The son who succeeded him was the third Amenhotep and the last great emperor. He was just a great-grandson, but already under him the high tide of Egyptian power began to slowly fall, and he was not the person capable of stopping it. We find early evidence of the effeminate nature that he later displayed in his relationship with his wife. As crown prince, or at the very beginning of his reign, he married a remarkable woman of unknown origin named Tii. Nothing indicates its foreign origin, as is often claimed. To commemorate the marriage, Amenhotep ordered the production of a large number of scarabs, or sacred beetles, carved from stone and bearing a record of the event, where the wife's untitled parents openly followed her name in the royal title itself, proclaiming her the wife of the pharaoh. The entry ends with the words: “She is the wife of a powerful king, whose southern border is in distant Karoi, and whose northern border is in distant Naharin,” as if to remind everyone who would dare to point out the humble origins of the queen of the high position that she now occupied. From the very beginning, the new queen began to exert a strong influence on Amenhotep III, and her name was immediately included by him in the official formula at the top of the royal documents. Her influence was felt throughout his reign and marked the beginning of a remarkable era, which was characterized by the prominent position occupied by queens in state affairs and in public ceremonies - a position that we find only under Amenhotep III and his immediate successors. We will talk about the significance of this fact later.
Amenhotep III entered into the administration of his great empire very successfully. There was no disturbance among the Asiatics at his accession to the throne, and he reigned surrounded by peace and incomparable splendor. However, towards the end of the 4th year of his reign, unrest in Nubia called him south. In early October, he took advantage of high water to sail his fleet through the rapids. His governor in Nubia, Mermos, recruited an army from among the Nubians, starting in the vicinity of Kubban and continuing 75 miles up the river to Ibrim. This army, together with the army of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, was supposed to act against the Nubians of the Upper Country, which demonstrates in a striking way the extent to which Lower Nubia had been subject to Egyptian influence. When the troops reached Ibkhet, which lies at least above the second cataracts, they encountered the enemy and engaged him in battle, probably on the anniversary of the king's coronation, on the first day of the 5th year of his reign. They took 740 prisoners and killed 312 enemies, according to the inscription on the triumphal tablet they placed at the second cataracts. Outlying villages and wells were visited in small parties and the local inhabitants punished to prevent further incidents of disobedience, after which Amenhotep went south for one month, taking with him prisoners and booty. Arriving at the “heights of Hua,” a location unknown to us, which appears in the lists near Punt and was probably far to the south, perhaps above the rapids, the pharaoh camped in the country of Uneshek, south of Hua. This was the extreme point of Amenhotep's movement to the south. In the country of Karoi, which, as the reader already knows, extends around Napata, he collected a large amount of gold for his Theban buildings, and in Kebhu Hor, or Lake of Horus, he placed a victory slab, but we cannot determine this place with certainty. No doubt it was not too far from his father's border. This was the last major invasion of Nubia by the pharaohs. It was necessary to constantly punish the distant tribes for their incessant predatory attacks on the Nile Valley, but the valley itself was completely subjugated, up to the fourth cataracts, and, in addition, up to the second cataracts it was still widely Egyptianized - a process that was rapidly moving forward, until throughout Egyptian civilization did not spread to the country until the fourth cataracts. In all the major cities Egyptian temples were built and Egyptian gods were worshiped, Egyptian art was adopted by Nubian artisans, and throughout the Upper Nile the rude barbarism took on the imprint of Egyptian culture. For all this, the native chiefs, who were closely watched by the governor, were still allowed to retain their titles and honors, and, no doubt, they continued to have, at least nominally, a voice in government affairs. We find them as far north as Ibrim, which represented the southern limit of the recruitment of Amenhotep III's auxiliary troops and was probably therefore the extreme point to which the local administration of exclusively Egyptian officials extended to the south. The annual arrival of a governor in Thebes, carrying a year's tribute from all Nubian lands, became a common occurrence for a long time.
In Asia, Amenhotep's dominion was generally accepted; even the Babylonian court did not challenge his supremacy in Canaan, in other words, in Syria-Palestine. And when the kings tried to involve the Babylonian king Kurigaltsa in an alliance directed against the pharaoh, he sent them a categorical refusal on the grounds that he was in an alliance with the pharaoh, and even threatened them with war if their alliance came true. Although this is a Babylonian version - whether fair or not, it is difficult to say - it nevertheless testifies to Babylon's strong desire to maintain good relations with the pharaoh. All powers - Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni and Alasiya (Cyprus) - did everything to gain the friendship of Egypt. A picture of world politics unfolds before us, unprecedented in history. From the court of the pharaoh, as the Center, many threads extend in all directions, connecting it with all the great powers of that time. The Amarna letters, perhaps the most interesting set of documents that have come down from the Ancient East, give us the opportunity to survey the kingdoms of Western Asia, whose kings act out, as if on a stage, each their role before the great throne of the pharaoh. About 300 letters written in Babylonian cuneiform on clay tablets and discovered in 1888 in the capital of Amenhotep III's son, Akhenaten, at the site now known as Tel el-Amarna, from which the correspondence takes its name. They relate to the reigns of Amenhotep III and his son and successor, Amenhotep IV or Akhenaten, and represent correspondence of a strictly official nature between these pharaohs, on the one hand, and the kings of Babylonia, Nineveh, Mitanni, Alasia (Cyprus) and the Syrian-Palestinian vassals of the pharaoh , with another. Five letters (Amarna Letters) survive from the correspondence between Amenhotep III and Kallimma-Sin (Kadashman-Bel), king of Babylonia: one from the pharaoh and the others from Kallimma-Sin. The Babylonian king is constantly in need of gold and persistently encourages his Egyptian “brother” to send him large quantities of the precious metal, which, he says, according to reports from the Babylonian ambassadors, is as abundant in Egypt as dust. Significant friction arises due to Kallimm-Sin's dissatisfaction with the amount of gold sent to him by Amenhotep. He points to the fact that Amenhotep received his father's daughter as a wife, and sees in this fact the basis for further obtaining gold. From the following letters we learn about negotiations in connection with the marriage between Amenhotep's daughter and Kallimma-Sin or his son. Amenhotep is also in the closest relations with the king of Mitanni, Shuttarna, the son of Artatama, with whom his father, Thutmose IV, maintained the most friendly ties. It is possible that Amenhotep was the nephew of Shuttarna, from whom he received a daughter named Gilukhipa as his wife. To commemorate this union, Amenhotep ordered several scarabs to be made from stone with an inscription immortalizing the event and reporting that the princess was accompanied by a retinue of 817 court ladies and servants. This happened in the 10th year of the reign of Amenhotep. After the death of Shuttarna, the alliance was supported by his son Dushratta, from whom Amenhotep subsequently received his daughter Taduhipa as a wife for his son and successor. The correspondence between the kings is very eloquent and characteristic of this kind of communication. The following is a letter from Dushratta to his Egyptian ally:
“Nimmuriya, tell the king, the king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, Dushratta, the great king, your father-in-law, who loves you, the king of Mitanni, your brother. It is good for me, may it be good for you, and may it be good for your house, my sister and your other wives, your sons, your chariots, your horses, your nobles, your country and all your possessions - may it be very good indeed. In the days of your fathers they were on very friendly terms with my fathers, but you have further increased (this friendship), and you were, indeed, on very friendly terms with my father. Therefore, now, since you and I have been on mutually friendly terms, you have made them ten times closer than they were with my father. May the gods please that this friendship of ours flourishes. May Tishub (the god of Mitanni), the lord, and Amon preserve them in the form they are now, forever!
