November 2019

CIRCUMCISION, TOMB of ANKHMAHOR SAQQARA

"Joshua made himself flint knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. This is the reason Joshua circumcised: all the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness by the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised." (Joshua 5:3-5)

[PLEASE NOTE: Male circumcision is a controversial subject. Here we shall merely look a little at the ancient practice in Egypt & Israel. We shall NOT allow any discussions concerning the rights & wrongs of circumcision.]

The Sixth Dynasty tomb of Ankhmahahor, at Saqara, is often called the "Doctor's Tomb". This is not because Ankhmahahor was a doctor himself but because the tomb contains a remarkable number of depictions of medical practices. These depictions include male circumcision.

Now, the pictures are quite graphic and we know that these posts are sometimes shared with children. For this reason the pictures have been blurred. Anyone wishing to view the original pictures can do so by visiting our website: www.BibleWorld.net and going to the larger picture (see further info below).

Circumcision has been practiced throughout history in many different cultures & civilisations. In Egypt, it seems circumcision normally took place when boys were aged 6-12 years of age. It seems it is only amnongst the People of Israel has it been normal practice to circumcise baby boys (on the 8th Day - Leviticus 12:3). Most other societies performed this ceremony much later in life. Of course, there are examples of adult circumcision in the Bible, but they are not the norm.

Male circumcision is attested to in ancient Egypt in depictions in tombs and in the physical remains of Egyptians. However, these circumcision scenes are quite rare, with only a few surviving to today. Consequently we know little about the context & meaning behind circumcision in Egypt. I believe the oldest depiction of circumcision in Egypt is found in a fragmentary inscription from the 5th Dynasty Funerary Temple of Djedkare - it is Fragment 426, excavated some time between 1940's & 1980's. It does seem that circumcision normally took place at puberty. However, from the New Kingdom there are attestations to infant circumcision.

Herodotus speaks of the hygienic advantage of male circumcision when writing about the Egyptians: "They are religious to excess, far beyond any other race of men, and use the following ceremonies:

"They drink out of brazen cups, which they scour every day: there is no exception to this practice. They wear linen garments, which they are especially careful to have always fresh washed. They practice circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be cleanly than comely. The priests shave their whole body every other day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when they are engaged in the service of the gods…" (Histories II, §37).

(Anyone wishing to view the original pictures can do so by clicking the attached picture and going to the larger picture, see further info below.)

TIMNA TENTED / HATHOR SHRINE

The Egyptians originally built a Hathor shrine here at Timna, hence the many defaced Hathor depictions. Later, the Midianites seem to have taken over the site when the Egyptians abandoned it, in the 13th century BCE (end of the Ramesside dynasties). Archaeologists have suggested this Midianite shrine was originally covered by a tent. That makes it similar in nature to the Hebrew Wilderness Tabernacle.

Amongst the pottery assemblage were two non-Egyptian pottery types. These were crude hand-made pottery and a sophisticated bichrome ware, associated with the northwestern Arabian Midianite culture. The Israeli archaeologist, Beno Rothenberg, associated the cruder pottery with the Amelekites.

Rothenburg felt that the Egyptian work at Timna was accompanied by “imported” Midianite & Amelekite laborers. When the Egyptians withdrew the Midianites substituted their own Semitic worship in place of the Egyptian Hathor worship. He suggests that the Midianites threw out the majority of the Egyptian votive offerings and piled them up behind the shrine’s wall. At the same time they defaced the obvious Hathor stones, replacing them with their own Masseboth (standing stones).

Even more interesting to us is what the archaeologists found in the Holiest Place of this shrine - a Brazen Serpent! Midianites built the phase of the shrine in which this brazen serpent was found. The Bible tells us that Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, was a "priest of Midian". Moses was instructed to raise a brazen serpent in the sight of Israel that they might be healed after being bitten by the plague of "fiery serpents". (Numbers 21) This brazen serpent was later to be given the derogatory name of "Nehushtan" (2Kings 18) and had become an object of devotion, causing King Hezekiah to have it destroyed.

It is interesting that the Holiest Place here is the same size as that proposed by Friedman for his revised size of the Wilderness Tabernacle.

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[A large number of votive offerings were found here (11,000+). A large number carried inscriptions. These included all the Pharaohs of the 19th & 20th dynasties, from Sethos I through to Ramesses V.]

ABU SIMBEL TABERNACLE & ARK

EGYPT'S GREATEST TREASURE!

I have had the privilege of standing face-to-face with Tutankhamun's golden mask, without glass or display-case between. If it had not been inappropriate I could have reached out and touched that enigmatic face. This treasure normally resides in the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo.

However, for me, Egypt's greatest treasure is to be found 700 miles south of Cairo. The temple that houses this treasure, Abu Simbel, was commissioned and built over 3,000 years ago by Pharaoh Ramesses the Great.

Fortunately for us, the great temple of Abu Simbel, and this treasure, was rescued from the rising waters of the artificial lake, Lake Nasser. It is probably the most well known of a series of UNESCO World Heritage Sites known as the "Nubian Monuments", which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan). Each of these sites represents a small portion of the ancient archaeological treasures which now lie undiscovered below the bed of this vast lake.

Due to the Abu Simbel complex being so far from the center of ancient Egyptian power it was only visited once by Ramesses. Neither was it so carefully maintained as many other temples were. Each year the rising Nile would flood many of the temples, and that was considered a blessing. However, it also meant that their many wonderful and colorful murals had to be carefully restored each year. This did not happen at Abu Simbel and 3,000 years of flooding and drying out means its murals are in a perilous condition.

My journey to Abu Simbel was long and tiring. However, it was well worthwhile. Still, I spent most of my time examining only one small part of this complex. Also, in recent years, photography inside Abu Simbel has been forbidden. This means there are few worthwhile pictures of the treasure we are about to consider. The pictures I have managed to find are either black & white or difficult to restore. Certainly, few bothered to take pictures of what I feel to be the most important part of Abu Simbel!

As you go into the main temple complex of Abu Simbel, directly on your right, you will see a large and magnificent mural. It shows a battle Ramesses the Great took particular pride in. This "Battle of Kadesh" is depicted in a number of places - we last saw it on the pylon at Luxor. At Luxor, the battle scene also included Ramesses' war camp, just as it seemed to be overtaken by the enemy. In the center of this camp stood a tabernacle or portable shrine. However, at Luxor, this shrine has no interior details. Here at Abu Simbel, we find what that tabernacle contained. Within this tabernacle of Ramesses are people praying towards the Holiest Place, within which we see something very familiar to readers of the Bible. It is an "Ark" with two "Cherubim" on its top and a diety between them - the only such ancient representation I know. Of course, the Biblical "Ark of the Covenant" does not have any representation of the diety between the two cherubim, but YHVH was known to be there.

Please do not begin to think this picture shows the Wilderness Tabernacle described in Exodus. For a start, it is a few hundred years after the Exodus account. However, it does show that the scholars who confidently told us that the description of the Wilderness Tabernacle was merely the imagination of later Priests or scribes were wrong. For centuries they told us that these later Bible writers were merely projecting back into time a description of the temple in Jerusalem in tent form, and could not have existed. Here we see that portable shrines, such as the Wilderness Tabernacle, were well known in ancient Egypt up until the time of Ramesses III at least.

For me, this much-degraded mural, on the southern limit of Egypt's border, is Egypt's greatest treasure!

[Two of these pictures have been greatly enhanced and colored by myself, in the hope that people begin to get an idea of how it might have originally looked.]

BOOTHS - FEAST OF TABERNACLES

"You shall dwell in booths seven days. All who are native-born in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am YHVH your God." (Exodus 23:42-43)

This Bible Feast of YHVH is called in Hebrew, Sukkot. Sukkot is the plural of the word Sukkah or "booth". Many know of it as the "Feast of Tabernacles".

Few who have gone to Egypt could have failed to notice temporary booths in many fields. Certainly, anyone who has cruised any length of the Nile will have seen many dozens, if not hundreds of these booths.

Just what are these flimsy shelters used for and why are there so many of them? The simple answer is that people's permanent houses were situated off the general flood-plain - who would want to see their mud-brick house flooded each year? Thus, after the annual flooding, the people needed to protect their fields and produce. That is what these flimsy booths were for. They provided somewhere to rest from the heat & scorching sun and somewhere a possibly elderly or less physically able person could guard the crops at night. It is the same today, after thousands of years, they are still using these booths.

We need to remember that a simple reading of Scripture suggests Israel lived in Egypt for many generations - 430 years (Exodus 12:40) - that is almost two centuries longer than the USA has been a nation! There is no doubt that the culture of Egypt will have had a large impact on the descendants of Jacob. It should, therefore, be no surprise that YHVH God should use that with which the Israelites had become familiar to teach them his ways.

Thus we find YHVH instructing His People to dwell seven days each year in booths, something they had become very familiar with in Egypt. (Cf. Exodus 23:42-43, above) Yes, He used these familiar structures to teach them new things and as a reminder. Still, these "booths" (Hebrew, "sukkot") were things they had become very familiar with.

It is interesting that the Prophet Isaiah should be inspired to compare a comparatively depopulated waste-land of Judah to these booths and their probably elderly, or less physically able, night-watchman, in Isaiah 1:8, "The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons..."

Today, 3,500 years later, God's People still dwell in temporary structures for seven days during the "Feast of Tabernacles/Booths".

011 - EXODUS TALES MEMORIES and FEARS

It is true that the archaeological evidence confirming the accuracy of the Bible's description of Israel's sojourn in and Exodus from Egypt might individually be inconclusive. However, cumulatively they point to a real event behind and described within the Bible.

In the West, we are very familiar with Fairy Stories - particularly the Disneyfied versions. However, many of these "Fairy Stories" started life as morality tales, completely unsuitable for Disney. They were morality tales offering very strong words of caution, often with quite awful outcomes! Such morality tales are not new, nor confined to the modern West.

Many are very aware of the ancient Egyptian tale known as the "Book of the Dead", or, more accurately, " Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another similar tale was known as, the "Amduat"; i.e. "Book of What is in the Duat". In English, its title is, "The Book of The Hidden Chamber" or the "Book of the Twelve Hours of the Night". It describes the dangers & trials which the sun-god faced each & every night. They were both designed as a guide to the soul of the dead through the dangers/trials of the afterworld. These texts began to be developed and became popular around the beginning of the 18th Dynasty.

Before them, there were a number of similar texts, which used to decorate the tomb walls of the Pharaohs. Amongst them can be found stories which some scholars have seen as allusions to three days of darkness and the death of the firstborn. One of these is called the "Cannibal Hymn". It, of course, does not speak about the Biblical events but it is possible that God took these, the darkest fears of the Egyptians, as models for the terrible plagues He brought upon them. Re-enforcing this suggestion is the fact that the most horrific of these texts, the "Cannibal Hymn", falls out of favor around the Biblical date of the Exodus.

[One example of the "Cannibal Hymn" is found in the burial chamber of Unas (cf. top picture).]

Around the time of the Biblical date for the Exodus, these horrific texts are replaced by the Amduat & "Book of the Dead". Early examples of a Royal Amduat are found in Tombs KV 34 & 35 at Thebes. These are the tombs of Thutmose III & Amenhotep II. In these tombs, we find the beginnings of the Amduat and they include a barrier of fire, two walls of water (both found in the Bible's Exodus account) and a depiction of the drowning army of Pharaoh.

Do these depictions in these early 18th Dynasty tombs reference the realities of the Exodus as described in the Bible? Many would utterly deny it, mainly because it does not match their dating for the Exodus in the 13th century BC. However, whilst their made-up dating for the Exodus may not match the dating of these depictions, the Bible's dating for this event matches perfectly!

[There are many other parallels with the Bible's account of the events leading up to and surrounding the Exodus, but we shall not look at those today.]

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Our upper picture shows the burial chamber of Unas. Above the sarcophagus, in the gable section, are a number of prayers & spells to aid the soul of Unas through the terrors of the underworld. A similar gabled section, behind the camera, contains a version of the "Cannibal Hymn" mentioned above.

The middle picture shows rightmost portion the Amduat of Gautsoshen (ca. 1000–945BC), from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The middle section includes the gods of the twelve hours of the night.

The lower artwork shows a small part of the drowned army scene from the royal Amduat in the tomb of Amenhotep II (Tomb KV 35), ca. 1450BC. The tomb of Thutmose III (Tomb KV34) has a version of the Amduat showing the walls of water and the barrier of fire.

[The artwork is based on pictures found in the Theban Mapping Project online library.]

HATSHEPSUT, MOSES & YAHU?

"There arose a new king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph. He said..., "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, ... Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens... But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They were grieved because of the children of Israel. The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve." (Exodus 1:8-14)

Conventional chronology would date Hatshepsut to between 1507 & 1458 BC. After the death of her husband, Thutmose II, she ruled Egypt jointly with Thutmose III, from 1478 BC. All this places her well within the Biblical period for the Exodus.

About 100 years ago people began to explore the ruins of a Hathor Temple associated with turquoise mines, at Serabit el-Khadim. A number of early proto-Sinaiatic inscriptions were found here, possibly associated with a Semitic workforce in the mines. It is the longest of these inscriptions (#349) that we shall look at in this article.

This was originally translated in the following way:

1. "I am Hatshepsu-chnum-amon-m.... (?Moses?)

2. Overseer of the miners ......

3. Head of the temple of Ma'na (and) of Yahu (of) Sinai:

4. O beloved of Baalath, Hatshepsu-chnum-amon,

5. Thou wast friendly, didst draw me forth from the Nile,

6. And [hast set me over] the shrine of M....

7. Which [is upon] Sinai."

[As quoted in, "A New Disclosure From Sinai" by J.M.Powis Smith, 1926 - Grimme also placed the name "Moses" at the end of the first line.]

Now that, as you can immagine, created much excitement and still does for some. However, it was not long before alternative translations came to light. One of those is quoted by Powis Smith in his paper mentioned above. It goes as follows:

1. "I, Hatshepsu-chnum-amon, have appointed Manasseh

2. As overseer of the stones of malachite

3. And as head of the temple established upon Sinai

4. Beloved of Baalath, Hatshepsu-chnum-amon,

5. Thou hast been friendly, thou hast transferred me from the Nile-waters of forced labour,

6. And hast raised me to be priest of the outer temple of Ma'na and Yahu,

7. Which is erected upon the top of Sinai."

In the second translation, you can see that the reference to being "drawn forth from the Nile" has been radically revised. Also, Grimmes suggestion of the name "Moses" appearing in the first line has disappeared. However, the name of a god called "Yahu" remains.

Now Moses was quite a common ancient Egyptian name and we should not be over-excited when we find it. However, a reference to being "drawn out of the Nile", associated with that name is another matter. But both such references seem to have been later discounted. But what significance might there be in this semitic name of "Manasseh"?

Well, let's look at the Bible. In Judges 18:30 we find the Hebrew name of Moses, the one given to him by his Mother, Jochebed. Moses was his Egyptian name, but Manasseh was his Hebrew name.

Now, to be honest, few scholars today would accept that the Manasseh mentioned in this inscription has anything to do with the Manasseh/Moses of the Exodus. However, it is still intriguing that a god bearing the same name as the God of the Bible, "Yahu", is found mentioned in a temple, "upon the top of Sinai"! That this Manasseh was also overseeing semitic slave labour, adds to the interest here.

[Some have suggested that this temple might be the one referred to in Exodus 8:27, "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to Yahweh our God, as he shall command us." However, Serabit el-Khadim is some 160 miles from the probable site of Goshen. It is highly unlikely that even a man on a fast horse could travel that far in the heat of Sinai! It is impossible to think of a vast hoard of people, young and old, doing so in three days!]

BRICK-MAKING

"The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, 'You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. The number of bricks, which they made before, you require from them. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor therein; and don't let them pay any attention to lying words.'" (Exodus 5:6-9)

Have you ever wondered why the Egyptians needed so many mud-bricks? Why did they need an entire nation of slaves to continuously make them? The truth may surprise you.

Egyptians literally built their magnificent buildings from the ground up. Having laid one layer they then built the ground-level up with mud-bricks. This allowed them to easily haul the next level on top of the first. When they finished they would dig the bricks out adding the decoration to the building as they continued down.

Mud-bricks were, of course, also used for the buildings of poorer - or the vast majority of - people. A good example of this was the Temple of the Jewish mercenaries on Elephantine (5th/4th century BCE). Very few of these ancient mud-brick structures of the ordinary Egyptian have survived, partly due to annual floods, weather and bad excavation techniques.

Our top & middle pictures today show a depiction of the process of making mudbrick. It is well-known and comes from the tomb of Rekhmire, who was 'Governor of the Town' (Thebes) and 'Vizier' during the reigns of Tuthmose III and Amenhotep II of Dynasty XVIII. In this depiction we see Nubian and Semitic people being watched over by the Egyptian taskmasters.

If you look closely at the example of an ancient mudbrick on the left, you will be able to see the straw that was mixed with the mud to hold the bricks together. This brick is Stamped with the Name of Meryptah (ca.1390–1352BC). Meryptah was high priest of the god Amun in the reign of Amenhotep III, 18th Dynasty.

To the mudbrick's left is a picture of a model brick-mold which was found in one of the "Foundation Deposits" of Hatshepsut's Tomb (ca.1479–1458 BC). Foundation deposits often contained tools or models of tools that would have been used for the construction of a building or the excavation of a tomb. The entrance of Hatshepsut's tomb would then have been blocked with mudbricks.

EGYPTIAN FUNERARY PROCESSION

"Pharaoh said (to Joseph), 'Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear.' Joseph went up to bury his father (in Canaan); and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the elders of the land of Egypt, all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's house." (Genesis 50)

This must have been an amazing sight to the inhabitants of Canaan, a full-scale Egyptian Funerary procession passing through The Land. They seem to have entered via the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. It would be quite normal to transport the coffin, at some point, by boat and it is possible they would have travelled by boat the length of the Dead Sea. The "the threshing floor of Atad". At this place, they stopped for seven days of mourning. Some have placed this threshing floor between Jericho & the Jordan River.

From there, they, "carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a burial site". (Genesis 50:13, i.e. Hebron)

[Our lower picture shows the present structure over the traditional "Tomb of the Patriarchs", in Hebron]

There are many depictions of such funerary processions throughout Egypt. The one we have shown comes from the Tomb of Pairy (mainly because its picture is in the Public Domain). The date for this funeral is much later than Joseph (ca.1352BC), still these processions changed little over time.

The one thing missing from the above depiction of an Egyptian funerary procession is the professional mourners. We have included an inset picture on the left based on a papyrus document found in the 19th Dynasty Tomb of Ati. (The original is housed in & copyright to the British Museum.) This depicts the professional mourners in their traditional style. Note how they are placing their hands on their foreheads as a mark of mourning. This practice is referred to in 2Samuel 13:19, "and she laid her hand on her head, and went her way, crying aloud as she went."

HELIOPOLIS, JOSEPH & PROPHECY FULFILLED

"He shall also break the pillars of Beth Shemesh (i.e. "House of the Sun"/Heliopolis), that is in the land of Egypt, and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire." (Jeremiah 33:13)

"Heliopolis" is the Greek name for the ancient Egyptian city of Annu. "Annu" means "The pillars" and "Heliopolis", "City of the Sun", which in Hebrew is "Beth Shemesh". This name seems to have been due to it being renowned for the number of gold-tipped obelisks erected in that city.

In the Bible, Heliopolis is known as "On". It was from here that Joseph's wife originated. (Genesis 41:45) The Prophet Isaiah claimed the "City of the Sun" would be one of the five Egyptian cities to follow the Lord of Hosts and speak "the language of Canaan" (probably Hebrew at the time of writing). (Isaiah 19:18) Jeremiah and Ezekiel also mention the "House of the Sun" and "On". (Jeremiah 43:13 & Ezekiel 30:17-19) They claimed Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar would shatter its obelisks and burn its temple.

An obelisk from Heliopolis can be found in New York (#3) and another in London (#2). However, Heliopolis now lies below a suburb of Cairo and today there is only one lone obelisk standing there (#1). There is no reason to doubt that Biblical prophecy and the whole Bible can be trusted.

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[The upper picture is an inscription including the name of Annu/Heliopolis]

LEBANON & SYRIA BEG AN EGYPTIAN OFFICIAL

"Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, "Why do you look at one another?" He said, "Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there, and buy for us from there, so that we may live, and not die." Joseph's ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. ... Joseph was the governor over the land. It was he who sold to all the people of the land. Joseph's brothers came, and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth." (Genesis 42:1-6)

Today's picture shows a similar scene to that described above. This is from the west wall of Horemheb's unused tomb in Saqqara. It shows a group of foreigners in the presence of an Egyptian official begging for assistance ("the breath of life"). The inscription is not easy to interpret, but it seems that some sort of calamity has overtaken their countries. (Some have suggested it was the result of Horemheb's troops going through their lands.)

At this time, Hormemheb was Vizier under King Tutankhamun. At this time Egyptian artists used a variety of different techniques. Striking in Horemheb's tomb is ordinary Egyptians being displayed as much smaller than foreigners (even when they were prisoners & slaves).

Here, the Egyptian official interviewing the foreigners is much smaller than they are portrayed. This would suggest that they were high-ranking officials from these lands. I love the way in which the foreigners are shown falling over themselves in their pleading with the official. Also, note the smug, self-satisfied look on that officials face as they do this! (See lower panel)

In the upper panel, we see that the official turns to tell Horemheb of the foreigner's request (he is identified as a translator). Having heard the requests that had been made, Horemheb himself turns to tell Tutankhamun what the foreigners are requesting (Tutankhamun is off to the left of our picture).