Yuya: Encyclopedia II - Yuya - Yuya and Joseph

Yuya - Yuya and Joseph

Yuya's facial features, as observed on his mummy, have led some archaeologists to postulate that he was actually Asiatic in origin. Some scholars have gone so far as to connect Yuya with the biblical story of Joseph, a son of Jacob and Rachel. They point out, inter alia, that the hieroglyph for "ya" is extremely similar to that for "sef", and thus that the name should in fact be read "Yusef".

This view is opposed by Biblical literalists who note that the book of Exodus in the Torah states that the Israelites brought Joseph's bones out of Egypt. Thus, since Yuya's body was found in Egypt in the Valley of the Kings, they claim that it is impossible that he is indeed Joseph. Those who do not accept the total historical accuracy of the Bible respond that Joseph may have been a composite of more than one individual, or that the part about his body's removal to Canaan may have been a later insertion.

Mainstream Egyptologists do not take these speculations seriously, noting that what we know of Yuya's family suggests that they did not come from Asia, but from the regional nobility of Akhmin, in Upper Egypt.

The claim about the hieroglyphs in Yuya's name being misread is also rejected by mainstream science. The "ya" in his name is, in fact, two hieroglyphs, not one; and there is no single hieroglyph for "sef" in Egyptian. Hieroglyphs for "set" or "seth" look like a throne seat and a shoulder knot respectively, and do not in any way resemble a combination of a reed leaf and a vulture used for "ya".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Yuya and Joseph", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki