Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky (; rus, Иммануи́л Велико́вский, p=ɪmənʊˈil vʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj; 17 November 1979) was a Russian-American psychoanalyst, writer, and catastrophist. He is the author of several books offering Pseudohi ...
, first published by
Doubleday
Doubleday may refer to:
* Doubleday (surname), including a list of people with the name
Publishing imprints
* Doubleday (publisher), imprint of Knopf Doubleday, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House
* Doubleday Canada, imprint of Penguin Random ...
in 1952, which put forward a major revision of the history of the Ancient Near East, claiming that the histories of
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
and the Israelites are five centuries out of step. He followed this with a number of other works where he attempted to complete his reconstruction of ancient history, collectively known as the ''Ages in Chaos'' series.
Velikovsky's work has been harshly criticised, including by some fellow chronological revisionists.
Summary
Velikovsky had put forward his ideas briefly in ''Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History'' in 1945, where he claimed that the history of the ancient Near East down to the time of
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
is garbled, but ''Ages in Chaos'' was his first full-length work on the subject.
His starting point for the first volume of the series was that
the Exodus
The Exodus (Hebrew language, Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, ''Yəṣīʾat Mīṣrayīm'': ) is the Origin myth#Founding myth, founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of the Torah, Pentateuch (specif ...
took place not, as orthodoxy has it, at some point during the Egyptian
New Kingdom
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995
* "New" (Daya song), 2017
* "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...
, but at the fall of the Middle Kingdom. In this and later volumes, he made heavy use of the concept of "ghost doubles" or alter-egos: historical figures who were known by different names in two different sources (e.g. Egyptian and Greek) and were considered to be entirely different people living in different centuries, but who he proposed to be actually erroneously dated accounts of the same individuals and events.
First he claimed that the
Ipuwer Papyrus
The Ipuwer Papyrus (officially Papyrus Leiden I 344 ''recto'') is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus made during the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, and now held in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Netherlands. It contains the ''Admonitions ...
came from the beginning of Egypt's
Second Intermediate Period
The Second Intermediate Period dates from 1700 to 1550 BC. It marks a period when ancient Egypt was divided into smaller dynasties for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a Secon ...
, and that this was an Egyptian account of the
Plagues of Egypt
In the Book of Exodus, the Plagues of Egypt () are ten disasters that the Hebrew God inflicts on the Biblical Egypt, Egyptians to convince Pharaohs in the Bible#In the Book of Exodus, the Pharaoh to emancipate the enslaved Israelites, each of th ...
Pharaoh of the Exodus
The Bible makes reference to various pharaohs (, ''Parʿō'') of Egypt. These include unnamed pharaohs in events described in the Torah, as well as several later named pharaohs, some of whom were historical or can be identified with historical pha ...
(much earlier than any of the mainstream candidates), the
Hyksos
The Hyksos (; Egyptian language, Egyptian ''wikt:ḥqꜣ, ḥqꜣ(w)-wikt:ḫꜣst, ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''heqau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands"), in modern Egyptology, are the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt ( ...
with the biblical
Amalek
Amalek (; ) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the enemy of the nation of the Israelites. The name "Amalek" can refer to the descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau, or anyone who lived in their territories in Canaan, or North African descend ...
ites, the Egyptian Pharaoh
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut ( ; BC) was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, Egypt, ruling first as regent, then as queen regnant from until (Low Chronology) and the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II. She was Egypt's second c ...
with the Biblical
Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba, also known as Bilqis in Arabic and as Makeda in Geʽez, is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for Solomon, the fourth King of Israel and Judah. This a ...
, the
land of Punt
The Land of Punt (Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pwnt#Egyptian, pwnt''; alternate Egyptian language#Egyptological pronunciation, Egyptological readings ''Pwene''(''t'') ) was an ancient kingdom known from Ancient Egyptian trade records. ...
with
Solomon
Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
's kingdom, and Pharaoh
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...
with the Biblical King
Shishak
Shishak, also spelled Shishaq or Susac (, Tiberian: , ), was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BC. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015.Shoshe ...
. He claimed that the Egyptian Amarna letters from the late
18th Dynasty
The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty ...
Ahab
Ahab (; ; ; ; ) was a king of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), the son and successor of King Omri, and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bible. He is depicted in the Bible as a Baal worshipper and is criticized for causi ...
