The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  In her book Spoken Choice, Amy Blank, the American author, quotes a poem that movingly catches the atmosphere of the meeting that might have occurred when Jacob met Akhenaten:

  I stand before you, Pharaoh, yet I turn

  Toward the past, the counting of my days.

  Stretched out before my face I see my life,

  I see the hungry hills, the well’s dusty lips,

  The long journeyings; and over-arching all,

  Even from first to last of generations spanned,

  The God who blessed my way…

  The moonlight almost spent

  Upon the river,

  The stars spread far apart –

  Jacob, the father, thought into the future:

  ‘My hope is far removed.’

  The lissome Pharaoh thought:

  ‘My hope is long fulfilled.’ Deep silence fell Upon the two old men who understood Each other’s separate earth and separate heaven.14

  CROSS-FERTILIZATION OF IDEAS

  To summarize, we have Joseph, Pharaoh’s most trusted administrator, the second most powerful person in the land. Joseph is married to a woman of Pharaoh’s choice – a priest’s daughter. He almost certainly socializes with Pharaoh, becomes a close friend and has the opportunity to assimilate Pharaoh’s religious ideas. One can imagine Joseph, Jacob and Akhenaten talking deep into the night on the theory and practice of their ‘new’ religion. Just like Abraham in his time, Jacob would have emphasized the simpler and more pure nature of his belief in one God, unrequiring of graven imagery, etc. The monotheism that the Hebrews eventually take out of Egypt is forged in the furnace of this debate and is closely aligned to the concepts and beliefs of Akhenaten.

  The parallels in customs and practices of worship can be seen in many examples of later Hebrew formulations. Guidance on behaviour and ethics were at this stage relatively less well developed, but nevertheless did exist, and would have been mainly influenced by the concepts of ‘Maat’, as understood by the Egyptians.15 The essence of early Egyptian ‘Maat’ – a scheme of how to behave and think in life – was not initially seen as divine law, but as acting in accordance with the anticipated desires of the creator gods. Later however, there are indications that ‘Maat’ was seen as instruction from God:16 in the Memphite period, as instruction from Ptah; and later still in Coffin Texts where we find:

  I did not command men that they do evil

  It was their hearts which violated my word.17

  How much Joseph and Jacob strengthened the determination of Akhenaten to impose monotheism cannot be ascertained, but we do know that in the latter part of the Pharaoh’s reign his attitudes hardened. The temples of all the old deities were closed by royal command, their priesthoods disbanded and their property seized and assigned to the local Atenist headquarters. All figures and names of Amun, together with associated deities, were hacked off temple walls and wherever else they were found – to drive the older gods out of existence.18

  DEATHS AND CATASTROPHE IN THE FAMILY

  Before Jacob’s death he chose to give preference to Joseph’s Egyptian-born sons and blessed Ephraim and Manesseh, empowering them with the torch of Abraham and Isaac. Jacob talks to Joseph in the words of the Koran:

  Surah XII, Joseph (Jusuf) Revealed at Mecca

  6: Thus thy Lord will prefer thee and will teach thee the interpretation of events, and will perfect His grace upon thee and upon the family of Jacob, as he perfected it upon thy fore-fathers, Abraham and Isaac; Lo! thy Lord is Knower, Wise…

  When he died, Jacob is given full national honours. His body is embalmed in the traditional Egyptian manner over a period of forty days, and the Egyptians mourn him for seventy days. This could only have happened to someone very close to Pharaoh.

  Jacob’s last request had been that he should be buried in the cave of Machpelah, near Mamre, Canaan – a request that is readily acceded to by Pharaoh. Such was the importance accorded to Jacob that his funeral cortège was accompanied all the way back to Goren ha-Atad, beyond the River Jordan, by senior Egyptian nobility.

  So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the officials of Pharaoh, the senior members of his court, and all of Egypt’s dignitaries.

  Genesis 50:7

  Joseph and his brethren returned to Egypt after burying Jacob. Very soon things started to go wrong – Akhenaten died.

