The Crime of modern historians!

I found the study of history, even on the collegiate level, nothing more than memorizing events and their dates. Very little effort was expended by the Professors, discussing the background and the reasons for all of the important dates. Thus 1066 C.E. was, first and foremost, just the date of the Norman conquest of England, etc. Very little time was taken to discuss the immense changes to the history of the world this one invasion caused.


May have been the case at one point, isnt the case any more and hasnt been for sometime, in the UK at least.


This enterprise (in my opinion) was, and is, the group that defends the Egyptian dynastic list and as an aside, the Roman list of kings and empires in the modern academic world.


When I was an undergraduate...some years ago....and I took some Egyptologys, the problems surrounding the these lists was made quite apparent and discussed. However as was pointed out, as historians (of any time but Ancient Historians have even more of a problem) one can only work with what the past has left.

Part two!

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY- or when the original deed was considered and how it came about. Chapter one, the introduction of witnesses.

The chronology of Egypt (which in its earliest form) was, primarily, based upon the king list of Manetho, which was then preserved by Julius Africanus and others. They were followed by the works of the 16th Century chronologers Joseph Scaliger (please make note of this name!) and Seth Calvisius and others. By the 19th Century, the Egyptian hieroglyphs had been deciphered. Lepius then used some of the dynastic dates, put forward by Scaliger, to begin the dating of Egyptian monuments.

Along with the use of a scheme of dating, which was developed around pottery design and decoration (see W. F. Petrie), archaeologists and chronologers finally dated the reign of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose/Thutmosis, etc. III, some where in the range of 1,500 B.C.E. to 1,450 B.C.E. (as of 1998). It was during this period (as well as other periods) that Egyptologists begin their criticism of Manetho. The pottery dating system will be discussed later.

Babylonian history was chronologized by Berosus, who was reportedly a Chaldean priest, who lived in the same era as Manetho. His list of the kings of the Assyro-Babylonian empires originally extended back over 10,000 years.

Eratosthenes, was the chief librarian of the Library at Alexandria, under Ptolemy II and III, and certainly had access to many records that are not now extant. As a younger contemporary of both Manetho and Berosus, Eratosthenes tried to “out do” or at least match the history of “his” Greece with that of the Babylonians and Egyptians, and it is by his reckoning that we have occurrence to use the date 1183 B.C.E. (Or about -1200 BCE) as the date of the fall of Troy.

Now our first witness! (Please note that this witness defends one of the most infamous “history revisionist” of our day, and that all words or sections of this book that are in “bold type” have been thus bolded by the author, for emphasis.)
                    
THE GUARDIANS OF THE DOGMA- by P. John Crowe, presented at the SIS Jubilee Conference in 1999.

Mr. Crowe, what is you opinion of the current state of “Ancient History” and what are the main points we should look at? Mr. Crowe responds:

“1. Introduction
1. Ancient History, as taught today, is a disaster area.

2.Nothing fits convincingly together. The development
of the arts, cultures and technologies from earliest
times shows inexplicable incongruities. Art historians
and archaeologists are in disarray. Why? Because the
chronology of the first and second millennium BC is
badly wrong. How did this disaster happen? As
accident investigators well know, the sequence of
events leading up to major disasters is invariably a
sequence of highly unlikely and unexpected
happenings and coincidences. These conspire, often
in chances of many millions to one against, to cause
the disaster. Ancient historian revisionists believe the
real disaster for ancient history is the conventional
chronology of ancient Egypt, referred to as the CC
throughout the rest of this paper. This has been        (“CC” equals the Egyptian cartel)
assumed correct, and used directly or indirectly to
date nearly all the other early civilizations throughout
Europe and the Near East. Such is the measure of
control exerted by today's academic establishment
that they would not tolerate a revisionist movement
from within. So interested outsiders, including some
brilliant scholars and innovative thinkers, who call
themselves ancient history revisionists, are having                      (Revisionists!)
to act as the accident investigators for this disaster.
They are investigating all the relevant evidence, with
painstaking thoroughness, to discover and expose all
the events and unlucky coincidences that led to the
adoption of the CC.
The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS)
was founded in 1974 to promote discussion and
further study of the ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky.
He was one of the first to make the public aware
that Egypt's ancient chronology was, and still is,
badly wrong. As a result, the pharaohs of the
18th Dynasty (D18), which most famously include
Queen Hatshepsut and Tutankhamun, are made
too ancient by around 500 years. He reached this
conclusion after comparing the early histories of
the Hebrews and the Egyptians. In the Old
Testament (OT), the ancient Hebrews recorded
such major events as their Descent into Egypt, the
Sojourn, Oppression, and Exodus from Egypt, and
later campaigns against them by the Egyptian rulers
Shishak and Zerah. However, no clear reference to
any of these events can be found in Egyptian history.
Since late Victorian times, ancient historians and
archaeologists have assumed, from an amalgam of                     (Assumptions !)
early sources, that their consensual version of
Egyptian chronology is secure. So Egyptian
artefacts, which were found in many places outside
of Egypt, were used to date the archaeology of other
countries around the Mediterranean that had no
ancient records of their own. For example, pottery
from Mycenae in Greece was found in Egypt,
depicted on the walls of tombs of kings of the
eighteenth dynasty (D18), and among the ruins of
their temples. So the start of the Mycenaean era
was dated to around the beginning of D18, about                                (Dynasty 18)
1400. The Mycenaean era is believed to have ended
at the time the Dorian invasion of southern Greece,
c1200. The objection that this was some 500 years
earlier than believed by the early Greek and Roman
historians, who lived some 2000 years nearer the
period in question, was overruled. Archaeologists
then began to find Mycenaean pottery in countries
all round the Eastern Mediterranean. This led them
to conclude that there were widespread occupation
gaps in Greece and other countries after the end of
the Mycenaean age, around 12th century BCE (12C).
People then seemed mysteriously to reappear in their
cities and carry on much as before around the
8th century, when continuity could be firmly
established with the classical Greek period and with
the more soundly dated Neo-Assyrian empire. These
occupation gaps of 4 to 5 centuries were called
'Dark Ages', and they have provided scholars with a
rich vein of confusion and controversy to this day.
Velikovsky, quoting from early archaeological
reports, cited many disputes between famous
archaeologists that were caused by the sudden
requirement to interpret archaeology within a new
time-frame imposed by these 'Dark Ages'. Many
were bitter, and careers were irreparably damaged.
Most disputes were swept under the carpet, and                    (IE., hidden from view!)
have not been satisfactorily resolved to this day.
Archaeology, when interpreted with an open mind,
has now actually proved beyond reasonable doubt
that the Dark Ages did not exist, but the proof is
ignored. Vested interest in the status quo has won
the day. Huge amounts of public money are being
spent on studying this Victorian invention, and
hundreds of books written about them without
resolving their historicity. Sadly, it seems no one
in academia has had the courage publicly to
question seriously the basic assumptions upon
which Egyptian chronology, the progenitor of the
Dark Ages, is founded.
Sadly the response to innovative thinking in
academia is often to try to drown both the
innovator and his work in a tide of ridicule and              (Ridicule of “new thinking”)
misrepresentation. The dogma of the
Establishment, which strictly controls what is
taught to the next generation, has ever been
fiercely defended. But it has often been wrong.
To take a much quoted example, the Catholic
Church burnt Bruno alive at the stake in
1600AD for refusing to believe that the Earth
was the centre of the Universe, a dogma they        (The church was always at this forefront!)
had been teaching unchallenged for some 1300
years. Academia today is exerting an ever-tighter
control on what is taught, and on the subjects
suitable for research. The politically accepted,
yet seriously flawed system of 'peer review'
plays into the hands of the Guardians of the                   (“Guardians” is another word for
Dogma who control research publications,                    the “ruling elite”)
enabling them to stifle innovative theories which
contradict their own. To the Establishment of
the 1950's, Velikovsky was both a radical and an
outsider, and they responded to him using the
traditional mediaeval practices of vilification and
suppression. However, outside academia he                     (“outside academia”, IE, us!)
received considerable support, and the many
obvious anomalies and problems caused by the
faulty chronology have long been the subject of
intense study and debate by ancient history
revisionists.
By accepting that the theoretical foundation of
today's Egyptian chronology is wrong, and by
accepting instead the incontrovertible evidence
of archaeology, all the problems of the Dark                  (Our first mention of Dark Ages)
Ages could be resolved at a stroke. Millions
of pounds of taxpayer's money could then be
saved, along with the countless hours of
talented scholars who waste their time and
talents trying to resolve the ir-resolvable. The
truth about ancient history and the development
of culture and technologies could then at last
be properly understood. The credibility of many
of the wonderful records of ancient times,
including those contained within the Old
Testament, would also start to be restored.

The perspective of the history of ancient history
revisionism offered here is drawn largely from
the pages of SIS publications over the last 25
years. Other revisionist journals are referred to
in places where gaps must be filled, and
contributors to these have made a big
contribution to the overall debate. However,
the SIS is the longest running of these journals.
Within its pages may be found the accumulated
wisdom, sprinkled here and there with a little
folly for good measure, of hundreds of
contributors. Their collective arguments, a few
of which are presented here will, I hope,
convince the unbiased reader that a major
down-dating of Egyptian chronology should be
seriously studied within the Establishment.
This would be the most likely way to resolve
the vast numbers of historical and archaeological
anachronisms that have come to light over the
last 150 years. It's time the revisionist came in
from the cold.

2.1 Exaggerating Antiquity
It has long been recognized that there has
always been a desire within learned man to
exaggerate the antiquity of their ancestry.
As a Venetian scholar, Giambattista Vico
(c1700AD) put it, 'This false opinion of their
great antiquity was caused among the
Egyptians by a property of the human mind --
that of being indefinite -- by which it is often
led to believe that the things it does not know
are vastly greater than in fact they are.'
Evidence for man's interest in antiquity, and
his innate desire to exaggerate it, can be
traced back to the earliest legends and the first
writings. For example, when the Babylonian
king Nabonidus (c560), who was one of the
first known antiquarians, found a foundation
tablet of an ancient temple inscribed by
Naram-Sin, the grandson of the great Sargon
of Akkad, he wrote that it had lain there
unseen for 3200 years. He was thus claiming           (Unseen?)
that the first great Akkadian Empire started
as early as 3600, as compared with today's
estimates of nearer 2000BC. A century later
the famous Greek historian Herodotus wrote
that he was told Egyptian recorded history
stretched back over 382 generations to some
11,000yr before his time. By our calendar that
would be around 13,500BC, but Egyptologists
today struggle to find writing which goes back
much before 3000BC.
As we shall see, this desire to exaggerate
antiquity has remained unabated over the
intervening centuries. Before contrary evidence
came to light, Nabonidus' date for the dynasty
of Akkad was believed, and only a hundred
years ago the British Museum, that bastion of
the chronological establishment, was proudly
displaying an Assyrian cuneiform tablet dated
4,500BC. This is over 2000yr earlier than is
accepted today. At the end of the Victorian era,
Petrie was dating the first Egyptian dynasty
to before 5000BC, as against c3000BC as we        (Thus there has already been a 2000
are told today. Even Woolley in the 1930's               year movement in ancient history!)
was still using Nabonidus dates for the early
Mesopotamian dynasties to show that these
predated those of ancient Egypt.
The glamour of antiquity may be the reason for
one of the key pieces of dogma that underpins
the ancient chronologies of Egypt and
Mesopotamia. This is the general assumption
that all ancient king lists should be read as a
sequential list of rulers who presided over the
whole of their country. This assumption
ignores the fact that we know in very early
times kings often shared their inheritance equally
with all their sons, so the country was
subsequently ruled by many kings of small city
states. It also ignores the real life problems of
multiple 'queens', succession disputes, usurpers,
and the need for co-regents when a king
became too old, unwell, or unsuited to carry
out his many duties. So to take an old 'king list'
passed down to us by ancient historians without
any knowledge as to the authenticity of the
sources or accompanying explanatory notes,
and assume the kings were all sole rulers over
the whole country, is bound to make such
civilizations appear much too old.
Archaeology, when interpreted with eyes
unclouded by such dogma, consistently fails
to support these early dates. Sir Isaac Newton,
in the recently published 'The Original of
Monarchies', gives a convincing explanation
of how many ancient monarchies were formed,
that one day may help us towards a more
sensible interpretation of the ancient king lists
of Egypt and Mesopotamia.”

While the “casual reader” will read the above essay and then, upon reading the rest of this book, he / she may well remark, that “I did not seem to have read any original opinions.” I will now state that I, found the above remarks, many months after writing the main corpus of this work. However, it seems to be so important, and so very close to my own conclusions, that I decided to include it at this early stage. I think it speaks for itself and for me. (Ronald L. Hughes, 2003.)

Here is the rest of the above article by Mr. Crowe, it is not annotated nor remarked upon but copied verbatim (except for some emphisis). Remember that in most cases the author is using English spellings!

