From: Subject: SCARABS AND CHRONOLOGY Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 18:20:36 +0300 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="windows-1255" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://localhost:8780/pubs/journals/kronos/vol0902/001scarb.htm X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 SCARABS AND CHRONOLOGY

Scarabs And Chronology

IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY

To realize the state of affairs in Egyptian and Palestinian = archaeology, the=20 following observation of C. C. McCown, who dug in Tell en-Nasbeh,(1) is = worth=20 considering; it is also symptomatic of all other places in Egypt and = Palestine,=20 and sounds very familiar to a reader of archaeological reports:

"The scarabs and scaraboids [found in the place] are unanimously = dated from=20 the 18th Dynasty or later. Since, as all the ceramic evidence clearly=20 indicates, Tell en-Nasbeh was not occupied until after the 19th = Dynasty and=20 since scarabs, especially those bearing the cartouche of Thutmose III, = with=20 his throne name, Men-kheper-re, were used and imitated for centuries = after=20 their original date, those which may have been made before 1200 have = no=20 chronological value whatever. The exact dating of such scarabs, which = depends=20 solely upon stylistic considerations, is a matter of uncertainty, upon = which=20 Egyptologists differ greatly.

"The only scarabs which affect chronology seriously are those which = the=20 Egyptologists consulted have agreed in dating to the 25th [Ethiopian] = Dynasty=20 (712-663 B.C.)."(2)

At Tell en-Nasbeh, various scarabs and the style of certain buildings = speak=20 for the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries, or the Eighteenth to Nineteenth=20 Dynasties; but other evidence and the scarabs of the Ethiopian Dynasty = speak for=20 the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries. An=20 archaeological solution was achieved by disregarding half the evidence; = in an=20 historical construction in which only the Ethiopian period is properly = anchored=20 in time, it is inevitable, as in this instance, that the scarabs of all = other=20 periods would appear to be in conflict with the established timetable of = Egyptian chronology and the sequence of dynastic succession.

In my own historical reconstruction, however, the Ethiopian Dynasty = ruled=20 between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties;(3) and therefore = objects of=20 closely following epochs found in the same place do not require the=20 disqualification of half the evidence - the other scarabs and seal = impressions=20 found at Tell en-Nasbeh have an equally well-founded chronological = value.

REFERENCES

1. [Tell en-Nasbeh is identified as ancient Mizpah, a town which for = a short=20 time, under Gedaliah, was a capital of Judah (Jeremiah 41:1 ff). = Beginning in=20 1926 it was excavated by W. F. Bade during five seasons, the last in = 1935. The=20 site is eight miles north of Jerusalem, near the boundary between Israel = and=20 Judah. - JNS]

2 C. C. McCown, et al, Tell en-Nasbeh, Vol. 1(1947), p. = 148.

3 [I. Velikovsky, "From the End of the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Time = Of=20 Ramses II," KRONOS III:3 (Spring 1978), pp. 3ff.; I. Velikovsky, = "Cultural=20 Aspects of the Libyan and Ethiopian Dynasties," KRONOS V 3 (Spring = 1980), pp.=20 1-10. - LMG]

4 [Also see I.Velikovsky, "Scarabs," Pensee IVR VI (Winter = 1973-74),=20 pp. 42-45; I. Velikovsky, Ramses II and His Time (N.Y., 1978). = -=20 LMG]

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