But in the early part of the New Kingdom the God’s Wife and the Divine Adoratrice were two separate offices within the temple hierarchy at Karnak, which can cause some confusion when exploring the history of these unique institutions.  This article will endeavor to disentangle this relationship as we seek to understand what these two offices were and how they came to be merged into a single position, or at least a single career track.

Note:  At the end of the last article in this series, The God’s Wives of Amun – Royal Women and Power Politics in the Eighteenth Dynasty, I said that this article would also cover the details of the Donation Stele and exactly what was endowed to the House of the Adoratrice.  After some revision it became clear that these were two separate articles.  The properties of the House of the Adoratrice will be explored in Part 2: The Demesne of the God’s Wife.  This present article will focus on the parallel development of the God’s Wife and the Divine Adoratrice, as well as the House of the Adoratrice as an institution.

At first it seems a little convoluted.  During the New Kingdom Period, the God’s Wife (Hemet Netjer) and the Divine Adoratrice (Duat Netjer) were two different positions within the temple hierarchy.  But the House of the Adoratrice (Per Duat) was not the estate of the Divine Adoratrice, who had no estate of her own, it was instead the estate of the God’s Wife.  That is sort of like calling Buckingham Palace the house of the Prime Minister while only allowing the Queen to live there!

To make matters even more confusing, while the offices of God’s Wife and Divine Adoratrice were two separate offices, they could be held by the same person—sometimes the God’s Wife was also a Divine Adoratrice.  At other times she seems to have started off as a Divine Adoratrice, only to become the God’s Wife later, a sort of God’s Wife in-training.

But sense can be made of all of this if we keep in mind that the periods of evolution (and de-evolution) of the offices of God’s Wife and Divine Adoratrice are tied to the changing statuses of women in ancient Egypt.  When the social status of women improved, their positions within the ecclesiastical hierarchy became more specialized and empowered.  When their status diminished their titles became more generalized and their duties less prestigious. 

The House of the Adoratrice and the wealth and influence that came with it was a means for royal women to act with some autonomy and exert some influence over religious and political matters.  Women were able to possess property in ancient Egypt, and royal women possessed wealth of their own.  And as we shall see, women were able to hold religious offices at different times.  But it is not until the God’s Wife of Amun and the House of the Adoratrice that women held both wealth and political and religious power at the same time, independent of the temple and palace.

As later pharaohs attempt to curb this power, the status of the God’s Wife as High Priestess and consort to Amun becomes secondary to her status as the mother and wife of the king.  In other words, as the status of women diminishes, the God’s Wife is no longer defined in terms of her office and influence, but rather in terms of her relationship to the pharaoh.    

Of course, the story of the God’s Wives of Amun cannot be reduced simply to gender politics, and ultimately the convergence of God’s Wife and Divine Adoratrice into a single office is not a sign of a loss of power, but instead marks a phase when the office becomes second only to the pharaoh.  But keeping the subplot of gender politics in mind makes the rest of the story, and the motivations of some of the players, a lot easier to follow.

Holy Women from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom

Egyptian temples were not simply religious institutions, they were also the local cultural center, the community college, the office of social services, and the court of law.  As such, they employed a very large staff with a wide variety of non-priestly jobs.  Written and visual accounts of temple life show that women filled many of these roles from the earliest days of Egypt’s history.

A Fourth Dynasty princess and priestess named Nefertiabet making offerings (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

At least as early as the Old Kingdom Period there were women who also held clerical positions within the temples, although usually as priestesses of female deities, particularly Hathor and Neith.  Richard H. Wilkinson observes that there were some notable exceptions to this rule—occasionally royal women were known to have held positions as priestesses in temples of Thoth and Ptah and within the funerary cults of kings, and may have performed the same duties as the male priests (P. 93). 

Beginning late in the First Intermediate Period and early in the Middle Kingdom Period we begin to see more specialized roles for women in temples.  As we discussed in The God’s Wives of Amun – Royal Women and Power Politics in the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Tenth Dynasty saw the emergence of the position of God’s Wife in temples where particular deities were venerated as creator gods.  The God’s Wives of this period were non-royal women, which indicates that this improved status reached beyond the royalty, extending at least as far as noblewomen. 

Other titles for women within the temple hierarchy begin to appear at this time as well, such as Watcher of the God (Wereshy-Netjer) and wabet, the female counterpart of the wab priests.  Wab priests carried out various tasks such as purifications, overseeing the lay-staff, and carrying the ceremonial barque which housed the statue of the god.  The wabet priestesses were probably not given this latter task, but would have held influential positions in the middle management of the temple.

By the Twelfth Dynasty even the Priestesses of Hathor seem to disappear (Photo by Guillaume Blanchard)

But as the Middle Kingdom approaches the Second Intermediate Period, the role of women in religion begins a gradual decline.  It would be a mistake to attribute this to general instability, as Egypt remained pretty stable throughout the Twelfth and even Thirteenth Dynasties.  But by the middle of the Twelfth Dynasty even the Priestesses of Hathor, an ancient and well-established institution, had practically disappeared. 

Wilkinson suggest this may have been due in part to changing attitudes regarding childbirth and menstruation as being “impure,” but notes that it could just as easily reflect general societal changes during that time (p. 93).  Either way, the loss of status was reflected in the virtual disappearance of female titles in temple administration during the Second Intermediate Period.  Specific titles for women in the temples were largely replaced with the catchall of shemayet—chantress (Wilkinson, pp. 93-4).

The Divine Adoratrice and God’s Wife of Amun in the New Kingdom

Pharaoh Ahmose I, the Great Reformer (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

With Ahmose I’s restoration (and reformation) of the institution of the God’s Wife at the beginning of the New Kingdom we see a triumphant return of women to professional religious life.  This elevation in status again reached beyond royal women and extended to noblewomen.  There was an increasing revival of specialized roles for women in temple functions, and one of the new titles was that of Divine Adoratrice.  According to Anneke Bart, 

The divine adoratrix was a priestess ranking slightly below the God’s Wife and she may have served as a deputy or stand in for the God’s Wife…The position of divine adoratrix could be held by non-royal women as well.  (Ancient Egypt:  God’s Wife of Amun)

Reproduction of a tomb painting of the Divine Adoratrice Seniseneb (Painting by Norman de Garis Davies, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

While this may indicate a change in status for upper-class women, it should not be viewed independently as evidence that the lot of women in general had improved.  While not necessarily of royal blood, the Divine Adoratrices were high-ranking temple officers and invariably came from influential families usually associated with the temple.  An Adoratrice named Seniseneb, for example, was the daughter of Hapuseneb, a High Priest of Amun and vizier of Hatshepsut.  Another Eighteenth Dynasty Adoratrice, Maetka, was the wife of the Head Goldsmith of Amun (Bart, God’s Wife of Amun).  

Other temples and deities had Divine Adoratrices of their own, also drawn from the ranks of the religious and political nobility. One such noblewoman was Hui, an Adoratrice of the gods Atum and Re (as well as Amun), and the mother of Merytre-Hatshepsut, herself a God’s Wife of Amun and the queen of Thutmose III (Bryan, 2003, p. 6; 2000, p. 248).  Another was Tey, who was an Adoratrice of Min and may have been a wife of Pharaoh Ay (Dodson and Hilton, p. 151-3; 157).

