by
Damien F. Mackey
The enigmatic Amenhotep
son of Hapu, who had hoped to attain the age of 110 (that reached by Joseph of
Egypt), has even been identified (wrongly) as this Joseph. His career in Egypt
seems to have been closely modelled on that of Senenmut (my Solomon). Like King
Solomon, he - whom I have tentatively identified as King Asa of Judah - was a
student of wisdom.
Introduction
Amenhotep son of Hapu was, we have learned, a highly influential
figure, whose fame reached down even into Ptolemaïc times. Chronologically, in
a revised setting, he would have been a contemporary of another colossal figure
at this time - also of long floruit - King Asa of Judah. For that reason,
and given that Amenhotep’s long career seems to have been modelled closely on
that of Senenmut, who I say was King Solomon, earlier in the same 18th dynasty,
I have tentatively identified Amenhotep son of Hapu as the great and mighty Jewish
king, Asa, spilling over into Egypt:
King Asa had, of course, sprung from the royal line of David and Solomon
(Rehoboam; Abijah; Asa).
Influenced
by Patriarch Joseph
Professor Joseph Davidovits had, as we read,
gone so far as to identify Amenhotep son of Hapu as the biblical Joseph of Egypt. In the “King
Asa” article we read of the professor’s bold claim:
In 1935 in Karnak,
in Egypt, two French Egyptologists discover a fresco in the ruins of the
memorial temple of Amenophis (Amenhotep) Son of Hapu, the most eminent scribe
and scientist of ancient Egypt, Great chancellor of the Pharaon Amenhotep III,
father of the monotheist Pharaon Akhenaton. Recently, 75 years later, it was
noted that the text of this fresco was reproduced almost word for word in the
Bible in Genesis 41, when Pharaon installs the biblical Patriarch
Joseph to rule over all Egypt. It is apparent that the royal scribe Amenophis
Son of Hapu and the Patriarch Joseph are thus the same person.
[End of quote]
Professor Davidovits, however, was not the
first to have discerned similarities between Amenhotep son of Hapu and Joseph - at least with the historical Joseph,
who was Imhotep of Egypt’s Third Dynasty. Even in antiquity it was thought of
Imhotep and Amenhotep that, as we shall read further on, “they have a single ‘body’ and a single ba,
‘soul’ or ‘manifestation’, as if Amenhotep son of Hapu were a veritable
reincarnation of his colleague who had lived one thousand years prior”.
D. Wildung wrote a book, Egyptian Saints:
Deification in Pharaonic Egypt (NYUP, 1977), in which he
nominated these two officials as the two real geniuses of ancient Egyptian
history. At (https://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/amenhotep-son-of-hapu/) we
read of some of the connections that Wildung had made between Imhotep and
Amenhotep:
Amenhotep, Son of Hapu
(Amenophis, Amenotes) … served in the
local government and in the priesthood of Khenty-khety before being called to the royal court at Thebes
in his early fifties. He had an extraordinarily distinguished career under
Amenhotep III, holding the positions of chief architect (he is credited with
the temple of Soleb), chief scribe and secretary in charge of recruiting, as
well as steward to the king’s daughter. Amenhotep son of Hapu died at the age
of around eighty. After his death he acquired a cult as a healer and an
intermediary of the God Amun, and was often worshiped alongside his fellow deified architect and healer
Imhotep, surpassing the latter in popularity in the vicinity of Thebes. In a hymn
inscribed on the temple of Ptah at Karnak, it is
said of Amenhotep son of Hapu and Imhotep that they have a single ‘body’ and a
single ba, ‘soul’ or ‘manifestation’, as if Amenhotep son of Hapu were
a veritable reincarnation of his colleague who had lived one thousand years
prior. The spell Pleyte 167 of the Book of the Dead is labeled as
having been found by “the King’s chief scribe Amenhotep the son of Hapu … He
used it for him [the king] as protection for his body.” Amenhotep son of Hapu
and Imhotep are mentioned in the Papyrus Boulaq (first century CE) as welcoming
the soul of the deceased: “Your soul will go to the royal scribe and chief
scribe of the recruits Amenhotep; your soul will be united with Imhotep … you
will feel like a son in the house of his father,” (Wildung 1977, 105).
Amenhotep son of Hapu is depicted as a scribe, often with palette and scroll,
somewhat older and corpulent, with a fuller hairstyle or wig than the standard
kind, a short beard, and often wearing a long apron. Votive inscriptions from a
Ptolemaic chapel behind the upper mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir
el-Bahari show that Amenhotep son of Hapu was still worshiped in the second
century CE, more than 1,500 years [sic] after his death.
Perhaps due to the similarity in name,
Amenhotep’s father Hapu is sometimes identified in later texts with “the living
herald Apis,” that is, the Apis bull, while his mother, Idit, is referred to as “Hathor-Idit, the
justified, the mother of the helpful God who issued from her on this beautiful
day, the 11th of Phamenoth, in her name ‘rejoicing’,” (Wildung 1977, 98-99). In
addition to the divinization of his mortal parents, Amenhotep is often
characterized as the son of Amun, or of Ptah, or of Seshat and Thoth. A text dating
from the time of Tiberius refers to him as the “youthful repetition of Ptah …
You give a child to the sterile; you release a man from his enemy; you know the
hearts of men and what is inside; you increase the lifetime; there is no
distress in you. You renew what has fallen down; you fill up what was found
destroyed,” (ibid., 105).
[End of quote]
And again at: http://www.boap.org/LDS/Hugh-Nibley/TrFac.html
….
The biographies of such great men as Imhotep and his later counterpart
Amenhotep Son of Hapu are enough to show that. They were commoners, both of them,
living some 1500 years apart, yet each achieving a renown equal to or
surpassing that of Pharaoh himself. "As long as he lived, and no matter
what he did," writes D. Wildung in his study of these two men, "no
king of Egypt was able to ascend to the realm of the gods. Two mortals
did." (Wildung, 28) How? Other Egyptians achieved a fame approaching
theirs, but they were always remembered as the very top achievers. Their
greatness and glory depended entirely on what they did for others: their religious
writings and offices, their practical genius as inventors of useful devices and
administrators of consummate skill in dealing with people, their all-embracing
humanity as friends and benefactors of all their fellow-men, their modest,
kindly and ever good-humored deportment, their contributions to the arts and
sciences, great innovations in architecture, engineering, literature and
philosophy, were all made possible by that one mysterious quality of
intelligence in which they were supreme. After their deaths they were venerated
in temples dedicated to them, to which for thousands of years pilgrims have
repaired for the blessings of healing and especially for posterity. …. "To
be united with Amenhotep and Imhotep in the after life" (Wildung, 105),
even as the pious Jew or Christian longs to be clasped to the bosom of Abraham.
They are depicted through the centuries clothed with the garments and insignia
of various gods, but always with their own faces.
….
Thus
the Greeks in Egypt identified Imhotep in his healing capacity with their own
Aesulapius, as a builder with Daedalus, as a Scribe with Thoth or Hermes; and
Imhotep and Amenhotep, though living ages apart, were shown fused into a single
person …. Right down to the 19th century pilgrims would come to Imhotep's
shrine at [Saqqara], where he built the magnificent Temple complex 4500 years
ago, for the healing of their bodies and especially for the promise of having
children, for Imhotep like Abraham was the great patron of the family. To suit
Moslem and Christian faith, however, the designation of the shrine was changed
from the Tomb of Imhotep, pagan, to the Prison of Joseph--it could not be the
Tomb of Joseph, since he was buried in Canaan, but the next best thing is the
jail in which he was buried for years. And so for 1500 years Imhotep has been
identified with Joseph, Abraham's own great-grandson, whose own biography shows
us that the [honours] bestowed on great commoners in Egypt were not withheld
from supremely deserving foreigners who showed the same capacity and zeal in
the service of Egypt; one of the greatest merits of Imhotep like Joseph, was
saving the land from a seven-years' famine.
[End of quote]
110 Years of Age
One will read in books and on sites re ancient Egypt
about the age of 110 being the ‘ideal’ one. Take e.g. this paragraph: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/oldage.htm#ixzz49uHnsTKu
And yet, one hundred-and-ten years seems to be the ideal
Egyptian life-span. There are 27 places in documents where this figure crops
up, and it had its widest acceptance during the 19th
and 20th Dynasties. King Pepi II of the 6th
Dynasty certainly came close, since we know of events
that took place in the 94th year of his reign. Ptahhotep, who was vizier to King Djedkare Isesi of the 5th
Dynasty, and two others individuals, are reputed
to have lived to that age as well.
[End of quote]
However, since two of those known to have reached this
exalted age (Imhotep and Ptahhotep) were in fact, according to my:
Joseph as Saviour of Archaïc Egypt
Joseph himself, then I would say that - given the Hebrew
patriarch’s profound influence over Egypt - he
was the reason why the age of 110 was so aspired to. Amenhotep son of
Hapu was one who, according to (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/resource/ObjectCatalog/1853), had hoped to
reach this sublime age, but, despite being old, fell well short of it:
Seated Statue of Amenhotep, son of Hapu
Author(s): C. Zarnoch, E. Sullivan
Description: This seated statue represents Amenhotep
son of Hapu, the royal scribe and architect of Amenhotep III. He is depicted
here as an aged man: his chest sags, his stomach is rounded, and the fleshiness
of old age marks his face. The inscription states that he had reached the age
of 80 (extraordinarily old for an ancient Egyptian) and wished to attain 110
years (the perfect lifespan).
Part
Two:
Amenhotep
and Amenemope
The suggestion may be worth making that Amenhotep
son of Hapu could be the same philosophically-minded scribe as the Hebrew
Proverbs-influenced sage, Amenemope, for whom (auto)biographical details are
almost completely lacking.
