The 'Celebrity' Queen Of Ancient Egypt: Why Tiye Still Fascinates Us

Ancient Egypt is famed for its male pharaohs, but sometimes the real power was the one beside the throne. Over 3,000 years ago, one woman rose to dazzling heights and helped Egypt become the most powerful kingdom in the world. And it's very unusual to find a female sphinx, so it's probably part of a complex of powerful female representation. Her name was Queen Tia. Vivid images from Egypt's monuments and tombs show how she surpassed her rivals to reach a pinnacle of glory. She is elevated to this rank of goddess in a way we have not seen before. Queen Tia became an icon and inspired a revolution that threw Egypt into turmoil. Though a deadly plague cast a shadow on her life, she may have blazed a trail for a new kind of religion and the belief that there is only one true god. Cairo, Egypt, April 2021. At the Egyptian Museum, a spectacular ceremony unfolds. The Pharaoh's Golden Parade. In a grand procession, 22 ancient royal mummies travel in decorated vehicles, representing the sacred boats that journey to the afterlife. Only four of the mummies are queens, but one of them steals the show. As images of her long lustrous hair start trending on social media, a 3,300-year-old mummy becomes a media sensation. Images of her flood the internet. Her name is Tia, grandmother of the famous Tutankhamen. She exuded power and charisma. Today, Tia's delicate face, framed by long curling hair, stares at us across three millennia. Hers is an extraordinary tale, how one woman ascended to unprecedented power and glory. Tia and her husband ruled around 1390 to 1353 BC, during Egypt's golden age. But for millennia, the secret of her origins lay entombed in the land's greatest cemetery. On the Nile's west bank, opposite the city of Luxor, lies the Valley of the Kings, final resting place of Egypt's pharaohs. Here, in 1905, American businessman Theodore M. Davis made one of Egyptology's most important discoveries. Between two pharaohs' tombs, his team found a concealed entrance. Davis entered a simple, rough-hewn passage unadorned by tomb paintings. Steps led down into an inner chamber, and a spellbinding sight. The chamber was as dark as dark can be, and extremely hot. We held up our candles, but they gave so little light, and so dazzled our eyes, that we could see nothing except the glitter of gold. Every foot of the chamber was filled with objects brilliant with gold. Today, the tomb lies empty. Its precious contents reside in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This breathtaking array of golden possessions and ritual objects seems worthy of a pharaoh. The tomb was one of the most important discoveries in Egyptology, and its owners lay sealed inside two gilded coffins. So within the coffins, the mummies remained undisturbed, and those two individuals were still where they had been laid to rest over three millennia earlier. Hieroglyphs on the coffins revealed their names. A husband and wife called Yuya and Suya. Undoubtedly, they were wealthy and important. But as the inscriptions make clear, they were not a king and queen. So why were they buried in such splendor among the pharaohs? The answer lies not in who they were, but who their daughter was. Inscribed everywhere on Suya's coffin and grave furniture was her title, Royal Mother of the King's Great Wife. This great wife was Queen Tia, foremost wife of the pharaoh Amenhotep III. Once Egyptologists working with Theodore Davis read the names Yuya and Suya, they knew immediately who they were. The parents of Queen Tia, because they're listed time and again on historical scarabs from the reign of Amenhotep III, mentioning Tia as his great wife, the name of her father is Yuya, the name of her mother is Suya. Tia is born around 1400 BC. Even at this time, her parents have status. They are wealthy landowners, holding important positions in society. There are no surviving documents that tell us exactly what Tia's childhood or adolescence was like. She grew up in a province in Middle Egypt, but belonged to one of the most important of the local families. Her father Yuya is a military commander, while her mother Suya is a priestess. They seem to have big hopes for their daughter, and she won't disappoint. At this time, Egypt is the most powerful nation on earth. At the beginning of the reign of Amenhotep III, Egypt was probably at its highest point during the Bronze Age. During that time, it directly or indirectly controlled a whole swathe of territory, starting off deep in modern Sudan and reaching up along the coast right up into North Syria. At some point in her youth, Tia moves to Wasat, modern-day Luxor. This is the center of Egyptian society, and its mighty temples still testify to the glory of Egypt's golden age. Here, Tia meets the young boy who has just become pharaoh. Amenhotep III is still a child when he ascends to the throne in 1390 BC. But already, he needs a wife, and Tia's parents have the connections to make her the prime candidate. It's difficult to know how far Tia was destined to be the king's wife or not. She was a commoner, but from a very, very highly placed commoner family. She was certainly part of the milieu within which she was moving, but how far she was sort of groomed to be the queen is less clear. During the second year of Amenhotep's reign, they marry. Both bride and groom are very young, likely about 10 years old. We can't say for certain how Tia became Amenhotep III's wife. Was this a power play on the part of Yuya and Tuya, or did Amenhotep III actually know Tia as a child? I'd like to think that they studied together under the tutelage of Tia's father, Yuya. One thing is certain, Yuya and Tuya have a lot of influence at the royal court. They may even act as regents for the king. They were quite young, and this was just in the beginning of his reign. Queen Tia, as a person, was very unique. They grew together, and she had a lot of intelligence, a lot of wisdom. When the young couple reach adulthood, Tia assumes the demeanor of a powerful monarch. The pharaoh is besotted with his queen. Then, after 10 years of rule, a newcomer appears on the scene. She comes to Egypt from a foreign land, bringing with her great wealth and an entourage of attendants. Her name is Princess Gulekipa, of the kingdom of Mitanni in what is now Syria. The pharaoh has decided to marry her to strengthen ties with her homeland. All eyes turn to Tia. Does she feel threatened by this rival for her husband's affections? Fascinatingly, a royal record survives that describes her position at this delicate moment. In ancient Egypt, scarab beetles have religious significance, so Amenhotep proclaims his new marriage on a scarab-shaped object. But even in this inscription, he gives Tia special attention. The great royal consort Tia, may she live. The name of her father is Yuya. The name of her mother is Thuya. Tia has been given the title of great royal wife, confirming her precedence over Gulekipa. Amenhotep III, like all kings, had more than one wife. Along with Tia, who actually held the title of great royal wife or royal wife, there would have been a number of other lesser wives, probably who wouldn't actually have held that particular title. And they would have included princesses from other nations, because we know that Amenhotep married at least two or three princesses from other countries. Pretty well throughout the reign, Tia is the key wife. She always maintained her position as the royal wife. If you've got a depiction of the king and a wife, it's always Tia, never any of the other ones. Egypt is the superpower of the ancient world, and Tia is its supreme queen. Second only to the pharaoh, she's one of the most powerful people on earth. Now she begins to wield that power directly, changing what it means to be a queen. Tia's role may have been matched by an equally significant role as a political decision maker. In the tomb of Tia's steward, Keruef, a wall relief reveals the queen's political power. Here, she takes on the guise of a sphinx, a half-lion, half-human creature known for its power and wisdom. Egypt's female enemies lie beneath, trampled by her feet. The image of Tia as a sphinx trampling foreign women is remarkable. That decoration on her throne, as depicted in the tomb of Keruef, seems to give credence to this idea that Tia had a diplomatic role, that she actually was involved in foreign policy making during the reign of Amenhotep III. Tia has become an icon of female power, but she isn't just a power broker. She also carefully cultivates her image. At Qom el-Hitan near Luxor, huge statues stand guard over the desert, the colossi of Memnon. Battered by many centuries of sun, wind, and sand, these time-worn figures once depicted Amenhotep III. They are all that remains of a huge mortuary temple, built by the pharaoh so he would be remembered after his death. The site also commemorates Queen Tia. Queen Tia is important in so far that you see her everywhere. When you walk along the temple, the colossal statues of the king have on the right side of their leg a monumental statue of Queen Tia. Her status is nothing less than being the great royal consort. Images of Tia don't just inhabit temples, they're everywhere. The queen appears on tomb walls, amulets, bracelets, and statues. If Tia were to have an Instagram page, it would be filled with an incredible diverse array of statuary. She even had her own sculptor, a man named Muti, and this is unusual for a queen. In particular, there is a lovely little head in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, which really does show Tia as being somebody. So you wouldn't want to cross them, but a very, very formidable person. As well as publicizing her image, Tia takes meticulous care of her personal appearance. When radiologist Sahar Salim analyzed the queen's mummy, she discovered something