Moses and Akhenaten

by Ahmed Osman

  (ii) The Tomb of Kheruef

  Three main points can be made about the tomb of Kheruef:

  • Much of it is unfinished.

  • It has suffered damage in three stages. Initially, as Kheruef seems to have fallen from grace while still working on his tomb, scenes and inscriptions were erased by his enemies, ‘who chiselled out his figures and the figures of the high officials (or perhaps members of his family) who were accompanying him. They chiselled out also the texts referring to his activities or biography and in most cases his names and titles … intending to wipe out all memory of him.

  ‘The second mutilation is more important for us because it was made by the agents of Amenhotep IV, in all probability at the beginning of his movement before it became extreme. The walls of the tomb are covered with prayers to the different deities, but none of these has been touched except Amun. The cartouches of Amen-hotep III and Amenhotep IV both contained the word “Amun”, but it was never removed, although the agents chiselled out carefully the name of the same deity in an adjacent line. Another word was chiselled out carefully wherever it occurred … the word “gods”, which for the worshippers of the Aten was a symbol for polytheism.’1

  A third type of destruction is evident, as noted by Labib Habachi,2 where the figures of Amenhotep IV were also erased, which in this case has to be the work of his enemies from Horemheb to the Ramesside kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The fact that the tomb was not completed and that the first mutilation did not come from Akhenaten’s followers indicates that Kheruef fell from favour while the old king was still alive and then, at a later stage, came Akhenaten’s followers to erase Amun’s name.

  • The tomb provides us with two dates. One scene in the first court depicts Kheruef offering gifts to Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye on the occasion of the Pharaoh’s first jubilee in Year 30: another shows him performing a similar task in Year 36 on the occasion of the king’s third and last jubilee. The work in the first court is, however, unfinished.

  Who was Kheruef? The main source of information about his titles and positions is the tomb, in which we find him described as ‘Hereditary Prince and Governor’, ‘Royal Scribe’ and ‘Steward of the great royal wife Tiye’. Nothing in the tomb relates him directly or indirectly to Akhenaten: he is the Steward of Tiye, appointed to this position by her husband, Amenhotep III. The fact that Akhenaten is shown in this tomb with his father therefore has to be explained away by those who do not accept a coregency. The course they have chosen, without the slightest shred of evidence, is to claim that, after the death of Amenhotep III, Kheruef was appointed by the new king to continue for a while in his post.

  As we have seen, the only two dates we have in this tomb are Year 30 and Year 36. Thus we can safely assume that decoration of the tomb started some time after Year 30. But when did it cease? Redford himself has noted: ‘This enormous hypogeum (underground chamber) displays decoration on only a few walls, and there is good evidence that the work had halted abruptly, perhaps on the fall from favour or the death of Kheruef.’3 It is clear that the façade area – the corridor with the libation scene and the lintel of the doorway, where there is a further cartouche of Akhenaten, who is also depicted in scenes with his mother, Queen Tiye – is virtually complete, the exception being the North Wall which has red lines intended to guide the artist in his work. If, as Redford and other opponents of the coregency claim, work on the tomb stopped after Amenhotep III’s death, during the sole rule of his son, how does one explain that it is the son’s scenes that are virtually complete while those belonging to his father were still unfinished?

  The only reasonable conclusion is that Amenhotep IV was shown in Kheruef’s tomb, adoring his father on the occasion of the old king’s first jubilee in Year 30. Kheruef continued to work for Queen Tiye until just after Year 36 when he fell from favour and was dismissed from office. His enemies then tried to wipe out all traces of him and, not much later, the Atenists also destroyed the name of the god Amun. What confirms this as the correct sequence of events is the fact that, as we saw earlier, Akhenaten did appoint another official, Huya, to take the place of Kheruef. If the coregency between the two kings lasted for twelve years, then Year 37 of Amenhotep III, when Kheruef fell from favour, coincided with Year 10 of Akhenaten, in which year, as we saw from Huya’s tomb, Akhenaten appointed this official to the post of steward to Queen Tiye.

