THE TRAGIC END OF THE BRONZE AGE (nonfiction screenplay for documentary on the initial smallpox pandemic that brought an end to bronze-age civilization) By Tom Slattery Book of same title by same author published by Writers Club Press 2001 Because of the unusual newness screenplay, it is annotated to research details.
of theoretical material in this aid audiovisual professionals to
"THE TRAGIC END OF THE BRONZE AGE" FADE IN: INT. LIVING ROOM OR LIBRARY SET Episode begins with a scholarly INTRODUCER. (He or she may or may not be the same as the NARRATOR.) INTRODUCER Catastrophes shaped ancient history. Ancient history that goes so far back we generally think of it as archeology and even anthropology. SUPER, OR SPLIT-SCREEN: TIMELINE GRAPH. CENTURY-CALIBRATED GRAPH SHOWS: beginning of last Ice Age series circa 35,000 BC, end of Ice Age circa 8,000 BC, climate change 2200 BC, Thera volcanic explosion circa 1500 BC, Population decimation - smallpox caused? - disaster 1200-1100 BC, followed by indication of dark age, 1100 BC until circa 800 BC, then indicator of 0 AD, indicator of present. (introduced "timeline graph" format is used throughout) INTRODUCER (continuing) There was the onset and then the retreat of the last Ice Age. The onset may have contributed to the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Its comparatively sudden end came coincidentally with, and thus may have induced, the beginnings of agriculture and the city-based human epoch we call civilization. Then there may have been a sudden climate change four millennia ago. In 2200 BC, coincidentally about the time Comet Hale-Bopp previously appeared in 2213 BC, fragile early civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia collapsed into chaos for at least a century.* Science 20 August 1993, pg 995. Pharaoh Pepi II followed by First Intermediate Akkad and King Naram-Sin overrun by Guti, then Amorites.
INTODUCER There was the explosion of the volcanic Greek island of Thera, also called Santorini, in the Aegean Sea about 1500 BC that sent tsunami or tidal wave across the eastern Mediterranean Ă„ that would have destroyed not only hundreds of port towns and cities but much of the this part of the ancient world's boats, docks, warehouses. And it undoubtedly would have killed skilled personnel such as boatbuilders, sailors, and experts in trade and commerce. But one of the worst catastrophes may have been caused by a virus, the variola virus, about four hundred years after that. This may have been the world's first smallpox epidemic, and it appears to have struck not long after 1200 BC and reached a peak around 1130 BC. Egyptian, Mediterranean, and Mesopotamian civilizations collapsed. As far away as China, civilization collapsed. By 1100 BC - across the Eurasian and African continents - the economic, social, political, and even religious foundations of civilization appear to have been demolished. A Dark Age lasting hundreds of years began, the longest and deepest Dark Age in the history of civilization. GRAPHICS, SPECIAL EFFECTS. Slowly turning PLANET EARTH IN SPACE. SUPER: TIMELINE GRAPH FROM ICE AGE TO PRESENT (11th & 12th centuries BC highlighted) NARRATOR (v.o.) In the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, centered within a single generation between 1150 and 1130 BC, an unparalleled catastrophe struck.
HIGHLIGHT:
CHINA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT.
NARRATOR (v.o.) There was an enormous decline in population. Empires suddenly collapsed. Whole nations and cultures abruptly ceased to exist. HOLD FOCUS ON MAP SHOWING EGYPT. NARRATOR (v.o.) Throughout the Old World, governments evaporated. Economies collapsed. Mighty military machines vanished. MUSEUM FOOTAGE, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, OR STOCK: OBJECTS AND PAINTINGS FROM THE PHARAOH TUTANKHAMON'S TOMB SUPER:
EGYPT BEFORE THE COLLAPSE
With music accompaniment we see not only the jewels and gold, but beds, chairs, utensils, flasks, other everyday implements. NARRATOR (v.o.) Where arts and music had flourished, skills and traditions died. Where trade and commerce had prospered, the legal and business structures virtually concluded final transactions and fell forever silent. We see papyrus scripts. NARRATOR (v.o.) Whole written languages simply vanished, and literacy itself almost disappeared. From other New Kingdom Egypt tombs we see armies of "toy soldier models," Nile ships, scale models showing restored temples and structures.
MUSEUM FOOTAGE, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, OR STOCK: SHANG DYNASTY BRONZES SUPER:
CHINA BEFORE THE COLLAPSE
We see Shang bronzes, other Shang implements, with focus on intricate detail. NARRATOR (v.o.) Cherished religions slipped away and were replaced by new ones with different deities and different concepts. MUSEUM FOOTAGE, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, OR STOCK: AEGEAN (CRETE AND GREECE) MYCENAEAN GREEK AND MINOAN OBJECTS SUPER:
GREECE BEFORE THE COLLAPSE
We see not only Mycenaean Era and Minoan objects, but frescos from Thera and Knossos in detail. NARRATOR (v.o.) Civilized values came crashing to an end, to be replaced by more brutal survival standards. SLOW MONTAGE WITH MAP LOCATIONS AND APPROPRIATE SUPERS: 1. HITTITE (TURKEY) OBJECTS, 2. PRE-1200 BC MESOPOTAMIAN OBJECTS, 3. ALLUSIONS TO OTHER (pre-epidemic) CIVILIZATIONS, SUCH AS STONEHENGE IN ENGLAND. NARRATOR (v.o.) It sounds like the stuff of science fiction - the familiar nuclear war aftermath - and in a way it was. But science fiction it was not. INT. EGYPTIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, CAIRO NARRATOR walks amid ancient artifacts and mummies of ancient pharaohs.
NARRATOR Three thousand years ago it actually happened to our remote ancestors, and the world actually fell into its longest and deepest dark age lasting up to seven or eight hundred years. SUPER (along screen bottom): TIMELINE GRAPH SHOWING 1150 BC AND 1050 BC. NARRATOR Between 1150 BC and 1050 BC, all the great bronze-age civilizations of the Western World came crashing to an end. ANGLE ON MUMMY OF PHARAOH RAMESES V* (or, from photograph in Mummies, Disease, and Ancient Cultures, edited by Aidan and Eve Cockburn, Cambridge University Press, 1980)
Closer angle shows mummified smallpox pimples. NARRATOR (v.o.) And here may be the reason. In about 1141 BC, after a brief reign, the pharaoh whose throne name was Usermaetre-sekheperenre (Powerful is the Justice of Re), more commonly known as Rameses V, died and was properly mummified. Fortunately his mummy still exists, because on the mummified epidermis is the "smoking gun" pointing to the culprit of the great catastrophe. Rameses V's mummified body is covered with what are almost certainly mummified smallpox vesicles.* "An Eruption Resembling That of Variola in the Skin of a Mummy of the Twentieth Dynasty (1200-1100 BC)", by M. Armand Ruffer and A. R. Ferguson, Journal of Pathological Bacteriology, 15: 1, 1911, reprinted in Diseases in Antiquity, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, Illinois, 1967)
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR He was succeeded by his brother, who became the pharaoh Rameses VI, and a suggestion of social breakdown and chaos can be seen in the fact that the two royal brothers were buried in the same tomb.
SUPERIMPOSE MAP SHOWING EGYPT, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, AND GREECE (area names labeled) NARRATOR Experts comparing ancient pottery in the region between 1200 and 1100 BC note two things. One: a change in style accompanied by marked decline in quality.* Mycenaean Pottery II, Chronology, by Arne Furumark, Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institute I Athen, 1972. "Catastrophe Zone" quote is in a note at the bottom of page 115. Inclusion of Philistine with Mycenaean pottery types may be quickly found on page 120.
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OR MUSEUM SHOTS Comparing Mycenaean pottery samples before 1200 BC and after 1100 BC, Canaanite pottery samples before same and after. NARRATOR (v.o.)(con't) Two: a marked decline in quantity, indicating a catastrophic drop in population. Swedish pottery expert centers a "catastrophe zone" around 1125 BC. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR An area-wide catastrophic drop in population coincided with the time of Rameses V's death. Estimates range up to a sudden disappearance of threefourths of the population.*
estimate in the beginning of "The Dark Ages," the fourth chapter of a widely used textbook
by
The Archeology of Greece William R. Biers, Cornell Univ Press (pg 94, 1987 revised ed).
WOODCUTS OR OTHER IMAGES OF 14th CENTURY AD "BLACK DEATH." NARRATOR (v.o.) Which would make it three times as devastating as the Black Death in Europe in the fourteenth century AD. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR Devastation akin to our cold-war-era hypothetical limited nuclear exchange. We may grasp it through a glimpse at records close to our own time. Twoand-a-half millennia after Rameses V died, the Spanish Conquest of Mexico brought smallpox to a pyramid-building, paper-using population lacking immunity to the disease. A Spanish chronicler of the Conquest, Motolinia, records this, less than five hundred years ago, in 1541 AD: ILLUSTRATION TAKEN FROM THE MEXICAN FLORENTINE CODEX (and/or others) SHOWING SMALLPOX NARRATOR (v.o.) Quote: "For as the Indians did not know the remedy for the disease and were very much in the habit of bathing frequently, whether well or ill, and continued to do so even when suffering from smallpox, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. Many others died of starvation, because, as they were taken sick at once, they could not care for each other, nor was there anyone to give them bread or anything else. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and, as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them in order to check the stench that rose from the dead bodies so that their homes became their tombs. This disease was called by the Indians 'the great leprosy' because victims were so covered with pustules that they looked like lepers."* first pages of, History of the Indians of New Spain, by Motolinia, various printings and editions.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR There are no known similar illustrations of a smallpox epidemic two-and-a-half millennia earlier.
PAN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARTIFACTS ANS MUMMIES IN MUSEUM NARRATOR (v.o.) That may be, however, because ancient civilization was totally devastated. There was no immune European civilization to restore order while replacing culture and language, as happened in the New World. RETURN TO NARRATOR NARRATOR The Conquest of Mexico gives us an index of disease mortality. Fifty years after the Spaniards brought smallpox to Mexico, the Native population was one-half to one-third its preconquest size.* as Francis F. Berdan notes in his book, The Aztecs
ANIMATED MAP SHOWS: BLOT OF EPIDEMIC SPREADING ACROSS EURASIA THROUGH CHINA NARRATOR (v.o.) This horribly concurs with what seems to have happened in the Old World between roughly 1200 and 1050 BC, even apparently reaching China. MAP SHOWS LOCATION OF DISCOVERY OF "CAUCASIAN" MUMMIES, LOULAN, TARIM BASIN, XINJIANG, CHINA. DOTTED LINE SHOWS "SILK ROAD" ACROSS CENTRAL ASIA. SUPER: SILK ROAD IN HISTORICAL TIMES. That there could have been ancient trade routes between China and Western civilizations four thousand years ago was brought to light in the late 1970s when Caucasian-appearing mummies were discovered in the Tarim Basin of China's Xinjiang province.*
"Mystery of the Mummies" symposium at the University of Pennsylvania Museum,Spring 1996, under dir of Dr. Victor H. Mair. also: Dr. Han Kangxin, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing
.
PHOTO OF 4000-YEAR-OLD "CAUCASIAN" MUMMIES FOUND IN TARIM BASIN, XINJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA NARRATOR (v.o.) The Jesuit missionary Cibot told of seeing a Chinese book, Treatise from the Heart of Smallpox, disclosing its appearance at the beginning of the Tsche-U Dynasty, which was said then to begin in 1122 BC, or, at the end of the Shang Dynasty.* In Diseases in Antiquity, compiled and edited by Don Brothwell and A.T. Sandison, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, Illinois, c. 1967, pg 120
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE SUPER (BOTTOM SCREEN): TIMELINE GRAPH WITH TIMEPERIOD 1141 BC TO 1122 BC HIGHLIGHTED; MARKED WITH "DEATH OF RAMESES V"; "CATASTROPHE ZONE"; "SMALLPOX IN CHINA?"; FOLLOWED BY "DARK AGE." NARRATOR The evidence is shaky. There is: Rameses V, mummified with apparent smallpox vesicle indicating he may have died from the disease; the "catastrophe zone" of pottery styles along with an indication of a significant decreases in population; and a hearsay reference to smallpox in China. But noting the relationship in time, taking these events together, and looking at the known subsequent historical devastation, there would seem to be enough circumstantial evidence to indict a culprit: an initial appearance of the variola virus causing smallpox as we know it. STOCK: STILL AND/OR MOTION PICTURES OF SMALLPOX VICTIMS NARRATOR (v.o.) Smallpox is not only one of the most deadly of all diseases, it is easily spread, and its variola virus is tenacious.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR The virus can be spread by touch or by an airborne cough or sneeze. (touches, brushes: clothing, wall) It can remain alive and lethal on cloth or other material for up to two months. INTERCUT: ENACTMENT EXT. ANCIENT DESERT-LIKE ROADSIDE - DAY Anciently garbed individual lies dead on ground. Another anciently garbed individual peels off dead person's usable clothing. NARRATOR (v.o.) Those who stole from the dead contracted the horrible deadly disease. INTERCUT: ENACTMENT INT. ANCIENT LIVING QUARTERS One person in ancient garb and showing smallpox seems dead on primitive bed. Others, obviously ill, sneeze and cough. NARRATOR (v.o.) Those who lived with the dying contracted the disease. INTERCUT: ENACTMENT EXT.
DESERT-LIKE AREA - DAY
People in ancient garb flee toward desert. NARRATOR (v.o.) One strategy may have been to flee to the hills and desert and survive there for at least a couple months.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR (holding, showing bronze implement) Whatever its cause, the enormous population decimation human tragedy clearly deconstructed delicate Bronze Age structures of economy and trade. One seems to have been the tin trade. It was critical because roughly ten percent tin is necessary to turn soft copper into hard ductile military-grade bronze. MAP SHOWS KNOWN ANCIENT TIN ORE SOURCES Highlighted tin ore sources: 1. Cornwall in England; 2. the Erz Geberg (German-Czech border area); 3. Area centering on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border area, and extending into Khyrgyzastan; 4. area centering near the city of Sian (ancient Anyang) in China.* Tin In Antiquity, by R.D. Penhallurick, Institute of Metals (Press), London, 1986. (especially note map #4)
NARRATOR (v.o.) At the end of the Bronze Age only four areas were known to be main sources that could supply an enormous appetite for tin ore: Cornwall in England, possibly the Erz Geberg (literally Ore Mountains) on the present German-Czech Border, an area centering around the Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan borders, and an area in central China around the Shang Dynasty capital of Anyang. Only the Chinese were fortunate enough to have both copper and tin ores near their center of civilization. Other ancient civilizations had to bring tin long distances, using carefully managed trade systems.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR (holding up another bronze piece) A form of bronze alloy had been made with a similar percentage of arsenic, but the product was brittle. MONTAGE OF STOCK, MUSEUM, OR VIDEOTAPED: BRONZE OBJECTS, ESPECIALLY BRONZE SWORDS, BRONZE DAGGERS, AND BRONZE CHARIOT WHEELS. NARRATOR (v.o.) Only tin could make quality bronze for tools, household goods, and most importantly, military weapons. Denied tin, bronze-age nations faced a military second-class status. Tin, therefore, was the paramount strategic mineral of the Late Bronze Age, similar to petroleum in our time. The ancient nations of the West must have fought one another, formed barely palatable alliances, and pampered suppliers to assure a flow of strategic tin. MAP SHOWING ANIMATED TRADE ROUTES FROM TIN AREAS TO EGYPT, FIRST EXTENDING TO, THEN DRYING UP. NARRATOR (v.o.) When the catastrophe struck, all the carefully constructed trade routes and economic arrangements that brought tin from great distances to satisfy an enormous appetite for bronze goods in civilized centers of the West would have collapsed. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR (holding up bronze sword) And that is what the historical record shows. In the West, the Bronze Age indeed came to an end. (Narrator puts bronze sword down and picks up ancient iron weapon) And was replaced by this: bronze goods were gradually replaced by iron implements. The Iron Age slowly emerged during centuries of a long dark age.* Several essays in: The Coming Of the Age Of Iron, edited by Theodore A. Wertime and James D. Muhly, 1980, Yale Univ Press, New Haven; additionally somewhat corroborated by, "Conquest or Settlement; The Early Iron Age In Palestine," in Biblical Archaeologist, June 1987, page 84.
STOCK, MUSEUM, AND VIDEOTAPED SLOW MONTAGE We see Nile scenes, pyramids, ancient temples, tomb paintings, jewelry, papyrus documents, musical instruments, paintings of those instruments in use, etc. NARRATOR (v.o.) When the catastrophe struck and the Bronze Age collapsed, Egypt - then in a period historians call the New Kingdom Empire which reached up into Canaan and down through Nubia - seems to have suffered terribly. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE Narrator holds up three books, The Torah, the Bible, and the Koran. NARRATOR And it is possible that fragments pertaining to the catastrophe and collapse may be found in the JudeoChristian Old Testament - which began to be written as we know it four hundred years after the great catastrophe. The "Moses" in it would have to have lived near the end of the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history, the time that events in the transition from Genesis into Exodus appear to have taken place.
Narrator puts those books down and picks up two others, the Iliad and the Odyssey. NARRATOR In addition, the Fall of four hundred years later poetically chronicled in its sequel the Odyssey this time.
Troy - that Homer the Iliad and took place at
VIEW OF: HISSARLIK-RUINS OF TROY, MODERN TURKEY (perhaps utilizing footage from the film "The Trojan Women") SUPER: TROY TODAY NARRATOR (v.o.) A list of dates found on the Greek island of Paros called the Parian Chronicle Marble gives the equivalent of a precise, but arguably incorrect, date for the fall of Troy: PHOTO OR SHOT: OF REMAINING "PARIAN CHRONICLE MARBLE" (now among the Arundel Marbles at Oxford.* (Early dates are lost from damage in the civil war between Cromwell and Royalists, but a copy of it was fortunately made by John Selden, preserving dates back to the 14th century BC)
HIGHLIGHT: DATE FOR FALL OF TROY SUPER: EQUALS JUNE 5, 1209 BC NARRATOR (v.o.) June 5, 1209 BC. Another date traditionally used by scholars is 1194 BC, fifteen years later. It would seem that a real historic event took place plus or minus a few decades of those times. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR And within a century, around that time, something destroyed civilization so thoroughly that literacy itself almost vanished, and four centuries later people began anew to record in writing what had been preserved as precious historical memory in bardic, religious, and other oral traditions for four hundred long years. SLOW MONTAGE OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARTIFACTS, PAINTINGS, MODELS, AND STATUES. ANGLES ON: (among other implements) 1. modern-looking Ancient Egyptian chairs; 2. modern-appearing Ancient Egyptian beds. 3. Paintings, drawings, and statues WITH ANGLES SHOWING women wearing sleek stylish clothes and jewelry. NARRATOR (v.o.) When the catastrophe struck, Egypt was the greatest civilization in the world, the focal point of wealth, power, the arts, education, and technology. 4. Enactment: Woman in Ancient Egyptian attire dabs on scents from Ancient Egyptian glass perfume bottles, and puts on almost modern facial makeup. NARRATOR (v.o.) One only has to look at items found in tombs to see that upper class Egyptians lived as well as anyone would live until virtually our own time. 5. Ancient Egyptian paintings of banquet scenes, showing musicians playing in concert. (possibly add: Clip from PBS Scientific American series showing modern music historian playing Ancient Egyptian bamboo flute.) RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR Modern research has shown that the modern eight-tone Western scale was the basis of their music. SLOW MONTAGE SHOWING ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND MODELS OF MILITARY SCENES. 1. Models of "toy soldiers" marching. 2. Ancient Egyptian weapons and a war chariot. NARRATOR (v.o.) The mighty, well organized, and highly trained Egyptian army fought not only with armored chariots and bronze swords but had divisions of archers using laminated bows that could shoot arrows through metal armor. 3. Medenet Habu wall carvings of battles, ANGLES ON bows and arrows, other weapons. NARRATOR (v.o.) The Egyptian Empire could not only field armies numbering in the tens of thousands but logistically supply these troops in distant foreign wars. SLOW MONTAGE OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN STRUCTURES AND MONUMENTS AS SEEN AT PRESENT 1. Luxor or Karnak. 2. "Ozymandius" statue of Rameses II. (director's choice)
Pyramids. Etc.
NARRATOR (v.o.) The great ancient ruined Egyptian structures speak across the millennia for themselves. To construct them required organized labor, engineering knowledge, architectural plans, and sound healthy economies, all of which in turn betray extensive organized educational institutions.
