Moses and Akhenaten (35 page)

The celebration of Seth's worship at Zarw is a further pointer to the fortified city having occupied the same site as Pi-Ramses and Avaris, and the fact that both these high officials of Horemheb, who became the first two kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty, had all their titles relating them to Zarw, and to nowhere else, is a further implication that they must have had a residence at Zarw during their vizierates. It is this residence that is most likely to have been rebuilt to become what was later called Pi-Ramses.

(ii) The Fortified City of Zarw

The first mention we find of Zarw dates from the campaign by Ahmosis I that resulted in the defeat of the Hyksos and the establishing of the Eighteenth Dynasty: ‘The war against the Hyksos may have lasted longer than is usually reckoned … The fall of Avaris is usually put early in the reign of Ahmosis I. Yet the neglected colophon (written section) on the
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
tells of fighting in the eleventh year of an un-named king. Since the main text on the papyrus is dated to the thirty-third year of Apophis, whom Kamose (the brother and predecessor of Ahmosis I) opposed, this can only be… a successor … On the twentieth of the first month (of Year 11) “the Southerner” invested the frontier fortress of Zarw, near modern Kantarah, and entered it a few days later …'
¹

This account makes it clear that Zarw and Avaris occupied the same site. From this point, however, the name Avaris disappears from the scene and the next mention is of Zarw, which occurs more than a century later, during the reign of Tuthmosis III and at the time of the first Asiatic campaign that followed the death of Queen Hatshepsut: ‘Year 22, month four in Peret, day 25 … Zarw, the first victorious expedition …'

Then we have the evidence of the Tuthmosis IV stela, found at Serabet El-Khadim in Sinai, which makes it clear that Neby, his Mayor of Zarw, was also ‘Royal Messenger in all countries, Steward of the Harem of the Royal Wife', indicating that Tuthmosis IV's queen, Mutimuya, the mother of Amenhotep III, must have had an estate or residence at Zarw. Björkman, commenting on Neby's titles, wrote: ‘ … the constellation of titles … might be interpreted as a vague indication of the existence of a harem of the Queen in Zarw, supervised by the local mayor, Neby.'
²
There is reference to another ‘Mayor of Zarw' on jar seals found in the Malkata complex at Thebes in the reign of Amenhotep III, who ultimately made a present of the city to his wife, Queen Tiye. We still have the name as late as the Greek Ptolemaic period, when it was called Sile.

(iii) The Case Against Qantir/Tell el-Dab′a

Manfred Bietak, the Austrian archaeologist in charge of the exca-vations at Tell el-Dab′a and Qantir, which are just over a mile apart, gave an interim report in 1979 on the expedition's findings.
¹

To the north of Tell el-Dab′a there is a natural lake basin while old survey maps, partly confirmed by the ground survey, show traces of a feeder-channel from the direction of the former Pelusiac branch of the Nile and a drain-channel flowing from the lake towards the larger Bahr el-Baqar drainage system. North and east of the lake remains were found of the Middle Kingdom (the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties,
c.
1991–1785
BC
) and the Second Intermediate Period that followed, including the weak Thirteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties
(c.
1785–1575
BC),
at which time the Asiatics infiltrated the Eastern Delta and began the era of Hyksos rule there that lasted just over a century until they were vanquished in battle by Ahmosis, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty
(c.
1575
BC).
Among other finds in this new area were the lintel of a house belonging to vizier Paser of Ramses II and, almost two miles to the east of Tell el-Dab′a, an old well bearing the same king's name.

In all, eleven strata were found. The remains at the very bottom belonged to the earliest settlement, starting some time before 1750
BC,
and the latest an early Ptolemaic settlement of a limited area, dated to the third century
BC.
The strata covering the Hyksos period (E3-1 and D3-2) are characterized by increasing density of occupation. The remains of two Canaanite temples were found, dating from
c.
1690–1660
BC
and 1660–1630
BC
respectively, and there was evidence that from about 1630–1610
BC
to 1610–1590
BC
the settlement began to develop its own Asiatic cultural line, distinct from Syria and Palestine. The site was largely abandoned after the Hyksos period, but occupied again towards the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the time of Horemheb. Remains of a temple were found, including a lintel of a sanctuary dedicated to ‘Seth, great of might' and bearing the name of Horemheb.

