The Woman Behind Tutankhamun's Golden Throne

@Pharaoh

Published in 

Egypt

 · 3 Sep 2023

Year 12 of the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten, shows every sign of being the last happy one in what remained of his reign. He was now sole king of Egypt after what appears to have been a lengthy co-regency with his late father, Amenhotep III.[1] Thus, the pharaoh had at least one lovely wife and six growing daughters at this time of his life. The family unit is portrayed in the tomb of an official, Meryre II, with the king and queen perpetuating the artistic innovations of this regime by affectionately holding hands. Before two more years had passed, tragedy evidently struck. Perhaps it was due to a plague that may have eventually decimated the royal house,[2] but there is no doubt that, by Year 14, Akhenaten's second daughter, the Princess Meketaten, was dead. We see her laid out in scenes in the Royal Tomb at Amarna, mourned by her distraught parents and the entire court. Most interestingly, these depictions also contain the figure of an infant, held in the arms of a nurse.[3] That the child is a male, perhaps the long-awaited heir, is indicated by the great deference shown to him with fan-bearers hovering in attendance lest strong light, heat or insects threaten this precious individual. Pestilence or no, the tiny, nameless person tantalizingly inserted into these scenes does likely survive and in due course becomes the pharaoh Tutankhamun, the most famous king of Egypt ever.

As it happens, the great posthumous renown of Tutankhamun is the only sure thing in all of this, for the period in which he was born, known to Egyptologists as the "Amarna Era", is shrouded with a figurative mist that shifts now and then but never lifts enough for scholars to get a firm grasp of the events of the time. In fact, the Amarna Era is highly vexatious to many scholars because it presents itself as a bundle with "loose ends" of which it is difficult to make a neat parcel. Theories have abounded nevertheless and many of them appear to be earnest efforts to render the events of this particular time as "normal" as possible, even harmonious, with a smooth succession from one king to the next. Yet it is my belief that the Amarna Era and its aftermath was far more chaotic and unusual than has been heretofore supposed. That is, supposed in modern times, because the ancient writers have certainly offered hints of the irregularities to which I refer, most of which have not been taken seriously by Amarna experts.

Akhenaten apparently died in his Year 17. Now we arrive at the point of considerable confusion and disagreement among the savants: Who succeeded Akhenaten and who was the mysterious co-regent he seems to have appointed in the last years of his reign?

British Egyptologists, J. R. Harris and Julia Samson,[4] proposed, some time ago, that the junior-partner of Akhenaten, known as "Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu", was not a young man, as was commonly held, but none other than Nefertiti, herself. Certainly, there is some pictorial evidence that supports the idea of Nefertiti as a female "pharaoh". Also, one tends to be made suspicious by the fact that there is no other prince in the funerary scenes of the tragic royal daughter, Meketaten. Had there been an older son of Akhenaten named "Smenkhkare", surely he would have been portrayed even more prominently than the infant who has been mentioned! And were Smenkhkare not a son of Akhenaten but a brother or some other relative, he should not have been able to supersede a true "king's son of his body", as the Egyptians put it. However, not everything in ancient Egypt was done according to "maat", which is the Egyptian word for both "truth" and "the proper way of doing things".

A large stumbling block to imagining Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu as a woman is that the former appears, also in the tomb of Meryre II, with the body of a man dressed in pharaonic attire, accompanied by Akhenaten's eldest daughter, Meritaten, at his side as his wife. Nevertheless, a previous "woman-king" of the 18th Dynasty, Maatkare Hatshepsut, was portrayed as a man, as well, and seems also to have taken her own daughter, Neferure, as a symbolic consort. So Nefertiti and Meritaten could arguably have assumed these roles. The question is--why? What is the reason an Egyptian king would bestow so much simultaneous power and responsibility upon his own wife? The most obvious answer would be that Akhenaten was a sick man and trusted only one individual implicitly--Nefertiti. Or, realizing that he was not a popular king, Akhenaten felt beleaguered by troubles at home and abroad and sensed that his days as monarch might be numbered. Therefore, he decided that the best way to safeguard the throne for his small son was to put his queen into an administrative position superior to that of a mere king's wife. Should Akhenaten fall totally incapable of running the country, Nefertiti, with the aid of Meritaten, now a young lady in her teens, would be at the helm and the situation would not dissolve into anarchy. Retrospectively, this "shoring up" of what may have been a collapsing kingship strikes us as pathetic, theatrical and overly fraught with symbolism and, in the face of a coup, would not have amounted to much.

The circumstances of Akhenaten's demise are not known. That he was actually interred in the tomb he made for himself is also questionable--even though it was stated in his "Boundary Stele" that, no matter where death overtook him, his body should be brought back to his beloved Akhetaten. There is a chance that, toward the end of his reign, Akhenaten had married Princess Meritaten, himself, in order to insure that no prospective claimant to the kingship could do so. It is thought that Meritaten even gave birth to a daughter by her own father. However, the circumstances perhaps dictated, in the mind of the king, that he relinquish Meritaten to the co-regent, as Nefertiti had now abandoned the role of Chief Wife (at least officially), just as other woman-kings had done before and after her.[21]

Now we come to the idea that, previous to the disappearance of Akhenaten, he had been associated with another individual named "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten". This person has been surmised by some to be just another name for Smenkhkare Djeserkeperu and others maintain he/she was yet another co-regent and/or successor.

Since "Neferneferuaten" had been one of the names of Nefertiti, those Egyptologists who have assumed the ephemeral co-regent was that lady, saw this as more than a coincidence. Additionally, this prenomen is attested in a feminine form of "Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten" and, I have no doubt, corresponds to a female ruler of Egypt, mentioned by Manetho in his list of the kings of Egypt, named "Akencheres". Manetho, according to Josephus and others, wrote ""then his daughter Akencheres for 12 years 1 month, then her brother Rathotis for 9 years". I think "Rathotis" is surely Tutankhamun from the part of his name that had survived in the oral tradition from "Neb-Kheperu-RA-TUT-ankh-Amun" because it is not likely that Manetho ever read these names in cartouches. At any rate, the length of reign given (9 years) for Rathotis makes sense as far as we can tell, and most scholars have reached the same conclusion about the identity as myself. Deducting these regnal years from the accepted age-at-death of Tutankhamun's mummified remains (18) has led to the conclusion that the king was about eight or nine years old at his accession.

Since this "Neferneferuaten" seems to appear later than "Smenkhkare Djoserkheperu", and since James P. Allen, a noted Amarna expert, has convinced me that the two were not the same person, despite the fact that they shared the prenomen of "Ankhkheperure"[23], I have concluded that "Neferneferuaten" was, indeed, a female. But not Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu.

Of course, there are those who take the opposite view, steadfastly maintaining that there was only one "Ankhkheperure", the young man otherwise known as "Smenkhkare". Aidan Dodson, for example, has attempted to demonstrate a progression of this male co-regent's loyalty to the senior king by the changes in the inscriptions of a set of canopic coffinettes, which were ultimately used by Tutankhamun.[24] I find Dodson's theories about the coffinettes unpersuasive, even though I am not able to dispute his epigraphic conclusions. I would tend to think that if Smenkhkare were a co-regent of Akhenaten and he wanted to mollify or please the heretic, he would probably have gotten some new coffinettes for his viscera that didn't display any of the traditional and taboo gods of Egypt or feature an emblem of Nekhbet, that great vulture goddess, smack in the center of his forehead. Are we to believe the co-regent sat in state with double emblems on his brow while Akhenaten contented himself merely with one--the cobra? It appears to me that if young Smenkhkare wanted to show the "progress" he was making in currying favor with Akhenaten, he could have "re-worked" a lot more on these coffinettes than a few cartouches! So, somehow, it seems more logical to me to believe that those canopic coffinettes were neverfashioned or modified during the sway of Akhenaten for anyone in a subordinate position to him and whom he ostensibly trusted to help him carry out his policies but by individuals who sat on the throne after Akhenaten was gone, even so they wanted to be associated, nominally, with the latter.[25] The debate over these canopic containers has not yet reached its crescendo and I anticipate we will see much more in print about them. I mention them because they, in my opinion, point to there having been more than one "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten".

