Читать книгу The Life and Times of Akhenaton, Pharaoh of Egypt - Arthur E. P - Страница 11

Somewhere about the year 1470 B.C., while the great Thothmes III. was campaigning in Syria, the child was born who was destined to become the grandfather of the most remarkable of all the Pharaohs of Egypt. Neither the names of the parents nor the place of birth are known; and the reader will presently find that it is not easy to say whether the child was an Egyptian or a foreigner. His name is written Aau, Aay, Aai, Ayu, A-aa, Yaa, Yau, and most commonly Yuaa; and this variety of spelling seems rather to indicate that its pronunciation, being foreign, did not permit of a correct rendering in Egyptian letters. He must have been some twenty years of age when Thothmes III. died; and thus it is quite possible that he was one of those Syrian princes whom the Pharaoh brought back to Egypt from the courts of Asia to be educated in the Egyptian manner. Some of these hostages who were not direct heirs to Syrian thrones may have taken up their permanent residence on the banks of the Nile, where it is certain that a fair number of their countrymen were settled for business and other purposes. During the reign of Amonhotep II., Yuaa must have passed the prime years of his life, and at that king’s death he had probably reached about the forty-fifth year of his age. He had married a woman called by the common Egyptian name of Tuau, regarding whose nationality there is, therefore, not much question. Two children were born of the marriage, the first a boy who was named Aanen, and the second a girl named Tiy, who later became the great queen. Tiy was probably a little girl some two years old when Thothmes IV. came to the throne, and as her parents both held appointments at court, she must have presently received those first impressions of royal luxury which influenced her childhood and her whole life.

Tuau, grandmother of Akhenaton.

At this time Yuaa held the sacerdotal office of Priest of Min, one of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods. Min, who had many of the characteristics of, and was later identified with, the Greek Pan, was worshipped at three or four cities of Upper Egypt, and throughout the Eastern Desert to the Red Sea coast. He was the god of fecundity, fertility, generation, reproduction, and the like, in the human, animal, and vegetable worlds. In his form of Min-Ra he was a god of the sun, whose fertilising rays made pregnant the whole earth. He was more noble than the Greek Pan, and represented the pristine desires of lawful reproduction in the family, rather than the erotic instincts for which the Greek god was famous. Were one to compare him with any of the gods of the countries neighbouring to Egypt, he would be found to have as much likeness to the above-mentioned Adonis, who in North Syria was a god of vegetation, as to any other deity. This fact offers food for some thought, for if Yuaa was a foreigner, hailing, as may be supposed, from Syria, there would have been no Egyptian god, except Atum, to whose service he would have attached himself so readily as to that of Min. Although a tribal god, Min was not essentially the protector and upholder of Egyptian rights and Egyptian prejudices. He was, in one form or another, universal; and he must have appealed to the sense and the senses of Syrian and Egyptian alike.

At this time, as we have seen, the priests of Amon, whose wealth had brought corruption in its train, were under the cloud of royal displeasure, and the court was beginning to display a desire to rid itself of an influence which was daily becoming less exalted. It may be that Yuaa, upholding the doctrines of Min and of Adonis, had some connection with this movement, for he was now a personage of considerable importance at the palace. He may have already held the title of Prince or Duke, by which he is called in his funeral inscriptions; and one may suppose that he was a favourite of the young king, Thothmes IV., and of his wife, Queen Mutemua, whose blood was soon to unite with his own in the person of Akhenaton. When Thothmes IV. died at the age of twenty-six, and his son Amonhotep III., a boy of twelve years of age, came to the throne, Yuaa was a man of over fifty, and his little daughter Tiy was a girl of marriageable age according to Egyptian ideas, being about ten years old.11

Chest belonging to Yuaa.

The court at this time was more or less under the influence of the now Queen-Regent Mutemua and her advisers, for Amonhotep III. was still too young to be allowed to go entirely his own way, and amongst those advisers it seems evident that Yuaa was to be numbered. Now the boy-king had not been on the throne more than a year, if as much, when, with feasting and ceremony, he was married to Tiy; and Yuaa and Tuau became the proud parents-in-law of the Pharaoh.

It is necessary to consider the significance of the marriage. The royal pair were the merest children; and it is impossible to suppose that the marriage was not arranged for them by their guardians. If Amonhotep at this early age had simply fallen in love with this girl, with whom probably he had been brought up, he, no doubt, would have insisted on marrying her, and she would have been placed in his harîm. But she became his Great Queen, was placed on the throne beside him, and received honours which no other queen of the most royal blood had ever received before. It is clear that the king’s advisers would never have permitted this had Tiy been but the pretty daughter of a noble of the court. There must have been something in her parentage which entitled her to these honours and caused her to be chosen deliberately as queen.

There are several possibilities. Tuau may have had royal blood in her veins, and may have been, for instance, the granddaughter of Thothmes III., to whom she bears some likeness in face. Queen Tiy is often called “Royal Daughter” as well as “Royal Wife”; and it is possible that this is to be taken literally. In a letter sent by Dushratta, King of Mitanni, to Akhenaton, Tiy is called “my sister and thy mother”; and though it is possible that the word “sister” is here used to indicate the general cousinship of royalty, it is more probable that some real connection is meant, for other relationships, such as “daughter,” “wife,” and “father-in-law,” are precisely stated in the letter. Yuaa may have been indirectly of royal Egyptian blood, or he may have been, as we have seen, the offspring of some Syrian royal house, such as that of Mitanni, related by marriage with the Pharaoh; and thus Tiy may have had some distant claim to the throne, and Dushratta would have had reason for calling her his sister. Queen Tiy, however, has so often been called a foreigner for reasons which have now been shown to be quite erroneous that we must be cautious in adopting any of these possibilities. It has been stated that her face is North-Syrian in type,12 and, as the portrait upon which this statement is based is, in all features except the nose, reminiscent of Yuaa, that noble would also resemble the people of that country; and in this connection it must be remembered that the marriage of Tiy and Amonhotep took place under the regency of Mutemua, herself probably a North-Syrian princess. Be this as it may, however, the two children, not yet in their ’teens, ruled Egypt together, and Yuaa and Tuau stood behind the throne to advise them.

Queen Tiy.

Tuau now included amongst her titles those of “Royal Handmaid,” or lady-in-waiting, “the favoured-one of Hathor,” “the favourite of the King,” and “the Royal mother of the great wife of the King,” a title which may indicate that she was of royal blood. Amongst the titles of Yuaa one may mention those of “Master of the Horse and Chariot-Captain of the King,” “the favourite, excellent above all favourites,” and “the mouth and ears of the King,”—that is to say, his agent and adviser. He was a personage of commanding presence, whose powerful character showed itself in his face. One must picture him now as a tall man, with a fine shock of white hair; a great hooked nose, like that of a Syrian; full, strong lips; and a prominent, determined jaw. He has the face of an ecclesiastic, and there is something about his mouth which reminds one of the late Pope, Leo XIII. One feels, in looking at his well-preserved features, that here perhaps may be found the originator of the great religious movement which his daughter and grandson carried into execution.

Yuaa, grandfather of Akhenaton.