Moses, The Tomb and the History

Although not recognized as such by the Egyptologists, the Tomb of Moses was discovered by the team of Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak in the ancient Israelite city of Avaris (Tell el Dab'a) , which is found stratigraphically under the later Per Ramses, home of the Hebrews (Pi-Ramesse, which is the ancient land of Gath or Goshen, today called Giza).

Because of collossal errors in mainsteam chronology, this tomb is erroneously regarded by some scholars to be the tomb of Biblical Joseph, which is amusing, as the error in chronology is merely about 500 years.

In Avaris they found an extensive palace with an equally extensive garden in which they discovered a tomb which had been completely emptied in ancient days, which is a rarity, since graverobbers usually just take valuables, but leave the bodies untouched. Here the bodies had also been been removed.

What is unusual is that this particular graverobbery is documented in ancient Pharaonic records. This tomb at Avaris is none other than a tomb mentioned at the time of widespread grave plunderings during the reign of Ramses IX, a reign which marked the last death knells of Pharaonic civilization, when not even the ancient graves of kings were safe. It is in our opinion the tomb of Moses.

The robbing of the Tomb of Moses has come down to us in a papyrus which protocols the trial of certain "Amun-pnufer", who on the 22nd day of the winter month and in the 16th year of reign of Ramses IX confessed to robbing the grave of the king known erroneously to the Egyptologists as "Sobekemsaf II" and his wife "Nubchas". As written at gizapyramids.org :

"[T]]he 'Leopold-Amherst Papyrus' records the testimony of the thieves who plundered the tomb of King Sekhemre Shedtawy Sobekem-saf II and Queen Nubkhas of the Seventeenth Dynasty.... The thieves confessed that they had broken into this tomb and had:
'found the noble mummy of the sacred king... [and] numerous golden amulets and ornaments were on his breast and a golden mask was over his face. The noble mummy of the king was entirely bedecked with gold and his coffins were embellished with gold and silver, both inside and out, and inlaid with precious stones. We collected the gold, together with the amulets and jewels that were about him and the metal that was on his coffins. We found the queen in the same state and retrieved all that we found upon her. Then we set fire to their coffins. We took the furnishings that were found with them, comprising objects of gold, silver and bronze, and divided the spoils amongst us.' " [emphasis added]

Compare the royal pectoral found in the above cited article by Peter Lacovara, "An Ancient Egyptian Royal Pectoral" in the Journal of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. 2, 1990, (dated to c. 1784-1570 B.C.) to the one found in the Tomb of Tuthankhamun. They are virtually identical.

As I have explained at the LexiLine website , Moses was the Pharaoh today transcribed by the Egyptologists as Sobek-emsaf II (also written Sebekemsaf). The statue of this king, which is the "Statue" of Moses - in black diorite - is in the Museum of Art History in Vienna but the base and feet are in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

It is the statue of a man whose hieroglyphic name is transcribed - erroneously - by Egyptologists as Sobek-em-s-af, whereas the hieroglyphs "em-s" actually clearly read MOSHE (Moses). This is the same as Sechemre Schedtaui - also erroneously transcribed , the 1st King of Thebes of the 17th Dynasty, a reign dated by current chronology to ca. 1650-1600 B.C.

MOSES and the tale of ARTAPANUS
(See David Rohl's book, A Test of Time, Random House, London, 1995)

MOSES WAS BORN - writes Artapanus - in the reign of Chaneferre (Khenephres), known as Sobekhotep IV, who, even by current chronology, ruled ca. 1700 B.C. The current date assigned to the life of Moses by mainstream scholarship is supported by nothing, no evidence whatsover, and is typical for the kind of sloppy scholarship in this field which is rampant at the universities of the world.

Clemens' Stromata summarizes the writings of Artapanus, a Jewish historian who wrote Peri Iodaion (About the Jews). Artapanus is named by Eusebius in his Evangelicae Preparationis and his detailed account of the life of Moses is reported in his Pamphilis, Book 9, Ch. 27, 1-37.

That life story of MOSES agrees with the Egyptian "SINUHE Story" - which originated in the Pharaonic 12th Dynasty (!) at the time of A-MEN-EM-HET III, who we have identified as the Pharaoh of Exodus.

The story of Sinuhe is about a young man who flees Egypt (as does Moses), goes to Palestine (as does Moses), where Sinuhe finds the support of Prince Retenju just as Moses finds the help of the similarly named "Raguel" in Artapanus, and the help of of "Reguel" viz. "Jitro" in the Biblical Exodus (2,18; 3,1;4,18; 18,1). The stories are the same and date to ca. 1700 BC.

The Pharaoh who first "enslaved" the Hebrews, says Artapanus, was called PAL-MEN-O-THES and had a city and temple built at "Kessan" (as Rohl correctly notes, "Kes" in the eastern Delta) called "Kessan" in the Septuagint and "Goshen" in the Masora, which is generally equated with On, Heliopolis or Egyptian Iunu.

The statue of Moses (Sebekemsaf) was found at Armant, (Ar-Mant is related to Iunu-Month) which was greatly developed in the 12th dynasty.

Pharaoh PAL-MEN-O-THIS is surely the same as A-MEN-E(M)-HET(is) III out of that very same 12th dynasty. The first syllable has simply been mistranscribed by Egyptologists or Greeks.

It was during the 12th dynasty that territorial expansion against Kush and Nubia reached its peak, and the story of Moses tells us that he also campaigned against Nubia and Ethiopia in his youth.

In the chapters 71 to 78 of the apocryphal Book of Jasher , which gives a detailed account of the life of Moses, we find the mention of several pharaohs. Their equivalence (our discovery) to hieroglyphically documented personages is as follows:

- King of Africa (Egypt, Thebes) ANGEAS = the king today transcribed by Egyptologists as ANTEF

- King of Africa (Egypt, Thebes) AZDRUBAL (son of Angeas) = the king today transcribed by Egyptologists as MENTUHOTEP

As far as we can tell, there was only one ANTEF and one MENTUHOTEP, with the varied cartouched hieroglpyhs (no cartouches for the three known name variants of Mentuhotep) referring to the birth, ascension and death of each pharaoh. That is why the Antefs have only one tomb location - at Dira Abu 'n-Naga - and why only the tomb of Mentuhotep I has been found, because there are were no other kings named Menuhotep, only this one.

- King of Africa (Egypt, Thebes) ANIBAL (son of Angeas) = the king today transcribed by Egyptologists as AMENEMHET I.
It was Amenemhet who first called the Delta Region "Itj-taui". The Egyptologists think that the word applies to a specific place there, which they have thus far been unable to find, whereas, of course, it applies to the entire region.

The Pharaoh of Exodus was Amenemhet III (transcribed Pal-men-othis according to Artapanus, i.e. rather than A-men-othis) during whose reign two pyramids of mud brick were built, and these are the last pyramids ever built in Egypt, because the Hebrews left and sojourned to Per-Ramses.

Please note that "Africa" or "Egypt" in those days applied to THEBES but NOT to the Nile Delta region, which was called Judah (Itj-taui) , Sut/Shut, Gath or Goshen, whence its name today, Giza.

We have written as follows about the chronology of Moses as related to other events, e.g. the Solar Eclipse of April 16, 1699 BC during the reign of Sobekhotep IV Chaneferre:

"[This was a] Solar Eclipse at the Pleiades and the crossing of the ecliptic and the celestial equator underneath the gate to Heaven between Auriga and Perseus. The heiroglyphs mark this as a partial sun followed by the swallowing windpipe symbol. According to Artapanus (writing about 300 BC), Chaneferre - i.e. the Pharaoh just noted above - was the Pharaoh during whose reign Moses was born. No contrary evidence gives us cause to doubt this historical record. Since Chaneferre apparently ruled only about 10 years, this puts the birth of Moses between maximally 10 years either side of 1699 BC, and we put it at 1707 BC due to the 80-year correlation to Exodus which we place as congruent with the explosion of Santorin ca. August 4, 1627 BC, based on astronomical considerations. Moses is later the first king of the 17th Dynasty of Thebes as Sobek-EMSAf II, a name actually written in the hieroglpyhs as "MO-SHE" (also known as Sobekhotep VIII or Sechem-re Schedtaui). Since we know that Moses flew from Thebes when he was around 40, this puts him in the Eastern Delta Region of Egypt ca. 1667 BC, where Moses's Biblical Midianites are none
other than the Hyksos, i.e. the Palestinians (nomadic desert dwellers), of whose king Moses takes one daughter as a wife. The 16th Dynasty King known as Anather is then Gideon (so also clearly readable according to the hieroglyphs as Hand-D-N i.e. GI-DI-N)."

King Solomon as Ramses II

Very few equivalences in ancient times are so certain as the equivalence of Ramses II with King Solomon. Indeed, no mainstream scholar has been able to present even the most minimal requisite evidence necessary to rebut my challenge to current chronology as posted at https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2003-July/009941.html

Egyptologists, Oriental and Biblical scholars do not like to be confronted with facts - rather, they continue to build their nice little houses of cards as if facts contrary to their ill-conceived theories and chronologies simply did not exist. The closed-minded majority of Egyptologists seem to have a limited capacity for critical thinking.

Just how long did Ramses reign? They assume it is 67 years of sole regency, but the evidence is against them.

It is quite clear that Ramses did not rule alone for 67 years but like Solomon only ruled 40 years as a sole regent.36 of these 40 years were peacefully ruled after his reaching the age 30 (when the 30-year ceremony was held). After the success of the battle (and peace) of Kadesh (which led to peace in the ancient Near East), Solomon could build the Temple in celebration, indeed 480 years after the Exodus from THEBES (= EGYPT, eTHEBETE) which in ancient times was "Egypt", whereas the Delta-region was "Judah" and so also was always marked on the ancient hieroglyphs, i.e. as SUTah (from Gardiner: su-plant phon: sw log: sut-rush (swt), king (nsw), see in this regard http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/people/gardiner/m.htm ).

It is a hieroglyph which the helpless Egyptologists now write totally incorrectly with a preceding N, even though the hieroglyphs place the N at the end - how foolish on the part of the scholars. The original Indo-European-based Pharaonic term is similar to the Baltic term SUTENIS which means "hot humid area, marshy region" i.e. the Nile Delta, and which is a homophonic term also for SUTNIS "envoy, ambassador", which the king of the Delta was in ancient days to this region. The N which the Egyptologists now artificially set in front of these hieroglyphs - in the totally faulty reading "nesubait" - is sheer idiocy, misunderstanding the placement of the Indo-European prefix no- as identical to Baltic no- ("from, off, out of, with, of, out of, etc.") in front of Pharaonic viz. similar Baltic words sach as SUT- "to send", whence SUTNIS "envoy, ambassador" and NOSUTIT "to send off" but also SVET- "holy" and whence NOSVET- "holy of, to celebrate something holy" and ZIB "to shine" whence NOZIBET "to flash, twinkle", with the latter accounting for the NESUBAIT of "star names" of the Pharaohs. What the Egyptologists have made of this simple grammatical Indo-European construction is an Alice in Wonderland creation wondrous to be behold for its lack of relation to actual reality.