When my brother sent his ambassador Mani, saying: “My brother, send me your daughter to wife, so that she can be the queen of Egypt,” I did not upset my brother’s heart, and I always gave friendly orders. And, as my brother wished, I showed it to Mani. And he looked at her, and when he saw her, he rejoiced greatly; and when he has brought her safely to my brother's country, may Ishtar and Amon make her conform to my brother's wishes.
Gilia, my ambassador, brought me my brother's message; when I heard it, it seemed to me very good, and I was truly very happy and said: “As far as this concerns me, even if all the friendly relations that existed between us both ceased, but this message alone existed, then we would continue to be friends forever.” And when I wrote to my brother, I said: “As far as this concerns me, we will truly be very friendly and very disposed towards each other”; and I said to my brother: “May my brother increase (our friendship) tenfold, compared to what it was with my father,” and I asked my brother for a lot of gold, saying: “More than for my father, may he give me and may my brother send it to me.” You sent my father a lot of gold: namhar of pure (?) gold and qira of pure (?) gold you sent him; You sent me (only) a table of gold, which looks as if it were an alloy with copper... So, let my brother send gold in a very large quantity, without measure, and let him send me more gold than to my father - for in my brother’s country gold is like dust...”
This is how the people who decided the destinies of all of Western Asia wrote to each other. In response to similar requests, Amenhotep sent 20 talents of gold as a gift to the king of Assyria (Amarna letters) and thereby also gained his friendship. The vassalage of the king of Alasia (Cyprus) continued, and he regularly sent large quantities of copper to the pharaoh, with the exception of one time, when, as he himself says in his defense, his country was visited by plague. So active were the relations between Egypt and Cyprus that even the issuance of the property of a Cypriot citizen who died in Egypt was considered by both kings as a matter of course, and a messenger was sent to Egypt to receive the property and deliver it to Cyprus to the wife or son of the deceased (Amarna letters). Not wanting to compromise his closeness to Egypt, the island king warns the pharaoh against any alliance with Hatti or Babylonia - a policy that, as we will see below, was subsequently carried out by Babylonia itself.
Facing adulation and adulation from everywhere and being the object of diplomatic attention from all the great powers, Amenhotep had little reason to worry about his own and the Asian empire. His Syrian vassals were the grandchildren of the people conquered by Thutmose III; they were brought up completely in the spirit of rapprochement with Egypt. So much time had already passed since they enjoyed independence that they could imagine themselves only as vassals of Egypt. In an era of unrest and hostility, when force was the only refuge, this situation ultimately seemed to them to be a completely normal order of things and was not without its benefits, since it freed them from all fears of external attacks. In addition, the Egyptian upbringing in the capital of the pharaoh created for him among the sons of the kings many faithful servants who succeeded their Syrian fathers, hostile or indifferent to Egypt. They declare their allegiance to Pharaoh on every occasion. Thus, Prince Akizzi from Qatna writes to Amenhotep:
“My lord, here I am, your servant. I follow the path of my lord and I do not leave my lord. Since my fathers became your servants, this country has become your country, the city of Qatna has become your city, and I belong to my lord. My lord, when the armies and chariots of my lord came, food, drink, cattle, sheep, copper oil were brought for the armies and chariots of my king.”
Such letters began with the most despicable and humiliating flattery, the writer says: “To my lord the king, my gods, my sun - Abimilki, your servant: seven and seven times I fall at the feet of my lord. I am dust under the sandals of my lord the king. My lord is the sun, rising over the countries every day,” etc. The vassals prostrate themselves before the pharaoh not just seven times, but also “on their chest and on their back.” They are “the ground on which you walk, the throne on which you sit, the footstool of your feet,” even “your dog”; and one gets the pleasure of calling himself the groom of Pharaoh's horse.
All of them were in the favor of the Pharaoh, and upon their assumption of office he sent them oils for anointing. They notify the court at the first sign of hostility from their fellows and are even authorized to pacify rebellious princes. Throughout the country, in the largest cities, there are Egyptian garrisons consisting of infantry and chariots. But they are no longer recruited only from the native Egyptians, but to a large extent also from the Nubians and Sherdens, nomadic bandits of sea pirates, perhaps the ancestors of the later Sardinians. From this time on, they entered service in the Egyptian army in greater and greater numbers. These detachments of Amenhotep III were dependent on the kings, one of the manifestations of whose devotion to the pharaoh was, as we have already seen, their written assurances about their readiness and diligence in delivering supplies. The government of Syria has thus achieved a stability it has never enjoyed before. The roads were safe from robbers, caravans were sent from one vassal to another, and a single word from the pharaoh was enough to make any of the princes under his control fall on their faces. The payment of tribute was carried out as regularly as the collection of taxes in Egypt itself. In case of the slightest delay, it was only necessary for one of the representatives of the pharaoh who lived in large cities to appear near the offending city for the duty to be paid immediately. Amenhotep personally never had to fight a war in Asia. One day he appeared in Sidon, and one of his officials mentions prisoners taken by his majesty on the battlefield, but this may have referred to his Nubian campaign.
It was considered sufficient, as we will see later, to send an army under the command of an experienced military leader who could easily do everything that was needed. This continued for a whole generation, from the accession of Amenhotep III to the throne. Later, one of the vassal princes wrote to his son: “Truly, your father did not go on a campaign and did not survey the countries of his vassal princes” (Amarna letters).
Under such conditions, Amenhotep had every opportunity to devote himself to those peaceful enterprises that occupied all other emperors who were in the same position. Trade developed as never before. The Nile from the Delta to the rapids was alive with ships filled with goods from all over the world, which were brought by the Red Sea fleet and the long caravans that passed back and forth along the Isthmus of Suez, carrying rich textiles from Syria, spices and aromatic wood from the East, weapons and embossed vessels of the Phoenicians and many other things, the Semitic names of which received hieroglyphic writing and came into use among the inhabitants of the Nile. Along with the overland trade across the isthmus, there were trade routes on the Mediterranean Sea, crossed in all directions by heavily laden Phoenician galleys that headed to the Delta, carrying decorated vessels or hammered bronze from Mycenaean trading settlements on the Aegean to the Nile fairs. On the other hand, the works of Egyptian artisans were found in the palaces of the island kings at Knossos, Rhodes and Cyprus, where several Egyptian monuments of the time were found. Scarabs and fragments of glazed clay vessels with the names of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye were also found in mainland Greece, in Mycenae. The peoples of the northern part of the Mediterranean felt the influence of Egyptian civilization, which penetrated the north with unusual intensity at that time. Egyptian religious ceremonies were introduced into Crete, in some cases even under the direct supervision of an Egyptian priest. Mycenaean artists came under the powerful influence of works exported from Egypt. Egyptian landscapes appear on their metalwork, and the flexible animal forms captured by Theban artists in their momentary positions now became common in Mycenaean art. Superbly decorated Theban ceilings appear in tombs at Mycenae and Orchomenus. Even pre-Greek writing on Crete shows traces of the influence of Nile hieroglyphs. The inhabitants of the Mycenaean world, the Keftiu, who brought these works to their homeland, were now constantly encountered on the streets of Thebes, where their own goods also influenced the art of Egypt. They brought a huge amount of silver from the north, and while under the Hyksos it was twice as valuable as gold, the latter from that time on became the most valuable circulating metal. The ratio of the value of gold to silver was approximately 1.5 to 1, and the value of silver fell rapidly until Ptolemaic times (3rd century BC). BC), when the ratio became 12:1.
Such trade required patronage and regulation. Predatory bands of Lycian pirates attacked the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, they boldly entered the harbors of Cyprus, plundering cities, and even landed on the shores of the Delta. Amenhotep was therefore forced to establish a maritime police force that protected the coast of the Delta and allowed only peaceful traders into the mouth of the river. Local customs were under the jurisdiction of the same police officials, and all goods, except those intended for the king, were subject to duty. The income coming in must have been quite significant, but we have no data to calculate it. All land routes leading into the interior of the country were equally guarded by police, and all foreigners who could not clearly attest to their occupation were sent back, while legitimate trade was encouraged, guarded, and properly taxed.
The influx of slaves, predominantly of the Semitic race, which began under Thutmose III, continued as before, and the chief royal scribe distributed them throughout the country, adding them to the lists of the taxable serf population. As a result of the mixing of many foreigners with the natives, a strong influx of foreign blood began to be discovered in a new and complex type of face, according to the artists of the era.
The untold riches that had accumulated in the coffers of Pharaoh Amenhotep III for more than a century also began to exert a profound influence which, as under the same conditions in later history, was far from beneficial. On New Year's Day, the king presented his nobles with many valuable gifts that would have delighted the pharaohs of the pyramid era themselves. In one such case, the chief treasurer delivered to the monarch “chariots of gold and silver, statues of ivory and ebony, necklaces of all kinds of precious stones, weapons of war and the products of all kinds of artisans,” consisting of 13 statues of the king, 7 images of the monarch in the form of a sphinx , 8 luxurious necklaces, 680 richly decorated shields and 230 quivers of exquisite workmanship, 360 bronze swords and 140 bronze daggers - both with notches made of precious metal - 30 ivory staffs with knobs of gold and silver, 220 whips with ivory handles bones and ebony, 7 skillfully made caskets, many fans, armchairs, vases and a mass of small objects. In ancient times, the monarch rewarded a faithful nobleman with land, which, in order to become profitable, had to be properly cultivated and managed, whereby the simplicity and healthy rural life of large estates then prevailed; now the favorites received movable property as a gift, for the use of which it was not necessary to expend labor. The luxury and ostentatious life of the capital replaced the ancient rural simplicity and its stable primordial virtues. Beginning with the pharaoh and ending with the most humble scribe, this change was reflected even in the costume. The simple linen apron from hips to knees, with which everyone, not excluding the king, was once content, was replaced by a complex suit with a long pleated hem and a rich tunic with long sleeves. The unpretentious headstyle of the ancient era was replaced by a carefully curled wig that hung down to the shoulders, and the once bare legs were dressed in graceful sandals with pointed and turned up toes. If a ruling nobleman at the court of Amenemhat or Senusret had happened to walk through the streets of Thebes in the days of Amenhotep III, he would hardly have been able to say in which country he suddenly found himself, while his own old-fashioned costume, preserved only among the priests, would have caused the same amazement among the dressed-up Thebans of that era. He would feel no less strange than an Elizabethan nobleman on the streets of modern London. Everywhere he would find graceful Palaces and luxurious villas with delightful gardens and summer houses, located around vast temples, such as the inhabitant of the Nile Valley had never seen before. The wealth and labor of slaves from Asia and Nubia were quickly transformed into magnificent buildings, and in Thebes they worked day after day to create a new and fundamental page in the history of world architecture. Amenhotep himself devoted himself ardently and enthusiastically to these works and placed at the disposal of his architects everything they needed in order to develop their art more fully than was ever possible before. Among them were highly gifted people, and one of their number, who bore the same name as the king, earned such wide fame for his wisdom that his aphorisms circulated in Greek about 1200 years later among the “sayings of the seven wise men,” and during The Ptolemies began to worship him as a god, placing him among the countless deities of Egypt under the name “Amenhotep, son of Hapu.”
In the hands of such people, the ancient and traditional elements of the Egyptian building were imbued with new life, and new forms began to be combined, revealing previously unknown beauty. In addition, the unprecedented means and labor that were at the service of the new architects made it possible to operate with such enormous dimensions, which in themselves could make the building extremely impressive. But of the two forms of temples that developed at this time, the smaller in size is no less interesting than the larger. It was a simple quadrangular altar, or holy of holies, 30 or 40 feet long and 14 feet high; there was a door at both ends, and a colonnade all around, yet in general about half the height of the temple walls rose on the foundation. The door between two graceful columns, the façade, well placed in the diminishing perspective of the side colonnades, and everything as a whole is so proportionate that an experienced eye will immediately recognize the hand of a master who fully knows the value of simple basic lines. It is not surprising that the architects of Napoleon's expedition, who introduced it to the modern world, were delighted and thought that they had discovered in it the prototype of a Greek temple surrounded by a colonnade; and, indeed, there is no doubt that the architecture of Greece was influenced by this form. Another, and more extensive, type of temple, which received the greatest development at this time, differs sharply from the one described above and, perhaps, mainly in that all its colonnades are located inside and are invisible from the outside.
The Holy of Holies is still surrounded by a series of chambers, more extensive than before, due to the needs of the rich and complex ritual that developed in this era. In front is a vast columned hall, often called the hypostyle, and in front of this last is a huge forecourt surrounded by a columned portico. In front of the courtyard rise two towers (collectively called the "pylon"), forming the façade of the temple. Their walls slope inward, are topped by a concave cornice at the top, and between them is the main door of the temple. Although sandstone and limestone masonry does not usually contain large blocks, huge monolithic architraves, 30 or 40 feet long and weighing 100 or 200 tons, are nevertheless found. Almost all surfaces, with the exception of the columns, are covered with reliefs: on the outside the king is depicted during a battle, on the inside - he is worshiping the gods; all surfaces, with few exceptions, are brightly painted. In front of the huge double doors of Lebanese cedar, bound in bronze, stood, one on each side, two obelisks, rising high above the towers of the pylon, back to which, on either side of the door, were placed colossal statues of the King, each sculpted from a single piece. All these elements, known earlier in the reign of Amenhotep III, were so used and arranged as a whole by his architects that a completely new type of temple was obtained, which was destined to survive as one of the noblest and most widespread forms of architecture right up to the present day.
In Luxor, the old southern suburb of Thebes, which by this time had grown into a whole city, there was a small temple of Amon, built by the kings of the XII dynasty. Amenhotep III probably demolished it at the beginning of his reign and built a new sanctuary, surrounded by chambers and having a hall in front, like the sanctuary of Thutmose I at Karnak. Its architects added to it a magnificent forecourt with the most wonderful colonnades that have only been preserved in Egypt. Having gained confidence in their abilities, they decided to erect in front of the entire complex of buildings a new and most majestic hall that had ever been decided to build, and this, apparently, should have been preceded by an even more extensive courtyard. In the large hall, along the longitudinal center line, gigantic columns were located in two rows, completely surpassing in size anything ever erected in Egypt. And despite their size, they did not lose at all in beauty, having perfect proportions in all respects and being hung with elegant capitals in the shape of blooming papyrus flowers. These columns were higher than those on either side of them, thus forming a high roof over the middle sail, or nave, and lower roofs over the side sails, the space between the roofs being occupied on either side by large stone windows located hardly. This is how the basic elements of the basilica and cathedral were created, which we owe to the Theban architects of Amenhotep III. Unfortunately, the huge hall was not completed during the king's lifetime, and his son was too ardent an opponent of Amon to complete his father's work. His later successors cluttered the magnificent nave with drums of columns of side sails, which were never erected, and the whole is now the sad ruins of an unfinished work of art, which is the first example of that architectural type for which the modern world cannot but be grateful.
Amenhotep set about uniting into one whole all the large buildings of the city, which had until then been scattered. He placed in front of the Karnak Temple a massive pylon, decorated with unprecedented luxury, slabs of lapis lazuli were erected on both sides, and for the inlay, in addition to a large amount of gold and silver, about 1200 pounds of malachite were used. A wide alley led from the river to the pylon, on both sides of which stood two tall obelisks, and in front of the pylon, the architect of Pharaoh Amenhotep placed his colossus, the largest of those that had been erected so far, carved from a single block of solid sandstone 67 feet high, carried up the river. river by an entire army of people from a quarry near modern Cairo. The king also built a temple to the Theban goddess Mut where his ancestors had already begun to build it, south of Karnak, and dug a lake near it. He then laid out a magnificent garden in the gap, more than a mile and a half long, between the temples of Karnak and Luxor, and he connected them with an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, carved from stone, and each having a statue of a pharaoh between its forepaws. The overall impression must have been extremely grandiose: the bright colors of the polychromy of the architecture, the columns and gates lined with gold, the slabs of the alley covered with silver and the huge obelisks clad in sparkling metal, dominating everything, towering high above the lush foliage of motionless palms and tropical trees, framing the whole - all this should have impressed both the multitude of details and the amazing grandeur of the whole, about which the gloomy ruins of these structures that have reached us, no matter how impressive they seem, say very little. Just as it was in Athens in the days of glory, the state was fortunate to have people with receptive and creative minds, in which the greatness of Egypt was so deeply imprinted that they were able to embody it in images full of beauty, dignity and brilliance. Thebes quickly became a capital worthy of an empire - the first monumental city of antiquity. Likewise, the western plain on the other side of the river, behind which the conquerors rested, would not have suffered from comparison with the splendor of Karnak and Luxor. Along the base of the steep cliffs, starting from the modest prayer house of Amenhotep I, a majestic chain of mortuary temples of the emperors stretched from north to south. At the southern end of this chain, closer to the river, Amenhotep III erected his own mortuary sanctuary, the largest temple of his reign. The king's two gigantic colossi, about 70 feet high, each carved from a single block and weighing more than 700 tons, not counting a pair of obelisks, stood in front of a pylon to which an alley of jackals carved from stone led from the river. Many other large statues of the pharaoh were located along the colonnade of the courtyard. A huge slab of sandstone, 30 feet high, lined with gold and precious stones, marked the honorable “royal place” where Amenhotep stood when performing official religious rites; another slab, more than 10 feet high, contained a list of everything the king had done for Amun. The walls and floor of the temple, decorated with gold and silver, displayed the most incredible splendor. The fine taste and technical dexterity required for such applied handicrafts had now reached a degree of classical perfection never subsequently surpassed by Egyptian art. The sheer size of some of these works causes amazement; for example, the bronze hinges and other accessories of the huge cedar doors of the pylon weighed several tons in total and required molds of unprecedented size for their casting; covering the doors themselves with bronze sheets, elegantly laid out with precious metal in the form of a figure of a deity, required a combination of artistic abilities with mechanical art, which is not very common even in our days.
Statues of Amenhotep III, the so-called "Colossi of Memnon"
At the same time, sculpture flourished as never before. Although attention now began to turn to details that required endless patience and painstakingness, such tedious work did not deaden the free creativity of the sculptors of the 18th dynasty; the ancient method of general transmission of the main lines was not forgotten. In the works of this century, refinement, sophistication and flexibility appear, which were previously absent even in the best works, although, perhaps, the striking individualism of the portraits of the Old Kingdom was no longer so pronounced. These properties were manifested in works of such colossal size that the mere fact that the sculptor could accomplish this is remarkable in itself, although not all colossal portrait statues are satisfactory in relation to the above-mentioned properties. Especially in relief, the artists of the era were masters. Look at the accompanying relief - now in the Berlin Museum - at the image of the grief of the two orphaned sons of the high priest of Memphis, accompanying the body of their father to the tomb, and notice how skillfully the artist contrasted it with the stern importance and conventional appearance of the first nobles of the state following them, and how these latter, in turn, differ sharply from the petimeter of the era, carefully straightening the perfumed strands of his complex wig. The man who created the work that has come down to us only in this small fragment was an exponent of a complex and mature culture, an observer of life, his creation depicts at the same time the tension and deep mystery of human grief, notes the inevitability and cruel indifference of official conventions and does not forget at the same time show the futility of current fashions. Here a mature contemplation of life speaks to us from the distance of many centuries, finding a sympathetic response in every cultural observer. This fragmentary sketch not only surpasses everything that remains of other eastern nations, but also belongs to a class of works completely absent anywhere else at that time. This is one of the earliest examples of sculpture, representing an understanding of life and a feeling for individual traits (which, as is usually thought, arose for the first time in the sculpture of Greece), in which art finds its highest expression.
The courageous exploits of Pharaoh Amenhotep III also inspired the sculptors of the era with the most complex combinations they had ever attempted. The battle scenes on the magnificent chariot of Thutmose IV represent an unprecedented complexity of design, and this trend continues into the 19th dynasty. Although animal life is not very suitable for the work just mentioned, yet the perfection achieved in the sculpting of animal forms by the sculptors of that time also marks the highest level of achievement of Egyptian art, and Ruskin even insisted with his usual conviction that two The lions of the era of Amenhotep III - now in the British Museum - are the most perfect embodiment of the greatness of the animal that has come down to us from antiquity. Although perhaps he overestimates his enthusiasm, it must not be forgotten that these noble works were destined for a remote provincial sanctuary at Soleb, in Upper Nubia. If such work adorned the courtyard of an insignificant Nubian temple, then what were the sculptures in the mortuary sanctuary of the pharaoh himself in Thebes? But this magnificent structure, probably the greatest creation of all Egyptian art, was completely destroyed. Only the two time-worn colossi that guarded the entrance still look out over the plain; One of them bears the Greek scrawls of curious tourists from the Roman Empire who came here to listen to the mysterious sound they made every morning. A hundred paces behind them lies a huge slab, split in two, once inlaid with gold and valuable stones, which indicated the “royal place”, and on it you can still read the words of Amenhotep regarding the temple: “My Majesty created this for millions of years. I know that it will remain on earth." Later we will have the opportunity to talk about how the royal temple became a victim of the atheism of the degenerate descendants of Amenhotep 200 years after his death. The best examples of painting of the era were in the Palaces, which, being made of wood and unfired brick, perished. We have already noted the subtle instinct that enabled the artist, when depicting animals and birds, to capture their instantaneous position and reach its highest expressiveness in the next kingdom. The pharaoh, in depicting his battles, demanded, as we have seen, an incomparably more complex design than that which was known in ancient times; the art of composition was valued most of all. Battle scenes in the temples of the era have perished, but there is no doubt that they existed, since we have a similar composition on the chariot of Thutmose IV
Decorated with such works, the western Theban plain presented a majestic appearance to the eyes of the observer rising from the river along the alley of the sculptured jackals of Amenhotep III. To the left, behind the temple and closer to the rocks, one could see the royal palace, built of wood and painted with bright colors. It was very light and airy, the facade was decorated with masts with bunches of multi-colored ribbons at the top, and above the entrance there was a magnificent balcony with railings covered with cushions and elegant columns, on which the king showed himself to his favorites on special occasions. The art that produced such a delightful building was as exceptional in its aesthetic perfection as in its technique. Countless works of applied art, now filling European museums, show with what endless splendor and exquisite beauty the royal palace was furnished and decorated. Magnificent vessels of gold and silver with figures of people and animals, plants and flowers on the edges sparkled on the royal table among crystal goblets, glass vases and gray porcelain vessels decorated with pale blue designs. The walls were covered with carpet fabrics of such fine workmanship and so exquisite in color and design that connoisseurs recognize them as in no way inferior to the creations of the best modern masters. Along with colored floors decorated with scenes from the lives of animals, the walls were covered with soft blue tiles, the rich colors of which shone through the intricate designs of gold leaf, and glazed figures were used to fill large surfaces. All this was executed with a subtle and thoughtful understanding of the overall colorful impression. In the refinement of its art, this era recalls the age of Louis XV, and the palace reflected the spirit of the times in every respect.
Amenhotep III's wife, Tiya (Teye)
Image credit: falkue
In the same place Amenhotep made a special estate for his wife Tia, he dug a large lake in the enclosure about a mile long and more than 1000 feet wide, and on the day of the twelfth anniversary of his coronation he opened the floodgates to fill it and sailed across it in a barge with his wife, just as we read in the description of the magnificent fantastic festivals in the Arabian Nights, in the days of the constant Harun ar-Rashid. Music was more perfect than ever before, as art had made progress since lowly antiquity. The harp became a large instrument, as tall as a man, and had about 20 strings; The lyre was borrowed from Asia. The full orchestra consisted of harp, lyre, lute and double flute. To commemorate the festival, a new series of scarabs, or amulet beetles, was issued, inscribed with a summary of the event. Magnificent festivities were now common in Thebes and enriched the life of the rapidly growing capital with a kaleidoscopic change of scenes that can only be compared with similar periods in Babylon or in Rome during the era of the emperors. The religious celebrations of the "seventh month" were celebrated with such splendor that it quickly acquired the epithet "month of Amenhotep", and this name, due to constant use, became common in later centuries and is still found in a distorted form among the inhabitants of Egypt, who use it without knowing exactly nothing about his royal ancestor, whose name was immortalized in him. Literature undoubtedly flourished in that era, but, unfortunately, too few works from the 18th dynasty have survived. We have read an excerpt from a triumphal hymn in honor of Thutmose III, and we will also read Akhenaten's wonderful hymn to the sun. But the surviving stories, songs and legends that flourished from the time of the rise of the empire belong almost without exception to the XIX dynasty.
One of the king's favorite pastimes was hunting, and he indulged in it with unprecedented passion. When his rangers reported the appearance of a herd of wild animals among the hills bordering the Delta, he left the Memphis palace in the evening, sailed north all night and reached the location of the herd early in the morning. A large detachment of soldiers, with the help of village children, then surrounded the herd and drove it into a large corral - a method practiced in earlier times. In one case, the beaters counted at least 170 game pieces inside the fence. Having entered the enclosure in a chariot, the king himself killed 56 wild animals on the first day, and this number increased, probably by 20, during the repeated beating that followed after a four-day rest. Amenhotep considered this feat worthy of perpetuation and ordered a series of scarabs to be made with a record of the event. When the tenth year of Amenhotep III's lion hunts was completed, the king endowed the court nobles with a similar reminder of his valor, concluding, after the usual royal title, his own and his wife's, the following words: "The number of lions which his Majesty slew with his own arrows, from the first year to tenth – fierce lions – 102.” About 30 or 40 such scarabs in memory of lion hunts have survived to this day.
In all this you can see a completely new trend. The divine pharaoh is constantly depicted in the sphere of human relations, the events of the royal house become public domain, the name of the queen, although not of royal blood, constantly appears in official documents next to the name of the pharaoh. Constant intercourse with the peoples of Asia gradually forced the king to descend from his ancient superhuman position, acceptable only in the Nile valley, to less provincial and more modern relations with his neighbors in Babylonia and Mitanni, who called him “brother” in their letters. The pharaoh who hunted lions and poisoned wild bulls is truly far from the god-like and unattainable immobility of his divine ancestors. It was as if the Chinese Emperor or the Tibetan Dalai Lama suddenly exposed their personal affairs in a series of medals! Without a doubt, Amenhotep III broke with tradition. He built a temple at Memphis where he was worshiped as a god, and expanded the Nubian temple at Soleb also for his own cult in connection with the cult of Amun. His wife was likewise venerated as a goddess in the Nubian temple at Sedeing. Thus, Amenhotep was still a god in Nubia. In reality, he long ago broke with the court and priestly fiction. Consciously or not, only he adopted a new point of view, which should inevitably lead to a sharp conflict with the rigidity of tradition, almost insurmountable in the eastern country.
Meanwhile, everything was going well, the lines of the impending internal struggle were not clearly defined, and the pharaoh had not yet seen the first hints of external revolts. Like a true Caesar divus, he commanded the splendor of Thebes. In the 30th year of his reign, he celebrated the anniversary of his appointment as crown prince, which coincided with his accession to the throne. It was probably during this celebration that obelisks were erected in front of the king’s funeral temple. To make the holiday even more impressive, the chief treasurer, having presented to the king a report on the unusually rich harvest, starting from Nubia and ending with Naharina, reported on a significant increase in income, and this made the king happy that all the provincial officials of the treasury were received by him in audience and awarded rich gifts. The second jubilee, probably in the year 34, passed, as far as we know, without incident, and in the year 36, when the third anniversary was celebrated, the old monarch was still able to receive his court in audience and listen to its congratulations.
Meanwhile, ominous signs of impending troubles appeared on the northern horizon. The Hittites invaded Mitanni, but the Mitannian king Dushratta managed to expel them and sent Amenhotep a chariot and a pair of horses, not counting two slaves, as a gift from the booty he received from the Hittites. But the Egyptian provinces were not spared. Akizzi, a vassal king of Qatna, wrote to him that the Hittites had invaded his territory in the Orontes valley. They took away the image of Amun-Ra with the name of Amenhotep and, leaving, burned the city. Nuhashshi, further to the north, suffered a similar attack, and its king Hadadnirari wrote a desperate letter to Amenhotep, assuring his loyalty and asking him to help him against his attackers. All this happened due to the indifference of the treacherous vassals of the pharaoh, who sought to conquer the territory for their own benefit. Aziru, who later became famous, and his father Abdashirta were the leaders of the movement; they entered Qatna and Nukhashshi from the south and plundered them. Their adherents at the same time threatened the Damascus region of Ubi. Akizzi from Qatna and Rib-Addi from Byblos quickly reported to Amenhotep III about the defection of his vassals; Akizzi wrote, calling for quick help: “Oh, my lord! Just as Damascus in the land of Ubi stretches out its hands at your feet, so Qatna stretches out its hands at your feet.”
The situation was incomparably more dangerous than it seemed to the pharaoh. Amenhotep III did not understand the seriousness of the Hittite offensive, especially since Akizzi assured him of the loyalty of the Naharina kings in these words: “Oh, my lord! Just as I love my lord the king, King Nuhashshi, King Nii, King Senzara and King Kinanatha love him, for all these kings are the servants of my lord the king.” Amenhotep, instead of immediately moving with the entire army to Northern Syria, as Thutmose III would have done, limited himself to only sending part of the army. The latter, of course, did not bother hastily suppressing the rebellious kings and quickly suppressing their hostile actions against their loyal vassals. She turned out to be completely unable to stop the movement to the south of the Hittites, who occupied a point in Northern Naharina that was extremely important for their further plans for the conquest of Syria. Moreover, the long absence of the pharaoh in Syria affected Egyptian prestige there, and from the very day when the king last left Sidon, as has now been established, a new danger began to approach his Asian possessions. There began an invasion from the desert of the Khabiri Semites, akin to those who from time immemorial had periodically infested Syria and Palestine. It has assumed such proportions that it fully deserves the name of resettlement. Even during the life of Amenhotep III, it became threatening, and subsequently Rib-Addi, from Byblos, wrote to his son: “Since your father returned from Sidon, the countries have been in the power of the Khabiri.”
Under such threatening circumstances, the aged pharaoh, whom we can rightly call Amenhotep the Magnificent, was close to death. His “brother” from Mitanni, with whom he was still on friendly terms, probably aware of his age and infirmity, sent a second image of Nineveh Ishtar to Egypt, no doubt in the hope that the goddess, who enjoyed wide fame, could drive out the evil spirits responsible for Amenhotep’s illness and restore health to the elderly king. But it was all in vain. Around 1375 BC e., after approximately 36 years on the throne, Amenhotep the Magnificent died and was buried in the same place as all his other emperor ancestors - in the Valley of the Kings.
Born in Thebes in 1388 BC. Son of Thutmose IV and his middle wife Queen Mutemuya (Mut-ma-ua). Born into the Thutmose dynasty, which had ruled Egypt for 150 years by this time.
Numerous surviving documents from the reign of Thutmose IV confirm that he was declared crown prince during his father's lifetime. Most likely, he ascended the throne at a very young age - he was not yet ten years old; this fact is confirmed by many sources and is not surprising given the fact that Thutmose IV died too early to have an heir in his mature years. In the guise of a child, the prince appears in the image from the tomb of the nobleman Hekaerneheh, on the statue of his mentor Sebekhotep, in the inscription of the 7th year of Thutmose IV on the rock in Konosso. A significant number of portraits of the king with extremely youthful and soft facial features go back to this early period of his reign.
The first years of the king's reign, naturally, passed under the rule of a regent, most likely his mother, Queen Mutemuya. The accession of Amenhotep III, apparently, passed quickly and painlessly; in any case, none of the nobles of the court were removed from their positions due to the change of king. Thus, Ptahmes, the high priest of Amun, who took this position in the last years of the reign of Thutmose IV, with the accession of the new king to the throne, also became the mayor of Thebes and the vizier.
From the first year of his reign, and possibly from the moment of his accession to the throne, Teye became the wife of the young king. Apparently, she belonged to the provincial nobility and, perhaps, had a significant admixture of Nubian blood. Thus, a long-standing tradition was broken. Usually, for purity of blood, pharaohs married their closest female relatives, who received the title of “chief wife,” and their sons inherited the throne. But Amenhotep disregarded the custom of his ancestors and elevated Teye above all his other wives, thereby breaking the established tradition. Apparently, Thaye was an intelligent and energetic woman and must have exercised great influence over her royal husband.
At the beginning of Amenhotep's reign, Egypt was at the height of its power. There were friendly relations with the kings of Mitanni, Babylonia, and Cyprus, so Amenhotep’s reign was extremely peaceful. Only once did Amenhotep undertake a campaign in Nubia, to suppress the uprising that broke out there. The campaign of the 5th year, known from numerous sources, is described in most detail in the text carved on the rock between Aswan and the island of Philae. Despite the statements - “In the fifth year the king returned back. He triumphed this year in his first campaign, made through the despised land of Kush. He set boundaries according to his will. Not a single king did anything like this, except for him, the brave pharaoh, the hopeful on his own strength (that is, Amenhotep III)" - the king, apparently, participated only symbolically: traditionally, such campaigns were carried out under the leadership of a person with experience of military operations in the region, most often, the "Royal son of Kush." Below the inscription are the names of the six defeated peoples of the south, including the land of Kush.
It seems that the same campaign is narrated by a poorly preserved inscription in Bubastis and a stele of the king’s son Kush Merimos, which he installed in Semna, at the 2 rapids, in the name of the king. It all began with the uprising of the “despicable hostile Kush” under the leadership of a certain leader Ikheni, “a braggart surrounded by his army; he did not know the lion that was in front of him. This is Nebmaatra (throne name of Amenhotep III), a terrible lion who grabbed the despicable Kush with his claw, tearing apart all his leaders in their valleys, lying one on top of the other in blood.” Despite the destroyed upper part, the text of the Merimose stele is more meaningful than the royal one and is replete with details. Merimos recruited an army from among the Nubians of Northern Nubia. This army was supposed to act together with the army of the pharaoh, which proves to what extent Lower Nubia had managed to become Egyptian. On the anniversary of the celebration of the 5th year of Amenhotep’s accession to the throne, a battle with rebels took place in the country of Ibheta, which lies above the 2 cataracts. The latter were destroyed. The Egyptians killed 312 and captured 740 Nubians. After punishing the inhabitants of the surrounding areas, in order to prevent further cases of disobedience, Amenhotep went south. The Bubastis inscription reports that the Egyptian troops reached the "heights of Hua" (the location is unknown, but these heights appear in the lists near Punt and were probably far to the south), where they encamped in the country of Uneshei, south of Hua. This was the extreme point of Amenhotep's movement to the south. Having erected his boundary slab at certain “waters of Horus,” which allegedly none of his predecessors had done, and, having collected a large amount of gold in the country of Karai, Amenhotep returned to Egypt. This “first victorious campaign” of Amenhotep was, apparently, the only one in which he participated. And it is not entirely clear who actually led the campaign, himself or the Royal son of Kush Merimos.
Amenhotep's reign was marked by grandiose construction. In front of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Amenhotep erected another pylon and built next door, near a horseshoe-shaped lake, a temple to Amun’s wife, the goddess Mut. It is possible that the middle passage of the so-called Hypostyle Hall in Karnak, between two rows of gigantic columns 24 m high, dates back to Amenhotep III, and only later was expanded into a huge palace. In the south of Thebes, the temple of Ipet-Res (Luxor Temple) was built - one of the most exquisite creations of Egyptian architects. A majestic passage between two rows of stone columns 16 m high also led to it. Similar passages were erected by him in front of the neighboring Mut temple, and in front of the temple in Sulba (between the 2nd and 3rd thresholds). All construction work in Karnak, Luxor and Thebes as a whole was supervised by two architects - the twin brothers Hori and Suti.
Amenhotep's country palace was built on the western bank of the Nile near the capital. It was a huge one-story building made of raw brick, with excellent paintings on the ceilings, walls and floors. The palace complex also included houses of courtiers, workshops, and houses of artisans. The construction of this palace, called the “House of Rejoicing,” is not without reason associated with the celebration of the “thirtieth anniversary of the reign” (heb-sed). Somewhat north of the palace, a magnificent funeral temple for Amenhotep was built. Unfortunately, little has survived from this building. Near this temple an alley of sphinxes sculpted from pink granite was created, and in front of its pylons two huge statues of the pharaoh, the famous “Colossi of Memnon”, were erected, each made of a single block of stone 21 m high and weighing more than 700 tons. The construction of this temple was led by the architect Amenhotep, son of Hapu. The same Amenhotep from the quarries near Heliopolis delivered two huge statues of his master to Thebes for the national temple at Karnak. At least one of them was 24 m high.
The source of such extensive construction activity of Amenhotep was the untold wealth coming to Egypt from conquered and dependent countries. These riches of Egypt were so great that Amenhotep could send large quantities of gold as gifts to his faithful allies - the kings of Mitanni and Babylon, and the latter were sure that there was as much gold in Egypt as sand in the desert. During the reign of Amenhotep, trade flourished, also bringing huge income to the state, for Amenhotep in every possible way encouraged legal trade and properly taxed it. The art of Amenhotep's time combined the desire for the colossal (giant columns and buildings) with strict harmony. And the images on the plane were given the outlines of unprecedented softness and smoothness.
At the end of the reign of Amenhotep, unrest began in the Asian possessions of Egypt, the so-called popular movement of hapiru - outcasts who retired to the steppe and formed detachments of freemen. The Hapiru opposed royal power in general, and against pharaonic power in particular. At this time, in the mountains, between Phenicia and Syria, a new state of Amurru arose, the main population of which was Hapiru. The creator of this kingdom, Abdi-Ashirt, out of caution, pretended to be loyal to the pharaoh, but at the same time, through his agents, systematically called on the population to join the hapir and kill their city leaders, loyal to the pharaoh, which happened here and there throughout Phenicia and Palestine. In some places it came to the protests of individual armed groups of slaves. The Egyptian governors of Amurru did not immediately discover the hostile nature of Abdi-Ashirta’s activities, as a result of which he was able to significantly expand his possessions.
In the 70s of the XIV century BC. e. in the north, a new danger arose for Egypt. The strengthened Hittite kingdom began to lay claim to hegemony in the region of Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. The Hittites invaded the possessions of Amenhotep's ally, the Mitannian king Tushratta. Tushratta managed to drive them out, and he even sent Amenhotep a chariot, a pair of horses and two slaves as a gift from the booty he received from the Hittites. But the Egyptian provinces in Syria were not spared. Akizzi, the vassal king of Qatna, wrote to the pharaoh that the Hittites invaded his territory in the Orontes Valley, took away the image of Amun-Ra with the name of Amenhotep III, and, leaving, burned the city. Nuhashshe, further to the north, suffered a similar attack, and its king Addu-Nirari wrote a desperate letter to the pharaoh with assurances of loyalty and a request for help against the attackers. Amenhotep limited himself to sending small units of troops. Apparently, for support in the fight against the Hittites, Amenhotep’s marriage with the daughter of the king of the country of Artsawa, Tarkhundaradus, was planned.
There was also unrest within the country, where the interests of two powerful groups collided: the capital and local nobility on the one hand, and the new social strata and the new service nobility that emerged from their midst, on the other. On the 30th anniversary of his reign, Amenhotep III appointed his son Amenhotep IV as his co-ruler. At the end of his life, Amenhotep III became very fat and suffered from some serious illness. To heal from it, the Mitannian king Tushratta sent his Egyptian “brother” an idol of the goddess Ishtar of Nineveh, with a polite request to return it later. Queen Teye retained her extraordinary position next to the pharaoh until his death, despite the fact that Amenhotep was married not only to foreign princesses, but also to several of his own daughters. It happens that on the same inscription the names of Amenhotep, the “king’s wife” Teye and their daughters, the “king’s wife” Sitamon (Si-Aman “Daughters of Amon”) appear side by side.
Amenhotep reigned for 38 years and several months. His mummy, discovered along with the remains of many other kings and queens in the secret tomb of his grandfather Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings, made it possible to establish that he was between 40 and 50 years old at the time of his death; It was not possible to determine the age more precisely.
- Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, who reigned around 1388 - 1351. BC e. Son of Thutmose IV and Queen Mutemuya (Mut-ma-ua). Amenhotep III was born in Thebes. Numerous surviving documents from the reign of Thutmose IV confirm that he was declared crown prince during his father's lifetime, and ascended the throne at a very young age, when he was not yet ten years old. In the guise of a child, the prince appears in the image from the tomb of the nobleman Hekaerneheh, on the statue of his mentor Sebekhotep, in the inscription of the 7th year of the reign of Thutmose IV on the rock in Konosso. A significant number of portraits of the king with extremely youthful and soft facial features go back precisely to the early period of his reign.The first years of the king's reign most likely passed under the rule of a regent - his mother, Queen Mutemuya. Apparently, Amenhotep III’s accession to the throne was painless, because there were no personnel changes among the nobles of the court in connection with the change of pharaoh. For example, Ptahmes, the high priest of Amun, who took this position in the last years of the reign of Thutmose IV, with the accession to the throne of Amenhotep III also became the mayor of Thebes and the vizier.
The reign of Amenhotep III is considered one of the greatest periods of the heyday of ancient Egyptian civilization, as evidenced by the grandiose temple complexes and superb sculptures, as well as many works of art considered masterpieces of the best Egyptian museum collections in the world.
From the moment of his accession to the throne, Teye became the wife of the young king. Apparently she belonged to the provincial nobility and may have had a significant admixture of Nubian blood. Usually, for purity of blood, pharaohs married their closest female relatives, who received the title of “chief wife,” and their sons inherited the throne. Amenhotep III disregarded this ancestral custom and elevated Teye above all his other wives. Teye, according to sources, was very smart and energetic, must have had a great influence on her royal husband, and Amenhotep III himself considered his wife more than was customary, and not only in family matters.
