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Original Historical Documents |
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The New Kingdom From Thutmose III to Zerah -A historical and stratigraphical revision by Damien Mackey - December, 2002 |
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Immanuel Velikovsky, in rejecting the textbook view that Sosenk I of the 22nd (Libyan) dynasty was the biblical pharaoh "Shishak" who, at the time of Rehoboam, sacked the Temple that Solomon built, thereby dismantled one of the main pillars of conventional chronology. By his choice of Thutmose III for "Shishak", and his re-identifying of Sosenk I as the biblical pharaoh "So" of the late C8th BC, he made these two pharaohs, Thutmose and Sosenk, something like two points of an ellipse holding together the new 'solar system' of revised ancient history.
I accept these two elliptical points as an indispensable part of the new structure. Two Opposing Views on "Shishak" Ultimately, it was due to the oppressive corvée that Israel rebelled against Solomon's foolish son, Rehoboam (ca. 931-913 BC), who had threatened his own people: 'My father made your yoke heavy, but I shall add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I shall chastise you with scorpions' (1.Kings 12:14). According to what was established in D, one pharaoh alone - Thutmose III - stands out as the contemporary and foe of Rehoboam and therefore the biblical pharaoh of whom we read: "In the fifth year of king Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house; he took everything. He also took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made ..." [cf. 1.Kings 14:25-26 & 2.Chronicles 12:9] This great 18th dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III, had now come into his own following the deaths of those two powerful figures Solomon and Hatshepsut, who, united, had been holding him back. Conventionally trained historians, of course, would have none of this. Not only would they insist that "Shishak" is to be firmly equated with Sosenk I (conventionally dated to c. 945-924 BC, the time of Solomon and Rehoboam), they are so confident about what they regard as the "astronomically fixed" Sothic dates for the 18th dynasty that they might go so far as to pinpoint, to the very day in the C15th BC, two incidents in Thutmose III's first campaign into Palestine. Dr. E. Danelius tells what these two dates are in her critical comment regarding Professor Breasted's dating of this Egyptian campaign [1]: The average student of the archaeology and/or ancient history of the Middle East, when told that Thutmose III, the most famous Pharaoh of the XVIIIth Egyptian Dynasty, started his first Asiatic campaign crossing the Egyptian frontier "about the 19th of April, 1479 BC ..." and "... went into camp on the plain of Megiddo on the 14th of May", does not ask how these dates were fixed. If he did, he would be in for a surprise. These dates were fixed about 70 years ago by a kind of common consent and have won final acceptance by all only after World War I.[`The Identification of the Queen of Sheba'..., Kronos 1, No. 3 (1975), p. 4; with reference to Breasted's `A History of Egypt', 2nd. ed. (London, 1941), p, 285, 287] According to the Sothic-based history of Egypt, the reign of Thutmose III is supposed to have pre-dated even the arrival of the Israelites in Palestine, and, a fortiori, the time when Israel was ruled by its kings (and when Solomon's magnificent Temple of Yahweh, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, stood proudly in Jerusalem). And so firmly fixed in the minds of the conventional historians is the present identification of Sosenk (or Shoshenq) I with the biblical pharaoh "Shishak" that Dr. J. Bimson regards it as constituting a "major obstacle" standing in the way of their acceptance of the revised scheme of ancient history: "... even if a body of unequivocal evidence emerges in support of a new ... chronology, one factor will probably remain a major obstacle to its adoption by conventional Egyptologists. I refer to the universally accepted identification of Shoshenq I (Hedjkheperre-Setepenre Shoshenq), founder of the Libyan 22nd Dynasty, with the biblical "Shishak king of Egypt" ...."["Shoshenk and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity", Chronology and Catastrophism Review VIII (1986), pp. 36-46] Since, as Bimson, says, this identification of Sosenk with "Shishak" has long been axiomatic among Egyptologists and biblical scholars alike, it is important to know the supposed 'evidence' upon which it rests. Superficially, he says, the identification seems assured by a combination of three factors: (i) the kings' names are evidently similar; (ii) Sosenk has left an inscription attesting that he campaigned in Palestine; and (iii) there is harmony between Sosenk's place in conventional Egyptian chronology and the biblical date for Shishak's invasion of Judah. Regarding (iii), we have shown, historically, stratigraphically and biblically that pharaoh Thutmose III could not possibly have belonged so early as the C15th BC, but that he was a younger contemporary of Solomon (C10th BC), who in fact tutored him. With the 18th dynasty thus lowered by half a millennium, Sosenk I is pushed right out of the frame as a candidate for "Shishak". In F, I shall follow up the more appropriate Velikovskian identification of Sosenk as "So". Regarding (i), it was Jean Francois Champollion who was responsible for having made the connection between the names "Shishak" and Sosenk (or Sesonchosis). During the course of his epigraphic survey of Egypt in 1828-29, Champollion copied and studied the toponym list of Sosenk on the Bubasite portal of the Karnak Temple. From that study he reached the conclusion that the king who had had this text inscribed was one and the same pharaoh as "Shishak". The pharaoh's name he rendered as "Sheschonck", and he immediately recognised here the name Sesonch(os)is of Manetho's dynastic list. Champollion then connected what he thought was a conquest of "Judah" in the pharaonic inscription with the invasion of Rehoboam's kingdom in I Kings 14, and thus saw the identity of "Sheschonck" with both Sesonch(os)is and the biblical "Shishak" as being "confirmed in the most satisfactory manner" [Lettres Ecrites d'Egypte et de Nubie en 1828 ey 1829.] Back in those days, that was quite a reasonable estimation to make, due to the similarity of names and the fact that Sosenk had clearly undertaken military campaigns into Palestine. It must have given Champollion a great degree of satisfaction. And for more than a century and a half after he proposed this identification, it has been well nigh universally accepted by the scholarly community. There have been, however, a few notable dissenters from the view that these two names Shishak and Sosenk are sufficiently close to confirm their identity. The vocalisation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs as Shoshenq is based upon the spelling of the name Shushinqu in Assyrian records from the 7th BC. Egyptologists have differed over how close they think the Hebrew name is to the Egyptian and Assyrian names. A. Gardiner, for instance, plainly felt that the Hebrew name was incompatible with the hieroglyphic original 4) Kenneth Kitchen 5), on the other hand, has defended the plausibility of the Hebrew rendering. In F, we shall consider more recent discussions on how well these names are thought to correspond. Finally, a few words about (ii) following Bimson 6). On the exterior, southern face of the Bubasite Portal is the scene commemorating Sosenk's successes in Palestine; a list of the cities that he conquered probably towards the end of his reign. In view of its assumed connection with an event in Old Testament history, Sosenk's list is regarded as being a document of immense historical value. By today's standards, however, Champollion's understanding of Sosenk's list was quite primitive. Instead of his recognising all of the name-rings on Sosenk's inscription as being the names of towns and cities in Palestine, he believed that the list included "the leaders of more than thirty vanquished nations" 7. Among the names, Champollion read No.29 as "Ioudahamelek", which he took to be the name "Judah" (Hebr.: hdAUhy4), followed by "the kingdom" (hkAUlm4ha) 8). Consequently, he translated this name-ring as meaning "the kingdom of the Jews, or of Judah". Champollion thus concluded that Judah was among the many "nations" that the pharaoh claimed to have conquered. Champollion's reading of name No.29 was subsequently challenged by Brugsch, who made a new and detailed study of the list, producing identifications of the names that have, in several cases, stood the test of time. Brugsch identified names both before and after No.29 as belonging to Israel as well as to Judah, and therefore felt that its position in the list contradicted Champollion's reading. The now generally accepted reading is that proposed by M. Muller 9): namely, that No.29 stands for the place-name, Yad-ha(m)melek. This place-name is otherwise unattested, but it would seem, according to Bimson - from its position in the list - that it refers to a location somewhere in the northwest coastal plain of the kingdom of Israel. The rejection of Champollion's reading of the name No.29 has not, however, weakened the identification of Sosenk I with the biblical "Shishak". A considerable number of names in the list had come to be identified with towns in Israel and Judah, establishing that Sosenk's forces had campaigned in Palestine. "Shishak" did not attack Israel, land of the 10 tribes, as opposed to Judah. Sosenk I did. Now a twin argument used by revisionists against the conventional view is that Sosenk, if "Shishak" (a) should not have campaigned against Israel, since the biblical pharaoh was an ally of Jeroboam of Israel against Rehoboam; and (b) should have actually assaulted Jerusalem, which both sides argue is not on the list. I think the first point (a) does hold firm as a telling argument against the conventional view. Bimson, having noted that - on the basis of the biblical situation - "one would not expect an invasion of Israel by Shishak", then elaborates on this with reference to Robinson 10): During Solomon's lifetime Jeroboam was already perceived as a threat to his rule, and so Solomon planned to kill him; "but Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt, to Shishak ... and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon" (1.Kings 11:40). .... Jeroboam was a guest at the court of Shishak, and according to the Septuagint version of I Kings 12 he married either a sister of Shishak's own wife, or (more probably) one of his daughters .... In the light of this it is somewhat surprising to find that the supposed Egyptian record of Shishak's invasion attests an extensive campaign into Jeroboam's kingdom. T.H. Robinson remarked: "What does this invasion of the north imply? Jeroboam was Sheshonk's ... protege - according to one account his son-in-law. It seems highly improbable that the Egyptian king should have attacked a person he so favoured ...". Recent scholarship, says Bimson, tends to reject any suggestion that Sosenk's invasion of Israel ought to be played down. H. Donner 11), for instance, has remarked that the campaign there was extensive: "Shoshenq reached the plain of Megiddo in the north, even sent troops into the region east of the Jordan, and so must have caused severe distress to the kingdom of Israel." Was Jerusalem included in Sosenk's list? Point (b), as I am going to suggest below, may not be so firm. Velikovsky, after noting that the relief "... has one hundred and thirty-five names of cities ...", had claimed that 12): "Neither Jerusalem, Hebron, Beer-Sheba, Bethlehem, nor any other known place was among the names on the list; nor was Jaffa, Gath, or Askelon." Thus, he asked: "The inscription refers in general terms to tribute given to Sosenk, but where are the spoils, the furniture and vessels of the Temple of Solomon and of his palace? Was 'Shishak' so modest that he did not mention the capital he conquered and the rich booty of the Temple, and at the same time so vainglorious that he piled up a list of names of non-existent cities?" 13) To explain this silence Kitchen 14), for instance, (following M. Noth) assumes that it is accounted for by "the primary interest of the Kings historian (and a fortiori, of the Chronicler) in what befell Judah more than Israel." This is also the view of H. Jagersma 15), who claims that the silence of the Old Testament "must be ascribed to the fact that the Deuteronomist [i.e. the presumed writer of 1. & 2.Kings] and even more the Chronicler primarily concentrated on events in Judah. Israel appears only rarely; and then above all in a polemical context." But Bimson finds it "surprising" that scholars as familiar with the Old Testament as Kitchen and Jagersma "should accept this apparently false explanation." And he goes on to explain that: "While it is true that the writer of the Books of Chronicles is primarily interested in Judah, and largely neglects its northern neighbour, this does not apply at all to the writer of the history found in 1. and 2. Kings (conventionally known as the Deuteronomist). Even a superficial reading of the relevant part of that history should be sufficient to disprove such an assumption. Of the chapters dealing with the parallel histories of Israel and Judah (1.Kings 12:25 to 2.Kings 16:20), approximately 650 verses are devoted to events in Israel and only 155 to events in Judah! The implication of these statistics is fully supported by a close study of the way the writer handles his material; this shows that "for the time of the contemporary Northern and Southern Kingdoms, Judah is not the mainstream interest of the Deuteronomist. This is found in the history of the North." (B. Topalian, Prophets and the Course of History in the Deuteronomist Corpus, 224). Thus we could reasonably expect him to mention Shishak's invasion of the northern kingdom if one actually occurred."16) Revisionists have seized upon Sosenk's apparent failure to mention Jerusalem as severely weakening the current claim that he was pharaoh "Shishak". Bimson 17), for instance, has regarded "Shoshenq's failure to include Jerusalem in his list of cities ..." as being far more serious than any other problem raised by the opponents of the conventional view. But even the proponents of the conventional identification are puzzled by this apparent omission. Judah's wealthy capital features in the Scriptures as the prime target of Shishak's expedition; but when we turn to Sosenk's inscription, as S. Hermann says: "It is remarkable that Jerusalem does not seem to be mentioned on it, and does not therefore belong among the places seized ... ."18) More recently, W. Shea - a great admirer and defender of Champollion - has produced a strong argument19) in favour of Jerusalem's being referred to on Sosenk's list. According to Shea's quite ingenious reconstruction of Sosenk I's campaign, and the strategy that the pharaoh employed during it, Jerusalem was included. Commentators, he claims, tend to be looking in the wrong place for mention of it near name No. 23 (Gibeon); whereas reference to Jerusalem should be looked for at the end, as the climax of the campaign. "As a preliminary but passing comment here it may simply be mentioned that Jerusalem should have occurred at the end of the section on Judah. Since the section on Judah follows that on Israel, Jerusalem should have been the last major target attacked."20) Sosenk I's is truly an original list, as Kitchen has emphasised.21) This is because he, unlike previous pharaohs, concentrated on Palestine rather than Syria. "Not one Syrian toponym occurs in it", notes Shea, who goes on to explain how this methodical list is basically divided in half: This concern with the territory of Palestine is cut even finer, for the list is basically divided in half; not quantitatively but geographically. Of the names that can be read and interpreted in the first five lines, all of them belong to the northern territory of Israel. All of the names that can be read and recognised in the last six lines belong to the territory of the southern kingdom of Judah. This distinction is emphasised by the fact that it is at line six where the Judahite names begin that the list is indented in the relief at the right. In other words, it is quite clear from the nature of the list that Sheshonq was evidently aware of the geographical distinction between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah.22) Shea proceeeds from there to discuss Sosenk's military strategy of divide and conquer. "This is demonstrated by the fact that the very first major incursion which he made into the land cut it in half right across the border between the two kingdoms." The second principle which the pharaoh appears to have employed, according to Shea, "was to work from the periphery to the centre, thus cutting the support of the peripheral towns and forts off from the royal residences, which were attacked last." As we have already emphasised, there should have been no need for the biblical "Shishak" to have done this, with the support he would have expected from the northern kingdom. Shea, continuing to trace the pharaoh's progress23), agrees with Bimson that there is no mention of Jerusalem after Gibeon. He follows Sosenk's path skirting the northern border of Judah, "almost studiously avoiding an incursion into Judahite territory", into Transjordan, then down to the Jordan Valley eastwards from Gibeon, then turning north up the Jordan Valley, to Rehob (No.17) and Beth-shan (No.16); then west to Shunem (No.15) and Tanaach (No.14) in the Jezreel Valley. See: City List From there to Megiddo (No.27) and possibly into western lower Galilee (Nos.8-31), he turns southwards again, and heads for the twin peaks (Mount Zemaraim) of Ebal and Gerizim, then Migdol (No.58) of Shechem and Tirzah (No.59). Then back down 'the valley', P3-'EMEQ, which Shea claims can only be the Jordan Valley (No.65). It is apparent from this that the pharaoh even attacked the northern capitals. The next part of the campaign is obscure, because the place names cannot be clearly identified. Shea, however, does a remarkable job of locating them in the Negev desert region, leading him to conclude that "the first portion of Sheshonq's campaign in Judah was spent in the Negev, conquering site after site in this region." He then discusses the Judean campaign proper. No.133, taken as Yurza south of Gaza, he re-identifies on the basis of the last letter being badly broken. "Given this uncertainty, this name is open to other interpretations. By restoring the twisted flax of the H here this name could be read as Y-W-R-[H-3] and interpreted as Jericho." This would suggest that Sosenk travelled up the west coast of the Dead Sea before he turned into central Judah in the hill country. To Jerusalem The next section (Nos.131-123) concerns what Shea believes to be the pharaoh's Judaean campaign, culminating in an assault against Jerusalem. I therefore give it at length: The first three letters of no. 121 read clearly as MR-c-R-L. At least one letter is missing at the bottom of this name. I take this as standing for Hebrew ma caleh, 'ascent, pass', referring to the pass through which the Egyptian troops travelled up into the central hill country. Together with the name in ring no. 128, this word was used for a pass which extended from Jericho up to Jerusalem (Joshua 15:7, cp. 18:17). No. 130 is too badly broken to read. The bottom part of No. 129 reads [ ]-R-H-T, possibly referring to some point in the pass where the 'winds' (Hebrew ruhot) were especially notable. No. 128 has previously been read as Adam and this is correct as far as it goes. There is, however, another letter at the bottom of the name and the letter written there is the horizontal loop of another M. This name should be read, therefore, as 'A-D-M3-3-M and interpreted as standing for Adumim, the name of the pass that ran up to Jerusalem from Jericho. Arriving at the hill country, the Egyptians turned their attention to sites located there. The first of these was G-R-N (No. 127) whch has correctly been identified with Hebrew goren, a 'threshing floor'. There must have been something especially important about this threshing floor for such an ordinary object to have been mentioned here. Especially important among the threshing floors of the central hill country was that of Ornan or Araunah which David bought and upon which Solomon built the temple. Entry into the area of this threshing floor was, therefore, tantamount to obtaining entry into the area of the temple complex in Jerusalem." The next place name, No. 126, can be read quite clearly as El-mat(t)an, good Hebrew for 'God of the gift'. There is no place in Judah, however, which was known by this name. Rather it may refer to something specific which happened at a place, i.e. payment of a tribute from the temple of God. This the Egyptians could well have looked upon as a gift or payment from the Israelite God. ...." [Shea of course takes this as being Shishak's very despoliation of the Jerusalem Temple.] "The next name has been read from time to time as Sharuhen. This is a good start on that name but it does not take all of its letters into account. The complete set of letters should be read as S3-R-H-I-(W)-N-M. Two words should be separated out here; S-R standing for Hebrew sacar, 'gate' written without the cayin, and Hinnom for the personal name of Hinnom, written with a phonetic shift to the strong laryngeal at the beginning of the name. Thus the 'site' identified here is taken as the 'gate of Hinnom', i.e. the gate of Jerusalem which led into the Hinnom Valley. While this name is admittedly difficult, if it has been interpreted correctly here it would indicate that Sheshonq was not only paid tribute by Rehoboam [sic], he actually gained entrance to the temple precincts himself, and traversed the city below the temple platform, exiting to the south."24) Shea, having thus dealt with Jerusalem, continues to follow what he believes to be the pharaoh's path through Bethlehem, with its famous field ('Abel') and back through the Negev to Egypt. All in all, quite an ingenious reconstruction! But it could not be, despite what Shea thinks, the actions of the biblical "Shishak", who was an ally of Jeroboam. And, furthermore, Sosenk mentions hardly any of the fortified cities of Judah as given in the Bible for the time of Rehoboam. (2.Chronicles 11:5-11) Sosenk I indeed belongs to the Third Intermediate Period [TIP] of Egyptian history which, according to convention, had already commenced with the 21st dynasty about a century before Solomon. But in this revision, we are not going to encounter TIP for yet another two centuries (in F). The tricky TIP (made nightmarishly complicated by convention's radical over-extension of it, with many duplications) gets completely in the way when associated with the Solomonic era. And, stratigraphically, the match is disastrous. Chronologically, according to the revision presented in this Excursus, Thutmose III was the contemporary of Solomon and his son, Rehoboam. But, having swept aside Sosenk I as a worthy candidate for "Shishak", can we convincingly show that Thutmose III matches the requisite details? Did this Thutmose III actually campaign in Judah, and against Jerusalem? And did he bring back cart-loads of wondrous spoils from the Temple and royal palace? The answer to both questions is yes. The Pharaoh's Name Velikovsky, and early revisionists who had accepted his argument that Thutmose III was "Shishak", had struggled with (or ignored) the name, Thutmose (Egyptian, Dhwty-ms). It bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to "Shishak", and the name Sosenk would appear to be a far better equivalent. Velikovsky had tried to get around the problem by taking "Shishak" to be a kind of descriptive nick-name, rather than a proper name. He thus turned to a Jewish legend,25) according to which Shishak's "... real name was Zebub, 'fly', but ... he was called "Shishak" (from 'Shuk', 'desire') because he longed for the death of Solomon whom he feared to attack." More recently, the problem may have been solved satisfactorily by K. Birch.26) It is well known that the later Egyptian pharaohs had as many as five names. Now Birch has noted in this regard that "... the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau, Cheser-khau, (Sheser-khau?);" names that come very close indeed to "Shishak" (Hebr. qwaOwi) according to Birch. Nor do these names have the problem of the presence of the letter "n" as found greatly complicating discussions on the name Shoshenq's appropriateness for "Shishak". Regarding the succession of consonants - considered much more important than the changeable vowels in ancient names - we get for Sheser-kau the pattern, Sh-S-K, corresponding almost exactly to Sh-Sh-K, and more suitable than Shoshenq (Sh-Sh-N-K). Thutmose III's First Campaign According to the Egyptologists' interpretation of this campaign, Thutmose III, in the 22nd year of his reign, embarked upon a military expedition into Syria in order to fight a coalition of Syrian princes under the leadership of a "King of Kd-sw" (usually translated as "Kadesh"), who had risen against him. The campaign ended with the overwhelming victory of the pharaoh, who returned to Egypt laden with the spoil from the conquered lands. Israel, they claim, was still then in Egypt. But, according to the reconstruction being presented in this Excursus, the Israelites had long been in possession of the Promised Land (for about half a millennium). The twelve tribes of Israel were by now split into the northern and southern kingdoms - the latter being ruled from Jerusalem. And the Temple of Yahweh was now that city's great boast. Thutmose III, after his return to Egypt from the above-mentioned campaign, had the story of it cut in hieroglyphs into the walls of the great Temple at Karnak, and illustrated with pictures showing - amongst other things - about 200 different specimens of furniture, vessels, ornaments, etc., in gold, silver, bronze and precious stones. The character of these objects leaves no doubt that they had been taken from a great and extremely rich temple and palace. Now the greater part of Thutmose's campaign report is dedicated to the fight for a city that he called My-k-ty (or Mkty), its siege and final surrender. In their search for a city written this way in hieroglyphs, the Egyptologists decided that My-k-ty must be the transcription of the name, "Megiddo", a most ancient city in the Plain of Esdraelon well known from the Old Testament. At the time when this identification was suggested and accepted, Palestinian archaeology was still in its infancy. Since then, however, an ever growing number of Canaanite cities of this period have been excavated, partly with their sanctuaries still intact. In regard to these, Dr. Danelius has written: "Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, has any trace been found or any single object discovered comparable to the creations of superb workmanship brought home by Thutmose III from his first campaign into Palestine, and portrayed on the walls of the Temple at Karnak."27) Champollion's identification of Mkty with Megiddo was accepted by Lepsius (d.1884), who was the first to publish the text, and then - as with his Shoshenq = Shishak - by all the later Egyptologists who worked on it. Today, about 150 years after the first reading, "it has", Danelius wrote [5], "become an axiom, and is treated as such by all concerned - historians, archaeologists and scholars of ancillary disciplines - a self-evident truth which needs no scientific investigation". Velikovsky27), following the Annals of Thutmose III as they appear in Breasted's Records, interestingly interpreted the pharaoh's statement: "Now at that time the Asiatics had fallen into disagreement each man fighting against his neighbour" [Breasted, `Records', Vol. II, Sec. 416], as being a reference to the rift between Rehoboam in the south and Jeroboam in the north. He accepted the conventional interpretation of My-k-ty in the pharaoh's Annals as Megiddo, but he unconventionally identified the place-name Kd-sw, or "Kadesh" as Jerusalem ("Kadesh" meaning the "Holy One"). Thus, according to Velikovsky's scheme, the king of Kadesh who came to the assistance of Megiddo against the pharaoh was Rehoboam himself. Thutmose III had written of the situation: "That wretched enemy [the chief] of Kadesh has come and entered into My-k-ty; he is there at this moment". [Ibid., Sec. 420] Once the stronghold of Megiddo had fallen, Thutmose III had - as Velikovsky argued - proceeded on to Rehoboam's own capital of Jerusalem, which he then subjugated as well. Velikovsky, however, was not able to provide any evidence from the Egyptian Annals as proof that the mighty pharaoh had actually marched on Jerusalem. More recently, Danelius31) has criticised Velikovsky for claiming that Rehoboam had gone to the aid of Megiddo. As she rightly noted, for Rehoboam to have participated in a fight there would have been "a physical impossibility at that specific moment of Israelite history." Megiddo, as Danelius explained, is about 90 km (c.56 miles) north of Jerusalem as the crow flies; but an actual 140-150 km of difficulty going through wild and mountainous country. Rehoboam, who was at enmity with the kingdom of Israel, was now desperately preparing his kingdom of Judah for war against Egypt. As she went on to explain at length [31]: Rehoboam had lost an empire. Now he did everything possible to ensure the safety of the tiny kingdom with which he was left. Anticipating an invasion, Rehoboam put his country into a state of defence (II Chron. 11:5-12): he closed off all the roads and defiles leading up into "the high rocky fortress of Judaea" (A. Wavell, `The Palestine Campaign', 3&7) with a semi-circle of fifteen fortresses, he "put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine ... shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong", to withstand a prolonged siege. Rehoboam was well advised to do so, being surrounded by enemies of the House of David: in the south Edom, in the west the lands of the five Philistine kings, and in the north the Israelites, who had successfully rebelled against him. The only road which he kept open was that which led via Jericho and the fords of the Jordan to the Ammonites (i.e. Transjordania), to whom he was related through his mother (I Kings 14:21), and from whom he could hope for help against a foreign invasion. Curiously enough, the Bible does not mention any fortress which could protect Judah's northern border against Israel. This gap is filled by Josephus, who reported that Rehoboam, after completing the strongholds in the territory of Judah, constructed walled cities in the territory of Benjamin, which bordered Judah to the north (Antiquities, VIII, x.1)." Nothing like this panic was going on in Jeroboam's northern kingdom by contrast: "... While Rehoboam was feverishly preparing his country for war, Jeroboam indulged in peaceful activities. He built a royal palace at Shechem in the hope of making it his capital. He built a second one at ... Penuel. And he embarked on a religious revolution which weakened the military capacity of his country .... During all those years, Jeroboam was certainly as well aware of the military preparations going on in Egypt as was his southern neighbor the king of Judah. It seems that Jeroboam judged the situation correctly, as far as his kingdom was concerned: no unfriendly act of the Pharaoh against Israel is as much as hinted at by the Chronicler ...."32) Following the excellent logic of this description by Danelius, we should hardly expect Rehoboam - who had recently encircled himself with his own fortified cities in Judah - to appear all of a sudden at the gates of a city in the northerly part of Israel, namely Megiddo, to fight by the side of a king of that region who had recently stolen most of his kingdom from him. The City of Kadesh There are several cities by the name Kadesh known to historians. The most famous of these is the Kadesh that is located on the Orontes River in northern Syria. According to Velikovsky, however, this Syrian Kadesh could not have been the same as the Kd-sw that Thutmose III had had inscribed at Karnak: "... the city of Kadesh is named as the first among one hundred and nineteen Palestinian (not Syrian) cities .... This Kadesh could not be a city in Syria, for in the Palestine campaign Thutmose III did not reach the Orontes. There was a Kadesh in Galilee, Kadesh Naphtali, mentioned a few times in the Scriptures; but what would be the purpose of placing this unimportant city at the top of the list? ....33) The suggestion was advanced that the first name on the Palestine list did not belong to the register and had been added later (M. Muller, Asien und Europa nach altaegyptischen Denkmalern, 145, n.3). This is highly improbable, especially since the interpolation (if it be such) was made on all three copies. Or, it was said, the Galilean city might have been intended, but the sculptor mistook it for the famous Kadesh on the Orontes and for this erroneous reason put it in first place. [Muller, "Die Palästinaliste Thutmosis III.", Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisch-Ägyptischen Gesellschaft, Vol. XII, p. 8] These theories met opposition. The lists were executed shortly after the return from the Palestinian campaign and prior to the Syrian campaign; at that time there was no reason to confuse the cities [J. Simons, `Handbook for the Study of Egyptian Topographical Lists...', 1937]; beyond doubt the list was checked by his officials. Having raised the objections to the conventional view, Velikovsky then went on to provide what he considered to be the proper identification of the "Kadesh" of the Egyptian Annals. It was Jerusalem. "Jerusalem against which the pharaoh advanced, must have been the city of Kadesh. This one answer serves two questions: Why was Jerusalem not on the list of Thutmose III, and Where was the king-city of Kadesh?" "Is Jerusalem anywhere else called Kadesh?", Velikovsky asked. He then emphatically answered his question in the affirmative by quoting, over the space of several paragraphs34), scriptural texts indicating that Jerusalem was indeed referred to as "Kadesh": "Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David ... because the places are kadesh [holy]."[2.Chronicles 8:11] "Yet have I set My king upon Zion, my mount kadesh."[Psalms 2:6] "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound the alarm in My mountain kadesh."[Joel 2:1] "... for they [the people of Jerusalem] call themselves of the city of Kadesh. ..."[Isaiah 66:18ff] Etc., etc. Velikovsky further observed that: "The name Kadesh is used for Jerusalem not in Hebrew texts alone. The names of the most obscure Arab villages in Palestine were scrutinized by the scholars in biblical lore in an endeavor to locate the ancient cities, but the Arab name for Jerusalem was overlooked: it is el-Kuds (the Holy, or the Holiness)."35) In the light of this information, Velikovsky was extremely confident that Jerusalem itself was to be identified with the city of Kadesh named in Thutmose III's list. Moreover, he threw out this further challenge to the conventional historians: "Kadesh, the first among the Palestinian cities, was Jerusalem. The 'wretched foe', the king of Kadesh, was Rehoboam. Among the one hundred and nineteen cities were many which the scholars did not dare to recognise: they were built when Israel was already settled in Canaan."36) Antiquity was ascribed to other cities which were not entitled to it. The walled cities fortified by Rehoboam (2.Chronicles 11:5ff.) may be found in the Egyptian list. It appears that Etam is Itmm; Beth-zur - Bt Sir; Socoh - Sk. Here is a new field for scholarly inquiry: the examination of the list of the Palestinian cities of Thutmose III, comparing their names with the names of the cities in the kingdom of Judah. The work will be fruitful. Thutmose III's Spoil Velikovsky next played his trump card for this reconstruction, greatly strengthening his case by showing that part of the wall of the Karnak temple displays treasures that can be identified with items from the Temple of Yahweh and from Solomon's palace37). Any notion that the Iron Age (II) pharaoh Shoshenq I was Shishak falls absolutely flat by comparison. According to Velikovsky, whose description is accompanied by photographs37b): The bas-relief displays in ten rows the legendary wealth of Solomon. There are pictures of various precious objects, furnishings, vessels, and utensils of the Temple, of the palace, probably also of the shrines of foreign deities. Under each object a numerical symbol indicates how many of that kind were brought by the Egyptian king from Palestine: each stroke means one piece, each arch means ten pieces, each spiral one hundred pieces of the same thing. If Thutmose III had wanted to boast and to display all his spoils from the Temple and the Palace of Jerusalem by showing each object separately instead of using this number system, a wall a mile long would have been required and even that would not have sufficed. In the upper five rows the objects of gold are presented; in the next rows silver things are mingled with those of gold and precious stones; objects of bronze and semi-precious stones are in the lower rows. ... On the Karnak bas-relief Thutmose III is shown presenting certain objects to the god Amon: these objects are the part of the king's booty which he dedicated to the temple of Amon and gave to the Egyptian priests. This picture does not represent the whole booty of Thutmose III. He chose for the Egyptian temples what he took from the foreign Temple, and in this collection of "cunning work" one has to look for the objects enumerated in the sections of the Books of Kings and Chronicles describing the Temple. On the walls of the tomb chambers of Thutmose's viziers treasures are shown in the process of transportation from Palestine. Besides the art work familiar from the scene of presentation to Amon, there are also other objects, apparently from the palace. These were delivered to Pharaoh's palace and to the houses of his favorites. The books of the Scriptures have preserved a detailed record of furniture and vessels of the Temple only. Fortunately the separation of the sacral booty in the scene of dedication to Amon makes the task of recognition easier. As for Hatshepsut, so perhaps for Thutmose III may the Karnak temple have substituted for the Temple in Jerusalem. As in the latter, so in the Karnak list were there items of gold, silver and bronze37): ... The metals used for the sacral furniture and for the vessels in the Temple of Solomon were of gold, silver and bronze ("brass"). The "cunning work" was manufactured of each of these metals. Often an article is represented on the wall in gold and another of the same shape in brass. The fashioning of identical objects in gold as well as in bronze (brass) for the Temple of Solomon is repeatedly referred to in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. When gold was used for the vessels and the furnishings of Solomon's Temple, it was either solid gold (1.Kings 7:48-50; 2.Chonicles 4:7, 8, 21, 22) or a hammered gold overlay on wood (1.Kings 6:20, 21, 28, 30, 32, 35; 2.Chronicles 3:7, 9). ... "A crown of gold round about" was an ancient Judaean ornament of sacred tables and altars (Exodus 37:11, 12, 25). Such ornamentation is seen on the golden altar in the second row of the mural, as well as on the bronze (brass) altar in the ninth row. The decorative motifs37): The preferred ornament on the vessels was the 'shoshana', translated as "lily" (lotus). 