Amarna, Before and After

[Wistman]

On 4/25/2022 at 5:20 PM, Wepwawet said:

Then there is the sequence of movement of mummies within KV35, and just how many times it was robbed, and when.

It's difficult to pin down anything definitive here as not all of Loret's notes and plans have survived, but, going by various authors, it does look like KV35 was robbed after the cache was made. This is a bit of a puzzle as surely the locals, the tomb builders/robbers would have known that all valuables would have been removed from the mummies and the tomb, unless they were just thuggish morons, and that cannot be discounted as this tendency still exists, vide the body on the boat, and the depredations during and after 2012 of our own times.

The three mummies in question were found in chamber Jc, and the other royals mostly in Jb. The boy's missing toe was found in Jd, described by Loret as being knee deep in debris. So at least he was in Jd, unless someone was wandering about the tomb carrying his toe and decided to drop it into Jd to troll us 3,000 years later. What I wonder, presuming all three mummies were originally in Jd, is were they under this debris, mixed up with it, or laying on top of it. We can never know of course, but as apart from the toe no other human remains were found in Jd, I ask why they were moved across the burial chamber to Jc, which would also have been covered in debirs, but then with a space cleared for these three mummies. On the photos the chamber floor looks rough but clear, but Loret says that all the debris had been swept to the right hand side. On my understanding it was within this debris that the wig and spare arm were found, though when you read some sources on this, the wig is described as being by the YL, and the spare arm mixed up in her wrappings, the wrappings that are of course invisible on the original photos, hm. I think over the years a number of authors, perhaps all of those writing about Amarna,  have simply made assumptions. To my knowledge no mummy has ever been found wearing a wig, so to associate this wig with the YL is nonsense as it would have been part of the burial goods originally stored in the four chambers, and that these were for Amunhotep II.

At this point I'll draw attention to what Ayrton, the originator of the Box 001K thread, often mentioned, and that, as an ex policeman, was that all of this should be looked at as if it were a crime scene and a higher degree of analytical, and commonsense, thinking be employed. Archeologists do of course employ forensic techniques, but when most of the original notes are lost, personal opinion/desires/fantasy comes marching in to fill the gap. I'll get shouted at for that, won't I

So, we have, presumably, the Jc mummies moved from Jd that was found filled with debris into a partially cleared Jc, and most of the rest of the cache moved into a cleared Jb, and the rest of the tomb filled with debris, mostly it seems the destroyed remnants of the non valuable burial goods, jars and food containers etc, with a few items that are aesthetically pleasing to us today, but not of interest to a robber.

As it seems that KV35 was robbed after the cache was made, though I cannot track down the evidence that shows this, Loret's missing notes I presume, I wonder if what has happened is this. KV35 was chosen as a cache as it was out of the way, it is in fact at the far end of the valley, and structurally sound. What condition the tomb contents were in when the 19th Dynasty necropolis officials opened it we can never know, but I suspect that it had been robbed and that all it's occupants had been turfed out of their coffins, unwrapped and robbed of their valuables with a minimum of damage done to them, a leg and an arm here and there ripped off is minor to what could have happened, though there is still the very odd case of the two disembodied skulls.

To be continued.

Shards of precious glass vessels were found among the debris in KV35, but bewilderingly there's this to chomp on:

Quote

The most recent analysis of glass thought to be from the reign of Amenhotep II is by Nicholson and Jackson (2013)). The analysis was of a single sherd of a glass vessel now in the Swansea Museum (Swansea 959.3), believed to have originally been part of CG 24804, a particularly fine vessel which was later reconstructed in Cairo Museum (Nolte, 1968, 53; Stern & Schlick-Nolte, 1994, 25). It is 43 mm across and features what is quite clearly part of the two cartouches of Amenhotep II. However, the object was recorded as being originally found in KV55, a hotly debated tomb in the Valley of the Kings with connections to the Amarna Royal family (Reeves & Wilkinson, 2008, 120–121; Saleem & Hawass, 2016, 119). Although curatorial history of the sherd is equivocal, it is likely that the piece dates from the reign of Amenhotep II and was originally part of his burial equipment (Nicholson & Jackson, 2013).

Another tangle in the web of KV35 and KV55.  A rare and valuable item, with implications of more treasure originally in that mysterious tomb, KV55 - this one a legacy item of AII, part of his burial equipment from KV35.  Why was it there? 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/arcm.12687

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

Shards of precious glass vessels were found among the debris in KV35, but bewilderingly there's this to chomp on:

Another tangle in the web of KV35 and KV55.  A rare and valuable item, with implications of more treasure originally in that mysterious tomb, KV55 - this one a legacy item of AII, part of his burial equipment from KV35.  Why was it there? 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/arcm.12687

 

I believe that this glass shard was found in KV35, but not catalogued, unlike the rest of the vase it was part of, and then came into the possession of Harold Lloyd at some point during the extremely shoddy excavation of KV55. The only other rational explanation is if a member of the family of Amunhotep II was the original inhabitant of KV55, that's if there was one before the Amarna goings on, and then moved to KV35 with all their burial goods, minus a broken piece of vase. But I really do go with the contention that it was from KV35 and got muddled up. This link goes into all of this is some detail, and I'm following their conclusions.

KV35/55 glass shard   Scroll down for the article

Edited April 28, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

I believe that this glass shard was found in KV35, but not catalogued, unlike the rest of the vase it was part of, and then came into the possession of Harold Lloyd at some point during the extremely shoddy excavation of KV55. The only other rational explanation is if a member of the family of Amunhotep II was the original inhabitant of KV55, that's if there was one before the Amarna goings on, and then moved to KV35 with all their burial goods, minus a broken piece of vase. But I really do go with the contention that it was from KV35 and got muddled up. This link goes into all of this is some detail, and I'm following their conclusions.

KV35/55 glass shard   Scroll down for the article

Quite so, that is one explanation, and in that it indicates a challenge to Loret's clearance of KV35 as well as the sophomoric Davis excavation at KV55.  How to have confidence in the evidence when such misappropriations and switcheroos take place (here there is a gap of nine years between clearance of KV35 and KV55).  Unless that shard in fact came from KV55, it was haphazardly handled and then mis-provenanced.  Thank gawd there are no further confusing elements to these two tombs.    

And after noting the movements of the Jc mummies out of their niche by Carter after Loret's initial discovery, and the bit about the loose arm tossing about among Tiye's rearranged bandages when Carter put them back, KV35's clearance and record keeping seems to have had some problems of accuracy.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

On 4/28/2022 at 7:50 PM, Wistman said:

Quite so, that is one explanation, and in that it indicates a challenge to Loret's clearance of KV35 as well as the sophomoric Davis excavation at KV55.  How to have confidence in the evidence when such misappropriations and switcheroos take place (here there is a gap of nine years between clearance of KV35 and KV55).  Unless that shard in fact came from KV55, it was haphazardly handled and then mis-provenanced.  Thank gawd there are no further confusing elements to these two tombs.    

And after noting the movements of the Jc mummies out of their niche by Carter after Loret's initial discovery, and the bit about the loose arm tossing about among Tiye's rearranged bandages when Carter put them back, KV35's clearance and record keeping seems to have had some problems of accuracy.

I've spent the last week reading and re-reading the report on KV55 by Davis and Ayrton, and the what Gaspero wrote about Tiye. Some of what is written has been shown to be wrong in the light of further finds and more work and thought put into the entire thing. There is one thing though, and that is the areas were they were wrong are really minor in a way, for instance Gaspero thought that Akhenaten was buried in KV55 by mistake in place of Tiye and her burial may yet be found with her surrounded by Akhenaten's burial equipment. Well she has been found and Akhenaten was in KV55 by design, but these details are not actually of vital importance. What is to be gained by reading these original reports is that they are not influenced by a century of speculation, "persuation" and plain wild imaginings.

Gaspero has Sitamun as the third daughter, though here he alludes to inscriptions in a source that is now probably hidden away in a university in Germany. It would though be interesting to know why he says this as in 1908, the date at which he was writing, KV43 had been found with it's chairs naming Sitamun as King's eldest daughter. He also posits that Beketaten was in fact the daughter of Tiye and Amunhotep III, and may have been born as Beketamun, though he admits this is speculation. On the appearance of Tiye at Amarna in year 12, something more or less regarded as a fact in more modern publications, he states that there is no evidence for this at all, and correctly points out that the scenes showing her with the royal family cannot be dated, and that she may just as well have been at Amarna before, or after, year 12, but of course it's convenient to say year 12, if not lazy. He also points out that these tomb scenes are not an ancient "news broadcast live from the scene", but just show snippets of the tomb owner's life that he wanted to present, and not in chronological order, vide the statues I mentioned showing three life stages of one man which had at first been thought to show three different individuals. Gaspero also describes the scenes with Tiye, Beketaten and Amunhotep III as a "memorial" to AIII. Yet more than a century later we still argue if AIII was meant to still be alive or dead in that scene, plus ça change.

While Aryton does list a number of glass vases and fragments, because he describes them and gives their dimensions, it can be seen that none of them match the fragment said to be part of the KV35 vase with the throne name of Amunhotep II.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

There is a very interesting article in the latest edition of Ancient Egypt magazine about the Tutankhamun family DNA. At base level the article is a call for the testing of Amunhotep II, Thutmose IV and the KV35 boy, and for re-testing all the others. The author, Joseph L. Thimes, is saying that based on current knowledge gained from available mummies that were tested, there is a case for Yuya to have been a son of Amunhotep II and younger brother of Thutmose IV, both having different mothers though, and thus while it has long been supected that the Thutmosids and "Akhmins" were related anyway, the relationship was closer than suspected. Thines presents several scenarios, one of which could have Mutemwiya as a daughter of Amunhotep II, so making Amunmhotep III the product of incest. It's surprising their mummies don't all have six fingers.

There's a lot of other information in the article, but on a single reading, the possibility of Thutmose IV and Yuya being half brothers stands out. Thines also thinks that Tutankhaten was born around year 9 of Akhenaten, a postition I think far more likely than the usual view that he was born in year 13/14, which assumes, incorrectly I'm sure, that Tutankhaten dated his years from the death of Neferneferuaten, not Akhenaten.

[Wistman]

On 5/19/2022 at 7:12 AM, Wepwawet said:

There is a very interesting article in the latest edition of Ancient Egypt magazine about the Tutankhamun family DNA. At base level the article is a call for the testing of Amunhotep II, Thutmose IV and the KV35 boy, and for re-testing all the others. The author, Joseph L. Thimes, is saying that based on current knowledge gained from available mummies that were tested, there is a case for Yuya to have been a son of Amunhotep II and younger brother of Thutmose IV, both having different mothers though, and thus while it has long been supected that the Thutmosids and "Akhmins" were related anyway, the relationship was closer than suspected. Thines presents several scenarios, one of which could have Mutemwiya as a daughter of Amunhotep II, so making Amunmhotep III the product of incest. It's surprising their mummies don't all have six fingers.

There's a lot of other information in the article, but on a single reading, the possibility of Thutmose IV and Yuya being half brothers stands out. Thines also thinks that Tutankhaten was born around year 9 of Akhenaten, a postition I think far more likely than the usual view that he was born in year 13/14, which assumes, incorrectly I'm sure, that Tutankhaten dated his years from the death of Neferneferuaten, not Akhenaten.

I don't suppose there's a link to the article....I tried to find one, but alas.

The Yuya as Thutmosid prince is interesting, and would seem to answer questions as to his power in AIII's court, and his rich tomb in VotK.

Tut being born @yr9 of Akhenaten closes in on the (supposed) arrival at Akhetaten of the royal ladies from Malkata, including Sitamun.  And the appearance of Kiya. 

Gaspero's noting of Sitamun as third daughter is confusing though, considering the chairs from Yuya's tomb.  It'd be good to know from where he got the notion.  Perhaps, by the time Yuya's tomb was sealed, she was AIII's eldest surviving daughter.  I'm bewildered.

 

[Wepwawet]

3 hours ago, Wistman said:

I don't suppose there's a link to the article....I tried to find one, but alas.

The Yuya as Thutmosid prince is interesting, and would seem to answer questions as to his power in AIII's court, and his rich tomb in VotK.

Tut being born @yr9 of Akhenaten closes in on the (supposed) arrival at Akhetaten of the royal ladies from Malkata, including Sitamun.  And the appearance of Kiya. 

Gaspero's noting of Sitamun as third daughter is confusing though, considering the chairs from Yuya's tomb.  It'd be good to know from where he got the notion.  Perhaps, by the time Yuya's tomb was sealed, she was AIII's eldest surviving daughter.  I'm bewildered.

 

No link unfortunately, you have to buy the magazine.

I guess Yuya had to be "someone" and not just joe public. Perhaps the scene in TT226 of royal tutor Heqareshu needs a closer look to see if there really is no trace of the names of two of the princes remaining, just in case Yuya could be discerned, but such an odd name for a Thutmosid though, not even remotely similar to any of the known sons of Amunhotep II.

How Thimes gets to the birth of Tutankhaten in about year 9 is interesting. I work it out by working backwards from his year 1 directly following Akhenaten's death, though I think year 10/11 is more probable than year 9. Thimes has him being born to a daughter of Amunhotep III who has died about year 9, and he puts her age, the YL's age, at 15 or 16. Thimes suggests she might be Nebetah or a daughter whose name has not survived. He dismisses Beketaten and Meritaten as both being too young, and while not stating this, clearly also rules out Sitamun, in her case as being too old. Obviously his age for the YL is highly contentious, though he bases it on dentition, and on this he is an expert.

It would be interesting to know why Gaspero casts doupt on Sitamun being eldest daughter given this is unequivocal based on the chairs. Perhaps he had seen an inscription, or heard of one, where another daughter is shown as eldest, and this information is now lost, I really don't know.

I do occasionaly get the notion to track down all the instances of eldest sons and daughters and see how many kings have more than one of each over the period of their reign. It's easy to see this during the reign of Ramesses II, but I don't see this in the 18th Dynasty. There are of course eldest sons mentioned, but when they do not become king there does not seem to be a named replacement, for instance the original heir to Thutmose III was prince Amenemhat, but he dies and Amunhotep II appears without, on surviving evidence, having been named as eldest son. Then his original heir was a prince Amunhotep, but he dissapears and it is Thutmose who becomes king without, as far as I can see, ever being named as king's eldest son. Akhenaten only appears once as a prince, but not eldest, and that on a wine jar mentioned in an earlier post. It looks to be the case in the 18th Dynasty that if an established heir died prematurely, then the next in line, while actually being now the eldest son, was never named as such. Crown Prince Amenemhat is mentioned as such in year 24 of Thutmose III, when the king was 26, so the prince would not have been older than about 10/11, yet in the following 36 years there seems to be a silence about princes until Amunhotep II "emerges" as king, not Amenemhat. I guess all three of these unlucky 18th Dynasty Crown Princes accidentaly cut their throats while shaving, or got kicked by a horse, or fell on an axe.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

Just to add, Yuya with royal blood bestows Tiye with royal blood.  Should that not have been seen in the DNA analysis, to whit: she and AIII shared a grandfather?  Maybe they would need AII's DNA to find that, I sure don't know.  Why they chose to omit his, his son's, and YM35's samples for analysis is quite a head scratcher.  It would be manifestly helpful.

[Wepwawet]

As regards the blood ties, what Thimes is pointing out is that these mummies, some otherwise normally seen as unrelated such as Amunhotep III and Yuya, share more alles than they should. In the case of Tutankhamun he shares 6/16 alleles with Tiye when it should normally be 4/16 as we all have 25% of our DNA from each of our grandparents, unless of course they were related by blood. So one of Tiyes parents is related by blood to the Thutmosids, and it seems that this was Yuya. It's beyond me to discuss in detail the DNA, but I do gather that a process of elimination is at work and that even without some mummies, or without a test result, information can be gained. Why Thutmose IV at the least was never tested, or why newer and better testing on the others has not been done is a mystery. Thimes also points out that the tests that were done were not the fullest type of test that is available, and that the results we have are in fact only partial, something I was not aware of.

A point I forgot to make in the previous post is that while it seems with princes that if you were crown prince and fell off the perch then the title did not go to the next in line, an odd thing in itself, it's possible that it was the same with princesses, and if so, then it looks, as I've always thought, that Sitamun was in fact always the eldest daughter, and was so for several decades, potentially being not far off 30 by year 30, depending on the ages of Amunhotep and Tiye at the start of the reign. I would say though that going by the lowest estimates for both of them, 12 and 9 respectively, Sitamun could still be about 25 by year 30, and about 40 by the birth of Tutankhamun.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

As regards the blood ties, what Thimes is pointing out is that these mummies, some otherwise normally seen as unrelated such as Amunhotep III and Yuya, share more alles than they should. In the case of Tutankhamun he shares 6/16 alleles with Tiye when it should normally be 4/16 as we all have 25% of our DNA from each of our grandparents, unless of course they were related by blood. So one of Tiyes parents is related by blood to the Thutmosids, and it seems that this was Yuya. It's beyond me to discuss in detail the DNA, but I do gather that a process of elimination is at work and that even without some mummies, or without a test result, information can be gained. Why Thutmose IV at the least was never tested, or why newer and better testing on the others has not been done is a mystery. Thimes also points out that the tests that were done were not the fullest type of test that is available, and that the results we have are in fact only partial, something I was not aware of.

Tiye purportedly claimed to be a descendant of Ahmose-Nefertari, which has been taken with a grain of salt by many.  Maybe she really was!

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

A point I forgot to make in the previous post is that while it seems with princes that if you were crown prince and fell off the perch then the title did not go to the next in line, an odd thing in itself, it's possible that it was the same with princesses, and if so, then it looks, as I've always thought, that Sitamun was in fact always the eldest daughter, and was so for several decades, potentially being not far off 30 by year 30, depending on the ages of Amunhotep and Tiye at the start of the reign. I would say though that going by the lowest estimates for both of them, 12 and 9 respectively, Sitamun could still be about 25 by year 30, and about 40 by the birth of Tutankhamun.

   Royal protocol sometimes differs between royal princesses and royal princes; perhaps it was so with their titularies.

Can we say with reasonable certainty that Sitamun was born in the first decade of AIII's reign?  There is likelihood of that, but all she has to be is a year older than her succeding sister.

Tiye arrives at Akhetaten @ yr 8, after the death of her husband and dies there yr 12.  She brings her daughter Beketaten with her, who is portrayed as a small child; so Tiye is not long beyond her childbearing years at that point.  In fact she supposedly was aged 40 at death, if we take the bottom of the forensically determined age range, which is possible.  If Tutankhamun is born yr 8 - 10, why could not Tiye's daughter Sitamun conceive a child by Akhenaten....or Smenkhkare - whoever he was?   She had to be somewhat younger than her mother Tiye, who had a small child.  We don't actually know how old Sitamun was after all, just that she was eldest daughter and was married to AIII in yr 30, that linchpin year.   What if she was 20 in that year, the beginning of the co-regency, Akhenaten' (AIV) first regnal year.  IF Tut was born in yr 10, that would make her thirty.  Now that is 5 years older than the preferred 25 that some are claiming, but I think it's still in the ball park.  Likely: mmmm maybe not; possible: yes.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

I know that evidence is needed to support claims of being descended from X,Y or Z, but I think we are too quick to dimiss these claims. For instance, and I've mentioned this before I know, the siblings of kings dissapear very quickly from the record, and in just the case of Amunhotep III, his at least four brothers, and probably six, have zero existance beyond their images appearing in the tombs of the royal tutors. There has to be many lines of cadet branches going all the way back to the founding of the Dynasty, and by the reign of Amunhotep III there would be hundreds, thousands even, of people who could legitimately claim some form of relationship to the Thutmosid line, but with no claim to the throne. The problem for us is that they did not keep written records of geneology, unlike us were we can find descendants of Richard III in Canada and Australia, and I believe there is some guy in Australia who should be king of England, but he's just some bloke downing tinnies in the outback, and Elizabeth II should be a Housefrau in Hanover.

On Sitamun I think she was born early in the reign, though of course there is no evidence except circumstantial. What do we have, only Sitamun is named as king's eldest daughter, she is an adult by the time KV46 was sealed for the final time, but there is a question mark on when this was, maybe around year 14, maybe around year 24. The only evidence for year 24, and that seems to have been plucked out of the air, is the way Yuya is represented on his mask having juvenile features, a style that came into use in the later part of the reign of AIII. It's something, but it's not conclusive. Maspero, let's get his name right this time and not carry on with the written malapropism :), has Yuya dying before Thuya based on the locations of their coffins in the tomb, but the stylised features of Yuya say that he may have died some years after Thuya. Again, everything is difficult in this.

Let's have Sitamun as the YL and see what fits. The upper age of 35 will fit nicely if AIII and Tiye coud not produce offspring until about the third or fourth year of the reign, and, as in my earlier post, we have her at about 25 in year 30, and assuming an 8 year co-regency which brings her to about 35 in Akhenaten's year 10. The issue here is that for every year taken off the YL it becomes less likely for her to be Sitamun. Even at 30 I think we have problems as it has Sitamun not being born until about year 10 of AIII, and from my position that she was always king's eldest daughter, we have a large gap of there being no daughters, possible of course, and as Thutmose is the only King's eldest son, I think he was born early. There is a caveat though that they may not have included any children who died before aged about 5 as it seems most infant mortalities occur before that age. Therefore there may have been daughters or sons before both Sitamun or Thutmose, but if they died early, then they never entered the records. Akhenaten having his two youngest daughters on show and named seems to be one of his quirks. So, with 25 looking, at least to me, an upper age for the YL, we really do have problems with her being Sitamun as her asumed DOB now comes forward to about year 15, or even later, of AIII.

Looking at the other daughters of AIII and Tiye, then it seems that Iset was next eldest, so there are similar age issues, though when was she born, no idea. Therefore Henuttaneb and Nebetah look better fits age wise slotting in somewhere between Iset and the too young Beketaten.

Aaaand, the elephant in the room is Nefertiti. So, let's go back to the 35 year upper age limit of the YL, which fits in with a presumed age at death of Nefertiti, we see that she will have been born around the same time as Sitamun, and as I do not think they are one and the same person, where was Nefertiti hiding all those years if a daughter of AIII and Tiye, and therefore the YL, when four other daughters are in the record. I can see why it is thought that Sitamun and Nefertiti are the same because it answers the question about where on earth did Nefertiti come from, particularly if she is in fact the YL. A bigger problem is that if we have Sitamun aged about 35 by the birth of Tutankhamun, and be his mother, she needs to die in Akhenaten's year 10-ish, and that will be nine or ten years before the death of Nefertiti/Ankhetkheperure. I think Nefertiti, whoever she is, needs to have been born around year 15 of Amunhotep III.

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Random unformed thoughts.

Amarna was chosen for the site of the new capital as it was, by Akhenaten's declaration on the boundary stelae, unclaimed by any god or person. Splitting hairs, this is not the full story as even if that specific plot of land was unoccupied, it was within the 14th Upper Egyptian nome and therefore came under Hathor.

Hathor, an "eye goddess", Tiye, a living embodiment of Hathor. Tefnut, another "eye goddess" and embodied by Nefertiti. Mut, another "eye goddess" and the southern counterpart to Tefnut as Amun-Ra, Mut and Khonsu mirrored the Heliopolitan Atum-Ra, Shu and Tefnut. The inscriptions on some obelisks show this to be the case where one of the pair is dedicated to Amun-Ra and the other to Atum-Ra, respectively representing the rising and then the dying Sun. Heliopolis provides a "home" for the left eye of Ra while Thebes is "home" for the right eye. Akhetaten may well have been chosen as it was "unclaimed territory", and did have the "horizon notch" in the eastern hills, and, it just happens to be equidistant between Heliopolis and Thebes, the Upper Egyptian Heliopolis, and place where Akhenaten raises the Hwt-bnbn with Nefertiti shown in surviving blocks carrying out the functions of main officiant.

But, the Theban triad are superfluous, an artificial construct created in the Middle Kingdom, by kings who originated in Thebes, to make their local gods more prominent, and in fact with the syncretism of Amun and Ra effectively supplanted Ra and Atum as being the chief gods. Akhenaten will be well aware of this, and so the building of the Hwt-bnbn in Thebes with Nefertiti as a proxy for Tefnut essentially shows the finger to Amun. So Thebes becomes in reality the Upper Egyptian Heliopolis, not just an artificial construct.

So the Theban triad do not have to be "enemies" of Akhenaten, they are simply superfluous to the Old Kingdom Sun worship being recreated and very heavily adapted by Akhenaten, and Thebes becomes a true twin of Heliopolis, shorn of it's gods who were minor figures in the OK, and in fact the junior god of the triad, Khonsu, was more important than his "parents". Amun now has no purpose, and is certainly not "King of the Gods" anymore, so he is dispensed with not in hatred, but as a matter of religous puritanism.

A wooish thing is to explore if Akhenaten had a mental map of Egypt which expressed, at least in some form, Egypt as a solar entity. Helipolis as the left eye in the north and Thebes as the right, Amarna in the middle, and also, by coincidence? just along from Hermopolis, the home of Thoth, the "brain" of Egypt, sitting between the eyes. Yeah, a bit woo isn't it as it's very easy to join up dots in Egypt. But, Thoth, a lunar god, though part of the Ogdoad and so Helipolitan, is associated with Khonsu beyond that gods's Theban association, an MK construct. Amunhotep III as Khonsu at Soleb, Tiye as Hathor also in the south, and a presumed temple for her as Tefnut/Sekhmet? in the Delta. Kline and O'Connor see the possibility of a "map" with a line drawn south to north, and one drawn east to west at Thebes/Malkata. Has Akhenaten adapted this? if it was ever a thing of course. Then we have Tutankhamun and his lunar throne name and a statue of him as Khonsu, and his unique epithet as "Ruler of Upper Egyptian Heliopolis". Is he, or his "handlers", associating him with AIII, but also with part of the resurrected Solar theology, that did not die with Akhenaten, and I'll point out the Netherworld books detailing the Solar-Osirian Unity, and the obelisks, among other constructs, of Ramesess II and the layout of the Ramesseum.

