15
IT 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.
TESTIMONY OF SURVIVAL?
Another hieratic docket found at Amarna recorded another date that has been the subject of long arguments and has even resulted in a charge of dishonesty being levelled at certain scholars. The essence of the dispute is whether this docket refers to Year 11 of Akhenaten or – despite the fact that we know he ruled for only seventeen years – to Year 21.
A facsimile of this docket, made and published by Battiscombe Gunn, the British archaeologist,3 persuaded the American scholar Keith C. Seele to believe that ‘the hieratic date is certainly “Year 21” ’.4 He even went as far as to accuse British scholars of avoiding the evidence intentionally: ‘While the actual fate of Akhenaten is unknown, it is evidence that he must have disappeared in his twenty-first year on the throne or even later. Some Egyptologists, including the Egypt Exploration Society’s excavators at Amarna, allow him but seventeen years.’5 As many scholars all over the world became convinced by Seele’s arguments, Fairman, who had been one of the society’s excavators at Amarna, felt he had to rally to their defence: ‘It seems appropriate to state the true position and at the same time vindicate those members of the Egypt Exploration Society’s expeditions at Amarna who have been quite unjustly accused of dishonesty.’6
Although Fairman has to be regarded as one of the most trusted British Egyptologists of this century, the way he tried to dispose of Seele’s opposition makes it clear why Seele had grounds for feeling suspicious: ‘Year 21 occurs “certainly”, according to Seele, on a hieratic docket published by Gunn. Seele has not seen this docket, but he is quite satisfied to reject Gunn’s reading on the evidence of the published facsimile. The first comment that occurs to one is that no one knowing the very high standards set and maintained by Gunn can believe that he would have advocated a reading he knew to be false simply to support a theory.’7
This statuette of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, now in the Louvre in Paris, offers a more realistic view of the King and Queen than do the exaggerated representations of other, more romantic styles of Amarna art. No physical defect mars Akhenaten’s appearance.
Yuya’s mummy, found in his small tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1905, now lies inside his coffin in the Cairo Museum. I have been able to identify this minister of both Tuthmose IV and Amenhotep III as the Patriarch Joseph of the coat of many colours, who brought the Israelite family into Egypt. His importance was enhanced when Amenhotep III married his daughter Tiye and made her the Queen of Egypt.
Akhenaten and Nefertiti make an offering to Aten. The royal family worshipped in the open. This scene, which was found in the Amarna house of Panehesy, the Chief Servitor of the Aten, portrays the latest symbol of the Aten, the disc at the top, sending its rays over the members of the royal family. These rays are directed at the key of life, held in front of their eyes. The name of the God (the same as that of the King) appears inside a cartouche.
This mummy of a woman, found in 1898 with other members of the royal family in the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings, has now been identified as Queen Tiye.
Queen Tiye, daughter of Yuya/Joseph, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten. This small head of Tiye was found by Petrie, the father of modern archaeology, in the cave temple of Sarabit el Khadim in Sinai. The presence of the head of Akhenaten’s mother in this remote area is one of the indications that the young king himself could have been living there for some time after he had been forced to abdicate the throne.
Aye (right) and Tiy. Tiy, Nefertiti’s childhood nurse, also nursed Akhenaten during his childhood. She was married to Aye, second son of Yuya and brother of Queen Tiye. As the strongest military figure in Egypt, Aye protected Akhenaten’s rule and helped him during his religious revolution. Aye himself became the fourth and last of the Amarna kings when he sat on the throne after Tutankhamun’s death.
Akhenaten and Semenkhkare. This sculptor’s model found at Amarna is another indication of a co-regency, this time between Akhenaten on the left and his brother Semenkhkare on the right. Semenkhkare died shortly after Akhenaten’s fall from power, and it was Tutankhamun, the latter’s son, who followed him on to the throne.
Akhenaten, Nefertiti and three of their children. This stela in Cairo Museum shows the royal family in kissing and relaxing mood, something that was never allowed to be shown in Egypt either before or after the Amarna rule. Scenes showing different aspects of the life of the royal family took the place of the old deities of the dead on the tomb walls of the Amarna nobles.
The Israel Stela. This stela of Merenptah, Ramses II’s son and successor, contains the only mention of Israel in ancient Egyptian sources. Although the stela was made in Merenptah’s fifth year to commemorate his victory over invading Libyan tribes, the fact that the text concludes with the mention of some already subdued nations in western Asia (including the Israeli people) has misled some scholars into believing that this king was the Pharaoh of the Exodus who followed the Israelites into Canaan.
Akhenaten’s Osiride statues. These statues are two of the four colossal figures that were made to stand at the entrance of the temple Akhenaten built for his God inside the Karnak complex. They are now in Cairo Museum. In three of the statues the King is shown wearing a kilt, while the fourth, which has larger lower parts, has no kilt. This persuaded some scholars to claim that Akhenaten lacked any signs of genitalia. This proved to be an incorrect assumption; the statue is in fact unfinished, and the lower part would have been cut back later to make the kilt.
Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. This stela was found in the house of Panehesy at Amarna. The fact that Amenhotep III is represented in a clearly realistic style at Amarna indicates that the old King was living at the time and confirms the existence of a co-regency between him and his son Akhenaten. Neither the scene nor the text indicates that Amenhotep III was dead at the time. The stela is now in the British Museum.
This unfinished statue of Akhenaten kissing one of his daughters was also found at Amarna. Again this was claimed by some scholars as evidence of Akhenaten’s homosexuality; without any justification they stated that the younger figure represented Semenkhkare, the King’s brother and son-in-law.
This figure of the guardian of the dead, Anubis, was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The jackal was sitting on a shrine containing pieces of jewellery. A linen shirt covering Anubis was dated in year 7 of Akhenaten, the birth year of Tutankhamun. The dating of Tutankhamun’s birth in this manner indicated that Akhenaten was his father.
This was Fairman’s first attempt to avoid the facts, for, contrary to what he said, Gunn translated the date as ‘Year 11’ only because of the belief that Akhenaten ruled for seventeen years. He even stated this reason himself: ‘In the absence of other evidence as to the reign extending beyond Year 17, no one will want to read the dating of I, plate lxiii, as “Year 21”.’8
The hieratic sign for the figure ten is an upside-down ‘V’ and for ‘twenty’ two upside-down ‘Vs’ one above the other. The hieratic docket, as can be seen from the facsimile published by Gunn, shows a complete ‘
’ with the remains of another ‘’ above it, which convinced Seele, correctly, that the date should be read as ‘Year 21’. But Fairman disregards that, and Gunn’s statement that he read the sign as ‘Year 11’ only because Akhenaten’s reign was thought to have lasted only seventeen years in all, and goes on: ‘In editing the inscriptions for City of Akhenaten, III, Jaroslav Ĉerný, the Polish Egyptologist, and I had hoped to include some detailed and critical study of Amarna hieratic. In preparation for this, in 1937–39 Ĉerný studied all the Amarna dockets he could find at the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum and University College, London, in addition to several hundreds that I handed over to him. It is important to note that it was Ĉerný’s invariable method never to use or refer to any previous publication when copying and his work on the dockets ceased before he could attempt identification. His notebooks were handed over to me and I worked through them methodically, identifying all that in part or whole had previously been published. In the course of this work I discovered that the docket published by Gunn was in the British Museum (BM55640) and that Ĉerný had unhesitatingly transcribed the date as (eleven) without a single query or note.
‘Ĉerný was unaware of the identification of this docket until after the publication of Seele’s article when I informed him of the facts and asked him to re-examine BM55640. Ĉerný not only did so, but called in Edwards and James (of the British Museum) and they all three declared that the reading was “Year 11”. Ĉerný reported to me at the time that the docket had faded seriously, but that the hieratic sign bore no resemblance to the normal form of (twenty) and was certainly in his opinion (ten): he thought that perhaps either a piece of ink had flaked off, or that a piece of ink had fallen on the end of the sign, but the condition of the docket did not permit him to decide which. I have since examined the docket myself, and I have nothing to add to Ĉerný’s statement. In short, there is no evidence of a regnal Year 21.’9
So, although in referring to Ĉerný’s statement, Fairman admits that ‘the docket had faded seriously’ between 1937–9, when Ĉerný made his copy, and 1955 when, after Seele’s article, he re-examined the docket, Fairman does not even publish a new facsimile to enable us to compare it with the earlier one made by Gunn in 1923. As if trying to avoid committing himself, he calls many other witnesses, in a way asking us to trust a group of wise men rather than giving us the evidence so that we can decide for ourselves. We have not even been told whether Fairman and his witnesses accept Gunn’s facsimile, which was the basis for Seele’s comments.
