56 THE PHARAOH OP THE EXODUS 



name of Osiris and the mention of the first king of Egypt create, and 

 the statement of identity is not at all an improbable one. Certainly we 

 know that there was an Egyptian god Thoum or Turn, after whom 

 Pithom was named, who was honoured at Heliopolis, and whose name 

 is frequently found upon the monuments of Rameses the Great. "^ The 

 form Thummosis, given by Josephua, quoting Blanetho,^*'' instead of 

 Thothmosis, can hardly be an accidental coincidence. If I could find 

 •any Egyptian name connecting this god with the termination cheres or 

 re, in the same manner asThoth is connected in Tatcheres of Manetho's 

 fifth dynasty, I would not hesitate to embrace the Grreek Thamyris, the 

 unfortunate minstrel, who is of Ammonian birth, and gives name to a 

 Phoenician river, the Tamyras, not very far from the Adonis, and to a 

 class of Cyprian priests, in the number of mythical characters repre- 

 senting the Pharaoh of the Exodus."^ My reasons for such a connec- 

 tion will appear more worthy of attention from what is to follow. We 

 have already a Timaeus who is Concharis, and a Thothmosis, sometimes 

 called Thummosis, who is an Acencheres or a Cencheres. With Timaeus, 

 by means of Plato's old king Thamus, the Syrian Thammuz has been 

 linked. It remains to find a synonym for Thammuz, in order to com- 

 plete the third pair of allied names. There is a title of Adonis which 

 furnishes all that is desired. It is Gingras."''* This name at once 

 suggested a comparison by the similarity of sound with " Pharaoh 

 Ciugcris, who pursued the children of Israel as they fled from slavery, 

 and perished in the Sed Sea with nil his army," as Dr. Keating informs 

 us in his History of Ireland, compiled from the ancient Irish chroni- 

 cles.^"" I am not aware that the name of this or any other Pharaoh 

 appears in any ancient Irish document. Dr. Keating, may have taken 

 it from Eusebius. Let that be as it may, the argument will not be 

 affected. The name is simply suggestive as affording a step io the 

 descending scale which brings Acencheres down to a form that bears 

 much the same relation to it which Maneros bears to Mencheres. That 

 form is Cinyras, which is but a variation of the name Gingras. Cinyras 



1*6 Lepsius' Letters from Egypt, &c., p. 448. 



1*7 Josepbus Cont. Ap. i, 14. 



1*8 I have since found the name required, which indeed has been lying on the surface all 

 along. Be-Athom or Re-TIioum sim]ply requires the transposition of its constituents to give 

 a name very near to Thamyris, especially in their allowable and not uncommon forms Thum- 

 erra. 



1*^ Guigniaut Religions de I'Antiquite, ii, 45. 



150 Keating's General History of Ireland, translated from the original Irish, &c., by Dermod 

 O'Connor, Esq., p. 107. 



