Jacob and Joseph, Step Pyramid, Famine

by Damien F. Mackey The manifestation of Joseph in Egypt upon whom I want to concentrate here, initially, is as Den (or Udimu), considered to have been one of the First Dynasty pharaohs. A. Joseph of Egypt as Den (Usaphais) According to a legend as recorded by Artapanus (History of the Jews), c. 100 BC, Moses was “a king” of Egypt. This information, most crucial if it were true, but leading one on a wild goose chase if it were not, saw me spending years trying to identify Moses as one or other Pharaoh. And it is still leading scholars a merry dance, with Amenemhet IV being a favourite for King Moses, though some regard Moses as the monotheistic Akhnaton (Akhenaten). Moses was, as it turns out, Vizer and Chief Judge in Egypt: mighty, but not Pharaonic. His office is perfectly defined by the more belligerent of the two squabbling Hebrews, who rounded on him with (Exodus 2:14): ‘Who made you ruler [Vizier] and [Chief] judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’ In the case of Moses’ predecessor, Joseph of Egypt, no one (I think) claims that he was an actual Pharaoh. The ruler of Egypt at the time makes quite clear how Joseph stands in relation to the throne (Genesis 41:39-40): “Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you’.” Revisionist historians, who have endured no end of head-scratching towards arriving at a plausible identification for the historical Moses, more quickly came up with such a candidate for Joseph. He was the Vizier IMHOTEP of Egypt’s Third Dynasty, the highly talented and trusted sage and architect serving King Horus Netjerikhet, wrongly also called Djoser (or Zoser – read further on). There is that famous Famine Stela, erected many centuries later than the time of Horus Netjerikhet and Imhotep, telling of how Imhotep had saved Egypt from a seven-year famine. So, it seems that the partnership between this pair is clearly defined, Horus Netjerikhet was the King, and Imhotep was his Vizier. All well and good so far: Imhotep (= Joseph) – seven-year famine (= biblical Famine). That ideal situation was suddenly shattered for me this year when Brenton Minge, who had previously written a most important booklet entitled Jesus Spoke Hebrew. Busting the “Aramaic” Myth, sent me a copy of his unpublished work on Egyptology, Pharaoh’s Evidence. Egypt’s Stunning Witness to Joseph and Exodus, in which he erased Imhotep from history, cleverly arguing that Imhotep was a title and not a name, and that the actual name of the official, presumably referring to the biblical Joseph, had been deleted from the base of Horus Netjerikhet’s Saqqara statue. As the year wore on, I was able (so I believe) to locate Imhotep as a real person in ancient Egypt. More on that afterwards. In the process, I managed to come up with a whole lot of identifications, alter egos, for Joseph in Egypt. He who had formerly been scarce - and even scarcer if Imhotep were to be removed from any consideration - was all of a sudden popping up everywhere. The manifestation of Joseph in Egypt upon whom I want to concentrate here, initially (A.), is as Den (or Udimu) (c. 3000 BC, conventional dating), considered to have been one of the First Dynasty pharaohs. The name, Den, may be a posthumous attribution. In an earlier article, I had come to light with the following rather neat arrangement: When Egypt’s dynasties are not set in single file, there may occur this nice symmetry: Abraham (dynasties 1 and 10) Joseph (dynasties 3 and 11) Moses (dynasties 4 and 12) …. This sort of parallel structuring will not be found, of course, in the text books. Evolutionary-minded modern scholars have a habit of wanting everything set linear. If Den (pictured above in typical pharaonic smiting pose) were the biblical Joseph, however, then the First Dynasty would now need to be split between Abraham and Joseph (dynasties 1, 3 and 11). The status of Joseph turns out to be quite unlike that of Moses, over whom the Pharaoh would have had the power of life and death. Joseph was, as I have come to determine, a quasi-Pharaoh, who, in some cases, did not even bother to recognise the actual Pharaoh. How could this have been? I suspect that Joseph, aged 30 when he stood before Pharaoh (c. 1700 BC) armed with his inspired interpretations of the Dreams, was somewhat older than the Pharaoh, who must have been in awe of this brilliant Hebrew. “Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from Pharaoh’s presence and travelled throughout Egypt” (Genesis 41:46). No wonder that Pharaoh regarded Joseph as his “Father”. For, as Joseph tells his penitent brothers (Genesis 