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Amarna, Before and After


Wistman

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1 hour ago, Wistman said:

For Amarnaphiles, here's Marianne Luban's cogent 2018 article (17 pages) on Smenkhkare, updated (2020) at the end.

https://www.academia.edu/37004840/Bringing_Smenkhkare_Into_Focus

@Wepwawet  You may have seen this already.  Your thoughts?

Apart from the TA26 chamber gamma scene, and alpha as well actually, It's a good hypothesis and may well be right, and like all hypothesis that stick to known facts, and when conjecture is used it is reasonable, will, unless new evidence comes to light, sit there with all the other worthy contenders.

I'll take the opportunity to vent..

There is an ongoing discussion on the TA26 scenes elsewhere, though stalled at the moment, as is often the case. In my opinion, the argument put forward by Gabolde and Martin for the baby in chamber gamma to be a son of Nefertiti, and so Tutankhaten, is not proven. This by what we see in the scene, plus the two chamber alpha scenes and KV35YL needing to be Nefertiti. In short, a damaged text is presumed to give the name of Nefertiti, and be associated with her representation, and, to make that scene "normal", it requires, and in fact is stated by Martin, that two of the dead daughters died in childbirth, but the same type of scene in gamma shows something else, hm, really.

While no date can be given for any of these scenes, alpha is the first and must have been made after year 12, where all six daughters appear alive at the durbar, and gamma last and before the death of Akhenaten in his year 17. Tutankhaten would have been born around year 13, and this has to be to fit into his ten year reign and age of 8/9 at the start of his reign. If the gamma baby is Tutankhaten, then the mother cannot be Meketaten, whose deathbed scene it is, as she would have been no older than eleven. The two dead princesses in alpha are Neferneferure and Setepenre, aged about 3 and 2 respectively, yet said by Martin to have died in childbirth. In alpha it is not possible to say that the two babies are children of Nefertiti, as who are they if the two dead princesses were her last known children, or is to be presumed that we have depicted Tutankhaten and two unknown siblings. Martin is in a bit of a mess here and his only way out is to suggest that all Nefertiti's daughters were much older than we know them to be, and that because when we see them first appear in order on monuments, they were already at least five by the time they are shown. This is not possible, and not even rational, IMO, as it would have Meritaten born about three years before Akhenaten became king. His first appearance as king is, for the first and only time, without Nefertiti and with his mother Queen Tiye taking the position usually taken by a GRW. This is a good indication that Akehnaten, at that time still Amunhotep IV, was not yet even married to Nefertiti, or anybody, and may have been in his early teens, not twenty something as has been suspected by many for many years. Luban is absolutley right when she states in other papers etc that Akhenaten was an unmarried minor when he became king. This raises all sorts of other questions regarding "Atenism" as was it all his idea as is always presumed, so, cough cough, step forward Amunhotep III, but this is another long and convoluted issue.

This argument against Tutankhaten being depicted in gamma is a work in progress and there is some filling in of details to do, and the devil is in the details, and overlooked by Martin and Gabolde, IMO.

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2 hours ago, Wistman said:

For Amarnaphiles, here's Marianne Luban's cogent 2018 article (17 pages) on Smenkhkare, updated (2020) at the end.

https://www.academia.edu/37004840/Bringing_Smenkhkare_Into_Focus

@Wepwawet  You may have seen this already.  Your thoughts?

It would need a long post to give justice to Marianne's paper, and you see above that some time needs to be devoted to just one sentence about TA26, and I could have written four times as much. Most of it has already been discussed before, but I think it could do with a discussion specifically on her paper and the issues it raises.

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I recognize parts of her argument from the big Box thread. 

Her thesis depends upon KV35YL being Nefertiti, and she must be full sister as well as great royal wife of Akhenaten, who then must be the occupant of KV55 for the DNA profiles to work for Tut as their royal son and Akhenaten's direct heir.  She makes a good case I think for the age of Akhenaten fitting the age profile of that mummy.  This then does lead to Luban's proffer regarding Smenkhkare as oldest son by way of a lesser wife, among other sons of such wives, and as we know he married Meritaten, whom we now are informed was Akhenaten's favorite daughter...a preference that led the king to a late-in-his-reign appointment of Smenkhkare as his successor out of expediency due to that prince's adulthood and in spite of there being an infant direct heir, Tut...supposedly.

