Two eclipses now coordinate Akhenaton/Shishak!
- From: "Lars Wilson" <misha_linword@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:59:34 -1000
<jtem01@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1150006521.846435.224520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm starting to get a complex for being a poor communicator
Saying I haven't effectively countered David Rohl
is like claiming I haven't effectively countered
the notion that Hitler was a nice guy.
That's been done. Period. It's been done, done
again & then done some more.
It's been done ad nauseum.
or you need a speedreading refresher course. The significance
of David Rohl is "incidental" but he put the connection with this
text together with the 12th year of Akhenaton and then proceeded
to use it to date the Amarna Period all the way down to the time of
David to 1012 BCE. But he discusses the interpretation of the eclipse
references, the options, etc. and then presents his position.
MY position was only that based upon my research in ancient
astronomy that Reshep would have been a first choice for a zodiac house
not Mars. Since Reshep is associated with the "Lord of Heaven" in
Egyptian pantheon and is graphically depicted as a bull, since the dating
for the 1375 BCE eclipse occurs in Taurus, naturally we look at the
practical and possible connections/associations of Reshep as a reference
to Taurus.
Otherwise the translation has problems with btt is not "sixth" and tgrh "her
gate"
suddenly become "gatekeeper."
That's because the reference to translating btt as "put to shame" in
relation to
an ecilpse is understood when its specific, but it is indirect here. That
is, it is
not the SUN being put to shame but the entire "day of the new moon" being
put to shame. If the concept of an eclipse would be associated with shame
then
it would have been specific to reference the sun here was being put to shame
and
not the entire day/date of the new moon. So the connection is weak at best
and
doesn't work at all.
Secondly, there are problems with HER gate. This is a fem. possessive form
for
gate. Is Mars feminine or the sun? Mars is a moving body, gates are
stationary
concepts. The sun is moving through "her" stationary gate.
Now this might seem confusing and complex perhaps until you consider Ugarit
at
this time was under Egyptian influence and likely had Egyptian magistrates
present who
would have expressed this text in Egyptian terms and would have had the
advanced
concept of the hour. They had water clocks back then. Further, the
Egyptians already
had the concept of the sun associated with a female gate when the sun rises
through the
gate of Hathor every morning. So there is no need to make "her gate" a
"gatekeeper" nor
make the sun a feminine god. It's simple and direct. The sun enters her
gate in Reshep.
The sun rises in Taurus.
The zodiac house the sun rises in was always significant but quite common.
It was just
part of the reference to the sun and the year. Every morning the sun rose
in a certain zodiac
house and that was part of that day's uniqueness. Since there is a LIVER
READING associated
with this text, there is no reason to think the eclipse reference was
anything but technically
indicental to this event beyond its astrological meaning. Therefore only
the very basic reference
to the eclipse need be noted, which are the TIME, DAY AND MONTH and what
zodiac house
the sun rose in.
But then you have the DATING circumstance as well. It had already been
dated to 1375BCE
associated with the Amarna period becuase of a fire reported in the 12th of
Akhenaton at the palace
at Ugarit. We can see the context of this text could clearly be of Egyptian
influence, also pointing to
the Amarna Period. But there is a very critical test here. For btt to
mean "sixth hour" the 1375BCE
has one chance in 24 hours to be astronomically correct. In other words,
just a general reference in
vague terms of the sun being "put to shame" during the month of Hiyarru
works for those other three
days *including* 1375BCE because it is general. But once you specific the
HOUR of the eclipse then
it becomes extremely technical to match. So the question is, did the
1375BCE eclipse occur between
5am and 6 am in the morning? Otherwise, it would be disqualified along with
the other eclipses. Of course,
the answer is YES and it is the only eclipse out of four possibles that
occur at this time.
Okay, so what does this reference do for the reign of Akhenaton? Nothing
other than suggest that his rule
began in 1386BCE rather than 1378BCE, 8 years earlier. That's all!
Since there are no other eclipse records in Ugarit and this text was in a
fire, you have the realistic
circumstance of thinking that perhaps these liver readings were not kept but
discarded after a while.
Since there are no other eclipse records found with this one, we can't
assume it had been filed away
at the time, and if it had, we would reasonably expect to see lots of other
similar texts. But we don't.
But if the eclipse had just happened and ws being considered at the time and
then a fire broke out, it
would explain why this is the only astronomical text found at Ugarit, but it
would also mean it was
_current_, allowing us to date the fire, ANY FIRE, close to the timing of
this eclipse. Now there
might have been many fires at Ugarit but we know a major one was reported in
the 12th of
Akhenaton for sure. We can't say this was not the same fire that charred
this eclipse record.
But, if we actually get to that point of reasonably accepting that likely
this text was preserved because
the eclipse had recently occurred and it got preserved because of the fire,
then we have a rare
chance to date the 12th of Akhenaton to 1375BCE and _only_ 1375BCE since it
is the only eclipse
which occurs during the "sixth hour" of the day. This is as close as we
can get so far to any absolute
dating for the entire Egyptian Period, though it is ironic it doesn't really
change it that much from
conventional dating. Rohl, of course, wants to use it as an excuse to move
the Amarna Period over
300 years later. But in that case I totally agree with _you_ and many
others that his chronology is
quite dismissible. Only it is all the less credible now that he can't
really compete with the translation
of this text in an Egyptian context, something no one can do since Ugarit
was under Egyptian influence
at the time of Akhenaton.
But, since per the Bible's chronology we would have been forced to date the
death of Amenhotep III
to 1386BCE, the absolute date for the Exodus, I think it is beyond
coincidental that this eclipse event
dated as current to year 12 of Akhenaton gives us the identical same year to
begin his reign in 1386BCE.
So it basically confirms that, indeed, the eclipse was under consideration
at the time of this fire that got
reported to Akhenaton in his 12th year and because it got caught in a fire,
it's the only surviving
astronomical text we have from Ugarit.
Yes, it is CIRCUMSTANTIAL, for sure, but based upon everything, you cannot
_exclude_ Akhenaton's
rule beginning in 1386BCE. That has to begin the range of the variuous
dates used for him which now join
1378BCE and 1351BCE. Not a big change in Egyptian chronology or timeline
but certainly interesting,
astronomically speaking.
Of course, one more factor that involves specific years is the coordination
with the Assyrian eponym eclipse.
That eclipse occurs in 709BCE and is used to redate SHISHAK (yes! and
Egyptian pharoah!). Shishak's
invasion of northern Palestine in 925BCE is directly connected to the
eclipse from the eponym list. The
eclipse is currently misdated to 763BCE but corrected to 709BCE. That moves
the invasion by Shishak
down to 871BCE, a much more consistent match to what was going on in
Palestine at the time. But
871BCE has to be during the reign of Solomon and during the 6-year
co-rulership between Rehoboam
and Solomon! So you don't have much leeway. When the Exodus occurs
precisely in 1378BCE,
the 4th of Solomon falls in 906BCE, 480 years later and thus 371BCE is his
39th year!
So working forward from 1386BCE eclipse and backwards from the 709BCE
eclipse, the reigns of
Rehoboam and Solomon are forced to overlap by 6 years, but even so,
Shishak's invasion occurs
during the very end of the reign of Solomon. That little detail makes a big
difference in interpreting
the focus of that invasion since he has been criticized for focussing his
attack in the north against
his own friend, Jeroboam. That would not be the case if the northern cities
were still under
Judean rule. It would mean just the opposite! That Shishak was
dispossessing Rehoboam in
the north to make it easier for Jeroboam to take over. The reigns of
Jeroboam and Rehoboam
are parallel and it is not uncommon that they would have begun to count
their rulerships from
the time of their divine appointment, which did occur near the end of
Solomon's reign, forcing
Jeroboam to flee to Egypt.
So as a result, you've got great coordination astronomically bewteen the
Assyrian eponym and
the KTU 1.78, great archaeological dating for the fall of Jericho 50 years
after the reign of
Amenhotep III, and great archaeology when we downdate Shishak to 871BCE
rather than
925BCE to a time when Palestine was more developed, perfectly consistent
with the background
history of the state of Palestine found in the Bible.
So CHRONOLOGY changes a lot of things and if you can apply absolute
chronology via
astronomical references, then as you can see, everything else falls into
place quite nicely.
L.W.
.
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