Although warfare with the Hyksos began no later than Kamose, the last king of the Theban 17th Dynasty, it was Ahmose, the founder of Manetho’s 18th Dynasty, who defeated the Hyksos in northern Egypt and followed them into southern Palestine, where he laid siege to their fortress of Sharuhen. Ahmose also campaigned in Nubia against the Kerma state, as did his successor Amenhotep I. At South Abydos in the vicinity of the huge complex of Senusret III (12th Dynasty; see 7.5), Ahmose erected several monuments, including a large pyramid and mortuary temple complex, to the west of which was a smaller pyramid shrine for his grandmother Tetisheri. But the king’s rock-cut tomb was located farther west at the foot of the limestone cliff.
The early 18th Dynasty was a time of consolidation of power and the re-establishment of Egyptian kingship. The seat of government was moved to the north at Memphis, but little urban architecture has survived from Memphis or other New Kingdom cities (with the exception of Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt). Although temples (and their towns) were built throughout Egypt, no major New Kingdom temple north of Abydos has been preserved, with parts of these temples reused in later structures. This also must have occurred
Map 8.1 Major New Kingdom sites in Egypt.
In southern Egypt, where a number of temples were probably destroyed to make way for bigger Greco-Roman ones (see 10.5).
The major surviving temples from the New Kingdom are located at Karnak and Luxor, the cults of which were central to the ideology of kingship. At Karnak Amenhotep I renewed a program of royal construction - in what would become the largest cult center in Egypt for the next 1,500+ years. Although the location of his tomb is uncertain, Amenhotep may have been the first king of the New Kingdom to build a separate mortuary temple - a practice that most kings of the period would follow. Reliefs from this temple have been found near Dra Abu el-Naga in western Thebes.
Thutmose I, of unknown parentage, succeeded Amenhotep I and was the father of (the future ruler) Hatshepsut. With his military activity in Nubia the Kerma state was finally ended, and Thutmose I then took his army northward to Syria-Palestine. New to the Egyptian army in the New Kingdom were the horse and chariot, introduced into Egypt under the Hyksos. Although Nubia would remain in Egyptian control through the New Kingdom, control of the petty states in Syria-Palestine and confrontation with the larger states to the north and west would prove more problematic. As a result, a trained full-time army was maintained, with a professional management that was capable of organizing and supplying major campaigns abroad, where garrisons also had to be maintained. There were also army reservists who could be mobilized when needed, and after their service veterans were often given farms in Egypt or positions on royal estates. These and other rewards helped to promote loyalty to the king, as did the ideology of the king as war leader. The heir to the throne was often the commander-in-chief of the army in the king’s name, but to secure the line of succession other royal sons were often excluded from positions of power in the army or government.
Thutmose I is the first king of the New Kingdom with a known tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Construction of pyramids for the royal tomb had ended, and for increased security the locations of the New Kingdom royal tombs were intentionally hidden. Thutmose I also built a mortuary temple in western Thebes, known only from mention in texts.
During the New Kingdom the “Festival of the Valley” was held yearly, when the royal mortuary temples were visited by priests carrying the shrouded portable statue of Amen from his sanctuary at Karnak on a model ship. Through homage to the ancestral line of kings, integrated with the cult of Amen, the festival reinforced the central role of Egyptian kingship. It also provided the occasion to honor the non-royal dead buried in western Thebes by participants who made offerings and banquets for their dead ancestors, ideologically linking the god’s cult, kingship, and state officials - in life and in death.
Royal women became increasingly important in the 18th Dynasty, as did the office of “God’s Wife of Amen,” which Hatshepsut held. Following the probably brief reign of Thutmose II, Hatshepsut, who was his half-sister and wife, became regent for her stepson and nephew Thutmose III (the son of a secondary wife of Thutmose II). Hatshepsut, however, took on the trappings of king and ruler. Her reign was not one of major military campaigns - which reached new heights when Thutmose III became sole ruler - and she built many monuments in Egypt and Nubia. While most of her constructions at Karnak were obliterated by later kings, Hatshepsut’s well-known temple at Deir el-Bahri, where a seafaring expedition to Punt was recorded, is the first well-preserved royal mortuary temple of the New Kingdom.
Thutmose III’s 17 military campaigns in Syria-Palestine included a long siege of the fortified town of Megiddo. His lists of conquered peoples (of the north and south) are on Karnak’s Sixth Pylon, with a schematized scene of the king smiting these enemies on the Seventh Pylon. Texts known as the “Annals of Thutmose III,” describing his campaigns, were carved on walls surrounding the bark shrine at Karnak (for the cult statue which was carried in processions on a model bark). As a result of his conquests, Egypt controlled Palestine and parts of southern Syria, as well as major trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean. Egypt’s chief rivals were the kingdom of Mitanni in northwest Syria, and the city-states of Qadesh and Tunip, on the middle and lower Orontes River, respectively. The coalition centered on Qadesh was defeated in Year 42 of Thutmose’s reign. Children of subjugated foreign chiefs and princes were sent to Egypt to be educated, which helped maintain control of these regions, as did Thutmose’s marriages to Asiatic royal women.
As a result of ideological reciprocity between the king and the god Amen, who was believed to confer Egyptian military success abroad, the Temple of Karnak greatly benefited from foreign tribute, trade, and war booty. Thutmose III’s Festival Hall is the largest of several monuments that he erected there. In western Thebes, he built a temple to Amen at Medinet Habu (begun under Hatshepsut) and a small temple at Deir el-Bahri above those of Mentuhotep II and Hatshepsut. Thutmose III’s mortuary temple is located at Sheik Abd el-Qurna and his large tomb is in the Valley of the Kings. Monuments were also built at a
Map 8.2 Kingdoms and city-states in southwest Asia during the Late Bronze Age (New Kingdom).
Number of other temples in Egypt during his reign, and in Nubia as far upstream as Gebel Barkal below the Fourth cataract (with the actual frontier farther upstream at Kurgus, near the Fifth cataract).
At the former Hyksos capital of Avaris (see 7.11), a large palace was built and decorated during the reigns of Hatshepsut/Thutmose III and Amenhotep II where fragments of Minoan-style frescoes have been excavated. Military campaigns in southwest Asia continued under Amenhotep II, but the campaigns of his successor, Thutmose IV, were brief. Both kings actively constructed monuments throughout Egypt, including Amenhotep’s temple and stela at the Giza Sphinx, and Thutmose’s “Dream Stela” between the paws of the Sphinx (see 6.5).
Foreign conquests required not only military control but also civil organization, under the offices of “Governors of Northern Lands,” and the “Governor of Southern Lands”/“King’s Son of Kush.” In Egypt the government was organized under the Northern Vizier and the Southern Vizier. Offices of the (two) “Overseer of the Treasury,” “Overseer of the Granaries of Upper and Lower Egypt,” and “Overseer of Cattle” were involved with the economic life of the state and were responsible for collecting and storing taxes, paid in grain, cattle, and other products, and corvee labor. There were mayors at Memphis and Thebes, the two major centers of the kingdom, and also mayors at nome centers and some larger towns. Mainly judicial in function for both civil and criminal cases, kenbet councils existed throughout the country, with two “great” councils in Memphis and Thebes. The Medjay, not the army, operated as local police in Egypt. At the royal court a chancellor and chamberlain directed operations, and a chief steward oversaw the royal estates/lands. Although the king is depicted in temple reliefs as the sole person before the gods, there were two major religious offices: the high priest of Amen and the high priest of other gods.
With the long reign of Amenhotep III an unprecedented era of wealth and prosperity is evident - at least for the elite who had richly decorated tombs located in western Thebes and the Memphis region. One military campaign took place in desert regions to the east of Nubia, but relations with Near Eastern polities were through diplomacy (including a treaty with Mitanni), royal marriages to foreign princesses, and a kind of elaborate gift exchange.
In control of vast resources, Amenhotep III constructed monuments throughout Egypt and Nubia as far south as Gebel Barkal. His temple at Soleb, above the Third Cataract, is one of the finest in Nubia. To the south at Sedeinga, a smaller temple was dedicated to Amenhotep’s chief wife Tiy.
Amenhotep III’s major surviving works in Egypt are concentrated at Thebes. On the east bank at Luxor he dismantled an earlier 18th-Dynasty temple and constructed a large temple in sandstone (to which Rameses II later added a peristyle court and pylon). At Karnak Amenhotep built the temple of Mut to the south of the Amen temple, and another temple to the north that was later dedicated to the god Montu. The main temple was enlarged, creating a new entrance, the Third Pylon, from which the procession of the Opet Festival began. This was a yearly festival in which the barks of Amen and the king, along with the barks of Mut and Khonsu, were taken from Karnak to Luxor. Taking place during the flood season, this festival was associated with the Nile’s fertility. The festival, which reaffirmed the ruler’s earthly role as king and his cosmic role as son of Amen-Ra, is depicted in reliefs showing dancers and musicians in much merry-making.
Figure 8.1 The Colossi of Memnon.
In western Thebes Amenhotep III built a large palace complex at Malkata, next to which an enormous harbor was excavated. Except for the two huge seated statues of the king, known as the Golossi of Memnon, little remains standing of his mortuary temple which originally contained hundreds of statues (Figure 8.1). His tomb was built in the western part of the Valley of the Kings. The importance of Amenhotep’s chief wife Tiy is seen on a number of his monuments, and she continued to be a significant force in the early reign of her son Amenhotep IV.
In his early years as king, Amenhotep IV erected four shrines to an obscure solar deity, Aten, at East Karnak, the cult center of Amen-Ra. Subsequently, the king changed his name to Akhenaten, which means “Beneficial for Aten,” and moved his capital to a site in Middle Egypt, now known as Tell el-Amarna. Akhetaten (“horizon of Aten”) became the cult center for this deity, with Akhenaten’s sole focus on the worship of Aten, whose son was the king. The well-preserved city contained large temples to Aten, as well as palaces, residences of elite and artisans, a workmen’s village, and tombs carved in the eastern cliffs. During the brief time that Akhetaten was occupied, major changes also occurred in temple architecture, art styles and subject matter, language use (Late Egyptian; see 2.2), and the mortuary cult - probably the greatest indication of Akhenaten’s theological revolution.
During the Amarna Period the cults of other deities were ignored, which meant that they were cut off from royal/state support, and this had serious economic repercussions throughout Egypt, especially at Thebes. Turning against the Amen cult, Akhenaten later ordered that the name of the deity be hacked off monuments. But with Akhenaten’s death, his religious revolution ended.
Most historical reconstructions place at least one ruler between Akhenaten and Tutankhamen, whose name was changed (from Tutankhaten) when the Amarna Period ended. one of Akhenaten’s daughters by his chief wife Nefertiti, who also featured prominently in the Aten cult, married the child king Tutankhaten, probably Akhenaten’s son by another wife.
Early in his reign, this king returned to Memphis, and the powerful cult of Amen-Ra once again became the major focus of state religion. Akhetaten was abandoned by the court, and Akhenaten’s monuments were later dismantled or defaced by royal agents. Tutankhamen died at about age 18, and was buried in a small but lavishly furnished tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Ay, possibly a brother of Akhenaten’s mother, Queen Tiy, briefly became king, and the 18th Dynasty ended with the reign of Horemheb, a general who had also been regent for Tutankhamen.
Rameses I, the first king of the 19th Dynasty, was Horemheb’s vizier and a military commander, but was not of royal birth. He ruled for a little more than a year, followed by his son Sety I. Major building programs were undertaken at the important cult centers, especially Karnak, where work continued on the huge Hypostyle Hall, begun under Horemheb. At Abydos Sety constructed a large temple for the god Osiris and the principal deities of the land. The king list carved in this temple, which does not include Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamen, and Ay, is a major source of information for the kings from the 1st Dynasty up to Sety I’s reign (see 2.9).
Sety I’s son Rameses II was the second longest reigning king in ancient Egypt (67 years) - a major reason that so many of his monuments are found throughout Egypt. (He also usurped cartouches of earlier kings on their monuments.) At Karnak Rameses completed the enormous Hypostyle Hall, and built an entrance quay on the west that was connected to the Nile. At Luxor he added a large forecourt and pylon to Amenhotep III’s temple. In Nubia, Rameses’s most impressive monument is the pair of rock-cut temples of Abu Simbel.
Both Sety I and Rameses II campaigned in Syria-Palestine and Nubia, while Libyan tribes began to be a problem to the northwest. With renovated Middle Kingdom forts and settled populations living in temple towns, Nubian campaigns were to secure mining areas (especially for gold) and quell indigenous rebellions. The Egyptians also raided areas beyond their control farther south. Nubians were drafted into the Egyptian army (and served abroad), and some were taken as slaves. Chiefs’ sons were sent to Egypt. Living in Egyptian temple towns, some Nubians became acculturated - and by the end of the 18th Dynasty the indigenous C-Group culture had disappeared. Centered on cult temples, the Nubian towns housed government officials, temple priests and personnel, and military personnel (although evidence of settlements has not been found around all temples). Nubian administration was organized into two major regions: Wawat in the north and Kush in the south, with provincial capitals at Aniba and Amara.
Some temples in Egypt had land and trading rights in Nubia, granted to them by the crown, thus both state and temple exploited Nubia economically in the New Kingdom - for its mines and quarries, and trade of costly raw materials which passed through Nubia from Punt and regions to the south. Decorated with pharaonic reliefs and inscriptions, the monumental stone temples in Nubia were impressive symbols of Egyptian power - and deterrents to local people - in an effort to control the region ideologically.
In Syria-Palestine, more formidable military efforts were needed than in Nubia, and support of Egyptian armies that were sometimes sent there would have required large-scale logistics. Both Sety I and Rameses II fought the other major power, the Hittites, in Syria. Although rameses depicted his victory over the Hittites at Qadesh on his major monuments, the king barely managed to escape his foe’s forces. The battle was not a decisive victory for either side, and territory fought for by the Egyptians remained in Hittite control. Seventeen years after the Battle of Qadesh a later Hittite king, Hattusili III, facing conflict with the Assyrians, concluded a peace treaty with the Egyptians - actually a kind of non-aggression pact.
In the northeast Delta at Qantir, Rameses founded a new capital, Piramesse, which was closer to Egypt’s border fortress at Sile and the problematic vassal states in Syria-Palestine. During the 21st Dynasty many of the stone monuments in Rameses’s city were removed, and reused when the capital was relocated to Tanis. Although the monuments were missing at Qantir, German archaeologist Edgar Pusch has found evidence of stables, and a chariot garrison at the site is known from texts. Also excavated at the site is evidence of a huge bronze production facility, where Hittite workmen and Egyptians made Hittite-type shields (after Rameses’s battle at Qadesh).
Both Sety I and Rameses II were buried in impressive tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and the beautifully decorated tomb of Rameses’s chief wife Nefertari is in the Valley of the Queens. An enormous tomb (KV 5) was also prepared for sons of Rameses II: with a number of wives, this king fathered over 100 offspring. Rameses II’s fallen colossal statue in granite, at his mortuary temple in western Thebes, the Ramesseum, provided the subject for Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” a corruption through Greek of the king’s prenomen “User-ma’at-Ra.”
Because of Rameses II’s very long life, he outlived 12 elder sons, and was finally succeeded by his son Merenptah, who was probably quite old by then. After Merenptah, three other kings ruled briefly, and the 19th Dynasty ended with the reign of a female ruler, Tausret. This queen was the chief wife of Sety II and became regent for her step-son Saptah, whose mummy has one shortened leg - perhaps the result of polio. Tausret outlived Saptah to become sole ruler for only two years.
The village of Deir el-Medina in western Thebes, which housed the workers who built and decorated the royal tombs, was founded in the early 18th Dynasty and occupied throughout the New Kingdom (except during Akhenaten’s reign). Although some houses existed outside the settlement, most of the workers lived with their families inside the walled village. Several shrines and two cemeteries were also located outside the settlement. The planned village was densely populated, with typical houses consisting of four to six rooms, with a small open court for cooking in the back. A staircase led to the roof area, which was also utilized. All of the villagers’ needs were provided by the state: food, water, firewood, other raw materials, and tools for their work. During the 20th Dynasty, the earliest known strike was recorded (the Turin Strike Papyrus) when tomb workers from the village refused to go to work because they had not received their rations.
The 20th Dynasty, which began with the short reign of Sethnakht followed by the reigns of nine kings named Rameses (III through XI), was a time of major problems both at home and abroad. The tomb workers’ strike occurred near the end of the reign of Rameses III, who also foiled an assassination conspiracy originating in his harem. Rameses III faced several invasions of foreigners and by the end of his reign Egypt no longer had a large empire in Syria-Palestine. The king won major battles against the Libyans in regnal Years 5 and 11, and in Year 8 he fought off a coalition of “Sea Peoples.” These peoples were part of a large migration of displaced groups moving in the eastern Mediterranean later in the 13 th century bc, which had caused the collapse of a number of Late Bronze Age states. The Sea Peoples, together with Libyans, had also threatened Egypt during Merenptah’s reign. Different groups of Sea Peoples are named on the reliefs of rameses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, including the Peleset, from which the name of the place where they settled, “Palestine,” is derived.
Increasingly in the 20th dynasty sources of royal income became directly controlled by temples, including land, foreign trade, and mining and quarrying expeditions. The Great Harris Papyrus in the British Museum, which is about 40 meters long, lists rameses III’s donations to Egyptian temples. This papyrus demonstrates the great amount of land owned by temples (about one-third of all cultivable land), especially the Temple of Amen at Karnak. The Wilbour Papyrus (reign of Rameses V) is informative about temple-owned land in Middle Egypt that was rented out to different people, providing a direct source of temple income.
Economic problems in Egypt included inflation in the later 20th Dynasty, especially of the value of emmer wheat and barley in relation to units of copper and silver, as documented by Egyptologist J. J. Janssen. From the reign of Rameses IX there is documentation of trials of tomb robbers, demonstrating a breakdown of sociopolitical control. Although tomb robbing took place in all periods, such records are exceptional. At the end of the dynasty there was a famine and Thebes was troubled by marauding Libyans. Thefts from temples and palaces also occurred then. The Theban royal tombs began to be robbed, and the royal mummies, stripped of their precious ornaments, were subsequently reburied in two locations: a tomb near Deir el-Bahri, and in side chambers of the tomb of Amenhotep II - where they were found in the late 19th century.
Civil war broke out between the high priest of Amen and the viceroy of Nubia, which was finally quelled by Rameses XI’s army under General Piankh, who may later have assumed the roles of vizier and viceroy of Kush and high priest of Amen at Thebes. With Rameses XI’s death, Piankh’s son-in-law and heir, Hrihor, also took the royal titles, while a king named Smendes ruled in the north. Thus, the New Kingdom ended with divided control of Egypt.
World History