But, it's all thinking aloud really.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Wepwawet
typos

[atalante]

On 6/3/2022 at 4:18 PM, Wepwawet said:

Random unformed thoughts.

Amarna was chosen for the site of the new capital as it was, by Akhenaten's declaration on the boundary stelae, unclaimed by any god or person. Splitting hairs, this is not the full story as even if that specific plot of land was unoccupied, it was within the 14th Upper Egyptian nome and therefore came under Hathor.

Hathor, an "eye goddess", Tiye, a living embodiment of Hathor.....

But, it's all thinking aloud really.

My impression is that Amarna was located in Nome 16, accompanied by Hermopolis.  https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nome_(Egypt)

But I agree with your observation that Akhenaten was making superfluous the Middle Kingdom triad of Theban gods.  

[Wepwawet]

7 hours ago, atalante said:

My impression is that Amarna was located in Nome 16, accompanied by Hermopolis.  https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nome_(Egypt)

But I agree with your observation that Akhenaten was making superfluous the Middle Kingdom triad of Theban gods.  

I have to say that I had not previously given any thought to which nome Amarna was in. I looked in my Amarna books and found nothing, not even in Kemp's. I looked in the atlas by Baines and Malek, and while they mention Amarna, they don't show it on their map of nomes. Some online maps show it in the 14th nome. However, the wiki article you link to is correct, it's in the 15th nome with Hermopolis, and so comes under Thoth.

What causes an issue is that some maps show two places named Amarna, one, THE Amarna, to the north of the boundary between the 14th and 15th nomes, the other just to the south of the boundary, though I cannot find this one on Google earth. See, everything about Amarna has to have some degree of diffculty, of confusion.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

Found something I find puzzling.  The (very few) artefacts associated with Sitamun are these :

Quote

Chair from tomb of Yuya and Tuya
The great royal wife Tiye is seated on a throne on a papyrus skiff. A cat is seated below her chair, a small unnamed princess stands behind her chair and before her we see the king’s daughter, whom he loves, praised by the Lord of the Two Lands (Sitamen)|.
Sitamen is shown offering lotus flowers with her right hand, while her left hand clasps a fan. She is dresses in a short kilt. She wears a short wig with a side lock and a modius topped with water lilies.

Statue of Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu
On the pedestal Sitamen is mentioned.

Kohl Tube and Disk (Oxford)

Faience kohl tube (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Inscribed for “the good god (Nebmaatre)|  King’s Daughter Great Royal Wife (Sitamen)| may she live,”

Calcite bowl found in Amarna.
The original inscription named Sitamen: “King’s Daughter and King’s Wife, born of the Great King’s Wife, Tiye”. The inscription was later altered and Sitamen’s name was replaced by that of Amenhotep III.

So far I've not found an image of that bowl.  Anybody have a guess as to why her name might have been replaced with AIII's?  Seems odd.

Also, mentioned in the accompanying text are 'several' chairs that "seem to have belonged to Sitamun" found in Yuya/Thuya tomb, though only one is listed and described here, and the wine jar dockets from Malkata are also mentioned in the text, but not listed in this, her artifacts list.  The site, I hasten to add, is generally pretty reliable.

https://mathstat.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings and Queens/Sitamen.html

Edited June 9, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

4 hours ago, Wistman said:

Found something I find puzzling.  The (very few) artefacts associated with Sitamun are these :

So far I've not found an image of that bowl.  Anybody have a guess as to why her name might have been replaced with AIII's?  Seems odd.

Also, mentioned in the accompanying text are 'several' chairs that "seem to have belonged to Sitamun" found in Yuya/Thuya tomb, though only one is listed and described here, and the wine jar dockets from Malkata are also mentioned in the text, but not listed in this, her artifacts list.  The site, I hasten to add, is generally pretty reliable.

https://mathstat.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings and Queens/Sitamen.html

The other chair tends not to get shown as it is not in as good condition as the one usually shown as evidence of Sitamun. This chair shows Tiye sitting on a chair with a cat underneath it. A princess stands behind Tiye, though her name is not legible, and another princess stands infront of Tiye. This princess is unambiguously named, in a cartouche, as Sitamun.

In the link, though the image has been replaced by a place holder, it is mentioned that an image in the Karnak temple of Amunhotep II showing a princess wearing a vulture crown, and with the name Sitamun in a damaged cartouche, may be a Sitamun from earlier in the Dynasty. However, Julia Samson thinks that it may be the daughter of Amunhotep III, and it was Samson who pointed out the female "t" determinative in Ankhetkheperure in 1978, ten years before Allen is credited with this. I'll note that Amunhotep II did not have a daughter named Sitamun, and neither did Thutmose IV, so I don't see who else this can be except the daughter of Amunhotep III, her image carved onto the temple wall when AIII took over the temple for himself.

I've a number of books which might include an image of this bowl, but I'll have to trawl through them tomorrow.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

27 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

The other chair tends not to get shown as it is not in as good condition as the one usually shown as evidence of Sitamun. This chair shows Tiye sitting on a chair with a cat unerneath it. A princess stands behind Tiye, though her name is not legible, and another princess stands infront of Tiye. This princess is unambiguously named, in a cartouche, as Sitamun.

In the link, though the image has been replaced by a place holder, it is mentioned that an image in the Karnak temple of Amunhotep II showing a princess wearing a vulture crown, and with the name Sitamun in a damaged cartouche, may be a Sitamun from earlier in the Dynasty. However, Julia Samson thinks that it may be the daughter of Amunhotep III, and it was Samson who pointed out the female "t" determinative in Ankhetkheperure in 1978, ten years before Allen is credited with this.

I was surprised that, according to the site, all three chairs from Y/T tomb were associated with Sitamun...they did say 'several'.  I knew of the two (the second as you describe).  AFAIK the third chair isn't explicitly associated with her by any inscription or image.  Am I wrong?

      A beautiful thing I must say.

Interesting bit about Julia Samson.  Clever lady.  It would be nice to have an early representation of Sitamun, though. 

Have you any information or guess re the calcite bowl, with the altered inscription? 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

10 hours ago, Wistman said:

I was surprised that, according to the site, all three chairs from Y/T tomb were associated with Sitamun...they did say 'several'.  I knew of the two (the second as you describe).  AFAIK the third chair isn't explicitly associated with her by any inscription or image.  Am I wrong?

      A beautiful thing I must say.

Interesting bit about Julia Samson.  Clever lady.  It would be nice to have an early representation of Sitamun, though. 

Have you any information or guess re the calcite bowl, with the altered inscription? 

The "Ibex chair" is at times assumed to have belonged to Sitamun because the other two chairs have her name on them, but this chair has no names at all, and the imagery gives nothing away, for instance, it does not form a rebus and is not cryptographic. I think the two ibexes may represent two Nile goddesses with the rest of the imagery being protective, usual for them of course, but perhaps a bit on the heavy side in this case, IMO, based on the two images of Taweret carrying a knife, imagery more often seen in descriptions of the Duat, not a childs chair. Maybe the owner of this chair was precious to Yuya and Thuya, and the other two chairs do suggest Sitamun, but, it could just have well have been Tiye's, and as Tiye is associated with Taweret as a form of Hathor, I think the owner of this chair is more likely to have been Tiye.

Still looking for this bowl.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

I cannot locate this bowl, frustratingly Samson specifically states in her book that she is not going to cover vases as it was being covered by somebody else in another publication, but does not mention who or were. I have a "Big Book" of Egyptian ceramics and it does not appear there, or anywhere else I have access to.

Anyway, looking for the jar label was easier and it can be found here Sitamun jar label on fig 11 line 137. This shows that Sitamun was still alive in year 37 of AIII.

That link was to part one of a much longer article by William Hayes published in 1951. Not behind a Jstor login is part 3, which while not having reference to Sitamun, is interesting in itself for the real names of the component parts of the Malkata palace complex, and other interesting bits of information that tend to not get a mention in books for a general audience. Of note is a document seal with the name of Ankhesenamun, S125 in Fig 3,which, as Hayes points out, shows that official state documents were still being sent to Malkata into the reign of Tutankhamun, and after the change from the Aten to Amun name endings. There is also an odd seal of Akhenaten still as Amunhotep IV, S120 also in Fig 3. This seal has no name, just "The Ruler" and unfortunately Hayes does not explain why this is Amunhotep IV. This is a downloadable pdf Inscriptions from Malkata part 3

Edited June 10, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Some references to this elusive bowl refer to the book on Amunhotep III by O'Connor and Cline, and refer to page 7. I have this book, and this is not a reference to a bowl, but to the jar inscription found at Malkata.

On page 104 in the same book there is reference to a fragment of a calcite vessel, held in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, showing Sitamun with her name in a cartouche. The authors make no mention of her name being altered. They give the catalouge number, EGA 4605, but a search on the museum site draws a blank, and for any reference to Sitamun/Sitamen

Edited June 10, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

@Wepwawet  Your efforts are much appreciated, thanks.  I have work to undertake this morning so I'll read your links later on, looking forward to it.

But how curious, this bowl.  The SLU (St. Louis University) site is pretty reliable.  Pity they didn't put any identifying info in the entry, we might at least know where it is located now.

[Wepwawet]

@Wistman While searching for this bowl, one of the books I looked in was Kozloff's book about AIII, and while she makes no mention of any bowl, I found something that I must have missed when I first read her book, or it just did not register properly. You look for the possibility that Sitamun may have been the mother of Tutankhamun, but while I think she was far too old, she cannot be precluded from being a mother, but to whom. Kozloff, on page 194, talks about the image of Sitamun wearing the vulture headress at the Karnak temple, and mentions that there is another fragment of the same scene, and this fragment, something else to try to track down an image of, shows a young prince, in Kozloff's opinion a son of Sitamun, and as Sitamun is shown as Hathor, then this prince may represent the goddesses's son, Ihy, and Tutankhmun was also shown as Ihy in two small statuettes in his tomb. There is no name or record of any husband for Sitamun other than AIII, so, presuming this prince is her son in real life, he would be a son of AIII. I'm as yet unable to track down when it was thought AIII altered the AII temple, but presumably not before year 30 when Sitamun became a GRW.

If this is a son of Sitamun and her father, then the question is not only who is he, but if there was a son, why not a daughter/s. To answer why a son is depicted when this is so rare, I would guess that he is representing Ihy, and so is there not specifically as a prince, but representing a god with his goddess mother.

This really is a rabitt hole, you go down one entrance that looks good, then turn off into a branching tunnel, then another, then another, and all the while find snippets of information, or promises that you might find something, and so go on and on, then realize it is a labyrinth, and you forgot to bring a ball of string, and you get lost and slowly go mad chasing shadows and echoes of shadows.

[Wistman]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

@Wistman While searching for this bowl, one of the books I looked in was Kozloff's book about AIII, and while she makes no mention of any bowl, I found something that I must have missed when I first read her book, or it just did not register properly. You look for the possibility that Sitamun may have been the mother of Tutankhamun, but while I think she was far too old, she cannot be precluded from being a mother, but to whom. Kozloff, on page 194, talks about the image of Sitamun wearing the vulture headress at the Karnak temple, and mentions that there is another fragment of the same scene, and this fragment, something else to try to track down an image of, shows a young prince, in Kozloff's opinion a son of Sitamun, and as Sitamun is shown as Hathor, then this prince may represent the goddesses's son, Ihy, and Tutankhmun was also shown as Ihy in two small statuettes in his tomb. There is no name or record of any husband for Sitamun other than AIII, so, presuming this prince is her son in real life, he would be a son of AIII. I'm as yet unable to track down when it was thought AIII altered the AII temple, but presumably not before year 30 when Sitamun became a GRW.

If this is a son of Sitamun and her father, then the question is not only who is he, but if there was a son, why not a daughter/s. To answer why a son is depicted when this is so rare, I would guess that he is representing Ihy, and so is there not specifically as a prince, but representing a god with his goddess mother.

This really is a rabitt hole, you go down one entrance that looks good, then turn off into a branching tunnel, then another, then another, and all the while find snippets of information, or promises that you might find something, and so go on and on, then realize it is a labyrinth, and you forgot to bring a ball of string, and you get lost and slowly go mad chasing shadows and echoes of shadows.

Smenkhkare?

[Wepwawet]

10 hours ago, Wistman said:

Smenkhkare?

Not impossible. A problem here though is that if a son of Sitamun, he would be the brother/cousin of Akhenaten, and so not his heir. This is yet another reason to release the DNA results for the KV35 prince as apart from the possibility of him being a brother of Tutankhamun, and therefore, IMO, a good candidate to be Smenkhkhare, could show him to be a son of AIII and, if not Tiye, one of his daughters, and Sitamun would be the prime candidate I think, though not the only one in this Amarna soup of DNA.

As not everybody will have an account at Jstor I'll quote from the article I linked to. It starts on the first page, viewable to all, but the rest is on the next page and in a footnote.

So Hays is describing the general layout of some of the parts of Malkata, he posits that the South Palace may have been used by Tiye, the Middle Palace by Akhenaten before his move to Amarna, and then goes onto the Great North Palace, and I quote:
 

Quote

 

Similar rows of small houses, or Servants' Quarters, run parallel to the Great North Palace, which appears to have been the residence of an extremely important royal lady, quite possibly Queen Sitamun. 6

Note 6: Evelyn White, it's excavator, has pointed out that this palace is without the usual harem accomodations and must therefore have been built for and occupied by either a woman or a young boy.

 

I'll add to the note that the palace could have been used by a woman and a young boy, her son, a more likely scenario I think.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

12 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Not impossible. A problem here though is that if a son of Sitamun, he would be the brother/cousin of Akhenaten, and so not his heir. This is yet another reason to release the DNA results for the KV35 prince as apart from the possibility of him being a brother of Tutankhamun, and therefore, IMO, a good candidate to be Smenkhkhare, could show him to be a son of AIII and, if not Tiye, one of his daughters, and Sitamun would be the prime candidate I think, though not the only one in this Amarna soup of DNA.

As not everybody will have an account at Jstor I'll quote from the article I linked to. It starts on the first page, viewable to all, but the rest is on the next page and in a footnote.

So Hays is describing the general layout of some of the parts of Malkata, he posits that the South Palace may have been used by Tiye, the Middle Palace by Akhenaten before his move to Amarna, and then goes onto the Great North Palace, and I quote:
 

I'll add to the note that the palace could have been used by a woman and a young boy, her son, a more likely scenario I think.

Yes, but neither was Nefertiti his 'heir', even if she usurped the throne name of the one who was first designated by Akhenaten to follow him.  Yet she ruled as king.  Precedence and protocol are sometimes set aside, as with Hatshepsut, as with Nefertiti.  So it could be for a brother of Akhenaten.  Highly unusual, unique even?  Well, that's Amarna.  But it is truly a hall of mirrors.

I've read from other sources of Sitamun's prominence at Malkata, of her vast apartments there at the North Palace.  It does seem though (as per the little evidence we have coming from Zahi's dig) that it was all precipitously abandoned on the death of AIII, and since Zahi's city serviced Malkata, it's likely that the palace was closed down as well at that time.  As I mentioned before, I find it hard to believe that Sitamun stayed there, while the court moved away.  If she still lived, and her son as well, they would both have moved to Akhetaten along with Tiye and Beketaten and the remaining royal family, I feel sure.

But I do find the notion of KV35YM as Sitamun's son to be intriguing.     Oh yes, precious, oh yesssss.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Wistman