Lives of the Ancient Egyptians, page 24
77 | Bay
KINGMAKER
The sixty-seven-year reign of Ramesses II dominated the 19th Dynasty. While it had been a source of great stability at the time, its effect on later generations was seriously destabilizing, as a succession of either aged or immature kings followed. In such a situation, there was abundant scope for dynastic intrigue, for plots and counter-plots. The record of such events is, naturally, rather opaque, but it is clear that one man in particular took advantage of the circumstances to promote his own interests; his name was Bay.
During the reign of Seti II, Merenptah’s short-lived successor, Bay held the office of chancellor. His background is obscure, but he was possibly of Near Eastern origin. He was clearly an accomplished politician. He needed to be, since Seti II’s reign was far from trouble-free. In his second year on the throne, a usurper called Amenmesse was proclaimed king in the Nile Valley south of the Fayum, leaving Seti with effective authority over just the Delta and Memphite area. Amenmesse may have been Seti’s son who, frustrated at being passed over as heir apparent, decided to launch his own bid for power and oust his father in the process. He held out as king for nearly four years, before Seti II managed to restore royal authority throughout Egypt and its conquered territories. It is not clear what part, if any, Bay played in these events; even if he was not involved in Amenmesse’s coup, he evidently saw the damage that had been done to the authority of the monarchy and decided to exploit it for his own purposes.
Seti II’s restoration to full power was short-lived, as he died a year or so after ousting Amenmesse. The crown prince and legitimate heir had been Seti’s son Seti-Merenptah, but he was either dead already or unable to assert his rights to the succession in the face of powerful opponents. Leading the opposition camp was Bay. His preferred choice as the next king was a young prince called Siptah, very probably the son of Amenmesse; in texts at Aswan and Gebel el-Silsila, Bay boasted that he had ‘established the king in the seat of his father’. Bay’s candidate had good connections in Nubia, giving him access to its mineral wealth. Better still, as a mere child, he was ripe for manipulation by older, more experienced courtiers, and Bay fully intended to exert his own authority by ruling through the young king.
Siptah was duly proclaimed king, but power was exercised through a regency headed by Seti II’s widow, Tawosret. At least, this was the official version of events, but in reality Bay was the power behind the throne. He used his new-found power to the full, commissioning a tomb of regal proportions for himself in the Valley of the Kings. However, his influence at the heart of government did not last long. In the fifth year of Tawosret’s regency, she made her bid for full power, a decision which precipitated Bay’s downfall. He was executed on Tawosret’s orders and his name was systematically erased from the record, with the exception of an oblique reference to ‘the great enemy’. His tomb was never used.
A year or less later, Siptah himself was dead, still only in his teens. The counter-revolution was complete. The young king’s name was removed from his own unfinished tomb, and from Tawosret’s nearby sepulchre in the Valley of the Kings. She continued to rule as sole king, but the country was split asunder. Civil war ensued and order was only restored by the advent of a new strong-man, Sethnakht, the founder of the 20th Dynasty. He and his descendants wrote both Siptah and Tawosret out of history, regarding Seti II as the last legitimate king of the 19th Dynasty royal line. As for the king-maker Bay, history was even more damning: a 20th Dynasty source called him simply ‘the Syrian upstart’.
78 | Ramesses III
THE LAST GREAT KING OF EGYPT
Ramesses III has been called the last great pharaoh. Certainly, his thirty-one years on the throne of Egypt were not short of glories: temple building on a grand scale, epic military victories, expeditions to bring back exotic materials from distant lands. But the manner in which his reign came to an end – a court conspiracy, attempted assassination and untimely death – was less glorious, presaging the breakdown in central authority that was to characterize the Third Intermediate Period.
Ramesses was born in the dying days of the 19th Dynasty. His father, Sethnakht, was probably an army general, in charge of the troops garrisoned in the eastern Delta. In the aftermath of the troubled reigns of Siptah and Tawosret, the military class turned to Sethnakht as the man best able to restore stability. But he was already elderly. Effective power during his brief, two-year reign was therefore exercised by his son Ramesses, who, like his father, had probably started his career in the army.
