 |
The hieroglyphic
name of Maya |
Maya or Maia was an important figure during the dominate of Pharaohs
Tutankhamun,
Ay and
Horemheb of the
18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Maya's titles accept: fan carrier on the King's right hand, overseer of the treasury, great of the works in the necropolis, and leader of the fete of
Amun in
Karnak.
Maya was the son of a magistrate named Iuy and his wife Weret. He had a half brother addressed Nahuher who is shown functioning in his tomb in
Saqqara. Maya was married to a lady named
Meryt, and they had two daughters named Mayamenti and Tjauenmaya.
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| Statue of Maya and Merit |
The early years of Maya's life and career are not well noted. It is manageable that Maya got his career during the rule of
Amenhotep III. He may be the same person as a royal scribe named Maya who is attested in
Malkata in year 34. He may likewise be the same person as a courtier described May noted from a tomb in
Amarna during the rule of
Akhenaten. The May from Amarna shares some of the titles with Maya, but he was not a treasurer.
Maya is well knew from the reign of Tutankhamen however. As the Overseer of the treasuries, he was as well an essential formal and was noted for restoring the burials of several earlier Pharaohs in the Royal Necropolis in the years next the deaths of Tutankhamun and Ay. It is possible that he personally left a hand written text in the tomb of Thutmose IV stating that he had been charged with the restitution of the burial of the king. Maya would have according to the vizier of Lower Egypt, who was located in Memphis.
Maya collected taxes and performed other services for these pharaohs, including supervising the planning of their tombs. Maya contributed an Ushabti to the funerary furnishings for King Tutankhamen. He as well presented the king with a pattern of the King in the pretext of the
god Osiris. Both details were sliced and recorded that Maya was the presenter of the statues.
Maya is known to have lived until leastwise year 8 of Horemheb when an inscription mentions he was hot with tax collection for the entire country and preparing offerings for the
gods. He is also drawn in
TT50, the tomb of a divine father of Amun described Neferhotep. Maya is described between King Horemheb and the viziers indicating his close congress to the king.
Maya's own tomb at Saqqara was ab initio partly hollowed in 1843 by the archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius, and its impressive backups were recorded in resumes and some of them took to Berlin. Over time, yet, the tomb was extended by sand, and its position was lost. In 1975, a joint expedition of archaeologists from the Egypt Exploration Society in London and the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Netherlands started a quest to rediscover the tomb, and on February 6, 1986 they finally come after. On this date, Professor Geoffrey T. Martin together with Dr. Jacobus Van Dijk representing the Leiden museum learned the burial chamber of Maya's belowground tomb at Saqqara some 18 metres (60 feet) below the surface.
The first full temper's work on Maya's burial in early 1987 indicated that his tomb is "a slightly smaller and abbreviated version of Horemheb's Saqqara tomb. An open courtyard has a collanade on its west side and doors lead to three vaulted ceilings. An inner courtyard has been saw to take backups of very fine quality and a statue of Maya and his wife." The underground burial chambers were paved with limestone and dressed with rests showing Maya and his wife in front of gods.
The
statues of Maya and his wife Merit have been mounted presentation in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands since 1823. Lately, the pair has been lended to The Archeological Civic Museum (MCA) of Bologna from 17 October 2015 to 17 July 2016.
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