Lost city of Amunhotep III discovered at Luxor

[Wepwawet]

3 hours ago, Wistman said:

@Wepwawet  I can't but help thinking his demise, just before the first Heb Sed festival for his father, which I believe he's known to have been working on (which, I now gather, included the building of Malkata palace, or was at least contemporaneous with) is a key to the subsequent events of the 18thD. 

From your other thread I remember learning that the Great Temple of Ptah was not shut down and cut off as Amun's had been, during Akhenaten's reign.  The significance of that is self evident, though we don't know per se the reason, lost in the cloud of conflicting forces and mystery.  But, clearly, solving the question of Prince Thutmose's fate would, in my suspicion, get us a lot closer to the apostasy of Akhenaten, and maybe even to Amenhotep's building of Malkata city. 

I'm overly anxious, and optimistic.  But maybe some clues will come with Zahi's digging.

 

I wonder at times if there may have been a conflict, at least intelluctually, about the nature of the gods and if there really were one. Hornung laid to rest the idea that they ever thought that there was one creator god behind the scenes, but the Amunhotep III/Akhenaten era was not normal and I think Hornung's conclusions about "The One" should be put aside. Even he says that Akhenaten was a monotheist, so that does give a "One", even for only 17 years. The Aten was rising all through the 18th Dynasty, and while it could not be foreseen that he would become "The One", it would have been obvious, at least within the court and nobility, that he was becoming a major god. If we bundle Atum/Ra/Aten together and class them as one, technically correct-ish, at times, we are then left really with three "factions", Ra, Ptah and Amun, with Amun being the weakest, in purely theologicaal terms, as he is a local Theban god bigged up, but with the "Hidden" god aspect being very intruiging, though maybe part of the bigging up. I could drone on and on, but for the sake of brevity, Amun is the big looser as he is built on "sand", Ptah, who has the best intellectual reason to be The One, and still does, in a sense, fell short with the death of prince Thutmose, leaving the field clear for the Aten. I doubt it was anything like this as they did not do religious conflict and I believe serious strife with the Amun priesthood to have been impossible at that time, and for a long time to come. I remember on that other thread outlining who was the HP in those times of the major gods, including Osiris and Onuris, and who their families were and what powers they had, and they were nothing but servants of the king, and put in place by the king, though this changed later, and in part began with the reign of Tutankhamun and a widespread shake up of the priesthoods and "new men" appointed, some of whom, like the HP's of Osiris, made the post almost hereditary. See, I droned on and on even trying to be brief, but how on this subject

Edited April 11, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

Considering the possibility that prince Thutmose disappeared (i.e. that his body was not available for burial) then the keeping of his burial goods in honorific storage within the GTP precincts at Memphis is possible.  But the king and queen in that case would, I think, have erected some sort of monument to him, or at least a stela placed in some auspicious spot.  Unless he had dishonored himself in some way.  From what we can deduce about his character, that seems unlikely, but plausible.  (I remember the Moses theory but I find that to be a bit grasping.)  There seems to have been an erasure of him, as with Smenkhkare, and later with the Amarna episode in entire.  Yet he was HPP, and an innovator, based on his creation of the first Apis tomb at Saqqara.  It is a squirrely knot to be sure. There's also the bit that princes who don't achieve the throne in the 18thD are not memorialized, so perhaps we'll never know....

Edited April 11, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

13 hours ago, Wistman said:

Considering the possibility that prince Thutmose disappeared (i.e. that his body was not available for burial) then the keeping of his burial goods in honorific storage within the GTP precincts at Memphis is possible.  But the king and queen in that case would, I think, have erected some sort of monument to him, or at least a stela placed in some auspicious spot.  Unless he had dishonored himself in some way.  From what we can deduce about his character, that seems unlikely, but plausible.  (I remember the Moses theory but I find that to be a bit grasping.)  There seems to have been an erasure of him, as with Smenkhkare, and later with the Amarna episode in entire.  Yet he was HPP, and an innovator, based on his creation of the first Apis tomb at Saqqara.  It is a squirrely knot to be sure. There's also the bit that princes who don't achieve the throne in the 18thD are not memorialized, so perhaps we'll never know....

