Moses and Akhenaten (33 page)

The author goes on to describe the scene: ‘Physiognomies, pose, royal dress, palace, architecture, foreigners, wear unfamiliar modes; even the sun-disk with its guardian cobra has a different angle of appearance. Nor is the change superficial. The attitude of the king to supernatural powers has altered; the sun reaches down to earth and temple insignia have disappeared. His relations to his people, too, are more intimate; he no longer sits on the throne like an imposing automaton. The place and manner of his appearance are different, and every figure and group in front of him has acquired greater vitality. Dignity and decorative symbolism may be diminished, but they have been broken down by a new sensitiveness and warmth of feeling … Egypt had awaked one morning, it would seem, to find the gods in full retreat, the sun shining, the king at the palace window, and the populace dancing in the streets … The Aten had been “found”.'
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Amenhotep IV and Queen Nefertiti are shown, for the first time, in what later became known as the Amarna style of art, appearing in the window of the palace that seems to have been the young king's building in his father's Malkata complex. The sun disc, with extended rays ending in hands, the new symbol of the Aten, shines from the top centre of the picture, presenting the key of life to the nostrils of the royal pair. The Aten names, like those of a king, are placed within two cartouches and, added to the God's cartouches, is a royal salute: ‘May Aten live, rich in festival periods, lord of heaven and earth, within Gem-pa-aten in the temple of Aten.' This indicates that the Aten temple at Luxor had already been built and the king's
sed
festival celebrated. All the cartouches of the king, queen and the Aten, except that including the name Amenhotep, have been largely defaced in the aftermath of the fall of Amarna, and the faces of the royal pair have been chipped off. The text gives the king's speech to Ramose, who stands beneath the window: ‘[Said by] the king of Upper Egypt, living on truth … Amenhotep … to … the mayor-vizier Ramose: “… the matters I put in thy charge … which I have commanded. All that existed … the kings since the time of the God.”'

To which Ramose replies: ‘May [the] Aten [do] according to that which thou hast commanded … thy monuments shall be as lasting as heaven and thy life as long as (that of) Aten in it. May thy monuments increase like the increase of heaven. Thou art unique … The mountains present to thee what they have kept hidden; for thy loud voice gains on their hearts even as thy loud voice gains on the hearts of men; they obey thee even as men obey.'
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The upper half of the wall depicts Ramose being honoured by the king in a series of scenes, one of which shows him loaded with so many collars of gold beads that his neck cannot accommodate all of them. Other than in the name of Amenhotep, the word ‘Amun' does not appear on this wall.

Nothing remains of the tomb façade except a scrap of Ramose's figure at the foot of the left jamb. However, on the thickness of the rock frontage of the tomb Ramose is shown ‘entering (the tomb) with the favours of the good god (the king, Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV?) to rest in …' and small fragments have been found bearing the inscriptions ‘… appearing as truth' … and again the curious expression ‘the king of my time'.
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The burial section of the tomb is not inscribed, but the internal side of the door is decorated in fine relief. On one side Ramose offers separate prayers, one to the king and the second to the gods of the underworld. The prayer to the king reads: ‘I come in peace to my tomb with the favour of the good god (the king, Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV?). I did what was approved by the king of my time (?), for I neither minimized the substance of what he enjoined, nor did I commit any offence against the people in order that I might rest in my sepulchre on the great right-hand (the western part) of Thebes.'

Although the Ramose tomb is not dated, the available evidence enables us to arrive at four dates, two for Amenhotep III and two for his son, Amenhotep IV. As Ramose had already been appointed to his posts as mayor and vizier before Year 30 of this king, we should expect work to have started on his tomb around that time, and as son of Habu is shown, already dead, in one of the scenes, and he died around Year 34, this scene has to be dated not long after that year of the old king.

In the case of Amenhotep IV, the scenes on either side of the doorway leading to the inner burial section are distinctly different in style and can be dated to different periods of his reign.

The first scene represents the king in the old style. Early in his reign Akhenaten was shown, in the sandstone quarry at Gebel Silsilah in Nubia, worshipping Amun-Re. The inscription below records his quarrying of sandstone for the ‘great ben-ben (temple) of Harakhti at Karnak'. The king describes himself as ‘first prophet of Re-Harakhti'. It is clear that this inscription at Silsilah refers to the Re-Harakhti temple at Karnak and, as the panel also shows Amen-hotep IV worshipping Amun, it can hardly be dated to later than his first or second year because the Re-Harakhti temple was begun very early in his reign.

The second scene, on the opposite side of the doorway, is in the new Amarna art style, the first time we find it in a tomb before the Amarna rock tombs, dated to Year 8 or Year 9 of Akhenaten. The new symbol of the Aten has already appeared; the God is now named Aten instead of Re-Harakhti, and he is placed in two cartouches. No mention is made in this scene of Amun. Akhenaten's temple at Karnak is referred to. There is also a reference to Akhenaten's jubilee, celebrated in his Year 4.

Such a presentation would not have been possible before Amen-hotep IV's very last days at Thebes, a short time before, in the eighth month of Year 6, he notified his change of name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten on a boundary stela at Amarna. This scene should therefore be assigned to his late Year 5 or early Year 6.

Some further light on the dating of the Ramose's tomb can be derived from considering who donated it. Although it is true that Amenhotep III appointed Ramose to his posts as mayor and vizier, it seems to me for several reasons to have been Amenhotep IV who gave Ramose his tomb:

•  Amenhotep III's name appears only once, near the entrance of the tomb, using his praenomen, Neb-Maat-Re, in a prayer of Ramose to Amun-Re that he ‘may prolong the years of Neb-Maat-Re'. This suggests that this king was already suffering from some illness which, from a letter by Tushratta and Ushter's arrival in Egypt, could be dated about Year 36 (see
Chapter Eight
);

•  In contrast, it is Amenhotep IV who is shown in the special position on either side of the inner doorway that was used during the Eighteenth Dynasty for scenes of the ruling king”: had the old king been the donor of the tomb, Ramose would have shown him on at least one side of the doorway;

•  The strange – and, as far as I know, unique – reference to a sovereign by an official as ‘the king of my time' can possibly be better understood if interpreted as meaning ‘my master', who gave me my tomb and ordered me to carry out some work for him, and does seem to mean Akhenaten rather than his father. Although it was Amenhotep III who appointed him to the posts of mayor and vizier, Ramose was responsible for some construction work on Akhenaten's temples at Karnak and Luxor;

•  The fact that Ramose apologizes for carrying out the orders of ‘the king of my time' suggests something unusual about both the king and the nature of the orders, which can only be a reference to Akhenaten. Ramose tries to deny that he obeyed the king's orders simply in order to obtain his tomb at Western Thebes. This protest would not have been necessary had Amenhotep III been the donor of the tomb;

•  The fragment found at the façade bore the text ‘… appearing as (in) truth', which is an epithet of Akhenaten's.

It was Akhenaten, then, who gave Ramose his tomb and that is why he is represented in it, as well as his father. In fact we see the young king rewarding the vizier with too much gold for fulfilling his orders, which appear to relate to the construction of his new temples for Re-Harakhti at Karnak and for the Aten at Luxor.

The association of Amun-Re with Re-Harakhti in this tomb represents a very early stage of Akhenaten's inscriptions as Re-Harakhti was the name he gave his God initially. In almost every scene, whether near the entrance or inside, Re-Harakhti is associated with Amun whenever the latter god appears. This is true of what Redford chooses to describe as the early scenes – those near the entrance, followed by the funeral scenes – as well as the last ones. The association of Amun and Harakhti, in fact, represents the association of Amenhotep III and his son in a coregency.

Ramose, contrary to common belief among scholars, was never converted to Atenism. He is never shown worshipping Akhenaten's God. All the usual gods are represented in his tomb, even in the very last scene on the reverse of the doorway into the inner burial section. This has to be regarded as later than the Amarna-style scenes as it is always the most remote scene, sometimes including the latest information about the dead man, added after his death. Yet here he still has the same loyalty to the other gods and sticks to the old style, indicating that the tomb was completed after Akhenaten had already left Thebes. Ramose himself did not follow Akhenaten to Amarna, but remained in Thebes as Amenhotep III's mayor and vizier until the time of his own or the old king's death.

