"has captured people's hearts for generations." "It's even been turned into one of the world's most famous stage shows." "His story begins when he loses that coat to jealous brothers who sell him into slavery." "In Egypt he interprets the dreams of Pharoah and is promoted to Prime Minister" "It's a wonderful story, but surely not a piece of history." "Can Egyptology shed light on Joseph and the garment that started all the trouble:" "Joseph's adventures were written down by scribes in about 600 BC, over a thousand years after the story was set." "No record exists as to who wrote the tale or where they got their information." "So a debate has raged for centuries about whether it is pure fiction or a description of the real mans life." "According to Alan Lloyd, Professor of Egyptology at Swansea University, the truth might lie somewhere in between." "One can see over and over again in other historical traditions that you can have a situation where there is a core of an accurate historical narrative but a great deal has in fact been bolted on." "So what is the evidence?" "The story starts in Canaan - modern day Palestine, Syria and Israel" " before the time of Moses, around 1600 to 1700 BC." "It's told in the Bible, the Koran and the Torah and they all say that" "Joseph was one of 12 sons of Jacob, a wealthy nomad." "A central thread running through the whole story is the rivalry between the brothers." "According to Dr Lloyd Llewelyn Jones, a specialist in family life, this sibling rivalry was strong because nomad chiefs had more than one wife." "Each wife wants their son to become the next leader, the chief of the tribe, or the next the king in some cases and this is certainly inherent within the story of Joseph where we see rivalries set up between the brothers from a very early age." "Joseph we must remember, and then Benjamin after him, is the son of a 2nd wife, the other brothers are all sons from other wives and so there is the rivalry which seems to go on there." "But the object that ignited this rivalry more than anything was the coat given to Joseph by his father, Jacob." "It's been portrayed as a garment of great elegance, awash with colour." "The stuff of legend." "But perhaps it's not so far-fetched." "A visit to any middle or near eastern market or bazaar would show that vivid colours have been an important part of this culture for centuries." "You can come to virtually any middle eastern town or city and find a workshop like this where fabrics are being made in exactly the same way as reported in texts or wall paintings or in other visual media in antiquity." "Today in the modern Muslim and Arab world there is a great emphasis still on colourful textiles and gift giving of textiles too." "Yet to the modern imagination trying to picture the ancient world, a life in colour is not what comes to mind." "I think that we tend to envisage the ancient world in monochrome" " maybe because of our over dependence on Greek and Roman statues," "I think we have to put that out of our minds and remember that the ancient world and again the near east in particular was a riot of colour." "But most examples of colour in the ancient world only go back to 500BC." "The Joseph story is set 1000 years earlier." "To find evidence of colour dating back to that time we need to go deep into the Egyptian desert." "The remote tombs of Beni Hassan were built in 1800 BC, and according to Barry Gittlen, a Professor of Ancient History, they give us a unique glimpse of Joseph's era." "We are here in the 12th dynasty tomb of Khnemhotpe III, fantastic scene ...scene that I have lectured in my classes about for years" "Khnumhotpe was a high official of the Pharaoh Amenemhet the First Depicted on the walls are various scenes from his life." "Some are people he lived and worked with, but there's one scene of a group of travellers with a very different appearance." "There are two main types of garb, both of which are striped and each stripe being a separate colour is very interesting plus you see that there are designs within the stripes which also adds to the differentness, the beauty, the importance of the garment" "and as such both represent the kind of garment that a character like Joseph could have been interpreted by the writers of the bible as having worn." "Although these are images of a multi- colourred coat in an Egyptian setting there are signs that these travelers come from Canaan, Joseph's homeland." "All art of the period shows Egyptians as clean-shaven." "Whereas Canaanites are always seen with beards." "You look at the characters coming in and just look at the beards and the faces and this is the common representation of the Semitic Canaanites coming in." "The markets of the modern day middle east and the tombs of Egypt suggest that" "Joseph did have a multi-coloured coat, but the