a marriage scarab
Amenhotep III marriage scarab
This text was inscribed on one of 56 known Queen Tiye scarabs that commemorate the possible marriage of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. One of these cabs is located in the Brooklyn Museum. This commemorative text is written on a scarab beetle amulet which Kozloff (2012, 64) says “are effigies of the sacred beetle, which…pushed the sun across the sky everyday…” There is no date on the scarab, but it is suggested by Kozloff “…that Tiye had entered [Amenhotep’s] life when he was still a prince.” (p100) However, the line: She is the wife of the victorious king; suggests that the text was written when Amenhotep was king. These scarabs were propaganda text and were sent throughout the empire. The intended audience is therefore, mass audiences, officials and royal messengers. The text is of significant interest to historians as it reveals much about Amenhotep’s level of admiration and respect for his (future) wife. In addition, we are able to determine the family roots of the intended bride, the northern and Sothern limits of the empire at the time of the inscription, and the throne names of the future king of the 18th Dynasty.
Kozloff (pg 100) refers to this sort of announcement as an unprecedented introduction of the new queen and that the scarabs were “solely dedicated to her”. While the text does not explicitly reveal a wedding/marriage ceremony, Tiye was to become a significantly powerful woman in the court of her husband and she was depicted on a plethora of monuments and memorialised in statues. Thus, the suggestion that there was a high level of admiration for his queen is not an unreasonable conclusion. The fact that Tiye’s parentage is explicitly detailed is also remarkable and Kozloff (pg 102) suggests that this may be because Yuya (father) and Thuya (mother) are “recognizable to a large audience.” Yuya was “master of the horse” for Amenhotep, while Thuya’s beauty is apparent in her gilded mummy mask in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. (Kozloff, 2010, 102-4) Edmund Melzer also comments on the “…exquisitely balanced proclamation…” (pg 101) by drawing attention to how Yuya and Thuya rhyme.
the name of her father is Yuya,
the name of her mother is Tuya
Thus, while this is indeed a propaganda and commemorative text, considerable effort has gone in to the contents of the text and the queen proved to be a worthy companion.
The text, specifically references “his southern border is at Kary, the northern at Naharin”. Geographically, Kary is identified as the Southern most part of the Egyptian empire and is south of Kush. Naharin is the Kingdom of Mitanni which was located in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. The mention of these foreign cities on the text is indicative of how far the commemorative text was to reach and a reminder of the vastness of the Egyptian Empire to foreign officials who would read the text. Historians are able to conclude the outer most boundaries of the empire at the time the commemorative test was produced.
The opening lines of the text lists four of the King’s royal names.
Live the Horus The Strong Bull who appears in truth (Maat)
The Two Ladies: who establishes the laws and pacifies the two lands
The Horus of Gold: Great of Strength, who smites the Asiatics;
King of Upper and Lower Egypt Neb‐maat‐Re (Lord of truth is Re)
The names of the 18th Dynasty kings were used to make a clear statement about strength, thus establishing the concept of the warrior pharaoh that began with Thutmosis III. The king had 5 royal names, and this text shows four of those names for Amenhotep III. Leprhon’s 2013 text The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary shows a theme running through the royal titles of 18th Dynasty kings.
The symbol of the bull is first started by Kamose – “the bull is born”. Direct references to bulls or concepts of strength appear in all other 18th Dynasty king names except Hatshepsut (who was female) and Akhenaten (who deviated from many traditions). The concept of the warrior king is seen in Amenhotep’s title: “Great of Strength, who smites the Asiatics”. Similar references to smiting or dominating the enemy appear with Amenhotep I (Great of Dread), Thutmosis III (Who smites the foreign rulers who attack him), Amenhotep II (who seizes by his strength in all the lands). On the scarab text, the reference to “She is the wife of the victorious king” also reinforces the strength of the mighty warrior pharaoh.
