Amarna, Before and After

[Wepwawet]

I think Nefertiti had to step in/step up, at least in some form, on the death of Smenkhkare. let's for the sake of argument have Smenkhkhare king for a period of time over Akhenaten's years 15-16, then he dies leaving Tutankhaten as heir. He is reckoned by various authors to have been born around year 13/14, but due to them having his regnal years follow on from those of Neferneferuaten, not Akhenaten, his birth can be pushed back to about year 10-11. So by the death of Smenkhkhare he is aged between about one and five, depending on when you think he was born. He is not too young to be king, and Pepi II became king at aged six, without being usurped by an aunt or uncle, but too young to wield any authority bar demanding a dancing dwarf for his amusement.

After the deathbed scenes in TA21, thought to be from years 13 and 14, Akhenaten seems to dissapear from view, he still exists of course, but I wonder, not alone, what physical and mental condition he was in, and was he capable of ruling. The emergence of Neferneferuaten sometime after the year 16 graffito naming Nefertiti as still just GRW indicates that she may well be in the process of usurping the throne for herself in a quicker and more decisive manner than Hatshepsut did initially. It's one thing to suport an ailing husband, and Akhenaten had to have had some health issues to have died comparitively young, and another to become co-ruler when the king has a male heir. It would be like Hatshepsut becoming king before Thutmose II had died, unthinkable, for them, but she did show the way for Nefertiti. So, here is the Amarna amomaly of the GRW usurping the throne from the heir even before the "old" king has died, and then becoming sole ruler after his death. I'm almost surprised that Tutankhaten did not "fall down the stairs", or stand behind a bad tempered horse, though if he is her son, maybe that would be too much, and Hatshepsut never took any action against the future Thutmose III even though he was not her son.

Looking at the manner in which Nefertiti eased herself onto the throne, I would suspect that she never had any intention, just like Hatshepsut, of ever giving the throne to it's rightful owner, and may have been deposed by force, a possible reason for the otherwise very odd situation of a king, Tutankhamun, never, ever mentioning his mother.

While I see Smenkhkhare as the eldest son of Akhenaten, given the machinations of Nefertiti, and I think they were very deliberate, I can see a scenario in which Smenkhkhare is either not the eldest son of Akhenaten, or if so, not a son of Nefertiti, and she has done some "Game of Thrones" stuff to either remove him in favour of her presumed own son, Tutankhaten, and then, liking being a co-ruler, usurps her own son. While having Nefertiti act like Cersi is more dramatic and entertaining, I'll go with the more straightforward route of Smenkhkhare being the legal heir, and dying, for whatever reason, in his early teens, thus opening the door for Nefertiti, who, while I know I'm painting a black picture of her, may well have acted, at least intially, out of necessity when the heir and joint ruler suddenly dies young, and Akhenaten is incapable of ruling alone. But, to make a twist, what were the circumstances of the death of Smenkhkhare ? And on that, the KV35 prince, while a cause of death is not known, did have severe internal skeletal injuries and a fully dislocated right femur head. Signs of bone re-growth are reported, so these injuries were not immediately fatal, but he would have probably died a miserable death in some agony. I have to say that the injuries he has do not look like an assasination attempt, unless he was thown from a window and initially survived, or just fell from a chariot or was struck by one, ooops, there's  Nefertiti's dodgy driving again....

[Wistman]

I do agree with most of that, and here I consider a dramatic reading of the Royal court at Amarna as valid (to a degree) in order for it to make any sense to us, since there is a paucity of evidence in a period of great glamor, wealth, turmoil, and whiplash.  Doesn't mean the 'drama' is ultimately true, that it will withstand scrutiny.

Even with her sketchy antecedents, Nefertiti from the beginning portrayed herself and acted as equal to her husband the pharaoh.  I see her as dominating him throughout the reign (perhaps he was a pushover, for all we know).  For a time, he was even portrayed with female characteristics...in my view at her covert instigation to equalize them before the court and populace, to make them appear more or less interchangeable.  A beautiful, powerful malignant narcissist, like the Empress Theodora or Catherine de Medici, or Livia.  That's how I see her.  And I see her as vying to outdo Tiye's legacy as Great Royal Wife, and thus that there was likely animosity between them because of it...a dangerous thing for Tiye, or any others of the Royal family who might challenge Nefertiti's power and ambition for sole rule on the throne.

I suppose that she purposefully usurped Smenkhkare's throne name, to blur the identity of the two of them, for posterity and compliance.

I see Sitamun coming to Akhetaten and changing her name to Kiya, for Atenist purity reasons.  She would have rivaled Nefertiti, with her Royal blood, her glamor as AIII's Great Royal Wife/Daughter, her stature at AIII's court altogether, and her sister status with Akhenaten.  She (and her princely son) would have been a challenge to Nefertiti's plans and, maybe more importantly, her self esteem.

Tut may not have been Kiya's son, nor Smenkhkare for that matter, but the prince KV35 could very well be so, and it's significant (to me at least) that his mummy was grouped (maybe only ultimately I grant you) between Tiye and the YL.

So you are right again, DNA analysis of KV35YM would yield needed information about all of this, maybe.

However, I'm prepared to accept that Nefertiti was innocent of maliciousness, and that bad events happened at Amarna but not at her instigation, if such proves likely to be the case.  It is history after all, and the truth matters ultimately.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

4 hours ago, Wistman said:

I do agree with most of that, and here I consider a dramatic reading of the Royal court at Amarna as valid (to a degree) in order for it to make any sense to us, since there is a paucity of evidence in a period of great glamor, wealth, turmoil, and whiplash.  Doesn't mean the 'drama' is ultimately true, that it will withstand scrutiny.

 

I think that while it's speculation, a deal of this needs to be turned into a narrative in order to make sense. It's a bit like the Pyramid Texts where we are presented with something at times like a machine translation instead of a human translation. This is because, IMO, a narrative translation will be one based on interpretation to make it more understandable to the non expert audience, and Egyptologists tend not to engage in speculation. Manu Seyfzadeh refers to these translations as "processed", and while he is an independent, not an Egyptologist, Susan Brind Morrow, who is an Egyptologist, has in fact written a more approachable translation of the PT, though it is in many places still "difficult", and requires a decent background knowledge of Ancient Egypt, and she does not follow the normal practise of numbering the various spells, so you really need to know the "processed" translations in order to see what she is doing, which rather defeats the object of making them more approachable, I think, and I think the book is aimed more at a "new age" audience rather than anybody attempting to get into the mind of the original authors of the PT.

