Moses and Akhenaten by Ahmed Osman Page B

Hittite Treaty, after which dated records of warfare cease.
    â€˜The foregoing picture may suggest that for his first ten years Ramses’s Asiatic activities were concentrated on Syria and the Hittite problem. Perhaps this gave way to a stalemate ending in the treaty of Year 21. In the meantime, in the Years 11–20, unrest had developed in Palestine (Ascalon relief; Beth Shan stele, Job Stone)’ – inscribed stones of Ramses found in Syria/Palestine – ‘Perhaps one may also place the Edomite and Moabite undertakings within this period.’ 5
    It would seem that all military confrontations in Asia came to an end for the Egyptians by Year 21 of Ramses II when the peace treaty was concluded with the Hittites. The wars with the Shasu must, consequently, all have taken place before this date.
    We therefore have the situation that, in the first year of Seti I, the Shasu were emerging from Sinai and posing a threat to Canaan, Edom and Moab. Then, at the time of Ramses II, about two decades later, they have left Sinai and are to be found in Edom and Moab. If we compare the sudden appearance of the Shasu bedouin and their movements with the Israelite Exodus from Sinai we find that they followed the very same route. Dr Kitchen, too, was struck by this fact: ‘For Old Testament studies, the new information has some bearing on the date of the Hebrew conquest of central Transjordan and their entry into W. Palestine, not to mention the date of the Exodus.’ 6
    And so to return to the epilogue of the Israel Stela …
    The evidence available makes it clear that Merenptah had only peace in Asia during his reign. There is no reference whatever to his having conducted any war in Palestine/Syria. It therefore seems clear that the epilogue to the Israel Stela refers not to his own campaigns, but to the status quo he inherited, the situation created by his grandfather, Seti I, and his father, Ramses II:
    â€¢Â Â  Tehenu (Libya): Here Seti I’s wars are meant, as Merenptah’s own war with the invading Libyans had been described in the Israel Stela and elsewhere.
    â€¢Â Â  Hatti: The land of the Hittites. We saw how both Seti I and Ramses II fought the Hittites in northern Syria until a peace treaty was ultimately agreed. There is no account of any war after that date.
    â€¢Â Â  Canaan: The land of western Palestine, which also includes the cities of Ascalon and Gezer. It was Seti I who regained this section in the Nineteenth Dynasty and Ramses II consolidated his victory.
    â€¢Â Â  Yanoam: To the south of the Sea of Galilee in north Palestine. It was captured by Seti I in his Year 1.
    â€¢Â Â  Hurru: Whether it referred to Palestine/ Syria in general or the Horite land to the south of the Dead Sea, both Seti I and Ramses II fought in these areas.
    There is one other name in the epilogue – Israel. Yet there is no mention at all of the Shasu, bedouin of Semitic origin, nomads with no fixed city or country, striking north from Sinai and threatening Canaan, Edom and Moab. On the evidence the inescapable conclusions are that Merenptah never fought Israel, but his father and grandfather did, and the terms Israelites and the Shasu are, in this particular case, one and the same people. As Moses and the tribe of Israel united in Sinai with some local Midianite elements, they were first identified as Shasu by Egyptian scribes. Later, when the Israelite identity became clear – and now that they were no longer in Sinai, but had settled in Palestine – the scribe of the Merenptah Stela was able to recognize them as such.
    It is the preconceptions of the majority of scholars, Dr Kitchen among them, that have been the basic barrier to acceptance of this historical truth. They have failed to take into consideration the point made by Jean Yoyotte, one of the leading French Egyptologists of our time, that the ‘biblical account of the Exodus, which was written much later by