But to return to the matter at hand. There is in fact substantial evidence - acknowledged but ignored by the mainstreamers - that the early years of rule of Ramses II were a coregency with Sethos (King David), whose daughter he married (as Solomon also married the daughter of the pharaoh). Is it not remarkable that a Jewish king is marrying into the royal "Egyptian" Pharaonic family, which allegedly was not Jewish - come on, what nonsense is that? The scholars are clueless.

It was during the rule of Sethos (Seti, Setoy, i.e. King David) that the war and conquering took place. Ramses did not rule for 67 years ALONE but rather ruled 27 in coregency with King David and then ruled 40 years alone. Indeed, Clayton in Chronicle of the Pharaohs writes that Ramses took sole regency at age 25. These ca. 40 years of sole regency by Ramses II (i.e. King Solomon) were also peaceful (except for the battle of Kadesh) and marked the greatest period of building by any pharaoh since the days of the pyramids - this was the reign of Solomon (Ramses II, i.e RA-Messias "born of the Sun") and such an era of construction could only have occurred in a time of peace.

One should also point out in this connection that Ramses had already married two of his wives ten years before he became the sole Pharaoh, which, presuming that he became sole regent at the age of 27, would have meant that he was 17 at the time of first marriage, which makes sense, given the age at which it made biological sense for a man to take a woman for a wife.As written at http://www.touregypt.net/magazine/ancientegyptianpeople.htm:
"Ramesses II probably married the first two principal wives at least ten years prior to the death of his father, Seti I, before Ramesses II actually ascended the throne."

Ramses as Solomon thus ruled only 40 years ALONE (36 years of peace) plus 27 as coregent, during the war period.

More Evidence on the Age and Reign of Ramses II (who was King Solomon)

The Abydos Stela of Ramses IV refers to Ramses II as "living" 67 years. 'The Abydos stela of Ramses IV reads, according to this website as follows:"those things which King Ramses II, the Great God, did for thee in his sixty-seven years".

This is the main source for the idea that Ramses II reigned for 67 years, but it is quite clear from the context that these 67 years apply to the length of his life.

Anniversary Feasts celebrated by Ramses II point to a reign of 40 years. According to the table of important dates of Ramses' life in Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, the FIRST anniversary feast (for the celebration of Ramses II sole ascension to the throne) took place 25 years AFTER the oldest date given, which can only be his birth, and NOT, as Clayton writes, the begin of his sole reign. He celebrated 13 such anniversaries during his reign, each of which - not understood by the Egyptologists - took place every 3 years = 39 years, and there was no 14th anniversary celebrated, so that Ramses ruled ca. 40 years, as did Solomon.

The term Egypt in ancient sources referred to THEBES and not to the Nile Delta region. I repeat again for the naysayers that in the ancient texts EGYPT was THEBES but did not include the NILE DELTA which was GATH, JUDAH, SUT viz. GOSHEN, from which the GIZA plateau takes its name. That knowledge is necessary to mesh the hieroglyphic and Biblical accounts together as one.

As I have written here at the LexiLine website (with some new corrections to the text):

WHERE WAS JUDAH?

An analysis of the the ancient terms Shihor, Yamsuf (Jamsuf), Idj-Taui and Fayyum (Fay-yum) gives us a clear answer.

SHIHOR (Nile waters of the Nile Delta plus Fayyum)

SHIHOR or SCHIHOR in Joshua 13,3 defines a water "flowing before Egypt" and Isaiah 23,3 mentions Shihor in connection with the Nile.

I Chronicles 13,5 states that the Kingdom of David (!) extended from the Shihor of Egypt to the road to Hamat (the land of the Hittites).

Fayyum (Lake Fayyum, viz. Fayoum) and Bahr Yusuf (the correct Biblical Beersheba)

In Egyptian sources Shihor referred to the waters of the Nile Delta together with Lake Fajum (Fayyum) INTO WHICH the ancient channel of the Nile flowed (today this is the canal Bahr Yusuf = Biblical Beersheba, i.e. Bahr (yu)SUF. (Sivan in his work on North Semitic dialects says that the yu syllable was added in later Semitic and was not a part of the word originally). Hellenistic sources say it WAS an arm of the Nile.

Scholars think that the Kingdom of David, i.e. Judah, ended at what is modern (non-biblical) Beersheba in current Israel.That unproven assumption is the greatest historical geographic error ever committed and runs directly contrary to the actual written sources available. Judah included Fayyum.

Jam Suf (the Sea of Reeds)

In Biblical Exodus, Fayyum is Hebrew JAM SUF "the sea of reeds" which can ONLY be Fayyum (the only sea of reeds in Egypt) and SUF is the place where Moses repeated "the law" to the children of Israel.

