Sphinx of Giza in front of pyramid by user Papillus on
Wikimedia Commons
Moses is the founder of ancient Judaism and one of the first civil governor that the Hebrew people had since they became a populous nation instead of a large extended family. He did not identify himself definitively among the leaders of Egypt--but he left enough clues for modern creation-oriented Egyptologists to identify him at last.
As has been said before, previous attempts to identify Moses had failed, because no record of anyone like Moses, or any exploits similar to his, exists in the annals of the New Kingdom or in those of either the XVIIIth or the XIXth Dynasty. Such records could have been "memorywashed," but even Hatshepsut was not "memorywashed" completely. So Moses is probably not a relative of either of those two dynasties.
But the evidence from Kahun, a workers' village of the XIIth Dynasty populated by definite foreigners, suggests a XIIth Dynasty link. In this connection, the last two Pharaohs of that dynasty stand out not only for their cruelty but also for their other family connections. They are Sesostris III and his son Amenemhet III. Either man, if their statues are any indicator, was quite capable of ordering the mass execution of male children that very likely took place at Kahun and elsewhere in Egypt.
Amenemhet III at the Luxor Museum by Gérard Ducher
Amenemhet III reigned for 46 years. He had at least one daughter, named Sobekneferu, who had no recorded children. He is also recorded to have had a junion co-regent, named Amenemhet IV, whose ancestry remains uncertain. He served for slightly more than 9 years, and then mysteriously disappeared. (The only remaining likeness of Amenemhet IV was defaced by later Roman conquerors and is therefore unreliable.) After Amenemhet III died, Sobekneferu reigned for 8 years and thus predates Hatshepsut as a regnant woman. When she died, the XIIth Dynasty died with her, and the XIIIth Dynasty succeeded.
Moses records (Exodus 2) that he was the third child of Amram and Jochebed, after Miriam and Aaron. His mother hid him for three months, and then cast him adrift in the Nile River in a tiny basket made of reeds and coated with pitch. (In fact, the Bible uses the same word, tebah, to describe Moses' life-craft as it used earlier for Noah's Ark.) This little lifeboat drifted into the private bathing area of a woman identified only as "Pharaoh's daughter"--which is exactly how Sobekneferu would have been identified in Egyptian records. This princess took Moses for herself, adopted him as her own son, and brought him up at court.
All of this is in accord with the known Egyptian practices of Egyptian royalty. Sobekneferu, being childless, would have gone to the Nile to bathe in it in the hope of receiving a blessing from the river-god Hapi. And if a basket containing a baby had drifted within her reach, she would have regarded it as an answer to prayer--even though, as Moses plainly records, she knew perfectly well that he was Hebrew.
When Moses reached the age of thirty, he would have been old enough to become co-rex with Amenemhet III. Moses also records that he killed an Egyptian, buried him in the sand, and then had to flee Egypt when his deed became known--and also that he stayed away for 40 years and was 80 years old when he would confront another Pharaoh with God's message for Egypt. That would mean that Moses was 40 years old at the time of the murder of the unnamed Egyptian--entirely in accord with Amenemhet IV's supposed nine-year-plus co-regency.
All these facts suggest that Amenemhet IV and Moses are one and the same man. Moses stayed away long enough for Amenemhet III to die, followed by Sobekneferu. With her death came a new group of kings who followed one another in rapid succession--until at last came Neferhotep I, who was on the throne when Moses and his brother Aaron came calling, after Moses had spent 40 years in exile.
This article is part of the Ancient Egypt series.
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Comments
Didn't the pharoahs have concubines as well as wives? It seems to me that they probably had lots of little princes and princesses running about even if they weren't all in line for succession. Identifying a particular one with the Exodus story would require some pretty convincing evidence which, so far, has not been forthcoming. In fact, evidence for the Exodus story itself isn't exactly strong either.
good detective work, however the story is the story of sargon founder of mesopotamia
Good article. It would be interesting to find out Moses lineage.
I had already given a response, but it isn't here.
Good article, except that Moses was not the founder of Judaism.
@Judy -- Moses was the first person to write it all down in one place--including two particular tablets of stone--except that Genesis is a compilation of writings from antediluvian and postdiluvian times, edited by Moses. In that sense I cite him as the founder of ancient Judaism. Whom did you have in mind?
#Carol--Sargon? How do you figure that?
Interesting article.
I agree with Hugh. Moreover, were Moses indeed a co-regent would he not have been in a position to emancipate his fellow Hebrews decades earlier than the exodus?
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