by
Damien F. Mackey
I consider it to be most encouraging for my rather complex revision of the Era of Moses - in Egypt’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Twelfth dynasties - that the Egyptian name for the historical Moses, Weni (Uni), looking like a diminutive name, or hypocoristicon, is common, in its variant forms, Ini, Iny, for my Moses through the Old Kingdom: Niuserre Ini (Fifth); Weni (Uni) (Sixth); General Iny (Sixth).
Niuserre Ini (var. Iny)
Regarding pharaoh Niuserre Ini, I wrote in my recent article:
Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty
(2) Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty
This re-working of my article under the same title, “Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty”, has become necessary due to my brand new recognition of Moses as the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh, Niuserre Ini, to accompany his pharaonic alter egos of Djedefre-Djedefhor (Fourth Dynasty) and Userkare (Sixth Dynasty).
….
As we found with the pharaonic Moses in his Fourth Dynasty guise (as Djedefre-Djedefhor), and in his Sixth Dynasty guise (as Userkare), so might we expect that he, in his Fifth Dynasty guise - if as Niuserre Ini - to be compatible, should reveal himself to have been a ruler of short duration, highly competent, having a profound influence upon Egypt, and much revered down through time as a saint and a thaumaturgist.
Excitingly, as a very good start, in the name Ini, we appear to get an immediate clue. For I have already identified Moses, as a high official of Pharaoh, as Weni (Uni) of the Sixth Dynasty, and as Iny of the Sixth Dynasty – whatever that name may mean.
So, the name (Niuserre) Ini fits beautifully here alongside these names. Thus:
INI; WENI; UNI; INY
….
The king's power slowly weakened as the bureaucracy expanded … although he remained a living god in the eyes of his subjects.
My comment: He was virtually deified, “a living god in the eyes of his subjects”, like Imhotep (Joseph).
….
This cult was most active until the end of the Old Kingdom but lasted at least until the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom … at which point is the latest known mention of a priest serving in Nyuserre's funerary complex.
….
In later times, the official cult of Nyuserre was essentially reduced to a cult of the royal ancestor figure, a "limited version of the cult of the divine" as Jaromir Malek writes … manifested by the dedication of statues and the compilation of lists of kings to be honoured. ….
My comment: “This cult was most active until the end of the Old Kingdom but lasted at least until the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom”, both so-called kingdoms pertaining to the Era of Moses.
….
In parallel to that official cult were the more private cults of pious individuals venerating Nyuserre as a kind of "saint", an intercessor between the believers and the gods. …. This popular cult, which developed spontaneously, perhaps because of the proximity of Nyuserre's pyramid to Memphis … referred to Nyuserre using his birth name Iny … and likely consisted of invocations and offerings to statues of the king or in his mortuary temple. …. Therefore, archaeological traces of this cult are difficult to discern … yet Nyuserre's special status is manifest in some religious formulae, where his name is invoked, as well as in the onomastics of individuals, notably during the Middle Kingdom, whose names included "Iny", such as Inhotep, Inemsaf, Inankhu and many more. …. Although the veneration of Nyuserre was originally a local phenomenon from Abusir, Saqqara and their surroundings … it may have ultimately reached even outside of Egypt proper, in Sinai, Byblos and Nubia, where fragments of statues, vessels and stelae bearing Nyuserre's name have been discovered in cultic contexts. ….
My comment: Moses rightly likened to Imhotep (Inhotep)/Joseph. “… Nyuserre's special status is manifest in some religious formulae, where his name is invoked, as well as in the onomastics of individuals, notably during the Middle Kingdom, whose names included "Iny", such as Inhotep …”.
Weni (Uni)
I have discussed this proposed identification of Moses in articles such as:
Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep
(3) Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep
There is a famous Sixth Dynasty official, Weni (or Uni), who may be the parallel of the Twelfth Dynasty’s Sinuhe as a candidate for the elusive Moses.
I have previously written on this:
Now, given our alignment of the so-called Egyptian Middle Kingdom’s Twelfth Dynasty with the Egyptian Old Kingdom’s Sixth Dynasty (following Dr. Donovan Courville), then the semi-legendary Sinuhe may find his more solidly historical identification in the important Sixth Dynasty official, Weni, or Uni. Like Weni, Sinuhe was highly honoured by pharaoh with the gift of a sarcophagus.
We read about it, for instance, in C. Dotson’s extremely useful article (“…. The Cycle of Order and Chaos in The Tale of Sinuhe”):
https://journals.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/StudiaAntiqua
“…. The king gives Sinuhe a sarcophagus of gold and lapis lazuli as a housewarming gift. The gift of a coffin by the king was considered a great honor and a sign of respect.
In the Autobiography of Weni from the Old Kingdom, Weni records that the king had given him a white sarcophagus and “never before had the like been done in this Upper Egypt.” ….
[End of quote]
Naturally, Dr. Courville’s radical proposal that the Egyptian Sixth and Twelfth dynasties were contemporaneous - whereas, according to conventional history some four centuries separate the end of the Sixth (c. 2200 BC) from that of the Twelfth (c. 1800 BC) - has not been well received by non-revisionist historians, such as e.g. professor W. Stiebing who has written:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Yf2NWgNhEecC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=co
“There is simply no textual support for making the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties contemporaneous, as Courville does”.
However, as I have previously noted:
…. [Dr.] J. Osgood proposes a possible close relationship between the 6th and 12th dynasty mortuary temples ....:
Edwards certainly opens the possibility unconsciously when referring to the pyramid of Sesostris the First ....: “... and the extent to which its Mortuary Temple was copied from the Mortuary Temples of the VIth dynasty, as illustrated by that of Pepi II ... is clearly evident.”
The return of a culture to what it was before ... after some three hundred years must be an uncommon event. The theoretical possibility that the two cultures, the Twelfth and the Sixth Dynasties were in fact contemporary and followed a common pattern of Mortuary Temple must be borne in mind as real. ….
[End of quote]
That there is in fact some impressive evidence to suggest that:
Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms [were] far closer in time
than conventionally thought
(8) Egypt's Old and Middle Kingdoms far closer in time than conventionally thought | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Comparing Weni - (and Sinuhe) - with Vizier Mentuhotep
About Sinuhe, we learn (http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/sinuhe.htm): “I was a henchman who followed his lord, a servant of the Royal harim attending on the hereditary princess, the highly-praised Royal Consort of Sesostris in the pyramid-town of Khnem-esut, the Royal Daughter of Amenemmes in the Pyramid-town of Ka-nofru, even Nofru, the revered”.
We have already learned something of the greatness of Mentuhotep [previous article].
Weni has, for his part, been described as a “genius”. This little excerpt on the “Autobiography of Weni” already tells us a lot about the man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Weni
Weni rose through the ranks of the military to become commander in chief of the army. He was considered by both his contemporaries and many Egyptologists to have been a brilliant tactician and possibly even a genius. His victories earned him the privilege of being shown leading the troops into battle, a right usually reserved for pharaohs. Weni is the first person, other than a pharaoh, known to have been portrayed in this manner. Many of his battles were in the Levant and the Sinai. He is said to have pursued a group of Bedouins all the way to Mount Carmel. He battled a Bedouin people known as the sand-dwellers at least five times. ….
Weni’s famous “Autobiography” has been described as, amongst other superlatives: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=sgoVryxihuMC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352
“… the best-known biographical text of the Old Kingdom and has been widely discussed, as it is important for literary and historical reasons; it is also the longest such document”.
This marvellous piece of ancient literature, conventionally dated to c. 2330 BC - and even allowing for the revised re-dating of it to a bit more than half a millennium later - completely gives the lie to the old JEDP theory, that writing was not invented until about 1000 BC. On JEDP, se e.g. my article:
Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP
(7) Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP
Here I take some of the relevant inscriptions of the renowned Vizier, Mentuhotep (http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Ancient_Records_of_Egypt_v1_10000750), and juxtapose them with comparable parts of the “Autobiography” of Weni (in brown) (http://drelhosary.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/weni-elder-and-his-mor) (all emphasis added):
INSCRIPTIONS OF MENTUHOTEP ….
531. Hereditary prince, vizier and chief judge
The exterior face of the north wall incorporates a large niche, and during excavations here a damaged false door inscribed for Weni the Elder was discovered in situ. Not only does this false door provide a nickname for Weni ("Nefer Nekhet Mery-Ra"--Egyptian nicknames were often longer than birth names!), but it also documents his final career promotion, a fact not recorded in his autobiography: Chief Judge and Vizier.
attached to Nekhen,
judge attached to Nekhen,
prophet of
prophet of
Mat (goddess of Truth), giver of laws, advancer of offices, confirming … the boundary records, separating a land-owner from his neighbor, pilot of the people, satisfying the whole land, a man of truth before the Two Lands … accustomed … to justice like Thoth, his like in satisfying the Two Lands, hereditary prince in judging the Two Lands …. supreme head in judgment, putting matters in order, wearer of the royal seal, chief treasurer, Mentuhotep.