.
Later works on ancient history
A second volume was due for publication shortly after this but was postponed. Instead it was followed in 1960 by ''Oedipus and Akhnaton'', where he claimed that the story of the Pharaoh
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton ( ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning 'Effective for the Aten'), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eig ...
was the origin of the Greek legend of
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. ...
, and that
Amenophis III
Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different authors following the "Low Chronol ...
was
Laius
In Greek mythology, King Laius ( ) or Laios () of Thebes was a key personage in the Theban founding myth.
Family
Laius was the son of Labdacus. He was the father, by Jocasta, of Oedipus, who killed him.
Mythology
Abduction of Chrysip ...
, and
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of an ...
was
Eteocles
In Greek mythology, Eteocles (; ) was a king of Ancient Thebes (Boeotia), Thebes, the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia. Oedipus killed his father Laius and married his mother without knowing his relationship to either. When the ...
.
In the last two years of his life Velikovsky published a further two volumes of the series. In ''Peoples of the Sea'' he dealt with the final period of his reconstruction, the Persian invasions of Egypt.
Manetho
Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...
's
20th dynasty
The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties together constitute ...
here becomes identified with the dynasties which ruled a newly independent Egypt in the early 4th century BCE, and
Nectanebo I
Nectanebo I ( Egyptian: Nḫt-nb.f; ; died 361/60 BCE) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, founder of the last native dynasty of Egypt, the 30th.
Name
Nectanebo's Egyptian personal name was Nḫt-nb.f (Nakhtnebef), which means "the strong one o ...
is a ghost double of
Rameses III
Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New Kingdom to have wielded subs ...
. Rameses III fought invasions by the
Sea Peoples
The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...
, including the "Peleset", conventionally identified with the
Philistines
Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia.
There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...
. According to Velikovsky, the "Peleset" are the Persians and the other Sea Peoples are their Greek mercenaries. The
21st dynasty
The Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXI, alternatively 21st Dynasty or Dynasty 21) is usually classified as the first Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, lasting from 1077 BC to 943 BC.
History
After the re ...
then became a line of priest-kings who ruled in the
26th dynasty
The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) was the last native dynasty of ancient Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although other brief periods of rule by Egyptians followed). T ...
. Thus,
Ramses I
Menpehtyre Ramesses I (or Ramses) was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the timeline of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. While Ra ...
was an alter-ego of
Necho I
Menkheperre Necho I (Egyptian language, Egyptian: Nekau, Ancient Greek, Greek: Νεχώς Α' or Νεχώ Α', Akkadian language, Akkadian: Nikuu. or Nikû.) (? – near Memphis, Egypt, Memphis) was a ruler of the ancient Egyptian city of Sais, E ...
,
Seti I
Menmaatre Seti I (or Sethos I in Greek language, Greek) was the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the New Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom period, ruling or 1290 BC to 1279 BC. He was the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and th ...
of
Psamtik I
Wahibre Psamtik I (Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664 and 610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian E ...
,
Ramses II
Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...
of
Necho II
Necho II (sometimes Nekau, Neku, Nechoh, or Nikuu; Greek: Νεκώς Β'; ) of Egypt was a king of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC), which ruled from Sais. Necho undertook a number of construction projects across his kingdom. In his reign, accor ...
, and
Merneptah
Merneptah () or Merenptah (reigned July or August 1213–2 May 1203 BCE) was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. According to contemporary historical records, he ruled Egypt for almost ten y ...
of
Apries
Apries () is the name by which Herodotus (ii. 161) and Diodorus (i. 68) designate Wahibre Haaibre, a pharaoh of Egypt (589 BC570 BC), the fourth king (counting from Psamtik I) of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. He was equated with the Waphr ...
. In order to make these identifications work, Velikovsky claimed that the
Hittite Empire
The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...
was an invention of modern historians, and the supposedly Hittite archaeological remains in modern
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
were actually Chaldean, i.e. Neo- Babylonian. The Hittite kings are held to be ghost doubles of the Neo-Babylonian kings, and Rameses II's battle with the Hittites at
Kadesh
Qadesh, Qedesh, Qetesh, Kadesh, Kedesh, Kadeš and Qades come from the common Semitic root "Q-D-Š", which means "sacred."
