Human Remains In Ancient Jar A Mystery

Jan. 23, 2007 — For over 100 years, four blue-glazed jars bearing the nametag of Rameses II (1302-1213 B.C.) were believed to contain the Egyptian pharaoh's bodily organs. But analysis of organic residues scraped from the jars has determined one actually contained an aromatic salve, while a second jar held the organs of an entirely different person who lived around 760 years later.

"We do believe that the unknown person was of importance for at least two reasons," said Jacques Connan, one of the study’s authors. "First, he or she had access to the famous jars and secondly, his or her organs were embalmed with pure Pistacia resin, which is uncommon according to our present chemical knowledge on balms of Egyptian mummies, especially during the Roman period."

The mystery concerning the jars began in 1905, when they were brought to Paris’ Louvre Museum, where they are still housed. Shortly after that time, researchers cut into a packet inside one of the jars and plucked out a piece of heart. The packet is now lost, but from that point on, the containers were labeled as "the canopic jars of Rameses II."

Connan, a professor in the bio-organic geochemistry laboratory at Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, and his colleagues questioned the description, especially as the heart of Rameses II was later found inside his mummy. The scientists recently radiocarbon dated residue from two of the four jars and used molecular biomarkers to identify the contents.

A paper on the findings has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The aromatic salve was determined to contain animal fat — probably from a pig — which was mixed with coniferous oil, such as cedar, juniper or pine. This concoction dates close to the pharaoh’s lifetime. Connan and his team now think the jars originally held sacred cosmetics in the Temple of Rameses II.

"Unguent (perfumed salve) cones were worn on top of heads by women in banquets, but likely also during ceremonies to honor gods in temples," he told Discovery News, adding that the mixture may have also been applied to objects. Texts on the jars link them to the gods Amun-Ra and Mut, and not Osiris, the god of death.

The researchers believe the containers were then reused hundreds of years later as canopic jars — to hold the remains unknown individual — since one originally held the Pistacia embalming substance on linen and contained the now-missing organ packet.

Geneviève Pierrat-Bonnefois, curator in chief of the Louvre’s Department of Egyptian Antiquities, told Discovery News that she agrees with the findings "because they largely rectify our vision of the jars, which were for a long time suspected by the department conservators as not being (Rameses II) canopic jars."

Pierrat-Bonnefois said the Louvre has responded by changing the museum’s label for the objects, as well as writing a detailed, corrected history of them, now on the Louvre’s website, www.louvre.fr.

Connan said he hopes to analyze other museum objects and materials in the future, since many more could be mislabeled.

"Sometimes the scientific cross-checking was not carried out, or it was done a long time ago with inappropriate methods," he explained.

Paint, tar and other remains on sarcophagi and statues, as well as embalming materials for mummified animals, such as crocodiles, cats and ibis at the British Museum, interest the scientists and could form the basis of their upcoming projects.

Unless further information surfaces, the VIP who was once partially interred in the ancient Egyptian jars may never be identified.

X
206. Ramses II (of the Nineteenth Dynasty) and Pharaoh-Necho (of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty) of the Scriptures or Necos of Herodotus are one and the same person.
207. The theories that make Ramses II the Pharaoh of Oppression or the Exodus are wrong.
208. For nineteen years Ramses II was in a state of war with Nebu-khadnezar.
209. The defeat of Josiah is portrayed in a mural fragment, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
210. The tribute imposed upon Judea and the imprisonment of Jehoahaz are referred to on an obelisk of Tanis.
211. The first march of Necho-Ramses II toward the Euphrates is related on the obelisk of Tanis and on the rock inscription of Nahr el Kalb near Beirut, written in his second year. The rock inscriptions of Ramses II are not as old as that of Essarhadon on the same rock.
212. The second campaign which Ramses II led toward the Euphrates is narrated in his annals and in the Pentaur-poem and has a parallel record in Jeremiah 46.
213. The Shardana mercenaries were the people of Sardis (Lydians), and not of Sardinia.
214. The city Kadesh the Old of the battle was Carchemish.
215. The remnants of the fortifications and the double moats of Kadesh-Carchemish pictured by Ramses II are recognizable in situ.
216. Hieropolis the Old was situated on the site of Carchemish.
217. The river ‘N-r-t or ‘R-n-t was the Egyptian name of the Euphrates.
218. Bab and Aranime mentioned by Ramses II in the course of the battle are Bab and Arime on the road from Aleppo to Carchemish.
219. At the beginning of the battle, Ramses II, with the division of Amon, was northwest of Carchemish; the division of Re was between Sadjur and Carchemish; the division of Ptah and Sutekh were south of Bab. The army of Re was driven northward away from its base, and, together with the division of Amon, was thrown into the Euphrates.
220. After the defeat at Carchemish, Ramses II lost dominion over Syria and Palestine for three years, until the eighth year of Jehoiakim.
221. A fragment of a clay tablet, dealing with the battle of Carchemish, is preserved in the archive of Boghazkoi.
222. Nebukhadnezar returned from the pursuit of Ramses II because he was accused before Nergilissar of intending to usurp the imperial crown.
223. The person of his accuser, Arma, a very aged relative, whom he ultimately put to death, is intimated in the rabbinical literature and in the Fathers of the Church as that of Hiram, King of Tyre, old relative and accuser of Nebukhadnezar.
224. Nergilissar exacted an oath from Nebukhadnezar that he would be faithful to his son and heir, Labash-Marduk (Lamash or Labu in the Boghazkoi texts). After Nergilissar’s death. Nebukhadnezar crowned his nephew, but nine months later, he arrested him. A letter of Nebukhadnezar (Hattusilis) to his minor nephew, containing a denunciation, is preserved.
225. The repairs of the palace and the temple of Ezagila in Babylon made by Nergilissar antedate those made by Nebukhadnezar.
226. The queen of Nebukhadnezar was a daughter of a priest of Ishtar. She was not an Egyptian or Median princess, as related by early authors.
227. Nebukhadnezar became King of Babylon five years after Ramses II became King of Egypt.
228. In his ninth year Ramses II occupied Askalon and the Philistine shore. Marching through the valley of Jezreel, his troops reached Beth Shan.
229. In the twelfth year of Ramses II, Palestine was again subdued by Nebukhadnezar.
230. During the interval between two sieges of Jerusalem in the days of Zedekiah, a treaty was concluded between Ramses II and Nebukhadnezar; its text is extant.
231. Jewish fugitives in Egypt were extradited in accordance with the treaty.
232. The “Fossae Temple” of Lachish was built in the days of Solomon and rebuilt in the days of Jehoshaphat and Amenhotep III; the city was captured by Sennaherib, and destroyed by Nebukhadnezar. The “Fossae Temple”, burnt in the days of Ramses II, and the city-walls, burnt in the days of Nebukhadnezar, are remains of one and the same fire.
233. Nebukhadnezar did not invade Egypt. The only historical inscription which is ascribed to Nebukhadnezar and which deals with a march toward Egypt, has a counterpart in the Marriage Stela of Ramses II.
234. Ramses II married a daughter of Nebukhadnezar. The bas-relief of Abu-Simbel portrays the visit of Nebukhadnezar bringing his daughter to Ramses II.
235. “Bit-Niku” outside the wall of Babylon was the palace built for Ramses II who used to visit there.
236. Nebukhadnezar’s daughter had a palace at Daphneh-Tahpanhes.
237. Red baked bricks of the Ramses period in Tahpanhes were an innovation introduced from the Babylon of Nebukhadnezar.
238. The Bentresh Stela deals with the mental disease of the elder daughter of Nebukhadnezar, and was written by the priests of Khons a few decades thereafter. This daughter was married to a prince of Damascus.
239. The paranoiac character of Nebukhadnezar is fully reflected by his autobiography and other texts of Boghazkoi, notably dealing with exorcisms. The biblical record about his suffering from nightmares and about his mental disease is substantiated.
240. The tomb of Ahiram found at Bybios dates not from the thirteenth century, but from about 600 B.C.E. The Cyprian pottery of the end of the seventh century and the vases of Ramses II found in this grave are contemporaneous.
241. Itobaal, son of Ahiram, the builder of the tomb, was probably the defender of Tyre against Nebukhadnezar, as mentioned by Josephus.
242. The inscriptions of Ahiram’s tomb are of the same age as the ostraca of Lachish. The development of the Hebrew letters went through a normal process without falling into archaisms.
243. The dispute as to whether Ramses II or Necho built the canal connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, deals with a spurious problem.
244. Greek armor found in Daphneh (Daphnoi), as well as iron tools and ingots, are coeval with the temple of Ramses II there, and are products of the Greek mercenaries in the service of the pharaohs of the Nineteenth (Twenty-sixth) Dynasty.
245. Tiles of buildings erected by Ramses II (in Kantir) which have Greek letters on the back, are products of Greek laborers in the service of the pharaoh. The letters are genuine Greek letters of the sixth century.
The Sequence of Dynasties -- The so-called Nineteenth Dynasty will be found to have been displaced not only by the five hundred and forty years of error in the dating of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but also by an additional one hundred and seventy years—the duration of the Libyan and Ethiopian dominations over Egypt: and the total error will be found reaching the huge figure of seven hundred years.

