Thursday, August 7, 2025

Horrible Histories: Missing Mitannians

by Damien F. Mackey “The Mitannians are perhaps one of the most enigmatic Near Eastern Superpowers. Despite their impressive empire, we know remarkably little about them, especially compared to the Egyptians or the Hittites”. Dr Glenn Godenho Introduction Professor Gunnar Heinsohn (University of Bremen) (RIP) and Emmet Sweeney, historical revisionists, have, in recent times, arrived at some startling conclusions about ancient history - some of these warranting further critical examination, whilst other of their views appear to me to be extreme and well wide of the mark. In order to account for an apparent lack of due stratigraphy for, say, the Mitannians, or the neo-Assyrians, or the Medo-Persians, this pair (not always in perfect agreement) will attempt to merge any one of these with a far earlier kingdom - for instance, the ancient Akkadians to be merged as one with the neo-Assyrians. Lester Mitcham, however, was able to expose Emmet Sweeney’s choices for comparisons using firm archaeological data in his article, “Support for Heinsohn’s Chronology is Misplaced” (SIS Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop, No 1, May 1988). The Akkadians and the neo-Assyrians were found to be two quite distinct peoples, well-separated in time, and speaking and writing quite different languages. Lester Mitcham demonstrated similarly the archaeological impossibility of Heinsohn’s and Sweeney’s bold efforts to fuse the Old Babylonian Dynasty of Hammurabi with the Persians – King Hammurabi supposedly being the same as Darius the Great. Once again, different peoples, different geographies, different times. Heinsohn and Sweeney do have, though, some degree of support for their argument that the Medo-Persian Empire, as classically presented, is seriously lacking in due archaeological strata. For professor Heinsohn, in his far-reaching article, “The Restoration of Ancient History” http://www.mikamar.biz/symposium/heinsohn.txt refers to the results of some conferences in the 1980’s pointing to difficulties regarding the extent of the Medo-Persian empires: In the 1980's, a series of eight major conferences brought together the world's finest experts on the history of the Medish and Persian empires. They reached startling results. The empire of Ninos [pre-Alexander period (3)] was not even mentioned. Yet, its Medish successors were extensively dealt with-to no great avail. In 1988, one of the organizers of the eight conferences, stated the simple absence of an empire of the Medes [pre-Alexander period (2)]: "A Median oral tradition as a source for Herodotus III is a hypothesis that solves some problems, but has otherwise little to recommend it ... This means that not even in Herodotus' Median history a real empire is safely attested. In Assyrian and Babylonian records and in the archeological evidence no vestiges of an imperial structure can be found. The very existence of a Median empire, with the emphasis on empire, is thus questionable" (H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, "Was there ever a Median Empire?", in A. Kuhrt, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, eds., Achaemenid History III. Method and Theory, Leiden, 1988, p. 212). Two years later came the really bewildering revelation. Humankind's first world empire of the Persians [Pre-Alexander Period (1)] did not fare much better than the Medes. Its imperial dimensions had dryly to be labelled "elusive" (H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, "The quest for an elusive empire?", in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, A. Kuhrt, eds., Achaemenid History IV. Centre and Periphery, Leiden l990, p. 264). …. This extraordinary situation prompted me to write an article: Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology https://www.academia.edu/113128144/Medo_Persian_history_has_no_adequate_archaeology Enigma of the Mitannians Now, in their attempt to counteract what they have perceived to be the serious problem of the dearth of solid historical evidence for the Mitannians, professor Heinsohn and Emmet Sweeney arrived at the conclusion that the Mitanni and Median empires were one and the same. Admittedly, the Mitannians seemed to be a people without an adequate archaeology, a series of kings without precise geographical location. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/superpowers-near-east/0/steps/19016 “The Mitannians are perhaps one of the most enigmatic Near Eastern Superpowers. Despite their impressive empire, we know remarkably little about them, especially compared to the Egyptians or the Hittites” (Dr. Glenn Godenho). This is worrying, considering the host of uncertainties surrounding the Hittites. Again we read: https://www.britannica.com/place/Mitanni “[Mitanni’s] heartland was the Khābūr River region, where Wassukkani, its capital, was probably located”. But: http://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/66326-mitanni.html “They established a capital at Wassukanni, the location of which remains unknown”. And: http://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/66326-mitanni.html “Very little of a definite nature is known about Mitanni’s leaders, internal history, and society. It appears that Mitannian society was dominated by a chariotowning warrior class known as the mary-annu, who owned large country estates and bred horses and sheep. Some or all of the members of this class may have been Indo-Europeans, suggesting some sort of cultural or political fusion of that group and the Hurrians in Mitanni”. Who were the Mitannians? And, might Emmet Sweeney have - amidst various of his unlikely conclusions - paved the way for an answer to this question in one of his intriguing claims: namely, that the Mitannian king, Parratarna, was the powerful Amorite, Shamshi Adad I (c. 1809-1766, conventional dating)? This one, I believe, is worthy of further investigation. Whilst Shamsi-Adad I is quite well known, I have wondered why we know so little about his long-reigning son, Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1776 BC - c. 1736 BC, conventional dating). Emmet Sweeney has duly suggested that Ishme-Dagan I was the Mitannian, Shaushtatar, son of Parratarna. Emmet Sweeney’s bold suggestion that the Mitannian king, Parratarna, was the mighty Assyrian king, Shamshi Adad I, actually accords well with what I have already determined about the biblical King Hiram, that he was both (i) Idrimi, a contemporary of Parratarna, and (ii) Iarim-Lim, a contemporary of Shamsi-Adad I. The latter was the greatest of the kings in his day ruling the regions of Assyria and Syria, whilst Parratarna was the greatest of the kings of his day ruling the same approximate region: “Mitanni” (see map above). Moreover, it seems to make some sense to have the until-now obscure Mitannians filling in the apparently blank period of Assyrian history that occurs not long after Shamsi-Adad I, and that lasts until the El Amarna period, when Assuruballit is known to have ruled Assyria. Historian Marc van de Mieroop has a large gap in his Assyrian “King Lists” on p. 294 of his book, A History of the Ancient Near East, between: Isme-Dagan I (1775-) Assurubalit (1363-28) A massive four centuries of nothing! The Mitannian dynasty of Parratarna could perhaps nicely fill up this gap. Mitanni’s great king, Parratarna (or Parshatar, etc.), Idrimi’s contemporary, has apparently left us pitifully few records (https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Idrimi): …. Parshatatar – Parshatatar, Paršatar, Barattarna, or Parattarna was the name of a Hurrian king of Mitanni in the fifteenth century BC. Very few records of him are known as sources from Mitanni are rare, most information we have about the kingdom, especially its early history and kings come from records outside of the state. Dates for the kings can be deduced by comparing the chronology of Mitanni and other states, especially ancient Egypt, at a later date, information is found in the biography of Idrimi of Alalakh. Parshatatar conquered the area and made Idrimi his vassal, Idrimi becoming king of Aleppo, Mitanni in his time probably extended as far as Arrapha in the east, Terqa in the south, and Kizzuwatna in the West. Parshatatar may have been the Mitannian king the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmosis I met at the Euphrates River in an early in his reign. Information about his death is mentioned in a record from Nuzi dated to the death of king Parshatatar, possibly around 1420. …. This lack of due information for Parratarna and other early Mitannian kings has compelled the likes of professor Gunnar Heinsohn and Emmet Sweeney to look for alternative explanations. Connecting with Assyria Emmet Sweeney, for example, has explained in his article, “Shalmaneser III and Egypt”: http://www.hyksos.org/index.php?title=Shalmaneser_III_and_Egypt 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. Mackey’s comment: That I no longer follow the conventional Neo-Assyrian sequence - adopted here also by Emmet Sweeney - of Ashurnasirpal as the father of Shalmaneser, is apparent from e.g. my article: Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences (3) Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences Emmet Sweeney continues: 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 feld, 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 Assyrian 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. …. 