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POLITICS
In the official record, the reigns of Egyptian monarchs often look like one-man shows, dominated by the person of the king, with other members of the royal circle afforded only minor bit-parts. By contrast, Amenhotep III’s glittering reign was very much a double-act. From his first year on the throne to the end of his life, his wife Tiye was his constant companion and support. In state texts, her name was closely associated with her husband’s. She was the recipient of the king’s favour to an extraordinary degree, the monuments dedicated to her ranging from a boating lake in Middle Egypt to a temple in Nubia. In common with earlier generations of 18th Dynasty royal women, Tiye exercised considerable influence at court and took an active and public role in government. She thus, unwittingly, set the scene for the extraordinary rise to power of her daughter-in-law, Nefertiti (no. 57).
Tiye was the daughter of middle-ranking provincial officials from Akhmim in Middle Egypt. Her father, Yuya, was a priest in the local temple of Min and overseer of its herds of cattle. Tiye’s mother, Tuyu, was a songstress in the cults of Amun and Hathor, and a leading temple musician ‘chief of entertainers’ in the cults of Amun and Min. Both parents were therefore closely involved in their local communities, but did not hold high office in regional or national government. When the newly crowned Amenhotep III chose Tiye as his wife, in the first year of his reign, he was therefore breaking with recent royal tradition by marrying a commoner from such an obscure background. But the bond between the couple, neither of them much older than twelve, was clearly strong from the start. Amenhotep promoted his parents-in-law, appointing Yuya as Master of the Horse and lieutenant-commander of the king’s chariotry, while bestowing on Tuyu the dignity of King’s Mother of the King’s Great Wife. Tiye’s brother, Anen, likewise received promotion. The king was keen to admit his wife’s family into the inner royal circle.
Tiye clearly took to royal life, enjoying the luxury and sophistication of Amenhotep III’s court. New fashions of clothing were sweeping Egypt, under the influence of its extensive foreign contacts, and Tiye enjoyed her fair share of elaborate garments. One of her most exotic creations was a feather dress with two vulture-wings that wrapped around the hips and thighs, tightly belted at the waist and held in place by wide shoulder straps. But Tiye was no mere dilettante. With her husband’s encouragement, she began to involve herself in affairs of state. She sent letters on her own behalf to foreign rulers, and received their replies, contributing to the upsurge in diplomatic correspondence characteristic of Amenhotep III’s reign.
On the domestic stage, she fulfilled the female roles necessary to complement her husband’s preferred model of divine kingship. Hence, she was Mut to his Amun; she adopted the horns and disc of the goddess Hathor to his Horus; she associated herself with Nekhbet to draw an explicit parallel between the vulture goddess who helped the sun god in his journey across the heavens and a royal consort supporting her husband through his earthly reign. The royal iconographers also cast Tiye in a more fearsome role, as defender of the king: in one relief, she is shown as a sphinx, trampling the enemies of pharaoh in a scene adapted straight from the imagery of kingship. It is highly probable that Tiye was closely involved in this carefully worked-out propaganda: the pouting lips and downturned mouth seen on her statues suggest a steely resolve behind the façade of queenly beauty. Indeed, Tiye employed her own sculptor, a man named Iuty, to create her likenesses; he was but one member of her extended household, led by her steward Kheruef.
From shortly after her husband’s coronation until his third jubilee festival, Tiye was ever at Amenhotep’s side. In the last year of his reign, a statue of Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility, was sent to Egypt by Tushratta, king of Mitanni. It might have been intended as a symbol of the royal couple’s enduring affection, but with Amenhotep III’s death just a year later, Tiye found herself suddenly alone. She moved her household to the palace at Gurob to live out her widowhood surrounded by her faithful female staff: the head of the household, Teye; the singer, Mi; the maids, Nebetya and Tama. To placate her son, the new king Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten), Tiye also maintained a residence at his new city of Akhetaten (Amarna); here her household was supervised by the steward Huya.
