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Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt by Lynn E. Rose [Aeon]
... From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) (Kronos Press: Deerfield Beach, Florida 1999) Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman. This book isn't for everyone, as it heavily concentrates on the minutiae
... . Notes [1] A.H . Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961), p. 148 [2] (But see D. Cardona, "The Two Sargons and Their Successors," Part II, AEON I:6 (December 1988), pp. 90-95; E. Cochrane, "
Sun, Moon and Sothis [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:4 (July 1999) A Study of Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt Lynn E. Rose. FRESH OFF THE PRESS. The Osiris Series Sponsored by Cosmos & Chronos Series. Editor - Dwardu Cardona. Volume II.
The history of calendars is far from cut-and-dried. Almost every topic that this book addresses has long been the subject of heated controversy. Rose sees Hellenistic and Roman Egypt as of unparalleled importance in the history of calendar development. Even the Julian calendar had its origins in Hellenistic Egypt. Very likely, the Julian calendar itself was Sothic - that is, designed to follow the movements of the star Sothis (Sirius), and not just the annual motion of the Sun. Since the traditional Egyptian calendar of 365 days fell about one-fourth of a day short of the natural year, the ancients assumed that the heliacal rising of Sirius would move through the Egyptian calendar in 365 x 4 = 1460 Julian years (that is, one Sothic period). Egypt's Middle Kingdom has conventionally been dated to some 4000 years ago, largely on the basis of documents indicating a heliacal rising of Sirius on Pharmuthi 16 in Year 7 of Sesostris III (in -1871, according to Parker.) From the Canopus Decree, Rose shows that the first heliacal rising of Sirius on Payni 1 was in -238. This, together with Censorinus' report that a heliacal rising of Sirius took place on Thoth 1 in the year + 139, makes it possible to retrocalculate earlier Sothic dates much more precisely than ever before. It then turns out that the Middle Kingdom lunar documents fail to fit in the early second millennium! Rose finds that where the lunar documents do fit extremely well is in the fourth century - which would put the heliacal rising of Sirius in -394. He then argues that the Middle Kingdom ended in -331, when Alexander the Great occupied Egypt! The shifting of the Middle Kingdom by an entire Sothic period makes for radical changes in ancient historiography, not only with respect to Egypt but with respect to Egypt's neighbors. Gardiner was in that sense right: "To abandon 1786 B.C. as the year when Dyn. XII ended would be to cast adrift from our only firm anchor, a course that would have serious consequences for the history, not of Egypt alone, but of the entire Middle East." Order from KRONOS Press
Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt by Lynn E. Rose [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) Kronos Press: Deerfield Beach, Florida 1999). Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman. This book isn't for everyone, as it heavily concentrates on the minutiae of calendrical detail that perhaps only a mathematician or historical specialist in such matters could fully appreciate or even conditionally respect. It is, without doubt, a superbly scholarly book. But what a hoot! I don't believe that I've ever read a book quite like this one, only half understanding what the author has to offer, but nevertheless thoroughly enjoying the manner in which it is being said. As it is, Lynn Rose, professor emeritus of philosophy at SUNY Buffalo, goes to great pains to make his points absolutely and unequivocally clear, often reiterating the particulars for emphasis - without that nagging feeling of redundancy many other authors who tend to repeat themselves give the readership. We are given a description of the 365-day calendar of the ancient Egyptians, and how it relates to the Julian calendar of Imperial Rome and the Alexandrian calendar of Roman-occupied Egypt, as well as to the later 16th century Gregorian calendar reform. Merely mentioned in passing by Rose - and for the benefit of this reviewer's readership - is the name of Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609), whose own calendar reform was published in 1583, one year after the amendment instituted by Pope Gregory XIII. Scaliger's formula, using days instead of years, is called the Julian Day Count - a
... . Notes [1] A.H . Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961), p. 148 [2] (But see D. Cardona, "The Two Sargons and Their Successors," Part II, AEON I:6 (December 1988), pp. 90-95; E. Cochrane, "
____Morning Star* [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:1 (Apr 1995) Dwardu Cardona.
{File: 1.6 Mars-MorningStar}
____The Original Star of Dawn [Article]
(1994 Conference) Dwardu Cardona.
{File: 1.6 Mars-MorningStar}
____Sothis and the Morning Star in the Pyramid Texts [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:5 (May 1994) Ev Cochrane
{File: 1.6 Venus-NotSirius}
____The Calendar [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 4 Eric Aitchison.
{File: 1.6 Venus-NotSirius}
The Lord Of Light [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:4 (Dec 1993) Lewis M. Greenberg. See note * below. Allah is the light of the heavens and earth. His light is a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is as in a glass, the glass is as though it were a glittering star. - Qoran 24:35. Saturn was the only god who was said to have been born; who lived on Earth among men, preaching and teaching; who died; was buried; who descended to the netherworld; who rose from the dead and eventually ascended into heaven. If the tale sounds familiar, you now know its origin.- Dwardu Cardona, San Jose, August 1980. Introduction Among other things, Worlds in Collision presented- within the framework of a cosmic catastrophic scenario- a compelling case for a
... , ruler, or director. This would not only accord well with Budge's translation but may allow us to see how the Latins might have mistakenly substituted the name Sirius (Sothis in Greek, Spdt in Egyptian) for that of Osiris who was called "King of the gods", "Power of Heaven", and "Lord of
Of Lessons, Legacies, and Litmus Tests: A Velikovsky Potpourri (Part One) [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:1 (Nov 1992) Leroy Ellenberger. "Knowing that no intellectual resource available to me validly refuted it, I got drawn in."- Edmund D. Cohen, "The Psychology of the Bible-Believer," Free Inquiry, Spring 1987 "So many people think that an idea becomes true or probable by their very cleverness in devising it. They tell me that their private theory must be true because it sounds so right."- Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, April 1986 "Occasional writers with vague ideas about the methods and
... the first visibility of Venus is delayed, perhaps inordinately. 13. A new wrinkle in Venus Tablet studies has presented itself. Reading from Rose's manuscript Sun, Moon and Sothis at the C.S .I .S . meeting at Haliburton, Ontario on August 26, 1992, Clark Whelton disclosed that Rose intends to remove one Sothic ... as the lead article in Kronos X:3 . Then, too, Kronos XI:2 earlier in 1986 contained tedious, pedantic criticism of my writing by Rose and Cardona that revealed more about their limitations in quantitative analysis and scientific reasoning than about mine. (2) I researched replies to them, obtaining much valuable information from Sean
Chapter 17 Corroboration, Convergence, Analysis [Velikovskian]
... of them exhibited behavior that fully conforms with Kuhn's description of the way the establishment deals with innovation of a revolutionary nature. Anthony Spalinger repeatedly presented the falsehood that Rose equated Sothis with Venus, but it was shown in three places that Rose in his book properly equated Sothis with the star Sirius. Spalinger accused Rose of a lack of condescension
... over-arching, consistent correlation and corroboration of scientific and technological as well as all the other historical factors that point to the general validity of their conclusion. David Talbott, Dwardu Cardona, and Ev Cochrane, who have been either unsupportive or deeply critical of these greatly lowered chronologies, have raised the issue of convergence and cross-reference of evidence from numerous
The Eye Goddess [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) Ev Cochrane. The Egyptian Hathor provides an archetypal example of the mother goddess. From time immemorial, she was regarded as the mother of Horus, the Egyptian war-god believed to have been incarnate in the pharaoh. The goddess' very name commemorates this relationship, signifying "House of Horus." [1] Scholars have hitherto been at a loss to explain the fundamental nature of this great goddess. They have been puzzled not only by her name, but by her multifarious and seemingly incompatible characteristics. In a recent study, Alison Roberts offered the following: "My initial problem was
... from Re, being explicitly identified with the "Morning Star" shining in the celestial Duat, the latter being a sort of Elysian Fields intimately associated with Hathor (as Sothis). Horus as the "Morning Star," in turn, is to be identified with the planet Mars. [25] In [26] A recurring ... Texts," AEON III:5 (May 1994), pp. 84 ff. [25] Ibid., pp. 85-93; see also, D. Cardona, "Morning Star," AEON IV:1 (April 1995), pp. 28 ff. [26] J. Murie, "Ceremonies of the
Mars Gods of the New World [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:1 (Apr 1995) Ev Cochrane. In previous articles in this series, we have investigated various gods of the Old World, including Heracles, Gilgamesh, Indra, Horus, Cuchulainn, Apollo and others, discovering compelling evidence that each of these figures originally personified the planet Mars, their cults reflecting ancient conceptions associated with the red planet. Throughout each step of the investigation, the cult of Nergal has loomed large, not only because of its antiquity but because it offers a solid link with the earliest astronomical traditions of Babylon. Nergal's well-attested identification with the planet Mars thus serves as a common
... , how does this relate to our thesis that Tezcatlipoca is to be identified with the planet Mars? At first sight it would appear to represent a contradiction. As Dwardu Cardona (104) and I have already documented, however, Mars was apparently known as the "Morning Star" in ancient Egypt as well as among the Pawnee Indians
... in J. Henninger, op. cit. 104. D. Cardona, "Morning Star," elsewhere in this issue. 105. E. Cochrane, "Sothis and Morning Star in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts," AEON III:5 (1994), pp. 77-94. For the Pawnee traditions, see R. Linton
The Milky Way [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:4 (Apr 1996) Ev Cochrane. Ancient beliefs surrounding the celestial bodies continue to impact our daily lives. Astrological horoscopes adorn the leading papers and magazines, and at least one world leader - Ronald Reagan - is known to have planned the details of his itinerary in accordance with the portents of his wife's astrological chart, thereby imitating a long line of kings going back to the ancient Babylonians. As incredible as is the prospect of a modern president held pawn by the "science" of astrology, equally incredible is a central tenet of conventional archaeo-astronomy - that the myths and legends surrounding the various stars and constellations
... on the Winding Waterway; I am ferried over to the eastern side of heaven, I am ferried over to the eastern side of the sky, and my sister is Sothis, my offspring is the dawn-light." (70) The Winding Waterway is elsewhere described as a path traveled by the ancient sun-god: "Hail to you,
... . Mercer, The Pyramid Texts in Translation and Commentary Vol. 2 (New York, 1952), p. 157. See here the extensive discussion in D. Cardona, "Intimations of An Alien Sky," Aeon 2:5 (1991), pp. 14-29. 84. F. Boll, "Kronos-Helios,"
Pillars of Straw [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 6 Dwardu Cardona. Charles Ginenthal. (Photograph- 1995- by the author.) Mixed Praises.
_The latest offering from Charles Ginenthal - Pillars of the Past - constitutes a tour de force no matter whether one accepts its conclusions or not. So let me say right off the bat that I, for one, find it most difficult to accept the general conclusion presented in this work to the effect that civilization only originated in the mid-second to the first millennium before the present era. That said, I commend the author of this work for the anomalies he laid bare in the orthodox chronology of history as it pertains to the ancient Near East. It is not that none of these aberrations had ever been presented before. They have - and time and again at that - by various other revisionists of ancient history, including Ginenthal himself. But it is heartening to see these many anomalies stored in an organized manner under one roof. For that reason, if for no other, Ginenthal has done revisionists a great service. Make no mistake, Pillars of the Past is not merely a tabulation of these historical abnormalities. Cogent arguments are ably presented to show that the chronology of ancient Near Eastern history rests on the shakiest of grounds. And, to be sure, some of these arguments are faultless. It is not, however, my intention to review Ginenthal's entire work any more than it is my intention to critique its many faults - and faults it does contain. That would require a book at least twice as long as Ginenthal's tome which, running at 578 pages, including the index, would take me away from my own work for ever and a day. My intent here is merely to defend myself against the blatant accusations Ginenthal leveled against me and my work. Misconception. Ginenthal and I have been acquainted with each other for quite some years. Despite that, it seems he does not know me very well. This is indicated when, more than once, ____he accuses me of upholding "the established chronology" of ancient history. [1] Where, if I may ask, has Ginenthal ever seen or heard me state such a thing? Just because I do not agree with the chronological revisions of ancient history that the revisionists he champions have concocted does not mean that I accept "the established chronology." In fact, I do not and have never done so. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, deem Egyptian history as presently "established" to be far too long. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, believe that the various dark ages which have been foisted on ancient Near Eastern history by Egyptologists to have been non-existent. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, would shorten ancient Near Eastern history. And, like Ginenthal and others, I, too, realize that this cannot be done until Egyptian history itself is shortened. But not by the amount that Ginenthal would have us believe. The problem here is that shortening ancient history is one thing; how it is done is quite another. And, personally, I have not yet been satisfied that current revisionists - those whom Ginenthal champions as well as those he does not - have done a good job. Lack Of Consensus. Revisionists of ancient history are fond of equating historical characters with one another. Take, for instance, the case of Shishak, the Egyptian king who, according to the Old Testament, despoiled the temple in Jerusalem. [2] Egyptologists identify this king as the Pharaoh Soshenq. Velikovsky disagreed, identifying him instead as Thutmose III. [3] But not everyone was happy with this and other identifications followed with their reliant years sliding up and down the scale of ages. David Rohl not only saw Shishak reflected in the person of Ramses II, [4] but also, at the same time, as the Sesostris mentioned by Herodotus. [5] Peter James, who had once worked hand in hand with Rohl, on the other hand, was sure that Shishak was really Ramses III. [6] Phillip Clapham opted for Psusennes. [7] Eric Aitchison suggested Kamose, [8] but later changed his mind in favor of Ahmose. [9] I thus find myself one with Lewis Greenberg when he was recently led to ask: "Will the real Shishak please stand up?" [10] So, likewise, with the historical personages mentioned in the el-Amarna correspondence whom various revisionists have identified as this or that Biblical character, with each revisionist contradicting the others, until those not directly involved in the ensuing debates are left floating in a veritable sea of confusion. In the end, Eric Aitchison came to the only viable conclusion when he wrote that: "I am not an enthusiast for alter egos of the el-Amarna correspondents. Many revisionists, myself included, have wasted much time in searching for alter egos but in my opinion the many correspondents should remain as themselves; they are unknown to us because their place in history has been over-written by more dramatic happenings. By relegating these servant kings to minor players we are no longer bound to see them as alter egos of better known others. We should leave them alone and seek a milieu where [their] historical activities can be acted out without great disruption to history." [11] ____Ginenthal, of course, swears mainly by the revisionist attempts of Velikovsky, Rose, Heinsohn, and Sweeney. One can safely say they are his heroes. But there is no consensus among them either. ____Lynn Rose, for instance, thinks highly of Gunnar Heinsohn's revision of ancient history, [12] except, of course, when it tends to step on his own toes - the subject of calendrics. Thus, following more than a page in which he lauds Heinsohn's method in what can be considered his opus magnum, Rose ends up with the following remarks: "On the other hand, Heinsohn may be committing too much to the flames. His focus on stratigraphy leaves him with many serious blind spots concerning matters that seem to him to lie out at some irrelevant periphery. Thus he tends to dismiss without further thought or investigation any considerations that are brought to him from the fields of calendrology or astronomy. Not surprisingly, this does not strike me as a very admirable trait in Heinsohn's intellectual make-up!" [13] What this indicates is that even Ginenthal's own revisionist heroes are not all of one mind. He cannot, therefore, blame me for not adhering to any of these reconstructions. ____But that is not to say that I adhere to the orthodox scheme, and I would ask Ginenthal not to spread this false accusation any further (even though, by now, the damage has been done). The issue, of course, goes beyond Ginenthal's particular heroes. It touches upon all revisionists of ancient history. Thus, when the British Society for Interdisciplinary Studies named their September 2002 conference "Ages Still In Chaos," [14] they were right on target. Iron And The Pyramids. Ginenthal takes me to task concerning the manner in which the ancient Egyptians were able to hew the "granite or diorite" blocks that went into the building of the pyramids before the invention of iron tools. [15] So let me say at once that, in my original foray into the subject, I myself had already claimed that: "How the Egyptians were able to work these hard stones remains controversial." [16] And that should have been enough to satisfy any scholar worth his salt. But then, to be fair to all, I also added that I. E. S. Edwards had suggested ways in which copper could have been given a high temper through some now forgotten means together with other suggestions from Flinders Petrie. My personal verdict, however, was that Edwards' "surmise has not yet been proved" and that none of Petrie's "methods has been verified." [17] And that, too, should have satisfied any scholar worth his salt. Even so, in order to stress the fact that I myself am not content with any of the above suggestions, I asked the question: "So how were the granite, and other hard-stone, items in the pyramids dressed?" To which I answered: "That, I am afraid, remains something of a moot question." [18] And that, for the third time, should have satisfied any scholar worth his salt. It thus surprised me to no end when Ginenthal retorted by claiming that none of these attempted explanations constitute a moot question. Did I ever say they did? A careful reading of what I stated will easily show that the moot question has absolutely nothing to do with these attempted explanations, but, rather, with the overall issue concerning the manner in which the hard stones in question were dressed. As Ginenthal rightly claims: "These suggestions have nothing to support them and are therefore proof of nothing." [19] Is this not what I myself had intimated? Thus, as a reply to Cardona, he could have saved himself the sixteen consecutive pages that followed [20] in which all he did was reinforce what I myself had already stated. The pyramids of Cheops and Khefren. Built mainly of limestone. (Photograph by the author.) ____Ginenthal then claims that: "Cardona, however, has offered his own hypothesis to explain how these various hard stones can be cut." [21] This concerns my declaration that meteoric iron, which the Egyptians referred to as "metal of heaven," could have been used in hewing the pyramid stones. [22] Here, on the authority of R. J. Forbes and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ginenthal informs us that the correct translation of the Egyptian term rendered as "metal from heaven" should be "black copper from heaven," [23] and continues by informing us that: "Though this is a small point, it is rather important to understand that the Egyptians did not know of the existence of iron as a different metal in early times but thought of this metal which they found as merely black copper." [24] All that Ginenthal is telling us in the above is that, not yet having a name for "iron," which was still new to them, the early Egyptians referred to this metal as "black copper." So what? In what way does it contradict what I had written? Is not this "black copper," which meant "iron," said to have fallen from the sky? Are we not here still talking about metal, and more specifically iron, that fell from heaven? Is such not presently understood as meteorites? What does any of this take away from what I stated? Ginenthal's conclusion was that: "To assume that both iron and copper were known in early Egypt is simply false." [25] What is false is his own statement. To give one example re the above, in Maltese "copper" is rendered ramm ahmar - that is "red brass" to this day. Would Ginenthal then tell me it is false to assume that copper is known to the Maltese? In Arabic it is the opposite where "brass" is referred to as nuhas asfar - that is "yellow copper." Would Ginenthal then tell me it is false to assume that brass is known to the Arabs? To the Egyptians themselves, silver was referred to as "white gold." [26] Would Ginenthal then tell us that silver was also unknown to the Egyptians? Thus, when Ginenthal claims that "'iron' was not known as a different metal than copper in early times," [27] he is entirely wrong, otherwise they would not have differentiated the metal as black copper, which real copper is not. To tell us then that "[t]he proper interpretation is that the Egyptians were familiar with black copper meteorites, 'not iron' meteorites" is misleading since, in fact, there is no such thing as black copper meteorites unless this is correctly understood as iron meteorites. Ginenthal's confusion becomes worse confounded when, in speaking of the taboo held by the Egyptians against iron, he naively asks: "But how could the Egyptians of the early times have a taboo against a metal they didn't know even existed?" [28] But if they did not know that iron existed, why did they differentiate it by calling it black copper? Or what, then, did black copper allude to if not iron? At this point, this particular argument becomes a downright silly one. As Ginenthal himself tells us, iron is mentioned in the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony in association with the ritualistic objects used, which subject I myself had taken into consideration. [29] And then he again naively asks: "If the Egyptians had a taboo against iron, why were they using it in this sacred rite?" [30] Here, Ginenthal's deficiency in knowledge concerning Egyptian rituals shows clearly through. As I myself had stated, "a religious exception seems to have been allowed in Egyptian funerary rites." [31] And the reason for this is simple enough. Since iron, or black copper if you will, was deemed to be a metal sent to Earth from heaven, it would have been considered divine (as it actually was). For that reason, its use in religious services was not only allowed, but highly recommended. As Frederick Paneth, then the Director of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany wrote, "we have proof that [man] knew of