Moses and Akhenaten (23 page)

Front:

1  On the left side, a fragment of the feathering of the upper part of the falcon's wing;

2  A fragment from the point where the wings of the two falcons meet;

3  Lower part of the tail of the right falcon and the tips of the wings of the left falcon;

4  Part of the base with frieze of tyet and djed.

Back:

5  Fragments of the feathering of the wings of the left falcon, and part of the tips of the wing of the right falcon;

6  Fragments of the base, including the upper border and tyet and djed elements.

Left side:

7  Fragments of the rim and much of the base, including the upper border and tyet and djed elements.

Right side:

8  Part of the base of the cartouche on the right side;

9  Tail and part of the feathering of the left falcon;

10  Part of the claw and shen amulet (for protection of the dead) of the right falcon;

11  Fragments of the base, including the upper border and tyet and djed elements.

Cover:

Largely reconstructed in plaster, presumably over wood.'

As we can see from Martin's own account, enough original fragments were found of the canopic chest, and have been used in the reconstructed chest in Cairo Museum, to be able to judge whether it was anointed with resin or bitumen or not. And as both Pendlebury and Hamza have confirmed the complete absence of such stains, I do not take Martin's unsupported ‘serious questions' seriously.

WHOSE BODY IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS?

In January 1907 a small tomb – now known as Tomb No. 55 – with only one burial chamber was found in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb is one of only three discovered closed in the Valley, with both mummy and funerary furniture inside, the other two being that of Yuya and his wife Tuya, which first came to light in 1905, followed by Tutankhamun's in 1922. The excavation was sponsored by the rich, retired American lawyer and amateur archaeologist Theodore M. Davis, who employed the British archaeologist Edward R. Ayrton to conduct the digging under the supervision of Arthur Weigall, another Briton, appointed two years earlier to the post of Inspector-General of the Antiquities of Upper Egypt.

Although numerous fragments of small clay seals were found with the cartouche of Neb-kheprw-re (Tutankhamun) used only during the Pharoah's lifetime, it seems that the tomb had been re-entered at a later date as the outer door had been sealed with the same style of seal (a jackal above nine foreign prisoners) used to close the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The tomb is near the entry of the inner Valley, close to the site where the tomb of Tutankhamun was subsequently found. It consists of a small, rock-cut chamber approached by a sloping passage, and does not seem to have been intended originally for a royal burial. The burial also appeared to have been carried out in haste, with a minimum of equipment. What made the situation worse in trying to establish ownership of the tomb was the fact that it had deteriorated as a result of a great deal of rainwater dripping into it through a fissure in the rock.

The debate about ownership of the tomb has rumbled on for the greater part of this century and still surfaces from time to time. Initially it was thought that the decayed mummy was that of Queen Tiye, then that of Akhenaten. This, allied to an apparently nude statue of the king at Karnak – one of four colossi – which showed him seemingly deformed and without genitalia, led to elaborate pathological attempts to try to discover what disease he suffered from. At the end of the day this proved to be something of a storm in a canopic jar: it was demonstrated eventually that the mummy was not that of Akhenaten, but of his coregent, Semenkhkare, and, in addition, that the seemingly nude colossus at Karnak was actually an unfinished statue, awaiting, like the completed three, the addition of a kilt. It is worth examining this debate, however, because it indicates the lengths to which some of those who do not find Akhenaten to their taste are prepared to go to try to discredit him (see
Appendix E
). The contents of Tomb No. 55, which have prompted a protracted debate over the original ownership of the tomb, and some of the items found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, provide further evidence that Akhenaten's life did not end when he fell from power, but in order not to weary the reader at this point I have put them in Appendix F. Here it is perhaps worth making the point briefly that some magical bricks of Akhenaten, essential for his burial, were found in Tomb No. 55, whose incumbent has been established as Semenkhkare – indicating that Akhenaten himself did not need them.

