Chapter 6: Cambyses in
Cambyses' Expedition
Two Versions of History
In the traditional history the arrival of Cambyses in
In the revised history Cambyses arrived as head of state
intent on establishing a physical presence in his Egyptian province, a country
in the first stages of recovery from a brutal destruction by the Babylonians
four decades earlier. He did not come to
conquer;
Which of these two views of history is correct?
If we can explain the grossly distorted portrayal of Cambyses preserved in the Cambyses' narrative of the pseudo-Herodotus we will have gone a long way toward vindicating the Persian king and authenticating the revised history. The explanation is circuitous. We begin with Ktesias.
According to Ktesias
Herodotus is not the only 5th century B.C. historian to
mention the expedition of Cambyses to
The Persika was composed in twenty-three books, the first six devoted to a "history" of the Assyrian and Median empires down to the fall of Astyages; the remaining seventeen dedicated to a history of the Persian empire. While the original is lost, epitomes of the first six chapters are preserved in book two of Diodorus Siculus, and excerpts of the last seventeen chapters in the Bibliotheca of Photius.[3] In addition to these two major reproductions, numerous (other) fragments are preserved by various ancient authors. In spite of the quantity of preserved material the present text suffers from the criticism that not a single sentence written by Ktesias has been preserved verbatim.
Photius, who preserves the largest segment of the existing
work, was the patriarch of
Book twelve of the Persika is of special relevance for this
revision, containing as it does Ktesias' account of the expedition of Cambyses
to
The Photius version describes an expedition against
We have no idea when or how the Bagapates/Combaphis invasion came to be associated with Cambyses, but it is misplaced. It took place at the end, not at the beginning of the first Persian occupation. Scholars, attempting to adapt this story to fit the description of Herodotus, typically emend the name Amyrtaeus to Psamtik, and treat the incident as a distorted version of the 525 B.C. arrival of Cambyses in the days of Psamtik III. That is a mistake. The narrative is not distorted; it is reasonably if not totally factual. But it has been displaced. Amyrtaeus is well known as the sole occupant of Manetho's 28th dynasty. His brief reign followed immediately the death of Amasis in 404 B.C.
We cannot place the blame for the mistaken association of Combaphis and Cambyses on Ktesias, who lived through and whose history includes the entirety of the reign of Amyrtaeus (404-399 B.C.). It is unthinkable that he is grossly in error regarding an incident of this magnitude that occurred in his lifetime. The error must postdate his death in the first decade of the 4th century B.C. We will discuss the matter further below and again in chapter 11.
Removing the Combaphis/Amyrtaeus story to its proper
historical context leaves the Photius version of Ktesias with no reference to
the actions of Cambyses vis-à-vis
Even the expedition of Cambyses against
Athenaeus goes on to describe how Cambyses, upon learning favourable things about Egyptian women, sent to the Egyptian king Amasis, asking for one of his daughters in marriage. Instead, Amasis sent Cambyses one of his concubines named Neitetis, a daughter of Apries whom he had earlier deposed and killed. Ultimately Cambyses "learned the whole story from her, and when she entreated him to avenge the murder of Apries he consented to make war on the Egyptians."
This fanciful story is clearly a synopsis of a similar version preserved in the Cambyses narrative of Herodotus (Her. 3.1) It is not entirely clear from the syntax of the Greek original, whether Athenaeus is attributing to Ktesias the entire story, or merely the statement that the expedition took place "on account of a woman." In the latter case Athenaeus is himself supplying the Neitetis story, borrowed from Herodotus, in order to explain Ktesias' comment. We do not have to decide. It is extremely unlikely that Ktesias included any comment on the matter.
We recall that Athenaeus wrote in the second century A.D., fully six centuries after Ktesias. By this time the Cambyses' legend was full blown. Athenaeus himself, in the same verse of the Deipnosophists, reproduces a different version of the Neitetis story, which he credits to Dinon in his Persian History and Lyceas of Naucratis in the third book of his Egyptian History. This second version is also from Herodotus. (Her. 3.2) What distinguishes the Ktesias quote from the references to Dinon and Lyceas is the absence of any mention of a literary source. We should have expected Athenaeus to mention the Persika as the source of Ktesias remarks, as he mentions the Persian History and Egyptian History of Dinon and Lyceas. This may indicate that his remarks vis-à-vis Ktesias are based on hearsay, rather than on personal observations from a printed version of the Persika.
We have other reasons for doubting that Ktesias recorded either the Neitetis etiology or the remark which introduced the etiology that the expedition took place “on account of a woman”. Ktesias’ contempt for the fanciful stories of Herodotus is well documented. It is questionable that he would have reproduced for public consumption one of those same stories, especially one discredited by Herodotus himself. Furthermore, since we have already argued that the Bagapates story belongs elsewhere, and that Ktesias preserves no details of the actual Cambyses expedition, only the mere statement of its occurrence, we wonder why he would have reproduced a lengthy and unreliable version of its cause?
In John Gilmore's classic treatment of The Fragments of the Persika of Ktesias, the fragment from
Athenaeus is included in its entirety as an adjunct to the Bagapates/Combaphis
story, leaving the impression that Ktesias, following Herodotus, associated
Cambyses with Amasis. That is
misleading. When the Bagapates story is
removed to its proper historical context at the end of the 5th century, and the
fragmentary hearsay of Athenaeus is properly questioned, what is left in
Ktesias is a simple statement that Cambyses led an expedition to
If we accept as fact that Cambyses arrived in
Confusion of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses
We have not only to explain how later tradition, developed fully by the time of the pseudo-Herodotus, viewed Cambyses with such vehement disdain, and credited to him the atrocities recorded in book three of the Histories; we have also to explain why history has failed to clearly record the actual destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. The problems are but two faces of a single coin, and have a common solution. History has telescoped the invasions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses, and has wrongly credited Cambyses with the destruction wrought by Nebuchadrezzar. The confusion may or may not have been accidental.