45:8): ‘So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me Father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt’. Joseph’s own father, Jacob, would twice bless the (presumably young) Pharaoh (Genesis 47:7, 10), as a superior to an inferior (as has been said), but perhaps also as a grandfather might bless his grandchild. Not untypically for a young person, the Pharaoh, after Jacob had blessed him, “asked him, ‘How old are you?’” (vv. 7-8). Den’s alternative names There are various compelling reasons why I am now convinced that Joseph in Egypt was Den, not least of these being his other name, as given by Manetho, Usaph-ais. This, Usaph, is purely the Semitic name for Joseph (Yosef, Yusef) with a Greek ending. But that is not all. Den also had the hypocoristic nick-name, Khasti, “foreigner”, which is exactly how the Egyptians would have viewed the Hebrew Joseph, whose brothers would require an interpreter (Genesis 42:23). If all that were not enough, the name Den is interpreted as meaning “bringer of water”, or “pourer of water”, which is precisely what Joseph did for a parched Egypt. Summing up the names of Den, then, we arrive at this happy combination: Usaph (Joseph); the foreigner; he who brings water. Close to Den in the First Dynasty list is Djet, again a famine Pharaoh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djet “Manetho mentions that in [Djet’s] reign a great famine seized Egypt”. Owing to the abundant harvests of the River Nile, famines (especially “great” ones) were extremely rare in Egypt. Even before we come to consider a prime candidate for Joseph, Imhotep, in Egypt’s Third Dynasty, we have found ourselves already feasting like a well-fed land of Egypt upon the abundant wheat of evidence for the First Dynasty’s Den as Joseph. And there is plenty more harvest to come, before we move on to Imhotep himself. Den and the Heb-Sed Festival Konstantin Borisov (2024) has written of the uniqueness of this somewhat poorly understood Egyptian festival (Archaeological Discovery, 12, 46-65): https://www.scirp.org/journal/ad The Egyptian Pyramids—Connection to Rain and Nile Flood Anomalies …. The Heb-Sed festival stands out as one of the most prominent and potentially the most ancient festival in ancient Egypt. This festival served as a demonstration of the king’s vitality and potency, although certain aspects of its origin and specific details remain unclear. There is a belief that the festival tested the king’s vital power and if unsuccessful, the king would be sacrificed and replaced by a more potent successor. The Heb-Sed ceremonies have been the subject of extensive excavations conducted over the years, revealing valuable insights into this ancient Egyptian tradition (Uphill, 1965). It is widely acknowledged that these festivities occurred thirty years after the king’s accession to the throne, although certain rulers deviated from this pattern and held them more frequently. …. This can be accomplished drawing on the research work of Barbara Bell published in the American Journal of Archeology. Bell argued that a key responsibility of a reigning king in ancient Egypt included rainmaking (Bell, 1970, 1971, 1975). According to this perspective, the king had a crucial role in ensuring the prosperity of the cultivated Egyptian lands by controlling rainfall through his purported magical abilities. It was believed that the king possessed the power to make the banks of the Nile valley and even the desert wadis green (Allen, 1988: p. 41). Extending this line of thinking, when the king died, he was believed to continue his caring role, though in a different capacity as a great god in the afterlife, where he would still oversee rain, crops, and Nile levels (Frankfort, 1978: p. 59). Meanwhile, his successor Horus, inheriting the role of his predecessor, fulfills his caregiving obligations upholding the principles of Maat, the fundamental principle of the world order (Teeter, 1997), where the integral part of Maat is offering rituals to the gods, which was believed to be essential in retaining the divine oversight and protection (Assmann, 2001: p. 5). It was believed that upholding Maat, a pharaoh could restore the Egyptian land to its primordial time (Teeter, 1997: p. 9), evoking the imagery of a land flourishing with abundant rainfall. Therefore, it seems conceivable that there exists a connection between “resting Ka”, rainfall, and Maat. The connection between the deceased king and rainfall receives additional support from the writings of Plutarch, a renowned philosopher from the first century. It is widely recognized that the deceased king is associated with the