Moses and Akhenaten (13 page)

Redford complains that Giles's ‘entirely unwarranted manipulation of numbers and his assumptions regarding Tiye's age at various times in her life do not command the respect of the uncommitted reader'.
⁹
However, he is using the inability of an opponent to present his case to try to persuade us that he has none.

Examination of the mummy of Amenhotep III suggests that he was about fifty when he died. As he ruled for a full thirty-eight years and died at the start of the thirty-ninth, he could only have been around twelve when he came to the throne and about fourteen when he married Tiye in or just before his second regnal year. As Tiye was not the heiress, whom he had to marry irrespective of her age, we should expect her to be younger than he, as this was the custom of the time, and it is thought that she was only eight years of age at the time of the wedding. This would not have been unusual in that era. The prophet Muhammad married a nine-year-old girl when he himself was fifty, and I think this custom of marrying young girls who had not yet reached puberty accounts for the number of ‘barren' women who later give birth to children in a variety of biblical stories.

How old was Baketaten in the tomb scenes? Carter has made the point: ‘Among many such scenes in El Amarna private mortuary chapels depicting these children [Akhenaten's] the relative age of each child is shown by her height. Careful discrimination of that kind excludes the possibility of twin births, and is therefore serviceable when estimating their ages. A reckoning such as the above cannot, of course, be considered exact, but error cannot be more than say a year.'
¹⁰

In Huya's tomb scenes Baketaten is shown consistently as being about the same age as Akhenaten's third daughter, Ankhsenpa-aten. Carter also noted the similarity in size of the two princesses: ‘Judging from the stature of Baketaten figured in this picture [the lintel scene], she was about the same age as Ankhsenpa-aten.'
¹¹
Merytaten, the eldest daughter of Akhenaten, was born towards the end of Year 1 of her father. The second daughter, Meketaten, was probably born in Year 3, as she appears as a very young child the following year in the decoration of Akhenaten's temple at Karnak. If we allow two more years for her birth, the third daughter, Ankhsenpa-aten, would be born around Year 5 of her father, thus making her five or six years of age when Huya's tomb was decorated in Year 10. (She is seen for the first time in Aye's tomb, dated by Davies to Year 9 of her father's reign, and was never depicted with her parents at Thebes.)

If this explanation is accepted as corresponding more closely to the facts, Baketaten must also have been five or six at that time. If there was no coregency between Akhenaten and his father, Baketaten could not have been Amenhotep III's daughter, being six years of age ten years after her father's death – yet the inscription in Huya's tomb confirms that she was. Furthermore, the very name Baketaten indicates that she was born during her brother's reign when he started relating his own daughters' names to the Aten. In this case Baketaten would have been born around Year 31 of Amenhotep III when her mother, Queen Tiye, was around thirty-seven, a late, but not impossible, age for giving birth.

Fragments from Amarna

Two objects bearing Amenhotep III's name, found at Amarna, indicate he was at Amarna at the time. The first is a fragment of a granite bowl with the late name of the Aten, the praenomen of Amenhotep III and the phrase “in Akhetaten”; the second a fragment of a statue of a kneeling person holding an offering slab. Between his outstretched hands is an inscription that includes the late Aten name, followed by the praenomen of Amenhotep III. The Aten's name is also found twice on the front edge of the slab with Amenhotep III's praenomen to the right and Akhenaten's name to the left.

Redford rejects the possibility that Amenhotep III was either at Amarna or even alive at the time these objects were inscribed, which should be, according to the late Aten name, some time after the second half of Year 8. He writes: ‘The most these miserable fragments allow is a cautious suggestion, and nothing more, that a cult of Amenhotep III continued after his death.'
¹²

What Redford is suggesting, without any supporting evidence whatever, is that, in the city of the Aten, another god was worshipped by Akhenaten, a human god, his own father. Not only would the monotheistic beliefs of the king not allow this; the idea of a king being worshipped during or after his life is non-existent in the new city. No funerary temple has been found there for Akhenaten, who was himself the one and only prophet of the new God. The simple explanation is that some time after the latter half of Year 8 Amenhotep came down from Thebes to visit his son and coregent, during which time these objects were made, indicating that both kings were worshipping the Aten. There are other indications that Amenhotep III was converted to worship of the new god, although he continued to worship the older gods as well.

8

THE COREGENCY DEBATE (II)

The Theban Tomb of Kheruef

A
SCENE
on the south side of the entrance corridor to the tomb of Kheruef, a high official of the period, in Western Thebes shows Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) offering libation to his father, Amenhotep III, who stands, facing him, before Queen Tiye. Part of the accompanying inscription found fallen nearby has the cartouches of both kings facing each other. Although this was sufficient for H. W. Fairman, the British Egyptologist, to regard it as yet further evidence in support of a coregency, Redford is not convinced and regards Amenhotep III as already dead at the time.

In every case where the two kings are shown together, opponents of the coregency try to persuade us that either the elder king is dead or that what we are looking at is his statue. The argument at Amarna is that, although Amenhotep III was depicted as being alive
and
at Amarna, this was purely because he could not be represented as Osiris, the ancient god of the dead, who was banned from the city of the Aten: now here, in the tomb of a Theban official, who is himself seen addressing a long hymn to Osiris, when we find Amenhotep III depicted as a living king – and no traces of the phrase ‘true of voice' that usually follows the cartouche of a deceased king – Redford argues that the libation scene belongs to ‘the category of idealised portrayals. It is not a specific incident that is here being recorded. Nor can one argue that just because Amenhotep III is shown receiving an offering and about to eat – activities again reserved for the living – he must have been alive when the relief was carved. …'
¹

What Redford is, in fact, saying is that there is no evidence in this scene to indicate that Amenhotep III was dead. However, as Redford is not prepared to agree that he was alive, he presents this new explanation – although the old king is not represented here as dead, the representation took place, in a formalized, stylized, abstract manner that has nothing to do with time,
after
he had died. This is incorrect.

Almost all the royal scenes in Kheruef's tomb are related to Amenhotep III's
sed
festival celebrations. This was a rejuvenation ritual and celebration that kings normally held for the first time after ruling for thirty years, then in shorter intervals after that. Amenhotep III celebrated three such jubilees in Years 30, 34 and 37, but Akhenaten is known to have celebrated two jubilees while still at Thebes during his first five years. The Aten, his God, also celebrated, as kings did, many jubilees. Here Amenhotep IV is presenting his father with libation on the same occasion. (See also Appendix B (ii).)

The Meidum Graffito

A graffito from the pyramid temple of Meidum, in Middle Egypt and dating from the time of Amenhotep III, persuaded Carter of the coregency between Akhenaten and his father: ‘The graffito reads: “Year 30, under the majesty of the King Neb-maat-Re, son of Amun, resting in truth, Amenhotep (III), prince of Thebes, lord of might, prince of joy, who loves him that hates injustice of heart, placing the male offspring upon the seat of his father, and establishing his inheritance in the land.” The “heir” referred to in this graffito can be no less than Amenhotep IV, who afterwards assumed the name Akhenaten. There was probably some reason for establishing this young prince upon the throne.'
²

As usual, Redford does not agree with this view. He argues that the ‘male offspring' referred to is not the king's son: ‘The addition after the praenomen (coronation name) of ‘son of Amun' is especially significant. In formal inscriptions it is Amun who is spoken of as establishing the king on his (i.e. Amun's) throne … The inscription refers entirely to the king (Amenhotep III); it is he who is called the “male”, and it is his own inheritance that is spoken of as being established. “His father” is none other than Amun, the epithet “son of Amun” in the first line being possibly a semantic antecedent.'
³
The point the author is making is that, as Amenhotep III was celebrating his first jubilee in Year 30, this inscription indicated the re-establishment of the king on his ancestral throne and the reconfirmation of his inheritance. Yet if we look back at the text we find first that the date given relates to the king himself, Amenhotep III, the son of Amun, and this is followed by three phrases:

1   Who loves (he, the king, loves) him that hates injustice of heart;

2   Placing (he, the king, who is placing) the male offspring (the heir) upon the seat of his father;

3   And establishing (he, the king, who is establishing) his (the heir's) inheritance in the land.

Nobody can say that, just because the king is called the ‘son of Amun' or the ‘son of Re' or of any other god, the statement that follows refers to the god rather than the king, and it is clear here that it is the king who is the subject of all the subsequent verbs. Then again, jubilee celebrations did not indicate inheritance, but rather rejuvenation of power.

To justify the use of the very strange epithet ‘who hates falsehood' it is equally clear that the king must have been referring to some kind of opposition to a decision of his. The injustice he implies seems to be ‘not placing the heir upon his father's seat', but, by placing his son there, the king was doing the just thing and securing the inheritance for him. Here Amenhotep III appears also to be defending an action that had taken place prior to Year 30. The only reasonable explanation would be that Amenhotep III felt that his son and heir, Amenhotep IV, whose mother, Tiye, had not been the heiress, might be challenged over inheriting the throne after the old king died. He therefore decided, while still alive, to appoint him as coregent to guarantee his inheritance. If a coregency of twelve years is accepted, this must have started in Year 28, with the priests of Amun being the almost certain source of protest. This protest could be the same as that mentioned on one of the border stelae at Amarna where Akhenaten referred to some critical comments he had heard about himself before he moved out of Thebes.

The king was regarded as the physical son of Amun. As Tiye was not the heiress when she and Amenhotep III were married, she could not be regarded as the consort of Amun and her son, Amenhotep IV, could not be considered the physical son of Amun. In the Eighteenth Dynasty that meant he would not be accepted as the legal heir and king. This same situation faced an earlier Pharaoh, Tuthmosis III, whose mother was not the heiress when she married. On that occasion an adoption ritual took place at Karnak where the image of Amun, carried by the priests, chose Tuthmosis III as Amun's son. Once Amenhotep IV had been rejected by the priests, he in turn rejected Amun, chose Aten as his father, first forced Amun out of his supreme position, then destroyed all the other gods, eventually establishing Aten as the only legitimate God of whom Akhenaten was the son. The real sense of Amenhotep III's statement in the Meidum graffito cannot be understood other than against this background.

The Tushratta Letters

After Akhenaten became the sole ruler of Egypt, Tushratta, King of Mitanni, wrote to him expressing the hope that they would enjoy the same friendship that had existed between him and Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III. On its arrival the letter (No. EA27) was dated by an Egyptian hieratic docket which reads: ‘[Year?]2, first month of Winter, [day … ], when one (the king) was in the southern city (Thebes) …; copy of the Naharin (Mitanni) letter which the messenger Pirizzi and the messenger [Puipri] brought.'

The German philologist Adolf Erman was the first to translate this docket. As the edge of the tablet was broken and he found tiny traces of ink ahead of the ‘2', Erman decided that it was possible to restore the date to ‘[Yearl]2' If this restoration was accepted, the letter, thought to have been the first sent to Akhenaten by the Mitannian king after his father's death, could be regarded as confirmation of a coregency of twelve years. However, another German philologist, J. A. Knudzton, contradicted Erman's restoration and preferred the reading ‘[Year]2'. Scholars have been divided since the start of the century over which restoration is correct, although Redford has admitted: ‘Actually, on the evidence of the traces alone, both readings can be maintained.'
⁴
It has been argued by opponents of a coregency that, from the presence of Akhenaten at Thebes, to which the letter was addressed, it must have arrived during his first five years, when he was resident there before moving to Amarna, while supporters of a coregency make the point that he was already living in Amarna and had simply travelled to Thebes to attend his father's funeral. Redford has summarized the situation in the following terms:

‘The letter to which this docket is appended, EA27, was written shortly after Amenhotep III's death … Consequently the letter is rightly understood to be the first written by Tushratta to Akhenaten after the latter's entry upon sole rule. The allusion [in it] to “the great feast for mourning” shows that the funeral rites for Amenhotep III were either still in progress or had just been concluded. Now there are but two possible restorations of the date, Year 2 or Year 12. No other … If Year 2 is restored, only a very short coregency amounting to but a few months at the most is possible. If Year 12 is restored, a coregency of not less than eleven years is as good as proved.'
⁵
We therefore have to seek elsewhere for evidence that might point to the correct dating of the letter.