Amarna Sunset

Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation

Aidan Dodson

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781617970504
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

A new account of the return to orthodoxy after Akhenaten's revolution which "combines erudition with expertise to create an exciting account of a much mythologized period" ( Book News, ) now in a fully revised paperback Amarna Sunset tells the story of the decline and fall of the pharaoh Akhenaten's religious revolution in the fourteenth century bc. Beginning at the regime's high point in his Year 12, it traces the subsequent collapse that saw the deaths of many of the king's loved ones, his attempts to guarantee the revolution through co-rulers, and the last frenzied assault on the god Amun. The book then outlines the events of the subsequent five decades that saw the extinction of the royal line, an attempt to place a foreigner on Egypt's throne, and the accession of three army officers in turn. Among its conclusions are that the mother of Tutankhamun was none other than Nefertiti, and that the queen was joint-pharaoh in turn with both her husband Akhenaten and her son. As such, she was herself instrumental in beginning the return to orthodoxy, undoing her erstwhile husband's life-work before her own mysterious disappearance. This fully updated and extensively revised paperback edition addresses new evidence and discussions that have appeared in the decade since the book was originally published. Amarna Sunset, together with its recently updated companion volume, Amarna Sunrise, accordingly provides readers with a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of Egyptian history during the golden years of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East.

1 THE
NOONDAY SUN

“Year 12, II prt, day 8: [the king and queen] appeared on the great carrying-chair of gold to receive the tribute of Kharu [Syria-Palestine: map 2] and Kush [Nubia], the West and the East. All countries collected together at one time, and the lands in the midst of the sea, bringing offerings to the king upon the great throne of Akhet-Aten for receiving the goods of every land, granting to them the breath of life.” This text appears as a caption to a tableau occupying the whole of the west wall of the first hall of the tomb-chapel of Huya, steward of Queen Tiye (TA1: fig. 10, top). A very similar, but more summary, text is to be found in another large tableau on the east wall of the first room of the next-door tomb-chapel of the royal scribe Meryre ii (TA2: fig. 10, bottom).

The two tableaux are different from one another, apparently showing respectively the royal couple’s approach to the location of the festivities in their carrying-chair, and their oversight of the durbar itself from a kiosk, the latter being the more detailed representation. However, they both feature extensive depictions of raw materials and manufactured goods, and of manacled individuals—Syrian and Nubian in appearance—brought by several distinct delegations, recognizable iconographically as including Nubians,¹ Syrians, Hittites, and possibly Amorites.

The durbar’s great international gathering was clearly a particularly significant event in Akhenaten’s career, with much of the known world bringing gifts to the king. However, the import of the event itself remains obscure. The precise date given in both label-texts² shows it to be a record of a specific event, and not a generic icon—but why was it occurring then? Those who have espoused the idea of a long coregency between Akhenaten and Amenhotep III have argued that it might mark part of the celebration of the transition to Akhenaten’s sole rule. However, if there was indeed no coregency of this kind,³ one is left looking for other explanations.

Fig. 10. Durbar scenes in the tomb-chapels of Huya (TA1, top) and Meryre ii (TA2, bottom).

It may be that such events took place periodically during the Eighteenth Dynasty, and it is only the exceptional nature of Amarna tomb-iconography that means this particular one is depicted and dated: similar events may indeed have taken place under earlier kings, but would not form part of the pre-Amarna tomb-chapel repertoire. The breadth of the attendance and the overall context would suggest it was not simply the outcome of successful military action, although at some time during Years 10–12 Akhenaten’s armies had scored a victory somewhere in the vicinity of the Wadi el-Allaqi, about three hundred kilometers east of Wadi Halfa.⁴ Alternatively, might one see in it an international celebration of the completion of Akhenaten’s great project—given that work had by now been going on for some seven years—the king showing off to the world his model capital city, and the glory of the Aten?

The durbar scenes are also interesting from the point of view of the royal family, as showing its public extent on that day in Year 12 (for a tentative royal genealogical chart of the period, see appendix 3). In most of the tomb-chapels at Amarna, a maximum of four daughters are shown—Meryetaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, and Neferneferuaten-tasherit. The gradual addition to their number has on occasion been used to relatively date individual tomb-chapels, but the vagaries of laying out the decoration of a wall make this problematic. This is shown clearly when comparing the scenes in TA1 and TA2: in the former, only two daughters are unequivocally shown and named—Meryetaten and Meketaten—with perhaps one or two others shown on a smaller scale, but not named.⁵ Indeed, throughout TA1 only two girls seem ever to be shown in any one scene, although four appear cumulatively around the tomb.⁶

