by
Damien
F. Mackey
Manetho states that during the 38 years reign of
Boethos (or Bochos)
a “chasm” opened at Bubastis and many people died.
This present article has been lifted from Volume
Seven (“Sodom to Saqqara”) of my book, “From Genesis
to Hernán Cortés”.
The combined lives of (Abram) Abraham and
Isaac may have enabled us to put together a long-reigning first ruler of Egypt
and southern (Philistine) Canaan, Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’), or, in Hebrew terms, “Abimelech”,
whose name, I thought, had some resonance with the Egyptian name Raneb of the Second Dynasty.
And from the name Raneb I conjectured a
possible connection with the celebrated, but obscure, Old Kingdom ruler, Nebka,
who, in turn, could be the Nebkaure (Nebkare), said by Pliny to have been the
ruler at the time of Abraham.
This was pointed out by David Rohl, who
had proceeded from there to identify that Nebkaure with Khety IV of the Tenth Dynasty.
These combinations, which I would accept
as a working hypothesis, would (if correct) enable for a synthesising of the
Old Kingdom (First and Second dynasties) with the ‘Middle’
Kingdom (Tenth Dynasty), in
accordance with Dr. Donovan Courville’s suggestion that the Old and Middle were
by no means vastly separated in time the one from the other, but were to some
degree concurrent.
One also reads at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh)
that a scholar has identified Raneb, in turn, with Weneg, and, further,
that N. Grimal and others think that Weneg corresponds to Hor-Sekhemib-Perenmaat.
Such a series of identifications would
minimise the number of rulers in the Second
Dynasty.
The first listed ruler of the Second Dynasty is given as Hetepsekhemwy, whom Manetho
calls “Boethos”. His position at the beginning of the dynasty might necessitate
an identification of him with the very first ruler of Egypt, the one known to
Abraham and Isaac.
While
that may be an extremely tenuous connection, I notice that David O’Connor (Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the
Ancient Near East and Egypt ….), has embraced an identification of Hetepsekhemwy with Raneb (p.
170): “The earlier rulers of Dynasty II (perhaps as many
as six individuals) were probably all buried at Saqqara, where so far only two of the
The Second
Dynasty was unlikely composed of “as many as six individuals”, far fewer.
And I likewise would suggest that the
conventional nine or so rulers of the First
Dynasty might be similarly in need of a reduction.
Hetepsekhemwy (or Hotepsekhemwy) is so poorly known
for a ruler of anything from 38 (Manetho) to 95 (Turin canon) years that he
needs one, or more, alter egos.
That is
apparent from the following: https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html
Little is known about
Hotepsekhemwy's reign. Contemporary sources show that he may have gained the
throne after a period of political strife, including ephemeral rulers such as
Horus "Bird" and Sneferka (the latter is also thought to be an
alternate name used by king Qaa for a short time). As evidence of this,
Egyptologists Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and George Reisner point to the
tomb of king Qaa, which was plundered at the end of 1st dynasty and was
restored during the reign of Hotepsekhemwy. The plundering of the cemetery and
the unusually conciliatory meaning of the name Hotepsekhemwy may be clues of a
dynastic struggle. Additionally, Helck assumes that the kings Sneferka and
Horus "Bird" were omitted from later king lists because their
struggles for the Egyptian throne were factors in the collapse of the first
dynasty.
Seal impressions provide evidence
of a new royal residence called "Horus the shining star" that was
constructed by Hotepsekhemwy. He also built a temple near Buto for the
little-known deity Netjer-Achty and founded the "Chapel of the White
Crown". The white crown is a symbol of Upper Egypt. This is thought to be
another clue to the origin of Hotepsekhemwy's dynasty, indicating a likely
source of political power. Egyptologists such as Nabil Swelim point out that
there is no inscription from Hotepsekhemwy's reign mentioning a Sed festival,
indicating the ruler cannot have ruled longer than 30 years (the Sed festival
was celebrated as the anniversary marking a reign of 30 years).
The ancient Greek Manetho called
Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported
that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many
perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two
millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible
that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis
is known to be seismically active.
The location of Hotepsekhemwy's
tomb is unknown. Egyptologists such as Flinders Petrie, Alessandre Barsanti and
Toby Wilkinson believe it could be the giant underground Gallery Tomb B beneath
the funeral passage of the Unas-necropolis at Sakkara. Many seal impressions of
king Hotepsekhemwy have been found in these galleries.
Egyptologists such as Wolfgang
Helck and Peter Munro are not convinced and think that Gallery Tomb B is
instead the burial site of king Raneb, as several seal impressions of this
ruler were also found there. ….
Most important for our study here, about great
geophysical rifts appearing in the region, is that piece of evidence from Manetho
about the “chasm” during the reign of “Boethos”.
If, as I am tentatively suggesting, “Boethos”
had been a contemporary of Abraham and Isaac, then one might expect that the “chasm”
that killed many people had to do with the destruction witnessed by Abram
(Genesis 19:24-28):
Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom
and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of
the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying
all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s
wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the
next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before
the Lord. He looked down toward
Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke
rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
That “chasm” may be a something in the life
of the monarch, “Boethos”, that could relate to the catastrophism that caused
the extinction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, with “Bela (that is Zoar)” saved for the sake of Lot
and his daughters (Genesis 19:20-23). https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html
“The ancient Greek
Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau)
and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis
and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over
two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it
possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near
Bubastis is known to be seismically active”.
Manetho,
living very long after the “chasmic” event, may have done what Herodotus made
bold to do regarding the destruction of Sennacherib’s Assyrian army, which Herodotus
transferred geographically from Palestine to the Egyptian Delta, to Pelusium.
For
Manetho will locate the “chasm” of “Boethos” in Bubastis.
Commenting
on this, Swiss archaeologist, Henri Édouard Naville wrote in an
article, “Bubastis” (1891): “We learn from Manetho that under the King Boethos,
the first of the second dynasty, a chasm opened itself at Bubastis, which caused
the loss of a great many lives. Up to the present day, we have not found in any
part of Egypt monuments as old as the second dynasty”.
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