THE AMARNA FAMILY

Both Professor D. E. Derry, then Professor of Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, who restored the skull of the occupant of Tomb No. 55 and concluded that the remains were those of a man no more than twenty-three or, at most, twenty-four years of age at the time of death, and Professor R. G. Harrison, the late Derby Professor of Anatomy at the University of Liverpool, who confirmed Derry's conclusion that the remains were those of Semenkhkare (see
Appendix E
), found a striking similarity between the facial characteristics of Semenkhkare's skeleton and the artistic impressions we have of Akhenaten, suggesting that they must have been brothers or close relatives. Grafton Elliot Smith, at the time Professor of Anatomy at Cairo Medical School, also found similarity between Semenkhkare's remains and the mummies of both Amenhotep III and Yuya, sufficient to make him a descendant of both. As Queen Tiye was Yuya's daughter, this suggests that Semenkhkare could have been a son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, a full brother of Akhenaten. At the same time he could also have been the son of Akhenaten, who was a descendant of both Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. However, as Harrison's examination proved that he died in his twentieth year, and that was Year 17 of Akhenaten's reign, this would mean that he was born about three years before Akhenaten came to the throne as coregent. As we know that Akhenaten was not married until around the time the coregency started, this rules out the possibility that Semenkhkare was his son, and it is most likely that he was Akhenaten's full brother.

As for Tutankhamun, who certainly belonged to the same family, he was about nine or ten years of age when he succeeded Akhenaten on the king's fall from power and the sudden death of Semenkhkare. This means that he was born during Year 7 of Akhenaten, which was Year 34 of Amenhotep III. As we saw earlier, Baketaten, the youngest of Queen Tiye's daughters, was probably born in Year 4 of Akhenaten, Year 31 of Amenhotep III. In Year 7 of her son, Akhenaten, Queen Tiye was about forty years of age and Amenhotep III about forty-five, in both cases a possible age for them to produce a son. Yet it is more likely that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

In Tutankhamun's tomb a figure of a recumbent jackal was found upon a shrine containing pieces of jewellery. The figure, which had been carved from wood, was overlaid with a thin layer of plaster and painted with black resin. The body of the jackal was covered almost completely with linen draperies, one of which proved to be a shirt dated to Year 7 of Akhenaten, the same year that Tutankhamun was born.
¹⁴
This dated Akhenaten shirt was surely used for Tutankhamun at the time of his birth, strongly indicating the parental relationship and the place of birth as Amarna. His original name at the time of his birth, Tutankhaten, also suggests that he was born at Amarna. In addition, there is evidence that, while still a prince, he lived at the northern Amarna palace, the very same place where Queen Nefertiti lived during the last years of Akhenaten's reign. Why would he have lived at Amarna with Queen Nefertiti if he were the son of Queen Tiye?

It is true that he describes Amenhotep III as his ‘father' on a statue of a lion, now in the British Museum, and that a small golden statue of Amenhotep III as well as some of Queen Tiye's hair, in a small coffin, were found in Tutankhamun's tomb, but it was customary among Egyptians, as with the Hebrews, to use the word ‘father' as a synonym for ‘ancestor', and if Queen Tiye were Tutankhamun's grandmother, it would be normal to find some of her belongings as well as Amenhotep III's in his tomb.

What is the correct sequence of events? It would seem that the political struggle must have reached a point where the old priesthood and some factions of the army were in open revolt against Akhenaten's regime as a result of his attempt to impose his new God on his people. Aye, who was responsible for the army and must have been the most powerful man in Egypt at the time, either convinced, or even forced, Akhenaten to abdicate in order to save the Amarna Dynasty, and replaced him with Semenkhkare. It seems that, shortly after the fall of Akhenaten, Semenkhkare died suddenly at Thebes, most probably from unnatural causes because he was not regarded as a suitable replacement for Akhenaten.

While the country was still in turmoil it was not possible to bury Semenkhkare in the proper way – especially as it seems that his death occurred at Thebes – using his own funerary equipment which had been prepared for him (and some of which was later used by Tutankhamun). Aye therefore had to do the best he could with whatever material was available. He buried Semenkhkare secretly, and in a hurry, using some objects meant to be used by Akhenaten, who had already fled from Amarna.

The presence of a shrine of Queen Tiye's in the tomb (see
Appendix F
) is not easy to explain, but it is possible that she was either still alive or, as Weigall thought, had died and been buried in the same tomb prior to the death of Semenkhkare, in which case her mummy and most of her objects would have been moved away when the time came to bury the young coregent. It is also clear that, as Tutankhamun's priests would not have erased Akhenaten's name from the shrine and coffin, the tomb was re-entered later, probably during the reign of Horemheb when the campaign was mounted to try to wipe out all traces of the Akhenaten regime from Egypt's memory.

15

THE FALLEN ONE OF AMARNA

I
T
is now generally accepted that Akhenaten ruled for only seventeen years, although there is no evidence pointing to which month of this final year his rule ended. However, although he was no longer on the throne, did his followers believe that he was still alive – and would perhaps return one day to take power again?

The Philological Evidence

The main reason for accepting Year 17 as Akhenaten's last in power is that a docket, No. 279, found by excavators at Amarna, bears two different dates – Year 17 and Year 1. This was explained by Fairman in the following terms: ‘It records, therefore, the first year of an unnamed king which followed the seventeenth year of another unnamed king. There cannot be any doubt that the latter was Akhenaten. Year 1 can hardly have been that of Semenkhkare since … his Year 1 was probably Year 15 of Akhenaten. Thus the docket must be assigned to the first year of Tutankhamun.'
¹

Fairman dismissed the possibility that these two dates might be construed as pointing to a coregency between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: ‘This docket does not contain a double-dating since “Year 1” is written over “Year 17”.' Yet a few pages earlier Fairman had given us a different account of how the dates were written: ‘ “Year 1” is written partly over an earlier “Year 17”. And if the copy of the text on the docket was correctly produced (No. 279 in plate
XCV
), then the second date is written neither completely over nor partly over the earlier date, but underneath it.'
²

This is the first time, as far as I am aware, that a king placed his own date on the same text as that of a predecessor after the latter's rule had come to an end. However, as no other evidence was found to support a coregency between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, Fairman's explanation was taken for granted. Yet, in the light of Egyptian custom, the evidence of docket No. 279 is confusing. Egyptians calculated the years of each king separately and, if there was no coregency, the first year of the new king began only after the last year of his predecessor. How, therefore, is it that Akhenaten's Year 17 was also regarded as Year 1 of Tutankhamun unless there was a coregency?

No attempt was made to erase or cross out the earlier date before the later one was written. For this there can be only one convincing explanation. When we say that Akhenaten abdicated his power, we use a modern term expressing a modern practice. However, Egyptian Pharaohs did not gain power from the people or the parliament, but from the gods. From the time of his birth the king was regarded as the son of Amun-Re and destined to rule, and on being crowned he took possession of his inheritance, the lands given to him by the gods, and retained possession until the day he died. As long as he was alive Pharaoh was regarded as being the lawful ruler of his lands, even if he was weak and had no authority.

The abdication of Akhenaten must have been the first in Egyptian history. It is true that Aye and his army stopped him from exercising his power, but he was still regarded as the legitimate ruler. Semenkhkare was not accepted by Egyptians as a successor and was most probably assassinated at Thebes a few days after Akhenaten gave up his throne. When Tutankhamun became ruler, he was still called Tutankhaten, and as his Year 1 – although not as coregent – started while Akhenaten was still regarded as the legitimate ruler, in a way he took his authority from the old king until such time as he abandoned his allegiance to the Aten.

Akhenaten had ruled in the name of the Aten, whom he regarded as his father, having rejected, and been rejected by, Amun. The only legal way the new young king was able to establish himself on the throne was to renounce the course of action taken by his predecessor. In his Year 4, therefore, he rejected the Aten and returned to being the son of Amun. The Amun priesthood accepted this return in a new crowning celebration. Thus, at this point the Aten had no power in Egypt, no land to give. It was only then, as we shall see later, that Akhenaten, who was still alive, stopped being king and Tutankhamun became regarded as the sole heir of the god Amun.