Apogee and decline
Little is known about the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, or the three year period after his death leading up to Tutankhamun's accession to the throne. Many theories have been advanced and the uncertainty has been compounded by the appearance during these years of new royal personages whose origins and identity remain a matter for debate.
The evidence that survives from the Amarna period is often badly damaged and in many cases throws up more questions than answers.
Among them is Kiya, the mysterious secondary wife of Akhenaten. Who was Kiya and where did she come from? Prince Tutankhaten, better known as Tutankhamun is also intriguing. He is generally thought to be the son of Amenhotep III or the son of Akhenaten and Kiya, but careful investigation has thrown new light on his parentage. The king called Smenkhkare, thought to be a brother of Tutankhaten by most scholars is perhaps the most mysterious figure. His identity has often been confused with a female pharaoh who many scholars have identified as Nefertiti using a different name. I propose that this pharaoh is not Nefertiti, but quite a different person altogether. And I also suggest a radically different identity for Smenkhkare, which I have pieced together from the various sources available. Finally, I will offer my view of the reasons for the dramatic collapse of the first monotheistic experience in history.
The evidence that survives from the Amarna period is often badly damaged and in many cases throws up more questions than answers. Given this puzzling situation, I am presenting in this article some of my new views, which are often in complete disagreement with the theories of other scholars, but which may help us to understand the succession of events at the end of Akhenaten's reign.
The harmony is shattered
A re-enactment of Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshipping the Aten, the visible sun-disk ©Year XII undoubtedly marked the most brilliant period of Akhenaten's reign. His new theology flourished at court. It was based on a pragmatic vision of the world, in which only phenomena accessible to the senses might be described or represented, and overturned the mythology and the theological speculation of previous eras. The earth is bathed in the light and radiance of the sun disc, the Aten, the pharaoh's celestial co-ruler. This single, silent and inaccessible 'god' bestowed life and sustained creation. Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti's relationship blossomed into a love to which their six daughters were testament. At Tell el-Amarna, amidst much splendour, foreign tributaries came to present the king with produce from his Empire.This harmony, however, was shattered... when three of the king's six daughters... died suddenly.
This harmony, however, was shattered around Years XIII - XIV, when three of the king's six daughters, the two youngest, Neferneferure and Setepenre, and the second eldest Meketaten, died suddenly. The scenes of mourning engraved in the royal tomb show the royal family overcome with grief, weeping before the princesses' (non-mummified) corpses or paying homage to their memory, represented by their statue. Death is depicted in its two real, tangible, aspects: the corpse - that which will disappear; and the statue - that which will survive as a memory. Remarkably, the notion of the afterlife has entirely vanished.
Kiya disappears
Around Year XVI another important figure disappeared from the scene, Akhenaten's second wife, Kiya. In texts, Kiya is given the lengthy title 'the greatly beloved wife of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neferkheperure-Wa'enre, child of the Aten, who lives now and forever more'. She is never referred to as 'Royal Wife', as this was a title reserved exclusively for Nefertiti. Kiya's abnormally elaborate title, as long as Nefertiti's, may have been given to her to compensate for what was in fact a secondary status.
...there is strong reason to believe that Kiya was princess Tadukhipa of Mitanni...
On jar inscriptions, Kiya is mentioned simply as 'the Great Lady (of Naharina)'. As Naharina was also known as Mitanni, there is strong reason to believe that Kiya was princess Tadukhipa of Mitanni, sent to the Egyptian court late in the reign of Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III, by Tushratta of Mitanni (Naharina). After a few years in the old pharaoh's harem, she was put into that of his son. During the reign of Akhenaten, relations between Egypt and Mitanni soured, as one Amarna Letter tells us (Armana Letter EA 29), and it is likely that Kiya paid the price for these diplomatic upheavals.