COMPARISON GRAPHS Left graph shows twenty centuries of Ancient Egypt showing area of pyramid construction about midway. Right graph shows twenty centuries since beginning of Christian Era. Comparison graph also indicates thousand-year gap between the two. NARRATOR (v.o.) By the time ancient Egypt came suddenly and grindingly to a halt with the collapse of the New Kingdom at the end of the twelfth century BC, educational and religious institutions would probably have been steadily growing and developing for over twenty centuries. Recall that our commonly used calendar begins only twenty centuries ago. Smaller graph indicates comparison between twenty centuries of Ancient Egypt, five centuries of New Kingdom Egypt, and two centuries of The United States of America's existence. Graph of Egypt also marks off clear indication of 1225 BC. NARRATOR (v.o.) When it collapsed, the New Kingdom Egyptian empire itself was entering its fifth century. By comparison, the United States as a nation goes back only two centuries. A thousand years before day one in our calendar, a great tragedy struck. Two thousand years of continuous ancient Egyptian national history and over four centuries of New Kingdom Egyptian history came to a sudden end. SCENES SHOWING KARNAK AND LUXOR TEMPLES Dollies, pans, and tilts of the Great Ancient Egyptian temples of Luxor and Karnak
NARRATOR (v.o.) The great temples that amaze tourists far up the Nile at Karnak and Luxor the latter still the largest and among the most beautiful religious edifices in the world - were last modified just fifty years before the catastrophe struck. MASSIVE STATUES OF RAMESES II AT ABU SIMBL, EGYPT Pan and tilt to indicate massive size of statuary. NARRATOR (v.o.) When the man who had ordered these last modifications, the pharaoh Rameses II, died in about 1212 BC, Egypt was confidently the technological and cultural center of the ancient world. MAP SHOWS EXTENT OF EGYPTIAN EMPIRE UNDER RAMESES II, NOTABLY INCLUDING CANAAN (with Hittite Empire indicated) NARRATOR (v.o.) An almost modern nation with a military-backed political-economic empire second to none and with a government operating not unlike those of large nations in very recent history. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PAINTINGS AND CARVINGS SHOWING RAMESES II IN CHARIOT, BATTLE GEAR FIGHTING HITTITES. NARRATOR (v.o.) Early in the long reign of this last of the truly great pre-catastrophe pharaohs... MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF KADESH IN SYRIA
NARRATOR (v.o.) ... a simmering power struggle with the Hittite Empire over territorial hegemony erupted into a real war that culminated in a great battle between the Hittite Empire and the Egyptian Empire and all of their minor allies at a place called Kadesh in what is now Syria. BATTLE MAP OF KADESH AND BATTLE ILLUSTRATION, (Hittite and Egyptian positions and troop movements indicated.* example in Chronicle of the Pharaohs, by Peter A. Clayton, Thames & Hudson, 1994, pgs 150-51)
NARRATOR (v.o.) Two well organized and logistically well supplied armies, perhaps totalling between them a hundred thousand soldiers, fought each other to a draw with bronze weapons and military chariots. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE Narrator holds up copy (or illustration of copy) of the two Peace Treaties, one in Hittite and one in Egyptian. NARRATOR While the great gory battle and several other Hittite-Egyptian wars following it produced no victor, the conflict did eventually result in the world's first known written peace treaty between great empires in 1259 BC. ORIG TEXTS: EGYPTIAN THEN HITTITE VERSIONS, PEACE TREATY* {Egyptian version carved on walls of both Karnak and the Ramesseum; Hittite version on clay tablets (in Berlin museum?); possibly followed by split-screen comparison excerpts of translations as seen in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, by James D. Pritchard, Princeton Univ Press 1950, 1969, pages 199 (Egyptian) and 201 (Hittite).}
NARRATOR (v.o.) Both of the virtually identical Hittite and Egyptian texts have survived to our time. The Battle of Kadesh in particular and the war in general show the level which sophistication in military training, tactics, logistics, and organization had reached.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR The peace treaty itself betrays a level of sophistication in diplomacy, written word usage, and translation services, and it cannot help but conjure up modern scenes of government representatives sitting around conference tables to hack out the details of a treaty. GRAPH OF LATE NEW KINGDOM PHARAOHS' REIGNS HIGHLIGHT: LAST ON LIST, RAMESES V Usermaetre Rameses II Ä c.1279-1212 BC Baenre Merneptah Ä c.1212-1201 BC Userkhephrure Seti II Ä c.1201-1195 BC (turmoil 6 to 10 years) Usermaetre Meryamon Rameses III Ä c.1185-1153 BC Heqamaetre Rameses IV Ä c.1153-1146 BC Usermaetre Rameses V (smallpox) c.1146-1141 BC
NARRATOR (v.o.) Within a century, however, all this civilized sophistication came crashing to an end, and not many pharaohs later, Egyptians and everyone else in the Old World were groveling for survival. About these last pre-catastrophe pharaohs there may be some minor disagreement concerning succession, but the important thing to note is the span of time. SUPERIMPOSE: IMAGES OR MUMMIES OF PHARAOHS, AS NAMED NARRATOR (v.o.) Basically Merneptah succeeded Rameses II and reigned about ten years, Seti II reigned another ten years. For a few years there was turmoil, and then came the last significant ancient Egyptian pharaoh, Rameses III, reigned thirtytwo years, followed by two more of little note, Rameses IV, seven years, and Rameses V, at best five years: HIGHLIGHT AS INDICATED: ON GRAPH OF PHARAOHS NARRATOR (v.o.)
A century and a quarter from a sophisticated peace treaty between empires to apparent epidemic-caused collapse of civilization, and only twelve years between the death of the last great pharaoh, Rameses III, and the apparent smallpox death of Rameses V. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR Under Rameses III, in 1177 BC, the last great battle of imperial Egypt took place. The Sea Peoples had been raiding Mediterranean coastal cities, spreading havoc and disrupting trade. SCENES OF LAND AND SEA BATTLES CARVED ON MEDENET HABU NARRATOR (v.o.) As scenes from his funeral temple at Medenet Habu proudly show, the Sea Peoples were defeated on both land and sea as they attempted to enter the Nile Delta and northern Egypt. HIGHLIGHT TO FOLLOW NARRATION: NARRATOR (v.o.) Note the ships, uniforms, nationalities, and weapons. These must have been almost identical to those seen in the Trojan war and by the mythical Ulysses in his subsequent adventures in "The Odyssey." RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR It has been suggested that the real man the mythical Ulysses represented was, in fact, one of these Sea Peoples raiders. Some archaeologists conjecture that raiding Sea Peoples caused the downfall of all these ancient empires. MAP OF ANCIENT GREECE SHOWING: MYCENAE, TIRYNS, GLA NARRATOR (v.o.) But thoughtful questions sorely test this hypothesis. VIEWS (ESPECIALLY FROM BELOW) OF PRESENT MYCENAE, TIRYNS, GLA SUPERS: IDENTIFYING THESE AS: MYCENAE TODAY, TIRYNS TODAY, GLA TODAY NARRATOR (v.o.) Could the great Greek fortresses of Mycenae, Tiryns, Gla and others have fallen to Viking-like Sea Peoples? VIEWS OF PRESENT TROY (ESPECIALLY FROM BELOW) SUPER: TROY NARRATOR (v.o.) Consider how long it took the well organized naval expedition of a thousand ships and the combined military strength of Achaean Greek nations to bring down the great fortress of Troy - and then, as the story goes, only by ruse. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR The Sea Peoples may have helped to spread disease, but their raids seem unlikely to have caused the sudden collapse of bronze-age civilization.
MAP OF ANCIENT ASIA MINOR (TURKEY), WITH ANIMATED ROUTES TO HITTITE CAPITAL, HATTUSHILASH (BOGHAZ KOI IN CENTRAL TURKEY). DOTTED EXTENSIONS MAY GO TO MESOPOTAMIAN CAPITALS. NARRATOR (v.o.) Moreover, could the Sea Peoples have abandoned their ships and marched inland to the Hittite capital and then gone on for weeks to reach the Assyrian and Babylonian empires after fighting that battle? MEDENET HABU TEMPLE, SEA BATTLE SCENES NARRATOR (v.o.) Even when the Sea Peoples had the advantage of their warships, they were soundly defeated in the Nile Delta by the Egyptians - who did not have great stone fortresses there and used a simple trick of stretching nets across rivers and canals to trap Sea Peoples' ships. SHOTS OF MYCENAE, TIRYNS SUPERS: MYCENAE, GREECE, TODAY; TIRYNS, GREECE, TODAY NARRATOR (v.o.) The same questions can be asked of other, and likely related, great migrations thought by some to have occurred during this increasingly chaotic time. Could Dorians or any other nomadic or migrating peoples have brought down great fortresses and virtually all of the old empires? It seems equally unlikely. It is more likely that they were epidemic survivors later drawn into a population and power vacuum that may have been caused by a smallpox catastrophe.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR If they had represented an organized national or multi-national force, the Sea Peoples would surely seem to have suffered a disastrous and decisive defeat in northern Egypt. And this would have terminated their adventures against organized civilized nations and empires. MAP SHOWING EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN THROUGH MESOPOTAMIA WITH 12th CENTURY BC EMPIRES AND COUNTRIES NAMED Animation shows a darkening, as if by a cloud, creeping across region. NARRATOR (v.o.) As the Sea Peoples were being defeated in the Nile Delta, the tragic smallpox epidemic may already have begun its rapid furious spread through the civilized nations of the late bronze age. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR Thoughtful reflection and consideration of the known tenacity and terrible infectiousness of the variola virus would single it out as the culprit. The virus remains potentially active on clothing and other materials for up to two months, and over and above physical contact with infected bodies and material goods, it can be spread by a breath or a sneeze from an infected person. ANIMATED ABOVE MAP SHOWING SEA AND LAND TRADE ROUTES CONNECTING ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
NARRATOR (v.o.) That combined with the known widespread interdependent trade networks of the late bronze age and perhaps opportunistic land and sea raids toward the end of the era appears to have brought the bronze age to a sudden horrible end. SHOTS OF: STATUARY OF EGYPTIAN SCRIBE, EGYPTIAN PAINTINGS OF GOODS BEING BROUGHT BEFORE PHARAOHS NARRATOR (v.o.) Even the careful government bureaucracy of Egypt, which planned for natural disasters and attempted to minimize calamity in its empire and even in the lands of its trading partners, could have had little time to study and counter the effects of the epidemic. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR While early in his reign, Rameses III led the successful campaign against the Sea Peoples, late in his reign he had to deal with an assassination attempt by his own high government officials and may even have been assassinated. Could this have been due to social unrest caused by the havoc of a spreading catastrophic smallpox epidemic? About a decade later, his grandson Rameses V died of smallpox. GRAPH SHOWING PHARAOHS RAMESES III, IV, V* Usermaetre Meryamon Rameses III - c.1185-1153 BC Heqamaetre Rameses IV c.1153-1146 BC Usermaetre Rameses V (smallpox) c.1146-1141 BC
NARRATOR (v.o.) The three pharaohs, Rameses III, IV, and V, would have been better able to isolate themselves than the average Egyptian if an epidemic had been raging through the land, and if they did, only the first two of them managed to do it successfully.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR Following the assassination of - or assassination attempt on - Rameses III, Egypt still retained the vestiges of civilization. SHOT OF PAPYRUS INVESTIGATING ASSASSINATION JUDICIAL PAPYRUS OF TURIN (in the Turin Egyptian Museum, part of the Harem Conspiracy Papyrus) - perhaps with bottom-screen SUPER: TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH* (found on page 214, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, by James B. Pritchard, Princeton Univ Press)
NARRATOR (v.o.) The last half of a papyrus scroll summarizing an inquiry into the crime and conspiracy - that has to remind one of the Warren Commission - exists. A panel was appointed. Witnesses were called. Judgments were handed down. Some officials who had been appointed to the panel were later found guilty and suffered harsh ancient Egyptian punishment. SHOT OF PAINTING, STATUE, OR WALL CARVING OF RAMESES III NARRATOR (v.o.) Assassinated or not, when Rameses III died c. 1153 BC, not only Egyptian civilization, but civilization in general was teetering on the edge of its greatest disaster. RETURN TO ANGLES ON ASSASSINATION PAPYRUS, plus perhaps continuing translation in English.
NARRATOR (v.o.) Whether successful or not, the mere assassination attempt on this pharaoh who was revered with deep religious conviction as the living God on earth and probably also admired for having led the victory over the Sea Peoples shows a serious rent in the Egyptian social fabric. RETURN TO ANIMATED MAP OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND MESOPOTAMIA SHOWING DARKENING CLOUD OF EPIDEMIC NARRATOR (v.o.) Rameses III's son may have isolated himself from the epidemic, but his grandson could not. In the few years between the death of Rameses III circa 1153 BC, and the death of Rameses V circa 1141 BC, there must have been spreading social havoc and institutional breakdown in the known world. If anything near the 75 percent drop in population estimated to have happened in Greece also occurred in Egypt, or even the one-half to twothirds drop that occurred in postConquest Mexico two-and-a-half millennia later, it would certainly have meant total economic collapse and complete social chaos. ENACTMENT EXT. EGYPTIAN VILLAGE Bodies lie in street. agonized posture.
A "survivor" stumbles by in an
NARRATOR (v.o.) And if not total, certainly considerable social and economic collapse did occur, and Egypt never fully recovered. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR Apparently sometime within a few years or a few decades of the collapse, the biblical Moses led a small band of persecuted people out of Egypt and into the Sinai. A arguable word for these people that has come down to us, even from that ancient time, is: Hebrew ibri or apiru, etc., in several ancient languages - but it seems to have represented more a social class than an ethnic group Ă„ perhaps an international social class of skilled laborers or materials haulers and traders. It may also have been a word for a group of condemned political-religious dissidents, possibly a widely used reference to those who had plotted against the state or secretly spread the subversive ideas of heretical religions. MONTAGE OF SEVERAL EGYPTIAN PAINTINGS AND WALL CARVINGS SHOWING PHARAOH AKHNATEN WORSHIPING THE SUN SUPER: GRAPH SHOWING TIMELINE, WITH AKHNATEN AT 1360 BC TO 1343 BC. NARRATOR (v.o.) Two hundred years before the apparent smallpox death of Rameses V, the pharaoh Amenhotep IV had broken dramatically with the polytheistic past and had initiated a new monotheistic state religion worshiping an aspect of the sun called the Aten. To advance his cause, he changed his royal name to Akhnaten, meaning: He-in-whom-Aten-issatisfied. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR But the religion lasted less than a decade after his death.
VIEW OF GOLD COFFIN MASK OF TUTANKHAMEN NARRATOR (v.o.) Akhnaten's son or nephew, the pharaoh we know from the greatest Egyptian tomb treasure ever found, found it expedient to change his name from Tutankh-aten to Tutankhamen, signifying a return to the Old Time Religion of many gods around the chief god Amen, "The Hidden One." RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR After Tutankhamen's death, the monotheistic religion of Akhnaten was vigorously - perhaps brutally suppressed. ENACTMENT INT.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HOUSE
Male and Female characters in New Kingdom Egyptian attire slip secretively into room, worship "The Aten" sun-and-rays symbol. SUPER: MAP OF THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE AT TIME OF RAMESES II NARRATOR (v.o.) Undoubtedly what had been the state religion of the Egyptian Empire for a generation would have continued to have had adherents, but they would have been forced to worship in secret and become an underground religion. Male characters in Egyptian police-military attire burst into room, seize Aten worshippers.
NARRATOR (v.o.) One can easily imagine that people guilty of political and religious heresy were regarded as criminals and treated as such. This would, of course, not only include the Aten proto-monotheists but all other religious and political deviations formerly, but no longer, tolerated in imperial Egypt. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR If Atenists, subject foreigners, maybe even remnants of the Hyksos, and others, suddenly felt the heavy hand of the restoration conservative religious state, it could eventually have led to a situation that would seem not much different than the one related in Exodus. MAP OF NILE DELTA WITH AREA OF EASTERN DELTA CONFORMING TO "GOSHEN" HIGHLIGHTED AROUND THE MODERN EGYPTIAN CITY OF FAQUS. (possibly indicate the city of Pi-Rameses, other relevant ancient cities, including Hyksos capital Avaris) NARRATOR (v.o.) Writer and ancient Egypt expert Ahmed Osman points out that gsm in ancient Egyptian is a real, identifiable place in the Nile Delta around the present town of Faqus. Some suspect the present town name retains a hint of one of the two ancient syllables, "qus" has survived from the Biblical Land of Goshen. If so, possibly the name Faqus tells us something more as a credible corruption of "p gsm," or "The Goshen" the Egyptian definite article indicating that the place may have once stood out as a center of a significant place. The followers of Moses, who may have been the ones giving ancient significance to the Land of Goshen, may have been made up of a number of officially despised, oppressed groups.
SUPER: TIMELINE GRAPH 1650 BC TO 1100 BC - WITH HIGHLIGHT OR ARROW CLEARLY GOING BACK IN TIME SHOWS HYKSOS, BATTLE OF AVARIS, THEN NEW KINGDOM, WITH RAMESES II THROUGH RAMESES V NOTED. MAP EXPANDS TO SHOW ALL OF EGYPT THROUGH THEBES. THEBES AND AVARIS, ON MAP, HIGHLIGHTED SUPER: HYKSOS CAPITAL OF AVARIS ANIMATED ARROW ON MAP SHOWS CONQUEST ROUTE OF PHARAOH AMOSE FROM SOUTH NARRATOR (v.o.) Let's go back in the timeline a few hundred years: Three or four centuries before the time most think Moses led his people into the Sinai, the Hyksos, who had been foreign rulers of northern Egypt for hundreds of years and had become thoroughly Egyptianized, were overthrown by a southern Egyptian pharaoh named Amose. GRAPH OF HYKSOS PHARAOHS* (from Egypt, Canaan, and Israel In Ancient Times, by Donald B. Redford, Princeton Univ Press 1992, page 110) The Historical Fifteenth Dynasty Manetho M3e-ib-r‘ Sheshy Salitis Mr-wsr-r‘ Ya‘kob-har Bnon/Pachan Swsr.n-r‘ Khyan Iannas [ Ä- ] Yansas-X Assis Three names of Apophis Apophis [ -- ] H3mwdi -precise reign dates unknown: total equals a century between 1650 BC and 1549 BC
NARRATOR (v.o.) One of the Hyksos pharaohs has a strikingly Old Testament-like name, Merwosere Ya'kob-har, or Yacob-el, like the Biblical Jacob. If nothing else, it shows the Biblical name being used around the time of Jacob. Another tempting personal name similarity is that of Yakob-el's grandson or great grandson, the Hyksos pharaoh Apophis, which sounds much like the onemillennium-later Classical Greek dramatic character and legendary king of Egypt, Epaphos.
AERIAL VIEW OF SITE OF ANCIENT AVARIS (TEL-ED-DAB'A), WITH ANGLE TOWARD AND SHOWING MEDITERRANEAN IN DISTANCE SUPER: SITE OF ANCIENT AVARIS NARRATOR (v.o.) Like many dramatic and legendary characters, the Greek word has a meaning to fit the character's attributes or personal history. Epaphos means "touch" or "caress," but the king's name could still hark back through mispronunciations and misapprehensions to the real Hyksos pharaoh Apophis, like Epaphos an Egyptian king. GRAPH SHOWS TIMELINE, HYKSOS ERA 1650-1550 BC HIGHLIGHTED, RAMESES V, c 1150 BC, INDICATED, CLASSICAL GREEK PERIOD, c 500-400 BC, INDICATED. TIMELINE C 800 BC INDICATES BOTH "HOMER" AND "BEGINNING OF WRITTEN FORM OF BIBLE AS WE KNOW IT." NARRATOR (v.o.) Epaphos was son of the goddess and dramatic character Io and grandfather of another Greek dramatic king of Egypt, Busiris (possibly corrupted from P Osiris, "The Osiris," conceivably derived from a later Greek misunderstanding of the title of the pharaoh, "The God"). The legendary and dramatic Greek hero Herakles fought Busiris and brought an end to religious human sacrifice. Might there be a mixing of Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian historical, dramatic, and religious metaphors, all seeping out of the Hyksos Dynasty here? VIEW OF A CLASSICAL GREEK OUTDOOR THEATER (perhaps stock of "The Suppliants" being performed?) SUPER: TIMELINE INDICATES 490 BC.
NARRATOR (v.o.) In the Classical drama by Aeschylus, "The Suppliants" is through descent from the goddess Io, their four-times great grandmother, that the women escaping Egyptian military forces claim a right to reside in the Greek city of Argos. Martin Bernal points out that the choice of a title by Aeschylus may have been a play on words, the Greek hikes (ios), "suppliants," not too unsubtly recalling Hyksos pharaohs of Egypt, of which the pharaoh Apophis may have been the most well known.* Black Athena, Volume I, by Martin Bernal, Rutgers Univ Press, 1987, pg 22
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR The present accepted meaning of Hyksos is that it comes from a Greek garbling of the Egyptian words hka-ha-swt, "people under foreign rulers," but ancient Egyptian historian Manetho's similar sounding term for "Shepherd Kings" may not have been completely wrong. Plays on words tickled ancient fancies more than in our time, and after their defeat, the Hyksos may well have been ridiculed by word-play. Narrator picks up two similar modern-cast (for this program!) DAGGERS, one cast ARSENIC BRONZE, the other cast TIN BRONZE. NARRATOR By accident or etiology, the beginning of the Late Bronze Age coincides with takeover of northern Egypt by the Hyksos. INT. MODERN METALSHOP STUDIO WITH VICE Enactor clamps both arsenic-bronze and tin-bronze daggers in VICE.
NARRATOR (v.o.) The Late Bronze Age essentially means the Tin-Bronze Age. Mixing ten percent tin with copper makes a superior alloy to the ten percent arsenic mixed with copper that had made the alloy of the earlier Bronze Ages. Watch what happens with the arsenic-bronze dagger. Enactor bends Arsenic-Bronze Dagger until it snaps. Narrator then bends the Tin-Bronze Dagger, and it bends, perhaps 90 degrees. NARRATOR (v.o.) Tin-bronze is a less brittle and more ductile metal alloy, a decided military advantage allowing for bronze chariot wheel and bearing construction and superior military swords, daggers, spears, helmets, and body armor MAP OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, ANIMATED HIGHLIGHT AS INDICATED NARRATOR (v.o.) The Hyksos appear to have arrived in northern Egypt from, and were driven back into, what we call Canaan. Canaan appears to have been, linguistically and culturally, closely tied to the Minoan/Mycenaean Greek civilizations. VIEW OF EXCAVATIONS AT TELL-EL-DAB'A SUPER: EXCAVATIONS AT TELL-EL-DAB'A (ANCIENT HYKSOS CAPITAL OF AVARIS) NARRATOR (v.o.) Experts say fragments of wall paintings found in a late Hyksos palace of Avaris are unmistakably Minoan in character.* "Minoan Painting and Egypt; the Case of Tell el-Dab'a,"
by Lyvia Morgan. Begins page 29 in: Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant; Interconnections in the Second Millennium BC, British Museum Press, London, 1995
ANGLE ON FRAGMENTS FROM TELL-EL-DAB'A WALL PAINTINGS (Contact: W. Vivian Davies, Department of Antiquities, British Museum, London, and Professor Manfred Bietak, Austrian Institute, Vienna) NARRATOR (v.o.) What this may suggest is that the Hyksos were part of an Eastern Mediterranean sea trading empire ... RETURN TO MAP OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN NARRATOR (v.o.) ... that included Mycenaean-Minoan Greece and Crete, the Levant, and northern Egypt. ANIMATED MAP SHOWS ARROW TO GREECE FROM CANAAN, WITH CLOSEUP ON ANCIENT GREEK THEBES (so labeled) NARRATOR (v.o.) Later Greeks credited an ancient legendary Greek king Cadmus as both having founded the Greek city of Thebes and having brought alphabetical writing from Canaan. The legend may contain fragmentary fact from distant historical memory, and some of that memory may be of a Greek-Canaanite presence in Egypt, the Hyksos. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR It would appear that the Hyksos were at least oriented toward Canaanite-MinoanGreek trading civilizations, and the cite of Avaris, their capital, made it a Mediterranean trading city by sea and a trading city with Canaan and the rest of Asia by land. For whatever reasons, they could not hold onto this ideal Egyptian foothold for more than a century.
