Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings (32 page)

The Bible tells us that Moses is eighty years of age when he confronts the pharaoh, which would make him far too old to have been Prince Tuthmosis. However, as we have seen, one has to treat biblical ages with caution. We often read of people living to more than a century when forty or fifty was considered a good life span. Moses himself, we are told, lives to be 120. Some figures in the Old Testament reach impossible ages: Abraham's father Terah reaches 205 and Noah lived until he was 950. In all probability, the ages of the characters were not
included in the oral accounts that were handed down from generation to generation, and the later copyists attributed them with great old age to intimate extreme wisdom.

Prince Tuthmosis was recognized as heir of Amenhotep III and, as such, filled the office of governor of Memphis. (An office that Aper-El filled in Akhenaten's reign as the pharaoh had no sons.) He was also installed as high priest of its temple, dedicated to the creator god Ptah. The Priest was responsible for burying the sacred Apis bull (not to be confused with the Mnevis Bull [see Chapter Seven]), in which Ptah was thought to incarnate, and which died during Amonhotep's reign. Tuthmosis is recorded officiating with his father at the bull's funeral. Apart from an ivory whip, found in Tutankhamun's tomb, which he apparently used as commander of the king's chariot forces, nothing more is heard of Tuthmosis.

It is difficult to tell how much earlier than Akhenaten's reign Tuthmosis disappears, as only one reference to Akhenaten survives from the period before he became pharaoh. This is the wine-jar seal from Malkata (see Chapter Seven), referring to 'the estate of the true king's son Amonhotep'. Intriguingly, Akhenaten (under his original name, Amonhotep) is described as the
true
king's son, implying that someone else was not. It is tempting to speculate that this might have been intended as a slight on Tuthmosis. There is certainly one piece of evidence which shows almost conclusively that Tuthmosis had fallen from favour and had been executed or exiled. A tomb was being prepared for him in the Valley of the Kings when – for some unknown reason – it was suddenly abandoned. It was found by Giovanni Belzoni in 1816 at the far end of the western Valley of the Kings, and was the one later used for the pharaoh Ay. If Prince Tuthmosis died while still in favour, why was he not
buried in it? Many of the pharaohs were buried in unfinished tombs.

If Moses really was brought up as a royal prince during the reign of Amonhotep III, then Tuthmosis is the only known historical figure who fits the profile. According to the Bible, Moses has to flee into exile, and something very similar may well have happened to Tuthmosis. Moreover, like Moses, Tuthmosis might not actually have been the king's true son. Perhaps this was discovered and he was enslaved with the Israelites. He might even have been the priest from Heliopolis that Manetho tells us helped the 'undesirables' to escape. Manetho calls him Osarseph, which certainly sounds like a Hebrew name. Might this have been Moses' birth name? Unfortunately, at present, there is no way of knowing. It is an intriguing thought, however, that if Tuthmosis had abandoned the old gods and decided to drop the god-element
Tuth
from his name, he would actually have been called
Mosis.

Before finally returning to the mystery of Tomb 55, there is one additional aspect of the Exodus story we have not yet examined: the last plague which the Bible tells us God inflicted upon the Egyptians: the deaths of the firstborn. It is this that may provide the final clue to the mystery of Tomb 55 – indeed, the entire Exodus enigma.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Angel of Death

Let us try to imagine the ancient city of Thebes immediately after the fallout cloud has dispersed. The lush strip of land to either side of the Nile now appears as barren as the surrounding desert, with ruddy-streaked, grey ash blanketing everything like the surface of the moon. Charred trees, having been set ablaze by falling cinders, now stand smouldering in stark silhouette, like black skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. On the river banks, boats lie abandoned, some broken apart, others beached high on the embankment by the great waves that have surged upstream. The carcasses of animals – goats, donkeys, cattle – lie stiff and cold, their open mouths a frozen testament to their last lungfuls of choking ash. The Nile is now a parody of its life-giving self, with dead fish floating along on a stinking foam of red mud. A bizarre cacophony fills the air: muffled moans drifting from buildings, the howling of dogs out in the desert, the hiss of volcanic dust as it streams from the rooftops of temples, palaces and shrines.

Through the smoke which hugs the ground like a morning mist, the survivors emerge one by one. Some are unscathed, but their eyes are wide with horror; some are covered with sores, their eyes bloodshot and swollen. Filing into the streets, they huddle together in shocked silence. Someone points to the sky. The others look up – the sun shines sickly green overhead!

In the great temple of Karnak, the priesthood gathers in secret conclave, away from the staring image of Amun-Re. Surely they have carried out all the prescribed rites, observed all the necessary festivals, attended to all the god's needs. What more should they do to serve? In the palace, the pharaoh consults frantically with his ministers. He is the son of the god. How can he restrain the wrath of his divine father?