The Assyrian Conquest by Immanuel Velikovsky -- The Sequence of Dynasties
On the pages to follow I shall endeavor to show that the Libyan and Ethiopian dyansties followed closely the Eighteenth Dynasty and preceded the Nineteenth and the Twentieth. This result of the present reconstruction is probably the most unexpected of all. Yet in Peoples of the Sea (1977) the time of Ramses III and with him the entire Twentieth Dynasty have already been shown to belong into the fourth century; and the volume Ramses II and His Time (1978) has carried the task of identifying the Nineteenth Dynasty as synonymous with the Twenty-sixth, that of Necho I, Psammetichus, Necho II, and Apries. The so-called Nineteenth Dynasty will be found to have been displaced not only by the five hundred and forty years of error in the dating of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but also by an additional one hundred and seventy years -- the duration of the Libyan and Ethiopian dominations over Egypt: and the total error will be found reaching the huge figure of seven hundred years.
The Assyrian Conquest by Immanuel Velikovsky -- The End of Nineveh
Beth-Shan was besieged and occupied by Seti, and his steles and the graves of the Greek mercenaries who served with him were discovered there. Ramses II, his successor, also occupied Beth-Shan for some time, but no vestiges have been found there of Egyptian kings of later times. The conventional chronology compelled the archaeologists of Beth-Shan to conclude that after Seti and Ramses II the city was practically uninhabited until the time of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the seventh century, although from the Scriptures we know that Beth-Shan was an important city in the days of Judges and Kings.
Seti-meri-en-Ptah Men-maat-Re, who left his steles in Beth-Shan, was Psammetichos of Herodotus. It was the seventh century.
There is a mural that shows Seti capturing a city called Kadesh. Modern scholars recognized that this Kadesh or Temple City was not the Kadesh mentioned in the annals of Thutmose. Whereas the Kadesh of Thutmose was in southern Palestine, the Kadesh of Seti was in Coele-Syria. The position of the northern city suggested that it was Dunip, the site of an Amon temple built in the days of Thutmose III. Dunip, in its turn, was identified as Baalbek. Following the Orontes, which has its source not far from Baalbek, Seti occupied the site of Tell Nebi-Mend near the village of Riblah and built a fortress. A fragment of a stele of his was unearthed there. Then he proceeded farther to the north and fought in the valley of the Euphrates. In his war record on the wall of the Karnak temple he wrote that he fought in Mesopotamia (Naharin), but with the destruction of the upper row of his bas-reliefs the illustrations of this part of the campaign were lost.

The Assyrian Conquest by Immanuel Velikovsky -- The First Greeks in Egypt
Diodorus also said that Psammetichos was a great admirer of the Hellenes and gave his son Necho (the future Ramses II), a Greek education. Greek arms, utensils and vases, and the very bones of the Greek mercenaries in their peculiar sarcophagi, have been found in and near the Delta, often together with objects of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Formations of mercenaries from Sardis, called Shardana or Sar-an, were in the service of Seti the Great. The time of Seti is, in the conventional scheme, the end of the fourteenth century; of Psammetichos, the seventh century. Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century, wrote that in the days of Psammetichos, only two hundred years before, Greeks for the first time came to live in Egypt... Also, in Beth-Shan in Palestine, where the excavators were able to determine the successive layers of the tell (mound), tombs of mercenaries from the Aegean-Anatolian region have been unearthed. "Doubtless among all these troops [of Seti] were many Mediterranean (Aegean-Anatolian) mercenaries, including the redoubtable Sherdenen [Shardana]; these must have formed the major part of the garrison left at Beth-shan by Seti." ...If, as many scholars believe, Ramses II was the Pharaoh of Oppression, the presence of soldiers from the Aegean-Anatolian region in the Delta in his days in the days of his father Seti would signify a meeting of Greek and Israelite peoples in pre-Exodus Egypt. The problem thus stated will not appeal to those same historians. The explanation of the presence of Greek mercenaries in the army of Seti, seven hundred years before Psammetichos, is simple: Seti was the Psammetichos of Herodotus and other Greek writers, and he lived seven hundred years after the time assigned to him by modern historians.
The Assyrian Conquest by Immanuel Velikovsky -- Haremhab's Contemporaries
Haremhab and the Crown Prince Sheshonk. According to this reconstruction, Haremhab began his career under the last kings of the Libyan Dynasty. We get a first glimpse of him in the tomb of the prince Sheshonk, son of Osorkon II and his wife Karoma. The prince, named as successor to his father, died young, still during his father's reign, and never assumed the royal diadem. The king built for him a funerary chamber in Memphis, where the prince had served in his lifetime as the high priest of Ptah. The excavations of Samaria, discussed above, revealed that the Libyan king Osorkon II was not a contemporary of Ahab, as is usually asserted, but reigned after the time of Jeroboam II -- i.e., after ca. -744, which marks the death of Jeroboam II, but before the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians in -722. The tomb was discovered in 1942, and its clearance and publication were entrusted to Ahmad Badawi. At the entrance to the tomb, on the lintel of the doorway, Badawi found an incised relief showing Haremhab kneeling in front of a talbe bedecked with offerings; behind Harmhab can be seen the deceased prince, also in a kneeling position. Haremhab's cartouche is somewhat damaged; a deliberate attempt had been made to erase it. But from what remains Badawi could identify the figure in front of the crown prince as that of Haremhab. In the accepted scheme of history Haremhab is supposed to have reigned some six hundred years before the funeral chamber for Prince Shoshenk, son of Osorkon II, was built. But what incentive would the builder of the tomb have to decorate the monument with the figure of Haremhab and his cartouche? This king did not enjoy such reputation that six centuries after his death a Libyan prince should prominently show himself and Haremhab in an offering scene. There was nothing in the memory of Haremhab that an occupant of a tomb of about -725 would consider as bringing salvation or possessing magic against unclean spirits. Therefore Haremhab's figure and cartouche in a Libyan tomb made historians wonder and grope for a solution... In this reconstruction Haremhab and Tirhaka, the Ethiopian, are contemporaries; in the conventional version of history they are separated by more than six centuries, Haremhab being dated to the late fourteenth and Tirhaka to the early seventh. A certain scene, carved on one of the walls of a small Ethiopian temple at Karnak, shows them together. The scene proves not only the contemporaneity of Haremhab and Tirhaka, but also permits to establish a short period in their relations from which it dates... The monument must be dated to the time early in Haremhab's career when he was acting as priest and governor under his brother Sethos. Egypt was then allied with Ethiopia, actually under Ethiopian domination, and was bracing itself to meet the armies of Assyria... The ways of Tirhaka and Haremhab would soon part:.. Of the hundreds of rock-cut tombs crowding the Theban necropolis, the Valley of the Kings, one bearing the name of Petamenophis, a high official of the Ethiopian time, early attracted the attention of Egyptologists by its large size and ambitious layout. It was first described in detail by Lepsius... Though much damaged in the course of time it contains two names, still clearly legible: Petamenophis, and next to it a cartouche of King Haremhab... Next arose the question of the tomb's date and the time of Petamenophis' career... on stylistic grounds it could not be earlier than Ethiopian time.

