Egypt Papyrus

We punished the people of Pharaoh with drought, and shortage of crops, that they might take heed. (7- The Purgatory, 130)

So We sent on them; the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood. How many different signs! But they still remained arrogant, for they were a people full of sin. (7- The Purgatory, 133)

So We expelled them from gardens, springs.Treasures and every kind of honorable position.Thus it was made the children of Israel inheritors of such things.(26- The Poets, 57- 59)

The accounts given by the Quran about the punishment inflicted upon the Pharaoh and his followers, like drought and other disasters, and the accounts of the Ipuwer Papyrus are perfectly in tune with each other. As an evidence of the offense committed by the dynasty of the Pharaoh in its denial of Moses’ prophethood, the Quran says that blood was foreseen (the same thing holds true for the proliferation of the locusts, the lice, etc.). In the Ipuwer Papyrus it is said that blood ran in riverbeds, everywhere was smeared with blood. (Studies conducted to this day seem to explain the red coloration of rivers by the existence of protozoa, zooplanktons, sea and fresh water planktons or dinoflagellates. All these organisms would deplete the oxygen in water, giving rise to rapid growth of toxic substances, killing the living organisms and rendering the stream water undrinkable.)

Researchers have devised a course of events that might have taken place in relation to the disasters described in the Quran. According to this fictive account, “The fish in the Nile perished as a consequence of the intoxication of the river, leaving the Egyptians deprived of sustenance. Frogs, whose eggs multiplied in the meantime, invaded the surroundings before they themselves succumbed to poisoning. Decomposition of fish and frogs coupled with the poisonous water of the Nile polluted the fertile land around. Annihilation of the frogs caused the pests like locusts and grain moths to proliferate:” All these are but the product of imagination, surely. We do not know exactly how things happened since we have no available data in hand to make valid deductions. Yet, this account may give us an idea of them.

The Ipuwer Papyrus records the curse of blood, drought and disasters to which the Pharaoh’s dynasty fell victim, and the situation of the slaves, who later were to inherit the former’s possessions almost literally as described in the Quran.

IPUWER PAPYRUS

10: 3-6 Lower Egypt is devastated. The court came to a standstill. Whatever was stored, wheat, rye, geese and fish, perished.

10: 6-3 Crops wasted everywhere

2: 5-6 Disasters and blood everywhere

2:10 Blood flows in rivers

there was no exit from the palace and no one could see the face of his fellow Towns were destroyed by mighty tides Upper Egypt suffered devastation blood everywhere pestilence throughout the country No one really sails north to Byblos today. What shall we do for cedar for our mummies? Gold is lacking 210

3: 2 Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze decorate the necks of slaves

Ipuwer Papyrus-Leidon 344