1. Joseph collected food "beyond measure". (Gen 41:49)
1. If Akhenaten had collected more food than he needed, or "exceeded the capacity" that was calculated for his complexes, then this could explain why he stopped building throughout the land and switched his building activity to Akhetaten. Its central location might have made it a convenient place to ship the excess food that would have been coming in. Being granted a capitol district around the same time that he received his "own name" could show that he was being rewarded for having accomplished his primary task, the storage of a sufficient quantity of food to feed the people:
1. Aldred says that all of the building in Thebes occurred during the first four years of Akhenaten’s reign. Aldred then says, "After the fifth year when the king changed his name to Akhenaten, and the new city of Akhetaten began to take shape, no further building was undertaken at Thebes during his reign." (85)
2. Aldred says that the central part of Akhetaten was pretty much complete by the end of the eighth year of Akhenaten’s reign. (277)
3. Food was brought by ship to Akhetaten. [See Above: Food Storage at Akhetaten]
4. Aldred says that Akhenaten changed his name in his fifth year. (269) Desroches-Noblecourt says it happened in his sixth year. (130)
5. Redford says that one of Akhenaten’s titles was changed to: "of Great kingship in Akhetaten". (149)
6. Redford says that at the same time that he received his own capitol and his own name, that he also stopped using the plural form of the word "gods". (176) [Given that all, or most, of the building at this time was being done in Akhetaten, is there any reason to believe that Akhenaten prohibited the use of the plural form elsewhere?]
2. Joseph fathered two sons before the years of famine came. (Gen 41:50-52)
1. Akhenaten is not known to have had any sons. But, this could just be due to the "predilection" of the Egyptians not to show their sons in their royal entourages. There seems to be sufficient room in the birth order of Akhenaten’s daughters to allow for the births of two sons:
1. Redford refers to "the predilection of the age to show only daughters in the royal entourage" when questioning whether or not to accept the "implication of the reliefs" that Akhenaten had no sons. (82)
2. Redford says that Akhenaten’s first daughter was born in the first year of his reign, and that his second daughter was probably born in the fourth year. (79) [This seems to me to leave the second and third years available for the birth of two sons.]
3. The seven years of famine came and Joseph opened the storehouses and gave food to the Egyptians. (Gen 41:53-56)
1. Even though Amenhotep III tried to protect the land from pestilence with 730 statues of Sekhmet [See Above – Prophecies], it nevertheless seems that reports of plague and pestilence begin soon after his last Jubilee celebration:
1. Aldred, in his chapter on Akhenaten’s last years, says, "Plague was raging in the Near East." He mentions records of plagues in Cyprus?, Byblos, Sumura, and the Amqa region of Lebanon. He says, "With the close connections between Egypt and the coastal region of the Levant, and with the coming and going of soldiers, captives, officials, and traders, not to mention the importation of handmaidens, needlewomen, musicians and slaves directly into court circles, it would be surprising if the Egyptians could escape the scourge of epidemics." Aldred sees a relationship between the 700+ statues of Sekhmet erected by Amenophis III and this outbreak of pestilence and plague. (283)
2. Aldred lists the large number of royal family members who died during this period, and says these deaths "seem hardly coincidental, but more like the visitation of the pestilence that was abroad in the Levant at this time." (289)
3. Redford says, "The sudden deaths attested from about year 11 on might find an explanation in the effects of a plague which, as Professor Helck has pointed out, was ravaging the Levant at this time." Redford describes the evidence that exists for this and concludes that, "the likelihood is that it spread to Egypt and wreaked havoc there as well." (187)
2. Akhenaten’s god inexplicably changed his title from being "Who is in Jubilee" to being "Lord of Jubilees" around the same time that Amenhotep III’s Jubilees end in Year 37, which would have been the end of Akhenaten’s Year 10. If Akhenaten had indeed passed from a period of ‘food collection’ to one of ‘food distribution’, then it’s seems likely that being ‘in Jubilee’ reflected his collection period and that being ‘Lord of Jubilees’ reflected the change to, and his control over, the food distribution process:
1. Aldred says that one of the Aten’s titles was changed from "Who is in Jubilee" to "Lord of Jubilees". He says the last occurrence of the old name is dated Year 8, Month 5, and that that the first occurrence of the new name is dated Year 12, Month 8. He says, "The exact moment between Years 8 and 12 when this change of name was effected is not recorded in any pronouncement that has survived…". (278)
2. Redford says that it was "for some unknown reason" that the Aten’s name was changed after a decade of use. (186)
3. The new phase of Akhenaten’s reign was recorded in the second graffito at Aswan:
1. Aldred says that the great stela at Aswan is the second of a pair of diptychs that each show the two regents and their master builders in front of offering tables overflowing with food. The first one is from the early days of the reign, while the second one was carved after the Aten’s titles had been changed. In this one Akhenaten was shown offering only incense at his altar. Aldred suggests that for this second diptych they "chose this same location eight years later to record another stage in the progress of the mighty works of the Aten cult." (92-94) [See Fig. 13, The stela of Bek and Men at Aswan, 93]
4. The royal children are no longer named after the Aten:
1. Desroches-Noblecourt says that Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Baketaten, Neferneferuaten Tashery, and Tutankhaten were all named during the jubilee years of years 30 through 37, while Neferneferure and Setepenre were born around year 9, which Desroches-Noblecourt sees as being sometime between years 36 and 38. (106-109)
5. I can find no mention of food offerings being shown during this period. The tomb scenes constructed during these years do seem to show that there was plenty of food in Egypt, as they show royal banquets and well-fed people:
1. Aldred says the subject matter of the later Amarna tombs is changed from the earlier years. Events shown in the later years include the durbar and Queen Tiye’s visit. He says the royal family "tend to be less gaunt and lined than in early reliefs" and notes that "the paunch of the king is more pendulous". (25-26)
2. Desroches-Noblecourt describes the scenes in the tomb of Huya. (154-155) [See Akhenaten’s family and Tiye feasting, rather than offering, before altar tables overflowing with food: Fig. 91, "The royal banquet in honour of Tiye (Tomb of Huya), 155] [See Akhenaten leading Tiye into the temple he dedicate to her, with its altar tables overflowing with food: Fig. 92, 156]
4. The whole world came to buy food from Joseph. (Gen 41:57)
1. The tomb scenes showing the Parade of Foreign Tribute that took place in Year 12 seem to imply that the whole world came to buy food from Akhenaten as well. People are shown having come from the North, South, East, West, and the Islands, to barter their highly unusual collection of non-food valuables for the king’s "blessings". Given the plague and pestilence that was occurring around this time, and, seeing how much food Akhenaten had in storage around this time, it seems easy to conclude that these people had come there to buy food:
1. Aldred says that the boundary stele said that "the Aten would send the people of all foreign lands to Akhetaten with gifts for the king whose god had enabled them to live and breathe." (48-49)
2. Aldred says that the tombs of Huya and Meryre II each show a scene of a durbar dated Year 12, Month 6, Day 8 attended by the royal couple. One caption says they were there "in order to receive the gifts of Syria and Kush (Cush), the West and the East, all lands united at the one time, and the Isles in the midst of the Great Green Sea [the Mediterranean], when they proffered gifts to the King upon the great throne of Akhetaten. Receiving the products of every land and granting them the breath of life." (178)
3. The Cambridge Ancient History provides an alternate translation of "Syria and Kush" in the caption in Huya’s tomb to be "the North and the South". (60)
4. [See Desroches-Noblecourt, Figure 88, "Parade of Foreign Tribgute", 152]
5. Desroches-Noblecourt says that the giving of "gifts" by foreigners to the Pharaohs was "with the tacit understanding that they were barter for goods of almost equivalent worth." (206)
6. Aldred says that the valuables being presented are not war tribute because there were no military expeditions to some of these lands. He also says that plunder, unlike these gifts, "is of quite a different character and includes such items as armor and weapons gleaned from the field of battle, and severed hands and phalli of dead foemen used in the count of victory." (179)
7. Aldred says that the valuables being presented are not annual taxes because, "The staples such as grain and timber are absent, and the objects presented are of great intrinsic value, such as elaborately worked gold and silver vessels carried by the Asiatic and Aegean delegates, or heavy gold rings made into ornate set-pieces proffered by the Nubians and Kushites." (179)
8. Aldred lists the gifts that they brought: "…ornate weapons, chariots, horses, copper ingots, exotic animals, lions, oryxes, antelopes, great bowls, vases and rhytons in gold and silver, ostrich feathers and eggs, incense and gums fashioned in the shape of pyramids and obelisks." He also mentions "young slave-girls and a number of rebel malcontents in handcuffs", "gold in the form of dust in leather bags, or as massy rings sewn onto textiles", long-horned cattle, exotic animals, hunting hounds and cheetahs, ebony logs, ebony furniture, resins and gums in baskets, slave women with their children, and slaves in yokes. (279-281)
