New Revision for Ramses II
by
Damien F. Mackey
“[Rameses III’s] … children turned out to resemble Rameses II’s
not only in their names but also in their early deaths”.
N. Grimal
Part One:
Some ‘ramifying’ similarities
Should revisionists perhaps have realised, in their efforts to streamline the later Egyptian history, that the troublesome Ramses II ought to be merged with the similarly troublesome Ramses III?
From N. Grimal (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, 1994) we can pick up certain amazing similarities between pharaoh Ramses (or Rameses, Ramesses) II, conventionally - but quite wrongly - dated to c. 1200 BC, and Ramses III, conventionally dated to c. 1150 BC.
P. 271:
From the very outset Ramesses III’s role-model was Ramesses II. His successors also modelled themselves on the earlier Ramesses, but it was Ramesses III who went to the greatest lengths, from the choice of his titulature to the construction of a mortuary temple copying the plan of the Ramesseum.
…. Like Ramesses II, he had to deal with a very delicate state of affairs in his foreign policy. The Libyans … in the western Delta …. Ramesses managed to defeat this new [sic] onslaught, and was even able to incorporate a number of the Libyan captives into the Egyptian army.
Pp. 274-275
…. The [Medinet Habu] texts and military representations were a monument … to the fact that Ramesses III’s exploits could transform him into an archetypal figure removed from his own specific place in time.
My comment: This is precisely what conventional history has done to Ramses III, ‘removed him from his own specific place in time’].
… the king was represented as eternally victorious not only over the Libyan confederations, but also over the enemies conquered by Ramesses II.
…. The wars of Ramesses III were also depicted on the inner walls of the temple in the first and second courts. They stood alongside …. political representations, such as the list of Ramesses III’s sons on the west portico in the second court, in imitation of the list of the sons of Ramesses II in the Ramesseum.
… his children turned out to resemble Rameses II’s not only in their names but also in their early deaths.
P. 276
The reign of Ramesses III was followed by a rapid succession of eight kings …. All of them bore the name Ramesses and all claimed varying degrees of blood-link with Ramesses II.
Was it a case of same era; same dynasty; same titulature; same sons (pre-deceased); same Libyans; same Sea Peoples; and same person?
Part Two:
What other revisionists think
Dr. Velikovsky would choose the methodology that
I, too, have often favoured: alter egos.
With Dr. I Velikovsky’s lowering of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty by some 500-600 years on the time scale (his Ages in Chaos series), to coincide now with Israel’s United Monarchy and the early Divided Monarchy, the challenge for revisionists became to show how the later dynasties (19th-26th) could be fitted in to a much tighter time space.
Dr. Velikovsky would choose the methodology that I, too, have often favoured: alter egos.
He, in defiance of good archaeological sense - as conventional and astute revisionist scholars alike have agreed - well separated Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty (that of Ramses II ‘the Great’) from the Eighteenth Dynasty, and identified the Nineteenth Dynasty with the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.
Ramses II, conventionally dated to c. 1279-1213 BC, Velikovsky identified with pharaoh Necho II, conventionally dated to c. 610-595 BC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_in_Chaos
.... In Rameses II and His Time, Velikovsky identified each of the major 19th dynasty pharaohs with a corresponding pharaoh of the 26th dynasty. Thus, Rameses I becomes Necho I, Seti I becomes Psamtik I, Rameses II is Necho II, and Merneptah is Apries.
In order to make these identifications work, Velikovsky claims that the Hittite Empire is an invention of modern historians, and the supposedly Hittite archaeological remains in modern Turkey are actually Chaldean i.e. Neo-Babylonian.
The Hittite kings are held to be "ghost doubles" of the Neo-Babylonian kings, and therefore Rameses II's battle with the Hittites at Kadesh is identical to Necho's fight against Nebuchadrezzar II at Carchemish, Nabopolassar is Mursili II, Neriglissar is Muwatalli, Labashi-Marduk is Urhi-Teshup, and Nebuchadrezzar II is Hattusili III. ....
This, whilst ingenious, did not work.
For one thing, the neo-Hittite empire faced by Ramses II, and the neo-Babylonian empire, were geographically incompatible. They were also ethnically quite distinct.
In the case of pharaoh Ramses III, conventionally dated to c. 1186-1155 BC - and who has also become a problem for revisionism - Velikovsky, in Peoples of the Sea, moved that pharaoh all the way down to the C4th BC, to be identified with the Thirtieth Dynasty’s Nectanebo I, conventionally dated to c. 379/8-361/0 BC.
Dr. Donovan Courville, in his 2-volume The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications (1971), whilst following Dr. Velikovsky’s approximate re-location of the Eighteenth Dynasty, had shown a better appreciation of the archaeology involved by making the Nineteenth Dynasty follow on directly from the Eighteenth. As it should do.
For Dr. Courville, Ramses II was the biblical pharaoh “So” at the time (late C8th BC) of kings Hoshea of Israel and Shalmaneser [so-called V] of Assyria (2 Kings 17:4).
This, I suspect, is getting far closer to the mark.
It enabled for the Merenptah or “Israel” Stele of Ramses II’s son to coincide with the Fall of Samaria, appearing nicely to account for Merenptah’s statement: “… Israel is desolated, her seed is not …”.
Though, as scholars have since pointed out, why would an Egyptian pharaoh be memorialising a victory over Israel by the hated Assyrians (by Shalmaneser)?
Dr. Courville’s attempt to account for Ramses III in a now confined chronology saw him have to resort to dismissing the pharaoh as a fairly insignificant ruler of only a limited portion of Egypt (the Delta region) - which does not accord with the facts pertaining to the potent Ramses III.
Around 1978, the Glasgow Conference likewise rejected Dr. Velikovsky’s Ramses II initiative:
John Bimson writes:
"The Glasgow Conference was a watershed. It saw erstwhile supporters of Velikovsky's chronology parting company with him on important points, while still affirming his dating of the Exodus, the Hyksos period and the 18th Dynasty. The biggest departure was a rejection of his attempts to separate the 18th, 19th and 20th Dynasties."[2]
The result of the Conference was that Peter James, John Bimson and Geoffrey Gammon developed the "Glasgow Chronology", a major modification of Velikovsky’s proposals.
The James-Rohl Chronology
David Rohl and Peter James write:
"For some years now a number of the Society's historians have been endeavouring to provide a new model for ancient Near Eastern chronology in an attempt to answer the criticisms levelled at Velikovsky's work in Ages in Chaos, Ramses II and His Time and Peoples of the Sea. The original imaginative concept of Velikovsky's reconstruction has run into serious problems with regard to the method by which the so-called "phantom years" are eliminated from the conventional (and apparently extended) history of the region. [..]
"As a result of this disquiet over Velikovsky's later revision there grew a body of scholars whose objective was to provide an alternative method of reducing the history of Egypt by some 500 years as demanded by Ages in Chaos whilst retaining the synchronisms put forward in that volume. Some tentative steps in this direction were first made at the Glasgow Conference in April 1978, the Proceedings of which have now finally been published (SISR VI:1/2/3). Whilst it was agreed that Velikovsky's separation of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth Dynasties was impossible, it was still hoped that a revised chronology for the ancient Near East could be developed with Ages in Chaos as its starting point. An incomplete model embodying this approach subsequently became known as the "Glasgow Chronology". ….
Whether its proponents would be prepared to admit it or not, the Glasgow School was heavily influenced in many ways by the systematic and painstaking revision of Dr. Donovan Courville.
They, properly (e.g. on archaeological grounds) refusing to drag the Nineteenth Dynasty well away from the Eighteenth, made it inevitable that a new location for pharaoh Ramses II would be proposed.
Actually, some of those who were involved with the Glasgow School have more recently come to propose various different locations for Ramses II, for Ramses III.
Peter James set the ball rolling by locating Ramses II to the era of the long-reigning king of Israel, Jeroboam II (conventionally mid-C8th BC) (“A Critique of "Ramses II and His Time",” SIS Review v.3 No.2, Autumn 1978).
This was, I believe, at least a great improvement on both the conventional location of Ramses II and Velikovsky’s version of it. It was also the era that I would choose for Ramses II when writing my postgraduate thesis, with Ramses II then straddling c. 800 BC.
I now believe that this date is somewhat too early for him.
Martin Sieff (in “The Libyans in Egypt: Resolving the Third Intermediate Period”), bravely coming to grips with the troublesome TIP, would propose the following interesting location for Ramses III, with reference to Peter van der Veen: http://www.starways.net/lisa/essays/slibyans.html
Ramses III in the Age of the Libyans
Here I will follow Peter Van Der Veen's challenging points.[33] He brings out how Ramses III's army was led by "The first charioteer of his majesty Pre-hir-wen-hef, and the king's scribe and overseer of horses, prince Amon-hir-khopshef." Alongside the "Marjannu" charioteers of Ramses III's army, we may compare the horses and chariots of Egypt described by the Prophet Isaiah[34] in a context I have already argued belongs to the conditions of Ramses III's reign in the 720's, when the Twentieth Dynasty was riding high on the prestige of having defeated the Sea Peoples, but with a strength which, as Isaiah saw, was only adequate for defensive holding actions in the decline of Egyptian power.
Van Der Veen[35] compares Ramesses and Sethosis in the Manetho extract used by Josephus (Against Apion) to Ramses III. The Manetho pair had a naval force and destroyed those who met them at sea, just as Ramses III defeated the Peoples of the Sea. They led an expedition against Cyprus, and there is suggestive evidence that Ramses III's fleet raided that island.[36] This Sethosis campaigned against Phoenicia, the Assyrians, and the Medes. Ramses III fought against Tyre, Sidon, and the Philistines, and even against "Amor" which, Van Der Veen suggests, may have been an archaic term for Assyria.
Sethosis and Ramses had "an army of horses," which fits perfectly the might of Ramses III's chariot arm, also recorded by Isaiah. As Van Der Veen concludes, "It is likely that the Egyptian army of this time was famous for its powerful force of chariots."[37]
Decline and Fall of the Twentieth Dynasty
The Assyrian king Sennacherib, in his defeat of the Egyptian army, proudly boasted that he "personally captured alive the Egyptian charioteers with their princes and the charioteers of the king of Ethiopia."
This is a startling parallel to Josephus' report that after Sennacherib's army was destroyed at Jerusalem, Tirhaka, King of Ethiopia, and an (unnamed) pharaoh both escaped from his camp. With my 750-720 B.C. dates for Ramses III, and 710 for the destruction of the Assyrian army at Jerusalem,[38] I have identified this pharaoh as Ramses IV, an identification strongly supported by the star maps of his tomb. Michael Reade associates these with the Sennacherib catastrophe event when the sundial of Hezekiah regressed 10 degrees.[39]
Ramses IV died shortly afterward. The later Twentieth Dynasty rulers, the later Ramessides, were feeble and ineffectual. More and more, it was the Ethiopian Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, equipped with iron military technology, as the Assyrians were, far in advance of Egypt's weaponry,[40] who were the power in the land. But the great days of the Twenty-Second Dynasty had also passed. Presumably mauled in Ramses III's campaigns, they continued to hold local rule in their cities, but as the record of Shoshenq III -- as we take it -- in Assur-bani-pal's list indicates, it was simply one further line of princes aspiring to a long-past glory.
We may also note that Sennacherib in his great campaign recorded on the Taylor prism, described his meeting with the kings (plural) of Egypt. As Dirkzwager concludes, "The use of the plural squares with our conclusion that Libyans and Ramessids (and perhaps other dynasties) reigned simultaneously." It should be added that Dirkzwager assumes a 702 B.C. date for this event, whereas, following Antsey, I would place it at 710.
[End of quote]
More recently, the likes of David Rohl and Peter van der Veen have removed themselves far away from the Glasgow model, by identifying either Ramses II with the biblical “Shishak” (at the time of king Rehoboam of Judah, I Kings 14:25), or, Ramses III as “Shishak”.
Whilst David Rohl has opted for Ramses II as “Shishak”, Peter van der Veen, writing alongside David Ellis, has instead opted for Ramses III (“‘He Placed His Name in Jerusalem’: Ramesside Finds from Judah’s Capital”):
Thus the authors write (p. 271):
….
The late reign of Ramesses II, together with that of his son and successor Merenptah, would now overlap with the late reign of David and the early reign of Solomon; and the reign of Ramesses III would now be dated to the late years of Solomon and the years of his successor Rehoboam. ….
[End of quote]
Had not these new chronologists boldly promised back in the day:
The James-Rohl Chronology
"[..] For the last two years the writers, with the help of other historians, notably Geoffrey Gammon, have been actively pursuing yet another alternative revision - one which we hope involves no preconceptions based on anything which has gone before. The work has progressed slowly due to the immense amount of data that needs to be researched and collated but a new model for the history of Ancient Egypt is gradually evolving which appears to answer a great many of the anomalies of both the conventional and Velikovskian chronologies".[3]
[End of quote]
Their model “… involves no preconceptions based on anything which has gone before”.
It reminds me of the great “Un-learn” currently the fad at the University of Sydney (Australia).
Un-learn everything that has gone before Truth: Love; etc.
See my article:
Part Three:
A proposed new model for the Ramessides
We have already found in this series that Ramses III is something of a mirror-image of Ramses II,
as are the sons of Ramses III of the sons of Ramses II.
The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt consisted of a revered founder, Seti-nakht (Setnakhte), followed by the potent Ramses III, and then by a run of further Ramessides (IV - XI) all inferior to Ramses III.
In my revised model, with Ramses III identified as Ramses II, then Seti-nakht would be Seti, the father of Ramses II.
The other Ramessides (IV - XI) would then consist of the many sons and descendants of Ramses II.
Did the pharaoh not boast of having at least 100 sons (his many daughters being un-counted)?
Seti-nakht
Seti-nakht is not well-known per se, but he was someone much revered by his descendants, by contrast with the despised Aziru of the Great Harris Papyrus:
Is El Amarna’s Aziru Biblically Identifiable? Part Two: Aziru of Papyrus Harris
In my postgraduate thesis I wrote of Seti-nakht (Volume One, p. 248):
….
By stark contrast, the so-called 20th dynasty Ramessides looked to the founder of that dynasty, Seti-nakht, as a hero, and it is he, not Aziru, who is celebrated in the papyrus:671
“But the writer’s only purpose here was to extol the new sovereign of Egypt … Setnakhte …”. Gardiner, having highlighted the contrast, then has to fall back here upon that stock phrase:672 “Little is known about Setnakhte except that he was the father of the great king
Ramesses III and the husband of the latter’s mother Tiye-merenese”. According to Grimal:673 “[Seti-nakht] … announced that he had ‘driven out the usurper’ … and Papyrus Harris I cites him as the reorganizer of the country”. ….
Ramses III
We have already found in this series that Ramses III is something of a mirror-image of Ramses II, as are the sons of Ramses III of the sons of Ramses II.
One significant difference, at least from a conventional point of view, is that the reign of Ramses III is thought to have been only half the length of that of Ramses II.
I would now favour for pharaoh Ramses II an era closer to that assigned to him by Dr. Courville, around the late C8th BC - rather than straddling c. 800 BC as I had him before.
And with Ramses II now identified with Ramses III (as I see it), then that would accord with the view of Martin Sieff that Ramses III approximates to the neo-Assyrian era of Sennacherib.
With my later (than Sennacherib) neo-Assyrian era collapsing into the neo-Babylonian era,
Ashurbanipal the Great
then I would now also expect to find Ramses II continuing on into the Chaldean times – which does accord with Velikovsky’s placement of him. Though my details and identifications, and archaeology, would differ greatly from Velikovsky’s here.
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