Building Bridges of Time, Places and People: Volume I: Tombs, Temples & Cities of Egypt, Israel, Greece & Italy

By J. Marc Merrill

Mysteries associated with ancient Egypt are not confined to the pyramids of Giza. For example, consider these:

One Egyptian hieroglyph is patterned after a bird known as the jabiru; another is an image of a saguaro cactus. Both the jabiru and the saguaro are found only in the Western Hemisphere, so how did they become hieroglyphs?

Tutankhamen is referred to as the boy-king by Egyptologists. Why then were statues found in the tomb portraits of a young woman?

Hatshepsut is said to have been a female pharaoh who reigned for 22 years but then disappeared from the scene. What happened to her? And why was her image expunged from the walls of temples?

Senenmut, a favorite of Hatshepsut, wrote that he had access to all the writings of the prophets. Which prophets did he mean?

Why does the face of the mummy of Ramesses II not match the statues of this great pharaoh? Also, why did the embalmers remove the stomach and place the heart on the right side of the thorax? And why were diced tobacco leaves from the Western Hemisphere used to line the chest cavity?

Why was Yuya, supposedly the father of the great Queen Tiy, buried with three coffins while his wife had only two? Moreover, why did the mask that covered his face, along with the face on the innermost coffin, look totally different from the mummy and from each other?

Death masks were found not just in Egypt but in Greece as well. The most famous of these came from grave # 5 at Mycenae. Each eye of this gold mask has double eyelids. In addition, like the Sphinx at Giza and the Shroud of Turin, the left eye is higher than the right and the mouth is not centered. How can such similarities be explained?

Turning to Italy, on the underside of the right wrist of the Prima Porta statue of Augustus there is the distinct impression of the head of a spike. According to historians this statue depicts the first emperor of Rome, but what if it is instead a portrait of a man who was crucified?

These mysteries, along with many others, are examined in detail and then convincingly explained in this first of two volumes to explore crucial links between Egypt, Israel, Greece and Italy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468573671

J. Marc Merrill

J. Marc. Merrill began writing at the age of 14, starting with short stories, then novels, stage plays and screen plays. He has taught English—both composition and literature—at five colleges, including Arizona State University, Arizona State Prison for Central Arizona College, and Kauai Community College in Hawaii. He retired from teaching after becoming intrigued by the Great Pyramid. More than ten years of extensive research have gone into Building Bridges of Time, Places and People: Tombs, Temples & Cities of Egypt, Israel, Greece and Italy. This first of two volumes is meant to be a companion piece to the two volumes of Books Written in Stone: Enoch the Seer, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Last Days.

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BUILDING BRIDGES

OF TIME

PLACES

AND PEOPLE:

TOMBS, TEMPLES & CITIES OF EGYPT,

ISRAEL, GREECE & ITALY,

VOLUME I

J. Marc. Merrill

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© 2012 J. Marc. Merrill. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 4/27/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7369-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7368-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7367-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012905473

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

1. Akhenaten

2. Akhetaten

3. Ti

4. Froehlich’s Syndrome

5. Seneb

6. Ankhesenamen

7. Tutankhamen

8. Sem

9. Ay

10. Fetishes

11. Hatshepsut

12. Senenmut

13. Ramesses II

14. Kv6

15. Yuya

16. Mycenae

Works Cited

… the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

—1 Corinthians 3:19

A NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION:

Although a few minor modifications have been made, for the most part the Modern Language Association (MLA) style of documentation has been chosen for this work so that readers will not have to turn to the end of each chapter or to the end of the book itself in order to find out what sources are being cited.

With the MLA style the reader is given at least the minimum information of authors’ and editors’ last names (or the titles of sources when no authors or editors are identified) within sentences and paragraphs, along with page numbers, although the word page is included with the page number or numbers only when confusion might result if page is left out. If more than one book or article by the same author is cited anywhere within the text, then the title of that book is provided whenever doubts might arise as to which source is being used.

Quite often authors’ full names and the titles of their books are mentioned in a sentence; in that case, at the end of the sentence or at the end of the appropriate paragraph, only the page number (or numbers) is enclosed in parenthesis.

