Part I

In Ages in Chaos,[1] the first volume of the

I should rightly begin by making it clear that I am convinced that the Punt expedition cannot be equated with the queen of Sheba’s visit to Jerusalem. While it might suffice to proceed immediately to a response to Velikovsky’s thesis in this regard, I prefer to take a different tack and respond to the main arguments and pieces of evidence cited by Velikovsky in his chapter. I do this because scholars of the ancient Near East have been remarkably silent regarding Ages in Chaos in the nearly five decades since its appearance,[2] and I think that lay readers would be

Part II

1. On page 105, Velikovsky writes, “If Solomon was really a renowned king, as the Hebrew sources describe him, then the absence of any contact between this queen and this king is difficult to explain. It would, indeed, be very singular, for these two rulers were no ordinary occupants of throne halls, but very excellent suzerains. Nor would it fit our notion of the adventure-loving character of Queen Hatshepsut, or the words of praise: ‘Thy name reaches as far as the circuit of heaven, the fame of Makare (Hatshepsut) encircles the sea,’ and ‘her fame has encompassed the Great Circle’ (ocean). Neither would it accord with our idea of King Solomon, whose capital was visited by ambassadors from many countries and who had personal contact with many sovereigns: “And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon’ (II Chronicles 9:23), and ‘all the earth sought to Solomon. . . .’ (I Kings 10:24). Was the queen of Egypt excluded from ‘all the kings’?” (The Egyptian text references to Hatshepsut’s fame are cited by Velikovsky in footnotes.) I quote these words at length because in them, having made the point that Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporaries, Velikovsky leads the reader to expect that they would be mentioned in one another’s records.

This is misleading to the general reader, for in point of fact, there is no reason to have such an expectation. While I would not argue that one never finds the name of a foreign ruler in Egyptian texts, the fact of the matter is that such a mention is highly exceptional. What we normally find is generalizing statements referring to the world or foreign lands in general (just as in the two references cited by Velikovsky), or general references to foreign rulers, who are referred to with the plural noun “chiefs.” Alternatively, the Egyptian texts might refer to a specific ruler, but not by his personal name. To cite an example familiar to readers of Ages in Chaos, Velikovsky argues in Chapter IV that Thutmose III’s campaign after the death of Hatshepsut is to be identified with Shishak’s campaign against Rehoboam, so that “the ‘wretched foe,’ the king of Kadesh, was Rehoboam” (p. 153). Yet, the name of Thutmose’s Asiatic foe is never stated in the Egyptian account. Confining ourselves to instances cited by Velikovsky, he is referred to in such terms as “The wretched enemy [the chief] of Kadesh has come and entered into Megiddo” and “the wretched foe of Kadesh [Kds] and the wretched foe of this city were hauled up in haste to bring them into this city” (both passages cited on p. 149).[3]

By the same token, the Biblical words cited by Velikovsky, as quoted above, in regard to Solomon might lead one to expect that many monarchs are mentioned by name in the records of his reign. Yet, in the passages dealing with peaceful relations during Solomon’s reign (I Kings 3:5 and 9-11; II Chronicles 1 and 8-9), we find reference only to “Pharaoh” or “Pharaoh, king of Egypt,” Hiram of Tyre, and the queen of Sheba.

It should be clear that had the name of Solomon appeared in the Punt reliefs, or in any of Hatshepsut’s records or the tomb inscriptions of her officials, or had the name of Hatshepsut appeared in the biblical account (see also point 6 below), scholars would long ago have recognized the synchronism of the Eighteenth Dynasty with the Hebrew monarchy, and the identity of the Punt expedition with the queen of Sheba’s visit. Indeed, had either royal name explicitly appeared in the record of the other monarch, Velikovsky would have had to argue no further. Quite contrary to the impression the Velikovsky conveys in the remarks cited verbatim above, it is the absence of such an explicit mention that compels him to argue at great length to establish the identity.

2. On page 106, Velikovsky quotes the motive for the queen of Sheba’s journey: “‘And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem. . . .’” The motive for Hatshepsut’s expedition, as preserved in the Egyptian records, is presented as a command of the god Amon: “Sailing . . . to the land of Punt . . . according to the command of the Lord of Gods, Amon, lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, in order to bring for him the marvels of every country, for he so much loves the King of Upper and Lower Egypt . . .”;[4]

I have cited all four references to the motive for the expedition that we find in the Punt reliefs in order to show that Velikovsky is not correct when he states in his summary at the end of the chapter, “The complete agreement in the details of the voyage and in many accompanying data makes it evident that the Queen [of] Sheba and Queen Hatshepsut were one and the same person” (p. 141). Here, as in other instances that will be explored below, there is no such “complete agreement.” The Egyptian texts state the motive for the expedition to be the searching out of the route to Punt so as to bring that land’s goods directly from there (as opposed to engaging in indirect trade through intermediaries, as had previously been the case[8]), and more specifically to

3. On page 107, Velikovsky cites Josephus’ account of the queen of Sheba’s journey, which begins, “Now the woman who at that time ruled as queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. . . .” On page 127, he quotes Josephus again: “And the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia . . . returned to her own country.” I must signal these citations in all fairness, since they certainly give one pause. In response, I can only say the following, though its force might not seem evident to those not well versed in these matters: we know, on the basis of our ability to read the ancient texts, that a great deal of what authors of the classical period had to say about Egypt and the Near East in general, when they wrote of matters not contemporary with them or in their immediate past, is full of errors both great and small. Thus, while scholars today do not entirely ignore the classical sources, we base our conclusions primarily on the more ancient sources themselves, and we do not accept any given detail in the classical sources unless it is clearly corroborated by the ancient Near Eastern evidence itself. Hence, we can accept Josephus’ reference to “the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia” as an accurate substitution for the biblical “queen of Sheba” only if records contemporary with the event itself unequivocally support it; and it is my purpose to argue that they do not.

