by
Damien F. Mackey
The high official Senenmut, often described as ‘the power behind the throne’ of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, was - according to my now very strong conviction - none other than King Solomon of Israel himself, lately most heavily involved also in Egyptian affairs.
Senenmut, as Solomon, as we read in my article:
Solomon and Sheba
(4) Solomon and Sheba | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
faded from the Egyptian scene in about Year 16 of these Egyptian co-rulers. If this was the approximate time of Senenmut’s-Solomon’s death, then the 5th year of his son, Rehoboam, the year when Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and pillaged its Temple and palace:
I Kings 14:25-26: “In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the Temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made” ….
must coincide very closely indeed to Thutmose III’s First Campaign in his Year 22-23, the very military campaign that Dr. I. Velikovsky had identified with the biblical one (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952).
Since I have fully accepted Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of Thutmose III as the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”, I therefore have something of a vested interest in his estimation that the pharaoh’s First Campaign was the biblical episode. Chronologically, in my revised scheme (Senenmut-Solomon factor), it fits like a glove.
But what about geographically?
Well, that has turned out to be a monumental challenge.
We are going to be looking at four differing geographies for pharaoh Thutmose III’s First Campaign, the last three of these will be revised views. I refer to these four:
• The conventional account of it;
• Dr. I. Velikovsky’s account of it;
• Dr. E. Danelius’s account of it;
• My own view.
A. The Conventional view
Apart from its being dated approximately half a millennium too early on the time scale (c. 1460 BC instead of c. 920 BC), the conventional estimation of the geography of at least the early stage of the First Campaign of Thutmose III does not accord at all with the Egyptian description of it topographically speaking.
All reconstructions (whether conventional or revised) are in agreement that the Egyptian army first marched to the city of Gaza.
Wikipedia briefly tells of how the conventional version of the campaign runs in its article, “Thutmose III”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III#:~:text=First%20Campaign,-Thutmose%20III%20smiting&text=Thutmose%20marched%20his%20troops%20through,battle%20of%20Thutmose's%2017%20campaigns.
First Campaign
When Hatshepsut died on the 10th day of the sixth month of Thutmose III's 21st year, according to information from a single stela from Armant, the king of Kadesh advanced his army to Megiddo.[23] Thutmose III mustered his own army and departed Egypt, passing through the border fortress of Tjaru (Sile) on the 25th day of the eighth month. Thutmose marched his troops through the coastal plain as far as Jamnia, then inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo, which he reached in the middle of the ninth month of the same year.[24] The ensuing Battle of Megiddo probably was the largest battle of Thutmose's 17 campaigns. A ridge of mountains jutting inland from Mount Carmel stood between Thutmose and Megiddo and he had three potential routes to take.[25] The northern route and the southern route, both of which went around the mountain, were judged by his council of war to be the safest, but Thutmose, in an act of great bravery (or so he boasts, but such self-praise is normal in Egyptian texts), accused the council of cowardice and took a dangerous route[26] through the Aruna mountain pass, which he alleged was only wide enough for the army to pass "horse after horse and man after man."[24]
Despite the laudatory nature of Thutmose's annals, such a pass does indeed exist, although not as narrow as Thutmose indicates,[27] and taking it was a brilliant strategic move since when his army emerged from the pass they were situated on the plain of Esdraelon, directly between the rear of the Canaanite forces and Megiddo itself.[25] For some reason, the Canaanite forces did not attack him as his army emerged,[26] and his army routed them decisively.[25] The size of the two forces is difficult to determine, but if, as Redford suggests, the amount of time it took to move the army through the pass may be used to determine the size of the Egyptian force, and if the number of sheep and goats captured may be used to determine the size of the Canaanite force, then both armies were around 10,000 men.[28] Most scholars believe that the Egyptian army was more numerous.[citation needed] According to Thutmose III's Hall of Annals in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the battle occurred on "Year 23, I Shemu [day] 21, the exact day of the feast of the new moon",[29] a lunar date. This date corresponds to 9 May 1457 BC based on Thutmose III's accession in 1479 BC. After victory in battle, his troops stopped to plunder the enemy and the enemy was able to escape into Megiddo.[30] Thutmose was forced to besiege the city, but he finally succeeded in conquering it after a siege of seven or eight months (see Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC)).[30]
This campaign drastically changed the political situation in the ancient Near East. By taking Megiddo, Thutmose gained control of all of northern Canaan and the Syrian princes were obligated to send tribute and their own sons as hostages to Egypt.[31] Beyond the Euphrates, the Assyrian, Babylonian and Hittite kings all gave Thutmose gifts, which he alleged to be "tribute" when he recorded it on the walls of Karnak.[32] The only noticeable absence is Mitanni, which would bear the brunt of the following Egyptian campaigns into Western Asia.
[End of quote]
From Gaza [Egyptian G3-d3-tw], to Yehem [Egyptian Y-hm], via a narrow defile, Aruna [Egyptian '3-rw-n3], to Megiddo [Egyptian My-k-ty]. So it goes.
Then the pharaoh will go on to invade Syria, and, ultimately, on to Syrian Kadesh [Egyptian Kd-sw].
This conventional reconstruction of the campaign, if correct, would absolutely shatter any consideration that this could have been the biblical episode involving Jerusalem and the pharaoh “Shishak”. Prior to Megiddo, the route almost entirely hugs the coast.
At least it does not go anywhere near inland Jerusalem.
Thankfully, the conventional effort can be shown to be hopelessly inadequate as to its reconstruction of the early part of the campaign. Dr. Eva Danelius has shattered it - and indeed a crucial part of Velikovsky’s reconstruction as well - in her brilliant article, “Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem? A Critical Commentary to Chapter IV of "Ages in Chaos" (SIS Review, v2, No.3, 1977/78).
While her main achievement here is on the level of topography, her comments about some key name identifications are also most telling.
Writing of the infamous Aruna road, for instance, Dr. Danelius tells how the conventional identification of the location by no means fits the actual name:
Breasted identified this defile, the road called "Aruna" in Egyptian records, with the Wadi 'Ara which connects the Palestine maritime plain with the Valley of Esdraelon (4). It was this identification which aroused my curiosity, and my doubt. …. As an afterthought, [Harold] Nelson warns not to be deceived by the Arabic name (wadi) 'Ara: "Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) 'Aruna with (Arab) 'Ar'arah." (51).
But Eva Danelius had a problem far more serious with the conventional identification of the Aruna road than this one of etymology - one which really had ‘aroused her doubt’. Thus she explains:
If it is true that "the geography of a country determines the course of its wars" (44), the frightful defile, and attempts at its crossing by conquering armies, should have been reported in books of Biblical and/or post-Biblical history. There is no mention of either. Nor has the Wadi 'Ara pass ever been considered to be secret, or dangerous.
"From the Plain of Sharon to Jordan. This line... ascends by the broad and open valley Wâdy 'Ârah, crossing the watershed at Ain Ibrahim, which is about 1200 feet above the sea. Thence the road descends, falling some 700 feet in 3 miles to Lejjûn, where it bifurcates... This line, which appears to be ancient, is of great importance, being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of Wâdy 'Ârah." This was written 100 years ago, by C. R. Conder (45), long before a modern highway was laid through.
Conder's view is shared by later writers: "Most armies coming north over Sharon. .. would cut across the... hills by the easy passes which issue on Esdraelon at Megiddo and elsewhere." - thus, a famous historian and geographer (46).
The last army which actually crossed by this pass on its way from the south was the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Allenby, in September 1918. General Wavell evaluates the difficulties of the crossing when discussing the operational plan for the final onslaught: "There was no obstacle to rapid movement along either the Plain of Sharon or Plain of Esdraelon. The crux of the ride would be the passage of the mountain belt which divides these two plains... the width of this obstacle is about seven miles. Two routes lead across it from Sharon, of which... the eastern debouches into Esdraelon at El Lejjûn or Megiddo... Neither road presents any physical difficulties for a mounted force. On the other hand, either is easy of defence and would be hard to force against opposition." On September19th, 1918, a brigade with armoured cars was sent ahead to seize the defile leading to El Lejjûn. It was undefended, and on the following night "the 4th Cavalry Division passed the Musmus Defile (Wadi 'Ara pass) during the night, after some delay due to a loss of direction by the leading brigade, and reached the plain at El Lejjûn by dawn." (47)
During the same years in which Breasted wrote his reconstruction of the campaign, a German team under Schuhmacher started to excavate Tell el-Mutesellim. The excavation was carried out during the years 1903 to 1905. Unfortunately, "At the spot excavated by Schuhmacher, absolutely nothing has been found which could provide any further information" (concerning identification of the mound with that besieged, and conquered, by Thutmose III), states the report (48).