  The sudden death of Akhenaten in 1332 BCE gave the priests and dispossessed officials of the Amun factions the opportunity to regain power and take their revenge. Egypt began slipping back into polytheism and idolatry.

  Immediately after the death of Akhenaten, the mysterious Smenkhkara, believed to have been Akhenaten’s younger brother, tries to assume the throne. He is quickly murdered, and the priests of Amun proclaim Tutankhamun as the new Pharaoh. Resistance to the old polytheism from the established officials of Akhenaten will not be immediately crushed, but the omens are bad.

  Although most of Egypt returned to the worship of man-made gods – led by Amun, Mut and Khunsu – Tutankhamun appears to have persisted in his belief in one God. It would be surprising had he not been a monotheist. Brought up in Akhetaten – the Holy City – he was immersed in Atenism from birth and took as his child-bride a daughter of Akhenaten, Ankhesenpaten, who must have re-enforced his childhood indoctrination.

  Inheriting the throne at the tender age of eleven, Tutankhamun was brought back to Thebes by the powerful Ay, who for many years effectively ruled Egypt as Vizier. When Tutankhamun reached his late teens he and his Atenist wife may well have started to agitate for a return to monotheism.

  What evidence do I have for this theory?

  Apart from his familial grounding in monotheism, Tutankhamun’s throne chair testifies to his continued adherence to the ‘Aten’ disc, which is displayed on its surface (see Plate 8). There is strong evidence that he was murdered by the ambitious Ay at the age of twenty-one. Forcing Ankhesenpaten to marry him to gain the throne, Ay would have found her equally unconvinced that a return to polytheism was desirable. So he probably arranged her death as well.

  On the walls of buildings at Thebes and Luxor one would expect to find many inscriptions recording Tutankhamun’s reign – especially at the Temple of Luxor, where a processional colonnade begun by Amenhotep III was completed in the reign of Tutankhamun. There are almost none. Even at Abydos, where a comprehensive list of kings is inscribed on the Temple of Seti I, Tutankhamun’s name is missing. Just like Akhenaten’s name.

  Someone went to enormous lengths throughout Egypt to obliterate the memory of Tutankhamun. Ironically, 3,000 years later, his name, of all pharaohs, is probably the most widely known in the world.

  Ay, Akhenaten’s old Chancellor, was soon to seize the throne for himself and complete the destruction of Akhetaten and the eradication of Akhenaten’s name on sites across Egypt. The few examples that can be seen today are on the Great Stela of Geber es Silsila, in upper Egypt, and on the tenth pylon at Karnak, where attempts to remove all vestiges of the ‘monotheistic’ Pharaoh are still evident.

  SO WHAT OF JOSEPH?

  According to Philo, the first century Alexandrian philosopher, Joseph continued on in a position of authority after Akhenaten’s demise. However the Old Testament relates a different outcome:

  A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us.’…So they set task masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built garrison cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Ramses.

  Exodus 1:8–9, 11

  Why would Joseph, a successful and proven genius in managing the affairs of Egypt, so quickly fall from favour? The answer lies in his association with the now demoted religion and Pharaoh. Had there been no drastic change in the direction of the beliefs of the royal household, he would have undoubtedly been found a useful position within the state machinery. Or, as the son of a national hero, he would surely have maintained his social position.<
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  This episode is in itself further proof that Joseph encountered Akhenaten. No other pharaoh in this period fell from grace so rapidly after his death, and no other vizier was dragged down so rapidly by what must have been the same stigma.

  In the meantime the Hebrew family of Jacob, adherents of the now proscribed religion of ‘Aten’, are easy scapegoats to capture and set to slavery. For the next 150 years they will toil and suffer under successive pharaohs, whilst secretly sustaining, and being sustained by, their belief in an Omnipotent God who will one day manifest Himself and save them.

  For many historians and religious writers, the demise of Akhenaten was the end of a chapter in history and that was that. It was, and is, convenient to compartmentalize and forget about this ‘heretic’ Pharaoh. I think this is far from the truth. Akhenaten’s priests didn’t die with him. His writings and works didn’t suddenly become obsolete. His ideas lived on.

