One king Suppiluliumas enough

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

Ideally, when having to shorten history, one would be looking to reduce the number of kings, e.g. using alter egos (as Velikovsky was wont to do), rather than multiplying their number.

 

 

 

 

In Chapter 7 of his book, Ramses II and His Time (1978), Dr. Velikovsky has a section (4.) entitled “Two Suppiluliumas”.

 

As if one king of this preposterous name - which ‘only a mother could love’ - were not enough!

 

More seriously, ideally, when having to shorten history, one would be looking to reduce the number of kings, e.g. using alter egos (as Velikovsky was wont to do), rather than multiplying their number.

 

Velikovsky’s need to create two kings Suppiluliumas came about only because he had artificially jammed dynasties from the so-called Third Intermediate Period of Egyptian history in between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties. Thus no longer could the Suppiluliumas of the El-Amarna era of the Eighteenth Dynasty be connected to his own self early in the Nineteenth Dynasty. That now became biologically most unlikely.

Velikovsky wrote:

https://archive.org/stream/RamsesIIAndHisTimeAgesOfChaosII_201805MinSalah/Ramses%20II%20and%20His%20Time%2C%20Ages%20of%20Chaos%20II_djvu.txt

 

4. Two Suppiluliumas 

It has already been argued that Suppiluliumas, the author of two letters of the el-Amarna collection, could hardly be the king by the same name who was the father of Mursilis. In the conventional chronology, between the death of Amenhotep III (-1375) and the twenty-first year of Ramses II (-1279), when the 

treaty with Hattusilis was signed, one hundred and five years passed, which appears to be too long for the ruling years of three successive generations, especially when one takes into account that only part of the reigns of Suppiluliumas and Hattusilis are included in this span.— 

According to my reconstruction of history, between the period of the el-Amarna letters and the time of Suppiluliumas, the grandfather of Hattusilis, over one hundred and sixty years must have elapsed (from the time of Jehoshaphat to the time of Manasseh), and it is impossible that an author of an el-Amarna letter could have been a grandfather of Hattusilis. 

The el-Amarna letters, as I have endeavored to demonstrate (Ages in Chaos, »The El-Amarna Letters«), were written in the middle of the ninth century in the days of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (-859 to -824). Actually, Shalmaneser refers to his warlike relations with Suppiluliumas (“Sapalulme”) 

of Hath (“Hattina”).— 

On the proper page of this volume some of the political and military activities of Suppiluliumas 11 have been briefly discussed, leaving the subject for more detailed treatment in the volume on The Assyrian Conquest. In the biography of Suppiluliumas written by his son Mursilis,— one item deserves mention 

here. An Egyptian queen named Dakhamun, upon the death of her royal husband, having no male child, sent messengers to Suppiluliumas with a letter requesting that the addressee should send her one of his sons for her to marry and to put on the throne of Egypt, since she was loath to marry any of her subjects. 

It is usually assumed, and is so stated in many textbooks, that the queen who wrote this letter to the “Hittite” king Suppiluliumas was the widow of Tutankhamen, Ankhesenpaaten, daughter of Akhnaton. — But this surmise is built on very poor reasoning, aside from the fact that Ankhesenpaaten (ca. -830) and Suppiluliumas 11 (seventh century) were not contemporaries but were separated by over a hundred and sixty years. 

The historical scene at the Egyptian Thebes lends no credence to the idea of Ankhesenpaaten assuming the role of a widowed queen requesting from a foreign king a son to remarry. Upon the death of Tutankhamen at the age of eighteen, or possibly seventeen, Ankhesenpaaten was most probably sixteen years of age, if not younger. The realm was under the heavy hand of Ay, who proclaimed himself king (pharaoh) and without delay, even before donning the crown and mounting the throne, married Ankhesenpaaten, now renamed Ankhesenpaamen, only by marrying a princess of royal blood could he inherit the regalia.— The child queen was probably not even asked whether she would tolerate her maternal granduncle (Ay was a brother of Queen Tiy, mother of Akhnaton) as husband; and after the nuptials nothing further was heard of her - she was a plaything in the political game of the crafty Ay. The scene at Thebes and the roles of the various members of the royal house and of the palace entourage are illuminated in detail in my Oedipus and Akhnaton. 

