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King’s daughter of
his body, his beloved, Meritaten. Actually queen Kiya with Meritaten
carved over her later from the Copenhagen
Glyptotek, my photo.
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Lots of creative myths circulate these days via
various media, books, news services, Facebook, Twitter, your second cousin once
removed at your dad’s 65th, wherever … but it usually takes one of these
monsters repeatedly coming to my attention before I am motivated
enough to write some sort of tetchy (yet eloquent) response.
I do have a life you know …
The myth of an ancient Egyptian princess being
the founding ancestress of the British people is one of those repeat
offenders. It hangs around in the dark
corners of the internet and offers unsuspecting people candy with alarming
regularity. This myth has, I might add, been debunked over the years, but yet it does not die a dignified death.
Nonetheless, I had not until now come across an overview of the problems written by an Egyptologist, preferably one with some knowledge of the classics and the family that is the pseudo-science crowd’s royalty of preference: the Amarna kings, you know, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tut, all the cool kids..
Nonetheless, I had not until now come across an overview of the problems written by an Egyptologist, preferably one with some knowledge of the classics and the family that is the pseudo-science crowd’s royalty of preference: the Amarna kings, you know, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tut, all the cool kids..
I mean, what’s with that?
Anyway, one of the main problems with this myth is the narrow, out of
date thinking about Egypt, the pharaoh Akhenaten and the Amarna period. As it happens I tick those boxes with my
research, so I thought I’d have a bit of a go at explaining
why the story is a crock of shit.
But first the basics
The Scotichronicon
The modern myth of princess Scota is usually taken from a
15th century CE text by Walter Bower – The Scotichronicon, and an earlier text by John
of Fordun – The Historians of Scotland, and
‘believed’ to “probably” have existed 500 years previously. Hearsay however is not evidence and 500 years
is still the 9th century CE. Bower used
the text by Fordun as his source, so they are directly related.
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Lorraine
Evans 2000 uses a chatty, just between us, voice and what the media would
describe as
hyperbole, or does she have a classics degree too? Both texts are in Latin.
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If an author assures you Scota is in say Nennius, Historia Brittonum, (a 9th c monk from Wales) they are pulling your leg. The story is referred to briefly, names no names, and barely agrees with the later texts (depending on which), Scota is not mentioned.
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| Nennius Historia Brittonum. Image from Giles 2000, Nennius. |
Therefore the first problem here is that no ancient texts
corroborate the story of Scota and Gaythelos, not Egyptian nor classical, nada… and these two texts were written by a
Christian era priest (Fordun) and an Augustinian abbott (Bower) in Scotland
some 2600 years after the topic they describe.
Although employing their inaccurate chronologies the story is
even older.
They both begin with a mythical account
of the discovery of Scotland
by a party of Greek refugees and the founding of the line of Scot kings (Irish
and Scottish), all being descendants of a Greek or Scythian prince and an
Egyptian princess.
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| Scota and Gaythelos Scotichronicon, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Image Wiki. |
The story in Fordun goes thus:
The founder of Scotland
lived during the ‘Age of Moses’ and was called Gaythelos, he was the son of the
king of Greece, Neolus or Heolus. This prince was a bit wayward and led a
rebellion against his father, so he was expelled from Greece, then he and a
loyal crew of young nobles sailed to Etherea (Egypt) where he conveniently married
the daughter of Chencres, the pharaoh of the Exodus.
Another version has that the
Ethiopians had attacked Egypt
and Gaythelos was sent with an army to repel them, gaining the daughter of
pharaoh as his reward.
Nonetheless this pharaoh Chencres ruled Egypt 18 years until he and
his army were drowned in the Red Sea chasing runaway slaves, while Gaythelos stayed home in
Heliopolis because he did not approve of ‘pursuing the inoffensive jews’. The Exodus supposedly occurred in the year
1510 BC -
3689 years after the world was created … say
what?
505th year of the Third Age (Moses)
330 years before the Trojan war
760 years before the building of Rome ... now I’m confused
However, on the death of Chencres the cranky Egyptians
kicked out Gaythelos, his wife, and their followers. Already banned from Greece, they sailed west to Spain and then further to Scotland (as
one does) after the local Spaniards gave them grief about stealing their land,
finally settling in Argyle.
Another alternative version claims that Scota
and ‘Gayel’ pre-emptively fled the wrath of the gods and the plagues of Egypt.
Gaythelos inconveniently almost immediately
drops dead on settling Scotland
and his son Hyber takes over and is ancestor of the Scot royal families. Scota
barely rates a mention in the narrative except that she is the daughter of the
Exodus pharaoh, however her son Hyber names Scotland after her .... Yay.
Book of Leinster
There is also another earlier version, the Lebor Gabála
Érenn, (Book of Leinster redaction) that has an Irish bias and instead argues that pharaoh’s daughter, Scota, was married to a Scythian or Babylonian prince Nel, son of Fénius,
and a descendant of Noah. This Scota was the mother of Goídel Glas (Gaythelos).
Goídel's children (the Gaels), left Egypt and went into exile during the Exodus, and sailed to Scythia, but later roamed about for 440 years, in 4 ships with 24 couples (don't ask me), eventually conquering Spain and building a city. Goídel's descendant Íth discovered Ireland by looking out over the ocean from a tower, then they all piled into a boat or more and conquered Ireland.
Goídel's children (the Gaels), left Egypt and went into exile during the Exodus, and sailed to Scythia, but later roamed about for 440 years, in 4 ships with 24 couples (don't ask me), eventually conquering Spain and building a city. Goídel's descendant Íth discovered Ireland by looking out over the ocean from a tower, then they all piled into a boat or more and conquered Ireland.
Um yeh
So I am not a British historian
and therefore I am not going to go over the problems that may be here in the
various mishmashy late medieval narratives from Ireland, Wales
and Scotland.
I will just point out the obvious: like how
would a 14th century priest sitting in an abbey in Britain or in fact Ireland have access to historical
data that predates the Romans? In the
12th to 14th centuries historical texts were handed down
interpretations of copies of classical Greek and Roman texts and the
Bible. Bower and Fordun for example seem to be
using a copy of a copy of Manetho for Egypt.
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| Syncellus on the kings of the 18th Dynasty, (8th century CE), used Eusebius, 3rd century CE, who used Manetho Aegyptiaca, 3rd century BCE. Loeb series, Book 350, 1940. |
Manetho's original Aegyptiaca
is lost and only known now through much later Christian era writers who
were interested in the Egyptian kings only in order to date events from
the Bible. The rewrites date from the 1st century to the 9th century
CE, and they do not agree with each other, neither for the date of the
Exodus from Egypt, nor for the kings of the 18th Dynasty, particularly
the end. They also have a tendency of throwing in some classical heroes
and kings for lols.
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| The Armenian version of Eusebius, on Manetho (5th century CE). Loeb series, Book 350, 1940. |
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| The version of Manetho by Julius Africanus (2nd-3rd c. CE). |
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| Manetho according to Flavius Josephus (1st century CE). |
The versions of Manetho by Theophilus and
Josephus date the Exodus to the end of the Hyksos period in Egypt (ca.
1550 BCE), mixing up the Hyksos with the Israelites. Syncellus and
Eusebius place the Exodus under a king of the Amarna period, either a
son or daughter of Orus (Akhenaten?), Acencheres, or a later king,
Cencheres. The Scotichronicon and Book of Leinster take these jumbled up histories, add dashes of Homer and the Bible, and give them local flavour.
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| Snake oil salesman Ralph Ellis solving the problem of conflicting dates for the Exodus! |
These
revised Gaelic folk legends about origins of peoples, had a simple
purpose, they were designed to tie the early Scots and Gaels back to the
Old
Testament stories, basically to give local relevance to the Near
Eastern book. Their intention was
not historical, it was parochial and religious, yet these texts are the sole basis for the modern pseudo-claims,
excluding some really dodgy archaeology.
Also the chronology is a mess and all stories naturally rely on the Bible as fact.
The Bible narrative
However -
this cannot be stressed enough; there
is no evidence from archaeology that the Exodus happened, nor if such an
event occurred without the fairy story parts, do we
have any idea who that pharaoh would be … nothing … any and all
suggestions of
who he might have been are conjecture. Manetho is the only source, he
is late, written by other people and just a tad inconsistent.
Also the connection of Akhenaten to Moses is a modern western construct stemming from Manetho and from 19th century assumptions about the nature of Atenism. 21st century archaeology has changed our understanding of this a lot, and it involves the rejection of the Theban god Amen and his triad in Thebes, many other gods and temples continued unsullied.
Also the connection of Akhenaten to Moses is a modern western construct stemming from Manetho and from 19th century assumptions about the nature of Atenism. 21st century archaeology has changed our understanding of this a lot, and it involves the rejection of the Theban god Amen and his triad in Thebes, many other gods and temples continued unsullied.
The next issue is that to make a coherent
narrative fit what we know now you would have to cherry pick the stories (and Manetho) and
throw out anything that doesn’t suit you.
Which is pretty much how pseudos are playing it...
Finally, while the original story in Fordun and
Bower is about Gaythelos and Hyber, or the grandsons and great-grandsons of
Noah in the Irish versions, the modern rewrites are mainly concerned with
Scota, who plays no part at all in the originals except by popping out a
prince.
But that is not interesting enough today … Oh
no, rather, run with the least evidence but the most romantic narrative
potential …ooo’oh, a beeauuutiful Egyptian
princess… who could she be?
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| Basic context for late 18th Dynasty Egypt |
So back to Egypt
What do we have? The Scottish texts state that a daughter of the Exodus pharaoh
was married to a Greek or Scythian refugee prince during the
Moses escapade in 1510 BCE and fled west when the Egyptian people got tetchy about who should rule them. In 1510
btw the 18th Dynasty ancestors of Akhenaten were busy throwing out the
Hyksos kings, but let’s just ignore fripperies like chronology and discuss
cultural habits instead.
And this presents a really big problem: An Egyptian
princess married to a foreign prince in the 18th Dynasty is in the 21st century a very dubious claim, because Egyptian
pharaohs never, and I repeat never married their daughters to other princes or
kings … number one big no no back in the day …
This was put into eloquent words by Amenhotep
III, father of Akhenaten, when a Babylonian king demanded he provide him with
an Egyptian princess in a letter from around 1370 BCE.
This king was a resourceful individual and on
knock back was not discouraged and suggested the Egyptians pretended they were
sending a princess so he could maintain face at home.
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| Amarna Letter 4 from the Kassite king to Egypt. Translation from Rainey 2015, The El-Amarna Correspondence. |
And that is it, negative evidence ... at this
point in time there is no evidence from archaeology or any historical texts
from the entire pharaonic period that an Egyptian princess was married to a
foreigner, king, prince, or commoner.
The immediate family of the pharaoh was kept close, perhaps because of
issues of claims to the throne, either way they just didn’t do it.
But because some monk in 1350 CE says they did the pseudos are having a party.
Contemporary flights of fancy
The
recent crop of publications exploiting Scota for monetary gain have
taken the Scottish version and sexed the myth up a bit, by naming names …
celebrity names of course. Most claim that the Amarna princess
Meritaten, daughter of Akhenaten, granddaughter of Amenhotep III was the
legendary Scota. Another claims it was a younger daughter of the same pharaoh
Ankhesenamen.
And as you read this I want you to have the
strategic emphasis on the word ‘princess’ in the back of your minds.
Lorraine Evans in Kingdom of the Ark (2000), for example has argued that princess Meritaten
and Abimilki 'prince' of Tyre were Scota and Gaythelos, which should get a laugh from
the Late Bronze Age archaeologists reading this.
Abimilki was governor of an Egyptian vassal city in the Levant (coastal Lebanon), a man appointed by Egypt to collect revenue, whose main claim to fame is bitching to pharaoh about his neighbour Sidon encroaching on his land, and when not, begging for troops and food supplies. He governed Tyre from the later years of Akhenaten’s reign into that of king Neferneferuaten (Ankhkheperure/ Smenkhkare, so say from 1343-1333 BCE).
According to her the couple are supposed to have fled the protests, plague and revolution at the end of Akhenaten's reign in around 1335 BCE.... (in her intro she confusingly dates their flight to 1350 BCE p. 28) ... you do the maths ... from there they travel to Algeria, the Cadiz in Spain and the Canary Islands before ending up in Britain, leaving a long trail of Egyptian descendants and cultural practices in their wake.
