The king mobilized his forces quickly. He ordered the Viceroy of Kush into action against the Nubians, who were crushed with relative ease. The main Egyptian army marched at once for the western Delta, engaging the invaders near the twin cities of Pe and Dep (Buto, modern Tell el-Fara‘in). After a ferocious six-hour battle, the Egyptians claimed victory. The invasion had been stopped in its tracks. No doubt mightily relieved, and buoyed up by this stunning military success, Merenptah followed his father’s example and had an account of his triumph inscribed for eternity. In fact, not one account but two: just as Ramesses II had commissioned both a poetic and a prose record of the Battle of Kadesh, so his son composed two versions of his own victory. The poem was a masterpiece of hyperbole. It included a graphic account of the rout of the Libyan troops; the flight of their chief Merey, referred to as ‘the abomination of Memphis’; and the desolation of their homeland in the wake of defeat. Moreover, the king was extolled as victor over all Egypt’s enemies: Tjehenu (Libya), Canaan, Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam, Khor and – most famously of all – Israel. This reference to the people of the Old Testament is the only known occurrence of the name Israel in a hieroglyphic text. It is a supreme irony that, despite his genuine military successes and efforts to defend his father’s glorious achievements, Merenptah’s place in history was ultimately secured by this one, brief, and perhaps fictional reference.
76 | Paneb
N
OTORIOUS CRIMINAL
Ancient Egyptian art presents a perfectly ordered view of the world in which people go about their daily lives in peace and contentment, families are loving and close-knit, and the social hierarchy is universally respected. Of course, no society in history has been such a Utopia, and ancient Egypt certainly had its fair share of disease, delinquency and strife. But we must look to other sources of evidence other than art for insights into the grittier realities of life. Administrative and legal texts, in particular, were created to record factual occurrences rather than to immortalize an idealized picture of society. They can therefore provide fleeting glimpses of the social ills that lurked beneath the outward semblance of order and harmony. One such collection of documents from the end of the 19th Dynasty highlights the crimes and misdemeanours of a notorious Theban criminal.
The miscreant in question was a man called Paneb. He lived in the village of the necropolis workmen (Deir el-Medina), tucked away in a secluded valley of western Thebes. Paneb’s father and grandfather had both been workmen employed in the construction of the royal tombs. Nefersenet, Paneb’s father, had worked on the tombs of Ramesses II and his sons, and was evidently well known in the local area, being mentioned in several graffiti. His son was to become even more of a household name, but for rather different reasons.
Paneb had a typically large family. He shared his small house with his wife Wabet, their three or four sons, and five daughters; but it was not a picture of unalloyed domestic bliss. In the cramped conditions of the village, living cheek-by-jowl with other households, the opportunity for extra-marital affairs was ever-present, and Paneb seems to have found the temptation irresistible. He had sexual relations with at least three married women, one called Tuy and two by the name of Hunro, transgressions which must have made him unpopular, especially with his own family.
In his work, too, Paneb was deceitful and unscrupulous. On reaching adulthood, at the end of the long reign of Ramesses II, he had joined the team of necropolis workmen, following in his father’s footsteps. As a ‘man of the crew’, Paneb laboured through the decade-long reign of Merenptah and into that of Seti II. Five years into the new king’s reign, an opportunity suddenly presented itself for promotion when the chief workman, Neferhotep, died or retired. In ancient Egypt, important offices were usually passed down through a family, and Neferhotep’s younger brother, Amennakht, expected to succeed as chief workman. However, he had reckoned without Paneb who was quite prepared to do whatever it took to advance his own career, even at others’ expense. Paneb simply bribed the Vizier to appoint him chief workman, passing over Amennakht. Subsequently, to cover his tracks, Paneb made a complaint against the Vizier which led to his dismissal from office.