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) …. Emmet’s conclusion about Idrimi’s powerful Mitannian contemporary, Parratarna - that he was the ‘Assyrian’ king Shamsi-Adad I (our biblical Hadadezer, a contemporary of King David’s) - would now appear to make perfect chronological - and probably geographical - sense. Regarding the revised era of Shamsi-Adad I, see e.g. my article: Khabur ware dates to the era of Shamsi-adad I and Hammurabi (9) Khabur ware dates to the era of Shamsi-adad I and Hammurabi And it is now also possible that, as we read above: “[Parratarna] Parshatatar may have been the Mitannian king the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmosis I met at the Euphrates River in an early in his reign”. For, according to my reconstructions, pharaoh Thutmose [Thutmosis] I was a late contemporary of king David’s. Whilst Shamsi-Adad I is quite well known, I have wondered why we know so little about his long-reigning son, Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1776 BC - c. 1736 BC, conventional dating). Emmet Sweeney has duly suggested that Ishme-Dagan I was the Mitannian, Shaushtatar, son of Parratarna. Conventional date figures given for the reign of Shaushtatar are c. 1440 BC - 1415 BC. As we would expect, if Parratarna was Shamsi-Adad I (= David’s foe, Hadadezer), then the Mitannian king would be no ally of Idrimi (= David’s ally, Adoniram = Hiram). And, indeed, we learn of Parratarna’s (initial, at least) “hostility” towards Idrimi, with possible “warfare”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idrimi …. Edward Greenstein's and David Marcus's translation of the inscription on lines 42-51 revealed that despite Parratarna's hostility to Idrimi while he was in exile in Canaan, he actually respected Idrimi's coalition, maybe submitting to Idrimi out of fear that his social outcast army could overthrow him. Idrimi said that King Parshatatar for "seven years ... was hostile to me. I sent Anwanda to Parrattarna, the mighty king, the king of the Hurrian warriors, and told him of the treaties of my ancestors ... and that our actions were pleasing to the former kings of the Hurrian warriors for they had made a binding agreement. The mighty king heard of the treaties of our predecessors and the agreement made between them and ... read to him the words of the treaty in detail. So on account of our treaty terms he received my tribute ... I ... restored to him a lost estate. I swore to him a binding oath as a loyal vassal.". …. Here, possibly influenced by the nature of Hittite oaths, Idrimi swore loyalty to Parshatatar after seven years despite him overthrowing his father on the throne in Aleppo. He made his request to the throne peacefully by restoring [Parattarna's] estate and swore him an ultimate Hurrian loyalty oath, which was the first step to Idrimi regaining his power again. …. Some conclusions about Mitanni The Kingdom of Mitanni was simply, I think, the Syro-Amorite (Amurru of El Amarna) kingdom created by the mighty Shamsi-Adad I, centred on the Khabur region, and stretching from Nineveh in the E across to the Syrian coast in the NW. It is probably signified archaeologically by Khabur Ware pottery. But it belonged to the era of King David (c. 1000 BC), rather than to the chronologically inappropriate c. 1800 BC of conventional estimations. Shamsi-Adad I was none other than David’s Syrian foe, Hadadezer (Dean Hickman). Mitanni was no more an Indo-European (so-called Hurrian) polity than was Abdi-hiba, El Amarna’s king of Urusalim (Jerusalem), a Hurrian. The latter was the Jewish king, Jehoram (Peter James), apparently a respecter of Hurrian gods, or goddesses in the case of Hiba (Hebat). It I wrong, so I think, to call them Hurro-Mitannians and say that the Mitannians were Hurrian speaking. The Hurrian factor The Hurrian language is “neither an Indo-European language nor a Semitic language”: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hurrian-language It may be (or be related to) the Cretan language, which Dr. Peter Revesz has cleverly interpreted as belonging to the West-Ugric family of languages: Hungarian academic in Nebraska deciphers Cretan Linear A (9) Hungarian academic in Nebraska deciphers Cretan Linear A This was almost certainly the strong Philistine influence - when Hurrian flourished - at the time of kings David and Shamsi-Adad I, and also during the El Amarna [EA] period. Kings David and Jehoram of Judah (who is Abdi-hiba of EA), both had notable conflicts with the Philistines. For the wide-ranging Philistine connections (Cherethites; Pelethites; Carians; Cretans; and so on), see my recent article: An early study of Philistine origins (8) An early study of Philistine origins See also my article: “Minoans” were basically the Philistines (8) “Minoans” were basically the Philistines It does not mean, therefore, that the Syro-Mitannians, no doubt a Semitic people, spoke Hurrian, but just that the foreign language had intruded into their own. That the Mitannian kingdom relied heavily on its chariots is most appropriate, if Shamsi-Adad I was Hadadezer. For, as we read in 2 Samuel 8:3-4: Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his monument at the Euphrates River. David captured a 1,000 of his chariots, 7,000 charioteers and 20,000 foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a 100 of the chariot horses. I would, therefore, partly agree with the following: http://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/66326-mitanni.html “It appears that Mitannian society was dominated by a chariotowning warrior class known as the mary-annu, who owned large country estates and bred horses and sheep”, but not necessarily with the next bit: “Some or all of the members of this class may have been Indo-Europeans, suggesting some sort of cultural or political fusion of that group and the Hurrians in Mitanni”. Urartu The Hurrians are often also termed, Hurro-Urartians. But Brock Heathcotte, solving the problem of the Mitannian capital of Wassukkani, has insisted that Mitanni and Urartu were the same place. Here is some of what he has written: “The second connection, Assuwa with Assur is also a no-brainer for the same reasons. “Wa” can be pronounced “r” so Assuwa is pronounced the same as Assur”. Brock Heathcotte Taken from Tugdamme the Hittite, Brock Heathcotte (January 28, 2017, Chapter 13): Identifying Other Enemies: Mitanni = Urartu and Assuwa = Assur Barry Curnock explained all the evidence establishing that Mitanni and Urartu are the same place in great detail in his unpublished work, and it cannot be improved upon. Suffice to say there have only been two major Hurrian-speaking nations in the past three millennia—the Mitanni of Hittite records [sic] and Urartu of the Assyrian records. The former was conquered by the Hittites, according to Hittite records, and the latter was conquered by the Cimmerians, Scythians and Medes according to Assyrian records. Modern historians confused by mistaken chronology don’t know exactly where to locate the Kingdom of Mitanni on a map of the Mideast. They end up placing it geographically northwest of Assyria inside the bend of the Euphrates river. Everyone knows Urartu was on the northern border of Assyria. But mapping is of little consequence. Moving the Hittites to the time when Urartu was a major kingdom leaves no room for doubt that Mitanni and Urartu are the same place. The allegedly missing capital city of Mitanni, Wassukanni, is not really missing at all. It was the Urartian capital city of Rusakina. Recall that Hittite “wa” was pronounced, if at all, as “r.” The second connection, Assuwa with Assur is also a no-brainer for the same reasons. “Wa” can be pronounced “r” so Assuwa is pronounced the same as Assur. Assuwa is the Hittite name for a place mentioned in two documents, the Annals of Tudhalia, and Ahhiyawa Text AhT 6. According to those documents, Assuwa was a late 8th Century leader of many small Anatolian nations or peoples. That sounds like Assyria under Sargon II. According to the Annals of Tudhaliya, the following sequence of events happened: Tudhaliya defeated the 22 allies, apparently allies of Assuwa; Tudhaliya destroyed Assuwa; Someone named Kukkuli raised a large army from Assuwa and led an uprising; The gods defeated Kukkuli and killed him; Tudhaliya was in the country of Assuwa to fight; Kaskans entered Hatti behind him and devastated the land; Tudhaliya returned to Hattusa and fought the Kaskans. Clearly Tudhaliya’s victory over Assuwa did not conquer a nation called Assuwa which seems to be a powerful place even after Tudhaliya “destroyed” it. Where did this land go? Why was it not mentioned again except in reference to the victory of Tudhaliya? It was probably not mentioned again because Assuwa was later written as Assur. Which means, of course, that it was mentioned again, just written differently. Scholars say Assuwa was a confederation of western Anatolian kingdoms that was conquered by Tudhaliya and became the namesake for the land the Romans later called Asia. Assuwa = Asia. Their conclusion is based almost entirely on a desire that one of the 22 Assuwan allies called Wilusiya should be the same as Wilusa which they want against all odds to be the same as Ilios of the Homeric epics. But when you think about that it seems preposterous. The nation and name Assuwa was lost to history about 1400 but reappeared over a millennia later to become the Roman province of Asia, c. 130? Really? Regardless of the wordplay, there was no such thing as a confederation of Asian monarchies predating the Greek Ionian and Aeolian leagues. The existence of such a confederation would imply the famous Greek leagues of city-states followed in the footsteps of petty Asian kings, which is patently absurd. Greek democrats invented citystate leagues, not Asian kings. Perhaps the Assuwa “league” was a group of Asian vassals led by a major power. But who was that major power? Not Lydia. We know their history well enough to know that can’t be, not before Gyges. Not Phrygia. It was never the hegemon of all western Anatolia. Not Ahhiyawa. They apparently were junior allies of Assuwa based on what’s written in AhT 6. Who was this major power of western Anatolia defeated by the Hittites in 1400? Nobody truly fits. There was a major Anatolian power defeated by the Hittites in the 8th and 7th Centuries—Assur. When you move the Hittites to the later dates advocated here, the land of Ahhiyawa must be found to be in Cilicia, as described earlier. And, if Ahhiyawa is in Cilicia, then Wilusa is in or near Cilicia too. (Eliaussa seems like a reasonable choice.) So, there is no reason to place the Assuwa “league” of allies in western Anatolia anyway. It should be near Cilicia. The Assyrian Empire was near Cilicia, and in fact, AhhiyawaQue was an Assyrian ally. It all adds up to Assuwa being Assur. Which of the several Tudhaliyas wrote the Annals of Tudhaliya is another interesting question. Historians first believed it was Tudhaliya IV near the end of the Hittite New Kingdom. Later they changed their minds and declared it was Tudhaliya II at the very beginning of the New Kingdom. But maybe it was Tudhaliya III, grandfather of Mursili II. There are similarities between the campaigns described in the Annals of Tudhaliya and those described in the Deeds of Suppiluliuma involving Tudhaliya III. That question requires further study. ….

Friday, July 18, 2025

The self-confessed “dog”, who became the King of Syria and a great Pharaoh of Egypt

by Damien F. Mackey “Hazael said, ‘How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?’” 2 Kings 8:13 Introduction This, one of the more incredible stories of (ancient) history - yet to be fully told - has become possible due only to Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s felicitous recognition, in his Ages in Chaos (I, 1952), that the El Amarna (EA) age must be re-located down the timescale from the C14th to the C9th BC. Arguably the most convincing thesis to be read within this context was Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of two EA strong men of Amurru, the succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with the Syrian (biblical) succession of, respectively, Ben-Hadad and Hazael. This Amurru-Syrian pairing was well received amongst readers of Dr. Velikovsky’s revised historical series - even by some who would later abandon Dr. Velikovsky’s entire corpus to pursue so-called ‘new’ chronologies. Two of these former enthusiasts were Peter James (RIP) and Dr. John Bimson, the latter even going so far as to add a “third generation” as I noted in my postgraduate thesis (2007, Volume One, p. 52): …. The same writer, using the Hittite records for the late to post-EA period, would in fact take 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. [‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 21]. 1. Hazael and Aziru Dr. Velikovsky had picked up what he would call “three turns of speech” from Hazael in the Bible common to what we read about his proposed alter ego, Aziru, in the EA letters. I referred to this in my thesis (ibid., pp. 96-97): This chapter [4] will be built largely around the terms of the Sinai commission to the prophet Elijah … (1 Kings 19:15-17): Then the Lord said to [Elijah], ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael … as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu … son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha … son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill …’. Thus Hazael, Jehu and Elisha were to form a triumvirate to wipe out the House of Ahab and to eradicate the worship of Baal in the region. …. Velikovsky had already ‘enlarged’ Hazael by his identifying of him with EA’s Aziru, son of Abdi-ashirta. …. Velikovsky had also, in his discussion of idioms that he thought were common to EA and the Old Testament, referred to certain texts culminating in the prophet Elisha’s weeping at the prospect of the mighty deeds – but terrible to Israel – that Hazael would accomplish. He had observed that certain idiomatic phrases in the EA correspondence occurred again in the Old Testament for the C9th BC. For instance, the use of the term ‘brother’, or ‘my [thy] brother’, was, as we have seen, very common amongst the more powerful of the EA kings. Another recurring EA idiom was the use of the term/phrase: ‘[a] [the] dog[s]’. Velikovsky had noted for instance in regard to Hazael of Syria’s reply to the prophet Elisha, ‘… is thy servant a dog [כִּי מָה עַבְדְּךָ הַכֶּלֶב], that he should do this great thing?’, when Elisha had foretold that Hazael would set on fire Israel’s strongholds (2 Kings 8:13), that: [Hazael’s] expression, ‘is thy servant a dog ...?’ which incidentally escaped oblivion, was a typical figure of speech at the time of the el-Amarna letters. Many chieftains and governors concluded their letters with the sentence: ‘Is thy servant a dog that he shall not hear the words of the king, the lord?’ Velikovsky found the idiom used again by Rib-Addi of Gubla with reference to Aziru and his father Abdi-Ashirta: Letter 125: Aziru has again oppressed me …. My cities belong to Aziru, and he seeks after me … What are the dogs, the sons of Abdi-Ashirta, that they act according to their heart’s wish, and cause the cities of the king to go up in smoke? Whilst that was an encouraging find, some of these idioms - including the two just mentioned (‘am I a dog’ and ‘[my] brother’) - were also used at the time of kings David and Solomon (cf. 1 Samuel 17:43 and 1 Kings 9:13), and the second at least is found again in the C6th BC Lachish letters, a fair spread of time of about half a millennium; so these idioms apparently were not peculiar to EA. I had also pointed out that ‘brother’ was a term used by Iarim-Lim of Iamkhad to the prince of Dêr in Mesopotamia; though not in a fraternal, but in a threatening, business-like context. Velikovsky, as we saw earlier, had quoted another EA letter, too, in connection with the Old Testament, in which Rib-Addi had reported that Abdi-Ashirta had fallen seriously ill: Letter 95: Abdi-Ashirta is very sick, who knows but that he will die? About which Velikovsky commented: “He died on his sickbed, but not from his disease; he was killed”. Then, connecting all this with Elisha’s statement, Velikovsky was able to make this most striking observation: In the only dialogue preserved in the Scriptures in which Hazael participates, there are three turns of speech that also appear in his [EA] letters. The context of the dialogue - the question of whether the king of Damascus would survive, and the statement that he, Hazael, the new king, would cause the cities of Israel to go up in smoke - is also preserved in the el-Amarna letters. It is therefore a precious example of the authenticity of the scriptural orations and dialogues. While Dr. Velikovsky here had used the typical translation of 2 Kings 8:13, ‘… is thy servant a dog? …’, it more likely means that Hazael was a mere low-born commoner, not expecting to be elevated to the throne - what the ancients called “son of a nobody” (Akkadian: mār lā mamman), or “a dog”. Thus Nabonidus, who became King of Babylon, had proclaimed himself in like terms: ‘I am Nabonidus, the only son, who has nobody. In my mind there was no thought of kingship’ (Beaulieu, Paul-Alain, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon. 556-539 B.C., 1989, p. 67). First conclusion: Hazael, king of Syria, is EA’s Aziru, king of Amurru, as Dr. Velikovsky had discovered. So far so good. But did Dr. Velikovsky also miss a trick here by not taking further his Aziru identification, to include the Irsu, or Arsa, of the Great Papyrus Harris (GPH) - whom Dr. David Rohl calls Aziru - enabling for Aziru (Hazael) to penetrate right into Egypt and overthrow the Egyptian gods, “… plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and no offerings were presented in the temple”. I think that he well may have. 2. Aziru (Hazael) and Irsu In my thesis (2007, p. 226), I referred to: …. the ‘Great Papyrus Harris’ which tells of an ‘Aziru’ (var. Irsu, Arsa), thought to have been a Syrian, or perhaps a Hurrian. …. I have already followed Velikovsky in identifying Hazael with EA’s Aziru; though Velikovsky, owing to the quirks of his revision, could not himself make the somewhat obvious (to my mind) connection between EA’s Aziru and Aziru of the Great Papyrus Harris. …. And further, thesis pp. 227-228: This document was perhaps inspired by Horemheb (e.g. Doherty calls it ‘Horemheb’s Manifesto’); Horemheb having carved his name on it over Tutankhamun’s name. • The Papyrus Harris narrative continues on to the next phase, though closely connected to the first I believe, with the introduction of one ‘Aziru [the] Syrian’, or Hurrian, during those “empty years” (when the throne was considered effectively to have been vacant, or usurped). This Aziru I am convinced can only be EA’s Aziru (biblical Hazael). (I have taken the liberty here of changing Rohl’s version of this person’s name, Arsa, to the equally acceptable variation of it, Aziru): This was then followed by the empty years when [Aziru] – a certain Syrian – was with them as leader. He set the whole land tributary before him. He united his companions and plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and no offerings were presented in the temple. LeFlem, borrowing a phrase from Gardiner, has asked this question with reference to Aziru: …. “Who was this so-called ‘Syrian condottiere’?” LeFlem’s question by now I think emphatically answers itself: he was EA’s Aziru! This was the foreign takeover of Egypt, an action of the Sinai commission, to depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his régime and to re-establish ma'at (order, status quo). Though Aziru’s involvement was not necessarily so highly regarded by later Ramessides. [LeFlem, K. A., ‘Amenophis, Osarsiph and Arzu. More on the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt, SIS Workshop, vol. 5, no.1 (1982), p. 15. Cf. footnote 61 above]. Except Aziru and his army did not come to Egypt to, as I wrote above, “depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his regime” (see, below, section: Aziru and Akhnaton). Second conclusion: Aziru (Hazael), king of Syria, is GPH’s Syrian, Irsu. 3. Hazael’s Syrian origins Why did the Lord choose Hazael, a Syrian, to assist the prophet Elijah and his coalition in the extermination of the House of Ahab and the pagan Baal worship? Presumably this Hazael was, prior to his rise to the throne, a typical Syrian official of the time, himself a worshipper of pagan gods. Well, yes and no. Hazael, also known as Na’aman, had been a typical Syrian of the time, the right-hand man of the mighty king, Ben-Hadad, who rested on his official’s arm when bowing down before the god Rimmon in the temple (2 Kings 5:18): ‘But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he 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’. Now, ironically, the god Rimmon was basically the same as Baal, whose religion Hazael would be commissioned at Sinai to help exterminate: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Rimmon “Rimmon …. A Syrian deity, a local representation of Hadad the god of storm, rain and thunder. In Syria this god is called “Baal,” ie the lord par excellence”. The leprous Na’aman, as a pagan Syrian, would have considered the rivers of Syria to have been a gift of his gods, meaning that there is much more to his proud rejection of the prophet Elisha’s offer for a cure than simply bathing in the Jordan River. What Elisha was asking of the Syrian was nothing less than to embrace the sacred river of Yahweh (once the river of Eden: Genesis 2:10) in preference to the rivers of his own gods. He was asking Na’aman to convert to the religion of Israel, to place his full trust in Yahweh. This, Na’aman was not initially prepared to do (2 Kings 5:11-12): But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage. Thanks to the intervention of his servants, Na’aman calmed down and did what the prophet Elisha had asked of him – no small ask, despite the simplicity of the action (vv. 13-14): Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. More than half a millennium later, Jesus Christ, preaching in Nazareth, will recall this wondrous moment (Luke 4:27): ‘And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian’. These words so enraged those in the synagogue that they attempted to throw him over a cliff (vv. 28-29). A vital connection between the converted Na’aman and King Hazael, chosen as a leader of the Sinai triumvirate (I Kings 19:15-16): “The Lord said to [Elijah], ‘Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet’”, perfectly answers my earlier question: Why did the Lord choose Hazael, a Syrian, to assist the prophet Elijah and his coalition in the extermination of the House of Ahab and the pagan Baal worship? No longer was Hazael (Na’aman) the typical pagan Syrian worshipper of Baal. He was now a thoroughgoing Yahwist (Kings 5:17): “… said Naaman, ‘please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord’.” As we are going to learn, the Syrian stuck to his promise, even to the extent of enforcing his newly-acquired religion upon idolatrous Egypt, whose supreme god (state deity) was the Baal-like Amun(-Ra). No wonder that the Lord had chosen him! Third conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) is the Syrian convert, Na’aman. In 2 Kings 5:1, we learn that Na’aman was “a great in the sight of” his king, having delivered Ben-Hadad an important military victory: “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram [Syria]. 