When Ramesses himself acceded to the throne, he brought with him the promise a better future. Here was a vigorous and healthy king, to restore stability and glory to the Egyptian throne after a succession of weak and ineffectual rulers. He consciously modelled himself on Egypt’s last great king, Ramesses II, choosing a throne-name (Usermaatra-merya-mun) which deliberately recalled that of his illustrious predecessor (Usermaatra-setepenra). Ramesses III may perhaps have been the great-grandson of Ramesses II: he was certainly a ruler in the same mould. He named two of his sons after Ramesses II’s sons, even appointing them to the same offices as their forebears.
Just as Ramesses II had built a magnificent mortuary temple (the Ramesseum) on the west bank at Thebes, so Ramesses III set about doing the same. Proclaimed as ‘The Mansion of Millions of Years of King Ramesses, United With Eternity in the Estate of Amun’, the temple at Medinet Habu was to be the last great architectural achievement of the New Kingdom. Its massive pylons, two columned forecourts, hypostyle hall, and adjoining palace were all contained within a fortified enclosure wall. The gateway to the entire sacred space was modelled on a Syrian fortress (migdol), and the king reserved its upper chambers for his private use, decorating them with intimate scenes of himself and his wives.
The fact that Ramesses’ mortuary temple employed Syrian-inspired architectural motifs illustrates the cosmopolitan nature of his reign. Even his favourite wife Iset may have been of foreign origin. But Egypt’s foreign relations were not confined to cultural influences and diplomatic marriages. Peoples to the north, east and west were undergoing internal convulsions; restless foreign rulers and displaced people alike viewed Egypt’s legendary wealth with greedy eyes. Would the young king Ramesses III live up to the bravery and resolve of his famous forebear? His first five years on the throne passed in peace, but this was the calm before the storm. From the king’s fifth to eleventh years, Egypt suffered no fewer than three attempted invasions, testing its defences, and the king’s military leadership, to the limit.
The first attack was led by the Libu people of Cyrenaica (coastal Libya). It was swiftly countered but much worse was to come. In the king’s eighth year, Egypt faced one of the most dangerous situations it had ever known. Political and military unrest in the far-off Mycenaean world may have been the trigger: according to the Egyptian account, ‘the foreign countries plotted in their islands, and the people were dislodged and scattered by battle all at one time and no land could stand before their arms.’ The displacement of large numbers of people from the Aegean and Anatolia caused a massive population movement. The migrants, known collectively as the Sea Peoples, comprised at least nine distinct ethnic groups: Denyen (perhaps the Danaoi from mainland Greece), Ekwesh (Achaeans?), Lukka (Lycians), Peleset (Philistines), Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Tjeker (Teucrians?) and Weshesh. Together, they moved out from their homelands, through the eastern Mediterranean, ravaging coastal towns and cities, attacking Cilicia, Cyprus and Syria, and even destabilizing the once-mighty Hittite empire.
They pressed on towards Egypt; a land invasion, including women and children in carts, headed for Egypt’s northeastern frontier while a sea-borne force made for the Delta. On learning of the two-pronged invasion, Ramesses immediately sent orders to the frontier fortresses to stand firm and hold the enemy at bay until the main Egyptian army arrived. When the two forces met at the border, there was a mighty battle with massive loss of life; but the Egyptians prevailed. Attention now turned to the Delta coast. The enemy fleet made for the mouth of one of the Nile branches, no doubt intending to sail upstream to Memphis; but the Egyptians engaged them in the open sea, assisted by archers firing from the shoreline. At the end of the epic encounter, Egypt was victorious and Ramesses recorded the whole conflict in texts and images on the outer wall of his mortuary temple. The description of the battles is the longest surviving hieroglyphic inscription. Although Egypt secured its continued liberty and independence, routing the invaders, the effort placed great strains on the country and must have severely dented its confidence. Moreover, some of the Sea Peoples settled on the coastal plain of the Levant, uncomfortably close to Egypt, while others, notably Sherden, made their homes in the Nile Valley itself. The geo-politics of the Near East were changing, and nothing could stop the process.
Ramesses was eventually able to turn his attention to more peaceful activities, such as sending expeditions to distant lands to bring back precious materials for the royal treasury: myrrh and incense from Punt, copper from Timna, and turquoise from Sinai. The wealth generated by these missions was put to work in a new round of temple building, including at Karnak.
As he neared his thirtieth year on the throne, and the occasion of his jubilee festival, Ramesses III had proved himself a worthy successor of his hero Ramesses II, leading his people bravely and wisely in war and peace. But all was not well in the corridors of power. Just months before the jubilee, the necropolis workmen went on strike four times to demand their monthly wages in grain. The government, it seems, was too preoccupied with preparations for the forthcoming celebrations to meet its more mundane responsibilities. The jubilee itself passed off smoothly, but disguised the simmering resentment building at court. The cause of conflict was the ambition of one of Ramesses III’s wives, Tiye, to place her son, prince Pentweret, on the throne in place of his father. The plot to assassinate the king was hatched in the harem palace. Those involved included members of the king’s inner circle – such as the Chief of the Chamber, butlers, an Overseer of the Treasury and a commander of the army – as well as officials and others directly connected with the harem.
The coup plot was foiled, and Ramesses set up a high-level commission of enquiry to try the accused and carry out the sentences. The intention may have been to insulate the king from any further direct involvement. But it was to be Ramesses III’s last act, the exhortation ‘May all that they have done fall upon their heads’ his final royal command. The king died shortly afterwards, perhaps as a result of injuries sustained in the assassination attempt. With his death, the self-confident and secure model of kingship passed away too. Egypt would never fully regain its former glory.
79 | Ramessesnakht
HIGH PRIEST UNDER THE LATE RAMESSIDES
The remaining years of the 20th Dynasty following the death of Ramesses III were characterized by a swift succession of kings, as one heir after another succumbed after only a few years on the throne. Yet alongside and in contrast to this unsettling transience in the office of kingship, Egypt witnessed some remarkably lengthy and stable careers among the upper echelons of the administration. It was as if the mantle of national continuity had passed from the pharaoh to his high officials. One such man was the High Priest of Amun, Ramessesnakht.
Unusually for someone who was to become head of the all-powerful Amun priesthood, Ramessesnakht was not a Theban by birth. His family came from Hermopolis (ancient Khemnu) in Middle Egypt, where his father, Meribast, held a raft of important local offices. Ramessesnakht married a woman named Adjitsherit and started a family, before finally attaining high office in his thirties or forties, when he was promoted by Ramesses IV to the office of High Priest of Amun. The new king thereby signalled his independence, presumably passing over other, Theban candidates (who might have expected promotion) in favour of a talented outsider. Ramessesnakht swiftly assumed responsibility for matters far beyond his primary religious duties. In the third year of Ramesses IV’s reign, he was put in charge of an expedition to the siltstone-quarries of the Wadi Hammamat. With 9,000 men, it was the biggest such expedition since the reign of Senusret I in the early 12th Dynasty.
Just a few years later Ramesses IV was dead. For the next two decades, kings came and went; but Ramessesnakht continued in post. In a term of office lasting at least twenty-seven years, he served under six monarchs, from Ramesses IV to Ramesses IX. He also succeeded in making his family’s control of the High Priesthood unassailable: first one son (Nesamun) then another (Amenhotep) succeeded him in that office, while his daughter Aatnmeret married another senior cleric. When Ramessesnakht died, in his late sixties or seventies, he had achieved everything dreamt of by an ancient Egyptian official: a lifetime of service to the king (or, in his case, six); a goodly burial in the west (in his case, a fine tomb in the Theban necropolis); and, best of all, the inauguration of his own, family dynasty.