As one of two chief workmen, responsible for the ‘right side’ of the crew – while his colleague Hay led the ‘left side’ – Paneb now had ample opportunity to feather his own nest. He had already begun work on his own tomb when he was a humble stonecutter; but he now had at his disposal the entire workforce of his team. He lost no time in using them for his own projects, taking them away from their contracted work in the Valley of the Kings. For example, one of Paneb’s subordinates, Nebnefer son of Wadjmose, failed to turn up for work because he was feeding Paneb’s ox. Such behaviour was probably quite widespread among those in minor positions of authority, and would not have been considered a serious transgression. However, Paneb’s criminal activity went further. He stole tools from his place of work, taking away pick-axes and a hoe belonging to the state for the construction of his own tomb. He also used his influence and access to commit much graver crimes. Seti II had now died and had been laid to rest in the Valley of the Kings. If Paneb’s later accusers are to be believed, he plundered the royal tomb on which he had himself worked and robbed it of a chariot cover, incense, oil, wines and a statue. He compounded his offence by sitting on the dead king’s sarcophagus, an act of appalling desecration.
Theft, tomb-robbery, blasphemy against the gods: Paneb had descended from petty wrongdoer to major criminal, and his enemies seized their chance to bring him to justice. Amennakht, who harboured a lasting grudge against Paneb for dishonestly depriving him of the office of chief workman, dictated a series of charges to a scribe, then laid them in writing before the Vizier Hori. In his submission, he even accused Paneb of murder. The defendant’s own son, Aapehty, himself a necropolis workman, weighed in with accusations against his father of adultery and fornication. Condemned on all sides, by colleagues and family members, Paneb’s criminal career had run its course. But had it? Frustratingly, we know nothing of his ultimate fate, whether he was convicted or managed to escape justice by some clever ruse. Whatever the court’s decision, Paneb had ensured his immortality, not by good deeds but by infamy.
77 | Bay
K
INGMAKER
The sixty-seven-year reign of Ramesses II dominated the 19th Dynasty. While it had been a source of great stability at the time, its effect on later generations was seriously destabilizing, as a succession of either aged or immature kings followed. In such a situation, there was abundant scope for dynastic intrigue, for plots and counter-plots. The record of such events is, naturally, rather opaque, but it is clear that one man in particular took advantage of the circumstances to promote his own interests; his name was Bay.
During the reign of Seti II, Merenptah’s short-lived successor, Bay held the office of chancellor. His background is obscure, but he was possibly of Near Eastern origin. He was clearly an accomplished politician. He needed to be, since Seti II’s reign was far from trouble-free. In his second year on the throne, a usurper called Amenmesse was proclaimed king in the Nile Valley south of the Fayum, leaving Seti with effective authority over just the Delta and Memphite area. Amenmesse may have been Seti’s son who, frustrated at being passed over as heir apparent, decided to launch his own bid for power and oust his father in the process. He held out as king for nearly four years, before Seti II managed to restore royal authority throughout Egypt and its conquered territories. It is not clear what part, if any, Bay played in these events; even if he was not involved in Amenmesse’s coup, he evidently saw the damage that had been done to the authority of the monarchy and decided to exploit it for his own purposes.
Seti II’s restoration to full power was short-lived, as he died a year or so after ousting Amenmesse. The crown prince and legitimate heir had been Seti’s son Seti-Merenptah, but he was either dead already or unable to assert his rights to the succession in the face of powerful opponents. Leading the opposition camp was Bay. His preferred choice as the next king was a young prince called Siptah, very probably the son of Amenmesse; in texts at Aswan and Gebel el-Silsila, Bay boasted that he had ‘established the king in the seat of his father’. Bay’s candidate had good connections in Nubia, giving him access to its mineral wealth. Better still, as a mere child, he was ripe for manipulation by older, more experienced courtiers, and Bay fully intended to exert his own authority by ruling through the young king.
