Horemheb, also spelled Horemhab, Haremheb or Haremhab (, meaning "Horus is in Jubilation"), was the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). He ruled for at least 14 years between 1319 BC and 1292 BC. He had no relation to the preceding royal family other than by marriage to Mutnedjmet, who is thought (though disputed) to have been the daughter of his predecessor, Ay; he is believed to have been of common birth.
Before he became pharaoh Horemheb was the commander-in-chief of the army under the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ay. After his accession to the throne adopted the official title "Mighty Bull, Ready in Plans Favorite of the Two Goddesses, King of Upper and Lower Egypt." He reformed the Egyptian state and it was during his reign that official action against the preceding Amarna rulers began, which is why he is considered the ruler who restabilized his country after the troublesome and divisive Amarna Period.
Horemheb demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing the rubble in his own building projects, and usurped monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay. Horemheb presumably had no surviving sons, as he appointed as his successor his vizier Paramessu, who would assume the throne as Ramesses I.
As pharaoh, Horemheb authored the Edict of Horemheb, a criminological legislative document instituting policies for reducing corruption.
Early career
Horemheb is believed to have originally come from Hnes, on the west bank of the Nile, near the entrance to the Faiyum, since his coronation text formally credits the god Horus of Hnes for establishing him on the throne.
His parentage is unknown but he is believed to have been a commoner. According to the French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal, Horemheb does not appear to be the same person as Paatenemheb (Aten Is Present In Jubilation), who was the commander-in-chief of Akhenaten's army. Grimal notes that Horemheb's political career began under Tutankhamun where he "is depicted at this king's side in his own tomb chapel at Memphis."
He is known to have served in the military during the reign of Akhenaten. In the earliest known stage of his life Horemheb served as "the royal spokesman for [Egypt's] foreign affairs" and personally led a diplomatic mission to visit the Nubian governors. This resulted in a reciprocal visit by "the Prince of Miam (Aniba)" to Tutankhamun's court, "an event [that is] depicted in the tomb of the Viceroy Huy." Horemheb quickly rose to prominence under Tutankhamun, becoming commander-in-chief of the army and advisor to the pharaoh. Horemheb's specific titles are spelled out in his Saqqara tomb, which was built while he was still only an official: "Hereditary Prince, Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King and Chief Commander of the Army"; the "attendant of the King in his footsteps in the foreign countries of the south and the north"; the "King's Messenger in front of his army to the foreign countries to the south and the north"; and the "Sole Companion, he who is by the feet of his lord on the battlefield on that day of killing Asiatics."
Accession When Tutankhamun died while a teenager, Horemheb had already been officially designated as the rpat or iry-pat (often translated hereditary or crown prince) and idnw (deputy of the king in the entire land) by the young pharaoh; these titles are found inscribed in Horemheb's then private Memphite tomb at Saqqara, which dates to the reign of Tutankhamun since the young king's
The title iry-pat (Hereditary Prince) was used very frequently in Horemheb's Saqqara tomb but not combined with any other words. When used alone, the Egyptologist Alan Gardiner has shown that the iry-pat title contains features of ancient descent and lawful inheritance which is identical to the designation for a "Crown Prince." This has been taken to mean that Horemheb was the openly recognised heir to Tutankhamun's throne, and not Ay, Tutankhamun's immediate successor. On the other hand, more recent assessment of the titulary has translated iry-pat as "Executive" and attaches a less specific and exceptional importance to the title.Dodson and Hilton 2004: 35. The Dutch Egyptologist Jacobus Van Dijk observes:
Nozomu Kawai, however, rejects Van Dijk's interpretation that Tutankhamun had nominated Horemheb as his successor and reasons that: "If Horemheb was appointed as the "Crown Prince" at the beginning of Tutankhamun’s reign, this means that the end of the royal bloodline was already arranged. If this arrangement was made, people like Ay, who were closely connected to the royal family, would not have accepted it. Although Horemheb had already boasted of his strength in his pre-royal career, the statements must have been exaggerated, especially in his [ie. Horemheb's] coronation inscription, which was undoubtedly intended to propagate his legitimacy as the king. Notably, he called himself the ‘Eldest son of Horus’, a title that regularly refers to the Crown Prince. For van Dijk this means that he was already the designated successor of Tutankhamun. Janssen, however, states that the "Eldest Son" was honorific and did not indicate the surviving heir to the throne. I would suggest that this expression seems to have been a propaganda title meaning the "Eldest son of Horus of Hutnesu," Horemheb’s birthplace."Nozomu Kawai, Ay vs Horemheb: The Political Situation in the Late 18th Dynasty Revisited, JEH 3 (2010), p.270-278
While no objects belonging to Horemheb were found in Tutankhamun's tomb, and items among the tomb goods donated by other high-ranking officials, such as Maya and General Nakhtmin, were identified by Egyptologists. Nozomu Kawai maintains that Horemheb was an active participant at Tutankhamun's burial. Kawai writes: "Many scholars have suggested that Horemheb did not leave any evidence in Tutankhamun’s tomb, while prominent persons such as Ay, Maya and Nakhtmin left either funerary items or iconographic images. However, the wall scene of the tomb shows Tutankhmun’s coffin dragged by a group of officials in a mourning procession that contains a man who seems to be Horemheb (Fig. 3). The lone figure standing behind the two viziers must be Horemheb, which also makes him situated closest to the mummy of Tutankhamun. This means that Horemheb acted as the leader of the funerary procession."
