Posted on 04/08/2005 4:21:11 PM PDT by nickcarraway
CAIRO (AFP) - A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed to AFP.
"Nefertiti married perhaps one of the first monotheists in history and the film will tell their story, which logically enough should be set in Egypt" said Heyman on a brief visit to Cairo.
"One can find in the Old Testament that Moses and Nefertiti had a relationship," he added.
The movie will also deal "with the return to the worship of the sun god," said Heyman.
He was referring to Aten -- the radiant disk of the sun -- whose cult was briefly re-introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten, the 10th king of the 18th Dynasty also known as the "heretic king" for breaking with traditional religion in the 1350s BC.
The cult of Aten is considered by some experts to be a predecessor of modern monotheism.
Scholars generally agree that Nefertiti, often referred to in history as the "most beautiful woman in the world", was Akhenaten's wife.
But few have argued that Akhenaten and Moses may have been the same man, although there is no consensus on their respective dates of birth and death.
Others contend that Ramses II, the third ruler of the 19th dynasty, was in fact Moses while Jews believe the pharaoh king is responsible for their exodus from Egypt.
And founding father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud ventured his belief in "Moses and Monotheism", published in 1939, that Moses was in fact an Egyptian follower of Aten that brought the monotheistic doctrine out of Egypt as Judaism when he led the Israelites away from slavery to freedom some 3,300 years ago.
Ahmed Osman, on whose 1990 book "Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus" the script of Heyman's next film is based, admitted that "my argument is controversial and not widespread among many Egyptologists."
"But I have collected evidence proving that Akhenaten and Moses are the same person, which so far nobody has been able to contest," said Egypt-born Osman who has lived in London for the past 20 years where he studied Egypt's ancient history.
"Egypt's history is greatly ignored by the film industry besides 'Cleopatra' and 'The Ten Commandments' and that's it," said Heyman, referring to the two epic Hollywood blockbusters released more than 40 years ago.
The shoot "will not start before 2006 and locations will be between studios and along the Nile in Upper Egypt," he added.
Although he said it was too early to talk about the cast, Heyman said he had met "several Egyptian actors who are very good and charming, warm and kind".
British director Hugh Hudson, the acclaimed director of "Chariots of Fire," will direct the movie.
Heyman, who produced or co-financed major films such as "Chinatown", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Marathon Man", is also known for creating the Genesis project -- a scholarly endeavor to put all the Hebrew and Christian scriptures on film.
He also produced "Jesus," filmed on location in Israel in Biblical settings and subsequently translated in more than 850 languages.
The problem is that while archeaologists are looking in the right place, they are looking in the WRONG time!
The traditional Egyptian timeline is based on three pillars... and two of them are wrong. The prime one is the assumption that the unnamed Pharoah of the Exodus was the most famous of the Pharoahs... Ramses II called The Great. This as an error introduced very early in the "science" of Egyptology. The early archaeologists reasoned that Moses, the most important person in the Old Testament, must have interacted with the most important of the Pharoahs in Egypt... at least that THEY knew about... and that was Ramses the Great. This conclusion was actually confabulated out of the Biblical citation that the Hebrews were put to work building the Cities of Pi-Ramasses and they concluded that they must have been built by Ramses II. First of all there have been at least ELEVEN Pharoahs named Ramses - it was the name of Ramses II's Dynasty (The 19th)... and to confound things even more, that was only one of his names. There were Pharoahs named Ramses before the Ramses Dynasty.
Another problem with Ramses II being the Pharoah of the Exodus is that, on his wall of military victories, the City of Jerusalem is listed as one of his conquests... but if he reigned during the Exodus, the Jerusalem would not be founded for at least 40 years (remember the wandering in the wilderness?) and actually a lot longer than that. .. but there it is on his wall.
Another builder Pharoah was Thutmose (Thut-Moses?) IV during whose reign events similar to the story of the Exodus DID seem to have occurred. But his claim to Exodus is dismissed because of (1) the traditional time-line is anchored on Ramses II, and (2) he isn't Ramses II. During his reign, wall art seems to indicate semitic people as servants.
Incidentally, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Smenkhkare, Tutankenamen, Ai (or Ay) and Horemheb were the last leaders of the 18th Dynasty...
Apparently that wasn't a religious or official requirement... it was prophylactic for lice.
Democrats... (Eddie Murphy laugh)...
I've heard that too.
"Egypt's history is greatly ignored by the film industry besides 'Cleopatra' and 'The Ten Commandments' and that's it,"
How dare he forget "The Scorpion King"!
Any relationship between this bogus movie and Egypt's history will be purely coincidental.
"Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)"
The most boring Tarzan movie ever, and he had stiff competition (like Bo Derek's abysmal movie).
It is quite astonishing to me that people will believe anything they read. They will believe ANYTHING but God's Word.
The speaker disdains common grammar, so his logical powers might be questionable.
Are you SURE his grammar is wrong? Perhaps he had something to do with those other Hollywood extravaganzas... The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King... and Hillary's resurrection as a moderate?
It's not wrong in that it can be interpreted to make sense, but hanging out there as an assertion it has weak form and will vanish like the morning dew.
There is a lot of uncertainty in the dating of both Thera's final major eruption and Akhenaton's reign. But I think there are strong arguments for a coincidence of the two events around 1380 B.C. I think Amenhotep IV was the Pharaoh of the Bible. And the Hebrews were a subgroup of the Hyksos, possibly the first of them, who had infiltrated, then ruled Egypt 400 years earlier, to be deposed and enslaved by Ahmose I, a "pharaoh who knew not Joseph". After the disaster, Amenhotep I changed his name to Akhenaton and "founded" monotheism (according to the secular record) in an imperfect imitation of Moses' superior God.
The Thera eruption brought about the Plagues and a tsunami that wiped out the Minoans as well as the drying and reflooding of the Sea of Reeds in the Nile delta - not the Red Sea as mistranslated - that allowed the Israelites to escape and destroyed the egyptian pursuers.
Huh. Didn't I see this on an episode of "Duck Dodgers"?
No, I haven't. I suspect that they may be influenced by the enormous success that jerk Brown has had with The Da Vinci Code.
Now that makes more sense. I wondered what the Bedouins were doing in Egypt, but Nubians traded in the region.
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