Mississippi River Pioneers

Some of you may not be aware that I am also an historian of the early settlements on the Upper Mississippi.  Today I have started a new blog called Mississippi River Pioneers.  If you are interested in American history of the Midwest, mostly of the 19th Century, go to this link:

http://mississippiriverpioneers.blogspot.com/

The view in the photo is of the area near Prairie du Chien, where the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers converge. 

A Little Nefertiti Logic

Last night, sleepless from too much sleep due to having been in bed for a couple of days on account of a nasty virus, I was struck by a jolt of logic.  In 1999, as many of you know, I published an online paper with the title, "Do We Have the Mummy of Nefertiti?"   If you haven't already read it, you can find it here:

 http://www.oocities.org/scribelist/do_we_have_.htm

Ever since Dr. Hawass et al published the JAMA paper on the DNA of the family of Tutankhamun, there has been, among the online Egyptolophiles, the knee-jerk reaction that, because she has now been confirmed as a daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, the mummy the "Younger Lady from KV35" cannot possibly be Queen Nefertiti.  But the fact remains I first got the idea that KV35YL could be Akhenaten's wife because of physical resemblances of the remains to her portraits.  There are quite a few, and I point them all out in my paper.  I do admit to having had doubts that the KV35YL can have been a daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye because their [at the time purported but now confirmed] mummies are excessively short in stature and the KV35YL is taller. At 5' 2", the YL is taller than her father and certainly taller than the 4' 9" Queen Tiye. 

But here's the thing.  No matter what arguments people line up against the KV55 individual and the KV35YL being Akhenaten and Nefertiti, it seems an undisputed fact that Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye had a daughter who looked like Nefertiti, possessed the physical attributes evidenced by that lady's portraits [when she was allowed to look like herself and not like a strange version of Akhenaten].  Put differently, Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye were capable of engendering a Nefertiti or someone who resembled her greatly--down to the extraordinarily long, swanlike neck.  Logic and DNA dictate it must be so.  After I had proposed that the KV35YL might be Nefertiti, another woman, Susan James, took a good look at the Elder Lady and concluded that *she* looked like Nefertiti and advocated this identification.  There is no hope for Ms. James' theory now, evidently, but perhaps James' perception of a resemblance was not far off the mark.  For more, please do a search on the blog post "Tutankhamun's Family Tree--the Possibilities" here.

Granddaughter, Danya, making obeisance to the royals

Hatshepsut's Obelisk, Astronomy, and Why Thutmose Went East

In my last post on Hatshepsut's obelisk and its telling inscription, I contented myself that the date of its completion, the 30th day of the 4th month of Shomu, was well within the season of the Nile flooding.  I also observed that the inundation should have begun 40 days earlier, around the 20th day of the 3rd month of Shomu, for the waters to have achieved a maximum depth for floating the monument downstream to Thebes from Aswan.   Based on all that, I speculated that around 32 years had lapsed since the end of the reign of Amenhotep I.

Having done a little more astronomical research, I find I now have to contemplate [in addition to taking into consideration lunar data from the reign of Thutmose III] a spectacular eclipse in the reign of Mursili II, king of the Hittites, which places the beginning of his reign in a much-accepted 1322 BCE--around the time of the death of Tutankhamun of Egypt.  Therefore, I have become convinced that a better date for Year 22 of Thutmose III could be 1457 BCE of the Middle Chronology.  The new moon [or "no moon"] for 21 Pakhons in that year would have fallen on Sunday, May 9.

Moreover, it would seem that, counting backwards from 1457, the Year 16 of the obelisk inscription [no matter whose Year 16 it was] we would arrive at 1463.  Much study into the matter of when Sirius could best be sighted in that year [progression, etc.] has led me to July 10 or 21 Epiphi [3rd month of Shomu].  Whether this was at Memphis or Thebes, I am still not certain.   Regardless, that amounts to 36 years having gone by since the end of the reign of Amenhotep I.  If it was really Year 16 of Hatshepsut [using the count of the true king, Thutmose III] that would mandate 20 years for the interim rulers.   If it was actually only her Year 13 [she having appropriated 3 years of Thutmose II and made a fictional Year 7 coincide with Year 4 of her nephew, Thutmose III]---the entire 20 years would have belonged to the reign of Hatshepsut's father, Thutmose I.   Why, then, did Hatshepsut celebrate a Heb-sed in her Year 15?   She might claim that her father had made her a co-king in his Year 2, but 15 and 18 add up to 33.  However, 18 and 12 [the actual number of her "Year 15"] add up to 30.   Perhaps Hatshepsut was no more scrupulous about math than she was about history.  Although I wish I could be absolutely certain of how long Thutmose I and II ruled, there is still room for doubt in that area.  However, my shift from the High to the Middle Chronology has led me to ponder something new which is--why did Thutmose go to war in the 22nd Year of his sole reign at the time that he did?  I thought that seemed clear enough previously--but now I think there's more to it.

In my article, "Ruler of the Stars", reproduced on this blog, I wrote the following:  "In the era of Menkheperre Thutmose III, the months of the civil calendar did not have names, only numbers from one to twelve. Much later, names were derived from the main feast days of each month. Even in more modern times, the farmers said, “Baramhat [Phamenoth], go to the field and fetch.” This means that in this month, which ideally runs through part of April, the harvest is in full swing. Then came the saying, “Barmuda [Pharmouti], pound with the rod”, April/May being the time for threshing. By May/June there is nothing left in the field and that’s why one declared, “Bashans [Pakhons] sweeps the field entirely.” So the sayings remained, but the civil months were only in their proper season for limited times in pharaonic history as their calendar did not employ leap years and therefore wandered through the three naturally-occurring seasons of Egypt, Inundation, Winter and Summer. Only after another 1,460 years did the civil calendar and these seasons synchronize fully once again and the sighting of the star, Sirius [spdt] occurred on New Year’s Day, the beginning of the month of Thaout."

All those who do not believe in what the Hebrew Bible has to say about an exodus from Egypt can tune out now.  Or keep an open mind and read on.   This will be interesting. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, claimed that this exodus had taken place in the month of Pharmouti.  No doubt he was going by the Alexandrian Calendar, which was a reformation of the old Egyptian civil calendar, accomplished in 30 BCE.  By the Alexandrian or Coptic Calendar, Pharmouti runs from April 9 through May 8.   Of course, that would seem  convenient for the 15th of Nisan, the date designated for the great event, generally celebrated in April by the Passover commemoration.   And, yes, for many years prior to Year 22 of Thutmose III, 1457 BCE, 15 Nisan did fall in April by retroactive calculation.  But, in 1457, 15 Nisan fell on March 27.   This may have no significance, as in subsequent years in the reign of Menkheperre 15 Nisan fluctuated between late March and April.  In another post here, "From Memphis to Gaza", I wrote regarding the itinerary of Thutmose III on his first big Asiatic campaign: " It only required two days for Meshullam of Volterra to get from Cairo to where the desert began and, at most, the pharaoh's army needed four on foot--unless they by some chance had some business to conduct at Avaris in the eastern Delta. Were it not for a lacuna where it stated the day of departure from Memphis, we might have a pretty good idea if there were any protracted stops along the way to Djaru. If the army went straight through, it probably left Memphis on the 21st Day of the fourth month of winter."  That would have been Julian April 9, 1457 BCE.  And this is where it gets intriguing.

