Cosmic Trauma: Assyria and Egypt’s 9/11

What is the center of your universe? Has it been violated? How do you cope if it has? These questions can be raised for peoples, cultures, and countries as well as for individuals. In ancient times, people knew the trauma of the destruction of their cosmic center although not the genocide or targeted killings by race, religion, or ethnicity that we are familiar with today. Egypt’s traumas may not be as familiar as those of Ur, Babylon, and Jerusalem but it did experience them. Perhaps the first people who come to mind in inflicting such devastation on the Egyptian psyche derives from Manetho’s description of the Hyksos. His depiction castigates them as a most vile people. The thesis of this presentation is that his characterization of the Hyksos is undeserved and better fits the Assyrians. In effect, Manetho retrojected the troubles from the north due to the Assyrian invasions in the 7th century BCE onto the Hyksos in the 17th-16th centuries due to the political context in the 3rd century BCE during which he wrote. This presentation will introduce these concerns and set the foundation for further exploration of them.

Peter Feinman is the founder and president of the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education, a non-profit organization which provides enrichment programs for schools, professional development program for teachers, and public programs.  He received his B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania, a M. Ed. from New York University, an MBA from New York University, and an Ed. D. from Columbia University.  His interests cross disciplinary boundaries including (i) Egypt, with the forthcoming “The Tempest in the Tempest Stela: A Cosmic Story in History,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar festschrift to Dorothea Arnold, (ii) biblical, “When Israel and the Arabs Were Allies” published as part of the proceedings of the Israeli-Palestinian Pathways to Peace conference and his forthcoming book Who Wrote the Bible: The Sons of J and Jerusalem Throne Games (Oxbow), and (iii) American, “Chautauqua America,” in The American Interest.  He writes a weekly column for New York History and advocates on behalf of local history in New York State.