Mitanni and Egypt
The word monotheism is derived from the Greek μόνος (monos) meaning “single” and (theos) meaning “god”. The English term was first used by Henry More (1614–1687).
According to Christian tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity but was generally lost after the so-called fall of man. This theory was largely abandoned in the 19th century in favour of an evolutionary progression from Animism via Polytheism to Monotheism as the last link in a long chain; but, by 1974 this later theory was less widely held. Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an Urmonotheismus, “original” or “primitive monotheism.” in the 1910s. It was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical monotheism. Furthermore, while belief in a “high god” is not universal, it is found in many parts of Africa and numerous other areas of the world.
Two examples of monolatrism developing from polytheism are the Aten cult in the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, as well as the rise of Marduk from the tutelary of Babylon to the claim of universal supremacy.
In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda appears as a supreme and transcendental deity. Depending on the date of Zoroaster (usually placed in the early Iron Age), this may be one of the earliest documented instances of the emergence of monism in an Indo-European religion.
In the cities of the Ancient Near East, each city had a local patron deity, such as Shamash at Larsa or Sin at Ur. The first claims of global supremacy of a specific god date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten (speculatively connected to Judaism by Sigmund Freud in his Moses and Monotheism). However the date of the Exodus is disputed, and it is not definitive whether the setting of the biblical Exodus event is prior to or following Akhenaten’s reign. Furthermore it is not clear to what extent Akhenaten’s Atenism was monotheistic rather than henotheistic with Akhenaten himself identified with the god Aten.
Currents of monism or monotheism emerge in Vedic India earlier, with e.g. the Nasadiya Sukta. In the Indo-Iranian tradition, the Rigveda exhibits notions of monism, in particular in the comparatively late tenth book, also dated to the early Iron Age, e.g. in the Nasadiya sukta.
Ethical monotheism and the associated concept of absolute good and evil emerge in Zoroastrianism and Judaism, later culminating in the doctrines of Christology in early Christianity and later (by the 7th century) in the tawhid in Islam. In Islamic theology, a person who spontaneously “discovers” monotheism is called a ḥanīf, the original ḥanīf being Abraham.
The Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII)[1] (c. 1550–c. 1292 BC) is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt. As well as boasting a number of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, it included Tutankhamun, the finding of whose tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 was a sensational archaeological discovery despite its having been twice disturbed by tomb robbers. The dynasty is sometimes known as the Thutmosid Dynasty because of the four pharaohs named Thutmosis (English: Thoth bore him).
As well as Tutankhamen, famous pharaohs of Dynasty XVIII include Hatshepsut (1479 BC–1458 BC), longest-reigning queen-pharaoh of an indigenous dynasty, and Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC/1351–1334 BC), the “heretic pharaoh”, with his queen, Nefertiti.
Throughout the Eighteenth Dynasty royal women played a significant and visible role in state and religious affairs. Amenhotep III (Hellenized as Amenophis III; Egyptian Amāna-Ḥātpa; meaning Amun is Satisfied) also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died.
His reign was a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendour, when Egypt reached the peak of her artistic and international power. When he died (probably in the 39th year of his reign), his son initially ruled as Amenhotep IV, but later changed his own royal name to Akhenaten.
Amenhotep III was the son of Thutmose IV (the son of Amenhotep II), a pharaoh of Egypt, in the Eighteenth Dynasty and the mother of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, by a minor wife Mutemwiya. Mutemwiya’s name means “Mut in the divine bark”. He was born around 1388 BC. He was a member of the Thutmosid family that had ruled Egypt for almost 150 years since the reign of Thutmose I.
Amenhotep III was the father of two sons with his Great Royal Wife Tiye, a queen who could be considered as the progenitor of monotheism through her first son, Crown Prince Thutmose, who predeceased his father, and her second son, Amenhotep IV, later known as Akhenaten, who ultimately succeeded Amenhotep III to the throne.
Amenhotep III also may have been the father of a third child – called Smenkhkare, who later would succeed Akhenaten, briefly rule Egypt as pharaoh, and who is thought to have been a woman.
Mutemwiya is not attested during the reign of her husband Thutmose IV. She would have been overshadowed at court by first queen Nefertari, and later by queen Iaret. Mutemwiya is only shown on the monuments of her son Amenhotep III.
While Mutemwiya occasionally was identified by some researchers as a daughter of King Artatama I of Mitanni no evidence proves that she is the same person, and nothing about her own background is known. In fact, it now is believed by many that there is evidence that she was not a daughter of Artatama and the theory has been discarded.
Artatama I was a king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni in the late fifteenth century BC. His reign coincided with the reigns of Egyptian pharaohs Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV.