Now, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporary, but that Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition was not the queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon (see Part IV below). Might not Josephus have been aware of their contemporaneity and, being a Jewish scholar enjoying the favor of the Roman leadership in the time of Vespasian, writing with the project of making a favorable impression of his people on his masters,[9] simply

If we do not grant this contemporaneity, however (and scholars of the ancient Near East do not), then perhaps we are left with a perplexing historical inaccuracy. But considering that the queen involved is not named by either Josephus or the Old Testament (see points 5 and 6 below), the motive for the substitution of “Egypt and Ethiopia” for “Sheba” suggested in the last paragraph could still be proposed.

4. On pages 106-112, Velikovsky discusses the difficulties that modern scholarship has encountered in identifying the exact location of the biblical land of Sheba as well as that of the land of Punt often mentioned in Egyptian texts. Let us dwell for a moment on the name Sheba. As the name of a country, it is attested a number of times in the Old Testament other than in the story of the queen of Sheba, and it is frequently enough mentioned in close connection with the names of Arabian tribes that there has been a scholarly consensus that it was a trading nation located in the southwest of the Arabian peninsula, in the area of modern Yemen.[10] It is worth mentioning here that

5. Velikovsky does not tackle the difficulty presented by the Biblical designation “queen of Sheba” (after all, why not “queen of Egypt”?) head on, but rather treats of the matter in two widely separated, brief statements in this chapter: “Neither of the two Talmuds contains any clear historical reference to the mysterious adventurous queen. However the opinion is expressed in the Talmud that ‘Sheba’ in the name Queen of Sheba is not a geographical designation but a personal name” (pp. 106-107); and “The complete agreement in the details of the voyage and in many accompanying data makes it evident that the Queen [of] Sheba and Queen Hatshepsut were one and the same person, with the footnote, “Shwa (the Hebrew for Sheba) might be the last part of the name Hatshepsut. R. Engelbach, The Problem of the Obelisks (London, 1923), spells her name Hatshepsowet. The final t in her name was not pronounced. Naville (Deir el Bahari) spells it Hatshepsu. It was usual to shorten the Egyptian names: so Amenhotep was often shortened to Hui” (p. 141). Writing at a much later date, Velikovsky added the following: “the Septuagint (‘translation of seventy’) that dates from the third century before the present era and similarly the Vulgate (the earliest Latin translation) see in Shwa (Seba) the personal name of the Queen (Regina Seba), not the name of a region.”[11]

Several responses can be made to these points. First of all, not all Egyptian names are attested with a shortened form, and no shortened form of Hatshepsut is in fact attested; thus, we do not know what the shortened form of the name would be, or even whether such a form existed. Moreover, is it not asking too much of coincidence that this purported short form of the name Hatshepsut is precisely identical to the name of the land of Sheba, which is well attested in the Old Testament (e.g., Isaiah 60:6, Jeremiah 6:20, Ezekiel 27:22, Psalms 72:10, Job 6:19), a fact not clearly brought out by Velikovsky? Velikovsky might also have made it clear that the Massoretic text (that is, the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament) clearly writes malkat shba, where the grammatical form malkat is unequivocally what grammarians call status constructus, that is, a form that indicates that the word following it is in genitival relationship, thus “queen of Sheba.” Had the Massoretic text wished to indicate “queen Sheba,” with Sheba being the personal name of the queen, it would have written the first word differently, thus: malkah shba.

The evidence cited by Velikovsky for an alternative understanding must be taken seriously, of course. The Massoretic text writes malkat shba “the queen of Sheba,” and it was this version that Matthew and Luke knew when they wrote of “the queen of the South” who “came from the ends of the earth” (see point 4 above). It is possible to argue that there was another Hebrew textual tradition, one that has not survived, that wrote malkah shba “queen Sheba,” and that this accounts for what we find in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Talmud.[12] But it is not necessary to

6. The preceding argument is sufficient to show that we ought to see in the biblical word shba a reference to “Sheba” or “a Sabean,” and not a reflection of the Egyptian name Hatshepsut. However, it is possible to pursue the matter further, taking a different tack altogether.

The most common designation for the Egyptian king in the Bible is the title “Pharaoh” alone, with no further specification (thus, e.g., Genesis 12:15, 37:36, 40:2). Less frequently, the designation is “Pharaoh king of Egypt” (e.g., 1 Kings 3:1, 2 Kings 17:7 and 18:21), again with no mention of the monarch’s name. Still less frequent, though it occurs, is the insertion of the monarch’s name into the designation just mentioned, thus: “Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt” (2 Kings 23:29), “Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt” (Jeremiah 44:30). There are a few other, relatively unique, possibilities. “Pharaoh Necho” occurs in 2 Kings 23:33 and 35, but this is in the continuation of the narrative introduced by the full form “Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt” just quoted. We also find the omission of “Pharaoh” in “Shishak king of Egypt” in 1 Kings 11:40, 14:25 and 2 Chronicles 12:2 and 9) (“Shishak” occurs alone, with no royal titles, in 2 Chronicles 12:5 and 7, but these references are inserted into the narrative between the two fuller references to “Shishak king of Egypt” just quoted) and “So king of Egypt” in 2 Kings 17:4. “King of Egypt” is melek mitsraim in Hebrew. “Queen of Egypt” does not occur in the Old Testament, but if it did, it would be malkat mitsraim.

The proper name first, followed by the word melek “king” and the name of the monarch’s country, is the standard way of referring to foreign kings other than the Egyptian king; thus, e.g., in the long list of kings in Genesis 14 that begins with “Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedolaomer king of Elam . . .” “king” (or “queen”) followed by a personal name does occur, but always, by a peculiarity of Hebrew usage, with the definite article “the”; thus, e.g., ha-melek dawid “king David” (1 Kings 1:1); ha-melek shlomo “king Solomon” (1 Kings 7:13). This usage can be applied to foreign as well as Hebrew monarchs: thus, e.g., ha-melek achashwerush “king Ahasuerus” (Esther 1:2 and 9); ha-malkah ‘ashta “queen Vashti” (Esther 1:9). In the later books of the Old Testament, the word order can be reverse, but the definite article is still used; thus, e.g., artachshast ha-melek “Artaxerxes the king” (Ezra 8:1; and note, just before this, artachshast malka’, Ezra 7:21, which is Aramaic rather than Hebrew and the -a’ at the end of the word is the definite article in Aramaic). As the example from Esther 1:9 shows, the way to say “queen” followed by a personal name in biblical Hebrew is thus “ha-malkah so-and-so.” By a peculiarity of Hebrew grammar that might seem contrary to our expectations, a definite noun (or more accurately put, a noun that we would precede by the word “the”) loses its definite article in the status constructus, so that ha-malkah ‘ashta “queen Vashti” looks (to us) in Hebrew like “the queen Vashti,” while malkat shba “the queen of Sheba” is expressed without ha- “the.”

Returning to the story of Solomon and his queenly visitor, it follows from these observations of Hebrew grammar that malkat shba, with the status constructus form malkat, with shba following malkat rather than preceding it, and lacking the definite article, can only be interpreted as “the queen of Sheba”; Velikovksy’s suggested interpretation “queen Sheba” would have to be expressed in Hebrew as ha-malkah shba or shba ha-malkah “Sheba the queen.”[14] But does not

Let us take the matter a bit further. As noted above, Velikovsky rather disingenuously remarks, “Shwa (the Hebrew for Sheba) might be the last part of the name Hatshepsut. . . . It was usual to shorten the Egyptian names: so Amenhotep was often shortened to Hui” (p. 141, n. 2). Might it indeed be? The shortened forms of Egyptian names to which Velikovsky alludes are nicknames, much like ours, as when we call someone named Frederick “Fred” or “Freddie,” or someone named Dorothy “Dottie.” Would the Hebrew authors have been aware of Hatshepsut’s nickname (assuming she had one; none is attested)? And even if they were, would they have used it? To state the matter in terms of one of the modern examples just cited, for the sake of clarity: If the queen of Egypt had been named Dorothy, and if she had journeyed to Jerusalem in awe of Solomon, would not the Hebrew authors have referred to her as “Pharaoh Dorothy queen of Egypt,” or “Dorothy queen of Egypt”? Would anyone seriously propose that the Hebrew authors would have called her “queen Dottie”?

One final, and perhaps anticlimactic, point remains to be raised. The last part of Hatshepsut’s name, if it was in fact pronounced -showe (in fact, we do not know the exact pronunciation, for we do not know what the vowels were) has a “w”; the Egyptian language also had a “b,” and the Egyptians could represent it in their writing system. By the same token, the Hebrew name shba has a “b,” and the Hebrew alphabet has a separate letter for “w.” This point and all the others raised here and in section 5 above lead to the following conclusion regarding Velikovsky’s proposed equation of shba with the last part of Hatshepsut’s name: the two cannot be equated, because they do not equate.[15]

7. On pages 108-111, Velikovsky discusses the question of the location of the land of Punt. It would be helpful to begin by clearing up confusions regarding the alternate designations “Punt” and the “Land of God,” and the meaning of the latter; these confusions are not to be attributed to Velikovsky, but to insufficient clarity in the Egyptological literature. Ta-netjer (I prefer this spelling) means, literally, “the land of the god” (we don’t know which god). The translation “Divine Land” appears in Egyptological literature, but this is only a convention, and a potentially misleading one: the way to express this meaning in Egyptian would be ta-netjery, where the ending -y makes an adjective “divine” out of the word “god.” Velikovsky’s rendering “Holy Land” (introduced on p. 108) is thus based on the less accurate translation. Further, it is interpretive on his part and stems from his desire to equate Punt with “the region of Jerusalem” (p. 112). The word for “holy” in Egyptian is djeser,[16] and the name ta-

