The Laws of Ancient Egypt- Part 7- The Heretic Pharaoh, King Tut and a Murder Mystery

Part 7. The Heretic Pharaoh and Aftermath. This is part 7 of my ancient Egyptian legal history. We last left off with Thutmose III, the military man, and his vizier Rekhmire, who gave us a beautiful glimpse into day-to-day court operations. I dorked out a lot while I was reading that. We will now pick up with his successors Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and Amenhotep III. There is little of legal relevance during this period, but we need to get through it to explain the context of major legal reforms that came after it. And not for nothing, this is the juiciest, most drama-filled, and entertaining part of Egyptian history, so please enjoy this detour. Amenhotep II is notable for having a chief steward named Kenamun, which I appreciate because it sounds like my name, and Thutmose IV has a few stele dating from his reign with inscriptions pertaining to military expeditions in the north and south, a peace agreement with a place called Mitanni, a country that's situated in what is now Syria and southern Turkey, and he also sent an expedition to restore the Sphinx, which had fallen into disrepair. Our real story begins with his heir, Amenhotep III. His reign marked a subtle shift in Egyptian religion. The main new kingdom god was Amun. Amenhotep III began styling himself as the son of Amun-Ra, a sort of composite sun god. His throne name that he took translates to The Lord of Truth is Re, and there was a minor deity at the time, the Aten, which is basically the sun disk itself, it's an aspect of the sun god Re. Amenhotep slowly moved from the worship of Amun-Ra to the Aten directly. His wife named a boat the Aten Gleams, and he even named one of his daughters after the sun disk. The pharaohs had these things called Seb Festivals, which was an ancient tradition even at this time. The goal of it to show was that the pharaoh was young, virile, and physically fit to continue to be the ruler of Egypt, because the pharaoh was also the military ruler of Egypt. You want him to be strong to be able to lead the army out and kick the crap out of the Nubians every year. So the Seb Festival was a kind of rebirth or rejuvenation. During one of these rebirth and rejuvenation festivals, Amenhotep III adopted the title of Aten Tegin, which translates to the dazzling sun disk. Remember that pharaohs were also gods, so here what we have is Amenhotep III literally declaring himself to be the sun god, or the sun disk I should say. There's no indication that he was making any other gods illegal or that he was stifling their worship in any way, and by all accounts it seems to have been mostly a shift within the royal household towards worship of the Aten. His son and his heir though, Amenhotep IV, completely disrupted Egyptian life, religion, and culture in ways that still capture the imaginations of people today. Upon ascending the throne, and perhaps after being co-regent with his father for a few years, Amenhotep IV maintained his Amun name. Everything seemed normal, temple dedications were normal, endowments were normal, there's no hint that things were about to go totally awry. In his third year, he gave himself a sed festival, which was something normally reserved for rejuvenating older rulers like his father. He had done it after 30 years. Here, Amenhotep IV is doing it after only three. This is just purely a symbolic ceremony, he's doing it for a reason. During the festival, he restylized himself as Akhenaten, he changed his name to the living spirit of the Aten, and he referred to the Aten, the Sundisk, as his father. Now my question is, when I read this, is this worship of the Sundisk the Aten itself, or is it a worship of his father who restylized himself as the dazzling Sundisk? Was it both? Who knows? After all, unlike his father, he never referred to himself as the sun god, he always said he was the son of the sun god. I'll let you decide. What is clear is that Akhenaten was driving towards a sort of proto-monotheism, or at least the system where the Aten was the strongest god, but the other gods still exist, they're just diminished in capacity. As time went on though, he began striking out the names of other gods entirely. From his ninth year onward, there was only one god, the Aten. This thoroughly irked the Amun priesthood in the capital of Thebes, which was also the spiritual heart of Egypt, and it looks as if he was almost thrown out of the city and forced to build a new capital. It could have been voluntary, but I'm inclined to think that they drove him out of town. He chose a barren site halfway between Thebes and Memphis which he named Akhetaten, the horizon of the Aten, which is modern day Amarna. There, Akhenaten functioned as high priest, the only priest able to intercede with the god on behalf of his people. For our purposes, the archaeological site is significant because of the Amarna archives. Eric Klein recently published a book called Love War and Diplomacy focused on the Amarna period. I found it very entertaining. Toby Wilkinson's book also provides an entertaining narrative. After reading both, as well as translations of some of the letters themselves, it's plain that foreign military expeditions were neglected because the pharaoh was totally preoccupied with his new religion. His great-great grandfather, Thutmose III, had subdued enemies from Syria to Nubia and expanded Egyptian influence all the way up to Syria. His grandfather, Thutmose IV, had done the same thing and brought peace to Egypt's northern frontier with Mitanni. Akhenaten, sitting in his new capital, was penning poetry to the sun god. He allowed Egyptian military influence to atrophy completely. As a result, the Klein kingdoms in Canaan were starting to misbehave, attack each other, and rebel. A good number of the letters are from the kings of these Canaanite states, essentially gaslighting Akhenaten, saying, no, I'm not rebelling, they're rebelling, so and so are rebelling, it's not