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PACE 18P THE SOUTHERN ESRAEEITE April 18, 1986
Best wishes for
a Happy Passover!
ECHEVERRIA
Institute of Cosmetology
842 N. Highland, Atlanta, Georgia 30306
872-4622
Best wishes
for a Happy Passover
Atlanta Janitorial
Services, Inc.
1454 Northside Dr., N.W.
Atlanta, Ga. 30381
355-1373
GREENS
PACKAGE STORES
Don’t Buy
Your Passover Wines
Until You’ve Seen
GREEN’S
PACKAGE STORES
(Wi Jtkiudb Jf Hews j
'fHITE ZINFANPH.
Featuring:
Baron Jaquab de Herzog
White Zinfandel
(a Kedem selection)
We also carry other wines by:
Carmel Mogen David
Manischewitz Kedem
Your One-Stop
Kosher Wine Center
Buford Hwy.
at Lenox Rd.
Roswell Rd.
in Sandy Springs
GREENS
Delk Rd.
at I-75
Ponce de Leon
near Sears. Wesley
Joseph in Egypt
by Zecharia Sitchin
The story of Passover is inti
mately connected with the biblical
tale of Joseph. Were he not sold
into slavery in Egypt, rising
thereafter to be the land’s overlord,
would there have been an Israelite
sojourn in Egypt, an exodus? No
wonder, then, that both critics of
the Bible and those who believe in
its veracity had sought to find
independent corroboration for the
existence of Joseph.
The search has focused on Egyp
tian records, those hieroglyphic
inscriptions and pictorial depic
tions that have been found on walls
of tombs and temples. But although
the story’s background facts—the
customs, the names, the royal hier
archies— have all been proven authen
tic to ancient Egypt, the existence
of Joseph has evaded all efforts to
find direct corroboration.
Yet, another kind of evidence
exists. It required no knowledge of
hieroglyphics nor archaeological
digging, for it is right there for all
to see: It is the world’s largest
damming and irrigation works,
planned and carried out by the
Hebrew Joseph nearly 4,000 years
ago.
A I ake in the desert
For the story we have to turn the
pages back a hundred years, when
an American engineer, a native of
Rochester, N.Y., came before the
scientific establishment of his time
with the evidence for this incredible
feat in Pharaonic times.
Then as nowadays, Egypt’s prob
lem has been a growing population
squeezed into a narrow fertile strip
of land along the Nile River. In the
absence of any rainfall to speak of,
agriculture is totally dependent on
the annual rise of the Nile’s waters,
which then irrigate the adjoining
fields. A century ago, the British
(then masters of Egypt) called in
many experts to suggest solutions;
among them was the American
engineer and solar inventor Fran
cis Cope Whitehouse.
Studying Egypt’s water re
sources and traveling extensively
along the Nile, Whitehouse became
intrigued by remains of ancient
irrigation canals. His curiosity
eventually led him to the large and
deep depression in the desert, some
60 miles southwest of Egypt’s an
cient capital. Memphis. The Arabs
call the place el-Fayoum; and what
amazed Whitehouse was the exist
ence of a lake (Lake Kerounjat the
northwestern corner of the depres
sion, which watered a thriving agri
culture along its shores.
The puzzle was: How did this
lake get its waters in the totally arid
area, so far away from the Nile?
A man-made miracle
Examining the lake and its
shores, Whitehouse found remains
of ancient dams, quays and other
monumental structures. Back in
Cairo, he searched the geographi
cal records, recent and old. Soon
he found that maps of Egypt from
medieval times, based on maps
prepared in antiquity by Ptolemy
of Alexandria, showed that in
those times the el-Fayoum depres
sion contained not one but two
lakes: a more extensive Lake
Keroun, and an even larger lake
called Moeris.
In April 1883 Whitehouse ap
peared before the Khedivial Geo
graphical Society in Cairo and
dropped a bombshell. He had found
the answer to the el-Fayoum puz
zle in the writings of Herodotus
(the fifth century B.C. Greek his
torian-geographer): It was Hero
dotus wrote, a hugh lake artifi
cially formed in the time of the
Pharaoh Moeris. It was a lake so
large that its “circumference of
3,600 furlongs equalled the entire
length of Egypt along the sea
coast.”
Whitehouse further quoted from
the writings of other ancient his
torians— Diodorus, Strabo, Muti-
anus, Pliny—to show that not only
in Greek times but also in later
( ontinued next page.
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CANDY
J{« me evA Perimeter Mall
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anyw’here in the United States,
but you can’t find more
delicious candy and unique
packaging,
Kosher for
Passover. . .
Come in and visit
or call in with
charge.
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Founded 1925