I do find this a bit odd, though plausible.  However...Nefertiti's long awaited infant son as Pharaoh and the chance of her own regency snatched from her at the last moment?  Did Akhenaten then no longer trust her?  In this scenario there's room for her getting 'rid' of Smenkhkare after Akhenaten was gone.

I like Luban's tentative identification of Smenkhkare in those portrait busts.  She has a keen eye for facial details as demonstrated when she visited here.

I have to think a little more about all this.

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10 hours ago, Wistman said:

I recognize parts of her argument from the big Box thread. 

Her thesis depends upon KV35YL being Nefertiti, and she must be full sister as well as great royal wife of Akhenaten, who then must be the occupant of KV55 for the DNA profiles to work for Tut as their royal son and Akhenaten's direct heir.  She makes a good case I think for the age of Akhenaten fitting the age profile of that mummy.  This then does lead to Luban's proffer regarding Smenkhkare as oldest son by way of a lesser wife, among other sons of such wives, and as we know he married Meritaten, whom we now are informed was Akhenaten's favorite daughter...a preference that led the king to a late-in-his-reign appointment of Smenkhkare as his successor out of expediency due to that prince's adulthood and in spite of there being an infant direct heir, Tut...supposedly.

I do find this a bit odd, though plausible.  However...Nefertiti's long awaited infant son as Pharaoh and the chance of her own regency snatched from her at the last moment?  Did Akhenaten then no longer trust her?  In this scenario there's room for her getting 'rid' of Smenkhkare after Akhenaten was gone.

I like Luban's tentative identification of Smenkhkare in those portrait busts.  She has a keen eye for facial details as demonstrated when she visited here.

I have to think a little more about all this.

What does look possible is that Smenkhare's reign is moved from a vague period soon after year 12, to year 17, and the altered year 17 to year 1 on the wine jar is a bit of a hint. Then, as Marianne points out, Nefertiti is still only just GRW on the year 16 inscription, thus putting the date of the infamous box 001K to year 17 where she is now co-regent queen with Meritaten promoted to take the role of GRW for both of them. So instead of Meritaten having been the GRW of Smenkhare, then on his death becoming GRW to the joint rule of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, it is the other way around. This is of course heading into Nicholas Reeves territory, though I do not doubt for one moment that Smenkhare and Nefertiti are two different people. The signs are that either Smenkhare was the legitimate male heir to Akhenaten, or at least the senior Thutmosid male at the time of Akhenaten's death, and Nefertiti, having been co-ruler with Akhenaten for up to a year, having other ideas, and we may have had a civil war, at least within the royal family, with Nefertiti winning. Unless that wound to KV35YL was caused by a horse, then she does not look like a winner, and so, IMO, not Nefertiti. But, there all sorts of problems with all of this. It does I think though make it more probable that KV55 is Akhenaten, with Smenkhare's body being disposed of before the death of Tutankhamun. There is still the issue of the second coffin, which Dodson says belonged initially to Smenkhare, indicating a decent burial, at least at first, and who knows, maybe he is still out there waiting to be found.

 

But who is he? first born son of Akhenaten?, perhaps born next after Meritaten, and there is an about five year gap between Meritaten and Meketaten, then the other daughters come in rapid sucession. It's worth listing when it is thought all the known children were born, and this is contentious as well, everything is..

Year 1-2 Meritaten

Year 6    Meketaten

Year 8    Ankhesenpaaten

Year 9   Neferneferuaten-tasherit

Year 10  Neferneferure

Year 11  Setepenre

Smenkhare, if a son of Akhenaten, could have been born in year 3 or 4 and been counted as an adult in their terms by year 17, but, this is a bit of a sidetrack as it doesn't matter if he were not yet an adult. Tutankhaten king at 8 or 9, Amunhotep III probably king at 12, Pepy II king at about 6, and Hatshepsut had no right at all to usurp Thutmose III just because he was about 2 or 3.

