of all works", thereby overseeing the building program of Pharaoh Amenhotep III
His connections to court finally led to Amenhotep being appointed as Steward to Princess-Queen Sitamen.
[End of quotes]
Official Relationship to Amon
The son of Hapu was, as we read above, “overseer of the cattle of Amon in the South and North … [and] festival leader of Amon”. ….
Now regarding Senenmut, as I wrote in “Solomon and Sheba”:
Historians claim ‘Steward of Amon’ was the most illustri¬ous of all Senenmut's titles. This would be fitting if he were Solomon, and Amon-Ra were the Supreme God, the ‘King of Gods’, as the Egyptians called him. Senenmut was also ‘overseer of the garden of Amon’ (see Appendix A). Like Solomon, a king who also acted as a priest, Senenmut's chief rôle was religious. He was in charge of things pertaining to Amon and was ‘chief of all the prophets’. Solomon, at the beginning of his co-regency with David, had prayed for wisdom and a discerning mind (I Kings 3:9). On the completion of the Temple, he stood ‘before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, [he] spread forth his hands towards heaven’ (I Kings 8:22). Likewise, Senenmut is depicted in Hatshepsut's temple with arms up-stretched to heaven, praying to Hathor, the personification of wisdom. ….
The career of Amenhotep son of Hapu in relation to Egypt reminds me in many ways of that of that other quasi-royal (but supposed commoner), Senenmut, or Senmut, at the time of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Amenhotep son of Hapu is in fact so close a replica of Senenmut that I would have to think that he had modelled himself greatly on the latter.
Senenmut was to pharaoh Hatshepsut also a Great Steward, and he was to princess Neferure her mentor and steward.
So was Amenhotep son of Hapu to pharaoh Amenhotep III a Great Steward, and he was to princess Sitamun (Sitamen) her mentor and steward.
Again, as Senenmut is considered by scholars to have been a commoner, who, due to his great skills and character, rose up through the ranks to become scribe and architect and steward of Amun, so is exactly the same said about Amenhotep son of Hapu.
Each seemed to be a real ‘power behind the throne’.
Son of Hapu, like Senenmut, is thought not to have (married or to have) had any children.
As pharaoh Amenhotep’s architect, the son of Hapu erected the famous statues known as the “Colossi of Memnon”. In the past, there was also an ancient funerary temple there for the grandiloquent pharaoh, but of it nothing remains except the two statues.
Amenhotep Hapu as Amenhotep (Akhnaton)?
With pharaoh Akhnaton now identified as the Syrian Hazael (Aziru), and, as Na’aman, the right-hand man of king Ben-Hadad I according to 2 Kings 5:1, 4-5, 18:
Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. ‘By all means, go’, the king of Aram replied. ‘I will send a letter to the king of Israel’. So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.
‘But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and [the king of Syria] is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant for this’ ….
then would it not make sense if he were also the enigmatic Amenhotep son of Hapu, who served pharaoh Amenhotep so efficiently for many years?
This would also account for those many lost (unknown) years of Akhnaton, supposedly as prince Amenhotep, before he became pharaoh:
https://ancientegypt.fandom.com/wiki/Akhenaten
Prior to Accession
Egyptologists know very little about Akhenaten's life as prince Amenhotep. Donald B. Redford dates his birth before his father Amenhotep III's 25th regnal year, based on the birth of Akhenaten's first daughter, who was likely born fairly early in his own reign.
The only mention of his name, as "the King's Son Amenhotep," was found on a wine docket at Amenhotep III's Malkata palace, where some historians suggested Akhenaten was born. Others contend that he was born at Memphis, where growing up he was influenced by the worship of the sun god Ra practiced at nearby Heliopolis. Redford and James K. Hoffmeier state, however, that Ra's cult was so widespread and established throughout Egypt that Akhenaten could have been influenced by solar worship even if he did not grow up around Heliopolis.
Some historians have tried to determine Akhenaten's tutor during his youth, and have proposed noblemen such as Heqareshu, Meryre II, or the Vizier Aperia. The only person we know for certain served the prince was Parennefer, whose tomb mentions this fact.
Egyptologist Cyril Aldred suggests that prince Amenhotep might have been a High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, although no evidence supporting this had been found. It is known that Amenhotep's brother, Crown Prince Thutmose, served in this role before he died. If Amenhotep inherited all his brother's roles in preparation for his accession to the throne, he might have become a high priest in Thutmose's stead. Aldred proposes that Akhenaten's unusual artistic inclinations might have been formed during his time serving Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen, whose high priest were sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship".
According to my view, Akhnaton was not the son of Amenhotep and Tiy at all, but was their genius right-hand man and military commander – as was Amenhotep son of Hapu. The early career of Akhnaton, as Amenhotep, is not missing at all, I believe.
It is found with his namesake, Amenhotep son of Hapu.
https://www.livescience.com/lost-golden-city-ancient-egypt.html
3,000-year-old 'Lost Golden City' discovered in Egypt
By Laura Geggel, published April 10, 2021
The city includes units behind zigzag walls, a bakery and more.
The "Lost Golden City" has been buried under Luxor for the past 3,000 years [sic]. (Image credit: Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)
Archaeologists have found a "Lost Golden City" that's been buried under the ancient Egyptian capital of Luxor for the past 3,000 years, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced Thursday (April 8).
The city, historically known as "The Rise of Aten," was founded by Amenhotep III (ruled 1391-1353 B.C.), the grandfather [sic?] of Tutankhamun, or King Tut.
People continued to use the "Golden City" during Amenhotep III's co-regency with his son, Amenhotep IV (who later changed his name to Akhenaten), as well as during the rule of Tut and the pharaoh who followed him, known as Ay.
Despite the city's rich history — historical documents report that it was home to King Amenhotep III's three royal palaces and was the largest administrative and industrial settlement in Luxor at that time — its remains eluded archaeologists until now.
"Many foreign missions searched for this city and never found it" ….
[The] … team began the search in 2020 with the hopes of finding King Tut's mortuary temple. They chose to look in this region "because the temples of both Horemheb and Ay were found in this area" ….
They were taken aback when they began uncovering mud bricks everywhere they dug. The team soon realized that they had unearthed a large city that was in relatively good shape. "The city's streets are flanked by houses," some with walls up to 10 feet (3 meters) high. …. These houses had rooms that were filled with knickknacks and tools that ancient Egyptians used in daily life.
"The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun," which occurred in 1922, Betsy Brian, a professor of Egyptology at John Hopkins University, said in the statement. "The discovery of the Lost City not only will give us a rare glimpse into the life of the ancient Egyptians at the time where the empire was at [its] wealthiest, but will help us shed light on one of history's greatest [mysteries]: Why did Akhenaten and [Queen] Nefertiti decide to move to Amarna?"
(A few years after Akhenaten started his reign in the early 1350s B.C. [sic], the Golden City was abandoned and Egypt's capital was moved to Amarna).
Once the team realized they had discovered the Lost City, they set about dating it. To do this, they looked for ancient objects bearing the seal of Amenhotep III's cartouche, an oval filled with his royal name in hieroglyphics. The team found this cartouche all over the place, including on wine vessels, rings, scarabs, colored pottery and mud bricks, which confirmed that the city was active during the reign of Amenhotep III, who was the ninth king of the 18th dynasty.
….
After seven months of excavation, the archaeologists had uncovered several neighborhoods. In the southern part of the city, the team also discovered the remains of a bakery that had a food preparation and cooking area filled with ovens and ceramic storage containers. The kitchen is large, so it likely catered to a large clientele, according to the statement.
In another, still partially covered area of the excavation, archaeologists found an administrative and residential district that had larger, neatly-arranged units.
A zigzag fence — an architectural design used toward the end of the 18th Dynasty — walled off the area, allowing only one access point that led to the residential areas and internal corridors. This single entrance likely served as a security measure, giving ancient Egyptians control over who entered and left this area, according to the statement.
In another area, archaeologists found a production area for mud bricks, which were used to build temples and annexes. These bricks, the team noted, had seals with the cartouche of King Amenhotep III. The team also found dozens of casting molds that were used to make amulets and decorative items — evidence that the city had a bustling production line that made decorations for temples and tombs.
Throughout the city, the archaeologists found tools related to industrial work, including spinning and weaving. They also unearthed metal and glass-making slag, but they haven't yet found the workshop that made these materials.
The archaeologists also found several burials: two unusual burials of a cow or bull, and a remarkable burial of a person whose arms were outstretched to the side and had a rope wrapped around the knees. The researchers are still analyzing these burials, and hope to determine the circumstances and meaning behind them.
….
More recently, the team found a vessel holding about 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of dried or boiled meat. This vessel is inscribed with an inscription that reads: Year 37, dressed meat for the third Heb Sed festival from the slaughterhouse of the stockyard of Kha made by the butcher luwy.
"This valuable information not only gives us the names of two people that lived and worked in the city but confirmed that the city was active and the time of King Amenhotep III's co-regency with his son Akhenaten," the archaeologists said in the statement. Moreover, the team found a mud seal that says "gm pa Aton" — a phrase that can be translated into "the domain of the dazzling Aten" — the name of a temple at Karnak built by King Akhenaten.
According to historical documents, one year after this pot was crafted the capital was moved to Amarna. Akhenaten, who is known for mandating that his people worship just one deity — the sun god Aten — called for this move. But Egyptologists still wonder why he moved the capital and if the Golden City was truly abandoned at that time. It's also a mystery whether the city was repopulated when King Tut returned to Thebes and reopened it as a religious center, according to the statement.
….
Further excavations may reveal the city's tumultuous history. And there's still a lot to excavate. "We can reveal that the city extends to the west, all the way to the famous Deir el-Medina" — an ancient worker's village inhabited by the crafters and artisans who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens ….
Furthermore, in the north, archaeologists have found a large cemetery that has yet to be fully excavated. So far, the team has found a group of rock-cut tombs that can be reached only through stairs carved into the rock — a feature that is also seen at the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Nobles.
In the coming months, archaeologists plan to excavate these tombs to learn more about the people and treasures buried there.
Originally published on Live Science.
AKHETATON AN ARMED CAMP
Na’aman was also, I believe, the Syrian military captain, Hazael (he being both biblically and historically attested), who succeeded Ben-hadad I as king.
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had brilliantly identified Hazael as the Aziru of the EA correspondence (in Ages in Chaos, I, 1952).
And I thought it must logically follow on that Hazael-Aziru would also be the Syrian Arsa (Irsu), or Aziru, of the Great Harris Papyrus (GHP). See e.g. my article:
Akhnaton was Aziru
https://www.academia.edu/48877759/Akhnaton_was_Aziru
This Syrian invader, Aziru, is said in GHP to have done in Egypt precisely what Akhnaton would do there: close the temples and treat the Egyptian gods with contempt.
Akhnaton’s brand new city of Akhetaton, we found, was an armed military camp, his chief officers being Asiatics (one could read Syrians), and not native Egyptians.
This all smacks of an invasive force!
Now I learn from reading Graham Phillips excellent book, Act of God (1998), that Akhnaton may have even had an Israelite as his Chief Minister:
Pp. 280-281:
“[Aper-El] was one of the most important figures in Akhenaten’s government.
He was both the vizier of Memphis - the governor of northern Egypt - and an important religious figure, as he bore the title ‘Father of the God’. This made him of equal status to Akhenaten’s chief minister Ay.
Aper-El’s son had been an important figure: the general in charge of all the chariotry of Lower Egypt, and the ‘Scribe of Recruits’, making him responsible for all army recruitment in the area.
…
‘… a possible co-regency of the two kings’. This was nothing, however, compared to the apparent identification of Aper-El himself. The remarkable thing was that Aper-El was not a native Egyptian but an Asiatic – which in itself would be unusual enough, as no other pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty is known to have appointed an Asiatic to such high office. More specifically, however, he seems to have been an Israelite. His name, Aper-El, Alain Zivie realized with surprise, appeared to have been a title, an Egyptian form of Abed or Oved-El, meaning ‘The Servitor of [the god] El’. El is an abbreviated form of the Hebrew word Elohim, meaning Lord, which is the form in which God is usually addressed in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament ….
Mackey’s comment: The name Oved-El can also be rendered as the more familiar ‘Obadiah. The holy man, Tobit, would have been called ‘Obadiah or ‘Abdiel (‘Abdullah in Arabic) – Tobit being a Grecised version of that Hebrew name.
P. 282:
The depictions of the Aten in [Aper-El’s] tomb, together with other Amarna-style illustrations, make it blatantly apparent that Aper-El was also an Atenist. Alain Zivie even suggests that Aper-El was a prophet of the Aten in Memphis. The title ‘Father of the God’ would certainly imply this.
Here we not only have evidence of a shared link between the Hebrew religion and Atenism, but a corporeal example of someone who seems to have been a prophet of both [sic] religions and saw nothing contradictory about
“If we may take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value,
then the city [of Akhetaton] was virtually an armed camp’.”
Alan Schulman
Continuing with Graham Phillips important book, Act of God (Pan Books, 1998), we read that Akhnaton “was definitely no pacifist”, though he is often thought to have been (p. 279):
Akhenaten certainly seems to have undergone not only a religious, but a moral conversion. Scenes from the earliest years of his reign show him executing foreign captives with as much gusto as his predecessors. In the porch of the Third Pylon at Karnak, for instance, he is depicted smiting his foes with a huge club.
The Karnak Talatat, as well as depicting similar acts of violence, include a remarkable picture of a bitter-face Akhenaten wringing the neck of a sacrificial duck.
Mackey’s comment: It is a big mistake to transpose modern notions upon ancient characters, e.g. Akhnaton as New Age, hippy type who was also a vegan.
In my revision, Akhnaton was the proud Na’aman, who had won military victories for Syria. He was the sometimes cruel and violent Hazael.
This is hardly the Akhenaten we know from Amarna; the king who so enthusiastically praises all of his god’s creations; the good ruler that loved mankind; the man who would never have depicted hunting animals for sport.
It would seem that, although Akhenaten established the Aten as supreme deity right from the beginning of his reign, his conversion to a religion which is almost identical to the Hebrew faith was more of a gradual process.
Mackey’s comment: As Na’aman, though, it was actually a sudden conversion of a once very proud man.
But the logistics of serving up this alien religion to the Egyptians could be done only gradually. It was a formidable task.
In the fifth year he breaks with his former identity, adopts his new name and builds his new city. By this time he has also adopted his humanitarian doctrines. Four years later he proscribes the use of graven images and totally separates his omnipotent god from the old notions of Re-Herakhte.
P. 66:
… Akhenaten was definitely no pacifist. The Amarna reliefs repeatedly emphasize his military authority. In many he is shown wearing either the Blue Crown or Nubian wig, both part of the king’s military paraphernalia, rather than the ceremonial crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Scenes of military activity abound in Amarnan art: parades and military processions are commonplace, while soldiers are seen everywhere, guarding temples and palaces or manning the fortified watchtower that bordered the city. According to American Egyptologist Alan Schulman, who made an extensive study of the military background to the Amarna period in the 1960s: “If we may take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value, then the city was virtually an armed camp.”
There can be little doubt that Akhenaten not only enjoyed the full support of the army, he revelled in military might.
P. 280:
The Karnak Talatat, coming from the Gempaaten, shows what can only be described as a foreign legion in attendance on the king. Here are almost no soldiers in native Egyptian dress depicted anywhere near Akhenaten. Among foreigners, quite obviously of African origin are a large number of figures who appear to be officers in Asiatic dress, identical to that worn by the Hyksos in scenes discovered at Avaris.
Mackey’s comment: The Aziru of the Great Harris Papyrus had “united his companions”. Akhnaton-Aziru was a military commander of the greatest skill, and his officers were Asiatics (read Syrians).
WAR BETWEEN ASA AND BAASHA
Baasha of Israel is so Ahab-like that I feel it necessary to return to
an old theory of mine, once written up but then discarded, due to complications, that Baasha was Ahab.
Previously I had written on this:
What triggered this article was the apparent chronological problem associated with the reign of King Baasha, thought to have been the third ruler of Israel after Jeroboam I and his son, Nadab.
There is a definite problem with King Baasha of Israel, who bursts onto the biblical scene during discussion in the First Book of Kings about Jeroboam I’s wicked son, Nadab (15:27), and who, though he (Baasha) is said to have reigned for 24 years (15:33), is actually found as king of Israel from Asa of Judah’s 3rd to 36th years (cf. 15:33; 2 Chronicles 16:1), that is, for 33 years. Thus we have the headache for chronologists of their having to account for how Baasha - although he should have been dead by about the 26th year of King Asa - could have invaded Asa’s territory about a decade after that, in Asa’s 36th year (2 Chronicles 16:1).
While some can offer no explanation at all for this, P. Mauro, who has complete faith in the biblical record (and with good reason, of course), has ingeniously tried to get around the problem as follows (The Wonders of Bible Chronology, Reiner, p. 48):
Baasha's Invasion of Judah
In 2 Chron. 16: 1-3 it is stated that "in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah."
But the 36th year of Asa would be nine years after the death of Baasha, this being what Lightfoot referred to in speaking of "Baasha fighting nine years after he was dead." The Hebrew text, however, says, not that it was the 36th year of the reign of Asa, as in our A. V., but that it was the 36th year of the kingdom of Asa. So it is evident that the reckoning here is from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah. Hence the invasion of Judah by Baasha would be in the 16th year of Asa, and the 13th of his own reign, as tabulated [in Mauro’s lists].
[End of quote]
Whilst Mauro may be correct here - and I had initially accepted his explanation as being the best way out of this dilemma - I now personally would favour quite a different interpretation; one that is far more radical, greatly affecting the early history of northern Israel. I now consider Mauro’s albeit well-intentioned explanation to be splitting hairs: the ‘reign’ and ‘kingdom’ of Asa being surely one and the same thing, and so I think that it is not, as he says, “evident that the reckoning here is from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah”. It clearly refers to Asa (a sub-set of Judah) and not to Judah. My explanation now would be that Baasha of Israel was in fact reigning during the 36th year of King Asa of Judah, and that Baasha and Ahab were one and the same king. I came to this conclusion based on, firstly the distinct parallels between Baasha and Ahab; and, secondly, the parallels between their supposed two phases of the history of Israel, especially with Zimri, on the one hand, and Jehu - whom Jezebel actually calls “Zimri” (2 Kings 9:31) - on the other; and, thirdly, on the very similar words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the House of Baasha and to the House of Ahab (cf. 1 Kings 16:4; 21:24). I had previously thought, as other commentators customarily do as well - and necessarily, based on the standard chronology that has Zimri reigning some 40 years before Jehu - that Queen Jezebel was just being scornful when she had called Jehu, ‘Zimri”, likening him to a former regicide; for Jehu was indeed a regicide (2 Kings 9:23-28). But I have recently changed my mind on this and I now believe that the queen was actually calling Jehu by his name, “Zimri”.
So, the basis for this article will be the likenesses of Baasha and his house to Ahab and his house, and the reforming work of Jehu now as Zimri. But also the words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the House of Baasha (the prophet Jehu son of Hanani), and of the House of Ahab (the prophet Elijah). From this triple foundation, I shall arrive at a re-casted history of early northern Israel that I think will actually throw some useful light on my earlier revisions of this fascinating period.
It will mean that the scriptural narrative, as we currently have it, presents us with more of a problem than merely that of aligning Baasha with the 36th year of Asa (which will now cease to be a problem).
This history must be significantly re-cast.
What has happened, I now believe, is that these were originally two different accounts, presumably by different scribes using alternative names for the central characters, of the same historical era.
Since then, translators and commentators have come to imagine that the narratives were about two distinctly different periods of Israel’s history, and so they presented them as such, even at times adjusting the information and dates to fit their preconceived ideas. So, apparently (my interpretation), some of the narrative has become displaced, with the result that we now appear to have two historical series where there should be only one, causing a one-sided view of things and with key characters emerging from virtually nowhere: thus Baasha, as we commented above, but also the prophet Elijah, who springs up seemingly from nowhere (in 17:1).
Admittedly, one can appreciate how such a mistake might have been made. The use of different names can be confusing, retrospectively, for those who did not live in, or near to, those early times. It will be my task here to attempt to merge the main characters with whom I now consider to be their alter egos, in order to begin to put the whole thing properly together again - at least in a basic fashion, to pave the way for a more complete synthesis in the future.
My new explanation will have the advantage, too, of taking the pressure off the required length of the life of Ben-hadad I, a known contemporary of Ahab’s, who must also be involved in a treaty with king Asa of Judah against (the presumedly earlier than Ahab) king Baasha of Israel (1 Kings 15:18-21). The same Ben-hadad I will later be forced to make a treaty with Ahab, after the latter had defeated him in war (20:34).
Whilst my explanation will manage to do away with one apparent contradiction, Baasha still reigning in Asa’s 36th year when it seems, mathematically, that he could not have been, my theory does encounter a new contradiction from 1 Kings 21:22, where the prophet Elijah tells Ahab that his house will become “like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah”, as if the house of Baasha and Ahab were quite distinct and separated in time. My bold explanation for this is that the original text (21:22) would have simply threatened the house of Ahab with the same fate as that of Jeroboam’s house, but that an editor, basing himself on Jehu’s denunciation of Baasha in 16:4, thought that this too needed to be included in 21:22 as a separate issue, not realising that Baasha’s house was Ahab’s house. The way the narrative reads, with Baasha’s early arrival on the scene, he is not recorded as having done sufficient evil deeds, one might think, to have warranted so severe a condemnation from the prophet Jehu son of Hanani – until, that is, Baasha is ‘filled out’ with the wicked deeds of his alter ego, king Ahab.
But with Baasha now (in my scheme) completely removed from roughly the first half of king Asa of Judah’s long reign of 41 years (15:10), what will now fill that apparent void?
….
This last is a question that I hope to be able to answer.
Baasha’s sudden irruption onto the scene has its later ‘justification’,
I would suggest, in the far more detailed biography of Ahab.
As to reign length, we have almost a perfect match in that Baasha reigned for 24 years (I King 15:33) and Ahab for 22 (16:29).
But that becomes quite a perfect match when we further realise that Baasha reigned for 2 years at Tirzah.
Though, in conventional terms, Samaria (at the time of Baasha) was not yet a capital city, according to my revision it would already have been.
And king Ahab of Israel is said specifically to have reigned for 22 years “in Samaria”.
Putting it all together, we get Baasha’s 2 years at Tirzah, and then a further 22 years (making his total 24 years); 22 years being the length of Ahab’s reign.
In other words, Baasha-Ahab (if it is the same person) reigned for 2 years at Tirzah, and then for 22 years at Samaria, a total of 24 years of reign.
This must have been after Ahab’s presumed father, Omri, had built Samaria (16:24).
I say ‘presumed’, because I have followed T. Ishida in his view that the Bible does not mention a House of Omri, but does refer to one of Ahab, thereby allowing for me to make the tentative suggestion that Ahab was probably related to Omri only though marriage.
