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Ultimate equality - II.
A three- thousand-year-old mystery
of royal murders; mayhem,
and ancient sex
The death of Akhenaten – the king who wanted to be a male/female god – triggered a tale of bloodshed filled with romance, intrigue, and gossip. It is considered one of the great mystery stories of all time.
Agatha Christie was among many to have used the theme more than half a century ago, and much more is being written about it - and heatedly debated - as further evidence is uncovered.
Was Akhenaten murdered?
It is established that he died in the year of the death of the youth he is supposed to have taken as his co-ruler when Queen Nefertiti left him. Then the annointed successor to these two men, Tutankhamun, went to his tomb aged only about 18 years.
Tutankhamun’s young widow set out to find and marry another successor to Pharoah’s throne who would be as far as possible from the influences and clutches of the current Egyptian court. But the young widow was foiled when her choice - the son of the King of the Assyrians no less - was murdered on his journey to meet her.
Usually the Ancient Egyptians recorded everything they did. Not only are there countless formal records on walls, on doors, on sarcophagi and on papyrus sheets far older than the scrolls found near the Dead Sea, there are also the day-to-day reports - better than newspapers - recorded on tens of thousands of shards of ostraca (slivers of potsherd). Much of this material has still to be catalogued let alone deciphered, and much is presently open to different interpretations, despite the fact that the Ancient Egyptians were experts in communication and documentation. Today we can read their notes made on every subject ranging from schoolchildren’s homework to remedies for women’s troubles; from artists’ sketches to the designs of gift containers of eye make-up.
Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, pointed out in her book, Life and death of a pharaoh - Tutankhamen , that you can read of a contemporary account by a worried mother complaining to her neighbours about their naughty son pelting her daughters from behind a wall - 3161 years ago. You can find out how many wicks were issued for lamps used by men working in the tombs. You can study the plans, designs and furnishings of “a typical” noble’s house, or the home of a villager in 1150bc.
However, when it comes to court intrigue, heresy, murder and - worst of all - threat to the stability of the State - there are vast blanks. (The very name Akhenaten - in some ways the most dramatic king of all the Pharaonic millenia - was erased at his death, and he was not heard of for 3,000 years!). The gap in time and lack of evidence in this case leave room for considerable speculation. Was Ay, old friend of the family and Grand Vizier, guilty of murder? Was General Horemheb, who ultimately made himself pharaoh and restored traditional institutions in a desperate attempt to save the dynasty - was he the villain of some real-life drama of soap-opera proportions? Was there a serial killer, stopping at nothing to gain accession to the throne?
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Sex is Power
Evidence of any royal murders is rare in Egyptology, but it is clear that sex was acknowledged as an important element of power partnerships during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Perhaps it reflected the traditional, the religious belief, that all creativity and equilibrium required partners. Sex formed part of Ancient Egyptian mythology, symbolised in the fertilising force of Osiris - seed and tree of life, and of water which gives nourishment - and the generating force of Isis, who represented love of all creatures and fecund power. Before them came Geb, god of the earth, with his suggestive plume and ram horn, and Nut, naked goddess of the sky - the couple having to be kept apart by Shu (space-air) or Tefnut (movement-fire).
There are famous murals of Shu holding up the sky-goddess, with one hand on her nipple and the other on her vagina. It was not intended as eroticism, but as an emphasis on the forces of fertility and creation.
In fact, family values were constantly emphasised in most depictions and communications left by the Ancient Egyptians, and the family was seen as the centre-piece of life. Nudity was natural to these people in their hot and fertile land. Children grew up that way, and adults wore clothes for ceremonial purposes and for comfort. Their natural ways helped Ancient Egyptian society to preserve family life even without the use of strong marital bonds. Their natural ways lasted, not for fashionable decades or even centuries – but for millennia.
According to John Baines and Jaromir Malik (Atlas of Ancient Egypt) “it is most striking that we have no evidence either for marriage ceremonies of any sort or for judicial processess of divorce. Even so, the legal status of a couple living together was different from that of a married pair. There is even a case where a man is accused of having intercourse with a woman who is living with another man though not married to him, something which might seem (in most modern societies) unlikely to constitute an offence.”
Marriage was less about relationships than about property, and a woman was able to take out of legal marriage the property she brought into it. Despite these relatively free institutions, Egyptians “were mostly monogamous” and a woman’s adultery - and also man’s, judging by the case cited above - was a serious offence.
Pharaohs of course, had several wives, and noblemen might also own harems. The women’s quarters were usually in the centre of the house, often with a door leading to the nobleman’s bedroom where he and his consort slept – and also with a door between the harem’s quarters and the main guest-bedroom. But in Ancient Egypt it was women who were in charge of these quarters, and it was often women, including high-born princesses who decided whether they would live there or not. Like stardom today, it was considered a privilege to be in a noble harem.
In the ordinary family circle, however, equality was apparent. Man and wife usually dressed in the same cut and style of comfortable robes at home. They sharing the chores - she the brewing, he the more strenuous wine-making. They wore similar make-up when they went out.
In general, she might not be quite equal, certainly not at the peasant level - but the basics of women’s rights were there 3,000 years ago - and came closest to a civilised world’s ideal in that revolutionary era before 1150b.c.
-- In their serene, seemingly infinite life-style, Pharoah’s people enjoyed not only a confident, laid-back religious philosophy, they also reached for perfection in the arts of fashion, feasting and love-making. The art of sexual attraction practiced 3,000 and more years ago is described in the last of this series (“Ultimate equality –III”).
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