What is known about Ankhesenamun
Ankhesenamun - Queen of Egypt of the XVIII Dynasty, sister and main wife of Tutankhamun, third daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti.
The fate of Tutankhamun's young wife is shrouded in mystery. The identity of this Egyptian queen is quite reliable. There are pictures of her with her parents, so she really existed. Meanwhile, to this day, not a single item belonging to her from the burial utensils has been found. Where is she buried? On the one hand, it would be rather strange if her tomb was in Akhetaton. This simply could not be, because the royal couple had long left Middle Egypt by the time Ankhesenamun was gone.
On the other hand, it is no less strange that no trace of such an eminent person remained in Thebes: after all, she definitely lived there, albeit for a short time. But one gets the impression that Ankhesenamun disappeared without a trace after Aye wanted to take her as his wife. So what could have happened to her?
After the death of Tutankhamun
Anyway, there were still two name rings - Eye and Ankhesenamon. So, probably, their marriage could still take place. The first ring was found in 1931 in a Cairo antiquities store. And the second is now on display at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. As for the first, now it is most likely in some kind of private collection …
Eye did not order to depict Ankhesenamun in the tomb of Tutankhamun, possibly because he wanted to marry her and paint her with images of his own tomb. But, unfortunately, under Horemheb everything in this tomb was turned upside down, so it is not easy to examine it in detail. And yet, on the frescoes preserved there, you can see a certain woman. But who is she - Tii, the ex-wife of Aye, or Ankhesenamun? The cartouche with the woman's name was broken. And it was not possible to make out the inscription. And, judging by the size of the cartouche, the name Ankhesenamun could not fit into it. And there is every reason to assume that the name of Tia was inscribed on it.
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So, if Ankhesenamun was not buried according to tradition, is there any hope of finding her mummy or tomb someday?
Ankhesenamun may have sent a message to the Hittite king, the enemy of Egypt, asking him to allow one of his sons to marry her … Or is it just a legend? And how did the queen of Egypt imagine her marriage with the Hittite prince?
Ankhesenamon in the form of the goddess Serket. (Gilded statue of one of the 4 guardian goddesses from the tomb of Tutankhamun, XIV century BC).
Correspondence of the Queen of Egypt with the Hittites
After the death of Tutankhamun, Ankhesenamun had to remarry at all costs in order to stay on the royal throne. As for Ay, maybe she happened to be his wife against her will. However, at the same time, an interesting correspondence of a certain Egyptian queen with the Hittites was discovered. If only these are not the messages of Nefertiti, in which after the death of Akhenaten she demands an overseas prince from the Hittite king - only Ankhesenamun could be the sender of these messages. But, Nefertiti hardly outlived her husband, contrary to what the legend claims. This means that Ankhesenamun sent a messenger to the Hittite king with the insistence to send her one of her sons as her husband, despite the fact that she probably did this without the knowledge of Ay and the highest Egyptian dignitaries.
As far as we know, the Hittite king, very surprised by this kind of demand and no less angry, did not even consider it necessary to give an answer to the envoy of the Queen of Egypt. Then the second message was sent to the ruler of the Hittites. And its content has survived to this day. This letter is very strange. Ankhesenamon communicates his fears in it. She confesses that she does not want to marry an Egyptian, and exhorts the Hittite king to give a favorable answer to her request. He still concedes. However, the overseas prince was never destined to arrive at the Egyptian court, where the Egyptian queen was waiting for him.
Perhaps he was killed - the Hittite prince, who was to become the king of Egypt? And who would benefit from removing it?
The Hittite prince most likely managed to cross the borders of Egypt before he was killed. According to the information we have, the Egyptians perpetrated the massacre of him. He fell, no doubt, a violent death. And Horemheb was most likely to blame for his murder.
Horemheb never seems to have loved Nefertiti. And therefore he ordered to destroy all the images of the queen with her husband. Well, his own exploits, which he ordered to display on the walls of his tomb in Sakkara, indicate that Horemheb has already begun to think about how to consolidate his power. The prospect of entering the royal family opened up excellent opportunities for him, so he did not want to see some newcomer Hittite on the Egyptian throne. In addition, the Hittites were the eternal and formidable enemies of the Egyptians. Horemheb fought with them and feared their power. In a word, he could not come to terms with the fact that his country would be ruled by an enemy.
Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun. Fragment of the back of the throne of Tutankhamun, XIV century BC e.
Have Hittite Texts Really Been Found?
The Hittites had a custom to preserve in the archives all important information related to politics, government and their customs. So, in the territory of present-day Turkey, thousands of texts on clay tablets were discovered. As for the period of interest to us, the letter that the Egyptian queen, of course, sent to the Hittite king with a request to give her one of her sons as husbands, was found at the beginning of the 20th century, among other texts describing the policy of the Hittite king Suppilulium from the words of his son. This letter to Ankhesenamun constitutes the so-called text # 7. Suppilulium's son, Mursili II, mentions the Hittite victory in the Amka Valley. And he clarifies that this battle plunged the Egyptians into horror and that just at that time a messenger from Queen Ankhesenamun arrived in the Hittite kingdom.
A second letter was found, which Ankhesenamun had to send to the ruler of the Hittites, who was very perplexed and not at all inclined to live up to her expectations. Even if the offer to become a pharaoh, addressed to one of his sons, looked tempting, the content of both messages was so unexpected that the Hittite king involuntarily became wary, sensing a trick in this.
In her second letter, the annoyed queen admits that she cannot come to terms with such an attitude towards herself from the king of the Hittites. And how could he doubt her words ?! Why are you drawn to the answer? The queen recalled once again that she had lost her husband, that she had no heir, although she would very much like to have a son, but not from an Egyptian, that she needed consolation and that she had not turned to other kings with her request.
The Hittite king in vain sent scouts to Egypt to find out what was what: the Egyptian queen was not in the habit of bending over. But then the question arises: what if two name rings - Ey and Ankhesenamun - once did serve their purpose and that the union of their owners was nevertheless concluded, as the “Divine Father” wanted? We also have the right to ask ourselves what were the true intentions of Ankhesenamun. Perhaps she turned out to be so insidious that she maliciously prepared a trap for the Hittite prince at the instigation of Eye and Horemheb?
Another text, "From the prayers of Murasili II during the plague," reports on the decision of the Hittite king, who finally heeded the admonitions of the Egyptian envoy Hani. And he deigned to send one of the princes to Egypt. And then an irreparable loss befell him: on the way to the Egyptian court, the prince found his death. And then the Hittite ruler, enraged, declared war on Egypt. From the battlefield, he led many Egyptian prisoners infected with the plague.
Who needed to kill Tutankhamun and his young wife? Looks like Aye was involved. He went down in history under the name of the "Divine Father". Where did Aye get this name and what connected him with the royal family?
Destruction of tombs
After Tutankhamun died, Aye eventually became king. He has already been depicted on the walls of the tomb of the young pharaoh with millet (double tiara of the rulers of Upper and Southern Egypt) on his head. Aye ruled for 4 years, and when he first ascended the throne, he was already 60 - a rather advanced age at that time. Subsequently, his name was erased from everywhere, as well as the name of Tutankhamun: it is possible that this was not done without Horemheb, the successor of Ey and the commander-in-chief during his reign. Aye's tomb was also ravaged. True, his broken sarcophagus was later restored in Cairo. And even the Ushabti, which were of little interest to the tomb robbers, were also defeated. It was an important sign: no one wanted Aye to have a quiet life in the afterlife.
Ankhesenamun gives flowers as a symbol of love to Tutankhamun. Fragment of the chest.
Was Aye's tomb opened “by accident”?
Giovanni Battista Belzoni has remained in history as one of the most compelling and restless explorers of the Valley of the Kings. Having performed a large number of various "deals" and worked in the circus, Belzoni once realized that he could make a fortune by digging in the Theban necropolis. So he stumbled upon the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. Inspired by his first good fortune, Belzoni hired several workers from the Egyptians and went in search of other tombs, hoping, like the later and Carter, to find untold treasures. Moreover, the tomb of Seti I, although it amazed him with its splendor, had already been visited by robbers before.
