Text/Brother Feng
introduction
Ancient Egypt was a theocratic state, and since the divine right was established to increase the sanctity of royal power, the relationship between the two was usually mutually beneficial.
In order to control the divine power in his own hands, during the New Kingdom, the king balanced the divine power by appointing his wife or mother as the wife of Amun.
At the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, there was an imbalance between royal power and divine power, and divine power began to break away from the control of royal power.
After entering the Third Intermediate Period, with the Temple of Amun in Thebes as the center, the theocracy in southern Egypt established a religious regime independent of the 21st Dynasty, which was then ruled by the city of Tanis in the delta region.
In order to bring the divine power into the hands of the king, the Virgin of Amun came into being.
The so-called Virgin of Amun refers to the Third Intermediate Period, in which the king appointed his daughter or sister as the highest priest of the Temple of Amun in Theban without marriage for the rest of her life, replacing the previous male priest as the first prophet of Amun.
1. The birth of the Virgin of Amun
In ancient Egypt, there were three positions similar to those of the Virgin of Amun: "Wife of God", "Divine Worshipper", and "Hand of God".
Women who hold the position of Wife of God occasionally hold two other titles, but most of the time, these three titles are held by different women.
Before the New Kingdom, the wives of God were not connected to any particular god;
By the time of the New Kingdom, the title began to be associated with the god Amun, as the ruling family of the Eighteenth Dynasty originated in the city of Thebes, and the presiding god of the city of Thebes was Amun.
So, when Ahmos, the first king of this dynasty, drove out the Hyksos and reunited Egypt, he attributed this merit to the god Amun.
While elevating the god Amun from a local god to the main god of the country, he established a close connection with the god Amun and his temple by appointing his wife as the wife of Amun, thus achieving the purpose of enhancing the sanctity of royal power.
Thus, the god Amun became part of the title of the wife of the god, "Wife of the god Amun", and appeared for the first time on a donated stele of Ahmos-Nefertari, the queen of Ahmos.
According to this document, Ahmose appointed Ahmos-Nefertari as Amun's wife, and donated "gold, silver, bronze, wigs, ointments, and clothing" to the temple of Amun, as well as "irrigated land, barley, and servants."
It was also clarified that Amun's wife and his heirs had perpetual ownership of the temple estate, and that the income from the estate was "not under the control of any future king."
Although the stele does not clearly record the real reason for the establishment of this position, Ahmoth's large donation to the temple of Amun and the ownership of the temple property of Amun by the position of wife of Amun reveal that the acquisition of the position of wife of Amun by giving a large amount of property to Amun is a manifestation of the royal power's compromise with the divine power, and the clear ownership of the temple property by the wife of Amun is a reflection of the royal power's control over the divine power.
In this way, a balance between kingship and divine power was reached.
Ahmoth's successors followed suit, and the wife of Amun became a permanent title for royal women during the New Kingdom.
However, the royal women who served as wives of Amun had no real power, and they only participated in seemingly noble but insignificant tasks in the temple, such as participating in ceremonial processions in honor of Amun, preparing lists of tributes for Amun, burning wooden or ceramic statues of enemies, maintaining order in the temple, and shaking fork bells in front of the statue of Amun to appease the gods.
The important rituals in the temple were controlled by male priests, especially the first prophet of the god Amun.
This continued until the end of the New Kingdom.
The annual rewards and donations from the royal family, nobles, and even ordinary people to the temple of Amun led to a sharp increase in the economic power of the temple of Amun in Thebes, and the political status of the priesthood of the temple of Amun was raised to the extent that it could compete with the royal power.
By the time of the 21st Dynasty, the first prophet of the Temple of Amun, Khlehor, became the de facto ruler of Upper Egypt centered on the city of Thebes, and at this time, the position of the first prophet of the Temple of Amun was no longer appointed by the king but became hereditary, as if it had become an independent religious state.
