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Death Cannot Stop True Love - TPM 11
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Uncover timeless displays of romantic affection or "true love" that were intended to endure long after death. We'll explore some remarkable examples, starting with the gold foil figures found at pre-Christian sites across Scandinavia that depict both mortal couples and the wedding of the Norse god Freyr to the jötunn Gerd. Then we'll examine a pre-Columbian stone pendant found on the ancestral lands of the Timbisha Shoshone (now known as Death Valley, California) that immortalized one couple's journey together. We'll discover the shared brass memorial over the adjacent graves of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge, two English noblewomen who lived during the Tudor period, and the popular uprising in the previous century that helped pave the way for their public declaration of devotion.
We'll visit the Etruscan necropolises once again for examples of masterwork sarcophagi depicting affectionate couples lounging on couches called Klinai or lying in bed and facing one another. After that we'll delve into Ancient Egyptian tomb art and monuments like the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, two elite men from the 5th dynasty of Ancient Egypt who's tomb art depicts them in ways typically seen in heterosexual couples to show they were married. And we'll learn about the intricate art from the tomb of King Tutankhamun that show him and his wife Ankesenamun in affectionate moments during their brief reign from 1332 – 1323 BCE. Last but not least, we'll explore the monuments Ramses the Great built during his reign in 1279-1213 BCE that display his devotion to his Great Royal Wife Nefertari, like her beautifully decorated tomb in the Valley of Queens or the temple dedicated to her at Abu Simbel.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Archaeology Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Immortalizing Love Throughout History
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to the past macabre, where we journey through history to explore how our relationship with death reflects the values, fears, and hopes that shape how people live. I'm your host, Stephanie Rice. Thank you for joining me for episode 11, Death Cannot Stop True Love. In modern wedding ceremonies rooted in Christian traditions, the phrase, till death do us part, is often included in the vows.
00:00:53
Speaker
But throughout history, countless cultures have envisioned the afterlife as a utopic continuation of their lives, which included their love for one another. In this episode, we'll be looking at several ways people have immortalized their love for one another, with examples ranging from the 25th century BCE to the 15th century CE.
00:01:16
Speaker
It's important to note, however, that these interpretations are from modern Western points of view. It isn't always correct when we apply our notions of affectionate displays onto ancient cultures. Affectionate gestures that we see as romantic today may have had entirely different meanings in their cultural and historical contexts, so I've tried to choose examples that fit based on multiple factors.
Scandinavian Gold Figures and Pagan Practices
00:01:40
Speaker
Now, let's dig into the ways couples have tried to ensure that not even death would part them.
00:01:53
Speaker
Artifacts depicting couples have been found all over the world from various time periods and they can often give us insight into the ancient social structures and gender roles and political alliances. Our first example comes from Scandinavia during the late Iron Age about 400 to 800 BCE in the form of small gold figures that are less than two centimeters long and barely a millimeter thick.
00:02:19
Speaker
Many of them depict couples holding hands, facing each other, and some are even kissing. Not a lot is known about pre-Christian Scandinavian beliefs and cultural practices because the famous eddas and sagas that gave us Norse mythology as we know it today are fragments of heavily biased texts written by Christian writers in the 13th century.
00:02:41
Speaker
But as archaeologists working in the region uncover more sites and artifacts, they can piece together what portions of the Eddas were from pre-Christian beliefs. And surprisingly, these tiny artifacts are proving to be a useful source of information on a wide range of topics. They're often detailed enough that researchers have used them to study clothing from the period, and some even show accessories like necklaces or bracelets on the people depicted.
00:03:08
Speaker
Based on the context they've been found in, they were left as part of the offerings during important ceremonies like the construction of a new temple, marriages, funerals, and rituals for the prophetic religious practice known as satyr. Gold-foiled depictions of couples are often found in caches together in the postholes of buildings, like the ones found at a site called Aska in Sweden.
00:03:32
Speaker
These buildings were most likely used for wedding ceremonies based on the context of some of the other artifacts found as well. And some researchers theorized that the gold was attached to the posts of these buildings and might have been sort of a record for each ceremony that happened there.
