18 Facts About Horemheb

Horemheb had no relation to the preceding royal family other than by marriage to Mutnedjmet, who is thought to have been the daughter of his predecessor Ay; he is believed to have been of common birth.

Horemheb demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing the rubble in his own building projects, and usurped monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay.

Horemheb is believed to have originally come from Hnes, on the west bank of the Nile, near the entrance to the Fayum, since his coronation text formally credits the god Horus of Hnes for establishing him on the throne.

Horemheb's parentage is unknown but he is believed to have been a commoner.

When Tutankhamun died while a teenager, Horemheb had already been officially designated as the rpat or iry-pat and idnw by the child pharaoh; these titles are found inscribed in Horemheb's then private Memphite tomb at Saqqara which dates to the reign of Tutankhamun since the child king's.

Occasionally called The Great Edict of Horemheb, 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 was a prolific builder who erected numerous temples and buildings throughout Egypt during his reign.

Horemheb constructed the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Pylons of the Great Hypostyle Hall, in the Temple at Karnak, using recycled talatat blocks from Akhenaten's own monuments here, as building material for the first two Pylons.

Horemheb continued Tutankhamun's restoration of the old order that had been established before the Amarna period.

Horemheb reintroduced the ancient cults, particularly Amun, thus proving himself a true pharaoh who established Maat.

Horemheb is not known to have any children by his first wife, Amenia, who died before Horemheb assumed power.

Horemheb turned to several gods because of his various names: his throne name means 'Sacred are the manifestations of Ra' and his name birth name is accompanied by the epithet 'beloved of Amun'.

Horemheb appear in reliefs wearing the typical pleated linen robe of a high ranking official depicted sitting in front of an offering table, as a pharaoh holding the pole and the sekhem sceptre of a high official, with a benu-bird regarded as the protector of the dead as the soul of Ra sitting on a stand, and finally a man worshipping a benu-bird.

Geoffrey Thorndike Martin in his excavation work at Saqqara states that the burial of Horemheb's second wife Mutnedjmet, as well as that of an unborn or newborn baby, was located at the bottom of a shaft to the rooms of Horemheb's Saqqara tomb.

Horemheb died at around age forty, possibly in childbirth, as the remains of a fetus were found with her body.

Since Horemheb had no surviving son, he appointed his Vizier, Paramesse, to succeed him upon his death, both to reward Paramesse's loyalty and because the latter had both a son and grandson to secure Egypt's royal succession.

Directly after his accession to the throne, Horemheb had a tomb built in the Valley of Kings, abandoning his earlier one near Memphis.