PHOTOGRAPH OF THERA ISLAND (SANTORINI) TODAY SUPER: THERA OR SANTORINI ISLAND TODAY. SUPER (DIFFERENT COLOR, ALONG BOTTOM): GRAPH OF TIMELINE ZEROS-IN ON: 1650 BC ARRIVAL OF HYKSOS, 1550 BC FALL OF AVARIS AND DEFEAT OF THE HYKSOS, AND BEGINNING OF NEW KINGDOM EGYPT NARRATOR (v.o.) The fall of the Hyksos capital of Avaris - in Egyptian hwt waret, "mansion of the desert tract" - and defeat of the Hyksos began the New Kingdom imperial phase of Egyptian history. SUPERIMPOSE OVER PHOTOGRAPH: DRAWING OF ESTIMATED ANCIENT VOLCANO OF THERA SUPER:
ANCIENT THERA VOLCANO
NARRATOR (v.o.) The conquest of the Hyksos by the pharaoh Ahmose, suspiciously follows ANIMATION (PERHAPS COMBINED WITH PINATUBO EXPLOSION FOOTAGE, LABELED AS SUCH IN SUPER): DRAWING OF THERA EXPLODES. NARRATOR (v.o.) ... the destruction of Minoan and coastal Canaanite civilization as a result of the explosion of the volcanic island of Thera in the Aegean Sea ... MAP OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SHOWING ENLARGING TSUNAMI WAVE EMANATING FROM THERA AND STRIKING MEDITERRANEAN SHORELINES NARRATOR (v.o.) ... its resulting tidal wave, and apparent global climate change from the ash cloud. It is thought to have been among the largest volcanic explosions in human history. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR The Egyptian defeat of the Hyksos may have been opportunistic, taking advantage of the widespread destruction and resulting political and economic chaos. Martin Bernal dates the Thera explosion a century earlier, and so it may have been the reverse: the Hyksos taking advantage of the destruction-caused chaos to take over northern Egypt. But most feel Thera exploded close to 1500 BC, roughly coinciding with the demise of the Hyksos. ANIMATED MAP, EGYPT AND CANAAN SHOWS: EGYPTIAN ADVANCE FROM SOUTH TO HELIOPOLIS (EGYPTIAN ANU, EDGE OF MODERN CAIRO). SUPER:
EARLY JULY
NARRATOR (v.o.) Whatever happened, a brief account anciently scribbled on the back of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus shows a rapid Egyptian advance through Hyksoscontrolled northern Egypt: ANIMATED MAP SHOWS EGYPTIAN FORCES BYPASSING AVARIS TO TAKE THE HYKSOS FORTRESS OF SILE (TJARU), EDGE OF THE SINAI. SUPER: MID-OCTOBER NARRATOR (v.o.) The Egyptian forces moved as if strategically to cut off overland support from Canaan to the Hyksos capital by capturing the fortress of Sile, also called Tjaru, as if from military intelligence that sea supply lines Ă„ ships and docks - had been destroyed by a catastrophe. Then began the successful siege of Avaris itself, at least in part a naval blockade.* Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, by Donald B. Redford, Princeton Univ Press, 1992, see chapter on Hyksos.
PHOTO OR SHOTS: BIOGRAPHY OF AHMOSE-SI-ABINA IN TOMB (possibly showing paintings of battle?) OF AHMOSE-SI-ABINA AT EL-KAB (just north of Aswan) NARRATOR (v.o.) It was recorded and preserved for us in the biography on the tomb of one of the Egyptian naval officers, Ahmose-siAbina who later became the equivalent of an Egyptian admiral. ANIMATED MAP SHOWS: SURROUNDING OF AVARIS, THEN PURSUIT OF HYKSOS, AND BATTLE OF SHARUHEN (TEL-EL-AJJUL, NEAR GAZA). NARRATOR (v.o.) The Hyksos may have been driven out of Egypt proper, but may not have been entirely removed from subsequent influence on Egyptian history.* Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, by Donald B. Redford, Princeton Univ Press, 1992, pg 128
VIEW, PERHAPS AERIAL, OF SITE OF SHARUHEN TODAY SUPER:
SITE OF SHARUHEN TODAY
NARRATOR (v.o.) Egyptian forces failed in the first two annual attempts to take the fortress of Sharuhen, but succeeded in the third and reduced it to ashes and rubble. With that, the military Hyksos threat came to an end. The several years it took the Egyptians to defeat their remnants at Sharuhen shows a Canaanite economic and military base. They ceased to be Hyksos per se, but probably continued as Canaanites and Mediterranean traders. ANIMATED MAP OF NORTHERN EGYPT, SINAI, AND GAZA EXPANDS TO SHOW EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND GREECE, WITH TRADE ROUTES BETWEEN BYBLOS, UGARIT, KNOSSOS, CYPRUS, NORTHERN EGYPT.
NARRATOR (v.o.) The Hyksos had governed northern Egypt for a century. Martin Bernal suggests that they may have been more an ancient equivalent of a modern multi-national corporation executives than military conquerors.* Black Athena, Volume II, by Martin Bernal, Rutgers Univ Press, 1991, pg 345
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR And since the conquering Egyptians clearly can be seen as a religion-oriented centralized government bureaucracy under a strong monarch, one might suspect that trading and technical class people formerly allied with or led by the Hyksos may have supplied needed skills and trading contacts and as a result gradually worked their way back into the corridors of power in New Kingdom Egypt. MAP: NILE DELTA AND SINAI SHOWS SITE: PI-RAMESES AND AVARIS NARRATOR (v.o.) Curiously, hundreds of years after the Hyksos had been overthrown, the pharaoh Rameses II erected a stele celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Avaris at his new capital of Pi-Rameses, built on or very near the site of the Hyksos capital of Avaris. VIEW OF RAMESES 400TH ANNIVERSARY STELE (Museum in Cairo?) SUPER (bottom): TIMELINE SHOWS: HYKSOS ERA, 16501545 BC AND: REIGN OF RAMESES II, 1279-1212 BC. NARRATOR (v.o.) One is led to suspect either a strong ancestral Hyksos link to the great Egyptian pharaoh, or that this powerful imperial monarch felt compelled to placate remnant Hyksos economic and political power in Canaan and Egypt.
MAP OF EGYPT AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SHOWING GREATEST EXTENT OF NEW KINGDOM EMPIRE THROUGH CANAAN HIGHLIGHT: CANAAN MAP, "SKMM" NEAR MODERN NABLUS SUPER: KINAHHU IN HURRIAN; KI-NA-AH-HUM IN MARI LANGUAGE; KI-NA-HI IN THE EGYPTIAN AMARNA LETTERS, AND KAHNANAH IN EGYPTIAN ITSELF NARRATOR (v.o.) In Canaan Ä an ancient real place name Ä Kinahhu in Hurrian; Ki-na-ah-num in Mari; possibly Ki-na-hi in the Egyptian Amarna letters; and Kahnanah in Egyptian itself Ä the city of Shechem of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, and the Hivites (first syllable similar to the first of Hyksos) had been known to the Egyptians by that name, skmm.* Canaanites and Their Land, by Niels Peter Lemche (Univ of Copenhagen), Sheffield Academic Press, 1991
SUPER:
TIMELINE SHOWING 1900 BC THROUGH 1000 BC
NARRATOR (v.o.) Shechem may have been captured by the pharaoh Sesostris II about 1900 BC, possibly about the same time as the events described in Genesis 14. From that time on, Canaan was generally under Egyptian guidance if not actual colonial control. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR For seven centuries Canaan had been considered subject to Egypt. Not long after the demise of the Hyksos, Canaan came under virtual direct Egyptian control and even may have supplied Egypt with leadership elements up to the office of Vizier, or Prime Minister. Yet the Biblical story has Moses leading his people out of Egypt, at this time, to settle, eventually, in Canaan. A catastrophic smallpox epidemic may offer a resolution to the seeming paradox.
VIEW OF NILE RIVER NARRATOR (v.o.) There is little argument that Moses was born in Egypt and raised as part of the royal household. VIEW OF EGYPTIAN WRITING EQUIPMENT AND A PAPYRUS NARRATOR (v.o.) We may assume therefore that he spoke Ä possibly in addition to proto-Hebrew Ä fluent New Kingdom Egyptian, had a good Egyptian education, and therefore was literate and wrote in Egyptian. He could not have written in Hebrew because that script had not yet been invented. VIEW OF BRITISH MUSEUM MESOPOTAMIAN CLAY TABLETS KK. 3401, 4470, "THE LEGEND OF THE BIRTH OF SARGON OF AGADE"* (translated and published by Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, in Babylonian Life and History, "The Legend of the Birth of Sargon of Agade.")
