Amarna, Before and After

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

I think Amenhotep III is wearing the same outfit--in red yet--on this shrine where he is seated beside Tiye.  Everyone has come away with the same impression from this piece--a sick man, slouching listlessly.  Notice that the pharaoh's skin is left pale [probably because of the color of his garment--and so much for the color canon being accurate] and the legs of the queen are dark!  Most strange is that they are bare!.  I can spot no sheer robe covering them.  

And it's of course odd that we are given this glimpse of morbid reality. Ramesses II looked like a thirty something for nearly 70 years. Was there a specific reason for them not being shown as old, I mean not just that they wanted the king to appear always as vigorous, but a very specific reason. I mention this because in the Middle Ages in Europe it was not unusual on the tombs of nobles to have a likeness of them around the age of thirty, no matter their actual age, the reason being, I'm told, that they wanted to be the same age as Christ at death, though some tombs have another image underneath the top one, and this shows them as a rotting corpse.

[Wepwawet]

Kozloff explains why she states that the statues have been re-cut in "Millions of Jubilees: Studies in Honor of David P. Silverman", published in 2010, and out of print. This article also appeared in Kmt 23/3, the Fall 2012 edition of the now defunct magazine. Anybody have these ?

[Wistman]

According to Jacqueline Williamson, though Kozloff thinks the recarved statues were originally images of AIII, W. Raymond Johnson thinks they are only "retouched" from earlier images of Akhenaten.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701969?journalCode=jnes

(only first page of intro available without subscription, which I don't have)

Johnson's article is shown by Google to be at UMASS Lowell, but my computer can't access the page, apparently the certificate expired 7/26/2024. (sheesh!)  It's called Amenhotep III and Amarna, Some New Considerations.   The blurb under the google entry says: "The signs of recutting represent the sculptor's attempts to resize, reshape, and update statues of. Akhenaten, not usurped statues of Amunhotep III."   It is dated 1996.

Maybe somebody can get the article somehow.

 

Edited July 30 by Wistman

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

According to Jacqueline Williamson, though Kozloff thinks the recarved statues were originally images of AIII, W. Raymond Johnson thinks they are only "retouched" from earlier images of Akhenaten.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701969?journalCode=jnes

(only first page of intro available without subscription, which I don't have)

Johnson's article is shown by Google to be at UMASS Lowell, but my computer can't access the page, apparently the certificate expired 7/26/2024. (sheesh!)  It's called Amenhotep III and Amarna, Some New Considerations.   The blurb under the google entry says: "The signs of recutting represent the sculptor's attempts to resize, reshape, and update statues of. Akhenaten, not usurped statues of Amunhotep III."   It is dated 1996.

Maybe somebody can get the article somehow.

 

I've read the article by Johnson here, which still needs registration, but is easy for Jstor. On one reading I don't see him stating that these statues are or are not re-cut from Amunhotep III, but maybe I missed something. What he does do, being an adherent of a co-regency, is suggest a change of styles merging during this time. However, he does say something about them obliquely, and it is about the shape of the navel. He is actually discussing another statue which could be either AIII or Ankhenaten, but states that the teardrop navel is associated with AIII, and the statues under discussion have the round navel of Akhenaten. Though I would say, could the navel have not been re-cut, and this is where we really need to see Kozloff's paper.

 

 

 

[Aldebaran]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

I've read the article by Johnson here, which still needs registration, but is easy for Jstor. On one reading I don't see him stating that these statues are or are not re-cut from Amunhotep III, but maybe I missed something.

I read the paper with my JSTOR account and didn't see anything about the colossi, either--but I can have missed a brief mention or skipped a footnote.  Moreover, I can't say I agree with Johnson's conclusions on the years involving a coregency after discussing the tomb of Huya.  First of all, he mentions the cartouches of the Aten in the tomb of Huya being the ones used after Year 9.  Huya was the steward of Queen Tiye, so one must ask why he has a tomb at Amarna if Amenhotep III is really still alive, as Johnson suggests?  What reason would the older pharaoh have had to leave Malkata permanently?  And where are the Amarna tombs of the rest of the court of AIII that he would presumably have brought along?

