Moses as General Nysumontu?
by
Damien F. Mackey
“…. The king gives Sinuhe a sarcophagus of gold and lapis lazuli as a housewarming gift.
The gift of a coffin by the king was considered a great honor and a sign of respect.
In the Autobiography of Weni from the Old Kingdom, Weni records that the king had given him
a white sarcophagus and “never before had the like been done in this Upper Egypt.” …”.
Courtney Dotson
This quote, full of revisionist significance as I believe, is one that I had already presented in my article on an Egyptianised Moses:
Moses a Judge in Egypt
For indeed (Exodus 11:3): “... Moses was considered a very great man in the land of Egypt, respected by Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptian people alike”.
And again (Act 7:22): “Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action”.
What may we glean from Courtney Dotson’s statement above?
Well, if Sinuhe was a literary Moses in Egypt, then that name may be the key to the name “Moses”,
which is Moshe (מֹשֶׁ֗ה) in Hebrew.
The name “Sinuhe” does not immediately remind one of the name “Moshe”, though.
However, as I noted in my Introduction to the above article, the Tale of Sinuhe (however garbled it may have become over time), must have been based upon the Exodus story of Moses:
Professor Immanuel Anati has recognized this Egyptian story, the famous Tale of Sinuhe, as having “a common matrix” [Mountain of God, p. 158] with the Exodus account of Moses’ flight from pharaoh to the land of Midian. This is absolutely crucial for a true revision of ancient history – which should then fit the biblical history – because it pinpoints a famous biblical incident to a very specific era of Egyptian history: namely, the end (perhaps by assassination) of the reign of pharaoh Amenemes I, founder of the Twelfth dynasty, and the early reign of Sesostris I.
And herein we also pick up that crucial chronological detail, that Sinuhe-Moses had fled to Midian (when he was “forty”, according to Acts 7:23), during the reign of pharaoh Sesostris I of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty, after the death of pharaoh Amenemes I, who, in turn, was, I am convinced, the oppressive “new king” of Exodus 1:8, reigning when Moses was born. See e.g. my article:
Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel
In this same article I had, based upon some striking parallels between Amenemes I and Teti - and following Dr. Donovan Courville in his notion (though not details) that the so-called Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt may have been concurrent - identified Teti of supposedly the Sixth Dynasty (Old Kingdom) with Amenemes I of supposedly the Twelfth Dynasty (Middle Kingdom).
This now enabled me for a ‘double-grab’ at Moses, as both an old and a Middle Kingdom notable.
Hence my connecting (quote above) of the genius Weni with the semi-mythical Sinuhe.
The early Sixth Dynasty, whose successive kings Teti and Pepi (= Merenre?) the high official Weni is known to have served - as General, Chief Judge and Vizier - were now to be merged with the early Twelfth Dynasty kings, Amenemes I and Sesostris I.
Sinuhe is hugely important in all of this.
The Tale of Sinuhe became ever more famous down through the centuries of Egyptian history and was popular, we are told with Senenmut (Senmut), the great Steward of the Eighteenth Dynasty’s female ruler, Hatshepsut. That is not surprising if scholars are right in identifying Sinuhe with Moses, and I, in identifying Senenmut with Moses’ great fellow Israelite, King Solomon.
Seeking the roots of the name, “Moses”
“When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.
She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water’.”
Exodus 2:10
The famous Tale of Sinuhe, copied and re-copied, must have become distorted and inaccurate over time. For example, Sinuhe’s warm reception by pharaoh Sesostris I upon his return from exile does not square at all with the fact that the oppressive old guard individuals in Egypt whom Moses had known were no longer alive upon his return (Exodus 4:19): “Now the LORD had said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead’.”
Whilst the name, Weni, appears (at least to me) to be some kind of nickname, of which the Egyptians and Israelites were rather fond, but having no discernible relation to the name Moses, the name Sinuhe seemed to hold somewhat more promise.
As I have pointed out on previous occasions, Petrie regarded the first element of the name Sinuhe, or Sanehat, the Sa, as the Egyptian word for “son”:
sȝ, sȝt (G39) —(en:Gardiner's Sign List)
And I would take the nu element to indicate “water”
n (N35) —(en:Gardiner's Sign List)
Egyptian hieroglyph: Water ripple: phonogram n.
The last part of the name, he, or hat (= Hathor), is simply the standard theophoric element that was added to Egyptian names.
In light of this, the name “Sinuhe” might reflect the name “Moses” as a ‘son of the water’, or ‘born (drawn) from the water’: that is, A water baby.
Moses originally had an Egyptian name that sounded almost exactly like a Hebrew name.
The pun involved in the name is elaborate and crosses languages. Names like Tutmose, Ramose, Amenmose are well attested from Egypt. The addition of -mose makes it "born of Amen," "child of Tut," or "shaped by Ra." Obviously, these are names of piety, showing the child's attachment to the patron god. The final "s" on Moses (Hebrew Moshe) comes from Greek which does not allow masculine names to end with a vowel (Yeshua becomes Jesus, Moshe becomes Moses. You will also note that the Hebrew "sh" in both became the Greek "s" as koine Greek does not have the "sh" sound).
An oddity is that the Hebrew name is active (Moshe) instead of passive (Mashuy). One might expect that his being drawn out would result in his name meaning "one who is drawn out" instead of "one who draws out." However, this is a wordplay, not a precise description. The exegete should not try to be more precise than the original author or speaker intends to be.
It would be unlikely (but not impossible) that the princess would know the language of the slaves. However, everything she has already said has been recorded in Hebrew.
Most likely, her words were in Egyptian and translated into Hebrew (some might argue that she said little beyond the name and the rest of the phrase was placed in her mouth by later writers, but this seems unlikely).
Having found the child in the Nile, the source of life for Egypt, the princess could easily have seen the child as given by divine providence. It is possible that she gave him a longer name (perhaps Ramose after the sun god or Hapimose after the god of the Nile).
Translating the princess' words allowed for a sophisticated pun. The name brought to mind his later works and the translation was rather free (as it often was in those days). Perhaps she said in Egyptian, "I will call his name 'Mose', for he was born from the water." The the Hebrew pun is natural and requires only a small modification to her words when translating: "I will call his name 'Moses,' for I drew him out of the water."
Where the Egyptian means "born," it sounds very like the Hebrew "drawn out." "The one who draws out" is how Moses has always been remembered (Isa 63:11). The princess drew him from the river to give him physical life. He drew the Israelites out of Egypt through the water and gave them spiritual life.
He was born with a great destiny, and even his name and circumstances of his naming showed that.
[End of quote]
Further connecting Sinuhe and Weni-Mentuhotep
A likely further Twelfth Dynasty link is general Nysumontu, described, like Weni, as a “genius”, and perhaps combining Sinuhe elements, Ni-su, or Su-ni, with Mentuhotep (through Montu).
Margaret Bunson mentions Nysumontu in connection with pharaoh Amenemes (Amenemhet) I in Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (p. 26):
Amenemhet) I proved an efficient administrator and militarily astute ruler. He established his new capital between the boundaries of Upper and Lower Egypt in order to have increased control of the Delta. He also erected the Wall of the Prince, a series of forts that safeguarded Egypt’s eastern and western borders. He founded Semna fort in Nubia and routed the Bedouins on the Sinai peninsula, using the genius of General Nysumontu.
We know that Weni had battled a Bedouin people known as the “Sand-dwellers” at least five times.
And Dr. Breasted mentions in relation to the inscriptions of Sesostris I, who was Sinuhe’s pharaoh, a “General Mentuhotep”.
“On the Sinai front, General Nysumontu reported a victory over the Bedouins in the 24th year of Amenemhat’s reign – this would have safeguarded the turquoise mining operations at El-Kadim in Sinai. At the same time, diplomatic relations were resumed with Byblos and the Aegean world”.
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