Thuya | |
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 Gilded cartonnage mask of Thuya in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo | |
| Other names | Thuyu, Tjuyu |
| Spouse(s) | Yuya |
| Children | Tiye and Anen, possibly Ay |
| Relatives | Akhenaten (grandson) |
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| Thuya | |||||
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| Egyptian hieroglyphs |
Thuya (sometimes transliterated as Touiyou, [1] Thuiu, [2] Tuya, [3] Tjuyu or Thuyu) was an Egyptian noblewoman and the mother of queen Tiye, and the wife of Yuya. She is the grandmother of Akhenaten, and great grandmother of Tutankhamun.
Thuya is believed to be a descendant of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, and she held many official roles in the interwoven religion and government of ancient Egypt. She was involved in many religious cults; her titles included 'Singer of Hathor' and 'Chief of the Entertainers' of both Amun and Min. [4] She also held the influential offices of Superintendent of the Harem of the god Min of Akhmin and of Amun of Thebes. [5] She married Yuya, a powerful ancient Egyptian courtier of the Eighteenth Dynasty. She is believed to have died in around 1375 BC in her early to mid 50s.
Yuya and Thuya had a daughter named Tiye, who became the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. The great royal wife was the highest Egyptian religious position, serving alongside of the pharaoh in official ceremonies and rituals.
Yuya and Thuya also had a son named Anen, who carried the titles Chancellor of Lower Egypt, Second Prophet of Amun, sm-priest of Heliopolis and Divine Father. [6]
They also may have been the parents of Ay, [7] an Egyptian courtier active during the reign of pharaoh Akhenaten who became pharaoh after the death of Tutankhamun. However, there is no conclusive evidence regarding the kinship of Yuya and Ay, although certainly, both men came from Akhmim. [8]
Thuya was interred in tomb KV46 in the Valley of the Kings, together with her husband Yuya, where their largely intact burial was found in 1905. It was the best-preserved tomb discovered in the Valley before that of Tutankhamun, Thuya's great-grandson. [9] The tomb was discovered by a team of workmen led by archaeologist James Quibell on behalf of the American millionaire Theodore M. Davis. [1] [2] Though the tomb had been robbed in antiquity, much of its contents were still present, including beds, boxes, chests, a chariot, and the sarcophagi, coffins, and mummies of the two occupants. [2]
Thuya's large gilded and black-painted wooden sarcophagus was placed against the south wall of the tomb. [2] It is rectangular, with a lid shaped like the sloping roof of the per-wer shrine of Upper Egypt, and sits on ornamental sledge runners, their non-functionality underscored by the three battens attached below them. [10] Ancient robbers had partially dismantled it to access her coffins and mummy, placing its lid and one long side on a bed on the other side of the tomb; the other long side had been leaned against the south wall. Her outer gilded anthropoid coffin had been removed, its lid placed atop the beds, and the trough put into the far corner of the tomb; the lid of her second (innermost) coffin, also gilded, had been removed and placed to one side although the trough and her mummy remained inside the sarcophagus. Quibell suggests this is due to the robbers having some difficulty in removing the lid of this coffin. [2]
Thuya's mummified body was found covered with a large sheet of linen, knotted at the back and secured by four bandages. These bands were covered with resin and opposite each band were her gilded titles cut from gold foil. The resin coating on the lower layers of bandages preserved the impression of a large broad collar. [11] The mummy bands that had once covered her wrapped mummy were recovered above the storage jars on the far side of the room. [2]
The first examination of her body was conducted by Australian anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith. He found her to be an elderly woman of small stature, 1.495 metres (4.90 ft) in height, with white hair. Both of her earlobes had two piercings. Her arms are straight at her sides with her hands against the outside of her thighs. Her embalming incision is stitched with thread, to which a carnelian barrel bead is attached at the lower end; her body cavity is stuffed with resin-soaked linen. When Dr. Douglas Derry, (who later conducted the first examination of Tutankhamun's mummy) assisting Smith in his examination, exposed Thuya's feet to get an accurate measurement of her height, he found her to be wearing gold foil sandals. Smith estimated her age at more than 50 years based on her outward appearance alone. [11] Recent CT scanning has estimated her age at death to be 50–60 years old. Her brain was removed, though no embalming material was inserted, and both nostrils were stuffed with linen. Embalming packs had been placed into her eye sockets, and subcutaneous filling had been placed into her mid and lower face to restore a lifelike appearance; [12] embalming material had also been placed into her mouth and throat. Her teeth were in poor condition at the time of her death, with missing molars. [13] Heavy wear and abscesses had been noted in earlier x-rays. [14] The scan revealed that she had severe scoliosis with a Cobb angle of 25 degrees. No cause of death could be determined. [13] Her mummy has the inventory number CG 51191. [15]
Tutankhamun, commonly referred to as King Tut, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the 18th Dynasty during the New Kingdom of Egyptian history. His father is believed to be the pharaoh Akhenaten, identified as the mummy found in the tomb KV55. His mother is his father's sister, identified through DNA testing as an unknown mummy referred to as "The Younger Lady" who was found in KV35.
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they worshipped one god only, Aten, or the sun disc. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as Neferneferuaten after her husband's death and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as Pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.
Tiye was the daughter of Yuya and Thuya. She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was the mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun. In 2010, DNA analysis confirmed her as the mummy known as "The Elder Lady" found in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35) in 1898.
Amenhotep III, also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC, or from June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC, after his father Thutmose IV died. Amenhotep was Thutmose's son by a minor wife, Mutemwiya.
