The Mysterious Life and Death of Antinous

The blog post for this week is written by Linda Kimmel, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. When she retired from full-time work as a data research manager in late 2020, she began studying about the ancient world, and serving as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Linda had never heard of the Egypt Centre before the pandemic but has taken every course offered since she first noticed a tweet about the museum in the fall of 2020 and has been taking online courses there ever since. Linda is looking forward to another trip to Egypt this fall.

In the fourth session of the latest Egypt Centre class (Causing Their Names to Live Part II: The Lives of the Ancient Egyptians), we covered notable Egyptians from the Old Kingdom through the Roman Period. When our instructor, Ken Griffin, told us he would cover Antinous in the class, I knew that was who I wanted to write about. In addition to studying a lot about ancient Egypt, I have also taken numerous courses on ancient Rome and am particularly interested in the intersection of the two. In an odd coincidence, in a Roman art history course I am currently taking, we touched on art during Hadrian’s reign this week, and discussed several images of Antinous (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Statue of Antinous (Vatican Museums)

Antinous is one of the more well-known individuals we have covered in the class. However, the ancient record lacks details about his life. It is known he was born in the city of Claudiopolis in the Roman province of Bithynia c. 111 CE (fig. 2). In 123 CE the Roman Emperor Hadrian was traveling through Bithynia, and was introduced to Antinous. The boy joined the royal entourage, perhaps with the intent of becoming an imperial page boy (Matyszak and Berry 2023). During their time together, Antinous became a favorite of the Emperor, and Hadrian may have provided him with a formal education. At some point, Antinous became Hadrian’s lover and accompanied the Emperor on his many travels.

Fig. 2: Map highlighting Bithynia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bithynia#/media/File:Roman_Empire_-_Bythinia_et_Pontus_(125_AD).svg)

While traveling with Hadrian in Egypt in 130 CE, Antinous died before his twentieth birthday under mysterious circumstances. We know he drowned in the Nile, but was it an accident, a suicide, or murder, either by Hadrian or someone close to Hadrian? Or was it perhaps a human sacrifice offered to the Nile? All that is known is that Hadrian was reported to be bereft after his death. So why should people interested in ancient Egypt care about Antinous? After all, he was born and lived most of his life outside Egypt. It is because of the ways in which Antinous was memorialized by Hadrian.

After his death, Hadrian had Antinous deified. While numerous Roman Emperors were deified (Julius Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, to name just a few), it was highly unusual for a commoner to be deified in Rome (The Fitzwilliam Museum). The cult of Antinous spread throughout the Mediterranean until it was eventually abolished as Christianity became dominant in the fourth century CE.

Fig. 3: Statue of Antinous (Vatican Museums)

Vout (2005) suggests that more statues were created of Antinous than any other figure from ancient Rome, with the possible exceptions of Augustus and Hadrian. Some of the statues have been found with Antinous in deified form such as this full-figure statue, containing both Egyptian and Roman features (fig. 3). In this format, Antinous is typically shown wearing the nemes headcloth, which is normally associated with pharaohs (fig. 4). Ken noted that Antinous was frequently associated with Osiris, taking the form of Osiris-Antinous.

Fig. 4: Statue of Antinous in Munich (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Standing-striding_egyptianized_figure_of_Antinoo_-_%C3%84gyptisches_Museum_-_Munich_-_Germany_2017_%282%29.jpg)

 

But Antinous was also portrayed in classical Greek style, as a Greek or Roman god, including Apollo, Mercury (or the Greek god Hermes), and Dionysus, as in this bust in the Fitzwilliam Museum (fig. 5). In addition to all of the statues, Vout (2005) reports that coins were minted in honor of Antinous in over thirty cities of the Roman provinces.

Fig. 5: Bust of Antinous as Dionysus (Fitzwilliam Museum)

In an even more lavish display than all of the images of Antinous, Hadrian founded an Egyptian city, Antinoopolis, in memory of Antinous. Antinoopolis is located in Middle Egypt, close to Amarna and Beni Hasan. It is said the location is close to where Antinous died, although the exact site of his death is unknown. Ken noted that with the exception of an existing temple to Ramesses II, everything else was essentially leveled to create a new city. Texts report that close to a million people lived in the city at one time. Bagnall and Rathbone (2004) note that Antinoopolis was built with Greek architecture and special Greek privileges, with its population coming from other Greek cities throughout Egypt. Ryan (2016) calls Antinoopolis a Greek city within Egypt, and notes that at its centre, the city was dominated by a temple to Osiris-Antinous.

Fig. 6: Pincian Obelisk (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hadrianic_Obelisco_del_Pincio,_Rome,_Italy.jpg)

The inscription on the Pincian Obelisk created in memory of Antinous provides more details about Antinoopolis (fig. 6):

A city is named after him; to it belongs a population of Greeks and sons of Horus and children of Seth, resident in the cities of Egypt; they have come from their cities, and valuable lands have been given to them, to enrich their lives greatly. There is a temple there of this god – his name is Osiris Antinous, justified” – built from fair white stone. Sphinxes stand on its perimeter, and statues numerous columns like those once made by the ancients, and also like those made by the Greeks. All the gods and all the goddesses give him there the breath of life, and he breathes in of it, having rediscovered his youth.

 

The Pincian obelisk also contained an image of the deified Antinous receiving gifts from the god Thoth, another strong link to Egypt for this Bithynian youth (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Antinous before Thoth (https://i0.wp.com/followinghadrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/obelisk91.jpg?ssl=1)

In addition to the mysteries surrounding his death, the burial site of Antinous also remains a mystery. Some say that he was mummified, but where he was buried is uncertain. Perhaps his tomb is at the site of Antinoopolis. Then again, it may have been at one of Hadrian’s villas.

While he was not Egyptian, the numerous images and texts about Antinous that were spread throughout the Mediterranean, have definitely caused his name to live and be remembered. Perhaps, with continuing excavations at Antinoopolis, even more will be discovered about Antinous. I know I will be keeping a watch out for new information.

 

Bibliography

Bagnall, Roger S. and Dominic W. Rathbone (Eds.) 2004. Egypt: From Alexander to the Copts. London: The British Museum Press.

Matyszak, Philip and Joanne Berry 2023. A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd.

Ryan, Garrett 2016. Placing Power: Greek Cities and Roman Governors in Western Asia Minor, 69-235 CE. Dissertation, University of Michigan (Greek and Roman History).

The Fitzwilliam Museum. Bust of Antinous as Dionysos, https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-our-collection/highlights/GR1001937 [accessed 04/10/24].

Vout, Caroline. 2005. Antinous, Archaeology and History. The Journal of Roman Studies 95, 80-96. 

More Causing Their Names to Live

For the past five weeks, participants on the recent Egypt Centre short course have been delving into the lives of some of the personalities of ancient Egypt. The Causing Their Names to Live course looked at well-known figures such as Amenhotep son of Hapu, Imhotep, Paneb, and Naunakhte. We also examined some lesser-known individuals, such as the Edfu priest Pasherienimhotep, who is known from a stela in the Egypt Centre collection (fig. 1), a female Vizier called Nebet, and the Divine Adoratrice Qedmerut. In total, about sixty individuals were covered, but there were many others that we never had the chance to look at.

Fig. 1: Stela of Pasherienimhotep (W1041)

The course received a lot of positive feedback, with one participant writing that it was “great to hear about a range of fascinating people, brings them to life. LPH [‘live, prosperity, and health’]”. I have, therefore, decided to run a follow-up course that will look at further personalities from ancient Egypt. This will include men such as Senenmut, who served as the Steward of the King’s Daughter Neferure; Antinous, the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was deified following his untimely death; and Hemionu, the architect of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Women including Hetepheres, the mother of Khufu, whose mysterious tomb was discovered in 1925; Amenirdis, the God’s Wife of Amun; and Mutnodjemet, the possible sister of Nefertiti, will also be featured. We will also look at Seniseneb, the mother of Thutmose I who is depicted in the wonderful watercolour by Howard Carter, which recently arrived at the Egypt Centre on loan from the Egypt Exploration Society (fig. 2). By discussing these individuals, we will be fulfilling the wishes of the ancient Egyptians by causing their names to live!

Fig. 2: Howard Carter watercolour (EES.ART.224)

In order to be as accessible as possible, this course will be run twice a week: Sunday evenings 6–8pm (UK time); Wednesday mornings 10am–12noon (UK time). Additionally, one of the sessions will be recorded and made available for a limited time to registered participants.

 

Week 1 (Sunday 17 and Wednesday 20 March)

Week 2 (Sunday 24 March and Wednesday 27 March)

Week 3 (Sunday 31 March and Wednesday 03 April)

Week 4 (Sunday 07 and Wednesday 10 April)

Week 5 (Sunday 14 and Wednesday 17 April)

 

Tickets for the course are now available via the following link. Fees for this course go directly to supporting the Egypt Centre, for which we are extremely grateful!

 

Note, while this is follow-up to the previous course of the same name, attendance on the first part is not necessary to participate in the second.

Speaking Beyond the Destruction of Their Names

The blog post for this week has been written by Carlein Boers, a political scientist and ancient history enthusiast from the Netherlands. After watching numerous reruns of the animated classic ‘Asterix and Cleopatra’ from the age of five, she developed a lifelong interest in the Amarna Period and the fall of the Roman Republic. In the Netherlands, she has taken courses with Egyptologist Huub Pragt and the ‘Huis van Horus’ Association. She first participated in online courses by the Egypt Centre during the 2021 (second or third) COVID lockdown. Carlein has written blogs for the Egypt Centre in the past, focusing on A Look at the Political Legacy of Amarna.

The ancient Egyptians gave great importance to not only preserving the bodies of the deceased, but also to speaking the names of the ones who passed away. They believed that each morning the Ka-soul of the deceased would find its way back to the body; if the body would be disturbed and/or did not recognise their name, the soul would wander the earth aimlessly to haunt the living ‘till eternity. At least, this is what horror movies tell us.

