pack3tg0st
02-22-2010, 12:41 PM
Figured I'd post this here, we have a few guys around who are brilliant when it comes to this sort of stuff.
This is still a work in progress, I just don't know how quickly i'll be working on it.
From my blog:
(Disclaimer: As much as I hate trying to decipher legend and fact from the ancient stories in the bible, there are a few instances where it would appear that myth meets reality. This isn't to say that the bible as a religious text has any validity at all. Its just a suggestion that the oral traditions of the past were effected by real world events and people.
This post is not meant to be taken as any sort of proof of the bible's accuracy.)
Akhenaten (otherwise known as Amenhotep IV), Son of Amenhotep III, was a Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He was ruler for approximately 17 years, and is known as the Heretic King of Egypt.
Akhenaten was known as the first Monotheist. He abandoned the Egyptian pantheon of gods, in favor of sun worship (Aten), and is the father of the most famous Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
However, this pharaoh might be more special than people realize
There is evidence to suggest that Akhenaten may actually be the basis for the legend of Moses. But lets start at the very beginning:
According Historian Ahmed Osman, there was a powerful Israelite by the name of Yusef- Yuya (Joseph in the common tongue) that was a trusted advisor to both pharaohs Tuthmosis IV, and Amenhotep III (Thuthmosis IV was Amenhotep III's grandfather). In an effort to ensure the throne was passed to him, Amenhotep III married his very young sister (Sitamun). He later married Yusef-Yuya's daughter Tiye as well, as having a wife of age certainly carries with it some... benefits...
However, since Tiye was an Israelite, it was determined by the priesthood that any children from Amenhotep III and Tiye would never become part of the succession to the throne. In fact, when Amenhotep IV was born, it was the consensus at the time that he should be put to death, to avoid future problems with ascension.
Thusly, Amenhotep IV was spirited away from the palace, and was sent to be raised by Tiye's Israelite family.
After the passing of Amenhotep III, Amenhotep IV married his half sister Nefertiti (Sitamun's only child), and thus ascended the throne as Co-Regent.
Once he assumed the throne (albeit he only shared the throne), he rejected the Egyptian Pantheon of gods, and instead, sought to elevate the Sun-Disk (Aten) as an image-less, but monotheistic god. He took to shutting down the temples of Ra, thoroughly angering the Priests of Amun.
5 years into his reign, he took the drastic step of changing his name to Akhenaten to include the word 'Aten' in his name.
Here is where it starts to get fuzzy. It has always been a scientific 'guess' that Akhenaten died while on the throne after only 16 years of reign, putting him in his mid thirties when he died. However, there has also been speculation that that he didn't die, but was forced to abdicate his throne due to his heretical beliefs, and thus, went into exile all the way through his son's (Tutankhamun) reign.
The reason for the ambiguation is the fact that after Tutankhamen successor (Ay), the House of Ramses ascended the throne, where they then entered a campaign to eliminate the blight of heresy from the history books. They defaced monuments, dismantled temples, destroyed crypts and damaged burial chambers.
Theories about Akhenaten's exile (As opposed to death on the throne) have abound for years. And, until today, were all guess work.
As I was writing this, new scientific results are in from a tomb discovered in the valley of the kings nearly 100 years ago named K-55.
DNA studies show that one of the mummies interred in K-55 is indeed that of Tutankhamen's father Akhenaten. But the exciting part is the MRI results.
MRI testing indicates that Akhenaten did not die in his mid 30's on the throne, as originally postulated. Instead, it shows that he lived into his mid 60's. Giving us about 30 years of 'lost time' to contend with.
Which is in accordance with the theories that he was in exile in the deserts of Egypt with his followers for about 25 years.
This brings us to what prompted this post to begin with.
The Ark of the Covenant.
For centuries the Ark of the Covenant has eluded even the most diligent archaeologists. There have been many speculations as to where it's final resting place might be. My theory is that there might be a possibility that everyone is looking for the wrong thing.
