To whom was Baalat-neše writing?
by
Damien F. Mackey
The fact that a woman could write in
those days, and at this high level,
would be quite unusual in itself.
Previously,
I had boldly identified Queen Nefertiti with the biblical Queen Jezebel, but this
- though it turned out to be quite a popular thesis - ran into chronological (among
other) problems. At the same time, I was identifying Jezebel with the only
female El Amarna [EA] correspondent, Baalat Neše. That I still hold to this particular identification
is apparent from my recent article:
Queen Jezebel makes guest appearances in El Amarna
The
literate Queen Jezebel is geographically, chronologically (revised), religiously,
and status-wise appropriate to have been the literate Baalat Neše,
“The Mistress of Lions”.
According
to Joyce Tyldesley, in Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen (2006),
only about 2% of Egyptian women were literate at the time of Queen Nefertiti.
And
Queen Jezebel, who I think was probably an older contemporary of Nefertiti, but
a contemporary of Queen Tiy, was amongst the very few literate women of the
day.
The
same comment applies to Baalat Neše.
Obviously,
then, this Baalat
Neše must have been a woman of quite some political substance
to have been empowered to write at least two of the EA letters (273 and 274).
Her
alter ego, Queen
Jezebel, had likewise (and in Jezebel’s case, with murderous intent) written
letters (Kings 21:8): “So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them
with his seal …”.
Jezebel’s
husband, king Ahab, I have identified with EA’s Lab’ayu:
King Ahab in El Amarna
Now,
just as I have previously pointed out that - probably contrary to expectation -
Lab’ayu’s three
EA letters do not even mention any pharaoh, or Egypt:
It
is presumed that all three of the EA letters of Lab’ayu (252-254)
were addressed to a pharaoh, either Amenhotep III or IV (Akhnaton). But these
letters contain neither any specific reference to a pharaoh, nor do they
include (as do other EA letters) the pharaonic throne names, respectively, Nimmuria (for
III) and Naphuria
(for IV) [,]
so
likewise does one find that, in the case of the two letters of she who I think
was Lab’ayu’s EA
wife, Baalat
Neše, there is
once again no specific reference whatsoever to Egypt.
It
is not uncommon, however, for commentators to include e.g. “pharaoh” in square
brackets, presuming that a pharaoh must have been the recipient of these
letters. We find this to be the case in the first example below of this Wiki
presentation of the two letters of Baalat Neše (http://wikivisually.com/wiki/Amarna_letter_EA_273):
EA 273: "From a queen mother"edit
"Say to the king-(i.e. pharaoh), my lord, my god, my Sun: Message of fNIN-UR.MAH.MEŠ, your handmaid. I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times. May the king, my lord, know that war has been waged in the land, and gone is the land of the king, my lord, by desertion to the 'Apiru. May the king, my lord, take cognizance of his land, and may the [k]ing, my lord, kn[ow] tha[t] the 'Apiru wrote to Ayyaluna and to Sarha, and the two sons of Milkilu barely escaped being killed. May the king, my lord, know of this deed." -EA 273, lines 1-26 (complete)
EA 274: "Another city lost"edit
"Say to the king, my lord, my god, my Sun: Message of fNIN-UR.MAH.MEŠ, your handmaid, the dirt at your feet. I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times. May the king, my lord, save his land from the power of the 'Apiru..–lest it be lost. Sapuma has been take[n]. For the information of the king, my lord." -EA 274, lines 1-19 (complete)
Whilst
these letters may have been addressed to a pharaoh, as “the king, my
lord, my god, my Sun”, they may just as well have been addressed to any other
of the Great Kings of the EA era.
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