Raising a Child of the Sun

A prince or princess was no sooner born than whey were given their own retinue of servants, officials, and most importantly, their personal menats, or nurses. Many would have been the nurses needed to care for Akhenaten's large progeny, but the name of only one has survived. A talatat block in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has preserved for us the name, title, and visage of "The Nurse of the King's Daughter Ankhesenapaaten, Tia." It is but one line on one talatat among thousands, but from it we can glean something of the woman it portrays by studying her origins, the nature of her position, and her role in the intimate life of Amarna.
The most important clue we have about Tia‘s origins is the very fact that her name survives. At Akhenaten, only royal family members or prestigious officials were named in reliefs, and then not always consistently. As Tia is the only one of the daughters' menats whose name is known to have been recorded, it is likely that she came from a very high-born and/or prosperous family. She may even have been of the royal blood. It was not uncommon for nurses to be from offshoots of the dynastic line, and her name finds close and fully royal parallels in Tiaa, the sister of Amenhotep III, and his Great Royal Wife, Tiye.
The precise function of a menat is an ambiguous one, as the term could be used to describe any variety of persons connected with royal children, ranging from tutors to caretakers, guardians or wetnurses. Whether Tia's duties would have included nursing is debatable. Wetnurses were most often used when a child's natural mother had died or was unable to breastfeed. However, they were also regarded as status symbols by the elite, who could afford their services regardless of the mother‘s feeding abilities. Indeed, having a menat or two around would free up much of a mother‘s time. Nurses and nannies would have been a must for Nefertiti, whose growing brood of daughters would have been a formidable task even if she hadn‘t a new city, a new religion, and a queen ship to worry about.
Akhenaten and Neferiti are everywhere portrayed with one or more daughters. The presence of their menats is more sporadic and limited mostly to private tombs, such as that of Panhesy (Arnold 115), which makes Tia’s more “public” appearance on her talatat all the more remarkable. The fact that nurses were portrayed at all is a testament to the everyday nature of their employment, and the same holds true for those scenes where they are not shown. It is certainly difficult to imagine that Nefertiti and Akhenaten would have had time to spare for parenting at such events as the Year 12 ceremonies, where all six girls are shown unescorted.
Where they do appear, Tia and her fellows are depicted as young women, and for once, it may be safe to take art literally. Amarna’s artisians were more than capable of portraying wrinkles and old age, skills to which not even Tiye or Nefertiti’s portraits were immune. If the menats were older women, the unabashed Amarna artist would presumably have shown them as such. Instead, we are left with figures of young women, almost maidens, who sometimes are barely taller than their young charges. Youth would certainly have been an advantage in several respects. A younger menat would naturally be more fertile and more likely to be lactating, should nursing be one of her duties. If not, then she would at least have more vigor with which to keep up with her ward!
Mindful as she must have been of Ankhesenapaaten during her infancy, Tia’s real task would have begun after Ankhes entered childhood. Nursing is a biological function requiring little to no skill. Not so, the raising of a princess, a child of the Son of the Sun. It is interesting to note that with one exception known to this author, Amarnamenats are shown not with infant princesses, but toddlers and young adults. The nurses and their charges would have spent years together, watching one another grow up, and keeping each other company in the King and Queen‘s absence. That Tia and Ankhes would have been close is almost a given.
Be it one of her official duties or part of her role as a surrogate mother, Tia would have presumably helped to educate her ward. While princes would be certain to endure many a lesson, the high-standing of princesses did not necessarily guarantee literacy. The palettes of both Meretaten and Meketaten have been found, but they have multiple cakes of colored inks as opposed to the traditional red and black of a scribe. Thus, these examples are more likely to have been used for painting rather than writing lessons, a conclusion strengthened by the numerous paint marks found on the walls and floor of the children's playroom in the North Palace. But this certainly doesn’t mean that the girls couldn’t write. Royal women were held in extraordinarily high regard during the XVIIIth Dynasty, and seldom more so than at Akhetaten. Thus, we find Nefertiti using kingly iconography and power while her daughters are shown driving the same chariots that princes would enjoy. It would therefore be likely that Ankhes and her sisters would have been given the same education as their male counter-parts. Certainly, Queen Ankhesenamun would have found it prudent to pen her letters to King Suppilumias requesting a Hittite prince, herself, rather than entrust the duty to a scribe.
As Ankhesenapaaten grew, so, too, would have the status of her menat. Past menats and wetnurses had been granted such privileged titles as “great lady in waiting,” and Queen Hatshepsut had at her Deir el Bahri temple a statue of her nurse Sitre holding the queen/king on her lap (Hatshepsut 161). Had Tia a husband or children, they would have also benefited from her influence, so much so that many New Kingdom officials made a practice of marrying royal wet nurses (Watterson 45). Nor did this affection and honor end with the death of the menat. Sitre had the illustrious honor of being buried in the Valley of the Kings near Hatshepsut, and the mummy of Ahmose Nefertari’s nurse, the Lady Rai, is, in the words of G. Elliot Smith, “the least unlovely of all the mummies of women” (Smith 12). That becoming of an eternity didn’t come cheap, and one can only assume that Rai’s preservation was financed by the royal coffers.
Tia’s mummy, if it still exists, is unknown, as is the site of her tomb. Most nurses were buried in their husbands tombs, where they are shown with their royal charges on their lap. As the tomb of Tutankhmun’s nurse Maia was discovered at Saqqara, perhaps Tia’s tomb lies there. If so, its inscriptions may answer the question of whether or not Tia outlived her charge. If she became a menat in her mid- to late teens, Tia would have been all of thirty when her princess became the Lady of the Two Lands. Her presence would have been a most comforting one as Ankhes and her young husband were moved from Akhetaten to Thebes, where the courtiers, priests, and politics lay in wait. One can imagine Tia’s thoughts as she handled items inscribed first for Ankhesenapaaten, and then Ankhesenamen. Was she present at both of Ankhes‘ miscarriages? For Ankhes‘ sake, one hopes so. Was Tia privy to the letters to the Hittites? If so, she knew the risks as well as her princess/queen, who disappeared shortly after her (forced?) marriage to Ay and his accession to the throne. Of Ankhes’ fate, we know nothing; may Tia have not known too much.