Once making his way through the Western Valley, next to the Valley of the Kings, Belzoni fell into a hole - and thus the entrance to the tomb of Eie was opened, which also turned out to be empty. This tomb, built on the site that Tutankhamun had originally chosen, had a delightful decoration. The surviving frescoes depicted scenes remarkably similar to those preserved in the tomb of Tutankhamun, such as a scene with scarabs and a dozen monkeys, representing midnight. In addition, the frescoes probably depict Tii, the former nurse of Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun. In other scenes, Ey is hunting in the swamps. Here he is, accompanied by deities and his "ka", just like Tutankhamun. But he is ferried from one bank of the Nile to the other in a funeral boat. His sarcophagus made of red quartzite is decorated with images of goddesses who protect him while sailing across the river.
Although Ay had a tomb worthy of his highest self-esteem, he was unable to hide it from the marauders … so it was difficult to identify the other heroes of the murals: their names are mostly erased.
Was Tutankhamun poisoned?
To find out, it was necessary to conduct research on the internal organs of the pharaoh, contained in his canopics, or rather, the liver, if it remained intact. After all, when some organ of the deceased turned out to be very large and did not pass into the canopy, the embalmer cut it into pieces so that it could fit into the vessel. And an examination of the intestines and stomach would also establish whether Tutankhamun was in a coma before his death.
Many wanted the young king to die. An examination of his bones makes it possible to say for sure that he died at the age of 19. Moving away from the tutelage of Eye and Horemheb, Tutankhamun began to assert himself as a ruler. It is even probable that he dreamed of an heir: it is no coincidence that female fruits were in his tomb. If these are his children and Ankhesenamun, then the royal couple probably wanted to have hereditary princes. But the royal advisers may have considered Tutankhamun of little use to reign. And, having finally decided to get rid of the useless ruler, they could well plot evil against him.
Why was Aye forgotten?
Aye could be the brother of Teye, the great wife of Amenhotep III, and the father of Nefertiti. Apparently, at the royal court, he appeared at a rather young age. The herald, a representative of the pharaohs at the courts of foreign kings, an envoy, adviser and commissioner for internal affairs, he gained more and more power under his son-in-law Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten, under Smenkhkar and Tutankhamun, before he could become a pharaoh himself.
Ey's attitude to the death of Tutankhamun, who, perhaps, was the husband of his granddaughter, really seems rather strange, because Ey took possession of the small tomb of Tutankhamun, and ordered to paint his own with bizarre and unusual scenes.
A shadow advisor, after a ruler experienced in political intrigue, Aye was excluded from all the lists of the pharaohs. And one of the first to contribute to this was Horemheb: after all, it was from his command that the destruction was carried out in the tomb of Ey in the Western Valley. In fact, Horemheb wanted to inspire descendants that he reigned immediately after Amenhotep III. Therefore, Horemheb decided to erase from the memory of people everything that could remind of the reign of Smenkhkara, Tutankhamun and Ay. So Aye's images were destroyed as well as those of Hatshepsut.
Ey ordered to take the statues of Tutankhamun and move them to his tomb - as a sign that he did not honor the young king, as he tried to show it. In turn, Horemheb took possession of the statues of Tutankhamun before destroying the statues of Ey. That is why images of Aye are quite rare, and therefore, it is difficult to imagine how he could look in reality. Only his small head is on display in the Cairo Museum. So one of the main pieces of evidence for Ey's existence is his tomb.
Which woman is depicted in Ey's tomb?
Considering the small size of the cartouche attached to the female image in the tomb of Ey (the image that is there besides the images of the goddesses), it is difficult to imagine that we are talking about Ankhesenamun. It is more likely that this is Tii, the former first wife of the "Father Divine". The one who may have been Nefertiti's wet nurse. And then the question arises: would Tiye really agree to the marriage of her husband to Ankhesenamun? … Some even believed that Tiye could harm the ex-wife of Tutankhamun. What if she killed her? In that case, this would explain why there were no traces left after Nefertiti's daughter. If Ankhesenamun had been given a lavish funeral - with truly royal honors - Eye would have ordered her to be buried in the Valley of the Kings or somewhere nearby. And if so, it is possiblethat Ankhesenamun's tomb will still be found someday …
V. Vanoik