Queries & Comments

028

Did the Exodus Pharaoh Die With Salt in His Lungs?

To the Editor:

I have heard that archaeologists have found a mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh who might be identified with the pharaoh of the Exodus, and that salt crystals were in his lungs, leading to the supposition that he might have died by drowning in salt water.

Is there any truth to this story? Can you give me some expert information on this report?

With the help of Carl E. DeVries of The Oriental Institute in Chicago and James Weinstein of The University Museum in Philadelphia, we have traced the source of your story.

The Pharaoh involved in the story is Merneptah, who reigned in the latter part of the 13th century B.C. for 8, 10, 11 or 20 years, depending on who is doing the reckoning. According to some scholars, he is the most likely Pharaoh of the Exodus. His father, Rameses II, is according to this tradition, the Pharaoh of the Oppression.

Merneptah is famous not only as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but also because of the Merneptah Stele. This stele contains the earliest extant reference to the name Israel. Ironically enough, according to one interpretation, this stele casts doubt on the view that Merneptah is the Pharaoh of the Exodus, not only because it is a post-Exodus reference to Israel by the Pharaoh who was supposed to have drowned in the Red Sea (See Exodus 14:4, 6–7, 28) but also because Israel seems to be referred to as already settled in its own land. The text of the stele is a victory hymn in which Merneptah recites many conquests, including one over Israel. “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not,” says the stele. Israel here seems to have been settled. On the other hand, scholars also point out that in this stele the word Israel contains a hieroglyphic sign indicating that it is a people rather than a land. Another hieroglyphic sign indicating a land is used in the names of settled peoples mentioned in the stele. This tells us, some scholars argue, that at this time the Children of Israel were in or near Palestine, but not yet a settled people.

In any event, the mummy of Merneptah was discovered in 1881 along with a large cache of other mummies of the pharaohs of Dynasties XVIII–XX (the new Kingdom). The mummies were not found in their original resting places, but in the obscure tomb of Queen Inhapy, which is located near Deir el-Bahri on the Theban West Bank. These mummies had been brought there by Theban priests in the Twenty-first Dynasty, sometime after 1100 B.C., in order to protect the royal bodies from further depredations of ancient tomb robbers. The royal bodies were rewrapped by the Theban priests and taken, along with what funerary furniture the tomb robbers had left, from their original tombs in the Valley of the Kings in the hope that they would henceforth be safe. And so they were until 1881 when they were discovered by a local villager.

That Merneptah’s mummy had been found in a tomb caused a furor among some early 20th century clergymen who were traveling in Egypt. How could the Pharaoh of the Exodus be buried in a tomb if he had drowned in the Red Sea while leading his troops against the fleeing Israelites? These clergymen expressed their displeasure at the mummy’s discovery to M. Gaston Maspero, the Frenchman who was at that time Director-General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Maspero relieved their anxieties by informing them that an examination of Merneptah’s mummy had revealed substantial evidence of salt on the skin. The clergymen departed, satisfied that Merneptah must have gotten this salt on his body when he drowned in the Red Sea. From there, the story of the salt on the mummy of the Exodus has been widely and frequently repeated.

Maspero’s jest is reported in John A. Wilson’s Signs and Wonders upon Pharaoh: A History of American Egyptology (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1964), p.85:

One final story I have on verbal memory. One of the mummies was that of Merneptah, who is the traditional Pharaoh of the Exodus. It puzzled pious people that Merneptah could have been buried at Thebes, because they believed that he should have been drowned in the Red Sea, when Pharaoh’s host was pursuing Moses. A delegation of clergymen waited upon Maspero in Cairo and stated their unhappiness about this find. The Director-general smoothly informed them that the examination of the body of Merneptah had disclosed extensive traces of salt on the skin. They went off in grateful relief. M. Maspero did not bother to tell them that the normal process of mummification involved a pickle in salt for many days.

As Wilson suggests, mummification involves desiccation of the body in dry natron, a naturally occurring compound of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate which contains salt. Accordingly, all mummies show evidence of salt.