Full disclosure of all sources can be found at the end of this book in the Works Cited listing. As indicated by Works Cited, only those sources referred to in the body of this book are included. For a more inclusive bibliography readers will need to search out other texts.

A WORD ON ADDING TO DIRECT QUOTES:

Whenever it is deemed desirable to add information or to make a comment for purposes of clarification within a direct quote, the words being inserted will be enclosed by brackets [ ]. In those few cases where brackets are used by the author or authors being quoted, a note to that effect will appear at the end of the quote.

A WORD ON SPELLING:

A number of British sources have been used throughout Books Written in Stone and for those who might not realize it, British spelling frequently varies from American spelling. For example, the British will write centre, colour, and symbolises whereas Americans will write center, color, and symbolizes. This difference is being pointed out so that only in a few instances will it be necessary to use [sic] in order to indicate that a word in a direct quote is, or at least appears to be, spelled incorrectly.

A WORD ON ITALICIZING TITLES:

Under the MLA system of documentation the Bible and its various books or epistles are not italicized, nor are they enclosed in quotation marks.

Except when noted otherwise, biblical quotations are from The New King James Version.

THE HEBREW ALPHABET

The Hebrew alphabet is comprised of twenty-two letters, all consonants. For the letters themselves, see page 11 of Biblical Hebrew by R. K. Harrison, or the Table of Alphabets in The American Heritage College Dictionary.

THE GREEK ALPHABET

*   *   *                *   *   *                        *   *   *

*   *   *                    *   *   *                    *   *   *

Two of the Greek letters became lost over time: stigma, which is also called digamma by Alexander and Nicholas Humez in Alpha to Omega: The Life & Times of the Greek Alphabet, had the numerical value of 6, while koppa had the value of 90 (187-188).

PREFACE

This work is meant to be a companion to Volumes 1 and 2 of Books Written in Stone and readers are urged to become familiar with both volumes before reading Building Bridges of Time, Places, and People: Tombs, Temples & Cities of Egypt, Israel, Greece and Italy. One factor that is of primary importance in Books Written in Stone is the use of gematria to help explain the symbolism built into the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, but not just the pyramids, for the Sphinx and the temples are included. All are part of a unified plan that in fact extends beyond Giza to other ancient Egyptian pyramids, temples and tombs, and beyond those to other lands, in particular ancient Israel, as well as to the portable tabernacle built in the wilderness by Moses after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and to the temples of Jerusalem that date to the time of Solomon and of Christ.

Gematria is based on the fact that every letter in both the Old Testament and the New Testament has a numerical value and therefore individual words, phrases and clauses also have a numerical value, and when these numerical values are matched with key numbers that result from measuring the exteriors and interiors of the ancient structures the meaning behind the measurements becomes clear.

Like Books Written in Stone, Building Bridges will make entensive use of gematria to explain the symbolism that will be encountered in the four lands to be explored.

A review of Books Written in Stone follows for the benefit of those who may not be able to find copies of the two volumes or who may have read them, but not recently, and therefore need to have their memories refreshed.

*   *   *

In 820 AD the caliph of Baghdad, Abdullah al-Mamun, forced an entry into the Great Pyramid of Giza, hoping to find the fabulous treasure that was said to be hidden in as many as 30 underground chambers. What he found instead was a 350-foot-long passageway that measured 3½ feet wide and 4 feet high and that plunged down through the pyramid’s masonry and on into the bedrock at a slope of 26 degrees.

At the end of the 350 feet the passageway became horizontal for 29 feet and then emptied into a large limestone chamber that gave the impression of having been carved by demons, for it contained a dark square pit that had been sunk into the east floor which was rough, turbulent, treacherous, and a narrow moldy passage that snaked south for 53 feet and then came to a dead end.

Further exploration revealed another passageway with a similar width and height as the descending passageway, however, this one was an ascending passageway that sloped upwards at 26 degrees for 129 feet, at which point one more horizontal passage led to a second limestone chamber that was inside the pyramid itself. Unfortunately, like the subterranean chamber, this chamber was also devoid of any treasure.

More searching brought the caliph to an imposing Grand Gallery that measured 7 feet wide at floor level, 28 feet high and 153 feet long. This gallery, inclined upwards at the same angle as the ascending passage, led to an antechamber, which in turn led into a third chamber that was not limestone but red granite. Here, there was a sarcophagus—but it was empty.

No pharaoh’s mummy.

And no treasure.

Since al-Mamun’s time, many others have entered the Great Pyramid intent on finding treasure of one kind or another. Among them have been a number of Englishmen who discovered additional passages and chambers that included what has become known as the well shaft, the Grotto, so-called air shafts in the two upper chambers found by al-Mamun, which were named the Queen’s Chamber and the King’s Chamber, plus five so-called relieving chambers above the King’s Chamber.

But once again, no mummy or treasure was ever found inside the pyramid.

In 1864 another Englishman by the name of Charles Piazzi Smyth went to Egypt to personally measure the Great Pyramid inside and out. Smyth, Scotland’s Astronomer-Royal, had been inspired by John Taylor, a Londoner who had studied the Great Pyramid for 30 years and had come to the conclusion that it could have been built only by people who had been guided by revelation from God.

Smyth made more new discoveries and came away convinced that Taylor was right. In addition, he accepted the theory put forth by a fellow Scot, Robert Menzies, that each inch of the pyramid’s interior passageways represented one year of the earth’s most important historical events such as the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and the life of Christ.

More explorers soon followed, and those who basically agreed with Taylor, Smyth and Menzies became known as pyramidologists. Opposed to their view that the pyramid embodied an extremely high technology as well as a religious message were the Egyptologists, who contended that the pyramid had been designed as a tomb for the pharaoh they identified as Khufu or Cheops (the Greek name).

Despite their differences, the two camps had something in common: both agreed that the Great Pyramid was one of the enduring wonders of the world. But the similarity did not end there. Admit it or not, no one in either camp could explain satisfactorily the purpose behind every single feature that, between them, had been detected inside the pyramid’s passages and chambers.

The pyramidologists have been incorrect in believing that the pyramid’s passages depict the earth’s major historical events year by year; they have also incorrectly interpreted the meaning of the three main chambers. Nevertheless, they’ve been much closer to the truth than the Egyptologists, who claim that the subterranean chamber and the Queen’s Chamber were abandoned and left incomplete in favor of burying the pharaoh in the King’s Chamber.

However, there is no real evidence to support their claim since no body or royal treasure has ever been discovered inside the pyramid; in addition, unlike other tombs, there are no paintings, no wall reliefs, no statues, no inscriptions inside the pyramid—nor are there any hieroglyphs, except in the top four compartments above the King’s Chamber.

Why, then, was the Great Pyramid built? Was it meant to function, as some have suggested, as an astronomical observatory? As a sundial, a calendar, a means for surveying the surrounding land? As a beacon for post-Diluvial spacecraft? Or perhaps as a source of microwave energy? Or something more mundane and practical, such as creating the first state?

The answer to all of the above is no.

The correct meaning of the three main chambers is found in the New Testament. In the 15th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul the Apostle set out to convince members of the Church of Jesus Christ in Corinth, Greece, that Christ had been resurrected and because of him all mankind would be resurrected—but not all at the same time.

Paul explained that the resurrection would take place in stages, at different times, and that not everyone would be resurrected with the same kind of body, for there were celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

Paul compared these bodies to the glory of the sun and the glory of the moon, and then he added that there was another glory that could be compared to the stars, and as one star differs from another star in glory, so would it be for those who were resurrected with these less glorious bodies (verses 40-42).

In other words, Paul described three different kingdoms of heaven, three different degrees of glory that humanity would inherit following the resurrection and the final judgment, when the small and great would stand before God to be judged according to their works (Revelation 20:12).

The Great Pyramid’s subterranean chamber was not abandoned or left incomplete; it appears as a barren, desolate, inhospitable place on purpose, for it represents the lowest degree of glory, that of the stars. This lowest of the three kingdoms of heaven is called the telestial kingdom (see Section 76, verse 81 in The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The dead-end passage in that chamber is related to the outer darkness described by Christ, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12), and the pit represents the prison where Satan and the rest of the sons of perdition will be confined (Matthew 6:23; 1 Timothy 6:9; and 2 Peter 2:4).

Similarly, the Queen’s Chamber was not abandoned or left unfinished. At the same time, it looks much less forbidding than the subterranean chamber. That is because it represents the second degree of glory, the terrestrial kingdom, which is comparable to the moon.

The King’s Chamber, composed of red granite, represents the third degree of glory, the celestial kingdom, which is like the sun.

Arab historians have recorded a legend that a king by the name of Surid or Saurid, who lived 300 years before the biblical flood, had a vision of the future deluge and built the Great Pyramid to make certain the knowledge and the science of his generation would be preserved. This king has also been identified as Hermes Trismegistus, the Greek god whose Egyptian name was Thoth, and he has been identified as Idris. Idris, in the Popular Dictionary of Islam, is equated with Enoch, the seer and prophet who, in Genesis, walked with God and then was not, for God took him (5:24).

What needs to be understood is that in approximately 3000 BC Enoch, the seventh patriarch from Adam, was translated, that is, he was changed so that he could live indefinitely without aging and without being subject to illness or any kind of physical harm—unless he so willed it. But Enoch was not the only one to go through this change. The inhabitants of the city that Enoch built, who most likely numbered in the hundreds of thousands, were also translated. These Elect of God have been here on the earth since the Genesis period carrying out special missions, frequently working unseen and unheard, but before they were translated they founded colonies around the world and they left behind evidence of their remarkable technology, a technology that has not yet been equaled in the early years of the 21st century.

It was Enoch and his people who built all of the pyramids, the sphinx and the temples of Giza, as well as the temple in Jerusalem where Christ taught in the first century AD.

Three thousand years before Paul the Apostle’s time, Enoch was taught by Jehovah or Yahweh, who was Christ as a pre-mortal spirit, about the three degrees of glory. He was also taught about the necessity of baptism by water for the remission of sins, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the importance of temple ordinances. And he received the higher priesthood, the authority to act in God’s name, which today is known as the Melchizedek Priesthood.

It is this sacred knowledge that is built into the pyramid’s passages and chambers as a witness that has stood for thousands of years, a witness that Christ’s teachings have been the same from the beginning. It is apostasy from those teachings that has made it necessary to restore the Church of Jesus Christ at various times throughout the ages, including the period when the Messiah himself was on the earth. Christ did not found the Christian Church for the first time in the first century AD as many believe; the first Christian Church was established in the days of Adam.

Carbon dating of the Great Pyramid has dated it to approximately 3000 BC. According to biblical chronology, Enoch was not translated until about 2958 BC, so the dates are compatible. Other evidence that places Enoch in ancient Egypt includes obvious parallels between Enoch and the Egyptian god Thoth, both having been associated with great wisdom and knowledge, with the arts and sciences, and especially with writing.

Certain numbers occur over and over in the Great Pyramid’s interior system, which tells us they were meant to have some significance. That significance is explained beginning with the number of acres covered by the Great Pyramid, which is 13. The number 13 is linked to a statement by Paul in his epistle to members of the church in Ephesus, Greece:

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19-21)

The 12 apostles plus Christ add up to 13, and that is the reason for the 13 acres.

As for the pyramid being a temple, Peter Tompkins regards it as being connected to the Egyptian mysteries, that is to say, the secret knowledge possessed by a hierarchy of initiates which was communicated to those who could prove their worthiness by passing a long period of probationary training and severe trials. Tompkins cites William Kingsland’s belief that the secret of the Pyramid is even known to present-day initiates, but is probably ‘one of those matters which they do not see fit to disclose to the world at large’ (Secrets of the Great Pyramid 259).

There is some truth in both quotes from Tompkins’ book since the mysteries were introduced by Enoch and his people to those Egyptians who joined the Church of Jesus Christ and who met the qualifications for their individual temple endowment, which entails instruction, covenants and priesthood signs and tokens that prepare members of the church for their eventual inheritance in the celestial kingdom.

However, the pyramid was not actually used for those endowments; instead, a temple was built next to the pyramid for that purpose. The interior of the pyramid was meant to depict the three degrees of glory and certain elements related to temple ordinances.

With that understanding, a detailed explanation is given in Books Written in Stone for such unusual features as the 33-foot-wide sloping platform on which the original entrance is built; the two wall joints in the descending passage that, 40 feet from the entrance, are the only ones in the entire 350-foot-length to be vertical; the two lines inscribed in the walls a few inches from the vertical joints; the three fissures in the descending passage; and the reason for the 1 in 2 slope of the descending passage.

The symbolic function of the horizontal passage that leads to the subterranean chamber and the reason for its being even narrower than the descending passage is explained by its being a depiction of the spirit prison spoken of in the Bible (see for example Isaiah 24:22 and 42:5-7); this prison can be equated with the Egyptologists’ underworld. The horizontal passage constricts in size to indicate the confinement of the evil spirits that inhabit the spirit prison.

The horizontal passages that connect to the Queen’s Chamber and the King’s Chamber also represent the spirit world, but their lengths are considerably less than the passage to the subterranean chamber because the people in the spirit prison will remain confined until the last resurrection, whereas the people in the second and third levels of the spirit world will spend less time there before they are resurrected.

Three granite stones block the initial entrance to the ascending passage which allows access to the Queen’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery and the King’s Chamber. To enter this passage one has to bypass the three stones by using a tunnel believed to have been hacked out of the masonry by al-Mamun’s crew of laborers. These stones symbolize repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

A series of what are called girdle stones that follow the three granite stones are related to them, however the girdle stones symbolize various programs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the phrase Latter-day Saints has been added to the name of the church during this current dispensation of time so that the world will know that we are, in fact, in the last days before Christ’s second coming). These programs have been instituted to help strengthen the young women as well as the mature women in the church.

The girdle stones also symbolize the two priesthoods in the church: the lesser or Aaronic Priesthood, which is for young men ages 12 through 17, and the greater or Melchizedek Priesthood, which is for males 18 and older.

The well shaft that connects the lower part of the descending passage to the beginning of the Grand Gallery represents plunging down and away from God or climbing back up with great effort to regain his presence through repentance and observing the Ten Commandments.

The Grand Gallery represents the temple, the House of the Lord, where endowments are performed. The freedom experienced by the righteous is emphasized by the grand scale of this 28-foot-high passage which contrasts sharply with the height of 37 inches for the horizontal passage to the subterranean chamber (Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt 287).

The so-called air vents in the Queen’s Chamber and the King’s chamber pertain to the celestial kingdom’s ministration to the terrestrial kingdom and the terrestrial’s ministration to the telestial kingdom.

The hieroglyphs in the fifth compartment above the King’s Chamber that are translated as Khufu by Egyptologists actually spell the two words HOW FEW. How few will believe what is revealed about the Great Pyramid in Books Written in Stone, and, as Christ tells us, Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to [eternal] life… there are few who find it (The New King James Version, Matthew 7:14).

Out on the Giza plateau, the exterior of the Great Pyramid represents the highest degree of glory, the celestial kingdom. The second major pyramid, which is to the south and west of the Great Pyramid, represents the terrestrial kingdom, and the third major pyramid, which is to the south and west of the second pyramid, represents the lowest degree of glory, the telestial kingdom.

South of the third pyramid are three small unimpressive pyramids. East of the Great Pyramid are three more small unimpressive pyramids. Each of these six pyramids is different and each appears to have been left unfinished. The reason for these six pyramids’ unfinished and unimpressive state is that they represent the lower levels of the telestial kingdom.

The Sphinx, in addition to representing Christ and Enoch, is another representation of the three degrees of glory and that is why the Sphinx was carved out of three different geological layers. The head, says Mark Lehner, was carved from a much better building stone (Member III) than the soft layers of the body (Member II), while the base is carved from a petrified hard shoal and coral reef (Member I) (The Complete Pyramids 127, caption).

