Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [144]
We have seen this title before; it was used by queens during the Eighteenth Dynasty, presumably to refer to their unique relationship with the god Amon. The title appears sporadically during succeeding dynasties, always being held by the king’s wife. We can’t be precisely certain when the situation changed, since identifying holders of the title during the Twenty-second Dynasty is difficult. By the beginning of the Twenty-third Dynasty, however, the God’s Wife of Amon had become an independent power, functioning alongside the male rulers of Thebes. These women were not kings’ wives. All were kings’ daughters; the office was not passed on from mother to daughter but by way of adoption. It is safe to assume, as most scholars have done, that the ladies had no mortal husbands but remained faithful to Amon in body as well as in spirit. Two of their other titles, those of Adorer of the God and Hand of the God, are known from earlier times, but presumably had different implications at this period.
In practical terms, the procedure had a number of advantages. Each new king, what ever his antecedents, sent a (presumably virgin) daughter to Thebes, to be adopted by the current God’s Wife—thus gaining a certain degree of legitimacy and a loyal adherent, who might help to counter the prestige of the high priest. How much political power the God’s Wives actually wielded is questionable, but the office continued unbroken, through changes of dynasty, invasion, and usurpation, until Egypt fell to a conqueror who worshipped other gods than Amon-Re of Thebes.
In the meantime the nation was ripe for invasion, which was just what it got. The Assyrians were coming down, and they were not the only ones. The Egyptians were not as adept in the “mysteries” as the Rosicrucians believed them to have been, and their varied contributions to civilization did not include the Ouija board. But if they had contacted the shade of Thutmose III he would probably have warned his remote successors to watch out for the Asiatics. Thutmose was too long dead; he would have probably been astounded at the direction from which the inevitable conquest finally came.
HORSEMEN FROM THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
Out of the level stretches of sand rise the pyramids, row on row. The gray smoke of incense ascends to heaven, and the voices of white-clad priests chant the old sacred hymns to the god. “O Amon-Re, Lord of the Holy Mountain…”
Wait a minute. Amon-Re—and pyramids? An anachronism has reared its ugly head. Pyramids were replaced by rock-cut tombs at about the time Amon began his spectacular rise to supremacy.
No, no anachronism. The pyramids and the great temples to Amon were contemporaneous, but not in Egypt. We must go back now in time, and south in space, to witness the flourishing of a strange hybrid that was to have a significant impact on the dying culture of ancient Egypt. Men of a distant clime and an alien race (I use the word poetically) once again carry weapons into the land of Horus; but they come as saviors, not as conquerors, and represent themselves as the true heirs of the son of Osiris against the degenerates who call themselves pharaohs.
We talked about Nubia when we were discussing the Middle Kingdom, but we have had to neglect the region since for want of space. Other developments of the New Kingdom deserved more attention, for Nubia was not a problem during that period. At the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty the kings of Egypt regained the Middle Kingdom heritage in the south without difficulty, reoccupying the old forts and building new ones. They also built towns and temples; there was no longer any need for the strong defenses Senusert III had erected. The New Kingdom frontier in the south