Egyptian Dreams

Ayrton · Scribe Joined: 06 Jan 2017 Posts: 166

The enigmatic Kiya! Be nice to nail her down in history. Who was she? What I would like to do is isolate and re-examine the records for her. I confess from the beginning that I suspect she is Nefertiti. But I am not bound to this idea. It just hovers ad an idea I entertain. My favourite guess guess among others, but clearly favourites are not necessarily facts.

But to begin with, I should like to clear up something, if anyone here can help me. The issue of cartouches in regards to Royal Wives and Princesses, especially around the Amarna Period. Who got to be in them? For instance, did ‘Tiye’ get into cartouche? Or Sitamun? I probably should already know this, but type as I think, and just off hand can’t recall. Call it a conversation starter!

Ikon · Scribe Joined: 09 Jul 2012 Posts: 416

I'll just briefly deal with one issue, and that is the wig found in KV35 chamber Jc. It has been suggested that as Kiya was depicted with a Nubian style wig, then KV35YL could be Kiya. But there's a problem in trying to do this. Mummies don't wear wigs, and neither do their coffins, that is real wigs and not part of the coffin decoration. If there had been a wig laying about in the original burial of KV35YL, it's difficult to imagine it being taken to KV35, why. It's one thing to have picked up a spare arm when dealing with mummies that had been unwrapped and damaged by robbers, quite another to pick up wigs, or anything else other than the mummy. Jc would have been a storeroom when KV35 was first used, and I think it more likely that it was left over when all the valuables were removed.

Ayrton · Scribe Joined: 06 Jan 2017 Posts: 166

Ayrton · Scribe Joined: 06 Jan 2017 Posts: 166

[Another if-thread kind of comment - though, who knows, it might pertain if this Kiya thread persists for any length of time.

Poking around just now looking for Tiye and cartouches I stumbled on Tiye, the conspirator wife of Ramesses III. Could not help noting the ‘Tiye’, which I thought an name from Akhmin (like maybe Yuya and Thuja and Ay). But I see also that the wife and mother of Ramesse III’s Heir, was Tyti... This I had only seen before in Nefer-Tyti...

Seems very much an Egyptian Name, then, if I am reading this right.

Would this suggest Nefer-Tyti was just Tyti to begin with, the ‘nefer’ being added, perhaps at the time of the adoption of Neferneferuaten? Did Tyti become Neferneferuaten Nefertiti in one gulp?

Anyway, just a thought, that might become relevant later on this thread. Who knows?]