Staff of Moses 'found' in Birmingham

BBC News ^ | Thursday, 11 April, 2002, 17:27 GMT 18:27 UK | BBC Staff

[vannrox]

Staff of Moses 'found' in Birmingham

Was Moses was an Egyptian official called Tuthmosis?

An ancient staff in a British museum may be connected to the Biblical figure of Moses, a new book claims.


Coventry writer Graham Phillips believes the staff, on display at Birmingham Museum, belonged to the historical Egyptian official Tuthmosis, whose life had strong parallels with the Moses of the Bible.


"I am certain that this is the actual staff that the Bible asserts Moses used to perform the miracles of the Exodus," he told BBC News Online.


But his claims are disputed by the curator of Birmingham Museum, Phil Watson.


An Egyptian inscription to Tuthmosis

The Bible says that Moses was raised by the daughter of the pharaoh, led the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea using his staff.


Mr Phillips argues that the historical Moses was based on two figures in different time periods, 100 years apart.


The first, dating from about 1460 BC, was an Egyptian court official called Tuthmosis, who like the biblical Moses, was brought up by the daughter of the king of Egypt.


Like Moses, Tuthmosis was expelled from the pharaoh's court and was sympathetic to the plight of the slave workers.

'Ordinary people'

Mr Phillips said the staff has the name of Tuthmosis on it and describes him as a court official.


His research has revealed that the staff was found in a tomb in southern Jordan in the 1800s before being bought by a British collector and later acquired by Birmingham Museum.

Mr Watson, principal curator of human history at Birmingham Museum, said he had not yet had a chance to study Mr Phillips's book The Moses Legacy, but said some of the claims linking the staff to Moses were "tenuous".


"Tuthmosis was a very, very common name in Egypt. The staff was acquired by the museum in 1952 and its history before that is somewhat problematic."

Graham Phillips believes it is the staff of Moses

Mr Watson said it was more likely the staff had originally come from a tomb in Egypt rather than in Jordan.


"I will look at the book and I am sure it will be interesting," he said.


"But I have spent a lot of my time telling people ancient Egypt is about ordinary people and not about treasure or some really important people."

[vannrox]

WOW.

[Enterprise]

Great! Use it to turn the RATS into snakes and have them devour each other. What a true MIRACLE that would be!

[scouse]

In the Baseball Hall of Fame they have the bat of Aaron. :^))

[cmsgop]

Does this fall in with that Red Heifer Birth?

[syriacus]

Mr Watson said it was more likely the staff had originally come from a tomb in Egypt rather than in Jordan.

Can't it be a different staff than the one Moses took when he left Egypt? Can't Moses have had one staff as a member of the Egyptian royal household and another as a leader of God's people?

[aomagrat]

There's an easy to test it. See if it will part the channel.

[PatrickHenry]

From the title of the article, I thought the thing had been found in Alabama.

[fso301]

yet another way to make a buck.

[montag813]

Sounds like a dental disease.

[Cicero]

Moses was a conflation of two Egyptian pharoahs who lived a hundred years apart? On what evidence is this theory based? If you don't believe the basics of the Exodus story, then why would you think there was a staff in the first place?

If you do, then none of this theorizing makes any sense. Because Moses didn't leave his staff behind in Egypt to be found in a tomb, he took it with him to part the Red Sea and close it up again. Besides which, it would have come in handy during his forty-year walk through the desert.

[Rodney King]

"But I have spent a lot of my time telling people ancient Egypt is about ordinary people and not about treasure or some really important people."

Now, leaving aside the fact that this is probably hoax, the above argument is just stupid. "I have spent a lot of time telling people that Egypt is about ordinary people, therefore a claim regarding a non-ordinary person must be false."

It reminds me of all the art history people who have created their own little world. The best example is of course how they treated Michaelangelo. For years, the art history people said how dark and drab his colors were. Being losers who had to invent reasons why people should pay attention to them, they then when on to try to use the color of his paintings to explain his life and times.

Then the Sistine Chapel was cleaned, and lo and behold the colors were strikingly bright and uplifting.

The first reaction of the art historians was that they must have screwed up and removed the dark paint because "everything we know about Michalangelo" said that the paint was dark.

[Hellmouth]

Think of the possibilities for the next Indiana Jones movie....

[Rebelbase]

"From the title of the article, I thought the thing had been found in Alabama."

My first thought also.

[another cricket]

From the title of the article, I thought the thing had been found in Alabama.

That was my first thought too.

a.cricket

[aruanan]

Well, the Moses raised by Pharaoh's daughter and the Moses who led the Jewish people out of captivity were about 40 years apart in history (same person, 40 year interval). Besides, the date of 1460 BC for Thutmosis is about a hundred years too late for the Biblical Moses.

[JAWs]

Doubt it. In the original Hebrew, Moses is Moishe. Not close enough phonetically IMO.

[dep]

In the Baseball Hall of Fame they have the bat of Aaron. :^))

and a great deal of stuff having to do with ruth as well.

dep

[Tennessee_Bob]

See if it will part the channel.

And then wait till the French are halfway across......

[lowbridge]

Staff of Moses 'found' in Birmingham

So they found a movie prop in Alabama. Big deal.If they look closely, it probably has Charlton Heton's signature on it.

;-)

[F.J. Mitchell]

Let's give it the acid test before we get too excited: Throw it down and see if it turns into a snake-strike a rock and see if pure sweet water flows out. There was something else about the rod sprouting. It will be one hotrod if it passes the tests.