deity Osiris, who is not only the god of the dead, but also holds significance as an agricultural god. According to Plutarch, Osiris is linked to all germinating moisture (Plutarch, c.100, 1936: p. 81), which can be seen as a reference to rain. Furthermore, Osiris is associated with Nile floods and vegetation (Breasted, 1912: p. 23). The ancient Egyptians believed that only by performing the prescribed offering ceremonies correctly and at the right season could the Nile rise to the appropriate level to water the lands (Budge, 1910: p. 172). They also believed that cutting back on offering would result in famine throughout the land (Assmann, 2001: p. 64). Consequently, based on this association, one could interpret that there is indeed a link between the deceased king, offerings, and rainfall. …. Important for this article, and cutting through certain Egyptian superstitious beliefs and rituals, is the connection between the Heb-Sed festival and rain to prevent famine. And it may all have begun with our Den, as Konstantin Borisov will go on to tell: …. Evidence 1—Famine Stela The Famine Stela from the island of Sehel, recounts a seven-year drought during the reign of the third dynasty pharaoh Djoser [sic] (Budge, 1994: p. 60). Although the stela itself is a reproduction of an older text, the story line is what carries significance. According to the stela, the gods were angered by the Egyptians’ lack of worship towards the Nile gods, leading them to unleash a prolonged period of aridity and insufficient Nile floods. To investigate this matter, Djoser sends Imhotep, who consults older records and discovers that floods are controlled by the god Khnum-Khufu, residing in Elephantine. As a response, Djoser reinstates offerings to the Nile gods, resulting in the drought ending, the Nile returning to its appropriate level, and bountiful agriculture and crops. Two noteworthy points emerge from this evidence. Firstly, the story establishes a clear link between rainfall and offerings to the gods. It is hypothesized that Djoser likely made Maat offerings, which then allowed nature to respond accordingly. Secondly, the knowledge of the rainmaking practice seems to have been forgotten at Djoser’s time. As Imhotep, himself, needed to align with older records to recover the knowledge. The question is then, when was this originally devised? It is quite enticing to attribute this innovation to the era of the 1st Dynasty ruler, Den. This inclination arises due to several compelling factors. Firstly, the Palermo stone, which records the lineage of kings, also includes measurements from a Nilometer (Bell, 1970: p. 571). These measurements reveal a significant anomaly during Den’s reign, depicting higher Nile levels compared to the periods before and after his rule. Moreover, Den’s Horus name, which is one of the earliest among the five names with a serekh façade, is bestowed upon the king posthumously (Petrie, 1888: p. 22). Notably, Gardiner suggests that Den’s Horus name, “Udimu”, can be translated as “water pourer” (Gardiner, 1961: p. 401). It is plausible to pressume [sic] that Den’s recognized role in procuring rainfall and higher Nile levels left a lasting impression on his followers, leading them to confer upon him the appellation of “water pourer”. This could indicate the recognition of his association with precipitation and his perceived ability to influence favorable weather conditions. …. Den, who “left a lasting impression”, went down to posterity as the Bringer of Water, the Water Pourer, who had been able to procure “rainfall and higher Nile levels” (consider the seven years of plenty, Genesis 41:47-49). In actual fact, Den, as Joseph, had achieved this owing to a divinely inspired prescience of weather patterns and outcomes, rather than through ancient Egyptian rituals and superstitious incantations. There are some aspects, at least, of the Heb-Sed festival that I think may recall incidents in the lives of Jacob and Joseph. It was initially centred around the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, which I hold to have been a ‘material icon’ of Jacob’s dream of a Stairway to Heaven” (Genesis 28:12): https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_gallery_03.shtml “Djoser's pyramid has a stepped appearance. It is an extension of the mound found in mastaba tombs and is usually interpreted as a symbolic mound of creation, but can also be read as a stairway to heaven”. (Joyce Tyldesely) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/14/humanities.highereducation “The pyramids of Egypt could be explained as symbolic stairways to the stars …”. “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak”. Genesis 32:4 Wrestling with a young man was also a feature of the ancient Egyptian Heb-Sed festival. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wLUjtPDyu- “The heb-sed court at Saqqara is a long rectangular open court where the king performed the heb-sed ritual, part of which was to wrestle with a young man in order to prove he was strong enough to continue ruling Egypt”. It may be less plausible, perhaps, to associate the 30-year span associated with the Heb-Sed festival with Joseph’s being 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh. What is more certain - though not Heb-Sed related - is that Joseph’s age at death, 110 (Genesis 50:26), became the ideal age for at least the later sage Amenhotep son of Hapu to aspire to. And the famous sage, Ptahhotep, a semi-mythical character, it seems - whom many equate with Joseph - is supposed to have lived to the age of 110. The special Heb-Sed cloak may perhaps allude to the coat that Jacob gave to his son (Genesis 37:3): “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him”. As Joseph was relieved of his coat by his vengeful brothers (Genesis 37:23), so was the cloak removed and replaced by a kilt during the athletic phase of the Heb-Sed festival. B. Joseph of Egypt as Imhotep The biblical Joseph has been identified by various revisionists as either Imhotep, or Ptahhotep, or both. The great Imhotep, who saved Egypt from a seven-year Famine, and who was the architect of the glorious Step Pyramid at Saqqara. In later eras, Imhotep became revered as a saint and thaumaturgist, a wonder-worker, and he even became known as the Father of Medicine, Imouthes (Greek Aesculapius). The Greco-Romans also turned Imhotep-Ptahhotep into The Father of Philosophy. Thales the First Philosopher Thales of Miletus, definitely a character of fiction, was likely based on Joseph as filtered through the sage Ptahhotep. Tha (Egyptian Ptah), with Greek ending -les. The absent-minded Thales, like Joseph (but for a different reason) ended up in a well, and measured a pyramid (like Imhotep as the architect of the Step Pyramid). Ironically, modern scholars rejoice, favourably contrasting Thales with Joseph - the triumph of Greek rationalism, so they think, over biblical prophecy and miracles. Previously I wrote about this intriguing situation: …. The implications for all of this must be a complete and fundamental shifting away from “Athens”, to “Jerusalem”, which philosophical ‘plate tectonics glide’ will necessitate also an enthusiastic embracing of the profound metaphysical Wisdom of which the pages of the Old Testament are replete. Apart from the fact that the Greeks were pagans, who often persecuted the Jews, there are critical reasons why I think that the early history of philosophy as it is taught, as I, indeed, was taught it, stands in need of a radical re-assessment of its origins. Moderns, who may yearn for a triumph of Greek rationalism over Hebrew religious, prophetic and sapiential thinking, and who may therefore rejoice in the advent of a scientific and rationalistic natural philosopher, a “Thales”, supposedly overshadowing, say, a mystical (biblical) Jacob, whose Ladder reaches into the heavens - “an Hellenic Götterdämmerung”, as Mark Glouberman (Kwantlen Polytechnic University, BC, Canada) has triumphantly called it - ought to be disappointed. But why? THERE WAS NO HISTORICAL THALES! Who there was, was an inspired Hebrew sage, JOSEPH, known in Egypt as Imhotep (and probably Ptah-hotep), who has been appropriated by the Greco-Romans and re-presented as an Ionian Greek natural philosopher with an odd Egyptian-Greek name (Ptah-les). A Turkish author and lecturer recently sent me the following typical view of the beginnings of wisdom, philosophy and rational thinking: In accordance with the generally accepted principle of the birth and starting point of the history of philosophy, starts with the "philosophers of nature" which is an Anatolian sourced phenomenon. Those Natural Philosophers in the south west or south of the Anatolian coast are accepted not only as the founders of western philosophy, but also they are the first brains explaining the truth with the help of natural phenomenon, instead of super natural powers. From my personal perspective, I always think that east and Far East of the world have also very powerful philosophical streams. …. Mark Glouberman (specialising in the history of early modern philosophy) has written euphorically (“Jacob’s Ladder … Personality and Autonomy in the Hebrew Scriptures”, Mentalities/Mentalités, 1998): Thales, one of the Seven Sages Of antiquity, is