Cyril Aldred, the late great Amarna scholar, seemed to think that a text on a monument called the "Co-regency Stela" indicated that something had happened to Meritaten and that the co-regent had taken Ankhesenpaaten, the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, as queen in her place. This theory would pretty much eliminate Meritaten for any part in the drama that subsequently unfolds except that of consort for one or both of the co-regents, Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Although Nefertiti may have been her husband's choice for a co-regent, it is doubtful that, after Akhenaten had passed from the scene, that she would have had any legal rights to the throne, especially as her older daughters were already more than mere children. At any rate, the "Co-regency Stela" seems to indicate that both the names of Nefertiti and Meritaten were overwritten by that of "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten". This stela also shows the figures of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten and was originally just a normal family scene with the double cartouches of Akhenaten followed by the single one of Nefertiti. However, these cartouches had been altered, perhaps more than once, to make a statement regarding the changing status of the queen and Meritaten.

In fact, it would appear that Meritaten had even had her name enclosed in a queenly cartouche, meaning that she may have been a wife of Akhenaten at the same time as her own mother. Since the double-cartouches of "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten" (as a king) were supposed to have obliterated that of Meritaten, it is reasonable to think that this "Neferneferuaten" cannot have been Nefertiti under another name because it is unlikely that Nefertiti would have displaced Meritaten, who clearly has become the favorite of Akhenaten or she would not have had her name in a cartouche, an unmarried princess not having this distinction.

In actuality, I think the stela does not tell the story of the cartouches of a co-regent with Akhenaten named "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten" being written over those of Nefertiti and Meritaten because the co-regent suddenly had a new consort, Ankhesenpaaten, because there is no sign of the name of that princess being encased in a queenly cartouche. My opinion is that the "Co-regency Stela" perhaps indicates nothing more than a "Neferneferuaten" who wanted to be displayed as the "elect" of her father, the former king, for a certain great purpose, and who had no consort at all at this stage.

With Akhenaten out of the picture, Tutankhamun was the rightful king, without question, but he was still very young. If he was born around Year 14 of his father, being perhaps as old as two in the funeral scenes of his sister, he would have been around seven, at the most, when Akhenaten vacated the throne.[26] Yet his earliest pharaonic portraits make Tutankhamun look so young that one suspects he can have been even younger. It may have happened that a man named "Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu" briefly became king by virtue of his marriage to Meritaten, the senior Amarna princess, after the death or disappearance of Akhenaten, despite the existence of Tutankhamun. He can have adopted the prenomen of Nefertiti, "Ankhkheperure", in order to smooth over any traces that a female co-regent had ever existed. That a "Smenkhkare" (whoever he was) was dead by Year 1 of either Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten (II) or Nebkheperure Tutankhamun is attested by a jar docket that reads: "Year 1, wine of the estate of Smenkhkare, deceased. And this is certainly suggested by the succession of changes on the canopic coffinettes--"Neferneferuaten" being substituted for "Smenkhkare"--as concluded by Aidan Dodson. Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu obviously did not rule very long, nor did he get to use these magnificent containers for his viscera for they were, in my opinion, appropriated by this "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", one beloved of Akhenaten--the latter's own daughter. If Smenkhkare were not a person who was felt to be in disgrace and who had been made king illegally, his funerary goods would have been left untouched except possibly by thieves in the Valley of the Kings.

Then who is the "Akencheres" to whom Manetho ascribes twelve years of rule before her brother, "Rathotis"? It can only be one person, in my view, and that is Ankhesenpaaten or "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", the same one who is attested as having a regnal year of 3, and who adopted the same prenomen her mother once had as co-regent, and which was also that of the king-for-an-instant, Smenkhkare. Of course, this "woman-king" might have been the eldest royal daughter, Meritaten, the widow of Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu, but I do not think this is the case. In fact, Meritaten likely predeceased Smenkhkare. Otherwise, why would "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", aka Meritaten, have taken the visceral containers away from her own dead husband?[27]

I propose that Year 3 of "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten" would have been Tutankhamun's Year 3, as well, using the same kind of double-reckoning as was the case with Hatshepsut and Thutmose III who, it must be recalled, was king of Egypt the entire time that Hatshepsut reigned, even though she usurped his prerogative. While it is difficult to say exactly how old Tutankhamun was in his Year 3, it is fairly certain that this is about the time when he left the Amarna court for good. With him came the royal lady who was to be his only attested wife until his death, later on styled "Ankhesenamun". In the scenes were Tutankhamun is portrayed with his queen on his funerary equipment, they appear to be contemporaries, but Ankhesenamun was almost certainly her husband's senior. In fact, she may have been older than the king by up to a decade and was married to him either because she was the only survivor among his sisters--or because she was now the "heiress", if the latter is feasible. Anyone who has ever enjoyed George Bernard Shaw's play, "Caesar and Cleopatra", will recall Cleopatra referring to her young brother/husband as "that little thing" and will not doubt that such an incongruous match was as possible in the New Kingdom as in the days of the Ptolemies.

Ankhesenamun seems to have been born around Year 4 of the reign of Akhenaten. There is even a chance she had given birth to a daughter of her own at some point, fathered by Akhenaten, himself. This is suggested by the name of a little girl called "Ankhesenpaaten Junior", mentioned in incomplete inscriptions on blocks at Hermopolis and Karnak. At any rate, if Ankhesenamun was her mother, Tutankhamun was unlikely to have been the father.

Regardless, Ankhesenamun, by Year 3 of the joint reign, was an adult woman by the standards of her culture, who might have been cajoled by her pre-pubescent husband into playing the sort of games that amused him but which did nothing to insure the all-important succession. Since the original names in the cartouches on Tut's golden throne contained those mentioning the Aten and this chair obviously was not made when Tut was still a mere child, this indicates that the royal pair was still loyal to the Aten even after they moved to Memphis. But we also know there was a temple of Amun functioning in Year 3 of "Neferneferuaten".[28] So what can we conclude? Perhaps there really was a conciliatory mood in Egypt now and, although the disc was still worshipped, other gods would be tolerated again, as well. Here are the conditions described in the "Restoration Stela" of Tutankhamun:

"Now when this majesty arose as king, the temple of the gods and goddesses beginning from Elephantine to the marshes of the Delta...had fallen into neglect. Their shrines had fallen into desolation and became land overrun with the rata-plants. Their sanctuaries were as they had never been, their halls were a trodden path The land was in confusion, the gods forsook this land..."[29]

However, we will not enter into the religious implications of all this and return to the important consideration of the tender age of the king of Egypt. Regarding the reign of Tutankhamun, I believe scholars have been all too quiet on one point: They can accept very readily that Thutmose III needed a regent when his father died and can even be placid about the fact that Hatshepsut was "Senior King" so long after Thutmose had reached his majority. But nobody seems to think that little Tutankhamun, if it is held so certainly that he was eight when he acceded, required a regent, too. People say "Tutankhamun was a puppet with Ay probably pulling the strings"--but there is always an Ay. Even the court of Thutmose III had one, if not several. Then why wasn't little Thutmose "crowned with the crown", as it was said, and why did the "Ay" of the time not tell Hatshepsut to go and tend to her knitting? The reason, I think, is-- if any one man becomes too powerful, then he becomes the king--in reality if not in name. Other men might start to resent this and strife is bound to occur. That is why a female regent was probably thought a very good thing in ancient Egypt. She could be counted on to take the advice of men--but no man would have too much power over the immature heir. Then, ultimately, she could be relied upon to give way to the latter. However, in the case of Hatshepsut, all this backfired. But every woman is not a Hatshepsut. Under the circumstances, it makes very good sense to me that we should seek such a regent at the end of the 18th Dynasty. However, that is not to say that Ay did not play a forceful, if not vital, part in this particular government.

At the end of the three year regency of "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten" Tutankhamun really was now the eight or nine (or ten) years old that he is traditionally supposed to have been at his accession. He is, at this point, old enough to marry, at least officially. Legally, Tutankhamun and his sister are an "unbeatable" combination--two royal children whose pedigree and right to rule cannot be questioned. Even though one of them is still a child, both can by Year 3, conduct themselves as befits royalty in public. And so they remain on the throne until the death of Tutankhamun, unchallenged despite the youth of the pharaoh.

That is why, I think Manetho gives the woman-king "Akencheres" twelve years and a month of rule (as reported by Josephus). It is nothing more than a combination of her first three years as regent and the next nine as wife of the king, Tutankhamun. It is not until her husband has died that the troubles of Ankhesenamun really seem to begin. Certainly, after the demise of Tutankhamun, the queen makes it clear that she is willing and able to assist another young man in becoming King of Egypt. Ankhesenamun has no son and is obviously trying to establish herself as the living heir of the royal house at the same time that Ay, the chancellor, was attempting to gain control.[33]

If that is true, there can be no better reason for her to send to Hatti for a son of a powerful king to underwrite her plans. Ankhesenamun understood the political climate of the day and knew that marrying the Hittite was her only chance to remain the first lady of the land even though, with a husband, she could not actually be "pharaoh".

