The art of the Amarna Period, especially that from the early part of Akhenaten’s reign, is utterly distinctive. The elongation of the head, the distortion of the body’s proportions, the androgyny in royal representations – these were bold departures from the accepted norms, and must have been sanctioned at the highest levels. In an inscription next to the scene in the Aswan quarries, Bak confirms the source of the new art style, describing himself as ‘a disciple whom His Person himself instructed’. We must therefore imagine Akhenaten, at the beginning of his reign, laying down the guidelines for his artistic revolution to his leading painters and sculptors. Since the king’s word was the law, there would be no reversion to the traditional canon without express direction from the palace.
Bak clearly took the king at his word and embraced the royal directive with enthusiasm. Like all converts to Akhenaten’s ‘Teaching’ who relied on royal patronage for their continued status, Bak was a passionate advocate of the new way of doing things. He expressed his public devotion to the king in his Aswan inscription, which is labelled ‘Giving adoration to the Lord of the Two Lands and kissing the ground to Waenra’ (Akhenaten).
As chief sculptor, Bak supervised a team of craftsmen, and was responsible for training them in the new style. One of the finest products of his workshop was his own commemorative stela, sculpted from reddish-brown quartzite. It depicts Bak next to his wife Taheri; she has one arm around her husband’s shoulder in a gesture of affection. She wears a simple sheath dress, while he is clothed in a more elaborate, pleated garment, in tune with the fashion of the reign. He is also shown as rather corpulent, emphasizing his wealth and status. Unusually, the two figures – and especially that of Bak – protrude from the background of the stela so as to be rendered in three dimensions. We can see here the hand of the master sculptor, unable to leave his preferred medium behind even when commissioning a two-dimensional piece. Indeed, it is tempting to speculate that Bak carved the stela himself. He would, after all, have been the most accomplished sculptor of his day. Could the work of an inferior talent possibly have satisfied him for his own memorial? If this is correct, Bak’s stela is the oldest self-portrait in history.
60 | Mahu
A
KHENATEN
’
S CHIEF OF POLICE
Fundamentalist and despotic regimes have always governed with an iron fist. They brook no opposition, but at the same time they are in constant fear of plots and coups. So they surround themselves with security, and often adopt an overtly militaristic or paramilitary style of rule. There can be little doubt that ancient Egypt, too, was a dictatorship at many, if not most, periods of its history. The king’s word was the ultimate authority and must have been backed up by force, or at least the threat of coercion. The police and army units which formed the internal security forces left little trace in the official record, probably because their very existence was at odds with the Utopian image the elite wished to promulgate; but exist they did, and one individual from the Amarna Period provides us with an insight into this largely hidden aspect of ancient Egyptian society.
Mahu was the Chief of Police of Amarna (ancient Akhetaten). Like most security chiefs serving authoritarian rulers, he was an ultra-loyalist. He probably came from a modest background, and was one of Akhenaten’s personal appointments. As such, Mahu would have owed everything – his position, status and wealth – to the king’s continued patronage. There is an inkling of this in Mahu’s tomb in the northern cliffs at Amarna. The texts inscribed on the walls include no fewer than four copies of the Hymn to the Aten, the official creed of Akhenaten’s new religion. Including it once would have served as an explicit statement of loyalty to the regime. Repeating it four times left no room for doubt.
The accompanying scenes in Mahu’s tomb provide fascinating snapshots of his official duties. The prosecution of criminals was straightforward enough, but there were other, more unsettling, aspects to Mahu’s role. Akhenaten’s radical policies must have aroused deep unpopularity among certain sections of the population, and the fear of insurgency must have haunted his regime. Mahu was all too aware of ‘the people who would join those of the desert hills’ in waging sporadic attacks on government forces. Amarna was thus a city crawling with security personnel. As well as the police force under Mahu’s direct command, there were the soldiers and ‘leaders of the army who stand in the presence of His Person’. Every time the king or other members of the royal family left their fortified palace compound by the riverside, they were accompanied by a large security presence. On occasions, Mahu himself may have joined the squads of police running in front of and beside the royal chariot. More usually, he would have ridden in his own chariot, at the head of his forces.
Public expressions of loyalty were evidently de rigueur in Akhetaten, and Mahu knew what was expected of him. His speech before the king was a model of sycophancy:
‘O Waenra, you are forever, O builder of Akhetaten, whom Ra himself made!’
However, in such an atmosphere of paranoia, even an arch-loyalist Chief of Police was not given unfettered control of royal security. There is evidence that the king’s elite bodyguard comprised foreign soldiers who were thought less likely than native Egyptians to harbour a grudge against the revolutionary pharaoh.