I think, in this respect, Johnson forgot that tombs are timeless and one can put anyone's image into them, living or dead.  Huya only had an Amarna tomb because he the was the #1 servant of the dowager queen who really did move to Akhetaten before Year 9 because there was no more court at Malkata after the death of her husband in years 38/8.  At Thebes, the steward of Tiye's household was Kheruef and his tomb is there.  Amenhotep III was dead by Akhenaten's Year 9.  If the latter, as sole king, went to stay at Malkata for any reason, he would take his own servants with him.

As for Kozloff, I have not much agreed with her conclusions in the past on other matters.  But there is still not enough information about the colossi for me to get a good understanding.  I'm not even sure when it is the fully dressed figures of Akhenaten that are the focus or the one [if the other represents Nefertiti] where he appears naked and sexless--or both types.  The whole subject is still a bit of a muddle that I will have to sort out.  As of right now, recarving from Amenhotep IV, himself, to match his later image makes a lot more sense to me than from from his father.

Edited July 30 by Aldebaran

[Aldebaran]

The Williamson article is at

https://www.academia.edu/38927556/Evidence_for_Innovation_and_Experimentation_on_the_Akhenaten_Colossi

[Wistman]

Now that I've seen it, I should note that Williamson is not referring Johnson's 1996 paper, which of course does not contain the material referenced as we now know (and google's results for the search terms "Johnson, recarved colossi of Akhenaten" led me to this error); but it seems her reference of recarving is to Johnson's article “Same Statues, Different King,” KMT 23/4 (2012): 49.   Another article from KMT, now defunct.  Back issues though are supposedly still available.

Sorry for the goose chase.

[Wepwawet]

14 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

As of right now, recarving from Amenhotep IV, himself, to match his later image makes a lot more sense to me than from from his father

Having now read the Williamson paper I'm inclined to agree that these statues show changes of mind/iconography by Akhenaten on statues made originally for him, but I would still like to read Kozloff on this, as at the moment the technical details are only from the contra side.

[Wepwawet]

9 hours ago, Wistman said:

Now that I've seen it, I should note that Williamson is not referring Johnson's 1996 paper, which of course does not contain the material referenced as we now know (and google's results for the search terms "Johnson, recarved colossi of Akhenaten" led me to this error); but it seems her reference of recarving is to Johnson's article “Same Statues, Different King,” KMT 23/4 (2012): 49.   Another article from KMT, now defunct.  Back issues though are supposedly still available.

Sorry for the goose chase.

It was still worth reading Johnson's article anway, and there's some things to unpick from it.

I would order the relevant back issues, but maybe not when it's not possible online.

[Antigonos]

Just a quick pause to let the three of you know that I am greatly enjoying the flow of this conversation, in terms of both the in depth information you are providing as well as the fact that there are some previously unknown sources to me being cited that I can follow up on.

If I may ask, what in particular sparked your interest in the Amarna period? For myself it was an exhibition that came to the Met in New York City. I was born and raised right outside of Manhattan so was fortunate enough to grow up with its museums. The Met became my second home. In October 1996 an exhibit called The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt was held there over a four month period. I was captivated. 

I’m sure some of the information is outdated by this point, but the exhibition catalogue has remained one of my most treasured books on Egypt.

 

Edited July 31 by Antigonos

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Antigonos said:

If I may ask, what in particular sparked your interest in the Amarna period

Family history of engagement with Egypt since the mid 19th Century, and my parents met while in Egypt, and kept me very well entertained as a child with stories.

It's not possible to set that aside as a factor, though I think I would have been interested anyway as I find religious upheavals fascinating. If I wasn't discussing Akhenaten then I could just as well be discussing Jan Hus or Savonarola. Could also discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, if only about what a fantastic name he had, let alone the engineering, and I think he would fit into your interest in Victorian Britain.

Edited July 31 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

4 hours ago, Antigonos said:

If I may ask, what in particular sparked your interest in the Amarna period?

I wonder, myself!  It seems to have been with me since birth.  As a child I spent as much time as possible in a neighborhood library and escaped my circumstances by reading.  I'd bet it was there I discovered Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and the rest.

That book, "The Royal Women of Amarna", is beautiful and became widely sold.  A lot of people might disagree with me--but I think the authors were not correct in assuming all the images were of girls, princesses.  Akhenaten must have had sons by somebody because his father-in-law, Tushratta of Mitanni, mentions them in a letter.  Tushratta felt close enough to the Egyptian royals to write to Queen Tiye directly and to upbraid her son for sending him the wrong kind of golden statues.   One would think that, if the King of Egypt had no sons Tushratta would have learned that, perhaps even from his daughter, who was living at Akhetaten.  If that was really so, mentioning "sons" would have been a very delicate subject.  Having no male heirs was not considered a good state to find oneself in.

Of course, for years Nefertiti, the chief wife, had only daughters and, since Akhenaten was  portrayed with her most of the time, that would have convinced scholars of the period that there were no actual princes.  But the children of other wives would not have been shown with Nefertiti.  King Charles II of England had a number of children but none with his queen.  None of those children would have been included in a royal portrait because, in a Christian nation, they were all considered illegitimate.  But that didn't apply in ancient Egypt with its polygamous rulers.  Still, it was only the chief wife's progeny that were shown with *her*.  In the tomb of Huya at Amarna there is the same clear division.  Whoever Princess Baketaten was, daughter of Queen Tiye or that of Akhenaten by a different wife--all the children did not sit together in a feasting scene.  The daughters of Nefertiti sat with her and Baketaten sat with Tiye, meaning she was clearly not a child of Nefertiti.

[Wistman]

14 hours ago, Antigonos said:

If I may ask, what in particular sparked your interest in the Amarna period?

Lots of AE history around us when we were young, all from my Dad, but I drifted away from it as I developed my own interests and career.  Much later my Dad needed help while he was doing chemo so I moved in with him for a bit and he rekindled the flame in me. My interest in the Amarna period, initially, came from a curiosity about the relationship between Queen Tiye and Nefertiti, and spread from there.

 

Edited August 1 by Wistman

[Antigonos]

A sincere thank you to each of you for your replies. I find it interesting knowing how people who share my interests have themselves come to them. I think having that added knowledge can make for easier, more insightful and enjoyable discussions.

@Wepwawet I’ll look into Brunel, thanks for informing me about him, and thanks for sharing. A long family history with Egypt is certainly a special connection. I have a similar one with Greece. As you say, you might still have become interested… but I still find it pretty cool.
 

@Aldebaran Thanks for your insight into the Amarna princesses and for the added information in your reply. A lot to think about and look into. Incidentally the local library was my favorite place as a child as well, a home away from home.

@Wistman Thank you for sharing such a personal story. I have bonded with several family members over certain subjects too, it’s a special feeling that has created some wonderful memories.

Lastly, I appreciate you all replying to my questions with such informative answers and for sharing your knowledge. 

[Wepwawet]

5 hours ago, Antigonos said:

 I’ll look into Brunel, thanks for informing me about him, and thanks for sharing

Offtop but I can't resist posting this. Posing by the chains used in the launching of the SS Great Eastern in 1858.

[Wepwawet]

To continue with Tutankhamun's lunar jewelry, and what Lorelei Corcoran says about them in "Wonderful Things - Essays in Honor of Nicholas Reeves" 2023.

To cut a long story short, what she states is that the lunar jewelry is making a statement about the return to orthodoxy, both when the king was alive and magically when he was dead. The part about how this occurs in death is to do with the position on the mummy were some of these items were found. What they are doing is perpetuate a never ending Heb Sed. The Moon is a symbol of renewal in that Horus lost his left eye, the Moon, and had it restored to him. Corcoran here points out that some items have a wedjat eye, and combined with the heb sign being used in place of the neb sign, indicate that Tutankhamun is both restoring Egypt after the Amarna period, and is also constantly celebrating a Heb Sed.

The item below was named by Aldred as a coronation piece, not that it shows his coronation in the top portion, but that it may have been used at his coronation, though we have no way of ever knowing. This piece completely turns solar imagery into lunar imagery. His normal prenomen of Neb-kheperu-re is changed to Heb-Kheperu-Iah, and in the top part the figure of Tutankhamun is also Osiris, the khepresh crown being also a symbol of renewal, it's the root "khepr" that shows this. She also posits that this lunar name was never meant to be vocalized, you are just meant to see it and know what it means, and this applies to all the lunar jewelry.

The image can be dissected, and I'll do that if needed, and it is more complicated than I had realised. Otherwise, this piece below is very straightforward, and I've gone over this one before, without checking, maybe on this thread, but certainly on the Box 001K thread elsewhere.

Khepri pushes a combined image of the Moon, the bottom one is it's crescent form and the full Moon above. This not only signifies that it is the Moon, but it also references renewal as the Moon waxes and wanes. On this piece it is very clear that in a normal rendition of his prenomen the neb sign has been replaced with the heb sign, the sign for "festival", for the readers, and the three vertical strokes under Khepri providing the plural element, and the two phases of the Moon being "Iah", their name for the Moon, so it's the same as the top piece in saying, or showing, Heb-Kheperu-Iah.

As the piece is the king's and the king embodies Egypt, then the king is renewing Egypt and celebrating a never ending Heb Sed. Corcoran does not go into this, but I would suspect that this specific type of solar imagery was only used by Tutankhamun as he needed to show unequivocally that he was renewing Egypt after a disaster, and would continue to do so for eternity.

 

Edited August 1 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

Just a couple of things on my mind today:  

The young prince from KV35.  It has been so tempting [for me, at least] to view him as a good candidate for Crown Prince Thutmose.  As that prince was the eldest son of Amenhotep III and the mummy is a prepubescent youth, if this is Prince Thutmose he should have died well before Akhenaten, his younger brother, was made coregent at age 15.  Also, there was a sem priest's wig found near the three mummies in the side chamber, an encouraging sign.  Plus, the two women of the trio were proved by DNA to have a close relationship [mother and daughter] and that makes it likely the boy belonged with them, as well.

BUT, KV35 is in the VOK.  The only two known items belonging to Crown Prince Thutmose, one definitely of a funerary nature [prince on a bier] and the other something a boy would want in his tomb [sarcophagus of pet cat] were supposedly discovered far away at Saqqara of the north.  The predecessor of Amenhotep III, Thutmose IV, had at least one young son buried with him in his own tomb [if ready and it should have been after so many years] and it would have made sense for Prince Thutmose to have been put in with his own father--but not even a shabti of the lad in there.  So not likely.  Why was that prince in KV35 with those ladies?  It seems incredible to me that nobody has tried to establish or rule out a relationship there by now.   The prince could even be a son of Amenhotep II, whose tomb KV35 is, after all.  Well?  It's not like the mummy of that pharaoh doesn't exist for comparison.  I know that, at my advanced age, not every mystery of ancient Egypt will be solved before I die, but this one should not be that difficult.  Yes or no would be sufficient.

The little wooden head of Queen Tiye that is no bigger than a tennis ball--what was that all about?  At first, according to x-ray, the queen wore the head-dress of a goddess [like that seen at the corners of the funerary shrine of Tutankhamen].  Then she was given a wig and the great plumes with which she was seen at times.  But why was Tiye made to look like those other goddesses?  Did this little figure once decorate somebody else's funerary equipment?  Why was the headdress altered and for what reason?  The same thing happened to the figure of the female on the back of the throne of Tut.  First one headdress, then substituted by a wig.

 

 

Edited August 14 by Aldebaran

[Wepwawet]

29 minutes ago, Aldebaran said:

Why was that prince in KV35 with those ladies?  It seems incredible to me that nobody has tried to establish or rule out a relationship there by now.   The prince could even be a son of Amenhotep II, whose tomb KV35 is, after all.  Well?  It's not like the mummy of that pharaoh doesn't exist for comparison.  I know that, at my advanced age, not every mystery of ancient Egypt will be solved before I die, but this one should not be that difficult.  Yes or no would be sufficient.

Which begs the obvious question of why were not all the royal mummies DNA tested, this is very baffling, if not incompetent, or at least seriously lacking in thought and imagination.

I think the bottom line with this prince is that we will never know his name, though his familial relationship is now known but not released, maybe next month, but I'm not holding my breath on this.

I don't think he is crown prince Thutmose as he seems to be too young. I think it may well be fine to make him a sem and officiate at the burial of Apis I, but I doubt he would have been made High Priest of Ptah while still a minor, the position is too important, and even Khaemwaset was not made HPP until he was an adult after first being sem. So without going into contentious speculation, my guess is that he is just yet another annonymous juvenile prince, never depicted, never named, and who died young in an accident, and probably buried with either or both of the two females, and I think certainly with one of them, and was taken with them to KV35.

Given the sharp break with tradition made in the decoration of TA26, I do wonder though that had this prince died at Amarna, despite being male, would he not have rated a mention in the tomb like the daughters, unless he was buried there, but it was very late in the reign, even perhaps after the death of Akhenaten, and nobody bothered to add to the tomb decoration, perhaps knowing even then that they would all be moved out.

