Phoenicians in Zahi

        We have several times already noted Egypt's increasing involvement in Mediterranean commerce, an enterprise which began with the conquest of the port cities of Zahi as early as 609 B.C. (Menkheperre's 29th year). In that year there is reference to the capture of ships harbored on the coast near Tunip. Two years later we find Menkheperre supplying the harbors with material goods and two years later still, in his 33rd year, we are further informed that this was done "according to their contract of each year."  Apparently Egypt has reached a treaty agreement with the coastal inhabitants. In the Annals for the next year there is reference to a fleet of ships from various coastal cities visiting the port cities controlled by Menkheperre.

Behold, all the harbors of his majesty were supplied with every good thing of that which his majesty received in Zahi, consisting of Keftyew ships, Byblos ships, and Sektu ships of cedar laden with poles and masts, together with great trees for the [-] of his majesty. BAR II 492

        But who are these inhabitants of Zahi, who populate cities as far north as Tunip and as far south as Byblos, who are distinguished in the Annals from the Arameans who populate the regions of Upper and Lower Retenu east of the Lebanon Mountains. Only twice do the Annals identify them by an ethnic title. In the aftermath of the battle of Megiddo, where they are referred to as accomplices of the Arameans, and in the year 41 inscription on the 6th Portal which we have just read, they are called "Fenkhu".

        There is only one possible identification of the Fenkhu historically.  Only one people by this name ever populated the eastern Mediterranean coast in the pre-Christian centuries.  We know them as the Phoenicians.  But in using this name we risk being accused of an anachronism.  For according to the traditional history, based on extensive documentation in the Hebrew Bible, the Phoenicians as a seafaring nation, inhabiting the eastern Mediterranean coast at the same time that Arameans populated the Syrian hinterland, existed only in the 10th through 4th centuries B.C.  There is not a scrap of physical evidence for the existence of this people, by this name, in this region of the world in the 15th century B.C., unless we include as evidence the Annals of Menkheperre and inscriptions contemporary with the Annals.  And we have dated all of these documents to the  7th century.

        When the history books discuss the inhabitants of Zahi in the 15th century they inevitably speak of them as Canaanites. The precise relationship between the Canaanites and the classical Phoenicians is much debated. We have no interest in engaging that debate.  Needless to say we consider the question to be moot.[11]  Only one period of Phoenician history concerns us at the moment. We date the Annals, and thus the "Phoenician Empire" of Menkheperre Thutmose, at the end of the 7th century. We are therefore concerned exclusively with the history of the 7th century Phoenicians. And our only concern is whether an Egyptian king by the name of Menkheperre Thutmose was allied with Phoenicians at this late date.

        Phoenician history from the 10th century onward is reasonably well documented. Many references to the activities of Phoenician kings occur in the Hebrew Bible and in neo-Assyrian documents of the 9th through 7th centuries B.C. Memories of significant events in Phoenician history were also passed down in folkloric sagas and were recorded by historians centuries after the fact. According to the combined testimony of these sources the most significant event in the life of this people was the colonization of the Mediterranean coast which began in the late 9th century at the earliest and continued through the 7th century B.C., an expansionist movement motivated by the growing threat of conquest by Assyria, and then Babylon. Most notable of the Mediterranean colonies founded by the Phoenicians during this period was Carthage.
 

Finds From the Tombs of Carthage

        According to Donald Harden, the excavator of the city, Carthage was founded by Phoenician sailors in the final years of the 9th century, 814 B.C. according to one tradition.

The 814 tradition is soundly based and, despite the doubts of some modern scholars, seems to fit the archaeological and historical facts reasonably well. The earliest pottery, in Punic tombs and in the lowest stratum of the Tanit preceinct, including Cintas's 'little chapel', can be placed in the eighth century without any distortion of typology. [12]

        In spite of the historical connection with Ahab, which seems to legitimize somewhat the eighth century etiology, many scholars question the tradition, favouring instead a mid-to-late 7th century time frame for the founding of Carthage. Even Harden, one of the few stalwart defenders of the traditional date, agrees that "the first historical action taken by Carthage which is recorded is the foundation of a colony at Ibiza in 654-653 B.C." [13] If the city was founded in the late 9th century, its floret did not occur until the mid-7th century.

        We choose not to enter the debate concerning the foundation date of Carthage. Whether in the late 9th century or in the  mid-to-late 8th century, the fact remains that the establishment of a necropolis for the city must post-date the founding of the city by many decades, and the contents of the graves of the early Phoenicians at this location must date, for the most part, to the 7th century B.C. and later.  It follows that these graves, as well as those at other contemporary Phoenician sites around the Mediterranean world, should not be filled with mementos of Egyptian kings of the 18th dynasty and earlier, including multiple artifacts naming Menkheperre Thutmose. But the fact is - they are! Inscribed relics excavated from Phoenician sites on the mainland coast of Zahi, and scarabs found in the graves of Phoenician colonists at Carthage, agree in confirming our suspicion that Menkheperre Thutmose was a 7th century pharaoh. This evidence clearly warrants our attention.

        At minimum artifacts excavated at Phoenician sites on the mainland give credence to our thesis. At least two fragments of bas-reliefs and 15 scarabs belonging to Menkheperre have been found at the sites of Byblos and Sidon, attesting the presence of, and suggesting the notoriety of, the Egyptian king.[14] The excavators of these relics reasoned correctly that they could only belong to the king by that name whose repeated campaigns in Phoenicia are extensively documented in the Annals. In consequence these reliefs and scarabs are dated to the 15th century B.C. But none of these artifacts were found in clearly defined strata. Their dating is based solely on the assumption that the Annals are the creation of an 18th dynasty king and the further assumption that the 18th dynasty ruled Egypt during the 15th century B.C. Neither of these assumptions have ever been validated.

        If we are to firmly date the material remains of Menkheperre Thutmose what is needed is a clearly defined and specifically dated context.  Thus the importance of Carthage where numerous scarabs of Menkheperre Thutmose have emerged in various 20th century excavations of the necropolis.

        Pierre Cintas, one of the foremost authorities on the archaeology of Phoenician sites, in his classic Manuel d'Archeologie Punique [15], begins his analysis of the scarabs and amulets excavated from Carthaginian tombs by remarking on the astounding number which bore names of Egyptian pharaohs supposedly long dead when these tombs were constructed. For Cintas, as for all subsequent interpreters of the Phoenician evidence, there was no alternative but to consider these objects as amulets.[16]

        Included among the "amulets" in the tombs of Carthage were many bearing familiar names from Egypt's illustrious past. To quote Cintas:

Such are the scarabs - numerous - with the names of Mycenerius (3rd millinium B.C.), of Amenemhet III (1850-1800), of Thutmose III (1504-1450) especially, and of Amenhotep III (1405-1370) or of Seti I (1318-1298), which, for different reasons, have long been looked up to (by the supplicant) for support.[17]

It is clear that those found at Carthage, like all scarabs found at Carthage moreover (and this point cannot be too strongly emphasized) have been fabricated only a very short time before they were taken into the tomb.... All the scarabs from Carthage that we are concerned with at the moment are of the style of the 9th to the 7th centuries B.C. and not that of the second millenium. In consequence this first series of scarabs provides (us with) no specific chronological information. (emphasis added)[18]

        We wonder, in the first place, what criteria singled out for attention the names of these particular pharaohs, 600 to 1600 years after their deaths. According to the traditional history none of these kings, with the possible exception of Amenhotep III and Thutmose III, had any historical connection with the Phoenicians of the 7th century. And even in the case of Amenhotep and Menkheperre the connection was remote, since those kings were 800 years removed from the 7th century and their dealings were with the Canaanites, at best distant relatives of the Phoenician colonists. Mycerinus, one of the kings whose name is prominent in Carthage, best illustrates the problem. This king, successor of the 4th dynasty kings Khufu and Chephren, and the builder of the third and smallest of the great pyramids of Giza, was a distant memory, if a memory at all, in 7th century Egypt. His name is all but forgotten in his country of origin. How is it that it occurs so frequently in obscure Phoenician tombs two thousand years after his death?

        We wonder also why these newly crafted scarabs, which suddenly appear in the 7th century B.C. market place, found their way only into graves at Carthage, and not into graves on the mainland (nor, for that matter, into graves in Egypt). We are informed by scholars that the 15 scarabs bearing the name of Menkheperre Thutmose found during excavations at Byblos and Sidon, those mentioned earlier in our discussion, are the legitimate products of the 15th century, but that the identical scarabs found in Phoenician tombs at Carthage are instead the product of the 9th through 7th centuries. On what basis is this distinction made? We are not informed. But the distinction is made consistently.

        Mycerinus is again a case in point. Chehab, whom we quoted earlier in reference to the name of Menkheperre on scarabs from the mainland, also discusses artifacts bearing the name of Mycerinus found at the identical locations:

The name of Mycerinus, successor of Chephren, is one of the most frequently attested. It appears at Byblos on five fragments of vases, a beam and a scarab. The beam bears the inscription "The Horus of gold, Mycerinus, who gives life and joy eternally.[19]

        And what are we to make of the dual occurrences of the name of Amenemhet III on the Phoenician coast and in Carthaginian tombs. Again the claim is made by scholars that the materials on the mainline are the legitimate product of the lifetime of Amenemhet, while similar items from North African tombs are a fabrication of a much later age. According to Chehab:

The kings of Byblos of the 19th and 18th centuries have pretended to be little pharaohs, writing their semitic names in hiroglyphs inside a cartouche, imitating a practice reserved for pharaohs in Egypt. These kings of Byblos, Abi-Chemou and his son Ip-Chemou-Abi, received respectively from the pharaohs (as gifts) the one an obsidian vase inlaid with gold bearing the name of Amenemhet III, a 19th century pharaoh, and the other an incense chest of the same material with the name of Amenemhet IV along with an unpolished vase also bearing the name of the pharaoh.[20]

        There is one final reason for rejecting outright this arbitrary and erroneous procedure. When we quoted Cintas regarding the scarabs from Carthage we emphasized his concluding remark - "In consequence this first series of scarabs provides (us with) no specific chronological information."  The error of that statement is obvious. The scarabs from Carthage do provide specific chronological information. The problem is that scholars are unwilling to accept it at face value. And nowhere is that unwillingness more apparent that in the artificial distinction that Cintas makes in classifying the scarabs from the tombs of Carthage. We note in this regard his reference to a "first series of scarabs" recovered at the site. When we continue to read his article we quickly discover that there was a "second series." In the Carthaginian tombs are found not only scarabs bearing the names of kings such as Mycerinus, Amenemhet (III), Thutmose (III), Amenhotep (III), and Seti (I), who in the traditional history lived from 600 to 2000 years before the founding of the city, but also multiple scarabs of kings of the 22nd through 26th dynasties which are traditionally dated between the 9th and 7th centuries. This second group of scarabs is interpreted differently. It is assumed that they are not amulets, but are instead the legitimate creation of the kings whose names they bear, and can therefore be used to date the tombs in which they are found.  Though in some instances they sit side by side in the tombs with scarabs of the first group, they are differently conceived. There are two problems with this procedure. In the first place it is arbitrary. In the second, it leaves an obvious gap in the historical record. We leave the reader to form his own opinion regarding the first problem. The second requires a word of explanation.

        The second series of scarabs belong, as stated, to kings from dynasties 22 onward. Other than those bearing the name of Menkheperre Thutmose they are by far the most common inscribed objects found in the necropolis. In the first book of our series we remarked on the fact that this second group of scarabs favors a lowering of the dates for the 22nd dynasty by upwards of 100 years. Here we are concerned with a different aspect of the problem. It is curious that this group of scarabs includes the names of multiple kings of dynasties 22-24 and 26, but omits entirely any reference to pharaohs of the 25th dynasty. Did Egypt have no involvement with Phoenicia during the lengthy tenure of the 25th dynasty kings? Every pharaoh of the 26th dynasty, with the exception of the fictional Psamtik III, is represented at Carthage. Most of the important pharaohs of the late 22nd and 23rd dynasties are also attested, including such an ephemeral king as Pami, whose reign lasted only a few years. Even the enigmatic Bocchoris, the sole occupant of Manetho's 24th dynasty, has left record of his existence at another contemporary Phoenician site. Where are the names of the 25th dynasty kings?

        There is only one reasonable explanation for the gap in the historical sequence at Phoenician sites. The 25th dynasty kings must be represented by names not recognized by 20th century scholars. We know that Piankhi used the name Menkheperre Thutmose. We have consumed four chapters of our book proving that a king bearing this name engaged in a decades long contest with Babylon for control of the Hatti lands, at precisely the time when Piankhi ruled Egypt. All artifacts from Phoenician sites which bear this name, whether found on the mainland or in the tombs of the colonies, must belong to Piankhi.

        But what are we to make of the names of Myerinus and Amenemhet and Seti found in Phoenician contexts. Clearly they must also be dated late.  The tombs of Carthage postdate the founding of the city late in the 9th or early in the 8th century. Egyptian kings whose names are inscribed on objects in those tombs must have lived in or after the 8th century B.C.  Where the identical king names occur on the mainland those finds, and the contexts in which they occur, should be dated by reference to the evidence from Carthage.  There is no reasonable alternative explanation.  It alone explains all of the evidence. There is only one conceivable objection on the part of the critic.  Egyptian history as presently written argues against the idea. But we are in the process of revising that history. It is seriously in error.

        The response of the critic is predictable. The revised history will be challenged to prove the existence of pharaohs bearing the names Menkhaure (Mycerinus), Nebma'tre (Amenemhet III), Ma'tkherure (Amenemhet IV) and Menma'tre (Seti I) in the centuries following the foundation of Carthage. We have taken only the first step in answering the challenge. We have shown that Menkheperre Thutmose belongs to the late 7th century. The other names will follow in due course. As early as the next chapter we will begin to flesh out the history of the 7th and early 6th centuries, where multiple kings served under Menkheperre Piankhi, some of whom left proof of their existence in Phoenician tombs. In the 3rd book of this series we will continue this process, providing the historical contexts for the Amenemhets and Seti I.

        We have spent considerable time demonstrating a remarkable correspondence between the Annals of Menkheperre Thutmose and the Babylonian Chronicle of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar.  The evidence from Carthage serves only to confirm what amounted to a statistical certainty, that the king who authored the Annals lived a century or so after, not a thousand years before, the building of the necropolis at Carthage.  But this is just the beginning of our investigation.  Further surprises are yet in store for the historian. But by now we have come to expect them.