The Forgotten Pharaoh

by David Adkins

  Most remarkable was that my mother Tiye still lived. She was apparently in good health even though she had reached the unthinkable age of 74. She still had some measure of control over her family and was respected not only by Akhenamun and Iset but also by her grandchildren. She was the grand old lady of Thebes. Akhenamun and Nefertiti had given Tiye many grandchildren, but with the exception of the youngest they were all girls. The youngest was a small and weak boy called Tutankhamun. The description that Iset had sent of him reminded me of myself when I was his age. That was now a very long time ago.

  All these thoughts and memories were in my mind when I broke the seal and opened the first scroll. It was from Horemheb. I gasped with disbelief for I had not heard from him since we parted company on the desert battlefield after the great defeat of the army of Kush.

  Greetings, Prince Smenkhkare

  I hope you are in good health as am I even though we are both getting no younger. I have to inform you of the death of your brother Akhenamun and the remarkable events that have transpired since his death. His eldest daughter, Meritaten, with my help has seized power and sent the tyrant Ay into exile. She has moved the capital from Amarna back to Thebes and is beginning the process of restoring the old gods back to prominence. She is a woman and therefore cannot be pharaoh, and so the royal family have decreed that you should return to Thebes and marry Meritaten and become our new pharaoh. Akhenamun’s only son Tutankhamun is a sickly boy of eight years and therefore not able to assume power. I remember saying to you last time we spoke, so many years ago, that perhaps one day I would invite you back to Egypt to become pharaoh. I did not realise it would take so long but that day has now come. Return to Thebes immediately from Washukanni to become pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt and claim your inheritance.

  Your general

  Horemheb.

  I gasped again with disbelief as I read his words. I was to become pharaoh and marry my niece who I had never met. After all these years I was to rejoin my family at Malkata and become pharaoh. It was almost inconceivable but there it was written on the scroll from Horemheb, Egypt’s greatest general. My hand was shaking as I opened the second scroll.

  Greetings from your last surviving sister, Iset.

  How is my little brother? I had given up ever seeing you again but now it looks like I will. We are now the only two left, you and me, though mother goes on forever. Your brother, Akhenamun, or Akhenaten as he insisted on being known, died in his bed last month. It is rumoured Ay had him poisoned but it is only a rumour and I think he probably died of natural causes following an illness. So much has happened since his death. Meritaten with the help of Horemheb has grasped power and sent Ay into exile. She has already insisted on a return of the capital to Thebes and a return to the old gods. She is quite a remarkable young woman and you are to marry her. Do not get alarmed, little brother, for I think you will find her more than pleasing to the eye. Mother still makes decisions pertaining to the family and she has decided that you are to return to Thebes to marry your niece and become pharaoh. How about that for surprising news? Please do as she requires for I long to see you again. We were getting on so well when you had to flee and I was always on your side. You may ask what about Tutankhamun, but he is of little consequence in the scheme of things, for he is a sickly boy of eight years who will probably not survive for many more years such is his bad health. Do you still hate Ay? If you do then you can have him hunted down and executed for all the wrongs that he has done you and our family. I would like that, for I can never forget that he had Thutmose murdered even though it was so long ago. Please hurry back to Malkata and become pharaoh. Meritaten has accepted the situation and will become your great royal wife and a good wife she will be for you, though I warn you she has loads of energy. Once again hurry back to Thebes.

  Love from your big sister Iset.

  I sat staring at the two letters for a long passage of time. Did I want to be pharaoh? Did I want to marry Meritaten? I was no longer a young man and not as ambitious as I once was. I had spent many happy years in Washukanni and once I had, to some degree, recovered from the terrible blow of Taduheppa’s death they had been good years. Did I wish to spend my remaining years in Washukanni with time passing me by as it had been for many years? I thought not and I knew what I had to do.

  There was a knock at the door and Kirta entered. “Are you ready for the hunting trip?”

  “I have too much on my mind,” I replied.

  “Is it those letters?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Read them,” I said, passing the letters to my good friend.

  He perused the letters for some time. “I will miss you, Smenkhkare, but you must go. Together, as leaders of our countries, we can face the Hittite threat which will surely one day become much more than just a threat.”

  “I know I must go and I will miss you, my friend” I said. “But no woman will ever replace your sister.”

  ****

  It was many months later that I rode into the city of Thebes at the head of a small Mitanni caravan. I had bid Kirta a fond farewell and I had left the city of Washukanni with some regret because it held many wonderful memories for me. Most magical of all were the two years of bliss I had spent there with Taduheppa as my wife. Now I was soon to have a new wife and a new life. I seemed to be old at 44 years to now become pharaoh, but I reminded myself of the longevity of my mother and even Ay was much older than me and Horemheb was also a little older. The people were on the streets of the city to welcome their new pharaoh and I waved and showed them my pleasure to once again be among them. They were also no doubt happy to have their city restored to the role of capital of the empire.

  We left the throngs behind and entered the palace of Malkata. Memories both good and bad came flooding back to me. The gardens and the lake built by my father had been restored in quick time back to the majesty of the past after years of neglect. Meritaten had done a good job and the gardens that I had once loved to stroll through looked as exotic as they had done in my youth. I gulped in the good Egyptian air and braced myself for meeting my family, both old members and new.

  They were lined up outside the palace to greet me and Horemheb was with them also. I smiled and waved and most of them waved back. I looked down the line and tried to decide who each of them was. On one side of the line was the great general and next to him was my mother Tiye looking very ancient indeed. She was being supported by an attractive young woman who I would find out later was Ankhesenamun, third daughter of Akhenamun. Next to her was a small, weak-looking boy who I knew must be Tutankhamun, and then came four more of my brother’s daughters all of different sizes and height. Next came my sister, Iset, who had aged but then, I guessed, so had I. Then at the end of the line came a young woman dressed more grandly than any of her sisters and I knew this must be Meritaten, my new wife-to-be. This was now my family and I would have to get to know them all.

  I dismounted from my horse and strode towards my relatives. Meritaten left the line to meet me with her arms outstretched. I took her hands in mine, squeezed them and then released them and bowed for this young woman was already Queen of Egypt. She bowed to me in return for now I would be pharaoh and she would be my great royal wife. I looked into her dark eyes and they switched from brown to green in the same bewitching way her mother’s eyes had changed their colour. I smiled at the 19-year-old woman for she was the image of her mother, Nefertiti. The matchless Taduheppa would always be, for me, the personification of beauty but I could not deny that my new young queen was also very beautiful. I felt an intense thrill of excitement at returning to Egypt, of becoming pharaoh and of having a beautiful, new wife. I knew that I had to make up for a lot of lost time.

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  Author’s Notes

  Who was Smenkhkare? That is a question that historians and Egyptologists have been asking for many, many years. Was he the youngest son of Amenhotep III and brother to Akhenamun (Akhenaten), or was he the eldest son of Akhenamun and older brother or half brother to Tutankhamun? In my story I have taken the view that he was the son of Amenhotep and the great royal wife Tiye which may or may not have been the case. Evidence suggests that he reigned for just two years with his consort and great royal wife, Meritaten, and then died between 1334 BC and 1332 BC. I have placed his birth at about 1379 BC, which would have put him in his 40s at death.

  Very little is known about the Mitanni princess Taduheppa except that she married into the Egyptian royal family during the Amarna period. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti had foreign origins and therefore Taduheppa (Tadukhipa) and Nefertiti are the same person. This theory suggests that Nefertiti’s name – ‘the beautiful one has come’ – refers to Nefertiti's foreign origin as Taduheppa. I have chosen to believe, for the sake of the story and because I think it is more likely, that they were two different women though both extremely beautiful.

  All the members of the royal family in the story are historical characters though in most cases very little is known about them. It has been a very difficult task for Egyptologists to place these people in the right time and the correct generation. This has given me free licence to place them as I wish though evidence is strong regarding Amenhotep, his wife Tiye and his first six children all referred to in my story. Smenkhkare in many ways is the odd one out and his place in history is most in doubt. I shall briefly look at some of the evidence for the existence of Smenkhkare.

  Very little is known of Smenkhkare for certain because later pharaohs sought to erase the entire Amarna Period from history, but some evidence still remains. Smenkhkare was known as far back as 1845 from the tomb of Meryre II. There he and Meritaten bearing the title great royal wife are shown rewarding the tomb’s owner. Aside from the Meryre tomb depiction, there are several pieces of evidence which establish Smenkhkare as pharaoh.

  A calcite ‘globular vase’ from the tomb of Tutankhamun bears the full double cartouche of Akhenaten alongside the full double cartouche of Smenkhkare. This is the only object to carry both names side by side.

  A single wine docket, ‘Year 1, wine of the House of Smenkhkare’, indicates he probably had a short reign. Another dated to Year 1 from ‘The House of Smenkhkare (deceased)’ was originally taken to indicate that he died during the harvest of his first year; more recently it has been proposed to mean his estate was still producing wine in the first year of his successor.

  Line drawings of a block depicting the nearly complete names of King Smenkhkare and Meritaten as Great Royal Wife were recorded before the block was lost.

  A ring bearing his name was found at Malkata in Thebes.

  Perhaps the most magnificent evidence was a vast hall more than 125 metres square and including over 500 pillars. This late addition to the central palace has been known as the Hall of Rejoicing, Coronation Hall or simply Smenkhkare Hall.

  Several items from the tomb of his successor Tutankhamun bear the name of Smenkhkare: a linen garment decorated with 39 gold daisies along with 47 other sequins bearing the name of Smenkhkare alongside Meritaten’s name; also a bow and a shawl both bore his names.

  Less certain, but much more impressive, is the second anthropoid coffin containing the mummy of Tutankhamun. The face depicted is much squarer than that of the other coffins and quite unlike the gold mask or other depictions of Tutankhamun. The coffin is Rishi style and inlaid with coloured glass, a feature only found on this coffin and one from KV55, the speculated resting place for the mummy of Smenkhkare. Since both cartouches show signs of being reworked, scholars have concluded that this was most likely originally made for Smenkhkare and re-inscribed for Tutankhamun.

  Since the reign of Smenkhkare was brief – and it is possible he may never have been more than co-regent – the evidence for Smenkhkare is not plentiful, but nor is it quite as insubstantial as it is sometimes made out to be. It certainly amounts to more than just a few rings and a wine docket, or that he appears only at the very end of Akhenaten’s reign on a few monuments as is too often portrayed. Smenkhkare has also been confused with several female rulers, most notably Nefertiti, Meritaten and Tutankhamun’s other sister, Ankhesenamun, who was mentioned at the end of the story. I have discarded these theories and given Smenkhkare the place I believe he deserves because most evidence supports it – male pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt for a few brief years during the 18th dynasty.

  Perhaps no one from the Amarna period has been the subject of so much speculation as Smenkhkare. There is just enough evidence to say with some certainty that he is an individual, but not enough to decide on a co-regency or a sole reign. As a result, Egyptologists move him about like a pawn as their larger hypotheses require. He can be proposed as any number of people and he can reign for weeks or years. He is a short-lived co-regent with no independent reign or he is Akhenaten’s successor, depending on which expert you listen to. My Smenkhkare had a good life for the turbulent times, was a prince for much of his life and then ruled independently for several years.

  Finally I should mention two more major characters from my story, Ay and Horemheb. It is generally believed that Meritaten ruled Egypt for a few years after the death of Smenkhkare. She was succeeded by the young Tutankhamun and his great royal wife, his sister, Ankhesenamun. The reign of Tutankhamun, like that of Smenkhkare, was brief but unlike Smenkhkare he was to achieve immortality. Tutankhamun was followed by the aged Ay, the once chief vizier who also reigned for only a few brief years. If he did ever flee into exile then he obviously returned to Thebes to take up the reins of power. Horemheb followed Ay as pharaoh and the great general had a fairly long reign. He achieved legitimacy by marrying into the royal family and he is considered by many Egyptologists as being responsible for erasing the Amarna period and therefore Smenkhkare from history. Why he would have done so I will not speculate except to mention the word ‘religion’ which was so important in the social order of ancient Egypt.

  Once again I must state that this story is a work of fiction and must not be considered as historical fact. My story is the story of Smenkhkare as prince and not as pharaoh and we have no knowledge of his time as pharaoh of Egypt. Having said that, I must say it gave me a great deal of pleasure to write a story about the life of the forgotten pharaoh, Smenkhkare, ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt for just a short time a long time ago.