the precious metal's celestial origin; for in many languages the name for it contains a reference to the sky, and in some records its origin is contrasted with that of terrestrial metals like gold, silver and copper." [32] Moreover: "The awe-inspiring phenomena accompanying the fall of meteorites convinced primitive people all over the world that they came from the gods; accordingly we find them as objects of awe in many cults, and frequently venerated in temples." [33] Ginenthal also tells us that I failed to inform my readers that Wainwright, whom I quoted on Egyptian meteorites, had also stated that "all meteorites are not solid iron" and that "many are a mixture of iron and stone and so useless to man as a source of iron." [34] But, again, so what? One can just as easily state that not all meteorites consist of a mixture of iron and stone, and that some of them are pure nickel-iron and so useful to man as a source of iron. "As one can see," Ginenthal then tells us, "meteorites are generally a poor metal for tools." [35] Go tell that to the Eskimos who have fashioned so many harpoon tips and knives from the fragments of the Ahnighito meteorite which originally fell in Greenland some 10,000 years ago. [36] As Paneth also informs us: "Long before man learned to smelt iron, he used meteorites for the manufacture of iron tools..." [37] Or, better still, why not pay better attention to the statement Ginenthal himself quoted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to the effect that: "Small meteorites were the most convenient sources, but larger bodies were hacked at with copper and stone tools to yield tool-size pieces for knives, spear points, arrow points, axheads, and other implements." [38] Or is he trying to have it both ways? That meteoric iron was used for weapons in Egypt is also evidenced by the fact that such weapons were referred to as "Daggers from Heaven." [39] Ginenthal then claims that "Velikovsky [in Ramses II and His Time] understood the implications regarding iron as they related to chronology and made use of this fundamental understanding." [40] What Ginenthal failed to inform his readers is that in the work referred to, Velikovsky discussed the very points I did: The much disputed date at which iron came into general use in Egypt; [41] the possible use of meteoric iron in making tools; [42] the naming of meteoric iron as "metal of heaven"; [43] the problem involving the dressing of the pyramid stones; [44] the various objects wrought of iron that have been discovered in Egypt's Old Kingdom; [45] the religious taboo against the use of iron; [46] and the exception to this taboo in religious contexts. [47] In what manner, then, does what Velikovsky say contradict what I myself had stated? Or if Ginenthal is going to accuse me of selectivity, as he often does, when it comes to the sources I utilized, what should I accuse him of in this case? Ginenthal goes into much detail concerning the Brinell and Mohs scales of copper and iron, reaching the conclusion that meteoric iron would not have been hard enough to hew the stones in question. As he stated: "There is absolutely nothing to support Cardona's contention that meteoric iron was used to work these hard materials." [48] In actuality, that is all he needed as a criticism of Cardona. I will even go further myself. Meteoric falls are relatively rare. Meteoric falls in the same locality, as in Egypt, would be even rarer. And the discovery of such falls would have been rarer still. Granted, as Velikovsky himself contends, man "had at his disposal at the time he learned to use metal the meteorites that had fallen during hundreds of millions of years." [49] Besides, falls of meteorites in ancient times would have been much more numerous than at present. Even so, to have gathered enough meteoric iron to fashion enough tools to use in the hewing of the hard stones that went into the building of the pyramids and other projects might be stretching it somewhat. Keep in mind, however, that most of the pyramid structures were built out of limestone for which iron is not really needed. Velikovsky was wrong when he claimed that "copper or bronze tools would not have cut the limestone rock." [50] It is only certain features, as in the main entrance and the king's chamber of the Great Pyramid, that harder stones were utilized and, therefore, less meteoric iron than appears at first sight would have been needed to turn into tools. If, however, non-meteoric iron was required for the hewing of the hard stones that went into the building of certain features in the pyramids, then so be it. After all, as I myself had indicated, objects made from non-meteoric iron have been found dating from the Pyramid age, and even earlier, and in some cases in association with the pyramids themselves. [51] That not too many such iron objects have been discovered from this time speaks highly of the corrodible nature of the metal. Ginenthal, of course, accepts this. But then he tells us that "the fact that smelted iron implements are found in Old Kingdom times suggests that the Old Kingdom existed at a time when the Egyptians could do so and that again points unambiguously to the first millennium." [52] But what does the term "Iron Age" really mean? Entrance to the Great Pyramid. (Photograph by the author. THE IRON AGE. "To suggest that the Egyptians smelted iron to make tools around 2500 B.C.," wrote Ginenthal, "would require that the Iron Age began around that time in defiance of the claims of the established historians." [53] He's a fine one to talk! Ginenthal's solution to this apparent conundrum led him to move the age of the pyramids forward in time to the first millennium B.C. when the Iron Age in Egypt is believed to have commenced. This seems rather strange to me because, in contesting an orthodox belief, he is relying on another orthodox belief. He contests the accepted age assigned to the building of the pyramids by relying on the accepted age assigned to the Iron age. Is he not just as much going against "the claims of the established historians" in moving the pyramid age down to the first millennium? Why is he not just as willing to go against "the claims of the established historians" when it comes to the dating of the Iron age? If one is going to shift ages in order to fit the building of the pyramids into the Iron Age, why not move the Iron Age to the time of the pyramids rather than move the pyramids to the era of the Iron Age? In other words, rather than moving the age of the pyramids down into the first millennium B.C., why not move the Iron Age up into the third millennium? Would not that be easier? It strikes me that Ginenthal can be so adamant about accepting one "established" claim of the historians while proposing a reconstruction "in defiance" of the just as "established" claim of the same historians. Granted, I am being somewhat mischievous here, but then there is this to consider: Exactly when did the Iron Age take hold in Egypt? Had Ginenthal paid better attention to what Velikovsky reported in the very same tract he saw fit to bring to the attention of his readers, he would have realized that the time re the beginning of the Iron Age in Egypt has see-sawed through the years. "The Iron Age began about -1800 with the end of the Middle Kingdom, is the opinion of [one] group [of historians], or in the time of Ramses II, according to [another] group. The developed Iron Age in Egypt began about -1200, or in the days of Ramses III, a few scholars maintain. Many favor the date -1000 under the Libyan Dynasty. The early Iron Age of Egypt did not begin until -800 (between XXII and XXV Dynasties). 'The year -700 may be considered as the beginning of the Iron Age in Egypt,' is a statement often made. It is also asserted that the earliest smelting in Egypt (at Naucratis) dates from the sixth century. All shades of opinion covering the entire length of Egyptian history have their advocates. Iron has had more contradictory statements made about it than any other metal'." [54] As Velikovsky also noted, two prominent Egyptologists were led to suggest that the Iron Age in Egypt "may yet be proved to have even preceded the Bronze Age." [55] And why not, since the production of iron involves a much simpler technique than that involved in the manufacture of bronze? But then when does a metal age really commence? Is it when a particular metal is first discovered? Does the age begin when tools or other items are manufactured from the metal? Or does it begin when the use of these metal objects becomes predominant? If a metal age is considered to commence with the first manufacture of items from that metal, it can safely be said that the iron age began in Egypt during pre-dynastic times (and Ginenthal can put whatever date he wishes on that) long before the pyramids were built, since beads made of iron have been discovered at Gerzah. [56] It is not reasonable to assume that these particular beads were the only iron objects in use during this time. If a metal age is considered to commence when items made from that metal become more common, then the iron age in Egypt can be said to have begun with the Ethiopian ascendancy, [57] or, as others maintain, with the Greek settlement at Naucratis during the Saitic period. [58] But if a metal age is considered to commence when items from that metal become predominant, it can then safely be stated that the iron age in Egypt did not really start until the Roman era. [59] In between these dates, bronze (and even copper) continued to be the main metal of choice despite the fact that iron was not only known but actually used. However, this only holds in face of what has actually been archaeologically recovered. Given its corrodible nature, we really have no knowledge of how much iron was actually utilized during any of these periods. At which point I will venture to say that if - and, as we shall soon see, it is a very big if - iron was really required for the hewing of the pyramid stones in question, then iron tools must have been common during that age despite the fact that few iron objects have been discovered from this period. But that alone does not require the shifting of the pyramid age closer to our time. When it comes to the corrodible nature of iron, Ginenthal misunderstood me. As he has it stated: "Cardona has argued, citing Erman, that since bronze tools were found fairly plentifully in ancient sites, the scarcity of retrieved iron tools and weapons can have nothing to do with the corrosive [read "corrodible"] nature of iron." [60] To which he added that: "Corrosion has little to do with the question." [61] I do not know if something in Ginenthal's statement dropped out in print, especially seeing that his quotation marks open up once but close twice. What I actually wrote was: "I hope no one will now tell me that the scarcity of retrieved iron tools and weapons from the 18th Dynasty might be due to the corrosive [read "corrodible"] nature of iron, as indicated above [in the original paper], since if this argument holds for that Dynasty, it also holds for the 5th." [62] But that corrosion has little to do with the question is categorically wrong. Even so, Ginenthal would ask for more since, according to him, even iron tools would not have been hard or sharp enough to hew the stones in question. He actually asks for tempered steel, concerning which he goes on for page after page. [63] And here it must be admitted that if this is so, then, obviously, the pyramid age would have to be shifted closer to our time. This is because while iron objects in Egypt can be traced as far back as the pre-dynastic age, steel does not seem to have come into use in Egypt until the 18th Dynasty. At least a steel dagger with a gold handle, to say nothing of other objects made of iron, was discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun. [64] But was steel, or even iron, really required for the hewing of the pyramid stones? The Lesson of the Incas. Inca wall at Cuzco, Peru, constructed of rectangular blocks in coursed masonry. (Photograph by the author.) No modern traveler to that stretch of South America which once constituted the Inca empire of Tawantinsuyu can help but marvel at the perfection of Inca masonry. Inca architecture spans an area from Ecuador to Bolivia, but a visit to Cuzco in Peru will be enough to amaze the interested visitor. There, in the heart of the city's old section, one can stare in astonishment at the excellence of Inca walls upon which the conquering Spanish built their colonial edifices. "In narrow cobbled alleyways, walls of irregular unmortared masonry, finely cut and smoothed, and still - despite many earthquakes - tightly fitted, support the colonial and modern buildings that have long since replaced the upper structures." [65] While, in some cases, Inca walls are constructed of rectangular blocks in coursed masonry, what astonishes the modern visitor even more are those other walls in which the blocks have been fashioned into polygonal slabs which fit like a massive jigsaw puzzle with each slab fitting precisely into its interlocking neighbors without the use of mortar. Visitors to Cuzco are often shown the stone which was once incorporated in Hatun Rumiyoc, the palace that was built by the Inca Roca, which stone boasts twelve corners. [66] But this pales into insignificance when compared to the massive block at Machu Picchu which contains thirty-two corners in three dimensions [67] "each fitting tightly with its neighbors." [68] "In an architecture so poor in decorative elements [asked John Hemming], why was such attention lavished on the shaping and fitting of stones? Why incorporate huge blocks into terrace walls, or devote so much labor to achieving perfect interlocking of masonry joints? ... Inca masonry sometimes seems to adopt the most complex solutions and difficult methods. Was this an official aesthetic, intended to proclaim the state's success in mobilizing great reserves of manpower, or even a totalitarian attempt to employ excess labor? Was it an expression of the masons' own virtuosity - an outlet for their artistic expression in the face of official restriction? Or did it have a forgotten mystical significance?" [69] Even more astonishing is that, outside of Cuzco, some of these polygonal blocks are megalithic. At Sacsayhuaman, in the hill above Cuzco, one comes across blocks measuring 16 x 15 1/2 feet, with a thickness of 8 1/2 feet, weighing from 88 1/2 to 126 tons; [70] at other places, stones up to 150 tons were used, [71] and others as heavy as 200 tons each. [72] As J. V. Mura noted, this constitutes "the result of thousands of years of a local praxis, obviously successful under extremely difficult environmental circumstances, without parallel on other continents." [73] How these megalithic stones were moved from the quarries to their destination adds to the amazement of those who contemplate such questions. At Ollantaytambo, the blocks of porphyry were quarried away in the high hills kilometers downstream. [74] As John Hemming noted: "Anyone visiting Ollantaytambo must ponder the prodigious human effort expended in quarrying and cutting these vast blocks and dragging them down to the valley [across the valley] and up to the temple [half way up another mountain]." [75] For the present purpose, however, I will not dwell on this additional problem since my intention here is to focus on the method involved in the shaping and fitting of the stones in question. Polygonal Inca stonework - Cuzco - Peru. (Photographs by the author.) Massive wall constructed with polygonal blocks. Ollantaytambo - Peru. (Photograph by the author.) Massive blocks in outer wall of Sacsayhuaman some of which weigh as much as 126 tons. (Photograph by the author.) The porphyry mentioned in association with the stones of Ollantaytambo is a volcanic rock which is composed of large crystals imbedded in a finer matrix. Besides South America, it was also quarried and carved into statues by the ancient Egyptians and, later, by the Romans. Porphyries are chemically related to both granite and diorite, [76] the two main rocks stressed by Ginenthal in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Porphyry, however, was not the only type of stone used by the Incas in their monumental buildings. Granite itself was used at Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Cuzco, as well as elsewhere. [77] Diorite, basalt, and andesite were also used at Sacsayhuaman and other sites. [78] There should therefore be no dissension concerning the hardness of Inca stones in comparison to those of the Egyptian pyramids. Of course the Inca empire existed in the centuries A.D. when the age of iron had long established itself - but not, however, in South America. That the Incas did not know of iron, meteoric or otherwise, let alone steel, is well recognized. Nor can we here rely on the corrodible nature of iron as a reason why no iron tools or weapons have ever been discovered at Inca sites. The Spanish who brought the Inca empire ignobly to its heels were the first to introduce iron into this part of the Americas. As Garcilaso de la Vega noted, "they did not know how to make anvils of iron" or "extract iron," or to "make hammers with wooden handles," or "files or burins." [79] "They did not know how to make a saw nor a drill [wrote Garcilaso]. For axes and adzes and some few tools that they made, silversmiths served in place of blacksmiths, because all the tools that they worked were of copper and brass." [80] And: "they had no other tools to work the stones than some black stones that they called hihuana, with which they dress [the stone] by pounding rather than cutting." [81] So, likewise, with Cieza de León who wrote that: "... they [the Incas] lay foundations and build strong buildings very well... they also make carvings in the round and other large things, and in many places what they have made and make without any tools other than stones and their great ingenuity can be seen." [82] And yet, as Jean-Claude Valla informs us, the Incas were actually well versed in metallurgy. "The metallurgy industry [of the Incas], despite a relatively weak production, constituted a very important activity. The Incas, considered by the Indians as masters of metals, had no knowledge of the use of iron nor undoubtedly of lead, but they had acquired a great deal of experience in the working of gold, silver and copper, which was alloyed with tin to produce bronze. The imperial ateliers even produced [i.e., mined] platinum, unknown in Europe until much later, in the 18th century." [83] "The thing that impresses me most when I study one of these buildings [wrote Bernabé Cobo soon after the Spanish conquest], is the question: what tools or machines can have brought these stones from the quarries, cut them, and placed them in their present positions? For the Indians had no iron tools or wheeled vehicles... This consideration really does cause one to be justifiably amazed. It gives some idea of the vast number of people needed [to build] these structures. We see stones of such prodigious size that a hundred men working for a month would have been inadequate to cut one of them. By this standard, the Indian claim that it was normal for thirty thousand men to work during the construction of the fortress of Cuzco [that is Sacsayhuaman] becomes plausible...for a lack of tools or clever devices necessarily increases the volume of labor, and the Indians had to do it all by brute force." [84] Two colossal slabs at Ollantaytambo neither of which was completely set in place. (Photographs by the author..) And: "The tools that they did use for cutting and working stones were hard black [obsidian] pebbles from the streams. They employed these more by pounding than cutting." [169] Rocks were split by digging a series of oblong holes in line with each other. Wooden, or perhaps copper, wedges were then inserted into the holes and hammered tight until the rock split. Others maintain that the wedges were of "damp wood that eventually expanded and forced the stone to crack." [170] Knowing from personal experience that a similar method was once employed in Maltese quarries, I can only say that there is merit in this suggestion. Regardless of how the wedges, wooden or copper, were made to split the stones, superb evidence of this method can be seen in one such block that still lay abandoned at Machu Picchu. This method of splitting individual blocks as well as cleaving slabs from bedrock in quarries was the same as that used by the Egyptians, as can be plainly seen at the quarries of Aswan. The manner in which the Incas dug the wedge holes in so hard a material as granite, and did so with such precision in aligning them, remains a moot question. Commentators on the subject simply take it for granted, as, for instance, Ross Bennett and his editorial assistants: "Working from clay models, stonemasons split the rock by drilling small holes, wedging it apart, and polishing it with sand and water. They used stone hammers and axes, and bronze chisels. So well did they build that many walls in Cuzco and its outskirts have withstood 500 years of earthquake, war, and urban ruin and renewal." [171] The ability of Inca masonry to withstand earthquakes is something which all investigators of the subject stress. And this is no little matter especially in Peru which has been, and still is, subject to repeated earthquakes. Yet while colonial structures as well as modern ones have been shaken to rubble through these frequent earth tremors, not a single Inca wall has ever been recorded to have fallen prey to such earth shakings. [172] There is one other thing concerning which most authorities agree, and that concerns the manner in which these Inca blocks were fashioned. Stone hammers and bronze crowbars are sometimes mentioned. [173] But the actual dressing of the stones is explained as the result of pounding, grinding, and polishing by means of abrasives, usually noted to have been sand and water. [174] "Blocks of stone were cut, ground and polished until their outer surfaces interlocked with absolute precision." [175] "Every modern observer shares Cobo's awe at the sight of polygonal masonry. But the chronicler was right to stress that it was the product of days of patient human effort. There was no secret formula, no magic chemical that could shape stones, nothing but cutting with stone axes, abrasion with sand and water, and the skill and dedication of Inca masons." [176] Shaping and polishing while a stone is on the ground is one thing, but, when it comes to polygonal structure, how could they have made certain that the block would fit its neighbors before heaving it up on top of walls? As Bernabé Cobo pointed out: "One easily imagines the enormous expense of energy which the exact fitting of these blocks represented. Every surface of the block was precisely cut to correspond to the opening for which it was intended. Such a job must have required infinite patience. In order to obtain such a perfect adjustment, it was necessary to position the block, remove it, reshape it and reposition it over and over until it fit." [177] Wedge holes at the quarries of Aswan, Egypt. (Photograph by the author.) "And being of such great size, it is obvious how many workers and how much suffering must have been involved." [94] On top of which, there is yet one more thing to keep in mind. Few of those who visit these Inca sites are aware that the greatest Inca structures the remains of which are still visible were erected within the short period of about 80 years, which is approximately how long the Classic Inca Empire lasted. As G. Gasparini and L. Margolies noted, "one is amazed by the incredible building activity undertaken in such a relatively short time." [95] And that is not even taking into consideration "the stone-paved roads, bridges, irrigation canals, agricultural terraces, river canalizations" and other constructions that these builders erected all the way from Bolivia to Ecuador. [96] "To modern observers," wrote Hemming, "the quantity of building achieved during so brief a span is as impressive as its excellence." [97] I do not think I need go on. I am sure I have made my point. And, yes, perhaps the Egyptians did use iron tools to hew those hard stones they incorporated into their limestone pyramids. I might be wrong, but we will probably never know for sure. Moreover, personally I have no way of knowing if the methods described above for the cutting, pounding, grinding, and polishing of stones is the way in which the Incas actually accomplished that monumental task. But there is no question that they achieved it without the use of iron tools. And if the Incas could, as they did, quarry, hew, shape, and fit blocks of granite, basalt, and diorite, many of which are of megalithic size, without the use of iron tools, then so could have the ancient Egyptians. O (To be continued.) Notes [1 ] C. Ginenthal, Pillars of the Past (constituting Vol. VI, Nos. 1, 2, & 3 of The Velikovskian, N. Y., 2003) - henceforth merely Pillars - pp. 221, 224, 305. [2 ] II Chronicles 12:9 . [3 ] I.
