Amarna, Before and After

[Wistman]

Well, I must admit that your idea wrt the Yr 5 boundary stela is most clever and logical.  Looking around, I haven't found any similar arguments using this reference, and I think it's compelling.

In searching, I came across this 2019 paper by Jose Lull, A Chronological Perspective on the Transition from Amenhotep III to Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten;  it's comprehensive and presents a weight of evidence (some of which you've laid out above) against the coregency, and unlike the short Dodson paper, this one is so fulsome it has me for the moment at least switching my preference to agreement with you re the non-coregency and against Ibrahim et al's statement of conclusiveness by way of the Vizier Huy's Asasif tomb inscriptions.  Your point about the boundary stela is not presented, but there's references to the stela as well as much more that I think will interest you, including Hittite material and an absolute chronology using archaeoastronomical data.  You may be familiar with it already, but I put it here for others as well.  Here's the link to automatically download the pdf.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Wistman

[Wistman]

11 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Some strange stuff about the mummy of Amunhotep III.

Because the type of mummification was like that of the 21th Dynasty and not the 18th, a question mark has always hung over the identity of this mummy, though the DNA has finally put this speculation in it's coffin. However, this unusual mummification still needs explaining, and in the article I link to they mention comments by Joann Fletcher. Scroll down about half way to reach the part about Amunhotep III.

That the flesh has gone from his face is explained by saying that G.E. Smith thought it was because the mummy had been left exposed by robbers. This is possible, but he just happens to be the only king whose face has gone. Thutmose III was hacked to pieces by robbers, but his face is still presentable. So, going back to Fletcher, and an implication that Amunhotep III was subjected to not so much mummification as taxidermy, and had been made to look like a golden statue, I wonder if the flesh from his face was gone not so much due to robbers, but that it had in fact been left exposed to an extent, perhaps a gold mask had been placed over his face, that had been preserved, but not wrapped in order to maintain life like dimensions. This makes me wonder if Amunhotep III had been buried in the normal way, but perhaps may have been "on show" in some form in some locality, as a "golden 'living' Aten", something like the ka statues, but before he had been eventually laid to rest his face had badly deteriorated.

I have no idea if there is anything in this, probably not, but how else is the unusual state of his mummy to be explained. It paints quite a garish picture though of the dead king "stuffed" and put on show as if he were still alive. Akhenaten behaving like Norman Bates ?

I've read some references to the unusual (for D18) mummification of AIII, but this is new to me.  However, because of the politically opportunistic displays of Evita Peron and Lenin's preserved corpses among others, as well as religious displays of some Catholic saints' bodies, I can well believe it, and it fits in well with your points about Akhenaten referring to AIII having become glorified into the Aten itself after his body...umm...changed.     

[Aldebaran]

On 8/29/2022 at 9:24 AM, Wistman said:

Yes I read that and thought pretty much what you do.  Things are being repressed, as in KV35YM's genetic testing.  And Hawass seems to be playing a PR game, maybe is deleting/massaging the test results for a desired, PR driven, outcome.  Something smells bad.

Maybe it's the understanding of you and Wepwawet of the entire process of utilizing microbiology on the royal mummies that stinks.  You suspect conspiracies on the part of others but nobody could be more misleading than the two of you with your dodgy conclusions.   I dislike discussing anything with the two of you as you don't know how to engage in a scholarly discussion--or refuse to.  When asked pointed questions, you don't reply.  But someone must intervene.

Wepwawet sees the KV35YM on a table with people standing near him and simply assumes from that that the mummy is being subjected to DNA sampling--when he can just as easily have been in the CT-scan room--or somewhere else.  Years ago, when Nasri Iskander came near the mummies, he wore a white coat and mask, too.  Perhaps there will be a forthcoming paper about the prince one day but why should anything about him be repressed?  It's ridiculous.  Hawass was associated with the  first DNA paper, published in 2010 and the recent second one is part of a publication in his honor but he did not write either one of them.  You know who wrote those papers--microbiologists.  They are not going to "delete/massage" anything for anybody.  For example, it wouldn't have been hard to make KV21A look like a daughter of KV55--but it wasn't done.  She was suggested as Ankhesenamun but there was nothing conclusive there in 2010.  

Why were the KV21 mummies and the foetuses omitted from the 2020 paper?  Their partial autosomal profiles were published in 2010 but mitochondrial DNA is easier to obtain and it can have come out that the haplogroups of the mummies didn't fit to other females in the family.  Or perhaps they did and they will get a paper of their own.  Why don't you wait and find out?  Just because things aren't done according to some time table you've devised, that doesn't mean a conspiracy is in the works.

I am waiting to learn what Zahi Hawass has to say--but there had best be a scientific paper to back that up.  I don't accept science as hearsay pronounced by someone who is not learned in microbiology.  Show me the alleles so that I can study the DNA picture for myself.  

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Aldebaran

[Wepwawet]

7 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

 

Wepwawet sees the KV35YM on a table with people standing near him and simply assumes from that that the mummy is being subjected to DNA sampling--when he can just as easily have been in the CT-scan room--or somewhere else. 

 

 

 

 

You are being very disingenuous. This is not a CT scan room, it is the burial chamber of KV35, and you know it is. In the documentary about the DNA testing, "King Tut Unwrapped" we see both the YL and Tiye in the same tomb being tested. At that time all three chamber Jc mummies were still kept in KV35 and moved to Cairo some years later. If he is not being tested, what on earth are they doing then.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

10 hours ago, Wistman said:

Well, I must admit that your idea wrt the Yr 5 boundary stela is most clever and logical.  Looking around, I haven't found any similar arguments using this reference, and I think it's compelling.

In searching, I came across this 2019 paper by Jose Lull, A Chronological Perspective on the Transition from Amenhotep III to Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten;  it's comprehensive and presents a weight of evidence (some of which you've laid out above) against the coregency, and unlike the short Dodson paper, this one is so fulsome it has me for the moment at least switching my preference to agreement with you re the non-coregency and against Ibrahim et al's statement of conclusiveness by way of the Vizier Huy's Asasif tomb inscriptions.  Your point about the boundary stela is not presented, but there's references to the stela as well as much more that I think will interest you, including Hittite material and an absolute chronology using archaeoastronomical data.  You may be familiar with it already, but I put it here for others as well.  Here's the link to automatically download the pdf.

Ocassionaly the the boiler gets up to operating pressure and the gears start turning as they should and the locomotive moves forward a bit

There are parts of that I've not come across before, the Lunar Days for instance, which seems very imPortant and I'll have to get my head around this.

