The Quest for the Great Stones of the Prophet Jeremiah

The Quest for
the Great Stones of the
Prophet Jeremiah
True Story.
That God hid.
That were a prophetic sign.
That the Prophet Jeremiah held.
That King Nebuchadnezzar’s throne sat over.

FOREWORD
        Stories about mystery or adventure have planted the thought that you have to be single and chasing your girlfriend to have any fun, and at the end of the story the couple embrace, kiss, and then on the screen or the printed page, appears “The End.” The unspoken thought is, when you settle down and get married, the fun is over. My wife, Nancy, our son, Caleb and myself, with Jesus Christ as our leader, made our own “special ops team”, gathered “intelligence” and set off on an adventure of discovery. This took place between February 2005 and October 2008 and shows how a family armed with the Bible found what the scholars could not.

Author with wife Nancy and son Caleb.

Table of Contents
PREFACE
Chapter One....................WHAT ARE THE GREAT STONES?
Chapter Two....................WHAT STONES WOULD GOD CALL “GREAT”?
Chapter Three.................WERE THEY IN THE ARK?
Chapter Four...................HOW DID JEREMIAH END UP WITH THEM?
Chapter Five....................A CLOSER LOOK AT JEREMIAH 43:9-10
Chapter Six..................….THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF TAHPANHES AND THE MAN WHO WORKED IT
Chapter Seven.................SOMETHING ELSE BURIED HERE?
Chapter Eight..................I IGNORANTLY PROCEEDED, FRIENDS DID NOT BELIEVE, AND I BEGAN TO DOUBT
Chapter Nine..................GET UP AND GO FORWARD
Chapter Ten....................GETTING NOWHERE
Chapter Eleven..............A CURIOUS SIDETRACK THAT LED TO THE MAIN TRACK!
Chapter Twelve.............ALL OF THEM WERE WRONG
Chapter Thirteen..........ONE WAS LARGE AND ONE WAS SMALL
Chapter Fourteen.........FALSE THEORIES ABOUT TELL DEFENNEH
Chapter Fifteen............. STARTING AND FINDING MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE
Chapter Sixteen.............WHO, IS ON FIRST BASE
Chapter Seventeen.......WHAT GOOD WILL COME FROM FINDING THESE STONES?
Chapter Eighteen...........OXFORD AND RESEARCH THAT LED US TO PROOF WE WERE SEEKING
Chapter Nineteen..........THERE IS A MYSTERY BECAUSE OF THE MEANING OF THE NAME TAHPANHES
Chapter Twenty.............THE NAME WAS INTENTIONALLY REMOVED
Chapter Twenty-One...THE “PALACE OF APRIES”
Chapter Twenty-Two..."AT THE ENTRY OF PHARAOH'S HOUSE”
Chapter Twenty-Three...LONDON AND THE GREAT STONES
Chapter Twenty-Four.....CLEAR EVIDENCE
Chapter Twenty-Five......A QUESTION WHOSE ONLY ANSWER IS JEREMIAH 43:9
Chapter Twenty-Six........HOLDING WHAT JEREMIAH THE PROPHET HELD

PREFACE
        This is a true story of biblical archaeology with mysteries, surprises, intrigue and ironies. The story is told as the events unfolded and progresses from having only a few pieces of the puzzle to making the find. Along the way, I learned some things that showed the error of certain ideas that I had held at the beginning. I therefore have noted my mistakes, and the errors of others, and given what was right when I found it later. These few “notes” I have left along the way may help you to figure out some surprising and unexpected things before we did.
        All Bible quotes are from the King James Bible. All quotations whether from the Bible, historians, archaeologists, or Bible scholars, are italicized. Bold print or underlining used in verses or quotations of others reflects my emphasis. For the meaning of the Bible words in the original languages, I will be using Gesenius’s Lexicon, and Strong’s Concordance (hereafter labeled Strong’s) with Hebrew and Greek Lexicon, which is on line in the public domain, under Blue Letter Bible. Originally published under the name GREAT STONES by XULON Press. Sorry about the end note numbers. I was not able to get the superscript or subscript to work.
        I want to thank librarians, translators, secretaries and the staff of museums (especially the Petrie Museum in London), who looked up and sent us materials for study. I also need to acknowledge the thorough research of archaeologists who spent years excavating in the sands of Egypt and faithfully recording their finds.
        Our search took us to the Library of Congress, to Egypt, twice to Oxford, three times to London, and when we were done, we found what Sir Flinders Petrie (“The father of modern archaeology”) was unable to find: stones that were used as a prophetic sign of judgment, that King Nebuchadnezzar's throne sat over “set his throne upon these stones”, that the prophet Jeremiah held “Take great stones in thine hand” and that God buried “These stones that I have hid.” And as to the stones themselves, they were not what everyone had believed.
“If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;” (Proverbs 2:4)

Dedicated to my Savior, Jesus Christ, who let us come along on this quest.

        “Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; And say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them.” (Jeremiah 43:8-10)

*In 1910 there was an unexpected discovery, found buried out front of Pharaoh's palace in Egypt.

Why could Sir Flinders Petrie, “The Father of Modern Archaeology” not find the “great stones” that were buried by the prophet Jeremiah? He said that he found the palace of Pharaoh and the bricked area where the great stones were buried, but he came up empty-handed.
Why would the small city of Tell Defenneh, which the archaeologists say is Tahpanhes, and Bible scholars say Jeremiah went to, have two Greek names? The only other city in Egypt with two Greek names was the very large city of Thebes, being also called Diospolis.
Why would anyone bury something of value right in front of Pharaoh’s front door?
Why has the Egyptian-named city of Tahpanhes never been found in Egyptian hieroglyphics? Names of other Egyptian cities in the Bible have been found, yet none of them are named in the Bible more than the city of Tahpanhes. And if the name was intentionally removed, what was the motive?
Why would the ancient Egyptians name a city, a very large city, after someone from another country?

Chapter One
WHAT ARE THE GREAT STONES?
      “Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes….” (Jeremiah 43:9) Everyone believes these stones that Jeremiah buried were some large rocks because they were called “great” stones. I believe, instead, they were important, not large. My study in the original languages of the Bible is limited, but anyone can read those who are the scholars, and the Hebrew word “great” means “great in any sense.”1 (The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.) As in English, when we say Alexander the Great, we do not mean that he was tall in stature, but that he was an important person in history. Only the context of the passage of scripture will determine if it refers to size or something important. The following are reasons why these “great stones” were small.
1. Notice that these stones were to be buried “in the clay....” The clay in the brickkiln was the mortar between the bricks2 so it had to be something small. This is a problem for Bible commentaries to explain and one can read about Jeremiah burying large stones in a lump of clay next to the brickkiln, but the verse says he was to “hide them,” “in” the clay, “in” the brickkiln.
2. This was all done at the “brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house....” Later I will say more about the excavation at this city and also about the Hebrew word that is translated “brickkiln,” but this “brickkiln” was only a few feet from the entry of the palace. It would have been done in plain view of the soldiers who would have been stationed there guarding the “entry” of Pharaoh’s house. If these stones had been some large rocks, Jeremiah would not have been allowed to tear up this brickkiln in order to bury them.
3. The brickkiln in front of Pharaoh’s house was excavated and a search was made for the “great stones” buried by God’s prophet, but they could not find them. Other objects were found and some of them were quite small. If the stones of Jeremiah had been buried there, they would have lasted and should have been found, especially if they were large stones.
4. There is little at the archaeological site of Tell Defenneh (which archaeologists believe to be Tahpanhes) made of stone. The walls of the fortress were made of mud bricks, as were the fort and Pharaoh's palace. We made a trip there in the summer of 2005, and there are no stones visible there today that could possibly be called large. The largest stone we saw was less than three inches across. In all four directions the land is flat with no mountains, hills or rock quarries to dig for stone, just sand. So where did the prophet Jeremiah get these stones if they were large?
5. In the spring of 1976 while I was at Bible college, I read this passage in Jeremiah and noticed that these “great stones” were in one “hand.” This was the first time I realized that these “great stones” were not large stones. It is simply not possible to hold large boulders in one hand.
6. They had to be something more than normal stones. Remember it was to be a sign, and rocks whether small or large, could be found most anywhere.
   There are great stones in the Bible that refer to size. In I Kings 7:10 it speaks of great stones that are “ten cubits.” A cubit has been defined by more than one measurement, but I will use the smaller one, which is a foot and a half. So, Jeremiah was holding a stone that was 15 feet across? And there were at least two, “stones”. Way to go, Jeremiah!
        If you think I am forcing the interpretation of this passage by putting the emphasis on one word, “hand”, because it is lacking one letter “s”, then please see Galatians 3:16. Here the Apostle Paul states the promises were made to Abraham and his “seed”, and he adds, “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one...” explaining that because “seed” was in the singular, it was in reference to Christ, also our Lord built a doctrine based on a verb tense.3 But someone will respond, “That would mean Jesus Christ and Paul interpreted the scriptures literally.” Yes!
        There are times when the word “hand” can have a figurative meaning. Jeremiah 38:10 says, “Take from hence thirty men with thee....” The words “with thee” in this passage and a few others are the same words translated “in thine hand”4 in Jeremiah 43:9. And yes, this would have been a figure of speech for he did not carry thirty men in his one hand. But here it would just mean to take charge of (“Take…with thee...”), to have power over, or under your authority, in a figurative way as saying “into your hand are they delivered.” But I believe Jeremiah was taking stones and burying them; it was not something figurative but he was actually doing this. Every language, including those of the Bible, has figures of speech. “Ye are the light of the world...” and today we say, “The long arm of the law,” but their meaning is self-explanatory. Yet who would tell someone, “Hold these large boulders in one hand”? Jeremiah held stones in one “hand,” and yes they were “great,” but not large! (Note: I’ll say more later about the word “hand” being in the singular.)

ENDNOTES
1. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary #1419.
2. Jamieson, Faussett and Brown. Commentary On the Whole Bible (also many other Bible commentaries), 1871, note on Jeremiah 43:9.
3. Matthew 22:28-33.
4. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary gave #3027 for both “with thee” (Jeremiah 38:10) and “thine hand” (Jeremiah 43:9).

Chapter Two
WHAT STONES WOULD GOD CALL “GREAT”?
        If these stones were great, meaning important, then what were they? It is God Who calls them “great.” I could only come up with four possibilities. The first three are connected to the garments of the high priest.
1. The two onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest, each engraved with six of the names of the children of Israel.1
2. The twelve precious stones on the breast plate of the high priest, which included “an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond”.2 They were, by historical accounts, quite large for precious stones, and thus very expensive, and each one was engraved with one of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
3. The Urim and Thummim, which the High Priest used to determine God’s will in particular situations. Though the Bible does not say they were made out of stone, most people believe they were.3
4. The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue (Greek for “ten words”), engraved on two tables of stone,4 which has been called “The greatest document ever given to man.”
        And all these stones, including the two tables of stone of the Ten Commandments, were small enough to fit in one hand,5 as the “great stones” of the prophet Jeremiah were. It might be expected that the verse would say “the” great stones with the definite article, if they were one of the possibilities I had mentioned above. In the Bible, when referring to the Ten Commandments, the definite article is used, but when referring to the tables of stones themselves it is not always used (Exodus 31:18). It is good to remember that our English Bible is a translation of another language, which does not always have the same rules of grammar. The handwriting on the wall in Daniel, Chapter 5, would not follow the rules of grammar of any language. (I will say more later in Chapter 23 about the definite article.)
Note: Please remember, I am giving the account of this story approximately in chronological order, as I obtained the information. But I will tell you now that at the end of our search, I found that the “great stones” were something else, but still small and “great” at the same time.

ENDNOTES
1. Exodus 28:9-13.
2. Exodus 39:11.
3. Exodus 28:30.
4. Exodus 32:15-16, 34:1.
5. Exodus 32:15.

Chapter Three
WERE THEY IN THE ARK OF THE COVENANT?
        Should the Ten Commandments be found by themselves, it would be asked what happened to the Ark of the Covenant, because the Ten Commandments were kept inside of it. Though the Ark was in the first temple (Solomon's temple) it was not in the second temple, which was in the days of Jesus Christ.1 We can safely say that the Ark did exist in the days of King Josiah2 and he lived about 23 years before the destruction of the first temple. So, that would eliminate the theories about the Queen of Sheba or Pharaoh Shishak taking it, for they lived hundreds of years before King Josiah. II Maccabees3 teaches that Jeremiah buried the Ark, the tabernacle and the altar of incense on Mt. Nebo. Though this book has value, it is not God’s Word. Jeremiah, at that time, was considered an enemy of the Jews and later put in prison at Jerusalem. This being so, would the king or the high priest have let Jeremiah take the Ark? Or, if after the fall of Jerusalem, would not the Babylonian soldiers have wanted the Ark's gold? (I now believe the Ark still exist, there are legends of Jeremiah taking the Ark and hiding it with the permission of the good king Josiah, who reigned from 641–609 BC. The fall of Jerusalem by Babylon was about 587 BC).
        In Revelation 11:19 it talks about the Ark being in heaven. But when God told the children of Israel to build him a sanctuary, he said to make it “According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it,”4 and in the very next verse they are told to make the Ark. The book of Hebrews tells us the “true”5 tabernacle is in heaven; all that Moses made was after the “pattern” of the true. So, there already was an Ark and sanctuary in heaven before the earthly one.
        Jeremiah 3:16 says, “in those days...neither shall they remember it [the Ark]; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.” People have used this to teach that in the future there will not be an Ark because it said it would not be visited, “neither shall that be done any more.” But “those days” refers to the time of the millennium. It says they would not “remember it,” but we do today. The next verse says, “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it....” Nor has this happened yet.
        Lamentations 2:9 says, “the law is no more...” and some believe this may refer to the Ten Commandments (“the law”), meaning that they were destroyed. But another possibility is the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Law, which Moses had put in the side of the Ark.7 Also, Lamentations 2:9 is in reference to those in Babylon, and says, “her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.” This verse was written by the prophet Jeremiah who was in Israel and still receiving divine revelation and would continue to, even in Egypt.

ENDNOTES
1. Josephus. WAR Book 5, Ch. 5, 5 (Josephus was a priest who lived at Jerusalem during the first century A.D., when the second temple was still standing).
2. II Chronicles 35:3.
3. II Maccabees 2:4-14.
4. Exodus 25:9.
5. Hebrews 8:2 and 9:24.
6. II Kings 24:13, also II Chronicles 36:7, 10, 18.
7. Deuteronomy 31:24-26.


Chapter Four
   HOW DID JEREMIAH END UP WITH THEM?
        Jeremiah was in Jerusalem when he was released from prison and found himself in the position of being able to do whatever he wanted. No one else was in the unique position of Jeremiah; the rest of Jerusalem had either been slaughtered or carried off to Babylon as slaves. “Now Nebuchadrezzer king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm: but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee.”1 It is also possible that the great stones, whatever they were, may have been given to Jeremiah. “So the captain of guard gave him victuals and a reward, and let him go.”2
        How did Jeremiah end up in Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem? The remaining Jews in Israel, though told by God not to go to Egypt, did so anyway because they feared King Nebuchadnezzar, and they took Jeremiah with them.

ENDNOTES
1. Jeremiah 39:11-12.
2. Jeremiah 40:5.

   Chapter Five
   A CLOSER LOOK AT JEREMIAH 43:9-10
        “Take great stones in thine hand…” As to the word “hand” being in the singular and not “hands” plural, some explanation is required, because many people are reading translations of the Bible that have “hands” or no hand at all. And they deserve an answer to this. The King James Bible has “hand” (singular), which is in the Hebrew text in Jeremiah 43:9. I have asked Hebrew scholars if they know of any Hebrew manuscript (there are several thousand manuscripts) that has “hands,” or no word for hand in this verse, and no one knows of one. One may exist, but no one could confirm this. I would like to quote the Hebrew scholar Dr. D.E. Anderson about the word “hand” being in the singular. I asked if all Hebrew manuscripts have this, and was told, “I can't confirm absolutely that every manuscript has the singular,...[but this]....is the standard reading.” And, “every edition of the Hebrew that I have access to, including a facsimile of the Leningrad Codex and an original 1566 Bomberg, have 'hand' singular.'“1 Of the top twelve best-selling Bibles, two have “hand” in the singular and two more have “hands” in the plural and eight did not translate the word “hand” that is in the Hebrew. (There is a translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, whose date is disputed, but most place it around 250 B.C. And for this verse, the Septuagint does not have the word “hand,” but this is a Greek translation, and God’s word was inspired in Hebrew.)
        Eleven out of the top twelve Bibles have translated “great stones” as “large stones,” and as I said, this is a possibility, but the context would not allow this because large stones would not fit in the mortar between the bricks or in one “hand” etc. Eight out of the top twelve best-selling Bibles have “some” stones. But this word “some” is not found in the Hebrew text. “There is no word in Hebrew in this phrase to indicate ‘some;’ nor is there a Greek word in the Septuagint for ‘some.’” (Dr. D.E. Anderson. There are English translations of the Septuagint that have it both ways).
        How does this matter in our search for the “great stones”? I never would have found the “great stones” had I been reading one of these other versions, because I never would have bothered to look in the first place! None of the twelve translations had it right except the KJV.I was not looking for “large” stones, or “some” stones, but “great stones”, and that were small enough to fit in one “hand.” Any one of these changes would have stopped me from looking and eight out of the top twelve best-selling Bibles had all three changes in them! Now these scholars made these changes to the Bible to help us, one can't help but wonder how many other places they "helped" us.
     The Bible is the best-selling book in the world, not just this year but of all time! So, the market is there for those who keep producing new editions. And I'm sure they believe they are “helping” us with their new editions because they are “superior”, “correct” our version, or from "beter manuscripts." If I run out and buy one, then in time (a short time) an even “better, more scholarly” version will come out. Without doubt, the majority of these scholars are people of high character, but they do not agree among themselves, yet they are quick to tell you their version is the “most modern,” or “up-to-date.”
        The Bibles that have the translation as “hands”, still do not help solve the problem of lifting huge stones. Because “great stones” that are large, are ten cubits across (fifteen feet), no one could hold such stones with two hands, not even with a hundred hands. The great stones in the Bible, large stones, were moved on the ground (rolled).2 Stone weighs over 300 pounds per cubic “cubit,” so even if it was only one cubit and one stone he could not have held it one hand.

ENDNOTES
1. This information is from correspondence with Dr. D.E. Anderson, Reformation International Theological Seminary in Fellsmere, Florida.
2. Joshua 10:18, I Samuel 14:33, and Matthew 27:60.

    Chapter Six
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF TAHPANHES AND THE MAN WHO WORKED IT
        In 1886 British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie, became the first to excavate the site of Tell Defenneh (biblical Tahpanhes). Mr. Petrie said, “Till this year, so far as I know, no attempt has been made to work in this site, beyond a stay of two or three days by a native reis of the Bulak Museum.”1
       The archaeological site of Tell Defenneh is believed to be the biblical city of Tahpanhes in Jeremiah 43:9, also spelled “Tahapanes” in Jeremiah 2:16, and “Tehaphnehes” in Ezekiel 30:18. Sir Flinders Petrie said the Bedouin called this site, “The palace of the Jew's daughter,” and then Mr. Petrie commented, “No such name is known anywhere else in the whole of Egypt.”2 The sons of King Zedekiah were taken captive with the king when Jerusalem fell, but the Bible says, “the king’s daughters” were taken to Tahpanhes in Egypt with Jeremiah the prophet.3
      Tell Defenneh (circled on map above) was an ancient frontier fort located out on the desert on the eastern side of the Nile Delta. It was built as a fort to guard the road to Syria, and it also had a palace located there for when the king would visit the fort. Pharaoh’s main palaces were at the city of Sais (which was then the capital of Egypt during the 26th Dynasty), and Memphis, which was the largest city in Egypt.
       Flinders Petrie found the “brickkiln” (Jeremiah 43:9) which was “at the entry of Pharaoh's house...” and he calls it a platform or mastaba, and says the site was “unmistakable” and that “Here the ceremony described by Jeremiah took place before the chiefs of the fugitives assembled on the platform, and here Nebuchadnezzer ‘spread his royal pavilion’....The very nature of the site is precisely applicable to all the events.”4

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 47.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 50.
3. Jeremiah 43:6-7.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.

   Chapter Seven
   SOMETHING ELSE BURIED HERE?
   As incredible as it may seem, it was believed that two of God’s servants buried something in the same place. Though the Bible does not record this second ceremony, some well known people do, including Sir Flinders Petrie,1 Amelia Edwards,2 and Professor A.H. Sayce.3
        “A native sold to the Bulak Museum three cylinders of terra-cotta bearing an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, an ordinary text referring to his constructions in Babylon, such as would be used for foundation memorials...they apparently belong to some place where Nebuchadnezzar had 'set up his royal throne,' and 'spread his royal pavilion.' As he only passed by the Syrian road, and Daphnai [Tell Defenneh] would be the only stopping place on that road in the region of the isthmus, all the inferences point to these having come from Defenneh [believed to be Tahpanhes], and being the memorials of his establishment there.”4
        The reason I said two of God’s servants is because, besides the prophet Jeremiah, King Nebuchadnezzar is also called God's servant in the Bible.5 So we have two of God’s servants, the prophet Jeremiah and King Nebuchadnezzar both burying something, not only in the same country and in the same town, but in the same spot!
        It is noteworthy that there has been a dispute over whether or not Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt. Little in the way of artifacts has been found in Egypt from this Babylonian conquest. But there need not be, as Nebuchadnezzar did not stay in Egypt but only overran it,6 not as the Greeks or Romans who stayed there for hundreds of years. And these three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar were used as proof of Babylon conquering Egypt.7
        The following conclusions were used to help guide the search.
1). Little could have escaped the thorough excavation of Sir Flinders Petrie and, since he did not find the great stones, then they had to have been taken already.
2). Since both the “great stones” and three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar where buried in the same spot, whoever found the three cylinders also found the great stones.
(Note: There turned out to be problems with both of these conclusions.)

