Tiye
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Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tiy and Teje) was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu and the chief Queen of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III and matriarch of the Amarna family. Tiye’s father, Yuya, was probably a native Egyptian nobleman from the Upper Egyptian town of Min where he served as a Priest and superintendent of oxen there. In the past some scholars maintained that she was of Asiatic descent due to the features of Yuya's mummy and the many different spellings of his name, which might imply it was a non-Egyptian name in origin.[1] Amenhotep III was married to Tiye by the second year of his reign.[2] They had at least six children, one of whom, Akhenaten, went on to become pharaoh. Tiye herself had one known brother: Anen who served as the second prophet of Amun during her husband's reign.
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[edit] Monuments
Amenhotep III lavished a good deal of attention on his charming wife which was unprecedented since no previous Egyptian queen appeared so openly during her husband's own rule.[3] Tiye regularly appears beside Amenhotep III in statues, tomb and temple reliefs as well as royal stelas while her name is paired with her husband's on many small objects including commemorative scarabs.[4] Her husband devoted a number of shrines to her and constructed a temple dedicated to her in Sedeinga in Nubia where she was worshipped as a form of the god Hathor[5] and even an artificial lake in his Year 12.[6] As the American Egyptologists David O'Connor and Eric Cline note:
- The unprecedented thing about Tiyi...is not where she came from but what she became. No previous queen ever figured so prominently in her husband's lifetime. Tiyi regularly appeared besides Amenhotep III in statuary, tomb and temple reliefs, and stelae while her name is paired with his on numerous small objects, such as vessels and jewelry, not to mention the large commemorative scarabs, where her name regularly follows his in the dateline. New elements in her portraiture, such as the addition of cows' horns and sun disks – attributes of the goddess Hathor – to her headdress, and her representation in the form of a sphinx – an image formerly reserved for the king – emphasize her role as the king's divine, as well as earthly partner. Amenhotep III built a temple to her in Sedeinga in northern Sudan, where she was worshiped as a form of Hathor...The temple at Sedeinga was the pendant to Amenhotep III's own, larger temple at Soleb, fifteen kilometres to the south (an arrangement followed a century later by Ramses II at Abu Simbel, where there are likewise two temples, the larger southern temple dedicated to the king, and the smaller, northern temple dedicated to the queen, Nefertiry, as Hathor).[7]
Her son Akhenaten built a sumptuous shrine for her during his reign.
[edit] Influence at court
| Tiye in hieroglyphs |
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Tiye enjoyed a good deal of power during both her husband’s and son’s reigns. Amenhotep III, was a fine sportsman, a lover of outdoor life, and a great statesman. He often balanced the claims for Egypt's gold and for his daughters' hand in marriage from foreign kings such as Tushratta of Mitanni and Kadashman-Enlil I of Babylon. Tiye was her husband’s trusted advisor and confidant, who played an active role in foreign relations, and was the first Egyptian queen to have her name recorded on official cats.
She continued to advise Akhenaten when he took the throne. Her son’s correspondence with Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, speaks highly of the political influence which Tiye wielded at court. In Amarna letter EA 26, king Tushratta to Mitanni personally corresponded to Tiye herself to reminisce about the good relations which he enjoyed with her now deceased husband and his wish to continue on friendly terms with her son, Akhenaten.[8]
Amenhotep III died in Year 38 or Year 39 of his reign (1353 BC/1350 BC) and was buried in the Valley of the Kings in WV22. However, Tiye is known to have outlived him for as long as 12 years after his death. Tiye was still mentioned in the Amarna letters and in inscriptions as queen and beloved of the king. Amarna letter EA 26 which is addressed to Tiye dates to the reign of Akhenaten. She is known to have had a house at Amarna, Akhenaten's new capital and is shown on the tomb walls of the tomb of Huya – a "steward in the house of the king's mother, the great royal wife Tiyi" – at a dinner table with Akhenaten and family and then being escorted by the king to her "sunshade."[9] In an inscription dated to approximately November 21 of Year 12 of Akhenaten's reign (1338 BC), both she and her granddaughter Meketaten are mentioned for the last time. They are thought to have died shortly after that date.
In 1898, Victor Loret discovered a mummy of a pharaoh that is believed to have been Amenhotep III. Alongside it was the mummy of an "Elder Lady." The identification of the "Elder Lady" as Tiye has found considerable support among scholars but an examination of the mummy is inconclusive in terms of its age. A lock of Tiye's hair was found in a nest of miniature coffins in Tutankhamun's tomb which is explicitly stated as belonging to Tiye.[10]
If Tiye died soon after Year 12 of Akhenaten's reign (1338 BC), this would place her birth around 1398 BC, her marriage to Amenhotep III at the age of eleven or twelve and her becoming a widow at the age of forty-eight to forty-nine years old. Suggestions of a co-regency between Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten lasting for up to twelve years continue but most scholars today either accept a brief coregency lasting no more than one year at the most[11] or no coregency at all.[12]
[edit] Burial
Tiye is believed to have been buried in Akhenaten's royal tomb at Amarna alongside her son and granddaughter Meketaten, as a fragment from the tomb was not long ago identified as being from her sarcophagus. Her gilded burial shrine (showing her with Akhenaten) ended up in KV55 while shabtis belonging to her were found in Amenhotep III's WV22 tomb.[13] Whether or not she was actually buried in either of these tombs is not known. In the tomb KV35, a mummy known as the Elder Lady has been tentatively identified as hers. The British scholars Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton state, however, that "it seems very unlikely that her mummy could be the so-called 'Elder Lady' in the tomb of Amenhotep II."[14]
[edit] References
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign, University of Michigan, 1998, p.5
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.5
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.6
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.6
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.6
- ^ Arielle Kozloff & Betsy Bryan, "Royal and Divine Statuary" in Egypt’s Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and his World, Cleveland: 1992, no.2
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., pp.6-7
- ^ [1] EA 26 - A Letter from Tushratta to Tiye
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.23
- ^ Dodson & Hilton, The Royal Families of Ancient Egypt p.157
- ^ Nicholas Reeves, Akhenaten: The False Prophet, pp.75-78
- ^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, op. cit., p.23
- ^ Dodson & Hilton, op. cit., p.157
- ^ Dodson & Hilton, op. cit., p.157