It's also interesting that the author points out that when there is reference to Amunhotep III during the reign of Akhenaten, almost always in private tombs, suspicious in itself, oops, "conspiracy", just like with the boundary stelae, only his prenomen is used. So, if AIII were alive for the first eight years of Akhenaten's reign, is he okay with being reduced to having only one cartouche because his birth name is now anathema.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

11 hours ago, Wistman said:

I've read some references to the unusual (for D18) mummification of AIII, but this is new to me.  However, because of the politically opportunistic displays of Evita Peron and Lenin's preserved corpses among others, as well as religious displays of some Catholic saints' bodies, I can well believe it, and it fits in well with your points about Akhenaten referring to AIII having become glorified into the Aten itself after his body...umm...changed.     

The saints in some Italian churches I've seen, some where the wax has fallen off and made part of the skull visible, and there is the garish display of exposed mummies of priests in their vestments in some churches, very strange.

Perhaps this scene in TA26 chamber gamma can be revisited. Here is Akhenaten and Nefertiti  mourning at an efigy of the dead Meketaten.

We know that at burials the mummy of the deceased is on show in a standing position, then the openeing of the mouth ceremony is performed and they are interred in their coffins. If a king you will have "guardian" statues, as did Tutankhamun, and they had ka statues to receive offerings as well, Tutankhamun's would have been in his mortuary chapel, but I don't recall seeing a scene like this were there is an efigy of the deceased being mourned, and I think it may well be another thing that is unique to Amarna. Are there actual mortuary efigies still to be found, even if in pieces, or will they not be found because, and this is just a guess, these efigies were not in a mortuary setting, but in the palace. What leads me to think that at least this efigy of Meketaten was in the palace was that, uniquely for Amarna, we have these three deathbed scenes within the palace, so that is a taboo broken for a start.

I don't doubt that Meketaten and the other two princesses were buried in TA26, after all it is a tomb, not a mortuary chapel, but I wonder if, at least in the case of Amunhotep III, he was "mounted" as an efigy in the palace to be worshipped, only being buried when the experiment collapsed, but if so, what would Tiye have thought of this treatment of her husband which denied him entrance to the Duat as an Osiris, and daily ressurection with Ra. But, there were none of these things in "Atenism" anyway.

I know I'm going out on a limb here, but it's only looking at possibilities in an era where religious normality was thrown out the window. The Aten is omnipresent, as the Sun is omnipresent during the day, but when we have these scenes of Akhenaten and Nefertiti offering to the Aten, I wonder if they are always taking place in an outdoor Aten temple, or, in the palace to poor old Amunhotep III turned into a garish efigy, but is only depicted as the solar disc with it's rays of light The efigy of Meketaten hints of a possibility, as does the very longstanding use of the ka statue as a focal point of offering for a deceased king. Has Akhenaten been creative in adapting the old to fit in with his new religion. I honestly don't know, but can the possibility be discounted with a wave of the hand when normality had been turned on it's head anyway?

Edited September 6, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Smenkhkare as a nomen is seen as unusual as it looks like a prenomen, but what is generally lacking is some context as to how unusual his name is, so, some context.

Of the 218 kings from Dynasty 1 to Nectanebo at the end of Dynasty 30 who we have at least one name for, 166 have a "re" prenomen. The bulk of those without a "re" prenomen are in Dynasty 1 to 4 inclusive.

Of these 218 kings, before the 11 Ramesses, only 7 have "re" as an element in their nomen, 5 of these are in Dynasties 4 and 5, Rahotep in Dynasty 17 and Smenkhkare in Dynasty 18.

In Dynasty 13 we see two kings with a prenomen which is similar to Smenkhkare, these are Sekhemkare and Smenkare. The balance of opinion, which differs of course, says that neither of these names, even Smenkare, is exactly the same as Smenkhkare, though I don't think this actually matters as they are both prenomens, the salient point.

Looking at kings who have a "re" prenomen and nomen, there are 13 out of the 218. The Dynasty 17 Sekhemre Rahotep, the Dynasty 18 Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare and the eleven kings named Ramesses, who all have a "re" prenomen, such as Usermaatre. However, Rahotep and Ramesses are normal birth names, leaving Smenkhkare the odd one out.

So, Ankhkheperure is the prenomen, no problems, but Smenkhkare or names very similar, have never been used as a nomen, only a prenomen. Therefore, while Sekhemre Rahotep and the Ramessides do not show any issues at all, except the rarity of any king having a "re" element to his prenomen and nomen, Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare sticks out above every other king in the entirety of their history in the formation of his name. Why we have two kings during the reign of Akhenaten having the same prenomen, with male and female variants, is another matter.

Edit: I'm pretty sure I've got these numbers right, though I may have missed one or two, and there will be names that can be translated in different ways which may, or may not, alter slightly these numbers. I am though certain that Smenkhkare as a nomen is not normal and is part of a construct, like the name Akhenaten itself.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

9 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

You are being very disingenuous. This is not a CT scan room, it is the burial chamber of KV35, and you know it is. In the documentary about the DNA testing, "King Tut Unwrapped" we see both the YL and Tiye in the same tomb being tested. At that time all three chamber Jc mummies were still kept in KV35 and moved to Cairo some years later. If he is not being tested, what on earth are they doing then.

Just looking at the mummy?  He was found in that tomb, after all, with the two females who did have their DNA tested--but my point was that any examination of the mummy anywhere else would have the people involved wearing protective covering.  Do you see anyone boring into the bone of the mummy to obtain a sample?  That's how the bits of marrow of the mummies in the study were obtained.  When I read the statement of a microbiologist saying that a sample had been derived from the young prince or look at his DNA, then I'll know it was done.  Thus far it's lacking.

[Wepwawet]

45 minutes ago, Aldebaran said:

Just looking at the mummy?  He was found in that tomb, after all, with the two females who did have their DNA tested--but my point was that any examination of the mummy anywhere else would have the people involved wearing protective covering.  Do you see anyone boring into the bone of the mummy to obtain a sample?  That's how the bits of marrow of the mummies in the study were obtained.  When I read the statement of a microbiologist saying that a sample had been derived from the young prince or look at his DNA, then I'll know it was done.  Thus far it's lacking.

I would be surprised if you had not seen the documentary, it was after all the most important documentary on Amarna to date, therefore you would have seen that there was a large gaggle of people in the burial chamber, and more than these three wearing masks and gowns. In the documentary you will also have seen a bore being used on both Tiye and the YL. For whatever reason, the prince was never included in the documentary. If you will not believe he was not tested because a microbiologist has not said he was, then that is your affair. What reason could they have for laying him out like this, exactly where Tiye and the YL were laid out, and why are all three wearing masks and gowns.

[Wepwawet]

Getting back on track, here's a further observation on whether or not there was a co-regency between Amunhotep III and Akhenaten, and I'm trying to apply the information from Martin Pehal's "New Kingdom royal succession strategies" to Amarna, which he curiously does not touch on at all.

