Anen

Anen or Aanen was an ancient Egyptian nobleman and official of the Eighteenth Dynasty. A priest and administrator, his period of royal service occurred largely during the reign of his brother-in-law, Amenhotep III.

Biography

He was the son of Yuya and Thuya and the brother of Queen Tiye, the wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Under the rule of his brother-in-law, Anen became the Chancellor of Lower Egypt, fan-bearer, Second of the Four Prophets of Amun, sem-priest of Heliopolis, Greatest of Seers, High Priest in the temple of Re-Atum.¹²

A surviving statue of Anen is now in the Museo Egizio, Turin (Inv.-No. 5484 / Cat. 1377) and a wooden shabti maybe of the same Anen is now in the Museum Meermanno (Inv.-No. 82/196), The Hague.³

Inscriptions on Anen's own monuments do not mention that he was Amenhotep III's brother-in-law.⁴ However, this relationship is established by a short but clear reference to him in his mother Thuya's coffin, which stated that her son Anen was the second prophet of Amun.⁵

It is likely that he died before Year 30 of Amenhotep III, since he is not mentioned in texts relating to the pharaoh's Sed festival;⁶ in the last decade of Amenhotep's reign another man, , took over Anen's place as Second Prophet of Amun. Simut had been Fourth Prophet of Amun previously.