Hatshepsut, the Queen of Sheba, and Immanuel Velikovsky

1984 by David Lorton

Part I
In Ages in Chaos,[1] the first volume of the
1. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1952. References to this w
ork will be made by page number in the text of this paper.
Ages in Chaos series, Immanuel Velikovsky develops in essence two propositions: (a
)that the Exodus of the Hebrews is to be dated to the end of the Egyptian Middle
Kingdom, and (b)that the beginning of the ... Eighteenth Dynasty ... coincided with th
e beginning of the line of Kings in Judea (p.103); the latter proposition necessit
ates the lowering of the dates of the Eighteenth Dynasty by about 600years. With
in this chronological framework, queen Hatshepsut of Egypt and king Solomon of I
srael would have been contemporaneous (p.104), and this leads Velikovsky, in Chap
terIII of his book, to make a case for identifying the famous expedition to the l
and of Punt in the reign of Hatshepsut with the renowned visit of the queen of S
heba to the court of king Solomon. He does this by comparing the information in
the Punt reliefs of Deir el Bahari to the biblical account in IKings and IIChroni
cles, to which he adds some information in Josephus s Jewish Antiquities and the E
thiopic Kebra Negast. It is the arguments of this chapter that will be the focu
s of this paper, though I shall take into account some arguments and evidence ad
duced by Velikovsky and others since the publication of Ages in Chaos.
I should rightly begin by making it clear that I am convinced that the Punt expe
dition cannot be equated with the queen of Sheba s visit to Jerusalem. While it m
ight suffice to proceed immediately to a response to Velikovsky s thesis in this r
egard, I prefer to take a different tack and respond to the main arguments and p
ieces of evidence cited by Velikovsky in his chapter. I do this because scholar
s of the ancient Near East have been remarkably silent regarding Ages in Chaos i
n the nearly five decades since its appearance,[2] and I think that lay readers
would be
2. I am personally aware only of the following: William H. Stiebing, Jr., Pense I
VR 5 (Fall 1973): 10 12; idem, Pense IVR 10 (Winter 1974 75): 24-26; idem, KRONOS 7/3
(Spring 1982): 72 74; Peter James, S.I.S. Review 3 (1979): 48 55; and Michael Jones
, S.I.S. Review 6/1 3 (1982): 27 33. In view of the magnitude of the challenge rais
ed by Velikovsky to the tenets of orthodox scholarship, and of the wide readersh
ip he has enjoyed among lay readers, these attempts have been too few, too brief
, and too fragile. [The reader will note that this paper was written in 1984; I
have made no effort to update the information here.]
interested to learn how a student of the ancient Near East reacts as he reads th
rough Velikovsky s text. In the remarks that follow, I shall of course not burden
the reader with a reply to every sentence of Velikovksy s; nor shall I make a sum
mary of Velikovsky s arguments, because this paper is written primarily for reader
s who are familiar with his work. I shall, however, even at the expense of addi
ng to the length of this paper, refer to Velikovsky s arguments for the most part
by citing his relevant passages in full; I do this to escape the frequent compla
in on the part of Velikovksy s supporters that his critics misrepresent or misquot
e him. To facilitate cross references, the individual arguments that follow are
numbered.
Part II
1. On page105, Velikovsky writes, If Solomon was really a renowned king, as the He

brew sources describe him, then the absence of any contact between this queen an
d this king is difficult to explain. It would, indeed, be very singular, for th
ese two rulers were no ordinary occupants of throne halls, but very excellent su
zerains. 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 he
aven, the fame of Makare (Hatshepsut) encircles the sea, and her fame has encompas
sed the Great Circle (ocean). Neither would it accord with our idea of King Solo
mon, whose capital was visited by ambassadors from many countries and who had pe
rsonal contact with many sovereigns: And all the kings of the earth sought the pr
esence of Solomon (IIChronicles 9:23), and all the earth sought to Solomon. ... (IKing
10:24). Was the queen of Egypt excluded from all the kings ? (The Egyptian text r
eferences to Hatshepsut s fame are cited by Velikovsky in footnotes.) I quote the
se words at length because in them, having made the point that Hatshepsut and So
lomon 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 reas
on to have such an expectation. While I would not argue that one never finds th
e 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 stateme
nts referring to the world or foreign lands in general (just as in the two refer
ences cited by Velikovsky), or general references to foreign rulers, who are ref
erred to with the plural noun chiefs.
Alternatively, the Egyptian texts might ref
er to a specific ruler, but not by his personal name. To cite an example famili
ar to readers of Ages in Chaos, Velikovsky argues in ChapterIV that ThutmoseIII s ca
mpaign after the death of Hatshepsut is to be identified with Shishak s campaign a
gainst 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 Megi
ddo and the wretched foe of Kadesh [Kds] and the wretched foe of this city were ha
uled up in haste to bring them into this city (both passages cited on p.149).[3]
3. I am aware that it might be objected that the record of Thutmose III s expediti
on is in damaged condition, and thus that it is possible that the name of Rehobo
am might have appeared in some place now in lacuna. But I only cited this as an
example familiar to readers of Velikovsky. Any reader who has access to the hi
storical records of the Eighteenth Dynasty, as translated into English by James
Henry Breasted in Volume II of his Ancient Records of Egypt (New York: Russell a
nd Russell, Inc., 1906; reprint ed., 1962) can see how many times there are refe
rences to lands and foreign countries and to the prince/ruler of a particular country
without his personal name, on the one hand, and on the other hand, how many exam
ples there are of a foreign king mentioned by his own personal name. Breasted s w
ork will hereafter be cited at ARE, followed by volume number and section number
.
Thus, there is no reason to expect an explicit reference to king Solomon, or to
any foreign king, in the records of any Egyptian monarch, including Hatshepsut.
By the same token, the Biblical words cited by Velikovsky, as quoted above, in r
egard to Solomon might lead one to expect that many monarchs are mentioned by na
me in the records of his reign. Yet, in the passages dealing with peaceful rela
tions during Solomon s reign (IKings 3:5 and 9-11; IIChronicles 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 point6 below),
scholars would long ago have recognized the synchronism of the Eighteenth Dynast

y with the Hebrew monarchy, and the identity of the Punt expedition with the que
en of Sheba s visit. Indeed, had either royal name explicitly appeared in the rec
ord 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 a
t great length to establish the identity.
2. On page106, Velikovsky quotes the motive for the queen of Sheba s journey:
And whe
n the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon wit
h hard questions at Jerusalem. ...
The motive for Hatshepsut s expedition, as preserv
ed 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 o
f Thebes, presider over Karnak, in order to bring for him the marvels of every c
ountry, for he so much loves the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ... ;[4]
4. ARE II, Sec. 253.
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 sh
ould be penetrated: I will lead the army on water and on land, to bring marvels f
rom God s-Land for this god, for the fashioner of her beauty [5] [a decree of] my maje
sty commanding to send to
5. Ibid., Sec. 285; quoted by Velikovsky, p. 117.
the Myrrh-terraces, to explore his ways [for him,] to learn his circuit, to open
his highways, according to the command of my father, Amon ;[6] and I have hearkene
d to my father
6. Ibid., Sec. 294. My majesty refers to Hatshepsut, who is speaking here. [The
ASCII format needed to make this publication possible prevents the correct repro
duction of the half square brackets employed by Breasted to indicate a restorati
on made from partially preserved signs.]
... commanding me to establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of
God s-Land beside his temple, in his garden, according as he commanded. [7]
7. Ibid., Sec. 295; quoted, except for the last four words, by Velikovsky, p. 12
8. Again, Hatshepsut is speaking.
I have cited all four references to the motive for the expedition that we find i
n the Punt reliefs in order to show that Velikovsky is not correct when he state
s 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 ot
her instances that will be explored below, there is no such complete agreement.
T
he 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 oppose
d to engaging in indirect trade through intermediaries, as had previously been t
he case[8]), and more specifically to
8. This is made clear in a portion of Amon-Re s remarks: No one trod the Myrrh-terr
aces which the people (rmt) knew not; it was heard of from mouth to mouth by hea
rsay of the ancestors--. The marvels brought thence under thy fathers, the King
s of Upper and 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 (Ibid., Sec. 287).
make a garden of the flora of Punt in Amon s temple, and it is stressed that Amon
chose to have this great accomplishment occur in Hatshepsut s reign because of his

special love for her. These statements of motive do not correspond to the Bibl
ical account, because they make to mention of the fame of the monarch of Punt, o
r to any desire to test him with hard questions. The biblical account mentions th
at the queen of Sheba brought gifts for Solomon, and that she intended to get gi
fts from him (see Velikovsky s quotations on p.106 and pp.122-123), but describe her
principle motive as the testing of Solomon s fame that she had heard from rumor (
see also point14 below), not the obtaining of goods by command of an oracle of he
r god, as the Egyptian text tells us.

3. On page107, Velikovsky cites Josephus account of the queen of Sheba s journey, wh

ich begins, Now the woman who at that time ruled as queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.
... On page127, he quotes Josephus again: And the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia ... ret
rned to her own country.
I must signal these citations in all fairness, since th
ey 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 k
now, 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 i
n general, when they wrote of matters not contemporary with them or in their imm
ediate 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 i
n the classical sources unless it is clearly corroborated by the ancient Near Ea
stern evidence itself. Hence, we can accept Josephus reference to the queen of Eg
ypt and Ethiopia as an accurate substitution for the biblical queen of Sheba only i
f 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 vis
it to Solomon (see PartIV below). Might not Josephus have been aware of their co
ntemporaneity and, being a Jewish scholar enjoying the favor of the Roman leader
ship in the time of Vespasian, writing with the project of making a favorable im
pression of his people on his masters,[9] simply
9. See Oskar Seyffert, Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (Cleveland, Ohio: The
World Publishing Company, 1956), p. 330.
have substituted a reference to the queen of the mightier and more prestigious r
ealm?
If
ar
y.
he
pt

we do not grant this contemporaneity, however (and scholars of the ancient Ne

East do not), then perhaps we are left with a perplexing historical inaccurac
But considering that the queen involved is not named by either Josephus or t
Old Testament (see points5 and 6 below), the motive for the substitution of Egy
and Ethiopia for Sheba suggested in the last paragraph could still be proposed.

4. On pages106-112, 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 S
heba, and it is frequently enough mentioned in close connection with the names o
f 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
10. See, e.g., John L. McKenzie, Jr., S.J., Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee,
Wisconsin: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1965), pp. 796 797.
the New Testament references to the story of the queen of Sheba (Matthew12:42 and

Luke11:31, cited by Velikovsky on p.135) use these words: The queen of the South w
ill arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from
the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something grea
ter than Solomon is here (thus Matthew; Luke is identical except for the wording w
ith the men of this generation and condemn them ). Now, Egypt was a country locat
ed close to the land of the Israelites, and, in biblical tradition, it was a fav
orite place of refuge for those from the latter place: thus, e.g., Abraham, the
family of the Old Testament Joseph, and Joseph and Mary with the infant Jesus.
Why would Matthew and Luke have said the queen of the South when they might so eas
ily have said the queen of Egypt ? And is not the ends of the earth a better descrip
tion of a place such as the southwest corner of Arabia than Israel s old, familiar
neighbor Egypt? And finally, as a glance at a map will show, is not the southw
est corner of Arabia, which is only a little to the east of due south from Israe
l, a more likely origin for the queen of the South than Egypt, which is decidedly
to the southwest?
5. Velikovsky does not tackle the difficulty presented by the Biblical designati
on 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 adven
turous queen. However the opinion is expressed in the Talmud that Sheba in the na
me Queen of Sheba is not a geographical designation but a personal name (pp.106-10
7); and The complete agreement in the details of the voyage and in many accompany
ing data makes it evident that the Queen [of] Sheba and Queen Hatshepsut were on
e and the same person, with the footnote, Shwa (the Hebrew for Sheba) might be th
e last part of the name Hatshepsut. R.Engelbach, The Problem of the Obelisks (Lo
ndon, 1923), spells her name Hatshepsowet. The final t in her name was not pron
ounced. 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 s
eventy ) that dates from the third century before the present era and similarly th
e Vulgate (the earliest Latin translation) see in Shwa (Seba) the personal name
of the Queen (Regina Seba), not the name of a region. [11]
11. S.I.S. Review 6/1 3 (1982): 7.
Several responses can be made to these points. First of all, not all Egyptian n
ames 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 o
f 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 T
estament (e.g., Isaiah60:6, Jeremiah6:20, Ezekiel27:22, Psalms72:10, Job6:19), a fact
not clearly brought out by Velikovsky? Velikovsky might also have made it clea
r that the Massoretic text (that is, the received Hebrew text of the Old Testame
nt) clearly writes malkat shba, where the grammatical form malkat is unequivocal
ly 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 nam
e of the queen, it would have written the first word differently, thus: malkah s
hba.
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 o
f the South who came from the ends of the earth (see point4 above). It is possible
to argue that there was another Hebrew textual tradition, one that has not survi
ved, that wrote malkah shba queen Sheba, and that this accounts for what we find i
n the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Talmud.[12] But it is not necessary to

12. In fairness, it must be noted that Velikovsky nowhere says, in so many words
, that he thinks that the Septuagint, the vulgate and the Talmud represent a bet
ter textual tradition on this point than the Massoretic text of the Hebrew Bible
. But it seems equally fair to ask, if this was not what he had in mind, what w
as his intention.
posit such a second textual tradition and it is always preferable to avoid postula
ting the existence of something not attested to account for the discrepancy in the
evidence, for there might not be a discrepancy at all. The Hebrew word shba re
fers not only to the land, but also to an inhabitant of it ( a Sabean person ). We
find it used thus, for instance, by the prophet Joel (4:8): I will sell your sons
and daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to th
e Sabeans, to a nation far off; for the Lord has spoken (I cite this passage in p
articular, for a nation far off gives Old Testament support for the reference in M
atthew and Luke to Sheba as lying at the ends of the earth. ) Now, it is clear tha
t the Septuagint and the Vulgate are not translating the Massoretic version lite
rally as queen of (the land) Sheba.
Either they are translating another Hebrew ve
rsion that wrote a queen, a Sabean woman, that is, a Sabean queen, or they are so in
terpreting (that is, rendering loosely) the version of the Massoretic tradition.
The same explanation can be applied to the Talmudic explanation cited by Velik
ovsky; and it might further be added that the rabbis, in offering this interpret
ation, were well aware that in addition to the meanings (land of) Sheba and Sabean
person, the Hebrew word shba is also well attested in the book of Genesis as a pe
rsonal name or, one might rather say, the name of a hypothetical person who was th
e eponymous ancestor of the Sabean nation (Genesis10:7, 10:28, 25:3). Thus, the
discrepancy that Velikovsky tries to exploit between a Massoretic Old Testament/
New Testament tradition and a Septuagint/Vulgate/Talmudic tradition is not real,
but only apparent.[13] It can easily be explained on the basis of the
13. This suggests a negative answer to the question raised in point5 above of whe
ther there might have been a Hebrew textual tradition alternative to the Massore
tic version on this point.
known meanings of the Hebrew word shba, and we are in no way forced to appeal to
a hypothetical, unattested shortened form of the Egyptian name Hatshepsut to ac
count for it.
6. The preceding argument is sufficient to show that we ought to see in the bibl
ical word shba a reference to Sheba or a Sabean, and not a reflection of the Egyptia
n 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 Phara
oh 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., 1Kings 3:1, 2King
s 17:7 and 18:21), again with no mention of the monarch s name. Still less freque
nt, though it occurs, is the insertion of the monarch s name into the designation
just mentioned, thus: Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt (2Kings 23:29), Pharaoh Hophra kin
g of Egypt (Jeremiah 44:30). There are a few other, relatively unique, possibili
ties. Pharaoh Necho occurs in 2Kings 23:33 and 35, but this is in the continuation
of the narrative introduced by the full form Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt just quo
ted. We also find the omission of Pharaoh in Shishak king of Egypt in 1Kings 11:40,
14:25 and 2Chronicles 12:2 and 9) ( Shishak occurs alone, with no royal titles, in 2C
hronicles 12:5 and 7, but these references are inserted into the narrative betwe
en the two fuller references to Shishak king of Egypt just quoted) and So king of E
gypt in 2Kings 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 Egypt

ian king; thus, e.g., in the long list of kings in Genesis 14 that begins with Am
raphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedolaomer king of Elam ... king (or q
ueen ) followed by a personal name does occur, but always, by a peculiarity of Heb
rew usage, with the definite article the ; thus, e.g., ha-melek dawid king David (1Kin
gs 1:1); ha-melek shlomo king Solomon (1Kings 7:13). This usage can be applied to
foreign as well as Hebrew monarchs: thus, e.g., ha-melek achashwerush king Ahasue
rus (Esther1:2 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 i
s 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 tha
n 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 g
rammar that might seem contrary to our expectations, a definite noun (or more ac
curately put, a noun that we would precede by the word the ) loses its definite art
icle 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 w
ithout ha- the.
Returning to the story of Solomon and his queenly
observations of Hebrew grammar that malkat shba,
rm malkat, with shba following malkat rather than
definite article, can only be interpreted as the
ted interpretation queen Sheba would have to be
hba or shba ha-malkah Sheba the queen. [14] But

visitor, it follows from these

with the status constructus fo
preceding it, and lacking the
queen of Sheba ; Velikovksy s sugges
expressed in Hebrew as ha-malkah s
does not

14. Velikovsky refers to Shwa as the Hebrew for Sheba.

Since I have repeatedly tran
scribed the Hebrew word as shba, and since I have made reference to the sounds b a
nd p, readers not familiar with the Hebrew language might be perplexed, so that it
would be useful to append a note on this matter. I was myself puzzled by Velik
ovsky s Shwa, since the Hebrew letter beth is certainly not pronounced like our w. It
finally occurred to me that Shwa is perhaps an unconscious Germanicism on his par
t, for w in German is pronounced like English v ; and there is a Jewish tradition of
using the v sound for beth in reading the Hebrew Old Testament, a pronunciation th
at is also used in modern Hebrew. The letter beth originally and exclusively re
presented the sound b. At some point in time, however, the b sound was somewhat mod
ified, depending primarily on its position in the word, and we thus find it indi
cated as to be pronounced in two ways in the Massoretic text. It is sometimes t
o be pronounced as a b and sometimes as a fricative; the Massoretic text different
iates the two by placing a dot inside the letter beth when it is to be pronounce
d b, and omitting the dot for the other sound. The fricative sound is like that o
f Castillian Spanish b when it occurs between two vowels; the reader can imitate i
t by pronouncing b while holding the lips slightly apart as though to blow out a m
atch. It is the fricative sound that developed, by a slight modification, into
the v that is currently familiar in the pronunciation of both biblical and modern
Hebrew; Velikovsky might thus have written Shva.
I have simplified matters in my
discussion of the name Sheba because it made no difference to the points I was mak
ing, and it is not possible here to burden either the discussion or the lay read
er with linguistic symbols. The Massoretic writing system, whose date is subseq
uent to 500 A.D., writes the word with the fricative sound; but, as explained ab
ove, this is a derivative of an original b, and it is quite distinct from the p of H
ebrew, which also has its corresponding fricative form (pronounced in modern Heb
rew, however, like our f ).
this conclusion conform to what common sense tells us in any case, even without
recourse to these details of Hebrew usage? If the monarch of the rich and might
y land of Egypt, so important in Israel s history and which in Biblical tradition
had held the Israelites in bondage, had come to Jerusalem in awe of Solomon, wou
ld not the authors of Kings and Chronicles have proudly referred to her in the f
ull forms by which other Egyptian monarchs are designated in the Old Testament,

as

Pharaoh Hatshepsut queen of Egypt,

or Hatshepsut queen of Egypt ?

Let us take the matter a bit further. As noted above, Velikovsky rather disinge
nuously remarks, Shwa (the Hebrew for Sheba) might be the last part of the name H
atshepsut. ... 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 Egyptia
n names to which Velikovsky alludes are nicknames, much like ours, as when we ca
ll someone named Frederick Fred or Freddie, or someone named Dorothy Dottie.
Would th
e Hebrew authors have been aware of Hatshepsut s nickname (assuming she had one; n
one 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 clari
ty: If the queen of Egypt had been named Dorothy, and if she had journeyed to Je
rusalem in awe of Solomon, would not the Hebrew authors have referred to her as P
haraoh Dorothy queen of Egypt, or Dorothy queen of Egypt ? Would anyone seriously p
ropose 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 kno
w the exact pronunciation, for we do not know what the vowels were) has a w ; the E
gyptian language also had a b, and the Egyptians could represent it in their writi
ng system. By the same token, the Hebrew name shba has a b, and the Hebrew alphab
et has a separate letter for w.
This point and all the others raised here and in
section5 above lead to the following conclusion regarding Velikovsky s proposed equ
ation of shba with the last part of Hatshepsut s name: the two cannot be equated,
because they do not equate.[15]
15. Adolph Erman and Hermann Grapow, eds., Wrterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache (Le
ipzig: J. C. Hinrichs Verlag, 1926 1963), Vol. V, p. 610. This work will hencefor
th be cited as Wb. followed by volume and page numbers.
7. On pages108-111, 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; thes
e confusions are not to be attributed to Velikovsky, but to insufficient clarity
in the Egyptological literature. Ta-netjer (I prefer this spelling) means, lit
erally, the land of the god (we don t know which god). The translation Divine Land ap
pears in Egyptological literature, but this is only a convention, and a potentia
lly misleading one: the way to express this meaning in Egyptian would be ta-netj
ery, 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 transl
ation. Further, it is interpretive on his part and stems from his desire to equ
ate Punt with the region of Jerusalem (p.112). The word for holy in Egyptian is djes
er,[16] and the name ta16. Adolph Erman and Hermann Grapow, eds., Wrterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache (Le
ipzig: J. C. Hinrichs Verlag, 1926 1963), Vol. V, p. 610. This work will hencefor
th be cited as Wb., followed by volume and page numbers.
djeser holy land
of the dead.[17]

occurs frequently in Egyptian texts as a designation of the land

17. Wb. V, 228.

More importantly, it is necessary
is a geographical designation for
. Ta-netjer ( Land of God, God
se, and as such can be applied to
f

to recognize a fundamental distinction. Punt

a specific place (the technical term is toponym )
s Land ) is not a toponym, but rather a descriptive phra
various geographical locations.[18] (By way o

18. This is recognized ibid., V, 225: God s Land, as reference to lands lying east

of Egypt: especially Punt and the lands of incense, but not seldom also Sinai an
d the Lebanon region.
Note, in this last connection, the references to Asia as T
a-netjer cited by Velikovsky, p. 110.
a comparison, Americans passing through beautiful and impressive landscapes migh
t say, This is God s country, though I do not mean to suggest that this is the motiv
e behind the Egyptian expression, for we do not in fact know why they chose to e
mploy it.) Thus, God s Land is neither a toponym nor a synonym for Punt, but rather
a descriptive expression applicable to Punt and other places as well. Therefor
e, it cannot be argued from the fact that ta-netjer is attested in reference to
Asiatic regions that Punt was located in Asia; and understanding this is a begin
ning in unraveling Velikovksy s arguments regarding the location of Punt.
8. In the course of the aforementioned discussion, Velikovsky makes the statemen
t, The name of Punt or Divine (God s) Land is not accompanied by the sign designati
ng a foreign country, showing that the Egyptians regarded Punt as a land affilia
ted in some way with Egypt (p.109); this argument is repeated on page117, with a fo
otnote 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 di
d 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 Egy
ptian texts as a whole, but I have checked the Deir el Bahari inscriptions[19] a
nd found
19. In addition to Naville s original publication, the hieroglyphic texts are also
available in Kurt Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, 2d ed. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinr
ichs Verlag, 1927 1930), Vol. IV, pp. 315 355. This work will henceforth be cited a
s Urk. IV.
that every occurrence of Punt and Ta-netjer therein is accompanied by the determinat
ive for a foreign country. Readers can easily verify this, for on PlateIV opposi
te page136, in the second column from the left, they will find Punt and ta-netjer, bo
th written with the determinative (a picture of three hills) that indicates a fo
reign country.
9. Again in the same discussion, Velikovsky points out, In a number of Egyptian i
nscriptions Punt is mentioned as situated to the east of Egypt (p.109); in his sum
mary at the end of the chapter, he states, I also had to show that Punt and the D
ivine 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 d
ue 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 o
f Egypt, and that only the northernmost part of the Nile delta is due west of Pa
lestine, the northernmost tip of the Nile delta being at about the latitude of J
erusalem. What is due east of the vast majority of Egypt, and let us bear in mi
nd particularly the major capital cities of Memphis in the north and Thebes in t
he south, are the Sinai peninsula and the Arabian desert. The real choice for t
he location of Punt, therefore, is not between east and south, but between appro
ximately SSE (for Somaliland and/or the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsul
a as Egyptological literature has it) and approximately NE from Memphis or NNE f
rom 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 th
e 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 Nil
e on which the sun rose, and that on which it set, all along the Nile river, whi
ch flows in a basically south-north direction. Thus, when an ancient Egyptian t
ext makes a statement such as When I turn my face to the sunrise ... I cause to com

