MJ Thomas Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello Katherine,
>
> I recently described Mantheo's Kings List as a
> historical curio.*
>
> Is this a fair comment or is Mantheo's List of
> some influence in Egyptology today?

> *an observation of mine based on a scant knowlwdge
> of the subject matter.

The biggest problem one has with the Manethian history (and kingslists) is what sources we have are basically third-hand information. There is actually no extant version of Manethian histories and kingslists around today, but merely interpretations by other authors of what they perceived the Manethiaa histories/kingslists as saying.

For example, Josephus Flavius' version (the best known of Manetho's history and kings list) is actually an argumentum against another historian named Apion, who interpreted Manetho's history a certain way, with which Josephus disagreed. So, manipulation of information/misinformation and bias tend to colour Josephus' rendering of the Manetho historical sources, because (to be blunt) both parties had axes to grind for their own position/causes.

Further, Manetho himself, as a historical writer, is interpreting texts from long ago into a Greek mind-set. Much has been made of the fact that Manetho was purportedly Egyptian, but he was a Grecianized Egyptian at best, writing for a Greek audience, which tended to colour his interpretation of ancient texts.

For example, the "Osarsiph" story in Manetho (via Josephus) is a legend that Manetho appends to his king's list which he derives, in the majority from the Turin king-lists. Yet, even Josephus recognizes the stories as legends attached to a certain king, which contradicts other versions of Manetho's history. See W.G. Waddell (1940) Manetho, quoting Josephus Flavius Contra Apionem, I, 26-31, specifically §230-231,[pp. 119-121].

Josephus Flavious himself is thought to have revised Manetho's histories in such a way to force the Egyptian legend of Osarsiph to match the accounts of a Jewish Exodus and to prove, via a polemic against the Egyptians, the Jewish peoples' great antiquity (see Waddell,op. cit., xv-xvi, noting that "The efforts of Jewish apologists account for much rehandling, enlargement and corruption of Manetho's text, and the result may be seen in the treatise of Josephus, Contra Apionem, I [in which the entire Osarsiph legend appears]." [[b]Contra Apionem[/b] I = CA I, hereafter]

In analyzing the Osarsiph story, Redford (1986) pointed out that the only original Egyptian motif of any contemporaneous antiquity with the king mentioned ("Amenophis", named in CA I:230] is a phrase that the king "...desired to behold the gods," which is a literary motif that has a textual basis in Egyptian texts surrounding Amenhotep III. Beyond that, the concept of "impure ones" is a literary motif that comes only after the 7th century BCE, a period in which Egypt sees 4 Assyrian and 2 Persian invasions from the "north." This is, of course, a literary construct which occurs long after the establishment of the kingdom of Israel, and after the 4th century BCE, is particularly thought to be a means of inflating the Hellenistic kings' contribution to Egyptian history by paralleling the Alexandrian conquest to an artificially constructed remote history parallel. Redford carefully details all post 600 BCE sources (14 in all) which use this "impure ones" motif on pp. 277-294 (from the Wady el Arish stela of the 4th century BCE to Tacitus in the 2nd century CE, including Manetho and Chaeremon), and states in his summation of these sources

"...The Saite period witnessed a good deal of 'textual activity': in the process of the extensive rebuilding of temples, there must have been considerable rummaging in old temple libraries. Quite likely the old interpretation of the Amarna Period whose existence we have postulated*, enjoyed 're-discovery' and re-editing sometime in the 6th century BC. Nor were the themes of Egypto-Asiatic relations dominated by Egyptian story-tellers and interpreted to their advantage alone: the peoples whose foreign communities resided in Egypt fashioned stories favourable to themselves. It had been the Greek Herakles who had punished and killed the wicked Busiris of Egypt; it was the Hebrew Joseph by whose wise administration Egypt had been saved from famine and destitution.

The Persian conquest threw up a self-conscious interpretation of contemporary and past history which emanated in large part from the priesthood. Foreign communities were now no longer allies but enemies and occupiers; and native kings and rebels were closely judged on their relations with god and temple. In the 4th Century [BCE] patriotism, jingoism, and fear issued in the crystallization, first in mythology, of the plot pattern 'invasion from the north' and (later) 'deliverance from the south.' At the same time the 'plague/expulsion' motif enjoyed a wider currency to the derision of many foreigners Egypt now had to tolerate.** In Egypt the events of the period 334-300 BC found ready parallels in traumatic turns of fortunes over the previous two millennia of history. Two major themes had already given rise to the consciousness of the nation: the expulsion of the Hyksos and the Amarna period. These now became great archetypes for the apocalyptic tales which began to appear. Probably the last quarter of the 4th Century these two motifs were combined and melded into a (written?) aetiology of Upper Egyptian monuments to produce the Osarsiph tale. The flight of Nectanebo to Nubia and the coincidence of the 13 year period which elapsed between Artaxerxes III's reconquest and the coming of Alexander influenced the writer into inverting the order: the Hyksos now experienced a 'second coming' and after the 13 years up comes the great Ramses to drive them out. Alexander's feat is thus not unique; it enjoys a parallel in an event of long ago, and Ramses becomes a 'type' of Alexander.

In the subsequent century (the 3rd) and especially after the battle of Raphia, apocalyptic prophecies and related propaganda based upon the plague and invasion themes began to circulate widely. Now they took on, not only anti-Semitic but also an anti-Hellenistic colouring. Even though written down, oral tradition continued to dominate their evolution. Even Chaeremon, who must have known Manetho's work and most closely the parallels the Osarsiph tale, had produced a widely differing tale, which owes much to paraphrase and oral narrative as it does to Aegyptiaca. For in the heat of the polemic it is the memory and paraphrase of the text which counts, not the ability to produced the
written word." (Redford 1986: 295-296)

Notes:

* Redford postulated that stories about the Amarna period had become the theme of stories before the end of the 20th Dynasty and the eclipse of Theban power. However, "the nature of the tale is a wholly unknown save for the virtual certainty that it preserved the names of the four rulers of the period, and a number of events in which they participated. If the late combination of the two themes of the Osarsiph narrative is any guide, this early treatment of the Amarna period may have telescoped events and pictured Ramses II as restoring order to the realm." (Redford 1986: 294).

**Redford's note: 'Cf. the animosity towards the Jewish mercenaries at Elephantine E.G. Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven, 1953), 111 f.'

I want to be clear that Redford does NOT see the later Late Period and later histories as actual written recounts of the Amarna period or attitudes towards the period in any form. The whole Manethian recounts as we have them via Josephus (who later influenced all Manethian accounts, for Manetho's own account does not remain in the historical record) was written only as a polemic against Apion, who asserted the Jews were the "impure ones" of Hellenstic Egypt, for example. Rather, he sees these accounts as allusions to Hellenistic anatgonisms which existed in the Egyptian community of 3rd century BCE - 1st century CE, in which these later authors lived.

As such, the Manethian histories are not "true" histories, as Redford defines "history-witing," which is

"...telling of events involving or affecting human beings (not necessarily, though usually, in narrative form), which took place prior to the time of the composition, the chief aim of which is to explain those events for the benefit, predilection and satisfaction of contemporaries [of the event], and not for the enhancement of the writer's personal reputation. The form will be without artifice or metaphor, that is it will not be drama, epic poetry, cult prescription or the like." (Reford 1986: iv (Introduction)

References:

Redford, D. B. 1986. Pharaonic King-lists, Annals and Day-books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History. SSEA Publication IV.L. M. James. Mississauga: Benben Publications.

_____________ 1967. History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Waddell, W. G. (transl.) 1940. Manetho. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom