Calling All Zenobia Lovers

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF ZENOBIA IS IN DANGER

The 6th century historian Procopius of Caesarea (c. 500-565 CE) tells us that Queen Zenobia built the city on the Euphrates River (below) that even today is known by her name:

on the road to Roman territory, Zenobia, wife of Odenathus, who was ruler of the Saracens in that district, once founded a small city in earlier times and gave her name to it; for the name she gave it was Zenobia, as was fitting.*

If We Don't Act Now, The Waters Will Reach This Level.

No sooner had I written about the city of Zenobia on the Euphrates (Where Did Zenobia Die?) than I received an urgent appeal from Prof. Sylvie Blétry, chief of the French-Syrian Mission, who has been leading the excavations at Zenobia/Halebiye since 2006:

The city of Zenobia, which as Procopius says, was founded by the Queen of Palmyra and refortified by Justinian, is now in mortal danger from plans for a new dam on the Euphrates River. The French-Syrian Archaeological Mission is circulating a petition in the hope of saving this fascinating site. They do not seek to cancel the project (which is needed for the development of the region) but rather to have the dam moved so that it will not drown most of the city.

Don't let Zenobia drown.

Please help by clicking here and signing the petition:

Come on, all you readers. Let's flood their mailbox instead of flooding Zenobia.

Please also forward the petition to as many interested parties as you can.

More information on the site and excavations at the Mission's webpage.

Click and sign the petition here.

The petition is written in English and French, but here is a simple translation of the information you'll need to fill in:

First Name Prénom:
Last Name Nom:
Affiliation Société:
Email:
Téléphone:
Address Ligne d'adresse 1:
Address Ligne d'adresse 2:
City Ville:
Country Etat / Région:
Code postal:
Comments Commentaires:

Click on 'Envoyer' to send it off. A million thanks from Zenobia and me!

Click and sign the petition here

*And then, having done a good deed, read on at Where Did Zenobia Die?


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Zenobia on a new Empress Zenobia

My review of Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen, a new book by the Roman historian Pat Southern,* appears today in the Times Higher Education. Here's what I wrote:

Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen

16 April 2009

I sometimes think that if it were not for her coins, Queen Zenobia would be taken as a legendary figure, at least as fanciful as Semiramis of Babylon, or Shirin, the Armenian princess who became the symbolic lady of Islamic mysticism. There may be a kernel of truth in the story, most would contend, but it would be considered a tale so fantastical, so gendered, with sources so unreliable that it simply couldn't have historical value. Yet Zenobia (c AD240-273) did exist and went to war against the Romans. And, as Empress of the East, she came within a hair's breadth of victory.

Pat Southern has written a scholarly biography of someone about whom almost nothing is known for certain. We don't know her year of birth, her lineage, when she married the great warrior prince Odenathus, or much about their children (she had one son at least, Waballath, who would become a short-lived Emperor of the East). More positively, I would note that we may have a real portrait of Zenobia - on her second Alexandrian coin issue. Although there is more information on her husband and his family, we don't know anything about how Odenathus became a great warrior, much less why the Emperor Gallienus appointed him Corrector Totius Orientis (if indeed he did) and gave him (or let him take) a slew of other prestigious titles. Odenathus appears on the Syrian scene almost as a deus ex machina, saving the day for Rome's eastern provinces and inadvertently setting in motion the forces that would destroy Zenobia and their city, Palmyra.

After Odenathus' murder, Zenobia seized the regency on behalf of Waballath, who was still a child. But of her later plans or intentions we are entirely ignorant. Southern admits this and concentrates instead on giving us a serious historical study of Palmyra, with few concessions to the romance of a beautiful queen leading her people against the power of Rome. Virtually every "fact" is disputed. Even Palmyra's incorporation into the Roman Empire floats over 200 years from Germanicus to Caracalla. Southern leans towards an early annexation (by Tiberius) - although Pliny the Elder remarks that Palmyra "had its own fate" between the Roman and Parthian empires. I prefer late, under Septimius Severus (AD193-211), which at least explains why Palmyra is ignored in Roman literary and epigraphic sources. Palmyra was a Roman ally, certainly, and maintained its own army - not just "desert fighters" but a heavily-armoured cavalry (clibanarii) adopted from the Persian enemy.

Southern tells Palmyra's history from the Roman side. A more easterly orientation might better fit the only Roman polis whose local language (Palmyrene Aramaic) is ubiquitous in public inscriptions. Palmyran men wore "Parthian" trousers (a pity the only man illustrated in this book is wrapped in a cloak; why not show the recently discovered mosaic of Odenathus on horseback, splendidly clothed in multicoloured Parthian style?). Vestis virum reddit: 'Clothes make the man'. Most Palmyran deities, too, faced eastwards: Bel, great god of the city, was originally Babylonian and his temple - still Palmyra's cynosure - was dedicated on Babylonian New Year's Day, 6 April AD32.

Palmyra's lifeblood was its commerce with India. Southern clearly traces the ups and downs of this crucial trade to the Euphrates (as the crow flies, over 200km of rough stony desert) and downriver to Charax, near modern Basra. Until Severus carved out Roman Mesopotamia, Palmyra played the middleman between rival empires. In the end, it was Rome that destroyed Palmyra. In AD272, Aurelian defeated Zenobia and restored Rome's rule of the east. Southern claims that Aurelian's reconquest displayed clementia, yet a favourable Roman source decries him as "a stern, a savage, and a bloodthirsty prince".

This book is not for the general reader, and even the serious traveller making a first visit to Palmyra is better advised to pack Richard Stoneman's accessible (if more romantic) Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome (1993) - although neither book includes much on the topography and monuments of Palmyra itself. Southern's version is a detailed evaluation of current Zenobian studies, taking robust stands on disputed points, such as the lack of evidence for 3rd-century city walls protecting Palmyra, a Roman strategy of blockade rather than siege, and Zenobia's ultimate fate. It doesn't settle many questions. How could it?

Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen

By Pat Southern
Continuum
224pp
£25.00
ISBN 9781847250346
Published 17 November 2008



* Pat Southern has published nine books on the Roman army and on Roman history, including The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History, The Roman Empire From Severus to Constantine, and The Roman Cavalry: From the First to the Third Century AD.

The Lady of the Lionesses and a Pharaonic Wimp

Say to the king, my lord, my god, my Sun: Message of the Lady of the Lionesses [Belit-nesheti], your handmaid. May the king, my lord, know that war has been waged in the land, and gone is the land of the king, my lord, by desertion to the Apiru.

Thus the desperate queen of a small city in Palestine writes to Pharaoh Akhenaten, who was the supreme ruler of the region at the time.*

For, around 1350 BCE, there was unrest in Canaan. Canaanite vassal kings conveyed their fears via letters written on clay tablets to the pharaoh in Egypt, requesting military help. Among the 382 tablets from the imperial archive at Amarna (Akhenaten's capital, about midway between Cairo and Luxor), two rare letters stand out -- both letters from a female ruler, Belit-nesheti, whose name means Lady of the Lionesses.

She wrote to pharaoh about the attacks, counterattacks, and the treachery of native rulers of vassal cities who had thrown her own mini-state into danger at this time. She had paid her tribute to Egypt and, now, as the security situation continued to worsen, she wanted help (or, as another petty ruler put it, O my lord, let my lord dispatch the archers and let them come! )

She needed Egyptian soldiers ... and needed them soon. Nearby cities had already fallen, and this, as she warned pharaoh, was no time for dithering,

I beg the king to save his land from the hands of the Apiru, before it is too late.

The Apiru, Who?

The Apiru mentioned in her letters -- and in many others sent by local kings to Akhenaten -- were a (semi)nomadic people who lived on the fringes of Canaanite urban society. In the cutthroat world of mid-century politics, where Egyptian imperial control was minimal, dynastic rivalries and shifting coalitions left cities vulnerable. The Apiru operated as armed bands outside of the settled social structure, freebooting for their own profit or available for hire. Thus, when a rebel prince sought to grab the throne within his own city-state or when one king tried to overthrow or take over the territory of another king, they seemed easily able to raise a mercenary army of Apiru and use those forces to accomplish their own ends. Clearly, the Apiru who were threatening the Lady of the Lionesses must have been backed by dynasts who wanted to seize control of Belit-nesheti's own city.