When Cambyses arrived in
That the tales of savagery do not reflect contemporary
opinion is proved by the account of Udjahorresne, admiral of the royal fleet
under Amasis and Psamtik and priest of the goddess Neith at
This sole surviving monument documenting the arrival of
Cambyses is sufficiently important to warrant separate treatment in the next
chapter. We mention here only one
curiosity omitted in the later discussion.
The famous
The confusion or confounding of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses is perhaps nowhere so clearly portrayed as in the 7th century A.D. history of John, Bishop of Nikiu.
The Chronicle of John, Coptic Bishop of Nikiu
John of Nikiu was born about the time of the Mohammedan invasion
of
And when Cyrus returned into
From the outset Cambyses is identified as a villain and Apries as his Egyptian opponent. The mention of Apries is a surprise, but apparently the sources used by John of Nikiu preserve a memory of an association of these two names.
As the narrative continues the brutality of Cambyses is
contrasted with the benevolence of his father, and the initial phase of his
expedition to
And afterwards he made an expedition to
It does not matter that the Chronicle is mistaken in its
description of some aspects of post-exilic Jewish history. Nor is it important that we identify the
Egyptian cities of Farma, Sanhur,
San and Basta.
(John of Nikiu is clearly influenced by Arabic sources and frequently
uses Arabic epithets for place names and king names.) What is significant is the apparent merging
of the character and historical roles of Nebuchadrezzar, king of
Before supplying further details of the invasion, the
Chronicle explains the reason for Cambyses' anger. Apparently at an earlier time, "when
there was war between the Persians and Egyptians" a warrior named Fusid
"had gone and fought in Syria and Assyria and he had taken four sons of
Cambyses prisoner as well as his wives... and he bound them and burnt their
houses and took all that they had captive and brought them to the city of
Memphis and he imprisoned them in the palace of the king." (51:26-27)
There followed, apparently in retaliation, the expedition of Cambyses, referred
to by the Chronicle as the second war, in which Memphis (mistakenly called
Thebes in the Chronicle) was attacked and Fusid was fatally wounded. The bulk
of the defenders somehow escaped and fled to
And for this reason they fled for refuge into the city
The merging of the activities of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses
is transparent in this description of a military action undertaken by
Fusid. This otherwise unknown
"warrior" appears to be a general in command of an Egyptian army
fighting against Cambyses/Nebuchadrezzar in the highlands of
The previous quote must have been a summary statement since John continues to describe Cambyses/Nebuchadnezzar warring against individual cities. There are multiple local kings resisting his advance, and individual battles against each are described. In every case Cambyses/Nebuchadrezzar is victorious and in every case the devastation of the losing city is complete.
And returning in the direction of
The narrative proceeds to document the murder of Cambyses' captive children and attention is focused on the exploits of Elkad, one of the sons of Muzab, a local king who took an active role in slaying the children and was subsequently killed by Cambyses.
And when (Elkad) was informed of the death of his father he
fled into
Elkad lost the battle. Eshmunin fell.
"And when they had completed the destruction of the
city Eshmunin they march into upper Egypt, and laid
waste the city of
Somehow Elkad live through the carnage and along with others
brought gifts to Cambyses, "that they might receive from him mercy"
(51:46) Cambyses took many of the survivors captive, "and led them away to
Media and
And the number of the Egyptians whom Cambyses led away with
him were 50,000 besides women and children. And they lived in captivity in
There can be absolutely no mistaking the correspondence
between this final segment of Chronicle narrative and Nebuchadrezzar's invasion
as outlined in the revised history. Multiple kings ruled
Two clear conclusions can be drawn from the Chronicle of John. The most obvious is that at some time in antiquity the expeditions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses were merged or telescoped by historians into a single event, their distinctions blurred, and that therefore those historical records should be read with extreme caution. The uncritical reading of book three of Herodotus should cease and desist. There is absolutely no confirmation of its details forthcoming from the monuments.
The second inference relates to the identity of the Egyptian
pharaoh contemporary with Cambyses - Psamtik III according to Herodotus, Apries
according to John of Nikiu. There is clearly a need to question the traditional
identification. The Chronicle appears to
be blending together two separate and reliable traditions, one in which the
historical Cambyses arrived in
We are not surprised that tradition preserves a memory of
Apries as a contemporary of Cambyses. Apries,
as was noted in chapter one, is the Greek version of Egyptian Wahibre. There are two Saite kings bearing that
name. One is Ha’a’ibre Wahibre, the
predecessor of Amasis. The other is
Psamtik I (Wahibre Psamtik). There is
nothing in the narrative that compels us to identify the named Apries as the
fourth Saite king. Instead, following the revised history, we argue that the
Bishop of Nikiu preserves a tradition of Cambyses arrival in
However, there remains one problem. The argument above might convince the reader that the expeditions of Nebuchadrezzar and Cambyses have been superimposed in antiquity, thereby transforming the relatively benign expedition of Cambyses into a holocaust and erasing the memory of Nebuchadrezzar's invasion. But there remains to be explained the connection between that expedition and the time of Amasis and Psamtik III. For that we must assume some further confusion.