In 945 BC, Shasank I of Libya founded the Libyan regime, the Twenty-Second Dynasty.
In order to solve the situation in which the power of the Temple of Amun in Thebes was alienated from the secular power, Shassank I appointed his son as the first prophet and high priest of the Temple of Amun in Thebes.
2. The sanctity of the Virgin of Amun
In ancient Egypt, the king was the agent of the gods on earth, and the priests represented the king as a medium and bridge between the gods and man.
Thus, the primary function of the Virgin of Amun was religious, and as the wife of Amun, the chief god of the Theban Temple, her religious duty was to serve the god Amun.
A fresco in the Temple of Osiris in Thebes depicts King Osokon III of the Twenty-third Dynasty serving three gods——— Amun, Laharaketti, and Ptah, together with his Shaponwipait I, the Virgin of Amun:
King Osokon III offered food as a sacrifice to the three gods, and the Virgin of Amun, Shapunwipaat I, who held a fork bell in her hand and appeased the gods with music, both of which were intended to please the three gods.
It is worth noting that, according to the two-dimensional artistic representation of the ancient Egyptians, a woman usually stood next to or behind her father or husband, or even her son, in order to reveal the subordinate position of women vis-à-vis their male relatives around them.
But in this scene, Sheponwitat I stands in front of Osorkhon III, a position closer to the three gods, indicating that the position of the Virgin of Amun in the temple of Thebes seems to be more important than that of the king.
However, it may also be a deliberate gesture by Osorkhon III to show his support and approval of his daughter's role as the Virgin of Amun in the temple.
And on the frescoes of the Temple of Osiris, Sunpon Willpat I appears more often than her father and brothers.
The religious status of the Virgin of Amun in the Temple of Thebes is self-evident.
Another fresco in the Temple of Osiris depicts Amenildis I, the Virgin of Amun of the 25th Dynasty, receiving the Saidan charm from the hands of the goddess Muth, and although the acceptance of the Said's charm does not conclude that she had celebrated the Sayd's feast, the act of receiving the Said's charm itself is deeply symbolic, as in ancient Egypt before that, only kings were qualified to celebrate the festival.
In order to secure their position in the temple, the Virgins of Amun took a series of measures to highlight their sacredness.
With the help of the prestige and glory of the spouses of the god Amun, they established the connection between the god Amun and themselves, so as to prove the legitimacy of their lineage and the legitimacy of their rule, and to show that it was God's will for them to assume this position, so that they were protected by God, and thus gave legitimacy and sanctity to the royal power they represented.
Secondly, he demonstrated his sacredness by receiving the Goddess's breastfeeding and the sacred coronation ceremony.
The doorpost of the temple of Carnak Osiris depicts the scene of Sunny Whitpet I sucking the milk of the goddess Hatoor.
In ancient Egyptian religious mythology, sucking the milk of the goddess means obtaining divine power, which is a very sacred ritual, implying the recognition and blessing of the goddess Hator to the goddess of Shaponwipaat I, and the other mural shows the scene of the god Amun awarding the crown to the god of Shapunwipaet I, which shows the supreme god Amun wearing a double feather crown and personally crowning the goddess of Amun as the virgin of Amun, once again demonstrating the sanctity of the virgin of Amun.
In addition, Amenildis I, the virgin of Amun in the 25th Dynasty, strengthened her divinity by deifying her birth, that is, declaring herself the daughter of Osiris.
At the bottom of the door frame on the east side of the temple of Osiris is inscribed this inscription: "This is the gate of the wife of the gods, the holy worshipper, Amenildis." Loved by her father, Osiris, the eternal ruler. ”
According to the relief on the north wall of the temple, Amenildis I performed the ritual of "pulling the rope" in order to fulfill his obligation as the "daughter" of Osiris.
The ceremony was held to celebrate the laying of the foundation stone of the new temple, and because of the solemnity and sacredness of the ceremony, she had never seen a woman participate before.