And that would further allow now for Ahab’s direct father to be, not Omri, but - as Baasha’s father: “Ahaziah of the house of Issachar” (1 Kings 15:27). In “Omri and Tibni” I had noted (T. Ishida’s view) the possibility of Ahab’s connection to Issachar:
Tomoo Ishida instead suggested that the narrative of dynastic instability in the Kingdom of Israel suggests an underlying rivalry between tribes for its throne.[1] In the biblical narrative, the House of Jeroboam was from the Tribe of Ephraim, while the House of Baasha was from the Tribe of Issachar.[1] The Omrides are connected in this narrative with the city of Jezreel, where they maintained a second palace. According to the Book of Joshua, Jezreel was controlled by the Tribe of Issachar. Ishida views the narrative as suggesting that the Omrides themselves were members of the Tribe of Issachar.[1] ....
I would modify this, though, to say instead, not “the Omrides”, but the Ahabites “were members of the Tribe of Issachar”.
KING AHAB AND TWO SONS
Revisionist choices for Lab’ayu
While revisionists tend to consider El Amarna’s [EA’s] Lab’ayu as a king of Israel, they differ as to which king he may have been.
Dr. David Rohl thought that Lab’ayu might have been King Saul, before the monarchy became divided. A blogger has commented on this choice: http://anarchic-teapot.net/2013/03/david-rohl-how-to-fail-a-test-of-time/
“The main argument in Rohl’s book is that Labayu, a Hapiru/’Apiru (no, the name is not related to the name Hebrew) chieftain who ruled Shachmu (the Biblical city of Shechem) mentioned in several Amarna Letters (and himself writing three of them) is the same person as the Biblical King Saul, and that the whole Amarna period is the same as the Early Monarchic Period of Israel. Anyone familiar with the chronologies will notice a slight problem there: the Amarna period is dated to c. 1391-1323 BCE, and the Israelite Early Monarchic Period to c. 1000-926 BCE (all dates are Middle Chronology where applicable)”.
Emmet Sweeney thought that Lab’ayu might have been King Baasha of Israel, who supposedly reigned before Omri had made Samaria the capital of Israel (Empire of Thebes, Or, Ages in Chaos Revisited, p. 83):
… in the Book of Kings we read: “And Jeroboam [I] built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt there …” (I Kings 12:25). This, from the point of view of the present reconstruction, is a crucial clue. Shechem remained Israel’s capital – more or less – for only two generations, until after the death of Baasha, when Omri built Samaria (I Kings 16:245-25) ….
As for Dr. Velikovsky, he had almost nothing to say about Lab’ayu, for, according to Sweeney again (op. cit., p. 82):
It is strange, and significant, that Velikovsky makes no mention of Labayu, save for a passing reference in a footnote. Yet any reading of the Amarna documents makes it very clear that this man, whose operations centre seems to have been Shechem - right in the middle of historical Samaria – was a figure of central importance at the time; and that he must figure prominently in any attempt to reconstruct the history of the period. ….
My choice for Lab’ayu
The reign of King Ahab - who has been my own preference for the king of Israel most suitable for being Lab’ayu - had lasted, according to Sweeney, into about the first decade of Amenhotep (so-called III) of the EA era. “The earlier Amarna letters, dating from the reign of Amenhotep III, are full of the activities of a king named Labayu” (Sweeney, ibid.).
Lab’ayu and Abdi-hiba
The King of Jerusalem (Urusalim) who features in the EA letters at this approximate time is Abdi-hiba, whom I would firmly identify with, following Peter James, Jehoram king of Judah.
Now, previously I have written as a general observation about some of the EA letters for this approximate time:
One is surprised to find upon perusing these letters of Abdi-hiba, that - despite Rollston’s presumption that Abdi-hiba’s “the king, my lord” was an “Egyptian monarch” - no Egyptian ruler appears to be specifically named in this set of letters. Moreover, “Egypt” itself may be referred to only once in this series (EA 285): “ … Addaya has taken the garrison that you sent in the charge of Haya, the son of Miyare; he has stationed it in his own house in Hazzatu and has sent 20 men to Egypt-(Miṣri)”.
When we include the lack of any reference to Egypt in the three letters of Lab’ayu (252-254) … and likewise in the two letters of the woman, Baalat Neše - ten letters in all - then we might be prompted to reconsider whether the extent of Egyptian involvement was as much as is generally claimed.
[End of quote]
Now, King Jehoram came to the throne only after the death of King Ahab of Israel. That remains the case even in the chronology of P. Mauro (The Wonders of Bible Chronology), according to which Jehoram was already reigning alongside his father, Jehoshaphat. Thus:
…. 0826..Ahab killed in battle with Syrians
................Ahaziah [I]
................Jehoram [J] reigns for Jehoshaphat
…. 0825..Jehoram [I]
…. 0821..Jehoram [J] reigns with Jehoshaphat
…. 0817..Jehoram [J] sole king
So, if Sweeney were correct in these other statements of his, that (op. cit., ibid.): “… Labayu … waged continual warfare against his neighbors – especially against Abdi-Hiba, the king of Jerusalem …”, and again (p. 84): “Labayu’s long suffering opponent, the king of Jerusalem, is commonly named Abdi-Hiba”, then I would have to question, on chronological grounds, my biblical identifications of Laba’yu and Abdi-hiba.
However, when we check the five letters of Abdi-hiba (EA 285-290), we find that it is not Lab’ayu now, but rather “the sons of Lab’ayu” (EA 287 and 289), who are giving trouble to the king of Jerusalem.
Lab’ayu (Labaya) himself is mentioned only once by Abdi-hiba, but this appears to be a reflection back to an event in the past, “he was giving” (EA 289): “Are we to act like Labaya when he was giving the land of Šakmu to the Hapiru?”
Moreover, Shuwardata of Keilah will liken Abdi-hiba to the now deceased Lab’ayu (EA 280): “… Labaya, who used to take our towns, is dead, but now another Labaya is Abdi-Heba, and he seizes our town”.
So it seems that the coast may be bright and clear for identifying Lab’ayu, who died just prior to the reign of Abdi-hiba (= King Jehoram of Judah), as follows:
Lab’ayu as King Ahab of Israel
Continuing on in my thesis assessment, I proceeded to give my view of who king Ahab of Israel was in the EA series.
As far as I was concerned, Ahab was clearly the same as EA’s powerful and rebellious Lab’ayu of the Shechem region. He was a far better EA candidate for Ahab than was Rib-Addi (Velikovsky’s choice for Ahab), in my opinion, and indeed a more obvious one – and I am quite surprised that no one has yet taken it up.
Lab’ayu is known to have been a king of the Shechem region, which is very close to Samaria (only 9 km SE distant).
Cook has made this most important observation given the criticisms of Dr. Velikovsky by conventional scholars who insist that the political situation in Palestine in the EA era was nothing at all like that during the Divided Monarchy period: “… that the geopolitical situation at this time in the “(north) [was akin to that of the] Israelites of a later [sic] time”.”
Lab’ayu is never actually identified in the EA letters as king of either Samaria or of Shechem. Nevertheless, Aharoni has designated Lab’ayu as “King of Shechem” in his description of the geopolitical situation in Palestine during the EA period (Aharoni, of course, is a conventional scholar writing of a period he thinks must have been well pre-monarchical):
In the hill country there were only a few political centres, and each of these ruled over a fairly extensive area.
In all the hill country of Judah and Ephraim we hear only of Jerusalem and Shechem with possible allusions to Beth-Horon and Manahath, towns within the realm of Jerusalem’s king.
… Apparently the kings of Jerusalem and Shechem dominated, to all practical purposes, the entire central hill country at that time.
The territory controlled by Labayu, King of Shechem, was especially large in contrast to the small Canaanite principalities round about. Only one letter refers to Shechem itself, and we get the impression that this is not simply a royal Canaanite city but rather an extensive kingdom with Shechem as its capital. ….
Ahab’s “two sons” in El Amarna
With EA’s Lab’ayu identified as Ahab, then:
It is gratifying for me to find that King Ahab had,
in his El Amarna [EA] manifestation,
as Lab’ayu, two prominent sons.
Overall, Ahab had many sons. “Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria” (2 Kings 10:1).
But these others came to grief all at once, all slain during the bloody rampage of Jehu (vv. 1-10).
“So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his close acquaintances and his priests, until he left him none remaining” (v. 11).
Prior to this, Ahab had been succeeded on the throne by his two prominent sons. We read about them, for instance, at:
https://bible.org/seriespage/7-my-way-story-ahab-and-jezebel
“Yet their influence lived on in their children. And this is often the saddest side effect of lives like Ahab’s and Jezebel’s. Two sons of Ahab and Jezebel later ruled in Israel.
The first was Ahaziah. Of him God says, “And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. So he served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all that his father had done” (1 Kgs. 22:52, 53). The second son to reign was Jehoram. As Jehu rode to execute vengeance on the house of Ahab, Jehoram cried, “Is it peace, Jehu?” Jehu summed up Jehoram’s reign with his reply: “What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?” (2 Kgs. 9:22)”.
The short-reigning Ahaziah was, in turn, succeeded by his brother, Jehoram.
Lab’ayu (my Ahab in EA), likewise, had two prominent sons, as is apparent from the multiple references by the correspondent Addu-qarrad to “the two sons of Lab'aya [Lab’ayu]” in EA Letter 250:
http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/labaya_files/labaya.htm
EA 250: Addu-qarrad (of Gitti-padalla) ….
To the king my lord, say: message from Addu-qarrad your servant. At the feet of the king my lord, seven and seven times I throw myself. Let the king my lord know that the two sons of the traitor of the king my lord, the two sons of Lab'aya, have directed their intentions to sending the land of the king into ruin, in addition to that which their father had sent into ruin. Let the king my lord know that the two sons of Lab'aya continually seek me:
"Why did you give into the hand of the king your lord Gitti-padalla, a city that Lab'aya our father had taken?" Thus the two sons of Lab'aya said to me: "Make war against the men of Qina, because they killed our father! And if you don't make [war] we will be your enemies!"
But I responded to those two: "The god of the king my lord will save me from making war with the men of Qina, servants of the king my lord!" If it seems opportune to the king my lord to send one of his Grandees to Biryawaza, who tells him: "Go against the two sons of Lab'aya, (otherwise) you are a traitor to the king!" And beyond that the king my lord writes to me: "D[o] the work of the king your lord against the two sons of Lab'aya!" [..]. Milki-Ilu concerning those two, has become [..] amongst those two.
So the life of Milki-Ilu is lit up at the introduction of the two sons of Lab'aya into the city of Pi(hi)li to send the rest of the land of the king my lord into ruin, by means of those two, in addition to that which was sent into ruin by Milki-Ilu and Lab'aya! Thus say the two sons of Lab'aya: "Make war against the king your lord, as our father, when he was against Shunamu and against Burquna and against Harabu, deport the bad and exalt the faithful! He took Gitti-rimunima and opened the camps of the king your lord!" But I responded to those two: "The god of the king my lord is my salvation from making war against the king my lord! I serve the king my lord and my brothers who obey me!" But the messenger of Milki-Ilu doesn't distance himself from the two sons of Lab'aya. Who today looks to send the land of the king my lord into ruin is Milki-Ilu, while I have no other intention than to serve the king my lord. The words that the king my lord says I hear!
EA correspondences pertaining to Lab’ayu, such as this one, are generally presumed by historians to have been addressed to pharaoh Akhnaton (= Amenhotep IV, EA’s Naphuria).
No pharaoh, however, is actually referred to in these letters, as I observed before.
Mut-Baal
Tentatively, I had suggested, in my postgraduate thesis that the one son of Lab’ayu actually named in the EA correspondence, Mut-Baal, may have been Ahab’s older son, Ahaziah (Volume One, pp. 87-88):
Like Lab’ayu, the biblical Ahab could indeed be an outspoken person, bold in speech to both fellow kings and prophets (cf. 1 Kings 18:17; 20:11). But Lab’ayu, like all the other duplicitous Syro-Palestinian kings, instinctively knew when, and how, to grovel …. Thus, when having to protest his loyalty and readiness to pay tribute to the crown, Lab’ayu really excelled himself: … “Further: In case the king should write for my wife, would I refuse her? In case the king should write to me: “Run a dagger of bronze into thy heart and die”, would I not, indeed, execute the command of the king?”
Lab’ayu moreover may have - like Ahab - used Hebrew speech. The language of the EA letters is Akkadian, but one letter by Lab’ayu, EA 252, proved to be very difficult to translate. ….
Albright … in 1943, published a more satisfactory translation than had hitherto been possible by discerning that its author had used a good many so-called ‘Canaanite’ words plus two Hebrew proverbs! EA 252 has a stylised introduction in the typical EA formula and in the first 15 lines utilises only two ‘Canaanite’ words.
Thereafter, in the main body of the text, Albright noted (and later scholars have concurred) that Lab’ayu used only about 20% pure Akkadian, “with 40% mixed or ambiguous, and no less than 40% pure Canaanite”. Albright further identified the word nam-lu in line 16 as the Hebrew word for ‘ant’ (nemalah), נְמָלָה, the Akkadian word being zirbabu. Lab’ayu had written: “If ants are smitten, they do not accept (the smiting) quietly, but they bite the hand of the man who smites them”. Albright recognised here a parallel with the two biblical Proverbs mentioning ants (6:6 and 30:25).
Ahab likewise was inclined to use a proverbial saying as an aggressive counterpoint to a potentate. When the belligerent Ben-Hadad I sent him messengers threatening: ‘May the gods do this to me and more if there are enough handfuls of rubble in Samaria for all the people in my following [i.e. my massive army]’ (1 Kings 20:10), Ahab answered: ‘The proverb says: The man who puts on his armour is not the one who can boast, but the man who takes it off’ (v.11).
“It is a pity”, wrote Rohl and Newgrosh … “that Albright was unable to take his reasoning process just one step further because, in almost every instance where he detected the use of what he called ‘Canaanite’ one could legitimately substitute the term ‘Hebrew’.
Lab’ayu’s son too, Mut-Baal - my tentative choice for Ahaziah of Israel (c. 853 BC) …. also displayed in one of his letters (EA 256) some so-called ‘Canaanite’ and mixed origin words. Albright noted of line 13: … “As already recognized by the interpreters, this idiom is pure Hebrew”. Albright even went very close to admitting that the local speech was Hebrew: ….
... phonetically, morphologically, and syntactically the people then living in the district ... spoke a dialect of Hebrew (Canaanite) which was very closely akin to that of Ugarit. The differences which some scholars have listed between Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic are, in fact, nearly all chronological distinctions.
But even these ‘chronological distinctions’ cease to be a real issue in the Velikovskian context, according to which both the EA letters and the Ugaritic tablets are re-located to the time of the Divided Monarchy.
And on pp. 90-92 of my thesis, I wrote regarding:
Lab’ayu’s Sons
There are several letters that refer to the “sons of Lab’ayu”, but also a small number that, after Lab’ayu’s death, refer specifically to “the two sons of Lab’ayu” (e.g. EA 250). It follows from my reconstruction that these “two sons of Lab’ayu” were Ahab’s two princely sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram; the former actually dying in the same year as his father.
Only one of the sons though, Mut-Baal of Pi-hi-li (= Pella, on the east bank of the Jordan), is specifically named. He, my tentative choice for Ahab’s son, Ahaziah … was the author of EA 255 & 256.
Campbell … rightly sensing that “Mut-Ba‘lu’s role as prince of Pella could conceivably coincide with Lab‘ayu’s role as prince of Shechem …”, was more inclined however to the view that “Mut-Ba‘lu would not be in a prominent enough position to write his own diplomatic correspondence until after his father’s death”.
But when one realises that Lab’ayu was not a petty ruler, but a powerful king of Israel - namely, Ahab, an Omride - then one can also accept that his son, Mut-Baal/Ahaziah could have been powerful enough in his own right (as either co-rex or pro-rex) to have been writing his own diplomatic letters.
That Ahaziah of Israel might also have been called Mut-Baal is interesting.
Biblical scholars have sometimes pointed out, regarding the names of Ahab’s sons, that whilst Jezebel was known to have been a fierce persecutor of the Yahwists, Ahab must have been more loyal, having bestowed upon his sons the non-pagan names of ‘Ahaziah’ and ‘Jehoram’. Along similar lines, Liel has written …:
One reason for the use of the generic Addu in place of the actual DN, especially in correspondence between nations worshipping different deities, might have been to avoid the profanation of the divine name by those who did not have the same reverence for it. This would be the case especially for the Israelites. Even Israelites such as Ahab, who introduced Baal worship, did not do so, in their estimation, at the expense of YHVH, Whom they continued to revere. Ahab gave his children (at least those mentioned in the Bible) names containing YHVH: Jehoram, Ahaziah, Jehoash and Athaliah. He also showed great respect and deference to the prophet Elijah.
The truth of the matter is that Ahab called Elijah “my enemy” אֹיְבִי (1 Kings 21:20).
….
Moreover, if, as I am claiming here, Ahaziah were in fact EA’s Mut-Baal - a name that refers to the Phoenicio-Canaanite gods Mot and Baal - then such arguments in favour of Ahab’s supposed reverence for Yahwism might lose much of their force. Given the tendency towards syncretism in religion, a combination of Yahwism and Baalism (e.g. 1 Kings 18:21), we might even expect the Syro-Palestinians to have at once a Yahwistic and a pagan name.
Scholars find that Mut-Baal’s kingdom, like that of his father, spread both east and west of the Jordan. They infer from the letters that Lab’ayu had ruled a large area in the Transjordan that was later to be the main substance of the kingdom of Mut-Baal.
In EA 255 Mut-Baal writes to pharaoh to say he is to convey one of the latter’s caravans to Hanigalbat (Mitanni); he mentions that his father, Lab’ayu, was in the custom of overseeing all the caravans that pharaoh sent there. Lab’ayu could have done so only if he controlled those areas of Transjordan through which the caravans were to pass. The area that came under the rule of Mut-Baal affected territories both east and west of the Jordan.
In EA 256 we learn that the kingdom of Ashtaroth bordered on Mut-Baal’s (to the N and E: Ashtaroth being the capital of biblical Bashan) and that this neighbour was his ally.
That Mut-Baal held sway west of the Jordan may also be deduced from EA 250, whose author complains that the “two sons of Labayu” had written urging him to make war on Gina in Jezreel (modern Jenin). The writer also records that the messenger of Milkilu “does not move from the sons of Labayu”, indicating to pharaoh an alliance between these parties, which further suggests that Mut-Baal had interests west of the Jordan.
It will be seen from the above that the territory ruled by Lab’ayu and his sons, which bordered on the territories of Gezer in the west and Jerusalem in the south, also including the Sharon coastal plain, reaching at least as far as the Jezreel valley/Esdraelon in the north, and stretching over the Transjordan to adjoin Bashan, corresponds remarkably well with the territories ruled by Ahab of Israel and his sons.
Mut-Baal, as a king of a region of Transjordania (no doubt as a sub-king with his father) had been accused to the Egyptian commissioner, Yanhamu, of harbouring one Ayyab (var. Aiab); a name usually equated with Job. Could this though be a reference to his own father, Ahab (by the latter’s biblical name)? Mut-Baal protested against this accusation, using the excuse that Ayyab - whom the Egyptian official apparently suspected of having also been in the region of Transjordania - was actually on campaign elsewhere [EA 256]: “Say to Yanhamu, my lord: Message of Mutbaal, your servant. I fall at the feet of my lord. How can it be said in your presence: ‘Mutbaal has fled. He has hidden Ayab’? How can the king of Pella flee from the commissioner, agent of the king my lord? As the king, my lord, lives ... I swear Ayab is not in Pella. In fact, he has [been in the field] (i.e. on campaign) for two months. Just ask Benenima…”.
It should be noted that kings and officials were expected to ‘inform’ even on members of their own family.
Lab’ayu himself had, prior to this, actually informed on one of his fathers-in-law. …. These scheming ‘vassal kings’ were continually changing allegiance; at one moment being reckoned amongst the habiru insurgents, then being attacked by these rebels - but, always, protesting their loyalty to the crown. ….
Battle of Qarqar
“Scholars have speculated that one of the enhancements which Ahab made to
the capital of Samaria was to adorn the palace walls and furniture with ivory decorations such that it became known as “the Ivory House”.”
Bryan Windle
The following is taken from: King Ahab: An Archaeological Biography – Bible Archaeology Report (May 7, 2020) with relevant comments added.
For one, I would not accept the inflated (conventional) BC dates given in this article for King Ahab:
King Ahab: An Archaeological Biography
….
Scripture gives this summary of Ahab’s reign:
In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. (1 Kgs 16:29 -33)
Ahab (ca. 874-853 BC) inherited a kingdom that had been stabilized by his father, Omri.1 He continued the building projects that his father had begun, and actively sought to expand the reach of the Kingdom of Israel.
Mackey’s comment: Ahab was not the biological son of Omri, but probably a relative of Omri’s through marriage.
He was of a House different from that of Omri.
On this, see e.g. my article:
Great King Omri missing from Chronicles
(6) Great King Omri missing from Chronicles | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Ahab’s Palace
While it was Omri who moved the capital of Israel to Samaria and built the palace on the acropolis, it was Ahab who expanded it, adding numerous administrative buildings. He extended the royal palace using finely dressed ashlar stones in a pattern that may have copied a Phoenician style.2
Mackey’s comment: But see e.g. my article:
Of Cretans and Phoenicians
(6) Of Cretans and Phoenicians | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The royal acropolis was monumental, being 89 X 178 m in size, and covering 4 acres, roughly the same amount of space as an entire town in rural Israel at that time.3
While Ahab was, no doubt, responsible for some of the renovations to the palace, some scholars have suggested that the “Building Period II” phase of the site ought to be attributed to Jehu, rather than Ahab.4
The “Ivory House”
In 1 Kings 22:39, we read of a specific building that Ahab was famous for: “Now the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he did, and the ivory house that he built and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?”
Scholars have speculated that one of the enhancements which Ahab made to the capital of Samaria was to adorn the palace walls and furniture with ivory decorations such that it became known as “the Ivory House.” When Kathleen Kenyon’s team excavated Samaria in 1932, they unearthed a large collection of carved ivories dating to the Iron Age.5
One of the Samaria Ivories. Furniture inlay: striding sphinx, Samaria, Iron Age II, 9th–8th century BC, Ivory, L: 7.5; W: 7 cm, Israel Antiquities Authority, 1933-2572 https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/365181 Collection Israel Antiquities Authority Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Samaria Ivories, as they have come to be known, depict wildlife, plants, mythological creatures, and foreign deities. Because they date to the time of King Ahab, and were discovered near the palace complex, most scholars believe they come from the fabled, Ivory House. While many hold that they were made by the Phoenicians, some scholars are suggesting this needs to be reviewed in light of new studies showing that there was a local tradition of ivory carving in the Southern Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages.6
Whatever their origin, it is interesting that a significant group of ivories were discovered near the palace, which date to the time the Bible says Ahab was famous for his Ivory House.
The Kurkh Monolith
In 853 BC, the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III fought against a coalition of western kings near at Qarqar in modern-day Syria.
He left a description of the battle on a stele that was discovered in 1861 at Kurkh, near the Tigris river in Turkey. In the inscription on the Kurkh Monolith, he names “Ahab the Israelite” as on of the combatants and claims that he had one of the strongest forces, with 2000 chariots and 10000 soldiers.7
Mackey’s comment: But see my articles:
Irhuleni and Eni-ilu of Hamath
(6) Irhuleni and Eni-ilu of Hamath | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
and:
How real is the Kurkh Monolith Stele of Shalmaneser?
(6) How real is the Kurkh Monolith Stele of Shalmaneser? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The Kurkh Monolith of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III mentions Ahab the Israelite. Photo: Yuber / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Despite Shalmaneser’s boasts, the battle may have been more of failure than a victory for him (or, at best, a draw), as returned to Assyria immediately after the battle, had no further contact with the coalition, and didn’t return to Israel for another four years.8
While neither Shalmaneser III, nor the Battle of Qarqar are mentioned in the Bible, this inscription is still important for several reasons. First, it is a clear confirmation of Ahab as a king of Israel [sic].
Secondly, it testifies to the wealth and power of the Israelite kingdom at the time.9 Finally, it references a historical event that can be dated. Indeed, it was one of the key inscriptions that Edwin Thiele used to construct a chronology of Israel in his book, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. He writes:
“An exact synchronism between Hebrew and Assyrian history is made possible in the early period of the kings by an interesting correlation of events in Israel and Assyria that begins and ends the twelve-year period of 853-841 B.C. It has already been mentioned that Ahab is listed by Shalmaneser III as one of the kings of the Westland who fought against him in the battle of Qarqar, and we have seen that this battle was fought in the year 853. Therefore, Ahab was still alive and reigning in Israel sometime in the year 853. Shalmaneser also mentions that he received tribute from Jehu during his expedition to the west in his eighteenth year. This would be in the eponymy of Adam-rimani (841). Thus Jehu was already reigning over Israel sometime in 841….the interval between the death of Ahab and the accession of Jehu is exactly twelve years, being made up of the reigns of Ahaziah ,the son and successor of Ahab, and Joram, who was slain and succeeded by Jehu [2 Kings 2:51 & 3:1]….Since the interval between the battle of Qarqar, at which Ahab fought in 853, and the time Jehu paid tribute to Shalmaneser in 841 is also for a period of just twelve years, it is in this period that the reigns of Ahaziah and Joram must have taken place, with 853 as the last year of Ahab and 841 for Jehu’s accession.”10
King Ahab unlikely at Qarqar
“The bible does not provide any information at all regarding
Ahab’s involvement in the coalition against Shalmaneser III”.
R. P. BenDedek
The solution to “The Assuruballit Problem” that I now tend to favour is the type of model adopted by Emmet Sweeney - irrespective of whether or not Emmet has properly re-located Shalmaneser - and that is, to remove that mighty Assyrian king from his conventional location in the mid-C9th BC, where he heavily congests a revised El Amarna [EA].
As already argued, I am not prepared by now to try a different era for a revised EA, I being fully satisfied that it belongs to the C9th BC (conventionally estimated).
Now, as apparent from what has gone before in this series, to shift Shalmaneser away from this era will have enormous biblico-historical ramifications, considering that the Assyrian king is conventionally considered to be tied to those four biblical kings as previously pointed out - the one of particular interest here being Ahab of Israel (c. 871-852 BC, conventional dating).
It is common to identify him with the A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a of Shalmaneser III’s Kurkh Stele recording the Battle of Qarqar.
There are some scholars, however, who are emphatic that king Ahab could not have been present at the Battle of Qarqar. One of these is he who goes by the pseudonym of BenDedek, to be considered here. He will give a strong legal case for this.
Most telling of all though, I find, is the argument regarding the size of Ahab’s armies by contrast with that assigned to A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a.
BenDedek’s case
Here is a relevant section of R.P. BenDedek’s lengthy argument as provided in his article, “King's Calendar Legal Challenge to Archaeologists and their Evidence”:
http://www.kingscalendar.com/bible_dates_research/Research_bible_dates_viewnews_id_276.html
….
F. AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE:
Shalmaneser's Monolith Inscription - Kurkh Stele records that:
· a) Shalmaneser III defeated the coalition, which included Ahab of Israel - AND -
· b) It records the size and composition of the individual armies. Ahab provided 2,000 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers.
a) Ahab's Involvement in the Battle
Ahlstrom (1993, p.578 Footnote 2) points out that a second record of this battle recorded on Shalmaneser's throne base fails to mention Ahab, indicating that he was not one of the leaders of the coalition. [He refers readers to Aharoni.Y. (1966) & Burns and Oates. p 336 and Bright. J.(1981) p. 243.]
He makes the assumption that the failure to mention Ahab on the Throne base inscription indicates that Ahab was not a leader in the coalition, without considering the possibility that Ahab was not in fact there. This is what happens when 'Assumptions' take the place of 'facts in Evidence'.
However the important point in law is that this failure to mention Ahab in the duplicate copy, indicates from a legal viewpoint, that there is no legally acceptable corroboration between the two documents with regard to Ahab's identity. [Refer to Bates, (1985, p.82) for an elaboration on the legal implications in 'corroboration'.]
Corroborating testimony must be independent.
This is not the case in relation to these two Assyrian Records.
Corroboration must directly indicate or implicate a direct relation to the issue in question.
In the case of the Throne Base inscription, its' record in relation to Ahab, does not corroborate.
Irrespective of this however, is the fact that even if it did corroborate the Kurkh Stele's assertion, it could still not be considered corroboration, because corroborative testimony must be independently sourced.
· In Short, of the Two Documents presented in evidence, only one mentions Ahab.
· A matter may not be decided on the basis of only one witness – and -
· A matter will be thrown out of court if two witnesses disagree with respect to basic facts.
b) The Size of Ahab's Army
The size of Ahab's army as recorded in the Kurkh Stele is incompatible with the Archaeological evidence, particularly in relation to the number of his chariots. Its' numerical claim indicates that Ahab 'alone', had an army of equal size to that of the Assyrians. This is assumed to be a scribal error.[Ahlstrom (1993, p.578 Footnote 1, Citing Na'aman.M. 1976 pp89-106) ]
Not only do the two documents disagree with each other, but 'the State's' own 'independent' evidence is, that the testimony of their witness is either deliberately or accidentally erroneous. [Ref:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rules.htm#Rule902 : Rule 902. Self-authentication : Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility in relation to both authenticity and accuracy of documents]
Under these circumstances, the legal requirement would be to throw out 'the evidence', because it is neither effective as evidence nor effective as a witness to an event.
In this case, if errors exist in one section of the evidence, then the defense counsel can claim that errors exist in other sections of the evidence. It can then be asserted that not only is the size of Ahab's army incorrect, but Ahab's identity as well. The legality of the evidence is called into question.
Another thing to bring to your attention in relation to legal evidence, is that sometimes, third parties are called in to give their 'expert opinion' on the reliability of certain evidence.
When it comes to expert opinion about the content of the Kurkh Stele, the experts have differing opinions. [Ahlstrom, citing Aharoni and Bright, maintains that Ahab was not a leader in the coalition but Miller and Hayes (1986, p.270) disagree.]
From this academic disagreement, we learn an important lesson; that academics, and especially experts, often differ in their opinions concerning the same material presented them. ….
Conclusion:
The only evidence that places King Ahab of Israel at Qarqar in 853 BCE, comes from the Kurkh Stele of Shalmaneser III. This Stele finds no support in the Syrian record, is repudiated by the Biblical Chronologies and Narratives, and finds no corroboration in the Throne Base Inscription.
[End of quote]
The First Book of Kings tells us just how paltry was the size of king Ahab’s army by comparison with the massive host of which his arch foe, Ben-hadad I, could boast (20:13-15):
And behold a prophet coming to Ahab king of Israel, said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord: Hast thou seen all this exceeding great multitude, behold I will deliver them into thy hand this day: that thou mayest know that I am the Lord’.
And Ahab said: ‘By whom?’ And he said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord: By the servants of the princes of the provinces’. And he said: ‘Who shall begin to fight?’ And he said: ‘Thou’. So he mustered the servants of the princes of the provinces, and he found the number of two hundred and thirty-two: and he mustered after them the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand ….
This biblical scenario makes it extremely unlikely, to say the least, that a (twice) badly-defeated Ben-Hadad, formerly Ahab’s most inveterate enemy, would now have aligned himself with Ahab, with Ben-hadad leading the coalition, against all the might of Assyria.
“According to Shigeo Yamada, the designation of a state by two
alternative names is not unusual in the inscription of Shalmaneser”.
Whatever variation from the conventional model one may choose to adopt, one will inevitably have to explain also the “Hazael” to whom Shalmaneser refers:
https://larshaukeland.com/bits-pieces/archeology/2-kings/hazael-the-nemesis-of-israel-2-
“After briefly describing how he had defeated a coalition led by one “Adad-idri” of Damascus (probably Ben-Hadad II), Shamaneser III recounted how “Hazael the son of a nobody” (i.e. usurper) had taken the throne. Shalmaneser then claimed to have defeated Hazael in battle, to have pursued him back to Damascus and to have laid waste his orchards”.
And one will also need to account for the Ya-u-a, or Iaui mar Humri (‘son of Omri’), traditionally identified as Jehu king of Israel, of Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk.
Hazael and Ben-Hadad II
One suggested alternative is that the Syrian participant at Qarqar to whom Shalmaneser III refers, Adad-idri, may be the significant Ben-Hadad II (var. III), rather than I (var. II). In favour of this identification is that this powerful biblical king was the son of - but also fought contemporaneously with – Hazael, the same long-reigning king traditionally identified as Shalmaneser III’s foe.
H. Rossier writes in 2 Kings: Meditations on the Second Book of Kings, regarding the name, Ben-Hadad: http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/rossier/2KINGS.html “… we must not forget that Ben-Hadad is a generic name for the kings of Syria …”, and he there reminds the reader that a king of this name had preceded Hazael, whilst another of the same name, Ben-Hadad, had succeeded Hazael.
So, mention of the name alone as a participant in the battle of Qarqar does not guarantee that Shalmaneser III was fighting against Ben-Hadad I, the contemporary of king Ahab of Israel. But, beyond all that, the name of the Damascene ruler given in the Kurkh Monolith account of the battle is Adad-idri, or, preferably, the Assyrian version (ilu) IM-idri.
Some render this as “Hadadezer”.
And, though this Assyrian name is generally just assumed to be a proper match with the name Ben-Hadad – it being common to read, e.g., as at Jewish Virtual Library https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10762.html
“… 20,000 [foot-]soldiers of Adad-idri [Hadadezer = "Ben-Hadad II"]”, a detailed analysis by D. Luckenbill
https://www.jstor.org/stable/528766?seq=11#page_scan_tab_contents firmly concludes that: “…. Benhadad of I Kings, chap. 20 is not the same person as the Adad-’idri of Shalmaneser’s inscriptions. The fact that the names cannot be equated was shown by the first part of this paper”.
Luckenbill, for his part, thinks that this Adad-’idri must have been a Syrian king ruling for a time between Ben-Hadad and Hazael.
