Roman Calendration, Sosigenes and Numa Pompilius - LexiLine Journal 540

Happy Easter! (this is a bit late, but I have been traveling)
A movable calendric feast!
It is thus time again write a bit about calendration, this time, about the Roman Calendar:

"The Roman Calendar was a curious conglomeration of historical inputs, and yet, our own modern calendar in the Western world - with our non-astronomical months of varying durations and strange numerically disjointed names - was inherited directly from that Roman system as the Julian Calendar (Wikipedia), reflecting calendric reform made under Julius Caesar, who called upon the Egyptian astronomer priest Sosigenes of Alexandria (see also e.g. the Encyclopaedia Britannica) to correct the Roman calendar:

"[The Julian Calendar] has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years. Hence the Julian year is on average 365.25 days long."

Pliny the Elder, Book 18, 210-212 wrote:

"... There were three main schools, the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Greek; and to these a fourth was added in our country by Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer Sosigenes (Sosigene perito scientiae eius adhibito) brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the sun. (Wikipedia translation - source unknown)

(or, from Perseus at Tufts, translation by John Bostock)

"There have been three great schools of astronomy, the Chaldæan, the Ægyptian, and the Grecian. To these has been added a fourth school, which was established by the Dictator Cæsar among ourselves, and to which was entrusted the duty of regulating the year in conformity with the sun's revolution, under the auspices of Sosigenes, an astronomer of considerable learning and skill."

A history of that Early Roman Calendar is found at WebExhibits.org in their Calendars through the Ages.
The Roman system of calendration prior to calendar reform was described by Plutarch in "Numa Pompilius," C.E. 75, Sanctum Library: 8th-7th Century B.C.E., in a translation by John Dryden as follows (from WebExhibits.org):

"During the reign of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days.

"Numa, calculating the difference between the lunar and solar years at eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedinus...

"Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who added the two months of Januarius and Februarius; for in the beginning they had a year of ten months...

"That the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning the tenth month; and that Martius was the first is likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if Januarius and Februarius had, in this account, preceded Martius, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning.

"It was also natural that Martius, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus’s first and Aprilis, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads.

"But others, because of its being p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but say it is called Aprilis from aperio, Latin for to open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers.

"The next is called Maius, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is sacred; then Junius follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive them from the two ages, old and young, majores being their name for older, and juniores for younger men.

"To the other months they gave denominations according to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth, and the rest, Septembris, Octobris, Novembris and Decembris. Afterwards, Quintilis received the name of Julius (July), from Caesar, who defeated Pompey; as also Sextilis that of Augustus, (August) from the second Caesar, who had that title...

"Of the months which were added or transposed in their order by Numa, Februarius comes from februa; and is as such a Purification month; in it they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in most points, resembles a purification. Januarius was also called from Janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before Martius, which was dedicated to the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every opportunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred before those of war."

When did Numa institute this calendar reform?
Six years ago in my posting at 31 LexiLine Newsletter 2004 I gave the following chronology based on 480-year intervals from the time of what I consider to be the official calendric founding of "dynastic" Egypt (see also Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt):

"3117 BC start of the calendar
2637 BC reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2157 BC First Intermediate Period
1677 BC Second Intermediate Period
1197 BC Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
717 BC Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
237 BC Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu" [emphasis added]

I have since then considered moving the start of the modern calendar even further back to an earlier date at Göbekli Tepe, perhaps having a close relationship with the start of the Hebrew Calendar, but although that is relevant to the question of the date of the start of the calendar in Egypt, I am not yet finished with that ongoing analysis.
For purposes of demonstration only of the multiple intervals of 240 years and 480 years in a calendric system going back (at least) to Göbekli Tepe -- we can turn the clock back a couple of years as follows to get round BCE numbers - the astronomical year would however not change:

""3840 BCE start (?) of the calendar at Göbekli Tepe near Urfa, i.e. Ur, the birthplace of Abraham (the Hebrew Calendar starts by current calculation on October 7, 3761 BC according to the Julian Calendar and on September 7, -3760 according to the Gregorian Calendar - see the instructive Calendar Converter at Fourmilab.com from John Walker)
3600 BCE ??
3360 BCE start of the "calendric predynastic period" in Egypt
3120 BCE start of the dynastic calendar in Pharaonic Egypt - actually -3116 by astronomy
2640 BCE reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2160 BCE First Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1680 BCE Second Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1200 BCE Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
720 BCE Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
240 BCE Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu - this is the same date as the ancient Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt which the archaeologists date to 238 BC....
0 BC viz. 0 AD The start of the modern method of calendration and the alleged birth of Jesus

Just what year BC or BCE is correct depends on when one puts the birth of Christ viz. the alleged birth of Jesus.