e 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 t
he 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 e
arly 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 e
arly 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 r
eferences 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
20. S.I.S. Review 6/1 3 (1982): 7.
to derive the Latin word pontifex high priest from the name Punt (pp.132-133), note
s that Rome waged so-called Punic Wars against Carthage, which was built by immigra
nts from Tyre (p.133), and suggests that if Punt was originally the word for Phoeni
cian temples, then it could have been derived from the Hebrew word panot, and in
this case the Phoenicians received their name from the houses of worship they b
uilt (p.134). I have juxtaposed these statements from two different parts of Chap
terIII, thereby deviating from my plan of responding to Velikovsky s points in the
order of their occurrence, partly because they belong together thematically and
thus should be responded to together, and partly because they involve a chain of
logic parts of which seem very strange to me. But before proceeding to an anal
ysis, let me state that I have looked in dictionaries of both biblical and moder
n Hebrew, and I have not been able to find citations of a word panot temple, or a
word panot at all.
The name Phoenicia refers to that part of the Mediterranean coastal strip which in
cluded the city-states of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arwad and Ugarit.[21] Even if Pun
t
21. See McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, p.676.
lies behind the name Phoenicia, how can one make Punt into a designation of the king
dom of Solomon? and this point is critical, because the biblical text makes it cle
ar that Jerusalem was the goal of the queen of Sheba s journey, while it is equall
y clear from the Egyptian records that the goal of Hatshepsut s expedition was the
land of Punt. We must bear in mind in this connection that the Phoenician area
was independent of the kingdom of Solomon and under the hegemony of Hiram king
of Tyre, who enjoyed friendly relations with Solomon,[22] and also that it is cl
ear from the Hebrew bible
22. Ibid., p. 905. Cf. also Velikovsky s statement, The Phoenician king of Tyre, H
iram, sought an alliance with King Solomon and his friendship.... (p. 114)
that the people of that area were designated Sidonians (perhaps reflecting a hegem
ony under Sidon at a period earlier than that of Hiram and Solomon), the designa
tion Phoenicia appearing first in the Greek New Testament.[23]
23. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, pp. 675 676 and 811.
Phoenicia was thus not an indigenous designation in Old Testament times, but rat
her a designation derived from Greek usage and imposed upon the area in the Hell
enistic period. Moreover, since Velikovsky seems willing to accept a southern l
and punt, along the coast of the Red Sea, as the ancestral home of the Phoenicia
ns, I fail to see how a Hebrew word panot (even if it existed) could have stood

behind the name of that land: Hebrew was surely not spoken in Arabia or Africa!
But aside from the anachronism of the name Phoenicia, one must stress the logic:
if Punt were Phoenicia, then Hatshepsut s expedition must have gone to Hiram king of T
yre; if the expedition went to the court of Solomon at Jerusalem, it did not go
to Punt/Phoenicia.
It would be worthwhile at this point to look more closely at the Egyptian word Pu
nt, 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 p
art, names of countries are grammatically feminine in ancient Egyptian.[24] Thi
s t actually ceased to be
24. See Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3d ed., revised (London: Oxford Uni
versity Press, 1964), p. 69, 92. This work will hereafter be cited as EG3.
pronounced well before the New Kingdom, indeed probably as early as the Old King
dom,[25] though the Egyptians tended to
25. Ibid., p. 34, n. 1a.
retain historical spellings, much as we do in English, and the t continued to be w
ritten as a clear marker of feminine gender. The root (this is a technical term)
of the word is thus pwn, and in a study of the word, Maurice Alliot[26] has note
d that, on the basis of words of identical
26. Revue d gyptologie 8 (1951): 1 2.

consonantal structure that survived into Coptic (the last stage of ancient Egypt
ian, written with a version of the Greek alphabet and thus showing the vowels),
the pronunciation of the word was pwan or pwon (with long o ) or poun (with long or
short o ). The last spelling is not to be taken as the ou of English ouch, but rather
as a diphthong combining the vowel sounds of o and u, such that the u has the status
of a semiconsonant w sound, like the ow of the English word owe. these facts eliminat
e all the identifications proposed by Velikovsky. Although Egyptologists employ
the conventional rendering Punt (I shall discuss the issue of conventional renderi
ngs at length in point20 below), the t was not pronounced during much of the history
of ancient Egypt, and this rules out any possibility that the words Pontus,
pontif
ex and (evidently nonexistent) panot are to be connected with it. As for the wor
d Phoenicia, we must not be misled by the way it is pronounced by speakers of Engl
ish. Both the Latin spelling with oe and the Greek spelling with oi indicate a diph
thong composed of the vowel sounds o and i, as in the oy of boy. the name can thus i
o way be connected with pwnt, where the w (which is a consonant, not a vowel) with
er precedes a vowel sound or follows the vowel as the second part of a diphthong
ou which is not identical to oe/oi in Phoenicia.
For any possibility of a connection
between Phoenicia and Punt to exist, the latter word would have to be written pynt
in Egyptian, which of course is not the case. The Latin word Punus alluded to by
Velikovsky in the phrase Punic Wars is a secondary form derived from Poenus, as can
be ascertained by looking in any Latin dictionary, and again the diphthongs do n
ot equate.
In an article supportive of Velikovsky s identification of Punt and
ergens and LewisM.Greenberg[27] have correctly pointed out that

Phoenicia, RalphE.J

27. KRONOS 1/2 (Summer 1975): 89 93.

the Greek word for Phoenicia is itself derived from the Semitic term for the cri
mson dye made on the Lebanese coast. However, it needs to be stressed again tha
t the designations crimson-dye country and crimson-dye people were Greek ways of ref
erring to the Lebanese coast and its inhabitants, and that they were not used by

the inhabitants themselves in Old Testament times; and, also, that the queen of
Sheba visited Jerusalem, not Phoenicia. Juergens and Greenberg quote Astour to t
he effect that the Greek phoinos might be derived from a form phonios;[28] but a
s noted above, the consonant w
28. Ibid., p. 92, n. 15.
within
y also
ed dye
Puni,

the Egyptian word pwnt precludes an identification with either form. The
quote Astour on the Hebrew word puwwa Rubia tinctorum (a plant from which r
and imitation purpose were made) and the Hebrew clan name Puwwa, gentilic
as specific courses of the Greek form of the name Phoenicia.[29]

29. Ibid., pp. 89 90.

Even if this is correct, these forms cannot be equated with the Egyptian place-n
ame pwnt. It is inconceivable that the Egyptians would have derived the toponym
(place-name) from the gentilic form meaning person belonging to the clan Puwwa.
Moreover, notwithstanding the conventional spelling of the place-name as Punt, the
w of pwnt is a consonant, thus precluding its identification with Puni. The form
Puwwa, lacking the consonant n, cannot be equated with pwnt. And once again, let
us consider the logic of the matter. The kingdom of Solomon is nowhere in the
Hebrew bible called by the clan-name Puwwa; and why would Hatshepsut, if the goa
l of her expedition was Jerusalem, have referred to that city or to the kingdom
of Solomon by the name of a clan in Galilee adjacent to the area of Phoenicia?
The origin of the Latin word pontifex does not need explanation here. The name Pho
enicia 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-n
ame 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 G
reat, so that it could appear in the New Testament. The Greek word pontos (Lati
n pontus), containing the consonant t in its root, has of course no etymological r
elation 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 Sanchoniat
on, 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 a
s 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 c
ity) perhaps reflects an indigenous, pre-Greek, custom of the inhabitants of cal
ling themselves Sidonians, as noted above. Herodotus report that the Phoenicians t
hought 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 se
en. It must stand as a classical tradition unconfirmed by the surviving earlier
documentation. If the tradition was not historically accurate, one might conje
cture 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 S
ea area) and libanos Mount Lebanon.
(Actually, both words are borrowings from Sem
itic words based on the root white : the purest frankincense is white in color, whi
le the eastern ridge of Mount Lebanon is partly covered by perpetual snow.[30]).
30. See William Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, tr. Samuel Prideaux Tregel
les (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957), p. 429.
11. On page115, 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, Parua
h 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 h
is reign (when some of these officials were his sons-in-law) one was a son of Paru
ah (IKings 4:17). Jehoshaphat, the son of Paruah, was governor in Ezion-Geber an
d Aloth; his father, apparently, administered the same region.
The alert reader undoubtedly is aware that the biblical text does not affirm tha
t Paruah preceded his son Jehoshaphat in this position; this is inferential on V
elikovsky s part. Velikovsky s vocalizations Perehu, Paruah are also without justific
ation, and even if they were, the name of the chief of Punt cannot be equated wi
th the biblical Paruah.

Renderings of Hebrew names into our alphabet frequently do not distinguish betwe
en 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 al
so 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 t
two names is not tenable, since it results from an incorrect understanding of th
e consonant in the biblical name.
However, it is possible to take the matter further. The renderings Perehu and Paru
ah 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 Kin
gdom 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. WilliamFoxwellAlbr
ight long ago put together the words written in this syllabic orthography with t
heir 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 fo
r ra, la, [33] and hu for hu. [34] This
31. The Vocalization of the Egyptian Syllabic Orthography, American Oriental Ser
ies, Vol. 5 (New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 1934). 32. Ibid.
, p. 41. 33. Ibid., p. 47. 34. Ibid., p. 52.
leads to the following possibilities for rendering P -r -hw : Parahu, Pirahu, Palahu, a
nd Pilahu. There is no further evidence to allow us to choose among these possi
bilities. But it is clear that, in addition to the difference in the h -sounds, al
l four possibilities differ in their syllabic structures from the biblical name
Paruach.
12. It is the universal opinion among Egyptologists that Hatshepsut did not lea
d the expedition to Punt herself, and if this is so, then there can be no equati
on of that expedition with the queen of Sheba s personal visit to Solomon in Jerus
alem. Thus, on pages116 119, Velikovsky devotes a section to the proposal that, as
indicated by its title, Hatshepsut Led the Expedition to the Divine Land.
He ack
nowledges 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 prac
tice 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, s
o that the representation as we have it is sufficient to indicate her participat
ion in the expedition (p.116). EvaDanelius, in an article supportive of the equat
ion 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 i
s one of a statue of Hatshepsut that was to be erected in Punt.[35] To these

35. KRONOS 1/4 (Winter 1976): 11 12.

points, on can easily reply that the representation might well be of the queen h
erself, but by the nature of the depiction, there is no way to say whether the q
ueen was there to accompany (i.e., lead) the expedition or to bid it farewell.
Two-thirds of the wall containing the description of Punt has not survived,[36]
so that we do not know whether
36. Ibid., p. 11.
Hatshepsut might have been depicted on that wall. But the scenes depicting the
aftermath of the return of the expedition show first the presentation of foreign
chiefs and products to the queen, and then the presentation of products from th
e expedition by Hatshepsut to Amun,[37] which certainly suggests that she
37. ARE II, Sec. 267 282. See also the sketch of the location of the respective s
cenes on the walls, ibid., p. 104.
remained in Thebes, for if she had led the expedition, the presentation to her w
ould have occurred in Punt itself, not in Thebes after the return of the expedit
ion. But the evidence for the expedition consists of texts as well as depiction
s, and so we must turn to the text passages cited by Velikovsky.
13. Velikovsky begins this section of the chapter as follows: The next picture sh
ows the departure of a fleet of five vessels; three are under sail, while two ar
e 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 wha
t appears in the ellipsis left by Velikovsky, one can turn to Breasted s translati
on, from which he is quoting: ... journeying in peace to the land of Punt, by the a
rmy of the Lord of the Two Lands, according to the command of the Lord of the Go
ds, Amon, lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, in order to bring for him the ma
rvels of every country, because he so much loves the King of Upper and Lower Egy
pt, [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 quote
d the continuation in full to
38. Ibid., Sec. 253.
remove any trace of ambiguity. The Lord of the Two Lands is probably Hatshepsut (
nb lord for nbt lady ; a female monarch was so unusual that the scribes during her re
ign often wrote masculine rather than feminine words in reference to her), or it
could be the god Amon. But the important point, suppressed by Velikovsky, is t
hat the text specifically says that it was the army that departed, not Hatshepsu
t. Monarchs did not always lead their expeditions, and we might compare the pas
sage from the Punt reliefs just cited to the following instance from Hatshepsut s
predecessor, ThutmoseII: Then his majesty dispatched a numerous army into Nubia (T pdt) on his first occasion of a campaign, in order to overthrow all those who we
re rebellious against his majesty or hostile to the Lord of the Two Lands. [39] T
hese passages can be contrasted
39. Ibid., Sec. 122.
to the following description of the outset of the first great Asiatic campaign (
the one that is the subject of ChapterIV of Ages in Chaos) of Hatshepsut s coregent
and successor, ThutmoseIII: The king himself, he led the way of his army, mighty
at its head, like a flame of fire, the king who wrought with his sword. [40] Had
Hatshepsut herself led
40. Ibid., Sec. 413.