KV55 is a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton in 1907 while he was working in the Valley for Theodore M. Davis. It has long been speculated, as well as much disputed, that the body found in this tomb was that of the famous king, Akhenaten, who moved the capital to Akhetaten. The results of genetic and other scientific tests published in February 2010 have confirmed that the person buried there was both the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamun. Furthermore, the study established that the age of this person at the time of his death was consistent with that of Akhenaten, thereby making it almost certain that it is Akhenaten's body. However, a growing body of work soon began to appear to dispute the assessment of the age of the mummy and the identification of KV55 as Akhenaten.
Smenkhkare was an Egyptian pharaoh of unknown background who lived and ruled during the Amarna Period of the 18th Dynasty. Smenkhkare was husband to Meritaten, the daughter of his likely co-regent, Akhenaten. Very little is known of Smenkhkare for certain because later kings sought to erase the Amarna Period from history. Because of this, perhaps no one from the Amarna Interlude has been the subject of so much speculation as Smenkhkare.
Kiya was one of the wives of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Little is known about her, and her actions and roles are poorly documented in the historical record, in contrast to those of Akhenaten's ‘Great royal wife’, Nefertiti. Her unusual name suggests that she may originally have been a Mitanni princess. Surviving evidence demonstrates that Kiya was an important figure at Akhenaten's court during the middle years of his reign, when she had a daughter with him. She disappears from history a few years before her royal husband's death. In previous years, she was thought to be mother of Tutankhamun, but recent DNA evidence suggests this is unlikely.
Ay was the penultimate pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 18th Dynasty. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period in the late 1300s BC. Prior to his rule, he was a close advisor to two, and perhaps three, other pharaohs of the dynasty. It is theorized that he was the power behind the throne during Tutankhamun's reign. His prenomenKheperkheperure means "Everlasting are the Manifestations of Ra," while his nomenAy it-netjer reads as "Ay, Father of the God." Records and monuments that can be clearly attributed to Ay are rare, both because his reign was short and because his successor, Horemheb, instigated a campaign of damnatio memoriae against him and the other pharaohs associated with the unpopular Amarna Period.
Tomb KV35 is the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep II located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Later, it was used as a cache for other royal mummies. It was discovered by Victor Loret in March 1898.
Tomb KV46 in the Valley of the Kings is the tomb of the ancient Egyptian noble Yuya and his wife Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye and Anen. It was discovered in February 1905 by Chief Inspector of Antiquities James E. Quibell, excavating under the sponsorship of American millionaire Theodore M. Davis. Despite robberies in antiquity, the undecorated tomb preserved a great deal of its original contents including chests, beds, chairs, a chariot, and numerous storage jars. Additionally, the riffled but undamaged mummies of Yuya and Thuya were found within their disturbed coffin sets. Prior to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was considered to be one of the greatest discoveries in Egyptology.
Yuya was a powerful ancient Egyptian courtier during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He was married to Thuya, an Egyptian noblewoman associated with the royal family, who held high offices in the governmental and religious hierarchies. Their daughter, Tiye, became the Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III. Yuya and Thuya are known to have had a son named Anen, who carried the titles "Chancellor of Lower Egypt", "Second Prophet of Amun", "Sm-priest of Heliopolis", and "Divine Father".
Tomb KV54 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. It was originally excavated by Edward R. Ayrton on behalf of the American lawyer Theodore M. Davis, who funded the work.
Sitamun, also Sitamen,Satamun; Ancient Egyptian: sꜣ.t-imn, "daughter of Amun" was an ancient Egyptian princess and queen consort during the 18th Dynasty.
Anen or Aanen was an ancient Egyptian official during the late 18th Dynasty of Egypt.
An embalming cache is a collection of material that was used by the ancient Egyptians in the mummification process and then buried either with or separately from the body. It is believed that because the materials had come in contact with the body, they had possibly absorbed part of it, and needed to be buried in order for the body to be complete in the afterlife.
Theban Tomb 8, abbreviated TT8, was the tomb of Kha, the overseer of works from Deir el-Medina in the mid-18th Dynasty and his wife, Merit. TT8 was one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of ancient Egypt, one of few tombs of nobility to survive intact. It was discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1906 on behalf of the Italian Archaeological Mission. Its discoverers used 250 workers to dig in pursuit of the tomb for several weeks. The pyramid-chapel of Kha and Merit was already well known for many years, having been discovered by Bernardino Drovetti in the early 19th century. Their funerary stela had made its way to the Museo Egizio in Turin in 1824. Scenes from the chapel had been copied in the 19th century by several Egyptologists, including John Gardiner Wilkinson and Karl Lepsius. Egyptologists also knew that Kha was an important foreman at Deir El-Medina, where he was responsible for projects constructed during the reigns of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III. The pyramidion of the chapel was reused for a later structure and is now in the Louvre Museum.
The Younger Lady is the informal name given to a mummy discovered within tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. The mummy also has been given the designation KV35YL and 61072, and currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Through recent DNA tests, this mummy has been identified as the mother of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and a daughter of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. Early speculation that this mummy was the remains of Nefertiti was argued to be incorrect, as nowhere is Nefertiti accorded the title "King's daughter."
The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty spanned the period from 1550/1549 to 1292 BC. This dynasty is also known as the Thutmosid Dynasty for the four pharaohs named Thutmose.
Tutankhamun's mummy was discovered by English Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team on October 28, 1925 in tomb KV62 of Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Tutankhamun was the 13th pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, making his mummy over 3,300 years old.
Mummies 317a and 317b were the infant daughters of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun; their mother was likely his Great Royal Wife Ankhesenamun, who has been tentatively identified as the mummy KV21A. They were buried in their father's tomb, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. The mummy referred to as 317a is of a girl who was born prematurely at 5–6 months' gestation, and mummy 317b is that of a girl born at or near full term. No names have been preserved for these children. These princesses, along with perhaps Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit and Meritaten Tasherit, represent the final generation of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