The head, Member III, represents the celestial kingdom; the body (Member II) represents the terrestrial kingdom; and the base (Member I) represents the telestial kingdom.

The ruins of five structures—the so-called mortuary temple on the east side of the second pyramid, the valley temple which is connected to it by a causeway, the Sphinx temple, the temple attributed to Amenhotep II which was built northeast of the Sphinx, and the temple on the east side of the Great Pyramid—are all different because they represent parts of a single House of the Lord.

*   *   *

This review of Books Written in Stone, while brief and leaving out much, should nevertheless help readers to appreciate the interrelationships among other ancient structures that will continue to be demonstrated throughout this first of two volumes.

1. Akhenaten

On the east side of the Nile River and approximately 200 miles south of the Giza plateau, home of the Great Pyramid, are the remains of el-Amarna, frequently written as simply Amarna, the Arabic name of the modern city on the site of ancient Akhetaten, the ‘Horizon of Aten,’ built by Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV of the 18th Dynasty), so writes Margaret Bunson in her Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (13).

At this site in 1887 a poor Egyptian woman digging in the ruins of the ancient city unearthed a cache of over 300 clay tablets impressed with cuneiform signs (Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten: King of Egypt 52). Today these tablets are known as the Amarna archive, the Amarna letters, or the Amarna tablets, and they are considered to be for the most part diplomatic dispatches of Asiatic envoys to Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten (Aldred 52).

In the January/February 2009 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review Nadav Na’aman examines the apparent disparity between the contents of the Amarna tablets and the archaeological evidence for what is regarded as the Late Bronze Age. Na’aman points out on page 54 of his article that the Amarna tablets, which he dates from 1391 to 1337 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), indicate that excavations in Canaanite cities such as Jerusalem should reveal a large, thriving city in the Late Bronze Age. But these expectations, he confesses, were totally dashed. A large fortified Canaanite city was in fact discovered at the site, but it dated to the Middle Bronze Age II-III. This Middle Bronze Age he dates to the 17th-16th centuries B.C.E. whereas the late Bronze Age is dated from 1500 to 1150 B.C.E.

Na’aman adds, Looking at the overall archaeological picture, we find that the Amarna period was conspicuous in the decline of all aspects of urban culture, in contrast to the early impression made by looking at the Amarna tablets without the archaeological context. Anticipating the question his readers would most likely raise, he asks, How can these two views be reconciled?

To answer his question we can consider three possibilities: either (1) the dates for the Amarna tablets are incorrect; or (2) the dates for the Late Bronze Age and perhaps even the Middle Bronze Age are incorrect; or (3) all of the dates given by Na’aman are incorrect.

We will begin by taking a look at the dates for the Amarna tablets, or to be more specific, the dates for the pharaoh Akhenaten who is associated with them. On page 52 of his article Na’aman lists 1353-1337 B.C.E. for Akhenaten’s rule. What is the source for this information?

Na’aman is of course relying on Egyptologists. Margaret Bunson’s Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, for instance, records on page 11 the dates of 1353-1335 BC for Akhenaten, which means a reign of 18 years, two more than Na’aman’s figures. Nicholas Reeves’ 2001 edition of Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet duplicates Margaret Bunson’s figures (see page 6). His conventional chronology is attributed to The Cultural Atlas of the World: Ancient Egypt by John Baines and Jaromir Malek.

On the other hand, Aidan Dodson in Monarchs of the Nile, first published in Egypt in 2000, has Akhenaten reigning for 17 years, but Dodson favors the approximate dates of 1360-1343 (96). Aldred likes 18 years for the reign, with dates of 1358-1340 (11). The 1994 publication of Chronicle of the Pharaohs by Peter A. Clayton contains the estimate of a 16-year rule, beginning about 1350 and ending in 1334 (126). Donald B. Redford, author of Akhenaten: The Heretic King, prefers a reign of 17 years and posts the figures of 1377 to 1360 (13).

Going farther back in time, Sir Alan Gardiner on page 443 of the 1961 edition of Egypt of the Pharaohs also chose a reign of 17 years, beginning with 1367 and ending with 1350. In 1910 Arthur Weigall’s A Guide to the Antiquities of Egypt likewise had 17 years but with slightly different dates of 1375-1358 (xx). Weigall, incidentally, spelled the king’s name as Akhnaton.

In 1906 James Henry Breasted’s first volume of Ancient Records of Egypt was published. In this work, which preceded Weigall’s by four years, Breasted listed 17 years and the dates of 1375-1358 (page 43), so it would appear that Weigall was copying Breasted. However, Breasted’s spelling of the name was Ikhnaton.

And in 1893, the original publication date for E. A. Wallis Budge’s The Mummy: A History of the Extraordinary Practices of Ancient Egypt, we find the pharaoh beginning to rule in 1466 B.C. Budge’s spelling is Chu-en-aten (page 36 of the 1989 reprint).

Would we be justified in wondering if any of the dates listed here are correct? Notice that the difference between Budge’s date of 1466 and the date of 1353 selected by Na’aman is 113 years. Should we perhaps ignore Budge’s figure since he was writing more than a century ago? Or could he possibly be closer to the correct date than any of the other Egyptologists cited so far?

Perhaps a better question is, what sources have Egyptologists used in order to determine their particular dates?

On pages 138 and 139 of her dictionary Margaret Bunson provides part of the answer with her entry titled King Lists. She begins with the Abydos List which was "inscribed by Seti I (1306-1290 B.C.) [or 1291-1278 according to Peter Clayton; see page 11 of his Chronicle of the Pharaohs] in his temple in Abydos. This list, Bunson says, contains 80 kings’ names (76 names according to Clayton), however, it has some intentional omissions"; among them is Akhenaten.

Next is the Saqqara List, a text containing 58 names, taken from the tomb of an official of Ramesses II. The names are in retrograde order, starting with Ramesses.

The Karnak List follows. This list is inscribed on the festival hall of TUTHMOSIS III (1479-1425 B.C.), east of the main temple at Karnak in Thebes. [Peter Clayton’s dates are 1504-1450.] This list contains the names of 62 kings, not all in order and not all inclusive.

Following the Karnak List Bunson tells us that the Turin Canon is considered the most trustworthy and valuable list, compiled in the reign of Ramesses II (1290-1224 B.C.) Unfortunately, it is extremely fragmentary, and a number of the king’s [sic] names are no longer decipherable.

Wallis Budge, who was the first scholar to claim that the Amarna tablets were not fakes as previously claimed by other scholars (see page 63 of Reeves’ Akhenaten), records 75 kings, not 76 or 80, for the Abydos List; for the Sakkarah (Budge’s spelling) List he has 47 kings, not 58; and for the Karnak List, 61 kings instead of 62, and he notes that no chronological order has been followed in the Sakkarah List (pages 9-10 of The Mummy).

Budge refers to yet another source that he and other Egyptologists have used. This is the work of an Egyptian priest known as Manetho, who is believed to have lived in the third century BC. Regrettably, Manetho’s history was lost. No more than fragments can be found in the writings of authors such as Josephus, Eusebius and Julius Africanus. Nevertheless, this history is deemed one of the most valuable documents which have come down to us (The Mummy 9).

James P. Allen agrees with Budge’s assessment. Manetho, he writes, divided Egypt’s pharaohs into thirty dynasties. These divisions are still used for the most part (Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs 9).

But now read Budge’s warning:

The chronology of Egypt has been, and must be for some time yet, a subject of difficulty and of variety of opinion. The fixed points in Egyptian history are so few and the gaps between them so great, that it is quite impossible to establish an accurate system of chronology: approximate dates are all that can be hoped for at present. (10)

And now here is what Clayton has to say about the two most important sources that Egyptologists draw on: the Turin Canon and Manetho’s history. Both, he states, begin with dynasties of gods (Chronicle of the Pharaohs 12). Gods, he says, not kings.

Mark Lehner, author of The Complete Pyramids, in his discussion of what Egyptologists refer to as the First Intermediate Period in Egyptian history, tells us that Manetho’s dynasty 7 is composed of 70 kings in 70 days (164).

Does any Egyptologist accept as factual Manetho’s dynasties of gods or his 70 kings in 70 days? Surely not, and yet they seem to accept as factual the rest of Manetho’s extant history. They have failed to understand what Manetho was doing when he made such statements. We’ll come back to this matter, but first we need to ask another question.

How have Egyptologists derived the name Akhenaten?

Page 65 of Joyce Tyldesley’s Nefertiti presents a cartouche—defined by Margaret Bunson as an ellipse found in reliefs, paintings, sculpture and papyri encircling certain royal names of Egyptian kings since the 4th Dynasty (51)—that contains 7 hieroglyphs. It is from these 7 that Akhenaten is derived. It will be worth our time to examine these hieroglyphs in some detail.

Pick up any text on reading hieroglyphs and you will be directed to read this cartouche from left to right and when one hieroglyph is above another you are to read the grouping from top to bottom.

So we begin with the first hieroglyph on the left. Karl-Theodor Zauzich on page 110 of his Hieroglyphs without Mystery (translated by Ann Macy Roth) identifies this sign as a reed leaf. He assigns no letter to this hieroglyph but others such as Budge (page 366 of The Mummy), Allen (page 435), Hilary Wilson (page 31 of Understanding Hieroglyphs), and Samuel A. B. Mercer (page 158 of The Handbook of Egyptian Hieroglyphs), assign it the letters A, I, J, or Y, this despite their assertion that hieroglyphs are not used to write vowels (a, e, i, o, u), only consonants (the quote is from page 2 of Mark Collier and Bill Manley’s How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs). Of course, we need to keep in mind that vowels do have to be employed when translating hieroglyphs into English.

The second hieroglyph—at the top of the three that are aligned vertically—is identified as bread and is assigned the letter T (Barbara Watterson, Introducing Egyptian Hieroglyphs 134).

The third hieroglyph—beneath the bread sign—normally represents water and the letter N (Allen 437).

The fourth hieroglyph—beneath the water sign—is taken to be an ideogram for the sun and is assigned the letter R (Zauzich 110). It is also regarded as a symbol of the sun-god (Mercer 159).

After the three vertical hieroglyphs is an odd looking bird known as a crested ibis. It is usually equated with the single letter H or the three letters AKH (Collier and Manley 135), however, Mercer adds the three letters YAH (156).

The sixth hieroglyph is another disk, this one with lines drawn across it. Egyptologists equate this second disk with the letters H or KH (Zauzich 119; Hilary Wilson 31) .

The seventh and last hieroglyph in the cartouche is the same as the third hieroglyph, the water sign transliterated as the letter N.

To recapitulate as far as the letter assignations are concerned, we have (1) A, I, J, or Y; (2) T; (3) N; (4) R; (5) H, AKH or YAH; (6) H or KH, which is actually identical to AKH; and (7) N.

Most Egyptologists translate the first 3 hieroglyphs as aten. They do not use the disk with a hole in its center as a letter but rather as a determinative. Determinatives, write Collier and Manley, do not contribute to the sounds of the word and so are not transliterated. From our point of view, they simply help us to get some general idea of the meaning of a word (5). After the determinative, Egyptologists employ either the ibis or the second disk to derive akh, and finally the second sign for water becomes en, with the vowel being added.

The order of the hieroglyphs when translated this way yields aten-akh-en, so why do Egyptologists change the order to akh-en-aten? They do it because, according to Hilary Wilson, the god’s name is supposed to be pronounced last (34). In that case we might ask why the ancient scribe who recorded the hieroglyphs didn’t simplify things by putting the god’s name last instead of first?

Speaking of pronunciation, we learn from Christian Jacq’s Fascinating Hieroglyphics that in the case of the disk with the lines across its face the letter K is added to the letter H simply for the sake of pronunciation (35). That being so, shouldn’t we eliminate the K when translating the hieroglyphs under discussion? After all, why should we be concerned with pronunciation, especially when we’re advised by Hilary Wilson that in fact there are very few clues as to how the language sounded, so modern pronunciation is largely a matter of educated guesswork and the source of much learned discussion, not to say argument (30). Despite this disclosure, on the very next page she