Another way of tackling this problem of trying to present difficult and highly "technical" texts, [Are spells really technical, probably to a lector, but not the rest of us], is that used by Hornung and Abt in their commentary on the Amduat. This is a companion book to Hornung's work on the Amduat which contains the images, hieroglyphs, transliterations and translations, but the reader is left interpret it themselves. The companion book takes the form where Hornung gives the literal translation of a section of an hour, followed by Abt's interpretation of what, in the view of both authors, it may actually mean, though through a Jungian lense, which will of course not appeal to all.

I'll continue with the rest tomorrow.

 

[Wistman]

Here's a pertinent paper from 2021 analyzing the famous lion-headed throne of Tut:

https://www.academia.edu/51955432/_Tutankhamun_s_Golden_Armchair_Its_Original_Owner_and_Shape_Reconsidered_?f_ri=383722

  

 

Quote

While we are unable to judge the stylistic arguments of the previous researchers, we agree to the fact that the scene  was seriously altered, and that the table is incongruous. Besides the missing small inlays, and the alterations already noticed by previous authors, such as the new cartouches with the second names, the strange blank behind the queen’s head instead of titulary, the crowns moved from their original place (as shown by the negative shapes above them, in the grape garland, and by the overlapped Aten hands), we can notice some other anomalies.

Among others, the couple is not standing on the floor, contrary to the feet of the table. The chair of the king is obviously leaning forward (the seat and the stretcher are not horizontal). Part of the sema-tawy of the chair is missing and replaced by gold foils. The footstool is shortened, as we can see from its unshaped silhouette and the king’s foot being partially unsupported. The cartouches of the king are small (smaller than those of Ankhesenamun), and are curiously cramped between the king and the floral column. The neck of the queen does not fit the collar correctly. The cup she holds has no well-defined shape. We can see the shape of a previous wig inlay, which might have been a round wig and not the actual Nubian wig.

It seems that the whole figures of the king and queen were edited, and moved from their original place. We agree with M. Gabolde that the table is replacing something else. The floral columns framing this open-roof space are not touching the floor and confirm even greater changes. In this study we will propose two more analyses, that no one as we know of has ever considered: the typological context of the armchair, and his global iconography.

Quote

The armchairs being the typical sovereign’s seats under Tutankhamun but not under the  previous Amarna reigns, it seems logical to attribute the golden armchair to Tutankhamun. But the global iconography is not heterogenous and indicates the contrary.

[Wepwawet]

Interesting article, and difficult to disagree with, though not impossible. Of course this throne has always been seen as problematic, and it seems that the view that the chair originally belonged to Akhenaten is becoming more widspread. The scene on the backrest is a mess and it's clear that both crowns are later additions. I'm not sure though about the contention that the female figure has been shunted to the left as it looks like the change to the back of the wig has been made were it is now, and while it is pointed out that there is this odd gap between the queen and her cartouches, this may have been filled by an extension of the rays of the Aten, which while partly covered by the plume of her crown, would be unbalanced if they terminated at that point. So, if she had been shunted to the left it will have left a gap to be filled with the table and collar, which the author says has no place here. I'm not so sure, because if the queen were shunted to the right, what then is she doing with her right hand. As it is she is annointing the king, and this looks natural, but if she were further away from the king and not touching him, what then would she be doing? At face value it would look as if she were in a pose of praising the king, but the pose isn't right for this, her right arm should be straighter and the left arm not raised and holding a bottle. At the end of the day though it's a matter of opinion I think.

The author contends that the armrests and lion heads are a later addition, and I'll admit that this would be an easy alteration, however, the chair is undecorated down the sides behind the two cobras of the armrests, indicating that they are in fact original, though of course any existing decoration could have been removed.

The presence of the Aten on the front of the chair, and the Aten names of the king and queen on the back of the chair may not mean that the chair has been altered for Tutankhaten and Ankhesenpaaten, either initially for them with their Aten names, and then changed again, at least on the front of the chair, to show their new Amun names, but may be a second hybrid chair initially constructed with both Aten and Amun elements. It's the usual thing to assume that the name changes were made almost overnight, and make a sharp dividing line between the old and the new, but another chair shows a somewhat different picture.

Popular attention focuses on the golden throne, not so much, if at all, on the other thrones/chairs. Below is the Ceremonial/Ecclesiastical throne, Carter object 351

The sundisk at the top has two cartouches below it containing the later names of the Aten. The king's nomen appears multiple times, and on every occassion it says Tutankhaten. So you might reasonably say that this was a throne made for him before his name change and there is nothing of note here, it's what we expect to see. However, on the back it has both the Aten and Amun forms of his name, so we have a reverse of the golden throne where the Amun names are on the front and the Aten names on the back. So, while the experts say that the Aten names on the golden throne were not changed because they were out of sight, what then do we make of the reverse. I suspect that what we are seeing is a transformation in progress with the Amun name appearing "low key" on the back of this throne, and then appearing in full view on the golden throne as Amun has now replaced the Aten in prominence, but not completely. I'll note that the Amun version of his name on the back of this throne is the same version that appears in the large cartouches on the inside front ot the armrests of the golden throne, where the normal "twt/tut" is replaced by the standing figure of a king.

This is what Carter says of the names on the back of the Ecclestiastical throne.

Quote

Inlaid on either side of the Nekhebet vulture are the prenomen and Aten nomen of the king - Neb.kheperu.Re Tut.ankh.Aten,surmouned by simple carnelian discs. Below, upon the ivory and ebony panels, we find various designations of the king giving the Aten and Amen forms of his nomen. These inscriptions are in their pristine state - in all cases the Aten form of the nomen remains unchallenged. The chair is thus an important historical document with regard to the politico-religeous vacillations of the reign.

So, while the golden throne does have some issues, I suspect that these are really only to do with the mess made with the decoration and composition of the backrest scene, and that the presence of the Aten, and the mix of their Aten and Amun names, shows not so much that the throne was altered for Tutankhaten, and then again on his name change, but that the comments by Carter on the Ecclesiastical throne apply also to the golden throne, and that apart from the clear changes made to the backrest scene, the chair was probably made originally for Tutankhamun. I'll note that the Ecclesiastical throne is smaller than the golden throne in depth, and making allowances for the curvature of the seat, also smaller in usuable room in width. I would propose that this throne was made very early in his reign, while the golden throne was made a few years later when he had grown a bit, and they were further down the road of replacing the Aten with Amun.

[Wepwawet]

And to add after the edit time ran out, I'll agree with Bartos that the throne does tie Tutankhamun to Amunhotep III, and when he refers to "his father", while it can mean any male ancestor, he is refering to Amunhotep III and not Akhenaten. And, IMO, the lunar prenomen, Nebkheperuiah, and his likeness as Khonsu, was part of a plan to associate him with Amunhotep III.

[Wistman]

3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

And to add after the edit time ran out, I'll agree with Bartos that the throne does tie Tutankhamun to Amunhotep III, and when he refers to "his father", while it can mean any male ancestor, he is refering to Amunhotep III and not Akhenaten. And, IMO, the lunar prenomen, Nebkheperuiah, and his likeness as Khonsu, was part of a plan to associate him with Amunhotep III.

And this brings us, I believe, to the conundrum of representing the traditional kingly succession in Tut's titulary and the actual succession for Tut.  Tut's regents (or Ay, I should think in this case) had to reckon with how to show this in order to retain traditional and legal stability, their principal aim after the collapse of Amarna.

To illustrate, let us say that Tut's parents were in fact Akhenaten and Nefertiti (not my preference, but these days probably the most widely held pov).  The succession, then, proceeds as follows:  Akhenaten-Smenkhkare-Neferneferuaten-Tutankhamun.  Tut's father > Tut's (?) brother (?) > Tut's mother > himself.  Except that traditional kingly succession went from father to son (remember, we cannot suggest even that Smenkhkare was Akhenaten's brother because it defies traditional rules of Pharaonic succession).  But there were two intervening kings between Akhenaten and Tut, one of which - Smenkhkare - we aren't sure ruled independently of Akhenaten; the other one was Tut's mother, in this model.  So Tut would be the son of the king before him, Neferneferuaten --- his mother.  How then to say who his mother was?  It is not said (as was done with Nefertiti's antecedents, despite her voluminous inscriptions.)  How to explain Neferneferuaten's presence in the Pharaonic succession?  She was never any king's son.  So it is not said.  (Smenkhkare's identity and kingship, his right to the succession, is entirely disappeared.)  If they are to call Tut 'king's son', which parent are they referring to?  If we say 'Neferneferuaten's', then again: how to explain her intervening kingship by traditional right of succession?  If we say 'Akhenaten's son', then how to explain the interloper Neferneferuaten's presence at all? 

The same process can be applied to the other candidates for Tut's parentage.

As a solution, it seems Tut's regents (read: Ay) simply disappeared Tut's direct antecedents from his titulary and associated him only with AIII, his kingly grandfather, by right of succession.  The 'problem' of Amarna is thus cleansed from the kings lists, inscriptions, and documentation.  Eventually, even Tut would be so cleansed, and the whole mess consigned to the dustbin, or so they thought.

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

33 minutes ago, Wistman said:

And this brings us, I believe, to the conundrum of representing the traditional kingly succession in Tut's titulary and the actual succession for Tut.  Tut's regents (or Ay, I should think in this case) had to reckon with how to show this in order to retain traditional and legal stability, their principal aim after the collapse of Amarna.

 

 

Briefly for the moment, I've been reading a bio of the emperor Alexander Severus and see an echo of Amarna in his times, a faint echo to be sure, and not a proper match by any means. However, it had to be explained how he had a claim to the throne after his strange cousin Elagabalus was assassinated, primarily it seems not for his "eccentric" lifestyle, but for his imposition over the traditional Roman gods of a single god, the sungod, sounds familiar. Clearly Akhenaten was the rightful heir to Amunhotep III and Tutankhamun was in his turn the rightful heir, as far as we know, but as a story had to be concocted about both Elagabalus and Alexander, ie that they were the illegitimate sons of Caracalla, not true, so a story seems to need to have been concocted to sweep Akhenaten, Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten under the carpet and have Tutankhamun directly follow Amunhotep III. Nothing under the sun is new, things repeat, not exactly the same of course, but enough perhaps to learn lessons and get some insight, maybe.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

This is pedantic

Back to the scene on the chair and if the figure of the queen has been moved to the left, as Bartos suggests, then I think it worth looking at the many other scenes that show them together, 18 just on the golden shrine.

In all but two scenes Ankhesenamun is either touching the king or is in his space. In the two scenes where there is a clear separation between them, such as the scene at the top left on the side of the shrine, the gap between them is filled with texts and or cartouches, and in the other scene, out of sight, the king holds a hoopoe bird amongst the cartouches that physically separate them. The scene on the backrest of the throne fits well with the other scenes of the two of them, and were Bartos says that it seems odd that the king's footrest has been cut short, so making it seem that it was cut off so that the figure of the queen could be moved towards the king, I would say that the shortened footrest is an improvement over a very similar scene on a gold buckle were the footrest is not shortened, but the queen's foot looks as if it it being crushed underneath it.

In many of the scenes Ankhesenamun is wearing a rounded crown with uraeus similar to that worn by Nefertiti, though in other scenes she wears a rounded wig or nubian wig sharply cut in at the back, as we also see on the throne, so the type of wig is not an issue, however, in the scene on the throne there is a clear gap between the wig and the two streamers, while in every other depiction of her wearing this wig the streamers are connected to the wig, either at the bottom on the nubian wig, or further up the back of the rounded wig. Why the wig and it's streamers have been altered on the throne I have no idea as I cannot see any reason when she is depicted on other objects wearing wearing wigs and a crown no different to those worn by Nefertiti, and there being no doubt on the shrine that this is Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun. I think the "issue" of the wig on the throne has long been a red herring and does not hold up as an "anomaly" against other known depictions of Ankhesenamun.

