Giza Pyramids: The How, When and Why of Them

by Damien F. Mackey HOW Were The Pyramids Built? Though I am no technician, I had been very impressed by the theory of the French polymer scientist, professor Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, who had been claiming that the stones of the Giza pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete, or liquid (wet) cement, created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. According to the Wikipedia article, for a basic view on the professor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits): Davidovits was not convinced that the ancient Egyptians possessed the tools or technology to carve and haul the huge (2.5 to 15 ton) limestone blocks that made up the Great Pyramid. Davidovits suggested that the blocks were molded in place by using a form of limestone concrete. According to his theory, a soft limestone with a high kaolinite content was quarried in the wadi on the south of the Giza plateau. It was then dissolved in large, Nile-fed pools until it became a watery slurry. Lime (found in the ash of ancient cooking fires) and natron (also used by the Egyptians in mummification) was mixed in. The pools were then left to evaporate, leaving behind a moist, clay-like mixture. This wet "concrete" would be carried to the construction site where it would be packed into reusable wooden molds. In the next few days the mixture would undergo a chemical hydration reaction similar to the setting of cement. Using Davidovits' theory, no large gangs would be needed to haul blocks and no huge and unwieldy ramps would be needed to transport the blocks up the side of the pyramid. No chiseling or carving with soft bronze tools would be required to dress their surfaces and new blocks could be cast in place, on top of and pressed against the old blocks. This would account for the unerring precision of the joints of the casing stones (the blocks of the core show tools marks and were cut with much lower tolerances). Proof-of-concept experiments using similar compounds were carried out at Davidovits' geopolymer institute in northern France. It was found that a crew of ten, working with simple hand tools, could build a structure of fourteen, 1.3 to 4.5 ton blocks in a couple of days. According to Davidovits the architects possessed at least two concrete formulas: one for the large structural blocks and another for the white casing stones. He argues earlier pyramids, brick structures, and stone vases were built using similar techniques. [End of quote] However, as there appeared to be amongst mainstream pyramid experts little interest - to practically none whatsoever - in what seemed to my mind to be the eminently sensible and scientific thesis of Davidovits, and since I personally did not have the sort of scientific expertise to push the case of the matter, I have tended to lose interest in the theory until now. This was not because I am unprepared to back a supposed rogue ‘maverick’ against the mainstream flow of conforming scholars. My acceptance of the revision of ‘maverick’ scholar, or ‘wayward polymath’, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos series), against the conventional view of chronology, is clear evidence of this. Anyway, my interest in the theory of Davidovits has been rekindled by the following article in support of it (http://www.livescience.com/1554-surprising-truth-great-pyramids-built.html): The Surprising Truth About How the Great Pyramids Were Built telling about the discovery along the same lines by one Michel Barsoum, described therein as “a well respected researcher in the field of ceramics”, and “a distinguished professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University”. The authors of this article, Sheila Berninger and Dorilona Rose, write about how Barsoum, initially as a sceptic, came to reconsider the whole matter: …. Barsoum received an unexpected phone call from Michael Carrell, a friend of a retired colleague of Barsoum, who called to chat with the Egyptian-born Barsoum about how much he knew of the mysteries surrounding the building of the Great Pyramids of Giza, the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The widely accepted theory — that the pyramids were crafted of carved-out giant limestone blocks that workers carried up ramps — had not only not been embraced by everyone, but as important had quite a number of holes. Burst out laughing According to the caller, the mysteries had actually been solved by Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, more than two decades ago. Davidovits claimed that the stones of the pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. "It was at this point in the conversation that I burst out laughing," Barsoum said. If the pyramids were indeed cast, he said, someone should have proven it beyond a doubt by now, in this day and age, with just a few hours of electron microscopy. It turned out that nobody had completely proven the theory … yet. "What started as a two-hour project turned into a five-year odyssey that I undertook with one of my graduate students, Adrish Ganguly, and a colleague in France, Gilles Hug," Barsoum said. [End of quote] The article goes on to explain some of the geology of the matter, “these blocks are not natural limestone”, and to account for what has puzzled Egyptologists over a long period of time: namely, the high water content: A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral. The stones also had a high water content — unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau — and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous. The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. "Therefore," Barsoum said, "it's very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block." More startlingly, Barsoum and another of his graduate students, Aaron Sakulich, recently discovered the presence of silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres (with diameters only billionths of a meter across) in one of the samples. This discovery further confirms that these blocks are not natural limestone. [End of quote] The article then comes to the same dramatic (and somewhat poignant) conclusion arrived at also by chronological revisionists along the lines of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (though not intended by the authors of the article): We have been misled. Generations misled At the end of their most recent paper reporting these findings, the researchers reflect that it is "ironic, sublime and truly humbling" that this 4,500-year-old limestone is so true to the original that it has misled generations of Egyptologists and geologists and, "because the ancient Egyptians were the original — albeit unknowing — nanotechnologists." As if the scientific evidence isn't enough, Barsoum has pointed out a number of common sense reasons why the pyramids were not likely constructed entirely of chiseled limestone blocks. Egyptologists are consistently confronted by unanswered questions: How is it possible that some of the blocks are so perfectly matched that not even a human hair can be inserted between them? Why, despite the existence of millions of tons of stone, carved presumably with copper chisels, has not one copper chisel ever been found on the Giza Plateau? Although Barsoum's research has not answered all of these questions, his work provides insight into some of the key questions. For example, it is now more likely than not that the tops of the pyramids are cast, as it would have been increasingly difficult to drag the stones to the summit. Also, casting would explain why some of the stones fit so closely together. Still, as with all great mysteries, not every aspect of the pyramids can be explained. How the Egyptians hoisted 70-ton granite slabs halfway up the great pyramid remains as mysterious as ever. [End of quote] Whilst ignorance in such cases can be to some degree simply a natural outcome of pioneering efforts to reach right conclusions about an overwhelming mass of early evidence, Velikovskian-inspired revisionists would be well aware, too, of another common factor that is inexcusable: the persistence by mainstream scholars to proceed in the face of hard evidence. On this sad phenomenon, see e.g. my article: Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology (8) Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu WHEN Were The Pyramids Built? Apparently, to account for the make-up of the Giza complex, one no longer has to resort to some of the more esoteric views according to which, due to the high water content - and the heavy erosion associated with the Great Sphinx - the Giza complex was constructed hundreds, to thousands, of years before the era of Egypt’s 4th dynasty, where conventional Egyptology (with which I would here fully agree) has the pyramids being built. Robert Bauval, for instance (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/piramides/esp_piramide_15.htm), would suggest a possible date of as far back as 10,500 BC for the Sphinx and for the initial planning of the Giza necropolis, though not for the Great Pyramid itself, which he locates to “somewhere around 2500 BC”. This is the conventional time for the 4th dynasty (c. 2613 to 2494 BC). I, too, would unhesitatingly accept that the Giza complex was created during Egypt’s powerful 4th dynasty, but yet with some major differences from convention, whose grossly over-inflated dates have been estimated on the back of the artificial Sothic theory. See my post-graduate thesis (1994): Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar http://www.academia.edu/2568413/Sothic_Star_Theory_of_the_Egyptian_Calendar and, for simpler reading: The Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited http://www.academia.edu/3665220/The_Fall_of_the_Sothic_Theory_Egyptian_Chronology_Revisited Hence I would - based on such previous research - depart from conventional Egyptian history, and re-set standard dates - in the case of the 4th dynasty, by (i) radically re-dating this dynasty to approximately a millennium lower on the time scale, but also, through a re-alignment of Egypt’s so-called Old and Middle kingdoms, by (ii) merging the pyramid- and sphinx-making 4th dynasty with the pyramid- and sphinx-making 12th dynasty: an era that revisionists have found highly compatible with the presence of biblical Israel in Egypt (read on). Israel in Egypt According to Josephus it was the Israelite captives in Egypt who built the pyramids for the pharaohs. Dr. Ed (Ewald) Metzler tells of this and links it to Middle Kingdom Egypt: http://moziani.tripod.com/pyramids/ammm_1_5.htm § 8. The pyramids were built by the people of Israel, by its twelve tribes known as the Dodecarchs “twelve rulers” or “dynasts”, whence the “twelve dynasties” of the pyramid age, and after their Exodus at the end of the twelfth dynasty no more pyramids were built in Egypt.22) This is confirmed by Josephus Flavius, who writes in his Jewish Antiquities (II, 9) that the people of Israel suffered from building pyramids and irrigation ditches, which fits the description of the last pyramids of the Middle Kingdom in Fayoum, irrigated by diverting water from the Nile into the Baher Youssouf canal.23) …. –––––––––––––– 22) A connection between the “Dodecarchs” of Herodotus and the “twelve dynasties” of Manetho was already suspected by Francis Llewellyn Griffith, as quoted by Armayor (N. 20) p. 62. [End of quote] Astute revisionists, rejecting the conventional view that the Israelites would have been in Egypt, if at all, during the 19th dynasty period of Ramses II ‘the Great’, have pointed to evidences of 12th dynasty pharaohs employing - for their pyramid building purposes - bricks mixed with straw, just as according to the Book of Exodus. I take this interesting section from Digging up the Past: http://www.diggingsonline.com/pages/rese/dyns/yusef.htm The Chronology of Joseph and the Exodus By the present chronological system of Egyptian history there are serious problems in synchronising the events described in the Biblical account with Egyptian history. Most scholars have therefore concluded that the Bible record is unreliable or distorted. In 1 Kings 6:1 it is stated that "In the 480th year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the 4th year of Solomon's reign over Israel ... that he began to build the house of the Lord". Most scholars would accept a date of about 970 BC for the beginning of Solomon's reign. His 4th year would be 966 BC, and this being the 480th year after the Exodus would place that event about 1445 BC. But because of the lack of archaeological evidence both in Egypt and Israel to support this date, most scholars have rejected the information supplied in 1 Kings 6:1, and have accepted a date closer to 1200 BC for the Exodus. But even for this date there is only very flimsy circumstantial evidence, and scholars still disagree as to who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Dr Immanual Velikovsky claims that the fault lies, not with the Biblical information, but with the generally accepted chronology of Egypt, and that the Egyptian dates need to be reduced by some 600 years at the time of the Exodus. This would mean that the ruling dynasty of Egypt at the time Exodus would be the 13th dynasty, rather than the 18th or 19 dynasty as is now generally believed, and the pharaohs at the time of Joseph and Moses were the rulers of the 12th dynasty. When this system is adopted there is found to be remarkable agreement between the histories of Egypt and Israel. The following article, the substance of which has appeared in articles already published in Diggings, demonstrate the consistency of the revised chronology. …. The Oppression of Israel "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph." (Exodus 1:8) Not that the pharaoh was ignorant of Joseph's services to the nation, but he wished to make no recognition of them, and, so far as possible, to bury them in oblivion. Josephus wrote: "Having in length of time forgotten the benefits received from Joseph, particularly the crown being now come into another family, they became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them." Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, chapter IX, paragraph 1 …. From the historical records we learn that Asiatic slaves were used during the twelfth dynasty. "The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period must have been more times more numerous than has been generally supposed. Whether or not this largely slave population could have played a part in hastening ... the impending Hyksos domination is difficult to say." Cambridge Ancient History, vol II part I, p. 49 "Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households." Encyclopaedia Britannica 1964, volume 8, p. 35 Gardiner wrote: "It should be noted, however, that on stelae and in papyri Asiatic slaves are increasingly often mentioned, though there is no means of telling whether they were prisoners of war or had infiltrated into Egypt of their own accord." Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 133 From the Scripture records, we can say that they did infiltrate into Egypt of their own accord, but were subsequently enslaved. There was an extensive building program carried on in the Delta where the Israelites were located during this dynasty. The temples of the eighteenth dynasty at Luxor were too far away from the delta to have been built with Israelite slave labour - and they were built of stone. The buildings constructed in the delta under the twelfth dynasty were made of mud brick. Mountains of such bricks went into the city of Avaris and nearby cities. Moreover the pyramids of Sesostris III and Amenemhet III were also made of mud bricks. The early dynasties' burial places were made of mud brick. The magnificent third and fourth dynasty pyramids were built of stone. For some strange reason these twelfth dynasty rulers reverted to mud brick. It is interesting in this connection to note that Josephus wrote: "They (the Egyptians) set them (the Israelites) to build pyramids." Antiquities of the Jews, book 2, chapter IX, paragraph 1 On the assumption that the oppression took place during the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty, this statement is regarded by scholars as a glaring blunder by Josephus, for by this time, according to their view, the Pyramid Age had ended. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom dynasties were buried in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor. But maybe it is the scholars who have blundered, for the kings of the twelfth dynasty did build pyramids, and what is more, they built them of mud bricks mixed with straw. "Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves." (Exodus 5:7) Especially relevant is the research done by Rosalie David whose book The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt was published in 1986. She researched the work done by Sir Flinders Petrie in the Faiyyum. Petrie worked in the Faiyyum in 1889 and he explored the pyramids of the 12th dynasty and identified the owners. He also excavated the remains of a town that had been occupied by the workmen who actually built these pyramids. He wrote: "The great prize of Illahun was unknown and the unsuspected by anyone. On the desert adjoining the north side of the temple, I saw traces of a town, brick walls, houses and pottery; moreover, the pottery was of a style as yet unknown to me. The town wall started out in a line with the face of the temple; and it dawned on me that this could hardly be other than the town of the pyramid builders, originally called Ha-Usertesen-hotep, and now known as Kahun. A little digging soon put it beyond doubt, as we found cylinders of the age, and no other; so that it was evident that I actually had in hand an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty, regularly laid out by the royal architect for the workmen and stores required in building the pyramid and its temple. After a few holes had been made, I formed up the workmen in a line along the outmost street, and regularly cleared the first line of chambers, turning the stuff into the street; then the chambers beyond those were emptied into them; and so line after line, block after block, almost every room in the town was emptied out and searched." Ten Years Digging in Egypt, pp. 112 - 113 From the unidentified pottery and other evidence, Petrie concluded that the occupants had been foreigners. Expanding on this thought Rosalie David has an entire chapter headed "The foreign population at Kahun." She wrote: "From his excavations at Kahun, Petrie formed the opinion that a certain element of the population there had come from outside Egypt." The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt, p. 175 "It is undeniable that the inhabitants used foreign wares which were derived from the Aegean islands or from Syria-Palestine." p. 188. "It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may reflect the situation elsewhere in Egypt. It can be stated that these people were loosely classed by Egyptians as 'Asiatics', although their exact homeland in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined... The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear." pp. 190-191. Neither Petrie nor David guessed that these Asiatics were the Israelites because they unquestioningly accept the standard chronology. Velikovsky's views have so far not been widely accepted by the archaeological world, but obviously the evidence fits the Biblical records in a remarkable way. [End of quote] Whilst many revisionists seem to have arrived at this same conclusion, that the 12th dynasty era fits very well indeed as the Era of the Oppression of Israel in Egypt, a lot of these, including contributors to Digging up the Past, have continued to follow the conventional view in its separation of the Old and Middle kingdoms. Consequently, they have missed out on what other revisionists believe to be the vital connection of the biblical Joseph with the genius Imhotep of Egypt’s 3rd dynasty. I strongly favour this connection of Joseph with Imhotep. See e.g. my article: Enigmatic Imhotep - did he really exist? (8) Enigmatic Imhotep - did he really exist? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And why might not the Israelites have (together with slaves from other nations) built pyramids both of stone (but also as we have seen above using ancient cement) and later - perhaps as materials became scarcer - of bricks mixed with straw? Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms were, I believe, far closer in time than is conventionally thought. The following samples that might indicate this necessary shortening of eras are taken entirely from N. Grimal’s A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell 1994): P. 67: “Like his Third Dynasty predecessors, Djoser and Nebka, Snofru soon became a legendary figure, and literature in later periods credited him with a genial personality. He was even deified in the Middle Kingdom, becoming the ideal king whom later Egyptian rulers such as Ammenemes I sought to emulate when they were attempting to legtimize their power”. P. 71: “… texts that describe the Fourth Dynasty kings …. It was … quite logical for the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom and later to link those past rulers represented primarily by their buildings with the greatest tendencies towards immoderation, thus distorting the real situation (Posener 1969a: 13). However, it is difficult to accommodate within this theory the fact that Snofru’s reputation remained untarnished when he built more pyramids than any of his successors”. P. 73 “A Twelfth Dynasty graffito found in the Wadi Hammamat includes Djedefhor and his half-brother Baefre in the succession of Cheops after Chephren”. P. 79 “The attribution of the Maxims to Ptahhotep does not necessarily mean that he was the actual author: the oldest versions date to the Middle Kingdom, and there is no proof that they were originally composed in the Old Kingdom, or, more specifically, at the end of the Fifth Dynasty. The question, moreover, is of no great importance”. Pp. 80-81 {Teti, I have tentatively proposed as being the same pharaoh as Amenemes/Ammenemes I, based on (a) being a founder of a dynasty; (b) having same Horus name; (c) being assassinated. Now, Pepi I and Chephren were married to an Ankhesenmerire/ Meresankh – I have taken Chephren to have been the foster father-in-law of Moses, with his wife Meresankh being Moses’ Egyptian ‘mother’, traditionally, Merris. Both Pepi I and Chephren had substantial reigns}. Grimal notes the likenesses: “[Teti’s] adoption of the Horus name Sehetep-tawy (‘He who pacifies the Two Lands’) was an indication of the political programme upon which he embarked. … this Horus name was to reappear in titulatures throughout subsequent Egyptian history, always in connection with such kings as Ammenemes I … [etc.]”. “Manetho says that Teti was assassinated, and it is this claim that has led to the idea of growing civil disorder, a second similarity with the reign of Ammenemes I”. P. 84: “[Pepy I] … an unmistakable return to ancient values: Pepy I changed his coronation name from Neferdjahor to Merire (‘The devotee of Ra’)”. P. 146: “The words of Khety III are in fact simply the transposal into the king’s mouth of the Old Kingdom Maxims”. P. 159: [Ammenemes I]. Like his predecessors in the Fifth Dynasty, the new ruler used literature to publicize the proofs of his legitimacy. He turned to the genre of prophecy: a premonitory recital placed in the mouth of Neferti, a Heliopolitan sage who bears certain similarities to the magician Djedi in Papyrus Westcar. Like Djedi, Neferti is summoned to the court of King Snofru, in whose reign the story is supposed to have taken place”. P. 164: “[Sesostris I]. Having revived the Heliopolitan tradition of taking Neferkare as his coronation name …”. P. 165: “There is even evidence of a Twelfth Dynasty cult of Snofru in the region of modern Ankara”. P. 171: “Ammenemes IV reigned for a little less than ten years and by the time he died the country was once more moving into a decline. The reasons were similar to those that conspired to end the Old Kingdom”. P. 173: “… Mentuhotpe II ordered the construction of a funerary complex modelled on the Old Kingdom royal tombs, with its valley temple, causeway and mortuary temple”. P. 177: “… Mentuhotpe II’[s] … successors … returned to the Memphite system for their funerary complexes. They chose sites to the south of Saqqara and the plans of their funerary installations drew on the architectural forms of the end of the Sixth Dynasty”. …. The mortuary temple was built during the Ammenemes I’s ‘co-regency’ with Sesostris I. The ramp and the surrounding complex were an enlarged version of Pepy II’s”. P. 178: “The rest of [Sesostris I’s el-Lisht] complex was again modelled on that of Pepy II”. Pp. 178-179: “[Ammenemes III’s ‘black pyramid’ and mortuary structure at Dahshur]. The complex infrastructure contained a granite sarcophagus which was decorated with a replica of the enclosure wall of the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser at Saqqara (Edwards 1985: 211-12)”. “[Ammenemes III’s pyramid and mortuary temple at Harawa]. This was clearly a sed festival installation, comparable to the jubilee complex of Djoser at Saqqara, with which Ammenemes’ structure has several similarities”. “The tradition of the Old Kingdom continued to influence Middle Kingdom royal statuary …”. P. 180: “The diversity of styles was accompanied by a general return to the royal tradition, which was expressed in the form of a variety of statues representing kings from past times, such as those of Sahure, Neuserre, Inyotef and Djoser created during the reign of Sesostris II”. P. 181: “A comparable set of statures represents Ammenemes III (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 385 from Hawara) … showing the king kneeling to present wine vessels, a type previously encountered at the end of the Old Kingdom (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 42013 …) …". [End of quotes] So far, my attempts to align the 3rd with the 11th, and the 4th (including the 6th) with the 12th, dynasties, have been fairly sketchy. Regarding the latter pairing 4th (6th) and 12th, I have in the past put together the following bits and pieces in relation to Moses and the Book of Exodus: 4th Dynasty From the 4th dynasty, we gain certain elements that are relevant to the early career of Moses. Firstly we have a strong founder-king, Cheops (Egyptian Khufu), builder of the great pyramid at Giza, who would be a good candidate for "the new king" during the infancy of Moses who set the Israelite slaves to work with crushing labour (Exodus 1:8). This would support the testimony of Josephus that the Israelites built pyramids for the pharaohs, and it would explain from whence came the abundance of manpower for pyramid building. Cheap slave labour. "... they became very abusive toward the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them; for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating, upon its running over its banks: they set them also to build pyramids, and by all this wore them out; and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom them to hard labor." …. The widespread presence of Asiatics in Egypt at the time would help to explain the large number of Israelites said to be in the land. Pharaoh would have used as slaves other Syro-Palestinians, too, plus Libyans and Nubians. As precious little though is known of Cheops … despite his being powerful enough to build one of the Seven Wonders of the World, we shall need to fill him out later with his 12th dynasty alter ego. In Cheops' daughter, Mer-es-ankh [III], we have the Merris of tradition who retrieved the baby Moses from the water. The name Mer-es-ankh consists basically of two elements, Meres and ankh, the latter being the 'life' symbol for Egypt worn by people even today. Mer-es-ankh married Chephren (Egyptian, Ka-kheper-re), builder of the second Giza pyramid and probably of the Great Sphinx. He thus became Moses' f/father-in-law. Chephren is the Chenephres of tradition …. Prince Moses, now a thorough-going 'Egyptian' (cf. Exodus 2:19), must have been his loyal subject. "Now Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a man of power both in his speech and in his actions." (Acts 7:22) Tradition has Moses leading armies for Chenephres as far as Ethiopia. Whilst this may seem a bit strained in a 4th dynasty context, we shall see that it is perfectly appropriate in a 12th dynasty one, when we uncover Chephren's alter ego. …. The Name 'Moses' 'Moses' is generally thought to be identified with the Egyptian ms (pronounced Mes), and derived from the root msy, 'conceive, give birth', in the sense of 'child, son of so-and-so'. Egyptologists point to names like Thut-mose, 'Son of [the god] Thoth' and Ra-meses, 'Son of [the god] Ra', which incorporate the ms element with the theophoric (god-name). Professor A. Yahuda … however, strongly disagreed with this standard explanation, claiming that the identification of Moshe with ms, or msy, whilst "having the appearance of being in order" is in fact "very far-fetched." The whole explanation "falls to the ground", he wrote, in view of the fact that the very name 'Rameses', in which ms is held to be of the same root as the Hebrew mes in Moshe, is twice transliterated in the Exodus narrative (1:11 and 12:37), not as should be expected by Ramešes, but by Rameses. Yahuda considered it "unthinkable" that the same Egyptian word ms could be reproduced at one time as Moshe and at another as Mose, not only "in two different vocalizations but also in two sibilants [i.e. sh and s] which etymologically and phonetically are quite different." As to Yahuda's own account of the name, Moshe, from the elements mw and še (i.e. Mwše), I am half in agreement with him. I can readily accept his view that the first element of the name corresponds to Egyptian, mw, meaning 'water' (vocalised as Mu, alternatively Nu …). Yahuda claimed that mw here stands metaphorically for 'seed' in the sense of 'child, son' [e.g. mw ntry 'divine water' of So-and-so = 'divine son']. But perhaps his explanation of the second element, as še, meaning 'pond, lake, expanse of water', "... applied here to the Nile which was called by the Egyptians also še", may give rise to a redundancy. Whilst Yahuda's overall conclusion, that "the name means simply 'Child of the Nile'", is ingenious, I rather find the impression he creates of Moses as a Watery Seed of the Nile to be a bit too, well, watery for my liking. For a possible further clue on the name 'Moses' we shall need to turn to the 12th dynasty, to the famous The Story of Sinuhe … the Egyptian Moses. The 12th Dynasty and The Story of Sinuhe From the 12th dynasty, we gain certain further elements that are relevant to the early career of Moses. Once again we have a strong founder-king, Amenemes I, who will enable us to fill out the virtually unknown Cheops as "the new king" of Exodus 1:8. This new ruler "knew not Joseph", not in the sense of never having heard of him (the great Imhotep, still 'known' about a millennium and a half later in Ptolemaïc times), but in the Hebrew sense of 'not knowing', presumably , that is, 'not recognising' what Joseph had done for Egypt. {But also not having been alive during the lifetime of Joseph}. The reign of Amenemes I was, deliberately, an abrupt break with the past. The beginning of the 12th dynasty marks not only a new dynasty, but an entirely new order. Amenemes I celebrated his accession by adopting the Horus name: Wehem-Meswt ("He who repeats births"), thought to indicate that he was "the first of a new line" … that he was "thereby consciously identifying himself as the inaugurator of a renaissance, or new era in his country's history." …. Amenemes I is thought actually to have been a commoner, originally from southern Egypt …. Further on … I shall attempt to track down his beginnings. This will be done via the 6th dynasty, which too will be found to be contemporaneous with the 4th and 12th. "The Prophecy of Neferti", relating to the time of Amenemes I, shows the same concern in Egypt for the growing presence of Asiatics in the eastern Delta as was said to occupy the mind of the new pharaoh of Exodus, seeing the Israelites as a political threat (1:9). That Asiatics were particularly abundant in Egypt at the time is apparent from the Cambridge Ancient History …: "The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period [of the Twelfth Dynasty] must have been many times more numerous than has been generally supposed ...". D. Down gives the account of Sir Flinders Petrie who, working in the Fayyûm in 1899, made the important discovery of the town of Illahûn [Kahun], which Petrie described as "an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty" …. Of the 'Asiatic' presence in this pyramid builders' town, Rosalie David (who is in charge of the Egyptian branch of the Manchester Museum) has written …: It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may have reflected the situation elsewhere in Egypt. It can be stated that these people were loosely classed by Egyptians as 'Asiatics', although their exact home-land in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined ... The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear. Undoubtedly, the 'Asiatics' were dwelling in Illahûn largely to raise pyramids for the glory of the pharaohs. Is there any documentary evidence that 'Asiatics' in Egypt acted as slaves or servants to the Egyptians? "Evidence is not lacking to indicate that these Asiatics became slaves", Down has written with reference to the Brooklyn Papyrus …. Egyptian households at this time were filled with Asiatic slaves, some of whom bore biblical names. Of the seventy-seven legible names of the servants of an Egyptian woman called Senebtisi recorded on the verso of this document, forty-eight are (like the Hebrews) NW Semitic. In fact, the name "Shiphrah" is identical to that borne by one of the Hebrew midwives whom Pharaoh had commanded to kill the male babies (Exodus 1:15). "Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households [prior to the New Kingdom]", we read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. …. Amenemes I was represented in the 'prophecy' - as with the 'new pharaoh' of Exodus - as one who would set about rectifying the problem. To this end he completely reorganised the administration of Egypt, transferring the from Thebes in the south to Ithtowe in the north, just below the Nile Delta. He allowed those nomarchs who supported his cause to retain their power. He built on a grand scale. Egypt was employing massive slave labour, not only in the Giza area, but also in the eastern Delta region where the Israelites were said to have settled at the time of Joseph. Professor J. Breasted provided ample evidence to show that the powerful 12th dynasty pharaohs carried out an enormous building program whose centre was in the Delta region. More specifically, this building occurred in the eastern Delta region which included the very area that comprised the land of Goshen where the Israelites first settled …. "... in the eastern part [of the Delta], especially at Tanis and Bubastis, ... massive remains still show the interest which the Twelfth Dynasty manifested in the Delta cities." Today, archaeologists recognise the extant remains of the construction under these kings as representing a mere fraction of the original; the major part having been destroyed by the vandalism of the New Kingdom pharaohs (such as Ramses II). The Biblical account states that: "... they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick". (Exodus 1:14). According to the Book of Exodus, not only did the Egyptians enslave the Israelites, to keep them in check, but Pharaoh even gave orders for all their male babies to be slain at birth, to stem the numbers (1:15-16). In the light of this grim episode, an intriguing aspect of Sir Flinders Petrie's discoveries was the unusual number of infant burials beneath the floors of the houses of Illahûn. Rosalie David thus describes Petrie's find …: "Larger wooden boxes, probably used to store clothing and other possessions, were discovered underneath the floors of many houses at Kahun. They contained babies, sometimes buried two to three to a box, and aged only a few months at death .... Internment of bodies at domestic sites was not an Egyptian custom, although such practices occurred in other areas of the ancient Near East". David Rohl …, moreover, has noted multiple graves in the Delta region, at Tell el-Daba during the same approximate period, had an excessively large proportion of babies: "... it was discovered that there was a higher percentage of infant burials ... than is normally found at archaeological sites of the ancient world. Sixty-five per cent of all the burials were those of children under the age of eighteen months. Based on modern statistical evidence obtained from pre-modern societies we would expect the infant mortality rate to be around twenty to thirty per cent. Could this be explained by the slaughter of the Israelite infant males by the Egyptians?" Amenemes I assumed a co-regency with Sesostris I …, who acted as the king's deputy and was entrusted with the control of the army, responsible for Libya and Ethiopia. Also, late in his reign, Amenemes undertook campaigns into Ethiopia (Nubia), opening up to him the diorite quarries at Wadi Toshka …. And he campaigned against the Bedouin in the Sinai, thereby safeguarding the turquoise mining operations at Serabit el-Khadem …. It is at this point in history that the 4th and 12th dynasties can really be found to converge, thus seeming to vindicate Courville's view of the contemporaneity of the two kingdoms. For instance, Sesostris I had, as another of his names, Kheper-ka-re; a name containing the exact same elements as we had discovered in the Egyptian name of (the Greek version) Chephren …. Thus, as far as names go, Sesostris I (Kheper-ka-re) is as equally likely as Chephren (Kha-kheper-re) to have been Chenephres, the traditional f/father-in-law of Moses. …. Then there is the further seemingly identifying element of Sphinx obsession in the case of 'these' prolific builders. This is quite obvious with Chephren, in his building of the Great Sphinx of Giza. And it is again obvious in the case of Sesostris I, from his building works, because he was an obsessive builder of sphinxes. For example: …: Gold was brought also from mines east of Koptos and hard stone from the nearby Wãdi Hammãmãt, where, in Sesostris I's thirty-eighth year, an expedition of more than seventeen thousand men quarried the blocks for sixty sphinxes and one hundred and fifty statues. There is also the fact of the 12th dynasty's extension of empire into Ethiopia, where tradition has prince Moses playing so important a rôle. But the most likely reason for Sesostris I's being the pharaoh whom Moses last served before his flight is that the high official Sinuhe, the 'Moses' of Egyptian folklore, was the servant of Sesostris I. Professor Anati is amongst many who have perceived what are in fact quite startling likenesses between the Exodus account of Moses' flight to Midian/ Arabia and Egypt's account of Sinuhe …: "The account of Moses in the land of Midian [Exodus 2:15-25] describes how he settled there for several years and formed a family .... Apparently the biblical account also corresponds quite closely to an Egyptian text ... which tells the story of Sinuhe, an officer of Pharaoh Amen-em-het I who lived in the harem and served the hereditary princess. It seems that he committed a violation of some sort, and when the Pharaoh died Sinuhe feared his successor. He fled into Asia, 'in the land of Yaa near the desert', where he was welcomed by a local chieftain. He took the chieftain's eldest daughter as his wife, raised a family, and tended his father-in-law's pastures and flocks. Finally he was called back to Egypt and returned to his homeland from exile. The chronicle of Sinuhe contains many elements in common with the biblical account of Moses, who escaped to Midian, and his father-in-law, Jethro. It is hard to believe that these similarities are pure coincidence. It seems, instead, quite legitimate to hypothesize that the two accounts have a common matrix that cannot have originated later than the twentieth century B.C". [sic]…. Before we fill out the historical aspects further, and bring to a conclusion the 4th dynasty in its relation to the 12th - and both in relation to prince Moses - we need to conclude our analysis of Moses' name. The Name 'Moses' (Part Two) Is it possible to merge the name Sinuhe with the Egyptian name for Moses? And can the former throw any light on the meaning of the latter? I think that the name Sinuhe…, when unravelled, may provide a needed clue. The first part of Sinuhe is variously given as Si …, or Sa …, and translated as 'Son of ...'. Combining Yahuda's element Mw (i.e. Mu or Nu) with the Sa element from [Sinuhe], we arrive at Sa-mu or Sa-nu, 'Son [or Child] of the Nile', the very same conclusion that Yahuda had reached though via different means. Perhaps 'Child of the Water' ('Water- baby') is more accurate. We can easily discern in the name Sinuhe the two elements Sa-nu …, meaning 'Son [Child] of the Water.' Now I suggest that Sinuhe (var. Sanehat, Samehit) is composed of these same two elements, Sa and Mu (Nu), in reverse (quite a common feature of Egyptian names), with the addition of the theophoric: either Hat, for the goddess Hathor (as in Sanehat), or Re. Originally, Sinuhe was probably something like Sa-nu-re. Now this is a genuine Egyptian name, being found, element for element, in the name of the Fifth Dynasty Pharaoh, N(e)userre, and the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh, My-ce-ri[nus] (i.e., the Greek version of Menkaure). Moses' full Egyptian name would therefore have meant, e.g: 'Child Drawn from the Water by Hathor', of which goddess pharaoh's daughter was apparently a personification: "She named him Moses, 'because', she said, 'I drew him out of the water'." (Exodus 2:10). Now notably we find in Egyptian mythology that Hathor was identified with the wet-nurse of Horus, the Moses-like baby god drawn from the marshes of the Nile Delta. And from this legend of Horus I suggest that the Greeks got their concept of Hermes, that is, Hor-mes, "Son of Hathor"; a name carrying exactly the same meaning as Sanehat. Later, of course, the Yahwistic (monotheistic) Moses would have dropped from his name any Egyptian theophoric elements. …. … Sinuhe had impressive official titles such as: "... hereditary prince, royal seal-bearer, confidential friend ... follower ... of the house of the hereditary princess, the greatly favoured, the royal wife." Petrie … claimed that these titles were of a very high rank, implying that Sinuhe was the son either of the king or of a great noble. And his position in the queen's household shows him to have been of importance, quite familiar with the royal family. That someone like Moses could realistically have become a prince of Egypt is affirmed by archaeologist J. Hoffmeier …. The Egyptian court, he says, did rear and educate foreign-born princes, who then bore the title "child of the nursery." Hoffmeier believes that Moses was one of these privileged foreigners, some of whom went on to serve as high officials in their adopted land. We can now tabulate our 4th and 12th dynasty synthesis around Moses in the following basic fashion: Fourth/Twelfth Dynasty Integration 1. Cheops = Amenemes I = Moses' f/grand-father; 2. Chephren = Sesostris I = Moses' f/father-in-law; 3. {Mycerinus?} = Sinuhe = Moses. …. The following is also highly tentative and incomplete: Shortening the Twelfth Dynasty According to this scenario, supported by Exodus 4:19, there would be no room for the conventional 12th dynasty sequence of pharaohs Amenemes and Sesostris (3-4 of each name). …. The founder-pharaoh Amenemes I is, I now suggest, the same person as the mighty Amenemes III; whilst Sesostris I is to be equated with the equally mighty Sesostris III. The name Kheper-ka-ra is common, in variant form, to Sesostris I-II-III …. And Courville refers to the "striking discrepancy between the latest monumental inscription of Sesostris II (10th year) and the total figure as given by Manetho (48 years)", as indicating that there was "something unusual in the situation at this point" …. The unusual situation I suggest is simply that Sesostris II stands in need of his alter ego's. Murphie thinks that Amenemes III, as a master of water management, is a candidate also for the legendary Menes himself, unifier of Egypt …: Ammenemes III ... was a particularly strong ruler, renowned for massive projects involving water storage and channelling on a gargantuan scale. He is credited with diverting much of the Nile flow into the Fayuum depression to create what became known as lake Moeris (the lake Nasser project of his time). Indeed if a newcomer to Egyptian history was challenged to identify a candidate for the legendary Menes (organiser of a system of dykes and channels to bring the river Nile under control) on the basis of works alone, (ignoring the remarkable similarity in names), he could do far worse than nominate Ammenemes for the role. ... The grim-faced depictions of the 12th dynasty kings, Amenemes III and Sesostris III, have been commented upon by conventional and revisionist scholars alike. Thus Cambridge Ancient History has noted with regard to the former …: "The numerous portraits of [Amenemes] III include a group of statues and sphinxes from Tanis and the Faiyûm, which, from their curiously brutal style and strange accessories, were once thought to be monuments of the Hyksos kings." For revisionists, these pharaohs can represent the cruel taskmasters who forced the Israelites to build using bricks mixed with straw (Exodus 5:7, 8) …. This combination of materials can clearly be seen for example in Amenemes III's Dahshur pyramid. Now when one slots Amenemes III into his rightful place at the beginning of the 12th dynasty, there emerges a very comprehensive picture of the régime under which captive Israel toiled. Amenemes III, according to Grimal …: "... was respected and honoured [sic] from Kerma to Byblos and during his reign numerous eastern workers, from peasants to soldiers and craftsmen came [sic] to Egypt. This influx [sic] of foreign workers resulted both from the growth in Egyptian influence abroad and from the need for extra workmen to help exploit the valuable resources of Egypt itself. For forty-five years [Amenemes] III ruled a country that had reached a peak of prosperity ... and the exploitation of the Faiyûm went hand in hand with the development of irrigation and an enormous growth in mining and quarrying activities". The Faiyûm was a huge oasis, about 80 km S.W. of Memphis, which offered the prospect of a completely new area of cultivable land. Exodus 1:14 tells of the Israelite slaves doing "all kinds of work in the fields." Mining and quarrying also, apparently, would have been part of the immense slave-labour effort. Grimal continues …: "In the Sinai region the exploitation of the turquoise and copper mines reached unprecedented heights: between the ninth and forty-fifth years of [Amenemes III's] reign no less than forty-nine texts were inscribed at Serabit el-Khadim .... The seasonal encampments of the miners were transformed into virtually permanent settlements, with houses, fortifications, wells or cisterns, and even cemeteries. The temple of Hathor at Serabit el-Khadim was enlarged .... The expeditions to quarries elsewhere in Egypt also proliferated ...". …. Here, surely, was all the organisation and slave work force needed for the building of the (contemporary) Giza pyramids as well! Amenemes III, it seems, was a complete dictator …: "The economic activity formed the basis for the numerous building works that make the reign of [Amenemes] III one of the summits of state absolutism. Excavations at Biahmu revealed two colossal granite statues of the seated figure of [Amenemes] III .... Above all, he built himself two [sic] pyramids, one at Dahshur and the other at Hawara…. Beside the Hawara pyramid were found the remains of his mortuary temple, which Strabo described as the Labyrinth". …. The Jealousy of Chenephres We already alluded to the fact that pharaoh Chenephres had become jealous of prince Moses - who had been growing in popularity with the people because of his military successes - and had set his mind upon killing Moses. There is a perfect parallel here to Saul's jealousy of David for the very same reasons (I Samuel 18:6-9). But perhaps the jealousy of Chenephres went even further than all this, to regicide. The assassination of Amenemes I may be implicit in Grimal's likening of the growing civil disorder in the reign of Teti - founder of the 6th dynasty - leading to Teti's assassination, to what happened during the reign of Amenemes I …. The whole drama may have been re-told again in the legend of Osiris and Set (Seth)…. Let me briefly recall that legend, inserting real names in square brackets after the names of the gods and goddesses: "Osiris [Khufu/Amemenes] was King of Egypt. Set [Chephren/Sesostris], his brother, urged on by jealousy, resolved to dethrone him and put him to death. The faithful Isis [wife of the King], discovered this criminal design and succeeded for some time in foiling the plots of Set, but his skilful intrigues ended by triumphing over Osiris whom he treacherously assassinated. Set then seized the throne of Egypt". Enter Horus the Avenger whom we have already associated, in his infancy, with Moses. The chronology is a bit askew, but it is only a legend after all: "... Isis [here, Moses' Hebrew mother] then gave birth to Horus [Moses] in the marshes of the Delta, near the sacred town of Buto, with the help of the goddess Hathor [Meresankh III, Moses' f/mother]. .... Horus, brought up by his mother amid a thousand dangers, driven to seek a sanctuary in the desert [Midian] to escape the implacable pursuit of Set, grew at last to maturity, and dethroned Set". Clearly this story has its basis during Moses' career as a prince of Egypt. Grimal has noted other striking likenesses, too, between Teti and Amenemes I, though he would conventionally date the former about half a millennium earlier than Amenemes. They shared the same throne name, Sehetibre, and the same Horus name, Sehetep-tawy (meaning "He who pacifies the Two Lands") …. Linking the 4th/12th Dynasty with the 6th Dynasty We may be able to trace the rise of the 4th dynasty's Khufu (Cheops) to the 6th dynasty, to the wealthy noble from Abydos in the south, called Khui. The latter had a daughter called Ankhenesmerire, in whose name are contained all the elements of Mer-es-ankh, daughter of the Pharaoh who became Moses' adopted mother and married Chephren/ Chenephres. This family relationship may again be duplicated in that Piops I (Cheops?) had a daughter Ankhenesmerire whom his 'son' Merenre I (Chephren/Sesostris?) married. These characters, it seems, have been dupli/triplicated. Further possible links with the 6th dynasty are the likenesses between the latter's founder, Teti, and Amenemes I, as pointed out by historians. Despite the little that these admit to knowing of Teti - and the fact that they would have him pre-dating the 12th dynasty by half a millennium - historians have noted that Teti shared some common features with Amenemes I, including the same throne name, Sehetibre, the same Horus name, Sehetep-tawy ("He who pacifies the Two Lands"), and the likelihood that death came in 'both' cases through assassination …. …. It is noticeable that both the 6th and 12th dynasties ended with a woman ruler, respectively Nitocris and Sobek-neferure, whom I suspect was the same person, suggesting that there were no more male members left of the royal family (after the biblical plagues) …: The Turin Canon lists Nitocris immediately after Merenere II, describing her as the 'King of Upper and Lower Egypt'. This woman, whose fame grew in the Ptolemaic period in the guise of the legendary Rhodopis ... courtesan ... was the first known queen to exercise political power over Egypt. Nofer-ka-ra (Nefer-kare) of the 6th dynasty may have been the ill-fated 'first born son' who died in the tenth plague (Exodus 12:29), since it was during his lifetime that Egypt was plunged into darkness. …. Whilst W. Stiebing would, contrary to Courville's view, flatly reject any notion of contemporaneity between the 6th and 12th dynasties …: This revision, however, ignores the fact that while Palestinian EB III pottery is found in Sixth Dynasty tombs, it is not found in tombs belonging to the supposedly contemporaneous Twelfth Dynasty. It also ignores stylistic differences and developments in tomb reliefs and inscriptions which indicate that the Old and Middle Kingdoms were not contemporaneous .... there might be some substantial architectural evidence to support Courville. Thus 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". The historic Moses I now believe to be both Weni of the Sixth Dynasty and Mentuhotep of the Twelfth Dynasty, the Vizier and Chief Judge of Egypt: Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep (8) Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu WHY Were The Pyramids Built? With Imhotep, the first pyramid builder, architect of the wondrous Step Pyramid at Saqqara, now identified as a Hebrew, as the biblical Joseph, then perhaps we might find a clue in the Book of Genesis to the why of at least this particular pyramid. My suggestion in the past has been that the Step Pyramid, built by Joseph-Imhotep, was “a ‘material icon’ of his father Jacob’s vision of a ladder (or staircase or ramp) to heaven”. Genesis 28:12: “[Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it”. And this seemingly esoteric view actually has some degree of support from conventional Egyptology. We read at the beginning the real truth about how the pyramids were built. Well, in 2003, Joyce Tyldesley provided, in her book on the pyramids, what she considered to be: Pyramids: The Real Story Behind Egypt’s Most Ancient Monuments (emphasis added): http://joycetyldesley.co.uk/pyramids-the-real-story/ The Old Kingdom pharaohs believed that death was the beginning of eternal life. That they would rise from their tombs to shimmer in the deep blue night as an unsetting star. Or that they would sail endlessly across the watery heavens in the shining boat of the sun god Re. To help them on their way they built pyramids: huge ramps or stairways charged with the most potent magic, leading directly to the sky. These massive monuments came to symbolize the might of a powerful nation ruled by a semi-divine god king. [End of quote] I think that Joyce Tyldesley is not far wrong on this one. But it was originally inspired by Hebrew, not by Egyptian, genius. {Pharaoh Unas of the 5th dynasty also talks about a ‘ladder to heaven’ (in the Pyramid Texts). Given Joseph’s/Imhotep’s pioneering pyramid building, coupled with Davidovits’ view that: “… the architects possessed at least two concrete formulas: one for the large structural blocks and another for the white casing stones … earlier pyramids, brick structures, and stone vases were built using similar techniques”, then might not the genius Joseph, a Hebrew, have brought this cement technology to Egypt? Finally, I find highly plausible Robert Bauval’s thesis below about the Giza pyramids: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/piramides/esp_piramide_8.htm# The Orion Mystery The three pyramids of Giza are a perfect reproduction of the 3 stars of Orion’s belt: • Like the pyramids, the three stars of Orion are not perfectly aligned, the smallest of them is slightly offset to the East. • All three are slanted in a Southwesterly direction (Note the exact match in the animation). • Their orientation to the Nile recreates Orion’s orientation to the Milky Way. • The layout of the pyramids, and their relative sizes were a deliberate design plan, and not the result of three king’s enormous egos as been preached as dogma by the so-called Egyptologists. Imhotep (Joseph) introduces polished stone “Davidovits believes that Imhotep created two different chemical formulas: a very simple one for the casting of the limestone core blocks, and another one to produce the high quality stones of the exterior layer”. Philip Coppens Tradition has the biblical Joseph of Egypt as a highly inventive man. He is supposed to have introduced the plough to Egypt (Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich). And, along such lines, the Alexandrian Jew Artapanus tells, according to Gregg Gardner and Kevin Lee Osterloh (Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, p. 61): “… Egyptian agriculture is in disorder (àτáκτως), the region is undivided and the weak suffer at the hands of the strong. Joseph reorganizes the land, re-cultivates barren land and gives land to the priests …”. This same Joseph, the Greeks would later ‘reconstruct’ as the sage, “Thales”, the so-called “Father of Philosophy”, and also as the one who was supposed to have invented the word, philosophy, “Pythagoras”. Two ‘composite’, non-historical characters. The legend that has Thales measuring the height of the pyramids arises from the fact that Joseph, according to Artapanus (loc. cit.): “… also invents standards of measure”. This would have enabled Joseph, as the genius Imhotep of Egypt’s Third Dynasty, to build the Step Pyramid of Saqqara that is attributed to him. Pharaoh and his officials thought that Joseph was an exceptional person, the wisest of the wise (Genesis 41:38-43): “So Pharaoh asked them, ‘Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?’ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you’. So Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt’. Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. He had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command, and people shouted before him, ‘Make way!’ Thus he put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt”. Now Philip Coppens will, in his discussion of the admirable contribution of Joseph Davidovits’ to the subject of how the Giza pyramids were really built, tell of Imhotep’s (Joseph’s) further scientific contributions (http://philipcoppens.com/davidovits.html): The Pyramid Heretic For more than thirty years, Joseph Davidovits’ scientific observations have pushed most Egyptologists into histrionics. His findings are that the blocks of the Great Pyramid were not cut, but poured – somewhat similar to cement and other manmade chemical building processes. Philip Coppens ________________________________________What if the stones of the Great Pyramid were not quarried, but “made” on site – very much like modern skyscrapers use cement – though without the steel structure embedded inside them? Joseph Davidovits first aired this theory in 1974. Professor Davidovits is an internationally renowned French scientist, who was honoured by French President Jacques Chirac with one of France’s two highest honours, the “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite”, in November 1998. Davidovits comes with a French Degree in Chemical Engineering and has a German Doctor Degree in Chemistry (PhD), as well as being professor and founder of the Institute for Applied Archaeological Sciences, IAPAS, Barry University, Miami, Florida, from 1983 till 1989, being Visiting Professor, Penn State University, Pennsylvania (1989-1991) and Professor and Director of the Geopolymer Institute, Saint-Quentin, France (since 1979). He is a world expert in modern and ancient cements, as well as geosynthesis and man-made rocks, and the inventor of geopolymers and the chemistry of geopolymerisation. He is, in short, a scientific genius and the expert in his field, sometimes referred to as the “father of geopolymers”. These are just the highlights; his CV is longer than most books. But the reason why I list his career’s distinctions is that all of his scientific credibility has made virtually no indent in Egyptological circles, who have largely disregarded his findings about how the pyramids – or at least the Great Pyramid – were “really” constructed. In his expert opinion, backed up by experiments and analysis, the stones of the Great Pyramid were not hewn from the quarries and then transported; instead, rough stone was indeed quarried, but then placed in a (wooden?) container, whereby other materials were added, causing a chemical process that made what in simple terms some might call “cement”, but which in fact is a type of stone that even experts in the field have a hard time telling apart from “natural rock”. From an engineering perspective, this technique would make the construction of the Great Pyramid much easier: there were no immense limestone blocks to be moved; there is no real need for a ramp and the transport of the stone material could be done faster, as less care was required in moving the limestone – the limestone was merely an ingredient and if it broke, no-one cared. Furthermore, the technique could also explain how the tremendous accuracy in the construction of the pyramid was achieved: the famous “no cigarette paper is able to be fitted between two stones”. Rather than figuring out how two hewn stones were perfectly fitted into each other on site, instead, we would have wooden moulds that were placed next to a completed “block”, upon which “cement” was poured into the mould, then left to dry, before the next stone was made. This guaranteed that each one fitted perfectly to the next. It also fits in with the evidence on the ground. Some of the blocks that are allegedly hewn have large lumps trapped within the mass; others have wavy strata; others have differences in density between the stones of the pyramids and the natural stones as located in the quarries; and there is a general absence of any horizontal orientation of the shells in the pyramid blocks, when normal sedimentation would be expected to result in shells lying flat. All of this is telltale signs for an expert like Davidovits that the stones were cast, not hewn. For the blocks to have been cast, the only missing ingredient that is required, is to identify whether or not the ancient Egyptians were familiar with such “rock making”, i.e. geopolymerisation. Davidovits is the world expert in this technology and it is fair to say not a single Egyptologist was aware of the possibility until Davidovits first proposed his hypothesis. Specifically over the past three decades, Davidovits has been trying to educate this group of scientists, but they remain largely unwilling students, even though he sold more than 45,000 copies of his book when it appeared in 1988: the general public wanted to understand, but as Egyptologists were largely unable to criticise – or had any credentials to – they chose to ignore. Today, there seems to be something of an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy against his “theories”, as Davidovits books are easily published in French, and other countries, yet “They Built the Great Pyramid”, published by a mainstream publisher in France, is largely self-published in its English edition. First aired as a hypothesis in 1974, his theory has come a long way since. Davidovits was given samples of the Great Pyramid by Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer in 1982, which he identified as fragments of geopolymers. In more recent years, his work has received the backing of several other experts in the field and when his team gave samples of modern reagglomerated stone produced at the beginning of the year 2002 to two leading geology laboratories for blind analysis, the scientists stated that the sample was natural limestone! When even geologists get it wrong, it underlines how difficult it is for Egyptologists, who – as mentioned – remain unwilling to venture where they truly should go. Davidovits has used chemical analysis to show that the stones of the pyramids are different from the native stone in the quarries, showing that the traditional stance of the Egyptologists can, from a scientific point, no longer be maintained. The analysis shows that the stones did not “just” come from these quarries… and are indeed cast. To quote Davidovits: “The results [of the quarry samples] were compared with pyramid casing stones of Cheops, Teti and Sneferu. The quarry samples are pure limestone consisting of 96-99% Calcite, 0.5-2.5% Quartz, and very small amount of dolomite, gypsum and iron-alumino-silicate. On the other hand the Cheops and Teti casing stones are limestone consisting of: calcite 85-90% and a high amount of special minerals such as Opal CT, hydroxy-apatite, a silico-aluminate, which are not found in the quarries. The pyramid casing stones are light in density and contain numerous trapped air bubbles, unlike the quarry samples which are uniformly dense. If the casing stones were natural limestone, quarries different from those traditionally associated with the pyramid sites must be found, but where? X-Ray diffraction of a red casing stone coating is the first proof to demonstrate the fact that a complicated man-made geopolymeric system was produced in Egypt 4,700 years ago.” Davidovits is also convinced that the method of stone making was at the origin of alchemy. The deity specifically linked with Khufu was Khnum, which means “to bind”, “to join”, “to cement”, “to unite” and which typifies the process of geopolymerisation. Egypt was seen as the birthplace of alchemy, but for Davidovits, it is also the cradle of chemistry. He argues that certain names, such as mafkat, which Egyptologists have been unable to translate or explain, are very much “invented words” – i.e. technical terms – as they described compounds that ancient chemists had constructed. It is therefore not “white powder gold”, as authors like Laurence Gardner have argued. Davidovits argues that when Imhotep is credited as “the inventor of the art of constructing with cut stones”, it is actually a mistranslation of the Greek “xeston lithon”, which does not translate as “cut stone”, but rather means “the action to polish stone”. For Davidovits, Imhotep is actually the inventor of working with agglomerates, or geopolymers. Davidovits believes that Imhotep created two different chemical formulas: a very simple one for the casting of the limestone core blocks, and another one to produce the high quality stones of the exterior layer. The first and major ingredient in these techniques is soft limestone. Soft limestone can be easily disaggregated either under pressure or by diluting it in water. “Shallow canals were dug in the soft limestone along the Nile, forming ideal basins for producing large quantities of muddy limestone. Imhotep’s men began disaggregating the clayish soft rock with its water, until the lime and the clay separated, forming a mud with the fossil shells at the bottom.” Next, a substance called natron salt (sodium carbonate) was poured in. Salt is a very reactive substance that has a petrifying effect, which is why it is used to avoid the putrefaction of organic tissue (mummification). Natron is found in great quantities in the desert and in the Wadi-El-Natron (100 km to the north west of Cairo and named after the substance) and Davidovits has shown that the ancient Egyptians of the Pyramid Age used it in massive quantities. Next, more lime, the mineral which binds, was added. Lime is a powdery residue obtained by burning and reducing to ashes sedimentary rocks such as limestone and dolomite. The fire oxidizes and converts the rocks into a powdery residue, and that is lime. Davidovits argues that as the ashes of plants are also rich in lime, the ancient Egyptians established the custom of receiving ashes from cooking fires from all over Egypt, to add them to the mixture. In short: recycling not to save the environment, but to build the pyramids. Lime mixed with natron and water produced a third substance, a much more corrosive one, which sparks off a strong chemical reaction and transforms other materials. The water dissolved the natron salt and put the lime in suspension, forming caustic soda. Caustic soda is the catalyst Imhotep needed to trigger off a powerful chemical reaction, one which would produce the fast integration of silica and alumina. According to Davidovits, they then mixed the ingredients in the canals until a homogenous binder paste was obtained. Imhotep had invented a water-based cement, which he had to convert into concrete. For this, he added more fossil shells, limestone rubble and silt from the river Nile, producing a concrete paste, which they carried to where hundreds of small wooden moulds had been prepared. These moulds had been smeared with rancid oil to facilitate the release of the concrete once hardened. The mixture was rammed into the moulds, becoming a dense re-agglomerated limestone, which was let to dry in the shade, to avoid its cracking under the glare of the hot sun. The above is a proven chemical procedure, but was it known to Imhotep? For an untrained eye, the process seems terribly complex and outside of the scope of ancient Egyptians – after all, Davidovits himself discovered geopolymers only recently – how could it have been known millennia ago, and then forgotten? Davidovits thinks that ancient records have left us clues… as well as the total cost of the mineral mixing ingredients required in the above process. He believes that this information was actually left behind on the pyramid covering stones and pointed out to Herodotus when he visited Gizeh. Herodotus reported that a sum of 1600 talents, or roughly the equivalent 100 million Euros (dollars), was spent on garlic, onions and radishes, which he and everyone else considered a phenomenal amount of money for what seems to be secondary dietary requirements for the workforce. As such, the story is taken with… a pinch of salt, arguing that Herodotus was lied to by his locally hired tourist guide. But Davidovits believes that those names (“garlic, onions and radishes” were misinterpretations of what was actually written on the pyramid. Originally, we referred to substances based on their colours: rubber comes from the Latin word for red, yet when we today ask for a rubber… And so Davidovits argues that these words are not “garlic”, “onion” or “radish”, but technical terms whose true meaning had become lost and hence were misinterpretations, causing bafflement with anyone who came across them, like Herodotus. Davidovits has used other inscriptions, including several steles from the period, to show that specific mining venues were exploited during the Pyramid Age, but that the quarried materials have no clear purpose within the traditional methodology of how the pyramids were constructed – but they do make sense within his approach. Is there hard evidence to credit Imhotep and his colleagues of the Third and Fourth Dynasty with the invention of geopolymers? Davidovits argues that the Famine Stele, found on the island of Elephantine in southern Egypt, indeed describes the invention of building with stone through processing different minerals and ores, which could be chemicals involved in the fabrication of man-made stone, or a type of concrete. On the Giza plateau, he has shown that several stones have weathered unnaturally: one single block was sometimes left unfinished for the day, and thus hardened over night, before being brought to the desired height the following morning. This meant that one block was made in two phases, with slightly different materials and created under different circumstances. Six millennia later, it means that sometimes the lower section of a stone has weathered badly, but the higher section has not, even though the stones next to it, did not reveal such lower weathering. Such weathering is not conform to the traditionalist point of view of quarried blocks. There is also circumstantial evidence. For example, we know that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with cement as such. At several places in the Great Pyramid, remains of 4500 year old cements are found, and are still in excellent condition. This ancient mortar is far superior to the cement used in modern buildings, as well as the cement used to restore the ancient Egyptian monuments, much of which has already degraded and cracked after only fifty years. Furthermore, his idea that some Egyptian artefacts, specifically some vases, were geopolymers, has been accepted by Egyptologists. Thus, it is accepted that the Egyptians had the necessary chemical and technical knowledge (of copper, alkalis and ceramics) to mould them in this way. Davidovits argues: “So if the Egyptians knew how to make such a high-quality cement for vases and statues, what was there to stop them adding aggregates such as fossil shells to produce a high-performance reagglomerated limestone? Clearly, nothing.” These are just some examples in a long list of evidence that argues that the most likely method of construction was the use of geopolymers, and not hewn limestone slabs that were perfectly moved into position. But it is clear that it will take some time before it may ever be accepted as the most likely explanation… Let us note that as recently as 1951, Otto Neugebauer argued that “ancient science was the product of very few men; and those few happened not to be Egyptian.” In short: ancient Egyptians had, in his opinion, made no contribution to science whatsoever… though in the successive five millennia, not a single scientist has been able to explain or let alone reconstruct the Great Pyramid. Still, Neugebauer’s statement was in sharp contrast with men like Aristotle, who saw Egypt as “the cradle of mathematics”, crediting them with inventing geometry, astronomy and arithmetic. Eudoxus, like Pythagoras, studied in ancient Egypt, before being admitted in Plato’s Academy in Athens, showing that the ancient Greeks throughout their history realised that Egypt held certain knowledge which was of vital importance for an educated Greek – and which was apparently a type of knowledge that they were unable to get in Greece itself. Intriguingly, Plato, a man who has been seen as standing at the cradle of Western civilisation, himself studied with the priests of Heliopolis, the body who had, two millennia before Plato, initiated the birth of the Pyramid Age.The most recent support and headlines for Davidovits’ findings has come from Linn W. Hobbs, professor of materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Hobbs has stated that he believes that mainstream archaeologists have been too contemptuous of work by “other scientists” – read: Davidovits – suggesting the possibility of concrete. “The degree of hostility aimed at experimentation is disturbing,” Hobbs said. “Too many big egos and too many published works may be riding on the idea that every pyramid block was carved, not cast.” In 2006, research by Michel W. Barsoum at Philadelphia's Drexel University confirmed Davidovits’ conclusion that samples of stone from parts of the Khufu Pyramid were microstructurally different from limestone blocks. Barsoum, a professor of materials engineering, said microscope, X-ray, and chemical analysis of scraps of stone from the pyramids “suggest a small but significant percentage of blocks on the higher portions of the pyramids were cast” from concrete – thus confirming Davidovits’ conclusions. When Barsoum, a native of Egypt, went public with these findings, he said he was unprepared for the onslaught of angry criticism that greeted the peer-reviewed research by himself and scientists Adrish Ganguly of Drexel and Gilles Hug of France's National Center for Scientific Research. “You would have thought I claimed the pyramids were carved by lasers,” Barsoum said. Zahi Hawass’ reaction to Hobb’s announcements was typical of the “onslaught”, stating “It's highly stupid. The pyramids are made from solid blocks of quarried limestone. To suggest otherwise is idiotic and insulting.” “They Built the Pyramids” is the first English book on the subject by Davidovits since 1988. Though focusing on the Great Pyramid, at one point he argues that other ancient monuments too might be cast, rather than hewn. Based on UNESCO reports, he suspects that the Easter Isles statues may have been made by an agglomeration process – though it appears that only the oldest statues were done as such; the most recent statues were carved out of volcanic rock. Seeing how volatile the reactions of Egyptologists remain thirty years on, it is clear that a head in the sand policy is adhered to, hoping that the bad news will eventually go away. That is, however, unlikely. And for anyone who needs to be convinced, there is a useful appendix, which provides a guided tour for tourists visiting the Giza plateau, where they can see the various pieces of evidence that supports Davidovits’ conclusions. …. It appears that the Egyptologists are proving to be as stubborn about this issue as they have been with the Sothic chronology. They take more shifting than the Great Pyramid. That is why I think that the author of the following letter - who may turn out to be prophetic - is being a bit too optimistic to imagine that things Egyptological will change any time “soon”: “…. Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology. I think the works of Velikovsky, Courville and Mackey and others will eventually unseat the modern Pharisees and Sadduccees who hold sway over the old orthodoxy which is dying as the revisionists get their ideas out in the internet. I hope that you are actively engaged in further research and I suspect you realize that the Hebrew Chronology which influenced three of the major religions in history is more critical than the Egyptian documents that are carved in stone as almost nothing in the Egyptian Chronology matches that of the Hebrews. Keep up the great research. …”. Was same method applied in Meso-America? “This approach can also be applied to the precision-fit Inca walls: [Apparently] … the ancients knew a technique to dissolve or soften the stone by use of acid plant extracts!”. Philip Coppens Colin Nickerson writes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/africa/23iht-pyramid.1.12259608.html Did the Great Pyramids' builders use concrete? CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — It is a theory that gives indigestion to mainstream archaeologists. Namely, that some of the immense blocks of the Great Pyramids of Egypt might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - not just carved whole from quarries and lugged into place by armies of toilers. Such an innovation would have saved millions of man-hours of grunting and heaving in construction of the enigmatic edifices on the Giza Plateau. "It could be they used less sweat and more smarts," said Linn Hobbs, professor of materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures." That is a notion that would dramatically change engineering history. …. A handful of determined materials scientists are carrying out experiments with crushed limestone and natural binding chemicals - materials that would have been readily available to ancient Egyptians - designed to show that blocks on the upper reaches of the pyramids may have been cast in place from a slurry poured into wooden molds. These researchers at labs in Cambridge, Philadelphia and St. Quentin, France, are trying to demonstrate that Egyptians of about 2,500 B.C. could have been the true inventors of the poured substance that is humanity's most common building material. At MIT, Hobbs and two colleagues teach a course called Materials in Human Experience. Over the years, undergraduates in the program have recreated from scratch such artifacts as samurai swords, tinkling Meso-American bells and even a swaying 60-foot, or 20-meter, plant-fiber suspension bridge like those built by the Incas. Now a scale-model pyramid is rising in Hobbs's sixth-floor lab, a construction made of quarried limestone as well as concrete-like blocks cast from crushed limestone sludge fortified with dollops of kaolinite clay, silica and natural desert salts - called natron - like those used by ancient Egyptians to mummify corpses. …. And, according to this next article, what had happened in the Old World (e.g. ancient Egypt) was basically replicated in the New World (e.g. Meso-America): http://primeross.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/ancient-stone-technology.html Ancient stone technology Everybody who has traveled to Egypt, Mesopotamia, South America and many more places has seen it: the astonishing craftsmanship of these ancient stoneworkers. The precision fit of large stoneblocks is eminent in both the Old and New World. It is hardly imaginable, that all of this should have been done by pure manual work alone. The same applies to the smaller, but [surely] not less perfect artefacts, like stone bowls, vases etc. The Mesoamerican cultures had a special affinity with obsidian, a very brittle volcanic glass. They used it for a variety of (mostly ritual) objects. An Aztec craftsman made these earplugs, which put our belief in manual work to a tough test... They are polished to a thickness of less [than] a millimeter and completely symmetrical. The perfect geometrical shape and the somewhat small difference between the tube's diameter and the diameter of the flanges make them rather unusual. They're supposedly made with tools like bamboo drills, stone chisels and sand as an abrasive. I wonder … how often the poor man had to start over... If one takes a closer look to things, unmistakable signs of machining emerge. Take all the time to visit this magnificant site: Ancient Egyptian Stone Technology (new window). Experiments Some years ago, a group of enthusiastic researchers ([led] by Roger Hopkins, a stonework professional who has done several of these experiments) carried out a small scale experiment in Egypt, regarding the building of a pyramid with a base of a few meters across, which is in itself a respectable project. But then they stated, rather boldly in my opinion, this could have been the way, the big ones had been build. Although they were cautious enough to use the word "could", translating the results of the experiment into a project a hundred times larger, seems careless and overconfident to me. In Southamerica, the same mistake was made. In an attempt, to explain the [astonishing fit of the Inca stone walls, like this one in the city of Cuzco, incorporating the famous "stone with 12 angles", the [researchers] experimented with a technique to copy the shape of the top stone to the one beneath it. This involved some quite dangerous methods to hold the top stone in an elevated position, in midair, so to speak, which did well with stones of 30 cm across. What they couldn't provide, was an idea, how to bring it into practice with these stones, some of them more than 3 meters tall: Sacsayhuaman is believed to have been a fortress. The interesting thing with these walls is that the builders took every measure to make the stones fit to an almost ridiculous degree of perfection in the most difficult shapes, while the front is rough and covered with deformations that make them look unfinished. That can bring up the idea, that these walls have been [built] in a much different way. A bold theory Professor Davidovits from the Geopolymer Institute in France has found a possible answer to these riddles. He asks if the Egyptian Pyramids at Gizeh have been build with a construction technique widely used in our time: Are Pyramids made out of concrete? It seems ridiculous at first glance, but it solves a few nasty problems that couldn't be solved yet with the established theories. For instance: how did the pyramidbuilders in Egypt manage to haul the stones up to the summit, where the workspace is reduced to virtually nothing? All those man had to stand somewhere. In short, his theory is that the 2 million blocks of limestone that make up the core of the pyramid of Chufu (Cheops), have not been cut into shape, but the limestone was solved in water, brought to the building place in small portions and then the blocks were cast in situ. This approach can also be applied to the precision-fit Inca walls: [Apparently] … the ancients knew a technique to dissolve or soften the stone by use of acid plant extracts! Before you start laughing, take a closer look at these images (click the images to see larger, detailed versions in a new window): (246 kb, 1008x871) A detail from one of the walls of the Sacsayhuaman complex. Many stones show strange impressions or scrape marks, as if the surface has been soft during tooling. (Take also a closer look to the picture above). Just take a square piece of wood and push it in soft clay. You will make impressions just like these! (31 kb, 600x320) The great wall at Ollantaytambo, Peru. Observe the third large stone from the left with its long scrape marks and the large flat impression at the top edge of the second stone from the right. (277 kb, 676x966) Detail from the great wall. The middle stone. [Although] the surface is very rough and looks hewn or carved, I find it difficult to … explain the square marks and the slightly raised edge of the lower zigzag pattern. It is certainly possible to produce such marks with traditional methods, but then they would have to be made deliberately and [that’s] not what it looks like. (116 kb, 777x523) Ollantaytambo, Peru Soft stones could also explain the precision fit. The stones would settle by their own weight and the weight of the ones on top, thereby squeezing into any gaps. The protrusions could be formed by making marks in the support structure that would be necessary to prevent uncontrolled movement of the material at the outer face of the wall. It is sometimes mentioned, these protrusion were made to hold gold plating or to tie ropes to for handling. Unfortunately, they would work insufficiently for either use and are too randomly placed. Fact remains: we don't have a clue. (232 kb, 692x973) Puma Punku complex at Tiahuanaco, Bolivia. The approx. 1cm wide groove with inside a set of equidistant holes is one of many features there, who are so hard to explain, that the whole site is virtually hushed up by the archaeological community. [It’s] just a few hundred meters away from the famous site of Tiahuanaco, but almost never mentioned. If not advanced machining in ancient times is the key to the mystery, then the cast stone theory could provide some answers. It would not be difficult to build a mold with a strip and pins in it, which had to be removed after hardening of the stone. I think these theories are really interesting. There are several PDF-documents on the Geopolymer Library page that explain the theories and shows some results of tests conducted on similar types of stone. To solve this mystery, it would be necessary to examine the actual stones for any signs of such a treatment. …. You’ve got that sinking feeling “Can you imagine maneuvering 25-80 ton stones up a ramp, around corners and into final position… at fairly rapid pace? Where would hundreds of workers stand (per stone) on the pyramid in order to move the stones? How could they carve everything with almost optical precision with primitive copper and iron tools (of which very few have been found)?” The effort involved in building the pyramids according to the conventional view of this, by contrast with professor Davidovits’s explanation of it, is well summed up in the following post: https://geopolymerhouses.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/ancient-stonework/ …. There are large pyramids all around the world, including in Egypt and other countries in Africa, Central and South America, and China. The largest structures, in particular the famous Egyptian pyramids at Giza, have baffled scientists since they were first discovered. Many people agree that ramps to move the stones would have been too large and impractical to build (some estimate the ramps would have taken more time and effort to build than the pyramids). Here are some quick facts about the Great Pyramid of Giza from Wikipedia: – “building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tons of stone every day” – “since it consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving an average of more than 12 of the blocks into place each hour, day and night” – “The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the “King’s” chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tons and were [Ed.: some believe] transported from Aswan, more than 500 miles away.” – “the mean opening of the joints is only 0.5 millimetres wide (1/50th of an inch)” (The list goes on and on.) All these examples have one thing in common: conventional theories about how they were built are difficult to believe, at least for me. Can you imagine maneuvering 25-80 ton stones up a ramp, around corners and into final position… at fairly rapid pace? Where would hundreds of workers stand (per stone) on the pyramid in order to move the stones? How could they carve everything with almost optical precision with primitive copper and iron tools (of which very few have been found)? Why do the granite stones continue to salt up on the surface? No other granite in the world accumulates salt deposits on the surface except the ones in the pyramids. Microscopic analysis of stone samples from the pyramids indicates random orientation, which indicates human construction (tamping in a form) versus orientation in layers as in natural stone. These things have fascinated me since I was a child. There seemed to be no logical explanation to the mysteries until just recently when I learned about geopolymer. Finally, I found a theory that seems credible. This much appears certain: scientists agree that ancient Egyptians did use polymer to build certain items such as vessels. They agree geopolymer technology was known and understood at that time. If this is true, then it’s reasonable to believe at least some of the stones in the pyramids were made by geopolymer. It’s much easier for me to imagine thousands of laborers carrying or passing along baskets of geopolymer materials than moving and precisely fitting cut stone. …. With professor Davidovits’s geopolymer theory in mind, I watched with horror on SBS TV (Sunday 12th November 2017) as a team of archaeologists tried to sit a huge limestone block atop a small boat apparently modelled on the ones used in ancient Egypt at the time of the Giza constructions. The block had to be situated right in the centre of the boat. After what seemed like an age of careful and painstaking manoeuvring - this all involving just the one block - there was alarm because the boat had begun to let in water. I am not sure how it ended up, because I found what I considered to be more credible things on other channels. Though I would guess from the above photo that the team did eventually manage to float above the Nile with the limestone block atop. I had felt sorry for them. If this was the laborious process that the ancient Egyptians had been forced to use for all of the blocks in the pyramids, then they would still be chipping away at them to this very day! Nevertheless, we read: http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/an-ancient-papyrus-reveals-how-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-was-built …. Wooden boats built with rope instead of nails. The limestone was carried along the River Nile in wooden boats built with planks and rope that were capable of hauling two-and-a-half tonne stones. Using ancient tomb carvings and the remains of an ancient dismantled ship as a guide, archeologist Mohamed Abd El-Maguid has recreated one Egyptian boat from scratch. 3D scans of the ship planks revealed that the boats were full of holes that lined up perfectly with each other. Instead of nails or wood pegs, these boats were sewn together with rope like a giant jigsaw puzzle. With 1,000 holes and five kilometres of rope the new boat was assembled and Abd El-Maguid and in Secrets of the Pyramid, attempts to re-create every step of Merer’s journey down the Nile with a two-tonne limestone rock. http://nypost.com/2017/09/24/archaeologists-solve-the-mystery-of-the-great-pyramid/ New evidence proves that the ancient Egyptians constructed the Great Pyramid at Giza by transporting 170,000 tons of limestone in boats. It has long been known that the rock was extracted eight miles away in Tura and that granite used in the monumental structure was quarried 533 miles away in Aswan. However, archaeologists have disagreed over how the material was transported to Giza, now part of modern-day Cairo, for construction of Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb in 2600 BC. Now that mystery could be a step further to being solved after the discovery of an ancient scroll of papyrus, a ceremonial boat and a network of waterways, the Mail on Sunday reported. The new evidence shows that thousands of laborers transported 170,000 tons of limestone along the River Nile in wooden boats built with planks and rope. The 2.5-ton blocks were ferried through a system of specially designed canals before arriving at an inland port built just yards away from the base of the Great Pyramid. …. Scientists detect large hidden chamber “According to Nature, the large, previously unknown “big void” inside the Great Pyramid is the first major interior structure found there in well over a century”. Last night (December 10, 2017), when watching on SBS TV the use of cutting edge science, involving ‘muons’, to determine the interior of the Great Pyramid, I was less than enthusiastic about the presumed origin of these muons from exploding stars. But, as it turned out, this was one of the rare documentaries on the subject that actually concludes with some new knowledge. With the likelihood of more to come. The whole thing is summarised in the following article by Molly Rubin, “What we know about the mysterious chamber discovered inside the Great Pyramid”: https://qz.com/1118563/the-great-pyramid-of-giza-has-a-secret-chamber-hidden-inside/ We are one step closer to understanding more about the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World. Scientists have discovered a void inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, according to new research published in the scientific journal Nature. The discovery is the result of work from ScanPyramids, an organization led by the HIP Institute and the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University that is dedicated to studying the Pyramids of Egypt using non-invasive techniques. A symbol of the awesome power of ancient Egypt, the Great Pyramid is 479 feet tall, the tallest structure built by man until the Eiffel Tower in 1889. Built as a royal tomb around 2560 BC, it’s made of an estimated 2.3 million blocks of stone. There were three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid—an unfinished low chamber near the bedrock, as well as the king and queen’s chambers, believed to be for Pharaoh Khufu and his wives—until today. What is the secret chamber? According to Nature, the large, previously unknown “big void” inside the Great Pyramid is the first major interior structure found there in well over a century. Though they don’t know the precise dimensions, researchers say the hidden chamber is at least 100 feet long and located above a hallway about 155 feet long, known as the Grand Gallery, part of a maze of passages inside the pyramid. “What we are sure about is that this big void is there, that it is impressive, that it was not expected by, as far as I know, any kind of theory,” Mehdi Tayoubi, president and co-founder of the HIP Institute told Reuters. How was the chamber found? Researches made the discovery using cosmic ray-based imaging, a process that uses modern particle physics to understand new information about ancient structures. Known as muon tomography, the technique generates 3-D images using information from particles that hit the Earth close to the speed of light and then penetrate deeply into solid objects. Muons (elementary particles similar to electrons) originate from collisions between cosmic rays and atoms in the upper atmosphere. They penetrate material more deeply than X-rays, so the technique can be used to image more dense structures than, say, CT scanning. Muons can penetrate stone, but as they travel through a dense object they lose energy and decay, so scientists can understand the density of an object based on the number of muons flowing from a particular direction. If there’s a big void, lots of muons will flow through. Muon detection has improved significantly since it was developed in the 1960s, so Tayoubi and his colleagues were able to use three advanced muon-detection techniques–nuclear-emulsion films, hodoscopes, and ardon gas-based detection. Every method showed the same result: a large void in the area above the Grand Gallery. The mysteries that remain Experts are unsure about the purpose of the void—it could have been a burial chamber, another gallery, an architectural anomaly, or simply a sealed-off construction passage. However, some historians are more excited than others about the discovery. “It’s very clear what they found as a void doesn’t mean anything at all. There are many voids in the pyramid because of construction reasons,” said Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist and former Egyptian minister of antiquities and director of excavations at Giza, Saqqara, Bahariya Oasis and the Valley of the Kings, told LiveScience. Tayoubi argues that the void is not a construction irregularity because blocks of varying sizes and shapes would have absorbed more muons that were detected. Right now, there are no plans to enter the Great Pyramid to further investigate the void, because there is no way to get to it through the existing network of passages and chambers. Egyptologists banned the use of destructive methods to study the pyramids. However scientists could put additional muon detectors in the king’s chamber to try and assess the void from alternate angles. Given the world’s fascination with the pyramids and secrets of the ancient world, it’s clear the discovery will lead to much archaeological speculation and debate. Hany Helal of Cairo University, coordinator of the ScanPyramids project, put the open question to the academic community: “We open the question to Egyptologists and archaeologists: what could it be?”

Called Sumerian History, but isn’t

By Damien F. Mackey “Why is there a problem?” Nita Gleimius will introduce the enigmatic Sumerians with the phrase commonly used for them, “The Sumerian Problem” (2022): https://www.thecollector.com/sumerian-problem/ The Sumerian Problem(s): Did the Sumerians Exist? Did the Sumerian civilization really exist? Were they immigrants? And why is their language so unique? Oct 22, 2022 • By Nita Gleimius, BA Ancient Near Eastern Cultures & Biblical Archaeology Controversies regarding the Sumerian people — generally called “The Sumerian Problem” — started almost as soon as their civilization was rediscovered. After almost two centuries of discoveries and interpretations, and the deciphering of ancient cuneiform texts from various ancient Near Eastern sources, the very existence of the Sumerians as a distinct nation is still questioned today by some learned scholars. Add to this the various theories about ancient aliens and mysterious teachers, and we have a veritable melting pot of beliefs, myths, and interpretations that defy logic. Many Assyriologists and Sumerologists, like Thorkild Jacobsen and Samuel Noah Kramer, have contributed immensely to the unraveling and interpretation of facts from conjecture. They started to create a semblance of order using the conglomeration of information from archaeology, cuneiform texts, guesswork, and unsubstantiated theories. But even they had to guess and make assumptions. What Is the Sumerian Problem? Discovering our ancient roots is enlightening and wonderfully exciting, one clue leads to a discovery, which leads to another clue, which leads to another discovery, and so on — almost like a top-selling mystery novel. But imagine that your favorite mystery or crime novelist suddenly ends a book without tying up the pieces — and with some crucial pieces of the mystery still missing. Without crucial evidence, without enough hints to lead you further, you may check and recheck if you were right in your analysis and tentative conclusions. Sometimes archaeologists end up with just such a mystery. In the case of the Sumerians, the problems started from the very beginning; their very existence, their identity, their origin, their language, and their demise have all been questioned. Once most of the archaeological and linguistic fraternities agreed that a previously unknown group of people had in fact settled in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) before 4000 BCE, theories abounded. Scholars theorized, reasoned, and debated. Instead of arriving at a reasonable potential geographic location, questions and mysteries multiplied. The issue became several issues. The Sumerian Problem became so emotional for some scholars that they attacked each other openly and personally. The media had a field day, and the scholarly war became in itself part of the problem. The truth is that a civilization that lasted for more than 3,000 years [sic] would inevitably have gone through deep changes — in social, political, cultural, and economic terms. It will have been affected by outside factors such as the physical environment, contact with and incursions from outsiders, and pestilence. It would also have been impacted by population growth patterns, cultural changes, habits, the natural diffusion of immigrant cultures, as well as thought patterns, religious influences, internal strife, and wars among city-states. Mackey’s comment: Problems, questions, are arising due to a greatly over-expanded chronology and to an uncertain geography, making it impossible to be really definite about the situation. Hence the question below: Why Is There a Problem? How then can we define such a multiplex of societal epochs as one single civilization? Were the Sumerians rough and robust outsiders that took over an already refined and more advanced southern Mesopotamian society? Background: Why Is There a Problem? After thousands of years of nomadic and semi-nomadic seasonal settlements created by hunter-gatherers, some settlements in southern Mesopotamia were settled all year round. From around 4000 BCE there appears to have been a relatively rapid development in agriculture, culture, and technology. Mackey’s comment: The Great Agricultural Leap had begun before this, at Karaca Dağ. See e.g. my article: Great Leap to Agriculture made by Noah’s family in mountains of SE Turkey (9) Great Leap to Agriculture made by Noah’s family in mountains of SE Turkey | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu “The Sumerian Problem”, however, is a far deeper one that has been imagined. Sumer has wrongly been identified. Or, if you like, Sumer isn’t Sumer anymore: “The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in Mesopotamia (3) “The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in Mesopotamia | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Moreover, the low-lying region of southern Mesopotamia that has wrongly been called Sumer was still, at that early stage, under the influence of the vestiges of the Flood. Far from being the Cradle of Civilisation, its settlement was relatively later. Nita Gleimius continues: Crops were planted using irrigation: canals diverted rivers, channels ran from rivers to crop fields, and furrows led water into the fields. A simple plow was converted into a seeder plow which could do both jobs at once — and could be pulled by draught animals. By 3500 BCE agriculture was no longer so labor-intensive, and people could direct their attention to other occupations. Urbanization and specialization in the manufacturing of goods such as ceramics, farm implements, boat building, and other crafts led to cities being built around large religious centers by 3000 BCE. Why and where did this burst of innovation come from? Various Biblical scholars and treasure hunters have actively searched the ancient Near East for proof of Biblical stories and to find legendary riches from ancient civilizations. Scholars and historians from as far back as Herodotus knew well enough about the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Nobody, though, knew that these civilizations inherited their advanced cultures from a still older civilization. Mackey’s comment: Assyrian Nineveh was surely settled before southern Mesopotamia (which is not the biblical “Shinar”) was (Genesis 10:10, 11). Assyria was called “the land of Nimrod” (Micah 5:6). Nita Gleimius continues: Though the Sumerians were gone and forgotten, their legacy was very much alive. It had passed down through other geographic locations … Mackey’s comment: Even its own supposed geographic locations belonged far away elsewhere. … and through social, political, and economic developments as empires came and went through the ages that followed. …. The Sumerian Language Quest The discovery of Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh and the subsequent translation of its texts revealed three distinct languages written in similar cuneiform script. Assyrian and Babylonian were distinctly Semitic, but a third Semitic script contained words and syllables that just did not fit into the rest of its Semitic vocabulary. This language was Akkadian with non-Semitic Sumerian phraseology interlaced. Excavations at Lagash and Nippur provided plenty of cuneiform tablets, and these were entirely in this non-Semitic language. Researchers noted that the Babylonian kings called themselves the kings of Sumer and Akkad. Akkadian was accounted for, so they named the new script Sumerian. Then they found tablets with bilingual texts, believed to be from school exercises. Although these tablets were dated to the first millennium BCE, long after Sumerian as a spoken language had ceased to exist, it continued as a written language similar to the use of Latin today. Identifying and deciphering Sumerian did not solve the problem of their origins. The language is what is known as a language isolate — it fits into no other known language group. Instead of clarifying the origins of the Sumerians, it added to the confusion. Scholars have identified many Semitic names among the place names used by the Sumerians for some of their greatest cities. Ur, Uruk, Eridu, and Kish are but a few of these. This could mean that they moved into places that were already settled — or it could mean that they kept the place names given to these cities by their conquerors — the Akkadians and the Elamites — after regaining their independence. The Elamites, though, were also a non-Semitic speaking people, and the identified names are Semitic. Another scholarly argument is that some of the earliest words from the Sumerian language are from the most primitive phase of their agricultural development. Many words are names for local southern Mesopotamian animals and plants. This may mean that the Sumerians were primitive immigrants settling into a more advanced culture (the Ubaid culture). They then later adopted the culture of their host country and developed it further with more innovations. Another argument in favor of this hypothesis is that the Sumerian words for these above objects are mostly one syllable, whereas the words for more sophisticated objects have more than one syllable, indicating the more advanced culture of another group. Samuel Noah Kramer has argued that the Ubaid culture in the region was already advanced when the Sumerians arrived. The Ubaid culture, he posited, came from the Zagros mountains, and amalgamated over time with several Semitic groups from Arabia and elsewhere. After the Sumerians conquered this more advanced Ubaid culture, they and the Sumerians together achieved the heights that we now assign to the Sumerian civilization. More Sumerian Origin Hypotheses …. The hypothesis that the Sumerians came from a homeland beyond the Persian Gulf towards the East has been floated on and off since their identification. This theory is popular with those who do not believe that the Sumerians would have traveled across the hinterland of Mesopotamia all the way to the tip of the land where resources are more limited. Another southern origin idea posits that the Sumerians were Arabs who lived on the east coast of the Persian Gulf before their home was flooded after the last ice age. Other scholars theorize that their skills with metalwork — for which there were zero resources in Sumer — and the building of high places (ziggurats), indicate that their homeland must have been in the mountains. The most popular theory here points to the foothills and plains of the Zagros mountains — today’s Iranian plateau. Others suggest that they may be related to the original peoples of ancient India. They find similarities between the Sumerian language and the Dravidian group of languages from this region. Mackey’s comment: Very much needing to be factored in here as well is the noticeable similarity between Sumerian and Chinese: Ancient Chinese History and the Book of Genesis. Part Four: Chinese and Sumerian (9) Ancient Chinese History and the Book of Genesis. Part Four: Chinese and Sumerian | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu To the north, we have several areas that could be likely candidates if the Sumerians were immigrants to southern Mesopotamia. The areas around the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, Anatolia, the Taurus mountains, Northern Iran, Kramer’s trans-Caucasian area, Northern Syria, and more. Mackey’s comment: So much guesswork here. Might I suggest trying “Northern Syria” (above)/ southern Turkey? Kings David and Solomon With the geography of Sumer (supposedly) unscrambled, we are surprised to find deeds pertaining to the Israelite kings, David and Solomon, in the Eshnunna and Lagash tales of the c. C18th BC, with Solomon appearing even well before that, in the c. C22nd BC. But, given the apparently long history of the region of southern Mesopotamia - artificial though it all may be - we would expect to find other Israelite/Judean history there as well. And that we surely do. But I shall need articles supplementary to this one to cover it. This is what I have previously written on David, Solomon and Eshnunna, Lagash. ***** One of the most important contributions to the revision of ancient history, with a keen reference to the Bible, has been Dean Hickman’s re-location of King Hammurabi of Babylon from, originally, c. 2400, now c. 1800 BC (conventional dating) - with some revisionists opting for c. 1450 BC, the time of Joshua - to the era of kings David and King Solomon (c. 1000 BC, standard dating). Dean Hickman most helpfully identified the powerful Assyrian ruler of the time, Shamsi-Adad I, as the biblical (Syrian) king, Hadadezer, against whom King David successfully campaigned (2 Samuel 8:3). And Hickman skilfully identified Hadadezer’s father, Rekhob (or Rehob), as Shamsi-Adad’s father, Uru-kabkabu (Urukab = Rekhob). Surely, so I then thought, kings David and Solomon must also be historically identifiable amongst these supposed C18th BC kings and their wars. A tentative thought of mine was that King Solomon may have been King Jabin of Hazor (Mari Letters) at this time, seeing that Solomon had control of that city (I Kings 9:15). Unfortunately, several good revisionist historians, ignoring Dean Hickman’s work, have identified this Jabin with the one at the time of Joshua (11:1), thereby throwing their revisions right out of kilter, by about half a millennium. Jabin was a generic name for rulers of Hazor, and there was another such Canaanite king at the time of Deborah (Judges 4). King Solomon may have taken the name as well when he gained control of Hazor. Or, this Jabin may have been another Canaanite king under that name whom Solomon conquered. The Mari Letters do not name places further south than this, so any reference to Solomon may have associated him with one of his northern cities (closer to Mari), rather than to Jerusalem much further to the south. Of more pressing interest to me, though, was that there was a king with a David-like name, who was, again like King David, an opponent of Shamsi-Adad I (Hadadezer). The name David means “Beloved”: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/David.html I refer to a King of Eshnunna, Naram-Sin (“Beloved of” the Lord) – the Syrians interchanged Sin and El. Even closer to David’s name was Dadusha of Eshnunna of the same approximate era. Hence, I badly wanted Eshnunna re-situated from Sumer to the region of Jerusalem. The trouble was that Eshnunna seemed firmly situated in Central Mesopotamia, to the north of so-called Sumer. But that was not to be the end of the story. I had, in my university thesis (2007) distinguished between two forts named Ashdod, the well-known coastal one belonging to the Philistines, known in Sargon II’s Annals as Ashdudimmu, “Ashdod-by-the-Sea”, and another Ashdod that Sargon II’s General (Turtan) captured (Isaiah 20:1), which I determined to have been the famous Lachish. It needs to be noted that Lachish was second in importance to Jerusalem itself: https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/31/4/8 “Among cities in ancient Judah, Lachish was second only to Jerusalem in importance. A principal Canaanite and, later, Israelite site, Lachish occupied a major tell (mound) 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem, nestled in the foothills of Judah (the region known as the Shephelah)”. Eventually it struck me that my combination, Ashdod-Lachish, had to be the supposed Sumerian combination of Eshnunna-Lagash. (Friend Robert R. Salverda, at the same time, had come to the conclusion that Lagash was Lachish). Now, with Eshnunna as Ashdudda (merely requiring an n and d interchange), or Ashdod (Lachish), then Dadusha king of Eshnunna could certainly be King David. Thanks to Dean Hickman’s revision, Dadusha was now an approximate contemporary of King David. But why Lachish and not Jerusalem for David (Dadusha)? Well, it is an indication of the importance of Lachish. However, some Sumeriologists think that Lagash was not the capital, but that Girsu, the religious centre, actually was. The religious centre, Girsu, therefore, with Lagash secondary to it, must be Jerusalem. This has since led me to the realisation that the land of Sumer, so-called, needs to be de-nuded of some of its most famous names. Places that seemingly just drop out of history. That is because they did not belong there in the first place: A new location proposed for Sumer (3) A new location proposed for Sumer | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Seth Richardson, refers to them as ‘falling off the political map’. Thus I wrote on this: Amazingly - though not really surprisingly under the circumstances - Lagash and Girsu seem to ‘fall permanently off the political map’, according to Seth Richardson (and that is because they do not belong on this map): Ningirsu returns to his plow: Lagaš and Girsu take leave of Ur (2008) (5) Ningirsu returns to his plow: Lagaš and Girsu take leave of Ur (2008) | Seth Richardson - Academia.edu The Ur III state came to its end through a series of passive defections of individual provinces over the course of about twenty years, rather than by any single catastrophic event. This pattern of defections is nowhere better reflected than in the gradual progression of provinces abandoning the use of Ibbi-Sîn’s year names over his years 2–8. Among the cities that fell away from the control of Ur in those years were Girsu and Lagaš, where Ur III year names are not attested after Ibbi-Sîn’s sixth year. …. Like Puzriš-Dagān and Umma (but unlike Larsa, Uruk, Isin, and Nippur), these cities seemingly fell permanently off the political map of lower Mesopotamia following their departure from Ur’s control, never again the seat of significant institutional life to judge by the low number of texts and inscriptions coming from the sites. At the same time, it is difficult to assert from evidence that any hardship or conflict either precipitated or resulted from Lagaš-Girsu’s decamping from Ur’s authority; no especial difficulty marks the event. …. [End of quote] Considering that Puzrish-Dagan and Umma likewise fall off the map, we may need now to begin critically examining these two places as well. …. I would distinguish between the well-known [Sumerian] Uruk and the Urukku seemingly associated with Girsu (my Jerusalem) as its sanctuary. (Ur, Uruk, appear to have been very common ancient names, widely distributed). Also to be distinguished, in this context, are the [Sumerian] Ur and the home of Abram, “Ur of the Chaldees”, which is Urfa (Şanliurfa) in SE Turkey, far from Sumer. Finally, given my view (and that of others) that Jerusalem was the same site as the antediluvian Garden of Eden, then the Gu-Edin (Guedena) over which the king of Lagash, Eannatum (yet to be identified), and the king of Umma, fought, could perhaps be a reference to the region of Jerusalem (or some place closely associated with it). [End of quotes] …. King Dadusha’s famous stele, honouring the god, Adad, might lead one to think that David (if Dadusha) was an idolater. But some think that this stele would have been set up, instead, by Dadusha’s son, Ibal-pi-el, who must then be King Solomon himself, who did apostatise, and who did build polytheistic and idolatrous shrines (I Kings 11:1-13). Or, it might simply be that the god, Adad, was the best name representation for the God of Israel in that SE part of the ancient world. Some commentators suggest that King David, rather than Hadadezer, set up his boundary stele, at the Euphrates (2 Samuel 8:3): “Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he [meaning David] went to restore his monument at the Euphrates River”. King Solomon I have most tentatively identified King Solomon above with Jabin king of Hazor (the Mari Letters). And, somewhat more confidently, with Ibal-pi-el of Eshnunna. Most confidently, I have identified King Solomon, in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt, as Senenmut, adviser (consort?) to the female pharaoh, Hatshepsut. See e.g. my article: Solomon and Sheba (3) Solomon and Sheba | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu I also suggested in this article that the sage king Solomon has been appropriated by the Greeks as the Athenian statesman (using Hebrew laws, no less), Solon. Senenmut is often considered by historians to have been ‘the real power behind the throne’ of Egypt. Conventional historians, however, have no hope whatsoever of identifying any of the above characters (presuming any of them be legitimate) with King Solomon. To do so, they would need to cross geographical boundaries and timelines. Thus: C18th BC Syro-Palestine, as Jabin of Hazor and/or Ibal-pi-el of Eshnunna. C15th BC Egypt, as Senenmut during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Not to mention C11th BC Jerusalem, as the biblical King Solomon. Naturally, this throws into absolute chaos the conventional archaeology. And so we get puerile statements by the likes of Israeli professor Israel Finkelstein: “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” (Draper, R., “Kings of Controversy”, National Geographic, December 2010, p. 85). Doubtlessly, there will be other intriguing manifestations of the great king as well, including possibly in a pseudo AD ‘history’ (Charlemagne?, Suleiman?). Now, with Lagash re-identified as the Judean Lachish, then a supposedly much earlier character of note emerges as a prime candidate for King Solomon the Temple builder. I refer to: Gudea ensi of Lagash We now have to locate ourselves back in c. 2100 BC, although the dating of Gudea is almost as liquid as has been that of Hammurabi of Babylon. Gudea is variously dated to c. 2144-2124 BC (middle chronology), or c. 2080–2060 BC (short chronology). I am going to date him closer to c. 950 BC – about 1200 years lower than the earliest conventional estimate for him. “Parallels between Gudea’s and Solomon’s account include … taxing the people; costly imports; divine word requiring obedience; detailed description of opulent furnishings; consecration; installation of divine majesty into temple; speech by ruler at consecration imploring divine bounty; specification of ruler’s offering …”. Diane M. Sharon Having the ancient city of Lagash (var. Lakish) rudely transferred from deep in Sumer, so-called, to be re-located 1300-plus km (as I estimate it) westwards, as the fort of Lachish, as I have proposed to be necessary in articles such as: As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish, so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash (7) As Ashduddu (Ashdod) is to Lachish, so, likewise, is Eshnunna to Lagash | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu then it comes as no surprise - in fact, I would have expected it - to learn that Gudea’s Temple hymn has Jewish resonances. It just remains to be determined with which prominent Jewish builder, Gudea – {a name that looks like Judea, but supposedly means: “the messenger or the one called by the god, or “the receiver of revelation”, meaning “the prophet”} – may have been. Diane M. Sharon, who has dated the era of Gudea about a millennium too early, has nevertheless written most interestingly at the beginning of her 1996 article, “A Biblical Parallel to a Sumerian Temple Hymn? Ezekiel 40–48 and Gudea”: Ezekiel’s remarkably detailed vision of the future temple as described in chapters 40–48 is unique in Biblical literature. …. However, it bears undeniable resemblance to the ancient Near Eastern genre of Sumerian temple hymns, and to one example in particular. …. This example, commonly referred to as the Gudea Cylinders, was written at about 2125 B.C.E. to commemorate the building of a temple to the god Ningirsu by Gudea, king of Lagash. …. It recounts a vision received by Gudea in a dream, in which he is shown the plan and dimensions of the temple he is to build. While in fundamental ways these texts are quite different, this paper will focus on the common features of theme, structure, and detail shared by these two documents. We will focus first on the major themes which are common to Ezekiel and Gudea, addressing especially the association of the temple with abundance, and particularly with water as a symbol of fertility associated with the temple. We will also address a second theme in common, the concern with gradations of purification and consecration. Ezekiel’s vision of the restored temple is the culmination of his prophetic mission, which spanned more than twenty years during the sixth century B.C.E. …. The burden of his message in most of his book is the inevitability of the destruction of Jerusalem, the death of most of Judah’s inhabitants, and the scattering of the pitiful remainder. …. But from the time God tells Ezekiel to watch for a refugee bearing the news of Jerusalem’s downfall, Ezekiel begins to prophesy against Israel’s enemies. …. While his message can never be described as comforting, Ezekiel does convey hope as he begins at this point to sketch the outlines of an Israel restored to her land with a new heart and a new spirit for the honor of her God (37:22, 26–28, 32). Ezekiel’s final chapters, dazzling in their graphic description of the divine majesty re-establishing residence in the magnificent re-sanctified precincts of a rebuilt temple, conclude with an unmistakable allusion to fertility and abundance (47:9–12). In notably parallel circumstances [sic], Gudea’s temple-building occurs toward the end of the seventy- or eighty-year domination of Sumer by a people known as the Gutians. …. The Gutian invasion, described in the Sumerian lament, “The Curse of Agade,” … resulted in dire famine for Sumer, with “misery, want, death and desolation thus threatening to overwhelm practically all ‘mankind fashioned by Enlil’.” …. After these decades of oppression, the Sumerian people experience a renewal. Gudea builds a temple at the direction of the storm god Ningirsu. …. The temple’s construction and consecration represent the presence of the god’s blessings of abundance among the people … and may indeed have the same “redemptive” implications as Ezekiel’s visionary temple, that of a people rebuilt at long last after devastation by an invader and many years of foreign oppression. …. For Gudea, the temple is a sign of the divine presence, bringing with it abundance. …. Ningirsu promises: …. …. When to my house, the house honored in all lands, the right arm of Lagash, the thunderbird roaring on the horizon— Eninnu, my kingly house, O able shepherd Gudea, you put effectively the hand for me, I shall call up a rain … that from above it bring for you abundance; and the people may spread hands with you on the abundance. May with the laying of the foundations of my house abundance come! …. It is interesting that in both texts at least part of the promised abundance takes the metaphoric form of being showered from above. In fact, an important parallel between the two works is the repetition of all types of water images, many associated with fertility, and some—notably thunderstorms and water flowing from the earth— also associated with the appearance of the divinity. In the Sumerian hymn, water images abound. The overflow of the river signals to Gudea that the god wants something of him. …. Gudea floats down the river in a barge, seeking the clarifying oracle and stopping at different stages on the way to appease the tutelary gods with bread and libations of clear water. …. The clan (area) of the goddess Nanshe, another divinity invoked in Gudea’s dream, is described as “superabundant waters spreading abundance,” i7-mah a-diri hé-gál-bi pàr-pàr. …. Repeatedly, the heart of a god is referred to as a flood, or as a river overflowing. …. And the god Ningirsu, himself the personification of the thundercloud and the overflowing river, is invoked with unmistakable references to waters of fertility. …. In the final chapters of Ezekiel, YHWH, too, partakes of this image of divine abundance associated with water, though to be sure the associations are attenuated and not always clear-cut. For example, in Ezekiel’s second vision of theophany, the sound of God’s voice is compared to the sound of “the voice of mighty waters,” … (43:2). Ezekiel compares this theophany to his first experience many years before, both specifically located by the river Chebar. …. But by far the most dramatic water image in the book of Ezekiel is manifestly associated with fertility and abundance: that of the river issuing from beneath the visionary temple in 47:1–12. Moshe Greenberg remarks that Ezekiel’s celestial architect leads Ezekiel from the modest origin of the spring and measures its growth into “an unfordable river after a 4,000-cubit flow through a desert!” …. Greenberg is impressed with the connection between this flow of water and miraculous abundance, and notes: This vision specifically connects Temple and fertility and singles out for transformation the most barren tract of land—the wilderness of Judah—and the body of water most inhospitable to life, the Dead Sea, a dramatic exhibition of God’s beneficent presence in the temple. …. Raphael Patai is also impressed by this association between the temple and fertility, and he was the first to make this particular connection between Ezekiel’s vision and Gudea’s temple. …. Both Gudea and Ezekiel are deeply concerned with purification. …. All those who are “impure” … are banished from Gudea’s city, and the king consecrates the city and the ground on which he will build his temple with fire and with incense. …. In a sense, for Ezekiel, the people will have already been purified by an ordeal by fire in the destruction and exile. Nevertheless, purification and gradations of holiness are still a major concern of Ezekiel’s, never more apparent than in this vision of the Temple rebuilt. According to Greenberg, the very design of Ezekiel’s visionary Temple reflects the prophet’s focus upon sanctity. Greenberg comments that: …. The Temple proper expresses gradation of holiness by the successively narrowing entrances to its inner parts. Along the border between the two courts rooms and zones are appointed for activities which if not properly contained might violate the grades of holiness. God’s blessing follows closely upon the consecration of the temple. Once the temple is completed and the degrees of holiness are appropriately defined and contained in their designated locations within the visionary edifice, the full abundance which seems contingent on proper sanctification bursts forth in the form of the spring of water emerging from the south side of the altar. …. Gudea’s god also makes abundance contingent upon the completion of the temple, and the Sumerians enjoy gradually increasing abundance as the temple construction progresses. For Gudea’s people, abundance begins from the moment the foundation of the temple is laid; … and, of course, when the temple is completed, abundance rains down and is also raised from the earth in the form of grain. …. It is possible to view the gradually increasing abundance which follows the progress of building Gudea’s temple as an expression of the same idea in a different metaphor as the abundance which follows the carefully designated degrees of holiness embodied in the design of Ezekiel’s visionary temple. The divine command in both instances is for an edifice which expresses in its design (in Ezekiel’s case) or in its process of construction (in Gudea’s case) the idea of progressive sanctification. Upon the achievement of the final sanctification in both cases, the divine blessing of abundance pours forth in the form of fertilizing water. In addition to these two major themes of, first, associating temple with both water and abundance, and, second, preoccupation with degrees of sanctity, the structural pattern of the temple vision in Ezekiel shares much in common with the structure of the Gudea hymn. …. Let us first summarize the common structural pattern, and then we will examine specific details. The common structural pattern consists of seven points: 1) annunciation to the seer in a vision or a dream of the divine desire to have a temple built; …. 2) a precise blueprint received in an altered state of consciousness at the hand of a divine “architectural assistant”; 3) concern throughout with purification, consecration, and ritual/ cultic renewal; 4) installation of the divine majesty into the completed edifice; 5) assignment of specific duties to designated temple personnel; 6) ultimate consecration of the temple for service to the divinity; followed, finally, by 7) the divine blessing in the form of abundance expressed in water imagery. The idea of a cosmogonic pattern for temple archetypes is recurrent in the critical literature of comparative mythology … and has been seen in biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature as well. …. Several of the points outlined in the scholarly literature as they relate to food narratives or to edifice construction in Mesopotamian and Biblical literature apply as well to the accounts we have been considering in Ezekiel and Gudea, specifically, the associations among temple, water, and abundance; the divine request for a temple as conveyed to a king or priest; the requirement for cultic purification; and the celebration of a recurring annual ritual of re-consecration. …. Taken together with other scholarly studies on temple models of the ancient Near East reflected in Hebrew scripture … the correspondences among so many sacred constructions from so many different, though related, cultures in the ancient Near East suggest an implicit, if not explicit, paradigm for the structure and function of “Temple” that was operative over a long period and at many levels. The several biblical accounts that correspond to this hypothetical model may be adduced as evidence that Hebrew scribes and prophets were familiar with this genre and incorporated it into their writings. Before proceeding to consideration of our third task, the examination of parallels in the details of the two texts, it is worthwhile noting that the structure and details of Gudea’s building program also bear great resemblance to other temple construction accounts in the Bible, specifically Solomon’s activity described in 1 Kgs. 5:1–9:9 and Hezekiah’s reconstruction and repair of the temple outlined in 2 Chronicles 29–31. While a deeper analysis must wait, a summary of the parallels might be illuminating for the reader of the present paper. Parallels between Gudea’s and Solomon’s account include: … taxing the people; costly imports; divine word requiring obedience; detailed description of opulent furnishings; consecration; installation of divine majesty into temple; speech by ruler at consecration imploring divine bounty; specification of ruler’s offering; feast of seven days; and divine exhortation to moral and ethical behavior by ruler and subjects. …. Urukagina, first reformer, or C8th BC ruler of Jerusalem? we needed to go as far back as c. 2100 BC, conventional dating, to find King Solomon as Gudea, the famous ensi (governor) of Lagash, or Lakish (= Lachish). Then we needed to slide down the artificial timeline by a further three centuries, approximately, to find King Solomon now at c. 1780 BC, as Ibal-pi-el (so-called) II, the son of Dadusha (King David), and supposed nephew of Naram-Sin (also King David). These were kings of Eshnunna, which, again, is (another name for) Lagash (Lachish). As I have explained before, Ashdod (Ashdudda)/Lachish - is - Eshnunna/Lagash. Another most notable historical occupant of Lagash was one Urukagina. To find him in the text books, we need to go all the way back to the virtual beginnings of recorded history, to c. 2400 BC, approximating to the time of King Sargon of Akkad. However, if Urukagina was in control of Lachish in SW Judah (Shephelah) - which location I believe that Lagash was - then there is every good chance, indeed, that Urukagina (just like Gudea) will have a biblical identity. Who, then, was this Urukagina? To find him, things now become really radical and somewhat complicated. An Explanatory Note: My earlier effort to write this article, with Urukagina of Lagash there identified as the chief official of King Hezekiah of Judah, namely, Eliakim son of Hilkiah - whom I had further identified as the Akhimiti of Sargon II of Assyria’s Annals, to whom the Assyrians gave rulership over “Ashdod”, my Lachish (= Lagash) - began to come unstuck when I realised that Urukagina, formerly an ensi (governor), was later being referred to as Lugal, meaning “King” (literally “Big Man”). This term was most unlikely applicable to Eliakim/Akhimiti, despite his apparent prominence. Part One: Urukagina identified Previously I had written: To find Urukagina, we need to scroll down a massive (2400 – 700 =) 1700 years, approximately, to the era of Sargon II, whose era was far distant from Sargon of Akkad. For Urukagina was, as we shall determine, a High Priest official of King Hezekiah of Judah, at the time of Sargon II/Sennacherib of Assyria (c. 700 BC, standard dating). I propose to match Urukagina with Eliakim son of Hilkiah, generally thought to have been King Hezekiah’s Major Domo, but who was actually the High Priest. For more on this, see e.g. my article: Hezekiah’s Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest (5) Hezekiah's Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Before we can proceed any further, though, I need to add a further crucial dimension to Eliakim son of Hilkiah from the contemporary Assyrian records. In my university thesis (2007), I tentatively identified Eliakim with Akhimiti, whom Sargon II established at “Ashdod” (Lachish) after he had deposed the rebellious Azuri. Akhimiti (Mitinti) of Ashdod Here follows the dramatic sequence of events at Lachish as we learn about them in the records of the Assyrian king, Sargon II/Sennacherib, following Charles Boutflower (The Book of Isaiah, Chapters I-XXXIX, in Light of the Assyrian Monuments, London, Soc. for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1930). I wrote this in my thesis (Volume One, pp. 156-158): Was it that Sargon II - hence, that Sennacherib - had instead referred to Lachish by the descriptive title of ‘Ashdod’, whose capture Sargon covers in detail? Let us now follow Boutflower in his reconstruction of this somewhat complex campaign, referring to the fragment Sm. 2022 of Sargon’s Annals, which he calls “one particularly precious morsel”: The longer face [of this fragment] ... has a dividing line drawn across it near the bottom. Immediately below this line, and somewhat to the left, there can be seen with the help of a magnifying-glass a group of nine cuneiform indentations arranged in three parallel horizontal rows. Even the uninitiated will easily understand that we have here a representation of the number “9”. It is this figure, then, which gives to the fragment its special interest, for it tells us, as I am about to show, “the year that the Tartan came unto Ashdod”. Boutflower now moves on to the focal point of Assyria’s concerns: mighty ‘Ashdod’: The second difficulty in Sm. 2022 is connected with the mention of Ashdod in the part below the dividing line. According to the reckoning of time adopted on this fragment something must have happened at Ashdod at the beginning of Sargon’s ninth year, i.e. at the beginning of the tenth year, the year 712 BC, according to the better-known reckoning of the Annals. Now, when we turn to the Annals and examine the record of this tenth year, we find no mention whatever of Ashdod. Not till we come to the second and closing portion of the record for the eleventh year do we meet with the account of the famous campaign against that city. What, then, is the solution to this second difficulty Boutflower asks? And he answers this as follows: Simply this: that the mention of Ashdod on the fragment Sm. 2022 does not refer to the siege of that town, which, as just stated, forms the second and closing event in the record of the following year, but in all probability does refer to the first of those political events which led up to the siege, viz. the coming of the Tartan to Ashdod. To make this plain, I will now give the different accounts of the Ashdod imbroglio found in the inscriptions of Sargon, beginning with the one in the Annals (lines 215-228) already referred to, which runs thus: “Azuri king of Ashdod, not to bring tribute his heart was set, and to the kings in his neighbourhood proposals of rebellion against Assyria he sent. Because of the evil he did, over the men of his land I changed his lordship. Akhimiti his own brother, to sovereignty over them I appointed. The Khatte [Hittites], plotting rebellion, hated his lordship; and Yatna, who had no title to the throne, who, like themselves, the reverence due to my lordship did not acknowledge, they set up over them. In the wrath of my heart, riding in my war-chariot, with my cavalry, who do not retreat from the place whither I turn my hands, to Ashdod, his royal city, I marched in haste. Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath?], Ashdudimmu … I besieged and captured. …”. Typical Assyrian war records! Boutflower shows how they connect right through to Sargon’s Year 11, which both he and Tadmor date to 711 BC: The above extract forms ... the second and closing portion of the record given in the Annals under Sargon’s 11th year, 711 BC., the earlier portion of the record for that year being occupied with the account of the expedition against Mutallu of Gurgum. In the Grand Inscription of Khorsabad we meet with a very similar account, containing a few fresh particulars. The usurper Yatna, i.e. “the Cypriot”, is there styled Yamani, “the Ionian”, thus showing that he was a Greek. We are also told that he fled away to Melukhkha on the border of Egypt, but was thrown into chains by the Ethiopian king and despatched to Assyria. .... In order to effect the deposition of the rebellious Azuri, and set his brother Akhimiti on the throne, Sargon sent forth an armed force to Ashdod. It is in all probablity the despatch of such a force, and the successful achievement of the end in view, which were recorded in the fragment Sm. 2022 below the dividing line. As Isa xx.1 informs us - and the statement, as we shall presently see, can be verified from contemporary sources - this first expedition was led by the Tartan. Possibly this may be the reason why it was not thought worthy to be recorded in the Annals under Sargon’s tenth year, 712 BC. But when we come to the eleventh year, 711 BC, and the annalist very properly and suitably records the whole series of events leading up to the siege, two things at once strike us: first, that all these events could not possibly have happened in the single year 711 BC; and secondly, as stated above, that a force must have previously been despatched at the beginning of the troubles to accomplish the deposition of Azuri and the placing of Akhimiti on the throne. On the retirement of this force sedition must again have broken out in Ashdod, for it appears that the anti-Assyrian party were able, after a longer or shorter interval, once more to get the upper hand, to expel Akhimiti, and to set up in his stead a Greek adventurer, Yatna-Yamani. The town was then strongly fortified, and surrounded by a moat. It is at about this stage, Year 11, that Sargon was stirred into action: Meanwhile, the news of what was going on at Ashdod appears to have reached the Great King at the beginning of his eleventh year, according to the reckoning of the annalist .... So enraged was Sargon that, without waiting to collect a large force, he started off at once with a picked body of cavalry, crossed those rivers in flood, and marched with all speed to the disaffected province. Such at least is his own account; but I shall presently adduce reasons which lead one to think that he did not reach Ashdod as speedily as we might expect from the description of his march, but stopped on his way to put down a revolt in the country of Gurgum. In thus hastening to the West Sargon tells us that he was urged on by intelligence that the whole of Southern Syria, including Judah, Edom, and Moab, as well as Philistia, was ripe for revolt, relying on ample promises of support from Pharaoh king of Egypt. We find, as we switch to what I believe to be Sennacherib’s corresponding campaign (his Third Campaign) to discover how Assyria dealt with the Egyptian factor, that a ringleader in this sedition was king Hezekiah himself: The officials, nobles and people of Ekron, who had thrown Padi, their king, bound by (treaty to) Assyria, into fetters of iron and had given him over to Hezekiah, the Jew (Iaudai), - he kept him in confinement like an enemy, - they (lit., their heart) became afraid and called upon the Egyptian kings, the bowmen, chariots and horse of the king of Meluh-ha (Ethiopia), a countless host, and these came to their aid. In the neighborhood of the city of Altakû (Eltekeh), their ranks being drawn up before me, they offered battle. (Trusting) in the aid of Assur, my lord, I fought with them and brought about their defeat. The Egyptian charioteers and princes, together with the charioteers of the Ethiopian king, my hands took alive in the midst of the battle. Charles Boutflower was able to deduce from the record of Sargon’s Year 10 what he considered to have been the reason why the first expedition against ‘Ashdod’ was led, not by Sargon in person, but by his ‘Turtan’. This was because “Sargon was busy over his darling scheme, the decoration of the new palace at Dur-Sargon. … It was with this object in view that Sargon remained “in the land”, i.e. at home, during the year 712, entrusting the first expedition to Ashdod to his Tartan, as stated in Isa xx.1”. Boutflower’s detailed chronological reconstruction of the events associated with the siege of ‘Ashdod’ seems to be right in line with Tadmor’s more recent, and more clipped, reconstruction of the same events. …. [End of quotes] This series of dramatic incidents will be what I think are right at the forefront of what we read about Urukagina and the invasions of his time (see Part Two). Next, I attempted to identify the succession of officials at Ashdod, as named in the Annals of Sargon II, with leading figures during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah (thesis, pp. 161-162): Now if Sargon’s ‘Ashdod’ really were Lachish as I am proposing here, and his war were therefore being brought right into king Hezekiah’s Judaean territory, then we might even hold out some hope of being able to identify, with Hezekian officials, the succession of rulers of ‘Ashdod’ whom Sargon names. I refer to Azuri, Yatna-Yamani and Akhimiti. The first and the last of these names are Hebrew. The middle ones, Yatna-Yamani, are generally thought to be Greek-related, as we saw above; but Tadmor supports the view of Winckler and others that Yamani at least “was of local Palestinian origin”; being likely the equivalent of either Imnâ or Imna‛. …. Hezekiah had, much to Assyria’s fury, enlarged the territory of his kingdom by absorbing Philistia, and had placed captains over key cities. This would no doubt have included those governors with Jewish names in the Philistine cities. Thus Sennacherib, as we saw, refers to a Padi (Pedaiah) in Ekron and a Tsidqa (Zedekiah) in Ashkelon. As for Lachish, we could expect that the king of Jerusalem might have entrusted to only a very high official the responsibility of so important a fort. I propose to identify Sargon’s: • AzURI with the high priest URIah … most notably in the time of Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz (2 Kings 16:10-11; cf. Isaiah 8:1-4); • YatNA with the ill-fated ShebNA … of Hezekiah’s time; and • AKHI-Miti (Azuri’s brother) with Hezekiah’s chief official, EliAKIM …. Akhi-miti correspondingly appears as Mitinti (thought to be Hebrew, Mattaniah … as the ruler of ‘Ashdod’ in Sennacherib’s Third Campaign account. [End of quote] Here I am primarily interested in Eliakim as Akhimiti (Mitinti), and, potentially, now, as Urukagina. The prophet Jeremiah The final piece to be fitted into the jigsaw will be to recall my further identification of Eliakim son of Hilkiah with the great prophet Jeremiah son of Hilkiah (of numerous other alter egos as well), the latter being so vital - as I hope to show - towards the proper understanding of Urukagina of Lagash and his great teachings of reform. For the Eliakim/Jeremiah connection, see e.g. my article: Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest (5) Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu This fusion, Eliakim/Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, can be achieved only with my radical identification of the reforming King Hezekiah of Judah with the reforming King Josiah of Judah. This connection is perhaps best explained in my article: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (5) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu I hope to be able to show that Jeremiah (also Eliakim) son of Hilkiah matches very well with Urukagina of Lagash and Girsu (my Jerusalem), whose famous laws and reforms (inspiring, along with Isaiah, the great Reformation of King Hezekiah/Josiah) will be found to have been later Judean, rather than most ancient Sumerian. * * * * * While a lot of the above still holds good - for example the revised era and geography, the great Reform of the time - it now seems that Urukagina himself, though, as Lugal, “King”, is far more likely to have been the reforming King of Jerusalem at the time, rather than his reform-urging prophet and potential governor of Lachish. Let us reconsider our main character, Urukagina, now as Lugal. Taking the following account of Urukagina from the Sumerian Shakespeare: http://sumerianshakespeare.com/70701/77001.html I shall be adding some pertinent comments to test whether Urukagina can make an adequate reforming King of Judah. A Sumerian king. There are no known images of Urukagina. This terra cotta figure is from the city of Ur and is dated in a later period. The king carries a shepherd's flail, a symbol of authority, and he stands before an offering table. He wears a shepherd's hat, the crown of a Sumerian king. Mackey’s (previous) comment: Urukagina is also called ensi (governor) of the city of Lagash. Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, is wrongly thought to have been Major Domo when, in fact, he was the High Priest. This office may possibly be indicated by the symbols above, “shepherd's flail … and he stands before an offering table”. Urukagina reigned for seven years in the city of Lagash, sometime around 2375 B.C. (Sumerian dates are never very certain). The pronunciation of his name is Uru-ka-gina, though he is also known as Iri-ka-gina and Uru-inim-gina. His signature is shown at the bottom of the page [at the end of this article]. Mackey’s comment: “… 2375 B.C.” The era c. 2400 BC (as a round number) is more befitting of the time of the Great Genesis (Noachic) Flood. As the ensi (ruler, governor) of the city of Lagash, he followed a long line of powerful monarchs that began with Ur-Nanshe and continued for several generations with Eannatum and Enmetena. During recent years, however, the power and prestige of Lagash seemed to be on the decline. Mackey’s comment: The correct order, and identifications, of these governors of Lagash (if that is what they all were), Ur-Nanshe, Eannatum and Enmetana, may need now seriously to be re-assessed. Urukagina may not have been of royal descent, since he did not assume the rulership by the normal means of royal succession and he never signed himself as dumu, "son of," which seems to indicate his father was not a high-ranking nobleman with a title worth mentioning. …. Mackey’s (previous) comment: If Urukagina was a High Priest, then he - while not being of the royal line - would, nonetheless, have been a man of the greatest distinction. Urukagina’s immediate predecessor was ensi Lugalanda, who had a reputation for greed and corruption. Lugalanda seized control of the most important temples, those of the gods Ningirsu and Shulshagana and the goddess Bau. He placed them under the administration of an official that he appointed who was not, as formerly the case, a priest. Lugalanda also appointed himself, his wife Baranamtarra, and other family members, as administrators of the temples. He referred to the temples as the private property of the ensi. He no longer mentioned the names of deities in temple documents and he levied taxes on the priesthood. Lugalanda and his wife became the largest landholders in the region. His wife shared in the ensi’s power, managing her own private estates and those of the Bau temple. She sent diplomatic missions to neighboring states and she bought and sold slaves. (source: "The Creation of Patriarchy," by Gerda Lerner) Mackey’s (previous) comment: Lugalanda would presumably be the rebellious Azuri of the Assyrian records, who may also have been the corrupt priest, Uriah, at the time of King Ahaz of Judah. Nepotism appears to have been rife. Mackey’s (revised) comment: Lugalanda would likely have been the corrupt and idolatrous king, Ahaz of Judah. Tensions between the ensi and the community increased. On his foundation cones (below) Urukagina describes the prevailing conditions for the common people. Their boats were seized by the chief of the boatmen. Their sheep were appropriated by the head herdsman, and their fish stores were confiscated by the fisheries inspector. The “men of the ensi” cut down the orchards of the poor and they conscripted workers to labor in their fields. Court officials were “everywhere.” The ensi took the best land for himself and used the sacred oxen from the temples to plow his fields. The temple officials were also greedy and corrupt. They charged excessive fees to perform their religious rituals and to bury the dead. They took bribes, levied onerous taxes which they shared with the ensi, and they likewise used the temple oxen to plow their fields. Although these conditions had existed to some degree since time immemorial (“from distant days”) they seemed to become much worse during the reign of Lugalanda. Mackey’s (previous) comment: This is pure Jeremiah, and examples could be greatly multiplied. Here is just one relevant comment: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-16-2/commentary-on-jeremiah-231-6-7 Jeremiah’s critique of leaders is born from his compassion for the people. “Woe!” This passage begins with the cry that marks an oracle of destruction. It is a hook that the audience can’t ignore. Corrupt leadership Jeremiah has his eye fixed in particular on the leaders: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” (Jeremiah 23:1). The shepherd is a common ancient metaphor for leaders, and for kings in particular. That leaders bear more responsibility than their people for social fate and for social injustice is a view shared by the prophet Ezekiel, who employs this same metaphor to speak of the exile of Judah in Babylon (Ezekiel 34). There is a persistent ethical thread throughout the Hebrew Bible: God requires the community to be ruled with justice and righteousness, which is manifested in the treatment of the alien, the orphan, and the widow (Jeremiah 22:3-4). But rulers who seek their own fortune, who expand their houses and enrich their coffers at the expense of the poor are in egregious violation of God’s covenant, and will be held accountable (Jeremiah 22:13-17). In the contemporary context, political and religious leaders give us ample opportunity to consider how corruption at the highest levels leads to the increasing devastation of the poor and the marginalized. Recent White House policies aimed at deterring immigration are separating immigrant families at the United States borders. The trauma this poses for children and their families is an example of a breach of care for the alien and the poor. In this passage, the social disintegration of the exile at the hands of the Babylonian empire is the responsibility of rulers: “It is you [shepherds] who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and have not attended to them” (Jeremiah 23:2). The prophet wrestles with the question of who is to blame for suffering and political trauma, and offers two answers: It is you [shepherds] who have driven them into exile (Jeremiah 23:2) and it is I [God] who have driven them into exile (Jeremiah 23:3). There is a poetic cadence to this repetition that on the one hand holds corrupt leadership accountable for their oppression of the poor, but also insists that it is God who is ultimately powerful. This is a tension that Jeremiah carefully holds. …. Mackey’s (revised) comment: Urukagina would be King Hezekiah (Josiah) of Judah, whose extensive reforms were inspired by the prophets, Micah (= Zephaniah); Isaiah; and Eliakim/Jeremiah. …. Urukagina claimed he was acting on behalf of boatmen, shepherds, fisherman and farmers, and he implied he was aided by the priests. The priesthood of Lagash had always been very influential, but if the temple officials thought they were playing the role of “king maker” by bringing Urukagina to power, they would later have cause to regret it. Urukagina, ensi of Lagash. The examples of cuneiform writing on this page are from tablets and from clay "tags" that were used to identify various statues. The statues themselves were destroyed long ago in the many wars that occurred in the region. … Urukagina soon set about making some changes. He dismissed many corrupt officials, the chief boatmen, head herdsmen and fishery inspectors who had seized private property. He confiscated the estates of the ensi and placed them under the jurisdiction of the gods (i.e., the temples). Urukagina removed many court officials, including supervisors who controlled the grain tax. He dismissed the priests who had taken bribes and the temple administrators who had shared tax revenues with the ensi. Mackey’s comment: Ultimately, it would be the Lord himself who would set about the removal of the corrupt and the sinful ones (e.g., Jeremiah 8:1-15): ‘At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshiped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground. Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life, declares the LORD Almighty.’ Sin and Punishment Say to them, ‘This is what the LORD says: “‘When people fall down, do they not get up? When someone turns away, do they not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the LORD. ‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the LORD. ‘I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them’. Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the LORD our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him. We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there is only terror. Then Urukagina set limits on the amount that the priests could collect for their religious rituals and their fees for burying the dead. He cancelled debt slavery and declared a general amnesty for the citizens of Lagash, even for criminals, even for thieves and murderers (“their prison he cleared out”). Last but not least, he provided charity for the poor and the elderly. In all of these actions Urukagina claimed he was directed by the gods. Mackey’s comment: “… directed by the gods”. Originally, by God. Comparative examples of Jeremiah’s concern for the poor could be multiplied. E.g. Jeremiah 2:26, 34-35; 5:26-31: As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the people of Israel are disgraced— they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets. …. On your clothes is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Yet in spite of all this you say, ‘I am innocent; he is not angry with me.’ Among my people are the wicked who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch people. Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?” declares the Lord. “Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end? Mackey’s comment: This also wonderfully reflects the sweeping religious and socio-political/economic reform of Judah’s greatest king after David, Hezekiah/Josiah: https://loandbeholdbible.com/2021/11/08/king-josiah-the-religious-reformer/ “A son will be born to the house of David by the name of Josiah.” (1 Kings 13:2) Josiah may not be that widely known, but along with Hezekiah, he was one of Judah’s most saintly kings. Like Christ, his birth was prophesied hundreds of years beforehand (1 Kings 13:1-2). He brought religious reform to his kingdom, restored worship at the Temple of Jerusalem, publicly read the Scriptures and defended the poor and needy (2 Chronicles 34:1-3,8, 29-33; Jeremiah 22:16). The Second Book of Kings says: “There had never before been any king like him nor will there ever be one after him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and all his soul and all his might according to the law of Moses.” (2 Kings 23:25) He was one of the last kings to reign before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians and the people were driven into exile. Josiah not only served God from the heart, but he also led his nation to conversion. As Scripture later says: “He followed the right course by reforming the people and eliminating loathsome and abominable practices. He kept his heart fixed on God, and in lawless times he made godliness prevail.” (Sirach 49:2-3) All of these reforms were carefully recorded on Urukagina’s cones and tablets to ensure that “the orphan or widow to the powerful will not be subjugated.” Urukagina's “Liberty Cones” are the world’s first documented effort to establish the basic legal rights of citizens. Mackey’s comment: This last comment, I would suggest, is quite false. Urukagina’s reform was simply a renewed implementation of the Mosaïc charter written almost a millennium earlier. Some of the credit must go to Enmetena’s earlier efforts at reform (see Enmetena Translation), but Urukagina’s reforms are far more comprehensive. There's nothing else like them in the annals of ancient history. Unfortunately, they don’t get the credit they truly deserve, even though in the evolution of human society they are just as important as the legal codes of Ur-Namma or Hammurabi, the Magna Carta, or the American Bill of Rights. (See a complete translation of the Liberty Cones, along with some explanatory comments.) As noted earlier: The correct order, and identifications, of these governors of Lagash (if that is what they all were), Ur-Nanshe, Eannatum and Enmetana, may need now seriously to be re-assessed. Conclusion: Urukagina was the reforming King Hezekiah/Josiah, inspired by those long-lived prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Part Two: Lugalzagesi identified As noted in my article: King Lugalzagesi joins the list of ‘camera-shy’ ancient potentates (3) King Lugalzagesi joins the list of 'camera-shy' ancient potentates | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu the lack of any portraiture of Lugalzagesi: “A Sumerian king. There are no known images of Lugalzagesi”. Sumerian Shakespeare would suggest to me that this great ruler must have had one or more other substantial alter egos. From what we have read in Part One, it becomes fairly apparent as to who Lugalzagesi, in a revised context, must actually have been: namely, Sargon II of Assyria (who is also Sennacherib). Once again, taking the following account from the Sumerian Shakespeare: http://sumerianshakespeare.com/70701/77001.html I shall be adding some pertinent comments to test whether Lugalzagesi can make an adequate invading foreign ruler at the time of King Hezekiah of Judah. One of Urukagina’s “Liberty Cones.” The cone was covered with inscriptions written to the gods, then buried near the foundations of a new temple. Some historians like to portray Urukagina as a leader of a populist revolution in which freemen battled against the aristocracy and wealthy landowners. But Urukagina’s reforms went only so far; he was merely trying to correct the worst abuses of power, he wasn’t trying to overturn the basic structures of society. Mackey’s comment: This last comment would basically sum up the situation. Other historians like to emphasize his role in transitioning the Sumerians [sic] from a “temple economy,” where the temples were the administrative centers of government, to a modern secular society based on royal power. In this regard he would be like an ancestor of Henry the VIII, in the age old struggle between church and state … Mackey’s comment: Regarding Henry the so-called VIIIth, see e.g. my recent article: Chewing over the House of Tudor (8) Chewing over the House of Tudor | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu … but Urukagina wasn’t an anti-religious revolutionary or an iconoclast. The estates that he confiscated from the ensis he gave to the temples. Still other historians point to his claim of working on behalf of the gods to right the wrongs of society as a self-justifying assertion of the divine right of kings, but this ground had already been covered by his predecessors, Eannatum and Enmetena, for instance. Although there's no reason to doubt the sincerity of his efforts, the simple result of his reformations was more power for himself. Evidence for this is found in the second year of his reign, when Urukagina changed his title from ensi (“ruler or governor,” which the monarchs of Lagash usually called themselves) to the loftier title of lugal, meaning “king.” Mackey’s comment: Mention here of “king” stopped me right in my tracks with regard to my former effort to associate Urukagina with Eliakim/Akhimiti/ Jeremiah. A possibility is that Hezekiah was co-regent at Lachish for King Ahaz of Judah, before becoming the sole king in Jerusalem. Urukagina, king of Lagash. Mackey’s further comment: Having said that about Lugal, “King”, it is most interesting to learn that: https://www.joshobrouwers.com/articles/evolution-sumerian-kingship/ “Lugal-Zagesi is said to have had no less than fifty LUGALs beneath him”. Cf. Isaiah 10:8: “Assyria [Sargon II] says, ‘Aren’t my commanders all kings? Can’t they do whatever they like?’” There has been some speculation on whether or not Urukagina enacted his reforms into law or if he was just paying lip service to social reform as a way to increase his popularity with his subjects (many kings announce high-minded reforms at the beginning of their reigns, only to proceed with “business as usual”). With Urukagina there can be little doubt as to his intentions. He repeated his reforms on other foundation cones. The reforms were the central event of his reign, and they would end up costing him dearly, as will later be shown. As for whether or not he enacted the reforms into law: Urukagina was the king, his word was law. This alone was enough to guarantee that the reforms were enacted. …. These social reforms weren't his only concern. He ruled during a period of political instability and civil war between the Sumerian city-states [sic]. His main antagonist was Lugalzagesi, the king of Umma who was making a bid to conquer all of Sumer and Akkad (and beyond). Mackey’s comment: The name Lugalzagesi (with various alternative spellings, such as Lugalzaggessi and Lugalzagissi), just like the name Sargon, which means “True King”, shares at least the King element. Umma is problematical. It is yet another of those supposedly Sumerian places that drops off the political map, as we read in e.g.: Prince of Lagash (8) Prince of Lagash | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Umma may either be a well-known place under a different name (below), or it may be the name for a place not in southern Mesopotamia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umma Umma (Sumerian: 𒄑𒆵𒆠 ummaKI;[1] in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, formerly also called Gishban) was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site.