There is not sufficient evidence to show at what ages the previous Pharaohs of the dynasty had married, but as Akhnaton’s father and grandfather entered into matrimony at this early age, it would not be safe to suppose that he himself delayed his marriage till a later age. Queen Tiy was in all probability married when she was ten or eleven years old.[45] Akhnaton’s daughter Merytaton, who was born in the fourth or fifth year of his reign, was, as will be seen in due course, married before the seventeenth year of the reign--that is to say, when she was twelve or younger. The Princess Ankhsenpaaton, who was born in the eighth year, was married, at latest, two years after Akhnaton’s death--_i.e._, when she was eleven. Another of Akhnaton’s daughters, Nefernefernaton, who has not yet appeared, was born in her father’s eleventh year and was married before the fifteenth, and therefore could only have been four or five years of age.
Child-marriages such as these are common in Egypt, even at the present day. Those who have lived on the Nile, and have studied the national habits, will assuredly fix the probable age of a royal _mariage de convenance_ at about thirteen years, and will agree that eleven and twelve are also highly likely ages.
Secondly, as to Akhnaton’s age at the changing of the art. In the biography of Bakenkhonsu, the High Priest of Amon under Rameses II., that official tells us that he arrived at the state of manhood at the age of sixteen, and one may therefore suppose that this was the recognised legal age at which a man became a responsible agent in Egypt. Now it has been clearly seen that Akhnaton was under the regency of his mother during the first years of his reign, and mention has been made of the inscription at Wady Hammamât, where, although the new symbol of the religion is shown, Queen Tiy’s name is placed beside that of her son in an equally honourable position. She was thus still Queen Regent when the art was changed, and her son could not yet have come of age--_i.e._, he must then have been under sixteen.
Thirdly, we have to consider the question of his age when he laid the foundations of the new city. This was the first decisive action performed by the king in which his mother has no concern, and of which she perhaps even disapproved, and it surely marks the period at which he took the government into his own hands. If, like Bakenkhonsu, he came of age at sixteen, in the fifth year of his reign, the founding of the new capital in the following year would well fit in with the supposition that the abandoning of Thebes marks the date of the king’s arrival at maturity.