The debate will no doubt continue. It is a virtual certainty, however, that Egypt was subjected to the devastating effects of the massive Thera eruption: the only question is when? From the widest scientific perspective, the independent ice core studies and separate radiocarbon tests show that Thera erupted in the early fourteenth century BC. From the historical perspective, the eruption of Thera around 1365 BC is just about the only event that makes any sense of the otherwise bewildering Amarna period. From the archaeological perspective, if the Exodus did occur, then it had to have happened around 1365 BC, and the Thera eruption is about the only natural phenomenon that could have caused the events the Bible describes. We can say with a high degree of confidence, therefore, that the eruption was responsible for both the sudden rise of Atenism and the Exodus plagues; and, as such, explains why Akhenaten seems to have been influenced by the Hebrew religion.
The next question concerns a Hebrew presence in Egypt during Akhenaten's reign. Realistically, it seems unlikely that all the Israelite slaves in Goshen at the time would have left when their fellow countrymen escaped. As Akhenaten had essentially embraced the Israelites' religious ideas, would not some of them have freely remained behind in the new Egypt?
Tutankhamun’s solid gold death mask which covered the face of the mummy. (Cairo Museum.)
The face depicted on the middle coffin is completely unlike Tutankhamun as he is depicted elsewhere – for instance, on the death mask. The cheekbones are more pronounced, the jaw is firmer and broader, the lips are less full and the nose is not so long. (Cairo Museum.)
The Treasury of Tutankhamun’s tomb, where the figure of the jackal god Anubis guarded the splendid Canopic shrine. (Griffith Museum.)
Close up of one of Tutankhamun’s Canopic coffinettes which were of identical design to the middle coffin. (Cairo Museum.)
One of the four Canopic coffinettes which contained Tutankhamun’s removed internal organs. They were clearly part of the same burial equipment that had been made for another king. (Griffith Institute.)
The interior of one of Tutankhamun’s Canopic coffinettes, showing the inscriptions revealing that they were originally made for Tutankhamun’s brother and predecessor, Smenkhkare. (Griffith Institute.)
The only known statue of Smenkhkare as pharaoh, showing the same facial features as depicted on Tutankhamun’s middle coffin and his Canopic coffinettes. Like Akhenaten, he is depicted with female breasts. (The Lovvre, Paris.)
Two statuettes of Tutankhamun, showing his distinctive, soft features, so different from the figure depicted on the middle coffin and Canopic coffinettes. (Cairo Museum.)
The carved limestone tablet found during excavations of the Great Temple of Amarna in 1933. It appears to show Akhenaten and Smenkhkare as co-regents. (Cairo Museum.)
The painted slab found at Amarna in the early 1900s which shows Smenkhkare and Meritaten reigning alone as king and queen. (Berlin Museum.)
One of the many Great Temple reliefs in which the eyes have been gouged from Kiya’s image by her arch-rival Meritaten. (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.)
Scene from Tutankhamun’s golden throne, showing the king and his queen, Ankhesenpaaten, beneath the rayed symbol of the Aten. (Cairo Museum.)
A typical domestic scene of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their infant daughters embracing one another. No other Egyptian pharaoh ever allowed himself to be depicted in such an intimate manner. (Berlin Museum.)
Limestone relief of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Meritaten found in the royal tomb at Amarna. Although the names and faces of the king and queen remain intact, Meritaten’s image has had the face chiseled away, probably after Tutankhamun came to the throne.
The lion-headed Sekhmet, goddess of devastation. Was it her demonic influence that Tutankhamun and his chief minister Ay believed they had imprisoned in Tomb 55? (British Museum.)
Akhenaten certainly seems to have undergone not only a religious, but a moral conversion. Scenes from the earliest years of his reign show him executing foreign captives with as much gusto as his predecessors. In the porch of the Third Pylon at Karnak, for instance, he is depicted smiting his foes with a huge club. The Karnak Talatat, as well as depicting similar acts of violence, include a remarkable picture of a bitter-faced Akhenaten ringing the neck of a sacrificial duck. This is hardly the Akhenaten we know from Amarna: the king who so enthusiastically praises all his god's creations, the 'good ruler that loves mankind', the man who was never depicted hunting animals for sport.