This is the famous letter that was written to an astonished King Suppiluliumas and is from the annals compiled by his son, Mursilis, who wrote:

"While my father was down in the country of Karkamis (Carchemesh) he dispatched Lupakkis and Tessub-zalmas to the country of Amqa. They proceeded to attack the country of Amqa and brought deportees, cattle and sheep home before my father. When the people of the land of Egypt heard about the attack on Amqa, they became frightened.[34] Because, to make matters worse, their lord Bibhururiyas[35] had just died, the Egyptian queen who had become a widow, sent an envoy to my father and wrote to him as follows: "My husband died and I have no son. People say that you have many sons. If you were to send me one of your sons, he might become my husband. I am loathe to take a servant of mine and make him my husband. I am afraid!" When my father heard that, he called the great into council, saying: "Since of old such a thing has never happened before me". He proceeded to dispatch Hattu-zitis, the chamberlain, saying: "Go! Bring you reliable information back to me. They may try to deceive me: As to whether perhaps they have a prince bring reliable information to me!" During Hattu-zitis' absence in the land of Egypt my father vanquished the city Karkamis...The Egyptian envoy, the Honorable Hanis, came to him. Because my father had instructed Hattu-zitis while sending him to the land of Egypt as follows: "Perhaps they have a prince; they may try to deceive me and do not really want one of my sons to take over the kingship," the Egyptian queen answered my father in a letter as follows: "Why do you say: 'They may try to deceive me'? If I had a son, would I write to a foreign country in a manner which is humiliating to myself and to my country? You do not trust me and tell me even such a thing. He who was my husband died and I have no sons. Shall I perhaps take one of my servants and make him my husband? I have not written to any other country, I have written only to you. People say that you have many sons. Give me one of your sons and he is my husband and king in the land of Egypt." Because my father was generous, he complied with the lady's wishes and decided for sending the son.

We know from further records of Mursilis that this Hittite prince, Zannanza, never reached the widow because he was murdered somewhere en route. In another letter, the Hittite king blames Ay, the successor of Tutankhamun, who renounces responsibility. The Hittites and the Egyptians go to war over this incident and a terrible plague strikes the Hittites which lasted for more than twenty years, which they say they got from the Egyptian prisoners they had brought home. The account in the "Plague Prayers" states:

"...My father sent foot soldiers and charioteers who attacked the country of Amqa, Egyptian territory. Again he sent troops and they attacked it. When the Egyptians became frightened, they asked outright for one of his sons to (take over) the kingship. But when my father gave them one of his sons, they killed him as they led him there. My father let his anger run away with him, he went to war against Egypt and attacked Egypt. The Hattian Storm-god, my lord, by his decision even let my father prevail; he vanquished and smote foot soldiers and the charioteers of the country of Egypt. But when they brought to Hatti land the prisoners which they had taken a plague broke out among the prisoners and they began to die." [36]

And so the daring maneuver of the queen availed nothing and only had more tragic consequences. Ay won out, even marrying Ankhesenamun, a true king's daughter, to lend him legitimacy. However, after that she abruptly disappears and the woman who is depicted as Ay's queen in his royal tomb is the same wife he had when he was a commoner. This power struggle between Ankhesenamun and Ay--and perhaps Horemheb, too--is the scenario that makes the most sense to me, particularly given the fact that the Hittite prince was murdered before he could cement this most formidable alliance with the widow of Tutankhamun. And so Ankhesenamun does not get a foreign husband. She gets the elderly , Ay, who was possibly her own grandfather. That is why I believe Manetho (according to Josephus) has "Akencheres" again after "Rathotis". And that is why he gives this individual the same approximate reign, as the previous "Akencheres"--because it is the same person, but who adds on four more months of reign. Perhaps that is how long Ankhesenamun lasted on her own before she married Ay--just four months--the time it took to mummify and bury Tutankhamun. Now Manetho possibly didn't know it was the same individual. Because he later says after him comes an "Akencheres II" (actually the third "Akencheres" listed) but the sex change may have been courtesy of the translator. It is difficult to say, but one might postulate that the third "Akencheres" is simply "Kheperkheperure" Ay, who may have reigned twelve years on his own (which the conventional wisdom does not think too likely). Or, possibly Ay was pharaoh for the four years that are usually assigned to him (but was somehow omitted by Manetho from the rostrum) and, when he died, one of his wives, Ankhesenamun, once again declared herself "king", this being her right as Ay had no living sons. Then it would follow that Manetho would give her a round figure of twelve years, but this time added on three more months, enough time to mummify and bury Ay. At this point, the general, Horemheb, takes the stage in a starring role. In his "autobiography", Horemheb mentions that a "king's daughter" bows to him and is given to him by the god, Amun, as his wife. It has been generally assumed that this was his attested queen, Mutnodjmet, thought to be a daughter of King Ay, but it can just as easily have been the unlucky Ankhesenamun, who now did actually die or was ultimately passed over in favor of another royal lady. One cannot help but think that the daughter of Akhenaten really may have looked forward to marrying Prince Zannanza, even though he was a foreigner and therefore an unsuitable spouse for a queen of Egypt, because she may have viewed it as her one chance to get a man who was neither too young nor too old and, best of all, not related to her in any way.