The practice of Damnatio memoriae

During the course Causing Their Names to Live, Dr. Griffin introduced us to fifty individuals whose names and biographies survived to the present day. Rather, it was the mentioning of Damnatio memoriae during the first part of the course that caught my attention. The phrase Damnatio memoriae originates from modern Latin and translates as “condemnation of memory”; in short it is the complete eradication of any written or depiction of a person with the aim of removing them from history until perpetuity (fig. 1). In a society where speaking one’s name or honouring an effigy is essential to the individual’s wellbeing in the afterlife, it must have been the most severe punishment imaginable. The practice of damnatio memoriae can be found in several societies from Agamemnon wanting to destroy any evidence of Priam’s Troy, King Henry VIII replacing any trace of Anne Boleyn by covering it with Jane Seymour’s initials, and most recently Vladimir Putin’s notorious refusal to utter the name of his strongest opposition (the now departed) Alexei Navalny.

Fig. 1: Erased figure of Hatshepsut at Karnak

The ancient Egyptians had a long tradition of damnatio memoriae, which resulted in destroying graves, mummies, statues, depictions, and erasing names from within cartouches in order to simply not mention someone’s existence ever again. The most prominent example that comes to my mind to prove this practice is the Abydos King List (fig. 2), or rather: what is missing on the King List. The list names 76 pharaohs in chronological order and can be found on the temple of Seti I (c. 1300 BC) in Abydos. And here comes the fun part; take an educated guess at whose names are missing from the list, but when you ask a stranger on the street to name an Egyptian pharaoh, they’ll probably name one of these rulers. I’ll give you a minute…

Fig. 2: Abydos King List

Calling into evidence, case no. 1: the case of the famous female pharaoh

The Abydos King List is missing the name of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (c. 1479–1458 BC), who initially reigned in her stepson Thutmose III’s name only to emerge as an independent ruler. She sought to solidify her succession through her daughter and with the help of a presumed shady advisor/lover Senenmut. Despite being a woman, Hatshepsut donned herself with the traditional king regalia such as the headdress with an uraeus snake and false beard. She even went as far as to marry her daughter, Neferure, as the ceremonial God’s Wife of Amun (fig. 3). Modern feminist love to use her example to show that anything a man can do a woman can do just as well.

Fig. 3: Relief of Neferure (Egypt Centre W1376)

In all fairness, Hatshepsut did accomplish some remarkable things besides managing to stay in power for over twenty years: she pioneered land and trade routes to the Land of Punt (today’s Somalia and Eritrea) and Byblos (Lebanon). She commissioned several great building projects throughout Upper and Lower Egypt, the most famous being her mortuary temple in Deir el-Bahari. For reasons we might never fully know, her stepson Thutmose III went above and beyond to erase her name and depictions after her death (fig. 4). Talk about really not liking the person whose job you took over! By erasing her history, we can only speculate what kind of ruler she really was and what prompted her damnatio memoriae. People today might suggest it is because she was a strong and successful woman overshadowing the old male elite at court. Yet, they failed in their attempt to have her forgotten; Hatshepsut’s name is remembered and spoken today.

Fig. 4: Block with the erased cartouches of Hatshepsut on the left

Calling into evidence, case no. 2: the Amarna pharaohs

At the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, we have another number of names missing from the Abydos King List: Akhenaten, Smenkhkare (possibly Nefertiti), Tutankhamun, and Aye. Long did Egyptologists doubt the existence of these pharaohs as the names were not to be found either on the king lists nor in the famous temple complex of Karnak/Thebes, or in the Valley of the Kings. From what Egyptologists can reconstruct about the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, it was Horemheb who was responsible for making the names of his predecessors disappear. Again, without knowing exactly what happened in Egypt during the Amarna reign that made people hate Akhenaten and his immediate family. Just as quickly as their royal city of Amarna emerged as a new power centre, although it disappeared in the desert sands after which seemed to be an overnight destruction. The names of Akhenaten and Nefertiti were hacked out of their cartouches (fig. 5) while his mother’s name (Tiye) remained revered. This indicates to me that the hatred against Akhenaten was truly focussed on him and his immediate descendants.

Fig. 5: Defased images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

 

We might never have known about the Amarna royals if some traces of their existence hadn’t survived, such as the Amarna talatat blocks. Talatat (limestone) blocks that had been used in Amarna were repurposed to fill the inner Second Pylon at Karnak. The decorated talatat blocks remained untouched by time until their discovery in the twentieth century when they emerged to tell us their story and provide a face for long forgotten kings and queens. From the sands of Amarna appeared beautiful art, such as the bust of Nefertiti in sculptor Thutmose’s workshop (fig. 6). To this day, millions of tourists flock to Berlin’s Neues Museum to gaze on Nefertiti’s face. The search for her tomb still causes controversy as became apparent when a couple of years ago Nicholas Reeves presented his theory on where she might be found.

Fig. 6: Plaster cast of Nefertiti's bust (Egypt Centre 1991)

Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun marked the beginning of an Egypt-craze all over the Western world and mass tourism to Egypt’s ancient sites. Horemheb’s attempt to erase Tutankhamun’s name from prosperity might have contributed to his tomb’s location being forgotten and thus hidden from tomb robbers. When Carter opened the tomb, he found a nearly undisturbed grave filled with golden “wonderous things”. Today, Tutankhamun’s image is commercialized as immortalised in Steve Martin’s SNL sketch (https://youtu.be/FYbavuReVF4?si=HOPqyQMLgsnbEvaw). Mention ancient Egypt and most people will have his golden death mask come to mind (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Golden mask of Tutankhamun

Though Horemheb and the Thebes elite attempted to have the names erased from history, the names of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun are still spoken today.