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 …”. Ben-Hadad, EA’s Abdi-ashirta (Dr. Velikovsky), is generally considered to have been amongst the vassal kings of the EA era, who appeared to grovel before the Pharaohs and before several other Great Kings. Nothing, I think, could be further from the truth, at least in the case of Abdi-ashirta. As Ben-Hadad, he was what I have called ‘a master-king’, having 32 other kings in tow (I Kings 20:1). Now who in antiquity, to that stage, was like this? The great Yarim-Lim of Yamkhad had had an impressive 20 kings in tow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarim-Lim_I “By the time of his death, Yarim-Lim, had more than twenty kings as vassals and allies. According to Historian William J. Hamblin he was at the time the "mightiest ruler in the Near East outside of Egypt” …. Ben-Hadad would have more than half of that again. On this basis, I have concluded that Ben-Hadad/Abdi-ashirta, the master-king of his era, could not have been confined just to Syria (Damascus), but that he was the same as the famous EA correspondent, Pharaoh of Egypt, Nimmuria, better known as Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’. In other words, before the forceful incursion of Aziru into Egypt, his predecessor’s kingdom had already spilled over into that country, not to mention his control of much of the Levantine coast, threatening Byblos. In various articles, I have merged this great Pharaoh into Amenhotep II, making him even greater (but reducing his III to a II). We have briefly considered the good relationship between Ben-Hadad and his chief official, Hazael (Na’aman). It was so good that Ben-Hadad had no problems with his official going to Israel for a potential cure for his leprosy (2 Kings 5:5): “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel”. Now, can we find an official with the same sort of very good relationship with pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, an alter ego of mine for Ben-Hadad/Abdi-ashirta? All our attention now turns to Egypt. 4. Hazael as Amenhotep son of Hapu Yes, he is the enigmatic Amenhotep son of Hapu, fittingly a commoner, who rose to the highest honours in Egypt: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu Amenhotep, son of Hapu, was a high official of the reign of Amenhotep III of ancient Egypt (reigned 1390–53 bce) [sic], who was greatly honoured by the king within his lifetime and was deified more than 1,000 years later during the Ptolemaic era. Amenhotep rose through the ranks of government service, becoming scribe of the recruits, a military office, under Amenhotep III. While in the Nile River delta, Amenhotep was charged with positioning troops at checkpoints on the branches of the Nile to regulate entry into Egypt by sea; he also checked on the infiltration of Bedouin tribesmen by land. On one of his statues, he is called a general of the army. Some time later, when he was placed in charge of all royal works, he probably supervised the construction of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple at Thebes near modern Luxor, the building of the temple of Soleb in Nubia (modern Sudan), and the transport of building material and erection of other works. Two statues from Thebes indicate that he was also an intercessor in Amon’s temple and that he supervised the celebration of one of Amenhotep III’s Heb-Sed festivals (a renewal rite celebrated by the pharaoh after the first 30 years of his reign and periodically thereafter). The king honoured him by embellishing Athribis, his native city. Amenhotep III even ordered the building of a small funerary temple for him next to his own temple, a unique honour for a nonroyal person in Egypt. Amenhotep was greatly revered by posterity, as indicated by the reinscription of the donation decree for his mortuary establishment in the 21st dynasty (1075–c. 950 bce) and his divine association with Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, during the Ptolemaic period. [End of quote] Though essentially based in Syrian Damascus, the mobile Ben-Hadad could have, during his decades-long reign, had a significant impact upon Egypt as well, he being well served in both significant locations by Hazael. But how to explain why the now Yahwistic Hazael would murder his king and patron, Ben-Hadad? That is not an easy question to answer. Maybe he was prompted by Elisha’s telling him the shock news that he was going to be the King of Syria (Aram) - and/or realizing that he, being a commoner, was never going to be elected king, but would have to force the issue himself. Moreover, Ben-Hadad would now represent for Hazael the idolatrous world that he had been divinely commissioned to eradicate. Our account of the Syrian “dog” made good, which received an enormous boost with the hero’s dramatic conversion to Yahwism, after experiencing a miracle, now goes into overdrive with the recognition that the brilliant Amenhotep son of Hapu, was to become the pharaoh known as Amenhotep IV (now my III), or Akhnaton (Akhenaten). All of a sudden, the completely mysterious shroud that surrounds Akhnaton prior to his ascension to the throne of Egypt - for instance, did he spend his early years amongst the Mitannians? - has been lifted right away in the new knowledge that Akhnaton was indeed Amenhotep, but the one who had long served Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, who, as Ben-Hadad, had been well served by Hazael (Na’aman). Fourth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) was Amenhotep son of Hapu. 5. Hazael as the semi-legendary Osarseph As now inimical towards his idolatrous master, Ben-Hadad, Hazael perhaps emerges in a garbled tradition from Josephus as the renegade Osarseph/Osarsiph, especially given the latter’s association with lepers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osarseph According to Josephus, the story depicts Osarseph as a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers and other "unclean" people against a pharaoh named Amenophis, who was the son of Ramses and the father of another Ramses, and whose original name was Sethos (Seti).[1] The pharaoh is driven out of the country and the leper-army, in alliance with the Hyksos (whose story is also told by Manetho) ravage Egypt, committing many sacrileges against the gods, before Amenophis returns and expels them. Towards the end of the story Osarseph changes his name to Moses.[2] Fifth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) could just possibly have been the model for Josephus’s garbled Osarseph. There appears to be evidence that Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’ showed some favouritism towards Atonism (Atenism): https://media.australian.museum/media/dd/documents/New_Kingdom_Egypt_Amenhotep_III_to_the_Death_of_Ramesses_II_-_Activity_two.bc57759.pdf “Amenhotep III’ would put an increasing emphasis on the worship of Aten elevating them from a minor god to a solar disc that provided life-giving energy to the world. He would give Aten royal patronage through temples such as Maru Aten and his own epithet Aten-tjehen, which means ‘the Dazling Sun Disk”. Whilst he did not promote Aten as an exclusive god, his successor Akhenaten would. Akhenaten made radical changes to the religious landscape of Egypt, imposing the status of the sun god Aten as an exclusive deity, replacing Egypt’s polytheistic belief system, and displacing the state-deity Amun-Re. This period became known as the Amarna period after Akhenaten’s relocation of the capital from Thebes to modern day Tell el-Amarna …”. 6. Hazael as pharaoh Akhnaton By now I have written various articles connecting the Syrian convert Na’aman (Hazael) to the extraordinary pharaoh Akhnaton. The following one covers much of it: Akhnaton one of the most influential men who ever lived https://www.academia.edu/103257906/Akhnaton_one_of_the_most_influential_men_who_ever_lived “Novelists and historians, essayists, cultists, cranks, theologians, archaeologists, documentary makers and Hollywood film makers all give very different interpretations to his life, his beliefs, his personality, his motivations, what he intended to do and what he did”. Mohamed Hawass What to make of pharaoh Akhnaton, his lovely wife, Nefertiti, and the city of Akhetaton? Mohamed Hawass tells of the vast range of opinions expressed about Akhnaton, in his article: Akhenaten and Nefertiti: The Controversy and the Evidence (3) Free PDF Download - Akhenaten and Nefertiti: The Controversy and the Evidence | Mohamed Hawass - Academia.edu (pp. 3-5): …. Akhenaten has often been acclaimed not only as the founder of monotheism and the first man to worship a benevolent God, but as the first individual in history: he also emerges as one of the most controversial. Despite massive amounts being written about both him and Nefertiti, despite being amongst the few figures from Ancient Egypt to achieve lasting fame, few writers can give a shared overall opinion. They do not even agree on how to spell Akhenaten’s name, giving at least four choices! Some writers may agree on what some points mean, but even there wide disagreement seems more common. Novelists and historians, essayists, cultists, cranks, theologians, archaeologists, documentary makers and Hollywood film makers all give very different interpretations to his life, his beliefs, his personality, his motivations, what he intended to do and what he did. Fascination with Akhenaten has long ago reached the stage where that fascination itself has become the subject of a book, Dominic Montserrat’s interesting Akhenaten: History Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. (2003). Montserrat asks the very good question why are people fascinated by an Egyptian pharaoh who died over three thousand years ago? First he remains an enigma and they always fascinate. This enigma takes a form, being also a mystery that essentially divides between resolving him to be either a hero or a villain, which was he? Many people still see personalities in this simple, divisive way. A third point is that his intensely dramatic story attracts creators of fiction, historians and their readers. The final reason concerns what may well be his great importance on influencing human history. His attempt to establish monotheism, and a seemingly benevolent monotheism for all humanity, may have been an isolated attempt that was several hundred years ahead of its time and died out unremembered and unknown – or it may have heavily influenced the development of Mosaic Judaism, which of course went on to influence Christianity and then Islam. Did the religion of the Aten stop without further influence? Or was there a now untraceable and developing path from Atenism into Judaism? The answer remains unknown; thin evidence exists for this, but that evidence offers no proof, only grounds for speculation. Even so, most of the world remains dominated by laws and religions which now express concept’s [sic] first expressed in Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Aten, inscribed on the wall of the Amarna tomb of Ay, a leading Atenist. …. If the links are ever found this would make Akhenaten one of the most influential men who ever lived. It would also change our perceptions of the origins of the world’s dominant religions. Much of this theological development may have come from Nefertiti. While some consensus on Nefertiti exists, the listing below gives some idea of how numerous, divergent and oppositional views of Akhenaten are. This is of course simplified as many writers are cautious in expressing opinions. Others allow for mixtures of the views listed below. Akhenaten was a visionary and a religious genius aiming to unite all the peoples of his empire in a rule of peace. He was an internationalist and a pacifist. Akhenaten was a short sighted political leader who probably could not see that his empire was disintegrating. If he could see he did not care. Akhenaten was a great man, hundreds of years ahead of his time, brought down by small minded people. Akhenaten was a naïve fool and perhaps a lunatic, who devastated Egypt and had to be stopped. Akhenaten was a liberator, aiming to establish a humane religion based in one benevolent God who would overcome the darkness and fear that came from superstition. Akhenaten was a tyrant and a megalomaniac, enforcing a cruel religion with a god he created as a reflection of himself. Akhenaten was a uxorious husband and a devoted family man to his children. Akhenaten was a bisexual, a womaniser and an incestuous paedophile who exiled Nefertiti. Akhenaten was a true and original revolutionary, rapidly changing Egyptian religion, society and culture. Akhenaten was only developing ideas and trends that had emerged in his father’s reign. Akhenaten was the first monotheist. Akhenaten was not a monotheist. He allowed other religions and never denied the existence of other gods. Fiction writers give us many such views and all of these views have some basis in evidence. In Mika Waltari’s Sinuhe The Egyptian (1949) Akhenaten talks like a 1930s peace pledge parson, making naïve sentiments about peace, the brotherhood of man and the love of God. While he dreams of such a world his undefended kingdom experiences invasion and near civil war rips Egypt apart. The same idea emerges in the 1954 film version of that book, The Egyptian. Both these works show a mentality influenced by the 1930s failure of those European leaders who wanting peace, and in striving for that, failed to contain Hitler. These 1950s depictions also reflect the naivety of those in the west who hoped for peace during the Cold War. Coming from the opposite direction, seeing humanist calls for peace and equality as desirable, something of this mentality seems evident in historian F. Gladstone Bratton’s admiring 1961 work The Heretic Pharaoh. Here Akhenaten’s humanity and genius is emphasised and he seems to be a figure striving for peace and international goodwill. In Allen Drury’s A God Against the Gods (1976) and the sequel Return to Thebes (1977) this novelist strives to create an epic explaining the conflicting evidence. Here Akhenaten emerges as a well-intentioned religious genius, but a disastrously inept politician unable to make judgements on realities. He is naïve and his homosexual relationship with Smenkhkare alienates Nefertiti, the mainstay of his religion. Something of the mid 1970s disillusionment with the idealism of the Vietnam War era comes through in Drury’s two books. By 1984 when Pauline Gedge’s The Twelfth Transforming was published, the world was very disillusioned with alternative religions, utopias, and radical messiahs of assorted kinds. This attitude comes through in her portrayal of Akhenaten, a simpering, egocentric, hideously deformed megalomaniac with a taste for incest. He has to be stopped before his wild schemes to transform Egypt destroys that civilisation. By the time this novel was written Akhenaten had been the subject of over a hundred novels. …. Clearly writers perceive Akhenaten not only through interpreting primary source evidence, but through the developments of their own eras and the influence of the dominant or striking personalities of their times. [End of quote] I myself had once, in a university thesis (2007), simply dismissed Akhnaton as “the oddest of pharaohs” (Volume One, p. 210), without having been able - {nor even really being concerned about it} - to penetrate the mystery. What I did fully realise back then, though, and am still convinced of to this day (13th June, 2023), was that any mystery surrounding Akhnaton and his city of Akhetaton would be more easily solved were one to embrace Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s downward revision of this era (as argued in Ages in Chaos and Oedipus and Ikhnaton) to the C9th BC (conventional dating). This massive alteration brings with it a radical new perspective. Akhnaton’s Hymn to the Aten, so like in many ways King David’s Psalm 104 - as many have recognised - far from having influenced the Hebrew version, would have post-dated the latter by over a century. So, if anyone was doing the influencing here, then it was King David. And that chronological fact alone would require a modification of the suggestion in the article of Mohamed Hawass above - based upon a conventional dating of Akhnaton to the C14th BC - that Akhnaton’s “… attempt to establish monotheism … may have heavily influenced the development of Mosaic Judaism …”. Apart from the fact that Moses preceded Akhnaton by a good half a millennium, the best one could say is that Akhnaton had been influenced by (and had not influenced) a “Mosaic Judaism” filtered through an updated Davidic Judaism. What one might be able to say, and some indeed have said it, is that the religious monotheism of pharaoh Akhnaton is akin to that one reads about in the Pentateuch, and which kings David and Solomon had inherited. The latter brought some of this to Egypt where he, as Senenmut, famously officiated as ‘the power behind the throne’ of the woman pharaoh, Hatshepsut. On this, see e.g. my article: Solomon and Sheba (4) Solomon and Sheba | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu So who, then, was this, the most unusual character in ancient Egyptian history, Akhnaton? And from whence did he come? To answer the last question first, as King Hezekiah had done in the instance of Isaiah’s uncomfortable interrogation of him regarding the Babylonian envoys of King Merodach-baladan (Isaiah 39:3), Akhnaton was a Syrian, not a native Egyptian. Hence he was geographically closer, than were the Egyptians, to the Israelites, and to their prophets and teachings - during the era of the Divided Kingdom of kings Ahab (with Jezebel) and the godly Jehoshaphat. Not entirely surprising, then, that we find it likely that: Akhnaton’s Chief Minister [was] an Israelite? (4) Akhnaton’s Chief Minister an Israelite? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The one who came to be called Akhnaton (meaning “Effective for the Aten”) in Egypt - {and whose prenomen would be Neferkheperure (Waenre) (meaning “Beautiful are the Forms of Re, the Unique one of Re”), which name (Neferkheperure) is the occasionally-met variant, Naphuria, or Napkhuria, of the El Amarna correspondence} - was, in fact, a Syrian military man and foreigner with regard to Egypt. That would explain also why his new city of Akhetaton (meaning “Horizon of the Aten”) was like a military camp, and why many of its inhabitants were ‘Asiatic’ (read Syro-Palestinian): Akhetaton was ‘an armed camp’ (4) Akhetaton was 'an armed camp' | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu So, any naïve suggestion that pharaoh Akhnaton was like some ancient version of New Age “pacificist” (a word we encountered above) is always going to be very wide of the mark – for any ruler in ancient times, let alone for one like Akhnaton, who obviously flaunted his military. Like the prophet Jonah, before he could minister to the Assyrians, the Syrian Na’aman must needs be ‘baptismally’ immersed in the water before he was deemed “clean” (2 Kings 5:14) enough to spread his monotheism (to the Egyptians). Verse 17: ‘… please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD’. This: Akhnaton’s Theophany (8) Akhnaton's Theophany | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu is, I believe, the key to understanding pharaoh Akhnaton and his monotheistic Atenism. Sixth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) was Pharaoh Akhnaton (Akhenaten).

Monday, April 7, 2025

Hebrew influence upon Amenhotep son of Hapu

by Damien F. Mackey The enigmatic Amenhotep son of Hapu, who had hoped to attain the age of 110 (that reached by Joseph of Egypt), has even been identified (wrongly) as this Joseph. His career in Egypt seems to have been closely modelled on that of Senenmut (my Solomon). Like King Solomon, he was an educated Steward. Amenhotep son of Hapu was a highly influential figure, whose fame reached down even into Ptolemaïc times: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu Amenhotep, son of Hapu, was a high official of the reign of Amenhotep III of ancient Egypt (reigned 1390–53 bce) [sic], who was greatly honoured by the king within his lifetime and was deified more than 1,000 years later during the Ptolemaic era. Amenhotep rose through the ranks of government service, becoming scribe of the recruits, a military office, under Amenhotep III. While in the Nile River delta, Amenhotep was charged with positioning troops at checkpoints on the branches of the Nile to regulate entry into Egypt by sea; he also checked on the infiltration of Bedouin tribesmen by land. On one of his statues, he is called a general of the army. Some time later, when he was placed in charge of all royal works, he probably supervised the construction of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple at Thebes near modern Luxor, the building of the temple of Soleb in Nubia (modern Sudan), and the transport of building material and erection of other works. Two statues from Thebes indicate that he was also an intercessor in Amon’s temple and that he supervised the celebration of one of Amenhotep III’s Heb-Sed festivals (a renewal rite celebrated by the pharaoh after the first 30 years of his reign and periodically thereafter). The king honoured him by embellishing Athribis, his native city. Amenhotep III even ordered the building of a small funerary temple for him next to his own temple, a unique honour for a nonroyal person in Egypt. Amenhotep was greatly revered by posterity, as indicated by the reinscription of the donation decree for his mortuary establishment in the 21st dynasty (1075–c. 950 bce) [sic] and his divine association with Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, during the Ptolemaic period. Influenced by the Patriarch Joseph Professor Joseph Davidovits had gone so far as to identify Amenhotep son of Hapu as the biblical Joseph of Egypt: https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/product/the-secrets-of-joseph-the-patriarch/ In 1935 in Karnak, in Egypt, two French Egyptologists discover a fresco in the ruins of the memorial temple of Amenophis (Amenhotep) Son of Hapu, the most eminent scribe and scientist of ancient Egypt, Great chancellor of the Pharaon Amenhotep III, father of the monotheist Pharaon Akhenaton. Recently, 75 years later, it was noted that the text of this fresco was reproduced almost word for word in the Bible in Genesis 41, when Pharaon [Pharaoh] installs the biblical Patriarch Joseph to rule over all Egypt. It is apparent that the royal scribe Amenophis Son of Hapu and the Patriarch Joseph are thus the same person. …. [End of quote] Professor Davidovits, however, was not the first to have discerned similarities between Amenhotep son of Hapu and Joseph - at least with the historical Joseph, who was Imhotep of Egypt’s Third Dynasty: Enigmatic Imhotep – did he really exist? (7) Enigmatic Imhotep - did he really exist? Even in antiquity it was thought of Imhotep and Amenhotep that, as we shall read further on, “they have a single ‘body’ and a single ba, ‘soul’ or ‘manifestation’, as if Amenhotep son of Hapu were a veritable reincarnation of his colleague who had lived one thousand years prior”. Dietrich Wildung wrote a book, Egyptian Saints: Deification in Pharaonic Egypt (NYUP, 1977), in which he nominated these two officials as the two real geniuses of ancient Egyptian history. At https://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/amenhotep-son-of-hapu/ we read of some of the connections that Dietrich Wildung had made between Imhotep and Amenhotep: Amenhotep, Son of Hapu (Amenophis, Amenotes) … served in the local government and in the priesthood of Khenty-khety before being called to the royal court at Thebes in his early fifties. He had an extraordinarily distinguished career under Amenhotep III, holding the positions of chief architect (he is credited with the temple of Soleb), chief scribe and secretary in charge of recruiting, as well as steward to the king’s daughter. Amenhotep son of Hapu died at the age of around eighty. After his death he acquired a cult as a healer and an intermediary of the God Amun, and was often worshiped alongside his fellow deified architect and healer Imhotep, surpassing the latter in popularity in the vicinity of Thebes. In a hymn inscribed on the temple of Ptah at Karnak, it is said of Amenhotep son of Hapu and Imhotep that they have a single ‘body’ and a single ba, ‘soul’ or ‘manifestation’, as if Amenhotep son of Hapu were a veritable reincarnation of his colleague who had lived one thousand years prior. The spell Pleyte 167 of the Book of the Dead is labeled as having been found by “the King’s chief scribe Amenhotep the son of Hapu … He used it for him [the king] as protection for his body.” Amenhotep son of Hapu and Imhotep are mentioned in the Papyrus Boulaq (first century CE) as welcoming the soul of the deceased: “Your soul will go to the royal scribe and chief scribe of the recruits Amenhotep; your soul will be united with Imhotep … you will feel like a son in the house of his father,” (Wildung 1977, 105). Amenhotep son of Hapu is depicted as a scribe, often with palette and scroll, somewhat older and corpulent, with a fuller hairstyle or wig than the standard kind, a short beard, and often wearing a long apron. Votive inscriptions from a Ptolemaic chapel behind the upper mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari show that Amenhotep son of Hapu was still worshiped in the second century CE, more than 1,500 years [sic] after his death. Perhaps due to the similarity in name, Amenhotep’s father Hapu is sometimes identified in later texts with “the living herald Apis,” that is, the Apis bull, while his mother, Idit, is referred to as “Hathor-Idit, the justified, the mother of the helpful God who issued from her on this beautiful day, the 11th of Phamenoth, in her name ‘rejoicing’,” (Wildung 1977, 98-99). In addition to the divinization of his mortal parents, Amenhotep is often characterized as the son of Amun, or of Ptah, or of Seshat and Thoth. A text dating from the time of Tiberius refers to him as the “youthful repetition of Ptah … You give a child to the sterile; you release a man from his enemy; you know the hearts of men and what is inside; you increase the lifetime; there is no distress in you. You renew what has fallen down; you fill up what was found destroyed,” (ibid., 105). [End of quote] And again we read at: http://www.boap.org/LDS/Hugh-Nibley/TrFac.html …. The biographies of such great men as Imhotep and his later counterpart Amenhotep Son of Hapu are enough to show that. They were commoners, both of them, living some 1500 years apart, yet each achieving a renown equal to or surpassing that of Pharaoh himself. "As long as he lived, and no matter what he did," writes D. Wildung in his study of these two men, "no king of Egypt was able to ascend to the realm of the gods. Two mortals did." (Wildung, 28) How? Other Egyptians achieved a fame approaching theirs, but they were always remembered as the very top achievers. Their greatness and glory depended entirely on what they did for others: their religious writings and offices, their practical genius as inventors of useful devices and administrators of consummate skill in dealing with people, their all-embracing humanity as friends and benefactors of all their fellow-men, their modest, kindly and ever good-humored deportment, their contributions to the arts and sciences, great innovations in architecture, engineering, literature and philosophy, were all made possible by that one mysterious quality of intelligence in which they were supreme. After their deaths they were venerated in temples dedicated to them, to which for thousands of years pilgrims have repaired for the blessings of healing and especially for posterity. …. "To be united with Amenhotep and Imhotep in the after life" (Wildung, 105), even as the pious Jew or Christian longs to be clasped to the bosom of Abraham. They are depicted through the centuries clothed with the garments and insignia of various gods, but always with their own faces. …. Thus the Greeks in Egypt identified Imhotep in his healing capacity with their own Aesulapius, as a builder with Daedalus, as a Scribe with Thoth or Hermes; and Imhotep and Amenhotep, though living ages apart, were shown fused into a single person …. Right down to the 19th century pilgrims would come to Imhotep's shrine at [Saqqara], where he built the magnificent Temple complex 4500 years ago, for the healing of their bodies and especially for the promise of having children, for Imhotep like Abraham was the great patron of the family. To suit Moslem and Christian faith, however, the designation of the shrine was changed from the Tomb of Imhotep, pagan, to the Prison of Joseph--it could not be the Tomb of Joseph, since he was buried in Canaan, but the next best thing is the jail in which he was buried for years. And so for 1500 years Imhotep has been identified with Joseph, Abraham's own great-grandson, whose own biography shows us that the [honours] bestowed on great commoners in Egypt were not withheld from supremely deserving foreigners who showed the same capacity and zeal in the service of Egypt; one of the greatest merits of Imhotep like Joseph, was saving the land from a seven-years' famine. [End of quote] Imhotep, of course, was Joseph! 110 Years of Age One will read in books and on sites re ancient Egypt about the age of 110 being the ‘ideal’ one. Take e.g. this paragraph: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/oldage.htm#ixzz49uHnsTKu And yet, one hundred-and-ten years seems to be the ideal Egyptian life-span. There are 27 places in documents where this figure crops up, and it had its widest acceptance during the 19th and 20th Dynasties. King Pepi II of the 6th Dynasty certainly came close, since we know of events that took place in the 94th year of his reign. Ptahhotep, who was vizier to King Djedkare Isesi of the 5th Dynasty, and two others individuals, are reputed to have lived to that age as well. [End of quote] Since Imhotep was Joseph himself, then I would say that - given the Hebrew patriarch’s profound influence over Egypt - he was the reason why the age of 110 was so aspired to. Amenhotep son of Hapu was one who, according to http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/resource/ObjectCatalog/1853 had hoped to reach this sublime age of 110, but, despite being old, fell well short of it: Seated Statue of Amenhotep, son of Hapu Author(s): C. Zarnoch, E. Sullivan Description: This seated statue represents Amenhotep son of Hapu, the royal scribe and architect of Amenhotep III. He is depicted here as an aged man: his chest sags, his stomach is rounded, and the fleshiness of old age marks his face. The inscription states that he had reached the age of 80 (extraordinarily old for an ancient Egyptian) and wished to attain 110 years (the perfect lifespan). In a recent article: Akhnaton not obscure before he became Pharaoh (2) Akhnaton not obscure before he became Pharaoh I have traced the biblico-historical development of Amenhotep son of Hapu, starting with the leprous Na’aman (Osarsiph) the Syrian, who attained Syrian kingship as Hazael through the agency of the Sinai Commission, who became Aziru of Amurru (Syria) of the El Amarna archive and also (Irsu, Aziru) of the Great Harris Papyrus, who, finally, was pharaoh Amenhotep (so-called IV) Akhnaton. Hence: Akhnaton’s Theophany (2) Akhnaton's Theophany was entirely due to Hebrew influence, to the intervention of the great prophet Elisha.

Akhnaton not obscure before he became Pharaoh

by Damien F. Mackey “Egyptologists know very little about Akhenaten's life as prince Amenhotep”. Based on my article: Akhnaton one of the most influential men who ever lived (3) Akhnaton one of the most influential men who ever lived | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu pharaoh Amenhotep (so-called III) ‘the Magnificent’ was a mighty emperor, who ruled over both Syria and Egypt. ‘The Magnificent’ was the biblical king, Ben-Hadad I, of the C9th BC (conventional dating), whom Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had well identified with the king of Amurru (Syria), Abdi-ashirta, of the El Amarna [EA] letters. This prominent king, thought to have been a vassal of Egypt, was in fact a master-king, with 32 other kings in tow. I have identified Akhnaton biblically with Na’aman the Syrian, the leper who was cured owing to the intervention of the prophet Elisha. Due to Na’aman’s total conversion to Yahwism, the Lord would order the prophet Elijah to anoint him as “king over Aram [Syria]” (I Kings 19:15), to wipe out Baalism from the land. Na’aman, though a commoner, a “son of nobody” as the ancients called it, would thus rise to the throne of Syria as Hazael, by assassinating his master, Ben-Hadad I. This fact adds a vital new dimension to Dr. I. Velikovsky’s view that pharaoh Akhnaton was the model for the Greek king, Oedipus. While Dr. Velikovsky had never gone so far as to have suggested that Akhnaton killed his father, as Oedipus is famously said to have done, the fact is that he, if he really were Hazael, had actually done this (taking ‘father’ in a broad sense of master). This explains, in part, how a most unlikely person, Hazael-Amenhotep-Akhnaton, had managed to come to the throne of Egypt. Apart from identifying EA’s Abdi-ashirta as Ben-Hadad I, Dr. Velikovsky had logically identified Ben-Hadad I’s regicide successor, Hazael, as Aziru, the king of Amurru (Syria) who would succeed the slain Abdi-ashirta. Dr. Velikovsky drew some compelling comparisons between Hazael and Aziru. This was a strong, tour de force, aspect of his Ages in Chaos I (1952) thesis, praised by later revisionists. It became something of a foundation for my university thesis (2007): A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background (5) Thesis 2: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Had Dr. Velikovsky gone a step further, and identified Aziru (Hazael) with the similarly-named Syrian, Irsu (Arsa), of the Great Harris Papyrus [GHP], as I have done, then he would have realised that Aziru had also come to control Egypt - though not as an invader, apparently - and had wrought there a religious revolution. Though GHP presents this revolution negatively, from the traditional Egyptian point of view, it could also be likened, from a different angle, to the religious revolution of pharaoh Akhnaton, which I believe it was. Akhnaton was also found to have been the model for Manetho’s semi-legendary Osarsiph, who, interestingly – in my context of Akhnaton’s being the formerly leprous Na’aman – was associated with lepers. As an official in Egypt before he became Akhnaton We can know something about Akhnaton’s pre-regnal years and character if he was, as I think, the Syrian Na’aman (2 Kings 5:1): “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram [Syria]. 