The period of the 21st Dynasty represents one of the most confused spots in Egyptian history!
[To call it a dynasty is actually somewhat of a misnomer since they were primarily powerful priests rather than royalty.]

One of the results of revised chronology is, that now we have internal political and social conditions in neighboring countries matching each others circumstances. In conventional chronology the 21st Dynasty of priest-princes was in power in the days of the early Israelite monarchy.[100] In other words when Israel was at its finest, Egypt was at its lowest in economical achievements. Going back in time when the powerful and economically rich 18th Dynasty was supposed to have been enthroned in Egypt, again, according to current conventional views, Israel was supposed to have been still a slave nation at first and then at some point migrated, or rather, fled out of Egypt and experienced the period of the judges, both of these periods being of low economical impact on their society. What really took place? It is incredible to believe such a situation. When two neighboring countries are going through phases in their economy and social structure like this, it ought to be reflected in each others experience much more coequal and parallel. It took a caravan only 9 days to travel from Egypt to Palestine.

Since the days of the Persian conquest under Cambyses, Egypt had been `the basest of the kingdoms' Ezekiel 29:15. The prophecies of Jeremiah (ca. 627-586) and Ezekiel (ca. 592) concerning the debasement of Egypt were fulfilled, not in their time, but at the close of Amasis' reign, when Cambyses subjugated Egypt, humiliated its people, ruined its temples and for generations thereafter, through most of the Persian period. His fortunes reversed when he ordered his infantry, said to have numbered 50,000, to take the Oasis of Siwa to punish them for not accepting him. During this march a great dust storm buried his entire army which, it appears, has now been located after some 2534 years.

When a Russian by the name of Golenishchev purchased the papyrus with Ourmai's letter of laments, he obtained in the same transaction a papyrus containing another tale of woe - the story of Wenamon's errand to Byblos on the coast of Syria. Like the letter of Ourmai, the story of Wenamon dates from the 21st dynasty; both were copied by the same scribe, but it is understood that Wenamon's story relates events several generations more recent. While Ourmai's letter was translated and published in 1961, Wenamon's story was published in 1899. [250]

No document pictures Egypt's lowly position among the nations during the later period of the Persian occupation better than does the story of Wenamon.

During the time under discussion, traveling in Syria was filled with danger according to the context of this Egyptian derived story and also in the biblical account of Nehemia [2:7] and Ezra [8:22]. Both mention the insecurity of the roads, even for one traveling on the king's errand.

It is of some importance that we pick up on the important clues in the story. It is of interest that quite a number of Hebrew words are used by Wenamon in his story:

1) for `assembly' he used the Hebrew word `moed'
2) for `league' or `alliance' the Hebrew word `hever';

other such instances of preference given to Hebrew words over Egyptian vocabulary are exhibited by Wenamon.

Two names in the text caused deliberation among scholars (Gardiner, Wilson & Erman).
[Alan Gardiner (1879-1963) wrote `Egypt of the Pharaohs' & `Egyptian Grammar', John A. Wilson (??), Adolf Erman (1854-1937)]

One was

The names of Persian Kings in 21st Dynasty Documents

Here is a feature which helps to explain why the 21st belongs into Persian times. The name of Cambyses was found written in hieratic script and on stone in 21st Dynasty period sources.

"There came to Egypt the great chief of every foreign land Cambyses, the foreigners of every country being with him. When he had taken possession of this entire land they settled down there in order that he might be the great ruler of Egypt and the great chief of every foreign land. His majesty commanded me to be the chief physician and caused me to be at his side as companion and director of the palace, and I made his titulary in his name of King of Upper and Lower Egypt Mesutire." [Inscribed on a statue now located in the Vatican and transl. by A.H.Gardiner, `Egypt of the Pharaohs', (Galaxy ed. 1966), p. 366; See also G. Posener, La première domination Perse en Égypte, Cairo, 1936, pp. 1ff, 41ff. 88ff.]

An Elephantine papyrus relates that "when Cambyses came to Egypt [-525], he found the [Jewish] temple [of Elephantine] already built. The temples of the gods of Egypt were demolished, all of them; only the said temple suffered no harm." [Eduard Sachau (1845-1930), Aramäische Papyri und Ostraka, S. 21.]

