by
Damien F. Mackey
“[Snofru] is
said to have led an expedition into Nubia to crush a ‘revolt’ …
and to have
captured 7,000 prisoners”.
N. Grimal
“The IREM of Upper Egypt rebel and are
crushed by Ramses-II. 7,000 prisoners taken”.
Pharaoh Sneferu (Snefru, Snofru), whom the
conventional Egyptologists have dated as far back as c. 2613 - 2589 BC, seems to me to be something of an
anachronism for such early times. Certainly, there is a disturbing lack of
archaeology for his famous Nubian campaign, as attested by Torgny
Säve-Söderbergh (“From prehistory to Pharaonic times”, p. 22):
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/.../attach_import_5f9b266d-d651-4d81-bff4-4e38018bc57e
These
Egyptian enterprises seem to have taken place
during a vacuum in Nubian
history, and when King Snofru tells us that he
"hacked up the land of Nubia, taking 7,000
prisoners and bringing away 200,000 cattle and
sheep", we are at a loss from an archaeological point
of view, for no traces have been found of
this population with its vast herds.
The fact
that King Snofru mentions cattle as characteristic
of the Nubian economy of his time
indicates that his opponents were
pastoralist nomads, probably living in the areas which are now desert
which were more habitable at that time thanks to a more humid climate.
….
Many
questions remain unanswered. This is often the case for similar
periods when there are no archaeological finds to
enlighten us about what really happened. ….
[End of quote]
Moreover, the numbers of captives Sneferu is said to
have taken in his Nubian campaign seems to have been an excessive number for
that particular period in time.
N. Grimal has written about it (A History of Ancient Egypt, pp. 67-68):
The Palermo Stone suggests
that Snofru was a warlike king. He is said to have led an expedition into Nubia
to crush a ‘revolt’ in the Dodekaschoenos region and to have captured 7,000
prisoners in the campaign. This is a huge number considering that the
population of the Dodekaschoenos, effectively corresponding to Egyptian-dominated
Nubia, was thought to be 50,000 only in the 1950’s. The account of this
campaign also mentions the even higher number of 200,000 head of cattle, as
well as 13,100 head of cattle which, according to the same source was obtained
in a campaign against the Libyans, 11,000 of them are said to have been taken
prisoner. ….
[End of quote]
There is much uncertainty as well about Sneferu’s
actual length of reign:
http://wikipedia.moesalih.com/Snofru “Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 to 2589
BCE,[4] a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a
30-year reign,[5] and Rainer Stadelmann a 48-year reign.[6]”
And, as is apparent from the following Tour of Egypt article, there is debate
as to his parentage; his dynasty; and his wife:
Snefru in Tour Egypt SNEFRU, 1ST KING OF EGYPT'S 4TH
DYNASTY by Jimmy Dunn Snefru is credited as being the first pharaoh of Egypt's
4th Dynasty.
…. Snefru was most likely the son of Huni, his
predecessor, though there seems some controversy to this, considering the break
in Dynasties. However, his mother may have been Meresankh I, who was probably a
lessor wife or concubine and therefore not of royal blood. Hence, this may
explain what prompted the ancient historian, Manetho (here, Snefru is known by
his Greek name, Soris), to begin a new dynasty with Snefru. However, it should
be noted that both the royal canon of Turin and the later Saqqara List both end
the previous dynasty with Huni.
Snefru was almost certainly married to Hetepheres I,
who would have been at least his half sister, probably by a more senior queen,
in order to legitimize his rule. ….
[End of quote]
First new consideration
Sneferu may have been
hopelessly misplaced in the arrangement of pharaohs and dynasties. And a
possible identification for Sneferu much further down in Egyptian history might
be as the similarly named, Snefer-Ra, that is, Piankhi, of the so-called 25th
“Ethiopian” dynasty.
He, Piankhi, I have already enlarged by identifying
him with the famous Tirhakah, having concluded: “Snefer-Ra Piankhi
was Tirhakah”. See e.g. my series:
Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah?
Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah? Part Two: 25th (Ethiopian) Dynasty not
clear cut
First Conclusion: Sneferu may be Snefer-Ra
Piankhi/Tirhakah.
Second new consideration
Since the number of
prisoners from Nubia attributed to Sneferu’s campaign - but whose plausibility
is seriously questioned for such an early time - is exactly the same as the number attributed to Ramses II in Irem
(Nubia), 7,000, then the possibility needs to be at least considered that
Sneferu = Snefer-Ra (Piankhi-Tirhakah) was also Ramses II.
Piankhi in fact bore at
least two names of Ramses II, Meryamun
and Usermaatre.
Immense building,
and fleet, programme
According to N. Grimal (A History of Ancient Egypt, p. 69):
“Not only is Snofru credited
with the construction of ships, fortresses, palaces and temples but he is the
only ruler to whom three pyramids are ascribed”.
In Part One:
I put forward the, albeit
controversial, proposal that pharaoh Sneferu – about whom there appears to be a
fair degree of biographical uncertainty – may have been wildly mis-placed
historically, and that he might actually be the same as Snefer-Ra Piankhi (=
Tirhakah).
His achievements as outlined
above by Grimal were phenomenal, and perhaps more befitting a later Egyptian
dynast than an Old Kingdom one. This same comment would apply to the incredible
amount of captives and cattle that pharaoh Snefru is aid to have taken from
Nubia and from Libya.