[Wepwawet]

I think it worth having a re-cap of this to save anybody having to trawling around looking for the background information.

The situation we are at is this. There had been dispute about if the prince had or had not been DNA tested back in 2006/07. This is now irrelevant as it was officially anounced in the Spring of 2022 that he had been tested. Hawass has tied this to the two female mummies found in KV21, who, by not very clear DNA results, have been determined to be from the Amarna period, the younger of the two, KV21A, being tentatively identified as being Ankhesenamun, the wife of Tutankhamun and his sister. The elder, KV21B, is contentious as to indentity. However, Hawass believes that she is Nefertiti, and the prince's DNA can prove this. He does not state how, but by divination I believe that if the prince is the son of KV55, Akhenaten, but not the son of the Younger Lady, the mother of Tutankhamun, and is the full brother of KV21A, then if she is the daughter of KV21B and KV55, and the half sister of Tutankhamun, then KV21B must, according to Hawass, be Nefertiti. There, all cleared up perfectly, isn't it....

The bottom line without complications is that if the prince is the son of Tiye, then of course he is a candidate to crown prince Thutmose, but he does not impact the main Amarna saga. If he is the son of either KV21B or the Younger Lady, and KV55 is his father, then we have fun, and I believe that for all his posturing, Hawass would not have made any statement about this if he did not already know the blood relationship of the prince to the Younger Lady, Tiye, KV55 and Tutankhamun, only the two KV21 mummies being in doubt. The unsaid implication being that he is indeed a son of KV55, but not the son of the Younger Lady, and only a half brother to Tutankhamun. We will see, one day, maybe...

[Aldebaran]

I think--and I have said this before--perhaps if Egyptologists had had more respect for the DNA testing in the past and present more of it would have been done.  Too much bloody-mindedness.   Look at the defensive position the scientists were forced to take!  We found out that nothing will convince some Egyptologists that anything trumps their own theories.

As for me, I studied for years to gain my knowledge of DNA, am still studying, reading papers in which Egyptology, in general, has no interest.  I come across information that I could apply to the royal mummies, very interesting stuff--but I am writing no more papers on the subject.  I am tired of people appropriating my original information sans citation.  These types are on their own now.  Let's see how they do.  The only time I may be tempted to comment is if somebody influential writes something that is so wrong that it has the potential to mislead many.  Having written this, it strikes me that the people in Cairo are probably even more fed up than I am.  They may have the "what's the use" attitude--although I continue to hope they will go on with the work as there is so much left to do.

A long time ago now an Egyptologist of considerable stature, Dr. Donald Redford, wrote in the preface of his book "Akhenaten the Heretic King": "Laity often suffer under the delusion that "scholars" constitute a special interest group that stands united whenever one of its members is attacked and refuses any without the Ph.D "union card" to participate in its activities.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  The quest for knowledge [a pompous but apt phrase] through the application of reasoned scholarly method employs far more simple common sense than most people realize, and is therefore open to all."

It was these words that I read in 1984 that I felt gave me permission to participate as, if  Redford wrote the paragraph, I assumed he meant it.  Since then I have learned that the world of Egyptology is a truly disrespectful one--with most of the ones doing their best to make it a "special interest group" not even close to being able to fill Redford's shoes. 

[cormac mac airt]

6 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

I think it worth having a re-cap of this to save anybody having to trawling around looking for the background information.

The situation we are at is this. There had been dispute about if the prince had or had not been DNA tested back in 2006/07. This is now irrelevant as it was officially anounced in the Spring of 2022 that he had been tested. Hawass has tied this to the two female mummies found in KV21, who, by not very clear DNA results, have been determined to be from the Amarna period, the younger of the two, KV21A, being tentatively identified as being Ankhesenamun, the wife of Tutankhamun and his sister. The elder, KV21B, is contentious as to indentity. However, Hawass believes that she is Nefertiti, and the prince's DNA can prove this. He does not state how, but by divination I believe that if the prince is the son of KV55, Akhenaten, but not the son of the Younger Lady, the mother of Tutankhamun, and is the full brother of KV21A, then if she is the daughter of KV21B and KV55, and the half sister of Tutankhamun, then KV21B must, according to Hawass, be Nefertiti. There, all cleared up perfectly, isn't it....

