Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings (31 page)

Limestone relief of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Meritaten found in the royal tomb at Amarna. Although the names and faces of the king and queen remain intact, Meritaten’s image has had the face chiseled away, probably after Tutankhamun came to the throne.

The lion-headed Sekhmet, goddess of devastation. Was it her demonic influence that Tutankhamun and his chief minister Ay believed they had imprisoned in Tomb 55? (
British Museum.
)

Akhenaten certainly seems to have undergone not only a religious, but a moral conversion. Scenes from the earliest years of his reign show him executing foreign captives with as much gusto as his predecessors. In the porch of the Third Pylon at Karnak, for instance, he is depicted smiting his foes with a huge club. The Karnak Talatat, as well as depicting similar acts of violence, include a remarkable picture of a bitter-faced Akhenaten ringing the neck of a sacrificial duck. This is hardly the Akhenaten we know from Amarna: the king who so enthusiastically praises all his god's creations, the 'good ruler that loves mankind', the man who was never depicted hunting animals for sport.

It would seem that, although Akhenaten established the Aten as supreme deity right from the beginning of his reign, his conversion to a religion which is almost identical to the Hebrew faith was more of a gradual process. In the fifth year he breaks with his former identity, adopts his new name and builds his new city. By this time he had also adopted his humanitarian doctrines. Four years later he proscribes the use of graven images and totally separates his omnipresent god from the old notions of Re-Herakhte. This would all suggest that, although the Thera experience may have persuaded him to accept the supremacy of the Hebrew God (at least his own perception of it), something was continuing to move him ever closer to an Israelite view of religion. This not only implies that there were still Israelites in Egypt, but also that they were somehow close to the pharaoh.

If any Hebrew slaves remained in Egypt, we can assume that Akhenaten would have set them free. There is no evidence that any Hyksos slaves were being used during his reign. On the
contrary, he seems to have employed them in his praetorian guard. The Karnak Talatat, coming from the
Gempaaten,
show what can only be described as a foreign legion in attendance on the king. There are almost no soldiers in native Egyptian dress depicted anywhere near Akhenaten. Among foreigners, quite obviously of African origin, are a large number of figures who appear to be officers in Asiatic dress, identical to that worn by the Hyksos in scenes discovered at Avaris (see Chapter Eight). Identifiably Hyksos guards are also shown in great numbers in the Jubilee event of the Year 12, shown in the tombs of Huya and Meryre (see Chapter Six). Whether these soldiers included the Israelites, there is no way of knowing. All the same, it does demonstrate Akhenaten's complete change of policy towards the peoples who included the Israelites, and that the Israelites could have been in close attendance of the pharaoh. However, one remarkable piece of evidence, which has only recently come to light, suggests that some Israelites were actually appointed senior ministers.

In 1989 the French archaeologist Alain Zivie discovered a rock-cut tomb in the Bubasteion cliff at Saqqara, right beneath a guest house belonging to the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation. The tomb was still sealed, but it had been plundered in antiquity and patched up by the necropolis attendants at the time. Inside were the decomposed mummies of one Aper-el, his wife Tauret and their son Huy. A number of items did remain, including the coffins, wine jars, a number of
ushabti
figures, statuettes, jewellery, and a complete set of Canopic jars. Most important of all, however, were the inscriptions that still remained intact, identifying the occupants and their place in Egyptian history.

Aper-el was practically unknown before the discovery, which made the find all the more astonishing. It turned out that he
was one of the most important figures in Akhenaten's government. He was both the vizier of Memphis – the governor of northern Egypt – and an important religious figure, as he bore the title 'Father of the God'. This made him of equal status to Akhenaten's chief minister Ay. Aper-El's son had been an important figure: the general in charge of all the chariotry of Lower Egypt, and the 'Scribe of Recruits', making him responsible for all army recruitment in the area.

Wine jars in the tomb are dated as the Year 10 of Akhenaten's reign, but more significantly cartouches of both Akhenaten and Amonhotep III were found. As Alain Zivie observed in an article in the summer 1991 issue of
Egyptian Archaeology
magazine: 'taken together [these] could be used as evidence in the old "Loch Ness monster" question of Egyptology – that of a possible co-regency of the two kings . . .'. This was nothing, however, compared to apparent identity of Aper-El himself. The remarkable thing was that Aper-El was not a native Egyptian but an Asiatic – which in itself would be unusual enough, as no other pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty is known to have appointed an Asiatic to such high office. More specifically, however, he seems to have been an Israelite. His name, Aper-El, Alain Zivie, realized with surprise, appeared to have been a title, an Egyptian form of
Abed
or
Oved-El,
meaning 'The Servitor of [the god] El'.
El
is an abbreviated form of the Hebrew word
Elohim,
meaning Lord, which is the form in which God is usually addressed in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament. (In the original Hebrew version of the Old Testament the name for God appears simply as the word
El
many times. For example, in Genesis alone we find it used frequently in place of the word God: Genesis 14:18, 16:13, 21:33, 33:20, 35:7.)

It may seem strange that someone of Hebrew origin would allow himself to be mummified in an Egyptian manner. However,
the Bible makes it quite clear that the Israelites saw nothing wrong in this. The Patriarch Joseph, for example, is buried according to Egyptian custom: 'So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.' (Genesis 50:26.)

However, this is nothing compared to the most astonishing discovery of all. The depictions of the Aten in the tomb, together with other Amarna-style illustrations, make it blatantly apparent that Aper-El was also an Atenist. Alain Zivie even suggests that Aper-El was a prophet of the Aten in Memphis. The title 'Father of the God' would certainly imply this.

Here we not only have evidence of a shared link between the Hebrew religion and Atenism, but a corporeal example of someone who seems to have been a prophet of both religions and saw nothing contradictory about it. Unfortunately, the tomb was badly damaged and robbed of most of its treasures – if it had been intact, it may have shed an incredible new light on the entire mystery of the Israelites in Egypt.

It may actually have been people such as Aper-El who made up the 'bull-worshipping' faction among the early Israelites, as evidenced by Dr Amihay Mazor's discovery at biblical Shechem, and the Exodus story of the 'golden calf (see Chapter Seven). Perhaps when the Atenists were eventually suppressed by Horemheb, many of them had fled from Egypt and joined up with the Israelites, somewhere in the Sinai desert.

In Manetho's account we have evidence of interaction between the Heliopolis cult and the Israelites. He tells us that, while in Avaris, the slaves (who seem to have been the Israelites) were joined by a priest from Heliopolis, who preached to them not to worship the Egyptian gods. It may be that the Egyptians had tried to force the Israelites to accept their gods and some of them may have been tempted. The fact that a priest from
Heliopolis – the centre for the Re cult – should join them and persuade them otherwise, suggest that he had already be converted to
their
God. This is, once again, a possible link between the Hebrews and the Atenists, for it was in Heliopolis that Atenism seems to have begun. Perhaps the cult of Re was already being influenced by the religion of Egypt's reluctant guests, even before the time of the Exodus.

Before moving on, there is one final person we must consider: Moses. As everything else in the Exodus account would seem to be based to a remarkable degree on historical events, Moses himself may also reflect an historical figure. The Bible tells us that Moses was the son of a Hebrew of the house of Levi: we are told he has a brother called Aaron, but the identity of his father remains vague, as he is named both as Reu'el and later as Jethro. After he is saved in the little boat of bulrushes, Moses is actually brought up by the pharaoh's daughter: 'And the child grew, and she [Moses' sister] brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.' (Exodus 2:10.) He even becomes an Egyptian prince. According to Exodus 2:14, the Hebrew whose life Moses has saved questions Moses about himself: 'Who made thee and prince and judge over us?'

Surely, such a person should be found somewhere in Egyptian records? Unfortunately not – not during the reign of Amonhotep III, or of any other Egyptian pharaoh. However, his name may be misleading. In its original Hebrew, the name Moses is
Moshe.
Exodus 2:10 tells us that the pharaoh's daughter decides to call him this: 'Because I drew him out of the water'. The Hebrew word
Msha
means 'to draw', and
Moshui
is 'one who has been drawn out'. Some biblical scholars have concluded that the later copyists of Exodus, in the seventh century
BC
, tried to offer a Hebrew origin of the name that was not
originally intended. They point out that it is unlikely that an Egyptian princess would call an adopted son by a Hebrew name if she wished to keep his Semitic background a secret from the rest of the court. Even if she had no fear of being discovered, then why not use the name his true mother had given him, which, incidentally, we are never told. In its original Hebrew, the name Moses is pronounced
Moshe.
As the Egyptian equivalent of
sh
is the simple s sound,
Moshe
would be pronounced
Mose
in Egyptian, a word which simply means 'son'. If we look at Exodus 2:10 we can see what might have happened: 'And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses.'

If we exchange the word Moses for 'son', then the pharaoh's daughter is simply repeating what she has promised – that she will raise him as her own son. The first Greek translators of the Old Testament certainly interpreted it this way. When the Greeks later occupied Egypt in the fourth century
BC
, the Egyptian word
Mose
became
Mosis
– hence names such as Tuthmosis – 'Born of [the god] Thoth', or 'Thoth – son'. (When he lived, Tuthmosis' name would have been pronounced 'Tutmose'.) In the Greek version of the Bible, Moses' name was actually written
Mosis,
from which we now get the name 'Moses'.

Consequently, whoever it was who led the Israelites out of Egypt during the Exodus was probably not known as Moshe or Moses when he was alive. This may account for why his name does not appear in Egyptian records.

The story of Moses being hidden in the river may also have been a later addition to the account, taken from an old Mesopotamian myth. Magnus Magnusson, the British broadcaster and author, draws attention to a remarkable similarity
between the Moses story and an ancient myth, in his book,
BC:
The Archaeology of the Bible Lands.
In Exodus 2:3 we are told how Moses' mother hides him: 'And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags of the river brink.'

In a Mesopotamian myth, concerning King Sargon I of Akkad, dating from around 2350
BC
, Sargon says of himself: 'My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me in the river which rose not over me . . . Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me.'

Whether or not Moses really was placed into the river or not, the fact remains that he was said to have been brought up as a prince. Is there anyone who appears as a prince in the royal court during the reign of Amonhotep who fits the profile of Moses? Apart from Akhenaten, the only other royal prince to be found in Egyptian records from the reign of Amonhotep III is Akhenaten's elder brother – a shadowy figure named Tuthmosis (not to be confused with the pharaohs of the same name). He was actually the true heir to the throne before he mysteriously disappears.