Her final destiny is uncertain. In Amarna her official monuments were re-dedicated to two of Akhenaten's daughters - Merytaten and Ankhesenpaaten. Her coffin and canopic jars, discovered in Tomb 55 of the Valley of the Kings, were reused for the burial of Akhenaten. It is possible that Kiya returned to Mittani when her father was assassinated, leaving a daughter in Egypt. Following Kiya's disappearance, her daughter's name (which contained the suffix -aten) was effaced from the monuments to Kiya and replaced by the names of fictional children of Akhenaten's daughters. There are clear indications that this princess, the daughter of Kiya, was in reality the 'royal daughter' Baketaten, depicted in the tomb of the Noble 'Huya' at Amarna.
Tutankhamun's parentage
A line drawing showing a small child in the arms of a wet-nurse ©Until recently, it was thought that the six daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti were the couple's only offspring. However, in one chamber of the Royal Tomb, just outside the room devoted to the funeral vigil for Akhenaten's second daughter, Meketaten, a small child is depicted in the arms of a wet-nurse.So we must be dealing with a seventh child of Nefertiti.
It has long been believed that Meketaten died in childbirth and that this infant was hers. However, she was only about nine years old at the time of her death and her sarcophagus proves that she was scarcely taller than one metre.
What remains of the inscription referring to the child reads:
'(1) [...] born of (2) [...] Neferneferua[ten] Nefertiti, who lives now and forever more'
((1) and (2) indicate two columns; [...] indicates missing text.)
Given the length of the missing parts of the inscription and the similarity in composition to the titles given to other royal offspring at Amarna it is clear that we are dealing with a child of Nefertiti. And given that by the time of the birth of this child, we know that the six daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti were already born and that, moreover, three of them were dead, the baby is necessarily different from any of the known princesses. So we must be dealing with a seventh child of Nefertiti.
The most likely candidate is Tutankhamun, known during this period as Tutankhaten. Indeed, a block, now split in two, from the nearby site of Hermopolis still bears the insignia of the prince Tutankhaten accompanied by that of a princess whose name, unfortunately, is missing.
...it is probable that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were the parents of Tutankhamun.
Another block at Hermopolis confirms that Tutankhaten had at least one sister and probably two. On this block, a prince, identifiable by his loincloth, can be seen sitting on an adult's lap, together with traces of the figures of two other children. It was a rule in the official monuments of Amarna, that Nefertiti's children should never be shown alongside those of any other wife of Akhenaten. As Nefertiti is the only one of his wives known to have had more than one child, it is probable that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were the parents of Tutankhamun.
The pharaoh-queen
Late in Akhenaten's reign a mysterious pharaoh-queen appears...
Late in Akhenaten's reign a mysterious pharaoh-queen appears, whose identity has often been confused with that of King Smenkhare. The pharaoh-queen's coronation name is Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten. Although not consistently, her name sometimes appears in a feminine form, which is how we can be sure that we are dealing with a woman.
In seeking to identify the pharaoh-queen, modern archaeologists have suggested three candidates. One possibility is Akhenaten's secondary wife, Kiya. However, the mutilation of Kiya's monuments indicate that she had fallen from grace. A second possibility is Nefertiti herself. However, a funerary figurine found at Amarna bearing Nefertiti's name indicates that she must have died before her husband. This leaves Merytaten, Akhenaten's daughter as the most likely candidate.
A line drawing of a stela from Berlin, depicting Akhenaten with the pharaoh-queen ©The Amarna Letters (EA 10, EA 11 and EA 155) indicate, moreover, that Princess Merytaten acquired the status of royal wife and then regent at the end of her father's reign. Letter EA 155 even treats Merytaten on an equal footing with the pharaoh. This regent's position as royal wife is also apparent from the second cartouche of her name, where she (although often referred to in the masculine form 'he') is sometimes called 'she who is beneficent to her husband [i.e. Akhenaten]'.
The striking thing is that this description was in fact a common epithet used for the goddess Isis, when emphasising her role as widow of the god Osiris. In other words it is an epithet that makes reference to the traditional gods, abandoned during Akhenaten's reign and only restored after his death. So the use of this epithet suggests that this queen-pharaoh reigned after the death of Akhenaten, but had herself depicted and described as ruling alongside him as his fictitious 'co-regent'.
In another example, a jewel from Tutankhamun's tomb, again referring to this 'king' as 'she who is beneficent to her husband', clearly evokes traditional theological imagery. The epithet post-dates the death of Akhenaten, who kept his monotheistic faith until the end.
Smenkhkhare, the Hittite Pharaoh
Some archaeologists have argued that Smenkhare and the pharaoh-queen are one and the same person.
The person named Ankhkheperure Smenkhkhare-Djeserkheperu poses other problems. Some archaeologists have argued that Smenkhare and the pharaoh-queen are one and the same person. However, the image of Smenkhare alongside the royal wife Merytaten, in Meryre II's tomb at Amarna, and the exclusively masculine epithets referring to this individual in the same tomb and on a now-vanished block at Memphis, confirm that we are dealing with a man - as distinct from the pharaoh-queen Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten.
The fact that his wife, Merytaten, bears only the title of queen on these monuments leads me to believe that his reign preceded that of Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten who was, it is highly likely, Merytaten herself. A peculiarity in the protocol relating to Smenkhkhare may resolve the issue.
Contrary to Ancient Egyptian custom, Smenkhkare is not presented under a coronation name and a birth name in his two cartouches, but under two coronation names. The explanation for this curious fact seems to me clear: both his royal names were composed on the occasion of his coronation. He therefore must have had another name beforehand.
The Hittite archives found at Boghaz Koy in Turkey provide us with a clue.
To be Merytaten's husband, moreover, Smenkhkhare must have been the equivalent in rank at least of a royal son prior to his accession to the throne. But no Egyptian prince of that name or any other existed at the time. The Hittite archives found at Boghaz Koy in Turkey provide us with a clue. They tell us that the widow of a king of Egypt wrote to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma to ask for the hand of one of his sons in marriage. After much prevarication, Suppiluliuma sent his son Zannanza to Egypt, where he was assassinated, according to the Hittites.
The absence of a birth name, the lack of an Egyptian of appropriate rank and the clues in the Hittite archives allow us to conjecture that Smenkhkhare might in fact be the Hittite prince Zannanza. Indeed, diplomatic correspondence from Amarna, dating from the same period as the Hittite texts, confirms that the Egyptian queen who wrote to the Hittite king could only be the one woman of royal rank to survive Akhenaten, namely Merytaten, and that the latter was the wife of the mysterious Smenkhkhare before reigning in her own right.
The great plague
In the Plague Prayers of the Hittite king Mursilli, one of Suppiluliuma's successors, it is recorded that:
'When the Egyptians became frightened, they asked outright for one of his [Suppiluliuma's] sons to [take over] the kingship. But when my father gave them one of his sons, they led him there and they killed him. My father let his anger run away with him, he went to war against Egypt and attacked Egypt. He smote the foot soldiers and the charioteers of the country of Egypt. But when they brought back to the Hatti [Hittite] land, the prisoners which they had taken, a plague broke out among the prisoners and these began to die. When they moved the prisoners to the Hatti land, these prisoners carried the plague into the Hatti land. From that day on people have been dying in the Hatti land.'
It is very possible that the sudden deaths of several members of the royal family could be linked to the plague.
The text implies that a great plague was ravaging the Middle East at the time. The same plague is mentioned in the Amarna Letters EA 11, EA 35, EA 96 and EA 932. Given the scale of this epidemic, it is very possible that the sudden deaths of several members of the royal family could be linked to the plague. The plague may, furthermore, have been felt to be a punishment from the old, neglected, gods, and may have precipitated the end of the cult of the Aten. Indeed, the return to traditional religious practices and the desertion of the palace at Amarna can be clearly dated to the reign of Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten, alias Merytaten, and not to that of Tutankhamun, as has generally been assumed.