It seems that no king was ever succeeded by his brother, though there may be discrepancies between what is inscribed on a temple or tomb wall and reality. The elder brother, or brothers, of Thutmose IV predeceased him, conveniently leaving the way clear for him. Crown Prince Thutmose vanishes from the record, and as I wrote in another thread, leaving not a single item that can be said with certainty to come from his burial, he just vanishes after a fairly ephemeral existance anyway, and at that same time, apparently, that Akhenaten starts a co-regency with Amunhotep III. I say apparently because I would really like to see the evidence that Thutmose was alive in year 29, 28, 27, 26 and on, as none of the few items that proove his existance can be dated. When was Apis I buried, nobody knows, all we see is a progression in rank from sem to high priest. He could potentially have died some years before year 30.

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6 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

What does look possible is that Smenkhare's reign is moved from a vague period soon after year 12, to year 17, and the altered year 17 to year 1 on the wine jar is a bit of a hint. Then, as Marianne points out, Nefertiti is still only just GRW on the year 16 inscription, thus putting the date of the infamous box 001K to year 17 where she is now co-regent queen with Meritaten promoted to take the role of GRW for both of them. So instead of Meritaten having been the GRW of Smenkhare, then on his death becoming GRW to the joint rule of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, it is the other way around. This is of course heading into Nicholas Reeves territory, though I do not doubt for one moment that Smenkhare and Nefertiti are two different people. The signs are that either Smenkhare was the legitimate male heir to Akhenaten, or at least the senior Thutmosid male at the time of Akhenaten's death, and Nefertiti, having been co-ruler with Akhenaten for up to a year, having other ideas, and we may have had a civil war, at least within the royal family, with Nefertiti winning. Unless that wound to KV35YL was caused by a horse, then she does not look like a winner, and so, IMO, not Nefertiti. But, there all sorts of problems with all of this. It does I think though make it more probable that KV55 is Akhenaten, with Smenkhare's body being disposed of before the death of Tutankhamun. There is still the issue of the second coffin, which Dodson says belonged initially to Smenkhare, indicating a decent burial, at least at first, and who knows, maybe he is still out there waiting to be found.

 

But who is he? first born son of Akhenaten?, perhaps born next after Meritaten, and there is an about five year gap between Meritaten and Meketaten, then the other daughters come in rapid sucession. It's worth listing when it is thought all the known children were born, and this is contentious as well, everything is..

Year 1-2 Meritaten

Year 6    Meketaten

Year 8    Ankhesenpaaten

Year 9   Neferneferuaten-tasherit

Year 10  Neferneferure

Year 11  Setepenre

Smenkhare, if a son of Akhenaten, could have been born in year 3 or 4 and been counted as an adult in their terms by year 17, but, this is a bit of a sidetrack as it doesn't matter if he were not yet an adult. Tutankhaten king at 8 or 9, Amunhotep III probably king at 12, Pepy II king at about 6, and Hatshepsut had no right at all to usurp Thutmose III just because he was about 2 or 3.

It seems that no king was ever succeeded by his brother, though there may be discrepancies between what is inscribed on a temple or tomb wall and reality. The elder brother, or brothers, of Thutmose IV predeceased him, conveniently leaving the way clear for him. Crown Prince Thutmose vanishes from the record, and as I wrote in another thread, leaving not a single item that can be said with certainty to come from his burial, he just vanishes after a fairly ephemeral existance anyway, and at that same time, apparently, that Akhenaten starts a co-regency with Amunhotep III. I say apparently because I would really like to see the evidence that Thutmose was alive in year 29, 28, 27, 26 and on, as none of the few items that proove his existance can be dated. When was Apis I buried, nobody knows, all we see is a progression in rank from sem to high priest. He could potentially have died some years before year 30.

Accepting that Smenkhkare is eldest son of Akhenaten, but not by Nefertiti, he would have been half-brother to Meritaten, his spouse.  That would count them out as Tut's parents.  And if KV35YL isn't Nefertiti (and I agree it's hard to accept her death would be so violent, so disfiguring, all things considered) then who else could fit the DNA profile as Tut's mother/parents?  And also, if it is Nefertiti, is there any corroborative evidence of her being full sister to Akhenaten, daughter of the mighty Tiye and AIII?  This is a confusing knot any way you look at it.

Perhaps in this scenario Akhenaten doubted his paternity to the long-long-awaited son, Tut, by Nefertiti.  If he saw it as a ploy by her, he might not have acknowledged the child as his heir and chose Smenkhkare instead.  Then again, since Tut is the child of KV35YL and KV55, and if KV55 is Akhenaten and KV35YL is Nefertiti, that seems less plausible.  But if KV35YL is not Nefertiti, then Tut would not be Great Wife's Nefertiti's child at all, and Smenkhkare would have superior claim to the throne. 

I give up.

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47 minutes ago, Wistman said:

I give up.

Just don't let it get to the stage were you are posting from a psychiatric ward, like I am.....

Anyway, who fits the DNA profile?  Beketaten. It can be argued that her absence in any depictions as an adult, at least in their terms, precludes her, but, is Kiya any more prominent, not really, and she does not figure in any of the major depictions of the royal family, which Beketaten does, though only once.

As Ankhkheteperure Neferneferuaten is the name that still exists on much of Tutankhamun's burial equipment, and she has a three year reign, this shows that it is Nefertiti who survived the presumed chaos on Akhenaten's death, which may have seen the deaths of Smenkhare, Meritaten and Tut's mother, if not Nefertiti, by violence. Tutankhamun claims Amunhotep III to be be his father, which some have taken literally and gone off into contortions, but we know use of the term father is fluid as they had no word for grandfather, so all male ancestors are your father. More importantly he makes no claim to ever having had a mother. Palace politics and issues aside, I think that maybe he does not acknowledge a mother as she died before he could form any lasting memory, not something that would have occured if Nefertiti, as Queen Neferneferuaten, lived until he was eight or nine. No matter the issues with "Atenism", who is going to tell him, no matter his youth, that he is to forget that his mother ever existed.

Here's something I cannot pin down with the DNA, partly due to not being on top of the science, but more so because of conflicting views by those who are, or say they are. What it does tell us is the KV55 is the father and KV35YL the mother, and they they are full brother and sister. It does not give us their names, and we have to guess based on other evidence, none of which is a slam dunk, the KV55 coffin for instance. So if Smenkhare was a full brother of Akhenaten, how could we tell which of them were KV55 when they both have the same parents.

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56 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Just don't let it get to the stage were you are posting from a psychiatric ward, like I am.....

Anyway, who fits the DNA profile?  Beketaten. It can be argued that her absence in any depictions as an adult, at least in their terms, precludes her, but, is Kiya any more prominent, not really, and she does not figure in any of the major depictions of the royal family, which Beketaten does, though only once.

As Ankhkheteperure Neferneferuaten is the name that still exists on much of Tutankhamun's burial equipment, and she has a three year reign, this shows that it is Nefertiti who survived the presumed chaos on Akhenaten's death, which may have seen the deaths of Smenkhare, Meritaten and Tut's mother, if not Nefertiti, by violence. Tutankhamun claims Amunhotep III to be be his father, which some have taken literally and gone off into contortions, but we know use of the term father is fluid as they had no word for grandfather, so all male ancestors are your father. More importantly he makes no claim to ever having had a mother. Palace politics and issues aside, I think that maybe he does not acknowledge a mother as she died before he could form any lasting memory, not something that would have occured if Nefertiti, as Queen Neferneferuaten, lived until he was eight or nine. No matter the issues with "Atenism", who is going to tell him, no matter his youth, that he is to forget that his mother ever existed.

Here's something I cannot pin down with the DNA, partly due to not being on top of the science, but more so because of conflicting views by those who are, or say they are. What it does tell us is the KV55 is the father and KV35YL the mother, and they they are full brother and sister. It does not give us their names, and we have to guess based on other evidence, none of which is a slam dunk, the KV55 coffin for instance. So if Smenkhare was a full brother of Akhenaten, how could we tell which of them were KV55 when they both have the same parents.

Though Beketaten cannot be full sister to Akhenaten nor Smenkhkare, so she's out.

Nefertiti comes out triumphant in any case, her age's Catherine de Medici.

I've generally preferred the notion of Smenkhkare being younger brother to Akhenaten and Thutmose.  But the letters that Luban notes referring to Akhenaten's sons give a potent alternative, and hence her reconstruction of events.

But stiil there's no really nice fit.

eta: Kiya does have one of those Akhmim sounding names, which might lead back to her being daughter of Tiye/AIII, which would, if she were YL, fit the DNA profile.  And, of course, YL's mummy was found/placed next to Queen Tiye herself.

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26 minutes ago, Wistman said:

Though Beketaten cannot be full sister to Akhenaten nor Smenkhkare, so she's out.

Nefertiti comes out triumphant in any case, her age's Catherine de Medici.

I've generally preferred the notion of Smenkhkare being younger brother to Akhenaten and Thutmose.  But the letters that Luban notes referring to Akhenaten's sons give a potent alternative, and hence her reconstruction of events.

But stiil there's no really nice fit.

eta: Kiya does have one of those Akhmim sounding names, which might lead back to her being daughter of Tiye/AIII, which would, if she were YL, fit the DNA profile.

Kiya could be another Akhmin "insertion" into the Thutmosid family, but I think if so, then a potential granddaughter or grandniece of Thuya and Yuya, and would follow my line of the Akhmins serving a similar function as the Japanese Fujiwara clan did to the imperial family as suppliers of daughters.

On Beketaten, while I don't think there can be any doubt as to her mother being Queen Tiye, and she does stand by her and not with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their daughters, who is her father? Surely in the first instance it has to be taken as Amunhotep III, and lurid tales by Freud and others regarding Akhenaten's relationships with his mother and daughters discounted as salacious muck. Aha,  a sister, well, I know it will seem like splitting hairs, but it is the Shu and Tefnut thing, not a father-mother-daughter thing. Those, over many years, assuming that the TA26 deathbed scenes showed a succession of daughters dying in childbirth caused by Akhenaten is nonsense, but it has stuck, as mud always does. However, if Beketaten were the child of Akhenaten and his mother, then she could not be KV35YL, only if she were the daughter of Amunhotep III and Tiye. If the YL were Beketaten, it would have to be shown that the YL was at the younger age of the range given for her, but, when was Beketaten born, nobody knows. I know the argument that as Beketaten is not named as "King's sister", but "King's daughter", which though would be considered the more senior title to use, particularly if Amunhotep III may well have still been alive and the senior king, and being "worshipped" by her and Tiye in the tomb of Huya. It's all just so so tricky.

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@Wepwawet    Ack!  Stupid me, I absent-mindedly confused Meketaten with Beketaten.  Which of course wouldn't work at all.  Sorry. 

The timeline, because of the co-regency, is another knot.  Still, Beketaten is a strong candidate as consort for either of the two KV55 nominees.  Age of the image and of the mummy would have to be resolved.  The banquet scene and the 'sunshade' scene in Huya's tomb are not necessarily related to the foreign tribute scene, which occurred in Year 12.  However, the inscriptions around the door name AIII and Tiye, as well as Akhenaten and Nefertiti...so maybe AIII was still alive, as you suggest.  When did Tiye arrive in Akhetaten with her youngest daughter?  Do we know?

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3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Just don't let it get to the stage were you are posting from a psychiatric ward, like I am.....

 

3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Ankhkheteperure Neferneferuaten

Names like that showing up in this thread would get many yelling mad and eating the curtains.

Not saying you are like that, but I am near that point, lol!

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34 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

 

Names like that showing up in this thread would get many yelling mad and eating the curtains.

Not saying you are like that, but I am near that point, lol!

