The Golden Mask of King Tut The Code E-Book

Jesús Ariel Aguirre

• Herausgeber: Editorial Autores de Argentina
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Spanisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 748

Beschreibung

The book focuses on the inauguration of the New Great Egyptian Museum, in which the death mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is stolen. The archeology professor Thomas Dee will begin his search throughout Egypt and some cities of the Muslim world, together with the South African journalist Anne Lein. The plot suspects the black market of anti-grand theft, a Catholic Cardinal and several magnates as potential buyers. In the search they visit Vatican City, Luxor, Abu Dhabi, Southeast Asia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, the Greek islands of Skorpio, Mykonos, Santorini and the Alhambra itself in Spain.

Leseprobe

JESÚS ARIEL AGUIRRE

THE GOLDEN MASK OF KING TUT

THE CODE

Aguirre, Jesús Ariel

The Golden Mask of King Tut The Code / Jesús Ariel Aguirre. - 1a ed. - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Autores de Argentina, 2020.

Libro digital, EPUB

Archivo Digital: online

ISBN 978-987-87-1211-6

1. Narrativa Argentina. I. Título.

CDD A863

Editorial Autores de Argentina

www.autoresdeargentina.com

Mail: [email protected]

Queda hecho el depósito que establece la LEY 11.723

Impreso en Argentina – Printed in Argentina

Dedication

To my dear mother, who has always been by my side.

“The travel is in the young part of education and, in old age, part of experience”

Sir Francis Bacon

Introduction

The professor of Archeology Thomas Dee is in Berlin inside the Museum that guards the bust of the most famous Egyptian queen: Nefertiti.

His face glows unscathed, at the Neues Museum in Berlin in Germany, mesmerizing millions of visitors every year. It is currently on display in the North Dome Room of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. An insurer has valued the bust at more than 300 million euros.

Anne Lee, a journalist for CNN and a friend of Thomas, but who has not seen for years, manages to locate it inside the Museum, after looking for it in other rooms; she manages to see it along with the large number of people who visit Queen Nefertiti, such as in a Royal audience. Neferu Aton Nefertiti is the full name of this lost and exiled queen. Thomas mesmerized by the beauty of his neck, the blue tone of his headdress, and his lips that seem freshly painted.

Surprised by her unexpected appearance at the Museum, after hugging her and kissing her on the cheek, they separate from the crowd, and he asks her reason brings her to Berlin.

She tells him that she is working on a note, for the news network where she works, about the inauguration of the New Egyptian Museum, and convinces him to accompany him to Cairo.

He tells her about his latest jobs in Amarna and that his life takes place between London and Luxor, and that he would gladly accompany her. She needs someone to advise her on everything about Egyptian history, so together they fly to the city of Cairo, and from there they go to Tell Amarna, in Egypt.

Chapter 1

Tell El Amarna

News travels fast in the vicinity of Tell El Amarna, a discovery that has puzzled Egyptian archaeologists and the international community.

For 40 years the Emeritus Professor of Egyptology Barry Kemp from the University of Cambridge (UK) has directed the Amarna Project, whose systematic research on the site.

He directed excavations and investigations at the British Mission at Tell Amarna since 1977.

Amarna is the Arabic name of a region located on the eastern bank of the Nile River, famous for being the territory where the city of Ajetaton was built in the mid-fourteenth century BC.

Pharaoh Akhenaten gave the order to build this city in the fifth year of his reign, making it the capital of all Egypt, serving as a cult to the god Aton (Represented by the solar disk). The city was located right in the middle between Memphis and Thebes, both capitals of the ancient empire at different times.

Although it was destroyed by order of the pharaohs who succeeded it, even today in ruins, it contains two royal palaces, the South Palace and the North Palace, and the temples of Aton.

It has also been possible to collect information on the disappeared city since no other city was ever built on this site again, in the city the heads of the statue of Akhenaten and another of Queen Nefertiti were discovered.

Currently known as the Amarna archaeological site, 3,300 years of history are preserved there.

This city is known as the Pompeii of Egypt, covered for 3000 years by sand, Amarna was abandoned shortly after the death of Akhenaten.

At floor level, with a brush they remove the sand until the stone of the foundations of their buildings is exposed, thus it has been possible to make a plan of the Great Temple of Aton.

One of the main tourist attractions of Amarna are 25 rock-cut tombs, and the Royal Tomb TA26 itself, which display in their decoration a detailed pictorial record of Akhenaten’s court and life in the city.

Ajetaton stretched about 12 kilometers along the Nile and five inland. North of the urban center stood the largest temple, some 750 meters long by 300 meters wide. Ajetaton was not walled. In the center stood the Great Palace, in whose rooms with colorful walls, patios and cobbled paths.

Thomas returns to the excavations and while investigating one of the ancient cartridges, he has found an object that probably belonged to the 18th Dynasty, to the very mysterious Akhenaten, son Amenophis III, and father of King Tut.

Archeology professor Thomas Dee, Archeology and Egyptology study at the University of Cambridge and a doctorate with a thesis dedicated to the archaeological site of Tell el-Amarna. I subsequently investigated Akhenaten’s royal family as a researcher at the British Academy in New Gall, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of Egyptian Archeology at the Oxford University School of Archeology. He is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on Ancient Egypt.

Right there in the excavations found a small funeral article very similar to that found in the valley are the kings in Luxor King Tut Ankh Amon, but is and is Realize or very beautiful stone blue faience 18.5 centimeters.

Fascinated by Egyptian history, a South African journalist Anne Lein, who works for the international chain CNN, who is accredited for the inauguration of the Great Egyptian Museum, persecutes the professor wherever he walks, she wants to be the first to write about the news of such a discovery, so he joins Professor Dee in search of answers.

The professor, after carefully analyzing the object, says that the object found is probably an ushabtis, part of those that were buried with Akhenaten first in Amarna and later taken to Thebes, to the Valley of the Kings.

Anne interrupts and asks ¿what were these Ushebtis?

Thomas tells him that they are small statues of the pharaoh, small mummiform figures, usually made of wood or earthenware, which were placed in the tomb with the intention that they would act as servants of the deceased and that, in this way; he did not have to work for eternity. Ushabtis is an Egyptian term that means “those who respond”, and they were devised as part of the funeral trousseau, the idea was to replace their owners in the tasks of farming and irrigation that could be required in lalu, that is, in the kingdom of Osiris , or as we commonly know it: in the “Beyond.”

The origin of these pieces is lost in time, but in Egypt it was not until Champollion managed to decipher the hieroglyphic writing, that we found the first approximation to the true meaning of these objects. We can consider that it is at that precise moment (year 1822), that the long journey of the study began that will lead to recovering and understanding the true meaning of the statuettes.

Thomas tells Anne that at first they were made for the deceased, over time as the different dynasties passed, large quantities of these statuettes were manufactured, as if they were in series, in the case of the pharaoh Tutankamon who had his disposition 365 ushabtis, one for each day of the year, 36 foremen, one for each crew of 10 workers, and 12 month bosses, one for each month of the year. This made a total of 413 ushabtis who served the king in the Hereafter.

There is a diversity of materials with which the ushabtis were made, among which are wood, faience and other materials such as terracotta, clay, wax, ceramics, copper, bronze, vitreous paste, stone in its different forms in use in Egypt (granite, in its different characteristics, especially pink, calcareous stone, calcite, serpentinite, quartzite, limestone, even alabaster). The height of the objects was between 20 and 25 centimeters.

They had hieroglyphic inscriptions that refer to the call, it is found on the legs.

They were generally kept in wooden boxes; they had a particularity, of having a vertical element that allowed them to be erect forever.

The way to activate the different funerary figures to carry out the tasks they had entrusted to them was through the recitation of certain magic formulas. Called “Formulas shabtis”. Later we will continue talking about this, when we talk about the holy books, you think, says Thomas to Lein.

Border stelae

Now they are heading towards the areas of the border stelae, an area in which some 15 stelae have been found, each one labeled with a letter. Three of them are found on the western side of the Nile, designated A, B and F. Stela A is the northernmost and is found at Tuna el-Yebel. The other twelve are on the eastern side of the Nile and are represented by the letters J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, U, V, X. The furthest is the X which is near the tombs of el-Sheikh Said. This system of systematic naming of stelae was created by the English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie and is still used today.

They go in search of the stela “U” is located on the eastern shore, forming part of the so-called second group consisting of the stelae.

This stela is one of the five best preserved and thanks to them it has been possible to fully reconstruct the text called “of the proclamation.” The stela is 7.6 high and is very close to the royal tombs of Amaran (TA-26).

It belongs to year 6 of the reign of Akhenaten, although it was later expanded in year 8. The main theme is the consecration of the city of Ajetaton to the god Aton. The “proclamation” and the “repetition of the oath” also appear.

Akhenaten built the city of Ajetaton for the solar deity Aton. He also decided to make this city his religious and political capital. The stelae that I plan and build around the perimeter of the city explain why the city was built, in honor of Aton, and the city design project is also described. It also has representations of Akhenaten and his royal family worshiping Aton.

Sadly, many of the rock-cut stelae that marked Ajetaton’s border limits are now in a sorry state. This is due to a series of events, including natural erosion, the type of rock they were built on, and human damage. Even the stela “P” was blown up in 1906, as they believed it was the door to the treasure chamber. Stela “R” was uprooted indefinitely and the remains would be bought by the Louvre Museum in 1940. Stela “S” in 1984 was badly damaged by attempts by thieves to cut it into pieces until 2004 when it was blown up. and totally destroyed.

The ceremony of “taking possession” of the land could be initially marked by a provisional tablet (L), since the first limits were marked by stelae X and M in year 5 (AK5). In a subsequent visit to the area, Akhenaten ordered the stela M that had suffered damage to be copied. This is how stela K is placed, which bears the date of year 5, month 8 and day 13.

During AK6 (year 6 of Akhenaten’s reign) Stela J and V are sculpted. That same year, Akhenaton marks the western limit of the territory, leaning on Stela J towards the western mantañas, engraving Stela F.

The other two stelae that mark the western limit (A and B) are engraved with the inscription of the year 8, month 4, day 30. That same year the stelae N, P, Q, R, S, and U that have just been finished delimit the horizon of Aton.

Border steles were built as authentic sculptures, in which text and image are represented l real family b garlic Aton protection within a table representing the container upper arch sky solar disk. The texts of the stelae contain promises not to go beyond the limits of the stelae and the royal family.

As data, it has been possible to collect the almost intergoal text of Stela K, a copy of the first Stela M, this being the message: “Year 5, month 8, day 13 Hail good God, who delights in Truth, Lord from the Heavens, from the earth, Aton, the Throbbing, the Great, who illuminates the Two Kingdoms!

Hail Father, divine and royal, Ra-Harotki, who rejoices on the horizon in his aspect Light emanating from the disk of the sun, who lives forever and ever, Aton, the Great, who rejoices in the temple of Aton in Ajetaton!

Hail Horus, strong Bull beloved by Aton (Name of Horus of Ajenaton) Male of two women, Great in the kingdom of Ajenaton (name of Nebty of Ajenaton); Horus of Gold, that Holds the name of Aton (Golden name of Ajenaton); The King of Lower and Upper Egypt, the one who beats in the truth (epithet of Maat from AK5), Lord of the two Neferjeperure Kingdoms, Waen Re (prename carved likeness of the figure of Ra, the Only Begotten of Ra); The Son of Ra, the one who beats the Truth, Lord of the two Crowns, Ajenaton (Name), may they be long days on Earth.

The Good God, the only begotten of Ra, whose beauty Aton created, truly excellent for his Maker, who satisfies him with what the spirit wants, serving the One who created him, administering the earth through the One who instituted him on his throne, foreseeing his eternal mansion with so many riches, carrying Aton around and glorifying his name, who creates the Earth to belong to its Maker (...)

And the Magnificent Heiress in the Palace, the one with the beautiful face Adorn with light Feathers, Lady of Happiness, Fountain of Virtues, the voice that pleases the king to hear the King’s Favorite Wife, his good beloved, the Lady of the Two Kingdoms, Nefernefruaton- Nefertiti. Save her forever and ever (...) ”(C. Aldred)

Akhenaton

Anne Lein seeks to know more about Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, so she asks: Why did Akhenaten change his name and why is he known as the Heretic Pharaoh?

Ngerjeperura Amenhotep, Neferjeperura Ajenaton, was the tenth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. Kingdom from 1353 BC to 1338 BC

The hieroglyphic transcription of his first Throne and birth name is Nefer-Jeperu-Ra Amen-Hotep.

Akhenaten came to the throne with the same monarchical name as his father: Amenhotep (transcribed Amen-Hotep and later Hellenized as Amenophis which in the ancient language means “Amon is satisfied” or “the will of Amun be done”.

He was the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. He succeeded his father after the premature death of Prince Thutmose, the legitimate successor. It was a time of happiness, the Empire was overflowing with gold in its coffers, the administration was efficient, his father ruled for three decades, and he presented himself as a divine sovereign, triumphant over chaos and the forces of evil. Two 20 meter tall statues of the pharaoh guarded his funerary temple on the banks of the Nile, and so the country had erected monuments to its own divinity. (The Colossi of Memon)

His first wife was Nefertiti, who was very beautiful and possibly had great gifts, because with her the figure of the Great Royal Wife reached parameters never seen before.

I also highlight the figure of Kiya, mentioned as “The beloved wife”, Ajenaton’s secondary wife, who most likely has gained relevance for endowing the king with a male son, Prince Tut-anj-Aton, the future heir and pharaoh Tut- Ankh-Amon because he changed his name in favor of Amon again.

He began to reign during the golden years of the Egyptian Empire, almost 3,500 years ago. Egypt was the richest and most powerful in the world. His army defeated anyone else who faced him, his crops were plentiful and his population well fed, his sumptuous temples and royal palaces were laden with treasures, and everyone was convinced that their success was due to their gods.

Then Akhenaten arrives with revolutionary ideas, it is the first time that a pharaoh in thousands of years proposed to change the pantheon of the Egyptian gods, with only one, the creator of everything: the Sun or Aton, as it was called, life was born from the sunlight, embodied in Aton, what he proposed was heresy.

However, the pharaoh was a living god and could change everything: religion, politics, art and even language.

It was then that he decreed that the 2,000 traditional gods that had protected Egypt since its foundation were eliminated.

The gods in animal and human forms were replaced by an abstract god, the Sun that illuminated the king with its rays. For the traditional priests, who had dedicated their entire lives to the ancient gods and had been extremely powerful until then, were exiled, Akhenaten began to win many powerful enemies.

The next announcement from the royal couple was just as surprising, they left the ancient and holy city of Thebes, the heart of the entire nation, and would head north up the Nile River in search of a new utopia.

The city”Akhetaton”

It was the fifth year of their reign when they left Thebes and traveled some 200 miles north, until they reached what is now Amarna, where they built a city. On a rock, which is still on one of the hills, is written a public proclamation composed by Akhenaten that explains the reason that led him to choose precisely that place.

As he says, the great god told them “Build here.” The place is surrounded by hills and at certain times of the year the Sun rises through a crack creating the shape of the Hieroglyph on the horizon. And so he did.

Thousands of people from distant Thebes were brought in to build, decorate and manage the new capital where more than 50,000 people came to live.

They dug a well, planted trees and gardens, the arid desert flourished. They built finely decorated houses and palaces, as well as the temple to the one god.

Akhenaten’s vision of a religious utopia gradually became a reality.

The city called Ajetaton (which means Skyline of Aton) became the political and religious heart of the nation, the center of a new cult.

The entire city of Akhetaton can be considered a reflection of the expression of royalty, since during the Amarnian period it was transformed into the most important political and religious center of Egyptian power, designed in order to show that re-centralized power.

The act of creating repeats the cosmogonic act par excellence, since the creation of the world, and consequently of everything that is founded, is in the center of the world, since the creation itself was carried out from a center (Eliade 1972: 16). For this reason, the foundation of Akhetaton is a recreation and at the same times a center of divine order, and as such it can and should be considered as a sacred space.

The intention of exalting power on the part of the pharaoh also appears in the arrangement of the city’s buildings, in their own architecture, in the decoration of palaces, temples and burials and in the installation of the border stelae that the demarcate. In addition, it is through these features that the relationship of the sovereign and his family with the deity (one of the strong points that make the reform legitimacy) and how they are produced can be analyzed.

Traditional temples were closed: upon entering the complex, the floor gradually rose, the ceiling fell, and there was very little light.

Sun worship brought open-air shrines, something that was done before but never on such a large scale.

The city has an area with temples, palaces and residences while, 11 kilometers to the east, the necropolis with a Royal Valley and a Valley of Nobles is located, as can be seen in figure 2. The landscape of the east bank is It can then be divided in two ways: between a sector for the living (residential, administrative and ritual) and another for the dead (necropolis), and between a residential sector and another administrative and ritual.

Akhenaten had succeeded in establishing a new city, a religious paradise in the desert.

On the other hand, the division between an administrative area and a residential area has to do with the differentiation between the city center, dedicated to administration and religious rituals, and the residential palaces of the royal family, separating the royalty from the common. of the inhabitants of the city.

Each construction related to royalty or the Aten cult in Akhetaton was given a premeditated location, consistent with its symbolic and functional role as a building, which also had to be framed with the urban plan as a cosmic totality: the processional path, known as “royal road ”, ordered the pharaoh’s journey, made it sacred and in turn divided the sectors of the city, differentiating them. This 2.5-kilometer road was the backbone of the settlement, a route that crossed it from north to south, linking the Palace of the North Bank with the central city, and was traveled by Akhenaten and his family in the context of parades and walks as part of exhibits. 