2.2 The Early Greek and Alexandrian Historians.
Revisionists have a long and distinguished pedigree. Concern about the true age of the earliest civilisations and major turning points in history has always been an integral part of history. Ever since men first learnt to write, they started to record historical events. These date right back to the ancient flood legends described in the literature of many of the world's earliest civilisations, and tales of golden ages, catastrophes and of a world threatened from time to time by an unstable solar system.
Among the first to bring ancient Egyptian history to the attention of the outside world was Herodotus c450BC. [5] As mentioned above he credited the Egyptians with a recorded history of grossly exaggerated length. By assuming three generations of kings for each one hundred years, he estimated it could be traced back some 11,000 years before his time. But he also reported a brief chronological outline of historical events under some more recent kings as told to him by Egyptian priests, much of which has subsequently been verified. His account cites Sesostris as perhaps the most famous of the warrior and empire-building pharaohs. He mentions that Helen of Troy, over whom the Trojan War was fought, was in Egypt during the reign of a king Proteus. However, the names of Egyptian kings, when translated into early Greek became in many cases hopelessly unrecognizable, and the name Proteus, meaning 'prince' in Greek, is not known from our translations of names in cartouches on the Egyptian monuments. Most controversially, however, his chronology implied that the great pyramids of Giza, built by pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (OK), were actually built after the era of the Middle Kingdom (MK) rulers of D12. He certainly failed to credit the pyramids with any great antiquity.
In the early 3C, a great compilation of ancient Jewish history was brought to Egypt under the first Ptolemys, and translated into Greek as the Septuagint. This early version of the Old Testament (OT) traced the history of the Israelites back to the very beginning of Earth itself. And here at Alexandria, probably for the first time, the priestly scholars from Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia were confronted with detailed evidence for the antiquity of the Jewish people. Other nations conquered by the Macedonians then felt compelled to compete in the antiquity stakes. Manetho, a priest and scribe of Heliopolis, and the Chaldean Berosus, a priest of Belus, both of whom flourished under Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247), composed accounts in Greek of the history of their respective nations. In the writings of the vanquished to the conquerors, both writers sought to demonstrate that the vanquished peoples were descendants of very ancient and noble civilisations. Berossus, in the Chaldaika to Antiothos I, claimed to base his history on Babylonian astronomical archives 473,000 years old. Manetho, in the Aegyptiaca to Ptolemeios Philadelphos, claimed an Egyptian history of 30 dynasties, with 113 generations, comprising 36,525 years, a pedigree which made the Greeks appear childlike and insignificant by contrast. In his history, he also contradicted Herodotus in many places. Professor Waddell, in his translation of the works of Manetho [6], said that the works of Berossus and Manetho should be seen principally as expressions of rivalry between Ptolemy and Antiochus, each seeking to proclaim their civilisation the most ancient. And as part of the historical studies, the Alexandrians will also certainly have tried to identify the Egyptian pharaohs mentioned in the OT.
Eratosthenes (c275-194), head of the great library of Alexandria some decades after Manetho, then joined in the antiquity game of behalf of Greece. He studied the works of Homer, Manetho, and other early Greek historians, and derived a date for the Trojan War of c1193-1183. This he did by identifying 17 Spartan kings who reigned in succession from the return of the Heraclidae to Thermopylae. He then assumed that three generations lasted 100 or 120 years, and arrived at a total of 622 years for their combined reigns. This early date was strongly disputed at the time by others, including some Greek ruling families who could trace their genealogies back to ancestors who had fought at Troy. They said this date was over 300 years too early, and that the war had ended not more than three generations before the start of the first Olympic Games in 776. Pausanias reports that the argument was partially settled by allowing both views to co-exist, with the Olympic Games first starting in 12C, then starting again in 8C after a lapse of some 400 years. Today the genealogical evidence from several Greek rulers is again ignored, and the CC has embraced Eratosthenes' early 12C date for Troy. His use of those ridiculously long average reign lengths is conveniently ignored.
Diodorus of Sicily c80-20BC was a Greek historian who wrote 40 books of world history, called collectively a Library of History. For Egyptologists, his most valuable contribution was a description of the campaigns by the Persian kings against Egypt [7]. In the first of these, Artaxerxes II was defeated by an Egyptian king whom Diodorus called Nectanebos, who thus regained Egypt's independence for some 25 years before the second Persian conquest by Artaxerxes III. Astonishingly, no record of this great Egyptian victory appears on monuments of Nekhthorheb, the king most Egyptologists have now chosen, after much debate, to be identified as the Nectanebos of Diodorus. The absence of any records, new buildings, or even grateful offerings to the gods to honour such a glorious achievement must surely arouse our suspicions.
Along with the date of the Trojan War, the foundation dates for Rome and Carthage, and the history of the Jews were also subjects for heated debate. In defense of Apion's claim that the Jews were a young people, Josephus (c80AD) [8], a Jewish historian under the Roman Empire, wrote his famous historical essay 'Contra Apion', which referred extensively to the works of Manetho. He revealed many of Manetho's errors, and strove to disprove Manetho's claim that when the Hyksos had been driven out of Egypt, they had then gone to Judea where they built Jerusalem.
2.3 The Early Christian Chronologists.
The original works of both Manetho and Berossus are now lost, but some of Manetho has been passed down to us in the form of a few excerpts quoted by contemporary and later authors such as those mentioned above. Epitomes of Manetho's king lists by two Christian chronologists, Africanus c220AD and Eusebius c320AD, have also survived. We have no way of knowing whether the original and complete work of Manetho, or only much copied fragments and undated king lists survived the intervening 500 years to be available to these two authors. However, what was available to them was obviously incomplete and unexplained, since the two versions vary considerably. Africanus gives a total of 561 kings ruling for 5524yr, while Eusebius cites 361 kings ruling for 4480-4780yr. No accompanying explanatory notes are available to explain how these lists were derived, or how they should be interpreted. But, unlike Manetho, both were Christian historians, so both were very keen to try to identify the synchronisms between Biblical history and the ancient Egyptians.
Syncellus, also known as George the Monk, writing from Constantinople c800AD is our main surviving source for Manetho's works, although he tells us nothing of his source materials. He is also the sole source of a work he attributes to Manetho called 'The Book of Sothis'. This gives a list of Egyptian kings, with annotations linking Egyptian and Jewish historical events. We can only speculate upon how much of this is derived from Manetho, but it gives names in an order that is considered obviously non-chronological. It notes that a king Thuoris ruled Egypt at the time of the end of the Trojan War, not Proteus as given by Herodotus. It includes a king Susakeim, against whom it notes 'This king brought up Libyans, Ethiopians, and Troglodytes before Jerusalem.' Susakeim is obviously intended to equate with the 'Susakim' of the Septuagint. Because he was named some seven reigns before the first king Osorkon, pharaoh Susakim was assumed to be Sheshonk I of D22. The Book of Sothis is today dismissed as being of no historical value whatsoever. Yet despite the many known inaccuracies in Manetho's work this link between Jewish and Egyptian history has been believed. Today it is the single most important pillar supporting the high early dates of conventional Egyptian chronology.
Clearly, even if we had the complete Manetho, it would be wrong to assume, with so many of the original records lost, that the early historians such as Manetho, Eusebius, Africanus, Josephus and Syncellus actually knew Egypt's true early history any better than the version told to Herodotus. The only history that long predates the arrival of the Septuagint in Egypt and Greece was the OT written by the Hebrews. This gave their Sojourn in Egypt and the Exodus from there, as major historical events. The most important eviction of an Asiatic race from Egypt in pre-Assyrian times, as remembered by the Egyptians and Greeks, was the expulsion of the Hyksos. If Egyptian texts are to be believed, the Egyptians also at times expelled some large numbers of lepers, but it is hard to accept these were all of one ethnic group. These facts may explain why some early Egyptian and Greek historians concluded, as did Manetho, that the Jews were both the Hyksos and lepers. The Amalekites, who according to the OT went into Egypt at the time of the Exodus of the Israelites, and were said to have once been the greatest of nations, had long been extinct. Mediaeval Arab historians repeatedly tell us the Amalekites conquered Egypt without a fight and ruled there for several centuries, but the Ptolemaic Greeks could not be expected to know about this. If the Phoenicians or Minoans had once ruled Egypt as 'kings of foreign lands', memories of them had also long since been forgotten. Having therefore concluded that the Jews were the Hyksos, these early historians then all struggled to find possible and alternative identifications for the various Egyptian kings mentioned in the Septuagint. All the comments relating Jewish history to particular Egyptian kings, such as Susakim being Shoshenq I, as given in different versions of 'Manetho' may well be just their best guesses. Manetho is as likely to be as wrong in these opinions as he was in many of his other claims, thus passing down to us an entirely erroneous version of ancient history.
2.4 Sir Isaac Newton, First of the Major Revisionists.
Newton's historical studies
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was perhaps the first great revisionist [9]. By 1700, already famous for his discovery of gravity and recognised as a genius throughout the scholarly world, he was much preoccupied with studies of ancient history. He showed that ancient history had been made many centuries too ancient, and he was the first to claim that the Sesostris of Herodotus, whose conquests were the same as those of Tuthmoses III, was the was the Biblical Shishak. His work thus offers strong support to Velikovsky. While modern archaeological evidence has inevitably revealed flaws in his historical reconstruction, his review and evaluation of the extensive ancient historical sources demands our attention. The findings of a scholar of undoubted genius, from over fifty years of studying ancient history, should be peerless in their authority. Newton devoted much more time and intellectual resources to this work than are available to most of us, so there should be much we can learn from him. Since his work is little known, a brief outline is offered here.
Newton's approach to historical revision.
Mainstream chronologists of Newton's era, such as Ussher, were in substantial agreement with computations based on the OT, which proved the world was about 4-5000 years old at the birth of Christ. The basic intervals between Adam, the Deluge, Abraham, Joshua, David, the Babylonian captivity, and Christ were the building blocks for world chronology. Solomon was said by Josephus to have reigned for 80yr, and was believed to have died c970. A few radical thinkers were secretly raising doubts about such a young planet, suggesting the world could be eternal or hundreds of thousands of years old, but such was the power of the Establishment that such opinions could not openly be voiced.
Newton's studies led him to conclude that the Hebrews were the most ancient of civilised people. With the Bible as his primary historical source, he then tried to establish connections with events recorded in the pagan histories of Egypt, Greece, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and Italy, and fit them into a proper chronological sequence. The accepted chronologies of ancient kingdoms, which did not 'tally with sacred history', had to be false. A devout Christian, but a fearless Biblical critic, he uncovered many discrepancies within and between the King James, Masoretic, Samaritan, and Septuagint versions. He was prepared to adjust some OT words or numbers, or the timing of some deeds to better fit his chronology.
His radical approach was to undermine the validity of the ancient chronologists who were in contradiction both to Scripture and to the new astronomy, yet whom all the moderns had copied. Firstly he prepared a critique of ancient chronologists, particularly the Alexandrines. Then he derived 'proofs' based on astronomy to fix a few key dates. From a synthesis of literary evidence, he then recast ancient history. To do this he used average reign lengths of 18-20 years, derived from a study of all ancient records where reign lengths were known. Thus he showed that 45 or 33 years, as used by the Alexandrines, was much too long a time for a generation of kings, resulting in dates that were much too ancient. As he explained, kings 'were subject to assassination, tumults, and violence, and brothers and uncles succeeded as well as sons, leading to shorter reigns.' Taken together, the various types of evidence constituted a remarkable body of mutually corroborating proofs.
The reliability of earlier sources.
The early chronologists had lived long after the events, so could not know the facts. Their prejudices were exposed, as was their use of excessive reign lengths. He said that before monarchies and Empires, 'every king shared his territories amongst all his sons until there was no more room for division.' In Egypt as elsewhere, there were many 'kingdoms'. A king, he wrote, 'never set up more than one religion in his country, so the diversity of religions in Egypt arose from the diversity of kingdoms there in the early ages'
His favourite bêtes noires were Manetho and Berosus. As well as exaggerating history as already mentioned, Newton complained that Manetho sometimes reported the same reign twice under different names, listed kings in the wrong order, corrupted their names, repeated them again and again, and included the names of other great men and women who were only the relations of kings or their viceroys or secretaries of state. Manetho also stretched out into successive dynasties for the whole of Egypt some contemporary local kings whose domains never extended beyond a single city. Newton believed that Manetho's kings reigned in several parts in earlier times when Egypt was divided up into several small kingdoms, and that priests, from records of several cities, 'collected all these into one continual succession to make the ages of their gods look ancient'.
Newton also called Eratosthenes and his follower Apollodorus 'major felons in corrupting world chronology'. By using excessive reign lengths 'they made the antiquities of Greece 300 or 400yr older than the truth.'Ctesias was also accused of distorting history by making it almost 300yr older than it was, and of 'feigning names at pleasure'. Manetho and Diodorus were wrong to take the wars of Saul and David against the Philistines as those of the shepherds (i.e. Manetho's Hyksos), ejected from Egypt and fighting to take Palestine and build Jerusalem. He accepted that the later Christian chronographers Julius Africanus and Eusebius could do little to correct the errors of Manetho's original work.
The widely held belief that ancient civilisations knew and had accurate records of their own antiquity was also exposed as a fallacy. He showed that the ancient records of many countries were lost as a result of wars and invasions. The Egyptians had been conquered successively by the Ethiopians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians, and all their records were carried away by Cambyses, and again by Ochus. The annals of the Tyrians eventually came into the hands of the Greeks, were translated into Greek but both translation and originals are now lost. The old records of the Latins were burnt by the Gauls 64yr before the death of Alexander the Great. The annals of Carthage fell into the hands of the Romans are lost, or were destroyed when Carthage was burned. Even the chronology of nations with written annals were suspect. Most records of remote epochs had been destroyed in the course of the numerous wars. What was said of nations before the Olympiads 'is confused and obscure'.
In Newton's opinion the most reliable historical sources were 'the Old Testament, the Chronological Canon of Ptolemy, the books of Tobit, Judith, Herodotus, Thucydides, the Annals of Tyre and Carthage as given by Josephus, and what has been taken from the ancient monuments and records by Diodorus, Strabo, Pausanias, Josephus, & a few others down to the reign of Darius King of Persia'. Herodotus' Egyptian history of earlier times was less accurate because their archives had suffered much during the reign of the Ethiopians and Assyrians. Newton agreed with Josephus that the Sesostris of Herodotus was Sesac, and listed many variants of the name Sesostris in Greek form to show such a mistake was linguistically plausible. That Sesostris was Tuthmoses III finds indirect support from Homer, who tells us that Memnon (i.e. Amenophis III) was at Troy, which Newton dates some 70-90yr after the death of Solomon.
Newton's astronomical dating.
Newton was the first and only revisionist to use the precession of the zodiac signs for retro-calculating three early dates where the ancients had recorded the necessary information. One such instance was in the story of the Argonautic expedition. In the account of Jason and the Argonauts, a primitive globe was said to have been constructed upon which was marked the position of the ecliptic where it passed thorough specific parts of the signs of the Zodiac. Using 1689AD as a base, and his rate of precession of 72yrs per degree, the primitive sphere could be placed 2627 years earlier -- 939BCE. This was roughly 40-60yr after the death of Solomon in around 980, according to Ussher. This was separate and independent evidence to support the same conclusion derived from genealogies, working back using more realistic reign lengths for the intervening kings. A date for the battle of Troy was then fixed from the evidence of Herodotus, who said this was one generation after the voyage to Colchis, the land of the Golden Fleece. Hence the fall of Troy was dated to around 900.
Death of a Historical Reconstruction.
Newton's reconstruction caused an international furore. He was criticised both before and after his death by many scholars who wished to enhance their prestige by exposing weaknesses in Newton's work. Unlike mathematics, so much of history is based upon probabilities and speculation, so this was not difficult. A major weakness was his unflinching assertion that the first great monarchy was that of Solomon. This left him confronted with a big problem. A reading of the Bible appears to bestow greater antiquity on the Egyptians and the Assyrian royal institutions. The Biblical picture of Egypt at the time of Moses is quite grand, and Newton never satisfactorily resolved this problem. He concluded, since the Israelites were 'scattered throughout all the land of this kingdom' in two days to gather straw, that the Egypt of Moses comprised only part of the area of the Nile Delta. The debate he started lasted for a further century, but there was always more mileage in criticising him than in offering support. In the 19th century, once Egyptian hieroglyphs could be read, the urge to exaggerate antiquity again exerted its pervasive influence. The king lists found in tombs at Abydos and Saqqara, and other texts, were read as giving support to Manetho. Thus, after a century of debate, historians quietly consigned Newton's historical work to academic oblivion.
Conclusions from Newton the Historian.
Some important conclusions from Newton's historical studies are: -
The early Greek and Alexandrian chronologists such as Eratosthenes, Manetho and Berossus are shown to have greatly exaggerated the antiquities of Egypt and Assyria.
a. The classical dates for the Trojan War are shown by mutually supporting literary and astronomical evidence to be too early by some 300 years, yet the conventional chronology still accepts them.
b. Neither Newton nor any other historian over the previous 2000 years knew of any Greek Dark Age. The genealogies of several lines of rulers during the period from the Trojan War up to the Classical period of ancient Greece show this period is perfectly accounted for. Yet Egyptology has demanded the Victorian invention of the so-called Greek Dark Ages to sustain its Manetho dependent chronology.
c. Newton agreed with Josephus that the Biblical Shishak was the Sesostris of Herodotus, and that Herodotus simply got the name wrong. From what is told of Sesostris, his frequent campaigns across Asia and his conquest of Nubia, he perfectly fits the mantle of the pharaoh whose name we can now read as Tuthmoses III.
d. Neither Newton nor his predecessors knew anything of a period of Libyan rule over Egypt, and Manetho's identity of Shishak with a so-called Libyan pharaoh Shoshenq was mistaken.

End of part two.

Part four.

3.4 Schorr on Stratigraphic Problems at Troy.
A brief extract relating to Troy's stratigraphy, from Schorr's paper, illustrates the importance of his work. Troy was first excavated by Schliemann and Dorpfeld from the 1870's to the 1890's. Nine major habitation levels, ranging from the lowest, the Early Bronze Age (stratum 1) to Roman times (stratum 9) were distinguished. The settlement believed to mark the Trojan War is 7a. The second sub-stratum above this, 7b is the last before, hence lies immediately below, strata 8. The 8th settlement, marked by strata 8 and containing Greek ware, began c700 BC. The lower Troy strata 7 and 6 contained Mycenaean pottery. So, between strata 8 and 7, according to the CC, there had to be an occupation 'gap' of over 400 years. But nothing was found to fill this gap. There was nothing to show the site really was abandoned. No signs of a fire, battle, or destruction which might have caused the city population to flee. No sterile layer of wash and/or humus was found, such as could hardly have failed to build up if the site really had been abandoned and exposed to the destructive power of wind and rain for over four centuries. After 28yrs work, Dörpfeld could not differentiate between Troy 7 and Troy 8, and said Troy 8 immediately followed after Troy 7.
In the 1930's, the American archaeologist C Blegen, by now steeped in the conventional wisdom that Dorpfeld must have got it wrong, re-examined the site. But Blegen also could find no break between layers 8 and 7. The locally made pottery of Troy 8 was obviously akin to that of Troy 7. Also, more importantly, the local grey ware pots of Troy 7 (i.e., of the Mycenaean Age) were looked upon as the "direct ancestors" of the local ware not only of Troy 8 but also of 7-6C north-western Turkey and Lesbos. Most alarmingly for the Establishment, Blegen found sherds of imported Greek pottery of early 7C in the undisturbed Mycenaean sub-strata of Troy 7. With no other explanation permissible, the archaeologist had to say that despite all their careful methods, 'contamination' had occurred, causing the intrusion of the later wares into strata of Troy 7b. The discovery of these 7C sherds in several areas of Troy 7b1, and below the 12C layer 7b2, is a major problem. It is stratigraphically impossible to have a 7th, 8th, or even a 9th century item below the undisturbed floor of a 12th century building. And no evidence could be found that contamination of pottery samples from different layers had actually occurred on the site.
Schorr's work usefully compliments the work of Velikovsky, who some criticised for knowing little about stratigraphy and art history. In his conclusion, Schorr asked the very pertinent question 'should archaeological evidence be forced to fit the Procrustean bed of historical theory, or should a new scheme be put forth to explain all the facts?'. In every case, these problems can be resolved by a simple 500yr downdating of Egyptian chronology.

