Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [118]
This incredible story is known not from Egyptian archaeology, but from the excavation of the Hittite capital in Anatolia. In the royal archives was a cuneiform text of the Hittite king, Mursilis III, telling of a message sent by an Egyptian queen to his father, our old friend Shubilulliuma.
“My husband is dead,” she wrote, “and I have no son. People say that you have many sons. If you were to send me one of your sons he might become my husband. I am loath to take a servant of mine and make him my husband.”
If Shubilulliuma had acted promptly, he might have changed history. But he was too sly to recognize candor when he met it, and there was reason for his skepticism. “Since of old such a thing has never happened,” he exclaimed. So he sent his chamberlain to Egypt to investigate before making a decision. “Perhaps they have a prince; they may try to deceive me and do not really want one of my sons to take over the kingship.”
In the columned and painted rooms of the royal palace at Thebes, Queen Ankhesenamon watched her young husband’s tomb being made ready and waited for word. No one had consulted her on the succession. She had to act quickly and in secret, for she was no more than a pawn in the current game of politics, to be disposed of as the winner decreed. It is pitifully clear that she could expect no help from any of her father’s former friends; Hatti was a last resort.
But the slow days dragged on without an answer from the north, and Ankhesenamon must have found her mask of indifference harder and harder to maintain. Then, at last, came a message. We do not know how it was delivered, nor by whom, but its import is plain from the letter Ankhesenamon wrote in reply. I know of no more eloquent text from ancient times.
Why do you say, “They may try to deceive me”? If I had a son, would I write to a foreign country in a manner which is humiliating to me and to my country? He who was my husband died, and I have no sons. Shall I perhaps take a servant of mine, and make him my husband? I have not written to any other country, I have written only to you. People say that you have many sons. Give me one of your sons, and he shall be my husband and king in the land of Egypt.
Bearing this message the courier set out again on the long journey, beset with many dangers. And this time Shubilulliuma was convinced. It was, in modern parlance, too good a chance to pass up. He sent a son, but too late. According to the Hittite records, the prince and his escort were attacked and murdered on the way “by the men and horses of Egypt.” The conspiracy had been discovered.
And what of Queen Ankhesenamon? She was a true granddaughter of the shrewd little commoner Tiye, who had fought for a crown in her own way; but her husband was not “a mighty king whose borders reach from Karoy to the Euphrates.” Her husband was dead, and in his place stood the Father of the God Ay, who had just had himself painted on the wall of Tutankhamon’s tomb as the boy’s successor.
Just who was Ay anyhow? Some scholars believe he was the brother of Queen Tiye and the son of Yuya and Thuya, and thus a member of a provincial family that had, for some reason or other, considerable influence at court. Nothing contradicts this theory, but negative evidence isn’t proof; and I’ve always wondered why, if Ay was a son of Yuya and Thuya, his name does not appear anywhere in their tomb. Thuya is described as mother of the king’s great wife, which we knew from the marriage scarab of Amenhotep III, and