Dr. Campbell Price

has the connections, the elite military connections with other generals, that's important.

And then, as you say, he probably has the loyalty of the foot soldiers, the infantry.

Based on the evidence, always this caveat.

Based on the evidence that we have, of course, the ruler is honour bound to describe themselves as the best and God-given and doing everything very effectively.

They're not recording negative things.

But still, you do get the sense that Horemheb is an effective ruler.

The one thing that he lacks is an heir, a male heir.

Right.

And this is, again, some responsible thinking for any ruler.

If you don't have an heir, you don't have a spare, you don't have a male descendant, blood descendant, you have to make plans to make it absolutely clear who is going to be the next king because you could drop dead at any moment.

Yes, adoption is a social practice in Egypt.

It's an important social practice.

So at that level, I mean, it's relatively unusual that kings who have many wives don't somehow manage to produce a male heir.

But Horemheb, for whatever reason, doesn't.

have surviving sons.

So he adopts, for want of a better term, this chap, Pa Ramesu, who is the vizier, the chati, the kind of chief minister, but also has a military background.

And we know a bit about him, his background, his father, Seti, based in the eastern Nile Delta, so the family hometown is known about.

And so he has the great advantage of having a living son and probably a living grandson.

So there is a line ready.

So maybe these guys are just mates, they're just friends from the battlefield, but maybe there are other strategic, social, political reasons.