Moses and Akhenaten

by Ahmed Osman

  Some further light on the dating of the Ramose’s tomb can be derived from considering who donated it. Although it is true that Amenhotep III appointed Ramose to his posts as mayor and vizier, it seems to me for several reasons to have been Amenhotep IV who gave Ramose his tomb:

  • Amenhotep III’s name appears only once, near the entrance of the tomb, using his praenomen, Neb-Maat-Re, in a prayer of Ramose to Amun-Re that he ‘may prolong the years of Neb-Maat-Re’. This suggests that this king was already suffering from some illness which, from a letter by Tushratta and Ushter’s arrival in Egypt, could be dated about Year 36 (see Chapter Eight);

  • In contrast, it is Amenhotep IV who is shown in the special position on either side of the inner doorway that was used during the Eighteenth Dynasty for scenes of the ruling king”: had the old king been the donor of the tomb, Ramose would have shown him on at least one side of the doorway;

  • The strange – and, as far as I know, unique – reference to a sovereign by an official as ‘the king of my time’ can possibly be better understood if interpreted as meaning ‘my master’, who gave me my tomb and ordered me to carry out some work for him, and does seem to mean Akhenaten rather than his father. Although it was Amenhotep III who appointed him to the posts of mayor and vizier, Ramose was responsible for some construction work on Akhenaten’s temples at Karnak and Luxor;

  • The fact that Ramose apologizes for carrying out the orders of ‘the king of my time’ suggests something unusual about both the king and the nature of the orders, which can only be a reference to Akhenaten. Ramose tries to deny that he obeyed the king’s orders simply in order to obtain his tomb at Western Thebes. This protest would not have been necessary had Amenhotep III been the donor of the tomb;

  • The fragment found at the façade bore the text ‘… appearing as (in) truth’, which is an epithet of Akhenaten’s.

  It was Akhenaten, then, who gave Ramose his tomb and that is why he is represented in it, as well as his father. In fact we see the young king rewarding the vizier with too much gold for fulfilling his orders, which appear to relate to the construction of his new temples for Re-Harakhti at Karnak and for the Aten at Luxor.

  The association of Amun-Re with Re-Harakhti in this tomb represents a very early stage of Akhenaten’s inscriptions as Re-Harakhti was the name he gave his God initially. In almost every scene, whether near the entrance or inside, Re-Harakhti is associated with Amun whenever the latter god appears. This is true of what Redford chooses to describe as the early scenes – those near the entrance, followed by the funeral scenes – as well as the last ones. The association of Amun and Harakhti, in fact, represents the association of Amenhotep III and his son in a coregency.

  Ramose, contrary to common belief among scholars, was never converted to Atenism. He is never shown worshipping Akhenaten’s God. All the usual gods are represented in his tomb, even in the very last scene on the reverse of the doorway into the inner burial section. This has to be regarded as later than the Amarna-style scenes as it is always the most remote scene, sometimes including the latest information about the dead man, added after his death. Yet here he still has the same loyalty to the other gods and sticks to the old style, indicating that the tomb was completed after Akhenaten had already left Thebes. Ramose himself did not follow Akhenaten to Amarna, but remained in Thebes as Amenhotep III’s mayor and vizier until the time of his own or the old king’s death.

  (v) The Tushratta Letters

  Tushratta first appeared on the scene before the dispatch of the four letters that form part of the coregency debate. He sent a letter to Amenhotep III telling him that, despite an internal power struggle, he had succeeded in securing the throne after the death of his father, Shutarna. He reminded Pharaoh of the friendly relations between him and Shutarna and also took the opportunity to make the point that his sister, Gilukhipa, was one of Pharaoh’s wives. In addition, he mentioned an attack on his country by the Hittites, whom he had destroyed completely. Out of the resulting bounty, he enclosed a present for Amenhotep III. This letter is not dated, but it is thought to have arrived about Year 30 of Amenhotep III.

  The second letter we have from him indicates that Amenhotep III wished to increase the relationship between the two families by also marrying Tushratta’s daughter, Tadukhipa. Tushratta then sent a messenger to Egypt with a third letter, demanding gold in return for his daughter’s hand in marriage. This matter appears to have been resolved amicably as a fourth letter seems to have arrived at the same time as the bride-to-be, Tadukhipa. Finally, before Amenhotep III’s death, came a fifth letter, dated by an Egyptian docket to ‘Year 36, fourth month of Winter’, which was accompanied by an image of the Mitannian goddess Ishtar. The implication is that Amenhotep III was already ill and it was hoped that Ishtar might cure him. However, Mitannian magic does not appear to have worked and the king became less and less active until his eventual death early in his Year 39.

  After that date came the four letters – one addressed to Queen Tiye, the other three to Akhenaten – which form part of the coregency debate. A fuller account of their contents follows in the order in which I believe they arrived.

  No. EA27 (addressed to Akhenaten): This first letter to Akhenaten dwells upon the gold issue. The Mitannian king complains: ‘Your father … wrote … in his letter, at the time when Mani (the Egyptian messenger) brought the price for a wife …: These implements, which I now send you, are (still) nothing … when my brother gives the wife, whom I desire, and they bring her to me, so that I see her, then I will send you ten times more than these. And golden images … an image for me and a second one as image for Tadukhipa, my daughter, I desired from your father …

  ‘Your father said: “… I will give you also lapis lazuli, and very much other gold besides (and) implements without number, I will give you together with the images.” And the gold for the images, my messengers … have seen with their own eyes. Your father also had the images cast in the presence of my messengers and made them complete, and full weight… And he showed very much other gold, without measure, which he was about to send me, and spoke to my messenger saying: “Behold the images and behold very much gold and implements without number, which I am about to send to my brother, and look upon it with your own eyes.” And my messengers saw it with their own eyes. And now, my brother, you did not send (these) … images … but you have sent some that were made of wood with Mani.’1

  The letter makes the point that, if Akhenaten has any doubts about the truth concerning the promised gold, he should ‘ask his mother’.

  No. EA26 (addressed to the queen): The text begins: ‘To Tiye, the Queen of Egypt… Tushratta, King of Mitanni. May it be well with you; may it be well with your son; may it be well with Tadukhipa [my daughter], your bride.’2 Subsequently, Tushratta goes on to complain: ‘The present, which your husband commanded to be brought, you have not sent me; and gold statues … Now, however, Napkhuriya (Akhenaten), your [son] … has made (them) of wood.’3

  No. EA29 (addressed to Akhenaten): After delving even more deeply into the history of the friendly relations between the two royal families in order to persuade the new king to continue them and to send the promised gold, the letter invites him again to seek confirmation from his mother that Tushratta is speaking the truth: ‘From the days of my youth, Nimmuriya (Amenhotep III), your father, wrote to me of friendship … Tiye, the distinguished wife of Nimmuriya, the loved one, your mother, she knows them all. Ask Tiye, your mother … And when Nimmuriya, your father, sent to me and wanted my daughter, I would not consent to give her … And I sent Khamashshi, my brother’s messenger, to Nimmuriya, to pay the dowry, inside three months … And finally, I gave my daughter. And when he brought her and Nimmuriya, your father, saw her … he rejoiced very greatly … Tiye, your mother, knows what I said, and Tiye, your mother, ask her if among the words which I said there was one that was not true … therefore I made request for images … and Nimmuriya said to my messenger: “Behold, the golde
n images altogether, which my brother requests.” … And when my brother Nimmuriya died … I wept on that day (when the messenger came with the news); I remained sitting, food and drink I did not enjoy that day, and I mourned …

  ‘When Napkhuriya (Akhenaten), the distinguished son of Nimmu-riya by his distinguished wife Tiye, entered upon his reign I spoke saying: “Nimmuriya is not dead.” … [Now my brother] when he formerly wrote to me, at the time when he sent Giliya back (with the news of Amenhotep III’s death and a letter from Tiye) … he sent Mani, my brother sent only wooden (statues), but gold [he did not send] … Pirizzi and Puipri I sent to express sympathy (they brought the letter dated Year 2 or Year 12: see Chapter Eight) … Now the word, which your mother had said to Giliya, [I heard and therefore] … and the images [of gold] … for which I made request you have not given me … my messengers for four years …

  ‘The images which I requested from your father, give; and now [when I have sent] my messengers for the second time [if he] does not prepare and give [them], he will grieve my heart … Your mother Tiye knows all about these things, and (therefore) ask your mother Tiye … [Now my brother said:] “Giliya ought to return to him. Because I should otherwise grieve my brother’s heart, I will send Giliya back.” [However, I said]: “Inasmuch as I have sent back quickly my brother’s messengers, so let my brother always my messengers [send back quickly] … gives me word and sends Mani to me, then I will … Giliya, with friendly intentions, to my brother.’4

  From this letter it is clear that the messenger Mani is in Egypt because Tushratta is asking for him to be despatched with the gold. In Letter No. EA28, however, we learn that he is not only in Mitanni, but being held hostage against the return of two of Tushratta’s messengers. After the usual initial friendly formalities, Tushratta comes straight to the point: ‘Pirizzi and Puipri, my messengers, I sent them to my brother at the beginning of his reign, and ordered them to express sorrow very strongly. And then I sent them again. And this message, on the former occasion, I gave to my brother:’ – this letter is now missing – ‘Mani, the messenger of my brother, I will retain until my brother sends my messenger, and until he arrives… Now, however, my brother has in general not allowed them to go and has retained them very much indeed.’5

  APPENDIX C

  The Mos Case

  TO start at the very beginning of the Mos action, the tomb inscriptions begin: ‘Copy of the examination [made by] the priest of the [litter] Aniy who was an officer of the court, of the Hunpet of the shipmaster Neshi [which was in the] village of Neshi, as follows:

  ‘“I arrived at the village of Neshi, the place where the lands are and of which the citizeness Ur[nero] and the citizeness Takharu spoke. They assembled the heirs of [Neshi] together with the notables of the town … ” ’1

  It was, as we saw in Chapter Nine, the mother of Khayri who began legal proceedings in Year 14-plus – the number of months is missing – of Ramses II to establish her son’s ownership of the land, arguing that he was the descendant of Neshi through his grandmother, Urnero. In the tomb account of the events that followed Khayri is referred to by name only once and is elsewhere called mos (the son and heir), to indicate his claim as the rightful inheritor: ‘Then Nubnofret, my (Mos’s) mother, came to cultivate the share of Neshi, my father.2 [But] one prevented the cultivation of it. She complained against the trustee Khay (the defendant). One [caused them to appear before] the [vizier] (in) Heliopolis in Year 14-plus of king [Usermre-Setepenre] Ramses Meiamun, given life.’3

  In the latter stages of the action the word mos is again used, but in this case to establish that Huy, the father of the plaintiff, was the rightful heir of Neshi, the original owner of the land. After the goatherd Mesman came:

  Papa, priest of the temple of Ptah: ‘I knew … [the scribe Huy], the child (mos) of Urnero [who] cultivated this land [year] by year. He having been engaged in cultivating it while saying: “I am the child (mos) of Urnero, daughter of Neshi.” ’

  [Hori], bee-keeper of the Treasury of Pharaoh: ‘[As to the scribe Huy], (he was the) child (mos) of Urnero, and as to Urnero (she was the) daughter of Neshi.’

  Nebnufer, chief of the stable: ‘As to the scribe Huy, he used [to cultivate his lands year] by year. He acted according to all his desire(s). They carried in for him the crops of the fields year by year. He used to dispute with the citizeness Takharu (his mother’s sister), mother of the soldier Sementawi, and then he disputed with Sementawi her son so that [the land] should be given [to] Huy and they were confirmed.’

  Citizeness Tentpaihay: ‘As Amun endures, and as the ruler endures, if I speak falsely, let me be (banished) to the back of the house. As to [the scribe Huy] (he is) the child [mos] of Urnero, and as to Urnero, (she is) the daughter of Neshi.’

  APPENDIX D

  Pi-Ramses and Zarw

  THE recent archaeological discoveries at Kantarah (see Chapter Eleven) have made it unnecessary to argue in as much detail as I had earlier envisaged that this was the area where Pi-Ramses, the city of the Exodus, was to be found on the site of the Hyksos capital Avaris, and the fortified city of Zarw. However, some further evidence that led me to this conclusion may be of interest to the reader.

  (i) The City of Pi-Ramses

  Pi-Ramses was the Eastern Delta residence and capital of kings of the Nineteenth, Twentieth and early Twenty-first Dynasties until, during the Twenty-first Dynasty, a new capital was established at Tanis, south of Lake Menzalah in the northern part of the Delta. One reason why the precise location of Pi-Ramses has been the subject of considerable debate and disagreement is that it appears to have been constructed at an existing site: another that Ramses II, the third king of the Nineteenth Dynasty who gave the city its name, ruled for sixty-seven years and left many constructions all over the Eastern Delta.

  Texts of the Ramesside period speak frequently of a location called Pi-Ramses myr Amun, House of Ramses, Beloved of Amun. We learn, for example, from his triumphal poem known as the Poem of Pe-natour, mentioned briefly in Chapter Eleven, that when, in the summer of his Year 5, Ramses II set out on his first Asiatic campaign he ‘passed the fortress of Zarw’ and it seems that he remained for some time in a location beyond the fortress. The text then proceeds to say that ‘His Majesty being in [the town of] Ramses, Beloved of Amun’ started his march on Palestine from this point. This text indicates that the Ramses residence not only lay beyond the fortress of Zarw, but at the start of the ‘road of Horus’ that leads to Gaza.1 What confirms this location is the fact that, on his return from this campaign, the first place mentioned was the ‘House of Ramses, Beloved of Amun Great of Victories’. It was only when proceeding from Egypt to Palestine that he had to pass the fortress of Zarw before reaching his Eastern Delta residence.

  Dr Kitchen of Liverpool University is one of a number of scholars who does not accept this interpretation. Instead he regards the ‘town of Ramses, Beloved of Amun’ as being a different city that Ramses II built in Phoenicia, to the south of Syria. This view is based upon the fact that in the text there are five missing squares, followed by the Egyptian word for ‘cedar’. The text then goes on to tell us that the king ‘proceeded northward and arrived at the upland of Kadesh (in Syria)’. It is this juxtaposition of ‘cedar’ and Kadesh that has led such scholars to believe that the reference is to a city in Phoenicia.

  Gardiner rejected this view, however, as there is no evidence from any other source that points to the existence of such a Ramses city in Phoenicia.2 Then, as the extant text mentions only two points – the starting point, ‘the town of Ramses’, and the arrival point, Kadesh – it seems curious that he jumped from the fortress of Zarw to a city in Phoenicia without any explanatory reason.

  In fact, the mention of ‘cedar’ cannot be taken as evidence of a Phoenician location for the Ramses city. In the Kamose Stela, the king, after arriving at the Hyksos capital, Avaris, on his war of liberation, talks of ‘ships of fresh cedar’ as well as ‘all the good products of Retenu (Palestin
e)’ which he captured in war from the Avaris (Zarw) area.3

  A further point is that mention in the text of passing the fortress of Zarw may have contributed to misunderstanding of its precise location. It is clear from the positions held by all the known mayors of Zarw that it consisted of two entities – a fortress and a city. Their relationship is made clear in Seti I’s reliefs at Karnak. The fortress was situated on either side of the canal linking the Waters of Horus with the Sea of Reeds; the city lay beyond it to the east, at the start of the ‘road of Horus’ leading to Palestine. Anyone coming from Egypt and wishing to reach Sinai had therefore to enter the western part of the fortress, cross to the eastern part – where Pi-Ramses was built – by the bridge (kantarah) that linked the two sections, and then pass through the city of Zarw.

  Another text found in a papyrus known as Anastasi V mentions a letter, also touched on briefly in Chapter Eleven, sent by two army officers to the Royal Butler in which they describe how they were despatched from the palace where Pharaoh was in residence – Memphis, perhaps – to deliver three stelae to Pi-Ramses. They report how they reached Zarw by boat and are about to unload their vessels at ‘The Dwelling of Ramses, Beloved of Amun’, from which point they will have to drag the stelae to their final destination.4 This text appears to agree with the Poem of Pe-natour in placing Pi-Ramses in the vicinity of Zarw, but beyond it from the Egyptian side.

  It was also at Zarw that Seti I, the second king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, was welcomed – as can be seen from his Karnak records – by high priests and officials on his return from his first-year campaign against the Shasu in Sinai and Southern Palestine. This indicates that the royal family must have had a residence in this area from the early days of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The implication, as they had no means of knowing precisely when Seti I would return from his campaign, is that the high priests and officials who greeted him were residing in Zarw at the time of his arrival. As for Seti himself, both he and his father had been Mayors of Zarw and Commanders of its Troops during the reign of Horemheb and it is a logical deduction that he had had a residence there since that time.