Confusion of Combaphis and Cambyses
We have previously noted that the Photius version of the Persika of Ktesias describes an
expedition against
The confusion of the Bagapates/Combaphis and Cambyses
invasions, at least in subsequent generations when the Cambyses legend acquired
its vicious attributes, is understandable. While differences outnumber
similarities, both incidents involved invasions of
Assuming that the Bagapates story belongs at the end of the
5th century, precisely where we have located the reign of Amasis in the revised
history, we have a plausible explanation of the erroneous tradition preserved
in the Cambyses narrative of Herodotus. The Combaphis invasion occurred
immediately following the death of Amasis in 404 B.C., i.e. during the reign of
Amyrtaeus. That same Amyrtaeus is the
likely referent of comments by Diodorus Siculus, who refers to him as
"Psammetichus, the king of the Egyptians, who was a descendant of the
famous Psammetichus." (Diod. 14.35.4). Apparently Psamtik was another name of
Amyrtaeus. This invasion of
Elephantine Papyri: Petition to Bagoas
That Cambyses does not deserve his reputation for violence to
life and property within
A quote from Gardiner is a case in point. Referring to a papyrus that appears to
attribute to Cambyses the destruction of all but one of the temples of
It is true that a Jewish document of 407 B.C. speaks of 'the destruction of all temples of the Egyptian gods' in the time of Cambyses, but by then the king's evil reputation had had plenty of time to spread, and the damage done in that direction may have been confined to the withdrawal of the large official grants of materials that had previously been the custom.[12]
We want to set the record straight. This papyrus inscription is describing the
mass destruction of the temples of
The so-called "Petition to Bagoas" is part of the
Sayce-Cowley collection of Aramaic papyri found in the ruins of the fortress at
Now our forefathers built this temple in the fortress of
Elephantine back in the days of the
It is generally conceded that the letter acknowledges the
existence of the Jewish temple in
We admit that most interpreters of the letter to Bagoas
understand the antecedent of "they" in the last sentence to be
Cambyses' army. Scholars in support of
the claim that Cambyses ruthlessly destroyed the temples of
1. The authors of the letter, Jedoniah and his fellow Jews,
are writing to a Persian governor in order to solicit his favor and assistance
in rebuilding their temple. It seems
unlikely that they would risk offending him by accusing Cambyses, the purported
Persian founder of the 27th dynasty, of the mass destruction of Egyptian
temples. On the contrary, it might be
advantageous for the petitioners to remind Bagoas that, of all the temples in
2. In the usual view of the quote, the phrase "he found
it built' would be completely redundant.
Cambyses would have found all of the temples of
3. If Cambyses were the subject of the last sentence it would
have been more natural to continue by saying, "He knocked down all the
temples of the gods of
4. It is claimed that the second clause in the last sentence states: "but no one did any damage to this temple". Literally the text says "but a man did not cause damage to this temple in anything", or, if we allow "man" to have the force of "someone", a distinct grammatical possibility, then the clause states: "but someone did not cause damage to this temple in anything." In either case this is a curiously oblique way to refer to Cambyses' supposed sparing of the Elephantine temple.
What is the most appropriate phrasing of the second sentence? The translation "they knocked down" needs to be changed. In Aramaic the third person plural of the verb frequently expresses an impersonal subject and thus substitutes for a passive construction.[14] Thus "they knocked down" becomes "they were knocked down" or "they were destroyed". The resulting meaning depends entirely on the nuance given to the perfect tenses. The following approximates the sense of the passage:
And when Cambyses entered
Properly translated the petition to Bagoas cannot be construed
as an argument for Cambyses brutal treatment of the Egyptian temples. When he
arrived in
At minimum the
Cambyses' Apis Bull
Serapeum Stelae
In the 6th year of Cambyses (524 B.C.)[15]
an Apis bull died in
On the understanding that at the time of death of the Apis bull the god Osiris was reborn in another bull within Egypt, the death of one Apis led immediately to a widespread search for the god’s new domicile, thus for a replacement bull. Meanwhile the deceased Apis was prepared for burial in a selected Serapeum tomb, complete with sarcophagus, a mummification and ritual process taking the traditional 70 days to complete. The entombment was widely publicized, and was celebrated with pomp and ceremony, much as was any royal funeral in Egypt. Usually within a year of the funeral the replacement Apis had been discovered and preparations completed for its coronation, after which the new Apis led a pampered life, the object of worship by devotees of the cult, till its death some fifteen to twenty-five years later. The cycle was then repeated. This sequence is believed to have proceeded without interruption from at least the 18th through the 30th dynasties, or for at least thirteen centuries.
At least during the Saite period an official stela was inscribed and placed in the bull’s tomb, containing all or most of five significant pieces of chronological information, namely, 1) the date of the bull’s birth, 2) the date of its coronation, 3) the date of its death, and 4) the date of its funeral, all in relation to the years of a reigning pharaoh. Additionally the stela often contained a declaration of the length of the bull’s life, from birth to death, stated in years, months, and days.
In addition to these “official” stelae, the tombs often functioned as repositories for other stelae, placed at the time of the bull’s funeral by devotee’s of the god, usually dated at the time of entombment, and containing a wide variety of information deemed relevant by the donator.
When Auguste Mariette excavated the Serapeum tombs in 1851, he recovered from these tombs over 800 such stelae, which were hurriedly excavated, transported by ship to France, and deposited in the Louvre, unfortunately suffering considerable damage en route due to improper crating and rough handling.
We have already utilized information from several of these stelae in preceding chapters, with appropriate acknowledgment. We are here concerned only with those that record the death of the Apis in Cambyses 6th year. If we are to believe the current history, there is only one such stela.