Little is known of this king who has not left any inscriptions. Artatama is referred to in the Amarna letters as an ancestor who established an alliance with Thutmose IV of Egypt. According to modern interpretation of scarce available sources, Artatama came to power when the Mitanni kingdom was severely weakened by the Hittite invasion. Facing the perils of fighting a war on two fronts, the Hittites in the north and Egypt in the south, Artatama approached Amenhotep II with an offer of peaceful division of contested lands in Syria. A peaceful resolution of an old conflict could grow into a political and military alliance, but the Egyptians suspected foul play and denied definite answer for years. At one point during the reign of Thutmose IV they proposed a marriage between Thutmose and Artatama’s daughter, but for unknown reasons Artatama rejected the offer.
The Egyptians had to make seven consecutive marriage proposals before Artatama finally agreed. Thus, Artatama may have been the father of Queen Mutemwiya and the maternal grandfather of Amenhotep III. Artatama was succeeded by his son Shuttarna II.
Mutemwiya may instead have been a sister of Yuya based solely upon the assumption that since Mutemwiya was present during the early years of her son’s reign that she somehow engineered the marriage between Tiye and the young king, thus solidifying a family connect to the royal house. However, this theory has little archaeological or inscriptional support.
Mutemwiya held many titles including God’s Wife, Lady of The Two Lands, Great King’s Wife, his beloved, noblewoman, countess, Great of Praises, Sweet of Love, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, and God’s Mother.
The titles king’s mother and god’s mother amount to the same thing since the god in question was the reigning king, Amenhotep III. All of these titles, including that of Great Royal Wife, were used only after her husband’s death, during her son’s reign. At the time of Amenhotep III’s accession to the throne she gained prominence as the new pharaoh’s mother.
Tiye may have continued to advise her son, Akhenaten, when he took the throne. Her son’s correspondence with Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, speaks highly of the political influence she wielded at court. In Amarna letter EA 26, Tushratta, king to Mitanni, corresponded directly with Tiye to reminisce about the good relations he enjoyed with her then deceased husband and extended his wish to continue on friendly terms with her son, Akhenaten.
Yuya was a powerful Egyptian courtier during the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt (circa 1390 BC). He was married to Tjuyu, an Egyptian noblewoman associated with the royal family, who held high offices in the governmental and religious hierarchies. Their daughter, Tiye, became the Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III.
They also may have been the parents of Ay, an Egyptian courtier active during the reign of pharaoh Akhenaten, who eventually became pharaoh, as Kheperkheprure Ay. There is no conclusive evidence, however, regarding the kinship of Yuya and Ay, although certainly, both men came from the town of Akhmim. Yuya and Tjuyu also are known to have had a son named Anen, who carried the titles Chancellor of Lower Egypt, Second Prophet of Amun, sm-priest of Heliopolis, and Divine Father.
The tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu was, until the discovery of Tutankhamun’s, one of the most spectacular ever found in the Valley of the Kings despite Yuya not even being a pharaoh. Although the burial site was robbed in antiquity, many objects not considered worth plundering by the robbers remained. Both the mummies were largely intact and were in an amazing state of preservation. Their faces in particular were relatively undistorted by the process of mummification, and provide an extraordinary insight into the actual appearance of the deceased while alive.
Yuya came from the Upper Egyptian town of Akhmim, where he probably owned an estate and was a wealthy member of the town’s local nobility. His origins remain unclear. The study of his mummy showed that Yuya had been a man of taller than average stature and the anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith considered that his appearance was not typically Egyptian.
Taking into account his unusual name and features, some Egyptologists believe that Yuya was of foreign origin, although this is far from certain. The name Yuya may be spelled in a number of different ways as Gaston Maspero noted in Theodore Davis’s 1907 book—The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou. These include “iAy”, ywiA”, yw [reed-leaf with walking feet]A, ywiw” and, in orthography—normally a sign of something foreign–“y[man with hand to mouth]iA”.
It was not typical for an Egyptian person to have so many different ways to write his name; this may suggest that Yuya’s ancestors had a foreign origin. In “The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt” one solution is that Yuya had some Mitannian ancestry; this argument is based on the fact that the knowledge of horses and chariotry was introduced into Egypt from Asia and Yuya was the king’s “Master of the Horse.”
It was also suggested that Yuya was the brother of queen Mutemwiya, who was the mother of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and may have had Mitannian royal origins. However, this hypothesis can not be substantiated, since nothing is known of Mutemwiya’s background.
While Yuya lived in Upper Egypt, an area that was predominantly native Egyptian, he could have been an assimilated descendant of Asiatic immigrants or slaves who rose to become a member of the local nobility at Akhmin. If he was not a foreigner, however, then Yuya would have been the native Egyptian whose daughter was married to Amenhotep III. Yuya is believed to have died around 1374BC in his mid 50s.
Yuya served as a key adviser for Amenhotep III, and held posts such as “King’s Lieutenant” and “Master of the Horse”; his title “Father-of-the-god” possibly referred specifically to his being Amenhotep’s father-in-law. In his native town of Akhmin, Yuya was a prophet of Min, the chief god of the area, and served as this deity’s “Superintendent of Cattle”.