Schuhmacher's excavation was much too limited to permit final judgement.
Breasted, quite rightly, refused to give up so easily.
He wanted scientific proof for his identification, and suggested to one of his students, Harold H. Nelson, that he dedicate his doctoral thesis to the problem. Nelson was not given freedom to look for the frightening defile among the mountains of Palestine; Breasted confined him to a specific region: "This study is confined almost entirely to an effort to interpret the Annals of Thutmose III in the light of the geography of the environs of Megiddo," explains Nelson in his preface (49). In other words, the "scientific investigation" had to verify a foregone conclusion of Breasted - it was "prove or perish" for the unhappy young man.
For the sensitive reader, the resulting dissertation is a moving testimony of an intelligent and honest young student who tried desperately to harmonise the theory of his venerated teacher with the observations made on the spot, which simply did not fit.
Nelson travelled through the Wadi 'Ara pass in 1909, and again in 1912. He described it in detail: '...the road enters the Wady 'Ara which is there... flat and open... All the way to a quarter of a mile above 'Ar'arah the valley is wide and level and cultivated up the slopes on either side... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible and it is possible to drive a carriage as far as the top of the pass." The road follows an ancient Roman road which descends along a smaller way. "This latter gradually contracts as it proceeds till about half a mile above the mouth of the valley, it reaches its narrowest point, being not more than 10 yards wide. A little further on the road... opening out rapidly to a couple of 100 yards, emerges upon the plain of Lejjûn." Nelson comes to the conclusion that: "Of course such a road could be easily defended by a comparatively small number of men, but, on the other hand, an invading army could readily keep possession of the hills on either hand which are neither steep nor high above the valley... a watcher posted on the hill above Lejjûn could descry an approaching army at least a mile above the mouth of the pass." (50)
….
Neither the physical appearance of the road as described by Nelson, nor its use as an international highway justify its identification with a road described as "inaccessible", "secret" or "mysterious" in the Egyptian records.
[End of quotes]
This telling estimation by Dr. Danelius has stuck with me even as I have vacillated over the years from one viewpoint to another about the actual route of the First Campaign, at one stage even dropping Velikovsky’s view that it was the “Shishak” episode and so looking for a more appropriate campaign by Thutmose III.
Eventually, though, I would have to find a solution that was in topographical harmony with the Egyptian account.
Dr. Danelius was also critical of the conventional interpretation of the place named in the Egyptian Annals as Y-hm.
Though I never considered her alternative explanation of it as Yamnia (Yavne) to be very convincing either, and wondered if a better solution for Y-hm was possible.
More recently, I have come to the conclusion that Y-hm is the key to the entire situation. That Y-hm refers to Jerusalem!
This is what Dr. Danelius herself had to say about this Y-hm:
Let us stop here and survey the situation. To recapitulate: the one undisputed place reached by the Egyptian army was Gaza. From there on, every "identification" has been pure guesswork. This is especially true for the "identification" of Y-hm, which was supposed to have been near the entrance to Wadi 'Ara (and identified, eventually, with Jemma, a nearby Arab village). In order to reach this place, the army which had just crossed the Sinai desert would have continued marching for 10 days, covering about 90 English miles (89). So far Breasted, and his followers to this day.
Experience has shown that an army which includes cavalry and chariots drawn by horses cannot progress that quickly in a country where drinking water is in short supply during the dry season, May to November. It seems that neither Breasted nor any of his followers has given any thought to this vital question, not to mention other problems of logistics. In this respect, the dispatches sent by General Allenby to the Secretary of State for War during the advance of the Forces in the Philistine Plain are a veritable eye-opener. Gaza had fallen on November 7th 1917. Two days later: "By the 9th, the problem became one of supply... the question of water and forage was a very difficult one.
Even where water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in wells and not on the surface, and consequently... the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow and difficult," writes Allenby (90). The very next day, November 10th: "The hot wind is an additional trial, particularly to the cavalry already suffering from water-shortage." (This was near Ashdod, in the Philistine Plain.) "Owing to the exhaustion of their horses on account of the lack of water", two mounted brigades "had to be withdrawn into reserve" on November 11th.
There is no reason to suppose that nature was kinder to Thutmose's troops in May, the month with the greatest number of days with the destructive hot wind blowing from the desert. than to the Allied troops in November.