More importantly, it is necessary to recognize a fundamental distinction. Punt is a geographical designation for a specific place (the technical term is “toponym”). Ta-netjer (“Land of God,” “God’s Land”) is not a toponym, but rather a descriptive phrase, and as such can be applied to various geographical locations.[18] (By way of

8. In the course of the aforementioned discussion, Velikovsky makes the statement, “The name of Punt or Divine (God’s) Land is not accompanied by the sign designating a foreign country, showing that the Egyptians regarded Punt as a land affiliated in some way with Egypt” (p. 109); this argument is repeated on page 117, with a footnote showing that it is derived from a statement by Naville in his publication of Hatshepsut’s monument at Deir el Bahari. It is unfortunate that Velikovsky did not know ancient Egyptian, for Naville’s statement is quite mistaken. Not only is the name Punt typically written with the foreign-country determinative in Egyptian texts as a whole, but I have checked the Deir el Bahari inscriptions[19] and found

9. Again in the same discussion, Velikovsky points out, “In a number of Egyptian inscriptions Punt is mentioned as situated to the east of Egypt” (p. 109); in his summary at the end of the chapter, he states, “I also had to show that Punt and the Divine Land are Phoenicia and Palestine. Repeated reference to Punt as a country east of Egypt exclude Somaliland” (p. 140). These are rather remarkable statements, for they give the impression that the Egyptian texts represent Punt as being due east of Egypt, whereas the merest glance at a map (the ones published in each volume of the “Ages in Chaos” series will do) show that Phoenicia is not due east of Egypt, and that only the northernmost part of the Nile delta is due west of Palestine, the northernmost tip of the Nile delta being at about the latitude of Jerusalem. What is due east of the vast majority of Egypt, and let us bear in mind particularly the major capital cities of Memphis in the north and Thebes in the south, are the Sinai peninsula and the Arabian desert. The real choice for the location of Punt, therefore, is not between east and south, but between approximately SSE (for Somaliland and/or the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula as Egyptological literature has it) and approximately NE from Memphis or NNE from Thebes (for Phoenicia and Palestine, as Velikovsky would have it).

I do not wish to dwell here on distinctions such as NE versus NNE, for these are not germane to the way that the ancient Egyptians expressed themselves. For the most part, they referred only to the four cardinal points. Moreover, to them the basic dichotomy of east and west was simply that between the side of the Nile on which the sun rose, and that on which it set, all along the Nile river, which flows in a basically south-north direction. Thus, when an ancient Egyptian text makes a statement such as “When I turn my face to the sunrise . . . I cause to come to thee the countries of Punt” (cited by Velikovsky, p. 109), we are informed only that Punt is on the sunrise or east side—as opposed to the sunset or west side—of the Nile, with no further guidance as to whether the true direction was NNE, SSE, or anything between.

10. In the same discussion, Velikovsky asserts that “the name Punt or Pont can be traced to ‘Pontus, father of Poseidon and Sidon,’ as narrated by Sanchoniaton, the early Phoenician writer. Sidon was a Phoenician metropolis” (p. 110; see also p. 137); he also refers to “a passage in Herodotus, who wrote that the Phoenicians at an early date came from the Eritrean Sea to the Mediterranean” (p. 111), and in a paper written many years later, he cites Herodotus again to account for any explicit references to Punt as a southern country that might appear in Egyptian literature (though, strangely, he does not cite any such references).[20] In Chapter III of Ages in Chaos, he seeks

The name “Phoenicia” refers to that part of the Mediterranean coastal strip which included the city-states of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arwad and Ugarit.[21] Even if “Punt”

It would be worthwhile at this point to look more closely at the Egyptian word “Punt,” which is spelled pwnt in the consonantal system of the hieroglyphic script. The final “t” is not part of the “root” of the word, but rather the consonantal part of a grammatical ending showing that the word is of feminine gender; for the most part, names of countries are grammatically feminine in ancient Egyptian.[24] This “t” actually ceased to be

In an article supportive of Velikovsky’s identification of “Punt” and “Phoenicia,” Ralph E. Juergens and Lewis M. Greenberg[27] have correctly pointed out that

The origin of the Latin word “pontifex” does not need explanation here. The name “Phoenicia” was not used by the “Phoenicians” in reference to themselves in Old Testament times; it is derived from a native word for red dye, to be sure, but the place-name and gentilic in reference to them were invented by the Greeks, and the name entered the area—along with the Greek language—after the conquest of Alexander the Great, so that it could appear in the New Testament. The Greek word pontos (Latin pontus), containing the consonant “t” in its root, has of course no etymological relation to the word “Phoenicia,” which lacks the “t”; it is a Greek word meaning “sea,” and the tradition of a “Pontus” (i.e., “Sea”) who was the ancestor of the Phoenician people is perhaps a tribute to their seafaring prowess. We know the work of Sanchoniaton, a Phoenician writer, through fragments of a translation of it into Greek by Philo of Byblos in the first century of the present era; what Philo translated as “Pontos” was presumably a native Semitic word for “sea.” It might also be noted that Sanchoniaton’s tradition that Pontos (“sea”) was the father of Poseidon (the Greek sea-god, again Philo’s substitution for the name of a Semitic sea-god) and Sidon (a city) perhaps reflects an indigenous, pre-Greek, custom of the inhabitants of calling themselves “Sidonians,” as noted above. Herodotus’ report that the Phoenicians thought they originated on the shores of the Eritrean (Red) Sea has noting to do with the place-names “Phoenicia” and “Punt” (as Velikovsky would have it), as we have seen. It must stand as a classical tradition unconfirmed by the surviving earlier documentation. If the tradition was not historically accurate, one might conjecture that it was an attempt, in Greek times, to account for the identical forms of the Greek words libanos “frankincense tree” (incense was imported from the Red Sea area) and libanos “Mount Lebanon.” (Actually, both words are borrowings from Semitic words based on the root “white”: the purest frankincense is white in color, while the eastern ridge of Mount Lebanon is partly covered by perpetual snow.[30]).