The fact remains we really don't know the date of departure.  It can have been even earlier. Also, Egyptology has generally assumed that, once Hatshepsut was out of the picture, Thutmose went east with a large army as soon as he could in order to show the Canaanites he was no weakling, despite having been second to a woman in his land for so many years.   This is but the merest speculation--but what if he had a much more pressing reason to make war on the Levantines, those so-called "rebellious princes"?   What if, in Year 22, the Egyptian crops had failed and it was necessary to get wheat from Asia?  According to the annals of the ever-victorious pharaoh, numerous sacks of it were collected as spoils that year--at least 207,300 of them.  As has been stated, the king's army could hardly leave Memphis any later than the 21st of Pharmouti if one had arrived at Djaru, the fortress, on the 25th.   Since the wheat and the rye supposedly ripen in late March or early April in Egypt, that would have left scarcely any time for the men to finish the harvest by April 9, much less for a great army to be mustered from among the peasantry.  Not in 1457 BCE!

Moreover, if there is no harvest to speak of and that lack had been known for some time, it was also possible for Thutmose to stop at Avaris in March and make a siege of that city.  According to the Book of Exodus, the flax and the barley, which are generally ripe in late February or early March, had matured prior to the damaging hail and the subsequent invasion of locusts.  There was nothing green left in Egypt after that--except in the Land of Goshen [the eastern Delta], which had been spared.  If there was going to be a year of famine in Year 22, it would not matter who had been spared.  Food had to come from somewhere in order to feed the nation.  Could one really say "We had a severe shortage and so we stole the crops of the Canaanites?"  Better to blame everything on some rebellious princes.  Centuries later, Manetho, an Egyptian historian, wrote that a king "Thummosis" besieged Avaris but ended up coming to an agreement with those who had taken refuge within the city, allowing all of what seems to have been a foreign element to depart without bloodshed.  If this had taken place in March, there would not have been time for a long siege, anyway, given the likely plan of Thutmose to get to Canaan in time to harvest and take away its winter wheat.  At any rate,  the day of departure on March 27 would have fallen on a Saturday with  the night previous having evidenced a full moon--IF the 15th of Nisan was involved.   Even if it wasn't, Thutmose may have gone to war to avoid hunger in his country.

The Reign of Thutmose III/Hatshepsut--Three Lost Years

In an earlier article on this blog, "Neferura--Heir Apparent" I wrote:

"It is scarcely any wonder, then, in light of the above image, that William Petty, in a couple of articles, has pointed out that there are no unambiguous inscriptions of Thutmose III between his Year 5 and Year 13. Where was he and what was he up to? But, sometime after Year 13, Hatshepsut changed her mind and Thutmose began to appear with her on monuments albeit in a secondary position. Then, in her Year 21, Hatshepsut, herself, becomes absent from the record. Under the circumstances, I have to agree with Petty that Thutmose found it convenient to continue the last regnal date of the woman-king. He may have been the rightful sovereign, but it now seems to me he had been deposed, not merely eclipsed, and was not expected to ever resume his kingship during a certain period."

William Petty's paper in the journal, Ostracon, "Redating the Reign of Hatshepsut" can be found here:

http://www.egyptstudy.org/ostracon/vol12_2.pdf

Upon re-reading this paper, I discovered something that would have made no sense to me had I not been doing the calculations connected to the obelisk  inscription of Hatshepsut, described on this blog.   There I concluded the progression of the Sothic sighting within the civil calendar showed 32 years had gone by between the end of the reign of Amenhotep I and Year 16 of  Hatshepsut, leaving 16 years for the interim rulers.  These I apportioned as 13 for Thutmose I and three for Thutmose II.

Now it appears that may be exactly right.   William Petty mentioned that the Donation Stela of Senenmut was a perplexing item.  Even though it is evidently  dated to Year 4 of Thutmose III,  "Maatkara", the prenomen of Hatshepsut, is mentioned and the mortuary temple of the queen and Senenmut's tomb are referenced.  However, there is ample evidence that neither of these were begun until Year 7, which some regard as the year of the "switch" from Hatshepsut as regent to a ruler with full pharaonic titulary.  How is it possible for things not constructed until Year 7 to be mentioned in Year 4?  The answer is now obvious.

