Amarna, Before and After

[Wistman]

51 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

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

Good. 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wistman

[Aldebaran]

15 hours ago, Wistman said:

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

Luban never suggested Baketaten could be Tut's mother.   The main point made was that Baketaten would fit the age window assigned to the Younger Lady with difficulty even at the lower end, which was 25.  As I am she, I ought to know.  

Yes, I think Amenhotep III was dead by Year 9 of Akhenaten.  In fact, I think his end came in the early part of the fifth month of Year 8, his own Year 38,  It is perfectly possible for A III and Tiye to have had a little daughter who was no older than the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti but one thing does bother me--the shape of Baketaten's skull.  Normally, only the royal children have those elongated heads and none of the previous daughters of A III and Tiye were ever represented like that,  I think Mutnodjmet was their daughter, too, and she has  a rounded head even there at Amarna in the tomb of Ay.

Of course, in the past, that was why some people suggested Baketaten was the daughter of Akhenaten by some other woman who died and was taken under the wing of Queen Tiye, the dowager..  It's also perfectly possible--except then Baketaten would not fit to the DNA profile of a full sister of KV 55 and a child of A III and Tiye,   There is not one thing about life at Amarna that isn't beset by problems or suspicions--not even Princess Meritaten being the queen of Smenkhkare.  Now I have not had the opportunity to study all the times Meritaten is mentioned at the city to see if her name was spelled consistently every single time as "mry.t-itn".  But I suspect that the feminine ending after "mry" is usually there.  And yet when Smenkhkare and his wife are portrayed in the tomb of Meryre II--the feminine ending was not there according to the copier of the scene.  Nor is on a sequin drawn by Howard Carter among the finds in KV62.  Strange that each time that this woman's name is coupled with that of Smenkhkare it is written without the feminine ending--but it may still mean nothing as there are not enough examples to go by.  I don't address every single problem at my Academia.edu site but quite a few of them in various papers.  I am totally convinced of an eight-year coregency and that every coregency has a reason behind it.  Therefore, the basis of the entire Amarna period is the deification of Amenhotep III while he lived.  As the personification of the sun, he needed a Shu and a Tefnut to be the other components of a "holy trinity" with him.  Ray Johnson pointed this out years ago but I don't think it ever really sunk in.  Even I didn't think much about that until recent years when it finally hit home how vital this element was and how necessary a coregency in this instance.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Aldebaran

[Wistman]

46 minutes ago, Aldebaran said:

Luban never suggested Baketaten could be Tut's mother.   The main point made was that Baketaten would fit the age window assigned to the Younger Lady with difficulty even at the lower end, which was 25.  As I am she, I ought to know. 

Sorry for misrepresenting your aim in the paper.  I  totally enjoyed it, and the Smenkhkare paper.  Thank you for giving us additional insights.

So your position is that Nefertiti is full sister to Akhenaten.  What about the YL's arm not being bent that Wepwawet mentions?

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Aldebaran said:

not even Princess Meritaten being the queen of Smenkhkare........

And yet when Smenkhkare and his wife are portrayed in the tomb of Meryre II--the feminine ending was not there according to the copier of the scene.

 

Cryptography has been used in her title above the cartouche were the "t" in the wrt part of Hmt-njswt-wrt has been replaced by "r", making wrr, but the "t" in the cartouche is certainly missing and not replaced with another sign.

Looking through Julie Sampson's book for Meritaten inscriptions, and I only find one, which does have the "t", I see that she does state, on page 131, that "As noted there is as yet no authentic evidence of a marriage between Meritaten and a male successor, or of the existance of such a successor" So, as usual, confusion.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

1 hour ago, Wistman said:

Sorry for misrepresenting your aim in the paper.  I  totally enjoyed it, and the Smenkhkare paper.  Thank you for giving us additional insights.

So your position is that Nefertiti is full sister to Akhenaten.  What about the YL's arm not being bent that Wepwawet mentions?

Insofar as I know, Tiye is the only queen among the mummies known to have been queens in the caches from any period to have the left arm raised--with the exception of a lady found in KV60 who must be a queen.  The disarticulated bodies of two women in KV21 were said to have been mummified in this pose, but I am less certain about them.  Yes, of course, the Great Royal Wives are depicted in this manner but--and I can't recall now--was Nefertiti *ever* shown this way at Amarna?