  (iii) The Year of Tribute

  Aldred has argued that the celebrations of Akhenaten’s Year 12, represented in the Amarna tombs of Huya and Meryre II, show the king receiving gifts on his accession to sole rule.1 This seems likely. There was no war campaign in foreign countries that would account for such tribute and, if it were simply the regular yearly tribute, it is difficult to imagine all the foreign nations involved gathering in Amarna at the same time. Furthermore, this is the only time such an event is to be found depicted in the Amarna tombs. Redford is justified, however, in rejecting Aldred’s attempt to generalize the conclusion so as to imply that all such tribute scenes in Eighteenth Dynasty tombs must be taken to represent a coronation celebration, or that this event in Amarna coincided with the appointing of new officials or their reappointment.

  (iv) The Tomb of Ramose

  Here Amenhotep IV appears in a tomb that belongs to the reign of his father, Amenhotep III, whose name is found in the tomb. Ramose was mayor of Thebes and a vizier of Upper Egypt. Aldred accepted the Ramose tomb as evidence of a coregency: Redford does not. In other cases where the two kings are represented together in tombs, he has argued that Amenhotep III should be regarded as already dead: here he accepts that he is mentioned as alive, but takes the view that Amenhotep IV was not represented in the tomb until after the old king’s death. Redford makes the point that one of Ramose’s relatives and a Minister of Recruitment for Amenhotep III – the son of Habu whose name was also Amenhotep – is shown among the dead in a scene on the East Wall of the transverse hall. As he and some of the others depicted in this necropolis scene are known to have died before and around Year 34 of Amenhotep III, Redford rightly says the scene cannot be dated earlier than that year, but he goes on to argue that decoration of the whole tomb did not start before that date: ‘Ramose must have survived the thirty-fourth year of his sovereign, and in all probability a decade more … the tomb presents a strong case against any coregency of Amenhotep III with Akhenaten.’ This view cannot, however, be supported by the evidence.

  Ramose’s positions as mayor and vizier are known from his tomb. In addition, he had his name inscribed on the rocks of Sehel and Bigeh in the region of the First Cataract in Upper Egypt, the southern limit of his jurisdiction. There he paid reverence to the cartouches of Amenhotep III and the local gods. This, then, establishes that he had been appointed to his position by Amenhotep III. The inscription is not dated, which means we do not know when he was appointed, but Aldred has pointed out that dockets found at the remains of the Malkata palace complex of Amenhotep III at Western Thebes showed that the vizier Ramose donated four jars of ale for the first jubilee of the king in his Year 30.1 It must therefore have been around Year 30 that Ramose’s tomb was started because it was mainly the king’s high officials who donated gifts on these occasions.

  Both sides of the entrance to the tomb are decorated with the usual scenes of sacrifice to the solar deities and gods of burial. In one scene on the East Wall, in which Ramose is accompanied by officials, the text reads: ‘The making of an oblation of all things good and pure [to] Amun-Re, king of the gods, [to] Re-Harakhti, [to] Atum, to Khepera … [Ramose … says “I give praise to Re-Harakhti] when he dawns, that he may cause me to be among his followers and that my soul may rest in the evening boat day by day.’ ” In a sub-scene three men singers are chanting: ‘The two lands of Horus acclaim Amun on the great throne when he shines forth as Amun-Re … May he prolong the years of Neb-Maat-Re (Amen-hotep III), to whom life is given … O mayor-vizier Ramose. Thy lord, Amun-Re rewards thee in thy abode of the living. All the god
s of the west rejoice because of thee, in that thou makest a ritual offering to Amun-Re-Harakhti; to Atum, lord of On (Heliopolis) … to Osiris-Khentiamenti; to Hat-Hor, regent of the necropolis; to Anubis… and to all the gods of the underworld.’ As we can see, the name of Amenhotep III is mentioned in this section, Amun is still king of the gods, many of whose names occur, but at the same time special importance is given to Re-Harakhti, the name Akhenaten bestowed on his God in the very early days.

  The East Wall also bears the necropolis scene, featuring son of Habu. Although Amenhotep III is not mentioned specifically, it is evident that he was still the king as all the other figures depicted in the scene are royal officials who died before him, but the inscriptions introduce a new, and strange, expression in a quotation attributed to Ramose: ‘I had a serviceable spirit, doing justice for the king of my time. I was rewarded for it by my god (the king).’ Another scene on this wall represents the meal-of-the-dead rites, as well as the ceremony of using sacred oils and ointments, and Osiris – one of the gods abolished by Akhenaten – and the Osiris Ramose (the dead Ramose) are the subject of the inscriptions.

  The upper half of the South Wall is taken up by funeral scenes, in which Ramose is shown as already dead. On the West Wall, following the Theban custom of showing the reigning king on both sides of the inner doorway, we have a king shown. The cartouche on one side, bearing the nomen of the king, is erased, but his praenomen (or coronation name), Amenhotep, is well preserved. It is followed by Akhenaten’s epithet, ‘great in his duration’, confirming that it is Amenhotep IV who is here represented as the reigning king. The young king is shown in the old artistic style and looks exactly like his father in face and form.

  There are, in addition, two figures of Ramose. The first shows him carrying a stout staff, terminating in the crowned ram’s head of Amun, and the text reads: ‘Said by the mayor-vizier Ramose: “For thy ka (soul), a bouquet of thy father [Amun Re, Lord] of the Thrones of Egypt, President of Karnak. May he praise thee … May he overthrow thy enemies … while thou art firmly established on the throne of Horus.” ‘ The king’s enemies mentioned here would normally have been foreigners who attacked the borders of the country, but Akhenaten is known not to have fought a war, especially in his early years. As the reference here is followed by the wish that the king should be established on the throne, the enemies in this case could only have been those who opposed his appointment as king.

  The text of Ramose’s speech accompanying the second figure reads: Tor thy ka, a bouquet of thy father, the living Re-Harakhti, who rejoices on the horizon … the brightness of which is Aten.’ The style of the work as well as the representation of the new God, ‘Re-Harakhti … the brightness of which is Aten’, indicates a very early period in Akhenaten’s reign. The disc of the sun is shown in its early form while Amun is still represented as the king’s father, ‘Lord of the Thrones of Egypt’. The early period is also confirmed by the absence of Queen Nefertiti, who is always seen later accompanying her husband.

  Davies describes, however, the dramatic change in style when Amenhotep IV is depicted on the opposite side of the doorway: ‘The contrast which this wall presents to that on the other side of the doorway is an epitome of the most striking episode in Egyptian history, when the seemingly indissoluble continuity of Egyptian traditions was broken through with a suddenness which better knowledge of the movements of thought and political outlook might discount, but which none the less gives a fully revolutionary character to the change. Three or four years seem to have sufficed to bring into outward being that for which one would have proposed a century of preparation at least.’

  The author goes on to describe the scene: ‘Physiognomies, pose, royal dress, palace, architecture, foreigners, wear unfamiliar modes; even the sun-disk with its guardian cobra has a different angle of appearance. Nor is the change superficial. The attitude of the king to supernatural powers has altered; the sun reaches down to earth and temple insignia have disappeared. His relations to his people, too, are more intimate; he no longer sits on the throne like an imposing automaton. The place and manner of his appearance are different, and every figure and group in front of him has acquired greater vitality. Dignity and decorative symbolism may be diminished, but they have been broken down by a new sensitiveness and warmth of feeling … Egypt had awaked one morning, it would seem, to find the gods in full retreat, the sun shining, the king at the palace window, and the populace dancing in the streets … The Aten had been “found”.’2

  Amenhotep IV and Queen Nefertiti are shown, for the first time, in what later became known as the Amarna style of art, appearing in the window of the palace that seems to have been the young king’s building in his father’s Malkata complex. The sun disc, with extended rays ending in hands, the new symbol of the Aten, shines from the top centre of the picture, presenting the key of life to the nostrils of the royal pair. The Aten names, like those of a king, are placed within two cartouches and, added to the God’s cartouches, is a royal salute: ‘May Aten live, rich in festival periods, lord of heaven and earth, within Gem-pa-aten in the temple of Aten.’ This indicates that the Aten temple at Luxor had already been built and the king’s sed festival celebrated. All the cartouches of the king, queen and the Aten, except that including the name Amenhotep, have been largely defaced in the aftermath of the fall of Amarna, and the faces of the royal pair have been chipped off. The text gives the king’s speech to Ramose, who stands beneath the window: ‘[Said by] the king of Upper Egypt, living on truth … Amenhotep … to … the mayor-vizier Ramose: “… the matters I put in thy charge … which I have commanded. All that existed … the kings since the time of the God.”’

  To which Ramose replies: ‘May [the] Aten [do] according to that which thou hast commanded … thy monuments shall be as lasting as heaven and thy life as long as (that of) Aten in it. May thy monuments increase like the increase of heaven. Thou art unique … The mountains present to thee what they have kept hidden; for thy loud voice gains on their hearts even as thy loud voice gains on the hearts of men; they obey thee even as men obey.’3

  The upper half of the wall depicts Ramose being honoured by the king in a series of scenes, one of which shows him loaded with so many collars of gold beads that his neck cannot accommodate all of them. Other than in the name of Amenhotep, the word ‘Amun’ does not appear on this wall.

  Nothing remains of the tomb façade except a scrap of Ramose’s figure at the foot of the left jamb. However, on the thickness of the rock frontage of the tomb Ramose is shown ‘entering (the tomb) with the favours of the good god (the king, Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV?) to rest in …’ and small fragments have been found bearing the inscriptions ‘… appearing as truth’ … and again the curious expression ‘the king of my time’.4

  The burial section of the tomb is not inscribed, but the internal side of the door is decorated in fine relief. On one side Ramose offers separate prayers, one to the king and the second to the gods of the underworld. The prayer to the king reads: ‘I come in peace to my tomb with the favour of the good god (the king, Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV?). I did what was approved by the king of my time (?), for I neither minimized the substance of what he enjoined, nor did I commit any offence against the people in order that I might rest in my sepulchre on the great right-hand (the western part) of Thebes.’

  Although the Ramose tomb is not dated, the available evidence enables us to arrive at four dates, two for Amenhotep III and two for his son, Amenhotep IV. As Ramose had already been appointed to his posts as mayor and vizier before Year 30 of this king, we should expect work to have started on his tomb around that time, and as son of Habu is shown, already dead, in one of the scenes, and he died around Year 34, this scene has to be dated not long after that year of the old king.

  In the case of Amenhotep IV, the scenes on either side of the doorway leading to the inner burial section are distinctly different in style and can be dated to different periods of his reign.

  Th
e first scene represents the king in the old style. Early in his reign Akhenaten was shown, in the sandstone quarry at Gebel Silsilah in Nubia, worshipping Amun-Re. The inscription below records his quarrying of sandstone for the ‘great ben-ben (temple) of Harakhti at Karnak’. The king describes himself as ‘first prophet of Re-Harakhti’. It is clear that this inscription at Silsilah refers to the Re-Harakhti temple at Karnak and, as the panel also shows Amen-hotep IV worshipping Amun, it can hardly be dated to later than his first or second year because the Re-Harakhti temple was begun very early in his reign.

  The second scene, on the opposite side of the doorway, is in the new Amarna art style, the first time we find it in a tomb before the Amarna rock tombs, dated to Year 8 or Year 9 of Akhenaten. The new symbol of the Aten has already appeared; the God is now named Aten instead of Re-Harakhti, and he is placed in two cartouches. No mention is made in this scene of Amun. Akhenaten’s temple at Karnak is referred to. There is also a reference to Akhenaten’s jubilee, celebrated in his Year 4.

  Such a presentation would not have been possible before Amen-hotep IV’s very last days at Thebes, a short time before, in the eighth month of Year 6, he notified his change of name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten on a boundary stela at Amarna. This scene should therefore be assigned to his late Year 5 or early Year 6.