by
Damien F. Mackey
“Psalm 104 is almost a duplicate of the Egyptian Hymn to Aten”.
Facts About Religion
There is an abundance of articles, and some YouTube videos, too, drawing parallels between the incredibly alike Psalm 104 of King David of Israel and pharaoh Akhnaton’s (Akhenaten’s) Hymn to the Aton (Aten).
The following example neatly tabulates comparisons between these ancient texts:
https://factsaboutreligion.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/psalm-104-is-almost-a-duplicate-of-the-egyptian-hymn-to-aten/
Psalm 104 is almost a duplicate of the Egyptian Hymn to Aten.
On the wall of a 14th century BCE tomb in Egypt archaeologists found a beautiful hymn to the god Aten. What is really strange is that the Pharaoh Akhenaten (1352-1336) who lived in an era when everyone believed in many gods, chose to believe in only one, Aten. In fact, many scholars have argued that Pharaoh Akhenaten is the earliest documented example of a monotheist in history, though others argue that he was a henotheist (thought many gods existed, but chose to worship only one.)
What’s really curious about the Great Hymn to the Aten is that it closely mirrors Psalm 104 in the Hebrew Bible as a song of praise to the creator, though written hundreds of years before. Biblical scholars and historians disagree as to whether these two hymns are actually related by way of influencing one another, or whether both were independently written. In any case, the similarities are fascinating.
A logical conclusion could be that King David (c. 1000 BC) was indebted to Akhnaton, more than three centuries before David, for the inspiration to compose his Psalm 104.
Some would put it more bluntly. It was a case of plagiarism on the part of the Bible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDI3cMDzqEY
Biblical Plagariasm? | Akhenaten’s Hymn to Aten Vs. Psalm 104 | Audiobook
And so we must suppose it must have been - that is, until Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky turned things upside down and inside out in his Ages in Chaos (1952) and Oedipus and Akhnaton (1960) reconstructions of ancient history, demonstrating that pharaoh Akhnaton actually belonged to the C9th BC, rather than to the C14th - necessitating now that King David could not possibly have known about Akhnaton and his Hymn, whose advents were still some centuries in the future.
From this superior chronological base, Dr. Velikovsky was able most convincingly to identify a succession of Syrian (Amurru) kings approximately contemporaneous with Akhnaton and the El Amarna (EA) age, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with, respectively, Ben-Hadad and his successor Hazael – two mighty Syrian kings well known from the Old Testament.
This was an aspect of Dr. Velikovsky’s challenging revision that was very well received.
Already, his new revision (written far earlier than today’s so-called New Chronology), was proving itself to be fruitful. See my recent article:
An accurate revision of history is a ‘tree’ bearing ample fruit
(5) An accurate revision of history is a 'tree' bearing ample fruit
And it doesn’t stop there.
I, building on this far preferable chronology for Akhnaton and the El Amarna (EA) period, have been able to show that Dr. Velikovsky’s Aziru/Hazael composite was the same ruler as the Syrian ‘condottiere’, Arsa (Irsu)/Aziru, of the Great Harris Papyrus, who invaded Egypt and who overthrew the gods there.
AI Overview
“The "Arsa (Irsu)" or Aziru mentioned in the Great Harris Papyrus is a Syrian who took control of Egypt and its gods …”.
Dr. Velikovsky had really missed a trick here.
From there, it not such a great step to identify the foreign invader, Aziru/Hazael/Arsa, as pharaoh Akhnaton himself who so greatly undermined the national Egyptian gods.
And, as one will find upon reading my article:
Akhnaton’s Theophany
(5) Akhnaton's Theophany
the new chronology cuts even deeper yet, into the Bible, fully accounting for Akhnaton’s celebrated monotheism – for monotheism (not henotheism, or something else) indeed it was.
With EA re-located now to the C9th BC, then the United Kingdom of Israel (Saul, David and Solomon, c. 1000 BC) could be estimated by Dr. Velikovsky to have corresponded in time with the rise of the magnificent Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (c. C16th BC, conventional dating) – in whose later stages we encounter Akhnaton.
Relevant for this article is Dr. Velikovsky’s establishing of twin pillars of revision: Hatshepsut as the biblical “Queen Sheba” and pharaoh Thutmose III as the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”, who despoiled the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem shortly after King Solomon had passed away.
These twin identifications have had to undergo a rocky ground-breaking of trial and error, however, before they could be securely established as pillars of revision.
For Dr. Velikovsky, an intuitive genius who could arrive at right identifications, often took quite wrong paths, adopting spurious methodologies and archaeologies, to get there. Quite the opposite of some of his critics, who, fussing over and analysing minute details, and belabouring the reader with endless charts and numbers, hardly ever seem to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions.
For my same conclusions as Dr. Velikovsky in these two instances, but with significantly different arguments, see e.g., for “Sheba”:
The vicissitudinous life of Solomon’s pulchritudinous wife
(8) The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous wife
and:
The Queen of Beer(sheba)
(8) The Queen of Beer(sheba)
While, for “Shishak”, see:
Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III’s march on Jerusalem
(8) Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose III's march on Jerusalem
That background sets us up, now, to consider Davidic (Solomonic) and biblical influence in the inscriptions of Hatshepsut, who had grown up as a princess in Israel.
In my article:
Solomon and Sheba
(8) Solomon and Sheba
I gave the following examples in which biblical wisdom can be glimpsed amidst the stiff and formulaïc Egyptian inscriptions:
….
Scriptural Influence
(i) An Image from Genesis
After Hatshepsut had completed her Punt expedition, she gathered her nobles and proclaimed the great things she had done. Senenmut and Nehesi had places of honour. Hatshepsut reminded them of Amon's oracle commanding her to ‘... establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of God's Land beside his temple in his garden, according as he commanded’ …. At the conclusion of her speech there is further scriptural image ‘I have made for [Amon-Ra] a Punt in his garden at Thebes ... it is big enough for him to walk about in’; Baikie … noted that this is ‘a phrase which seems to take one back to the Book of Genesis and its picture of God walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening’. This inscription speaks of Amon-Ra's love for Hatshepsut in terms almost identical to those used by the Queen of Sheba about the God of Israel's love for Solomon and his nation.
Compare the italicised parts of Hatshepsut's
‘... according to the command of ... Amon ... in order to bring for him the marvels of every country, because he so much loves the King of ... Egypt, Maatkara [i.e. Hatshepsut], for his father Amen-Ra, Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, more than the other kings who have been in this land for ever ...’ ….
with the italicised words in a song of praise spoken to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba ‘Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne as king for the Lord your God! Because your God loved Israel and would establish them for ever ...’ (II Chronicles 98) ….
(ii) An Image from the Psalms
When Hatshepsut's commemorative obelisks were com¬pleted, she had the usual formal words inscribed on them. However, Baikie states that …:
‘The base inscriptions ... are of more importance, chiefly because they again strike that personal note which is so seldom heard from these ancient records, and give us an actual glimpse into the mind and the heart of a great woman. I do not think that it is fanciful to see in these utterances the expression of something very like a genuine piety struggling to find expression underneath all the customary verbiage of the Egyptian monumental formulae’.
In language that ‘might have come straight out of the Book Psalms’, the queen continues,
‘I did it under [Amon-Ra's] command; it was he who led me. I conceived no works without his doing .... I slept not because of his temple; I erred not from that which he commanded. ... I entered into the affairs of his heart. I turned not my back on the City of the All-Lord; but turned to it the face. I know that Karnak is God's dwelling upon earth; ... the Place of his Heart; Which wears his beauty ...’.
Baikie continues, unaware that it really was the Psalms and the sapiential words of David and Solomon, that had influenced Hatshepsut's prayer:
‘The sleepless eagerness of the queen for the glory of the temple of her god, and her assurance of the unspeakable sanctity of Karnak as the divine dwelling-place, find expression in almost the very words which the Psalmist used to express his ... duty towards the habitation of the God of Israel, and his certainty of Zion's sanctity as the abiding-place of Jehovah.
‘Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids. Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
- For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it’.’
(iii) An Image from Proverbs
In another related verse of the Punt reliefs about Amon-Ra leading the expedition to ‘the Myrrh-terraces ... a glorious region of God's Land’, the god speaks of creating the fabled Land of Punt in playful terms reminiscent of Solomon's words about Wisdom's playful rôle in the work of Creation (Proverbs 8:12, 30-31).
In the Egyptian version there is also reference to Hathor, the personification of wisdom …: ‘... it is indeed a place of delight. I have made it for myself, in order to divert my heart, together with ... Hathor ... mistress of Punt …’.
Interestingly, the original rôles of Hathor and Isis in the Heliopolitan ‘theology’ were similar to those of Moses's sister and mother (the god Horus reminding of Moses). Grimal … says ‘Isis hid Horus in the marshes of the Delta ... with the help of the goddess Hathor, the wet-nurse in the form of a cow. The child grew up ...’. In The Queen of Sheba - Hatshepsut, I had compared this Egyptian account with the action of Moses's mother and sister in Exodus 2:3-4, 7, 10.
(iv) Images from the Song of Songs
In the weighing scene of the goods acquired from Punt (i.e. Lebanon), Hatshepsut boasts ….:
‘[Her] Majesty [herself] is acting with her two hands, the best of myrrh is upon all her limbs, her fragrance is divine dew, her odour is mingled with that of Punt, her skin is gilded with electrum, shining as do the stars in the midst of the festival-hall, before the whole land’. Compare this with verses from King Solomon's love poem, Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon), e.g. ‘My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh; Sweeter your love than wine, the scent of your perfume than any spice; Your lips drip honey, and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon’ (4:10-11; 55). (cf. 4:6, 14; 5:1, 5).
[Hyam] Maccoby … went so far as to suggest that the Song of Songs was written by Solomon for the Queen of Sheba/Hatshepsut. Clearly, the poem is written in the context of marriage (e.g. 3:11).
We read, partly following Maccoby …:
l. ‘To a mare among Pharaoh's cavalry would 1 compare you, my darling’ (1:9). This reference to Egypt is strange for an Israelite girl, but natural if the beloved was an Egyptian.
2. ‘Black am I but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Qedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has blackened me’ (16). A darker complexion would not be surprising in an Egyptian woman.
3. Perhaps the sentence ‘Who is she that cometh out of the wilderness ... perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?’ (3:6), refers to the visit by the Queen of Sheba, who brought a great store of perfumes. She gave Solomon ‘a very great store of spices ... there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon’ (I Kings 10:10).
4. ‘My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard I have not kept’ (1:6). It is a puzzle that the female here is represented as a humble vineyard-watcher but elsewhere she appears as a great lady. Maybe here she is speaking metaphorically about her country (and her native reli¬gion?) as a ‘vineyard’? The anger of her ‘brothers’ would be understandable, perhaps, if she were a princess of Egypt. Her involvement with Solomon would have unwelcome politi-cal and religious implications.
5. ‘O that you were as my brother ... I would lead you and bring you to my mother's house’ (8:1-2). She perhaps regrets that Solomon is not an Egyptian, who could live permanently with her.
What has been presented here probably represents only a very small portion of Israel’s wisdom influence upon the ancient nations.
The only other theme that I shall touch on here, most relevant to King David of Israel, is the notion of the king as shepherd.
I have already written something about this in my article:
Shepherd King contemporaries of King David
(10) Shepherd King contemporaries of King David
And compare this one: “Prince Rim-Sîn, you are the shepherd, the desire of his heart”,
with the shepherd David’s being “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22).
CONTEMPORARY SHEPHERD KINGS
One could describe David’s life during his service to King Saul, as, ‘never a dull moment’.
King Saul was indeed a mercurial character, totally unpredictable.
Naturally, Samuel had been nervous about visiting Jesse of Bethlehem for the purpose of anointing one of his sons to the kingship (I Samuel 16:1-2):
The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king’.
But Samuel said, ‘How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me’.
Even the wise Samuel had been inclined to judge by appearances (“height”) the worth of Jesse’s sons (v. 6): “When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD’.”