The Abydos king list is in fact a  device to show the legitimacy of Seti I to rule and of his son Ramesses to follow him. The kings missing from the list are not so much excluded because they were "bad", but because they had, in Egyptian terms, no legitimacy. There is no sign that Thutmose III "hated" his aunt Hatshepsut and so wrote her out of history, it is a case that he had to as he needed for his own legitimacy to follow directly from Thutmose II. Likewise we have Horemheb following on directly from Amunhotep III, and I think he does this not to specifically anathemize Ay and Tutankhamun, but because they were seen as having no legitimacy. The usual explanation for the damnatio memoriae on the Amarna monarchs is that they were all beyond the pale and had to be brushed under the carpet and forgotten, but apart from Akhenaten specifically I'm not sure now that this was fully the case.

As far as Akhenaten goes there is nothing to suggest that he was anything other than the legitimate heir to Amunhotep III, but due to his "rebellion" it was not possible for Horemheb to claim legitimacy from him, even with four kings inbetween them. Presumably Nefertiti has to be seen as illegitimate as she has stepped out from the normal succession mechanism, as had Hatshepsut, and cannot fit into the "rules" laid out in the "Contendings of Set and Horus". Therefore, no matter now interesting and intriguing she is, Nefertiti has to be, by the Egyptian's terms of kingly legitimacy, excluded as a true king and seen only as the GRW of Akhenaten. Smenkhkhare, even as a brother to Akhenaten when that king has a son, has a legitimate right ot be king according to the convolutions of the "contendings", though this legitimacy may be questioned depending on who he claims his father is. If a brother of Akhenaten he will of course be a son of Amunhotep III, but we have no idea who he claims to be the son of, the generic "Son of Ra" part of his title does not indicate who his actual father was. Akhenaten is the also "Son of Ra", but he claims as his father not Amunhotep III, but, as discussed in a post above, the Aten who seems to also be the now dead Amunhotep III.

Ra is not fully synonymous with the Aten as the Aten is the physical disc seen in the daytime sky, while Ra has an existance also in the Duat, and was present on Earth in, it seems, human/ish form before the "Rebellion of Mankind" and then Sekhmet lets go with her heat ray. Akhenaten though, legitimizes himself, with I think heretically, Nefertiti, as the "children" of Atum, Shu and Tefnut, who also form part of the early name of the Aten. This somewhat bypasses several generations after Ra and excludes Isis, Osiris, Set and Horus, whose story creates the legitimacy of the foundation of the Egyptian state in the form of the Horus king of Upper and Lower Egypt. Akhenaten later ditches Shu and Tefnut, so completely cutting out all the mechanisms that legitimize his rule bar him being the son of the visible aspect of Ra, in it's name of the Aten who is, I'm sure, also his biological father Amunhotep III. You could say that he is still a legitmimate king as he is ultimately the son of his creator god, but he has thrown out the carefully nuanced mechanisms of succession  as laid out in the "contendings".

In the terms of his time, while being born to a mother "impregnated" by Amun, and so legitimizing himself as a son of Amun-Ra, he has de-legitimized himself by denying Amun, and, by inference, denying his mother's role in being "impregnated" by Amun and creating a "divine" son. I would think that any king claiming legitmate right to rule based on a relationship to Akhenaten, either as brother, son or wife, has no legitimacy as Akhenaten has changed the rules and is illegitimate himself. Tutankhamun is in a bad position from the start of his reign, as while all the gods return, he fails to acknowledge a father and mother, he does not, as far as I can see, ever even acknowledge Amunhotep III as his father, and who does Ay name as his father ?. I'm sure that if Tutankhamun had lived longer and produced a male heir who himself lived long enough to have an heir, then we would not be discussing this to the extent that we do, but we end up with, it seems, and I'm sure I've missed things here, a line of five kings with no legitimacy in the way that Egyptians would recognize it.

I can come to two conclusions here. The first is that Horemheb had to claim legitimacy from Amunhotep III as the intervening kings had either no legitimacy or doubtful legitimacy, not because he "hated" them, or at least not Tutankhamun. The seond is that if Amunhotep II had ruled with Akhenaten then I think he would have been compromised as part of a "rebellion". So no matter how Akhenaten refers to his father and essentially includes him in his "rebellion", Amunhotep III escapes censure because he was dead when all this started.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Wepwawet
typos

[Wistman]

4 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Getting back on track, here's a further observation on whether or not there was a co-regency between Amunhotep III and Akhenaten, and I'm trying to apply the information from Martin Pehal's "New Kingdom royal succession strategies" to Amarna, which he curiously does not touch on at all.

The Abydos king list is in fact a  device to show the legitimacy of Seti I to rule and of his son Ramesses to follow him. The kings missing from the list are not so much excluded because they were "bad", but because they had, in Egyptian terms, no legitimacy. There is no sign that Thutmose III "hated" his aunt Hatshepsut and so wrote her out of history, it is a case that he had to as he needed for his own legitimacy to follow directly from Thutmose II. Likewise we have Horemheb following on directly from Amunhotep III, and I think he does this not to specifically anathemize Ay and Tutankhamun, but because they were seen as having no legitimacy. The usual explanation for the damnatio memoriae on the Amarna monarchs is that they were all beyond the pale and had to be brushed under the carpet and forgotten, but apart from Akhenaten specifically I'm not sure now that this was fully the case.

As far as Akhenaten goes there is nothing to suggest that he was anything other than the legitimate heir to Amunhotep III, but due to his "rebellion" it was not possible for Horemheb to claim legitimacy from him, even with four kings inbetween them. Presumably Nefertiti has to be seen as illegitimate as she has stepped out from the normal succession mechanism, as had Hatshepsut, and cannot fit into the "rules" laid out in the "Contendings of Set and Horus". Therefore, no matter now interesting and intriguing she is, Nefertiti has to be, by the Egyptian's terms of kingly legitimacy, excluded as a true king and seen only as the GRW of Akhenaten. Smenkhkhare, even as a brother to Akhenaten when that king has a son, has a legitimate right ot be king according to the convolutions of the "contendings", though this legitimacy may be questioned depending on who he claims his father is. If a brother of Akhenaten he will of course be a son of Amunhotep III, but we have no idea who he claims to be the son of, the generic "Son of Ra" part of his title does not indicate who his actual father was. Akhenaten is the also "Son of Ra", but he claims as his father not Amunhotep III, but, as discussed in a post above, the Aten who seems to also be the now dead Amunhotep III.