00:03:47
Speaker
At a site near Vingram in Norway, archaeologists found a unique cache of gold-boiled figures in the postholes of a temple, or a hove, as they were called in Old Norse. Evidence shows that this site was used for religious purposes starting in the 7th century CE and continued to be an important center of pagan worship that resisted Christianization for centuries. For context, it was common for Christian churches to be built at the site of ancient temples as the locals were converted.
00:04:17
Speaker
And the first church that was built near this temple at Fingram wasn't built until the end of the 14th century CE, which was about 400 to 500 years after the campaign to intentionally convert the region began. Here at this site, 35 gold foil figures have been found depicting gods and goddesses.
00:04:37
Speaker
The few that depict couples appear to be Freyr, the god of fertility and summertime, and Gerd, or Gerdur, a Jotun, or a giant from Norse mythology, who became a goddess. The myth of this divine couple, as told from the Eddas, begins with Freyr climbing to Hlyskjaf, which was the place where Odin would look upon all the realms.
00:05:00
Speaker
Sometimes it's depicted as Odin's throne because the name Hlytskelf translates to high seat with a far view. As Freyr's eyes roamed across the worlds, he saw Gerd, a giantess of incomparable beauty. It was said in the Eddas that her radiance was so brilliant that it illuminated the dark lands of Jotunheim,
00:05:21
Speaker
and Freyr fell helplessly in love at first sight. But Gerdur's people, the Jotnar, which were depicted often as giants, but weren't all giants. It's kind of hard to fully explain, but essentially they had the powers of gods, but they were always depicted in a more negative light. I guess similar to like demons, ultimately, and not all of them were giant in size. And these people, the Jotnar, were the enemies of the Aesir and the Vanir, which were the gods in Norse mythology.
00:05:51
Speaker
Knowing that they could never be together because their people were enemies, Freyr fell into a depression and refused to speak with anyone. After a while of this, Freyr's father and stepmother, the sea god Njord and the winter goddess Skadi, sent the messenger of the gods Skirnir to find out what was wrong.
00:06:11
Speaker
Freyr told Skirnir of his heartbreak and begged Skirnir to court Garret on his behalf. But Skirnir said his price was Freyr's magical sword, a powerful weapon that could fight on its own and always guaranteed victory in battle. Freyr knew that surrendering this sword would leave him defenseless during Ragnarok, which prophecy said he would have to face the fire giant Surtr at Ragnarok, the mythical end of the world in Norse mythology.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yet Freyr made this choice willingly and gave up his sword, putting his love for Gerd above his own future. Satisfied with his payment, Skirner traveled to the land of the Giants, bearing gifts and a request to meet from Freyr. At first, Gerd was unimpressed and had no desire to mingle with an enemy of her people.
00:07:00
Speaker
She even wondered if it was some kind of trick put on by the Aesir and the Vanir. Finally, Skirnir revealed to her that Freyr had given up his magical sword. Gerd knew about the prophecy of Ragnarok and what surrendering his sword meant. Moved by Freyr's devotion and sacrifice, Gerd finally agreed to meet him in a sacred grove. And unfortunately, that's where both the Prozetta and Poetic Edda end the myth.
00:07:27
Speaker
But other sources refer to Gerd as Freyr's wife, so it seems that the meeting at the Grove went well. The gold foil figures of Freyr and Gerd that were found in Norway show that the core of this myth predates Christian influence.
Timbisha Shoshone History and Challenges
00:07:41
Speaker
And the similarities between how they're depicted and the gold foil figure couples found at other sites indicate that the love story of Gerd and Freyr was associated with marriage ceremonies across Scandinavia, especially in the pre-Viking Age era.
00:07:58
Speaker
Next, we'll look at a depiction of a couple from the other side of the world in Death Valley, California that was made about the same time that the gold foil figures began appearing in Scandinavia.
00:08:09
Speaker
The name Death Valley was given to the area by European American settlers after a group died in the desert heat when they ventured into the valley looking for gold during California's gold rush. It's the hottest place on earth, no exaggeration. The highest air temperature ever recorded on earth was 134 degrees Fahrenheit or 56 degrees Celsius here in Death Valley.
00:08:34
Speaker
So it's absolutely not a place you want to be caught unprepared like these settlers were. But indigenous people have lived here for over 10,000 years successfully, and the Timbisha Shoshone still do. And they call their homeland to Pipwa, not Death Valley.
00:08:53
Speaker
Their home that they loved had protected them and several other groups in the region from European contact until 1849, when the Gold Rush brought waves of migrants from the eastern states that became known as the 49ers. That's where the 49ers football team gets their name from. That was over 300 years after European contact began with the rest of the people who lived in what would become California. Since then, the Timbuche Shoshone haven't had full access to their own homeland.
00:09:23
Speaker
and they've had to watch many of their sacred sites get destroyed, and looters take all of their things, and they were poisoned by nuclear testing. The flood of people who came searching for gold led to the removal of the Timbisha Shoshone, and then the miners could control the limited water resources in the area instead of the local tribe.
00:09:45
Speaker
As they scoured the valley searching for gold and other mineable resources, the European settlers came across many indigenous sites all over the valley and they began looting them, including burials, and they even took human remains to sell to collectors.
00:10:02
Speaker
After nearly a century of suffering looters, in the 1940s, the US military began nuclear tests in the desert, and the sacred lands of several Shoshone groups, including the Timbisha, were in the places where they were testing these nuclear warheads. On top of the destruction that was wrought in the area,
00:10:21
Speaker
There were many people who were way too close and now we know that they all got sick. There are many cancers that range throughout a lot of the smaller communities that were mostly indigenous and Hispanic that were just left in the fallout area of all of these nuclear tests.
00:10:42
Speaker
Unfortunately, only recently in the year 2000 did any of the Timbisha Shoshone start gaining any of their land back in Death Valley. And even still, it's very small swaths and there have been no reparations as far as any of the other atrocities that they've suffered. Though eventually in 2011,
00:11:05
Speaker
looters were finally held accountable for their looting that took place over a decade across many Timbisha Shoshone sites through Death Valley. The person responsible, who turned out to be an anesthesiologist from Mammoth in California,
00:11:20
Speaker
He ended up having to pay over $200,000 in restitution, and he had to return every possible artifact that he still had or was able to track down. As far as archaeological attention goes, a couple of archaeologists surveyed parts of the valley in the early 20th century, but it wasn't until the 1950s that the National Park Service and the University of Southern California began to take a serious interest in archaeology here.
00:11:46
Speaker
A 10-year project to survey for sites began, and they identified over 1,400 sites, and they didn't even cover the entire desert. Many of these places are things like rock shelters and caves that have petroglyphs or rock art, and there are seasonal campsites because the Timbusha Shoshone, as well as many of the other groups that were native to the area, would move around seasonally in order to deal with the heat of the valley.
00:12:15
Speaker
In the hotter periods, they would live up at the higher elevations in the mountains. And in the colder time, they would come down into the valley. There are also sites that were quarries for the many stone materials that have been found. Workshops where all sorts of things like pottery and stone tools and jewelry and basically everything was made. And burial mounds make up a very large portion of the sites as well.
00:12:42
Speaker
Artifacts that have been excavated at these sites with a lot of the projects that began in the 1950s and ran into the 1970s and 80s have confirmed the millennia-old presence of the indigenous people that the oral histories of the Timbisha Shoshone had preserved.
00:12:58
Speaker
another case where mythology should not be dismissed when it comes to trying to trace historical origins. Many times mythology actually has cultural memory embedded into it. One artifact from these excavations in particular that's of interest for this episode that seems to be an expression of affection was found in a burial cairn from about 500 to 1000 CE.
00:13:25
Speaker
It's a stone pendant that has a depiction of a couple on one side, with footprints around the pendant showing the paths each figure walked. The trails cross each other at the back of the pendant, which is roughly the middle of the length of each trail. Reminder,
00:13:41
Speaker
This is coming from a modern Western point of view, but it's been interpreted as symbolizing the couple's lives and then the crossing trails represent when they met or committed to one another. It's not a common motif found in art around Death Valley at any of the archaeological sites, which further points to it being a uniquely creative expression instead of an obligatory ornament as part of a ceremonial dress or a sort of traditional wedding gift.
00:14:10
Speaker
Whether it signified romantic attachment or potentially a political marriage of sorts, it was important enough for the person who buried their partner here to bury this with them. And it was most likely worn in life as well and wasn't simply crafted to be just a grave good.
Medieval England and Societal Changes
00:14:29
Speaker
Now we'll look across the pond at an artifact from medieval England, but as usual, a little background context first.
00:14:37
Speaker
The medieval period began in 1066 and was basically a product of the Viking Age. William the Conqueror claimed England for the Normans after he defeated Harald Hardrada of Norway and took England from the Scandinavian Empire.
00:14:52
Speaker
The Normans rose up as a distinct cultural and political group from several generations of intermarriage between the Vikings who settled in the area, the Germanic group known as the Franks, and Anglo-Saxons who were the culture group who had controlled most of England prior to the Scandinavian conquest. It's probably no surprise, but William the Conqueror did not earn his name by being a benevolent leader.
00:15:17
Speaker
He brought feudalism to England in order to consolidate his own power, which made most of his subjects indentured servants, and they had to give up almost all of what they produced to the crown. William was also a very devout Catholic and financially supported in his conquest by the Vatican.
00:15:37
Speaker
He removed most of the people in high level church positions who had any connection to Northern England or Scotland since they continued to resist him throughout his rule, and he replaced them with Normans that he knew were loyal to him and the Pope.
00:15:51
Speaker
He also inserted himself as the step between the Pope. So no member of the church was allowed to speak to the Pope without going through him first. With these changes, William reformed the church and the royal government to be so closely intertwined that the religious leaders gained a huge boost in political power and the ability to enforce their strict social and moral codes.
00:16:19
Speaker
This system carried on with his successors taking more and more freedoms and more and more taxes from the public in order to fund costly wars like the Hundred Years' War against France.
00:16:30
Speaker
This led people to begin organizing their merchant and artisan guilds into becoming far more politically active than they previously were. This period also gave rise to the famous folk hero Robin Hood, and tales of his exploits against the rich quickly spread across England and inspired many people. In 1377, workers in rural areas started refusing to work for their landlords, and an uprising in York ran their corrupt mayor out of town in 1380.
00:17:00
Speaker
All of this culminated into the great uprising, also called the Peasants' Revolt, which began on May 30, 1381. On that day, a tax collector attempted to use force to get the people of Essex to pay their taxes. The people refused and stood up also with force against the tax man and his bullies. In just a few days, thousands gathered and then they marched on London.
00:17:29
Speaker
There, they were let in over the London Bridge defenses. Historians presume it was most likely a sympathizer because there was probably no way that a semi-disorganized rabble of rebels would have made it through the heavy defenses of the medieval London Bridge.
00:17:48
Speaker
Once into the city, they broke prisoners out. They set fire to buildings near Westminster Palace and Westminster Abbey, which were mostly homes and the places where the officials worked. They destroyed court documents and they even chased King Richard II, his mother, and several of the unpopular officials and earls into hiding in the Tower of London, which was ultimately the last fortified place that they could hide.
00:18:15
Speaker
Ultimately, in the grand scheme, the uprising failed. The king tricked the rebels by agreeing to several of their demands, but then rescinding them when he was out of harm's way. And then he launched a military campaign to suppress everyone connected to the uprising.
00:18:31
Speaker
and pretty much every leader within the uprising was killed. But despite the larger loss there, the uprising did actually have lasting impacts that I personally could see as larger wins.
00:18:47
Speaker
Parliament blamed greedy royal officials for the uprising and they convinced the king to give them more power to keep royal officials in check. Historical texts also show that in the years following the uprising, the government continued to worry about another uprising happening. And so they did not reinstate the high taxes that were there before. They spent less on the war against France and slowly began pulling out of other military conflicts throughout Europe.
00:19:16
Speaker
Tenants would even reference the uprising to successfully negotiate lower rents with their landlords. And the church lost a lot of power during this time, and people began openly questioning its teachings without repercussions leading in death. All of this background is to give context that people began expressing themselves and their love for one another more openly as they started regaining more freedoms.
00:19:44
Speaker
It became common for memorials made of brass and laid into stone to be placed into tombs at small family churches when members of the family passed. And many times these memorials depicted couples together for eternity. This trend was basically only able to start because wealth was actually coming back down to more people than it had previously been before. And people were also having larger trade and cultural exchange with the greater region again.
00:20:13
Speaker
One of these memorial brasses in particular that is located in a church in East Sussex dates to the 15th century. It depicts two women named Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge.
00:20:28
Speaker
Researchers are fairly confident that they were a romantic couple for several reasons. For one, the body language of the brass figures matches that used to depict couples in other memorials from the same period. For another, both women come from very prominent families who each had their own family church with a family tomb. An unmarried daughter of a prominent family, which they most definitely were based on every record about them, which is Albeit scant, they would have been mentioned more in the context of having a husband. These unmarried daughters would have been buried with her family tomb unless she had joined a nunnery, but then she would have been buried at the cemetery of the monastery that she was a part of. Instead, Agnes Oxenbridge was buried next to Elizabeth Etchingham in the Etchingham family tomb, even though she died nearly 30 years after Elizabeth.
00:21:23
Speaker
This is the same way that a married heterosexual couple would have been interred next to each other no matter how far apart their deaths were. And it would have been arranged beforehand if they both came from prominent families that most likely they both would have been buried in the family of the male.
00:21:41
Speaker
In this case, based on the depictions that we see in the brass and the context of their burial, Elizabeth Etchingham was both shown in the position typically that male figures of a heterosexual couple were shown in.
00:21:55
Speaker
The amount of coordination required between the church, both elite families, the craftspeople who made the tombs and the memorial, all indicate that the love Elizabeth and Agnes shared was not a secret, at the very least not to their immediate community. Without the uprising in the late 14th century leading to less indoctrinated social views, it's likely that these lovers would have been separated for eternity instead of being buried together within a church.
00:22:25
Speaker
While we can't say for sure the view of same-sex relationships throughout all of 15th century England, after all, the the church did still have power. It wasn't completely gone. We can gain quite a bit of insight into the views of the community Elizabeth and Agnes were a part of just from this brass inlay.
Etruscan Art and Family Values
00:22:44
Speaker
Next, we'll take a look at several examples of love immortalized in stone from the Etruscans and ancient Egyptians after this obligatory ad break.
00:22:55
Speaker
Let's continue the tour of love tokens through history in Etruria. To learn more about the Etruscans, listen to the previous episode, episode 10, Etruscan Death and Divination, in order to learn more about the overall beliefs and burial practices of the Etruscans, who were a major power in the Italian peninsula before Rome was.
00:23:19
Speaker
Essentially, the Etruscans very heavily valued family overall. The necropolises where they're buried would include large family tombs that extended for generations and throughout several extended branches.
00:23:35
Speaker
this esteem for family carried to the women as well. And for the most part, in comparison to the rest of the region in antiquity, women in Etruria were given a lot more rights and equality to their husbands than many other women.
00:23:52
Speaker
We can see this especially in Etruscan Tumart because women are often, in fact, mostly depicted as the same exact size as their husbands and doing most of the same tasks, which for most of antiquity in the region is unheard of in ancient Egypt and Rome and Greece. Most often women were depicted in much smaller or less prominent or very different gendered roles than their husbands were.
00:24:20
Speaker
And in this tomb art, we also see a lot of affection shared between the couples that isn't present in a lot of other art within the region. Especially in tombs, there's a lot of very vibrantly colored frescoes that depict banquet scenes, most often featuring the deceased, and then sometimes they include their extended family as well.
00:24:42
Speaker
In them, the partners are shown together at this banquet, looking at each other, smiling, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Some Etruscans went all out and commissioned not just the frescoes, but sarcophagi that depicted them with their spouse on clean eye, which was a type of couch that was specifically for lounging at banquets.
00:25:07
Speaker
The first of these sarcophagi that we'll look at is from about 520 BCE, and it was found in the necropolis near Sarvatary, which is not too far to the north of Rome.
00:25:22
Speaker
On this sarcophagus, the couple is lounging on the k clean eye as all of the other depictions often show, but they're in beautifully detailed three dimensions and they're both smiling. The husband's arm is around the wife's shoulder. They're both very casual and they're holding their hands in a way that looks like there were likely cups in them at some point.