 

Calling into evidence, case no.3: Queen Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII Philopator was ancient Egypt’s last reigning pharaoh; her death brought an end to an independent Egyptian kingdom that would henceforth be a province in the Roman empire. Cleopatra was last in the line of the Ptolemaic dynasty that claimed ancestry to both the ancient Egyptian pharaohs as well as Alexander the Great (fig. 8). Sources speak of her intelligence, knowledge of literature, languages and mathematics, wit, scheming, and beauty. Asterix and Obelix speak of her nose. The story of Cleopatra and Roman consul and general Marc Antony was immortalised by subsequently Cicero, Plutarch, Shakespeare, and to the moment when Elizabeth Taylor met Richard Burton’s Marc Antony on the film set of the 1960s classic Cleopatra.

Fig. 8: Cleopatra and Caesarion at Dendera

It is now believed that Cleopatra did not die of suicide using a serpent’s venomous bite, but rather was secretly executed by Emperor Augustus. After her death it wasn’t enough to erase her name from temple sites, Augustus made sure her memory was trashed. Cue to stories of Cleopatra seducing Rome’s great but helpless generals and using her charms and poison to rule the eastern part of the Roman Empire. She was portrayed as a scheming harlot with an unsatisfiable hunger for power, yet showed cowardice when she sailed away from the battle scene of Actium before the fight was over. Even her death was used to vilify her; it was said that she had abandoned her people by choosing suicide over remaining on Egypt’s throne as a Roman protectorate.

 

Today, Cleopatra catches our imagination in fiction and as a feminist icon. Her life and legacy still stir controversy as recent as a 2023 Netflix documentary series. All of this despite Rome’s attempt to slander her memory. Speaking beyond her (still to be discovered) tomb, Cleopatra’s name is still spoken today.

 

In conclusion: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

It is mesmerising to me that the names of Egyptian monarchs who had their names eradicated by their successors are known in the twenty-first century. We don’t know much about either their character nor their style of ruling their kingdom; maybe they were horrible human beings and deserved their punishment of damnatio memoriae. Yet, somehow theirs are the names that survived into our times, which are often spoken today. Their names and images have been iconised and commercialised. We in the twenty-first century allowed their names to speak beyond their graves and thus, inherently, securing the survival of their Ka-soul.

 

Bibliography

Cooney, Kara 2014. The woman who would be king. New York: Crown.

Cooney, Kara 2020. When women ruled the world. Six queens of Egypt. Washington, DC: National Geographic.

Goldsworthy, Adrian 2010. Antony and Cleopatra. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Hawass, Zahi (ed.) 2018. Tutankhamun: treasures of the golden pharaoh. The centennial celebration. New York: Melcher Media.

Reeves, Nicholas 2022. The complete Tutankhamun, revised and expanded ed. London: Thames & Hudson.

Reeves, Nicholas 2001. Akhenaten: Egypt’s false prophet. London: Thames & Hudson.

Schiff, Stacy 2010. Cleopatra: a life. New York: Little, Brown and Co.

The Rest is History Podcast by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook (they have an excellent mini-series on both Cleopatra and Tutankhamun)

Tetisheri: The Much-loved Queen

The blog post for this week is written by Linda Kimmel, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. When she retired from full-time work as a data research manager in late 2020, she began studying the ancient world and serving as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Linda had never heard of the Egypt Centre before the pandemic but has taken every course offered since she first noticed a tweet about the Centre in the fall of 2020 and has been taking online courses there ever since. She hopes to visit the Egypt Centre in the fall of 2024, provided the trains are running!

In the fourth session of the latest Egypt Centre class, Causing Their Names to Live, Ken Griffin introduced us to many interesting individuals. From the fascinating Iwesenhesetmut (whose gorgeous coffin is housed at the Egypt Centre) to Udjahorresnet (“the collaborator”) who worked with the Persians during their reign in Egypt, to the notorious Paneb (accused of so many crimes it is hard to remember them all). However, from the minute Ken mentioned Queen Tetisheri, I thought she sounded familiar, and knew I wanted to write about her. Once the class was over, I went back and reviewed the notes I had taken from a 2021 class Ken offered on Egyptian History. Yes, Queen Tetisheri appeared in my notes, but there was nothing there that fit with the odd feeling of familiarity I had with her name.

Finally, it came to me. Queen Tetisheri features prominently in The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters (fig. 1)! Decades before I took my first course from the Egypt Centre, I became interested in ancient Egypt from Peters’ Amelia Peabody mystery series. The books feature Amelia Peabody and her husband, the fictional Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson. Elizabeth Peters is the pseudonym of Barbara Mertz, who received her Ph.D. from the then Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Given her background, it is not surprising that the series is filled with real-life Egyptologists and archaeologists.

Fig. 1: Book cover of The Hippopotamus Pool 

In The Hippopotamus Pool, the eighth entry in the series, the Emersons search for, and eventually find, the tomb of Queen Tetisheri. Along with the mystery, we get many tidbits about ancient Egypt in general, and Queen Tetisheri in particular. At one point, Amelia Peabody notes: 

“In my opinion historians have never given enough attention to the ladies, and what a remarkable woman this Tetisheri must have been – the first of that line of great queens who wielded so much power.” (Peters, p. 72).

How could I resist writing about Queen Tetisheri!

Tetisheri was the daughter of Tjenna and his wife Neferu. Tjenna is unknown except for the appearance of his name on the mummy bandages of his daughter (Dodson and Hilton 2004). Tetisheri was the Great Royal Wife of King Senakhtenre Ahmose I, a ruler of the late Seventeenth Dynasty. It appears that when her husband died, Tetisheri became regent for her son, Seqenenre Tao, one of several women at the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty who became regent or co-regent with their young sons. Tao is said to have been responsible for instigating the war with the Hyksos, which eventually led to the reunification of Egypt. Tetisheri’s daughter Ahhotep I was Tao’s sister and wife. 

Perhaps more significantly, it is through her grandchildren that we learn of the lasting impact of Tetisheri. Tetisheri’s daughter Ahhotep I was the mother of Nebpehtyre Ahmose II, and served as his regent after King Seqenenre Tao was killed during the battle for liberation. Consequently, Ahhotep I played a significant role in Seventeenth Dynasty politics (one of those powerful women alluded to in The Hippopotamus Pool). Ahmose II is credited with being the founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty (Popko, 2013). 

But what remains of Tetisheri? Her mummy has been identified as coming from the Deir el-Bahari Cache, but the location of her original burial site remains a mystery. Ken said it likely was at Dra Abu el-Naga, as that was the royal burial site for the Seventeenth Dynasty.

Fig. 2: Statue of Tetisheri (British Museum EA 22558)

Sadly, the most well-known object related to Tetisheri, a small statue with inscriptions, located in the British Museum (fig. 2), was determined to be a modern copy of an original statue that is only partially preserved (Davies 1984). Mertz (1964), in a non-fiction work, Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs laments the loss of the statue as a true artifact, no doubt leading to the frequent mention of Tetisheri statues in the fictional The Hippopotamus Pool. However, more spectacular monuments to Tetisheri do exist. Her grandson, Ahmose II, built a memorial structure or cenotaph for her at Abydos, just several hundred meters from his own pyramid. Tetisheri’s structure includes a pyramid, making her one of the last Egyptians to have a pyramid constructed in their honor (fig. 3). The pyramid has been under excavation for several decades. Ken joined the excavation in 2010 and told us they found a lot of mummified dogs on site dating to Roman times. The pyramid can be explored in more detail virtually at the Mused website (https://tetisheri.mused.org/en/topics/510/pyramids).

Fig. 3: Restored pyramid of Tetisheri (Ahram Online)

A large dedication stela was found inside the pyramid by Charles Trick Currelly for the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1902 and is now located in the Cairo Egyptian Museum (fig. 4). The stela has mirror images of Ahmose II presenting great offerings to his grandmother, Queen Tetisheri (The Egyptian Museum, 2022). An inscription on the stela notes that Tetisheri’s grave was currently in Thebes, and her cenotaph was in Tawer. So why did Ahmose II build this new structure for his grandmother? This portion of the inscription gives us some clues: 

“Dug out was its lake, planted were its trees, confirmed was its sacrificial bread, it was staffed with people, it was provided with fields, it was endowed with cattle, mortuary priests and lector priests are at their duty, every man knows his regulations. That is, His Majesty spoke these words when the construction of this was being done. His Majesty did this because he loved her more than anything.” 

Fig. 4: Stela of Tetisheri (Cairo Museum)

It was designed to be grand, carefully landscaped, and fully staffed with priests to ensure Tetisheri’s memory would endure. But touchingly, Ahmose II had it built because “he loved her more than anything.” And since this past week included Valentine’s Day, it seems a fitting reason to write about Tetisheri, and to repeat her name. 

 

References

Daymarany, Ayman. The life of Queen Tetisheri. Mused. https://tetisheri.mused.org/en/stories/209/the-life-of-queen-tetisheri [Accessed February 13, 2024]

Dodson, Aidan and Dyan Hilton. 2004. The complete royal families of ancient Egypt. London; New York: Thames & Hudson.

Davies, W. V. 1984. The statuette of queen Tetisheri: a reconsideration. British Museum Occasional Paper 36. London: British Museum.

Mertz, Barbara. 2007. Temples, tombs & hieroglyphs: a popular history of ancient Egypt. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Peters, Elizabeth. 1996. The hippopotamus pool. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Popko, Lutz, 2013, Late Second Intermediate Period to early New Kingdom. In Wolfram Grajetzki, Willeke Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz002hgq2

The Egyptian Museum. 2022. https://egyptianmuseumcairo.eg/artefacts/stela-of-the-king-ahmose/#:~:text=Artefact%20Details&text=This%20commemorative%20stela%2C%20bears%20a,a%20symbol%20of%20royal%20protection [Accessed February 13, 2024] 

Metjen: Causing His Name to Live

The blog post for this week is written by Judit Blair, who has a Masters in Ancient Near Eastern religions and a PhD in Hebrew and the Old Testament, both from the University of Edinburgh. Judit is a Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Open Learning (COL) at Edinburgh University and a Tutor at Glasgow University where she teaches such courses as Ancient Egypt and the Bible, Aspects of Ancient Near Eastern Demonology, and Ancient Monsters. Judit is also a member of Egyptology Scotland and the EES.