Abimilki was governor of an Egyptian vassal city in the Levant (coastal Lebanon), a man appointed by Egypt to collect revenue, whose main claim to fame is bitching to pharaoh about his neighbour Sidon encroaching on his land, and when not, begging for troops and food supplies. He governed Tyre from the later years of Akhenaten’s reign into that of king Neferneferuaten (Ankhkheperure/ Smenkhkare, so say from 1343-1333 BCE).
According to her the couple are supposed to have fled the protests, plague and revolution at the end of Akhenaten's reign in around 1335 BCE.... (in her intro she confusingly dates their flight to 1350 BCE p. 28) ... you do the maths ... from there they travel to Algeria, the Cadiz in Spain and the Canary Islands before ending up in Britain, leaving a long trail of Egyptian descendants and cultural practices in their wake.
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| Antidiluviana on Facebook |
Ralph Ellis on the other hand in Scota, Egyptian Queen of the Scots, (2006)
decided that Tutankhamen’s widow Ankhesenamen and pharaoh
Ay were Scota and Gaythelos.
He concludes that Manetho made an error with his kinglist and that
Horemhab is Orus, somehow mistakenly put before the Amarna period,
therefore claiming that Nefertiti is Achencres sister of
Rathotis-Akhenaten, and Ay conveniently becomes Harmais!
He also claims that Akhenaten was Aaron and abdicated after a reign of 5 years, then fled with the Israelites, doggedly pursued by Tutankhamen, son of Ay, and his army! ... Pharaoh’s daughter was Akhenaten’s mum, queen Tiye and the Thutmose who died young was Moses! …
He also claims that Akhenaten was Aaron and abdicated after a reign of 5 years, then fled with the Israelites, doggedly pursued by Tutankhamen, son of Ay, and his army! ... Pharaoh’s daughter was Akhenaten’s mum, queen Tiye and the Thutmose who died young was Moses! …
Ay and Ankhesenamen marry and flee to Spain to escape the religious persecution of Horemhab and other Egyptians!!
I actually do not have enough exclamation marks for this one, it is high comedy, and again some flexible approaches to
chronology. I
particularly enjoyed his
fantasizing about the Minoans and Phoenicians being one and the same,
and his claims (Evans too) that
the Minoans must have been close allies with the Hyksos because of the
Minoan paintings at Avaris in Egypt (which actually date 150 years later
to Hatshepsut and Thutmose III,
not to the Hyksos period).
How this has any impact on their theories is beyond me, but both authors do it, I assume it relates to the word princess (Minoan this time).
How this has any impact on their theories is beyond me, but both authors do it, I assume it relates to the word princess (Minoan this time).
And do not get me started on Ellis’ abysmal
translations of hieroglyphic terms. The book is full of evidence that he has never studied the language.
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| Spot the inaccuracies here. Robert Sepehr getting some mileage out of the myth. |
But anyhoo … those books on Scota were the highlights ... basically every pseudo blog and
snake oil salesman has had a go at this British legend from Robert Sepehr, to
Graham Hancock, to Ancient Origins (repeatedly), to Uri Geller with his Egyptian treasure on
a tiny Scottish island … Amarna princesses are clearly a money winner.
Robert Sepehr above for example basically yoinks the princess from Evans' book, fluffs it up with some pretty pictures and adds all European kings to the stone of destiny. But I have one more whacky highlight: The Merovingians: the once, the present, and future kings Facebook page have their own special take on the legend where Scota is wife of the Scythian prince Niul. This time however she was daughter of the pharaoh Smenkhkare, who was biblical Aaron, and niece of pharaoh Akhenaten, who was Moses... eek
Robert Sepehr above for example basically yoinks the princess from Evans' book, fluffs it up with some pretty pictures and adds all European kings to the stone of destiny. But I have one more whacky highlight: The Merovingians: the once, the present, and future kings Facebook page have their own special take on the legend where Scota is wife of the Scythian prince Niul. This time however she was daughter of the pharaoh Smenkhkare, who was biblical Aaron, and niece of pharaoh Akhenaten, who was Moses... eek
They
smoothly argue the connection of Smenkhkare to Aaron by creating a fictional
transliteration of the name; Smenkhkaron, which makes no sense in ancient
Egyptian, or I need to do a refresher, as I must confess I’ve never heard of an
Egyptian sun god called Ron (smnḫ-ka-ron ‘he who the ka of Ron has made
potent’?). I am not sure I buy it ... no
way to prove any of that blather, btw.
(To be honest there is a book to be written about the bogus reinterpretation of ancient Egyptian language by complete newbs in pseudo-science.)
(To be honest there is a book to be written about the bogus reinterpretation of ancient Egyptian language by complete newbs in pseudo-science.)
So let’s have a proper look at the two slightly less bonkers ideas.
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This lovely head has no inscription and can only be dated by style to the Amarna period,
she may be a daughter of Akhenaten. Images © Louvre. |
What about Meritaten
Meritaten was the eldest of the 6 daughters of the pharaoh
Akhenaten, the son of Amenhotep III and queen Tiye. She was daughter of
the chief queen Nefertiti, you know, the famous one. Her mum and dad
changed the nature of traditional Egyptian religion by raising an aspect of the
sun god, the Aten, to chief god of Egypt replacing the powerful Theban god
Amen-re, and incidentally making themselves divine in the process. Her
parents were gods.
Meritaten herself was the most prominent of their daughters in
royal documents and monuments, she was probably born in about 1355 BCE in
Thebes before Akhenaten became king (ca 1352 BCE) and therefore she may have
been around 20 when her father died (ca 1335 BCE), she would have been around
30 when Tutankhamen died (ca 1324 BCE, if she was alive then).
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Daughters of Akhenaten in a scene
with their parents from the tomb of Huya. Meritaten stands at
the front, followed by Maketaten and
Ankhesenpaaten. Image Davies Rock Tombs Amarna 15.
|
But it gets more complicated, because Meritaten was a
princess maybe until her late teens, then she becomes queen, and possibly also
king of Egypt.
Calling her a princess to make your point is manipulative, she was maybe a
princess until she was 16 or 17, then she was promoted to a top job.
Queen and king?
Meritaten with her mother Nefertiti are
current favourites to be the female king Neferneferuaten
who co-ruled with Akhenaten and ruled Egypt
for about 2 to 3 years between Akhenaten’s death and Tutankhamen (1335-1333/2 BCE). Many assume her mum was Neferneferuaten,
because Meritaten is recorded as the great royal wife of Smenkhkare-Neferneferuaten on a chest from Tut’s tomb. Lorraine Evans seems not to be aware of this and other objects, she infers we made the marriage up.
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| Two figures that may be Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten. Relief from a house in Amarna. |
Berlin ÄM
20716. Image © Berlin Museum.
Anyway,
if you are now confused, we are still coming to terms with it too. But
it was not essential for the pharaoh to be male, the role was male and
had to have a female consort, Egyptian kingship was structured around
two genders, they weren't quite as fussed about biology. This
Smenkhkare-Neferneferuaten was either her mum (because of the
name overlap), a younger sister, or another male heir who died fairly
soon after taking the throne.
Therefore, according to Egyptian evidence Meritaten had a royal husband of one kind or another, and regardless of who they were, this made her a king’s great queen for around 6 years, because she was also titled great royal wife of her dad at the end of his reign. Plus she herself may have actually been pharaoh Neferneferuaten.
Therefore, according to Egyptian evidence Meritaten had a royal husband of one kind or another, and regardless of who they were, this made her a king’s great queen for around 6 years, because she was also titled great royal wife of her dad at the end of his reign. Plus she herself may have actually been pharaoh Neferneferuaten.
That shoots holes in the Abimilki = Gaythelos
idea (she can’t be in two places at once).
When Abimilki was politically active Meritaten was co-running an empire. The example of him addressing her (Mayati) as ‘my lady’, and calling himself ‘her servant’, in a letter is actually a reflection of her
importance in Egypt, as king’s great wife or co-regent, and it is not proof she
was married to an Egyptian vassal.
A basic knowledge of Amarna diplomatic language would prevent this error in Evans, who provides no other evidence to support this claim and never explains how the two met, were married or where they resided, because she can't. ‘Prince’ Abimilki rates barely 2 pages of interest before being relegated into the background. However, if Tyre in Lebanon was ‘Meritaten's city’ she technically had no reason to flee anywhere in 1335 BCE, but hey.
A basic knowledge of Amarna diplomatic language would prevent this error in Evans, who provides no other evidence to support this claim and never explains how the two met, were married or where they resided, because she can't. ‘Prince’ Abimilki rates barely 2 pages of interest before being relegated into the background. However, if Tyre in Lebanon was ‘Meritaten's city’ she technically had no reason to flee anywhere in 1335 BCE, but hey.
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Meritaten being kissed by Akhenaten, with Nefertiti holding Meketaten and Akhesenpaaten.
Maketaten died young. Stele from a shrine in a house at Amarna, Berlin Museum, my photo. |
Meritaten would have been a powerful figure at Amarna at 18,
she owned a palace (North Palace) or 2 (Maru-aten), and had a royal tomb prepared
there. She is thought to have had at least 1 daughter Meritaten-tasherit
(‘junior’), or 2, if one includes Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit (disputed)… Also one
academic has argued she was the foster mother of Tutankhamen (Alain Zivie).
When Akhenaten died in about 1335 BCE, not deposed in a
revolution btw, as pseudos claim, or abdicating (how does a god
abdicate?), or leading the Israelites to freedom. He died, and the royal family and the king or kings
(Neferneferuaten+) who followed him immediately began putting the old religious
system back in place. There is some evidence the royal family had in fact begun
restoring normality while Akhenaten was still king, towards the end of his reign.
The argument for a revolution and of persecutions of loyal Atenists in 1335 BCE that these writers depend on is based on an assumption that Akhenaten somehow suppressed all worship of other gods. We know now that this is incorrect, he built a city for his personal god and suppressed the cult of Amen-re in Thebes. Other gods continued to be worshipped by the population, even in Amarna, plus the royal family were themselves worshipped at household shrines, such as the relief above.
The argument for a revolution and of persecutions of loyal Atenists in 1335 BCE that these writers depend on is based on an assumption that Akhenaten somehow suppressed all worship of other gods. We know now that this is incorrect, he built a city for his personal god and suppressed the cult of Amen-re in Thebes. Other gods continued to be worshipped by the population, even in Amarna, plus the royal family were themselves worshipped at household shrines, such as the relief above.
We also now know that ‘I
rebuilt the temples that were in ruins’ is a standard element of royal
propaganda that pharaohs used upon coronation and Tut, Ay or Horemhab
saying this tells us nothing about reality.
Therefore the revolution theory in Egyptology went out with the new millennium.
Therefore the revolution theory in Egyptology went out with the new millennium.
When
Tut and Ankhesenamen came along in 1333/2 it was well on the way to
business as usual in Egyptian temples. Ankhesenamen would have been
around 18 and her younger brother 9 years old at that time. Ay became
pharaoh about 10
years later on the death of Tutankhamen at 19, but because of their
youth he would have had considerable authority during Tut's reign.
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| Smenkhkare and Meritaten or Ankhesenamen and Tutankhamen? Possibly from Amarna. Berlin museum, my photo. |
Ankhesenamen and Ay
So there is Ralph Ellis’s theory teetering like
a boss. Ay
was an old man when he became
pharaoh in 1324/3 BCE, perhaps around 60 to 70 years old, he had held
some of the most important jobs in Egypt for about 30 years under
Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten and Tutankhamen, and was possibly the brother
of
queen Tiye (Akhenaten’s mum) father of Nefertiti, grandfather of the
royal children, and coming from a powerful Egyptian family.
He too was active rebuilding the old religious system and
temples for the 5 years he was king of Egypt.
God’s father Ay
(left) as Tutankhamen slays an enemy, great queen
Ankhesenamen
(right). Image from Davis 1912. The tombs of Harmhabi and
Touatânkhamanou.
|
Ay may have been married to Tut’s widow, his possible granddaughter, queen Ankhesenamen
(Meritaten’s younger sister) who would have been around 28-30 on his taking power. And I
emphasise may, because there is only one object used to argue this; a ring in Berlin
that has Ay and Ankhesenamen named together, but only their names, no titles.
No other evidence exists.
His
chief queen on the other hand was always a woman called Tiy, who is the only wife
mentioned in Ay's royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings. However, if he
married Ankhesenamen when king, she, like
her older sister Meritaten, was queen of Egypt at least twice, having
been Tutankhamen’s chief queen for
about 9 or 10 years (and possibly with her dad makes thrice).
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Ay and his wife Tiy
recieving honours for royal service from Akhenaten at Amarna.
Relief from the tomb of Ay at Amarna. Image
ddenisen at Wikipedia.
|
They
live as royalty for how long and then Ay deserts his favourite wife, the woman he has put on all his royal monuments and
goes into exile with a younger woman pursued by angry mobs after
Horemhab becomes king? (1319+) Umm ... what?
Sure, there is evidence that Horemhab had big issues with his predecessor, however they probably won't have been about religious heresy ... my money is on power and proving he had rights to the throne when he was not connected to the royal family, the only logical way he could do this is after pharaoh Ay had died.
And I am placing this here only once ... ancient mortality rates... Ay was doing really well to get to 70.
Sure, there is evidence that Horemhab had big issues with his predecessor, however they probably won't have been about religious heresy ... my money is on power and proving he had rights to the throne when he was not connected to the royal family, the only logical way he could do this is after pharaoh Ay had died.
And I am placing this here only once ... ancient mortality rates... Ay was doing really well to get to 70.
Royal sisters
Regardless, even if Meritaten had an
extra husband, for which there is no evidence, in addition to 2 kings, or
Ankhesenamen another 2 or even 3 kings under her ample belt, not much evidence there either ... they had no reason to flee Egypt due
to persecution because their dad Akhenaten was a dangerous heretic and people were waving
pitchforks in 1318 BCE, about 17 years after he had died. Nobody can hold a grudge that long.
But more importantly, we need to stop thinking like Europeans about kings and queens, Egyptian royalty were sacred, beyond the human world, they were responsible for the universe running properly. Therefore as usual the royal line continued ruling Egypt until the last available successor died, Egypt had already returned to their original religious system when Ankhesenamen was chief queen with Tutankhamen.
But more importantly, we need to stop thinking like Europeans about kings and queens, Egyptian royalty were sacred, beyond the human world, they were responsible for the universe running properly. Therefore as usual the royal line continued ruling Egypt until the last available successor died, Egypt had already returned to their original religious system when Ankhesenamen was chief queen with Tutankhamen.
Equally when did Meritaten find time to marry another guy
and perhaps run off on a ship to the ends of the earth? According
to most pseudos this occurred
somewhere around 1350-1335 BCE, which is pretty motivated for someone
who either was in papyrus diapers, or kinda busy running an empire (with
or without a royal hubby).
If
you try to fit either woman into the British legends and current
archaeological knowledge they would have had to have fled Egypt after
1319 BCE, then tooled around the Mediterranean for a few years, boat
hopping from port to port, lived in Spain for a bit, then settled
Britian around the ripe old ages of 50-ish, popping out the heir to the
Gaelic peoples, with husbands who would have been in their 70s, or even
90s, or let's be realistic, pushing up daisies.
The
claim that a daughter of Smenkhkare was princess Scota on the other
hand is singularly hampered by the fact that there is zero evidence of
one, (unless they mean Meritaten-junior), plus we still don't know if he ever existed, and if he did, was male.
All of the modern claims above treat the British evidence from The Scotichronicon, Fordun and the Book of Leinster
as historically accurate, but simultaneously they strategically leave
out the bits that don't fit their puzzle, and sometimes they force
pieces in to make them fit (by altering the stories) ... that is
actually not how historical science works.
 |
| Painted ivory plaque, Amarna princess: Louvre E 14374. Image © Louvre. |
Artistic Licence: Princesses?
But did you keep the word 'princess` in the back of your mind while reading this?
Because what is essential to these romantic concoctions, is the misleading use of the word to describe these women, which immediately delegates them to inferior status in the reader’s mind. You know, as unmarried young women in a 19th century oil painting languishing around a palace on pillows shaking a sistrum, eating dates and waiting for a prince, only useful as tools for forming canny political alliances.
The ancient Egyptians simply did not work that way.
Because what is essential to these romantic concoctions, is the misleading use of the word to describe these women, which immediately delegates them to inferior status in the reader’s mind. You know, as unmarried young women in a 19th century oil painting languishing around a palace on pillows shaking a sistrum, eating dates and waiting for a prince, only useful as tools for forming canny political alliances.
The ancient Egyptians simply did not work that way.
Egyptian
princesses were considerably more
important than that, queens even more so, they all held roles of high
ritual importance. Try inserting queen of Egypt into every context where
princess, or pharaoh's daughter, is used to sell this tosh and see how that changes the tone a
lot.... 'great queen Meritaten' - 'great queen Ankhesenamen'.
Neither
woman was an object to be fobbed off
as reward for military prowess on some stranger from Scythia or Greece
or even Tyre. Meritaten and Ankhesenamen were chief queens and
one of them was quite possibly king of Egypt between 1335-1332 BCE.
The only way you actually quit those jobs in Egypt was by dying.
When
a king died, if living, his chief wife became the dowager queen, a role
as ritually important as chief queen. You were responsible for running
the country if the heir was underage, a semi-divine entity, a conduit
for the goddesses in ritual, Hathor's earthly representative. You couldn’t just run off to Spain with
some guy in your dad’s army, a vassal governor, or your grandfather (urk).
That we have absolutely no evidence for
Egyptian kings allowing anyone to marry their daughters presents similar
obstacles.
And don’t get me started on the
rubbish chronology and flawed archaeology used to support these flights of fancy.
Andrea Sinclair 2019
 |
| Ancient Pages not making any effort, note the 'pharaoh's daughter'. |
References and links
I used Kitchen's chronology for the Amarna kings. There
is still some flexibility on the topic of overlaps - possible
co-regencies between Akhenaten and Amenhotep III, and later with
Ankhkheperure-Neferneferuaten-Smenkhkare.
A. Dodson 2009. Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian
Counter-Reformation.
A. Dodson 2009. ‘Amarna Sunset: the Late Amarna
Succession Revisited’ in S. Ikram and A. Dodson
Beyond the Horizon.
A. Dodson and D. Hilton 2004. The Complete Royal Families of Egypt.
N. Kawai 2010. 'Ay versus Horemhab: the Political Situation in the Late Eighteenth Dynasty Revisited'. Journal of Egyptian History 3:2.
R. Krauss 2000. ‘Akhenaten: Monotheist?, Polytheist?’ BACE 11.
Rainey 2015. The El-Amarna Correspondence.
N. Kawai 2010. 'Ay versus Horemhab: the Political Situation in the Late Eighteenth Dynasty Revisited'. Journal of Egyptian History 3:2.
R. Krauss 2000. ‘Akhenaten: Monotheist?, Polytheist?’ BACE 11.
Rainey 2015. The El-Amarna Correspondence.
A.-P. Zivie 2009. La Tombe de Maia, Mère Nourricière du Roi
Toutankhamon et Grande du Harem.
Critiques
A very nice critique from the pov of Irish archaeology by Derek Ryan:
http://thetipperaryantiquarian.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-tara-prince-egyptian-princess-and.html
J. Colavito on Uri Geller: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/uri-geller-plans-to-excavate-the-ancient-egyptian-treasure-of-fictitious-princess-scota-on-a-scottish-island-he-owns
The rest
Lebor Gabála Érenn English translation online http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/lebor1.html
W. Bower
1867. Scotichronicon. English
translation by J.F.S. Gordon.
W.F. Skene 1872.
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish Nation. English translation by F.J.H.
Skene.
Giles 2000.
Nennius: Historia Brittonum. English
translation.
Manetho
1940. Aegyptiaca, Loeb Editions 350.
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| Ancient Origins, again 'pharaoh's daughter'. |
Pseudo sources
R. Ellis
2006. Scota, Egyptian Queen of the Scots.
L. Evans 2000. Kingdom
of the Ark: The Startling Story of How the Ancient British Race is Descended
from the Pharaohs.
Guardian review of Evans: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/27/robertmccrum
E. Lloyd at Ancient Pages insults everyone's intelligence for clicks with a 2020 article: https://www.ancientpages.com/2020/07/14/ancestors-of-the-irish-and-scots-came-from-biblical-lands-and-ancient-egypt-myths-history-and-dna/?fbclid=IwAR2xYcorI8eVrZ1PIvBctDg8kFdplaKr3nAeDG3LNfIZ9SlnwQ5RlRs_zDA
Ancient Origins
have various articles on Scota/Scotia and gleefully contradict
themselves on identity and dates depending on author (because they are
not in this for accuracy): Dhwty 2015; David Halpin 2016; Steven Keith
2018; Sarah Young 2019.
