هتشفشوت، ملکه سبا

The Queen of Sheba has loomed large in poetry and romance. The mysterious Queen, who is said to have visited Solomon in Jerusalem, has cast her spell over poets, painters and storytellers over the centuries. The people of Ethiopia have always claimed her as their own, and to this day boast that her son Menelik fruit of the union between the Queen and Solomon stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple in Jerusalem after Solomon s death. For all that, historians have tended to treat both Queen of Sheba and Solomon principally as characters of fairyland and romantic myth. In 1952, however, Immanuel Velikovsky made an astonishing claim: He announced that not only did the Queen of Sheba exist, but that she had left numerous portraits of herself as well as an account of her famous journey to Israel. The Queen of Sheba was none other than Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh of Egypt who built a beautiful temple outside Thebes, on the walls of which she immortalized the most important event of her life: an expedition to the Land of Punt. Punt, said Velikovsky, was one and the same as Israel. In this volume historian Emmet Scott brings forward dramatic new evidence in support of Velikovsky. He finds, among other things, that: Ancient Israel, just like Punt, was a renowned source of frankincense. Egyptian documents, generally ignored in academic circles, unequivocally place Punt in the region of Syria/Palestine. The goddess Hathor was known as the Lady of Punt, but she was also known as the Lady of Byblos. The Egyptians claimed to be of Puntite origin, but Jewish and Phoenician legends claimed that the Egyptians came from their part of the world, and the Phoenicians named Misor almost certainly the same as Osiris as the Phoenician hero who founded the Nile Kingdom. Scott argues that these significant clues shift the burden of proof onto Velikovsky's critics; and the identification of Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba will eventually compel the rewriting of history books. Hatshepsut, Queen of Sheba 6 Table of Contents 10 Table of Figures 12 Introduction 14 1 Two Monarchs and Two Nations 22 THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE KING 22 WHEN DID HATSHEPSUT LIVE? 27 VELIKOVSKY, HATSHEPSUT AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA 33 THE JOURNEY TO PUNT 37 BIBLICAL PARALLELS WITH THE PUNT RELIEFS 40 OBJECTIONS OF THE CRITICS 43 2 Identity of the Queen of Sheba 48 THE TERMS “QUEEN OF SHEBA” AND “QUEEN OF THE SOUTH” 48 SHEBA, CITY OF THE SPHINX 52 THE QUEEN OF SHEBA IN ETHIOPIAN TRADITION 54 3 The Mystery of Punt 60 THE QUEEN OF EGYPT DID GO TO PUNT 60 THE LOCATION OF PUNT 68 GOD’S LAND: ITS MEANING AND LOCATION 69 THE MYRRH TERRACES OF PALESTINE 74 PUNT: HOMELAND OF THE EGYPTIANS 80 EGYPTIAN TEXTS LOCATING PUNT IN PALESTINE 84 THUTMOSE III’S LIST OF CONQUERED LANDS 86 PUNT AS A “SOUTHERN” BOUNDARY? 90 THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF PUNT 93 SEA-LIFE ON THE PUNT RELIEFS 99 ETHNIC IDENTITY OF THE PUNTITES 102 ERITREA AND SOMALIA IN HATSHEPSUT’S TIME: A PRIMITIVE LAND 106 RECAPITULATION 111 4 The Journey to Punt and Its Meaning 114 THE ROUTE TO PUNT 114 A JOURNEY THROUGH A STRANGE LAND 120 PURPOSE OF THE EXPEDITION 125 WAS THE KING OF ISRAEL SHOWN ON THE PUNT RELIEFS? 129 WAS THE “SPLENDOR OF SPLENDORS” A COPY OF THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE? 131 5 The Aftermath 144 THUTMOSE III AND SHISHAK 144 THUTMOSE III DESTROYS HATSHEPSUT’S LEGACY 146 WHERE WAS THE LAND OF KADESH? 151 THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE FALL INTO DISAGREEMENT 156 THE ROAD TO KADESH 157 THE CONQUEST OF GOD’S LAND 162 THE PEOPLE, FLORA AND FAUNA OF CANAAN 163 THE PLUNDER OF SOLOMON’S TEMPLE 165 SHISHAK AND SESOSTRIS 173 Epilogue 176 Bibliography 192 Index 197