:D   That's the name of the female pharaoh who ruled just before Tut, ie: Nefertiti

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13 minutes ago, Wistman said:

:D   That's the name of the female pharaoh who ruled just before Tut, ie: Nefertiti

Now thàt sounds a lot better, and more familiar.

Btw., the AE language was all consonants and only one vowel, the mirrored 3 (the 'a(leph) and the 'w' (sounded like 'oo'). So actually only 2.

Why in hell do we only see 'e's and 'a's and 'oo's when hieroglyphs are translated?

Where are the 'i's and 'o's?

I know that to translate AE, Coptic was used. But how sure can we be that Coptic is close enough to the AE language?

The Coptic language was heavily influenced by the Greek language. Even the Coptic script proves that.

 

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1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

Ankhkheteperure Neferneferuaten

Let's see what we can make of this...

Ankh Khuti Peruro Niferno Firu Atün.

Prove me wrong.

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1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

Let's see what we can make of this...

Ankh Khuti Peruro Niferno Firu Atün.

Prove me wrong.

I got it wrong as I put the "t" in the wrong place. Should not have done that so have to plead drunkeness, even though I'm not.

So, I should have written it down as Ankhetkheprure, the "et" element being how in English the female "t" determinative is pronounced. The name breaks down as Ankhet (female Living) kheperu (manifestations, or forms) re (of Ra)

The male equivalent is Ankhkheprure, as in Ankhkheprure Smenkhare

Neferneferuaten was perhaps prnounced as nafir nafir (u) jati, which is thought to be now Aten, itn was pronounced, and I have no idea now the plural III was pronounced, if it ever was as it may have been something written and not pronounced, and the same goes for the "t" female determinative.

But don't quote me on this as I am not an expert and have been known to be wrong, usually of course I achieve 99.9% perfection

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3 hours ago, Wistman said:

@Wepwawet The timeline, because of the co-regency, is another knot.  Still, Beketaten is a strong candidate as consort for either of the two KV55 nominees.  Age of the image and of the mummy would have to be resolved.  The banquet scene and the 'sunshade' scene in Huya's tomb are not necessarily related to the foreign tribute scene, which occurred in Year 12.  However, the inscriptions around the door name AIII and Tiye, as well as Akhenaten and Nefertiti...so maybe AIII was still alive, as you suggest.  When did Tiye arrive in Akhetaten with her youngest daughter?  Do we know?

Math and time are at the basis of everything.  More thoughts by same author.

https://www.academia.edu/41144936/Was_Baketaten_the_Mother_of_Tutankhamen

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2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

"Now thàt sounds a lot better, and more familiar.

Btw., the AE language was all consonants and only one vowel, the mirrored 3 (the 'a(leph) and the 'w' (sounded like 'oo'). So actually only 2.

Why in hell do we only see 'e's and 'a's and 'oo's when hieroglyphs are translated?

Where are the 'i's and 'o's?

I know that to translate AE, Coptic was used. But how sure can we be that Coptic is close enough to the AE language?

The Coptic language was heavily influenced by the Greek language."

 

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

Since the Egyptian graphic system had above 500 signs to memorize, one can easily see why to learn a limited alphabet like the Greek would promote literacy.  But the Coptic language wasn't heavily influenced by the Greek language. It is still Egyptian but now has a different syntax.  The syntax actually changed previously and was already leaning toward a more European [as opposed to Semitic] mode of expression even in the time of the Theban 17th Dynasty.  While official tests were still written in Middle Egyptian, which favored Semitic syntax, whenever somebody said something within the text, that part was written in Neo-Egyptian.  Examples:

ME  "my father"  = "it=i"

NE "my father" = "pAy it"

Somebody who knows the Egyptian language well can easily see older Egyptian in Coptic because the basic consonants are still there with the vowels now added because that was the Greek way of writing words.  Somebody who knows Egyptian well also knows these facts.  Some consonants were weak, not always pronounced, and this is reflected in Coptic.   Actual pronunciation was not at all what an amateur would expect on account of the weak consonants and their tendency to elide into the next consonant.  Think of the way the Egyptian historians, who could easily read the names of the old kings within their cartouches, wrote them in Greek as they would have been pronounced!  