It seems to me that the Amarna Age is considered iconoclastic and unconventional in many respects but the same conventions are nevertheless expected in every argument.  "No king's daughter title" [none exist for Merytaten and Ankhesenamun, either].  "No left arm raised" and "No prior attestation as a princess" [even though the Theban tomb of Kheruef shows sixteen daughters of Amenhotep III, none named].   On the other hand, it must be assumed by the same naysayers that women with extraordinarily long necks like that of the YL are thick on the ground.  Personally, the only other one of comparable length I have ever seen is the actress, Caitriona Balfe who plays on "Outlander" and she has the same prominent clavicles, as well.  Nefertiti as Tefnut a "cousin" of Shu?  No, I don't think so.

[Aldebaran]

48 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Looking through Julie Sampson's book for Meritaten inscriptions, and I only find one, which does have the "t", I see that she does state, on page 131, that "As noted there is as yet no authentic evidence of a marriage between Meritaten and a male successor, or of the existance of such a successor" So, as usual, confusion.

Merytaten has the feminine ending as a queen of Smenkhkare?   Where?  I see she has the /t/ on that one box element from KV62 where she is listed with Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten--but Smenkhkare is not there.

[Wepwawet]

40 minutes ago, Aldebaran said:

Nefertiti as Tefnut a "cousin" of Shu?  No, I don't think so.

The question I posed was on the assumption that Nefertiti is actually part of the family by blood, I don't doubt that and reject ideas that she was an outsider, or even not Egyptian. The question was is whether she is a sister or cousin, and I'm not stating that she was cousin. These things have to be dug into as deep as is possible, even if it seems we already know the answer.

 

On your question about Meritaten, no, it's not in connection with Smenkhare, the inscription comes from a palace balustrade at Amarna and shows only Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Meritaten. It's damaged and the "aten" part of her name is missing, but mrt is still there.

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Aldebaran said:

Insofar as I know, Tiye is the only queen among the mummies known to have been queens in the caches from any period to have the left arm raised--with the exception of a lady found in KV60 who must be a queen.  The disarticulated bodies of two women in KV21 were said to have been mummified in this pose, but I am less certain about them.  Yes, of course, the Great Royal Wives are depicted in this manner but--and I can't recall now--was Nefertiti *ever* shown this way at Amarna?

 

I think the point I should have made clearer is that while I used Tiye as an example, Tiye is not a monarch, but the KV60 mummy, Hatshepsut, is, and has her left arm raised. The question is why only the left and not both, but as I did point out, this is all rather fluid with Yuya having his arms in a postion that looks a bit royal, and Tutankhamun with his arms folded over his belly, a sort of halfway stage between royal and commoner. So, if the YL is Nefertiti, is it not reasonable to suggest that as Hatshepsut, an undoubted monarch, and Tiye, a GRW, have one of their arms raised, why not Nefertiti, an undoubted monarch. It's not naysaying, it's looking at the evidence and trying to come to some sort of understanding of who a nameless corpse is beyond blood relationships.

I would say that while there are many depictions of Hatshepsut with her arms crossed, and none, it seems, of Nefertiti, is that Osiris had been banned, and that is were the crossed arms pose comes from. Yes, Akhenaten is depicted on those colossal statues in Osirian pose, but  they are from Karnak early in his reign, and do not appear elsewhere. And I see the argument that as Osiris had been banned, why would the YL, if Nefertiti, have her arms crossed or at least the left one raised. Well, the KV55 coffin is Osirian and so is Tutankhamun's second coffin, which had belonged to Smenkhare, or Nefertiti, and the coffinettes are all Osirian, so maybe this was something that did not change, even though for a time Osiris was banned.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

If we think of Nefertiti as YL, the condition of her mummy comes into question, relating as it does to the kingship of Tut.  The perimortem wound to her face, I've seen it described as an 'axe blow' - and let's face it one of the most beautiful of faces, if the Berlin bust is accurate - seems a revengeful act.  Although she survived triumphant from the ruins and key royal deaths at Amarna, her short reign ended violently.  In her place came the young Tut, with Ay the bureaucrat, Horemheb the general, and Maya the treasurer to 'advise' him.  Horemheb was designated Tut's heir, but he was away when the King died and Ay hurriedly seized the kingship.  When he died after a short reign, Horemheb claimed the crown.  The Tuthmosid dynasty was finished.

So we no longer think of Tut as having been murdered, but rather likely died from an accident of some sort, possibly in a chariot.  But Nefertiti's (YL's) mummy shows she was murdered, no doubt in a coup.  The strike to the face of the beautiful, powerful Queen seems intensely personal.  Ay and Horemheb benefited the most, it looks like, except for poor Tut, whom they served, guided, surely controlled, at least at first.  Ay came from Akhmim, possibly was related to Yuya, Queen Tiye's father.  But it was Horemheb, the general of the armies, who on his accession to the kingship began the wholesale defacing of Amarna images and royal names, and the laying waste to Akhetaten.

Where was Horemheb during the Amarna years...he must have been a soldier or commander of some sort I'd think.  Did he possibly change his name from an Aten name post Amarna, as others did?  Could he have been a 'player' in the Amarna era?  He seems fully empowered as general of the armies when Nefertiti rules.  Was Ay ever associated with Nefertiti and her household, specifically?  How many trusted ministers came with Nefertiti back to Thebes?  I know the information is scant, but these questions could pertain as to motives and mechanisms for the violent fate of Nefertiti/YL.

Who moved all the Amarna royal mummies?  Was it Horemheb, as Pharaoh?  Or Ay?  Is there any evidence relative to this?

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wistman

[Abramelin]

[Wepwawet]

4 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

You know though that it's the seemingly tiny details that can unlock mysteries. For a long time it was not known that there was a female version of Akhkheperure, then Allen spotted the "t" female determinative, and behold, the two holders of that name could be stated at last to be a man and a woman.

Btw, the pedant in the cartoon is right, as you do not end a sentence with an enclitic negative particle , which is what the quail chick is, and normally rendered as "u" or "w" and pronounced as "oo". Please write this out a hundred times for detention

[Aldebaran]

Several matters were brought up here of which I am not quite convinced.  First, I can't say I wholly approve of the method that concluded an older lady from KV60 was Hatshepsut.  I'm not saying it's not possible but, in this age of DNA to reply on a missing tooth in a box is short of the mark.  The box with the cartouche of Maatkare on it was really just a box and not a piece of canopic equipment.  Such a box cab have belonged to anyone.  There was even a much later Maatkare [actual name] found in the Deir el Bahri cache, same as the boz.  Some dentists said the KV60 queen did have a broken tooth but the one in the box was not really such a good match.  Nobody has ever found Queen Ahmes, wife of Thutmose I.  Why couldn't she have had a wooden box with her daughter's name on it?

There have now been two papers coming from Cairo on the DNA of some royals.  Quite a few of these were tested and in the 2020 paper a "Hatshepsut" mummy was mentioned but not one further DNA detail--in a DNA paper.  Years ago the same KV60 female mummy had her mitochondrial DNA tested to see how that looked in comparison to that of the putative Ahmose-Nefertari.  No results given out much less published.  I believe in such experiments but there was no reason why these queens should have had the same mtDNA.  Thutmose II, identified by a docket, should share a lot of autosomal DNA with Hatshepsut.  They had the same father, after all.  But all I heard in a TV documentary was some mumbling about no viable DNA being sequenced from Thutmose II.  Why not?  What's so different about him?  If that skeleton from KV55 yielded excellent DNA of different sorts--why wouldn't T II?  I am suspicious of that outcome.  He is the best person with which to compare the DNA of that KV60 mummy but Thutmose III was also her close relative.  One can share plenty of DNA with a half nephew.  If one shares zero, then goodbye Hatshepsut.  Was someone afraid to take such chances with a great discovery?  Really, science can work in your favor as well as against you.