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”. From verses 2-3, we learn that this Na’aman had a wife, and a captive Israelite slave girl, who was desirous of her master approaching the prophet Elisha for a curing of his leprosy. Unlike the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad I, who was quite happy for his army commander to visit the prophet of Samaria, the king of Israel, presumably Ahab, an inveterate foe of the Syrians, was horrified after the king of Syria had sent him an introductory letter (v. 7): “As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, ‘Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!’” Na’aman was apparently a generous man, and presumably wealthy (v. 5): “So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing”. See also v. 23. He was a cavalryman (v. 9): “So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house”. Na’aman was also proud. He wanted a quick cure for which he would pay handsomely. But Elisha wanted from him a complete change of heart. Vv. 10-12: Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, ‘Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed’. But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage. Did the captive Israelite girl help to change his mind? Vv. 13-14: Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Humility and ‘baptism’. Na’aman was fully converted to the one God (v. 17): ‘… please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD’. That he was the king of Syria’s right-hand man, having even a liturgical rôle, may be gleaned from v. 18: ‘But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he 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’. Now, given my argument that Na’aman (who became Hazael king of Syria), would also become pharaoh Akhnaton, and that Na’aman had formerly served Ben-Hadad I, who was also pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, then it is logical that we would expect to find amongst pharaoh Amenhotep’s officials one who mirrors - because he was - this Na’aman. Before attempting to identify Na’aman the Syrian as a high military official of pharaoh Amenhotep, though, we need to consider what were Akhnaton’s origins. Generally thought to have been the second son of pharaoh Amenhotep and his wife, Queen Tiy, Amenhotep, as Akhnaton was called, is a figure of almost complete obscurity for Egyptologists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten 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, c. 1363–1361 BC, 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 who was Akhenaten's tutor during his youth, and have proposed scribes Heqareshu or Meryre II, the royal tutor Amenemotep, or the vizier Aperel. …. 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." …. …. Coregency with Amenhotep III …. There is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV acceded to Egypt's throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency, lasting perhaps as long as 12 years. Eric Cline, Nicholas Reeves, Peter Dorman, and other scholars argue strongly against the establishment of a long coregency between the two rulers and in favor of either no coregency or one lasting at most two years. …. Donald B. Redford, William J. Murnane, Alan Gardiner, and Lawrence Berman contest the view of any coregency whatsoever between Akhenaten and his father. …. Most recently, in 2014, archaeologists found both pharaohs' names inscribed on the wall of the Luxor tomb of vizier Amenhotep-Huy. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities called this "conclusive evidence" that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least eight years, based on the dating of the tomb. …. However, this conclusion has since been called into question by other Egyptologists, according to whom the inscription only means that construction on Amenhotep-Huy's tomb started during Amenhotep III's reign and ended under Akhenaten's, and Amenhotep-Huy thus simply wanted to pay his respects to both rulers. …. [End of quotes] This is all quite wrong, I believe. Amenhotep was not a prince, but was the pharaoh’s military commander, a commoner, with no thought of kingship. Did he not, as Hazael, say to the prophet Elisha? (2 Kings 8:13 ESV): ‘How could I possibly do a thing like that? I’m nothing but a dog. I don’t have that kind of power’. ‘Son of a nobody’. He did not live in the 1300’s BC, but about half a millennium later than this. Nor was he ever co-regent with his former master-king whom he slew. To find early Akhnaton, as Amenhotep, we must look for pharaoh Amenhotep’s mirror-image officer of king Ben-Hadad I’s Na’aman, preferably being named, like his king, AMENHOTEP. And we seem to find him in the amazing character Amenhotep son of Hapu, a man of legendary status: Amenhotep son of Hapu had rôle like Senenmut (13) Amenhotep son of Hapu had rôle like Senenmut | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Amenhotep son of Hapu mirrors Na’aman in his titles, as a commoner who made good, a military commander, and right-hand man of the pharaoh, with a liturgical rôle. Egyptologist Joann Fletcher provides 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 learned, however, in: Solomon and Sheba https://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba the powers accorded by pharaoh Amenhotep 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. I have identified this Senenmut as King Solomon in Egypt. Titles Amenhotep son of Hapu, likewise, had some most imposing titles: http://euler.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings%20and%20Queens/Amenhotep-Hapu.html He was: 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 (Sitamun). 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 was 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. Egyptologists are very wrong, again, in thinking that neither Senenmut (= Solomon) nor Amenhotep (= Na’aman-Akhnaton) ever married. Sir Alan Gardiner had claimed, in the Introduction to his Egyptian Grammar, that the ancient Egyptians were the least philosophical of peoples. And Dietrich Wildung (Gottwerdung im alten Ägypten, Münchner ägyptologische Studien) considered that ancient Egypt had produced only two geniuses, Imhotep and Amenhotep, both of whom became revered as saints. But neither Imhotep nor Amenhotep was even a native Egyptian. Imhotep was, for his part, the great Hebrew patriarch, Joseph: Enigmatic Imhotep – did he really exist? (7) Enigmatic Imhotep - did he really exist? Whilst Amenhotep son of Hapu was, as I now believe, a Syrian (Na’aman/Hazael).

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Defusing the problematical Shalmaneser

by Damien F. Mackey But the fact was that Shalmaneser was nowhere to be found in the El Amarna archive, at least under that Assyrian name. Instead, the king of Assyria in El Amarna was one “Ashuruballit”. Introduction For those faithfully following the revision of history as set out by the insightful scholar, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, in Ages in Chaos (I, 1952), especially back in the late 1970’s, a seemingly impenetrable obstacle loomed for them with regard to the re-location of the El-Amarna (EA) history from the c. C14th BC, where the history books situated it, to the mid-C9th BC, where Dr. Velikovsky had re-set it. The obstacle was the great Assyrian king, SHALMANESER III. For, if EA belonged to the mid-C9th BC, then one ought to encounter there the long-reigning Shalmaneser III, who straddled this era (c. 860-825 BC, conventional dating). But the fact was that Shalmaneser was nowhere to be found in the EA archive, at least under that Assyrian name. Instead, the king of Assyria in EA was one “Ashuruballit” [Assuruballit]. This quickly became recognised as a major issue for the validity of the revision, earning the title, The Assuruballit Problem (or TAP). Dr. Velikovsky, with typical ingenuity, tried to get around the problem by suggesting an identification of Shalmaneser with EA’s powerful king of Babylon (Karduniash), “Burnaburiash” [Burraburiash]. Whilst that appeared to have some potential, his other suggestion did not. He, finding the name Shalmaiati in the EA letters, thought that this must refer to Shalmaneser. But Shalmaiati has been recognised as a contemporary Egyptian princess, Meritaten. All sorts of ingenious alternative solutions were subsequently proposed by revisionists. But all of these seemed to arrive at dead ends. For a much fuller account of TAP and things associated with it, see e.g. my article: El Amarna archive’s Lab’ayu as King Ahab, Baalat-Neše as Jezebel (DOC) El Amarna archive’s Lab’ayu as King Ahab, Baalat-Neše as Jezebel * * * * * How was the seemingly impossible going to occur, to save the Velikovskian revision from the highly problematical Shalmaneser? The first really positive step in the right direction, which excited my interest, at least, was Emmet Sweeney’s proposal that EA’s Ashuruballit was the great Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal, and that the latter’s presumed son, Shalmaneser, was to be taken out of the EA era, thereby completely erasing a major problem. Following on from this, I began working on a reconstruction which removed Shalmaneser right out of the EA era, but going even further than had Emmet Sweeney. My simple solution: Shalmaneser so-called III must be conveyed right down to the time of the Assyrian invasions of Samaria (late C8th BC) and be merged with the somewhat poorly known Shalmaneser V, who had commenced the actual siege of Samaria. This facile solution, whilst perhaps getting to the nub of TAP, by taking Shalmaneser right out of the EA era, still leaves other tricky problems in its wake: - Who, then, is Ashuruballit? - What happens to Ashurnasirpal, whom Emmet Sweeney had identified as Ashuruballit? - How can the long-reigning Shalmaneser III now become the same king as the short-reigning Shalmaneser V? - Shalmaneser III’s long reign must now also impinge on that of the great Tiglath-pileser III, presumed predecessor of Shalmaneser V. Leaving Ashuruballit aside, since I want to focus solely in this article on Shalmaneser - who I now have ruling Assyria a good century after EA and Ashuruballit - I shall endeavour to answer the last three questions posed above. Ashurnasirpal - What happens to Ashurnasirpal, whom Emmet Sweeney had identified as Ashuruballit? If Shalmaneser is to be moved down the time scale by about a century, then his predecessor, Ashurnasirpal, must likewise be moved down, and be properly fitted in. Well, my answer to this problem is as surprising and radical as was that which I have given for Shalmaneser. I do not follow the conventional history in having Shalmaneser follow on directly from Ashurnasirpal, who I have, instead, coming two reigns after Shalmaneser. In such fashion, Ashurnasirpal so called II, too, is to be taken well away from EA – even further away from there than is Shalmaneser. Here is how I explained my move right away from the conventional Assyrian listing in: Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences (4) Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences and my justification for doing so: …. Marc Van de Mieroop will give one perfect sequence (as I see it) of four Middle Assyrian kings, who, nevertheless, need to be folded into the Neo Assyrian era, where Van de Mieroop has these four kings listed again, but now in the wrong sequence. I refer to his “King Lists” towards the end of his book, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 -323 BC. The following I would consider to be a perfect Assyrian sequence of kings (p. 294): Adad-nirari [I] Shalmaneser [I] Tukulti-Ninurta [I] Assur-nadin-apli [I] where Tukulti-Ninurta = Sennacherib and Assur-nadin-apli = Ashurnasirpal = Esarhaddon. This sequence accords perfectly with the neo-Assyrian sequence given in Tobit 1: “Shalmaneser”; “Sennacherib”; “Esarhaddon”. But on p. 295, the same four kings will become skewed, as follows: Adad-nirari [II] Tukulti-Ninurta [II] Ashurnasirpal [II] Shalmaneser [III] [End of quote] So, now, in this new system of revision, Shalmaneser no longer directly follows Ashurnasirpal as his son and successor, but he, instead, precedes Ashurnasirpal with another Assyrian king in between them. This dramatic turn of events renders Ashurnasirpal - as with Ashuruballit - somewhat irrelevant for our primary focus here on Shalmaneser. But for those who may be interested to read how the mighty Ashurnasirpal is now to be fitted into a revised scheme of things, they will find it all set out in e.g. my article: Ashurnasirpal ‘King of the World’ (4) Ashurnasirpal ‘King of the World’ Before we can proceed to answer the last two questions posed earlier, a complication has to be dealt with. For it does significantly affect Shalmaneser. Historical Folding In the brief discussion of the Assyrian king lists above I referred to “… Middle Assyrian kings, who, nevertheless, need to be folded into the Neo Assyrian era …”. The implication of identifying Shalmaneser I of the first list as Shalmaneser III of the second list is that the C13th era of Shalmaneser I (c. 1275-1245 BC) now has to be folded into the C8th BC era of Shalmaneser III (thereby cutting out any Shalmaneser II). In my university thesis (2007), I gave some compelling examples of how the two approximate eras must be folded together; none perhaps more striking than the C12th – C8th BC (Shutrukid) Elamites: C12th BC C8th BC Shutruk-Nahhunte Shutur-Nakhkhunte Kudur-Nahhunte Kutir-Nakhkhunte Hulteludish (or Hultelutush-Insushinak) ‘Hallushu’ (or Halutush-Inshushinak). To have a Shalmaneser I, one needs there to be at least one other Shalmaneser. Thus in my article: Shalmaneser I, king of Assyria, dated some 500 years too early (4) Shalmaneser I, king of Assyria, dated some 500 years too early I went so far as to conclude: “This raises the intriguing question, was there actually a Shalmaneser I at all?, because, to be numbered as I (as some do wrongly with the current pope Francis), there has firstly to be a II of that same name, and so on”. So far we have all of I-III merged into just the one Shalmaneser. And I think that we can easily include IV here, since that king appears to have been confused with so-called V: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-men-bible/Shalmaneser “… Shalmaneser IV who succeeded Tiglath-pileser and who invaded Israel and carried off Hoshea and the ten tribes to Assyria (2 Kings 17:3; 18:9)”. Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V The last two questions: - How can the long-reigning Shalmaneser III now become the same king as the short-reigning Shalmaneser V? and - Shalmaneser III’s long reign must now also impinge on that of the great Tiglath-pileser III, presumed predecessor of Shalmaneser V. I have answered together, both in my thesis (2007) and in my article: Important lapse of ‘many years’ in Tobit, in Acts (4) Important lapse of 'many years' in Tobit, in Acts “But after a long time, Salmanasar [Shalamneser] the king being dead, … Sennacherib his son, who reigned in his place, had a hatred for the children of Israel”. Tobit 1:18 … This attested lapse of a long time opens up the door for a possible extension of the reign of the conventionally brief Shalmaneser [V], c. 727-722 BC, and for the conventionally brief procurator, Felix, c. 52-60 AD. The Vulgate Tobit 1:18 employs, in the case of Shalmaneser, the Latin phrase, post multum vero temporis (“after a long time”), and the Greek Acts 24:10 employs, in the case of Felix, the phrase, Ἐκ πολλῶν ἐτῶν (“for many years”). King Shalmaneser Whereas the conventional history has Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V as separate Assyrian kings, my own view, as outlined in my university thesis: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf is that Shalmaneser was Tiglath-pileser. In Volume One, Chapter 6, I wrote the following brief section on this, in which I took a lead from the Book of Tobit regarding the neo-Assyrian succession: Shalmaneser V (c. 726-722 BC, conventional dates) Looking at the conventional date for the death of Tiglath-pileser III, c. 727 BC, we can see that it coincides with the biblically-estimated date for the first year of king Hezekiah. But, if the former is to be identified with Shalmaneser V, thought to have reigned for five years, then this date would need to be lowered by about those five years (right to the time of the fall of Samaria), bringing Tiglath-pileser III deeper into the reign of Hezekiah. Now, that Tiglath-pileser III is to be equated with Shalmaneser V would seem to be deducible from a combination of two pieces of evidence from [the Book of Tobit]: namely, 1. that it was “King Shalmaneser of the Assyrians” who took Tobit’s tribe of Naphtali into captivity (1:1, 2); a deportation generally attributed to Tiglath-pileser III on the basis of 2 Kings 15:29; and 2. that: “when Shalmaneser died … his son Sennacherib reigned in his place” (1:15). Unfortunately, very little is known of the reign of this ‘Shalmaneser’ [V] to supplement [the Book of Tobit]. According to Roux, for instance: “The short reign of … Shalmaneser V (726-722 B.C.) is obscure”. And Boutflower has written similarly: “The reign of Shalmaneser V (727-722) is a blank in the Assyrian records”. It seems rather strange, though, that a king who was powerful enough to have enforced a three year siege of Israel’s capital of Samaria (probably the Sha-ma-ra-in of the Babylonian Chronicle), resulting in the successful sack of that city, and to have invaded all Phoenicia and even to have besieged the mighty Tyre for five years, and to have earned a hateful reputation amongst the Sargonids, should end up “a blank” and “obscure” in the Assyrian records. The name Tiglath-pileser was a throne name, as Sargon appears to have been – that is, a name given to (or taken by) the king on his accession to the throne. In Assyrian cuneiform, his name is Tukulti-apil-ešarra, meaning: “My confidence is the son of Esharra”. This being a throne name would make it likely that the king also had a personal name - just as I have argued above that Sargon II had the personal name of Sennacherib. The personal name of Tiglath-pileser III I believe to have been Shalmaneser. A problem though with my proposed identification of Shalmaneser V with Tiglath-pileser III is that, according to Boutflower, there has been discovered “a treaty between Esarhaddon and Baal of Tyre, in which Shalmaneser is expressly styled the son of Tiglath-pileser”. Boutflower makes reference here to H. Winckler (in Eberhard Schrader’s Keilinschriften, 3rd Edn. pt. I, p. 62, note 2); Winckler being the Assyriologist, we might recall, who had with Delitzsch spirited Sargon’s name into Eponym Cb6 and whose edition of Sargon’s Annals had disappointed Luckenbill. So far, I have not been able to find any solid evidence for this document. Boutflower had surmised, on the basis of a flimsy record, that Tiglath-pileser III had died in battle and had been succeeded by Shalmaneser: “That Tiglathpileser died in battle is rendered probable by the entry in the Assyrian Chronicle for the year 727 B.C. [sic]: “Against the city of …. Shalmaneser seated himself on the throne”.” Tiglath-pileser is not even mentioned. A co-regency between Shalmaneser V and Sargon II can be proposed on the basis that the capture of Samaria is variously attributed to either king. According to my revision, that same co-regency should exist between Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon; and indeed we find that both Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon campaigned on the borders of Egypt; both defeated Hanno the king of Gaza, and established (opened) there a karu “quay”; both received tribute from Queen Tsamsi of Arabia; both had encounters with Merodach-baladan. Further, according to my revision, that proposed co-regency can be extended to accommodate Sennacherib (as Sargon). Perhaps a clear proof is that, whilst Sennacherib claimed that the Medes had not submitted to any of his predecessor kings (see p. 153), both Tiglath-pileser and Sargon claimed to have received tribute from the Medes. Interestingly, nowhere in Kings, Chronicles, or in any other of the books traditionally called ‘historical’, do we encounter the name ‘Sargon’. Yet we should expect mention of him if his armies really had made an incursion as close to Jerusalem as ‘Ashdod’ (be it in Philistia or Judah). Certainly, Sargon II claimed that Judah (Iaudi), Philistia (Piliste), Edom and Moab, had revolted against him. If the Assyrian king, Sargon II, can have two different names – as is being agued here – then so might his father. So I conclude that 2 Kings, in the space of 2 chapters, gives us three names for the one Assyrian king: - 15:19: “King Pul of Assyria came against the land ...”. - 15:29: “King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came and captured …”. - 17:3: “King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up”. …. (iv) [Book of Tobit] [The Book of Tobit], like [the Book of Judith], was a popular and much copied document. The incidents described in [Book of Tobit] are written down as having occurred during the successive reigns of ‘Shalmaneser’, ‘Sennacherib’ and ‘Esarhaddon’. No mention at all there of Sargon, not even as father of Sennacherib. Instead, we read: “But when Shalmaneser died, and his son Sennacherib reigned in his place ...” (1:15). Moreover this ‘Shalmaneser’, given as father of Sennacherib, is also - as we saw - referred to as the Assyrian king who had taken into captivity Tobit’s tribe of Naphtali (vv. 1-2); a deed generally attributed to Tiglath-pileser III and conventionally dated about a decade before the reign of Sargon II. This would seem to strengthen my suspicion that Shalmaneser V was actually Tiglath-pileser III, despite Boutflower’s claim of a treaty document specifically styling Shalmaneser as son of Tiglath-pileser III. A Summarising and Concluding Note The neo-Assyrian chronology as it currently stands seems to be, like the Sothic chronology of Egypt - though on a far smaller scale - over-extended and thus causing a stretching of contemporaneous reigns, such as those of Merodach baladan II of Babylonia, Mitinti of ‘Ashdod’ and Deioces of Media. There are reasons nonetheless, seemingly based upon solid primary evidence, for believing that the conventional historians have got it right and that their version of the neo-Assyrian succession is basically the correct one. However, much of the primary data is broken and damaged, necessitating heavy bracketting. On at least one significant occasion, the name of a king has been added into a gap based on a preconception. Who is to say that this has not happened more than once? Esarhaddon’s history … is so meagre that recourse must be had to his Display Inscriptions, thereby leaving the door open for “errors” according to Olmstead. With the compilers of the conventional neo-Assyrian chronology having mistaken one king for two, as I am arguing to have occurred in the case of Sargon II/Sennacherib, and probably also with Tiglath-pileser III/Shalmaneser V, then one ends up with duplicated situations, seemingly unfinished scenarios, and of course anomalous or anachronistic events. Thus, great conquests are claimed for Shalmaneser V whose records are virtually a “blank”. Sargon II is found to have been involved in the affairs of a Cushite king who is well outside Sargon’s chronological range; while Sennacherib is found to be ‘interfering’ in events well within the reign of Sargon II, necessitating a truncation of Sargon’s effective reign in order to allow Sennacherib to step in early, e.g. in 714 BC, “the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah” (2 Kings 18:13; Isaiah 36:1), and in 713 BC (tribute from Azuri of ‘Ashdod’). [End of quote] If the reign of Shalmaneser so-called III did not span the mid-C9th BC as the text books say it did, then one will need to question the series of supposed biblical connections from this era with the Assyrian king: e.g. Ahab and Ben-Hadad at Qarqar, which some greatly doubt anyway (https://theopolisinstitute.com/chronologies-and-kings-part-8-ahab-and-assyria/), and Jehu of Israel in the Black Obelisk.