Allenby's advance, too, was considerably slower than that demanded in Breasted's calendar for the advance of the Pharaoh's army: the Allied left wing covered only 40 miles in 15 days along the plain (91), while Breasted suggested 80-90 miles in 10-11 days.
These observations may justify a totally different interpretation of the events during the 10 or 11 days from the day Thutmose left Gaza to the council of war at Y-hm. According to the unanimous understanding of Egyptologists, the text of the Annals leaves no doubt that the entrance into Gaza was a peaceful one. There is no hint of any resistance by the inhabitants. Gaza, in the10th century BC, was the seat of one of the five Philistine kings (92). The peaceful entry and exit of the Pharaoh and his army justifies the assumption that the Egyptians found themselves in a friendly country. War preparations by the Pharaoh, most probably, were not confined to the purely military side; they should have included political discussions with the countries bordering the Judaean Kingdom: Edom, Philistia and the newly created Kingdom of Israel. Among these, the Philistine Plain would be the ideal base for an army considering the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem. For the following, it is assumed that the Egyptians were in the position to use it as such (93).
The place named immediately after Gaza is Y-hm. Petrie suggested an identification with the modern Arab village Yemma, south-west of the Carmel ridge, an identification that is "little more than guesswork" according to Nelson (94). If an eminent Egyptologist like Petrie thought an equation Y-hm = Yemma possible, it may be permitted to see in Y-hm the Egyptian equivalent of Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew), a port about 40 km north of Gaza. Today, Yamnia/Yabne lies about 7 km inland from the Mediterranean, from which it is separated by a broad belt of sand dunes. The plain around it is strewn with the remnants of Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements, among them a harbour town at the mouth of a little river which bypasses the city. Needless to say, possession of a harbour would facilitate the problem of supply and help considerably in its solution.
It is suggested to see in Yamnia the location of the campaign base and council of war described in the Annals (95).
[End of quotes]
For conventional history, any reconstruction of pharaoh Thutmose III is going to be out by some 500 years. That, for one, negates any possibility of his being the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”, and it also negates any of his many campaigns as being the famous biblical attack on Jerusalem.
Apart from some flawed name connections, especially the hopeless equation of the Egyptian Aruna (most crucial in any reconstruction of the event) with Wadi ‘Ara (Arab) ‘Ar‘arah, the conventional site for Aruna, Wadi ‘Ara, cannot possibly be associated topographically with the notorious road as described with such dread by the Egyptian soldiery. And this, despite Wikipedia’s hopeful “… such a pass does indeed exist, although not as narrow as Thutmose indicates”.
B. The Campaign as Dr. Velikovsky explained it
Most ironic that Dr. Velikovsky, to whom we must be forever grateful for his
having courageously revised Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt on a massive scale,
would contribute nothing really worthwhile regarding the route taken by
pharaoh Thutmose III, the biblical “Shishak”, in his First Campaign,
the one that Velikovsky had correctly identified as the biblical episode.
For once we find Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky following the conventional view for the early part of Thutmose III’s First Campaign, and thus getting things quite wrong – as according to what we learned previously of the conventional interpretation.
Dr. Velikovsky had accepted professor Breasted’s view that Megiddo was the Mk-t-y of the Egyptian Annals, and that Thutmose III and his troops had followed the coastal route from Gaza to Megiddo.
That immediately runs into the serious problem of topographical dissimilarity as pointed out above. When confronted with Dr. Eva Danelius’s criticism of it, Velikovsky came with this reply that I consider to be weak, no better really than Wikipedia’s: “… such a pass does indeed exist, although not as narrow as Thutmose indicates”. And so Velikovsky wrote (“A Response to Eva Danelius”, SIS Review, Vol. II No. 3 Special Issue 1977/78, p. 80):
Now as to the approach to Megiddo being a narrow pass - by what it is now, it cannot be judged what it was almost three thousand years ago. There could have been artificial mound-fortifications the length of the pass. Think, for instance, of Tyre of the time of Shalmaneser III or Nebuchadnezzar (who besieged it for 13 years), or even of the days of Alexander, when it withstood a protracted siege. Today its topography is completely changed.
Neither of these comments (Wikipedia, Dr. Velikovsky) does justice to the frightening description of the Aruna Road as we find in the Egyptian campaign record.
Having started badly on this one, Dr. Velikovsky then became more typically interesting and controversial. Instead of the Egyptian campaign now heading into Syria, as according to professor Breasted and the conventional view, Velikovsky has it suddenly wheeling back in dramatic fashion, southwards to Kadesh - obviously not the Syrian Kadesh, but Jerusalem itself (Kadesh = the “Holy”) according to Velikovsky.
The Egyptians are now supposedly in pursuit of the fleeing King of Kadesh, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, heading for sanctuary in his capital city of Jerusalem.
Exciting stuff, but pure fantasy!
From Megiddo, the Egyptian army was actually on its way northwards towards Syria, as Creationist Patrick Clarke has clearly demonstrated in his article:
Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1st Asiatic campaign?—topographic and petrographic evidence
(4) Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1st Asiatic campaign—topographic and petrographic evidence | Patrick Clarke - Academia.edu
It seems that Dr. Velikovsky - a bit like with that song by The Who, “north side of my town faced east and the east was facing south” - had the Egyptian army heading north while it was still located in the south, and then lurching southwards when it was really heading for the north.
Most ironic that Dr. Velikovsky, to whom we must be forever grateful for his having courageously revised Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt on a massive scale, would contribute nothing really worthwhile regarding the route taken by pharaoh Thutmose III, the biblical Shishak, in his First Campaign, the one that Velikovsky had correctly identified as the biblical episode.
C. The Campaign as Dr. Danelius explained it
After my initial, rather uncritical, acceptance of Dr. Velikovsky’s reconstruction in the early days, I became quite enamoured with Dr. Eva Danelius’s version (“Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”), which pointed out problems of which I had been blissfully unaware, and, seemingly, solved the major ones of these.
Whilst I no longer accept her thesis as a whole, Dr. Danelius’s vitally important contribution in the area of topography, and her connection of Aruna with the biblical Araunah the Jebusite, hence Jerusalem, remained with me.
I believe that this element is necessary for a proper resolution of the whole matter.
Instead of having the Egyptian army march almost immediately from Gaza towards Megiddo, but via the broad coastal road (which cannot be correct), Dr Danelius has it marching a far shorter distance northwards to connect with the Beth-horon road that leads back into Jerusalem.
This is far more promising than the previous attempts, given that Jerusalem is in sight from the start, and that the Beth-horon road was notorious for its steepness and narrowness.
It is this road, Beth-horon, that Dr. Eva Danelius will identify as the unpalatable Aruna road of the Egyptian Annals.
Whereas Dr. Velikovsky had tried to identify Jerusalem as Kadesh, but wrongly, now Dr. Danelius will hopefully identify Jerusalem as Mk-t-y, again wrongly.
She appears to have based her interpretation of Mk-t-y here on somewhat late names for the capital city:
Among the names enumerated as designating Jerusalem is Bait-al-Makdis, or in brief, Makdis, corresponding to Beithha-Miqdash in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The10th century Arab writer who mentions this name calls himself Mukadassi = the Jerusalemite (102). The name Mâkdes was still used by the Samaritans (a Jewish sect who never left the country, who trace their ancestors to three of the northern tribes of Israel) at the beginning of this century, when discussing with Rabbi Moshe Gaster their attitude towards Jerusalem (103), and a local shop outside Damascus Gate still bears the inscription: Baith el-Makdis.
But Mk-t-y, in its association in the Annals with Taanach (Egyptian T3-'3-n3-k3), is clearly Megiddo, as both professor Breasted and Dr. Velikovsky had accepted. Response to Eva Danelius: “Taanach is also next to Megiddo in the Bible (I Kings 4:12). Your equation of Taanach with the Tahhunah ridge does not strengthen your thesis”.
Good try, though!
What we can take from the thesis of Dr. Danelius - and it is not insignificant - is that the Aruna road really was a steep and forbidding road, and that it was near to Jerusalem.
But do we need to go northwards from Gaza to get on to that road, only to have to double back after that? Or is there a more simple, Occam’s Razor, procedure?
D. My own account of the Campaign
But it seems that there are problems with
every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route.
Can pharaoh Thutmose III be saved as “Shishak”?
The road to salvation is narrow and difficult to find (Matthew 7:14), and so has been the road to identifying, historically, the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (2 Kings 14:25).
Thutmose III, the mightiest Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, had once opted for a ‘redemption’ type of road, one narrow and most difficult to negotiate. And his military scribe, Tjaneni, marked down this road using the name ‘3-rw-n3 (Aruna).
This road’s true identification has been missed by historians, conventional and revisionist alike.