the expedition to Punt, we might expect the text describing the departure to hav
e said something like: Sailing in the sea (or departure ) by king Makere at the head
of her army.
On page117, we find the following passage, which includes a quotation from the Pu
nt reliefs: Queen Hatshepsut undertook the journey like a devout pilgrim who, hea
ring 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 o
ut, 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 Hat
shepsut heard within her, and she thought it was her god. What immediately follo
ws the portion of the text quoted by Velikovsky should also be noted; we begin w
ith 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 don
e, 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, stabil
ity, and satisfaction, like Re, forever. [41] When the passage quoted by Velikovs
ky is read
41. Ibid., Sec. 285.
together with its continuation, it is crystal clear that the statement I will lea
d the army ... contains the words of Amon s oracle, not Hatshepsut s. The words for thi
s god, for the fashioner of her beauty are Amon s reference to himself as the fashi
oner of her (Hatshepsut s) beauty; this is further confirmation of the attribution
of the words, for if it were Hatshepsut speaking, she would have to refer to Am
on as this god, the fashioner of my beauty.
Thus, once again, Velikovsky has supp
ressed the continuation of a passage that he quotes, with the result of making i
t appear to have a meaning quite different from its real one.
The only other passage from the Punt reliefs that Velikovsky quotes in connectio
n with his contention that Hatshepsut led her expedition is cited on page118: (I h
ave led them [the company of the expedition] on water and on land, to explore th
e waters of inaccessible channels, and I have reached the myrrh-terraces. He all
udes to this passage again on page121: The queen wished to see with her own eyes t
he land of which she had heard marvelous reports. She decided to tread and to e
xplore that land ( I have led them on water and land ); she reached that country ( I h
ave reached the myrrh-terraces ); and she found it glorious. It is evidently this
passage that Velikovsky has in mind when he states on page140, in his summary of
the chapter, That she participated in the expedition is not difficult to establi
sh by explicit statements, in which she calls herself the leader of the expediti
on. One might wonder how Egyptologists could be so obtuse in denying Hatshepsut s
participation in the expedition (regardless of its actual destination!) if the s
tatements are indeed so explicit. Once again, we must consider the passage cite
d by Velikovsky in context, this time including the sentences that immediately p
recede 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 o
f Lower Egypt, were brought from one to another, and since the time of the ances
tors 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 c
hannels, and I have reached the Myrrh-terraces. (3)It is a glorious region of Go
d s-Land; it is indeed my place of delight. (4)I have made it for myself. ...[42]
42. Ibid., Sec. 287 288.
From this fuller citation, the reader can easily see that these are words of Amo
n-Re addressed to Hatshepsut; it is, in fact, part of a long speech of Amon-Re f

ollowing Hatshepsut s presentation to him of products brought back by the expediti

on.[43] In the portion cited, the god notes that
43. For the entire speech, see ibid., Sec. 286 288. The speech is introduced by t
he words Utterance of Amon-Re, lord of Thebes.
It is one continuous passage on th
e wall, and within it, there is no indication of any change of speaker.

there has not been direct trade between Egypt and Punt. In point of fact, there
were Egyptian expeditions to Punt in the Old and Middle Kingdoms; evidently, th
is direct trade was afterwards broken off, and it was not resumed until well int
o the Eighteenth Dynasty, in the reign of Hatshepsut. This point alone the text s c
lear stress on the (re)establishment of direct trade relations with Punt is suffic
ient to disprove Velikovsky s equation of Punt with the kingdom of Solomon, for wi
th the expulsion of the Hyksos at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the w
ay was clear for direct trade between the Theban rulers and the area of Palestin
e. Velikovsky himself makes Hatshepsut s father, Thutmose I, the pharaoh who gave
one of his daughters as wife to Solomon; see pages103 104. Returning to the text,
the god notes that the success of the expedition was really his doing, and he p
romises that there will be more such expeditions ( But I will cause thy army to tr
ead them ). That the god is speaking to Hatshepsut is absolutely clear from the a
llusion to thy fathers, the Kings of Lower Egypt in sentence(1). The point is made
even more certain when one consults the hieroglyphic text itself. Ancient Egyp
tian had two second-person pronouns, one for masculine gender and one for femini
ne gender, and the thy of thy fathers (sentence1) and thy army (sentence2) is feminin
44]
44. See Urk. IV 344, lines 12 and 17.
I think one is entitled, at this juncture, to express an objection that Velikovs
ky 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 spe
aker, of the words. Reason for objection increases when one notes that sentence
s(3) and (4) are cited by Velikovsky in ChapterIV, page146, where he writes: Already
in the oracle scene of the Punt expedition it is said in the name of the god Amo
n-Ra: It is a glorious region of God s Land, it is indeed my place of delight. I h
ave 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 al
l along for some astute reader to discover that Velikovsky makes the connection be
tween sentence(2) and sentence(3) on page120, where he writes: The queen who came fr
om 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 expedit
ion to Punt!
14. The passage from the speech of Amon-Re just discussed shows clearly that Hat
shepsut s expedition was a voyage of exploration and discovery, and I have remarke
d that logically its object could not possibly have been the land of Israel. Le
t us apply logic to the next point raised by Velikovsky as well. In the biblica
l text, it is clear that the queen of Sheba s journey was motivated by the reputat
ion of Solomon himself. Thus, IIChronicles 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 IKings 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 count
ry. The only passage from the Punt reliefs regarding the reputation of Punt is q
uoted by Velikovsky on page121: It was heard of from mouth to mouth by hearsay of
the ancestors. ...
(I have cited this passage in fuller context in note8.) Since t
his statement is quoted in isolation, and without a footnote reference, it is wo

rth noting that it is from the long speech of Amon-Re and immediately precedes s
entence(1) of the passage just discussed; thus, it is a part of the text s stress o
n the long period when Egypt and Punt had no direct relations.[45]
45. ARE II, Sec. 287.
Yet, one must wonder at how much Velikovsky trusts the credulity of his readers,
even those with no recourse to Breasted s translation, for the applicability of t
he passage to Velikovsky s argument cannot withstand even a moment s consideration.
If Hatshepsut and the queen of Sheba were one and the same, and the Punt expedi
tion is thus to be equated with the queen of Sheba s journey to Jerusalem, and if
it was motivated by the reputation of Solomon himself, as the biblical and non-b
iblical sources stress, and if this reputation came to Hatshepsut, in the words
of the Punt relief, from mouth to mouth by hearsay of the ancestors then obviously,
Solomon would have been long since dead!
15. On page123, in describing the scene in the Punt reliefs in which Hatshepsut d
edicates 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 l
and 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 EvaDanelius in an article supportive
of Velikovsky s argument. She suggests that the green gold is copper, but this is n
ot 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
46.KRONOS 1/4 (Winter 1976): 13.
Danelius states that she has studied ancient Egyptian and read the Punt expediti
on texts at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,[47] it is astonishing to find he
r echoing
47. Ibid., p. 22, n. 111.
Velikovsky s false attribution of Amon-Re s words
n land to Hatshepsut,[48] and

I will lead the army on water and o

48. Ibid., p. 12.

equally astonishing to see what she does here with the word rendered by Breasted
, in point of fact not as Amu, but as Emu. [49] It is not the vowel that is in quest
ion, for this
49. ARE II, Sec. 265.
is just a matter of conventional renderings (on this issue, see point20 below), b
ut rather the Egyptian word itself, which is written in hieroglyphs only with co
nsonants. There is indeed an ancient Egyptian word 3m, used as early as the Old
Kingdom in references to Egypt s Asiatic neighbors, and which could be given a mod
ern conventional rendering of Aamu or Amu ; the term is always used in reference to a
people, not to a country, a problem that Danelius work seems to acknowledge.[50]
The land of Emu
50. For the word, see Wb. I, p. 167. The consonants of this word are ayin ( ),
aleph
(3), and m.
The consonant ayin is virtually impossible to describe in writing for l
aypeople, but its sound is roughly similar to that of r in French or German. The
consonant aleph is the catch in the throat that one hears at the beginning of a wo
rd such as oh! ; we do not attach much importance to this sound, but it has the ful
l status of a consonant in the Semitic and ancient Egyptian languages and their
writing systems.

or Amu in the Punt reliefs to which Danelius refers is not only written with the f
oreign-country (on this hieroglyphic sign, see point8 above), which is never the
case with 3mw, but it has a different consonantal structure mw (ayin, m, w), without
the aleph[51] and this, as
51. See Urk. IV, p. 329, line 6.
Danelius should certainly know, precludes an identification of the two words. I
n point of fact, the peculiarities of the Egyptian writing system are such as to
makes the two words less similar in appearance than the conventional renderings
, or even the transliterations just given, might seem to allow. [For the presen
t, at least, I am technically unable to cite the hieroglyphic writings here to s
how how different they actually are. Readers with access to Egyptological mater
ials can compare the writings of 3m Asiatic in A.Erman and H.Grapow, Wrterbuch der ae
gyptischen Sprache, Vol.I, p.167 with the writing of mw in K.Sethe, Urkunden des gypt
ischen Altertums, Vol.IV, p.329, line6.]
16. On pages 124 and 125, Velikovsky discusses ancient trade in exotic and valua
ble trees, minerals, and animals as portrayed in IKings and in the punt reliefs,
in order to establish a similarity between the two historical records in this re
gard. I do not wish to quarrel with the general similarity: the ancient Egyptia
n trade in exotica was remarkably extensive, so much so that African products (i
vory 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 c
itation in the bible does nothing to establish Phoenicia or Israel as the destin
ation of Hatshepsut s expedition. What needs special consideration here is a part
icular 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 pages128 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 a
lmug and does not use the word anti; the Punt reliefs speak of anti and do not u
se 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 t
here 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
IKings 10:11 12: And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought i
n from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones. ... There came no s
uch 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 br
ought 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
52. I am quoting from the Revised Standard Version and Velikovsky from a differe
nt translation. There is no issue to be made out of the divergent translations t
rees and wood ; the Hebrew word atse has both meanings.
does not, the only two remaining biblical passages where almug (in point of fact
algum, with a transposition of letters) is mentioned. The first occurs in a le
tter from Solomon to Hiram of Tyre, in which the former requests craftsmen and m
aterials for the construction of the great temple at Jerusalem; the wording give

s at least an impression (though only an impression) that almug/algum trees, who

se origin was the land of Ophir,[53] had been successfully
53. Because the biblical table of nations lists Ophir together with Arabian tribal
and geographical names, the most likely location of that land is on the Arabian
coast; see McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, p. 628.
transplanted in Hiram s kingdom: Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from
Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon (IIChron
icles 2:8). the second is the parallel to the passage in IKings cited by Velikov
sky: Moreover the servants of Hiram and the servants of Solomon, who brought gold
from Ophir, brought algum wood and precious stones. And the king made of the a
lgum wood steps for the house of the Lord and for the king s house, lyres also and
harps for the singers; there never was seen the like of them before in the land
of Judah (IIChronicles 9:10 11).
Since Hatshepsut s expedition brought back trees growing in Punt to be transplante
d 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 n
ot planted there in Solomon s day, for Solomon had to request almug wood from Hira
m of Tyre. It is not even absolutely clear from IIChronicles 2:8 that the trees
were growing in Hiram s kingdom. the imported wood from Ophir might simply have b
een stored there, and even if transplanting did occur, the experiment evidently
did not work out, for IKings 10:12 makes it clear that at the time in question, a
lmug wood was available for use in Phoenicia and Israel only for a short time.
It is also clear from the wording of IIChronicles 2:8 that Solomon anticipated re
ceiving all the wood he requested, including the algum, in the form of cut timbe
r.
But the most important point to be made in regard to anti and almug is their res
pective uses. Anti or, to cite the transliteration of the Egyptian word, ntyw is an
extremely common term in ancient Egyptian. While there is scholarly disagreemen
t about whether it is properly to be translated as frankincense or as myrrh, there i
s no doubt that it was a plant from which one derived a good-smelling oil or sal
ve, and from which a kind of incense for burning was derived.[54] There is no r
ecord of the use of
54. See Wb. I, pp. 206 207.
ntyw wood for building or for the fashioning of wooden objects such as musical inst
ruments. As to almug, we cannot specify what wood it actually was, but we do ha
ve the biblical evidence as to its use: it was used in the construction of build
ings, as (to cite the RSV version) supports or steps, and it was used in fashioning
musical instruments. There is no record of its use in the manufacture of good-s
melling oil, salve, or incense. Its use in construction would seem to imply tha
t it was a solid timber, while its use in making harps and lyres might indicate
that it was pliant; though, of course, it is possible that the frames of the ins
truments were carved out of solid wood rather than bent into shape. It is also
possible to account for the seeming discrepancy by conjecturing that beams from
the solid trunk of the tree were used in construction, while pliant branches wer
e employed in manufacturing musical instruments. And with due cognizance of the
risks attendant upon entering into the realm of conjecture, I wonder whether th
e evident discrepancy between the uses of the almug tree can be accounted for by
supposing that in both of its practical applications, this rare and precious wo
od was used as inlay.
Even if we did not have the evidence of its use, the impossibility of equating a
lmug 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 b
y Velikovsky, there came no such almug trees (i.e., before), nor were seen unto t