The biblical description of the ark in Exodus 25 is as follows:
22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will speak with thee from above the ark-cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
23 And thou shalt make a table of acacia-wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
24 And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about.
25 And thou shalt make unto it a border of a handbreadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.
26 And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
27 Close by the border shall the rings be, for places for the staves to bear the table.
Here is an artists rendition of a final product that dates to the 19th century:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Ark_of_the_Covenant_19th-century.png
However, Moses was in exile when he received these instructions. I also highly doubt that a rag-tag group of slaves had the amount of gold needed to 'gold plate' a device such as this, even if they did possess the skill to do so.
I also feel its a mistake to look for a Semitic artifact, as opposed to a Egyptian artifact.
But now, lets work off the hypothesis that Akhenaten is indeed the basis for the legend of Moses. We would probably be looking at something with a more 'Egyptian' flare. But lets start by looking at artifacts from around the same time period.
This is a shrine to Anubis that was recovered from Tutankhamen's tomb:
http://www.royalexhibitions.com/KT%20photo%20anubis%20web.jpg
It shares many similar characteristics as the 'ark' description from Exodus. Items such as these would have been plentiful around the time period in question.
Now, its obvious that the Anubis statue doesn't quite fit what we're looking for. So lets remove that, and look at another image.
http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/images/isis.jpg
That, is Isis, an Egyptian goddess. Is it possible that the 'Ark' of the covenant is a recycled Shrine to the goddess Isis? It is an established practice to 'borrow' from other religions when coming up with religious symbology.
My hypothesis is either the Ark was physically borrowed from an Egyptian community, or, the author of the book of Exodus was aware of these mobile shrines, and based his description on existing religion iconography from Egypt.
However, all this may be moot. Without proper care, the Ark of the Covenant would be reduced to a pile of dirt and twisted metal by this point in time. It was made out of wood after all.
However, I can't help but wonder if we've been looking for the wrong artifact for centuries.
Sources:
http://www.dwij.org/forum/amarna/10_moses_akhenaten.htm
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=7&id=19943
http://touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep3.htm
http://www.egyptologyonline.com/
This is still a work in progress, I just don't know how quickly i'll be working on it.
From my blog:
(Disclaimer: As much as I hate trying to decipher legend and fact from the ancient stories in the bible, there are a few instances where it would appear that myth meets reality. This isn't to say that the bible as a religious text has any validity at all. Its just a suggestion that the oral traditions of the past were effected by real world events and people.
This post is not meant to be taken as any sort of proof of the bible's accuracy.)
Akhenaten (otherwise known as Amenhotep IV), Son of Amenhotep III, was a Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He was ruler for approximately 17 years, and is known as the Heretic King of Egypt.
Akhenaten was known as the first Monotheist. He abandoned the Egyptian pantheon of gods, in favor of sun worship (Aten), and is the father of the most famous Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
However, this pharaoh might be more special than people realize
There is evidence to suggest that Akhenaten may actually be the basis for the legend of Moses. But lets start at the very beginning:
According Historian Ahmed Osman, there was a powerful Israelite by the name of Yusef- Yuya (Joseph in the common tongue) that was a trusted advisor to both pharaohs Tuthmosis IV, and Amenhotep III (Thuthmosis IV was Amenhotep III's grandfather). In an effort to ensure the throne was passed to him, Amenhotep III married his very young sister (Sitamun). He later married Yusef-Yuya's daughter Tiye as well, as having a wife of age certainly carries with it some... benefits...
However, since Tiye was an Israelite, it was determined by the priesthood that any children from Amenhotep III and Tiye would never become part of the succession to the throne. In fact, when Amenhotep IV was born, it was the consensus at the time that he should be put to death, to avoid future problems with ascension.
Thusly, Amenhotep IV was spirited away from the palace, and was sent to be raised by Tiye's Israelite family.
After the passing of Amenhotep III, Amenhotep IV married his half sister Nefertiti (Sitamun's only child), and thus ascended the throne as Co-Regent.
