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ANCIENT HISTORY THE BIRTH OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY THESES FOR
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ANCIENT HISTORY
FROM THE END
OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN EGYPT BY
IMMANUEL
VELIKOVSKY
1945
INTRODUCTION
The written history of the
ancient world is composed without correct synchronization of the histories of
different peoples of antiquity: a discrepancy of about six hundred years exists
between the Hebrew and Egyptian histories as they are conventionally written;
since the histories of other peoples are synchronized both with the Hebrew and
the Egyptian past, they are completely distorted.
The ground plan for a redesigning
of ancient history was ready in its main features in the spring 1940. During
the years 1940-1944, I wrote and completed a Reconstruction of ancient history
from the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt to the advent of Alexander the
Great. Due to war conditions and their interference with the printing of
extensive scientific works, the publication of “Ages in Chaos” had to be
postponed. This short paper is intended to bring together in concise form most
of the innovations of my work; I present them in the form of theses; the
manifold proofs which underlie the Reconstruction and the numerous collations
of historical material are reserved for the work itself.
New York,
June 10, 1945.
I
1. Ancient History before the
advent of Alexander the Great is written in a chaotic manner. It is entirely
confused, and is a disarray of centuries, kingdoms and persons.
2. The cause of this confusion
lies in an incorrect representation of the Egyptian past; and since the history
of Egypt is chosen to serve for orientation in compiling the histories of other
peoples of antiquity, the histories of these other peoples are brought into
disorder as well. The error in Egyptian history consists of six to seven and,
in some places, eight centuries of retardation.
3. Histories of Palestine, Syria,
Babylonia, Assyria, Mycenae, Classical Greece, Chaldea, Phoenicia, and Caria,
are written in duplicate form, with the same events repeated after a period of
six or seven centuries. The confusion of centuries makes the life of many
personages double; descendants are transformed into ancestors, and entire
peoples and empires are invented.
4. The Egyptian and Jewish
histories, as they are written, are devoid of a single synchronism in a period
of many hundreds of years. Exodus, an event which concerns both peoples, is
presumably not mentioned in the Egyptian documents of the past. The
establishing of the time of the Exodus must help to synchronize the histories
of these two peoples.
5. The literal meaning of many
passages in the Scriptures which relate to the time of the Exodus, imply that
there was a great natural cataclysm of enormous dimensions.
6. The synchronous moment between
the Egyptian and Jewish histories can be established if the same catastrophe
can also be traced in Egyptian literature.
7. The Papyrus Ipuwer describes a natural catastrophe and not merely a
social revolution, as is supposed. A juxtaposition of many passages of this
papyrus (edited by A. Gardiner, under the name “Admonitions of an Egyptian
Sage”, 1909) with passages from the Scriptures dealing with the story of the
plagues and the escape from Egypt, proves that both sources describe the same
events.
8. The Papyrus Ipuwer comprises a text which originated shortly after the
close of the Middle Kingdom; the original text was written by an eyewitness to
the plagues and the Exodus.
9. The plagues were the
forerunners and aftermaths of a great cataclysm the nature of which will be discussed
in a work dealing with the natural history of the world. Earthquakes, eruptions
of volcanoes, changes of the sea profile, were some of the results of that
catastrophe.
10. The tenth plague, during
which the houses were struck down, was an earthquake. The clay huts of the
“dwellers of the marshes” suffered less than the structures of stone.
11. The “firstborn” (b’khorim) is erroneously used instead of the original
“chosen” (b’chorim), and the tenth plague originally
narrated the destruction of all the choice people among the Egyptians.
12. The naos (shrine) of el-Arish, now in the Museum of Ismailia, describes the plague of
darkness and the death of the pharaoh in a whirlpool. The place of the last
event is at Pi-Kharoti, which is Pi-ha-Kiroth of the Book of Exodus.
13. Tom-Taoui-Toth was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
14. The Exodus took place at the
close of the Middle Kingdom: the natural catastrophe caused the end of this
period in the history of Egypt. This was in the middle of the second millennium
before the present era.
15. The Israelites left Egypt a
few days before the invasion of the Hyksos (Amu).
II
16. The Israelites met the Hyksos
(Amu) on their way from Egypt. The Hyksos were the Amalekites.
17. The Arabic authors of the
Middle Ages related traditions which reflect actual historical events, about
the Amalekites who left Mekka amidst catastrophes and plagues, the invasion of Palestine and Egypt by the Amalekites, and the Amalekite pharaohs.
18. The catastrophes and plagues
of these traditions are part of the cataclysm which is described in the
Scriptures, the Papyrus Ipuwer, and the naos of el-Arish. The flood, which drowned many Amalekites who escaped from Arabia, was simultaneous with
the upheaval of the sea on the day of the Passage.
19. Because of the occupation of
southern Palestine (Negeb) by the Hyksos, the
Israelites escaping from Egypt were forced to roam in the desert. The Desert of
the Wanderings stretched deep into the Arab Peninsula.
20. The Hyksos stronghold Auaris was situated at the el-Arish of today. (Its other
names are Tharu and Rhinocorura).
21. Its builder Latis, mentioned in the Arabic sources, is identical with
the Hyksos King Salitis of Josephus-Manetho.
22. The Hyksos King whose name is
read Apop (I) is the Agog (I) of the Scriptures.
Similarly Apop II is the biblical Agog II.
23. Amalekite fortresses were built in Palestine. One of them was at Pirathon in Ephraim.
24. The Amalekites employed the same tactics in their devastating raids on Palestine and Egypt, choosing
the time before the harvest.
25. The process of the conquest
of Palestine by the Israelites was slowed down and reversed when the Canaanites
allied themselves with the Hyksos-Amalekites. The
wars of the Judges were intended to free the people from the yoke of the
Hyksos.
26. The cataclysm which caused a
migration of peoples brought the Philistines from Cyprus to the shores of
Palestine. They intermarried with the Amalekites and
produced a hybrid nation.
27. The Manethonian tradition about the later Hyksos Dynasty of a “Hellenic” origin reflects the
period when the Philistine element became rather dominant in the Amalekite Empire.
28. The “Amalekite city” which was captured by Saul was Auaris.
29. As the result of his victory
at Auaris, Saul freed Egypt and the entire Near East.
30. In the siege of Auaris, Saul was assisted by Kamose and Ahmose, the vassal princes of Thebes.
31. Manetho’s story about the
Hyksos leaving Auaris by agreement reflects the
scriptural incident concerning the Kenites leaving the
besieged Amalekite fortress.
32. The invasion of southern
Palestine by the escaping remnants of the Hyksos is reflected in I Samuel 30;
and their further destruction at Sheruhen, in the
Talmudic story of Joab’s war against the capital of
the Amalekites.
33. This last bastion of the Amalekites was probably on one of the rocks of Petra.
34. Manetho confused Sheruhen with Jerusalem, and the Israelites, the redeemers
of Egypt, with the Hyksos.
35. This confusion spread in the
Ptolemaic time and became the cause of the rise of anti-Semitism which, fed
from different channels, survived until today.
36. The period of the Wanderings
in the Desert, of Joshua, and of the Judges, corresponds to the time of Hyksos
domination in Egypt and the Near East. The period of the Hyksos lasted for more
than four hundred years. The archaeological findings of the Hyksos period in
Palestine appertain to the time of the Conquest and the Judges.
III
37. Two kingdoms rose on the
ruins of the Hyksos Empire: the kingdom of Israel under David, and the New
Kingdom of Egypt under the Eighteenth Dynasty. The beginnings of these two
dynasties are not separated by six centuries; they started simultaneously.
38. The Egyptian Queen Tahpenes, the sister-in-law of Hadad the Edomite, was a wife of Ahmose.
39. Thutmose I attacked Gezer of
the Philistines and gave it to Solomon, his son-in-law.
40. Queen Sheba is identical with
Queen Hatshepsu.
41. The information of Josephus
that the queen-guest ruled Egypt and Abyssinia, is correct.
42. The theories which place Punt
and God’s Land in either South Arabia or Africa are equally wrong. Hatshepsu’s expedition, pictured in the temple of Deir el Bahari near Thebes, went
to Palestine-Phoenicia.
43. By the time of the Old
Kingdom, Palestine was already known as God’s Land or Holy Land. The tribe of Menashe lived in Palestine already at the time of the Old
Kingdom in Egypt.
44. A preliminary expedition
dispatched by Hatshepsu to prepare the way for the
main expedition, was met by Peruha, the biblical Paruah, governor of Ezion-Geber.
45. The correction of the verses
I Kings 4, 16-17 which place Aloth in the domain of
the son of Paruah, is well founded.
46. Queen Hatshepsu participated personally in the main expedition to Ezion-Geber,
Jerusalem, and Phoenicia. Her intention was to see what she had known “by
hearsay” only.
47. The return voyage was made by
sea from the Palestinian shore to Thebes on the Nile, and a second fleet was
used. In the days of Hatshepsu there was no canal
connecting the Nile with the Red Sea.
48. Jewish officers in the
service of Solomon are portrayed on the walls of Deir El Bahari.
49. Exotic animals and plants,
including the algum-trees “never seen before”, which
Queen Hatshepsu received as gifts in God’s Land, had
been brought by the navy of Hiram and Solomon from Ophir.
They are seen in the pictures of the expedition.
50. Gifts were also presented to Hatshepsu by messengers of Hiram.
51. Solomon was not an obscure
prince, as he is often represented. The riches of his kingdom astounded the
Egyptians under their most magnificent monarch.
52. Silver-covered floors in the
Jerusalem of Solomon were an actual feature; such floors were also built in the
palaces of the viziers of Hatshepsu.
53. The architecture and
ordinances of the Temple of Solomon were copied in the Temple of Amon at Deir El Bahari. The plan of this
structure and its terraces can help in the reconstruction of the plan of the
Temple of Solomon.
54. The Songs of Mounting, which
are included among the Psalms, were sung by priests while ascending the
terraces.
55. The office of High Priest was
introduced into the Egyptian service in imitation of a similar post in the
service in Jerusalem. The word pontifex is derived ultimately from the word
Punt. The last word means Phoenicia.
56. The Abyssinian tradition
preserved the name of the Queen of the South as Makeda,
which is derived from the personal name of Hatshepsu (Make-Ra).
57. The Arabic claim that Queen
Sheba was their Queen Bilkis, is unfounded.
58. The traditional origin of
some Hebrew legends concerning Queen Sheba can be traced in the life and
appearance of Hatshepsu.
IV
59. Thutmose III is the
scriptural Shishak; he lived not during the
fifteenth, but during the latter part of the tenth and the beginning of the
ninth century.
60. Thutmose III refers in his
inscription in Karnak to the state of disagreement
and war among the Jewish tribes of Palestine after the death of Solomon.
61. The disintegration of the
empire of Solomon was planned for by Thutmose III and carried out by him. He
was also the author of the division of Palestine into two kingdoms.
62. Jeroboam, the first king of
the ten tribes, is pictured during his stay in Egypt on a bas-relief in Thebes,
together with a small son of his, as the prince of Dunip (Tunip), which is Dan.
63. Baalbek is the ancient Dan.
64. The list of the Palestinian
cities inscribed by Thutmose III in Karnak comprises
the names of the cities of Rehoboam in his fifth
year. The city-fortresses built or fortified by Rehoboam, Etam, Beth-Zur, Shocco, Gath, Ziph, and Adoraim, can be identified in their Egyptian transcription.