Hereditary prince, count
the count
… chief of all works of the king, making the offerings of the gods to flourish, setting this land … according to the command of the god.
the whole was carried out by my hand, according to the mandate which … my lord had commanded me.
…. sending forth two brothers satisfied
pleasant to his brothers
with the utterances of his mouth, upon whose tongue is the writing of Thoth,
I alone was the one who put (it) in writing ….
….
Etc., etc.
General Iny
Note immediately that this Sixth Dynasty general and trader for Egypt bears the same name as does Niuserre Ini, variously Iny (see, above: Niuserre Ini (var. Iny).
Here is some of what I have written about the Sixth Dynasty’s general Iny in my article:
Moses a trusted world trader for Egypt in the Pyramid Age?
(4) Moses a trusted world trader for Egypt in the Pyramid Age?
“It is likely that Iny travelled to Anatoly by land before Weni led several
mighty military expeditions by land and sea against “native” countries,
which were not specified in his biographical inscription, but the word “native”
… is the same used for people to be brought to Egypt from Hundašša”.
Alessandro Roccati
Upon reading through Alessandro Roccati’s absorbing paper:
Iny’s Travels
(3) Iny's Travels | Alessandro Roccati - Academia.edu
finding common purpose in Iny’s adventures, by way of comparison with those of Weni - and throwing in Sinuhe, to boot - it occurred to me that Iny most likely was Weni. The latter, as well as Sinuhe (a semi-fictitious character along the lines of Imhotep at the hands of later scholars), I have already identified as the biblical Moses.
….
Since Iny served during the same Sixth Dynasty period as did Weni, travelled to some of the same geographical locations, and traded in the same sort of fine quality material (jewellery, precious stones, etc.), I think it a fairly safe bet that - Occam’s Razor and all - this was one and the same official of Old Egypt, Iny = Weni (Uni) = Sinuhe.
Weni:
“His majesty sent me to Hatnub to bring a huge offering-table …. of lapis lazuli, of bronze, of electrum, and silver; copper was plentiful without end, bronze without limit, collars of real malachite, ornaments (mn-nfr’t) of every kind of costly stone. of the choicest of everything, which are given to a god at his processions, by virtue of my office of master of secret things”.
Gold was considered to be the skin of the ancient Egyptian gods,
but their bones were thought to be of silver.
….
One feature I find most appealing about Alessandro Roccati’s article is his adventurous approach to ancient geography – whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions. That a massive overhaul of ancient geography is urgently required is apparent from the tectonic effect a new geography has had upon a multi-volumed book that I was writing:
My book, “A History of the Fertile Crescent”, swamped by a new and unforeseen geographical paradigm
(3) My book, "A History of the Fertile Crescent", swamped by a new and unforeseen geographical paradigm | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
and, again, geography will be most relevant subject matter to this present article, especially this one concerning the location of Tarḫuntašša:
More uncertain ancient geography: locations Tarḫuntašša and Arzawa
(3) More uncertain ancient geography: locations Tarḫuntašša and Arzawa | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Alessandro Roccati writes:
“The splendid jewellery discovered in Egypt bears silent testimony to a trade intercourse, direct or indirect, with many remote and little known lands; and it would be of considerable interest to learn through what channels the precious stones that adorned the necks of the Memphite and Theban ladies found their way to the Egyptian markets ... we are tolerably well informed concerning the expeditions that journeyed thither (Sinai) almost annually in quest of the turquoise; but with regard to other much used stones … some of them, like lapis lazuli, from countries farther afield – our ignorance is almost complete.” ….
A passage in the Story of Sinuhe was definitely explained as quoting the titles of rulers as far as the Luvian country … and a biography found in Dahshur told of an official, who in the middle of the 12th Dynasty travelled well beyond Byblos.
….
Thereafter, although the outstanding archive found at Ebla/Tell Mardikh in 1975 still keeps silent about a likely partnership with Egypt concerning the trade of precious materials … an exciting discovery by Michele Marcolin in Japan … provides decisive evidence in favour of an Egyptian trade much farther than Ebla, reaching the heart of Anatoly in the same time of pharaoh Pepy I, to whose reign the Ebla archive is currently dated. …. A stone built chapel from somewhere in Egypt was illicitly dismantled and sold out in pieces all over the world. It had belonged to a first rank official who lived through the Egyptian 6th Dynasty and left a detailed account of his journeys northwards from Egypt:
“… I reached (litt. “I did”) ɂmȝw, ḫntš, pȝws four times when I was a chancellor of the god under the Person of my lord Pepy (I). …. I brought him silver and every good produce that his ka wished, and his Person praised me because of that … exceedingly. Then I was sent to Byblos by the Person of my lord Mernerê. …. I brought three Byblos ships and made the big Palace boats. I brought lapis lazuli, tin … silver, bitumen and every gift that his ka wished, so that I was praised therefore in the Palace … and treasures were given to me. I went down to Byblos from R-ḥȝt and came back … in peace. Never was the same done by any general sent by my god earlier”. ….