00:25:50
Speaker
Perhaps they were just there, metal cups that were placed there for whenever celebrations were held for the dead and libations could be poured for them, or perhaps something else was there that has now been lost. And when this couple is lounging here, they they just seem to be so at ease and affectionate.
00:26:13
Speaker
This sarcophagus holds the cremated remains of the couple and they're combined within it. It's still quite large. It's over six feet long or about one point nine meters. The couch that they're on itself is so incredibly detailed. You can see the seams on the side. There are pillows on it and everything. This is considered a masterwork of Etruscan art compared to all of the Etruscan art that has been found in the archaeological record.
00:26:43
Speaker
I will most certainly be sharing photos of this on Instagram because you definitely have to see it. In a different Etruscan necropolis called Ponte Roto, there was another example of couples depicted in eternal stone embrace. In this case, two sarcophagi were found, but instead of lounging on the clean eye, they were depicted in bed laying together and holding each other in a loving embrace.
00:27:14
Speaker
These were found within a family tomb and they depict the older couple as parents. And then the later burial was of the son and his wife. They date to about 350 to 300 BCE. And this was definitely after the Etruscans had become heavily influenced by Greek culture and their views of deities and the afterlife.
00:27:43
Speaker
The older one of the parents has a lot more qualities of older Etruscan art and depicts more natural views of the body, such as they're not godlike figures. They're not exceptionally gorgeous people. They're depicted with very human, normal, natural bodies and faces and nothing extravagant added to them.
00:28:11
Speaker
The stone is so detailed that there are you even wrinkles within the sheet that they're wrapped around in. So it is very interesting that they did have all of these intricate details and therefore these were very likely just normal people. They didn't have any sort of fancy dresser accessories. They're just laying in bed.
00:28:35
Speaker
The second sarcophagus lid depicting the son and his wife is even more detailed, and it shows a lot more Greek influence in it than the previous one did. In both sarcophagi, the couples are staring lovingly into each other's eyes, and they have their arms around one another equally. There is no sense, again, of like any sort of gender disparity, just like with their their frescoes from the tombs.
00:29:06
Speaker
In these two sarcophagi, it's a bit of a mixture of those banquet scenes with the couple combined together in a happy daily life scene that was meant to extend into the afterlife ultimately. In this case, it also goes back to an older Etruscan tradition, which again, I go into more detail in the previous episode, but the tombs within the necropolises held beds in the room that were carved of stone that you even included pillows and sheets that the dead were laid out on.
Romantic Relationships in Egyptian Tombs
00:29:43
Speaker
In this case, the tradition continued, but with a Greek twist now that there had been a lot more cultural mix
00:29:51
Speaker
These two examples from long after the Etruscans had been heavily influenced by others in the region show that their intentional care for family and their spouses and the general equality or closer equality of women in Etruria was still held as important. And now we'll head to Egypt for some examples of the ways that love was immortalized there.
00:30:19
Speaker
Now, we have tons and tons and tons of examples from Egypt in a broad category of husbands and wives being depicted together within their tombs, either in statues or reliefs. And especially in royal settings, in royal tombs and temples, even there's a lot of depictions of the Pharaoh with one or more of his royal wives.
00:30:48
Speaker
But we're going to look at a few specific examples instead of talking about the broader categories. And first, we're going to start off with a tomb that dates to between 2500 and 2400 BCE. This tomb belonged to two late fifth dynasty elites who were named Numhotep and Neonnum.
00:31:14
Speaker
They held quite a few titles which show how important they were within the elite circles. It wasn't uncommon for elites to kind of inflate their status on their tombs, but we also see attestations of their titles in the tombs of some of their contemporaries as well. Some of their titles included Overseer of Manicurists, Inspector of Manicurists in the Palace, Guardian of Secrets,
00:31:44
Speaker
king's acquaintance, king's scribe, confidant of the king, keeper of the king's things, one who is beloved of his lord, sun priest in the palace where Ra's heart receives welcome, and purity attendant of the enduring places of Nusareh, who was a head priest within the king's pyramid complex.
