Ay

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For other uses, see AY.

Persondata
NAME	Ay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Aya, Aye
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Pharaoh of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH	{{{Birth}}}
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ancient Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	{{{Death}}}
PLACE OF DEATH	Ancient Egypt

Preceded by:
Tutankhamun

Pharaoh of Egypt
18th Dynasty

Succeeded by:
Horemheb

Aya, Aye

Portrait study thought to be of Ay, part of the Ägyptisches Museum collection in Berlin

Reign

1324–1320 BC or
1327–1323 BC

Praenomen

Kheperkheperure–Irimaat
Everlasting are the Manifestations of Re,
who does what is right

Nomen

Itinetjer Ay
God's father, Ay

Horus name

Kanakht Tekhenkhau
The strong bull,
the one of glittering crowns

Nebty name

Sekhempehti dersetet
Who is mighty of strength,
who subdues the Asiatics

Golden Horus

Heqamaat sekhepertawy
The ruler of truth,
who creates the two lands

Consort(s)

Tey and Ankhesenamun

Issues

Possibly Nefertiti and
Mutnedjmet

Died

1320 BC or 1323 BC

Burial

WV23

Major
Monuments

Amarna Tomb

Ay was the penultimate Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period (probably 1324–1320 BC or 1327–1323 BC, depending on which chronology is followed), although he was a close advisor to two and perhaps three of the pharaohs who ruled before him and was the power behind the throne during Tutankhamun's reign. Ay's prenomen or royal name--Kheperkheperure--means "Everlasting are the Manifestations of Re" while his birth name Ay it-hetjer reads as 'Ay, Father of the God.'^[1]

1 Origins
2 Amarna Period
- 2.1 Titles
3 Tutankhamun
4 Rule as Pharaoh
5 Succession
6 Aftermath
7 In Fiction
8 References
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Origins

Ay is believed to be a native Egyptian from Akhmim. During his short reign, he built a rock cut chapel in Akhmim and dedicated it to the local deity there: Min.^[2] He may have been the son of Yuya, who served as a member of the priesthood of Min at Akhmin as well as superintendent of herds in this city.^[3] If so, Ay could have been of partial non-Egyptian, perhaps Semitic or Mitannian, blood since the name Yuya was uncommon in Egypt and is suggestive of a foreign background.^[4] Yuya was an influential nobleman at the royal court of Amenhotep III who was given the rare privilege of having a tomb built for his use in the royal Valley of the Kings presumably because he was the father of Tiye, Amenhotep's chief Queen.

[edit] Amarna Period

Born a commoner, Ay managed to rise through the hierarchy of Egyptian society under the "heretical" Pharaoh Akhenaten. One version of events maintains that he and his wife Tey were the parents of Akhenaten's chief wife, Nefertiti and that another of their daughters, Mutnedjmet, was the wife and queen of Horemheb, Ay's successor. Another version suggests that he was the son of Yuya and Tjuyu, thus being a brother or half-brother of Tiy, brother-in-law of Amenhotep III and maternal uncle of Akhenaten.

The two theories are not mutually exclusive, but either relationship would explain the exalted status to which Ay rose (see below), during Akhenaten's Amarna interlude, when the royal family turned their backs on Egypt's traditional gods and experimented, for a dozen years or so, with monotheism – an experiment that, whether out of conviction or convenience, Ay appears to have followed under the reign of Akhenaten.

[edit] Titles

In his Amarna tomb, Ay's titles are give as Companion, Head of the Companions of the King, Father of the Divinity, Bearer of the fan on the right hand side of the King, Acting Scribe of the King, beloved by him, and Overseer of all the horses of the King. Some of these titles are purely standardised noble ones, but the 'Bearer of the fan on the right hand side of the King' is a very important position, and is viewed as showing that the bearer had the 'ear' of the ruler.

[edit] Tutankhamun

Ay's reign was preceded by that of Tutankhamun, who ascended to the throne at the age of nine or ten, at a time of great tension between the new monotheism and the old polytheism. He was assisted in his kingly duties by his predecessor's two closest advisors: Grand Vizier Ay and General of the Armies Horemheb. Tutankhamun's nine-year reign, largely under Ay's direction, saw the gradual return of the old gods – and, with that, the restoration of the power of the Amun priesthood, who had lost their influence over Egypt under Akhenaten.

Some writers, notably Egyptologist Bob Brier have suggested that Ay murdered Tutankhamun in order to usurp the throne, which was based on X-ray examinations of the body done in 1968 that found bone fragments inside Tutankhamun's skull.^[5] This theory is not accepted by all scholars, since more sophisticated CT-scans of the mummy undertaken by National Geographic in 2005 found that Tutankhamun did not die from a blow to his head as Brier had theorised, and presented a new theory that he died from an infection caused by a badly broken leg.^[6] At the time when the results of the CT-Scan examination have been published, many scientists accepted its findings, but after more detailed reviews and evidence, some believe the mystery of Tutankhamun's death is far from solved and continue to support the older murder theory. There are books that have subsequently been published that adhere to the original murder theory and dispute the conclusions reached by the CT-Scan team, though also citing other means of murder, such as poisoning.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Rule as Pharaoh

