Amarna tombs
The texts from the tombs of the Amarna nobles Maya and Paneshi (as seen on thumbnail image) are located in the cliffs overlooking Akhetaten. These two men were nobles of the court and their tombs were built and decorated in the Amarna period and reflect Amarna art styles, the role of the king as a god and afterlife beliefs. The textual inscriptions are funerary texts for the dead and to honour Akhenaten. They were created by Amarna craftsmen to reflect the Amarna doctrine. Ockinga (2008, p24) summarises the importance of the tomb texts thus: “The tombs…provide us with almost all of the data available to reconstruct the concepts of afterlife of non-royals at this time…”
The texts reveal considerable evidence about key aspects of the Amarna religion:
1. A change in afterlife funerary texts.
What is missing in both these tombs are the traditional mythological funerary texts of spells and incantations that were seen Pre – Amarna and post- Amarna. This include images of the Osiris, Maat, Re and Thoth. There are also no references to the weighing of the heart ceremony. This is of course in keeping with Akhenaten’s religious reforms that saw the promotion of the Aten and the exclusion of other deities. The texts from Maya and Panehesi lack any mythological references and focus on the central role played by Akhenaten: “my god who created me”
2. A change in personal piety and the relationship that the individual can have with the Aten.
As Ockinga (1996, p84) comments, any relationship between an individual and the Aten must be through Akhenaten himself. Thus, Akhenaten is placed front and centre of worship and becomes the god of the individual (Ockinga, 1996, p86) This is in sharp contrast to the Middle Kingdom where the king was chosen by the god to be his representative on earth, “as his living image” (Ockinga, 1996, p79) so, in Panehesi’s tomb we see:
Lord of fate, who grants life, Lord of Commands
Breath for every nose, who grants life, Lord of commands
Praise to you, my god who created me
Here Panehesi acknowledges the role of Akhenaten as his god, the one who created and commands him. This style of text is significantly different to the pre Amarna tombs texts that showed a personal link between the tomb owner and the gods which is evident in the weighing of the heart ceremony.
In Maya’s tomb:
I am the one who was poor
The ruler built me, he let me become someone
In becoming the lord of a village
He made it possible that I consort with the great…
Here it is clear that Akhenaten is recognised as the being who created the courtiers and elevated them to the heights of society so that could consort with other great members of society. Only those chosen by Akhenaten – not the gods – were entitled to this elevated position in life. In both tombs, there are also references to “life”, “sustenance” , “provisions”, “bread” and “food”. These are fundamental references to life and it is Akhenaten who provided the necessary elements for his subject to be able to survive.
Ockinga (1996, p86) comments that “Akhenaten seems to have attempted to halt the development of personal religion in the traditional sense and reassert the position of the king.” - which was the situation in the Old Kingdom. (Ockinga, 2008, 35)