Bietak encapsulated the expedition's conclusions in the following words: ‘To summarise briefly, apart from the later remains there is evidence, extending through a series of strata, of a huge town site of an Asiatic (Canaanite) community of the Syro-Palestiniân Middle Bronze Age Culture IIA and B in the north-eastern Nile Delta from the time of the Thirteenth Dynasty until the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Although several other sites of this culture have been discovered and identified since the beginning of our excavations, Tell el-Dab'a is the largest and most impressive of all the sites, and, by its fine stratigraphie series and abundant excavated material, the most representative.'
²

He went on to say: ‘The temples of stratum E3–2 are Canaanite, and the size of the main sacred area excavated thus far shows that we have here, at the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, the most important city-state of the Syro-Palestinian Middle Bronze Age Culture in the eastern Nile delta. It is not difficult to deduce, therefore, that this Asiatic community, after it had had time to establish itself in the eastern Nile delta, must have been responsible for the Hyksos rule in Egypt …

‘After a break in occupation we have evidence of a pre-planned town of the Ramesside Period covering four to five square kilometres (some 250 acres).'

In this final statement, Bietak is not commenting on the results of the excavations at Tell el-Dab′a, but has introduced the remains at Qantir, just over a mile to the north, without any justification beyond the proximity of the two locations. And what conclusion did he come to about the implications of the expedition's findings? ‘All the evidence taken together – the cultural and the stratigraphic – would fit well with the identification of the site on the one hand with the capital of the Hyksos, Avaris, and on the other with the delta residence of the Ramessides, Pi-Ramses, as already maintained by M. Hamza, W. C. Hayes, L. Habachi and John van Seters.'
³

In fact, in the light of what is known about Pi-Ramses, rather than confirming the Tell el-Dab′a site as that of Pi-Ramses/Avaris, the results obtained by the Austrian expedition make such a conclusion impossible:

•  Pi-Ramses/Avaris, according to the Nineteenth Dynasty texts we examined earlier, lay in the vicinity of, and beyond, Zarw. Zarw was a frontier fortress, the forefront of every foreign land, the end of Egypt, located between Palestine and Egypt. This description cannot be applied to Tell el-Dab′a which, while beside the Nile and in the Eastern Delta, was situated some thirty miles inland from the ‘end of Egypt';

•  Pi-Ramses lay in the centre of a great vineyard. There is nothing in the evidence found at Tell el-Dab′a to confirm, or even indicate, that it was a wine-producing area. The five ostraca of wine jars found at nearby Qantir were said to have come from the west of Pi-Ramses. This location was not identified, however, and could therefore well have been in another area. Moreover, the stela of Kamose, brother of Ahmosis, who drove out the Hyksos, makes it clear that Avaris, their capital, was in a wine-producing area because one of the threats contained in the stela is that, when Avaris has been taken, ‘I shall drink of the wine of your vineyard, which the Asiatics I captured press out for me.'

The existence of vineyards at Pi-Ramses is also confirmed by the
Papyrus Anastasi,
and remains of wine jars, originating from Zarw, that were found in the Malkata palace as well as in Tutankhamun's tomb, confirm that Zarw was also a wine-producing area. We know from other sources that, in addition, the area west of Alexandria as well as Memphis and Fayyum were wine-producing areas, but there is none to indicate that either Qantir or Tell el-Dab′a were;

•  Pi-Ramses could be reached by water from Memphis. This is equally true of Tell el-Dab′a. However, we have the story about the three stele sent from the place where Pharaoh was in residence – Memphis, probably – that had to be unloaded at the ‘Dwelling of Ramses, Beloved of Amun' after passing through the fortress of Zarw. Bietak suggests
⁴
that, after arriving at Zarw, the stele were taken by water to Pi-Ramses, which is for him Qantir/Tell el-Dab'a. This does not make sense. In the first place, the letter to the Royal Butler speaks of the stele being unloaded
after
the vessel had passed Zarw and then being dragged into position; secondly, if they had been en route from Memphis to Qantir/Tell el-Dab′a, why would they first be transported to Zarw on the frontier, some thirty miles to the east, and then brought back? Any vessel proceeding from Memphis to Zarw along the former Pelusiac branch of the Nile would have had to pass Qantir/Tell el-Dab'a. Why continue the voyage to Zarw when, if Qantir/Tell el-Dab'a was the ultimate destination, it would have been simpler to leave the river and use the canal that connected it with the harbour lake to the north of Tell el-Dab′a?;