4. SIS and the Pro-Ages in Chaos Era.
4.1 1974 to 1978 The SIS Early Years.
The roots of the SIS stem from a group of around 80 people in the UK, who were interested enough in the work of Velikovsky to write to him care of Sidgwick and Jackson, the UK publishers of Worlds in Collision. The SIS was founded from among these people, and much credit for this is due to Brian Moore and Harold Tresman for their initiatives and hard work in bringing together enough interested and able people to form a successful society. Tresman's recollections of these early days were described in his Keynote Address to the 1993 Cambridge Conference, in the C&CR 1993 Special Issue.
Prior to the inaugural meeting, SIS Newsletter No.2, dated Sept 1975, had been sent to as many members and potential members as possible. It contained, among other articles, a provocative paper by John Day, presenting convincing evidence against nine of Velikovsky's key points from Ages in Chaos. This was followed by Newsletter No.3, re-titled SIS Review Volume 1 No.1, and by SISR1: 2, containing an equally convincing refutation of Day's points by Martin Sieff assisted by Peter James. This set the pattern for things to come. Workshop No.1, intended as a quarterly 'less formal' publication than Review, was dated March 1978, and Workshop continued until 1995, when it was merged with the C&CR.
In 1977 and 1978 Velikovsky's last two published volumes in the AIC series appeared. These were Peoples of the Sea [20] and Rameses II and His Time [21]. Sadly, further important volumes, including 'The Dark Ages of Greece' and 'The Assyrian Conquest' remain formally incomplete and unpublished to this day, although most of Velikovsky's unpublished works were made available in 1999 on the Internet. His main proposals in these two books, including D19 being the same as D26, there being a gap of some 150yrs between D18 and D19, and D20 and D21 being redated to the Persian and early Ptolemaic eras, were known well in advance, but failed to find support among leading SIS scholars. Workshop No.2 (July 1978) mentioned that Geoffrey Gammon 'has outlined one or two alternative schemes which fit the facts better than Velikovsky's Revised Chronology (RC).' A special edition on Ages in Chaos material, edited by James, including papers by Velikovsky and Eva Danelius, John Bimson and other major SIS revisionists, was published as SISR 2:3 (1977/78).
First papers in Workshop from leading revisionist contributors include those from Michael Reade in 1978, Lester Mitcham 1980, Bernard Newgrosh 1981, Phillip Clapham 1981, David Rohl 1983, Gunnar Heinsohn 1983, Emmet Sweeney 1986, Tony Rees 1988, and Bob Porter 1989. Some impressive and scholarly contributions from these authors have continued to be published up to the present day. The first public meeting of the Society was held in Leeds in 1977, and with growing concern over apparently irreconcilable difficulties with Velikovsky's RC, another conference, this time in Glasgow, was arranged in 1978.
4.2 Velikovsky's Peoples of the Sea and Rameses II and his Time
These two volumes are part of Velikovsky's attempt to show how, having identified Shishak as Tuthmoses III, the following dynasties of Manetho can be compressed into the much shorter time consequently available. This is some 500yr less than required by the CC. They contain many important examples of archaeological anachronisms, most of which are ignored by the Establishment and unexplained to this day. One of the reasons for the delayed publication of these volumes was Velikovsky's attempt to get some radiocarbon dates from Ramesses II and III material. His numerous direct and indirect approaches to the Establishment were all to no avail. Their response was invariably the same - 'we know the dates are correct, so there is no need to waste money on radiocarbon testing'.

'Peoples of the Sea'.
Peoples of the Sea included much persuasive evidence that Ramesses III ruled during the Persian period. The book starts with one of those conundrums we would expect if the conventional chronology really was wrong by many centuries. Two of the world's finest archaeologists, F L Griffiths and E Naville, worked together in the 1880's at Tell-el-Yahudiyeh, just North of Cairo. Naville called this 'The Mound of the Jew' in recognition of the many Asiatics who had lived there. They found faience tiles from the palace of Ramesses III that had Greek letters of the back of many of them. In the necropolis they found tombs, some undisturbed, with painted coffins and rough hieroglyphs typical of the Greek and Roman times. In the intact graves of two children they found scarabs of Ramesses III and his father Setnakht. In an almost unprecedented joint report, these two great archaeologists agreed to differ in their dating of the finds. Griffiths argued the scarabs firmly dated them to 12C, while Naville elected for a 4C date, assuming the scarabs were heirlooms. In their report, they elected instead to place both opinions before the reader.
Velikovsky pointed out that there could hardly be an 800yr gap between the pylon of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu and the almost identical Ptolemaic pylons at Edfu and Kom Ombo. And how did Medinet Habu survive unscathed when Cambyses was reported to have destroyed all the Egyptian temples? The famous battle scenes on the walls of Medinet Habu show Ramesses III fighting first against the Libyans, helped by some 'prst' troops. Later scenes depict his famous battle against the Sea Peoples (more correctly translated as 'Peoples of the Isles'), who including the 'prst' and troops from other lands. Velikovsky claimed these scenes exactly mirrored the battles described by Diodorus as being victories by the Egyptian king Nectanebos. With every detail matching, the Nectanebos of Diodorus could hardly be other than Ramesses III. On the battle scenes, at first a people called the 'Prst' fight with the Egyptians to defeat the Libyans. Then the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples (more correctly translated as 'Peoples of the Isles') defeat the 'Prst', and in the later battle the Egyptians defeat the combined forces of the Sea Peoples and the 'Prst'. The Persians are called 'Prstt' in the trilingual Ptolemaic Canopus decree. In other Egyptian texts Persia is named as 'Prs'. In Iran, Persian soldiers like those seen at Medinet Habu are depicted on the monuments at Persepolis. The Persians were also the only large invading army known to carry their concubines with them by the cartload during their campaigns. Carts full of unfortunate women and children are clearly depicted on the battle murals, prompting the conventional explanation that the 'Sea Peoples' were a people on the move, looking for a new homeland for their families. Since their chronology precludes them from drawing the obvious conclusion, Egyptologists insist that we must believe that the 'Prst' were not Persians but the Philistines of Biblical fame. Why the Philistines should be roped in to help the Egyptians fight the Libyans, then soon afterwards think themselves strong enough to turn round and take on the might of the Egyptian army and be defeated twice by them, is never explained. Not a hint of any such events can be gleaned from the OT during the Judges era.
The Greek name 'Nectanebos' was explained by Velikovsky as being equivalent to 'Nekht-a-neb', listed by the famous British Museum Egyptologist Wallis Budge as one of the Horus name of Ramesses III. He was initially appointed by the Persians, who then helped him secure his Western borders against the Libyans. Babylon was adopted by the Persians as one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, along with many of its gods. Perhaps Ramesses III dropped this politically expedient Horus name, with its implied worship of the Babylonian god Nebo, when he declared his independence.
Having placed much of D20 in the Persian era, Velikovsky then showed that D21 overlapped with, and extended beyond D20 into the Ptolemaic era. Archaeological 'proof' of Velikovsky's placement of Psusennes I of D21 in the Persian era was provided by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet. Excavating at Tanis in 1939 he found an 11C temple of the D21 'pharaoh' Psusennes I. Beneath the corners of the temple he found some items placed there for good luck as foundation deposits when the structure was built. Unfortunately for Montet, these items were found to be dateable to Osorkon II of D22 and Nectanebo I of D30. He was therefore obliged to invent an explanation for these anachronisms. He chose to say that all the thousands of stone building blocks had been dismantled and later reused, but in a different order, so old stones were replaced on top of new stones. He remained silent as to why, with no shortage of building materials, they should have gone to all that trouble to build on exactly the same site.
Velikovsky also showed how a much-ignored 'difficult' Egyptian text on the Maunier stele could be read as a record of Alexander's visit to the Siwa Oasis, where he was confirmed as an Egyptian god.
It is ironic that in 1979, the year of Velikovsky's death, M Bitak [22] gave a lecture to the British Academy at which he reported that, at Tell el Daba in the Eastern Delta, Ramesses III material was found directly below the Ptolemaic strata. No mention was made of any weathered strata to account for the intervening 800yr. And then, in the following year, the first independent carbon 14 date for Ramesses III material was published (see section 6.2). The material tested was dated to 345BCE +/-75yr, a result that would have given Velikovsky much satisfaction.
'Ramesses II and his Time'.
Rameses II and his Time included a study of the war of Ramesses II against the Hittites. Velikovsky showed in much detail how the Egyptian records of Ramesses II's exploits, including the Poem of Pentaur, closely match the exploits of an Egyptian king as described in the Old Testament, where he was given the name 'Necho'. No shred of evidence for any of the exploits of the Biblical 'Necho' has been found in Egyptian records which can be attributed to either of the pharaohs that Egyptologists have chosen to call Necho 1 or II.
Velikovsky also cited the still unresolved problem of Hiram's tomb. At the ancient Phoenician port of Byblos, a royal tomb of King Hiram was found in 1922 containing an Egyptian vase with a cartouche of Rameses II on it dated to 13C. In the same tomb were also found texts in Hebrew writing and items of Cypriot pottery, both dated to 9C, i.e. nearly 500 years more recent. The archaeologist, pressed to explain the inexplicable, said that probably a tomb robber had entered the tomb 500 years after it had been sealed, and instead of stealing the contents, put the Cypriot pottery inside before resealing the tomb. Few were convinced, yet much to the dismay of epigraphists, the Hebrew texts were then awarded the early Egyptian dates, which at once made a mockery of all the accepted principles of the development of early writing.
4.3 1978 to 1982. The Glasgow Conference and the Glasgow Chronology.
The SIS Glasgow conference was well attended. Velikovsky wrote a paper for the event, but ill health sadly made his attendance impossible, so it was read in his absence. An alternative revision called the Glasgow Chronology (GC) was then developed by SIS revisionists over the next four years. It retained the AIC synchronisms, reducing the dates for D18 by around 500yr, and leaving the remaining dynasties in their numerical sequence but with extensive overlapping. It was a joint effort mainly by Gammon, James and Bimson. Bimson in particular produced some high quality papers in support of the GC. His Glasgow conference paper had tackled stratigraphy, an issue he said Velikovsky had failed to address adequately. He argued that the archaeological ages in Palestine could be revised to accommodate Tuthmoses III as Shishak, and the start of the Iron Age down dated by some 500 years. Other important papers by him supported an 8C date for Merenptah and a 9C date for the wars of Seti I, linking each convincingly with evidence from the OT and the archaeology of Palestine.
The GC was eventually abandoned quite suddenly in 1982, due to an inability to compress the dynasties following D18, including D20 and D21 into the time available prior to the well-attested Assyrian invasion by Esarhaddon. Unfortunately those involved did not document the details of their work, or the many avenues explored, the basis for their interpretation of the evidence examined, and the reasons why they collectively failed. Indeed, with no funds available for such work, one could hardly expect them to do so. However, this left SIS members being asked to abandon their faith in Velikovsky's 500-year gaps without fully understanding why, and to adopt instead the New Chronologies of either Rohl or James. Not all, it must be said, have been willing to do this.
The Glasgow Conference Proceedings, entitled 'Ages in Chaos?' were published in 1982. In it James had added a Postscript indicating his move away from the AIC synchronisms. The authors' unanimous view was that Shishak could not have been Tuthmoses III. But did they actually prove this? Or did they prove only that, given the evidence considered and their rules for its interpretation, they were unable to condense Egyptian history into the remaining time available? Was this a failure in fact, or a failure in interpretation? Either way, the credibility of Velikovsky as a historian was dealt another heavy blow.
4.4 J Dayton and 'Minerals, Metals, Glazing and Man'
Before moving past 1978, a major publication in that year by John Dayton must be mentioned, entitled 'Minerals, Metals, Glazing and Man' [23]. This was reviewed enthusiastically by James in SISR 3:4, who said '...Dayton develops his work, which started out as a simple study of glazing technology...into a massive and devastating attack on traditional chronology...In challenging the accepted dates and synchronisms of the...Bronze Ages, his work is potentially more disruptive than Ages in Chaos itself...'. In 1971, when a student at the London Institute of Archaeology, Dayton wrote a paper in World Archaeology on 'The Problem of Tin in the Ancient World'[24]. This demonstrated that metallurgy and related arts spread along trade routes from Europe into the Near East, not from East to West, as is the popular view. The Bronze Age, contrary to current dogma, could not have started in Mesopotamia, where the required metals are absent. By exposing so much establishment dogma about the sources of metal ores, metallurgy, and their use in bronze and iron artefacts as false and misleading, he caused great annoyance to the English establishment. Their response, since they were powerless to avenge themselves on Dayton, was to take steps that led to the closure of the university section that had fostered him.
Using uncorrected and relative C14 dates, he showed an overall picture 'of metallurgy developing earlier in the regions (unlike Mesopotamia) where metals do in fact occur.' He identified the emergence of new technological achievements as a means of correlating cultural phases. Accepting the local unreliability of C14 dating, he cited the extraordinarily wide range of C14 dates from nine samples of grain from a sealed storage jar found buried at Thera (2037, 1850, 1420, 1350, 1394, 1300, 1110, 960, and 900).
Dayton's glazing study showed just how much this term has been misused by archaeologists, and revealed Petrie's 1500-year chronological blunder. Petrie had written in his 1902 Abydos 2 Report 'We have already noted the difficulty of these things being found at such a high level. But whatever dates they were placed there, it is clear that the objects are ALL of the First Dynasty. At the beginning of the First Dynasty we meet the art of glazing fully developed, not only for large monochrome vessels but also for inlay of different colours. Certainly no advance on new lines appears until in the 18th Dynasty.' To explain this, Petrie claimed that a new civilisation must have moved into Egypt, taken over the country and united it. These people brought with them a fully developed glazing technology, and the use of ware 'with a body identical to that with that of later Aegean or Mycenaean pottery...'. Where these people may have come from he did not explain, and over the following century no evidence for such an advanced 4th millennium BC civilisation has been found anywhere. But amazingly, Egyptologists believed him. None challenged Petrie over this claim, although he himself was well aware he was excavating in disturbed ground.
Petrie's unshakable belief in the early emergence of fully developed technologies had a devastating effect on chronology. By 1891 he had developed pottery sequences for Egypt that were then applied, with their Egyptian dates, first at Lachish and then to the rest of Palestinian archaeology. This led directly to the confusion we find in Middle Eastern archaeology to this day.
4.5 Glaring Glazing Anachronisms
Dayton's glazing study revealed some new and important anachronisms. Set against conventional dating, he found the first crude attempts to glaze clay seen in 14C Mitanni. Around this time glazing in early D18 Egypt also 'takes a great leap forward.' Glazing in the Near East went on to reach high standards, but in Mesopotamia it died out c13C with the fall of Mitanni. In Elam glazing had a brief flowering in the Mitanni style before dying out when Elam was conquered by Babylon in 12C. In Egypt, the last high quality glazing was found in Ramesses III's time, early 12C. After this Dayton found a gap of some 300yr until the Neo-Assyrian conquests of 9C, where he found again crude attempts at glazing. For example, Assurnasirpal II's palace has a '...scene in black on a poor blistery white glaze.' This was far from the perfection reached some 600yr earlier in Mitanni, so he concluded the craft had died out and had to be rediscovered. Dayton noted 'polychrome faience production dies out in Egypt' after Ramesses III (CC 1198-1166BC), and did not reappear on large scale until D26 (CC c664BC) - a hiatus of c500yr. Also, tin and antimony glazes first appeared at 14thC Amarna and their next appearance was in 9thC Phoenicia.
Although unaware at that time of Velikovsky's proposed revision, Dayton suggested downdating the end of the LBA and the invasion of the Sea Peoples by some 300yr from c1200BC to c900BC.
4.6 Glazing Anomalies Resolved by the Glasgow Chronology
Bimson, in SISR 7A (1982) pointed out that a 500yr rather than the 300yr downdating mentioned by Dayton would perfectly explain Dayton's most important anomalies. Removing the 300yr gap did not solve the problem.'It removes the curious 300yr gap but replaces it with another anomaly. For it places the crude glazes of 9C immediately after the fine glazes of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) without any explanation for the sudden regression.This situation seems rather improbable.' Bimson showed that the GC gives a very good fit with the development of glazing. All the crude glazing attempts, i.e. the early D18 and the Assyrian glazes of Assurnasirpal now date from the same time - the beginning of the technique. There is no question of a gap, a regression, or a re-learning. Similarly, the GC makes the Neo-Elamite ware made of Egyptian Blue, dated 9C, contemporary with Mitannian ware with similar decorations. Dayton found 9-8C glazes from Assyria similar to LBA glazes from the Levant, and suggests 9-8C Phoenicians were trading in the same ores to produce the same glazes. Bimson said a better explanation was to lower the date of the (LBA) glazes to 9-8C. He concluded 'The facts collected by Dayton can be brought into a logical scheme when Velikovsky's D18 dates and the GC dates for D19 and D20 are applied to the relevant finds.'
In the same Review, Dayton replied to Bimson saying that, since publishing his book, he had done some further work on chronology. He fully supported Bimson's 500yr downdating, and he made two further points:-
i. The Phoenicians did not stop making glass c14C, then start again c800BC.
ii. The Etruscans did not leave the Trojan area c1150BC, and turn up again in Tuscany c750BC. 'Aeneas' he explained, 'would have been quite an old man by then.'
Bimson, after the fall of the GC, added a later Postscript in SISR 7A saying he now preferred to go back to the original view, as suggested by Dayton in his book, that the 'gap' was around 300yr. But he accepted that Dayton's points 'do reveal certain weaknesses in the new scheme relative to the GC,' which he hoped would be discussed as the New Chronology was developed.

5. 1982-1990 - P. James, D. Rohl, and G. Heinsohn lead in New Directions.
5.1 The James-Rohl Chronology
Despite the failure of the GC, four leading revisionists, James, Gammon, Bimson, and Newgrosh remained convinced that the CC was seriously flawed. There were simply too many anachronisms to believe otherwise. So they set about building upon the work they had already done to construct a more sustainable revision.
The first revision to emerge was published in outline by James and Rohl in Workshop 5.2 (Apr83). This was based upon Shishak being Ramesses II and became known as the 'James-Rohl' revision. It derived key support from Ramesses II 's monumental evidence for Palestinian campaigns, and from Jewish legends implying that Shishak was also Solomon's father in law. They argued that Ramesses II was the only king reigning long enough to have sacked Gezer for his daughter's dowry, and then, much later, to have plundered Solomon's temple after his death. The famous reference to Israel in Merenptah's stele was interpreted as a reference to Ramesses II /Shishak's campaigns to pacify Palestine and Syria, in which his son Merenptah served perhaps as an army General. The Amarna era was placed in the time of Saul, so the marauding armies of the 'Apiru' became the Hebrews battling during the Judges period. This revision allowed about 150 years more than that allowed by Velikovsky for the remaining dynasties to be fitted in before the Assyrian invasion of D26, a task which, overall, appeared much more feasible.
5.2 The Formation of ISIS.
By 1976, the SIS was firmly established as the first British forum for the further study of Velikovskian Catastrophism. By 1984, James and Rohl recognised that history revisionism would benefit from an increasing and specialist input from academics and researchers. Together they initiated the establishment of a separate Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences, divorced from both Velikovsky and catastrophism. This was intended to provide an academic branch organisation under whose auspices funds could be raised to sponsor the necessary research studies, and premises acquired in which to house a revisionist's library. ISIS was founded in 1985, and went on between 1987 and 1995 to produce seven exceptionally well-produced Journals, entitled The Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum, JACF. Volume 8, to the same high standard, was issued in late 1999. ISIS now has its own web site, www.nunki.net/isis/ where more information is available.
5.3 David Rohl and the New Chronology; Will It Stand the Test of Time?
Rohl's New Chronology (NC), as far as it had then been developed, was published in 1995 in his splendid and well-publicised book 'A Test of Time'[25]. A supporting TV documentary brought examples of the flawed Egyptian chronology to the attention of millions of viewers around the world. His book and TV series have done the revisionist cause an immense service in achieving a wide public awareness of the lack of credibility of the conventional chronology. However, the NC has failed to find majority support among revisionists, and has been almost ignored by the Establishment. Much discussed in SIS publications, its main weaknesses appear to be (i) the lack of convincing evidence for an equivalent to Shishak's campaign against the fenced cities of Judah and Jerusalem; (ii) the placement of the wars of Seti I in Palestine and Syria in the middle of Solomon's age of peace and prosperity; (iii) identifying the Habiru with the conquering Hebrews, which finds little archaeological support; and (iv) no convincing resolution to the dates for the kings of D20 - D22. Rohl has, however, as the latest JACF shows, retained the support of some leading revisionists, who are working with him to develop the NC in more detail.

End of part four.

Part six.

6.5 'Significant Others'
There have been many other valuable contributors who, if they are not working on their own revisions, are certainly interested and well informed participants in the chronological debate. These include the following:
Phillip Clapham is better known today for his articles on mythology and catastrophism, but deserves recognition for his innovative first detailed revisionist study, in W4:3 1981, of the difficult TIP. Although inevitably faulty, his revision was influential in its day, and his initiative led the way by providing a methodology for others to follow. His most recently stated view is that the CC is probably extended by not more than about 50 years.
Carl Olof Jonsson contributed two very important papers to the chronology debate. One, in SISR:4 1979, related in part to Velikovsky's inappropriate use of archaeological evidence from the Palace of Esagila at Babylon to support his suggested altered order of Neo-Babylonian kings. The other, in C&CR IX, 1987, set out in detail the several independent lines of supporting evidence, including many thousands of business documents, underpinning the conventional Mesopotamian chronology back to around 930BC. Revisionists ignore this evidence at their peril.
Many others, including Steven Robinson, Brad Aaronson, Eva Danelius, and Jeremy Goldberg in the past, and Lynn Rose and Damien Mackey at present have made, and continue to make, valuable contributions to an on-going and lively debate in the revisionist arena.

7. The Revisionist Outlook for the New Millennium.
7.1 Revisionists Are Still Needed.
Ancient History is no less wrong now than it was 25 years ago. The history of the origins of many cultural and technological developments as taught today is very probably wrong. As a direct result, archaeological evidence for the United Monarchy era is conspicuous by its absence, and the credibility of the Bible in general and of Old Testament history in particular is probably being undermined quite unfairly. We are very likely being misinformed by a teaching establishment the leaders of which are more concerned with their vested interests in perpetuating the existing dogma than with uncovering new truths. Their shameful unscholarly responses to the work of Velikovsky, Schorr, Dayton, and more recently to James and Rohl show just how vulnerable they believe their house of cards to be. A blinkered Establishment has failed to acknowledge their chronology has caused any major problems. Prof. K Kitchen, in October 1999, told an audience at a meeting of the Egyptian Exploration Society that the Egyptian chronology is correct to within not more than 10 years. They seem a very long way from admitting within academic institutions any serious study of possible alternative chronologies that might, overall, fit the broader collective evidence rather more convincingly.
Remembering Kitchen's 10 years, it is sobering to read that H Jacquet-Gordon, in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (1967) [30] showed clearly that Petrie had misread a stele of Osorkon I, crediting him with a reign that is some 20yr too long. She wrote 'The text here has preserved for us...the season name 'prt'...the words 'day 26', the year date having completely disappeared...' due to the edge of the stele having been broken off. Yet due to this misreading, Petrie had allotted him a 36yr rule, 24 years beyond that shown by his latest monument. This stele had lain in University College ignored for over half a century, and a 36yr rule has been quoted in error in all the 20th century reference works by the great Egyptologists, including Sir Alan Gardiner. That such a text could remain unchecked for so long shows the stunning complacency of the Egyptology establishment concerning the accuracy of their chronology. A revision of Ancient History is still needed, and so are revisionists.
7.2 Archaeology to the Rescue?
Is it only a matter if time before the truth emerges from the ground? Sadly, this cannot be guaranteed. Archaeologists are required to interpret their finds strictly within the chronological timeframe laid down by the Establishment dogma. Since this timeframe is wrong, archaeologists have had to write for themselves a 'Book of Excuses' with which to explain away finds which do not fit conventional chronology. If a recovered object is too early, it is called an heirloom, and if too late, it is dismissed as 'intrusive', or by saying the tomb it was found in was 'reused'. If these can't explain the offending anachronism, they have as a fallback a 'Book of Very Daft Excuses'. A few of these have already been quoted, but here is another entertaining example.
At Nimrud, that military stronghold of the great Assyrian warrior king Shalmaneser III, three large rooms full of ivories were found. Many of these were clearly made in Egypt in the Amarna era, the time of the famous heretic pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BC. Unfortunately, Shalmaneser III is firmly dated by Assyrian chronology to the 8th century BC. The explanation for this anachronism, given by the British archaeologist David Oates, was published in the New York Times of 26th November 1961. The report was headlined 'Ancient Swindle is Dug Up in Iraq'. It said '...the archaeologists had dug into an ancient Assyrian antique shop. The 'Egyptian' carvings had been cut by local craftsmen...to satisfy their rich clients' demand for foreign 'antiquities''. Yet the only evidence to support this claim was the conventional chronology. No explanations were given to such obvious questions as (a) why should fake ivories have been made in such quantities? (b) why were so many craftsmen employed at a military base on making fakes, rather than on making and repairing weapons of war? and (c) why were so many ivories were later left abandoned there as worthless, undistributed and unsold. One is minded to ask was the 'swindle' ancient or modern, and who was the swindler?
There remains one awkward fact that no archaeologist or Egyptologist has as yet been prepared to face. That is that the laws of archaeology and stratigraphy that are used to justify the Egyptian chronology have to be abandoned or reversed when it comes to justifying the existence of the Dark Ages. For in Greece during this period, similarity in style and material no longer means the items are near contemporary, and one strata above another, with no evidence of abandonment, can still mean a 500yr gap between them. The same reverse applies to the art historian's principles concerning the gradual development of artistic styles, architectural traditions and technological advances. As the distinguished art historian A M Snodgrass [31] wrote of the Dark Ages some thirty years ago, the whole matter remains a sorely vexed question, but it cannot be shirked. Yet Egyptologists continue to turn a blind eye to these problems. Not their concern.
But the tide of archaeological problems continues to rise. Bimson, in JACF 8, discussed the finding in 1993 of the 'House of David' inscription on a stele at Tel Dan. As well as mentioning the 'House of David', Bimson says 'We can now be fairly certain that the inscription gives a propagandistic account of the defeat of Jehoram (king of Israel) and Ahaziah (king of Judah) at Ramoth-Gilead and their subsequent deaths.' He concludes that the king whose victory it celebrates is therefore Hazael. The stratum in which it was found, however, has been the subject of dispute. It suggests that a reinterpretation and lowering of Iron Age stratigraphy right across Palestine may be required. Bimson writes 'In short, the full implications of the Tel Dan inscription for Iron Age stratigraphy and chronology have yet to be faced. When they are, its significance as a chronological anchor may turn out to be even more far reaching than its reference to the 'House of David'.'
Equally encouraging is that James et al continue to publish in academic journals, bringing their wide collective expertise to the attention of local archaeologists in different countries. They continue to promote a revision of Egyptian chronology as the best, if not the only way to explain and resolve the continuing crises in stratigraphic and palaeographic dating which is evident in recent archaeological reports for the period from c1200-650BC. Some conventional scholars are now debating the need for downdating the Israelite stratigraphy, a proposal welcomed by some archaeologists.
7.3 Scientific and Astronomical Dating Methods
Over the last 25 years many SIS contributors, experts in their own fields, have produced a wealth of evidence all leading to the conclusion that scientific and astronomic dating methods are fundamentally flawed.
Radiocarbon Dating -- The basic assumptions upon which Libby based his claims for the reliability of C14 dating have now been shown to be incorrect. Partly because of this, and partly because of the faulty chronology, C14 dates are now used in the same way as is archaeological evidence. If the method does not give the expected answers, the samples, like the ceramic samples of Blegen at Troy, are said to be 'contaminated'. Thus they are discarded unpublished. An example of this was the C14 dating by the British Museum of short life samples from the tomb of Tutankhamun. These gave dates roughly in line with those predicted by Velikovsky. Needless to say they were never published, which could be interpreted as the deliberate suppression of evidence. Due to the confusion C14 dates have caused, that many mainstream archaeologists now refuse to use them.
Ice cores - These may give better results, but they depend upon the theory that in a core, one sequence of 'rings' represents one year. This has recently been queried. As the snow falls, it traps within it small bubbles of air, along with any impurities, such as might derive from volcanic explosions forcing dust high enough into the upper atmosphere for it to be circulated round the globe. These snow layers then compact to form layers of ice. Dayton, in his paper to the 1995 Braziers Conference said there were only two 'events' which showed in both ice cores and tree rings that could be attributed to the Thera volcanic explosion -- 1628BC and 1159BC. He explained the archaeological significance should the 1159 date turn out to be correct. Porter, in C&CR 98:1, reported the advent of micron-particle analysis from ice cores, and said this had showed that the 1628BC Thera date was now ruled out, since volcanic rock samples from Thera did not match the particles in the ice core. If the rings are correctly dated, and the process yields a positive match for the 1159BC event, this would lower the dates of Late Minoan pottery by Velikovskian proportions, bringing the Mycenaean era and its links with the New Kingdom down also.
Astronomical Dating -- With Sothic dating now totally discredited except among a few Guardians of the Dogma, much of ancient history now hangs upon the threads of retrocalculated dates derived from ancient references to the sun or moon becoming obscured, which are taken to be eclipses. Faith in these depends partly upon the correctness of what is called the 'astronomers dogma'. This is that the moon and earth have never, in human times, strayed from their present orbits. There is no evidence to support this dogma. However, there is a large body of evidence recording irregular and unexpected astronomical events. Early retrocalculated dates are therefore likely to be incorrect, and should never be used for primary dating purposes.
7.4 Catastrophic Dating.
Some have tried to develop their chronologies around global catastrophes. But since the Exodus no really widespread catastrophe across many nations has been mentioned in any ancient texts. My own view is that the term catastrophe is used far too loosely, with little evidence to explain the relationship between cause and event. In an earthquake zone like the Middle East, it may be better to sort out the chronology before deciding which 'catastrophes' might have some common cause. However, others argue that without synchronism of catastrophic events the chronology cannot be resolved. The many changes in alignments seen at temple sites around the world may arguably be linked to what Reade (C&CR 1997:2) calls a 'period of disturbances' during 9-8C, possibly linked (Reade, C&CR 1996:2) to an era when the earth appears to have suffered changes to its angle of axial tilt. Also some historic sources do seem to suggest that small asteroid impact 'events' similar to that which occurred at Tunguska in Siberia in 1908 may have occurred previously in parts of the Middle East. And so the catastrophist debate continues.
7.5 Israel or Greece as the Flash Points?
In Israel, archaeologists are deeply divided over their historical heritage. Some, like Prof. Herzog according to an article in a recent Spectator [32], are denying the historical truth of the OT history, including the Sojourn, Conquest, and Solomonic eras, on the grounds that these, despite the Tel Dan stele, are not seen in the archaeological record. In contrast, Prof. Anati and R. Cohen have shown that the archaeological evidence at the end of the EBA can be interpreted to reflect very accurately the activities of Joshua during the Conquest as recorded in detail in the OT. To explain this early date Anati prefers to postulate one or two missing 'Books of the Judges Era' rather than propose a revision of the world's ancient chronology - a choice both prudent and understandable. Ironically, by denying the existence of Solomon, Herzog is also denying the existence of Pharaoh Shishak, which is the primary pillar of the conventional Egyptian chronology that led to the 'absence' of the United Monarchy kings in the first place. It was this Egyptian chronology, based on the Biblical date for Shishak, which Petrie bequeathed Palestine, along with his faulty pottery dating sequence, when he first worked for the Palestine Exploration Fund on Lachish in 1891. No wonder the Israeli archaeologists are in such disarray. They should have realised that once the Dark Ages of Greece were imposed upon the ancient world, at a stroke they would effectively wipe out all history outside Egypt for the period from 12C to 8C -- including Israel's now missing Golden Age. There are good grounds, therefore, for Israel's archaeologists to back their own historical records and declare their chronological independence. They could rescue their country's rightful heritage and historical soul by identifying a more likely Shishak for themselves, and leave the Egyptologists to sort out their own chronology problems.
Greece could also do the same. For over a hundred years they have meekly accepted Egyptian dates, along with a Dark Age that goes totally against their own archaeology and their magnificently documented classical ancient history. Athens was never conquered by the Dorians, and has its own tradition of continuous kingship. Archaeology has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the Dark Ages did not exist. It is now time the Greek Establishment abandoned its exaggerated antiquity in favour of a continuous culture. It would, of course, require considerable courage to make a unilateral declaration of chronological independence, but courage is not a quality lacking in the historical traditions of either Greece or Israel.
7.6 The Deaf Establishment and Vested Interest.
As said in the Introduction, the control exerted by today's Establishment over what is taught, what is researched, and what is published in academic journals has never been greater. Innovators from outside academia have made many of our greatest breakthroughs in science in the past. Nowadays, however, it is much harder for outsiders to buck conventional wisdom and make real advances in our understanding of the world in which we live. The often anonymous 'peer review system' serves to maintain the status quo, but, as Dr. Thomas Gold wrote in 1989 [33], a jury system for major decisions in science would serve the public much better.
Today, judging from the ever-increasing numbers of books and TV programmes, interest in matters ancient and Egyptological has never been greater. But publishing a book on chronology problems does not mean the Establishment will take any notice of it. Turning a deaf ear is a very effective response. Can anything make them sit up and take notice? Rohl's TV programmes were the most effective yet in this area. His NC was briefly mentioned as 'trial by television' by Kitchen, and dismissed as nonsense in the latest edition of his TIP [34]. Kitchen also wrote a somewhat petulant letter to all his Establishment colleagues, in which he refers to Rohl's work as '98% rubbish.' Rohl, in JACF 8, has provided a well argued response to this letter, showing many of the arguments Kitchen used in his letter were fundamentally flawed.
James et al, using conventional archaeological interpretations as far as possible, have undoubtedly made some impact on the thinking of some mainstream archaeologists, which is a major achievement. Perhaps the beginnings of an acceptance that a 50 years reduction in Egyptian chronology may be needed means that the Establishment has started some sort of negotiating process that will eventually lead to a reduction acceptable to both parties.
But let no one be in any doubt as to the magnitude of the vested interest working against the revisionist. The careers, and reputations of the great and the good in the professions are on the line, and the consequences of accepting a major revision are enormous. Once a revised chronology is accepted, most current ancient history books and Egyptology books will have to be rewritten. So too will those that examine the early history of art, writing, literature, religion, and cultural and technological developments of every kind. New school textbooks will be needed. The history of early civilisations will have to be re-thought. Every archaeological report on every ancient site throughout the Mediterranean area and the Middle East will have to be re-examined and reinterpreted. At every ancient site, thousands of information leaflets, guidebooks, and notice boards will have to be revised. In hundreds of museums and universities around the world, and in countless private collections, hundreds of thousands of labels identifying ancient treasures and artefacts will have to be redated. And within the academia countless lecture notes, overheads, and other teaching aids will need correcting.
There will therefore be a big price tag associated with the sweeping away of nearly two centuries of erroneous dogma. Vested interest will be a powerful force for maintaining the status quo. But hopefully they will eventually be opposed by public opinion when, as taxpayers, the public and their representatives the politicians realise these establishments are misleading present and future generations, and are not delivering good value for money. Sheer weight of public opinion may yet win the day.
7.6 Proof Beyond All Reasonable Doubt
The near impossibility of forcing Establishments to accept new theories has troubled many scholars recently. In cosmology, another scientific world with which Velikovsky collided, the brilliant American astronomer Halton Arp [35] has now, by applying probability theory to his observations, proved beyond reasonable doubt that the underlying assumptions behind the concepts of the Big Bang and the Expanding Universe are wrong. Yet the vested interest in the Big Bang, and all that goes with it, is so great that still the Establishment will not accept these findings. But how could the theories and dogma of both Establishments, Cosmology and Ancient History, be so wrong for so long?
Perhaps part of the answer lies in the similarities between the two. It is interesting to compare them, to see if ancient history revisionists can learn from their counterparts in cosmology.
a. The cosmologist develops his theories mainly from observations discovered by astronomers, while the ancient historian develops his mainly from observations, including artefacts and texts, discovered by archaeologists.
b. Astronomers and archaeologists both make 'observations' of past events. But they are required to interpret them so they do not offend the current dogmas of cosmology and ancient history.
c. Astronomers find observations which don't fit, and for which the current cosmology dogma provides no convincing explanation, which they call 'singularities'. Archaeologists also find evidence that does not fit the chronological dogma, which they call 'anachronisms'.
d. Revisionists of cosmology have their mythical 'Dark Matter' to contend with, an invention of a flawed mathematical theory. The astronomers can find no evidence for its existence. Revisionists of ancient history are likewise confronted with the modern myth of the Dark Ages in many countries, an invention of a flawed chronological theory. Archaeologists can find no evidence for their existence.
e. In both astronomy and archaeology, one 'singularity' or anachronism can easily be explained away as an improbable coincidence of events, such as due to some type of observational or procedural error or misinterpretation. Often such explanations overstretch credulity.
f. In cosmology, revisionists have for some time used the power of statistics to give a measure of probability that their new explanations of individual 'singularities' are correct. From the increasingly large numbers of such observations now being reported, they have proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the dogma of conventional cosmology is wrong. Ancient history revisionists have yet to apply any statistical analysis to the hundreds of anachronisms now reported. Statistics could be harnessed either to quantify the degree of improbability of the explanations offered by the Establishment, or the probability that the revisionist explanations are correct. This omission needs urgent rectification. The application of probability theory and perhaps Bayesian statistics to the hundreds of so-called 'anachronisms should enable the revisionists to advance to a position where they, too, can demonstrate that the Establishment's chronology is wrong beyond all reasonable doubt.

