Editing Horemheb (section)

===Kingship===
Kawai notes that Horemheb himself likely "did not plot revenge on Ay, probably because Ay was old and would likely die soon" and merely kept his military power.<ref>Nozomu Kawai, [https://www.academia.edu/395389/Ay_versus_Horemheb_The_Political_Situation_in_the_Late_Eighteenth_Dynasty_Revisited Ay vs Horemheb: The Political Situation in the Late 18th Dynasty Revisited], JEH 3 (2010), pp.287</ref>  After Ay's reign, which lasted for a little over four years, Horemheb managed to seize power, presumably thanks to his position as commander of the army, and to assume what he must have perceived to be his reward for having ably served Egypt under Tutankhamun and Ay, Horemheb resented Ay's attempt to sideline him from the royal succession and acted to quickly removed Nakhtmin's rival claim to the throne and arranged to have Ay's [[WV23|WV&nbsp;23]] tomb desecrated by smashing the latter's sarcophagus, systematically chiselling Ay's name and figure out of the tomb walls and probably destroying Ay's mummy.<ref>Ay's tomb WV&nbsp;23 in the western annex of the Valley of the Kings; see {{cite book |author1=Porter |author2=Moss |name-list-style=amp |title=Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyph Texts, Reliefs and Parts |volume=1 |at=Part&nbsp;2 pp.&nbsp;550–551 |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1960}}</ref> Horemheb also usurped and enlarged Ay's mortuary temple at [[Medinet Habu (temple)|Medinet Habu]] for his own use and erased Ay's titulary on the back of a 17-foot colossal statue by carving his own titulary in its place.

Horemheb's actions against Ay were a [[damnatio memoriae]] to remove the memory of his rival from the historical records. However, he spared Tutankhamun's tomb from vandalism presumably out of respect because it was Tutankhamun who had overseen his rise to prominence in the first place and because he had no antagonism with Tutankhamun.

[[File:StatueOfHoremhebAndTheGodHorus KunsthistorischesMuseum Nov13-10.jpg|left|thumb|A statue of Horemheb with [[Horus]] at the [[Kunsthistorisches Museum]] of [[Vienna]], [[Austria]].]]
[[File:Statue of king Horemheb with the god Amun.png|thumb|A statue of Horemheb with [[Amun]] at the [[Museo Egizio]] of [[Turin]], [[Italy]].]]
Upon his accession, Horemheb initiated a comprehensive series of internal transformations to the power structures of [[Akhenaten]]'s reign, due to the preceding transfer of state power from Amun's priests to Akhenaten's government officials. Horemheb "appointed judges and regional tribunes ... reintroduced local religious authorities" and divided legal power "between [[Upper and Lower Egypt|Upper Egypt]] and [[Upper and Lower Egypt|Lower Egypt]]" between "the [[Vizier (Ancient Egypt)|Vizier]]s of [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] and [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]] respectively."<ref name=Grimal1992/>{{rp|page=243}}

These deeds are recorded in a stela which the king erected at the foot of his Tenth Pylon at Karnak. Occasionally called The Great [[Edict of Horemheb]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/edict_of_horemheb.htm |title=The Great Edict of Horemheb |publisher=reshafim.org.il |access-date=2008-02-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817035720/http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/edict_of_horemheb.htm |archive-date=2018-08-17 |df=dmy-all |url-status=dead}}</ref> it is a copy of the actual text of the king's decree to re-establish order to the Two Lands and curb abuses of state authority. The stela's creation and prominent location emphasizes the great importance which Horemheb placed upon domestic reform.

Horemheb also reformed the Army and reorganized the [[Deir el-Medina]] workforce in his 7th&nbsp;year while Horemheb's official Maya renewed the tomb of [[Thutmose IV]], which had been disturbed by tomb robbers in his 8th&nbsp;year. While the king restored the priesthood of Amun, he prevented the Amun priests from forming a stranglehold on power, by deliberately reappointing priests who mostly came from the Egyptian army since he could rely on their personal loyalty.<ref>{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Clayton |title=Chronicle of the Pharaohs |url=https://archive.org/details/chronicleofphara00clay |url-access=limited |publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |year=1994 |page=[https://archive.org/details/chronicleofphara00clay/page/137 137]|isbn=9780500050743 }}</ref>
Horemheb was a prolific builder who erected numerous temples and buildings throughout Egypt during his reign. He constructed the Second, Ninth, and Tenth [[Pylon (architecture)|Pylons]] of the [[Great Hypostyle Hall, Karnak|Great Hypostyle Hall]], in the [[Karnak|Temple at Karnak]], using recycled [[talatat]] blocks from [[Akhenaten]]'s own monuments here, as building material for the first two Pylons.<ref name=Grimal1992/>{{rp|page=243, 303}}

Horemheb continued Tutankhamun's restoration of the old order that had been established before the Amarna period. He reintroduced the ancient cults, particularly Amun, thus proving himself a true pharaoh who established Maat (world order).<ref name=":0" />

Because of his unexpected rise to the throne, Horemheb had two tombs constructed for himself: the [[Tomb of Horemheb (Memphis)|first]] – when he was a mere nobleman – at [[Saqqara]] near [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]], and the other in the [[Valley of the Kings]], in [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]], in tomb [[KV57|KV&nbsp;57]] as king. His chief wife was Queen [[Mutnedjmet]], who may have been [[Nefertiti]]'s younger sister. They had no surviving children, although examinations of Mutnedjmet's mummy show that she gave birth several times, and she was buried with an infant, suggesting that she and her last child died in childbirth. It has been suggested that Horemheb and Mutnedjmet at least had a daughter who was simply not mentioned on any monuments.<ref name=dh156>Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, ''The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson, 2004, {{ISBN|0-500-05128-3}}, pg 156</ref> Horemheb is not known to have any children by his first wife, [[Amenia, Wife of Horemheb|Amenia]], who died before Horemheb assumed power.<ref>{{cite book |first=Joyce |last=Tyldesley |title=Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt |url=https://archive.org/details/chroniclequeense00tyld |url-access=limited |publisher=Thames & Hudson |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/chroniclequeense00tyld/page/n139 140]|isbn=9780500051450 }}</ref>