• General Notes

  Children
  Pharaoh *Akhenaten* Amenhotep IV of Egypt b: in Egypt
  High Priest of Ptah at Memphis Thutmose b: in Egypt
  Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tiy and Teje) was the Chief Queen of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III and matriarch of the Amarna family. By all accounts, she was a very beautiful woman. Tjuyu, Tiye’s mother, was a descendant of Ahmose-Nefertari, and it has been suggested that her father, Yuya, may have been of Asiatic descent, but his ethnicity is uncertain. According to some accounts, Tiye married Amenhotep III while he was still yet a royal prince. Others place the marriage during year 2 of his reign (1385 BC). They had at least six children, one of whom, Akhenaten, went on to become pharaoh (he married Nefertiti).
  
  Amenhotep III lavished a good deal of attention on his charming wife. He devoted a number of shrines to her, built her a palace, and even built her an artificial lake. During his reign, Akhenaton built his mother a sumptuous shrine.
  
  Tiye enjoyed a good deal of power during her husband’s and son’s reigns. Amenhotep III, although a fine sportsman, a lover of outdoor life, and a man of great wealth, was no statesman. Tiye, on the other hand, appears to have been the power behind the throne. She was her husband’s trusted advisor and confidant, played an active role in foreign relations, and was the first Egyptian queen to have her name on official acts. She continued to advise Akhenaten when he took the throne. Her son’s correspondence with Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, speaks of Tiye’s political influence, which she wielded, in part, because royal and noble bloodlines passed through the family’s female members at that time.
  
  Amenhotep III died in year 38 of his reign (1350 BC/1349 BC) and was buried in the Valley of the Kings in WV22. But twelve years after his death, Tiye is still mentioned in inscriptions as queen and beloved of the king. It has been suggested that Akhenaten and his mother acted as consorts to each other till her death. This would have been considered incest at the time. Supporters of this theory consider Akhenaten to be the historical model of legendary King Oedipus of Thebes, Greece and Tiye the model for his mother/wife Jocasta.
  
  In an inscription estimated to November 21 of year 12 of Akhenaten's reign (1338 BC), both she and her granddaughter Meketaten are mentioned for the last time. They are thought to have died shortly after that date.
  
  In 1898 archaelogist Victor Clement Georges Philippe Loret discovered a mummy of a pharaoh that is believed to have been Amenhotep III. Alongside it was the mummy of an "Elder Lady." The identification of the "Elder Lady" as Tiye has found considerable support. Examination of the mummy is not conclusive as yet in terms of age but to many the matching hair of the mummy to a lock found in the tomb of Tutankhamen is evidence of this identification.
  
  If Tiye's year of death was year 12 of Akhenaten's reign (1338 BC), this would place her birth around 1398 BC, her marriage to Amenhotep III at the age of eleven or twelve and her becoming a widow at the age of forty-eight to forty-nine years old. However suggestions of a co-regency between Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten for up to twelve years continue.
  
  Tiye is believed to have been buried in Akhenaten's royal tomb at Amarna alongside her son and granddaughter Meketaten, as a fragment from the tomb was not long ago identified as being from her sarcophagus. Her burial shrine ended up in KV55 and shabtis belonging to her have been found in the tomb of her husband in WV22. Whether she was actually buried in either of these, however, is not known with certainty.
  
  

Details of Tiye-Nefertari of 's family with Amenhotep III Pharoah Of  EGYPT