me. It was a total disaster, with the small kingdoms all pointing fingers at each other and accusing each other of not loving the Aten. Some of the letters are pleased from kingdoms for help against raiding miscreants called the Hebiru. Does that name sound familiar? Another from a guy named Abdi-Heba, ruler of Jerusalem, at least at that time it was an Egyptian garrison town, complained that he was being treated by the pharaoh like a Hebiru and that he needed reinforcements. Help, if it came at all, was late and scanty. My favorite letter is from the Assyrian king, Ashur-Ubalit, complaining to Akhenaten that his Assyrian diplomats were forced to stand in the sun for extended periods of time, causing them to nearly die. It's even funnier when you realize that Akhenaten, the sun worshiper, probably made them stand outside on purpose because of some ritual. So in short, whether worshiping his father or the sun disc, or whether this was all just an elaborate show to rip power and wealth from the Amun cult and consolidate power in his own pharaonic house, the man was absolutely freaking insane. But despite being batshit crazy, he somehow managed to marry Nefertiti, who is referred to as the most beautiful woman in the world. Together they had a son, whose name was Tuntank-Aten. So Akhenaten dies in his 30s, possibly due to a plague, we're not really entirely sure how he died. In Mika Waltari's fictional account of the Amarna period, titled The Egyptian, which is a very good book and I encourage you to read it, Akhenaten is plagued with seizures and he's essentially killed by his vizier and his top general, Horemheb. Horemheb is the guy that we're trying to get to here to continue our discussion on the Egyptian laws, and we have only a little bit more of a way to go. The young Tuntank-Aten succeeded Akhenaten, possibly via a co-regency with another pharaoh, or his mother Nefertiti. It's not clear. What we do know though, is that whoever was controlling the young king Tuntank-Aten saw the writing on the wall and moved to restore communion between the royal house and the traditional Egyptian pantheon. The young pharaoh then changed his name to Tutankhamen, restored the old Egyptian religion, and moved the religious and political capital back to Thebes. I introduce you, ladies and gentlemen, to the famous King Tut. He was married to his sister, Ankes-Sanamen, whose name was previously Ankes-Sanaten, after the Aten. Now, it's clear that young King Tut died, maybe at 18 or 19 years old, under mysterious circumstances. He had no sons. His vizier, who was a civilian named Ai, succeeded him. But the question is, how? And the story of Ai's succession to the throne, it needs to be made into a movie, and it needs to be made into a movie now. This is the story of the Zanonza affair. Shupi-Luliuma I, king of the Hittites, who recently expanded into Syria at expense of Egyptian influence under Akhenaten, received a letter in his palace from Egypt. It was written by somebody purporting to be the queen. She said that her husband had died and that she had no sons, but that it was known that Shupi-Luliuma had many sons. She asked if he, king of the Hittites, could send one of his sons to Egypt, saying further that she refuses to marry a servant of hers and that she is afraid. Remember, the inheritance laws of Egypt were matrilineal. Royal blood was matrilineal. Amenhotep III forbade any Egyptian princess from marrying a foreign man because the foreign man, upon his death, would become pharaoh of Egypt. This letter was not just offering Shupi-Luliuma a diplomatic marriage. The letter was offering one of his sons to become the king of Egypt. Shupi-Luliuma wasn't stupid. He rightfully called BS and sent an envoy to Egypt to go check things out. His messengers returned, surprisingly confirming that, yes, King Tut had died and the queen was without a husband or son, probably fending off suitors. His second guessing appears to have made Ankhesenamun angry because she sent him a second letter lambasting him for doubting her. The main theory here, at least pertaining to Ai's succession, who was the vizier under Akhenaten and under King Tut again, he was already himself an old man. He was trying to marry Ankhesenamun to become pharaoh and she was locking herself in a room trying to fend him off and invited the Hittites to come in to save her ass. Ai, the vizier, is the servant of whom Ankhesenamun spoke in her letter. But Ai, the aspiring king, was not about to let Egypt fall into the hands of the Hittites, who were the metaphorical Soviet Union to Egypt's America during the Cold War. They were mortal enemies who hated each other. Shupi-Luliuma, having confirmed the state of affairs in Egypt, decided that, you know what? Yeah, it would be a great idea for my son to become the pharaoh. This is going to be great. It's going to be the largest empire in history. He sends his son Zananza to Egypt with a full panoply of attendants and hangers-on in anticipation of his son donning the red and white crowns. The delegation never made it. At some point, the party was attacked and slaughtered to a man. The murder of the Hittite prince Zananza triggered a full-scale war between the Hittites and the Egyptians. Somewhat ironically, the war results in Shupi-Luliuma dying, not in a battle, but from plague. Remember how Akhenaten was suspected to have died from plague? It looks like it was still lingering in certain parts of the Egyptian empire at the time because a bunch of Egyptian prisoners of war who were taken back to his capital in Hattusa had the plague and spread it amongst the people. Her knight in shining armor never having come, young princess Akhesenamen was forced to marry the old vizier Ai, who then ascended to the pharaonic house. Because he was so old, he only ruled for four years, and he died a very old age around 1320 BC. His successor, Horemheb, is the guy that we've been waiting for. Horemheb restabilized the series of edicts and legal declarations never before seen in Egyptian history.