THE SOUTHERN TRIBES

Judah and Benjamin (the southern tribes which united as Judah) were only 2 of the 12 tribes of the Hebrews and the other 10 tribes rebelled at the time of Rehoboam (Merentptah), Jerobeam (Priam, King of Lydia (Troy)) and Ramses III (Shishak). The invasion of the sea peoples during the reign of Ramses III was part of the Trojan War.

The name Israel derives from an Indo-European term similar e.g. to the example of Latvian Izrauji "rebels".

When we speak in modern times about Israel and the Jews, we have completely FORGOTTEN about Judah which in fact is the more important of the two historically because it existed prior to the name "Israel" ever appearing on any monument. The first appearance of the name "Israel" on any monument occurred on the Merenptah Stela of defeated enemies.

Idj-TauiJudah was Idj-taui (= Ju-dah)

IDJ-TAUI was the Nile Delta, including Per-Ramses (Pi-Ramesse), historically the home of the Hebrews in what we "today" call "Egypt", but which was actually the Nile Delta region called Judah (SUT viz. SHUT) in ancient days.

JUDAH in hieroglyphic writing is symbolized by the raised cobra hieroglyph, DJD.

Judah's geographical boundaries extended from Hebron (city of the unification of Judah and Israel)to the "Brook of Egypt", i.e. the Nile arm at Fayyumand to Beer Es Sebua = Bahr Yusuf - the ancient channel of the Nile into Fayyum.

It was at Fayyum that the last pyramids were built, two of them alone for Amenemhet III (one at Dashur and other at Hawara), with the end of this overdone pyramid-building period marked by the sudden abandonment of the worker-city Kahun. Our explanation is that the workers had had enough of Amenemhet III and that was the end of the pyramid-building age. No more pyramids were ever built. Amenemhet was thus the Pharaoh of Exodus.

The era of Moses (who is found in the hieroglyphs erroneously transcribed by the Egyptologists as Sobekhotep II) and his short-term allies, the Hyksos (Palestinians, Midians) had dawned.

Nofretete (Nefertiti) the Hittite Queen of Egypt

We are all familiar with the famous bust of Nofretete (Nefertiti in neo-Egyptological garble).
Who was this woman? Who was she?

Mark Rose in "Where's Nefertiti?", a book review of Joann Fletcher's The Search for Nefertiti: The True Story of an Amazing Discovery, William Morrow & Co., comments on the alleged find of Nefertiti's mummy in tomb KV35, where Joann Fletcher has allegedly identified the "Younger Woman" in that tomb as Nefertiti. Priority to this identification is disputed by a certain Marianne Luban, who is thus equally in error in falsely identifying this mummy as Nefertiti, since the mummy is a male according to DNA evidence (En Route to the Truth by Mark Rose).

Truly, most of these accounts of Nefertiti's life, identity and mummy are more or less empty speculations, as also Joyce Tyldesley's book, Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen, and quite typical for Egyptology, where rampant speculation is the rule, rather than the exception.

Mark Rose writes:

"The mummy in question was found in 1898 in a sidechamber in the tomb of Amenhotep II, which is designated KV35 in the numbering system for the Valley of the Kings. With the "Younger Woman" (as it is known) were two other mummies (a male youth and the "Elder Woman). All three had been partially dismantled by looters. In another sideroom were nine royal mummies that had been taken from their original tombs and been rewrapped and moved to KV35 by 20th Dynasty priests. Two other mummies, that of Amenhotep II and a unidentified male, and two skulls complete KV35's human inventory."

Who are the mummies found in Tomb KV35 and why do the Egyptologists have so much difficulty in identifying who they were?

To answer that question we first have to correct the Egyptologist's false transcription of Nefertiti's name, originally rendered as Nofretete and now given in "neo-Egyptology" as Nefertiti. Both versions are hopelessly wrong.The correct transcription of the hieroglyphic name of Nefertiti, as we have discovered, is in fact Chetite, i.e. the name means the Hittite Queen, a name which makes sense since at this time there is a flurry of letter exchanges to and from this region, the so-called "Amarna Letters". (Explanation: the hieroglypgh NFR as in NEFERtiti means "breath in the throat", so it is not meant to write NFR out as part of the name, but rather to render it as a "rasping throaty breath" sound.)

We know that Echnaton (=Akhenaten, who is King Saul) obtained a Queen of the Amazons from around the Black Sea as his wife (this was Nefertiti). She was the HITTITE QUEEN. Indeed, when Saul died, it was Nefertiti, under the name Ankhesenamun (= Ahinoam, A(nkh)-he-noam) who asked for a Hittite son to be King of Egypt:

"According to Hittite history, it was during the seige of Carchemish that Suppiluliumas received a message from widowed Queen Ankhesenamun, asking him for one of his sons to be king of Egypt."

Nefertiti was the wife of Echnaton (neo-Egyptological Akhenaten), both wrongly transcribed. Echnaton is actually King Saul of the Bible. Echnaton is Ish-Naton "father Nathan" and his (i.e. Saul's) son Jonathan is "young Nathan", Jo-Naton, so that these were Nathan Sr. and Nathan Jr. One could also view the names as being old (n)Aton and young Aton. Nathan in Hebrew means "gift of God" and compares to Adonis or Adonija.

The name "Saul" was applied biblically to the "Sun King" because Saul is an Indo-European term for "sun", as in the Latvian term Saule meaning "sun". King Saul viz. Echnaton viz. Akhenaten was a sun worshipper and became known to us as the first monotheistic king for this solar worship, which was presumably imported by his Hittite wife.

Nefertiti (correctly "Chetite") is rendered in the Bible as Ahinoam ("daughter of Ahi"), and Ahi was the Egyptian vizier, a Hittite, now transcribed as Ay:

"Nefertiti's origins are confusing. It has been suggested ... that Tiy was also her mother. Another suggestion is that Nefertiti was Akhenaten's cousin. Her wet nurse was the wife of the vizier Ay, who could have been Tiy's brother. Ay sometimes called himself "the God's father," suggesting that he might have been Akhenaten's father-in-law."

As we have discovered, Ay is equivalent to the Biblical priest Ahimaaz, who was the father of Ahinoam (Biblical scholars err in thinking there are two different personages: Ahimaaz, the father of Ahinoam, and also Ahimaaz (Achimas) the son of Zadok - both are the same):

"Ahimaaz: 1. The father Ahinoam, the wife of Saul (1 Sam. 14:50).... 2. The son and successor of Zadok in the office of highpriest (1 Chr. 6:8, 53). On the occasion of the revolt of Absalom he remained faithful to David, and was of service to him in conveying to him tidings of the proceedings of Absalom in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 15:24-37; 17:15-21). He was swift of foot, and was the first to carry to David tidings of the defeat of Absalom, although he refrained, from delicacy of feeling, from telling him of his death (2 Sam. 18:19-33)."

Noam in Hebrew means "pleasant, gentle, sweet, kind, and tender" and noam is actually the "male" version of no'omi, i.e. Naomi, so that a later Biblical gender change has occurred in this name. Nefertiti is translated similarly by the Egyptologists as "the beautiful one". Ahinoam is translated as "brother of pleasantness" which of course can not be right since this is a female. Accordingly, the name of the Hittite Queen was NAOMI "the pleasant one".

Biblical scholars also err in thinking that there are two Ahinoams, i.e. Naomis, one Ahinoam as the wife of Saul and Ahinoam of Jezreel (Israel) as the wife of David. Obviously, these are one and the same person, as David took the wife of Saul (Nefertiti) into his court upon Saul's death.

Hence, it is quite clear from the above analysis that the "Elder Woman" [Mummy 61070, as cataloged by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo] from tomb KV35 is Nefertiti, as correctly suggested by Susan E. James in her 2003 KMT article (Susan E. James, In a "Secret Chamber" in the Valley of the Kings: Dueling "Nefertitis"!, KMT, a Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt, 2003, Vol 14(3), pp. 22-29).

That mummy is not, as generally and erroneously believed to be, Queen Tiye, the wife of Amenhotep III. Rather the Elder Woman in KV35 is Naomi, the Hittite Queen, known to us as Nofretete or Nefertiti.

We also make here an aside on the only female Pharaoh: We agree with Donald P. Ryan that the reddish-blonde haired mummy of a woman found on the floor of Tomb 60 is Hatshepshut, together with her half-sister Neferura, the other female mummy found there. According to our research Hatshepshut is the Biblical Deborah who is called the woman of Lapidoth, a term erroneously assumed by some to be her husband, but elsewhere the term Lapidoth is correctly interpreted as "woman of fiery spirit", and is thus a reference to her red hair. Ramses II was also red-haired. The Pharaohs of Egypt definitely did not originally come from Egypt.

NEBRA SKY DISK ECLIPSE erroneously seen as Luni-Solar Intercalation

ABSTRACT

The Nebra Sky Disk as marking a solar eclipse was cleary deciphered by this author some time ago - see http://www.megaliths.net/nebraskydisk.pdf. Yet, there is no end to preposterous attempts by people with no experience in astronomical decipherment trying to come up with other solutions.

One of the more ridiculous attempts has now been communicated by the State Museum for Prehistory at Halle. This alleged decipherment begins by counting the number of stars on the disk and claiming that this is signficant for calendration, which is nonsense. There is no precedent for this kind of confused calculation anywhere.

Modern astronomers think that ancient astronomers thought the way that they think today. Thankfully, that was not the case. People in ancient days had a clear, straightforward approach to things, both in their astronomy as well as in their art. The mangled, convoluted explanations proposed by mainstream astronomers are of our troubled and tangled era, and not of the era of nearly 4000 years ago.

We repeat that the decipherment of the Nebra Sky Disk is determined by the fact that the Sun is NOT in the solar boat, where it is found only by night, according to the clear evidence of the Latvian Dainas. Hence, the Nebra Sky Disk can only represent the day sky and thus it can only be the representation of an eclipse, since the stars, sun and moon are all visible at the same time.

DETAILED PRESENTATION

We posted previously on the Nebra Sky Disk Revisited . This posting is a more detailed presentation.

Decipherment of the Nebra Sky Disk
as Depicting a Solar Eclipse
at the Pleiades and the Vernal Equinox Point on April 16, 1699 BC

As a bit of background information, let us say that we have been active in the decipherment of ancient astronomical artefacts for over thirty years. We pointed out some years ago (see our alleged Nebra Sky Disk Decipherment) that the key to decipherment of the Nebra Sky Disk (first discovered by fortune hunters in Germany in 1999) is determined by the fact that the Sun on that disk is NOT in the solar boat depicted on that same disk.

According to the clear and incontrovertible evidence of the Latvian Dainas, which represent an archaic status of Indo-European astronomical knowledge in northern Europe, the Sun is in the solar boat by night only, and not by day. Hence, the Nebra Sky Disk can only represent the sky by day and thus the disk can only be the representation of a solar eclipse, since the Sun, Moon and Stars are all depicted together on the disk, something which occurs only during the rare phenomenon of a solar eclipse.

The decipherment of the Nebra Sky Disk that we proposed two years ago is as follows:


An Adventurous Calendric Theory about the Nebra Sky Disk

Nevertheless, in spite of the clear depiction of the Sun, Moon and Stars on the Nebra Sky Disk, all kinds of adventurous theories have been presented about the disk, mostly by people with little experience in astronomical decipherment.

Surprisingly, some of the most obscure theories derive from mainstream astronomers who have decided to "dabble" in ancient decipherment, even though their learning is confined generally to modern astronomy, which is a horse of an entirely different color than ancient astronomy. Indeed, the decipherment of ancient artefacts is an undertaking for which no degrees are granted and for which no discipline therefore has a right to claim non-existent expertise. Rather, experience in decipherment is the key. Yet, whenever something like the Nebra Sky Disk surfaces, many would-be decipherers suddenly surface, especially if their academic specialty bears some plausible relation to the subject at hand. It is for example plausible to think that modern astronomers are the experts to consult on ancient astronomy. But that fact is that most modern astronomers know next to nothing about astronomy prior to the ancient Greeks.

The Disk is Erroneously Alleged to be an Intercalary Object

One such newer and quite erroneous interpretation of the Nebra Sky Disk is now being propagated by the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle/Saale, Germany, where the Nebra Sky Disk is displayed. This interpretation has even been irresponsibly released to the world press as "the [alleged] decipherment" of the Nebra Sky Disk.

Nothing could be further from the truth for this inept decipherment attempt.

The Museum's current pet theory merely supplants a previously supported and equally faulty theory which claimed that the disk showed the Pleiades and the Moon as markers for the sowing and reaping seasons in the Spring and the Autumn (thereby making an inappropriate connection to Hesiod's Works and Days). The connection to Hesiod was erroneously made because he was a Greek and because the average modern astronomer's knowledge of astronomy does not go back beyond that period, so, Greek it had to be.

In the first interpretation supported by the Museum, now discarded, the Moon was erroneously alleged to be depicted on the disk TWICE, as both a Waxing Moon and a Full Moon - a dual portrayal never seen on ancient artefacts and never referred to in ancient literature anywhere.

The new alleged decipherment now supported by the Museum begins amateurishly simply by counting the number of stars found on the Nebra Sky Disk and then claiming that this number is significant for lunar calendration, based on a comparison to the MUL.APIN Babylonian texts, to which the Nebra Sky Disk has no demonstrable connection. These Babylonian texts are a shade older than the Greeks, but not much. Hence, if not Greek, then Babylonian, that seems to be the logic involved.

Look at our illustration above. Does that look like a calendar?? There is no precedent for this kind of confused calculation anywhere in ancient astronomical artefacts. No one has ever counted moons by stars in the sky. Rather, lunar mansions and moon stations in the stars (the so-called Sanskrit Vedic naksatras [cf. Latvian nakts sadalas "night divisions"]) were used to divide up the sky, but the stars themselves never "counted" the moons in this manner.

The disk has numerous stars in gold upon on it. Some of these stars were removed in the creation process of the disk (see the blank "holes" in the above illustration) and covered over by the gold horizon bow, so that determining a fixed original intended number of stars seems pointless. This fact is conveniently ignored in the current interpretation.

In addition, we find a cluster of seven stars depicting the Pleiades (see J. Black & A. Green, Art. "Seven Dots", in Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia - An Illustrated Dictionary, British Museum Press, London, 1992, p. 162.)

These stars depict the Pleiades. They are definitely NOT counters.

All of these stars, including the "seven dots of the Pleiades" are now suddenly "lumped" together in this flawed interpretation favored by the Museum to allegedly give the solar number 32, which in fact does have to do with the Moon, as I showed long ago for the Minoan Luni-Solar Calendar Stone , but this has nothing to do with the Nebra Sky Disk. That this can not be right in the instant case is shown by the fact that the creator of the sky disk then removed two of those stars to make room for the gold horizon bow leaving only 30 stars. Alleging that 32 is significant here is simply ridiculous. Moreover, it is then alleged that the entire Nebra Sky Disk represents the Sun (even though that same disk clearly also shows the Sun, Moon and Stars - on top of the Sun??) and at some point this "Sun" is also counted as "1" for purposes of further alleged calendric calculations to get the number 33 (as shown by me at the Minoan Luni-Solar Calendar Stone , 32 solar years of 365 days are equal to 33 lunar years, less two days). The Minoan Luni-Solar Calendar Stone is a calendar, no doubt about it. The Nebra Sky Disk is not.

Why were the Pleiades Important in Ancient Days?

The flawed interpretation supported by the Museum shows a complete misunderstanding of the reason for the importance of the Pleiades in ancient cultures. The Pleiades were important in ancient days not because they had any connection to the position of the Moon and the intercalation of months, but rather because the Pleiades began the moon stations at the Vernal Equinox in the era when the moon station system was created by ancient astronomers.

In this regard, Subhash Kak writes in Babylonian and Indian Astronomy: Early Connections as follows:

"There were several traditions within the Vedic system. For example, the month was reckoned in one with the new moon, in another with the full moon.... Naksatras stand for stars, asterisms or segments of the ecliptic. The moon is conjoined with the 27 naksatras on successive nights in its passage around the earth; the actual cycle is of 27 1/3 days. Because of this extra one-third day, there is drift in the conjunctions that get corrected in three circuits. Also, the fact that the lunar year is shorter than the solar year by 11+ days implies a further drift through the naksatras that is corrected by the use of intercalary months. The earliest lists of naksatras in the Vedic books begin with Krttikas, the Pleiades ... [emphasis supplied]"

That same usage both in Vedic and Babylonian astronomy could only have originated back in an era when the Pleiades marked the Vernal Equinox, thus dating the origin of the Babylonian MUL.APIN and Vedic usage back to ca. 2340 BC, contrary to the opinion of mainstream historians of astronomy who are one Sothic period in error (One Sothic Period = 1460 + 1 years).

A doubting but in argument unconvincing Michael Witzel of Harvard University in Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts writes regarding the Sanskrit Vedic Shatapatha Brahmana (SB) [which can not have been written later than ca. 1900 BC when the Sarasvati River dried up, as the text refers to the migration away from that area]:

"Vedic astronomy has been discussed since Weber (1860), Thibaut (1885), Tilak (1893), Jacobi, Oldenberg and Whitney -- all of them writing well before the discovery of the Indus civilization, at a time when nothing of Indian prehistory was known before the supposedly firm date of the Buddha. [LawPundit adds: i.e. what they wrote on ancient astronomy and chronology is thus hopelessly wrong.] Some passages in the SB have been under discussion since then [LawPundit adds: because mainstream scholars are forced by the Indus Valley Civilization to see their "evidence" differently] that seem to refer to the equinoxes, and would indicate the date observation of these celestial phenomena. SB 2.1.2.3 seems to say that the spring equinox is in the asterism Krttika [Pleiades]... 'One should found one's fires under the (moon house of the) Krttikas [Pleiades]... These, they do not deviate from the eastern direction. All other moon houses, they deviate from the eastern direction....' This statement, if taken for a literal description of the 'immobile' position of the Pleiades, is possible only for the third millennium, at c. 2300 BCE (Kak even has 2950 BCE, cf. Elst 1999: 96) . Then, the Pleiades were at the equinox point, some 60 degrees off today's position due to precession (for details see Achar, EJVS 5.2, 1999). " [emphasis added]

Witzel is not prepared to take that statement at its clear face value and doubts (for what reason?) that the Vedas or MUL.APIN, which he also discusses, go back that far in time, and he is surely absolutely wrong in his assessment. See our discussion at LexiLine about the dating of MUL.APIN, referring to the work of Werner Papke in his book, Die Sterne von Babylon [The Stars of Babylon], who also sets a date of ca. 2340 BC for this system. See also our strong critique of the later and in our opinion erroneous chronology assigned to MUL.APIN by Hunger & Pingree.

In other words, the Pleiades were important to Sanskrit Vedic Culture and to the Babylonians and their predecessors, not because they were used together with the Moon for injecting an intercalary month, but because they marked the Vernal Equinox and the start of the year.

That is the historical reason why the Pleiades were and still are seen as being important by many cultures around the world, where no intercalation of months is in evidence. Hence, a solar eclipse at this location in the heavens was of course a monumental event in ancient days, and that is what the Nebra Sky Disk most likely commemorates. Intercalation, on the other hand, was a relatively frequent minor event.

Please note in this regard our view that the Pleiades at the "Winter Solstice" rather than at the "Vernal Equinox" must have also started the year in much more ancient prehistoric times, since, as Duncan Steel writes in Marking Time, Wiley & Sons, NY, 2000, p. 36:

"In many native tongues of South America the words for "year" and "Pleiades" are the same, impressing upon one the fact this was their sign of the annual cycle." Indeed, as we show in Stars Stones and Scholars, the bird on the pole in the Cave of the Deadman at Lascaux marks the Winter Solstice at the Pleiades in ca. 9273 B.C. The stars and the Pleiades have been with mankind for many millennia, long before the Vedas and the Babylonians.

Germanic Peoples Marked Time by the Sun

The interpretation favored by the Museum makes an abstruse and contrived connection to lunar intercalation in ancient Babylonia and gives the impression that the ancient Nordic and Germanic peoples calculated time by the Moon, for which there is no evidence anywhere, as Nordic cultures were all worshippers of the Sun. Indeed, the period of the Nebra Sky Disc is known for the solar worship of the Nordic Bronze Culture in Scandinavia and northern Germany.

This period also marks the neighboring Unetice Culture (Aunjetitzkultur), to which the Nebra Disk has been assigned, where "[a]rchaeological evidence suggests that the Unetice metal industry, though active and innovative, was concerned with producing weapons and ornaments mainly as status symbols for leading persons....", and such was surely the purpose of the Nebra Sky Disk shield and swords (for a map of these cultures see here). The Nebra Sky Disk was made for a prominent person.

Moreover, the alleged intercalary lunar importance of the position of the Moon with respect to the Pleiades is found nowhere in Germanic and Nordic artefacts - there is not even a hint of such calculations in ancient days in any of the evidence available, nor is there any mythology to this effect. This contrived connection is merely an artificial invention to support this completely faulty theory. There is no way that ancient northerly Germanic peoples used a lunar method of calendration which would be the same as that still used by the more southward culture of the Muslims today. Impossible.

In the north, the Sun has always predominated astronomy, but in the south, the Moon. This was the battle at the time of the Pharaonic "Sun King" Echnaton, who displaced the AMUN "MOON cult" with solar worship. That modernization was short and ill-fated.

Moreover, the flawed interpretation supported by the Museum is based on Babylonian lunar calendration found in the MUL.APIN tablets, tablets for which our site LexiLine was for some years the main and nearly only presence on the internet about these cuneiform texts, so that we have some familiarity with their content, having translated Werner Papke's interpretation of MUL.APIN from German to English. In recent years, of course, more websites on MUL.APIN have appeared. MUL.APIN relates principally to the rising and setting of stars based upon a civil calendar of 12 months of 30 days each (plus 5 days at year-end), a calendar previously long used in Pharaonic Egypt and first adjusted to the tropical year of 365.25 days in Egypt by Pharaoh Khasekhemwy.

Lunar intercalation of the type discussed in the interpretation supported by the Museum was a very late development according to the evidence thus far available, much later in time than the date assigned to the making of the Nebra Sky Disk.

In addition, this alleged decipherment of the Nebra Sky Disk as supported by the Museum thus pretends that the ancients went to all of this trouble to make a unique and incomparable gold-studded disk merely so that it could be held up in the air by "elite priests" (what else?) to see if the Moon was newly waxing at a certain location in the sky. This is something which any child could do at any time without such a disk as a memory device. The explanation is preposterous.

Furthermore, if this intercalary practice had actually been followed regularly by the ancients in northern Europe, as alleged, then we would find many but simpler artefacts of this nature in northern Europe showing the development of this practice of calendration and sky-viewing in the eras prior to the Nebra Sky Disk. We would also see the continued use of this practice in the eras after the making of the Nebra Sky Disk. In fact, we find nothing in the available record. Rather, once the solar eclipse significance of the Nebra Sky Disk was lost to following generations, it was buried in the ground to protect the gold on it. It was not used for "Moon viewing".

The alleged intercalary decipherment favored by the Museum is nothing else but a fata morgana in the eyes of a few contemporary German scholars who want us to believe that not only did the ancient Germanic peoples use intercalary lunar months long before the Babylonians did, but that they used the same virtual identical method, one thousand years previous.

In fact, as we can read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Calendar" (Macropedia, Volume 15, 15th edition), lunar intercalation in the Near East began in the 3rd millennium BC when it was still quite haphazard and was only standardized ca. 380 BC by intercalations in the years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19. In ca. 432 BC the Greek Meton, known for the Metonic Cycle, calculated that one could simply insert an intercalary lunar month of 33 days every third year.

No need for a disk. No need at all, to make this calculation. Indeed, no one would make a gold disk like this for such an alleged everyday calendric intercalary purpose - a gold disk to be held up against the sky for comparison with the crescent of the moon.

In addition, the width of the Moon on the disk is far wider than it should be for the alleged purpose. Rather, this is quite a typical rendition of a crescent Moon and similar in size and shape to what any of us would draw if asked to draw the Moon. The creator of the Nebra Sky Disk was not trying to draw any particular crescent Moon. He was simply representing THE MOON next to THE SUN as found in THE STARS. Period.

Another problem with the alleged decipherment favored by the Museum is that it does not account for the presence of the Sun on the disk, nor for the solar boat. Decipherments must explain an artefact fully, and not just some part of it. The calendration theory is prima facie wrong already because of the presence of the Sun on the Nebra Sky Disk. A lunar intercalation would not require this depiction, nor would anyone depict a lunar intercalation in this manner - and, indeed, looking at all known archaeological artefacts and literature we can see that no one else has, ever.

As a matter of simple logic - and the simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one for mankind and astronomy in the Neolithic era - it is quite clear that the unique and singular Nebra Sky Disk was specially made to commemorate an equally unique and special event, i.e. a solar eclipse at the Pleiades at the Vernal Equinox point in 1699 BC, a date which matches the estimated date of the making of the Nebra Sky Disk at ca. 1700 BC. The Nebra Sky Disk was definitely not made as a calendar functioning by a Moon count of stars on a disk in an era and for a region where there is no other evidence at all for this kind of usage.

As we have previously written concerning the previous faulty theory of the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, "there is simply no evidence to support the hypothesis ... that the Pleiades were used in conjunction with the Moon for astronomical orientation... in the cultural region in which the Sky Disk of Nebra was found (Germany and northern Europe)."

Quite the contrary. Professor Dr. Rolf Mueller examined 59 megalithic sites in France (Brittany), Ireland, Scotland and northern Germany and found that the rising and the setting of the Pleiades played no discernible role in ancient times in Germany or in northern Europe. See Der Himmel Ueber dem Menschen der Steinzeit: Astronomie und Mathematik in den Bauten der Megalithkulturen [The Sky Above Neolithic Man: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Structure of Megalithic Cultures], Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1970, where Mueller writes at Fig. 64:"As far as orientation of sites by the stars is concerned ... Capella and Deneb are worthy of mention, whereas I do not hold much of the theory that the Pleiades or Orion were used for such purposes." [our translation from the German]

Similarly, the late Gerald S. Hawkins, who studied Stonehenge by computer analysis in Stonehenge Decoded, Doubleday, NY, 1965, negated the idea that the Pleiades played any role at Stonehenge (p. 132). What we know today as "Stonehenge", although there were previous constructions, dates to the same general era as the Nebra Sky Disk (ca. 1700 BC).