Sometimes, their displacement began in the Palace of the North Bank (possible residence of Akhenaten), passed through the North Palace and the northern suburb, and then entered the central city, detailed in figure 4, in which they were the Great Palace, the Great Temple of Aten (or House of Aten) and the Small Temple of Aten (or Mansion of Aten), where the pharaoh performed ritual and administrative tasks.

He had declared himself a son of God and it seemed that his religious revolution was successful. But suddenly everything began to collapse, his subjects, even those who lived in the city, had not really abandoned their gods and the pharaoh learned of his betrayal. Then he ordered to find all the images of the ancient gods and destroy them, and he sent the soldiers to erase the memory of the ancient gods especially the name of Amon-Ra from all the land of Egypt.

This period is known as heretical, with Akhenaten’s religious revolution, many questions now arise, such as what was the origin of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s wife, or who was really Semenkhkare, the heretical Pharaoh’s co-regent successor.

The fact that the clergy of Amun, by regaining power and destroying all traces of passage through the land of Akhenaten’s heresy, have covered with a thick veil, this fascinating stage in the history of Pharaonic Egypt.

Dee takes a book out of her briefcase and begins to relate:

In 1985, the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfuz (1911-2006) wrote the historical novel “Akhenaton”, for this work he won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the first writer in the Arabic language to achieve such an important award.

The work is set in the years after the fall of Akhenaten and before the death of the beautiful Nefertiti, probably in 1330 BC.

In his opinion, the queen mother was the main responsible for her son Amenhotep IV, from childhood, to be educated in the religion of Aton. When the whole empire worshiped Amun.

Tiye was a Nubian of humble origin, who came to share the throne by her marriage to Pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was characterized by being a strong, intelligent and cunning woman. She also had a lot of power and became increasingly interested in increasing religious studies, incorporating the worship of other gods, especially the one referring to the new god in which she believed for political reasons: “Amon is the lord of the gods of Egypt yu symbol of power and perhaps defeat for the empire’s subjects. Aton, on the other hand, is the god of the sun who shines everywhere and to whom all creatures can lead without harm”.

Then we will inevitably have to speak of the gods of Egypt.

He continues with Mahfuz’s book: But the matter, he assures, went beyond the mere interest in other religions and became a new form of the struggle for power. The queen, to strengthen the throne, sought to incorporate the priests of other regions and put them on the same level as Thebes. In this way, it limited the great influence they had, since people considered them servants of the gods and the people, teachers, doctors, guides in religion and in the afterlife. The lust for power then led her to use religion with finesse and cunning to get the king to do without the priests.

Among the criticisms he makes, he relates that when his father Akhenaten died he had himself crowned in an esplanade dedicated to this god and then he began to build a temple in Thebes, the sacred city of Aton. Later, he began to spread the new religion among his men to choose his collaborators among the most adept. They came to profess the new belief for different reasons, but apparently they had only one clear objective, to realize their personal ambitions of power at the cost of faith.

Little by little, he adds, the king’s power began to weaken in Thebes, and during an Amon feast there were obvious signs of growing discontent. This is how the sovereign decided to build a new city dedicated to the god Aton and take refuge in it with his followers. It was there when he changed his name from Amonhotep IV to Akhenaten “the one who lives in the truth.”

The priests, he explains, forced him to emigrate along with eighty thousand heretics to Amarna, and thus they were left with their hands free to undertake the sacred battle between Amun and Aton.

Aware of his weakness in front of the priests of Amun, he ordered to close all the temples of this god and confiscated his property and had his priests expelled, as an exaggerated sign of his strength.

Then he began the journey throughout the territory to attract his subjects to impiety. In this way, the people were divided between the followers of the gods of Amun and the followers of Aton.

For others the religion of Egypt stops being polytheistic to monotheistic, like the Jews.

But the bonanza that Egypt had enjoyed for so long stagnated: markets began to empty, merchandise was no longer sold, and slaves were starving.

In order to avoid a civil war, the priests of Amun, through an intermediary, demanded that Akhenaten restore freedom of worship and send armies to defend the borders, since the enemies began not to recognize the borders and invade them, but he did not accept .

He then points out that they asked to resign from the throne, allowing him in exchange to preserve his religion and even proselytize. He also refused this alternative and in response named his brother Samankhara as co-regent. The priests ignored this appointment and, for their part, appointed Tutankhamun to succeed him. A young man who could be manipulated. The henchmen left him, left Amarna and returned to Thebes and swore allegiance to the new pharaoh.

Thus ended the reign, without war or destruction. The Temples reopened their doors and the faithful were able to go there freely, after the long period of prohibition. The heretic King as ill and died desolate along with Queen Nefertiti, suffering loneliness and exile. 

The priest of Amun delivers this final description of Akhenaten: “He was neither male nor female. He was weak to the limit of hating the strong; they were man, priests or gods. He invented a god in his image and likeness, weak and feminine, father and mother at the same time, and I attribute only one function to him: love. His cult was dancing, singing and drinking. He sank into stupidity, forgetting his royal obligations, while the best men of the empire fell before the enemy, asking for help if they received it. The empire was finally lost; Egypt was destroyed, with its empty temples and hungry people. That was the Heretic, the one who called himself Akhenaten”.

“The words of this priest are harsh!” Says Lein. Was it so, and what would you expect an enemy of the king to say? Dee responds. That we will never know.

Let’s look at the version of Ay, royal advisor:

Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye appointed him in charge of the education of their children. This is how he began to be the master of the crown prince, when he was only six years old. With the authority given him by having been the royal tutor, he notes the great intelligence and sensitivity that the young heir possessed, an opinion on which several writers agree.

As for Tiye, she relates that she belonged to a noble Nubian family, and that with her wisdom and energy she surpassed Hatshepsut herself. The queen together with mother, along with Amenhotep III, knew how to conduct politics in a conscious and measured way; however the son grew up blind and dedicated his reign to the new faith to the point of sacrificing his people, the empire and the throne. The priests of Amun accused him of being the first person responsible for Akhenaten to divert his belief in Amun.

As for the city of Thebes, how much Akhenaten did not believe that it was a holy city, but a den of ambitious merchants, libertines and prostitutes. In relation to the priests, he thought that they asked the poor for a part of their limited income, those who seduced the young women under the excuse of blessing them and who turned the temples into centers of penance and corruption. And that although this priestly caste, as it happened, constituted the most solid foundation of the throne, a power based on these lies and tricks seemed unworthy to him.

In the same way, he opposed Amun as the god of priests, while Aton was the sun who offers his rays to all in the same way.

Ay’s account highlights that Akhenaten during his reign decreased his taxes and used love instead of punishment. But at the same time his relationship with the priests of Amon deteriorated to the point where he ordered a city to be built consecrated to the one god. In the new capital, for a time there was a time of happiness and everyone’s hearts were opened to the new faith. However, the king dedicated himself entirely to his mission and in the name of peace, love and joy waged the most devastating war known in the history of Egypt. “It didn’t take long for me to close the temples. He banished the gods and had their names erased from the tombstones. He even changed his name and began his famous trips throughout the country to proselytize in favor of his religion, the religion of love, peace and joy, everywhere he was received with enthusiasm and love ”.

Then he mentions the facts of the appointment of his son Tutankhaton as king who was called Tutankhamun in reference to the god Amun. Given the seriousness of these events, all his collaborators abandoned him and left the city of Amarna, only Akhenaten was left desolate with Queen Nefertiti and a group of slaves and vigilantes. The disease did not take long to take over his body.

“This is the story of Akhenaten, whom today they curse and call a heretic. Without minimizing the events that fell on the people because of him, since he lost the throne and the empire. However, I must confess that I cannot erase the love and admiration for him from my heart. Let us leave the final sentence for the court of Osiris, judge of the eternal world. “

The version of Horemheb, head of the royal guard, and a henchman of the Akhenaten who maintained his position during the reign of Tutankhamun, commissioned him to end corruption in the country and restore peace in the provinces and in both missions he was successful. Even the high priest of Amun had given testimony in his favor, also supporting the sage Ay, who had been considered a hero in the great crisis experienced.

He had been a childhood companion and friend of the king before being appointed to this position of trust and he affirms: “Since I met him until the moment of the last greetings, he had nothing on his mind but faith in Aton and his religion.”

In relation to the new faith and the contacts that the king established with the people to announce the good news of love, joy and equality, Horemheb agreed with the appreciations that the sage Ay had.

He relates that when Amenhotep III died and the crown prince was called to the throne, the first thing he did was call his men to instruct them in the religion of Aton, warning that whoever wanted to collaborate in his government should profess the single faith.

According to Horembed, the priests despised them saying she was weak, blaming the Queen Mother Tiye for instilling those beliefs in her and the appropriates Nefertiti for being stubborn. But that image is false, she says, because all the ideas came from her head.

Also with the fact of moving the capital from Thebes to Amarna or Akhenaten “the king declared war on all kings. We had days of victory, happiness and tranquility, I followed their forays into regions and I saw with what fascination they received the crowds. “

And when in the end the inevitable happened, he continues “We broke our fidelity to a man who thought only of love. His madness had drawn him an extraordinary dream that he wanted us to share in his imaginary happiness ..., I swore my loyalty to the new King Tutankhamun and darkness fell over the greatest drama that lit the heart of Egypt. Look what that madman did with the glory of our noble and ancient land. “

Horemheb ends the narrative saying that Akhenaten could not overcome this great defeat and that when he felt that his god had abandoned them, his faith was greatly affected, and he became ill and died.

Naguib Mahfuz introduces us to Akhenaten as “the one who lives in the truth”, according to the original title of his novel. In his work he shows that the performance he had during his reign corresponds to that of an uncompromising priest, imbued with a deep faith, who intends to become the only intermediary between the people and their only god. And he is also convinced that his mission is to announce and spread the new religion, although this conviction causes him serious problems in other areas of the competence of his position.

If he lived in the truth of his faith, he could not be interested in the political, the social and the military. He was consistent until the end and did not compromise on his beliefs or his way of acting, because he had a great desire: that everyone would live in the truth.

Anne surprised by this historical account of the pharaoh, asks what illness ended his life?

After examining Akhenaten’s portrait, they came to the conclusion that he suffered from two diseases, he suffered from Marfan syndrome, which is characterized by endowing the patient with a thin face and slanted eyes, very thin and long fingers and toes, as well as cardiac imbalances.

Another Pharaoh’s disease could be what is called muscular lipodystrophy; the most visible signs are the disappearance of body fat from the waist up and the accumulation of fat from the waist down. If this was the case in Akhenaten’s case, his physical appearance deviated from the canon of beauty and must have been traumatic for him, possibly this caused his belated response to change his place of residence so as not to be a cause for mockery. As you probably suffered as a child or adolescent.

In the room dedicated to him in, the Cairo Museum, we see different statues of him with these characteristics.

The Amarna style was characterized by the movement of figures of more exaggerated proportions, with elongated hands and feet. Representations of Akhenaten during this time give him distinctly feminine with wide hips and prominent breasts.

Let’s go back to help ourselves to the actual lists. The Royal List of Abydos collects all the kings from Menes to Ramses II. However, it skips the after decades that lasted what the priests consider heretical times, that is, the reigns of Akhenaten, Semenkhkarem Tutankhamun and Ay. It was of no use to the Child Pharaoh to reestablish the cult of Amun, a project that historical evidence seems to indicate already during the months of Semenkhkare’s solitary reign. The damnatio memoriae, that is, the “erasure of memory” of their names and their works was relentless with these pharaohs, whose memory was lost forever until archaeologists recovered it just over a century ago. The doubts reach such an extent that not a few researchers, in the absence of evidence or a better working hypothesis, have concluded that Semenkhkara who accompanied Akhenaten to the throne for just two years, and that he must have ruled alone for a few months later, it could even be Queen Nefertiti herself, disappeared from the face of the earth a few years before, shortly before the twelfth year of the reign of the Heretic Pharaoh, who finally ruled seventeen.

The sexual ambiguity of Amarna art leads to this type of hypothesis. When the first royal tombs of Akhenaten’s necropolis appeared in the early 1880s, archaeologists thought that the depiction of the royal couple on the reliefs at that time Akhenaten and Nefertiti were actually two women. It is still curious that many of these Nefertiti reliefs appear with the typical royal symbols of a male.

But since it seemed incredible, then it was thought that the other person was not Nefertiti but Semenkhkare, possible son of Akhenaten with a secondary wife, perhaps Kiya. It is possible that Semenkhakre was co-regent with his father as he did with Amenophis III.

But the problem now is more. It really is Semenkhkare who appears in the reliefs next to the Heretic Pharaoh. What is he doing caressing his co-regent in somewhat compromised positions? Logically, the explanation is in the mannerism of the Amarna art, out of tune and sophisticated, if we compare it with the traditional iconography seen up to that moment in Egyptian art.

We know almost nothing about Semenkh Ka Ra (Semenkhkare). He was married to Meritaton, daughter of Akhenaten, who was perhaps also his own sister. It is very possible that when Nefertiti disappeared, Semenkhkare took his place, hence it appears in some reliefs with the titles that the queen had previously carried, a circumstance that raised the suspicions that I have already related before. This would explain that among the titles adopted by Nsemenkhkare was Neferneferaten, literally “Beautiful are the gifts of Aton”, read Nefertiti.

When in 1907 the eccentric American lawyer Theodore Davis discovered in the center of the Valley of the Kings, a few meters from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the so-called KV55 with remains of a burial corresponding to the time of Amarna, many ventured to say that the The person buried there was the Heretic Pharaoh himself, even the DNA analysis of the skeletal remains carried out by the Egyptian government a few years ago, released to the four winds that that mummy corresponded to the figure of Tutankhamun’s father and by, although there is no no evidence to prove it, with those of Akhenaten. Despite details such as age, of the person ruin this finding since he was about 25 years old and Akhenaten at least 40. Is the mummy of the KV55 that of Semenkhkare, the mysterious sovereign of the time of Amarna?

The so-called “treasure hunter” Davis together with Russell Ayrton discovered a well, today known as KV-54 where they found remains belonging to a king named Tutankhamun, a little pharaoh who was not known much and Davis assumed that he had found it the tomb of said king.

A few days later and near the well found, on January 6, 1907, they found another access similar to a tomb, the first steps appeared and then a door sealed with the already known seals of the necropolis, the jackal with nine captives (the seal of the Royal Necropolis of Thebes) before opening the door there was a sloping corridor, with many rubble, apparently, the builders of the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses IX found on top of it and knocked down the ceiling, having found the same with official seals, it would indicate that grave keepers re-sealed at some point. Everything was messy, wood paneling with gold with the image of Queen Tiye. As they continued along the corridor, they came to the chamber, very small and with many water leaks, there were no decorations on the walls, more objects belonging to the queen appeared, 4 canopic vessels of a woman, the 4 magic bricks located towards the cardinal points, a funeral chamber with lion’s heads and above a coffin in very poor condition due to humidity, the coffin thrown on the floor with the lid dropped and a body.

The face seemed to be that of a woman and apparently a false beard had been added and the cobra, the symbol of the kings, the golden mask broken almost entirely, but the most enigmatic was that the name of the deceased had been torn off to hide his identity, only the shape of a wooden cartridge remained, the gold with his name was no longer in place, the original writings appeared to be that of a woman.

In the place no sarcophagus was found, the mummy was in very bad condition, its bandages still remained on the body, but again they discovered that in the place where it should be engraved the name had been erased. On the mummy there was a pectoral in the shape of a vulture, bracelets, and pendants, all in gold but without a name.

The position of the body belonged to a female royal burial of the 18th dynasty, the right arm along and the left over the chest, Davis still thought it was the tomb of Queen Tiye and again hastened to report the discovery.

The first studies said that the body was that of a young man, which gave on the floor with some who thought it was Akhenaten. Seals of the pharaoh Tutankhamun were found, it was thought that the king had sealed the tomb, the 4 bricks, agicos belonged to King Akhenaten, the can darke vessels with a woman’s face and with him norrado name had been identified as those of Kiya, one. Different Iberians name Amenhotep IIIm father of Akhenaten, remains of a chapel of Queen Tiye together with another person “erased” from the scene, very possibly it was Akhenaten.

Until now, the KV-55 raises doubts, the body found inside, first was female and that of Queen Tiye, then they said it was male and Kiya was discarded, the coffin was for a woman, although the ureus would correspond to a king, the idea appeared that he was Smenakare, the unknown successor of the heretic king.

Some think that the tomb was opened when another fence was built in the time of Ramses IX and that if it belonged to Tiye and his son Akhenaten, they erased the pharaoh from the tomb and tore off the mask to remove his identity, practically condemning him to remain in the other life.

It is thought that King Tutankhamun transferred the bodies of his relatives to the place, placed the canopic vessels of Kiye, the coffin of Nefertitis or also of Kuya and closed the hiding place that was later found by chance in the Rameside era.

From the texts written on the coffin, he asked to read: “I can breathe the sweet air that comes out of your mouth and contemplate your beauty daily. I can hear your sweet voice in the north wind; my body can grow full of life with your love. Majesty, I was born from your two hands, and I receive the sustenance that you give me, it came thanks to him, Majesty, you always pronounce my name and my name will never be missing on your lips”.

The studies of the text affirm that it would be a woman close to the faron Akhenaten, some think of Kiya, Nefertiti or his daughter Meritaton or the mysterious Smenkhare. The strange thing, in the case of being Kiya, is that the mask has the pharaoh’s beard, but it may also be that after the looting it is known that many mummies were placed in other sarcophagi.

The general opinion is that the tomb or hiding place was used to take advantage of it and before some emergency it was used, it is enough to also remember the case of the KV-62 that should have been the noble Ay, who when Tutankhamun died, buried him in it and proclaimed himself Pharaoh, he also kept the king’s tomb.

It is thought that at some point, the body of Queen Tiye was transferred from her original tomb to KV 55 and then to another tomb or royal hiding place, some to KV 35, and due to leaks and debris, she forgot to move this last mummy.

So the hypotheses are the body of Akhenaten, Semenkhare, Kiya, Nefertiti and even Tiye.

According to the comments of the archaeologists who had seen the body, they say that it had the arm along the body (position of a queen), the case of the kings had the arms crossed on the chest. Then it would be a queen but the beard would be a raina in function of pharaoh, the only one would then be Nefertiti. It would not be Semenkhara or yes, if she was the name that Nefertitis adopted upon Akhenaten’s death. Tiye and Kiya would not have a royal beard because they did not occupy the position of pharaoh.

But for more intrigue, Davis thought that he had discovered Tiye’s tomb and that and that the face of the canopic vessels pretended to him, in addition to the name of Tuyr appearing on the coffin, the partner Weigal said that it was Akhenaten’s mummy, And that it had been brought from the Akhetaton city in Amarna, to thebes by Tutankhamun himself, to protect it from destruction, he believed in that because the cartridge of Tiyr was still engraved contrary to the central cartridge of the coffin, the cartridge of the name of the mummy.

One examination said the body was that of a young woman (kiya), but a second examination in Cairo said it was that of a man around 25 years of age (Tutankhamun’s brother Semenkhare ). Age then rules out Akhenaten and Nefertiti, which is why it is known as the Tomb of the Young Woman. But if after stealing the tomb they placed another mummy in the coffin, things change.

The hiding place is near KV 62 and a couple of years ago we saw that another small well was found. In the same royal necropolis, in February 2006 a well was found that gave access to a single room in the shape of an “L” in which seven wooden coffins and many vessels had been stored. Today it is known as KV63, acronym for Kings Vallery and the signature number of the list of royal tombs in the necropolis. The typology of these objects as well as the archaeological environment of the area where the well has appeared, suggest that it is a hideout from the 18th dynasty.

To conclude the tomb KV 55 does not look at all like a royal tomb of a pharaoh of Egypt. Later we will speak well of this tomb when we visit the Valley of the Kings, says Thomas to Lein.

For others his serious extraterrestrial origin shows his face shape and tall with elongated bones.

For a long time a question has arisen regarding the need to know the true history of ancient Egypt, from the construction of the great pyramid to the mythology that has left dozens of enigmas that have puzzled scholars.

A recent study suggests that ancient Egyptian pharaohs were genetically engineered by non-earth beings. This factor could be the last connection with the gods, the reason why Akhenaten claimed “There is only one God, my father.”

According to those studies, which is the result of a multi-year investigation says that the genomes of 9 Egyptian pharaohs were mapped and found that the rulers of the ancient empire have mysterious traits. Some researchers even believe that ancient Egyptian pharaohs might have a strong otherworldly connection imprinted on their DNA. Although his clumsy body shape and demeanor point to a mysterious origin, which many maintain is connected to the “gods.”

In his book Humans are not from Earth, the American writer Phd. Ellis Silver, the author maintains that they are not natives of Earth and may have come from elsewhere, we actually come from another part of the universe, brought here by extraterrestrial beings tens of thousands of years ago.

In an interview Silver commented “The Earth roughly meets our needs as a species, but perhaps not as strongly as whoever brought us here initially thought.”

Silver believes that some of the chronic diseases that affect us such as back pain could be the very important sign that human beings evolved in a world with less seriousness. Silver also talks about other unique human traits, and that because of that women have difficulty giving birth. In the past, natural childbirth was often fatal to the mother, the child, or both.

Another question that many unconventional researchers ask is: Is Akhenaten’s mummy hidden from public view because it is evidence of extraterrestrial contact? While the bodies of the pharaohs and members of their families have been preserved as mummies, no mummy of Akhenaten has been found, because it would destroy ancient Egyptian history and our origin as we know it.

In recent years, there are numerous researchers who look at the stars waiting for answers. The American ecologist Dr. Ellis Silver is one of those who believe that the earth and human beings are two separate concepts, and somewhere out there, our “makers” or makers are waiting for us. Some add the negative Rh factor in the blood of many pharaohs, which for them would be proof of extraterrestrial origin, as it is rare in humans.

Of which there is no scientific evidence for all your speculations.

For some, the extraterrestrial origin of the part of King Tut Ankh Amon’s dagger, found by Carter in 1922, would be another proof, although today it is concluded that it was the origin of a meteorite that fell on the Sinai Peninsula, for others it would have been built in space and would have brought it to earth in the past.

Was Ajenaton the Biblical Moses who lived in Egypt?

The origin of the Hebrew people, their ties with Egypt and their settlement in Palestine are subjects of debate even today, no less so is the origin of monotheism, closely linked to the figure of Moses, Hebrew leader and legislator, without whose presence history of Israel would be incomprehensible. Precisely, the trajectory followed by monotheism in the Ancient World has originated various hypotheses with which researchers try to explain its emergence, in the Near East, Egypt or Palestine without having managed to overturn the balance for any of them specifically.

The Finding in 1887 of the letters (379) clay tablets of the pharaohs Amenhitep III and his son, Akhenaten (Amenophis IV), at Tell El Amarna, as well as the hymn of Aton in the tomb of the vizier Ay, and the Statues discovered by Henri Chevrier in 1925 at Karnak, they made evident the existence of what was, for some, a heroic reforming pharaoh, leader of a religious revolution in Egypt.

From then on, his historical figure would be linked to Hebrew monotheism and Moses. In fact, it has been speculated that Aton’s followers were religious émigrés who, led by an Egyptian prince (Moses?) Settled in Canaan and spread the belief of a single god from there. One of the proofs of this would be, in the opinion of some historians, in the similarity and similarities that Psalm 104 presents, attributed to Davis and the hymn to Aton of the pharaoh Akhenaten.

What is true in all this? Were Moses and Akhenaten the origins of monotheism? Are there historical indicators that link Akhenaten to Moses? Was this last disciple of the first? Were they perhaps the same person? Finally, was there a true monotheism in Egypt?

Let’s start by saying that the patriarch Moses developed and gave written form to the Jewish worship of Jehovah as the only God. Monotheistic cult that practiced the Semitic culture for years.