I say this because those on both sides who have accepted the typical identification of the Aruna road as the Wãdy ‘Ârah opening out towards Taanach and Megiddo have not been able to explain at all satisfactorily why the Wãdy ‘Ârah’s topography is nothing like that as described in pharaoh Thutmose III’s campaign Annals.
Sir Henry Breasted’s prize doctoral student, Harold H. Nelson, had demonstrated beyond all doubt in his thesis, The Battle of Megiddo (1913), that the relatively gentle topography in that northern region did not accord at all with the terrifyingly narrow and steep road described by the Egyptians, that ‘enters into narrowness’ and where ‘horse will have to go after horse’.
(References to Harold H. Nelson have been taken from Dr. Eva Danelius’s “Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78).
Nor did the name ‘Ârah accord well linguistically with Aruna, as Nelson had rightly observed: “Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) ‘Aruna with (Arab) ‘Ar‘arah”. And, while the young man succeeded in passing his doctorate to the professor’s satisfaction, Nelson later dissociated himself completely from its conclusions.
One ought to read Dr. Danelius’s poignant account in her article of Harold H. Nelson and the fate of his doctoral thesis.
Dr. Eva Danelius herself was the researcher to have come closest to identifying the Aruna road. According to her, it must have been the narrow Beth-horon pass leading up to the site of Araunah (hence Aruna) the Jebusite, which became the City of David (Zion), Jerusalem. Against the conventional view that Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo, Dr. Danelius would argue, instead, that Mk-t-y was a name for Jerusalem, (Bait-al-) Makdis. and she believed that the Kd-šw of the Egyptian Annals was, not Kadesh in Syria, but the land of “Har Kodsho”, “The Holy Mount”.
But it seems that there are problems with every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route.
The road chosen by Danelius, for instance, does not go anywhere near Taanach and Megiddo, whose coupling in the Egyptian Annals (with Taanach perfectly transliterated in the Egyptian, T3-‘3-n3-k3) leaves it beyond question that the pharaonic army was bound for the strong fort of Megiddo.
Dr. Velikovsky had fully accepted the conventional interpretation here, that pharaoh Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo - but with a twist.
Pharaoh, after conquering Megiddo, Velikovsky wrote (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952), had headed southwards in pursuit of Rehoboam, “King of Kd-šw” (Kadesh = ‘the Holy’), that is, Jerusalem.
To explain the conventional estimation of the rugged Aruna road to Megiddo, against Dr. Danelius’s very strong topographical argument, Dr. Velikovsky would suggest in his response to her that topography can change markedly over time:
“Now as to the approach to Megiddo being a narrow pass – by what it is now, it cannot be judged what it was almost three thousand years ago. There could have been artificial mound-fortifications the length of the pass” (“A Response to Eva Danelius by Immanuel Velikovsky”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78).
That, I find, to be no more compelling a view than was Dr. Danelius’s effort to account for the Egyptian T3-‘3-n3-k3 somewhere in the region of Jerusalem.
Velikovsky again (loc. cit.): “Your equation of Taanach with the Tahhunah ridge does not strengthen your thesis”.
The conventional view is that the pharaoh, having arrived at Gaza (G3-d3-tw), continued on by a coastal route, ultimately via the Wãdy ‘Ârah, to Megiddo. After that he moved on further northwards, to conquer the troublesome city of Kadesh on the Orontes in Syria.
The progression from Megiddo to a northern Kadesh does appear to accord properly with the geography of the Egyptian campaign. On this, see Patrick J. Clarke’s account in his article, “Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1st Asiatic campaign? – topographic and petrographic evidence” (Journal of Creation, Vol. 23, Issue 3, December 2011, pp. 48-55).
The standard identifications of Gaza, Taanach and Megiddo, and Kadesh on the Orontes, seem to me now to be quite secure.
Aruna as the Wãdy ‘Ârah, however, does not!
And there is in the Egyptian account another little considered location, a town, or city, Yehem (Egyptian Y-hm), whose identification by convention I find to be not the least bit convincing. “Thutmose marched his troops through the coastal pain as far as Jamnia, then inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo …”.
The typical view expressed here is just a guess.
Where, if anywhere, is Jerusalem in all of this?
As the disciples on another road, to Emmaus, had lamented: ‘We were hoping …’ (Luke 24:21).
And, indeed, those inspired by Dr. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos reconstructions have been hopeful that he had been able to pinpoint, in Thutmose III’s First Campaign, his Year 22-23, his immediate march on the glorious City of Jerusalem.