G. Elliot Smith, who unwrapped Merneptah’s mummy in 1907, reported that “the skin of the body is thickly encrusted with salt” (The Royal Mummies (Cairo 1912), p. 67). However, the extensive salt encrustation found by Smith has been disputed by a later investigator, Alfred Lucas, author of Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, (4th Edition) (London: Edward Arnold, 1962), p. 276:

Elliott Smith states that the mummy of Merneptah (Nineteenth Dynasty) was ’thickly encrusted with salt’. This mummy, which is in the Cairo Museum, I have examined specially with the following results: The skin, which is mostly of a light brown colour, is very patchy and mottled, the patches consisting of a number of areas, some of considerable size, that are white, and the mottling taking the form of numerous small raised spots, practically the same colour as the skin, covering the chest and abdomen and occurring also on the forehead, and having the appearance of an eruption. Neither the white patches nor the mottling is salt. Salt, however, is present, but in very small amount, most of it being invisible to the naked eye, though there are a few very small areas where there are efflorescences of tiny salt crystals, so minute that they can only just be seen without a lens. The total amount of salt present is so small that it might have been derived from the use of natron containing salt, or from the use of salty water for washing, and probably was so derived.”

Whether little or great, the salt on Merneptah’s mummy is not evidence of drowning.—Ed.

More “Technical” Articles, Please

To the Editor:

Your first issue was good, but the second was great. I especially enjoyed the article “When Was the Age of the Patriarchs?” It was clear and quite readable. Please don’t be afraid to include another “technical” article.

To the Editor:

Two in a row and better than ever! Congratulations on a very fine publication.

How to Obtain Expert Identification of Your Own Artifacts

To the Editor:

I have an ancient lamp and what I call a medallion with a bust on it in relief that I purchased from an Arab lad’s cigar box of miscellaneous items while visiting Jordan and Israel in 1957. I have long been eager to get an expert’s judgment on these items as to their age and pedigree. I could have close-up photos taken of these or would 030attempt to get them sent by some means to someone who could give me the expert evaluation that I desire. Could you suggest how and who may be able to help me in this matter?

For the growing number of people who own and collect ancient artifacts, determining authenticity, age and provenance can often be a real project. But most enjoy the process of tracking down what they have—or what they don’t have that they thought they had!

The first step should be to consult a major museum in a large city—the Metropolitan in New York, The University Museum in Philadelphia, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the Oriental Institute in Chicago, the Smithsonian in Washington. Most museums maintain a service for the identification and authentication of artifacts.

But this may be only the beginning—depending on how difficult or unusual your piece turns out to be. The museum expert may do nothing more than refer you to another expert somewhere else who will be able to help you—and he may be across the country.

That raises the problem of what to do if you don’t live in a city with a major museum. Write a letter to the attention of the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities at the nearest museum, and enclose several clear, sharp, close-up photographs of the object taken from different angles. In your letter describe the object carefully, giving exact dimensions. This may be enough for the expert to identify the object and sometimes even suggest its authenticity. As Dr. Gus Van Beek of the Smithsonian Institution told the BAR, “If it’s an Iron Age dipper juglet from Palestine, we can be pretty sure it is authentic. No one would bother to make forgeries.”

However, the museum’s expert may suggest you send or bring the object in—either for identification or authentication. That means either a trip to the city or worrying about packing and possible breakage en route.

The problems of age and provenance can be quite different from the problem of authentication. While some pieces can be declared “probably authentic” even from a photograph, other artifacts are difficult to authenticate even from an inspection of the piece. For example, Dr. Van Beek told us that he hesitates to authenticate any Egyptian scarab because there are so many excellent forgeries made for tourists by the same process the ancients used—it is almost impossible to tell the fake from the original.

A few caveats: Don’t expect fast service from the museum. Most museums are badly backlogged on this service. And don’t just drop into the museum expecting immediate attention. Make an appointment before you come. At the Smithsonian, experts are booked up over two months in advance.

And don’t ask how much your piece is worth. The service museums provide is authentication and authentication only, not appraisal.

Happily, the museum does not charge a fee for this service. And, after the long travail, you usually come away with a confident knowledge of what you have.—Ed.

A Bigger BAR

To the Editor:

Congratulations on an excellent magazine. Perhaps, since it is a quarterly, a thicker version of the BAR might be considered. Certainly the quality of your presentation merits this.

It’s not a lack of material, but lack of money, that limits us. So encourage your friends to subscribe; other financial support of our efforts is most welcome.

Incidentally, we have almost 3000 subscribers now, and we’re growing every day.—Ed.

Did the Exodus Pharaoh Die With Salt in His Lungs?
To the Editor:
I have heard that archaeologists have found a mummy of an Egyptian pharaoh who might be identified with the pharaoh of the Exodus, and that salt crystals were in his lungs, leading to the supposition that he might have died by drowning in salt water.
Is there any truth to this story? Can you give me some expert information on this report?