Smenkhkare (alternatively romanized Smenkhare, Smenkare, or Smenkhkara; meaning "Vigorous is the soul of Re") was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of unknown background who lived and ruled during the Amarna Period of the 18th Dynasty. Smenkhkare was married to Meritaten, the daughter of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare's probable co-regent. Since the Amarna period was subject to a large-scale condemnation of memory by later pharaohs, very little can be said with certainty about Smenkhkare, who therefore remains subject to immense speculation.
Some researchers believe that Smenkhkare was the same person as female pharaoh Neferneferuaten, while others maintain they were two different individuals. This article follows the stance that Smenkhkare was a male ruler, separate from Neferneferuaten. Smenkhkare is generally considered to have been Akhenaten's co-regent but he may also reigned independently.
Origin and family Smenkhkare's origins are debated. It is assumed that he was a member of the royal family, likely either a brother or son of the pharaoh Akhenaten. If he was Akhenaten's brother, his mother was likely either Tiye or Sitamun. If a son of Akhenaten, he was presumably an older brother of Tutankhamun, as he succeeded the throne ahead of him; his mother was likely an unknown, lesser wife. An alternative suggestion, based on objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, is that Smenkhkare was the son of Akhenaten's older brother, Thutmose and an unknown woman, possibly one of his sisters.
Smenkhkare is known to have married Akhenaten's eldest daughter, Meritaten, who was his Great Royal Wife. Inscriptions mention a King's Daughter named Meritaten Tasherit, who may be the daughter of Meritaten and Smenkhkare.Tyldesley, J., Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt, (2006), Thames & Hudson, pp. 136–137.Aldred, Cyril, Akhenaten: King of Egypt, Thames and Hudson, 1991 (paperback), . Furthermore, Smenkhkare has been put forth as a candidate for the mummy in KV55. If so, he would be the father of Tutankhamun.
Reign as pharaoh Length of reign Clear evidence for a sole reign for Smenkhkare has not yet been found. There are few artifacts that attest to his existence at all, and so it is assumed his reign was short. A wine docket from "the house of Smenkhkare" attests to Regnal Year 1.Pendlebury, J. D. S. The City of Akhenaten (1951), Part III, vol II, pl 86. A second wine docket dated to Year 1 refers to him as "Smenkhkare, (deceased)" and may indicate that he died during his first regnal year.Pendlebury, J. D. S. The City of Akhenaten (1951), Part III, pl lxxxvi and xcvii.Allen, J.; 2006 p. 5.
Some Egyptologists have speculated about the possibility of a two- or three-year reign for Smenkhkare based on a number of wine dockets from Amarna that lack a king's name but bear dates for regnal years 2 and 3.Miller, J. (2007) p 275, to wit: Krauss, R. 1997:247; 2007 and Hornung, E. 2006:207. However, they could belong to the other, female, Amarna king who had an attested Year 3 such as Neferneferuaten and are not definitive proof either way.Miller, J. (2007) p. 275.
Smenkhkare Hall While there are few monuments or artifacts that attest to Smenkhkare's existence, there is a major addition to the Amarna palace complex that bears his name. It was built in approximately Year 15 and was likely built for a significant event related to him.
Theories of timing of Smenkhkare's reign Academic consensus has yet to be reached about when exactly Smenkhkare ruled as pharaoh and where he falls in the timeline of Amarna. In particular, the confusion of his identity compared to that of Pharaoh Neferneferuaten has led to considerable academic debate about the order of kings in the late Amarna Period. Aidan Dodson suggests that Smenkhkare did not have a sole reign and only served as Akhenaten's co-regent for about a year around Regnal Year 13. James Peter Allen once depicted Smenkhkare as the successor to Neferneferuaten in 2009.Allen, James P., "The Amarna Succession" in Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane, ed. P. Brand and L. Cooper. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 37. Leiden: E. J. Brill Academic Publishers, (2006). and Marc Gabolde has suggested that after Smenkhkare's reign, Meritaten succeeded him as Neferneferuaten. But after the discovery of a Year 16 date for Akhenaten's Great King's Wife, Nefertiti, which established that she was still alive in Akhenaten's Year 16, Professor J.P. Allen updated his opinion and accepted the hypothesis that Neferneferuaten must be Nefertiti herself in a published GM 249 (2016) paper titled “The Amarna Succession Revised":
"The evidence indicates Smenkhkare ruled only about a year at most....Smenkhkare's premature death probably no later than Akhenaten's Regnal Year 14 left only the one-to-four year old heir Tutankhuaten as putative heir....Tutankhamun must have been considered too young to be named coregent in his father's stead....To safeguard Tutankhamun's accession, Akhenaten also appointed a female coregent Ankheperure Neferneferuaten, to oversee the transition and probably to instruct him in the new religion. In 2009, I argued that this coregent was Akhenaten's fourth daughter, Neferneferuaten, both because it seemed a logical progression in his attempts to produce a son within each of his daughters as they reached puberty, and because evidence was lacking that the other Neferneferuaten, Nefertiti, was still alive in Akhenaten's final years. The Year 16 inscription noted [for the existence of Akhenaten's wife] at the beginning of this article solves the latter problem, and I (and my students) now think it likeliest that the coregent was in fact, Nefertiti. The arguments for this are more compelling than they are for the daughter...Since Nefertiti was still chief queen in Regnal Year 16 [of Akhenaten], her Year 3 as pharaoh must have occurred two years after Akhenaten's death, and it was within those two years that the first steps towards reconciliation with Amun occurred."James Allen, “The Amarna Succession Revised,” GM 249 (2016): pp.9-13
Co-regency with Akhenaten Per Dodson's theory, Smenkhkare served only as co-regent with Akhenaten and never had an individual rule and Nefertiti became co-regent and eventual successor to Akhenaten.Dodson, A. (2006) pp. 27-29. Smenkhkare and Meritaten appear together in the tomb of Meryre II at Amarna, rewarding Meryre. There, Smenkhkare wears the khepresh crown, however he is called the son-in-law of Akhenaten. Further, his name appears only during Akhenaten's reign without certain evidence to attest to a sole reign.Duhig, Corinne. "The remains of Pharaoh Akhenaten are not yet identified: comments on 'Biological age of the skeletonized mummy from Tomb KV55 at Thebes (Egypt)' by Eugen Strouhal" in Anthropologie: International Journal of the Science of Man Vol 48 Issue 2 (2010), pp. 113–115. The names of the king have since been cut out but were recorded around 1850 by Karl Lepsius.de Garies Davies, N. 1905. The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, Part II: The Tombs of Panehesy and Meryra II. Archaeological Survey of Egypt. F. L. Griffith. London: Egypt Exploration Fund. Additionally, a calcite "globular vase" from Tutankhamun's tomb displays the full double cartouches of both pharaohs. However, this is the only object known to carry both names side-by-side.Allen, J. (2006) p. 2. This evidence has been taken by some Egyptologists to indicate that Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were co-regents. However, the scene in Meryre's tomb is undated and Akhenaten is neither depicted nor mentioned in the tomb. The jar may simply be a case of one king associating himself with a predecessor. The simple association of names, particularly on everyday objects, is not conclusive of a co-regency.Murnane, W. (1977) pp. 213–15.Allen, J. (2006) p. 3.
Smenkhkare as successor to Neferneferuaten Arguing against the co-regency theory, Allen suggests that Neferneferuaten followed Akhenaten and that upon her death, Smenkhkare ascended as pharaoh. Allen once proposed that following Nefertiti's death in Year 13 or 14, her daughter Neferneferuaten-tasherit became Pharaoh Neferneferuaten. After Neferneferuaten's short rule of two or three years, according to Allen, Smenkhkare became pharaoh. Under this theory, both pharaohs succeeded Akhenaten: Neferneferuaten as the chosen successor and Smenkhkare as a rival with the same prenomen, perhaps to challenge Akhenaten's unacceptable choice.Allen, James P. (1994). Nefertiti and Smenkh-ka-re. Göttinger Miszellen 141. pp. 7–17. However, a hieratic inscription discovered at the limestone quarry at Deir Abu Hinnis suggests that Nefertiti was alive in Akhenaten's Year 16, undermining this theory. There, Nefertiti is referred to as the pharaoh's Great Royal Wife.A. van der Perre, "The Year 16 graffito of Akhenaten in Dayr Abū Ḥinnis. A Contribution to the Study of the Later Years of Nefertiti." Journal of Egyptian History(JEH) 7 (2014), pp. 72–73 & 76–77. As noted above, in an updated 2016 Gottinger Miszellen paper titled “The Amarna Succession Revised" published in light of Vander Perre's discovery, J.P. Allen now accepts that the female pharaoh was not Akhenaten's daughter Neferneferuaten Tasherit but rather Queen Nefertiti herself who is known to have used the Neferneferuaten title in her lifetime as Akhenaten's queen and likely have proclaimed herself as a female king of Egypt when her husband died.James Allen, “The Amarna Succession Revised,” GM 249 (2016): pp.9-13
Furthermore, work is believed to have halted on the Amarna tombs shortly after Year 13.Giles, F. 2001; also Aldred 1988.Dodson, A. 2006, p. 29. Therefore, the depiction of Smenkhkare in Meryre's tomb must date to no later than Year 13. For him to have succeeded Neferneferuaten means that aside from a lone wine docket, he left not a single trace over the course of five to six years.
Meritaten as successor to Smenkhkare In comparison to the theories mentioned above, Marc Gabolde has advocated that Smenkhkare's Great Royal Wife, Meritaten, became Pharaoh Neferneferuaten after her husband's death. The main argument against this is a box (Carter 001k) from Tutankhamun's tomb that lists Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten, and Meritaten as three separate individuals. There, Meritaten is explicitly listed as Great Royal Wife.Allen, J. 2006, p. 14, also n. 61. Further, various private stelae depict the female pharaoh with Akhenaten. However under this theory, Akhenaten would be dead by the time Meritaten became pharaoh as Neferneferuaten. Gabolde suggest that these depictions are retrospective. Yet since these are private cult stelae it would require a number of people to get the same idea to commission a retrospective, commemorative stela at the same time. Allen notes that the everyday interaction portrayed in them more likely indicates two living people.
Identity and confusion over regnal name
There has been much confusion in identifying artifacts related to Smenkhkare because another pharaoh from the Amarna Period bears the same or similar royal titulary. In 1978, it was proposed that there were two individuals using the same name: a male king Smenkhkare and a female Neferneferuaten.Krauss, R. (1978) p. 43-47. Neferneferuaten has since been identified as a female pharaoh who ruled during the Amarna Period and is generally accepted as a separate person from Smenkhkare.Miller, J. (2007) p. 272.Miller, J. (2007) p 272; To wit: Allen (1994); Gabolde (1998); Eaton-Krauss and Krauss(2001); Hornung (2006); von Beckerath (1997); Allen (2006); Krauss (2007); Murnane (2001)