Article
Review: DILLERY, J. – Clio’s Other Sons. Berossus and Manetho. A Discussion of the First Written Histories of Babylon and Egypt. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2015 (XXXVIII, 494). ISBN 978-0-472-07227-9.
The review gives a critical analysis of a recent book by the American Classicist John Dillery (University of Virginia) on the fragment of the Greek works by Ancient Oriental historians Manetho and Berossus
The Tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel and its ‘World of Doubles’: An Interpretation of the Monument in the Light of the Egyptian Elite’s Mood of the Early Hellenistic Time.
The article shows that the traditional scenes of defunct’s confronting deities in the chapel of the tomb of the priest Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel near Hermopolis (late 4th century B.C.) are connected exclusively with the posthumous destiny of Petosiris’ relatives that died before him; the decoration of the pronaos that was dedicated to himself was marked with considerable Hellenization and reproduced the archaic model of the “World of Doubles” typical for private tombs of the Third Millennium B.C. Probably Petosiris urged to achieve the posthumous existence according to this model, independently of gods, as he thought it impossible to contact gods effectively in the early Macedonian time, when, in his ideas, there was no ritual sacral ruler in Egypt.
The author demonstrates that the duplicating transfer of the names of Misfragmuthosis and Thutmosis (= Thutmose III and Thutmose IV) to the kings of the time of expulsion of the Hyksos (Misfragmuthosis I occurs thus to be the last king of the 17th Manetho dynasty) as given by Josephus is not caused by mechanical compilation or corruption of the text but by the existence of a contaminating Egyptian tradition that perceived the enemies of Thutmose III in Syria (in fact Mitannians and their allies) as the same Hyksos, and as the result presented capture of Megiddo by Thutmose III Menkheperre and subsequent wars of Thutmose IV as decisive victory over the Hyksos, ending with mixing capture of Megiddo and taking of Avaris. Comparing this tradition with another (in fact more reliable), according to which the founder of the XVIII dynasty of Ahmose I and his predecessor finished with the Hyksos, and not knowing that these traditions are in fact incompatible, Manetho or his source concluded that the kings-winners of the Hyksos wore names ascribed to them by the first tradition and thus occured to be simply the namesakes of the later real Thutmoses III and IV, so that the founder of the XVIII dynasty, Ahmose was also called Thutmose, and his predecessor was called Thutmose-Menkheperre.