Kanawati Notes – Conspiracies in the Egyptian Palace

Resource Description

Assassination Claim

• Grimal supports the assassination claim
• Manetho’s book on Egyptian history survived only through Jewish historians’ extracts. This creates a biased point of view
• Extracts of Manetho’s records have been recorded also by Christian chronographers, notably Africanus and Eusebius
• Therefore there are many problems when interpreting Manetho’s work. Both Egyptian and Jewish historians had reason to distort facts to condemn each other
• No doubt Manetho was highly educated in Greek and Egyptian and had available records and other resources which he could understand
• Manetho criticised and contradicted Herodotus
• His aim was to record the history of his country and correct the errors of Greek historians
• Credited with only claiming one other king [Amenemhat] to have been murdered; more credibility to Teti’s murder
• No other texts exist which suggest Teti was murdered, but we should not dismiss that one never existed. ‘One should not argue from silence’
• Manetho may have had access to written or oral sources that have been destroyed, but archaeological evidence shows that the Teti cemetery remained buried until modern times