11. On page 115, Velikovsky notes that after the Egyptian fleet landed in Punt, a royal messenger was greeted by “‘a chief of Punt P’-r’hw’ (Perehu or Paruah)” (the words in single quotes are from an annotation to the scene; the words in parentheses are Velikovsky’s). In the two short paragraphs that follow, he goes on to state, “Paruah must have been Solomon’s representative in the land of Edom, possibly an Edomite vassal of his. Among the twelve governors of King Solomon—at a later period in his reign (when some of these officials were his sons-in-law)—one was a son of Paruah (I Kings 4:17). Jehoshaphat, the son of Paruah, was governor in Ezion-Geber and Aloth; his father, apparently, administered the same region.”

The alert reader undoubtedly is aware that the biblical text does not affirm that Paruah preceded his son Jehoshaphat in this position; this is inferential on Velikovsky’s part. Velikovsky’s vocalizations “Perehu, Paruah” are also without justification, and even if they were, the name of the chief of Punt cannot be equated with the biblical Paruah.

Renderings of Hebrew names into our alphabet frequently do not distinguish between the two quite different letters in Hebrew that can both be transcribed “h.” One of these is an “h” like ours, while the other is pronounced like the “ch” in the German word ach. It is this second letter that actually appears in the biblical name, so that a better transcription would be “Paruach.” the ancient Egyptian language also had both these sounds, represented by different signs, and the sound that is represented in the Egyptian “P’-r’hw” is the “h” like our “h.” Thus, the identification of the two names is not tenable, since it results from an incorrect understanding of the consonant in the biblical name.

However, it is possible to take the matter further. The renderings “Perehu” and “Paruah” for the name in the Egyptian text are merely conjectural on Velikovsky’s part. We cannot in fact arrive at a conclusive rendering, but we can come close. The name is written in the so-called “syllabic orthography” that was used in the New Kingdom to write foreign words and names. The sign-groups in the orthography were designed to help the Egyptian reader deal with these foreign terms by indicating the position of the vowels as well as the consonants—though, unfortunately for us, they are not absolutely specific as to what the vowels were. William Foxwell Albright long ago put together the words written in this syllabic orthography with their attested equivalents in Hebrew and cuneiform, where the vowels are written, so as to arrive at the allowable possibilities for rendering each syllabic sign group in this orthography.[31] His results show that p’ stands for “pa, pi,”[32] r’ for “ra, la,”[33] and hu for “hu.”[34] This

12. It is the universal opinion among Egyptologists that Hatshepsut did not lead the expedition to Punt herself, and if this is so, then there can be no equation of that expedition with the queen of Sheba’s personal visit to Solomon in Jerusalem. Thus, on pages 116–119, Velikovsky devotes a section to the proposal that, as indicated by its title, “Hatshepsut Led the Expedition to the Divine Land.” He acknowledges that Hatshepsut is not shown on any of the boats in the representation of the departure of the fleet, but notes that there is a representation of her in much larger scale than the fleet in this depiction. Since it was common practice to represent the Egyptian monarch on a larger scale than ordinary mortals, he notes that it would have been impossible to depict her on one of the boats, so that the representation as we have it is sufficient to indicate her participation in the expedition (p. 116). Eva Danelius, in an article supportive of the equation of the Punt expedition and the queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon, has repeated this point, noting the unlikelihood of Breasted’s suggestion that the depiction is one of a statue of Hatshepsut that was to be erected in Punt.[35] To these

13. Velikovsky begins this section of the chapter as follows: “The next picture shows the departure of a fleet of five vessels; three are under sail, while two are still moored. The inscription reads: ‘Sailing in the sea, beginning the goodly way toward God’s Land, journeying in peace to the land of Punt . . .’” If one wonders what appears in the ellipsis left by Velikovsky, one can turn to Breasted’s translation, from which he is quoting: “. . . journeying in peace to the land of Punt, by the army of the Lord of the Two Lands, according to the command of the Lord of the Gods, Amon, lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, in order to bring for him the marvels of every country, because he so much loves the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, [Makere (Hatshepsut)], for his father Amon-Re, lord of Heaven, lord of earth, more than the other kings who have been in this land forever.”[38] I have quoted the continuation in full to