Introduction
According to the
following article (http://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/amen_em_apt.htm), Amenemope [Amen-em-apt] “may
have been a contemporary of Amenhotep, son of Hapu”, and, furthermore, the two
names may be compatible:
► a poetical name
& family for a wise man ?
The sage of our instruction is called Amen-em-apt, son of Kanakht, may have been a contemporary of Amenhotep, son of Hapu. He could also have been a literary figure used by a wise Ramesside scribe. Except for "overseer of fields" (1:13) and "scribe who determined the offerings for all the gods" (1:22), no other of the title cited by our sage are found on the monuments or papyri! His titles seem paraphrases in literary, poetical form.
Let us analyze our
sage's poetical name: Amen-em-apt, son of Kanakht, husband of Tawosre, and
father of many children, the youngest being Hor-em-maakher, the recipient of
the wisdom teachings of his father, a series of living pictures dealing with
the "teaching for life", enabling everybody to receive the greatest
gift of god, namely Maat, justice & truth, nurtured on the Nile over many
centuries.
"Amen-em-apt"
("Amun in Karnak") can be found from the XVIIIth Dynasty to Ptolemaic
times (Amenophis or Amenemope). It appears that several wise men of Egypt bore
this name: "Amenemopi", author of some proverbs written on the back
of the Budge Papyrus, "Amenhotep, son of Hapu", a learned scribe and
counselor of Amenhotep III, and our "Amen-em-apt, son of Kanakht".
"Apt"
("ipt") means "count, calculate, reckon". The name
"Amen-em-apt", ending with the determinative of "place"
(O1), is suggestive of the controller of the measure and recorder of the
markers on the borders of the fields mentioned in the prologue.
"Kanakht"
or "Strong Bull" is unusual as a name, but a regular part of
Pharaoh's Horus name throughout the New Kingdom. "Tawosre" ("the
powerful") is frequent in the XVIIIth Dynasty and born by a queen of the
XIXth, consort of Pharaoh Seti II. In the New Kingdom, "Hor-em-maakher"
or "Horus of the Horizon" (Harmachis), was identified with the sphinx
at Giza, looking toward the eastern horizon. The name dates as far back as the
XIIth Dynasty, and seems to appear in the Saite period as well as in early
Ptolemaic documents.
[End of quote]
Whilst
the Egyptian names of the parents of Amenemope, Kanakht and Tawosre,
differ from those known for the parents of Amenhotep, namely, Hapu and Itu, the
latter two may be non-Egyptian names. For Amenhotep, I have tentatively
identified as the Jewish king, Asa, whose father was (Greek) Abiu (= Hapu?), in
Hebrew, Abijah:
King Asa
Like Solomon a Steward for Pharaoh
Earlier
in the 18th dynasty, during the reigns of the Thutmoside pharaohs,
including Hatshepsut, the wisdom writings (Psalms, Proverbs) and (love) poetry
of kings David and Solomon - and indeed various Torah precepts and images as
well - had been overflowing into Egypt. See my:
Solomon and
Sheba
And
it would only be expected, if Amenhotep son of Hapu really were Asa, a
descendant of David and Solomon, that such Hebrew influence would continue into
the reigns of pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV Akhnaton – whose Sun Hymn, as we
saw, famously mirrors Psalm 104.
Now
the wisdom writing of Amenemope is famous for its resemblance to the Hebrew
Proverbs. But, typically, scholars would give precedence to the non-bliblical
writings. For example (https://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/a-reflection-on-proverbs-and-amenemope/):
Scholars have long noticed the many
similarities between the book of Proverbs, specifically chapters 22:17-24:22,
and the Egyptian book The Instruction of Amenemope. While there have
been different proposals as to who borrowed from whom, the general consensus
seems to be that the Hebrew author(s) borrowed from Amenemope.
This ‘expert’ tendency sorely needs to be turned around!
There
is a continuity here, because the instructions of Amenemope are also likened to
those of Ptahhotep (biblical Joseph), who well pre-dated the Solomonic era.
Here
in the very Solomon-like Proverbs of Amenemope, we may have some of the lost
Instructions and precepts of Amenhotep son of Hapu.
Give thine ears, hear what is
said, give thy mind to interpret them; to put them in your heart is good.
Bow down thine ear and hear
the words of the wise and apply thine heart unto my knowledge (xxii. 17).
Remove not the boundary stone
on the boundaries of the fields and displace not the measuring cord, be not
covetous of a yard of ploughland and tear not down the widow’s boundary.
Be not covetous of the poor
man’s goods and hunger not for his bread.
Set not the balance wrongly,
tamper not with the weights, reduce not the portions of the corn measure.
Bring nobody into misfortune
before the judges and warp not justice.
Ridicule not the blind man nor
be scornful of any dwarf, render not vain the intentions of the lame.
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