Horemheb

Horemheb, also spelled Horemhab, Haremheb or Haremhab (, meaning "Horus is in Jubilation"), was the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). He ruled for at least 14 years between 1319 BC and 1292 BC. He had no relation to the preceding royal family other than by marriage to Mutnedjmet, under the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ay. After his accession to the throne adopted the official title "Mighty Bull, Ready in Plans Favorite of the Two Goddesses, King of Upper and Lower Egypt." He reformed the Egyptian state and it was during his reign that official action against the preceding Amarna rulers began, which is why he is considered the ruler who restabilized his country after the troublesome and divisive Amarna Period.

Horemheb demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing the rubble in his own building projects, and usurped monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay. Horemheb presumably had no surviving sons, as he appointed as his successor his vizier Paramessu, who would assume the throne as Ramesses I.

As pharaoh, Horemheb authored the Edict of Horemheb, a criminological legislative document instituting policies for reducing corruption.

Early career

Horemheb is believed to have originally come from Hnes, on the west bank of the Nile, near the entrance to the Faiyum, since his coronation text formally credits the god Horus of Hnes for establishing him on the throne. Grimal notes that Horemheb's political career began under Tutankhamun where he "is depicted at this king's side in his own tomb chapel at Memphis."

He is known to have served in the military during the reign of Akhenaten. In the earliest known stage of his life Horemheb served as "the royal spokesman for [Egypt's] foreign affairs" and personally led a diplomatic mission to visit the Nubian governors. Relief from Horemheb's tomb in Saqqara. Receiving 'gold of honour' collars. Relief from KV62 showing court officials dragging Tutankhamun's coffin. Horemheb is possibly the person closest to Tutankhamun's mummy.

Reign

Tutankhamun's Iry-pat When Tutankhamun died while a teenager, Horemheb had already been officially designated as the rpat or iry-pat (often translated hereditary or crown prince) and idnw (deputy of the king in the entire land) by the young pharaoh; these titles are found inscribed in Horemheb's then private Memphite tomb at Saqqara, which dates to the reign of Tutankhamun since the young king's

The title iry-pat (Hereditary Prince) was used very frequently in Horemheb's Saqqara tomb but not combined with any other words. When used alone, the Egyptologist Alan Gardiner has shown that the iry-pat title contains features of ancient descent and lawful inheritance which is identical to the designation for a "Crown Prince." The Dutch Egyptologist Jacobus Van Dijk observes:

Occasionally called The Great Edict of Horemheb, it is a copy of the actual text of the king's decree to re-establish order to the Two Lands and curb abuses of state authority. The stela's coronation and prominent location emphasizes the great importance which Horemheb placed upon domestic reform. When Haremheb ascended the throne after the death of Ay II, he consolidated his rule by centralizing the state and continuing to establish a court in Thebes, where he could supervise the powerful and scheming priests there. He had his successful reforms inscribed on the tenth pylon in the temple complex in nearby Karnak. The text can be interpreted as a “government code”, defined by the direct will of this ruler. It contains a number of general regulations laws addressed not only to the common people , but also deals with the organization of the army, the bureaucracy or the organization of foreign expeditions and military conquests. The code also contains provisions concerning agriculture and, last but not least, it touches on the position of the powerful priests and temple servants, whom he appoints as employees of the state by virtue of his royal power. At the end of the text, Haremheb defines himself as the only legitimate ruler.

Horemheb also reformed the Army and reorganized the Deir el-Medina workforce in his 7th year while Horemheb's official Maya renewed the tomb of Thutmose IV, which had been disturbed by tomb robbers in his 8th year. While the king restored the priesthood of Amun, he prevented the Amun priests from forming a stranglehold on power, by deliberately reappointing priests who mostly came from the Egyptian army since he could rely on their personal loyalty. Horemheb was a prolific builder who erected numerous temples and buildings throughout Egypt during his reign. He constructed the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Pylons of the Great Hypostyle Hall, in the Temple at Karnak, using recycled talatat blocks from Akhenaten's own monuments here, as building material for the first two Pylons. Horemheb is not known to have any children by his first wife, Amenia, who died before Horemheb assumed power.

Disputed reign length

Scholars have long disputed whether Horemheb reigned for 14–15 years or 27 years. Manetho's Epitome assigns a reign length of 4 years and 1 month to a king called Harmais. Scholars previously assigned this reign-length to Ay; however, evidence from excavations in Horemheb's tomb (KV57) indicates that this figure should be raised by a decade to 4 years and 1 month and attributed to Horemheb. These excavations, conducted under G.T. Martin and Jacobus Van Dijk in 2006 and 2007, uncovered a large hoard of 168 inscribed wine sherds and dockets, below densely compacted debris in a great shaft (called Well Room E) in KV 57. Of the 46 wine sherds with year dates, 14 have nothing but the year date formula, 5 dockets have year 10+X, 3 dockets have year 11+X, 2 dockets preserve year 12+X and 1 docket has a year 13+X inscription. 22 dockets "mention year 13 and 8 have year 14 [of Horemheb]" but none mention a higher date for Horemheb.