80 | Naunakht
WOMAN WHO DISINHERITED HER UNGRATEFUL CHILDREN
Despite the relatively low profile of women in the official record of ancient Egypt, they enjoyed far greater equality in social and legal matters than their counterparts in other civilizations of the ancient world. Indeed, the position of women in many modern states has not yet reached the same level of equality as in ancient Egypt. The legal status of women was on an equal footing with that of men – if they wished, wives could testify against their husbands – and they maintained control of their own property, even after marrying. Women were also free to dispose of their wealth as they wished. The best and most famous example of an ancient Egyptian woman doing exactly this is contained in the last will and testament of Naunakht, an inhabitant of Thebes in the late Ramesside Period.
Naunakht was a woman of modest means. She held no particular rank, describing herself simply as ‘a free woman’, although she may occasionally have served as a songstress of Amun in the temple of Karnak. Her first husband was a scribe named Qenhirkhepeshef. He had been involved in work on the royal tombs, and was probably therefore a man of means. It may thus have been a marriage motivated by financial considerations rather than a love-match. Certainly, it seems to have produced no offspring. Naunakht’s second marriage, to a servant in the Place of Truth named Khaemnun, was altogether more fruitful. They had eight children, four boys and four girls.
To be blessed with many children was the ancient Egyptian ideal, for in a society without social security, the next generation offered the only means of being looked after in old age. But some of Naunakht’s offspring did not exactly live up to their mother’s, or society’s, expectations. The unvarnished details are all contained in Naunakht’s will, declared before a court and recorded in writing on the fifth day of the fourth month of the season of inundation in the third year of the reign of Ramesses V – around November 1147 BC. The court comprised fourteen individuals, varying in rank from humble workmen to district officers. Naunakht was about to disinherit three of her children, and she did not mince her words:
‘I brought up these eight servants of yours… But see, I am grown old, and see, they are not looking after me in my turn.’
The trade-off was simple:
‘Whoever of them has aided me, to him I will give of my property; he who has not given to me, to him I will not give of my property.’
The losers were Naunakht’s two daughters, Wosnakht and Manenakht. While they could not be prevented from inheriting the two-thirds of the matrimonial property that under law belonged to the husband (Khaemnun), they could, and would, be excluded from any part of Naunakht’s share:
‘They shall not participate in the division of my one-third.’
In a similar vein, one of Naunakht’s sons, Neferhotep, was cut out of the will because he had already received more than his fair share in the form of copper vessels, which he had squandered. By contrast, his brother Qenhirkhepeshef was singled out for special favour ‘over and above his fellows’, receiving not only his one-fifth share of Naunakht’s estate but also her single most valuable asset, a bronze washing-bowl.
A year or two after the testament was made verbally and in writing, the whole family – Khaemnun and the eight children – had to suffer the indignity of appearing before a second legal hearing to confirm that they were content with, and would respect, the terms of the will. Even though none of Naunakht’s possessions was worth very much, being mostly pieces of furniture and kitchen utensils, the rebuke to her wayward daughters must have been keenly felt. They had learned the hard way what could be expected by the ungrateful children of a woman who knew her own mind.
81 | Thutmose
CORRESPONDENT IN A TIME OF TROUBLE
Literacy was restricted to a tiny minority in ancient Egypt. Although quite a few people would have been able to recognize some common hieroglyphs, no more than five to ten per cent of the population could read and write proficiently. These skills, acquired through rigorous, sometimes laborious training at a scribal school, brought with them the possibility of a career in government. But on a more mundane level, literacy also conferred the ability to communicate with friends and family. Those Egyptians who could read and write seem to have been enthusiastic correspondents, concerning themselves with the usual range of weighty and trivial subjects. These are well illustrated in the letters of Thutmose, penned at the very end of the New Kingdom.
