as the reign and influence of queen hatasu or hatshepsut included, in part as those of her father and two brothers, so did that of queen tyi those of husband and son. the fair young girl who had left her own country with high hopes and aspirations had crystallized into the determined woman, who bent all the energies of a strong nature to the accomplishment of her wishes and purposes. the religion of her fore-fathers was no longer kept in the background. she inspired her son with the zeal of an apostle or a fanatic, as we may choose to consider it, and the king devoted his life to upturning the old order of things and an endeavor to establish the new. his father had shown much deference to his wife’s religious faith. in the new festival, instituted in his honor, that of the solar disk, on the 16th of athyr (october 4th), a prominent place had been assigned in the procession to the boat of the sun “aten-ne-fru.” he also put the disk on the head of his crlo-sphinxes and on the statues of the goddesses pasht and sekhet; but all this was, in a measure, tentative.
[175]
it remained for amenophis iv, who was by early writers numbered among the stranger kings, till his true paternity was discovered and now styled himself “akhenaten” of “khu-n-aten,” worshipper of the (sun’s disk) to proclaim openly his mother’s faith. it has been suggested that his aim was to provide a god visible to all the people of his extensive empire, and who could be worshipped in common by all, or jealousy between the priests of heliopolis and those of thebes may have been another ingredient in the mixed and vexed problem. beside his father’s great temple at luxor he erected a sanctuary of the sun, and in various places the name of amon was obliterated.
whatever the subsequent history of queen tyi’s other children, it was to the eldest son that the mother evidently clung, and we may perhaps believe that he, chiefly of them all, shared her views and opinions. on slips from toilette boxes, etc., are found the names of the princesses sat-amen, hent-mer-hab and ast; there was also a son, with the family name of tahutmes. bekaten is by some believed to be the youngest and favorite daughter of tyi, by others to be her grand-daughter, the child of amenophis iv, who is thought to have married before his father’s death. at somma is a group of the king and tyi. at qurneh a funeral temple north of ramesseum, rearranged by amenhotep iii for his daughter sit-amen, which proves that this child, at least, died before the father. another inscription read, “amen’nekht, princess, prays with her mother, before[176] amenhotep iii, because he praises her beautiful face and honors her beauty.” some of the children probably died young, some may have married and gone elsewhere, but the eldest, the father’s successor, had both the will and the power to plant the new faith, and with him queen tyi’s later life seems closely associated.
as the character of this prince has afforded historians much ground for speculation, so do the presentments that remain of him. no cartoon in punch could more ludicrously caricature the human face than do the pictures that are preserved of king khu-n-aten. yet in their ghastly ugliness they still retain the conventional type. many writers seem to consider them as reliable as other likenesses, and attribute the protruding lips and attenuated mis-shapen proportions to heredity, some ancestor of negro blood, or the results of ill health. others offer no explanation. it seems impossible that any reigning king (and in no period of egyptian history does the monarch appear to be more autocratic than at this time) should have permitted such portraits of himself to remain to posterity. he was the son of handsome parents. it is possible that the conventional type was considered so beautiful that no deviation which yet preserved the general outline could mar it? or perchance is there another solution. the king forced upon the country a religion abhorrent to the priests, to the majority of the people, and to his successors, who soon returned to the polytheistic faith and worship of earlier centuries, and who might well have taken pleasure[177] in caricaturing and handing down to their descendants a garbled picture of the hated monarch, iconoclast as he seemed to them, reformer as he doubtless appeared in the eyes of his mother and all the converts to the worship of the sun. the slanting forehead, the long thin nose, the protruding, flexible mouth, the serpent-like neck and the ungainly proportions of the figure are little calculated to attract admiration.
a parallel to this might perhaps be found in the case of richard iii of england, who, as he was a monster of wickedness, must needs be a monster of ugliness as well, and whose personal defects have been exaggerated by limner and scribe until his traditional semblance is that of a dwarfish fiend.
says curtis, “the old egyptian artist was as sure of his hand and eye as the french artist who cut his pupil’s paper with his thumb nail to indicate that the line should run so and not otherwise. the coloring is rude and inexpressive, the drawing of the human figure conventional, for the church or the priests ordained how the human form should be drawn. later the church and priests ordained how the human form should be governed. yet, o sumptuous scarlet queen sitting on seven hills, you were generous to art, while you were wronging nature.”
khu-n-aten or akhenaten married, however, and probably in youth, as he was the father of quite a large family. his wife is spoken of as the daughter of dushratta and may have been the grand-daughter of an egyptian king, her mother[178] having married a syrian prince. dushratta, writing to queen tyi, before amenophis iv took up affairs, greets tadekhipa, his daughter, tyi’s daughter-in-law. as seems to have been the custom, she changed her name on coming to egypt and is known as aten’neferu,’ nefertiti, or nefertity. she was always closely associated with the king and there seems no mention of other wives or connections of any kind. she doubtless shared or was a convert to his faith and we may judge its enthusiastic supporter.