Do not call me queen—Pharaoh (formerly God’s Wife) Hatshepsut (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

During the second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty the pharaohs sought to put limitations on the office of the God’s Wife, most likely in response to Hatshepsut, who had utilized the authority and wealth that came with the position and its estate to support her ascent to pharaohood.  By the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, pharaohs were choosing their wives outside of the royal line and the position of God’s Wife disappears altogether for several generations.

The absence of [royal] wives might be considered a conscious rejection of the dynastic role played by princesses as queens and ‘god’s wives of Amun’ from the establishment of the dynasty through to the reign of Hatshepsut.  Perhaps Thutmose III and Amenhotep II now realized that queens like Hatshepsut, who represented the dynastic family, could be dangerous if they were too wealthy and powerful.  (Bryan, 2000, p. 253).

Regardless of what the underlying motivation may have been, the last clearly attested God’s Wife from the Eighteenth Dynasty is Tia’a, the mother of Thutmose IV.

It is unclear if other female positions within the temple hierarchy suffered a comparable loss of prestige, although the position of Divine Adoratrice does seem to have remained active.  The aforementioned Adoratrice Maetka held office during the reign of Amenhotep III, even though the office of God’s Wife was apparently vacant.  Lacking the power of the God’s Wife, the Adoratrices may have simply not posed enough of a threat to warrant the unwelcome attention of the pharaoh.

God’s Wife and Queen, Mut-Tuya (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

The Eighteenth Dynasty comes to a close with the death of Pharaoh Horemheb, who dies without a blood-heir.  The throne goes to Horemheb’s vizier, Ramesses I, whose short reign marks the beginning of a new dynasty and what is called the Ramesside Period, which spans the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties.  The Nineteenth Dynasty also sees the return of a clearly attested God’s Wife of Amun—Sitre, Ramesses I’s Great Royal Wife and the mother of Pharaoh Seti I.  Seti’s own wife and mother of Ramesses II, Mut-Tuya, likewise becomes a God’s Wife of Amun.

The Ramesside Years and the Third Intermediate Period

Queen Duatentopet, Divine Adoratrice, but not God’s Wife (Drawing by Lepsius Denkmahler)

The offices of God’s Wife and Divine Adoratrice seem to have remained separate institutions throughout the Ramesside Period.  Queen Duatentopet, wife of Ramesses IV and mother of Ramesses V, held the title of Adoratrice but is nowhere attributed with the title of God’s Wife.  On the other hand, a daughter of Ramesses VI, Iset, is attested as an Adoratrice on a stele from Coptos and as a God’s Wife on a block from the Karnak temple complex (See Bart, God’s Wife of Amun).  This seems to indicate that the two offices were still distinct from one another.

Iset was followed as God’s Wife by Tyti, believed to have been the queen of Ramesses X.  Tyti did not hold the title of Divine Adoratrice, which also seems to indicate that the two offices had not yet become fused into one.  But changes were underway that would once again affect the status of the God’s Wife, and which would eventually lead to a redefinition of the Divine Adoratrice as well. 

The hawkish young Ramesses II—great at leading armies, not so great with the royal budget (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

During the early Nineteenth Dynasty the Ramesside Pharaohs enjoyed a continuation of the stability and prosperity established by the Thutmosid kings of the Eighteenth.  But military campaigns, particularly those of Ramesses II, would take their toll on the royal coffers, and midway through the dynasty rivalry between Pharaoh Merneptah’s sons, Amenmesse and Seti II, would have a destabilizing effect on Egyptian politics.  The royal intrigues carried over into the Twentieth Dynasty, where drought and famine conspired to make a bad situation intolerable. 

The internecine conflict which defined the latter part of the Ramesside Period, along with corruption and a general lack of confidence in royal leadership, brought an end to the New Kingdom.  On the death of Ramesses XI the kingdom again fell into factions and Egypt entered its Third Intermediate Period.  While not as tumultuous as the previous Intermediate Periods, Egypt at the beginning of the First Millennium BC was a nation divided. 

Pharaoh Pinedjem I (Photo by Lamerie)

As authority at the capital in Memphis collapsed, a member of one of the powerful noble families of the Delta Region, Smendes, proclaimed a new ruling house.  The Twenty-First Dynasty, based at Tanis, would assume control of Lower (northern) Egypt.  Meanwhile, the current High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem I, would use the influence of his office to declare himself ruler of Upper (southern) Egypt, establishing a sort of theocracy based at Thebes.

Relations between the two ruling factions were actually highly integrated early in the Third Intermediate Period.  Pinedjem I was not entirely without a connection to the previous dynasty, having married a daughter of Pharaoh Ramesses XI named Henuttawy.  Smendes I likewise married a daughter of Ramesses XI, Tentamun, making the two kings brothers-in-law via the royal house.  Psusennes I, the third pharaoh to sit on the throne at Tanis, was actually the son of the Theban ruler Pinedjem and his wife.

Divine Adoratrice and God’s Wife, Maatkare (Drawing by Lepsius Denkmahler)

On proclaiming himself Pharaoh of Upper Egypt, Pinedjem I named his daughter, Maatkare, God’s Wife of Amun and Divine Adoratrice.  While it is not certain that this was the point where the two offices merged into one, all clearly attested God’s Wives following Maatkare also held the title of Adoratrice.  It is also during the tenure of Maatkare that the tradition of the God’s Wife remaining celibate and “adopting” her successor began.  Although the God’s Wife and Adoratrice Iset had never married, her successor Tyti did, so celibacy as a requirement does not seem to begin until Maatkare.

The celibacy requirement undoubtedly had religious significance, but very likely served a political purpose as well.  As we saw in The Rise of Thebes, The Rise of Amun, one way Ahmose I controlled access to the royal throne was by prohibiting royal princesses from marrying anyone except their brothers, thus preventing anyone from marrying into the line of succession.  Celibacy would have certainly achieved the same result.  As Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson observe regarding the God’s Wives of this period:

She was barred from marriage, remaining a virgin; therefore she had to adopt the daughter of the next king as heiress to her office.  In this way the king sought to ensure that he always held power in Thebes and also prevented elder daughters from aiding rival claimants to the throne.  (p. 113)

Princess Henuttawy, adopted by Maatkare to succeed her as Adoratrice and God’s Wife (Drawing by Lepsius Denkmahler)

As mentioned above, another link with the succession of pharaohs was the practice of the God’s Wife adopting a daughter of the future king as her own successor.  As with both celibacy and royal intrafamilial marriages (which sounds so much more polite than incest), the practice of adopting the next God’s Wife from within the royal lineage kept power consolidated to the immediate family of the king.  These adoptions became increasingly important as having a daughter in the position of God’s Wife of Amun became associated with the king’s legitimacy.

As for the merging of the offices of the Divine Adoratrice and the God’s Wife, one possible explanation is that the adopted successor may have been called the Adoratrice while in a sort of apprenticeship to the current God’s Wife.  This would mean that the two positions were not technically the same post, but it would explain why all God’s Wives after Maatkare also held the title of Adoratrice.  To explore this possibility, let’s take a brief jump ahead to the Late Kingdom Period.