evidence doesn't explain why his brothers acted the way they did." "There must have been something else about that coat that generated such envy." "One reason can be found in the translation of the Hebrew word for 'coat' in the Old Testament." "Now when we go back to the Hebrew as recounted in the book of genesis, we seem to have an indication that the garment is a special garment." "The word that is used to describe it is only found once more in the old testament and that is in the first book of Samuel where it is actually referred to as a long sleeved garment and of course long sleeves make something quite impractical to work in" "so its a sign of status if you can have long sleeves in your garment." "But it wasn'tjust the long sleeves that marked out status." "Great prestige would be attached to the choice of colours in the coat." "In the ancient world, colour was a precious commodity." "Well today we've got a myriad of colours that we can choose from and they are all basically since the 19th century made of chemical dyes which means they are solid, they don't run at all and we don't really on the whole, lose colour in the wash." "But, of course, in antiquity it was a completely different matter because every kind of dyestuff that they had, had to come from natural commodities." "Indeed some colours were harder to achieve than others." "Blacks were difficult as textiles had to be saturated with dye to stop them turning grey." "Whites required bleaching - a very complex process." "By far the most expensive dyes to make were reds and purples" " colours worn by the Semite travelers in the tomb wall paintings." "Red has to come from something like the stamens of the crocus flower and of course the tiny crocus only gives 3 or 4 stamen so you need thousands of these things to create a solid colour red." "But without any doubt at all the most important colour you could find in antiquity was a purple, a deep deep - what we can call today imperial purple." "A good true purple has to come from harvesting the sea." "Its created by picking up tiny shellfish, mollusks and it takes 1000's and 1000's of these things which are dumped into a vat of boiling water which ingeniously the ancients discovered gives off a rich purple dye when wool or linen is dipped into it." "To be given a coat made of purples and reds would have sent a very clear message to Joseph's brothers" "Joseph was Jacob's favourite." "It's no surprise then that this drove Joseph's brothers to get rid of him." "According to the story, Joseph is sold to travelling merchants." "But we only have the Bible's word for it." "The Bible does, however, slip in an authentic detail," "Joseph is sold for 20 shekels." "Egyptian documents reveal that this is precisely the price you would expect." "A few hundred years later we find that the price is up to 30 shekels and yet down into the first millennium its up to 50 shekels and so on." "So we see, you can actually plot on a chart and see the cost of slaves going up." "Now with the Joseph story this is an important detail because if the story is simply conjured up, made up, if it's just a novel from the end of Israelite and Judean history, you would expect that the author would not know" "what the price was 5, 6 hundred, 7 hundred years before." "While Joseph was being hauled away to Egypt, his brothers smear his coat with goat's blood to fake his death." "We're told that Joseph is sold as a slave to Potiphar -the chief of Pharaoh's army" " a man in charge of soldiers, horses, chariots." "He's rich and powerful with a large house and staff." "No mention of Potiphar has ever been found in ancient documents, but the Brooklyn papyrus found near Luxor dates back to Joseph's time, and proves that the use of Semitic servants was surprisingly common." "During the late middle kingdom which is the period that" "Joseph may well have come to Egypt, a well to do household of a nobleman in Egypt had a good number of Semitic household servants, people who work in the fields, people who did weaving and so on," "so a well to do estate, would have household servants, they might even use the word slave to describe these people." "According to the story Joseph was given an Egyptian name, another custom confirmed by the Brooklyn papyrus." "Their master may have had a hard time vocalising their foreign name and so we have the name X who is called Y X being the Semitic name who is called Y, his Egyptian name and so in the Joseph story" "we have Joseph who is called Zaphanath Paneah." "The Bible said Joseph worked hard and did well, rising to take charge of Potiphar's household." "But then his fate takes a dangerous turn, instigated by Potiphar's wife." "She makes a pass at him." "The incident may well be fictional, an attempt by the author of the story to paint Joseph as the innocent party." "But