Pharaoh power-sharing unearthed in Egypt

A handout picture provided by the Egyptian Ministry of state for Antiquities on February 6, 2014 shows inscriptions discovered in a tomb in the ancient city of Luxor (Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities/AFP)

AFP –  Egypt’s antiquities ministry on Thursday revealed what it called conclusive evidence that revolutionary pharaoh Akhenaten shared power with his father.

Scholars had long debated whether Akhenaten, who tried to revolutionise ancient Egyptian religion, had shared power with his ailing father Amenhotep III.

The evidence came from the tomb of a pharaonic minister in the southern city of Luxor, inscribed with the cartouches of both pharaohs.

It was traditional for a minister’s tomb to be adorned with the cartouche of the ruler.

The inscriptions found in the minister’s tomb by an Egyptian-Spanish team dated back to a religious celebration marking Amenhotep III’s 30th year in power, roughly eight years before his death and Akhenaten’s ascension around 1,300 BC.

It is “definitive evidence of the co-regency between Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV,” said antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim in a statement, referring to Akhenaten by his early title.

Akhenaten, who tried to impose monotheism with the worship of Aten, the sun disc, later fathered the famed boy king Tutankhamun.

Elsewhere, Egyptian archeologists discovered the mummified body of a woman buried with 180 funerary statues in Daqahleya province, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Cairo, the antiquities ministry said on Wednesday.

The number of statues indicates the high social rank of the woman when she died. Her mummy was well preserved.

Related posts:

1. Large group of statues discovered in Luxor
2. Chief of brewers’ tomb discovered in Luxor
3. US dig unearths tomb of previously unknown pharaoh