Stela Louvre #354
This stela is badly damaged and crudely - apparently hurriedly - inscribed. Posener provides the most complete description, including photograph (figure 23 below), transcription (figure 24), and translation. According to Posener, at least the introductory lines of the text can be established with a degree of certainty by comparison with the official Apis stelae of bulls that died in the reigns of Amasis (Louvre #190), Apries (Louvre #193), and Necho (Louvre #192). Enough remains of the inscription to confirm that the Apis stela of Cambyses used similar phraseology to what was used by the priests in these “earlier” instances
.
Figure 23: Apis Stela of Cambyses Year 6[16] B.C.
Posener translates:
[The year] 6, third month of the season Shemu, day 10 (?),
under the Majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (Ms.]tjw(?)-R’,
given life eternally, the god was conducted in [peace toward the beautiful West
and was caused to rest in the necropolis in] its [place] which is the place
which His Majesty had made for him, [after he had performed for him] all [the
ceremonies] in the funerary chamber.
They made for him clothing of mnh-t garments, they
had brought to him all his amulettes and all his
ornaments of gold and precious materials ... temple of Ptah, which is in the
interior of (?) Hemag ... order ... to ward (?)
H-t-k’-Pth (Memphis) saying “Lead (?) ... He did
everything just as His Majesty had asked ... in the year 27 ... the year (?)
... [Camby]se, given life [17]
According to Posener, the two dates visible in the inscription - “[year] 6, the 3rd month of Shemu, day 10", and “the year 27" - refer respectively to the date of the funeral and the date of birth of the bull. This opinion is based partly on the readable portion of the surrounding text, and partly on a comparison of this stelae inscription with the “earlier” Apis stelae. We believe he is wrong on both counts. An explanation follows.
Figure 24: Posener’s Transcription and Translation of the Dateline
on the Cambyses Apis Bull Stela (recording the 3rd month of Shemu)
The Egyptian calendar in this Late Period of Egyptian history consisted of a 365-day year, made up of twelve 30-day months plus 5 intercalary days at the year’s end. The 12 months are further divided into three “seasons” of 4 months each, entitled Akhat (Inundation), Peret (Winter) and Shemu (Spring). Thus the 3rd month of Shemu refers to the eleventh month of the year. But we question Posener's reading of the month. The number of the month in each season is depicted in the hieroglyphic text using a horizontal crescent moon under which are placed from one to four vertical strokes. The strokes are typically evenly and symmetrically placed to fill the available space. In the photograph of the stela provided by Posener (not in his transcription) we see three strokes clearly visible but positioned as if a fourth stroke were originally present to create the desired symmetry.[18] Posener ignored the anomaly and read what he could see: "3rd month of Shemu". We read instead: “fourth month of Shemu”, the likely original.
Figure 25: Magnification of the Dateline on the Cambyses Apis Bull Stela
(showing the 4th month of Shemu)
The text deteriorates where the “day” of the month was recorded. Only a guess is possible, hence the question mark in Posener's translation. He suggests “day 10". Other scholars named in a footnote read “day 3" and “day 30".[19] In fact, as we shall soon see, the reading should be “day 21". We obtain the reading from elsewhere. We can see in Figure 26 the approximate position where the “day” would be recorded. The location is very badly damaged. Interpreters are only guessing.
Figure 26: Posener’s Transcription Compared to the Stela Photograph
The question remains whether this 21st day of the twelfth month of year 6 of Cambyses refers to a death or a funeral. Based on comparisons with the other “official” stelae, especially Louvre #192, Posener confidently selects the second option, and fills in the lacunae using the phrasing from the other stelae. We cannot argue against the inclusion of much of the augmented text. Enough remains to suggest the comparison has some validity. But the fact remains that we do not know what minor variations existed in the original. Different stelae place the four essential dates in different relative positions and employ slightly different phrasing. The stela of year six of Cambyses, by all accounts, was created in haste and was arguably not the production of the official cultic priests. According to Posener, the central portion of the inscription contains some sort of directive issued by Cambyses relating to the movement of the bull (and/or its sarcophagus). Since the intent of the stela appears to be the publication of this directive, distinguishing this stela from the others, we question the extent to which comparisons can be accurately made with “official” stelae from other time periods. And the fact of this comparison raises another question.
When Posener compared Louvre #354 with the Apis stelae of bulls who died in the reigns of Amasis, Apries, and Necho, he naturally assumed that the phrasing on these stelae were a stock in trade of the priests contemporary with Cambyses. But in the revised history these other stelae did not exist; the bulls whose lives they describe had not been born; Necho, Apries and Amasis belonged to the future, not the past - a consideration that bears also on the second date mentioned in the Cambyses stela.
The “year 27" mentioned in Louvre #354 can only refer to the date of the bull’s birth or of its coronation. Posener opts for the former. In the traditional history, this must be the 27th year of Amasis, the predecessor of Cambyses. But the bull mentioned in the official stela from Amasis reign (Louvre #192) died in that king’s 23rd year. Its replacement must have been born that same 23rd year or early the next. It cannot be the same bull that died in the 6th year of Cambyses.
To solve the problem scholars conjecture the existence of an interim bull, born in the 23rd year of Amasis, which died prematurely only 3 years later. Its replacement, born in Amasis 27th year must be the bull described in the Cambyses' Apis stela. But there is absolutely no warrant for this assumption. The typical Apis lived as long as 25 years, and its average life span was over 15 years. A premature death is possible, but highly unusual. And where, we ask, are the stelae commemorating the life of this hypothetical bull? Not a single inscription attests its existence. We would be extremely surprised if one were found, since we believe that Amasis ruled a century later.
In the revised history Psamtik I was governor/king of Egypt under the aegis of the Persian government in the 6th year of Cambyses. In the eyes of the Memphite priests Psamtik I, not Cambyses, would be the reigning Pharaoh. They would have dated their inscriptions relative to his reign, not that of Cambyses. The 6th year of Cambyses was 524 B.C. This would be the 20th year of Psamtik I, whose reign began in 543 B.C.[20] We should not be surprised, therefore, to find a stela referring to an Apis deceased in the 20th year of Psamtik I. In fact there exist 168 such stelae![21]
There was but a single stela dated to the 6th year of Cambyses, and that one crudely made. Viewed in the context of the revised history that is surprising. The renewal of national life in Egypt after 40 years of upheaval ought to have precipitated an outpouring of sentiment and multiple expressions of gratitude on the part of clergy and laity alike. For this the votive stela was a most appropriate means of expression. Of the 800 plus stelae in the Louvre collection, removed from the Serapeum by Mariette, one out of every five celebrates the life of the Apis bull that died in Psamtik’s 20th year. That is an incredible statistic, and one that requires some explanation. What was so special about the 20th year of Psamtik I in the national life of Egypt in the traditional history? The question awaits an answer. Scholars do not even raise the question.[22]
Among the 168 stelae dated to Psamtik’s 20th year is the “official” stela erected by the cultic priests, #190 in the Louvre collection. The translation provided by Breasted supplies the answers to many questions raised in our preceding discussion:
Year 20, fourth month of the third season (twelfth month), day 21; under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Wahibre (W’ h-yb-R’); Son of Re, of his body, Psamtik (Psamtik) I; went forth the majesty of Apis, the Living Son, to heaven. This god was conducted in peace to the Beautiful West in the year 21, second month of the first season (second month), (on) the twenty-fifth day. Now, he was born in the year 26 of King Taharka; he was received into Memphis in the fourth month of the second season (eighth month), (on) the ninth day; which makes 21 years, 2 months [7 days]. BAR IV 960-62
We summarize below the information from this inscription, adding the data from the Cambyses' Apis stela:
Table 12: Summary of Vital Statistics for the Apis Bull from Year 20 of Psamtik I
(Lifespan: 21 years; 2 months; 7 days)
|
|
Year |
Month |
Day |
|
Birth |
26th Taharka |
10th |
14th |
|
Coronation |
*27th Taharka |
8th |
9th |
|
Death: |
20th Psamtik I = *6th Cambyses |
*12th |
21st |
|
Funeral: |
21st Psamtik I |
2nd |
25th |
* Denotes information supplied by or corroborated by Louvre #354
From the Psamtik stela we can confirm:
1) The perfect correspondence between the 6th year of Cambyses (524 B.C.), 12th month and the 20th year of Psamtik I (524 B.C.), 12th month. It is regrettable that the day of the month is illegible in the Cambyses' stela.
2) The initial date on Louvre #354 must refer to the death of the Apis. There is no ambiguity on the Psamtik stela. It is significant that both stelae begin with this date, an unusual feature not duplicated in most other “official” Apis monuments. Only the continuation “went forth the Apis ... to heaven” is missing from Louvre #354. The omission may be accidental. We can only conjecture.
3) The reference to a “year 27" in the Cambyses stela refers to the time of coronation of the bull in the reign of king Taharka, not the birth of a fictional bull during the reign of Amasis. Louvre #190 does not mention the coronation, and gives only the year of the bull's birth - year 26 of Taharka. But subtracting the bull’s age at death from the date of death places the birth in the 14th day of the 10th month, late in Taharka’s 26th year. The coronation, which typically takes place within a year, must have occurred in Taharka's 27th year.
The agreement is substantial! Is this merely coincidence? We can at least wonder at the fact that the Saite dynasty can be wrenched from its moorings and thrust into a Persian context 121 years distant, and find such a convenient parallel. And we can lament the preventable damage to the stela Louvre #354, caused by Mariette's haste and inexperience. For it can be stated unequivocally that had Louvre #354 been preserved intact, the data it contained would have established beyond question the accuracy of the revised chronology. But hindsight cannot heal the damage and the damage introduces a small element of doubt - so we continue.
Before leaving behind Cambyses' Apis bull, there remains to be discussed a problem related to its sarcophagus.
The Apis Sarcophagus
The Apis bulls of the Saite, Persian, and Ptolemaic periods were entombed within a self-contained common vault of the Serapeum known to Egyptologists as the “Greater Vaults”. These burial chambers were constructed following a cave-in of the “Lesser Vaults” further to the east – an event dated with some precision to the 52nd year of Psamtik I (see below). These Greater Vaults consisted of close to 360 meters of corridor with separate offset galleries to hold the individual bulls. Many of the bulls were buried in wooden sarcophagi that have long since decomposed, but 24 were provided with granite sarcophagi, and four of these contain inscriptions. Three of the four inscribed coffins name the pharaoh in whose reign the bulls died - Amasis (23rd year), Cambyses (6th year) and Khababash (2nd year), the latter an obscure pharaoh usually assigned to the years immediately preceding Alexander’s invasion in 334 B.C. Amasis - Cambyses - Khababash is therefore the traditional chronological order in which these kings reigned in Egypt. Since all of the other stone sarcophagi are assigned to the 27th and following dynasties, the granite sarcophagus of Amasis is considered to be the first of its kind. Amasis is duly credited by scholars for this innovation, in spite of the fact that he claims otherwise.[23]
These sarcophagi were extremely large. According to Mariette: “As to their dimensions, they measure on an average 7 feet 8 inches in breadth, by 13 feet in length, and 11 feet in height, so that, allowing for the vacuum, these monoliths must weigh, one with the other, not less than 65 tons each.”[24]
Figure 27: Sketch of Greater Vaults of the Serapeum Showing
Location of Inscribed Sarcophagi[25]
The task of transporting the sarcophagi into the tomb must have been Herculean, notwithstanding the downhill slope. The sarcophagus and the lid, itself of considerable size and weight, were brought in separately, first the sarcophagus, then the lid.
In the traditional history the sarcophagus of the Amasis bull was placed in the gallery twenty years before the one belonging to the reign of Cambyses and two centuries before the one bearing the name of Khababash. Apparently a difficulty was encountered moving the sarcophagus lid. It appears to have become jammed part way along the entrance corridor en route to the tomb. There it was found by Mariette. The sarcophagus had earlier been moved down the same passageway and safely deposited in its own chamber. As noted by one early Egyptologist:
The coffer and the cover are separated; the coffer is in its own chamber, but the cover lies close to the entrance and would block the thoroughfare southwards from the latter had not flights of stone steps, leading to its upper surface, been built on the northern and southern sides of it.[26]
Further down the eastern branch of the southern corridor, at the end of that branch and off from corridor, we find the sarcophagus of the Cambyses bull protruding from a gallery, partially blocking a passageway between the entrance to the abandoned “lesser vaults” and the corridor of the “greater vaults”.
The Khababash sarcophagus and lid, separated from one another, lie south and west of the point where the other two bulls had supposedly made their eastern turn into the southern corridor (the so-called “round point”). Both obstruct corridors.
For convenience we reproduce a close-up view of the relevant section of the Serapeum vaults, using as our guide a map originally produced by Mariette, edited slightly for greater clarity (see figure 28 below).
Figure 28: Close-up of the 26th and 27th dynasty section of the Greater Vaults of the Serapeum[27]
Multiple questions are raised by the positioning of the Saite and Persian bulls in the Greater Vaults of the Serapeum. Most must await developments in subsequent chapters. At this time we ask only two questions based on the location of the inscribed stone sarcophagi.
1) If the lid from the Amasis bull, which is assumed to have preceded the other two bulls in time, blocked access into the southern corridor, how did the priests move the two massive coffers of the Cambyses and Khababash bulls past the obstructing lid, assuming in fact that they arrived at their present location via this route. Steps might suffice to allow the priests or other devotees to climb over the obstruction, but it is difficult to imagine the sarcophagi following that same route. And the question applies equally to the other coffins in the same vicinity as the Khababash coffer. According to Mariette, a wooden coffin from the time of Darius I, and two stone sarcophagi from the time of Darius II (which Egyptologists claim belongs to the time of Darius I) also followed the identical route as the coffin of the Amasis bull to their respective chambers (A', B' and C'). How did the priests move these 65 ton monoliths past the obstruction to their ultimate destination?. Even assuming that the massive coffins were laboriously moved up and down the steps over the Amasis lid, and that the ceiling was sufficiently high to facilitate this transport, the question remains: Why not simply move the lid?
To be fair this argument assumes that all of the Saite and Persian dynasty bulls on the southern corridor were brought to their destination along the identical route followed by the Amasis bull. A century of scholarship has agreed with Mariette that this was the case, but recently the Serapeum specialist Vercoutter has argued otherwise. In order to explain the present location of the Cambyses bull he has theorized that the route containing the jammed lid was not built until the 34th year of Darius I, and that until that date the southern corridor was constructed by degrees beginning from the east with the Psamtik bull in chamber U. Thus all bulls of the Saite dynasty, beginning with the 53rd year of Psamtik I, and all the Persian period bulls through the reigns of Cambyses and Darius I, were transported along the ancient route to the Lesser Vaults then down a passageways into the Greater Vaults, traveling westward to their present location. We leave it to the reader to evaluate this novel theory.[28] Sufficient here to enquire how the Amasis lid became jammed in a corridor that that was not built until 40 years after that lid was moved. And we wonder how the bull deceased in the 4th year of Darius was moved into Greater Vaults after the Cambyses coffer was left blocking the entrance. In due course we will argue that what appears to be an alternative passageway leading from outside the entrance to the Lesser Vaults to the southern corridor is simply a flight of stairs to allow priests and workers access to the Greater Vaults. In a later chapter we will examine the stela that has led Vercoutter to develop his unusual theory. That same stela provides very convincing corroboration of our revised history. Needless to say, we reject Vercoutter’s thesis out of hand.
We admit that the Khababash bull might have arrived at its present location via an alternate route, especially if it does belong to the late 4th century, as argued by Egyptologists.. The reader will note in figure 27 that a northern corridor was later constructed to give access to chambers further west than the Darius group of tombs. It is not known precisely when this extension of the northern entranceway was constructed., but it probably dates from late in the 5th century[29]
Setting aside for the moment Vercoutter’s theory, and accepting the evidence from the tombs at face value, it appears certain that at least the Darius 1 bull (supposedly from year 34) entered the southern corridor via the passageway blocked by the Amasis lid. And it postdates the time of Amasis in the traditional history. We repeat our earlier question: Why was the lid not moved?