But, in an interesting glimpse into the Lord’s thinking, we then read (v. 7): “But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’.”
Had not Saul himself, who would so miserably fail as king, been a man of the most striking height and appearance (I Samuel 9:2): “Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else”?
David, the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, was not even present (v. 11): “‘There is still the youngest’, Jesse answered. ‘He is tending the sheep’.”
It is this characteristic that would mark David’s kingship, ‘tending his sheep’.
He was, like Jesus Christ, a true “Shepherd King”, modelling himself upon “the Lord [who was his] Shepherd” (Psalm 22, Douay).
Kings at this time (revised) came to describe themselves from this time onwards as Shepherds.
For example (Hammurabi Stele):
I, Hammurabi, the shepherd,
have gathered abundance and plenty,
have stormed the four quarters of the world,
have magnified the fame of Babylon,
and have elated the mind of Marduk my lord.
And compare this one: “Prince Rim-Sîn, you are the shepherd, the desire of his heart”, with the shepherd David’s being “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22).
Rim-Sin, king of Larsa, was an older contemporary of Hammurabi of Babylon.
Rim-sin’s prayerful sentiments can be very David-like – even quasi-monotheistic:
“-7......, who is fitted for holy lustration rites, Rim-Sîn, purification priest of An, who is fitted for pure prayers rites, whom you summoned from the holy womb ......, has been elevated to lordship over the Land; he has been installed as shepherd over the black-headed. The staff which strengthens the Land has been placed in his hand. The shepherd's crook which guides the living people has been attached at his side. As he steps forward before you, he is lavishly supplied with everything that he offers with his pure hands.
8-20Your attentive youth, your beloved king, the good shepherd Rìm-Sîn, who determines what should be brought as offerings for his life, joyfully pours out offerings for you in the holy royal cultic locations which are perfect for the cultic vessels: sweet-smelling milk and grain, rich produce of the Land, riches of the meadows, unending abundance, alcoholic drink, glistening wine, very sweet emmer beer fermented with pure substances, pure ...... powerful beer made doubly strong with wine, a drink for your lordship; double-strength beer, superior beer, befitting your holy hands, pale honey exported from the mountains, which you have specifically requested, butter from holy cows, ghee as is proper for you as prince; pressed oil, best oil of the first pressing, and yellow cream, the pride of the cow-pen, for the holy abode of your godhead.
21-26Accept from him with your joyful heart pure food to eat as food, and pure water to drink as water: offerings made for you. Grant his prayer: you are indeed respected. When he humbly speaks fair words to you, speak so that he may live.
Guide him correctly at the holy lordly cultic locations, at the august lordly cultic locations. Greet him as he comes to perform his cultic functions.
27-37May his kingship exist forever in your presence. May he be the first of the Land, called (?) lord and prince. Following your commands he shall be as unshakeable as heaven and earth; may he be ...... over the numerous people. May the mother goddesses among the gods attend to his utterances; may they sit in silence before that which he says, and bring restorative life. May he create heart's joy for the population, and be the good provider for their days. May the terrifying splendour that he wears cover like a heavy raincloud the king who is hated by him. May all the best what he has be brought here as their offerings.
38-52The good shepherd Rim-Sîn looks to you as to his personal god. Grant him ...... a life that he loves, and bestow joy on him. May you renew it like the daylight. As he prays to you, attend to his ....... When he speaks most fair words to you, sustain his life power for him. May he be respected ......, and have no rivals. As he makes supplication to you, make his days long. In the ...... of life, ...... the power of kingship. May his correct words be ever ....... May he create heart's joy in his ....... ...... make the restorative ...... rest upon him, the lion of lordship. When he beseeches you, let his exterior (?) ...... shine. Give him ...... life .......
May you bring ...... for his life with your holy words. Hear him favourably as he lifts his hands in prayer, and decide a good destiny for him.
53-69As his life ......, so may it delight his land. Cast the four quarters at his feet, and let him be their ruler. Reclining in meadows in his own land, may he pass his days joyously with you ....... In the palace, lengthen the days and reign of Rim-Sîn, your compliant king who is there for you; whose name you, Acimbabbar, have named, ...... life. ...... the august good headdress. ...... due praise for his life. ...... the throne, and may the land be safe. May satisfaction and joy fill his heart. May ...... be good for his ....... Place in his hand the sceptre of justice; may the numerous people be bound (?) to it.
Shining brightly, the constant ...... in his ....... Confer on him the benefit of months of delight and joy, and bestow on him numerous years as infinite in number as the stars in the lapis-lazuli coloured heavens. In his kingship may he enjoy a happy reign forever.
70-85May you preserve the king, the good provider. May you preserve Rim-Sîn, the good provider. May his reign be a source of delight to you. Lengthen the days of his life, and give him kingship over the restored land. For him gladden the heart of the land, for him make the roads of the land passable. For him make the Land speak with a single voice. May you preserve alive Rim-Sîn, your shepherd with the compliant heart. May his canals bring water for him, and may barley grow for him in the fields. May the orchards and gardens bring forth syrup and wine for him, and may the marshes deliver fish and fowl for him in abundance. May the cattle-pens and sheepfolds teem with animals, and may rain from the heavens, whose waters are sporadic, be regular for him. May the palace be filled with long life. O Rim-Sîn, you are my king!”
Compare, for example, King David’s Psalm 60 (Douay), otherwise Psalm 61:6-7:
‘Increase the days of the king’s life,
his years for many generations.
May he be enthroned in God’s presence forever;
appoint your love and faithfulness to protect him’.
According to Timothy S. Laniak (Shepherds After My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible, p. 63): “By the beginning of the second millennium BC [sic] Akkadian and Amorite kings were using conventional shepherd language to describe themselves”.
When David - young, but mature beyond his years - indignant at the mockery being publicly and loudly uttered by the Gath-ite champion, Goliath - ‘defying the armies of the living God’ - was told by King Saul that he was not experienced enough to fight against the Philistine, he will apprise the king of the extreme dangers that he had already faced as a shepherd: ‘When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it …’.
Here follows David’s exchange on this occasion with King Saul (I Samuel 17:32-37):
David said to Saul, ‘Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him’.
Saul replied, ‘You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth’.
But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine’.
Saul said to David, ‘Go, and the LORD be with you’.
Young David had been taking supplies from his father Jesse back to his three oldest brothers, and then returning “to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem” (vv. 14-19).
Now these were the very three sons, the “firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah”, whom Samuel had first considered for the anointing (I Samuel 16:6-9). Yet here they were frozen almost to a standstill in the face of the angry Goliath (“all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified”), while David, the youngest of them, was aflame with indignation.
It is a famous story (17:1-11):
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah.
They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.
A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.
Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, ‘Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul?
Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us’. Then the Philistine said, ‘This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other’. On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
Eliab, the oldest of Jesse’s boys, the one upon whom Samuel had first fastened, would severely reprimand his youngest brother for intruding into the army’s affairs, also implying that David may have been neglecting their father’s sheep.
But we had already been told that David, who was only obeying his father’s instructions, anyway, had “left the flock in the care of a shepherd”. Here follows the feisty David’s exchanges with the Israelite soldiers and with Eliab (vv. 20-31):
Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.
Now the Israelites had been saying, ‘Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel’.
David asked the men standing near him, ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’
They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, ‘This is what will be done for the man who kills him’.
When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, ‘Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle’.
‘Now what have I done?’ said David. ‘Can’t I even speak?’ He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.
It has been said: “One man’s meat is another man’s poison”. King Saul’s armour, which the huge Benjaminite wore easily, was nothing but cumbersome to the smaller man, David.
To use another saying, it fell ‘all over him like a cheap suit’.
Vv. 38-39:
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. ‘I cannot go in these’, he said to Saul, ‘because I am not used to them’ So he took them off”.
Then, it is back to his shepherding experience (v. 40): “Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine”.
Christians can regard David’s “five smooth stones”, symbolically, as the five wounds of Christ, and again, with the “sling”, as the five-decade Rosary.
Thus Frits Albers introduced his book, “… five smooth stones …” (1998).