Yes, it's really a tangled knot with strands going off all over the place, or could be made to. For instance, was Thutmose married and did he leave children, I think so, but with no real evidence to go on. The burial of Apis I and it known that Apis II was also buried within the reign of Amunhotep III, give a potential timeframe for the existance and age of Thutmose. The bulls live on average to around 25, so if Apis II lived an average life and was buried in year 38, the latest year he could be buried, it puts the burial of Apis I around year 12. So while it's not so easy to gauge age in their depictions as for the most part they are all depicted as super fit 25-30 year olds, prince Thutmose does look a bit on the young side at the burial of Apis I.

There's debate over how old Amunhotep III and Tiye were at the start of the reign, and I went into some length about how old AIII may have been based on the approximate age of 30 for Thutmose IV at death, and the fact that AIII was his oldest son, and that he had six younger brothers as shown in the tomb of royal tutor Heqaerneheh [TT64]. We don't know who the mothers of all those six are, or if there were twins, so cannot state that one appeared at least every two years, or slightly less, in the ten year reign of Thutmose IV, but with AIII clearly being the oldest, and the tomb description is unequivocal about this, and potentially being born while Thutmose IV was still a prince, he cannot possibly have been very young at his coronation, and this is also backed up by the discovery of one of those brothers, possibly Amenemhat [C], in the tomb of Thutmose IV, and buried there before the tomb was sealed. The mummy of this prince is about 12 years, putting, IMO, AIII around 14-15 at the start of his reign, and able to produce children. Tiye though is another matter and the age of her mummy, at face value, would not put her in child bearing age at the start of the reign, and the co-regency debate has an impact on this, yes, Marianne, the lustrous wavy brown hair without a sign of grey, is, I admit, a thing and an issue.

So, and giving Tiye two years-ish from becoming GRW to being able to give birth, we have prince Thutmose as about age nine or ten at the burial of Apis I, and more importantly, about age 28 if he died in or shortly before year 30. Old enough to have had several children, the eldest of whom may have been not far off the age of his brother Akhenaten, and there is a seemingly large age gap between the two, more than enough for not just Sitamun and other princesses to appear, but other sons between Thutmose and the future Akhenaten. So Thutmose would have been at the temple of Ptah for around 18 years, and would have been a knowledgeable and important figure, the most important, in this major element of their religion. Where is Mrs Thutmose and their children, when exactly did Apis II die, and who buried him, what happened to the brothers of Amunhotep III, apart from Amenemhat [C], and many other questions.

The thought occurs that this new city could answer questions about the "bad things" mentioned, but with zero details, on boundary stela "K". While it mentions "bad things" in the reigns of Amunhotep III and Thutmose IV, and bad things in each year from Akhenaten's accession, something very bad caused the sudden move to Amarna, and here we have the administrative capital of that time being uncovered. We know they liked to write down all their gossip, as we do today, so there has to be potential for, at last, an unravelling what at least the last of these "bad things" were, and if we are very lucky, why 730 statues of Sekhmet appear at Thebes, and is there any link to the dissapearance of prince Thutmose. Sekhmet is dangerous but predominantly protective, and I think some deep trauma causes you to react by creating a regiment of "supernatural guardians".

Edited April 12, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

@Wepwawet   The cost and effort needed to create all those Sekhmets was considerable, so they are not to be dismissed in any respect.  And addressing the 'bad things' that happened would surely have been their role, divine protector and healer as she was.  She was also, notably in the context we're discussing, the consort of Ptah and daughter of Ra, she was the 'Eye of the Sun'.  Whatever happened at Malkata city, 730 full size granite statues of her was mighty potent magic to the Egyptians. 

I just want to mention that, it's true, Apis bulls are thought on average to have lived 25/30 years (at most, Dodson puts it at 16/17 years) but that by no means specifies any individual bull's lifetime; Apis II could have had a shorter life.

