News from the Valley of the Kings

My thanks to CJB for the link to this paper.  (He posted it in a comment, so I am promoting it so that readers don't miss it.)

It (http://kubaba.univ-paris1.fr/actualites/2010/akhenaton.pdf) is in French.  Google translate isn't too awful with French but it mangles it somewhat and I can't persuade it to translate the whole article.  When I have time, I will read it in French to try to catch the full sense of what they are suggesting. 

One central theme is that Akhenaten was survived by a King (Smenkhkare) and Queen (Meritaten) who had similar throne names and therefore were easily confused so it isn't possible to say which partner outlived his/her spouse to rule alone, although they lean as usual towards the Queen.  Smenkhare is seen as the occupant of KV55 and the son of Akhenaten, which is familiar territory.  Less usual is their belief, if I am reading it correctly, that Smenkhare was the brother of Tutankhamun.  That means the Amarna reliefs fail to show two sons of Pharaoh, but six daughters. 

The Younger Lady is identified as Sitamun but they pose the question that the wife of Smenkhare might actually not have been Meritaten the daughter of Akhenaten but the daughter of Smenkhare himself.   I need to re-read that section.

There is a lot more, with a lot of discussion of implications of the Amarna letters and foreign relations.  The paper cites a lot of references.  Since Google translate won't translate the second half for me, and skim reading something in French is a real stretch for me, I can't say too much more.  I will try to spend time to read it carefully when I have time to translate it fully.

My thanks again to CJB for what is an interesting and thought-provoking paper.

The canopic jars in KV55 are important as they were orginally dedicated to Kiya and form part of the evidence that at least some funerary goods were relocated back from Amarna to the Valley of the Kings. This photo by Doris Pemler of the one in the Met is one of the finest shots I have ever seen. For anybody looking for photos for websites, it is also available under a Creative Commons licence - details if you follow the link through to Flickr. Of course we don't know whose organs are in the jars ... If you are interested in how the canopic jars from KV55 have been attributed, this paper by Cyril Aldred is worth reading.  In it he discussed how hair style has been used to identify the likely personages represented in various Amarnan objects.  (PS the identification with Kiya is disputed with some people suggesting they show Meritaten.)

This is something that came up recently on EEF with somebody linking to material I hadn't seen before which suggests that Maia, Tutankhamun's wet nurse, was in fact Meritaten.  I haven't read the paper but personally I am sceptical.  It is pretty clear that Meritaten was a Queen and probably married to both Akhenaten and Smenkhare / Smenkhkare. There is no mention of this title in Maia's tomb which seems to reduce the changes that she was Meritaten. The video below gives an introduction to Maia's tomb.



You might also me interested in this article on Tia the wet nurse of Ankhesenpaaten (Ankhesenamun).

(Thanks to Andie Byrnes and Raymon Betz).

PS I've created a Squidoo lens about Tia.  It's very brief and has nothing that isn't in this article so I don't recommend it!  It does offer me a steady bookmark though which is why I created it.   I'll add a longer one about Maia in the next few days.