Talk:Manetho

"Aigyptiaka"

Manetho's work is usually spelled "Aegyptiaca" in English. The references need fixing. Rd232 12:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Fixed. --Peter Kirby 09:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, I'm afraid I don't see the point of the Transmission drawing. It takes up a lot of space to describe something that really isn't that complicated. Rd232 12:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Respectfully, I disagree. The 7-box diagram makes the relationships clearer. I support the use of visuals as appropriate. (I have cleaned up the "grey pallour" on that image noted by another person.) --Peter Kirby 09:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• I have reduced the size of the image to 600px wide. --Peter Kirby 12:30, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Leader Text

Reading through, the leader text doesn't seem to flow quite right to me, plus bits of it could be arguably POV. I've changed the leader text, but preserved the old version below and would appreciate thoughts and comments; does my new version change the meaning too much?

Existing Leader Text

Manetho (circa 3rd century BC), alternatively known as Manethon of Sebennytos, was an Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos who lived during the Ptolemaic era. He recorded Aegyptiaca ("History of Egypt"), and had an astrological work, The Book of Sothis, attributed to him pseudonymously. His work is of great interest to Egyptologists and a prime piece of evidence for the chronology of the reigns of Pharaohs.

New Leader Text

Manetho, also known as Manethon of Sebennytos, was an Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos who lived during the Ptolematic era, circa 3rd century BC. Manetho is credited with recording Aegyptica (History of Egypt) and for The Book of Sothis, an astrological work.

His work is considered to be of great interest to Egyptologists, and is often used as evidence for the chronology of the reigns of Pharoahs.

Comments & Feedback

There is no question that Manetho wrote Aegyptiaca and did not write The Book of Sothis; that's not POV. I accept the rephrasing of the last sentence to "often used as evidence for." --Peter Kirby 17:09, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how the current version is POV. All students of Egyptian history accept that Manetho is a primary source, & that he published this information in a book called Aegyptica. (Some scholars quibble over just how many books Manetho wrote & what they were named, though.) I can't think of any other ancient writer who is creditted with writing either this specific book -- or any other by this name. And "Manethon" is nothing more than a hyper-literal variant of "Manetho". -- llywrch 21:04, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Name

I removed {{Template:Hiero|Manetho ("Gift of Thoth")|<hiero>F40:X1-D36-G26-t:Z4</hiero>|align=right|era=pt}} since it has no basis in reality. Klompje7 15:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

• That's fine. Who put the 'citation needed' flag up? Or was that before you removed that bit of fancy perhaps? It says to check Talk for discussion, but I don't see a discussion of it. --Peter Kirby 10:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• I removed the citation needed flag. It seems only to clutter the article to put "(Redford 1986a)" in the main text. People with an interest can see the references and find Redford easily enough. Moreover, unlike the imaginary Egyptian, it doesn't strike me as in any way in need of support or 'original' than 99% of the article. --Peter Kirby 10:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

---

Hi, the article leaves me unclear whether he was Egyptian or Hellenistic Greek. Do we know? Thanks...

He was Egyptian, however he was Hellenized, he could speak and write in Greek.JJAshfiel 22:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Alternative Origin Story

What Manetho is best known for whithin the scope of Jewish history his is tale of the Jews origins in Egypt. This is an often contentious topic amongst Jewish Historians, and it would be enlightening to insert more inofrmation on this into the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JJAshfiel (talk • contribs) 16:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Lacks impact

I felt that the article has a lot of detail but doesn't give the impression that Manetho's contribution to history is as important as I've been lead to believe. I'd like to see something based on the answer to the question "what if there was no Manetho?" which I think would suit WP:MTAA better. The section Impact of Aegyptiaca has a lot of this, which is why I think it, or at least some of its content, should be moved to the beginning. AngusCA (talk) 01:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Timotheus of Athens

Is the red link Timotheus of Athens the same as Timotheus (general)? If yes we should either correct the link or add an redirect (preferred).

RScheiber (talk) 17:02, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

What is meant by...

What is meant by "Manetho should not be judged on the factuality of his account, but on the approach he took to recording history, and in this, he was as successful as Herodotus and Hesiod."? For one thing, Hesiod was not a historian (Unless you're reallllly stretching the definition of historian). For another thing, why is wikipedia telling me what I should and shouldn't do? And why are we judging Manetho? And if we are going to judge Manetho, why shouldn't it be on the basis of his factual superiority to Herodotus - something which the article puts a lot of emphasis on? We can't really talk about his style - we only have epitomous copies. What is the point of this sentence? Furius (talk) 09:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

The above from Furius (hope he's not that angry) is in the "The effect of the Aegyptiaca" section. Then in the "Transmission and reception" section there's this: "And in the Eusebius in turn was preserved by Jerome in his Latin translation, an Armenian translation, and by George Syncellus." What is meant by this? Especially the phrase, "an Armenian translation"? I'm interested in any Armenian connection to preservation of Manetho, but I have no idea what this means. Bob Enyart, Denver KGOV radio host (talk) 21:15, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Often Those Who Know the Least, Know the Most

There is a paragraph with no citations, which IMHO makes claims that we are in no position to know or prove 2000 years later.

"The Aegyptiaca (Ancient Greek Ἀιγυπτιακά, Aiguptiaka), the "History of Egypt", may have been Manetho's largest work, and certainly the most important. [How do you know that? Could there have been other lost works?] It was organised chronologically and divided into three volumes, and his division of rulers into dynasties was an innovation. [How could you know that? How do you know what others did -- many works must be now lost. ] However, he did not use the term in the modern sense, by bloodlines, but rather, introduced new dynasties whenever he detected some sort of discontinuity whether geographical (Dynasty IV from Memphis, Dynasty V from Elephantine), or genealogical (especially in Dynasty I, he refers to each successive Pharaoh as the "son" of the previous to define what he means by "continuity"). Within the superstructure of a genealogical table, he fills in the gaps with substantial narratives of the Pharaonic kings.

"Some have suggested that Aegyptiaca was written as a competing account to Herodotus' Histories, to provide a national history for Egypt that did not exist before. From this perspective, Against Herodotus may have been an abridged version or just a part of Aegyptiaca that circulated independently. Unfortunately, neither survives in its original form today." — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnochBethany (talk • contribs) 18:23, 27 June 2014

Reliability

It would be useful to have a seperate section detailing how reliable Manetho's history of Egypt is. He was writing about people and events that happened hundreds of years before, if not more, so it seems logical that you would have to take his accounts with rather a large pinch of salt (especially if he is relying on texts by other historians such as Herodotus, whose accounts are of debated accuracy). Some discussion of whether his history is considered accurte and reliable would be quite useful, or at least mentioned which parts are considered not to be accurate by current experts. 194.66.198.40 (talk) 09:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Greek & Latin