Kadesh and variations may refer to:
Ancient/biblical places
* Kadesh (Syria) or Qadesh, an ancient city of the Levant, on ...
is identical to Necho's fight against
Nebuchadrezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...
at
Carchemish
Carchemish ( or ), also spelled Karkemish (), was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its history the city was independent, but it was also part of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo-Assyrian ...
,
Nabopolassar
Nabopolassar (, meaning "Nabu, protect the son") was the founder and first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his coronation as king of Babylon in 626 BC to his death in 605 BC. Though initially only aimed at restoring and securing ...
is
Mursili II There were three Hittite kings called Mursili:
* Mursili I, ca. 1556–1526 BCE ( short chronology), and was likely a grandson of his predecessor, Hattusili I. His sister was Ḫarapšili and his wife was queen Kali.
* Mursili II, (also spelled Mur ...
,
Neriglissar
Neriglissar ( Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nergal-šar-uṣur'' or ''Nergal-šarra-uṣur'', meaning "Nergal, protect the king") was the fourth king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his usurpation of the throne in 560 BC to his death in 556 ...
Labashi-Marduk
Labashi-Marduk ( or , meaning "O Marduk, may I not come to shame") was the fifth and penultimate king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling in 556 BC. He was the son and successor of Neriglissar. Though classical authors such as Berossus wrote ...
Hattusili III Ḫattušili (''Ḫattušiliš'' in the inflected nominative case) was the regnal name of three Hittite kings:
* Hattusili I (Labarna II)
* Hattusili II
* Hattusili III
It was also the name of two Neo-Hittite kings:
* Hattusili I (Kummuh)
* Hattus ...
.
At the time of his death he considered that completing his reconstruction of ancient history would require a further two volumes: ''The Assyrian Conquest'' and ''The Dark Age of Greece''; these were never published in print in English, but online versions are available at the Velikovsky archive. In the former work, Velikovsky separated the 18th and 19th dynasties, specifically arguing that over a century separated Ay and
Horemheb
Horemheb, also spelled Horemhab, Haremheb or Haremhab (, meaning "Horus is in Jubilation"), was the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, 18th Dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). He ruled for at least 14 years between 1319 ...
, conventionally regarded as his successor. Instead, he had the 22nd through 25th dynasties follow upon the earlier part of the 18th, leading down to the Assyrian invasions of the early 7th century BCE. The "great king" who crowned Horemheb was the Assyrian king.
The books have remained popular. The British publisher
Sidgwick & Jackson
Sidgwick & Jackson was an imprint of book publishing company Pan Macmillan. Formerly it was an independent publisher; as such, it was founded in Britain in 1908. Its early authors include poet Rupert Brooke and novelist E.M. Forster. In m ...
reprinted ''Ages in Chaos'' ten times between 1953 and 1977, and Paradigma reprinted it as recently as 2009.
Controversy and criticism
The revised chronology proposed by ''Ages in Chaos'' has been rejected by nearly all mainstream historians and
Egyptologists
This is a partial list of Egyptologists. An Egyptologist is any archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt and its antiquities. Demotists are Egyptologists who speciali ...
. It was claimed, starting with early reviewers, that Velikovsky's usage of material for proof is often very selective. In 1965 the leading cuneiformist
Abraham Sachs
Abraham (Abe) Sachs (1915 – April 22, 1983) was an American Assyriologist. He earned his PhD in Assyriology in 1939 at Johns Hopkins University.
Of note is his collaboration with Otto Neugebauer, whom he met in 1941 when the latter visited th ...
, in a forum at
Brown University
Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...
, discredited Velikovsky's use of
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
n
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
sources. Velikovsky never refuted Sachs' attack.
In 1984
fringe science
Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already Objection (argument), refuted. The chance of ideas rejected by editors and published outside the mainstream being correct is remote. Wh ...
expert Henry H. Bauer wrote ''Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy'', which ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' described as "the definitive treatise debunking Immanuel Velikovsky". Bauer accused Velikovsky of dogmatically asserting his own point of view to be correct, where at best this is only one possible interpretation of the historical material in question, and gives several examples from ''Ages in Chaos''.
In 1984 Egyptologist David Lorton produced a detailed critique of chapter 3 of ''Ages in Chaos'', which identifies Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba, e.g. accusing Velikovsky of mistakes that he would have avoided if he had a basic knowledge of the languages of the ancient near east.