8. Concluding Comments.
8.1 Velikovsky's Pillars Supporting the Conventional Chronology Have Changed.
Velikovsky ended People of the Sea with an observation that the unduly high early conventional dates were supported primarily by three 'Pillars'. These were (i) Sothic dating; (ii) that the Menophres of Theon, as mentioned by Censorinus (139AD), was Ramesses I, and dated c1321 BC. even though he was apparently not mentioned by Manetho; and (iii) the interpretation of Manetho's king lists as a sequential list of rulers.
Revisiting these 'Pillars' today, we note from the Establishment response to Centuries of Darkness and Test of Time that they did not mention Sothic Dating. In SISR IV:1 1979 it was reported that Dr James Mellaart, London Institute of Archaeology, said 'the astronomical date of 1872BC for Sesostris III yr7 cannot be upheld any longer, it must somehow be wrong astronomically, or refer to some D13 king'. And Porter (C&CR XIII p28) reported 'the increasing abandonment of the Ebers Papyrus Sothic date in the early D18' in 1991.
At a meeting in 1998 of the Thames Valley Ancient Egyptian Society, a British Museum assistant curator from the Egyptology Department, who came to talk to us, replied to my two questions about Sothic dating as follows:
a. 'Does the Ebers Papyrus give a Sothic date?' Answer, 'It definitely has nothing to do with Sothic dating.'
b. 'Then why is the Sothic Date from the Ilahun Papyrus for the end of the MK still used?' Answer - with a smile as he left the room - 'Because it fits.'
This is a classical example of pure circular reasoning. Since the Establishment has been making it fit for over a hundred years, of course it fits. But I think we can conclude at last that, at least among their younger recruits, the Establishment accepts that Sothic Dating has finally been discredited.
Most Egyptologists now shy away from what they often call the thorny subject of chronology. However, recent articles suggest that three 'pillars' still remain for the high conventional chronology. Sothic dating has been replaced by a new 'pillar', the occasional reference to the corpus of carbon 14 dates. This 'pillar', however, is but an illusion; the inevitable consequence of including in archaeological reports only those carbon 14 results that fit the preconceived conventional dates. From reports in C&CR, this has been blatantly admitted by one or two archaeologists.
Behind the smokescreen, the truth is now that it is only the Manetho inspired Shishak = Shoshenk I equation, and faith in a sequential Manetho that keeps the early Egyptian dates artificially high. Thus, as James has pointed out, the Egyptian chronology for the New Kingdom is dependent upon Biblical chronology. Once these pillars are demolished, and after the dust has settled, the fun will really start. The Establishment must then, with or without assistance from revisionists, find a convincing alternative Shishak. Once one is identified and agreed, we can start, with the help of evidence provided by the OT, Courville, Dayton, Heinsohn and others to attack the earlier dates. But that will be another story.
8.2 The Shishak = Shoshenk I Pillar in Focus - Manetho revisited
The first assumption concerning Manetho to be challenged must be the underlying belief that he knew all the names of all the Egyptian kings back to the earliest times. Can we really assume the Egyptians had complete and continuous records of all their kings? Some 80 years before Manetho complied his history of Egypt, the ancient Egyptian temple records were taken away by the Persian king Artaxerxes (III) Ochus [7] when he re-conquered Egypt after defeating a pharaoh whom both Manetho and Diodorus Siculus called Nectanebos, c340. Diodorus informs us that these were later returned to Egypt on payment of a huge sum of money, and we have no reason to doubt him. But conquered countries not infrequently had their temple records removed. Cambyses had removed the Egyptian temple records when the Persians first conquered Egypt in 525, and there is no evidence these were later returned. It is also quite possible that the Egyptian records were largely destroyed during the long Hyksos era, and then again during the conquest by the Assyrians. They certainly smashed and looted temples and tombs in their search for silver and gold. We are therefore entitled seriously to doubt whether any of the records available to Manetho were either complete or reliable.
Is the Book of Sothis derives from Manetho, the second assumption to be queried is Manetho's identity of Sheshonq as the Biblical pharaoh Shishak (Susakim or Sesac in other versions); was this merely because the names were similar? With his penchant for exaggerating Egyptian antiquity, this would have served Manetho well. It may also explain why the name was interpolated into the Septuagint as Susakim. This, to the discomfort of the Establishment who claim D22 is Libyan, can be interpreted as 'people, or men of Susa'. Manetho probably was unaware that the Hebrews sometimes liked to give nicknames to ancient foreign rulers. In the early Judges era for example, an Assyrian (Cushite) overlord who oppressed them was named as 'Chushanrishathaim' [Judges 3:8], which may be translated as 'Cushite of double wickedness'. Jewish legends tell us the Pharaoh who slew Josiah on his way north to fight the Assyrians (or Babylonians), was nicknamed 'Neco', which means 'hobbler'. He was so called because, when trying to mount Solomon's golden throne he did not know the secret mechanism, and was struck on the leg and lamed by it [36]. SIS contributors have pointed out that according to Jewish legends the name 'Shishak' was also a nickname. They cite some ancient Hebrew words, such as shashak - meaning 'assaulter', and shikshak -- meaning conqueror of Syria, from which root the name could have been derived. One legend says the name comes from the word 'shuk' - meaning 'desire' because of his great desire for Solomon's death and the chance to recover the treasure [37]. It seems that these coincidences of names and nicknames could be the key unlikely chance occurrences that are the main original causes of the disaster we now know as the conventional chronology of Ancient Egypt.
Whether or not the synchronism quoted by Syncellus in the 'Book of Sothis' was derived from Manetho, undoubtedly all the great Egyptologists of the 19th century were well versed in classical history, and knew of the 'Susakeim' appendage concerning Jerusalem. Champollion was, of course, delighted to report confirmation of this synchronism. Although his reading of the monument in 1828 was later shown to be wrong in places, and Shoshenk's list of cities were mainly in Israel, and contained none of the 'fenced cities of Judah', the synchronism has always been tenaciously defended. Why an Egyptian king should conquer cites in an Israel ruled by Jeroboam, effectively an Egyptian vassal, is never explained. And there is no evidence whatsoever to support their assumption that it must have been the 'king' Siamun, the last of D21, who took Gezer and presented it to the young Solomon as a dowry when he married Siamun's daughter. It seems all the early Egyptologists, without ever setting foot in Egypt, were irreparably contaminated with a dogma, inherited from the early historians, which subsequently both guided and impaired their powers of deductive reasoning.
Yet again we are drawn inexorably back to the credibility of Manetho, upon which so much of the conventional chronology hangs by the slimmest of threads. The Establishment chooses to pin all their faith on his synchronism of Shishak = Sheshonq. Yet amazingly, Manetho did not even know the identity of perhaps Egypt's most important pharaoh, the one who expelled the Hyksos. Egyptian texts found some 50 years ago name him as Ahmose, the founder of D18, and describe the war against the Hyksos that led to their expulsion. But Manetho as quoted by Josephus thought this was achieved by 'Tethmosis', elsewhere called 'Misphragmuthosis', better known to us as Tuthmoses III. We will probably never know whether he got this wrong because the reconstructed temple records were so poor, because he simply did not know and was just guessing, or because he was deliberately trying to mislead his readers.
Another assumption to be challenged, as Dale Murphy has pointed out in C&C R 1998:1, is the convention that Manetho's dynasties are listed in chronological order. With the Egyptians well-known distaste for the mention of foreigners, what would be more natural than for Manetho, from the end of the Hyksos era onward, to list the Egyptian ruling dynasties and their acolytes first, before mentioning the foreign invaders and their appointees? This would explain why Dynasty 20 and 21are the last of the Egyptian elite ruling up to the time of Manetho, and why he named no kings of D20, preferring to leave it blank and incomplete. It would explain why he then went on to list the Assyrian rulers of D22, starting with Osorkon, followed by later dynasties of well-attested foreign rulers and appointees. The great 19th century Egyptologists all believed D22 was not Libyan but Assyrian. Is it a coincidence that the name Osorkon in hieroglyphs transliterates to Sargon, the great Assyrian king who claimed to have brought Egypt under his control?
As for D21, which lasted nearly 150yr, the main features were (a) the country was divided, (b) no so-called king was indisputably sole ruler of Egypt, (c) Temple priests acted as local military governors, ruled their local areas and maintained the temples, (d) references to an anonymous 'Great King of the North' are found on the monuments, (e) a mysterious 'renaissance era' of double dating starts to appear, and (f) no national armies, foreign campaigns, or attempts at reunification are reported. Surely even a child would not find it difficult to guess that during this era Egypt was ruled by a foreign power.
All these obvious mistakes, weaknesses, and unsupported assumptions concerning Manetho's version of Egyptian history must make an impartial reader wonder why anything, let alone the edifice of the conventional chronology, was built upon the distorted echoes of his words. Yet many within today's Establishment seem to believe that if only they knew what Manetho actually wrote, they would know the true history of Egypt. Thus we find Kitchen [38] slavishly trying to bend his chronology of the Third Intermediate Period to the tune of Manetho. To borrow a phrase from Manuel [39], it is likely that both the conventional chronology, and Kitchen's TIP, both founded largely upon name games and speculation, are but 'magnificent rationalist delusions'.

End of part six.

Part eight.

Now back to our pretend questioning of Dr. Pellegrino.

Dr. Pelligrino it seems that Barry Kemp has some problems with some parts of Egyptian history, and he is of course an archaeologist. If he has problems with his on speciality, could you please describe how the present chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean was devised? What scientific methods were used, if any?

Dr. Pellegrino made the following statement concerning chronology on p. 246;

“To establish a chronology of eastern Mediterranean
history, archaeologists had relied mainly on an analysis
of changing styles of pottery, and on a census of other
objects imported and exported to distant lands. The
Cretan pottery style known as Late Minoan 1A,
characterized by geometric shapes girdling a pot or
vase, was found everywhere on Thera and Crete, and
inside Egyptian tombs contemporary with the pharaohs
Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III. It could therefore be
concluded that the Late Minoan 1A pottery style              
(abbreviated LM1A) flourished at the time of
Hatshepsut---whenever that was.” The problem with          (Currently placed about -1400)
calibrating a pottery clock was that it produced only
relative dates. LM1A, for example, came before                    (Relative means “in close
LM1B, and though most archaeologists assumed the               proximity.”)              
gap between the two styles to be about fifty years, no
one really knew for sure.                                                        (Thus it is mostly a “guess.”)
Such arbitrary gapping--of pottery style on top of
pottery style, on top of scores of other pottery
styles--gave an approximate date of 1450-1500 BC.
for Queen Hatshepsut and LM1A; but again, the
pottery clock was a subjective instrument, not                            (Pottery is subjective!)
governed by the exactitudes of orbital mechanics
or special relativity.”

(Emphasis, placed above and elsewhere in this essay is mine.)

In his book, Pellegrino goes on to discuss the period of transition if LM1A pottery to LM1B pottery styles. This section of the book is based upon the theories of Spyridon Marinatos and Christos Dumas, the excavators of the ruins on Thera. These men have devoted a large part of their lives trying to achieve a reasonable and plausible time frame, which would allow for the change in pottery styles from LM1A to LM1B. I should here note, that the Minoan ages, such as Early Minoan, Middle Minoan and Late Minoan are currently considered, almost simultaneous, chronology speaking, with Early, Middle and Late Egyptian dynasties or ages.

Late Minoan I, is also considered simultaneous with the beginning of the Mycenaean Age. With the Late Minoan I era standing side by side with the Early Mycenaean era, but contemporary with the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, specifically the Late Hyksos and the 18th Dynasties. At least this was the way it was a few years ago.

This is one of the most important synchronism’s in the current world of what was once called “Oriental Studies”. Because, without the dates Egyptologists have assigned to certain dynasties, such as the 6th Dynasty, the 11th and 12th Dynasties and the 18th Dynasty, the entire history of the Eastern-Mediterranean world would have been written differently.
The 11th and 12 Egyptian Dynasties, tie Egypt to certain points in the history of the world that have been “now” taken as fact, as have the dates assigned to the 4th, 6th, 18th, 19th, and 20th and 26th Dynasties. Why in fact is this called “Oriental Studies?” Hint, think Middle Ages!

During this trial, you will be constantly taken to some of these dynastic eras in my attempt to prove there are problems in the current chronological scheme.