Synthesis via Adoption?  The Late Kingdom Period

Pharaoh Psamtik I, from the tomb of Pabasa (Photo by Neithsabes)

Pharaoh Psamtik I, the first king of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, was in many ways the Ahmose of the Late Kingdom Period.  He even had a Kamose-like forerunner, Necho I, who is sometimes credited with being the first king of the new dynasty.  A delta king from the Saite line of nobles, Psamtik reunited Egypt after the Third Intermediate Period by peacefully reclaiming Thebes and declaring independence from the Assyrians.

Also like Ahmose, Psamtik erected a stele that was similar in function to the Donation Stele, called the Adoption Stele.  At the time when Psamtik re-annexed Thebes, a God’s Wife of the previous ruling dynasty named Shepenwepet II was still in office.  Complicating matters further, Shepenwepet had already adopted a successor—Amenirdis II—who held the title of Adoratrice apparently as an indicator of her status as the heir apparent to Shepenwepet’s office. 

Princess Nitocris, from the tomb of Pabasa (Photo by Neithsabes)

In the Adoption Stele, Psamtik lays out the conditions under which his own daughter, Nitocris, was to be adopted into the line of God’s Wives.  Rather than depose Amenirdis, the new pharaoh worked within the existing system to introduce his daughter into the fold.

Now indeed I heard that a king’s daughter is there, the Horus high of crowns, the good god [Pharaoh Taharqa, father of Amenirdis II], true of voice, whom he gave to his sister [God’s Wife Shepenwepet II] to be her eldest daughter [i.e., her adopted heir to the position of God’s Wife] and who is there as Divine Adoratrice.  I will not do, namely, what is not to be done, removing an heir from his [in this case “his” refers to the Adoratrice Amenirdis II] throne, since I am a king who loves just order (Ma’at)…Now then I will give her [his daughter, Nitocris] to her [Adoratrice Amenirdis II] as an eldest daughter [i.e., adopted heir] like she was made for the sister of her father [God’s Wife Shepenwepet II].  (Bryan, 2003, p. 8, bracketed statements are my additions)

Shepenwepet II, the Nubian God’s Wife when Thebes surrendered to Psamtik I (Photo by Néfermaât)

This is not really as complex as it sounds.  When Thebes, previously under the control of the Nubian Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, surrendered to King Psamtik I, there was a Nubian God’s Wife named Shepenwepet already in place.  Shepenwepet had already adopted Amenirdis as her heir, and as such, Amenirdis held the title of Divine Adoratrice.  When Shepenwepet died or stepped down, Amenirdis would then become God’s Wife, and would then adopt an heir of her own who would become the Divine Adoratrice.

As part of legitimizing his claim as pharaoh, Psamtik wanted to install his own daughter, Nitocris, as the God’s Wife of Amun, but as “a king who loves just order,” he promised in the Adoption Stele to not remove the current God’s Wife or her heir from office, instead offering Nitocris to be adopted by Amenirdis as her own heir and Adoratrice.  Thus, the line to God’s Wife becomes Shepenwepet II to Amenirdis II, then Amenirdis II to Nitocris.

One thing that we can draw from all of this is that, at least at the time of the Adoption Stele, it seems that the Divine Adoratrice may have been a title associated with the adopted heir of the current God’s Wife.  From this perspective it might be more accurate to say that rather than merging into a single position, the Divine Adoratrice and God’s Wife had been combined into a single career track.  But even this would not be entirely correct, as full-fledged God’s Wives were sometimes referred to as the Adoratrice. 

Both possibilities are not mutually exclusive—the adopted God’s-Wives-in-training may have been called Adoratrices, and upon becoming full-fledged God’s Wives may have employed both titles interchangeably.  What is undeniable is that by the Late Kingdom Period there were no Divine Adoratrices who did not go on to become the God’s Wife.  In this sense, the two titles became inseparable, whether synonymous or not.

We can also see from the Adoption Stele that Psamtik understood the significance of having a daughter in the post of God’s Wife.  Since the God’s Wife adopted as her successor the daughter of the future king, the lineage of God’s Wives should logically reflect the royal line.  Although Psamtik was already king, and had chosen not to usurp the existing line of God’s Wives, he wanted assurances that his daughter would become a God’s Wife of Amun in her turn. 

While it could be argued that Psamtik was driven more by the symbolic importance of Nitocris becoming a God’s Wife than by any social status women may have held, he at least respected the office itself, as evidenced by his decision to have his daughter adopted into the line.  Rather than “do that which is not to be done,” removing the legitimate claimant to the position of God’s Wife, Psamtik played by the rules.

In the next article, House of the Adoratrice Part 2:  Demesne of the God’s Wife, we will take our closest look yet at the Donation Stele as we pay a visit to the Court of Pharaoh Ahmose on the auspicious occasion of the purchase of the office of the Second Priesthood of Amun for his wife, Ahmose-Nefertari, who was already the God’s Wife.  We will conduct a detailed inventory of the stele and put the wealth and influence of the House of the Adoratrice into context before looking at each Eighteenth Dynasty God’s Wife of Amun individually.

Works Cited

Bart, Anneke.  Online:  Ancient Egypt:  God’s Wife of Amun.

Bryan, Betsy.  “The Eighteenth Dynasty before the Amarna Period.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  218-271.

—–  “Property and the God’s Wives of Amun.”  Paper from the conference “Women and Property,” organized and collected by Deborah Lyons and Raymond Westbrook.  Boston:  Harvard U, Ctr for Hellenic Stds, 2003.  Available for download here.

Dodson, Aidan, and Dyan Hilton.  The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.

Shaw, Ian, and Paul T. Nicholson.  The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.  London: Harry N. Abrams, 2003.

Wilkinson, Richard H.  The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt.  New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photo “Egypte louvre 011” by Guillaume Blanchard is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 1.0 Generic License.  Photo “Pinedjem I – 221511956_38f5635ff2_b” by Lamerie is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License.  Photos “AhmoseI-StatueHead MetropolitanMuseum” by Keith Schengili-Roberts and “Shepenwepet II” by Néfermaât are used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.5 Generic License.  Photos “Psammetique_Ier_TPabasa” and “Nitocris_Ier_TPabasa” by Neithsabes are in the public domain, as are the illustrations “maatkare 03082480”, “Duatentopet”, and “Henuttawy” by  Lepsius Denkmahler.  “Adoratrice Seniseneb,” a reproduction of a tomb painting by Norman de Garis Davies, is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is used in accordance with the Fair Use doctrine—all rights reserved.  Photos “Neferetiabet”,   “colossal head of Hatshepsut”, “08 Ramesses II and Horus”, “Queen Mut-Tuya”, and “Thutmose iii B” are by Jon Bodsworth and have been kindly released to the public domain.

With Amun now the King of the Gods, his earthly consort came into her own wealth and authority in a way that would ultimately shatter the glass ceiling of Egyptian politics, at least for a while…

When studying religious and political institutions in ancient Egypt, very rarely can we point to a specific person, time, and place and say “that is where it all began.”  The God’s Wife of Amun is unique in that aspect.  True, the genesis of the title and its original purpose are lost in the murky traditions of overlapping and often contradictory provincial religions.  And true, we are not 100% certain of who the first royal God’s Wife may have been.  But there are some things we do know.

We know, for instance, that the office of God’s Wife of Amun underwent a complete restructuring in the early years of the New Kingdom, when it was endowed with wealth and status that elevated it to one of the most powerful institutions in ancient Egypt.  We know the individual who set these changes in motion was none other than Ahmose I, Hero of Thebes and Champion of Amun.  And we know that the first person to hold the reinvented office was his queen, Ahmose-Nefertari.

As with both Thebes and Amun, the story of the God’s Wife is a tale of upward mobility.  Just as Thebes began as a backwater county seat, and Amun began as an abstract creative principle, the God’s Wife started out as just one character in a cast of many in the creation dramas of Egypt’s temples.  But also like her patron city, which rose to become the capital of all Egypt, and her divine consort, who was raised to the status of King of the Gods, the God’s Wife of Amun became the quintessential case study in power politics.

Before we look at what the title of God’s Wife came to entail under the auspices of Pharaoh Ahmose, let’s first look at what it meant in its more humble years.  The details are scanty, but there is enough to lay a foundation that will enable us to place her in her historical, religious, and political contexts.

God’s Wives in the Middle Kingdom

The first mention of God’s Wives occurs in the Middle Kingdom Period, particularly in the Tenth and Twelfth Dynasties.  Although they were not royal women, having a daughter or wife who was a God’s Wife, Divine Adoratrice, or temple musician or chantresses was a sign of prestige.  The daughters of priests, relatives of the royal family, and influential nobles and courtiers were prime candidates for these posts.  Offices of this type were often exchanged for favors and were part of the capital with which the temple bartered.

A priest leading a procession of temple chantresses (Photo by vxla)

God’s Wives during the Middle Kingdom were an order of priestesses who performed special rites associated with their patron deity’s role in creation.  In addition to the God’s Wives of Amun, who was worshipped almost exclusively at Thebes at this time, there were God’s Wives of Ptah, the creator god revered at Memphis, and God’s Wives of Min, also a god of fertility and creation.  As with Ptah and Min, Amun was associated mostly with his role as creator during the Middle Kingdom Period, and the God’s Wives were just part of the temple staffs rather than a specific person associated only with the cult of Amun.

Twosret, a God’s Wife from the Nineteenth Dynasty, playing sistrums for Amun (Photo by John D. Croft)

Specific details of the God’s Wives duties and functions are practically non-existent, but based on what we know from other aspects of temple liturgy and ritual we can make some pretty informed guesses.  Just from her role as the wife of the creator god, we can logically presume that she would have symbolically performed the role of consort in the act of creation.  The later God’s Wives of Amun, for example, would dance and play the sistrum before the god’s statue to arouse him to the act of creation.

God’s Wives probably carried out other duties such as singing hymns and presenting food offerings before the god.  Chanters and musicians were ubiquitous to religious processions, and God’s Wives undoubtedly participated in these public and private aspects of worship.  During the New Kingdom Period the God’s Wife of Amun assumed many of the duties of the High Priest, but there is no evidence to conclude that her station was so elevated during the earlier years. 

Musicians and chanters in adoration of Montu, from a Middle Kingdom temple at Madu, near Luxor

God’s Wives in the Second Intermediate Period

It is not entirely clear whether or not there were God’s Wives during the Second Intermediate Period, as there are no attestations that date from that time.  This was during the era of the Hyksos occupation, and the office may have been altered or phased out in many places.  But if it survived anywhere, it would make sense that it would have survived at Thebes, where native Egyptian traditions were maintained by the local nobility.  There is some evidence that this may have been the case. 

A scene from Khabekhnet’s tomb depicting his mummification (Photo by Helmut Satzinger, courtesy of Lenka and Andy Peacock)

The suggestion that there may have been God’s Wives during the Second Intermediate Period comes from a scene in the tomb of Khabekhnet, a Nineteenth Dynasty artisan who was himself a tomb worker in the Theban Necropolis. 

One of the privileges of being a royal tomb worker was that you had the tools and skills to craft for yourself a tomb fit for a king.  Khabekhnet left a beautifully decorated tomb in which he pays homage to deceased members of the royal family, who frequently had local cults in which they were revered as gods. 

Four God’s Wives from the Tomb of Khabekhnet—Are two from the Second Intermediate Period?

One scene in Khabekhnet’s tomb depicts four royal women whom he calls God’s Wives.  One is named Kamose, thought to refer to a known Eighteenth Dynasty God’s Wife named Sitkamose, whom we will examine in depth later in this series.  Another name is illegible.  But the other two, Sit-ir-bau and Ta-khered-qa, may have lived during the latter years of the Second Intermediate Period, and do not appear on lists of God’s Wives from the Eighteenth Dynasty (See Anneke Bart, Ancient Egypt:  God’s Wife of Amun).  Could they have been God’s Wives—royal God’s Wives no less—from the Seventeenth Dynasty?

This comes with the caveat that Khabekhnet lived during the reign of Ramesses II, some 250-300 years after the time in question.  It was also not unusual for the title of God’s Wife of Amun to be conferred posthumously, although this was typically done by pharaohs and had to do with exalting their mothers and legitimizing their own succession.  But this fragment of evidence hints that the office of God’s Wife may have been reformed rather than revived, and keeping the position active may have been another way in which Thebes remained faithful to Amun during the occupation.

Reformation:  God’s Wives at the Dawn of the New Kingdom

The woman who would be king—Hatshepsut (Photo by Keith Payne)

Beginning with the New Kingdom Period the office of God’s Wife of Amun becomes something entirely different from anything that had ever existed before.  Ultimately, her authority will surpass that of the High Priest of Amun (Taylor, p. 338) and will come close to that of the pharaoh himself (p. 360).  These particular developments did not occur until the Third Intermediate Period, but even as early as the New Kingdom her power was such that a particularly determined God’s Wife used her influence to actually become a pharaoh.  More about her later.

Many lists of God’s Wives of Amun place Ahmose I’s mother, the celebrated Queen Ahhotep I, as the first royal woman to hold the office.  But as with Sit-ir-bau and Ta-khered-qa, there is a lack of corroborating evidence from Ahhotep’s lifetime attributing the title to her, which calls into question whether she ever actually held the position.  In fact, the only place where she is called a God’s Wife is in the inscriptions on the lid of her coffin.

The first royal woman we can say with near certainty was a God’s Wife of Amun was Ahmose’s queen, Ahmose-Nefertari.  With Nefertari we have not only an abundance of attributions from her lifetime, we have the actual legal document that confers upon her the newly reconstituted office and all rights, privileges and properties contained therein.  For these details we shall resume with the story of the Hero of Thebes and the founding of the New Kingdom.

Ahmose I:  Hero, Champion, and Benefactor

Champion of Amun, Hero of Thebes—Pharaoh Ahmose I (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

AhmoseOur story picks up after Ahmose I’s defeat of the Hyksos and their allies, and the corralling of the remaining dissidents.  As detailed in The Rise of Thebes, The Rise of Amun, Ahmose then began a program of construction and restoration funded by the opening of trade routes with Syria and copper mines in the Sinai, not to mention the gold that came out of Nubia.  The newly-founded Eighteenth Dynasty was cash rich and well-placed to repair the misfortunes war had inflicted on Thebes.

The specifics of Ahmose’s reconstruction of Thebes, as well as his investments in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, are provided by three stelae recovered from the temple complex. 

The stelae appear to chronicle a devastating flood and Ahmose’s response, although reading between the lines leaves the impression that the flood may have been a cover story to excuse the destitution of the temple following the wars.  But flood or no flood, the picture that emerges is one of the Estate of Amun desperate for a benefactor and a pharaoh willing to open the coffers.

