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| Since this "Neferneferuaten" seems to appear later than "Smenkhkare Djoserkheperu", and as James P. Allen, a noted Amarna expert, has convinced me that the two were not the same person, despite the fact that they shared the prenomen of "Ankhkheperure" [23], I have concluded that "Neferneferuaten" was, indeed, a female. But not Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu. Of course, there are those who take the opposite view, steadfastly maintaining that there was only one "Ankhkheperure", the young man otherwise known as "Smenkhkare". Aidan Dodson, for example, has attempted to demonstrate a progression of this male co-regent's loyalty to the senior king by the changes in the inscriptions of a set of canopic coffinettes, which were ultimately used by Tutankhamun. [24] I find Dodson's theories about the coffinettes unpersuasive, even though I am not able to dispute his epigraphic conclusions. I would tend to think that if Smenkhkare were a co-regent of Akhenaten and he wanted to mollify or please the heretic, he would probably have gotten some new coffinettes for his viscera that didn't display any of the traditional and taboo gods of Egypt or feature an emblem of Nekhbet, that great vulture goddess, smack in the center of his forehead. Are we to believe the co-regent sat in state with double emblems on his brow while Akhenaten contented himself merely with one--the cobra? It appears to me that if young Smenkhkare wanted to show the "progress" he was making in currying favor with Akhenaten, he could have "re-worked" a lot more on these coffinettes than a few cartouches! So, somehow, it seems more logical to me to believe that those canopic coffinettes were never fashioned or modified during the sway of Akhenaten for anyone in a subordinate position to him and whom he ostensibly trusted to help him carry out his policies-- but by someone who came to the throne after Akhenaten was already dead or deposed. Regardless, the reign of Smenkhkare must have been quite brief. In fact, it is more likely these containers belonged to "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", one beloved of Akhenaten--the latter's own daughter. If Smenkhkare were not a person who was felt to be in disgrace and who had been made king illegally, his funerary goods would have been left untouched except possibly by thieves in the Valley of the Kings. Then who is the "Akencheres" to whom Manetho ascribes twelve years of rule before her brother, "Rathotis"? It can only be one of two persons, in my view, and these are Meritaten or Ankhesenpaaten as "Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", the same one who is attested as having a regnal year of 3, and who adopted the same prenomen her mother once had as co-regent. If this "woman-king" had been the eldest royal daughter, Meritaten, the widow of Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu, I don't think she would have taken the visceral containers away from her own dead husband? [27] CONTINUE |