 

The Egypt Centre’s new course Causing Their Names to Live looks at the lives of many ancient Egyptian men and women from the Old Kingdom through to the end of pharaonic history. Some of these individuals are well known (e.g. Imhotep, Amenhotep son of Hapu, etc.), while others are quite obscure with scant evidence. Their autobiographies inscribed in their tombs, although often exaggerated, allow us a glimpse into the lives and achievements of these individuals.

 

Arguably the first known (auto)biography comes from the decorated tomb-chapel of a man called Metjen, who lived most of his life during the reign of the Third Dynasty king Netjerikhet Djoser. According to his inscriptions, he also served under Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty and in the court of Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty (Logan 2000, 51 n. 22). He died sometime during the reign of the latter, in the twenty-sixth century BCE (Manley 2023, 68).

 

Metjen was buried in a mastaba close to the Step Pyramid of Djoser, some 400m north of the pyramid enclosure. The mastaba, built of solid stone and largely undecorated, was quite well preserved due to it having been buried under sand. It was discovered by Karl Richard Lepsius in 1843. The T-shaped tomb-chapel was decorated with high-quality limestone and inscribed with detailed hieroglyphs containing “a remarkable amount of inscription, as well as pictorial elements”. It is “the oldest decorated chapel that is almost completely preserved.” (Baines 1999, 29). Lepsius removed the reliefs of the tomb chapel and took them to Berlin (fig. 1) where they are now reconstructed in the Ägyptisches Museum (Manley 2023, 67).  

Fig.1: Offering chapel of Metjen (Limestone Giza Inv.-No. ÄM 1105)

 

The entrance to the tomb chapel leads to a narrow and high passageway (0.67m x 2.52m), which was decorated on both sides with Metjen’s biography (written in columns). The roof of the passageway consisted of limestone blocks, which were shaped to look like cedar logs and placed lengthways. The passageway opened into an offering chamber. On the north side, a window looked into a serdab, a stone box for Metjen’s statue (Manley 2023, 68; Romer 2013, 329). The statue, made of granite, measures 47cm in height, and shows Metjen seated, dressed in fine linen, wearing a curly wig, with his right hand in a fist, resting on his chest and his left hand on his left knee (fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Statue of Metjen (Berlin, ÄM 1106)

 

Three sides of the chair are inscribed with Metjen’s name and titles. As one is facing the statue, on the left side he is referred to as “mouth-opening priest who is before Min, priest of Horus, Metjen”, on the right side he is “servant of the estate of the serdab of the king’s mother, Metjen”, and in the middle, he is “greatest of the ten of Upper Egypt, king’s acquaintance, Metjen” (translation here and all others in italics are my own done in Bill Manley’s Reading Class, The University of Glasgow, 2021).

 

On the west wall of the offering chamber, there is a false door; this is the focus of the chapel and offerings. Its central area is quite wide, and it depicts a striding figure of Metjen with a smaller, seated representation of him above the door (Baines 1999, 30). The false door is decorated with “a prodigious statement of Metjen’s achievements and extensive endowments of land” (Manley 2023, 68). It is also here that his involvement in the upkeeping of the funerary cult of queen Nimaathap, wife of Khasekhemwy and mother of Djoser, is mentioned (Dodson & Hilton 2004, 48; Manley 2023, 68).

 

Metjen’s life is presented to us through his titles and a lengthy statement of 18 columns of text, which are carved on the far west wall of the tomb chapel. The biographical texts on the north and south walls of the entrance passageways give an explanation of his success (Manley 2023, 68). We can learn a significant amount of information about Metjen from these texts. He was not a member of the royal family but came presumably from Xois in the Delta. We know his father’s and mother’s names; his father was Inpu-em-ankh, who was a superintendent of writing, and his mother was Netnebes. Although he inherited his father’s property with royal approval (Romer 2013, 332), he tells us that it had come down to him “with neither wheat nor barley nor anything tangible for an estate but there were people and animals”, which presumably means that he only inherited “debts and responsibilities” from his father (Manley 2023, 70).   

 

However, as his father was an inspector of writing, it is likely that Metjen was taught to read and write, and so “he was put in charge of the writing of the office of provisioning as keeper of the belongings of the office of provisioning”. This is how his public career started, and then presumably he got himself noticed during one of the boat festivals, as in the following lines we read that “he was put as strong-oarsman and physician of the stroke-rowers so that the canal-cutter of Xois would be following the superintendent of the chiefs of stone-cutters of Xois”. This might mean that “Metjen’s prowess was such that even the local governor had to follow his lead” (Manley 2023, 70). 

 

From here, Metjen’s career took off. He was “put as keeper of all the king’s flax”, and became a “staff-bearer”, the governor of Buto, Xois, Dep, Sais, Mendes, and Letopolis (inscription on the North wall of the passageway). He had developed land at the western edge of the Delta, reclaimed desert for settlement, developed wetlands in the Fayum, etc. As Manley (2023, 69) puts it, “Metjen became the go-to man of his age for hydraulic engineering, especially adept at managing the marshes and lands along the fringes of the Nile Delta to ‘open it up’ for agriculture and safe settlement”.

 

At the end of the inscription of the north wall, we find out that a community called “Sheret-Metjen was founded in front of what his father, Inpu-em-ankh gave him.” From the text on the opposite (south) wall, we learn that more communities have been founded in his name, “there were founded for him 12 Sheret-Metjen in Sais, Xois and Letopolis”, and also that he was given “a serdab for his chapel”. He received large areas of land holdings as gifts; “200 arouras (c. 4.8 ha) of fields were brought to him for a reward from the numerous kings”. He was also given 50 arouras of fields for his mother (Manley 2023, 71).

 

Metjen founded a series of gardens; these were walled, with a lake and trees planted in them, e.g., date palms, and fig trees. Vines, salad, and other vegetables were also cultivated there; the grapes were pressed and wine was produced (Romer 2013, 333; Manley 2023, 71). Besides the already mentioned responsibilities, Metjen was also an “Administrator of the desert, Controller of hunters/hunting” as well as in charge of the royal linen production (Romer 2013, 332). There are scenes (the south thickness relief of the false door) showing small desert animals and others where the hunt is evoked through dogs attacking the hindquarters of other animals (Baines 1999, 31).

 

Apart from containing the first (lengthy) biographical texts, Metjen’s tomb-chapel has another significance: it is the earliest to have the ḥtp-dı͗-nsw (offering) formula inscribed (twice on the north side).

 

Metjen’s story is one of success; from humble origins, he rose to be a high official thanks to “the gift of literacy”. His biography is “the first, magnificent celebration of a transformative, new technology – writing.” (Manley 2022, Society of Authors). Interestingly, there are “no direct successors” to Metjen’s inscriptions until the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty (Baines 1999, 34).   

 

Bibliography

Baines, John 1999. Forerunners of narrative biographies. In Leahy, Anthony and John Tait (eds), Studies on ancient Egypt in honour of H. S. Smith, 23–37. London: Egypt Exploration Society.

Dodson, Aidan and Dyan Hilton 2004. The complete royal families of ancient Egypt. London; New York: Thames & Hudson.

Logan, Tom 2000. The jmyt-pr document: form, function and significance. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 37, 49–73.

Manley, Bill 2022. Metjen, the earliest known writer, Society of Authors. Available at: https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2022/08/04/metjen-the-earliest-known-writer/

Manley, Bill 2023. The oldest book in the world: philosophy in the age of the pyramids. London: Thames & Hudson.

Romer, John 2012. A history of ancient Egypt: from the first farmers to the Great Pyramid. London: Allen Lane.

Presents for the King

This blog post has been written by Jaap Jan Hemmes, who lives in a small village in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. For a long time, he has had a great interest in ancient Egypt has had the privilege to visit Egypt annually. Among the rich heritage ancient Egypt offers, he is particularly interested in the Theban area with its impressive temples and tombs of the elite as well as of royals. Besides that, he can lose himself in Egypt’s remains from the Old and Middle Kingdom. Indispensable during his visits is a camera, with which he has built up an extensive collection of images that, on request, are used for publication.

Opposite the modern city of Aswan, the Nile Valley shows one of its most dramatic landscapes. The strip of the fertile, cultivated land is reduced to a minimum and the desert almost touches the longest river on earth. Before the huge dams were built at the end of the nineteenth century and the second one in the middle of the twentieth century, the landscape must have looked similar to today (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Aswan, Qubbet el-Hawa with tombs of the nomarchs of Elephantine

 

In ancient Egypt, the country was divided into nomes (administrative districts). The very south area of Syene (Aswan) formed the first of over forty nomes, each with a ruler, or Nomarch, appointed by the King and or Vizier. Ta-seti, the southernmost part of Egypt, the country’s first nome of Upper Egypt (fig. 2) was an ideal starting point for travelling southward in order to control and protect trading routes and collect much appreciated precious African commodities such as incense, ivory, gold, panther and leopard skins, and ostrich feathers.

Fig. 2: Ta seti, ‘Land of the Bow’, the 1st nome of Upper Egypt. 
White Chapel of Senwesret I, 12th dyn.; Karnak, Open Air Museum

One of these nomarchs who chose to be buried near his hometown was Harkhuf. He was the nomarch of Elephantine and lived in the Old Kingdom during the Sixth Dynasty (under the rulers Merenre I and Pepi II). Harkhuf carried a great number of impressive titles: Count, Governor of Upper Egypt, Royal Seal Bearer, Sole Companion, Favourite of his Lord (the king), Lector Priest, Chief of Scouts, Chamberlain, Warden of Nekhen, and Mayor of Nekheb. On request of his sovereign, he undertook several journeys to the area of Yam, which was located in the south of Sudan or in the Libyan Desert. 

