Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings (20 page)

The entrance to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber with most of the plastered blocking removed to reveal the outermost shrine. (
Griffith Institute.
)

Carter examines Tutankhamun’s middle coffin, at once realizing that it did not bear the image of the young king whose mummy it was supposed to contain. (
Griffith Institute.
)

When the second coffin was raised it was found to be much heavier than anyone had thought. The reason – it contained a third coffin of solid gold. (
Griffith Institute.
)

Tutankhamun’s inner coffin still
in situ
in the tomb. (
Griffith Institute.
)

Carter carefully cleans Tutankhamun’s inner golden coffin. (
Griffith Institute.
)

The outer coffin, depicting Tutankhamun around the time of his death, which forensic examination of the mummy has revealed to have been around seventeen. (
Cairo Museum.
)

The inner coffin, made of solid gold and depicting Tutankhamun while he was still a child, shortly after becoming king. (
Cairo Museum.
)

The middle coffin used for Tutankhamun’s burial. Although the image it bears is that of a king it is clearly not the same person represented on the other two coffins. (
Cairo Museum.
)

Other examples reflect the multi-authorship of the Pentateuch. For instance, in Exodus, the Mount of God, where Moses communes with the Lord, is called Sinai; whereas in Deuteronomy it is called Horeb. We appear to have separate authors, at different times, independently interpreting the Mount of God's location. Even if these are different names for the same place, we must still have separate authors involved, each using the common name of their period or locale.

Such are the problems with the Pentateuch from an historian's perspective, that the more sceptical scholars question the entire Old Testament narrative prior to the time of David. To them Joseph, Moses and Joshua are just mythical Israelite heroes who were slotted into a vaguely historical framework by much later writers. Regardless of whether this is right or wrong, the Israelites had to have come from somewhere. The question that concerns us at the moment is, was this from Egypt?

In order to gain any kind of insight into the historicity of the Pentateuch account of the Israelite period in Egypt, we must start with the earliest historical reference to their existence in Canaan and work backwards. The Israel Stela, found by Petrie, gives us the first – but infuriatingly oblique – reference to Israel. It is simply included among a list of Egyptian campaigns. We
are told nothing more than 'Plundered is the Canaan with every evil' and 'Israel is laid waste'. Whether this refers to Egyptian military activity or some natural catastrophe, such as famine, is difficult to tell, although we can infer from their inclusion in the list that the pharaoh had sent troops to oppose the Israelites. It certainly shows that the Israelites were in Canaan when the stone was inscribed, during the reign of the nineteenth-dynasty pharaoh Merenptah. As this was around 1220
BC
, at least two centuries before David's creation of a unified kingdom, the reference must pertain to the separate tribes of Israel; presumably in the period the Bible refers to as the age of Judges, such as Samson and Gideon.

If the Israelites were in Egypt, as the Bible relates, then it has to have been before this time. They are already in Canaan around 1220
BC
, and had presumably been established there long enough to pose some kind of threat to the pharaoh. It would therefore seem that the Israelites would have to have been in Canaan from at least as the middle of the thirteenth century
BC
. Is there archaeological evidence to support this?

In the biblical account, the Israelite entry into the Promised Land of Canaan began with Joshua's conquest of the city of Jericho, forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. According to the Book of Joshua, many further cities fell to the Israelite armies until the destruction of the last, the city of Hazar. From historical sources we know that contemporary Canaan comprised many independent city states, just as the Old Testament tells us, and of these, both the cities of Jericho and Hazar have been excavated.

In 1952 the British archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon excavated a Bronze Age fortification at Tell es-Sultan near the Dead Sea, thought to be the site of ancient Jericho. She
concluded that from 1900
BC
the city was a prosperous walled town, just as the Bible describes, until it was destroyed by fire around 1500
BC
. Many scholars took this to be evidence of Joshua's capture of the city, as Joshua 6:24 tells us that after its capture the Israelites burned Jericho. However, more recent excavations around the Dead Sea have uncovered no evidence of Israelite occupation until around 1250
BC
. It is now generally agreed that Kathleen Kenyon's excavations uncovered evidence of an early conquest of the city by the Egyptians, probably by Tuthmosis III. Unfortunately, no evidence of Joshua's campaigns came to light in the area. There was more luck at Hazor, however.

Joshua 11:11 describes Joshua's destruction of Hazor: 'And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there were not any left to breathe, and he burned Hazor with fire.'

In the 1950s excavations were conducted at the site of ancient Hazor, modern Tell el-Qedah, some fourteen kilometres north of the Sea of Galilee. Here the eminent Israeli archaeologist Dr Yigael Yadin unearthed the remains of a huge fortified palace which had been destroyed by fire around 1250
BC
. The precise dating was made possible by broken Mycenean pottery found lying in the level of destruction. Such ceramics were popular throughout the Near East during the thirteenth century
BC
, but ceased to be imported into Palestine by the twelfth century. The destruction of the city had almost certainly been the work of an enemy, rather than accidental, as statues and temple decorations had been deliberately defaced. Because of the remains of hearths, tent bases and hut footings, together with a characteristic desert-style pottery, the next level of occupation was found have been by tent dwellers – a previously
nomadic people. Part of the area was rebuilt again as a fortified city in the tenth century
BC
, and distinctive artefacts, such as beads, show this to have been the work of the Israelites.