Year 20: Bridging the Gap in the Record

Suddenly, in Year 12, Amenhotep III's scribes stopped writing, or so it seems, because after more than a decade of chronicling the opening of quarries, the conquest of Nubia, bull hunts, lion hunts, marriages, in-laws, temple projects, sailboats, and even the construction of a “pleasure lake,” there are no dated records at all for eight years. Our king is not the only one with a gap in his record. His grandfather Amenhotep II, for example, had a similar one. Our Amenhotep, however, more than any king before him, had made a mission of memorializing his life in unusual detail beginning in his days as a prince. After ravaging the gold fields of Nubia, he had the funds to continue doing so on a grand scale. For him, this lull was completely out of character, and it suggests trouble.

Apparently residing in the north at this point, Amenhotep III broke his silence in Year 20, month 2 of Inundation by sending his messenger, Royal Scribe Khaemhet (TT 57; see also Chapters 10 and 16), south from Memphis to Karnak to announce the promotion of a man named Nebnufer to his father's post as keeper of the measurements of offerings at Karnak's granary. The story is carved onto Nebnufer's small, and rather crude, limestone statue, now in Brussels, in a very long text covering all four sides of his seat. It describes the installation ceremony and names the major officiants: First Prophet of Amun Meryptah (a royal half brother?), Second Prophet of Amun Anen (Queen Tiy's brother), Third Prophet of Amun Amenemhet (the son of Nefer, the previous Third Prophet), Fourth Prophet Simut (promoted to Second Prophet before the end of the reign; see also Chapters 13 and 16), and the steward Sebek-nakht.