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.
2. Edwards. Amelia. A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, 1891, ch. II, p. 69.
3. Sayce, A. H. The Academy, January 19, 1884, p. 51.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.
5. Jeremiah 43:10. 6. Jeremiah 43:12.
6. Jeremiah 43:12.
7. Sayce, A. H. The Academy, January 19, 1884, p. 51.


   Chapter Eight
   I IGNORANTLY PROCEEDED, FRIENDS DID NOT BELIEVE, AND I BEGAN TO DOUBT
   So, how do you begin? There are thousands of museums around the world plus private collections. And if a museum has their collection on the internet, it usually will not be complete, nor do they give online all the information on how a particular piece was acquired.
        My best lead was the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar because of their connection to the “great stones,” since I believed they would have been found at the same time. My hope was that whoever sold these three cylinders to the museum would have also sold to the same museum the stones buried by Jeremiah. According to Mr. Petrie, the three cylinders were sold to the Bulak Museum, which was in Cairo. My search was hampered by two things: First, Flinders Petrie said, “unhappily it [the discovery of the three cylinders] fell into Arab hands, and certainly is not to be looked for.”1 This left me with the impression they had been lost or stolen. So at first I did not search for the three cylinders, believing they had disappeared and were “not to be looked for.”
        I also did not know how to get a copy of the records for the Bulak Museum. As it turned out, this was on line as an e-book but because of my ignorance at the beginning of our search, a lot of things were more difficult than they should have been. And I did not even know when the three cylinders were found. Mr. Petrie only said, “some years before,” (before his excavation at Tell Defenneh), that a “native” had found the three cylinders, and he was able to do this without a search or digging because most of the brickkiln had been eroded away.2 Petrie had excavated this site in 1886, and his book came out in 1888, but what does “some” years before mean? Mr. Petrie quoted Professor Sayce who wrote about the three cylinders in a British scientific journal called The Academy, January 19th, 1884. So it was before Jan. 1884, but how much before?
        When we were in the States on furlough, I had visited a church on the East Coast, and while there I went to check out some books at the Library of Congress, an impressive building where I looked through four out-of-print books. A couple of these books did talk about the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar, but they gave no new information.
        My youngest son, Caleb, and I went to Tell Defenneh (Tahpanhes) in Egypt, hoping I might learn something. I had even entertained thoughts of finding the “great stones” ourselves. Hoping they might be buried in one ledge of the brick work that Mr. Flinders Petrie said he had left to show those after him where it had been. But though I found the mounds of the fort and palaces, I could not even make out the corners of the buildings; and the brick platform was several feet under the sand. My overall impression of this site was not a good one. We had gone there in July, and I was told the temperature was up to 110 degrees. The site was just some mud bricks, lots of sand and a couple of signs that marked the spot. No tourists or signs of any being there, and the only signs of life I saw were a fox and a snake trail in the sand. Certainly not like the sites they advertise in the travel agencies, and I left believing the trip had been a waste.

Author’s son, Caleb, at Tell Defenneh.
   Please allow a side note here; we were only in Egypt a few days and the most exciting thing we did, other than seeing the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, was crossing the street. We had gone out to look for some food and Caleb had noticed a man carrying some McDonald’s bags and he turned out to be an American. I asked him for directions, and he pointed us down the road and said, “But you got to get to the other side,” adding, “Have fun crossing the street!” We soon found out what he meant. There were four lanes going one direction and a center island and then four lanes going the other direction, but no crosswalks. And these lanes of traffic did not have white lines to divide them - just a mass of cars going in each direction, and they were going fast! Somehow we got to the middle island but no further. I don't know how the Egyptians do it, but they walk right into traffic, and cars would swerve to not hit them, or you would hear the brakes slam on, but they would get to the other side. It was in fact the only way we could cross - by letting them lead us and we would stay right next to them – exciting!
Research
        Research takes time sending away for books or articles that I hoped would shed some light on this would get my hopes up, but usually the first day after receiving the materials, it was apparent they would not be helpful. One time I received some microfilm from the University of Geneva that contained over 200 letters written by Gaston Maspero, the curator of the Bulak Museum. These had been written during the time that I thought the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar would have been acquired by the Bulak Museum. I had hoped they might have mentioned something about the three cylinders and the “great stones” of Jeremiah. From the time I started the process until I got the microfilm, was over two months. And, as it turned out, only a few letters were from the time I believed the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar were found. These letters were in French, as were many of the books and articles I would receive, and would have to be translated into English. After the translation, I found out what I had already guessed, that there was no new information. The lady who translated the letters said, “I’m sorry they were not helpful.” I responded, “At least I know where not to look.”
        Fortunately, not everything was this hard to acquire. There are a certain number of archaeological books that are on the Internet, not to mention a multitude of websites. I also found some sites where I could send for out-of-print archaeological books on CDs for a fraction of the cost, and I received them in three or four days’ time. But back in 1976 when I first realized the “great stones” were not just some big rocks, and then later in the 1980s, there was not much available without the Internet. I was left with reading Bible commentaries about the passage in Jeremiah 43, which showed no interest in the “great stones” buried by the prophet Jeremiah or that they were held in one hand.
        If I tried to talk to someone about my desire to find the stones buried by the prophet Jeremiah, to see what they might add, they basically thought I was nuts. In over thirty years no one encouraged me on this. (I did have two people say, “Whatever it is, it has to be something small.” But, no one encouraged me to look for them.) When I first told my wife, “Honey, I am going to look for the Ten Commandments,” she said, “Why would God let you find them?” But since my wife was the only one who “encouraged” me, I would, at times, get the thought, “Maybe they are right; I’m nuts.”
        Now with this said, try to imagine phoning a university, museum, or a newspaper’s archives and requesting materials from them. When the person who answers the phone asks, “What are you researching?” you say, “Oh, I’m looking for the Ten Commandments.” And after he says, “What?” a couple of times and you try to explain it to him a couple of times, you then hear him say in a whisper to one of his friends, “Hey Joe, come here and listen to this guy.” Now, how much help do you think you would get with a response like that? So, it was necessary to look for the “great stones” of Jeremiah without telling people why I was looking for them. And as time passed I stopped telling my friends and others about it. Bouncing an idea off someone can be fun, but not if they think you’re crazy.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.

Chapter Nine
GET UP AND GO FORWARD
A little over two years ago (at the time of this writing), I got a lot of free time. I fell on the ice one day and broke my leg! About the same time I read a quote by Pete Cowling, a Bible college professor who said, “You excel at what you think about in your spare time.” At first I did not like the quote because it convicted me. In my spare time I was playing games on the computer; I was just wasting my time. These two things, my leg being in a cast, which caused me to be laid up, and the quote got me in gear to make a real search.
        In 1976, I had spent a few months trying to find the stones buried by Jeremiah. But searching for them was taking away from college studies and I felt at the time that God wanted me to leave it alone. I even made a vow to the Lord I would not search for these stones unless He revealed otherwise. I did not vow to never look for them again, but left the door open for the possibility that the Lord might want me to search for them someday. And I did not concern myself about how God might reveal this, but just believed He was big enough to do this however He might choose. For ten years I did nothing with it, and then one day something happened during my daily devotions. I was reading in John, Chapter 9 where our Lord heals a blind man, “and made clay of the spittle....” The word “clay” stood out to me; almost like it was brighter on the page, or at least it seemed like it. This does not happen too often (to me), but I have had Christians tell me the same thing, that while reading the Bible a verse will seem to stand out and it is usually the Lord trying to get their attention.
        But this was just one word, not a verse. And what was I to make of the word “clay”? I thought, “That’s different,” and I turned the pages in the Bible to read another text, and guess what passage it opened up to? There I was, staring at Jeremiah 43:8-10. I almost left the text because of the vow I had made not to look for the “great stones,” unless as I had said, God revealed otherwise. But it was God’s Word, and I was not trying to look for these stones. So I started to read the passage and in verse 9, one word stood out and again it was the same word, “clay,” where the “great stones” had been buried. And because this was the mortar between the bricks the great stones would have to be small. Now, what I have just shared won’t mean much to the average person except that I am “crazy.” And I understand why some would be concerned with this. At Bible college I heard a funny story about a young man who thought he could determine God’s will for his life this way. And he opened his Bible up at random to a passage about Judas Iscariot; the verse he read was, “and he went and hanged himself”! When the young man read this he was shocked and thought, “I had better try again,” and he again opened the Bible at random to “what thou doest, do quickly….”
        I should mention I was not trying to do this or looking for this to happen, but simply reading my Bible during my normal devotions. Yet, I would not have started searching again for the stones of Jeremiah except that the word “clay” twice stood out to me. Another thing that God used to encourage me was when I sent away for my first archaeological book in February 2005. God's Spirit gave me joy and it was the joy of the Spirit,1 not mine. No doubt some will sneer at this or think that I claim to have a direct line to God, which I don't. The Lord has never called me on the phone and wished me “Happy Birthday!” But when I was getting nowhere in our search for the “great stones,” I would remember these things and think, “I have got to at least try.” There were in fact many times when I would think about these things; the word “clay” twice getting my attention and the joy of the Spirit. These kept me encouraged, because there were times when I would have doubts.
        I also needed some courage to get started on this, because I had a fear of failure. It was a dream of my heart that maybe someday I would find the “great stones” buried by the prophet Jeremiah, whatever they were, but what if I failed? Would I not feel empty inside and disheartened by it? And I knew it would take effort, money, time, and lots of study (more than I realized), but what if after all that, I failed? I had read a quote one time that said, “It is better to fail by trying than to fail by not trying,” (author unknown). So I set out, “win, lose or draw,” to make a real search for the stones buried by the prophet Jeremiah.

ENDNOTE
1.      Galatians 5:22.

British Museum Petrie Museum

Chapter Ten
GETTING NOWHERE
        I read the book Guide du visiteur au Musee de Boulaq (Visitors’ guide to the Bulak Museum), written in 1884 by Gaston Maspero, who was the curator of this museum in Cairo. I was looking to see if it had any objects from Tell Defenneh (Tahpanhes) and, to my surprise, it listed the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar. As I said earlier, I thought they had been stolen or lost. I found the three cylinders on pages 402 and 403 with the numbers 5830, 5831, and 5832. It said they were made out of terra cotta and were from the “Isthmus,” meaning the Isthmus of the Suez. It was not much; something I already knew, but now I knew they had managed to be put on display at the Bulak Museum.
        There was no mention in the book of any stones coming from Tell Defenneh or the Isthmus that might fit the description of the “great stones” of Jeremiah. But this book was only a “Visitors’ guide” and not a complete listing of all their objects.
      I received a copy of an article by Professor A. H. Sayce1 about the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar. Professor Sayce had examined the three cylinders at the Bulak Museum, and said the cylinders had come from Tell Defenneh (Tahpanhes). Professor Sayce had originally written the article on December 27, 1883 while in Egypt, and said that the three cylinders, along with some other artifacts, had been “newly collected.” So it was apparent that the cylinders had been acquired in 1883. Without a specific day or a month, I could at least say when looking for the stones of Jeremiah that they would have been sold to the Bulak Museum sometime in 1883. Also, since the three cylinders were listed as coming from the Isthmus and not Tell Defenneh, I should expect the stones of Jeremiah to be listed this way also.
   Both the Cairo and Bulak Museums are in Cairo, Egypt, and in fact are considered one and the same, even though they did not have the same location. The building for the Cairo Museum had been finished a few years after the cylinders were obtained and all items from the Bulak Museum had made their way to the Cairo Museum. I considered the possibility that they might still be in the museum in Cairo. I wanted a copy of their museum catalogue, but this would not be easy because it was not on the Internet and a complete one would be very large, some 24 volumes. When I phoned the Cairo Museum, they told me if I wanted information from their catalogue I would have to come to Cairo. Now, at this same time, I found that the British Museum has many of the catalogues from the museum in Cairo and a number of them were in English, including some early ones from 1902, and again, written by Gaston Maspero.
         I thought it better to go to England where everyone speaks English; also, the Petrie Museum, one of the top five museums of Egyptology, was also there. This was the museum of Sir Flinders Petrie who had excavated Tell Defenneh. There was one more thing. When I sent an e-mail to the British Museum and asked if they had any artifacts from Tell Defenneh, they sent me a response the same day and said they had “526” objects of Flinders Petrie’s excavation there and that they “were acquired around 1887.” I was impressed with their quick response. I knew they must have all this registered on a computer. Objects that are on public display at a museum are most often on the Internet, or at least their best pieces. But not all museums will put on the Internet all they have in storage or how an artifact was acquired, and may not even have this information on their computers. And a few museums only list objects by their number, not by where they were found or even what they are, which means if you don't know an item’s number you are out of luck. One might imagine all museums responding as the British Museum by a click of a button, answering all of their where, when and who questions, but I did not find it so. When I asked the British Museum how I might access this data of the 526 objects from Tell Defenneh, they said I could not view it online. I would have to go to London to see it. So, Nancy and I decided to go there and search their catalogues of the Cairo Museum and their computer to look through their objects from Tell Defenneh and see if any were said to have come from the Isthmus in 1883.
        We arrived in London on April 9, 2007 and got settled in so we could get a start on Tuesday morning. Nancy, my “counselor and advisor,” and I arrived at the British Museum for our appointment at 10:00 AM to go to the staff's library of the Egyptology section of the museum. Large museums usually have a staff's library for those who are doing research, such as students at universities or archaeologists. So we followed an assistant curator up a couple of flights on a small winding stairway (the main entrance was then under repair) until we came to a room with lots of books and only other employees of the museum. The employees there were very helpful finding the books we needed, and if requested in advance, would bring artifacts they have in storage for viewing. While we were there they brought out a 3,000-year-old papyrus for a curator who had come from another museum to examine.
        I searched their database with the 526 objects from Tell Defenneh, but found no stones with writing on them. We also looked through their catalogues of the Cairo Museum, but there were not as many in English as I had originally thought. And they were mostly about things I was not looking for, such as tools or monuments. Nancy and I did our best to search for two days through several volumes including some in French but found nothing. We do not speak French but the catalogues list the objects by the names of the towns, which were recognizable even in French. When I told the assistant that I thought there would be more catalogues in English, he suggested I go to Oxford University to their Sackler Library, because he said they have more books on Egyptology than the British Museum.
        So on Thursday Nancy went by herself to the Petrie Museum while I took a train to Oxford. When I arrived I only had about four hours to search, as I wanted to meet Nancy at the Petrie Museum before it closed. I searched books both in English and in French; again, I just looked at the sites the objects were from. In truth, the Sackler Library of Oxford had more books on archaeology, and many were very old and very large; some at least three feet tall by about two feet wide and two, three or four inches thick! It was an incredible place and I felt like the proverbial kid in a candy shop.

   I did find something there in the Sackler Library of Oxford, but it was not what I wanted. There was a 1906 Visitor Guide to the Cairo Museum, by Mr. Gaston Maspero and it had been translated into English. On page 313, number 443, it talked about the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar, noting that they had been found on the Isthmus. Then Mr. Gaston Maspero added, “But in reality bought from a native dealer who brought them from Baghdad twenty years ago.” So, the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar had not come from the Isthmus (Tell Defenneh). He does not say how he learned this, but only that it was “reality”, yet he still kept them in the Cairo Museum. In his 1883 book, Visitors Guide to the Bulak Museum, he mentioned that he had received some objects with reservations because he was not sure if the person who sold them to him could be counted trustworthy. But he did not say this in connection with the three cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar. In the book History of Egypt, Vol. III, 1905, by Mr. Flinders Petrie, these three cylinders were still being used by Mr. Petrie as proof that King Nebuchadnezzar had invaded Egypt, and that book was published just one year before Mr. Maspero's book that said they were not “reality”. I was surprised the native dealer who brought them from Baghdad did not sell the cylinders in his own country and save himself the price of a ticket to Egypt. Assuming Gaston Maspero was right in his 1906 book, and not in his 1883 book, that would mean my theory was all wrong. Since my best lead was wrong, that the three cylinders were not from Tell Defenneh, I had been looking in vain!
        I want to add here that I cannot remember reading anything that was so confusing. Mr. Maspero had said in his Visitors Guide to the Bulak Museum, published in the early part of 1884, pp. 402-403, that the three cylinders were then in his museum. And Mr. Petrie said in Tanis II, 1888, p. 51, that “A native sold to the Bulak Museum three cylinders of terra-cotta,” and “unhappily it [the discovery of the three cylinders] fell into the Arab hands, and certainly not to be looked for.” As I said before, that left me with the impression that they were stolen or lost. But Amelia Edwards said in Pharaohs Fellahs and Explorers, 1891, p. 69, “testimony of three clay cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar, inscribed in cuneiform characters, and now in the National Egyptian Museum.” So in the three years from the time Mr. Petrie said they were missing until Amelia Edwards' book came out, they had been found, with no explanation of how. They also show up in the Visitors Guide to the Cairo Museum, 1906, p. 313.
        Mr. A. H. Sayce was in Egypt and had seen the three cylinders and talked to Gaston Maspero when he wrote in The Academy, January 19, 1884, p. 51, about the three cylinders and said, “which M. Maspero has exhumed at Tell Defenneh.” But Maspero himself had said in his Visitors’ Guide to the Bulak Museum, pp. 402-403, that the cylinders had been “found they said,” in the Isthmus. So, who dug them up? - “Maspero,” an “it was said,” or a “dealer who brought them from Baghdad?” Guess I could just chalk it up to a bunch of mistakes, but it left me with the impression that, in the future, I should still check for any object that was listed as having come from the Isthmus in 1883.
        After finding my best lead had been a waste, I left the library in Oxford and got back on the train to London to meet my wife at the Petrie Museum. But we found nothing, and concluded our search. Surprisingly, at least to myself, I was not upset by what I had read in the 1906 Visitors’ Guide to the Cairo Museum, but a little puzzled by it, not knowing what I should do. I still kept in my heart the things the Lord had given to encourage me, but was I going about it all wrong? Also, I felt like I need not rush to try and find the “great stones” as I had been doing. For I had a fear that someone might find them before me. I told Nancy about it and she said, “Good! Let somebody else find them!” I was not sure if she was more “spiritual” than I was or just getting tired of it.
        Nancy wanted me to put it on the Internet, I again told her I did not want to do this, because someone else might find the “great stones” before me. Her reply was, “Is that what we're doing this for? For you?” “Okay,” I said, “we will put it on the Internet.” Besides, I was not getting anywhere with it. Our website was called “The Ten Commandments Were Buried in Egypt.” I put our e-mail address on it, thinking we would get lots of responses to our website. I received five e-mails, but they were all automatic responses from companies who promise to help you get more “visits” on your website. Apparently, you need to have a certain number of hits (visits) for the search engines to put your site up towards the top of the pile. If you type in the words “Ten Commandments,” over three million sites will come up! Ours was just another snowflake in a blizzard.

ENDNOTE
1.      Sayce, A. H. The Academy, January 19, 1884, p. 51.

   Chapter Eleven
   A CURIOUS SIDETRACK THAT LED TO THE MAIN TRACK
        I had remembered reading in the Visitors’ Guide to the Bulak Museum that two granite stelae (the plural of stela - stones with writing on them) had been found at Coptos, Egypt, also in 1883. And Gaston Maspero made the comment that they had been “embedded” in the wall of a public forum. Though the town was the wrong one, some 450 miles to the south, they were two stones, and with writing on them. They also had been intentionally buried as were the stones of Jeremiah, not just covered with debris or sand. I thought I would give it a try and sent away for the two articles Gaston Maspero had cited. I had hopes that one of the articles would say something about other stelae being intentionally embedded; something I had read very little about before. When the articles came, one was in French and the other in Latin. I had the articles translated, and as usual they turned out to be of no help and made no mention of other such stelae being intentionally buried. The stelae themselves were written in Latin from the Roman occupation of Egypt.
        Through all of this my wife was getting more than a little tired of it, and I had been spending our funds on the trips to England and Egypt. It's true that it is cheaper for us to fly to a place in Europe already living over here, but the money could have been spent on things for our home. I might add that all this was going on while we were missionaries here in Romania with activities and programs in our different works. It was at this time, with all we had done and still no proof, that Nancy said, “Maybe enough is enough.”
        Please allow a momentary pause here. - I want you to know how I felt. No one believed me! But I did believe in what I was doing and I wanted my wife to, also. But now she was telling me to let it go.
        And I said, “Nancy, have I ever done something like this before? In all the years that we have been married, have I ever gone chasing after anything like this before?” She agreed, “That’s right, you haven't.”
        But I was also getting concerned because, with everything we had done, I still had nothing to show for it. I was a little bit desperate and running out of leads. I remember asking my son Caleb to pray for me because I did not want to have any doubts, and that if it was the Lord's will as I believed, He would let us find the “great stones.” His response was, “Dad, I have already been praying for you, and I will continue to.” His words lifted me and I thanked the Lord. I was continually praying, “Lord please give me some proof.” It had been two years, and I had found nothing. “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
        I entitled this chapter, A CURIOUS SIDETRACK THAT LED TO THE MAIN TRACK, for even though the information on the two stelae that were hundreds of miles away from Tell Defenneh had not been helpful, neither was it in vain, for it forced me to think about something: the location! Which got us on the right path, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fit. Now, for the first time, I began seriously considering the possibility that Tahpanhes was not the site of Tell Defenneh. In the past, when I read some article about Tahpanhes that did not agree with my understanding of the Bible, I would justify their ideas because I kept thinking, “They are the experts; how could they be wrong?” But they were wrong. It was the wrong town!

Chapter Twelve
ALL OF THEM WERE WRONG!
        It will be helpful here to give a more complete description of Tell Defenneh, which is the Arabic name for the town of Daphnai. Tell Defenneh is in northern Egypt on the eastern side of the Nile Delta (see map at the beginning of Chapter Six) and served as a frontier fort. Pharaoh Psamtik I of the 26th Dynasty built it to house his Greek soldiers (mercenaries) he had employed to guard the road to Syria. This fort was connected to the Nile River by a canal that came right by it and no doubt received its supplies this way. Tell Defenneh came in contact with other groups of people by being on the caravan route to Israel and Syria but, according to Mr. Petrie, the bulk of the population was Greek, “At Defenneh, the bulk of the population seems to have been Greek; Greek pottery abounds….”1 Greek soldiers were stationed there from the founding of the fort in 664 B.C., and remained there until the time of Pharaoh Amases in the year 564 B.C., exactly one hundred years later.2 Jeremiah and the group with him were believed to have gone there about one or two years after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. That would have been during the time the Greek soldiers were there or some 80 years after the fort’s founding and only twenty years before the Greek soldiers were removed.
        I thought there were several reasons for Tell Defenneh being Tahpanhes of the Bible, but this was mainly because everything I read about it said it was. All archaeologists agree on this, including modern Bible scholars. They use the names of Tahpanhes and Tell Defenneh or Daphnai interchangeably, which caused me problems. Bible scholars would say or quote someone else as saying that Jeremiah came to the city of Daphnai, or tell you some ancient book places Tahpanhes at this site. I would then search for the article online or order the book only to find out that the book does not even mention Tahpanhes. And they felt justified in doing this because, in their minds, these towns were one and the same place.
        Also, it was Flinders Petrie who said this site was Tahpanhes and who would disagree with him? His titles alone were impressive, “Sir” Flinders Petrie, “the father of modern archaeology,” and some believe he was the “greatest Egyptologist,” and he was the one who did the excavation there and said it was Tahpanhes. And I could not even qualify as an amateur archaeologist, so who was I to disagree? I had respect for Flinders Petrie, and still do, but I needed to look past all this because Tell Defenneh had been excavated and a search was made for the “great stones” of Jeremiah, but they had come up empty-handed. It was not adding up.
        There were two reasons given by Mr. Petrie3 for why he believed Tell Defenneh was Tahpanhes of the Bible. First was the “brickkiln” of Jeremiah 43:9, where the prophet Jeremiah buried the “great stones” outside of Pharaoh’s palace. The word that is translated brickkiln, in the Hebrew is “brickkiln or brickwork”,4 something that has been made out of bricks. And Mr. Petrie did find a raised brickwork or pavement in front of Pharaoh's house. It was about three feet high by 100 feet long and 70 feet wide and it was sitting on sand. Sometimes he would refer to it as a “mastaba,” a name the Egyptians called it - an open air platform where a caravan might come and sell or unload their goods and transact business. And because this bricked platform was sitting out front of Pharaoh’s palace, he thought this would fit with the Bible account of Jeremiah at the city of Tahpanhes. But if the brickkiln or brickwork was the mastaba, which has not been proven, it certainly was not rare enough in itself to make it an identification for the town of Tahpanhes. Bricked areas have been found out front of other palaces in Egypt (I will say more about this later), but Flinders Petrie himself said that even in his time these brick platforms were common “such as is now seen outside all great houses, and most small ones, in this country.”5
        But his main reason for believing it was the biblical city of Tahpanhes was the name the Bedouins gave this site. I will quote from Mr. Petrie, “There is the remarkable name of the fort, 'The palace of the Jew’s daughter,' no such name is known anywhere else in the whole of Egypt. This is the one town in Egypt to which the 'king’s daughters' of Judah came.”6 These daughters of the king that he is referring to are found in Jeremiah 43:6, where those Jews who fled to Tahpanhes brought with them “the king’s daughters....” These daughters of the king are believed to be the daughters of the last king of Judah, King Zedekiah. King Zedekiah had been taken prisoner by King Nebuchadnezzar and forced to watch while his sons were executed, and then he was led off to Babylon. But his daughters ended up with the group that fled down to Egypt along with the prophet Jeremiah. And these daughters of the king did come to Tahpanhes. The only question is, where was Tahpanhes?
        Before I explain why the name, “The palace of the Jew’s daughter,” is not the proof that it might appear, I want to be clear that no inscription was found in this town with the name Tahpanhes; no ancient map puts Tahpanhes here; and there are no ancient Egyptian records putting Tahpanhes at this site. In fact, the name Tahpanhes in hieroglyphics has never been found on monuments in Egypt or in any of their writings. And though there were others who believed this site was Tahpanhes before Flinders Petrie came there, never did I find one who would offer a reason for this belief. (Note, I did end up finding some before the time of Mr. Petrie who used the book The Pilgrimage of Etheria to prove this, and I will address it later.) I also found those before Mr. Petrie who disagreed, believing Tahpanhes to be one of other possible sites.7 And though I would not agree on their locations, I wanted to show that there was not an agreement on the site of Tahpanhes before Mr. Petrie.
        This might be a good time to ask why Jeremiah did not call this town Daphnai, if he indeed was there. Nor does the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote in 440 B.C., ever call it Tahpanhes, but only Daphnai. Pharaoh Psamtik I who built this fort, would have given his frontier fort an Egyptian name whatever it was, but the site name Daphnai, which is a Greek name, was, in all probability, from the Greek soldiers themselves, and it therefore would have had its name Daphnai at the time Jeremiah was supposed to have been there. But he never calls it this.
        As to the origin of the name Daphnai, some say it was a poor attempt by the Greek soldiers to pronounce the Egyptian name Tahpanhes. (Note: it will be shown later that those who used the Greek language were able to pronounce this name.) But if we accept such a big difference between the two names, Daphnai and Tahpanhes, then we could make almost anything fit. The truth is, this was a common name for the Greek soldiers who inhabited this site and gave it its Greek name Daphnai (also spelled Daphnae). The name Daphne in Greek means “laurel” and was also the name of a well known Greek mythological character, Daphne, and there were ancient cities both in Greece and Syria with this name (Daphnes, Daphne). These Greek soldiers who were stationed there simply gave this site a name they were familiar with, as soldiers sometimes do when stationed at forts in foreign countries.
        Mr. Petrie himself gave no origin for the name Tahpanhes. Instead he refers to Egyptologists Brugsch, Griffith and Tomkins (Tanis II, 1888, p 52). Brugsch held a theory that the name Tahpanhes came from the site name of “Ta-benet.” But Mr. Griffith had problems with Brugsch's theory saying, “The fourteenth nome in a city called Bennut or Ta Bennut. This might well stand for Daphnae [Tahpanhes]. But Bennut seems to be the capital of the nome, and as Tal, which certainly was not the same as Daphnae. In the present state of our knowledge it is perhaps impossible to settle absolutely the hieroglyphic equivalent of Defenneh, Daphnae, Tahpanhes” (Tanis II, 1888, p. 108). Tomkins also disagreed with Brugsch, “As to the place, the suggestion of Brugsch....must be given up, I think since the Theben of which he speaks is shown in the tableau of Seti I, as close to Zar or Zal, whose true position probably was not at Daphnae” (The Academy, September 11, 1886, p. 172). Mr. Tomkins believed the site name of Tahpanhes came from the name of the Queen Tahpenes in I Kings 11:19 (more on this later).
        Mr. Petrie was sure that these Jews would have settled here at Tell Defenneh and were not likely to have gone further into Egypt. He said, “Such refugees would necessarily reach the frontier fort on the caravan road and would there find a mixed and mainly foreign population, Greek, Phoenician, and Egyptian, among whom their presence would not be resented, as it would by the still strictly protectionist Egyptians further in the country. That they would largely, or perhaps mainly, settle there [Tell Defenneh] would be the most natural course; they would be tolerated, they would find a constant communication with their own countrymen, and they would be as near to Judea as they could in safety remain, while they awaited a chance of returning.”8 But the scriptures teach otherwise, “The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros.”9 The location of Migdol is still disputed but everyone says that Noph is Memphis, in the heart of the country, and “the country of Pathros” is central or southern Egypt. These locations were much farther west than the site of Tell Defenneh.
        It would also be good, at this point, to consider why Flinders Petrie said he could not find the “great stones” of Jeremiah. After all, he said this was the town of Tahpanhes and he found a bricked platform in front of what he believed was Pharaoh’s palace, and excavated it looking for the stones that Jeremiah had buried, but did not find them. If he was in the right town he should have found them. He did find small objects such as arrowheads in this platform and even believed that other small objects could have been found before him saying, “That they should be now found after having been buried, is just explained by the denuded [eroded] state of the platform.” The “they” he was referring to were smaller objects that would have been exposed by the erosion of the platform. But he also said, “Unhappily, the great denudation which has gone on has swept away most of this platform, and we could not expect to find the stones whose hiding is described by Jeremiah.”10 But stones would not have eroded, especially if they were large stones as he thought, and where would they have been “swept away”? Except for the mounds of the site, the place is flat in all four directions. Yet he uses this same argument of the “denuded state of the platform,” as a reason why smaller objects could have been found out in the open, and then turns around and uses it again for a reason why bigger objects would not have been found?
        I have read that perhaps the stones were carried off and used by others, as stones were scarce in the desert. But Mr. Petrie found a few small houses built of stones at Tell Defenneh and their stones were left (they are now buried under the sand).
        As to the name, “The palace of the Jew’s daughter,” you can scarcely find an article on Defenneh or Tahpanhes that will not use this to confirm the location of the biblical city of Tahpanhes. The name is admittedly interesting, but we need to consider the following about this name:
        (1) We don’t know whether the Bedouins, who gave this place its name, had their facts straight. It was, after all, an event that had happened almost 2500 years before Flinders Petrie came to Tell Defenneh, and had been passed down by word of mouth.
        (2) We do not know when the site received this name. It could have just as easily been after Jeremiah came to Egypt. There were people at Tell Defenneh even after the Greek soldiers were removed. The Persians stationed a guard there,11 and it is well documented that there were Jews living in Egypt during that time in such places as Elephantine.
        (3) It is not certain that the “Jew’s daughter” must be a king’s daughter, which opens up other possibilities. Marriages between Jews and Egyptians were not something rare and had been going on since the time of Joseph. In I Chronicles 2:34 & 35, an Egyptian slave married an Israelite girl and in I Chronicles 4:18 an Israelite, who is not a king, married the daughter of Pharaoh.
        (4) The only thing we know for sure is that Jeremiah went to Egypt with the king’s “daughters.” So there were at least two of them. But as my wife pointed out to me, the name was “the palace of the Jew’s daughter” (singular), so it would not fit with the “daughters” that Jeremiah brought to Egypt.
        The palace at Tell Defenneh was not large, especially compared to other palaces in Egypt, about 70 feet square,12 and it was not a stopover for foreign fugitives such as the “daughters of the king.”

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 48
2. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51
3. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 50
4. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary, #4404.
5. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 50.
6. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 50.
7. Gill, John. Exposition of the Bible, 1697-1771, note on Ezekiel 30:18. John, Bishop of Nikiu. Chronicles 72:15-18, who wrote at the end of the 7th century AD, translated in 1916 by Text and Translation Society. And Golb, Norman. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3, The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt, University of Chicago Press, July, 1965, p. 269.
8. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 49.
9. Jeremiah 44:10.
10. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 51.
11. Herodotus. Herodotus II, 30, 440 B.C., translated by Campbell, George. 1915.
12. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, plate XLIV.

Chapter Thirteen
   ONE WAS LARGE AND ONE WAS SMALL
When my son, Caleb, and I went to the site of Tell Defenneh, despite my disappointment with this place, there was something I learned from our trip. There was so little there. Tell Defenneh is some mounds of sand, brush and some badly deteriorating bricks. But in the Bible Tahpanhes is a huge place.
        In four places in the scriptures1 the town of Tahpanhes is mentioned alongside of Noph, which the scholars say is Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt. Having Tahpanhes mentioned next to Noph shows the importance it had during that time.
        Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah and wrote during the same time. In Ezekiel 30:13-19 he names the land of Pathros plus eight Egyptian cities including the city of Tahpanhes, which is found in verse 18 and spelled “Tehaphnehes.”

Ezekiel 30:13-19
        v13). Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt. v14). And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No. v15). And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No. v16). And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily. v17). The young men of Aven and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity. v18). At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. v19). Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

        The “modern,” or Greek names of the first six cities are Memphis (Noph), Tanis (Zoan), Thebes (No or Multitude of No), Pelusium (Sin), Bubastis (Pi-beseth) and Heliopolis (Aven), and these are the names that the scholars will give them. The reason they have Greek names is that when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, one of his generals set up a Greek dynasty called Ptolemaic, which lasted for almost three hundred years. It was at this time that the Greeks changed the names of these cities. These first six cities in this list of Ezekiel were all large cities in the days of Jeremiah, leaving you with the impression that for Tahpanhes to have been mentioned there, it would have to have been on equal footing with them.
        And these other cities have all had beautiful large stone temples found in them, some having multiple temples in them. They were all the capitals of their nome (or province), and at least three of them, at one time, were the capital of the entire country: Memphis, Thebes and Tanis. All six of these cities have been excavated and large tooled stones were found at these sites, in most cases in abundance, with obelisks, pillars and statues of Pharaohs still lying there today. On the other hand, Tell Defenneh (Daphnai) has none of these. Mr. Petrie said that Tell Defenneh had a large wall around the fort, what few traces remained of it, but it has eroded away, being made of mud bricks. The site only had three mounds; the main one being the fort and the palace, both made out of mud bricks, and the other two covered by sand, one from Ptolemaic times and the other from Roman times.2 These last two mounds did not exist in the time of Jeremiah the prophet, coming hundreds of years later. Today you will find no stones lying there on the ground, no statues, etc., only a few pieces of broken clay pots, some very deteriorated mud bricks and sand. Mr. Petrie found no stone temple there, though he searched for one. “I searched in every direction for stone chips or broad walls that would indicate the site of a Greek temple, but was unsuccessful.”3 (A temple has recently {2009} been found at Tell Defenneh, but it had only been made out of mud bricks and has eroded away. I am not belittling the significance of this find, but such a temple would not compare to the beautiful stone temples found in the other cities mentioned before.) And Tell Defenneh was never the capital of even its nome. To try and compare Tell Defenneh to these other six large cities would be like comparing Miami, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles with little old Fort Laramie. It just does not fit. If Tahpanhes was a small city, then it would have been the only one in this list that was.
        Sir Flinders Petrie quoted from the Apocrypha book of Judith 1:9-10 (1st century B.C.), which mentions the city of Tahpanhes. This is an account of a hero named Judith, where a foreign king, whose empire includes Egypt, writes to specific cities in his kingdom. Flinders Petrie quotes4 from it to show the importance that was placed on the city of Tahpanhes by the writer of the book of Judith, and I agree. Only three Egyptian cities are named in this book (four if “Ramses” is a city instead of a land5) with Tahpanhes being one of them, giving you the impression, it must be one of the biggest in the country. But if Tahpanhes was Daphnai (Tell Defenneh) then the book of Judith should have also mentioned Pelusium because it was a much larger city than Daphnai, with a much larger fort and it was in the same area.
        There was a Phoenician letter written on papyrus about the year 570 B.C. which talks about “Baal Saphon and all the gods of Tahpanhes....”6 This has been used to try and establish the location of Baal-zephon that was mentioned in Exodus 14:2. They would believe that this god, Baal-zaphon, is the main god of Tahpanhes (which they believe is Tell Defenneh) and therefore another possible name of the city. But if Tell Defenneh was this city, Mr. Petrie should have found a number of temples there for “all the gods of Tahpanhes.”
        In connection with this, there is The Pilgrimage of Etheria, (whose author is also known by the names Silvia and Egeria, written in 385 A.D.) and translated by McClure, 1918. She tells about her trip to the Holy Land including the Sinai desert and Egypt. The Pilgrimage of Etheria has been used to try and make Tahpanhes fit with the location of Tell Defenneh (Daphnai). Etheria talks about visiting a city named “Tatnis,” while in the Nile delta. Some see the city of Tanis in this name while others the city of Tahpanhes (which they believe is Tell Defenneh). These two ancient cities, Tanis and Tell Defenneh, were about twenty miles apart. She said, “Through the land of Goshen continuously, we arrived at Tatnis, the city where holy Moses was born. This city of Tatnis was once Pharaoh’s metropolis.” As to Moses being born at Tanis, some do believe this. But no one believes Moses was born at Tell Defenneh. And this city being “once Pharaoh’s metropolis” was true of Tanis, but again, no one believes this of Tell Defenneh.

ENDNOTES
1. Jeremiah 44:1, 46:14, Ezekiel 30:13-18, and Jeremiah 2:16.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 79, plate. XLIII.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 60
4. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 50.
5. Genesis 47:11, Exodus 1:11.
6. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, pp. 432-460.

Chapter Fourteen
FALSE THEORIES ABOUT TELL DEFENNEH
        Psamtik I of the 26th Dynasty built the fort of Tell Defenneh, some 780 years after Baal-zephon is mentioned in the Bible, or about 664 B.C. Flinders Petrie said, “The evidence from dated objects seems against any earlier fort having been ruined and built over again. The foundation deposits which were well beneath the corners of the foundation, lower down than the bases of any of the chambers, bore the cartouches [a royal name inside of an oblong enclosure] of Psamtik I, so the building could hardly be earlier than his reign”1 (There has been some finds in the area that point to the outer walls being before the time of the fort built by Psamtik I, but still not dating back to the time of the Exodus and Baal-zephon.)
         Flinders Petrie also quotes the Greek historian Herodotus (440 B.C.), who said Pharaoh Sesostris had been invited to a banquet by his brother at Daphnai, which would imply that a town existed hundreds of years before Psamtik built his fort at Tell Defenneh. But I am surprised that Mr. Petrie used this account or that Herodotus gave it. It simply is not believable. I will give it here and you decide.
        “As this Egyptian Sesostris was returning and bringing back many men the nations whose lands he had subdued, when he came, said the priests, to Daphnai in the district of Pelusium on his journey home, his brother to whom Sesostris had entrusted the charge of Egypt invited him and with him his sons to a feast; and then he piled the house round with brushwood and set it on fire: and Sesostris when he discovered this forthwith took counsel with his wife, for he was bringing with him, they said, his wife also, and she counseled him to lay out upon the pyre two of his sons, which were six in number, and so to make a bridge over the burning mass, and that they passing over their bodies should thus escape. This, they said, Sesostris did, and two of his sons were burnt to death in this manner, but the rest got away safe with their father.” This was the complete account.2
        Some believe Sesostris is a mythical figure, but since Flinders Petrie used this I thought it good for you to hear another account, but more believable and with a notable difference. There was another Greek historian, Diodorus, in 50 B.C., who also wrote about this same event and said that instead of Sesostris sacrificing two of his six sons to be burnt alive, they all ran through the flames and thus escaped, but this was all said to be done at “Pelusion,” twenty miles from Daphnai.3 With this said, there is no evidence of a city existing at Tell Defenneh at the time of the Exodus (1450 B.C.). This would eliminate Baal-zephon being at the site of Tell Defenneh, (more on this later).
        A number of Bible commentaries believe the name of the town Tahpanhes comes from an Egyptian queen with a similar, but not identical, name. She is found in I Kings 11:19-20 and is a contemporary of King David; her name is “Tahpenes.” But today, this theory of Tahpanhes being named after Queen Tahpenes is no longer the main belief. And so far, a queen with the name Tahpenes has not been found in Egyptian documents. However, it is interesting that the Jews seem to know who she is. She is the only Egyptian queen named in the Old Testament and her name is given three times in I Kings 11:19-20. Even her husband, who is Pharaoh, is not named. And in the text, she is not the subject, but her name is given to help you understand who everyone else was in relationship to her. Whoever she was, she had to be someone well known to Israel.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 54.
2. Herodotus. Herodotus II, 107, 440 B.C., translated by Campbell, George. 1915.
3. Diodorus, Siculus. Diodorus Book I, translation by Booth, Esq. G. 1814. chapter IV, pp. 61-62.

Chapter Fifteen
FINDING SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE
        No city or queen in Egypt has been found with this spelling (Tahpanhes). Part of the problem is that neither the ancient Hebrew nor Egyptian hieroglyphics used vowels. They of course did use vowels when they were speaking, but not for writing. The Hebrew vowel pointing with its small marks written above or below the consonants that the Hebrew language has, came about in the Middle Ages. And the translators, when working with the Egyptian hieroglyphics, will add vowels according to how they think the word would have been pronounced. That is why it is possible to get a number of spellings for one word. For example, the Egyptian sun god “Ra” is sometimes given as “Re.” When it comes to the vowels, some translators, depending on whom you talk to, will plainly tell you they are not sure, while others leave you with the impression they are fairly certain. Some translators will look to the Coptic or Greek languages, which did have vowels, to see how they spelled the names of the Egyptian cities. But those with these languages, which record place names in Egypt, did so often hundreds of years after the first time a site was named in hieroglyphics, and so cannot solve many of the problems. And the Bible, being written over hundreds of years, will give you the name of a city as it is pronounced at one time and may give another spelling later as the name changes. And some of the Egyptian consonants were also silent. And, of course, every foreign language has words that are hard to pronounce.
        There was a similar problem in Mr. Petrie's day. “The transliteration of Egyptian words varies so much in the usage of the best scholars, that any single system which could be followed would be but in a small minority. The only system ever formally agreed to by authorities in general is perhaps less followed than any other. Persons not familiar with the literature of Egyptology readily suppose that some system must prevail, and may therefore be confused by finding a different name to what they happen to be familiar with.”1
        I also need to add something here about why it is so hard to nail down a site name. We don't have a lot to go by. It's not like you can walk into a library that is over two thousand years old and pull something off the shelf. Instead, you are left with the ancient writings that have managed to survive, which often will not mention your site or may even be contradictory. So what little you may find on the city you are looking for (which outside the Bible is very little for Tahpanhes) has to be looked at from every angle, with a lot of reasoning in between. (It is of interest that the name Tahpanhes is given twice in the Dead Sea Scrolls.2 The section that deals with Tahpanhes loosely follows the Bible account of Jeremiah and the Jews being in Egypt but is much shorter. There is some new information in the scroll but not about the site of Tahpanhes itself, the date of the scroll is believed to be before the time of Christ.)
        Since just looking for a name that looked or sounded like the biblical city of Tahpanhes was not likely to find the site, I tried to think of other ways to narrow down the selection. My wife Nancy thought that perhaps the cities of Ezekiel 30:13-18 were listed from south to north or vice-versa but that is not the case. Instead the Bible starts with site of Noph, which is in the center of the country.
Tahpanhes was very large.
        While looking at all the Bible had to say about this city of Tahpanhes, it became apparent that not only was it large but it was very large! Consider the following.
        (1) In Jeremiah 2:16, where it talks about judgment that came upon Israel, it only names two Egyptian places that took part in this. “Also the children of Noph and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of thy head.” Even if someone did not know what location Noph was believed to be (Memphis), you could not help but get the impression that these two cities were the largest and most powerful in Egypt, for they are the only ones named.
        (2) There is not another Egyptian city in the Bible that is named more than the city of Tahpanhes, named seven times in the scriptures. This is not counting the queen by this name, nor the city of “Hanes” (Isaiah 30:4), which many believe to be a contraction of the name Tahpanhes. By contrast the city of “Pi-beseth” (Bubastum) is only given one time in the scriptures, and the city of “Sin” (Pelusium) is given just twice. Both of these cities are in the list of the seven largest cities of Egypt in Ezekiel 30:13-19. Even the name of “Noph” is only given seven times, and it is believed to be the city of Memphis. The next most named city is “Zoan” (Tanis, the capital of Egypt during the 21st Dynasty) which is given five times (There are two more times but it is the “field [country] of Zoan” and not the city.) I believe that knowing the size and importance of these other cities, one would expect Memphis to be named the most, but not Tell Defenneh. It is true that one of the reasons Tahpanhes is mentioned so much in the Bible is because of the Jews who are living there, but so is Noph at least one time.3 But this was not the reason Tahpanhes is named with Noph in Jeremiah 2:16 or with the other six cities of Ezekiel 30:13-19.
        (3) In Ezekiel, Chapter 30 where the seven Egyptian cities are listed, Tahpanhes has the most said about it, and the description of this city is of a very large place. “At Tehaphnehes [Tahpanhes] also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity” (Ezekiel 30:18). There is no other Egyptian city in the Bible that has any one of these things said about it. I will expand on these three things - “her daughters,” “yokes of Egypt,” and “pomp of her strength,” - as they are used in scripture, and it will be obvious that Tahpanhes could not be Tell Defenneh.
                (a) In such a context in the Bible, it is not uncommon for the word “daughter” to be used as an expression for a city or cities; “the daughter of Jerusalem,” the “daughter of Tarshish,” “the daughter of my people,” or “thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwelt at thy left hand.”4 “When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.”5 Tahpanhes would have to be large enough to have “daughters” or other cities dwelling around it. The largest cities in Egypt are believed to be in Ezekiel 30, but only Tahpanhes is said to have these cities “daughters” around it. But if Tell Defenneh had these other cities around it, then where are they?
                (b) God said at Tahpanhes that He would “break the yokes of Egypt.” In the Bible the yokes of a person, king, or a country meant that someone was ruling over another. “[A]nd shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck,”6 and “saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck....”7 Here the Lord was speaking to Israel of a future time when it would not be under the control of a foreigner. “I will afflict thee [Judah or Jerusalem] no more. For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder.”8 There are many more such passages in the Bible and they refer to someone or some nation lording it over another. And God said at Tahpanhes he would “break the yokes of Egypt.” This would best fit Memphis, which was the first capital, the traditional and most enduring capital of Egypt, and when not the capital, because of its size and location, remained the political and administrative center. However, the city of Sais was at this time (when Jeremiah was there) the home of the 26th Dynasty, and cannot be overlooked as a possibility. But how could Tell Defenneh be Tahpanhes of the Bible, where God said He would “break the yokes of Egypt”? Tell Defenneh was not ruling over anyone! This could not be referring to Tell Defenneh that was never the capital of even its nome. Again no other Egyptian city in the Bible is given such a description.
                (c) Also no other Egyptian city in the Bible is said to have “pomp.” Some would see in “pomp of her strength,” the pride of her fort, because it was a large fort. But some twenty miles northeast of Tell Defenneh was the city of Pelusium whose fort was much larger, believed by some to be the largest in Egypt. If such an expression was in reference to the pride of their fort's strength, then it would have been said of Pelusium, not Tell Defenneh. There are two more times when the word “pomp” is used in connection with this country. “[T]hey shall spoil the pomp of Egypt,...”9 but as you can see this is in reference to all of Egypt. Also “Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down….”10 The word “pride” in this verse, in the Hebrew, is the same word translated the “pomp” of Tahpanhes in Ezekiel 30:18, and the word “power” is the same word translated “strength.” It is in fact the same expression as “pomp of her strength” as found in the Ezekiel 30 passage about the city of Tahpanhes. And again, it is in reference to the whole nation. And so, are we to believe little Tell Defenneh is supposed to merit such an expression as “pomp of her strength,” but no other city in Egypt could, not even Memphis, but only the whole nation itself? As to the word “pomp,” this has the meaning of “excellency, majesty, pomp, pride.”11 It is talking about a royal city, not a desert fort for Greek mercenaries! Such a description would best fit a city like Memphis, Tanis, Sais or Thebes that at one time ruled all of Egypt. Of course, this would not fit Tell Defenneh.
        I had considered other towns in Egypt for the site of Tahpanhes, but the largest cities of Egypt at the time of Jeremiah were already believed to be those in Ezekiel, Chapter 30. I was left with the possibility that Tahpanhes was one of them. I did not want to consider this. In other words, do the scholars have the right Greek names matched up with the towns in the Bible? It would be hard enough for some people to believe that Tahpanhes was not the site of Tell Defenneh without changing more cities around, and the chance of making mistakes along the way would increase, as would criticism.
        Someone might say, “So, you are the only one on the planet that is right?” In truth, no one else believes that Tahpanhes is the city I believe, not now, and not in any ancient writings that I know of. But I will go with what we have found and we have more than theories; we ended up finding the stones buried by the prophet Jeremiah. I will tell you now which city I believe Tahpanhes to be, and the evidence is more and stronger than for Tell Defenneh being Tahpanhes. I believe Tahpanhes is Memphis, the ancient metropolis of northern Egypt.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 96.
2. Wise, Abegg and Cook, Dead Sea Scrolls, A New Translation, Harper Collins Publishers, 1999, 4Q384-5b.
3. Jeremiah 44:1.
4. Ezekiel 16:46.
5. Ezekiel 16:55.
6. Genesis 27:40.
7. Jeremiah 30:8.
8. Nahum 1:12-13.
9. Ezekiel 32:12.
10. Ezekiel 30:6.
11. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary #1347.

Chapter Sixteen
“WHO, IS ON FIRST BASE!”
Before I explain why Tahpanhes is Memphis, I need to explain why Memphis is not “Noph,” as all today believe (please see map at the beginning of Chapter Six). There are two Bible names that people believe represent the site of Memphis. They are “Noph” and “Moph,” with most people believing that Noph is a corruption of the name Moph. And a few think that Noph is a corruption of Na-Ptah, “They of Ptah,” Ptah being the main god of Memphis and thus another name for this city. But such a name has not been found, according to A Dictionary of the Bible: Volume III, 1902, by James Hasting, p.487. “This name however, does not seem to have been in actual use in native documents to denote a place or a people.”
        (In connection with Ptah being the main god of Memphis, there is a theory about the Phoenician letter that refers to the god “Baal Saphon.” Some believe the reason he is the only deity named in this letter is because he would have been the main god of Tahpanhes. If this theory is true, those who worshiped this idol identified Baal-zaphon with Ptah,1 so it would fit to have Baal-zaphon (Ptah) as the main god of Tahpanhes. Though I do not agree with this belief, I will discuss this Phoenician letter in a later chapter.)
        There were some who at one time thought that Noph might be Napata, the ancient capital of Nubia, which the Bible calls Ethiopia. But in Ezekiel 30:13-19 where Noph is named twice, the passage clearly refers to Egypt. The name Egypt is given six times in this passage, but never the name of Ethiopia. There are more theories on where the place name Noph came from, but I will spare you those. I only thought it good for you to see that there is no agreement on where this name originated, which emphasizes the uncertainty about it.
        The Encyclopedia Biblica, A Dictionary of the Bible, Volume III, 1902, has some interesting comments on these place names Noph and Moph. “Strangely, the correct orthography is found in MT [Masoretic or Hebrew text] only in one passage, Hos. 9:6, where Moph...The name of the city is written in Egyptian Mn-nfr? Vocalized Men-nofer, later Men-nufe or shortened Men-nefe, Menfe. Targum Mephis, Assyrian Mempi, Mimpi. The Copts wrote Menbe, Membe, Memf, Mefe, whence Arabic Manf (sometimes Munf?) and later Maphe. Thus we should expect the pronunciation Memp in Hebrew; the present punctuation Moph, Noph needs explanation.”
        The Greek name Memphis came from the city's ancient name of Men-nefer becoming Mn-nfr, Menfi, Memfi, or Membi in late Egyptian. Again, the Egyptian hieroglyphics did not use vowels. Also their r was almost silent and dropped by the Assyrians and Copts, and is not found in the Arabic and Targum. The Hebrew Bible transliterated the Egyptian f with ph, hence “Moph.” But I found no one who gave the ancient name for Memphis as beginning with the letter N except those who believe it should also be “Noph.”
        These two may sound like a brothers’ comedy team, “Moph & Noph,” but they are not related! Moph is translated as “Memphis” in our English Bible (Hosea 9:6 KJV), but they did not translate “Noph” to Memphis, showing that the translators had doubts about this. The Jews already used “Moph” for Memphis in Hosea 9:6, which was more than 40 years before the first time “Noph” is mentioned in Isaiah 19:13. They could hear the M in Memfi and there would be no reason to start changing this name to have an N on the front to become Noph, especially since no one else (Assyrians, Copts, Arabs, etc.) pronounced this city with the letter N.
        In the Jewish religion, there is a well-known text called the Haggadah, that gives the order of the Passover. It is to be read every year at the Passover, and it says, “Thou didst sweep the land [soil] of Moph and Noph, when thou didst pass through on the Passover.”2 Tradition has this text being compiled during the Talmudic period, or roughly the 2nd century. But today we read that Noph was another way the Jews had to pronounce Memphis, or it was a “corruption,” “variant,” “error,” etc. These all basically say the same thing, that for whatever reason, the Jews had two ways to pronounce the same place, either Noph or Moph. But for at least 1,800 years, the Haggadah has had it as two different places, “Moph and Noph.”
        Up till now, I had been following the belief that Noph was a city, but I now believed it was an area within the borders of Egypt. The Monumental History of Egypt, Vol. II, 1854, by William Osburn, p. 218, quotes an inscription of Pharaoh Thothmosis that was on the walls of a palace at Karnak. The name Noph is found here with the “determinative” (which in the hieroglyphics explains how the word is to be understood) for a “desert or foreign land,” not the determinative for a city. But Mr. Osburn, of course, believed as everyone else did, that Noph was the city of Memphis. Why then does it have the determinative for land? He said, “This mode of writing the name of a city in Egypt denotes it to have been at that time in the hands of another power.” Later on p. 260, he talks about a red granite monument found at Thebes. On this monument it tells about a battle fought in “the land of Noph,” and then on p. 263 it is the “district of Noph,” again the determinative for both of these is for a “desert or foreign land,” not the one used for a city. Mr. Osburn is then forced to conclude, “By the Noph of the inscription before us we are to understand the city of Memphis with its surrounding nome or province,” p. 261.
        I could see Memphis being a city in the “land of Noph,” (“surrounding nome or province”), just as Los Angeles is a city in the state of California, but not one and the same place. I have asked different archaeologists if the name Noph has ever been found with the determinative for a city, and up until now, no one has been able to confirm this. I have been told, “But all the prominent archaeologists believe that Noph was Memphis.” Yes, but that is not the question I asked. Perhaps somewhere there exists the name Noph with the determinative for a city, or even without a determinative, as I have been told is possible. It may be possible that it is both a city and a land, but of the only three times I have been able to find the name in Egyptian hieroglyphics, it has the determinative for a land.
The nome of Memphis was Aneb-Hetch (White Wall) but names can be shortened. The abbreviation of names was an ancient practice also found in the Bible, as the city of “Ijeaba-rim” is found with the spelling of “Iim” (Numbers 33:44–45), or Jerusalem as “Salem” (Psalms 76:2). If Mr. Osburn was right, that Noph, was the “city of Memphis with its surrounding nome or province.” Then “Aneb” would make a shorten form of Aneb-Hetch and the vowels are conjecture, hence “nb”, but is “nph” (Noph) what the Hebrew heard?
        I did not anticipate some of the responses to my question about the place name Noph, such as, “It only exists in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament.” This was surprising to me, because the place name Noph has been found, and it is recorded three times in the book The Monumental History of Egypt, Vol. II. Because I had been concentrating on this one aspect of archaeology and only on a few place names, I was begging to know some things that archaeologists do not.
        Still, I found some of their responses surprising. I had corresponded with one archaeologist about the place name Noph, and I had said out of despair that apparently they had not been able to find the name Noph anywhere in Egypt. The unexpected response was, “That is correct.” This archaeologist had checked a current reference book that lists all ancient Egyptian place names identified to date. But not only has the name Noph been found three times in Egyptian hieroglyphics, it is always with the determinative for a land! This being so, it would mean that Memphis (Moph) is only recorded once in the Bible, unless it is, as I believe, also called Tahpanhes. It will be explained later at which time periods the city used which name and why, but because it was the largest city in Egypt and in close proximity to Judah (not hundreds of miles away in southern Egypt), one would naturally expect this city to be named the most.
        The name “Pathros” in the Bible is for the land of southern Egypt, but most of the times this name is given, it is not called a land or a country. Also, the name “Sheba,” believed to be a foreign land or country, is mentioned 17 times in the Bible (which also includes references to “Queen of Sheba,” “Kings of Sheba,” “merchants of Sheba,” as well as listings with other countries) and only one time is it called a land or a country. It should not be surprising, then, if Noph is a land but never is called that in the Bible (but neither is it called a city). Someone might have a problem making Noph a land because it is spoken of in parallel next to a known city, “Surely the princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived...”3 but compare this with the land of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, “The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem....”4 This also shows that to have “princes,” a location does not have to be a city, but can be a land such as Judah. Again “Also the children of Noph and Tahpanhes...”5 compare this with “the children of Judah and Jerusalem....”6
        The next city is not tied into finding the biblical city of Tahpanhes, but I give it here for those who think as I once did, “The scholars can't be wrong.” In the Bible there is an Egyptian city referred to as the “multitude of No” and “populous No.”7 Most modern scholars believe this to be the city of Thebes. Thebes was the largest city in southern Egypt and was located about 400 miles south of modern day Cairo. The reason modern day scholars identify “multitude of No” or “populous No” with Thebes is because this word “multitude/populous” in the Hebrew can be pronounced “amown,” which they believe to be the god “Amun,” whose main cult center was at the city of Thebes. If the word “multitude” should be translated into the god named Amun, then there was another city in Egypt (Pelusium) that was also known as the city of Amun, believed to have had the largest fort in Egypt and which would fit the description of “populous No” that is given in the Bible, something that will not work with Thebes.
        Nahum 3:8, “Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?”
        “Populous No” was “situate among the rivers,” but Thebes had only one river, the Nile, which ran through the center of the city and thus did not have “waters round about it.” And “populous No” had the sea for one of its walls - “her wall was from the sea” - but Thebes had no sea anywhere near it. People who use this passage to refer to Thebes will say that this Hebrew word “sea” sometimes refers to a large river like the Nile. But the verse was already talking about “rivers” (plural). Why switch to the word “sea” (singular)?
        The prophet Nahum mentions the city of “populous No” to make a comparison between that city’s defenses and the well fortified Assyrian city of Nineveh, against whom the passage was written. It is true that some years before this prophecy, the Assyrians had taken Thebes, but all of Egypt fell to them, not just the city of Thebes. Nahum wanted to remind them that even “populous No” with all its natural defenses still fell. “Art thou (Nineveh) better than populous No?” In what way “better”? It is not in reference to wealth, influence, or size as some have imagined, but where it was “situate among the rivers.” It had the world's largest moat with “waters round about it.” Nahum 3:10 says, “Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity….” The whole point was to tell Nineveh that she should not trust in her armies or strong defensive position, with the Tigris River running along her west wall and a ridge on her east, plus a moat. God would judge them unless they would turn from their sins, something they had done over 150 years earlier after the preaching of Jonah.
        The prominent belief today is that populous No was Thebes. The vast majority (at least 90%) of Bible scholars believe this. It is an eye-opener when you learn what their reasons are for making "populous" “No” the city of Thebes. They will either ignore its description found in Nahum 3:8 or force their interpretation. There are so-called “higher critics” that say that Jeremiah was just not “familiar” with Thebes. Perhaps he was not familiar with Thebes, but the geography of Egypt, coupled with this city being next to the sea, would have made it the nearest to Judah. Besides, in the context, the message came from God, “saith the LORD of hosts….” (Nahum 3:5) Others who do believe in divine inspiration of scriptures, and who hold to Thebes as being Amon or populous No, will tell you that this city had canals in it. Yes, but they did not go “around” it. The only thing around Thebes is desert and mountains. Again, Thebes had only one river, the Nile, and it went through the center of the city! Some have gone so far as to say that Thebes was surrounded by water for it had the Red Sea to the east (100 miles away) and the Mediterranean Sea to the north (500 miles away)! With such an interpretation I could make any city in Egypt fit!
        There are two times in the Bible when a city of Egypt is called “No” without the word “multitude” attached to it: Ezekiel 30:14 and 16, and this seems to be Thebes, as the Assyrians also call Thebes “Ni,”10 but they did not call it “multitude of Ni” or “Amun of Ni.”

ENDNOTES
1. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 454.
2. Meagher, James L. How Christ Said the First Mass, 1908, Haggadah p. 431.
3. Isaiah 19:13.
4. Jeremiah 34:19.
5. Jeremiah 2:16.
6. II Chronicles 28:10.
7. Ezekiel 30:15, 46:25, Nahum 3:8.
8. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary # 527-528.
9. Nahum 3:7.
10. Sayce, A. H. Assyrians Its Princes, Priests, and People, 1891, p. 51.

Chapter Seventeen
WHAT GOOD WILL COME FROM FINDING THESE STONES?
        A different subject here will be easier to concentrate on and better lead into what I will discuss next, which is, “What good will it do?” I suppose someone could have asked that when Moses first brought the Ten Commandments down off Mt. Sinai and three thousand people died because of their idolatry.1
        The Bible says “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”2 Some believe it is a waste of time to show people evidence to get them to believe, for if they believe not the Bible (“Moses and the prophets”) even if someone rose from the dead, they would not believe. This application was not meant for everyone. Lazarus rose from the dead, and “many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.”3 God is not obligated to do this, nor is He our personal magician to work miracles for us at our will. But when He wants, there are times when He will do things such as the resurrection of Lazarus or smaller things to help the unbelief of some. And it is true that if someone does not want to believe he will not, even if God would work a miracle. We are told not to cast our “pearls before swine.” The chief priests did not believe when Lazarus was raised from the dead. Instead they wanted to kill him and Jesus.4 And it is more blessed to believe without seeing Lazarus or Christ raised from the dead, yet the Lord said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed....”5 I am not teaching you should seek a sign,6 nor do I know how many this would help, or for whom God would allow such. In truth, I believe we should put the focus on studying the theology of the Bible. But there is an incredible amount of information in the Old Testament about Egypt and the cities there, and it was given to us by God! There are things that are “weightier matters” than biblical archaeology. Christ said this in reference to the weightier matters of the Law of God, but just because some things in the Bible are less “weightier” than other things, that doesn’t mean we should ignore them. “these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matthew 23:23). With this said, what is wrong with trying to explain some things to people and giving them reasons to believe? The field of archaeology has been used by some to turn people away from the truth of God's Word. There are books that will strengthen your faith and there are books that will take your faith away. I am not against science but there exist “oppositions of science falsely so called.”7 Many of the reasons I have given, and will give, come right out of the Bible and these things were not written in vain, so hopefully they will show how accurate God's Word is.
        Harm is also possible. Objects in and of themselves do not bring blessings. They should not be bowed down to nor worshiped.8 God, who is a Spirit, wants us to worship Him in spirit; we do not need things (substitutes or idols) to worship God.9 I am not a prophet and I cannot foretell the future except by what has already been given in the Bible. Nor will I be giving any “new revelation,” or “oracle,” as God has not added one word to the Bible in 2,000 years. So, what was the original purpose of these “great stones” buried by Jeremiah in Tahpanhes? They were to show that God was going to judge the “remnant of Judah,” and the “Egyptians.” The Devil would like us to think that “God will not judge sin, surely not in the 21st century.” Or would He? We cannot think it will never happen to us. There are consequences for sinning. The New Testament talks of God judging sin. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Hebrew 12:6-11)
        “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2) The stones buried by the prophet Jeremiah will not help anyone get closer to God, but they are a reminder that God judges sin, either on the cross or on those who do not seek forgiveness. However, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:8-9) You can “draw nigh to God,” and the Bible adds, “He will draw nigh to you.” (James 4:7-10) When I was 23 years old I said, “Yes, Lord, I believe in you.” And I trusted Him to forgive all my sins and to take me to heaven when I die. Right now, you could bow your heart towards God and ask His Son, Jesus Christ, to cleanse you and give you His gift of eternal life. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” Romans 10:13.
        The greatest possibility of what was buried by Jeremiah was the Ten Commandments. These were the ones that God's finger actually touched, kept inside the innermost room of the temple “called the Holiest of all,” and that were kept inside the Ark. There are ministers today who want to be only “positive.” Today there are some churches that are so positive that they will no longer teach the Ten Commandments, which are considered too negative; because most start with “Thou shalt not….” The Ten Commandments were given to show us we need a savior, not to make us feel good about ourselves. How could a person ask Christ to come into his heart, but not repent of his sins? God’s Word says, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”10 In many churches today it is acceptable to exhort or be longsuffering, but not to “reprove” or “rebuke.” But before you can plant, you must root out the weeds. I am not talking about being ugly or holier than thou, but when you love somebody enough, you will tell him what he needs to hear. Instead, many today are looking for preachers who will tell them what they want to hear; not what the Bible says. I like preaching on the love of God, but the Bible says “reprove, rebuke” and then “exhort.”
        Suppose you are at home and your son runs in and shows you his hand that has been cut open, with dirt and glass in his wound. You rush to the doctor and he immediately begins to put a bandage on it. And you say, “Hey, Doc, shouldn't you clean it out first?”
        “No,” he says, “I have taken a survey and found people like to hear positive things.” Your son smiles when he hears this.
        But you insist, “Doc, you don't understand. His wound has glass and dirt in it! If you don't open it up and clean it out, it will become infected.”
        The doctor says, “Now don't be so negative. What I am doing is the easiest for the both of us. Besides, do you have any idea how much pain it would cause your son to open up his wound?”
        Your son is now pleading with you, “Listen to the nice doctor.”
        But a real doctor would have said, “Son, this may hurt a little, but if we do it right, it will be as good as new.”

ENDNOTES
1. Exodus 32:28.
2. Luke 16:31.
3. John 12:9-11.
4. John 12:10.
5. John 20:29.
6. Matthew 12:39.
7. I Timothy 6:20-21.
8. Exodus 20:4-5.
9. John 4:24.
10. II Timothy 4:1-4

Author and wife at Oxford

Chapter Eighteen
OXFORD AND RESEARCH THAT LED US TO PROOF WE WERE SEEKING
The university town of Oxford, with its archaeological libraries, turned out to be both fun and informative. It has been fun searching through excavation reports of once buried cities and reading ancient historians from 1,000 to 2,500 years ago. Through all of this, my perception of ancient Egypt has changed from one of a mysterious place to a country that had ordinary people, but with really different religious beliefs. Not only did they worship many gods but even Pharaohs, and they also worshiped animals! If you have seen pictures of their idols, you would noticed that many of them have animal heads. They not only had mummies for kings, queens, and priests, but also for animals - everything from cats to cows. There is a city named Tebtynis about 70 miles south of Cairo where they found over 1,000 crocodile mummies! But I will leave all this and get back to our quest, finding the stones of Jeremiah.

Dinner with my sweetheart.
        Nancy and I went to Oxford, England, where we spent parts of four days, January 9-12, 2008. We had corresponded with a secretary there, who was to set aside some books and articles for us to make the best use of our time. The two main places where we looked through books were at the Taylor and the Sackler Libraries. Oxford is a fun place and during breaks from our study we would take walks through the city and look at the sights. We got to see some rare books and brought back five articles that I have put in for translation, including the Phoenician letter about “all the gods of Tahpanhes,” which with the notes includes about 30 pages. I especially wanted this complete Phoenician letter because I hoped it might have more to it and even possibly help identify the site. Our first week back from this trip left me less than encouraged, thinking all I had done was just prove where not to look. But as more articles were translated, more information was gained.
        One of the things I went to Oxford for was to confirm or deny the accuracy of a certain article I had read about an archaeologist named Jean Cledat, who supposedly found a stone temple at Tell Defenneh. This article turned out to be wrong;1 the only temple he found was at Pelusium.
        In connection with this there is a stela that was found at Tell Defenneh and used as proof by some that a temple had been there. But what Mr. Petrie said of this stela raises doubts about a temple. “Just outside of the wall, lying on its edge, is half of a great sandstone stela, probably of Psamtik I, which states that it was dedicated in the temple of Khem. But it would be strange if a temple should be built so close against the camp wall. Yet this seems as if it were the original place of the stela, as many flakes and blocks broken from it, lie all around it.”2 The only towns or locations that are mentioned on this stela are “Sais,” “Coptos,” “Khem,” and the land of “Punt,” but Daphnai is not mentioned. Line 15 talks about a temple but plainly states it is in another city, “the temple of Sais.” The only other sentence that talks about a temple is the last one. “His Majesty commanded to set up this tablet of white bennu stone in the temple of Khem, lord of…Coptos...of Khem...making it stand there for ever!” Mr. Griffith, who gave the interpretation of the stela, is even less hopeful, “The inscription is so fragmentary that but little can be certainly made out of its purport.” He then throws cold water on the idea of a temple being at Daphani (Tell Defenneh). “No distinct reason appears for its being found at Defenneh. The last lines mention an extraordinary fall of rain in the Red Sea district, the land of Punt. Perhaps it was in commemoration of this that a copy of the stela, if not this stela itself, was set up at the representative city of Coptos.”3
        If you are wondering what all the fuss is about not finding a stone temple at Tell Defenneh, it has to do with the Phoenician letter, which mentions “all the gods of Tahpanhes.” If Tell Defenneh were Tahpanhes there should have been several temples there for “all” these gods, but though searches have been made there by both Flinders Petrie and others after him, not a single stone temple has been found.
        There were a multitude of idols worshiped all over Egypt, but it follows that there would also be a number of temples at Tahpanhes. In Jeremiah 43:9, where it records the burying of the “great stones” in the city of Tahpanhes, the next verse says King Nebuchadnezzar's throne would sit above these stones. It would in effect have been his headquarters while in Egypt. Then in verse 11 it tells us he would “smite” Egypt, and send “death,” “captivity,” “and the sword.” However, there was more to be fulfilled in this prophetic sign than the death and captivity predicted in verse 11. In verse 12 it says that God would use Nebuchadnezzar to destroy “the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them....” This may have been the reason why Nebuchadnezzar chose to have his throne sitting outside of the palace instead of inside, because the palace may have been burned also, as well as the temples (“houses of the gods”). Of the seven cities listed in Ezekiel 30:13-18, only of this city is it said, “At Tehaphnehes [Tahpanhes] also the day shall be darkened...a cloud shall cover her.” If a large city with all of her temples burns, you may well have the sky darkened and covered by a cloud. Nebuchadnezzar was not on a goodwill tour, but had come to destroy; and in particular, to burn the temples of the gods of Egypt. Twice in Jeremiah 43:12-13 it says that Nebuchadnezzar would burn the temples of the gods of Egypt. Would it not be expected of Nebuchadnezzar, therefore, to go to a very large city with lots of temples because he had been sent there to burn temples? Would not the city of Memphis fit well with all of its temples? Mr. Petrie said, “In such a center [Memphis] it was natural that the gods of many different cities should have a home, and the temples of nineteen gods are mentioned in various sources.”4
        It will be helpful for you to know that the Phoenician letter referring to “all the gods of Tahpanhes,” was found at Memphis! This in itself does not prove that Memphis was Tahpanhes but does give Memphis a 50/50 chance. This will be brought up again in more detail, but for now the only point I am making is that it has been proven that either the person who wrote the letter or the one who received the letter had to be living there and worshiping all these “gods of Tahpanhes.” Memphis therefore would qualify, not only because of her size and all of her temples, but also because the only place in Egypt where the name Tahpanhes has ever been found was at Memphis. (This letter was written in Aramaic and is why they will say the name Tahpanhes has never been found in Egyptian “hieroglyphics.”)
        An archaeologist told me they again will be looking for a temple at Tell Defenneh this next year (2009, as stated earlier, they found a mud brick temple but it had eroded away). Of course just finding a temple at Tell Defenneh would not prove that the site was or was not Tahpanhes. I only wanted to show that Tell Defenneh was small and did not compare to the other cities in Exekiel, Chapter 30, all of which have had beautiful stone temples found in them. And because of this, it would be expected that the city of Tahpanhes would have temples also.
        In January, 1940, Mr. Noel Aime-Giron began the study of the then newly found letter about “Baal Saphon and all the gods of Tahpanhes.” This letter had been found at Saqqara (the cemetery of Memphis, Egypt). Mr. Aime-Giron made the translation and comments that will follow. But before we get to these, I want to quickly go over a couple of other things he brought up in his article.5
        I said before that not only is it believed that Tell Defenneh is Tahpanhes of the Bible but some scholars now believe it is also “Baal-zephon” of Exodus 14:2. And this is believed because of the article by Mr. Aime-Giron who interpreted the Phoenician letter about “all the gods of Tahpanhes.” His theory is based on two things. First, he believes that because Baal-zaphon was the only god whose name is given in the Phoenician letter, that therefore he was the main god and thus the city took its name from this deity. Of course, this is all based on the supposition that Tell Defenneh was Tahpanhes. But it is more logical to believe that the reason Baal-zaphon is mentioned in the letter was because the person who wrote this letter and the one to whom it was addressed, according to Mr. Aime-Giron,7 were both Phoenicians. And this god was the main god in their home country of Phoenicia, so they would naturally mention it before others.
        Secondly, he cites a stela8 in the Cairo Museum that has the god of Baal on it and was said to have come from Tell Defenneh. Whatever else might be said about this stela, it is, at least, interesting in that it has this foreign deity of Baal on it mixed with hieroglyphics and Egyptian symbols. But it is less than convincing that this stela ever came from Tell Defenneh. Mr. Noel Aime-Giron said that, “The Journal of Entry of the Gizeh Museum, recorded it [the stela], by mentioning: ‘Alexandria, July 1881, purchased.’” Then in the “Notice of the principal monuments shown in the Gizeh Museum, published in 1897 by Grebault (nr. 438)...its origin is given as Lower Egypt. It is only in 1906, in his Egyptological Researches, that Max Muller. added: 'I can add to it that after a communication from the obliging conservator, Mr. G. Daressy, the stone has been found at a highly interesting place, at Tell-Defen.’”9 The museum originally said it was purchased at “Alexandria, July 1881,” apparently by some merchant of antiquities, then in 1897 we are told it came from “lower Egypt,” which has dozens of cities and would include both Alexandria and Tell Defenneh, then nine years later in 1906, we are told it came from Tell Defenneh.
        Well, may be yes and maybe no. It would have been helpful if Mr. Daressy had said how the information came to him, but it is not given. For the sake of the argument it is at least a possibility this stela came from Tell Defenneh, but I do not see this proving the main god there was Baal. As was brought out earlier, it is in doubt that a city existed at Tell Defenneh as far back as 1450-1550 B.C. and the time of Baal-zephon of Exodus 14:2. Daphnai itself was set up as a fort for Greek mercenaries, and as I quoted Mr. Flinders Petrie, the main group of people there were Greeks10 and Baal-zaphon was not one of their deities. I do not doubt the possibility of this god being worshiped there by someone who was Phoenician and possibly some converts as well, but certainly it was not the main deity. When Mr. Petrie excavated the site of Tell Defenneh, he did find artifacts of different Egyptian gods such as Ptah, Sokar, Isis, and Horus,11 but he did not find Baal-zaphon or any other Baal at Tell Defenneh.
        Most scholars today are not looking for the site of Ball-zephon of the Bible because they do not believe the Exodus ever took place, or that Israel was ever in Egypt. And many of those who do believe the Exodus happened reduce all the miracles of that time period to natural causes. Most scholars do not believe the Bible. Adam and Eve are a joke to them.12 Yet they believe they came from animals! They do not believe that Christ was born of a virgin;13 they say that without a father it is a “biological impossibility,” yet they believe that the first living cell came into existence without a father, or a mother! They do not believe that Christ is God;14 they believe he was delusional! They do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ;15 they believe He rotted. They do not believe that Jesus Christ created everything in the universe.16 They believe that man is a product of chance mutations and that the whole universe was an accident! “While many have doubted the accuracy of the Bible, time and continued research have consistently demonstrated that the Word of God is better informed than its critics.” Norman Geisler.
        As to the Phoenician letter, Mr. Giron said some interesting things in a section he entitles “Paleography and the age of the Document.” The studying and deciphering of ancient writings is an amazing science, leaving you with the impression that we can know more about the letter than the person who received it. And all this is done through the eye of the microscope that looks back in time some 2500 years. I give here a brief part of his comments found in his article17 along with the actual letter itself and will then comment on it.
        After he discusses the script used in the letter, he concludes that it was written about the time of “the epoch of Amasis.” Amasis was the fifth Pharaoh of the 26th Dynasty and ruled Egypt from 570 to 526 B.C. This letter is one of the very few places outside of the scriptures that the name Tahpanhes is found, and it is spelled the same as in the Bible. It was a private letter between two sisters. The one sister “Bas'u” (who he believed was living at Tahpanhes) had sent a letter to her sister “Arisuth” who was living at Memphis. Bas'u acknowledges having received some funds from her sister, Arisuth, which she used to meet some legal obligation. Unfortunately, after 2,500 years, some of the letters and words have “fallen off,” and this is shown by a blank space ____ or are no longer readable and he has marked the space where the word would have been with “?”.

The outside or back of the letter:
        “To Arisuth daughter of Esmunyaton”
The inside of the letter:
        “I tell my sister Arisuth, your sister Bas'u says: Since you are in good health and me too, you return your blessings to Ba'al Saphon and to all the gods of Tahpanhes so that they keep you in good health. The money that you sent me arrived; that produced me weight (in sequels) 3 ˝ 1/6 (?) (one more) q(uart)? ____ ____ ____. I lavished in addition (?) all the money that belonged to me more of yours (?) and I gave it to _____ have confidence in ____ that I know in this ____. You sent me the acquittal manuscript (?) I will pay it to his ____.”

   The letter is less than impressive, but his commentary on this letter is enlightening.

        “This white space [blank space on the outside of the letter] had to be used for the seal, and the tear of the papyrus just after the word [he gives the original script] seems to have occurred when the envelope was opened….”
        “It seems even that small fragments of virgin wax [the seal] still adhere, here and there, on the front of the document where they would have remained attached after the pleat opening by the addressee.”
        “The fifth line and the address on the back, on the contrary, makes you understand that she used a worn tool and betrays a certain haste, confirmed by the absence of the points of separation. One has the impression that the sender wrote these last ones [lines] with a reed near at hand at the moment of giving her letter to the messenger, and maybe even outside of her place [house]. The ink tracks, on the left corner of the bottom margin, confirm this diagnosis: they are in fact copies [stains] of the two last signs of line four and prove that the document was folded while the ink was still fresh at this point.”
        His comment now on the words “acquittal manuscript.” - “I suspect that it had to be here a question of a disputed matter in front of the civil or religious administration and for which the letter’s author would have poured funds.”
        The question of which sister lived at Tahpanhes becomes important and it is something Mr. Aime-Giron flip-flops on. “It would seem, no doubt, at first sight that the sender, the Phoenician Bas’u, lived at Tahpanhes and that the addressee, another Phoenician, (Arisuth) was settled or passing through Memphis.” Then he is forced to change his mind and says, “This is nevertheless not as certain as it here appears at first interpretation....If it is a question of a disputed matter either with a civil jurisdiction, or in front of a religious authority, one would be astonished that such administration of this importance could exist at Tahpanhes.” I would agree to this if Tahpanhes was Tell Defenneh, as he believes. He goes on to say that a person living at Memphis, the administrative capital of Egypt, would have such courts. “In this case, there would remain a single solution: to suppose that the letter never left Memphis and that, despite the haste brought by the sender to finish her letter, this one missed the mail.” Really? There is no explanation of how it “missed” the mail, but on the other hand, he did give a long explanation on how the sender had made “haste” to get the letter to the “messenger.” He did tell us it had a “seal,” and that some “fragments” of the seal still remained attached after the “opening by the addressee.” But we are to forget all of this. He goes on to say, “The roles then would be inverted: Bas’u would have lived in the capital and Arisuth in the military village of Tahpanhes.” I could not help but laugh when he called Tahpanhes a “bourgade” (French for “village or small town”). Remember, he believes Tahpanhes is Tell Defenneh. “One can, I think, call thus Tahpanhes although this locality is quoted seven times in the Old Testament and almost always with cities of a lot greater importance.”17 Well, Amen! Mr. Aime-Giron was the first person I read that agreed with me that Tell Defenneh would not compare in size with the other great cities of ancient Egypt.
        So, what has been said? Though Mr. Aime-Giron wants to believe that this Phoenician letter had been “sealed” and “haste” was made to get it to the “messenger” and “opened by the addressee,” yet he was not able to, even though his own evidence he had brought forth supported this. Why? Because he had been told that the biblical city of Tahpanhes was Tell Defenneh. For two years I also believed this, but I got tired of forcing a square peg into a round hole!

ENDNOTES
1. Foucart. Bulletin of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, 1921, Volume XVIII, lists sites Mr. Jean Cledat was at, and though he mentions Tell Defenneh twice, it is only in passing and nothing about a temple there. He did, however, excavate at Pelusium, and a temple was discovered there.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 59.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 107-108.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis I, 1908, p. 2.
5. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, pp. 432-460.
6. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 458.
7. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 443.
8. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 447, Stela Nr. 25147 of the Cairo Museum.
9. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, American   University in Cairo Pres, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 448.
10. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, p. 48.
11. Petrie, Flinders. Tanis II, 1888, plate XLI.
12. Matthew 19:4.
13. Luke 1:34-37.
14. John 1:1-3, 14.
15. Acts 2:31.
16. Colossians 1:16.
17. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE,
Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volum XL, pp. 432-460.

Chapter Nineteen
THERE IS A MYSTERY BECAUSE OF THE MEANING
OF THE NAME TAHPANHES.
Why would the Egyptians name a city after someone from another country? And why would Tell Defenneh have two Greek names (Daphani and Taphnas)? I mentioned before that after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., one of his generals set up the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty. It was during this time that the Egyptian towns received their new Greek names and these are the names that are still in use today. And the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament, matched Tahpanhes with the Greek name “Taphnas.” I referred to the Septuagint not because I believe it is superior to the Hebrew or Masoretic texts, but because it used the Greek names for these cities. The translators of the Septuagint were in Egypt when they made this translation and it is interesting to see where they thought these sites should be.
       The Septuagint did not transliterate the names of the cities found in Ezekiel, Chapter 30, but instead looked for the Greek named cities in Egypt that they believed matched the ones in the Bible. And when the translators of the Septuagint came to the name Tahpanhes, they gave it the Greek name “Taphnas,” not the Greek name “Daphnai”. Nor can it be said that this was as close as the Greeks could come to this name for both were given by those who spoke Greek. So the site name, Daphnai, was not an attempt to pronounce the Egyptian name Tahpanhes, as some had thought. Those who translated the Septuagint did not believe that Tahpanhes was Daphnai or they would have translated it this way.
        Are we to believe that Tell Defenneh is supposed to have two Greek names (“Taphnas,” “Daphnai”), but Memphis, the largest city in Egypt, did not rate this? The only other city in Ezekiel 30:13-18 that has two Greek names is Diospolis, being also named Thebes. Nor do I remember any other city in Egypt having two Greek names. I could understand Thebes having two Greek names, being the largest city in southern Egypt. And if Memphis were also Taphnas it certainly would have been large enough to merit this, but a site as small as Tell Defenneh having two Greek names?
       I have read a half dozen possible meanings of this name Tahpanhes but will only give here the main view that is held today. “Mansion of the Nubian”2 is believed to be the meaning of the name Tahpanhes. I have read different variations such as “The House,” “The Palace,” “The Fortress,” or “The Castle” for “Tahpa,” of Tahpa-nhes. And they will tell you that the ending “nhes” is a somewhat common ending and refers to people living south of Egypt. And “nhes” is usually translated Chushite or Nubian or Ethiopian. This was the view held by Mr. Noel Aime-Giron who translated the Phoenician letter about “Baal Saphon and all the gods of Tahpanhes,” and was originally put forth by the German Egyptologist Wilhelm Spiegelberg,2 and as I said, it appears to be the main view held today. What town would be named “Mansion of the Nubian?” I cannot imagine Psamtik I of the 26th Dynasty, who built Tell Defenneh for his Greek soldiers naming it after a Nubian. (There was no evidence of Nubians being at Tell Defenneh, or Jews for that matter, but there was evidence for both at Memphis.3)
        With the name Tahpanhes meaning “Mansion of the Nubian,” one would expect two things: this city should have had an important Nubian living there, and be a royal residence. The great stones were to be hid at the “entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes” (Jeremiah 43:9), which is what we should be looking for in connection with “Mansion (Pharaoh's house) of the Nubian.” But what could have been the motive for the Egyptians to name a very large city, or any city, after someone from another country?
        The name Tahpanhes, in English, has no meaning other than a name of a site, but to the Egyptians it had the meaning of “Mansion of the Nubian.” If someone called the largest city in your state the “Mansion of the Ethiopian,” you would naturally expect that an important Ethiopian ruled or controlled the city at one time. The 25th Dynasty ruled from Memphis and is known as the Chushite or Nubian Dynasty, starting with King Piye from 752 B.C. until King Tantamani in 656 B.C. The Nubian Pharaoh Taharqa had his coronation at Memphis. “I [Taharqa] received the crown in Memphis.”4 The Pharaohs who ruled in this time period were called by foreigners “kings of Ethiopia,” even though at this time the 25th Dynasty ruled from the ancient capital of Memphis. The Bible says, “And when he heard say concerning Tirhakah [Taharqa] king of Ethiopia…” (Kuwsh, Heb. Isaiah 37:9, II Kings 19:9.) this was also done by the Assyrians who invaded Egypt in 671 B.C.5
        Of more interest is something said by Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria who drove out the Nubian Pharaoh, Taharqa. He twice calls Memphis “his (Taharqa’s) royal residence,”6 (from the Sinjirli and Dog river stelae), which shows that not only did this Nubian king live at Memphis, but how natural it would be for this city to end up having such a name as Mansion of the Nubian, “His (the Nubian's) Royal Residence.” Esarhaddon still called Memphis by its old name “Me-im-pi,” which I believe it continued to have. Piye, the first king of the 25th Dynasty, called Memphis “Men-nefer,” “Abode of Shu,” “White Wall,” and “The Balance of the Two Lands” all on one stela, so the city was called by more than one name at a time.7 Memphis had many names and the ones given here by Piye are well known and used by others.
        There really are not many possibilities where such a name as “Mansion of the Nubian” (Tahpanhes) could have come from, but the Nubian Dynasty is obvious! However for someone to accept this, they would be forced to move Tahpanhes from Tell Defenneh to Memphis. It is even possible that the name Mansion of the Nubian may have been given by the people themselves instead of the Nubian kings, and could have slowly become its name, perhaps used even more after the Nubian Dynasty left.
        The name “Moph” (Memphis) found in Hosea 9:6 is from about the year 760 B.C., and it is the only time in the Bible the name is used (See Chapter XVI on why “Noph” is not Memphis.). This name “Moph” in the Bible would have been used before the beginning of the Nubian Dynasty in 752 B.C. This would help explain why Moph is not used again, as the new name Tahpanhes started to be used more, sometime during the Nubian or 25th Dynasty. It also explains why the name Tahpanhes is not used before this time. The first time the name Tahpanhes is used is in Jeremiah 2:16, about 630 B.C. or 26 years after the Nubian Dynasty ended, and the last time is in Jeremiah 44:1, or about the year 582 B.C. And the Phoenician letter that mentions Tahpanhes would work with this time period. We are only talking about a 50-year time period when this name is used in the Bible. Yet no other Egyptian town in the Bible is mentioned more than Tahpanhes, and then mysteriously the name Tahpanhes seems to have fallen off the map. We never find it in Egyptian writings, but it appears in the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Phoenician letter. Did someone erase the name Mansion of the Nubian?

ENDNOTES
1. Brenton translation, 1851, the Septuagint's date is not agreed upon though some have it as 250 B.C.
2. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, p. 444.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis I, 1908, pp. 10, 40, 45, Memphis II, 1909, by Flinders Petrie, pp. 13, 17, 37.
4. Bianchi, Robert Steven. Daily Life of the Nubians, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, p. 167, (Kawa Stela V. line 15).
5. Driver, Gardner, Griffith, Haerfield, Headlam and Hogarth, Authority and Archaeology, 1899, p. 110. 6. Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt, 1992, Blackwell Publishing, p. 350.
7. Budge, Wallis, E. A. Egyptian Literature, Volume II, Annals of Nubian Kings, 1912, p. 38-45.

Chapter Twenty
THE NAME WAS INTENTIONALLY REMOVED
At different places in Egypt a name of a pharaoh has not been found because it was erased or written over. There were different reasons for this. Sometimes it was simply to usurp another's monument or for a political reason; but more often than not, it was because the pharaoh was not liked. The two most outstanding examples of this are Pharaoh Akhenaten and the powerful Queen Hatshepsut. There is disagreement as to why their names were erased, yet it is agreed there was a deliberate attempt to erase their names from history.
        I have asked archaeologists if they had heard of a city's name being removed or erased. Their response was “No,” they only knew of names of people or some of the gods (Amun) being erased. Yet, I did find three names of cities that have been erased.1 There must be a reason why a name of a city that is used so many times in the Bible has never been found. Erasing of the site name is a possibility, but what would be the motive?
        The Nubian or 25th Dynasty came to an end when the Assyrian Empire invaded Egypt and pushed them into Ethiopia (Sudan). The Assyrians then set up minor kings in the delta area of Egypt and also changed the names of these cities during their brief reign there.2 To my knowledge, these Assyrian names for these Egyptian cities cannot be found today, as the name of Tahpanhes cannot. Within a few years the Assyrian Empire collapsed and then the 26th Dynasty began ruling from Sais in the West Nile Delta. Relations between the new 26th Dynasty and the former Nubian rulers started off well enough with King Psamtik I of the 26th Dynasty marrying a Nubian princess and leaving the Nubian high priestess and Nubian mayor in place at Thebes.
        Then during the reign of Pharaoh Psamtik II something happened - a wholesale erasure of all the former Nubian names began. There is a very good article on this entitled “The erasing of the Royal Ethiopian names by Psammetichus II [Psamtik II].”3 It shows that this was not just one person upset with a former king, but an attempt to erase an entire dynasty, which is called the “general persecution” of the Nubian Dynasty. This article gives 15 sites where the Nubian king's name Piankhy (Piye) was erased and 16 sites where the Nubian king’s name Taharqa was erased, and their names often were erased more than once at each site, plus all the other kings in this Nubian dynasty. This came about because Psamtik II (595-589 BC) who went to war with, and invaded Nubia, erased the names of the former Nubian kings in their country, and upon his return to Egypt, had his name written over theirs. This may have gone on after Psamtik II, but there probably was not much left to erase by the end of his reign.
        Mr. Petrie had a similar find at the palace of Apries in Memphis.4 which I believe was Tahpanhes. He gave a description of a “bronze corner of a door” and then said, “The cedar planking is still inside of it, fastened by bronze rivets passing through both plates. The inscription is of Psamtik II; but the surface is clearly lowered (erased) from the signs Hor to nebti, from Hor nub to taui, in the cartouche after Ra, and over the second cartouche. This suggests that Taharqa (the Nubian ruler) was the original maker, as his Hor nub name ends in taui, which is on the original face; moreover his Horus name would not project above the hawk, and the face of the bronze has not been lowered (filed away) there.” Taharqa, whose name was erased/filed away here, was the next-to-last king of the Nubian Dynasty and lived and ruled from the city of Memphis.
        You can probably see where I am going with this. Psamtik II, while erasing the names of his Nubian enemy, would not have wanted the largest city in Egypt named after them, “Mansion of the Nubian;” it would in fact be surprising if he did not get rid of this name. The time period that this happened would have been from his invasion into Nubia in 591 BC till his death in 589 B.C. The last time the name Tahpanhes is given in scripture is believed to be about seven years later in 582 B.C. in Jeremiah 44:1. Names do not die out overnight, as most people who lived through the Vietnam War still call the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, even though officially it is Ho Chi Minh City. Besides, the Jews did not consider the Nubians an enemy, for Tahraqa had come to their aid against the Assyrians.5

ENDNOTES
1. Osburn, William. The Monumental History of Egypt, 1854, Volume II, pp. 217, 262-3 and 265.
2. Rogers, Robert William. A History of Babylonia and Assyria, 1900, Volume II, p. 316.
3. Yoyotte, Jean. (Revue D'Egyptologie, La Societe Francaise D'Egyptologie, Paris Imprimerie Nationale, 1950, “The erasing of the Royal Ethiopian names by Psammetichus II [Psamtik II],” pp. 215-239.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 40, plates XXXII 3, XXXIII 13.
5. II Kings 19:9

Chapter Twenty-One
”PALACE OF APRIES”
At the Taylor Library in Oxford we searched through some ancient books, one of which was Corpus Scriptorum Historiae, a chronicle of world history, written in Greek by Georgius Syncellus, who died in 810 A.D. It was translated into Latin in 1829 by B.G. Niebuhrii.
        I have a “little story” here I would like to share with you. Nancy had gotten on board with me to help find the “great stones” and she knew the Lord was in it but sometimes she was not sure about my methods. I had told her to start searching this book, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae, which was written in Latin.
        She reminded me, “I don't read Latin so how could I search through it?”
        I said, “Just look for a name that is similar to Tahpanhes, because it won't be that much different in Latin.”
        I had opened the book to show her how similar some of the words were to English, but she had this look on her face like, “Are you crazy?” But unbelievably, by chance I opened to page 435, where I was staring at the name “Taphnis” and I told her, “It would look like this.”
   She said, “Like what?”
        “Like this!” I said. I had to tell her three times because she was not looking where I was pointing. She just couldn't believe I had found it, and again I said, “Here, look, right here." When she saw the name Taphnis, her expression changed, not to one of admiration (as I had hoped), but more like, “You were lucky.” I thought I should have some fun with this because I don't usually get to be “right,” and I said, “See, it's not that hard. Look, here is Jeremiah” (“Hieremias”), and I added, “All you've got to do is look.” Yes, I shouldn’t have said that. She took the book out of my hand, but instead of sitting down at the table next to me, she left me there and walked over to another table. As she walked away I said, “If you need any more help, let me know.”
        When we got back to Romania I had this passage in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae translated. It talked about Jeremiah burying the stones at the entry of the king's palace, and that he had been stoned to death in Egypt. (There are different legends about where the prophet Jeremiah died. However, the book Lives of the Prophets, which is believed to have been written in or before the first century A.D., has Jeremiah being buried in Egypt. The Bible itself has Jeremiah going down to Egypt and then is silent as to what happened after that.) But besides talking about Jeremiah and Tahpanhes, the book said this happened during the reign of Pharaoh Vaphri (Latin) of the 26th Dynasty. This pharaoh was also known as Apries (Greek), and Hophra (Hebrew - Jeremiah 44:30). I had not thought before to look up which pharaoh was reigning during the time of Jeremiah. This would not have been hard to find, for it is in the Bible. But this information was helpful; for if Jeremiah went to Egypt during the reign of Apries (589-570 B.C.) we should be looking for a palace associated with this king. Because the “great stones” were to be hid at “Pharaoh’s house.”
        Of the two palaces found at Memphis, one was Merenptah's palace, which was several centuries before the time of Jeremiah, and the other was a palace built by Pharaoh Apries of the 26th Dynasty (even though at that time the official capital was at Sais). It was even called “the Palace of Apries,” by Flinders Petrie, and he gives this name as the original title for his book, Memphis II. It was again Mr. Petrie who did the main excavation on the Palace of Apries, working there in 1908-1910. Mr. Petrie called it a “palace fortress” and said, “The general scheme of the building was that it occupied the north-west corner of the great fortified camp of about thirty acres, at the north end of the ruins of Memphis.” (Memphis II, 1909, p. 1). And it was huge! Just the courtyard itself, inside the middle of the palace, was over 100 feet square which would have swallowed up the palace of Tell Defenneh, which was only 70 feet square.1 The overall dimensions of the palace were 200 by 400 feet;2 it sat on a 13-meter-tall mound3 and the height of the palace itself was 50 feet above that.4
        Tahpanhes being Memphis, we would expect to find Baal-zaphon of the Phoenician letter there. Mr. Aime-Giron gives evidence for both Baal-zaphon* and the Phoenician goddess Astarte being worshiped at Memphis.5 The goddess, Astarte, “The Queen of Heaven,” the foreigners took and assimilated or identified with the Egyptian goddess Isis, which was worshiped at Memphis, and she would be expected at the city of Tahpanhes. She is mentioned no less than four times in Jeremiah 44:17-25, where Jeremiah rebukes the Jews for worshiping her while they were in Egypt. This rebuke of Jeremiah to the Jews in Egypt was the last recorded message of a great prophet of God. It is believed that shortly after this he was stoned to death. In the end, none of these false gods could even save themselves because God had all their temples burned.6 *(Baal-zephon of the Book of Exodus, was not at the site of Memphis.)
        It needs to be mentioned here that of all the cities the Jews could have gone to, the most logical place was Memphis, in spite of articles I have read that say Tell Defenneh (which they believe is Tahpanhes) would have been. Their reasoning is that because Tell Defenneh was right inside the border of Egypt, one would “expect” the Jews to have fled there. No, one wouldn’t! It should not be forgotten that the Bible says the Jews were also at Noph and Pathros in Jeremiah 44:1; these are in central and southern Egypt. If it were just a matter of distance so they could flee to the closest place, then one would expect them to go to another city that was nearer to Israel and in the same area of Tell Defenneh, and that was Pelusium, called “The Gateway to Egypt,” which had much more to offer.
        But the main place they would have been expected to go was Memphis, because that is where they went the last time that their country was invaded by the Assyrians. In Hosea 9:6, where we find the city of Moph, and it is translated Memphis, it says that Israel would be buried at Memphis. This is not talking about the Egyptians and the people of Memphis invading Israel and burying the Jews in their own land as some have imagined, for verse 3, which was part of this passage (also verse 17,) is crystal clear. “They shall not dwell in the Lord's land but Ephraim shall return to Egypt.” Moses had led them out of Egypt but Samaria (Ephraim) “shall return.” And verse 6 says “For, lo they are gone (Israel from their country) because of destruction; (by the Assyrians) Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them.” And Memphis is the only Egyptian town mentioned in the passage. So, one would expect it to be the main one they would go to when the Babylonians invaded.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p. 2.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p. 1.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 40.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p. 4.
5. Aime-Giron, Noel. ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITES DE L’EGYPTE, Imprimerie De L'institut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale, published in Egypt, 1940, Volume XL, pp. 453-454.
6. Jeremiah 43:12-13

Chapter Twenty-Two
“AT THE ENTRY OF PHARAOH'S HOUSE”
In all, Mr. Petrie wrote six books about Memphis, but only Memphis I, II, & III cover the actual excavation of the palace. In Memphis III, p. 40, he wrote a one-sentence report about two stones that he had found, but I passed over it because he said they were “large.”
        “Also in the fosse were found two large rough blocks, of rock-crystal and of red jasper, evidently brought as material for working.” (Univ. Coll. London.)
        This caused me to have three questions;
        1) What type of stones were these?
        2) What did he mean by “brought for working”?
        3) And, I thought “What are these doing here?
        But again, I did not consider them a possibility for the stones that Jeremiah the prophet had buried, because I was looking for small stones, not “large” ones.
        This “fosse” (or dry moat), where the two stones were found, was between the entrance of the palace and the gate at the top of the ramp (please see the drawing of the palace at top of page). Mr. Petrie said, “The fosse, separating the palace from its approach on the south....”1 This “approach” was the ramp that led up to the palace from the fort, some 13 meters below. The fosse was 33 feet wide and only on the front of the palace and positioned right in front of the entrance.2 As part of this fosse there were two brick “berms,” each berm being a ledge or shoulder of the fosse which was built to reinforce it. One berm, which Mr. Petrie calls the “northern berm,” was next to the palace and the only one that went the whole length of the palace wall.3 There was also one next to the gate, which he calls the “southern berm”. The northern berm, which was next to the palace, was about 11 feet wide and the southern or outside berm was about 13 feet wide,4 which left only 9 feet between them for the ditch which was crossed by a drawbridge.
        When Mr. Petrie talks about the excavation of this fosse he is including the two berms. “The principal discovery at the palace was at the west end of the fosse, on the southern side. There, beneath a berm….” (He continues on and tells of finding seals and labels.5) If he was referring to actually finding something in the ditch of the fosse he said, “The iron splitting wedge was in the bottom of the fosse.”6 When he talks about finding the two stones of “rock-crystal and red jasper,” he first mentioned, “In the fosse was also found a plaster cast...about fifteen feet below the palace floor of Apries. Also in the fosse were found two large rough blocks, of rock-crystal and of red jasper….”

        As you can see, both the “cast” and the “blocks, of rock-crystal and red jasper” were found “in the fosse” which would have been the berms, but not in the ditch itself, which he said was “twenty feet deep,” and the cast was found at a depth of “fifteen feet.” I wanted it to be understood that when Mr. Petrie talks about the fosse, this included the “berm” or bricked area, not just the bottom of a ditch or lying around. For objects sitting out in the open, Mr. Petrie used the words “lies” or “lying” on the ground. But the rock crystal and the red jasper were found “in” the fosse. If these two large blocks of semi-precious stones had been lying out in the open, they would have already been taken and sold for their value.
        Mr. Petrie, in his search for artifacts, removed much of these berms, which reinforced the sides of the fosse and were made up of mud bricks.7 The stones of Jeremiah were to be hid in the “brickklin,” and Strong's Concordance only gave two meanings for this word, “brick-kiln, or brickwork.” It is hard to imagine a throne sitting on top of a brick-kiln, for God said he would take King Nebuchadnezzar and “set his throne upon these stones that I have hid....” It will be helpful here to see how this same Hebrew word is used in Nahum 3:13-14, where they were preparing for an attack by the enemy, “thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars. Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.” As it is used here, as well as in Jeremiah 43:9, it was in reference to a bricked area that was for defensive purposes, like we find with the fosse out front of Pharaoh's palace.
        What pharaoh would want a brick-kiln right out in front of his palace, again pointing to the word as meaning “brickwork” in this instance. Some say Pharaoh's house was being repaired at this time, but there is no way to know that. (The word brickkiln here, in this verse, could not refer to an area where bricks are sun-dried out in the open as was usual in the hot climate of Egypt, for the “great stones” were to be hid “in the clay in the brickkiln,” which was used as the cement between the bricks, and they would not have put mortar or “clay” between the bricks while they were drying. And why would anyone haul mud for making bricks up that ramp to the front of the palace when they could have done this at the Nile, which was there at Memphis?)
        Remember Mr. Petrie had thought the it was the mastaba, a raised bricked area out in front of the palace of Tell Defenneh. The stones were to be hid “in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house” and they were found “in” the fosse that was positioned out front8 of the palace of Apries. There had been two entries to the palace, one which Mr. Petrie called the “old broadway,” which after a time had been bricked up to block it, in order to open up just a few meters to the east a new entrance which he called the “new broadway,” with the fosse in front of both of these entries.9
       I will quote Mr. Petrie further, and hopefully clarify and reinforce what I said about the fosse and berms. “Between them [the gate and the entrance], isolating the palace, is a fosse about twenty feet deep, though the bottom of it is far above the level of the fields. This was doubtless crossed by a drawbridge. Each side of the fosse has been partly built up as a berm, so that the space of 33 feet wide is narrowed to 9 feet between these berms.”10 So, what you have is the fort at the lower level, some 13 meters below the palace, with the ramp going up to the gate, or “gateway” as he called it, which was in front of the entrance of the palace of Apries but separated by the fosse with its berms, that was crossed by the “drawbridge,” and then into the entrance.
        Here on this outside berm is where King Nebuchadnezzar would have placed his throne and set up his “royal pavilion” (tent), and then looked down on the fortress below. With Nebuchadnezzar sitting over these stones out front of the palace, the town of Memphis would have had a visible reminder of who was now ruling. At such a position, some 13 meters (or about 42 feet) above the compound, King Nebuchadnezzar could have overlooked much of Memphis. This also would have been a good position for the Jews who were standing down below watching Jeremiah bury these stones. It could be understood from the Bible passage that Jeremiah may not have taken the Jews along with him when he buried these stones, but it was done “in the sight of the men of Judah...” and then upon his return he explained their meaning to the waiting Jews.
        Thrones were normally inside of buildings, as a palace or a judgment hall, but if a throne was to be found outside, the place to look was at a gate. No doubt sometimes a throne sat at other places outdoors but the norm was in or next to a gate. Another sign of Jeremiah, the breaking of a “potter's earthen bottle...” was done at the “entry of the east gate...” (Jeremiah 19:2).
        Also King David “doth sit in the gate....”11
        Moses, Lot, Boaz, Daniel and Mordecai stood or sat in the “gate” or “sat in the gate of the king.”.12
        “And David sat between the two gates....”13
        “It is for the prince; the prince, shall sit in it...”14 (“it” being the gate),
        “and [the princes of Judah] sat down in the entry of the new gate....”15
        “The king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin….”16
        “And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria….”17
        The “king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house,”18
        “and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem....”19
        “And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate…” (Jeremiah 39:3).
        It should not be surprising then, to find this berm where the two semi-precious stones were buried had a “gateway” attached to it, and Nebuchadnezzar sat right over these stones right by this gate. This gateway is pictured in the drawing, at the top of the ramp and in front of the palace, which was “at the entry of Pharaoh’s house....” In fact this word for “entry”20 is also translated “gate” four times and “door” 110 times. And of the seven times this word is translated “entry,” six times it is near or in reference to a gate or door - see the following:
        II Chronicles 4:22 “the entry of the house, the inner doors thereof...”
        Jeremiah 19:2 “by the entry of the east gate….”
        Jeremiah 26:10 “in the entry of the new gate....”
        Jeremiah 36:10 “at the entry of the new gate....”
        Ezekiel 40:11 “of the entry of the gate....”
        Ezekiel 40:40 “to the entry of the north gate....”
        The only time this word “entry”20 is not “by” or “at” a gate is Jeremiah 43:9. “at the entry of Pharaoh's house....” Seeing how it is used all the other times, it certainly leaves you with the impression that this word is associated with a gate. Nor could I find any place in the Old Testament where a king's throne sat outside, except “in,” “at,” “over against,” or “between” gates. Ministering to the Lord at a gate was something Jeremiah was familiar with. Jeremiah's message at the temple was from a gate (Jeremiah 7:1-2) and appears to go through to chapter 10 (see also Jeremiah 17:19 and 19:1-2). In all three of these passages it was the Lord who told him to go and “stand in the gate” and proclaim His Word (also Jeremiah 36:10 where Baruch, sent by Jeremiah, preaches. I should add that Mr. Petrie found no gate at the brick platform in Tell Defenneh where he thought the stones of Jeremiah were buried.)
        It was not unusual for these gates to have guards stationed at them,21 but there was one gate where guards were not always needed, and that was the gateway by the drawbridge. It was possible for Jeremiah to have buried the stones there without a guard standing there because when the drawbridge was up, there would not have been a need for a guard. Mr. Petrie found some other objects (which he called “rubbish”) that were buried in the berm, so Jeremiah could have buried something there also.
        And because this was all done at “Pharaoh's house,” it could not be Tell Defenneh. There are ten other times in the Bible when the expression “Pharaoh's house” or “house of Pharaoh” is used, nine of which are places where he has taken up residence and one time where it is in reference to the whole country of Egypt, but never a stopover place at a “village” as would have been the palace at Tell Defenneh. There are other words in the Hebrew Scriptures that are translated “palace,” and certainly Pharaoh's house would have been a palace, but in this case it means a place where he lives, being understood in the name “Pharaoh's house.” Pharaoh Apries lived at Memphis at his palace, but no one believes that any pharaoh took up residence at Tell Defenneh, unless it was for only a few nights’ stay.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 40.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, plate I.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p. 2, plate I.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p .2, plate I.
5. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 41.
6. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 44.
7. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 40, Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p.4, 5.
8. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, by Flinders Petrie, plate I.
9. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II 1909, by Flinders Petrie, p. 2.
10. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, by Flinders Petrie, p. 2.
11. II Samuel 19:8.
12. Genesis 19:1, Exodus 32:26, Ruth 4:1-2, Esther 2:19-21, 6:10, Proverbs 31:23, Daniel 2:49.
13. II Samuel 18:24.
14. Ezekiel 44:2-3.
15. Jeremiah 26:10.
16. Jeremiah 38:7, Jeremiah 22:2.
17. I Kings 22:10, II Chronicles 18:9.
18. Esther 5:1.
19. Jeremiah 1:15.
20. Strong, James. Strong's Concordance, 1890, Hebrew Dictionary #6607.
21. Nehemiah 3:29.

Chapter Twenty-Three
LONDON AND THE GREAT STONES
As I said before, when I first read about these two stones being found buried out front of the palace of Apries, I passed over it because it said, “large rough blocks.” And I was not looking for anything that was large, but something small enough to be in one “hand.” It was not until my second reading of Mr. Petrie's book that I thought I should at least see what information I could get about these stones. They were listed as being sent to “Univ. Coll. London,” which was Flinders Petrie's Museum, so I sent them an e-mail asking if they could give me their size or any helpful information. A a week went by and I received a reply that gave me the file numbers to look up on their website. To my surprise, the measurements for the red jasper (UC43780), were 13 cm by 6.4 cm and for the “quartz” (UC43789), 17 cm by 14.3 cm. Even for the largest one we are only talking about 7 inches by about 5.5 inches. You can see pictures of these stones on-line at the Petrie Museum.
        But Mr. Petrie said they were two “large” stones. The secretary of the Petrie Museum also made a search and confirmed the information but said the probable reason Mr. Petrie had called them large was because of what type of material they were, being semi-precious stones: rock crystal and red jasper. Mr. Petrie said they were “evidently brought as material for working,” which would be for making jewelry.
        Mr. Petrie said, “two large rough blocks,” but these were very rough, so much so I doubted it was what Mr. Petrie had found for he called them “blocks” and the ones I saw just looked like unformed rocks. Mr. Petrie said, “rock-crystal and of red jasper, evidently brought as material for working.” But the curator of the Flinders Petrie's Museum noted “One short end [of the red jasper] has a curved polished surface and so it seems more likely to be a sculpture fragment than a piece of raw material for working.” And though the red jasper had come from Memphis, he was not certain where the quartz had come from, as it was not marked as coming from Memphis or any city. Because Mr. Petrie had called them “rough blocks,” and they are not in the shape of blocks, it was my opinion that the two stones Mr. Petrie dug up at the fosse in front of the palace of Apries have been lost or misplaced. (Note, I was mistaken on this.) I certainly do not fault anyone at the Petrie Museum, who were in fact very helpful, and even ended up letting me search their storage cupboard where such stones that are not on display are stored. Nor was this the first time they were of help to me, and when I had asked about other items they knew exactly where they were, or they brought them up immediately on their computers.
        Mr. Petrie had called the two semi-precious stones “large” even though compared to other stones they were small. The Hebrew word “great,” as given in Strong's Concordance, #1419, is “great in any sense.” It might be helpful to show what a very wide range this word “great” has in the Bible. This same word “great” in Jeremiah 43:9 is translated as “elder brother,”1 “loud voice,”2 “high priest,”3 “proud things,” “wept sore.”5 But most of the time it is given as “great” and used much the same way we do today - “great substance,”6 “great provisions,”7 “great thing,”8 “great women,”9 “great spoil,”10 “great riches.”11 Could these have been the “great stones” that Jeremiah buried? I was looking for “great stones” that were important, but could it have been “great stones” that were valuable? Mr. Petrie did not say these stones had writing on them as he did with other stones he found, and that was not to be expected, for he said they were “brought as material for working.” So, it certainly was not the Ten Commandments or the stones on the breastplate or the two onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest, for all these were engraved. And in a moment I will say why it could not be the Urim and Thummim, but because these stones of rock crystal and red jasper were not any of the possibilities I had originally thought, it would not be required to have the definite article, “the” great stones.
        The Urim and Thummim were a sort of a divine lot, that the high priest consulted to determine God's will in certain situations, but how this was done is not clearly stated in the Bible. And the Bible does not even say they were stones. We only assume this, and in history there is no agreement as to whether they were in the second temple. With the Bible having been completed, their need or usefulness would appear to be limited. Many believe the Urim and Thummim were just another name for the twelve precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest. But in Leviticus 8:8, the breastplate, which had the 12 stones of the children of Israel, was put on the high priest and then the Urim and Thummim were put inside of it. The breastplate of the high priest had a pocket of “a span,” or about 22 cm., “foursquare.”12 So if the Urim and Thummim were stones smaller than 22 cm. in length and presumably only a couple of centimeters thick, then they could have fit inside. This would eliminate the two stones shown to me by the Petrie Museum for they were far too thick for this.
        I had phoned the secretary of the Petrie Museum to see if perhaps a work diary had been kept of the excavation at Memphis. She said Mr. Petrie kept a journal of his work but to view it I would have to come to the museum. I looked at Nancy and said, “We’ve got to go back to London again.” I had to be sure one way or the other if these were the semi-precious stones Mr. Petrie dug up. I also needed to read Mr. Petrie's journal and talk to someone about hieroglyphics and a list of questions I had, and there were still some out-of-print books I needed to get that were not online.
        Through all of this, I was getting the impression that “great” stones referred to, or at least was connected with, what type of stones they were, and not large or important as I had originally thought. Yes, I felt dumb.
        Nancy, Caleb, and I spent three days in London, May 6-8, 2008, but left with mixed feelings, at least up till now. Each morning we were at the Petrie Museum, which at this time was closed to the general public, but making an appointment will do wonders. And we looked through the journals and the “pocket diary” that Mr. Petrie kept of the work at Memphis. I had hoped to find a description of the stones of rock crystal and red jasper and also their size, to see if they might be the ones shown to us at the museum. But Mr. Petrie did not give a description of them or record their size, although I thought it reasonable to believe they would not be larger, and perhaps would be smaller than the ones we saw. The curator said the quartz (UC43789) and the stone of red jasper (UC43780) were the largest in their geology collection. I also spent two afternoons at the British Museum, where I made an appointment with an Egyptologist to answer my questions about hieroglyphics, and I was able to get some good quotes from the books there. I brought home some 25 pages in French to be translated and hopefully we would get something from them.
        Three weeks have gone by since my last entry, and I am now seeing things afresh. I had gone over our notes, and looked backed from where we started and where we ended up, and the logical conclusions that follow from where we have arrived. The doubts I had about what Mr. Petrie had found, the two semi-precious stones, had been resolved by some obvious facts and a certain question that had come up. And it is a question that needs to be answered by anyone who still has doubts. But first, I needed to answer some questions I brought up and tie up a few loose ends.
        I have zero background in the study of precious or semi-precious stones, and I will only give here what I believe to be common knowledge and a few verses from the Bible. But first, rock crystal and red jasper had a greater value when the Bible was written than they do today. In the Bible, the term “semi” precious stone is not used. As to the names of the different stones given in the Bible we know what they were in the Hebrew, but there is a debate today as to what some of them should be in the English. Nonetheless those we would call semi-precious stones today were then called “precious stones,” including the jasper stone,13 “every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald...” (Ezekiel 28:13). Rock crystal also had a far greater value in the scriptures.15 “The gold and the crystal cannot equal it [“wisdom” verse 12]: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.” (Job 28:17)
        The value of precious stones in the days of the Bible depended much on what country you lived in. For example, one of the most sought-after stones in Egypt was the lapis lazuli, but today it would not be listed as a precious stone. And during the last few centuries, discoveries of large deposits of once-rare stones have brought down the value of certain ones. The stones on the breastplate, which included the jasper,14 were said to have been extremely valuable. Josephus said, “Twelve stones also there were upon the breast-plate, extraordinary in largeness and beauty; and they were an ornament not to be purchased by men, because of their immense value” (Josephus Ant. 3, 7, 5). In Jeremiah 43:9 they were not called “great stones” because they were large or because they were semi-precious stones, but because they were large and semi-precious stones. Again as Mr. Petrie called them “large” in relation to what type of stones they were. As someone would say, “the great gems,” “great diamonds” or “The great stone (any precious stone) was sold for....” You would naturally think that these precious stones were valuable, large or even famous, or all three. And if the breastplate stones (which included a jasper stone) had “immense value”, and Josephus thought that those stones were “extraordinary in largeness,” what would he have thought of the ones Mr. Petrie found which were several times larger than those of the breastplate?
        There are a number of times where the term “great stones” is used in the Old Testament besides in Jeremiah 43:9, but they always refer to large stones, not precious stones. There is one time, however, when the Hebrew word “stones” is translated “precious stones” (I Chronicles 29:8). The word “precious” is not in the Hebrew but is added by the translators, however it is italicized to show this, which was the way the King James Bible translators used to show when a word had been added. And it is understandable in the context that they would have been precious stones, but the point is, it was possible to call precious stones just “stones.” Since the jasper stone was considered a precious stone in the Bible (Ezekiel 28:13), and that it was not always required to use the word “precious” to describe such stones, and that the ones Mr. Petrie found were large, it certainly would fit with “great stones” that could be held in one hand.
        Was there any importance attached to these stones of rock crystal and red jasper? Yes, some importance was associated with them. But first, as for the Ten Commandments, that I had thought might be the great stones, I do not know where they are.16 Nonetheless the “great stones” were buried by God, “these stones that I have hid....” God is speaking in the first person and says, “I” hid them, God was the unseen person guiding Jeremiah's hand so these stones would be buried right where King Nebuchadnezzar's throne would end up. The prophet Jeremiah held them, “Take great stones in thine hand,...” King Nebuchadnezzar's throne sat over them, “set his throne upon these stones....” They were buried right under the nose of Pharaoh “at the entry of Pharaoh’s house....” And they were a prophetic sign of divine judgment coming upon the remnant of Judah and Egypt. Because of all who were associated with them and their divine purpose, they were and are important, but not because they were called “great” stones, as I had originally thought. Also, the significance of these two stones may lie in their historical value in connection with the nation of Israel, and I believe they should be given to Israel.
        Application? Two or three times during our search I had thought, “Would it not be ironic if Sir Flinders Petrie, who looked for the ’great stones,’ ended up finding them anyway, but not recognizing them?” The reasons I gave for Memphis being Tahpanhes of the Bible were, I believe, at least as convincing as Mr. Petrie's, whose main proof was the word of a Bedouin, and he looked for the stones buried by Jeremiah at a “village,” but did not find them. Then 24 years later, at Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt, he held them and said, “evidently brought for working.” He took no pictures or drawings of them, nor did he mention them in his work diary or in his journal, and only gave one sentence to them in his book. They were just some rough blocks of semi-precious stones that were “brought for working.” They could not be foundation deposits being found in the mud brick “berm”. The father of modern archaeology knew the difference between foundation deposits and the uninscribed “rough blocks” that he found. As he said, these stones were brought for making jewelry, and so, barely worthy of mention. Mark 12:10-11 is in reference to Christ, but it reminded me of this. “And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner; This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” How many people have rejected Christ because the “builders” saw no value in Him? Do not leave your destiny in the hands of the “builders” (teachers or ministers), for you will have to give account of your own soul.
I am not an archaeologist.
        I have never published a book before, and I have no background in archaeology. Back in 1976, when I first realized that something more than big rocks was buried there, I spent three months looking for these stones. And the only book I found back then that talked about the excavation of this site gave out false information saying that the stones Jeremiah buried had been found already. Somehow, I knew even back then that this information was false. Three-and-a-half years ago, I sat down one night and made a decision to look for the stones of Jeremiah. And I started with two things, a blank piece of paper and the “E” encyclopedia, and I began reading about Egypt. It was the Lord who encouraged me on this search, as I shared earlier, and this kept me from quitting, because I studied, searched, and looked in a lot of wrong places, including some that I said nothing about in this book. And though from the beginning it was a serious search, the first two years were a waste of time until I realized I was believing the errors of others instead of checking more carefully with the Bible. Prayer helped me more than anything else. Yes, I had to study and search, “seek and ye shall find,” but also “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”19 We are told to give our plans to the Lord “and thy thoughts shall be established.”20 No, God did not answer my every prayer, but a number of times after asking the Lord in prayer, He would give me the thought or idea I needed to solve a problem. And, as I said once before, I do not like sharing this because of those who will ridicule it, but would I be true to my God if I told you my brain got me here, because it didn't.
        People have asked me, “How can I know what the truth is?” Or “I have read the Bible and I am still not sure.” These two stones that Mr. Petrie found do not prove the Bible, for the Word of God has always been true. I made this search because I already believed the Bible. But I looked for them and I found them - “seek and ye shall find.” And if you have doubts about the Bible or understanding what is true, then do what Jesus said, “seek, and ye shall find.” If you are seeking, even if it is a finer point of doctrine, you will eventually “find.” We have all heard those who question the accuracy of the Bible because of what appears to them as a contradiction, but when I want an answer to something, again I do what Christ said, “seek and ye shall find.” And if someone is looking for a reason not to believe, that is what he will also find, for Christ was condemned to death and He had done nothing wrong.
        “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”21 People in this field of science should be proclaiming that the Bible is true. Instead, often they are openly attacking it, or tell us we cannot interpret it literally. But once we leave the normal meaning of words, there is no end to the possible interpretations, it only depends on how big of an imagination one has. Christ and the Apostles always interpreted the Old Testament literally. Archaeologists will cherish any papyrus they find in the sand of Egypt and they interpret these literally. If they were to study the Bible as much as they do some of the fragments they dig up, they would be the better for it.
        I thought the “great stones” of Jeremiah were something else, but I found what they were. God does not have to make or change things to the way we think, like, or want them to be. I do not believe Jesus lied when talking about eternal life “few there be that find it,”22 yet few believe this. The first time I heard how to be saved, I did not believe it, “And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,”23 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”24 I thought, “Just trust Jesus Christ to save me and I do nothing?” But salvation is “not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”25 God wanted to give me His “free gift”26 of eternal life, but I wanted to work for it. But I decided if I wanted to get to heaven, I had better do it God's way, because He was not going to change for me. I love goals. They help us focus our sights, but we need to make sure they are of God. Could you give up your dream if it is not of God? Could you give up your way if it is not of the Lord? God has a better plan for us than we do.
Objections to this find.
        An archaeologist has told me that his colleagues would want a “specialist in history” and the “skill of a fieldwork archaeologist.” I sought help from other archaeologists during this search and believe this was shown by what was recorded. And I have quoted those who were experts in these fields. I was told, “There needs to be full comparative analysis of the frequency of discovery of raw materials of hard-stone production at a palatial site of this period.” As for a palatial site of this period, there is Tell Defenneh which also has a 26th Dynasty palace, and Mr. Petrie looked for raw materials of stone buried out front of that palace but did not find any. Also, “Perhaps the most important area, with real new prospects, is the interpretation and dating of levels at the site.” The site (the berms at the entrance of the palace of Apries, where the stones were found) did have dated artifacts that were buried there. And these date from 12th Dynasty sculptured blocks to the bronze corner of a door with the name of a pharaoh of the 26th Dynasty, the dynasty when the prophet Jeremiah was there.
        But I have a question, why is all this necessary? One is tempted to ask why these things were not required of Mr. Flinders Petrie. But now, because of those who were associated with these stones, the prophet Jeremiah and King Nebuchadnezzar, more is required? Why saddle yourself with all this? For in the end none of it would be accepted as proof. Even if I could afford a “specialist in history,” and “full comparative analysis,” etc., when it would all be done this still would not be accepted as validation that these two stones are the ones of Jeremiah 43:9. Why complicate this with busywork?
I have learned some things.
        Like when something does not seem right it should not be ignored. Mr. Petrie said that Tell Defenneh was the city of Tahpanhes where Jeremiah buried the “great stones,” but he excavated this site and did not find the stones. If it had been the city of Tahpanhes, they would have been there. He had the wrong city! Finding these semi-precious stones buried out front of the palace of Apries is a confirmation that Memphis is Tahpanhes and Tell Defenneh is not. Flinders Petrie was very good at what he did but he should have studied all that the Bible had to say about this city of Tahpanhes.
        Those who believed Amon of No (“multitude of No”) was the city of Thebes ignored the description of this city found in the Bible, or if they did try to explain it forced the interpretation, really forced it! I enjoyed learning the things I did from those in this field of science, but at first I kept justifying contradictions of what they said with what the Bible said, simply because “They are the experts and they can't be wrong.” For two whole years I searched in vain, and then I finally checked all that the Bible had to say about Tahpanhes.
        I also learned something about my motive, and I am sorry to say, it was originally for me, as my wife had said a couple of times along the way. The reason I was having problems with the stones of red jasper and rock crystal being the ones Jeremiah buried was because I simply wanted them to be something else, something important, not just valuable. I am convinced God wanted me to make this search, but He was allowing it for His name's sake, not mine. My pride wanted to find something associated with the temple of Solomon so I could say, “Look at me!” and glory in that, but I believe God wanted to show His Word is accurate, yes, even in archaeology. There are a lot of great books on archaeology but the Bible should not be excluded because someone lacks the faith to believe in the supernatural.
        Today, some believe ancient inscriptions or a few lines of hieroglyphic script written on papyrus are more authoritative than anything written in the Bible. But when something is found in the sand of Egypt that does not agree with the Bible, instead of someone having his faith shaken, he should realize that sometimes the experts are wrong. And in place of putting a question mark over the Bible, that inscription, or its interpretation, should be in question, as well as the religious beliefs of its author. For those who wrote these ancient hieroglyphic inscriptions were pagans who worshiped idols. Hard to believe their inscriptions are more “scientific” than God’s Word. The Bible can be trusted in archaeology and other fields of science, as well as in spiritual matters.