according to Lloyd Llewelyn Jones the episode can't be ruled out altogether" "When it comes to women in antiquity and certainly when compared to their Hebrew or Semite sisters, elite women in ancient Egypt have a remarkably autonomous life, they have a considerable amount of freedom" "We know for example that they could divorce at will, that they had the right to their own property, we find this legal status to be really quite remarkable for a woman's lot in antiquity." "Joseph rejects her advances, furious she accuses him of trying to rape her." "Joseph is thrown into Jail butjust when his life could sink no further it takes another dramatic twist." "In jail a former royal servant asks Joseph if he can interpret a strange dream about pressing three bunches of grapes into Pharoah's cup." "Joseph predicts the servant will be freed in 3 days." "His interpretation proves true." "The news reaches Pharaoh who orders Joseph to be freed in order to have his own dreams interpreted." "There is no way of checking whether Joseph was released from jail, or even thrown into jail in the first place." "Indeed some Biblical scholars suspect the whole episode is making a religious point." "If one looks at the way that the Joseph story operates, what one has is a series of deliverances of Joseph himself from captivity and he is delivered from imprisonment, we're told quite explicitly in the narrative," "because he has the favour of God." "But that's not to say that Joseph wasn't a gifted interpreter of dreams and that somehow he came to the attention of Pharaoh." "Artefacts found in ancient Egyptian tombs do in fact suggest that the Egyptians took dreams, specifically nightmares, seriously." "Kasia Szpakowska is an Egyptologist who has studied the significance of sleep and dreams in ancient Egypt." "Well one of these objects this one, is the top of a headrest." "Today we have fluffy pillows which we use to sleep on, but in Egypt a hot climate with lost of little bugs that walk on the ground, you want to raise you're head up higher, and this is the portion that your head would actually be on." "Some of them either have on the underside here that supports the head or on the pillar itself or on top of the base, they have figurines carved in figures of various type of creatures holding knifes, spears, snakes even that would be used to magically repel things" "like nightmares that might come and attack you during the night when you are at your most vulnerable." "Clearly, dreams were of interest in ancient Egyptian culture." "But the biblical record is quite specific:" "a Hebrew interpreted the dreams of an Egyptian Pharaoh in about the 17th century BC." "And this presents a problem." "For the first 2 thousands years of Egypt's history we really don't have any evidence for dream interpretation, its not until about 13 hundred BC roughly that we have the first book of dreams and their possible interpretations." "But we are not even sure if it was used." "However, there are clues that" "Joseph may have learned about interpreting dreams from his family." "Joseph was from Canaan, modern day Syria." "All his ancestors came from Mesopotamia, just to the North." "Dream interpretation was part of ancient Mesopotamian culture." "It's found in the story of a leader called Gudea." "At least until 2400 BC we have stories of Gudea which describe him having a dream and him needing to have this dream interpreted by a third party, when it is described it is not described as something unusual as Gudea having to go to a foreigner or going to a foreign land" "so its considered part of that culture." "The Bible says that Pharaoh asks Joseph to interpret a dream in which 7 fat cows come out of the Nile followed by 7 thin cows." "Joseph says the dream means 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine." "In the Bible account the prediction comes true, and on the strength of it Joseph is made Prime Minister of Egypt." "It almost sounds too convenient:" "A dream that accurately predicts a major crisis." "But psychologists believe there's an authentic ring to parts of the story." "Mark Blagrove is testing the theory that dreams are more than just random images or even an activity that processes memories." "His research strongly suggests that people dream mostly what they are worried about." "Student Katy Jones has volunteered to have her dreams analysed." "Earlier, she revealed that her biggest worry is the stress of her new part-time job in a hardware store." "These worries are hardly on the scale of those of a Pharaoh." "But if Mark Blagrove's theory is right then even Katy's dreams should mirror her concerns, however trivial." "We could say that humans back then are going to have a similar relationship to their dreams as we do now." "And those are your, those are your brainwaves just there, which are