extraordinary. Something very unique about the mummy of Queen Tia, she had beautiful hair, long and curly, reddish from using henna, and it was really very thick. This will tell you that she cared a lot about her appearance. She had her beauty treatment for her hair. Very recently, the hair of the mummy was tested, and the scientists, they found 13 different types of oils that been put on the hair. Ordinary Egyptians would have looked at Tia with a sense of awe and fascination, the same way many of us regard celebrities today. From commoner to celebrity queen, Tia has come a long way, but there's a threat to her power. It comes not from outside Egypt, but from within. North of Luxor, on the Nile's east bank, stands the massive temple complex of Karnak. A great temple dedicated to Amun, the king of the gods, dominates the site. For centuries, Egypt's most popular cult has worshipped this ram-headed deity. Because he's not just the king of the gods, he also controls fertility and creation. Egyptians trust in Amun to keep Egypt safe, fertile, and prosperous. This is partly why the priests who serve the god are so powerful. A man named Maya takes the role of high priest. He leads elaborate ceremonies dedicated to Amun. But the priests also have another source of power, wealth. The priesthood of Karnak temple owned vast amounts of land around the area of ancient Luxor. And much of the plunder from foreign campaigns flowed back to the temple of Amun at Karnak. The amount of wealth was tremendous. And this gave Amun's cult a huge amount of power. Tia and Amunhotep are wary of the priest's growing influence. Due west of Karnak, on the Nile's opposite bank, the king and queen build their own complex of temples and palaces at Malkata. Amunhotep III was not in good terms with the priests of the temple of Amun-Ra. That's why he moved his palace from there to the west bank of the Nile to Malkata. At Malkata, the outline of a great complex of buildings engraves the desert floor. Today only dusty brick walls remain. But over 3,000 years ago, grand temples and lavish residences stood here. This was once a huge palace built by Amunhotep III and Queen Tia for their own personal use. Malkata is an incredibly important site, but the site is very large. It contains a number of palaces, temple workspaces, several ritual areas. Amunhotep III also built a massive harbor called the Birkat Habu to get people in and out of this town. And he landscaped the area with the dirt from this deep harbor. Here, after three decades of rule, Amunhotep III and Tia prepare for a magnificent celebration. When a king reached about 30 years of reign, he celebrated a thing called the Heb Sed, which we'd normally translate as a jubilee, and then would celebrate that every few years onwards for the rest of his life. In these, it's normally just the king who is shown as the protagonist. What's really striking about Amunhotep III's jubilees is the role that Queen Tia plays within that. An extraordinary visual record of this lies hidden in the tomb of Kerouaf. Kerouaf was the chief steward for Queen Tia, and he was also the master of ceremonies for jubilee celebrations. And in his tomb, we have the most detailed representations of what happened during the first jubilee. We see Amunhotep III and Tia performing the rituals of the jubilee. They're greeted by the courtiers, and they dispense rewards to their most loyal officials. In the next part of the ceremony, the courtiers witness a dramatic transformation. The ritual centers on a narrow, richly decorated boat. Yet this is no ordinary vessel. Ancient Egyptians believe in many gods. One of the most important is the sun god Ra. Every day, he sails into the heavens on a boat called the Daybark. Every night, the sun god dies in the west. Now traveling on the Nightbark, he enters the underworld and sails across it before being reborn in the morning. At the jubilee festival, the pharaoh and his queen reenact this sacred voyage. There was a large lake built by Amunhotep III, and he used that lake to navigate in a model of the solar boat of the Daybark and the Nightbark. This is a radical break with tradition, as previously, Egyptian pharaohs only became gods after death. Normally, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh would only sail on the Nightbark after death. What Amunhotep III is signaling is that he has become the sun god Ra on earth. But it's not just the pharaoh who ascends to divinity. He is joined by his great royal wife, Queen Tia. It looks as though Tia also shares in that transformation. As the king becomes a solar deity, Tia becomes his sort of counterpoint, probably an incarnation of Hathor. As a powerful queen, Tia can identify readily with Hathor, one of Egypt's most powerful goddesses. What seems to be unusual for Amunhotep III and Tia is that they seem to stage their own death and resurrection at the time of the first jubilee, as though they go through the process of becoming divinities while they are still on earth. It's a dramatic and unprecedented moment. Tia is now the pharaoh's equal, something no other Egyptian queen has yet achieved. There had been powerful queens prior to Tia, but she is elevated to this rank of goddess in a way we have not seen before. Even in statuary, Tia can be at the same scale as Amunhotep III, as if she is on an equal footing with him as queen of Egypt. If Tia's ambition was to transcend the mortal world, then she has succeeded. Alongside the pharaoh, she'll now be treated as nothing less than a living goddess. But where did she accomplish this divine transformation? For years, Egyptologists have searched for the sacred lake where the pharaoh and his queen sailed on the solar boat. An item in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art could help solve the mystery. The museum contains fascinating artifacts from the reign of Amunhotep III and Tia. Here, a scarab in reveals that the lake was an artificial one, built specially for the ceremony. His majesty commanded to make a lake for the great royal consort Tia. Its length is 3,700 cubits, its width 700 cubits. Going by these measurements, the lake was around a mile long and a thousand feet wide. The artificial lake is something that's come up many times. It was originally thought to be the harbor area at Malgata, but it's been agreed on by Egyptologists that it is not the Birkat Habu. The harbor is way too big for what is described in the scarab. But if the lake wasn't located at Malgata, where was it? In 2020, archaeologist Afifi Rahim and his colleagues made an exciting discovery nearby. Searching for a temple of the pharaoh Tutankhamen, they uncovered something completely different. A forgotten city that had lain buried in the sands for millennia. When we just started digging here in this area, we discovered immediately this mud bricks wall. And from the beginning, we discovered that this mud bricks wall is belonging to a city, not a funerary temple. Because the city walls are thin walls, not very thick walls like the temple walls. While many temples and tombs survive, little remains of the cities where ordinary people lived in ancient Egypt. But here, the archaeologists uncovered rows of houses and entire streets, incredibly well-preserved despite the passing of thousands of years. We found this city like intact city. Even some scholars called it Egyptian Bombay. Afifi and his colleagues realized they had stumbled on a unique site like nothing else in Egypt. And soon, they managed to date the construction. Some of the earthenware found at the site had hieroglyph inscriptions, revealing the city was built during the reign of Amenhotep and Tiyya. We found a lot of the past statues for the Queen Tiya, small past statues in many shapes and different colors for the Queen Tiya. Afifi believes the statues relate to the pharaoh's jubilee celebration. And it could be that the celebration took place here in the lost city. Because the archaeologists have also made another important discovery. By the end of the last season, we discover a very big leak to the north of the city. The lake has long since dried up, but it was located directly beside the pharaoh's great mortuary temple. It's the best candidate for Amenhotep and Tiyya's sacred lake. If you think logically, this lake was very close to the temple of Amenhotep III, and very close to the celebration site. So I think maybe this lake was just to celebrate the jubilee for the king. This could be where Tiyya and Amenhotep transformed into gods. But the archaeologists also found something arguably even more significant. In this highest room, which we discover in the city, we found that there is a sun disk written with a white color and with some hands come from the sun disk. And this is the first symbol for Aten in the city. Aten is the ancient Egyptian word for sun disk, the physical orb in the sky. But during the reign of Amenhotep III, Aten becomes a more significant god in his own right. Not simply Ra, the sun god, but a form of Ra to be embodied by the king. Following the jubilee festival, the pharaoh becomes synonymous with the Aten. And soon, the sun disk symbol will be everywhere in Egypt. What happens to Amenhotep III and Tiyya at the jubilee is clearly very unusual, and one suspects it would have been felt to be so at the time as well. Among those watching are the priests of Amun. How far the priesthood and other theologians have proved of it, whether some of the broader population might have thought this rather strange, is unclear. The priests of Amun have grown in wealth and authority, almost rivaling the king and queen themselves. As yet, there's no open conflict between the two sides. But that's about to change. Amenhotep may see himself as a living god, but he is all too human. When radiologist Sahar Salim analyzed his mummy, she discovered something extraordinary. What I can tell you that the health condition of the king was not that good. There was evidence of illness or diseases in the teeth. He had some form of spine issue. Around 1353 BC, Egypt is rocked by devastating news. At almost 50 years of age, the pharaoh has died. Tiyya had married Amenhotep III very early on in his reign. Their marriage carried on for nearly 40 years, during which time they had produced a number of sons, a number of daughters, and then he dies. Amenhotep III and Tiyya's son now takes the throne. He begins his reign as Amenhotep IV, and he keeps his mother by his side. He takes a queen, Nefertiti, and together the royal couple follow in his parents' footsteps. But the new pharaoh takes their devotion to the sundisk, the Aten, one step further. He turns away from Egypt's other gods and goddesses, and with Nefertiti by his side, he reveres only the Aten, which he elevates to the status of a god. He even changes his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten, which means literally beneficial to Aten. I think that the whole transformation into deities of Amenhotep III and Tiyya during the jubilees must be the basis for what Akhenaten later does. Akhenaten treats his god Aten as though he is his own father. He calls him his father. Aten essentially takes the place of Amenhotep III. Looking at it from Tiyya's point of view, if the Aten is indeed Amenhotep III, it would indeed be her husband, who is now that god, which must be a quite strange kind of concept. Akhenaten now decrees that only the Aten can be worshipped. To make good his claim, the pharaoh overturns centuries of religious tradition. At the temple of Karnak, he curtails worship of Amun and the other Egyptian deities. What Akhenaten was doing was saying that the Aten is the only god who matters, and what he then does is basically cuts off the funding to all the other ones. Akhenaten reserves his deepest ire for Amun, who was traditionally revered as king of the gods. For Akhenaten, the top god was the Aten, and it was for the presumption of claiming to be king of the gods that Amun gets hacked out of the monuments. There is a formal persecution, his images are destroyed, his names are cut out of inscriptions. In this dramatic religious upheaval, the priests of Amun have the most to lose. The main issue, I think, between the priesthood and Akhenaten would not have been theological, it was the practical thing. Most of the major cults are sustained by state funding, and having all that state funding removed must have been pretty galling for them, because you've got a whole load of unemployed priests out there. The pharaoh is ready to counteract any possible rebellion. He orders Maya, the high priest, to leave Karnak. Akhenaten sends the high priest of Amun, Maya, to oversee quarrying activity in the eastern desert. This might be the king removing the high priest from the immediate vicinity of Karnak. The pharaoh then dismisses the remaining priests. He is removing any organized resistance to his plan. Akhenaten is determined that Egypt will have one, and only one, true god. To signal a clean break with the past, he moves his court to the remote desert, some 200 miles north of Luxor. Here he builds a shining new city dedicated to worship of the Aten. Akhenaten removes himself to a new site that he calls Akhet Aten, horizon of the Aten. He says that Aten himself helped choose the site. Also called Armana, the city has residential areas, workshops, tombs, and temples. Grandest of all is the great temple of Aten. Today, only its bare outline remains. But in its heyday, it is a magnificent site. Here Akhenaten will realize his grand vision for Egypt. But what about his mother, Tia? No inscriptions have survived to tell us what she thought of her son's brave new world. But clues remain, concealed in the recesses of Armana. The surrounding hills contain many tombs, and one of them opens a door into Tia's mind. In this tomb, a wall relief shows Tia sitting having dinner with Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti. The benevolent rays of the Aten shine down overhead. This is one of several reliefs where Tia appears alongside the pharaoh. The reliefs appear to suggest that Tia was fully on board with the religious changes made by Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The Aten shines down on Tia and her son. But Akhenaten's new religion remains controversial. His mother helps and guides him during this challenging time. In fact, Tia may have gone even further. Hidden in Armana is a clue that she helped construct this new city dedicated to the Aten. In the bordering cliffs, a mysterious entrance beckons. But this is no tomb or temple. It's an ancient limestone quarry. It provides stone for the construction of temple buildings. And its owner is none other than Queen Tia. We certainly have plenty of evidence for Tia's presence at Armana. There's a quarry where the inscriptions imply that it was for buildings to be associated with her. It's entirely possible that Tia, as the owner of a quarry, contributing to the construction of Akhenaten, perhaps even contributing to the construction of the great temples of Aten themselves, showing the power of the queen. Tia doesn't just support Akhenaten's new regime. She helps create it. But why? The answer could lie in the religious journey she herself undertook. Tia survives Amenhotep III. She provides continuity between the reigns of Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV. The fact that Amenhotep IV copies and expands upon the activities of his father might be some argument for Tia exerting an influence over the thoughts and the plans of her son. Supported by his mother, Akhenaten confidently worships his one true god. Many scholars have observed connections between Atenism and later religion. Among them, C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia books. Akhenaten's religion? Nothing apparently came of it. Unless, of course, Judaism itself partly came of it. It is conceivable that ideas derived from Akhenaten's system formed part of that Egyptian wisdom in which Moses was bred. Akhenaten even anticipates the New Testament. Akhenaten's religion centered on the idea that there's only one true god. Some believe it to be the world's first monotheistic religion. Centuries later, three other monotheistic religions emerged in this part of the world. First Judaism, and later Christianity and Islam. It's often been suggested that there are links between the sole god, the Aten, and Judaism and other monotheistic cults. We do know, looking at various inscriptions from the general period, both from Egypt and from elsewhere in the Near East, that there was a philosophical idea of a single deity lying behind all the other gods. It's probably that idea of a unity of divinity which may also have encouraged the whole idea of monotheism amongst the proto-Israelites. The idea that a single god would dominate the world's religions must have seemed plausible during Akhenaten's reign. After all, Atenism is now Egypt's state religion and Armana is its capital. In the 12th year of his reign, Akhenaten's new city is finally complete. To celebrate the occasion, the pharaoh plans a magnificent event. People from all over the Middle East come to pay him tribute. In two of the tomb chapels of Armana, there's a couple of remarkable reliefs which actually represent some kind of opening party for the city of Akhetaten. Visitors come from all over the region to see the new city and the cult of Aten, the one true god. They bring gifts, but it seems they also bring something else. Because around this time, a dark shadow falls on Egypt and the Middle East. Evidence for the presence of bubonic plague has been presented. We do know from the Armana diplomatic correspondence, from Hittite records, that epidemics were afoot in Egypt and the ancient Near East at the time. Many who travel to Akhenaten's great celebration carry the plague with them. In addition to bringing all these treasures and, you know, everything from slaves through to gold and all these things, a pandemic was brought as well. Because we know that a few years later the Egyptians were being swept by a plague, it seems a good argument that this whole event was the beginning of the end. Within a couple of years of this great event, half the royal family are dead. And Queen Tia is among them. She's probably well into her 50s by the time of her death. It could have been a combination of susceptibility owing to age that helped carry her off, possibly having contracted whatever this disease was. For decades, she ruled alongside her husband during a time of unprecedented wealth and peace for Egypt. She was revered as a living goddess, and she inspired ancient Egypt's great religious upheaval. But perhaps her greatest impact lies in what happened long after her death. Akhenaten dies around 1335 BC. With his passing, the religion of Atenism falls apart. Akhenaten's son, the famous boy king Tutankhamen, now takes the throne. The new pharaoh abandons Amarna and returns the royal court to Luxor. He reinstates the old gods. The cult of Aten fades into obscurity. Or does it? Today, most of the world's believers worship one god. Short-lived though it was, Akhenaten's religion had far-reaching influence. And somebody may have guided him on the theological path he took. His mother, Queen Tia. Together, Amenhotep III and Tia become the sun god and Hathor on Earth. Akhenaten and Nefertiti then continue that. It is likely that Tia did influence the beliefs of her son. She would have been involved in the development of his religion. Over 3,000 years later, Tia's influence continues to be felt. She may be the most inspirational queen the ancient world ever produced. Today, we still celebrate her fascinating life, her enduring legacy, and the extraordinary charisma that made her the star of the pharaoh's golden parade.