Authors: Graham Phillips
Tags: #Egypt/Ancient Mysteries
We now come to the second act: Smenkhkare's original burial. After Meritaten is either disgraced or dies, Smenkhkare tries to make amends by returning to Thebes and realigning himself with the cult of Amun-Re. There he dies and is interred conventionally in the Valley of the Kings, as evidenced by his burial equipment found in Tutankhamun's tomb and the reference to his funerary temple in the tomb of Parisi. In ascertaining if this initial interment was originally in Tomb 55, we need firstly to examine the traditional explanation for the condition of the tomb.
According to the orthodox theory, found in the official guide books to the Valley of the Kings and in many modern textbooks, Tomb 55 served as nothing more than a temporary storage place for the funeral equipment removed from the Amarna tombs when the city was abandoned. It was in the process of being constructed for someone of lower rank, so the argument goes, when it was requisitioned temporarily to house the mummies and burial goods of the royal family, principally those of Akhenaten, Queen Tiye and Smenkhkare (as some of their items had been left behind). When new tombs were made ready elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings the mummies had been removed, all except the defiled remains of discredited Atenist, Smenkhkare. Much of the funerary equipment, however, was appropriated by Ay and Tutankhamun and some of it
was used to furnish their own tombs and those of their followers. Incredibly, this hypothesis sees no relevance at all in the final condition of the tomb, totally ignoring the bizarre circumstances of Smenkhkare's peculiar interment. It fails completely to address the following mysteries:
We have already found answers to some of these mysteries by logical consideration of the known historical evidence. Indeed, the paradoxical nature of many aspects of the Tomb 55 enigma is beginning to make sense for the very first time. Why, therefore, has no one figured any of this out before? The answer is simple: Egyptologists don't like speculation – they need hard facts. Generally, this is a sound perspective – there is no point jumping to conclusions before sufficient archaeological evidence
has come to light. However, the problem sometimes arising from such a restrained approach is to overlook the evidence which is already at hand. This would very much seem to have been the case with Tomb 55. It is very possible, therefore, that the orthodox theory of Tomb 55 is wrong about it having been used as a storage facility. Although the theory is probably correct about the tomb having been requisitioned – it was an unfinished tomb, the walls bare and the recess which contained the Canopic jars jagged and incomplete – it may have been used
exclusively
for the burial of Smenkhkare, who had died suddenly after recently returning to Thebes.
We know from the seals from treasure boxes and other broken artefacts found there, that Tomb 55 must once have contained many splendid burial goods, and because of Tutankhamun's name on the seals we know that they were removed during his reign. As the orthodox theory suggests, it seems likely that the spoils were divided among Ay, Tutankhamun and possibly other leading officials and used to supplement their own funerary trappings. Did they, however, include items from a number of royal persons or only one – Smenkhkare? As Ay's tomb, like most others of the period, was found to have been emptied in antiquity (see Chapter Six), we only have Tutankhamun's tomb from which to judge. If Akhenaten's, Tiye's and Smenkhkare's effects had all been stored in Tomb 55, as the orthodox theory propounds, we should expect to find an approximately equal cross-section of them represented in Tutankhamun's tomb.
Although some items belonging to Akhenaten were found in Tutankhamun's tomb, they were only minor artefacts such bracelets, boxes and a fan, which were not specifically burial effects and could have been heirlooms obtained from anywhere. In fact, some items in Tutankhamun's tomb had belonged to
Tuthmosis III, such as a scarab and a number of calcite vessels, and he, having died over a century earlier, had certainly never been stored in Tomb 55. (Tuthmosis III's tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings by the French Egyptologist Victor Loret in 1898.) Although the objects belonging to Smenkhkare found in Tutankhamun's tomb also included similar trinkets, they also included much more important artefacts that could only have come from his tomb, as they were essential elements used in his burial. What, therefore, do we know of these?
Several finds made during the early years of the twentieth century led Howard Carter to believe that the tomb of Tutankhamun was still to be found in the Valley of the Kings. After many years of frustrating work, his venture at last succeeded on 4 November 1922, when a flight of stone steps was uncovered leading downwards to a blocked entrance, its seal intact. Beyond this there was a descending passageway, some 2 metres high, leading downwards for around 9 metres to a second doorway bearing the seal of Tutankhamun. On the evening of 28 November, his hand trembling, Carter made a small breach in the upper left-hand corner of the brickwork that blocked the entrance. In his three-volume book,
The Tomb of Tutankhamun,
he describes what he was the first to see in over three thousand years:
I inserted the candle and peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously behind me to hear the verdict. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.
When his patron Lord Carnavon asked him if he could see anything through the hole in the wall, all he could gasp was, 'Yes, wonderful things'. An apt description: there were literally hundreds of priceless historical treasures. Carter had made the archaeological discovery of the century.
Beyond the entrance to the tomb, and at right angles, was a large chamber, dubbed the Antechamber, and off it, to the back left, was a smaller room – the Annex. To the right was another blocked doorway guarded by two larger-than-life statues of the king, beyond which lay the burial chamber itself. The burial chamber was the only decorated room in the tomb. Its four walls were painted with scenes of Tutankhamun's funeral and his journey to the afterlife. Those on the east wall depicted the king's mummy being drawn on a sledge to the tomb; on the north wall Ay, dressed in a priest's panther skin, officiated at the last rites; the west wall represented the king's journey to the next world; and the south wall showed him being welcomed into the afterlife by the deities Hathor, Isis and Anubis. Within this chamber, filling it almost entirely, was a series of four shrines, one inside the other, the outermost measuring 5.08 metres long by 3.28 wide and 2.75 metres in height. Inside was a quartzite sarcophagus containing the nest of three coffins. The outer coffin, constructed of wood overlaid with gold, was made in the image of the dead king – a male in his late teens wearing
Rishi
(feathered-style) apparel. The inner coffin was made of solid gold, and the image of the king, although also decorated in
Rishi
style, was of a younger and thinner person – a boy of around ten. Carter concluded, as have subsequent scholars, that the inner coffin was made in the likeness of Tutankhamun while he was still a child, shortly after becoming king, and the outer coffin was made near to, or upon, his death.
