The following two pieces concerning the Phaeton (or Phaethon) event
   were received virtually simultaneously for publication. The first one
   by Michael Reade is a further supplement to his article in SISR 2/2
   p.41 and the second one by Brendon O'Gheoghan argues a later date for
   the Phaethon event. - Ed.
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                              Exodus And Phaeton
                                       
   by

M . G. READE

   A further supplement to the article "Senmut & Phaeton".

   It is often suggested that the Phaeton episode and the Exodus
   catastrophe could have been one and the same. There are two principal
   arguments for citing the Phaeton episode earlier than the Exodus
   catastrophe, one of them Egyptological, the other Judaic-astronomical.

   The Egyptological argument: The Phaeton episode is depicted on the
   Heny coffin lid, probably also on the other Asyut coffin lids.
   Egyptologists are confident that all of these coffins date from the
   Middle Kingdom, thus being pre-Hyksos and also pre-Exodus. For the
   Phaeton episode and the Exodus catastrophe to have been synchronous,
   the coffin lid designers would have to be seen as remarkably
   successful predictors of the future.

   The Judaic-astronomical argument: The astronomical analysis of the
   Senmut ceiling indicates that the Phaeton episode occurred in mid
   summer, probably within a few days of the solstice. The Judaic records
   place the Passover close to the vernal equinox and nowhere near mid
   summer. Displacement of the earth's axis can interchange summer and
   winter solstices overnight (or almost overnight), also vernal and
   autumnal equinoxes, but it would call for a very improbable
   combination of circumstances to exchange the position of a solstice
   and an equinox in any reasonably short period of time (the current
   precession of the equinoxes achieves this interchange in 6,450 years).
   Another way of stating the same argument is that the sun was in the
   sign of Capricorn at the time of the Phaeton episode but probably on
   the borders of Taurus and Aries at the time of the original Passover
   (Note: The Exodus catastrophe will probably be analysed in greater
   detail on some future occasion; whilst evidently generally similar to
   the Phaeton episode in many respects, a principal difference seems to
   have been that the comet was moving with the rotation of the earth
   rather than against it).
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