Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings (27 page)

Over the years, various scholars have individually attributed these plagues to different natural phenomena. The darkness could have been due to a particularly violent sandstorm, the hail the result of freak weather conditions. The boils could have been caused by an epidemic, and the bloodied river may have
been the result of some seismic activity far to the south in tropical Africa. Swarms of locusts, flies and infestation of lice would not have been that uncommon. However, the likelihood of them all happening at the same time seems just too remote. The only real problem with attributing the plagues of Egypt to Thera is that they do not appear in the order that they would have occurred after such an event. The darkness and fiery hail would come first, followed by the sores, the bloodied river, dead cattle and fish, and some time later the frogs and insects. In Exodus they appear in a different order: blood, fish, frogs, lice, flies, cattle deaths, boils, hail, locusts and darkness. However, as we have already seen, Exodus seems to have been written many centuries after the events being described. The account of the plagues would have been handed down orally for many generations and, as in examples already cited (see Chapter Eight), certain details would have been reinterpreted.

In the story of Moses it seems that many details had been forgotten entirely: the names of the pharaohs, the location of the court, Moses' time in the Egyptian royal household, to name but a few. Surviving details would no doubt have been modified somewhat during many retellings of the story. If we look at the order of the plagues again, we see that they appear to occur in ascending order of magnitude – getting progressively worse as the pharaoh continues to refuse the Lord's demands. This is precisely how we might expect a story to develop for dramatic effect as it was told and retold. From a purely historical, or even scientific, perspective, the only explanation for the plagues known at this time is the eruption of Thera. If the eruption was responsible for the plagues, then what must have happened is that the cataclysmic details were remembered accurately, while the order of events was altered for narrative purposes.

Today, few scholars – even the most religious ones – see
anything blasphemous about suggesting that some of the biblical events were the result of natural phenomena. Concerning the life of Christ, for instance, the general consensus is that the star of Bethlehem, which heralded his birth, was a supernova or planetary alignment, while the daytime darkness during the Crucifixion was due to an eclipse. Equally, Old Testament scholars and biblical historians alike have suggested that an earthquake was responsible for the fall of Jericho. It is not the nature of the phenomena, they argue, but the remarkable timing involved which implies divine intervention. Time and time again, in the Bible, God uses nature's phenomena to fulfil His plans. He uses rain to cleanse the world and cause the great flood, for instance, rather than simply making mankind disappear in an instant. Then, on the positive side, he uses a rainbow as a sign of his promise to Noah not to do such a thing again. In fact God actually tells Noah that He will not use powers beyond His created forces of nature to harm mankind. In Genesis 8:22 he tells Noah: 'While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'

From the theological perspective, God created the forces of nature, and they are His to use as He pleases. In conclusion, therefore, there is nothing unscientific
or
irreligious about attributing the plagues of Egypt to the eruption of Thera. On the contrary, it offers scientific evidence for a biblical episode that many now regard as nothing more than myth. Yet the plagues are not the only miraculous episodes from the Exodus story which Thera may have caused. Its eruption may well have made possible the Exodus itself, by helping the Israelites to escape.

Even if northern Egypt had not suffered the same fate as the south, there would certainly have been panic and confusion.
Well before the fallout cloud reached the coast, they would have heard a colossal explosion, or series of explosions, and felt shock waves and earth tremors. Most frightening of all, within an hour of the explosion a tidal wave would have hit the Egyptian coast and made its way up the Nile Delta. Those living on the coast, on the river banks, or in ships on the Nile would have been in considerable peril. It is difficult to estimate how high the tidal wave would have been as too many variables are involved. However, a very much smaller seismic event, an earthquake in Japan in the 1940s, created a series of devastating ten-metre
tsunami
tidal waves the other side of the Pacific in California. We can be sure, therefore, that much of the Nile Delta experienced flooding, and that river-going vessels were overturned or sunk. North-east Egypt may not have been affected directly by the fallout, but they would have seen the awesome black cloud far away on the western horizon, drifting ominously towards Upper Egypt. The resultant panic may well have afforded many foreign slaves the opportunity to escape.

According to Exodus, once the plagues have finally persuaded the pharaoh to free the Israelites, they are led out of Egypt by following 'a pillar of cloud by day' and 'a pillar of fire by night' (Exodus 13:22). Could this be a reference to the Thera plume (the towering ash cloud over the volcano itself), which would have been visible for days – possibly weeks? It certainly matches the description of a British official in Java, over 900 kilometres from Krakatau, a week after the volcano erupted: 'a black cloud, which at night became a fiery glow above the sea'. This is about the same distance as Goshen is from Thera, and so the much larger Thera would have appeared even more spectacular for perhaps much longer. (Taking the earth's curvature into account, we can calculate that Thera's plume would have been visible from Lower Egypt if it rose more than 48 kilometres
high. In fact, Thera's plume is estimated to have risen over a hundred kilometres into the sky.)

If the Israelites had attributed the phenomena to the intervention of their God, then they may well have made for the direction of the Thera plume in the belief that it was a beacon to lead them to safety. According to Exodus 13:18: 'God led the people round by the way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea.' We have already seen that the name 'Red Sea' comes from a mistranslation of the Hebrew words
Yam Suph,
which actually means 'Sea of Reeds'. At least a dozen different places have been put forward as possible locations of the Sea of Reeds along the line of the Suez Canal and the Bitter Lakes, but since the topography has changed much since biblical times there is no way of directly verifying any of them. In fact, there may have been a number of places described by the term 'Sea of Reeds'. In Kings 9:26, for instance, the term is used for part of the Gulf of Aqaba which, being some 300 kilometres south-east of Goshen, would make it an unlikely location for the Sea of Reeds referenced in Exodus.

The term Sea of Reeds probably applied to an expanse of water which looked exactly like it sounds: a large shallow lake or inlet covered by reeds. We find the Hebrews constantly describing lakes in terms of seas – what they called the Sea of Galilee or the Dead Sea others would call a lake. The Great Lakes of North America, for instance, could swallow both of them many times over, yet are still referred to as lakes. The Hebrew word
Yam
– 'Sea' – therefore, is probably just as misleading as the Hebrew word
Suph
was when it was mistranslated to mean 'Red'.

The first orthodox Egyptologist to propose a connection between the Thera eruption and the Exodus events was Dr Hans Goedicke, the Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern
Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He concluded that a tidal wave created by the eruption was responsible for the parting of the 'Sea of Reeds', and that it had happened somewhere in the Nile Delta. If so, where might this have been?

According to Exodus 13:17–21:

And it came to pass that when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt; But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea [Sea of Reeds]: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt . . . And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.

Unfortunately none of these locations have been identified. The 'way of the land of the Philistines' is almost certainly a later name for the area: as we have seen, the Philistines are not recorded anywhere near Egypt until around 1180
BC
, almost a century later (see Chapter Eight). Like the name Pi-Ramesses for Avaris, it was no doubt a later name used for the route. Most Egyptologists, however, think that it refers to a trade route into Egypt, about twelve kilometres wide, between Lakes Ballah and Timsah, about 40 kilometres south-east of Avaris. When the Philistines eventually overran much of Canaan and the area to the east of Egypt, the failing Egyptian empire had much difficulty controlling their borders at this point. This would certainly fit the narrative context. Exodus tells us that the
Israelites had been in Avaris (Pi-Ramesses), and the most direct route out of Egypt towards Canaan would be here. However, it would have been patrolled, and so it would certainly have been prudent to have taken a different route, as Exodus relates.

If the Israelites did head in the direction of the Thera plume from Avaris, then they would have reached the Mediterranean coast some eighty kilometres north-west of Avaris, near the shores of Lake Manzala.

Two verses after the above passage, in Exodus 14:1–2, we are told that God ordered the Israelites to turn and make camp: 'And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.'

Again these locations are now unknown, although it is quite clear that the 'wilderness' referenced here and in the preceding passage is actually the 'Sea of Reeds' itself. In the former we are told of 'the wilderness of the Sea of Reeds', and here, when they have their backs to the sea, 'the wilderness has shut them in'. In other words, the pharaoh will assume that they are trapped as the 'Sea of Reeds' is barring their escape. Indeed, a great swampy, reed-strewn expanse of water that no ship or person could cross would be aptly described as a wilderness.

At this point in the narrative, the pharaoh decides to bring the Israelites back. Perhaps, by this time, the Egyptians have recovered their wits enough to go after their runaway slaves. Although in Exodus 13:17 we are told that the pharaoh has chosen to let the Israelites go, in Exodus 14:5 he appears to have had no idea they had left, as he has to be informed: 'And it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled.' When the
pharaoh's army reaches the Israelites, the waters of the sea part allowing them to escape. If the Israelites had been following the Thera plume before they turned and made camp beside the 'Sea of Reeds', then Exodus 14:19 makes it quite clear what the 'Sea of Reeds' actually is, and it also reveals the crossing point. We are told that before they crossed, 'the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them'. For this to have happened – if it was the Thera plume – then the Israelites must have made an abrupt turn to face Lake Manzala in a southeasterly direction. Lake Manzala, therefore, would seem to be the 'Sea of Reeds'.

Lake Manzala is now a misleading name, as it is actually open to the sea. However, this was not always the case: in Roman times, and presumably earlier, it was divided from the Mediterranean by a narrow ridge of dry land some fifty kilometres long, broken here and there by a few hundred metres of water at high tide. If the Israelites managed to cross this causeway, then it would have afford them escape from Egypt in the direction of Canaan.

It would have been a sensible policy for the Israelites to attempt to cross the Manzala causeway in any event, as the sections of the land bridge submerged at high tide would be wet and muddy, impeding the passage of chariots and heavily armed soldiers. Exodus 14:25 actually tells us that when the Egyptians tried to pursue the Israelites across the 'Sea of Reeds' they were hampered by the ground 'clogging their chariot wheels so they drove heavily'. Remarkably, it is here that a tidal wave could also have been used to the Israelites' advantage.

During the Krakatau eruption, a series of
tsunami
occurred over a period of two days. The same would certainly be true for Thera. In fact, a succession of
tsunami
may have hit the Egyptian coast for much longer, swilling up and down the Mediterranean like water in a bath. Preceding the arrival of a
tsunami,
the sea withdraws, sometimes for hours. After the Krakatau eruption, a huge coral reef on the coast of Java, usually six feet under sea level, even at low tide, was completely exposed for more than an hour before the wave hit. (It is basically the same phenomenon that causes the sea to withdraw before the breaking of a normal wave, only over a longer duration.)