An answer is found in the ancient texts. Once before, at the dawn of time, the goddess Sekhmet had tried to destroy mankind. She is the goddess of devastation, of carnage and destruction. It is she who must be appeased. She must be made supreme goddess and worshipped by all Egypt.

Far to the north, in the north-east Delta, followers of the cult of Re have been spared. They hear of the devastation inflicted on the south and all agree – it is their god who has been enraged. The cult of Amun has gone too far. The statues, the temples, the shrines, that cover the land are erected in the name of Amun-Re. Re must be revered in his own right – no longer as an aspect of a lesser god. The once supreme deity of all Egypt must be supreme again. If not, then he will no longer curb his rage.

The governor of Lower Egypt and heir to the throne, the young Amonhotep, does not agree. This, he says, has been the work of the Hebrews' God. They too have been spared. It is their God who must be worshipped if the world is to live. Overhead, the sun still shines forth its vile green rays, casting an eerie glow over the land of the Nile. There can be no doubt that this is a sun-god's deed. Perhaps the God of the Hebrews and the sun-god Re are one and the same! Yet the Hebrew God is the
only
god and he has no name! It must be Re in his aspect as
the Aten – the sunlight that shines over all – that is the true god of mankind.

The weeks pass. Back in Thebes, the priests have made Sekhmet the divine consort of Amun-Re, hundreds of her statues line the temple precincts, and the pharaoh issues up daily prayers to the new goddess. Yet still the sun shines green. Worse! Plagues of locusts have ravished the crops, descending in their thousands to devour the city's food. Swarms of flies and stinging insects fill the air. Why has the goddess not been appeased?

When Prince Amonhotep returns to Thebes and proclaims his new god, many flock to his side. He tells them how the north has been spared, and how, if they adore the Aten, and make him king, they too shall live in a pure land. As more and more follow the new prophet, the skies are cleansed and the pestilence retreats. Egypt has been saved! The young Amonhotep is accepted by all alike – the priesthood, the soldiery, the people – as the sole voice and true son of the one and only god. Even the king concedes to his son's demands. He is made co-regent and appointed with full pharaonic power. He is the pharaoh Amonhotep IV. He is Akhenaten – 'The living spirit of the Aten'.

This may not be exactly how it happened, but Atenism would appear to have come about under circumstances somewhere along these lines. The important point is that when Akhenaten came to the throne he appears to have enjoyed wide support. Within five years he was building a completely new capital, two years later the entire administration had moved there, and two years after that Atenism had fully developed into what we would now consider a modern religion. The Aten was the omnipresent and only god, it could not be represented by an idol or its power called upon by amulets, and it communed
solely with its infallible prophet, Akhenaten. It was a religion of love, peace, and goodwill to all creation. On paper, there is almost no difference between Atenism and early Christianity. It worshipped one omnipresent God – a God forbidden to be shown as a graven image or His power summoned by talismans – and His sole emissary on earth was the pontiff. Like, Atenism, Christianity preached universal love. Christianity, sprung from the Hebrew faith, was adopted by the greatest empire in the world – the Romans – and has survived for centuries, spreading its teachings around the globe. Atenism seems to have emerged from the Hebrew faith, it was the religion of the greatest empire in the world – the Egyptians – but it survived for less than two decades. What went wrong?

Theological considerations or matters of faith aside, from the purely psychological standpoint Atenism failed because it was too much too soon, but most of all because it was inflexible. To begin with, there was the entire concept of monotheism. We can see from all the tomb and temple decorations that during the later Amama period the Aten was the only god allowed to be venerated under Atenism. Although previously the Egyptians could pray to a pantheon of gods for an infinite variety of matters, the shrines in the private dwellings reveal that only by beseeching Akhenaten to intercede on their behalf could the citizens of Amama pray for help, protection or guidance.

We live in a world of uncertainty, where much in life is beyond our control. In ancient times, life was all the more uncertain, and there were no scientists to explain why things happened the way they did. Each force of nature, each daily routine, every aspect of life, was the domain of a specific divinity. There were gods for love, gods for war, gods for protection, and gods to grant wisdom. There were gods for everything. Although Amun-Re was the chief god of Egypt and
responsible for the nation's prosperity, individual fate and fortune were governed by a myriad gods. If you hoped for a favourable ruling in a court of law, you might pray to Mafdet, the goddess of the judiciary; if you wished to be successful in hunting, you might pray to Neith, the goddess of the wild chase; and if you wanted your land to be fertile, you might prey to Geb, the god of the earth. Egyptians had been doing this for centuries, and suddenly those that accepted Akhenaten's teachings could never do so again. An entire nation cannot change overnight, and old habits die hard.

