Research Notes on The Amarna Secret

(Note from Ben Boxer: The following extracts represent a small sampling of the vast documentation which gave me ideas for "The Amarna Secret." These texts do not originate with me; they are culled from a variety of generally scholarly sites on the Internet. You will find many conflicting opinons expressed in them, a factor which supplies soil as fertile for a writer of "historical" fiction as did the Nile for the Kemetiu, the people of Kemet, the "Black Land," i.e. ancient Egypt.)

More than 3,000 years after the death of the young Pharaoh Tutankhamen, questions are still being asked about how he died. Was it a natural death or was he murdered? The possibility that Tutankhamen did not die of natural causes was first raised 28 years ago when an X-ray analysis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the University of Liverpool. It revealed that the king may have died from a blow to the back of his head.

The suggestion caused a controversy among Egyptologists and scientists. If he were murdered, who done it? Was it Aye, Tutankhamen's vizier who ascended to the throne after his death and married his wife? Or was it Horernhab, the army officer who became king after Aye’s short four-year rule? Some archaeologists suggested that Aye and Horemhab might have shared the guilt, working in cahoots to kill the boy.

A recent X-ray analysis cast more light on the subject, this time suggesting that Tutankhamen may have been murdered in his sleep. The examination was conducted by a trauma specialist at Long Island University, USA, "The blow was to a protected area at the back of the head which you don't injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from behind," said the specialist.

According to Mohamed Saleh, Director General of the Egyptian Museum, the original analysis of Tutankhamen's mummy suggested that the boy king died of a lung disease or even a brain tumour. "This would explain the lump found on the back of his head," he said.

In 1968, when a new analysis was carried out on the mummy, it was suggested that Tutankhamen was hit on the head and murdered by either Aye or Horemhab. "But in my opinion this could not be the case," said Saleh "because Tutankhamen had no enemies; on the contrary, he was loved by the priests and the population because he re-established the stale religion of Amun-Re after the religious revolution under Akhenaten, and re-opened all temples. Moreover," Salah added, "Aye and Horemhab would have had no reason to kill Tutankhamen because he was youth and did not hold authority.

Madelen El-Mallakh, Director General of Luxor Museum, commented on the traces of a blow to the head: "Who is to say for certain how it was administered, whether it was foul play or accidental," she said. "There is certainly an element of mystery surrounding Tut's death."

Bob Brier, an American Egyptologist, believes that Tutankhamen was indeed murdered, and claims he knows by whom. "It was either by his own personal attendant or by his cup-bearer. No one could easily approach the back of the pharaoh unless it was part of his job to do so," he said. "The king's attendant and his cup-bearers would be the only people allowed to enter his bedroom without arousing suspicion." Brier added that he will back up his hypothesis with archaeological evidence which will be shown in his documentary, The Great Pharaohs.

Such contradictions raised by Egyptologists prompted the Antiquities and Travel Lovers' Committee (ATLC), an Egyptian non-profit organisation, to re-examine Tutankhamen's mummy and tomb and to carry out further research on the possible causes of his death.

The first step was a re-examination of the three tombs on the Theban necropolis belonging to Aye, Horemhab and Tut. The tomb and the treasure of the latter have revealed two pieces of literary evidence suggesting that Aye and Horemhab were innocent of murder.

The first is a papyrus document related to the "opening of the mouth ceremony," a ritual in which the dead man proclaims his innocence of any act he may have committed during his life-time, or mentions any subject he wants to shed light on in preparation for the day of judgement. Tutankhamen's document indicated that Aye was innocent of his murder. Also, on the pedestal of one of Horemhab's statues is a text in which he left a message to all Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who committed the crime.

He declared in writing that he was loyal to his king and carried out all his orders faithfully. He also warned any Egyptian who may read the text, against 'normalising' relations with foreigners and told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers, don't ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen," Horemhab wrote.

Forensic examination carried out by Egyptian experts on Tutankhamen’s mummy reveal that he was poisoned and it is now suggested that the blow to the back of the head might have happened after his death, during mummification. "His body might have been dropped on the floor and his head hit the flagstones; there is no trace of bleeding around the blow," say experts.

