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Yuya in hieroglyphs

Yuya (sometimes transliterated as Iouiya) was a powerful Egyptian courtier of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (circa 1400 BCE). He served as a key adviser for Pharaoh Amenhotep III (father of Akhenaten) and is the only person in Egyptian history to have been granted the title "Beloved Father of Pharaoh".

Yuya married Tjuyu, an Egyptian noblewoman descended from Ahmose Nefertari, and was the father of Tiy, who became Amenhotep's principal wife. Some scholars speculate that they also may have been the parents of Ay, an Egyptian general active during the reign of Yuya's grandson Pharaoh Akhenaten, and who eventually became pharaoh himself, as Kheperkheprure Ay. That Ay was Yuya's son is just one of many theories debated among archeologists.

Together with his wife, Yuya was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in KV46, where their largely unpillaged remains were found in 1905.

Yuya and Joseph

Yuya's facial features, as observed on his mummy, have led some archaeologists to postulate that he was actually Asiatic in origin. Some scholars have gone so far as to connect Yuya with the biblical story of Joseph, a son of Jacob and Rachel. They point out, inter alia, that the hieroglyph for "ya" is extremely similar to that for "sef", and thus that the name should in fact be read "Yusef".

This view is opposed by Biblical literalists who note that the book of Exodus in the Torah states that the Israelites brought Joseph's bones out of Egypt. Thus, since Yuya's body was found in Egypt in the Valley of the Kings, they claim that it is impossible that he is indeed Joseph. Those who do not accept the total historical accuracy of the Bible respond that Joseph may have been a composite of more than one individual, or that the part about his body's removal to Canaan may have been a later insertion.

Mainstream Egyptologists do not take these speculations seriously, noting that what we know of Yuya's family suggests that they did not come from Asia, but from the regional nobility of Akhmin, in Upper Egypt.

The claim about the hieroglyphs in Yuya's name being misread is also rejected by mainstream science. The "ya" in his name is, in fact, two hieroglyphs, not one; and there is no single hieroglyph for "sef" in Egyptian. Hieroglyphs for "set" or "seth" look like a throne seat and a shoulder knot respectively, and do not in any way resemble a combination of a reed leaf and a vulture used for "ya".

Resources

• An account of the discovery of Yuya's tomb
• - Yuya and Tjuyu tomb gallery.
• - discussion and images of the mummies of Yuya and Tjuyu
• - White supremacist website that attempts to prove that Yuya was "Nordic".
• - Ahmed Osman attempts to prove that Yuya was Joseph.

• Winsten, Joseph. Moses Meets Israel: The Origins of One God. Rumford Inc., 1999.

• Ancient Egyptians
• Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt