AKHENATEN/TUTANKHAMUN

[Bianca]

THE NEW CAPITAL :  A K H E T A T E N - THE HORIZON OF THE ATEN






The next chapter discusses the new city built by the king. Not content to live in Thebes, in the shadows of the powerful priesthood of Amun, the king not only changed his name from Amenhotep ("Amun is satisfied") to Akhenaten ("the one who is beneficial to Aten"). He also built an entirely new capital city in middle Egypt, which he called Akhetaten ("the horizon of the Aten"), modern-day Tell el Amarna. The author once again quotes from ancient texts where Akhenaten describes his wish to build his new city, and goes on to describe the city at great length. This chapter is full of informative material and draws a wonderful picture of the activities at the new site. She also makes the significant point that the archaeologist's spade has shown that ordinary folks who lived at Akhetaten managed to hang on to their old beliefs, as shrines to Bes and Taweret--household divinities who protected children and women in childbirth--were found in homes in the poorer sections of the city. In a subsequent chapter, the full city is described. There, we learn, among other things, that the city's streets were laid out in a grid pattern and that the Great Aten Temple was 2400 feet long and 750 feet wide. To use the same analogy as above, this would be around 800 by 250 meters, or nearly 8 football fields long and 2 and a half wide. To say that Akhenaten built on a grand scale would be a major understatement. One minor mistake occurs when the Small Aten Temple is said to be on the west bank of the Nile, when it, like the Great Aten Temple, was on the east bank (p. 71).

[Bianca]

                         
                            MOURNING FOR A CHILD





The last chapter narrates the final years of Akhenaten's reign. Plagued by trouble abroad, Akhenaten and Nefertiti also suffered the loss of at least one of their daughters; there is a poignant relief carved in Akhenaten's tomb showing the king and queen mourning a small body placed on a table. Three other daughters also disappear from the archeological record at this time, perhaps indicating that they too died. We next read about the death of Akhenaten and the troubled succession that accompanied it. A short-lived king named Smenkhare succeeded Akhenaten, but it is another son of his, probably from a minor queen called Kiya, who usually captures our attention at this point. A young--no more than nine or ten years old at the time--crown prince called Tutankhaten came to the throne, and eventually reigned for ten years. Under him, the old nobility and priesthoods who had been set aside by Akhenaten reasserted themselves, and the latter's social and religious revolutions were over. The new king, who probably took very few decisions on his own, soon changed his name to Tutankhamun. The author again uses primary sources to describe the conditions in Egypt when Tutankhamun came to the throne, and these paint a very bleak picture indeed. Even if we consider them to be hyperbolic spin on the part of the re-established nobility, the texts still vividly describe a country shorn of much of its empire, with an inefficient army, and with traditional temples throughout Egypt having "fallen into decay and ... overgrown with grass" (pp. 94-95). To make matters worse, a plague was sweeping across the ancient Near East, and it is easy to understand how the ancient Egyptians blamed Akhenaten's disregard for the gods for the calamity. When he died--the author wisely stays away from any silliness about Tutankhamun having been murdered--a tomb was quickly adapted for his use, which remained practically undisturbed for over three millennia until its discovery in 1922 by the archaeologist Howard Carter. But that is a matter for another book.

[Bianca]

In conclusion, this is another excellent offering, as highly informative as it is engaging. This is a most satisfying book on a tragic and enigmatic figure from ancient Egypt. Akhenaten's story makes us pause and ask, what if he had been a better politician? Would his pacifist theories and social revolution have survived him? What if he had been more tolerant of different opinions? Would his religious revolution, with its hints at monotheism, have endured? In fact, did his religious ideas perhaps influence other people?

Here I permit myself a personal observation. On page 89, a few verses of the Great Hymn to Aten are quoted, which should be enough to give readers an idea of Akhenaten's highly personal prayer to his god. While fully realizing the space limitations presumably dictated to the author by the publishers, it seems that a marvellous opportunity was lost to compare Akhenaten's beautiful hymn to the Biblical Psalm 104. So here, are a series of parallels between the two texts, both of which demonstrate the joy and awe felt by their authors at their respective god for the marvel of his creation.

[Bianca]

As for all distant lands, / you (also) make them live, / for you have made an inundation in the sky that it may descend for them, / and you make waves upon the mountains like the sea in order to irrigate / their fields in their towns (Hymn to Aten cols. 9-10).

The ocean covered it [= the earth] like a garment; / above the mountains stood the waters (Psalm 104:6).

All herds are at peace in their pastures, / and trees and plants flourish. / Birds have flown from their nests, / their wings in praise of your life force (Hymn to Aten col. 5).

They give drink to every beast of the field; / the wild asses quench their thirst. / Beside them the birds of heaven nest; / they sing among the branches (Psalm 104:11-12).

You have made an inundation (lit. "a Nile") in the sky, / that it may descend upon them [= foreign lands], / and make waves upon the mountains like the sea (Hymn to Aten cols. 9-10).

From your palace on high you water the mountains; / by your labor the earth abounds (Psalm 104:13).

When you set in the western horizon, / the earth is in darkness, as in the fashion of death ... / Every lion has come out of its den, / and all the serpents bite (Hymn to Aten cols. 3-4).

You bring darkness, that night may fall, / in which all the beasts of the forest prowl: / Young lions roar for prey, / to seek their food from God (Psalm 104:20-21).

The earth brightens when you have risen from the horizon ... / The whole land perform its tasks (Hymn to Aten cols. 4-5).

When the sun rises, / they come home and rest in their dens. / People then go forth to their work, / to their labor until the evening (Psalm 104:22-23).

How manifold is that which you do, / although they are hidden from sight! / O sole god, there is no other beside you. / You created the earth according to your wish (Hymn to Aten cols. 7-8).

How manifold are your works, O Lord! / In wisdom you have made them all; / the earth is full of your creations (Psalm 104:24).

Ships sail downstream and upstream, / for every road is opened because of your appearance. / The fish in the river leap at the sight of you; / your rays are within the Great Green sea (Hymn to Aten col. 6).

Here is the great and vast sea, / where countless beings teem, / living things both great and small. / There the ships go, / here Leviathan, which you made, plays (Psalm 104:25-26).

You have allotted each man his (proper) place, / and you have provided his (lit. "their") portions, / with each one of them according to his (own) diet (Hymn to Aten col. .

All of these look to you to give them food in due time (Psalm 104:27).

When you have arisen, they live. / When you set, they die (Hymn to Aten col. 12).

When you give to them, they gather; when you open your hand, they are well filled / When you hide your face, they are lost (Psalm 104:28-29).

These few parallels are not meant to imply that the Old Testament poet had a copy of the Hymn to Aten before him. But perhaps, given how pervasive and powerful oral tradition can be across both time and distance, he had heard snippets of the old Egyptian song performed and he either consciously or sub-consciously borrowed some of its themes for his own composition.

One small error has crept in to the final manuscript: on pages 74-75, the caption tells us that the image shows a tomb painting of a "pharaoh and his queen" worshiping a multitude of gods, when this is in fact from the tomb of a private individual named Senedjem from the site of Deir el-Medina.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=56131097850314

[Bianca]

                     



TUTANKHAMUN ON EGYPT'S THRONE AS A RESULT OF A MILITARY COUP




By Ahmed Osman



Recent archaeological evidence indicates that Tutankhamun came to the throne as a result of a military coup. A scene on the wall on the tomb of Maya, the young king's nanny, discovered recently in Saqqara by the French mission, included the five army generals who are believed to have led the coup.


In my book Moses Pharaoh of Egypt, published in 1990, I suggested that Akhenaten did not die at the end of his 17-year reign, but was forced to abdicate the throne by an army coup. Pharaoh Akhenaten, one of the 18th dynasty kings who ruled Egypt for 17 years in the mid-14th century BC, abolished the old Egyptian gods in favor of a new monotheistic God, Aten, whose worship the king wanted to force upon his people. Akhenaten relied completely on the army's support in his confrontation with the old priesthood. Although he never took part in any war, the king is shown, in the vast majority of representations, wearing the Blue Crown or the short Nubian wig, both belonging to his military headdress, rather than the traditional ceremonial crowns of the Two Lands. Scenes of soldiers and military activity abound in both the private and royal art of Amarna. If we may take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value, then his capital city was virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see parades and processions of soldiers, infantry, and chariotry with their massed standards. There are soldiers under arms standing guard in front of the palaces, the temples, and in the watchtowers that bordered the city; scenes of troops, unarmed or equipped with staves, carrying out combat exercises in the presence of the king.

The army, loyal to the throne, carried out the will of the king without questioning. The position of Aye, Akhenaten's maternal uncle, as the Commander General of the army, assured its loyalty to the ruling dynasty. Aye held posts among the highest in the infantry and the chariotry, together with Nakht Min, another general related to him. It was the loyalty of the army, controlled by Aye, which kept Akhenaten in power in the uneasy years following his coming to the throne as sole ruler (upon the death of his father) in his 12th year. By that time Akhenaten had developed his monotheistic ideas to a great extent. If Aten was the only God, Akhenaten, as his sole son and prophet, could not allow other gods to be worshipped at the same time in his dominion. As a response to his rejection by the Amun priests as a legitimate ruler, he had already snubbed Amun and abolished his name from the walls and inscriptions of temples and tombs. Now he took his ideas to their logical conclusion by abolishing, throughout Egypt, the worship of any gods except Aten. He closed all the temples, except those of Aten, confiscated their lands, dispersed the priests and gave orders that the names of all deities should be expunged from monuments and temple inscriptions throughout the country. Army units were dispatched to excise the names of the ancient gods wherever they were found written or carved.

At least two events early in Akhenaten's co-regency with his father Amenhotep III indicated strong opposition to his rule. The graffiti of Amenhotep III's 30th year from the pyramid temple of Meidum, which would be year 3 of Akhenaten, pointed to a rejection by some powerful factions of the king's decision to cause 'the male to sit upon the seat of his father.' Again, the border stele inscription of Amarna shows that, before deciding to leave Thebes and build his new city, Akhenaten had encountered some strong opposition and had been the subject of verbal criticism. Certainly, he would not have left the dynasty's capital without having been forced to do so. The final confrontation between the throne and the priesthood was postponed simply because after he departed from Thebes, Akhenaten had nothing at all to do with the running of the country, which was left to his father, Amenhotep III. Another important factor was the complete reliance of Akhenaten on the armed forces for support. If we may take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value, then the city was virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see processions and parades of soldiers, infantry and chariotry with their massed standards. Palaces, temples and the city borders seem to have been constantly guarded.

The persecution of Amun and the other gods, which must have been exceedingly hateful to the majority of the Egyptians, was also hateful to the individual members of the army. This persecution, which entailed the closing of the temples, the dispatch of artisans to hack out his name from inscriptions, the banishment of the clergy, the excommunication of his very name, could not have been carried out without the army's active support. As the army shares the same religious beliefs as the people, it is natural that the officers would not feel very happy with the job they were doing. Thus a conflict appeared between the army's loyalty to the king and its loyalty to the religious beliefs of the nation. Ultimately, the harshness of the persecution must have had a certain effect upon the soldiers, who themselves had been raised in the old beliefs.

Archaeological evidence to support this claim came in November 1997, when Dr Alain Zivie, a French archaeologist, announced in Cairo the discovery of a new tomb in Saqqara. In this ancient necropolis of the Royal City of Memphis,
                               
 ten miles south of Cairo, Zivie uncovered the tomb of Maia, wet-nurse of Tutankhamun. The tomb, which extends 20 meters inside the mountain, was also used, from the beginning of the Macedonian Ptolemic period at the start of the 3rd century BC, for the burial of the sacred mummified cats of Bastet. When first found, the tomb was almost completely full of mummified cats, placed there more than a thousand years after the original burial. The joint team from the French Archaeological Mission and the Supreme Council for Egyptian Antiquities has excavated two of the three known chambers. On the wall of the first chamber is a scene depicting Maya protecting the King who is sitting on her knee. The inscriptions describe her as 'the Royal nanny who breast-fed the pharaoh's body.'

Alongside and to the left of Maya's seat are six officials representing Tutankhamun's Cabinet, two above and four below, each with different facial characteristics. Although none of the officials is named, Dr. Zivie was able to suggest their identities from their appearance and the sign of office they carry. He recognized the two above and behind Maya's seat as Aye and Horemheb. The four officials below were identified by Zivie as Pa-Ramses, Seti, Nakht Min, and Maya. Except for the last one, who is also called Maya the treasurer, the remaining five were all military generals of the Egyptian army, and four of them followed the king on the throne. This was the first time in Egyptian history that the Cabinet was composed, almost totally, of army generals, which supports my earlier view that Tutankhamun came to the throne as a result of a military coup. These generals could only have gained their positions in the cabinet, and later on the throne, as a result of a military coup.

                                 
                                  MAIA, TUTANKHAMUN'S WET NURSE

The new evidence indicate that there must have been a kind of military move against Akhenaten, led by three army generals: Horemheb, Ramses, and Seti. Aye, the commander of the army, realized he could not crush the rebellion even with the help of General Nakht Min. When his attempt to persuade Akhenaten to allow the return of the old gods failed, he tried to save the royal dynasty by reaching a compromise with the leaders of the rebellion to allow the king to abdicate and be replaced by his son Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun left his father's capital of Amarna for Memphis in his fourth year, when a compromise was reached in which all ancient temples were reopened and worship restored. Nevertheless, Aten remained holding its supreme position, at least as far as the new king was concerned.

Aye, brother of Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother, is regarded as the military protector of the Amarna kings, and was responsible for the Chariots during the time of Akhenaten, while general Nakht Min is thought to have been his relative. Akhenaten used the army to destroy the old powerful priesthood and force his new monotheistic religion on his people. But the army, which shared the same old beliefs as the rest of the people, could not support the king to the end. It is clear that Akhenaten faced, in his 17th year, an army rebellion led by generals Horemheb, Pa-Ramses, and Seti. Aye, supported by General Nakht Min, not being in a position to crush the rebellion, made a deal with them to allow for the abdication of Akhenaten and the appointment of his son, Tutankhamun, as his successor. This would also explain how Aye, when he succeeded Tutankhamun on the throne, disappeared mysteriously, together with Nakht Min, after four years, while the three other generals rose to power. When Horemheb followed Aye as king, he appointed both Pa-Ramses and his son Seti as viziers and commanding generals of the army. They in turn succeeded him on the throne as Ramses I (who established the 19th dynasty) and Seti I.





AHMED OSMAN     www.ahmedosman.co.uk

Historian, lecturer, researcher and author, Ahmed Osman is a British Egyptologist born in Cairo

His four indepth books clarifying the history of the Bible and Egypt are: Stranger in the Valley of the Kings (1987)  -  Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt (1990) - The House of the Messiah (1992)  -  Out of Egypt (1998)

[+Faith+]

I really love your Akhenaton thread, Bianca.  Most people start a thread, then don't come back to it, while this is a constant work in progress.

Riven and I had several conversations about Akhenaton in the other forum.  He was very important to the history of theology, his contributions to theology have been overlooked, and I am convinced he was given divine insight, well before that of others.

Keep up the great work.

God Bless,

+Faith+

[Bianca]

Thank you, +Faith+,

I am rather fond of this topic.  I am proud to say that I TYPED every word of it from a book in my
possession.  It is the fairest analysis I have found to date.

Akhenaten has always fascinated me also and it's a never-ending saga.  It is sad that he took his
"new" religion in such a narrow manner.  Had he made the populace partecipants, he would have
succeeded.  But, sadly, all concentrated on the person of the Pharaoh and only through him one
could get to the "God".  King and High Priest all rolled into one.   Hardly a formula for promulgation......

Being a devotee of Edgar Cayce, I tend to think that the monotheistic idea came from the refugees
of Atlantis who followed the religion of the "Law of One".  In fact, the Aten was favoured by Akhenaten's
father and mother and his father before him.  It seems to be more or less and "elite belief" of a
chosen few.

When they discovered the "Jesus Tomb" a few months ago and I saw the triangle containing a circle
above the entrance, I immediately thought: The Pyramid and the Aten.....

The worship of the Aten must have gone on in secret down to Jesus' time and beyond and finally
absorbed into Coptic Christianity.

Love and hugs,
b



P.S.
How about bringing some of your conversations with Riven here?  I was only at AR about four months
in total at the end of last year, so I never did see any of it.  Plus, I find Riven a tad hard to follow.

[Bianca]

                          M Y S T E R I E S   O F   T H E   A M A R N A   P H A R A O H S





The Amarna period of Egyptian history is filled with romantic mysteries and puzzles for generations of archaeologists to debate.
 
Akhenaten, Smenkhare, and Tutankhamen were the only Eighteenth Dynasty kings of Egypt who lived for any time at Amarna (Akhetaten). Before and after, Egyptian pharaohs ruled from Luxor (Thebes), but even though the heyday of Amarna was fleeting, the period fascinates us because of an imagined connection between the theology of Akhenaten and the beliefs of Judaism, sexual scandal, and the mystery of the genealogy of the Amarna pharaohs. Such is the stuff of not only dreams and fiction, but also scholarly debates -- as recently examined by archaeologist Christine El Mahdy in Tutankhamen.

Akhenaten is known as "the heretic king," a monotheist, and a rebel, whose ephemeral cause succeeding Egyptian kings obliterated. However, lest Akhenaten's beliefs be clothed too readily in Judaeo-Christian raiment, note that Akhenaten's deity was not just a nameless, faceless supreme being, but a sun god, Aten.

Akhenaten * was born Amenhotep, son of the pharaoh Amenhotep III (Nebmaatre) who, like all pharaohs since the fifth dynasty, was also called the Son of Re (another sun god who represented a different solar phase). The seat of worship for Re, was Heliopolis (literally, the city of the sun). After the fifth dynasty, the cult of Re became secondary in Egypt, although Heliopolis continued to be an influential center for learning. Sent to Heliopolis for instruction, Akhenaten's older brother and the presumed heir to the throne disappeared, leaving in his stead, a deformed younger brother who was to shun palace life at Luxor (Thebes) and retreat to a new city at Amarna (Akhetaten) where he worshiped Aten.

Throughout the day, the sun changes its aspect. It's not always the clear solar disk of Aten. In the morning (Khepri) and evening (Amen), the sun radiates more widely. Christine El Mahdy (p. 200, Tutankhamen) says worship of the noonday sun as the solar disc wielding god Aten was common during the reign of the heretic king's father, Amenhotep III Nebmaatre. However, what Amenhotep IV Neferkheprure Waenre (soon to be Akhenaten) meant by Aten was different from the previously accepted icon. Akhenaten called Aten father of all creation.

El Mahdy compares two hymns written to different gods, Aten and Amen, both of which appear monotheistic, although the one to Amen was written three generations before the heretic king. The later hymn to Aten, from Amarna, begins, "Father of the gods who created Mankind, who made the animals... and all the plants that sustain the cattle... Lord of the rays of the sun that give light...." The earlier hymn to Amen says "Holy god who created himself, who made every land, created what is in it, all people, herds and flocks, all trees that grow from the soil."

Both hymns fit the monotheistic theology of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But the hymns fail to show Akhenaten's Aten worship as a unique deviation from traditional Egyptian beliefs, presumed by many to be pagan polytheism.

If Akhenaten wasn't so different from his predecessors in his religious beliefs, his lifestyle might still have been alarming. He did set up his own capital apart from that of his co-ruling father, but we don't know whether he engaged in a homosexual incestuous relationship with Smenkhare. There are images of the two embracing, but there's also speculation that Smenkhare was really Nefertiti in disguise. Akhenaten and Nefertiti appeared deeply in love for many years before her sudden unremarked disappearance at the very moment of Smenkhare's appearance. While Tutankhamen could have been Smenkhare's son, he could also have been his brother, and both of them could have been Akhenaten's half brothers.

Soon, perhaps, testing will confirm which theories fit the DNA.


Tutankhamen, by Christine El Mahdy

[Bianca]

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy




Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

July 10, 2007
Egyptologists have uncovered new evidence that bolsters the controversial theory that a mysterious mummy is the corpse of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, husband of Nefertiti and, some experts believe, the father of King Tut.

The mummy's identity has generated fierce debate ever since its discovery in 1907 in tomb KV 55, located less than 100 feet (30 meters) from King Tutankhamun's then hidden burial chamber.

So an international team of researchers led by Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, used a CT scanner to peer inside the body and those of several other Valley of the Kings mummies. (The expedition was partially funded by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)

The scan revealed a number of striking physical similarities between the mystery mummy and the body of Tut, including a distinctive egg-shaped skull. (Related photo gallery: King Tut's New Face.)

"CT technology virtually unwraps the mummies without damaging them," explained Hawass, who is also a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, in a press release.

"They reveal everything, including information about age and disease."

A CT machine produces some 1,500 cross-sectional "slice" images for each body. When put together they reproduce the entire body in three dimensions.



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070710-king-tut.html

[Bianca]

New CT scans have revealed that a mystery mummy (top left and right) found near King Tut's resting place shares many unusual features with the boy pharaoh (bottom left and right), such as a distinctive, egg-shaped skull, slight spinal scoliosis, impacted wisdom teeth, a similarly cleft palate, and identical jaw and cheekbones.

The team says the findings bolster the controversial theory that the mystery mummy is Akhenaten—one of ancient Egypt's most influential kings, Nefertiti's husband, and, some scholars believe, Tut's father.

Photograph by Brando Quilici/National Geographic Television

[Bianca]

Heretic Pharaoh

Akhenaten, a powerful mid-14th century B.C. pharaoh also known as Amenhotep IV or Amenophis IV, had a heretical devotion to Egypt's sun god.

He decreed that Aten, the divine embodiment of the sun's life-giving warmth, was Egypt's one true god and that the pharaoh was the earthly incarnation through which Aten must be worshiped.

Akhenaten banned ancient festivals and closed temples that had honored other deities for centuries. He also founded a new capital city, Akhetaten (now Amarna), to honor Aten and break from the past.

But the radical new religion came crashing down with Akhenaten's death. Aten's temples were razed and Egyptians once more worshiped a full pantheon of favored gods.

The Amarna era ended with the disappearance of the royal family's mummies, leaving an enduring mystery for scholars.


"There are probably as many theories about what's going on in the Amarna period as there are Egyptologists who have taken an interest in that period," said Aidan Dodson, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in England.

The newly scanned mummy's tomb held some clues, however.

The face and cartouche, or nameplate, of the mummy's coffin had been hacked out. But traces of gold leaf, along with hieroglyphics surrounding the cartouche, hinted over the years that the body might belong to the heretical leader.

"I think the alteration of the coffin in KV 55 suggests it must be a male member of the Amarna royal family and most likely Akhenaten," said Peter Lacovara, an archaeologist for the Amarna Royal Tombs Project, which is affiliated with England's Durham University.

[Bianca]

New Evidence



The CT scan supports the idea that the mummy is Akhenaten by revealing it as a male between the ages of 25 and 40 who shares many physical similarities with Tut—assuming Akhenaten was Tut's father, as some experts believe.

The mystery mummy's strange elongated, egg-shaped skull, called dolichocephalic, is strikingly similar to Tutankhamun's.

The jaw, cheekbones, cleft palate, impacted wisdom teeth, and slight scoliosis of the spine are all also similar to Tut's—suggesting familiar traits that may have been passed on from father to son.

"[This] means we can say now the mummy in KV 55, based on this evidence, and based on the age, and based on the inscriptions written in the coffin, that this could be the mummy of Akhenaten," Hawass told the National Geographic Channel.

But the mummy could also be one of several other people—including another mysterious member of Tut's family—Hawass cautioned.

Dodson, of the University of Bristol, said, "I still think that the mummy is that of Smenkhkare—who was probably either the brother or son of Akhenaten and thus will have shared many of his features."

"Akhenaten may have been buried at one time in KV 55—'magic bricks' [denoting a royal tomb] in his name were found—but the mummy was probably later removed and destroyed. I do not believe that there will ever be 100 percent agreement about this particular mummy."

Even ascertaining the family trees of ancient Egypt's dynasties can be difficult, Dodson added.

"The concept of a royal family recording who was the son of whom just didn't happen," Dodson said.

"There's virtually no example of [recorded evidence for] a king being the son of his predecessor until the 19th dynasty [around 1290 B.C.]. Until then the royal sons are hardly ever mentioned on monuments at all."

[Bianca]

             




No Clues on Nefertiti

The research expedition originally centered on Akhenaten's better-known wife—Nefertiti. But her whereabouts remain unknown, the team says.

Two female mummies found together just a few hundred feet from King Tutankhamun's burial chamber have been the focus of endless speculation.

At various times both corpses, known as the "Younger Lady" and the "Elder Lady," have been identified as the queen—but none of these assertions has proved conclusive.

CT scans revealed critical new information about these mummies, including the women's ages at death, their history of childbirth, the nature of wounds, important piercings, and the original positions of their arms—a key indicator of royal status.

The cumulative evidence led Hawass's team to conclude that neither is Nefertiti.

"The [Younger Lady] mummy that everyone thought is Nefertiti, it is not Nefertiti," he told the National Geographic Channel. "We gave the proof for that."

The Elder Lady may be the powerful Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother, while the Younger Lady might possibly be his

secondary wife Kiya—the likely mother of King Tutankhamun—the researchers say. (Related: "Egypt's Female Pharaoh Revealed by Chipped Tooth, Experts Say" [June 27, 2007].)

DNA evidence is probably the only way to provide definitive identifications, but it may be impossible to acquire after so many years.

So Nefertiti may remain lost forever, said Lacorva, of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project.

"Barring any significant discovery, such as her burial, which is unlikely," he said, "we may never know the truth."




A one-hour special on the mummy investigation, Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty, will air on the National Geographic Channel Monday, July 16, at 9 p.m.

http://ngcblog.nationalgeographic.com/ngcblog/2007/07/ngc_most_amazing_moment_of_the_3.html

[Bianca]

                                NEFERTITI AND THE LOST DYNASTY

 


               

http://ngcblog.nationalgeographic.com/ngcblog/2007/07/ngc_most_amazing_moment_of_the_3.html

I found this on National Geographic TV.  It isn't much, it's just the intro.  The summation - in the
last 5 minutes that I caught, was very important to me:

It seems that they are under the impression that Tutankhamun gathered the mummies of his rela-
tives and took them with him back to the north.  It seems also that Nefertiti is NOT among them.

In MHO, Tut was Kiya's son and there may have been a lot of court intrigue (what else is new?)            
at Amarna and he certainly would have not taken with him the mummy of his mother's rival, Nefertiti.

Love and Peace,
b
 

[Majeston]

 95:4. THE TEACHINGS OF AMENEMOPE    
 


95:4.1 In due time there grew up in Egypt a teacher called by many the "son of man" and by others Amenemope. This seer exalted conscience to its highest pinnacle of arbitrament between right and wrong, taught punishment for sin, and proclaimed salvation through calling upon the solar deity.
 


95:4.2 Amenemope taught that riches and fortune were the gift of God, and this concept thoroughly colored the later appearing Hebrew philosophy. This noble teacher believed that God-consciousness was the determining factor in all conduct; that every moment should be lived in the realization of the presence of, and responsibility to, God. The teachings of this sage were subsequently translated into Hebrew and became the sacred book of that people long before the Old Testament was reduced to writing. The chief preachment of this good man had to do with instructing his son in uprightness and honesty in governmental positions of trust, and these noble sentiments of long ago would do honor to any modern statesman.
 


95:4.3 This wise man of the Nile taught that "riches take themselves wings and fly away"—that all things earthly are evanescent. His great prayer was to be "saved from fear." He exhorted all to turn away from "the words of men" to "the acts of God." In substance he taught: Man proposes but God disposes. His teachings, translated into Hebrew, determined the philosophy of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. Translated into Greek, they gave color to all subsequent Hellenic religious philosophy. The later Alexandrian philosopher, Philo, possessed a copy of the Book of Wisdom.
 


95:4.4 Amenemope functioned to conserve the ethics of evolution and the morals of revelation and in his writings passed them on both to the Hebrews and to the Greeks. He was not the greatest of the religious teachers of this age, but he was the most influential in that he colored the subsequent thought of two vital links in the growth of Occidental civilization—the Hebrews, among whom evolved the acme of Occidental religious faith, and the Greeks, who developed pure philosophic thought to its greatest European heights.
 


95:4.5 In the Book of Hebrew Proverbs, chapters fifteen, seventeen, twenty, and chapter twenty-two, verse seventeen, to chapter twenty-four, verse twenty-two, are taken almost verbatim from Amenemope's Book of Wisdom. The first psalm of the Hebrew Book of Psalms was written by Amenemope and is the heart of the teachings of Ikhnaton.

95:5. THE REMARKABLE IKHNATON    
 


95:5.1 The teachings of Amenemope were slowly losing their hold on the Egyptian  mind when, through the influence of an Egyptian Salemite physician, a woman of the royal family espoused the Melchizedek teachings. This woman prevailed upon her son, Ikhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt, to accept these doctrines of One God.
 


95:5.2 Since the disappearance of Melchizedek in the flesh, no human being up to that time had possessed such an amazingly clear concept of the revealed religion of Salem as Ikhnaton. In some respects this young Egyptian king is one of the most remarkable persons in human history. During this time of increasing spiritual depression in Mesopotamia, he kept alive the doctrine of  El Elyon, the One God, in Egypt, thus maintaining the philosophic monotheistic channel which was vital to the religious background of the then future bestowal of Michael. And it was in recognition of this exploit, among other reasons, that the child Jesus was taken to Egypt, where some of the spiritual successors of Ikhnaton saw him and to some extent understood certain phases of his divine mission to Urantia.
 


95:5.3 Moses, the greatest character between Melchizedek and Jesus, was the joint gift to the world of the Hebrew race and the Egyptian royal family; and had Ikhnaton possessed the versatility and ability of Moses, had he manifested a political genius to match his surprising religious leadership, then would Egypt have become the great monotheistic nation of that age; and if this had happened, it is barely possible that Jesus might have lived the greater portion of his mortal life in Egypt.
 


95:5.4 Never in all history did any king so methodically proceed to swing a whole nation from polytheism to monotheism as did this extraordinary Ikhnaton. With the most amazing determination this young ruler broke with the past, changed his name, abandoned his capital, built an entirely new city, and created a new art and literature for a whole people. But he went too fast; he built too much, more than could stand when he had gone. Again, he failed to provide for the material stability and prosperity of his people, all of which reacted unfavorably against his religious teachings when the subsequent floods of adversity and oppression swept over the Egyptians.
 


95:5.5 Had this man of amazingly clear vision and extraordinary singleness of purpose had the political sagacity of Moses, he would have changed the whole history of the evolution of religion and the revelation of truth in the Occidental world. During his lifetime he was able to curb the activities of the priests, whom he generally discredited, but they maintained their cults in secret and sprang into action as soon as the young king passed from power; and they were not slow to connect all of Egypt's subsequent troubles with the establishment of monotheism during his reign.
 


95:5.6 Very wisely Ikhnaton sought to establish monotheism under the guise of the sun-god. This decision to approach the worship of the Universal Father by absorbing all gods into the worship of the sun was due to the counsel of the Salemite physician. Ikhnaton took the generalized doctrines of the then existent Aton faith regarding the fatherhood and motherhood of Deity and created a religion which recognized an intimate worshipful relation between man and God.
 


95:5.7 Ikhnaton was wise enough to maintain the outward worship of Aton, the sun-god, while he led his associates in the disguised worship of the One God, creator of Aton and supreme Father of all. This young teacher-king was a prolific writer, being author of the exposition entitled "The One God," a book of thirty-one chapters, which the priests, when returned to power, utterly destroyed. Ikhnaton also wrote one hundred and thirty-seven hymns, twelve of which are now preserved in the Old Testament Book of Psalms, credited to Hebrew authorship.



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