The bottom line without complications is that if the prince is the son of Tiye, then of course he is a candidate to crown prince Thutmose, but he does not impact the main Amarna saga. If he is the son of either KV21B or the Younger Lady, and KV55 is his father, then we have fun, and I believe that for all his posturing, Hawass would not have made any statement about this if he did not already know the blood relationship of the prince to the Younger Lady, Tiye, KV55 and Tutankhamun, only the two KV21 mummies being in doubt. The unsaid implication being that he is indeed a son of KV55, but not the son of the Younger Lady, and only a half brother to Tutankhamun. We will see, one day, maybe...

Just out of curiosity how do you see Smenkhkare fitting into all this? 
 

cormac

[Wepwawet]

4 hours ago, cormac mac airt said:

Just out of curiosity how do you see Smenkhkare fitting into all this? 
 

cormac

Well this is one of the biggest areas of contention. It's my opinion that Smenkhkhare was the eldest son of Akhenaten. Barring him being a twin of one of the elder daughters, Meritaten or Meketaten, there is a gap between them where a son could have been born, who would by their conventions of that time not have been mentioned in the official record. As I'm sure you know, we mostly have to rely on the sons of kings appearing in the tombs of their tutors. Tutankhamun would have been born around year nine, which would have him as a twin of possibly Neferneferuaten-tasherit. There was a daughter appearing in the records in years 8, 9, 10 and 11. The age of Tutankhamun at death at 18/19 is not disputed, neither is the ten year length of his reign, or at least into his year ten. So he would be too young to have been born in year seven, a year with no daughters born, and too old in year twelve, the next gap year.

There is a gap of about five years between Meritaten and Meketaten, which given the rate of births from year six onwards is a bit odd, unless a son or sons were born in that period, excluding Tutankhamun. While Smenkhkhare is generally said to have been king around year fourteen, there is no evidence for this, and he may have been king as late as year 16, the last year that Nefertiti is still GRW to Akhenaten and not yet co-ruler. Smenkhkare could by year sixteen have been aged between about 11 and 14 if he was a son of Akhenaten and born without being a twin, or maybe fifteen if a twin of Meritaten, a good fit for a sibling marriage if they were the new Shu and Tefnut after Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Based soley on their succession conventions, and the Horus v Set saga which put in mythlogical terms a bar on brothers of kings becoming king, I see no reason for him not to be a son of Akhenaten.

I could be accused of ducking an issue here if I do not mention the KV35 prince. It's true that I have posited that he could be Smenkhkare, but I honestly don't know, and my main reason to suggest that he might be is simply the fact that he is the only other Amarna male after Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. He may well be a brother of Tutankhamun, and I'm sure the DNA will show this, but he could just as well have been born after Tutankhamun as before. There is no reason for him not to have been born early in Akhenaten's reign, and dying young in an accident, accounting for the sudden dissapearance of Smenkhkare, and there is no reason for him not to have been born late in Akhenaten's reign, and not dying until well into Tutankhamun's reign, we will never know.

Edited August 15 by Wepwawet

[cormac mac airt]

5 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Well this is one of the biggest areas of contention. It's my opinion that Smenkhkhare was the eldest son of Akhenaten. Barring him being a twin of one of the elder daughters, Meritaten or Meketaten, there is a gap between them where a son could have been born, who would by their conventions of that time not have been mentioned in the official record. As I'm sure you know, we mostly have to rely on the sons of kings appearing in the tombs of their tutors. Tutankhamun would have been born around year nine, which would have him as a twin of possibly Neferneferuaten-tasherit. There was a daughter appearing in the records in years 8, 9, 10 and 11. The age of Tutankhamun at death at 18/19 is not disputed, neither is the ten year length of his reign, or at least into his year ten. So he would be too young to have been born in year seven, a year with no daughters born, and too old in year twelve, the next gap year.

There is a gap of about five years between Meritaten and Meketaten, which given the rate of births from year six onwards is a bit odd, unless a son or sons were born in that period, excluding Tutankhamun. While Smenkhkhare is generally said to have been king around year fourteen, there is no evidence for this, and he may have been king as late as year 16, the last year that Nefertiti is still GRW to Akhenaten and not yet co-ruler. Smenkhkare could by year sixteen have been aged between about 11 and 14 if he was a son of Akhenaten and born without being a twin, or maybe fifteen if a twin of Meritaten, a good fit for a sibling marriage if they were the new Shu and Tefnut after Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Based soley on their succession conventions, and the Horus v Set saga which put in mythlogical terms a bar on brothers of kings becoming king, I see no reason for him not to be a son of Akhenaten.

I could be accused of ducking an issue here if I do not mention the KV35 prince. It's true that I have posited that he could be Smenkhkare, but I honestly don't know, and my main reason to suggest that he might be is simply the fact that he is the only other Amarna male after Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. He may well be a brother of Tutankhamun, and I'm sure the DNA will show this, but he could just as well have been born after Tutankhamun as before. There is no reason for him not to have been born early in Akhenaten's reign, and dying young in an accident, accounting for the sudden dissapearance of Smenkhkare, and there is no reason for him not to have been born late in Akhenaten's reign, and not dying until well into Tutankhamun's reign, we will never know.

Is it possible that Smenkhkare was a younger brother of Akhenaten and father himself of Tutankhamun?

cormac

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, cormac mac airt said:

Is it possible that Smenkhkare was a younger brother of Akhenaten and father himself of Tutankhamun?

cormac

It's not impossible that Smenkhkare was a younger brother of Akhenaten, but he would not be the father of Tutankhamun. The reason for this is the talatat block from Hermopolis that names Tutankhuaten as bodily son of the king, but while the king is not mentioned by name on this block, other blocks which would have come from the same structure only reference Akhenaten and Nefertiti, not Smenkhkare.

The Horus v Set saga lays out that succession to the throne must be from father to son, not from a king to his brother, hence the issues between Horus and Set, which no matter which version you read has either Set as brother of Osiris, or brother to Horus, and an ensuing fight for the throne. There are of course some murky areas in their history, so it's not impossible that unrecorded a brother did succeed brother, but as I say, there is no record of such a thing ever happening, to the best of my knowledge. The perenial issue with Amarna of course is that Akhenaten tipped everything upside down, so it is theoretically possible that he also broke the succession rules, and indeed did so in making Nefertiti his co-ruler. It's a very difficult issue, not least because why would Akhenaten disposses his son Tutankhamun by making his own brother, if Smenkhkare/Set, king, and why do this anyway by elevating Nefertiti.

As far as Smenkhkare goes, I prefer to go on what we know their rules of succession were unless compelling evidence contra comes to light.

Edited August 15 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

It's not impossible that Smenkhkare was a younger brother of Akhenaten, but he would not be the father of Tutankhamun. The reason for this is the talatat block from Hermopolis that names Tutankhuaten as bodily son of the king, but while the king is not mentioned by name on this block, other blocks which would have come from the same structure only reference Akhenaten and Nefertiti, not Smenkhkare.

The Horus v Set saga lays out that succession to the throne must be from father to son, not from a king to his brother, hence the issues between Horus and Set, which no matter which version you read has either Set as brother of Osiris, or brother to Horus, and an ensuing fight for the throne. There are of course some murky areas in their history, so it's not impossible that unrecorded a brother did succeed brother, but as I say, there is no record of such a thing ever happening, to the best of my knowledge. The perenial issue with Amarna of course is that Akhenaten tipped everything upside down, so it is theoretically possible that he also broke the succession rules, and indeed did so in making Nefertiti his co-ruler. It's a very difficult issue, not least because why would Akhenaten disposses his son Tutankhamun by making his own brother, if Smenkhkare/Set, king, and why do this anyway by elevating Nefertiti.

As far as Smenkhkare goes, I prefer to go on what we know their rules of succession were unless compelling evidence contra comes to light.

Just to put a little nib on your excellent analysis, the Hermopolis talatat: only by inference can one say that Tut's father is Akhenaten and not Smenkhkare by way of the epigraphy on the surviving blocks.  It certainly seems to be as you say, but is not certain.  Without the king's name on the same block with Tut's name, and without the clear majority of the blocks from that structure (and without much of an understanding of the structure itself), it is possible that the missing king's name in question is Smenkhkare, however seemingly unlikely.  During the late 30's and early 40's, hundreds of previously recovered blocks (which had been used as fill by Ramesses II for a pylon there) went missing (stolen) from the storerooms at the site (Hermann, the German director of his Hermopolis team, a National Socialist, has been accused of facilitating this) and some illegal excavations were undertaken in secret during this time.  Many of these blocks which were stolen from the secured cache were later recovered and some others (previously unrecorded) appeared on the art market in the forties and so it is left to us to imagine if or how many blocks are still missing.

 

Edited August 15 by Wistman