Science in Christian Perspective

Immanuel Velikovsky's Catastrophic History
EDWIN M. YAMAUCHI
History Department 
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio

From: JASA 25 (December 1973): 134-139.

Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky is a gifted and imaginative writer who has proposed a daring reconstruction of ancient history on the basis of world-wide catastrophes caused by extra-terrestrial forces. He first gained notoriety with his best-seller, Worlds in Collision, published in 1950 by Macmillan despite the pressures of influential scholars who sought to suppress the work.¹ His subsequent works include: Ages in Chaos I: From the Exodus to King Akhnaton published in 1952, Earth in Upheaval published in 1955, and Oedipus and Akhnaton published in 1960-all issued by Doubleday.²

The reaction of the scientific and scholarly world, with a few exceptions, was quite hostile to Velikovsky's proposals, although popular reviews tended to be favorable. After a decade of being virtually ostracized by the academic community, Velikovsky has become a popular lecturer before college audiences. By the demonstration of his wide interest in many disciplines and his intense sincerity, he has gained a loyal following. Interest in Velikovsky's ideas has been generated by a new magazine, Pensée, published by the Student Academic Freedom Forum.³ Several universities and colleges offer courses with lectures on Velikovsky's ideas.⁴ Disciples of Vehkovsky are being urged to stand up and be counted.⁵

Velikovsky's Theory

An examination of ancient records led Velikovsky to declare that two series of world-wide catastrophes occurred, the first in the 15th cent. B.C.. and the second in the 8th and 7th cent, B.C.⁶ Velikovsky believes that Venus emerged from Jupiter as a proto-planet some 3500 years ago and caused cataclysms as it approached close to the earth in the form of an enormous comet in the 15th cent. ac. In the second period Venus pulled Mars off its orbit, and Mars in turn affected the earth in a catastrophic manner. Some two decades after his initial proposals, Velikovsky remains convinced of his theory in all but minor details.⁷

His supporters have claimed for Velikovsky a series of successful predictions, particularly with respect to properties of the planets and of the moon, which have been confirmed by the space program.⁸ On the other hand, the list of the confirmations of his historical reconstruction includes but three quite general predictions: 1) The support of Claude Schaeffer's compendium of archaeological results, published in 1948. 2) The prediction that Linear B would prove to he Greek when deciphered. 3) The prediction that Mesoamerican culture would prove to he several centuries older than believed.

Schaeffer's compendium incorporates the results of excavations conducted before World War II and is quite outdated. His very general remarks about natural catastrophes apply to the period c. 1700 B.C. and not 1500 B.C. as Vebkovsky's revised chronology requires. There was incidentally a much greater disruption of cultures in the Mediterranean and Near East c. 1200 B.C. which Velikovsky has thus far ignored in his published writings.
Velikovsky's predictions that Linear B would turn out to he Greek was made about a month before an official announcement of the decipherment in November, 1953. Though many scholars doubted that this would he the case, the prediction did not require much prescience. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick had distributed position papers suggesting such a solution months before the official announcement.

Whether the predictions of extra-terrestrial phenomena made by Velikovsky are remarkable or not I shall leave to astronomers and other scientists to judge. In any ease, they can hardly be used as a confirmation of his radical historical reconstruction as claimed by S. Talbott, the editor of Penséc: "But in Worlds in Collision Velikuvsky's claims are based almost exclusively upon an examination of historical records. Space age discoveries emerge as confirmations, not the original basis for his views."⁹

Egyptian Dates

The framework of ancient history, especially for the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C., is based largely on carefully recorded Egyptian dates which can he anchored by astronomical fixes. Velikovsky rejects this chronology and erects his own unorthodox chronology. To support this reconstruction he appeals to radiocarbon dates which are often several hundred years younger than the expected dates from Egyptian documents.¹⁰ This discrepancy applies, however, primarily to dates prior to 2000 B.C.¹¹ and can be corrected by data obtained by H. Suess in his study of bristlecone pine trees as explained by W. F. Libby.¹²

That the Egyptians used a solar civil calendar of 360 days plus 5 epagomenal days is no basis forVelikovsky's claim that we have evidence to prove that the year was once only 360 days long before the earth's axis was shifted by the approach of Venus.¹³ The Egyptians also used a lunistellar calendar of 354 days with an intercalary mouth every 3 years, and a sidereal calendar of 3655 days based on the heliacal rising of the star Sothis (Sirius).¹⁴
 
Sources for the 15th-century B.C. Catastrophe

Velikovsky combines sources from a variety of areas to argue for a world-wide catastrophe in the 15th century a.c. He writes:

Troy III was destroyed and covered by a fifty-foot layer of ashes when the Middle Kingdom in Egypt fell; the volcano on the island of Thera exploded with almost unimaginable fury; recent archaeological work in the Indus Valley showed, too, that about -1500, and in advance of the Arian invasion, cities with great walls were destroyed and a flourishing civilization came to a sodden cnd.¹⁵

This is a farrago of separate events which cannot be combined into one cataclysm. Troy III was covered by 6 feet of debris and "came to its end in some unknown manner, not by fire" in 2200 B.c. according to the excavator, Carl Blegen.¹⁶ The Indus River Valley civilization did come to an end about 1500 B.C. probably at the hands of Aryan invaders.¹⁷ Natural causes, such as a shift in the course of the Indus River, may have played a role in weakening the civilization gradually, but not suddenly.¹⁸

Elsewhere Velikovsky cites the famous eleventh tablet of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic as referring to his world-wide catastrophe. A casual perusal would reveal that the passage cited refers to a storm and a deluge,¹⁹ and not to \elikovsky's concept that "the land was shriveled by the heat of the flames" (of the Venus comet's tail) ²⁰ In any case the most probable date of the deluge described would he at the latest 2700 B.C., the date for Gilgamesh, if not much earlier.²¹

Velikovsky is in error when he writes: "The island (of Crete) was not invaded until the arrival of the I)orsans, so that the effects of a natural disaster cannot he mistaken for destruction by the hand of man."²² Crete was invaded c. 1450 ac. by the Mycenaean Greeks, who occupied Kuossos until c. 1400 B.C.²³ It is probably true, however, that the simultaneous destruction of a number of Late Minoan sites was the result of natural causes rather than human agencies. It is a curious lapse that Velikovsky does not directly connect the disasters which befell Crete and Thera in a causal relationship. In all probability the fallout from the eruption of Thera in the 15th century and the accompanying earthquakes were probably responsible for the destruction of Minoan sites on central and eastern Crete.²⁴ The explosion and disappearance of part of TheraSantorini has been considered by some as the basis of the Atlantis legend.²⁵ Needless to say, a volcanic eruption even on such a cataclysmic scale as that of Thera or more recently of Krakatoa does not require an extra-terrestrial causation.

Our author attempts to connect events of the Exodus and the Conquest with his 15th-century catastrophe. He fancifully suggests that the harad of Exodus 9:18 is not hail but meteorites, as Midrashic and Talmudic sources state that the stones which fell on Egypt were hot. There can be no serious reliance placed on late "Legends of the Jews" cited in the Midrash or Talmud. In his earliest work Velikovsky had cited the overturning of the great walls of Jericho, excavated by Sellin and Watzinger, and dated by Carstang to the beginning of the Late Bronze period.²⁶ Subsequent excavations by Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho from 1952 to 1956 have shown that Carstang's walls date from the Early Bronze Age, a thousand years before Joshua's time.²⁷ In any case, most scholars today would date the Exodus and the Conquest not to the 15th century B.C. but to the 13th century B.C.²⁸

One of the major documents upon which Velikovsky relied for his original theory was the Papyrus Ipuwer, which describes topsy turvy conditions in Egypt. Usually ascribed to the First Intermediate Period (22nd century n.c), Velikovsky used it to support his 15thcentury catastrophe. Recently J. Van Seters has argued for a dating in the Second Intermediate Period,²⁹ and a supporter of Welikovsky has claimed that this represents a confirmation of Velikovsky's dating.³⁰ Van Seters, however, would date the Admonitions to the late XIIIth Dynasty as a description of the disruption
induced by the Hyksos in the early 17th century BC.-not as a description of natural catastrophes in the 15th century B.C. The Admonitions clearly refer to the social disruptions brought on by political anarchy. Isolated statements to the "earth turned upside down" are surely to be taken as metaphorical and not as literal descriptions.

A Revised Chronology of the Hyksos and the Exodus

According to Egyptologists, the Hyksos were Semitic invaders who occupied Lower (northern) Egypt from 1700 to 1570B.C. Joseph may have been in Egypt during this period. The Exodus is to be dated either to the 15th or to the 13th century B.C.

According to Velikovsky, the Hyksos were Amalekites who migrated from Arabia.³¹ Israel did not leave Egypt during the New Kingdom, as all scholars maintain, but at the close of the Middle Kiogdom.^32a the Exodus of the Israelites preceded by a few days or weeks the invasion of the Hyksos.^32b The Hyksos were expelled by Saul; their later destruction was the work of Josh, soldier of David.³³

Neither Velikovsky's identification of the Hyksos with the Amalekites, descendants of Esau who lived in the Negeb, nor his radical reduction of Egyptian dates has the slightest support save in the author's fertile imagination.³⁴ Nor does his identification of the Hyksos capital of Avaris with el-Arish on the coast of southern Palestine, instead of San al-Hagar or Qantir in the Delta have any merit.³⁵

Oedipus, Ahknaton, and the Amarna Age

According to Velikovsky's ingenious reconstruction, alleged incestual relations of Akhnaton with his mother Tiy provided the historical prototype of the Greek legend of Oedipus.³⁶ He argues:

In the legend Oedipus' feet are swollen; in the pictures of Akhnaton the thighs are swollen. In folklore feet may stand for legs. Many languages do not have different words for legs and feet - . . . thus the name Oedipus could, and even preferably so, mean "swollen legs."³⁷

He speculates that like Oedipus, Akhnaton was not in Thebes during the years that preceded his father's death, and makes the gratuitous assumption that Akhnaton spent his childhood abroad.³⁸ He interprets a bas relief in which Akhnaton holds Tiy's hands as evidence for incestual relations: "They advance toward the inner portal of the temple as lovers, not as a son and a mother."³⁹ As a further proof of the parallels with the Oedipus cycle, Velikovsky assumes that Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen, Akhnaton's immediate successors, were as prototypes of Polynices and Eteocles not only brothers but were also the sons of Akhnaton.⁴⁰

Inasmuch as the right to the throne in Egypt was determined by matrilineal descent from the Great Wife of a pharaoh, the consanguineous royal marriages were a matter of political expediency. Ramesses II married not only his mother and his sisters but also his own daughters.⁴1 In Akhnaton's case we have evidence that he married two of his own daughters but no evidence that he committed incest with his mother. He had no sons. Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen were no doubt brothers but were not his sons; they were most probably also brothers of Akhnaton.⁴²

Immanuel Velikovsky is a gifted and imaginative writer who has proposed a daring reconstruction of ancient history on the basis of world-wide catastrophes caused by extraterrestrial forces.

Velikovsky admits that if a co-regency between Amenhotep III and his son Amenhotep IV-Akhnaton can be proved, "then the correspondence with the Oedipus story is completely shattered. "⁴³ Cyril Aldred has recently examined the various arguments for and against such a coregency, and has concluded:

The Athribis block in fact gives such unequivocal testimony that the two kings were ruling together, the younger taking precedence of the elder at some time before Year 6 of Amenophis IV (when be changed his name to Akhenaten), that opponents of the co-regency theory have been obliged to accept grudgingly the possibility of a co-regency between the two kings which however they reduce to a few months only.⁴⁴

Even a co-regency of a few months would destroy the parallels so carefully drawn up by Velikovsky inasmuch as the Greek legend has Oedipus killing his father Laitss, the king of Thebes, without knowing who he was.

Velikovsky's revised chronology places the Amarna period of Akhnaton not in the 14th century B.C. but half a millennium later in the 9th century B.C.!⁴⁵ This revision is based on the author's identification of the Sumur of the Amarna tablets with Samaria and Gubla with Jexreel.⁴⁶ He would also identify the "Biridia" (i.e. Biridiya) of Megiddo in the Amarna texts with the "Biridri" (Akkadian IM-id-ri or adad-id-ri; biblical Hadadezer) of the 9th-century B.C. texts of Shalman-eser Ill-an impossible equation from a simple linguistic basis. Objecting to the usual identification of the "Biridri" of Damascus with the biblical Ben-Hadad, Velikovsky ask: "Why did Ahab come to the help of Ben-Hadad, his enemy, at Karkar?"

The author's identifications are so far wide of the mark that one is embarrassed even to discuss them. 

As Aharoni points out:

In Papyrus Anastasi I from the beginning of Ramses Il's reign Sumur is mentioned as the northernmost city on
the Phoenician coast in which an Egyptian garrison was stationed. Sumur was a well-known town on the coast of Phoenicia, situated north of Byblos near the mouth of the Eleutheros River . . ⁴⁸

Cubla is the well-known Phoenician seaport of Byblos: Guhia in Akkadfan, Gebal in Hebrew, and KPN in Egyptian. Only the most contorted reading of the Amama letters could produce any resemblances to events of the 9th century in Israel^.49 The letters, for example, are filled with references to the marauding Hapiru,⁵⁰ who are completely absent from the biblical narratives of the 9th century.⁵¹ Nor do the texts of Shalmaneser III on the battle of Qarqar have anything to do with the Amarna tablets as Velikovsky would have us believe.⁵² As to his objection that an alliance between such rivals as Ahab of Israel and Ben-Hadad of Damascus against the Assyrians was unlikely, we have but to turn to Isaiah 7 where we see at a slightly later period the antiAssyrian alliance of Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus.⁵³
Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and Shishak.

A further consequence of Velikovsky's telescoping of Egyptian chronology is to make Hatshepsut, traditionally dated in the 15th century, a contemporary of Solomon (10th century)." The author also goes on to identify Hatshepsut with the biblical Queen of Sheba by comparing Solomon's almug (algum) trees with the myrrh and frankincense trees of Hatshepsut's relief at Deir el-Bahri.⁵⁵ The almug trees, however, which were either sandalwood trees or possibly coniferous trees from Lebanon^,56 have nothing to do with the myrrh and frankincense trees which grow only in east Africa and southwestern Arabia.⁵⁷

Instead of accepting the well-attested identification of the biblical Shishak, the pharaoh who invaded Palestine in Rehoboam's 5th year (I Kings 14:25-26; II Chronicles 12:2-10) with the Libyan Shoshenk, Vclikovsy proposes a far-fetched identification of the biblical Shishak with Tuthmosis 1, ordinarily dated to j525-1510 B.C.⁵⁸ Citing Breasted's publication of Shoshenk's Karnak relief, which is partially damaged, Velikovsky objects to the lack of any reference to spoils from Jerusalem.⁵⁹ In a forthcoming study he will identify Sosenk (sic) with King So (II Kings 17:4). His recent remark that "Sosenk only reported tribute from Israel (not Judea) and no campaign"⁶⁰ betrays complete ignorance of recent studies on the great Karnak inscription of Shoshenk.⁶¹

Velikovsky's identifications are so far wide of the mark that one is embarrassed even to discuss them.

The Aegean Dark Age

The reduction of 500+ years in Egyptian chronology also eliminates for Velikovsky the Aegean Dark Age: "No 'Dark Age' of six centuries' duration intervened in Greece between the Mycenaean age and the Ionian age of the seventh century."62 One of the arguments used by Velikovsky to support this thesis involves his belief that the Mycenaean period belonged to the Iron Age:

One of the main arguments in support of the theory that the Mycennaean (sic) Age antedated that of the Homeric epics is based on the assumption that the Mycenaean tombs belong to the Bronze Age while the Iliad and Odyssey reflect an Iron Age. The weapons of the Homeric heroes are of bronze, but iron is mentioned forty-four times in the epics, and although, from some references, it had been concluded that iron was rare in those times, the Iron Age had already superseded the Bronze Age and steel manufacture was already known.⁶³

It should he noted that Homer's treatment of metals in general corresponds with the state of metallurgy in the Late Bronze Age of his heroes rather than in his own Early Iron Age. The former epoch was characterized by a wealth of goldwurk, bronze weapons, and decoration with niello which was not true of the later period.⁶⁴ Homer mentions only bronze swords and spearheads but no iron examples. Actual remains from the 11th to the 8th centuries B.C. include four bronze swords but over fifty iron swords, thirteen bronze spearheads but over fifty iron spearheads.⁶⁵ It is true that among the forty-eight times iron is mentioned in the epics, some iron weapons such as axes and maces are included. In many cases, such as at Iliad VI. 48 and Odyssey XIV. 324, iron is treated as a precious metal which was not yet common. All of this proves that Homer retained some accurate memories of the Mycenaean period and included some references from his own age.⁶⁶ But it cannot prove, as Velikovsky wishes, that the Mycenaean Age was an Iron Age.

Another argument which is used to get rid of the Dark Age concerns the state of literacy in the Aegean. Velikovsky comments:

The decipherment of the Minoan script forced the conclusion that a syllabic alphabet was used in Greece six hundred years before Homer. But amazement still persists, for no literary documents have come down to us from between -1300 and -700. A literate people cannot forfeit completely a well-developed literaey.⁶⁷

This betrays a serious misunderstanding of the state of literacy in the Mycenaean world. The Linear B script was used by the scribes to record mundane lists of produce, etc. We have no connected literary texts, though we have some religious texts.⁶⁸ The disappearance of literacy may be more apparent than real. Evidence from Crete indicates that both ink and perishable writing materials were used.⁶⁹ Literacy never disappeared from Cyprus.⁷⁰ In any case half a millennium of evidence from the Kerameikos graves in Athens and from settlements in lonia can hardly be excised by the stroke of Velikovsky's pen.⁷¹

To support his position that Mycenaean structures come not from the Late Bronze Age (15th-12th century B.C.) but from the Iron Age (Sth-7th century B.C.), Velikovsky cites antiquated comments by Ramsay and Murray made at the end of the 19th cent., comparing the lion gate of Myceanae to Phrygian monuments.⁷² Lewis Greenberg has also attempted to confirm Velikovsky's argument.⁷³ Velikovsky arbitrarily takes radiocarbon dates for Pylos of 1200 B.C. and for Gordion, the Phrygian capital, of 1100 B.C. and reduces them to 800 and 700 B.C. respectively.⁷⁴ The historical argument for this reduction as supplied by Isaacson is that the Phrygians are not believed to have produced their distinctive culture until the 8th cent. B.C.⁷⁵

But this comparison is quite unwarranted. Homer's reference to the Phrygians may he dismissed as an anachronism. But we have contemporary Assyrian inscriptions which refer to the Mushki, the Assyrian name for the eastern branch of the Phrygians, in the region of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 B.C.),⁷⁶ Moreover excavations at Cordion by Rodney Young in 1965 uncovered strata from the late Hittite era (before 1200 B.C.), which yielded increasing amounts of Phrygian pottery.⁷⁷

Ethnic and Linguistic Confusions

During a BBC filming at Princeton, Velikovsky was candid enough to object to a posed shot where he had to contemplate a hook on Egyptian, saying: "People will say that I pretended that I read hieroglyphics, but I don't."⁷⁸ Yet for one who does not have even a basic training in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Velikovsky on the basis of his superior insight presumes in audacious innocence to correct the translation of perhaps the greatest of all Egyptologists, Adolph Erman!⁷⁹

He likewise betrays his ignorance of ancient languages when he comments: "Most probably the Hurriau people is but a creation of modern linguistics. "⁸⁰ Hurnan, though a difficult and sparsely attested dialect, was a real language.⁸¹ Velikovsky's remarks about the Ilurrian kingdom of Mitanni also reveal confusion:

the whereabouts of the kingdom of Mitanni is not positively known. . . There is reason to believe that this geographical assignment (in the neighborhood of Carchemish) is incorrect and that Mitanni was in northern Iran, where Herodotus in the fifth century before the present era described the people of Matiene the Persian satrapy was near Mount Ararat.⁸²

Though the site of the capital is not known, the area of Mitanui is well known⁸³ Some have indeed speculated that the descendants of Mitanni eventually formed the kingdom of Urartu. But this was a later development and Urartu was far to the north of the earlier area of Mitanni.⁸⁴

Despite his obvious ignorance of ancient languages, Velikovsky makes some startling claims regarding the Hittite pictographs: "In my reconstruction I come to the conclusion that they are Chaldean signs, not Hittite. I also expect unequivocal evidence that these signs were used down to the last century before the present era."⁸⁵ The Hittite Hieroglyphs, which are to be dated to the late 2nd and early 1st millennium B.C. have been analyzed by Bossert and other scholars as representing a dialect of Luwian, closely akin to the Hittite represented in the cuneiform script.⁸⁶ They certainly had nothing to do with the Chaldeans who flourished in lower Mesopotamia.

Undeterred, however, by conventional history Velikovsky informs us: "Owing to the confusion in the conventional chronology, the Chaldean writings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire are ascribed to early centuries and an imaginary empire."⁸⁷ In a prospectus of future volumes in his projected series, Ages in Chaos, we are informed that Velikuvsky will demonstrate that "the 'Hittite Empire' is a mythical construct from the Chaldean archives and the Chaldean remains of the Neu-Babylonian Empire."⁸⁸ Confusion is compounded and multiplied when one dispenses with 500 years of history by dismissing entire empires!

Conclusion

Such is Velikovsky's supreme confidence in his reconstruction that we can expect future volumes that will radically rewrite ancient history. His grand design has some of the features of an aerial balloon. It can lift the believer to lofty heights with an exhilarating view that transcends petty disciplinary boundaries. At the same time like a balloon it is a flimsy, insubstantial structure, vulnerable, and filled with gas.

Velikovsky's reconstruction is a catastrophic history in a double sense. It is a history based upon catastrophes, and it is a disastrous catastrophe of history.

Despite his obvious ignorance of ancient languages, Velikovsky makes some startling claims.

FOOTNOTES

¹For the controversy see A. de Grazia, ed., The Velikivesky Affair (New Hyde Park N.Y.: University Books, 1966).
2Hereatter the following abbreviations will be used; AC for Ages in Chaos EU for Earth in Upheaval OA for Oedipus and Akhnaton WC for Worlds in Collision
³Available from P.O. Box 414, Portland, Oregon 97207. Five of ten interdisciplinary issues on Velikovsky have thus far appeared. Though the editors have taken a sympathetic, and even defensive attitude toward Velikovsky's views, critical articles have also been published. Hereafter the following abbreviations for the issues of this magazine
will be used:
P I for Pensée (May, 1972) 
P II for (Fall, 1972) 
P III for (Winter, 1973) 
P IV for (SpringSummer, 1973) P V for (Fall, 1973)
⁴See P III, 37-38 for a list of such courses.
⁵Joseph May, "A Call to Action," P II, 47-48. 
⁶WC, passim; EU, pp. 200, 261.
⁷P I, 8.
⁸ I, 11 ff.
⁹P II, 36.
¹⁰I.Velikovsky, "The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating," P IV, 12; cf. A. Burgstahler and Evan MacICe, "Ages in Chaos in the Light of C14 Arehaeometry," P IV, 33-37, 50. Cf. also J. Johnston, "The Problems of Radiocarbon Dating," Palestine Exploration Quarterly, lOS (1973), 13-26.
¹¹H. S. Smith, "Egypt and C 14 Dating," Antiquity, 38 (1964), 32-37.
¹²W. F. Libby, "The Radiocarbon Dating Method," P IV, 7-11.
¹³WC, p. 330,
¹⁴0. Neogebaoer, "The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1 (1942), 396-403; and R. Parker, The Calendars of Ancient Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
¹⁵EU, p. 276.
¹⁶Carl W. Blegen, "The Principal Homeric Sites: Troy," in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings, eds., A Companion to Homer (London: Macmillan and Co., 1962), pp. 373, 383; idem, Troy (N.Y.; Praeger, 1963).
¹⁷S Piggot, Prehistoric India (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1952); M. Wheeler, Early India and Pakistan (N.Y.; Praeger, 1959).
¹⁸G. F. Dales, "Civilization and Floods in the Indus Valley," Expedition, 7 (Summer, 1965), 1017; idem, "The Decline 'of the Ilarappans," Scientific American, 214 (May, 1966), 92-100.
¹⁹A. Fleidel, The Gilgansesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).
²⁰WC, p. 61.
²¹M. Malhovan, "Noah's Flood Reconsidered," Iraq, 26 (1964), 62-82.
²²EU, p. 191.
²³R.W. Hutchinson, Prehistoric Crete (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1962).
²⁴D. L. Page, The Santorini Volcano and the Destruction of Minoan Crete (London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1970); N. Platon, Zakros (N.Y.: Charles Soribner's Sons, 1971).
²⁵J. V. Luce, Lost Atlantis (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1969).
²⁶WC p. 140.
²⁷K. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho (N.Y.: Praeger, 1957).
²⁸Cf. E. Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1972), pp. 48-57.
²⁹J. Van Seters, "A Date for the 'Admonitions' in the Second Intermediate Period," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology,
 (1964), 13-23.
³⁰P III, 36.
³¹WC, p. 130; AC, p. 61.
^32aAC, p. 99.
^32bAC, p. 53. 
³³AC p. 99.
³⁴For the Hyksos, see: T. Save-Soderbergh, "The Hyksos Rule in Egypt," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 37 (1951), 53-71; J. Van Seters, The Hyksos (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); D. B. Redford, "The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition," Oriesstalia, 39 (1970), 1-51.
³⁵Cf. P. Montet, Le Drasne d' Aearis (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1941); idem, Egypt and the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968); E. Uphill, "Pithom and Raamses," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 27 (1968), 291-316; 28 (1969), 15-39,
³⁶thesis accepted by C. H. Gordon, P II, 30-32. 
³⁷OA, p. 57.
³⁸0A, pp. 51 and 54.
³⁹OA, p. 95; cf. p. 69. 
⁴⁰OA, p. 206.
⁴¹M, Murray, The Splendour That Was Egypt (N.Y.: Praeger, 1964), pp. 70 ff. Cf. J. âerny, "Consanguineous Marriages in Pharaonic Egypt," Journal of Egyptian Archaelogy, 40 (1954), 23-29
⁴²This citation of recent studies of their mummies in P II, 30, ignores this point. Cf. C. Desroche-Noblecourt, Tntankhasoen (N.Y.: Graphic Society, 1963), pp. 120 ff.; C. Aldred Akhenaten (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Co., 1968), pp. 68, 97-99.
⁴³AC, p. 54, fn.
⁴⁴Aldred, p. 107.
⁴⁵AC, pp. 229, 332. In P IV, 50, Velikovsky reaffirms this dating.
⁴⁶AC, p. 232.
⁴⁷AC, p. 312, fn.
⁴⁸Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), pp. 68-69.
⁴⁹Gb ibid., pp. 157-69; E. Campbell, "The Amarna Letters and the Amaroa Period," The Biblical Archaeologist, 22
(1960), 2-22.
⁵⁰J. Bottfro, Le probleine des Habiru (Paris: Cahiers de Ia Sociétb asiatique, 1954); M. Greenherg, The Hab/piru
(New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1955).
⁵¹ W. Stiehing, Jr., "A Criticism of the Revised Chronology," P V, 10-12; and A. Burgstahler, "The El-Amarna Letters and the Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia," P V, 13-15.
⁵²AC, pp. 310 ft. Cf. C. Cameron, "The Annals of Shalmaneser III King of Assyria," Sosner, 6 (1950), 6:26; E. Michel "Die Assur-Texte Salmanassars III (858-824)," Welt des Orients, 2 (1954), 27-45; 2 (1955) 137-57; 2 (1956), 221-33; 2 (1959) 408-15.
⁵³ M. Unger, Israel and the Arasnaeans of Damascus (London: James Clarke & Co., 1957).
⁵⁴AC, p. 104.
⁵⁵AC, p. 124.
⁵⁶J. Greenfield, "The Small Caves of Qumran" Journal of the American Oriental Society, 89 (1969), 138.
⁵⁷G. W. Van Beek, "Myrrh and Frankincense," The Biblical Archaeologist, 23 11960),70-95.

Velikovsky's reconstruction is a catastrophic history in a double sense. It is a history based upon catastrophes, and it is a disastrous catastrophe of history.

⁵⁸AC, p. 104.
⁵⁹AC, pp. 174-75,
⁶⁰P IV, 41,
⁶¹B. Maisler, "The Campaign of Pharaoh Shishak to Palestine," Veins Testasnemem Supplement, 4 (1957), 57.66; 5. Yeivin, "Did the Kingdom of Israel Have a Maritime Policy?" Jewish Quarterly Review, 50 (1960), 193 If.; Aharoni, pp. 283-90; see especially K. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 B.C.) (Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Ltd., 1973), pp. 294-300, 432-447.
⁶²EU, p. 277.
⁶³ V, 8. His further contention that only steel could he used to cut diorite and that copper or bronze could not have been used to cut the limestone blocks of the pyramids is refuted by a study which he cites, but evidently does not believe: A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries (London: Edward Arnold, 4th ed., 1962),
⁶⁴ F. J. Forbes, Bergbau, Steinbruchtfltigkeit und Huttenwesen (Gottingen, 1967), p. 17.
⁶⁵Snodgrass, Early Creek Armour and Weapons (Edinburgh: University Press, 1964), p. 174.
⁶⁶Yamauchi. "Homer, History and Archaeology." Bulletin of the Near East Archaeological Society, 3 (1973),
21-42.
⁶⁷EU, p. 278, fn.
⁶⁸Long Cypro-Minoan texts from Enkomi may be literary texts. Cf. H. D. Ephron, "The Jkson Tablet of Enkomi," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 65 (1961), 39-108.
⁶⁹C. Brice, Inscriptions in the Minoan Linear Script of Class A (Oxford: The Society of Antiquaries, 1961).
⁷⁰j.F. Daniel, "Prolegomena to the Cypro-Minoan Script," American Journal of Archaeology, 45 (1941), 249-82.
⁷¹V. R. A. Deshorough, The Greek Dark Ages (N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1972).
⁷²P III, 31.
⁷³"The Lion Gate at Myceoae," P III. 26-30.
⁷⁴ IV, 50.
⁷⁵ M. Isaacson, "Carbon 14 Dates and Velikovsky's Revision of Ancient History," P IV, 2632.
⁷⁶D. Luekenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926), I, 74; R. D. Barnctt, Phrygia and the Peoples of Anatolia in the Iron Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p.7.
⁷⁷Rodney S. Young, "The Gordion Campaign of 1965," American Journal of Archaeology, 70 (1966), 276.
⁷⁸P III, 39
⁷⁹ OA 39. p. 121.
⁸⁰AC, p. 198.
⁸¹E. A. Speiser, "Introduction to Flurrian," Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 20 (1941).
⁸²OApp. 98-99.
⁸³R. T. O'Callaghan, Aram Naharaim (Rome: Pontifium Institutum Biblicum, 1948).
84G. Burney and D. Lang, The Peoples of the Hills: Ancient Ararat and Caucasus (N.Y.: Praeger, 1972); B. Piotrovsky, The Ancient Civilization of Urartn (N.Y.: Cowles, 1969).
8SEU, p. 277.Archie Orientblnl
8611. Bossert, "Die Phoniziseh-Hethitischen Bilinguen vom Karatepe," , 18 (1950), 10-42; R. Barnctt, "Karatepe, the Key to the Hittitite Hieroglyphs,"
Anatalan Studies, 3 (1953), 53-95; C.H. Gordon, Forgotten Scripts (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1968), pp. 87-103.
⁸⁷EU, p. 277.
⁸⁸P IV, between pp. 26-27.