65. The chief fortress besieged
and captured before the Pharaoh came to Jerusalem, was Megiddo. Megiddo was
defended by Rehoboam personally, and he eluded
captivity when the fortress fell.
66. The city Kadesh,
the most important among the Palestinian cities, and the first in the list of
Thutmose III, is Jerusalem.
67. The submission of Rehoboam and the princes of the land, and their “becoming
servants” to the Pharaoh is described in the annals of Thutmose III.
68. The vessels and furniture of
the Temple of Solomon sacked by Thutmose III, are pictured on a bas-relief of Karnak. They can be seen in detail: altars, tables, candlesticks,
etc.
69. The ornaments of “a crown of
gold round about”, “buds among flowers” and “lily-work” described in the
Scriptures, are shown on the bas-relief.
70. The showbreads had a conical
form. The candlesticks had three branches on either side of the stem, or seven
branches 71. The copper covered doors and
chains of gold were actual features of the Temple of Solomon.
72. Golden chariots, like those
mentioned in the Song of Songs, were carried from Palestine as tribute, and are
pictured in the sepulchral chambers of Rekhmire, the
vizier of Thutmose III.
73. The theory about the supreme
artisanship of the Canaanites in the pre-Israelite period is without
foundation.
74. Jewish artists brought to
Egypt introduced their fine arts and influenced the aesthetic conceptions of
the Egyptians.
75. Animals and plants of
Palestine of the days of Rehoboam are pictured in the
temple of Karnak. They comprise the collections of
Solomon.
76. “Arzenu”
(our land), by which the Scriptures mean Palestine, was its name in the
Egyptian tongue (“Rezenu” ), a geographical
equivalent of the name “God’s Land”.
77. The name of Israel is found
in the annals of Thutmose III as that of a people bringing tribute. The
assertion that the name of Israel is met for the first and only time in the
inscription of Marneptah is wrong.
78. Rehoboam,
“the king of Kadesh”, is pictured on a bas-relief in
the tomb of Menkheperre in Thebes.
79. The people of Genubath in the inscription of Thutmose III, is the people
of the scriptural Genubath, son of Hadad the Edomite.
80. Sosenk,
the Pharaoh of the Libyan dynasty, was not Shishak of
the Scriptures.
V
81. Amenhotep II lived not in the fifteenth but in the ninth century, and was the scriptural Zerah.
82. The theory that the Ethiopian Zerah came from Arabia is wrong; equally wrong is the
theory that he is a mythological figure.
83. The battle of Ain-Reshet, referred to by Amenhotep II, is the battle of Mareshet-Gath, which was lost by Amenhotep II and won by Asa.
84. This intrusion of Amenhotep II-Zerah is also
narrated in the poem of Keret found in Ras Shamra.
85. The theory that Terah of the Poem, who invaded the south of Palestine with
millions of soldiers, is the father of Abraham, is wrong.
86. The Shemesh-Edom
of the war-annals of Amenhotep II is the Edomite city of Shapesh (Shemesh) referred to in the Poem of Keret.
87. In the days of Thutmose IV,
Palestine again became a protectorate of Egypt in fear of a menacing conquest
by Assurnasirpal (885-860), father of Shalmanassar.
88. Shishak mentioned in the Ras Shamra texts is Thutmose IV.
89. The texts found in Ras Shamra are not of the
fifteenth, but of the ninth century.
90. The close resemblance of the
texts of Ras Shamra with
diverse books of the Scriptures repudiates most of the assertions of the Bible
criticism (late origin of the texts), as well as the modern theory about the
Canaanite heritage in the Scriptures (early origin of the texts).
91. The theory that alphabetic
writing was perfected in the sixteenth century cannot be supported by the Ras Shamra texts of the ninth
century.
92. As the alphabetic writing of
Hebrew in cuneiform of Ras Shamra is contemporaneous with the stela of Mesha written in Hebrew alphabetic characters, the alphabet
most probably did not originate in Phoenicia but in Palestine.