Even some of those who have changed their minds, such as Redford, and come round to accepting ‘Year 11’ as the correct reading, have proved not to be really convinced by Fairman’s argument: ‘… those who have only Gunn’s facsimile before them will be forced to admit that the prima-facie probability lies with the reading “21”. If the present writer returns to the reading “regnal Year 11”, it is solely because of an awareness of the increasing weight of the argumentum e silentio: if Akhenaten did attain a twenty-first year it is inconceivable that Years 18, 19 and 20 should be entirely absent from the Amarna dockets, especially in view of the large number of dockets dated to Year 17 and before.’10
But is this true? Were there no other records for these years? According to Fairman himself, Bennett, a member of the Egyptian Exploration Society team that worked at Amarna during the years 1930–31, was able to read the date ‘Year 18’ on one of the ostraca he was responsible for copying. However, Fairman took the view: ‘Bennett’s ostracon of Year 18 … may be dismissed as being untrustworthy, and without value.’11 Then Fairman declares, on the following page of the same book, that ‘the ostracon was not kept, but according to a rough facsimile this reading is certainly wrong’. This is even more serious, for Fairman is not telling us that the disputed ostracon was lost: he is saying that it was ‘not kept’, that it was thrown away. One would have expected that, as this ostracon gives an anomalous reading, it would have been guarded carefully for further examination. Instead, we now have only Fairman’s judgement to rely on for whether Bennett’s reading was right or wrong. No wonder Seele was convinced of a deliberate attempt by some scholars to discard any evidence that did not agree with their preconceived ideas.
However, there is still other evidence to indicate that Year 17 was not the end of the Akhenaten story. Derry has made the point: ‘Akhenaten is known … to have reigned for at least seventeen years, a period which has been extended to the nineteenth year by Pendlebury’s recent discovery at el-Amarna of a monument bearing that date and with the further possibility that this may be lengthened to the twentieth year. Mr Pendlebury has very courteously permitted us to make use of these hitherto unpublished facts.’12 Pendlebury died a few years later without publishing the source of his information and, as with Bennett’s ostracon, Pendlebury’s monument cannot be found anywhere.
In the course of his article on the correct date of Gunn’s facsimile of the disputed hieratic docket as being ‘Year 21’, Seele gave a list of four scholars who believed that Akhenaten’s reign lasted for eighteen years and one, Derry, who favoured nineteen. However, as long as nobody is able to discredit Gunn’s original facsimile, Year 21 has to remain a certainty. As we said before, this does not mean, though, that Akhenaten actually reigned for twenty-one years.
If my hypothesis is correct, he abandoned Amarna and fled to Sinai. However, as long as Tutankhaten continued to reside at Amarna and as long as the Aten was regarded as the God of the throne, who owned the land of Egypt, Akhenaten, his son, was still looked upon as the legitimate Pharaoh. Therefore his followers kept up the practice of using a date relating to him as if he were still in power. It was only when Tutankhamun left Amarna, which soon became an abandoned city, for Thebes and Memphis in his Year 4 – Year 21 of Akhenaten – that this practice came to an end.
Those Egyptologists who had all the evidence indicating that Akhenaten ruled until only his Year 17 were confused to find further evidence of later dates for him, and had even to dispose of the evidence rather than be embarrassed by a contradiction they were unable to explain. It is true that Akhenaten ruled only until his Year 17, but it is also true that he was still regarded as the legitimate ruler until the change of the supreme god in Year 4 of Tutankhamun, Year 21 of Akhenaten. After that he had no legal status and, as we shall see, had to try to prove that he was the heir of his father, Amenhotep III, when he returned later to try to reclaim his throne.