queen tyi appears to have remained in thebes while the king and his wife went to superintend the building of the temple, palaces, etc., of the new city which khu-n-aten had resolved to build and make his royal residence. angry blood rose between him, his priests and his people, but he was dictator, he would no longer dwell among them, but in a new and richly adorned city, worthy of the faith which he held, and whose building should equal or surpass older monuments. he issued a command to obliterate from the tombs of his ancestors the names of the god amon and the goddess mut. this fanned the smouldering discontent into flames and open rebellion broke out. against amon the king seemed to hold a particular spite, and around the shrine of this god priests and followers mustered their forces.
but although the king abandoned thebes, he retained his power and was not overthrown. no council of priests or people brought him to trial, sent him into exile, or took his life. nor in turn[179] does he seem to have been severe or vengeful. no records remain, as is frequently the case in such instances, of barbarous punishments or cruel executions being meted out to the offenders. for the time being, if for that only, he was absolute and carried his point. he could afford to be generous.
the new capital was distant from both memphis and thebes, in middle egypt, and received the name of khu-a-ten, or as it is elsewhere given, khuteteyn, “the horizon of the sun,” the modern tel-el-amarna or el-amarna, the extensive ruins of which may yet be seen on both banks of the nile. like solomon in scripture, the potentate summoned to his assistance both artists and artizans, and the work was pressed with all possible vigor and speed. first the temple, then the palaces and homes of the nobility, lastly, in the neighborhood, their tombs. it is said that a revolution in art proceeded side by side with that in religion, an attempt was made to discard the older traditions and approximate more nearly to nature, and the specimen of these attempts at realism, to be found in the tombs, are of great interest. to this fact some authorities attribute the singular and disagreeable portraits of the king before referred to.
how deeply queen tyi’s heart was stirred and how keenly her feelings were concerned we may well conceive. the great enterprise was the development of her heart’s desire and every aid in her power she must have lent to the king’s assistance. remaining in the old city she could no[180] doubt expedite the sending of all sorts of supplies and materials required for the buildings and the private needs of her beloved son and his family.
architecture and sculpture were ever important in the eyes of the egyptian kings, and even the queens had their own sculptors and overseers of such work. timber was scarce, quarries of sandstone and limestone numerous, hence the more enduring was the commoner material, which has preserved to posterity much that, had the ancient world been constructed of our more perishable wood and brick, in all probability would have utterly passed away. some of the temples, as many of the tombs, of which those at beni hassan are an example, were in grottoes and caves, others stood alone in majestic grandeur; in all columns were used and the lotus was the prevailing ornament. says kendric, “as the columns of beni hassan gave rise to the doric, so those which imitate plants and flowers appear to be the origin of the corinthian. the ionian volute is found in the columns of persepolis, but in no egyptian monument. it was probably of assyrian origin, as it has been found in the remains of nineveh.”
an inscription at telel-amarna reads, “and for the first time the king gave the command to call together all the masons from the island of elephantine to the town of samud (special name for migdol in lower egypt) and the chiefs and the leaders of the people to open a great quarry of the hard stone for the erection of the great obelisk of har-makhu, by his name, as the god[181] of light, who is (worshipped) as the sun’s disk in thebes. thither came the great and noble lords and the chief of the fan-bearers, to superintend the cutting and shipping of the stone.” brugsch tells us that the stone quarry of assoan and the cliffs of silsilis on each side of the river furnished, the former rose and black granite, and the latter hard brown sandstone for this work. he also thinks that king khu-n-aten designed to build in thebes a gigantic pyramid of this same stone to the honor of his god.
not far from the nile, in the new city, rose the great temple of the sun. it was on a wide plain, the mountains rising behind it as says the same author, “like an encompassing wall.” the king also bestowed great honor upon his chief overseers and helpers, who accepted the new faith and entered into the work with real or assumed enthusiasm.
one named meri-ra or mery-re “dear to the sun” was high-priest or prophet, the pharaoh bestowing upon him words of praise and commendation and investing him with that special kingly reward, a golden necklace. his tomb at tel el amarna is one of the most interesting and largest that have been found. it is supported by columns and on its walls are depicted many scenes giving portraits of the deceased and his wife, the king and queen making offerings to the sun, the princesses and others. and it is here that is found the picture of the bestowal of the golden necklace.
a certain aahmes, one of the many, for this seems long to have been a favorite name in egypt,[182] was another highly valued assistant and among the sepulchral inscriptions found at tel-el-amarna was a prayer to the son written by him. beginning with ascription, it reads, “beautiful is thy setting thou son’s disk of life, thou lord of lords and king of worlds,” and ending with professions of devotion to the king, as his “divine benefactor,” who had raised him to greatness, which naturally perhaps appears to have produced a very pleasing state of mind, for he concludes “the servant of the prince rejoices and is in a festive disposition every day.”
at this time there were at least several grandchildren of queen tyi, as special houses were prepared for them in connection with the palace. we can therefore imagine the impatience with which the dowager queen awaited the time for her journey to the new city and rejoining her loved ones, and couriers were doubtless busy, passing back and forth, with orders and directions from the king, as well as messages of affection to his mother, which were returned in full measure. it seems almost as if it might be at his special desire that she remained in thebes, to lend him, as before said, all the aid in her power towards the completion of his work and that he might have the satisfaction of welcoming her to his new capital in a nearly completed state. she may also have acted to some extent as regent in his absence.
her time of anticipation therefore must have endured for some years, since the erection of buildings of such magnitude could not have been[183] accomplished in a very short period, no matter what the expedition used for the purpose. this second journey may well have reminded queen tyi of an earlier one she had taken in her youth, from her far native land, as the wife or the affianced bride of amenophis iii. that had been the seed-time, the sowing of which had produced such great fruits. again she went forward attended by a large retinue, but now it was not to a land of promise, but one of fulfilment.
the king and his wife met the dowager queen after their long separation with all honor and affection, and themselves conducted her into the new temple. a picture of this scene, which remains, is thus inscribed, “introduction of the queen mother to behold her sun shadow,” and very happy she must have felt in thus viewing the visible tokens of the realization of the dreams, hopes and prayers of many years. she must inspect the temple, the palaces of the king, queen and the various princesses, as well as the dwelling prepared for herself, and no doubt be made acquainted with the chief overseers and artists whom “the king delighted to honor,” and under whose charge the work had so prospered. the private houses were probably varied in color and frequently decorated on the outside with pictures of the occupations or professions of the owners. beyond, some such scene as this, an immense meadow cut through with a blue stream, north and south, white walls of towns, on the horizons rim the reddish sands of the desert. the myth they believed in was this, “osiris fell in love with[184] this strip of land in the midst of deserts. he covered it with plants and living creatures, so as to have from them profit. then the kindly god took a human form and became the first pharaoh. when he felt that his body was withering he left it and entered into his son and later into his son’s son. the lord has extended like a mighty tree. all the pharaohs are his roots, the nomarks and priests his larger branches, the nobles the smaller branches. the visible god sits on the throne of the earth and receives the income which belongs to him from egypt; the invisible god receives offerings in his temples and declares his will through the lips of the priesthood.”
it was a joyful reunion, this of the elder queen with her son and his family, an occasion never to be forgotten in their domestic annals, and we may imagine how the story was handed down from generation to generation. the day when grandmother, or great-grandmother came and saw the new temple and new city. loved and honored queen tyi probably settled down with or near her son and his wife, enjoying to the full the kindly family life and seeing as had her mother-in-law before her the grandchildren gather around. perhaps she regretted that no son was born to succeed his father, for king khu-n-aten had daughters only, but her life had been a full and happy one and she had enjoyed the blessing, accorded to but few, of seeing her heart’s dearest wishes fulfilled. what more could she ask?
whether she passed away in khu-aten, or tel-el-amarna, we do not know, but if the former[185] was the case a long mourning procession, attended with every honor, must have borne her inanimate form preserved in the highest style of the embalmer’s art, back to thebes, for there in the tombs of the queens her last resting place has been found. these tombs are at the end of a valley, which extends for nearly a mile to the west of the temple of medinet habu, that of tyi is said to be among the most perfect. the valley which leads to the tombs has bare and lofty limestone cliffs on either side, which are covered with inscriptions; it is not so familiar as some other places in egypt, not being very easy of access. more than twenty tombs in various stages of completion have been discovered, some of them mere caves with their records often made not in the solid stone, but in plaster. queen tyi’s tomb consists of an ante-chamber, passages, a chapel, and small chambers, all more or less decorated with paintings. at the entrance, on either side, is maat, the goddess of truth, with extended wings, to protect those who come in. there are various pictures of the gods and of queen tyi, in one of which she prays to them, seated at a banquet table.
of these tombs curtis says, “the sculpture and paintings are gracious and simple. they are not graceful, but suggest the grace and repose which the ideal of female life requires. in the graceful largeness and simplicity of the character of the decoration it seems as if the secret or reverence for womanly character and influence, which was to be later revealed was instinctively suggested[186] by those who knew them not. the cheerful yellow hues of the walls and their exposure to the day, the warm silence of the hills, seclusion, and the rich luminous landscape in the vista of the steep valley, make these tombs pleasant pavilions of memory.”