There, I said it was pedantic

[Wepwawet]

Akhenaten was known as the "rebel" or the "criminal" to later generations, and it has always been seen that this was because he worshipped one god and banned the others. Just by itself this is a good reason to cast him into the darkness, but I think there was more, well there was, but it gets forgotten in the desire to argue about monotheism/henotheism/monolatry and what acts he committed, or not, against the pantheon. Banishing Osiris does of course also obliterate the Duat, and in Akhenaten's new theology the dead remain in this world, "switched off" in their tombs at night, and with an invisible presence in their ba-bird form at Aten temples during the day. This I would have thought would be an anathema to any Egyptian as they hoped to live in the Duat as they lived on Earth, but in an unchanging and endlessly repeating day, the original "Groundhog Day". I find it interesting that the Amarna nobles' tombs were all unfinished and never seem to have been used, perhaps despite what their king decreed, they did in fact want a conventional afterlife, and not Akhenaten's sterile, and I think nightmarish, puritanical vision.

However, I think that while it can been seen that banning gods and imposing a cold afterlife is reason enough to condemn Akhenaten, for those elite Egyptians who knew what lay behind the "animal headed gods", the issue was deeper, and one that they would not write down for our benefit 3,400 years later. I think that Akhenaten had destoyed the underlying duality of their universe, not in the Upper and Lower Egypt sense, but that of night and day. As far as can be seen, or rather not seen as it is in what he does not mention that we can discern what he has done, he has gotten rid not just of the Duat, but of night itself. In that I mean that of course they still had a day and a night, but that the night was just an absense of day, a nothing, a form of death even. Here they have a problem as a part of their two part eternity has gone, and by that I mean that Akhenaten has gotten rid of the concept, expressed in the form of a god, dt - Djet, the concept, probably, as this is not fully understood, of "big time", the time between, going by just the Helipolitan creation myth for simplicity, the self creation of Atum and him destroying the world at the end of time. This concept of eternity encompasses the existance of Osiris, who unlike Ra remains unchanging for all time. Ra is part of their other concept of eternity, again expressed as a god, nhh - Neheh. This is a cyclic eternity, probably, as this is also not fully understood, that encompasses the physical world, the lifetime of a person, the seasons, and the daily birth and then death of Ra. Problem, get rid of the Duat and Osiris and the cycle of birth and death is broken, Ra cannot be ressurected and cannot be reborn. Akhenaten has only the Aten rising on the eastern horizon, Osiris, Nut and Khepri are gone, Ra-Horakhty has gone, Ra at midday has gone, and so has the old Atum at the end of the day. Creation and part of their view of time has just vanished.

To the modern mind this is not a problem as we know what that uber bright disc in the sky is, and so I think it forms part of the appeal of Akhenaten in that he seems light years ahead of his own times, and probably was, but puritanism, and that is just my opinion of him, never has universal appeal as it is too harsh, and what I think was a form of puritanism in the early Church was heavily diluted with a new pantheon of gods and goddesses now called "saints", and embroidered with so much ritual and pomp that it looks a bit, er, "pagan", and Protestants may agree with me on parts of this. So, Akhenaten has not only ripped away the Egyptians' "comfort blanket" of a never ending sort of normal life after death, but also caused a rift in their "space-time continum" and destroyed the duality. However, Akhenaten has not replaced any of that which he destroyed and so, at least in the records from his times and what can be discerned, has no mechanism by which the Aten rises in the eastern horizon and no mechanism by which it is resurrected after it has set, it just is during the day, and is not during the night. How do you sell what would be seen as utter nonsense, to put it very mildly, to Egyptians who knew that Ra was ressurected by Osiris, and themselves, after death, with him. Obviously he could not square the circle and so failed, even though to our modern minds he "got it" about the Sun, even though he had no conception of what it really is and how it works.

I'll reference "Tutankhamun Knew the Names of the Two Great Gods - dt and nhh as Fundamental Concepts of Pharaonic Ideology" by Steven R.W. Gregory. However, Gregory in his extremely fascinating book does not even once mention Akhenaten, and only once references Amarna, and that in the context of it's kings not appearing on the Abydos king list, but his book seriously begs the question about how this can be applied to Akhenaten and what he did and why he was hated for it.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Wepwawet
typos

[Wepwawet]

Further, while the statue of Tutankhamun as Khonsu can be seen as tying him to Amunhotep III and the Theban Triad, it could also be a visible statement that the night, and all that they bundled up with the night, had now returned after Akhenaten. It could also be a reason for his lunar bling and lunar throne name. Maybe they were keen to show normality had returned by overdoing some of the iconography and names associated with him, and so we have him alone, as far as I can find, with a lunar prenomen, and him alone with more certainty being Ruler of Upper Egyptian Heliopolis when all other kings were either Ruler of Thebes or Ruler of Heliopolis. I would also tentatively include the bust of him as Nefertum emerging from Nun, which I'm beginning to suspect may, while Nefertum is there, really be showing him as Ra-Atum who was born up through the waters of Nun by Nefertum. This, if correct, would then be a visible statement that the creation that Akhenaten abolished/ignored, has also returned along with the night. I also suspect that his first shrine with the Book of the Heavenly Cow/Rebellion against Ra/Destruction of Mankind also ties in with the reaction against Akhenaten.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

I just want to point out some issues with the bust of Tutankhamun as Nefertum.

In every instance when the god himself is depicted he has the lotus on top of his head, and the texts describe Nefertum as bearing up the blue lotus from Nun, and with Ra as a child emerging from the lotus. Below is the standard depiction of Nefertum, and then Tutankhamun, who is certainly emerging from the lotus, which itself is rising from Nun, as depicted by the blue base.

Standard depiction of Nefertum

 

Tutankhamun as Nefertum, or not quite.