It would seem that, although Akhenaten established the Aten as supreme deity right from the beginning of his reign, his conversion to a religion which is almost identical to the Hebrew faith was more of a gradual process. In the fifth year he breaks with his former identity, adopts his new name and builds his new city. By this time he had also adopted his humanitarian doctrines. Four years later he proscribes the use of graven images and totally separates his omnipresent god from the old notions of Re-Herakhte. This would all suggest that, although the Thera experience may have persuaded him to accept the supremacy of the Hebrew God (at least his own perception of it), something was continuing to move him ever closer to an Israelite view of religion. This not only implies that there were still Israelites in Egypt, but also that they were somehow close to the pharaoh.
If any Hebrew slaves remained in Egypt, we can assume that Akhenaten would have set them free. There is no evidence that any Hyksos slaves were being used during his reign. On the contrary, he seems to have employed them in his praetorian guard. The Karnak Talatat, coming from the Gempaaten, show what can only be described as a foreign legion in attendance on the king. There are almost no soldiers in native Egyptian dress depicted anywhere near Akhenaten. Among foreigners, quite obviously of African origin, are a large number of figures who appear to be officers in Asiatic dress, identical to that worn by the Hyksos in scenes discovered at Avaris (see Chapter Eight). Identifiably Hyksos guards are also shown in great numbers in the Jubilee event of the Year 12, shown in the tombs of Huya and Meryre (see Chapter Six). Whether these soldiers included the Israelites, there is no way of knowing. All the same, it does demonstrate Akhenaten's complete change of policy towards the peoples who included the Israelites, and that the Israelites could have been in close attendance of the pharaoh. However, one remarkable piece of evidence, which has only recently come to light, suggests that some Israelites were actually appointed senior ministers.
In 1989 the French archaeologist Alain Zivie discovered a rock-cut tomb in the Bubasteion cliff at Saqqara, right beneath a guest house belonging to the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation. The tomb was still sealed, but it had been plundered in antiquity and patched up by the necropolis attendants at the time. Inside were the decomposed mummies of one Aper-el, his wife Tauret and their son Huy. A number of items did remain, including the coffins, wine jars, a number of ushabti figures, statuettes, jewellery, and a complete set of Canopic jars. Most important of all, however, were the inscriptions that still remained intact, identifying the occupants and their place in Egyptian history.
Aper-el was practically unknown before the discovery, which made the find all the more astonishing. It turned out that he was one of the most important figures in Akhenaten's government. He was both the vizier of Memphis – the governor of northern Egypt – and an important religious figure, as he bore the title 'Father of the God'. This made him of equal status to Akhenaten's chief minister Ay. Aper-El's son had been an important figure: the general in charge of all the chariotry of Lower Egypt, and the 'Scribe of Recruits', making him responsible for all army recruitment in the area.
Wine jars in the tomb are dated as the Year 10 of Akhenaten's reign, but more significantly cartouches of both Akhenaten and Amonhotep III were found. As Alain Zivie observed in an article in the summer 1991 issue of Egyptian Archaeology magazine: 'taken together [these] could be used as evidence in the old "Loch Ness monster" question of Egyptology – that of a possible co-regency of the two kings . . .'. This was nothing, how
ever, compared to apparent identity of Aper-El himself. The remarkable thing was that Aper-El was not a native Egyptian but an Asiatic – which in itself would be unusual enough, as no other pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty is known to have appointed an Asiatic to such high office. More specifically, however, he seems to have been an Israelite. His name, Aper-El, Alain Zivie, realized with surprise, appeared to have been a title, an Egyptian form of Abed or Oved-El, meaning 'The Servitor of [the god] El'. El is an abbreviated form of the Hebrew word Elohim, meaning Lord, which is the form in which God is usually addressed in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament. (In the original Hebrew version of the Old Testament the name for God appears simply as the word El many times. For example, in Genesis alone we find it used frequently in place of the word God: Genesis 14:18, 16:13, 21:33, 33:20, 35:7.)
