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Egyptian New Chronology

Or Could the Biblical history be True?

Page 7

 7) The Date of Joseph's Famine
 

Allow me to take this oportunity to briefly recapitulate my previous steps.  I began by telling you how problematic the Egyptian chronology was when we apply it to Palestinian (and many other Near-East nations) archeology (section 1).  I then showed you how this chronology actually lay on quicksand (sections 2 to 4).  And then I introduced you to Mike Sanders chronology (section 5).  (I also revised this chronology for New Kingdom, in a side project, also on this site)  I then went on to completely reinterpret the available epitomes of the first book of Manetho's Aegyptiaca.  Using this new model together with my reassessing of Sanders' Chronology, I finished my previous page by giving approximate dates for (Africanus) dynasties 1 to 8, as well as some parameters for dynasties 9 to 11.  Throughout this process, I used Sanders cycle of 54 years between main catastrophies (mostly famine and Earthquakes, not sure about the rest) as well as the one (2256 BC) which he links with Menes' unification of Upper and Lower Egypt as a starting point.  I then relied mostly on the chronological dates rescued from the Palermo stone and Turin's Papirus as well as on the broad sequence given by monumental lists (Abydos, mostly) and Manetho.  From the later, you might have noticed that I only used his reign lenghts when it was confirmed by other documents.  This is about to change.

With the second and third book of Manetho, the archeology of Egypt as often proven him to be quite exact, well at least for the very well knowned dynasties.  Here is a list of things to beware when using Manetho's reign lenghts (Mrl), all of which should be taken into account (I'm even sure that many from the 1st book could be shown accurate using these same steps):

  1. Of course, the Mrl can simply be wrong, either because of a copying mistake or because of Manetho himself.  This solution should only be used if we have archeological records to prove it and all else fails to cope with it.
  2. Often, Mrl are increased (or more rarely decreased) by 1 or several full decades.  (for exemple a king who actually ruled 23 years, Suphis [Khufu], has been given 63 in Manetho.)  This can be explained by transcription errors, or because, back when Manetho was writing, there was a competion between nations for the "who's the oldest" title, adding a few decades here and there would help Egypt's political agenda (but not us who seek the actual historical truth).
  3. Now, assuming the rl is ok, then it can actually reflect two differents historical facts: the exact rl of the king, of course, but also, if there was a co-regency, than it might exclude its lenght.  For exemple, if king A ruled for a total of 20 years, but took a co-regent, in his 15th year, then he might be given only 15 by Manetho.  It is my belief that, when Africanus and Eusebius give different lenghts, one could be giving the full rl, and the other the one without the co-rengencies.
  4. Finally, most rl have been approximated to the year.  (Exemple, if king A ruled 4 years, 6 months 3 days, then Manetho will give 4 years...  or 5)  There is therefore almost no way of being sure if X years means X complete years and few months/days of a X+1th year, or actually X-1 complete year and the beginning of a Xth.  (I often assumed the second case.)
Now that we know how to deal with Manetho's date, we need to get back to the developpement of our new Egyptian Chronology.  I have found dates for dynasties 1 to 8 (in Africanus).  Logically, dynasty 8 (in Eusebius) began when the previous (7th of Eusebius) ended.  Parallel to it was the rival dynasty of Heracleopolis (which, I think, began with Ouserkare in the early 6th dynasty) as well as the more friendly theban 11th dynasty, whose beginning year is still unknown, mostly because of the "Dark Age" of the first intermediate period.  In the conventional chronology, dynasty 12 is used as a firm point to retrocalculate the dates of this chronology.  But, we rejected its anchor point.  Can we bring another?

Let's turn again to Mike Sanders chronlogy.  Here is part of the entry for the year 1665 ± (10+X) BC:
"Famine of Joseph at the time of Sesostris I."  Now, Joseph is dated by most Egyptologist to the Second Intermediate Period (SIP).  What makes Mr. Sanders think that he could have been the vizier of an earlier king of the 12th dynasty?  There are indeed multiple clues to suggest that the Israelites got in Egypt way earlier than traditionnally thought: archeologists have recently discovered, at Tell el-Daba in the land of Goshen, a layer of occupation by Egyptianised Asiatics, before the invasion of Egypt by the so-called Hyksos (also Asiatics), early in the SIP .  Moreover, a papyrus from the late Middle Kingdom (mid 13th dynasty) records the names of many Asiatic slaves, many with hebrew-like names.  These do indeed strongly suggest that Israelites were in Egypt before the end of 12th dynasty (the 13th being the kings who "knew not Joseph").  As for the reign of Sesostris I (actually Kheperkare Senousert I), we find the mention of a major famine in year 25.  Actually, some activity being recorded for that year indicates to me that the famine was thought to be almost finished.  Indeed, can it be a coincidence that, for the previous years (after the campaings of the 18th) no major royal activity are recorded?  Therefore, I suggest that we here have an historical record of Joseph's 7 years famine.  Since the famine would have built up as the "catastrophy" year was approaching, and than slowly recede, I think we can say that it's fourth year (and therefore Sesostris I's 22nd) fell in 1665 ± (10+X + 4) BC (adding for years to the margin because of the above assumption)  The Israelites arrived in Egypt in the Famine's second year, thus in 1667 ± (14+X) BC.

