Great Royal Wife, Tiy

No Eighteenth Dynasty woman was more lavishly attired than Amenhotep III's Great Royal Wife Tiy. Statues show her wearing exquisitely pleated linen robes, ornate jewelry, and complex headdresses (Figure 19). She was more than a fashion plate, however. She must have been highly intelligent, multilingual, and politically adept to reach the level of international trust and esteem that was hers by the end of the reign. A tiny, naturalistic portrait of her made toward the end of her life depicts a daunting and determined facial expression revealing a woman of indomitable strength of mind and purpose (see Figure 48).

Tiy's husband was devoted to her and introduced her to the world in an unprecedented manner: by commissioning an entire series of commemorative scarabs dedicated solely to her (see Figure 9). They read,

This is the only set of commemorative scarabs not dated with a year of Amenhotep's reign, suggesting that Tiy had entered his life while he was still a prince. Rather than date their union to his father's reign, he used no date at all. He then included her in the inscriptions of all of his other great scarabs as though she had been there all the time.