Furthermore, I, having noted that Ramses II had
also, like Sneferu, captured 7,000 Nubians, had proceeded to advance the
further possibility that the composite Sneferu was also pharaoh Ramses II ‘the
Great’.
I have already identified Ramses II with Ramses III.
See e.g. my article:
New Revision for Ramses II
Ramses
II was a famous conqueror of the Nubians, just like Sneferu.
And,
like Sneferu again, Ramses II conquered the Libyans
And so did Ramses III.
Moreover, the colossal number of cattle, 200,000,
that Sneferu allegedly captured from the Nubians would befit a Ramses III, who
“confirmed the temples in their property ... half a million
head of cattle, over 400,000 of which were the sole
property of Amon”:
Tirhakah a
conqueror on a Ramesside scale
“…. the inscription was branded by the noted
Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge
as an “example
of the worthlessness, historically, of such lists”.
…. Petrie
concludes that “Taharqa was as much ruler of Qedesh
and Naharina as George II. was king of France, though officially so-called.”
…..
The Sabbath
and Jubilee Cycle
Further to my suggestion in Part Two of this
series:
that the composite Sneferu (= Snefer-Ra
Piankhi/Tirhakah) may also have been pharaoh Ramses II, I find that the
pharaoh’s (as Tirhakah) list of captured cities seems to be identical, in part,
to those of Ramses II ‘the Great’.
This is invariably interpreted by scholars as
Tirhakah seeking to emulate an earlier Ramses II.
We read in the article, The Sabbath and Jubilee
Cycle, pp. 114-117:
… Egyptologists were
amazed to find
a long list of captured cities written on the base of a statue found at Karnak
which belonged to a king named Tirhakah …. Each city represents the greater
region under the control of this king. This record not only states that a king
named Tirhakah controlled Ethiopia, Egypt, and northern Africa, but it claims
that he had some sort of sovereignty over Tunip (Upper Syria, west of the
Euphrates) … Qadesh (Lower Syria/ Palestine) … and the Shasu (region of Edom
and the Trans-Jordan) … as far north as Arzawa (western Asia Minor) … Khatti (eastern
Asia Minor) … and Naharin (western Mesopotamia) … and as far east as Assur
(Assyria) …and Sinagar (Babylonia) ….
In a footnote (p. 114, n.61), we reads this comment:
Mariette-Bey (KETA, pp. 66f),
followed by Petrie (AHOE, 3, p. 297), and others, thought this list from
Tirhakah was copied from an identical one found on a colossus which they
believed belonged to Ramesses the Great (cf. KETA, Plate 385f). This colossus
was identified with Ramesses II because his name was found inscribed upon it.
The article continues:
…. the inscription was branded by the noted Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge as an “example of the worthlessness,
historically, of such lists”. …. Petrie concludes that “Taharqa was as much ruler of Qedesh and
Naharina as George II. was king of France, though officially so-called.” …..
Despite the fact that
these inscriptions are presently shunned, the ancient records actually
confirm them. Severus (1.50), for example, notes that this “Tarraca, king of
Ethiopia, invaded the kingdom of the Assyrians, Strabo speaks
of
a great king named “Tearko the Ethiopian” …. Tearko
being the Greek form of the name Tirhakah. …. Tearko,
he states,
had led one
of the great
expeditions of the ancient world which were not "matters of off-hand
knowledge to everybody”. ….
[End
of quotes]
But perhaps, now, some of these inscriptions will
need to be re-interpreted.
We have already found, rather surprisingly, that 20th
dynasty archaeology may have been contemporaneous with the 25th
dynasty (Tirhakah’s).
Also, we may now be in a better position to understand
why Horemheb is associated with Tirhakah on an inscription:
And why Ramses II is depicted alongside
Esarhaddon, a contemporary of Tirhakah:
Velikovsky had pharaoh Tirhakah contemporaneous with Horemheb. Part Two: A
second challenging inscription
Dr. Velikovsky may well have got it right insofar as he
had determined that Ramses II was a contemporary of Nebuchednezzar II, whom I
have identified with Esarhaddon:
Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar
- though I personally would embrace
a 25th dynasty identification for the 19th dynasty of Ramessides
rather than Velikovsky’s choice of a 26th dynasty parallel.
And Dr. Courville may not have been too far out, either, in
dating the long reign of Ramses II to
the approximate era of king Hezekiah of Judah, as the biblical pharaoh ‘So’.
Though Courville had the long reign of a now-aged Ramesses II concluding with
the ‘So’ incident, whereas I think that the ‘So’ era would be far closer to the
beginning of the reign of Ramses II.
Courville’s hopeful derivation of
the name, ‘So’, from a Suten Bat name of Ramses II is far from convincing. I wrote
of this in my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume One, p. 266):
Now according to Courville’s
system … Ramses II, whose reign would have terminated in 726/725 BC, must have
been the biblical “King So of Egypt” with whom Hoshea of Israel conspired against
the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:4). Courville had plausibly (in his context)
suggested that the reason why ‘So’ was unable to help Hoshea of Israel was
because the Egyptian king was, as Ramses II, now right at the end of his very
long reign, and hence aged and feeble. Courville had looked to find the name ‘So’
amongst the many names of Ramses II, and had opted for the rather obscure ‘So’
element in that pharaoh’s Suten Bat name, Ra-user-Maat-Sotep-en-Ra.727 (See
also pp. 286-287). ….
No comments:
Post a Comment