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Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 3 (1916), p. 101.
9. Lorton,  The Treatment of Prisoners in Ancient Egypt, p. 56.
10. Ibid., pp. 50ff. Only one case of punishment by beating is known earlier, from
the time of Thutmose III (pp. 23f).
11. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib
12. In a text from his Memphite tomb. See above, section:  Haremhab Appointed
to Administer Egypt: By Whom?
Haremhab s Contemporaries
Haremhab and the Crown Prince Sheshonk. According to this reconstruction,
Haremhab began his career under the last kings of the Libyan Dynasty. We get a first
glimpse of him in the tomb of the prince Sheshonk, son of Osorkon II and his wife
Karoma. The prince, named as successor to his father, died young, still during his
father s reign, and never assumed the royal diadem. The king built for him a funerary
chamber in Memphis, where the prince had served in his lifetime as the high priest of
Ptah. The excavations of Samaria, discussed above, revealed that the Libyan king
Osorkon II was not a contemporary of Ahab, as is usually asserted, but reigned after
the time of Jeroboam II i.e., after ca. -744, which marks the death of Jeroboam II,
but before the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians in -722.
The tomb was discovered in 1942, and its clearance and publication were entrusted to
Ahmad Badawi.(1) At the entrance to the tomb, on the lintel of the doorway, Badawi
found an incised relief showing Haremhab kneeling in front of a talbe bedecked with
offerings; behind Harmhab can be seen the deceased prince, also in a kneeling
position. Haremhab s cartouche is somewhat damaged; a deliberate attempt had been
made to erase it. But from what remains Badawi could identify the figure in front of
the crown prince as that of Haremhab.
In the accepted scheme of history Haremhab is supposed to have reigned some six
hundred years before the funeral chamber for Prince Shoshenk, son of Osorkon II,
was built. But what incentive would the builder of the tomb have to decorate the
monument with the figure of Haremhab and his cartouche? This king did not enjoy
such reputation that six centuries after his death a Libyan prince should prominently
show himself and Haremhab in an offering scene. There was nothing in the memory
of Haremhab that an occupant of a tomb of about -725 would consider as bringing
salvation or possessing magic against unclean spirits. Therefore Haremhab s figure
and cartouche in a Libyan tomb made historians wonder and grope for a solution.
One detail needs an explanation: Haremhab is depicted as a king, his name enclosed
inside a cartouche, sign of royal power this at least twenty-five years before his
appointment as king by Sennacherib. One could assume from this that he was a
viceroy of Memphis under the last Libyan kings, continuing in that position under the
Ethiopians, until his defection to the Assyrian side in -702. As such he could well
have enjoyed the privilege of using the insignia of royalty.
Haremhab and Tirhaka. In this reconstruction Haremhab and Tirhaka, the Ethiopian,
are contemporaries; in the conventional version of history they are separated by more
than six centuries, Haremhab being dated to the late fourteenth and Tirhaka to the
early seventh. A certain scene, carved on one of the walls of a small Ethiopian temple
at Karnak, shows them together. The scene proves not only the contemporaneity of
Haremhab and Tirhaka, but also permits to establish a short period in their relations
from which it dates. De Rouge in his 1873 study of the monuments of Tirhaka,
describes the relief:
Tirhaka is standing and takes part in a paneguric. An important
personage, named Hor-em-heb, a priest and hereditary governor,
addresses to the people the following discourse in the name of the two
forms of Amon:  Hear Amon-ra, Lord of the Thrones of the World and
Amon-ra, the husband of his mother, residing in Thebes! This is what
they say to their son, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt
[Neferatmukhure] son of the sun, Tirhaka, given life, forever:  You are
our son whom we love, in whom we repose, to whom we have given
Upper and Lower Egypt; we do not like the kings of Asia _ _ _  (2)
The monument must be dated to the time early in Haremhab s career when he was
acting as priest and governor under his brother Sethos. Egypt was then allied with
Ethiopia, actually under Ethiopian domination, and was bracing itself to meet the
armies of Assyria; for Sennacherib had shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem  like a bird in
a cage and was advancing to the border of Egypt. The Egyptian-Ethiopian army
which had gone to block him had suffered a crushing defeat at Eltekeh in Palestine.
The declaration  We do not like the kings of Asia was appropriate for the moment.
The ways of Tirhaka and Haremhab would soon part: Tirhaka would flee to Ethiopia
and become the bitterest enemy of Haremhab, who would go over to the side of
Sennacherib and campaign against the Ethiopian king and his own brother Sethos.
The Tomb of Petamenophis. Of the hundreds of rock-cut tombs crowding the
Theban necropolis, the Valley of the Kings, one bearing the name of Petamenophis, a
high official of the Ethiopian time, early attracted the attention of Egyptologists by its
large size and ambitious layout. It was first described in detail by Lepsius in his
pioneering work Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien.(3) To have occupied a
spatious tomb in this prestigious location, Petamenophis must have been a person of
distinction. In his inscriptions he describes himself as  Sealbearer and Sole Beloved
Friend, Lector and Scribe of the Records in the Sight of the King, Petamenophis. (4)
The king is not named, but his identity is revealed by an inscription, also reproduced
by Lepsius, on a wall in the northern part of the great outer courtyard. Though much
damaged in the course of time it contains two names, still clearly legible:
Petamenophis, and next to it a cartouche of King Haremhab.(5)
The tomb was later visited and described separately by Wilkinson, by Duemichen,
and others, before Maspero, seeing its deteriorating condition and realizing the
necessity of protecting it from despoliation, had it sealed at the end of the last
century. It remained closed until 1936 when W. F. von Bissing obtained permission
to re-open it with the purpose of performing a definitive survey and publication.
Braving the  billions of bats infesting the place and the thick air (the ventilation
shafts  left much to be desired ) he persevered, and within two years (1938)
published a detailed description of the finds.
Rudolf Anthes and ~. Grapow were entrusted with making a cast of the inscription
with Haremhab s cartouche and found that  the name [Haremhab] stands out quite
clearly  steht der name völlig deutlich da ).
Next arose the question of the tomb s date and the time of Petamenophis career. The
archaeologists were unable to agree, except that on stylistic grounds it could not be
earlier than Ethiopian time.  Unfortunately, von Bissing wrote,  in the entire vast
tomb, not a single indication was found that would directly yield a date. (6) But was
not the cartouche of Haremhab just the sought-for indication? In the context of the
accepted chronology Haremhab s named carved next to that of the tomb s owner was
rejected as an anachronism, and since no other royal name was found, the date of the
tomb was held to be in doubt. Anthes nevertheless arrived at what appears to be the
correct estimate when he placed it in the time of Tirhaka.(7)
Year 59 Under Haremhab. A legal document in hieroglyphics composed under
Ramses II refers to a contract concluded under Haremhab, and gives, without any
further amplification, the  fifty-ninth year. (8) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]