Editing Horemheb (section)

===Disputed reign length===
[[File:La tombe de Horemheb (KV.57) (Vallée des Rois Thèbes ouest) -6.jpg|thumb|The sarcophagus of Horemheb and wall reliefs in his [[KV57]] tomb.]]
Scholars have long disputed whether Horemheb reigned for 14–15 years or 27&nbsp;years. [[Manetho]]'s Epitome assigns a reign length of 4&nbsp;years and 1&nbsp;month to a king called Harmais. Scholars previously assigned this reign-length to Ay; however, evidence from excavations in Horemheb's tomb (KV57) indicates that this figure should be raised by a decade to [1]4&nbsp;years and 1&nbsp;month and attributed to Horemheb. These excavations, conducted under G.T. Martin and [[Jacobus Van Dijk]] in 2006 and 2007, uncovered a large hoard of 168&nbsp;inscribed wine sherds and dockets, below densely compacted debris in a great shaft (called Well Room&nbsp;E) in KV&nbsp;57. Of the 46&nbsp;wine sherds with year dates, 14&nbsp;have nothing but the year date formula, 5&nbsp;dockets have year&nbsp;10+X, 3&nbsp;dockets have year&nbsp;11+X, 2&nbsp;dockets preserve year&nbsp;12+X and 1&nbsp;docket has a year&nbsp;13+X inscription. 22&nbsp;dockets "mention year&nbsp;13 and 8 have year&nbsp;14 [of Horemheb]" but none mention a higher date for Horemheb.<ref name=vanDijk2008>{{cite journal |first=Jacobus |last=van&nbsp;Dijk |title= New evidence on the length of the reign of Horemheb |url=https://www.jacobusvandijk.nl/docs/JARCE_44.pdf |journal=Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt  |volume=44 |year=2008 |page=195}}</ref>

The full texts of the docket readings are identical and read as:
:{{blockquote|Year&nbsp;13. Wine of the estate of Horemheb-meren-Amun, L.P.H., in the domain of Amun. Western River. Chief vintner ''Ty''.<ref name=vanDijk2008/>}}

Meanwhile, the year&nbsp;14 dockets, in contrast, are all individual and mention specific wines such as "very good quality wine" or, in one case "sweet wine" and the location of the vineyard is identified.<ref name=vanDijk2008/> A general example is this text on a year&nbsp;14 wine docket:
:{{blockquote|Year&nbsp;14, Good quality wine of the estate of Horemheb-meren-Amun, L.P.H., in the domain of Amun, from the wineyard of [[Atfih]], Chief vintner ''Haty''.<ref name=vanDijk2008/>}}
Other year&nbsp;14 dockets mention Memphis (?), the Western River while their vintners are named as Nakhtamun, [Mer-]seger-men, Ramose, and others.<ref name=vanDijk2008/>{{rp|page=196}}

The "quality and consistency of the KV&nbsp;57 dockets strongly suggest that Horemheb was buried in his year&nbsp;14, or at least before the wine harvest of his year&nbsp;15 at the very latest."<ref name=vanDijk2008/>{{rp|page=196}} This evidence is consistent "with the Horemheb dockets from Deir el-Medina which mention years&nbsp;2, 3, 4, 6, 13, and 14, but again no higher dates&nbsp;..." while a docket ascribed to Horemheb from [[Sedment]] has year&nbsp;12."{{refn|van&nbsp;Dijk (2008)<ref name=vanDijk2008/>{{rp|page=197–198}} cites Nagel (1938), for year&nbsp;2;<ref>{{cite book |first=G. |last=Nagel |title=La ceramique du Nouvel Empire a Deir Medineh |place=Cairo |year=1938 |volume=15 |page=6}}</ref> Koenig (1979–1980)<ref>{{cite book |first=Y. |last=Koenig |title=Catalogues des etiquettes de jarres hieratiques de Deir el Medineh |place=Cairo |year=1979–1980}}</ref> for year&nbsp;3 (no.&nbsp;6299), year&nbsp;4 (no.&nbsp;6295), year&nbsp;6 (no.&nbsp;6403), year&nbsp;13 (no.&nbsp;6294), and year&nbsp;14 (no.&nbsp;6345); Martin (1988)<ref>{{cite book |first=G.T. |last=Martin |contribution=Three Objects of New Kingdom Date from the Memphite Area and Sidmant: 3.&nbsp;An inscribed amphora from Sidmant |editor1-first=J. |editor1-last=Baines |display-editors=etal |title=Pyramid Studies and Other Essays presented to I.E.S.&nbsp;Edwards |place=London |year=1988}}</ref>{{rp|at=pl.&nbsp;21, pp.&nbsp;118–120}} }} The lack of dated inscriptions for Horemheb after his year&nbsp;14 also explains the unfinished state of Horemheb's royal KV&nbsp;57 tomb – "a fact not taken into account by any of those [scholars] defending a long reign [of 26 or 27&nbsp;years]. The tomb is comparable to that of [[Seti I]] in size and decoration technique, and Seti&nbsp;I's tomb is far more extensively decorated than that of Horemheb, and yet Seti managed to virtually complete his tomb within a decade, whereas Horemheb did not even succeed in fully decorating the three rooms he planned to have done, leaving even the burial hall unfinished. Even if we assume that Horemheb did not begin the work on his royal tomb until his year&nbsp;7 or 8, ... it remains a mystery how the work could not have been completed had he lived on for another 20 or more years."<ref name=vanDijk2008/>{{rp|page=198}} Therefore, some scholars now accept a reign of 14&nbsp;years and 1&nbsp;month.