The full texts of the docket readings are identical and read as: The lack of dated inscriptions for Horemheb after his year 14 also explains the unfinished state of Horemheb's royal KV 57 tomb – "a fact not taken into account by any of those [scholars] defending a long reign [of 26 or 27 years]. The tomb is comparable to that of Seti I in size and decoration technique, and Seti I's tomb is far more extensively decorated than that of Horemheb, and yet Seti managed to virtually complete his tomb within a decade, whereas Horemheb did not even succeed in fully decorating the three rooms he planned to have done, leaving even the burial hall unfinished. Even if we assume that Horemheb did not begin the work on his royal tomb until his year 7 or 8... it remains a mystery how the work could not have been completed had he lived on for another 20 or more years."

Colossal Quartzite statue usurped to represent Horemheb excavated from the ruins of the Ay and Horemheb temple in the 1930s, now on display in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Traces of previous cartouches on the statue confirm that the statue originally represented Tutankhamun, which the later pharaohs are thought to have repurposed for the temple. The argument for a 27-year reign derived from two texts. The first is an anonymous hieratic graffito written on the shoulder of a now fragmented statue from his mortuary temple in Karnak which mentions the appearance of the king himself, or a royal cult statue representing the king, for a religious feast. The ink graffito reads Year 27, first Month of Shemu day 9, the day on which Horemheb, who loves Amun and hates his enemies, entered [the temple for the event]. It was disputed whether this was a contemporary text or a reference to a festival commemorating Horemheb's accession written in the reign of a later king. The second text is the Inscription of Mes, from the reign of Ramesses II, which records that a court case decision was rendered in favour of a rival branch of Mes' family in year 59 of Horemheb. It was argued that the year 59 Horemheb date included the reigns of all the rulers between Amenhotep III and Horemheb. Subtracting the nearly 17-year reign of Akhenaten, the 2-year reign of Neferneferuaten, the 9-year reign of Tutankhamun and the reign of Ay suggested a reign of 26–27 years for Horemheb. However, the length of Ay's reign is not actually known and Wolfgang Helck argues that there was no standard Egyptian practice of including the years of all the rulers between Amenhotep III and Horemheb.

Year 16 date of Horemheb attested Unfortunately, however, Van Dijk's arguments that Horemheb either died in his Regnal Year 14 or that he started a Regnal Year 15 but died before the wine harvesest of his final 15th year is now known to be incorrect. Egyptologists have discovered a secure Year 16 date of Horemheb. Peter J. Brand, in his 2023 book, titled "Ramesses II: Egypt's Ultimate Pharaoh" by Lockwood Press notes that: Recently fragments of another battle scene, from a temple Horemheb built at Thebes, have come to light. They depict him assaulting a Syria citadel. This time, a part of the hieroglyphic caption text identifies the enemy fortress as “the town His Person captured in the land of Ked—.” The end of the name is missing, but it is likely Kadesh, indicating that Horemheb reconquered the city. Another text dated to Horemheb’s sixteenth regnal year reports that his armies penetrated deep into Hittite-controlled territory as far north as Carchemish.

Horemheb's success, however, was shortlived since Kadesh soon after reverted back to Hittite rule. The Hittitologist Jared L. Miller established that Horemheb--called 'Arma'a in Hittite royal records--had actively campaigned against the Hittities in Year 7 and 9 of Mursilis II possibly even before Horemheb's own coronation as Egypt's king "in his role as viceroy and commander of Egypt's Asian territories, that is to say, before his reign as pharaoh." Horemheb may likely have continued these activities as king to conquer Kadesh and Carchemish in North Syria as pharaoh himself to regain lands lost under Akhenaten.

Peter Brand specifically notes in footnote 39 of his 2023 book that: "A granite bowl records Horemheb’s "first campaign of victory” against Carchemish in northern Syria in his sixteenth regnal year. Redford first described the piece in the early 1970s, but it soon vanished and most scholars long rejected it as a forgery. But [Nicholas] Grimal [a French Egyptologist] has now located and published the bowl, proving beyond all doubt that it is genuine: Redford 1973; Grimal 2018."

This conclusive evidence proves that Horemheb lived into his Year 16 and more likely for a few more years later...since he was still actively campaigning against the Hittites around this date. The fact that the authenticated granite bowl mentions only Horemheb's "first campaign of victory" inevitably suggests there was a second or third "victorious" campaign conducted against the Hittites by Horemheb--after his Year 16 for which no historical records have yet survived.

