Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][graphic]

my Majesty, born of the Royal Mother Senseneb, who is in good health,"

After this, she may be supposed to have enjoyed the state and, at least formerly, the position of a queen. On the walls of the temple at Deir el-Bahari her portrait shows a youthful woman with full rounded lines, and a face of great charm. Above the figure her name is enclosed in a royal oval, and she is given by courtesy the title, “Lady of both Lands."

AAHMES

"Hereditary Princess, Great Lady of both
"Lands, Royal Sister, Great Royal Wife,
"Divine Wife."

To this queen passed the full sovereign rights inherited through both parents, Aah-hetep II. and Amen-hetep I. Her own brothers had died young, and when the time came for choosing a husband to share the royal heiress's throne, the selection fell on Amen-hetep's young son Thotmes, the child of Senseneb. To this prince, although his birth was but half royal, Aahmes was united, and, chiefly through her rights, Thotmes became King of Egypt.

Although Aahmes held unquestioned rights of priority over her half-brother, she seems to have yielded entirely to him the government of her kingdom. She apparently inherited no love of power from her grandmother, Nefertari, or possibly she renounced her sovereignty though a voluntary act of affection to Thotmes, who, from whatever cause, assumed the crown as though he were its sole inheritor. Aahmes seems to have married her half-brother before

1 ERMAN, Z.A., xxix, 116, 117.

their father's death. Her chief claim to renown is that she was the mother of the most famous of Egypt's queens, Hatshepsut. It is to the filial devotion of this daughter that we owe the beautiful portraits of Aahmes which are carved and painted in the temple at Deir el-Bahari; one of these is accompanied by an inscription in which the god Thoth describes the queen to Amen, and says, " Aahmes is her name, she is more beautiful than any woman."

More than three thousand years have passed since the gracious image was fixed on the temple walls, and still the sweetness of her smile looks out from the crumbling stones, and gives one warm human touch to the silent ruins about her.

Besides Hatshepsut, Aahmes had one other daughter, Khebt-neferu, who died young; she is represented as a child in her sister's temple. Of small objects naming Queen Aahmes, there remain some scarabs;3 a curious ivory wand formed of a curved arm and hand,* a vase presented by her daughter, and an alabaster statuette in the Cairo Museum.

[merged small][ocr errors]

"Royal Daughter, Royal Wife, Royal Mother."

These titles are found on a portrait statue of this queen, and on one of her son at Karnak. She was a second wife and queen of Thotmes I. and the mother of Thotmes II. It is not so clear whose daughter she was, although she was possibly a half-sister of Thotmes and Aahmes, with the same father. Her mother, whose name is unknown, was

1 NAVILLE, Tomb of Hatshopsitû, 2.

2 L., D., iii, 86; L., K., xxiv, 342 ; Rosellini, Monumenti Storici, vol. I, 215, 216; M.'s M.R., 633-637.

B.M.; Louvre M.

• Turin M.

BREASTED, Records, 87.

probably not of the royal house, or was one of the many secondary wives of Amen-hetep I.

The portrait statue of Mut-nefert, now in the Cairo Museum, was found in the ruined chapel of Uazmes near the Ramesseum at Gurnah. The figure, of painted limestone, is seated and wears a clinging white robe, and the conventional heavy wig. The skin is painted yellow, and the face is mutilated.

The statue is not in the best art of the period; it was erected to the memory of the queen by her son Thotmes, and bears the inscription, "The good god, Lord of Both "Lands Aa-kheperu-Ra (Thotmes II.) made by him, his "monuments of his mother, Royal Wife, Royal Mother "Mut-nefert makheru."

With this statue were found fragments of five or six similar figures, which must have stood together. The fact that these were erected in the chapel of Uazmes, seems to show some particularly close connection between that prince and Mut-nefert. According to Petrie's interpretation of this family, Uazmes must have been her halfbrother.3 She may even have been his wife, before her marriage with Thotmes.

THE THOTMES FAMILY.

Queen Aah-hetep II.

T

Amen-hetep I. — Senseneb (not royal),

Queen Aahmes Thotmes I.

Queen Hatshepsut

Mut-nefert.

Thotmes II. Aset (a slave).

Meryt-Ra Thotmes III.

We now arrive at one of the disputed points in the history of the XVIIIth dynasty, namely, the relationships of the Thotmes family of kings. Countless are the records

M.'s S.N., 236, 237 ; P.'s H.E., vol. II, 71.

2 Found in 1881 by GRÉBAUT. Cairo M., Room M, No. 319. MARIETTE and BRUGSCH thought this queen a daughter of Thotmes II. 3 P.'s H.E., vol. II, 52.

« PreviousContinue »