Unless dateable objects were introduced later by trading, there is no doubt that the history of Palestinian coastal cities goes far back in time as we have evidence of Byblos interactions with 12th Dynasty kings. Examples are an obsidian jar bound with gold which is exactly similar to jars found in a 12th Dynasty tomb at Dashur, Egypt. It is inscribed with the word `tpt', `quality oil'; the lid bears the cartouches of Amenemhet III. The lid of the gold-embellished obsidian box is inlaid with the titles of Amenemhet IV in silver hieroglyphs, as found in the Royal Tombs of Byblos.
Other Topics included are:
Scholarly Differences of Opinion and the Evidence Between the 15th/14th to 9th/8th Centuries
Examples of Half Millenium Duplications of around 1000-700 BC
The List of Literary Reemergencies
We may sometimes repeat ourselves in some parts because many young readers need to be made aware of some connections otherwise not understandable to them.
Ras Shamra/Ugarit was not merely a maritime city that traded in arms of Cyprian copper and in wine, oil, and perfume: jars, flagons, and flacons were found there by the hundreds; it was also a city of learning: there was a school for scribes and a library.
Ugarit was a maritime commercial city with a palace [0150]; its population was composed of various ethnic groups. One document found there describes the expulsion of King Nikmed and all the foreign groups in the city. Among them were people of Alasia (Cyprus), Khar (explained to be Hurrites), and Jm'an. The last name was identified by the decipherers as `Jamanu', which is well known from the Assyrian inscriptions, and means `Ionians'. [0200]
The king who expelled Niqmed from his city was the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858 - 832 BC) who wrote:
The interpretation of `Jm'an' as `Ionians' was disputed for no other reason than that in the 14th century a reference to Ionians would have been impossible. In the same inscription, at a point were the names of the expelled are repeated, the name `Didyme' appears. The decipherers took it to be the name of the city of Didyma in Ionia. [0400]
This city was well known for its cult of Apollo Didymeus. Again, the name of the deity Didymeus (Ddms) was inscribed on another Ras Shamra tablet; the decipherers [0500], turning neither left nor right, translated it "Apollon Didymeus".
Since then other antiquities have been brought to the British Museum from the site of Didyma (Didymaion) by C.T. Newton originating from the 8th century. But in the 15th or 14th century neither the `Ionians' nor the shrine of `Apollo Didymeus' could have been mentioned. Chronology could not square the evidence with the Ionian names of Nikomed, or the name of the Ionian city of Didyma, or the Greek cult of the god of that city, or the very name `Ionians' in the Ras Shamra texts - but all these were there!!! No explanation was given in place of the rejected theory about an Ionian colony from the city of Didyma near Milet in Ionia that came to Ugarit and was expelled from there together with the king of Ionian origin, Nikmed.[0600] It could only be stated that there was not a grain of probability in such a reading of the texts belonging to the middle of the second millenium.
The Canaanite king of Ugarit was a `merchant prince' and engaged in all sorts of commercial and industrial enterprises. The main source of income was derived from the crown lands which he amassed by expropriation as a result of victorious wars, confiscation and purchase. He also lended money on personal security and at interest. He maintained conscripted foot and professional soldiers the latter of which were called maryannu who were often of the aristocracy and had privileges. The mariannu received crown lands to maintain their expensive military equipment (chariots) and often were granted various exemptions or levied obligations. They lived off the state, God speaking through the prophet Samuel tried to protect Israel from such, 1.Sam. 8:4-17.[BASOR #143, Oct. 1956, p. 17-27 (on file).]
In the school the future scribes were taught to read and write at least 4 languanges.
Tablets of clay were found in the dust under the crushed walls of a building, destroyed by human hand or by the unleashed forces of nature. The entire collection is written in cuneiform, in 4 different languages. Two of the languages were easily read: Sumerian, and Akkadian. Of these Sumerian was the `Latin' or the `dead language' of scholars and Akkadian the tongue of business and politics in the Babylonian world.
Business letters in Akkadian, commercial receipts, and orders were read. Two tablets very similar to those of the el Amarna collection were also found in the ruins of the library of Ras-Shamra-Ugarit, and with them the connection of Ras Shamra with Egypt at the end of the 18th Dynasty was firmly established. Some large tablets are lexicons, bilingual and even trilingual. On some of the tablets there is a "copyright" mark: it is a statement that these tablets were made at the order of Nikmed, king of Ugarit.[50]
Nikomedes is an old Greek name. The similarity between the name Nikomedes, which was regarded as an Ionian name, and the name of the King of Ugarit, Nikmed, was to them so obvious that, after deciphering the name of the king, two scholars (Hrozny and Dhorme), working independently, related it to the Greek name. Other scholars (Claude Schaeffer), however, rejected this equation of the name of King Nikmed with Nikomedes of the Greeks, asking how an Ionian name could have been in use in the 14th century BC.
