Ancient Egyptian , one of the four major civilizations in the world, has a long history of cultural heritage.
Historians recognized that the ancient Egyptian period was established in 3100 BC. As of 332 BC, it was conquered by Alexander, Macedonia, and had experienced 31 dynasties in more than 2,800 years.
Among them, the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties from 1567 BC to 1085 BC were the most gorgeous imperial era in ancient Egyptian history, collectively known as the New Kingdom period.
It was during this period that the monarch of ancient Egypt was called the Pharaoh.
The word pharaoh originally only refers to the palace in the ancient kingdom period, and originally meant "big house" and "palace".
later evolved continuously and finally became the inherent title of the king.
At this time, the status and power of the pharaoh in ancient Egypt were supreme.
Moreover, the pharaohs' harem was very large. They were also very keen to marry their sisters. Later, they even evolved to marry their daughters and have children with their daughters.
The children born to Pharaoh and his daughter were often identified as the next Pharaoh, and this kind of marriage was considered to be a matter of course at that time, and even became a custom for nearly 2,000 years.
, which modern people think, is considered to be a violation of ethics and morals at that time, but instead thinks that it should be like this.
Feedless water does not flow out of the country
In 1570 BC, Jahmos I inherited the will of his father and brother, led the ancient Egyptian people, and expelled the Hiksos who occupied ancient Egypt from the country. On the basis of obtaining the national war, they founded the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt.
His successors discovered the password of war. It turned out that the army and war could obtain honor and wealth, so they carried out a series of expeditions.
1504, the throne was passed to Tutmos III , and he even launched 17 foreign expeditions.
At this time, the territory of ancient Egypt was unprecedentedly large. The country's territory reached the north of Syria , the bank of the Euphrates River, and the south to the fourth waterfall of the Nile River. Egypt became an unprecedented regional dominance in ancient Near Eastern history.
In order to manage this huge land and the people on it, the Pharaoh continued to strengthen the monarchy.
Through various reinforcement measures, the authority of the pharaoh was infinitely admired by his subjects.
Pharaoh became the master of the country and the only person who could represent Egypt. Pharaoh's decree was the law of the country, and Pharaoh was also the supreme leader of the army.
Every time the ministers of Toutmose III talk about him, just like the servants of NapoleonHTM4 talk about Napoleon: "The emperor is really omniscient and can do everything."
Pharaoh also customized five supreme titles for himself, and at the same time set off a frenzy of marriages between the same blood within the royal family.
The so-called marriage of the same blood refers to the internal marriage system of marriage and sexual relations that occur between blood relatives, which exists in the early memories of various civilizations.
Jahmos, the ruler of the 18th Dynasty, was named after his great achievements in expelling the Hiksos, Egyptian historians listed him as the founder of the new dynasty and the glorious recreator of Egypt. It was during this pharaoh's reign that married his sister Nepheteti and became the forerunner of the marriage of the same blood in the entire dynasty.
After him, the later pharaohs who inherited the throne also inherited his legacy of marrying a wife and not avoiding his sisters. They married their sisters one after another, and practiced to turn the royal family's marriage from intermittent traditions to an unshakable system.
In 1546 BC, the pharaoh Amenhotep I , not only married his sister Yahhotep as queen, but also made a good marriage with the beautiful Princess Tamon.
Tutmos I ascended the throne in 1526 BC. He married Princess Jahmus and had two sons and two daughters, but neither prince died before he could survive to inherit the throne.
Therefore, the son of Princess Mutnovret, Tutmos II, was able to inherit the throne, and the princess Hartschopsut, born to Queen Yahmos, became the queen of this half-brother.
Tutmos III was declared the heir to the throne during his lifetime.
The greatest pharaoh on Egyptian history is also unavoidable and has a good marriage with his half-sister and daughter of the queen.
Tutmos III son Amonhotep II also married his sister Princess Beautiful Tamon as his wife, but Princess Ti'o gave birth to the heir to the throne -Tutmos IV .
So, the heir of the throne, , walked on thin ice, and , had to repeatedly use the oracle decree to hint at the legitimacy of his inheritance of the throne.
He used foreign power to fight back against his enemies who questioned his orthodox ruling in the country by marrying a foreign princess.
Of course, during this period, marriages of the same blood relationship of different generations are also common.
In the first half of the 14th century BC, Amenhotep III married his daughter Setamon and gave birth to a son, who was the future Pharaoh Shemank Hekal.
The heretical Pharaoh Ehnaton After the beloved Queen Nefertiti fell out of favor, he also presented the title of "Great Queen" to his eldest daughter Meitaton, and married his third daughter Ankepaton, who was only 12 years old, as his wife.
The great pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty Ramesses II, his huge harem included his two daughters, Bintanette and Beautiful Tamon.
Ehnaton's successor Shemank Hekal is the son of Amenhotep III and the brother of Ehnaton.
He married Princess Bintanette, the daughter of Ehnathun, and became Ehnathun's son-in-law.
According to the generational theory, this marriage should be the marriage between the uncle and the niece.
However, these marriages of father and daughter, uncle and niece in the ancient Egyptian palace are not legendary enough. Among them, is the most bizarre marriage of Princess Ankai Pathun.
Princess Ankai Pathun first married her father Ehnaton. After her father's death, her uncle Tutankhamun succeeded to the throne, and she became the queen of her uncle.
However, this is not over yet. In 1352 BC, Ae succeeded the Pharaoh.
and he is Ankai Pathun's grandmother's brother, however, this still cannot prevent Ankai Pathun from marrying Ah.
If you calculate according to seniority, An Kai Pathun became his grandfather's wife, and this marriage should be considered the best marriage in ancient Egyptian royal family.
Pharaoh follows God's marriage
Modern people must hate and reject this kind of royal blood relative.
However, the ancient Egyptian royal family was extremely popular at that time, becoming the first marriage model in the early stage of New Kingdom .
At that time, people not only did not feel that it was against ethics, but even regarded it as a marriage model unique to the royal family.
If you explain the reason in detail, you still need to start with the religion of the Egyptian nation.
Egyptians are a nation that worships gods devoutly. The official ideology of the Egyptian government is full of theological colors.
They believe that the establishment of Egypt's state and royal power was not artificially created, but a divinely determined .
Therefore, the Egyptians believed that whoever opposes the royal power is against God and opposes God.
Sun God La was determined to be the first king of Egypt, so Sun God can be regarded as the prototype of the pharaoh.
Pharaoh is regarded as the son of the Sun God, and is called "the son of the God La ", and is the ruling agent of the Sun God in the world.
Pharaoh was both a descendant of God and an incarnation of God. Therefore, as the king of the human world, Pharaoh was also deified by Egyptian religion and became a god on earth.
How to highlight and determine one's divinity has become the top priority in the minds of the pharaohs.
The monarch of the 18th Dynasty consolidated his political rights and interests through military victory and economic abundance, and made every effort to use religious and mythological means to seek faith support for the Thebes royal family's autocratic rule over the upper and lower Egypt.
Their purpose is to deify the pharaoh, or to make the pharaoh transform into God, and then create an eternal pattern.
That means that the pharaoh is inviolable, and the subjects must obey and be loyal to the ground.
At that time, the best way to connect the pharaoh with the gods was the royal family's marriage .
This is because of Ancient Egyptians worship and respect for gods.
Ancient Egypt had three major creation theological systems, including ancient Helio Polis theology, Hermopolis theology and Memphis theology. These three theology constituted the source of ancient Egyptian religion.
and In these three major creation theological systems, the marriage of brothers and sisters with blood has become the main form of marriage for the gods .
There are nine gods in the creation theology of ancient Helio Polis. Although eight of them belong to the three generations of ancestors and grandchildren, they are four couples who are brothers and sisters.
The eight main gods in the Hermopolis theological system also formed four husband and wife relationships that are brother and sister.
Osiris and Isis's myth is the most famous brother and sister-in-law in ancient Egypt.
The three major theological systems have without exception built a marriage relationship between brothers and sisters of the same blood relationship, and marriage between the same blood relationship has become the implicit marriage principle in the Egyptian theological system.
This kind of marriage of the same blood that is dependent on religion reflects the primitive nature of the early marriage culture experienced by humans.
However, after artificial processing and misinterpretation, this more primitive marriage model just meets the religion's demand for miracles and is highly respected. The combination of the two gods
just made their descendants more pure in , so they have perfect divinity.
From this, the ancient Egyptians inferred that marriages with blood are born sacred, a symbol of perfection and purity, and are the patent of the gods.
Therefore, as the son of God La, Pharaoh entered into a marriage with a woman of the same blood relationship, which would make the Divine Nature of Pharaoh even more brilliant, and Pharaoh's family also became sacred through connection with Pharaoh.
Since the Pharaoh and his family are members of the gods themselves, they follow the principles of marriage of the gods.
Therefore, Pharaoh is the god of the present world and should accept worship from all nations.
His union with his sisters and daughter is another transmission of divinity, continuing the pure bloodline of the royal family and the noble and sacred attributes.
The children of Pharaoh, especially after the Pharaoh married his sister or daughter, the son he gave birth to indisputably inherited the gods in this world - The pure and pure bloodline and divinity of his parents, are the only choice for the heirs.
can be seen that marriages with the same blood emphasize pure and pure bloodline and the divinity it represents.
In this way, the royal family sacred their origins and bloodlines, and rationalized the exercise and inheritance of their ruling power.
With the help of the power of myths and religions, through marriage, emphasize the pure bloodline of the Pharaoh, shape the sacred character of the Pharaoh, and become a powerful means for Pharaoh to maintain political rule.
The marriage practices of princes and princesses and the later evolved Pharaoh father and daughter protect the royal privileges to the greatest extent, avoid the leakage of divinity, and effectively eliminate the covetedness of mortals.
The harem became the key to the pharaohs' holding power
Ancient Egyptian pharaohs had many wives and concubines, and their family was the core - the harem was very large.
Pharaoh Amenhotep III indulged in the mood, there were hundreds of beauties in the harem, and had more than ten concubines in the close-fitting position.
The long-lived Pharaoh Ramses II was even more so. There were at least four formal queens, six side queens, as many as five hundred beauties in the harem, and his sons were as many as a hundred.
The harem composed of beauties and relatives is the most comfortable residence of the Pharaoh. However, the internal friction of the royal family in was also the Pharaoh’s most worried about, so the Pharaohs came up with the principle of establishing inheritance through marriages of the same blood.
According to ancient Egyptian theology, Pharaohs passed on divinity through marriage and inheritance, so both princes and princesses are qualified to obtain divinity.
In this case, once the throne is disputed, the prince who is married to the princess can strengthen his divinity with the help of his wife's bloodline and gain the upper hand of morality and power.
Founding monarch Jahmos is a distinctive example. His power was not to inherit his father, but to ascend the throne after his elder brother's death.
Therefore, in order to increase his divinity, it is actually for the stability of his power. he could only turn his mind to his sister Nefeteti. married the real princess Nefeteti, and many doubts about him were reduced outside.
Although Amenhotep II was the son of the queen, he had to prepare for the long years of Thutmos III's 55 years of rule.
A noble prince married another sister and his status can be unbreakable.
Therefore, it can be seen that in ancient Egypt, , especially during the New Kingdom period, the princess born to the queen was destined to be a queen.
The only difference is to marry a brother. All of this is to ensure the continuation of the royal family's orthodoxy.
The queens of the new kingdom therefore have many great titles such as "God's Great Wife" and "God's Arm", and have a high religious status within the temple system.
In particular, "Pharaoh's daughter, Pharaoh's sister, God's wife, Pharaoh's great wife" Princess Hatshepsuth interfered in political affairs when her husband Tootmos II was alive.
After her husband's death, she became the regent of her concubine's son Toutmos III as her mother, and quickly became the first female pharaoh in Egyptian history.
Therefore, the marriage between Thutmos III and Hatshepsut's daughter, the half-sister Princess Nifrula, essentially expressed respect for the stepmother who holds real power, in order to win his political support.
It is precisely because of the unexplainable role of the royal family in strengthening the dictatorship of the royal family that the blood-related marriages of the new kingdom, especially the 18th dynasty, became popular in the early days of the new kingdom, allowing those pharaohs to hold on to it.
Compared with the queen, the princess is unknown and has no power.
The princess is the main spouse of the pharaoh except the queen, mainly meeting the personal needs of the pharaoh without participating in the national political life.
Therefore, except for a few pharaohs who were extremely favored by the princesses or were able to give birth to heirs of the throne, none of the others left any marks in history.
At this point, the same is true for the Pharaoh's children.
Except for the princes and princesses who participate in the highest power of the country, the other brothers and sisters have all lived a rich and unknown life.
In the stories passed down from ancient Egypt, there was a record of "twenty women with the most beautiful figures, chests and braids". They came to the Pharaoh's palace in fishing net outfits.
But no matter how beautiful they are to the sky, because they do not have divine bonuses, they can only be palace maids who have no status in the palace.
So people saw that " Kings must not marry outside the royal family, so as not to defile their sacred bloodline" became the principle adhered to by the pharaohs .
This custom of getting married lasted nearly 2,000 years in ancient Egypt, and it ended until 30 BC when the Romans conquered Egypt.
text/Blue Wind Zhuchen
References:
[1] Zhang Yingying, An analysis of the royal blood relatives and marriages in the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Northeast Normal University, 2016(05);
[2] Zhao Keren, Analysis of Pharaoh and Egyptian ecological civilization, Middle East Research, 2018(12).
