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(draft)

Dear Dr. Federn

During the spring and summer 1941 we corresponded often in matter of my reconstruction of history, and to all my questions I received a friendly answer in writing. You always stressed that you do not accept my view, and when I worte down a table of chronology where I admitted the identity of Ramses.III and Nectanebo I, you wrote to me:
.....
I summer of 1941 I was challenged by the conclusions of my research to show this identity and also to prove that Khetasar (Chattusil) of Ramses II’s treaty and of Boghazkoi is really Nebuchadnezzar. The fall of 1941, when I returned to N.Y. I worked through the Greek sources about Nectanebo and the “Hittite” texts from Boghazkoi, and I was in no wise disappointed. Without any previous knowledge of these Greek and Hittite texts, I asserted the identity of Hattusil and Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses III and Nectanebo, and therefore it cannot be but a miracle the new coincidences. I had to show you these new chapters at that time, but I thought first to write also the last missing chapter: about Sennaherib-Haremhab; and it happened to me repeatedly that when I started to write this chapter I was distracted by a new problem which has in common the same epoch. So for my other book I understand things which were secret to me for more than a year. My comet and Venus work was enriched by a chapter about Mars. I knew also the “role” of Jupiter and Saturn. So during the spring I was “on Mars.” This summer I spent two weeks in Cambridge, Mass. and I gave my ms. to Pfeiffer, Director of the Semitic Museum there. He was very much impressed, but he told me that he needed weeks or even months to make himself acquainted with the reconstruction, because “it is just as a change of religion” it means after 25 years of learning and teaching in the conventional manner, it is not easy to start to think in new terms; in short “not book but dynamite,” and he professed that he is dizzy after its reading, but he offered me no opposition, but in point of art, and I answered him from here in writing. It is it not excluded that Harvard University Press will be willing to publish my work.

Since August I improved the chapter about Ramses III by adding some pages about Elephantine papyri, and now I am bringing in the material of Ras Shamra into my scheme.

Now, with a delay of one year, I would appreciate it if you would like to see the chapter about Ramses III, where you will find also few pages about Greek letters, about which I wrote you last winter.

Now, during the time many questions did gather themselves and I knew my better position in Egyptian than in other fields (Greek, Hittite, Assyro-Babylonian) because here I could reason on your answers.

Questions

  1. Records II, no. 802 (Amenhotep II): hps–does it mean some metal or form of a sword? It is written daggers. Is in Eg. text next to it also the word snn? My supposition is derived from Ras Shamra texts.
  2. Records II, no. 803 Breasted writes his (Amenhotep II’s) mother Hatshepsut. Is there any hint that Hatshepsut was his mother? Comp. Petrie, XVIII D, p. 154 (Queen Merytra) p. 164 (Queen Ta.aa.)
  3. Is in Egyptian mouse or mice in some philological similarity with words for flame, blast, star, comet, planet? (The Herodotus story about Sennacherib)
  4. Is Akhet Aten and Ikhnaten written similarly (Herodotus Anytis). Is it possible to read the first part as if derived from Yahu. Is it possible to read the second part Anat?
  5. Is it possible to read in Harris papyrus Ezra instead Erza or Irsu
  6. Is it possible to read in ............ Tah-peneth.
  7. What is the Egyptian word for chariot?
  8. In Champollion vo. IV CCCV (3) I found a “Canaanite City” with Champollion’s remark King Rechoboam. If aI am wrong, the figure is one of the “cities” caputred by Thutmose III. Champollion, unsure in general in fixing the times of the pictures (R.III he describes as Sesostris), but in this point he came near th truth;Thutmose III acc. to my reconstruction was the scriptural Shishak, Noqw I would like to know what is written on this picture? and What position has this pictur among the cities of Canaan? I enclose a copy from Champollion
  9. Where is a picture of Sheshonq inscriptions about Canaan cities? Are the cities also in form of figures?
  10. Was Marnepta a son of R. II or his grandson? Was Marneptah mummy found? (According to Herodotus, Apries was embalmed and buried next to his father)....

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