The first stele, discovered at the Third Pylon at Karnak, is called the Tempest Stele.  It describes a catastrophic storm sent to punish Thebes for her neglect of one of Amun’s major statues, and details Ahmose’s expenditures in repairing the tombs, temples, and pyramids that were damaged. 

Based on how the king’s name appears on the stele, it is believed that it dates from before his twenty-second regnal year (Claude Vandersleyden, as cited by The Thera Foundation:  “A Storm in Egypt during the Reign of Ahmose”). 

It has been proposed that the storm described in the Tempest Stele was the result of a volcanic eruption that destroyed the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini), which is believed to have occurred early in Ahmose I’s reign.

Since the stele was erected to commemorate the repairs at Thebes, some time must have elapsed between the storm itself and the erection of the stele upon completion of the repairs. If the storm attested by the stele was caused by the Thera eruption, a date in the reign of Ahmose before year 22 would support the traditional chronology…”  (Source) 

Ritual objects such as this solid gold bowl from the tomb of Djehuty, an Eighteenth Dynasty General, may have been handed over to fund the war during the Third Intermediate Period (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Another stele, discovered at the Eighth Pylon and which we will call (unofficially!) the Benefactor Stele, dates from the eighteenth year of Ahmose’s reign and again describes the king’s magnanimity regarding the Estate of Amun.  Of particular interest is the nature of his gifts, which included items such as gold and silver ritual vessels and jewelry that, on the one hand, would have been important to the functioning of the temple, but on the other hand would have been valuable to support the war effort.

The objects donated by the king to Karnak are the most essential cult furniture, and their dedication may indicate that the temple was utterly without precious metal objects at this point.  It is impossible to say whether this would have been due to the action of a great storm, as the king asserts in the Tempest Stele, but temple cult objects…might also have been important financial resources for the Thebans during the arduous years of the Seventeenth Dynasty.  (Bryan, 2000, p. 221)

Ahmose I makes an offering to Amun in a scene from the Donation Stele

The third stele, also discovered at the base of the Third Pylon, is called the Donation Stele.  Again we have an account of the pharaoh’s largess, but this time there is a clearly stated quid pro quo.  Ahmose is not just making a donation, he is actually purchasing something, a temple position called the “second priesthood of Amun,” which is to be granted to his wife, Ahmose-Nefertari.  The queen had already been installed as the God’s Wife by this time, making this in effect a conjoining of two previously separate offices within the temple hierarchy.

The fact that Ahmose-Nefertari was already the God’s Wife raises its own set of questions, since it is not known when she was conferred the title, only that it was not simultaneous with the creation of the New and Improved God’s Wife, as detailed in the Donation Stele.  If Nefertari came to the office completely independent of its amalgamation with the second priesthood of Amun, then there is no reason to presume that she was the first royal woman to hold the title.  Perhaps there were God’s Wives during the Second Intermediate Period after all, and Ahmose-Nefertari was simply the next in line.

But the Donation Stele does not just combine two offices, it lays out the schema for a new institution that was a lot more than the sum of its original parts.  Recall that Ahmose was the same tactician who defeated the Hyksos by superior planning.  He took advantage of the seasonal floods, bypassed the targets that were braced for his attack and seized strategic positions that cut Avaris off from both assistance and escape.  If anything, the Donation Stele reflects a similar amount of forethought and nothing, including having the queen already installed as God’s Wife, should be considered superfluous. 

From the Law Offices of Ahmose & Co.:  The Donation Stele

The Donation Stele describes not only the fusion of the God’s Wife and the second priesthood, it also details the endowment of an estate attached to the new office that was separate and independent of both the Priesthood of Amun and the pharaoh himself. 

These assets, called the House, or Estate, of the Adoratrice (not to be confused with the Divine Adoratrice, a distinction which we will explore in the very near future), along with the office itself were the domain of the God’s Wife, to be passed on as she saw fit, to whom she saw fit, without interference.  The ancient contract is very clear on this matter:

Done in the presence of [the council?] of the lands of the city and the servants of the temple of Amun.  What was said in the majesty of the palace, (life!, prosperity!, health!), in… [saying]: …[I have given] the office of the second priest of Amun to the god’s wife, great royal wife, she united to the beauty of the white crown, Ahmose-Nefertary, may she live!…

I have given to her male and female servants, and four hundred oipe of barley and six arouras of inundated land as an excess over the 1,010 shenau.  Her office will be at the value of 600 shenau.  The office is completed for her, it being endowed…

Then the majesty of this god said: “I am her protector.  A challenge to her shall not occur forever by any king who shall arise in the following of future generations.  But only the god’s wife Nefertary.  It belongs to her from son to son forever and ever in accordance with her office of god’s wife.  There is not one who shall say, ‘Except for me’. There is not another who can speak.”  (Bryan, 2003, pp. 3-4)

The final paragraph leaves no doubt as to the intent of the contract—the combined office of God’s Wife and second priesthood belonged to Nefertari and could not be touched by any present or future king, period.  To add extra weight, the paragraph comes in the form of an oracle from Amun himself:  “Then the majesty of this god said…”  The stele also contains a very specific legal proviso which guaranteed her right to name her successor, and that this right would carry over, with all other rights and properties, to that successor.

The clauses pertaining to heirship were drafted under the aegis of a legal device known as imyt per, which was a means of “transferring property outside the normal lines of inheritance” (Bryan, 2003, p. 4).  Imty per allowed a benefactor to transfer property while still living or as part of a will, and contained stipulations that nullified traditional inheritance.  So instead of following convention and going to her eldest son, all properties of the God’s Wife associated with her title went to a successor of her choosing.  Imty per also allowed her to confer her title and properties while she still lived and could personally see her succession through.

Ahmose-Nefertari—First New Kingdom God’s Wife of Amun and possibly the most powerful woman in human history up to that point.

At this point it would be fair to ask regarding this unprecedented compact, cui bono?  It would be noble to think that after the example set by his own mother, Ahhotep, Matriarch of the Revolution, that Ahmose was merely assuring that there would always be a female sovereign to check the power of kings and priests.  Another somewhat less noble but more probable motive was the projection of royal authority into the temple hierarchy that the office provided.  But these two motives are not mutually exclusive, as Bryan notes:

The king was able to purchase the second most important priesthood and further endow its title holder in concert with the position of god’s wife. This not only assured the god’s wife direct involvement in the Amun priesthood, but it also guaranteed a similar connection for the king who sponsored the god’s wife.  (2003, p. 5)

Ahmose had restored wealth and dignity to the Estate of Amun and in so doing had secured for his dynasty the gratitude of the priesthood and an implicit and explicit covenant with Amun.  But the combining of the God’s Wife with the second most powerful office of the temple, the second priesthood, and endowing the new office with an estate which guaranteed independence from priest and potentate alike, assured that at least some royal women would have a voice of their own in how the politics and religion of the New Kingdom unfolded.

Many of Ahmose I’s reforms would be watered down in the coming decades, but his intent was clear—he sought to create a sovereign office for the queen and her heirs which carried its own inherent spiritual and secular leverage.  Regardless of ulterior motives, not the least of which were the obvious implications of being able to say that your mother had coupled with the King of the Gods, the liberties bequeathed on the God’s Wife of Amun by the Donation Stele are undeniable.