Tutankhamun's untimely death at the age of 18 or 19, together with his failure to produce an heir, left a power vacuum that his Grand Vizier Ay was quick to fill: Ay is depicted conducting the funerary rites for the deceased monarch and assuming the role of heir. The grounds on which Ay based his successful claim to power are not entirely clear. Some scolars believe that he was responsible for Tutankhamun's demise. The Commander of the Army, Horemheb, had actually been designated as the "idnw" or "Deputy of the Lord of the Two Lands" under Tutankhamun and was presumed to be the boy king's heir apparent and successor.^[7] It appears that Horemheb was outmaneuvered to the throne by the wily Ay who married Ankhesenamun to legitimise his claim to the throne. Ay was certainly a powerful figure: he was close to the centre of political power at the royal palace for some 25 years under both Tutankhamun and Akhenaten. But this was probably still not enough, however, to legitimize his claims to the throne in the highly hierarchical society of Ancient Egypt, if he was of non-royal birth especially at a time of domestic upheaval without his marriage to Tutankhamun's widow. Since he was already advanced in age upon his accession, Ay ruled Egypt in his own right for only four years. During this period, he consolidated the return to the old religious ways that he had initiated as senior advisor and constructed a mortuary temple at Medinet Habu for his own use. A stela of Nakhtmin (Berlin 2074), a military officer under Tutankhamun and Ay--who was Ay's chosen successor--is dated to Year 4, IV Akhet day 1 of Ay's reign. (Urk IV: 2110)

[edit] Succession

After his death, Ay planned for Nakhtmin to be his successor. However, Ay's plan went awry as Horemheb rose to become the last king of Egypt's 18th Dynasty instead. The fact that Nakhtmin was Ay's intended heir is strongly implied by an inscription carved on a dyad funerary statue of Nakhtmin and his spouse which was presumably made during Ay's reign. Nakhtmin is clearly given the titles rpat (Crown Prince) and zA nzw (King's Son).^[8] The only conclusion which can be drawn here is that Nakhtmin was a son or an adopted son of Ay and that Ay was grooming Nakhtmin for the succession instead of Horemheb. Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton observe that the aforementioned statue:

"is broken after the signs for 'King's Son of', and there has been considerable debate as to whether it continued to say 'Kush', making Nakhtmin a Viceroy of Nubia, or 'of his body', making him an actual royal son. Since there is no other evidence for Nakhtmin as a Viceroy--with another man [Paser I][2]attested in office at this period as well--the latter suggestion seems the most likely. As Nakhtmin donated items to the burial of Tutankhamun without such a title, it follows that he only became a King's Son subsequently, presumably under Ay. This theory is supported by the evidence of intentional damage to Nakhtmin's statue, since Ay was amongst the Amarna pharaohs whose memories were execrated under later rulers.^[9]

[edit] Aftermath

It appears that one of Horemheb's undertakings as Pharaoh was to eliminate all references to the monotheistic experiment, a process that included expunging the name of his immediate predecessors – especially Ay – from the historical record. Horemheb desecrated Ay's burial and had most of Ay's royal cartouches in his WV23 Tomb Wall paintings erased while his sarcophagus was smashed into numerous fragments.^[10] However, the sarcophagus lid was discovered in 1972 by Otto Schaden--the US Egyptologist who opened Tomb KV63 in the Valley of the Kings in 2006--and still preserved Ay's cartouche; it had been buried under debris in this king's tomb.^[11] Horemheb also usurped Ay's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu for his own use. Uvo Hölscher (1878-1963) who excavated the temple in the early 1930s provides these details concerning the state of Ay-Horemheb's mortuary temple:

'Wherever a cartouche has been preserved, the name of Eye [ie: Ay] has been erased and replaced by that of his successor Harmhab. In all but a single instance had it been overlooked and no change made. Thus the temple, which Eye had begun and finished, at least in the rear rooms with their fine paintings, was usurped by his successor and was thenceforth known as the temple of Harmhab. Seals on stoppers of wine jars from the temple magazines read: "Wine from the temple of Harmhab."'^[12]

[edit] In Fiction

Ay appears as a major character in P.C. Doherty's trilogy of Ancient Egyptian novels, An Evil Spirit Out of the West, "The Season of the Hyaena" and "The Year of the Cobra".

[edit] References

^ Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. p.136
^ [1]
^ Egypt during the reign of Akhenaton
^ Yuya's name was analysed by G. Maspero in "The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou" by Theodore M. Davis, Archibald Constable and Co. Ltd, 1907, pp.xiii-xiv
^ Hawass, Zahi. "Scanning Tutankhamun", KMT. Volume 16, Number 2. p.33. Summer 2005.
^ Hawass, Zahi. "Scanning Tutankhamun", KMT. Volume 16, Number 2. p.34. Summer 2005.
^ Peter J. Brand, The Monuments of Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical and Art Historical Analysis, Brill, NV Leiden, (2000), p.311
^ Wolfgang Helck, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie: Texte der Hefte 20-21 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1984), pp.1908-1910
^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, (2004), p.151
^ Bertha Porter, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyph Texts, Vol 1, Part 2, Oxford Clarendon Press, (1960), Tomb 23, pp.550-551
^ Otto Schaden, Clearance of the Tomb of King Ay (WV 23), JARCE 21(1984) pp.39-64
^ Uvo Hölscher, Excavations at Ancient Thebes 1930/31, p. 50-51