WEBVTT - The Tempest Stele 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.640 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.640 today we're gonna be talking about an artifact. This is 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.000 actually a topic that I was originally reading about thinking 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.520 about doing one of our new short form episodes, the 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.120 Artifact about but it kind of ballooned in my mind 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:32.680 and kept picking up weird little tangents here and there, 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:34.640 and I realized it was much too big of a 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.440 subject just to be like a five to ten minute episode. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.879 So so now we're talking about this today, and the 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.159 subject is an artifact from ancient Egypt known as the 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:49.240 almost Steela or the Tempest Steela. And I already apologize 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.199 because I know at some point in this episode I'm 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.880 going to forget to pronounce Steela with a long E 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.160 and I'm gonna start saying stella. It's that word, you know, 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.800 it's st e l a or st e l e w. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.040 I can never get the get the sounds right in 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.399 my brain. Yeah, but we were rehearsing it before the episode. 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.400 It's steel a as in steel Uh Steely Dan album 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.479 from the record store. Uh. And there's some kind of uh, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.679 there's some kind of other word that's also steel or 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.400 steely st e l e, which I can't figure out 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.760 if it's totally interchangeable with Steela or just mostly interchangeable. Anyway, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.479 we're not gonna deal with that in this episode because 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.720 we're only concerned with one primary Steela here, and it's 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:35.720 this almost Steela or tempest Steela. So this artifact is 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.720 at its heart a big stone block. It is a slab. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.480 It is a big slab made of calcite that's currently 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.959 in multiple fragments. I think there are at least three 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.000 major fragments, um. And they were recovered from the temple 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.600 complex of Karnak, which is in the ancient Egyptian city 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.040 of Thebes near the modern Upper Egypt city of lux Or. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.360 And this artifact was recovered by archaeology, so I think 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.200 in the late nineteen forties or early nineteen fifties. Uh. Karnac, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.080 of course is this big, beautiful temple complex. You may 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.320 have seen it represented digitally and like Transformers movies where 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.960 they're big robots slugging around there, or as an actual 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.400 shooting location in the Spy Who loved me. Did the 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.200 transformers really battle here? I think they did at some 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:25.000 point the transform it's part of the the raison dettor 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.560 of of Transformers to eventually just slam through and demolish 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.000 every work of humankind, like all artifacts and landscapes must 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:39.400 be ground into sand by the transformers until only transformers remain. Right, 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:45.120 just a barren, featureless earth that's completely smooth, but with transformers, 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.240 with with mac trucks and jeeps and stuff. But anyway, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.480 what's the deal with this slab, the Tempestila? It originally 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.760 stood about one point eight meters talls about six ft tall, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.280 and it bears an inscription text that was copied on 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.920 both sides these horizontal lines, but it also has some 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.440 imagery at the top. So two. Quote from one of 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:07.640 the papers that we're going to be referencing today. I 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.960 think this description comes from this first paper that was 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.680 published by Karen poland your Foster, Robert K. Rittner, and 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.240 Benjamin R. Foster in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:22.880 in nineteen Quote above. The horizontal body of each text 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.959 is a lunette with two adorsed scenes and brief vertical labels. 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.040 Unlike the parallel text. The two Lunet labels display minor 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.960 variation in wording. Both faces preserved dual scenes of the 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:41.200 king followed by a female deity of fecundity carrying offering trays. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.320 And these trays have like fruits and vegetables on them. 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.120 So you've got this big old text that's on both 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.800 sides and this image of a king and a lady 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.080 who represents fertility, uh, carrying up some nice food stuffs, 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.880 fruits and vegetables, nice plant matter. And so here I 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.400 think maybe we should actually just read the full text 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.800 of the temper Steel up because it's not all that long, uh, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.200 And this is something that I personally really love. Maybe 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.640 maybe other people aren't as interested in it as I am, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.520 But it just reading the text of of texts that 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.520 are this old, like these ancient Egyptian inscriptions, really does 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.240 kind of put me in an altered state of consciousness. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.680 You know. It's like, Uh, I feel like I'm inhabiting 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.479 a mind that is so separated from me by time 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.839 and culture that it's a little bit creepy. Yeah, I 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.640 mean to to a certain extent. That's that's exactly what's happening, right. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.760 The transfer of information across the ages. Yeah, and and 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.800 there's this like weird tangling down at the bottom of 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:41.760 my brain where I just feel like there's a lot 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.560 that's really important that I'm not understanding, but I'm getting 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.040 just the slightest hint of what it is coming through 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.520 in the translation. Well, that's the tangler. You got that, 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.080 that's the vinsive Price movie. Well, but I know what 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.039 you're talking about with this, Okay. This English translation is 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.880 by the American egyptologist Robert K. Rittner, who is the 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.159 one of the authors on a couple of studies that 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.000 we're going to be mentioning today. Now, again, the steel 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.839 A text is damaged, so there are some gaps, and 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.279 some of these have been filled in with what is 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.720 very likely what their contents were. So there's just some 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.160 text that we don't have, but we feel very confident, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.000 you know, this is what it would have been. And 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.679 other parts are just left blank where there's less certainty. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.159 And I guess when we get to one of those 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.400 blank spots will just sort of pause for a second 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:34.520 in the reading. So here it goes, Long Live the Horace, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:40.159 Great of manifestations. He of the two Ladies, pleasing of Birth, 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.520 the golden Horace who binds the two lands, King of 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.920 the Upper and Lower Egypt, neb feti Ra, son of Raw, 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:55.560 almost living forever. Now, then his majesty came. Raw himself 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.799 had appointed him to be king of Upper Egypt. Then 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.480 his Majesty welt at the town of said jeff A Tawi, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.919 in the district just to the south of Dendera, while 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.280 aman Ra, lord of the thrones of the two Lands, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.320 was in Thebes. It was his majesty who sailed south 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.520 to offer bread, beer and everything good and pure. Now, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:23.120 after the offering, then attention was given in this district. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.080 Now then the could image of this god at his 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.200 body was installed in this temple while he was in joy. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.440 Now then this great god desired his majesty, while the 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:40.200 gods declared their discontent. The gods caused the sky to 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.680 come in a tempest of rain, with darkness in the 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:48.960 western region, and the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.080 than the cries of the masses, more powerful than while 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.560 the rain raged on the mountains, louder than the noise 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.839 of the cataract, which is at Elephantine, every house every 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.640 quarter that they reached floating on the water like skiffs 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:09.600 of papyrus opposite the royal residence for a period of days, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.320 while a torch could not be lit in the Two Lands. 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.240 Then his Majesty said, how much greater this is than 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.800 the wrath of the Great God, than the plans of 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.880 the gods. Then his Majesty descended to his boat with 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.080 his counsel following him, while the crowds on the east 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.200 and west had hidden faces, having no clothing on them. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.640 After the manifestation of the god's wrath, then his Majesty 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.960 reached the interior of Thebes with gold confronting gold for 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.000 this statue, so that he, meaning am un Rah, received 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:48.280 that which he desired. Then his Majesty began to reestablish 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.880 the Two Lands to drain the flooded territories without his 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:57.000 to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil, 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.280 and cloth of every bolt that could be desired fired. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:06.679 Then his Majesty made himself comfortable inside the palace life, prosperity, health. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.760 Then his Majesty was informed that the mortuary concessions had 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.680 been entered by water, with the tomb chambers collapsed, the 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:20.080 funerary mansions undermined and the pyramids fallen, having been made 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.280 into that which was never made. Then His Majesty commanded 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.320 to restore the temples which had fallen into ruin in 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.760 this entire land, To refurbish the monuments of the gods, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.280 to erect their enclosure walls, to provide the sacred objects 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.600 in the noble chamber, to mask the secret places, to 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.640 introduce into their shrines the cult statues which were cast 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.840 to the ground, to set up the braziers, to erect 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.959 the offering tables, to establish their bread offerings, to double 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.959 the income of the personnel, to put the land into 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.280 its former state. Then it was done in accordance with 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:03.360 everything that His Majesty had commanded. Ooh, so there are 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.680 some parts of that that really give me chills. So 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.559 the basic outline of it being that it introduces this 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.719 great king, the great almost who rises up and he 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:19.119 answers this problem of there's some kind of calamity being described. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.160 There are rains and a tempest coming out of the sky, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.880 with darkness in the western region, thundering in the sky, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.320 the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder than the cries 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.960 of the masses. There's appear apparently some kind of flooding 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.520 with bodies human bodies floating in the nile like skiffs 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.880 of papyrus and uh, and a torch could not be 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.320 lit in the two lands. But then there is some 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.920 kind of offering made to the gods to fix this problem, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.640 to make everything right, and it tells us basically that 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.720 almost this guy did a really good job and he 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.440 like got everything fixed and now it's under control. Yeah, 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.679 so it's uh yeah, so it's so again it's a 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.000 story of a disaster occurring and then government responding to 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:10.760 that disaster. But there's some We're not going to take 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.840 everything in that and explain it. I know there's some 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.120 some names and some obvious gods and some kings, but 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.800 just to run through a few things that I think 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.559 are are are important or at least halfway important to 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.200 understanding what's going on here. Um, I want to just 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.000 call it a few things. So first of all, Horace 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.400 the Horace is the celestial falcon and the embodiment of 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.800 Kingship caught in an enduring conflict with Seth. Horace likely 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.000 means the distant one, and there are two distinct versions. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.480 There's Horace the Elder and Horace the Younger, not to 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.400 be confused with Horace the Child. Right, So an important 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.199 god who's associated with the royal lineage of of Egypt 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.839 in this period. Right And uh Now, one thing that 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.959 this makes reference to that is geographically confusing to modern 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.520 audiences is the concept of Upper and Lower Egypt, which 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.439 are unless you're familiar with how ancient Egyptians talked about 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.000 their geography, it's the opposite of what you would think, right. Yeah, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.520 it's always worth remembering that the ancient Egyptians saw their 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.319 world a little bit differently than we do today. Um. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.000 And not to say they saw the world upside down, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.480 they just saw it from their point of view. Uh 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.280 So north and south are totally arbitrary. By the way, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.320 there's no such thing as objective north and south. Yeah. 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:26.000 So with the way they saw it is with the 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.440 Nile delta at the bottom of their kingdom. So Upper 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.840 Egypt is actually somewhat lower on the modern state of 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:34.960 Egypt that we memorize in school and look at out 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.360 a map. Basically, the in the area of Thebes, Lower 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:43.200 Egypt is the delta region that entails Memphis. So Lower 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.960 Egypt is to the north and Upper Egypt is to 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.840 the south. Right. Now, what about the sun god Raw? Right, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.040 there's reference to Raw yeah, Raw, the sun god, source 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.000 of all light and life. Um, you know, and there's 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:56.520 a lot more to each of these gods, but this 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.800 is just the short and simple. Now, there's some references 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.839 in here to amun Ra. Yeah, and this, uh if 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.120 I'm correct on this, this is This is also known 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.840 as Almond. This is the mysterious creator god and his 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.520 name means the hidden one. Yeah. Now, the main character 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.640 of the almost Stela or the tempest Stela here is 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:20.400 Almost himself meaning almost the first who was a pharaoh, 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.720 and he's the guy who who does all the fix 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.360 in here. Yeah. He is the founder of the Eighteenth 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.840 dynasty who reigned well one of the days. The dates 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.080 I was looking at, we're fifteen forty nine through fifteen 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.120 twenty four b C. Right, So the dates of his 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.080 reign are actually somewhat disputed, and that will come into 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.600 that will be in some way the subject matter of 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.920 what we're talking about today, though it does appear he 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.559 reigned sometime in the sixteenth century b C. So probably 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.000 sometime between sixteen hundred and fifteen hundred b C. E 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.720 the more conventional Egyptology chronology dates put put him in 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.840 the middle somewhere in there, Yeah, like a fifteen you know, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:04.120 middle of the centuries, sometime in the late three quarters. Yeah. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.960 But either way, he seems to have been a very 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.000 pivotal ruler at a very pivotal time. He was building 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.800 on his father's military success and paved the road for 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:15.840 the new kingdom and the beginning of an age of 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:20.760 just Egyptian dominance. Um. He reinvigorated and united Egypt. And 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.360 this is key to he completed the expulsion of the Hicksos. 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.840 So at this time, Egypt or part of Egypt anyway, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.719 we were ruled by these outsiders, these foreigners that invaded 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.920 UM perhaps you know, from Palestine or somewhere in that region. Uh. 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.960 In anyway, basically, what Amos did is he finished driving 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.000 them out. He finished a rebellion against them that had 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.160 begun by had been begun by his predecessors, and re 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:53.080 exerted Egypt's rule over northern Nubia to the south. So 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:54.680 it'll be important to think about all this as we 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.360 discussed the details of his rule. But he was a 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.120 pharaoh in an age of growth. He brought about a 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.480 new kingdom, a conquest king. He was like, We're I'm 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.480 going to conquer the areas to the north and the 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:10.080 south and bring Egypt together again under one rule. Yeah. Now, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.680 as for the hicks Sos, they're they're very, very interesting, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.240 and people have have written and and researched regarding them 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:23.480 and made various uh hypotheses and theories regarding their exact nature. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.680 There's a lot of very speculative Bible stuff about them. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.720 you you may have you're a Bible reader and a 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.720 Bible student, you may have seen them pop up, I'm sure, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.400 and like just even the notes in a standard Bible. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.080 They were the foreign Canaanite or Palestinian rulers of Egypt 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.160 who took power during the seventeenth century b c. They 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.280 ruled lower in Middle Egypt and established a capital at 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.440 a Varis, which was associated with the Egyptian god Seth 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.600 or set or sue Tech, which was in turn equated 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.640 with the Palestinian god ball Uh. The Hicksos called themselves 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.160 theselves the Sons of Raw, but one of them actually 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:05.120 bore the name of Ra's nemesis of Papus, the Great 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.040 Crocodile or snake of chaos, which is interesting. I didn't 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.479 know that, yeah, um. And Geraldine pinches the Egyptian mythology. 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.640 She points out that the conflict of the time seems 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.040 to have taken on mythological trappings as well as their 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.840 stories related to a quarrel between the followers of Horace, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.840 the Thebans and the followers of Seth the Hixos, and 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:32.560 the words seems to be related to just foreign rulers. Uh. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.280 I believe it's heckal Kasuit rulers of foreign lands, and 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.640 Hicksos is derived from this via the Greek. Okay, right, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.840 so hisos would not have been what they called themselves 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.080 but a sort of ex and m applied by the 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.280 Egyptians or even maybe later Greek speaking Egyptians. Right. And 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.680 of course this is where it often gets interesting with 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.160 with ancient history, when you're dealing with outsiders, right, because 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.240 the outsiders are defined by those writing the history not 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.880 only in terms of what happened and you know what transpired, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.760 but but also like who they were, what were these people? Um? 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.280 And so at times you've had people of historians come 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.400 in and and try and figure it out and and 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.600 maybe come in with a bit of an agenda. Uh. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:20.600 First century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus translated this at the time. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.640 Again this is first century Uh see um as as 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:29.040 hicksos meaning king shepherds or captive shepherds. And this was 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.640 an attempt to establish historical evidence for the Jewish people 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.240 in ancient Egypt. And this will come up again. Yeah, 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.720 there there are a lot of um, I don't know, 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.800 historical religious apologetics where people try to invoke the hicksos 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.320 as um somehow being descended from uh, say Joseph, like 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.640 the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis coming 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.080 to Egypt and serving the pharaoh um as someone who 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.240 you know, listeners know that I'm a big fan of 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.720 the Bible, especially at you know, I love the books 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.800 of the Torah and all that. So not to denigrate 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.680 the story at all as a as a wonderful uh myth, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.000 but like, I don't think there's much historical evidence that 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.240 these tales are like actual history that would be linked 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:15.520 to Egyptian chronology. Yeah. I mean, very broadly speaking, there 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.439 seem to be like different levels of it. I mean 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.879 they're there are are there are certainly people who looked 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.399 at history and look at things like the Hicks and 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.159 try to draw a direct line, uh and say like 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.560 these were uh the Jewish people, or say I've seen 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.520 it before in in Bible notes, for instance, saying well, okay, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.800 the Hisos were foreign rulers in Egypt at the time, 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.240 which would have made it possible for someone like Moses 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.280 and outsider to rise up in the ranks enough to 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.439 have the role that he plays in the Exodus story. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:45.640 And then you have other people who are like that 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.159 that that that make kind of a middle ground argument saying, well, okay, 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:54.960 the the the the Egyptian captivity is um is is 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.400 a myth or or you know, it is a legend, 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.320 but it is based in things that were past down 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.359 orally and therefore there could be some connection between these two, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.119 but the exact threads connecting them are uncertain. So, like 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.399 I said, there a whole there's a whole lot of 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.639 literature out there about, uh, this topic, and to what 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.240 degree there are any connections here. I would just say 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.520 that anything that tries to get too specific in tying 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.320 these things to specific stories in the Bible is probably 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.600 highly speculative. And we'll come back some of this later 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.199 on in the episode. Yeah, But what actually got me 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.000 interested in talking about the Tempest Steela, apart from just 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.800 being a very interesting text to read, is the question 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.080 of is this referring to something that actually happened in 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.440 Egyptian history? All this stuff about you know, the darkness 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:43.720 and the sky and the and the flooding of the 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.159 Nile and the bodies floating in the water and the 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.199 water entering all these temple complexes and uh being and 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.840 the thundering and being unable to light a torch in 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.000 the two lands? What what is all this talking about? Um? 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.520 And so this actually ties into a study from fourteen, 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.440 actually a couple of studies, the most recent one I 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.720 think was from fourteen in the Journal of Near Eastern 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.560 Studies that I was reading about that that made an 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.639 interesting connection between the events described in this text and 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:21.560 a possible actual geological cause. Or is this text, as 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:26.080 it's been more traditionally interpreted, referring to either some kind 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.320 of natural event that is more I don't know, a 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.080 more regular and less extreme, or is it referring to 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.240 something in a in a metaphorical sense or telling a 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.359 kind of fictional narrative to hype up this first ruler 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.240 of the eighteenth dynasty. Yeah, some have have have have 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.120 made that argument that that it may be a metaphor 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:48.879 the storm it felt, They may be a metaphor for 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.800 hickso suppression. Um Ian Shaw writes about this in the 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.760 Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, suggesting that it might have 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.520 served as quote an official explanation for the impoverishment of 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:03.400 the theme in region and more importantly, ah MOS's role 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.600 in restoring the riches of the Karnak temple and It's god, 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.199 in other words, a story to explain why other temple 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.120 riches were sold off to pay for to a certain extent, 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.680 to pay for the Thievens rebellion of the seventeenth dynasty. 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.680 So not to say that there wasn't also a real 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.199 storm of some sort, but that quote, these particular events 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:29.440 might have been recounted on the steela simply in order 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.840 to suit historical religious purposes. Yeah, and that's something that 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.680 we see all throughout ancient history, I think is sort 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:41.040 of creative re engineering of events and storytelling to make 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.960 certain leaders look good. Yeah. And I mean another thing 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.080 is if this were just describing the flooding, like the 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.960 flooding is one of the major aspects of the calamity 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.520 described in on this slab. You know, Nile flooding is 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.800 a regular occurrence that there's like there's like monsoonal uh 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.480 seasonal flooding of the Nile that occurs every year to 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.159 varying degrees, and so that that's something to keep in 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.600 mind as we go about this. Yeah, and I think 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.399 I mentioned before, I'd love to come back and just 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.119 do an episode on the Nile and it's flooding because 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.840 it has such an such an intrinsic role in the 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.560 world view of the ancient Egyptians and their entire cosmology. 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:29.680 It's fascinating stuff. Thank thank Okay. But so to come 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.000 into this possible or at least the hypothetical geological connection 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.720 that we're exploring today, we need to travel north of Egypt. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.919 We need to go up into the Mediterranean to a 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:46.000 place that's now known as Santorini, but has also gone 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.440 by the name of Theora. Now you may have seen 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.639 that spelled t h E r A, and I have 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.680 always said Terra when saying when saying that, but it's 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:02.679 actually apparently Theora and theory or Santorini was the site 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.960 of a catastrophic volcanic eruption in the ancient world that 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:14.040 likely had a really powerful impact on Bronze Age history. Uh. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.760 This is also known as the Minoan eruption or the 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.399 eruption at Theora. Now, I actually found a really great 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.560 source on the theory eruption, which was a chapter in 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.480 a book by former show guest Clive Oppenheimer, who was 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.760 on the show with us when we interviewed him and 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:35.919 Werner Herzog about their documentary Fireball. Clive Oppenheimer wrote a 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:38.520 book that he published with Cambridge University Press in two 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.480 thousand eleven called Eruptions That Shook the World that is 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.520 about volcanic eruptions all throughout the past and how they've 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.840 shaped the course of human events in human evolution human history. 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.160 So he's going to be one of my main sources 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.959 on on this eruption here. So, uh, Theora or today. 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.840 Santorini is an island, I guess really a group of 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.719 islands in the south of the a g See. So 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:05.400 it's between Grease and Turkey and north of Crete. It's 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:09.240 one of the southern Nigian islands. And if you look 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.720 at a picture of Santorini, taken from above, you may 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:17.760 immediately be able to guess something about its geological history. 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.800 It's got a kind of scary shape that immediately like 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.360 if you, if you're volcano minded, can kind of make 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.280 your gut sink, because part of the island is this 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:32.159 long C shaped land mass sea as in the letter C, 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:36.240 like a capital c uh land mass that has steep 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.159 cliffs on the inner wall of the curve of that 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.320 sea and then smoother tapering shores and slopes on the outside. 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.919 And then opposite the inner curve of that letter C shape, 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.520 there's another large land mass with similar characteristics facing inward. 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.240