TUTANKHAMUN ON EGYPT'S THRONE AS A
RESULT OF A MILITARY COUP
Recent archaeological evidence indicates that
Tutankhamun came to the throne as a result of a military coup. A
scene on the wall on the tomb of Maya, the young king's nanny,
discovered recently in Saqqara by the French mission, included the
five army generals who are believed to have led the coup.
In my book Moses Pharaoh of Egypt,
published in 1990, I suggested that Akhenaten did not die at the end
of his 17-year reign, but was forced to abdicate the throne by an
army coup. Pharaoh Akhenaten, one of the 18th dynasty kings who
ruled Egypt for 17 years in the mid-14th century BC, abolished the
old Egyptian gods in favor of a new monotheistic God, Aten, whose
worship the king wanted to force upon his people. Akhenaten relied
completely on the army's support in his confrontation with the old
priesthood. Although he never took part in any war, the king is
shown, in the vast majority of representations, wearing the Blue
Crown or the short Nubian wig, both belonging to his military
headdress, rather than the traditional ceremonial crowns of the Two
Lands. Scenes of soldiers and military activity abound in both the
private and royal art of Amarna. If we may take the reliefs from the
tombs of the nobles at face value, then his capital city was
virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see parades and processions
of soldiers, infantry, and chariotry with their massed standards.
There are soldiers under arms standing guard in front of the
palaces, the temples, and in the watchtowers that bordered the city;
scenes of troops, unarmed or equipped with staves, carrying out
combat exercises in the presence of the king.
The
army, loyal to the throne, carried out the will of the king without
questioning. The position of Aye, Akhenaten's maternal uncle, as the
Commander General of the army, assured its loyalty to the ruling
dynasty. Aye held posts among the highest in the infantry and the
chariotry, together with Nakht Min, another general related to him.
It was the loyalty of the army, controlled by Aye, which kept
Akhenaten in power in the uneasy years following his coming to the
throne as sole ruler (upon the death of his father) in his 12th
year. By that time Akhenaten had developed his monotheistic ideas to
a great extent. If Aten was the only God, Akhenaten, as his sole son
and prophet, could not allow other gods to be worshipped at the same
time in his dominion. As a response to his rejection by the Amun
priests as a legitimate ruler, he had already snubbed Amun and
abolished his name from the walls and inscriptions of temples and
tombs. Now he took his ideas to their logical conclusion by
abolishing, throughout Egypt, the worship of any gods except Aten.
He closed all the temples, except those of Aten, confiscated their
lands, dispersed the priests and gave orders that the names of all
deities should be expunged from monuments and temple inscriptions
throughout the country. Army units were dispatched to excise the
names of the ancient gods wherever they were found written or
carved.
At
least two events early in Akhenaten's co-regency with his father
Amenhotep III indicated strong opposition to his rule. The graffiti
of Amenhotep III's 30th year from the pyramid temple of Meidum,
which would be year 3 of Akhenaten, pointed to a rejection by some
powerful factions of the king's decision to cause Ôthe male to sit
upon the seat of his father.' Again, the border stele inscription of
Amarna shows that, before deciding to leave Thebes and build his new
city, Akhenaten had encountered some strong opposition and had been
the subject of verbal criticism. Certainly, he would not have left
the dynasty's capital without having been forced to do so. The final
confrontation between the throne and the priesthood was postponed
simply because after he departed from Thebes, Akhenaten had nothing
at all to do with the running of the country, which was left to his
father, Amenhotep III. Another important factor was the complete
reliance of Akhenaten on the armed forces for support. If we may
take the reliefs from the tombs of the nobles at face value, then
the city was virtually an armed camp. Everywhere we see processions
and parades of soldiers, infantry and chariotry with their massed
standards. Palaces, temples and the city borders seem to have been
constantly guarded.
The
persecution of Amun and the other gods, which must have been
exceedingly hateful to the majority of the Egyptians, was also
hateful to the individual members of the army. This persecution,
which entailed the closing of the temples, the dispatch of artisans
to hack out his name from inscriptions, the banishment of the
clergy, the excommunication of his very name, could not have been
carried out without the army's active support. As the army shares
the same religious beliefs as the people, it is natural that the
officers would not feel very happy with the job they were doing.
Thus a conflict appeared between the army's loyalty to the king and
its loyalty to the religious beliefs of the nation. Ultimately, the
harshness of the persecution must have had a certain effect upon the
soldiers, who themselves had been raised in the old beliefs.
Archaeological evidence to support this claim came in
November 1997, when Dr Alain Zivie, a French archaeologist,
announced in Cairo the discovery of a new tomb in Saqqara. In this
ancient necropolis of the Royal City of Memphis, ten miles south of
Cairo, Zivie uncovered the tomb of Maya, wet-nurse of Tutankhamun.
The tomb, which extends 20 meters inside the mountain, was also
used, from the beginning of the Macedonian Ptolemic period at the
start of the 3rd century BC, for the burial of the sacred mummified
cats of Bastet. When first found, the tomb was almost completely
full of mummified cats, placed there more than a thousand years
after the original burial. The joint team from the French
Archaeological Mission and the Supreme Council for Egyptian
Antiquities has excavated two of the three known chambers. On the
wall of the first chamber is a scene depicting Maya protecting the
King who is sitting on her knee. The inscriptions describe her as
Ôthe Royal nanny who breast-fed the pharaoh's body.'
Alongside and to the left of Maya's seat are six officials
representing Tutankhamun's Cabinet, two above and four below, each
with different facial characteristics. Although none of the
officials is named, Dr. Zivie was able to suggest their identities
from their appearance and the sign of office they carry. He
recognized the two above and behind Maya's seat as Aye and Horemheb.
The four officials below were identified by Zivie as Pa-Ramses,
Seti, Nakht Min, and Maya. Except for the last one, who is also
called Maya the treasurer, the remaining five were all military
generals of the Egyptian army, and four of them followed the king on
the throne. This was the first time in Egyptian history that the
Cabinet was composed, almost totally, of army generals, which
supports my earlier view that Tutankhamun came to the throne as a
result of a military coup. These generals could only have gained
their positions in the cabinet, and later on the throne, as a result
of a military coup.
The
new evidence indicate that there must have been a kind of military
move against Akhenaten, led by three army generals: Horemheb,
Ramses, and Seti. Aye, the commander of the army, realized he could
not crush the rebellion even with the help of General Nakht Min.
When his attempt to persuade Akhenaten to allow the return of the
old gods failed, he tried to save the royal dynasty by reaching a
compromise with the leaders of the rebellion to allow the king to
abdicate and be replaced by his son Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun left
his father's capital of Amarna for Memphis in his fourth year, when
a compromise was reached in which all ancient temples were reopened
and worship restored. Nevertheless, Aten remained holding its
supreme position, at least as far as the new king was concerned.
Aye,
brother of Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother, is regarded as the
military protector of the Amarna kings, and was responsible for the
Chariots during the time of Akhenaten, while general Nakht Min is
thought to have been his relative. Akhenaten used the army to
destroy the old powerful priesthood and force his new monotheistic
religion on his people. But the army, which shared the same old
beliefs as the rest of the people, could not support the king to the
end. It is clear that Akhenaten faced, in his 17th year, an army
rebellion led by generals Horemheb, Pa-Ramses, and Seti. Aye,
supported by General Nakht Min, not being in a position to crush the
rebellion, made a deal with them to allow for the abdication of
Akhenaten and the appointment of his son, Tutankhamun, as his
successor. This would also explain how Aye, when he succeeded
Tutankhamun on the throne, disappeared mysteriously, together with
Nakht Min, after four years, while the three other generals rose to
power. When Horemheb followed Aye as king, he appointed both
Pa-Ramses and his son Seti as viziers and commanding generals of the
army. They in turn succeeded him on the throne as Ramses I (who
established the 19th dynasty) and Seti I.
Ahmed
Osman
Historian, lecturer,
researcher and author, Ahmed Osman is a British Egyptologist born in
Cairo His four
indepth books clarifying the history of the Bible and Egypt are:
Stranger in the Valley of the
Kings (1987) - Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt (1990)
- The House of the Messiah
(1992) - Out of Egypt (1998) |