It may seem strange that someone of Hebrew origin would allow himself to be mummified in an Egyptian manner. However, the Bible makes it quite clear that the Israelites saw nothing wrong in this. The Patriarch Joseph, for example, is buried according to Egyptian custom: 'So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.' (Genesis 50:26.)
However, this is nothing compared to the most astonishing discovery of all. The depictions of the Aten in the tomb, together with other Amarna-style illustrations, make it blatantly apparent that Aper-El was also an Atenist. Alain Zivie even suggests that Aper-El was a prophet of the Aten in Memphis. The title 'Father of the God' would certainly imply this.
Here we not only have evidence of a shared link between the Hebrew religion and Atenism, but a corporeal example of someone who seems to have been a prophet of both religions and saw nothing contradictory about it. Unfortunately, the tomb was badly damaged and robbed of most of its treasures – if it had been intact, it may have shed an incredible new light on the entire mystery of the Israelites in Egypt.
It may actually have been people such as Aper-El who made up the 'bull-worshipping' faction among the early Israelites, as evidenced by Dr Amihay Mazor's discovery at biblical Shechem, and the Exodus story of the 'golden calf (see Chapter Seven). Perhaps when the Atenists were eventually suppressed by Horemheb, many of them had fled from Egypt and joined up with the Israelites, somewhere in the Sinai desert.
In Manetho's account we have evidence of interaction between the Heliopolis cult and the Israelites. He tells us that, while in Avaris, the slaves (who seem to have been the Israelites) were joined by a priest from Heliopolis, who preached to them not to worship the Egyptian gods. It may be that the Egyptians had tried to force the Israelites to accept their gods and some of them may have been tempted. The fact that a priest from Heliopolis – the centre for the Re cult – should join them and persuade them otherwise, suggest that he had already be converted to their God. This is, once again, a possible link between the Hebrews and the Atenists, for it was in Heliopolis that Atenism seems to have begun. Perhaps the cult of Re was already being influenced by the religion of Egypt's reluctant guests, even before the time of the Exodus.
Before moving on, there is one final person we must consider: Moses. As everything else in the Exodus account would seem to be based to a remarkable degree on historical events, Moses himself may also reflect an historical figure. The Bible tells us that Moses was the son of a Hebrew of the house of Levi: we are told he has a brother called Aaron, but the identity of his father remains vague, as he is named both as Reu'el and later as Jethro. After he is saved in the little boat of bulrushes, Moses is actually brought up by the pharaoh's daughter: 'And the child grew, and she [Moses' sister] brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.' (Exodus 2:10.) He even becomes an Egyptian prince. According to Exodus 2:14, the Hebrew whose life Moses has saved questions Moses about himself: 'Who made thee and prince and judge over us?'
Surely, such a person should be found somewhere in Egyptian records? Unfortunately not – not during the reign of Amonhotep III, or of any other Egyptian pharaoh. However, his name may be misleading. In its original Hebrew, the name Moses is Moshe. Exodus 2:10 tells us that the pharaoh's daughter decides to call him this: 'Because I drew him out of the water'. The Hebrew word Msha means 'to draw', and Moshui is 'one who has been drawn out'. Some biblical scholars have concluded that the later copyists of Exodus, in the seventh century BC, tried to offer a Hebrew origin of the name that was not originally intended. They point out that it is unlikely that an Egyptian princess would call an adopted son by a Hebrew name if she wished to keep his Semitic background a secret from the rest of the court. Even if she had no fear of being discovered, then why not use the name his true mother had given him, which, incidentally, we are never told. In its original Hebrew, the name Moses is pronounced Moshe. As the Egyptian equivalent of sh is the simple s sound, Moshe would be pronounced Mose in Egyptian, a word which simply means 'son'. If we look at Exodus 2:10 we can see what might have happened: 'And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses.'
If we exchange the word Moses for 'son', then the pharaoh's daughter is simply repeating what she has promised – that she will raise him as her own son. The first Greek translators of the Old Testament certainly interpreted it this way. When the Greeks later occupied Egypt in the fourth century BC, the Egyptian word Mose became Mosis – hence names such as Tuthmosis – 'Born of [the god] Thoth', or 'Thoth – son'. (When he lived, Tuthmosis' name would have been pronounced 'Tutmose'.) In the Greek version of the Bible, Moses' name was actually written Mosis, from which we now get the name 'Moses'.
Consequently, whoever it was who led the Israelites out of Egypt during the Exodus was probably not known as Moshe or Moses when he was alive. This may account for why his name does not appear in Egyptian records.
The story of Moses being hidden in the river may also have been a later addition to the account, taken from an old Mesopotamian myth. Magnus Magnusson, the British broadcaster and author, draws attention to a remarkable similarity between the Moses story and an ancient myth, in his book, BC: The Archaeology of the Bible Lands. In Exodus 2:3 we are told how Moses' mother hides him: 'And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags of the river brink.'
In a Mesopotamian myth, concerning King Sargon I of Akkad, dating from around 2350 BC, Sargon says of himself: 'My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me in the river which rose not over me . . . Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me.'
Whether or not Moses really was placed into the river or not, the fact remains that he was said to have been brought up as a prince. Is there anyone who appears as a prince in the royal court during the reign of Amonhotep who fits the profile of Moses? Apart from Akhenaten, the only other royal prince to be found in Egyptian records from the reign of Amonhotep III is Akhenaten's elder brother – a shadowy figure named Tuthmosis (not to be confused with the pharaohs of the same name). He was actually the true heir to the throne before he mysteriously disappears.
The Bible tells us that Moses is eighty years of age when he confronts the pharaoh, which would make him far too old to have been Prince Tuthmosis. However, as we have seen, one has to treat biblical ages with caution. We often read of people living to more than a century when forty or fifty was considered a good life span. Moses himself, we are told, lives to be 120. Some figures in the Old Testament reach impossible ages: Abraham's father Terah reaches 205 and Noah lived until he was 950. In all probability, the ages of the characters were not included in the oral accounts that were handed down from generation to generation, and the later copyists attributed them with great old age to intimate extreme wisdom.
Prince Tuthmosis was recognized as heir of Amenhotep III and, as such, filled the office of governor of Memphis. (An office that Aper-El filled in Akhenaten's re
ign as the pharaoh had no sons.) He was also installed as high priest of its temple, dedicated to the creator god Ptah. The Priest was responsible for burying the sacred Apis bull (not to be confused with the Mnevis Bull [see Chapter Seven]), in which Ptah was thought to incarnate, and which died during Amonhotep's reign. Tuthmosis is recorded officiating with his father at the bull's funeral. Apart from an ivory whip, found in Tutankhamun's tomb, which he apparently used as commander of the king's chariot forces, nothing more is heard of Tuthmosis.
It is difficult to tell how much earlier than Akhenaten's reign Tuthmosis disappears, as only one reference to Akhenaten survives from the period before he became pharaoh. This is the wine-jar seal from Malkata (see Chapter Seven), referring to 'the estate of the true king's son Amonhotep'. Intriguingly, Akhenaten (under his original name, Amonhotep) is described as the true king's son, implying that someone else was not. It is tempting to speculate that this might have been intended as a slight on Tuthmosis. There is certainly one piece of evidence which shows almost conclusively that Tuthmosis had fallen from favour and had been executed or exiled. A tomb was being prepared for him in the Valley of the Kings when – for some unknown reason – it was suddenly abandoned. It was found by Giovanni Belzoni in 1816 at the far end of the western Valley of the Kings, and was the one later used for the pharaoh Ay. If Prince Tuthmosis died while still in favour, why was he not buried in it? Many of the pharaohs were buried in unfinished tombs.
Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings Page 25