Example  Mn-nfr  becomes Memphis.  As /n/ was notoriously weak, it often turns into /m/ and, of course, final /r/ just disappeared like in BBC English  pronunciation.  At the end is the ubiquitous Greek sibilant.  

There are, I am sure, online lists of older Egyptian words and their Coptic counterparts.

 

 

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  2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

"Let's see what we can make of this...

Ankh Khuti Peruro Niferno Firu Atün.

Prove me wrong."

I would say "Anakh-khoria-Naf-nafru-aton"  Plenty of examples from different periods [Amarna Letters, Greek historians[ show that the 'p in xpr was not vocalized and that nfr was "nafe" which could be shortened to just "naf" in a phrase.  The feminine ending. /t/ was almost never pronounced.

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1 hour ago, Aldebaran said:

Math and time are at the basis of everything.  More thoughts by same author.

https://www.academia.edu/41144936/Was_Baketaten_the_Mother_of_Tutankhamen

Thanks for that link.  So Luban has Tiye arriving at Akhetaten in year 8 of Akhenaten's reign, which makes perfect sense  And, note, here in 2019 she posits Baketaten as Tut's mother, a year after her article I linked to which made the case for Nefertiti as such, even in her 2020 update.  So she's not committed to one over the other, it seems.

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6 hours ago, Wistman said:

Thanks for that link.  So Luban has Tiye arriving at Akhetaten in year 8 of Akhenaten's reign, which makes perfect sense  And, note, here in 2019 she posits Baketaten as Tut's mother, a year after her article I linked to which made the case for Nefertiti as such, even in her 2020 update.  So she's not committed to one over the other, it seems.

It's so easy though to have a long held belief overturned very quickly, as was the case with it assumed by many people that Nefertiti had been "banished" or died before the end of Akhenaten's reign, then her name is found dated to year 16. But that in itself shows just how skimpy evidence is, just one occurance of her name. Likewise just one occurance of the name Tutankhuaten. Though we have things written in stone, sometimes I think it's possible to lose sight of just how long ago these events happened. What was the name of any leader in the British Isles at that time, nobody knows or will ever know. We argue about Khufu and his name in G1, but who built Stonehenge, who was the "king" they found the skeleton of, well, he was "Swiss", so, "King Roger" :)

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7 hours ago, Wistman said:

Thanks for that link.  So Luban has Tiye arriving at Akhetaten in year 8 of Akhenaten's reign, which makes perfect sense  And, note, here in 2019 she posits Baketaten as Tut's mother, a year after her article I linked to which made the case for Nefertiti as such, even in her 2020 update.  So she's not committed to one over the other, it seems.

On the paper and Beketaten, it's possible to agree with almost all of it. or hardly any of it. For the record I agree with most of it, and like math being used to pin things down to something like reality, for instance in ruling out Sitamun as the YL due to being too old.

I note the argument against those saying that as Nefertiti is never named as King's daughter, then she cannot be the sister of Akhenaten, and therefore cannot be the YL. I agree with Luban that that is a false argument. To pin it down to specifics, Nefertiti only appears after she became Akhenaten's GRW, and so that is the title she uses, King's daughter or King's sister being lesser titles, and they were a bit snooty about proclaiming how important they were. The age of the YL mummy of between 25 and 35 fits, at the higher end, with Nefertiti, so do the facial reconstructions, though everybody who does these things is clearly heavily influenced by the Berlin bust. An issue is that this family all look a bit the same, which should be expected, for instance the lower face of KV21A, just by looking at it as it is let alone a reconstruction, is very similar to that of the YL and the Nefertiti bust, and that is a very distinctive jawline. So on that basis Nefertiti is part of the family by blood, but the issue is how close, sister or first cousin.

