Jairazbhoy's Rameses III Father of Ancient America & his alleged visit to the New World

This is a further commentary on R A Jairazbhoy's book Rameses III Father
of Ancient America. As I have already noted it starts with a commentary on
a statue found in a crater at San Martin Pajapan. The claim is that
the statue is Ramses III, but we can ignore that as the statue clearly
is no such thing. His argument that the crater would be a logical
place to find such a statue is, in his word [note that material enclosed
in "s is quoted from Jairazbhoy  *except* for the quote from Prof. Bernard
Ortiz de Montellano at the end]/:

"There is one very special volcano, an extinct one, that lies in the
heart of the Olmec lands near the south-west shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
What is so special about San Martin Pajapan is that, apart from Easter
Island, it is the only volcano in the world in whose crater a monumental
sculpture has been found. It dates from about 1000 BC. Why should they
have dragged it up a thickly wooded slope (even with modern equipment it
was brought down with great difficulty), and put where no one is likely to
have seen it?
That is, except those who went up there to perform rituals, and to
bury offerings underneath it"

[Here Jairazbhoy has answered his own question -- of course he doesn't
know exactly what the rituals were and how many were involved, but that is
immaterial even if interesting - the point is it would be seen by those to
whom it was important]

[here I have cut out stuff about the statue which was dealt with in
another thread]

"And similarly, in Why should Rameses have wanted a statue
of himself sitting in a crater in the far west of the world? Because
in Egyptian belief the sun entered the Underworld in the Far West, and
the Pharaoh accompanied him on his ship. Rameses writes in his
inscriptions that he has actually reached this mountain in the far
west of the world 1 which was known as Manu. 

[Jairazbhoy's reference for this inscription  is to J.H.  Breasted's
Ancient Records of Egypt, IV, pp 140 60-    I had someone check this and
there is no such inscription mentioned there.  If Larry thinks it is there
he is welcome to check -- as is anyone else who can find such an
inscription recorded.  But I suspect Jairazbhoy is misinterpreting
something.]

"A statue of himself in it
would be an insurance of resurrection there, just as servant statues
were commonly put in Egyptian tombs to ensure that they would come
alive to serve in the hereafter. Such a statue would no doubt have
been present in the solar ship, since the Book of the Dead (ch. 130,
31 and rubric) directs that "thou shalt place a figure of the deceased
in the bows of Ra's boat" and describes it as "sitting upon his
thigh." There were several reasons why I identify St. Martin on the
Mexican Gulf with Manu - one, because it literally is as far west as
you can sail from Egypt; two, because of the statue and its Egyptian
affinities; three, because the Aztecs still preserved the conception
of the place where the sun enters2 (it was known as ciuatlampa); and
four, because of a visible resemblance between the real and the
mythical mountain - - both having twin peaks (Fig.5). Here one sees
the solar ship approaching the twin-peaked mountain on Seti's
sarcophagus (Fig. 6). [See Postscript.] Of course when the migrants
found that the sun did not literally set in the crater, they must have
been beset with doubts..."

Jairazbhoy is mistaken as to the inscription. I was provided with these
comments on Mt Manu::

[**Manu was of course a mythical concept, like "the rims of the earth",
and hence normal rhetoric of a king. This symbolism is also found
where Rameses III says in BAR IV par 12&13 about the
temple he built for Amun to the west of Thebes: "its beauty reaches
Manu, like the heavens bear the sun", and the temple is said to
be just west of Thebes and "in the district of Manu, the pure
ground of the lord of gods". So the king did not reach Manu,
but the temple, being in the West (relative to Thebes, but still in
Egypt of course, in Medinet Habu), is said to symbolically touch
upon the place where the sun sets. In BAR IV par 246, Rameses III
prays to Amun that he may "arrive in safety, landing in peace,
and resting in Tazoser like the gods. May I mingle with the excellent
souls of Manu, who see they radiance at early morning." So he
hopes to be with the gods and blessed dead in the netherworld
/ western horizon, not to land in Central America... The same he
prays in BAR IV par 163 ("thou has lead me to rest by thy side
in the western heavens like all the mysterious gods of the Nether
World...that I may live again in Tazoser, seeing thee every day like
thy divine ennead."). I know of no other instances in which Rameses
III mentions Manu, but even if R.A.J. had another text in mind than
the quoted ones: as you can see from the texts, any reaching
of Manu has little to do with sailing to America, but everything
with religion (solar symbolism, death).]