Suppiluliumas 11 was contemporary with Tirhaka, the Ethiopian king who also ruled Egypt. Tirhaka died in -663, leaving no heir. It must have been his widow who wrote the much-quoted letter to Suppiluliumas. ….

Now the check on this conclusion is at hand. The story as reported by Mursilis, son of Suppiluliumas, gives the name of the pharaoh as “Bib-khururia” (or “Nib-khururia”—). The royal name of Tirhaka ends with “khu-ra.”— The name of his queen was Duk-hat-amun.— The name is unique among all the queens of 

Egypt. ….

 

“Nib-khururia” was not Tirhakah (who was too late), but, likely, Tutankhamun:

 

https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/suppiluliuma-letter/

“Nibhururia is generally thought to be the Hittite version of Nubkheperure, the Prenomen of Tutankhamen, but it is also possible that Nibhururia was Akhenaten who was usually known as Napkhururia in semitic sources. The general consensus remains that Nibhururia was Tutankhamen”.

Conventional history also doubles him up   

 

 

Dates for the Hittite emperor, Suppiluliumas, currently range from c. 1386-1345 BC … to

c. 1344-1322 BC …. A long span indeed! So long, in fact, that the conventional chronology presents us with two kings Suppiluliumas of Hatti, the supposed second of whom being dated to c. 1207–1178 BC. And so does Dr. I. Velikovsky, using a completely different time in his radical book, Ramses II and His Time (1978), Epilogue section: “Two Suppiluliumas”.

 

Previously I have written on this subject:

 

Shalmaneser III and Suppiluliumas

 

Perhaps revisionists have not made enough of king Shalmaneser III’s Year 1 reference to “Sapalulme of Khattina”, who can only be, I would suggest, Suppiluliumas of Hatti. The Assyrian [king] records:

http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANEhist/annalsShalmaneser3.html

 

I left Mount Amanus and crossed the Orontes River coming to Alimush, the stronghold of Sapalulme the Hattinite. Sapalulme, to save his life, called on Ahûni, Sagara, and Haianu, as well as Kate the Kuean, Pihirisi the Hilukite, Buranate the Iasbukite, and Ada… Assur, (Col. II)… I shattered their forces. ….

 

This could be a most vital synchronism for a revised EA [El Amarna]. And it may well become one in the hands of some astute revisionist.

 

A major problem, though, is that the chronology of Suppiluliumas himself is so watery, at present, as to disallow for his serving as a really solid chronological anchor.

Dates for the Hittite emperor, Suppiluliumas, currently range from c. 1386-1345 BC (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1A0OgvXfHlQC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=dates+fo) to c. 1344-1322 BC (http://www.ancient.eu/Suppiluliuma_I/). A long span indeed! So long, in fact, that the conventional chronology presents us with two kings Suppiluliumas of Hatti, the supposed second of whom being dated to c. 1207–1178 BC. And so does Dr. I. Velikovsky, using a completely different time in his radical book, Ramses II and His Time (1978), Epilogue section: “Two Suppiluliumas”.

….

 

Possible bookends for Suppiluliumas

 

According to what will follow, a Hittite Suppiluliumas may already have been active late in the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III, hence the early dating of Suppiluliumas to c. 1386-1345 BC. And a Suppiluliumas (given as II) was a known contemporary of pharaoh Ramses I (c. 1290 BC, conventional dating).

 

Let us consider these two cases separately.

 

In Ugarit in Retrospect: Fifty Years of Ugarit and Ugaritic (edited by Gordon Douglas Young):

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1A0OgvXfHlQC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=dates, we are told of some further possible synchronisms between Suppiluliumas and EA kings. I shall find it necessary to include some of my own comments here:

 

Ammištamru and the "First Hittite Foray"

 

Ammištamru's letter to the Pharaoh (EA 45) is significant for another reason besides being a piece of evidence on Ugarit's dependence on Egypt.

….