 

While Nefertum is a solar deity, he is the grandson of Ra, and we have possibly the first instance of a grandfather paradox as he acts essentially as the midwife to the birth of his own grandfather, Tutankhamun as king is the son of Ra and the Living Horus. So I think that if this image was made at the start of his reign, and it's highly likely it was due to the earings, the one from the right ear is missing and only trhe stud remains of the left, then as I wrote in the previous post, this is an image of the king as Ra at his creation, an act ignored by Akhenaten. To me, having just gone with the flow for years that he is here depicted as Nefertum, it now seems blindingly obvious that as his head is emerging from the lotus, he is Ra, with the presense of Nefertum implied because of the act of creation/birth that the bust portrays.

However, there is another image of a head emerging from a lotus which needs to be put into context, and this image below comes from the Papyrus of Ani version of the Book of the Dead.

We see at the bottom the waters of Nun, the lotus and then Ani's head emerging from the lotus. I'll quote the text, translated by Faulkner, that accompanies this image.

Quote

I am this pure lotus which went forth from the sunshine, which is at the nose of Ra; I have descended that I may seek it for Horus, for I am the pure one who issued from the fen

Further texts describe the lotus as being the semblance of Nefertum, and in the quote above, though not naming Nefertum, his presense is made clear by the reference to being at the nose of Ra, as Nefertum is the god of fragrance. But in essense what we see is part of the long series of vignettes in the papyrus that magically ensure the ressurection of Ani. He is not Nefertum or Ra, he has an adult head, just Ani "piggy backing" on the magical mechanisms of resurrection once denied, in this form, to anybody but the king. What I note is that the Egyptians used the myth of the birth of Ra in a funeral setting in order to help their own resurrection, and the image of the blue lotus pervades the BoD, as it does in many of the more colourful tombs of nobles.

So, in relation to the bust of Tutankhamun, while it will date to the early years of his reign, it is an image of both birth and death, in it's mortuary resurrection use, and it should not be surprising that it was placed in his tomb. It indicates to me that while Ra and all the previous kings now dead are resurrected in the Duat every night, the living king was also in a state of constant rebirth while still alive.

 

[Wistman]

@Wepwawet   Fascinating, truly.  Though....this is all way beyond my ken, but makes sense given the challenges the regents were facing.

I know that to an extent the 'stripped' Atenist religious model wasn't shared by all common folk; commoner graves from Amarna reveal that they were buried with their fetishes of the old gods, and household protections tended to maintain traditional forms.  The regents were surely aiming to re-sanctify the pharaoh and regenerate the traditional forms of religion within the governing body and amongst the affluent and elite classes I suppose...at least with those who had truly embraced Atenism.  Can we judge how much of the nation had switched to the Aten in practice?

Edited July 6, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

3 hours ago, Wistman said:

Can we judge how much of the nation had switched to the Aten in practice?

Really difficult question. I would guess that it was almost entirely an elite thing as far as belief went. The bulk of the population, living in villages as most people did in pre industrial societies, would probably not be interested in the finer points of Atenism at all, but they would have been effected, they would all have known something untoward was going on. A lot of their produce and goods went to the temples, and if the local temple has closed, that's a huge problem, and I don't think we really have too much idea of how this was managed. Maybe the temples were all rebranded, for the purposes of commerce, as Aten temples, even if they were not suited for that purpose. I think something like that did happen, and if the experiment succeeded all of the old temples would have been rebuilt as open air Aten temples, but we can never know.

Another issue for the general population would have been the presumed dissapearance of oracles at temples, and for those who could not afford an oracle, the ears painted on the outer walls of some temples for them to "consult" or vent their grievances. We know that even the peasants had the ability move en masse to festivals, in the Late Period it is thought hundreds of thousands made the pilgrimage to the festival of Bastet, and then get blindingly drunk and have an orgy, no wonder they were well attended. In Akhenaten's times there were the Theban festivals, the Valley and the Opet, among others, including the Festival of Drunkeness instigated by Hatshepsut. The loss of all of these things would I think have been keenly felt right down to the humblest peasant, in fact perhaps more so by them as they enlivened their otherwise dull lives of drudgery. This is a common thread through history though, think panem et circenses and the Medieval festivals and pilgrimages, and even in modern times, the soap opera and other "entertainment" on the idiot box.

As I mentioned before, I do think that the unfinshed and empty tombs of the nobles at Amarna does point to a lack of enthusiasm for Atenism, even with Meryre II who had been Greatest of Seers for the Aten, who outlived Akhenaten and was never buried at Amarna. It would be interesting to find his final tomb, if decorated, if he had time.

We know about the year 12 durbar, but I wonder if there were any Aten festivals to replace the old ones, the records are silent, but I get the impression that Akhenaten may not have approved as the Aten was his alone, maybe he was a proto Cromwell banning Christmas.

So unless Akhenaten provided viable Atenist alternatives to what he had destroyed, I doubt if his religion carried the bulk of the population, who did their best to carry on as normal. I'm almost surprised that his entire family were not ripped to shreds the moment he died, and that the line carried on for another 12-13 years says much for the power of the king and the elite, but it's easier to control pre industrial peasants than more sophisticated urbanites.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Wepwawet

[jmccr8]

Hi Wepwawet and Wistman

I love how you guys pick at the scabs of history, the what lies under the crust. I miss John and you guys keep my interest alive and do really like when Kenemet and others others that I enjoy hearing  from share their thoughts. Okay some of you fringers are fun too.

[Wepwawet]

Something else hiding under the crust, or perhaps more hiding in plain sight.

Regarding the two thrones with both Aten and Amun versions of his name, there is a precedent for a king to have two "opposing" names at the same time. This should have clicked in the thread where Imhotep was discussed, but it has now. The last king of the 2nd Dynasty, Khasekhemwy, had his name not in just one serekh, normally the Horus name, but had three versions of his name in three different serekhs. One was the normal Horus name, but the other two were a combined Horus and Set name as both Horus and Set were on top of the serekh. Prior to Khasekhemwy we have a further potential precursor to Amarna with the issue of Sekhemib with a Horus name and Peribsen with a Set name. It is suggested that Peribsen was in fact Sekhemib and had changed his name and adopted Set over Horus, rather like Amunhotep IV becomes Akhenaten and ditches Amun. Even if Sekhemib and Peribsen are not the same person, we do have a major issue between Horus and Set towards the end of the 2nd Dynasty, and Khasekhemwy in taking a joint Horus and Set name has done this to reconcile two opposing sides.

As I am now pretty much convinced that the names on both thrones were never altered, it seems like Tutankhamun is echoing the events of the 2nd Dynasty and is, or his handlers rather, using both Aten and Amun names to reconcile two opposing sides. There is an implication, IMO, that there were in fact two opposing sides in Egypt during the Amarna period, otherwise if it were just a thing within the royal family, there would be no need to use both names and a sharp change could have been made, just as Akhenaten had done. So Khasekhemwy and Tutankhamun become king after/during a period of instability, and Tutankhamun adopts, knowingly? the device of using names from both sides in order to smooth a transition back to normality.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

A new book covering Amarna should be of interest. It's "Pharaohs of the Sun" by Guy de la Bédoyère. I'm not going get into doing a proper review as this is not the place, though I will point out why I think this is worth getting. Bédoyère, while having dabbled in Ancient Egypt, is known as a classicist and has no drum to beat about any aspect of Ancient Egypt, and in that respect his book follows the excellent book on Akhenaten by Ronald Ridley, a historian but not an Egyptologist with a personal point of view to put forward, and indeed Ridley is one of those credited by Bédoyère in helping him with his book, also Dodson I'll point out.

The book covers the entire 18th Dynasty, with an epilogue stretching to the early Ramesides, and so in just the one book we can trace the course that led to Akhenaten, something lacking in many other books that assume knowledge and deal with Amarna with perhaps too tight a focus. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think Bédoyère's book will be very useful for those starting on a journey into the Amarna tarpits. Of particular use are the appendices, all 113 pages of them which include a very good glossary of terms and titles, which appear in transliterated (MdC) and then translated forms, something the "deep" books on the topic do not do as it is assumed only Egyptologists will read them and will have no need of translations. There is also a good timeline of the entire 18th Dynasty, which as well as providing the dates for the major events, also gives dates for the eclipses, a topic that does not usually appear in publications about Amarna, but  was of use in the Box 001K thread elsewhere. I've not read the entire book yet, I only got it a few days ago, but have dipped into parts and like what I see.

[Wepwawet]

Hawass to announce next October how Tutankhamun died, and reveal how the mummies of Nefertiti and Ankhesnamun have been identified by DNA

Hawass announcements

Presumably newer and better results have been obtained from KV21A, if this mummy is going to be proclaimed to be Akhesenamun, though no matter the result, DNA cannot give a name, only be part of circumstantial evidence, and guesswork. Also not sure how DNA can give a name to, presumably KV35YL, but I guess we'll find out in October.

On the other hand, being able to finally determine a cause of death for Tutankhamun is plausible.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

15 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Hawass to announce next October how Tutankhamun died, and reveal how the mummies of Nefertiti and Ankhesnamun have been identified by DNA

Hawass announcements

Presumably newer and better results have been obtained from KV21A, if this mummy is going to be proclaimed to be Akhesenamun, though no matter the result, DNA cannot give a name, only be part of circumstantial evidence, and guesswork. Also not sure how DNA can give a name to, presumably KV35YL, but I guess we'll find out in October.

On the other hand, being able to finally determine a cause of death for Tutankhamun is plausible.

So they must've more or less linked the two ladies genetically as mother/daughter, and also with Tiye as grandma; the respective names they assume....I assume.     I suppose they would seek to link KV21A with Tut if possible, establishing a sibling connection.  And also link with the two foetuses (did they get any genetic data from them?)   Interesting isn't it that KV35YM still hasn't been 'included' in the genetic revelations, yet there he was right next to Tiye and KV35YL.  But he gets no respect.  s/

Surely by now they've tested him.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

9 hours ago, Wistman said:

So they must've more or less linked the two ladies genetically as mother/daughter, and also with Tiye as grandma; the respective names they assume....I assume.     I suppose they would seek to link KV21A with Tut if possible, establishing a sibling connection.  And also link with the two foetuses (did they get any genetic data from them?)   Interesting isn't it that KV35YM still hasn't been 'included' in the genetic revelations, yet there he was right next to Tiye and KV35YL.  But he gets no respect.  s/

Surely by now they've tested him.

I think it worth having a recap on what the official positions are on all of this, and by that I mean the positions of those who actually carried out the research in their scientific capacity, or, in the case of Hawass, his position as an Egyptologist with direct access to the mummies and his position within Egypt and his levels of access and, at least in the past, control over access to the physical remains and scientific data

I'll paraphrase and then quote from the 2020 paper by Gad et al published in Guardian of Ancient Egypt on page 498

Gad first lays out the position that Yuya and Thuya are the parents of Tiye and that she and Amunhotep III are the parents of KV55 and KV35YL who are in turn the parents of Tutankhamun. He then states, and I quote:
 

Quote

Consolidating these findings with the historical records, KV55 could be identified as Akhenaten and KV35EL as Queen Tiye.

Now for my opinion on the quote above. Three of these seven mummies, Yuya, Thuya and Tutankhamun, were found in their, mostly, intact burials and there is zero doubt as to their identity. There has been doubt as to the identity of the mummy of Amunhotep III due to his mummification being unlike any other late 18th Dynasty mummies, however, there can be no doubt that this is in fact Amunhotep III by a "count back" from Tutankhamun to him, and this also fixes KV55 and KV35YL inbetween Tutankhamun and Amunhotep III, and with the identity of the former Older Lady also being fixed as Tiye, as the author of the above quote states. Identifying KV55 as Akhenaten is in a way a 50/50 guess. Certainly he is a son of Amunhotep III and Tiye, but despite it being "obvious", that this is Akhenaten, it is not a closed case, and I'll now make a couple of quotes from Scanning the Pharaohs by Hawass and Saleem, both from page 123.

Quote

However, our CT scans did not rule out the possibility that the mummy found in KV55 could have reached forty at death. We thus suggest that the body found in KV55, the father of Tutankhamun, is most likely Akhenaten -- he is displayed with this identification at the Egyptian Museum. But since we know so little about Smenkhkhare, he cannot be completely ruled out.

And this, on the discovery that KV35YL was the full sister of KV55 and mother of Tutankhamun.

Quote

With this discovery, we now know that it is unlikely that either of Akhenaten's known wives, Nefertiti and Kiya, was Tutankhamun's mother, since there is no evidence from the historical record that either was Akhenaten's sister. Just which of Akhenaten's many sisters is the Younger Lady will probably never be known -- he seems to have had almost forty, including five probable full sisters.

I do think that KV55 is Akhenaten, primarily on the basis of the lowest estimate of the age of the mummy given by Hawass and Saleem of about 35, which IMO precludes any possibility of this mummy being Smenkhkhare, and lower age estimates by others in the past, around 20-25, are still far too high for Smenkhkhare. My reasons, as dicussed in a number of previous posts, are that I believe Smenkhkhare to be the oldest son of Akhenaten, and therefore could not have been more than 14, and probably less, when it seems that he was co-regent, centered on year 15 of Akhenaten, and certainly dead by the time Nefertiti transforms into king Ankhetkheperure Neferneferuaten some time after the year 16 graffito naming her still as GRW, and before the death of Akhenaten in his year 17.

So, there is some area of doubt in the minds of the experts with access to the mummies and raw scientific data as to the identity of KV55, though it's highly likely that this is Akhenaten. However, there is a major issue in identifying who KV35YL is, and I'll point out that while in the paper by Gad et al they do name the otherwise unlabelled Older Lady as Tiye, and while there is some small doubt, name KV55 as Akhenaten, they do not at any time give any identity, and certainly not by name, to KV35YL other than what the DNA shows to be her blood relationship to others mummies. Hawass and Saleem preclude this mummy from being Nefertiti, and I mentioned in an earlier post that in an interview on a German TV documentary she let slip that she thinks the YL is in fact aged between 20 and 25. I supect that Hawass wants to keep to the 30-35 range so as to leave the door open for her being Nefertiti, despite what is said in the book by him and Saleem regarding age.

I suspect that in October KV21A will be proclaimed to be Ankhesenamun, and KV21B to be Nefertiti, as the result of being able to get better resolution from the DNA tests of both of those mummies and the two fetuses. I think this could be possible for naming Ankhesenamun, but, if KV21B does get named as Nefertiti, I'm not sure what the evidence will be, a relationship between her, KV21A, the fetuses, and, Tiye and her parents perhaps, but not to Amunhotep III.

They really do need to test not just the KV35YM and Thutmose IV, but also Amunhotep II and Thutmose III. The latest results did show a link between Amunhotep III and Yuya, though a bit faint, so surely this could be better resolved by testing Thutmose IV, a contemporary of Yuya and potential brother in law, or cousin as I'm fairly certain these "commoner" marriages were in fact with cadet branches of the Thutmosid line, or back to Ahmose if Thutmose I was not a direct part of the family, but I think he was at least a cousin of Amunhotep I.

Edit: I know that KV21B has been linked to being Nefertiti before, and often rejected as such, however, as no new discovery of a tomb and mummy has been announced, I really don't see what choice there is other than between  KV21B and the YL, and if he says Nefertiti is the YL, then given his previous statements he needs to have found some very pressing reasons to do so, other than hype in the centenary year....

Edited August 5, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

I'd say the names Nefertiti and Ankhesenamun have a media ring to them that Hawass, the shrewd political and professional celebrity, would seek to push and capitalize on, if possible.  I know that sounds scurrilous, but his past actions (or lack thereof) stick to his name.  We'll just have to wait and see his evidence.  If the other, male, Royal mummies' genetics have been neglected or suppressed, then questions arise.  Hawass and his team's obvious selectivity of tested subjects is so obvious by now that I wonder how long professional Egyptologists will continue to wait before calling him out, loudly.  Revelations of certain subjects' genetic evidence alongside the suppression of other relevant subjects' genetic evidence is just plain shady practice, and gives weight to the assumption that those absent mummies' genetics may likely contradict the team's preferred theory, or that for some reason the team suspects that those test results may do so if carried out and published.

So, still assuming a bit, if the two female, highly decomposed, mummies from KV21 are worth testing then what is the excuse for neglecting KV35YM after his companion mummies in KV35 had already been tested a decade earlier?  Likewise, if Nefertiti is proclaimed to be KV35YL, then again what is the excuse for suppressing the YM's tests, or of the earlier Thutmosid pharaohs?  There is no excuse, plain and simple, unless those genetic tests would undercut the team's stated findings (assuming that sufficient usable DNA is/was available from those, relatively intact, mummies.)

But maybe I rant for no good reason and all of these mummies' genetic profiles will be shown to us in October.  Which would be great.

eta:  I'm eager to learn Tut's precise cause of death, and how they have determined it.  How about the others?  Tiye?  KV55...he's in poor shape, maybe not.  Maybe Hawass and team only care about Tut....the famous one.    Okay, I'll stop.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wistman said:

But maybe I rant for no good reason and all of these mummies' genetic profiles will be shown to us in October.  Which would be great.

You're right. I think everything about these tests seems a bit off in who was left out, or maybe were tested but their results never published. We know it's bizarre that other mummies were not tested, or, as in the case of the prince, no results released, so what's the game here.

If I were to be cynical about this I would say that there has been a long term plan to come up with revelations for this year, something to make a fuss about if no new tomb had been found, for instance Hawass drawing a blank in the Valley wadi of the Monkeys were he was certain he would find Akhesenamun, but now miraculously seems to have done so via DNA with an existing mummy. Then there is this, what I find to be startling revelation, that as a result of the latest scans in, above and around KV62, Hawass took it all down to bedrock and found no entrance to this large void right by KV62. I mentioned in an earlier post that if no entrance has been found on the surface, then, if man made and not a large natural void, the entrance must be in KV62, and Reeves is correct, maybe not about finding Smenkhkhare/Nefertiti, but about there being an extension to KV62. Maybe there will be some "breaking news" in the next few months, I hope so.