Where was the queen's city?

The name of her city is not mentioned in her letters. Presumably, pharaoh's scribes would have known her by name -- and that was enough. Luckily, she mentions two Apiru raids that took place in the area, one on Ayyaluna (biblical Aijalon) and the other at Sarha (biblical Zorah). Both settlements are in the eastern territory of Gezer -- just south of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway in modern Israel, as it happens. In the Late Bronze Age, the city of Gezer controlled large areas in the central coastal plain and the northern lowlands, extending from the Egyptian centre of Jaffa in the northwest to the borders of Ashdod in the south.

Was the Lady of the Lionesses the queen-regent of Gezer, as some historians have assumed? Probably not. She tells pharaoh that two sons of the recently-deceased king of Gezer had barely escaped from the Apiru with their lives -- referring to them in the third person ("they"), rather than the first person ("my sons") as she would if she were their mother. Anyway, it appears that another adult son of the dead king was on his father's throne at this time. So, no queen-regent-in-charge.

Might Belit-nesheti have ruled a neighbouring city?

One Israeli historian, Nadav Na'aman, pointed to Beth Shemesh -- a Late Bronze Age city of about 1,500 souls on the southern border of the Gezer kingdom (some 20 km [13 miles] southwest of Jerusalem) -- as her possible seat. If so, her letters were telling the pharaoh about the dangers facing her own territory. And, given her concern for the two princes of Gezer, that city, at least, must have been an ally rather than a threat.**

In the House of the Sun

The name Beth-Shemesh means "House of the Sun", so the Sun-god was surely the main deity worshipped there by the Canaanite inhabitants (and the nearby Arab village of 'Ain Shems' still preserves the ancient name). Recent excavations at Tel Beth Shemesh, led by Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, may prove that this is, in truth, Belit-nesheti's city.

Figurines and plaques of the Canaanite goddess dressed up as Egyptian Hathor (top left) have been uncovered at the site.

And, just last week, the archaeologists announced an unusual ceramic plaque of a woman in male dress (right and left), suggesting that a mighty female "king" may have ruled the city. The plaque itself depicts a figure dressed as royal male figures (and gods) appeared in Egyptian and Canaanite art, and standing on a basket called a neb -- which signifies a ruler or deity. The figure's hairstyle, though, is womanly and its bent arms are holding lotus flowers -- attributes given to women. If they are right, the plaque would depict the only known female ruler of the region: not a queen-regent but a woman who ruled in her own right. Taken together with the evidence of the two Armarna letters, that can only mean our own Belit-nesheti -- the Lady of the Lionesses.

"Obviously something very different was happening in this city," says Dr Lederman.

"There is no evidence of other females ruling a major city in this capacity," Lederman and Bunimovitz agree. "She is the only one."

He was her king, but he done her wrong

... if my lord does not wish to march forth, then let him send one of his [generals] with troops and chariots.

Akhenaten simply refused to apply himself to the task of sending an effective military force into Canaan. Living almost like a recluse in Amarna, the pharaoh had a single fixation -- the Great Living Sun-disc. He was only intermittently interested in foreign policy and the fate of his territorial vassals. So, he never 'marched forth' himself and was just as reluctant to let his army do so. His only irrevocable resolve pertained to his religious program.

Akhenaten did not respond to Belit-nesheti's cries for assistance. The unfulfilled pleas for troops that are so characteristic of the Amarna letters had dire results.

Beth Shemesh was devastated in a wave of violence shortly after 1350 BCE. The ruins of the Late Bronze Age city were discovered in the 2008 archaeological season. Entire walls had collapsed in a massive fire; toppled bricks showed the effects of exposure to the extreme heat of the blaze.

Belit-nesheti and her subjects didn't give up without a fight. Their desperate attempt to defend their city is witnessed by the huge number of bronze arrowheads discovered among the fallen bricks. The capture of Beth Shemesh was apparently preceded by a fierce battle. Belit-nesheti lost that battle. And her people did not even have time to save their belongings. "They left everything in their houses. The site is loaded with finds," said Lederman, adding that the valuable objects found in the destruction level points to Beth-Shemesh as one the most important inland Canaanite cities.

Perhaps Akhenaten did not appreciate the danger or he was ready to risk it. Either way, the troops and chariots never arrived.

This story ain't got no moral
this story ain't got no end
this story only goes to show
that there ain't no good in men

And so the Lady of Lionesses disappeared from history, with just two tantalizing letters written on clay to show she had ever lived.

Until now.




* In the Late Bronze Age, Canaan (Palestine) was an Egyptian province governed by Egyptian administrators and garrison troops stationed in a few centres. In the mid-14th century BCE these centres were Gaza, Jaffa, Ullasa and Sumur on the coast, and Beth-Shean and Kumidi inland.

The Amarna tablets were found at the royal residence built by Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) on a previously uninhabited site in Middle Egypt (Tel Amarna). He called the new capital Akhetaten, 'the horizon of the sun-disc'. The central part of the city was occupied by the main religious and administrative buildings. The archive of diplomatic correspondence between the kings of the Amarna period and rulers of the Levant was found in the records office.

** Belit-nesheti's letters are part of the Amarna archives, a collection of letters in the cuneiform script in the Akkadian language (the diplomatic language of the time) and written on clay tablets. Modern science offers a variety of techniques for analysing the origin of objects made of clay, from petrographic analysis to Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA).

Israeli scholars have recently carried out mineralogical and chemical analyses on the +300 Amarna clay tablets now in museums in Berlin, London, Oxford and Paris, in order to pinpoint their geographic origin. Analysis of one of Belit-nesheti's tablets (EA 273) proves it to have been produced in Gezer. Presumably having no local Akkadian scribe, Belit-Nesheti had to have her letters written at neighbouring Gezer -- which can only have happened if she was indeed an ally of that city. There is evidence, too, that the same Gezer scribe travelled to other allied cities where he wrote letters on behalf of their rulers (Y. Goren, I. Finkelstein, N. Na'aman, Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Letters, 2004, 276-279).

On the Apiru, see Norman Gottwald, The tribes of Yahweh (part VIII).

My thanks to Archaeology News Report, first with the news. I have also made much use of their previous report on Beth Shemesh, Archaeology News Report (6 September 2008).

Illustrations

Top left: Ceramic plaque from Tel Beth Shemesh (Stratum IV-III) showing a Canaanite goddess, Astarte?

Right: ceramic plaque from Tel Beth Shemesh, photo courtesy Dr. Zvi Lederman, Tel Beth-Shemesh Excavations (via National Geographic News) .

Bottom left: drawing of the plaque found at Tel Beth Shemesh. Credit: AFTAU.

Vanity, Thy Name is Uppity Woman (Updated)

Her name means "The Beautiful One who has come" -- but apparently she got a little touch-up help from an Amarna-age beautician.

The most beautiful woman in the world, Nefertiti, was made famous by her painted bust in the Berlin's Egyptian Museum. The bust was made with an inner core of carved limestone, which was first plastered and then richly painted. Flesh tones on the face give the piece amazing life.

Yesterday, the journal Radiology revealed that a CT scan had uncovered a hidden face under the plaster.

It was always thought that that the inner limestone was just a support. Not so.

Using the latest computer tomography (CT) techniques developed for medicine, researchers discovered that the core was, in fact, a highly detailed inner sculpture of the queen. And this limestone face differs in small but significant ways from the external plaster face:

The inner face has less prominent cheekbones, a slight bump on the ridge of the nose, marked wrinkles around the corner of the mouth and cheeks, and less depth at the corners of the eyelids.

Dr. Alexander Huppertz, director of Berlin's Imaging Science Institute, suggests that someone expressly ordered the adjustments between stone and plaster when royal sculptors immortalized the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BCE).