very awake brainwaves because they are very bitty." "So over the night that will get smaller when you are in non REM sleep and when you go into REM sleep it will disappear." "Dreaming is identified by a type of sleep called REM -short for rapid eye movement." "The sensors on Katy's head are linked to a computer that will tell researchers when she starts having REM sleep." "Asking Katy the morning after what she dreamt about would only reveal a fraction of her dreams" "Most of us forget 80% of them." "So Katy will have to be woken up at 90 minute intervals, when she falls into deep sleep." "Right." "She's been like this for a few minutes now, she's got these sorts of waves, which are called saw tooth waves and that usually happens when you are going into REM." "These brainwaves indicate that it is time to ask her about her dreams." "Are you awake Katy?" "Was anything going through your mind at that moment?" "I was in work and I was stacking shelves." "Ah, right you were in work stacking shelves." "Yes, but they were really strange things that I was stacking" " so I was sort of like - it was really weird things like green or red cups and stuff and I was making them into shapes." "On each occasion she was woken up, her dreams were recorded." "As the night progressed a clear pattern emerged:" "time and again Katy's dreams related to her part time job." "She was dreaming repeatedly about being at work, either getting a differentjob at a newsagents or arguing with a customer and the customer reporting her for it." "So the interesting thing about the night is we seem to have more dreams when we are under stress but the content seems to be related to the things that are concerning us." "Mark Blagrove's findings are in line with studies that show the powerfuls effect of stress on the dreaming mind." "There even been experiments been done on depriving people of water for half the day so that they go to bed thirsty and finding that they're more likely to dream about drinking." "The Bible says, of course, that Pharaoh was dreaming weightier issues -of famine to be precise." "Remarkably there are signs that the threat of famine would have plagued the mind of Pharaoh in Josephs time." "Fekri Hassan is an Egyptologist who has researched why the civilisation that created the pyramids - some 500 years before Joseph was born" " was wiped out within decades." "He concluded that it was famine." "And his evidence lies in a little known tomb in Southern Egypt." "The tomb of Ankertifi who was a governor of a district in upper Egypt is a very, very significant tomb because it contains this unique record of famine." "The writing is on the wall, literally, the character is there and he speaks in a very concise clear manner on a series of events." "Low floods, about famines about people leaving their homes and fleeing in every which direction." "Famine was a constant threat to the ancient world, but this event eclipsed all others." "It effects were so extreme that it led people to commit unthinkable acts." "All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children." "It brought notjust mass starvation but total collapse of the social order." "We have evidence that they attacked the pyramids and they attacked temples, they attacked royal institutions, they attacked the mansions of the nobles." "We have evidence that the ladies who were very highly esteemed by their noble men went onto the streets to search for food." "A total reversal in the social order because the poor were able to gain wealth by looting while the wealthy were reduced to poverty." "The ruling Pharaoh would have been blamed for the disaster, spelling the end of his reign and his dynasty." "Any future King -even centuries later" " would have famine on his mind and in his nightmares." "If your major concern is whether or not there is going to be a famine and whether or not there is going to be enough food around then we can quite easily imaging that people are going to be dreaming of that type of thing," "and either dreaming of it literally or dreaming of in some metaphorical way." "With the trauma of past famines weighing on the minds of Pharaoh and probably all Egyptians, perhaps Joseph's interpretation is not so surprising." "What is surprising is the Bible's claim that on the strength of his gift" "Pharaoh promotes Joseph to Prime Minister of Egypt." "Of all the twists and turns in the story this seems the least likely." "And yet archaeological finds are consistent with the Bible's claim." "One of these finds is in a new kings tomb in Armarna, middle Egypt." "When the Bible describes Joseph's promotion it gives away some telling details." "As a sign of authority" "Pharaoh gave Joseph his signet ring and placed a gold chain around his neck." "According to Barry Gittlen these details can be checked against evidence of Pharonic protocol." "The owner of this tomb was a man called 'Ai', who lived in 1450 BC, 200 years after Joseph." "Ancient documents tell us a Pharoah promoted him into high office, and wall paintings inside describe his investiture." "What we have in front of us is Akenhaton and his queen Nefertiti, according to some looking out of a window on a couch or in the bed and it allows us to look in on part of the activity of an Egyptian King" "as he bestows something upon the character of Ai in front of the Pharoah, in front of king Akenhaton" "And it's the detail of what exactly the king and queen are bestowing that strikes a chord with the Joseph story." "This is very similar to what happens in the book of Genesis where you have the character of Joseph being raised to high office by the king of Egypt and as part of that investiture of high office the king gives to him some sort of gold chain, fancy garments and his insignia," "his signet ring, so here we have some evidence that whoever wrote the story must have had some first hand knowledge of royal practice within the Egyptian government." "The details of Joseph's investiture might add up, but no mention has ever been found of a prime minister with his name." "Indeed the whole idea of a foreigner reaching the top of Egyptian society sounds far-fetched." "But there is in fact a substantial body of archaeology that shows that" "Canaanites like Joseph did achieve high office in Egypt." "There was no problem in people from Syria, Palestine or indeed anywhere else outside Egypt becoming extremely successful and reaching very high rank, provided that they were prepared, as Joseph is represented as being to take on Egyptian ways." "In the 1980's in Saqqara, near Cairo, archaeologists found the tomb of a former prime minister of ancient Egypt called Aper EI." "His name, Aper EI, is highly significant, the word 'EI' is the Canaanite term for god." "The name Aper El of course is not an Egyptian name, its a Semitic name and this was the vizier he was the prime minister of lower Egypt, northern Egypt, during the days of Pharaoh Akenhaten" "So here we have a Semite who achieved a very high position in the administration under Pharaoh Akenhaten." "Clearly Pharaohs did occasionally appoint Semite Prime Ministers." "But all the evidence of this is from the new Kingdom, some 300 years after Joseph's death." "There's no proof that it ever happened in the middle Kingdom, Joseph's time." "But some historians are chasing other leads." "Joseph was appointed Prime Minister on the strength of his predictions of famine" "Evidence of middle kingdom famines and measures to deal with them would support the Biblical account." "A newly discovered "stele" a stone tablet does indeed account a spate of middle kingdom famines." "This is an interesting stela, we see the governor and in front of him statements of various events of his life," "one of them is a mention of a famine and it indicates to us that famine were quite frequent." "The mention of famines is not haphazard, it's mentioned in certain episodes and almost invariably we can correlate those famines with global climatic changes." "Confirmation of these middle Kingdom famines has recently been found to the south of Egypt in snow and ice at the top of mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania." "Lonnie Thompson and his team of geologists climbed from the jungle to beyond the snow line to drill for ice cores." "And these ice cores can tell us about Egypt's climate history." "Kilimanjaro is let..." "let's say it's the only site that you can get an ice core record that would record events in this part of the world." "But it's also very relevant to the history of Egypt, because the head waters of the Nile depend on rain and the accumulation of on this ice field on Kilimanjaro depends on snow, all coming from the same events." "So they are very closely linked, and you should see a record of that in these ice cores." "In the lab the scientists examine the ice core for the presence and quantity of dust." "Dust is a fingerprint of major climate change because its presence suggests an ancient catastrophe" " a volcanic eruption or even a meteor strike." "Such an event would throw massive quantities of dust into the atmosphere, disrupting weather patterns and rainfall causing drought and famine." "These are sections of the Kilimanjaro ice core." "They're from about 40 metres below the surface." "And this is the older piece that we see, here." "And we see this very distinct dust event." "This represents 4,200 years ago, it's a 300 year drought in the Egyptian history." "This is not the famine Joseph predicted, but the cataclysmic famine that led to the cannibalism discussed in Ankitifi's tomb" "500 years before Joseph's time." "'... children... children... '" "By contrast the evidence for