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The Boy King
Among the kingly epithets of Akhenaton is "He who lives on Truth" which, although of the old tradition, helps to explain certain tendencies prevailing in the new capital, especially the new art of the reformation period.
Maat, the Goddess Truth, was the daughter of Re; she was one of the manifestations of the solar deity, and the epithet "he who lives on Truth" is frequently applied to Re. Already in the Pyramid Texts the dead king is identified with the Gods "who live on Truth."
Maat, Goddess Truth
Maat represented the most essential religious concept of the Egyptian view of the world. It was a concept of order of the world that the Gods, pharaohs, and ordinary people had to obey.
Maat was the Harmony or Law of the Universe. The lack of Maat and her departure meant an inevitable return to the original chaos (Nu) and the end of the known world. Like many Egyptian deities with a human form, Maat was an abstract Goddess of great symbolic importance. For example, Maat was responsible for the balance between the Gods and people and between the two sexes.
As previously noted in Ancient Pages, the equal rights enjoyed by both men and women in ancient Egypt can be attributed to Egyptian cosmology and the Goddess Maat. Ancient Egyptians viewed the Universe as a complete duality of male and female. A mutual relationship between Gods and Goddesses existed when the Universe was born.
However, the highest priest was always the Pharaoh himself.
Amenophis I was called "the Royal Ka, who lives on Truth."
(Stephen King aficionados, take note. If you have read "The Gunslinger" book series, 'ka' will have a special meaning to you.)
The epithet was quite common during the reign of Akhenaton and sporadically appears in the titulary of Tut-Ankh-Amon, Ramesses II, and Merneptah. But here the real implications of the love for truth during the Amarna reformation appear in the art of the period. Its more extreme manifestations are the sculpted feminine figures of Akhenaton from the Aton temple at Karnak. Here the elongation of the face and the bodily peculiarities of the king, his protruding belly, and his prominent hips, have been exaggerated to the extent of becoming a distortion, a caricature. It is evident that the new style was mainly due to the personality of the king himself, but it soon became fashionable and was eagerly imitated by his faithful followers.
It is thought that King Akhenaton was sexually fluid and dressed accordingly. He, and many of his subjects who followed his example, not only cross-dressed but had encounters with the opposite sex, and even animals. This was not uncommon, as shown by the inscriptions on the shrines.
In Tell el'Amarna the king and his wife Nefertiti, a staunch supporter of the reformation, together with her six daughters, are represented quite unconventionally as simple mortals, not as the divine progeny of the solar deity. It is here also that landscape, observed with love for its qualities, appears for the first time in Egyptian painting. Also for the first time the so-called New Egyptian, the language of the common people, appears on royal decrees and official inscriptions. This Egyptian phenomenalism - an expression of a quite sensual enjoyment of life and the life-giving sun - was conceived as Truth by Akhenaten and his court.
The chronology of the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty is still a bit hazy. According to the latest research, the reign of Akhenaton has not been extended beyond seventeen years. It is now more or less generally agreed that there was a duality of monarchy between Amenophis III and Akhenaten, and later of Akhenaten and Semenkhkare. No tomb or reliefs exist of Semenkhkare.
Akhenaten and Semenkhkare died within a short time of each other, and Tut-Ankh-Amon succeeded Akhenaton. Tut-Ankh-Amon's claims to the throne, whatever his parentage may have been, were legitimized by his marriage to Ankhespaaten, who had married her father Akhenaton a year or two before his death. Tut-Ankh-Amon returned to Thebes about the fourth year of his reign and began the restoration of the cult of Amon. This is commemorated by a stele (upright pillar with inscriptions) found on Karnak and by the attempt to complete the colonnade leading out of the Hall of Amenophis II in the temple of Amon in Luxor: he embellished the walls on each side of the colonnade but his name was later replaced by that of Horemheb (1346-1315).
Tut-Ankh-Amon reigned for less than a decade, probably nine years. He was succeeded by the "divine father" Ay, who remained on the throne for not more than five years; he was succeeded by Horemheb, the last king of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Then, put quite simply, another flame was lit and a new religion was instituted and followed. Of course, the old ways may have been followed when the royals deemed it necessary for their public services, and no one can change a belief system in a person's heart and soul.
The reign of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neb-Kheperu-Re (Lord of Becomings is Re), Son of the Sun, Tut-Ankh-Amon (Living Image of Amon), ruler of Heliopolis of the South, as he was called in Egyptian, was a period of transition. Although the king returned to Thebes and restored the cult of Amon, the aftermath of the reformation was still felt.
Among the objects discovered by Howard Carter in the king's tomb are some which still bear a definite mark of the reformation period of Amarna art. Thus on the back of the throne, the king and his queen (now Ankhesenamun) are represented under the protection of the disk with human hands accompanied by its dogmatic name in a double cartouche (enlarged and as seen below) the photo of the carved, golden, wooden cedar throne.
On the sides of the throne, the royal name still has the Aton disk and not the name of Amon.
On the other hand, the royal chair of golden, carved cedar wood with the rare Horus name of Tut-Ankh-Amon has no trace of the Amarna tradition.
On the openwork back panel, the God Heh is represented kneeling on the sign of gold holding two measuring rods placed on the signs of infinity and of one hundred thousand. On the right arm of the God is attached the sign of life.
Tut-Ankh-Amon & Ankhesenamun as found on The Tablets of Amarna inside the tomb of King Tut.
Tut-Ankh-Amon & Ankhesenamun - drawing by Mark Hasselriff
I realize the chair is difficult to see unless enlargement devices are used, but I would recommend using those devices if you have them available. Although the supplies for Tut's needs during the afterlife were all thrown into his tomb space in what appeared a hurried way and it was very unorganized and cluttered, the contents of Tut's tomb were cataloged in a very complete manner.
Robert Carter exploring Tut-Ankh-Amon's sarcophagus
Some of King Tut's stuff
I found this little video that highlights the throne, and then I'll provide a short list of some of the inscriptions that were engraved on this lovely piece of work. When found, as with everything else, the colors were as vibrant as the day it was all created. This chair is, outside of the sarcophagus and its contents, one of the most fascinating pieces found inside the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amon.
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Inscriptions on the chair:
Above right:
Live the beautiful God, image of Re, the protector of the Ruler of Heliopolis of the South. Open of face like Thoth, beautiful of face like the One South of his Wall, beloved like Amon, Lord of Jubilees, (and) like Horus of the Horizon. Re himself has created him. He has united valor with his boy, King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Lord of Diadems, Neb-Kheperu-Re, living like Re
every day.
Above left:
Live the beautiful God, Son of Amon, the one born of the majesty of Re, seed
of the Brilliant One, pure egg which was brought to being by Horus in the Great
Castle. The one whose beauty was created by the Souls of Heliopolis, the one
whom Atum calls to appear on his throne, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord
of the Two Lands, Neb-Kheperu-Re, Son of the Sun, beloved by him, Tut-Ankh-
Amon, Ruler of Heliopolis of the South.
Below right:
Live the beautiful God, Lord of the Two Lands, Neb-Kheperu-Re, Son of the Sun, beloved by him, Tut-Ankh-Amon, Ruler of Heliopolis of the South, to whom life was given like to Re.
Below left::
Live the beautiful God, Lord of the Two Lands, Neb-Kheperu-Re, Son of the Sun,
beloved by him, Tut-Ankh-Amon, Ruler of Heliopolis of the South, to whom life
was given like to Re eternally.
Right of the God:
King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Neb-Kheperu-Re, to
whom life is given.
Below right and left:
Live Horus-Re, powerful Bull who unites the births.
Left of the God:
Son of the Sun, beloved by him, Tut-Ankh-Amon, Ruler of Heliopolis of the
South.
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On the second Shrine which covered the royal sarcophagus, many figures on the outside, as well as the divinities in the solar barge on the left panel inside are executed in Amarna style. Among the hieroglyphic signs is the representation of the solar disk with arms and on the ceiling of Shrine III the disk is described in a short inscription.
Drawing by Mark Hasselriis
According to a stele from Karnak, Tut-Ankh-Amon presents himself as a restorer of the temples of the Gods which were abandoned in the preceding reign, and he also appears on another stele with his old Amarna name in adoration before the God Amon which at least confirms the supposition that there was no theological antagonism between Amon and Aton.
In the next blog post, we shall begin our exploration of the funerary rites for the Egyptians.
Darkmum
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