In 1995, prior to the 2006 and 2007 discovery of wine dockets from Horemheb's tomb, Van Dijk in a 1995 [[Göttinger Miszellen|GM]] article already argued, based on the career of [[Maya (treasurer)|Maya]]'s chief sculptor, Userhat Hatiay, that Horemheb far shorter reign of between 15 and 17 years.<ref>Jacobus Van Dijk, "[https://www.jacobusvandijk.nl/docs/GM_148.pdf Maya's Chief Sculptor Userhat-Hatiay. With a Note on the Length of the Reign of Horemheb PDF]", GM 148 (1995), pp. 29–34</ref>

[[File:Colossal Statue of King Tutankhamun (10466439746).jpg|thumb|Colossal [[Quartzite]] statue usurped to represent Horemheb excavated from the ruins of the Ay and Horemheb temple in the 1930s, now on display in the [[Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures]]. Traces of previous cartouches on the statue confirm that the statue was originally of [[Tutankhamun]].]]
The argument for a 27-year reign derived from two texts. The first is an anonymous [[hieratic]] [[Graffito (archaeology)|graffito]] written on the shoulder of a now fragmented statue from his mortuary temple in Karnak which mentions the appearance of the king himself, or a royal cult statue representing the king, for a religious feast. The ink graffito reads ''Year&nbsp;27, first Month of Shemu day&nbsp;9, the day on which Horemheb, who loves Amun and hates his enemies, entered'' [the temple for the event]. It was disputed whether this was a contemporary text or a reference to a festival commemorating Horemheb's accession written in the reign of a later king.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Rolf |last=Krauss |title=Nur ein kurioser Irrtum oder ein Beleg für die Jahr&nbsp;26 und 27 von Haremhab? |journal=Discussions in Egyptology |volume=30 |year=1994 |pages=73–85}}</ref> The second text is the Inscription of Mes, from the reign of [[Ramesses II]], which records that a court case decision was rendered in favour of a rival branch of Mes' family in year&nbsp;59 of Horemheb.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/mes.htm |title=Inscription of Mes |publisher=reshafim.org.il |access-date=2009-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161121144717/http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/mes.htm |archive-date=2016-11-21 |df=dmy-all |url-status=dead}}</ref> It was argued that the year&nbsp;59 Horemheb date included the reigns of all the rulers between Amenhotep&nbsp;III and Horemheb. Subtracting the nearly 17-year reign of Akhenaten, the 2-year reign of [[Neferneferuaten]], the 9-year reign of Tutankhamun and the reign of Ay suggested a reign of 26–27&nbsp;years for Horemheb. However, the length of Ay's reign is not actually known and Wolfgang Helck argues that there was no standard Egyptian practice of including the years of all the rulers between Amenhotep&nbsp;III and Horemheb.<ref name=Helck1984>{{cite book |first=Wolfgang |last=Helck |title=Urkunden der 18&nbsp;Dynastie: Texte der Hefte&nbsp;20–21 |place=Berlin |publisher=Akademie-Verlag |year=1984 |pages=1908–1910}}</ref>{{rp|at='''IV''':2162}}<ref name=vanDijk2008/>{{rp|page=198–199}}

The most recent interpretation of the archeological evidence today favours Van Dijk's arguments that Horemheb either died in his Regnal Year 14 or that he started a Regnal Year 15 but died before the wine harvest of his final year was processed, and that later Rammasside pharaohs included the reigns of all the rulers between Amenhotep&nbsp;III and Horemheb to give him a total of at least 47 years. As David Aston notes in a 2012 Ägypten und Levante paper, this theory means that R. "Hari's [1964] emendation of the [partly damaged] Horemheb text London UC 14291 to Year [1]5 is possible but to year [2]5 is unlikely."<ref>David Aston, [https://www.academia.edu/39997434/Radiocarbon_Wine_Jars_And_New_Kingdom_Chronology Radiocarbon, Wine Jars and New Kingdom Chronology PDF], Ägypten und Levante/Egypt and the Levant 22, 2012, p.296</ref>