These problems are not unsolvable. In fact, the real chronology or, at least better theories on the matter, have already been written, or proposed by numerous writers. But, the degree of effort needed to make these theories known to the public has been stifled by the ruling elite for many years. A case can be made that many of these experts now know they are wrong but cannot speak to investigators like ourselves, without implicating themselves in the crime and cover-up that has ensued. An Egyptologist, who received an “epiphany” on the subject, that would change Egyptian dynasties by centuries, would be unable to even get a good forum to present their arguments. The ruling elite would do what crime families have done to “stool pigeons” for years, “rub them out”, or at the least destroy their reputations in the academic arena.

For men and women of their stature, it would be like being killed, since no “respectable” publication would consider their ideas worth publishing, they would be branded as “kooks”, “freaks”, “not of sound mind”. They would be accused of having “excavated in the sun without a hat for too long”, etc. Their words would be considered something that could only be published by publications like “The National Enquirer”, or some other green skinned, bug eyed, space creature type of publication. They would only be adopted by the “lunatic fringe” or science. The type that believe Antarctica was not frozen just a few thousand years ago, that Atlantis was located in the middle of South America, that aliens regularly abduct human beings, cows, etc. for weird sexual experiments.

When absolutely necessary the powers of the Egyptian Cartel (and any other science that has been challenged by revolutionary theories) well know “experts” would be trotted out to cast dispersions upon the “new theorists.” Book publishers would be threatened with “extreme repercussions” if the “new theory” is given any coverage. Could this happen in today’s “free and open exchange of information” era? Has it? Did it? Has Dr. Pellegrino been characterized as being a hoaxer or a charlatan by other “experts?”

End of part eight.

Part ten.

More expert testimony.

Another writer, who is interested in revising the chronology of much of the ancient world is, Charles N. Pope. Mr. Pope has written a book on the Internet (not yet complete), that is made up of a series of essays. Mr. Pope proposes that much of Egyptian history is mis-dated and is much younger than current scholarship can allow. In this belief he is not alone. The following is taken from his Essay 1, The Fullness of Time, copyrighted by the author, on page 12, of this essay, under the heading “Notes”, is found the following;

Mr. Pope, could you give us your opinion on some of the fixed dates in Eastern Mediterranean Ancient History and how modern science may have found the corrected times? What are some of the most unusual or unexpected findings, and could you also tell us how this scientific information has been used by the leading Egyptologists of our day?

Mr. Pope replies (albeit in his essay and not under direct questioning);

“We have reasonably fixed the date of the Great Flood,
that being the year the volcanic island of Santorini
(Thera) erupted in the Mediterranean. The Thera
eruption is estimated to have been 100 times greater
than that of Krakatoa. The tidal waves caused by its
collapsing shell, and the fallout from its volcanic ash
resulted in catastrophic loss of life around the rim of
the Mediterranean, especially on the eastern side. The
great civilization on the nearby island of Crete was
swept away in a geological instant. This is the main
event memorialized in the Bible and in the Great Flood
myths. It has been dated to 1628 BC through tree ring   (Obviously Pellegrino’s dates)
analysis. However, carbon dating of the Giza Pyramids
place their construction between 2700 and 2500 BC.

If these dates are accurate, then the great Pyramid                      (If the dates are accurate?)
was constructed over 1000 years prior to the Flood.              (Does he also have doubts?)
This means that the Old Kingdom pharaohs did not
build the cores of the Giza Pyramids (and they do
not claim to have done so), but only renovated their              (Whoa! Just who built them?)
outer casings...                                                               (Other pharaoh’s also claimed to have
                                                                                           renovated the monuments in Egypt)
The Middle Kingdom pharaohs built bud brick
pyramids, a few of which have also been carbon dated.
Quoting from an article written by members of the
David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project:
‘Two samples from mud bricks and mud layers on the
ruined core of the pyramid [of] Amenemhet I, produced               (Aka- Ammenemes I)
dates more than 800 years younger than the end of                      (About -1150 to -1130?)
his reign in 1962 B. C. As Dieter Arnold of the                             (A major problem for us?)
Metropolitan Museum later informed us, ‘there was
settlement from Dynasty 13 through the New Kingdom
Ramesside Period (Dynasties 19 and 20) at this pyramid.
Here the radiocarbon dating gives a loud and clear
signal of a mistaken sampling - apparently these two                      (It had to be a mistake!)
samples were material from a later settlement.’
See, ‘Dating the Pyramids,’ Archaeology,
Sept/Oct ‘99, p. 31. www.archaeology.org                                   
The ‘apparently mistaken’ samples of the Koch study
were actually quite consistent with the chronology that
will be presented ... It was necessary for Koch et.al.
To propose, that a later settlement at or near the site,
was responsible for the material that was part of, or on
the pyramid itself. The article goes on the say that they
had ‘better luck’ with straw samples taken from the          (These samples agreed with them)
pyramid of Senusret II. Samples were also taken from                      (AKA- Sesostris II)
the pyramid of Amenemhet III, however this article                         (AKA- Ammenemes III)
does not mention any dates that may have been
determined for this material.                                  (Just “better luck”)
The only thing that comes across ‘loud and clear’ is
that the established chronology is so far off from
reality that scientific dating cannot be reasonably
conducted. Researchers are forced to throw out the                     (Fraudulent methods?)
good samples and collect a ‘statistically significant’
group of ‘false’ readings. This is a challenge in
itself. However to do otherwise would guarantee
academic ridicule and discrediting.”

It seems on some points, Mr. Pope and I agree. Our witness, by his statement above, gives you, the jury, indication, that our suspects may have been involved in a “cover-up”. They may have committed the crime of “omission with knowledge”, by substituting “fake?” evidence and ignoring evidence, in an attempt to confuse the investigator, and hide evidence of the crime.

CHANGING EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY, is it possible? Or how do we defeat the “GUARDIANS OF THE DOGMA THAT HAS BECOME EGYPTOLOGY?”

If Egyptian history was changed by such a large amount (200 to 800 years), whole careers would be ruined, all books on the subject would have to be pulled from the shelves and reprinted, reputations would be forever tarnished. Professors would have to be retrained. Generations of former students would have to reverse their ideas and change their conception of the past. News paper headlines, and Televison top stories would “erupt” in loud and divisive pronouncements. The entire profession would be accused of ineptitude. In short, “The irresistible force (real science) would meet the immovable object.” (subjective science) The suspects in our alleged crime have a good reason (motive) to implement a “coverup!”

It would make a tremendous explosion, much like Thera!!

Here is what Dr. Pellegrino has to say about the reliability of all the “real scientific” evidence he presented in his book;

“Given such evidence, I think archaeologists will
eventually come around. One thing is certain; these
are exciting times for astronomers, glaciologists and
paleontologists to be poking our noses into the field.
Resetting dates tends to ruffle a few feathers, but        (It does not ruffle, it scares them.)
Cretan and Theran scholars haven’t put up any
serious resistance.   People have not been studying
the Minoans for very long: the civilization was only
discovered during the past century, and there has not      (Since Crete is firmly attached to
been enough time for opinions to become deeply                   Egyptian dating Pelligrino              attached.                                                                                   must be crazy.)                    

Ancient Egypt is quite a different matter.
Egyptologists have been studying temples and tombs
for generations and generations---and so intensely
specialized are they, often dedicating their lives to a
single pharonic dynasty, that geologic time may lose
its meaning to them. The only archaeologists I
have encountered who sometimes have difficulty
believing that the earth is more than sixty
thousand years old have been Egyptologists.
Suffice it to say that one Egyptian scholar became so
disturbed by news that some of her pottery dates may    (Pottery dating is really subjective!)
have to be rewritten that she began to confide in me
some chillingly detailed suicide fantasies...”

(Emphasis mine.)

I think Dr. Pellegrino is being exceptionally naive about the opinions of the Minoan specialists, being open to new ideas, as Pellegrino said above, “People have not been studying the Minoans for very long: the civilization was only discovered during the past century, and there has not been enough time for opinions to become deeply attached.” Is Pellegrino just naive? Does he not know that all archaeologists have been trained in the Egyptian tradition? To move in any direction, other than a direction approved by the Egyptian monopoly would be madness!

CARBON 14 DATING- does it really work? Is it, as of yet, accurate? (This is my “forensic scientific evidence”, reminiscent of the current Televison show CSI.)

A note on Carbon 14 dating. This dating system has been in use for about 30-40 years. Over the years of testing, the experts have been constantly refining and adjusting the system. I know there have been at least a couple of date adjustments made to this method since it’s inception but I do not know if any adjustments have been made, near to the time Dr. Pellegrino published the results seen above, which dated the eruption, that covered the Minoan town and forest, to about -1600.

What I do understand, is that the Carbon 14 test would likely give it’s results, based upon the age of the carbonized tree parts that were tested. Thus if the tree remains tested were taken from the core layers, and the particular trees were of a long lived type, like the Cedars of Lebanon, or other long lived trees (age 100-400 years), then the date results published, would be reported for the age of the tree, when it lived and not the time it was destroyed. Would the very process of carbonization (burning) affect the Carbon 14 level? According to some reports the carbonized remains are not even datable.

Thus if the part of the tree tested was 300 years old, then the results would be at that date. In the above case, the dating came in at -1600, if the tree was 300 years old, and the plus or minus range of error was 75 years, then the age of the tree ring, that was tested, and the layer of destruction, could be dated closer to -1225, and not -1600. The date -1225 B.C.E. is, of course, is closer to the accepted date. Also, do we know, for sure, that the ratio of Carbon 14, in the biosphere, has been constant for the last 4000 years?

Is the history of Egypt built like the Bristlecone Pine, which can live for 2,000 years or more? Is it filled with worthwhile dating rings inside its trunk, faithfully recording year after year in its rings, like an automated counter? it reliable enough for all the other histories to be merely dependant limbs or cloned copies? Is it so accurate that all other histories of all the other civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean must have their growth lines in strict conformity?

In 1926, R. Weill wrote, in the treatise, Bases, methodes et resultats de la chronologie Egyptiene; “It is no exaggeration to say that we continue to arrange the history of Egypt and to place the facts of this history in the very same order that is the legacy of Julius Africanus who wrote in the third Christian century.”


SOME TELLING INFORMATION ABOUT RADIO-CARBON DATING

In the March/April, 2001 issue of the magazine Archaeology, published by The Archaeological Institute of America, appeared an article about carbon-dating and how it relates to dendrochronology or, the study of tree rings. The article entitled “Telling Time”, was written by Tom Gidwitz, and he proceeds to give a lot of background on the history of dendrochronology. He begins with a discussion of the life of Henry Michael, a member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology or MASCA. The specialty of Michael was in the study of the Bristlecone pine trees of California and there long lived rings. “With these bits of aged wood he helped build a tree-ring chronicle of Earth’s ever-changing environment and a yardstick by which radiocarbon dating, then in its infancy, could be calibrated, with results that forced archaeologists to rethink their theories about the spread of civilization.”

End of part ten.

Part twelve.

On February 20, 2003, I received the following information as a response to the post of the above information on the WEB.

Greetings,
Some years ago I was shown part of a correspondence sent to a
colleague from a former Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British
Museum, perhaps I. E. S. Edwards or G. P. R. James... this goes back
several decades and it is difficult to recall now which of them it
was; but they were both, as readers probably know, widely published
Egyptologists and highly esteemed.

The question concerned Carbon-14 dating results from the copious
material in the celebrated tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. In the first
letter present there was a confirmation of an initial report on the
coffin's wood, which was a familiar species of Levantine cedar, a
massive long-lived forest tree and that date showed about 1310 BCE,
corrected, in close parallel with conventional time-line opinion. This
was not the harvest date particularly, but simply tells us when that
sampled portion of the trunk incorporated C-14 into the pulp of the tree.

A second very kind letter followed somewhat after and this
reported a result from samples of the short-lived organic material
found in the same tomb, of which the quantity was copious and at the
time of discovery extremely well preserved as shown in the original
photographs taken by Harry Burton of the Metropolitan between 1922
and 1924(?).

There may have been some dozens of pounds of this type of
debris apparently placed therein by the priests either as packing or
agricultural substrate to be used by this pharaoh at the time of his
future resurrection. There were also numerous garlands of flowers and
bolts of linen.

This C-14 test result, apparently on a palm nut or large seed,
revealed an uncorrected date of about 850 BCE... quite a surprise for
all! The letter, which was very terse and to the point, stated that        (from -1310 to -850!)
they felt obliged to... "exclude this result". The information was
indeed made public before, probably by several other authors and
explanations followed that this organic debris must have been
"intrusive", or placed in the tomb after the robbers did their work.    (Intrusive debris!)

No particular reason was stated as to why exactly it would be
necessary to introduce more items of this kind at such a later date.
Generally in scientific enquiries one would never exclude data
that does not appear to be in agreement with our expectations;
'conspiracy' may be too harsh a term to apply here however and the
usual interference emerges as a result of well known types of
observer bias, frequently encountered among investigators in all
disciplines. This is an inescapable observation of human nature
although very sad, the intention of the experts seems innocent.

One could well verify Ron Hughes' contention that the usual
modern dates assigned to Egyptian Dynasties have nothing to do with
any scientific testing results, but they remain largely unchanged
from formal chronologies first printed in Italy about 1475 and usually     (1475 C.E.)
attributed to Hieronymus Sidronius, acting as a translator and early
church patriarch; he was very highly placed in the Roman imperial
bureaucratic regime and lived in the later part of the fourth century       (4th century C.E.)
AD (died about 420 CE).

Of interest, many of his dates have been soundly rejected for a
variety of excellent reasons... which means that he was, in matters of
Chronology at least, an unreliable observer. In effect, all of his                 (Unreliable)
dates preceding the lifetime of Alexander the Great, are a matter of
extreme doubt and possibly useless. Now in some quarters this would be
considered an heretical and dangerous statement, except that it has
nothing to do with religion or theology at all... it is a matter of
numerical data and discord with an abundance of archeological
evidence.
Regards,

Bergen Delperon

Since Mr. Delperon made the point for me, I shall mention that I have read of many other instances were C-14 dates have only been used when they support the Egyptologists “known dates.” In all other instances results that disagree with the accepted dates are ignored. See next.

Also on February 20, 2003, the following words were written about both my article and that of Mr. Bergen Delperon. The writer is named Vern Crisler. Here is what Mr. Crisler had to say.

Hi Ron, and all,

I don't regard critiques of the use of
radiocarbon dating as a rejection of
the science of archaeology, nor do I see
that such critiques are necessarily
based on a conspiracy view of ancient
historiography.

There are many problems with C14 dating,
and the largest, of course, is that no
Egyptologists that I've ever read has ever
allowed a C-14 date to overturn his own
particular view of Egyptian chronology.                          (In other words, facts are facts.)
C14 dates are usually brought in as icing
on a cake already cooked by other means.                      (The books are already cooked.)
Those C14 dates that don't agree with
conventional dates are tossed down the
memory hole, meaning they're relegated to
footnotes. As an example, in discussing
the EB I period, Amihai Mazar says,

"Carbon 14 tests relating to EB I comefrom only four sites; some of the tests
point to a high date in the first half
of the fourth millennium. This may mean
that the period was longer than previously
believed, or that mistakes and distortions               (Mazar obviously meant that the
occurred in the C14 tests." (*Archaeology               real problem was in the C-14 tests)
of the Land of the Bible*, 10,000-586 BCE,
p. 147, note 28.)
"Carbon 14 dates from EBII-III contexts are
known only from Jericho, Bab edh-Dhra', and
Numeira. They appear to be problematic,
as calibration based on dendrochronology
provides a wide range of dates in the third
millennium B.C.E., many of which appear to
be too high when compared to those based on
Egyptian correlations.” (Idem, note 31.)

Cordially,

Vern

Mr. Crisler manages a list about ancient history on the Internet, and has a great deal of knowledge on the subject of ancient history. He would make a good witness for the prosecution, but as you can see he has a little problem with my attack.


THE (almost) UNCHANGEABLE AND (seemingly) INCONTESTABLE NATURE OF THE EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY SYSTEM (scheme)

In the past 120 years, the Egyptian Family History Tree has been so continuously refined, manipulated, and massaged that, it seems, no new information from outside Egypt could put more than a small crack in its massive trunk and its huge limbs. It is (as we can now say) a, dendrochronological masterpiece, the “most perfect tree in the world.” Every ring is known. There are no missing rings. Every limb hangs in perfect symmetry with its brothers and sisters and there is no rot, nor crack nor fungus upon this tree. It is clean in spirit and pure at heart!

In the last 50-75 years, we have all seen the history Egypt placed higher and higher on the pedestal of truth and the pre-Solomonic period of the Bible of the Hebrews, slowly dismantled. This is especially annoying to many of us, since it seems to make little sense.

Israel, the only nation in the area with a written history. Even though that history appears to have been manipulated to some degree not only by the original writers, but by or via later copiers or translators / redactors or those in a position to make changes they thought were necessary.

You must understand, that the only culture / civilization, in the entire area of the ancient world of the Mediterranean, that was written down and survived until the present day (possibly it was passed down by bards in just the same manner as the story of Troy is thought to have survived the Dark Age of the Greek world), is the history of the Jews / Hebrews / Israelites.

It is this collection (the only known written record of the ages, that has survived until the present time) that has been shown by modern archeology, to be mostly a book of stories, myths, exaggerations and lies! Note this same attitude existed toward the stories of Homer until modern archaeology seemed to support his descriptions of the ancient Achaeans. After all, the era of Homer was separated from his subject (the Achaean Greeks) by up to 600 years of time, with most of that being in an epoch known as “The Dark Age of Greece”, and era almost without any archaeological or written evidence. Even the art of writing is said to have “disappeared” during this time. How amazing!

Be that as it may, in modern archeological and chronological parlance, Abraham never existed (he was a myth), the Exodus never happened (or at least the Biblical story of Moses) it was just a slow transfer of people moving out of Egypt, almost unnoticed by the Egyptians. The wandering in the wilderness, thus did not occur, nor any of the great miracles. The takeover of Canaan was not violent attack but just a slow matriculation of wandering people who intermingled with the local Canaanite and Philistine residents; the time of the Judges was just a collection of made up stories, designed to create a nations history, ex post facto.

To an archaeologist or chronologer, ascribing to the Egyptian chronology, as it is now written; Joshua never conquered Jericho, Sampson never slew the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, nor had his long hair cut by Deliah. Saul and David never had the loving / violent contact mentioned in the Bible. Saul never had his great victory over the Amalekites, and David never conspired with and then fought against the Philistines. Based upon this information, did the Philistines even exist?

End of part twelve.

Part fourteen.

HIEROGLYPHS and HIEROGLYPHIC INTERPRETATION-or, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

In September of 1822, Jean Francis Champollion announced the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone, which had been discovered in the Delta of Egypt, just four miles from the Egyptian town of Rosetta, in 1799. The stone had received some deciphering by Thomas Young, as he was able to read the name Ptolemy, in the cartouche on the stone. But Champollion is given the real credit. In the next few years, Champollion was deciphering other monumental hieroglyphs and in 1825 he was able to translate an inscription of Amenhotep III (pick your spelling for him because like so many Egyptian royal names, the correct spelling appears to be “in the eye of the beholder.), but Champollion had not proven himself to the experts in the field of Egyptian studies. It was not until 1866, with the discovery of the Canopus Decree, that the methods, of Champollion, were finally accepted by the high brass of Egyptian history. Of course Champollion did not live to see himself vindicated.

Based upon the above material, we could assume, that the dating of the reign of Rameses III, must have taken place, after the decipherment of the hieroglyphs (that were found on his monuments) were finally read. If we were to guess, when the placement of Ramses was finally determined, we would have to guess it happened in the lifetime of Lepius, or Chabas, or maybe even well into the time of Brugsch, who died in 1894. This is because, these men did their great work, after the hieroglyphs became readable. But we would be wrong.

Even before the monumental records of Rameses III had been read, (remember he could have been called Lameses or Lomases, etc.!) he was already in his correct (present) place in history. In fact (found in a book written by the Scottish psychiatrist, J. C. Prichard, which was published in 1819) Rameses III was said to have started his reign in -1147 B. C. E. From what source did Prichard get his date? Did any of the classical authors, such as Herodotus, or Thucydides or any other classical author make any mention of Rameses III? The answer is no.

It appears that Joseph J. Scaliger, a French chronologist of the late 16th and early 17th century current era, made the first attempt to date the dynasties of Manetho in his work, Thesaurus temporum, which was published in 1606. He attempted to use the “Sothic period” for his calculations. Even though many students of the past declare “there is no evidence that the Egyptians ever used the same method.” This use of the “Sothic” measurement has caused a lot of trouble with Egyptian chronology since no “experts” have been able to prove that the Egyptians ever used such a system themselves. This statement can cause a sizeable fight!

Also, it is believed that no extant documents have been found, indicating, that any other scholar attempted to change the placement of Rameses II, in the rest of the 17th century nor in the 18th century current era. It appears that no attempts were ever made to date the years of the rule of this king of Egypt, other than the works of Manetho, Africanus and Eusebius.

The first change, to Prichard’s date of the beginning of Ramses III’s rule, was made by Rosellini in 1841; in 1839, Champollion-Figuac, the brother of Champollion placed the date as -1279 B.C.E. In neither case were any grounds or facts used to explain the changes. The dates of -1147 to -1279 became even more firmly entrenched only when the bas-reliefs on the Temple of Ramses III, at Medinet Habu were finally read.

Well, these same experts knew that these bas-relief (more technically called “hollow relief”,or raised relief), found on his Temple at Medinet-Habu, described a war with foreign invaders. The invasion took place at the mouth of the Nile and the enemy managed to land and make some military success.

They had accumulated other evidence about the mass migration of peoples around -1200, Rameses III called them the “Peoples of the Isles”. His monument named the groups of foreigners that he was forced to fight, sometimes with the “Isle Peoples” and other times against the same group. Of the various names given to his attackers the hieroglyphs were read and the following names were revealed. They were the Tjeker, (T-j-k-r) the Shekelesh (S-k-l-s-h), the Weshesh (W-s-h-s-h), the Sherdan (S-r-d-n) or Sardan, and the only one specifically listed as the “People of the Isles” were the Denien (D-n-n). Could not the Denien also be the Donene or Danon? Could the T-j-k-r also be the Tojakor, etc.?   Today we call these attackers “Peoples of the sea” or as some say “Peoples of the isles.”

An interesting thesis on this subject was recently sent to a web site in which I sometimes participate. This explanation of the “sea people” or “people of the isles” mystery is unique and should be considered by any one interested in this subject. It was written by Jon Smyth.

Gentlemen.

I do not get to the PC as often as I would wish but it appears I
caught this at the right time.

Without getting into presenting quotes and inscriptional references,
which I will always gladly provide, may I just encapsulate what I
find in reinvestigating this 'Sea Peoples' phenomena.

The Delta was a region made up of many ethnic groups, in the west we
had Libyans residing in Egypt actually on Egyptian soil. In the East
we had Asiatics typically around the marshes that bespattered the
region where today we have the Suez canal.
In the central Delta were indigenous Egyptians whilst at the very
northern perimeter of the Delta, that is all along the Med. coast,
were other diverse groups possibly also Asiatic in decent although
that it just speculation at present.
What is known for certain is that the enemies of Ramses III were from
two ethnic groups, Libyans & Asiatics. We know this because Ramses
III (or his scribes) actually tell us this.Nowhere in the Harris Papyrus nor at Medinet Habu is there any
reference to Jamani, Ioni, or any terminology suggesting Aegeans in
general, nor Greeks, in particular.

The suggestion of Greeks being involved in the 'Sea Peoples' raid
relies solely on the interpretation of the term 'Northerners'
and 'Northerners in their isles'. This term has been erroneously
interpreted, I think I provided substantial evidence by way of
contemporary references that even from the Old Kingdom the residents
of the Delta were known as 'Northerners' by the rest of Egypt.

Not that these northerners were 'foreign', not at all, this was local
terminology. No confusion has arisen over the use of the
term 'Southerners' for the residents of Upper Egypt (or specifically,
those residents south of Memphis). So why this confusion over
Northerners?.

At the turn of the century Egyptology was taking the world by storm,
and, if you had not already noticed, with the exception of a few
American archeologists, the central core of academics were European.
Britain, Germany & France were providing, by far, the most expertise
& funding into ancient world archeology.
The thought occurred to many, "where was Europe at this stage?", it
became apparent to many of these scholars that European history was
basically primitive, a backwater, to the ancient world of the Middle
East.

It was in this atmosphere that the Medinet Habu inscriptions were
being interpreted, the suggestion was made that the references
to 'northerners', and 'northerners in their isles' just might mean
Aegean islands. This suggestion was fought by some academics but the
will to push Europeans into the record books prevailed and of course,
the 'invaders came in ships', went the argument. And, I think it
comes as no surprise that the suggestion of European involvement, via
the Greeks, became popular and found favor with a growing number of
scholars.

The Ships shown at Medinet Habu & mentioned in the Harris Papyrus are
no different than the ships mentioned on the Piankhi stela. TafNekht
launched an attack against Memphis, against Piankhi, in ships, not
sea-going vessels, but by Nile vessels.

Therefore the argument that Ramses III faced a sea-born invasion
already falters.The Northerners and the Northerners in their isles are well known
from ancient times as referring to the inhabitants of the Delta, not
to any islands across the sea. Also 'the restless isles' are referred
to by Piankhi in his efforts to subject Tafnekht and beat him into
submission.

Diodorus advises us that the Egyptian Delta was made up of numerous
islands, as many as 700 he states.

As for evidence around the Med. in various locations said to provide
evidence of 'Sea Peoples' raids, these so-called evidences are now
under scrutiny and more logical interpretations are being forwarded
based on local phenomena, earthquakes, drought & tribal fracas’.

The Delta was a restless region even in the Amarna period, in fact I
traced numerous references to Delta uprisings from the times of
Horemheb, through Ramses II, Merneptah, and on down through Ramses
III and into the 7th century, right up to 664BC.

There is a continuous theme of rebel uprisings against the throne
from Delta insurgents for many hundreds of years.

Taking a step back and looking at the big picture we have to wonder
why is the uprising against Ramses III treated differently, in the
great scheme of things it was just another episode of rebels taking
up arms against the King.

The whole 'Sea Peoples' phenomena created by Maspero is false. There
were no Greeks invading Egypt, not even any Aegeans, but only as
described in the text, Libyans (Tehenu & Meshwesh) and Asiatics
(Peleset, Denyen, Tjeker, etc) aided by the Hittites.
Ramses III frontier in Djahy was set against the Hittites and the
Hittite prisoners are depicted at Medinet Habu.

But, thank-you gentlemen for bringing this subject up again, it needs
far more attention than it gets.

Best regards, Jon (Smyth)

Very interesting was it not? If Mr. Smyth is correct our whole outlook on this period of Egyptian history must take a radical turn. But now back to the “real experts” on this subject!

The scholarly experts (of the 19th and 20th centuries) then begin to try and identify these wandering groups that dared to attack Egypt, and since by their reckoning the date was -1200 or a little later say -1190 to -1180, the wandering groups must have been related to or the descendants of the Mycenaean Greeks or their allies. The other group of attackers, who appear to some to be the leaders, were deciphered as the P-r-s-t.   This was written P-r-s-t because the experts had already decided that a certain symbol would normally be deciphered as an “r”, but they understood that “l” could be readily substituted, thus P-l-s-t would also be correct, I believe they even considered that a hieroglyphic “L” would be pronounced as an “R”. If the “r” is correct then it could be Periset or Pereset or Parasat, etc..

The same experts also agreed to use “e”, as the most normal vowel to be inserted between the consonants. That they did not always use the “e” is obvious, because if they had, we would have “Remeses”, instead of Rameses. Is there a rule on this?

So the “experts” begin to look at the Peoples of the Sea, as listed by Rameses III. P-r-s-t was examined and vowels were substituted, the first substitution “may” have led them to the name “Pereset”, which did not appear to match the name of any group known to the experts to have been active in the time of Rameses III, as a matter of fact in this form it looks closest to Persian. And Persian would not fit as they did not become a nation for many centuries. So the “experts” probably decided to pull the old “substitute the ‘l’ for the ‘r’ routine) thus they got “P-l-s-t.

Now how would P-l-s-t be read? Note any vowel could be substituted between the listed consonants. I would make it read Peleset! Could it have been Palasat or Pe “r”eset?

It appears that the “experts” picked “Peleset”, for that is the name most often seen in the literature on the subject Who could this group of the experts have been? Even Peleset did not look really familiar to them, they probably had to go back to more vowel substitution. It could not have taken the “experts” long to get to the vowel “I” and, low and behold, look what they got “Pilisit”. I would bet that did look good to them, even somewhat familiar, so why not make the last vowel become an “e’ again, then they would have had Piliset. This was beginning to look very good. Just why was this “looking good?” I’m glad you asked that question!

As you all know, Biblical literature constantly mentioned the Philistines as the inhabitants of coastal Canaan during the time of the Hebrew takeover of the area. This period was also known to have happened about -1200. Even though the Philistines are not mentioned as having taken part in the war at Troy, they were believed to have inhabited parts of Canaan only a short time before the entry of the Hebrew tribes. Thus the Philistines were the only known group to be active in the area, at the right time in history. As a result “Piliset / Peleset” became “Philistine” and/or the Philistines. It could not have been Persian or Persians since they did not exist, as such, until the 6th century B.C.E.

The translation of the hieroglyphs was clear. The fact is that Ramses III, fought a great battle with a group of warriors, which was written in the reliefs as “P-r-s-t”. These warriors were the Philistines, and they (of course) could not be incorrect, since they (the experts) controlled what was to be written on the subject and whatever they said was “gospel.”

The battle scenes shown on the reliefs fit into the time period, in which the “People(s) of the Sea”, and the great mass migration of other groups of foreigners around the Mediterranean occurred, just about the time of the Trojan War. Since Prichard had already dated the reign of Rameses III to have begun -1147, back in 1819 and a later re-dating had him beginning to rule in -1179. Was Prichard, just plain lucky? Is the translation correct? Is the date correct and based upon any facts?

If this hieroglyph (P-r-s-t / P-l-s-t) had been found, in the remains of a dynasty that had been listed by Manetho or others, as having existed in the Persian period of the 4th and 3rd Centuries, how would it have been translated? If the “experts” had relied upon their conviction that the most correct spelling was P-r-s-t, then the conversion to English would have been “Pereset”, which looks and sounds a lot like “Persia or Persian”.

(Note; The Egyptians, and the Greeks always referred to the Persians as barbarians.) After all, the letters P-r-s-t-t, have been found in Egyptian inscriptions of the Persian period, the extra “t” is just considered a way designating the country rather that the people. And this word has been converted into the word “Persia or Persian.”

Note, today some students of the subject believe the Philistines were just a name for the Egyptians who lived among the Northern “Isles” of the Nile River delta (See; Smyth). They were just different from the Egyptians of the South. We must also consider that P-r-s-t, has another translation by the use of vowel substitution, and that word is Pr-ie-st! Thus Egypt could have been invaded by priests, or priest kings! Was Egypt ever invaded by a large army led by priests or priest kings? See the invasion of St. Louis for an example.)

End of part fourteen.

Part sixteen.

From the 17th Dynasty- Which is said to have co-existed with the last dynasty of the Hyksos, and ruled Upper Egypt from Thebes.-Inyotef or Inyotep?or Anyotep?, Sebekemzaf or Sobekemzas?, Ta’o, Kamose or Akamose? (Did I mention the “Ta’o” rule?, or the “mz” rule?)

Note that Kamose is sometimes mentioned as the last king to build a pyramid.   Does this mean his predecessors (in the Hyksos period) may have built pyramids.

From the 18th Dynasty- The New Kingdom- Amose, Amenhotep or Amenhophis or Amenhophes or Amenophis, Thutmose or Tutmoses or Tuthmosis, Hatsheput or Hatshepsut, Akhenaten or Akhenaton, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb. Do you notice any resemblance to the kings of the 11th and 12th dynasties?

From the 19th Dynasty- Ramses or Rameses or Ramesses or Lameses? or Remasis?, Seti or Soto? or Sate?, Merneptha or Morenapteteha?, Siptha, Tawosret (Queen?) or Toweseret?

From the 20th Dynasty- Sethnakhte or Sothnekahate?, Ramses, spelled any way you want, x 9.

From the 21st Dynasty- The Third Intermediate Period, in Tanis- Smendes or Semendes?, Amememnisu or Amonemanisu?, Psusennes or Pesusenenes?, Amenemope or Amonemepe?, Osorkon or Isirken?, Siamun or Si-Amon?.

The Priestly Kings in Thebes- Herihor, Piankh or Pi’ankhy or Piankhy (note, Piankhy was, at one time in the 25th Dynasty), Pinedjem or Penedjum?, Masaherta or Meseharta?, Smendes or Smundes?.

From the 22nd Dynasty- Shoshenq or Shoshenk or Shoshenque or Shosenq or Sosenq or Sosaq or Sisaq or Chechanq or Sheshonk or Shisak, Osorkon or Orskolon, Takelot or Takelet, Pami, Harsiese.