Tiye seems to have been a formidable presence in the early years of her son’s reign. Having embarked on a revolution in government, he could not afford to do without her experience and counsel. On one occasion, Tushratta wrote to Amenhotep IV (as he then was), urging him to consult his mother on matters of state, since she was the only one who understood Amenhotep III’s policies in detail. That a foreign ruler held Tiye in such high regard is testimony to her profound influence and political nous.
Having survived her husband by almost a decade, Tiye died in her early sixties; she is generally thought to have been buried by her son in the royal tomb at Amarna. However, the discovery of two shabti-figurines, referring to her as the King’s Mother, in Amenhotep III’s tomb at Thebes, suggests that she may in fact have been laid to rest next to her husband – as she would certainly have wished. Her influence as the matriarch of the family continued for another generation: her grandson Tutankhamun was buried with objects bearing her name, including a lock of her hair. Devoted wife, wise mother, beloved grandmother; diplomatic correspondent, official consort, patron of the arts: Tiye was all of these and more, a larger-than-life figure who continues to fascinate, thirty-three centuries after her death.
54 | Userhat
L
OWLY SCRIBE
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ARTISTIC PATRON
To be able to read and write was a rare and valuable skill in ancient Egypt. Membership of the country’s tiny literate class opened doors to a career in the administration, to the corridors of power. Hence, to be a ‘scribe’ was something to boast about, even if it did not lead to high office. A good example was Userhat, who lived and worked in Thebes in the reign of Amenhotep III. Userhat’s motley collection of titles included Scribe of the Census of Bread of Upper and Lower Egypt, Overseer of the Cattle of Amun, and Deputy Herald; but, more often than not, he referred to himself simply as ‘scribe’. His entry into the lower echelons of government had been helped, no doubt, by his distant royal connections: he had been brought up as a ‘child of the royal nursery’.
He remained, however, a lowly official, a small cog in the huge wheel of Theban bureaucracy. He set up a household, married a woman named Mutnofret, and they had three children: nothing exceptional. What has guaranteed Userhat’s lasting fame is not his career but his choice of artist to decorate his Theban tomb. By chance, he clearly knew one of the best artists of the day, someone able to bring new verve and vigour to the traditional stable of motifs. As a result, the scenes in Userhat’s tomb are some of the most famous in the whole canon of New Kingdom private funerary art. In the hands of the anonymous artist, a standard scene of hunting in the desert was transformed into a dynamic composition of colour, movement and pathos: desert hares and antelope flee in panic before a hail of arrows; a wounded fox, caught in a thorn bush, slowly bleeds to death. Such emotion and sense of action are rare indeed in tomb art; the artist of Userhat’s tomb was clearly a master.
Other details in the tomb reflected Userhat’s life and interests, such as his supervision of the annual cattle count and his presentation of flowers to the king, enthroned beneath a brightly coloured pavilion. A small, naturalistic detail was included in a formal banquet scene in the form of a pet monkey, squatting beneath Mutnofret’s chair, eating fruit from a basket. In the depiction of Userhat’s funeral procession, the tomb owner’s chariot and favourite pair of horses featured prominently, suggesting that chariot-riding as a leisure activity was not confined to the highest echelons of society, but enjoyed by a wider section of the population. A genre scene, included to add colour but probably not directly related to Userhat’s own experiences, was the recruitment of young conscripts into the army. As soon as they were enlisted, they waited in line to have their hair cut short by the army barber: an induction common to new recruits throughout history. It was through such acutely observed details that the artist raised the decoration of Userhat’s tomb above the commonplace, offering instead lively snapshots of life among the lower ranks of the administration in 18th Dynasty Thebes.
55 | Amenhotep son of Hapu
T
HE KING
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S RIGHT
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HAND MAN
Although it was a society in which inherited office was the ideal, ancient Egypt none the less prided itself on giving men of talent the opportunity to rise to the very top through their own abilities. Indeed, there are examples throughout pharaonic history of individuals of humble birth achieving high office. One man, however, outdid them all: Amenhotep son of Hapu rose, not from rags to riches, but from drudgery to divinity.
Amenhotep was born in around 1435 bc, during the reign of Thutmose III (no. 45), a son to Itu and his wife Hapu. He grew up in the small provincial town of Athribis (ancient Hut-hery-ib), capital of the tenth nome (province) of Lower Egypt. As a boy, his intellectual abilities must already have been recognized, as he was sent to attend the House of Life attached to the local temple. This institution housed both the sacred library and the scriptorium where priests composed new religious texts. The young Amenhotep would have received a thorough induction in Egyptian reading and writing, an education shared with very few of his contemporaries: ‘I was inducted into the gods’ books and beheld the words of Thoth [hieroglyphs]. I penetrated their secrets and learned all their mysteries, and I was consulted on their every aspect.’
Having learned to read and write, he no doubt entered the lower ranks of the local administration, and seemed destined for a comfortable, though unspectacular career. All that changed at the accession of Amenhotep III (no. 52), by which time Amenhotep son of Hapu was already in his mid-forties. The new reign brought with it new opportunities for men of learning, and Amenhotep became a royal scribe and chief priest of his local temple of Horus-Khentikheti. Still, his world did not extend beyond the confines of his home town in the central Delta. At some point during the next decade, however, word must have reached the king about the abilities of this local administrator. For, in his fifties, Amenhotep was summoned south to Thebes – more than 400 miles (650 km) away – to take up the position of scribe of recruits, responsible for levying and deploying manpower throughout Egypt for royal construction projects. So successful was Amenhotep in this important role, that he was subsequently promoted to Overseer of All the King’s Works; he now had direct managerial responsibility for Amenhotep III’s lavish projects, ranging from the temple of Soleb in Nubia to the king’s mortuary temple and colossi on the west bank of Thebes. These last were among the largest royal statues ever commissioned, and Amenhotep was understandably proud of his part in their creation:
‘I directed the king’s likeness in every hard stone like heaven, directing the work of his statues, great of breadth. I did not imitate what had been done before… and there has never been anyone who has done the same since the founding of the Two Lands.’
As a reward for his excellent work, Amenhotep received a signal honour: the king ordered statues of his favourite high official to be placed along the main processional route in the great temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. This unusual mark of royal esteem conferred on Amenhotep the role of intermediary in other people’s prayers. In his own words, ‘I am the spokesman appointed by the king to hear your words of supplication.’
Although by now in his seventies, Amenhotep was still the ablest of the king’s ministers, and was therefore given a challenge of special significance: coordinating the lavish jubilee celebrations to mark Amenhotep III’s thirty years on the throne. The festivities took place at Thebes, and involved the construction of a jubilee palace, and the staging of elaborate water-borne processions and other visual spectacles. As Festival Leader and ‘member of the elite in the offices of the sed-festival’, Amenhotep son of Hapu had to make sure that everything went according to plan; there was no room for mistakes in such a symbolically charged event. The jubilee passed off in exemplary fashion, and Amenhotep was showered with honours by a grateful monarch. Among his rewards was a decorated, commemorative headband (the ancient Egyptian equivalent of a jubilee medal), which he proudly wore in later years.
Amenhotep never held one of the great offices of state – vizier, chancellor, High Priest of Amun, army commander – yet enjoyed an exceptional degree of royal favour because of his personal and intellectual qualities. In recognition of these, he was brought into the royal household as steward to the king’s eldest daughter, Sitamun. Amenhotep was now firmly established as the grand old man of the court, feted for his achievements, beloved of the people. Already in his eighties, he must have seemed immortal, even to himself: ‘I have reached the age of eighty years. I am greatly praised by the king, and I will complete 110 years.’ But that was a little too ambitious, even for Amenhotep. At around the time of the king’s second jubilee festival, the old man died, his final wish being ‘to go out into the sky and be united with the stars, acclaimed in the boat of the sun god’. He was interred in a tomb in the hills of western Thebes, and was given the unique honour of his own mortuary temple – unprecedented for a private individual. Here, his cult was still maintained three centuries after his death.
The posthumous reputation of Amenhotep son of Hapu gained a popular following, especially in the Theban region where so many of his great projects had been carried out. A 22nd Dynasty inscription at Karnak addressed him as a great sage: ‘O Amenhotep, in your great name you know the secret power in the words of the past, that date back to the time of the ancestors.’ By the reign of Ptolemy II (180–164 bc), Amenhotep son of Hapu had been formally deified, worshipped at two sites on the west bank of Thebes (Deir el-Medina and Deir el-Bahri) as a god of learning and healing. From there, the cult of Amenhotep spread throughout the Nile Valley and continued to be observed until the period of Roman rule: a remarkable legacy for a man of humble origins.
