Scope: We have already traced the beginning of Dynasty XVIII from the expulsion of the Hyksos invaders to the reign of Tuthmosis III, “the Napoleon of Egypt.” In this lecture, we see the glorious Dynasty XVIII continue through two excellent pharaohs and then one great one, all descendants of Tuthmosis. We discuss the reign of Amenhotep III, the “Sun King,” in detail to show how great Egypt was.
Outline
I. Amenhotep II, the successor of Tuthmosis III (1453-1419 BC), ruled for over thirty years.
A. A military man, he continued his father’s tradition.
1. After his Nubian campaign, seven Nubian princes were hung upside down, dead on his ship.
2. Six were later hung from the temple wall at Karnak.
B. His tomb, KV 35, which is in the Valley of the Kings, also held other kings: Amenhotep III, Tuthmosis IV, the “elder lady,” and others.
II. Tuthmosis IV (1419-1386 BC), whose claim to the throne was probably weak, also had over thirty years of rule.
A. The Dream Stela at the Sphinx, which sits between its giant paws, suggests a shaky succession.
1. The inscription says that Tuthmosis was told by the Sphinx in a dream that if he removed the sand from around the Sphinx, he would become king of Egypt—both of which came to happen. This may suggest that Tuthmosis wasn’t next in line to be pharaoh.
2. To commemorate his becoming king, he had a stela carved to be placed at the Sphinx.
3. When you read the stela carefully, however, you realize that it’s much more recent than Tuthmosis’s time. Perhaps the temple priests replaced Tuthmosis’s original because it was damaged. Or perhaps they wanted to show how powerful the Sphinx really was.
B. Foreign military campaigns were waged, as was common throughout the dynasty.
C. An obelisk originally quarried by his grandfather, Tuthmosis III, was finally erected.
1. It lay unfinished for thirty-five years at Karnak.
2. It seems to have been a singleton, although obelisks almost always came in pairs.
1. Now in Rome, at 105 feet, it is the tallest standing obelisk in the world.
III. Amenhotep III (1386-1349 BC), “Amun is pleased,” also ruled for more than thirty years, a further sign of political stability. At this time, there were two capitals—Thebes (Luxor), the religious capital, in the south, and Memphis, the administrative center, in the north. The king spends time in both places.
A. Amenhotep’s commemorative scarabs, the first “telegrams” in history, are an innovation. On the bottom of the scarabs are hieroglyphs, a key source of information about events in ancient Egypt.
1. The “marriage scarab” (year 2), a wedding announcement, presents Queen Tiye. Although a commoner, Tiye came from a prominent family—her father was a military official and her brother was vizier of Lower Egypt under Amenhotep III.
2. The “wild bull hunt scarab” (year 2) says Amenhotep captured 56 bulls in a day.
3. The “lion hunt scarab” claims he captured 102 in 10 years.
4. A pleasure lake one-mile long was constructed in Thebes (year 10) for Tiye. Tiye could sail her boat, “The Aten Gleams,” on the lake.
5. Amenhotep marries a foreign princess from Mitanni (year 10), but Queen Tiye is still mentioned.
B. Amenhotep was a diplomat, not a conqueror. He had many wives, some of them the result of foreign diplomatic marriages.
C. The wealth of Egypt came from more than military campaigns alone.
1. Gold came from Nubia and the Wadi Hammamat.
2. International trade contributed greatly to Egypt’s wealth, a fact reflected in the tombs of prominent people.
D. The Luxor (Thebes) skyline is a result of Amenhotep’s building projects.
1. Luxor Temple he dedicated to Amun. The architect, Amenhotep-Son-of-Hapu, was later deified.
2. Malkata Palace was on the west bank of the Nile. (Here Amenhotep built the pleasure lake for Queen Tiye.) Made of painted mud brick, the palace had plenty of rooms for children and wives. Much of it has disappeared.
3. He took another name, the “Dazzling Sun Disk of All Lands,” showing the increasing importance of the sun disk, a sign of changes to come.
4. He moved permanently to Thebes in his later years to live in the palace. Normally, the pharaoh would have lived at Memphis.
Luxor became an important city, the religious capital and residence of the king. Perhaps religion was becoming more central.
5. Amenhotep’s mortuary temple (not his place of burial), now virtually disappeared, was fronted by the Colossi of Memnon, two giant statues sixty feet high. (The Greeks named them for Memnon.) One of the statues was said to have spoken, presumably the wind whistling through cracks in the stone that expanded in daytime heat. Now restored, the statue doesn’t speak any longer.
6. His tomb was the first in the West Valley of the Kings.
E. Amenhotep’s mummy shows teeth so bad that sheer physical pain may have made a coregency necessary in his later years. He took as coregent a young son unmentioned in the records.
Essential Reading:
Arielle P. Kozloff and Betsy M. Bryan, Egypt's Dazzling Sun.
Supplementary Reading:
Cyril Aldred, The Egyptians, chapter 12.
Questions to Consider:
1. Why did Tuthmosis IV carve the dream stela?
2. How did the reign of Amenhotep III differ from that of those kings he immediately succeeded?