Ever since DeMille’s second attempt at filming The Ten Commandments (1956), filmmakers have often tried to create “authentic-looking” tablets. DeMille’s were the first to showcase full text written in Paleo-Hebrew script (even if it was a few hundred years too “modern” for the time in which he set the film).” But DeMille did not wish to limit that authentic look to the tablets. He toyed with the concept for the very opening of the film.
But I was not aware of that at the time I visited DeMille Archives at Brigham Young University. It was 1992, and I decided to explore the materials in the archives for information related to The Ten Commandments. I had hoped to use what I might find to create an annotated script of the film. There, in an archival storage box, I came across a piece of paper, one of many with transcriptions from meetings between DeMille and his scriptwriters. This particular sheet carried statements that seemed to come out of left field:
The statue of Moses: Laraschi feels it should be included because of the interest of the discussion.
Needless to say, I was somewhat puzzled by this. Due to previous research, I realized that “Laraschi” was likely Luigi Luraschi, who was head of Paramount Pictures’ foreign and domestic censorship department. I also knew that the phrase, “it should be included,” referred to a companion book to the film being written by DeMille’s head researcher, Henry S. Noerdlinger. Noerdlinger had uncovered a lot of information while researching the film, and he knew that much of it could be useful to others. He wished to use the material as the basis for an encyclopedia of ancient Egypt.
DeMille had other ideas: the research materials could be used to show the “truth” of the film. That likely didn’t sit well with Noerdlinger, who knew that much in the film wasn’t exactly true. But DeMille was the boss, no doubt about that, and so Noerdlinger got to work on the book.
So, the story meeting transcript said that Luraschi suggested that Noerdlinger’s book should include something about a particular statue of Moses. I eventually learned that DeMille had visited the Cairo Museum in the 1930s, and a museum tour guide had shown him a statue in a storage closet. “Moses!” the man had said as he pointed to the strange, foreign lettering at its base as his proof. When creating The Ten Commandments, DeMille’s mind traveled back to that closet, and looked for a way to work its contents into his film.
He toyed with the idea of revealing to his audience the decaying statue, and the sonnet of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias, came to his mind. (Ozymandias is one of the older names for pharaoh Ramesses II.)
But the transcript from the meeting with the scriptwriters carried a bit more text. I read on:
Adamski says the man who came from the flying saucer wrote in the sand. And he photographed what the man wrote. It was the same kind of writing as on the base of the Moses statue found 2000 years ago on Sinai. Some of the figures are exactly the same.
I read the words again, thinking more sense would be imparted by a second reading. No, not more sense, just more questions: Who is Adamski? What man? What flying saucer? What did he write?
By the time I had to leave the archives and return home, I still had not found the answers—and I would not for another decade. The Internet wasn’t a useful research tool in 1992, but by 2002 that had changed. All I had to do was open the search engine of my choice and type, “Adamski.”
When a team member tracked down the statue, it turned out to have been a votive offering. The proto-Sinaitic writing on it made no mention of Moses.
To this day, I do not know who made the original remark about Adamski (perhaps Luraschi?) nor whether this part of the discussion was taken seriously by DeMille or anyone else on his production team. Though Adamski was later discredited (but may still have some followers), it is true that a few of the markings he said were on the Venusian's shoes resemble several of the proto-Sinaitic marks. But these markings are so general -- crosses and ovals and squiggles, that I don't think anyone today would take much stock in their similarities.
Lest you think that the reference to the Moses statue was completely scrapped, take a look at the first few minutes of the film (you can fast forward to just after the very long credits). And you will find a long line of slaves pulling a huge statue with a likeness of Yul Brynner, the film’s Ramesses. It is Ozymandius, after all!