In 1978, following the much-postponed publication of further volumes in Velikovsky's ''Ages in Chaos'' series, the United Kingdom-based Society for Interdisciplinary Studies organised a conference in
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
specifically to debate the revised chronology. The ultimate conclusion of this work, by scholars including Peter James, John Bimson, Geoffrey Gammonn, and
David Rohl
The New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with ''A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History'' in 1995. It contradicts mainstream E ...
, was that this particular revision of chronology was untenable, although they considered that the work had highlighted problems with the orthodox chronology.
David Rohl, one of those involved in the 1978 Glasgow conference, has developed his own revised chronology. While he agrees that the Exodus should be dated to the collapse of the Middle Kingdom, and that Tutimaios is the
Pharaoh of the Exodus
The Bible makes reference to various pharaohs (, ''Parʿō'') of Egypt. These include unnamed pharaohs in events described in the Torah, as well as several later named pharaohs, some of whom were historical or can be identified with historical pha ...
, there are few points of contact between the Velikovsky and Rohl chronologies, largely because of the different methodologies used to resolve the later periods.
James, another Glasgow delegate who went on to publish a work challenging the concept of a widespread dark age at the end of the Bronze Age, credited Velikovsky with "point ngthe way to a solution by challenging Egyptian chronology", but criticised Velikovsky's chronology as "disastrously extreme", producing "a rash of new problems far more severe than those it hoped to solve" and noted that "Velikovsky understood little of archaeology and nothing of stratigraphy".
One important disagreement is that Rohl and James consider that the chronology of the ancient Near East becomes fixed by the conquests of the
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
ns in the 7th century BCE. Velikovsky carried his revisionism into the
Late Period of ancient Egypt
The Late Period of ancient Egypt refers to the last flowering of native Egyptian rulers after the Third Intermediate Period in the 26th Saite Dynasty founded by Psamtik I, but includes the time of Achaemenid Persian rule over Egypt after the ...
, and considered that chronology only becomes fixed by the conquests of
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...
in the 4th century BCE. They have also rejected some of Velikovsky's more extreme claims e.g. non-existence of Hittite Empire, changing the order of some Egyptian dynasties. Rohl and James's views remain controversial and are not accepted by most historians.
Legacy
In spite of the hostility of mainstream historians, Velikovsky's revisionism continues to attract adherents. Following his death in 1979 Velikovsky's theories were championed by Lynn E. Rose, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at
Buffalo
Buffalo most commonly refers to:
* True buffalo or Bubalina, a subtribe of wild cattle, including most "Old World" buffalo, such as water buffalo
* Bison, a genus of wild cattle, including the American buffalo
* Buffalo, New York, a city in the n ...
. After Rose's death in 2013 the torch passed to a small group of disciples, among whom the most vocal and active are Charles Ginenthal and Emmet Sweeney. Ginenthal is the founder and principal contributor to an online journal ''The Velikovskian''. He has also authored a series of revisionist works under the title ''Pillars of the Past''. Emmet Sweeney has published his chronological revisions in a series of works entitled ''Ages in Alignment''.
These scholars believe that Velikovsky did not go far enough. Under the influence of
Gunnar Heinsohn
Gunnar Heinsohn (21 November 1943 – 16 February 2023) was a German author, sociologist and economist and professor emeritus at the University of Bremen where he had a chair in social pedagogy from 1984.
Heinsohn published on a wide array of ...
they have shortened Velikovsky's timeline of ancient history even more. The 12th Dynasty of ancient Egypt has been moved almost 1500 years closer to the present, ending with Alexander the Great's invasion in 331 BCE. The Exodus has been redated to the 8th century, and the 18th Dynasty has been moved to the 8th–7th centuries. 274 years have been removed from the history of the Israelites. The Hittite Empire, which Velikovsky identified with the Neo-Babylonian Empire, has been identified with the Lydian Kingdom, while the Neo-Babylonians are now regarded as vassal kings of Babylon under the Macedonian Seleucids. The Neo-Assyrian Empire is now equated with the Persian Empire in northern Assyria and has been redated accordingly. In truth, very little of Velikovsky's chronology has been left untouched.
Little if any of these authors' work has been endorsed by mainstream historians.