Three dynasties, Eighteenth to Twentieth, make up the New Kingdom (ca. 1550—1070 BC). Most major monuments preserved from this period lie in the region of ancient Thebes, modern Luxor, the major city of Upper Egypt in ancient times. We shall also travel northwards from Thebes to Tell el-Amarna for an instructive look at a New Kingdom city, and southwards to Abu Simbel, to inspect the grandiose temple built by Ramses II (see map, Figure 5.1).
The Eighteenth Dynasty rulers established their capital in Upper Egypt at Thebes. Memphis continued as a regional capital of Lower Egypt, but little survives. Thebes has a long history of habitation, and indeed had been the royal center during the Eleventh Dynasty, but it gained particular prominence at this time and served as a capital for most of the New Kingdom. The ancient Egyptians called the city “Waset” or “No-Amun” (“City of Amun”). The name “Thebes” was given by the ancient Greeks, for unknown reasons; there is no known connection with the famous Greek city of Thebes. For the Egyptians, Thebes was “The City,” the prototype of all cities:
Waset is the pattern of every city,
Both the flood and the earth were in her from the beginning of time,
The sands came to delimit her soil,
To create her ground upon the mound when the earth came into being.
Then mankind came into being within her;
To found every city in her true name
Since all are called “city” after the example of Waset.
(Seton-Williams and Stocks 1993: 536)
The early rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty re-established control over Egypt’s frontiers and trade routes. In the north, campaigns were led into west Asia against the Hyksos in Palestine and the Mitanni in north-east Syria. More important was the south, where the Egyptians penetrated Nubia beyond the Third Cataract, refurbishing the Middle Kingdom forts and establishing new towns. An Egyptian trading mission to a more remote region, the land of Punt, usually identified with the east horn of Africa, is recorded on the first of the great surviving buildings of Eighteenth Dynasty Thebes, the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri.
World History