Long ago Knudtzon completed LUGAL KUR [^URU Ḫa-at-te] in line 22, and restored [LUGAL KUR ^URU Ḫa-at-te] in line 30. His guess must be accepted as correct, despite Liverani's attempt to see here a reference to hostile actions by Abdi-Aširta of Amurru which are mentioned in the treaty between Niqmaddu and Aziru. …. Abdi-Aširta was never called "king," ….

… and the least appropriate place of calling him so would have been a letter a letter to his Egyptian sovereign. ….

 

Comment needed here: The fact is, however, that none of EA’s letters from Ugarit, including this EA # 45, ever mentions the intended recipient as a “pharaoh” or “of Egypt”. That becomes apparent from the following excerpt from A. Altman’s article,

 

“Ugarit's political standing in the Beginning of the 14th Century BCE reconsidered”

https://www.academia.edu/3890797/Ugarits_political_standing_in_the_Beginning_of_the_14th_Century_BCE_reconsidered

 

2.1 Features indicating dependence

 

The characteristic stylistic features of the opening of these letters, as well as certain expressions, from which Ugarit’s subordination to Egypt might have been inferred, are as follows:

 

The letters do not mention the Egyptian king by name, nor do they address him as “the king of Egypt”. Rather, they are addressed “to the king, the Sun, my lord”; an address which has been fully preserved in EA 49, 1. An omission of the name of the addressee may occur in the correspondence between sovereign kings or rulers of equal standing of this period, but their writers never fail to identify the addressee by his country. ….

 [End of quote]

So perhaps the recipient is not an EA pharaoh at all.

 

The same article makes the surprising admission that: “… Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV … [the EA pharaohs] are not known as having conducted military campaigns to northern Syria …”.

 

Returning, now, to EA 45 and Ammištamru, we now arrive at mention of Suppilulimas:

 

Conversely, the Hittite interpretation permits us to link Ammištamru's letter to the Hittite foray into the dominion of Tušratta, king of Mitanni, who defeated it, and sent news of his victory to his ally, Amenhotep III, together with some gifts from the Hittite booty. …. As K. Kitchen has demonstrated, Tušratta's letter in question, EA 17, could not have been written after year 34 of Amenhotep III, and might date back to year 30.

In absolute figures, following the system of chronology accepted in this paper, this would assign the "first Syrian foray" to one of the years between 1388 and 1385. Now who was the Hittite king who sent out, or led, the unsuccessful foray? Was it already Šuppiluliumaš?

 [End of quote]

Now to a Suppiluliumas contemporaneous with pharaoh Ramses I.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I was able to table the following set of synchronisms between 19^th dynasty Egyptian pharaohs and their Hittite ruling contemporaries in my thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

(Volume One, p. 260, Table 2):

 

Thankfully, the conventional sequence of the early Ramessides, at least, is secure due to a known correlation with a sequence of contemporary Hittite kings. A peace treaty between Egypt and the Hittites was signed by Usermare Setepenre (royal name of Ramses II), son of Menmare (Seti I), grandson of Menpeḥtire (Ramses I); and by Khetasar (Hattusilis), son of Merosar (Mursilis), grandson of Seplel (Suppiluliumas). ….

Table 2: Egyptian-Hittite Syncretisms

….

 

This early Ramesside order in relation to the Hittite succession for this era is a vital chronological link considering the dearth of such links that so often confronts the historian. This is a rock-solid synchronism that can serve as a constant point of reference; it being especially important in the context of the revision, given the confusion that arises with the names ‘Seti’ and ‘Sethos’ in connection with the 19th dynasty ….

We can be extremely grateful for this much certainty at least (Table 2 above).

 

 [End of quote]

 

Whether this conventionally very long span of time encompassing the two supposed kings Suppiluliumas will eventually be so reduced in time, in a revised scheme, so as to make it possible for just the one king Suppiluliumas of Hatti, of, say, some 40 years of reign (as favoured by the proponents of the c. 1386-1345 BC scenario), remains to be seen. ….

[End of article]

 

I now believe - and hope eventually to show - that such is the case, that “this conventionally very long span of time encompassing the two supposed kings Suppiluliumas will eventually be so reduced in time, in a revised scheme, so as to make it possible for just the one king Suppiluliumas of Hatti, of, say, some 40 years of reign ...”.