Re Ahab’s supposed participation at the Qarqar, we read about the lengthy and contentious history of this proposed identification at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh_Monoliths
"Ahab of Israel" ….
The identification of "A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a" with "Ahab of Israel" was first proposed[19] by Julius Oppert in his 1865 Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie.[20]
Eberhard Schrader dealt with parts of the inscription on the Shalmaneser III Monolith in 1872, in his Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament ("Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament").[21] The first full translation of the Shalmaneser III Monolith was provided by James Alexander Craig in 1887.[22]
Schrader wrote that the name "Israel" ("Sir-ila-a-a") was found only on this artifact in cuneiform inscriptions at that time, a fact which remains the case today. This fact has been brought up by some scholars who dispute the proposed translation.[4][23]
Schrader also noted that whilst Assyriologists such as Fritz Hommel[24] had disputed whether the name was "Israel" or "Jezreel",[21][25] because the first character is the phonetic "sir" and the place-determinative "mat". Schrader described the rationale for the reading "Israel", which became the scholarly consensus, as: "the fact that here Ahab Sir'lit, and Ben-hadad of Damascus appear next to each other, and that in an inscription of this same king [Shalmaneser]'s Nimrud obelisk appears Jehu, son of Omri, and commemorates the descendant Hazael of Damascus, leaves no doubt that this Ahab Sir'lit is the biblical Ahab of Israel. That Ahab appears in cahoots with Damascus is quite in keeping with the biblical accounts, which Ahab concluded after the Battle of Aphek an alliance with Benhadad against their hereditary enemy Assyria."[21]
The identification was challenged by other contemporary scholars such as George Smith and Daniel Henry Haigh.[19]
The identification as Ahab of Israel has been challenged in more recent years by Werner Gugler and Adam van der Woude, who believe that "Achab from the monolith-inscription should be construed as a king from Northwestern Syria".[26]
According to the inscription, Ahab committed a force of 10,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 chariots to Assyrian led war coalition. The size of Ahab's contribution indicates that the Kingdom of Israel was a major military power in the region of Syria-Palestine during the first half on 9th century BCE.[27]
Due to the size of Ahab's army, which was presented as extraordinarily large for ancient times, the translation raised polemics among scholars. Also, the usage of the term "Israel" was unique among Assyrian inscriptions, as the usual Assyrian terms for the Northern Kingdom of Israel were the "The Land of Omri" or Samaria.
According to Shigeo Yamada, the designation of a state by two alternative names is not unusual in the inscription of Shalmaneser.
Nadav Neeman proposed a scribal error in regard to the size of Ahab army and suggested that the army consisted of 200 instead of 2,000 chariots.
Summarizing scholarly works on this subject, Kelle suggests that the evidence "allows one to say that the inscription contains the first designation for the Northern Kingdom. Moreover, the designation "Israel" seems to have represented an entity that included several vassal states." The latter may have included Moab, Edom and Judah.[28]
[End of quote]
As I have already commented, I find it extremely difficult to imagine that the heavily defeated (by Ahab) Ben-Hadad I of Syria, long a foe of Israel, could - in the short window of time allowable by this very tight chronology - have so raised himself up as to have been capable of leading this impressive collation against the might of Shalmaneser.
Moreover, the Bible provides absolutely no indication at the time of Ben-Hadad I and Ahab of a rampant Assyria in the region of Syro-Palestine. This further inclines me to think that Shalmaneser was not contemporaneous with this phase of Israel’s Divided Kingdom, which - in a revised context - belongs contemporaneous with the EA era of Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian history.
Another historian who has great difficulty with the identification of Shalmaneser Qarqar opponent, A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a, with Ahab, is James B. Jordan, who has written along similar lines, asking “Was Ahab at Qarqar?”:
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-chronology/4_02/
Ahab and Assyria (Chronologies and Kings VIII)
…
Was Ahab at Qarqar?
Allis writes:
“According to his Monolith Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition to the West and at Qarqar defeated Irhuleni of Hamath and a confederacy of 12 kings, called by him `kings of Hatti and the seacoast.’ Qarqar is described as the royal residence of Irhuleni. It was there, not far from Hamath, that the battle took place. Irhuleni was the one most directly concerned. But in describing the allied forces, Shalmaneser lists them in the following order:
He brought along to help him 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalrymen, 20,000 foot soldiers of Adad-’idri of Damascus; 700 chariots, 700 cavalrymen, 10,000 foot soldiers of Irhuleni from Hamath; 2,000 chariots, 10,000 foot soldiers of A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a.
These three are probably mentioned first as the most important. It is rather odd that Irhuleni’s troops are mentioned only second in the list, inserted between Adad-’idri’s and Ahabbu’s. Then follow in order the contingents of Que, Musri, Irqanata, Matinu-ba’lu of Arvad, Usanata, Adunu-ba’lu of Shian, Gindibu’ of Arabia, Ba’sa of Ammon. Most of these countries were clearly in the distant north, Syria and Ammon being the nearest to Israel, and both of them Israel’s bitter enemies. Among the eleven listed (he speaks of twelve kings), only five brought chariots; and most of them brought fewer troops than the first three, though some of the figures cannot be accurately determined, because of the condition of the inscription.
“In view of the make-up of this confederacy of kings, the question naturally arises whether Ahab, who had been recently at war with Ben-haded [sic] and was soon to renew hostilities with him, would have joined a coalition of kings of countries, most of which were quite distant, and the nearest of which were bitterly hostile, to go and fight against a king with whom he had never been at war, – an expedition which involved leaving his capital city and taking a considerable army to a distance of some 300 miles and through mountainous country, and, most questionable of all, leaving Damascus, the capital of his recent enemy Ben-hadad in his rear (thus exposing himself to attack), in order to oppose a distant foe whose coming was no immediate threat to his own land or people.
…. Such an undertaking by Ahab, king of Israel, seems highly improbable to say the least.
Jordan then proceeds to query:
“The name Ahab (Ahabbu), while uncommon, is not unique. We meet is as the name of a false prophet, who was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 29:21).
The name appears to mean `father’s brother,’ i.e., `uncle.’ It may possibly be shortened from Ahabbiram (my uncle is exalted) or a similar name. But it is to be noted that the name Ahabbu might be read equally well as Ahappu and be an entirely different name than Ahab, quite probably Hurrian, which would accord well with the make-up of the confederacy.
“The name of Ahabbu’s country is given as Sir’ila-a-a. The reading is somewhat uncertain, since the first character might also be read as shud or shut. Even if sir is correct, the name is a poor spelling of Israel; and it is double questionable because nowhere else on Assyrian tablets is Israel given this name. On the monuments it is called mat Humri, the land of Omri. It is perhaps not without significance that although the battle of Qarqar is mentioned in several of Shalmaneser’s inscriptions, Ahabbu is mentioned on only one of them. The Assyrian kings were great braggarts. Israel was quite remote from Shalmaneser’s sphere of influence. If Ahab of Israel were referred to, we might perhaps expect more than this one slight mention of him.
And also Adad-’idri:
“Adad-’idri was apparently Irhuleni’s chief ally, being mentioned first. If this Syrian king was the enemy-friend of Ahab, we might expect him to be called Hadad-ezer, which is the Hebrew equivalent of the name and is given to the king of Zobah of David’s time. The name Adad-’idri may stand for Bar (Hebrew, Ben)-Adad-’idri (Heb., ezer), and so be shortened at either end, to Ben-hadad or Hadad-ezer. So it may be, that the Ben-hadad of the Bible and the Adad-’idri of Shalmaneser’s Annals are the same king.”
But not necessarily, says Allis. Assuming that Adad-`idri is the same as Ben-hadad does not tell us which of many Ben-hadads this was. “Ancient rulers often had the same name. We now know of three kings who bore the famous name Hammurabi. There were 5 Shamsi-Adads, 5 Shalmanesers, 5 Ashur-niraris among the Assyrian kings. Egypt has 4 Amenhoteps, 4 Amenemhets, 12 Rameses, 3 Shishaks, and 14 Ptolemies. Syria had apparently both Ben-hadads and Hadad-ezers.
Israel had 2 Jeroboams; and both Judah and Israel had a Jehoash, a Jehoram, and an Ahaziah in common. It may be that Ba’sa king of Ammon who fought at Qarqar, had the same name as Baasha king of Israel.
Names may be distinctive and definitive; they may also be confusing and misleading.
Finally, as already mentioned, the Bible gives not the slightest clue about the movement, at this time, of significant military forces:
“There is no mention of the battle of Qarqar in the Bible. It is generally assumed that it was fought several years before Ahab’s death, though Thiele claims that the battle of Ramoth-gilead took place only a few months after Qarqar.
“In the account which Shalmaneser gives of this battle, he claims a glorious victory. On the Monolith Inscription, which gives the fullest account of it, we read:
‘The plain was too small to let (all) their (text: his) souls descend (into the nether world), the vest field gave out (when it came) to bury them. With their (text: sing.) corpses I spanned the Orontes before there was a bridge. Even during the battle I took from them their chariots, their horses broken to the yoke.’
We are accustomed to such bragging by an Assyrian king and to discount it. But this certainly does not read like a drawn battle or a victory for the allies; and if there is any considerable element of truth in the claim made by Shalmaneser, ‘even during the battle I took from them their chariots, their horses broken to the yoke,’ this loss would have fallen more heavily on Ahabbu than on any other of the confederates, since Shalmaneser attributes to him 2,000 chariots, as compared with Adad-’idri’s 1,200 and Irhuleni’s 700.
If Ahab had suffered so severely at Qarqar, would he have been likely to pick a quarrel with a recent ally and to do it so soon? The fact that Shalmaneser had to fight against this coalition again in the 10th, 11th, and 14th years of his reign does not prove this glorious victory to have been a real defeat for Shalmaneser. Yet, despite what would appear to have been very serious losses for the coalition (all their chariots and horses), we find according to the construction of the evidence generally accepted today, Ahab in a couple of years or, according to Thiele in the same year, picking a quarrel or renewing an old one with his recent comrade-in-arms, Ben-hadad, and fighting a disastrous battle against him (1 Kings 22); and a few years later we find Ben-hadad again fighting against Israel (2 Kings 6:8-18), and even besieging Samaria (vss. 24ff.). Is this really probable? Clearly Ben-hadad had no love for Israel!
“The biblical historian describes the battle at Ramoth-gilead together with the preparations for it, in considerable detail (1 Kings 22), as he later describes the attack on Dothan (2 Kings 6:8-23) and the siege of Samaria which followed it. Of Qarqar he says not a single word. Why this should be the case if Ahab was actually at Qarqar is by no means clear. It was not because the Hebrew historian did not wish to mention a successful expedition of wicked king Ahab, for he has given a vivid account of Ahab’s great victory of Ben-hadad (1 Kings 20:1-34) which led even to the capture of the king of Syria himself. And, if Qarqar had been a humiliating defeat for Ahab, we might expect that the biblical writer would have recorded it as a divine judgment on the wicked king of Israel, as he does the battle at Ramoth-gilead, in which Ahab perished.
“It is of course true that the record of Ahab’s reign is not complete (1 Kings 23:39).
His oppression of Moab is mentioned only indirectly in connection with an event in the reign of Jehoahaz (2 Kings 3:4f.). It is the Mesha inscription which gives us certain details. Yet in view of its importance the omission of any reference to a battle with Shalmaneser in which Ahab took a prominent part would be strange, to say the least.” (Allis, pp. 414-417).
In my opinion, Allis’s arguments settle the question. There is no good reason to believe that the Ahabbu or Ahappu of the Shalmaneser Monolith Inscription is the same as the Ahab of the Bible. All evidence is against it.
