I would like to challenge Egyptologists and archaeologists to provide substantial archaeological evidence for any of the major Pharaonic battles that are supposed to have occurred in ancient times. I am not referring to a few broken bones, the occasional sword, a battle axe or even a few broken chariots. The Egyptians fought many battles over a 3,000 year period and therefore there should be an abundance of archaeological evidence including the bodies of tens of thousands of dead soldiers.

This really is the crux of the matter – Egyptian or otherwise, where are the hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed in action from ancient times?

I can provide evidence from the surfaces of Mars, Mercury and the Moon as these heavily cratered planets provide the real legacy of pharaonic battles.

This is a crucial point because if I am wrong, if concrete evidence is provided, my theory would fall apart and that would be the end of the GKS. I am prepared to take this risk because I am confident that my theory as presented is accurate and entirely correct.

I wonder how many other ‘alternative’ authors would be brave enough to set such a challenge!

Update: 12th Aug 2008

The above ‘challenge’ includes the Greek Pharaoh Alexander the Great and his conquest of the ancient world.

The Battle of Gaugamela. Forget the Greek propaganda and story telling, where’s the archaeological evidence to support any of battles attributed to Alexander the Great? To be precise, where’s the KIA soldiers? Where does it say – “here lies (name…) killed in action fighting for his beloved god (son of the sun) Alexander.” What of the enemy, where’s the hundred of thousands of soldiers slain by Alexander and his army – where’s the thousands of mass graves, cenotaphs or otherwise? I could go on and ask exactly where is Alexander the Great buried?

Update: 20th Aug 2008

For those that believe the archaeological evidence for ancient battles is not forthcoming because the ancients were somehow the Houdini’s of recycling. In other words the dearth of battle artefacts is a result of the victors gathering up every single item and reusing them.

Further research reveals this to be nonsense.

The words of Arrian, a 2nd century historian writing on the first major battle of Alexander the Great – the Battle of Issus.

“By order of Alexander all the dead (Alexander’s men) were buried with their arms and equipment the day after the battle.”

So much for recycling!

One would presume Alexander adopted the same burial practice throughout his numerous campaigns. So here we have thousands upon thousands of dead soldiers interred with full military equipment at KNOWN ancient battlefields (this doesn’t even include the enemy dead).

The question remains – where are they?

Time to dust of them metal detectors!

Alexander, “beloved of Amun” (God of the aurora), “Chosen by Re” (literally), was just one of the many names given to either Mars or Mercury as they were named and renamed many times over as divine kings of earth.

On going discussion on ‘The Nonexistent Battles of the Pharoahs’ over at the Graham Hancock message board.

Update: 5th November 2008.

Still no verifiable archeological evidence.

Update: 16th November 2008

I put forward my idea of the nonexistent pharaonic battles to John Anthony West (Sphinx dating fame). This is what he had to say.

On the point of the mostly non-existent battles, I quite agree. Perhaps our one point of agreement. There were surely battles of some sort, somewhere, but those endlessly repetitive scenes (extending down into Ptolemaic times when they most certainly were not taking place) though perhaps based initially on an actual battle or two, are symbolic; the King (forces of light) vanquishing the forces of darkness, the precondition of entry into the sacred space of the sanctuary.

I wonder why he took this stance – could it be he is actually listening to the archaeological evidence, more specifically the lack of it?

Update: 25th January 2009

I assert that the archetypal image of ancient god kings smiting their enemies, which can be found in scenes from Egypt through to the fertile-crescent and Anatolia, are time honoured recordings of battles in the heavens and have little if anything to do with events here on earth. And, although I’ve suspected for some time that some Egyptologists do actually question the authenticity of Egypt’s countless battles it difficult to get anything in writing. However, a colleague of mine (Jno) has brought the following to my attention. As can clearly be seen, some experts do actually take the stance that a number of Pharaonic battles at least, “DID NOT TAKE PLACE !”

The visual depiction of Egypt ‘s enemies and their role became so prevalent that it is difficult to distinguish in the archaeological and textual sources between purely ritualistic and rhetorical references to foreigners and genuine historical records. Repeatedly, we find examples of battles, and king’s smiting enemies that in fact, did not take place, but were mere copies of earlier scenes.

The reliefs in the Old Kingdom mortuary temples of Sahure at Abusir and Pepi II at Saqqara , as well as the Late Period temple of Taharqa at Kawa, include stock scenes of a Libyan chief being smitten by the pharaoh, while the victim’s wife and children beg for mercy. However, the personal names for the Libyans in all three scenes are repetitions and therefore suggest that these reliefs did not actually record historical events, but were rather an elaborate icon of Kingship.

Source: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/enemies.htm

An Egyptian Warless Model?

I was also recently pleased to learn that eminent military historian, lecturer and journalist John Keegan also favours a ritualistic warless Egypt model right up until the New Kingdom era.

Prof. Garrett G. Fagan quoting military historian John Keegan OBE. Source ‘Great Battles of the Ancient World.’ Leture (The Teaching Company).

“Eminent military historian John Keegan has recently argued an extended version of the warless Egypt model. Keegan points out that the Egyptian soldiers down to the New Kingdom era are shown only with bow, spear, sword, mace and shield. They have no helmets and no body armour. Soldiers thus equipped will simply not rush into battle to face wounds inflicted by the spear, the sword or the axe. Also, for nearly fifteen hundred years image of the pharaoh smiting enemies with the mace remained virtually unchanged, of which Keegan infers a highly ritualised form of warfare among the ancient Egyptians.

As an analogy he points to the flower wars of the Aztecs. In these strange encounters, Aztecs and neighbouring armies would converge on an agreed site but exchange captives rather than fight a true battle. The armies met, there was much provado and shouting and perhaps an individual challenge or two. Then the field between the two armies was scattered with red petals to represent blood (hence the flowers wars) and the captives were exchanged to be sacrificed later.

Perhaps this is the meaning of the smiting Pharaoh fixed image. It represents a ritual of execution following none lethal battles. And so Keegan concludes, the people of Egypt over a period of fourteen hundreds may very well have been spared the reality of wars other people later experienced it elsewhere altogether.”

My question remains, did the ‘sacred’ ancient battles take place or not? If so, why weren’t the many hundreds of thousands of fallen memorialised? The criteria seems to based on the quantity of literal sources, inasmuch, the more accounts we have of a particular battle, then this somehow deems it to have taken place. This is very poor logic, almost ‘cherry picking’ as to what did or didn’t occur. Ancient battles should be verified by good old fashioned irrefutable archaeological evidence, but they are not.

Most ‘alternative’ writers such as myself can be easily dismissed by simply turning the subject round to hard evidence, and yet, here I am, turning the tables and asking scholars for hard evidence!

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