What happens is that according to the record of Moses himself when he faced the Egyptian pharaoh, it has always been believed that this was Ramses II (1304-1214). According to (Gen 47:11 “Joseph made his father and brothers dwell and gave them possession in the land of Egypt in the best of the land of Rameses”, Exodus 12:37 “they proceeded from Rameses”, Num. 33: 3, 5) and this was the son of Seti I, this son of Ramses I, the trusted general of Pharaoh Horemheb, the last of the 18th dynasty, Ramses I (ruled 1295 to 1294 BC) would begin the 19th dynasty and would be the founder of the Lineage of the Ramenidas. (Horemheb married Nefertiti’s sister, Mutnedymet, he had nothing to do with the ancestral 18th dynasty, thus he entered the royal family and ruled the country with an iron hand, erasing from him all traces of his immediate predecessors, protagonists of the “Amarna Schism.” His alliance with the oligarchy and the army and with the priests of Amun, made possible his ascent to the throne, restored his privileges, and began to plan the destruction of the city Ajetaton, which Akhenaten had built. At his death, after 28 reigning, he was succeeded by Ramses I. Let us remember that Ay was an authentic political animal that had been able to survive four different reigns and managed to be crowned pharaoh in his old age. Apparently Ay was the father of Nefertiti, but despite being related to the “heretics of Amarna” he was successful in any conspiracy and before being crowned he was the vizier of the child-king Tutankhamun, a puppet of his. eb, that on his death he would succeed him, for which reason he had to marry Mutnedymet.

Let’s go back to Ramses I, whose history is safeguarded in the Temple of Luxor. The pharaohs prior to Ramses I, had died without leaving heirs, the last royal pharaoh was Tutankhamun and he had no children since he died very young. This was succeeded by Ay and Horemheb, the latter being the one who appointed Ramses I as co-regent of Egypt or then called Paramessu.

As we said he was not of royal blood, he was born in the small town of Avaris, located in the delta of the Nile. His father was commander of the Troops and head of the royal archers. When Horemheb died in 1305 BC Paramessu was crowned King of Upper and Lower Egypt.

With the name of Menpehtire Ramses, or better known as Ramses I who was the first of 11 pharaohs known as the Ramesida dynasty. Sitra his Great Royal wife was the founder of the Valley of the Queens, and from that reign onward, all the royal wives and princes were buried in that Valley. His reign lasted only two years, so his gifts as king are not known, which was succeeded by his son Sethy I, the father of Ramses II.

But let’s go back to other dates about Moses that the biblical record gives us again. When was Moses born? Let’s do the math.

The fourth year of Solomon’s reign is estimated to be about 1007 BC.

The Exodus was 480 years before the fourth of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 6: 1) 1487 BC.

After the exodus, Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years (Num. 32:13) until 1447 BC.

Moses was 120 years old at the time (Deut. 34: 7), so he was born 1567 BC.

Therefore Akhenaten was not of the same time, since two centuries separate him at least. Akhenaton ruled between 1353-1336 BC. 

Moses was then born in 1567 BC and Ramses II in 1304 BC. So they are separated by 263 years, it is not Ramses II who contended with Moses either.

Let’s explain it in another way, for some; Israel arose in Canaanite territory around the 12th century BC from the gradual union of several tribes, indigenous and foreign, with a common past, which formed leagues of defense and mutual aid. For foreign attacks, but their real nation dates back to the fifteenth century, in the geographical historical setting configured by Egypt and Palestine, at this point we will cite documents from the New Egyptian Empire and the Hittite Empire (fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BC) in those who speak of nomads called hapiru, one of whose branches has wanted to identify with the Hebrews. Whether or not there is any relationship, if it could be proven that there were Semitic captives (hapiru) in the reign of Amenophis II (1450-1425), and in the reign of Sethi I (1312-1298), who were educated in the Egyptian court, thus the Hebrew tradition of the captivity of Egypt and the higher education of Moses are not as antehistoric, as has been claimed. Likewise, the exodus could be accepted as the emigration of a people (an unusual fact in antiquity), although there are no direct anti-biblical references. It is also to remember that the stela of Pharaoh Merneptah (XIII century) cites Israel among the peoples established in Canaan, that their people uses the determinative for people, it was not for place. Therefore, the emigration to the Promised Land and the events that mark it, had to have occurred prior to the 13th century, which does not place it in the immediate previous centuries.

According to the Bible, Moses was born in Lower Egypt (in Gosen) and his name is very common in the country, it means “Drawn, or saved from the water.” Despite the favored position that Egypt offered him, Moses felt linked to his Hebrew people and it was only at the age of forty when he could no longer bear the martyrdom of his people in Egypt that he rebelled and was exiled 40 years in Madiam. That was when he had divine contact with an angel of Jehovah and returned to save his captive people.

He would be the key figure in the “battle of the gods” that broke out between the gods of Egypt and the god of Moses (Exodus 7 to 12 where he mentions the 10 plagues).

So far the biblical story. Is there any archaeological, pictorial or written support for it? First of all, the first question to be investigated is whether the existence of Moses can be proven (beyond what seems probable or not) and determine the time in which he lived. It is not news that the historicity of Moses has been repeatedly questioned to this day, and since no direct records are available, his life is often viewed as a legend.

This leads us to analyze the same Musaic traditions and their source, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, attributed to the patriarch Moses himself.

From the internal point of view, Freud in 1937, who proposed an Egyptian origin for Moses, argued that the analysis of the legend that frames his birth, upbringing and return to the town of origin, does not agree with the typical patterns of a legend, in which the hero is born into a powerful family, grows up in a poor family, and after many hardships he regains his original place. And actually the story of Moses does not fit the structure of this type of novel. On the other hand, consider the internal content of the Pentateuch, we see that both in terms of name, customs and religion as well as places, geography and killers, the accumulation of external archaeological evidence confirms that its records were made by someone who did know the culture. Egyptian on the inside, which coincides with the biblical fact that Moses, was brought up in “all the wisdom of Egypt.”