... the Indefensible," Chronology & Catastrophism Review (2003:1), p. 38. [12] L. E. Rose, Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt (Deerfield Beach, Florida, 1999), pp. 201-202. [13] Ibid., p ...
Science, Technology and the Chronology of the Ancient World [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 6. Thoughts on Charles Ginenthal's Pillars of the Past, Trevor Palmer. As enshrined in the Constitution of the SIS, of which I am a member, the Principal Object of the Society is to use "historical and contemporary evidence of all kinds" to "promote active consideration by scientists, scholars and students of alternatives to [orthodox] theories", particularly those relating to chronology and catastrophism. Entirely consistent with that, Charles Ginenthal, in Pillars of the Past [1] provides evidence and arguments to suggest that orthodox ideas on chronology are based on insubstantial foundations. Towards the end of the 578-page book, Ginenthal requests that "historians examine it with the dispassion it deserves." On the back cover, we read: "Pillars of the Past explores, through studies based primarily on scientific and technological evidence, the chronology of the ancient Near East. This evidence indicates that the historians and archaeologists have invented over 1500 years of history that simply never existed... With hundreds of footnotes from many diverse fields of study, Ginenthal ruthlessly tears away the façade of the established long chronology. For new and old readers of ancient history, in clear, understandable language, the history of the ancient Near East is exposed, showing that at least half of the cloth of that age is an invention; that the emperor, in reality, has no clothes." ____Thus, there are two separate claims: 1) that Ginenthal has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the orthodox chronology is incorrect; and 2) that the evidence points clearly to the validity of one particular alternative, the short chronology of Gunnar Heinsohn and Emmet Sweeney, from amongst the various models that have been proposed. [2] Needless to say, to be able to justify such claims, and expect to stimulate active consideration by scholars and students, an author needs to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the subject areas under discussion, and to apply identical standards to the assessment of rival theories. Ginenthal begins in convincing fashion. Discussing the age of the sphinx at Giza, he criticises orthodox scholars for falling below acceptable standards of scholarship, maintaining that their arguments are often based on flimsy evidence, or evidence which points to a different conclusion from the one they reach. In doing so, he makes a persuasive case that flawed responses were given to those, including geologists Robert Schoch and Colin Reader, who had argued that erosion evidence demonstrates that the Sphinx at Giza could not have been constructed at the same time as the 4th Dynasty pyramids around 2500 BC, as generally supposed. Instead, it must have come from an earlier period, when conditions were much wetter. [3] However, after more than forty pages of finely-detailed argument, confronting those who challenged the contention of Schoch and Reader that the Sphinx had been built before 2500 BC, Ginenthal suddenly changes tack and concludes that it had actually been constructed much later, as required by the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney. He speculates that, contrary to what is generally accepted, the rainy period continued until around 1500 BC. [4] Nevertheless, Ginenthal makes clear that his preferred date for the construction of the Sphinx is not based on geological evidence. He says that the justification will be presented later in the book, which, at this point, is perfectly reasonable. The Giza sphinx - how old is it? (Photograph by Dwardu Cardona.) Although acknowledging from the start that he accepts the conclusions of Heinsohn and Sweeney, he makes some genuine attempts to present a balanced account. So, for example, on one occasion, whilst agreeing with a point made by Sweeney, he takes him to task for omitting some words from a quotation and for giving incorrect page numbers in a reference. [5] ____Ginenthal is commendably honest and fair when he has possession of the facts about a particular matter. The problem is that, despite the broad range of his reading, it becomes increasingly apparent as one gets deeper into the book that there are some crucial gaps in his knowledge and even more in his understanding. Thus, whilst he continues to make a range of persuasive criticisms of orthodox interpretations, there is, unfortunately, a point in almost every chapter when it becomes apparent that the arguments which seem to have been stacking up nicely are dependent upon, or at least associated with, a notion that lacks any credibility. Ginenthal is also inclined to accept second-hand information, without checking its accuracy, when it fits in with his view of the world. For example, in respect to John Dayton's major opus, [6] Ginenthal never questions a claim that the establishment reacted by "taking steps to shut down the section of the university that allowed Dayton to expose the scientific evidence, so destructive to their dogma." [7] Yet the Institute of Archaeology still exists, as anyone can see by visiting its web site. [8] It may have been subjected to internal and external restructuring, but such reorganisations are typical of what has been happening in British universities over the past 25 years, and there is not the slightest evidence to suggest they had anything to do with Dayton. Orthodox scholars were certainly guilty of ignoring Dayton's well-documented arguments that, for example, a chronological anomaly is suggested by the apparent loss of glazing skills from Greece, Troy, Mesopotamia and Egypt towards the end of the second millennium BC, followed by their reappearance three or four hundred years later as if they had never been absent. That is a valid topic for discussion. However, to go further and pass on, in uncritical fashion, a highly-unlikely story that establishment scholars punished Dayton's tutors because of the supposed sins of their former student, merely serves to bring the author's judgment into question. Ginenthal also claims, on the basis of a second-hand account of a British television programme, that, during Egypt's Old Kingdom, a Greek word for 200-man work-teams, was used long before the Greek language was supposed to have existed. He adds: "The contradiction to the established chronology is thus rather direct." [9] In fact, the word used in the Old Kingdom for such work-teams was zaa, or saw. It was only much later, during the Ptolemaic period, that this was translated as phyle, the Greek word for "tribe." [10] There is nothing here which contradicts the established chronology. Another problem, perhaps somewhat unimportant, but nevertheless revealing, is that Ginenthal fails to understand some basic concepts of scholarship. He criticizes orthodox scholars for using circular arguments, but the examples he gives are, at best, semi-circular ones, i.e., interpreting some findings on the assumption that a particular view of history (in this case, the orthodox one) is valid. Only if this interpretation was then used as an argument to demonstrate that the orthodox chronology is correct (which never happens in the examples given) would the argument be circular. Regardless of terminology, Ginenthal can hardly complain about the use of semi-circular arguments, since he utilises them throughout his book to explain findings in ways that are consistent with the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney. Ginenthal also misinterprets David Hackett Fischer's "fallacy of the negative proof," despite quoting at some length from Fischer's writings. This "fallacy" is a more detailed statement of the aphorism "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Ginenthal takes it to mean the opposite and therefore, not surprisingly, falls into it time and time again. [11] A further problem is Ginenthal's inability to understand how the academic community operates. That is not to say that this community is above criticism - far from it. Orthodox scholars, like unorthodox ones, are human beings. Some, no matter how eminent, will make mistakes, and a few may be positively dishonest. Also, new evidence will come to light, which may cast doubt on previously-accepted conclusions. Although the system is essentially self-rectifying, the timescale for rectification is often unnecessarily long. The SIS provides an environment where alternative interpretations of evidence are likely to be considered more readily than in orthodox circles, which is precisely the reason why I joined the Society 25 years ago, and have remained an active member ever since. Nevertheless, Ginenthal's notion that a prevailing theory can be established and maintained without any significant evidence to support it, although commonly held by people with heretical views, is simply untrue. A particular theory may be wrong, but it could not have been established in the first place without appearing to provide the best explanation of the evidence at the time. Yet, even so, the likelihood would have been that no two individuals had identical views, so there would have been many arguments about points of detail. Subsequently, the introduction of new evidence might increase the range of views, with some trying to formulate alternative theories and others, for a variety of reasons (including vested interest as well as academic conviction) continuing to support the established one. However, it would be very unusual for anyone in the academic community to claim that they had evidence to prove the theory they supported, for it is acknowledged that genuine proof is almost impossible to achieve. Orthodox views on the chronology of the Ancient World fit into this general picture. Contrary to the impression given by some (although not all) revisionists, there is no single orthodox chronology, for almost every book on the subject gives slightly different dates. It is a complex situation, yet Ginenthal presents it as a simple one, painting a picture which bears little resemblance to reality. Ginenthal imagines a conspiracy to impose the orthodox chronology (as if academics, who enjoy the cut-and-thrust of argument above almost everything else, could be capable of sustaining a conspiracy for any length of time). Then, when he sees evidence of disagreement about detail, and appropriate scholarly reluctance to overstate a claim, he takes this as an indication that there are serious problems with the conventional chronology. In contrast, he is quick to claim proof for aspects of the short chronology, on the basis of evidence which is no more substantial, and sometimes less so, than that for other theories of chronology, including the orthodox one. It is not the purpose of this article to argue that any particular theory is correct or incorrect, but to consider whether Ginenthal's claims can be justified by the evidence and arguments he presents. Because of this, despite the many excellent aspects of the book, serious concerns have to be expressed. The facts Ginenthal gives about the establishment of the orthodox chronology of Egypt are accurate, if somewhat limited, but his understanding leaves much to be desired. He is right to say that the 3rd century BC priest, Manetho, divided the kings of Ancient Egypt into 31 dynasties, but wrong to imply that Manetho claimed (at least, as far as we know from the remnants of his writings available to us) that all of these were sequential and, furthermore, that this assumption led directly to the orthodox chronology. Much work was carried out during the nineteenth and early twentieth century in trying to piece together a chronology from the surviving fragments of Manetho and other inscriptional evidence, including king lists. Although there continued to be uncertainty about fine detail, ____it eventually became accepted that Manetho's dynasties generally ruled in sequence, except on three occasions (the Intermediate Periods) when different dynasties ruled in parallel. The outcome was essentially a relative chronology, albeit a coherent one which allowed approximate dates to be deduced. However, rightly or wrongly, an attempt was made to anchor this chronology more precisely to absolute dates by linking it to a Sothic calendar, based on observations of the heliacal rising of Sirius, which has a cycle of about 1460 years. In particular, on the basis of written information about the heliacal rising of Sirius, the 7th year of Senusret (Sesostris) III of the 12th Dynasty was dated as 1872 BC and the 9th year of Amenhotep I of the 18th Dynasty as 1540 BC. However, even within the orthodox community, it was accepted that these dates could differ by a few years, depending on where in Egypt the astronomical observations had been made. [12] Many chronological revisionists, including Immanuel Velikovsky, have questioned the basis of Sothic dating, and even some orthodox historians have expressed doubts about whether the two crucial inscriptions have been interpreted correctly. Nevertheless, Ginenthal accepts the orthodox interpretation of the Senusret III inscription but, disregarding archaeological evidence for the relative positioning of sequences in the orthodox chronology, whatever the precise dates, he follows Lynn Rose in moving forward the entire Middle Kingdom by 1477 years, approximately an entire Sothic cycle, to make the 7th year of Senusret III 395 BC. ____This is because observations of the lunar cycle from the reign of Senusret III fit this date better than 1872 BC. It also brings the Middle Kingdom within the range of the Heinsohn-Sweeney short chronology. [13] On this issue Ginenthal writes: "What Rose achieved is, in a sense, comparable to what Isaac Newton did for the Copernican-Aristarchian system." [14] Whilst there is much to admire in the work of Rose, that seems somewhat over-exaggerated, and I doubt whether Rose himself would make such a claim. ____Ginenthal adds that Rose has "solved the problem" of reconciling Sothic dating with lunar observations, but the reality is somewhat different. What Rose has done is provide one possible solution. He discards the 1540 BC date for Amenhotep I on the grounds that there could have been changes to the calendar after that time, but, if so, the same would apply to the 1872 BC Sothic date for Senusret III, which in turn would cast doubt on the dates of the lunar observations made during his reign. Furthermore, if, as some suppose, the inscriptions have been misinterpreted, the situation becomes even more open, for patterns of lunar observations recur on a relatively frequent basis. So, for example, David Lappin pointed out in 2002 that the lunar observations in the time of Senusret III are consistent with his reign commencing in 1698 BC, which fits in with the "New Chronology" of David Rohl and his collaborators. In any case, how could inscriptions from the 18th and 19th Dynasties have referred to 12th and 13th Dynasty rulers, as they appear to do, if Rose is correct in his belief that these came later in time? {** See under Footnotes.} If the short chronology is correct, an explanation needs to be found for these inscriptions. So that while there is much of interest in Rose's astronomical arguments, it can hardly be said that they constitute proof of the short chronology. [15] Ginenthal then writes: "Astronomy, the Queen of the Sciences, supports unambiguously the historical fact that the 12th Dynasty of Egypt existed in the first and not the second millennium BC." [16] However, there is, at present, no justification for such an unequivocal conclusion. Lynn E. Rose. (Photograph - 1996 - by Dwardu Cardona.) ____As with Sothic dating, many revisionists question the basis of radiocarbon dating, and Ginenthal did so in 1997 in his book, The Extinction of the Mammoth. However, in Pillars of the Past he takes a somewhat different line. Although he accuses orthodox historians of double standards because they tend to ignore individual results that fall outside the expected range, he nevertheless joins them in believing that the radiocarbon dates of wood samples, taken as a whole, are meaningful. With characteristic honesty, he acknowledges that there are "very many" such dates from the ancient Near East which fall within the range 3000-4000 BC, and asks how that can be, when, as he believes, there was no civilization anywhere in the region until much later. In answer to his own question, he points out that each test result indicates the date at which a particular growth ring was formed, and there could easily have been a significant passage of time before the tree was cut down. Even then, the wood might have been used for several different purposes before ending up in the context in which it was found. Hence, the radiocarbon date obtained could be several hundred years older than the actual date of the excavation layer, a concept with which few orthodox historians would disagree. [17] However, a consistent discrepancy of not just a few hundred years but well over a thousand years would be required if the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney are correct. How could such a large discrepancy be explained? Ginenthal draws attention to the shortage of trees in Egypt, a situation that must have existed throughout the historical period, because of the prevailing dry conditions. ____Where, then, did the Ancient Egyptians get the wood they needed? Ginenthal suggests they used fallen trees from the previous wet period, which had been preserved by being covered in sand for more than a thousand years. Hence the very early radiocarbon dates. [18] It cannot be said that this ingenious suggestion is impossible, but it hardly constitutes positive evidence for the short chronology. Indeed, it makes use of exactly the same kind of semi-circular argument that Ginenthal decries in others. In any case, it is generally believed (as Ginenthal acknowledges) that Egypt imported wood in large quantities. An inscription tells of a consignment of cedar logs arriving in Egypt in forty ships during the 4th Dynasty reign of Sneferu, and archaeologists have found direct evidence of trade between Egypt and Lebanon at this time. [19] And what about fourth millennium BC radiocarbon dates in countries where there has always been an abundance of trees? Is Ginenthal asking us to believe that, rather than making use of them, long-dead wood was imported from Egypt? What other explanation could there be in his scenario? ____The next aspect of science which Ginenthal claims to provide strong support for the short chronology is metallurgy. Let us start by looking at the Old Kingdom of Egypt, which conventional history places in the Copper Age, but which Ginenthal re-dates from the third millennium BC to the Iron Age in the first millennium BC. To justify that supposition he writes: "Since hardened iron is needed to cut and engrave hard stone such as granite or diorite, the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom could not have built the Giza pyramids and others during the Copper Age." [20] As a general statement, that is clearly untrue, for the Old Kingdom pyramids were constructed of soft limestone, which is easily cut by copper. However, there were some components, including the sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid at Giza, which were made of granite. Copper tools by themselves would not be capable of cutting this hard stone, but, as demonstrated by Denys Stocks in 1999, they could do so in association with an abrasive substance, such as quartz sand (the most common substance in Egypt), at a rate of about 1 inch per 10 hours. Stocks' conclusions about the linkage of his experiments to what happened in Ancient Egypt were phrased with appropriate scholarly caution, using words such as "probably," "suggest," and "indicate." Ginenthal seizes on those to suggest that Stock's conclusions were little more than guesswork, but in doing so he merely demonstrates his lack of understanding of academic processes and values. Stocks could not say he had proved his case, because he had no time-machine to enable him to observe the Old Kingdom craftsmen in action, yet he had demonstrated that they could cut and drill granite with materials available to them in the third millennium BC. Nevertheless, ____Ginenthal makes a valid point when he notes that Stocks' experiment did not address the cutting of diorite, which is even harder than granite. [21] Thus, the question of how the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom could have carved diorite statues, such as that of Khafre (now in the Cairo Museum), if they only had copper tools at their disposal, remains to be addressed. [22] Meteoritic iron would be too soft to provide a solution. Smelted iron would be hard enough, and a few pieces have been found at Old and Middle Kingdom sites, but these are generally attributed to intrusions from later periods. The much more elaborate metal artifacts found in isolated instances at New Kingdom sites are usually thought to have been imported, e.g., from the Hittites, who were producing smelted iron before the Egyptians, and there is evidence from cuneiform inscriptions that gifts of iron weapons were sent to New Kingdom pharaohs from rulers of regions to the north of Egypt. Even so, the source of each iron object found at an Old, Middle, or New Kingdom site can only be a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, Ginenthal fails to explain why, if, as he claims, smelted iron was available in Egypt throughout the dynastic period, it is found only rarely at sites from Dynasties 1-25, and much more commonly at sites from dynasties which, according to the conventional chronology, came later. Instead, he refers to arguments put forward in the nineteenth century by William Flinders Petrie, even though they are not in accord with current thinking, to suggest that the rate of cutting and drilling granite in the Old Kingdom was much faster than could be achieved by the combination of copper tools and abrasives. He then goes on to mention the writings of Christopher Dunn, who claimed that the ancient Egyptians were using power tools. That, of course, would be just as much a problem for the short chronology as the conventional one but, wisely, Ginenthal distances himself from that particular theory. [23] ____The main part of Ginenthal's discussion of metallurgy concerns the period which orthodox historians regard as the second millennium BC, the centre of the Bronze Age in Egypt and elsewhere. According to Ginenthal, this scenario cannot be sustained, even on its own terms. The manufacture of bronze requires a supply of tin to add to copper, and the first known mention of tin in an Egyptian document is in the Harris Papyrus from the reign of Ramesses IV of the 20th Dynasty, conventionally dated at around 1100 BC. However, Ginenthal acknowledges elsewhere that only a small fraction of Ancient Egyptian writings have survived to the present day, so references to the use of tin could have been lost. [24] Despite this, Ginenthal continues to maintain that tin did not reach Egypt before the time of Ramesses IV, his arguments for this all being instances of where he succumbs to the fallacy of the negative proof. For example, he points out that no one can prove where tin for use in Egypt would have come from prior to this period. The possible sources were Bohemia, where the tin deposits might not have been accessible with the technology then available, and Cornwall, where it undoubtedly was. Cornish tin was mined from around 2200 BC onwards, and from this time was traded and used for bronze manufacture down the Atlantic coast of Brittany and France, towards Spain. Ginenthal, however, states that: "Surely it is inconceivable that in 1500 BC Egypt was trading with England, or even Spain, or with Bohemia, to obtain tin." [25] Egyptian sculptors cutting and polishing a colossal statue of Amon-Ra. But when it came to diorite, could such statues have been sculpted without the use of tempered iron? (Illustration by John Green.) That may or may not have been so, but Egypt had other possible sources of tin. ____Ginenthal relies almost exclusively on Dayton's 1978 book for his information about sources of metal ores, and claims that no use of tempered iron? (Illustration by John Green.) That may or may not have been so, but Egypt had other possible sources of tin. Ginenthal relies almost exclusively on Dayton's 1978 book for his information about sources of metal ores, and claims that no new sources of any significance have since been found, but he is sadly mistaken. Extensive tin mines have been located at Göltepe, in the central Taurus region of Turkey, and in Afghanistan. The latter is of particular relevance because inscriptions from the Levant and Mesopotamia, dating from 2000 BC onwards in the conventional scheme, tell of tin being imported from the East, via Susa, and then traded by Assyrian merchants into Anatolia and elsewhere. Trading links between Egypt and the Levant were also well established by the start of the second millennium BC. A shipwreck off Ulu Burum, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, dated at 1350 BC, has revealed a cargo including ingots of tin, ingots of copper, ceramics from Cyprus, scarabs from Egypt, cylinder seals from the Near East, and ebony, ivory, and hippopotamus teeth from Africa. [51] How, then, can Ginenthal sustain his claim that conventional history provides no plausible reason for thinking that tin reached Egypt before 1100 BC? On a different topic, but again using information taken from Dayton's book, Ginenthal points out that pottery found by Petrie in a 1st Dynasty setting at Abydos is very similar to types characteristic of the Late Helladic Period. From this, Ginenthal (unlike Dayton) concludes that the 1st Dynasty of Egypt must have been wrongly placed in the third millennium BC, since, in his opinion, it was clearly contemporary with the Late Helladic Period. However, he introduces confusion by referring to Mycenaean and Late Helladic as if they were separate entities, whereas they are alternative names for the same period. He also states unequivocally that the Late Helladic period is "dated from about 800 to 700 BC," when the conventional date-range is from 1550 to 1050 BC. In his view, the findings "require that the Old Kingdom be placed in the first and not the third millennium." But, regardless of the issue concerning the dating of the Mycenaean/Late Helladic Period (which had not been addressed at this point in the book), the above statement overstates the situation by a considerable margin. Petrie's excavations at Abydos had been carried out in disturbed ground, so, even if the pottery was from the Late Helladic Period, its linkage to the 1st Dynasty remains far from certain. [52] ____Ginenthal also points to similarities between the Sumerian civilization, based at Ur and other cities in southern Mesopotamian, supposedly in the third millennium BC, and the Scythians of the first millennium BC, arguing that they must be from the same period. Indeed, he follows Heinsohn in claiming that some of the graves in the Royal Cemetery of Ur are of Scythian princes. In contrast, Dwardu Cardona, editor of AEON (and by no stretch of the imagination a die-hard supporter of orthodoxy), has maintained that the similarities are superficial and, furthermore, that significant differences between the supposed-Scythian burials at Ur and those in the Scythian homeland (in what is now Ukraine and southern Russia) rule out the possibility that they were products of the same culture. In the longest chapter of his book, Ginenthal addresses these issues and, although his attacks on Cardona are not always well-focused, he nevertheless makes some pertinent responses to the points raised. So, for example, the men depicted on items in the Ur tombs were clean-shaven and, whereas Cardona claimed that Scythian males were invariably bearded, Ginenthal produces illustrations of Scythian artifacts which show that some males could be beardless. Similarly, no horse remains were found in the Ur tombs and this fact, according to Cardona, is incompatible with a Scythian burial. However, Ginenthal argues that, in contrast to the situation on the Russian steppes, horses would have been a rare commodity in Mesopotamia, so their absence from the tombs is understandable. That is perfectly reasonable but, even so, it amounts to yet another semi-circular argument. Although, like many similar examples, it wards off disproof, it cannot, in itself, do much more. [53] Many interesting and possibly significant points are raised by Ginenthal but, as yet, the debate with Cardona concerning the Royal Cemetery of Ur remains inconclusive. [54] Egyptian cargo boat, a fleet of which enabled Egypt to conduct trade with the Levant and other localities. (Illustration by John Green.) Is there anything at all which could provide positive proof of the short chronology? Ginenthal believes that there is. He argues that, because of low rainfall and the problem of salinization associated with traditional irrigation techniques, agriculture could have been maintained in southern Mesopotamia for "no more than 500 years." He acknowledges that this would still be a problem for the short chronology, since it accepts that there was a civilization in the region from before the start of the first millennium BC. To explain this he suggests, on the basis of Velikovsky's work, that there were changes in climate linked to increases in the angle of tilt of Earth's rotational axis at around 1500 BC and 800 BC. [55] Although he clearly fails to realise it, such climate changes would, of course, invalidate his main conclusion. If, as he believes, conditions in the Near East were wetter before 800 BC, and even more so before 1500 BC, then how can his uniformitarian arguments, based on subsequent climatic conditions and irrigation techniques, possibly prove that there could have been no civilization in Mesopotamia in 3000 BC? In any case, he seems to have forgotten that, although southern Mesopotamia ceased to be a major power towards the end of the first millennium BC, people continued to live there, and agriculture continued to support them. There is simply no coherence to Ginenthal's arguments on this topic. On the basis of claims put forward by Sweeney, Ginenthal accepts that the Hittites, who, in conventional history, disappeared from Anatolia around 1200 BC, but maintained a presence in the region of Carchemish, Syria, until the 8th century BC, were identical to the Lydians who ruled in Anatolia in the 6th and 7th centuries BC. In order for the conventional view to be correct, Ginenthal suggests that: "First one must accept that two totally different people from two periods of time in the same region spoke the same language. Second, one must also assume that the language spoken in and around 1200 BC did not change much for 600 years or more." However, as is clearly demonstrated by the quotations Ginenthal himself provides, Lydian was "related to" or "a descendant of" Hittite, not the same language. In the main, the attempt to equate the Lydians with the Hittites is reliant on semi-circular reasoning. Take, for example, the linkage of the Hittites to Tutankhamun, who in the short chronology of Egypt lived in the first millennium BC. These are arguments which slip into the fallacy of the negative proof (e.g. the fact that, as with Egypt, there is no unequivocal evidence as to the Hittite source of tin), and a few misunderstandings. [56] As proof that the conventional view of Hittite history must be wrong, because of internal inconsistencies, Ginenthal writes that Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria could not, as supposed, have received a tribute from the Hittite king in Carchemish in the 9th century BC, because "the Hittites in Carchemish had disappeared from the pages of history c.1200 BC." This argument is presumably based on the fact that the source referred to by Ginenthal used the term "Hittite" rather than "Neo-Hittite," and the Hittite Empire is generally believed to have collapsed around 1200 BC, after which people labeled "Neo-Hittites" by historians ruled Carchemish until its conquest by Sargon II of Assyria in 717 BC. However, the distinction is merely one of convenience. Historians often use the term "Hittite" to refer to both the Hittite Empire and the Neo-Hittite states, and sometimes (as here) they refer loosely to the Neo-Hittites as Hittites when, because of the context, there could be no confusion about what was meant. Thus Ginenthal's claim is entirely without substance. [57] Even so, as I've already stated, despite all the errors, weak arguments, and overblown conclusions, Pillars of the Past contains many positive features. Thus, Ginenthal suggests a number of good reasons, based on the arguments of Velikovsky, Dayton, and Peter James, for doubting the conventional view of a lengthy dark age in the Aegean and the Near East, starting around 1200 BC, as the Mycenaean (Late Helladic) Period in Greece came to an end. Regardless of any terminological quibbles about whether the Neo-Hittites should be distinguished from the Hittites, there is a very real issue about whether the Hittite Empire in Anatolia really came to an end around 1200 BC. Similar considerations apply to other parts of the region. Thus, Ginenthal devotes 10 pages of his book to reproducing a paper by Velikovsky - "The Scandal of Enkomi" - which first appeared in Pensée in 1974/5. This paper describes irreconcilable conflicts between orthodox scholars over the dating of archaeological finds in Cyprus. [58] However, although these various arguments raise serious concerns about the conventional chronology of this period, they cannot be said to disprove it, let alone establish an alternative chronology. After all, Velikovsky was trying to shorten history by five centuries at this time, whereas Dayton and James were arguing for the deletion of no more than three centuries. Yet another alternative, the "New Chronology" advocated by David Rohl involves a reduction of 350 years. [59] For the short chronology of Heinsohn and Sweeney to be correct, not only would the full 500 years required by Velikovsky's chronological revision have to be removed from history at this point, but an even longer span would have to be eliminated at an earlier time. The period they targeted was the Middle Bronze Age, corresponding to the 700-year interval between the domination of northern Mesopotamia and Syria by the Akkadians and the Mitannians. Taking his lead from Heinsohn, Ginenthal writes: "Stratigraphy at Tell Munbaqa in Syria has been examined by a geologist. The geology incontestably shows that where the established historians placed a 700- to 800-year settlement gap between the Old Akkadians and the Mitanni, there is none. The 700 to 800 years of Mesopotamian history for this time is a fiction." [60] That seems straightforward enough, but the true situation at Tell Munbaqa is much more complex. The geologist in question, Ulrike Rösner, had investigated a profile at one point on the Tell, and had found that the Akkadian (Early Bronze Age) stratum lay immediately beneath the Mitannian (Late Bronze Age) stratum, with no layer of wind-blown sand in between, as would have been expected had there been a prolonged settlement gap. Rösner concluded that the occupation of Tell Munbaqa had been continuous from the Early to the Late Bronze Age (the statement seized upon by Ginenthal), but she also said that her conclusions were consistent with the findings of Dittmar Machule, a German archaeologist. Machule, who had excavated at several locations at Tell Munbaqa, not just one, found evidence on the northwestern part of the site of a temple and other artifacts characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age. The inference was that the site had been occupied throughout the Bronze Age, preventing wind-blown sand from settling, but the centres of occupation had been at different parts of the site at different periods. There is no proof of that being the case, but the only alternative explanation of the evidence is that two quite different cultures had lived side-by-side at Tell Munbaqa for several hundred years. [61] ____Ginenthal correctly points out that the archaeology of Tell Munbaqa should not be considered in isolation, but compared with that of other sites in the region. However, he appears unaware of the fact that, at Tell Brak, a site close to Tell Munbaqa, evidence has been found of Neo-Sumerian and Old Assyrian settlements between those of the Akkadians and the Mitannians, whilst at Alalakh, to the west, this same period is marked by six separate occupation levels. [62] Instead of referring to this and other information, which has been established for some considerable time, and possibly pointing out alternative interpretations, Ginenthal argues that, following the publication of Rösner's paper in 1993, archaeologists have entered into a conspiracy, refusing to dig at other sites in the area. He writes: "Having proved Heinsohn correct at Tell Munbaqa, they dare not carry out these digs. They fully comprehend that to do so could mean the death of their established chronology." [63] Surely it should be obvious that there are other, more compelling, reasons why there have been few excavations in the Iraq/Syria border region during the past ten years. In any case, as noted by Roger Matthews, some excavations continued in the area despite the difficulties. As on many other occasions, Ginenthal's argument is divorced from reality. [64] Moving on to overall conclusions, Ginenthal writes, with wildly misplaced optimism, that: "On all points it appears that the established long chronology fails at every level on which it is examined. On all points it appears that the revisionist short chronology succeeds at every level on which it is examined." [65] And, continuing in a similar vein: "There can be very little doubt that the preponderance of the scientific and technological evidence is rather overwhelmingly in contradiction to the established long chronology but overwhelmingly gives support to the short chronology." [66] Ginenthal rightly accepts that "none of the facts in this book will play the slightest role in changing the minds of the historians, archaeologists, and any of the other academics." [67] That, he maintains, is because their minds will not be receptive to his arguments, or the evidence on which they are based, this being the type of evidence they have tended to ignore in the past. As he explains: "The problem is that science and technology have been given short shrift and have played a secondary role in the interpretation of ancient chronology, when in reality, as the arbiters of truth, scientific and technological data should weigh as the most important and final determinants in this area of research." [68] As a scientist myself, I am naturally sympathetic to that last sentiment, but does the argument as a whole make sense? Are the minds of historians closed to arguments based upon scientific evidence? Using the words of Oliver Cromwell, Ginenthal appeals to orthodox historians: "I beseech you, brethren, think it possible that ye may be mistaken." [69] However, the very fact that, in marked contrast to Ginenthal, historians and archaeologists generally refuse to say they can prove their theories, acknowledges the possibility that they could be mistaken. Of course that doesn't mean that orthodox historians, any more than unorthodox ones, will readily change their views, particularly on the basis of evidence from outside their area of expertise. Nevertheless, even in the field of chronology there is an example of a paradigm change which resulted from the application of new technologies. At one time, it was widely believed that metallurgy and the working of stone were invented in Egypt and Mesopotamia, spreading from there to Europe via Anatolia and the Aegean. In this view, the Late Neolithic of western, northern, and central Europe was contemporary with the Early Bronze Age of the Aegean and the Near East. However, the discovery and application of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology in the period from 1950 to 1970 led to the collapse of this diffusionist theory, as the new findings eventually convinced historians that copper metallurgy made its first appearance in central Europe, and that stone monuments were being constructed in northwestern Europe and in Malta before Egypt. [70] Ginenthal discusses the view of the philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, that a paradigm change often occurs suddenly, as a delayed response to accumulating evidence. [71] That may well be correct, but of course there will be no paradigm change at all without compelling evidence in favour of the new theory and against alternatives. How should we rate the "facts" Ginenthal produces if these are placed within the wider context of which he is apparently unaware? ____As he says, Rose has demonstrated that a date of 395 BC for the 7th year of Senusret III provides a better fit with lunar observations than the traditional date of 1872 BC, but he fails to point out that there are other dates which provide an equally good fit. Again, Ginenthal makes much of the fact that no-one can prove that tin was imported into Egypt before the reign of Ramesses IV, without acknowledging that this metal was freely available in countries with trading links with Egypt from long before that time. Similarly, although he claims that findings at Tell Munbaqa provide clear proof of the short chronology, that only looks plausible if they are considered in isolation, because evidence from other parts of the same site and from other sites supports the more conventional view of history. On the basis of facts such as these (and many similar examples which could be given), are we to believe that orthodox historians are guilty of blind prejudice if they decline to accept Ginenthal's conclusions? I hardly think so. ____Ginenthal undeniably casts doubt on some aspects of the conventional chronology, but manifestly fails to demonstrate that the short chronology of Heinsohn and Sweeney is a more plausible alternative than other revised chronologies. Even so, there is much to commend in Pillars of the Past. Although the book does not disprove the orthodox chronology, it is of value in pointing out the limitations of some of the evidence supporting it, as well as drawing attention to findings which suggest that this chronology may need to be modified beyond the range of variation generally accepted. Nevertheless, in view of the author's patchy knowledge, inadequate understanding of some crucial issues, and grossly overstated conclusions, the valid points he makes are likely to be overlooked because of the context in which they have been placed. As it is, despite the author's evident hard work and good intentions, Pillars of the Past cannot be said to present a coherent challenge to orthodox ideas about chronology. For those concerned with establishing the truth, whatever it turns out to be, the book can only be viewed with disappointment. O Relief from Persepolis, Persia.
_Notes [1] C. Ginenthal, Pillars of the Past, constituting The Velikovskian, Vol. VI, Nos. 1, 2, & 3 (2003), henceforth merely Pillars. [2
**Footnotes:
Bing A.I.: One of the sources of information about the Middle Kingdom rulers are the inscriptions from the New Kingdom period, especially from the 18th and 19th Dynasties. Some of these inscriptions mention the names and titles of the 12th and 13th Dynasty kings, either as ancestors or as patrons of certain cults. For example, the tomb of Ahmose, son of Ebana, a naval officer under several 18th Dynasty pharaohs, records his participation in a campaign against the Hyksos, who were identified with the 13th Dynasty rulers. Another example is the stela of Amenhotep II, which lists the names of 16 Middle Kingdom kings, including six from the 12th Dynasty and four from the 13th Dynasty. These inscriptions show that the New Kingdom pharaohs had some interest and knowledge of their Middle Kingdom predecessors, and that they sometimes used them as models or sources of legitimacy.
