The Golden Mask of King Tut The Code. Jesús Ariel Aguirre

Finding in 1887 of the letters (379) clay tablets of the pharaohs Amenhitep III and his son, Akhenaten (Amenophis IV), at Tell El Amarna, as well as the hymn of Aton in the tomb of the vizier Ay, and the Statues discovered by Henri Chevrier in 1925 at Karnak, they made evident the existence of what was, for some, a heroic reforming pharaoh, leader of a religious revolution in Egypt.

      From then on, his historical figure would be linked to Hebrew monotheism and Moses. In fact, it has been speculated that Aton’s followers were religious émigrés who, led by an Egyptian prince (Moses?) Settled in Canaan and spread the belief of a single god from there. One of the proofs of this would be, in the opinion of some historians, in the similarity and similarities that Psalm 104 presents, attributed to Davis and the hymn to Aton of the pharaoh Akhenaten.

      What is true in all this? Were Moses and Akhenaten the origins of monotheism? Are there historical indicators that link Akhenaten to Moses? Was this last disciple of the first? Were they perhaps the same person? Finally, was there a true monotheism in Egypt?

      Let’s start by saying that the patriarch Moses developed and gave written form to the Jewish worship of Jehovah as the only God. Monotheistic cult that practiced the Semitic culture for years.

      What happens is that according to the record of Moses himself when he faced the Egyptian pharaoh, it has always been believed that this was Ramses II (1304-1214). According to (Gen 47:11 “Joseph made his father and brothers dwell and gave them possession in the land of Egypt in the best of the land of Rameses”, Exodus 12:37 “they proceeded from Rameses”, Num. 33: 3, 5) and this was the son of Seti I, this son of Ramses I, the trusted general of Pharaoh Horemheb, the last of the 18th dynasty, Ramses I (ruled 1295 to 1294 BC) would begin the 19th dynasty and would be the founder of the Lineage of the Ramenidas. (Horemheb married Nefertiti’s sister, Mutnedymet, he had nothing to do with the ancestral 18th dynasty, thus he entered the royal family and ruled the country with an iron hand, erasing from him all traces of his immediate predecessors, protagonists of the “Amarna Schism.” His alliance with the oligarchy and the army and with the priests of Amun, made possible his ascent to the throne, restored his privileges, and began to plan the destruction of the city Ajetaton, which Akhenaten had built. At his death, after 28 reigning, he was succeeded by Ramses I. Let us remember that Ay was an authentic political animal that had been able to survive four different reigns and managed to be crowned pharaoh in his old age. Apparently Ay was the father of Nefertiti, but despite being related to the “heretics of Amarna” he was successful in any conspiracy and before being crowned he was the vizier of the child-king Tutankhamun, a puppet of his. eb, that on his death he would succeed him, for which reason he had to marry Mutnedymet.

      Let’s go back to Ramses I, whose history is safeguarded in the Temple of Luxor. The pharaohs prior to Ramses I, had died without leaving heirs, the last royal pharaoh was Tutankhamun and he had no children since he died very young. This was succeeded by Ay and Horemheb, the latter being the one who appointed Ramses I as co-regent of Egypt or then called Paramessu.

      As we said he was not of royal blood, he was born in the small town of Avaris, located in the delta of the Nile. His father was commander of the Troops and head of the royal archers. When Horemheb died in 1305 BC Paramessu was crowned King of Upper and Lower Egypt.

      With the name of Menpehtire Ramses, or better known as Ramses I who was the first of 11 pharaohs known as the Ramesida dynasty. Sitra his Great Royal wife was the founder of the Valley of the Queens, and from that reign onward, all the royal wives and princes were buried in that Valley. His reign lasted only two years, so his gifts as king are not known, which was succeeded by his son Sethy I, the father of Ramses II.

      But let’s go back to other dates about Moses that the biblical record gives us again. When was Moses born? Let’s do the math.

      The fourth year of Solomon’s reign is estimated to be about 1007 BC.

      The Exodus was 480 years before the fourth of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 6: 1) 1487 BC.

      After the exodus, Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years (Num. 32:13) until 1447 BC.

      Moses was 120 years old at the time (Deut. 34: 7), so he was born 1567 BC.

      Therefore Akhenaten was not of the same time, since two centuries separate him at least. Akhenaton ruled between 1353-1336 BC.

      Moses was then born in 1567 BC and Ramses II in 1304 BC. So they are separated by 263 years, it is not Ramses II who contended with Moses either.

      Let’s explain it in another way, for some; Israel arose in Canaanite territory around the 12th century BC from the gradual union of several tribes, indigenous and foreign, with a common past, which formed leagues of defense and mutual aid. For foreign attacks, but their real nation dates back to the fifteenth century, in the geographical historical setting configured by Egypt and Palestine, at this point we will cite documents from the New Egyptian Empire and the Hittite Empire (fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BC) in those who speak of nomads called hapiru, one of whose branches has wanted to identify with the Hebrews. Whether or not there is any relationship, if it could be proven that there were Semitic captives (hapiru) in the reign of Amenophis II (1450-1425), and in the reign of Sethi I (1312-1298), who were educated in the Egyptian court, thus the Hebrew tradition of the captivity of Egypt and the higher education of Moses are not as antehistoric, as has been claimed. Likewise, the exodus could be accepted as the emigration of a people (an unusual fact in antiquity), although there are no direct anti-biblical references. It is also to remember that the stela of Pharaoh Merneptah (XIII century) cites Israel among the peoples established in Canaan, that their people uses the determinative for people, it was not for place. Therefore, the emigration to the Promised Land and the events that mark it, had to have occurred prior to the 13th century, which does not place it in the immediate previous centuries.

      According to the Bible, Moses was born in Lower Egypt (in Gosen) and his name is very common in the country, it means “Drawn, or saved from the water.” Despite the favored position that Egypt offered him, Moses felt linked to his Hebrew people and it was only at the age of forty when he could no longer bear the martyrdom of his people in Egypt that he rebelled and was exiled 40 years in Madiam. That was when he had divine contact with an angel of Jehovah and returned to save his captive people.

      He would be the key figure in the “battle of the gods” that broke out between the gods of Egypt and the god of Moses (Exodus 7 to 12 where he mentions the 10 plagues).

      So far the biblical story. Is there any archaeological, pictorial or written support for it? First of all, the first question to be investigated is whether the existence of Moses can be proven (beyond what seems probable or not) and determine the time in which he lived. It is not news that the historicity of Moses has been repeatedly questioned to this day, and since no direct records are available, his life is often viewed as a legend.

      This leads us to analyze the same Musaic traditions and their source, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, attributed to the patriarch Moses himself.

      From the internal point of view, Freud in 1937, who proposed an Egyptian origin for Moses, argued that the analysis of the legend that frames his birth, upbringing and return to the town of origin, does not agree with the typical patterns of a legend, in which the hero is born into a powerful family, grows up in a poor family, and after many hardships he regains his original place. And actually the story of Moses does not fit the structure of this type of novel. On the other hand, consider the internal content of the Pentateuch, we see that both in terms of name, customs and religion as well as places, geography and killers, the accumulation of external archaeological evidence confirms that its records were made by someone who did know the culture. Egyptian on the inside, which coincides with the biblical fact that Moses, was brought up in “all the wisdom of Egypt.”

      Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian in his Jewish Antiquities, book II, ch. XII, sec. 4 refers to the fact that archeology shows that the Egyptians used to admit the dwelling of foreigners in their country, but they kept separate from them, as the Pentateuch indicates. The waters of the Nile were used for bathing, which reminds us that Pharaoh’s daughter bathed there. Bricks made of straw and without it have