We know a great deal about Mahu from his unoccupied tomb at El-Amarna (the City of the Aten), dug deep into the ground against potential tomb-robbers. The paintings in his tomb are hastily executed but do show Mahu’s great achievement, the frustration of a very serious plot against Akhenaten (N. de G. Davies
The Rock Tombs of El-Amarna: Tombs of Pentju, Mahu and Others
, Egypt Exploration Society, London, 1906). Archaeologists have also found both his house and police station in what is now known as El-Amarna, even the fact that he kept an armoury close at hand (see Davies above). The character, opulence and decadence of Amenhotep III, as well as his great love for Queen Tiye, are well documented and accurately described by the historian Joanne Fletcher in her excellent book
Egypt’s Sun King: Amenhotep III
, Duncan Baird, London, 2000. The rise of the Akhmin gang is graphically analysed by a number of historians including Bob Briers and Nicholas Reeves, as well as myself in my book
Tutankhamun
, Constable and Robinson, London, 2002. Queen Tiye’s control of Egypt, particularly of foreign affairs, is apparent in what is now known as the ‘Amarna Letters’.
The suicide of (Amun) Hotep, Pharaoh’s Great Friend, the abrupt disappearance of Prince Tuthmosis (Mahu claims it was due to poison not some sudden sickness) and the equally abrupt rise of his younger brother Akhenaten are a matter of historical fact. Akhenaten’s decrees founding his new city, rejecting Thebes and hinting that something hideous happened are still extant and can be found in all the standard textbooks on his reign. The same sources accurately describe the founding of the Great Heretic’s new city as well as what happened there: the constant emphasis on Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the worship of the Aten. Evelyn Wells’
Nefertiti
, Robert Hale, London, 1965, refers to darker deeds, including the discovery of human remains buried in the walls of a house in the same city!
The collapse of Akhenaten’s reign, apart from the outbreak of a virulent plague, is, however, clouded in mystery. The Museum of Berlin holds the famous statue of Nefertiti which reflects her haunting beauty but it also holds a statue of her when she was much older, and when that beauty had begun to fade. Most historians argue that a serious breach occurred between Akhenaten and Nefertiti and the cause, as Mahu says, was possibly the birth of Tutankhaten, Akhenaten’s only son by the Mitanni Princess Khiya. Nicholas Reeves in
Egypt’s False Prophet: Akenhaten,
Thames and Hudson, London, 2001, cites other sources, and has developed the theory that Nefertiti regained power, acted as her husband’s Co-regent and even ‘re-invented’ herself as the mysterious Smenkhkare, only to fall abruptly and inexplicably from power.
This fall did not drag down Ay, Huy, Maya, Horemheb and Mahu: their tombs brilliantly illustrate successful careers which continued long after Nefertiti’s disappearance. Mahu may well be right: he survived, and the rest survived, because they were the cause of her fall. These key players in the great game of Empire remained, as Mahu’s later confession proves, to play and play again in the vicious, murderous swirl of politics which characterised the end of the glorious Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.
Paul Doherty