1. "Aegyptiaca (Αἰγυπτιακων)".
   • This misses a Greek accent.
   • This looks strange because the Greek characters in a Latinate way would give Aegyptiacon (long o). It looks like the Greek could be a genitive while the English is a nominative. There often are two types of titles, one like "book about/of something" and one shortend like just "something". Pliny the Elder's work for example is known as "naturalis historiae libri XXXVII" (37 books of the natural history) and for short "naturalis historia" (natural history). Aegyptiaca could be a short title, while Αἰγυπτιακων could be an incorrect shortening by removing a term like book or books but not adjusting the case. Flavius Josephus at PACE (Against Apion 91) has "ἐν ἄλλῃ δέ τινι βίβλῳ τῶν Αἰγυπτιακῶν ..." and "In another book of the Aegyptiaca ..." where Αἰγυπτιακῶν is a genitive.
   • Is now corrected and sourced. Another source could be LSJ.
2. "Greek: Μανέθων, Manethōn, or Μανέθως, Manethōs"
   "In the Greek language, the earliest fragments (the inscription [...] and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus [...]) writes his name as Μανέθων Manethōn [...]. Other Greek renderings include Manethōs, Manethō, Manethos, Manēthōs, Manēthōn, and Manethōth"
   • "fragments ... writes" could be incorrect grammar.
   • In the inscription reference it is ΜΑΝΕΘΩΝ (all capital letters, no accent). This spelling could be added in the reference, but if Flavius Josephus' has multiple differently accented forms (see below), then the inscription can not be given with any arbitrary accentuation and then it would make sense to cite the inscription correctly.
   • Flavius Josephus at PACE has several forms as: Μανεθώς [in Against Apion 16, 228, 251-252, 287-288, 296], Μάνεθως [7 times in AA 73-91 and 103-105], τοῦ Μανέθω [in AA 93] (gen.), Μανεθών [in AA 1] (acc. of Μανεθώς), τὸν Μανεθών [in AA 300] (acc. of Μανεθώς), τὸν Μανεθῶν [in AA 278] (acc. of *Μανεθῶς), τῷ Μανεθῶνι [in AA 270] (dat. of *Μανεθῶν). PACE could be wrong, but it should be more likely that Flavius Josephus has more than one form. And then a mentioning of Flavius Josephus' alternative forms would be missing.
   • The "Other Greek renderings" aren't Greek at all and are improper transliterations. Greek spellings and sources are missing.
     In non-Greek sources like modern dictionaries or grammars are also mentioned: Μανεθῶς (acc. Μανεθῶν)
   • In any case: Citations for the Greek (or "Greek") terms are missing.
3. "In Latin it is written as Manethon, Manethos, Manethonus, and Manetos"
   • The form Manetho would be missing.
   • It would be better, if Manethos (as well as Manetos) would have some information about vowel length or the inflection like giving the genitive. Is it Manethōs or Manethŏs (gen. Manethi etc., second declension)? It seems like there are (via google books) "apud Manethon" and "secundum Manethon" (could be acc. of Manethōs as well as Manethŏs), "apud Manetho" and "secundum Manetho" (could be acc. of Manethōs or indeclinable Manethō), "de Manetho" and "de Manetho vel Manethone" (could be abl. of Manethōs or indeclinable Manethō). The likeliest form seems be Manethōs (acc. Manethōn, Manethō, abl. Manethō) declined similar to the Greek Attic 2nd declension.
   • Properly citations would be missing. Jugding by some google book searches Manethon as well as Manetho clearly exists, but Manethonus and Manetos seem to be doubtful, rare at best. Maneto or Maneton (gen. Manetonis etc.) on the other hand could be another, but rare and old New Latin, form.

-84.161.40.68 (talk) 06:00, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

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Moneta

Moneta is the word in both Latin and Italian that translates to money. It was used as an attribute for the goddess Juno-Moneta. I believe it is worth searching for a link with Manetho. RCNesland (talk) 20:22, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The Leper Story

The Leper Story is mentioned in the article three times but there is no summary of the story. This could be expanded. -- Chris Guest 02:10, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Large confusing section on the Book of Sothis

There is currently a large pointless detour from the subject embeded the "Content and Structure, Book 1" section, which goes into more detail on the Book of Sothis than there is on the Book of Sothis page. The Book of Sothis is not a book written by Manetho, but rather based a pseudo-Manetho. To a casual reader it looks like this section is dealing with Aegyptiaca.

I suggest moving the information to the Book of Sothis page, and leaving only a minor mention of the Book of Sothis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.3.228.242 (talk) 02:48, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Ridiculously Speculative Conjecture

The following is currently found under the section "Similarities with Berossos" near the end.

"Now the edition of the Aegyptiaca that Eusebius used stated that the period of the gods, demigods, and spirits of the dead was 24,925 years. It is possible that a different edition gave a different duration for this period, one that agreed with the number of saroi Berossos assigned to the period before Aloros. If this is correct, Syncellus would have understood that the first mortal king in Manetho's list, Menes, began his reign in the same year as Aloros, the first mortal king in Berossos' list. Hence Syncellus' charge that "Manetho" copied Berossos for the year date in which mortals began to be kings in Babylonia and Egypt, respectively."

