Was Moses a Pharaoh?
QUESTION Is there evidence that Moses and the Pharaoh Akhenaten were the same person?
AkhenAten was a pharaoh of the Ancient egyptian 18th dynasty who ruled for 17 years and died in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. he’s one of the most fascinating pharaohs in that he caused a religious revolution with the introduction of the first known monotheism, worship of the sun god Aten.
Sigmund Freud was the first to suggest a connection. In Moses And Monotheism (1939), Freud argued that the biblical Moses was an official in the court of Akhenaten and an adherent of the Aten religion.
After the death of Akhenaten, Moses is said to have selected the Israelite tribe living east of the nile Delta to be his chosen people, took them out of egypt at the time of the exodus, and passed on to them the tenets of Akhenaten’s religion.
the idea that Moses was egyptian came in part from his name. It was egyptian in origin as mesu, or mose, meaning ‘son’, or ‘child’ as in Ra-mose (son of the Sun god Ra). there are also Biblical clues: exodus 2:19 tells how, after Moses draws water for Jethro’s daughters at the well, they tell their father that ‘an egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. he even drew water for us and watered the flock’.
But clearly, having been raised in the court of a Pharaoh, Moses would probably have looked like an egyptian.
nowhere in the Biblical account does it give the name of the pharaoh of the exodus, causing decades of debate. Pharaohs ranging from Pepi II, about 2200 BC, to Rameses II, about 1250 BC, have been put forward. Rameses II was selected for various hollywood epics due to his long reign and his military victories, influencing modern popular thought on the issue. Most conservative scholars, however, put the exodus about 1450 BC, in the reigns of thutmose II or thutmose III.
the theory that Moses was actually Akhenaten was first put forward by egyptian author Ahmed Osman in Moses And Akhenaten: the Secret history Of egypt At the time Of the exodus.
he describes how Akhenaten’s new religion upset people, especially the polytheist priests, to such an extent that he was f orced to abdicate. he says Akhenaten sought refuge in Sinai, taking his egyptian and Israelite supporters and this was the beginnings of Judaism.
Osman presents various evidence, including a new chronology; he describes how the ten Commandments were directly linked to Book 125 of the egyptian Book Of the Dead, and uses Moses’s story as a solution as to why Akhenaten rebelled against centuries of polytheistic religion.
A possible link between the two men is fascinating, but isn’t widely supported by egyptian scholars.
William Cowans, Ipswich.
QUESTION The site of the 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre is now the parking lot of a nursing home. What mundane places mark the location of a famous historical event?
In SCOtLAnD, on February 10, 1306, Sir Robert the Bruce met his rival, Sir John Comyn, in the Monastery of the Greyfriars in Dumfries. In the ensuing argument, Bruce drew his dagger and plunged it into Sir John, and this event is seen by many historians as the most significant political event to have happened in Scotland.
Within weeks, Bruce was crowned king of Scots and the wars of independence were under way. the Scottish victory at Bannockburn was a major step, but it was only i n 1329 that edward III of england recognised Scotland as a sovereign country.
today, the site of the monastery lies under a nondescript row of shops, built around 1900, replacing earlier buildings. Only a small wall plaque marks the site.
Ian McClumpha, The Robert The Bruce Commemoration Trust, Dumfries. RIChARD III’s remains were, of course, found under a council car park in Leicester, and a section of the site used as henry tudor’s encampment for the Battle of Bosworth is also now a car park.
Southampton castle was one of the best fortified medieval castles in Britain and one of the first to be equipped with cannon. It declined in the 16th century and was sold to property speculators in 1618. Fragments of the medieval castle survive, with most of the original site covered by modern buildings and dominated by a brutalist block of flats built in 1962 over the remaining part of the castle motte.
Richard Deane, Totton, Hants.
QUESTION What is considered the worst jet aircraft?
FuRtheR to earlier answers, another would be the north American Aviation XB70 Valkyrie bomber. At a cost of $1.5 billion, just two were built.
the B70 was supposed to be America’s offensive answer designed with six engines f or high- altitude mach3+ bombing. however the uSAF cancelled the order when it realised the uSSR had missiles capable of shooting it down.
Of the two built, one crashed when an escort aircraft collided with it; it was totally destroyed.
Other aircraft in the most useless list include the French Dassault Balzac VtOL (vertical take-off and landing), a Mirage III modified as prototype Balzac V fitted with no fewer than eight lift engines plus one main engine. the aircraft had two fatal accidents and, after the last one, the aircraft was not repaired.
undaunted, Dassault tried again — this time with the Mirage IIIV, again with eight small lift jets and one main engine. One of the two aircraft was destroyed in an accident and the project was abandoned.
the Russians produced the Yak-41/ Yakovlev- 141 f or t he Soviet navy, numbered as 48-2 and 48-3. In terms of landing in VtOL configuration, it was not particularly successful. Both aircraft were on a test flight on an aircraft carrier, 48-2 landed successfully, 48-3 landed heavily, damaging the aircraft severely.
It was repaired and placed on display, and the Soviet navy discontinued its part in the programme.
But Lockheed Martin must have seen some merit in the Yak-141 as it entered into partnership with Yakovlev with several hundred million dollars to produce and develop the X35, based on two grounded, unflyable ai r craft. the Americans are now producing the Lockheed Martin F-35, but it is more than two years behind scheduled.
Michael Gi l more, the Defence Department’s top weapons tester, said: ‘the u.S. navy has announced it is willing to purchase older aircraft to deal with delays in the Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 fighter jet programme, which is plagued with various technical problems.
A fuel system deficiency, faulty diagnostic systems, cracks in wing spars, lack of highfidelity simulators for combat missions, and a pilot escape system that could kill ejecting pilots were among the problems Gilmore cited for F-35. Britain has agreed to purchase 138 F-35 aircraft.
G.T. Watkins, Chipping Norton, oxon.
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