John H. Taylor, a curator for Ancient Egypt and Sudan at London's British Museum, said the scan raises interesting questions about why the features were adjusted.

"One could deduce that the final version was considered in some way more acceptable than the 'hidden' one, though caution is needed in attempting to explain the significance of these changes."

Caution, my foot!

'Beauty of Nile' unmasked -- wrinkles and all

headlines the Independent. The newspaper makes no bones about it: Nefertiti had a facelift. And adds for good measure "Call it ancient world Botox."

Photoshop, Pharaoh Style: New York Times

Nefertiti's Real Wrinkled Face Found in Famous Bust: National Geographic

You get the idea.

A little more seriously, Huppertz suggests "The changes could have been made to make the queen adhere more to the ideals of the time."

Who can help but speculate? And he does: "It is possible that the bust of Nefertiti was probably commissioned (by King Akhenaten himself ) to represent her according to his personal perception."

What husband wouldn't want that, when he's paying for a portrait of His Great Royal Wife?

Possessed of Charm, Exuding Happiness, Mistress of Sweetness, beloved one, soothing the king's heart in his house, soft-spoken in all, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great King's Wife, whom he loves, Lady of the Two Lands, Nefertiti.

A Sculptor's Model?

The bust of Queen Nefertiti was found inside the Amarna workshop of the royal sculptor, who described himself as The King's Favourite and Master of Works, the Sculptor, Thutmose.

It was excavated by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in 1912.* Entries in his diaries show that he was beside himself with excitement when he unearthed his find. "Suddenly we have the most alive Egyptian artwork in our hands," he wrote. "You cannot describe it with words. You can only see it."

He assumed that the sculptor would have taken an original plaster mask of the queen's face and used it as a model for the bust.

Well, maybe.

Nefertiti seems to incarnate an ideal of beauty which we share. But has everyone suddenly forgotten that this is not a finished piece? And perhaps was never meant to be finished? Like many other plaster portrait heads found in Thutmose's studio (as the four here), it shows a keen interest in the individual traits of the living face -- at least in the unfinished state. So, the iconic bust of Nefertiti may well be a sculptor's model -- a piece meant for study and to be copied by apprentices (see now update below).

If Thutmose really took a plaster cast from the queen's own face, it is doubtful (to put it mildly) that he meant to turn that treasure into ... plaster.

Pharaohs didn't do plaster.

At best, this is the starting point for a major piece, not the end result.

The sculptor was surely not prettying up plaster for her husband.

Besides, Akhenaten seems not to have minded wrinkles.

Here she is praying to the sun. Wrinkles are the least of her worries -- pictured, as she is, with an oversized ear, protruding chin, and a thin, stretched neck.

An Uppity Woman

Nefertiti was often depicted on temple walls the same size as the king, signifying her importance. She is shown conducting rituals and worshipping the sun-disk Aten -- a role hitherto reserved for the pharaoh, and yet Nefertiti is seen doing the same. The king as a god himself, as well as the high priest, had always been the only person allowed to communicate with his fellow deities. This changed dramatically after Hatshepsut and when Nefertiti started to address the gods in her own right.

Whether or not she was ever elevated to the status of co-regent, there is much evidence that Nefertiti enjoyed unprecedented power, perhaps equal in status to the king himself.

Not a frail woman

Most impressively, she is shown on a relief from the temple at Amarna (left), smiting a foreign enemy with a mace under the rays of the Aten. Even if her victim is also female, she shares with Akhenaten the serious business of smiting Egypt's enemies. A second stela shows her driving a chariot, another activity normally associated only with the king.

Frailty, thy name is not Nefertiti.

Nor is she a modern cover girl. The Berlin Museum has recently installed a new lighting arrangement for the famous bust. It reveals fine wrinkles and slight bags under the queen’s eyes and on her neck.

Will we ever stop imposing our standards of female beauty on the past?

And now I hope that Egyptology will quit producing so many good stories for a bit. It's more than time that I get back to Zenobia and the 3rd-century C.E.

Update 4 April 2009: New Evidence of the sculpture as a working model.

Having now read the full CT report (again, thanks to Aayko Eyma), one of many interesting observations is the fact that Nefertiti's missing left eye was not, as has been thought, a result either of its long burial or an excavation mishap, but was never put in its socket. The lens of the right eye is a rock crystal inlay (2 mm thick) with a pupil made of black-coloured wax. The left eye, on the other hand, seemed to have never been filled with an inlay and contained no lens and no pupil.

The authors surmise that this was a deliberate omission and shows that the bust was probably just a working model at the time of its creation, serving as a copy model. Thus, the royal sculptor Thutmose may have used it to demonstrate to his apprentices how to make the hollow in which the eye would be set in the carved stone.

* The Egyptian government wants the bust back, claiming that it was deceptively disguised when the finds were divided between the archaeological authorities and Germany in 1913. The Independent story briefly covers this dispute. More at Spiegel Online.

My thanks to Aayko Eyma of EEF-Day (30-31 March 2009) for this 'Breaking News' on the CT scans.

Illustrations

Upper left: Via Associated Press

Upper middle left: Via Welt On Line. And have a look at the extraordinary fine detail of her ear (Bild 4).

Lower middle left: From Wikipedia.org

Right: From TourEgypt.net

Bottom left: From Wikipedia.org

Cleopatra: The Queen of Pop's Last Moments (Updated)

This 6 ft [2 metre]-long oil painting of Cleopatra's Last Moments by the 'little known' French artist D. Pauvert (left) will be sold along with an array of treasures from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch -- such as his antiques, arcade games and stage memorabilia -- at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, California, on 21 - 25 April of this year.

The King of Pop: a Once in a Lifetime Auction Featuring The Personal Property of Michael Jackson.

Ranging from Jackson's iconic white-jewelled glove to the grandiose entry gates to the Neverland (named after Peter Pan's idyllic land where "you never grow up, never grow up, not me!"), Michael Jackson's belongings and inspirational junk are up for sale in an auction boasting more than 2,000 items described by the the auction house's website as "museum quality" .

You can view the Cleopatra painting as large as life -- and twice as ugly, as we used to say when we were not grown up -- in the page-flipping on-line catalogue of 'Antiques, Paintings and Fine Decorative Art' (page 111). Other highlights are currently on view at the Museum of Style Icons in Co Kildare, Ireland. Even if you can't get to Kildare or Beverly Hills in April (whyever not?), you can participate on-line. Just want to watch? Auction Network will broadcast the Michael Jackson auction live and stream the video through the internet.

Personally, I prefer watching Peter Pan.

Julien's Auctions has sold items from celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Marilyn Monroe, and even former President Bill Clinton [the mind boggles: I will not think about a blue dress].

But they did sell, and undoubtedly with great success, Elizabeth Taylor's headdress (left)-- the one she wore when she portrayed the Egyptian queen in the Academy Award winning film Cleopatra!

The headdress was constructed of a fitted nylon cap, having a gold woven netted base, affixed synthetic white flowers, gold leaves and bunches small gold beads.*

I confess I don't know its hammer price. The estimate was $ 2,000-3,000.

Pauvert's Cleopatra carries an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000.

For once, I'm at a loss for words.

Whose Painting Is It Anyway?

There is an identical painting by Jean André Rixens (1846-1924) in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France. It is entitled Mort de Cleopatre and dated 1874. Except for the artist, and the fact that it is hanging (as we speak) in a foreign museum, it is a twin in size, shape, colour, and image to the one up for grabs in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Now, how can that be?

This could well be your "Once In A Lifetime" chance to buy a museum-shop copy done by D. Pauvert in 1892.

Whatever will Liz Taylor say?



Updated 15 April 2009: Michael Jackson Auction Halted!

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times broke the bad news under the headline 'All the Rage'.

