Tiy

Egyptian queen

• Born: c. 1410 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Thebes, Egypt
• Died: c. 1340 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Akhetaton (now Tell el-Amārna, Egypt)

Wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and mother of Pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV), Tiy was influential in political and religious affairs in the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Early Life

Information on Tiy (tee) comes primarily from archaeological records. Tiy was the daughter of Yuya and Thuyu. Yuya, her father, was a chariot officer who bore the title “master of the horse,” served as a priest of the god Min, and had the additional distinction of the title “god’s father.” Hailing from Akhmim in Upper Egypt, Yuya may have been a nonnative Egyptian. His name was uncommon in ancient Egypt, and he was of unusually tall stature. Some postulate that Yuya was of Asian origin, based on his name and expertise in horsemanship, a skill associated with Asiatics. Other scholars theorize that Tiy’s family was of sub-Saharan African origin, basing this conclusion on depictions of Tiy from the reigns of her husband and her son and the features of the mummy commonly identified as the queen. Tiy’s mother was also a woman of distinction who bore the title “chief lady of the harem of Amen,” marking her as an important figure in the cult of Amen, the main god of Egypt. One of Tiy’s brothers, Anen, was also an important religious figure; he held the title “second prophet of Amen.”

Yuya and Thuyu were sufficiently important to the pharaoh that he allowed them a tomb in the royal necropolis at Thebes, an honor reserved for very few. Most likely, this honor was bestowed on Yuya and Thuyu as a result of Tiy’s marriage to the pharaoh. The tomb of Tiy’s parents was a significant find for archaeologists, as the burial was largely intact despite having been robbed in antiquity. Until the excavation of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the tomb of Yuya and Thuyu (KV46) held the most complete funerary equipment of all excavated Egyptian tombs. The tomb was excavated in 1905 by James Quibbell on behalf of Theodore Davis; the funerary equipment was placed on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Life’s Work

Although Tiy was the daughter of Egyptian officials, it is generally agreed that she was not related to the royal family. She is best known for her marriage to Pharaoh Amenhotep III (r. 1391-1349 b.c.e.) and as the mother of Akhenaton (1364-1334 b.c.e.) and at least five other children. As the wife of one pharaoh and the mother of another, Tiy was extremely influential; some argue she was one of Egypt’s most powerful queens.

Tiy likely married Amenhotep III when she was a young girl, most probably in her early teens. While generally considered to have been a good ruler, Amenhotep III was not a pharaoh primarily engaged in expansion or warfare; by the time he was pharaoh, Egypt was strong and prosperous, and such shows of strength were rarely warranted. Tiy’s husband maintained Egypt, going to war most notably to put down a revolt in Nubia in the fifth year of his reign. Egypt while Tiy was queen was a country with a strong economy and a wealth of trade; gold from Nubia; elephant tusks, giraffe hides, and ebony from Kush; lapis lazuli from Afghanistan; jars from Crete; and copper from Cyrus flowed into Egypt. Tiy traveled often with her husband, journeying north from Thebes to the administrative center of Memphis, likely visiting temples and shrines along the way. Because of Egypt’s prosperity, Amenhotep III was better known for his sponsorship of art and architecture and for the opulent lifestyle of his family and court than for his military prowess. His chief architect, the famous Amenhotep, son of Hapu, built a new palace complex for the pharaoh at Malkata, near Thebes, which included a large artificial lake, Birket Habu, built for Queen Tiy to use for sailing on her barge.

The esteem in which Amenhotep III held his Great Royal Wife is evident in the frequency with which Tiy appears in the records of that period. Tiy is included in the commemorative scarabs issued by her husband. Images of the queen appear in reliefs and statues from Amenhotep III’s reign. In many depictions, she is shown as equal in size to her husband, an uncommon portrayal in an era during which the wives of pharaohs were shown as considerably smaller. Amenhotep III further honored Tiy with the construction of a temple in Nubia at Sedeigna (present-day northern Sudan). Here, the queen was worshiped as a form of the goddess Hathor. More important, at this temple she was associated with the solar eye of the god Ra, and in this role, she ensured the maintenance of ma’at (divine order) throughout the region through her joining with the deity Nebmaatra.

Tiy’s son, Amenhotep IV, most likely succeeded his father before Amenhotep III’s death. Examination of the pharaoh’s mummy indicates that he suffered from a variety of afflictions, including extensive dental abscesses. Some scholars theorize that Tiy urged her husband to make their son his coregent, thus assuring his eventual succession. In the first year of his reign, Amenhotep IV established a temple to the sun disk god Aton at Karnak; Aton had been the personal god of Amenhotep III. Yet Amenhotep IV took worship of Aton to a new level, changing his name in the fifth year of his reign to Akhenaton (“glory of the Aton”) and beginning construction of a new capital city, to be called Akhetaton (“horizon of the Aton”). The new city, designed to replace Memphis and Thebes as both the religious and political capital of Egypt, was located in Middle Egypt on land that had not been dedicated to any other gods. Akhenaton, in promoting the worship of Aton above all other deities, engineered a religious revolution in Egypt. His new religion of Aton-worship has been called monotheistic by some and henotheistic by others. It is not clear to what extent Tiy participated in this new faith, but evidence indicates she visited the new capital and most likely died there.

Whether or not Tiy participated in her son’s religious revolution, she most certainly exerted political influence over him after the death of his father. The Amarna Letters, a term given to diplomatic correspondence of the period between Egyptian and Asiatic rulers, demonstrate Tiy’s political importance. Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, a state with which Amenhotep III’s Egypt had friendly relations, urged Akhenaton to seek his mother’s advice, as she was privy to all Amenhotep III’s dealings with Mitanni and would provide the best counsel for the new pharaoh. In addition, Tushratta wrote directly to Tiy asking for her assistance in his transactions with her son. In one such letter, Tushratta urged Tiy to ensure that Egypt and Mitanni maintained their good relations and complained that Akhenaton was neglecting their alliance. Like her husband, her son also held Tiy in high esteem. The queen’s image appears in reliefs and temples at Akhetaton, and evidence indicates Akhenaton built a palace at his new capital for his mother.

Although the queen most likely died at Akhetaton, recent work indicates that the mummy of Tiy, as well those of several other persons, was transported from the royal necropolis at Akhetaton and reburied in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. The tomb associated with Tiy is KV 55, first discovered and excavated by Edward Ayrton for Theodore Davis in 1907-1908. Although Ayrton located several burial items (including pots, furniture, boxes, and tools) belonging to Tiy, the excavation did not uncover Tiy’s mummy. Before it was examined, the mummy found in KV55 was assumed to be Tiy; after it was unwrapped, it was discovered that the individual was a man. This male mummy is believed by some to be that of Smenkhare, a coregent of Akhenaton. Yet more recent work indicates that this mummy may in fact be that of Akhenaton himself.

The location of Tiy’s mummy remains a subject for debate, but the prevailing theory holds that during the Twenty-first Dynasty, her mummy along with several others was moved from KV55 to KV35, the tomb of Amenhotep II. When this tomb was excavated in 1898 by Victor Loret on behalf of the Service des Antiquités, ten mummies (apparently cached there to prevent desecration by tomb robbers) in addition to the three for whom the tomb was built were found inside. The mummy nicknamed the “Elder Woman” is often said to be that of Tiy, a conclusion based in part on the similarity between the hair of the mummy and a lock of hair found in the tomb of Tutankhamen and identified as that of Tiy.

Significance

Tiy is an interesting individual in Egyptian history. A commoner who rose to become the wife and mother of a pharaoh, she developed into a powerful religious and political figure who lived through some of the most turbulent times of the New Kingdom. While women in ancient Egypt had a broad range of rights that included the right to own property, conduct their own economic and legal affairs, work, trade, and divorce their husbands, women were not often involved in political affairs. The New Kingdom was an era that included many of Egypt’s most memorable and noted women—Hatshepsut (c. 1525-c. 1482 b.c.e.), who reigned as pharaoh in her own name; Nefertari, beloved Great Wife of Ramses II (c. 1307-c. 1265 b.c.e.); and Nefertiti (c. 1364-c. 1334 b.c.e.), beautiful queen of Akhenaton. Tiy must certainly be listed with these women as among Egypt’s most influential female figures.

As Amenhotep III’s Great Wife, Tiy was a companion to her husband, played a crucial role in the maintenance of divine order at her temple in Nubia, was worshiped as an incarnation of Hathor, was mother to six children, including the next pharaoh, and was a trusted political confidante and adviser to Amenhotep III. On the death of her husband, Tiy did not fade from the scene; she had ensured the succession of her son and she continued to advise him on political and diplomatic affairs and to correspond in her own right with at least one foreign leader. Although her religious significance must have declined with the advent of the Aton cult, Tiy’s importance to her son did not. Still revered as mother, adviser, and queen, Tiy continued to exert a powerful influence on Egyptian politics until her death.

Bibliography

Brier, Bob. The Murder of Tutankhamen. New York: Berkeley Books, 1998. Details the history of the Eighteenth Dynasty, culminating in the death of Tutankhamen. Author makes a case for the pharaoh’s murder by his officials.

Davis, Theodore. The Tomb of Queen Tiyi. London: Constable & Company, 1910. The report on the excavations of 1907, including the tomb and the body found within which is not that of the queen.

Hawass, Zahi A. Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. Uses images of women to discuss their roles in ancient Egyptian society. Contains images and discussions of Tiy.

Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. Discusses women’s public and private lives in ancient Egypt.

Shaw, Ian, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Good, detailed history of ancient Egypt, including two chapters on the Eighteenth Dynasty. Includes many photos and maps.

Silverman, David P., ed. Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Provides a general overview of ancient Egyptian history. While it does not discuss Tiy, it gives the reader a good background for the subject and includes many photos and maps.

Tyldesley, Joyce A. Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt. New York: Penguin, 1995. Provides information about women’s lives in ancient Egypt and includes not only royal women but lower class women as well.