Letters

I have received your letter of January 25—and thanks! I made some notes about matters to inquire, but presently will limit myself to a few words concerning Osorkon—and Ramses II. The conventional chronology made it inescapable to interpret Osorkon as usurper and Ramses II as usurped. But I assume that a careful re-examination of all instances will show that the case was reverse. Suppose we see on a stone with a basrelief incisions in it another design of a different age, overimposed on the first design. Should we declare that the deeper incisions were made later we may be mistaken. I image that before a new design was made on a stone that had already a design, either the fromer design must have been chiseled flat, and in such a case only very shallow marks of it would be found left; or the stone had to be covered with a layer of plaster to hide the earlier design annd the new design would be made on the plaster only a little penetrating into the stone; in such a case the later design would be shaloow and the earlier in deep relief. Here can be a place for misjudgment by an archeologist.

That Montet can easily go a wrong direction is obvious to me from his identification of Tanis with Avaris. Yet he published a booklet, Les énigmes de Tanis (1952), and, if you can, read through this short book, and per chance he will disclose a few embarassments that would be intelligible in a different chronogical scale. Let me know if you find there anything of value.

You still have various problems (like the beginning of the conventional scheme - the dating of Ramses III, etc.) in your hands. I will add a few questions in my next letter.

January 28, 59

A few more lines. I have before me the Hebrew translation of Ages vol. I, presently of first three chapters. The publisher in Israel demands a prompt return of the translation with my corrections. So I must ask you to let me know as soon as possible whether new discoveries were made or old discoveries published covering the first four chatgers. If I am right, there is a new stela of Ahmose or Kamose concerning the siege of Avaris. Where is it printed?

I have purchased a copying machine that in less than a minute makes a photocopy of a letter, or a page in a book, and that can be taken with me to the library; it can take pictures from drawing or photographs. I hope it will be of good help where many passages must be copied, or where I wish to have a copy of an illustration. Elisheva, too, may profit from this machine in her art work. I send here a page from JEA, 1957, from the article in which the brother-sister relation between Tiy and Ay are proved, and also father-daughter relations between Ay-Nefretete. The last point is also important, because it expalins why Ay to the side of Nefretete (his daughter) against Akhnaton and Tiy (his sister). The family traits in Akhnaton and Nefretete are understood as due to their relation of cousins.