The Name of Thuya

I have uploaded a short paper called "The Name of Thuya", which deals with that and the possible origins of the parents of Queen Tiye.  As far as I can figure, Yuya was a son of Thutmose III.

https://independent.academia.edu/MarianneLuban

Hatshepsut Declares

Some people claim that there is no mention  in Egyptian texts of an exodus such as is described in the Hebrew Bible. That is a bit much to expect, in the first place, but it seems to me that Hatshepsut, the woman-king, is describing one in her Speos Artemidos text, undated. Here is my translation of the relevant section:

“Ever since the Aamu were in Avaris of the Northland, wanderers among them, destroying what had been made—they ruled without Ra and he did nothing by divine order down to the time of my own majesty. I was established upon the thrones of Ra and it was foretold 'After a period of years she will become a conqueror'. I am come as the sole [ fem.] Horus, the fiery uraeus against my enemies. I have banished the abomination of the gods and the earth has removed their footprints.  This is the guidance of the father of my fathers [Ra] who comes for the day of his reward.”

Elsewhere, in her legitimizing texts, Hatshepsut claims that, in Year 2 of her father, Thutmose I, an oracle proclaimed the kingship for her during the festival of Amun. Thereupon, she was crowned co-regent at Heliopolis by Atum, himself. Clearly, then, the “majesty” of Hatshepsut extended, at least for the purposes of propaganda, all the way back to the beginning of her father's reign and his accomplishments could be shared. Manetho, the Late Period historian, also believed that a king named “Tethmosis”, the first pharaoh of his Dynasty 18, drove out the “Shepherds”, who were associated with Avaris. Prior to that time, Manetho speaks of a prolonged war against some Shepherds, probably including the participation of those Theban princes of Dynasty 17. Both Kamose and Ahmose battled the Hyksos and Ahmose pushed them to Sharuhen—not very far from Egypt proper—before his attention was called to the Nubians. The Hyksos/Shepherds did lose their hegemony over the Delta then, but that evidently did not prevent the people the earlier Egyptians called the Aamu from returning to the walled city of Avaris and unspecified others making a home there, as well. The action is precisely defined in the Speos Artemidos text. Nobody was slain, there was no battle to speak of—but the Aamu were sent on their way and soon the elements erased all trace of them at Avaris. Because they raised sheep and goats, ate mutton, sacrificed rams, and wore wool garments, the Aamu were abhorred by the gods. Even in the Bible it states that Moses was loathe to anger the Egyptians by sacrificing their sacred animals. [Exodus 8:26]  The entire Speos Artemidos text leads up to that very important day, the expulsion of the foreigners, the Aamu, with the sun-god, Ra, appearing overhead to gloat or rejoice at the spoils [sw] that were taken from those those who did not give him the proper respect.

 

The Aamu as depicted in the 12th Dynasty tomb of Khnumhotep II, not very far from the Speos Artemidos.

Have uploaded a new paper, "The Early Church Fathers and the Exodus".

https://independent.academia.edu/MarianneLuban/Papers#add

Manetho Demystified

This is a work currently popular among people who are passionate about ancient Egypt.  Treat yourself or a friend to this eye-opening little book this holiday season.  It's for sale at the Amazon.com website for your country.

Were Akhenaten and Nefertiti Cousins?

I'll try to keep this one short because most of the followers of my blog can't read French and that is the language of scholar, Marc Gabolde, in his paper  « L’ADN de la famille royale amarnienne et les sources égyptiennes », ENIM 6, 2013, p. 177-203--although it can be accessed in a PDF file online.

 

Gabolde's reasoning is that since Amenhotep III and Yuya seem to be related, according to their shared DNA, Yuya is probably the uncle of the king.  Since Amenhotep III married his cousin, Tiye, it also follows that his heir, Akhenaten, also married a cousin, Nefertiti.  Gabolde believes that the KV35YoungerLady and the KV55 individual are Nefertiti and Akhenaten.  Agreed.  The rest is all reasonable and the DNA evidence, as put forth in the 2010 JAMA paper upholds some of it.

 

My counter-argument is that, if Nefertiti was a cousin of Akhenaten--that would be possible but extrememly unlikely from the DNA picture and the identifications of the mummified and skeletal remains. The YoungerLady [assumed to be Nefertiti] has only the alleles of AIII and Tiye at the 8 markers given--and so does the KV55 individual. It can be seen also, which alleles Tiye inherited from her parents, Yuya and Thuya, but there are many numbers that she did not inherit. A sibling inherits about half the DNA from the same parents,[ which is the case with the YoungerLady and KV55.] Therefore, a brother or a sister of Tiye [whichever was the parent of the YL, [according to the theory of Gabolde] would have had to contribute some other numbers that are not seen in the DNA of the YL as it stands. The same applies to any sibling of Amenhotep III, but we don't know the entire DNA profiles of his parents. Here are the numbers that Queen Tiye did NOT inherit from her parents at the 8 loci:

9 and 19
6 and 13
19 and 27
28 and 34
13 and 10
8 and 12
7 and 9
24 and 25


A sibling of hers should have had many of them and would have passed them on.  But there is not a single different number in the the DNA of the YL or the KV55 individual from those of AIII and Tiye.

Cousins?  No, I don't think so..

"The Death of Hatshepsut"

I have uploaded a paper to Academia.edu called "The Death of Hatshepsut".  You can access it here:

http://independent.academia.edu/MarianneLuban/Papers

Thutmose III--a sickly youth?

Indeed, that Thutmose III may not have been well in his youth could be construed as a reason for Hatshepsut taking over the kingship. The name of a Chief Prophet of Amun during the reign of Thutmose, Menkheperreseneb, hints that perhaps there was a problem. In order to have been in his exalted office by at least Year 33 of the reign, this meant that the high priest must have been nearly as old as the king, himself. Since there were four prophets, it makes sense that the senior one would not have been a mere youth. The fact that he was given a name that meant “Menkheperre is healthy” ^[t would have been more unusual if that was really the situation at the time than if the opposite were true. Because such a name could be seen as a kind of wish, even a magical spell in favor of health being restored to the young king every time someone spoke the name of Menkheperreseneb. If the pharaoh had really been sound of body, then the name would have been the opposite of a charm but construed as something to tempt the evil eye and actually place the king in danger. A parallel is found in Jewish life of centuries past. A boy could be named “Alter” [meaning “the old one” in Yiddish] in the hope that he would not succumb to any illness in his childhood or youth. On the other hand, if someone said the baby looked healthy [though few would do so!] or even handsome, his mother would spit three times in order to ward off evil. The ideas of eastern peoples about certain things are essentially the same.

1 In fact, Menkheperreseneb outlived the sovereign and seems to have seen the reign of Amenhotep II.

2 The verb “to be” was usually omitted from names.