Those who had decided on the Greek connection were unable to defend their position against the mathematics of conventional chronology at that time not knowing the alternative, revised chronology here defended. [0100]
"Year four. To the cities of Nikdime [and] Nikdiera I drew near. They became frightened at my mighty, awe-inspring weapons and my grim warfare, [and] cast themselves upon the sea in wicker [?] boats ..., I followed after them in boats of ...., fought a great battle on the sea, defeated them, and with their blood I dyed the sea like wool." [0300]
Because of the offset chronology of Egypt as compared to the history of its surrounding nations we find duplications of events, cultural achievements and personalities. Some of these we present in this list of examples.
A) The sepulchral chambers of Ugarit influenced the architecture of sepulchral chambers on Cyprus - but not until more than 600 years had elapsed.
Excavators found that the intact burial vaults of Ugarit with arched ceilings supposedly of the 15th-14th century BC looked just like those found near Enkomi on Cyprus belonging to the 8th and 7th century BC. "Those in Cyprus were considerably later and continue down to the 8th and 7th centuries..." according to the Swedish excavators. [0700]
B) The naval catalogue of Ugarit reappeared in the epic creations of Homer after an interlude of several centuries.
A Brief Section of Homer's Catalog of Ships
Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Mars, led the people that dwelt
Peneleos, Leitus, Arcesilaus, Prothoenor, and Clonius were captains of
the Boeotians. ... From these there came fifty ships, and in each there were
a hundred and twenty young men of the Boeotians.
in Aspledon and Orchomenus the realm of Minyas. ...
With these there came thirty ships.
C) Jewels identical with those of Ugarit were worn by the ladies in Jerusalem 600 or 700 years after the destruction of Ugarit by conventional dating. [0900]
Jewels of gold are mentioned in the texts of Ras Shamra/Ugarit and were found there by excavators. The texts mention several kinds of gold pendants:
In summary, the above points (A-C) underscore the cultural and artifactual similarity to the 8th-7th centuries, not the 15th-14th century as taught in conventional history because of dependency on Egyptian evidence. Always we find this 600 plus-minus gap in chronology, a tell-tale sign that something drastic is amiss. We know what it is, the erroneous Egyptian chronology.
The discovery of the tomb of Ahiram in 1922 by Pierre Montet was one among 8 other royal tombs containing funerary gifts of Amenemhet III of the 12th Dynasty. From this we can say that Byblos had a long history lasting at least for 1000 years. It was a choice location with a superb view of the Mediterranean and a pleasent, fertile land surrounding it at a crossroads between Palestine and what is today Turkey.
1. Astarte
2. suns (shapash) ............. `shebis' in Isaiah 3:18. Here are also mentioned the pendants in the form of the moon.
3. moons or crescents (Hebr. shaharonim)
4. anklets (Hebr. akhasim)
5. chains, braceletes, earrings and crisping pins
But the tomb of Ahiram was the most important one because of the ornate sarcophagus of Ahiram where Ithobaal, his son, had buried his father. This sarcophagus had low relief carvings of weeping women at the ends and a line of visitors bringing gifts to the king seated on his throne. Along the edge of the lid was an inscription in Phoenician alphabet. In the same room with the sarcophagus was also a vase found bearing a cartouche of Pharaoh Ramses II thus dating the tomb. The inscription triggered a sometimes heated debate over the evolution of alphabetic writing. Comparisons were made between the stele of Mesha, Hezekiah's Hebrew inscription in a well and Greek writing with historians trying to elucidate the evolution of the alphabet. Which one was more ancient?
As we have shown independently from other facts that Ramses II reigned at the end of the 7th and into the 6th centuries BC, we can see that conventional historians could not help but being puzzled by which script to regard as more ancient. Besides the coffin and the vase there was also another alabaster fragment found with the cartouche of Ramses II, an ivory plaque evaluated by R. Dussaud as of Mycenaen age and most importantly pottery of Cyprian origin which looked like 7th century ware. This mixture of 7th century vs. the conventional 13th century evidence prompted the archaeologists to come up with all sorts of explanations to account for this difference in age. Looters were blamed for leaving behind these wares. Why they would bring them in was not explained. Did they have their dinner with them in a tomb? Hardly. They came to loot if these looters existed at all. To be sure the tomb was entered in antiquity, but this was done apparently by troops of Nebuchadnezzar after the `Battle of Carchemish' when he entered Phoenicia in the persuit of Ramses. He may have violated the tomb because Ithobaal had sided with Ramses II. The controversy raged between the epigraphists (Eduard Meyer, A.H.Gardiner and Carpenter) which argued for a more recent date and the archaeologists which demanded an older date (Pierre Montet, Sidney Smith and R. Dussaud).
Hebrew reading: 4 shekels
Crawl out of this tomb
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