Originally I set the 3117 BC date near what my astronomy software program identified as a solar eclipse at the Winter Solstice at that time, whereas more recent tentative results indicate that it may in fact have been a solar eclipse near the Summer Solstice -- this is a calendric calculation problem caused by academic dispute on the matter of the variable Delta T, the change in the rate of the spin of the earth over millennia -- which determines the location of ancient solar eclipses -- about which there is a great deal of uncertainty, but this matter is not critical for the 480-year interval dates, although all will ultimately require some calibration.
At any event, there is in my opinion strong evidence in the ancient sources that a ca. 480-year interval was used for calculation in ancient Egypt [this was 479 years plus 120 days as inscribed on the statue of Khasekhemwy (my discovery)]:

"The casualties that are portrayed at the side of the pedestal to Khasekhemwy’s statue symbolize the dead, expired years. It is quite clear that the first nail-formed hieroglyph, written four times consecutively, stands for four 100’s and not for four 10000’s. The seven middle flower-shaped hieroglyphs represent seven 10’s. This is not disputed. The nine left "stick" hieroglyphs represent nine 1’s. This is also not disputed. The number represented here is thus the number 479 and not, as the Egyptologists would have us believe, he number 40079. A study of the magnified hieroglyphs confirms our analysis.

Figure 20 (ab0ve):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (slightly magnified).


Figure 21 (above):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (strongly magnified)

The individual numbers from the right to the left are 4-7-9 = 479 years, plus 120 days intercalated (2x 60), the @-shaped hieroglyphs. These numbers are clear. The Pharaohs would never have written the number 40279 this way, with 100's between the 10's and 1's, above the 1's."

This interval is also reflected in Biblical chronology, e.g. we can read in the Book of Kings, Chapter 6:1, King James Version of the Bible:

"And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD."

That date too will have been a calendric construction.
Sosigenes, as an astronomer priest of Egypt will also have utilized the 240-year and 480-year calendric intervals for his secret and expert calculations for the Romans.
In this manner, our modern calendar, strangely enough, is also a direct descendant of the Pharaonic system, thanks to the astronomer priests of Pharaonic Egypt working with the Romans.

Ian Hodder: All Our Theories Were Wrong - LexiLine Journal 539

Göbekli Tepe is featured at Newsweek online in an article from the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek magazine. At History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution, Patrick Symmes writes: "

"The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is 'unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date,' according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the 'huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art' at Göbekli, Hodder -- "who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites" -- says: 'Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong.
[Klaus Schmidt - chief archaeologist at Göbekli Tepe -  theorizes that] it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city."

All of THEIR theories (the theories of mainstream archaeology and astronomy) were wrong.

OUR megalithic archaeological and astronomical theories, on the other hand, are looking better all the time.

We have always linked the stones to astronomy and both to ancient belief.
There is more to these stones than just having an ancient sundial in your backyard.
The ancients were doing important things with these ancient megalithic sites.

Schmidt's rather esoteric idea that the temples were the reason for human urbanization and agricultural domestication is of course far-fetched. Forget that.

A hat tip and thank you to Boris of our LexiLine group for calling this Newsweek article to my attention.

Why Study Ancient Mankind and the Past? - LexiLine Journal 538

I just wrote this to someone interested in my work who themselves was studying mankind's ancient past:

"In this field, the fun is in the doing.

I for example work almost entirely for myself, beacuse I am sincerely interested in what actually happened in ancient history.
It is my way of uncovering and tracing - for me - what I think to be the tracks of mankind.

Whether others agree with me or not or whether one is "correct" or not in some future "court" that decides these things,
I doubt very much that it matters."

I hope we have a lot of members in our group who share that view.

WANTING to know is the first prerequisite to learning new things
and making new discoveries,
especially for ourselves,
but we seldom have any guarantees
that we are right in our conclusions
about any of these things.

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA - LexiLine Journal 537

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here.

As regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology Magazine in Tut: Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology - raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT, however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling, by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor yan):

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

To see the sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and their work shows it - read KV55 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at TourEgypt.net.

Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes, Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means, i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.

I wrote about this new "evidentiary archaeology" some time ago.