his day makes it clear that almug wood was available to Phoenician and Hebrew car
penters 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 neighbo
ring Egypt.
I would not attempt to resolve here the controversy whether ntyw designates frank
incense or myrrh; perhaps the Egyptians, at least sometimes, used the term loose
ly to designate both of these odiferous flora. In any case, it becomes even cle
arer that almug and ntyw cannot be identified when we consider that Hebrew has we
ll-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 bibl
ical passages mentioning almug/algum, and in failing to cite a portion of it, le
aving 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 e
ssential, 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 w
as there to serve the purpose. But the biblical evidence of the almug s uses in a
nd of itself disproves the equation of almug with ntyw, a point that could be los
t on readers as a result of Velikovksy s failure to present all the relevant evide
nce, in this case, especially the biblical evidence.
17. On page127, Velikovsky writes, The inscription to the next bas-relief states s
imply and clearly: The ships arrived at Thebes.
Thebes is situated on the banks o
f the Nile. To reach it by water, the ships must have sailed along the Nile, en
tering from the Mediterranean. A voyage from Punt in southern Arabia or in Soma
liland 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 th
at there was a canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile,[55] and he concludes that,
55. Velikovsky cites Meyer in this connection (p. 127, n. 1), but the suggestion
is also made by Breasted: see ARE II, Sec. 248.
the object of Hatshepsut s expedition having been Jerusalem, the problem is solved
by imagining that the return voyage was via the Mediterranean, departing from a
port on the Syrian shore and sailing up the Nile to Thebes.
Here, Velikovsky has unfortunately been misled by erroneous Egyptological opinio
n 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
56. See Edouard Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Part III (London: The Egy
pt Exploration Fund, 1898), Plate 75.
way to tell whether the ship in question is on the seashore or on the Nile.
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 Ol
d 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 AREII, Sec.247. Two of those
from the Middle Kingdom are critical for our understanding of the trade with Pun
t, for they were found at Wadi Gasus, a locale on the Red Sea shore 60kilometers
north of Qoseir. One, from the reign of AmenemhetII, states, Giving praise a laud
ation 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 s
hips having landed at Sewew. Year 28. [57] (Sewew is the ancient name of Wadi Ga
sus, or
57. ARE I, Sec. 605.
more likely, Wadi Gawasis two kilometers to the south of it; see note 58). The
second, from the reign of SesostrisII, states laconically but importantly Year1, his (i
.e., the king s) monument in God s-Land was executed.[58] From
58. Ibid., Sec. 618. These two monuments found at Wadi Gasus were probably brou
ght there in Roman times from Wadi Gawasis. It is the latter site that was the
Red Sea harbor from which expeditions to Punt were launched during the Twelfth D
ynasty, as shown by excavations there; see Abdel Monem A. H. Sayed, Revue d gyptolo
gie 29 (1977): 138 178. The inscription on a stela of Antefoker, an official of S
esostris I, makes it clear that the ships of the expedition that he led to Punt
were constructed in the dockyards of Coptos, which means amazingly enough! that they
were transported, probably in dismantled form, overland to the Red Sea coast, a
nd presumably back again; see ibid., p. 170. Antefoker s stela informs us that a
total of 3,756 men participated in the expedition, which seems an improbably hig
h number for the sea journey. The numbers of men are broken down by profession.
In addition to a small number of functionaries, 3,200 of them were soldiers and
500 of them were sailors.
I suspect that the soldiers were responsible for the over
land transport function, while the sailors and at least some of the functionarie
s (and perhaps some soldiers as well) actually participated in the voyage.
Khentkhetwer s inscription we learn definitively that an expedition returning from
Punt would have disembarked at a Red Sea harbor and proceeded overland to Copto
s on the Nile, whence it could have sailed north to Memphis or south to Thebes (
see the map in Ages in Chaos). From the material cited in note58, we learn that
the boats used in the sea voyages were actually transported overland between the
seacoast and the Nile.
It is easy to establish that the evidence from Hatshepsut s relief is not irreconc
ilable 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] a
nd Khentkhetwer, may have left the
59. Henu, an official of the Eleventh Dynasty, specifies in an inscription that
Coptos was his starting point for an expedition to Punt; the inscription is cut
on a rock wall in the Wadi Hammamat, and he states explicitly that he returned b
y way of this wadi. See ARE I, Secs. 427 433.
Nile at Koptos, and proceeded to caravan to Wadi Gass on the Red Sea, where the s
hips may have been built. But as no shift of cargo is mentioned, and the same s
hips depicted as sailing the Red Sea are afterward shown on the Nile, it is poss
ible that the canal through the Wadi Tumilt connecting the Nile and the Red Sea h
ad existed from the Twelfth Dynasty, having been made by one of the Sesostrises. [
60] As
60. ARE II, Sec. 248.
already noted, there is no way to tell whether the ship in the relief in questio
n is on the Nile or on the Red Sea coast. Even if it is a ship on the Nile, we
know from Antefoker s stela (see note58) that ships used in voyages to Punt were tr
ansported overland between Coptos and the Red Sea. The only surviving inscripti
on giving any details about the movement between Coptos and the Red Sea coast is
that of Henu (see note59); it makes much of the details of provisions of food fo
r the personnel of the expedition, the digging of wells along the way for water,
and fighting hostile desert-dwellers on the way to the coast and it makes a very

brief mention that the expedition returned to the Nile valley by way of the Wadi
Hammamat. But, interestingly enough, nowhere does this detailed inscription ma
ke any mention of the logistics of loading and unloading cargo and the overland
transport of cargo and ships. Breasted is therefore quite wrong in taking the f
act that no shift of cargo is mentioned as significant; for reasons that we could
only speculate on, the ancient Egyptians never regarded the task of the overland
transport, arduous as it must have been, as a detail worth mentioning.
Let us now turn to the inscription that accompanies the ship in Hatshepsut s relie
f; its opening words are unfortunately not cited correctly by Velikovsky in his
passage quoted above. The inscription reads, Sailing, arriving in peace, journey
ing 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
61. Ibid., Sec. 266.
is not literal, and a clearer understanding of the first three portions of the s
entence is obtainable through a more literal rendering: Sailing, coming in peace,
landing at Thebes with joy of heart. [62] There are two ways to
62. For the Egyptian itself, see Urk. IV, p. 329, lines 15 17.
interpret these words, both of which avoid the difficulty evisaged by Meyer and
Breasted (and followed by Velikovsky). If all these phrases refer to the same t
hing, then they refer to the final stage of the return from Punt, the Nile journ
ey from Coptos to Thebes. Since the preceding depiction in the reliefs is that
of loading the boats (in Punt),[63] this
63. Ibid., p. 328, line 17.
alternative, which is certainly a possible interpretation, would leave us with n
o indication of the greater part of the return trip. While no such indication i
s absolutely required the safe and successful arrival at Thebes would in any case
have been the most significant aspect of the return the second alternative, which
I in fact prefer, is to see the three phrases as referring to different stages o
f the return: sailing indicates the sea voyage from Punt to Egypt s Red Sea coast ha
rbor, coming in peace refers to the overland passage to Coptos and the last leg of
the journey up the Nile in the direction of the capital city, while landing at T
hebes denotes the final docking.
18. Interestingly enough, in the section entitled The Temple and Its Service Copi
ed, on pages 129 132, the two main points developed by Velikovsky are refuted by ma
terial 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 w
ere not identical and states, This difference in location must have influenced th
e 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 sta
tements by Mariette as to the uniqueness of Hatshepsut s structure at Deir el Baha
ri and the possibility that it might have been inspired by buildings seen in Pun
t, Velikovsky states in a footnote, However, a more ancient temple of similar arc
hitecture was discovered in the vicinity; it probably represents, too, a Phoenic
ian influence. The more ancient building in question is, in fact, the funerary str
ucture of Montuhotep the Great of the Eleventh Dynasty (this king reunited Egypt
after the internal dissolution of the First Intermediate Period and paved the w
ay for the splendor of the Middle Kingdom; he ruled about 2052 to 2010,[64] abou
t 520 years before Hatshepsut in the

64. H. E. Winlock, The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes (New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1947), p. 30. A drawing of the temples of Montuhotep and
Hatshepsut can be found in Edouard Naville, The XIth Dynasty Temple at Deir el
Bahari, Part 2, Thirty-first Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund (London: Egypt
Exploration Fund, 1907 1908. For photographs, see Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of th
e Pharaohs: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), Pl. IX (f
acing p. 118) and John Baines and Jaromr Mlek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt (New York: F
acts on File Publications, 1980), p. 96.
orthodox chronology, and about 1,060 years before her in Velikovsky s revised chro
nology). Hatshepsut was a usurper on the Egyptian throne, and perhaps she erect
ed her funerary monument next to her glorious Theban predecessor, and imitated i
ts plan, as a way of legitimizing her rule; but whatever her reason, the similar
ity of plan of the two monuments is evident [64]. That Hatshepsut s building is n
ot
64. The resemblance of the two buildings as one approaches them is even clearer
in the photograph published by Sir Alan Gardiner in Egypt of the Pharaohs; see t
he preceding note.
simply a slavish copy of Montuhotep s, but rather an enlarged and more elaborate v
ersion, is clear; but the architectural relationship of the two is obvious. Wha
t inspired the plan of Montuhotep s monument is unknown. However, it seems best v
iewed as an indigenous development, and not inspired by a known foreign model, a
s Velikovsky suggests, for its excavators found that it underwent several change
s in plan during the course of its construction.[65]
65. See Winlock, op. cit., pp. 38 41.
Most important here, since Hatshepsut s monument is based on Montuhotep s, it did no
t have a foreign inspiration. (It might be added that, since Solomon s temple was
that of a deity, while Hatshepsut s construction, like that of Montuhotep, was a
funerary monument, there is no immediate conceptual link between the two; see al
so point19 below.)
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 pr
iest was established in the Egyptian service only at the time of Queen Hatshepsu
t (p.132). He cites as support for this, in his footnote9, Breasted, ARE II, Sec.38
8. But in point of fact, he misrepresents Breasted s statement there. Breasted i
s speaking of the following titles borne by Hatshepsut s contemporary Hapuseneb: Hi
gh Priest of Amon, and chief of the prophets of South and North, and his remark o
n the innovation in Hatshepsut s time is this: The formation of the priesthood of t
he 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 acco
rding to G.Lefebvre, the office of the high priest was already established by Ahm
ose (Histoire des grands prtres d Amon de Karnak [Paris, 1929], p.69).
This fact alo
ne, of course, is enough to defeat the argument. The Egyptian title for the hig
h priest of Amon is more literally rendered first prophet of Amon ; in the New King
dom, we have evidence of a first prophet, a second prophet, a third prophet, and a fou
th prophet. In point of fact, Lefebvre mentions three Eighteenth Dynasty individ
uals 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 prie
sthood prior to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Lefebvre (ibid., pp.63 66) notes that a st
ory 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 n
ot contemporary evidence, and it will thus not receive further consideration her

e. More to the point, Lefebvre (ibid., p.62) is able to cite a Middle Kingdom in
dividual 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.
he 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 express
ed uncertainty that there was an office of high priest in the Temple at Jerusale
m during the monarchic period. They believe, rather, that the office is entirel
y postexilic in date.[66]
66. See the discussion in McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, p. 691. McKenzie h
imself favors the opinion that there was a high priest in the preexilic period.
19. The sections Terraces of Almug Trees and The Temple and Its Service Copied (pp.12
8 132) have already been discussed in points17 and 18, but an important theme that
runs through them has not yet been addressed: namely, that Hatshepsut s monument a
t Deir el-Bahari was intended to represent what the Egyptian texts call the myrrh
-terraces of Punt, by its terraced architecture and by the planting there of the
myrrh trees brought back by the Punt expedition. We might consider that the mon
uments of Montuhotep and Hatshepsut both consciously imitated the myrrh-terraces
of Punt; or we might imagine that Hatshepsut, in enlarging and elaborating on M
ontuhotep s layout, could have had this intention. The first alternative is ruled
out, as already mentioned, by the fact that Montuhotep s monument underwent chang
es of plan in the course of its construction; this strongly suggests that the ar
chitects were feeling their way toward a new form, without the aid of a preconceiv
ed inspiration. As to the second alternative, I can only express doubt. The re
levant passages in the Punt reliefs cited by Velikovsky are: I have hearkened to
my father ... commanding me to establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the
trees of God s land beside his temple, in his Garden ;[67] and Trees were taken up i
n God s Land and set in the ground [in Egypt]. [68] Velikovsky paraphrases these
67. ARE II, Sec. 295; cited p. 128. 68. Ibid., Sec. 294; cited p. 129.
passages on page129: The queen even emphasized that she built a Punt!
It is misleadi
ng to introduce the word build into the discussion, since it gives an unwarranted
impression of architectural endeavor; Breasted s rendering to establish, which does
not necessarily include the idea of building, is an accurate translation of the
verb smn that occurs in the text.[69] One other passage, not cited by
69. Ibid., Sec. 294; cited p. 129.
Velikovsky, is relevant to the discussion: I have made for him a Punt in his gard
en, just as he commanded me, for Thebes :[70] the verb here is simply iri to make. [7
1]
70. ARE II, Sec. 295
71. Urk. IV 353, line 16.
It is difficult to glean from Velikovsky s discussion that Hatshepsut s edifice at D
eir el Bahari was her funerary monument, constructed in a part of the vast Theba
n cemetery region in the desert on the west side of the Nile. Within the monume
nt, a text in the niche of the great court piously dedicates the building to Amo
n, and the granite door of the court is also dedicated to him. There is a chape
l of Hathor in the building complex. Further, a limestone altar is dedicated to
Re-Harakhty, a shrine of ebony is dedicated to Amon-Re, and a portion of the bu
ilding was also dedicated to Anubis, the god of embalming. This divine involvem
ent, with its implication of divine approval, does not, however, alter the essen
tially funerary character of the monument. Moreover, it is noteworthy that none

