In the Egyptian imagination when the king walks through the two pylons it is the sun in its place on the horizon right there on Earth with them, especially emotionally moving and impressive at certain times of year certain times of day.
Inside a structure like the above. Rubble used as filler. Junk. That is what the tempest stele is, an earlier commemorative official statement issued by Ahmose I considered junk by later Egyptian monument builders and a treasure to be pieced and puzzled by later archeologists and historians and linguists and theologians.
The commemorative stone says the same thing on both sides making it possible to piece together more completely than otherwise but it is still riven with large areas of lacunae. The translations online are incomplete. They relate the storm, the important part, but not the other bits about the settlement, the subsequent buyout and cleanup.
The storm was incredibly disruptive. Much worse than the usual cyclical predictable catastrophe. It was so bad, changed so much, wiped out so much that modern historians link it to a major geologic disruption along the lines of volcano eruption that cast darkness for weeks, rained for weeks, sunk temples, floated off entire towns, flooded burial sites.
Each house, ///// each shelter (or each covered place) that they reached //////// 11 ////// were floating in the water like the barks of papyrus (on the outside?) of the royal residence for ///////// day(s), 12 with no one able to light the torch anywhere.
Things were floating right up to the royal residences. That is when things get personal.
His Majesty set about to strengthen the two lands, to cause the water to evacuate without (the aid of) his (men?), to provide them with silver, 16 with gold, with copper, with oil, with clothing, with all the products they desired; after which His Majesty rested in the palace - life, health, strength.
The buyout. It sounds like he paid off the gods, the priests, dusted his hands, and that is that. Everything is fine.
It was then that His Majesty was informed that the funerary concessions had been invaded (by the water), that the sepulchral chambers had been damaged, that the structures of funerary enclosures had been undermined, that the pyramids had collapsed(?) 18 all that existed had been annihilated.
Only then did the king set about really fixing things. He had to be reminded. He was not attuned. Things you'd imagine already fixed by paying off the principals, the priests and his viziers, his nobility immediately below him, but his council enumerated the damage done throughout the country and the stele records the king's restoration efforts in detail.
This stele has caused no end of speculation and heated debate. Biblical scholars intuitively connect the flood recorded here with the Nile flood recorded in the bible and the exodus.
Other scientists connect the event with a known eruption.
Sometimes a researcher will make a connection extended a bit too far, make links that are not valid and they would know better if they knew more about a specific history, but this episode coincides with cultures that nobody knows all that much about and about which there is still much speculation. It is very odd to read about Hyksos one's whole life and never really get a solid idea who these people were who had such an extraordinary influence on Egyptian politics. Nobody seems to know. They come and go, back and forth. Asiatic people who took over Eastern Nile delta, set up a capital there, a Canaanite population situated at the Eastern Nile delta but ranging throughout Palestine up through Syria, back and forth, in and out. Described as both an invading hoard and a creeping infiltration.
We know of Joseph as Viceroy and Moses as some kind of alien prince or leader within the Egyptian court with an odd sort of storybook beginning, a leader of his own people. There is so much similarity between how Hyksos (foreign rulers) are described by early historians and Egyptian wall paintings, and biblical descriptions of early Hebrew records, presumably history.
When one off-the-wall crackpot type researcher makes a connection between the obscure payout that the king thought satisfied the gods and restored balance to his kingdom, before his court pointed out he had actually not even started rebuilding anything, sounds so much like what you would pay Hyksos to get out of the wasted area permanently, be gone and done with you and your meddling ways.
Then his Majesty began ... to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil, and of every bolt [of cloth] that could be desired. Then his majesty made himself comfortable inside the palace.
On the stele the gods had already been paid off. Although the country had not been completely restored. It is not clear what this second offering is for. Ralph Ellis believes the list describes materials used for a mobile temple. The same mobile temple described exactly the same way in Exodus. Ellis believes the transaction is recorded twice, once by Egyptians and secondly by Hyksos (Hebrews in this instance to Ellis)
Exodus 25:3
These are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; ... "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.
Everyone hates it, of course. Nobody scientifically-minded wants to supply proof of biblical texts. The very thought drives them nuts. Yet the similarities in precise wording and items from wildly various sources is remarkable and cannot be easily dismissed. I'm actually thankful for having discovered this rather crackpot connection published because it has helped me understand better these so-called Hyksos, a made-up name, and early Jewish tribes when both were wandering intermittently, collecting occasionally, irregularly constructing a temporary tent city at a place they named Salem, and the same tribes collecting at the same elevated spot renamed Jebu, then Salem again, then back to Jebu, then Salem, Jebu/Salem, Jerusalem. The various nomadic tribes wandering around back and forth, getting all up into Egypt's affairs, and into Syria, eventually coalesced, settled, whatever their portions are called throughout all that nomadic shepherding there is no reason to doubt and there is reason to accept at least some of those tribes were in some of the instances called and looked like Hyksos.
6 comments:
Very cool, Chip!
Very interesting. I must look this up and learn more!
Interesting stuff!
Wow, Chip, that is intense.
That the stele was used as filler for a later dynasty(?) is ironic. But perhaps we would not have it at all if it hadn't been put there for "safe-keeping." Still, it seems that such an overwhelming natural disaster would have been worth preserving no matter who the current pharaoh.
Does anyone wonder sometimes when they put something in the trash, destined for the landfill, if in a 1000 years people will be mining old landfills for things like discarded copper?
Fascinating stuff, Chip. Have you ever read The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman? They look at the archeological record and what it does and does not support of the bible.
I've just finished the Mark Anthony episodes of The History of Rome podcasts and already finished The Ancient World so my interest in Egypt has been recently reinvigorated. Thank you for posting and explaining these records.
Deborah, having a more sci do bent, I wonder what aliens will make of our trash.
Ninevah, neo-Assyrian capital, was so thoroughly destroyed that a hundred years later a historian (forgotten who just now) passing by suspected nothing. Shifting sands surely couldn't account for that much missing building block.
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