Egypt: new archaeological discovery in Matariya

The Egyptian-German Archaeological Mission to Matariya (Ministry of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Egyptian Museum University of Leipzig, University of Applied Sciences Mainz) has discovered new evidence for a sanctuary of Nectanebo I (380-363 BC) in the temple precinct of Heliopolis, according to Dr. Mahmoud Afify, head of the ancient Egyptian antiquities sector at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.

Dr. Aiman Ashmawy, head of the Egyptian team at the Mission, said the number of blocks from a limited area proves that the excavation area is the site of the original building built of limestone reliefs and columns, with lower wall zones made in black basalt. An eastern gate was made of brown silicified sandstone and decorated with inscriptions and ritual scenes.

The team also found additional evidence for the representation of geographical processions consisting of Nile gods with accompanying texts. A group of basalt slabs shows the geographical procession of the 6th Nome of Upper Egypt.

Additionally, objects like a sculptor's practice pieces and a bronze figurine of the goddess Bastet were found in the same area. Dr. Dietrich Raue from the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig/Germany focused on excavations in a second area in the southeast part of the temple, where a workshop from the 4th century BC and a superseding Ptolemaic stratum were discovered. "This fits to the growing evidence for the enormous activity of the kings of the 30th Dynasty in this sanctuary," he said. A new temple site of Ramses II was discovered between the location of the temple-site of Ramesses II at the Suq el-Khamis and the area of the Nectanebo temple. Fragments of colossal statuary as well as large blocks with wall reliefs were also found.

One of *those* topics.

Theses For The Reconstruction Of Ancient History by Immanuel Velikovsky (1945)
258. Ramses III is identical with Nectanebo I of the Greek authors. He lived not in the twelfth but in the fourth century.
259. In Herodotus there can be no reference to Ramses III, because the historian lived before the pharaoh. The history of Egypt by Herodotus, though defective in details, is more nearly accurate than that of the later and modern historians, because he placed the history of the Eighteenth, the Ethiopian, and the Nineteenth Dynasties in fairly accurate order.
269. The Jewish military colony at Elephantine still existed in 374 BCE and participated in the defense of the eastern border of Egypt. These professional soldiers were called Marienu by Ramses III, which is the Aramaic Marenu.
275. The papyrus of Wenamon describes the conditions in Syria during the late Persian or early Greek times. In the days when the Testament of Naphtali was composed, the Barakel Shipowners Company mentioned in this papyrus was still in existence and owned by a son of Barakel.
The Testimony of Radiocarbon Dating by Immanuel Velikovsky
The other way of using radiocarbon dating to test the correctness of the reconstruction of ancient history is in testing organic material from a period removed by several centuries from the last cosmic catastrophe. A choice case would be Ramses III and the Twentieth Dynasty in general. As I show in Peoples of the Sea, Ramses III of the historians is but Nectanebo I, who occupied the Egyptian throne in the first half of the fourth century and who warred with Artaxerxes II, the Persian... The difference between the conventional dates and the timetable of the revised chronology reaches here an almost grotesque figure of 800 years... Generally, not trees but short lived plants, such as linen, papyrus, grain, and also hide and mummies, should be used for radiocarbon tests for archaeological purposes. Since the problem to solve is whether Ramses III lived almost 32 or less than 24 centuries ago, the difference being so great as to exceed 25 percent (33 percent if counted on 24 centuries), the radiocarbon method, with its margin of uncertainty of less than 50 years, must provide an unambiguous answer in the contest for the title of the true history... [Dr. John Iles of Ontario, actually did succeed in one such an endeavor. In 1977 N. B. Millet, curator of the Egyptian Department of the Royal Ontario Museum, described the historical background of the mummy of Nakht, which the Canadian Medical Association was analyzing. According to Millet Nakht was "invariably described as the weaver of the kny temple" of King Setnakht, the first ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty and father of Ramses III. Millet wrote about Nakht's mummy that there was "unusually clear evidence of its date." Upon reading the report, Dr. Iles wrote a letter to the Canadian Medical Association's Journal, asking that a Carbon 14 test be performed. The death of King Setnakht, the first ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty, is conventionally dated at -1198. On Dr. Iles' initiative, the Royal Ontario Museum submitted linen wrappings from the mummy of Nakht to Dalhousie University for radiocarbon testing. On November 9, 1979, W. C. Hart of Dalhousie University wrote to Dr. Iles: "The date on linen wrappings from the mummy of Nakht is: DAL -350 2295 ± 75 years before the present (1950)," meaning -345 ± 75. Dr. Iles reported these results in a letter to the association's journal. (March 8, 1980). The radiocarbon date for this well-documented sample, -345 ± 75 corresponds almost precisely with the revised date for Ramses III but differs from the conventional date by ca. 800 years.-- JNS]
New York Times Book Review, letter to the editor May 2, 1977
The striking similarities are unmistakable. Finally, Dr. Velikovsky compares, step by step, the events described in annals left by Ramses III of his war with the Pereset and the Peoples of the Sea, with the descriptions by Diodorus of Sicily of the details of the war of Nectanebo I against the Persians and the Greek mercenaries. This comparison is made in such meticulous detail that the only logical conclusions are that both were describing the same war; that the Pereset and the Persians were the same people and that Ramses III was the Pharaoh whom the Greeks called "Nectanebo I." Incidentally, Dr. Velikovsky, quoting E. Wallis Budge, The Book of Kings (London 1908) Vol. II p. I, points out that one of the "Horus names" of Ramses III was Nectanebo (Nekht- a-neb). So much for Tomsen's accusations of cabbalistic reasoning and making "archeology out of anomalies." The Velikovsky presentation is one of "correlations painstakingly assembled from a multitude of sciences" as Thomsen says it should be. If Thomsen had read Peoples of the Sea carefully, or if he had remembered what he had read, he could not have made the accusations contained in the article under discussion... I seriously suggest to you and Mr. Thomsen that you owe Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky an apology and a retraction. Sincerely, E. R. Langenbach
Letter to Professor Samuel A. B. Mercer by Immanuel Velikovsky [September 12, 1947]
...the question of the Greek marks on the tiles of Ramses III, it cannot be settled in the frame of the conversational chronology... I did not forget to quote Hamza, and I did it extensively in my manuscript; there I offered also a comparison of the signs he identified as Greek letters with their shape as figured in G. Möller, Hieratische Palaeography, esp. the letters MOC or T. There is not a bit of similarity. As I said Hamza, like Petrie before him, was misled by the fact that letters recognized as Greek on the tiles of Ramses III, in a more archaic form were found also on the tiles of Ramses II. In my reconstruction, this point is well understandable. My Ramses III-Nectanebo identification is based on many points, and the tiles are only one of them. Compare, please, the description of Diodorus: they are identical even in smallest details.

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