Nefertari was a queen of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, the first Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose IV. Her origins are unknown, it is likely that she was a commoner. On several depictions she and Queen Mother Tiaa are depicted as goddesses accompanying Thutmose. In the 7th year the new Great Royal Wife was Thutmose’s sister Iaret; Nefertari either died or was pushed into the background when Iaret was old enough to become Thutmose’s wife.
She was depicted together with her husband before gods in Gizeh, on eight stelae. She was also shown on a stela found in the Luxor Temple and was mentioned on a scarab found in Gurob. It is not known whether any children were born either to Nefertari or to Iaret; after Thutmose’s death the next pharaoh was Amenhotep III, the son of a secondary wife called Mutemwia.
Shuttarna II, king of Mitanni, was a descendant and probably a son of the great Mitannian king Artatama I. He was an ally of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III and the diplomatic dealings of the kings are briefly recorded in the Amarna letters.
For political reasons, Gilukhipa, or more probable Kilu-Hepa in Hurrian language, in the Egyptian language Kirgipa, was sent to Egypt to join Amenhotep III in marriage. Gilukhipa became known as the “Secondary King’s Wife,” meaning she was secondary to Amenhotep III’s chief wife, Queen Tiye.
Shuttarna’s daughter Gilukhipa was the sister of Tushratta (later King of Mitanni), Biria-Waza and Artashumara. Twenty-six years later, her niece Tadukhepa also became Amenhotep’s wife. Tadukhipa, in the Hurrian language Tadu-Hepa, was the daughter of Tushratta, king of Mitanni (reigned ca. 1382 BC–1342 BC) and his queen, Juni and niece of Artashumara.
Tadukhipa is referenced in seven of Tushratta’s thirteen Amarna letters, of about 1350-1340 BC. Tushratta requested that his daughter would become a queen consort, even though that position was held by Queen Tiye.
Amenhotep III died shortly after Tadukhipa arrived in Egypt and she eventually married his son and heir Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten).
Some scholars tentatively identify Tadukhipa with Kiya, a queen of Akhenaten. It has been suggested that the story of Kiya may be the source for the New Kingdom story called the Tale of Two Brothers. This fable tells the story of how the pharaoh fell in love with a beautiful foreign woman after smelling her hair. If Tadukhipa was later known as Kiya, then she would have lived at Amarna where she had her own sunshade and was depicted with the pharaoh and at least one daughter.
Kiya was one of the wives of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Little is known about her, and her actions and roles are poorly documented in the historical record, in contrast to those of Akhenaten’s first (and chief) royal wife, Nefertiti. Her unusual name suggests that she may originally have been a Mitanni princess.
Surviving evidence demonstrates that Kiya was an important figure at Akhenaten’s court during the middle years of his reign, when she bore him a daughter. She disappears from history a few years before her royal husband’s death. In previous years, she was thought to be mother of Tutankhamun, but recent DNA evidence suggests this is unlikely.
However there is no confirming evidence that Kiya was anything but a native Egyptian. In fact, Cyril Aldred proposed that her unusual name is actually a variant of the Ancient Egyptian word for “monkey,” making it unnecessary to assume a foreign origin for her.
Others such as Petrie, Drioton and Vandier have suggested that Tadukhipa was given a new name after becoming the consort of Akhenaten and is to be identified the famous queen Nefertiti. This theory suggests that Nefertiti’s name “the beautiful one has come” refers to Nefertiti’s foreign origin as Tadukhipa.
The exact dates of when Nefertiti was married to Akhenaten and later promoted to his Queen are uncertain. However, the couple had six known daughters.
As devout and peace-loving as the King, was Nefertiti, his lovely queen. Little is known of the origin of this beloved beauty. Some believe that she was the daughter of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, and therefore the full sister of Akenaton; others have speculated that she was a Mitanni beauty who, having first been a part of the harem of Amenhotep III, was later married to his son Akhenaton. Still others insist that Nefertiti was the daughter of Ay, the brother of Queen Tiye, who followed one of Akhenton’s successor’s, King Tutankhaumun, to the throne.
In the early days of the rule of Akhenaton, he and Nefertiti were inseparable. Contemporary artists depict them in tender domestic scenes enjoying dinner, paying homage to the Aton and relaxing with their daughters.
Tushratta was a king of Mitanni at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten – approximately the late 14th century BC. He was the son of Shuttarna II. His sister Gilukhipa and his daughter Tadukhipa were married to the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III; Tadukhipa later married Akhenaten who took over his father’s royal harem.
He had been placed on the throne after the murder of his brother Artashumara. He was probably quite young at the time and was destined to serve as a figurehead only. But he managed to dispose of the murderer.
Comments