An infinite number of things are possible, however as both Eusebius and Syncellus were concerned with disproving Manetho's and Berossos' reliability as historians, it is more likely they weren't entire motivate to be accurate in their maligning these writers. Unless someone can provide a source for this conjecture, it should be removed.174.3.228.242 (talk) 08:10, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

My drastic edit to the Aegyptiaca section

I've just made a drastic edit, restoring the entire section on the Aegyptiaca to the state it was in on 13 August 2016, so I should explain why. Today I looked at this article in detail for the first time in years, and I saw that it's pushing a thesis that the Aegyptiaca was forged in Roman times. This claim was cited once, to an 1861 book about Egyptian chronology by "W. Palmer"; Who Was Who in Egyptology shows that the author was William Palmer and the full title is Egyptian Chronicles with a Harmony of Sacred and Egyptian Chronology. I'm not conversant with the current scholarship about Manetho, but I've never seen it suggested that the Aegyptiaca was a forgery, and a 19th-century book trying to reconcile biblical chronology with Egyptian history is, in my opinion, utterly untrustworthy (as I once said here). Besides, most of the text didn't even rely on Palmer or any other inline citation. It looked to me like an essay by somebody with a novel thesis. I checked the article history, and this text is the product of a major rewrite in October 2016 by User:Judahtzdk, who hasn't edited since 2017 and whose only talk page edits were at Talk:Amraphel defending the highly questionable works of David Rohl.

The hypothesis that the Aegyptiaca was a forgery may have enough academic standing to be included here, but I don't know that it does, and I know it's not established well enough to be asserted as fact, as Judahtzdk wanted to do. The simplest way to clean up the mess was to revert to the old version of the article, so that's what I did. (Most of that old version isn't great either, dating as it does to the days before citations were de rigueur, but at least I know it's not pushing a fringe hypothesis.) A. Parrot (talk) 21:38, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Full agreement; as a general point, you wouldn't cite a 19th-century book in the natural sciences, at least not without heavy qualification and not on the same level as a book from the 1990s, but for some reason many people seem to believe 19th-century books are totally fine and RS for history, linguistics and related fields, even though these fields too have made enormous strides in the last 150 years, so that books this old are completely outdated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:48, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

In fact, Richard Carrier – reproducing advice he was given by his own graduate advisor – explicitly warns not to rely on books older than 1950 as sources for historical questions for exactly this reason, explaining that professional academics approach literature this old with heavy caution for exactly the stated reason: it is incredibly antiquated. Even celebrated books vindicated by later research should not be trusted on every detail, just like biologists won't mindlessly cite The Origin of Species as an authority on any point without checking the more current literature if the point in question has been corroborated or rather superseded by modern research, so you can simply go and consult the modern literature directly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

History of Aegyptiaca?

I poked through the article, and I don't see much of anything to reconcile bits of other informations I've read about Aegyptiaca in other articles claiming it was a lost book. If it's lost, then how is it that a modern translation of it exists? Yes, I do understand that the original was lost and the modern translation was based on an older translation of Aegyptiaca which still exist even if the original does not... but, there's nothing about that in the article. What was that original translation, and/or what'th generation copy was the copy that the English version was based on? I'm legitimate curious if that information is out there... — 135.26.148.155 (talk) 08:04, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Per the transmission section of the article, Manetho's original is long lost. What we have is an epitome (summary) of the work by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea, a Latin translation of Eusebius' work by Jerome, an anonymous Armenian translation of Eusebius' work, a comparison of Africanus and Eusebius' versions by George Syncellus, some fragments preserved by John Malalas, and a poor translation of a Greek chronicle in the Excerpta Latina Barbari (which was quoting Manetho). 09:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)Dimadick (talk)

Ancient expressive words

Some ancient words even when they stand alone could still convey clear messages. For example, euaregit/aaregit means “old.” As an adjective, it comes before a noun as in old book, but it can also stand alone when referring to a person with the corresponding verb to be. Hence, euregit’u, that means “he is old, or euregit’ya that means, she is old. It can also emphasize by saying: “euregityusu” or, aregitusu that is: aregit iyu su”, meaning, “he is/it is/ old.” “Seb/sp” means, person and “sebbenyu” means, “ HER relative.” For example if a question was to be posed as: “mantu or Man U tu/Man U tius” meaning, “and who is that one.?” The answer would be “sebennyu” or “sebenutus.” As in “ he is HER relative” or “but he/that one/ is HER relative.” The word aiaaregkhenen means, “ YOU have not aged” (f/respectfully addressed because of her age or status in society = f/s/R,). Such a word could be in response to her asking some visitor whom she had not seen for a long time and stating, “aarignna” that is, “I have aged/ I am getting old” and the response would be, “No YOU have not aged” or as a comment of his/her observation kindly stated especially when one sees her after a long time. In Ancient Egyptian Language, some of their words seem to have been a part of their conversation. Alphalang Alphalang (talk) 06:02, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