Just imagine if it has been discovered that there is a corridor leading north from the KV62 burial chamber, the temptation to at least bore a hole through from the "treasury" on Friday November 4th, exactly 100 years after Carter Hussein Abdel Rasoul found the tomb, would be hard to avoid, and the sort of thing that would put Hawass into the history books, and leave Reeves sitting at home watching it all TV. I'm being too cynical, aren't I.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

21 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

You're right. I think everything about these tests seems a bit off in who was left out, or maybe were tested but their results never published. We know it's bizarre that other mummies were not tested, or, as in the case of the prince, no results released, so what's the game here.

If I were to be cynical about this I would say that there has been a long term plan to come up with revelations for this year, something to make a fuss about if no new tomb had been found, for instance Hawass drawing a blank in the Valley wadi of the Monkeys were he was certain he would find Akhesenamun, but now miraculously seems to have done so via DNA with an existing mummy. Then there is this, what I find to be startling revelation, that as a result of the latest scans in, above and around KV62, Hawass took it all down to bedrock and found no entrance to this large void right by KV62. I mentioned in an earlier post that if no entrance has been found on the surface, then, if man made and not a large natural void, the entrance must be in KV62, and Reeves is correct, maybe not about finding Smenkhkhare/Nefertiti, but about there being an extension to KV62. Maybe there will be some "breaking news" in the next few months, I hope so.

Just imagine if it has been discovered that there is a corridor leading north from the KV62 burial chamber, the temptation to at least bore a hole through from the "treasury" on Friday November 4th, exactly 100 years after Carter Hussein Abdel Rasoul found the tomb, would be hard to avoid, and the sort of thing that would put Hawass into the history books, and leave Reeves sitting at home watching it all TV. I'm being too cynical, aren't I.

If I remember correctly, the Discovery channel financed and filmed the Ankhesenamun dig in the VotM, anticipating a fabulous conclusion for a TV special.  Alas. 

Interesting about the KV62 refocus.  That tomb has an unusual, to say the least, floor plan.   Hawass may yet get his fabulous revelation, and a super-duper redemption from his Discovery media financiers.  I can't say I wouldn't like to see it though, fingers crossed.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

I do wonder, @Wistman, exactly what goes on in the background when these documentaries are made, and if what we are shown is really the full story.

The actual testing on the three KV35 Jc mummies was carried out in 2007, and the studies on them and the other mummies concluded in 2009. Then we have the Discovery Channel documentary "King Tut Unwrapped", shown in 2010, and it was from taking a screenshot where genetic data could be seen on a technician's monitor, that this guy in Switzerland worked out Tut's European haplogroup. Yet, we have to fast forward 10 years before the full results were presented, which not only confirmed the unofficial haplogroup result, but doubled down on it. Why 10 years of silence with only very basic information released on Jama that anybody can access, but can see only "blunt" familial relationships, until the 2020 paper of course.

I've mentioned before that the scene inside KV35 were we see the YL and Tiye on a tressel table having a sample taken, is identical to what we see in the two images of the prince. We see Hawass, Dr Ashraf Salim and a female technician, who I believe is a member of Gad's team, in the same places around the table for all three mummies. If they were not going to take a sample from the prince, why even take him out of Jc, causing damage to him, you can see bits of him fallen off, and place him on the table, and film this. Therefore I am convinced there are DNA results for him, and we still wait after 15 years. There's a somewhat curious thing that while this documentary was produced by Discovery, the two images of the prince came from NatGeo. I long ago lost the original link to the images, but the link went to some archive at NatGeo, not Discovery. I'ts probably nothing, but I get the sense that both companies were involved, but for whatever reason only part of the entire story was ever told, and that by Discovery. We all know of course that this year is going to come, so I would not be surprised if information has been kept back, and if there is anything "world shattering" it would be too early even now as attention spans are short and info given out now would be old news by November, at least for most people.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

I've just seen an issue with the name Smenkhkhare which I don't remember seeing addressed in the way I am going to do, but probably is in some paper I've never seen or heard of.

It has been discussed here and elsewhere that the name Smenkhkhare is composed more like a throne name than a given name, that the name is not the person's original name, but a construct to suit political/religious purposes. The name is really out of left field anyway for a Thutmosid given name, but does fit in with their throne names, and I'll list them in order:

Ahmose - Nebpehtyre

Amunhotep I - Djeserkare

Thutmose I - Aakhepererkare

Thutmose II - Akheperenre

Hatshepsut - Maatkare

Thutmose III - Menkheperre

Amunhotep II - Akheperure

Thutmose IV - Menkheperure

Amunhotep III - Nebmaatre

Amunhotep IV/Akhenaten - Neferkheperure

Every one of them is a "Re". So there is that much to argue about Smenkhkhare being more like a throne name than a given name, but the additional point I'll make is that we see a shift in the type of name used in the royal family after Year 9, the year when the name for the Aten was changed to exclude Shu and Ra-Horakhty, and focus on Ra, and it goes, "The living Ra, ruler of the two horizons, rejoices in the horizon in his name as Ra the father who comes in the Aten". Ra is more prominent than Aten, and it's after this name change of the god that Neferneferure and Setepenre appear, though how long after is another matter. There is also the question of Tutankhaten, possibly born in year 10, but maybe Akhenaten did not decide immediately to give new children Ra names.

Smenkhkhare, IMO, has therefore appeared as a name after year 9, and there is no trace of this person until after the year 12 durbar anyway, and as Smenkhkhare cannot have been co-ruler with Meritaten as his GRW as, what, a four or five year old named Smenkhkhare at birth after year 9, he has to have been born earlier in the reign and had a name change, I think. So it looks to me that this is not just a case of Smenkhkhare looking more like a throne name than a given name, arguable of course, but that it was not the person's orginal name, but as they appear while Nefertiti is still GRW in that name, it cannot also be her as Reeves suggests. So, I contend, we cannot find out who Smenkhkhare is because this is not their birth name, and as princes are mostly annonymous, one mention only of the future Akhenaten before he becomes king, we can have no idea of who they were before this possible name change.

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Wepwawet