| As told by Herodotus, "Pheros" was struck with blindness during the time of a high Nile when a gale blew with great force. Pheros was punished, ostensibly by the river-god, Hapi, for having the temerity to hurl a spear into the turbulent waters, the very thing Seti II is shown doing in his tomb! [The king, as harpooner, is a theme that has been seen in the previous 18th Dynasty]. And so Pheros lived as a blind man for ten years. In his eleventh year [of reign], he received an oracle from Buto [ancient Pe and modern Tell el-Fara'in] that the term of his affliction had come to an end and that he could regain his sight if it were possible for him to rinse his eyes with the urine of a woman who had never slept with a man other than her own husband. The urine of the wife of Pheros did not prove helpful, nor that of other women whose urine the king tested out. The unfaithful women were rounded up and gathered in a town called Erythrebolos ["red clod"], and burnt up along with the entire place. Perhaps Herodotus misheard Erythrebolos for "Eileithyiapolis" [modern El Kab and ancient Nekheb] and this "Erythrebolus" referred to Nekhen, called "Kom el Ahmar" ["the red mound"] in Arabic. At any rate, Nekheb and Nekhen, stood opposite one another from the river. The probable reason why Nekhen became called "the red mound" is that it was strewn with red ceramic shards, a pottery works perhaps once having existed there. Also, the term "nxn" implies something "walled in", which is presumably what Pheros did to the adulterous females. How Seti II can possibly have been connected to Nekheb or Nekhen is not clear. Nekheb, it is thought, was the seat of the "viceroys of Kush" and was at one time an important habitation. In a tale told by the Egyptian historians, Manetho and Chaeremon, it was to none other than the "king of Ethiopia" [read "viceroy of Kush"] that "Amenophis" [King Merneptah] turned for assistance and protection and to whose care he perhaps entrusted his young son, "Sethos also called Ramesses after his grandfather", after "Amenophis" had lost his throne during an insurrection within Egypt. Once "Sethos" became pharaoh, he also experienced the misfortune of having his throne usurped by his brother, "Hermaeus", until he was able to reclaim it. This fits well to the known history of the reign of Seti II, who temporarily lost his place to either Amenmesse or Siptah [Hermes/Hermaeus?] or both in the confusing twilight years of the 19th Dynasty. Neither Amenmesse nor Siptah [including the latter's regent and ultimate successor, Tawosret] were regarded as "rightful kings" by their 20th Dynasty successors. Diodorus Siculus agrees in most respects with Herodotus when it comes to "Pheros". However, Diodorus adds the information that the wife of a common gardener effected the cure for blindness, and Pheros married this woman. Moreover, the oracle advised Pheros to offer unto the god of Heliopolis, Ra. In this version the faithless women are burned in a place that was called "Bolos". So the difference in the location are perhaps just a whim of the translator, since "Bolos" remains just "clod". At any rate, Heliopolis is nowhere near Nekheb or Nekhen, but Heliopolis, according to Diodorus, is where Pheros erected his two giant obelisks in thanks for the return of his sight. UPDATE: Kim Ryholt recently published a Demotic version of the above tale from a somewhat fragmentary source discovered among the Carlsberg Papyri. In this Demotic piece, composed some centuries after Herodotus and Diodorus, the king does not hurl a spear into the waters but, presumably into the chest of the husband of a woman he covets, while his heart is "raging like the sea". The gods may have been displeased with the pharaoh on account of his deed, because he does lose his sight. However, in a dream, he is told that the tears [not urine] of a virtuous woman, who had known no other man except her husband, would effect the cure. However, the 40 wives of the ruler were made to weep and he only became worse. Therefore, an end was made to these concubines. The son of the king, herein called "Necho" [n k3w], relates to his father how he met a virtuous female in the city of Heracleopolis, near the Faiyum [Hnn nswt, modern Ihnasya el-Medina]. From this lady's tears the pharaoh is able to make an eyewash, regain his sight-- and then the story breaks off. |