That's beautiful, but is there anyone known from the reign of Sesostris I that can be identified as Joseph?  The Bible tells us Pharaoh gave him a new name (Gn 41,45) but this "name" is easely translated as a title: Governor of the Sethroite nome (the region of Goshen).  While this title does represent Joseph, it can hardly be the real name given to him by Pharaoh.  But there was a very special personality from that time, one before whom "great personages bowed down before [...] at the outer door of the royal palace",  even though he wasn't king himself!  And who was that man?  His Egyptian name was Mentouhotep, but, along with Sanders, it is quite confidently that I identify him with the biblical Joseph.  His titles included vizier, chef judge, overseer of the double granary, chief treasurer, chief architec, favorite of the king, and many others.  The Bible tells us he was 30 when appointed vizier (Gn 41,46) in the first of 7 years of plenty, i.e. in 1675 ± (14+X) BC, Sesostris 12th year, according to the above calculations, and died when he was 110 years old (Gn 50,22), 70 years latter, in 1605 ± (14+X).  As we will see, this date falls within the later reign of Sesostris II, in whose time a Mentuhotep (the same one?) built his tomb!

So...  This is indeed beautiful!  But does this "Sanders Date" works well with the biblical date for Joseph?  Let's compute that one.  Biblical chronology as been shown to be excellent (within a year or two) from the year the kingdom of Solomon was divided between Reoboam and Jeroboam by biblical scholar Thiele.  Let's use a 2 year error margin, for safety: the kingdom was divided in 931 ± 2 BC.  Before that, we've got Solomon's reign.  The Bible sais it lasted 40 years, a number that many scholars look as suspect (40s appear in lot of places in the Bible).  Let's accept the figure as correct to within a few years, say 2.  But this is not all: was the 40th year a complete one?  We also know that some Hebrew kings only began their first reign year on the next New Year's day, while others, as the Egyptians, considered their first year to be the same calendrical year as the last year of their predecessor.  So, this imposes a possible error of 2 additional years.  So year 4 of salomon fell in 967 ± 6 BC.  Why the 4th year you ask?  Because the Bible sais that the exodus happened 480 years before, hence 1447 ± 7 BC (adding one year to the margin, beacause that lenght could be inclusive or not).  Now, the lenght of the Egyptian Sojourn was 430 years.  But wait!  The Septuagin version of the Bible (as well as a New Testament epistole) states that this lenght encompases BOTH the sojourn in Canaan and Egypt.  The first one can be easely reconed as 215 years, thus leaving a furthur 215 years for the Egyptian sojourn.  Now, this 215 dates represents 4 "Sanders cycle", (this is only one exemple of classical texts from which Mike Sanders derived his idea and shows that it might have been  recognised as a chronological mean by the ancients).  So, 4 cycles equal to 2 more incertain years.  So we find a biblical date of 1662 ± 9 BC.  Considering the error margins, this is vertually identical to the 1667 ± (14+X) BC of Mike Sander's cyclical chronology!!!  (Note, since I started this research to verify Sanders' claims, I will keep using his dates, anyway, he himself most probably did the same calculation I've done here, and than found the closest date to it)

We now have a new secure date (within reasonable error margins) thanks to the Bible: year 22 of Pharaoh Kheperkare Senousert I fell in 1665 ± (14+X).  He therefore became king in 1686 ± (14+X) BC.  He then died in his 46th year, which accordingly fell in 1641 ± (14+X).  From here, we'll be able to develop a chronology 1) working backward, for the last kings of Manetho's first book, which will hopefully tie in with the dates already developed for the old kingdom, and 2) working forward, for the later kings of the 12th dynasty and then those of the 13th.
 


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