R1b

The Valley of the Kings 1905 Two explorers, Ben Johnson and Gus Holligan are crawling through a dark dry passageway and suddenly fall into an unknown burial chamber. They are shocked to find a mysterious mummy. He’s not a royal. They are perplexed. Why’s this foreigner buried in the Valley of the Kings? He clearly isn’t Egyptian. He has the facial structure of a Western European. How did he get to Egypt? They discover his name. His name is YuYa. Who is YuYa? They find his wife TuYa next to him. They also discover a signet ring, a gold necklace, and a gilded chariot made for a pharaoh, along with two alabaster jars with preserved contents. Ben opens the alabaster jar. “How can this be?” Ben exclaims. “This is tobacco. Tobacco only grew in the Americas. The Egyptians couldn’t sail to the Americas, could they?” Gus, who has opened the other alabaster jar, replies, “Well, I sure didn’t think so, but guess what’s in this jar?” “What?” “Cocoa.” “No way,” Gus says, coming to squat down for a look. “That only grows in the Americas as well.” Suddenly Ben stands up and looks in a dark corner of the burial chamber. “What in the world is that?” he exclaims in shock. Gus gets up, and they walk, mouths open, to the dark corner. Ben turns on a flashlight, illuminating a statue. They stand silently in awe, close to the statue. “What a beautiful colorful multicolored robe,” Ben exclaims. “Wow. It has royal blue, red, gold, black, white, and brown colors in it.” “I can’t believe this,” Ben says after closer observation. “It’s not possible. Is that—red hair?” “I think you’re right,” Gus says in amazement. “He does have red hair!” “No Egyptians had red hair. They all had black hair, each and every one of them.” Afterwards, Ben Johnson and Gus Holligan, the two explorers, are sitting in an Egyptian restaurant, Ben is leafing through the book of Genesis. He comes to the last verse: “And Joseph was embalmed and placed in a coffin.” Ben tells Gus that this means Joseph was made into a mummy. He then flips back to Genesis 41:42 and explains to Gus that Pharaoh gave Joseph a signet ring, a golden necklace, and a gilded chariot. They look at each other in total silence. After a few moments, Ben asks Gus, “Hey, you’re the hotshot expert in Hebrew. How do you say ‘Joseph’ in Hebrew?” “Well, Joseph was the son of Jacob, so you would say Yusuf ben Yacob—that would be ‘Joseph, son of Jacob.’ Ben means ‘son of,’ Joseph is Yusuf, and Jacob is Yacob.” Ben thinks for a few moments and then says, “Well, the Egyptians were always making up nicknames and making simple contractions out of their longer full names. What if they took the first syllable of Joseph’s name, Yu, dropped the ben, and then added the first syllable of Jacob’s name, Ya? That would be YuYa right?” “Yea. I guess so.” “Good God! This is unbelievable! Gus, we may have just found Joseph’s mummy!” Shocked, Gus says, “People will never believe us. They don’t believe in God, and no one, and I mean no one, reads the Bible except people like us, Ben. We are a long way from home in the US. We’ll be lucky to make it back in one piece. I’m starting to feel a little sick right now. I think the heat is beginning to get to me. I need some sleep. Next week let’s try and catch a slow steamer out of Cairo and see if we can make it back to New York.” “Yea, good idea. I’m exhausted.”