On the other hand, in TA2 we find no fewer than six daughters, now including two (Neferneferure and Setepenre) who are not found in any other Amarna tomb-chapels.They thus presumably only became old enough to be acknowledged—i.e., lived long enough to have some chance of longer-term survival—just before Year 12. That this was particularly true for Setepenre is suggested by the fact that while Neferneferure is seen in a reward scene on the south wall of TA2, Setepenre is not. One might therefore suggest that Neferneferure was born around Year 9/10,⁷ and Setepenre in Year 10/11 (fig. 11).⁸

While we thus have six daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti alive in Year 12, it is quite possible that other children may have been born during their years of marriage, which presumably went back to the earliest years of the reign of Amenhotep IV, as he then was.⁹ Given the level of premodern infant mortality, it is likely that some could have died without featuring on the monuments. It is also not unlikely that boys were born as well as girls, but any who might have survived infancy would also generally have missed monumental commemoration by the decorum that had apparently excluded princes from royal family tableaux for generations. Looking back through Egyptian history, royal sons are conspicuous by their absence from the monuments, apart from the short period during the Fourth Dynasty when many held key offices of state:¹⁰ indeed, during the Middle Kingdom only two princes are known. Our first real glimpse into the world of the kings’ sons is only gained when the practice began of assigning princes to nobles for their education. Then, the subsequent desire of these worthies to commemorate this signal honour on their own monuments gives us the names of New Kingdom princes who would otherwise be unknown. In addition, certain sons were given formal posts in the priesthoods, and thus can appear on monuments in that guise—for example, Prince Thutmose B, elder son of Amenhotep III, who appears in the funerary chapel of the contemporary Apis bull¹¹ by virtue of his office as high priest of Ptah. However, in the very same reign, Amenhotep III is accompanied only by his wife and daughters where the “royal family” icon is being used, whether in two or three dimensions.¹²

Fig. 11. The growth of the royal family as recorded in the tomb of Meryre ii: on the left, in the reward scene on the south wall, from top right: Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-tasherit, Neferneferure, Meryetaten, and Meketaten; on the right, in the durbar scene on the east wall: [Meryetaten], Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.

Fig. 12. A pair of blocks at Ashmunein bearing the names of Prince Tutankhuaten on the right, and a princess (whose name is damaged) on the left. They may have come from a semi-symmetrical scene of Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshiping the Aten, with their children divided between them (Supreme Council of Antiquities storeroom at Ashmunein).

Thus the absence of male children depicted among Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s brood in the Amarna tombs should by no means be taken as indicating they had no such offspring. That there was a male royal child at Amarna is shown by a block found at Ashmunein¹³ (brought across from Amarna as building stone under Rameses II) mentioning a “King’s Son of [his] body, his beloved Tutankhuaten” (fig. 12). The latter seems to have been shown facing a princess whose name, on the adjacent block, is unfortunately now lost, apart from the “-Aten” element.¹⁴ Coming from an Amarna temple, the block’s status as a strong piece of evidence for Akhenaten’s paternity of Tutankhuaten has now been fairly generally admitted by scholars.¹⁵

Fig. 13. Relief of Kiya, with head altered and inscription recut to serve as a representation of Meryetaten. From Ashmunein (Copenhagen Ny Carlsberg ÆIN 1775).

On the other hand, the identity of the child’s mother has been much debated. Nefertiti has generally been dismissed out of hand, essentially on the basis of the prince’s absence from the family groups at Amarna. With her out of the way, other than appealing to the existence of some unknown “secondary wife or concubine,”¹⁶ the most often cited candidate for Tutankhuaten’s mother has been the Greatly Beloved Wife (ḥmt-mrrty-Ꜥꜣt) Kiya.¹⁷

This lady has always been something of a mystery. Her title is unique to her—no other royal spouse is known to have used it at any time in Egyptian history—and is always extended to specifically link her to Akhenaten. Her origins are wholly obscure; a suggestion that she might be Tadukhepa, a princess from the North Syrian state of Mitanni who had been sent to Egypt as a diplomatic bride, is interesting but without direct evidence.¹⁸ Kiya is known from a range of monuments and objects, but in most cases they have been usurped by other persons during Akhenaten’s reign: her coffin was adapted for a pharaoh’s burial,¹⁹ while most of her relief representations were recut and relabeled for Princess Meryetaten (or on occasion Ankhesenpaaten), implying disgrace.

Given that both “earlier” and “later” Aten-names were used on Kiya material, her career extended either side of Year 9/10, but as many of her monuments were usurped in the name of Meryetaten before the latter’s elevation to queenship around Year 13,²⁰ it would seem that Kiya was disgraced well before this time (see fig. 13). Nothing in all this suggests that she might have been the mother of the heir to the throne—although she certainly bore a daughter²¹—and Kiya’s candidature seems essentially to be a case of “Anyone but Nefertiti”!

Yet when one considers the ongoing tradition of not including sons in royal family depictions, the reasons for doubting that N...