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Photo: A Macedonian coin with the Greek name Alexander
Credit: Photo from Macedonia Evidence
Charles Ellwood Jones has announced at the Ancient World Bloggers Group that a group of Classical Scholars have endorsed a letter to President Barak Obama concerning a Slavic country calling itself the “Republic of Macedonia”and “the misappropriation by the government in Skopje of the most famous of Macedonians, Alexander the Great.”
You can read the letter to President Obama by clicking here.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Alexander the Great, Barack Obama, Macedonia
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>Dr. Mariottini,My comment is not about the government in Skopje, but it raises an important issue about Alexander the Great. It appears that there is an Egyptian record of Alexander the Great’s visit to the oracle of Amon in Egypt that mainstream scholarship has overlooked. However I want to say at the outset that not all historical revisionism is bad. When it appears that the standard version of history contains serious errors, it is important to revise that version of history. As I have discussed previously at your blog, there is a great body of evidence from century after century, age after age that the conventional chronology of ancient Egypt under the pharaohs contains serious errors and needs revisions. Here is an internet address to a paper on various proposed ancient history revisions: http://www.sis-group.org.uk/ancient.htmIn comments relating to Tell Ta’yinat at your blog I have discussed some of the ideas and evidence in ‘Peoples of the Sea’ by Immanuel Velikovsky. However, I suggest that another wonderful reason for reading Velikovsky’s ‘Peoples of the Sea’ is Velikovsky’s chapter entitled “Alexander”. Velikovsky identified an Egyptian 21st Dynasty stela—the Maunier Stela or Stela of the Banished – as a record of Alexander the Great’s visit to the oracle of Amon in Egypt. The time was late 332 – early 331 BC and Alexander had recently been received as a liberator in Egypt. Several classical authors wrote about Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Amon where a priest of Amon told Alexander that he, Alexander, was a son of Zeus [Amon]. The Maunier Stela or Stela of the Banished is assigned to the so-called 21st Dynasty and is conventionally dated to the 11th or 10th century BC. The stela text features a High Priest of Amon, Menkheperre, and the arrival of a “great god” at a temple. The text of the stela discusses their interaction and is conventionally regarded as cryptic. But this seems to be because the translators had no idea of the true historical context of the text of the stela. The text of the Maunier Stela has many similarities to the accounts of classical authors regarding Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Amon. The text of the stela and the classical accounts about Alexander match in striking and unique details. To mention two of them:1. The year of the stela is the Year 25. Alexander was in his 25th year during his visit to Egypt in late 332 – early 331 BC. Apparently, the date of the stela was reckoned from Alexander’s birth, which makes sense because Alexander was proclaimed to be the son of a god.2. In the Maunier Stela the High Priest of Amon, Menkheperre, praises the “great god” as a father talks to his son. This seems very odd; one would expect a priest to praise a “great god” as a son talks to his father, not as a father talks to his son. But this fits the ancient accounts about Alexander: a priest or prophet of Zeus-Amon addressed Alexander as a father talks to his son.There are many other similarities. I suggest that once one compares translations of the Egyptian stela to translated accounts of Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Zeus-Amon by ancient authors, it becomes obvious that the “great god” in the stela is Alexander. It appears that this stela is really from the fourth century BC and that it has been misdated to the 11th or 10th century BC and misunderstood by mainstream scholarship. The following webpage does an excellent job of discussing the stela: http://www.specialtyinterests.net/alexandr.htmlThere has been widespread unfair treatment against Velikovsky. Velikovsky’s books on ancient history have not received the serious scholarly attention that they deserve. I respectfully request that scholars of antiquity give serious and fair-minded scholarly attention to ‘Peoples of the Sea’ by Immanuel Velikovsky, including to the question of whether the Maunier Stela is an Egyptian record of Alexander’s visit to the oracle of Amon. Adam StuartJacksonville, Florida
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>Dear Dr. Mariottini,In my comment above I called attention to an enormously important identification, the identification of the Maunier Stela or Stela of the Banished as a record of Alexander the Great's visit to the oracle of Amon. One does not have to be a professional scholar to read Velikovsky's 'Peoples of the Sea' and reasonably conclude that this 21st dynasty stela is an Egyptian record about Alexander the Great. This is primarily a matter of comparing a translation of the stela to translations of accounts of classical authors who wrote about Alexander, i.e., comparing various aspects of them. Velikovsky did a brilliant job of this in his chapter "Alexander" in 'Peoples of the Sea'. This identification implies that at least part of the 21st dynasty has been misdated by around 700 years and really belongs in the time of Alexander. I am writing to ask you to please not ignore my comment about this stela and to ask you to please read 'Peoples of the Sea' this summer. My comment had, mainly, nothing to do with the current controversy about Macedonia and the government in Skopje. However my comment was about Alexander and is arguably far more important than the Macedonia controversy, with far reaching potential implications for ancient Middle East archaeology. When I asked if you would read Velikovsky's 'Peoples of the Sea' before 'Worlds in Collision', you answered that you would read Velikovsky's book this summer; I still don't know which book you meant. I think it is much more important for archaeology and the study of ancient history to read 'Peoples of the Sea' first, though both books are worth reading. Unfortunately it appears that Velikovsky's books on ancient history/chronology such as 'Peoples of the Sea' have not received adequate scholarly attention because their reception has been overshadowed by criticism against 'Worlds in Collision'. I can see from your recent blog posts that you have been busy lately. However, not for me, but for the sake of archaeology and the study of ancient history, will you please read 'Peoples of the Sea' this summer and comment on it, including on the chapter "Alexander", at your blog? I feel lucky to have learned of the Maunier Stela; surely many professional scholars have gone their entire careers without even being aware of the possibility that it is a record about Alexander.Thank you for maintaining such an interesting blog and for allowing the posting of comments there by scholars and laypersons. Adam StuartP.S. Here is the link to the page containing my comment about Alexander:http://www.claudemariottini.com/blog/2009/05/letter-to-president-barack-obama.htmlHere are two earlier pertinent pages containing comments regarding 'Peoples of the Sea':http://www.claudemariottini.com/blog/2009/04/more-on-tell-tayinat-discovery.htmlhttp://www.claudemariottini.com/blog/2009/04/tayinat-capital-of-land-of-palastin.html
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>As Jesus Christ said "If you have not experienced what you write than it is nothing more than hypothesis".
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>Eliakim,That is a great quote. The only problem is that those words are not in the Bible.Claude Mariottini
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>I am providing the following additional point about the 21st Dynasty Maunier Stela (Stela of the Banishment — conventionally dated to roughly around 1000 BC) as evidence that the stela is actually a record of Alexander the Great’s visit to the oracle of Zeus-Amon in 331 BC. Of the oracle of Amon that Alexander visited, Diodorus and Strabo wrote of some communication at the oracle being by nodding rather than by words.One of the curious things about the Maunier Stela is that based on the text of the stela, the “great god”, in communicating with the High Priest Menkheperre, repeatedly nodded. The “great god” repeatedly nodded “exceedingly” and “exceedingly, exceedingly”. The nodding is mentioned in Volume 4 of James Henry Breasted’s ‘Ancient Records of Egypt’ and in Velikovsky’s ‘Peoples of the Sea’. It is interesting to note that Breasted seems to have been quite puzzled by this stela as his discussion of it is riddled with unknowns and questions.Adam Stuart
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>What is greater the word in the bible or the word that Jesus and his Father speaks to you directly? Jesus and the prophets knew that 'The lying pens of the scribes had falsified the law" Jer 8:8 St Jerome also claimed not to understand the spiritual law and he hoped for the day when God would send the one to reveal it to the people.
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>Present day macedonians are mix of Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians, they have nothing to do with Alexander. The "macedonist scholars" steal history and insult all proper historians with their crazy theories that they pass as historical facts, for example, tzar Samuil Tzar Des Bulgares ! is "macedonian" as well, macedonia region was part of Bulgaria for hundreds of years, BUT the official statement of the Skopje government is that there are NO bulgarians in rep. Macedonia?!? In the same time they try to say that Samuil was both Bulgarian and macedonian ruler… You as scholars must have read a lot of Byzantium sources, is there passages about this pure macedonian nation anywhere? Stealing history for political reasons and propaganda is what they do, rep. of Macedonia is still under communist rule even tho they lean towards US, they talk about human rights, but they do not recognize the Bulgarian minority ( actually it's quite big minority )I am a macedonian bulgarian, but i can not state that openly or i risk to loose my job and to be called to "visit" the police, where i will get beaten like many of my friends that had the "stupid idea" to say out loud what they feel they are – bulgarians.We are the victims, our grand fathers started IMRO and fought for macedonia as macedonian bulgarians and now we can not say what we are – is this democracy? It's up to the world history community to stop that madness, we are being brainwashed every day by tv, radio and other media, now "God talks to us directly that we are Alexander descendants" – the whole civilized world is laughing at us. Stop that madness.
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