I have even seen king lists that show kings with versions of the name Rameses, listed in three or four dynasties. I will stop the lesson now. As you can see the names of the kings of Egypt are, in most aspects, truly a subjective thing. The rules, if there are any, seem to be vague and constantly changing. Spelling seems to be a matter of personal preference. As I mentioned earlier, the above list does not show all the names known to the “scholarly experts” and some of the kings have moved into and out of different dynasties over the years.

I am sure one of the experts on this subject can make it clear to us if we just give him / her time.

But is this science? Is there any objectivity? Or, is it just subjective addition?

OTHER PROBLEMS?- (try to keep the jury on your side.)

Now I am not saying that the ancient list of Manetho is or has been the “all ruling power” of Egyptian chronology. Gardiner’s statement above makes that clear, but certain beliefs have sneaked their way into common thought that had as their basis the list of Manetho, and the other chronologers of the 3rd Century of the Current Era and later.

Note: A college history textbook, in my possession, entitled THE ANCIENT WORLD, Vol. I, Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, (1950), written by Joseph Ward Swain, a Professor of History University of Illinois. Professor Swain wrote in the main text, on page 100, under a discussion of the Old Kingdom;

“A second union in Egypt was effected about 3100 B.C.” A footnote was found at the end of this line. The footnote states; “Dates in Egyptian history before 2000 B.C. can only be tentative round numbers: those for the Middle Kingdom and Empire are established within a decade; and not until 663 B.C. is absolute accuracy possible.” Note; It was in -663 when Esarhaddon (Assyria) placed Psammetichus in his place as the vassal King of Egypt. The footnote continues; “In general this book follows the Borchardt-Edgerton chronology (1935-37), as given in George Steindorff and Keith C. Sterle, When Egypt Ruled the East, (1942). It puts the Old Kingdom slightly later than do Breasted and Meyer, but thereafter it differs very little from these earlier chronologies.”

As we can read above, the “experts”, even back in 1950, were very sure of their dates, (even dates they knew were set in 1935 to 1942) at least from the Middle Kingdom onward, when they think they are correct to within 10 years for any King. The textbook above used the term “... and not until 663 B. C. is absolute accuracy possible. Thus after -663 every date was known to be a sure date, just like we know that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy, in November of 1963 and September 11, 2002, is the “absolute” date of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The experts, even in 1950 seemed to feel only a little fine tuning was necessary at that point. Note, this is even before Carbon 14 testing was being used!

The authors of this book, on pages 99-100, describe the end of the Prehistoric Union of Egypt, they wrote;

“The collapse of the union was presumably        (At least they used the term “presumably”)
accompanied by much fighting, for Lower Egypt was
so weakened that new invaders forced their way
into the Delta from Asia. The fall of the united                      (What part of Asia?)
kingdom, about 3200, coincided with the end of                (-3200)
Gerzean culture and the rise of Semainean. Several
generations passed before political unity could be
restored to Egypt. Much of this time was spent in
wars, in which Upper Egypt usually had the advantage,
and of which archeologists have discovered a few
records. Thus the ‘Narmer palette,’ a carved piece of
slate bearing that king’s name, was found at
Hieraconpolis and dates from the late pre-dynastic period.

This carving shows a king, wearing the white crown of
Upper Egypt, who holds and clubs a defeated enemy;      (Could this club be a mace?)
Horus’s falcon holds a rope running through the nose
of a man near whom is a sign for the Delta; and at the
bottom of the pallette two men are shown running for
their lives.”

The rest of the paragraph discusses the apparent victory of Narmer over the Northerners. Now back to the line that began this section.

“A second union of all Egypt was effected about               (Does “about” mean 50 years?, or
3100 B.C. Its author was Aha-meni, whom the Greeks           does it mean 80, etc.?)
called Menes and whom they listed as the first king of
the First dynasty. Menes was a native of Upper Egypt,
where his tomb, together with those of his successors
from the first two dynasties, has been found at Abydos...
Regarding the other kings of the first two dynasties we
have little information, but there are indications that the
Second Dynasty ruled in troubled times and that some
of its kings were Northerners who seized the throne          (Asia Minor is North of Egypt)
without destroying the unity of Egypt. The last king of
the Second Dynasty, Khasekhem, managed to restore
order, and in honor of his victory he changed his name
to Khasekhemui, the plural form indicating his rule over
the ‘Two Egypts.’

When he died, about 2780, Khasekhemui left to his
successors a firmly united kingdom which endured for             (Here they mention over 500
more than five centuries... It was ruled by the kings               years as a known fact!)
of six dynasties in turn, and historians now call it
the ‘Old Kingdom.’”...

“About 450 B.C., more than two thousand years after
the building of the pyramids, the Greek historian
Herodotus visited Egypt and was told about them
{pyramids} by the priests whom he met. He records,
among other things, that Khufu and Khafre (whom
he calls Cheops and Chefren) were impious and                     (Impious and wicked?)    
wicked kings who oppressed the people and insulted       (This sounds like the Hyksos)
heaven by closing the temples, but that the next king
brought back justice to men and gods.”

The above description of Khufu and Khafre is interesting. These are the kings that built the biggest (and best!) pyramids. During this period, Egyptian art and material civilization reached what many consider its pinnacle. As you look at the pyramids and the temples at Saqqara and Giza, you see structures that have (remarkably!) remained in good condition. Heck, if the populace had not mined the limestone coating from the pyramids and if looters with hammers and attackers with cannons and others with explosives had not blown holes into the structures, they might well have looked, almost as good today, as they did over 4000 years ago. If they are that old?

The reed shaped flutes on the columns at Saqqara look as sharp as they may have looked new. One might think that if these leaders had been as bad as Herodotus described, the population might have savaged more of their remaining monuments. Maybe the monuments were just too big and numerous, at least at one time, for them to have been used up? The Moslems were famous for destroying statues or at least defacing them. Or maybe something is wrong?

Reading about them reminds me of the Hyksos, for some reason?
What about the description of these Kings would make me think of the Hyksos. Heck, in many modern descriptions of Hyksos rule, we are now told that they were probably very reasonable Kings, and the accusations of the terror, destruction and pain they imposed upon the native Egyptians is just a lot of propaganda written by the scribes of the 18th and later dynasties of Native Kings. But it is interesting that in the archaeology of Palestine the cities found by the archaeologists and labeled as being “Hyksos” are usually described as “wealthy” or “prosperous”, or some other appellation of the same ilk! Maybe this is why current Egyptologists are more kind to their rule today, but why has the period of their rule constantly shrunk?

Also, one always has to wonder how a dynasty of rulers can rule for at least 80 years and not be considered “native” or even termed “Egyptian?” But what if they really ruled for 200 or 400 years? Would the society of Egypt after 200 years of continuous rule by the Hyksos kings, not have been considered Egyptian? It does not look like it ever made them look Egyptian to the archaeologists, even when the “experts”, considered their rule extended to over 200 years, the remains of the Hyksos society of Egypt and Palestine are always remarked to be “..of the Hyksos type,” or “...typical of the Hyksos era.” It appears that even though they could have ruled for 500 years, our “experts” in the field would still describe them as “typical of the Hyksos rule,”, etc.   After so long, why is their style still foreign and not “native?” Think (and I know you can) about the Israelites who lived in bondage in Egypt for hundreds of years. How would we differentiate them from native Egyptians? After all we cannot see their way of dress, their homes, their pots, etc., because, unless they were forced by the authorities to wear certain clothes, to live in certain types of homes, to eat certain types of food, to walk in a certain type of way, to have a “Star of David” on their vestments, etc., I.E. without certain known differences, they would be just like other Egyptians of their time. Exactly like the Italian emigrants to the U. S. were after a few years in their new country.

If the Hyksos ruled for 110 years and never gave up their “uniqueness” then we have to make a few assumptions. Among these we have to consider that these Hyksos rulers must have been supplied to Egypt by some outside kingdom, in other words they were from the beginning only “occupation” rulers, and foreign regulators of an area that had been conquered and thus much like the Nazi occupiers of France during World War II. This appears to be the only way that this group could have remained separate from the mass of the Egyptians that they oversaw.   

Have the experts tried to keep the real facts from us? Is there any example one could use?

End of part sixteen.

Part eighteen.

THE SOTHIC DATING SYSTEM- FACT OR FICTION?

Many of the readers of this expose will be familiar with the ideas of the revisionists, who, by a great majority, deny the reliability of the Sothic Dating System. Mr. Parker, who was quoted above, has also written on this subject. Maybe his words will suffice here?

Mr. Parker, just what is the Sothic Dating System and does it accurately describe a reliable system for use in the area of archaeology?

Mr. Parker answers;

“................., we tried to show that the
archaeological dating in all Bible Lands was
totally dependent upon the system of dating
in Egyptian chronology. One is, therefore,
entitled to assume that this system, to have
such a powerful influence, must have been
shown to be extremely reliable. In fact, we
shall, in the next few weeks, show that all
their dates rely upon two massive pillars,
both of which are grounded in quicksand.
These are the use of the Sothic Cycle (of
which more later) for absolute dating and the
identification or rather the misidentification
of the Egyptian King Shoshenq I with the
Biblical King Shishak, the Egyptian ruler who                      (Shishak, again!)
came against Rehoboam and took "all" the
treasures of Solomon's Temple and Solomon's
house.

To understand a little more about how that
could happen, we will have to spend a little
time discussing Egyptian history. We hope
that those experts who join us will be a little
patient while we cover some of the basics.
The facts are that, "The chronology of Ancient
Egypt relies on indigenous historical traditions
organized in the third century BC by the priest
Manetho into a framework of thirty-one
dynasties stretching from the beginning of
historical times through the Persian Period
(Helck 1956)." This quote is from the revised
1992 edition of”Chronologies in Old World
Archaeology”, which is, together with the                                                                     
“Cambridge Ancient History”, the authoritative                                                                            word on Egyptian dating.                                                                                                             
It is understood that Manetho only included 30                                                                             dynasties, the 31st being added later for the sake                                                                          of completeness. There are however no original                                                                          copies of "The Egyptian History". All we know                                                                            of his work is that cited by Josephus, the Jewish                                                                       historian of the first century AD and by two                                                                              important Christian chronographers, Sextus                                                                                  Julius Africanus (3rd century AD), and                                                                                     Eusebius (4th century AD). Later, the history                                                                                of the world written in 800 AD, by George                                                                                   the Monk, Syncellus, used both Africanus and                                                                         Eusebius extensively as his sources.                                                                                    
Today, these 31 dynasties are generally broken                                                                             down as follows (all dates used here are the                                                                                  latest commonly agreed upon conventional                                                                       chronological dates):
Archaic period Dynasties 1 and 2 2920-2650 BC

Old Kingdom 3rd - 8th Dynasties 2650-2135 BC

Ist Intermediate 9th-11th Dynasties 2135-2040 BC

Middle Kingdom 11th-12th Dynasties 2040-1785 BC
2nd Intermediate 13th-17th Dynasties 1785-1550 BC New Kingdom 18th-20th Dynasties 1550-1070 BC

3rd Intermediate 21st-25th Dynasties 1070-665 BC

Late Period 26th-31st Dynasties 665-343 BC

But where did these dates come from?

The short answer is total speculation, woven                                                                            on a frame of discarded theories. That ancient                      (Speculated dates!)                      historians, archaeologists and Egyptologist are                                                                       somewhat confused by their own chronology,                                                                              one has only to look at the opening paragraph                                                                              of Chapter VI (Chronology 1. Egypt to the End                                                                            of the Twentieth Century) of “The Cambridge                                                                            Ancient History” Volume 1 part 1, published                                                                              in 1970.
I will quote it in full so there can be no                                                                     misunderstandings.

"The most significant advance made in the
study of ancient Egyptian chronology in
recent years is the repudiation by
Neugebauer and others of an astronomical
origin for the Egyptian civil calendar and ,
as a corollary, the elimination of the
so-called {Sothic Cycle} as a factor in
dating the earliest periods of Egyptian (The “elimination of the so-called Sothic cycle”)
History."

That statement allowed the Egyptologists to                                                                                 bring the date for the start of the dynastic period                                                                           down about 1,000 years from the dates                                                                                     proposed by Sir William Flinders Petrie, about                                                                         whom we write more later. If you can read that                                                                       paragraph as well as I, you would be given to                                                                     understand that the Sothic Cycle theory,                                                                             whatever it was, has now been proven wrong.

But, hold on. In the same chapter, the author,                                                                          an esteemed Egyptologist, goes on to prove                                                                              that the dates of the Middle Kingdom are based                                                                  precisely on that theory. In case you are                                                                              wondering how that could be written and                                                                                  accepted, here is the exact quote.

"For the fixing in time of the {Egyptian Middle
Kingdom} and the periods preceding it, the key
date is the seventh year of the reign of King
Sesostris III of the Twelfth Dynasty. In this
year, a helical rising of the star Sothis (our    (Note, Sothis is another way to say “Sothic”)
Sirius) was recorded on 16. VIII of the
365-day civil calendar, a fact which, thanks
to the regular displacement of this calendar,
in relation to the true astronomical year,
allows the year in question to be placed
between 1876 and 1864 BC, with every      (Another precise date based on the Sothic date)
probability favoring 1872 BC."

Did you understand all that? One moment,                                                                              he states that the Sothic Cycle theory is                                                                                discredited, the next he uses it to date the                                                                                Middle Kingdom. {There are many reasons                                                                                 why the Sothic Theory has been discredited.}

Suffice it to say that there is no evidence that                                                                           the Egyptians ever used such a cycle, and                                                                                 more importantly, it assumes that the calendar                                                                       of the Egyptians was NEVER adjusted from                                                                             the time of the Middle Kingdom until the time                                                                       of the Ptolemies, a preposterous contention.
The whole concept of the Intermediate Periods,                                                                       is that they were periods of great instability and                                                            uncertainty. We are asked to believe that the                                                                           only thing that never changed during these                                                                              times was the calendar, and we have proof that                                                                       it did. It gets worse. The quotes continue:                                                                                    

"Following the end of the Twelfth Dynasty
is 1786 BC, the next astronomically
determinable 'anchor-point' in Egyptian
history is the ninth year of the reign of
King Amenophis I, the second ruler of
the Eighteenth Dynasty. This year, in
which according to the calendrical table
of the medical {Papyrus Ebers}, a helical
rising of Sothis occurred on 9.XI of the
civil calendar can be fixed with a high
degree of probability at 1537 BC" .                                    (Another precise date!)

The Sothic cycle, which was, if you                                                                                     remember, discredited, is now used again                                                                                 for the dating of the {New Kingdom}.                                                                                        

So the two "fixed points" in Egyptian history                                                                           are based upon a theory which has been                                                                         discredited. There is only one more fixed                                                                                    and certain point before the time of the 26th                                                                                dynasty (664-525 BC), and that is the                                                                                  identification of Shishak of the Bible with                                                                                Shoshenq I of the {22nd dynasty}. The dates                                                                                after the 26th dynasty are well corroborated                                                                                  with other events in world history.
We shall blow up the Shishak/Shoshenq I                                                                            identification once and for all next week,                                                                                     and see the edifice of Egyptian dating come                                                                         tumbling down, and with it, the dates                                                                                    accepted by the conventional archaeologists                                                                             in all the sites of the lands of the Bible.


See the Bibliography for the above next !

Bibliography

" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (ISBN: 0226194477)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 1 part 1 (ISBN: 0521070511)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"A History of Egypt 3 volumes by Sir William Flinders Petrie (ISBN: 1854170597)
(Histories and Mysteries of Man Bookshop on site)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction by Sir Alan Gardiner (ISBN: 0195002679)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"History of Egypt and Other Works by Manetho (ISBN: 0674993853)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Centuries of Darkness by Peter James (ISBN: 0813519519)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Manetho: History of Egypt and Other Works, Translated by W. G. Waddell (ISBN: 0674993853)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Atlas of Ancient Egypt by John Baines and Jaromar Malek (ISBN: 0871963345)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Ages in Chaos. Immanuel Velikovsky, (ISBN: 0899667279)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications. Donovon A. Coureville (ISBN: )
Out of print
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Redating the Exodus and Conquest. John J. Bimson (ISBN: )
out of print
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Pharaohs and Kings A Biblical Quest by David M. Rohl (ISBN: 0609801309)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt With 350 Illustrations 130 in Color by Peter A. Clayton (ISBN: 0500050740)
" href="http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/%3E"A History of Ancient Egypt by Nicolas Grimal (ISBN: 0631193960)

What do you think? Did Parker make it clear? I could well have included his next section to show the fallacy of the Shishak / Shoshenq I, identification, but I believe it will be mentioned somewhere else in this report and I will save space by leaving it out. However, I can also bring in many other statements to corroborate the above quoted statement, but I feel the above statement is worth its weight in Bronze!

End of part eighteen.