Amarna lecture given at University of Dallas
“So have you made your lists and checked them twice? I hear King Tut’s coming to town,” joked Dr. James Hoffmeier, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Trinity International University, who addressed an audience of about 50 in the Art History Building on Sept. 25.
Since 1999, Hoffmeier and his team have been working on excavations at a fortress-outpost from the Armana period in the northern Sinai region of present day Tell el-Borg. He noted that around 1300 BC, this location was outside the boundaries of Egypt.
Hoffmeier explained that most scholars have thought that, during the reign of Akhenaten, the empire began to collapse, with the pharaoh’s armies pulling back to within the borders. Shards of wine pots found in the area might alter that view, however. Each shard Hoffmeier presented bore the cartouche-hieroglyphic name-of the pharaoh under whom the wine was bottled. With these, Hoffmeier has been able to trace an unbroken line of cartouches of seven consecutive Egyptian rulers, including those of Akhenaten and Tutankhamen, evidence that the fortress was occupied continuously throughout the period, which challenges the idea that Egypt became isolationist during Akhenaten’s reign.
The dig site’s web page is www.tellelborg.org.
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