In the next installment of this series, The House of the Adoratrice:  Demesne of the God’s Wife of Amun, we will take a specific look at what properties and privileges the Donation Stele granted to the office of the God’s Wife and how they constituted a sort kingdom within the kingdom.  We will also examine what her duties and functions were within the temple, and how these related to another position of power for women within the Estate of Amun, the Divine Adoratrice.

Works Cited

Bart, Anneke.  Online:  Ancient Egypt:  God’s Wife of Amun.

Bryan, Betsy.  “The Eighteenth Dynasty before the Amarna Period.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  218-271.

—–  “Property and the God’s Wives of Amun.”  Paper from the conference “Women and Property,” organized and collected by Deborah Lyons and Raymond Westbrook.  Boston:  Harvard U, Ctr for Hellenic Std, 2003.  Available for download here.

Davis, E.N.  Online:  The Thera Foundation:  A Storm in Egypt during the Reign of Ahmose.  1990.

Taylor, John.  “The Third Intermediate Period.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  330-368.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Images “Min” and “Ptah”, based on originals by Jeff Dahl, and photograph “Twosret” by John D. Croft are used in acordance with the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.  Photograph “Temple Chantresses” by vxla is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License.  Photo “AhmoseI-StatueHead MetropolitanMuseum” by Keith Schengili-Roberts is used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.5 Generic License.   Photographs “Ahmose Nefertari” and “Medamoud (Medu) Procession” are in the public domain, as is “Four God’s Wives from tomb of Khabekhnet” by Lepsius (See also Anneke Bart, God’s Wife of Amun).  Photographs “Gold Bowl”, and “Judgment papyrus of Hunefer” (which was sampled for the “Ahmose & Co.” graphic) are by Jon Bodsworth, who has kindly released them to the public domain.  Photo “Tomb scene from Khabekhnet” by Helmut Satzinger is provided courtesy of Lenka and Andy Peacock.

This account of the ascent of Thebes and the god Amun sets the background for a series that will investigate an order of female pontiffs called the God’s Wives of Amun and how these tributaries converge into the ethos, or pathos, of the Heretic King, Akhenaten.   

The Rise of Thebes, the Rise of Amun

To understand how the office of the God’s Wife of Amun was transformed from an order of temple functionaries into a female pontiff with her own domain and retinue we must first understand the interconnectedness between the rise of both the Theban nobility and the god Amun to national significance.  Like the God’s Wife herself, it is a tale of the rise from obscurity to supremacy.   

Prior to the Middle Kingdom Period, Thebes was simply the capital of Waset, the fourth nome of Upper Egypt.  It was a quiet little backwater township of little significance until the closing years of the First Intermediate Period, when the foundations of the Eleventh Dynasty were laid.   

The First Intermediate Period

The First Intermediate Period was a miserable time for Egypt, when drought spread famine and disease, and the lack of a central government fomented civil unrest.  The land was divided into three kingdoms with ineffective and bickering local administrators based at Memphis, Herakleopolis, and Thebes.  But an ambitious Waset nomarch (governor of a nome) would set in motion a series of changes that would lay the course for Thebes’ transformation into the capital of all Egypt.   

The consolidation of power in Thebes began when a nomarch named Intef “the Great” combined the office of governor with that of “overseer of priests,” to which he added “great overlord of Upper Egypt.”  Such lofty claims of station were far from unique during the First Intermediate Period, but there is evidence that Intef’s claim was not your typical blustering.    

Since an inscription referring to this Intef was found in the cemetery of Dendera (the capital of the sixth nome of Upper Egypt), it seems fair to assume that his authority was recognized far beyond the confines of his native province.”  (Seidlmayer, p. 133) 

  

Pharaoh Intef II (Photo by David Liam Moran)

 Intef the Great would not be recognized as a king in the regular sense, but his successor, Mentuhotep I, would be posthumously ascribed pharaohood and is credited with founding the Eleventh Dynasty.  A series of three rulers would follow who would carry Intef’s name, but it is during the fifty-year reign of the second of these, appropriately named Intef II, that the new dynasty really begins to assert itself militarily. 

Intef II launched a northward expansion that captured Abydos, the real seat of power in Upper Egypt, and pressed into Wadkhet, the tenth nome of Upper Egypt.  This campaign was Intef II’s fait accompli and the beginning of the end for the Tenth Dynasty, based at Herakleopolis.  As Stephan Seidlmayer observes:    

This constituted a policy of open hostility against the Herakleopolitan kings, and for several decades war was to be waged intermittently in the stretch of land between Abydos and Asyut.  (p. 135)      

Pharaoh Mentuhotep II

But once the Thebans had wrested control of Abydos from the Herakleopolitans, the die was cast.  When Asyut finally succumbed to Intef II’s grandson, Mentuhotep II, the Herakleopolitans lost their primary base in Upper Egypt.  Provinces that had been loyal to Herakleopolis had no desire to face down the victorious Thebans, opting to join them instead.  

Mentuhotep II then set his sights on Herakleopolis, taking the old capital of Memphis as well.  With the Tenth Dynasty out of business and all of Lower Egypt under his control, Mentuhotep II became the first Theban pharaoh to rule all of Egypt.  Thus began the Middle Kingdom Period.   

 The Middle Kingdom

Rather than move the capital back to Memphis, Mentuhotep II transformed the minor city of Thebes into the capital, and this promotion extended to the local gods as well.  The patron god of Thebes at this time was Montu, a warrior god who was said to possess soldiers on the battlefield, and Mentuhotep II’s namesake—Montu is Content.   

But Montu’s winter of discontent was on the horizon.  

Before the Middle Kingdom Period Amun was a lesser deity, little more than an Old Kingdom god who had found his way into the Theban pantheon.  His earliest known appearance is in the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth Dynasty where he is a primeval creative principle and protector of the king.  

But by the time of the Eleventh Dynasty he had his own temple at Karnak and had become more defined and human-like, gaining a consort in Mother Mut, who had her own adjacent temple precinct.   

From this point forward Amun grows in significance both locally and nationally.  Montu would remain a defender of Thebes, but with the tumultuous First Intermediate Period over and prosperity on the rise, Amun found increasing resonance with the Egyptian people.  The hard times had passed and people identified more with the fatherly and benevolent Amun than the hawkish Montu.  

Not all of Amun’s competition was local, and he found himself in a sort of turtle vs. hare contest with the god Osiris, with the latter seeming to own the race during the Middle Kingdom.  This was due in part to the “democratization of mummification.”  As Gae Callender notes, 

Another religious development of the Middle Kingdom was the idea that all people (not just the king) had a ba, or spiritual force (p. 180).  

With an afterlife to contemplate, the Egyptian people found new veneration for the Great God of the Necropolis.  

But as important as the afterlife was to the Egyptian people, Amun was increasingly viewed as the primary god of the living.  In an inscription in the Jubilee Chapel of Senusret I at Karnak, dating from the Twelfth Dynasty, Amun is already referred to as the King of the Gods.  By the time of the New Kingdom his primacy will be unchallenged (with a notable exception during the Amarna Period).  But Egypt was about to face a new period of adversity, one from which Amun would emerge supreme.   