SEMENKHKARE’S NAME AND EPITHETS
It is now generally accepted that Semenkhkare was appointed as coregent by Akhenaten in his Year 15. Yet we do not have any firm proof that Semenkhkare started numbering his own regnal years from that date as we do not have a Year 1 or Year 2 that can be said with certainty to have belonged to him. It seems that the years after his appointment continued to be dated according to Akhenaten’s old system as Year 16 and Year 17. Nevertheless we have one case of a Year 3, found on a graffito at the tomb of Pere, a Theban nobleman: ‘Year 3, third month of Inundation, day 10. The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankh-khepru-re beloved of [Nefer-khepru-re?], the son of Re Neferneferuaten beloved of Waen[re?].’13
This graffito is simply dated to Year 3 of Semenkhkare: no date of Akhenaten can be found on it. This is strong evidence that Semenkhkare was a sole ruler at the time the graffito was made. Yet, as we saw before, Tutankhamun’s reign started during Year 17, the last year in which Akhenaten held authority. When, therefore, did Semenkhkare rule? The only acceptable explanation, as we saw before, is that he must have ruled for only a very short time, died and was followed in the same year by Tutankhamun. In this case, according to those who claim that the end of Akhenaten’s rule coincided with his death in his Year 17, he would already have been dead when the graffito from Year 3 of Semenkhkare was made. Yet the epithets of Semenkhkare that indicate Akhenaten’s affection towards him, which the young king had always used in his inscriptions and refer to the living Akhenaten, are also to be found in the Theban graffito, a fact that can be interpreted as meaning that, although his rule had ended, Akhenaten was still alive at that time. Redford confirms this understanding of the situation: ‘ “Beloved of Nefer-Kheprure” and “beloved of Wa-enre”, note that the praenomen of Semenkhkare, Ankh-Kheprure, i.e. “Kheprure (Akhenaten) lives”, may indicate that at the time it was formulated Akhenaten was still alive.’14
THE FALLEN ONE OF AMARNA
No record has reached us about Akhenaten after the end of his rule. Tutankhamun left Amarna for Thebes and Memphis in his Year 4 and, at the same time, changed his own name and that of his queen, substituting ‘amun’ for ‘aten’. A compromise was also reached by means of which all the ancient temples were reopened and worship of the old gods of Egypt restored, but worship of the Aten was not banned: the Aten was now regarded as just one god among many. No damage was done to Akhenaten’s name, objects or memory until the end of the reign of King Aye, the last of the Amarna kings, who followed Tutankhamun. However, with the accession of Horemheb and the Ramesside kings who succeeded him, all standing monuments of Amarna were pulled down and worship of the Aten was forbidden. Horemheb and his followers also ensured that all memory of Akhenaten was wiped out of Egypt’s official records, even to having his name and those of the three Amarna kings who succeeded him erased from the official king lists. Nevertheless, private texts referring to events that had taken place during Akhenaten’s reign, while not mentioning him by name, used synonyms. A papyrus in the Berlin Museum, dating most probably from the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty, contains remains of a letter that gives the date of someone’s death during the period of Akhenaten’s rule in the following form: ‘… he died in Year 9 of the rebel.’15 As well as avoiding mention of his name, this text shows us that he was regarded as an outlaw by the Ramessides, which would justify all the vengeful actions they were taking against his memory.
In a legal text from the tomb of Mos, which we discussed earlier, in referring to events that had taken place during Akhenaten’s reign, some of the witnesses used another expression – Pa-kherw-n Akhetaten.16 This phrase was translated early in this century by Gardiner as ‘the enemy of Akhetaten (Amarna)’, a translation which the majority of scholars have since taken for granted to be correct. This is not the case if one breaks the phrase down into its constituents: Pa is the Egyptian definite article; kherw means literally ‘fallen’, and the n represents the preposition ‘of’. Although enemies of Egypt were described as having fallen, the word itself, which is derived from the verb ‘to fall’, means ‘the fallen’ and could not mean ‘enemy’. Even the little figure of a fallen person that comes after the word as a determinative confirms the ‘fallen’ sense. Furthermore, we could understand if Akhenaten was called the enemy of Amun or Thebes, but how would it be possible even for his opponents to call him ‘the enemy of Akhetaten (Amarna)’, the new capital city which he himself established? In an introduction to a book published twenty years ago, Harry S. Smith, Professor of Egyptology at University College London, translated this phrase correctly as ‘the fallen one of Akhetaten’.17
When we look at both of the labels applied to Akhenaten, it is clear that they are not merely pejorative, but describe him as he was seen by the following generation, a rebel who fell from power. The meaning is here clear, the implication being that, as in the Talmud story of Moses becoming King of Ethiopia (see Chapter Two), he had to abdicate in favour of the queen’s son, who can only be Tutankhamun, son of Nefertiti.