After a dutiful life—as he states—Harkhuf, as so many others, wished to be remembered for his great achievements. Ideally, the preferred place for a burial was on the West Bank of the Nile, the side where the sun sets. Qubbet el-Hawa (“dome of the wind”, see fig. 1) opposite Aswan offered a very suitable burial place for its governors, from the Old Kingdom onwards. On the façade of his tomb, facing east in the direction of the rising sun, records of his expeditions were carved, and it is notably his fourth expedition that mentions a very special service for his king, Pepi II. 

When Merenre I died, he was succeeded by Pepi II (throne name Neferkara; c. 2278–2184 BC), who was about six years old (fig. 3) when he ascended the throne. His regnal duties were attended by officials and probably his mother Ankhesenmerire II (also known as Ankhesenpepi II). It is said that Pepi reigned for 94 years!

Fig. 3: Pair statue of queen Ankhnesmeryre II and her son Pepi II on her lap
© Brooklyn Museum of Art, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund 39.119           

 

With the royal court at Memphis, some 900km from Aswan, the kings of the Old Kingdom onwards granted estates to great nobles in order to ‘buy’ their loyalty. Unfortunately, for many kings, this loyalty was not guaranteed as nomarchs sometimes operated as rulers in their own right. Harkhuf seems to have remained most loyal to his kings. 

On the right side of the entrance of Harkhuf’s tomb, he is depicted in a traditional way (fig. 4). Standing, facing the entrance, he holds a sekhem-sceptre in his left hand (“having power, control”) and a long stick in his right, both symbols of dignity. He wears an elaborate wig and a rich collar.

Fig. 4: Harkhuf

 

Above and in front of him, as well as on the left side of the tomb entrance, are the accounts of his first three expeditions (under Merenre I) to Nubia. The main purpose of the first, apparently under the direction of his father Iri, was the exploration of the way (“open the way”) to Yam that hadn’t previously been visited. This expedition lasted seven months. “I brought back all sorts of tribute, beautiful and rare and I was praised for it very highly). The second expedition lasted eight months. “I returned carrying tribute of this land in very great numbers, of a kind which nobody had ever brought to Egypt before”. During his third journey, Harkhuf probably faced political issues with the ruler of Yam, but negotiations resulted in mutual satisfaction and Harkhuf could return home without problems.

Harkhuf let the boy-king Pepi II know that he was returning with “all kinds of great and beautiful gifts”, including a pygmy from “the lands of the horizon-dwellers”, (i.e., “from the ends of the earth”). Harkhuf compared his prize to the pygmy brought from Punt in the reign of the Fifth Dynasty ruler Isesi, and noted that never before had a pygmy been brought to Egypt from Yam. In “regnal year 2, month 3 of (the inundation season) Akhet, day 15”, Pepi II wrote Harkhuf the following letter, the text of it was copied and carved on the extreme right part of the façade (fig. 5). I omitted parts of the translation (in italics between brackets):

Fig. 5: The king’s letter to Harkhuf

 

“(…) Come back, at once, to the north, to the residence (Memphis). Leave (everything) and bring with you the pygmy which you have brought from the land of the inhabitants of the horizon, alive, in good health and strong so that he may dance for the God (the king) and make him gladden and delight the heart of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neferkara (Pepi II), may he live eternally!
If you come with him in the ship, set worthy men around him on both sides of the boat and take care that he does not fall in the water. If he lies down to sleep during the night, have worthy men to lie beside him in his tent; go and check ten times in the night. My Majesty wishes to see this pygmy more than all the tribute of mine-land (Sinai) and of Punt. If you reach the residence and the pygmy is with you, alive, in good health and strong, My Majesty will do great things for you,  more than was done for the god’s seal-bearer/treasurer, Bawerded, in the time of king Isesi (…). (fig. 6)

Fig. 6: Some words from the letter of Pepi II

This text is the only complete royal letter dating from the Old Kingdom, more than 4000 years ago. Imagine the excited reaction of the child-king Pepi II when Harkhuf arrived with the pygmy at the residence!

Visiting the rock-cut tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa nowadays is a bit of an exhausting climb, but one is more than rewarded with a fantastic panorama and, of course, with most interesting tombs including Harkhuf’s. By pronouncing his name again and again, there or at home, one helps realising Harkhuf’s wish to live and be remembered for eternity!

 

Literature:

Anonymous (ed.) 1999. Egyptian art in the age of the pyramids. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Harry N. Abrams.

Clayton, Peter A. 1994. Chronicle of the pharaohs: the reign-by-reign record of the rulers and dynasties of ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson.

Goedicke, Hans 1981. Harkhuf’s travels. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40 (1), 1–20.

Hannig, Rainer 2015. Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch - Deutsch (2800–950 v. Chr.): Marburger Edition, 6th ed. Hannig-Lexica 1. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.

Lichtheim, Miriam 2006. Ancient Egyptian literature. A book of readings, volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press.

Rice, Michael 1999. Who’s who in ancient Egypt. Who’s Who series. London; New York: Routledge.

Wilkinson, Toby 2019. Lives of the ancient Egyptians. London: Thames & Hudson.