The Reign of Horemheb: History, Historiography, and the Dawn of the Ramesside Era

Embargo until
2021-05-01
Date
2018-04-13
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Publisher
Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
The pharaoh Horemheb, the general who became king, has long been recognized as a pivotal figure in the history of New Kingdom Egypt. In the last half-century, important new archaeological evidence has expanded our view of the king and his historical context, particularly the years before he took the throne. There has not, however, been a dedicated, scholarly study of the reign since 1964. This dissertation examines Horemheb’s years as pharaoh, particularly with regard to how his reign contributed to the direction that Egypt would take in the first decades of the Ramesside era.   The present work begins with an historiographical analysis of how Horemheb has been characterized by Egyptologists since the nineteenth century. The art and architecture associated with him are then analyzed stylistically and programmatically, clarifying what can truly be said to have originated during the reign. A prosopography of the officials who served under the king addresses how the structures of government and elite society changed from the reign of Tutankhamun into that of Ramesses II. A key text of the reign is analyzed with respect to how its rhetoric and its mythological allusions help to reveal the political conditions of the period. Finally, the historical memory of Horemheb in the ancient world, from the end of his reign through the Greco-Roman period, is taken into consideration.   The results of this study show the extent to which many of our fundamental ideas and questions about Horemheb and his time still have their roots in the earliest days of Egyptology, and reveal the need for major re-analysis. The monumental record of the reign is shown to be less extensive than often thought, and to reflect ongoing change rather than the culmination of a return to artistic orthodoxy. The literary and prosopographical studies, as well as the discussion of the ancient historiography, confirm that the political disruption of the Amarna period continued, and even increased, under Horemheb. Major and long-standing challenges likely confronted the first Ramesside kings, persisting well into the reign of Ramesses II. 
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Keywords
Egypt, history, historiography, New Kingdom, post-Amarna, Horemheb, kingship, art
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