  The death of Akhenaten proved a disaster for his priests and Joseph, but they at least had a forewarning that the Theban priesthood might try to regain power, and the resources to make good their escape…and to bury some of the treasures of the Great Temple and the Treasury that they could not carry with them.

  Is there any indication that treasures were buried, as I contend, apart from the logic of the situation? It would indeed be quite remarkable if there were any clues, especially from Jewish literature. Chaim Rabin, Associate Professor of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is a specialist in the study of the sources from which the Dead Sea Scrolls derived and their ongoing influence on other religions, such as Islam. In a lecture to the Institute of Jewish Studies in Manchester,19 he drew attention to Yemenite Midrashim (Biblical commentaries), which recall Haman’s presence at Pharaoh’s Court, in Egypt, and a sixteenth-century CE Venetian work by Alkaabez,20 which says Haman found one of the treasures buried by Joseph. Significantly Joseph is threatened that if ‘the light of his Lord’ is cast away the world will return to chaos.

  Taken together, the corroborative testimony of dates, influences, associated place-names, events and circumstantial evidence, the notion that Joseph and Jacob had a direct encounter with Akhenaten becomes overwhelming.

  We now have a scenario describing how Joseph acquired vast wealth and almost certainly how he and/or the priests of Aten also knew where the incredible treasures of the Great Temple and the Treasury at Akhetaten were buried. The places to look for much of the treasures of the Copper Scroll have become clearer—a connection can be made between knowledge of its whereabouts and the Qumran-Essenes.

  PLATE 1

  View of Qumran, looking out towards the Dead Sea.

  Aerial view of the ruins at Qumran.

  PLATE 2

  Henri de Contenson, leader of the archaeological team that found the Copper Scroll in a cave overlooking Qumran, in 1952.

  The Copper Scroll being examined by John Marco Allegro at Manchester College of Technology, shortly after the scroll’s opening in 1955, showing sections 1–15.

  PLATE 3

  The Copper Scroll, restored by Electricité de France, Paris, as it would have appeared in its original engraved form.

  Part of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, discovered at Thebes and dated to c.1550 BCE, showing a numbering system similar to that used in the Copper Scroll.

  An example of the ancient Egyptian numbering system, showing that the symbols for 1 and 10 are identical to those used in Column 6

  Symbols for 1 and 10 in the Copper Scroll.

  PLATE 4

  Pictures of circumcised penises found on inscriptions from Ancient Egypt

  Detail from an inscription on the east wall of the Tomb of Nefer-Seshem-Ptah at Saqqara.

  Left Priest circumcising a boy, shown in a relief from the mastaba tomb of Ankhmahor, at Saqqara, dated to the 6th Dynasty c.2300 BCE.

  Meatus dating to c.1300 BCE found at El-Amarna.

  PLATE 5

  The Osiris mythology, showing Osiris attended by his wife Isis and son Horus. From a piece of jewellery made for Pharaoh Osorkon II, c.860 BCE. Now in the Louvre Museum.

  PLATE 6

  Examples of statues showing the facial features of Amenhotep IV and Queen Nefertiti.

  Colossal statue of Akhenaten, now in the Cairo Museum.

  Colossal statue of Akhenaten from the Temple at Karnak, now in the Cairo Museum.

  Akhenaten kisses his daughter. Now in the Cairo Museum.

  PLATE 7

  Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s wife, wearing a curled wig and diadem with uraeus, kissing her eldest daughter, Meritaten. From a limestone block found at Hermopolis and now in the Brooklyn Museum.

  Painted limestone bust of Nefertiti. Thought to have been created by Thothmes at Akhetaten. Now in the Berlin Museum.

  PLATE 8

  Amenhotep II.

  The throne chair of Tutankhamun showing him and his wife Ankhesenpaten with the Aten disc. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

  PLATE 9

  The only known example of an ancient Egyptian portable chest. Measuring 83cm long, 60.5cm wide and 63.5cm high. It was found on the floor of the antechamber of the tomb of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. Now in the possession of the Department of Antiquities, Cairo.