How could Nefertiti, if not a sister of Akhenaten, be his cousin?  From which parents?  Unless one can theorize some royal parents for Nefertiti, or at least one, she must be a commoner and I can't believe a commoner can be elevated to a goddess in ancient Egypt.  Otherwise just to guess "cousin" is playing a bit too loosely for my taste.  Now--don't forget Tiye was not a princess--so commoners on her side.  One can only get a royal cousin from Amenhotep III's family.  Very difficult.

 

 

[Wepwawet]

I take the points @Aldebaran about the identification of KV60, but I cannot say what here is right or wrong. I will note though that mummy TT320-CCG61065, an unknown 18th Dynasty royal, was in the April royal mummy parade as Thutmose I, and yet, going by the new work on the DNA, which we have both read, that mummy cannot be Thutmose I. So I do wonder why they are still presenting him to the world as Thutmose I when they know he is not. What else is going on, maybe they got the age range of the YL wrong as well. Swings and roundabouts.

I also get the Shu and Tefnut thing, yet wonder how rigid they had to be, as "rigid" as giving the paying customer a cat mummy as an offering, yet it is just mud and straw. Okay, that's sort of clutching at straws, but I think a valid question.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

If we think of Nefertiti as YL, the condition of her mummy comes into question, relating as it does to the kingship of Tut.  The perimortem wound to her face, I've seen it described as an 'axe blow' - and let's face it one of the most beautiful of faces, if the Berlin bust is accurate - seems a revengeful act.  Although she survived triumphant from the ruins and key royal deaths at Amarna, her short reign ended violently.  In her place came the young Tut, with Ay the bureaucrat, Horemheb the general, and Maya the treasurer to 'advise' him.  Horemheb was designated Tut's heir, but he was away when the King died and Ay hurriedly seized the kingship.  When he died after a short reign, Horemheb claimed the crown.  The Tuthmosid dynasty was finished.

So we no longer think of Tut as having been murdered, but rather likely died from an accident of some sort, possibly in a chariot.  But Nefertiti's (YL's) mummy shows she was murdered, no doubt in a coup.  The strike to the face of the beautiful, powerful Queen seems intensely personal.  Ay and Horemheb benefited the most, it looks like, except for poor Tut, whom they served, guided, surely controlled, at least at first.  Ay came from Akhmim, possibly was related to Yuya, Queen Tiye's father.  But it was Horemheb, the general of the armies, who on his accession to the kingship began the wholesale defacing of Amarna images and royal names, and the laying waste to Akhetaten.

Where was Horemheb during the Amarna years...he must have been a soldier or commander of some sort I'd think.  Did he possibly change his name from an Aten name post Amarna, as others did?  Could he have been a 'player' in the Amarna era?  He seems fully empowered as general of the armies when Nefertiti rules.  Was Ay ever associated with Nefertiti and her household, specifically?  How many trusted ministers came with Nefertiti back to Thebes?  I know the information is scant, but these questions could pertain as to motives and mechanisms for the violent fate of Nefertiti/YL.

Who moved all the Amarna royal mummies?  Was it Horemheb, as Pharaoh?  Or Ay?  Is there any evidence relative to this?

 

A big answer is needed for most of that, but the last part is easier-ish. It's down to the mudslide detected, by, and his name escapes me right now, that covered KV55 and 62 at about the time Horemheb took the throne. But was it before, thus the desecration of KV55 done by Ay, or after, and done by Horemheb. We'll never know. I do think that the three KV35 mummies came from KV55, and Tiye's shrine does seem to say that at least she was in there, but it's very messy. If I had to bet on this, I would go with Ay as they were, presumably, relatives, while Horemheb may have had no interest in their fate and left them in KV55.

The desecration of the remaining mummy, be it Akhenaten or Smenkhare, is, I think, not as bad as is usually made out. Only his name has been removed and the face of the mask. This does not, again in my opinion, deny whoever it is an afterlife, but it would certainly cause difficulties, and for a king it would, I think, put them amongst the dead hoi polloi, not with Ra on the solar barque. The Amduat has the clue. Anybody stood the risk of drowning in the Nile and their body lost, or of being taken by a croc or hippo, or lost at sea. What happens to their soul, are they lost forever, no, because Horus recues their souls and brings them to the Duat, where their existance is assured, but seemingly not in the Field of Reeds, it's bit vague on where they actualy end up within the Duat. I would take what happened to the KV55 mummy more as an insult than extinction of the soul, and if he were really hated, they would have burnt his mummy I think.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

11 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

 It's down to the mudslide detected, by, and his name escapes me right now, that covered KV55 and 62

 

Stephen Cross

[Wepwawet]

13 hours ago, Wistman said:

If we think of Nefertiti as YL, the condition of her mummy comes into question, relating as it does to the kingship of Tut.  The perimortem wound to her face, I've seen it described as an 'axe blow' - and let's face it one of the most beautiful of faces, if the Berlin bust is accurate - seems a revengeful act.  Although she survived triumphant from the ruins and key royal deaths at Amarna, her short reign ended violently.  In her place came the young Tut, with Ay the bureaucrat, Horemheb the general, and Maya the treasurer to 'advise' him.  Horemheb was designated Tut's heir, but he was away when the King died and Ay hurriedly seized the kingship.  When he died after a short reign, Horemheb claimed the crown.  The Tuthmosid dynasty was finished.

So we no longer think of Tut as having been murdered, but rather likely died from an accident of some sort, possibly in a chariot.  But Nefertiti's (YL's) mummy shows she was murdered, no doubt in a coup.  The strike to the face of the beautiful, powerful Queen seems intensely personal.  Ay and Horemheb benefited the most, it looks like, except for poor Tut, whom they served, guided, surely controlled, at least at first.  Ay came from Akhmim, possibly was related to Yuya, Queen Tiye's father.  But it was Horemheb, the general of the armies, who on his accession to the kingship began the wholesale defacing of Amarna images and royal names, and the laying waste to Akhetaten.

Where was Horemheb during the Amarna years...he must have been a soldier or commander of some sort I'd think.  Did he possibly change his name from an Aten name post Amarna, as others did?  Could he have been a 'player' in the Amarna era?  He seems fully empowered as general of the armies when Nefertiti rules.  Was Ay ever associated with Nefertiti and her household, specifically?  How many trusted ministers came with Nefertiti back to Thebes?  I know the information is scant, but these questions could pertain as to motives and mechanisms for the violent fate of Nefertiti/YL.

Who moved all the Amarna royal mummies?  Was it Horemheb, as Pharaoh?  Or Ay?  Is there any evidence relative to this?

 

It's perhaps worth resurrecting my off the wall notion from 001K that maybe the Book of the Heavenly Cow needs to be looked in regard to that while some of it's elements predate the Amarna period, It's first full appearance is on Tutankhamun's outer shrine. It deals with a rebellion against Ra and the almost destruction of mankind. So while Ra is synonymous with the Aten, and Akhenaten certainly did not rebel against Ra, he did rebel against the other gods, and is later refered to as The rebel, as well as The great criminal. The Book of the Heavenly Cow is not really suited to the tomb, IMO, and is connected to the festival of drunkeness, so why would it be used on a shrine over a sarcophagus while the other shrines have texts suitable for the tomb. Is it a reference to Akhenaten and a time of strife, and as they did not like to write about bad things, the closest they could get to admitting that there was a civil war.

[Wistman]

5 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

It's perhaps worth resurrecting my off the wall notion from 001K that maybe the Book of the Heavenly Cow needs to be looked in regard to that while some of it's elements predate the Amarna period, It's first full appearance is on Tutankhamun's outer shrine. It deals with a rebellion against Ra and the almost destruction of mankind. So while Ra is synonymous with the Aten, and Akhenaten certainly did not rebel against Ra, he did rebel against the other gods, and is later refered to as The rebel, as well as The great criminal. The Book of the Heavenly Cow is not really suited to the tomb, IMO, and is connected to the festival of drunkeness, so why would it be used on a shrine over a sarcophagus while the other shrines have texts suitable for the tomb. Is it a reference to Akhenaten and a time of strife, and as they did not like to write about bad things, the closest they could get to admitting that there was a civil war.

Sounds right.  And in that case, Ay and Horemheb would have been the victors, meaning Ay managed the strategic organizational tasks while Horemheb ran the actual takeover and violence, such as they were.  Tut was kept alive for legitimacy purposes, for a return to the 'old ways.'   At some point, Horemheb was appointed Tut's heir (by duress?  did Ay know beforehand?), since he 'won' the war and thought he was due the ultimate prize.  Tut dies prematurely while Horemheb is away on campaign, and Ay double-crosses him, takes the throne for himself.

Which begs the question, where were Ay's loyalties then...with the dead pharaoh Smenkhkare, whom Akhenaten chose as his heir?  Or since Akhenaten is soon reviled, perhaps still AIII?  Or Tiye maybe.  He did serve under AIII didn't he?

He could have had an old grudge against Nefertiti.  It's anybody's guess (sigh).

Edited August 30, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

I think that Ay's loyalties were with Ay, and possibly Nefertiti until she died, it that "god's father" thing and exactly what it signifies with Ay. What we don't know is how their internal politics worked, for instance how in their society does a woman become king when there is a legitimate male succesor, not without help from powerful people I think. What is the mindset of palace guards, obey a legitimate ruler, no matter if a minor, or a usurper, such as Hatshepsut. We know nothing of their real personalities and if a Hatshepsut or Nefertiti had the force of personality to command loyalty, though I suspect both were exceptional women who did command personal loyalty, they had to I think. Would the army, or those men who controled the army, have seen Nefertiti as legitimate because Akhenaten made her co-ruler. Probably when Akhenaten lived, but then what, divided loyaties between her supporters and others who wanted what they perhaps saw as a nightmare to end.

There's all those soldiers running about in some of the scenes, the thousands of mostly younger people in crude graves at Amarna. Akhenaten's "bad things" on the boundary stelae, and this admission is a really really important thing, but we know not a single detail. I don't however think that the "bad things" were natural disasters, except, if it was included in the "bad things", whatever caused AIII to set up those 730 statues of Sekhmet, a fact that is ignored in the literature except as a foot note. Sometimes, at the edge of madness, I wonder if at Amarna they were getting close to drinking the Kool-Aid, and somebody put a stop to it all.

[Wistman]

 

Yes, all those graves at Amarna.

So, of course what I was going for is the identification of Horemheb with Paatenemheb (Akhenaten's Chief Commander of the Armies), which is widely rejected because of lack of evidence tying them together, though some concessions are made for his probably being in the military during Akhenaten's reign.  Of note, but possibly incidental, is that Paatenemheb's tomb at Amarna is #24, next to Ay's #25.

Horemheb officially first emerges during Tutankhamen's reign (not Neferneferuaten's), where he rises quickly from 'Royal Spokesman for Foreign Affairs' to ' Hereditary Prince, Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the KIng, and Chief Commander of the Army."   The king being fatherless, it seems he mentored the king, and then he is designated by Tut as his heir to the throne, making him officially 'Prince Regent.'  At least that's what has come down to us, largely from his own tomb at Saqqara built during Tutankhamen's reign.  And also we should remember the lengths Horemheb went to, destroying the remnants of Amarna and its inscriptions.  His purposefulness in that regard may have included covering up evidence of himself as well as his route to the throne.  It is not surprising that records of Neferneferuaten's officials and court history are, um, similarly scant (Ay's own royal tomb has numerous damnatio memoriae, naturally.)  So Ay and Horemheb's official postings and activities during Nefertiti's tenure as king are as missing as Ankesenamun's mummy   Horemheb was a not-rare autocratic king, a former commanding general.  Like Thutmose III, his thoroughness at erasure is famous.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Wistman

[Wistman]

For anyone interested the Metropolitan Museum of Art has this superb (if somewhat long - 3hrs) lecture by Jacobus van Dijk from 2012 entitled: Haremhab: General, Prince Regent, KIng:

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

With Horemheb potentially covering his past, it could be, if true, similar to the situation in post war Germany were nobody had been a Nazi. But I don't see him as having been Paatenemheb.

It's interesting to work out roughly how old he would have been at death, and how much he saw of the Amarna period. The statue of him as a scribe shows an old man, and I think he was a contemporary of his army buddy Ramesses I, and perhaps into his sixties at death. Go back 60 years for the sake of argument and we arrive at about year 14 of Amunhotep III, and it could in fact make him contemperorary with Akhenaten. To rise to the rank he did under Tutankhamun as a commoner, and with no known relationship with Tutankhamun, ie being a grandson of one of the younger brothers of Thumose IV, or further back, would indicate that he was around in some senior capacity during the reign of Akhenaten. But what was he, sycophant toeing the line, or secret rebel waiting for the heretic to go. In more modern terms, was he a Heydrich or a Stauffenberg, and, somewhat in the realms of fantasy, a successfull Stauffenberg, and if the YL was assasinated, who dunnit, somebody did, and with access to the palace. Cue boos and hisses as the villain throws his cloak over his face and exits stage left, his dagger dripping blood.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Wepwawet

[Jon101]

Thanks to all involved in this wonderfully enjoyable, erudite topic.

These exceptionally well written answers have been a joy to read and informative even for a layman such as myself.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Jon101

[Wistman]

Referencing the current big discovery, I wonder when AIII's 'Golden City' of the Aten, on the west bank from Thebes, was finally dismantled. 

Did Akhetaten absorb all of AIII's city after his death and the court's move with Tiye?  Was it re-occupied at all after the fall of Amarna?  I read somewhere...I can't find it now....that Tutankhamen was put up in an older palace of Thuthmose IV on the return to Thebes, not at Malkata.  Sorry I can't verify that, could be BS.

Of course I'm guessing if it was Horemheb who ripped down any remaining buildings and any Aten references to the ground.  Perhaps it all reverted to agricultural fields and mortuary temples.  Ramesses III's temple at Medinet Habu seems built directly over the foundations of a vital part of the old city, including wavy walls as we've seen. 

 

 

 

[Hanslune]

Thanks guys and gals for an interesting read!

[Aldebaran]

I am far from convinced that the ghastly wound to the face of the Younger Lady is antemortem.  Don't forget that tomb robbers were capable of doing much damage to the royal mummies in order to get at their jewels more quickly and make short work of the many layers of bandages.  That was at some point after the end of the 18th Dynasty and the 21st, when the mummies began to be moved into caches like KV35, where the YL was found.  The mummies were re-wrapped in all cases, sometimes because of what earlier robbers had done and sometimes because they had been searched for jewelry by the agents of General Piankh and his successors.  In other words, unofficial and official looting.  Then they were given coffins and nobody cared whether the coffins were their original ones or not.

To take away that much of the face of a living person would require surgery, not mere violence.  To get kicked in the face by a horse would break ones teeth and jaw but the supple flesh would not be removed in a great patch.  An axe would make a great cut or perhaps slice of something--but not that much.  On the other hand, a mummified face is not supple at all.  It is hard and can be smashed in easily enough.  But any debris left inside the mouth can have fallen out if the mummy were to be moved in a subsequent re-wrapping.

The 9 mummies in another chamber chamber were discovered in modern times just as the agents of the 21st Dynasty had left them and so was Amenhotep II inside his own sarcophagus.  However, the three mummies in another chamber had no coffins and their bandages lay about them in tatters.  Either they had been placed there long before the era of Dynasty 21 and robbed of everything and then simply ignored when the caches were created--or torn apart in a much more modern robbery attempt.  Their condition is very difficult to explain.  But one thing is certain, most of the 9 mummies in the other room were kings.  The only exception was Unknown Woman D.  She was surely brought there from the KV14, ultimately the tomb of Setnakht, and I am not even sure if it was thought in ancient times that she had been a king--Tawosret.  The woman wasn't assigned a complete coffin but was lying in the lid of one that had belonged to Setnakht.  The discoverer of KV35 wrote of her "The mummy was stripped and the shroud which bore the name removed".  My sense is this female mummy had never been re-wrapped.  If you knew how the 9 mummies were placed in that small chamber, you would realize that she could not have been targeted for further robbery in more modern times.  She is mummy #7 in the drawing made of the chamber and you can see this in my paper.  I never write a paper unless I have something new or different to say and what I say here will surprise you.

https://www.academia.edu/49342485/WHERE_ARE_THE_MUMMIES_OF_THE_COMMONER_KINGS