But the same papyri informs us that the temple of Elephantine on the southern border of Egypt, left intact by Cambyses, was destroyed later by a mob.

Another 21st Dynasty Period Identification

The other name found in the Wenamon Papyrus that caused deliberation is that of the shipping magnate with headquarters in Tanis. Of him the prince of Byblos said that in Sidon alone 50 ships `are in league' with Birketh-El' and sail `to his house.'

The eminent German Egyptologist read his name to be "Birket-El" to which M. Burchhardt agreed. The name points to a Semitic origin, most likely a Phoenician. It means `God's blessing.'

In 1924, R. Eisler published a paper, `Barakhel Sohn und Cie, Rhedergesellschaft in Tanis' (Barkhal Son & Co., Shipping House in Tanis) in which he drew attention to the fact that a late Hebrew source contains a reference to the same shipping company called Berakhel's Son.

The Testament of Naphthali is a pseudo epigraphic work the composition of which is placed in about 146 BC, the year Johnathan of the House of Hasshmanaim (Maccabees) conquered Jaffa and thus opened an access to the sea and maritime trade.

In the testament, a vision is narrated of a ship that passes near the shore of Jaffa with no crew or passengers. But on the mast of the ship is written the name of the owner, son of Berakhel. Berakhel and Birketh-El relate to each other like `God's blessing' and `blessing of God' would in English. We now have also corroberating evidence that Wenamon went on his travels not in 1100 BC but close to about 400 BC.

A Period of Contrasts

(First we present the view as seen by the revision here defended, after that we contrast the same time period as described by conventional historians.)

According to the popularly accepted time table the 21st Dynasty existed in the 11th and 10th centuries, from about 1100 to 945 BC. In Israel it was the time of the judges and later of King Saul, David, and Solomon. This period is the most glorious of their economic-political achievements. The merchant vessels of the Phoenician/Israelite alliance made their kings wealthy. That the 21st Dynasty has nothing to report about such enterprises is anachronistic in every respect if this dynasty existed in the time conventionally assigned to it. But if this Dynasty existed during Persian times it makes perfect sense. No wonder scholars today insist that Solomon's business connections never happened, because they have mismatched the chronology of Egypt. Many and intricately interwoven with other sources are the pages of the Old Testament dealing with the events during this time:

1. the wars of Saul and the liberation of the country and of the entire ancient East "from Havilah until thou comest to Shur that is over against Egypt." 1.Samuel 15:7. This corresponds to from Mesopotamia to Egypt. Saul freed this huge area from the domination of the Amalekites;
   
2. the subsequent defeat of Saul at the hands of the Philistines;
   
3. the occupation of Jerusalem by David;
   
4. the wars against Amon, Moab, and Edom;
   
5. the splendid era of Solomon, who built in Palmyra and in Jerusalem and who participated with King Hiram of the Phoenicians in building

   a) harbors,
   b) in great maritime expeditions,
   c) in overland trade of chariots and horses;
   d) cedars of Lebanon were transported by sea to build temples and palaces. 1.Kings 5:10-18.

6. the Queen of Sheba came to verify the astounding reports - and "all the earth sought to Solomon" [1.Kings 10:24].
   
7. But in Solomon's time also plots were hatched with the intent to dismember his empire, and the center of the plotting was in Egypt. Jeroboam, a subject of Solomon, who escaped to Egypt when his country was devastated by Joab, general of David, returned to take away Israel from Judah.
   
8. Five years after the death of Solomon, in the days of his son Rehoboam Pharaoh Shishak invaded Judah and took Jerusalem and carried away everything of value from the palace and the Temple.
   It was a stormy period of ascent and descent, with neighboring nations, first among them Egypt, involved in the policies of Israel and Judah, with their great peace and war enterprises, building activities and commerce, plotting and warring, an empire expanding and falling apart. The histories of Israel and of Egypt are inseparably interwoven throughout this period.

We have already discussed elsewhere the:

1. the time of the judges and their efforts to liberate their land from the Amalekite-Philistine domination and shown how this corresponds to
   
2. the final phase of the Hyksos [Amu] domination in Egypt and Palestine-Syria.
   
3. Saul was a contemporary of Kamose and Amose, founders of the 18th Dynasty.
   
   Together they
   
4. besieged and took Avaris, the fortress-capital of the Hyksos-Amalekites;
   
5. We also showed that Avaris was the well known El Arish, so named even today. [300]
   
6. In Avaris Saul took the last king of the Hyksos/Amalekites, Apop or Agog, prisoner.
   
7. David was a contemporary of Amenhotep I and both lived in the memory of their nations as saints, if they deserved it or not. [400]
   
8. Solomon was a contemporary of Thutmose I and II, whose daughter he married and whose other daughter and heir - Hatshepsut- became Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt.
   
9. The illustrated [at Deir el Bahari] description of her travels to the `Divine Land' and Phoenicia [Punt] corresponds in every detail to the description of the visit of Queen of Sheba whom the historian Josephus described as Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.

   A multitude of interlaced evidences confirm this placement.
   Among these are:

   a) she was impressed by the terraces of the Temple in Jerusalem and perhaps also of the orchards in the Judean hill country
   b) the trees that were never seen before,
   c) apes and peacocks,
   d) even the people of Ophir.

   All this is narrated and also shown in relief carvings at Deir el Bahari, plus the presents she received in `God's Land' and in the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Bible.

10. It was `Paruah (P'-r'hw'), father of Jehoshaphat (1.Kings 4:17), and his grotesquely fleshy wife `Eti' or `Ati' as they are named on the walls of her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari. These names were in vogue in the days of Solomon and we find them in the Bible as Parahu, Palahu or possibly Paruach, the governor of Issachar. The tribal land of Issachar was located around Mount Tabor adjacent to the Valley of Jezreel. This is just east of Megiddo and Paruah very well may have had his office at a coastal harbor site at the time.
    
11. Thutmose III [Shishak] invaded Palestine,

    a) besieged its fortified cities, and
    b) accepted the surrender of the king of Kadesh-Jerusalem.

12. The vessels and furniture that he removed from the Temple and the palace are all shown in relief carvings on the walls of his temple at Karnak and we have compared them piece by piece, number by number, with the description of such vessels in the Temple of Solomon.
    
13. Hadad's son Genubath (1.Kings 11:20) is mentioned in the inscriptions of Thutmose III;
    
14. Ano, the wife of Jeroboam (her name is given in the Septuagint), was a princess in the household of Thutmose III, and a canopic jar of hers is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. [Septuagint, Regnorum III: 12, 24c; See also a canopic jar with her name. (Metropolitan Museum #10.130.1003) A few years back I called the museum asking about this item, the lady I spoke to could not help. She suggested to look up their website. I tried with no success. It may take someone to go through records and examine their store aways. Or did they get rid of it? Who knows.

In small details and in great designs the histories of these two nations harmonize one with the other, and pages of description of the times preceding this special period

1. "Little is known of the relations between Egypt and the outside world during the 21st Dynasty."
   
2. Syria and Palestine were politically independent, a fact which is confirmed by the biblical tradition of the rise of the kingdom of Israel.
   
3. An unnamed pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty gave asylum to Hadad, the young prince of Edom, when King David seized his country, and later gave him in marriage to the sister of his queen.
   
4. Hadad's son Genubath was brought up at the court of pharaoh's sons.
   
5. After David's death and in spite of the pharaoh's objections Hadad returned to his own country as Solomon's bitter enemy.
   
6. The identity of this pharaoh is unknown.
   
7. "It is equally uncertain which king of the 21st Dynasty was on such friendly terms with Solomon that he sent his daughter to Jerusalem to become one of Solomon's wives."

Under the 21st Dynasty Egypt presents a picture of decay and wretchedness. The main occupation of the population, priesthood, and administration was looking for ancient tombs and their contents. The population was plagued by "foreigners," also called "barbarians [500]," and they waited for nightfall to go on illicit diggings. The priests under the guise of rewrapping the mummies of the ancient kings, robbed them of any jewels which still could be found in the wrappings. The courts, as many papyri records testify, occupied themselves with tomb-robbery processes.

