contents of this tomb there are parts of two different burials, confused in the removal.

The youth of the mysterious mummy seems to preclude the possibility of its being Khuenaten himself, but it might be some prince of his house, or of that of Amen-hetep III.; in this case the golden vulture is probably to be regarded as the vulture of Mut, and not as the crown of the queens of Egypt.

There are many portraits and other memorials of Thiy extant. She is often figured by the side of Amen-hetep III.; on the colossi and temple inscriptions at Thebes, Gurob, Soleb, and Sedeinga; on statues and on the large historical scarabs; at Tel el-Amarna, alone as in the quarry inscriptions, with Khuenaten in the temple ceremonials, and in the tomb of Huy.

Her face is found on several "trial pieces," one of which, a lovely example of the new art portraiture, is preserved in the Flinders Petrie collection. She is prominent in the Tel el-Amarna letters; and alabaster ushabti figures bearing her name were placed in the tomb of her husband at Thebes. A toilet box in the Turin Museum and small articles preserved in various collections contain her cartouche; many of her scarabs are known; and an enamelled vase given to her by the king is one of the finest specimens of ceramic art in the Cairo Museum.2 In some instances she is adored as a goddess.

The great revolutionary movement, which was at its climax during Thïy's last years, gave a sudden freedom to thought and feeling which found a vent in every direction. A short and brilliant period of independent productiveness flashed into being; and the creations of this age prove the variety of forms Egyptian workers could produce when freed from conventional limitations. The literature, the poetry of the age, the extraordinary approach to modern

1 Pub. in P.'s H.E., vol. II, 182.
South Hall, Case H, No. 747.

thought in its philosophy, the monotheistic character of its religious principles, the admirable fidelity to nature in all of its expressions, make the reign of the "heretic king" one of the most remarkable in ancient history.

In many senses the revolution was the production of genius; perhaps Khuenaten himself was that genius, or it may be that his policy of reform and freedom only removed the seal on individual silence, and opened the way for free expression to many minds of genius about him.

Of the daughters of Amen-hetep and Thry, the heiress was SAT-AMEN, "the Royal Daughter, the Lady of both Lands, the Great Royal Wife, living.”

A stela1 in the Cairo Museum pictures the princess as a child accompanied by her nurse. She is also recorded on a statue of her steward Amenhetep, son of Hapi ;2 on a disk from Tel el-Amarna; and on a blue glazed ring from the ruins of her father's palace at Thebes. Two memorials of Sat-amen, the fragments of an ebony box, and a blue kohl-tube, call her the daughter of Amen-hetep, and add the title of "Great Royal Wife."

This title does not apparently place the princess where one might expect to find her, i.e., as the consort of her brother Amen-hetep IV., since that king is always accompanied by his queen Nefertiti. The name of Sat-amen never appears with his, but is coupled only with that of her father. She was probably one of those unmarried heiresses who bore the title of royal wife as a birthright, signifying her destiny as a king's consort; or she may have been married to an elder brother, a possible heir of Amen-hetep, who died early. In any case, the fact that she was Great

I MARIETTE, A., II, pl. 49.

2 Annales du Service des Antiquités, ii, 283.

3 PETRIE, Tel el-A., xiii, 6.

• Coll., Mr. H. THOMPSON, I, fig. 1.

5

B.M., No. 5899a; Arch. Journal, vol. VIII, 39.

• Coll., Mr. MACGREGOR, pub. by NEWBERRY, P.S.B.A., 1902.

Royal Wife during the lifetime of her mother, Queen Thry, proves that the title could be held by more than one queen at the same time. In this instance it represented the rank of royal consort only for the queen, while for the princess it was the title of her position as heiress.1

In the tomb of Iuaa and Thuaa, two fine gilded armchairs inscribed with the name of Sat-amen were found, which had probably been placed there as offerings from the princess to her grandparents. Her representations on one of these chairs show Sat-amen as a child, presenting offerings to the goddess of the Nile. On the back, the scene displays Queen Thry, accompanied by two of her children, one nameless, while the other, Sat-amen, stands in front of the queen and is evidently the more important one of the two daughters.