Cave Writings as Messages from the Stone Age - LexiLine Journal 536

At

Messages from the Stone Age : Cave Writing Underestimated : 17 February 2010 : New Scientist

Kate Ravilious in "The writing on the cave wall" reports:

"While some scholars like [Jean Clottes] Clottes had recorded the presence of cave signs at individual sites, Genevieve von Petzinger, then a student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, was surprised to find that no one had brought all these records together to compare signs from different caves. And so, under the supervision of April Nowell, also at the University of Victoria, she devised an ambitious masters project. She compiled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France, covering 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What emerged was startling: 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appeared again and again at numerous sites (see illustration). Admittedly, some of the symbols are pretty basic, like straight lines, circles and triangles, but the fact that many of the more complex designs also appeared in several places hinted to von Petzinger and Nowell that they were meaningful - perhaps even the seeds of written communication."

Mainstream archaeology is slowly moving forward toward OUR already long-term understanding of the significance of ancient cave and rock art

and we see that this new understanding will be dependent upon young people to tackle these topics in their academic papers.

Read the full article here.

DNA Proves Tutankhamun as Son of Akhenaten - LexiLine Journal 535

Who was Tutankhamun and was he murdered by the Philistines?

Nearly five years ago I made a posting to the LexiLine group on the History of Civilization at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il in which I identified the young "co-regent" Tutankhamun as the son of Akhenaten (Echnaton). Tut was NEVER the Pharaoh himself. My identification has now been proven correct by DNA evidence in a study conducted by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) under the leadership of Secretary General Zahi Hawass, a study published in Vol. 303 No. 7, February 17, 2010 of the Journal of the American Medical Association, of which the following is the Abstract:

"Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family

Zahi Hawass, PhD; Yehia Z. Gad, MD; Somaia Ismail, PhD; Rabab Khairat, MSc; Dina Fathalla, MSc; Naglaa Hasan, MSc; Amal Ahmed, BPharm; Hisham Elleithy, MA; Markus Ball, MSc; Fawzi Gaballah, PhD; Sally Wasef, MSc; Mohamed Fateen, MD; Hany Amer, PhD; Paul Gostner, MD; Ashraf Selim, MD; Albert Zink, PhD; Carsten M. Pusch, PhD

JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647.

Context The New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to the early 11th centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which included the reigns of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinary time. The identification of a number of royal mummies from this era, the exact relationships between some members of the royal family, and possible illnesses and causes of death have been matters of debate.

Objectives To introduce a new approach to molecular and medical Egyptology, to determine familial relationships among 11 royal mummies of the New Kingdom, and to search for pathological features attributable to possible murder, consanguinity, inherited disorders, and infectious diseases.

Design From September 2007 to October 2009, royal mummies underwent detailed anthropological, radiological, and genetic studies as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project. Mummies distinct from Tutankhamun's immediate lineage served as the genetic and morphological reference. To authenticate DNA results, analytical steps were repeated and independently replicated in a second ancient DNA laboratory staffed by a separate group of personnel. Eleven royal mummies dating from circa 1410-1324 BC and suspected of being kindred of Tutankhamun and 5 royal mummies dating to an earlier period, circa 1550-1479 BC, were examined.

Main Outcome Measures Microsatellite-based haplotypes in the mummies, generational segregation of alleles within possible pedigree variants, and correlation of identified diseases with individual age, archeological evidence, and the written historical record.

Results Genetic fingerprinting allowed the construction of a 5-generation pedigree of Tutankhamun's immediate lineage. The KV55 mummy and KV35YL were identified as the parents of Tutankhamun. No signs of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (eg, Antley-Bixler syndrome) or Marfan syndrome were found, but an accumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident. Several pathologies including Köhler disease II were diagnosed in Tutankhamun; none alone would have caused death. Genetic testing for STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodium falciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4 mummies, including Tutankhamun’s. These results suggest avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun. Walking impairment and malarial disease sustained by Tutankhamun is supported by the discovery of canes and an afterlife pharmacy in his tomb.

Conclusion Using a multidisciplinary scientific approach, we showed the feasibility of gathering data on Pharaonic kinship and diseases and speculated about individual causes of death."

The results of the study were released within the last 24 hours (February 16/17, 2010) to the public and have already been summarized in part at the Wikipedia:

"Scholars had not reached consensus on the identity of Tutankhamun's parents. An inscription calls him a king's son [emphasis added], but it was not clear which king was meant. An extensive DNA analysis whose results were publicized in February 2010 confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten and Akhenaten's sister (also his wife).^[8]

At one time Tutankhamun had been thought to be a son of Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Queen Tiye [added insert from us: the hieroglpyh from which this erroneous idea came actually reads "ancestor" rather than "father"]. Instead, he has been confirmed as their grandson, child of their son and daughter.^[9] Later research claimed that he may have been a son of Amenhotep III, although not by Queen Tiye. She would have been more than fifty years old at the time of Tutankhamun's birth.

DNA results released in February 2010 confirm Tutankhamun as the biological son of Akhenaten and grandson of Queen Tiye. Tutankhamun's mother has been confirmed as Mummy KV35YL, a sister of Akhenaten. Her identity as of this date is still unidentified.^[10]

A common hypothesis held that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, and his minor wife Queen Kiya. Queen Kiya's title was "Greatly Beloved Wife of Akhenaten" so it is possible that she could have borne him an heir. Supporting this theory, images on the tomb wall in the tomb of Akhenaten show a royal fan bearer standing next to Kiya's death bed, fanning someone who may be a princess. Researchers also thought the figure was a wet nurse holding a baby, considered to be the boy king-to-be.

Professor James Allen [link added: President of the International Association of Egyptologists] argued that Tutankhamun was more likely to be a son of the short-lived king Smenkhkare rather than Akhenaten. Allen argued that Akhenaten chose a female co-regent named Neferneferuaten as his successor, rather than Tutankhamun. He thought that would have been unlikely if the latter were his son.^[11][12] Smenkhkare appears when Akhenaten entered year 14 of his reign. Scholars believe that during this time Meritaten married Smenkhkare. Smenkhkare, as the father of Tutankhamun, would have needed at least a three-year reign to bring Tutankhamun to the right age to have inherited the throne. However, if there had been lengthy co-regency between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Amenhotep could have been Tutankhamun's father (later disproved by DNA testing).^[12][13]

Recently, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the recovery of a part of a limestone block depicting Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamen, along with text. These identify both Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpaaten as "children of the king's body" or the biological son and daughter of Akhenaten. This shows the repetition of marriage between royal siblings."

The junk that the mainstream media have written about the new - mostly DNA evidence - is further proof that mainstream academia and mainstream journalists feed the clueless public with more-or-less pablum nonsense, concentrating not on important matters of the identity of Pharaohs but rather on the speculatively sensationalistic question of Tut's cause of death, whereas the identity question is far more important to Egyptology and the reconstruction of man's ancient history. The mainstream media and Egyptologists have already announced that the cause of Tut's death is clear, whereas the actual study says:

"These results suggest avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun."

That "suggestion" is pure IDLE speculation given the fact that 4 of the 11 mummies examined showed signs of malaria and that Tut's foot malformation must have been of very long standing.

As written at Why Evolution is True in What killed King Tut?

"... Hawass, with his usual penchant for publicity, is going around telling reporters, with no reservations, that malaria definitely killed the young king. Well, maybe, but falciparum malaria isn’t always fatal. Two of of Tut’s great-grandparents had it, and, as the authors note, they died in their 50s, and the infection might have been chronic, or suppressed by their immune systems."

Already in the year 1923, as can easily be seen from a photograph of Tut's body, which is reproduced at page 297 of the 1996 British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (reproduced there courtesy of the Griffith Institute), it was well known already nearly 87 years ago that Tut had suffered a broken leg in his life and that there was a serious problem with his unequally sized feet - as can be seen from our cut-out and coloring of the lower half of that image (our added red circles show the leg break and the foot malformation):
The notion that the new DNA and CT study dispells the possibility that King Tut met a violent death is sadly mistaken - it proves nothing, merely adding the malaria element to an already shaky theory.

As written at TourEgypt.net in Who Killed King Tut? by The Government of Egypt and edited by Jimmy Dunn:

"The possibility that Tutankhamen did not die of natural causes was first raised 28 years ago when an X-ray analysis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the University of Liverpool. It revealed that the king may have died from a blow to the back of his head.

Early this year, a new X-ray analysis cast more light on the subject, this time suggesting that Tutankhamen may have been murdered in his sleep. The examination was conducted by a trauma specialist at Long Island University, USA, "The blow was to a protected area at the back of the head which you don't injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from behind," said the specialist.

X-rays also show a thickening of a bone in the cranium which could occur only after a build-up of blood. This would indicate that the king might have been left bleeding for a long time before he actually died. In short, scientists suggest that the king was most probably hit on the back of his head while asleep and that he lingered, maybe for as long as two months, before he died....

[O]n the pedestal of one of Horemhab's statues is a text in which he left a message to all Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who committed the crime. He declared in writing that he was loyal to his king and carried out all his orders faithfully. He also warned any Egyptian who may read the text, against 'normalizing' relations with foreigners and told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers, don't ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen", Horemhab wrote."

Why the mainstream scholars continue to ignore other evidence and seek to force a speculative interpretation upon the public is something that we can not understand. But it is typical for Egyptology.

To recall our own article, 5 years ago at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il:

"I recently received a letter asking me for an illustration of the robe or Me'il of the Cohen Gadol, the Hebrew High Priest, and also asking me who in my opinion Tutankhamun was. The two questions are inter-related.

See the following website for one interpretative drawing of the Cohen Gadol's priestly garments http://messianic-torat-chayim-sg.org/Torah/kohengadol.html. That is pretty much a fantasy drawing, but a good attempt.

Actually, the robe of the Cohen Gadol will not have been substantially different than that worn by the Pharaohs of Egypt, based on the following example ramsesIII.jpg of the garment of Ramses III which I have [also] uploaded to our LexiLine files at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files/Egypt/


You can see there both the top and bottom robe, the ephod, the belt in layers, as well as the tassels on the robe, some of which, also on Ramses III, appear to be small bells - as allegedly also on the robe of the Cohen Gadol in descriptions of the me'il. This picture is a scan from a superb book by Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1994, available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500050740/. The book is a must buy for anyone in this field as the best book of this kind in Egyptology (i.e. it is an understandable overview of all the pharaohs and their reigns according to the mainstream views). No other book comes even close. I use it all the time, even though it of course carries forward many mainstream errors in Egyptology.

Remnants of the Hebrew High Priest's robe were in my opinion found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a robe would have been far more Egyptian in nature than the drawing above and the Cohen Gadol would not have had a beard - quite the contrary, priests were bald: (quoted from http://snipurl.com/fetq viz.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/hairstyles.html.

"Priests were required to keep their entire bodies cleanly shaved.
They shaved every third day because they needed to avoid the danger
of lice or any other uncleanness to conduct rituals. This is the
reason why priests are illustrated bald-headed with no eyebrows or
lashes."

In addition, both the bearded Asiatics (Assyrians, etc.) and the black peoples were arch enemies of the clean-shaven Pharaohs, as shown at the Tomb of Tutankhamun on the prow of a miniature ship. In discussing the origin of the Pharaohs, it is rather remarkable that such important pieces of evidence are ignored by Egyptology.

For an extensive review of the items found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun, see generally

http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and more specifically
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi25.htm and also
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi600.htm

The identity of Tutankhamun can be explained as follows:

In my opinion, the evidence is incontrovertible that King Saul =Echnaton (Akhenaten), King David = Sethos and King Solomon = Ramses II with Shishak = Ramses III.

Accordingly, Tutankhamun can only be ATON, i.e. JON-ATHON ("young Aton, young Adonis, "Jaun-(IE)donis"), one of the sons of Saul in the Bible. Saul was Echn-ATON viz. Akhen-ATEN ("old Aton", old Adonis, "Vec-(IE)Donis"). The other brother was Semenchkare, Biblical Ish-Boshet, who served a short time as Pharaoh before being executed. The hieroglyphs which the Egyptologists read as SE-Mench are actually ISH-Boshet. SE = ISH. The other error occurs because there are two alternative readings for the small chisel - one is MNCH (Indo-European e.g. latvian MI(N)CHA), MIEC- "to knead, strike" but the other is B[.....] which is Indo-European viz. Latvian PASIT (=BOSHET) "to strike at". The Egyptologists have chosen the wrong alternative of the two for Semenchkare.

Young ATON (Jon-ATHON) saved David's life and was his best friend, but was killed at an early age - according to the Bible - battling the Philistines, in a battle in which Saul ("old Aton") also lost his life. According to the Bible, the latter's body was mutilated by the Philistines and has thus never been found by the Egyptologists, probably having been buried somewhere in Canaan.

Tutankhamun never served as Pharaoh but was heir to the throne. This explains his having a royal cartouche but being excluded from the ancient lists of the kings of Egypt. He never manned the throne. His untimely death brought his best friend David onto the throne, and so Jonathon was buried in regal style by David, who had become King David = Sethos (Setoy).