The frequent formal processions and appearances by Akhenaten and Nefertiti that framed life in Amarna must have preoccupied Mahu for most of his career, yet he also found time – whether through personal piety or duty – to visit the temples of Aten at the religious heart of the city. Kneeling in front of the temple, he made the most of this public display of loyalty by leading his fellow policemen in singing Akhenaten’s praises:
‘May the pharaoh – life, prosperity and health – be healthy!
O Aten, make him continual, this Waenra.’
Such regular and repeated demonstrations of faithful devotion were eventually rewarded, and Mahu was summoned to the palace to be thanked for his loyal service. Filled with pride, he emerged from his royal audience with his arms raised in ecstatic triumph. Perhaps on this occasion, his words were more heartfelt than usual, as he declaimed ‘May you raise up generations to generations, O Ruler!’
For Mahu himself, however, a single lifespan was his allotted frame. He died before the withdrawal of the court from Amarna, and thus never lived to see the downfall of the regime of which he had been the staunchest supporter.
61 | Huy
V
ICEROY OF
K
USH
‘Gold – everywhere the glint of gold’: the fabulous treasure of Tutankhamun caused a sensation at its discovery in 1922 and has come to symbolize the opulence of the pharaohs. Egypt’s wealth in the New Kingdom was recognized and envied throughout the Near East, and was largely based upon its abundant resources of one commodity, gold. In a letter to the court of Amenhotep III, the king of Mitanni, Tushratta, wrote: ‘In the land of my brother is not gold as the dust upon the ground?’
In fact, by the 18th Dynasty, the gold of the pharaohs came not from Egypt itself, but from its conquered and annexed territories in Nubia. The gold-bearing rocks and alluvial deposits of Wawat (Lower Nubia) and Kush (Upper Nubia) supplied the Egyptian treasury with its main currency for foreign trade, and the craftsmen in the royal workshops with the material for fashioning dazzling objects for the king’s palace and tomb. Access to gold was the main reason for Egypt’s interest in Nubia. Ensuring regularity of supply fell upon the shoulders of the Egyptian administrator, the King’s Son (Viceroy) of Kush.
Huy, Viceroy of Kush during the reign of Tutankhamun, was thus the man ultimately responsible for the manufacture of the king’s golden treasure. Amenhotep-Huy (to give him his full name) secured a closer connection to the royal court through his marriage to the lady Taemwadjsi, since she was an acquaintance of Amenhotep III’s parents-in-law, Yuya and Tuyu. During the troubled reign of Akhenaten and its immediate aftermath, Huy’s fortunes are not known. Perhaps he simply kept his head down, waiting and hoping for better times. These came with the accession of Tutankhamun, when Taemwadjsi was appointed head of the new king’s harem palace while her husband Huy landed the plum job of Viceroy of Kush.
His formal appointment took place at the royal palace, in the presence of the boy king himself. After courtiers had paid homage to Tutankhamun on the steps of the throne dais, Huy’s appointment was read out, not by the king – on account of his youth – but by the Overseer of the Treasury. The proclamation was brief and to the point, ‘Thus speaks Pharaoh: there is handed over to you from Nekhen to Nesut-tawy’, confirming Huy’s jurisdiction over a vast expanse of territory stretching from Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt to Napata in Upper Nubia. Huy replied, in turn, ‘May Amun, Lord of Nesut-tawy, do according to all that you have commanded, O sovereign, my lord.’ He then received the badges of his new office, a rolled-up scarf and a gold signet-ring. As he left the palace, a bouquet of flowers in each hand, Huy was welcomed by the officials of his new department. In front of him marched the Viceroy’s sailors, preceded by their chief standard-bearer. The whole joyous procession was accompanied by a lutenist and other musicians, while Huy’s servants and onlookers shouted blessings.
Huy’s first act as Viceroy was to give thanks for his appointment in the temple of Amun, where he made libations of myrrh. Only after carrying out this solemn act did he don his ceremonial robes, gold armlets and gold collar, signifying his new status as ‘the prince, the great courtier, important in his high office, great in his dignity, the true scribe of the king, his beloved, Amenhotep’. His whole family was there to witness the moment, including his four sons, his mother Wenher, his sister Gu and other female relatives, joined for the occasion by members of Huy’s household, friends and neighbours.
The celebrations over, it was time for Huy to begin his official duties. He journeyed from the royal residence to Nubia by river, aboard the splendid viceregal boat. His beloved horses had their own stall, while Huy had the benefit of a cabin shaded by a large awning. When the boat arrived at Faras (ancient Sehetepnetjeru), the Egyptian seat of government in Nubia, Huy was greeted by local dignitaries bearing symbolic offerings of food and bags of gold dust. But the Viceroy’s chief interest would have been his first meeting with his full team of officials: the Deputies of Wawat and Kush; the Mayor of Soleb (ancient Khemmaat); the Overseer of Cattle; the Lieutenant of the Fortress of Faras; the Mayor of Faras; and the High Priest, Second Prophet and wab-priests of the local cult of the deified Tutankhamun.
Of course, Huy’s principal job was to oversee Egypt’s exploitation of Nubia’s economic resources: cattle and gold. The importance of the latter was reflected in his titles Overseer of the Gold-Countries of Amun and Overseer of the Gold-Countries of the Lord of the Two Lands. On regular occasions, Huy inspected the revenue destined for the royal treasury. Sitting on a simple stool, carrying his sceptre of office, he watched while gold rings and bags of gold dust were brought in, weighed and counted. Regular shipments of gold, minerals, livestock and exotica were dispatched from Faras, and Huy was responsible for inspecting the transport boats to ensure they were in good condition for the long journey by river. He could certainly not afford for a precious cargo to founder en route. He also had to ensure that the fortress of Faras itself, Egypt’s power-base in annexed Nubia, was re-supplied on a regular basis with all necessary produce, including oxen, horses, donkeys, goats and geese.
The culmination of his official duties was the formal presentation of Nubian produce to the king. The extensive scenes in Huy’s Theban tomb which record the event, be they first-hand or imagined, certainly present a magnificent spectacle. Huy appeared in all his finery, holding the sceptre of viceregal authority and waving an ostrich-feather fan to signify his courtly status as ‘fan-bearer on the king’s right hand’. Offering-bearers paraded before the enthroned monarch with red and green minerals, ivory tusks, ebony logs, shields, furniture, and the most important commodity of all in the form of a model golden chariot, gold rings, bags of gold dust, and elaborate gold table decorations. At the end of the ceremony, Huy emerged from the palace having received his highly appropriate reward: ‘gold on his neck and arms, time after time, exceedingly many times.’
62 | Tutankhamun
T
HE BOY KING
He came to the throne as a child, died on the threshold of adulthood, and never really exercised control over his kingdom; yet his lavish burial has become synonymous with the power of the pharaohs. His monuments were systematically usurped by his successors, he was airbrushed out of history by later chroniclers, and little is known about the events of his reign; yet today he is undoubtedly the most famous of ancient Egypt’s kings. His background and personality remain obscure, yet his face is an icon, known to millions the world over. These are just some of the paradoxes surrounding the boy-king Tutankhamun: as Howard Carter noted, ‘the mystery of his life still eludes us’. The discovery of his tomb in 1922 caused a sensation and ignited a popular fascination for ancient Egypt that has never abated. The ‘wonderful things’ with which Tutankhamun was buried continue to awe and enthral. But what of the king himself, the boy behind the golden mask?
His parentage is nowhere made explicit. The best clue is an inscription on a block from Amarna (ancient Akhetaten), found reused at Hermopolis. It carries the words ‘the king’s son of his body, his beloved, Tutankhuaten’. This strongly suggests that Tutankhuaten was Akhenaten’s son, probably by a secondary wife called Kiya. Certainly the baby’s given name, ‘living image of Aten’, is as devout as one would expect from the founder of the Aten cult. As the king’s son, Tutankhuaten would have been brought up at Amarna, probably in the North Palace which seems to have served as the household of the royal women and children. Curiously, there are no surviving images of the boy from Amarna; this invisibility from the official record, together with Kiya’s sudden fall from grace and similar ‘disappearance’, may perhaps be attributed to Nefertiti. As mother of the king’s daughters and an ambitious woman in her own right, she would scarcely have welcomed the birth of a son and heir by another wife.
In due course, the two competing lines were united when Akhenaten’s son by his secondary wife married his daughter by Nefertiti. Tutankhuaten’s union with Ankhesenpaaten (no. 63) must have greatly strengthened his claim to the throne, not least because his wife had effectively become heir apparent following the promotion of one older sister and the premature death of the other. However, the succession, when it arose on Akhenaten’s death, was far from straightforward. Only after one or two other claimants had come and gone could Tutankhuaten claim his inheritance. He was a boy of about nine years old.
