Was Amenmesse the Viceroy of Kush, Messuwy?

Abstract

During the mid-1970s, Rolf Krauss developed the controversial thesis that the usurper pharaoh, verily was the former Viceroy of Messuwy, who had held office during the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah (1212-1202 B.C.). In addition he argued that Messuwy usurped the throne after Sety-Merenptah, son and chosen successor of Merenptah, had succeeded to the throne and had ruled for a short time, and that the usurpation took place in the far south of Egypt and Nubia.1 During his tenure as Viceroy of Messuwy, like all other viceroys left relief scenes and inscriptions depicting himself venerating his pharaoh, Merenptah, and also reflecting his own position and prestige in the Nubian administration. Since the creation of the viceroy's office, early in Dynasty 18, or perhaps even in Late Dynasty 17,2 the appointed official who served as Viceroy of Kush was a non-royal person almost consistently.3 Perhaps this was deliberate pharaonic policy since the viceroy held considerable authority within Nubia, and also controlled military forces available in the Battalion of a largely Nubian force recruited mainly from local Nubian and Kushite peoples.4 command structure under the viceroy was modeled after the Egyptian military pattern, and the viceroy also commanded the civil administration of Nubia. Furthermore, Nubia had considerable resources, especially gold and manpower, with Upper Nubia, the former Kushite Kerma area, also possessing a strong agriculturalpastoral base. In the absence of a strong Egyptian state, Kush had already once previously emerged as a powerful state during the Late Middle Kingdom era.5 It was in the light of this experience and the potential power base that Nubia and Kush represented, that the early Dynasty 18 pharaohs devised the office of Viceroy of Kush to administer this region. In Egyptian, this title read, literally, King's Son of Kush, though as stated earlier, this official normally was not a direct physical son of the reigning pharaoh. lengthy reign of Ramesses II (12791212 B.C.) had passed largely uneventfully in Nubia, except for the building of major temples at many locations in Nubia and Kush.6 largest of these were the double temples of Abu Simbel, built early in the reign, as was Beit elWali, also a mostly rock-cut shrine. Later the temples of Derr, Gerf Hussein, Amara, Gebel Barkal, and Wady es-Sebua were added, or rebuilt. This large-scale temple construction was the final phase of the Egyptianization of NubiaKush.7 Ramesses II's final viceroy, Sethau, was a notable character who carved many scenes and inscriptions of himself, and who also oversaw the Wady es-Sebua temple's construction, during regnal year 44. Abu Simbel, the largest temple complex, and its rock environs became covered with inscriptions of the viceroys and their subordinates, carved into the rock surfaces 1 Rolf Krauss, Untersuchungen zu Konig Amenmesse, 1. teil, Studien zur Altdgyptischen Kultur 4 (1976), 161-99; idem, Untersuchungen zu Konig Amenmesse, 2. teil, SAKb (1977), 131-74. 2 Bruce G. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976), 104, and fig. 2, on 107. 6 George A. Reisner, The Viceroys of Ethiopia, JEA 6 (1920), 28-55, especially p. 47, no. 15; also Krauss, SAKb (1977), 131-36. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs, 110-17. 5 David O'Connor, Egypt and Black Africa Early Contacts, Expedition 14 (1971), 2-9; Joyce L. Haynes, Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1992), 20-22. 6 Kenneth Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant (Mississauga: 1982), 177. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs, 114-31.