The Roman Catholic Church survived its early years because it was flexible; an institution developed that allowed the polytheistic citizens of the Roman Empire, and the pagan peoples of its domains, to pray to a variety of higher beings without breaking the taboos of a single God – the saints. Christian martyrs, early missionaries and performers of miracles were made saints, and there were soon as many saints as there had been gods. Although the canonization of saints is now the prerogative of the Vatican, in early Christian times local communities appointed saints as they saw fit. This continued well after the fall of the Roman empire, right through the Dark Ages and even into medieval times. A successful warrior could be made a saint, like the Saxon king Edgar; so could a popular benefactor, like the Danish princess Fraith: in some cases even one of the old gods managed to sneak in unnoticed, like the controversial English patron saint St George – once a pagan sun-god.

Generally speaking, however, the saints were Christian holy men and women, and each of them had a specific role to play. St Francis, for instance, became the patron saint of animals, St Christopher became the patron saint of travellers, and St Jude became the patron saint of lost causes. Just as in the old
religions, the people of Christendom could pray to different immortals for different reasons. Atenism, however, allowed for none of this. You prayed to the Aten or to Akhenaten or to no one at all – the god and his prophet saw to everything personally.

The second drawback for Atenism was that it did not allow the making of idols. The Aten had no earthly shape, so it could not be represented in corporeal form – only by the image of the sun disc. Once again, the Egyptians had spent two thousand years praying to tangible figures in which their gods could reside. Like the jackal-headed Anubis, the ibis-headed Thoth, or the crocodile-headed Suchos, all the gods had physical forms, and when their images were made and consecrated, something of the god's power would inhabit them. Once more, it was impossible for all but the most pious to abandon such ingrained traditions overnight. The Catholic Church also proscribed the making of images of God: yet they still had the saints, and their images could be made and prayed to without offending the Lord.

Another disadvantage facing Atenism was its proscribing the use of talismans. Talismans or amulets, such as jewellery or tokens consecrated to a specific god and thought to secure their aid or protection, were forbidden. Again, after centuries of habitual reliance on talismans, such a decree would have left the Egyptians feeling naked and vulnerable. Like the Christians being permitted to wear the cross, the Atenists were allowed to wear the
ankh,
the symbol of the Aten's life-giving power. However, this in no way made up for the hexes, spells and conjurations that talismans were believed to perform. For someone in Akhenaten's Egypt to be prevented from employing such icons would be like expecting someone from the modern
world to work in a hazardous environment without protective clothing, or to go into battle without a weapon. The Catholic Church avoided this problem through the sanctioning of relics.

Atenism had no Grail, it had no Turin Shroud, no bones of saints or anything to channel the power of its gods – only the sun itself and its prophet, the king.

The greatest problem of all for Atenism, however, was that it was too naive – it made no allowance for evil. The idea of a single, all-encompassing god is a fine philosophy until you run into trouble. If there is only one divinity responsible for everything, then whom do you blame when things go wrong? Akhenaten gained power, and his religion achieved prominence, seemingly because his god had smitten Egypt for worshipping other gods. The Aten was responsible for everything! This concept had thrust Atenism to supremacy, but it also seems to have initiated its rapid demise. The Christian Church survived the fall of the Roman empire, the Dark Ages, even the Black Death, because it had someone else to blame – the Devil. Atenism seems to have had no such concept. If disaster struck, then it was totally down to the Aten. True, it could be argued that the god had not been properly venerated or its people had abandoned it. But what if they had done everything their prophet demanded – and still disaster struck? It is just such a scenario that seems to have led to the sudden eclipse of Atenism.

After only ten halcyon years in Amarna, the people who had embraced the new religion with fervour, and had joyfully revered their prophet king, totally abandoned the city and reinstated the old gods. In fact, the downfall of Atenism seems to have started after a mere seven years in Amarna, when Akhenaten retired almost completely from public life, and his daughter and co-regent began a three-year reign of religious oppression.

Somewhere around year 14 of Akhenaten's reign, something begins to go terribly wrong. In fact, it is so sudden that it cannot be accounted for by the populace simply growing hungry for the old ways – this would surely have been a more gradual process. Moreover, for the Egyptians to have abandoned a god that evidently had the power to inflict wholesale catastrophe – the likes of which had never been seen before – must imply that something equally horrific was happening again. Something which persuaded them that Akhenaten's doctrines were not the answer after all.

Amonhotep III seems to have handed power over to his coregent, Akhenaten, because he had failed to appease whatever forces were responsible for the Thera holocaust. Around his fifteenth regnal year Akhenaten also withdrew from public life and handed over power to
his
co-regent Smenkhkare. We can only infer that some calamity of a similar magnitude had again occurred. The very fact that Smenkhkare and the new queen, Meritaten, immediately initiated a savage desecration of the Amun temples at Thebes, only adds weight to this hypothesis. As we have seen, there was now nothing but the Aten to blame. If Egypt was plagued by some misfortune, and the Aten was responsible, then, from the Atenist perspective, it could only mean that the Aten was displeased. Only by doing something from which Akhenaten had refrained, could matters be put to right: by destroying the temple at Karnak and persecuting any who may still adhere to the old ways.