Ay

Kheperkheprure Ay (occasionally Aya or Aye) was the penultimate Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period (probably 1325-1321 BC or 1327-1323 BC, depending which chronology is followed), although he was a close advisor to two (perhaps three) of the pharaohs who ruled before him and was the power behind the throne upon which his immediate predecessor sat.

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Born a commoner, Ay managed to rise through the hierarchy of Egyptian society under the "heretical" Pharaoh Akhenaten. One version of events maintains that he and his wife Tey were the parents of Akhenaten's chief wife, Nefertiti (and, incidentally, that another of their daughters, Mutnodjme, was the wife and queen of Ay's successor Horemheb). Another version suggests that he was the son of Yuya and Tjuyu. Thus being a brother or half-brother of Tiy, brother-in-law of Amenhotep III and maternal uncle of Akhenaten. The two theories are not mutually exclusive, but either relationship would explain the exalted status to which Ay rose (see below), during Akhenaten's Amarna interlude, when the royal family turned their backs on Egypt's traditional gods and experimented, for a dozen years or so, with monotheism – an experiment that, whether out of conviction or convenience, Ay seems to have supported, at least for as long as it lasted.

Pharaoh: : This article refers to the historical pharaoh. For pharaoh in the Book of Abraham, see Pharaoh (Book of Abraham); for the book by Boleslaw Prus, see Faraon; for the computer game see Pharaoh (computer game)...

Ancient Egypt: Ancient Egypt as a general historical term broadly refers to the civilization of the Lower Nile Valley, between the First Cataract and the mouths of the Nile Delta, from circa 3200 BC until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC. As a civilization based on irrigation, it is the quintessential...

18th dynasty: REDIRECT Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt...

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