Ay
Pharaoh of Egypt, 18th Dynasty
1370 BCE to 1319 BCE
Ay is the penultimate Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty.
He holds the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period (probably 1323–1319 BCE or 1327–1323 BCE, depending on which chronology is followed), although he was a close advisor to two and perhaps three of the pharaohs who ruled before him and was the power behind the throne during Tutankhamun's reign.
Ay's prenomen or royal name—Kheperkheperure—means "Everlasting are the Manifestations of Ra" while his birth name Ay it-netjer reads as 'Ay, Father of the God.'
Records and monuments that can be clearly attributed to Ay are rare, not only due to his short length, but also because his successor, Horemheb, instigated a campaign of damnatio memoriae against him and other pharaohs associated with the unpopular Amarna Period.
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The Middle of The Earth
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Horemheb, Tutankhamen’s general, repels Hittite incursions on the Egyptian empire in northern Syria.
Tutankhamen, apparently once an active leader of his troops but weakened by a virulent strain of malaria and degenerative bone disease, dies at the age of nineteen or so of infection resulting from a leg fracture.
He is succeeded by his vizier Ay, who marries Tutankhamen's widow and appropriates the king's tomb for himself.
The young king is buried, with linen gloves and numerous pieces of fine gold jewelry embedded with precious stones, at Thebes in the Valley of the Kings; a curse reading "Death comes on swift wings to he who opens this tomb," is inscribed on the tomb’s doorway.
His rich tomb furnishings include a gold sarcophagus with a (now-famous) gold and lapis lazuli funerary mask.
Among the burial items are an iron dagger with a golden hilt.
Also entombed with Tutankhamen is an example of the earliest known military game, alquerque, a two-player game played on a board marked with five diagonal lines.
Each player has twelve pieces and can move them onto vacant intersections or capture an enemy piece by jumping over it to an unoccupied point.
Two relief sets of battle-themed carvings from Tutankhamen's mortuary temple survive, one depicting a Nubian campaign and one larger group that shows the king in a chariot leading the Egyptian forces against a Syrian-style citadel.
Other blocks in the second series depict Tutankhamen receiving prisoners, booty, and the severed hands of the enemy dead, strung on spears: a detail unique in Egyptian art, which, at this time, stresses truthfulness in representation.
Therefore, Tutankhamen’s presence in these scenes indicates the likelihood that he actually participated in these campaigns.
Ay dies in 1323 or 1320; Horemheb succeeds him as pharaoh.