I was sent by the Person of my lord Neferkarê (Pepy II) to ḫntš. …. brought back one Byblos ship and cargo boats laden … with silver, native men and women. …. The Person of my lord praised me etc.” ….
Hitherto almost nothing was known of Egypt’s outreach beyond the Sinai peninsula in this early period, but for the expeditions of general Weni during the reign of pharaoh Pepy I, and the information coming from Byblos and Ebla excavations. Although Marcolin could find out and join together several inscribed slabs from different collections, the relevant piece is kept in Tokyo Archaeological Museum (Kikugawa slab). On it one can read the record of four journeys of Iny under the long reign of Pepy I, that took him to three remarkable towns or countries, their names being perfectly preserved as well as somehow unprecedented.
I shall now venture to tackle a reasonable clue for all three, provided that the horizon of the Egyptian civilization is extended in a way that had never been admitted before for such an early period, highlighting the magnificence of Pepy I’s reign, whose pyramid gave the name to Memphis. The reason for presenting a paper in a conference at Istanbul is that the farthest point reached by Iny was sited in central Anatoly and must be the renowned silver market of Burus-ḫanda.
This place is well known in the later archive of the Assyrian merchants at Kaneš … and is even quoted in the poem Šar Tamkari. However, Iny’s mention is by far the oldest one, and the hieroglyphic spelling is exactly what we should expect for a name “Purus” or “Bur(r)us” in this period. Its connection with silver ensures the correct identification, whereas the lack of “ḫanda” in Iny’s inscription may be due to it being a later addition, or something that could be omitted in the very concise Egyptian writing. Consider however what is going to be said about ḫntš below.
Damien Mackey’s comment: As exciting as one might find the thought of Egyptian Sixth Dynasty expeditions into Anatolia, to Purushanda, this may actually be a bridge too far for that early period of time. What could greatly curtail the geographical distance in Iny’s account is my identification of Tarḫuntašša (thought also to be in Anatolia) as Karduniash, now revised to, approximately, NW Syria.
Alessandro Roccati continues:
Before reaching Burus, Iny touched two certainly important places, one of which had already been known for a long time, though its exact location is still open to debate. I have the impression that their succession may not represent an exact itinerary, but rather mark the extreme points reached on the east and west (and north) sides. The western place name (ḫntš) occurred during the 12 th Dynasty in the annals of pharaoh Amenemhet II [Mackey: same period as Iny], and later in various sources of the 18th Dynasty … and then until the end of the pharaonic civilization.
Moreover, it was mentioned in the 6th Dynasty as the source for the (precious) wood of a prince’s coffin. ….
[I cannot reproduce the hieroglyphs here] looks to me as a good Egyptian rendering of “Ḫundašša” (omitting the initial “Tar” of “Tarḫundašša”) and must be related to somewhere on the sea coast. …. Even if a geographical term may have changed its reference in the course of time, I believe that a correspondence with Cilicia Aspera might well fit Iny’s route to Burus. Otherwise that stretch is the closest shore in the continent to Cyprus. ….
Damien Mackey’s comment: Byblos is fairly well placed in relation to Cyprus.
Alessandro Roccati continues:
The third term (ɂmȝw: the first place reached by Iny according to his inscription) is the least certain for a topographical identification as it is known to me only in the present instance, but I suppose that an equation with Palmyra/Tadmor may hit the point. …. Its redundant writing is normal for the archaic writing of the period, but may entail the reduplication of m, perhaps due to assimilation (d > m before m): *Dammuru, or even better *Ṭammuru < *Ṭadmuru. The reference to the writing of the verb “to see” (mȝ, determined with the “eye” sign) may offer a hint of some sort for its reading. Palmyra is already quoted in the letters of Mari, and it must have been from early times the crossroads of important caravan routes. …. The hieroglyphic rendering looks satisfactory in default of another solution, and Palmyra would well suit the easternmost country crossed by Iny. ….
