In the face of the many hundreds of military expeditions carried out by the Pharaohs archaeologists have been unable to verify ANY of the events recounted in Egyptian records. This situation exists even though the location of Egypt’s numerous conflicts are known. We would expect to find the remains of swords, arrow heads, battle axes, chariot parts, amour, and more importantly battle-scarred human remains or mass graves. However, there is a distinct lack of archaeological evidence and no data to support the existence of ancient battlefields. Upon close scrutiny, it becomes very obvious that the wars and battles of the kings exist in ‘sacred' words alone - no archaeological evidence exists for them as ever having taken place. That is of course, unless we look up!
Gary Gilligan
Hmm.
I read the referenced page.
In response, I'd ask you _exactly_ where the Battle of Bosworth Field took place, and if archaeological remains can prove this.
Richard III personally led his household retainers against Henry Tudor, according to various accounts -- yet you ridicule the idea of a king leading his men in your depiction of Egyptian history.
Needless to say, the Battle of Bosworth Field took place thousands of years after Egyptian battles.
Regards
Bill I.
The KIA are burried where?
Bill,
The crux of the matter... Megiddo.
The site of Megiddo is KNOWN to have staged at least 34 battles involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers over a period of 3,000 years. Further, archaeologists have been digging there for a hundred years or so. They are still currently excavating there. But they’ve found nothing to verify the battles of the Pharaohs. Megiddo is the site of 3,000 years of absolute bloody mayhem and yet no Crime Scene exists – this speaks volumes, especially when taking into account archaeologists found hundreds of broken chariot parts within only Three days of digging at Per Ramesses.
Even to a reasonable mind this doesn’t make sense and questions should be asked here.
My basic question will always be, where are the hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers from any of the battles fought at Megiddo?
Regards
Gary Gilligan
Egyptian Battles
1. Did pharaohs sometimes exaggerate their exploits?
Yes. This varies quite a bit; the exact extent is unknown.
2. Did Egyptians bury their dead?
Yes.
2a. Did they tend to allow the bodies of fallen warriors to lay where they fell?
Not if they could avoid doing so.
3. Has Egypt existed far longer than nearly any other similar nation anyone knows of?
Yes. This suggests that blanket statements about Egypt fall short of reality. Details regarding the earliest eras -- earliest "official" eras -- are limited, while tantalizing clues regarding much earlier prehistoric eras also exist.
4. Was the recording of events -- "history" -- quite different in ancient times than at present?
Yes. History is but a component of a civilization and its (changing) beliefs; what is history to one civilization will be very different to another.
5. In summary, we're looking at a vast stretch of time and have only been investigating it for a relatively short number of years in comparison to that vast stretch; the great bulk of Egyptian history is unknown.
Certainly warfare and violence erupted at many times and places in the ancient world, including ancient Egypt. If the known records of activities of certain pharoahs and their warriors as recorded by their administrations (and later administrations) do not closely accord with modern archaeological investigations, this doesn't say that no battles took place but rather that our knowledge is incomplete.
I could write of my own "inner" knowledge of ancient Egypt, but all such knowledge is suspect in our present civilization, with its outer material focus. There are times in the long span of Egyptian history in which such inner knowledge is fully acceptable and indeed, carefully cultivated.
Suffice it to say that I am conscious of battles which do not appear in any history books, and know of at least one undiscovered intact tomb with which I have a strong personal connection.
This tomb houses not just the mortal remains of an early pharaoh, but the remains of his strategic military advisor as well, and three generations of the advisor's sons.
The advisor in question sacrificed his own life when, with a small band, he became aware of an invading Nubian army. His attack, in which the Nubian commander was also killed, stopped the invasion.
You will find no stele anywhere commemorating these events, so far as I'm aware.
In short, I don't have a great deal of patience for moderns who make sweeping generalizations based strictly on sparse material evidence, even though in my present guise I'm just as modern, just as prone to materialist beliefs and a related worldview.
Bill I.
point 4
With respect to your point 4, I suggest that the official timeline is highly suspect. People in those days exaggerated in many ways, and one of these was how long someone lived or rules. So absent a separate dating method, some of egyptian history may be considerably more recent than appears from their records.
ANd as you say, the investigation is very incomplete. Most of it has been centered on the big fascinating monuments. Have people really looked for the small stuff?
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
nah
No I don't thing so.
sure they wrote a lot of propaganda in stone. About their kings being gos and such things. But they won a lot of small wars with their southern neighbors. We are not sure how dramatic those wars were. Big battles ? We don't know, except for the winning side bragging about it, in stone. Wood weapons could have rotted away a long time ago. So would the dead bodies left in the river and swamps.
It does seem though that when they ventured out of their river area, where they could dominate by controlling the water supply, they did not do so well.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
I think so
If I can refer you to my response above i.e. the crux of the matter.
Regards
G. Gilligan
mega
It is pretty evident that they ruling families were megalomaniacs and braggarts. They said they were gods, most likely to impress the local farmers. And they controlled the water supply.
What wars did they win outside of their river area? Who attacked them in a serious way?
When a serious army came later (Alexander's army) they folded.
PS:
It is quite possible that after a while, they believed their own propaganda. This is quite common.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
Well
Who attacked them in a serious way?
Well, there was the Nubian empire, who conquered and ruled Egypt for a hundred years. There were also the hitite threat. And of course the babilonians.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
Geography
Ok, I didnt know about teh Nubians winning for a while.
However, the Nile empire is very easy to defend, once you have it. The Hittites and Babylonians and the rest had to go through a very narrow place, with long supply lines. That is hard.
And what about the megalomaniac and bragging part? Do you not think that the Pharao rulers were full of themselves, to the point of insanity?
One of the reasons they ruled so long was that their subjects could not run away. There was no place to go, no place to live, outside the Nile river valley.
Surely the geography was a factor.
Add to that, the valley has been swamped and flushed for thousands of years. Much evidence will have been washed away, and fermented away.
On top of that, who has been looking for this sort of remains? I am sure you know more about this last part than me.
It seems to me that most Egyptologists only read the propaganda writtin in stone. Perhaps we have something in common on this last point.
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It is not how fast you go
it is when you get there.
Indeed
And what about the megalomaniac and bragging part? Do you not think that the Pharao rulers were full of themselves, to the point of insanity?
Part of me thinks you're totally right. another part stills considers fascinating all those ancient stories of the gods leaving a divine line to rule on Earth—that's the childish part that's been too influenced by Von Däniken, of course ;-) and yet...
One of the reasons they ruled so long was that their subjects could not run away. There was no place to go, no place to live, outside the Nile river valley.
I'm not so sure about that. The climate conditions we see today in that part of the world might have not been the same 5000 years ago. Still, the egyptian civilization is a fascinating case study, because it does raise a very valid question of why didn't the people rise in insurrection to overthrow their despotic rulers. Maybe they were totally immersed in the belief system implanted by them, so going against the Phraoh would have been as outrageous as rebelling against the Sun itself. Or maybe it's got something to do with what our old friend Anthony North proposed over and over: that ancient man had a different way of thinking, a more "communal" mind that's got nothing to do with our individualistic modern mindset.
Add to that, the valley has been swamped and flushed for thousands of years. Much evidence will have been washed away, and fermented away.
Agreed. In fact after what I read in the link I gave today, we might be totally wrong on our ideas about Egypt archeology. We think of Egypt as this relatively small area that's been combed for 300 years by scores of archeologysts, so we assume there's nothing much left to discover. A few mummies and tombs here and there, but nothing really exciting. But as this renowned egyptologist recently stated, what Science has found in Egypt may very well be les than 5-10% of what's really there! I mean the first westerners that began to look into the Egypt enygma were Napoleon's troops, and for the longest of times the real goal of european egyptologists was to fill the museums with the biggest, baddest treasure items they could loot... I mean find!
You wrote it yourself, the ancient kings only concern was to leave for posterity a legacy to show just how awesome they were. Studying only that gets you a very skewed and fragmented view of the past. For example, it's very difficult to discern which egyptian Pharaoh was the one described in the Exodus tale, since a description of this passage has been understandably "purged" from the egyptians annals (obviously, because it's terrible PR).
The idea of looking closely into the more mundane remains to understand how ancient people REALLY lived is a fairly recent one.
We're just beginning to scratch our past.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie