The vizier, Ay
(c. 1325 - 1321) became king by marrying Tut's widow (she was marrying her own
grandfather). He was by now very old, and few relics of his reign remain, as all his
building projects were soon usurped by Horemheb. He was buried in the tomb probably
originally intended to be that of Tutankhamun, KV23. The entire tomb was wrecked soon
afterwards, however, probably on the orders of Horemheb.
Horemheb (c. 1321 - 1293) was the man who did most to return Egypt to
orthodoxy. Nothing is known about his early life, but he was a career army officer who
first served under Amenhotep III. Akhenaten made him Great Commander of the Army, and he
was further elevated to King's Deputy under Tutankhamun. In his quest to re-establish the
old orthodoxy, he still did his best to ensure that the priesthood of Amun did not get out
of his control, as he made sure that only loyal army men were appointed to high office
there. In an attempt to protect his position further, he split the army into 2 commands -
North and South - so that no 1 person would ever be able to control both, and therefore
have the power to depose the pharaoh.Horemheb set about destroying all that had been created under the 4
previous pharaohs. He usurped the unfinished building projects of Tutankhamun and Ay, and
destroyed the temple of the Aten at Karnak. He effectively rewrote the previous 30 years
of Egyptian history, as he dated the start of his own reign from the end of that of
Amenhotep III - it was as if the Amarna period never existed.
Militarily, his reign was relatively quiet,
the only exceptions being a campaign in Kush and a trading expedition south.
Horemheb was buried in KV57, which was
found to be unfinished and to have been robbed in antiquity when Theodore Davis entered it
in 1908. No mummy has ever been found.
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