The Hittite king, suspecting something amiss, sent a servant to check on matters in Egypt. When the envoy reached Thebes, the widowed queen asked:
Why do you say, “They may try to deceive me.” If I had a son would I write to a foreign country in a manner which is humiliating to myself and my country. You do not trust me and tell me such a thing. He who was my husband died and I have no sons. Shall I perhaps take one of my servants and make him my husband? I have not written to any other country. I have written only to you. People say that you have many sons. Give me one of your sons, and he is my husband and king in the land of Egypt.[61]
Suppiluliumas was convinced of the good faith of the young widow and sent a son to Egypt, but the young man never reached Thebes. Along the way he was murdered by Egyptians who resented the thought of a foreigner as their ruler. The result was a period of war between the Hittites and Egypt. Another son of Suppiluliumas made a record of the affair:
When my father gave them (the Egyptians) one of his sons (to take over the kingship), they killed him as they led him there. My father let his anger run away with him; he went to war against Egypt and attacked Egypt.[62]
The battle is not mentioned in the Egyptian annals. Probably it was brief and indecisive, for the Hittites could not afford to throw a major army into such a campaign. The rising power of Assyria was a threat to Hittite control in the north, and she had to be ready to protect her northern provinces. Had the Hittites launched a major campaign against Egypt it is doubtful if she could have survived.
Horemhab. Granite statue of the commander of Tutankhaton’s armies, later a Pharaoh in his own right.
Eye and Horemhab
The rule of Egypt fell to the aged vizier Eye, who had been a counselor and friend of Akhenaton. After four years Eye was succeeded by Horemhab (ca. 1340-1310 B.C.), an energetic ruler who sought to restore Egypt’s fortunes abroad and erase the memory of the Amarna revolt at home. As a young general, Horemhab had espoused the cause of Akhenaton, but as a Pharaoh he sought to obliterate the records of the Amarna kings with as great enthusiasm as Akhenaton had sought to eliminate the name of Amon. Later orthodox king lists omit the names of Akhenaton, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamon, and Eye, placing the name of Horemhab immediately after Amenhotep III.
Although the Amon priests of Thebes seemed to be more firmly entrenched than ever after the accession of Horemhab, the calendar could not be pushed back completely. Egyptian art and literature retained some of the naturalism of the Amarna movement. There were effects in the religious world, too, for although Atonism was not pure monotheism, it exhibited tendencies in that direction which persisted in the Egyptian thought. God is frequently addressed in the singular, although under different names, in the hymns of the later periods of Egyptian history.