Joseph's famine should appear higher up the core, as a smaller scatter of dust particles." "As you come up in the core, you can see that it's a very clean, clean core up until the very top here, you can see these very small particles of dust clumps" "of this event about 3,600 years ago." "The cluster of dust correspond with the eruption in 1644 BC of the Thera volcano in the Aegean sea, just 500 miles north of Egypt." "Now the Bible of course is quite specific that the famine lasts 7 years." "This 7 year cycle also rings true." "It fits with the climate phenomenon known as "El Nino"" "which has often caused famine, always in 7 year cycles." "We have one of these events, it occurred between 1790 and 1797, very large drought through India, 1792." "In 1792, in North central India 600,000 people starved to death and at the same time that you have the drought of India you have very low water levels in the Nile River, and it lasted for 7 years." "The Bible also claims that as vizier Joseph took measures to deal with the famine." "Since famine is often caused by drought one important task would have been to ensure that water continued to reach agricultural areas." "The bread basket for much of Egypt now and in the past is the fertile land around Lake Quarun to the west of the country." "Here we are in the middle of Lake Quarun in the final depression." "On the east side of the lake you have the verdant agriculture, palm trees and all sorts of other greenery." "On the other hand to the west you have a vast empty stretch of desert so that you can take a look at this lake as the dividing point between agriculture and life, desert and death." "In very ancient times the lake was fed by water from a branch of the Nile." "But the old kingdom drought that devastated Egypt caused this branch to dry up, turning the lake into dust." "So to avert another crippling famine, a middle kingdom official came up with an ingenious plan to keep the link between the lake and the Nile permanently open." "The Egyptian government decided to dredge one of these branches, make it deeper and keep it free from silt and essentially make it a functioning canal." "The project was so successful that the canal is still in use today." "That work project must have taken thousands of men, we don't know how many people, we don't know how many hours, days, weeks, months or years, but it kept this branch of the Nile clear and it enabled this area," "the area around Frayum to maintain its fertility." "This construction project was essential in stopping future famines." "Best estimates indicate that it was built between 1850 and 1650 BC." "That's the right time for Josephs' era." "Unfortunately there's no record of who built the canal but for thousands of years it has only been known by one name." "In Arabic its the Bahr Yusef, which translated into English is:" "The waterway of Joseph" "During a famine Joseph would have made other key to protect Egypt, and save his Pharaoh's skin." "A man who steers his people and his King through great adversity might expect a big reward." "The bible claims that Joseph asks Pharaoh if his family can settle in Egypt," "Pharaoh allows Joseph and his brothers to live in a city called pi-Rameses, in the Nile Delta in the North." "But archaeologists surveying the area could find no trace of the city." "Then one day in the 1970's a farmer found the first remarkable clue" " the remains of a colossal statue." "Archaeologists are convinced this was the site of the city mentioned in the Bible." "Ramses the Great, Ramses the second was one of the most important kings of the new kingdom." "This is the area of pi-Ramesse, his capital." "It was a huge city in this time." "We have here the statue and we know we have a temple over there and several other temples and villas." "The find raised hopes that this was where Joseph had settled and was reunited with his brothers." "But these hopes were dashed when archaeologists established that pi-Ramesse was built 300 years after Joseph's time." "Worse still there was no sign of a Semitic presence at all." "But inscriptions were then discovered suggesting that pi-Rameses was built on top of an older city called Avaris." "If they could find it then maybe they could find Joseph." "We know from ancient sources that" "Avaris must be located in the south of pi-Ramses the former capital of Ramses." "So the excavators who were searching for Avaris they started in the south and they finally discovered it and could attach the name Avaris to the to the things we are excavating." "Now, excavations are gradually revealing the secrets of Avaris." "It was built 300 years before pi-Ramesse, just when Joseph was thought to have lived, and its ruins revealed tantalising clues to the Semitic presence" "Although most of the buildings were Egyptian in style, one area was