According to Dodson in 1999, Apis II had traditionally been assigned to Akhenaten, based on the misread cartouche on a proximally associated stela, but his analysis of the bull's canopic jars led him to conclude that the lack of extant signifiers meant no specific reign could be closely assigned, except only that it came sometime in the overall period of the Isolated Tombs, likely between burials of Apis I (temp. Amanhotep III) and Apis III (temp. Tutankhamun, advent of his reign).  [p. 61, https://www.academia.edu/8206166/The_Canopic_Equipment_from_the_Serapeum_of_Memphis]  Granted, that was over two decades ago.  If you have a ref that supercedes this I'd very much enjoy reading it.

As to the glamorous Tiye, what could have been more satisfying than to have her confirmed as the identity of the Elder Lady, the magnificent hair supporting all the legend of that outstanding woman.  It does seem to belie her being really all that much 'Elder' though, and does impact the effort to pin down her age within the timeline of the era.  I wasn't aware that there were no grays among all those tresses.

I agree with you, Thutmose most likely married and had children, whose bloodline would have made them players to some degree in the drama of the era.  My guess is the young boy found beside Tiye was his progeny (why didn't Zahi test his DNA, sheesh) but surely there were others.

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

What we need to know, @Wistman is what the preeceding "bad things" were as well. Maybe with Thutmose IV there were problems surrounding how he became king when he was only second or third in line, but they don't say, they never say as they all lived perfect lives and nobody died of anything, they were alive one moment, then in the Duat. Which makes Akhenaten so odd in that he even goes as far as mentioning that "bad things" happened, and that two of his daughters died, seemingly the only two Ancient Egytians ever mentioned as dying, well, along with the husband of the author of the "Dahamunzu" letter, but that's within the same family and it's internal culture. Clearly something very dramatic happened during the reign of Amunhotep III, hence the statues, I think it reasonable to guess, and then "bad things" in every year of Akhenaten's reign up until the move to Amarna. Was he really in full control of the country ?

Apis II is difficult to pin down. I have read that piece by Dodson, and his later "Bull Cults" in Selima Ikram's book, and he sits on the fence by saying that it was buried by "AmenhotepIII/IV". Interesting that he says Amunhotep IV and not Akhenaten, as that would but the burial of Apis II within a co-regency period, which Dodson does not agree with. I don't either, but if, as I still believe, Apis II died within the reign of Amunhotep III, co-regency or not, my calculations for a possible age of prince Thutmose at death would still stand. Though Apis II being, by it's stela, buried by Teti I is very odd, and I'm not sure I buy the proposal that it was buried by priests who did not want it associated with Akhenaten.

Tiye really is a problem for there not being a co-regency. The mummy previously known as the Elder Lady is without doubt Tiye, and her age at death is put by Hawass and Saleem at 40-50. But there are issues, and it would be a contorted diversion to go into this at this time as it involves the life story, as much as we know it , of princess Sitamun and when KV46 was sealed, with chairs showing her as an adult, at least in AE terms, so no younger than 13/14. See, I'm digressing, so I'll stop, for now. DNA, yes, the prince in KV35 was scanned and DNA tested, and a veil of silence descends from the SCA, as well as a lack of explanation for why Thutmose IV was not tested, bizarre. It's that Hawass hiding secrets again....

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Back to the dig.

Still waiting to get some decent coverage in English, that is coverage better than a clip saying the place is found, how wonderful. Egyptians, naturally, and speakers of Arabic are getting daily broadcasts from the site with in depth information. This video is one of them. I chose this one because there are really good shots of the better preserved parts of the city, and really looking a bit like Pompeii. At 26:40, Hawass and the presenter are at a table looking at recovered objects. This is where it gets intriguing and infuriating, due to the language barrier. On the table are various bits and bobs, including a number of faience rings which look to have a name on them, but no close ups, and I don't hear Hawass say any recognizable name or names, other than pointing out a small figurine of Bes. Then Hawass picks up an ostracon and says "Ah, damanza, ******** Aton".

Very short clip showing just the scene at the finds table

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

@Wepwawet   Thanks for those clips, so thrilling to see, the site is fantastic.  Yes, the language barrier is truly frustrating (should've learned Arabic, should've, should've, should've.  ) there seems to be some Heb Sed associated pottery there, wine jars, and what about Zahi uncovering those canopic jars...and all those goodies on the table with Hawass, so tantalizing...the details will be forthcoming, though I wonder when it will be  (c'mon Zahi)...it seems there's a lot of material and they've only excavated a small part of the site.  Those wavy walls are turrible strange, and there are many of them, some intersecting in what appears to be an irregular way.  And they're flimsy looking too.  Good to see the road there that skirts along between the mortuary temples and the tombs in the hills, gives a fair idea of how deep the city sits below today's ground level, and how close the city approaches the Nobles' tombs, no doubt it stretches beneath that road...

You know you could go on and on for pages and I would approve!  Really my only point about Apis II was not to question Thutmose's age at death, but his age at the burial of Apis I, i.e.: if Apis II died young, and we're calculating backward, Thutmose may have been a little older when the Apis I burial occurred and he might have played a more significant role in the initiative of building the first Apis tomb.  But it's only marginally important.

Thanks for correcting me about the KV35 prince's mummy, I confess I naively thought they never sampled his DNA.  What they've done seems worse to me, deliberately withholding the results.  Makes Hawass seem sneaky and that he has an agenda, which I'd think he would've taken special pains to prove wrong and thwart his detractors.  But no.

Thank you again for doing the diligence and getting these revealing videos to us. 

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Wistman

[Wistman]

A tiny bit of information (in English) from two days ago:

Quote

Hawass said that the city was a residential, administrative and industrial center filled with artisans and workers who designed jewellery and clothing, alongside a huge area built to store meat.

Scenes depicting the god Aten are prevalent within the ruins, with the western wing of the city containing information about King Tutankhamun, who came from Tel al-Amarna after the death of his father Akhenaten and ruled for ten years.

No doubt this is some of what was being discussed in the above video.

https://egyptindependent.com/zahi-hawass-announces-findings-from-luxors-lost-golden-city/

[Wistman]

This is from today, a couple hours ago:

Quote

The city was the largest administrative and industrial settlement during the 18th dynasty, when ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. Dr. Hawass said that the city extends west, “all the way to the famous Deir el-Medina,” the village that was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.  [...]

An area with well-arranged units is “fenced in by a zigzag wall, with only one access point leading to internal corridors and residential areas,” said Dr. Hawass. “The single entrance makes us think it was some sort of security, with the ability to control entry and exit to enclosed areas.”   [...]

Some of Dr. Hawass’s discoveries are already providing valuable clues. For instance, a pottery vessel inscribed “Year 37” confirms that the city was active during King Amenhotep III's co-regency with his son Akhenaten.

Good photos, including of the knee-bound skeleton.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/04/13/photos-egypts-3400-year-old-lost-golden-city-is-unearthed-from-desert-sands/?sh=25231b53372b

And this from IFL science, @20 hrs ago, clarifying  :

Quote

Already the functions of many of the numerous spaces have been identified, including an administrative area, a bakery, major kitchen, and a residential district. Hawass describes the city as “The largest administrative and industrial settlement in the era of the Egyptian empire on the western bank of Luxor.” [qualifier left out of the Forbes piece, somewhat ambiguous though]   Numerous casting molds were used to produce decorations for temples and tombs. A vessel containing about 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of cooked meat comes with an inscription of its year and the festival it was prepared for.

The administrative area has only a single entrance, which Hawass thinks “[w]as some sort of security, with the ability to control entry and exit to enclosed areas.” It is also partially bounded by walls built in a wave shape. Although rare in ancient Egypt, the examples we do have of this style of building mostly date to the 18th dynasty. It was subsequently adopted by many other cultures because it provides more strength than straight walls without the need to add a second layer of bricks.

https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/ancient-egyptian-lost-golden-city-called-biggest-find-since-tutankhamuns-tomb/

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wistman said:

This is from today, a couple hours ago:

Good photos, including of the knee-bound skeleton.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/04/13/photos-egypts-3400-year-old-lost-golden-city-is-unearthed-from-desert-sands/?sh=25231b53372b

And this from IFL science, @20 hrs ago, clarifying  :

https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/ancient-egyptian-lost-golden-city-called-biggest-find-since-tutankhamuns-tomb/

I'll quote this from the forbes link as it's important and drains one of the Amarna tar pits.

Quote

 

Some of Dr. Hawass’s discoveries are already providing valuable clues. For instance, a pottery vessel inscribed “Year 37” confirms that the city was active during King Amenhotep III's co-regency with his son Akhenaten.

“As history goes, one year after this pot was made, the city was abandoned and the capital relocated to Amarna. But was it? And why? And was the city repopulated again when Tutankhamun returned to Thebes?” asked Hawass. “Only further excavations of the area will reveal what truly happened 3,500 years ago.”

 

I think that the finding of a year 37 date for AIII, and then the city being abandoned a year later, year 38 and his final year, clinches the deal on a co-regency. Akhetaten was founded in Akhenaten's year 5 and probably the move took place in year 6-7. So if the Theban city was abandoned in year 38 of AIII, we have a 6-7 year co-regency. So that's that argument over I guess, and I'll now go into mourning for the death of the anti co-regency position

But... maybe it was an old pot, six or seven years old....

Edited April 13, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

3 hours ago, Wistman said:

 

You know you could go on and on for pages and I would approve!  Really my only point about Apis II was not to question Thutmose's age at death, but his age at the burial of Apis I, i.e.: if Apis II died young, and we're calculating backward, Thutmose may have been a little older when the Apis I burial occurred and he might have played a more significant role in the initiative of building the first Apis tomb.  But it's only marginally important.

Thanks for correcting me about the KV35 prince's mummy, I confess I naively thought they never sampled his DNA.  What they've done seems worse to me, deliberately withholding the results.  Makes Hawass seem sneaky and that he has an agenda, which I'd think he would've taken special pains to prove wrong and thwart his detractors.  But no.

 

 

Yes, I could drone on and on and on and on and on

But that's a valid point about the possibility of Thutmose being older than nine or ten, and I'm only seeing that based on 25 years for Apis II, and that's being too rigid, but by way of a mooring post. There are also issues around whether even a king's first son would be given a position of some importance below the age of majority. Other example, Khaemwaset for instance, shows that the son of a King put into an important position in a major temple was there to do a serious job, not just as a non executive honorific. Perhaps a more realistic age at the burial of Apis I could be 14 + but not by much I would think, and at fourteen he will be considered to be an adult.

On agendas, I do wonder if some things are being kept back until next year and the 100th anniversary, though I don't think they would keep DNA results secret for 12 or so years. This apparent lack of activity surrounding the discovery of a "tomb sized" void running right by KV62, and at the same depth, is perhaps a little odd, so maybe something is going on, and they kept the discovery of a city secret, or we will see a ramping up of news about this, and other things, from the end of this year.

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

A couple points I found in an article this morning:

Quote

This new lost city, known in ancient times as Rising of the Aten, [...]

No further details on the city's name given, nor it's AE appellation.

Quote

“The town is beautifully preserved, even past one story, in mudbrick, which shouldn’t survive. What is astounding is all that comes with the town, tools, pottery, texts, as if the town was left suddenly, which is what archaeologists think happened.”

“Mudbrick isn’t preserved like this elsewhere,” Cooney continued. “They [archaeologists] are worried about preserving this site. Once rainstorm will do untold damage. This is a special and amazing find that must be carefully studied and preserved.”

A challenge for the Egyptian government, to be sure.

Quote

One other thing we want to mention. There have been claims that the recent Rising of the Aten discovery reported by Zahi Hawass is an inadvertent duplication of French archaeological finds that date back to the 1930s. This appears to be unlikely. A follow-up investigation comparing the French expedition work to the Rising of the Aten site found that they occurred in two different locations, though both date to the reign of Amenhotep III. The two sites may or may not be related, but the claims of a previously-unknown Egyptian Pompeii are holding up thus far.

@Wepwawet  Any ideas about this French expedition, and where they dug?

