With Queen Tyi (or as her name is variously spelled, Ti, Tai, Tity, Tii, Teye, Tuaa, Thua) we again consider the story of a woman of unusual power, and though not leaving such indelible impression upon the page of history as did Queen Hatasu, her influence was strongly felt. Both as wife and mother we see the traces of her ideas and wishes on the actions of husband and son; both, evidently, turned to her for counsel and each in his own way showed her devoted affection. So potent was her sway over the latter that to it is largely attributed the religious and political revolution which occurred in the lifetime of Amenophis IV. Though its effects were comparatively temporary and passed away during the reign of his successors for the time being it convulsed Egypt to its centre and the records of it have not been obliterated by the lapse of centuries.
Amenophis III, son of Tahutmes IV and Maut-a-mua, was, we judge, an attractive youth. He had a fine presence, an agreeable expression and an amiable and generous disposition, while his love story holds more of romance than usuallyfalls to the lot of kings or queens. He is credited with a number of wives or less reputable connections. Perhaps they included the errors of the “sowing of wild oats,” and at any rate seem to have been relegated to or kept in the background by a devoted affection for the lady who became pre-eminently his legal wife. These various wives are given as a sister and two daughters of Kalima-Sin, King of Karaduniyash, and a sister and daughter of Tushratta, King of Mittani, none of whom, it is said, were acknowledged queen of Egypt, while other records seem to imply that Queen Tyi was the daughter of Tushratta of Dushratta, King of Mittanni. A letter to Babylon seems to show that Amenophis III had married a Babylonish princess, and that her brother, Kali-masin, was not satisfied about her safety, but was reassured by Amenophis. A match between another princess of that country and the Egyptian sovereign seems to have failed for lack of sufficient gold on the lady’s part. Wars also interfered with connubial arrangements.
Another account says that Amenophis III haughtily refused when the King of Mesopotamia, Kalima-Sin, wished to marry one of the Egyptian princesses, saying that the daughter of the king of the Land of Egypt had never been given to a “nobody.” This, of course, occurred later, if at all, and it seems not quite reasonable that the king himself should take a princess as his wife from the same family to which he refused his daughter. The sovereign of great Egypt evidently viewed with contempt the claims of these petty princesto be considered in any way his equal. Yet one letter in the collection found at Tel-el-Amarna shows that Tahutmes III, Tahutmes IV and Amenophis IV all married Mitannian princesses. After such a lapse of time and among conflicting statements it is hard to arrive at the absolute facts, but as our present concern is chiefly with Queen Tyi it matters the less. She alone of these various ladies has a distinct personality and takes a prominent place.
Hunting was, with Amenophis III, a passion, the hunting of the lion a royal sport, for the sake of which he journeyed far and no doubt underwent many enforced privations. It must have been in the heyday of youth and manly vigor that, on one of his long expeditions, he encountered the foreign princess who at once won his heart and probably reciprocated to a more than ordinary degree the affection she inspired. Spite of the rather unattractive effigies which bear her name, we must believe that she was beautiful and winning, since for her sake he cast aside the so frequent custom of marriage with a sister or some home dignitary and invited her to share his throne.
Probably then, or later, the queen participated in the favorite amusement of her husband, not wanting in courage for the perils or hardships involved, nor did she shrink as a more sensitive female of later times might have done from what was painful, cruel or revolting in the death throes of the mighty beast.
Scarabs, so often used by the Egyptians to recordevents which they considered of importance, have been found, bearing such inscriptions as this: “Amenhotep, prince of Thebes, giver of life, and royal spouse Thi. In respect of lions, brought Majesty his from shooting his own, beginning from year first to year tenth, lions fierce 102.”
These scarabs, giving the names of gods, kings and singers are often most valuable in filling gaps in other records. The most frequently found are those of Tahutmes III, of which there are a number in the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Amenophis III, Seti I and Rameses II, and they are inscribed with the names of kings from Mena to the Roman Emperor Antoninus. Hence on those known to be of a particular period and found with the royal mummies, the name of much earlier kings are frequently traced. Scarabs were copied by the Phoenicians and are imitated in these modern times in Egypt. The work, at first very clumsy, has gradually become better executed, while the real ones have, of course, grown dearer as well as rarer.
A brief enumeration of some of the scarabs relating to these periods to be seen in the New York Museum may not be without interest. One of Tahutmes or Thothmes III has the figure of the god Bes in the centre, flanked by cartouches of the king a winged scarab below and obscure ornamentation above. The color of the composition of which it is made a faded reddish brown. Another of soft blue stone or paste has the pre-nomen of the same king called “subduer of foreigners in all lands.” One of green porcelain, beautifullyexecuted, shows a squatting figure with extended arms, upholding the divine boat, and above, the pre-nomen of King Thothmes. Inscriptions are “the good god” and “lord of both lands,” while the ankh, or life sign, is both behind the body and attached to the knees. On another of grey composition, above a horse, chariot and charioteer, is the pre-nomen of the king, in a cartouch, with the ends reversed. A bead or seal of hard, green stone has on the one side the pre-nomen of Thothmes III, with the Tet sign below, each flanked by uraei, and on the reverse a Hathor-headed sistrum also flanked by uraei. A cartouch of Amenophis III and the symbol of “truth” is on a scarab of green and brown pottery. Another has “Praise of Amenophis III.” His cartouch and “lord of might” is on one of green pottery, while a scarab in grey composition, beautifully executed bears the pre-nomen of the king on both sides, with a winged beetle and disk flanked by uraei and a human headed sphinx with the words, “Living god Tum.” Most interesting of all, however, in connection with the present chapter, is a green pottery scaraboid, symbolic eye, bearing the words “The royal wife Tii,” wife of Amenohotep III.
Melville has graphically described the setting forth of a royal hunt, in another ancient kingdom, which, in some particulars at least, may reproduce the Egyptian pageant. “A queen and all her glittering train defiled from the lofty porches of Babylon the Great, with tramp of horses and ring of bridle, with steady footfalls of warriors, curled, bearded, erect and formidable, with ponderoustread of stately elephants, gorgeous in trappings of scarlet, pearl and gold, with stealthy gait of meek-eyed camels, plodding patient with their burdens in the rear. Scouring into the waste before that jewelled troop of wild asses bruised and broke the shoots of wormwood beneath their flying hoofs, till the hot air was laden with an aromatic smell, the ostrich spread her scant and tufted wings to scud before the wind, tall, swift, ungainly, in a cloud of yellow dust; the fleet gazelle, with beating heart and head, tucked back, sprang forward like an arrow from the bow, never to pause nor stint in her terror-stricken flight, till man and horse, game and hunter were left hopelessly behind—far down beyond the unbroken level of the horizon. But the monarch of the desert, the grim and lordly lion, sought no refuge in flight, accepted no compromise of retreat. Driven from his covert he might move slowly and sullenly away, but it was to turn in savage wrath on the eager horseman who approached too near, or the daring archer who ventured to bend his bow within point-blank distance of such an enemy. Nevertheless, even the fiercest of their kind must yield before man, the conqueror of beasts, before woman, the conqueror of man, and on the shaft which drank his life blood and transfixed the lion from side to side was graven the royal tiara of a monarch’s mate.”
Amid such scenes sped the wooing, and no doubt in later years passed many exciting hours. Amenophis or Amenhotep III reared young lions as pets, and also presented live ones as gifts tothe temples, estimating them as of great value, though we may wonder in what special manner they could be of profit, service or pleasure there.
The pictures of Queen Tyi, or Tai, in the tombs of the Queens, near Thebes, and in other places, copied by Champollion and Rosellini show her with blue eyes, a skin of pinkish hue, like a Northern maiden, and a pleasing expression. Many of the queens were buried in a valley behind the temple of Medinet Haboo at Thebes others were laid beside their lords. Tyi, as has been said, was considered by some to be the daughter of a Mesopotamian, Asiatic, Dashratta or Tushratta, king of Mitanni, Maten of the hieroglyphics. Other authorities, from cuneiform tablets found at Tel-el-amarna, give her paternity as that of a sister of or daughter of Kalimma Sin, king of Koraduniyash, probably a county northeast of Syria. Kings and queens of Babylon claimed Amenophis III as a new kinsman, perhaps as the result of this marriage.
Scarabs were engraved in honor of the union and part of a scarab gives the record “Amenhetep, prince of Thebes, giver of life and royal spouse mighty lady Thi, living one—the name of father her (was) Tuaa or Juaa, the name of mother her (was) Thuau, the wife to wit of the king powerful. Frontier his South is as far as Kerei, land of Nubia, frontier North is as far as Netharina (Mesopotamia).” Part of another reads, “A wonderful thing they brought to Majesty his, life, strength, health, the daughter of the prince ofMesopotamia, Sotharna. Kirkipa and the chiefs of women her 300 + 10 + 7.” The mummies of her parents have been recently found.
Many of these scarabs are preserved in the Museums of Gizeh, Berlin and other places. An enamelled vase in different colors in the Gizeh Museum also bears the name of Amenophis III and Tyi, a potsherd, in one of the older museums gives the coronation date of Amenophis III as “the 13th day of the month Epiphi,” said to correspond in part to our April and May, which, without this otherwise valueless fragment we might perhaps never have known.
Queen Tyi was attended as the scarab notes, by three hundred and seventeen women, which would of course imply a force of male protectors as well. A very precious bride. This may recall the story in the Talmud about Abraham, who on approaching Egypt locked Sarah in a chest to hide her dangerous beauty. The custom officers asked if he carried clothes. He answered, “I will pay for clothes.” Then they raised their demand, “Thou carriest gold?” To this he also agreed and further to the price of the finest silks and precious stones. Finding they could name nothing of greater value than he held his treasure they at last insisted that he should open the box and the tale ends “the whole of Egypt was illuminated with the lustre of Sarah’s beauty.” Whether Queen Tyi’s beauty thus surprised and delighted the people of her new home we can only surmise, but at least she was deemed precious enough to be well served and guarded.
So the bond was sealed between the royal lovers and away from her own land journeyed the newly elected queen. A woman with a fair face and figure, a heart keenly responsive to human affections, with a deep-seated faith in the religion of her fore-fathers, worshippers of the sun, and, perhaps even at that early period, a quiet determination that she would win her husband and his people from what she must have deemed the error of their ways, their worship of so many gods under the form of beasts and birds, introduce a purer, simpler religion among them. Something of the spirit of Joan of Arc may have animated her; something of the religious fervor of an Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins (or was it only eleven martyrs, the M being mistaken for a thousand?) as the one girded herself for battle and the other took up her pious pilgrimage.
We know less of the formalities necessary for the conclusion of a royal marriage among the Egyptians than we do of their funeral rites and ceremonies. The latter as ushering them into a new and higher existence were deemed the more important and of greater concern to both the present generation and to posterity, especially the latter, and its records and momentoes tell the story a thousand times, but we may take for granted that many observances, both civil and religious, marked the union of man and woman, in particular those of nobles and kings. Some authorities have questioned Queen Tyi’s claim to royal birth, but the retinue of attendants and servants thataccompanied her leave little doubt that she was a princess of note.
This bridal train may recall another of later times, that of Henrietta Maria of France, as she journeyed to meet her future husband, Charles I of England. She, too, was attended by a large retinue: she, too, held strongly a different faith and more or less, on that account, awakened the prejudices of her new subjects, and she, too, was involved in a revolution, partly religious in character. But here the parallel ends, for the one remained in possession of her power, while the other was driven from her throne and became an exile.
Perhaps the new queen was taken at once to her palace, the remains of which were discovered by Greaut at Malgata, and which, after being pillaged, were subsequently excavated by Newberry and Titus. Or she may have watched its erection with interest, after her arrival. The original edifice is thus described by those who have made a careful study of the fragmentary remains. “The plan of the palace seems to have been quite similar to that of the palace which Amenophis IV erected for himself in Tel-el-Amarna, and which was several years ago explored by Petrie. In the palace of Amenophis III the rooms were likewise adorned by beautifully decorated stucco floors, and the roof were supported by columns. The walls were embellished with stucco work, the representations, in part, setting forth every-day life. In addition to staterooms, working rooms, the kitchen with its storage closets, a faience factory,in which the different amulets and ornaments were made, can be distinguished. Not far from the palace was found an altar, built of tile, and at one time probably wainscotted with slabs of stone. It was quite similar to the one in the temple of Deir-el-Bahri, and this one was certainly dedicated to the sun-god. As the altars of ancient Israel most likely also had a similar form, these remains of the old Egyptian cultus have an especial Biblical interest.” The columns of the great temple and likely of the palace also, were sculptured to resemble the buds of the lotus, sometimes called the Egyptian immortelle, which might also be called the national flower, so highly was it regarded and so constantly was it used as a model for architectural designs.
That the foreign daughter-in-law was kindly received by Queen Maut-a-mua we may well believe from the harmony which seemed to exist between them later and the union of their two statues with that of Amenophis III; while in her turn Queen Tyi, when she occupied the same position, extended a like friendly affection to her son’s wife.
The influence of the new queen was soon perceived in the institution, by the king, of a religious festival in honor of the sun’s disk. Many of the people may have been charmed to have anything like another holiday, with its attendant pageants and observances, added to their list, but there can be little doubt that it awakened the suspicion of the priests, who jealously guarded the ancient faith and beheld with disfavor anythingthat might involve less devotion to the numerous gods which they worshipped and of whose interests they were the guardians, and any change that might minimize their influence or deplete the resources in the treasuries of the temples.
Queen Tyi seems not to have been popular. She was a foreigner, which in itself often awakens an antagonistic feeling, amusingly illustrated in the story of the English laborer who when told that a passer by was a stranger exclaimed, “Eave alf a brick at im’.” She held a different faith and in all probability the priests with a consciousness of her latent or expressed views and principles used their great influence quietly to set the people against her and this dislike was transferred to her son.
But to her husband she was ever a first consideration. The records give an account of an enterprise which he early undertook for her pleasure. This was the construction of a large artificial lake on which she might sail or row at will. Again the scarabs chronicle this tribute of connubial tenderness, and again we see the queen’s religious views considered. It begins as usual with an ascription to the gods. “Under the majesty of Horus the golden, mighty of valor, full power, diademed with law (lord of the North and South) establisher of laws, pacifier of the two lands. Horus, the golden, mighty of valor, smiter of foreign lands. Ordered majesty his the oaking of a lake for the royal spouse, mighty lady Thi. Length its (was) cubits 3000-6000, breadth its cubits 600. Made majesty his festival of the entranceof the waters on month third of sowing day sixteenth. Sailed majesty in his boat ‘Atenneferu’ ‘Disk of beauties’ or ‘the most beautiful disk.’” He sailed across to inaugurate the opening and perhaps to show her that all was safe and well and then doubtless the queen held sway over it, permitting only such as she chose to share the pleasure with her and perhaps making it a mark of special favor when she did so. The Egyptians held many of their religious festivals on the Nile and this lake may have been specially devoted to such religious observances as the queen wished to hold in honor of the celestial god whom she worshipped. The place selected for this feat of engineering skill was near the town of Tarucha.
The remains of a beautiful temple at Sideruga, built by Amenophis III to or for Queen Tyi, have also been found and an inscription says Amenhotep “made his monuments for the great and mighty heiress, the mistress of all lands, Tyi.” A group of the king and Tyi is in the Summa collection and an inscription reads: “Amen’nekht, princess, prays with her mother before Amenhotep III, because he praises her beautiful face and honors her beauty.” A Usheti box in the Berlin Museum bears the name of Tyi and the monuments of her are numerous. She is by the colossi of her husband and appears with him in official scenes at Saleb. The figure sculptured in the tomb of Huy at Tel-el-Amarna, on a scarab, etc., is shown seated; her name alone appears in a quarry at the same place, after her husband’sdeath. And her parents are named as Yoman and Thuaa.
The additions made by Amenophis III to the long list of Egyptian temples are among the most noted. He built the oldest part of the Serapeum at Sakkarah, the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak and also at Luxor a sanctuary with surrounding chambers, a pro-naos or hall with four columns, and another large court (which was evidently used afterwards as a place of worship by the early Christians), and a noble hypostycle court with four rows of lofty columns bearing the lotus capital. At the end nearest the sanctuary on either side are double rows of the same columns, then a huge pilon, and in front of all, a noble avenue of fourteen still more massive and lofty columns bearing the lotus-flower capital. This avenue with the usual pylon appears to have completed the Temple of Amenophis III. About 1600 B. C. is the date sometimes set for this work. An avenue of Sphinxes connected the two temples. The temple of Mut at Karnak was Amenophis’ special work. At el Kab there is also a beautiful little temple or chapel built by him containing various pictures of the king making offerings to the gods, etc. Other works might be named as well as the grand statues already referred to.
As devoted as was Amenophis III to the god Amen, on whose temples he lavished gifts and to whom he paid special honors, so antagonistic was his son and successor to the same deity. May it chance that as the mother taught andimpressed upon the youthful minds of her children her own religious ideas, so the father especially in the case of this son, forced them to acts of worship to the many gods of Egypt which revolted them and in the end served only to drive them the further from the old faith. Such is the perversity of human nature that the very means taken to win assent to any proposition or principle are often those which have most influence in causing the pendulum of thought and opinion to swing to the opposite extreme.
It is said that the striking change in the physiognomy and ideal type of the upper classes in the latter part of the Eighteenth Dynasty points to strong foreign infusion. The bold, active faces of earlier times are replaced by sweetness and delicacy, a gentle smile and small, gracefully curved nose, this is characteristic of the time of Amenophis III.
The life of King Amenophis was an active one, less warlike than most of his predecessors, but leaving behind many memorials. It is possible that his long and doubtless exposing hunting expeditions may have had a bad effect upon him, for it was still in his prime probably that his life ended and his wife seems long to have survived him. His reign, however, covers a lengthy period, thirty-six years, but he, owing to his father’s early death, ascended the throne in youth. So, in the quaint and beautiful language of Scripture, Amenophis III “slept with his fathers,” and Amenophis IV reigned in his stead.
The tomb of Amenophis III, discovered by theFrench Expedition, is in the West Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. Here also his father and many other Egyptian sovereigns were buried. On the rocky walls are representations of the king and the gods, some of which were only partially completed. Amenophis III stands out an attractive personality among the long list of Egyptian kings. We cannot doubt that he was mourned by many, especially by the love of his youth and later years, Queen Tyi. Henceforth her life was bound up with that of her eldest son. She and Amenophis III had, some say two, some say four sons, and four or five daughters. The eldest son, who changed his name, was first called Amenophis IV and his next brother, Tahutmes, after the grandfather or other ancestor of that name. The daughters were Isis, Heot-mi-hib Satamon, of whom some memorials remain, and some say Beckaten, youngest and favorite, but who is elsewhere termed grand-daughter, rather than daughter, of Tyi.
That Queen Tyi was a faithful mother whose affectionate heart clung to her children as she had been a loving and devoted wife we cannot doubt. But her eldest son, the champion of her faith, the earnest disciple of her teachings, which had sunk into his heart and borne abundant fruit, must have been especially beloved. With him her after history is closely associated, and her influence is shown even more strongly than during the life of her husband and there is little question that to it is largely due the subsequent course of events. Amenophis III had deferred to her wishes andshown special marks of favor to her religious views, but her son accepted them with his whole heart and spent his life in trying to make them the religion of his native land.
As the reign and influence of Queen Hatasu or Hatshepsut included, in part as those of her father and two brothers, so did that of Queen Tyi those of husband and son. The fair young girl who had left her own country with high hopes and aspirations had crystallized into the determined woman, who bent all the energies of a strong nature to the accomplishment of her wishes and purposes. The religion of her fore-fathers was no longer kept in the background. She inspired her son with the zeal of an apostle or a fanatic, as we may choose to consider it, and the king devoted his life to upturning the old order of things and an endeavor to establish the new. His father had shown much deference to his wife’s religious faith. In the new festival, instituted in his honor, that of the Solar Disk, on the 16th of Athyr (October 4th), a prominent place had been assigned in the procession to the boat of the sun “Aten-ne-fru.” He also put the disk on the head of his crlo-sphinxes and on the statues of the goddesses Pasht and Sekhet; but all this was, in a measure, tentative.
It remained for Amenophis IV, who was by early writers numbered among the Stranger kings, till his true paternity was discovered and now styled himself “Akhenaten” of “Khu-n-aten,” Worshipper of the (Sun’s Disk) to proclaim openly his mother’s faith. It has been suggested that his aim was to provide a god visible to all the people of his extensive empire, and who could be worshipped in common by all, or jealousy between the priests of Heliopolis and those of Thebes may have been another ingredient in the mixed and vexed problem. Beside his father’s great temple at Luxor he erected a sanctuary of the sun, and in various places the name of Amon was obliterated.