  Lotiform ‘Wishing’ chalice, measuring 18cm in height, carved from a single block of alabaster. The lotus bloom has sixteen ovoid petals and four ovoid sepals, with supports of single blue lilies.

  Triple lotus oil lamp, 27cm in height, carved from a single block of calcite (alabaster).

  Example of ‘protective wings’ used in Egyptian design found, for example, on the canopic chest of Akhenaten and in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

  PLATE 10

  Jozef Milik, leader of the translation team at the École Biblique, Jerusalem. He was the first person to publish a translation, in French, in 1959 of the Copper Scroll.

  View of hills immediately behind Qumran. From Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise’s 1992 book, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered.

  PLATE 11

  The Shawabty figure of Meryra, High Priest of Aten. Now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

  Treasure jar found in the remains of a building on the ‘Crock of Gold Square’ at El-Amarna immediately after being opened.

  PLATE 12

  Site of the Great Temple at El-Amarna, ancient Akhetaten. Showing outline perimeter of the temple and courtyard areas.

  PLATE 13

  Archaeological sites in the Saqqara burial district, with the step pyramid of Djoser (c.2650 BCE) in the foreground.

  The Sun Temple at Abu Gurab, Egypt, built by King Nyuserra (2445–2421 BCE). In the centre of the altar is a massive alabaster circular slab surrounded by four offering tables.

  PLATE 14

  Two gold signet rings from Hagg Quandil, El-Amarna, now in the City of Liverpool Museum, England. One depicts ‘Bes’, the family protector, between two ‘life ankh’ signs; the other a dancing lion with a tambourine.

  Below and Opposite Jewellery from Hagg Quandil, El-Amarna, now in the Royal Museum of Scotland.

  a) Gold signet ring incised with the name Nefertiti.

  b) Gold ear stud decorated with herringbone and scroll pattern.

  c) Finger ring in gold with bezel shaped as a ‘wadjet’ protective ‘eye’.

  d) Finger ring in gold with swivelling bezel in the shape of a frog.

  PLATE 15

  e) Gold ear stud in the form of a roundel with marguerite-shaped boss.

  f) Gold sequin in the shape of a marguerite.

  g) Necklace or collar comprising gold convex disc and chevron decoration below, with nine husk-shaped pendants looped above and below, fifty-three gold pomegranate beads and large gold drop bead attached by copper wire.

  h) Gold spacer bead or fastener.

  i) Gold ear stud.

  PLATE 16

  View of Elephantine Island, in Southern Egypt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE LO
NG TREK SOUTH

  After the death of Akhenaten, I believe most of his priests fled, fearing the vengeance of the old Theban guard of priests, who were soon to reassert their power under Akhenaten’s successors.

  Under cover of darkness a band of these Atenist priests, heavily laden with Temple treasures – gold, jewellery, lapis lazuli, malachite, fine spices, cloth – all that they can carry, steal away into the night. Fortunately the new minimalist religion does not need much paraphernalia. A small symbol of ‘Aten’, the recordings of the Akhenaten Amduat (compendium of texts),*29 simple libation vessels, offering implements, incense and lamps to illuminate and imitate the glow of the sun. The most precious things that the priests carry away from Akhetaten are in their heads.

  Where to go? To the west lies open desert, to the east the Red Sea and hostile tribes, to the far north the difficult Delta lands – no friends and no escape beyond the open Mediterranean Sea. Some of the priests, I believe, went north to On, near modern-day Cairo. The others went south, risking the dangers of travelling the length of Egypt to the possible safety of sympathetic priests known to reside in the region of Ab, in a remote part of Southern Egypt – to an island (the Island of Yeb, or Elephantine Island) that still today has the remains of monuments to Amenhotep III, Akhenaten’s father, on it. Some of the Hebrews close to Joseph travel with them, contributing their desert guile to a trek that will last over forty days and cross 500km of territory.

  How long the priests of Aten and their retinue of Hebrew retainers remained in the area of Elephantine Island is uncertain. There is evidence that a remnant of ‘Hebrews’ lived in the settlement until well into the fourth century BCE.1