III. The Political Status of the Virgin of Amun
In the Third Intermediate Period, the women who held the position of the Virgin of Amun were Egyptians, Libyans, and Nubians, and although they were of different ethnicities, they all played an important role in the control of the divine power by the royal power and the political stability of the country during this period of political chaos.
In order to ensure that the Nubians would be able to rule Egypt effectively in the future, the then Nubian king Kashtar appointed his sister Amenildis I as the Amun Virgin of the Temple of Amun in Thebes, laying the foundation for further Nubian rule in Egypt.
Although Amenildis I from Nubia was of a different ethnicity from his Libyan predecessor, Shaponwipaet I, they were able to live in peace: Amenildis I showed full respect for his predecessor, the Virgin of Amun, Shaponwipaet I, and in the frescoes of the Temple of Osiris, not only did not erase the name of Shamphonwipaet I after the former succeeded to the throne, but her image was still depicted in the frescoes, but who was in power between the two is also reflected in the frescoes.
The east door frame of the temple hall of Osiris depicts Amenildis I entering the chapel hall, in which she stands facing to the right, and the west door frame depicts Shampy Wetpaet I standing to the left.
In ancient Egypt, the "right-facing direction" was a more noble position, and through this portrayal, the ancient Egyptians highlighted Amenildis I as the more important of the two Amun virgins.
Through such portrayals, Amenildis both demonstrates her harmonious relationship with her predecessor and highlights her dominance.
For this reason, Ayad had come to the conclusion that "the position of the Virgin of Amun is a reflection of the fact that the holders of this position, whether Libyans or Nubians, are 'in the service of the gods.'"
It was the joint rule and harmony of these two women that completed the smooth transition of political power in the Thebes region. As the supreme religious authority in the Thebes region, the transition from Libyan dynasty to Nubian rule was achieved through the harmony between them.
IV. The Economic Status of the Virgin of Amun
The Virgins of Amun had two sources of income, one was the royal gift, through which the king strengthened his voice in the religious field, and on the other hand, the Virgins of Amun also played a role as a link for the temple to obtain royal wealth;
The other is to inherit the property of the previous Virgin Amun, but this method is not a unilateral acceptance like accepting a gift from the royal family, and it requires the successor Virgin Amun to fulfill the obligation of support for her predecessor, that is, the adoptive mother.
conclusion
The position of the Virgins of Amun emerged during the turbulent Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt, and they were the product of a compromise between royal and divine power.
The harmonious coexistence of the Libyan Virgin Amonon Shepunwitpait I and the Nubian Lady Amonon Amenirdis I facilitated the peaceful transition of the Libyans' 23rd Dynasty rule to the Nubian 25th Dynasty in the Thebes region, and the Nubian Virgin Amonite Shapunwitpaet II played an important role in bringing the Amonite Virgin's power to its peak.
During the reign of Nitocles, the Virgin of Amun in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the wealth of the Virgin of Amun grew and her political influence continued to grow. By the time Ankhnaifir Ibra served as the Virgin of Amun, she received the title of High Priest of Amun, and the religious and political power of the Virgin of Amun was at its peak.
At the expense of her own married life, the Virgin of Amun played a role as a counterweight to the divine power in Thebes as a representative of the royal power.
In short, the position of the Virgin of Amun, which arose in the Third Intermediate Period, played a special role in the smooth replacement of the Libyan dynasty by the Nubian dynasty and the 26th dynasty by Egypt itself.
The smooth transition of these three regimes contained further upheaval in Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period and provided the prerequisites for the reign of ———the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the last prosperous and stable native power in Egyptian history.
After the fall of the 26th Dynasty to the Persian Empire, the position of the Virgin of Amun, as the supreme religious leader of Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period, disappeared because the Persian Empire, unlike the highly Egyptianized Libyan and Nubian dynasties, had their own religious beliefs and rejected the native religions of Egypt.
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