From the facts that this heiress princess is not named as the wife of the heir, and that, in the only portraits of her which survive, she is shown as a child, it seems clear that she died young and before she could assume the crown of Great Consort, to which her birth entitled her.

Mr. Petrie thinks that the restoration of a chapel of Amen-hetep II. at Thebes was made by Amen-hetep III. to honour his daughter Sat-amen, as fragments of a relief in her name were found on its site.3

Takhait, another daughter of Amen-hetep and Thry, perhaps took Sat-amen's place as heiress at that princess's death; Takhait accompanies her parents in the colossal group from Medinet Habu, and wears the royal vulture and uræus of the queen's crown.*

1 See page 68.

2 Cairo M., Room T, Case N.
PETRIE, Six Temples, 6.

• Cairo M., North Portico, 381.

CHAPTER X.

FOREIGN WIVES OF AMENHETEP III. AND OTHER

QUEENS OF XVIIITH DYNASTY.

AMEN-HETEP had other wives besides his brilliant queen Thry, having contracted several alliances with foreign princesses. GILUGHIPA, or KIRGHIPA, was one of the chief of these. She was the daughter of Satharna, King of Mitanni, one of the North Syrian countries. Only one mention of this princess exists in contemporary Egyptian records; she was the bride in whose honour Amen-hetep issued one of his sets of commemorative scarabs. They are dated in the tenth year of his reign, and after the name and titles of the King and Queen Thry, the inscription proceeds: "Wonders-they brought to his Majesty the "daughter of Satharna, prince of Neharina, the lady Gilu"ghipa, and her chief women, 317 in number."

The king of Egypt had obtained the Mitannian princess with difficulty, for although an alliance with Egypt must have been very desirable to the Syrian princes, yet Amen-hetep was obliged to ask several times for Gilughipa's hand. It was only "granted on the seventh time of asking," according to the Babylonian letter which refers to the transaction.

Although the king had been so persistent in desiring the marriage, and had thought the bride's entry into Egypt of sufficient importance to commemorate by special scarabs, yet the lady who entered her husband's land with a retinue of 317 attendants, straightway disappears into the royal

1 A.Z., xviii, 82.

2 Babylonian Letters, IV, P.S.B.A., 120; XI, R.P., XV, 79.

harem. She bears no queenly titles, and with the exception of an incidental mention in one or two of the Tel el-Amarna letters, is never again heard of.

A second king of Mitanni, Dushratta, was the brother of Gilughipa. In two of his letters on foreign affairs, written to the king of Egypt, Dushratta sends his salutations to his sister, accompanying them by presents of jewellery and of oils. On one occasion the princess' father sent to her a statue of the goddess Ishtar, which arrived in Egypt accompanied by priests, and after a visit of some months returned home. If Gilughipa had adopted the religion of Egypt, she still welcomed the chief deity of her native land when the image was sent to her by Satharna.

One of the later Babylonian letters refers to this sojourn of the goddess Ishtar at the Egyptian court.'

Gilughipa was by no means the only foreign bride of Amen-hetep. The Tel el-Amarna letters, several of which are the official communications regarding such marriages, show that the royal harem must have been full of these Syrian women. The records prove that Amen-hetep married a daughter of Satharna, a daughter of Dushratta, a sister and a daughter of Kallimasin, and a sister of Buraburiash, kings of Babylonia.

Foreign marriages had long been popular with the Egyptian monarchs, and the position of these princesses in the Pharaoh's household appears to have been an honourable one, their children ranking next only after those of the solar race.

The Babylonian documents referring to these matters are full of interesting information. In one letter, Dushratta reminds the king that not only he, but also his grandfather before him, had each to ask seven times before receiving the Mitannian wives of their choice. This seeming reluctance to bestow the Syrian ladies on the Egyptian monarchs must have been anything but sincere, 1 P.S.B.A., xv, 124.