... From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) (Kronos Press: Deerfield Beach, Florida 1999) Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman. This book isn't for everyone, as it heavily concentrates on the minutiae
... . Notes [1] A.H . Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961), p. 148 [2] (But see D. Cardona, "The Two Sargons and Their Successors," Part II, AEON I:6 (December 1988), pp. 90-95; E. Cochrane, "
Sun, Moon and Sothis [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:4 (July 1999) A Study of Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt Lynn E. Rose. FRESH OFF THE PRESS. The Osiris Series Sponsored by Cosmos & Chronos Series. Editor - Dwardu Cardona. Volume II.
The history of calendars is far from cut-and-dried. Almost every topic that this book addresses has long been the subject of heated controversy. Rose sees Hellenistic and Roman Egypt as of unparalleled importance in the history of calendar development. Even the Julian calendar had its origins in Hellenistic Egypt. Very likely, the Julian calendar itself was Sothic - that is, designed to follow the movements of the star Sothis (Sirius), and not just the annual motion of the Sun. Since the traditional Egyptian calendar of 365 days fell about one-fourth of a day short of the natural year, the ancients assumed that the heliacal rising of Sirius would move through the Egyptian calendar in 365 x 4 = 1460 Julian years (that is, one Sothic period). Egypt's Middle Kingdom has conventionally been dated to some 4000 years ago, largely on the basis of documents indicating a heliacal rising of Sirius on Pharmuthi 16 in Year 7 of Sesostris III (in -1871, according to Parker.) From the Canopus Decree, Rose shows that the first heliacal rising of Sirius on Payni 1 was in -238. This, together with Censorinus' report that a heliacal rising of Sirius took place on Thoth 1 in the year + 139, makes it possible to retrocalculate earlier Sothic dates much more precisely than ever before. It then turns out that the Middle Kingdom lunar documents fail to fit in the early second millennium! Rose finds that where the lunar documents do fit extremely well is in the fourth century - which would put the heliacal rising of Sirius in -394. He then argues that the Middle Kingdom ended in -331, when Alexander the Great occupied Egypt! The shifting of the Middle Kingdom by an entire Sothic period makes for radical changes in ancient historiography, not only with respect to Egypt but with respect to Egypt's neighbors. Gardiner was in that sense right: "To abandon 1786 B.C. as the year when Dyn. XII ended would be to cast adrift from our only firm anchor, a course that would have serious consequences for the history, not of Egypt alone, but of the entire Middle East." Order from KRONOS Press
Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt by Lynn E. Rose [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) Kronos Press: Deerfield Beach, Florida 1999). Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman. This book isn't for everyone, as it heavily concentrates on the minutiae of calendrical detail that perhaps only a mathematician or historical specialist in such matters could fully appreciate or even conditionally respect. It is, without doubt, a superbly scholarly book. But what a hoot! I don't believe that I've ever read a book quite like this one, only half understanding what the author has to offer, but nevertheless thoroughly enjoying the manner in which it is being said. As it is, Lynn Rose, professor emeritus of philosophy at SUNY Buffalo, goes to great pains to make his points absolutely and unequivocally clear, often reiterating the particulars for emphasis - without that nagging feeling of redundancy many other authors who tend to repeat themselves give the readership. We are given a description of the 365-day calendar of the ancient Egyptians, and how it relates to the Julian calendar of Imperial Rome and the Alexandrian calendar of Roman-occupied Egypt, as well as to the later 16th century Gregorian calendar reform. Merely mentioned in passing by Rose - and for the benefit of this reviewer's readership - is the name of Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609), whose own calendar reform was published in 1583, one year after the amendment instituted by Pope Gregory XIII. Scaliger's formula, using days instead of years, is called the Julian Day Count - a
... . Notes [1] A.H . Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford, 1961), p. 148 [2] (But see D. Cardona, "The Two Sargons and Their Successors," Part II, AEON I:6 (December 1988), pp. 90-95; E. Cochrane, "
____Morning Star* [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:1 (Apr 1995) Dwardu Cardona.
{File: 1.6 Mars-MorningStar}
____The Original Star of Dawn [Article]
(1994 Conference) Dwardu Cardona.
{File: 1.6 Mars-MorningStar}
____Sothis and the Morning Star in the Pyramid Texts [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:5 (May 1994) Ev Cochrane
{File: 1.6 Venus-NotSirius}
____The Calendar [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 4 Eric Aitchison.
{File: 1.6 Venus-NotSirius}
The Lord Of Light [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:4 (Dec 1993) Lewis M. Greenberg. See note * below. Allah is the light of the heavens and earth. His light is a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is as in a glass, the glass is as though it were a glittering star. - Qoran 24:35. Saturn was the only god who was said to have been born; who lived on Earth among men, preaching and teaching; who died; was buried; who descended to the netherworld; who rose from the dead and eventually ascended into heaven. If the tale sounds familiar, you now know its origin.- Dwardu Cardona, San Jose, August 1980. Introduction Among other things, Worlds in Collision presented- within the framework of a cosmic catastrophic scenario- a compelling case for a
... , ruler, or director. This would not only accord well with Budge's translation but may allow us to see how the Latins might have mistakenly substituted the name Sirius (Sothis in Greek, Spdt in Egyptian) for that of Osiris who was called "King of the gods", "Power of Heaven", and "Lord of
Of Lessons, Legacies, and Litmus Tests: A Velikovsky Potpourri (Part One) [Aeon]
_From: Aeon III:1 (Nov 1992) Leroy Ellenberger. "Knowing that no intellectual resource available to me validly refuted it, I got drawn in."- Edmund D. Cohen, "The Psychology of the Bible-Believer," Free Inquiry, Spring 1987 "So many people think that an idea becomes true or probable by their very cleverness in devising it. They tell me that their private theory must be true because it sounds so right."- Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, April 1986 "Occasional writers with vague ideas about the methods and
... the first visibility of Venus is delayed, perhaps inordinately. 13. A new wrinkle in Venus Tablet studies has presented itself. Reading from Rose's manuscript Sun, Moon and Sothis at the C.S .I .S . meeting at Haliburton, Ontario on August 26, 1992, Clark Whelton disclosed that Rose intends to remove one Sothic ... as the lead article in Kronos X:3 . Then, too, Kronos XI:2 earlier in 1986 contained tedious, pedantic criticism of my writing by Rose and Cardona that revealed more about their limitations in quantitative analysis and scientific reasoning than about mine. (2) I researched replies to them, obtaining much valuable information from Sean
Chapter 17 Corroboration, Convergence, Analysis [Velikovskian]
... of them exhibited behavior that fully conforms with Kuhn's description of the way the establishment deals with innovation of a revolutionary nature. Anthony Spalinger repeatedly presented the falsehood that Rose equated Sothis with Venus, but it was shown in three places that Rose in his book properly equated Sothis with the star Sirius. Spalinger accused Rose of a lack of condescension
... over-arching, consistent correlation and corroboration of scientific and technological as well as all the other historical factors that point to the general validity of their conclusion. David Talbott, Dwardu Cardona, and Ev Cochrane, who have been either unsupportive or deeply critical of these greatly lowered chronologies, have raised the issue of convergence and cross-reference of evidence from numerous
The Eye Goddess [Aeon]
_From: Aeon V:5 (Jan 2000) Ev Cochrane. The Egyptian Hathor provides an archetypal example of the mother goddess. From time immemorial, she was regarded as the mother of Horus, the Egyptian war-god believed to have been incarnate in the pharaoh. The goddess' very name commemorates this relationship, signifying "House of Horus." [1] Scholars have hitherto been at a loss to explain the fundamental nature of this great goddess. They have been puzzled not only by her name, but by her multifarious and seemingly incompatible characteristics. In a recent study, Alison Roberts offered the following: "My initial problem was
... from Re, being explicitly identified with the "Morning Star" shining in the celestial Duat, the latter being a sort of Elysian Fields intimately associated with Hathor (as Sothis). Horus as the "Morning Star," in turn, is to be identified with the planet Mars. [25] In [26] A recurring ... Texts," AEON III:5 (May 1994), pp. 84 ff. [25] Ibid., pp. 85-93; see also, D. Cardona, "Morning Star," AEON IV:1 (April 1995), pp. 28 ff. [26] J. Murie, "Ceremonies of the
Mars Gods of the New World [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:1 (Apr 1995) Ev Cochrane. In previous articles in this series, we have investigated various gods of the Old World, including Heracles, Gilgamesh, Indra, Horus, Cuchulainn, Apollo and others, discovering compelling evidence that each of these figures originally personified the planet Mars, their cults reflecting ancient conceptions associated with the red planet. Throughout each step of the investigation, the cult of Nergal has loomed large, not only because of its antiquity but because it offers a solid link with the earliest astronomical traditions of Babylon. Nergal's well-attested identification with the planet Mars thus serves as a common
... , how does this relate to our thesis that Tezcatlipoca is to be identified with the planet Mars? At first sight it would appear to represent a contradiction. As Dwardu Cardona (104) and I have already documented, however, Mars was apparently known as the "Morning Star" in ancient Egypt as well as among the Pawnee Indians
... in J. Henninger, op. cit. 104. D. Cardona, "Morning Star," elsewhere in this issue. 105. E. Cochrane, "Sothis and Morning Star in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts," AEON III:5 (1994), pp. 77-94. For the Pawnee traditions, see R. Linton
The Milky Way [Aeon]
_From: Aeon IV:4 (Apr 1996) Ev Cochrane. Ancient beliefs surrounding the celestial bodies continue to impact our daily lives. Astrological horoscopes adorn the leading papers and magazines, and at least one world leader - Ronald Reagan - is known to have planned the details of his itinerary in accordance with the portents of his wife's astrological chart, thereby imitating a long line of kings going back to the ancient Babylonians. As incredible as is the prospect of a modern president held pawn by the "science" of astrology, equally incredible is a central tenet of conventional archaeo-astronomy - that the myths and legends surrounding the various stars and constellations
... on the Winding Waterway; I am ferried over to the eastern side of heaven, I am ferried over to the eastern side of the sky, and my sister is Sothis, my offspring is the dawn-light." (70) The Winding Waterway is elsewhere described as a path traveled by the ancient sun-god: "Hail to you,
... . Mercer, The Pyramid Texts in Translation and Commentary Vol. 2 (New York, 1952), p. 157. See here the extensive discussion in D. Cardona, "Intimations of An Alien Sky," Aeon 2:5 (1991), pp. 14-29. 84. F. Boll, "Kronos-Helios,"
Pillars of Straw [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 6 Dwardu Cardona. Charles Ginenthal. (Photograph- 1995- by the author.) Mixed Praises.
_The latest offering from Charles Ginenthal - Pillars of the Past - constitutes a tour de force no matter whether one accepts its conclusions or not. So let me say right off the bat that I, for one, find it most difficult to accept the general conclusion presented in this work to the effect that civilization only originated in the mid-second to the first millennium before the present era. That said, I commend the author of this work for the anomalies he laid bare in the orthodox chronology of history as it pertains to the ancient Near East. It is not that none of these aberrations had ever been presented before. They have - and time and again at that - by various other revisionists of ancient history, including Ginenthal himself. But it is heartening to see these many anomalies stored in an organized manner under one roof. For that reason, if for no other, Ginenthal has done revisionists a great service. Make no mistake, Pillars of the Past is not merely a tabulation of these historical abnormalities. Cogent arguments are ably presented to show that the chronology of ancient Near Eastern history rests on the shakiest of grounds. And, to be sure, some of these arguments are faultless. It is not, however, my intention to review Ginenthal's entire work any more than it is my intention to critique its many faults - and faults it does contain. That would require a book at least twice as long as Ginenthal's tome which, running at 578 pages, including the index, would take me away from my own work for ever and a day. My intent here is merely to defend myself against the blatant accusations Ginenthal leveled against me and my work. Misconception. Ginenthal and I have been acquainted with each other for quite some years. Despite that, it seems he does not know me very well. This is indicated when, more than once, ____he accuses me of upholding "the established chronology" of ancient history. [1] Where, if I may ask, has Ginenthal ever seen or heard me state such a thing? Just because I do not agree with the chronological revisions of ancient history that the revisionists he champions have concocted does not mean that I accept "the established chronology." In fact, I do not and have never done so. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, deem Egyptian history as presently "established" to be far too long. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, believe that the various dark ages which have been foisted on ancient Near Eastern history by Egyptologists to have been non-existent. Like Ginenthal and others, I, too, would shorten ancient Near Eastern history. And, like Ginenthal and others, I, too, realize that this cannot be done until Egyptian history itself is shortened. But not by the amount that Ginenthal would have us believe. The problem here is that shortening ancient history is one thing; how it is done is quite another. And, personally, I have not yet been satisfied that current revisionists - those whom Ginenthal champions as well as those he does not - have done a good job. Lack Of Consensus. Revisionists of ancient history are fond of equating historical characters with one another. Take, for instance, the case of Shishak, the Egyptian king who, according to the Old Testament, despoiled the temple in Jerusalem. [2] Egyptologists identify this king as the Pharaoh Soshenq. Velikovsky disagreed, identifying him instead as Thutmose III. [3] But not everyone was happy with this and other identifications followed with their reliant years sliding up and down the scale of ages. David Rohl not only saw Shishak reflected in the person of Ramses II, [4] but also, at the same time, as the Sesostris mentioned by Herodotus. [5] Peter James, who had once worked hand in hand with Rohl, on the other hand, was sure that Shishak was really Ramses III. [6] Phillip Clapham opted for Psusennes. [7] Eric Aitchison suggested Kamose, [8] but later changed his mind in favor of Ahmose. [9] I thus find myself one with Lewis Greenberg when he was recently led to ask: "Will the real Shishak please stand up?" [10] So, likewise, with the historical personages mentioned in the el-Amarna correspondence whom various revisionists have identified as this or that Biblical character, with each revisionist contradicting the others, until those not directly involved in the ensuing debates are left floating in a veritable sea of confusion. In the end, Eric Aitchison came to the only viable conclusion when he wrote that: "I am not an enthusiast for alter egos of the el-Amarna correspondents. Many revisionists, myself included, have wasted much time in searching for alter egos but in my opinion the many correspondents should remain as themselves; they are unknown to us because their place in history has been over-written by more dramatic happenings. By relegating these servant kings to minor players we are no longer bound to see them as alter egos of better known others. We should leave them alone and seek a milieu where [their] historical activities can be acted out without great disruption to history." [11] ____Ginenthal, of course, swears mainly by the revisionist attempts of Velikovsky, Rose, Heinsohn, and Sweeney. One can safely say they are his heroes. But there is no consensus among them either. ____Lynn Rose, for instance, thinks highly of Gunnar Heinsohn's revision of ancient history, [12] except, of course, when it tends to step on his own toes - the subject of calendrics. Thus, following more than a page in which he lauds Heinsohn's method in what can be considered his opus magnum, Rose ends up with the following remarks: "On the other hand, Heinsohn may be committing too much to the flames. His focus on stratigraphy leaves him with many serious blind spots concerning matters that seem to him to lie out at some irrelevant periphery. Thus he tends to dismiss without further thought or investigation any considerations that are brought to him from the fields of calendrology or astronomy. Not surprisingly, this does not strike me as a very admirable trait in Heinsohn's intellectual make-up!" [13] What this indicates is that even Ginenthal's own revisionist heroes are not all of one mind. He cannot, therefore, blame me for not adhering to any of these reconstructions. ____But that is not to say that I adhere to the orthodox scheme, and I would ask Ginenthal not to spread this false accusation any further (even though, by now, the damage has been done). The issue, of course, goes beyond Ginenthal's particular heroes. It touches upon all revisionists of ancient history. Thus, when the British Society for Interdisciplinary Studies named their September 2002 conference "Ages Still In Chaos," [14] they were right on target. Iron And The Pyramids. Ginenthal takes me to task concerning the manner in which the ancient Egyptians were able to hew the "granite or diorite" blocks that went into the building of the pyramids before the invention of iron tools. [15] So let me say at once that, in my original foray into the subject, I myself had already claimed that: "How the Egyptians were able to work these hard stones remains controversial." [16] And that should have been enough to satisfy any scholar worth his salt. But then, to be fair to all, I also added that I. E. S. Edwards had suggested ways in which copper could have been given a high temper through some now forgotten means together with other suggestions from Flinders Petrie. My personal verdict, however, was that Edwards' "surmise has not yet been proved" and that none of Petrie's "methods has been verified." [17] And that, too, should have satisfied any scholar worth his salt. Even so, in order to stress the fact that I myself am not content with any of the above suggestions, I asked the question: "So how were the granite, and other hard-stone, items in the pyramids dressed?" To which I answered: "That, I am afraid, remains something of a moot question." [18] And that, for the third time, should have satisfied any scholar worth his salt. It thus surprised me to no end when Ginenthal retorted by claiming that none of these attempted explanations constitute a moot question. Did I ever say they did? A careful reading of what I stated will easily show that the moot question has absolutely nothing to do with these attempted explanations, but, rather, with the overall issue concerning the manner in which the hard stones in question were dressed. As Ginenthal rightly claims: "These suggestions have nothing to support them and are therefore proof of nothing." [19] Is this not what I myself had intimated? Thus, as a reply to Cardona, he could have saved himself the sixteen consecutive pages that followed [20] in which all he did was reinforce what I myself had already stated. The pyramids of Cheops and Khefren. Built mainly of limestone. (Photograph by the author.) ____Ginenthal then claims that: "Cardona, however, has offered his own hypothesis to explain how these various hard stones can be cut." [21] This concerns my declaration that meteoric iron, which the Egyptians referred to as "metal of heaven," could have been used in hewing the pyramid stones. [22] Here, on the authority of R. J. Forbes and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ginenthal informs us that the correct translation of the Egyptian term rendered as "metal from heaven" should be "black copper from heaven," [23] and continues by informing us that: "Though this is a small point, it is rather important to understand that the Egyptians did not know of the existence of iron as a different metal in early times but thought of this metal which they found as merely black copper." [24] All that Ginenthal is telling us in the above is that, not yet having a name for "iron," which was still new to them, the early Egyptians referred to this metal as "black copper." So what? In what way does it contradict what I had written? Is not this "black copper," which meant "iron," said to have fallen from the sky? Are we not here still talking about metal, and more specifically iron, that fell from heaven? Is such not presently understood as meteorites? What does any of this take away from what I stated? Ginenthal's conclusion was that: "To assume that both iron and copper were known in early Egypt is simply false." [25] What is false is his own statement. To give one example re the above, in Maltese "copper" is rendered ramm ahmar - that is "red brass" to this day. Would Ginenthal then tell me it is false to assume that copper is known to the Maltese? In Arabic it is the opposite where "brass" is referred to as nuhas asfar - that is "yellow copper." Would Ginenthal then tell me it is false to assume that brass is known to the Arabs? To the Egyptians themselves, silver was referred to as "white gold." [26] Would Ginenthal then tell us that silver was also unknown to the Egyptians? Thus, when Ginenthal claims that "'iron' was not known as a different metal than copper in early times," [27] he is entirely wrong, otherwise they would not have differentiated the metal as black copper, which real copper is not. To tell us then that "[t]he proper interpretation is that the Egyptians were familiar with black copper meteorites, 'not iron' meteorites" is misleading since, in fact, there is no such thing as black copper meteorites unless this is correctly understood as iron meteorites. Ginenthal's confusion becomes worse confounded when, in speaking of the taboo held by the Egyptians against iron, he naively asks: "But how could the Egyptians of the early times have a taboo against a metal they didn't know even existed?" [28] But if they did not know that iron existed, why did they differentiate it by calling it black copper? Or what, then, did black copper allude to if not iron? At this point, this particular argument becomes a downright silly one. As Ginenthal himself tells us, iron is mentioned in the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony in association with the ritualistic objects used, which subject I myself had taken into consideration. [29] And then he again naively asks: "If the Egyptians had a taboo against iron, why were they using it in this sacred rite?" [30] Here, Ginenthal's deficiency in knowledge concerning Egyptian rituals shows clearly through. As I myself had stated, "a religious exception seems to have been allowed in Egyptian funerary rites." [31] And the reason for this is simple enough. Since iron, or black copper if you will, was deemed to be a metal sent to Earth from heaven, it would have been considered divine (as it actually was). For that reason, its use in religious services was not only allowed, but highly recommended. As Frederick Paneth, then the Director of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany wrote, "we have proof that [man] knew of the precious metal's celestial origin; for in many languages the name for it contains a reference to the sky, and in some records its origin is contrasted with that of terrestrial metals like gold, silver and copper." [32] Moreover: "The awe-inspiring phenomena accompanying the fall of meteorites convinced primitive people all over the world that they came from the gods; accordingly we find them as objects of awe in many cults, and frequently venerated in temples." [33] Ginenthal also tells us that I failed to inform my readers that Wainwright, whom I quoted on Egyptian meteorites, had also stated that "all meteorites are not solid iron" and that "many are a mixture of iron and stone and so useless to man as a source of iron." [34] But, again, so what? One can just as easily state that not all meteorites consist of a mixture of iron and stone, and that some of them are pure nickel-iron and so useful to man as a source of iron. "As one can see," Ginenthal then tells us, "meteorites are generally a poor metal for tools." [35] Go tell that to the Eskimos who have fashioned so many harpoon tips and knives from the fragments of the Ahnighito meteorite which originally fell in Greenland some 10,000 years ago. [36] As Paneth also informs us: "Long before man learned to smelt iron, he used meteorites for the manufacture of iron tools..." [37] Or, better still, why not pay better attention to the statement Ginenthal himself quoted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to the effect that: "Small meteorites were the most convenient sources, but larger bodies were hacked at with copper and stone tools to yield tool-size pieces for knives, spear points, arrow points, axheads, and other implements." [38] Or is he trying to have it both ways? That meteoric iron was used for weapons in Egypt is also evidenced by the fact that such weapons were referred to as "Daggers from Heaven." [39] Ginenthal then claims that "Velikovsky [in Ramses II and His Time] understood the implications regarding iron as they related to chronology and made use of this fundamental understanding." [40] What Ginenthal failed to inform his readers is that in the work referred to, Velikovsky discussed the very points I did: The much disputed date at which iron came into general use in Egypt; [41] the possible use of meteoric iron in making tools; [42] the naming of meteoric iron as "metal of heaven"; [43] the problem involving the dressing of the pyramid stones; [44] the various objects wrought of iron that have been discovered in Egypt's Old Kingdom; [45] the religious taboo against the use of iron; [46] and the exception to this taboo in religious contexts. [47] In what manner, then, does what Velikovsky say contradict what I myself had stated? Or if Ginenthal is going to accuse me of selectivity, as he often does, when it comes to the sources I utilized, what should I accuse him of in this case? Ginenthal goes into much detail concerning the Brinell and Mohs scales of copper and iron, reaching the conclusion that meteoric iron would not have been hard enough to hew the stones in question. As he stated: "There is absolutely nothing to support Cardona's contention that meteoric iron was used to work these hard materials." [48] In actuality, that is all he needed as a criticism of Cardona. I will even go further myself. Meteoric falls are relatively rare. Meteoric falls in the same locality, as in Egypt, would be even rarer. And the discovery of such falls would have been rarer still. Granted, as Velikovsky himself contends, man "had at his disposal at the time he learned to use metal the meteorites that had fallen during hundreds of millions of years." [49] Besides, falls of meteorites in ancient times would have been much more numerous than at present. Even so, to have gathered enough meteoric iron to fashion enough tools to use in the hewing of the hard stones that went into the building of the pyramids and other projects might be stretching it somewhat. Keep in mind, however, that most of the pyramid structures were built out of limestone for which iron is not really needed. Velikovsky was wrong when he claimed that "copper or bronze tools would not have cut the limestone rock." [50] It is only certain features, as in the main entrance and the king's chamber of the Great Pyramid, that harder stones were utilized and, therefore, less meteoric iron than appears at first sight would have been needed to turn into tools. If, however, non-meteoric iron was required for the hewing of the hard stones that went into the building of certain features in the pyramids, then so be it. After all, as I myself had indicated, objects made from non-meteoric iron have been found dating from the Pyramid age, and even earlier, and in some cases in association with the pyramids themselves. [51] That not too many such iron objects have been discovered from this time speaks highly of the corrodible nature of the metal. Ginenthal, of course, accepts this. But then he tells us that "the fact that smelted iron implements are found in Old Kingdom times suggests that the Old Kingdom existed at a time when the Egyptians could do so and that again points unambiguously to the first millennium." [52] But what does the term "Iron Age" really mean? Entrance to the Great Pyramid. (Photograph by the author. THE IRON AGE. "To suggest that the Egyptians smelted iron to make tools around 2500 B.C.," wrote Ginenthal, "would require that the Iron Age began around that time in defiance of the claims of the established historians." [53] He's a fine one to talk! Ginenthal's solution to this apparent conundrum led him to move the age of the pyramids forward in time to the first millennium B.C. when the Iron Age in Egypt is believed to have commenced. This seems rather strange to me because, in contesting an orthodox belief, he is relying on another orthodox belief. He contests the accepted age assigned to the building of the pyramids by relying on the accepted age assigned to the Iron age. Is he not just as much going against "the claims of the established historians" in moving the pyramid age down to the first millennium? Why is he not just as willing to go against "the claims of the established historians" when it comes to the dating of the Iron age? If one is going to shift ages in order to fit the building of the pyramids into the Iron Age, why not move the Iron Age to the time of the pyramids rather than move the pyramids to the era of the Iron Age? In other words, rather than moving the age of the pyramids down into the first millennium B.C., why not move the Iron Age up into the third millennium? Would not that be easier? It strikes me that Ginenthal can be so adamant about accepting one "established" claim of the historians while proposing a reconstruction "in defiance" of the just as "established" claim of the same historians. Granted, I am being somewhat mischievous here, but then there is this to consider: Exactly when did the Iron Age take hold in Egypt? Had Ginenthal paid better attention to what Velikovsky reported in the very same tract he saw fit to bring to the attention of his readers, he would have realized that the time re the beginning of the Iron Age in Egypt has see-sawed through the years. "The Iron Age began about -1800 with the end of the Middle Kingdom, is the opinion of [one] group [of historians], or in the time of Ramses II, according to [another] group. The developed Iron Age in Egypt began about -1200, or in the days of Ramses III, a few scholars maintain. Many favor the date -1000 under the Libyan Dynasty. The early Iron Age of Egypt did not begin until -800 (between XXII and XXV Dynasties). 'The year -700 may be considered as the beginning of the Iron Age in Egypt,' is a statement often made. It is also asserted that the earliest smelting in Egypt (at Naucratis) dates from the sixth century. All shades of opinion covering the entire length of Egyptian history have their advocates. Iron has had more contradictory statements made about it than any other metal'." [54] As Velikovsky also noted, two prominent Egyptologists were led to suggest that the Iron Age in Egypt "may yet be proved to have even preceded the Bronze Age." [55] And why not, since the production of iron involves a much simpler technique than that involved in the manufacture of bronze? But then when does a metal age really commence? Is it when a particular metal is first discovered? Does the age begin when tools or other items are manufactured from the metal? Or does it begin when the use of these metal objects becomes predominant? If a metal age is considered to commence with the first manufacture of items from that metal, it can safely be said that the iron age began in Egypt during pre-dynastic times (and Ginenthal can put whatever date he wishes on that) long before the pyramids were built, since beads made of iron have been discovered at Gerzah. [56] It is not reasonable to assume that these particular beads were the only iron objects in use during this time. If a metal age is considered to commence when items made from that metal become more common, then the iron age in Egypt can be said to have begun with the Ethiopian ascendancy, [57] or, as others maintain, with the Greek settlement at Naucratis during the Saitic period. [58] But if a metal age is considered to commence when items from that metal become predominant, it can then safely be stated that the iron age in Egypt did not really start until the Roman era. [59] In between these dates, bronze (and even copper) continued to be the main metal of choice despite the fact that iron was not only known but actually used. However, this only holds in face of what has actually been archaeologically recovered. Given its corrodible nature, we really have no knowledge of how much iron was actually utilized during any of these periods. At which point I will venture to say that if - and, as we shall soon see, it is a very big if - iron was really required for the hewing of the pyramid stones in question, then iron tools must have been common during that age despite the fact that few iron objects have been discovered from this period. But that alone does not require the shifting of the pyramid age closer to our time. When it comes to the corrodible nature of iron, Ginenthal misunderstood me. As he has it stated: "Cardona has argued, citing Erman, that since bronze tools were found fairly plentifully in ancient sites, the scarcity of retrieved iron tools and weapons can have nothing to do with the corrosive [read "corrodible"] nature of iron." [60] To which he added that: "Corrosion has little to do with the question." [61] I do not know if something in Ginenthal's statement dropped out in print, especially seeing that his quotation marks open up once but close twice. What I actually wrote was: "I hope no one will now tell me that the scarcity of retrieved iron tools and weapons from the 18th Dynasty might be due to the corrosive [read "corrodible"] nature of iron, as indicated above [in the original paper], since if this argument holds for that Dynasty, it also holds for the 5th." [62] But that corrosion has little to do with the question is categorically wrong. Even so, Ginenthal would ask for more since, according to him, even iron tools would not have been hard or sharp enough to hew the stones in question. He actually asks for tempered steel, concerning which he goes on for page after page. [63] And here it must be admitted that if this is so, then, obviously, the pyramid age would have to be shifted closer to our time. This is because while iron objects in Egypt can be traced as far back as the pre-dynastic age, steel does not seem to have come into use in Egypt until the 18th Dynasty. At least a steel dagger with a gold handle, to say nothing of other objects made of iron, was discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun. [64] But was steel, or even iron, really required for the hewing of the pyramid stones? The Lesson of the Incas. Inca wall at Cuzco, Peru, constructed of rectangular blocks in coursed masonry. (Photograph by the author.) No modern traveler to that stretch of South America which once constituted the Inca empire of Tawantinsuyu can help but marvel at the perfection of Inca masonry. Inca architecture spans an area from Ecuador to Bolivia, but a visit to Cuzco in Peru will be enough to amaze the interested visitor. There, in the heart of the city's old section, one can stare in astonishment at the excellence of Inca walls upon which the conquering Spanish built their colonial edifices. "In narrow cobbled alleyways, walls of irregular unmortared masonry, finely cut and smoothed, and still - despite many earthquakes - tightly fitted, support the colonial and modern buildings that have long since replaced the upper structures." [65] While, in some cases, Inca walls are constructed of rectangular blocks in coursed masonry, what astonishes the modern visitor even more are those other walls in which the blocks have been fashioned into polygonal slabs which fit like a massive jigsaw puzzle with each slab fitting precisely into its interlocking neighbors without the use of mortar. Visitors to Cuzco are often shown the stone which was once incorporated in Hatun Rumiyoc, the palace that was built by the Inca Roca, which stone boasts twelve corners. [66] But this pales into insignificance when compared to the massive block at Machu Picchu which contains thirty-two corners in three dimensions [67] "each fitting tightly with its neighbors." [68] "In an architecture so poor in decorative elements [asked John Hemming], why was such attention lavished on the shaping and fitting of stones? Why incorporate huge blocks into terrace walls, or devote so much labor to achieving perfect interlocking of masonry joints? ... Inca masonry sometimes seems to adopt the most complex solutions and difficult methods. Was this an official aesthetic, intended to proclaim the state's success in mobilizing great reserves of manpower, or even a totalitarian attempt to employ excess labor? Was it an expression of the masons' own virtuosity - an outlet for their artistic expression in the face of official restriction? Or did it have a forgotten mystical significance?" [69] Even more astonishing is that, outside of Cuzco, some of these polygonal blocks are megalithic. At Sacsayhuaman, in the hill above Cuzco, one comes across blocks measuring 16 x 15 1/2 feet, with a thickness of 8 1/2 feet, weighing from 88 1/2 to 126 tons; [70] at other places, stones up to 150 tons were used, [71] and others as heavy as 200 tons each. [72] As J. V. Mura noted, this constitutes "the result of thousands of years of a local praxis, obviously successful under extremely difficult environmental circumstances, without parallel on other continents." [73] How these megalithic stones were moved from the quarries to their destination adds to the amazement of those who contemplate such questions. At Ollantaytambo, the blocks of porphyry were quarried away in the high hills kilometers downstream. [74] As John Hemming noted: "Anyone visiting Ollantaytambo must ponder the prodigious human effort expended in quarrying and cutting these vast blocks and dragging them down to the valley [across the valley] and up to the temple [half way up another mountain]." [75] For the present purpose, however, I will not dwell on this additional problem since my intention here is to focus on the method involved in the shaping and fitting of the stones in question. Polygonal Inca stonework - Cuzco - Peru. (Photographs by the author.) Massive wall constructed with polygonal blocks. Ollantaytambo - Peru. (Photograph by the author.) Massive blocks in outer wall of Sacsayhuaman some of which weigh as much as 126 tons. (Photograph by the author.) The porphyry mentioned in association with the stones of Ollantaytambo is a volcanic rock which is composed of large crystals imbedded in a finer matrix. Besides South America, it was also quarried and carved into statues by the ancient Egyptians and, later, by the Romans. Porphyries are chemically related to both granite and diorite, [76] the two main rocks stressed by Ginenthal in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Porphyry, however, was not the only type of stone used by the Incas in their monumental buildings. Granite itself was used at Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Cuzco, as well as elsewhere. [77] Diorite, basalt, and andesite were also used at Sacsayhuaman and other sites. [78] There should therefore be no dissension concerning the hardness of Inca stones in comparison to those of the Egyptian pyramids. Of course the Inca empire existed in the centuries A.D. when the age of iron had long established itself - but not, however, in South America. That the Incas did not know of iron, meteoric or otherwise, let alone steel, is well recognized. Nor can we here rely on the corrodible nature of iron as a reason why no iron tools or weapons have ever been discovered at Inca sites. The Spanish who brought the Inca empire ignobly to its heels were the first to introduce iron into this part of the Americas. As Garcilaso de la Vega noted, "they did not know how to make anvils of iron" or "extract iron," or to "make hammers with wooden handles," or "files or burins." [79] "They did not know how to make a saw nor a drill [wrote Garcilaso]. For axes and adzes and some few tools that they made, silversmiths served in place of blacksmiths, because all the tools that they worked were of copper and brass." [80] And: "they had no other tools to work the stones than some black stones that they called hihuana, with which they dress [the stone] by pounding rather than cutting." [81] So, likewise, with Cieza de León who wrote that: "... they [the Incas] lay foundations and build strong buildings very well... they also make carvings in the round and other large things, and in many places what they have made and make without any tools other than stones and their great ingenuity can be seen." [82] And yet, as Jean-Claude Valla informs us, the Incas were actually well versed in metallurgy. "The metallurgy industry [of the Incas], despite a relatively weak production, constituted a very important activity. The Incas, considered by the Indians as masters of metals, had no knowledge of the use of iron nor undoubtedly of lead, but they had acquired a great deal of experience in the working of gold, silver and copper, which was alloyed with tin to produce bronze. The imperial ateliers even produced [i.e., mined] platinum, unknown in Europe until much later, in the 18th century." [83] "The thing that impresses me most when I study one of these buildings [wrote Bernabé Cobo soon after the Spanish conquest], is the question: what tools or machines can have brought these stones from the quarries, cut them, and placed them in their present positions? For the Indians had no iron tools or wheeled vehicles... This consideration really does cause one to be justifiably amazed. It gives some idea of the vast number of people needed [to build] these structures. We see stones of such prodigious size that a hundred men working for a month would have been inadequate to cut one of them. By this standard, the Indian claim that it was normal for thirty thousand men to work during the construction of the fortress of Cuzco [that is Sacsayhuaman] becomes plausible...for a lack of tools or clever devices necessarily increases the volume of labor, and the Indians had to do it all by brute force." [84] Two colossal slabs at Ollantaytambo neither of which was completely set in place. (Photographs by the author..) And: "The tools that they did use for cutting and working stones were hard black [obsidian] pebbles from the streams. They employed these more by pounding than cutting." [169] Rocks were split by digging a series of oblong holes in line with each other. Wooden, or perhaps copper, wedges were then inserted into the holes and hammered tight until the rock split. Others maintain that the wedges were of "damp wood that eventually expanded and forced the stone to crack." [170] Knowing from personal experience that a similar method was once employed in Maltese quarries, I can only say that there is merit in this suggestion. Regardless of how the wedges, wooden or copper, were made to split the stones, superb evidence of this method can be seen in one such block that still lay abandoned at Machu Picchu. This method of splitting individual blocks as well as cleaving slabs from bedrock in quarries was the same as that used by the Egyptians, as can be plainly seen at the quarries of Aswan. The manner in which the Incas dug the wedge holes in so hard a material as granite, and did so with such precision in aligning them, remains a moot question. Commentators on the subject simply take it for granted, as, for instance, Ross Bennett and his editorial assistants: "Working from clay models, stonemasons split the rock by drilling small holes, wedging it apart, and polishing it with sand and water. They used stone hammers and axes, and bronze chisels. So well did they build that many walls in Cuzco and its outskirts have withstood 500 years of earthquake, war, and urban ruin and renewal." [171] The ability of Inca masonry to withstand earthquakes is something which all investigators of the subject stress. And this is no little matter especially in Peru which has been, and still is, subject to repeated earthquakes. Yet while colonial structures as well as modern ones have been shaken to rubble through these frequent earth tremors, not a single Inca wall has ever been recorded to have fallen prey to such earth shakings. [172] There is one other thing concerning which most authorities agree, and that concerns the manner in which these Inca blocks were fashioned. Stone hammers and bronze crowbars are sometimes mentioned. [173] But the actual dressing of the stones is explained as the result of pounding, grinding, and polishing by means of abrasives, usually noted to have been sand and water. [174] "Blocks of stone were cut, ground and polished until their outer surfaces interlocked with absolute precision." [175] "Every modern observer shares Cobo's awe at the sight of polygonal masonry. But the chronicler was right to stress that it was the product of days of patient human effort. There was no secret formula, no magic chemical that could shape stones, nothing but cutting with stone axes, abrasion with sand and water, and the skill and dedication of Inca masons." [176] Shaping and polishing while a stone is on the ground is one thing, but, when it comes to polygonal structure, how could they have made certain that the block would fit its neighbors before heaving it up on top of walls? As Bernabé Cobo pointed out: "One easily imagines the enormous expense of energy which the exact fitting of these blocks represented. Every surface of the block was precisely cut to correspond to the opening for which it was intended. Such a job must have required infinite patience. In order to obtain such a perfect adjustment, it was necessary to position the block, remove it, reshape it and reposition it over and over until it fit." [177] Wedge holes at the quarries of Aswan, Egypt. (Photograph by the author.) "And being of such great size, it is obvious how many workers and how much suffering must have been involved." [94] On top of which, there is yet one more thing to keep in mind. Few of those who visit these Inca sites are aware that the greatest Inca structures the remains of which are still visible were erected within the short period of about 80 years, which is approximately how long the Classic Inca Empire lasted. As G. Gasparini and L. Margolies noted, "one is amazed by the incredible building activity undertaken in such a relatively short time." [95] And that is not even taking into consideration "the stone-paved roads, bridges, irrigation canals, agricultural terraces, river canalizations" and other constructions that these builders erected all the way from Bolivia to Ecuador. [96] "To modern observers," wrote Hemming, "the quantity of building achieved during so brief a span is as impressive as its excellence." [97] I do not think I need go on. I am sure I have made my point. And, yes, perhaps the Egyptians did use iron tools to hew those hard stones they incorporated into their limestone pyramids. I might be wrong, but we will probably never know for sure. Moreover, personally I have no way of knowing if the methods described above for the cutting, pounding, grinding, and polishing of stones is the way in which the Incas actually accomplished that monumental task. But there is no question that they achieved it without the use of iron tools. And if the Incas could, as they did, quarry, hew, shape, and fit blocks of granite, basalt, and diorite, many of which are of megalithic size, without the use of iron tools, then so could have the ancient Egyptians. O (To be continued.) Notes [1 ] C. Ginenthal, Pillars of the Past (constituting Vol. VI, Nos. 1, 2, & 3 of The Velikovskian, N. Y., 2003) - henceforth merely Pillars - pp. 221, 224, 305. [2 ] II Chronicles 12:9 . [3 ] I.
... the Indefensible," Chronology & Catastrophism Review (2003:1), p. 38. [12] L. E. Rose, Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt (Deerfield Beach, Florida, 1999), pp. 201-202. [13] Ibid., p ...
Science, Technology and the Chronology of the Ancient World [Aeon]
_From: Aeon Volume VI, Number 6. Thoughts on Charles Ginenthal's Pillars of the Past, Trevor Palmer. As enshrined in the Constitution of the SIS, of which I am a member, the Principal Object of the Society is to use "historical and contemporary evidence of all kinds" to "promote active consideration by scientists, scholars and students of alternatives to [orthodox] theories", particularly those relating to chronology and catastrophism. Entirely consistent with that, Charles Ginenthal, in Pillars of the Past [1] provides evidence and arguments to suggest that orthodox ideas on chronology are based on insubstantial foundations. Towards the end of the 578-page book, Ginenthal requests that "historians examine it with the dispassion it deserves." On the back cover, we read: "Pillars of the Past explores, through studies based primarily on scientific and technological evidence, the chronology of the ancient Near East. This evidence indicates that the historians and archaeologists have invented over 1500 years of history that simply never existed... With hundreds of footnotes from many diverse fields of study, Ginenthal ruthlessly tears away the façade of the established long chronology. For new and old readers of ancient history, in clear, understandable language, the history of the ancient Near East is exposed, showing that at least half of the cloth of that age is an invention; that the emperor, in reality, has no clothes." ____Thus, there are two separate claims: 1) that Ginenthal has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the orthodox chronology is incorrect; and 2) that the evidence points clearly to the validity of one particular alternative, the short chronology of Gunnar Heinsohn and Emmet Sweeney, from amongst the various models that have been proposed. [2] Needless to say, to be able to justify such claims, and expect to stimulate active consideration by scholars and students, an author needs to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the subject areas under discussion, and to apply identical standards to the assessment of rival theories. Ginenthal begins in convincing fashion. Discussing the age of the sphinx at Giza, he criticises orthodox scholars for falling below acceptable standards of scholarship, maintaining that their arguments are often based on flimsy evidence, or evidence which points to a different conclusion from the one they reach. In doing so, he makes a persuasive case that flawed responses were given to those, including geologists Robert Schoch and Colin Reader, who had argued that erosion evidence demonstrates that the Sphinx at Giza could not have been constructed at the same time as the 4th Dynasty pyramids around 2500 BC, as generally supposed. Instead, it must have come from an earlier period, when conditions were much wetter. [3] However, after more than forty pages of finely-detailed argument, confronting those who challenged the contention of Schoch and Reader that the Sphinx had been built before 2500 BC, Ginenthal suddenly changes tack and concludes that it had actually been constructed much later, as required by the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney. He speculates that, contrary to what is generally accepted, the rainy period continued until around 1500 BC. [4] Nevertheless, Ginenthal makes clear that his preferred date for the construction of the Sphinx is not based on geological evidence. He says that the justification will be presented later in the book, which, at this point, is perfectly reasonable. The Giza sphinx - how old is it? (Photograph by Dwardu Cardona.) Although acknowledging from the start that he accepts the conclusions of Heinsohn and Sweeney, he makes some genuine attempts to present a balanced account. So, for example, on one occasion, whilst agreeing with a point made by Sweeney, he takes him to task for omitting some words from a quotation and for giving incorrect page numbers in a reference. [5] ____Ginenthal is commendably honest and fair when he has possession of the facts about a particular matter. The problem is that, despite the broad range of his reading, it becomes increasingly apparent as one gets deeper into the book that there are some crucial gaps in his knowledge and even more in his understanding. Thus, whilst he continues to make a range of persuasive criticisms of orthodox interpretations, there is, unfortunately, a point in almost every chapter when it becomes apparent that the arguments which seem to have been stacking up nicely are dependent upon, or at least associated with, a notion that lacks any credibility. Ginenthal is also inclined to accept second-hand information, without checking its accuracy, when it fits in with his view of the world. For example, in respect to John Dayton's major opus, [6] Ginenthal never questions a claim that the establishment reacted by "taking steps to shut down the section of the university that allowed Dayton to expose the scientific evidence, so destructive to their dogma." [7] Yet the Institute of Archaeology still exists, as anyone can see by visiting its web site. [8] It may have been subjected to internal and external restructuring, but such reorganisations are typical of what has been happening in British universities over the past 25 years, and there is not the slightest evidence to suggest they had anything to do with Dayton. Orthodox scholars were certainly guilty of ignoring Dayton's well-documented arguments that, for example, a chronological anomaly is suggested by the apparent loss of glazing skills from Greece, Troy, Mesopotamia and Egypt towards the end of the second millennium BC, followed by their reappearance three or four hundred years later as if they had never been absent. That is a valid topic for discussion. However, to go further and pass on, in uncritical fashion, a highly-unlikely story that establishment scholars punished Dayton's tutors because of the supposed sins of their former student, merely serves to bring the author's judgment into question. Ginenthal also claims, on the basis of a second-hand account of a British television programme, that, during Egypt's Old Kingdom, a Greek word for 200-man work-teams, was used long before the Greek language was supposed to have existed. He adds: "The contradiction to the established chronology is thus rather direct." [9] In fact, the word used in the Old Kingdom for such work-teams was zaa, or saw. It was only much later, during the Ptolemaic period, that this was translated as phyle, the Greek word for "tribe." [10] There is nothing here which contradicts the established chronology. Another problem, perhaps somewhat unimportant, but nevertheless revealing, is that Ginenthal fails to understand some basic concepts of scholarship. He criticizes orthodox scholars for using circular arguments, but the examples he gives are, at best, semi-circular ones, i.e., interpreting some findings on the assumption that a particular view of history (in this case, the orthodox one) is valid. Only if this interpretation was then used as an argument to demonstrate that the orthodox chronology is correct (which never happens in the examples given) would the argument be circular. Regardless of terminology, Ginenthal can hardly complain about the use of semi-circular arguments, since he utilises them throughout his book to explain findings in ways that are consistent with the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney. Ginenthal also misinterprets David Hackett Fischer's "fallacy of the negative proof," despite quoting at some length from Fischer's writings. This "fallacy" is a more detailed statement of the aphorism "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Ginenthal takes it to mean the opposite and therefore, not surprisingly, falls into it time and time again. [11] A further problem is Ginenthal's inability to understand how the academic community operates. That is not to say that this community is above criticism - far from it. Orthodox scholars, like unorthodox ones, are human beings. Some, no matter how eminent, will make mistakes, and a few may be positively dishonest. Also, new evidence will come to light, which may cast doubt on previously-accepted conclusions. Although the system is essentially self-rectifying, the timescale for rectification is often unnecessarily long. The SIS provides an environment where alternative interpretations of evidence are likely to be considered more readily than in orthodox circles, which is precisely the reason why I joined the Society 25 years ago, and have remained an active member ever since. Nevertheless, Ginenthal's notion that a prevailing theory can be established and maintained without any significant evidence to support it, although commonly held by people with heretical views, is simply untrue. A particular theory may be wrong, but it could not have been established in the first place without appearing to provide the best explanation of the evidence at the time. Yet, even so, the likelihood would have been that no two individuals had identical views, so there would have been many arguments about points of detail. Subsequently, the introduction of new evidence might increase the range of views, with some trying to formulate alternative theories and others, for a variety of reasons (including vested interest as well as academic conviction) continuing to support the established one. However, it would be very unusual for anyone in the academic community to claim that they had evidence to prove the theory they supported, for it is acknowledged that genuine proof is almost impossible to achieve. Orthodox views on the chronology of the Ancient World fit into this general picture. Contrary to the impression given by some (although not all) revisionists, there is no single orthodox chronology, for almost every book on the subject gives slightly different dates. It is a complex situation, yet Ginenthal presents it as a simple one, painting a picture which bears little resemblance to reality. Ginenthal imagines a conspiracy to impose the orthodox chronology (as if academics, who enjoy the cut-and-thrust of argument above almost everything else, could be capable of sustaining a conspiracy for any length of time). Then, when he sees evidence of disagreement about detail, and appropriate scholarly reluctance to overstate a claim, he takes this as an indication that there are serious problems with the conventional chronology. In contrast, he is quick to claim proof for aspects of the short chronology, on the basis of evidence which is no more substantial, and sometimes less so, than that for other theories of chronology, including the orthodox one. It is not the purpose of this article to argue that any particular theory is correct or incorrect, but to consider whether Ginenthal's claims can be justified by the evidence and arguments he presents. Because of this, despite the many excellent aspects of the book, serious concerns have to be expressed. The facts Ginenthal gives about the establishment of the orthodox chronology of Egypt are accurate, if somewhat limited, but his understanding leaves much to be desired. He is right to say that the 3rd century BC priest, Manetho, divided the kings of Ancient Egypt into 31 dynasties, but wrong to imply that Manetho claimed (at least, as far as we know from the remnants of his writings available to us) that all of these were sequential and, furthermore, that this assumption led directly to the orthodox chronology. Much work was carried out during the nineteenth and early twentieth century in trying to piece together a chronology from the surviving fragments of Manetho and other inscriptional evidence, including king lists. Although there continued to be uncertainty about fine detail, ____it eventually became accepted that Manetho's dynasties generally ruled in sequence, except on three occasions (the Intermediate Periods) when different dynasties ruled in parallel. The outcome was essentially a relative chronology, albeit a coherent one which allowed approximate dates to be deduced. However, rightly or wrongly, an attempt was made to anchor this chronology more precisely to absolute dates by linking it to a Sothic calendar, based on observations of the heliacal rising of Sirius, which has a cycle of about 1460 years. In particular, on the basis of written information about the heliacal rising of Sirius, the 7th year of Senusret (Sesostris) III of the 12th Dynasty was dated as 1872 BC and the 9th year of Amenhotep I of the 18th Dynasty as 1540 BC. However, even within the orthodox community, it was accepted that these dates could differ by a few years, depending on where in Egypt the astronomical observations had been made. [12] Many chronological revisionists, including Immanuel Velikovsky, have questioned the basis of Sothic dating, and even some orthodox historians have expressed doubts about whether the two crucial inscriptions have been interpreted correctly. Nevertheless, Ginenthal accepts the orthodox interpretation of the Senusret III inscription but, disregarding archaeological evidence for the relative positioning of sequences in the orthodox chronology, whatever the precise dates, he follows Lynn Rose in moving forward the entire Middle Kingdom by 1477 years, approximately an entire Sothic cycle, to make the 7th year of Senusret III 395 BC. ____This is because observations of the lunar cycle from the reign of Senusret III fit this date better than 1872 BC. It also brings the Middle Kingdom within the range of the Heinsohn-Sweeney short chronology. [13] On this issue Ginenthal writes: "What Rose achieved is, in a sense, comparable to what Isaac Newton did for the Copernican-Aristarchian system." [14] Whilst there is much to admire in the work of Rose, that seems somewhat over-exaggerated, and I doubt whether Rose himself would make such a claim. ____Ginenthal adds that Rose has "solved the problem" of reconciling Sothic dating with lunar observations, but the reality is somewhat different. What Rose has done is provide one possible solution. He discards the 1540 BC date for Amenhotep I on the grounds that there could have been changes to the calendar after that time, but, if so, the same would apply to the 1872 BC Sothic date for Senusret III, which in turn would cast doubt on the dates of the lunar observations made during his reign. Furthermore, if, as some suppose, the inscriptions have been misinterpreted, the situation becomes even more open, for patterns of lunar observations recur on a relatively frequent basis. So, for example, David Lappin pointed out in 2002 that the lunar observations in the time of Senusret III are consistent with his reign commencing in 1698 BC, which fits in with the "New Chronology" of David Rohl and his collaborators. In any case, how could inscriptions from the 18th and 19th Dynasties have referred to 12th and 13th Dynasty rulers, as they appear to do, if Rose is correct in his belief that these came later in time? {** See under Footnotes.} If the short chronology is correct, an explanation needs to be found for these inscriptions. So that while there is much of interest in Rose's astronomical arguments, it can hardly be said that they constitute proof of the short chronology. [15] Ginenthal then writes: "Astronomy, the Queen of the Sciences, supports unambiguously the historical fact that the 12th Dynasty of Egypt existed in the first and not the second millennium BC." [16] However, there is, at present, no justification for such an unequivocal conclusion. Lynn E. Rose. (Photograph - 1996 - by Dwardu Cardona.) ____As with Sothic dating, many revisionists question the basis of radiocarbon dating, and Ginenthal did so in 1997 in his book, The Extinction of the Mammoth. However, in Pillars of the Past he takes a somewhat different line. Although he accuses orthodox historians of double standards because they tend to ignore individual results that fall outside the expected range, he nevertheless joins them in believing that the radiocarbon dates of wood samples, taken as a whole, are meaningful. With characteristic honesty, he acknowledges that there are "very many" such dates from the ancient Near East which fall within the range 3000-4000 BC, and asks how that can be, when, as he believes, there was no civilization anywhere in the region until much later. In answer to his own question, he points out that each test result indicates the date at which a particular growth ring was formed, and there could easily have been a significant passage of time before the tree was cut down. Even then, the wood might have been used for several different purposes before ending up in the context in which it was found. Hence, the radiocarbon date obtained could be several hundred years older than the actual date of the excavation layer, a concept with which few orthodox historians would disagree. [17] However, a consistent discrepancy of not just a few hundred years but well over a thousand years would be required if the theories of Heinsohn and Sweeney are correct. How could such a large discrepancy be explained? Ginenthal draws attention to the shortage of trees in Egypt, a situation that must have existed throughout the historical period, because of the prevailing dry conditions. ____Where, then, did the Ancient Egyptians get the wood they needed? Ginenthal suggests they used fallen trees from the previous wet period, which had been preserved by being covered in sand for more than a thousand years. Hence the very early radiocarbon dates. [18] It cannot be said that this ingenious suggestion is impossible, but it hardly constitutes positive evidence for the short chronology. Indeed, it makes use of exactly the same kind of semi-circular argument that Ginenthal decries in others. In any case, it is generally believed (as Ginenthal acknowledges) that Egypt imported wood in large quantities. An inscription tells of a consignment of cedar logs arriving in Egypt in forty ships during the 4th Dynasty reign of Sneferu, and archaeologists have found direct evidence of trade between Egypt and Lebanon at this time. [19] And what about fourth millennium BC radiocarbon dates in countries where there has always been an abundance of trees? Is Ginenthal asking us to believe that, rather than making use of them, long-dead wood was imported from Egypt? What other explanation could there be in his scenario? ____The next aspect of science which Ginenthal claims to provide strong support for the short chronology is metallurgy. Let us start by looking at the Old Kingdom of Egypt, which conventional history places in the Copper Age, but which Ginenthal re-dates from the third millennium BC to the Iron Age in the first millennium BC. To justify that supposition he writes: "Since hardened iron is needed to cut and engrave hard stone such as granite or diorite, the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom could not have built the Giza pyramids and others during the Copper Age." [20] As a general statement, that is clearly untrue, for the Old Kingdom pyramids were constructed of soft limestone, which is easily cut by copper. However, there were some components, including the sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid at Giza, which were made of granite. Copper tools by themselves would not be capable of cutting this hard stone, but, as demonstrated by Denys Stocks in 1999, they could do so in association with an abrasive substance, such as quartz sand (the most common substance in Egypt), at a rate of about 1 inch per 10 hours. Stocks' conclusions about the linkage of his experiments to what happened in Ancient Egypt were phrased with appropriate scholarly caution, using words such as "probably," "suggest," and "indicate." Ginenthal seizes on those to suggest that Stock's conclusions were little more than guesswork, but in doing so he merely demonstrates his lack of understanding of academic processes and values. Stocks could not say he had proved his case, because he had no time-machine to enable him to observe the Old Kingdom craftsmen in action, yet he had demonstrated that they could cut and drill granite with materials available to them in the third millennium BC. Nevertheless, ____Ginenthal makes a valid point when he notes that Stocks' experiment did not address the cutting of diorite, which is even harder than granite. [21] Thus, the question of how the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom could have carved diorite statues, such as that of Khafre (now in the Cairo Museum), if they only had copper tools at their disposal, remains to be addressed. [22] Meteoritic iron would be too soft to provide a solution. Smelted iron would be hard enough, and a few pieces have been found at Old and Middle Kingdom sites, but these are generally attributed to intrusions from later periods. The much more elaborate metal artifacts found in isolated instances at New Kingdom sites are usually thought to have been imported, e.g., from the Hittites, who were producing smelted iron before the Egyptians, and there is evidence from cuneiform inscriptions that gifts of iron weapons were sent to New Kingdom pharaohs from rulers of regions to the north of Egypt. Even so, the source of each iron object found at an Old, Middle, or New Kingdom site can only be a matter of conjecture. Nevertheless, Ginenthal fails to explain why, if, as he claims, smelted iron was available in Egypt throughout the dynastic period, it is found only rarely at sites from Dynasties 1-25, and much more commonly at sites from dynasties which, according to the conventional chronology, came later. Instead, he refers to arguments put forward in the nineteenth century by William Flinders Petrie, even though they are not in accord with current thinking, to suggest that the rate of cutting and drilling granite in the Old Kingdom was much faster than could be achieved by the combination of copper tools and abrasives. He then goes on to mention the writings of Christopher Dunn, who claimed that the ancient Egyptians were using power tools. That, of course, would be just as much a problem for the short chronology as the conventional one but, wisely, Ginenthal distances himself from that particular theory. [23] ____The main part of Ginenthal's discussion of metallurgy concerns the period which orthodox historians regard as the second millennium BC, the centre of the Bronze Age in Egypt and elsewhere. According to Ginenthal, this scenario cannot be sustained, even on its own terms. The manufacture of bronze requires a supply of tin to add to copper, and the first known mention of tin in an Egyptian document is in the Harris Papyrus from the reign of Ramesses IV of the 20th Dynasty, conventionally dated at around 1100 BC. However, Ginenthal acknowledges elsewhere that only a small fraction of Ancient Egyptian writings have survived to the present day, so references to the use of tin could have been lost. [24] Despite this, Ginenthal continues to maintain that tin did not reach Egypt before the time of Ramesses IV, his arguments for this all being instances of where he succumbs to the fallacy of the negative proof. For example, he points out that no one can prove where tin for use in Egypt would have come from prior to this period. The possible sources were Bohemia, where the tin deposits might not have been accessible with the technology then available, and Cornwall, where it undoubtedly was. Cornish tin was mined from around 2200 BC onwards, and from this time was traded and used for bronze manufacture down the Atlantic coast of Brittany and France, towards Spain. Ginenthal, however, states that: "Surely it is inconceivable that in 1500 BC Egypt was trading with England, or even Spain, or with Bohemia, to obtain tin." [25] Egyptian sculptors cutting and polishing a colossal statue of Amon-Ra. But when it came to diorite, could such statues have been sculpted without the use of tempered iron? (Illustration by John Green.) That may or may not have been so, but Egypt had other possible sources of tin. ____Ginenthal relies almost exclusively on Dayton's 1978 book for his information about sources of metal ores, and claims that no use of tempered iron? (Illustration by John Green.) That may or may not have been so, but Egypt had other possible sources of tin. Ginenthal relies almost exclusively on Dayton's 1978 book for his information about sources of metal ores, and claims that no new sources of any significance have since been found, but he is sadly mistaken. Extensive tin mines have been located at Göltepe, in the central Taurus region of Turkey, and in Afghanistan. The latter is of particular relevance because inscriptions from the Levant and Mesopotamia, dating from 2000 BC onwards in the conventional scheme, tell of tin being imported from the East, via Susa, and then traded by Assyrian merchants into Anatolia and elsewhere. Trading links between Egypt and the Levant were also well established by the start of the second millennium BC. A shipwreck off Ulu Burum, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, dated at 1350 BC, has revealed a cargo including ingots of tin, ingots of copper, ceramics from Cyprus, scarabs from Egypt, cylinder seals from the Near East, and ebony, ivory, and hippopotamus teeth from Africa. [51] How, then, can Ginenthal sustain his claim that conventional history provides no plausible reason for thinking that tin reached Egypt before 1100 BC? On a different topic, but again using information taken from Dayton's book, Ginenthal points out that pottery found by Petrie in a 1st Dynasty setting at Abydos is very similar to types characteristic of the Late Helladic Period. From this, Ginenthal (unlike Dayton) concludes that the 1st Dynasty of Egypt must have been wrongly placed in the third millennium BC, since, in his opinion, it was clearly contemporary with the Late Helladic Period. However, he introduces confusion by referring to Mycenaean and Late Helladic as if they were separate entities, whereas they are alternative names for the same period. He also states unequivocally that the Late Helladic period is "dated from about 800 to 700 BC," when the conventional date-range is from 1550 to 1050 BC. In his view, the findings "require that the Old Kingdom be placed in the first and not the third millennium." But, regardless of the issue concerning the dating of the Mycenaean/Late Helladic Period (which had not been addressed at this point in the book), the above statement overstates the situation by a considerable margin. Petrie's excavations at Abydos had been carried out in disturbed ground, so, even if the pottery was from the Late Helladic Period, its linkage to the 1st Dynasty remains far from certain. [52] ____Ginenthal also points to similarities between the Sumerian civilization, based at Ur and other cities in southern Mesopotamian, supposedly in the third millennium BC, and the Scythians of the first millennium BC, arguing that they must be from the same period. Indeed, he follows Heinsohn in claiming that some of the graves in the Royal Cemetery of Ur are of Scythian princes. In contrast, Dwardu Cardona, editor of AEON (and by no stretch of the imagination a die-hard supporter of orthodoxy), has maintained that the similarities are superficial and, furthermore, that significant differences between the supposed-Scythian burials at Ur and those in the Scythian homeland (in what is now Ukraine and southern Russia) rule out the possibility that they were products of the same culture. In the longest chapter of his book, Ginenthal addresses these issues and, although his attacks on Cardona are not always well-focused, he nevertheless makes some pertinent responses to the points raised. So, for example, the men depicted on items in the Ur tombs were clean-shaven and, whereas Cardona claimed that Scythian males were invariably bearded, Ginenthal produces illustrations of Scythian artifacts which show that some males could be beardless. Similarly, no horse remains were found in the Ur tombs and this fact, according to Cardona, is incompatible with a Scythian burial. However, Ginenthal argues that, in contrast to the situation on the Russian steppes, horses would have been a rare commodity in Mesopotamia, so their absence from the tombs is understandable. That is perfectly reasonable but, even so, it amounts to yet another semi-circular argument. Although, like many similar examples, it wards off disproof, it cannot, in itself, do much more. [53] Many interesting and possibly significant points are raised by Ginenthal but, as yet, the debate with Cardona concerning the Royal Cemetery of Ur remains inconclusive. [54] Egyptian cargo boat, a fleet of which enabled Egypt to conduct trade with the Levant and other localities. (Illustration by John Green.) Is there anything at all which could provide positive proof of the short chronology? Ginenthal believes that there is. He argues that, because of low rainfall and the problem of salinization associated with traditional irrigation techniques, agriculture could have been maintained in southern Mesopotamia for "no more than 500 years." He acknowledges that this would still be a problem for the short chronology, since it accepts that there was a civilization in the region from before the start of the first millennium BC. To explain this he suggests, on the basis of Velikovsky's work, that there were changes in climate linked to increases in the angle of tilt of Earth's rotational axis at around 1500 BC and 800 BC. [55] Although he clearly fails to realise it, such climate changes would, of course, invalidate his main conclusion. If, as he believes, conditions in the Near East were wetter before 800 BC, and even more so before 1500 BC, then how can his uniformitarian arguments, based on subsequent climatic conditions and irrigation techniques, possibly prove that there could have been no civilization in Mesopotamia in 3000 BC? In any case, he seems to have forgotten that, although southern Mesopotamia ceased to be a major power towards the end of the first millennium BC, people continued to live there, and agriculture continued to support them. There is simply no coherence to Ginenthal's arguments on this topic. On the basis of claims put forward by Sweeney, Ginenthal accepts that the Hittites, who, in conventional history, disappeared from Anatolia around 1200 BC, but maintained a presence in the region of Carchemish, Syria, until the 8th century BC, were identical to the Lydians who ruled in Anatolia in the 6th and 7th centuries BC. In order for the conventional view to be correct, Ginenthal suggests that: "First one must accept that two totally different people from two periods of time in the same region spoke the same language. Second, one must also assume that the language spoken in and around 1200 BC did not change much for 600 years or more." However, as is clearly demonstrated by the quotations Ginenthal himself provides, Lydian was "related to" or "a descendant of" Hittite, not the same language. In the main, the attempt to equate the Lydians with the Hittites is reliant on semi-circular reasoning. Take, for example, the linkage of the Hittites to Tutankhamun, who in the short chronology of Egypt lived in the first millennium BC. These are arguments which slip into the fallacy of the negative proof (e.g. the fact that, as with Egypt, there is no unequivocal evidence as to the Hittite source of tin), and a few misunderstandings. [56] As proof that the conventional view of Hittite history must be wrong, because of internal inconsistencies, Ginenthal writes that Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria could not, as supposed, have received a tribute from the Hittite king in Carchemish in the 9th century BC, because "the Hittites in Carchemish had disappeared from the pages of history c.1200 BC." This argument is presumably based on the fact that the source referred to by Ginenthal used the term "Hittite" rather than "Neo-Hittite," and the Hittite Empire is generally believed to have collapsed around 1200 BC, after which people labeled "Neo-Hittites" by historians ruled Carchemish until its conquest by Sargon II of Assyria in 717 BC. However, the distinction is merely one of convenience. Historians often use the term "Hittite" to refer to both the Hittite Empire and the Neo-Hittite states, and sometimes (as here) they refer loosely to the Neo-Hittites as Hittites when, because of the context, there could be no confusion about what was meant. Thus Ginenthal's claim is entirely without substance. [57] Even so, as I've already stated, despite all the errors, weak arguments, and overblown conclusions, Pillars of the Past contains many positive features. Thus, Ginenthal suggests a number of good reasons, based on the arguments of Velikovsky, Dayton, and Peter James, for doubting the conventional view of a lengthy dark age in the Aegean and the Near East, starting around 1200 BC, as the Mycenaean (Late Helladic) Period in Greece came to an end. Regardless of any terminological quibbles about whether the Neo-Hittites should be distinguished from the Hittites, there is a very real issue about whether the Hittite Empire in Anatolia really came to an end around 1200 BC. Similar considerations apply to other parts of the region. Thus, Ginenthal devotes 10 pages of his book to reproducing a paper by Velikovsky - "The Scandal of Enkomi" - which first appeared in Pensée in 1974/5. This paper describes irreconcilable conflicts between orthodox scholars over the dating of archaeological finds in Cyprus. [58] However, although these various arguments raise serious concerns about the conventional chronology of this period, they cannot be said to disprove it, let alone establish an alternative chronology. After all, Velikovsky was trying to shorten history by five centuries at this time, whereas Dayton and James were arguing for the deletion of no more than three centuries. Yet another alternative, the "New Chronology" advocated by David Rohl involves a reduction of 350 years. [59] For the short chronology of Heinsohn and Sweeney to be correct, not only would the full 500 years required by Velikovsky's chronological revision have to be removed from history at this point, but an even longer span would have to be eliminated at an earlier time. The period they targeted was the Middle Bronze Age, corresponding to the 700-year interval between the domination of northern Mesopotamia and Syria by the Akkadians and the Mitannians. Taking his lead from Heinsohn, Ginenthal writes: "Stratigraphy at Tell Munbaqa in Syria has been examined by a geologist. The geology incontestably shows that where the established historians placed a 700- to 800-year settlement gap between the Old Akkadians and the Mitanni, there is none. The 700 to 800 years of Mesopotamian history for this time is a fiction." [60] That seems straightforward enough, but the true situation at Tell Munbaqa is much more complex. The geologist in question, Ulrike Rösner, had investigated a profile at one point on the Tell, and had found that the Akkadian (Early Bronze Age) stratum lay immediately beneath the Mitannian (Late Bronze Age) stratum, with no layer of wind-blown sand in between, as would have been expected had there been a prolonged settlement gap. Rösner concluded that the occupation of Tell Munbaqa had been continuous from the Early to the Late Bronze Age (the statement seized upon by Ginenthal), but she also said that her conclusions were consistent with the findings of Dittmar Machule, a German archaeologist. Machule, who had excavated at several locations at Tell Munbaqa, not just one, found evidence on the northwestern part of the site of a temple and other artifacts characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age. The inference was that the site had been occupied throughout the Bronze Age, preventing wind-blown sand from settling, but the centres of occupation had been at different parts of the site at different periods. There is no proof of that being the case, but the only alternative explanation of the evidence is that two quite different cultures had lived side-by-side at Tell Munbaqa for several hundred years. [61] ____Ginenthal correctly points out that the archaeology of Tell Munbaqa should not be considered in isolation, but compared with that of other sites in the region. However, he appears unaware of the fact that, at Tell Brak, a site close to Tell Munbaqa, evidence has been found of Neo-Sumerian and Old Assyrian settlements between those of the Akkadians and the Mitannians, whilst at Alalakh, to the west, this same period is marked by six separate occupation levels. [62] Instead of referring to this and other information, which has been established for some considerable time, and possibly pointing out alternative interpretations, Ginenthal argues that, following the publication of Rösner's paper in 1993, archaeologists have entered into a conspiracy, refusing to dig at other sites in the area. He writes: "Having proved Heinsohn correct at Tell Munbaqa, they dare not carry out these digs. They fully comprehend that to do so could mean the death of their established chronology." [63] Surely it should be obvious that there are other, more compelling, reasons why there have been few excavations in the Iraq/Syria border region during the past ten years. In any case, as noted by Roger Matthews, some excavations continued in the area despite the difficulties. As on many other occasions, Ginenthal's argument is divorced from reality. [64] Moving on to overall conclusions, Ginenthal writes, with wildly misplaced optimism, that: "On all points it appears that the established long chronology fails at every level on which it is examined. On all points it appears that the revisionist short chronology succeeds at every level on which it is examined." [65] And, continuing in a similar vein: "There can be very little doubt that the preponderance of the scientific and technological evidence is rather overwhelmingly in contradiction to the established long chronology but overwhelmingly gives support to the short chronology." [66] Ginenthal rightly accepts that "none of the facts in this book will play the slightest role in changing the minds of the historians, archaeologists, and any of the other academics." [67] That, he maintains, is because their minds will not be receptive to his arguments, or the evidence on which they are based, this being the type of evidence they have tended to ignore in the past. As he explains: "The problem is that science and technology have been given short shrift and have played a secondary role in the interpretation of ancient chronology, when in reality, as the arbiters of truth, scientific and technological data should weigh as the most important and final determinants in this area of research." [68] As a scientist myself, I am naturally sympathetic to that last sentiment, but does the argument as a whole make sense? Are the minds of historians closed to arguments based upon scientific evidence? Using the words of Oliver Cromwell, Ginenthal appeals to orthodox historians: "I beseech you, brethren, think it possible that ye may be mistaken." [69] However, the very fact that, in marked contrast to Ginenthal, historians and archaeologists generally refuse to say they can prove their theories, acknowledges the possibility that they could be mistaken. Of course that doesn't mean that orthodox historians, any more than unorthodox ones, will readily change their views, particularly on the basis of evidence from outside their area of expertise. Nevertheless, even in the field of chronology there is an example of a paradigm change which resulted from the application of new technologies. At one time, it was widely believed that metallurgy and the working of stone were invented in Egypt and Mesopotamia, spreading from there to Europe via Anatolia and the Aegean. In this view, the Late Neolithic of western, northern, and central Europe was contemporary with the Early Bronze Age of the Aegean and the Near East. However, the discovery and application of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology in the period from 1950 to 1970 led to the collapse of this diffusionist theory, as the new findings eventually convinced historians that copper metallurgy made its first appearance in central Europe, and that stone monuments were being constructed in northwestern Europe and in Malta before Egypt. [70] Ginenthal discusses the view of the philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, that a paradigm change often occurs suddenly, as a delayed response to accumulating evidence. [71] That may well be correct, but of course there will be no paradigm change at all without compelling evidence in favour of the new theory and against alternatives. How should we rate the "facts" Ginenthal produces if these are placed within the wider context of which he is apparently unaware? ____As he says, Rose has demonstrated that a date of 395 BC for the 7th year of Senusret III provides a better fit with lunar observations than the traditional date of 1872 BC, but he fails to point out that there are other dates which provide an equally good fit. Again, Ginenthal makes much of the fact that no-one can prove that tin was imported into Egypt before the reign of Ramesses IV, without acknowledging that this metal was freely available in countries with trading links with Egypt from long before that time. Similarly, although he claims that findings at Tell Munbaqa provide clear proof of the short chronology, that only looks plausible if they are considered in isolation, because evidence from other parts of the same site and from other sites supports the more conventional view of history. On the basis of facts such as these (and many similar examples which could be given), are we to believe that orthodox historians are guilty of blind prejudice if they decline to accept Ginenthal's conclusions? I hardly think so. ____Ginenthal undeniably casts doubt on some aspects of the conventional chronology, but manifestly fails to demonstrate that the short chronology of Heinsohn and Sweeney is a more plausible alternative than other revised chronologies. Even so, there is much to commend in Pillars of the Past. Although the book does not disprove the orthodox chronology, it is of value in pointing out the limitations of some of the evidence supporting it, as well as drawing attention to findings which suggest that this chronology may need to be modified beyond the range of variation generally accepted. Nevertheless, in view of the author's patchy knowledge, inadequate understanding of some crucial issues, and grossly overstated conclusions, the valid points he makes are likely to be overlooked because of the context in which they have been placed. As it is, despite the author's evident hard work and good intentions, Pillars of the Past cannot be said to present a coherent challenge to orthodox ideas about chronology. For those concerned with establishing the truth, whatever it turns out to be, the book can only be viewed with disappointment. O Relief from Persepolis, Persia.
_Notes [1] C. Ginenthal, Pillars of the Past, constituting The Velikovskian, Vol. VI, Nos. 1, 2, & 3 (2003), henceforth merely Pillars. [2
**Footnotes:
Bing A.I.: One of the sources of information about the Middle Kingdom rulers are the inscriptions from the New Kingdom period, especially from the 18th and 19th Dynasties. Some of these inscriptions mention the names and titles of the 12th and 13th Dynasty kings, either as ancestors or as patrons of certain cults. For example, the tomb of Ahmose, son of Ebana, a naval officer under several 18th Dynasty pharaohs, records his participation in a campaign against the Hyksos, who were identified with the 13th Dynasty rulers. Another example is the stela of Amenhotep II, which lists the names of 16 Middle Kingdom kings, including six from the 12th Dynasty and four from the 13th Dynasty. These inscriptions show that the New Kingdom pharaohs had some interest and knowledge of their Middle Kingdom predecessors, and that they sometimes used them as models or sources of legitimacy.