Ra is not fully synonymous with the Aten as the Aten is the physical disc seen in the daytime sky, while Ra has an existance also in the Duat, and was present on Earth in, it seems, human/ish form before the "Rebellion of Mankind" and then Sekhmet lets go with her heat ray. Akhenaten though, legitimizes himself, with I think heretically, Nefertiti, as the "children" of Atum, Shu and Tefnut, who also form part of the early name of the Aten. This somewhat bypasses several generations after Ra and excludes Isis, Osiris, Set and Horus, whose story creates the legitimacy of the foundation of the Egyptian state in the form of the Horus king of Upper and Lower Egypt. Akhenaten later ditches Shu and Tefnut, so completely cutting out all the mechanisms that legitimize his rule bar him being the son of the visible aspect of Ra, in it's name of the Aten who is, I'm sure, also his biological father Amunhotep III. You could say that he is still a legitmimate king as he is ultimately the son of his creator god, but he has thrown out the carefully nuanced mechanisms of succession  as laid out in the "contendings".

In the terms of his time, while being born to a mother "impregnated" by Amun, and so legitimizing himself as a son of Amun-Ra, he has de-legitimized himself by denying Amun, and, by inference, denying his mother's role in being "impregnated" by Amun and creating a "divine" son. I would think that any king claiming legitmate right to rule based on a relationship to Akhenaten, either as brother, son or wife, has no legitimacy as Akhenaten has changed the rules and is illegitimate himself. Tutankhamun is in a bad position from the start of his reign, as while all the gods return, he fails to acknowledge a father and mother, he does not, as far as I can see, ever even acknowledge Amunhotep III as his father, and who does Ay name as his father ?. I'm sure that if Tutankhamun had lived longer and produced a male heir who himself lived long enough to have an heir, then we would not be discussing this to the extent that we do, but we end up with, it seems, and I'm sure I've missed things here, a line of five kings with no legitimacy in the way that Egyptians would recognize it.

I can come to two conclusions here. The first is that Horemheb had to claim legitimacy from Amunhotep III as the intervening kings had either no legitimacy or doubtful legitimacy, not because he "hated" them, or at least not Tutankhamun. The seond is that if Amunhotep II had ruled with Akhenaten then I think he would have been compromised as part of a "rebellion". So no matter how Akhenaten refers to his father and essentially includes him in his "rebellion", Amunhotep III escapes censure because he was dead when all this started.

This makes sense to me.  Embracing Atenism doomed the Amarna royals' names from Seti's king list because they had abrogated descent from Pharaoh (and Amun, implicitly per mom), which curiously didn't have to be true, only claimed.  And Hatshepsut as royal daughter could grab and hold the throne through regent's power, but as a female could not ultimately be considered legit.  Can we tell if this formula held throughout previous dynastic switches, ie: a claim of kingly descent would do, even where none existed?  After all, Ramesses I had no royal blood either, like Horemheb.  But there had been many dynasties, and the state had to have a mechanism of continuity, even when there was no surviving crown prince?

Edited September 13, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

This makes sense to me.  Embracing Atenism doomed the Amarna royals' names from Seti's king list because they had abrogated descent from Pharaoh (and Amun, implicitly per mom), which curiously didn't have to be true, only claimed.  And Hatshepsut as royal daughter could grab and hold the throne through regent's power, but as a female could not ultimately be considered legit.  Can we tell if this formula held throughout previous dynastic switches, ie: a claim of kingly descent would do, even where none existed?  After all, Ramesses I had no royal blood either, like Horemheb.  But there had been many dynasties, and the state had to have a mechanism of continuity, even when there was no surviving crown prince?

You might want to skip the bulk of this and go straight to the final paragraph, for the sake of sanity if nothing else

On my understanding of this, a king can claim the throne either because he is the son, or other blood relation of the preceeding king, normality, or if the deceased king has no heir the throne can be claimed by the new king becoming his "cultural heir". What happens here is that a king with no sons, and presumably no brothers, can appoint his successor, who then becomes the old king's heir as if he were his bodily son. This is the same mechanism by which the Nerva-Antonine dynasty passed on power in Rome until Marcus Aurelius produced Commodus, and the ensuing chaos. This is the mechanism by which it is thought that Amunhotep I passed on the throne to the unrelated, at least by blood according to the DNA, Thutmose I, and Horemheb passed on the throne to Ramesses I. Even if there has been an interregnum, the first king of the new dynasty can claim to be the "son" of the last king simply by stating that he is, and following due process and naming practices.

This continuity of kingship, even if not continuity of blood, requires the new king to make this continuity clear in his five names, specifically in his Horus name. This name, while seemingly not a great deal, to us, actually puts his kingly/religious parentage into the realm of being the progeny of a god or gods, including Ra and Osiris. This Horus name is part of the kamutef principle, ie that the king is the Strong bull of his Mother, and these Horus names begin with  Ka nakt, or variations thereof. An example is Ka nakt Khaemwaset -  Mighty Bull arising in Thebes, the Horus name of Thutmose III. This name seems to be crucial in tying the new king to the old, even if no mention of the old king is discernible.

Now some illumination, I hope, when we get to the problem kings. Hatshepsut should never have been king, and can never be "Strong bull of his Mother", or any sort of strong bull or mighty or victorious bull, all variants of the same thing essentially. Her Horus name is Weseret kau - powerfull of kas, no bulls involved, and no legitimacy by their longstanding traditions. Akhenaten breaks this as well. Until his year 5 he had five standard names, his Horus name was Ka nakt qai shuti - Victorious bull high of plumes. On his year 5 name changes this becomes Mery Itn - Beloved of Aten. This is really just what could be said to be a generic Aten epithet, and in some case the basis for a personal name, it has no meaning whatsoever for the transmission of kingship, zero. Likewise his Nebty and Golden Horus names are changed from traditional type names to praises to the Aten, again, they are meaningless in the normal concept of kingship. As I wrote in the previous post, Akhenaten has de-legitimized himself, he may even have technically created an interregnum, though that needs some thought, and by experts. We only have the nomen and prenomen for Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten, but Tutankhamun does return to having 5 normal names, but the issue is who is he following on from. As he does not name his father and mother, should it be presumed that he is following three otherwise illegitimate kings, with Ay following suit, thus "forcing" Horemheb to "succeed" Amunhotep III as their has perhaps been an interregnum.

There's more than this, and I could probably put it better as I guess it looks somewhat convoluted and contradictory. So, in short, if you want to be king you just have to say you are the son of the previous king, even if you are not, and even if you are an invader, Nubian, Persian, Greek, and everything is good as long as you follow the correct processes, formalities and naming practices. I mentioned the invaders, but by the Nubian 25th Dynasty some of this had changed, but it certainly holds good up until then.

 

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

this is the mechanism by which it is thought that Amunhotep I passed on the throne to the unrelated, at least by blood according to the DNA, Thutmose I

 

My error as the mummy labelled as Thutmose I is probably not him at all. The mummy seems to be too young, and has an arrow in it's chest. The DNA is way off all this mummies purported descendants as well. On the other hand, we don't know just who Thutmose I actually was, so he likely did become king by being appointed by Amunhotep I.

[Wistman]

On 9/13/2022 at 6:57 AM, Wepwawet said:

Getting back on track, here's a further observation on whether or not there was a co-regency between Amunhotep III and Akhenaten, and I'm trying to apply the information from Martin Pehal's "New Kingdom royal succession strategies" to Amarna, which he curiously does not touch on at all.

The Abydos king list is in fact a  device to show the legitimacy of Seti I to rule and of his son Ramesses to follow him. The kings missing from the list are not so much excluded because they were "bad", but because they had, in Egyptian terms, no legitimacy. There is no sign that Thutmose III "hated" his aunt Hatshepsut and so wrote her out of history, it is a case that he had to as he needed for his own legitimacy to follow directly from Thutmose II. Likewise we have Horemheb following on directly from Amunhotep III, and I think he does this not to specifically anathemize Ay and Tutankhamun, but because they were seen as having no legitimacy. The usual explanation for the damnatio memoriae on the Amarna monarchs is that they were all beyond the pale and had to be brushed under the carpet and forgotten, but apart from Akhenaten specifically I'm not sure now that this was fully the case.

As far as Akhenaten goes there is nothing to suggest that he was anything other than the legitimate heir to Amunhotep III, but due to his "rebellion" it was not possible for Horemheb to claim legitimacy from him, even with four kings inbetween them. Presumably Nefertiti has to be seen as illegitimate as she has stepped out from the normal succession mechanism, as had Hatshepsut, and cannot fit into the "rules" laid out in the "Contendings of Set and Horus". Therefore, no matter now interesting and intriguing she is, Nefertiti has to be, by the Egyptian's terms of kingly legitimacy, excluded as a true king and seen only as the GRW of Akhenaten. Smenkhkhare, even as a brother to Akhenaten when that king has a son, has a legitimate right ot be king according to the convolutions of the "contendings", though this legitimacy may be questioned depending on who he claims his father is. If a brother of Akhenaten he will of course be a son of Amunhotep III, but we have no idea who he claims to be the son of, the generic "Son of Ra" part of his title does not indicate who his actual father was. Akhenaten is the also "Son of Ra", but he claims as his father not Amunhotep III, but, as discussed in a post above, the Aten who seems to also be the now dead Amunhotep III.

Ra is not fully synonymous with the Aten as the Aten is the physical disc seen in the daytime sky, while Ra has an existance also in the Duat, and was present on Earth in, it seems, human/ish form before the "Rebellion of Mankind" and then Sekhmet lets go with her heat ray. Akhenaten though, legitimizes himself, with I think heretically, Nefertiti, as the "children" of Atum, Shu and Tefnut, who also form part of the early name of the Aten. This somewhat bypasses several generations after Ra and excludes Isis, Osiris, Set and Horus, whose story creates the legitimacy of the foundation of the Egyptian state in the form of the Horus king of Upper and Lower Egypt. Akhenaten later ditches Shu and Tefnut, so completely cutting out all the mechanisms that legitimize his rule bar him being the son of the visible aspect of Ra, in it's name of the Aten who is, I'm sure, also his biological father Amunhotep III. You could say that he is still a legitmimate king as he is ultimately the son of his creator god, but he has thrown out the carefully nuanced mechanisms of succession  as laid out in the "contendings".

In the terms of his time, while being born to a mother "impregnated" by Amun, and so legitimizing himself as a son of Amun-Ra, he has de-legitimized himself by denying Amun, and, by inference, denying his mother's role in being "impregnated" by Amun and creating a "divine" son. I would think that any king claiming legitmate right to rule based on a relationship to Akhenaten, either as brother, son or wife, has no legitimacy as Akhenaten has changed the rules and is illegitimate himself. Tutankhamun is in a bad position from the start of his reign, as while all the gods return, he fails to acknowledge a father and mother, he does not, as far as I can see, ever even acknowledge Amunhotep III as his father, and who does Ay name as his father ?. I'm sure that if Tutankhamun had lived longer and produced a male heir who himself lived long enough to have an heir, then we would not be discussing this to the extent that we do, but we end up with, it seems, and I'm sure I've missed things here, a line of five kings with no legitimacy in the way that Egyptians would recognize it.

I can come to two conclusions here. The first is that Horemheb had to claim legitimacy from Amunhotep III as the intervening kings had either no legitimacy or doubtful legitimacy, not because he "hated" them, or at least not Tutankhamun. The seond is that if Amunhotep II had ruled with Akhenaten then I think he would have been compromised as part of a "rebellion". So no matter how Akhenaten refers to his father and essentially includes him in his "rebellion", Amunhotep III escapes censure because he was dead when all this started.

It would seem that AIII never disclaimed his father Thutmose IV by claiming his father as the Aten, as Akhenaten did after his yr 5, yes?  But tell me your reasoning as to why a coregency is further derailed by this since AIII and AIV may have ruled together for a few years with both using their traditional nomens before AIII dies and Akhenaten changes his nomens and titulary, abandoning the rules of the Contendings of Set and Horus, and deligitimizes himself and his Atenist successors.  Did Akhenaten never acknowledge AIII as his father, formally?  Even at the beginning of his reign?

Not that I'm trying to defend the coregency, I'm not.  Just seeking clarity.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

It would seem that AIII never disclaimed his father Thutmose IV by claiming his father as the Aten, as Akhenaten did after his yr 5, yes?  But tell me your reasoning as to why a coregency is further derailed by this since AIII and AIV may have ruled together for a few years with both using their traditional nomens before AIII dies and Akhenaten changes his nomens and titulary, abandoning the rules of the Contendings of Set and Horus, and deligitimizes himself and his Atenist successors.  Did Akhenaten never acknowledge AIII as his father, formally?  Even at the beginning of his reign?

Not that I'm trying to defend the coregency, I'm not.  Just seeking clarity.

To the best of my knowledge Akhenaten never refers to Amunhotep III directly at all, except in the "bad things" part of the year 5 boundary stelae where he places AIII as not reigning with him, but before him. All references Akhenaten makes to a father, or being a son of a father, even as being begotten by this father, are of Hor-Aten up to the name change, and then just Aten.

The Son of Ra part of every kings title since the 4th Dynasty binds the king to Ra by acknowledging Ra as his ultimate father, not biological father. Akhenaten of course still uses this epithet, but, while all kings called themselves the son or beloved of this that or the other god depending on circumstances, Akhenaten exclusively acknowledges only the Aten as a father, or is beloved by him. This is obviously part of the monotheism thing and well known, but he also acknowledges the Aten as his biological father, and from block KHES 180 found in the tenth pylon at Karnak, and dating from when he was still Amunhotep IV, we have "How prosperous is a son who does effective things for his father, who begat him ... your limbs" . This goes further than the generic Son of Ra, Son of Ptah/Amun, or whatever, and, I believe, indicates that he has fused his biological father AIII with the Aten, and can only do this because AIII is dead, just like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense who we all thought was alive almost until the end of the movie, except if you were a Sherlock Holmes.

How does he deligitimize himself, ie, how does he cut the link between him and his predecessors, and so cuts the link for his successors?  The Horus name, the "bull of his mother" in fact shows that a new king has been conceived by his father, and includes within this Nut and the rebirth of Ra. It is also connected to the Osirian ressurection. Akhenaten has removed the ka nakt, as mentioned in the previous post, just as Hatshepsut did. She did so because the kamutef principle can only apply to males, Akhenaten has done so because, it looks, he is not claiming that the previous king, AIII, was his father, but he is "Beloved of the Aten", which looks like he wanted to keep the five names, but made them copy and paste praises to the Aten, and no longer having the meaning they used to have. He has cut himself off from everything that used to be, except the visible disc of the Sun and it's light. Now it could be that in his mind he has not severed this link as AIII was his father of course, but he has excluded him in any explicit way by only having the Aten as his "temporal and spiritual" father. 

Edit: I'll admit that this probably does not look as convincing as it should, but it is, I'm pretty sure, a totally new angle of approach to the co-regency issue in that it tries to show that the way that Akhenaten refers to the Aten, and the absence of direct mention AIII in the present tense, such as the boundary stelae, indicates that AIII is dead at the start of Akhenaten's reign, though, for Akhenaten, lives on within the Aten.

So, if to Akhenaten the Aten is were his biological father now exists, this provides a mechanism by which at least a king can live on after death as they always did. Therefore, without Osiris et al and the Duat, the king on death undergoes apotheosis and straight away becomes one with the Aten, so no need for complicated "road maps" through all the hours and gates fighting of a miriad of demons and doing some weird stuff with Osiris in a hidden chamber.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

46 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

To the best of my knowledge Akhenaten never refers to Amunhotep III directly at all, except in the "bad things" part of the year 5 boundary stelae where he places AIII as not reigning with him, but before him. All references Akhenaten makes to a father, or being a son of a father, even as being begotten by this father, are of Hor-Aten up to the name change, and then just Aten.

The Son of Ra part of every kings title since the 4th Dynasty binds the king to Ra by acknowledging Ra as his ultimate father, not biological father. Akhenaten of course still uses this epithet, but, while all kings called themselves the son or beloved of this that or the other god depending on circumstances, Akhenaten exclusively acknowledges only the Aten as a father, or is beloved by him. This is obviously part of the monotheism thing and well known, but he also acknowledges the Aten as his biological father, and from block KHES 180 found in the tenth pylon at Karnak, and dating from when he was still Amunhotep IV, we have "How prosperous is a son who does effective things for his father, who begat him ... your limbs" . This goes further than the generic Son of Ra, Son of Ptah/Amun, or whatever, and, I believe, indicates that he has fused his biological father AIII with the Aten, and can only do this because AIII is dead, just like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense who we all thought was alive almost until the end of the movie, except if you were a Sherlock Holmes.

How does he deligitimize himself, ie, how does he cut the link between him and his predecessors, and so cuts the link for his successors?  The Horus name, the "bull of his mother" in fact shows that a new king has been conceived by his father, and includes within this Nut and the rebirth of Ra. It is also connected to the Osirian ressurection. Akhenaten has removed the ka nakt, as mentioned in the previous post, just as Hatshepsut did. She did so because the kamutef principle can only apply to males, Akhenaten has done so because, it looks, he is not claiming that the previous king, AIII, was his father, but he is "Beloved of the Aten", which looks like he wanted to keep the five names, but made them copy and paste praises to the Aten, and no longer having the meaning they used to have. He has cut himself off from everything that used to be, except the visible disc of the Sun and it's light. Now it could be that in his mind he has not severed this link as AIII was his father of course, but he has excluded him in any explicit way by only having the Aten as his "temporal and spiritual" father. 

Edit: I'll admit that this probably does not look as convincing as it should, but it is, I'm pretty sure, a totally new angle of approach to the co-regency issue in that it tries to show that the way that Akhenaten refers to the Aten, and the absence of direct mention AIII in the present tense, such as the boundary stelae, indicates that AIII is dead at the start of Akhenaten's reign, though, for Akhenaten, lives on within the Aten.

So, if to Akhenaten the Aten is were his biological father now exists, this provides a mechanism by which at least a king can live on after death as they always did. Therefore, without Osiris et al and the Duat, the king on death undergoes apotheosis and straight away becomes one with the Aten, so no need for complicated "road maps" through all the hours and gates fighting of a miriad of demons and doing some weird stuff with Osiris in a hidden chamber.

 

Got it.  Thank you. 

[docyabut2]

I always thought   Akhenaten; was Moses because his body was never found . and in his Egyptian`s  family a picture of him not  included in his family  is not found 

 

https://study.com/academy/lesson/amenhotep-iii-biography-family-death.html

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by docyabut2

[Wepwawet]

15 hours ago, Wistman said:

Got it.  Thank you. 

Well I'm glad you got it as at times I'm not sure about anything

I've just watched a new video made by an Egyptologist about Akhenaten and Nefertiti's daughters, and it is so full of inconsistencies and presumptions that I wonder if a professional can get it so wrong, what chance do the rest of us stand.

[Wepwawet]

16 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

I always thought   Akhenaten; was Moses because his body was never found . and in his Egyptian`s  family a picture of him not  included in his family  is not found 

 

https://study.com/academy/lesson/amenhotep-iii-biography-family-death.html

 

So, click the link and :

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member

Could you then present in your own words evidence to support the idea that Akhenaten was Moses, 800 years before the emergence of the Hebrews into history.

I'll also recommend a good book dealing with Exodus and Egypt

The Invention of Religion - Faith and Covenant in the Book of Exodus  by Jan Assmann and published in 2018. Assmann comprehensively demolishes the idea that Akhenaten was Moses, though does see the possibility of the transmission of the Great Hymn to the Aten occuring over those centuries. The similarity of the Great Hymn to psalm 104 is very intruiging, though perhaps sometimes it is forgotten that the Great Hymn itself is based on typical New Kingdom hymns to the Sungod, which existed before Akhenaten, and continued to be composed long after him, and the early Hebrews would have presumably had knowledge of them.

[Thanos5150]

23 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Could you then present in your own words evidence to support the idea that Akhenaten was Moses, 800 years before the emergence of the Hebrews into history.

Yeah, I think that was it: "I always thought   Akhenaten; was Moses because his body was never found . and in his Egyptian`s  family a picture of him not  included in his family  is not found". And you want more?

You are saying the Hebrews did not "emerge into history" until c.550BC...?  How'd that be? 

 

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Thanos5150 said:

 

You are saying the Hebrews did not "emerge into history" until c.550BC...?  How'd that be? 

 

What I meant to write was that the book of Exodus and Psalm 104 do not apppear until some 800 years after Akhenaten. I'm also aware of the "Apiru", who if actually Hebrews, where around from before the time of Akhenaten, and besides, the antecedents of the Hebrews had been living in the Levant for millenia anyway.

The bone of contention being that the mythic/literary character Moses does not appear until about 800 years after Akhenaten, and to make Akhenaten and Moses one and the same requires some compelling evidence, of which there is none outside of fantasizing.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

11 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

What I meant to write was that the book of Exodus and Psalm 104 do not apppear until some 800 years after Akhenaten. I'm also aware of the "Apiru", who if actually Hebrews, where around from before the time of Akhenaten, and besides, the antecedents of the Hebrews had been living in the Levant for millenia anyway.

This makes more sense. 

Quote

The bone of contention being that the mythic/literary character Moses does not appear until about 800 years after Akhenaten, and to make Akhenaten and Moses one and the same requires some compelling evidence, of which there is none outside of fantasizing.

Its a special kind of nonsense. 

Moses ladies and gentlemen:

Edited September 16, 2022 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

Moving on, the arguments against Reeve's hypothesis that the north wall scene in KV62 shows Tutankhamun performing the opening the mouth ceremony for his predecessor Neferneferuaten, make more sense if seen in the light of the succession mechanisms discussed in previous posts.

The scene itself is unusual because it shows the new king performing the ceremony, something usually alluded to, not shown. That Ay shows himself performing the ceremony has always been taken to mean that he wanted to make a statement, even if unseen by the population, that he was the legitimate king. As they believed explicitly in magic, as it is depicted in the tomb, then so it is in reality, and in perpetuity. A living king is always the living Horus and his now dead father, even if not his biological father, is now Osiris, thus perpetuating the mechanisms of the "Contendings". The problem for Reeves is that no female "king" can ever be legitimate, that is why all of them are missing from the king lists. Therefore if the scene showed Tutankhamun performing the ceremony, and declaring himself as Horus to the Osiris of Neferneferuaten, he can have no legitimacy as king, which must come from the last male king.

However, I don't think that this precludes the possibility that there is an extension to KV62, or of there having been alterations to the north wall, though the opening of the mouth part has I think to be new and unmodified to show Ay performing the ceremony. Also, despite some seemingly compelling arguments  by Reeves to show what he says are indications that the figure of Ay is in fact Tutankhamun, and that of Tutankhamun to be Neferneferuaten, scans specifically of the paint in the tomb were made in 2017 by Factum Arte. While I've not seen full results published, I did notice an image of a scan on a laptop. This showed the head of Tutankhamun and his cartouche, and it was clear that no alterations had been made to the cartouche to change the name.

[Wepwawet]

Moving further on, and back to Smenkhkare, and a mess of contradictions and some devils advocacy.

Smenkhkare is, according to various theories, a brother of Akhenaten, a son of Akhenaten, or, Nefertiti in her third persona. Only one is correct of course.

Nefertiti as Smenkhkare:

Least likely is that of Smenkhkare being Nefertiti. While it is true that there is not a single date for Smenkhkare, he can be bracketed. He will not be co-ruler in year 12 as while he is not shown at such an important event, his GRW Meritaten is still a princess ranked with her sisters behind their parents. Meritaten is still "king's daughter", and no other title, in the deathbed scenes in TA26, which have to come after year 12 where all six sisters are still alive. Meritaten then takes the place of Kiya, and appears as GRW to Smenkhkare in the tomb of Meryre II. Nefertiti is still GRW to Akhenaten in year 16 as the graffito shows. Box 001K must then have been made after the year 16 graffito as Nefertiti is now co-ruler Ankhetkheperure Neferneferuaten, with Meritaten as GRW either to a joint monarchy, or, as I think, only to Akhenaten. This suggests that Smenkhkare has died between the TA26 deathbed scenes and the creation of Box 001K in either late year 16 or at some point before the death of Akhenaten in year 17, if that is the year he died of course, and the jar docket label is not cast iron evidence as year 17 dockets for Amunhotep III were found at Amarna. The addition of year 1 to this label is though an important element as I wonder if they would use a year 17 jar of Amunhotep III for year 1 of Akhenaten, so in all probablility it shows year 17 of Akhenaten and year 1 of Neferneferuaten.

Contra to this argument that Nefertiti cannot be Smenkhkare is the notion put forward by Reeves that the order of kings is Akhenaten, Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkare. As nothing for Smenkhkare is dated, it is possible that Meritaten was made GRW to Akhenaten when Nefertiti became co-ruler, then Akhenaten dies and Nefertiti changes her nomen from Nefefernefruaten to Smenkhkare, and thus providing a rational reason for seemingly two different kings with the same prenomen, and takes Meritaten as GRW. While all the evidence points to Smenkhkare coming before Neferneferuaten, it could be the case, as Reeves points out, that after about two years of ruling alone after the death of Akhenaten, Nefertiti decides to make a complete break with "Atenism", and while keeping her prenomen, ditches her Aten nomen and also the epithets with her prenomen linking her to Akhenaten. She could at the same time remove the "t" female determinative so as to appear fully as a male king. This rule as Smenkhkare lasts less than a year before "something happens", and is the reason why we have so little evidence for Smenkhkare while we have somewhat more for Neferneferuaten. The unfinished scene of Smenkhkare and Meritaten in the tomb of Meryre II then makes more sense as it is started right at the end of the period before Tutankhamun appears as king.

I've probably made a better case for Reeves than against, but I do not believe that Nefertiti became Smenkhkare, though two kings associated with Akhenaten having the same prenomen is a serious issue which has no easy answer. Though on the other hand the "Coronation hall" at Amarna presents a problem as to why "Nefertiti" is continuing building Aten structures at Amarna if she is suppossed to have returned to the old ways. The "Coronation Hall" looks like it was built during the reign of Akhenaten, not after.

 

Smenkhkare as a brother to Akhenaten:

Now it gets less complicated. At face value this seems to be the solution, and many people believe that he is a brother. The main issue here centers on who the father of Tutankhamun is. If he is the son of Smenkhkare then this would all be cut and dried, no argument. However, the only reference to Tutankhamun before becoming king is on just one broken block from Hermopolis naming his as "King's son of his body". On the other half of this block we probably have the name of Ankhesenpaaten, a known daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. None of the blocks recovered from Hermopolis show any evidence for Smenkhkare in any form whatsoever, therefore I think it should be seen that Tutankhamun is a son of Akhenaten without any evidence contra.

The Contendings of Set and Horus only make provision for a disputed succession between a king's bodily son, Horus, and his uncle, the dead king's brother, Set, and, it seems, an uncle of the dead king. Btw, IF Ay were the father of Nefertiti, a whole other argument, he would have a legitimate claim to the throne over Tutankhamun by being the "brother" to Amunhotep III, but this gets to esoteric and complicated for now I think. So the isuue is that as, by all probability, Akhenaten has a son, there is no mechanism by which a brother of his can claim the throne while Akhenaten still lives, and no mechanism by which, in normal circumstances, Akhenaten can disinherit his own son.

The state of Akhenaten's health, of which we know nothing at all, should have no impact on the succession at all as long as he has a son, which he does, therefore he does not need to make any putative brother co-regent. If Akhenaten died when Tutankhamun was only one year old, it makes zero difference, and Thutmose III was only about two when his father died, Pepi II became king at six, and history is littered with juvenile kings, Edward VI of England, Louis XIV of France for example. And even when he emerges as king, Tutankhamun is only around nine. To me, Akhenaten needing to appoint a brother as co-regent, for any reason whatsoever, when he has a son, is a non starter and has no historical precedence. Regents acting for a juvenile king, yes, of course, but not as king in their own right, no, except in the case of Hatshepsut, legally a usurper, and with Nefertiti for what were probably religious reasons to Akhenaten at the time, but she was illegitimate.

So while the case for Hatshepsut and Nefertiti becoming kings is actually quite clear cut and understandable, there is no clear case for a brother of Akhenaten to become king while he still lives, let alone has a son. I've looked for precedence on this, or even any argument to be made for such a scenario on the basis of how the Egyptians managed succession, but find nothing of any substance at all. I really cannot find much in the way to present as a contra argument except contentious elements. A contentious element is the age of KV55, or is it actually scientifically contentious in the light of the failure of Hawass and Saleem to present their findings for peer review, and just about all other experts in anatomy giving a much younger age, hm. Anyway, if KV55 is no older than about 25, and possibly younger anyway, then he cannot be Akhenaten. The only other candidate, giving that whoever it is they were a king, has to be Smenkhkare. While the Hermopolis block strongly indicates Tutankhamun being the son of Akhenaten, it is not 100% case closed. Therefore there is a possibility that he could be a son of Smenkhkare. If KV55 is no more than 25 and is Smenkhkare, then there is plenty of scope for him to have died in, for the sake of argument, year 16, and been old enough to father Tutankhahum born around year 9. Btw, if KV55 is Akhenaten, then the possibility of Smenkhkare being a brother of Akhenaten recedes further as he is then not the father of Tutankhamun.

So, in the normal circumstances of succession in Egypt, there is no precedence for Smenkhare to be the brother of Akhenaten and become king while Akhenaten still lives and has a son. Therefore, if Smenkhkare is a brother of Akhenaten, he also has to be the father of Tutankhaum, and thus be KV55, if the majority position on the age is correct. In this case, if there were issues with the health of Akhenaten, or for whatever he was unable to sire a son, it could be possible for him to appoint his brother as co-regent, the succession then passing to Smenkhkare's son.

I'll do Smekhkare as son of Akhenaten in a later post.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Smenkhkare as son of Akhenaten

This is the only option that does not involve having to go through too many mental gymnastics to make a square peg fit into a round hole. However, as co-regencies are rare and are somewhat antithetical to the "Contendings", how can Osiris still be king when he should be dead and his son Horus be king?, though I've no doubt they were inventive in creating reasons. Presuming that Smenkhkare becomes co-regent shortly after the events that carried off three of his sisters, it can easily be imagined that Akhenaten may have suffered, at least psychologically, and after these deaths he is just about invisible, and it was thought that a co-regency was needed. Total supposition of course, but surely better than some of the "ecclesiastically erroneous" musings presented, even as mainstream orthodoxy when they are in fact heterodoxy.  As I've mentioned several times, while we have no idea when Smenkhkare was born, there is this several years gap between the births of Meritaten and Meketaten, and he could just as well be a twin of, say, Meritaten. His appearance then in year 14 or 15 would fit with him coming of age, or nearly so, at around that time. This is also fairly hot on the heels of the death of three of his sisters, and as his reign was probably less than a year, no year 2 dated artifact or inscription for him has ever been found, then it would seem that he has been carried of by the same disease that killed his sisters. That's really it for him being a son of Akhenaten, however there are some issues.

I think the major problem is with his "contrived" birth name. It does not have to be impossible for him to have been given this name at birth, but as it is so unusual, and I presented the evidence in a previous post, I think the onus is on trying to proove this was his birth name rather than just accepting that it was so, and good luck with that. The next issue is with his prenomen and why Neferneferuaten used it, an occurance that defies rationality by any measure of how they ordered these things. Then there is the issue of the bones. For Smenkhkare to be a son of Akhenaten he cannot be KV55, therefore, as there is no known alternative for those bones, they have to be Akhenaten's, and let the anatomists argue it out. The other set of bones is the KV35YM. For him to be Smenkhkare still needs KV55 to be Akhenaten, with the issue of age still festering. Otherwise the prince is just about a perfect fit on his age range at death, and there he is, or was, laid out between Queen Tiye and Tutankhamun's mother, and not by accident I think. Obviously DNA results will help here, though they will not give him a name. If his mother is Tiye then he will be declared to be crown prince Thutmose, even though he is too young, but irrationality will prevail, it usually does. If his mother is the YL, then it looks much better for him being Smenkhkare, but still not definitive as he could be a younger brother of Tutankhamun who has predeceased him. But here we can run around in ever decreasing circles and never get anywhere. There is one final issue for him being Smenkhkare, and it is that he still has his sidelock. Can anybody answer the question of if a juvenile becomes king, does he loose his sidelock? I have no idea. Is it an ipediment to wearing a crown, yes I think it is, is it an impediment to wearing a uraeus, probably not. Tutankhamun is depicted wearing a uraeus over a sidelock, though there is nothing to say what age he is, though adult kings are depicted as juveniles with sidelock and uraeus, notably Ramesses II.

So, IMO, there is greater probability of Smenkhkare being a son of Akhenaten than his brother, or being Nefertiti. Putting the bones to one side, the only serious question mark concerning him is his name.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Wepwawet