93. The theory that the Ras Shamra texts contain mention
of Ionians, and of their city Didyme, is correct, but
it concerns the ninth century Ionians.
94. The Khar of the Egyptian and Ras Shamra texts were not Hurrites or Troglodytes, but Carians.
95. The statement by classical
authors that the Carians migrated from Crete is
corroborated by the name of Keret of the Ras Shamra texts.
96. The Khari (Cari) of the Scriptures were the Khar or Carians from Ras Shamra.
97. The Carian language is studied in the disguise of the Hurrian (or Hurrite) language. The reading of the cuneiform Khar can be helped by a comparative study of the Carian inscriptions in Greek letters found in Egypt.
98. The reading of Carian will contribute to the decipherment of the Cyprian
and Cretan hieroglyphics and may aid in reconstructing the early history of the
West.
99. The name of the city Ugarit (Ras Shamra) is probably the
equivalent of Euagoras, the Carian-Ionian
name of a number of Cyprian kings.
100. The name Nikmed of the Ras Shamra texts is
the Ionian-Carian name Nikomed(es).
101. The city of Ras Shamra was destroyed in the
days of the King Nikmed by Shalmanassar (in 856 B. C. E). Its destruction is recorded by Shalmanassar and the city is called “the city of Nikdem”. A
proclamation telling about the expulsion of Nikmed,
found in the city, refers to the same event.
102. It is highly probable that
King Nikmed (Nikdem) fled
to Greece, and that this man of learning there introduced alphabetic writing.
Therefore, he might have been Cadmos of the Greek
tradition.
103. Minoan inscriptions of the
Mycenaean Age may comprise alphabetic writings following in principle the
cuneiform alphabet of Ras Shamra Hebrew.
104. The vaults of the necropolis
of Ras Shamra and similar
vaults in Cyprus are contemporaneous, and not separated by six centuries.
105. The tombs of Enkomi on Cyprus, excavated by A. S. Murray in 1896, were
correctly assigned by him to the eighth-seventh century.
106. The time table of the Minoan
and Mycenean culture is distorted by almost six
hundred years, because it is dependent upon the wrong Egyptian chronology.
107. No “Dark Age” of six
centuries duration intervened in Greece between the Mycenaean Age and the
Ionian Age of the seventh century.
108. The large buildings and
fortifications of Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argive Plain date from the time of the Argive Tyrants, who
lived in the eighth century.
109. The Heraion of Olympia was built in the “Mycenaean” age, in the first millennium
110. The so-called Mycenaean ware
was mainly of Cypriote (Phoenician) manufacture. It dates from the tenth to the
sixth century.
111. The so-called Geometric ware
is not a later product than the Mycenaean ware; they were products of the same
age.
112. The entire archaeology of
the eastern Mediterranean, based upon the assumption that the Mycenaean culture
belongs to the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries, is built upon a misleading
principle.
VI
113. The el-Amarna Letters were
written not in the fifteenth-fourteenth century, but in the middle of the ninth
century.
114. Among the correspondents of Amenhotep III and Akhnaton are
biblical personages: Jehoshaphat (Abdi-Hiba), King of
Jerusalem; Ahab (Rib Addi), King of Samaria; Ben-Hadad (Abdi-Ashirta), King of
Damascus; Hazael (Azaru),
King of Damascus; Aman (Aman-appa),
Governor of Samaria; Adaja (Adaja), Adna (Adadanu), Amasia, son of Zihri (son of Zuhru), Jehozabad (Jahzibada), military governors of Jehoshaphat; Obadia, the chief of Jezreel; Obadia (Widia), a city governor
in Judea; the Great Lady of Shunem (Baalath Nesse); Naaman (Janhama), the captain of
Damascus; and others. Arza (Arzaja),
the courtier in Samaria, is referred to in a letter.
115. Mesha,
King of Moab, is often mentioned in the Letters by his name (Mesh). The
omission of the name of the rebel king by the translators of the Letters is not
warranted.
116. The King of Hatti, who for years invaded and harassed Syria, was Assurnasirpal and after him Shalmanassar.
117. The following correspondents
of Amenhotep and Akhnaton are known from the inscriptions of Shalmanassar; Adima, Prince of Siana and Irqata; Mut-Balu (Matinu-Bali), Prince of Arvad.
118. Burnaburias is the Babylonian name of Shalmanassar, and under
this name he corresponded with Amenhotep III and Akhnaton. In the Letters he is also referred to as Shalmajati.
119. The military chief who
opposed Shalmanassar at Karkar was the governor of MegiddoBiridri (Biridia), one of
the Pharaohs correspondents. The identification of Ben Hadad with Biridri is wrong.
120. Sumur of the Letters is Samaria; Gubia is Jezreel. The new residence of the king of Israel was named
in honor of his wife Jezebel.
121. Jarimuta or Rimuta of the Letters is Ramoth in Gilead; Sigati is Sukkoth; Ambi - Moab; Durnui - Edom; Rubuti - Raboth in Ammon; Kilti - vadi Kelt.
122. “Elippe”
in a number of el-Amarna Letters means “a man over a thousand” or a chief, and
not a “ship”. Several cities (Sumur being one of
them) are incorrectly located on the seashore because of the mention of “elippe”.
123. The scriptural penman also
confused “elippe”, the chief, with the same word
meaning a thousand, and thus a correction of the text is required in the story
of twenty-seven thousands killed by the wall of Aphek.
124. Ahab was faithful to the
Egyptian protectorate. Ben Hadad, supported by Shalmanassar, inspired Mesha to
revolt.
125. The capture of Ben Hadad and a covenant signed between him and the King of
Samaria are events also related in the Letters.
126. The sieges of Samaria, the
negotiation about sending Egyptian detachments, and the flight of the Syrians
at the spreading of a rumor about the arrival of the Egyptian troops, can also be
read in the Letters.
127. King Ahab was not killed at Ramoth in Gilead, but merely wounded. He survived
Jehoshaphat by two years. The version 2 Kings 3, 2 is erroneous, and the rival
version 2 Kings 1, 17 is correct.
128. Many events ascribed by the
Scriptures to Jehoram, son of Ahab, or to the
undefined “king of Israel”, happened in the days of Ahab. Ahab is the author of
more than sixty letters found in the el-Amarna collection.
129. Jehoram of Israel and Jehoram of Judea were probably one and
the same person, a son-in-law of Ahab.
130. The insurrection of Mesha took place during the life-time of Ahab, after the
defeat at Ramoth in Gilead.
131. The K-r-k-h (the capital) of
the Mesha Stela means
Samaria. The Moabites succeeded in entering Samaria. The Ophel of K-r-k-h is the Ophel of Samaria. The fall of
Samaria signified the “everlasting humiliation” and the “great indignation” in
the Scriptures and the Stela.
132. By “cuttings” of K-r-k-h,
the ivory work of the palace of Samaria is meant.
133. Samaria was the center of
the Egyptian administration in Palestine. Possessing and building it was the
privilege of the first among the chiefs.
134. Jehoshaphat’s position was
of comparative independence, as there was no permanent Egyptian governor in
Jerusalem. Adaja was the deputy over Edom and he was
subordinate to Jehoshaphat.
135. The expedition of three
kings against Moab preceded the invasion of Palestine by tribes of Transjordan
and Seir. The sequence in Josephus is wrong.
136. The invasion of the
Moabites, Ammonites, and the tribes of Seir is
described in the Letters. Khabiru means bandits.
137. The prayer of Jehoshaphat is
authentic, being similar in spirit and content to his letters addressed to the
Pharaoh.
138. The monotheism of Jehoshaphat is proved by his letters. The notion that Akhnaton was a monotheist (“the first m |