Kawai maintains rather that both Ay and Horemheb held important high administrative roles during Tutankhamun's reign with Ay participating in royal cultic activities whereas Horemheb acted as a royal military leader and legislator. But after Ay became the pharaoh, his relationship with Horemheb changed. The aged Vizier Ay initially succeeded Tutankhamun, possibly because he made an arrangement with Horemheb. However, during his brief four-year reign, Ay proceeded to nominate Nakhtmin as his successor—whom Ay named as "King's Son" (zꜣ-nswt)Wolfgang Helck, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie: Texte der Hefte 20-21 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1984), pp. 1908–1910—rather than Horemheb. The title of "King’s Son" (zꜣ-nswt) was clearly meant to designate the king's successor and Ay, therefore, sidelined Horemheb's claim to the throne with this action. Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun's queen chose not to marry Horemheb, a commoner, and this also solidified Ay's kingship.
Reign Kawai notes that Horemheb himself likely "did not plot revenge on Ay, probably because Ay was old and would likely die soon" and merely kept his military power. After Ay's reign, which lasted for a little over four years, Horemheb managed to seize power, presumably thanks to his position as commander of the army, and to assume what he must have perceived to be his reward for having ably served Egypt under Tutankhamun and Ay. Horemheb resented Ay's attempt to sideline him from the royal succession and acted to quickly removed Nakhtmin's rival claim to the throne and arranged to have Ay's WV 23 tomb desecrated by smashing the latter's sarcophagus, systematically chiseling Ay's name and figure out of the tomb walls and probably destroying Ay's mummy.Ay's tomb WV 23 in the western annex of the Valley of the Kings; see Horemheb also usurped and enlarged Ay's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu for his own use and usurped a 17-foot colossal statue by erasing Ay's titulary on the back of the state, which itself had been written over the titulary of Tutankhamun, and carving his own titulary in its place.
Horemheb's actions against Ay were a damnatio memoriae to remove the memory of his rival from the historical records. However, he spared Tutankhamun's tomb from vandalism presumably out of respect because it was Tutankhamun who had overseen his rise to prominence in the first place and because he had no antagonism with Tutankhamun.
Upon his accession, Horemheb initiated a comprehensive series of internal transformations to the power structures of Akhenaten's reign, due to the preceding transfer of state power from Amun's priests to Akhenaten's government officials. Horemheb "appointed judges and regional tribunes reintroduced local religious authorities" and divided legal power "between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt" between "the Viziers of Thebes and Memphis respectively."
These deeds are recorded in a stela which the king erected at the foot of his Tenth Pylon at Karnak. Occasionally called The Great Edict of Horemheb, it is a copy of the actual text of the king's decree to re-establish order to the Two Lands and curb abuses of state authority. The stela's coronation and prominent location emphasizes the great importance which Horemheb placed upon domestic reform. When Haremheb ascended the throne after the death of Ay II, he consolidated his rule by centralizing the state and continuing to establish a court in Thebes, where he could supervise the powerful and scheming priests there. He had his successful reforms inscribed on the tenth pylon in the temple complex in nearby Karnak. The text can be interpreted as a “government code”, defined by the direct will of this ruler. It contains a number of general regulations laws addressed not only to the common people, but also deals with the organization of the army, the bureaucracy or the organization of foreign expeditions and military conquests. The code also contains provisions concerning agriculture and, last but not least, it touches on the position of the powerful priests and temple servants, whom he appoints as employees of the state by virtue of his royal power. At the end of the text, Haremheb defines himself as the only legitimate ruler.
Horemheb also reformed the Army and reorganized the Deir el-Medina workforce in his 7th year while Horemheb's official Maya renewed the tomb of Thutmose IV, which had been disturbed by tomb robbers in his 8th year. While the king restored the priesthood of Amun, he prevented the Amun priests from forming a stranglehold on power, by deliberately reappointing priests who mostly came from the Egyptian army since he could rely on their personal loyalty. Horemheb was a prolific builder who erected numerous temples and buildings throughout Egypt during his reign. He constructed the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Pylons of the Great Hypostyle Hall, in the Temple at Karnak, using recycled talatat blocks from Akhenaten's own monuments here, as building material for the first two Pylons.
Horemheb continued Tutankhamun's restoration of the old order that had been established before the Amarna period. He reintroduced the ancient cults, particularly Amun, thus proving himself a true pharaoh who established Maat (world order).