garlanded with the honorific "First Philosopher." From Miletus, Thales' home city on the coast of Asia Minor, the new way of thinking swept the region like wildfire, taking hold in the nearby towns and adjacent islands, racing northwards along the Aegean littoral as far as Thracian Abdera and Lampsacus in the Troad and westwards across the waters of the Ionian Sea to a peppering of settlements on Sicily and in Italy. After a provincial run philosophy finally gained the Greek mainland, there to attain its greatest heights for ancient times. It was destined, as we now know, indelibly to mark our culture and civilisation. While conferring founder’s rights on Thales, this thumbnail sketch singles out no episode of Thalean lore to symbolise the revolution that it credits him with having sparked. An historian, eye on Western rationality's trademark mastery over the natural world, might select as emblematic Thales' securing control of the local olive presses in the spring of a particularly bountiful year, and putting the squeeze on producers when the harvest was trundled in. …. Since Thales forecast the bumper crop by observing climatic regularities, not by interpreting dreams of lean kine and fat, nor by deciphering the writing on the wall, let alone by petitioning the skygod Zeus with libations of gore, the financial coup is symbolically apt. It plays up philosophy's new idea—a radical departure—of nature as an autonomous system, understandable, in the measure that it is understandable at all, by patient application of our natural faculties to its everyday workings. …. Red in tooth and claw though nature may be, harsh and unforgiving, it is (so Thales taught) clear of powers acting from abroad who, judging from our plight, might be thought to interfere with us for sport. The causal association of Thales' making a killing with a Hellenic Götterdämmerung, the demise of an earlier mode of thought, is a bonus for the economic choice. Nonetheless, the genial cynicism the choice displays might be felt to render the episode somewhat too tendentious for symbolic office. Who could deny that the revolutionary approach vouchsafed humankind a powerful instrument of positive change? If the chooser is looking ahead to our time, when Western rationality seems to be reaping the whirlwind, a sufficient response would seem to be, first, that the major benefits of the approach (plumbing, electricity, the motor-car, computers, etc.) did not begin to be enjoyed until a score of centuries after Thales, and, second, that the apocalypse, even granting it to be more than an incidental by-product of what delivers those benefits, was far beyond non-oracular anticipation in his day. Casting around for a cynic-proof alternative, our historian could do no better than elect Thales' prediction of the solar eclipse of 28 May 585 BC. …. Regarding this presumed eclipse, I wrote on a previous occasion (Joseph as Thales): …. To Thales is attributed a prediction in astronomy that was quite impossible for an Ionian Greek - or anyone else - to have estimated so precisely in the C6th BC. He is said to have predicted a solar eclipse that occurred on 28 May 585 BC during a battle between Cyaxares the Mede and Alyattes of Lydia …. This supposed incident has an especial appeal to the modern rationalist mind because it - thought to have been achieved by a Greek, and ‘marking the birthday of western science’ - was therefore a triumph of the rational over the religious. According to M. Glouberman, for instance, it was "… a Hellenic Götterdämerung, the demise of an earlier mode of thought" …. Oh really? Well, it never actually happened. [Otto] Neugebauer … astronomer and orientalist, has completely knocked on the head any idea that Thales could possibly have foretold such an eclipse. How ironic, considering that ‘Thales’ was just a pale imitation of Joseph, son of Jacob, that Mark Glouberman will exalt in the replacement of a mystical Jacob’s Ladder by a superior Hellenic mode of thinking! It seems to me that, if Thales could be shown not to have existed, modern thinking man would have to invent him. [End of quote] On that last point, though, is Brenton Minge correct in asserting that there was no Imhotep, and that he, too, was a man-made invention? C. Joseph of Egypt as Khasekhemwy-Imhotep Well, I think that I have most definitely discovered Imhotep now, in Khasekhemwy-Imhotep of Egypt’s Third Dynasty. Basically, Joseph was - as many are now thinking (see Internet and You Tube) - Imhotep of Egypt’s Third Dynasty, who brilliantly served Horus Netjerikhet. But Imhotep, simply qua Imhotep, does not appear to be very well attested