1.Kings 7:26 ... the brim thereof [of the molten sea] was wrought like the brim of a cup, with flowers of lillies. The lotus motif is often repeated on the vessels reproduced on the wall of Karnak. A lotus vial is shown in gold, in silver, and in colored stone (malachite?). A rim of lily work may be seen on various vessels, a very unusual type of rim ornament, found only in the scriptural account and on the bas-relief of Thutmose III. Moreover, there were no idolatrous representations37): Idols were and still are used in pagan worship. The hundreds of sacred objects appearing in the mural were obviously not of an idolatrous cult; they suggest, rather, a cult in which offerings of animals, incense, and showbread were brought, but in which no idols were worshiped. The Temple of Kadesh-Jerusalem, sacked by Thutmose III, was rich in utensils for religious services but devoid of any image of a god. Piece by piece the altars and vessels of Solomon's Temple can be identified on the wall of Karnak. The great altar of gold: In the Temple of Solomon there was an altar of gold for burnt offerings (1.Kings 7:48; 2.Chronicles 4:19). It was the only such altar. In the second row of the bas-reliefs is an altar with a crown around the edge, partly destroyed, but partly plainly discernible. The inscription reads: 'The [a] great altar'. It was made of gold. And so it goes on. This important excursus on Thutmose's booty, as provided by Velikovsky, obviously intrigued D. Courville, who wrote in a similar vein in38): In this inscription may be traced many of the objects known to have been in either the temple or in Solomon's treasure house. Of particular interest are the cones of gold, of silver, and of malachite which bear the identification "white bread" and which evidently represented the "shew bread" of the temple ceremony. Among the items one may note 300 gold shields (for which even the number agrees with Scripture) (1.Kings 10:17), 100 basins of gold (2. Chron. 4:8,11), the tools and implements used in the temple service, the six-branched candlestick (Exodus 25:33), the frequent use of the lotus motif in decoration (1.Kings 7:26), the golden candlesticks (1.Kings 6:21), the copper doors (2.Chron. 4:9), other candlesticks (2.Kings 7:49), jars of anointing oil, an altar of gold with an inscription reading "The Great Altar" (Exodus 30:1,3), and in it all the complete absence of any item in the form of a god or idol. The interested reader is strongly urged to get hold of Velikovsky's complete description of this tremendous booty (and the accompanying photos), to peruse and study these. Velikovsky was therefore able, based on his detailed comparisons above, to press his point of view that Kadesh was in fact Jerusalem. And he supplemented this with various quotations from Scripture where Jerusalem is referred to as kadesh 10: Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David ... because the places are kadesh [holy] (II Chronicles 8:11). Yet have I set My king upon Zion, my mount kadesh (Psalms 2:6). Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound the alarm in My mountain kadesh (Joel 2:1). Etc., etc. He further observed that [11]: The name Kadesh is used for Jerusalem not in Hebrew texts alone. The names of the most obscure Arab villages in Palestine were scrutinized by the scholars in biblical lore in an endeavor to locate the ancient cities, but the Arab name for Jerusalem was overlooked: it is el-Kuds (the Holy, or the Holiness). In the light of this information, Velikovsky was extremely confident that Jerusalem itself was to be identified with the "Kadesh" named in Thutmose III's list. Moreover, he threw out this further challenge to the conventional historians [12]: Kadesh, the first among the Palestinian cities, was Jerusalem. The 'wretched foe', the king of Kadesh, was Rehoboam. Among the one hundred and nineteen cities were many which the scholars did not dare to recognise: they were built when Israel was already settled in Canaan. Antiquity was ascribed to other cities which were not entitled to it. The walled cities fortified by Rehoboam (II Chronicles 11:5ff.) may be found in the Egyptian list. It appears that Etam is Itmm; Beth-zur - Bt Sir; Socoh - Sk. Here is a new field for scholarly inquiry: the examination of the list of the Palestinian cities of Thutmose III, comparing their names with the names of the cities in the kingdom of Judah. The work will be fruitful. But Velikovsky was not able to produce any actual evidence from the pharaoh's Annals that Thutmose III had marched on Jerusalem itself; the very same problem with which defenders of the Shoshenq = Shishak view are faced. And this is where Danelius' contribution becomes a vital link in the chain. She has shown that all three roads debated at a war council by Thutmose III and his officers, as to which they thought the most appropriate to follow, led directly, or near, to the capital city itself (see Figure 1 on next page). The road for which the pharaoh eventually opted, the dangerous Aruna road (Egyptian ?3-rw-n3), Danelius would identify as a road leading directly to the Jerusalem Temple Mount. Solomon's Kingdom and the El-Amarna Letters Velikovsky had re-dated the el-Amarna [EA] correspondence of the era of Akhnaton and his father - conventionally located in c.C15th/C14th's BC - to the C9th BC (see E). On the basis of this he wrote a startling article, "The Šulmân Temple in Jerusalem"39), in which he claimed that the Temple in Jerusalem was actually referred to in EA letters No.74 & No.290. According to the Sothic arrangement of chronology, Pharaoh Akhnaton's era is supposed to have pre-dated the construction of the Temple by about half a millennium. It was Professor J. Lewy40) who, from a certain passage in EA No.290 written by the king of Jerusalem to the Pharaoh, had concluded that Jerusalem was referred to therein as the "Temple of Šulman". Commenting upon Lewy's thesis, Velikovsky wrote: "Actually, Lewy read the ideogram that had much puzzled the researchers before him. After complaining that the land was falling to the invading bands (habiru), the king of Jerusalem wrote: "... and now, in addition, the capital of the country of Jerusalem - its name is Bît Šulmani - , the king's city, has broken away ..." Beth Sulman in Hebrew, as Professor Lewy correctly translated, is Temple of Šulman. But, of course, writing in 1940, Lewy could not surmise that the edifice was the Temple of Solomon ...."39) It was surprising to find in the el-Amarna letters written in the fourteenth century that the capital of the land was already known then as Jerusalem (Urusalim) and not, as the Bible claimed for the pre-Conquest period, Jebus or Salem. Now, in addition, it was found that the city had a temple of Šulman in it and that the structure was of such importance that its name had been used occasionally for denoting the city itself .... Lewy, looking at the EA age in Palestine from the conventional point of view as that of the pre-Conquest Jebusite era, had written: "Aside from proving the existence of a Šulman temple in Jerusalem in the first part of the 14th century BC, this statement of the ruler of the region leaves no doubt that the city was then known not only as Jerusalem, but also as Bet Šulman .... It is significant that it is only this name [Jerusalem] that reappears after the end of the occupation of the city by the Jebusites, which the Šulman temple, in all probability, did not survive."41) Highly ironical words from Lewy according to Velikovsky's context! Now P. Friedman42) has suggested the need for a relatively minor - but still important - adjustment to be made to Velikovsky's conclusion about the meaning of the phrase Beth Šulman. Although today, as he says, the phrase "Temple of Solomon" is commonly used, "it never occurs in the Old Testament, where the Jerusalem Temple is always the "House [or Temple] of Yahweh" ...". It is therefore unlikely, Friedman suggests, that we should render Beth Šulman as "Temple of Solomon". Since the Hebrew "beth" (tyiBA) means essentially "house", and only secondarily "temple", we may read the EA ideogram as "House of Solomon" rather than Velikovsky's "Temple of Solomon". Friedman continues: Because of the context in which Bît Šulmani occurs in letter 290, both Lewy and Velikovsky have to assume that "Temple of Šulman" came to designate the city of Jerusalem itself, not just its Temple. We may now suggest that the phrase never referred to the Temple at all, but from the start was another name for the city. "House of Solomon" should be perfectly acceptable as an alternative name for Jerusalem itself. We have a close parallel to such usage in the Assyrian records, which refer to Israel as Bit Humri, "House of Omri". This term remained in use long after Omri's dynasty had fallen (cf. ANET, 284-5). It is therefore perfectly feasible to suggest that a century after Solomon's reign Jerusalem [indeed the whole kingdom of Judah] was still known as the "House of Solomon" ...."42) The So-Called 'Battle of Megiddo'' We now come to the crux of this reconstruction. Here I shall be relying very much on Danelius' brilliant article, "Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?" This, I believe, will make it possible to unravel in the most satisfactory way Thutmose III's vital first campaign, undertaken as late as his Year 22. We recall that Champollion had equated the name My-k-ty of Thutmose's campaign with the stronghold of Megiddo. His identification was accepted by Lepsius (d.1884), who was the first to publish the text, and by all the later Egyptologists who worked on it. Today, nearly 150 years after the first reading, Danelius wrote43), "... it has become an axiom, and is treated as such by all concerned - historians, archaeologists and scholars of ancillary disciplines - a self-evident truth which needs no scientific investigation." Our revision however demands that we scrutinise anew the Annals of Thutmose III. Unfortunately, this ancient record is not in the best of condition. Professor Breasted, who started working on the hieroglyphic text around the turn of the C20th century, had already then referred to its poor condition44): "They [the Annals] are in a very bad state of preservation, the upper courses having mostly disappeared, and with them the upper parts of the vertical lines of the inscription." K. Sethe45), who worked on a critical edition of the Egyptian original during the same years that Breasted worked on its translation into English, has provided detailed information about the length of the various gaps. These gaps, he noted, vary from a few centimetres to more than 1.75 metres. Regarding this important fact, Danelius has given the following pertinent warning (with Professor Breasted's translation very much in mind): Another pitfall for the translator is the licence to fill gaps not overly long with words which might have stood there, according to his - very subjective - ideas .... Though these insertions by the translator have to be put in brackets as a warning to students, it happens only too often, especially when provided by a famous teacher, that in the end they are treated with the same respect as the original."43) For Breasted, the identification with the biblical Megiddo of the fortress Mkty conquered by Thutmose was a fact not to be doubted. And his interpretation of the very fragmentary text was determined by this fact. Here Danelius further reminded the reader that Breasted's outlook was "that of the 19th century American, a romantic who had never seen war. His great hero was Thutmose III, the "genius which ... reminds us of an Alexander or a Napoleon ..."."46). The story, as told by Breasted, started in the 22nd year of Thutmose's reign, "fourth month of the second season", when the pharaoh crossed the boundary of Egypt47). There had been a rebellion against the pharaoh in the city of Sharuhen, known from the Bible. The city had been allocated in the tribe of Simeon, inside the territory of Judah (Joshua 19:6). Nine days later was "the day of the feast of the king's coronation", which meant the beginning of a new year, Year 23. Thutmose spent it at the city "which the ruler seized", G3-d3-tw, understood to be Gaza.48) Thutmose left Gaza on the very next day as the Annals record: [Lines 16-19] 16) ... in power, in triumph, to overthrow the wretched foe, to extend 17) the boundaries of Egypt, according to the command of his father the valiant 18) that he seize. Year 23, first month of the third season, on the sixteenth day, at the city of Yehem (Y-hm), he ordered [GAP - one word] 19) consultation with his valiant troops ...."49) We recall that Breasted had dated Thutmose III's crossing of the Egyptian frontier into Gaza to a precise April day in 1479 BC. Undoubtedly Gaza, one of the five Philistine cities deadly hostile to the House of David, would have been on friendly terms with the pharaoh. The Philistines would likely therefore have consented for Gaza to serve as a base for the Egyptian army. Danelius has drawn attention to a vitally important aspect of this passage from the Annals: "The attentive reader will have observed that there is no gap in the middle of the line 18. Nevertheless, Breasted inserted before the words "at the city of Y-hm" in brackets: "(he arrived)" (#419). In his `History of Egypt' he goes much more into detail: "Marching along the Shephela and through the sea-plain, he crossed the plain of Sharon, turning inland as he did so, and camped on the evening of May 10th at Yehem, a town of uncertain location, some eighty or ninety miles from Gaza, on the southern slopes of the Carmel range" (pp. 286/7). Not a word of all this appears in the Egyptian text. All that the text says is that the Pharaoh spent one night at a city which has been identified with Gaza, and that nine days later he held a consultation with his officers at another place of which we know absolutely nothing. All else is guesswork. Its only justification, in the eyes of the translator, lies in the fact that it brings the army to the place where it should be if the location of the city to be conquered, My-k-ty, was in the Valley of Esdraelon."46) Quod erat demonstrandum. Details of this highly dramatic war-council have been preserved in a section of the Annals50) which is of vital importance to us because of the geographical information that it provides. Here we read that Thutmose's generals, now faced with the prospect of taking the difficult road to Mkty, baulked at the idea, saying: "How is it to go [GAP] on this road which threatens to be narrow? ... Will not horse come behind horse [GAP] man likewise? Shall our vanguard be fighting while our [GAP: rearguard?] is yet standing yonder in '3-rw-n3 not having fought?" In this section of the Annals, we find the pharaoh's generals showing the utmost reluctance to take the difficult road to Mkty. Commenting on this phenomenon, Danelius has written: "This was indeed an amazing story ... Thutmose's generals rising almost in mutiny against their commander, the Pharaoh, "the Mighty Bull, Living Horus", as he calls himself in his inscriptions. And even more astonishing, the Pharaoh seemed to understand their reluctance to enter this road of ill omen: he neither blamed them, nor did he punish them, but left the decision to them. Upon which the officers decided to follow their master."46) At face value, and on the basis of names alone, Breasted would appear to have been well entitled to identify the names, My-k-ty, T3-'3-n3-k3 and '3-rw-n3 (that appear in this section of Thutmose's account) with the northern geographical locations of, respectively, Megiddo, Taanach and the Wadi 'Ara. However, as we are now going to find, there are some very serious topographical problems associated with these choices. Beginning first with the last named, the Wadi 'Ara, Danelius has well explained that [45]: Breasted identified this defile, the road called "Aruna" in the Egyptian records, with the Wadi 'Ara which connects the Palestine maritime plain with the Valley of Esdraelon. It was this identification which aroused my curiosity, and my doubt. If it is true that "the geography of a country determines the course of its wars" (Wavell, op. cit., 3, n.23), the frightful defile, and attempts at its crossing by conquering armies, should have been reported in books of Biblical and/or post-Biblical history. There is no mention of either. Nor has the Wadi 'Ara pass ever been considered to be secret, or dangerous. C. Conder, describing this pass of the Wadi 'Ara in the north, had written: "From the Plain of Sharon to Jordan. This line ... ascends by the broad and open valley Wady 'Arah, crossing the watershed at Ain Ibrahim, which is about 1200 feet above the sea. Thence the road descends, falling some 700 feet in 3 miles to Lejjun, where it bifurcates ... This line, which appears to be ancient, is of great importance, being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of Wady 'Arah."51) It should be remembered that Conder wrote these words about a century ago; long before the modern highway had been laid through. Now Breasted, who wanted 'scientific proof' for his identification; suggested to one of his students, Harold H. Nelson, that he dedicate his doctoral thesis to the matter. The story of Nelson and his doctoral thesis - too long to go into here in Danelius' detail - makes for very poignant reading. Danelius begins the rather tragic story of Nelson's assignment: "Nelson was not given freedom to look for the frightening defile among the mountains of Palestine; Breasted confined him to a specific region: "This study is confined almost entirely to ... interpret the Annals of Thutmose III in the light of the geography of the environs of Megiddo" [Nelson's own words in the preface to his thesis, The Battle of Megiddo, 1913]. In other words, the "scientific investigation" had to verify a foregone conclusion of Breasted - it was "prove or perish" for the unhappy, young man. For the sensitive reader, the resulting dissertation is a moving testimony of an intelligent and honest young student who tried desperately to harmonise the theory of his venerated teacher with the observations made on the spot, which simply did not fit."52) Nelson travelled the Wadi 'Ara pass in 1909 and in 1912. He described it in detail: "... the road enters the Wady 'Ara which is there ... flat and open ... All the way to a quarter of a mile above 'Ar'arah the valley is wide and level ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible ... a watcher posted on the hill above Lejjun could descry an approaching army at least a mile above the mouth of the pass."53) Nor did Nelson even think that the name of the pass matched that of the defile as given in Thutmose's account: "Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) 'Aruna with (Arab) 'Ar'arah."53) Commenting on this unhappy situation, Danelius continued: "Neither the physical appearance of the road as described by Nelson, nor its use as an international highway justify its identification with a road described as "inaccessible", "secret" or "mysterious" in the Egyptian records."54) But Nelson's difficulties were not only of a geographical nature. Logistics had to be taken into account as well. According to the timetable drawn up by Breasted, the Egyptian army emerged from the pass in the afternoon, set up camp, and spent a quiet night, to go forth to battle the next morning.54) All this in full view of the army of the Asiatics! Nelson was unable to understand the behaviour of "the Allies" - as he called them - or why they should have, as he said: "... thrown away the advantage afforded by the narrowness of the pass ... to strike Thutmose under circumstances so favourable to the success of the Allies. Our meagre sources must leave us forever ignorant of the reasons of the Allies for thus throwing away the greatest chance of victory ...."56) Despite the name given to Nelson's thesis, "The Battle of Megiddo", it appears that there was no battle. As Nelson himself admitted: "On the actual conflict which took place there is not a vestige of information. To judge from the Annalist's narrative it would seem that the Asiatics fled without striking a blow ... why the Asiatics fled is not plain. They probably mustered a considerable force."57) And finally, why was the city of Mkty not taken by storm? Nelson could only wonder at this: "Just why Thutmose did not make such an attempt at once is hard to surmise ..." Despite the fact that now, for more than half a century, the doctoral thesis of the young Nelson has become the unanswerable proof of the how, when and where of Thutmose III's first Palestinian campaign, Nelson himself, when parting with the last copy of his thesis, giving it to the librarian of the Cairo Museum, apparently told the latter that he no longer identified himself with his findings as expressed in the study."58) Another authority who doubted the conventional view of the localisation was P. Guy, who nonetheless accepted Breasted's invitation to take over the leadership of the Megiddo excavation (the biggest and most richly endowed in Mandatory Palestine) that a predecessor had had to give up for health reasons. Concerning Guy's opinion, Danelius wrote: "Guy died in 1952. His wife, who had lived with him at Megiddo and shared work on the site, continued working with the Department of Antiquities of the State of Israel. Mrs. Guy most willingly answered all my questions. Again and again she stressed the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, had been found during their nine years of digging which would throw any light on the story of Thutmose's campaign."59) Thutmose's Assault on Jerusalem Danelius, having examined Nelson's doctoral thesis and having thereby shown the inadequacies of the conventional reconstruction of Thutmose III's campaign in the C15th BC, next introduced her alternative (Velikovsky-inspired) proposal with the question: "... does transferring the event to the "10th century geography of the environs of Jerusalem" stand a better chance of success?"59) The Three Roads of the Egyptian Annals Danelius began her investigation of the geography of the Annals with the problematical road of Aruna; the one that Nelson had had so much difficulty harmonising with the Wadi 'Ara in the north. (i) The Aruna Road It has been suggested60) that this road is the same as that described in an Egyptian papyrus belonging to the late 19th dynasty: namely, the Papyrus Anastasi I. This papyrus contains a letter to an Egyptian official describing the dangers and difficulties to be met when travelling through Syria/Palestine: "Behold, the ... is in a ravine two thousand cubits deep, filled with boulders and pebbles ... Thou findest no scout, that he might make thee a way of crossing. ... thou knowest not the road. Shuddering seizes thee, (the hair of) thy head stands up, and thy soul lies in thy hand. Thy path is filled with boulders and pebbles, without a toe hold for passing by .... The ravine is on one side of thee, and the mountain rises on the other. Thou goest on jolting, with thy chariot on its side, afraid to press thy horse (too) hard. If it should be thrown toward the abyss, thy collar-piece would be left uncovered and thy girth would fall." Nelson had commented on this vivid description in the following words: "Deep gorges as these are scarcely found in Palestine at all and certainly not in the region of Megiddo."61) The road thus described in Papyrus Anastasi I leads across the maritime plain directly to the port of Jaffa. According to Danelius: "Such a defile cannot vanish from the map. It should be found not only in the books on historical geography, but it may be mentioned, too, in Biblical and/or post-Biblical records of military campaigns. And so it is. .... When identifying the name transcribed "Aruna" ... it must be remembered that the third letter represents the so-called "semi-vowel" w (u), which may indicate a sound of vowel or consonant character; true vowels were not written in Egyptian or Hebrew [See A Gardiner's Grammar, #'s. 7 & 20]. ... Thus it happens that the name Aruna has been preserved in written Hebrew letter for letter, though pronunciation is slightly different. It is the original name of the place on which the Temple had been built, the ... "threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" [2.Samuel 24:16, 18-24].62 In other words, the road dreaded by the officers of Thutmose's army was the camel-road leading from Jaffa up the so-called Beth-horon ascent to Jerusalem, approaching the city from the north. In the time of David, it led to the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (And we have recently seen where, according to Shea, that famous threshing floor was still remembered at the time of Sosenk's Judaean campaign). In the time of Rehoboam, it led to the Temple Mount that had been built at that place. The inhabitants though, apparently, continued, to use the ancient name for the road. The expression "horse following horse", considered by Nelson to have been an Egyptian idiom, seems to have been a known characteristic for that part of the road where "it falls into narrowness." In the Babylonian Talmud (32b) where it refers to that part of the way where the road climbs from the Lower Beth-horon to the Upper Beth-horon, we read that if two camels meet each other on the steps of Beth-horon, only "if they go one after the other, both can go safely." "Finally", wrote Danelius in relation to Kd-sw (Kadesh), "the eastern opening of the road lies in a district called "Jebel el Kuds" in Turkish times, "Har Kodsho" by the Hebrews, both names meaning the same: "The Mount of the