Were pharaoh Ramses II and Esarhaddon contemporaries?



 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

“The first march of Necho-Ramses II toward the Euphrates is related on the obelisk

of Tanis and on the rock inscription of Nahr el Kalb near Beirut, written in his second year. The rock inscriptions of Ramses II are not as old as that of Essarhadon on the same rock”.



Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky

  

Thus wrote Dr. Velikovsky in # 211 of his: https://www.varchive.org/ce/theses.htm

 

THESES FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF ANCIENT HISTORY

 

He, retaining the potent king Esarhaddon in his conventional place following Sennacherib, but dramatically lowering the mighty Ramses II of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty by some 700 years, from his conventional date of c. 1280 BC down to the time of Nebuchednezzar (so-called II), conventionally c. 580 BC, now saw Ramses II as being “not as old as … Essarhadon”.

 

This was in stark contrast to the conventional structure of things which has Ramses II (1280) ante-dating Esarhaddon (c. 680 BC) by some 600 years: 

https://www.livius.org/articles/place/lykos-nahr-al-kalb/

 

In the thirteenth century BCE, the Egyptian king Ramesses II left three reliefs on the south bank of the Nahr al-Kalb, north of Berytus, which commemorated the northern campaigns that culminated in the battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE). Several centuries later, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, having forced cities like Tyre into submission, conquered Egypt, and chose to put a memorial of his own opposite the relief of Ramesses. Ever since, armies have left inscription at the Nahr al-Kalb, a custom that was known to the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (more).

[End of quote]

 

In Ramses II and his Time (1978), Velikovsky would develop his connection between pharaoh Ramses II and Nebuchednezzar by identifying the latter as the Hittite emperor, Hattsulis, who famously engaged in a treaty with Ramses II.  

What to say about all of this?

I had come to reject it completely, due to Dr. Velikovsky’s archaeologically highly dubious separation of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty away from the Eighteenth in order for Ramses II and his dynasty now to be equated with Egypt’s Twenty-Sixth (Saïte) Dynasty at the approximate time of Nebuchednezzar king of Babylon.

But that earlier estimation of mine must needs be amended, at least to some degree, owing to my more recent identification of Esarhaddon with Nebuchednezzar himself in articles such as:

 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar

https://www.academia.edu/38017900/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar

 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar. Part Two: Another writer has picked up this possible connection

 

https://www.academia.edu/37525605/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar._Part_Two_Another_writer_has_picked_up_this_possible_connection

 

and again:

 

Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans

 

https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans

 

That big turnaround on my part would now lead me to conclude that the reason for the juxtaposition of Ramses II and Esarhaddon on the same rock inscription of Nahr el Kalb was because these two mighty men were contemporaneous.

 

It would also mean that Dr. Velikovsky was right after all in synchronising Ramses II with Nebuchednezzar.

Whether or not the latter was also the emperor Hattusilis, and Ramses II was also Necho II, are other considerations.

 

It does not mean however, I still think, that the Nineteenth Dynasty can be dragged right away from the Eighteenth. The necessary crunching in time comes from dragging backwards, so to speak, Nebuchednezzar, to slot into time as Esarhaddon.

 

In Ramses II and his Time (Chapter 2 Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar in War and Peace), Velikovsky wrote (with his Nebuchednezzar as Hattusilis):

 

Treaty Between Ramses II and Nebuchadnezzar

 

Two giants, Egypt under Ramses II and Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, fought nineteen years for domination over the Middle East. Judea was the victim in this deadly struggle. She was devastated by the troops first of one despot and then of the other, but the lands of the contestants were spared the horrors of the prolonged war.

To secure victory over rebellious Judea, Nebuchadnezzar finally proposed a peace treaty to the pharaoh. Historians take it for granted that during the last siege of Jerusalem a treaty was negotiated between Babylonia and Egypt.22 The pharaoh was glad to insure the integrity of his own country and sacrificed Judea, his ally.

Jerusalem suffered an eighteen months’ siege, followed by destruction. The war between Babylonia and Egypt had terminated, and Egypt did not come to the aid of the besieged. More than this, Egypt and Babylonia pledged loyalty to each other and obligated themselves to extradite political refugees.

The peace treaty is preserved in the Egyptian language, carved on the wall of the Karnak temple of Amon. A text in the Babylonian (Akkadian) language, written on clay in cuneiform and found at the beginning of this century at Boghazkoi, a village of eastern Anatolia, is a draft of the same document. The original of the treaty was written on a silver tablet not extant today. The original language of the treaty was Babylonian, and the Egyptian text is a translation, as some expressions reveal.

The treaty was signed by Usermare Setepnere, son of Menmare, grandson of Menpehtire (the royal name of Ramses II, son of Seti, grandson of Ramses I), and by Khetasar, son of Merosar, grandson of Seplel. The treaty in the Akkadian language was signed by Hattusilis, son of Mursilis, grandson of Subbiluliumas.23

The man whose name was read Khetasar in the Egyptian and Hattusilis in the Boghazkoi text must have been the king whom we know as Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar. More than fifty times in the Scriptures his name is spelled Nebuchadrezzar; more than thirty times he is called Nebuchadnezzar.24

The adversary of Ramses II is called in the treaty the king of Hatti. Hatti, as can be learned from many cuneiform texts, was a broad ethnographical or territorial designation. In a Babylonian building inscription Nebuchadnezzar wrote: “The princes of the land of Hatti beyond the Euphrates to the westward, over whom I exercised lordship.”25

The treaty has an “oath and curse” clause. Gods of many places were invoked to keep vigilance over the treaty and to punish the one who should violate it. In the list of the gods and goddesses, the goddess of Tyre is followed by the “goddess of Dan.” But in the days before the conquest of Dan by the Danites, in the time of the Judges, that place was called Laish (Judges 18:29), and it was Jeroboam who built there a temple. The name of a place called Dan in a treaty of Ramses II, presumably of the first half of the thirteenth century, sounds like an anachronism.

The purpose of the treaty was to bring about the cessation of hostilities between the two lands. It is obvious from its text that Syria and Palestine no longer belonged to the domain of Egypt.

This is in agreement with the biblical data. The major part of the treaty is given over to the problem of political refugees. The paragraphs are written in a reciprocal manner; it is apparent that it was the great king of Hatti who was interested in the provisions for extradition of the political enemies of the Chaldeans. A special paragraph in the treaty deals with Syrian (Palestinian) fugitives:

 

Now if subjects of the great chief of Kheta transgress against him ... I will come after their punishment to Ramses-Meriamon, the great ruler of Egypt ... to cause that Usermare-Setepnere, the great ruler of Egypt, shall be silent ... and he shall turn [them] back again to the great chief of Kheta.26

[End of quotes]

 

 

Shalmaneser V and Nebuchednezzar II were ‘camera-shy’?

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

“… there is no known relief depiction of Shalmaneser V …”.



 



Such is the case according to the article, "Shalmaneser V and Sargon II", at: http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/Rel302/Shalmaneser%20V%20and%20Sargon%20II.htm

.... The revolt of Israel against Assyria during the days of King Hoshea, last king of Israel, brought on a siege by the Assyrians (1 Kings 17). The siege was led by Shalmaneser V, King of Assyria (there is no known relief depiction of Shalmaneser V). During the siege, he died. Sargon II replaced Shalmanezer V as King of Assyria, who finished the siege and sacked Samaria.

 

Whilst that may be surprising in itself, the fact is – I believe - that Shalmaneser (so-called V) was the same person as Tiglath-pileser (known as III) of whom there are plenty of depictions.

 

 

And the lack of apparent portraits of Nebuchednezzar II was part of Dr. I. Velikovsky’s reason for (rightly) seeking to find an alter ego for the Great King (though wrongly, I think, equating him with the Hittite emperor, Hattusilis). Velikovsky wrote in Ramses II and His Time, p. 184: “At Wadi Brissa in Lebanon, Nebuchadnezzar twice had his picture cut in rock; these are supposedly the only known portraits of this king”.