Ramses II and His Time (Ages in Chaos)

206 Pages·2013·4.33 MB·English

by  Velikovsky, Immanuel

New, unchanged edition (2010).
Notes by the publisher are marked by { }.
Original edition (1978) by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York
Copyright © by Shulamit V. Kogan and
Ruth V. Sharon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner, except by
reviewers who may quote brief passages to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.
Cover design based on a drawing by Dino Idrizbegovic

Published byParadigma Ltd.
Internet: www.paradigma-publishing.com
e-mail: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1-906833-14-5 (printed edition)
978-1-906833-74-9 (ebook edition)
Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1 The Battle of Kadesh-Carchemish

Who Was Pharaoh Necho, the Adversary of Nebuchadnezzar?
The Early Campaign of Ramses II
Tell Nebi-Mend
The Army of Ramses II
The Battle of Kadesh-Carchemish
The Fortress of Carchemish
The Plan of the Battle
Carchemish, the Sacred City
Chapter 2 Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar in War and Peace

Palestine’s Three-Year Revolt and the Capture of Ashkelon
The End of the Kingdom of Judah
The Lachish Conflagration
Treaty Between Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar
Events of the War in the Scriptures and in the Inscriptions of Ramses II Compared
Chapter 3 The Tomb of King Ahiram

The Speedy Scribe
The Tomb of Ahiram
The Inscriptions of Ahiram and the Origin of the Alphabet
Ithobaal, Son of Ahiram
“A Curious Fact”
A Recapitulation
Chapter 4 The “Forgotten Empire”

Pictographic Script and the Cuneiform Archive of the “Hittites”
Mursilis the “Hittite” and Nabopolassar the Chaldean
Names and Surnames
Nabopolassar Becomes an Invalid
The Order of Succession to the Throne of Babylon
Chapter 5 The Autobiography of Nebuchadnezzar

Climbing the Throne
The Personality of Nebuchadnezzar
Changing History
Chapter 6 The “Forgotten Empire”: Testimony of Art

Yazilikaya: “The Inscribed Rock”
Archaeology and “Hittite” Monuments
“In the Deepest Darkness”
Gordion
The Dark Age of Anatolia
The “Gold Tomb” of Carchemish
The Herald’s Wall
The Syrian City States
The Lion Gate of Malatya
“The Land of Their Nativity”
The Secret Script of the Chaldeans
A Dagger and a Coin
Mitanni
Chapter 7 Exodus or Exile

Nebuchadnezzar Visits Ramses II
The Brick Kiln of Tahpanheth
Ramses’ Marriage
The Israel Stele of Merneptah and the Lamentations of Jeremiah
The Libyan Campaign
The Persian Conquest of Chaldea and Egypt
Epilogue Questions and Answers

Tanis and Saïs
How Long Did Seti and Ramses II Reign?
Two Suppiluliumas
Bronze and Iron
Scarabs and Stratigraphy
Retrospect
Supplement The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating

Synchronical Tables

Bibliography
Around the Subject
Maps
Introduction

The More Proper Title for this volume would have been Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar, since both of
them play dominant roles in this volume, or in this part of history. But revealing in this way the subject of
the book—and the contemporaneity of two well-known figures of antiquity, separated in conventionally
written history by seven hundred years—would have added sensation to what is perforce a revolutionary
reconstruction of the past. Although the entire work of reconstruction covers over twelve hundred years,
each volume is organized in such a way that it presents, as far as feasible, a separate fraction of ancient
history.
On the pages to follow an effort is made to reconstruct the period of Chaldean domination in the
Middle East. This period is also known in history books as the time of the Neo-Babylonian Empire; in the
Scriptures, Nebuchadnezzar is known as king of Babylon and king of the Chaldeans; Chaldeans, however,
were not indigenous to Babylon.
The thesis presented and evidenced in this volume is that the so-called Hittite Empire, dubbed the
Forgotten Empire because it was supposedly discovered less than one hundred years ago, is nothing but
the kingdom of the Chaldeans; further, that the pictographic script found on monuments from the western
shores of Asia Minor to Babylon, but mainly in central and eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, is most
probably the Chaldean script. The “Hittite” emperors are alter egos of the great kings of the Chaldean
Dynasty of Babylon. Thus the “Hittite Empire” in its most exalted period, the placement of which in the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries before the present era has caused innumerable difficulties and led to
much consternation among archaeologists, vanishes after having “lived” in books and articles for more
than a century.
No lesser upheaval takes place in Egyptian historiography. The so-called Nineteenth Dynasty, whose
main representatives are Seti the Great, Ramses II, and Merneptah, reveals itself as identical with the so-
called Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Psammetich, Necho, and Apries, whose true activities are known to us
partly from Greek historians and partly from the scriptural texts (Books of Kings, Chronicles, and
Jeremiah) but not from the extant Egyptian texts. This identification entails the removal of Seti the Great,
Ramses II, and Merneptah from the time in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries usually ascribed to them
to the seventh and sixth centuries. Actually, the process of identifying the early pharaohs of the Nineteenth
Dynasty, Seti I (Sethos), Haremhab, Ramses I, and Seti the Great, occupies the volume dealing with the
Assyrian domination which covers the time from about -840 to -612. There it is shown in some detail that
Seti I (Sethos of Herodotus) was a contemporary and adversary of King Sennacherib; that Haremhab, his
brother, was appointed a viceroy of Egypt by the decree of the Assyrian king and later crowned as a
pharaoh, while still in vassalage to Nineveh; that Ramses I is known to us from the Greek historians as the
Necho I who reigned for only a short period before he was killed by the Ethiopians, who for more than
fifty years contested with the Assyrians for supremacy in Egypt; and that Seti the Great,1 as just said, is
Psammetich of the Greek historians. Thus the beginning of the task of identifying the Nineteenth Dynasty
with the Twenty-sixth in the list of Manetho’s succession – a most confused and deliberately extended and
misleading list of the Egyptian dynasties and kings – has been delegated to the volume covering the time
of the Assyrian domination up to the fall of Nineveh in about -612.
I weighed in my mind whether I should draw the demarcation line between these two volumes at -663,
the year of the fall of Thebes before Assurbanipal, and I was motivated by the desire to have in one
volume the story of the great Egyptian dynasty from the time Seti the Great began his career, which
marked the growth of Egypt from vassalage to independence; but after some deliberation it appeared more
desirable to draw the line at the fall of Nineveh about fifty-five years later. Nevertheless in subsequent
chapters of the present volume, though not from the start, the reader will be led back to the times when
Seti, no more a vassal of Assyria but an ally, took part in the protracted struggle in which the Chaldeans
and the Medes faced the Assyrians and the Egyptians, with the Scythians finally deciding the outcome.
Thus this volume starts with the first confrontation of two ambitious and famous kings supposedly
separated by seven hundred years, Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar – a confrontation renewed again and
again for nineteen years until it was terminated in a peace treaty the text of which is still extant. Judea was
caught between the two contesting great powers and suffered until it lost its statehood; the population was
exiled to Babylon, while a minor part escaped to Egypt only to be removed to Babylon, too, on the
strength of a provision stipulated in the same treaty.
Merneptah-Hophrama’e, sometimes thought to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, is shown to be the
Pharaoh of the Exile, and an enormous stretch of time separates these two events in the history of the
Jewish people–the Wandering in the Desert, the Conquest of Canaan, and the period of the judges and the
Kings down to the last king of the Davidian Dynasty.
Having exposed here the main theme of this volume, let me express the hope that every thoughtful
reader will postpone judgment until he has considered the evidence in all its details, which range from
ancient texts in cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and Hebrew, to autobiographies and portraits, to ancient
topographical maps and plans of battle, to archaeological stratigraphy. The centuries both preceding and
following2 the decades described in this volume constitute together, in the reconstruction of ancient
history, a monolithic oneness.
Chapter 1
The Battle of Kadesh-Carchemish

Who Was Pharaoh Necho, the Adversary of Nebuchadnezzar?

The Assyrian Empire tottered and fell. Despite the aid of Egypt, the Babylonians and the Medes
captured Nineveh and burned it. In the ensuing years they were busy dividing Assyria.
In -608 the king of Egypt moved toward the Euphrates (II Kings 23:29), marching with his troops on the
military road that ran along the coast. When he came to Megiddo Pass he found his way obstructed by
Josiah, the king of Jerusalem. The king of Egypt sent emissaries to him, saying: “I come not against thee
this day. ... Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him.” In the battle King Josiah was mortally
wounded by Egyptian dart throwers (II Chronicles 35:21–24).
The pharaoh proceeded northward toward Carchemish on the Euphrates. In Jerusalem the people chose
Jehoahaz, the second son of Josiah, to be king. But after three months the pharaoh put him in chains in
Riblah in the land of Hamath and sent him to Egypt. The pharaoh then appointed Eliakim, the elder brother
of Jehoahaz, to be king in Jerusalem and changed his name to Jehoiakim. From the land of Judea he
exacted a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold (II Kings 23:33–34)..
During the following years Riblah in northern Syria was the military headquarters of the pharaoh, who
apparently visited there yearly.
Three years after the first campaign the pharaoh brought from Egypt a great army and fought at
Carchemish on the Euphrates against Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army. The Egyptian host was
defeated and dispersed, and the pharaoh hurriedly retreated toward Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar pursued the
beaten army but stopped at the border of Egypt and because of some dynastic troubles returned to
Babylon. For the next few years Syria and Palestine were under the undisputed domination of Babylon.
Riblah was made the military headquarters of Nebuchadnezzar, and Jehoiakim became his vassal.
Some time later the pharaoh renewed his military and political activities in southern Palestine. After
capturing Askelon, he proceeded northward. Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar
sent an army of Chaldeans and Syrians against Jerusalem. Jehoiakim was captured and executed,1 and
Nebuchadnezzar placed the young Jeconiah (Jehoiachin), son of Jehoiakim, on the throne of his father in
Jerusalem. The Egyptian army retreated to the borders of Egypt, behind the river (Wadi) el-Arish.
Jeconiah reigned only three months. Nebuchadnezzar, suspicious and uncertain whether the new king of
Jerusalem would keep faith with Babylon, once more marched against Jerusalem and besieged it. The boy
king, in his desire to save the city and its people, went out to Nebuchadnezzar to establish his loyalty. He
was sent to Babylon together with “all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, ten thousand
captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths.” Only the poor were left. Jeconiah remained in prison in
Babylon for thirty-seven years, until the death of Nebuchadnezzar (II Kings 25:27).
When Jeconiah was taken to Babylon, Zedekiah, the third son of Josiah, was appointed to be king. The
removal of the wealthy, the influential, and the skilled from Jerusalem did not insure against a new
rebellion. Despite all that had happened before, the freedom-loving people of Jerusalem desired a war of
independence, in which they expected help from the pharaoh. Eight years after Zedekiah was appointed
king he revolted. Nebuchadnezzar came with all his forces against Jerusalem and besieged it. The pharaoh
moved along the coast with his troops into southern Palestine. The Chaldean army withdrew from
Jerusalem “for fear of Pharaoh’s army” (Jeremiah 37:11) and, in order not to be outflanked, marched