ENDNOTES
1. I Kings 2:22.
2. I Kings 8:55.
3. II Kings 12:10.
4. Psalms 12:3.
5. Isaiah 38:3.
6. Genesis 15:14.
7. II Kings 6:23.
8. II Kings 8:13.
9. II Kings 4:8.
10. Ezekiel 38:13.
11. Daniel 11:28.
12. Exodus 28:16 and 39:8-9.
13. Ezekiel 28:13.
14. Exodus 28:17-21.
15. Job 28:17.
16. II Kings 24:13, see Ch. III.
17. Taken out.
18. Taken out.
19. Jeremiah 33:3.
20. Proverbs 16:3.
21. Romans 1:19-22.
22. Matthew 7:14.
23. Acts 16:31-32.
24. Romans 10:13.
25. Ephesians 2:8-9.
26. Romans 5:15-16.

Chapter Twenty-Four
CLEAR EVIDENCE
   There were some things said in the Phoenician letter that show not only that the person who was to receive it lived at Tahpanhes, but that Memphis would have been Tahpanhes! The writer said, “you return your blessings to...all the gods of Tahpanhes....” The Phoenician lady who wrote this letter would not have told her sister to do this unless she lived at Tahpanhes. One would naturally expect a person to be living at Tahpanhes if she is to give her blessings to “all the gods of Tahpanhes.” If the sister who wrote the letter thought she could have blessed “all these gods of Tahpanhes,” she would have done it herself. Instead, she asked her sister to do what she felt she could not, otherwise why ask her? Simply put, the one who wrote the letter did not live at Tahpanhes. This will become important with what follows.
        Mr. Aime-Giron originally believed that the writer had “given her letter to the messenger,” and that it was received and “opened…by the addressee.” But all this was discarded because the letter was found at Memphis and he believed Tahpanhes was Tell Defenneh. He then changed his mind, saying that instead of being sent from Tell Defenneh it was being sent to Tell Defenneh, but never got there because it “missed the mail.” I purposely repeated this from what had been given earlier so it would be fresh in your mind to appreciate what follows. The writer, who Mr. Aime-Giron believed lived at Memphis, said, “You sent me the acquittal manuscript.” But Mr. Aime-Giron told us that Tell Defenneh was too small a place to have a court. “If it is a question of a disputed matter either with a civil jurisdiction, or in front of a religious authority, one would be astonished that such administration of this importance could exist at Tahpanhes.” He then called Tahpanhes (which he believed was Tell Defenneh) a “village.” With that said, how could a person living in Memphis write a letter to someone living in the “village” of Tell Defenneh and say, “You sent me the acquittal manuscript”? For as Mr. Aime-Giron said, it was too small a place to have a court; “one would be astonished,” it simply was not possible!
        Everything goes together perfectly if Memphis is Tahpanhes. This letter would have been written and given a “seal” from whatever city it was sent from; the writer then “giving her letter to the messenger” (as Mr. Aime-Giron had originally believed), and the letter being “opened…by the addressee” where it was found, at Memphis. Which would make this city Tahpanhes because only a person living in this town could have done what was asked, “you return your blessings to...all the gods of Tahpanhes.” And the person who sent the letter acknowledges receiving the “acquittal manuscript” from Memphis, which was large enough to have such courts. So nobody has to “miss the mail” because of Tell Defenneh.

Chapter Twenty-Five
A QUESTION WHOSE ONLY ANSWER IS JEREMIAH 43:9
        “Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah; And say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them” (Jeremiah 43:8-10).
        We looked back from where we started at Tell Defenneh and then ended up at Memphis, and having the right location, what now follows should be expected. According to the instructions in Jeremiah 43:8-10, we should find the following twelve things:
1) We should find in this city “Pharaoh’s house.” and it was there.
2) It needed to be of the time period when the prophet Jeremiah would have been there – which was during the reign of Pharaoh Apries. And it was the Palace of Apries.
3) The stones were not to be out in the open or in a tomb, but buried “hide them” and so they were.
4) They were to be in a bricked area “brickkiln,” not in a stone floor or buried in dirt, but in bricks, and they were found in the mud brick “berm” of the fosse.
5) This was to be outdoors, not in the palace, as Jeremiah would not have been allowed to go in and tear up the floor of the palace. Nor could he have brought the Jews in the palace, in whose “sight” this was to have happened. And why would Nebuchadnezzar set up his “royal pavilion” (tent) indoors? And the stones were found outside.
6) We also needed a gate to be at this spot because that was the normal place a king would “set his throne” outdoors (see Ch. XXII). And we have the “gateway” right on the berm.
7) And they needed to be of “stone,” not wood, silver, gold, etc., and that's what they were.
8) We also needed to find at least two of them as it says “stones,” and that's what Mr. Petrie found.
9) These stones were to be together; not one in one spot and the other yards away. Jeremiah had buried them at the same time and Nebuchadnezzar's throne was to sit upon them, with the four legs of his throne over the top of them. And reading Mr. Petrie's account of this find, you are left with the impression that they had been found together.
10) They had to be small enough to fit in one hand, “in thine hand,” and their combined width was four inches across (see next chapter).
11) Still, they had to be called “great.” And they were “two large rough blocks” of semi-precious stones. And in the days of Jeremiah the prophet they were precious stones. (Again, they had to be something more than normal stones. Remember it was to be a sign, and rocks in the ground, whether small or large, could be found most anywhere.)
12) This was all to be done not just near Pharaoh's house but in the front of it, positioned “at the entry of Pharaoh's house.” And the fosse with the mud brick berm, where these two semi-precious stones were found, was positioned in the front of the palace at the “entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes....”
I would hate to have to figure the odds on something like this happening by chance. What more could have been done except maybe an angel standing on the spot waving a red flag and hollering, “They're buried right here.”
   A question that only Jeremiah 43:9 can answer.
        What were they doing there? Why are two blocks of semi-precious stones buried out front of Pharaoh's palace? People do not bury their valuables out front of other people's homes and how much less at the front door of the White House (Pharaoh's palace). And who, living in the palace, would go right outside to the entrance to bury their valuables? Nobody would do this! Except, Jeremiah obeying God.
        This berm had a number of things buried in it; Memphis II and Memphis III give ten different finds that were actually in the fosse or berm. These finds range from “rubbish” to the “two large rough blocks of rock-crystal and red jasper.” And there was a logical reason why each one of these finds was there, except one. Mr. Petrie said, “There, beneath a berm which contained a late Ptolemaic coin, we found a layer of dust and rubbish....”1 “At a much lower level, in the west end of the fosse, heaps of some dozens of blocks of limestone were found....intentionally taken down”.2 Both the rubbish and the broken pieces of limestone blocks that were “intentionally taken down,” had also been intentionally buried in the berm. They were, in effect, burying their trash. I am not belittling the archaeological significance of any of these finds here in the fosse, but only bringing out that to an Egyptian 2,500 years ago, had he been aware of them, the only thing he would have been interested in were the two large blocks of semi-precious stones.
        The blocks of rock crystal and red jasper had no writing on them. From an archaeological standpoint, they really did not have much value because they were not stelae or foundation deposits. So what were they doing here? As I brought out before, the two stones of rock crystal and red jasper had been intentionally buried in the berm.3 And Mr. Petrie said they had been “evidently brought as material for working.” but they were found buried in the fosse. There was a “workshop” for jewelry in the palace where small amounts of gold, silver and scrap bronze4 had been found. But why were these semi-precious stones buried outside the palace? Mr. Petrie gave no reason for this, nor could he be expected to, for there isn't one, short of the prophet Jeremiah obeying God.
        Now, at the end of our search we are left with two blocks of rock crystal and red jasper with no reason for them being buried out front of the palace of Apries in Tahpanhes (Memphis) except for Jeremiah 43:9. Could you explain this? I could see people going outside the palace and burying their “rubbish” and then covering it over, but who would walk up that ramp to the front of the palace, dig a hole and then bury, what would have been in their day, two precious stones? Would you?
        The stones that Jeremiah buried have been found; we know where - in front of the palace of Apries; we know who dug them up - Sir Flinders Petrie, and it is recorded in Memphis III, p. 40. There was only one thing left and that was to hold them and see if they would fit in one hand.

ENDNOTES
1. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis III, 1910, p. 41.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, pp. 5-6.
3. See Ch. XXII.
4. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis II, 1909, p. 3

"Large red jasper” UC43780, copyrighted by Petrie Musuem, University College London.

“large quartz crystal” UC43567, copyrighted by Petrie Museum, University College London.

     Chapter Twenty-Six

HOLDING WHAT JEREMIAH THE PROPHET HELD
   I received an e-mail from the curator of the Petrie Museum saying it was possible that Sir Henry Wellcome (a collector and archaeologist), may have acquired the two stones of rock crystal and red jasper because he had received other artifacts from the Petrie Museum (Note: No documentation exists for the stones of rock crystal or red jasper leaving the Petrie Museum.) I did follow up on this, but the archivist for the Wellcome Foundation said they had not received the stones. However, I thought if it was possible for one person, foundation, or museum to have acquired them, then maybe others could have also. I did not like the thought of searching museums the world over and I was willing, maybe more than willing, to leave it alone without actually seeing these two stones because God had allowed us to find them, at least in the sense that we knew who, when, where, and which museum.
        To say it had been a long search was an understatement. And, for the last year and nine months, it had consumed me. I am, however, thankful for my family's encouragement during all this time, which I needed, because you need to know your family is with you, and I would tell them of every new bit of information I came across, bouncing it off Nancy to get feedback. But now, after a total of three years and nine months, I was faced with yet another search. It would, however, be a definite step up if we could put a face on this. All archaeological finds have a picture of something to show, but we just had our manuscript. So I gritted my teeth and thought, “How hard can it be? Just do it.”
        I began with the museums on the distribution list for the years Mr. Petrie excavated at Memphis. Thankfully, this was available on-line at the Petrie Museum and I started sending them out e-mails asking if they had received these stones. But through all this, I was getting the feeling I was “shooting in the dark,” and it could go on forever. And would a museum really desire these stones enough to try and acquire (buy) them? Museums are more interested in receiving things that draw in the public, like statues of Ramses, or golden artifacts. But “rough blocks” of stones, even semi-precious stones with no inscription on them, are not priority items for museums. And so for the most part, they are left in their storage cupboards, as were these two stones of rock crystal and red jasper.
        I passed some time in prayer for help on this and then I opened my Bible and was staring at “Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.1 Someone could says, “But what does that have to do with stones of rock crystal and red jasper?” Nothing, nor do I give it here as any proof. I just want to acknowledge that it was the Lord who got me back on track again, so we could conclude our search. So why would God deliver Noah, Daniel, and Job? They all had the same thing in common: all of them were righteous. On the evening of October 11, 2008, I came to the conclusion I should be searching again at the Petrie Museum and looking for stones that had the most things in common with what Mr. Petrie said. My last search at the Petrie Museum had been stalled by how Mr. Petrie described these two stones as “rough blocks,” and though I had searched as best I could, I had not been going by a check-off list to find the stones that had the most in common with all that he had said about them. There was a lot of information in that one sentence on page 40 of Memphis III, more than you might think, and each one of these things would help point to the right stones.
        “Also in the fosse were found two large rough blocks, of rock-crystal and of red jasper, evidently brought as material for working.” (Univ. Coll. London.) Memphis III, 1910, p.40.
        I needed to find semi-precious stones, one of rock crystal and one of red jasper, which would fit this description. They would be “rough blocks,” “brought as material for working,” and if they were “rough,” we should not be expecting something attractive. Also “large,” for the type of stones they were and that had been found “in the fosse,” which was in front of the palace of Apries at Memphis. And what we ended up finding, at least for the red jasper, was conclusive. And just as our search had taken us from Tell Defenneh to Memphis and to the palace of Apries, and that is where we found the two stones; so, with no reason for, or proof of them leaving the Petrie museum, our search should be centered again at this Museum.
        I started with the on-line catalogue of the Petrie Museum. A few months before, I had used “Search the details” section of their catalogue and was not successful. So this time I used the “Search by Descriptions” feature. Out of the 61 entries for rock crystal there was only one rock crystal that was listed as coming from Memphis, and it turned out to be the largest (at least in length) in the collection. I won't give its catalogue number as it turned out not to be the right one. It had the date “1909” written on it and the two stones from the fosse were found in early 1910. Could the date have been a mistake? There is no point in going there, as it had another problem. It was said to have been a “Fragment from the base of a rock crystal vessel, rounded.” The on-line picture looked as though it had been a slab of crystal, but the description was accurate. It had, at one time, been part of a vessel and was less than a centimeter thick and finished on both sides. It simply was not what Mr. Petrie had described, “rough blocks.”
        Because I had gotten nowhere with the rock crystal I looked back at the red jasper (UC-43567) the curator had originally shown me from Memphis. The term “rough block” had thrown me, as I thought it would be like a “block” or a brick, rectangular or square in shape. But I did a word search in the twenty books (CDs) that we have by Mr. Petrie, and though there were a couple of times that other writers who had made entries in his books used this term “rough blocks” (or block), I could only find one other time that Mr. Petrie used it. “In the top of the plate are shown the rough blocks of alabaster....”2 Of these 25 “rough blocks of alabaster,” most, if not all of them, showed some signs of being worked on. Some were easily recognizable as being shaped into vases and I would not have called any of them “blocks.”
        It matters not how someone else might use this term, “rough blocks,” but how Mr. Petrie used it, as he is the one describing the “two large rough blocks, of rock-crystal and of red jasper.” From how he uses this term elsewhere, it is not required to be something that I would think of as a block, or raw material that is un-worked. So the original red jasper stone (UC43780) would not be a problem. The curator had said, “Within the geology collection, UC 43780 is a large-ish piece of red jasper marked ‘Memphis’ in pencil in Petrie's handwriting,” but he rejected it because, he said, “one short end has a curved polished surface, and so it seems more likely to be a sculpture fragment.” This “curved polished surface” was less than 5% of the entire stone, barely visible in its picture above. And at one time it may have been a part of a sculptured fragment before it was broken, but I do not see this eliminating it because the term “rough block” does not, as it was used by Mr. Petrie. And, if it had been broken off a sculptured piece, it was no longer useful except as Mr. Petrie said, “brought as material for working.”
        Again I began with the museum's on-line “Search by Descriptions” and typed in the name “red jasper,” with 148 objects coming up, and red jasper stone number UC43780 was the largest red jasper stone there. And it was the only red jasper stone that was said to have come from Memphis.
        When we look at the books of Mr. Petrie in his Memphis series, from Memphis I, II, III, IV, V and VI, only two objects were given as red jasper. One was a scarab on page 13 of Memphis I, which was less than an inch in length, and had no listing for which museum received it. And the large rough block of red jasper from the front of the palace of Apries found on page 40, Memphis III. We found only one red jasper from the Memphis series being sent to the Petrie Museum and it is said to be “large.” And there is only one red jasper in the museum listed as coming from Memphis and it is the largest one there! While at the Petrie Museum, I was shown “Register XXIV,” also called “Minute Book 24.” I was told the information on this red jasper stone came from this register. It listed objects with the UC (University College) numbers from 43520-44749. On page 50 was found the red jasper stone with its UC number of 43780 and it was listed as having come from Memphis, but on the far-right hand column under “Reference,” it was left blank. The next stone listed on this page and just under the red jasper was given as a red jadeite, with its UC number of 43781 and also listed as having come from Memphis, but then surprisingly said, “palace of Apries.” The on-line information on this red jadeite stone only said it was from Memphis, nothing about it coming from the palace of Apries. But what was more surprising was in the far-right hand column under “Reference,” it said, “Memphis III, 1910, p. 40.” But this was the page where the large rough block of red jasper was found out front of the palace of Apries, not a red jadeite stone. You will not find a red jadeite stone on page 40 of Memphis III, 1910, or anywhere in this book, nor will you find any red jadeite, or even a jadeite stone in any of the six books in this series, Memphis I through Memphis VI. I do not know if this red jadeite stone came from Memphis, but it is not found in any of the six books on Memphis by Mr. Petrie, and it is not on page 40 of Memphis III. This was an obvious mistake on the part of whoever made the entry in Register XXIV. It must have been meant for the stone that was right above it, the red jasper stone with its Reference column left blank. Otherwise there was no reason for this information “palace of Apries” and “Memphis III, 1910, p. 40,” appearing on this page! Which would mean that the red jasper UC43780 was not only from Memphis, but more specifically the palace of Apries and it is the one recorded in Memphis III, on page 40. This evident mistake in Register XXIV, coupled with the other information, points to this red jasper stone (UC 43780) as being the one found by Mr. Petrie. Could it be anything else?
        With this red jasper stone still being at the Petrie Museum, it would suggest that the stone of rock crystal is, too. But of the 86 quartz listed under “Object Type” of the Petrie Museum, only two were listed as found at Memphis and these were from the Greek Dynasty. This would have been a few hundred years after Jeremiah would have been there and this was only one of many problems involved. The curator of the museum had speculated that a “quartz” with no location was the best possibility, not a rock crystal. But is quartz what Mr. Petrie was talking about when he said he found a large “rock-crystal”? Rock crystal is usually described as the “clear variety” of quartz and I noticed that some of the quartzes at the museum were listed under “Description” as “quartz crystal.” And I found the names “quartz crystal” and “rock crystal” are used interchangeably, including by Mr. Petrie, because he used this term “quartz crystal” for this same “rock-crystal” he found out front of the palace of Apries. In his Catalogue of Memphis and Meydum, 1910, p. 12, he calls it a “quartz crystal from the palace.” It had to be in reference to the rock crystal, as there is no other quartz crystal, or rock crystal, or even crystal said to have come from the palace in all six of the Memphis series. (This 1910 catalogue was of things that were then on display and did not list all the finds or the red jasper stone.)
        I began in the “quartz” section again, but this time looking for “quartz crystal.” When once you consider the sites they were found at, or the size of those which did not have a location, there were only a very few “quartz crystals” with the location left blank that could have worked. UC number 43567 was the only possible fit, and was the largest of those designated as a quartz crystal; they called it a “large quartz crystal.” Mr. Petrie also called the “large...rock crystal” found out front of the palace of Apries a “large...quartz crystal,” and he sent it to his museum and today there is a “large quartz crystal” still there. Its size was 10 cm. by 5 cm. by 4.5 cm. This left one blank space to be filled in, where it was from, but the “large quartz crystal,” UC 43567, would fit in every other way.
        With the “large quartz crystal,” number UC43567, being the largest one designated as “quartz crystal” and the red jasper stone UC43780, being the one that Mr. Petrie found in front of the palace of Apries, the next thing to look at was if they would fit in one “hand” (Jeremiah 43:9). The online measurements for the red jasper were 13 cm. by 6.4 cm., but the thickness is not listed and I had measured it at 5.5 cm. And the online measurements for the large quartz crystal were 10 cm. by 5 cm., with the thickness being 4.5 cm. Both together would have a combined width of 10 cm. or 4 inches. They could be held in one hand.

        “Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thine hand....” And I got to hold them also. The picture above of me holding the stones at the Petrie Museum. I am holding the red jasper stones but not the correct crystal. I had held it before but did not take a picture of it. However the two pictures of the stones, the “large quartz crystal” UC43567 & “large red jasper” UC43780 at the beginning of this chapter, are from the Petrie Museum and are the correct ones, both of which I held.
        The words of Christ, “Seek and ye shall find...” now have a new meaning to me. This was a completion of a three-year, nine-month search, and a dream I had kept in my heart since Bible college. And yes, there was a satisfaction to hold in my hand that which Jeremiah had held, and Nebuchadnezzar's throne had sat over. But mostly I was glad God let me conclude this search successfully. The stones themselves are still in the Petrie Museum, and no doubt still in the cupboard where they were stored. But I know of no other museum that has an artifact held by the prophet Jeremiah, or any prophet that we read of in the Hebrew Scriptures.
        We trust you had fun reading the burden of proof, ironies, surprises and the mysteries unraveling, as to why Mr. Petrie had the wrong town, that Tell Defenneh was not Baal-zephon, which city was Tahpanhes, why Noph was not Memphis, where the name “Mansion of the Nubian” (Tahpanhes) came from, why the name has not been found in Egypt, looking for the “great stones” in the excavation report, and searching the museums. And all this because one word “hand,” did not have one letter “s” (Jeremiah 43:9), “and the scripture cannot be broken...” (Jesus Christ, John 10:35).

ENDNOTES
1. Ezekiel 14:20.
2. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis VI, 1913, p. 33, plate LX, #40.
3. Petrie, Flinders. Memphis I, 1908, p. 11, plate XXVIII, #14.

By G. M. Matheny
Copyrighted ©
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​​The Quest for the Great Stones of the Prophet Jeremiah True Story.That God hid.That were a prophetic sign.That the Prophet Jeremiah held.That King Nebuchadnezzar’s throne sat over.

The Quest for
the Great Stones of the
Prophet Jeremiah
True Story.
That God hid.
That were a prophetic sign.
That the Prophet Jeremiah held.
That King Nebuchadnezzar’s throne sat over.