I just have to fangirl for a moment. A visit to Egypt has completely reawakened my obsession with Egyptology and renewed my interest in one of the ancient families that has fascinated me the most: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, and Ankhesenamun. There are many reasons I'm fond of them, but having been separated from ever knowing them by several thousand years, I can only credit my vast imagination as the reason why I feel "close" to them. The easiest way to explain what made them such an extraordinary and infamous family, is to give you a brief summary of Egyptian history and religion.
The traditional religion of ancient Egypt was comprised of a hierarchy of major and minor gods and goddesses, the most prominently featured of which were Ra/Amun-Ra (the sun and creator deity), Osiris (judge of the dead in the afterlife), Isis (wife of Osiris and goddess of magic, motherhood, and fertility), Horus (falcon-headed god of the sky, pharaohs, war, and protection), Ptah (another creator being), Anubis (jackal-headed god of embalming and caretaker of the dead), and Hathor (cow-goddess of the sky, fertility, love, beauty, and music). The Egyptians loved their gods and goddesses, and had an extensive pantheon.
It's safe to assume that the priests and temples associated with these gods and goddesses became quite wealthy and influential. The ancient Egyptians feared and respected their deities, and there was an incredible amount of power and prestige that came along with being in a position of authority within major religious cults. Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III, left Egypt financially, politically, and religiously secure and prosperous. In the wake of his father's death, the changes Akhenaten would introduce early on in his reign would scandalize most of Egypt and reap dire consequences.
Many historians have different opinions about the sort of man Akhenaten was: tyrant, dreamer, narcissist, optimist, or simply inept. He may have been several of these things, but I have a soft spot for people who break the mold and dream big, and really that's what he did the best: envision a grand, new future for Egypt. In short, Akhenaten and his famously stunning queen, Nefertiti, banished the old religion and gods of Egypt, and tried to force a new, monotheistic religion on the people. Instead of a hundred gods, there would be one: the Aten, the sun disk whom Akhenaten believed to be the giver of life. All power and authority was stripped from the priests of Thebes (the capital of Akhenaten's father) and their gods were discredited. The Pharaoh and his queen then moved their fragile new religion and followers out into the middle of the desert, to a site called "Akhetaten" (Horizon of the Aten), now referred to as Amarna.
This resulted in an incredible new period of art and culture that was markedly different from the previous traditions. For one, while Akhenaten had a few wives (previously it was common for pharaohs to have a great royal queen, in addition to several minor wives and consorts), he showed great reverence and respect for his first wife, Nefertiti. Whereas the later pharaoh, Ramesses II, would portray his primary queen Nefertari as a much smaller figure, often pictured showing submission to him (see below), Akhenaten would commission beautiful reliefs of Nefertiti, sometimes alone, performing acts and rituals that were previously reserved for the pharaoh himself.
The Amarna period ushered in a rare glimpse of intimate royal life, previously never seen before in Egyptian art. We see Akhenaten and Nefertiti together with their young children worshiping and playing together. It's sweet and touching, and so unlike the rigid, unmoving hieroglyphs of earlier dynasties. It's almost as though we, the viewer, walked into a room and caught the royal family in a tender moment, in fluid mid-movement.
In addition, what makes the art of this period so unique are the unusual additions to pharaonic portraiture, exaggerated characteristics such as: elongated heads and faces, large fleshy lips, extended forehead, slanted eyes, full womanly hips, protruding chin, and long stretched ears. It's strange that Akhenaten chose to portray himself with so many feminine characteristics, but it's possible he was attempting to illustrate his connection with the Aten, who was also seen as having both masculine and feminine properties.
I loved visiting the Amarna room in the Egyptian Museum, so much that I had to go back again and stare up into the dreamy, peaceful expression of its king. While strange looking, his statues really are quite beautiful. It seems like such a fragile, delusional time in history. While Akhenaten and Nefertiti were basking in their secluded religious paradise, intrigue and unrest were brewing all around them. The priests, shunned and bitter, were scheming and plotting their return to power, while Egypt's foreign neighbors felt neglected politically, overlooked, and cheated. It was a dream that could not last, and when Akhenaten died in the 17th year of his reign, his new religion fell out of favor and every effort was taken to erase him and his heresy from the history of Egypt. We will perhaps never know what became of Nefertiti, and although there are many interesting theories about whether she too fell out of favor or attempted to rule alone after her husbands death, her mummy and tomb have yet to be found.
Given the chaos and upheaval his father's reforms brought to Egypt, one can imagine how tumultuous and confusing Tutankhamun's childhood and early reign must have been. No doubt he was swept up and influenced by political advisors and priests of the old religion the moment his father's body went cold. His name was immediately changed from Tutankhaten ("Living Image of Aten") to Tutankhamun ("Living Image of Amun"), and he and his half-sister and wife Ankhesenamun (Nefertiti's and Akhenaten's daughter) were likely hastened out of Amarna and returned to Thebes, where they would reinstate the capital and former gods.
And yet, despite the desperate attempt to cover the sins of his father and ease the country's embarrassment, echoes of the Amarna style of art appear in Tutankhamun's depictions of himself and his queen. While the odd, elongated facial characteristics and exaggerated limbs were rejected, the intimate and affectionate nature of the couple's portrayal seems to suggest that Tutankhamun paid heed to the way his father admired his wife and family. The young couple are depicted in quiet, romantic moments: relaxing together, with Ankhesenamun offering Tutankhamun perfume or a lotus flower (a symbol for love and loyalty).
Within the Egyptian Museum, there was room upon room, all full of Tutankhamun's personal belongings; hundreds of beautiful, intact artifacts from his virtually untouched tomb. We saw his collection of chariots, bows and arrows, games, breathtaking golden furniture, wigs, jewelry, and clothing. But perhaps the most poignant of antiquities, aside from the loving depictions of him and his wife, was his huge collection of canes. A product of royal incest (recent DNA tests have shown that his unknown mother was one of Akhenaten’s five sisters), he was likely a slight, sickly king, possibly plagued by scoliosis. He seems to have died unexpectedly, at the age of eighteen, most likely as a result of an infected broken leg and a case of malaria.
After his death, it is believed that Tutankhamun's grieving, frightened queen dispatched a letter to the neighboring Hittite king, begging him for help, "My husband has died and I have no son. They say about you that you have many sons. You might give me one of your sons to become my husband. I would not wish to take one of my subjects as a husband... I am afraid." A Hittite prince was eventually sent, bur died mysteriously on route, and Ankhesenamen was almost certainly pressured to marry Ay, the Grand Vizier who became Tutankhamun's successor.
Ay ruled for a short time, before being replaced by Horemheb, the former Commander-in-Chief of Tutankhamun's army, who embarked on a campaign to eliminate any traces of the despised Amarna period and the heretic Akhenaten. Akhenaten's, Tutankhamun's, and Ay's monuments were demolished or usurped and their names were disappeared from Egypt's kings list. Interestingly enough, although Horemheb ruthlessly had Ay's tomb, sarcophagus, and mummy desecrated, he spared Tutankhamun's from similar vandalism.
It's like a soap opera, isn't it? Full of idealism, romance, drama, intrigue, violence, and tragedy. It's hard not to feel a certain degree of pity for a family who gambled so much in the hope of a glorious future, and lost everything as a result. Especially considering the innocence and vulnerability of Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamen. It's one of the many reasons why their story is so captivating and timeless.
It's interesting to note that after every measure taken to erase him and his family from Egypt's history, King Tutankhamun has become one of the best-known, most popular pharaohs of all time, capturing the imagination of generations. Oh, I do love irony (and poetic justice) ;)
