the king of the gods, and Re, the god of the solar disk. These two eventually merged into one god, Amun-Re or Amun-Ra.
metmuseum.org. By most counts, Egypt had only four queens in its 3,000-year history, so perhaps Hatshepsut needed to commission tough-guy images to survive in a man’s world. She was buried in the Valley of the Kings.
Akhenaten and Egyptian family values
The 18th-dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1352 BC–1355 BC) launched a new monotheistic religion in Egypt, built around the sun god Aten (a variation of the sun god Re). Amenhotep IV shut down the temples of competing gods, especially Amun, whose powerful priests tried to prevent the new religion from taking root.
The pharaoh changed his name from Amenhotep, which means “Amun is satisfied,” to Akhenaten, meaning “It pleases Aten.” Then he moved the capital from Thebes, where the cult of Amun was strongest, to a new location that he dubbed Akhetaten. (The modern name of the city is Amarna.) The artists and architects who Akhenaten hired to announce his new religion created a new style of art, which art historians call the Amarna style (Akhenaten style or Akhenatenism is too hard to say, even for an art historian).
One of the best examples of the Amarna style is the family portrait of Akhenaten, his queen Nefertiti, and their three young daughters (see Figure 6-3).
D.serra1 / Shutterstock
FIGURE 6-3: Akhenaten’s family portrait brings the royal family down to earth while linking them to the god Aten.
This family portrait suggests that belief in one god seems to have encouraged more humanity, including
A close family: The youngest princess, who is still an infant, plays with her mother’s earring. Akhenaten tousles the hair of the princess in his arms while she points to the ankh (symbol of life) at the tip of a sun ray. The other princess holds Nefertiti’s hand and points toward her father, which helps to interlink the family. Depicting intimacy between parents and children was new in Egyptian art.
A balanced relationship: The sun disk (representing Aten) in the relief spreads its rays equally on the king and queen, suggesting that they are co-rulers governing a balanced kingdom under one god.
The painted bust of Akhenaten’s queen Nefertiti, shown in Figure 6-4, is the most famous female bust in Egyptian art. Her magnificent jewelry (typical of the Amarna period, in which exquisite jewelry flourished) echoes the color pattern of the band in her headdress. The queen is both idealized (the epitome of grace and elegance) and realistic — note the realism in her high cheekbones, mouth, and chin. Her rounded shoulders and forward-leaning neck highlight her perfection and humanity. Her name means “the beauty that has come.”
Raiding King Tut’s tomb treasures
Akhenaten’s monotheistic experiment (only one god — Aten!) didn’t survive him. When his 9-year-old son, pharaoh Tutankhaten (which means “living image of Aten”), came to the throne, his vizier (chief minister) Ay, an old-school Amun priest, forced the boy to change his name to Tutankhamun, which means “living image of Amun.”
Tutankhamun is the only pharaoh with a nickname. He has been known as King Tut ever since Howard Carter discovered his intact tomb in 1922. Tut’s was the only king’s tomb that hadn’t been ransacked by grave robbers. It revealed the full cornucopia of Egyptian wealth and splendor and included a golden throne, four golden chariots, precious jewels, a casket of pure gold, statues of gold and ebony, and on and on. You can see why grave robbing was big business in Ancient Egypt!
Vladimir Wrangel / Shutterstock
FIGURE 6-4: Queen Nefertiti’s bust denotes both the real and the ideal.
Boltin Picture Library / Bridgeman Images
FIGURE 6-5: The funerary mask of Tutankhamun is made of gold inlaid with semiprecious stones and glass.
MUMMY SLAVES
Pharaohs were also buried with mummy slaves called ushabtis, which were simply statuettes. Their job was to perform work details such as brewing beer or baking bread so that the pharaoh could lead an afterlife of leisure. The ushabtis even had a script: “If the deceased is summoned to do forced labor, ‘I will do it, here am I!’”
Mummy armies also accompanied New Kingdom pharaohs in case they ran into any underworld enemies in the hereafter. (These mummy armies may have been the inspiration for the powerful skeletal soldiers in the more recent mummy movies The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.)
Admiring the world’s most beautiful dead woman’s tomb
Tombs weren’t simply covered with hieroglyphic spells. They were also elaborately painted, some with depictions of daily life that the dead could observe, but no longer participate in. The most common images were those of gods protecting the deceased. The most elaborate surviving tomb is that of Nefertari, Rameses II’s favorite wife (he had half a dozen wives, as well as countless concubines) in the Valley of the Queens. In vibrant colors, Gods escort the lovely Nefertari on her journey through the afterlife. (See Figure 6-6.) On the left, Nefertari holds the sekhem scepter as an offering to Osiris seated behind the four sons of Horus. On the right, she raises the scepter to Atum. The tomb also features a creation myth and stories of resurrection.