On page 117, we find the following passage, which includes a quotation from the Punt reliefs: “Queen Hatshepsut undertook the journey like a devout pilgrim who, hearing an inner bidding, takes staff in hand: “. . . a command was heard from the great throne, an oracle of the god himself, that the ways to Punt should be searched out, that the highways to the myrrh-terraces should be penetrated: “I will lead the army on water and on land, to bring marvels from God’s land for this god, for the fashioner of her beauty. . . .”’ It was an oracle or a mysterious voice that Queen Hatshepsut heard within her, and she thought it was her god.” What immediately follows the portion of the text quoted by Velikovsky should also be noted; we begin with the last words he quotes. “‘I will lead the army on water and on land, to bring marvels from God’s land for this god, for the fashioner of her beauty.’ It was done, according to all that the majesty of this revered god commanded, according to the desire of her majesty (fem.), in order that she might be given life, stability, and satisfaction, like Re, forever.”[41] When the passage quoted by Velikovsky is read

The only other passage from the Punt reliefs that Velikovsky quotes in connection with his contention that Hatshepsut led her expedition is cited on page 118: “(I have led them [the company of the expedition] on water and on land, to explore the waters of inaccessible channels, and I have reached the myrrh-terraces.” He alludes to this passage again on page 121: “The queen wished to see with her own eyes the land of which she had heard marvelous reports. She decided to tread and to explore that land (‘I have led them on water and land’); she reached that country (‘I have reached the myrrh-terraces’); and she found it glorious. It is evidently this passage that Velikovsky has in mind when he states on page 140, in his summary of the chapter, “That she participated in the expedition is not difficult to establish by explicit statements, in which she calls herself the leader of the expedition.” One might wonder how Egyptologists could be so obtuse in denying Hatshepsut’s participation in the expedition (regardless of its actual destination!) if the statements are indeed so explicit. Once again, we must consider the passage cited by Velikovsky in context, this time including the sentences that immediately precede and follow it. For ease of reference in the ensuing discussion, I shall number the sentences: “(1) The marvels brought thence under thy fathers, the Kings of Lower Egypt, were brought from one to another, and since the time of the ancestors of the Kings of Upper Egypt, who were of old, as a return for many payments; none reaching them except thy carriers. (2) But I will cause thy army to tread them, I have led them on water and land, to explore the waters of inaccessible channels, and I have reached the Myrrh-terraces. (3) It is a glorious region of God’s-Land; it is indeed my place of delight. (4) I have made it for myself. . . .[42]

From this fuller citation, the reader can easily see that these are words of Amon-Re addressed to Hatshepsut; it is, in fact, part of a long speech of Amon-Re following Hatshepsut’s presentation to him of products brought back by the expedition.[43] In the portion cited, the god notes that

I think one is entitled, at this juncture, to express an objection that Velikovsky quoted part of sentence (2), while suppressing sentence (1) and the first clause of sentence (2), which make it clear that Hatshepsut is the addressee, not the speaker, of the words. Reason for objection increases when one notes that sentences (3) and (4) are cited by Velikovsky in Chapter IV, page 146, where he writes: “Already in the oracle scene of the Punt expedition it is said in the name of the god “Amon-Ra: ‘It is a glorious region of God’s Land, it is indeed my place of delight. I have made it for myself. . . . I know [them], I am their wise lord, I am the begetter Amon-Ra.’” Objection shades into incredulity when one notes—and this “clue” was there all along for some astute reader to discover—that Velikovsky makes the connection between sentence (2) and sentence (3) on page 120, where he writes: “The queen who came from the plains of Egypt later wrote on stone: ‘I have reached the myrrh-terraces. It is a glorious region of God’s Land.’” In short, Velikovsky must have known that he was putting Amon-Re’s words into Hatshepsut’s mouth to “prove” that she led her expedition to Punt!

14. The passage from the speech of Amon-Re just discussed shows clearly that Hatshepsut’s expedition was a voyage of exploration and discovery, and I have remarked that logically its object could not possibly have been the land of Israel. Let us apply logic to the next point raised by Velikovsky as well. In the biblical text, it is clear that the queen of Sheba’s journey was motivated by the reputation of Solomon himself. Thus, II Chronicles 9:1 begins the narrative of this even, “Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon she came to Jerusalem . . ., while I Kings 10:1 uses almost the same words: “Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came. . . . She came to Jerusalem. “ Josephus, as quoted by Velikovsky (p. 107), stresses the same point: “. . . when she heard of Solomon’s virtue and understanding, [she] was led to him by a strong desire to see him which arose from the things told daily about his country.” The only passage from the Punt reliefs regarding the reputation of Punt is quoted by Velikovsky on page 121: “It was heard of from mouth to mouth by hearsay of the ancestors. . . .” (I have cited this passage in fuller context in note 8.) Since this statement is quoted in isolation, and without a footnote reference, it is worth noting that it is from the long speech of Amon-Re and immediately precedes sentence (1) of the passage just discussed; thus, it is a part of the text’s stress on the long period when Egypt and Punt had no direct relations.[45]

15. On page 123, in describing the scene in the Punt reliefs in which Hatshepsut dedicates products obtained by the expedition to Amun, Velikovsky states, “She gave gold and received ‘green gold of the land of Amu’. . . .” This phrase “green gold of the land of Amu” is quoted very much in passing, and I pause here to comment on it only because it has been cited and discussed by Eva Danelius in an article supportive of Velikovsky’s argument. She suggests that the “green gold” is copper, but this is not the point on which I want to focus. She states, “Among the gifts presented to the Egyptians was ‘green gold of the land of ‘Amu.’ The ‘Amu are an Asiatic people, but the inscription clearly speaks of their land, not of the people.”[46] Since

16. On pages 124 and 125, Velikovsky discusses ancient trade in exotic and valuable trees, minerals, and animals as portrayed in I Kings and in the punt reliefs, in order to establish a similarity between the two historical records in this regard. I do not wish to quarrel with the general similarity: the ancient Egyptian trade in exotica was remarkably extensive, so much so that African products (ivory and apes, see p. 125) could be acquired by Hiram of Tyre. With products that could serve as gifts from any monarch to another, it is clear that their mere citation in the bible does nothing to establish Phoenicia or Israel as the destination of Hatshepsut’s expedition. What needs special consideration here is a particular items mentioned in the discussion, namely the almug trees from Ophir, for it is clear that Velikovsky wishes to identify them with the anti (frankincense or myrrh) trees brought to Egypt by the Punt expedition; indeed, on pages 128–129, he entitles a section of his chapter that deals ultimately with the planting of these trees in Egypt, “Terraces of Almug Trees.”

First, we must be sure to keep the record clear: the biblical record speaks of almug and does not use the word anti; the Punt reliefs speak of anti and do not use the word almug. Velikovsky’s section title thus might mislead readers, and in view of the difference in the names of the trees in question, it is clear that there is no evident reason—except perhaps to support a foregone conclusion—to assert their identity.

But the matter can be pursued further. Let us look at Velikovsky’s citation from I Kings 10:11–12: “And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones. . . . There came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day.” Once again, we have the phenomenon of an ellipsis in Velikovsky’s citation, and it would be prudent to find out what is missing. Here is the passage in full: “Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a very great amount of almug wood and precious stones. And the king made of the almug wood supports for the house of the Lord, and for the king’s house, lyres also and harps for the singers; no such almug wood has come or been seen, to this day.”[52] For good measure, let us cite, as Velikovsky

Since Hatshepsut’s expedition brought back trees growing in Punt to be transplanted in Egypt, it is noteworthy that there is no evidence of the planting of almug trees in Solomon’s kingdom. Indeed, the biblical evidence proves that they were not planted there in Solomon’s day, for Solomon had to request almug wood from Hiram of Tyre. It is not even absolutely clear from II Chronicles 2:8 that the trees were growing in Hiram’s kingdom. the imported wood from Ophir might simply have been stored there, and even if transplanting did occur, the experiment evidently did not work out, for I Kings 10:12 makes it clear that at the time in question, almug wood was available for use in Phoenicia and Israel only for a short time. It is also clear from the wording of II Chronicles 2:8 that Solomon anticipated receiving all the wood he requested, including the algum, in the form of cut timber.

But the most important point to be made in regard to anti and almug is their respective uses. Anti—or, to cite the transliteration of the Egyptian word, ’ntyw—is an extremely common term in ancient Egyptian. While there is scholarly disagreement about whether it is properly to be translated as “frankincense” or as “myrrh,” there is no doubt that it was a plant from which one derived a good-smelling oil or salve, and from which a kind of incense for burning was derived.[54] There is no record of the use of

Even if we did not have the evidence of its use, the impossibility of equating almug with ’ntyw is clear. The biblical statement that “no such almug wood has come or been seen, to this day,” or as an alternative rendering in the version quoted by Velikovsky, “there came no such almug trees (i.e., before), nor were seen unto this day” makes it clear that almug wood was available to Phoenician and Hebrew carpenters only for a short while, as a result of the extraordinarily far-reaching sea trade organized by Hiram of Tyre. ’ntyw, on the other hand, could always have been obtained, if not from its original source, then through trade with neighboring Egypt.

I would not attempt to resolve here the controversy whether ’ntyw designates frankincense or myrrh; perhaps the Egyptians, at least sometimes, used the term loosely to designate both of these odiferous flora. In any case, it becomes even clearer that almug and ’ntyw cannot be identified when we consider that Hebrew has well-attested words for frankincense and myrrh: lebonah and mor, respectively.

It should by now be clear that Velikovsky, in quoting only one of the three biblical passages mentioning almug/algum, and in failing to cite a portion of it, leaving only an ellipsis, created a misleading impression. The fetching of ’ntyw as a derived product, and of ’ntyw trees themselves to be planted in Egypt, was an essential, if not the most important object of Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt. In order to equate that expedition with the queen of Sheba’s visit to Jerusalem, it was therefore desirable to find mention, in the biblical record of Solomon’s reign, of a precious tree whose identify with the ’ntyw could be asserted. The almug was there to serve the purpose. But the biblical evidence of the almug’s uses in and of itself disproves the equation of almug with ’ntyw, a point that could be lost on readers as a result of Velikovksy’s failure to present all the relevant evidence, in this case, especially the biblical evidence.