Accordingly, the alleged synchronism between the Assyrian Eponym Canon and the Biblical chronology does not exist, and there is no reason to try and shorten the chronology found in the books of Kings and Chronicles. ….
[End of quotes]
I would tend to agree that arguments such as the above “settle the question”.
It is highly unlikely that King Ahab of Israel could have fought alongside Ben-Hadad I of Syria, the latter as the leader of a large coalition against Shalmaneser, a Great King of Assyria.
QUEEN JEZEBEL IN EL AMARNA
Baalat Neše, being the only female correspondent of the El-Amarna [EA] series,
must therefore have been a woman of great significance at the time.
Who was she?
Dr. I Velikovsky had introduced Baalat Neše as “Baalath Nesse” in his 1945
THESES FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ANCIENT HISTORY
FROM THE END OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN EGYPT TO THE ADVENT OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
According to Velikovsky:
1. The el-Amarna Letters were written not in the fifteenth-fourteenth century, but in the middle of the ninth century.
2. Among the correspondents of Amenhotep III and Akhnaton are biblical personages: Jehoshaphat (Abdi-Hiba), King of Jerusalem; Ahab (Rib Addi), King of Samaria; Ben-Hadad (Abdi-Ashirta), King of Damascus; Hazael (Azaru), King of Damascus; Aman (Aman-appa), Governor of Samaria; Adaja (Adaja), Adna (Adadanu), Amasia, son of Zihri (son of Zuhru), Jehozabad (Jahzibada), military governors of Jehoshaphat; Obadia, the chief of Jezreel; Obadia (Widia), a city governor in Judea; the Great Lady of Shunem (Baalath Nesse); Naaman (Janhama), the captain of Damascus; and others. Arza (Arzaja), the courtier in Samaria, is referred to in a letter.
Then he, in his Ages in Chaos I (1952, p. 220), elaborated on why he thought Baalat Neše was, as above, “the Great Lady of Shumen”.
I mentioned it briefly, as follows, in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
(Volume One, p. 93), as follows:
“Queen Jezebel
Velikovsky had, with typical ingenuity, looked to identify the only female correspondent of EA, Baalat Neše, as the biblical ‘Great Woman of Shunem’, whose dead son the prophet Elisha had resurrected (cf. 2 Kings 4:8 and 4:34-35). …. Whilst the name Baalat Neše is usually translated as ‘Mistress of Lions’, Velikovsky thought that it could also be rendered as “a woman to whom occurred a wonder” (thus referring to Elisha’s miracle).
This female correspondent wrote two letters (EA 273, 274) to Akhnaton, telling him that the SA.GAZ pillagers had sent bands to Aijalon (a fortress guarding the NW approach to Jerusalem). She wrote about “two sons of Milkili” in connection with a raid.
The menace was not averted because she had to write again for pharaoh’s help”.
I continued, referring to Lisa Liel’s rejection of Velikovsky’s hopeful interpretation of the name, Baalat Neše (“What’s In A Name?”):
http://www.starways.net/lisa/essays/amarnanames.html
“Liel, in the process of linguistically unravelling the Sumerian name of this female correspondent, points to what she sees as being inaccuracies in Velikovsky’s own identification of her: ….
NIN.UR.MAH.MESH
This lady’s name is generally transcribed as “Baalat Nese”, which means “Lady of Lions”. Velikovsky either saw a transcription where the diacritical mark above the “s” which indicates that it is pronounced “h” was omitted, or didn’t know what the mark meant.
[Since this character doesn’t show up well in HTML, I’ve used a regular “s”. The consonant is actually rendered as an “s” with an upside-down caret above it, like a small letter “v”.] [Liel’s comment]
He also took the “e” at the end of the word as a silent “e”, the way it often is in English. Having done all this, he concluded that the second word was not “nese,” but “nes,” the Hebrew word for miracle. He then drew a connection with the Shunnamite woman in the book of Kings who had a miracle done for her.
Liel’s own explanation of the name was partly this:
Flights of fancy aside, the name has in truth been a subject of debate, so much so that many books nowadays tend to leave it as an unnormalized Sumerogram. The NIN is no problem. It means “Lady,” the feminine equivalent of “Lord.” Nor is the MESH difficult at all; it is the plural suffix …. What is UR.MAH? One attested meaning is “lion.” This is the source of the “Lady of Lions” reading. ….
Whilst Liel would go on to suggest an identification of (NIN.UR.MAH.MESH) Baalat Neše with “the usurper [Queen] Athaliah”, my own preference then in this thesis was for Queen Jezebel. Thus I wrote:
“In a revised context Baalat Neše, the ‘Mistress of Lions’, or ‘Lady of Lions’, would most likely be, I suggest, Jezebel, the wife of king Ahab. Jezebel, too, was wont to write official letters – in the name of her husband, sealing these with his seal (1 Kings 21:8). And would it not be most appropriate for the ‘Mistress of Lions’ (Baalat Neše) to have been married to the ‘Lion Man’ (Lab’ayu)?
Baalat (Baalath, the goddess of Byblos) is just the feminine form of Baal. Hence, Baalat Neše may possibly be the EA rendering of the name, Jezebel, with the theophoric inverted: thus, Neše-Baal(at). Her concern for Aijalon, near Jerusalem, would not be out of place since Lab’ayu himself had also expressed concern for that town”.
If this identification of EA’s Baalat Neše, or Neše-Baal(at), as the biblical Jezebel, holds good, then it can be for us a very solid biblico-historical anchor.
What is the meaning of the mysterious name, Jezebel?
“The etymology and meaning of the name Jezebel is unclear”.
Abarim Publications
The rather unique name, Jezebel, is borne probably by only two women in the Bible:
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Jezebel.html#.W-jty6J5IZ8
• “The famous Jezebel is the notorious wife of the notorious king Ahab, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians (1 Kings 16:31).
• Jezebel became such a symbol of evil that John the Revelator refers to her in Revelation 2:20 (spelled Ιεζαβηλ, Iezabel), or so it seems”.
In the Hebrew, this name is represented as (’î-ze-ḇel) אִיזֶבֶל
But, upon her death, her name (in 2 Kings 9:37) is slightly altered to read (’î-zā-ḇel) אִיזָבֶל
http://trivialdevotion.blogspot.com/2014/09/jezebel-gone-to-dogs-ii-kings-935-37.html
There may also be wordplay involved in this remark (II Kings 9:37). John Gray (1913-2000) notates:
There is, as James A. Montgomery [1866-1949] recognizes (International Critical Commentary, p. 407), possibly a word-play between ‘dung’ (dōmen [II Kings 9:37] and zebel (meaning also ‘dung’ as in the Arabic cognate) in the Hebrew parody of an original element zebūl in the name of the queen (Gray, I & II Kings: A Commentary, Second, Fully Revised Edition (Old Testament Library), 551)
Given my identification of Queen Jezebel with the only female El Amarna correspondent, Baalat Neše, then it is possible that Jezebel is just a Hebrew transliteration of Baalat Neše, meaning “Mistress of Lions”, or “Mistress of the Lionesses”. Hence:
Neše-Baal [-at is the feminine ending];
Jeze-bel
A different version of the name:
Nadav Na’aman, though, in his article “The Shephelah according to the Amarna Letters”, has opted to render the name of the only female El Amarna correspondent, not as Baalat Neše, but as - albeit the same meaning - Bēlit-labi’at (p. 282, n. 3):
The name of the queen who sent EA 273–374 is written fNIN.UR.MAHmeš (“lady of the lioness”; see Bauer 1920). Formerly, on the basis of two Ugaritic texts, I suggested rendering the name as Bēlit-nešēti (Na’aman 1979: 680 n. 32). However, recent collations of the two Ugaritic texts have shown that the reading nešēti/nṭt was mistaken (see Singer 1999: 697–98). Thus, there is no evidence for rendering the ideographic writing UR.MAHmeš as nešēti. As an alternative reading I suggest rendering it labi’at (“lioness”). The name ‘bdlb’t appears on arrowheads discovered at el-Ḫaḍr (near Bethlehem) and in Ugaritic texts (‘bdlbit). Labi’at (“lioness”) was probably an epithet of the goddess ‘Ashtartu (see Milik and Cross 1954: 6–9; Gröndahl 1967: 154; Donner and Röllig 1968: 29). See also the toponyms Lebaoth/Beth-Lebaoth mentioned in Josh 15:32; 19:6. In light of the textual evidence I suggest rendering fNIN.UR.MAHmeš as Bēlit-labi’at.
[End of quote]
On the strength of my connection of Neše-Baal and Jeze-bel, I would be inclined to stick with the Baalat-Neše rendering of the female El Amarna correspondent.
Seal of Bible’s Queen Jezebel
“Korpel said that owning her own seal confirms the biblical image of Queen Jezebel,
wife of King Ahab, as a woman of influence”.
Catherine Hornby
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/09/19/Seal-of-Jezebel-Identified.aspx
The inscription and symbols on the seal make it highly likely that it was the official seal of the wicked woman of the Old Testament. She was a woman of power as indicated by her title “Queen Mother” (2 Kgs 10:13).
Although Jezebel had her own seal to authenticate official correspondence, when she forged the letters to the elders and nobles of Jezreel in order do away with Naboth and seize his vineyard, she used Ahab’s seal rather than her own for maximum authority (1 Kgs 21:8). ….
[End of quote]
Haaretz reports (via Mirabilis):
For some 40 years, one of the flashiest opal signets on display at the Israel Museum had remained without accurate historical context. … Dutch researcher Marjo Korpel identified article IDAM 65-321 as the official seal of Queen Jezebel, one of the bible's most powerful and reviled women.
Israeli archaeologists had suspected Jezebel was the owner ever since the seal was first documented in 1964. "Did it belong to Ahab's Phoenician wife?" wrote the late pioneering archaeologist Nahman Avigad of the seal, which he obtained through the antiquities market. "Though fit for a queen, coming from the right period and bearing a rare name documented nowhere other than in the Hebrew Bible, we can never know for sure."
The Seal of Jezebel
In her paper, scheduled [this was written in 2007] to appear in the highly-respected Biblical Archaeology Review, Korpel lists observations pertaining to the seal's symbolism, unusual size, shape and time period. By way of elimination, she shows Jezebel as the only plausible owner. https://scribalterror.blogs.com/scribal_terror/2007/10/the-seal-of-jez.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-jezebel/dutch-scholar-traces-ancient-seal-to-bibles-jezebel-idUSL2317518720071023
Dutch scholar traces ancient seal to Bible's Jezebel
Catherine Hornby
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch scholar has traced an ancient royal seal back to the biblical figure Queen Jezebel, based on a study of its engravings and symbols.
…. An ancient letter seal, which was discovered in 1964, is displayed in this University of Utrecht handout released October 23, 2007. A Dutch scholar has traced the ancient royal seal back to the biblical figure Queen Jezebel, based on a study of its engravings and symbols.
After close scrutiny of the images on the seal, which dates from the 9th century BC, Utrecht University Old Testament scholar Marjo Korpel concluded that it must have belonged to Queen Jezebel, she told Reuters ….
“Because of the symbolism on the seal, which has to do with royalty, and the date of the seal, there is a great possibility that it is the real seal of Queen Jezebel,” said Korpel.
“There is a sphinx on the seal, which stands for royalty or king. But this sphinx has a female crown, which I suppose has to do with a female owner.”
Other symbols include two cobras and a falcon, which she said have also been associated with royalty. The size and the image quality of the seal, located in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, also led Korpel to her conclusion.
“It’s twice as big as normal seals and also the iconography is very nicely engraved,” Korpel said.
Archaeologist Nahman Avigad found the seal in Israel in 1964. Although it was assumed that it belonged to Jezebel as it was engraved with the name “yzbl” in ancient Hebrew, there was lingering uncertainty because some of the letters were missing.
By comparing the seal with other similar relics, Korpel showed that its upper edge must have included two missing letters that complete the spelling of Jezebel’s name.
Korpel said that owning her own seal confirms the biblical image of Queen Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, as a woman of influence.
“If she had her own seal she was able to seal documents and so on. Egyptian queens also had great influence because of their seals,” she said. “It might point to the fact that she was a very intellectual woman.”
Jezebel’s story is told in the Books of Kings. She is portrayed as a foreign idol worshipper, who dominated her husband Ahab and ruled through her sons after his death. She met her death when she was thrown from a window and eaten by dogs.
Seal of Jezebel has Egyptian Queen Tiy characteristics
“Often [Queen Tiy(e)] is represented wearing the Isis/Hathor crown
or the crown with double uraei”.
Marjo C.A. Korpel
At: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/fit-for-a-queen-jezebels-royal-seal/ we read:
Fit for a Queen: Jezebel’s Royal Seal
Scholars Debate “Jezebel” Seal
Reviewed by Marjo C.A. Korpel • 05/01/2008
….
The winged sphinx, winged sun disk and especially the falcon are well-known symbols of royalty in Egypt. The female Isis/Hathor crown on the winged sphinx (symbol for the king) suggests the owner to be female. The graceful Egypto-Phoenician style points to someone who apparently loved this type of art, a circumstance tallying with the fact that Jezebel was a Phoenician princess (1 Kings 16:31).
MIRROR IMAGE. Because most seals were pressed into wet pottery or into small blobs of clay used to secure scrolls— serving much like a signature— symbols and letters were often carved in reverse.
When stamped into the clay, the seal images and inscription would appear correctly. This photo of the Jezebel seal and its impression, or bulla, show the seal in reverse and in proper stance.
The double uraeus (cobra) at the bottom is a typical symbol of queens with prominent roles in religion and politics from the 18th Egyptian dynasty onward. Especially the [Egyptian] queen Tiye seems to have functioned as a model for later queens. Often she is represented wearing the Isis/Hathor crown or the crown with double uraei. So, independent of the name of the owner, the iconography definitely suggests a queen. Although other individuals used the same symbols to indicate their closeness to the throne, no other seal uses them all. ….
[End of quote]
That the biblical Queen Jezebel might have been influenced by the prominent Queen Tiy of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty is a far more reasonable proposition in a revised historical context according to which these two queens were actual contemporaries.
In conventional history, on the other hand, Queen Tiy of Egypt (c. 1350 BC) is separated from Queen Jezebel (c. 850 BC) by a full 500 years.
Naboth and Judgment on Ahab
In the mind of King Ahab, who was no doubt used to getting his own way,
what he was proposing to Naboth was merely a reasonable business transaction.
But for the fervently Yahwistic Naboth (‘Obadiah), the king’s offer was unconscionable.
Naboth’s Vineyard
In addition to his palace at Samaria, Ahab also had a “palace” at Jezreel, about 21 miles north of the capital city. Next to this palace, was vineyard owned by a man named Naboth, which Ahab coveted. Jezebel arranged for Naboth to be killed and Ahab became the owner of the vineyard (1 Kgs 21:1-16).
Excavations at Jezreel have identified an Iron Age IIB (900–700 B.C.) military fortress on the upper tell.14 In 1 Kings 21:1-2, we read that Naboth’s vineyard was located near King Ahab’s “palace.”
Mackey’s comment: Iron Age IIB is too late for Ahab?
The Hebrew word for palace is heikal, not the word that is normally used for a palace: armon. A heikel is a large, important building of military or religious nature. Jezreel was the place Israel mustered her army, and thus the heikal was likely the fortress of Ahab.15
The most recent excavators – Norma Franklin of the University of Haifa and Jennie Ebeling of the University of Evansville – have unearthed an ancient winery cut into limestone bedrock at the foot of Tel Jezreel.
Based on comparison with other wineries in the vicinity and the absence of evidence for a beam and screw press (a later invention), it is believed that this is an Iron Age winery.16 Moreover, details in 2 Kings 9 lead to the conclusion that Naboth’s vineyard was located east of Jezreel on the main road, the Via Maris. The Tel Jezreel Expedition unearthed the winery in 2013, and found it east of Jezreel near where the Via Maris would have run. Because wineries were located near the vineyards in ancient times, this may indeed be the remains of Naboth’s vineyard, which King Ahab stole.
Conclusion
The exploits of King Ahab are recorded in four chapters of Scripture (1 Kings 18, 20-22), more than any other ruler of the northern Kingdom of Israel.17
Archaeological discoveries related to King Ahab help provide a background to his life. It is clear that he followed the expansion and building policies of his father, Omri. Moreover, numerous details that are recorded in Scripture have been affirmed in the archaeological record. This helps us understand in greater detail the extent of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the 9th century BC. ….
Identifying Naboth?
Could Naboth be the ‘Obadiah who was master of Ahab’s palace?
The two accounts, of ‘Obadiah in I Kings 18, and of Naboth in I Kings 21, are replete with similarities. For instance:
I Kings 21:1: “… Naboth of Jezreel had a vineyard close by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria, and Ahab said to Naboth …”.
I Kings 18:3-4: “…. In Samaria, Ahab summoned ‘Obadiah, the master of the palace …”.
The common Hebrew name ‘Obadiah (עֹבַדְיָהוּ), meaning “servant of Yahweh”, is rendered in Greek as Tobit (Τωβίτ), or Tobith (Τωβίθ), without the theophoric yahu, and with the Hebrew letter ayin (ע) being replaced by the letter tau (Τ).
My suggestion is that the name Naboth (נָבוֹת), apparently being “of uncertain derivation” (http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5022.htm), is simply a variant of ‘Obadiah similar to “Tobith”, this time with the ayin (ע) being replaced by the Hebrew letter nun (נ).
Next we find King Ahab and his servant dividing the country in their search for resources – presumably commencing from two ‘adjoining’ pieces of land:
I Kings 21:2: “… Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Give me your vineyard to be my vegetable garden, since it adjoins my house [palace] …’.”
I Kings 18:5: “…Ahab said to ‘Obadiah, ‘Come along …’. … They divided the country for the purpose of their survey; Ahab went one way by himself and ‘Obadiah went another …”.
In neither case does the king exhibit any sort of animosity or intentional disrespect towards his servant. However, his request for Naboth’s vineyard - for which the king is prepared to pay - was actually (though the apostate Ahab may have been completely unaware of this) a blatant flouting of the Torah.
“What an unthinkable demand. Not only did the Torah forbid such a thing [See Leviticus 25:23; Numbers 36:7; and Ezekiel 46:18] ... to give away or sell one’s inheritance … this vineyard embodied Naboth’s life, as it had his father’s and distant generations before him”.
https://womenfromthebook.com/2013/08/22/naboths-vineyard/
Jewish legend has it that Naboth was in fact a kinsman (cousin?) of Ahab’s.
According to Josephus, Naboth came from an illustrious family (Ant. 8.358).
In the mind of King Ahab, who was no doubt used to getting his own way, what he was proposing to Naboth was merely a reasonable business transaction.
But for the fervently Yahwistic Naboth (‘Obadiah), the king’s offer was unconscionable.
I Kings 21:3: “But Naboth answered, ‘Yahweh forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors!’”
I Kings 18:3: “… ‘Obadiah held Yahweh in great reverence …”.
The king’s servant had in fact been prepared to risk his life for the cause of Yahweh (18:4):
“While Jezebel was killing off the LORD’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water”.
Now, again, he was going to stand firm, even though it might mean provoking the wrath of Ahab (not to mention Queen Jezebel).
Did Jezebel have well in mind ‘Obadiah’s early track record for Yahweh when she proposed this murderous plan to the sulking Ahab for acquiring the servant’s (as Naboth) vineyard? (21:5-10):
His wife Jezebel came to him and said, ‘Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?’ [Cf. 18:2: “Now the famine was severe in Samaria …”]. He said to her, ‘Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it’; but he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard’.’
His wife Jezebel said to him, ‘Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite’.
So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.
She wrote in the letters, ‘Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out, and stone him to death’.
Not surprisingly, the prophet Elijah - a foe of Ahab’s and Jezebel’s - was fully on the side of the Yahwistic servant:
I Kings 18:7: “While ‘Obadiah went on his way whom should he meet but Elijah …?”
I Kings 21:17-18: “Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: ‘Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession’.”
Jerome T. Walsh has made the interesting observation (in Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative, p. 145, n. 2) that:
“… Elijah’s meticulous obedience to YHWH is revealed when the narrative repeats the words of YHWH’s command in describing Elijah’s compliance (I Kings 17:3-6); Obadiah’s veracity is shown when he describes himself in the same words the narrator has already used (I Kings 18:3-4; 12-13 …); Ahab reveals something about himself and his opinion of Jezebel by not repeating accurately the conversation he had with Naboth (I Kings 21:2, 3-6)”.
In the time of ‘Obadiah, Jezebel had been busy ‘butchering the prophets’.
Now she saw to it that ‘Obadiah himself (as Naboth) was eliminated once and for all (21:15): “As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, ‘Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead’.”
King Ahab had customarily, in the case of the elusive Elijah (18:10), “… made [kingdoms] swear an oath that they could not find [him]”.
Now Queen Jezebel was ordering in the king’s name for ‘false witness’ against Naboth (21:10):
‘… seat two men, scoundrels, before [Naboth] to bear witness against him, saying, ‘You have blasphemed God and the king’. Then take him out, and stone him, that he may die’.
Some time after the death of King Ahab, when Jehu was on the rampage against the king’s son, Jehoram, we learn from the mouth of the same Jehu that Naboth’s sons had also been wiped out in this bloody episode (2 Kings 9:24-26):
Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Jehoram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot. Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, ‘Pick him up and throw him on the field that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember how you and I were riding together in chariots behind Ahab his father when the LORD spoke this prophecy against him: ‘Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, declares the LORD, and I will surely make you pay for it on this plot of ground, declares the LORD’. Now then, pick him up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of the LORD’.
Queen Jezebel would have realised that it was necessary for Naboth’s sons to die as well if Ahab were to inherit the vineyard.
Elijah the Tishbite had made himself inimical to King Ahab (and his wife):
I Kings 18:16-17: “Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, ‘Is that you, you troubler of Israel?’
I Kings 21:20: “Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ …”.
Elijah was not to be cowed on either occasion:
I Kings 18:18: “‘I have not made trouble for Israel’, Elijah replied. ‘But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the LORD’s commands and have followed the Baals’.”
I Kings 21:20-24: “[Elijah] answered, ‘I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.
Also concerning Jezebel the LORD said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat’.”
This was because (21:25-26): “(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD, urged on by his wife Jezebel. He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD drove out before the Israelites)”.
The Lord is full of surprises, however, his ways not being our ways (Isaiah 55:8).
Elijah must have nearly choked when the Lord told him of Ahab’s repentance (I Kings 21:27-29):
When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son’.
With King Baasha of Israel now identified as Ahab, it might be worthwhile pursuing the consideration that the prophet who denounced the evil House of Baasha (I Kings 16:2-4):
I lifted you up from the dust and appointed you ruler over my people Israel, but you followed the ways of Jeroboam and caused my people Israel to sin and to arouse my anger by their sins. So I am about to wipe out Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and birds will feed on those who die in the country.