But this is a great deal of history, both personal and official, to ascribe to a woman whose existence was commemorated by one line of inscription on one lone talatat. All we can know for certain about Tia, the woman, is in the talatat which names and preserves her, and it is there that we now return.
The talatat, itself, is a limestone block now measuring 23.1 cm high and 54.3 cm. long (Pharaohs 220). On its face is not one but two scenes. In Egyptian art, figures seldom face back to back unless they are participating in completely separate scenes. The larger figure on the left would seem to be that of a royal woman, perhaps Nefertiti or one of her daughters. Tia is shown much smaller in scale and bent at the waist, marking both her position as a servant and as an offering bearer. Her delicate hands are weighed down by two loaves of bread, which she offers to the scene’s now missing participants. As Tia is standing in front of a kiosk filled with even more offerings, it is likely that she was a part of a relief showing the royal family, whom she was serving. It would be only appropriate if Ankhesenapaaten had been the first figure on Tia’s right, and facing her menat.
The colors on this block are well preserved and offer a lovely contrast to the bare limestone, which sparkles slightly beneath the museum lights when viewed in person. Tia’s wig is the same shade of blue as the kiosk behind her, and her flesh is the same red sienna as that of the figure to the left. No sleeves are visible on her arms; no doubt her garment would have been more obvious about the legs, where she would have likely had the same pleats as the larger figure. Unfortunately for the viewer, Tia’s face is the most damaged part of the scene. While her high forehead and firm chin are clearly visible, it is difficult to make out the expression of her mouth. Several deep scratches give it a somewhat droll appearance, but closer inspection reveals that she seems to have been smiling slightly, an impression which is heightened by what appears to be a purposeful groove running from her nostril to the corner of her mouth.
The one advantage to Tia’s damaged face is the contrast it provides for her exquisitely detailed hair. A fashionable lady of the times, she is wearing a Nubian wig with the addition of a side lock. This side lock has lead some to identify this figure as a princess. However, ladies of the court often sported coiffures similar to those of the princesses, and no princess would be shown so humbly bent at the waist (Pharaohs 220). Moreover, as the inscription naming Tia would have run straight into the figure’s outwardly curving hip, it can’t apply to any other figure in the scene, however small or absent (Aldred 196). As for the patented ‘side lock of youth’ being present on a grown woman, there are many portrayals of the grown Queen Ankhesenamen wearing a very long side lock with elaborate clasps. In fact, the red in Tia’s hair is best explained as another type of hair ornament, perhaps beads or spacers.
This same wig style appears, sans red beads, in a relief of two princesses which is also in the Metropolitan Museum. Some have thought that the older young woman with the prominent and frontal breasts must be nurse rather than a princess (Aldred 197). While the hairstyles between this piece and the Tia talatat are almost identical, the older girl’s profile is that of an Amarna princess, from its pendant chin to the soft curve of the under jaw. Tia’s restored jaw line is a very straight and firm one, and upon inspection it seems to be true to the original. However, should the other relief prove to portray not two princesses, but a princess and her menat, than it would be most remarkable for the intimacy of the embrace between not two sisters, but a royal child and a servant.
An even more intimate scene is preserved on a talatat fragment in the Brooklyn Museum. Here, we actually see a princess being nursed. The adult woman’s head and figure are completely missing; only the arm with which she holds the princess, her breast, and the hand offering it remain. While the princess’ head and hand are intact, her name is absent, leaving us to wonder just which of Akhenaten’s daughters this is. The answer may well be in the relief’s style, which dates to the earlier years of Akhenaten’s reign, when Ankhesenapaaten was still the youngest princess (Aldred 119). However, as she and the next youngest, Neferneferuruaten, seem to have been born rather close together, the infant could be either. Thus, the nurse could be Tia or someone else entirely.
Fascinating as these what-if’s are, they remain just that. Amarna scholarship is full of them, making historians and Amarnaphiles grateful for the few certainties that have survived. We may have a few more portrayals of Tia, or we may not. We may find something more of her, or we may not. As for now, we must end where we began, standing before but one talatat of many. Its inscription--”The nurse of the King’s daughter, Ankhesenapaaten, Tia”--tells us both everything and nothing about the woman it portrays, a woman important enough to be named and shown on a public building, but whose role in life--and history--was a private one.

Works Cited

Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten and Nefertiti. New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1973.
Arnold, Dorothea. The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty From Ancient Egypt. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996.
Reeves, Nicholas. Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2001.
Smith, G. Elliot. The Royal Mummies. Duckworth, 1912.
Watterson, Barbara. Women in Ancient Egypt. Phoenix Mill: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1991.
Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. Ed. Catharine H. Roehrig. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.
Pharaohs of the Sun: Akkhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamun. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1999.

Select Bibliography

Janssen, Rosalind M., and Jac. J. Growing Up in Ancient Egypt. London: Rubicon Press, 1990.
Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Tyldesley, Joyce. Daughters of Isis: Women in Ancient Egypt. London: Penguin Books, 1994.
--Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen. New York: Viking, 1998.