distinctly Canaanite." "But the most compelling evidence of a Semitic presence came from inside the houses." "These bodies were found buried in sideways postures, a typically Canaanite tradition." "And objects found inside the burial pits left archaeologists in no doubt." "We have a lot of Canaanite shapes like jugs here combined with Egyptian shapes like this small vessel here..." "We find sometimes weapons attached to the tombs, like this sword ...it's made of bronze." "And then with the same tomb comes a belt in very fragile condition." "Which the male burial had around his hip." "So we have always have a mixture of both cultures." "These finds are consistent with the Bible's claim that" "Semites settled in the Nile delta." "But only poor Semites, perhaps slaves." "None of it indicated someone of Joseph's status" " a high-ranking Pharaonic official of Semitic origin -lived there." "But further finds at Avaris suggest that archaeologists are closing in on that elusive evidence." "The excavations have since been returned to agricultural use." "But not before extensive plans and photographic records were made." "David Rohl, a specialist in biblical and ancient history, examined then reconstructed part of the site." "In this field they found a very special monument." "This is what's left of it, it's actually the floor of a Palace, it's not a huge Palace, not a Royal Palace but it's a very, very high quality villa of some high official." "Reconstructed you can see how complex it is." "There are various elements to it built at different times." "The main part here the audience chamber and main bedroom is fronted by a 12 column fortico and that is a significant number in the Bible," "then later on was added this twin suite, if you like, of rooms, with another fortico in front which enclosed then this courtyard." "This small palace looked like the home of a high-ranking official." "But it was a find at the back of the palace that most intrigued archaeologists" "A tomb topped with a pyramid." "The tomb was over there to the south of the palace and one of the most interesting tombs was that of a dignitary with a tomb chapel and inside this tomb chapel we found the rest of a tomb statue." "The statue had been vandalised but when reassembled, it shocked the experts." "This could not have been the statue of an Egyptian official." "When we get it back to the museum and restore it, it looks like this." "And you can see the head's been completely smashed the lower part of the head and the eyes have been gouged out." "The most important thing is this." "It's an amazing haircut;" "we don't see anything like that in Egypt before this time." "And the hair colour is bright red." "This guy had flame red hair." "The details were typical of Semitic people." "Another little detail is the skin colour" " here we can see the forehead and this here is yellow, this is yellow skin." "And that's typical of what the Egyptians did to represent foreigners from the North -people with pale skin." "It wasn'tjust on the hair and face that paint was found." "Flakes of red and black paint were found on the outline of a garment and with it, a distinctive pattern." "With these statue fragments David Rohl began to put together an artist's impression of what the figure may have looked like." "Could this be Joseph?" "The absence of a nameplate means there's no way of knowing, but for David Rohl, there are no other contenders." "We have no other example of something quite as extraordinary as this;" "we have no pyramid tomb for an official of state." "We have no other palace for a private individual." "These sorts of things are the things that are reserved for royalty usually, so this is extraordinary, we have no other example to compare it to." "But if you try to imagine the rewards of somebody who gave such service to Egypt and saved it from the famine, you would expect these types of things to be given." "Joseph's remarkable tale is of course but the curtain raiser to an even more dramatic story." "Moses and the Exodus." "But there is in the story of the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt one final clue to the identity of this mysterious statue." "Most Egyptian tombs were stripped of treasures furniture, clothes, and jewellery." "This tomb was no exception." "But in this case, the bones were also taken away." "If a plunderer had gone in there to wreck the tomb, he we would have left the bones behind, he wouldn't have taken the bones away." "Bones don't have any intrinsic value, so somebody's removed the body from this tomb." "Now the story of Joseph is, at the time of Exodus when Moses takes the Israelites out of Egypt, he takes the coffin of Joseph with him, so he would have left an empty tomb." "So here we have a guy with a multi-coloured coat with an empty tomb." "It's got to be Joseph."