32nd Dynasty

Shouldn't that be the Argead dynasty (Alexander the Great and his son), while the Ptolemies should be the 33rd dynasty of Egypt? Lamassus (talk) 22:00, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Section on antisemitism

I think that entire section sould be removed. Theres lots of talk of Maneto refering derogatorily to Jews, however there's not a single quote from him demonstrating that. It seems this is entirely based on Josephus' Against Apion where he confuses the Hyksos with the Jews, for which there's no evidence; they were probably semitic, but not necessarily jewish, and also even if Manetho demonstrated some animosity in his description of them that probably has more to do with the dislike of being ruled by a foreign people rather than a racial/religious hatred of them. To finish, to attribute the modern sense of antisemitism to the ancient egyptians is ultimately anachronistic; the Romans also persecuted early Christians but their motivations were entirely religious and not racial. Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 17:39, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

It is at least currently very poorly written and the text certainly doesn't demonstrate what the title of the section claims. I can't currently check the first source for the section, but the second, from Pieter Van der Horst, leaves much to be desired in terms of its academic quality (such as citations, bibliography - the usual things you would expect from an appropriate source. The article seems to be more of a summary of an interview rather than something he wrote for publication in a journal). The third is an article on Haaretz which is also not what I would consider to be a typical source for claims about ancient history (again: lack of citations, bibliography, etc).

The fourth source is, I think, just being outright misused. The sentence it is being used to support is this: 'Negative themes of the Jews followed, such as being characterized as misanthropic or tyrannical.'. It is unclear from how it is written whether the claim is that Mantheo's text then contained these charactarisations, or that other people then made these characterisiations because of Mantheo's work, but neither is a claim made by Berthelot (who in fact, says things such as 'The idea that invaders or intruders from an Asian background poluted the country, that they somehow carried a disease and had to be expelled is a well-known literary motif in Egyptian literature. The question of when exactly it was applied to Jews is still debated.').

antisemitism is not a modern idea, and it is perfectly possibly to write sections about ancient antisemitism, but what currently stands here is not fit for purpose. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, I also read the Haaretz article (well, the few bits that I could suffer) and researched the author, which lead me to his wikipedia page which mentions some controversy he was envolved in regarding Islam IIRC, but from what I gathered from the wiki page it didn't seem that serious, if only slightly offensive in its wording. I dindn't say that antisemitism is a modern idea, I said the current definition of it, where race and religion are jumbled together, is relatively modern, from the end of the middle ages, that's why I specifically used the example of early Christian persecution; Jews were initially persecuted for their religion and religious practices as opposed to their race, since racism - the notion that some races of people are inherently superior or inferior than others - is also a relatively recent idea ( by "recent" I mean the last 3 or 4 centuries). For instance, the Romans had no problem with having emperors from the colonies, they had one from Hispania and one from Syria (don't remember the names). Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant for my comment only to leave open the possibility that someone could write an appropriate section (and it should, naturally, address the meaning in its historical context). Apologies that that was not clear. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 14:00, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

OK. I just felt the need to create this discussion since the last time I had visited this page, a couple of years ago, there was nothing regarding antisemitism and I was taken by surprise when I came back and saw a whole section on it, with what appeared to me to be largely dubious claims. I won't try to edit it though, simply for the reason that, even though I have a fairly decent command of it, English is not my native tongue. I still think the most logical thing to do is to eliminate the section, or if it's kept, it should at least be reworded to clarify that such statements are disputed or fringe. Have a nice day! Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2024 (UTC)