Would it not make perfect sense that the mighty pharaoh would firstly head straight for Jerusalem once he had begun his military campaigns into Syro-Palestine?
But now we have the Kd-šw (Kadesh) necessarily cancelled out as a candidate for Jerusalem, it surely being Kadesh on the Orontes.
As well as this, Mk-t-y is clearly Megiddo, and not Jerusalem.
So what is there left to us?
As it now seems to me, Dr. Danelius’s Araunah for the Aruna road can be salvaged – though not as to its precise geography.
And also her view regarding the road’s most difficult topography can be maintained, but, once again, with geographical modifications.
Let us briefly reconstruct anew this part of Thutmose III’s campaign.
From Gaza, the pharaoh will do exactly what pharaoh Shoshenq I (conventionally, but wrongly, identified as the biblical “Shishak”) will do in a later period, swing across towards Jerusalem. In the case of Shoshenq I, though, he did not actually go to Jerusalem, but to Gibeon (modern al-Jīb), about six miles NW of Jerusalem.
(For a handy map of Shoshenq I’s campaign, see p. 41 of SIS Review, Vol. VIII, 1986).
Pharaoh Thutmose III will make as his first place of call after Gaza a town not given great consideration by historians, and hopelessly identified by them: namely, Y-hm. This Y-hm was, as I now believe it must be, a shortened version of Jerusalem (Y-erusa-hm), keeping in mind ancient Egyptian’s reluctant use of ‘l’ (actually missing in their alphabet).
Y-hm, or as the Annals put it, “Yehem near Aruna”, was obviously an important halting place, where the Egyptian army dallied, organised supplies, and held a conference about how further to proceed.
We read an account of it, for instance, as “Yaham”, in The Battle of Megiddo by Jimmy Dunn (aka Troy Fox: www.touregypt.net):
[From Gaza the Egyptian army] reached Yaham eleven days later in mid May. Perhaps this [now slower rate of march] indicates fatigue, or simply caution as they travelled through territory that could be considered potentially or actually hostile. In fact, along the way Tuthmosis III detached units commanded by general Djehuty in order to place the stronghold of Jaffa under siege so that his line of communication and possible retreat could be protected, an indication that the Canaanite alliance was significant within southern Canaan.
Three possible roads from Yehem to Megiddo lay open to the Egyptians, two of which were relatively easy to negotiate (like the conventionally chosen way through the Wãdy ‘Ârah). One nearby road, however, was a most difficult one, prompting the pharaoh’s officers to question: “Will the vanguard of us be fighting while the rear is waiting here in Aruna unable to fight?” They then provided the alternative suggestions “Now, two other roads are here, one of the roads – behold it is to the east of us, so that it comes out at Taanach. The other – behold, it is to the north side of Djefti, and we will come out to the north of Megiddo”.
The Aruna road, the most difficult, but most direct, was the one that the brilliant pharaoh chose, for a surprise assault upon Megiddo. Jimmy Dunn writes regarding pharaoh’s tactic (op. cit.):
… the Aruna road was through a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge that was presumed (particularly for the enemy coalition) to be too difficult for any army to use. Taking that route meant that ‘horse must follow horse, and man after man’….
Also, many modern commentators, and perhaps the Canaanite coalition as well, seem to forget the major virtues of the Egyptian Chariots. They were light vehicles, and it was certainly conceivable that many could be carried through the pass, while the horses were led separately ….
The pass was named from its beginning at Araunah, near king Rehoboam’s capital, Jerusalem, “Yehem near Aruna”.
Dr. Danelius had got the name right, but she had the Egyptian military negotiating it the wrong way around, with Araunah as its destination point, rather than its being their starting point.
This road is variously known to us today as the Way of the Patriarchs, the Hill Road, or the Ridge Route, since it included, as we read, “a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge”. It was not a proper road, even as late as the time of Jesus, not one of the international highways then to be found in Palestine. This would have been a most tricky road, indeed, to negotiate, especially for an army that greatly relied upon its chariots.
From Gaza (as all agree), pharaoh marched to Jerusalem (Dr. Danelius got the sequence right, but mis-identified Jerusalem), and then by the narrow Aruna road (Dr. Danelius got the name right only, not the direction) on to Megiddo (as per the conventional view and Velikovsky), and then on to Syrian Kadesh (as per the conventional view and Patrick J. Clarke).