(v) The Tushratta Letters

Tushratta first appeared on the scene before the dispatch of the four letters that form part of the coregency debate. He sent a letter to Amenhotep III telling him that, despite an internal power struggle, he had succeeded in securing the throne after the death of his father, Shutarna. He reminded Pharaoh of the friendly relations between him and Shutarna and also took the opportunity to make the point that his sister, Gilukhipa, was one of Pharaoh's wives. In addition, he mentioned an attack on his country by the Hittites, whom he had destroyed completely. Out of the resulting bounty, he enclosed a present for Amenhotep III. This letter is not dated, but it is thought to have arrived about Year 30 of Amenhotep III.

The second letter we have from him indicates that Amenhotep III wished to increase the relationship between the two families by also marrying Tushratta's daughter, Tadukhipa. Tushratta then sent a messenger to Egypt with a third letter, demanding gold in return for his daughter's hand in marriage. This matter appears to have been resolved amicably as a fourth letter seems to have arrived at the same time as the bride-to-be, Tadukhipa. Finally, before Amenhotep III's death, came a fifth letter, dated by an Egyptian docket to ‘Year 36, fourth month of Winter', which was accompanied by an image of the Mitannian goddess Ishtar. The implication is that Amenhotep III was already ill and it was hoped that Ishtar might cure him. However, Mitannian magic does not appear to have worked and the king became less and less active until his eventual death early in his Year 39.

After that date came the four letters – one addressed to Queen Tiye, the other three to Akhenaten – which form part of the coregency debate. A fuller account of their contents follows in the order in which I believe they arrived.

No. EA27 (addressed to Akhenaten): This first letter to Akhenaten dwells upon the gold issue. The Mitannian king complains: ‘Your father … wrote … in his letter, at the time when Mani (the Egyptian messenger) brought the price for a wife …: These implements, which I now send you, are (still) nothing … when my brother gives the wife, whom I desire, and they bring her to me, so that I see her, then I will send you ten times more than these. And golden images … an image for me and a second one as image for Tadukhipa, my daughter, I desired from your father …

‘Your father said: “… I will give you also lapis lazuli, and very much other gold besides (and) implements without number, I will give you together with the images.” And the gold for the images, my messengers … have seen with their own eyes. Your father also had the images cast in the presence of my messengers and made them complete, and full weight… And he showed very much other gold, without measure, which he was about to send me, and spoke to my messenger saying: “Behold the images and behold very much gold and implements without number, which I am about to send to my brother, and look upon it with your own eyes.” And my messengers saw it with their own eyes. And now, my brother, you did not send (these) … images … but you have sent some that were made of wood with Mani.'
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The letter makes the point that, if Akhenaten has any doubts about the truth concerning the promised gold, he should ‘ask his mother'.

No. EA26 (addressed to the queen): The text begins: ‘To Tiye, the Queen of Egypt… Tushratta, King of Mitanni. May it be well with you; may it be well with your son; may it be well with Tadukhipa [my daughter], your bride.'
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Subsequently, Tushratta goes on to complain: ‘The present, which your husband commanded to be brought, you have not sent me; and gold statues … Now, however, Napkhuriya (Akhenaten), your [son] … has made (them) of wood.'
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No. EA29 (addressed to Akhenaten): After delving even more deeply into the history of the friendly relations between the two royal families in order to persuade the new king to continue them and to send the promised gold, the letter invites him again to seek confirmation from his mother that Tushratta is speaking the truth: ‘From the days of my youth, Nimmuriya (Amenhotep III), your father, wrote to me of friendship … Tiye, the distinguished wife of Nimmuriya, the loved one, your mother, she knows them all. Ask Tiye, your mother … And when Nimmuriya, your father, sent to me and wanted my daughter, I would not consent to give her … And I sent Khamashshi, my brother's messenger, to Nimmuriya, to pay the dowry, inside three months … And finally, I gave my daughter. And when he brought her and Nimmuriya, your father, saw her … he rejoiced very greatly … Tiye, your mother, knows what I said, and Tiye, your mother, ask her if among the words which I said there was one that was not true … therefore I made request for images … and Nimmuriya said to my messenger: “Behold, the golden images altogether, which my brother requests.” … And when my brother Nimmuriya died … I wept on that day (when the messenger came with the news); I remained sitting, food and drink I did not enjoy that day, and I mourned …