from contemporaneous records, so much so that some say he may never have existed at all, but may have been a later (say, Ramesside, or Ptolemaïc) fabrication. That problem can be nicely solved, I think, by recognising Imhotep as the Second Dynasty, or the Third Dynasty character, Khasekhemwy-Imhotep (variously Hetep-Khasekhemwy, Khasekhem, or Sekhemkhet). The name Djoser (Zoser), wrongly attributed to Horus Netjerikhet, is actually, as Djoser-ti, another name of Sekhmekhet (or Khasekhemwy-Imhotep), hence of Joseph. Of this Khasekhemwy, we read (Britannica) that "... he was the first to use extensive stone masonry". But, then, something similar is said again of Horus Den (Dewen, Udimu) of the First Dynasty. Thus, Nicolas Grimal (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, p. 53. My emphasis): “In the tomb built by Den at Abydos a granite pavement was found, the first known example of stone-built architecture, which until then had been exclusively of mud brick”. And it is said, again, of Horus Netjerikhet (ibid., p. 64): “... Netjerykhet ... is famed for having invented stone-built architecture with the help of his architect Imhotep ...”. Very confusing! “... Den ... first known example of stone-built architecture ...”. Khasekhemwy “... first to use extensive stone masonry”. “... stone-built architecture [invented] with the help of ... Imhotep ...”. Never mind, if - as I am proposing here - Den, was Khasekhemwy, was Imhotep, serving Horus Netjerikhet. Some are of the opinion that Khasekhemwy-Imhotep may have been the father of Horus Netjerikhet: https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/djoser/ “It is possible that his father was Khasekhemwy”. This would be true now only in the Genesis 45:8 sense that Joseph (Khasekhemwy-Imhotep) was the “Father” of Pharaoh. On an earlier occasion I pointed out that a major mistake made when tying a wrong archaeological era to a given biblical scenario (which can easily be done) can have disastrous later effects: “Once such a tsunami of a mistake has been made, then it sends unwanted ripples all the way down the line. Thus, apart from the Era of Abraham now no longer being identifiable, the major Exodus and Conquest scenarios, too - which actually belong to MBI - can no longer be identified. And so on it goes”. The failure to identify Imhotep as the biblical Joseph in favour of, say, Mentuhotep of the Twelfth Dynasty, can have, so it seems to me, similar disastrous consequences. I have several times referred to the great pioneer revisionist, Dr. Donovan Courville, in this regard, as follows: If any revisionist historian had placed himself in a good position, chronologically, to identify in the Egyptian records the patriarch Joseph, then it was Dr. Donovan Courville, who had, in The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, I and II (1971), proposed that Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms were contemporaneous. That radical move on his part might have enabled Courville to bring the likeliest candidate for Joseph, the Vizier Imhotep of the Third Dynasty, into close proximity with the Twelfth Dynasty – the dynasty that revisionists most favour for the era of Moses. Courville, however, who did not consider Imhotep for Joseph, selected instead for his identification of this great biblical Patriarch another significant official, MENTUHOTEP, vizier to pharaoh Sesostris I, the second king of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty. And very good revisionists have followed Courville in his choice of Mentuhotep for Joseph. With my own system, though, favouring (i) Imhotep for Joseph; (ii) Amenemes [Amenemhet] I for the “new king” of Exodus 1:8; and (iii) Amenemes I’s successor, Sesostris I, for the pharaoh from whom Moses fled (as recalled in the semi-legendary “The Story of Sinuhe”), then Mentuhotep of this era must now loom large as a candidate for the Egyptianised Moses. …. [End of quote] Happily, I found that Brenton Minge (op. cit.) had situated the biblical Joseph and the Famine to Egypt’s Third Dynasty era - despite his rejection of Imhotep himself - and had situated Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty era. His great achievement has been to identify the massive Third Dynasty preparations for the extended Famine, in terms of large dams, canals and waterways, and huge grain storage facilities - the land being replete at the time with bread and wheat symbolism. All this done, in advance, because a Pharaoh of Egypt, so overawed by Joseph’s divinely-inspired Wisdom, had believed that an extended Famine was on the way. Has there ever been anything like this!