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/321726-archaeologists-discover-lost-egyptian-city-said-to-rival-pompeii 

[Wepwawet]

28 minutes ago, Wistman said:

A couple points I found in an article this morning:

No further details on the city's name given, nor it's AE appellation.

A challenge for the Egyptian government, to be sure.

@Wepwawet  Any ideas about this French expedition, and where they dug?

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/321726-archaeologists-discover-lost-egyptian-city-said-to-rival-pompeii 

It would be a good idea if Hawass gave details of how he knows the name of the city was "Rising of the Aten".

French expedition in the first half of the 1930s under Robichon and Varille found the ruins of a workmans village very near to where the present dig is.

This is the link to their publication. I'll point out Plate V on page 77, and Plate VIII on page 84

The temple of the Royal Scribe Amunhotep, son of Hapou

Red indicates new dig, blue the 1930s

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

27 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

It would be a good idea if Hawass gave details of how he knows the name of the city was "Rising of the Aten".

French expedition in the first half of the 1930s under Robichon and Varille found the ruins of a workmans village very near to where the present dig is.

This is the link to their publication. I'll point out Plate V on page 77, and Plate VIII on page 84

The temple of the Royal Scribe Amunhotep, son of Hapou

Thanks, I'll peruse that link.  Here's Hawass's Facebook announcement from April 8, he doesn't tell any more about the city's name other than that English version.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=294251502062591&id=100044332304573

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Wistman

[Wistman]

@Wepwawet  Ohhhhhh my.  Thanks for pointing me to those Plates.  Wavy walls!

[Wepwawet]

I think Hawass is engaging in hyperbole, again. He says on his FB that the history tells us that there were three palaces there, but one of the palaces for Amunhotep III, later renamed and used by Akhenaten, was on the East bank by the Amun-Ra temple. The other palaces were Malkata and a palace for Ramesses III as part of Medinet Habu. To the general public his statement could come across as him saying that he has found three palaces, when he has found none. However, I'm discounting the "noises off" about this as they are mostly from, to be very polite, utter raving loonies consumed by irrational fantasies.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

I noticed that bit about the palaces, I assumed he was talking about Malkata palace...didn't that have three sub-palaces within the complex? 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wistman said:

I noticed that bit about the palaces, I assumed he was talking about Malkata palace...didn't that have three sub-palaces within the complex? 

It did, but I think it's perhaps a matter of semantics and Hawass here. Malkata is a palace complex, but it's all one place, not like Amarna with the main palace in the central city and a northern palace  separate. To add some confusion, Malkata was known as the House of the dazzling Aten and the much smaller palace by the Amun-Ra temple was called Amunhotep is the dazzling Aten, and Hawass muddies the waters for the casual observer by refering to the Gem-pa-Aten as "Domain of the dazzling Aten" instead of The Aten is Found/Founded/Established. It's all getting a bit dazzling

[Eldorado]

It will take archaeologists at least 10 years to fully excavate the recently discovered ancient city, dubbed The Rise of Aten, that had been buried under sand in modern Egypt's eastern Luxor Governorate for over 3,000 years, lead archaeologist Zahi Hawass said.

https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2021/04/egypts-newly-found-ancient-city-to-take.html

[Wepwawet]

In the video above, Hawass calls the site  "Dazzling Aten", ie, Malkata by it's proper name. The article in the link also says that this new site has been "dubbed" The Rise of Aten, so it's not an original name for the site, and Hawass is simply using that name is the sense that "the Aten is rising to prominence in this new find".

[Wistman]

While we wait for more news of the city...

It's annoying me a little bit that the Egyptian team (Hawass) keeps referring to the city in a way that implies it sits discrete from the palace of Malkata, which lies, as we've already discussed, a fair bit to the South beyond Medinet Habu temple (RIII).  Including that southerly section of the city, I think, would require Zahi to share some of his glory with teams and expeditions previous to and other than his own (the French team, UPenn, the Met museum, etc), because the site is in fact much larger than he admits and reaches southward to the distant palace besides reaching northward and westward as he keeps repeating.  The previously posted article from 1979 UPenn (post #17) states this, and the Plates from the French expedition, also previously posted in this thread (#38), absolutely show it.