The auction of treasures collected from Michael Jackson's Neverland estate has been halted, according to representatives of the pop star and Julien's Auctions, the Beverly Hills house responsible for the sale. The Prez of Julien's said, "we reached a resolution and we're very happy about. It allows Michael to retain ownership of his possessions. He contracted us to conduct the auction and had a change of mind for whatever reason. And we honor and respect that. We're very happy with the outcome.“

So that's all right, then. Except maybe for the grammar.

Were you hoping to have that once in a lifetime's chance to own Cleopatra's Last Moments by D. Pauvert? Don't fret. Sooner or later, I'm sure you can find another copy on the market. Or, worst come to worst, you could visit Toulouse, France, and see the original.


Thanks to RogueClassicism for alerting me to Cleopatra on auction (and to a comment by Gi regarding Rixens).

According to the auction catalog (vol. 3 p. 109), Pauvert's painting is “believed to be Lot 96 in Sotheby’s New York Sale of 19th century European Paintings and Sculpture held on May 23, 1996″.

* The headdress was designed by Irene Sharaff (who won an Academy Award for the film for Best Costume Design). A label inside reads: "Made To Order/Rex/Beverly Hills/California." It was sold by The Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Motion Picture Collection.


Illustrations

Upper left: From Reuters Pictures via Daylife Publishers

Middle and lower right: from Julien's Auctions

Hatshepsut smells as sweet (with lethal update)

Breaking News: Analysis Results 19 August 2011, update below post

Staying with Pharaoh Hatshepsut one more time, it was reported just last week that the contents of one of Hatshepsut's perfume flasks (below) were examined by scientists working at Bonn University's Egyptian Museum. Screening this flask with a computer tomograph brought to light the desiccated residues of a fluid, which will soon be subjected to further analyses.

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives and solvents that give off a pleasant smell. When put on a person, the body heat causes the solvent to disperse quickly, leaving the fragrance to evaporate gradually over several hours.

In ancient times, sweet-smelling flowers and rich blends of fragrant spices were steeped in oil (not alcohol) -- which took up the fragrance and was then decanted into jars. A small clay stopper kept the scent from evaporating. Perfumed oils were used as creams and ointments for anointing the head and body. In Egypt's hot dry climate they would have been a blessing to the skin and scalp, while creating a fragrant atmosphere for the living and the dead.

Flowers and floral decorations were an integral part of Egyptian life, and in death they formed gorgeous painted garlands and real bouquets (scroll down to see some funerary bouquets in the previous post). Flowers and plants were included in tombs not only for their intrinsic beauty but also for symbolic reasons. Perfumes, too, would have been prized as much for the esoteric value of the ingredients as for their rarity and cost.

The Egyptians had a ready supply of oils to use as a base for the aromatics: safflower oil, linseed oil, ben oil (Moringa peregrina), balanos oil (Balanites aegyptiaca), olive oil, almond oil, and possibly sesame oil. A tomb wall painting from the 26th Dynasty shows the preparation of perfume from the flowers of white Madonna lilies (Lilium candidum), which must have grown in special gardens in Egypt, since their homeland is in the moister eastern-Mediterranean hills.



Many other flowers and plants used in the perfume industry have been identified in texts, such as henna, slivers of coniferous timber, fragrant bark, resins, and sweet-smelling desert grasses and herbs. Vast quantities of flowers must have been required for the perfume recipes, both for medicinal and aromatic purposes.

The Perfect Perfume

It is a delicate art to create the perfect perfume for a pharaoh.

There are three basic components or notes:

Top notes are scents that can be detected immediately when the perfume is applied; they form that critical first impression. Citrus and ginger are common modern top notes.

Heart notes (middle notes) describe the scent that emerges after the top notes dissipate, usually 2 minutes to one 1 hour after putting it on. They form the main body of a perfume. Lavender and rose are often used as middle notes.

Base notes -- such as musk and plant resins -- also appear after the top notes have disappeared, serving as fixatives to hold and boost the strength of the lighter top and heart notes.

Fit for a Pharaoh

The skill of the ancient craftsmen who made these lovely perfume bottles was probably matched by the art of the perfumers who blended their contents. But, until now, we could do little more than speculate which perfumes were stowed away in these jars.


The flask in Bonn bears an inscription with the name of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and was probably once in her possession. "So, " says Michael Höveler-Müller, curator of Bonn University's Egyptian Museum, "we considered it might be rewarding to have it screened in the University Clinic's Radiology Department. As far as I know this has never been done before."

The results are crystal clear: The X-rays (left) show a substantial liquid residue in the sealed perfume flask.

This world premier will be followed by another. "Our pharmacologists are now going to analyse this sediment," Höveler-Müller explains. If they are successful, the scientists are hoping to reconstruct the perfume so that, 3,500 years after the death of the pharaoh, the scent could be revitalised.

"In any case, the research will touch new grounds and will maybe enable us to put our noses back into a time more than 3,500 years [ago]."

They are hoping to find spectacular ingredients: "We think it probable that one constituent was incense – the scent of the gods," Höveler-Müller declares.

The Fly in the Ointment

A small narrow-necked flask such as the one with Hatshepsut's name (12 cm [4.7"] tall), he explains, "allows a very economical dosing of the valuable content."

That doesn't sound right.


Look at young Tutankamun splashing out the stuff onto the waiting hand of his queen Ankhesenamun, as shown on the gilded side of his Nekhbet shrine.

Are we to think that Pharaoh Hatshepsut would be any stingier with fragrant oil, even if it did contain incense? Why send those ships to Punt, for goodness sake, if not to hit the high notes -- a superabundance of precious scents for herself, her courtiers and their wives?

Or, simply, That which we call a pharaoh By any other name would smell as sweet.

(Apologies to the author)




My thanks to Gerti Bierenbroodspot who rang me this morning with news of this story.

I have made fragrant use of F. Nigel Hepper, Pharaoh's Flowers (Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew) 1990. You can find the German press release translated into English on the National Geographic News website and at Science Daily 18 March 2009. Information on modern perfumes from Science Daily 1 April 2006.

Illustrations

Upper left: the perfume flask, University of Bonn, press release 15/03/09.

Middle, centre: detail of 26th Dynasty Lintel from the Delta showing women gathering lily flowers; other scenes show the women extracting their juice by squeezing them in a strip of cloth twisted between two sticks, then presenting it to the owner of the tomb: Louvre E 11377.

Lower Left: X-rays results, University of Bonn press release 15/03.09.

Below, centre: photograph of the Nekhbet shrine from Nikki Wieleba 2006.

 
Update 19 August 2011
 

Deadly medication? Scientists shed light on the dark secret of Queen Hatshepsut's flacon

After two years of research it is now clear that the flacon did not hold a perfume; instead, it was a kind of skin care lotion or even medication for a monarch suffering from eczema. In addition, the pharmacologists found a strongly carcinogenic substance. Was Hatshepsut killed by her medicine?

Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the Pharmacy Institute in Bonn analyzed the substances for their ingredients. And it became obvious very quickly that what they had found was not dried-up perfume. The mix contained large amounts of greasy palm oil and nutmeg apple oil, and components with large amounts of unsaturated fatty acids that provide relief for people with skin diseases.

A third group of ingredients contained a lot of hydrocarbons derived from creosote and asphalt. "To this day, creams containing creosote are used to treat chronic skin diseases. Due to the potentially carcinogenic effects of some of its ingredients, creosote has meanwhile been banned from cosmetics completely, and medications containing creosote are now prescription-only."

During antiquity, pitches and resins were used commonly as medicines. Pliny (3.25) mentions a variety of tar-like substances being used as medicine, including cedria. Cedria was the pitch and resin of the cedar tree, being equivalent to the oil of tar and pyrolingeous acid which are used in the first stage of distilling creosote. He recommends cedria to treat ulcers both on the skin and in the lungs. He further speaks of cedria being used as the embalming agent for preparing mummies. (adapted from Wikipedia, Creosote=Medical)

What the pharmacologists detected in Hatshepsut's little bottle was in particular benzo(a)pyrene, a hazardous aromatic hydrocarbon consisting of several carbon rings. "Benzo(a)pyrene is one of the most dangerous carcinogenic substances we know," explained Dr. Wiedenfeld. For example, the risk of contracting lung cancer from cigarette smoke results essentially from this substance.

Dr. Wiedenfeld said. "If you imagine that the Queen had a chronic skin disease and that she found short-term improvement from the salve, she may have exposed herself to a great risk over the years."  

And wouldn't that explain better than economical dosing of perfume the small, narrow neck of the flask? Rather as we would write, "Danger, handle with care".

End of story and, quite possibly, the end of Hatshepsut.


(my thanks to Dorothy King's PhDiva blog for first notice of this news)
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Hatshepsut and the Tomb Beneath the Tomb

Back in 2002, a Spanish-Egyptian archaeological team working in Thebes reopened the tomb of Djehuty, overseer of the treasury -- and holder of a slew of other major titles -- during the extraordinary years when Queen Hatshepsut became pharaoh and ruled Egypt as its king.

Now they have discovered an Unknown Tomb beneath that tomb, and it is filled with surprises.

But, first, who is Djehuty ... and what do we know of him?

The Known Tomb

In the open courtyard before the tomb entrance -- in the public area where Djehuty's descendants were expected to make offerings to their ancestor -- paintings on the walls showed the deceased nobleman waiting patiently behind an offering table, while a parade of servants come to him bearing ointments and linen cloths. Most unusually for a public place, there were also two long cryptographic texts -- hieroglyphic texts that have a very strange appearance. The absence of familiar word groups and the presence of many signs not found in the canon show that these texts are cryptographic, or secret, writings. It looks as if Djehuty were showing off his knowledge and skill as a scribe.

Or challenging future visitors to crack the code.

Next, we see the figure of Djehuty himself on one of the door jambs of the entrance, as he comes out of the tomb and praises the rising sun.

His titles are carved on the walls and funerary cones (like the one on the left) are stamped by a post-mortum seal which quoted his most exalted ranks:

Overseer of [the] Treasury, and Overseer of All Works, Djehuty, justified

Inside the tomb, the archaeologists were amazed to discover piles of different kinds of objects within its corridors — apparently haphazard collections of goods from different dynasties -- as if Djehuty was trying to build for himself his own virtual treasury.

But there was nothing fortuitous about the paintings in his tomb. The walls are beautifully decorated, with scenes showing the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Abydos, hunting in the desert and in the marshes, and funerary rituals.

Making Music

One of the most interesting pictures shows a harpist (left) and two women with rattles (sistrums) playing music and singing for Djehuty. The harpist shortens a string with one hand, and plucks with the other. The bent string is clearly shown.

The lyrics of their song are engraved above the figures! Some scholars believe that songs were performed in the tomb, while others think they were intended for life beyond the tomb. Very likely, the songs were also sung at a funerary banquet to buoy the spirits of the living. And the words would have gone something like this:

How firm you are in your seat of eternity,
Your monument of everlastingness!
It is filled with offerings of food,
It contains every good thing.

The harpist is depicted with a round fat belly and haunches -- the beginning of the realistic style typical of the period. I love the way his foot pokes out to show that he is sitting cross-legged.

Building for His Majesty Hatshepsut

Djehuty was eager to recount his life story to the gods. In a long autobiography (the 'Northampton Stela'), he tells how he supervised the building of the great mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari on behalf of Hatshepsut:

I have been the director who had given instructions. I directed the workmen so that they had worked in accordance with the order at "Djeser djeseru, the House of Million of Years" [= Deir el-Bahari]. Its great doors had been made of copper; figures and ornaments were made of gold. The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maat-ka-Ra [Hatshepsut], has made this as a monument for his father, Amun, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands. May he [Hatshepsut] live forever like Ra!

Among many other achievements, he mentions two obelisks that he had ordered carved and transported to the temple of Amun (Karnak). In his own words:

I have been the highest commander, who had given the orders. I have led the craftsmen during their work on both large obelisks, which were 108 ells (approx. 57 m; 160') in length and which were covered completely with gold. They have given light to all Egypt.

The Double Houses of Gold and Silver

In order to spend all that gold, he had to collect it first (they did not have deficit financing in pharaonic times). That, of course, was the main function of the treasury, which the Egyptians called 'the double houses of gold and silver'. Its fiscal reach extended way beyond precious metals, however, to include virtually everything that came into the government's possession. So Djehuty also raked in revenues as 'Overseer of the Wine Place', and 'Overseer of Hooves, Horns, Feathers, and Scales' (animal products), and of vegetal stuff as 'Overseer of All Growing Things' -- except grain: another department entirely.

Like any modern chancellor, he taxed the south and he taxed the north, as he tells us:

I counted up ivory, ebony, and the many fruits of this foreign land [Nubia] as the tax of each year. I put my seal on the best of the products belonging to the inhabitants of the northern regions -- Asiatic gold, silver, copper, as well as every sweet-smelling [flower]. I reckoned up what the mayors gave, and I received all their dues. His Majesty [Hatshepsut] repeated the favouring (of me) when he caused that I be sealer of the double treasury, which is filled with gold, silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and every noble gemstone.

Sweet-smelling flowers

In 2007, while cleaning the debris in the tomb's open courtyard, the Spanish archaeologists found a 70 cm-(28") deep pit containing 45 clay vases and 45 dried flower bouquets. The bouquets were made up mainly of persea branches (Mimusops schimperi), but there were also branches of olive tree (Olea europaea), and what looks like papyrus (Cyperus) and a species of willow (Salicaceae).

"These are probably the remains of Djehuty's funerary [bouquets] that were later thrown inside the tomb," Spanish mission director José Galán said. In a kind of meta-fiction, a scene carved on the walls in his burial chamber shows participants at the funeral bringing in bouquets and vases of flowers -- only to discard them in reality, perhaps just before the tomb doors slammed shut.

Incense and Monkeys

As 'Controller of all the revenues coming from all foreign lands' Djehuty was also responsible for registering the many marvels brought from Punt (modern Somalia) to Thebes in Hatshepsut's Year 9 -- and detailing the exotic Puntian gifts that Pharaoh Hatshepsut donated, in turn, to the Temple of Amun -- as shown on his tomb walls (above, right).

"He was such an important official," Galán said, "that he is even represented carrying out such activities on one of the walls of the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari." There, he is seen recording the products carried to Thebes by Egyptian ships, including thirty-one living incense trees, cattle, resin of myrrh, skins of cheetahs, chests of gold, panthers, baboons, vervet monkeys and a giraffe, all brought safely back from the land of Punt.

Hatshepsut says: He who shall do her homage shall live, he who shall speak evil in blasphemy of her Majesty shall die.

Judging from the size and expensive decorations of Djehuty's tomb -- and from the diversity of his secular and priestly titles (all of which brought benefices and emoluments) -- Hatshepsut was very generous to those who supported her. And, as 'Chief Steward of the Palace' (another of his titles), there is no doubt where his loyalty lay:

He [Hatshepsut] put me in charge of the business of the Palace, knowing that I was scrupulous in all that had to be done. My mouth kept silent (to others) on the affairs of his Palace.

But, in the end, he and his family paid dearly for their loyalty.

His name and face -- and the faces of all his relatives depicted in the grave -- were purposely erased everywhere in his tomb. Since the names of both Hatshepsut and her stepson, Thutmosis III, are written on the walls of his tomb, Djehuty must have outlived Hatshepsut and survived into the reign of Thutmosis III. Nonetheless, he undoubtedly fell victim to the purge of Hatshepsut's name and deeds when Thutmosis III ordered all signs of her (and of her favourites) to be obliterated.* And so, he was erased for all eternity, and Hatshepsut's cartouches, too, are hacked out and her memory wilfully destroyed.

Also missing, but surely not because of a damnatio memoriae, is any mention or picture of Djehuty's wife or children; this omission is a provocation and we'll return to it in a moment. But first, the new finds.

The Unknown Tomb

At the very end of the 2008 season, excavators came across a 3 metre- (9.8') deep shaft descending from the floor of Djehuty's burial chamber. Early this year, they slithered down it ... and discovered an unknown second burial chamber at the bottom of the shaft.

This lower chamber was not only unknown to Egyptologists, but it must have been equally unknown to the thugs that Thutmosis III sent to deface Djehuty's tomb. In the upper chamber, they burnt the dead man's coffin and mummy and smashed his canopic jars, as well as erasing his name. Here, on the contrary, his name -- and the names of his father (Ibuty) and mother (Dediu) -- remain intact.

May they live!

Just this week, the archaeologists discovered five golden earrings and two gold rings (above, left) in the new burial chamber. These had most probably belonged to Djehuty or one of his relatives. Top officials began to wear earrings in the mid-18th Dynasty, so it's possible that Djehuty helped to set the trend for wearing this kind of male bauble.

An Unknown Unknown


The lower chamber is beautifully decorated on two walls with texts from the Book of the Dead. An image of the goddess Nut (left) adorns the ceiling.

Nut gives birth to the Sun-god daily. He sails over her body (clad in a sky-blue robe) until he reaches her mouth at sunset. He then passed into her mouth and through her body and is reborn from her womb the next morning. The entrance of the sun into the body of Nut is equated with sexual union, as Nut is regarded as thus impregnated by the god. This sexual metaphor is essential to re-conception and re-birth in the afterlife.

Nut was thus a mother-like protector to those who journeyed through the land of the dead:

O my Mother Nut, stretch Yourself over me, that I may be placed among the imperishable stars which are in You, and that I may not die.

Djehuty is only the fifth high official known to have decorated his burial chamber with funerary texts during the very long combined reigns of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III (54 years!). This identifies him as one of the most creative scribes of Hatshepsut's time and also places him among Hatshepsut's very top and most trusted officials.

And therein lies the rub.

Where is Djehuty's wife?

It is more or less a rule in Egyptian funerary customs to include references in a tomb not only to the owner, but also to members of the family, some of whom would also be buried there. There are some exceptions, and they do vary with time, but, generally, a husband needs his wife in the tomb in order to regenerate himself in the afterlife: the husband metaphorically impregnates her with himself so that he can be reborn.

Given her importance to his rebirth, it is surprising that the wife should ever be omitted -- as in Djehouty's tomb (and in a few other cases).**

So, it is all the more striking that during Hatshepsut's reign, a large percentage of the men who worked under her did not have their wives' images in their tombs. Those tombs explicitly dated to her reign and emphasizing her favour, omit the name of the tomb owner's wife without exception.

Why is this? Nothing in Djehuty's tomb explains his missing wife. [If he had snuck her image into the hidden lower chamber -- away from Hatshepsut's prying eyes -- I could have imagined any number of torrid explanations; but he didn't].

No explanation seems to fit. Surely, he was not unmarried. Every adult official is married (and some of Hatshepsut's courtiers who excluded their wives from their tombs do mention them on other monuments). Was Hatshepsut jealous of Djehouty's wife and forbade him to represent her? It's hard to credit such a command, knowing it would scupper his chances to be revived in the afterlife. Perhaps the unusual nature of Hatshepsut's rule turned him off the female sex entirely -- but, if he kicked his wife out of the tomb in a fit of misogyny, he would have aborted his own hopes for eternal life, too.

Hatshepsut does appear to have formed a close, almost symbiotic relationship with her male nobles, so that she became as important to them as they were to her. Still, who would have dared to think that she would fulfill the sexual roles necessary for rebirth? However metaphorical, that would be blasphemy.

I have only one thought on the subject.

For an archaeologist, it is always a good idea to get down to the earliest possible level. So, who was the first New Kingdom official who is known not to have pictured or named his wife in his tomb? To my surprise, it turns out to be Hery, 'Overseer of the Granary of the King's Wife and King's Mother, Ahhotep' (TT 12).

This is why it is surprising: Queen Ahhotep was the wife of the founder of the 18th Dynasty (and possibly a direct ancestor of Hatshepsut, through her mother Ahmose). For many years, Ahhotep was de facto governor of Egypt, acting as regent for her young son Ahmose (the family was very keen on the moon-god, Iah, represented by the Ah element in their names!), who came to the throne while still a young boy. She was later honoured by her son for pacifying Upper Egypt and expelling rebels. She is called "One who cares for Egypt; she has looked after her soldiers." Ahhotep clearly commanded the respect of both troops and nobles and rallied them to preserve the fledgling dynastic line.

Hatshepsut may well have looked back via her own family -- through the genealogical links to her mother, Ahmose -- to the regency and practices of her great predecessor Ahhotep.

Why is this important? Because Hery's tomb (TT 12, on the right) is just next door to Djehuty's (TT 11, on the left). They touch, and, in fact, connect through the hall of a third tomb (TT 399, in red). In this area, tombs are hewn so close to each other that they ended up being interconnected, horizontally and in some cases even vertically. That the two neighbouring tombs are the earliest to have 'the Absent Wife' syndrome is either the most amazing coincidence, or it is highly significant -- even if we can no longer connect the dots.

But they are undoubtedly conceptually connected. Tough on the wives ... but it must have something to do with their husbands having served Queen-regents, or, better, queen-rulers.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of overwhelming respect.

Otherwise, I'm stumped. What about you, readers?





* The date of the persecution, which may have taken place as much as 20 years after Thutmosis III's accession, is considered in Hatshepsut Cheek by Jowl with Judy Chicago and How 'God's Wife Hatshepsut' became the 'The Good Goddess Maatkare'

** Less than 7% of early-mid 18th Dynasty male tombs fail to show or mention a wife. Almost all of these exceptional tombs were owned by men who [ had served royal women -- whether Hatshepsut, another queen, or a God's Wife of Amun, a role with independent economic and religious power at this time [A.M. Roth, 'The Absent Spouse: Patterns and Taboos in Egyptian Tomb Decoration', JARCE 36 (1999) 37-53; esp. 43-44]. My warm thanks to Chuck Jones of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, for providing me with a timely copy of this article.

My thanks, too, to Aayko Eyma at Egyptologists' Electronic Forum for the first reports on the new discoveries in Djehuty's tomb.

I've also made use of José Galán, 'The Tombs of Djehuty and Hery (TT 11-12) at Dra-Abu el_Naga', in ( J.-C. Goyon & Chr. Cardan, eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Egyptologists, 777-787; Betsy Bryan, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Ch. 9, 212-242; D. O'Connor & E. Cline, Amenophis III, 187-188.

View the Spanish team's 2009 photographic excavation diary (from 12 January to 22 February -- undoubtedly to be updated continuously) on their website Proyecto Djehuty.

Illustrations:

Top right: Workman examining the ceiling in the lower chamber; from the website of Zahi Hawass

Top left: Djehuty's funerary cone via Maat-ka-ra.de (object in Petrie Museum, London U37678)

Middle left: Harpist in Djehuty's upper tomb via Al-Ahram Weekly

Upper middle left: Djehuty supervising distribution of gifts'; from Proyecto Djehuty 2007

Lower middle left: Bouquets via Al-Ahram Weekly

Lower left: Gold jewellery and the goddess Nut from the website of Zahi Hawass.

Lowest left: Hatshepsut as pharaoh, colossal head from Deir el-Bahari excavated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the Suite of the God's Wife of Amun (MultipleUpdates )

This amazing uppity woman is quite dead. And mummified. And therein lies a tale.


But, before we talk about her mummy, let's first go back to roughly the time she was born -- perhaps 30 years before her lamentably early death (and she died somewhere around the year 800 BCE). That was a tough time to have entered the world, as she did, in the city of Thebes in Egypt.

For, give or take a few years, around 840-835, the crown prince of Egypt -- whose name was Osorkon -- consulted the ram-headed god Herishaf (right) on a potentially catastrophic matter of state.