Holy One", "The Holy Mount". In other words Kd-sw was not the name of a city, but of a land. This explains too why it always heads the Egyptian lists referring to campaigns into ... Palestine."62) Conder described this district as being "one of the most difficult to survey on account of the ruggedness of the hills and the great depth of the valleys."63) I pause here to recall for the reader that, whilst Velikovsky (and Courville) had taken the "Kadesh" of Thutmose's Annals as referring to Jerusalem, Danelius modified this by proposing that "Kadesh" equated with the district to the north of Jerusalem. "The Aruna road", she explained, "reaches the Har/Kodsho Land of Benjamin roughly 10 km north of the Temple Mount, when it turns south and finally runs along the watershed till it reaches its destination." Of that road, B. Bar-Kochva had written: "Due to its special topography, the Beith Horon Ascent ... was always a focal point of battles and attempts to stop troops trying to reach Jerusalem or to descend from the Judaean Hills to the coastal plain."64) The most famous military incident that took place on the Beth-horon road was, of course, the first one, when Joshua bade the sun stand still so that he might complete his victory over the five Canaanite kings [Joshua 10:10-14]. The place where this extraordinary incident occurred (more than half a millennium before Thutmose's campaign) was "the way that goeth up to Beth-horon" (v.10) and "in the going down to Beth-horon" (v.11). [Cf. 1.Maccabees 3:23, 24 & 7:26-50]. Thutmose's generals, when discussing with their leader the dangers of the Aruna road, had argued: "Shall our vanguard be fighting while our [rearguard?] is yet standing yonder in Aruna not having fought?" In regard to this scenario, Danelius62) has cited the similar case of the Roman army under G. Cestius Gallus in 66 AD, "1000 years later", to show how history proved how amazingly correct had been the estimate of Thutmose's generals. Gallus, having emerged from the defile of the Beth-horon ascent, encamped his army at Gibeon, where the Jews attacked. Though Gallus checked them, a large part of the Roman rearguard was cut off by the Jews as they were mounting towards Beth-horon. But the real disaster caught the Romans during their retreat, after they had become involved in the defiles and had begun the descent. Josephus described this disaster: "While even the infantry were hard put to it to defend themselves, the cavalry were in still greater jeopardy; to advance in order down the road under the hail of darts was impossible, to charge up the slopes was impracticable for horses; on either side were precipices and ravines, down which they slipped and were hurled to destruction; and there was no room for flight, no conceivable means of defence; in their utter helplessness the troops were reduced to groans and the wailings of despair ...."65) General Wavell had said of the northern pass of Wadi 'Ara that it did not "present any difficulties". But as for the Beth-horon pass leading to Jerusalem, this for him was quite a different matter. Here is the Allied General's own description of Beth-horon: These routes ... turned out to be mere goat tracks, quite impossible for wheels, and even for camels, without improvement. The only means of portage ... was by donkey, and any path up which a donkey could scramble was described by the local natives as a good road. The Division sent back all vehicles including guns .... The hill sides are steep and rocky, often precipitous, and the wadis which wind between them are strewn with great boulders ...."66) In November 1917 the British tried in vain to force the road. It was the only occasion during Allenby's campaign that the ominous words, "successfully withdrew", appeared in the daily dispatches.67) The Egyptian Advance From Gaza to Yehem So far we have found that the one undisputed place reached by the Egyptian army was Gaza. From there on, every supposed identification has been pure speculation. This is especially true for the place called Y-hm, which was supposed to have been near the entrance to Wadi 'Ara (and identified with the nearby Arab village, Jemma). In order to reach this place, the army which had just crossed the Sinai desert from Egypt would have continued marching for 10 days, covering about 90 miles. Such is the opinion of Breasted and his followers. But according to Danelius, who had kept the 1917 Palestinian campaign well in mind, an army that included cavalry and chariots drawn by horses could not progress that quickly in a country where drinking water is in short supply during the dry season, May to November: It seems that neither Breasted nor any of his followers has given any thought to this vital question, not to mention other problems of logistics. In this respect, the dispatches sent by General Allenby to the Secretary of State for war during the advance of the Forces in the Philistine Plain are a veritable eye-opener. Gaza had fallen on November 7th 1917. Two days later: "By the 9th, the problem became one of supply ... the question of water and forage was a very difficult one. Even where water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in wells and not on the surface, and consequently ... the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow and difficult", wrote Allenby." (Op. cit., n.84, #'s. 13,14 and after p.113)."68) And on the very next day, on November 10th: "The hot wind is an additional trial, particularly to the cavalry already suffering from water-shortage. [This was near Ashdod, in the Philistine Plain]. Owing to the exhaustion of their horses on account of the lack of water ... [two mounted brigades] had to be withdrawn into reserve", on November 11th."68) Applying this situation to Thutmose's era, Danelius commented: "There is no reason to suppose that nature was kinder to Thutmose's troops in May, the month with the greatest number of days with the destructive hot wind blowing from the desert, than to the Allied troops in November. Allenby's advance, too, was considerably slower than that demanded in Breasted's calendar for the advance of the Pharaoh's army: the Allied left wing covered only 40 miles in 15 days along the plain (op. cit., 7, #15), while Breasted suggested 80-90 miles in 10-11 days."68) Danelius said nothing here though about the fierce Turkish opposition that must have retarded the Allies' progress. The place named in Thutmose's Annals immediately after Gaza is Y-hm. Flinders Petrie69) had suggested an identification with the modern Arab village of Jemma, south-west of the Carmel ridge; an identification that - according to Nelson - was "little more than guesswork."70) Danelius' preference - in line with her reconstruction - was for Yamnia, a port about 40 km (25 miles) north of Gaza. These are her reasons for this choice: "Today, Yamnia ... lies about 7 km inland from the Mediterranean, from which it is separated by a broad belt of sand dunes. The plain around it is strewn with the remnants of the Bronze Age [appropriate in the case of Thutmose III] and Iron Age settlements, among them a harbour town at the mouth of a little river which bypasses the city. Needless to say, possession of a harbour would facilitate the problem of supply and help considerably in its solution. It is suggested to see in Yamnia the seat of the headquarters and the war council described in the Annals."68) (ii) The Zephathah Road Of the three passes referred to in Thutmose's Annals, two have their western entrance in the Philistine Plain. They are the two mentioned by the Egyptian generals as being alternatives to the Aruna road. The easier to identify is the road that Breasted called "Zefti" - transcribed in the Annals as Df-ty. The letter transcribed D (dj) corresponds to Hebrew Z(ade, c).71) Now, according to Danelius: "The name has been preserved in the Bible letter for letter; it is vocalised as Zephathah (2.Chron. 14:10), the place where Rehoboam's grandson Asa won his battle against another invader from the south called Zerah the Ethiopian. According to the Chronicler the place was near the Judaean border-fortress Maresha, newly fortified by Rehoboam (2.Chron. 11:8) .... [Maresha] was the Judaean border-fortress against Philistia; Zephata may have been on the other side of the fence, which explains that this was the name for the road used by the Egyptians. The road runs north for about six miles then turns north-east at the very location which is considered to be the one where David met Goliath the Philistine. The defile then splits into several wadis, one of which reaches the ridge around Bethlehem in the south, while another one joins the more northerly defile which leads to a point north of My-k-ty, as suggested by the Egyptian officers."68) Thus both roads discussed so far, (i) Aruna and (ii) Zephathah, lead to Jerusalem. But the destination of the Egyptians was the city of Mykty. Therefore, before we follow Danelius' identification of the third road, let us ask ourselves: Is it possible to interpret the name of the city usually identified as Megiddo - the capture of which Thutmose III compared to "the capture of a thousand cities" (Sec. #432) - as an alternative designation for Jerusalem? Neither Velikovsky nor Courville had ever explored this possibility. Danelius did, however. Here follows part of her detailed explanation [71]: "According to Breasted, the name of the city was My-k-ty. It seems however that the Egyptian scribes met with some difficulties in rendering the foreign place names in hieroglyphs. ... The name is read by Gauthier "Makta". It is interesting to note, however, that in the later (XIXth Dynasty) inscriptions, the last element ti of the name ... is written "sh", "s", "tsh" .... Among the names enumerated as designating Jerusalem is Bait-al-Makdis, or ... Makdis .... The 10th century Arab writer who mentions this name calls himself Mukadassi = the Jerusalemite (in his Description of Syria, 34). ... The name Miqdash was originally confined to the Holy region north of the Jebusite city ..., the area which had originally been the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. In Rehoboam's time it contained the temple and its precincts, and the Royal Palace. It was these which were to be conquered; the Jebusite city down the hill seems to have been without any interest to the Pharaoh. Thus it was that his officers laid special stress on the fact that the Zaphata [Zephathah] defile, too, reached the ridge north of the Temple mount, and that there was no necessity to use the Aruna road for an approach from the north."72) (iii) The Tahhunah Road In regard to the third road, Danelius claimed that: "The third and last of the ancient passes referred to by Conder leading from the Maritime Plain to Jerusalem is the one through which the railway runs today. Its eastern end leads on to the valley of Rephaim, roughly between the Jebusite city to the south and the Temple Mount to the north. It was by this defile that the Philistines came up and "spread themselves" in order to fight the newly anointed King David (II Sam. 5:18ff.). Halfway up between the mountains, this defile is joined by a wadi whose beginning is several miles farther north, not far from a ridge called the Tahhunah Ridge in one of Allenby's dispatches .... The same name - wadi Tahhunah - was used for the locality where this wadi reaches the Mediterranean near Yabneh [Yamnia] .... The name turns up for a third time in that of Khirbet ... at-Tahuna, which overlooks the exit of the defile from the mountains, opposite the birthplace of Samson, Zorah (Judges 13:2), one of the border-fortresses strengthened by Rehoboam (II Chron. 11:10). Considering the fact that inversion of consonants is rather frequent in Biblical Hebrew ... it seems permissible to suggest that in this special case the Egyptian Ta-'a-na-ka (T3-'3-n3-k3) does not refer to the well known fortress in the valley of Esdraelon, but to a defile known by a similar name to the Philistines, from whose lands it leads right into the heart of the Judaean mountains."73) Jerusalem Overrun by the Egyptians According to the Chronicler, Pharaoh Shishak "took the fenced cities" of Judah before he came to Jerusalem (II Chronicles 12:4). The way in which he "took" them is told by Josephus,74) who reported that the pharaoh "seized the strongest cities of Rehoboam's kingdom without a battle and, having secured them with garrisons, advanced upon Jerusalem." As G. Smith has noted in regard to a typical assault upon Jerusalem [74]: "With negligent defenders the western border of Judaea is quickly penetrated. Six hours will bring an army up any of the defiles ... and within a few miles of Jerusalem."75) According to the Annals, 10 full days had elapsed between the pharaoh's exit from Gaza and the council of war - sufficient time to organise supplies and to get hold of the defiles. Presumably, then, the two defiles recommended by the generals were safely in Egyptian hands. This situation, however, raises a further question in the mind of Danelius. If Thutmose had already seized the Zephathah and Tahunnah roads, then: "... what prompted the Pharaoh to choose the Aruna road for the main attack on the Temple Mount? And why did he see in his success of having climbed it a performance so outstanding that it had to be engraved, in detail, not only on the walls of the Temple of Amon at Karnak, but also on a stele found in a temple at Armant, which Thutmose erected "to cause that his deeds of valour be related for millions of years to come?" At the time of Shishak's attack on Jerusalem the Beth Horon ascent was inside the territory of the kingdom of Israel ruled by Jeroboam. According to the Scriptures, "There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days" (cf. 1.Kings 14:30 & 2. Chron. 12:15), while relations between Jeroboam and the Pharaoh were peaceful ones .... If, therefore, Thutmose intended to use the Beth Horon ascent for springing a surprise attack on the Judaean King and his army, he had only to turn to Jeroboam for permission to use the road, for provision of guides, and for taking all the necessary cautions that news of the Egyptian approach did not reach the enemy prematurely."73) The Annals relate that the pharaoh put up his tent "at the city of Aruna", only three days after the war council at Y-hm; a fact that seems to confirm Danelius' view that entrance into the fearful pass would be a peaceful one. According to Breasted,75) the "Aruna" mentioned here was "lying in the midst of the mountains." In this Danelius claimed that Breasted was right, though he erred in his identification of the moutains. "Aruna", as she explained, "was not surrounded by the Carmel heights, but by the mountains of Ephraim, and those of Benjamin, Har Kodsho of the Scriptures." Danelius next identified this "city of Aruna" (as opposed to the Aruna road): "The Aruna reached by the Pharaoh on that day is easily identified with the help of the Septuagint, where the dangerous part of the defile is called Oronim: it was the day when the sun stood still and "God delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel" (Joshua 10:12). According to the Greek version "the Lord struck [the Amorites] with a panic, on account of the children of Israel, and the Lord routed them, with a great slaughter, at Gibeon. And they [the Israelites] pursued them by way of the ascent of Oronim, and smote them ... And as they were fleeing before Israel, at the descent of Oronim, the Lord poured a storm of hailstones from heaven upon them ..." (Joshua 10:11,12)."77) Obviously, the pharaoh spent the night at Beth-horon the Nether (today: Beith 'Ur et-Tachta), right at the entrance to the dangerous part of the defile, which is already in the mountains. The next morning, as we read in the Annals: "My majesty proceeded north ward carrying my father Amon [GAP] before me ...". Commenting on this text, Danelius wrote: "This is the only instance I know of in Egyptian records where we are told that statues or images of the gods were carried into battle, as the Hebrews carried the ark."78) Nelson79) had previously noted that "the image of Amon in its portable shrine borne on the shoulders of a body of priests ... 'opened the way' before His majesty'." Regarding the next legible portion of the Annals, Danelius has written: Lines 72-81 were the source of much headache to the Egyptologists, who were at a loss to adapt this exact description of the situation to the geographical conditions around Megiddo, and the supposed presence of the Allied army at the exit .... The situation is totally different once the scene is transferred to the eastern exit of the Beth Horon road, which fits the description in every detail. The army emerged into the valley of Gibeon .... Of the city's name, only the last letter - n - has been preserved, together with the ideogram designating "a channel filled with water" (See Gardiner, Grammar, Sign-list N36). The "many waters" of Gibeon are mentioned in the Scriptures, and so is its "pool" which existed already at the time of King David (2.Samuel 2:13). Drake, who camped at El Jib - ancient Gibeon - in March, mentioned "a pool covering some six to eight acres to a depth of 2 feet formed during the winter." The local Arabs called it "the sink" (T. Drake's report, "Camp El Jib, March 20, 1872", PEQ, 174). In May, the time of Thutmose's campaign, it would have shrunk considerably, permitting the army to camp around it, and, at the same time, providing enough drinking water. Furthermore, owing to the formation of the land, the presence of an army in the valley could be hidden from the Judaeans, who were only a few kilometres away."79) According to the Annals, the Pharaoh, therefore, decided to set up camp right here and let his soldiers enjoy a well-deserved rest, before springing the planned attack on his unsuspecting foe. Now we need to get used to a new location, similar in name to My-k-ty, that appears in the Annals. Danelius continues: "Though Sethe and Breasted differ in the arrangement of the following lines, geographical details are unequivocal ....: the Pharaoh camped "to the south of My-k-ty on the bank of the brook Kina (K-y-n3)". ... "the brook of Kina" has never been identified unequivocally in the environs of Megiddo; we are justified, therefore, in neglecting the various suggestions made on its behalf. The Egyptian word translated "brook" by Breasted, and incidentally, Gardiner, is hnw. It seems, however, that its meaning is less specified: Erman translates "Gewässer" (waters) (`Ägyptisches Handwörterbuch', p. 136), and this seems to be the way in which it is used here. "The Hebrew word kina stands for English "lamentations." The place where Pharaoh's army erected their tents was called "the waters of lamentation" by the local populace. Explanation for the name is found in 2.Samuel 2: .... The hieroglyphs read "My-k-ty" by Breasted, have been read "mak-ta" by Gauthier .... According to the Annals, Gibeon was south of it, which excludes identification of this "mak-ta" with Beth-Makdis, the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Details of the route to be taken by an attacker on Jerusalem from the north are described in Isaiah 10:28-32. From north to south, the list enumerates twelve cities or forts. It starts with Aiath, Migron, Michmas, and ends with "the hill of Jerusalem." In the corresponding list of the Septuagint, "Migron" is called "Magedo", also "Makedo" .... This Makedo is north of Gibeon, which lay south-west of this "mak-ta"; even further south are the "waters", the camping place of Thutmose's army, a geographical fact that meets the requirements of the Egyptian text."79) Danelius proposed an identity between this fort of Magedo/Makedo and Bordj-el-Makhta ("the fort of the passage"), in the precipitous Wadi Suweinit region. "Occupying a defence line along the wadi Suweinit with its head at Migron/Makeda would have had much to recommend it in the eyes of Rehoboam .... Al Maqtar, as it is called on the map, is about 9 km north-north-east of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, which would facilitate frequent visits by King Rehoboam to his relatives and friends at the border-fortress. The remark in the Annals (line 20) that the "King of Kd-sw" had entered Mak-ta ..., may refer to one of these visits by the King."79) The Jews at this time were quite unused to the experience of war [78]: "It should not be forgotten here that there had been 45 years of uninterrupted peace and wealth, and a luxury undreamt of by Israel's warrior-kings Saul and David. Though Rehoboam had fortified the cities guarding the roads to Jerusalem, he lacked any war experience, and so did his subjects, who like himself were thoroughly demoralised, according to Josephus (Antiquities, VIII, x, 2). These soldiers were in no way prepared to stand up against the sudden attack of the Egyptians, led by the Pharaoh who stood "in a chariot of electrum, arrayed in his weapons of war, like Horus [the Sun god], the Smiter, lord of power; like Montu of Thebes ..."79) [Breasted, `Records', Vol. II, Sec. 430, line 3] In an instant, the country was covered with Egyptian chariots and horsemen, as panic seized the Asiatics. Officers and men threw away their weapons and fled, be it in the direction of Jerusalem, or down the valley and across the fords of the Jordan. From the walls of the Holy City, the watchmen saw the wild chase; Rehoboam and his princes galloping for their lives, closely followed by the Egyptian horsemen. The capital hastily closed its gates before the approaching force. As to the fugitives: "... the people hauled them (up) pulling by their clothing ... (and lowered) clothing to pull them up into the city."80) Then began the long siege of Jerusalem. Such is the vivid picture created by the Egyptian Annals. The Bible tells us what happened next: "Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, who were gathered together in Jerusalem because of Shishak, and he said to them, 'Thus saith the Lord, You have forsaken Me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.' Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves .... 'Therefore they shall be his [the pharaoh's] servants, that they may know My service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries'." [2.Chronicles 12:5-6,8] So the Jews opened the gates of their city to the Egyptians. Then, as Thutmose III has boasted [80]: "The chiefs of this country came to render their portions, to smell the earth (do obeisance) to the fame of his majesty, to crave breath for their nostrils." And Shishak "took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made." [2.Chron. 12:9] These are the lavish treasures to be found in the inscriptions of Thutmose III. A Concluding Note Thanks to Velikovsky - consolidated by Dr. Danelius' important modifications - we can now recognise much of the Temple and palace wealth of Solomon's era in the bas-reliefs of Thutmose III and his officials. Thutmose III, as Pharaoh "Shishak", eventually divested Jerusalem of all of its greatest treasures and carried them back to his own land. How ironical, then, that perhaps the most complete record of Solomon's achievements is to be found today in Egypt! In the mighty 18th dynasty trio of Senenmut, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, recognising in them the biblical characters, respectively, of king Solomon, Queen Sheba and Pharaoh "Shishak", we now have splendid new pillars upon which to support Egyptian chronology. Notes & References [1] "The Identification of the Biblical 'Queen of Sheba' ...", Kronos 1, No.3 (1975), 4; with reference to Breasted's A History of Egypt, 2nd ed. (London, 1941), 285, 287. [2] "Shoshenq and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity", Chronology and Catastrophism Review VIII (1986), 36-46. [3] Lettres Ecrites d'Egypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829. [4] Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford (Clarendon, 1961), 448, n.1. "... the Old Testament gives Shishak wrongly". [5] The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (Warminster, 1973), 73, n.356. [6] Op. cit. [7] Cf. Hebrew: ha(m)malcuth. [8] Proc. of the Soc. of Biblical Archaeology 10 (1888), 81. [9] Op. cit., 39; with reference to Robinson's A History of Israel, vol. I, 275. [10] As cited in J. Hayes & J. Miller (eds.), Israelite and Judaean History (SCM, London, 1977), 389. [11] Ages in Chaos, Vol. I (Abacus, 1953), 165; with reference to Klio Beihefte XXXVIII. [12] Ibid., 165. [13] Op. cit., 296. [14] A History of Israel in the Old Testament Period (SCM, London, 1982), 129. [15] Op. cit., ibid. His emphasis. [16] Ibid. [17] History of Israel in Old Testament Times (SCM, London, 1981) 196, n.35. [18] In "The Military Strategy of Shishak/Sheshonk in Palesine", C&C Review, Vol.X (1988), 2-10. [19] Ibid., 3. [20] Op. cit., 432, n.49. [21] Op. cit., ibid. [22] Ibid., 4ff. [23] Ibid., 9. [24] Op. cit., ch.4. [25] "Shishak Mystery?", Chronology and Catastrophism Workshop, No.2 (1987), 35. [26] "Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?", SIS Review II, No.3 (1977/78), 65. [27] Op. cit., 141. [28] Vol. II, Sec. 416. [29] Ibid., Sec. 420. [30] Op. cit., 66. [31] Ibid., 66-67. [32] Op. cit., 144-147. [33] Ibid., 145. [34] Ibid., 146. [35] Ibid; with reference to A. Jirku in Klio Beihefte, XXXVIII. [36] Ibid., 148-154. See also the photos of the Karnak wall that Velikovsky has provided. [37] The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications I (Loma Linda, CA , 1971), I, 271-272. [37b] `Solomon and Sheba, ch.II, "The Land of Sheba", 22. [38] "The Šulmân Temple in Jerusalem", SIS Review II (1978), 85-86. [39] "The Šulmân Temple in Jerusalem", JBL (1940) 59, 519ff. [40] Šulmân, 85-86. [41] "The Temple in Jerusalem?", SIS Review III, No.1 (1978), 7-8. [42] "Thutmose", 67. [43] Records, 164, fn. [44] Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, IV, 645ff. [45] Danelius, ibid., 68. [46] Records, #415. [47] Ibid., #417. [48] Ibid., #'s. 418-420. [49] Beginning with line 19 of the Annals. [50] Harold H. Nelson, `The Survey of Western Palestine', Memoirs. II, Sheet VIII, 40, 50. See also G. Smith's The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 