[2] Lugalzagesi made several attacks on the kingdom of Lagash. One administrative tablet from this period is dated “the month that the man of Uruk came a third time.” It seems like Lagash was under repeated attacks from two different cities, Umma and Uruk, but in this case they are essentially the same. Mackey’s comment: “… came a third time”. Sargon II had sent his Turtan against Lachish/Ashdod (Isaiah 20:1), then the Assyrian army came again, after Iatna-Iamani had revolted. Then, as Sennacherib, Sargon II famously laid siege to the mighty fort-city, Lachish. And, as we read above, “Uruk and Umma … [may] essentially [be] the same”. Though, as we read on, the two names will now be distinguished. Although Lugalzagesi was originally the king of Umma, he had recently moved his capital to Uruk, so “the man of Umma,” as he’s called on another tablet, and “the man of Uruk,” both refer to Lugalzagesi. Umma and Uruk would be allies in the war against Urukagina, since both cities were ruled by Lugalzagesi. Three (or more) attacks on Urukagina within the span of seven years is a bit much, even by the Sumerian standards of internecine warfare. The reason for this was the long standing animosity between Umma and Lagash. They were at war for more than a century, battling for control of the Guedena, the fertile land between the two cities. Mackey’s comment: Guedena, Gu-Edin, I have identified, basically, as the ancient Eden, which became Jerusalem. Although Lugalzagesi was currently 'the Man of Uruk', he was born and raised as a royal prince of Umma. As such, he would have grown up hating Lagash and dreaming of the day when he could defeat it. The Sumerian Hundred Years War was about to culminate into its final battle. Urukagina was focused on his social reformations. He wasn't interested in foreign wars abroad or Sumerian civil wars at home. Nonetheless, although social reforms were Urukagina's primary concern, he spent most of his time defending his kingdom. Mackey’s comment: This description fits very well with phases during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah. …. The gloominess of Urukagina’s situation can be sensed in a fragment from a heavily damaged foundation cone (CDLI P222617): n lines missing “For my part, what did I have of it?” I said to him: “I did not do any violent act, but the dogs {the enemy} today are ... my city(?)” n lines missing Girsu was surrounded by it {the enemy army}, and Urukagina exchanged blows with it with weapons. A wall of it he {Lugalzagesi} made grow there, and dogs he made live there. He went away to his city, but a second time he came ... rest of column missing The “wall” is probably the enemy army surrounding the city, or it may be a siege wall constructed by the invaders to trap the civilians and defenders inside the city, cut off from outside food supplies, in order to starve them into submission. The prolonged siege of the city caused the enemy “dogs” (soldiers) to live there for a while. Mackey’s comment: This would be the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib. 2 Kings 18:13-17: In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: ‘I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me’. The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the Temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the Temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria. Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field. …. Urukagina’s social reforms now came back to haunt him. He had thoroughly alienated the aristocracy, who highly resented any reduction of their royal prerogatives, even in the slightest degree. Throughout the ages, the aristocracy has always been the military class. They justified their privileged lifestyle by bringing their armies of peasants to the battlefield when summoned by the king, by being recklessly brave in combat, and by dying heroically in defense of the realm. Many a king in history has suffered tragedy and downfall after alienating his aristocracy. Urukagina was no exception. Now, when he needed them most, he could not rely on his lords and noblemen. Their defense of his kingdom would be lukewarm at best. They may have even refused to defend him, or with a few bribes and blandishments they could easily be persuaded to switch sides. It didn't help matters much that Urukagina had also alienated the clergy. Mackey’s comment: “Their defense of his kingdom would be lukewarm at best. They may have even refused to defend him …”. Indeed, there was a deep division between the reform-inspired King of Judah and his aristocracy, including certain leading priests. Thus Isaiah 30:1-5 ‘Woe to the obstinate children’, declares the Lord, ‘to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace’. And Isaiah 30:7-17: Therefore I call her [Egypt] Rahab the Do-Nothing. Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!’ Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: ‘Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern’. This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill’. All this is proven by the fact that Lagash eventually lost the war with Umma. This had seldom happened. Mackey’s comment: True. King Hezekiah and his kingdom of Judah suffered a comprehensive defeat at the hands of King Sennacherib of Assyria during the latter’s Third Campaign. But, as Isaiah had divined, the blasphemous King of Assyria would eventually get his come-uppance big time (Isaiah 37:21-36). For, about a decade later, Sennacherib’s massive Assyrian army of 185,000 would be completely routed near Shechem (“Bethulia”), thanks to the courageous intervention of the Simeonite heroine, Judith. Through generations of conflict, under the leadership of Ur-Nanshe, Eannatum, and Enmetena, Lagash had always been the victor and Umma the vanquished. Now, under the leadership of Urukagina, bereft of effective military support from his disgruntled nobility because of his social reforms, the roles had been reversed. Lugalzagesi, “the Man of Umma,” thoroughly sacked the city of Lagash, as if to avenge a century of humiliating defeats. The savagery of the attack, especially the looting of the temples, shocked the Sumerians [sic]. Sumerian civil wars were usually a lot more “civilized.” (See “The Man of Umma” for a translation of a tablet detailing Lugalzagesi’s plundering of Lagash.) A letter from the high priest Lu-enna addressed to the king of Lagash, believed to be Urukagina, informing him that his son had been killed in combat. Urukagina survived the sacking of Lagash and moved his capital to the smaller neighboring city of Girsu. He was still a king, but his kingdom was considerably reduced. Lugalzagesi followed him to Girsu and twice besieged the city. Soon afterward, Urukagina disappears from the historic record. Mackey’s comment: King Hezekiah was always located at Girsu, my Jerusalem. The invading king did indeed proceed from Lachish (Lagash) to Jerusalem (Girsu). The kingdom of Judah, indeed, was “considerably reduced” by the Assyrians. And little is told of Hezekiah/Josiah, even in the Scriptures, after approximately the mid-point of his reign. Urukagina, king of Girsu . It’s not known for certain how he died, but the possibilities are endless. Perhaps he died of natural causes. Maybe he was captured and executed, or he killed himself rather than being taken alive. Perhaps he was murdered by an unseen assassin in a palace coup by someone trying to curry favor from Lugalzagesi. Hopefully he died in combat, in one last heroic battle, in defense of his kingdom and his vision of a better world. Mackey’s comment: Sumerian Shakespeare gets this last wish. For it may now be “known for certain how [the king] died …”. King Hezekiah/Josiah did die “in combat, in one last heroic battle, in defense of his kingdom and his vision of a better world”. Thus 2 Chronicles 35:20-27: The Death of Josiah After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Necho king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Necho sent messengers to him, saying, ‘What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you’. Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo. Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, ‘Take me away; I am badly wounded’. So they took him out of his chariot, put him in his other chariot and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died. He was buried in the tombs of his ancestors, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him. Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers commemorate Josiah in the laments. These became a tradition in Israel and are written in the Laments. The other events of Josiah’s reign and his acts of devotion in accordance with what is written in the Law of the Lord— all the events, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

My road to Akkad

by Damien F. Mackey Previously I wrote: I may have located the lost city of Akkad (Sumerian: Agade). Is that significant? Well, it is only if I have actually located it. But I think that I have – not with the spade, though, of course, but via keyboard. Archaeologists have been searching for it in Sumer (southern Iraq) since the C19th AD. And they have never managed to find Akkad. Why haven’t they found it after all of this time? Because it was never there. Since it was expected to have been in the approximate region of “Babel” (Genesis 10:9; cf. 11:8-9), Akkad has been sought for near Babylon in Sumer. …. More recently, though, I have gone so far as to shift Sumer right out of southern Mesopotamia: “The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in Mesopotamia (3) “The Sumerian Problem” – Sumer not in Mesopotamia | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Akkad, which has been searched for in southern Iraq, but never found, was expected there because it is where Babylon (Babel) is thought to have been. But see also my: Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos (3) Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Moreover (and this is probably where I got started), one of Nimrod's 4 cities was Calneh (or Calno). And that is paired with Carchemish in Isaiah 10:9: Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? Carchemish (see first map) is hundreds of km NW of southern Iraq. Moreover, the Septuagint Isaiah 10:9 has the Tower approximately in the Carchemish-Calneh region: “The LXX. version, which instead of naming Carchemish, gives "Calane [Calneh], where the tower was built," seems to imply a tradition identifying that city with the Tower of Babel of Genesis 11:4”. To thicken the plot, the word “Carchemish” is replaced here by “Babylon”. What it all seems to indicate most clearly to me is that Nimrod's cities were way over in the north west, and not down SE in southern Mesopotamia. OK. But what about Akkad? I think that I may have found it. It is a fairly simple concept. Akkad has not been found in southern Mesopotamia because it never was there, and this southern region was not the biblical Shinar. Calneh in the north west, approximately in relation to Carchemish (cf. Isaiah 10:9), absolutely necessitates that Nimrod’s realm be re-located hundreds of km NW from the usual estimate. As G. K. Chesterton averred, ‘the missing link is still missing’, and so was Akkad. But hopefully no more. Akkad must be somewhat in the geographical vicinity of Calneh, which we know to have been somewhat in the vicinity of Carchemish. What do we know about Akkad? Well, the mighty Sargon of Akkad (who some of us think has to be Nimrod himself) tells in an Inscription that ships (read reed boats) from Magan and Meluhha docked in the Quay of Akkad: ‘The ships from Meluhha the ships from Magan the ships from Dilmun he made tie-up alongside the quay of Akkad’. Magan and Meluhha in the Assyrian records are, respectively, Egypt and Ethiopia. But, in Akkadian times, historians foolishly (due to wrong geography and other things) identify them differently, as, say, Oman, in the Persian Gulf (the Sumer region). Egypt’s maritime trade with NW Syria was on the Mediterranean. So I looked around the area and found, roughly in line with Carchemish, the famous port city of Ugarit. Nimrod would have needed a port city if he were to embark upon important Mediterranean trade. And here may be the clincher. Another name for Ugarit was IKAT (very close to Akkad). Vowels are interchangeable in these languages, as are t's and d's. Thus Ugarit could be abbreviated to Aga[ri]d (Agade, Sumerian for Akkad). .... Sargon’s testimony could almost, on its very own, pinpoint for us the true location of the long-lost capital city of Akkad, Nimrod’s city. For ‘ships’ (reed boats) from Magan and Meluḫḫa to be putting in at the quay of Akkad must necessitate that Akkad was (i) a port city, (ii) on the Mediterranean sea-coast. Why? Because Magan and Meluhha are in the region of, respectively, Egypt and Ethiopia. That is confirmed by a statement of the neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal: “In my first campaign I marched against Magan, Meluhha, Tarka, king of Egypt and Ethiopia …”. We know from Genesis 10:10 that there were other cities of the hunter Nimrod: “The first centres of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar”. Thus Akkad, the Mediterranean port in the approximate region of Carchemish, can only be Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra). “The ruler of Carchemish sent troops to assist Ugarit, but Ugarit had been sacked”: https://placeandsee.com/wiki/ugarit Conclusion: Ugarit is Akkad. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ugar/hd_ugar.htm Although the name of the city was known from Egyptian and Hittite sources, its location and history were a mystery until the accidental discovery in 1928 of an ancient tomb at the small Arab village of Ras Shamra. A French archaeological mission under the direction of Claude F.-A. Schaeffer (1898–1982) began excavations in 1929. This was followed by a series of digs through 1939. Limited work was undertaken in 1948, but full-scale work did not resume until 1950. The city’s location ensured its importance through trade. To the west lay a good harbor (the bay of Minet el-Beida), while to the east a pass led to the heart of Syria and northern Mesopotamia through the mountain range that lies parallel with the coast. The city also sat astride an important north-south coastal trade route linking Anatolia and Egypt. It is clear from excavations that Ugarit was first settled in the Neolithic period (about 6500 B.C.) [sic] and had grown into a substantial town by the early third millennium B.C. Ugarit is mentioned in cuneiform documents discovered at Mari on the Euphrates dating to the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1600 B.C.). …. The Egyptian name for Ugarit is believed to have been IKAT: https://www.academia.edu/41484046/Further_Observations_on_Ugarit_and_Egypt_in_the_Early_New_Kingdom “This new observation of both old and new transcription systems in the Amenhotep II texts fully supports the reading of IkAT as Ugarit …”. The name IKAT is as close to Akkad as one could possibly want. Claude F. A. Schaeffer believed that Sargon, Naram-Sin, of Akkad had used the port of Ugarit for conquest of the lands ‘beyond the Upper Sea’ (CRAI, 1962, p. 202). Passion of Saint John the Baptist 29th August, 2022 ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ John 3:30

Borsippa may strengthen the case for Carchemish as mighty Babel-Babylon

by Damien F. Mackey “BORSIPPA, the modern Birs Nimrud, city in Babylonia, south of the city of Babylon and the river Euphrates, and connected with Babylon by the Barsip canal”. Encyclopedia.com If ancient Babylon was not in southern Mesopotamia, as I have recently suggested: Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos (3) Correction for Babylon (Babel). Carchemish preferable to Byblos | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu then its closely related sacred city of Borsippa, likewise, will need to be re-identified out of that southerly region. If that identification can be satisfactorily achieved, then it will add strength to my already proposed reasons in favour of a NW shifting of Babel-Babylon, these being, according to my article: - The famous king Hammurabi, an Amorite, ought more appropriately be located well further to the west. This suspicion was greatly strengthened when I read Royce (Richard) Erickson’s earth-shaking article (2020): A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY (3) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson - Academia.edu calling for a dramatic geographical shift for Chaldea and Elam - and whose conclusions for these two countries I have since embraced. - I had, previously, newly identified Nimrod’s Akkad with Ugarit (Egyptian IKAT), a Mediterranean port. - I have returned to another early choice that I had as a candidate for Babel/ Babylon, and that is CARCHEMISH. Does not the Septuagint Isaiah 10:9 virtually tell us that Carchemish was Babylon, or Babel, with its Tower, by replacing the usual reading, “Carchemish”, with “Babylon”?: - ‘Have I not taken the country above Babylon and Chalanes, where the Tower was built?’ Here we have connected together two of Nimrod’s cities, Babel (the Tower) and Calneh (Genesis 10:10). - There is also the important element of “rivers” (Psalm 136:2 Douay): “Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion”. Carchemish rests by, or near, two well-known rivers, the Euphrates and the Khabur. - The Book of Ezekiel opens with the prophet “by the river Kebar [Chebar]” amongst the Babylonian exiles (Ezekiel 1:1-2). The so far unidentified Chebar (כְּבָ֑ר) river here must surely be the Chabur (Khabur) near Carchemish. - Then there is the name. Though “its meaning is doubtful”, one of its suggested meanings is ‘Tower of Chemosh” – the Tower again, but I am more intrigued by its acute likeness to Karduniash, another ancient name for Babylon! - Historical parallel – which I regard as being just the one historical event – we have Tukulti-ninurta attacking Babylon and removing its Kassite king, Kastiliash so-called IV, in chains to Assyria; and we have Sargon II attacking Carchemish and removing, its Hittite king, Piyashili (Pisiri), in chains to Assyria. Spelt out, Tukulti-ninurta/Sargon II attacks and takes the city of Babylon/ Carchemish and captures the Kassite/Hittite king, Kashtiliash/Piyasili, taking him in chains to Assyria. Kasht ili ash Piy ash ili Borsippa as Til Barsip We may well find the name Borsippa reproduced in Til Barsip (modern Tall al-Ahmar), located about 20 kilometres south of Carchemish. Situationally, this accords very well with the conventional Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), which is located about 18 kilometres SW of Babylon. And both Til Barsip and Birs Nimrud are to be found to the east of the Euphrates River. Borsippa was closely connected with Babylon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borsippa “Borsippa is mentioned, usually in connection with Babylon, in texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur through the Seleucid Empire and even in early Islamic texts. It is also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 36a, Avodah Zarah 11b) and other rabbinic literature. Borsippa was dependent upon Babylon and was never the seat of a regional power”. Note, moreover, Til Barsip has the exact same name as the “Barsip canal” presumably linking Borsippa to Babylon.