PART 5
The Great Heresy
Amarna Period
The reign of Akhenaten and its immediate aftermath have prompted more interest and more controversy than any other phase of ancient Egyptian history. The Amarna Period, as it is known, lasted barely two decades, yet transformed every aspect of pharaonic civilization, from art and religion to politics and government. There is no doubt that the instigator of these revolutionary changes was Akhenaten himself (no. 56), aided and abetted by his wife Nefertiti (no. 57). But no revolution can succeed without its loyal adherents, and the main protagonists of the Amarna Period emerge as complex and fascinating individuals in their own right: from the High Priest Meryra (no. 58), in charge of promoting Akhenaten’s new religious doctrine, to the sculptor Bak (no. 59), instructed by the king himself in the bold, new artistic style of the age, to Mahu (no. 60), the chief of police responsible for maintaining tight security in the new capital city of Amarna (ancient Akhetaten). It is perhaps because of such colourful characters that the reign of Akhenaten seems more vivid, more accessible than other eras of the pharaonic past.
While the revolution was most vigorously promoted in Amarna itself, its effects were felt throughout the country. Temples were closed, priesthoods disbanded; monuments to gods other than Aten were systematically defaced; new shrines to Aten were built in the major centres of the old religion, including Thebes and Memphis. There is evidence that Akhenaten’s new doctrine failed to find favour among the general population, and there must have been a widespread sense of unease at the fundamental changes being wrought in every area of public life. Only perhaps beyond Egypt’s borders, in its foreign territories, did life continue much as before: the scenes from the tomb of Huy, Viceroy of Nubia (no. 61), suggest a seamless continuation of the traditional Egyptian policy of political control and economic exploitation.
As much as the personalities, the archaeology of the Amarna Period has contributed to its fame and popularity. The fact that Akhenaten’s new capital city was abandoned almost as swiftly as it was founded, and has been rediscovered through decades of careful survey and excavation, means that we can reconstruct life in Amarna to a degree impossible for any another ancient Egyptian city. We can reconstruct its palaces and temples, its workshops and houses; we can imagine the king’s progress along the ceremonial road, and the appearance of the royal couple on the balcony of the King’s House; we can, in our mind’s eye, wander the streets of Akhetaten in a way that is impossible for Thebes or Memphis. Furthermore, the art of the Amarna Period is undeniably engaging, if somewhat surreal. The colossal statues of Akhenaten and the painted bust of Nefertiti have a power and immediacy unmatched by other ancient Egyptian sculpture.
But perhaps the most important reason for the endless fascination with the Amarna Period is the mysterious manner of its passing. So many questions remain unresolved about the events surrounding and following the end of Akhenaten’s reign. Who was Smenkhkara? Did Nefertiti succeed her husband as ‘king’ in her own right? Where was Akhenaten buried and where is his body now? Which widowed queen wrote a desperate letter to the Hittite king begging for a husband to rule Egypt alongside her? Add to these intriguing puzzles the life, death and burial of Akhenaten’s sole surviving child, the boy-king Tutankhamun (no. 62), and it is little wonder that the Amarna Period continues to inspire so much study and speculation. The tomb of Tutankhamun remains the single most spectacular archaeological discovery ever made in Egypt. Yet despite its fabulous treasures, it has yielded surprisingly little information about the king himself, his queen (no. 63) or his successor (no. 65). Much more informative are the Memphite tombs of Tutankhamun’s high officials, such as his treasurer Maya (no. 64), recently excavated from the sands of Saqqara. They promise new insights into events at the end of the 18th Dynasty. But the allure of the Amarna Period is likely to remain. For, as Lady Burghclere famously remarked about the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, ‘A story that opens like Aladdin’s Cave and ends like a Greek myth of Nemesis cannot fail to capture the imagination of all men and women.’
56 | Akhenaten
