Art and Identity in the Age of Akhenaten A thesis presented to The School of Historical and Philosophical Sciences At the University of Melbourne In partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Arts) by Rebecca Clifton February 2019 Supervised by Professor Louise Hitchcock Associate Professor Andrew Jamieson Words: 99,676 Abstract In this thesis, I investigate expressions of identity in the art of the Amarna Period, focusing on two main areas: firstly, artistic representations of the royal family and the Aten and, secondly, artistic representations of Amarna’s elite within their tombs. I argue that rapid social and theological change under Akhenaten had significant implications for not only conceptions of deity and kingship but also for artistic self-expression amongst Akhenaten’s officials. I illustrate this by comparison with earlier Eighteenth Dynasty tomb decoration. 2 Acknowledgments For the opportunity to write this thesis and for support in doing so, I am indebted to many dear and respected friends, family, mentors, and colleagues. Above all: To my supervisors, Louise Hitchcock and Andrew Jamieson, who graciously read tens of thousands of words at a time, soothed my academic anxieties, and always encouraged me to do things my own way. To my beloved partner, Holly; my dearest friends, Emily and Gabbi; and my whole family. Your love and support is everything. You are everything. I am so humbled by what we have all achieved the past three years. 3 Contents Introduction Part A: The Researcher 6 Part B: The Research 9 Chapter 1—Literature Review 1.1 Identity: The Self-Conception in Art and Society 12 1.2 The Nature of Egyptian ‘Portraiture’ and Its Implications for the Study of Individuals and Identity 21 1.3 Theorising ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ in the Modern World and the Ancient Past 42 1.4 Unpacking the Academic Canon Surrounding Sex, Gender, and the Family in Ancient Egypt 61 1.5 The Spotlight on Amarna 76 1.5.1 Geographical Location and Layout 79 1.5.2 The Benefits of Studying Amarna 89 1.5.3 Amarna as an Ideal Site for Research into Identity, Gender, and Family 92 1.6 Critical Issues: Intention, Interpretation, and Self-Reflexivity 95 Chapter 2—Royal and Divine Identities in Flux: Amarna’s Changing Conceptions of Deity and Kingship, Gender and Family 2.1 An Introduction to Amarna Art 110 2.2 Mother and Father of All That He Makes 114 4 2.3 Regality, Divinity, and Gender Duality in Akhenaten’s Royal Portrait 123 2.4 Nefertiti: The Smiting Ruler, Sweet of Love 158 2.5 Intelligent Design: Constructed Ideals and Intimacies of the Amarna Royal Family 186 Chapter 3—Constructing an Identity for Eternity: Change and Continuity in Tomb Decoration from Thebes to Amarna 3.1 Introduction 208 3.2 The Setting, Structure, and Decoration of the Tombs at Thebes and Amarna 212 3.3 Offerings for the Dead 217 3.4 Banqueting and the Beautiful Feast of the Valley 238 3.5 Fishing and Fowling 267 3.6 Awards and Promotions 288 3.7 The Reception of Inw 307 3.8 Theological and Social Responses to Death in Ritual and Funeral 324 Art and Identity in the Age of Akhenaten: A Conclusion 345 Figures 348 References 469 5 Introduction: Part A The Researcher I want to wish you a good morning because it is morning as I write this. It may be morning as you read it; it may not be. But here it is a cold, dark, beautiful morning in Sydney, Australia. I’m lying in bed next to my sister—the blanket thief, still sleeping—because I’m visiting my parents, who have more house guests than beds. The dog’s bed is next to ours, on my sister’s side, and I can hear him snuffling in the dark. Otherwise, it’s quiet here. I’ve just woken up but I feel excited—a little nervous—because I’ve just decided that these are going to be the first words of my thesis: the introduction. You are probably neither excited nor nervous, because this is not your thesis, but I will endeavour to imbue in these 100,000 words an enjoyable journey for you too. By their end, you should know me a little, because this is my voice and this is my research and if you did not know me at all it would feel dishonest. I am not an empirical third party to the happenings in ancient Egypt any more than I am an empirical third party to the happenings in my own world. I am a 25-year-old woman from Melbourne, via Sydney. My mother is a feisty, passionate, loving woman from Northern Ireland, who says things like “to be sure, to be sure” and “fil-im” with an epenthesis and who famously pronounced the word “bagel” as “badge-el” around the time she met my father: a devoted Sydney man, who loves to cook and spoils his dog. I’m a feminist and a queer woman. I have a partner, Holly; a brother, Ben; two sisters, Hannah and Kim; a dog, Baku; several tattoos; a septum piercing; and a thesis, which you are reading now, entitled Art and Identity in the Age of Akhenaten. 6 Throughout this thesis, the importance of self-awareness and self-reflexivity in scholarship is a recurring theme. I believe that no research is without bias, because no researcher is without bias, and that self-reflexive scholarship is not only an academic trend but an ethical choice, rooted in a desire to consolidate the integrity of the research itself. I believe that considering the impact of researchers on the direction, production, and applications of their research does not diminish scientific integrity; it increases it. Self-reflexivity opens research up to new questions—not only questions of where to lay ‘blame’ for specific viewpoints, but questions regarding the roles of research in our world and new ways of doing research—by making foundationally significant aspects of the academic process visible, rather than stifling them. The questions we ask of our research have meaning, not only for our subject matter but for ourselves, as humans. Sometimes this is as blatant as seeking the histories of ‘ourselves’ and the familiar qualities with which we align ourselves. At other times, we write the histories of our preoccupations, even our anxieties. There is so much of myself—or perhaps, myselves— in a project that asks: who are we? How do we express ourselves to the world? How are we constrained in this? And how can we ensure that we are correctly understood and not rejected? Each of these are threads that have run through my life: from my youth as a shy, queer girl in a Sydney Anglican school, through the anxious freedom of my undergraduate years, to the person I am now, carving out a professional identity, which refuses to preclude the personal. I am also aware that the choices I am making now have been enabled by a number of significant blessings. I was born into a family that loves me, that has always been equipped to 7 take care of me, and which has exposed me to new worlds through travel, education, and differences of opinion. I attend a world-class university on stolen land and I know that, although I am an openly queer woman in a society still greatly afflicted by misogyny and homophobia, to many, my voice is not only more ‘reliable’ but also far more audible than those of others who have all—and more—of my passion and talent but none of my advantages. I do not take this lightly. I have been considering the question of how best to apply this to my thesis as more than a guilty acknowledgement of unearned privilege and I believe that the best way to do so is to utilise my own individual voice, so that you—the reader—know at all times where the words you are reading originated: that they are not new ‘facts’ to be added to a history of everything but thoughts that came from one mind, inspired by others, which you are free to question but also to know, and which may have thought very different thoughts if it weren’t for the chain of events that have led it to formulate these precise words, to type them, and, on one morning in February 2019, to submit them to your judgment. 8 Introduction: Part B The Research The history and archaeology of ancient Egypt is not one of the tragically understudied subdisciplines in the history of our world. It is a region and an age that enamours the academic explorer with promises of grand monumentality, glittering riches, and an air of ‘culture’ that appeals to Western ideals surrounding ‘art,’ ‘literature,’ and ‘civilisation’. We have always been enamoured by the pyramids, the tombs, and the temples, the rulers and their grand historical narratives. In more recent decades, we have also begun to interrogate the materiality of the everyday, through household archaeologies, social archaeologies, and mortuary archaeologies of the non-elite. My interest, as a researcher, is in the connections between ideology, culture, and human experience. How does the historical context— politics, religion, and society—impact the way that humans conceptualise and express themselves: as individuals, in their communities, and in the world? What are the meaningful ways in which individuals express an ‘identity’, or facets thereof, and how are these self- expressions mediated by social pressures of which the individual may or may not be aware? How does expression relate to reception, both in its original context and for us as researchers, millennia after the fact? Are our impressions of individuals in ancient Egypt always or ever reliable? Identities are multifaceted things, difficult to pin down.