Queen Tiye came from a humble background and was not of royal blood. This would not stop Amenhotep III from falling in love with her and becoming Kemet's most powerful couple in its long history of rulers. This is an early statute of Tiye prior to her becoming the Great Royal Wife and leader of an entire empire. The Medu Neter on the statute reads "mistress of the harim Tiye" which seems to be her position in the royal court prior to the marriage.
Academics claim "she wears the voluminous wig" Although this is a common hairstyle among statutes of the 18th Dynasty and not one single of these so-called wigs have been uncovered in over a century of excavations. Needless to say it is not a wig at all. It is her natural hair neatly braided, not uncommon the least bit for many populations still to this day in the Nile Valley and Northeast Africa. Her necklace is made of gold, semi-precious stones and glass.
By the second year of his reign, Amenhotep III was married to his "great royal wife," Queen Tiye. We know more about Tiye than we do about any other Eighteenth-Dynasty queen with the exception of Hatshepsut who ruled as pharaoh. The names of Tiye's parents, both commoners, were proclaimed far and wide on a series of large commemorative scarabs and circulated throughout the empire - an unheard-of practice. No previous queen figured so prominently in her husband's lifetime.
According to many scholars, including Margaret Bunson, Tiye's father was Yuya, a provincial priest from Akhmin, and her mother was Tjuya, a servant of the queen mother, Mutemwiya. Tiye grew up in the royal palace but was not a royal herself. She would have been a part of the court life if her mother had been the queen's servant but it seems more likely that both her parents enjoyed a more elevated status. Margaret Bunson was among the many scholars who believed Tiye was of Nubian descent.
"Her parents' names, some claim, are not Egyptian.
No comments:
Post a Comment