Mihos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The seasonal work force of the Nile - native or
> non-native? These young men may have been
> conscripted into the Egyptian work force that
> built Amarna. IF they were of the peasant caste
> and the descendants of slaves or soldier
> slaves-they would logically not have much in terms
> of material wealth and like the felahin today,
> suffer from parasites and malnutrition.

Tell me how you expect to prove this assertion. Why could these workers not have been members of the regular commoner population who decided as willing adherents of Atenism or as loyalists to the king, or were conscripted (either from fields upon which they worked, or as craftsmen who had worked from the royal family in Thebes) to go and work in Akhetaten as builders of their king's new city? Kemp's work at Amarna seems to indicate the people were of common ordinary Egyptian stock, and sees no evidence of a foreign work-force.

What evidence do you have they were "...descendants of slaves or soldier slaves..." as you claim?

> And Katherine, again, I never stated that the king
> HAD to marry anyone so I am confused why you
> repeat your assertion? Amenhotep II and Amenhotep
> III are different kings.
> Amenhotep II's mother was Egyptian. Amenhotep
> III's mother was Mittani.

Actually there's no evidence that Mutemwiya was in fact foreign, and is considered from what is known about her is that she is designated as a /rt-pat/ "noblewoman", who appears to have been thoroughly Egyptian (her name means "Mut is in the barque"), and a sculptural rebus of this name can be found in the British Museum here.

> While I do respect your
> considerable authority on Egyptian history, your
> precepts of patriarchal inheritance presented here
> are not reflective of the ancient tradition of
> land ownership passed down via matrilineal
> pathways- these are common throughout East Africa
> and are a part of our oldest cultural roots.

Yet, there's no evidence the throne passed down in such a fashion in ancient Egypt, and the marriage of various women who were not related to the king as sister or daughter, but still attained status as Great Royal Wives, often of non-royal origin, shows this theory is untenable (Mertz, 1952, Robins 1983; Troy 1986).

> If Sitamun's parents are Thutmose IV and Iaret,
> any hereditary prince or tribal chief of a
> powerful sepat could theoretically become rivals
> to Amenhotep III and his patrilineal successors.
> Amenhotep III married Sitamun to keep her from
> becoming someone else's powerful wife.

First of all, you propose that Satamun's parents are Thutmose IV and Iaret. What evidence do you have for this, since Satamun is consistently listed as Amenhotep III's daughter?

Further, were Satamun the sister of Amenhotep III, she had specific status for her to herald in the hierarchy of royal women - she would have been a /Hmt nsw wrt/ (Great Royal Wife, a title she did possess), a /Hmt nsw/ "wife of a king (again, a title she possessed), and a daughter of a king /sAt nsw/, also a title she possessed. But where is her status as the king's sister, which has a specific title in the royal titles, as /snt nsw/??

But in all other cases of kings marrying their sisters (such as Thutmose II, with Hatshepsut; Iaret with Thutmose IV, etc.), this relationship title of /snt nsw/ is maintained and strongly touted along with all other titles, including the wifely titles. This does not occur with Satamun, which tends to argue that she is not the sister of Amenhotep III.

To buy into your argument that Amenhotep III had to marry Satamun to prevent "...any hereditary prince or tribal chief of a powerful sepat could theoretically become rivals to Amenhotep III..." then explain why Amenhotep III did not feel so obligated to marry the other sisters he had, such as Tia (II) (Troy 1986: 18.30), Amenemopet (Troy 1986: 18.31) or Tentamun (Troy 1986: 18.32). These were all daughters of Thutmose IV, and theoretically stood to be able to marry "...any hereditary prince or tribal chief of a powerful sepat could theoretically become rivals to Amenhotep III" as well.

> He married her to bolster his own political image
> and like his grandfather Amenhotep II, he blocked
> the ascension of any female second prophet of
> Amen.

You know, I've come to understand that you think "God's wife of Amun" = '...second prophet of Amen'. This is [not the case.

While I suggest you look into Gitton 1984 concerning the history and usage of the title of "God's wife" (a sacral function) and the higher title of "God's Wife of Amun", these are not the same, and are independent titles of "second prophet of Amun."

The 'God's Wife of Amun' title was held by many royal women, including Meritre-Hatshepsut, who was the non-royal mother of Amenhotep II and wife of Thutmose III (on this, see Gitton 1984). Amenhotep II's wife Tia also held the title of 'God's wife of Amun', though as the religion of the royal house moved more towards a singular solar religious devotion, culminating in the Atenist religion at Amarna, the title of "God's Wife of Amun" slipped into obscurity until Dynasties 22-26.

The reality is that only one royal female actually held the title of "Second prophet of Amun" - Ahmose Nefertari. But it was arranged by contract to exchange the title for that of 'God's Wife of Amun', so the lack of any "female second prophet of Amun" ended at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty - not during the reign of Amenhotep II (see Gitton 1984).

> Theoretically speaking, Amenhotep III usurped
> Sitamun's birthright, that is, if she was in fact,
> the daughter of Iaret who was in turn the daughter
> of Tia.

Were Satamun a sister of Amenhotep III she would have possessed that title of /snt nsw/, but she did not. Familial titles were very important to the royal familes throughout Egyptian dynastic history, and royal women granted certain elite status and privileges to possess them in hierarchal order. Were Satamun the sister of Amenhotep III it would have benefitted both of them to herald this additional status.

<snip irrelevant statements>
>
> Amenhotep III was the product of diplomatic
> marriage. He married a sepat heiress - forget
> about royal blood for a moment- a sepat heiress-
> some of them descended of Astet or Sekhmet, Mut
> herself supposedly- not royal-but rather divine.
> He married a few more sepat heiresses including
> Sitamun because he could and so that no one else
> could. This way whatever land holdings of their
> people that belonged to them by birthright-
> important temples or agricultural lands for
> example- became his in a matter of speaking.

What evidence do you have that Mutemwiya is not Egyptian, and thereby part of a 'diplomatic marriage' (which implies she is a foreigner)? If Mutemwiya is foreign, she is not a possessor of Egyptian land, which tends to blow your theory.

As Mutemwiya is a /rt-pat/, or an Egyptian "noblewoman", she is already part of the Egyptian nobility, most of whom were granted what lands they possessed under royal boon (although all land of Egypt was held in reality by the king anyway, as he could repossess any land by right - thus, he didn't have to marry any female to "gain" land rights).

As for "sepat heiress" - again you will have to define this, as there is no such Egyptian term as "sepat" as a nome or provincial area of Egypt.

It's all well and good to speculate on certain things, Mihos, but without full researched support for your contentions, but merely relying upon modern folklore and/or oral traditions, you don't advance any of your theories as to what occurred in ancient Egypt with any credibility, IF you cannot show archaeological evidence or primary evidence from ancient Egypt to support these statements.

Reference:

Gitton, M. 1984. Les divine éspouses de la 18e dynastie. Centre de Recherches d'Histoire Ancienne 61/Annales Littéraires de l'Université de Besançon 306. Paris: Les Belles-Lettres.

Mertz, B. 1952. Certain Titles of the Egyptian Queens and Their Bearing on the Hereditary Right to the Throne. Ph. D. Dissertation (Unpublished). Oriental Languages and Literature. Chicago:University of Chicago.

Robins, G. 1983. A Critical Examination of the Theory of the Right to the Throne of Ancient Egypt Passed Through the Female Line in the 18th Dynasty. Göttingen Miszellen 62: 67-77.

Troy, L. 1986. Patterns of Queenship: in ancient Egyptian myth and history. BOREAS 14. Uppsala: ACTA Universitatis Upsaliensis.

Done.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom