After Tutankhamen died in 1323 b. c., there was a struggle for power as the aged vizier Aya and a general named
Funerary mask of Tutankhamen. The gold mask was inlaid with enamels and semi-precious stones. The Library of Congress.
Conquerors ordered the Great Pyramids stripped of their elegant limestone facing so that they could build new structures in and around Cairo. The only part left untouched was the top of Khafre's pyramid.
Even in ancient times, many treasures of Egypt had fallen into disrepair. By the 1400s b. c., for instance, the Egyptians had allowed the sands of the desert to cover the Sphinx up to its neck. Once a young prince fell asleep in the shadow of the great statue, and had a dream in which the Sphinx itself told him he would become pharaoh if he had the sand removed. So he ordered the Sphinx uncovered and placed between its paws a stone tablet telling the story of what had happened. By then the Sphinx's prediction had come true, and the young prince reigned as Thutmose IV.
In the A. D.1400s Muslim soldiers broke off the nose of the Sphinx. They did this because Islam prohibits making statues or images of a god. More recently, the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids have suffered the damages of pollution, which is gradually eroding their surfaces.
Horemhab (hoe-REEM-hob) competed for the hand of his widow. She in turn tried to initiate a marriage with the son of a Hittite king, but the Hittite prince was apparently assassinated by Aya. Aya married her, then sent Horemhab to make war on the Hittites. Soon the old man died, however, and Horemhab took the throne.
As leadership of Egypt passed from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties, Horemhab was followed by a minor pharaoh named Ramses (RAM-sees) I, whose son was Seti (SET-
Ee) I. Seti conducted important military campaigns in Palestine and Syria and began building a giant temple at Karnak, which his own son, Ramses II, would complete. Seti's tomb, carved some 300 feet into the cliffs, was the largest in the Valley of the Kings.
Ramses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 b. c., would become known as Ramses the Great. He fought a number of campaigns against the Syrians and Hittites, including a battle at Kadesh (KAY-desh) in 1285 b. c., but he later made peace with the Hittites. His building projects include the massive temples at Abu Simbel, work on the Karnak temple, and many others. Ramses lived for ninety-six years and reigned for nearly sixty-seven, allegedly fathering ninety-six sons and sixty daughters with his more than two hundred wives and concubines. (A concubine, pronounced “CONG-cue-bine,” was like a wife, but had lower social and legal status than a wife.)
The last of the truly great pharaohs, Ramses died in 1213 B. C. His son, Merneptah (mare-NEP-tah), had to face invasion by a mysterious group known as “the Sea Peoples,” which may have included the Philistines mentioned in the Bible. That is not Merneptah's only connection with the Old Testament: he may have been the pharaoh from whom Moses secured the freedom of the Israelites, although some scholars suggest that it was Ramses. A succession of lesser pharaohs followed, a list that includes Tworse (TORE-say), one of the only ruling queens other than Hatshepsut.
In 1186 B. C., Setakht (set-OCT) established the Twentieth Dynasty, and was followed by Ramses III, who fought numerous campaigns against the Libyans and the Sea Peoples. Just as Ramses II had been the last of the great pharaohs, Ramses III was the last of the semi-great, and the end of his reign in about 1163 marked the beginning of the end of the New Kingdom.
Other forces were on the rise in Egyptian society. The army and the priests, the very elements which had previously upheld the pharaoh's power, now threatened it. Earlier pharaohs had created a standing army, but now that army was like an attack dog whose master could no longer control it. As for the priests and scribes, they had become corrupted by wealth and power. Some of them were so greedy they even participated in robbing the tombs. The pharaohs, once supreme
Rulers, found that they had become insignificant. When a priest named Herihor in effect declared himself king, the last pharaoh of the New Kingdom, Ramses XI, could do nothing to stop him.
World History
