SIS Forum

When the Tanis tomb of the Silver Pharaoh was opened in 1940 by Pierre Montet, it was found to hold a magnificent silver coffin containing the mummy of a pharaoh identified as Psusennes I of the Egyptian 21st Dynasty. When opened the coffin contained the mummy of an elderly man who had clearly suffered from severe arthritis in his old age; Manetho gives Psusennes I a reign length of either 41 or 46 years. As his body clearly survived, it should be possible to establish this pharaoh’s DNA if it has not already been done.

In my unpublished C & C Workshop paper, Egypt in the 10th World Age, I identified the Silver Pharaoh as the probably posthumously born son of Siptah, the crippled child of Queen Tausret, who was still a teenager when he died. Tausret ruled as Siptah’s regent for possibly half his reign and probably as pharaoh herself for a year or 2 after his early death. Siptah was buried in KV47 in the Valley of the Kings, but was moved to KV 35 where his mummy was found in 1898. Consequently, Siptah’s DNA is also available if not already determined.

A comparison of the DNA of these 2 pharaohs should establish if my theory about their relationship is correct. If it is, it would not prove my catastrophe analysis and my catastrophe chronologies are correct, but it would require a major rethink of conventional ideas about both the chronology of the, so-called, Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, and its duration.

Further Tanis burial DNA tests

In my chronology, 2 of the renowned 3 brothers pharaohs of Egyptian history were buried at Tanis. One, a half-brother of Siptah, sharing a father with him, was the elderly Amenemope; a linen mark dated to his 49th year has been found, despite Manetho giving him only a reign of 9 years. His mummy was found, re-buried in a high-status tomb next to the Silver Pharaoh, having first been buried in a quite modest tomb. The other, this time a half-brother of Siptah sharing a mother with him, Queen Tausret, was the Osorkon buried in the first of the royal tombs built at Tanis. The Takelot, who was buried near Osorkon, has probably been correctly identified as his son. DNA testing of their mummies could establish if these relationships are correct or not.

The other Tanis burial that could give an interesting DNA result, if my chronology is correct, is the Shoshenq whose silver hawk-headed coffin was found, not in a separate chamber, but in the entrance passage of the Silver Pharaoh’s chamber between or above 2 shattered quite modest coffins. This mummy could well be that of the pharaoh the Greeks called Apries, who was, according to Herodotus, The Histories, book 2, 169, buried in the sepulchre of his fathers after being strangled by his former subjects. Apries was the great grandson of the Silver Pharaoh’s son, Psamtek I / Psammetichus I.

The catastrophe based, historical scenario behind my chronology, has a probably older, but less well born, half-brother of Siptah rebelling at the time of the Mars catastrophe of 692 BC; this cosmic catastrophe saw the destruction of the Assyrian army of Sennacherib as it was poised to invade Egypt. Quite soon after Siptah’s death some 3 years later, his rebel half-brother was driven out of Thebes by Queen Tausret, possibly with Assyrian support, in the War of the High Priest and retreated up the Nile to Nubia; Sargon probably financed the building of his new capital with Egyptian gold earned from this campaign. After her victory, Tausret married the cousin, possibly a son of Merenptah, who commanded her army and she could have been around 36 when her son, Osorkon, was born; Osorkon being perhaps 3 years younger than his nephew, the Silver Pharaoh.

The inversion catastrophe of 674 BC occurred in the 19th year after the High Priest’s rebellion and in the 15th year of the reign of Tausret’s second husband. A civil war after the catastrophe saw the rebel High Priest recover rule of Thebes, but a treaty, signed in the 6th year of the Renaissance Age (the 10th World Age), saw Shabaqo, a son of the rebel High Priest, installed as the ruler of Upper Egypt when he married the mother of the Silver Pharaoh, the royal heiress, widow of Siptah. After Shabaqo’s armies, commanded by his father and his brother, Piye, defeated Esarhaddon in the 13th year of the Renaissance Age, the rebel High Priest ruled Lower Egypt for his son during the Manetho recorded 9 years between Esarhaddon’s 10th year defeat and Ashurbanipal’s conquest of Lower Egypt. Shabaqo died young and his brother, Piye, ruled Egypt as his nephew, Shabitqo’s, regent from the 21st to the 24th years of the Renaissance Age.

Soon after Piye’s son, Taharqo, serving as Tanutamani’s army commander not long after the Assyrians sacked Thebes, had thrown them out of Egypt, he re-buried his grandfather in the impressive Tanis tomb chamber next to the one holding the Silver Pharaoh. At the time, the Silver Pharaoh’s son, Psamtek I / Psammetichus I, having temporally abandoned his Assyrian allegiance, was ruling Lower Egypt as Tanutamani’s vassal. However, by the time of the 623 BC, Halloween inversion catastrophe, some 8 years later, Tanutamani had died, a defeated Taharqo had retired to Nubia and Psamtek I was ruling all of Egypt. Having resumed his allegiance to Ashurbanipal, Psamtek I sent an army to campaign in Syria in Assyria’s war against Babylon; a damaging Mars catastrophe in 628 BC having been the inspiration for the simultaneous rebellions against Assyrian rule of the Chaldean king, Nabopolassar’s father, and of Babylon.