The problem with the location of the inscribed sarcophagi has an obvious solution. The reigns of Cambyses and Khababash, as well as that of Darius I, must have preceded the reign of Amasis. The Cambyses and Darius I sarcophagi were secure in their burial chambers when the Amasis bull was interred and the lid jammed in the entranceway. The Khababash bull is less certain, but we question why this bull would be buried where it was if it does not belong in the interim between Darius I and Darius II. It too was likely moved through the entrance corridor before the lid became jammed. By the end of the 5th century, where Amasis properly belongs, the galleries down the eastern section of the southern corridor were fully occupied. An alternative entrance via an extended northern corridor was probably already planned. Rather than expend the effort to move the jammed coffer lid, the priests merely built steps over it to provide continued access for Serapeum personnel to the Saite and Persian tombs beyond.[30] The northern corridor off the main entrance, once constructed, was used to transport future bulls. It continued in use through dynasties 28 to 33.
Figure 29: Relative Chronology of the Bulls Deceased in the reigns of
Amasis, Cambyses, and Khababash
As suggested by the evidence of the stone coffers, the chronological order of the three named kings must have been Cambyses - Khababash - Amasis. We will have much more to say later concerning both Khababash and Amasis. But we are not yet finished with Cambyses and the bull associated with his reign. This bull is central to a second question vis-a-vis the positioning of the stone coffers.
2) The second question concerns the location of the coffin of the Cambyses’ bull. In the traditional history the death of this bull (524 B.C.) followed the abandonment of the “Lesser Vaults” of the Serapeum in the 52nd year of Psamtik I (613 B.C.) by almost 90 years (see figure 29). The first bull buried in the “Greater Vaults” must have been the one deceased in Psamtik’s 53rd year, followed by bulls who died during the reigns of Necao, Apries, and Amasis, then of Cambyses, and Darius I. If this ordering is correct then how do we explain how the Cambyses coffer came to rest in a gallery (not in a burial chamber) at the eastern extremity of the southern corridor, near the entrance to the “Lesser Vaults” and across from the chamber supposedly occupied by the bull buried in Psamtik’s 53rd year? In what order were the burial chambers constructed? And which route was followed by the massive sarcophagus of the Cambyses bull as it was transported to its present location? According to the traditional history the Saite dynasty bulls, beginning with the bull deceased in the 53rd year of Psamtik I, were carried along the entranceway noted in Figure 28, past where the Amasis lid was later abandoned, as far as the “round point” at the juncture with the southern corridor. There they turned left and moved east to their respective chambers. Typically the priests only constructed the corridors far enough to accommodate each successive deceased Apis. In this instance, since the bull deceased in the 53rd year of Psamtik I is supposedly buried at the extreme eastern end of the corridor, they must have decided to initially extend the southern corridor till it reached the edge of the abandoned “lesser vaults”. There they buried the Psamtik bull. Then they moved backward with subsequent burials (westward) to inter the bulls deceased under Necao, Apries, and Amasis. If this was the case we wonder why the Cambyses coffer, the next in line for burial, was transported past the next available site (which would be the chamber A' now occupied by the Darius I bull), only to be left in a side gallery, across from the Psamtik bull buried a century earlier. Why move a 65 ton coffer those extra 25-30 meters when it was unnecessary to do so? Did the Cambyses bull not deserve its own chamber? Why was it left in an offset gallery (or vestibule) situated midway between the inner entrance to the Lesser Vaults (Mariette’s door no. 2) and the corridor of the Greater Vaults?
Clearly this bull was buried out of sequence.
In the revised history the evidence must be interpreted differently. When the Cambyses bull was buried there were no “greater vaults”. It was the 21st year of Psamtik I. The Lesser Vaults remained in use. The Cambyses coffin must have been brought into the Serapeum using the route typically taken by deceased bulls at that time (see figure 28)[31]. It was destined for burial in the “Lesser Vaults”. Whether the massive coffin would not fit through the final entrance door (door no. 2) into the vaults[32], or whether the priests wanted no part of a coffin requisitioned by a foreign king and therefore left it outside the sacred vaults, we do not know. Regardless, the coffer was abandoned outside the doorway, in an existing vestibule, but deep underground where the Persian authorities would never know, if indeed they cared. This vestibule/gallery was doubtless a work area for the priests, turned to this secondary use. The bull itself may have been taken inside and buried in the extreme north of the Lesser Vaults, a location where Mariette found at least 40 stelae celebrating the life of the bull deceased in Psamtik’s 20th year. But at least nine stelae of this same Psamtik bull were found in various locations outside the lesser vaults, near the entrance door no. 2, only meters from the Cambyses coffer.[33].
Any other bulls deceased under Psamtik I, particularly the one which must have died between his 20th and his 53rd year, must be buried in the Lesser Vaults. Here the revised history is in agreement with the traditional history. Neither has any certain knowledge of the whereabouts of such a bull, nor the precise year when it died, save to state the obvious. It must be buried somewhere in the “Lesser Vaults”. Which leaves us to discuss briefly the bull deceased in the 53rd year of Psamtik and supposedly buried near the Cambyses’ bull, in a chamber at the eastern end of the southern corridor (Mariette’s chamber U).
It should come as a surprise to no-one that we do not believe that this chamber was occupied by the final Psamtik bull. A glance at our revised timeline reveals clearly that the end of Psamtik’s reign coincided with the final years of the reign of Darius I. In a later chapter we will demonstrate that the bull deceased in the 53rd year of Psamtik I is buried in chamber A', the tomb assigned by Mariette to a bull deceased under Darius I. It follows that the bulls in the Greater Vaults of the Serapeum were buried in the typical way. The entrance corridor was first dug to the position where the first bull was to be buried, then extended gradually over time to accommodate each successive burial. The southern corridor was not extended to its eastern extremity before being used, as we reasoned earlier from the viewpoint of the traditional history. The burials began in chamber A' , the Darius I tomb (= Psamtik’s 53rd year) and gradually moved east for the burial of bulls deceased under Necao and Apries. The priests then turned back and buried the Khababash bull, and possibly another bull from the 5th year of Amasis. Finally, chamber Y was filled with the massive coffer of the bull deceased in the 23rd year of the reign of Amasis, the lid of which now obstructs the passageway to the southern corridor.
Further details concerning this sequence of burials will be provided in chapters 8 and 9, where the Apis bulls again become part of our argument.
We are left to answer one anticipated query concerning this hypothetical sequence of burials. All the evidence is accounted for with the exception of a single burial chamber. If the bull deceased in the 20th year of Psamtik is buried in the stone sarcophagus of Cambyses, and the bull deceased in the 53rd year of Psamtik is buried in chamber A', then what bull is buried in Mariette’s chamber U?
We have just finished arguing that the Saite/Persian section of the southern corridor was occupied from the west, as the priests first filled chambers A', V and X and then turned back and buried the Khababash bull. They turned back because the two remaining chambers, assuming they had been excavated by this time, were conveniently positioned to act as a work area for the priests and were likely being used for that purpose, especially after the Cambyses bull occupied their former workshop. We note that a new set of stairs was constructed at this location, leading down to the southern corridor from a point not far from the entrance to the “Lesser vaults”. We believe they were built to give workers access to the Greater Vault [34] and in particular to chamber U and the adjacent chamber. The two chambers were well situated for the storage of supplies and religious apparatus for the priests who superintended both vaults. It is surely significant that Mariette has identified no bull with the chamber situated immediately to the west of chamber U , a room now assigned the letter W by modern scholars. The only remaining question is why he identified chamber U with the name of Psamtik and why scholars continue to call this the burial chamber of the bull deceased in the 53rd year of the reign of Psamtik.
One would think, since it is associated with Psamtik I, that chamber U must have contained multiple stelae celebrating the life of the bull deceased in the 53rd year of that king. But that is not the case. No such stelae exist. The fact that a bull was deceased that year is assumed on the basis of two pieces of evidence. On the one hand the official stela of the bull deceased in the 16th year of Wahemibre Necao, found in or near chamber V, reveals that this bull was born on the 19th day of the 5th month of the 53rd year of Psamtik. Since the birth of a replacement bull typically occurs less than a year after the death of its predecessor, the Psamtik bull most likely died early in Psamtik’s 53rd year. The second bit of evidence tends to rule out an earlier death.
Scholars have long been aware of the stela Louvre #239. It records a cave-in in one of the chambers of the Greater Vaults in the 52nd year of Psamtik I. Several times already we have mentioned the event. The collapse was apparently sufficiently large and intrusive that it led to the abandonment of the Lesser Vaults and the beginning of construction on the Greater Vaults. What we have not mentioned is the fact that this stela has been variously interpreted, many considering it as evidence that an Apis death had only recently occurred and that the collapsed ceiling took place during its burial. Thus many scholars, including Devauchelle most recently, list the 52nd year of Psamtik as the time of an Apis death. But once again we turn to Breasted for a contrary opinion:
This inscription has heretofore been understood as recording both repairs in the Serapeum or a sanctuary of Apis, and the burial of an Apis deceased under Psamtik I. The true import of the inscription is totally different. There is no reference to an Apis which died in Psamtik I’s reign, but only the record of the restoration by him, of an old interment, on receiving a report that the coffin was so fallen to pieces that the body of the sacred animal was exposed to view. BAR IV 963 (p. 493)
We will not belabor the point. In a subsequent chapter we examine yet another stela that mentions the construction of the Greater Vaults, and we will furnish evidence that the cave-in of the year 52 and the death of the Apis in year 53 were unrelated events, though the cave-in did delay the burial of the Apis. The stela Louvre #239 is mentioned here for an entirely different reason.
When we asked earlier what evidence Mariette found in chamber U to suggest that this was the crypt belonging to the bull deceased in Psamtik’s 53rd year, the answer was predictable. This must be the location where Louvre #239 was recovered.[35] But that stela, as Breasted says, has nothing to do with the death of an Apis. It cannot be used to identify chamber U as the burial crypt of a deceased Apis. Mariette has misread the evidence. The stela, properly understood, is a written directive to the Serapeum personnel concerning the restoration procedure in the Lesser Vaults resulting from the recent collapse, and it served as a reminder of the generally high standard of workmanship required of them. What better place to keep this stela than in one of the workrooms used by the Serapeum staff.
We conclude this visit to the Serapeum by reading the stela inscription:
In the year 52 under the majesty of this good god (Psamtik I) came one to say to his majesty: This temple of thy father, Osiris Apis, and the things therein are beginning to fall to ruin [better: have collapsed to ruin]. The divine limbs are visible in his coffin, decay has laid hold of his (mortuary) chests. His majesty commanded restoration in his temple, and that it should be more beautiful than that which was there before. His majesty caused that there be done for him all that is done for a god on the day of interment. Every office had its duties, that the divine limbs might be splendid in ointment, wrappings of royal linen, and all the raiment of a god. His (mortuary) chests were of ked wood, meru wood, and cedar wood, of the choicest of every wood. Their troops were subjects of the palace, while a king’s companion stood over them, levying their labour for the court… BAR IV 966
The collapsed ceiling apparently fell on and crushed an Apis coffin, exposing the animals decaying flesh. If so, we suggest that this was not an ancient burial. We wonder if this is the missing bull deceased sometime between the 20th and 53rd years of Psamtik I. It is interesting that in the sand and gravel residue of the room where the collapse occurred, Mariette found one stela assigned to the bull deceased in the 20th year of Psamtik. We wonder what else he found.