But the reasons I am skeptical about the YL being Nefertiti is that her amrs are in the commoner position. This is highlighted by looking at the photos of the three mummies and seeing Tiye with her left arm raised over her chest as a queen, and the YL's left arm straight down her body. So, her right arm is ripped off, but, despite ridiculous attempts to make her dismembered arm, and the spare, fit onto the remaining upper arm with it crossed over her chest, the fact remains that when mummified, both arms would have been in the commoner position. Nefertiti was a full on monarch and probably had a full royal burial, or mostly so, therefore I see no reason why her mummy would not have had the full royal treatment. If, for the sake of argument, the YL was Meritaten, then as a GRW she would presumably have had her left arm in the same position as Tiye. On the other hand, Beketaten, while the daughter of a king, was not a monarch or GRW, so would have had her arms to her side. A caveat here is that arm positions don't seem to be set in stone as Yuya has his arms in an almost kingly pose, but that is unique. Then there is the issue of if the YL were Nefertiti, why has she ended up KV35 at all, and where was she originally buried, and is she still there. Is the estimation of the age of the YL correct? Everybody who wants the YL to be Nefertiti will say of course it is, those with doubts, will doubt.

Edited by Wepwawet
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12 hours ago, Abramelin said:

Now thàt sounds a lot better, and more familiar.

Btw., the AE language was all consonants and only one vowel, the mirrored 3 (the 'a(leph) and the 'w' (sounded like 'oo'). So actually only 2.

Why in hell do we only see 'e's and 'a's and 'oo's when hieroglyphs are translated?

Where are the 'i's and 'o's?

I know that to translate AE, Coptic was used. But how sure can we be that Coptic is close enough to the AE language?

The Coptic language was heavily influenced by the Greek language. Even the Coptic script proves that.

 

You might find James Allen's Ancient Egyptian Phonology interesting. It was only first published last year, so I doubt fully known about outside academia

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15 hours ago, Wistman said:

@Wepwawet    Ack!  Stupid me, I absent-mindedly confused Meketaten with Beketaten.  Which of course wouldn't work at all.  Sorry. 

The timeline, because of the co-regency, is another knot.  Still, Beketaten is a strong candidate as consort for either of the two KV55 nominees.  Age of the image and of the mummy would have to be resolved.  The banquet scene and the 'sunshade' scene in Huya's tomb are not necessarily related to the foreign tribute scene, which occurred in Year 12.  However, the inscriptions around the door name AIII and Tiye, as well as Akhenaten and Nefertiti...so maybe AIII was still alive, as you suggest.  When did Tiye arrive in Akhetaten with her youngest daughter?  Do we know?

I had previously argued for Amunhotep III being dead in those scenes, partly because I did not subscribe to an eight year co-regency, maybe two at the most, if even that. However, various things, notably finding that the "Golden city" was abandoned after his year 38 has changed my opinion. Malkata was being used as the defacto capital, so it being abandoned so abruptly indicates they had somewhere to move to that was already built, or mostly so, and that place was Akhetaten, which was not even started until year 5, and unlikely to be usable as a capital for at least a few years I would have thought. Therefore, Amunhotep III year 38 I think should be seen as occuring no earlier than Akhenaten's year 5, and probably a few years later. So, allthough there had been a strong opinion for a co-regency for many years, it's just one find that can change contra opinion, like the year 16 grafito of Nefertiti.

The issue then is is he alive in this image or dead, or, if dead at the time it was made, does it represent him in a scene from life, something that the tomb owner witnessed or knew about, and so replicated it in his tomb. Amunhotep III is not given the epithet "justified", which would indicate that he was dead, and the pose, though ridiculously pompous for his own family, it not so for the owner of the tomb, and it is fitting for a man who has proclaimed himself to be Khonsu, Ra-Horakhty, The Shining Aten and probably uncle Tom Cobbley and all. I think the jury is out on this one.

Edited by Wepwawet
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19 hours ago, Wistman said:

@Wepwawet    Ack!  Stupid me, I absent-mindedly confused Meketaten with Beketaten.  Which of course wouldn't work at all.  Sorry. 

Confusing Meketaten with Beketaten?!? Really?? You disgust me.

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