The Second Intermediate Period

The Thirteenth Dynasty began peacefully enough, but after a long period of slowly losing its grip on the provinces and a multitude of pharaohs with short reigns, the old Theban nobility found themselves in a crisis of succession.  The death of Pharaoh Merneferre Ay left a vacuum, with no single king laying claim to both Upper and Lower Egypt.  The Middle Kingdom Period collapsed and Egypt fell again into decentralization and fragmentation.    

Provincial rulers in the Eastern Delta took this opportunity to found their own dynasty, the Fourteenth, centered mainly on Sais and Avaris.  But disorganized and divided, they proved to be the lesser problem.   An even greater peril to Egypt’s sovereignty would rise up from the Delta and Eastern Desert to form its own dynasty, the Fifteenth.   

Called the Hyksos by the Greeks, from the Egyptian hekau khasut (“rulers of/from foreign countries”), this new threat made Avaris their own and pushed at least as far south as Memphis, seizing control of Lower Egypt.  As if to set the tone for their future relations with the old nobility, the Hyksos stole the pyramidion (capstone) from Merneferre Ay’s pyramid and carted it off to Avaris as a trophy (Bourriau, p. 196).    

But there was an even more direct attack on the Theban nobility.  At the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty, Pharaoh Amenemhat I had moved the capital from Thebes to Itjtawy, the location of which has not yet been discovered, but was close to Memphis and the foreign troubles which were beginning to manifest even then (Callender, p. 158).  With their capital sacked and Lower Egypt in the hands of the Hyksos, Thebes again became the seat of power for the remnants of the Thirteenth Dynasty.   

Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Dynasty proved unable to form a cohesive union of their own.  After as many as 76 kings in less than 125 years, they either joined or were subjugated by the Hyksos.  Although the Saite nobility would eventually earn their own legends during the Third Intermediate and Late Kingdom Periods, for now they bowed to the foreign power seated at Avaris.    

As for the Thebans, they had also organized into a new dynasty.  The Sixteenth Dynasty was long thought to be foreign vassals of the Hyksos, but the work of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt indicates this may not be the case.  Dr. Ryholt’s recent work with the list of pharaohs known as the Turin Canon suggests that as many as fifteen kings of the Sixteenth Dynasty had ruled from Thebes (Bourriau, p. 203)   

One of these kings, Iykhernefert Neferhotep, had a stele erected which clearly showed his affiliation with Thebes and the gods sacred to her.  According to Janine Bourriau:   

Neferhotep is shown protected by the gods Amun and Montu and by a goddess personifying the city of Thebes itself.  She appears armed with a scimitar, bow, and arrows.  (P. 203)   

From this description we may assume that the Thebans meant business, although Bourriau points out that we don’t know if this business was with the Hyksos and their lackeys or with rivals closer to home (pp. 203-4).  But from the Sixteenth Dynasty nobles a new line of rulers would emerge that would become the scourge of the Hyksos.   

Pharaoh Rahotep was probably the first king of the Seventeenth Dynasty (although some lists attest Intef V first, then Rahotep) and with him and his successor, Sobekemsaf I, we see a return of expenditures on civic projects.  Some temple restorations and quarry expeditions were conducted which, while modest by Middle Kingdom standards, nonetheless showed enough local stability to be concerned with something other than conflict and display a return of confidence (Bourriau, p. 205).   

This stability seems to have stemmed in part from a cooling off period between the Thebans and the Hyksos, wherein the former were treated as subjects by the latter.  But to the same degree that security was reestablished in Upper Egypt, resentment against the Hyksos seems to have grown as well.  As relations became increasingly strained war seemed inevitable.  It is unclear exactly what led to the initial bloodshed, but it seems to have involved… noisy hippopotami.   

Scarab with Apepi's cartouche (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

The story comes to us by way of a text known as Papyrus Sallier .  The crux of the story is that Apepi, the king of the Hyksos, sent a messenger to Seqenenre Tao II, the Theban king, ordering him to control the hippo population in a canal to the east of Thebes because: 

They don’t let sleep come to me either in the daytime or the night, for the noise of them is in his citizens’ ears.  (For a full translation, see Pharaonic Egypt:  The Quarrel of Apophis and Sekenenre). 

After an initial period of shock and insult, Seqenenre replied that he would look into it, but somewhere along the way diplomacy broke down.  Perhaps the Theban king was insulted at being sent on such an errand by the Hyksos king.   

Apepi’s patron god was Set, and hippos were sacred to Set.  Perhaps, either unintentionally or by design, Seqenenre’s manner of removing the animals was not to Apepi’s liking.  Perhaps, either unintentionally or by design, Apepi had presented Seqenenre with a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation.     

The battered head of Seqenenre Tao II

Regardless of how it happened, the quarrel descended into an all out war that Seqenenre Tao II took serious enough to personally lead his troops into battle.  This did not go as well as he had hoped.  His mummy reveals a number of mortal wounds to his head, at least one of which was probably inflicted in combat, but there is disagreement as to whether he died on the battlefield or was assassinated while recovering (See The Theban Mummy Project:  Seqnenre-Taa II).  

Far from breaking their spirit, the death of Seqenenre Tao II galvanized the Thebans against the Hyksos and hostilities escalated under the rule of his successor, Kamose ‘the Brave.’  Kamose spent a short but eventful three years as regent of Upper Egypt, doing his best to avenge Seqenenre and push the Hyksos out.  His success is debatable, but the insults of the Hyksos, perceived and actual, were answered in kind.   

Pharaoh Kamose (Photo by Kurohito)

Kamose made fierce advances against the occupiers, plundering Hyksos ships and towns as he sailed north along the Nile, and punishing the Kush in the south for their collusion with the enemy.  He ignored a peace treaty drafted by Apepi and instead pushed his troops to the edge of the northern capital.  Kamose never seized Avaris, but did his best to humiliate the Hyksos king while encamped at the edge of the city:  

 Then follows the traditional boastful speech to Apepi: ‘Behold, I am drinking of the wine of your vineyards…I am hacking up your place of residence, cutting down your trees’, and a list of the plunder he was carrying away.  (Bourriau, p. 212).  

Second Stele of Kamose, describing his campaign against Apepi (Photo by Kurohito)

Cut off from his southern allies, Apepi wisely assessed his situation and chose to settle for a stalemate rather than clash with the haughty young king.  For his part, Kamose eventually declared victory and withdrew back to Thebes and to a hero’s welcome.  But as history would have it, the stalemate would prove final.  Within a few years both Kamose and Apepi would be dead with neither having won a decisive victory against the other.  

 King Apepi was succeeded by Khamudi, Pharaoh Kamose by Ahmose I.  Ahmose I was too young to assume the responsibilities of kingship, so his mother, Ahhotep I, stepped up as regent.  Seqenenre Tao II’s widow exhibited as much vigor as her husband, acting as both ruler and commander-in-chief.  She held the pact together, quelling or expelling rebellious elements and maintaining a decade-long détente with Khamudi while Ahmose I came of age.  

Pharaoh Ahmose I (Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts)

But the cessation of hostilities would not last, and on assumption of his sole rulership, Ahmose I initiated the final drive against the Hyksos.  Some sources place the date in Ahmose I’s eleventh regnal year, while others contend it was Khamudi’s eleventh year, but either way it was roughly a decade after the deaths of Apepi and Seqenenre Tao II.

Seqenenre’s heir would not only finish the work of his predecessors, he would found one of the most celebrated dynasties of Egypt and help establish Amun as King of the Gods.   

The New Kingdom

Ahmose defeating the Hyksos

It is not certain what prompted Ahmose I to launch his campaign against Khamudi other than a general desire to expel the Hyksos from Egypt.  No specific event seems to precipitate his decision to go on the offense, and the level of strategy he employed argues against a heated reaction to some slight.  Ahmose I initiated a well-planned assault aimed at isolating Avaris, driving out the occupiers, and sweeping up behind them.   

Ahmose I’s assault on Lower Egypt was in many ways the opposite of Kamose’s, which had the feel of a war of opportunity with no real forethought.  Rather than plundering his way down to Avaris and laying siege with no thought given to what next, Ahmose’s fleet sailed past Memphis and seized Heliopolis.  This was in July, ahead of the inundation of the Nile.  He then bivouacked there for three months, waiting out the flood season.   

In mid-October, with the waters of the Nile back within her banks, Ahmose I took his fleet north, this time bypassing Avaris to attack Tjaru.  Tjaru was the gateway to the Sinai, an important fortress along the Horus Road that connected Egypt to the East.  By controlling access to the Horus Road, Ahmose I deprived the Hyksos of any aid Canaan and Palestine might have sent, and likewise prevented any large-scale retreat across the Sinai.   

With Avaris sealed off at Tjaru and Heliopolis, Ahmose I was ready to lay siege to the Hyksos capital.  The account of one of Ahmose I’s top soldiers, also named Ahmose (son of Ebana), details an initial battle followed by a protracted siege and numerous skirmishes on land and water.  Khamudi had taken advantage of the years of relative peace to fortify the city and her walls which frustrated Ahmose’s attempts to enter the city.   

From better days--Bronze dagger with Apepi's name (Photo by Udimu)

But while the city had grown strong during the decade between Kamose and Ahmose I, the Hyksos military had grown weak in a way that left them vulnerable in battle.  During the Second Intermediate Period both the Egyptians and the Hyksos used weapons made of a tin and bronze alloy.  By the time of the battle with Ahmose I, the Hyksos had begun using unalloyed copper for their weapons, which looked attractive but did not hold as good an edge as the tin bronze, which the Thebans had retained (Bourriau, p. 124).   

The superior defenses of the Hyksos and the superior weapons of the Thebans seem to have cancelled each other out, and the long siege may have compelled Ahmose I to offer terms to the Hyksos.  According to Josephus’ version of Manetho’s account of the siege, Ahmose I and Khamudi negotiated a surrender that allowed the Hyksos to depart peacefully, with the same terms being extended to Memphis.   

Evidence from Avaris itself tends to confirm this picture of mass exodus rather than slaughter after Ahmose’s victory.  A clear cultural break is visible between the latest Hyksos stratum and that of the earliest Eighteenth Dynasty all over the site, largely because of the appearance of a new ceramic repertoire.  The same phenomenon appears also at Memphis.  (Bourriau, p. 214)   

In other words, the Hyksos left and took what they could carry with them, with no signs of a Theban coup de grâce, and no signs of a mixed Egyptian/Hyksos populace after the siege.  As the Hyksos departed Ahmose I seems to have followed them into Palestine, not in pursuit, but rather as more of a land grab.  With the Hyksos out of power he probably found their allied towns easy picking, and pushed as far east as Sharuhen before turning his attention back to internal affairs.   

Ahmose I next took his fleet south to the second cataract to finish off the Nubians who had allied with the Hyksos, after which there were two small uprisings he had to put down.  The first came from a Nubian leader named Aata who was launching raids from the north.  Aata and his men were most likely remnants of the Nubians the Hyksos had employed to defend Memphis and Avaris, doing what recently unemployed soldiers tended to do—loot.  The second was an Egyptian named Teti-an, who led his own band of disenfranchised malcontents.   

With the land once again reunited under a Theban crown, Ahmose I then concerned himself with healing the kingdom.  He launched a program of temple building and restoration after reopening the quarries at Tura.  He also reopened the copper mines at Sinai and the trade routes with the Syrians.  Having Nubia under his control also meant gold was again flowing into the royal coffers.    

The future of the dynasty--Ahmose Nefertari and Amenhotep I

On the political front, Ahmose I was planning for the future of his dynasty.  Following in the footsteps of Seqenenre Tao II, Ahmose I laid out a plan whereby access to the throne would be limited to his immediate family and their offspring.  This was achieved by refusing to allow royal princesses to marry anyone other than their royal brothers.  Kings were free to marry whoever they wished, but this system of interfamilial marriage for daughters meant nobody could marry their way to the throne.   

Ahmose I’s plan of insulating the throne via incest would last no more than a few generations, but another of his institutions would survive well into the Late Period—the God’s Wife of Amun.  Thebes had remained true to Amun after the Middle Kingdom collapsed, calling upon his protection throughout the occupation and resistance, and tying their dynasty to his favor as the New Kingdom was born.    

Amun - King of the Gods

In the eyes of Egypt, Amun had rewarded Thebes with victory, he had become the god of the oppressed, the god of the underdog, the god of the people.  There would still be a place for Montu in the pantheon, but from the Eighteenth Dynasty forward, Amun in one form or another would remain King of the Gods.   

There was, of course, an exception.  But we are still a while off from dealing with him.   

Next in this series:  The God’s Wives of Amun – Royal Women and Power Politics in the Eighteenth Dynasty

Works Cited

Bourriau, Janine.  ”The Second Intermediate Period.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  184-217.   

Callender, Gae.  ”The Middle Kingdom Renaissance.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  148-83.   

Miller, Wm. Max.  Online:  The Theban Mummy Project:  Seqnenre-Taa II   

Seidlmayer, Stephan.  ”The First Intermediate Period.”  The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.  118-47.   

Wente, Edward F., trans.  “The Quarrel of Apophis and Sekenenre.”  The Literature of Ancient Egypt.  New Haven and London:  Yale UP, 1973.  77.  Online:  Pharaonic Egypt:  The Quarrel of Apophis and Sekenenre   

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.   

Photographs “AhmoseI-StatueHead MetropolitanMuseum” and “ScarabBearingNameOfApophis MuseumOfFineArtsBoston” by Keith Schengili-Roberts are used in accordance with the Creative Commons 2.5 Generic License.  Photographs “Funerary stele of Intef II” by David Liam Moran.  Photographs “dagger with Apepi’s name” by Udimu, and “2e-stele-Kamose” and “Sarcophage-Kamose” by Kurohito are used in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License.  The original graphics “Montu”,  “Amun”, “Mut”, “Osiris”, and “Set” are by Jeff Dahl and were altered and used by Keith Payne in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License.  Photographs “Mentuhotep II”, “Sequenre tao”, “Ahmose-Nefertari I”, “Amun”, and “ahmosedefeatingHyksos” are in the public domain.

Eighteenth Dynasty

The Egyptian Renaissance and the Dynasty of Celebrities

1550 to 1295 BC

The Eighteenth Dynasty marked a period of high culture, religious ideologies, political intrigue, and dynastic dramas.  The capitol is Memphis, with the religious center at Thebes, but the entire order is upset by Amenhotep IV, popularly known as Akhenaten, who changes the state religion and moves the capitol to Amarna.  His revolution is almost immediately reversed after his death.  Other luminaries include Ahmose I, Hatshepsut the Female Pharaoh, Tutankhamun, and Horemheb.