On the Malkata digs, for those who wish to know more about it: https://imalqata.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/patchetal-2012_malqata.pdf

and:  https://www.academia.edu/36177397/Recent_Work_at_Malqata_Palace

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

It seems that what we have on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes is potentially twice as big as what we have on the east bank. For comparrison, if this series of palaces/temples/industrial/residential areas on the west bank stretches for 7 km, the entire temple complex on the east bank stretches for 3.5 km, though not including the unknown extent of industrial and residential areas now underneath the modern city, and a lot of that 3.5 km is made up of the avenue of sphinxes. It's almost looking as if, at least during the time of Amunhotep III, while we have Thebes straddling the Nile, the bulk of the city was on the east bank.

[Wistman]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

It seems that what we have on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes is potentially twice as big as what we have on the east bank. For comparrison, if this series of palaces/temples/industrial/residential areas on the west bank stretches for 7 km, the entire temple complex on the east bank stretches for 3.5 km, though not including the unknown extent of industrial and residential areas now underneath the modern city, and a lot of that 3.5 km is made up of the avenue of sphinxes. It's almost looking as if, at least during the time of Amunhotep III, while we have Thebes straddling the Nile, the bulk of the city was on the east bank.

I know you meant west bank there. 

How paired the two 'dazzling' cities of Aten were in their rise, eclipse, and erasure; it's quite Tolkienesque.

[Wepwawet]

6 hours ago, Wistman said:

I know you meant west bank there. 

How paired the two 'dazzling' cities of Aten were in their rise, eclipse, and erasure; it's quite Tolkienesque.

Yep, I did.

They seemed to like pairings, like Heliopolis and southern Heliopolis, and the temple of Ptah at Memphis with it's twin at Thebes, and, delving into the tar pits, a dual court with Akhenaten doing his thing at Amarna, and Nefertiti running the rest of the country via Thebes, even if she were not there herself. That's one of the things that was being teased out in that thread. And I've just looked down and see an abyss opening up....

Edited April 16, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

8 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Yep, I did.

They seemed to like pairings, like Heliopolis and southern Heliopolis, and the temple of Ptah at Memphis with it's twin at Thebes, and, delving into the tar pits, a dual court with Akhenaten doing his thing at Amarna, and Nefertiti running the rest of the country via Thebes, even if she were not there herself. That's one of the things that was being teased out in that thread. And I've just looked down and see an abyss opening up....

   Well, I've got my cone hat on!

We should be getting some data about the population of RotA before,during, and after the court's transfer to Akhetaten.  Do you know if the plague that came to Akhetaten was also present at Thebes?  I wonder when those Sekhmets were moved to the Karnak sanctuaries and by whom.  Some of RotA's population serviced the mortuary temples as well as the palace complex/administration; surely some of those people stayed resident in the city even after the move to Akhetaten.  The population returning from Akhetaten to Thebes would have been reduced, possibly, due to the plague's devastation.  RotA may not have been fully repopulated post Amarna.

eta:  Wikipedia has a page up for the city now:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten_(city)

There's this amusing tidbit (reminder that Wikipedia is so often wrong)

Quote

Many previous exploratory missions had endeavoured to locate the city only to meet with failure.^[2] Excavations at the site, roughly in an area between the respective mortuary temple of Ramses III and that of Amenhotep III were carried out under the direction of Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, and began in September 2020, beginning with what turned out to be the southern quarters of the city.^[1] The city's remains were stumbled upon when Hawass and his team were searching for the remains of the funerary temple of Tutankhamun.^[5] The find turned out to reveal what appears to be the greatest administrative and industrial centre of that period.^[2]

It forms part of Amenhotep's palace complex (Malkata, also known originally as "the Dazzling Aten") lying just north of the new area.^[4][...]

Bold mine.   And, I dunno, if so many others failed to locate the city as Hawass has, I'm wondering how many other teams were actually given franchises to dig there.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Wistman