of the several texts related to these dedications[72] makes any reference

72. They are collected in Urk. IV, pp. 294 304.
whatsoever to a Punt or to the planting of myrrh or frankincense there.
It is likely, therefore, that the references cited above to the making or establish
ing of a Punt and to the planting of ntyw trees, refer to something other than the
edifice at Deir el Bahari. If Hatshepsut s monument there had in fact been an im
itation of the myrrh-terraces of Punt, then the edifice as a whole would have been
a garden, or a Punt.
Yet, one of the passages quoted above says, to establish for h
im a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of God s land beside his temple, in his
garden (italics mine), clearly implying that the Punt and trees did not in and of th
emselves constitute the house or temple, but rather that they were a portion of a la
rger architectural complex. The most likely candidate for the place in question
is surely Amon s central place of worship, the great Temple of Karnak in Thebes o
n the eastern bank of the Nile, where the Punt would have been an arboretum of ntyw
-trees transplanted from Punt to the gardens of the temple. Hatshepsut s coregent
and successor, ThutmoseIII, embellished these gardens with botanical and zoologi
cal collections of his own, as discussed by Velikovsky himself on pages 164 166 of
Ages in Chaos.
20. In a section entitled Make-da and Make-ra (pp.134 139), which is the final sectio
n of the chapter except for a summarizing one, Velikovsky argues that Hatshepsut s
throne-name Makera is to be equated with Makeda, the name of the queen of Sheba as
preserved in the medieval Ethiopian collection of legends entitled Kebra Negast.
Ra is the name of the Egyptian sun god, and Velikovsky suggests that the variati
on da in the latter name might be a substitution of a form of the Semitic deity Ad
ad or Ada (p.137, n.7). The astute reader might have noticed that Velikovsky has,
without any word of explanation or justification, substituted Makera for the form
Makere that he has consistently employed earlier in the chapter in quoting from B
reasted s translation of the Punt reliefs. Both are acceptable conventional render
ings, but one wonders at the facility with which Velikovsky selects a form that h
appens to suit his purpose at this juncture without inquiring as to the ancient
pronunciation behind the modern convention.
Here, it would be a propos to pause and make an excursus on the subject of the c
onventional renderings of words and names that Egyptologists employ, for this ca
n be a source of considerable confusion to non-specialists. Behind the superfic
ial complexity of the hieroglyphic writing system (and its derivatives, hieratic
and Demotic) lies the simple notion of rendering words by their consonantal ske
letons only, along with determinatives, that is, picture-signs to help the reade
r by indicating basic categories of meaning.[73] (The value of determinatives i
n helping the
73. This means that the ancient Egyptians wrote the consonants of words, but not
the vowels. There are, however, a few partial exceptions. In the syllabic orth
ography mentioned in point 11 above, the scribes of the New Kingdom devised a way
to use groups of signs originally indicating consonants in such a way that the
location of vowels (but not specific information on which vowels) in words would
be indicated; this system was used for the rendering of foreign words and names
. It might be the case (this is a matter of debate among Egyptologists) that al
l along, the consonant y in Old Egyptian and w in Middle Egyptian were written at th
e ends of certain grammatical forms to indicate the presence of a vowel (but aga
in, without specification of which vowel). In Late Egyptian, consonants sometim
es occur in grammatical forms where we know that there was really a vowel; thus,
sw and sy are both written to indicate the pronunciation se of a pronoun meanin
g him or her.
Finally, in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, a system was developed i
n which certain signs that originally indicated consonants were used to indicate
specific vowels; this system was used in writing the names of the kings and que

ens.
reader can readily be appreciated by means of an example. If we wrote English b
y indicating only the consonantal skeletons of words, how many different words c
an the reader think of, by supplying various vowels before, between and after th
e consonants, for the consonant group brd ?) While Egyptologists can write strings
of consonants, they certainly cannot pronounce them when speaking to one anothe
r, and thus there is a tradition of conventional renderings that make it possibl
e to pronounce the words out loud. Egyptologists sometimes also use them when w
riting, particularly when writing for the general public.

The most basic convention is to insert the vowel e between the consonants of a wor
d. However, for no better reason than to spice things up, certain variations are
added. When the consonants aleph and ayin occur in a word, rather than pronounce or
write the consonants, Egyptologists employ the vowel a. By the same token, the c
onsonant we is usually rendered by the vowel u, and the consonant y by the vowel i.
etimes, particularly in rendering proper names, further variation is added on th
e basis of Greek transcriptions or Coptic survivals (on Coptic, see point10 above
; not all of the words, names, and grammatical forms of the earlier language sur
vived into this last stage of Egyptian, so that Coptic is only a partial and som
etimes unreliable guide to the more ancient pronunciations) of the names. As an
example of this phenomenon, the Egyptian phrase Amun-Re, king of the gods was ren
dered by the ancient Greeks as Amonrasonther, thus justifying a rendering Amon for t
he great god of Thebes and Ra for the sun god with whom he was often identified.
But the Greek rendering Amun also exists, and the name of the sun was written Re (wi
th a long e, that is, a long eta) in Coptic. Egyptologists do not attempt to expl
ain these evident conflicts in the surviving evidence, but rather arbitrarily ch
oose among the variations, so that readers perusing the works of Egyptologists w
ill find Amen,
Amon, and Amun, as well as Re and Ra.
Further variations in the spe
of conventional renderings can be influenced by the native language of the schol
ar: thus, English- and German-speaking Egyptologists will render a particular an
cient Egyptian name as Sinuhe, while those who are French-speaking will render Sino
uh. Finally, there are variations that reflect nothing more than the individual t
aste of the scholar; thus, one Egyptologist might render the verb to be broad as us
ekh, while another might render it as wesekh.
I leave it to what authors once called the gentle reader to decide whether it is u
nderstandable that Egyptologists must resort to conventional renderings in order
to communicate, or whether they are to be soundly condemned for not, at the ver
y least, agreeing on a single system of such renderings and moreover for introdu
cing such renderings into books and articles addressed to the general reader wit
hout any explanation or disclaimer. What is really important is that the reader
understand the practical result of all this: that these renderings of ancient w
ords and names in our own alphabet are not, and are not intended to be, scholarl
y statements as to their actual pronunciation in ancient times. Thus, to take a
conventional rendering of a name, or to search among the available, varying ren
derings for one that suits one s preconceived purpose, and compare it with a word
or name in another language whose vowels are known, is an exercise in futility.
This is a mistake that we have already seen Velikovsky make more than once, in
regard to the names Punt (point10 above) and Paruah (point11 above); and the mistake
is made here as well, with regard to Hatshepsut s throne name.
Makera and Makere are conventional renderings of a name that consists of three w
ords. The proper transliteration of the consonants is M3 t-k3-R , and the name mean
s Maat (the name of a goddess who stands here for the harmony of the universe) is
the spirit of Re.
In considering how the name might actually have been pronounc
ed in Hatshepsut s time, we fortunately do not have to rely on possibly conflictin
g or misleading evidence from later Greek or Coptic sources. The cuneiform scri
pt employed in writing the Akkadian language, and other languages of western Asi
a, is a syllabic script that indicates both consonants and vowels. There are so

me Egyptian words and names preserved in cuneiform texts. The Akkadian-language

royal correspondence of the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty, which we cal
l the Amarna texts,
Amarna tablets, or Amarna letters, is well known to readers of Vel
ikovsky from ChaptersVI, VII, and VIII of Ages in Chaos. The throne name of Amen
ophisIII, Nb-M3 t-R , which contains two of the three words in Hatshepsut s name, is re
ndered in the Amarna letters as Nibmuaria. We also know from cuneiform evidence
that the remaining word in her name was pronounced ku.[74] The reader will qui
ckly see that something is
74. For this information, see EG3, p. 428.
missing in these cuneiform renderings, so that a few words of explanation are in o
rder. The t of M3 t is the grammatical ending indicating feminine gender, which was
no longer pronounced in the New Kingdom, though it was preserved in the writing
(on this phenomenon, see point10 above). Moreover, the cuneiform script, which
was developed by native speakers of Sumerian, a language unrelated to the Semiti
c languages and Egyptian, had no means of representing the consonants aleph (3) an
d ayin ( ), so that these are missing as well.
But we can easily put together the consonants as the Egyptians wrote them and th
e vowels of the cuneiform renderings land arrive at the pronunciation of Hatshep
sut s name in her own day: Mu3 aku3ri a. (On the pronunciation of aleph and ayin,
.) This is quite a mouthful indeed for speakers of modern Western languages, bu
t it is obvious that Mu3 aku3ri a has nothing whatsoever to do with the name Makeda
in the Kebra Negast.

see n.

Part III
As indicated at the outset, PartII of this paper was designed as a running commen
tary on the main points raised in ChapterIII of Ages in Chaos for the purpose of
demonstrating to the lay reader how a specialist might react while reading throu
gh Velikovsky s text. Such a commentary, however, is not necessarily the same as
the mounting of a refutation. Had I chosen to do the latter, I would have produ
ced a much briefer text, and I would have begun with a single point, not address
ed in PartII, that in and of itself is sufficient to defeat the thesis that the P
unt expedition went to the kingdom of Solomon: namely, that it can be clearly es
tablished that Hatshepsut s Punt was located to the south of Egypt.[75] In what f
ollows, I shall continue the
75.
for
hat
t 9

South is an approximate direction employed here in distinction to north in part

the sake of simplicity, and in part because the terminology corresponds to t
of the Egyptian texts. For the more specific geographical nuances, see poin
above.

numbering of points introduced in PartII.

21. For approximately two decades, Hatshepsut and ThutmoseIII occupied the throne
in a sort of joint rule.
The motive behind Hatshepsut s usurpation of the royal of
fice while Thutmose was a still a child is never stated in the Egyptian records;
it has been the subject of much conjecture, and I think it requires reevaluatio
n, but these are details that do not affect the specific issue of the revised ch
ronology.[76] Shortly after Hatshepsut
76. For a brief statement of my own views regarding this matter, see Journal of
the American Oriental Societyx 99 (1979): 462.
disappeared from the scene, perhaps by death from natural causes, ThutmoseIII fou
nd it necessary to mount a major military offensive in Asia. This is the event
that Velikovsky proposes to identify with the campaign of Shishak king of Egypt ag
ainst the kingdom of Judah during the reign of Rehoboam, and it is familiar to r

eaders as the topic of ChapterIV of Ages in Chaos. Thutmose considered it to be

the most important of his many forays into Asia and Africa, as can be seen from
the disproportionately great detail of its description in that monarch s inscripti
ons at Karnak.
Most pertinent to our purposes here, Thutmose s scribes at the temple of Karnak ch
ose not once, but three times, to express the aftermath of that great expedition
with identical lists of northern and southern peoples who, primarily as vassals but
in some cases also as trading partners, were a part of the orderly realm presid
ed over by the king.
On the west front of the sixth pylon, the northern list is introduced (all the t
ranslations that follow are mine) as Summary of the foreign countries of Upper Re
tenu, which his majesty had shut up in the town of doomed Megiddo, and whose chi
ldren his majesty had brought back as living captives to the town [...] in Karnak,
in his first campaign of victory, as his father Amon, who led him to the goodly
roads, had commanded. [77] The corresponding southern list
77. Urk. IV, p. 780, lines 4 9.
is introduced as Summary of these southern foreign countries of the Nubian Iwntywpeople of Khenthenofer whom his majesty had slaughtered, a massacre made of them
, the numbers not known, all their inhabitants brought back as living captives t
o Thebes to fill the workhouse of his father Amon-Re lord of the thrones of the
Two Lands. Lo, all the foreign countries are serfs of his majesty, as his fathe
r Amon had commanded. [78]
78. Ibid., p. 795, lines 7 14.
On the southwest facade of the seventh pylon, the northern list is introduced as
All the mysterious lands of the northern regions of Asia, which his majesty had
brought back as living captives when he made a great [slaughter] among them, whi
ch had never been trodden by any other king except his majesty: The reputation of
a valiant one consists of [what he has done], and it cannot be obliterated in t
his land [forever]. [79] For reasons of space in this
79. Ibid., p. 780, lines 10 15. The last portion, interestingly enough, is a prov
erbial saying known from other sources as well; see Hans Goedicke, Journal of th
e American Research Center in Egypt 11 (1974): 31 33.
particular case, the last part of the northern list had to be placed with the so
uthern list, and so the latter is introduced as Summary of these southern and nor
thern foreign countries whom his majesty had slaughtered, a great massacre made
of them [...]. [80]
80. Urk. IV, p. 795, lines 15 17. The remainder is pretty well lost, though just
enough remains to suggest that the wording was identical to that on the west fro
nt of the sixth pylon; see Ibid., p. 796, lines 1 3.
On the northeast facade of the seventh pylon, the northern list is introduced as
Summary of the foreign countries of Upper Retenu, which his majesty had shut up
in the town of doomed Megiddo, and whose children his majesty had brought back a
s living captives to the town of Thebes to fill the workhouses of his father Amu
n in Karnak, in his first campaign of victory, as his father Amon, who led him t
o the goodly roads, had commanded. [81] The beginning of the
81. Ibid., p. 780, line 16 731, line 4.
introduction of the southern list is lost, but what remains is virtually identic
al to the version on the west front of the sixth pylon: [...] the numbers [not] kno