Cartouches and symbols Horemheb turned to several gods because of his various names: his throne name, Djeserkheperure, means 'Sacred are the manifestations of Ra' and his name birth name is accompanied by the epithet Meryamun, which means 'beloved of Amun'.

Eugen Strouhal studied a skull and other bones and concluded that they belonged to the queen. According to Strouhal's analysis of her remains, the queen lost her teeth at an early age. She died at around age thirty-five to forty-five, possibly in childbirth, as the remains of a fetus were found with her body. thumb The sarcophagus of Horemheb and wall reliefs in his KV57 tomb. Since Horemheb had no surviving son, he appointed his Vizier, Paramessu, to succeed him upon his death, both to reward Paramessu's loyalty and because the latter had both a son and grandson to secure Egypt's royal succession. Paramessu employed the name Ramesses I upon assuming power and founded the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Horemheb's second successor, Seti I, was married to a possible daughter of Horemheb's, Tanodjmy. While the decoration of Horemheb's KV 57 tomb was still unfinished upon his death, this situation is not unprecedented: Amenhotep II's tomb was also not fully completed when he was buried, even though this ruler enjoyed a reign of 26 years.

Although many of his monuments were later usurped by Seti I, Seti left the name of Horemheb on the veil of the Amun bark on a pedestal in Luxor temple untouched, likely out of respect. This is similar to how Horemheb left the name of Tutankhamun on the veil of Amun bark at Karnak temple untouched.

Tomb and excavation Because of his unexpected rise to the throne, Horemheb had two tombs constructed for himself: the first – when he was a mere nobleman – at Saqqara near Memphis, and the other in the Valley of the Kings, in Thebes, in tomb KV 57 as king. The tomb KV57 was discovered 22 February 1908 by Edward R. Ayrton working for the American, Theodore Davis. The corridors are long, maintaining the trend of enlargement in their height and width and descend. The first pillared hall is much more square than before and the burial chamber is notable for a two pairs of pillars and the steps to the crypt with pink granite sarcophagus, which containing a skull and several bones, but in Davies's publication of the tomb no description is given of them, and no other mention than the brief note in the preface.

Gallery

Footnotes

Cultural depictions Film Horemheb was portrayed by Victor Mature in The Egyptian (1954), the film adaptation of Mika Waltari's bestselling novel. Horemheb was portrayed by Salah Zulfikar in Nefertiti and Akhenaton (1973), Mexican short film of Raúl Araiza. Television Horemheb was portrayed by British actor Nonso Anozie in the 2015 three-part TV miniseries Tut, which aired on Spike in the US, and on Channel 5 in the UK. Music Horemheb is a character in the opera Akhnaten by Philip Glass; he is sung by a baritone. Literature Horemheb is a major character in Nick Drake's trilogy of mystery novels, The Book of the Dead, Tutankhamun and The Book of Chaos. Horemheb is a major character in P. C. Doherty's trilogy of historical novels, An Evil Spirit Out of the West, The Season of the Hyaena and The Year of the Cobra. Horemheb is a major character in Pauline Gedge's historical novel The Twelfth Transforming. Horemheb is a major character in Katie Hamstead's trilogy, Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh, Kiya: Mother of the King and Kiya: Rise of a New Dynasty. Horemheb is a key character in Kyah Merritt's historical trilogy A Legacy of Light (trilogy). Horemheb is a minor character in the novels Nefertiti and The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran. Horemheb appears as a major character in Lynda Suzanne Robinson's Lord Meren series of Egyptian mysteries. Horemheb is a minor character in Chie Shinohara's Japanese graphic novel, Red River, centered around ancient Anatolia and ancient Egypt. Horemheb is a major character in Mika Waltari's 1945 historical fiction international bestseller The Egyptian Horemheb is a major character, originally named Kaires, in two novels by Allen Drury. This version is the illegitimate son of Ay, and has an affair with Sitamun for many years until he drops the relationship in favor of his kingly ambitions. Initially presented as an easygoing and good-natured courtier, Horemheb becomes increasingly hardened, ambitious, and cynical after being forced to carry out morally questionable tasks, such as killing Anen and raiding the Theban temple of Amun, both on behalf of Akhenaten. He also plays a major role in the deaths of both Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. While Ay outmaneuvers him for the throne after Tut's death (Horemheb had planned to force Ankhesenamun to marry him, but she announced a marriage to Ay instead), Horemheb easily forces his ailing father to accept him as heir a few years later. Horemheb is a key character in Judith Tarr's historical novel Pillar of Fire. Horemheb is a key character in Lucille Morrison's biographical novel of the life of Tutankhamun's wife Ankhesenamun, The Lost Queen of Egypt.