Once he assumed the throne (albeit he only shared the throne), he rejected the Egyptian Pantheon of gods, and instead, sought to elevate the Sun-Disk (Aten) as an image-less, but monotheistic god. He took to shutting down the temples of Ra, thoroughly angering the Priests of Amun.
5 years into his reign, he took the drastic step of changing his name to Akhenaten to include the word 'Aten' in his name.
Here is where it starts to get fuzzy. It has always been a scientific 'guess' that Akhenaten died while on the throne after only 16 years of reign, putting him in his mid thirties when he died. However, there has also been speculation that that he didn't die, but was forced to abdicate his throne due to his heretical beliefs, and thus, went into exile all the way through his son's (Tutankhamun) reign.
The reason for the ambiguation is the fact that after Tutankhamen successor (Ay), the House of Ramses ascended the throne, where they then entered a campaign to eliminate the blight of heresy from the history books. They defaced monuments, dismantled temples, destroyed crypts and damaged burial chambers.
Theories about Akhenaten's exile (As opposed to death on the throne) have abound for years. And, until today, were all guess work.
As I was writing this, new scientific results are in from a tomb discovered in the valley of the kings nearly 100 years ago named K-55.
DNA studies show that one of the mummies interred in K-55 is indeed that of Tutankhamen's father Akhenaten. But the exciting part is the MRI results.
MRI testing indicates that Akhenaten did not die in his mid 30's on the throne, as originally postulated. Instead, it shows that he lived into his mid 60's. Giving us about 30 years of 'lost time' to contend with.
Which is in accordance with the theories that he was in exile in the deserts of Egypt with his followers for about 25 years.
This brings us to what prompted this post to begin with.
The Ark of the Covenant.
For centuries the Ark of the Covenant has eluded even the most diligent archaeologists. There have been many speculations as to where it's final resting place might be. My theory is that there might be a possibility that everyone is looking for the wrong thing.
The biblical description of the ark in Exodus 25 is as follows:
22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will speak with thee from above the ark-cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
23 And thou shalt make a table of acacia-wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
24 And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about.
25 And thou shalt make unto it a border of a handbreadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.
26 And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
27 Close by the border shall the rings be, for places for the staves to bear the table.
Here is an artists rendition of a final product that dates to the 19th century:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Ark_of_the_Covenant_19th-century.png
However, Moses was in exile when he received these instructions. I also highly doubt that a rag-tag group of slaves had the amount of gold needed to 'gold plate' a device such as this, even if they did possess the skill to do so.
I also feel its a mistake to look for a Semitic artifact, as opposed to a Egyptian artifact.
But now, lets work off the hypothesis that Akhenaten is indeed the basis for the legend of Moses. We would probably be looking at something with a more 'Egyptian' flare. But lets start by looking at artifacts from around the same time period.
This is a shrine to Anubis that was recovered from Tutankhamen's tomb:
http://www.royalexhibitions.com/KT%20photo%20anubis%20web.jpg
It shares many similar characteristics as the 'ark' description from Exodus. Items such as these would have been plentiful around the time period in question.
Now, its obvious that the Anubis statue doesn't quite fit what we're looking for. So lets remove that, and look at another image.
http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/images/isis.jpg
That, is Isis, an Egyptian goddess. Is it possible that the 'Ark' of the covenant is a recycled Shrine to the goddess Isis? It is an established practice to 'borrow' from other religions when coming up with religious symbology.
My hypothesis is either the Ark was physically borrowed from an Egyptian community, or, the author of the book of Exodus was aware of these mobile shrines, and based his description on existing religion iconography from Egypt.
However, all this may be moot. Without proper care, the Ark of the Covenant would be reduced to a pile of dirt and twisted metal by this point in time. It was made out of wood after all.
However, I can't help but wonder if we've been looking for the wrong artifact for centuries.
Sources:
http://www.dwij.org/forum/amarna/10_moses_akhenaten.htm
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=7&id=19943
http://touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep3.htm
http://www.egyptologyonline.com/