00:32:11
Speaker
These officials oversaw the construction of his tomb and the quarrying of the stone that was used there. And this is one of those external attestations we have to their importance within the royal court.
00:32:25
Speaker
Their joint tomb is a bit unusual because they are both men and they were married as their joint tomb does depict their wives, but their wives are relegated to even smaller status within the tomb than was typical for elites of the Old Kingdom.
00:32:46
Speaker
Traveling into the tomb from the entrance into the burial chamber, there are depictions of Nyangnyum and Nyumhotep that are first with their families. You see their wives and their children. Both of them had several children respectively. And then as you get further in the interior, you see less depictions of their family and more depictions that are solely of them.
00:33:16
Speaker
And then the most famous depiction of them within the burial chamber is the two of them embracing with the typical Egyptian pose and art that is shown with couples. it's The touching of noses together with the two facing one another is seen as a very intimate pose in Egyptian art. And so far, there haven't been any other examples found that would indicate that they were siblings or potentially just coworkers who shared the same roles for so long. It's most likely that they were a romantically linked couple.
00:34:02
Speaker
Some researchers think that they may have been twins, but they would be the only known example of siblings that are given that pose. And it's not just that nose to nose pose. There are other places within the tomb where they're depicted doing the same things or within the same stances that couples are normally depicted in within the tomb, except they're both the same size instead of the wife being of a smaller size as would be with a heterosexual couple.
00:34:33
Speaker
Plus, there are very rare attestations of twins in ancient Egypt, but the ones that we do have indicate that having twins was not really seen as a good thing to be celebrated. And it's very unlikely that twins would have been elevated to such a status with this's that type of thought around them. There are some texts that have been found where there's essentially prayers to the gods or irregular decrees from the gods saying that a woman shall not give birth to twins. Likely this is due to the difficulty in surviving both for the woman and for the children when it comes to twin childbirths in the ancient world.
00:35:20
Speaker
even today it is very difficult. The only known attestation of twins who survived into adulthood in ancient Egypt and were well off enough to be part of elite circles that would have had intricately decorated tombs shows more of a rivalry between them and does not depict them in loving embraces.
00:35:41
Speaker
Some of the texts from the point of view of one brother refer to the other as essentially his evil half. It refers to him as his left side or his dark side, which in Egyptian texts was often associated with negative things. And the fact that they had wives and children by them does not discount the fact that they could have been a romantically linked couple.
00:36:07
Speaker
bisexuality explanation aside, there's also a lot of pressure on elites to marry and have children because there's a desire to keep power within the same family and make those sorts of elite roles within the royal court hereditary so that the chain could continue within the family.
00:36:30
Speaker
Unfortunately, the tomb was completely looted in antiquity and the bodies were even removed. So there's no way to do a DNA test on them to confirm for sure if they were brothers or not. The art within their joint tomb would have been chosen by them. And it certainly reflects a more intimate relationship between them that's depicted in husband and wife relationships throughout tombs within the same period.
00:36:58
Speaker
Now we'll look at depictions of affection within the most famous tomb within Egypt, King Tutankhamun. To address the elephant in the room, yes, Tutankhamun was famously the boy king who ascended to the throne at the age of nine. He was also married, as was required of most every pharaoh within ancient Egypt's history, and his wife's name was Aung Sunamun.
00:37:23
Speaker
King Tut was the son of Akhenaten, the famous heretic king who upended everything and reset the Egyptian cosmos by elevating the sun god Aten above all others and uprooting the art style, religious structure, economics, palace location, everything of ancient Egypt during his rule.
00:37:47
Speaker
the art of the Amarna period, which was when Akhenaten ruled, was very unique within Egyptian history. And it also showed more loving, tender concepts of the pharaoh and his family in general.
00:38:04
Speaker
But then when we get to Tutankhamen, his art style reverts back to the traditional style, except he and Aung San Amun are shown in very tender poses. And there's scenes like one of the most famous ones from an ivory chest that was found in his tomb depicts them in what seems to be a very lush garden, which likely was at Amarna, which was said to be a very lush gardeness area.
00:38:34
Speaker
And Aksuna Moon is shown holding a lotus flower to King Tut, who is leaning on a cane, leaning forward in to sniff the flower, which in Egyptian art is seen as a very loving pose, a very caring pose. It shows that Aksuna Moon is caring for and showing affection for Tutankhamun.
00:38:58
Speaker
There are scenes of Aung San Amun within the tomb of King Tut that show her off in hunting expeditions with him, handing him the arrows that he needs for a duck hunt, for example. And then there's another scene where she's depicted acting as a priest in a ritual anointing King Tut in one of the many pharaonic rituals he would have been required to perform.
00:39:25
Speaker
King Tut had an unfortunately short reign for someone who ascended to the throne so young, and he only ruled from 1332 BCE to 1323 BCE. This left Aung San Amun as a widow by the age of 21, and she had no heirs, so she unfortunately disappears from the archaeological record.
00:39:49
Speaker
Researchers think they might have identified her tomb and maybe her mummy in a separate tomb, which was not unheard of because of later generations trying to preserve mummies from looters. But there's still a lot of research to be done to actually confirm. For now, most of what we know about her comes from the depictions of her in King Tut's tomb. And as I said, much of them are very loving and affectionate.
00:40:19
Speaker
The final example we'll look at of these eternal expressions of love is in Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, and his great queen, Nefertari. Nefertari was referred to as the great queen because Ramses II, as with many pharaohs, did have several other wives. But Nefertari was elevated above them and many other royal wives throughout Egyptian history in a way that stood out.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's very clear that Ramses the Great cared a lot about Nefertari. He commissioned a tomb for her that is gorgeous. And he includes epithets to her that say things like, she is the one for whom the sun shines.
00:41:06
Speaker
Ramses the Great was also very proud of the fact that his queen was highly literate and very smart, which is a very rare thing to see within ancient Egyptian or most of ancient history. There's an entire wall in her tomb that's dedicated to showing her playing the game Senate, which is a very ancient board game, one of the contenders for the oldest board game in the world.
00:41:32
Speaker
Nefertari is also depicted standing in front of Thoth, the god of writing and scribes, among many other things. And he's actually exclaiming her to be one of his scribes, which was almost unheard of in ancient Egypt. And it wasn't only her tomb where Ramses the Great was proclaiming his love for her. There's also the temple of Abu Simbel, which is in Aswan, Egypt.
00:41:59
Speaker
Here, there are two temples, actually, and they're rock cut into the massive rocks there at Abu Simbel, and they are dedicated to Ramses the Great, and then a slightly smaller one is dedicated to Nefertari herself. As with the other depictions of Nefertari that Ramses the Great put up, it was unheard of for queens to be depicted in this way and to have temples dedicated to them.
00:42:26
Speaker
Within the Hypostyle Hall of the temple that's dedicated to Ramses, there's actually pillars of all of the gods and then also Nefertari amongst them playing the Systrum, which is a musical instrument. Now, there were definitely examples of queens being elevated to deified statuses before, but not to this level while they were most likely still alive.
00:42:53
Speaker
There's also evidence that Nefertari played an active role in the politics of the region. Early on in his reign, Ramses the Great was at war with the Hittites, and he ended up having to sign a peace treaty with them. And in order to maintain that treaty, Nefertari wrote letters to both the king and the queen of the Hittites at the time.
00:43:16
Speaker
There are several cuneiform tablets that have been found written by Nefertari who address them very friendly cordially and she sends gifts basically to ensure that this peace treaty is maintained for the 20 years it was intended to stand.
Conclusion and Future Explorations
00:43:35
Speaker
In these enduring displays of affection across history, we can see the ways that different cultures of different time periods expressed romantic love.
00:43:46
Speaker
from the tiny gold foils in Scandinavia to the massive stone monuments of devotion in Egypt. We see people all over the world hoping that their love isn't limited to only one short mortal life.
00:44:02
Speaker
as Wesley and the Princess Bride so beautifully puts it, death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it a little while. The theme of love and death continues in the next episode. I'll focus on the Roman celebrations of love, life, and death that were held in February known as Lupercalia and Parentalia. Until next time.
00:44:30
Speaker
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00:44:57
Speaker
You can find show notes for this and other episodes at arcpodnet
00:45:37
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.