Queen Tiye: Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III

Queen Tiye was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian king Amenhotep III and the mother of Akhenaten, living from about the 1390s to around 1338 BC. Born into a non-royal family, she became one of the most powerful women of the New Kingdom, was shown beside her husband as an equal on his monuments, and corresponded with foreign kings. Her probable mummy, the “Elder Lady”, is one of the best-identified royal remains from ancient Egypt.

Family and marriage

Tiye was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu from Akhmim in Middle Egypt. Yuya was a senior officer of the chariotry and a priest of the god Min; Tjuyu was a priestess and chief of the harem of Min. The couple held high rank at court, and their tomb, KV46 in the Valley of the Kings, was discovered almost intact in 1905, an unusual privilege for non-royals. Tiye’s brother Anen became second prophet of Amun at Karnak. Some scholars suggest that Ay, a later king, was also her brother, but this is not proven.

Amenhotep III married Tiye early in his reign, probably by his second year, when both were young. The king announced the marriage on large commemorative scarabs that named her parents openly. This was unusual: a royal marriage to a commoner was not hidden but advertised.

A queen with real influence

Tiye appears on monuments with the king far more often than earlier queens, and sometimes at the same scale as her husband, an artistic statement of near-equal status. In year 11 the king had a large lake dug for her. In Nubia he built a temple at Sedeinga dedicated to her as a form of the goddess Hathor-Tefnut, matching his own temple at Soleb.

She bore the king at least two sons, Prince Thutmose, who died young, and Amenhotep IV, later Akhenaten, along with several daughters including Sitamun, Iset, Henuttaneb and Nebetah. Her daughter Sitamun was later raised to Great Royal Wife beside her.

Letters to foreign kings

The Amarna Letters show that Tiye played a part in diplomacy. After Amenhotep III died, Tushratta, king of Mitanni, wrote to her directly (letter EA 26), offering condolences and asking her to remind her son of the friendship and gifts that had passed between the two kingdoms. In another letter he urged Akhenaten to consult his mother, who knew the details of earlier agreements.

Tushratta also wrote to her about gold statues that he said Amenhotep III had promised him but that Akhenaten had sent only as gilded wood, a complaint that runs through several of his letters. That he raised the matter with the queen mother shows how well informed and involved in state business she was thought to be.

These letters suggest that foreign rulers saw Tiye as a source of continuity and influence at the Egyptian court during the change of reign.

Under Akhenaten

Tiye outlived her husband and remained prominent under her son. Reliefs in the Amarna tomb of her steward Huya show her visiting the new capital, Akhetaten, in about year 12 of Akhenaten, and dining with the royal family. A sunshade temple there was built for her.

She probably died soon afterwards, around years 12–14 of Akhenaten. Funerary equipment bearing her name, including a gilded shrine, was found in 1907 in tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings, suggesting her burial was moved from Amarna to Thebes after the court left the city.

The Elder Lady

In 1898 Victor Loret found a cache of royal mummies in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35). Among them was an unnamed woman with long reddish-brown hair, later called the Elder Lady. In 1976 researchers compared her hair with a lock in a small inscribed coffin from Tutankhamun’s tomb that bore Tiye’s name and found a close match, although the method was debated.

A DNA study led by Zahi Hawass and published in 2010 confirmed that the Elder Lady was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu and the mother of the KV55 man, generally thought to be Akhenaten. Most Egyptologists now accept her as Tiye. A famous small yew-wood head of the queen from Gurob, now in Berlin, shows her as an older woman with a firm, distinctive face.

Timeline

• c. 1391 BC: Amenhotep III becomes king; Tiye becomes his Great Royal Wife within two years.
• Year 11 of Amenhotep III: A lake is dug for the queen.
• c. 1353 BC: Amenhotep III dies; her son becomes king as Amenhotep IV.
• c. 1353–1350 BC: Tushratta of Mitanni writes to Tiye.
• c. year 12 of Akhenaten (about 1341 BC): Tiye visits Akhetaten.
• c. 1338 BC: Probable date of Tiye’s death.
• 1898: The Elder Lady mummy is found in KV35.
• 2010: DNA testing supports her identification as Tiye.

Why it matters

Tiye’s career shows that a woman of non-royal birth could become a central figure of the Egyptian state, involved in diplomacy and religion. As mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun, she links the golden age of Amenhotep III to the Amarna revolution that followed.