NARRATOR (v.o.) Doubters of the story of finding the baby Moses in an ark by the river's brink may be encouraged by clay tablets from Mesopotamia telling a similar story over a thousand years earlier. FINGER FOLLOWS CLAY-TABLET TEXT SUPER: TEXT AS READ BELOW NARRATOR (v.o.) Sargon, the mighty King of Agade, am I My mother was of humble estate, I knew not my father. The brother of my father (or paternal uncle) was a dweller in the mountains (a forester?). My city is Azupirani, which lies on the banks of the Euphrates. My humble mother conceived me, she brought me forth in secret. NARRATIOR (v.o.)(con't)
She laid me in a basket (made) of reeds, she smeared my door with bitumin, she committed me to the river which did not submerge me. The river carried me to Akki, a man who watered the fields. Akki, the man who watered the fields ..... lifted me out of the basket. Akki, the man who watered the fields, brought me up as his own son. Akki, the man who watered the fields, made me his gardener. Whilst I was a gardener the goddess Ishtar (Innini) fell in love with me. And for . . . . . -four years I ruled the kingdom. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR This story of Sargon remained popular in Mesopotamia for two thousand years centuries after the death of Moses, and was known during the Jewish exile there. For our purposes here, though, it is unimportant whether this part of the Moses biography is taken literally or not. VIEW OF, AND IN, EGYPTIAN TEMPLE, SAY ABYDOS NARRATOR (v.o.) The name Moses reveals a relic of an Egyptian name. SKETCHED DRAWINGS OF CARTOUCHES OF TUTMOSIS AND RAMESES* drawn in Chronicle of the Pharaohs, by Peter A. Clayton, Thames and Hudson, NY and London, 1994)
HIGHLIGHTS FOR EACH HIEROGLYPH. SUPER:
THOTH - MOSIS (followed by)
RE - MESES
(as
NARRATOR (v.o.) You find it in names of New Kingdom pharaohs, Tut-mosis, fashioned or created by the god Thoth, and Re-meses (Ramses), fashioned or created by the god Re, an allusion to being the son of the gods Thoth or Re, and thus in use much the same meaning as the Irish and Scotch Gaelic "Mc" or "Mac," son of. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR One is left wondering whether later Hebrew speakers dropped parts of the unfamiliar-sounding name, or whether someone, from the baby found by the river story on Ä perhaps Moses himself Ä sought to create distance from Egyptian royal background, "commonize" the name - a just call me Mac sort of thing - perhaps politically astute for leadership of a new cult reaching out across national, religious, class, and ethnic boundaries. ENACTMENT SHADOWY EXT. EGYPTIAN APPEARING Shadowy figure appears to kill another shadowy figure. Shadowy figure buries body in sand. NARRATOR (v.o.) Possibly educated for a good job in the Egyptian civil service, Moses got into serious trouble with the law. He killed someone, tried to hide the body, but was found out. ANIMATED MAP SHOWS: EGYPT, HITTITE TURKEY, AND CANAAN PLUS MIDIAN AND EDOM (SOUTHERN JORDAN, NORTHWEST CORNER OF ARABIA) HIGHLIGHT AND SUPER:
HITTITE EMPIRE
NARRATOR (v.o.) The famous peace treaty of Rameses II between Egypt and the Hittite Empire includes an extradition clause. A young man with a good Egyptian education could hardly have been ignorant of it. HIGHLIGHT AND SUPER: MIDIAN (roughly where modern Saudi Arabia meets the Kingdom of Jordan, eastern shore of the Red Sea) ANIMATED DOTTED LINE FROM NILE DELTA TO MIDIAN NARRATOR (v.o.) To flee north would have risked extradition under the treaty. Moses headed for Midian. And it is within the realm of possibility that reading between the lines of the story here, we find the first of several remnant allusions to a smallpox epidemic. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE Narrator holds up a hypodermic syringe and needle. NARRATOR Two hundred years ago an English doctor named Edward Jenner heard stories that milk maids infected with cowpox became immune to smallpox. He inoculated several people with scrapings from cowpox, then later inoculated them with smallpox. Cowpox absolutely prevented smallpox, and we have had a vaccine ever since. EXT. (STOCK) VIEW OF MIDEAST BEDOUIN SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP AT A WATERING HOLE EXT. (STOCK) VIEW OF EGYPTIAN HERDERS WITH CATTLE AT WATERING HOLE
NARRATOR (v.o.) Moses aiding Zipporah at the watering place demonstrates a knowledge with dealing with livestock, and in the Nile Delta those animals would have been cattle. Either in the Delta or at his father-in-law Jethro's ranch in Midian, Moses might have contracted cowpox and thus become immune to smallpox. ENACTMENT INT.
EGYPTIAN PALACE
Pharaoh sits on Egyptian throne.
Moses shows him his hand.
NARRATOR (v.o.) Later in the story there is an incident where Moses Ä curiously no longer a fugitive from Egyptian law and with access to the highest levels of Egyptian government Ä shows the pharaoh a "leprosy" on his hand that is quickly cured. The word for the disease, "leprosy," is not leprosy as we know it, but a mysterious ancient disease that centuries later, after Hebrew script had been invented, was written as tsara 'at Ä for which no one has found a modern equivalent, either the word or the disease.* see: Leviticus, Chapter 13, English translation of the Torah, the Jewish Publication Society (1962)
SCRIPT OF HEBREW WORD TSARA 'AT SUPER:
TSARA 'AT (in English)
NARRATOR (v.o.) Could the story fragment have originally referred to a smallpox-appearing rash or blistering that prevents the potentially fatal disease? If Moses had been immunized by cowpox one could assume that his brother Aaron - the name possibly a corruption of the Egyptian Aanen, like the high priest's of the sun temple at Heliopolis - had also been.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR We are, of course, grasping at straws here. Even at best, utilizing religious metaphors for historical fact is not good history. But we have scant else, and we do have a document with text elements going back to approximately the time of the proposed smallpox epidemic. In it are suggestions supporting our hypothesis. ANIMATED MAP OF NILE DELTA AND SINAI SHOWS ROUTE OF EXODUS (Choose one consistent version, preferably from: Asimov's Guide to the Bible, by Isaac Asimov)
NARRATOR (v.o.) Egypt suffers series of plagues interesting in itself, especially Exodus 9:9 and 9:10 where Moses, Aaron, cattle, and "dermatitis breaking out into boils" are brought together as if misconstrued or mistranslated centuries later when Hebrew script was invented. VIEW OF NILE DELTA NEAR CITY OF FAQUS SUPER:
LAND OF GOSHEN
Narrator (or actor) gets into LAND ROVER (or similar vehicle), begins to drive east. (the Land Rover symbolism, used continuously from here, conveys the present, yet implies a time and place not so distant it cannot be understood) NARRATOR (v.o.) In an act of freedom and defiance against the most powerful nation on earth, celebrated annually in the Jewish Passover for over three thousand years, Moses led his followers, including his brother Aaron and sister Miriam - a clearly Egyptian name, Merit-amen, "Beloved of Amen" - out of Egypt.
MODERN VIEWS OF THE KNOWN PORTION OF THE ROUTE SUPERS: POSSIBLE PIHARIHOTH-BAALZEPHON, TODAY, PITHOM TODAY, SEA OF MARAH, ETC.* (For route, see among others: Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Old Testament, Doubleday NY 1969; or Anchor Bible Series, or Biblical Atlases, etc.)
Land Rover drives route from Goshen to Sea of Reeds. Utilize when possible modern Egyptian road signs, supers giving Biblical names. NARRATOR (v.o.) Place names still with us show some of the route, including the Sea of Reeds, mistranslated as the Red Sea. If one is suspicious of miracles, the fleeing Hebrews may well have crossed the Sea of Reeds at low tide, and the Egyptian army's chariots may have become mired in mud as a tide came in. After a battle with a possible marauding Sea Peoples base, they headed out into the desert. VIEW OF KADESH BARNEA (AIN KADIS) TODAY, LAND ROVER APPROACHES FROM DISTANCE, PULLS TO A HALT. NARRATOR (v.o.) The traditional location where the band of refugees is said to have stayed forty years - meaning "quite a long time, over a generation" - is here, but no one knows for certain. In the story of the stay in the desert are several strong suggestions of a smallpox epidemic. PAN OF SINAI DESERT LOCATION OF KADESH BARNEA (AIN KADIS) NARRATOR (v.o.) Whatever the exact location in the area of the Sinai, it must have been a miserable place for upper and middle class Egyptians. Moses's sister Miriam - or Merit-Amen - died there, whether of smallpox there is no way to tell.
ANIMATED MAP SHOWING CANAAN AND THE SINAI, ARROW FROM AIN KADIS TO HEBRON, OTHER AREAS NARRATOR (v.o.) Amid the text of Numbers 13 relating raids north, obviously for survival foods, there is a prideful note that Hebron was built seven years before Zoan Ă„ Avaris, the Hyksos capital. We can only wonder at this mysterious linking. VIEW OF PRESENT COUNTRYSIDE AROUND HEBRON SUPER: COUNTRYSIDE AROUND HEBRON TODAY NARRATOR (v.o.) A more important question is, what may have been the reasons for "spies" to be sent into Canaan to "see if they be strong or weak, few or many"? Was it only to assess vulnerability to raids for survival supplies. Or could it have been to assess damage? Might we be seeing here the moment of the onset of the smallpox epidemic in Canaan? ENACTMENT EXT.
SINAI NEAR AIN KADIS
"Joshua" and "Caleb" tear their period-Mideast clothes with the aid of bronze daggers. NARRATOR (v.o.) What might have been meant and preserved in Numbers 14 by: "Their (the Canaanites) defense is departed from them?" And, a little later God promises to smite the Canaanites with pestilence. And perhaps equally to the point, did Caleb and Joshua return alive but infected? Why did they tear their clothes? The answer may be, because hand-spun, hand-sewn clothes were far more valuable than today and clothes of the dead were claimed and used by the living.
NARRATOR (v.o.)(con't) A measure to safeguard against spreading smallpox - which stays infectious on clothing for up to two months - may have been ordering infected persons to tear up their clothing, both identifying it as infected and rendering it non-reusable. In Leviticus 13 we see it stated clearly: "One who suffers from tsara 'at shall wear his clothes torn and, effectively, not breath toward anyone." RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR We also see in a Jewish Publication Society English translation from the Torah, Leviticus 13: "When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests." Translator Baruch A. Levine more closely examines some of the words used. STOCK, OR FROM MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS: SMALLPOX ON SKIN SUPER:
JPS Torah
SMALLPOX
NARRATOR (v.o.) "Swelling," he notes of the Hebrew word se'et, is more a "local inflammation, boil, mole," or a generic term for a variety of inflammations or protrusions. In addition, the word "rash," the Hebrew word saphahat, is a "breaking out" of the skin.* Commentary to Jewish Publication Society Translation, by Baruch A. Levine,
edited by Nahum M. Saran, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia & NY, 1989, pgs 75 to 85 (note: pages go "backwards" to follow the Hebrew).
STOCK, OR FROM MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS: LEPROSY ON SKIN SUPER:
LEPROSY
NARRATOR (v.o.) Seems more like smallpox than leprosy. RETURN TO STOCK OR MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF SMALLPOX NARRATOR (v.o.) The symptomatology of tsara 'at, described in the beginning of Leviticus 13, alludes to hair turning white as if covered by pus, eruption beneath the skin, how it might appear similar to and behave like burned flesh, possibly meaning first a redness then blistering, and a unique word for tearing that would seem to refer to peeling of skin. Tsara-at's progress is rapid, like smallpox, involving days as opposed to years for leprosy. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR In Numbers 14:37 we see that: "Those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague." Caleb and Joshua may have survived the disease: "But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephuneh, which were of the men that went to search the land, lived still." This may explain later events. Many of the small band in the desert, however, seem not to have survived the epidemic they and "the men who went to search the land" seem to have brought back. VIEW OF DESERT NEAR KADESH BARNEA (AIN KADIS) NARRATOR (v.o.) Their "carcasses," as the King James version puts it in Numbers 14, fell in the wilderness - very much what one might expect if smallpox suddenly struck a non-immune population and only half survived in disarray. It must have been a bad time indeed, numbers reduced by smallpox and war with Canaanites and Amalekites, the harsh desert offering survivors no comfort.