17. On page 127, Velikovsky writes, “The inscription to the next bas-relief states simply and clearly: ‘The ships arrived at Thebes.’ Thebes is situated on the banks of the Nile. To reach it by water, the ships must have sailed along the Nile, entering from the Mediterranean. A voyage from Punt in southern Arabia or in Somaliland to Thebes by the sea route would have meant disembarking at el-Qoseir and journeying overland from there to Thebes.” He proceeds to reject—rightly—the idea that there was a canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile,[55] and he concludes that,

Here, Velikovsky has unfortunately been misled by erroneous Egyptological opinion regarding this depiction. The relief shows one ship, under full sail and all its oars being plied; water with fish in it is shown underneath, but nothing is depicted in the background.[56] There is thus no

Help in resolving the problem is afforded by material other than Hatshepsut’s own reliefs. The fact that Egypt enjoyed direct trade relations with Punt in the Old and Middle kingdoms has been alluded to above. Voyages to Punt are mentioned in a number of inscriptions from those periods; most of them were already known in Breasted’s time, and they are summarized by him in ARE II, Sec. 247. Two of those from the Middle Kingdom are critical for our understanding of the trade with Punt, for they were found at Wadi Gasus, a locale on the Red Sea shore 60 kilometers north of Qoseir. One, from the reign of Amenemhet II, states, “Giving praise a laudation to Horus [. . .], to Min of Coptos, by the hereditary prince, count, wearer of the royal seal, the master of the judgement-hall Khentkhetwer after his arrival in safety from Punt; his army being with him, prosperous and healthy; and his ships having landed at Sewew. Year 28.”[57] (Sewew is the ancient name of Wadi Gasus, or

It is easy to establish that the evidence from Hatshepsut’s relief is not irreconcilable with the Middle Kingdom evidence just cited. First, let us dispense with Breasted’s remarks concerning the relief: “The expedition, like those of Henu[59] and Khentkhetwer, may have left the

Let us now turn to the inscription that accompanies the ship in Hatshepsut’s relief; its opening words are unfortunately not cited correctly by Velikovsky in his passage quoted above. The inscription reads, “Sailing, arriving in peace, journeying to Thebes with joy of heart, by the army of the Lord of the Two Lands, with the chiefs of this country behind them.”[61] This translation by Breasted

18. Interestingly enough, in the section entitled “The Temple and Its Service Copied,” on pages 129–132, the two main points developed by Velikovsky are refuted by material cited in his own footnotes.

Velikovsky wishes, first, to argue that Hatshepsut’s temple was directly inspired by Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Though each has a hall whose dimensions form a ratio of three to one, Velikovsky acknowledges that the two buildings were not were not identical and states, “This difference in location must have influenced the architects to alter their plans” (p. 130). But if the plans differ, they differ, and the argument is not cogent. More importantly, after citing two outdated statements by Mariette as to the uniqueness of Hatshepsut’s structure at Deir el Bahari and the possibility that it might have been inspired by buildings seen in Punt, Velikovsky states in a footnote, “However, a more ancient temple of similar architecture was discovered in the vicinity; it probably represents, too, a Phoenician influence.” The “more ancient” building in question is, in fact, the funerary structure of Montuhotep the Great of the Eleventh Dynasty (this king reunited Egypt after the internal dissolution of the First Intermediate Period and paved the way for the splendor of the Middle Kingdom; he ruled about 2052 to 2010,[64] about 520 years before Hatshepsut in the

Velikovsky’s other argument, that Hatshepsut copied the service of Amon from that of Solomon’s temple, is based on only one postulate, that “the office of the high priest was established in the Egyptian service only at the time of Queen Hatshepsut” (p. 132). He cites as support for this, in his footnote 9, Breasted, ARE II, Sec. 388. But in point of fact, he misrepresents Breasted’s statement there. Breasted is speaking of the following titles borne by Hatshepsut’s contemporary Hapuseneb: “High Priest of Amon, and chief of the prophets of South and North,” and his remark on the innovation in Hatshepsut’s time is this: “The formation of the priesthood of the whole land into a coherent organization, with a single individual at its head, appears here for the first time.” It is thus the second of the two titles that Breasted is commenting on, and not the title “High priest of Amon.”

Curiously, in his footnote, after citing Breasted, Velikovsky continues: “But according to G. Lefebvre, the office of the high priest was already established by Ahmose (Histoire des grands prêtres d’Amon de Karnak [Paris, 1929], p. 69).” This fact alone, of course, is enough to defeat the argument. The Egyptian title for the high priest of Amon is more literally rendered “first prophet of Amon”; in the New Kingdom, we have evidence of a “first prophet,” a “second prophet,” a “third prophet,” and a “fourth prophet.” In point of fact, Lefebvre mentions three Eighteenth Dynasty individuals prior to the reign of Hatshepsut who held the title “first prophet of Amon” (op. cit., pp. 69–71). Unfortunately, there are few preserved records of the Theban priesthood prior to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Lefebvre (ibid., pp. 63–66) notes that a story of Twentieth Dynasty date, which purports to deal with events of the Second Intermediate Period, mentions a “first prophet of Amon Khonsuem[heb]”; but this is not contemporary evidence, and it will thus not receive further consideration here. More to the point, Lefebvre (ibid., p. 62) is able to cite a Middle Kingdom individual who held the title “second prophet of Amon”—and it follows logically that if there was a “second prophet of Amon,” there must have been a “first prophet of Amon.” The office of high priest of Amon therefore far antedates the reign of Hatshepsut, going back at least to the Middle Kingdom, and the contention that she copied the office from the service of Solomon’s temple cannot stand.

For what it is worth, it might be noted that some biblical scholars have expressed uncertainty that there was an office of high priest in the Temple at Jerusalem during the monarchic period. They believe, rather, that the office is entirely postexilic in date.[66]