The mummy itself was decorated in an astonishingly lavish way: gold bands and straps around the bandages, 170 separate pieces of exquisite jewellery adorning the body and, most incredible of all, a solid gold funerary mask weighing over ten kilograms placed over the face. Carter described it in its full glory:
The beaten golden mask, a beautiful and unique specimen of ancient portraiture . . . Upon its forehead, wrought in massive gold, were the royal insignia – the Nekhebet vulture and Buto serpent – emblems of the two kingdoms over which he had reigned. To the chin was attached the conventional Osiride beard, wrought in gold and lapislazuli-coloured glass; around the throat was a triple necklace of yellow and red gold and blue faience disk-shaped beads.
Despite its aesthetic appeal and its extraordinary value, it was not the death mask which preoccupied Carter's enquiring mind, but the middle coffin. Although the image it bore was that of a king – it wore the pharaonic appendages – it was clearly not Tutankhamun. The facial features were very different from those on the other two coffins or the death mask: the cheekbones were more pronounced, the jaw was firmer and broader, the lips were less full, and the nose was not so long. The style of headdress further revealed that this could not be Tutankhamun. The outer coffin showed Tutankhamun around the time of his death, which examination of the mummy has shown to have been around seventeen. Here he is shown in a
Khat
(bag-shaped) headdress, fashionable in the later years of his reign, whereas the middle coffin figure, like that figure on the inner coffin and the death mask, is shown in a
Nemes
(towel-like)
headdress, fashionable in the early years of Tutankhamun's reign. This means that for the middle coffin figure to have been Tutankhamun it would have needed to represent a young boy, yet the face it depicted is someone of around twenty. It was clear, right from the beginning, that this piece of equipment had been appropriated from someone else.
The identity of this mysterious individual was to be revealed in the next room. Beyond the painted burial chamber, through an open doorway guarded by a large recumbent wooden figure of the jackal-god Anubis, lay the Treasury. Here stood the great wooden Canopic shrine enclosing the calcite Canopic chest, inside which were jars containing the four golden coffinettes to accommodate the king's removed organs. These coffinettes were identical miniatures of the middle coffin and clearly belonged to the same set. On the coffinettes the interior gold linings had had the owner's cartouches altered from those of the original owner. Still possible to read, it bore the title Ankhkheperure – the throne name of Smenkhkare. (Tutankhamun's throne name, found elsewhere in the tomb, was Nebkheperure.)
Today, there can be little doubt that Smenkhkare was indeed the person represented on the middle coffin in Tutankhamun's tomb, as the analysis of the Tomb 55 mummy has shown him to have been around twenty when he died. The middle coffin shows a king of this age, depicted in the style associated with the time Tutankhamun came to the throne. He must therefore have been Tutankhamun's predecessor, Smenkhkare.
Although the middle coffin is of less material value than the burial mask, not being made of solid gold, it is
its
image that the world has come to recognize as Tutankhamun. We find it reproduced in photographs to promote all manner of Egypt-related material: posters to publicize books, brochures to advertise Egyptian holidays, and literature to support Egyptian
exhibitions. The reason is that the image on the middle coffin is a far more lifelike and flattering likeness than the other coffins, and shows more of the king's body than the death mask. Carter himself describes it as 'a masterpiece of superior construction'. It is altogether a more marketable face – far more handsome and regal than the chubby youth depicted on the outer coffin, or the innocent child depicted on the inner coffin and the death mask. However, it is
not
Tutankhamun – but his predecessor Smenkhkare.
The reason why this is almost unknown outside academic circles is that for four decades the world lost interest in Tutankhamun. After the initial excitement surrounding the tomb's opening, the subsequent years of the great depression, global conflict and the birth of the atomic age smothered the appeal of Egypt's ancient past. Aside from his book, written for the casual reader, Carter never published a serious study on the treasures. Most of his notes, catalogue cards and drawings, although preserved in the Griffith Institute at Oxford University, were unpublished; and so was his journal of the excavation, which was left to gather dust in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, along with most of the treasures. Until the
Treasures of Tutankhamun
exhibition travelled the world in the 1960s and 70s, even these lay in disorder in filthy glass cases, identified only with tattered labels, brown with age and virtually unreadable. Until the exhibition, not even a simple guide book existed for the collection.
When the exhibition visited countries all over the world, local promoters chose what they considered to be the most stunning image to publicize the event, which was often the face on the middle coffin. As there was nothing available in print, they had no way of knowing that the person they portrayed as Tutankhamun was in fact his predecessor Smenkhkare. The
exhibition was a phenomenal success and Tutankhamun again became the focus of world attention. However, the erroneous image stuck in the public mind. Although much serious work has now been done on the treasures, and Egyptologists are aware that the image on the middle coffin is not that of Tutankhamun, it never seems to have occurred to anyone to draw attention to the fact.
As Carter continued to investigate Tutankhamun's tomb, more and more intimate and essential burial effects were found to have been appropriated from Smenkhkare. Some of the gold straps around the mummy had been inscribed with sacred burial texts from the Egyptian
Book of the Dead,
wherein Smenkhkare's names had been inserted in the appropriate .place for the deceased, and many of the 170 pieces of jewellery that intimately adorned the mummy were also found to have belonged to Smenkhkare.