LAND ROVER-TYPE VEHICLE HEADS EAST ACROSS DESERT NARRATOR (v.o.) Probably sooner rather than later, they headed east. And in the text here is another tenuous suggestion of a smallpox epidemic Ă„ and perhaps a glimpse of desperate quarantine measures taken by governments as it struck. ANIMATED MAP OF SINAI AND NORTHERN ARABIA LABELED HIGHLIGHTED SHOWS: EDOM (area on east side of rift valley extending from Dead Sea to Gulf of Aqaba). DOTTED LINE SHOWS PATH FROM AIN KADIS TO EDOM. NARRATOR (v.o.) Edom stopped the band of Hebrews at the border and refused permission for them to pass through. LAND ROVER NEAR WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EASTERN BOUNDARY OF EDOM, NEGEV, WADI-EL-ARABA (Israel-Jordan border post in view?) PAN HILLSIDES IN BACKGROUND TO TOWN NARRATOR (v.o.) Possibly somewhere near here at the present Israel-Jordan border. With an epidemic raging all around, this would have been reasonable Edom government policy. Simply don't let anyone in, thereby preventing not only carriers of the disease, but goods that might have the virus, which could remain infectious on them for up to thirty days. The band may have continued up the rift valley toward the Dead Sea and followed the Zered valley into the desert highlands east of Moab. ANIMATED MAP SHOWS DOTTED LINE BYPASSING EDOM, THEN HEADING NORTH TO MOAB (labeled Moab. area east of Dead Sea) HIGHLIGHT:
MOAB
VIEW OF LAND ROVER IN DESERT BACKCOUNTRY IN KINGDOM OF JORDAN, AWFUL RED SUNSET, ANIMATED MAP WITH DOTTED LINE SUPERIMPOSED NARRATOR (v.o.) Struggling for survival, the band was forced to bypass Edom, apparently through the harsh desert mountains to the east. Many died. Aaron died. Perhaps significantly, Aaron's son Eleazar is given his clothes to wear. The prevailing view is that this represents a transfer of priestly authority, as seen in our present root word for disciple and discipline. But Aaron's garment is not torn up. We have seen tenuous hints that he may have been immune to smallpox, and here would seem a tangential allusion that he did not die of smallpox - or, that none in the band were any longer dying of smallpox and quarantine strategies had been abandoned. The epidemic was wreaking its havoc, but elsewhere. VIEW, FROM EAST, OF MOAB, SHOWING BETTER AGRICULTURAL LAND AND IMPROVEMENT IN COUNTRYSIDE NARRATOR (v.o.) As they approached the next significant location, Moab, from the east. VIEW OF LAND ROVER DESCENDING THROUGH A VALLEY, IF KNOWN, THE VALLEY, TOWARD PLAIN NARRATOR (v.o.) An apparent careful attempt to precisely preserve the route down through the valley appears in the text. They met hill people, given general ethnic identity of Amorites - perhaps people who had fled to the desert hills in fear of the epidemic - killed their leader Sihon and defeated them.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR And here we may be glimpsing the onset of post-epidemic chaos and the beginning of the longest dark age in human history. For then we see something that stretches credibility unless we postulate a natural disaster. How could the disease-and-hardshipdecimated small band of Hebrews have taken even these apparently small towns from the Amorites - including Heshbon of their recently slain leader Sihon who significantly was not safely behind its walls when slain, but up in the hills. ANIMATED MAP OF AREA ON BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN RIVER, WITH DOTTED LINES TO INDICATED TOWNS* (see map, beginning of "Joshua" chapter in Asimov's Guide to the Bible, Doubleday, 1968, plus other similar sources)
NARRATOR (v.o.) It would appear that these towns had been virtually abandoned. STOCK OR MEDICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF LATE-STAGE SMALLPOX NARRATOR (v.o.) As if by people utterly terrified by wholesale, ugly, and frightening deaths from a disease they had never seen before, a disease against which there was no defense except flight: smallpox. VIEW OF LAND ROVER AT JORDAN RIVER NEAR GILGAL, PREFERABLY FROM JORDAN SIDE NARRATOR (v.o) As we cross the Jordan River to the West Bank, here, where Joshua did, a scenario consistent with a smallpox epidemic continues.
VIEW "ZOOMS" ACROSS JORDAN RIVER TO WEST BANK SIDE (IF POSSIBLE, ACTUALLY CROSS THE JORDAN RIVER, PERHAPS IN LAND ROVER WITH INFLATABLE SUPPORTS) NARRATOR (v.o.) However long they stayed on the East Bank of the Jordan - perhaps gathering numbers from the stunned population of devastated Egyptian colonial transCanaan and expropriating useful goods and war material that had once belonged to the masses of dead - the epidemic and its aftermath on the West Bank appear to have reached a similar state as they had found on arrival in Moab. VIEW OF LAND ROVER DRIVING UP ROAD TO JERICHO. (Perhaps past road sign that says: Jericho) NARRATOR (v.o.) Jericho presents a puzzle to Biblical archaeologists. It may be the oldest city in the world, possibly existing as a city from the end of the Ice Age. ANIMATED MAP: JOSHUA CROSSING JORDAN TO JERICHO, TO AI NARRATOR (v.o.) But by the time of the Exodus and the Joshua's conquest, it had been in ruins for centuries, if not millennia. The same is true of the next city to fall to Joshua's forces, Ai. Ai literally means "ruin." It was already a ruin when Joshua got there. VIEW OF RUINS OF JERICHO (perhaps site sign saying: Jericho) NARRATOR (v.o.) Consistent with wholesale panic and terror caused by a smallpox epidemic would be people fleeing towns to uninhabited ruins, which with a little creativity and skill could be made to offer some minimal shelter.
ANOTHER ANGLE ON JERICHO NARRATOR (v.o.) Those who fled presumably would be people who had not been infected. Joshua, as noted earlier, would appear to have survived the disease and therefore had immunity. Moreover, all who survived the ravages that left "carcasses" falling in the desert at Kadesh Barnea would have been immune. In general, then, one can guess that the forces surrounding the ruins of Jericho were immune and by then aware of their immunity, and the people holding out inside were not, but represented a military obstacle to occupation as the epidemic began to subside. ANOTHER ANGLE SHOWS POSSIBLE DOUBLE WALL IN RUINS OF JERICHO NARRATOR (v.o.) The incident with the spies and the prostitute Rahab fetches speculation back to the nature of the wooden horse at Troy. In the case of Troy, a mysterious "plague" had already set in among the Greek forces. Might the real purpose of the horse been to deliver smallpox within the fortress, a biological warfare ploy that had become common by the time of Joshua and Jericho, a ploy used by Homer in his fictional version retrieved from bardic oral tradition? What might the immune spies of Joshua have taken into the fortified ruins of Jericho? ANOTHER, MORE DISTANT, ANGLE OF JERICHO RUINS AND AREA AROUND THEM
NARRATOR (v.o.) One can only wonder at the viciousness that followed the fall of Jericho. That kind of viciousness generally stems from a root of fear. Perhaps new followers were not immune and it was feared that the dread disease was returning. The terrible punishment of Achan for looting goods that could have had infectious virus may further reflect that. ANIMATED MAP SHOWS ROUTE FROM JORDAN RIVER TO JERICHO, TO AI, AND THEN TO GIBEON* (after Asimov's Guide to the Bible)
NARRATOR (v.o.) From the ruins of Jericho the band went on to capture Ai, evidently also inhabited ruins, then went on to negotiate an apparent mutual defense pact with the strategic and fortified city of Gibeon, a wine making city that supplying upper-class tables of the Egyptian Empire a few years earlier. VIEW OF GIBEON (RUINS) TODAY SUPER:
GIBEON TODAY
NARRATOR (v.o.) How long after that the leaders of Gibeon called for aid under the pact is not clear. PAN GIBEON COUNTRYSIDE, THEN TILT TOWARD SUN NARRATOR (v.o.) But here we may, by stretching the text and venturing a guess, be able to pin down a definite date. If we admit a solar eclipse to explain a possibly mistranslated story of the sun standing still in the midst of heaven during the battle Ă„ possibly a brief night coming and going while the sun was high, and then going down again after a whole day
STOCK:
SOLAR ECLIPSE (frames speeded up)
SUPER:
SEPTEMBER 30, 1131 BC
NARRATOR (v.o.) Ă„ that solar eclipse took place on September 30, 1131 BC. This is very much within the timeframe we might have expected - fifteen years, in presently used Egyptian chronologies, after the death of Rameses V of apparent smallpox and within a "catastrophe zone" of pottery evidence.* ,
In note in Joshua, by Robert G. Boling
Anchor Bible Series, in note on page 283.
VIEW OF GIBEON TODAY NARRATOR (v.o.) And if we have a precise date for an event here, it comes some sixty-three years after the traditional date for the fall of Troy. LAND ROVER BEGINS TO DRIVE NORTH SUPERIMPOSE OR SPLIT SCREEN: SCENES OF SEA PEOPLES BATTLE FROM MEDENET HABU NARRATOR (v.o.) And forty-six years after the last great battle of the Egyptian New Kingdom Empire, the battle with the Sea Peoples, who compellingly resemble fictitious characters in the Odyssey. ANIMATED MAP OF LEVANT SHOWS SUBSEQUENT BATTLES AND EVENTS RELATED IN JOSHUA
NARRATOR (v.o.) How long the victory and consolidation took after that is uncertain. Like the Hyksos - and perhaps descended from them - the Hebrews seem to have had language and cultural ties to both Egypt and the New Kingdom Egyptian colony Canaan and apparently had little difficulty communicating or being accepted. Their new religion drew adherents from the survivors and began to prevail. In the wake of the unparalleled catastrophe, the old gods would have been seen as complete failures. The new monotheistic God, whose tetragrammaton name could mean, among other things, a fatalistic "what will be will be," would have suited the new world meaning of the survivors. LAND ROVER PULLS UP TO VIEW OF SHILOH, ESPECIALLY THE AMPHITHEATER-LIKE VALLEY DEPRESSION SUPER:
SHILOH
NARRATOR (v.o.) The phase of conquest and consolidation essentially ends here, a site of tribute or tax collecting in Egyptian colonial Canaan not many years earlier, and perhaps in that an entirely proper place to officially appropriate property. The spoils were divided up spoils, it would appear, largely from an enormous depopulation - goods, land, dwellings, even, probably, whole uninhabited cities. MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF APPORTIONMENT TO TRIBE OF DAN NARRATOR (v.o.) Among the tribes listed as receiving land is that of Dan. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE Narrator holds up bronze implement or weapon
NARRATOR This is all simply compelling speculation, of course. But it was the twilight of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age did not abruptly come to an end. For one thing, with half to threefourths of the population gone, there was for a while a glut of bronze goods, and as a result the Bronze Age continued for at least another century. ANIMATED MAP OF EURASIA AND NORTH AFRICA: DOTTED LINES AND HIGHLIGHTS SHOWING: ROUTES FROM CORNWALL AND THE ERZ GEBERG, AND FROM THE KYRGYZ, UZBECK, TADJYK AREA, TO EGYPT, MESOPOTAMIA, GREECE, AND THE LEVANT. NARRATOR (v.o.) But its days were numbered. To make ductile bronze one needs tin, and there were only a few major sources of tin ore that could supply the consumer and military quantities demanded by the Late Bronze Age West. And these obviously needed long, politically and financially negotiated and protected trade routes. TOMB WALL PAINTINGS OF EGYPTIANS AND GOODS NARRATOR (v.o.) When the population decimation catastrophe struck, those political and financial arrangements would have collapsed. The stock market crash of 1929 and resulting global economic collapse was nothing compared to what happened in the middle of the twelfth century BC. Imperial Egyptian exports like linen, agricultural products, and related financing would have evaporated into nothing, and demand clearly would have fallen to zero. Overextended tin commerce would have been an early and lasting victim.
TOMB WALL PAINTING SHOWING MEN CARRYING TIN INGOTS SUPER WITH INDICATING ARROWS OR HIGHLIGHTS: INGOTS
TIN
NARRATOR (v.o.) The Egyptian word for "tin" seems to have been d)m, "dan" or "din," and if so, it is virtually our English word.* in "Near Eastern alloying and some textual evidence for the early use of arsenical copper," by Ethel R. Eaton and Hugh McKerrell, World Archaeology, Volume 8, #2, (October) 1976, pgs 169-189, note especially from page 182 on.
RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR It may be useful to at least speculate on tin in the Late Bronze Age. It would have been the vital strategic mineral of the time - like petroleum is for us today - and empires then, like empires now, as we saw with the Gulf War, would have gone out of their way to secure supplies. And it follows that there would have been trade corporations and government bureaus set up to supply demands and insure supplies. RETURN TO MAP OF LEVANT HIGHLIGHTING "DAN" SUPER AND HIGHLIGHT (FOLLOWS DIALOGUE): DAN; PHILISTINES (Egyptian: Peleset); TJEKER NARRATOR (v.o.) And that brings us back to the tribe of Dan. Historian and linguist Martin Bernal points out that: "The Danites were described as living on ships, they were admitted late into the Israelite amphictyony or tribal league, they were the last tribe to establish their own territory and were originally settled on the coast between two known Sea Peoples, the Philistines and the Tjeker.
VIEW OF AREA OF DAN TODAY SUPER:
DAN TODAY
NARRATOR (v.o.) There is also the lack of any detailed genealogy for Dan which reinforces the hypothesis that the tribe was not an original member of the Israelite confederation." RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR So what is Dan? Are they the "Dan" in documents of Rameses III referring to the raiding Sea Peoples as the Denyen? Bernal rattles off a whole list from the ancient Mideast and Mediterranean: Tin3y, Tanaya, D3-in, Dene, Denyen, Danuna, Danaan, Danaos, and Dan from Egyptian, Akkadian (the international diplomatic language), Canaanite, and Greek during the Late Bronze Age.* Black Athena, Volume II, The Afro-Asian Roots of Classical Civilization, the Archaeological and Documentary Evidence, by Martin Bernal, Rutgers Univ Press, 1991, pgs 418-423.
MAP OF WESTERN EURASIA SUPERS AND HIGHLIGHT WITH DIALOGUE NARRATOR (v.o.) Bernal also names rivers, suspecting an Indo-European origin: "Dan" found in the Danube and the Dnieper; "Don" found in a Yorkshire Don and the Ukraine Don. And Irish legendary people - from about this time! - the Da Danaan, who arrived in Ireland from the south. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR He admits being puzzled and concludes that they may have been Mycenaeans. But given the strategic value of tin and postulating a lively trade in tin, it is not unthinkable that the names came from peoples and places having something to do with that, especially with voracious Imperial Egyptian tin demand. ANIMATED MAP OF SHOWING EURASIA BETWEEN TIEN SHAN MOUNTAINS AND ATLANTIC OCEAN HIGHLIGHT AND SUPER FROM DIALOGUE NARRATOR (v.o.) Heavy metallic tin, or heavy tin ore, from the Asian source could well have been brought by boat down the Syr Darya River and across the Aral Sea. From there would be an overland journey to the Caspian Sea. Then up the Volga River to around present Volgograd. Then a short journey across to the Don, a friendly river flowing west with the heavy material, where the Mycenaean Greeks may have picked it up and taken it by way of the Sea of Azov into the Black Sea, and from there into the Mycenaean Greek trade zone to Egypt. SHIFT HIGHLIGHT WEST ON MAP NARRATOR (v.o.) Bernal overlooked another river with "Dan" in its name, the Dnestr, which flows from near the tin ore of the Erz Geberg (on the Czech-German border) into the Black Sea. And the Danube flows not only near the Erz Geberg, but would serve as an artery, by way of a portage near present Nuremberg, to the Main, then Rhine, and on from there to the rich tin fields of Cornwall. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE
NARRATOR That could conceivably explain the river names. There may be no way of ever knowing. As for the peoples, in the Bronze Age tribes could easily have become specialized in trading and shipping a commercial and strategic commodity like tin. Again, there is no way of knowing. But when demand for their highly specialized lifeblood commodity began to evaporate and the world economy began to crumble, they surely would have turned to raiding and seizing territory to survive. And that might explain raiders called "Dan" from Egypt and the Levant to Ireland. Narrator picks up Early Iron Age iron implement. NARRATOR After a century of using abundant bronze left in the wake of the catastrophe, population outgrew available supplies and the demand for metal goods grew with it. By then the delicate economy of tin was gone: mining, smelting, alloying with copper, shipping, trading, and financing. Tin could be had, of course, and so could copper, but at a price. But experiments begun as the Bronze Age empires were collapsing were beginning to pay off. Unlike copper and tin ore, iron ore was virtually everywhere and easily available.* "How the Iron Age Began" in Hunters, Farmers, and Civilization, Scientific American Books, W.H. Freeman Company, San Francisco 1979, reprinted from Scientific American, October 1977.
ENACTMENT OR STOCK Men work a small primitive iron furnace.
NARRATOR (v.o.) But iron requires a much higher smelting temperature and is a tricky to make into useful metal. It takes specific knowledge, knowledge gained by difficult trial and error. ENACTMENT OR STOCK Blacksmiths pound wrought iron at a forge. NARRATOR (v.o.) Iron, for one thing, could not be cast - at least not in the West - like bronze. For another, unless done properly, the resulting iron was too brittle and filled with stony slag to be much more useful than stone. VIEW OF IRON "PIG" FROM A PRIMITIVE FURNACE. A blow with a hammer shatters it. NARRATOR (v.o.) Among other things, workable iron is really an alloy of iron and carbon. Ancients in the West never grasped this. Progress was delayed by attempts to make "pure" iron.* The Coming of the Age edited by Theodore A. Wertime and James Yale Univ Press, New Haven, 1980.see especially sections by Muhly, Anthony M. Snodgrass, and Jane C.
of Iron, D. Muhly, Wertime, Waldbaum.
SUPERIMPOSE: GRAPH OF THREE STAGES FOR DEVELOPMENT OF AN IRON TECHNOLOGY (after Snodgrass, pg 336, The Coming of the Age of Iron)
NARRATOR (v.o.) In an effort to discern the transition from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age, researcher Anthony Snodgrass defines three stages. Stage one, during the Bronze Age itself, iron implements were used ceremonially, indicating a high value, comparable to gold. In stage two, working iron implements were used, but not as much a bronze. And in stage three, iron begins to replace bronze as a working metal.
SHOT OR PHOTO OF IRON DAGGER AND GOLD DAGGER FOUND IN TUTANKHAMON'S TOMB SUPER: TIMELINE GRAPH SHOWING TUTANKHAMON'S REIGN (1343-1333 BC) TO 1200 BC NARRATOR (v.o.) Iron was not unknown to the Bronze Age empires, but until 1200 BC it was treated as a precious metal and iron goods were treated as if as valuable as gold. There were two ceremonial daggers buried with the pharaoh Tutankhamon, one gold, the other iron, as if of equal value. And the same is true all over the ancient bronze-age world. Inventories and burials treat iron goods as if they were made of a precious metal. MAP OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SHOWING CYPRUS SUPER: TIMELINE GRAPH FROM 1200 TO 1050 BC: SHOWING TRADITIONAL DATE FOR FALL OF TROY (1194 BC) RAMESES III REIGN (1185-1153 BC) SEA PEOPLES BATTLE (1177 BC), DEATH OF RAMESES V BY SMALLPOX (1141 BC), SOLAR ECLIPSE IN CANAAN (1131 BC) NARRATOR (v.o.) On Cyprus, scientific study and archeological discoveries show that fairly intensive experimentation leading to Stage Two began taking place after 1200 BC, and Stage Three, working iron beginning to replace bronze, taking place no later than 1050 BC, possibly the earliest in the ancient world. HIGHLIGHT GREECE AND LEVANT SUPER: TIMELINE GRAPH FROM 1150 BC TO 600 BC SHOWING DEATH OF RAMESES V, SOLAR ECLIPSE, A DARKENED LINE INDICATING DARK AGES, BEGINNINGS OF IRON AGE (C 1000 BC), HOMER AND HESIOD (AS DARKENED LINE BEGINS TO LIGHTEN).
NARRATOR (v.o.) The Iron Age per se - when iron finally became the predominant material for weapons and tools - began in about the 10th century BC. In Greece and the Levant archaeological evidence shows it happening around the 9th century BC, and later in Europe and regions further east. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE CONTINUE SUPER OF ABOVE TIMELINE NARRATOR The Greek poet Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, found himself living solidly in the Iron Age and said as much, looking back at other more glorious metals ages, an inference that iron was by his time a banal work metal. Educational levels and the art of writing had recovered enough by then so that we have writers like Homer and Hesiod.* Works and Days, 174-178
MAP OF EURASIA HIGHLIGHT:
CHINA
NARRATOR (v.o.) In the west iron technology never got beyond skills in making implements derived from wrought iron - effectively pounding the alloying carbon into it. In China cast iron was being used for consumer goods by the Han dynasty. The technology never reached the West until comparatively modern times. HIGHLIGHT: NORTHERN EUROPE NARRATOR (v.o) The same kilning technology needed to create high temperatures for smelting iron also seem to have led to technologies for making cheap glass and cement.
NARRATOR (v.o.)(con't) This allowed construction of genuinely winterized buildings with glass windows in northern Europe - and along with iron saws to thin out the forest cover for farming, iron cartwheels and axles to handle log roads, and iron moldboard plows to cut the hard clay soils, opened northern Europe to genuine civilization. RETURN TO MUSEUM SCENE NARRATOR Now, only in our time, the dread disease of smallpox has been totally eradicated, due largely to a vigorous vaccination campaign by the World Health Organization. The last remaining vials containing smallpox virus have hopefully been destroyed, or soon will be. SUPERIMPOSE MONTAGE: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TEMPLES, HIGH QUALITY SCULPTURES, PAINTINGS, PAPYRUSES, BEDS, CHAIRS, OTHER GOODS. NARRATOR If the Bronze Age was destroyed by a smallpox epidemic, we can only wonder where the human race might have gone if smallpox had not hit. As we can see suggested in the story of Abraham and Isaac, and more certainly in the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Ephigenia to insure good sailing for the Greek fleet heading for Troy, human sacrifice was practiced just before that time. NARRATOR (v.o.) Whatever may have caused the massive decline in population, one of its effects seems to have been to end this sorry excuse for religion, possibly if only because human beings could, for a while, no longer be spared. SUPERIMPOSE MONTAGE OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM AND PLACES OF
WORSHIP: JEWISH, CHRISTIAN, ISLAMIC, BUDDHIST, CONFUCIANIST, AND HINDU NARRATOR Not only did a new and humanistic monotheistic religion emerge in the form of Judaism, with its offshoots of Christianity and Islam, but Buddhism and Confucianism followed the catastrophe. Even Hinduism as we know it grew out of the Iron Age. END SUPERIMPOSED MONTAGE NARRATOR Following the Bronze Age catastrophe, we see an apparent large drop in standard of living to survival modes, tribal organization, and crude utilitarian goods. There is a sharp historical dividing line and a long dark age, from which we emerge what we are, how we believe, how we think Ă„ and even possibly what our genetic makeup as descendants of survivors is. It is impossible to see how bronze-age governments could have met the challenge of a new and such a vicious and deadly virus. And it leads one to ask how well we may be prepared for a new vicious virus today, three millennia later. FADE OUT. END Tom Slattery Bay Village, Ohio June 4, 1997