The land of Egypt at this time had no industry, no foreign commerce. The miserable errant of Wenamon in an effort to purchase cedar wood in Byblos for a single barque of Amon, a vessel used by priests in their processions, is all the 21st Dynasty's papyri report of relations of Egypt with Syria or Palestine. Analyzing Wenamon's travelogue helps us realize how wretched Egypt's position was with respect to international relations and trade.

On what a different scale was the trade of Solomon supposedly at this same time, when forests of cedar trees of Lebanon were moved by sea to Jaffa - an operation not only different in scope but also in period.

150 years of no contact (1100 to 945 BC), not even a semblance of contact, not even the remotest evidence! We presented the evidence that what goes under the name of 21st Dynasty, when placed in its proper position and integrated with foreign contacts of the same period, brings out the truth that this dynasty belongs into the time of Persian occupation of Egypt.

The 21st Dynasty was a succession of hereditary priest-princes who resided in Thebes, in Tanis, but mainly in the oases of the Libyan desert at el Khargeh, the southern oasis, and at Siwa, the northern oasis. This dynasty preceded, was contemporary with, and followed the time of the 20th Dynasty, that of Ramses III whom we identified as Nectanebo I. This scenario appears to be supported by the so-called `Berlin Genealogy', a relief showing 4 rows of fairly identical looking to the right striding named figures. While it appears the hieroglyphics are not easy to read, we learned that this source has the 19th dynasty followed by the 21st, with no entries for the 20th dynasty. That is the way we present the history of Egypt of this time.

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Notes & References

[100] See W.M.F. Petrie, `The Arrangement of the XXIst Dynasty' in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology PSBA', Vol. XVIII, Jan-Dec 1896, p. 56-64.; Petrie claims: "The two limiting dates which absolutely bound the XX-XXIst dynasties, are two of the Sothis festivals; first of the 29th of Thoth, in the 2nd year of Merneptah*; second, a feast in the 22nd year of Usarken II. The first is given an absolute date of 1206 BC, within 2 or 3 years either way." [*Brugsch, `Reiseberichte', 299; Date in `Denkmäler', III, 199c. † A. Zeits, XXXII, 99; See also William A. Ward, The Present Status of Egyptian Chronology in ASOR Bulletin, No. 288, Nov 1992, p. 53-66.] - Sothic dating, there is something wrong with it.

[200] See David Jeffry and Lisa Giddy, `Looking for Memphis' in Egyptian Archaeology, Summer 1991, p. 5-12 & 1993, p. 18-20.; "The first few seasons revealed an extensive New Kingdom settlement, with a row of priest's houses on the east side and a possible artisan community on the west."

[250] Aelred Cody, The Phoenician Ecstatic in Wenamun in Egyptian Archaeology, 1979, p. 99-106.

[300] Where is Avaris, on the banks of the Pelusium arm in the Nile Delta or on the Mediterranean coast in Sinai? Maps of conventional authors and the excavations of Manfred Bietak have placed Avaris in the Nile Delta. How strong is their evidence? Is it enough to find a fortified installation to be able to call a place Avaris? Reading the reports of Manfred Bietak leaves this reader to wonder how archaeologists put themselves on record to name such a small location as the winner in the search for Avaris apparently ignoring the history of El Arish in the process. Not agreeing with the Hyksos/Amalekite equation must be the reason for geographical displacement in our opinion. We should recall that Josephus wrote that he established a garrison there numbering 240,000 armed men to protect his frontier..." [Josephus, AA, 77-78] The Nile fortresses do not appear to be sufficient in size to contain a larger army than a few thousand.

[400] Amenhotep I was the founder of the workmens village of Deir el Medina. Egypt achieved unparalleled prosperity following his ~21 year reign. His mummy was among the best preserved.

[500] The appelation `barbarians' is of Greek origins and means `foreigner', not some bad behaving foreigner necessarily. The meaning of the term today is of modern origin. In Greek literature the term `barbarians' is always applied to the Persians. Those who want to apply it to the Assyrians do so without corroberative evidence from the ancient authors.