Notes

1. It is my opinion that the most compelling argument for such a co-regency is the mummy of Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiye, anatomical signs dictating that she must have been under fifty at death.
2. An author of antiquity, Tacitus, wrote "Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm..." Certainly, other ancient writers repeat this story, otherwise calling the pharaoh of this time of plague "Amenophis", and mentioning another individual called "Moses", who becomes a leader of the "afflicted persons". While scholars tend to think that "Bocchoris" is the Bakenrenef of the 24th Dynasty, this is likely just a confusion between two kings, as the latter seems to have been largely remembered as a king in whose reign a lamb spoke and who was burned alive by Nubian invaders.(Manetho). The "Bocchoris", mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, as being "a man who was altogether contemptible in personal appearance", and the "Bocchoris" of Tacitus was likely a corruption of Akhenaten's prenomen, Neferkheperure, heard as "Napkhururiya" by certain foreigners and became "Bocchoris" by the same quirk of pronunciation that made the name of Tutankhamun, "Nebkheperure", sound like "Bibhurrias" to some. Josephus, who lived in the First Century AD, cites Lysimachus's reference to "Bocchoris", mentioning that the latter lived 1700 years ago--too early for Bak-en-ren-ef but just about right for the 18th Dynasty.
3. The French scholar, Marc Gabolde, has published a 300 page study of the period from year12 of Akhenaten to the accession of Tutankhamun, D'Akhenaton a Toutankhamon (Paris, 1998). He cites the remnants of textual evidence that the child depicted in the scenes is born of Nefertiti, the Chief Wife of Akhenaten.
4. Harris, J.R., 'Neferneferuaten Regnans', Acta Orientalia 36 (1974), 11 ff; Samson, Julia, "Nefertiti and Cleopatra, Queen-Monarchs of Ancient Egypt" (London, 1997)
5. Akhenaten began as "Neferkheperure Amenhotep" and did not change his name until he moved to his new capital, Akhetaten.
6. The Restoration Stela of Tutankhamun, which describes the ills rampant in Egypt prior to this king's accession, says "The land was in zny-mnt", which some have interpreted to mean "catastrophe" and others as "a grave disease". The first element, "zny" has to do with "passing over" and is curiously evocative of the manner in which the ultimate plague that killed the firstborn was shown in the film, The Ten Commandments,--a sinister, greenish fog slowly creeping over the rooftops of Egypt.
7. Jewish historian who lived in the first century AD during the Roman occupation of Judea.
8. Ay usurped the monuments of Tutankhamun and Horemheb, in turn, erased the names of Ay. Since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, we believe we can now recognize his face and know what was originally his. Also, a close inspection of the modified cartouches often reveals the series of changes.
9. ...
10. ...
11. Akhenaten carried out his campaign to eradicate the names of the god, Amun, to the point where even this part of his own father's nomen was hacked out of cartouches--something not likely to have occurred while the senior king was alive.
12. While certain burial equipment bearing the name of Akhenaten was found in his tomb at Amarna, one cannot be certain that the heretic was ever interred in TA26, his mummy never having been identified. Or perhaps Akhenaten's remains were entombed in TA26, but one cannot judge whether he was actually mummified in the proper manner or if his funerary arrangements had been unusual , meaning that he may have died away from Egypt.
13. The origins of Manetho are murky, but he is said to have written a letter to Ptolemy Philadelphus describing himself as "high-priest and scribe of the sacred shrines of Egypt, born at Sebennytus and dwelling at Heliopolis (On)." At Heliopolis there was supposed to have been a sacred tree carved onto a wall in a great hall on whose leaves were written the names and deeds of the rulers of Egypt.
14. ...
15. Evidence arguing for a final regnal year of 17 is a honey-jar docket from Amarna with "Year 1" written below a partially-expunged "Year 17". (Cyril Aldred, Akhenaten King of Egypt, London, 1988). However, James P. Allen, in "Two Altered Inscriptions of the Late Amarna Period" (JARCE XXV, 1988), argues that "Meritaten's promotion to Chief Queen probably did not occur until after Akhenaten's Year 17", and goes on to say that "there is evidence both for the existence of Nefertiti as queen sometime after Year 17 and for the appearance of Neferneferuaten even later." I believe that the pharaoh Manetho calls "Orus" represents Akhenaten, even though he is ascribed too many regnal years. This would have been from one of Akhenaten's names, "Wa-en-re", vocalized something like "Woria". Yet Manetho seemingly does not know anything about this Orus except that he "had a vision of the gods".
16. ...
17. Amenhotep III's last attested year, by the archaeological evidence, is 39.
18. According to Manetho. Ramesses II ruled for sixty-seven years according to modern scholarship.
19. ...
20. Chief opponents of which are Egyptologists Lana Troy and Gay Robins.
21. The ancient historians say there were five female pharaohs of dynastic Egypt. Manetho, himself, seems to have written that, in the Second Dynasty, a law was handed down allowing women to succeed (presumably if there was no male heir). Mentioned by the ancients are "Nitocris" (Neith-iqert) of Dynasty VI, "Skemiophris" (Sebeknofrure), Dynasty XII, "Amessis" or "Amensis" (Hatshepsut), Dynasty XVIII, and "Akencheris" (Ankhkheperure?), Dynasty XVIII. Also mentioned is a "Thoueris" of Dynasty XIX, supposedly a man, but who may be confused with Tawosret, a putative daughter of King Merenptah who declared herself queen with full pharaonic titles. Most of the five "woman kings" ushered out their own dynasties, with the exception of Hatshepsut.
22. One must also consider the idea that Akhenaten lasted as long as he did because of the pestilence, under which conditions people would not have much concerned themselves with the activities of the king.
23. Allen, James P., "Akhenaten's Mystery Co-regent and Successor", KMT's, "Amarna Letters", Vol. One, Fall 1991.
24. Dodson, Aidan, "King's Valley Tomb 55 and the Fates of the Amarna Kings", Amarna Letters, Vol. Three, KMT Publications.
25. The damnatio memoriae of Akhenaten and his repudiation as a "criminal" did not, after all, begin until the reign of Horemheb.
26. Manetho, in his account of the flight of Amenophis, relates the latter had a five-year-old son, "Sethos also called Ramesses", whom he entrusted to the care of a friend. (the vizier, Ay?)
27. Ankhesenamun, as "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", may have had some funerary equipment in readiness, but why this queen would never have been interred as a "pharaoh" is only too obvious.
28. Graffito from tomb of Pawah.
29. John Bennett, "The Restoration Inscription of Tutankhamun," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 25 (1939)
30. Berlin Museum
31. If one looks closely at the face of the pharaoh, one can see that his mouth is open and the teeth showing.
32. If Tutankhamun was nearing twenty when he died, his queen would have been close to thirty.
33. The possibility that Ankhesenamun resided at Memphis and Ay at Thebes may be a factor that enabled her to have a brief autonomy.
34. Thinking they were next. However, Mursilis did not understand the personal motives of the queen.
35. Phonologically, this almost certainly corresponds to "Nebkheperure".
36. Albrecht Goetze's translation is included in the ANET for the letter "Suppiluliumas and the Egyptian Queen", p. 319, and p.395 mentions the murder of the prince on his way to Egypt, in the "Plague Prayers of Mursilis"