Now another person is being accused of the murder: Tutu or Dudu, described first as an official in the court of Amenhotep III, later that of his son Akhenaten, and, later still, Tutankhamen. He was not an Egyptian and a person of a somewhat un-savoury character who caused friction in the royal household. One of the leaders of a vassal state in Tunib in Palestine reputedly used this man to divert the messages of the Egyptian contingents in the area, so their calls for help failed to reach Egypt, and no aid was given. When Akhenaton realised that he had been supplied with false evidence about the true situation of his troops abroad, he apparently announced that an investigation would be carried out forthwith to discover its source.

His death in mysterious circumstances followed and members of the ATLC suggest that it was Tutu who was responsible for the deaths of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun "because in the tomb of the latter, an object like a trotter was found on which graffiti invokes, 'go to the real killer and beat him and awake him from his death to confess and admit his crime so that the one who is now accused can be declared innocent." Since trotters were not ritual objects in Ancient Egypt it is suggested that it belonged to outsiders. "Therefore, as Tutu was a foreigner, the priests used the trotter to indicate the nationality of the murderer." Mohamed El-Saghir, head of Upper Egyptian Antiquities, added to the mystery.

He claims that there is insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that either Aye or Horemhab were murderers, "but what is noteworthy is that Horemhab usurped some of Tutankhamen's treasure and affixed his name to it." El-Saghir referred to the two statues on display in Luxor Museum which were found in the open court of Amenhotep III in Luxor Temple in 1989. These feature the king seated before the god Atum and the goddess Isis respectively.

Beneath each are texts stating: 'Horemhab with gods' and El-Saghir points out that studies on both these statues reveal that they have the same physiognomy as Tutankhamen as well as evidence that the original texts were erased to inscribe the new ones. Analysis on the faint traces of the former show some parts of Tutankhamen's titles. "And as for Aye," El-Saghir continues, "there is insufficient evidence that he is guilty. He was the high priest and was, moreover, the one who wrote Tutankhamen's negative confession and performed " opening of the mouth’ ceremony".

While Tutankhamen's murder is so much in the news, it must not be forgotten that his wife, Ankhespaton, must not been entirely ruled out as a suspect. She was the one who dispatched a message to the Syrian monarch asking him to send one of his sons to marry her following the death of her husband because she was without a son to take care of her; she indicated that she could not marry one of her 'slaves.' Was she referring to Aye? Since there is evidence that Tutankhamen was murdered by poison, could she have been involved in a scheme with his cup-bearer?

Tutankhamen married his half-sister Ankhesenamen, who was about his age. Brier believes that all of these decisions were made for the boy king by Egypt's powerful vizier, Aye.

Despite his delicate health, the young king indulged in riding, archery, and swimming. He also loved to hunt everything from antelopes to ostriches. When he was in the palace, Tutankhaten enjoyed relaxing with his numerous dogs and playing senet, a popular Ancient Egyptian board game. Tutankhaten paid little attention to the governing of Egypt because his advisors Aye and Hornheb handled it. Hornheb was a general who in an attempt to restore the old Egyptian empire that had fallen under Akhenaten, launched an attack in the name of Tutankhamen on the area that is present day Syria. It failed miserably.

Tutankhamen died at the age of 18. The cause is unknown, but there are two major theories. The first is that because of his delicate health, Tutankhamen could easily fall prey to any passing illness. The second theory is Aye had him killed. From official letters and documents, Tutankhamen seemed to be getting slowly more interested in politics the older he became.

It is possible that he wanted to rule for himself now that he was 18, but Aye must have been reluctant to give up the power he had relished for nine years. Therefore, instead of handing the kingship over to Tutankhamen he disposed of the young pharaoh. Whatever the cause, Aye commissioned a hastily built tomb for Tutankhamen, placed him in it and married his widow, even though he was her grandfather! Aye died four years later, and Hornheb upraised the throne.

Perhaps the most mysterious figure to come out of the Amarna period was a character known to us now as Smenkhkare, or sometimes Neferneferuaten. Smenkhkare apparently reigned for about three years, and spent some uncertain length of time as Akhenaten's coregent. The evidence concerning Smenkhkare is sparse and patchy, and theories about Smenkhkare are built on very unstable foundations. Some people have even questioned whether he existed at all.

It was during the late part of Akhenaten's reign that references to a second king began to appear. A box from the tomb of Tutankhamun, apparently dating to Akhenaten's reign, bears the following titulary: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheperure (Smenkhkare) Beloved of Akhenaten... It is apparent from this inscription that Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were ruling together.

So what are we to make of Smenkhkare? Was he even a real person? Who was he, and how was he related to Akhenaten? Some of the answers to these questions may lie in some human remains discovered in 1907 by Theodore Davis in the Theban Valley tomb KV-55. The KV-55 Mummy: In 1907, an amateur Egyptologist named Theodore Davis led an expedition in the Valley of the Kings which uncovered a small tomb, now classified as King's Valley Tomb No. 55. The tomb had been badly damaged by water and robbers, and contained a confusing jumble of funerary equipment, including part of a small golden shrine belonging to queen Tiye, some magic bricks bearing the name of Akhenaten, a set of fine alabaster canopic jars which have been identified with numerous members of the Amarna family, and a beautiful multi-colored rishi (feathered)-type coffin with a badly damaged gold face.

The names had been hacked out of the coffin. Inside the coffin was a poorly preserved mummy, encased in gold foil, which fell apart when it was unwrapped. The gold shrine, the apparently female heads on the canopic jars, and the fact that the coffin seemed to depict a female figure, convinced Davis and his team that they had found the body of Queen Tiye, the mother of Akhenaten. Davis and his team sent the bones to G. Elliot Smith, the Professor of Anatomy at Cairo School of Medicine. According to Smith, the gold mummy-bands that had encircled the mummy bore the name of Akhenaten (1912). However, according to Cyril Aldred, Arthur Weigall, one of the excavators of the tomb, reported that all the names that had once been on the bands had been hacked out (1988). The bands were stolen by Smith's laboratory assistants shortly after they were sent to him, so it is difficult to judge which account is correct.

Elliot Smith's analysis revealed that the bones belonged to a man rather than a woman. He concluded that the man was no older than 25 when he died, based on the level of closure at the epiphyses of the long-bones and the level of dental wear (Smith, 1912). Smenkhkare seems to be the only other logical candidate. Blood-type analyses and comparisons of the skull dimensions of the KV-55 mummy with those of Tutankhamun have revealed that the two men were either father and son or brothers. But how are they related to Akhenaten? Both mummies have the broad, flat, elongated skull that is characteristic of the Amarna family, and the KV-55 mummy has the downward-slanting jaw and prominent chin seen in portraits of Akhenaten. If they were brothers, were they both sons of Akhenaten? If so, who was the mother? Since neither Smenkhkare nor Tutankhamun was featured in artwork and texts from Akhenaten's reign the way Akhenaten's and Nefertiti's daughters were, it seems unlikely that they were children of Akhenaten by Nefertiti herself. However, Tutankhamun is unambiguously referred to as a "King's Son" in one inscription. Some have theorized that they were Akhenaten's children by a minor wife, such as Kiya. At this point, we still do not have enough information to come up with a clear verdict.

Horemheb succeeded Aye as pharaoh upon the old man's death. Again little is known of his origins, although he was commander of the army under Akhenaten and possibly a claimant to the throne when Aye became Pharaoh. He portrayed himself as the restorer of the old order, usurping monuments of Tutankhamun and Aye. In later king lists Horemheb is given as the successor to Amenhophis III missing out the Amarna bloodline completely.

Famed throughout the ancient world for her outstanding beauty, Akhenaten's queen Nefertiti remains the one of the most well known of the queens of Egypt. The famous statue of Nefertiti, found in a sculptors workshop in Akhetaten, is one of the most immediately recognisable icons from this period of history. It has escaped the excesses of the Amarna artistic style, and survived the wholesale destruction of Akhenaten's monuments after his death.

Little is known about the origins of Nefertiti but it seems unlikely that she was of royal blood. Her father was possibly a high official of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten called Aye, who went on to become Pharaoh after Tutankhamun. Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters, although the succession after his death is uncertain as there is no record of a male heir. It is possible that Akhenaten's successors Smenkhkare and Tutankhaten were his children by another royal wife called Kiya who became his principle queen for a short while after year 12 of his reign.

As with Akhenaten there is no trace of Nefertiti's mummy. Some jewelry bearing her cartouche was found outside the royal tomb at Akhetaten but there is no real evidence that she was buried there. From surviving record it seems she either fell from favor or died at around year 12 of Akhenaten's reign.