•  Pi-Ramses was connected by water with the fortress of Zarw and with the Waters of Shi-hor (north and north-west of Zarw) and the Waters of Pa-Twfy, that supplied it with papyrus and has been identified as Lake Ballah, to the south of Zarw, and as the pleasure lake mentioned in Amenhotep III's scarab. In the sense that Qantir/Tell el-Dab'a had a harbour linked by canal to the Nile, it is possible to say that it was also linked by water with the Waters of Shi-hor and the Waters of Pa-Twfy. This link is a tenuous one, however: one might equally well argue that Qantir/Tell el-Dab′a was linked by water with Thebes, some 400 miles away, or any other locality on the eight branches of the Nile at that time. The logical inference from the mention of the two places being linked by water is that they were close together, as one might say that the Isle of Wight is linked by water with the coast of Hampshire, the nearest point on the British mainland.

All three locations – the fortress of Zarw, the Waters of Shi-hor (described in the Bible as marking the frontier of Egypt) and the Waters of Pa-Twfy – may be said therefore to be linked with other places in Egypt by water, but they do form part of the Zarw area itself;

•  Seth was the main god of Pi-Ramses/Avaris. Although temples of Seth were found at Tell el-Dab′a in the areas dating from the Middle Kingdom and the time of Horemheb, no mention of him has been found in the areas dating from either the Hyksos or Ramesside periods. As for Qantir, although Seth was one of the gods worshipped there, the main deity was certainly Amun, according to the discoveries of the Egyptian archaeologist Muhammad Hamza. In 1928 Hamza unearthed a large number of faience tiles that came from a Ramesside palace in the Qantir area. The palace had been built by Seti I and enlarged by Ramses II. Hamza also found at a little distance to the north a faience factory, including around 800 moulds with different names and titles. The palace remains, including the workshop area, are in excess of 300 square yards. Two statues of Ramses II were found at Qantir. The temple area, which might have included more than one temple, is roughly 600 square yards, and a number of doors of private houses were also discovered.

Yet neither the name of Pi-Ramses nor any of the main deities we know to have been worshipped there were found at Qantir, even on the 800 different moulds. In fact a completely different epithet was found on some of them, ‘in the land of Amun', on which Hamza commented: ‘Qantir was considered indeed the land of Amun. Under Ramses III, this god was worshipped at Qantir with the peculiar title “He who hears the one who is far away”. ‘
⁵
It is true to say that Amun, in addition to Seth, was included among the main gods in the Ramses city, but there he had a different epithet – ‘Amun of Ramses, Beloved of Amun' – that has never been found in the Qantir area.

We have no archaeological evidence as yet about the identity of the main god worshipped at Zarw and shall have to await the results of the current excavation by the Egyptian Organization of Antiquity;

•  Pi-Ramses/Avaris were situated in the fourteenth Egyptian nome. This is also true of Qantir/Tell el-Dab′a and Zarw. It is now accepted by all scholars that Zarw was the capital of that nome. Yet, if Pi-Ramses was the capital of the entire Empire, how could it be less important than Zarw in its own nome?

•  One essential point about Pi-Ramses/Avaris is that they were both military fortified areas. Each had a fortress that was rebuilt at least three times – by the kings of the Middle Kingdom, rebuilt by the Hyksos and later refortified by the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Although we know from Manetho's writings; the stela of Kamose, brother of Ahmosis I, who defeated the Hyksos, and the autobiography of Ahmose, one of the king's naval officers in the campaign, that Avaris was mainly a fortified area, no remains of fortifications of any kind were found in the Hyksos section of the excavations at Tell el-Dab′a. Nor do we find any real remains of Ramesside fortifications at Qantir;

•  Pi-Ramses/Avaris were also called the ‘Dwelling of the Lion'. As no textual evidence has been obtained from either Qantir or Tell el-Dab′a we have no indication from there about this matter, but we know from the very way Zarw was written that a seated lion formed part of its name. Furthermore, according to the mythological account of the struggle between Horus of Edfu, the son of Osiris, and Seth, the brother of Osiris who murdered him and took his throne, which appeared in writing during the Ramesside period, it took place at Zarw where Horus took the form of a lion.