wn, their inhabitants brought back as living captives to fill the workhouse of h
is father [Amon] in [Karnak]. Lo, all the foreign countries are serfs of his ma
jesty. [82]
82. Ibid., p. 796, lines 5 8.
The three lists are identical, the only differences among them being minor ortho
graphic variations.[83] I have
83. The northern list is presented, not with the three versions listed separatel
y, but rather synoptically that is, as one list with the spelling variations shown I
bid., pp. 781 786; a supplementary list of northern countries on the northeast fac
ade of the seventh pylon is presented Ibid., pp. 788 794. The southern list is pr
esented, again synoptically, Ibid., pp. 796 800; another supplementary list, this
time of southern countries, on the northeast facade of the seventh pylon, is pre
sented Ibid., pp. 801 806.
quoted the introductory passages at length to show that, despite some variation
in wording and some loss of text, the variants are nevertheless explicit as to t
he fact that one of these is a list of northern countries and the other a list o
f southern countries. That the northern list is indeed northern is clear not on
ly from the fact that it calls itself such, but also from the inclusion in it of
a number of cities (e.g., Kadesh, Megiddo, Taanach, Aruna) that are known from
biblical and extrabiblical Asiatic sources; Velikovsky himself acknowledges this
on pages 143 and 150 151, where he mentions Kadesh as being the first city in the
list. Because of the possibility of such comparisons with the Bible and other
Asiatic texts, the northern list has attracted much scholarly attention, as can
readily be seen in the footnote references of ChapterIV of Ages in Chaos. Since
the peoples of Africa were not literate at this time and thus did not leave simi
lar records to facilitate such comparisons by modern scholars, Thutmose s southern
list has received relatively little attention. I feel it necessary to stress t
his point because Velikovsky did not read ancient Egyptian, and so, as best I ca
n determine, he was innocently unaware, if not of the existence of the list, the
n certainly of its potential significance to his argument.
And so, after somewhat lengthy introductory remarks, I reach the point that need
s to be raised: the forty-eighth land in Thutmose s southern list is Punt.[84] Th
us, Punt
84. See Ibid., p. 798, line 11, no. 48. For a collection of the occurrences of
the name Punt in ancient Egyptian texts, see Karola Zibelius, Afrikanische Orts- u
nd Vlkernamen in hieroglyphischen und hieratischen Texten, Beihefte zum Tbingen At
las des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften), Nr. 1 (Wiesbaden: Dr.
Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1972), p. 114.
is unequivocally attested as a land to the south of Egypt no more than about fou
rteen years after Hatshepsut s Punt expedition.
22. Punt was a land so well-known to the ancient Egyptians that its geographical
location was seldom mentioned in the texts that have survived to us. Many year
s after the publication of Ages in Chaos, Velikovsky wrote the following words,
which deserve to be quoted in full: As to some Egyptian reference or references t
o Punt [Pwene(t)] as located in the south, a point brought up by a few of my rea
ders, the following needs to be said: The opening passage in the History of Hero
dotus tells that the Phoenicians came to their country on the eastern shores of
the Mediterranean from their original home on the shores of the Eritrean Sea, by
which the Red Sea and also the Indian Ocean are known to have been named by the
Greeks. This would explain such early reference. But in another Egyptian text
Punt is referred to as being to the north of Egypt. Besides, we should be mind
ful of the fact elucidated in Worlds in Collision that in historical times and mor

e than once the cardinal points have been reversed, or as it is put in a hieroglyp
hic text, The south becomes north,. and the Earth turns over. [85]
85. S.I.S. Review 6/1 3 (1982): 7 8.
These remarks are rather unusual, and each of them needs to be addressed. I hav
e already dealt with the possible untrustworthiness of Herodotus s account, and al
so with the linguistic obstacles to identifying the names Phoenicia and Punt (both i
n point10 above); but these are the least of the points to be raised. It is surp
rising and unfortunate that Velikovsky does not cite the reference or references t
o Punt located in the south that he alludes to, but his words such early referenc
e suggest that it (they?) is pre-Hatshepsut. I do not myself know of such an earl
y reference that explicitly labels Punt as a southern country, and Velikovsky was
lax in his scholarly duty in not giving his citation(s) so that his readers cou
ld properly evaluate it (them). If the early reference is indeed pre-Hatshepsut,
then it is very strange indeed that Velikovsky mentions in this connection the p
ossibility of the reversal of the cardinal points and cites by way of support (p
.11, n.17) the Magical Papyrus Harris, a hieratic (not hieroglyphic) text that can
be dated on the basis of its handwriting style to the Nineteenth or Twentieth D
ynasty,[86]
86. H. O. Lange, Der Magische Papyrus Harris, Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Sel
skab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, XIV, 2, p. 7. Since Velikovsky quotes
this study, he was presumably in a position to know the date of the papyrus.
that is, long after the reign of Hatshepsut (even longer in Velikovsky s revised c
hronology than in the orthodox chronology). The passage from which he draws his
citation[87] is a magical spell that makes general reference
87. Ibid., p. 58.
to divine power and has no demonstrably historical significance.

Velikovsky s sole citation (p.11, n.16) of an Egyptian text referring to Punt as nor
th of Egypt is P.Schott, Les chants d amour de l gypte Ancien, p.97.
There has evidentl
been a misprint, for the author is Siegfried Schott, the volume in question bei
ng Paule Kriger s translation of Schott s German original. What we find on page97, in
a hymn to Hathor, is:
Tes yeux ont abattu les Nubiens,
O! grande matraisse de Pount,
Source dlicieuse du vent du Nord,
Matraisse de l air agrable.
(Your eyes have felled the Nubians,
oh, great mistress of Punt,
delightful source of the north wind,
mistress of the pleasant air.) 
The eye as a destructive power, particularly as destructive of enemies, is well-gr
ounded in Egyptian mythology, and Hathor as mistress of Punt who fells Nubian enem
ies could well be an allusion to an important myth of the flight of the sun s (Re s)
eye to Nubia and its eventual return.[88] References to the sweet breeze of the
north
88. Hans Bonnet, Reallexikon der gyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin: Walter d
e Gruyter & Co., 1952), pp. 281 and 734.
wind are frequent in Egyptian texts, for it is the cool northern breeze that brou
ght relief from the heat of Egypt s climate.[89]

89. Wb. V, p. 352.

The attentive reader has undoubtedly noticed that this passage is at best ambigu
ous as to the location of Punt, for the reference to that land stands between a
reference to the Nubians, who were located to the south of Egypt, and a referenc
e to the northern breeze, so that it could potentially be connected with either
of them. I have already cited grounds in Egyptian mythology for connecting the
Punt reference to the Nubians. it should also be noted that there is something
contradictory between the beneficent north wind and the felling of Nubians, all th
e more so if the Punt reference is connected with the north wind, and a further
illogic in connecting punt and the north wind to the felling of Nubians to the s
outh of Egypt. These evident ambiguities vanish when we realize that Egyptian p
oetry, and even prose of an elevated style, was usually constructed in groups of
two parallel clauses, with a further grouping of two and two into constructs of
four clauses or verses, as in the passage we are considering here. These paral
lel units complement one
90. See Miriam Lichtheim, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt9 (1971 1
972): 103 110; eadem, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. I (Berkeley and Los Angele
s: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 11 12; John L. Foster, Thought Coupl
ets and Clause Sequences in a Literary Text: The Maxims of Ptahhotep (Toronto: T
he Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 1977), pp. 5 30.
another by referring to the same thing, or to contrasting things. Thus, in our
passage, Your eyes have felled the Nubians,/oh, great mistress of Punt are paralle
l phrases referring to the south, while delightful source of the north wind,/mis
tress of the pleasant air are parallel phrases referring to the north. The two t
hought couplets further form a group of four verses, complementing one another b
y their references to south and north, in effect praising Hathor by referring to
the world-wide scope of her divine power. There is also a contrast between Hat
hor s capacity for destruction (felling the Nubians) and her beneficent aspect (th
e cool north breeze) though to be sure, from the Egyptian point of view, both aspe
cts are ultimately beneficent, for foreign enemies are indeed to be slain. Thus
, quote contrary to Velikovsky s claim that this is a reference to Punt as a land
located to the north of Egypt, it emerges from a consideration of the passage on
mythological and literary grounds that it is in fact a reference to Punt as sou
th of Egypt!
It is possible that someone anxious to preserve this as a reference to Punt in t
he north might cite the concept of the reversal of the cardinal points in histor
ical times, so that Nubia, and by inference Punt, would be to the north of Egypt
, this being complemented by the reference to the cool breeze. However, this ca
nnot work.; Nubia was located up the Nile from Egypt, so that Punt would have t
o be in the same general direction, whether expressed as south or north. Egypt
is located sufficiently close to the Equator that through much of the year its c
limate is unbearably hot, so that the cool evening breeze that brings relief mus
t come from the direction opposite to that of the Equator; a wind coming from th
e same direction as the Equator would be a hot one that makes matters worse. It
follows, then, that if this text referred to a situation in which the cardinal
points were reversed, a reference to the delightful source and pleasant air would ha
ve to be the south wind. But the text explicitly mentions the north wind, so th
at such an argument cannot stand.
23. While the appearance of Punt in ThutmoseIII s list of southern lands is basical
ly decisive in securing Punt s location vis--vis Egypt, Velikovsky s reference to the
reversal of the cardinal points in his S.I.S. Review article could be used as a
n argument in favor of a northerly direction for Hatshepsut s Punt expedition, and
so this point must be addressed here.

First, let us consider the matter from the point of view of logic. ThutmoseIII s n
orthern list embraces the lands of Asia, while his southern list, which includes
Punt, enumerates lands located in the opposite direction. If there had been a
reversal of the cardinal points in the approximate decade and a half that interv
ened between Hatshepsut s Punt expedition and the great Asiatic campaign of Thutmo
seIII that prompted the carving of the geographical lists on the pylons of Karnak
, then Punt would indeed have been to the north of Egypt. But the lands of Asia
would then have been to the south of Egypt, and an identification of Punt with
the kingdom of Solomon is thus precluded.
There is also an argument from silence to be made. I am not a scientist (and thus
I am making no attempt to address the basic issue of catastrophes affecting the
earth at any time, whether prehistoric or historical), but it seems to me that
anything that might have induced a reversal of the cardinal points would have in
volved massive geological, tidal, and other upheavals. Indeed, the very fact of
the reversal would have been so stunning that literate peoples would have recor
ded it. But neither the biblical accounts of Solomon s reign nor the Egyptian rec
ords that have survived from the reigns of Hatshepsut and ThutmoseIII make any me
ntion of such a reversal of cardinal points, or of the catastrophes that would h
ave accompanied it.
Finally, there is something in the surviving records that indicates that the car
dinal points were the same in Hatshepsut s time as in that of ThutmoseIII. A scene
in the Punt reliefs shows the presentation of gifts to Hatshepsut by the Puntit
es, as well as by people called the chiefs of Irem and the chiefs of Nemyew.
The ne
xt scene shows the queen offering the gifts to Amon, and the products of Punt, I
rem, and Nubia are depicted.[91] Velikovsky has
91. ARE II, Sec. 267 and 270.
noted these scenes in his discussion in ChapterIII of Ages in Chaos. He notes th
at the chiefs of Irem are not unlike the Egyptians, while the men of Nm yew or Khenth
enofer ... look entirely different they are dark-skinned and have round heads and th
ick lips, and seem themselves gifts like the animals and plants (p.125). Making a
comparison with biblical information, he concludes that the men of Nm yw or Khenth
enofer were probably the men of Ophir, a land that he acknowledges to be somewher
e to the south of Egypt (p.126, with n.8), while the chiefs of Irem were therefore
the messengers of Hiram (p.126).[92] It is
92. I cannot tell from Velikovsky s wording whether he is thinking of an identific
ation of the word Irem with the name Hiram, but this is in any case a secondary ma
tter.
worth mentioning here that the faces of the chiefs of Irem are almost completely
destroyed in the surviving depiction,[93] so that there is in fact no basis for
93. Naville, Deir el Bahari, Part III, Plate 76.
Velikovsky s contention that they

are not unlike the Egyptians.

Let us, then, consider the inscriptions that accompany these scenes. The first
is very broken; the surviving words of geographical interest are the chiefs of Pu
nt and the Nubian Troglodytes of Khenthennofer [94]
94. ARE II, Sec. 268.
(thus, Khenthenofer was in Africa, as we know also from the introduction to Thut
moseIII s southern list on the west front of the sixth pylon, cited above). The se
cond, which accompanies the presentation to Amon, reads: The King himself, the Ki
ng of Upper and Lower Egypt, Makere (Hatshepsut); presentation of the marvels of

Punt, the treasures of God s-Land, together with the gifts of the countries of th
e South, with the impost of the wretched Kush, the baskets of the Negro-land, to
Amon, lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, for the sake of the life, prosperit
y, and health of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Makere (Hatshepsut), that sh
e may live, abide, and her heart be joyful; that she may rule the Two Lands like
Re, forever. [95] It is clear from the wording of the
95. Ibid., Sec. 271.
inscription that all the products offered to the god, other than those of Punt (
or God s-Land), whatever the geographical direction of Punt, are from areas to the
south of Egypt, and thus that Irem, whose products are depicted in the relief t
hat the inscription accompanies is to the south of Egypt. But, as it happens, Ir
em occurs as number11 in Thutmose s list of southern countries![96] It thus follow
s
96. See Urk. IV, p. 796, line 14.
that the cardinal points were the same at the time of Hatshepsut s Punt expedition
as they were at the time of ThutmoseIII s great Asiatic campaign approximately fou
rteen years later. Thus, Velikovksy s remarks regarding reversals of the cardinal
directions cannot save his argument: the Egyptian record shows unequivocally th
at in the reigns of Hatshepsut and ThutmoseIII, Irem and Punt were located to the
south of Egypt.
24. the points just raised in justification of the traditional identification of
Punt as a land somewhere to the south of Egypt are sufficient in and of themsel
ves to demonstrate that the thesis of ChapterIII of Ages in Chaos cannot be corre
ct. It is hoped that the points raised in PartII of this paper explain, to the s
atisfaction of the lay reader who might have found Velikovsky s arguments cogent,
the mistakes and faulty logic that permeate that chapter. There remain, however
, further points to be addressed.
In ChapterIV of Ages in Chaos, by way of substantiating his argument that Punt wa
s in Asia, Velikovsky makes the following statements (pp.171 172): The sixth campaig
n of ThutmoseIII, like the first, was military: he conquered the north of Syria.
Three years later he went to Palestine to gather the levy. After describing th
e tribute obtained from Sinar and Kheta and the land of Naharin, the register re
ads: Marvels brought to his majesty in the land of Punt in this year: dried myrrh
...
The translator was surprised by this phrase. Checking the footnote reference
to the last sentence, I find not one word of surprise on Breasted s part, but rath
er the following comment: Or possibly from . [97] Since we know that Punt was to the
97. ARE II, Sec. 486, footnote 3.
south of Egypt, we can be sure that the inscription is telling us nothing more t
han that products from Punt arrived in Egypt in the year of the sixth campaign;
perhaps Thutmose returned to Egypt to find them waiting for him. The most basic
meaning of the preposition her, which is used at this point in the inscription,
is upon, but its meaning from in reference to foreign countries is well-attested.[9
8] Considering how long ago Breasted wrote his
98. See Wb. III, p. 131, no. VII.
Ancient Records
is hesitancy in
not having been
at Velikovksy s
gyptian and his

of Egypt (it was published in 1906), it is quite possible that h

assigning the correct meaning to the preposition was due to its
firmly established at that time. In any case, it can be seen th
incorrect argument is based on his own inability to read ancient E
reliance on an old translation.

25. In her article supportive of Velikovksy s chapter on the queen of Sheba, Eva D
anelius has described in detail the discovery of a temple of Hathor at Timna, wh
ere there are Egyptian inscriptions with royal names, beginning with SethosI of t
he Nineteenth Dynasty and ending with RamsesV of the Twentieth Dynasty.[99] One
of the objects of
99. KRONOS 1/3 (Fall 1975): 15 16.
Hatshepsut s expedition, according to the inscriptions at Deir el Bahari, was to br
ing all good things from the sovereign to Hathor, the lady of Punt, and Danelius
devotes several pages to an argument that the inscriptions refer to the erection
of the Timna temple by Hatshepsut.[100]
100. Ibid., 1/4 (Winter 1976): 15 20.
By now, the reader is aware that Hatshepsut was not the queen of Sheba, and that
the Punt expedition went to a land south of Egypt. The flaws in Danelius s argum
ent are these: First, the Egyptian inscriptions do not say that Hatshepsut s exped
ition built a temple, but rather that it presented an offering to Hathor of Punt
. Second, the inscriptional evidence from Timna goes back no further than Setho
sI of the Nineteenth Dynasty; despite all her words, Danelius cannot establish an
y connection between this temple and the Eighteenth Dynasty, much less the speci
fic reign of Hatshepsut.
But the matter of a Hathor Lady (or Mistress) of Punt who received Egyptian venera
tion surely arouses the curiosity of the reader, and an Egyptological explanatio
n is in order. The name of the goddess Hathor consists of two words and means Ho
use of Horus ; the translation house is inevitably a bit misleading, for the nuance
of the Egyptian word is not specifically an edifice per se, but rather a landhol
ding institution.[101] Thus, the basic concept
101. Hans Goedicke, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archologischen Instituts Kairo 21
(1966): 18.
underlying the goddess of Hathor is that of nature, that is, the natural world i
n which the Egyptian king, as representative of the god Horus, operates to rule
and order it, both within Egypt and outside its borders.[102] In this
102. See Bonnet, Reallexikon, p. 277; Goedicke, Journal of the American Research
Center in Egypt 8 (1969 1970): 15, with n. 29.
connection, the Egyptian timber trade with Byblos was so important that, while B
yblos remained independent of Egypt, the Egyptians identified the local goddess
Baalat with Hathor, and the Egyptian kings presented statues of themselves and o
ther votive objects to her. Similarly, when the Egyptian kings sent copper mini
ng expeditions into the wasteland of Sinai, they viewed Hathor as the patron god
dess of that region and built a temple for her there.[103] This
103. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 281; Goedicke, loc. cit.
is why the kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty, when, for reasons we do not know, un
dertook direct supervision of the mining at Timna,[104] built a temple of Hathor
there.
104. I do not understand why Danelius confuses the issue of Timna and Sinai by i
nvoking the Amalekites as conducting the mining on behalf of the Egyptians; no E
gyptian text mentions them.
In light of these facts, and of Punt s importance to Egypt as a source of precious
materials, it is not at all surprising to find that there was a Hathor Mistress

of Punt. [105] We know that she was recognized by the Egyptians

105. See Bonnet, loc. cit.
from at least very early in the Twelfth Dynasty, for an inscription found in the
Wadi Gasus excavations refers to SesostrisI as beloved of Hathor Mistress of Punt
. [106] An
106. Sayed, Revue d gyptologie 29 (1977): 159 160. v
inscription from the reign of SesostrisII makes the laconic statement: Year1, his m
onument in God s-Land was executed. [107} Though it cannot be proved, this certainl
y
107. ARE I, Sec. 618.
sounds like a reference to construction of an Egyptian temple to Hathor, or to a
local goddess identified with Hathor. As already noted, Hatshepsut s great accom
plishment was the reestablishing of a direct trade with Punt, one that had been
interrupted when the Hyksos invasion brought the Middle Kingdom to a close. The
mention of Hathor Mistress of Punt under SesostrisI (and possibly the SesostrisII
reference) is sufficient to show that in Hatshepsut s day there was a historical
recollection of Egyptian worship of Hathor in that land.
Part IV
It has been established in PartIII of this paper that Punt lay to the south rathe
r than to the north of Egypt, and thus in the opposite direction from the kingdo
m of Solomon. In PartII, it has been shown that Velikovsky s arguments for an equa
tion of Hatshepsut s Punt expedition with the queen of Sheba s visit to the court of
Solomon, appealing though they might seem at first glance, cannot stand up agai
nst a critical scrutiny based on considerations of evidence, philology, and logi
c. Inevitably, the question arises, what implication does this have for the res
t of Ages in Chaos and for the revised chronology as a whole?[108]
108. I have not been following the ongoing discussion of Velikovsky's work since
I wrote this paper in 1984. I can only refer the reader to the works cited in
note 2 for critiques of other portions of the revised chronology.
Intellectual honesty compels the admission that, strictly speaking, there is no
implication. Ages in Chaos is written in such a manner that ChapterIII can be re
moved from it without disturbing the remainder. The most that has literally bee
n proved here is that Hatshepsut and the queen of Sheba, and their respective ex
peditions, were not the same; to those committed to Velikovsky s revised chronolog
y, the Punt expedition and the visit to the court of Solomon can be viewed as di
fferent events, but nevertheless contemporary or roughly contemporary.
This admission might give rise to some suspicion that in writing at such great l
ength, I have put myself in the position of the mountain that labored to give bi
rth to a mouse. But I do not think that this is the case. I mentioned at the o
utset my hope that these remarks would have some educational value for readers w
ho are interested in Velikovsky s work, but who are not familiar with the workings
of scholarship in the area of the ancient Near East. Further, as I also indica
ted, there has been on the whole a curious silence in academic circles regarding
the revised chronology, and I think that it is worthwhile, in partial rectifica
tion of this situation, to have treated at least one text of Velikovsky s (in this
case, a single chapter) at length, taking it at face value as a learned contrib
ution to scholarly understanding of a historical question, and subjecting it in
that light to a critical evaluation. The findings in this case have been negati
ve, and although this does not in and of itself disprove the rest of Velikovsky s

revised chronology, there have emerged in the course of this discussion a number
of considerations that must surely have some bearing on any future evaluation o
f the remainder.
As a man educated in science and medicine, Velikovsky took a very brave. but pot
entially risky, step in venturing into areas far removed from his own specialty
when his researches led him to conclude that a major revision of ancient chronol
ogy was necessary. Several of the points raised above have shown that evidence
that Velikovsky was unaware of can be brought to bear upon his arguments in a ne
gative way (in this connection, see also the papers cited in note 108). A more
fundamental difficulty clearly lies in the fact that, during the decades when he
was working on the revised chronology, Velikovsky never undertook to acquire a
rudimentary knowledge of the ancient near eastern languages that would have give
n him some degree of control over the materials with which he was working. (Thoug
h the results of archaeological investigations play some role in Velikovksy s work
, it is clear from even a cursory reading of the volumes of the Ages in Chaos seri
es dealing with the ancient Near East that he dealt primarily with written histo
ry, that is, with the textual evidence of the ancient literate cultures.) Thus,
we have seen that for lack of knowledge of ancient Egyptian, he was misled by a
grossly inaccurate statement by Naville (point8) and by an incorrect translation
by Breasted (point24). Similarly, in relying on translations of Old Testament p
assages, he made errors based on Hebrew grammar (points5 and 6) and the Hebrew al
phabet (point11) that would never have been made had he considered the Hebrew tex
t. Further, it has been shown in PartII that each time Velikovsky tried to equat
e names from two different languages, his argument was wrong for reasons that ar
e known to every first-year student of the languages in question.
I am sorry to say that instances of the abuse of evidence have also been noted.
In three cases, portions of text passages that provided evidence against the ve
ry arguments they were cited to support were not quoted, their presence being in
dicated only by an ellipsis (points13 two instances and 16). In another instance, wo
rds spoken by the god Amon-Re were placed in the mouth of Hatshepsut (point13).
I regret that these instances came to light, and I do not intend to dwell on the
possible implications of this phenomenon; but I cannot avoid noting its occurre
nce.
In PartII, there were also several instances where logic alone that is, clear think
ing could have sufficed to argue against Velikovsky s contentions, even without the
citation of evidence or the adducing of philological considerations. Indeed, it
emerges from the commentary in PartII that what might appear at first glance to
be a carefully researched and tightly woven argument turns out to be an illogica
l concatenation of superficially similar points that quickly falls apart when su
bjected to close scrutiny.
It should be clear to the reader that the considerations just outlined are so fu
ndamental that it is impossible for their effect to be limited to only one chapt
er of one book of the Ages in Chaos series (that they are indeed not is shown in t
he articles cited in note2). It is too great an inferential leap to insist that
the remainder of Ages in Chaos must therefore be dismissed; but it is equally clea
r that, to a greater or lesser degree, these problems surely affect the argument
s therein.
It is thus necessary to caution the lay reader against too ready an acceptance o
f Velikovsky s admittedly seductive arguments. Even without knowledge of the anci
ent languages or access to a library filled with recondite scholarly journals, t
he reader can at least subject the logic of Velikovsky s arguments to close scruti
ny; and to the extent possible, the reader can refer to translations of ancient
texts cited by Velikovsky to note the general context of the passages cited, and
to discover the contents of anything he represents only by ellipses.

To those in academics who have taken pen in hand to defend all or part of the re
vised chronology, or who plan to do so, I would urge the following, and I do so
in a spirit of friendship and respect for dispassionate scholarly inquiry. Veli
kovsky s text must be subjected to as close and careful a scrutiny as articles wri
tten in opposition to Velikovsky (primarily by scientists) have been subjected i
n the journals of Velikovskian interest. It is essential (and perhaps all the m
ore so in light of the instances of abuse of evidence that I have cited) that on
e be sure that one is defending the defensible. I think that it is time for a f
urther critical consideration of Velikovsky s arguments; and by critical I mean here
, as I have meant elsewhere in this paper, not the intent of fault-finding, but
rather a close and careful evaluation.
The task of examining the remainder of Ages in Chaos, however, would surely best
be placed in other hands than mine. My own academic specialty is Egyptology, w
hile most of the remainder of the volume deals with matters that fall within the
realms of biblical scholarship, Ugaritic studies, and Assyriology (the Amarna L
etters).