251; and General A. Wavell's account, op. cit. (1918), 196, 197 & 209. [51] "Thutmose", 69-70. [52] Records, #'s.409, #421. Cf. A. Gardiner's Grammar, 595 & R. Faulkner's Dictionary of M.E., 272. #'s 428, 429, note (e). [53] "Thutmose", 69. [54] Records, ibid. [55] "The Battle of Megiddo" (1913), 19-20. Faulkner, op. cit., 8, n.38, uses much stronger language still regarding the "incredibly inept" performance of Thutmose's opposition. [56] Ibid., 53-54 & 59. [57] According to Danelius, ibid., 70, who referred to this as "oral information" given to her by this librarian, Joseph Leibovitch, who also loaned her the print given him by Nelson. [58] "Thutmose", 70. [59] In ANET, 475-479, trans. J. Wilson. [60] Op. cit., 25, n.31. [61] "Thutmose", 71. [62] "The Land of Benjamin", PEQ (1881), 247. [63] Palestine Explorations Quarterly (PEQ), "Seron and Cestius Gallus at Beith Horon", Jan-June 1976, 14. [64] PEQ, "Seron and Cestius Gallus at Beith Horon", Jan-June 1976, 14; Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book II, xix, 8. [65] Op. cit., 159-60, n.23. [66] "A Brief Record ... under ... General ... Allenby", GCI (1918), notes opp. plates 20 & 23. [67] "Thutmose", 73. [68] A History of Egypt, II, 327. [69] Op. cit., 7, n.31. [70] See Grammar, #19. [71] "Thutmose", 73-74. [72] Ibid., 74. [73] Jewish Antiquities, VIII, x, 2. [74] The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 283, n.46. [75] Records, #425, note (b). [76] "Thutmose", 75. [77] Op. cit., 33. [78] "Thutmose", 76. [79] Records, #430. [80] Ibid., #434. Zerah the Ethiopian In the textbooks, that equate Sosenk I with the biblical Shishak, it is pharaoh Osorkon IV - or his (Nubian) general (un-named) - who is usually regarded as "Zerah the Ethiopian" who, in c.897 BC, attacked king Asa of Jerusalem with a massive army of Ethiopians and Libyans, but was soundly defeated by the Jewish king (2 Chronicles 14:9-15). Velikovsky had synchronised this biblical incident with the reign of the belligerent Amenhotep II (son of Thutmose III, Velikovsky's "Shishak") whom he equated with Zerah. Whilst I completely accept Velikovsky's dating here, I believe that his attempts to 'prove' that pharaoh Amenhotep II had Ethiopian blood flowing in his veins was not at all convincing. Nor does the Bible say that Zerah was even a pharaoh; nor that he led native Egyptian troops. I, for my part, prefer to equate Zerah with Amenhotep's old friend, User-tatet, Nubian (Ethiopian) commander. I do not think that it is stretching the imagination too far to believe that the Palestinians - who in the EA letters called Akhnaton, Naphuria, from his coronation name, Nepher-kheperura - could have turned User into Zerah. Moreover, we know from the Egyptian records that User-tatet did campaign in the vicinity of Maresha, in the Shephelah plain of Palestine (given in the Egyptian records as Retenu - and distinguished from Upper Retenu, or the hill country). The Egyptian records, as it is thought, are not going to record any military defeat. Stratigraphy Thanks to the revision, we are not forced to go delving into history's poorest archaeological eras to try to find evidence for the glorious kingdom of Solomon as we should be if we were to follow conventionalists Finkelstein and Silberman. Rather, we can make a bee-line for the archaeological levels that are associated with Hatshepsut and Thutmose III: namely those of LB II. This is nicely in keeping with our earlier estimation that LBI was largely contemporaneous with the Judges and Hyksos era. J. Bimson has set the archaeological scene for this illustrious period which we have argued saw Solomon and Hiram in a powerful corporate partnership [1]: "Although an exhaustive study of the LBA contexts of all scarabs commemorating Hatshepsut and Thutmose III would be required ..., a preliminary survey suggests that objects from the joint reign of these two rulers do not occur until the transition from LB I to LB II, and that scarabs of Thutmose III occur regularly from the start of LB II onwards, and perhaps no earlier." Bimson then goes on to show, with quotes from M. Several [2], how well this archaeology reflects the time of Solomon: "LB II A `was definitely superior to the preceding LB I' in terms of stability and material prosperity; it saw "a rising population that reoccupied long abandoned towns" .... Foreign pottery imports are a chief charcteristic of the period .... According to the biblical accounts in the books of Kings and Chjronicles, Solomon's reign brought a period of peace which saw an increase in foreign contacts, unprecdeneted prosperity, and an energetic building programme which extended throughout the kingdom .... 1.Kings 9:15 specifically relates that Solomon rebuilt Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. In the revised stratigraphy envisaged here, the cities built by Solomon at these sites would therefore be those of LB IIA. More specifically, the three Solomonic cities woudl be represented by Stratum VIII in Area AA at Megiddo ..., by Stratum XVI at Gezer, and by Stratum XIV of the Upper City at Hazor ( = Str. Ib of the Lower City) .... The wealth and international trade attested by these levels certainly reflect the age of Solomon far more accurately than the Iron Age cities normally attributed to him, from which we have no evidence of any particular luxury." The above-mentioned strata at Megiddo and Gezer have both yielded remains of very fine buildings and courtyards .... The Late Bronze strata on the tell at Hazor have unfortunately not produced a clear picture, because of levelling operations and extensive looting at these levels during the Iron Age; but the LB II A stratum of the Lower City has produced a temple very similar in concept to the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem, as described in the Old Testament. Art treasures from these cities not only indicate the wealth of the period, but reflect contacts with Egypt and northern Mesopotamia .... These contacts are precisely those we would expect to find attested during Solomon's reign; the Bible records Solomon's trade with Egypt and his marriage to pharaoh's daughter ...., and says (1.Kings 4:24) that his kingdom extended as far to the north-east as Tiphsah, which is probably to be identified with Thapsacus, "an important crossing in the west bank in the Middle Euphrates ... placed strategically on a great east-west trade route" .... Gezer as a Dowry According to 1.Kings 9:16-17, Solomon had rebuilt Gezer after it had been captured and burned by the pharaoh, who had given the site to his daughter, Solomon's wife, as a dowry. Bimson claims to have found the archaeological evidence for this scenario which he, following Velikovsky at this stage, attributes to Thutmose I - whereas I have argued for Thutmose II (and he seems to fit the archaeology more exactly) [1]: In the revised stratigraphy considered here, we would expect to find evidence for this destruction of Gezer at some point during LB I, and sure enough we do, including dramatic evidence of burning .... The "latest possible date" for this destruction is said to be the reign of Thutmose III, with some archaeologists preferring an earlier date.... We may readily identify this destruction as the work of Solomon's father-in-law. Corvée - Forced Labor From the period between the destruction just referred to and the LB IIA city at Gezer comes a group of several dozen burials in a cave. W. Dever remarked that most of these "show signs of advanced arthritis, probably from stoop labour, which may be an indication of the hardships of life during this period." [3] Yet Bimson has noted with reference again to Dever that [4]: "... contemporary finds, including "Egyptian glass, alabaster and ivory vessels, and a unique terra-cotta sarcophagus of Mycenaean inspiration", indicate considerable prosperity and international trade at this time." This seeming paradox of extreme hardship amidst abundant prosperity, at the site of Gezer, evoked the following suggestion from Bimson [5]: In a revised framework, it is tempting to speculate that the burials were of people who suffered under Solomon's system of forced labour, by which Gezer was built according to 1.Kings 9:15. It emerges in 1.Kings 12 that this forced labour caused sufficient hardship to contribute to the bitterness which split the kingdom after Solomon's death. The "Mycenaean" factor is also most appropriate given that Mycenaean and Minoan Greeks were depicted on tomb 71 of Senenmut - our Solomon - bearing tribute. Late Bronze II Jerusalem Turning from Gezer we must briefly consider Jerusalem, where Solomon's building activities were concentrated for the first twenty years of his reign, according to 1.Kings 9:10. From Bimson again we learn that the archaeological finds at Jerusalem actually favour the revised interpretation [5]: Here we find that traces of occupation datable to Solomon's time in the conventional scheme are rather poor. In the revised scheme, we may attribute to Solomon the impressive stone terrace system of LBA date excavated by Kenyon on the eastern ridge. In fact, this is probably the `Millo' which Solomon is said to have built (1.Kings 9:15, 24; 11:27). Kenyon describes the nucleus of this terrace system as "a fill almost entirely of rubbish, built in a series of compartments defined by facings of a single course of stones ...". `Fill,' or `filling,' is the probable meaning of `Millo'." And on the nearby Mount of Olives, abundant evidence of international trade [5]: Also to Solomon's time would belong at least some of the LBA tombs discovered on the western slope of the Mount of Olives; many of these contain LBI-IIA material which includes "a surprisingly large number" of imported items from Cyprus, the Aegean and Egypt. The number would not be surprising in the context of Solomon's reign. P. James fully endorses this revised scenario for Solomon as opposed to the conventional one [6]: Solomon in all his glory The conclusion that the Solomonic era is to be found at the end of the Late Bronze Age is one of the most significant fallouts of our experimental chronology. Despite the fact that some 250 years are presently placed between the Bronze Age and the reign of Solomon, archaeologists have always tacitly accepted that the detailed biblical description of his Temple falls within the tradition of Late Bronze Age architecture. Only two identifiable temples are known from the Iron Age; both are small, and their plans bear little resemblance to that of the Temple. On the other hand, comparisons are repeatedly made between Solomon's work and the temples of the Late Bronze Age, particularly that from Hazor. James now brings Hiram into the picture [7]: King Hiram of Tyre, himself a noted builder, played a major role in the building of the Temple. He supplied the timber needed for the project, masons to prepare the stone (1.Kgs. 5:7-19) and a master craftsman to cast the bronze furnishings. The method of stoneworking used is significant: the Temple, Solomon's palace and the house he constructed for his Egyptian queen were all built of 'costly stones ... sawed wth saws, within and without' (1.Kgs. 7:9). Building with ashlar masonry - i.e. large blocks of stone squared with saws - was a specialized technique known from only a few periods in ancient Palestine. Ashlar masonry is indeed known from the '10th-century levels', such as that at Megiddo traditionally ascribed to Solomon. But the period of ashlar par excellence was the Late Bronze Age, when it seems to have been a technique especially favoured by the Canaanites of the coast. Unfortunately, the LBA levels of Tyre itself have been barely touched. The magnificence of its palace was, however, compared in an El-Amarna letter ... to that of Ugarit on the Syrian coast, where excavation has revealed a truly monumental palace complex of the '14th-13th centuries' BC incorporating some of the finest ashlar masonry known. Other prime examples come from early '12th-century' Kition in Cyprus, a city which may have been under the sway of Hiram of Tyre .... It would be worthwhile to study the construction and design of the palace of Zimri-Lim too in this revised context, given his contact with Aleppo. Finally, with regard to the elaborate metal furnishings that Solomon commissioned for the Temple, James refers to what he calls "a telling comment ... made by P.Moorey" [8]: "The Levant is rich in academic anomalies for students of Iron Age metalworking: to make best sense of the unique (and still under-studied) description of the bronze equipment made for Solomon's Temple (1.Kings 7:13-51) resort is commonly made to Cyprus or to Canaanite sites of the Late Bronze Age." Notes & References [1] "Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?", SIS Review, Vol. VI, Issues 1-3 (Soc. for Interdisciplinary Studs., UK, 1982), 17. [2] Ibid., with reference to PEQ (1972), 128. [3] In EAE, II, 438. [4] Op. cit., 17-18. Dever, ibid. [5] Ibid., 18. [6] Centuries of Darkness (Jonathan Cape, London, 1991), 197. [7] Ibid., 197-198. [8] Ibid., 198. |
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