A few pages later he writes:

"We have passed in review the portrait, the name, the royal insignia,
and a whole sequence of stages in the career of Rameses III as
manifested in Mexico and Peru. It remains now only to hear what he
himself has to say relating to this matter.15 On one occasion he says
that he built warships, galleys and coasters on the Mediterranean and
sent them to "the ends of the earth" to bring back goods to enrich the
treasuries of Egyptian temples. "

[Ends of the earth is again normal bombastic rhetoric
for "ends of the earth", ends of the 'koine' (known world).]
[and from another commentator:
The "ends of the earth" is quite often used in relation to
Asiatics. "Asiatics at the ends" is another term.
This phrase "at the ends" or "ends of the Earth (Lands)" will often
be used in relation to describing peoples or places in the Delta.
The "ends" is more likely at the point where the Delta meets the Med.
Sea. This, in effect, is the 'end' of Egypt.
Asiatics had long been associated with living between Lake Timsah and
the Med. Sea.
I know of no use of "at the ends" being associated with the South or
East or the West.
also:
 a quote by
Thutmosis III identifying his boundaries as "my southern boundary is
as far as Punt". His Eastern boundary is as far as "the marshes of
Asia", this is also the Lake Timsah region.
His western boundary is "the mountain of Manu", also other Pharaohs
note a western boundary as "at the horns of the Earth". Also located
within Egypt.
As the location of Punt is still unidentified it may be reasonable to
take a hint from Thut. III in that it is at the southern limit of
Egypt.]

"On another occasion he says he built
great galleys and sent them "into the sea of the inverted water,"
including some to the land of Punt (down the Somali coast) which
returned safely with goods. "

['***This must refer to BAR IV, 407 - expedition across
the Red Sea. So not west.]

Me: there's another problem about this 'sea of inverted water' stuff, but
I'm hoping Larry knows about it.

"If others did not come back they would not
have been mentioned, since Egyptian kings never publicised their
reverses."

RAJ gives 2 sources for this section, JB Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near
Eastern Texts, Princeton, 1955,, page , and JH Brested's Ancient
Records of Egypt, 1906-7, IV, p. 203

[The comment on this source is "I only have the Anthology here, so could
not check the full book, but according to it, ANET 260 is the Great
Papyrus Harris,of which the Anthology has the Syrian Interregnum - which
does not cover this **But a bit about "warships, galley and coasters"
occurs in the War Against the People of the Sea"
(ANET 262-263), in which these ships bar the
Nile mouths against the invasion. I hope he is not using this
text, in which it is said of the Sea People "They laid their
hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth"
and then of the victorious king "I have taken away their
land, their frontiers being added to mine."
In RAJ's logic that would mean that the Sea People
conquered the Americas, and Ramses took these
continents back ;):]

And for JH Breasted's Ancient
Records of Egypt, 1906-7, IV, p. 203

[**Yes, that is the BAR par 407 I gave - it's about the building
of ships for the Punt expedition, not a fleet for the Mediterranean.
So that latter claim of his remains unsubstantiated.]

"But there was never any doubt that they had reached the ends of
the earth - Rameses IV declares the Ocean and the Great Circuit.. to
the ends of the supports of the sky" were under his father's grasp.

[As has been pointed out, Jairazbhoy isn't familiar with what this phrase
means.]

No doubt in sending an expedition to the West, Rameses would have had
in mind a dual purpose. A celestial journey to the West of the World
was his rightful expectation as Pharaoh. Ever since the Old Kingdom
the Pharaoh had been described as sitting in a boat, taking the helm,
and being rowed to the West over the two parts of heaven.17 Rameses is
represented in this role (Fig.31) in one of the rooms in his tomb in
Thebes, and the text there is 'The Litany of the Sun," proving that it
was the solar journey that was intended. Before they had deteriorated,
the paintings were reproduced about 150 years ago by Champollion and
Bosselini and it is clear that there was a fleet of seven ships. It
is highly unlikely that the fleet that Rameses says he sent to the
ends of the earth and to the sea of the inverted water, would have
been unconscious that the entrance to the Underworld lay in the far
West of the World, and so it could be said that they actually came
looking for the Underworld. And this is exactly confirmed by the
Mexican tradition preserved by Sahagun in which the first settlers of
this land are described as coming in seven wooden ships or galleys,
and they 'come looking for a terrestrial paradise.'"
[see below about Sahagun]
In a much later chapter, RAJ writes this:

"Yet another conception in common survives in a different area, in
Cherokee myth, in which the sun is held to enter by a door. The
'Journey to the Sunrise' relates (Mooney, J, Myth of the Cherokees,
1902, page 256) that a long time ago several young men made up their
minds to find the place where the sun lives, and see what the sun is
like. They got ready with their bows and arrows, their parched corn,
and extra moccasins, and started out toward the East. At first they
met ethnic groups they knew, then they came to communities they had
only heard about, and at last to others of which they had never heard.
They travelled on till at last they came to the sunrise place where
the sky reaches down to the ground. Here there was a door - the sun
came out of it from the East, and climbed along the inside of the
arch. It had a human figure. Of the seven men, one was killed when he
tried to enter the door. The others returned, but they had travelled
so far that they were old when they reached home.
In addition to the 'Door by which the Sun enters,' which exists also
in Egyptian mythology, there is a whole sequence of parallels between
this Cherokee myth and the Ramessid journey to the West. The parallels
are as follows:
1. The purpose of the journey was to find the place where the sun sets
in one case, and where it rises in the other.
2. Each is a deliberate expedition with an exploratory purpose.
3. Each assumes that the sky rests on the ends of the earth.
4. The sun in both cases has an anthropomorphic form.
5. There were seven expedition members in one case,and seven
expeditionary ships in the other. The sequence of close
parallels rules out coincidence."

Bernard gave me this commentary:

" 1) Jairazbhoy's citation to Sahagun is erroneous. He cites a 1946
edition of Historia de las cosas de la Nueva Espana p. 13-14. There is no
1946 edition, and it would be impossible for this passage to be on pp13-14
because it occurs at the end of Book 10. The passage in the 1938 edition
published by Robredo has the passage in Vol . 3 pp. 136-137; the 1956
edition by Garibay published by Porrua has it in Vol 3, pp 207-209, and
the 1988 edition by Alfredo Lopez Austin has it in Vol 2, pp 670-672.

2) The key points to be made. This is an origin legend for where the
Aztecs came from. They came from "Chichimecapan" which is North Mexico,
southwest US. They came down the coast and landed at the NORTH (that north
speaking from the perspective of Mexico City). The Aztecs were "the last"
to come. So these migrants were not 1) from the east and not 2) the
original settlers (i.e not very ancient). Jairazbhoy LIES when he says the
settlers came in seven boats. The Spanish Historia says in the relevant
line [my translation] 1988, vol. 2 p671 "And coming from the sea in ships,
they landed in the port to the north, and because they landed there it was
called Panutla....."

3)JAZ also misstates they did not "come looking for a terrestrial
paradise" they came looking for Tamoanchan which means "We ComeDown to our
Home."

The following is a longer quote of this passage translated from Nahuatl in
the Florentine Codex which is the source for the Spanish version I have
cited. Notice that here it says" many groups from the water in boats" but
not seven boats. The passage is Appendix 1 in A. Lopez Austin Tamoanchan,
Tlalocan which I translated.

The Mexica or Mexitin
Códice Florentino 1979: bk. 10, ch. 29, para. 14, fols. 139v-140r.
Translation to Spanish by Alfredo López Austin
" [1] One is called mexicatl, many are called mexicah. The name mexicatl,,
is derived from the name Mecitli. Me means metl [Agave]; citli means
"rabbit" "hare." One should say mecicatl because of a shift it became
mexicatl.
[2] According to tradition, the name of the priest who directed the Mexica
here was Mecitli. It was said that he was named Citli when he was born,
and that they laid him on a maguey plant, where he grew up, and because of
that he was called Mecitli.
[3] When he was grown, he became a priest, the keeper of the god. It is
said that he conversed personally with the devil. And all those, who were
led [by him] greatly revered him, and all obeyed him. And because he led
his subjects, they were called Mexica.
[4] According to tradition, these Mexica were the last ones to come from
Chichimecapan ["Land of the Chichimec"], from Teutlalpan.
[5] This is the story that the elders told: At some time, at some place,
that nobody can reckon now, that no one can remember, the ones who came to
disperse the grandfathers, the grandmothers, the ones who were called
"those who arrived, the ones who came," those people came to sweep the
path; they came to tie the ends together. They came to cast stones on this
land they named singularly as if they were making a small world for
themselves. They came in many groups from the water in boats. And they
arrived at the north coast; and they beached their boats at a place called
Panutla (which means "the passage way"). Today it is called Pantla.
[6] Then they continued along the coast. They went toward the mountains,
primarily the white [snow covered] ones, and the volcanoes. Going along
the coast they arrived at Cuauhtemalla. They did not go of their own
volition, but were guided by the priests. And [the priests] went along
talking with their god.
[7] Then they came, they arrived, at the place called Tamoanchan, which
means "We Come Down to our Home." They remained there for a long time."
*******

A general methodological critique of JAZ, that Davies also made. Why in
the world is JAZ using Aztec myths and sources to compare with Egyptian
concepts that may or may not have been current 3000 years previously??
Why, without JAZ presenting a single piece of evidence for the
uncontaminated and totally accurate preservation of particular details (7
ships) by an oral culture without writing for 3000 years, should we take
anything he says as valid on this type of evidence? This is assuming that
he even has quoted the Aztecs correctly-- which we just saw he did not."
[end quote from Bernard]

Doug
-- 
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