All Egypt was then under the rule of Libyan kings (the 22nd dynasty, ca. 943-716) -- foreign interlopers, although they were quite Egyptianized by now. These kings descended from the military elite of tribes that had settled in the Nile Delta at the end of the New Kingdom. As the state grew weaker, the Egyptian army recruited ever more Libyan mercenaries until they made up the bulk of the army.

It must have seemed a good idea at the time.

Now, their royal residence was at Tanis in the very north-east of the Nile Delta. From this northern fastness, it is hardly surprising that they had repeated difficulty keeping the whole country under their political control. And especially the southern districts around Thebes, always a potential centre of rebellion, kept testing the limits of royal authority. The great Theban temple of Amun had been transformed into the capital of a state often as strong as that ruled by the presumptive pharaohs in the north. The south had become a kind of theocracy ruled by Amun's high priests who could draw on a prodigious income from the cult, temple, and broad estates of the great god. At times, the high priests had even adopted the trappings of royalty, wearing the pharaoh's double crown and placing their names in royal cartouches.

To prevent that happening again, a son of the Tanite royal family now regularly filled this post.

The Storm Breaks

That's why, around ca. 835 BCE, Prince Osorkon, eldest son of the Tanite pharaoh (the aptly-named Takeloth II) was appointed High Priest [the 1st prophet] of Amun. Or, rather, as he put it, the god chose him:

whom Amun appointed according to his own desire, to the [high priest of] Amun in Thebes.

Although still in his 20s, Osorkon was already Governor of the South and commander of the army. He had earned his spurs beating down enemies in the interior of the land, which had fallen into turmoil in his time. He was young, energetic, perhaps precocious, and probably just a wee bit impatient to get his hands on the temporal riches of Amun. Badly handled, such appointments outside of the Theban nobility could be viewed as infringements of local prerogatives and were often contested. This was such a moment. In naming Osorkon, the pharaoh had brusquely passed over the claims of a previous High Priest's family -- whose eligible grandson didn't even get the job of 2nd prophet. The possessive and independent Thebans promptly rebelled.

We know what happened next because Osorkon carved a long text on a gateway at (what was then) the very front of the temple of Amun.

In Year 11 of his father's reign

Before leaving his headquarters in Middle Egypt, Osorkon checked in with the ram-god, who gave him an oracle:

When Thebes rose [in rebellion] against the protector of the land and the gods who were in it, the great god heard the appeal made to him. The beneficient ram, [Herishaf] came to him in his [sleep?*] as he had wished, so he might suppress wrong-doing. Thus he came forth at the head of his army....

Prince Osorkon sailed south for Thebes, intending to remind both priests and people that the Libyan dynasty still ruled all of Egypt. Sensibly he tried diplomacy first, giving handsome gifts to Amun -- and perhaps lucrative backhanders to discontented Thebans:

his hands bearing a million of things, and offerings consisting of all good things ... good and pure, pleasant and sweet, supplied with ten thousands and thousands without end as a daily offering in excess of what existed before.

This worked a treat (backed up, as it was, by the powerful army he had brought with him). As we are told, all the prophets, priests, and people of Thebes came crawling, bearing flowers, and denouncing the rebels for having wrecked the sacred rites and plundered the temple. Justice was swift. The bound prisoners were brought before Osorkon tied up (in a picturesque phrase) like bundles of pinioned goats, and all of them (except, it seems, the grandson who survived to fight another day) were burned with fire in the place of his crime [at] Thebes. This was a doubly cruel punishment: after a horrible death, the destruction of their bodies also meant that they would not live on in the afterlife. Having crushed the opposition, Osorkon made new appointments to priestly posts, issued decrees dealing with temple administration and, of course, revenues, and sailed back to his headquarters in Middle Egypt.

It was about now that our uppity lady Meresamun ("She Loves Amun") was born, presumably into a loyalist family.

Her early years cannot have been fun. There were just four years of peace.

In Year 15 of his father's reign

Suddenly, "even though the sky did not swallow the moon" (so, without even a lunar eclipse to warn of the oncoming disaster), the whole of Egypt erupted into civil war. The kingdom was shaken to its foundations.

a great convulsion broke out in this land ... the children of rebellion stirred up strife in both South and North. [For his part, Osorkon] did not weary of fighting in their midst ... years passed by, when one could not repel the depredations of one's fellow.

The conflict dragged on for nearly a decade -- into the 24th year of Takeloth II. The Prince admitted to his followers, "I am worn and afflicted." Repression having so obviously failed, it was finally time to try conciliation. Once again loaded with rich gifts for Amun, Osorkon sailed with a vast fleet to the south. After a tumultuous welcome, he made great offerings to Amun and, again, peace seemed assured.

In Year 26 of his father's reign

It was the briefest truce. Within a year, Thebes and the southern provinces again rose in rebellion against the detested northern dynasty -- and, this time, all was lost for Osorkon.

"The grandees within this land [rebelled and] he was there quite alone, such that there was not one friend [with him]

So, the Theban lords finally triumphed. Osorkon lost the high priesthood and probably the rule of the south as well. Rubbing natron into his wounds, the grandson of the former high priest -- he who had been passed over in Year 11 -- replaced Osorkon as 1st prophet. The prince's misfortunes were not yet at an end. At this inconvenient moment, his father died. With Osorkon far away from Tanis, personal enemies at court schemed to deprive him of the succession: the old pharaoh was quickly buried and the prince's much younger brother Shoshenq III came to the throne instead.

Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun

... so we'll leave the poor prince in his misery, shut out of Amun's temple,** and turn to Meresamun, who proclaims her proud title as Singer in the Interior of the Temple on her coffin (left) -- and who may have lived through some or all of these dramatic events.

Women who held the same title are known to have been the sisters or daughters of kings, governors, mayors, and high priests. "In the Interior" meant they had a level of purity that allowed them to enter the most sacred part of the god's complex. They were musician-priestesses chosen from the highest levels of Theban society to sing and make music for Amun. The percussive rhythm of their ritual rattles (sistrums) and beaded necklaces (menats) was meant to calm the god and make him more amenable to protecting and helping mankind.

See her, her hand shaking the rattles to give pleasure to the god, her father Amun. How lovely she moves, her hair bound with ribbon, songstress with perfect features....Pleasure there is in her lip's motions.... her heart is all kindness, her words gentle to those upon earth. One lives just to hear her voice.

Three times a day, a priest ceremonially opened the doors of Amun's inner sanctuary, purified the divine statue, offered it food and drink, and then adorned it with clothing, jewellery and perfumes. While this was going on, grand ladies like Meresamun would make music and sing to the god with a sweet voice.

Meresamun's fragile coffin was never opened and the body never unwrapped because generations of curators at the Oriental Institute of Chicago (where it has been since 1920) couldn't bring themselves to destroy its beautiful decorations. The coffin shows Meresamun wearing the vulture headdress that was worn by priestesses as well as other women of high rank. On the close up image (right), you see the vulture wings sweeping down on either side of her face. Her chest is covered with rows of lavish floral collars: just as flowers bloom, she too would revive in the afterlife. The coffin itself was an expensive one, befitting her rank. This, the inner coffin, was brightly painted with symbols of health and rebirth, and hieroglyphs that are shorthand wishes for life, eternity, and dominion.

Meresamun has a rather pretty face, somewhat idealized of course, so it doesn't tell us much about how she looked in life.

No matter, it's how she looks in death that counts now.

A One-Woman Show

For Meresamun is having her own one-woman show at the Oriental Institute. And in that show her face has been revealed to the world for the first time thanks to an X-ray with a light ten billion times brighter than the sun.

Meresamun is the first ever mummy to be studied with the new Philips Healthcare iCT ("Intelligent CT") 256-channel scanner. This scanner is allowing experts to examine a wrapped mummy in a sealed coffin as never before. Known as Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing beamline or Jeep, the cutting edge technology uses intense radiation known as synchrotron light to see through solid objects. Watch the story of her being 'virtually unwrapped' on this video.





