Carving Defaced by King Tut's Possible Father Found
Source: LiveScience
A newly discovered Egyptian carving, which dates back more than 3,300 years, bears the scars of a religious revolution that upended the ancient civilization.
The panel, carved in Nubian Sandstone, was found recently in a tomb at the site of Sedeinga, in modern-day Sudan. It is about 5.8 feet (1.8 meters) tall by 1.3 feet (0.4 m) wide, and was found in two pieces.
Originally, it adorned the walls of a temple at Sedeinga that was dedicated to Queen Tiye (also spelled Tiyi), who died around 1340 B.C. Several centuries after Tiye's death — and after her temple had fallen into ruin — this panel was reused in a tomb as a bench that held a coffin above the floor. [See Photos of the Egyptian Carving and Sedeinga Tomb]
Archaeologists found that the god depicted in the carving, Amun, had his face and hieroglyphs hacked out from the panel. The order to deface the carving came from Akhenaten (reign 1353-1336 B.C.), a pharaoh who tried to focus Egyptian religion around the worship of the "Aten," the sun disk. In his fervor, Akhenaten had the name and images of Amun, a key Egyptian god, obliterated throughout all Egypt-controlled territory. This included the ancient land of Nubia, a territory that is now partly in Sudan.
Read more: http://www.livescience.com/46978-egyptian-carving-discovered.html
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1monster
(11,012 posts)HIs time period was within 60 years of Moses...
UTUSN
(70,686 posts)
DavidDvorkin
(19,475 posts)happyslug
(14,779 posts)One of the problems with anything before about 1350, is the lack of data. While papyrus can last for centuries in the Deserts of Egypt, it has a short life span anywhere where water exists. Parchment was the preferred "paper" outside of Egypt for it could last centuries even in damp claimants. Parchment was expensive to produce, for it is the skin of an animal.
For this reason, most stories were NOT written down till after about 1350 when Chinese Linen Paper finally made it to the west. Linen paper finally permitted the use of something called the "Printing Press". Before Linen Paper, parchment was just to expensive to make more then one copy at a time, and then only when it was pre-ordered.
Thus, unless it affected the ruling class, what the peasants did we rarely have records of before 1350. We do not even have records of births and deaths and other data before 1350, for no one was going to waster parchment on such trivia. Everyone in the village knew who was alive and who died, thus you did not keep a record of it.
In England, before about 1350, it was the custom to take a young boy when a piece of property was sold, and hit him several times with a switch so he would remember when he saw the one farmer had a piece of dirt to another farmer, to show that the land had been sold. That is how land records were kept in most of the world prior to about 1350 (China was the main exception, but they kept the secret on how to make linen paper for centuries, till the Mongols conquered China and take the method to the edges of the Mongolian Empire, which included the Mid East and Europe of about 1350).
I bring this up, for out records of most people in history before the 1300s, is often recorded one or two writings, often written long after the event. For example our sources for the Second Punic War wrote almost 50 years after that war to advance the political ambitions of the General who died in the Battle of Cannae. Today, such a book would be attacked but since it was written in the days of Parchment, any attacks on it were NOT written down and thus we may have the details on the Roman Side of the Battle wrong.
Side Note: I read a report of a British Army Intelligence office who decided after he retired to analysis the reports of the Battle of Cannae, as if he was analyzing a report of a Battle put out by the Former Soviet Union. His conclusion was it was filled with lies. First, the report that the dual command of the Roman Army was in conflict on how to fight Hannibal. conflicts with report these same two Generals has always worked together. Second, based on archaeology we know where the Roman's pitched their camp. The reports said the two Generals had opposite opinion as to fight Hannibal, but the camp, but the position of the Roman Camp did NOT block either of the two valleys Hannibal would have to march through. The position was one of to attack Hannibal the next day. Thus Paulus (The General who died in the battle and whose family paid to have written the report we have of the battle), if he was in command the previous day, set up the camp to attack Hannibal the next day when Varro took over Command. In the written tale we have of the battle Paulus was opposing that battle, while Varro wanted to attack. If that was the case why did Paulus put the camp in a position, not to block Hannibal, but to attack? It gets worse. The Analyst then calculated how long it would take the army the size of Roman Army involved. First the Analyst determined that Rome could only field such an army for no more then three months, thus it was an army set up for a rapid battle and destruction of Hannibal, NOT to contain Hannibal. The reports of opposition to sending the army by Fabius in the books we have, say that Fabius opposed sending the army with its dual command, but the actual words used by Fabius also fits opposition to the whole concept of a massive battle The Analyst then used British army manuals from around 1900 to determine how fast the Roman Army could move. Those manuals were based on how fast an ox could haul a wagon, Oxen was the main means of power for transport for most armies prior to the Internal Combustion engine. Calculating the days it would take to get to the site of the battle, By the time the Roman Army was opposite Hannibal, Paulus NOT Varro would have been in Command. This is confirmed in the Writing, for Varro is with the Light Cavalry, WHERE ROMAN COMMANDERS WERE SUPPOSE TO BE IN BATTLE. In the book we have, Varro is reported to be back in the Roman Camp, where the "Other Commander" is suppose to be when battle in joined. Thus the two Roman Commanders where in the right positions ONLY IF THE WRITTEN RECORD IS WRONG. Varro is never given another command, but is a member of various military missions afterward, like as if he had not been in command and thus someone else had been when Hannibal destroyed the Roman Army at Cannae. Unfortunately for Varro, while he lived to a ripe old age his family died out while before the book we have that contains reports of the battle was written, as I said above by Paulus's family.
In the first reports of any Battle in History, from the early 1800s (when the Egyptian Hieroglyphics were finally deciphered ) we had only the Egyptian report of the battle and how after winning it, the Pharaoh decided to give the lands back to the Hittites in exchange for a solid peach treaty. In the mid 20th Century a Turkish Farmer decided to remove a hill of stones on this farm so he could use modern mechanical equipment better. When he started to take the hill apart, he notice writing on the stones and contacted the local University who went to look at the stones. They found the long lost Hittite library. Took a while to translate them, but the stones contained many stories, data and lists. One of the stories is believed to be of the same battle the Egyptian Pharaoh wrote about in the same time period. The problem is, according to these records, the Hittites won the battle. They acknowledge they did NOT destroy the Egyptian Army but it faced destruction unless it retreated to Egypt. It had been a long and hard fought battle and the Hittite King thought enough of his best warriors were already killed, that he offered to discontinue the fight if the Pharaoh would take his Army back to Egypt. Thus, we know why the Egyptian Pharaoh went back home and gave back to the Hittites their land, it was the best deal he could make and keep his army intact. Back home in Egypt the Pharaoh declared victory and no one dare say anything else, for he was Pharaoh.
Of the later Roman Empires, in the Third Century there is some debate as who was a Emperor. We have one book the list all of the Emperors, but it is in open conflict with other more reliable books as to the dates of rule of some Emperors. On the other hand it is the only source for other Emperors. Historians have to rely on it, but admit that reliance is not based anything except we have no other data. It might be right, it might be wrong, we do not know and in areas where we have other sources, those other sources give different dates and names.
If it was NOT for the fact Tut has been the only Pharaoh whose tomb was NOT ransacked in Ancient times (It appears because an effort was made to forget that he even ruled), he still be a forgotten Pharaoh. The same with his Father, whose records we have is from the City he founded and his son abandoned (His son was still a minor when that occurred, but politics was ripe, and the town was abandoned).
SIDE NOTE: You must understand the power of the Ancient Priests in Egypt. Every year the Nile would flood and take with it anything that marked where one's lands had been. When the Flood receded it was the Duty of the Priests to resurvey all of the lands of Egypt. Thus every farmer in Egypt was dependent on the local priest. Any attack on the priests was an attack on who owned what land in Egypt. Thus the peasants of Egypt backed the Priests big time. Akhenaten seems to have ignored that function when he adopted his new Religion and excluded the old Priests Class from his new Religion. The Peasants did not like that, for Akhenaten seems to have no plans to replace the role of the Priests in surveying the lands of Egypt, Akhenaten seems to expect the old Priests to Continue to perform that function, while cutting them out of any input into how the Government ran. The Priests resented this reduction in power, and the Peasants worried about their right to the land backed the Priests. This seems to be the reason the old religion was restored, who determine what land what peasants gets to work. Egypt was rich by being able to collect grain from the peasants. The peasants would only pay that grain in exchange for a survey of their land after the annual flood. Thus the priests were not only religious leaders, they were also surveys and tax collectors. The Priests controlled the money and to get control of that money the Pharaoh had to keep the Priests happy and that meant restoring them to positions of power within the Government.
Yes we have records of Akhenaten, written in stone in his city that was abandoned. He was subsequently all but written out of Egyptian History. As to other records, we have none, and that is typical of most people who lived prior to about 1350. The people we do have record of, had a reason to maintain that record and it rarely had anything to do with what future people might think. Most records were kept so they could be cited later to justify a position, mostly who should rule whom.
Just a comment that most people relied on mostly verbal records prior to about 1350. Only with Linen paper does it become affordable for people to put down day to day things on paper. Even then most people only could afford one book in their life time til the invention of Pulp Paper in 1801 (and pulp paper's spread to most of the world no sooner then the 1830s).
Thus the attack on the existence of Moses is generally by people who are willing to accept the existence of other people we have limited records of prior to 1350s, but not religious leaders. Something cause people to write down verbal stories of those people, and people repeated those stories for hundred of years before they were written down. Many languages tend to be much more musical then English, the reason is such musical nature permits people to remember stories they have been told. Bards did this all the time, the Iliad and Odyssey were two such stories, but there have been others committed to an almost musical tone so that it would be easier to remember. This is how many stories were passed from one generation to the next without much change. These were NOT stories one heard once and repeated (Errors creep into such stories very easily). No these were stories told in a rhyme and people had to learn them for other people wanted to hear them. The people hearing the stories knew them almost as well as the Bard, thus Bards found it hard to change anything in such stories. When studied these stories are known to survive centuries of verbal transmissions without any change. People from two different areas of the world, not in contact for centuries can have common stories dating back to the time when they were one people (Which is one way the accuracy of such stories were checked).
These stories often had some basis in fact, sometimes in the final version details are added from other Stories For example in the Illaid they is a story of one warrior climbing a Wall in Troy that was slighting angled not straight up and down. In the excavation of Troy, this appears to be a wall of Troy that had been replaced by another wall by the time of the Trojan War, but Homer seemed to have added it around 800 BC and stayed in the Story till it was written down over 400 years later. On the other hand Troy did exist and was destroyed. Open debate if it was destroyed destroyed as told by Homer but Homer was writing about something, to many details that relate to Troy to be the product of a vivid imagination.
Is the story of Moses 100% correct, I doubt it. The ten Plaques may have been added later, or did occur at the same time, but at the time reviewed as an unrelated set of facts. The path out of Egypt is a route many people would take to avoid the Egyptian Forts in the Sinai. The divide of the Red Sea may be something simple that later speakers made much bigger then it was (i.e. Moved it from the Sea of Reeds to the Red Sea and then took out any calculation by Moses of the tide and wind to make it more miraculous. 40 years is a term of art in the bible, it means a time period where the leaders of something had all been replaced by younger people. That can be as short as 20 years or as long as 60. Moses may have died on the way and replaced by someone else, but that successor claimed the power of Moses for Moses had given it to him (and thus it became a tradition that Moses did not die but just disappeared). As to the smoke and light, those are all traditional methods to guide people. By the time the story was written down, that part had changed from a select group around Moses doing the Smoke and Light, but to God.
As to wandering around for 40 years, that is NOT in the Bible. They were outside modern day Israel for 40 or so years, but mostly in one part of the Sinai. The Jews did send in two sets of spys, the first said modern day Israel was to strong to be attacked, the other, the one that lead to Jericho, said it was time to attack. The Jews may have been sending in spys for all of the 40 or so years, waiting for a time to invade. Those subsequent spy mission were forgotten for mentioning the first one was good enough for the verbal story.
The story of Moses, indicate something happened, someone, who may only have been called Moses later on, did something that forced a group of people to say they were one people. That is the best explanation for the Story of Moses. Many of the Details may have been added later, but the heart of the story, the set up of the Israeli Tribes into a united fighting force by one person, who by doing so united a group of people into one nation seems to be based on something in history.
Remember, most history is verbal. Combat soldiers do not write down what happen to after the event. Thus till it is written, it is just verbal history. In the days before Linen Paper most history was verbal and we have to accept that fact. We can say that it does not meet modern definitions of facts (The modern touch stone is two independent contemporary stories) but in many cases it is all we have. You can NOT dismiss such stories because you want what is possible to get today when it comes to verification, if that was the case most history before 1350 would be classified as unreliable. No, we have to accept such stories as true. We have to keep in the back of out minds that the stories may have been embellished over time, but the underlying message of such stories tend to hold up.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Hey, if Weird Al can do it, Steve certainly can.