Siptah was duly proclaimed king, but power was exercised through a regency headed by Seti II’s widow, Tawosret. At least, this was the official version of events, but in reality Bay was the power behind the throne. He used his new-found power to the full, commissioning a tomb of regal proportions for himself in the Valley of the Kings. However, his influence at the heart of government did not last long. In the fifth year of Tawosret’s regency, she made her bid for full power, a decision which precipitated Bay’s downfall. He was executed on Tawosret’s orders and his name was systematically erased from the record, with the exception of an oblique reference to ‘the great enemy’. His tomb was never used.
A year or less later, Siptah himself was dead, still only in his teens. The counter-revolution was complete. The young king’s name was removed from his own unfinished tomb, and from Tawosret’s nearby sepulchre in the Valley of the Kings. She continued to rule as sole king, but the country was split asunder. Civil war ensued and order was only restored by the advent of a new strong-man, Sethnakht, the founder of the 20th Dynasty. He and his descendants wrote both Siptah and Tawosret out of history, regarding Seti II as the last legitimate king of the 19th Dynasty royal line. As for the king-maker Bay, history was even more damning: a 20th Dynasty source called him simply ‘the Syrian upstart’.
78 | Ramesses III
T
HE LAST GREAT KING OF
E
GYPT
Ramesses III has been called the last great pharaoh. Certainly, his thirty-one years on the throne of Egypt were not short of glories: temple building on a grand scale, epic military victories, expeditions to bring back exotic materials from distant lands. But the manner in which his reign came to an end – a court conspiracy, attempted assassination and untimely death – was less glorious, presaging the breakdown in central authority that was to characterize the Third Intermediate Period.
Ramesses was born in the dying days of the 19th Dynasty. His father, Sethnakht, was probably an army general, in charge of the troops garrisoned in the eastern Delta. In the aftermath of the troubled reigns of Siptah and Tawosret, the military class turned to Sethnakht as the man best able to restore stability. But he was already elderly. Effective power during his brief, two-year reign was therefore exercised by his son Ramesses, who, like his father, had probably started his career in the army.
When Ramesses himself acceded to the throne, he brought with him the promise a better future. Here was a vigorous and healthy king, to restore stability and glory to the Egyptian throne after a succession of weak and ineffectual rulers. He consciously modelled himself on Egypt’s last great king, Ramesses II, choosing a throne-name (Usermaatra-merya-mun) which deliberately recalled that of his illustrious predecessor (Usermaatra-setepenra). Ramesses III may perhaps have been the great-grandson of Ramesses II: he was certainly a ruler in the same mould. He named two of his sons after Ramesses II’s sons, even appointing them to the same offices as their forebears.
Just as Ramesses II had built a magnificent mortuary temple (the Ramesseum) on the west bank at Thebes, so Ramesses III set about doing the same. Proclaimed as ‘The Mansion of Millions of Years of King Ramesses, United With Eternity in the Estate of Amun’, the temple at Medinet Habu was to be the last great architectural achievement of the New Kingdom. Its massive pylons, two columned forecourts, hypostyle hall, and adjoining palace were all contained within a fortified enclosure wall. The gateway to the entire sacred space was modelled on a Syrian fortress (migdol), and the king reserved its upper chambers for his private use, decorating them with intimate scenes of himself and his wives.
The fact that Ramesses’ mortuary temple employed Syrian-inspired architectural motifs illustrates the cosmopolitan nature of his reign. Even his favourite wife Iset may have been of foreign origin. But Egypt’s foreign relations were not confined to cultural influences and diplomatic marriages. Peoples to the north, east and west were undergoing internal convulsions; restless foreign rulers and displaced people alike viewed Egypt’s legendary wealth with greedy eyes. Would the young king Ramesses III live up to the bravery and resolve of his famous forebear? His first five years on the throne passed in peace, but this was the calm before the storm. From the king’s fifth to eleventh years, Egypt suffered no fewer than three attempted invasions, testing its defences, and the king’s military leadership, to the limit.
The first attack was led by the Libu people of Cyrenaica (coastal Libya). It was swiftly countered but much worse was to come. In the king’s eighth year, Egypt faced one of the most dangerous situations it had ever known. Political and military unrest in the far-off Mycenaean world may have been the trigger: according to the Egyptian account, ‘the foreign countries plotted in their islands, and the people were dislodged and scattered by battle all at one time and no land could stand before their arms.’ The displacement of large numbers of people from the Aegean and Anatolia caused a massive population movement. The migrants, known collectively as the Sea Peoples, comprised at least nine distinct ethnic groups: Denyen (perhaps the Danaoi from mainland Greece), Ekwesh (Achaeans?), Lukka (Lycians), Peleset (Philistines), Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Tjeker (Teucrians?) and Weshesh. Together, they moved out from their homelands, through the eastern Mediterranean, ravaging coastal towns and cities, attacking Cilicia, Cyprus and Syria, and even destabilizing the once-mighty Hittite empire.
They pressed on towards Egypt; a land invasion, including women and children in carts, headed for Egypt’s northeastern frontier while a sea-borne force made for the Delta. On learning of the two-pronged invasion, Ramesses immediately sent orders to the frontier fortresses to stand firm and hold the enemy at bay until the main Egyptian army arrived. When the two forces met at the border, there was a mighty battle with massive loss of life; but the Egyptians prevailed. Attention now turned to the Delta coast. The enemy fleet made for the mouth of one of the Nile branches, no doubt intending to sail upstream to Memphis; but the Egyptians engaged them in the open sea, assisted by archers firing from the shoreline. At the end of the epic encounter, Egypt was victorious and Ramesses recorded the whole conflict in texts and images on the outer wall of his mortuary temple. The description of the battles is the longest surviving hieroglyphic inscription. Although Egypt secured its continued liberty and independence, routing the invaders, the effort placed great strains on the country and must have severely dented its confidence. Moreover, some of the Sea Peoples settled on the coastal plain of the Levant, uncomfortably close to Egypt, while others, notably Sherden, made their homes in the Nile Valley itself. The geo-politics of the Near East were changing, and nothing could stop the process.
Ramesses was eventually able to turn his attention to more peaceful activities, such as sending expeditions to distant lands to bring back precious materials for the royal treasury: myrrh and incense from Punt, copper from Timna, and turquoise from Sinai. The wealth generated by these missions was put to work in a new round of temple building, including at Karnak.
As he neared his thirtieth year on the throne, and the occasion of his jubilee festival, Ramesses III had proved himself a worthy successor of his hero Ramesses II, leading his people bravely and wisely in war and peace. But all was not well in the corridors of power. Just months before the jubilee, the necropolis workmen went on strike four times to demand their monthly wages in grain. The government, it seems, was too preoccupied with preparations for the forthcoming celebrations to meet its more mundane responsibilities. The jubilee itself passed off smoothly, but disguised the simmering resentment building at court. The cause of conflict was the ambition of one of Ramesses III’s wives, Tiye, to place her son, prince Pentweret, on the throne in place of his father. The plot to assassinate the king was hatched in the harem palace. Those involved included members of the king’s inner circle – such as the Chief of the Chamber, butlers, an Overseer of the Treasury and a commander of the army – as well as officials and others directly connected with the harem.
The coup plot was foiled, and Ramesses set up a high-level commission of enquiry to try the accused and carry out the sentences. The intention may have been to insulate the king from any further direct involvement. But it was to be Ramesses III’s last act, the exhortation ‘May all that they have done fall upon their heads’ his final royal command. The king died shortly afterwards, perhaps as a result of injuries sustained in the assassination attempt. With his death, the self-confident and secure model of kingship passed away too. Egypt would never fully regain its former glory.
79 | Ramessesnakht
H
IGH
P
RIEST UNDER THE LATE
R
AMESSIDES
