During the Middle Kingdom Period, having a daughter appointed as a God’s Wife in your local temple meant that you were a member of the upper crust of Egyptian society. But at the dawn of the New Kingdom, Pharaoh Ahmose I drafted a legal contract that made the God’s Wife of Amun arguably the second most powerful person in the kingdom. Before all was said and done, one God’s Wife would use the office to become the most powerful person in the kingdom.
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…
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: Ahhotep I, Ahmose I, Ahmose-Nefertari, Amun, Benefactor Stele, Donation Stele, Eighteenth Dynasty, Gods Wife of Amun, House of the Adoratrice, Karnak, Khabekhnet, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Second Intermediate Period, Second Priesthood of Amun, Seventeenth Dynasty, Tempest Stele, Thebes
The story of Amun’s rise to supremacy over the Egyptian pantheon is inseparable from the story of how Thebes rose from an insignificant speck on the map to the spiritual center of the Egyptian universe.
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.
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: Ahhotep I, Ahmose I, Amun, Apepi, Avaris, Eleventh Dynasty, Fifteenth Dynasty, First Intermediate Period, Gods Wife of Amun, Herakleopolis, Hyksos, Intef II, Kamose, Karnak, Khamudi, Mentuhotep II, Middle Kingdom, Montu, New Kingdom, Second Intermediate Period, Seqenenre Tao II, Sixteenth Dynasty, Thebes, Thirteenth Dynasty, Tjaru
If I were a stockbroker and Nefertiti was a commodity, I would be advising my clients to buy. Dr. Zahi Hawass’ last year with the Supreme Council of Antiquities promises to be an interesting one, with robots crawling the Great Pyramid, mummies in CT scanners, and rumors of KV64.
But somehow Nefertiti seems to keep slipping back into the story.
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: Altes Museum, Ankhesenamun, Bust of Nefertiti, Eighteenth Dynasty, Forensic Mummy Studies, Internal Ramp, Jean-Pierre Houdin, Khufu's Pyramid, KV64, Mummies, Mutnodjmet, Nefertiti, New Kingdom, Repatriation, Secret Doors, Supreme Council of Antiquities, The Great Pyramid, Tutankhamun, Zahi Hawass
