TT139: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

 

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==The Year 3 date of the female king Neferneferuaten==

==The Year 3 date of the female king Neferneferuaten==

Tomb TT139 is also well known for being the only tomb to bear a Year 3 date of the short lived late [[Amarna]] female pharaoh named [[Neferneferuaten]]–who many Egyptologists today believe is [[Nefertiti]].<ref>[https://x.com/chrisnaunton/status/1222159639372083207 January 28, 2020 Twitter/X post] by [[Chris Naunton]], a British Egyptologist</ref><ref>[https://arce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Female-Pharaohs-Part-II-transcript_Checked-.pdf Female Pharaohs Part II] by the [[American Research Center in Egypt]] September 2021,, pp.2 (on Neferneferuaten)</ref><ref>[https://www.academia.edu/44659325/On_the_Graffito_in_Theban_Tomb_139 On the Graffito in Theban Tomb 139] by [[Aidan Dodson]] in Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of [[Zahi Hawass]], edited by Janice Kamrin, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner & Mohamed Megahed, [[Prague]], Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Volume 1, 2020, pp.357-365</ref>

Tomb TT139 is also well known for being the only tomb to bear a Year 3 date of the short lived late [[Amarna]] female pharaoh named [[Neferneferuaten]]–who many Egyptologists today believe is [[Nefertiti]].<ref>[https://x.com/chrisnaunton/status/1222159639372083207 January 28, 2020 Twitter/X post] by [[Chris Naunton]], a British Egyptologist</ref><ref>[https://arce.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Female-Pharaohs-Part-II-transcript_Checked-.pdf Female Pharaohs Part II] by the [[American Research Center in Egypt]] September 2021,, pp.2 (on Neferneferuaten)</ref><ref>[https://www.academia.edu/44659325/On_the_Graffito_in_Theban_Tomb_139 On the Graffito in Theban Tomb 139] by [[Aidan Dodson]] in Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of [[Zahi Hawass]], edited by Janice Kamrin, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner & Mohamed Megahed, [[Prague]], Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Volume 1, 2020, pp.357-365</ref>

[[Aidan Dodson]] writes in his 2020 article that the inscription for the female king is written as “Year 3, III [[Season of the Inundation|Akhet]] 10, Dual King, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheperure-beloved-of-[…], Son of Re,

[[Aidan Dodson]] writes in his 2020 article that the inscription for the female king is written as “Year 3, III [[Season of the Inundation|Akhet]] 10, Dual King, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheperure-beloved-of-[…], Son of Re,

The Tomb of the Nobles (Theban tomb) TT139 is located at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna,^[1] in the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor in Egypt. The Tombs of the Nobles was intended for the burials of nobles and officials connected to the ruling houses, especially of the powerful New Kingdom of Egypt from the 18th to the 20th dynasty. However, the area has been used exploited as a burial necropolis since the Old Kingdom of Egyptand, subsequently, up to the Saite period (with the 16th dynasty) and Ptolemaic period.

It is the tomb of Pairy or Pairi (Pȝ-jrj), a wab-priest^[2] before Amun, overseer of the peasants, dating from the reign of king Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty of Egypt).

The entrance to the tomb opens into a courtyard; a short corridor, on whose walls (1 in the plan) the deceased and his family (including a girl indicated as a “royal concubine”) pour ointments in libation, leads to a transversal room whose wall paintings are somewhat damaged. However, it is possible to see (2) the son Ptahmosi with papyrus flowers; a little further on (3) the sons Amenhotep and, perhaps, Ptahmosi, offering bunches of flowers to the deceased and his wife, and the deceased offering lists of offerings to his parents. On four superimposed registers (4), the deceased and his wife with rows of bearers offering to Osiris, scenes of the funeral procession with the transport of the sarcophagus and the funerary furnishings, the rite of the opening of the mouth officiated by two priests on the mummy and the pilgrimage to Abydos. Above a door (5) the Sons of Horus and hieratic texts dated to the third year of Smenkhara-Ankhkheperura, with hymns to Amun of Pewah, Scribe of the divine offerings of Amun in the temple of Ankhkheperura. A last still legible relief represents (6) scenes (unfinished) of the funeral banquet with the son Ptahmosi offering lists of offerings to the deceased and to his mother[1].

Tomb TT139 is also well known for being the only tomb in Egypt to bear a Year 3 date–or any other known date–of the short lived late Amarna female pharaoh named Neferneferuaten–who many Egyptologists today believe is Nefertiti.^[3][4][5]

Aidan Dodson writes in his 2020 article that the inscription for the female king is written as “Year 3, III Akhet 10, Dual King, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheperure-beloved-of-[…], Son of Re,
Neferneferuaten-beloved-of-[…]^[6] Dodson concludes his article with this passage:

“The present writer has discussed the identity of Neferneferuaten and the way in which her reign relates to those of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, and Tutankhaten in a number of recent works (Dodson 2009; 2014, 140–146; 2018, 34–51). In these, he has argued that (with most—but not all—current researchers) Neferneferuaten was none other than Nefertiti, who transitioned to full female pharaoh during Akhenaten’s Year 16, and (more controversially) that she moved directly from being her husband’s coregent to ruling with Tutankhaten, sharing the latter’s regnal years. On this basis, the writer takes the view that the graffto most likely dates to shortly before the end of Neferneferuaten’s career, to be placed just before Tutankhaten’s change of name to Tutankhamun.”^[7]

Some other scholars agree that Neferneferuaten was Nefertiti but think that Neferneferuaten actually had a short sole independent reign of 2 years before being succeeded by Tutankhamun since Tutankhamun promptly abandoned Amarna for Thebes, Egypt after becoming pharaoh…unlike Neferneferuaten such as Athena van der Perre, and Nozomu Kawai.^[8][9]

James Peter Allen, in “The Amarna Succession Revised,” in GM 249 (2016): pp.9-13 does not take a position whether Neferneferuaten has a sole reign based on her Year 3 date and simply writes below:

“The evidence indicates Smenkhkare ruled only about a year at most….Smenkhkare’s premature death probably no later than Akhenaten’s Regnal Year 14 left only the one-to-four year old heir Tutankhuaten as putative heir….Tutankhamun must have been considered too young to be named coregent in his father’s stead….To safeguard Tutankhamun’s accession, Akhenaten also appointed a female coregent Ankheperure Neferneferuaten, to oversee the transition and probably to instruct him in the new religion. In 2009, I argued that this coregent was Akhenaten’s fourth daughter, Neferneferuaten, both because it seemed a logical progression in his attempts to produce a son within each of his daughters as they reached puberty, and because evidence was lacking that the other Neferneferuaten, Nefertiti, was still alive in Akhenaten’s final years. The Year 16 inscription noted [for the existence of Akhenaten’s wife] at the beginning of this article solves the latter problem, and I (and my students) now think it likeliest that the coregent was in fact, Nefertiti….Since Nefertiti was still chief queen in Regnal Year 16 [of Akhenaten], her Year 3 as pharaoh must have occured two years after Akhenaten’s death, and it was within those two years that the first steps towards reconciliation with Amun occurred.^[10]

• Sergio Donadoni, Thebes, Milan, Electa, 1999, ISBN 88-435-6209-6.
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• Jiro Kondo, The Re-use of the Private Tombs on the Western Bank of Thebes and Its Chronological Problem: The Cases of the Tomb of Hnsw (no. 31) and the Tomb of Wsr-h3t (no. 51), in Orient n.ro 32, pp. 50-68, 1927.
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