Note in this regard that the alleged pharaoh Haremhab viz. Horemhab at this time was actually Hiram (also written Huram), King of Tyre, one of King David's best friends. Horemhab never served as sovereign Pharaoh of Egypt, contrary to the erred opinion of Egyptology, but was only a vice-regent (see http://www.varchive.org/tac/harcrown.htm) later given a royal status - whence the cartouche - by King David. Haremhab built many buildings for David (so the Bible) upon which he also placed his name as the builder of them - but pharaoh himself he was not, but only King of Tyre. The kingly reign attributed to him actually belonged to King David (Sethos viz. Setoy) and this is why in spite of two tombs being attributed to Haremhab by the Egyptologists, his mummy is not found among the mummies of the kings which have been recovered in the mummy depots. The Egyptologists incorrectly read "Tyre" on the hieroglyphs as DJOSER whereas Haremhab's cartouched hieroglyph showing the hand holding an object
is clearly to be read as TUR ("hold") i.e. TYRE and not DJOSER.

Nearly all of the furniture and treasures in the tomb of Tutankhamun are from a later period. The tomb was reopened and the holy vessels of the Mishnayot were hidden there, including the Ark of the Covenant (also called the Ark of the Law, Ark of the Testimony, Ark of God) with the tomb being resealed by the priests and the entrance being covered by tons of rubble - such tomb only having been found in our modern era by Howard Carter as the Tomb of Tutankhamun.

See in this regard
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi000.htm
for the hiding of the Ark of the Covenant and the holy vessels."

______________

M.S. Reddy wrote:

Dear Andis,

Congratulations for your excellent prediction Who was Tutankhamunn and the latest DNA analysis. The DNA analysis and the latest developments in this study of Egyptian mummies is revealing the wonders of our ancient civilization. Dedicated souls like you are doing great service to humanity at large and we are grateful for your keen insight and dedication.
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

EVIDENCE?
Tut Revisited:
But is the Evidence so Clear that KV55 is Akhenaten and not Tut's brother Smenkhkare?
http://ow.ly/16BqhR
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here.

As regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology Magazine in Tut: Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology - raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT, however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling, by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor yan):

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

To see the sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and their work shows it - read KV55 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at TourEgypt.net.

Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes, Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means, i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.

I wrote about this new "evidentiary archaeology" some time ago.

King's College London to Shut Down UK's Only Palaeography Chair : Maybe They Should Read My Blogs - LexiLine Journal 534

Not much money in studying ancient texts.

Just ask the author of the posting you are now reading.

Hence, we are not surprised to read at The Guardian in Writing off the UK's last palaeographer that:

"The decision by a London university to axe the UK's only chair in palaeography has been met by outrage from the world's most eminent classicists. John Crace on why the study of ancient writings matters - and why history will be lost without it...."

As Crace writes:

"Indus Valley script

Plenty more work to be done . . . palaeographers are yet to decipher the Indus Valley script....

Palaeographers are used to making sense of fragments of ancient manuscripts, but King's College London couldn't have been plainer when it announced recently that it was to close the UK's only chair of palaeography....

Not that palaeography has the answer to everything. No one has still made head or tail of Linear A (dating back to around 1900BC), and the Indus Valley script of the third millennium BC is still a mystery.

[Our comment: Maybe the politicians, journalists and academic mainstreamers alike, should first do their homework about the Phaistos Disc and about the Indus Valley Script, before they go into uninformed decisionmaking and propagandizing.

For example, in the Indus Valley Script pictured by Crace -


- as can easily be seen from my graphic at the top of the page of my blog at Indus Valley Script, with the human to be replaced by the upturned arrows and the comparable bow-type symbol, the Indus Valley script pictured by Crace marks the stars from the Winter Solstice to the Autumn Equinox ca. 2000 B.C. Obviously this a stamp - so the reverse is intended, i.e. from the Autumn Equinox to the Winter Solstice.]

But just days before King's made the announcement, its sister London institution, University College, was boasting how two of Ganz's former students, Dr Simon Corcoran and Dr Benet Salway, had pieced together 17 fragments of parchment that form an important Roman law code believed to be the only original evidence yet discovered of the Gregorian Codex (a collection of constitutions upon which a substantial part of most modern European civil law systems are built) that had been thought lost for ever." [emphasis added]