Whatever the subsequent history of Queen Tyi’s other children, it was to the eldest son that the mother evidently clung, and we may perhaps believe that he, chiefly of them all, shared her views and opinions. On slips from toilette boxes, etc., are found the names of the princesses Sat-amen, Hent-mer-hab and Ast; there was also a son, with the family name of Tahutmes. Bekaten is by some believed to be the youngest and favorite daughter of Tyi, by others to be her grand-daughter, the child of Amenophis IV, who is thought to have married before his father’s death. At Somma is a group of the king and Tyi. At Qurneh a funeral temple north of Ramesseum, rearranged by Amenhotep III for his daughter Sit-amen, which proves that this child, at least, died before the father. Another inscription read, “Amen’nekht, princess, prays with her mother, beforeAmenhotep III, because he praises her beautiful face and honors her beauty.” Some of the children probably died young, some may have married and gone elsewhere, but the eldest, the father’s successor, had both the will and the power to plant the new faith, and with him Queen Tyi’s later life seems closely associated.
As the character of this prince has afforded historians much ground for speculation, so do the presentments that remain of him. No cartoon in Punch could more ludicrously caricature the human face than do the pictures that are preserved of King Khu-n-aten. Yet in their ghastly ugliness they still retain the conventional type. Many writers seem to consider them as reliable as other likenesses, and attribute the protruding lips and attenuated mis-shapen proportions to heredity, some ancestor of negro blood, or the results of ill health. Others offer no explanation. It seems impossible that any reigning king (and in no period of Egyptian history does the monarch appear to be more autocratic than at this time) should have permitted such portraits of himself to remain to posterity. He was the son of handsome parents. It is possible that the conventional type was considered so beautiful that no deviation which yet preserved the general outline could mar it? Or perchance is there another solution. The king forced upon the country a religion abhorrent to the priests, to the majority of the people, and to his successors, who soon returned to the polytheistic faith and worship of earlier centuries, and who might well have taken pleasurein caricaturing and handing down to their descendants a garbled picture of the hated monarch, iconoclast as he seemed to them, reformer as he doubtless appeared in the eyes of his mother and all the converts to the worship of the sun. The slanting forehead, the long thin nose, the protruding, flexible mouth, the serpent-like neck and the ungainly proportions of the figure are little calculated to attract admiration.
A parallel to this might perhaps be found in the case of Richard III of England, who, as he was a monster of wickedness, must needs be a monster of ugliness as well, and whose personal defects have been exaggerated by limner and scribe until his traditional semblance is that of a dwarfish fiend.
Says Curtis, “the old Egyptian artist was as sure of his hand and eye as the French artist who cut his pupil’s paper with his thumb nail to indicate that the line should run so and not otherwise. The coloring is rude and inexpressive, the drawing of the human figure conventional, for the church or the priests ordained how the human form should be drawn. Later the church and priests ordained how the human form should be governed. Yet, O sumptuous scarlet queen sitting on seven hills, you were generous to art, while you were wronging nature.”
Khu-n-aten or Akhenaten married, however, and probably in youth, as he was the father of quite a large family. His wife is spoken of as the daughter of Dushratta and may have been the grand-daughter of an Egyptian king, her motherhaving married a Syrian prince. Dushratta, writing to Queen Tyi, before Amenophis IV took up affairs, greets Tadekhipa, his daughter, Tyi’s daughter-in-law. As seems to have been the custom, she changed her name on coming to Egypt and is known as Aten’neferu,’ Nefertiti, or Nefertity. She was always closely associated with the king and there seems no mention of other wives or connections of any kind. She doubtless shared or was a convert to his faith and we may judge its enthusiastic supporter.
Queen Tyi appears to have remained in Thebes while the king and his wife went to superintend the building of the temple, palaces, etc., of the new city which Khu-n-aten had resolved to build and make his royal residence. Angry blood rose between him, his priests and his people, but he was dictator, he would no longer dwell among them, but in a new and richly adorned city, worthy of the faith which he held, and whose building should equal or surpass older monuments. He issued a command to obliterate from the tombs of his ancestors the names of the god Amon and the goddess Mut. This fanned the smouldering discontent into flames and open rebellion broke out. Against Amon the king seemed to hold a particular spite, and around the shrine of this god priests and followers mustered their forces.
But although the king abandoned Thebes, he retained his power and was not overthrown. No council of priests or people brought him to trial, sent him into exile, or took his life. Nor in turndoes he seem to have been severe or vengeful. No records remain, as is frequently the case in such instances, of barbarous punishments or cruel executions being meted out to the offenders. For the time being, if for that only, he was absolute and carried his point. He could afford to be generous.
The new capital was distant from both Memphis and Thebes, in middle Egypt, and received the name of Khu-a-ten, or as it is elsewhere given, Khuteteyn, “the horizon of the sun,” the modern Tel-el-Amarna or El-Amarna, the extensive ruins of which may yet be seen on both banks of the Nile. Like Solomon in Scripture, the potentate summoned to his assistance both artists and artizans, and the work was pressed with all possible vigor and speed. First the temple, then the palaces and homes of the nobility, lastly, in the neighborhood, their tombs. It is said that a revolution in art proceeded side by side with that in religion, an attempt was made to discard the older traditions and approximate more nearly to nature, and the specimen of these attempts at realism, to be found in the tombs, are of great interest. To this fact some authorities attribute the singular and disagreeable portraits of the king before referred to.
How deeply Queen Tyi’s heart was stirred and how keenly her feelings were concerned we may well conceive. The great enterprise was the development of her heart’s desire and every aid in her power she must have lent to the king’s assistance. Remaining in the old city she could nodoubt expedite the sending of all sorts of supplies and materials required for the buildings and the private needs of her beloved son and his family.
Architecture and sculpture were ever important in the eyes of the Egyptian kings, and even the queens had their own sculptors and overseers of such work. Timber was scarce, quarries of sandstone and limestone numerous, hence the more enduring was the commoner material, which has preserved to posterity much that, had the ancient world been constructed of our more perishable wood and brick, in all probability would have utterly passed away. Some of the temples, as many of the tombs, of which those at Beni Hassan are an example, were in grottoes and caves, others stood alone in majestic grandeur; in all columns were used and the lotus was the prevailing ornament. Says Kendric, “As the columns of Beni Hassan gave rise to the Doric, so those which imitate plants and flowers appear to be the origin of the Corinthian. The Ionian volute is found in the columns of Persepolis, but in no Egyptian monument. It was probably of Assyrian origin, as it has been found in the remains of Nineveh.”
An inscription at Telel-Amarna reads, “And for the first time the king gave the command to call together all the masons from the Island of Elephantine to the town of Samud (special name for Migdol in Lower Egypt) and the chiefs and the leaders of the people to open a great quarry of the hard stone for the erection of the great obelisk of Har-makhu, by his name, as the godof light, who is (worshipped) as the sun’s disk in Thebes. Thither came the great and noble lords and the chief of the fan-bearers, to superintend the cutting and shipping of the stone.” Brugsch tells us that the stone quarry of Assoan and the cliffs of Silsilis on each side of the river furnished, the former rose and black granite, and the latter hard brown sandstone for this work. He also thinks that King Khu-n-aten designed to build in Thebes a gigantic pyramid of this same stone to the honor of his god.
Not far from the Nile, in the new city, rose the great temple of the sun. It was on a wide plain, the mountains rising behind it as says the same author, “like an encompassing wall.” The king also bestowed great honor upon his chief overseers and helpers, who accepted the new faith and entered into the work with real or assumed enthusiasm.
One named Meri-ra or Mery-Re “dear to the sun” was high-priest or prophet, the Pharaoh bestowing upon him words of praise and commendation and investing him with that special kingly reward, a golden necklace. His tomb at Tel el Amarna is one of the most interesting and largest that have been found. It is supported by columns and on its walls are depicted many scenes giving portraits of the deceased and his wife, the king and queen making offerings to the sun, the princesses and others. And it is here that is found the picture of the bestowal of the golden necklace.
A certain Aahmes, one of the many, for this seems long to have been a favorite name in Egypt,was another highly valued assistant and among the sepulchral inscriptions found at Tel-el-Amarna was a prayer to the son written by him. Beginning with ascription, it reads, “Beautiful is thy setting thou son’s disk of life, thou lord of lords and king of worlds,” and ending with professions of devotion to the king, as his “divine benefactor,” who had raised him to greatness, which naturally perhaps appears to have produced a very pleasing state of mind, for he concludes “the servant of the prince rejoices and is in a festive disposition every day.”
At this time there were at least several grandchildren of Queen Tyi, as special houses were prepared for them in connection with the palace. We can therefore imagine the impatience with which the dowager queen awaited the time for her journey to the new city and rejoining her loved ones, and couriers were doubtless busy, passing back and forth, with orders and directions from the king, as well as messages of affection to his mother, which were returned in full measure. It seems almost as if it might be at his special desire that she remained in Thebes, to lend him, as before said, all the aid in her power towards the completion of his work and that he might have the satisfaction of welcoming her to his new capital in a nearly completed state. She may also have acted to some extent as regent in his absence.
Her time of anticipation therefore must have endured for some years, since the erection of buildings of such magnitude could not have beenaccomplished in a very short period, no matter what the expedition used for the purpose. This second journey may well have reminded Queen Tyi of an earlier one she had taken in her youth, from her far native land, as the wife or the affianced bride of Amenophis III. That had been the seed-time, the sowing of which had produced such great fruits. Again she went forward attended by a large retinue, but now it was not to a land of promise, but one of fulfilment.
The king and his wife met the dowager queen after their long separation with all honor and affection, and themselves conducted her into the new temple. A picture of this scene, which remains, is thus inscribed, “Introduction of the queen mother to behold her sun shadow,” and very happy she must have felt in thus viewing the visible tokens of the realization of the dreams, hopes and prayers of many years. She must inspect the temple, the palaces of the king, queen and the various princesses, as well as the dwelling prepared for herself, and no doubt be made acquainted with the chief overseers and artists whom “the king delighted to honor,” and under whose charge the work had so prospered. The private houses were probably varied in color and frequently decorated on the outside with pictures of the occupations or professions of the owners. Beyond, some such scene as this, an immense meadow cut through with a blue stream, north and south, white walls of towns, on the horizons rim the reddish sands of the desert. The myth they believed in was this, “Osiris fell in love withthis strip of land in the midst of deserts. He covered it with plants and living creatures, so as to have from them profit. Then the kindly god took a human form and became the first pharaoh. When he felt that his body was withering he left it and entered into his son and later into his son’s son. The lord has extended like a mighty tree. All the pharaohs are his roots, the nomarks and priests his larger branches, the nobles the smaller branches. The visible god sits on the throne of the earth and receives the income which belongs to him from Egypt; the invisible god receives offerings in his temples and declares his will through the lips of the priesthood.”
It was a joyful reunion, this of the elder queen with her son and his family, an occasion never to be forgotten in their domestic annals, and we may imagine how the story was handed down from generation to generation. The day when grandmother, or great-grandmother came and saw the new temple and new city. Loved and honored Queen Tyi probably settled down with or near her son and his wife, enjoying to the full the kindly family life and seeing as had her mother-in-law before her the grandchildren gather around. Perhaps she regretted that no son was born to succeed his father, for King Khu-n-aten had daughters only, but her life had been a full and happy one and she had enjoyed the blessing, accorded to but few, of seeing her heart’s dearest wishes fulfilled. What more could she ask?
Whether she passed away in Khu-aten, or Tel-el-Amarna, we do not know, but if the formerwas the case a long mourning procession, attended with every honor, must have borne her inanimate form preserved in the highest style of the embalmer’s art, back to Thebes, for there in the Tombs of the Queens her last resting place has been found. These tombs are at the end of a valley, which extends for nearly a mile to the west of the temple of Medinet Habu, that of Tyi is said to be among the most perfect. The valley which leads to the tombs has bare and lofty limestone cliffs on either side, which are covered with inscriptions; it is not so familiar as some other places in Egypt, not being very easy of access. More than twenty tombs in various stages of completion have been discovered, some of them mere caves with their records often made not in the solid stone, but in plaster. Queen Tyi’s tomb consists of an ante-chamber, passages, a chapel, and small chambers, all more or less decorated with paintings. At the entrance, on either side, is Maat, the goddess of Truth, with extended wings, to protect those who come in. There are various pictures of the gods and of Queen Tyi, in one of which she prays to them, seated at a banquet table.
Of these tombs Curtis says, “The sculpture and paintings are gracious and simple. They are not graceful, but suggest the grace and repose which the ideal of female life requires. In the graceful largeness and simplicity of the character of the decoration it seems as if the secret or reverence for womanly character and influence, which was to be later revealed was instinctively suggestedby those who knew them not. The cheerful yellow hues of the walls and their exposure to the day, the warm silence of the hills, seclusion, and the rich luminous landscape in the vista of the steep valley, make these tombs pleasant pavilions of memory.”
Before the death of Amenophis III he seems to have adopted the frequent Egyptian habit of associating his son with him on the throne, though the latter was probably young, as Queen Tyi appears to have acted as regent after her husband’s death. Also, at the time of his death, the father was negotiating for a marriage between his heir and a Mitannian princess, the same country from which had come Queen Tyi herself, and the wife of Thothmes IV. That the existing relationship gave the new queen some title to the throne is proved by her being spoken of as “the great heiress, princess of all women,” and “the princess of South and North, the lady of both lands,” which imply hereditary rights, possibly through the mother.
She was the daughter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni, and it may have been that her father was Queen Tyi’s brother and she herself the cousin of Amenophis IV, but the matter is not absolutely clear. A certain Dushratta, not satisfied about the safety of his sister, who had married Amenophis III, had sent to Egypt to inquire after her, but the repetition or duplication of aname often makes it difficult to decide upon the exact relationship. From the letters found on tablets in the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna, many of which of course are broken and imperfect, we have chiefly derived the information we possess of these transactions. Queen Tyi seems also to have held the power for a brief period at Tel-el-Amarna, but exactly when this was the case has not been discovered.
In her own country the bride-elect bore the name of Tadukipa, but in Egypt she became Nefert-Thi, Nefertity, or Nefertiti, her full name being known as Aten’nefer’ neferu’nefertiti. After the death of Amenophis III Queen Tyi sent word of this event to the Babylonish prince, and some correspondence took place between them before matters were finally settled and Amenophis IV or Napkhurruiya, as he is called in the letters, was married and assumed full control of his own affairs. There was, of course, an exchange of presents, gold, slaves, etc., as was usual on such occasions, and no failure on either side of a satisfactory pecuniary showing seems to have interfered with the prospects of the youthful pair, such as had been known, not unfrequently, in other cases.
The beautiful, deserving or undeserving, are apt to win favor. By this rule therefore the pictures of King Khu-n-aten or Aten’ nefer’neferu and Queen Nefertiti are sufficiently ugly to prejudice the most casual observer. One is tempted to see in these hideous effigies rather the work of a defamer than a true portrait. Early picturesof the king are handsome and not unlike some of Rameses II, the change is attributed by late writers to the new style of art to be seen in his reign. Certainly the king sacrificed himself nobly to the cause of Truth, if he was a consenting party to his own portraiture.
It is believed that the accession of Khu-n-aten took place in the thirty-first year of his father’s reign, in the month Pakhons, or February, and that his marriage occurred in the month Epiphi, or May, four years later. In his sixth year he abandoned the god Amon, or Amen, and adopted the Aten worship. In his sixth year also, after the birth of his second daughter, came the change of name and facial type at Thebes, Maat only of the old divinities seems to have been retained. The pictures of this period show rays of sunbeams terminating in tiny hands which support the bodies, crowns, etc., of the royal pair.
From first to last the queen is closely associated with her husband, constantly pictured with him, a true companion and helpmate, a faithful guardian of his children, and a devoted daughter to his mother, possibly her aunt, whose name, in part, she seems to have taken. As Kidijah upheld and supported Mahomet in the promulgation of his newly received revelation, so did Nefertiti accept and lend her wifely aid to the faith of her husband and his mother.
A prayer or address to the rising sun is attributed to her and shows the religious fervor with which she was penetrated.
“Thou disk of the sun, thou living god! thereis none other beside thee! Thou givest health to the eyes through thy beams, creator of all beings. Thou goest up on the eastern horizon of the heavens to dispense life to all whom thou hast created; to man, to four-footed beasts, birds and all manner of creeping things on the earth, when they live. Thus they behold thee and they go to sleep when thou settest.
“Grant to thy son who loves thee life in truth to the Lord of the land that he may live united with thee in eternity.
“Behold his wife the queen Nefert-i-Thi, may she live forevermore and eternally by his side, well pleasing to thee she admires what thou hast created day by day. He (the king) rejoices at the sight of thy benefits. Grant him a long existence as king of the land.”
At Heliopolis the sun-god Ra had been specially worshipped. He was pictured hawk-headed, surmounted by disk and uraeus, hence with priests at Heliopolis the king may have been in greater sympathy than with those at other points, where the various gods were worshipped. It is possible, too, that they were less antagonistic to him than the others, or may even have supported him. Be that as it may, at Heliopolis Khu-n-aten built a temple. The shrine received gifts from Pharaoh after Pharaoh and was very wealthy. It also had at one time an immense library. “The city,” says Strabo, who came to it shortly after the Christian Era, “is situated upon a large mound. It contains the Temple of the Sun,” probably a later one than that of Amenophis IV, “and the Ox Mnevis,which is kept in a sanctuary, and is regarded by the inhabitants as a god.” Says Pollard, “The temple had three courts, each one probably adorned with obelisks, which were so numerous that one was called ‘The City of Obelisks.’ Pharaohs of different dynasties erected a pair of obelisks in the temple of the Sun as an offering and a memorial. After the third court came the Naos, with its outer chamber or holy place and its inner or holy of holies, in which was the shrine with the symbol of the deity. Strabo tells us that the ox Mnevis was kept in the sanctuary.”
Six daughters, one after another, enlarged the family circle of the palace “a garland of princesses,” as they have been poetically called. They constantly appear in the pictures with their parents and even attended their father in his expeditions in his chariot. Their names are given as Mi-aten or Mut-aten, Mak-aten, Anknes-aten, Nofru-aten, or Nofrura, Ta-shera, Satem-en-ra and Bek-aten, some doubt seems to exist as to whether the last was daughter or grand-daughter of Queen Tyi. A standing figure of this princess, at which the artists are still seen chiselling from life, under the eye of the queen’s overseer, Putha, by name, is among the various wall paintings. Perhaps she was an especial darling, this youngest child, or she may have had a particularly beautiful face and form; but the temple walls were said to have been nearly covered with the pictures of the king, queen and princess. Aten-en-aten or Khu-n-aten’s feelings towards his family weretinged with all a lover’s enthusiasm. His words have a poetic cast.
“The beams of the sun’s disk shone over him with a pure light so as to make young his body daily.
“Therefore King Khu-n-aten swore an oath to his father thus: Sweet love fills my heart for the queen, for her young children. Grant a great age to the queen Nofrit-Thi in long years; may she keep the hand of Pharaoh. Grant a great age to the royal daughter Meri-aten and to the royal daughter Mak-aten and to their children, may they keep the hand of the queen their mother eternally and forever.
“What I swear is a true avowal of what my heart says to me. Never is there falsehood in what I say,” and he ends a long inscription, relative to the setting up of various memorial tablets with, “These memorial tablets which were placed in the midst had fallen down. I will have them raised up afresh and have them placed again in the situation in which they were (previously). This I swear to do in the 8th year, in the month Tybi, on the 9th day the king was in Khuaten and Pharaoh mounted on his court chariot of polished copper to behold the memorial tablets of the disk of the sun which are on the hills of the territory to the south-east of Khu-aten.” And perhaps the queen and the eldest daughters followed him to make this investigation. Brugsch says the inscriptions on these tablets were first found and published by Prisse d’Avennes.
The series of tablets discovered at Tel-el-Amarnain 1888 are chiefly in the museums of London, Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburgh, with a few at Gizeh. One letter is from a lady who styles herself “the handmaid” of the king and others relate to the exchange of presents and slaves, men and girls.
Another beloved member of this amiable family was the princess Notem-Mut, younger sister of the queen, who seems quite to have been counted in. She, too, had a special palace built for her, and married Horem-heb or Ho-rem-hib, not of royal birth, but who eventually became the last king of this, the Eighteenth Dynasty. He may have had two wives, or else Notem-mut changed her name, as we read also of a queen Ese as his spouse.
The temples and palaces were of a somewhat different style of architecture from the usual Egyptian form, but they were beautiful, with their open courts, and calculated for the needs of those who were to occupy them, as well as for the character of the country and climate. The names of the artists and architects are preserved, which is not usually the case, and their talent seems to have descended in the family, for we learn that a certain Bek, overseer, artist and teacher of the king, was a grandson of Hor-amoo, who had served in the same office under Amenophis III.
“The tombstone of the artist, Bek,” says Brugsch, “was put up for sale some years ago in the open market place in Cairo. My respected friend, Mr. L. Vassali, bought it, and was goodenough to give me an exact drawing of the carving upon it and a paper impression of the inscription.”
The wall pictures that were found in the tombs present the king and queen seated on a balcony with their eldest children, the baby in the mother’s lap, enduring certain officials with the necklace of honor and casting down presents to the crowd. A pleasant sport, enjoyed in common by the whole family party. Queen Tyi, the chief of the women’s department, named Hai, the steward, the treasurer and other members of the court, also shared in the fun.
Another picture gives the king and queen worshipping the sun, accompanied by two of their daughters, showing clearly that all the duties and pleasures of life were shared in this amiable family. A touch of Nature makes us all kin, and this recalls the picture one often sees of domestic life among the Germans, where father, mother and children go off for a picnic or a frolic together, while the Frenchman perhaps is in the café alone.
The Egyptians were highly skilled in pottery and faience; fine glazing on pottery, stone and in enamels on goldsmith work is shown at the beginning of the New Empire. Tel-el-Amarna seems to have been quite celebrated for its pottery and the fabrication of delicate enamels, of which many specimens, in a great variety of colors, have been found. The vase of Queen Tyi, preserved in the Boulak Museum, is grey and blue. Olive-shaped amulets of the kings and princesses ofthis family show delicate blue hieroglyphics on a mauve ground, while the potters of the time of Amenophis III are said to have been particularly fond of violets and greys.
Less warlike than the majority of his predecessors, we still read of some fighting during Aten-aten’s or Khu-n-aten’s reign and victories over the Syrians and other nations, which the king, though probably not taking the field himself, celebrated with the customary festival. He appears in “the full Pharaonic attire, adorned with the insignia of his rank, on his lion throne, carried on the shoulders of his warriors. At his side walk servants, who, with long fans, wave the cool air upon their heated lord.” This was in the twelfth year of his reign, on the 18th day of the month Mekhir, December. The crook, whip, and sickle-shaped sword were emblems of royalty, while of the New Empire was a canopy raised on wooden pillars, colored and ornamented, with a thick carpet on seat, footstool and floor. On ordinary occasions the king was probably carried in a sort of Sedan chair of splendid appearance.
Later occurred the marriages of some of the daughters, and as no son was born, two at least of the sons-in-law seem to have ruled in succession, and it is pleasant to be able to believe that this was peacefully accomplished, without the family jars and broils so often coincident with the dividing of a heritage. In modern parlance the ladies do not seem to have made very brilliant matches. No foreign prince or monarch is recorded as being an accepted suitor. “Home talent”was strictly patronized, and the sons of high officials were deemed suitable parties, who by right of their wives it would seem, succeeded each other as king. Their reigns were short enough for each to have a turn as the pleasant task of ruling.
Several of his daughters, as well as his wife, waited on Khu-n-aten in his last illness; Nefertiti survived him and may have lived till the time of Horem-heb, or even to that of Sety I. The tomb of the king was seven miles from the river in one of the great valleys which open on the plain of Tel-el-Amarna, the situation resembling that of Amenophis III at Thebes. That he was mourned deeply, at least by those nearest and dearest to him, there can be little doubt, yet his children soon turned from the religion he had tried to establish, to the earlier worship, in its form of devotion to many gods, under the semblance of various animals. The slabs found at Memphis, the stele at Sakkarah, and the remains of the great temple at Tel-el-Amarna, twenty-five feet square, the enclosure nearly half a mile long, all speak of this king.
Statues of him, his wife and Queen Tyi have been found, a beautiful and perfect one of the king is in the Louvre, and there is a death mask, which, among his various names, speaks of him as the “lord of the sweet wind.” Fragments of the stele with which his palace was decorated are to be seen in some of the museums in Europe, also in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania,and perhaps at other points in this country.
It seems to have been the sons-in-law who took chief authority, after Khu-n-aten’s death, and not the queen. She survived her husband for years. Her palace had a court, or harim, with glazed tiles, the walls painted with scenes, and the floor with pools, birds, cattle and wild plants. In the court was a fine well with a canopy on carved columns, and round coping, and an inscription with the queen’s titles. In the temple offerings of flowers were made and hymns sung to the accompaniment of harps, it was perhaps a return to the practice of the earliest times, and one writer suggests that its simplicity points to the Vedism of India. The queen and her daughters are shown waiting on the king in his illness. There is a fine fragment of a statue of the queen at Amherst college, and a gold ring and some other personal belongings at other places. With the death mask of the king in the University of Pennsylvania are some fragments from Tel-el-Amarna giving the names and title of Queen Nefertiti. Khu-n-aten is thought by late discoveries to have reigned seventeen or eighteen years.
As usual authorities differ, some giving Ai as the immediate successor of Khu-n-aten, others placing before him several kings, and numbering him just before Horem-heb, Horem-hib or Horus, the last monarch of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Some again refuse to recognize the heretic king and his descendants at all, and consider Horem-hib, who had returned to the polytheistic creed, asthe true and direct successor of Amenophis III. It seems likely, however, that the eldest daughter, Mut-aten, born in the fourth year of her father’s reign was married just before his death to Re’smenkh’ka and that her husband was, for a time, co-regent. Both his and her name have been found on a tomb, these tomb inscriptions always throwing great light on this history of the time to which they refer. If, as estimated, she was thirteen at the time of her marriage and twenty-five at her husband’s death, he reigned over twelve years.
The second daughter, Mak-aten, died before her father, between her ninth and eleventh years; her tomb is in a side chapel of her father’s and the family are shown mourning for her, but she appears in the picture of the six princesses. Anknes-aten or Ankh s’en’pa’aten was born in the eighth year of her father’s reign and was ten years of age at his death. In her sister’s reign she was married to Tut-ankh’aten and changed her name to Ankh’s’en’amen, “her life is from Amen,” showing that already the changes her father had made were discarded. A few rings belonging to her remain, but with the exception of these relics nothing more is known of the other daughters, also nothing is known beyond figures and names on general monuments. Of Ras’ Ra’smenka or Ra’smenkh’ka’ser’kheperu, husband of the eldest daughter of Queen Nefertiti it is believed that he abandoned the palace in his third year of sovereignty and perhaps went toThebes; there are few remains of him, but the dates are estimated as 1368-1358 B. C.
Tut’ankh-Amon or Twet-Ankh-Amon, “the living image of Aman” and husband of Anknes-amon, transferred his residence to Thebes (which, after all, had suffered little from the rivalry of Tel-el-Amarna), hastily finished the great hall and had it decorated with reliefs, representing the great festival which occurred at Luxor on New Year’s Day, when the sacred boats were brought up in procession, on the Nile, from Karnak, and carried into the temple. In these reliefs, of course, the king’s name largely figured, but, in the not uncommon fashion of these various monarchs, his brother-in-law, who later succeeded him, King Horem-heb, freely substituted his own name. A picture of King Tut’ankh Amon holding court and receiving a negro queen, either as a visitor or as offering tribute, was found on the wall of a tomb. The royal lady was depicted in a chariot, drawn by oxen and surrounded by her servants, a prototype of a later visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. From the north also came the ruddy princes of the land of Ruthen, with curly black hair and in rich dresses. The two governors of the South and North, Hi and Amenhotep, also came; they had served under Amenophis III and must have been of ripe years. Brugsch calls it “a large and lively picture of the manners and riches of the South and of the North in the fifteenth century, before Christ.” All bring rich gifts and ask for peaceand friendship between themselves and the great Pharaoh.
King Ai was probably husband of one of the daughters, though his wife is elsewhere spoken of as the foster-mother of King Khu-n-aten, which seems rather hopelessly to mix up the chronology. In this case she is spoken of as Thi, the beloved name of that king’s own mother. They are also called respectively “the dressers of the king,” and “the high nurse, the nourishing mother of the godlike one.” Ai’s fine tomb at Tel-el-Amarna gives an account of his marriage. The tomb was never entirely finished; it is described by one traveller as having a sepulchral hall, beautifully painted, with colors still fresh and brilliant, with the sarcophagus standing in the middle, among the pictures, the king painted red and the queen of a pale yellow, are shown gathering lotus flowers; also the king being presented by the goddesses Mat and Hathor to Osiris. Perhaps two wives shared the honor of sovereignty with King Ai, or the second may have been espoused after the death of the first, and it seems likely the latter was much her husband’s junior.
Maspero gives a description of the palace of King Ai, also pictured on the walls of the Tel-el-Amarna tombs. He calls him the son-in-law of Khu-en-aten. “An oblong tank with sloping sides and two descending flights of steps, faces the entrance. The building is rectangular, the width being somewhat greater than the depth. A large doorway opens in the front, and gives access to a court planted with trees, and flankedby storehouses, fully stocked with provisions. Two small courts, placed symmetrically in the two further corners, contain the staircases, which lead up to the terrace. This first building, however, is but the frame which surrounds the owner’s dwelling. The two frontages are much adorned with a pillared portico and a pylon. Passing the outer door, one enters a sort of central passage, divided by two walls, pierced with doorways, so as to form three successive courts. The inside court is bordered by chambers, the two others open to right and left upon two smaller courts, whence flights of steps lead up to the terraced roof. This central building is called the ‘Akhonuti,’ or private dwelling of kings and nobles, to which only the family or intimate friends had access.”
All this, of course, varied in different cases with the taste of the owner, and the long, straight wall in front was sometimes divided and ornamented with colonnades and towers.
The old religion was resuming its sway, and the priests of Amon regaining their lost influence. They accepted the rule of Tut’ankh-Amon, whose monuments are said to extend only from Memphis to Thebes, and still more that of Ay, who was a true worshipper of the old gods. His reign, however, is spoken of as “feeble,” and the principal monument of the time is a shrine, high up in the face of cliffs, behind Ekhmin. King Ay seemed to have a special passion for tomb building, as there are no less than three attributed to him. The first at Tel-el-Amarna, the last atThebes, coincident probably with his complete change of religious views and associations.
Ay died and left no children, and was succeeded by Horem-heb, or Horem-hib, who then was, or subsequently became, his uncle by a marriage with the Princess Notem-Mut, or Nezem-Mut, sister of Queen Nefertiti. The history of this time is, as yet, far from clear, and dates which fit in approximately to one set of theories, refuse to combine with others; some hold that Queen Nefertiti had been originally sent to Egypt to be the bride of Amenophis III, and that his death occurring before her arrival, she then became the wife of his son. This last arrangement, judging by the probable years of the parties, was more natural, and the union seemed to have proved a most happy one, as all the pictures show complete concord of interest and sentiment between the two. Defaced pictures of both Queen Tyi and Queen Nefertiti are found in the tombs, and the mummy of King Khu-n-aten was found in the tomb of Amenophis II, where it had, probably been removed to avoid spoliation, his tomb having been originally elsewhere.
King Horem-heb seems first to have been a renowned general in the army, and though not of royal birth, his horoscope foretold for him great success. The earlier histories of him say that he was a special favorite of King Khu-n-aten, who made him guardian of the kingdom, which position, so near the throne, suggests opportunities to win the heart of the princess. The god Amon, it is said, brought her to him, “thecrown prince Horem-hib,” and the inscription adds, “she bowed herself and embraced his pleasant form, and placed herself before him.” Was it perchance on account of this kind service of the god that they both espoused his religion so fervently, or did the priests tamper with the princess and she inspire her lover with enthusiasm for the old beliefs?
This romantic history, however, loses somewhat of its glamour under the realistic touches and conclusions of later students. The princess was a priestess of Amon, and the marriage of the two, it is claimed, was merely a political one, both king and queen being between fifty and sixty at the time of their union. The kind offices of the god may be, so to speak, mythologically considered. The long account which gives an exultant story of his coronation, prejudges the fact that both the king and queen were zealous supporters of the ancient religion, and again Thebes became the royal city. The work of Khu-n-aten there was destroyed and a new temple built. At Karnak, as was frequently the wont of the kings, Horem-hib built with materials taken from a ruined temple of Amenophis II. He also built a rock temple at Silsilis, where inscriptions certify to his victories.
The pictures of this king and his mother Sonit, at a banquet, where some of the company were of the living, some of the dead, has been described in an earlier chapter, as also the statues of himself and his wife, he with a handsome, melancholy face, she also handsome, but witha touch of sarcasm in her smile. Her likeness has been ascribed to other queens.
The group of Horem-hib and the god Amon, in the Turin Museum, is pronounced to be “dry in treatment,” while the colossi in red granite, against his pylon at Karnak, the bas-reliefs at Silsilis, and the portrait statue just referred to are deemed by the same critic “faultless.” Other wall decorations show the king conferring the insignia of the Golden Collar upon a certain Nefer-hotep of Thebes. He is sometimes improperly called Horus, while Manetho by this name refers to Khu-n-aten.
Of Queen Nezem-mut there are not many remains, and these may be briefly enumerated. She figures in the tomb of Ay in a family group; there is the statue of her with the King at Turin; she appears as a female sphinx as given by Rosellini, there is a scarab at Berlin, and a frog with her name at Abydos. Since, with the reign of Horem-hib the eighteenth dynasty concludes, and so little is to be found as regards his wife, we have included her brief history with that of her sister, Queen Nefertiti, in the present chapter. A new dynasty, the nineteenth, succeeded, while some authorities maintain that the early members of the Ramesside family were contemporary with Horem-hib.