Amenhotep, son of Hapu (transcribed ''jmn-ḥtp zꜣ ḥꜣp.w''; early-mid 14th century BC) was an
ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
ian
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
, a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
, a
herald
A herald, or a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is commonly applied more broadly to all officers of arms.
Heralds were originally messengers sent by monarchs or noblemen ...
, a
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing.
The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
, and a
public official
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of the ...
, who held a number of offices under
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...
of the
18th Dynasty
The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII, alternatively 18th Dynasty or Dynasty 18) is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. The Eighteenth Dynasty ...
.
He was posthumously deified as a god of healing.
Life
He is said to have been born at the end of
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and milita ...
's reign, in the town of
Athribis
Athribis (; Greek: , from the original , ) was an ancient city in Lower Egypt. It is located in present-day Tell Atrib, just northeast of Benha on the hill of Kom Sidi Yusuf. The town lies around 40 km north of Cairo, on the eastern bank o ...
(modern
Banha
Banha ( ) is the capital of the Qalyubiyya Governorate in north-eastern Egypt. Between the capital of Cairo and the city of Tanta, Banha is an important transport hub, as rail lines from Cairo to various cities in the Nile Delta pass through it ...
in the north of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
). His father was Hapu, and his mother Itu. Though little about Amenhotep's early life is known prior to his entering civil service, it is believed that he learned to read and write at the local library and scriptorium. He was a priest and a Scribe of Recruits (organizing the labour and supplying the manpower for the Pharaoh's projects, both civilian and military). He was also an architect and supervised several building projects, among them
Amenhotep III's mortuary temple at western
Thebes, of which only two statues remain nowadays, known as the
Colossi of Memnon
The Colossi of Memnon ( or ''es-Salamat'') are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which stand at the front of the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, the largest temple in the Theban Necropolis. They have stood since 1 ...
, and the creation of the quarry of
El-Gabal el-Ahmar, nearby
Heliopolis, from which the blocks used to create the Colossi were probably taken. Other plans, such as the portico of the
Temple of Karnak, completed under
Ramesses II
Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...
, and those for the
Luxor Temple
The Luxor Temple () is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile River in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes (Egypt), Thebes) and was constructed approximately 1400 BCE. In the Egyptian language it was ...
are also attributed to Amenhotep. He may also have been the architect of the Temple of
Soleb in
Nubia
Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract ...
.
Amenhotep is noted to have participated in Amenhotep III's first
Sed festival
The Sed festival (''ḥb-sd'', Egyptian language#Egyptological pronunciation, conventional pronunciation ; also known as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail) was an ancient Egyptian ceremony that celebrated the continued rule of a pharaoh. The name is ...
, in the 30th year of the king's rule. After this, he is believed to have retired from civil service and become the steward of Princess
Sitamun's properties (similar to an asset manager today), and received honours such as the designation of
Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King, among other things. According to some reliefs in the tomb of
Ramose, he may have died in the 31st year of Amenhotep III, which would correspond to either 1360 BC or 1357 BC, depending on the
chronology
Chronology (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , , ; and , ''wikt:-logia, -logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the deter ...
used. His death has also been dated to the 35th year of the king.
Legacy
After his death, his reputation grew and he was revered for his teachings and as a philosopher. He was also revered as a healer and eventually worshipped as a god of healing, like his predecessor
Imhotep
Imhotep (; "(the one who) comes in peace"; ) was an Egyptian chancellor to the King Djoser, possible architect of Djoser's step pyramid, and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. Very little is known of Imhotep as a historical figur ...
(Amenhotep and Imhotep are among the few non-royal Egyptians who were
deified after their death, and until the 21st century, they were thought to be only two commoners to achieve this status). There are several surviving statues of him as a scribe, portraying him as a young man and as an older man. He was a deified human and thus was depicted only in human form. His cult was initially limited to the Thebes area, with a funerary temple constructed to him during his lifetime next to that of Amenhotep III. This was clearly an exceptional privilege, as it was the only private cult temple to be built among the royal monuments in the area. He continued to be worshipped for at least three centuries after his death, and evidence of this worship persists in a
26th Dynasty votary inscription on a statue dedicated to Amenhotep by a daughter of the pharaoh. During the period of the
Ptolemaic Kingdom
The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, ...
, his worship saw a resurgence which led to chapels being dedicated to him in the Temple of
Hathor
Hathor (, , , Meroitic language, Meroitic: ') was a major ancient Egyptian deities, goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god R ...
at
Deir el-Medina
Deir el-Medina (), or Dayr al-Madīnah, is an ancient Egyptian workmen's village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th Dynasties of the New Kingdom of Egypt (ca. 1550–1080 BC). ...
and the
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at
Deir el-Bahari
Deir el-Bahari or Dayr al-Bahri (, , ) is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt. This is a part of the Theban Necropolis.
History
Deir el-Bahari, located on the west ...
. Statues were erected to him in the
Temple of Amun at
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (), comprises a vast mix of temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I (reigned 1971–1926 BC) in the ...
and he was treated as an intermediary with the god
Amun
Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, r ...
.
Amenhotep also utilised his influence with the king to secure royal patronage for the town of
Athribis
Athribis (; Greek: , from the original , ) was an ancient city in Lower Egypt. It is located in present-day Tell Atrib, just northeast of Benha on the hill of Kom Sidi Yusuf. The town lies around 40 km north of Cairo, on the eastern bank o ...
, for the local god, and the temple dedicated to that god.
Manetho
Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...
gives a legendary account of how Amenhotep advised a king named
Amenophis, who was "desirous to become a spectator of the gods, as had Orus, one of his predecessors in that kingdom, desired the same before him". Manetho states that Amenophis was the son of a "Ramses" and the father of a "Sethos" (Seti) and was later named "Ramses" after the father of Amenophis. Amenophis is commonly identified with
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton ( ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning 'Effective for the Aten'), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eig ...
also known as Amenhotep IV, while "Orus" fits with the latter's father,
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...
. Manetho relates that the wise man counseled that the king should "clear the whole country of the lepers and of the other impure people" and that the King then sent 80,000 lepers to the quarries. After this the wise man foresaw that the lepers would ally themselves with people coming to their help and subdue Egypt. He put the prophecy into letter to the King and then killed himself. Manetho associates this event with the
Exodus of the
Israelites
Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age.
Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...
from Egypt, but Josephus strongly rejects this interpretation.
[Assmann J. (1997). ''Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism''. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. p. 30ff. ]
Mortuary temple
Amenhotep was allowed to build his mortuary temple adjacent to that of the pharaoh. This honour is quite rare and indicates that Amenhotep was highly respected by the time of his death, despite the fact that he was a commoner and had only entered civil service at an advanced age, in his late forties. Excavated in 1934 or 1935, it measures metres and is surrounded by three shrines. His first courtyard contained a water basin of considerable depth, fed by groundwater from the
Nile
The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...
. Twenty trees were planted in pits around the basin. The temple at the end of the courtyard was adorned with a pillared
portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...
, and the temple was slightly elevated on a terrace.
See also
*
List of Egyptian architects
*
List of ancient Egyptian scribes
This is a list of Egyptian scribes, almost exclusively from the ancient Egyptian periods.
The hieroglyph used to scribe equipment (hieroglyph), signify the scribe, ''to write'', and ''"writings"'', etc., is Gardiner's sign list, Gardiner sign Y3 ...
References
Further reading
*J. H. Breasted, ''Ancient Records of Egypt'', Part Two, 1906
*Warren R. Dawson, ''Bridle of Pegasus'', 1930, pp. 55ff.
*
Miriam Lichtheim
Miriam Lichtheim (; 3 May 1914, Istanbul – 27 March 2004, Jerusalem) was a Turkish-born American-Israeli egyptologist, known for her translations of ancient Egyptian texts.
Biography
Miriam was born in Istanbul on May 3, 1914, to Richard Licht ...
, ''Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings: The Late Period'', 1980, University of California Press, Page 104
*Siegfried Morenz, ''Egyptian Religion'', 1992 Cornell University Press
*
Margaret Alice Murray, 1931, ''Egyptian Temples'', 2002 Courier Dover Publications
*Boyo Ockinga, ''Amenophis, Son of Hapu: A Biographical Sketch'', The Rundle Foundation for Egyptian Archaeology Newsletter No. 18, February 1986
External links
Encyclopædia Britannica: Information on Amenhotep son of Hapu Egyptian Museum of Cairo: Statue of Amenhotep son of Hapu
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amenhotep, Son Of Hapu
Officials of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
Ancient Egyptian architects
Ancient Egyptian priests
Ancient Egyptian scribes
Year of birth unknown
14th-century BC deaths
14th-century BC clergy
Deified ancient Egyptian people
Deified men
14th-century BC Egyptian people
Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King
Ancient Egyptian reporters