The Stratigraphy of the 19th Dynasty in Asia Minor
by Alan Montgomery
Petrie found a temple of Rameses II at Tahpanhes, a 26th Dynasty site. Psammetichus (663 - 610 GAD) of the 26th Dynasty had granted Tahpanhes to his Greek and Carian mercenaries. It existed during the 26th Dynasty until the time of Amasis (569 -525). He found no artefacts of dynasties 20 to 25... Excavators at Lachish found a temple with 19th Dynasty artefacts also contained Israelite material of the 7th century. The stratum of the time Nebuchadnezzar, circa 590, contained the scarabs of Ramses II circa 1290... At Byblos... Ahiram... was buried in a coffin made by his son. His son's inscription was in Phoenician script of the 8th or 7th century as was the imported Cypriote pottery but the broken Egyptian vases and the coffin in the tomb were from the time of Ramses II... Rowe, the excavator of Beth Shan, designated the upper Strata IX to V to the 18th, 19th and the early 20th Dynasty. Levels IX, VIII, and VII are ascribed to the 18th Dynasty. Levels VI and V are ascribed to the 19th and early 20th Dynasties. The succeeding Stratum IV was ascribed to the period of the Late 20th Dynasty, Judges and Philistines, Israelite kings, Assyrians, Psammetichus and the Scythians as well as the Neo-Babylonians and the early years of the Persians. Whereas 5 strata are assigned to just over 300 years, the one and only Israelite stratum was assigned over 700 years. Furthermore, the thickness of Stratum IV is eight times thinner than the combined Strata V and VI, circa 150 years... Indeed, Mazar reports that Level VII belongs to the 19th Dynasty and Level VI to the 20th Dynasty. This leaves two levels V and IV for the Israelite levels. Though he cites Rowe as a reference, he gives no explanation of the discrepancy. Although it is suggested that the Philistines followed the 20th Dynasty, Rowe reports no Philistine pottery at this level. Furthermore, no artefacts identified as Israelite, Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian is reported either. Only a statue of Ramses III is found here together with Scythian artefacts. If Seti I and Ramses II (1300 - 1200) directly overlie the Scythians in Neo-Babylonian and Persian times (600 - 300), there remains a 600-year gap, just like the Syrian sites... It is hopeless to carry on special pleading any longer to avoid the obvious. There is no 600-year gap. The 19th Dynasty existed in the 7th not the 13th century. The 19th and 26th Dynasties are the same as Velikovsky has claimed.

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