William Petty suggested the regnal years of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut were "artificially synchronized", but he did not say exactly when.  He was correct, in my opinion, but I think my astronomical calculations serve to reinforce the assertion of Petty that, if taken at face value, the Donation Stela implies that Year 4 of Thutmose III was coincidental with Year 7 of Hatshepsut. Therefore when she  became a "woman-king"--Hatshepsut did not adopt the regnal count of Thutmose III--exactly.  Hatshepsut counted her reign back to the death of her father, Thutmose I, and, in doing so, appropriated or rather obliterated the entire three-year rule of her half-brother, Thutmose II.  And that is why she asserted the fictitious claim that her father made her his successor when she was still young--so she could not only usurp the throne of her nephew but claim the three regnal years of her dead husband as her own, in addition.   That is how Year 4 of Menkheperra became Year 7 of Maatkara--she usurping the entire time that had passed since Thutmose I had "flown to heaven".  Even though Thutmose III apparently hung on for yet another year, his Year 5----there is nothing that attests to his kingship for some years afterward.

Once he reappeared on the scene, the year count no longer belonged to Thutmose III.  As he was re-instated as a kind of "junior partner" of his aunt, he had no choice but to assume her false regnal count with her and, after she disappeared in her year 21, it was no longer practical to go back three years to his own count as by  now hundreds of records were surely in existence using Hatshepsut's dubious reckoning.  Since these records had to be referenced in legal disputes, to go back instead of foreward would have resulted in chaos.  Doubtless many would disagree with me and say that there were retrospective additions to the Donation Stela--but Petty could not see this.  I have not been able to examine the stela, myself.  However, one must admit my reasoning addresses the question of why would Hatshepsut wait a full seven years to usurp her nephew's prerogative with the boy or young man growing older every year and ostensibly more firmly ensconced on his throne?  Probably she did not wait seven years at all.

More On Substitution Portraits

The Theban tomb of Sennedjem was found intact and contained the man, his wife, and some of their relatives.  Their coffins were beautifully decorated, even though the mummies of Sennedjem and spouse, Iyneferti, were discovered to be switched.  Nevertheless, that Sennedjem's outer coffin was made in the long reign of Ramesses II is rather obvious from the coffin's face--not that of Sennedjem but that of the sovereign.  Just like the face of the actual mummy of Ramesses the Great, the right eye is somewhat smaller than the left. 

However, the most realistic portrait of Ramesses II I have ever seen is below:

The detail is not very good in this scanned image but a haughtier portrait is difficult to imagine.  Note that the right eye is, once again, smaller than the left and there is the big, puffy chin under the smallish mouth of what is supposed to be a portrait of the scribe, May.  I cannot recall where the statue resides.

Granville's Mummy Died of TB

This news is 2 years old but still interesting.  Here is a report on Granville's Mummy, one that was unwrapped in the 19th Century:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0910/09100104

and here is a contemporary report from a witness to the unwrapping, from a bit in the London Magazine:

http://tinyurl.com/78cfbvc

Granville found a tumor in the remains and figured the woman, Irtyersenu, had died of cancer, but the tumor was actually benign.

From Nurses to Queens

In the winter of 2005 I published a piece in Britain's Ancient Egypt Magazine called "The Head-dress of Lady Rai".  The point of the article was that the indentations on the forehead of a female mummy from the Deir el Bahari cache, named Rai, seemed to conform to the joins on a golden headdress of another [lost?] mummy, Satdjehuty, as depicted on her mask in the British Museum.   The joins, as visible in a larger image, have been traced over in red by me to demonstrate just how they line up with the bottom of the head-dress.  Here are the relevant images:

I no longer have a copy of my own article but, if I recall correctly,  there were nurses of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari named Satdjehuty and Rai, the latter's coffin being in the Deir el Bahari cache but containing the corpse of Queen Inhapi.  Rai's head-dress seems to have gone slightly askew but that of Inhapi slipped down so much onto her face that it crushed her nose and left a pattern of its rishi-feathers on her face. More about the mummy of "Rai", shown here, can be found on Max Miller's website at:

http://members.tripod.com/anubis4_2000/mummypages1/Early18.htm#Rai

I also remember that, even while writing my piece for the magazine, I wondered how anyone knew the BM mask belonged to Satdjehuty as the visible inscription did not evidence such a name.  Now I know the answer.   The burial of Satdjehuty was discovered around 1820, according to Wiki, but how that is known eludes me.  The lady, being a king's daughter, king's sister, and king's wife, seems to have been a consort of Seqenenre Tao II.  Her nickname was "Satibu".   Her mummy mask went to the British Museum but the remains of her wooden sarcophagus was acquired by Munich, where it was exhibited in 1999.  That Satdjehuty was a queen is known from the Munich artifact.  In 2005 I could find nothing indicating that the Satdjehuty of the BM mask was a queen and opinions fluctuated between "lady of the court" and "princess".  Even now the BM website does not recognize this Satdjehuty as a queen.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/m/mummy_mask_of_satdjehuty.aspx

But Wikipaedia indicates she is and I will try to investigate the matter further, although I think Wiki is correct.  While the mask does not have a uraeus, the Munich sarcophagus head-dress, much the same, clearly once did:

I wrote in my article that what appeared to be golden head-dresses of ladies of the court were very queenly in appearance and now, of course, I know why.  The Satdjehuty [which seems to have been a common name of the era] of the BM mask was no nurse or lady of the court--but a queen.  A bandage, probably also in the BM, indicating a Satdjehuty as "a praised one of Ahmose-Nefertari" likely belonged to different lady and has been erroneously connected to the owner of the mask.  The grandmother of Senenmut, great servant of Hatshepsut, was called Satdjehuty, too.  Satdjehuty, the queen and sister-wife of Tao II, is also mentioned on the mummy-shroud of her daughter, Ahmes, who was buried in QV47 and is now in the Turin museum. [Dodson] The other wives of Tao II were Ahhotep and Inhapi.  

Therefore, the mummy, supposedly named "Rai", can also not be a mere nurse but is surely a queen, as well.  Now there is nothing known to be worn by ladies of the court that can have left the impression on the brow of the mummy--just the weighty golden crown of a king's wife.  If you read about this mummy on Max Miller's site, you will have noticed that an inscription on a bandage was thought to say "Rai", but the other inscriptions were left vague in what Professor Eliott Smith had to say about these female remains in his book, "The Royal Mummies".  A curious photo of one of the bandages along with some hair can be seen below, souvenirs of Smith in a frame.  Scroll down and you will come to it here:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/blog/index.php/tag/egyptian-gods/

Yes, indeed, a coffin of a nurse of Ahmose-Nefertari, belonging to "Rai", was certainly found in the cache but that the mummy, supposed to have been Rai, herself, all these years can be that lady is now very doubtful.  An investigation into the matter should be conducted by the Cairo Egyptian Museum and the DNA of  "Rai" could be compared with the mummies of other queens of the period. There is the coffin of a man named Paherypedjet, too, in which "Rai" was found, but what happened to him?  His mummy does not appear to have been discovered among those in the cache.  The BM mask was purchased in 1880 at Morten & Sons from the sale of the collection of  Samuel Hull, of whom I know nothing.   The mask is no more than 13 inches high.  It does not make so very much sense that, if the nurse of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, Rai, was going to be included by the reburial commission with the defunct royals of Egypt, that her coffin would be taken from her and used for Inhapi.  Why not, then, just leave Rai in her own coffin and place Inhapi in that of Paherypedjet?  It seems to me that the nurse was never deemed of sufficient rank to be included in the cache but lost her coffin to one royal lady and possibly even some of her bandages for the re-wrapping of another young queen.