These scans reveal exceptionally clear and detailed images of the mummy, still wrapped in linen bandages. You can see her remaining organs and even the stone- or pottery-amulets placed over her eyes. Her eyeballs are shrunken but intact.

University of Chicago radiologist Dr Michael Vannier commented: "The pictures of the mummy are breathtaking, we could see subtle things - wear patterns on the teeth, a clear view of the embalming incision, precise indications of her age - that were not apparent before."

She was tall by ancient standards -- approximately 168 cm (5'5") -- and was in her late 20s or early 30s when she died. Her features were regular with wide-spaced eyes (as on her mummy portrait) but she had an overbite (corrected by the painter for the afterlife). Her body showed no signs of childbearing. Although her teeth were badly worn down -- probably due to wind-blown sand in the flour and bread -- she still had them all, including her wisdom teeth, and there is no evidence of tooth decay. In short, she appeared to be a fit and healthy young lady. Dr Vannier concludes: "Meresamun was, until the time of her death at about thirty, a very healthy woman. The lack of arrest lines on her bones indicates good nutrition through her lifetime and her well mineralized bones suggest that she lived an active lifestyle."

A Virtual Treat

"In a virtual way, people will be able to meet this remarkable woman and, through her eyes, learn what it was like to live in Egypt 2,800 years ago," said Dr Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute and the curator of the exhibition. "It’s—it’s like magic; it is so extraordinary to be able to — it’s like X-Ray eyes, you know, just looking beyond."

Watch, as this magic happens.



The Burning Questions

I can hardly contain my curiosity: how did she die? She has been treated with the kind of forensic attentiveness usually reserved for a crime scene investigation. Yet we still don't know the cause of death. Her mummy, however, clearly shows some severe fractures, particularly around the thoracic inlet, with no signs of healing. As Dr Vannier says, "it takes a good deal of force to fracture the spine, collarbone, and upper ribs." Foul play? Imagination runs riot. Did she suffer a violent death in these turbulent times? Or were these fractures caused, perhaps, by a bad tumble (did she fall, or was she pushed?)? Less luridly, they could be post-mortem injuries (possibly from the embalming process). Despite now having studied her with the intensity of a police procedural detective novel, the good doctor wisely brought in an open verdict.

It's maddening not to know how this healthy young woman came to such a premature end.

In any case, she did not die in childbirth (easily the most common cause of death for females of her age). The scan shows that she almost certainly never bore children. Which leads to my second burning question: was Meresamun a virgin? This is not trivial nor meant to be flippant. It's never been decided if priestesses of her rank were understood as married to the god, and thus must have remained earthly virgins.

Let's skip over the next rank -- 'Overseer of the Singers in the Interior of the Temple' -- and go right to the very top of the hierarchy to look at a woman who might have been (partially) contemporary with Meresamun, and who ruled over all the priestesses of the temple. She is Karomama (left) , God's Wife of Amun, the very highest of high-priestesses. She was Amun's earthly spouse and definitely a life-long virgin. Her life was devoted entirely to the god. She held the status of a queen, and is portrayed in this exquisite bronze and gold statue dressed in a robe encircled by vulture wings. A tall crown once fitted into the round headdress adorned with a uraeus. She ruled as a sovereign in her own right and wore the royal insignia; her names were enclosed in cartouches. She was honoured during major festivals, when an effigy was displayed on the model bark alongside a statue of Amun.

Her titles were of the loftiest: 'the God's Wife, Lady of the Two Lands ... Daughter of Re, Lady of Epiphanies,' and also 'Adoratrix of Amun, of pure hands.'

Who was Karomama? She may (or may not) have been a half-sister of Takeloth II. In the Libyan period, every holder of this office was a king's daughter:

I have given to [Amun] my daughter to be a god's wife and have endowed her better than those who were before her. Surely he will be gratified with her worship and protect the land who gave her to him.

Although she held this office before Takeloth II came to the throne, she continued to officiate during his reign -- the two are shown together in a Theban chapel. We have no idea how long she lived. Nor do we know who was her immediate successor.

All we can say is that she was luckier than the luckless Prince Osorkon, to whom she was certainly related by blood.



The exhibition The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt is on view at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum through December 6, 2009.

Update 26 March 2009: The University of Chicago Magazine has the most amazing interactive feature now on-line, Meresamun: A Life in Layers. You can go into the coffin -- layer by layer -- from Decoration to Contour, to Flesh and Skeleton. Click on each layer's pop-up labels to see and hear more. Don't miss Egyptologist Emily Teeter telling you about how the music of the sistrum transformed the snarling lion goddess into a sweet pussy-cat (click on Decoration, Sistrum). And check out what she thinks about Meresamun's celibacy (Skeleton, Childbirth).

Many thanks to Joy Olivia Miller for sending me news of this new peek into the singer's wondrous coffin.


Update 20 April 2009: The I-Miss-My-Music Meresamun Song Contest!

Mummy Meresamun has a Facebook page . We already have five friends in common (that makes six of us with time to waste). Now, for something new: once she accepts you as a friend, you can enter her song contest. The mummy -- who seems to like bad puns -- writes:

I was a singer in the Temple of Amun. I sang some beautiful songs in honor of Amun and Hathor, and I loved playing my sistrum and menat in the temple. But after 2,800 years, I really need some new tunes. Can you help?

Set an old tune to lyrics or create an original song that I might appreciate. I love all types-folk, pop, "wrap", any style.

There are two competitions- Video submission or lyrics only.

The contest closes on May 7, 2009 at 11:59pm (Central Time, I guess, it being Chicago). Meresamun will decide on Friday, May 15, 2009 which song is most creative and send the winning composer their prize. More information at I Miss My Music!


I am grateful to the blog Egyptology News for first alerting me to this exhibition and the remarkable CT scans.

* The 4th century BCE Stela of Somtutefnakht suggests that the ram-god's advice was given as a sleep oracle: "Thereafter I saw you [Heryshaf] in my sleep. Your Majesty saying to me: Hurry to [your native city]. I protect you." Translated text in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature III, 41-44.

** It's entirely possible (though disputed) that Prince Osorkon made a complete comeback. He recovered his position at Thebes in Year 39 of Shoshenq III, and finally may have became pharaoh as Osorkon III (ca. 777-749 BCE). If so, he lived to a very ripe old age. I'd like to believe he deserved it.

I'm much indebted to Karol Myśliwiec, The Twilight of Ancient Egypt for a partial translation of 'The Chronicle of Osorkon, 51-54; and to K. A Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100- 650 BC), the standard work on this period.


We're very lucky to have a more living picture of another wealthy young woman from 22nd Dynasty Thebes, a lady by the name of Djed-Khonsu-wes-Ankh ("[the god] Khonsu says she will live"). Possibly, she was a priestess -- at least, her father had priestly titles. On this painted wooden stela, she is pouring an offering of cool water for a god seated behind a table piled high with fruits and flowers. She is dressed to the nines for the occasion. She wears a voluminous pleated gown of the finest transparent linen. Her dress is edged with green and white fringe that echoes the colours of her wide beaded collar.

She's just a little chubby, as was the fashion at this time.

Catalog # 11 (p. 43) in OIMP 29. The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Edited by Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson. 2009. The Oriental Institute generously allows its catalogues to be downloaded free of charge as well as sold in a paper edition.

Other Illustrations:

Top centre: CT Scan of Meresamun, (Oriental Institute Museum) Suite101.com

right: Heryshaf (also known as Harsaphes, Arsaphes, Herishef, etc.) Louvre 032008 15 (via Wikipedia Commons)

upper left: Reliefs on the walls of the Temple of Amun showing the founder of the Libyan Dynasty, Shoshenq I (via Wikipedia Commons)

middle left: Catalog # 1 (p. 21),Photo by Anna Ressman; as above

right: Catalog # 1 (p. 21) Photo by Anna Ressman; as above

lower left: Statue of Karomama, the Divine Adoratrice of Amun', Louvre N 500 , lost-wax bronze casting, inlays of various copper alloys, gold, and silver.