At the beginning of the reign of Amenhotep III, Egypt was at the height of its power. His dominion in Asia There were friendly relations with the kings of Mitanni, Babylonia, and Cyprus, so Amenhotep’s reign was extremely peaceful. Diplomatic marriages are gaining great popularity: Amenhotep III was married to the sister and daughter of the Babylonian king Kadashman-Harbe I, the daughter of the Babylonian king Kurigalzu I, the daughter of the Babylonian king Kadashman-Elil I. Amenhotep III was also married twice to Mitannian princesses: in the 10th year During his reign, he married the daughter of the Mitanni king Shuttarna I Kelu-hebe (Gilukheppa), and on the 36th - the granddaughter of Shuttarna I, daughter of Tushratta - Tadu-hebe (Tadukheppa).
The reign of Amenhotep III was marked by grandiose construction. In front of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Amenhotep III erected another pylon, and next door, near a horseshoe-shaped lake, he built a temple to the wife of Amon, the goddess Mut. In the south of Thebes, Amenhotep III built the Luxor Temple (Iput Resit) - one of the most exquisite creations of Egyptian architects, to which a majestic passage led between two rows of stone columns 16 m high. Similar passages were erected by him in front of the neighboring Mut temple and in front of the temple in Sulbe (between the 2nd and 3rd rapids).
A country palace of Amenhotep III was built on the western bank of the Nile near the capital. It was a huge one-story building made of raw brick, with excellent paintings on the ceilings, walls and floors. The palace complex included houses of courtiers, workshops, and houses of artisans. The construction of this palace, called the “House of Rejoicing,” is not without reason associated with the celebration of the “thirtieth anniversary of the reign” (heb-sed). Somewhat north of the palace, a magnificent funeral temple of Amenhotep III was built. Unfortunately, little has survived from this building. Near this temple, an alley of sphinxes sculpted from pink granite was created, and in front of its pylons two huge statues of the pharaoh, the famous “Colossi of Memnon,” were erected, each made of a single block of stone 21 m high and weighing more than 700 tons. The construction of this temple was led by the architect Amenhotep, son of Hapu. From the quarries near Heliopolis, he delivered to Thebes two huge statues of his ruler for the national temple in Karnak, one of which had a height of 24 m. funeral temple in the west of Thebes, as if for a king. Centuries later, he was ranked among the pantheon of Egyptian gods, and the Greeks introduced him to the host of their sages.
On the 30th anniversary of his reign, Amenhotep III appointed his son Amenhotep IV as co-regent. At the end of his life, Amenhotep III became very fat and suffered from some serious illness. Queen Teye retained her extraordinary position next to the pharaoh until his death, despite the fact that Amenhotep was married not only to foreign princesses, but also to several of his own daughters.
Amenhotep III was the father of two sons from his main wife Teye: the first son was Crown Prince Thutmose, who died before his father, the second son, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton), inherited the throne.
Amenhotep III and Teye also had four daughters: Sitamon, Henuttaneb, Isis or Iset, Nebetah. Their names, with the exception of Nebetah, appear frequently on statues and reliefs during their father's reign. Nebetah is attested only once in known chronological records, on a colossal group of limestone statues at Medinet Habu.
Amenhotep III reigned for 38 years and several months.
(English) Russian , Taduheppa (English) Russian , daughters of the kings of Western AsiaSatamon, Isis, Henuttaneb, Nebetah, Baketaton,
Smenkhkare (?)
Amenhotep III(1388-1353/1351 BC) - pharaoh of Ancient Egypt who ruled in 1388 - 1351 years BC e., from the XVIII dynasty. Son and queen Mutemuya (Mut-ma-ua).
The reign of Amenhotep III is considered one of the greatest periods of the heyday of ancient Egyptian civilization, as evidenced by the grandiose temple complexes and superb sculptures, elegant toiletries and many other works of art, considered masterpieces of the best Egyptian museum collections in the world. Despite the abundance of this evidence, Amenhotep III still remains a largely mysterious and controversial figure. On the one hand, he, like no one else, revered the traditional Egyptian gods and built luxurious temples for them, on the other hand, it was in his era, when royal self-deification reached an unprecedented scale, that the roots of the upcoming Amarna reform lay.
Monuments of the reign of Amenhotep III
Hundreds of his portraits are known, but at the same time, the long years of his reign are “silent” due to the lack of written sources. Despite the apparent accessibility and diversity of monuments of this time and the conventional “clarity” of the era, the reign of Amenhotep III still requires serious and detailed research.
Dated sources that have survived to this day from the reign of Amenhotep III are relatively rare. Eleven dated royal documents are known, nine of which date from the 1st to 11th years of the king's reign and the other two from the 35th. An inscription from the 1st year of the reign is known at Deir el-Bersha, near the limestone quarries; this inscription is associated with construction work in the temple of Thoth in Hermopolis, located on the other bank of the Nile. The double inscription of the 2nd year at Tours relates to the resumption of quarry work in connection with the beginning of the construction of the "Temple of Millions of Years" of the king at Kom el-Hettan and possibly Memphis. Four of the dated monuments are commemorative scarabs, the texts of which mention: marriage to a Mitannian princess (10th year), hunting wild bulls (2nd year), hunting wild lions (1st and 10th years) and the creation of the artificial lake Birket Abu for Queen Teiye (11th year).
Finally, three steles from the 5th year of his reign are associated with the only military event during the reign of Amenhotep III - the campaign in Nubia. After the 11th year of the reign, all dated monuments seem to disappear until the year 35, which is mentioned on two steles from Gebel el-Silsile, the texts of which tell about the extraction of stone for the mortuary temple of the king and for the construction of a certain building in honor of Ra-Atum. Today it is very difficult to understand why the first eleven years of the reign of Amenhotep III, filled with events and monuments, were replaced by two decades of relative “silence”. Some documents that can be dated relatively accurately appear after the 30th year of the king's reign and are directly related to the three festivals of the king's Sed; all of them were found either in the tombs of high-ranking nobles who took part in them, or in the ruins of the Malcatta palace, where some episodes of the celebrations took place. Numerous seals and fragments of wine vessels used during the festivals, containing inscriptions and sometimes dates, were discovered here.
If most of the reign of Amenhotep III is relatively silent and not generous with dated documents, then, on the contrary, many important events of the reign became known to us thanks to the extensive number of monuments of private individuals and nobles of the magnificent and crowded royal court.
The dated monuments from the era of Amenhotep III seem like a tiny drop compared to the sea of other monuments that make up two groups: works of art and the Amarna diplomatic archive. Works of art constitute another, most significant and interesting part of the monuments of the era of Amenhotep III. These include the grandiose temples of the king and numerous works of sculpture, among which a special place is occupied by more than two hundred statues of the king, ranging from miniature figurines of soapstone to the colossi of Thebes. Monuments of private individuals, despite their abundance and, at times, true perfection, found themselves in the shadow of the grandiose monuments of the tsar. The only exceptions are, perhaps, the tombs, among which there are both modest painted funeral chambers of the scribes and priests of the necropolis, and delightful underground palaces, richly decorated with reliefs, often polychrome, telling about the life of high-ranking nobles of the court and the royal festivals of the Sed.
|
|
||||||
The pharaoh negotiated with the king of Anatolia about his daughter and they were successful:
Amenhotep wrote to one of his vassals:
Letters from Tushratta, King of Mitanni, to Amenhotep IIIAmenhotep maintained good connections with Mitanni and its king Tushratta II, his sister Kelu-hebe (Gilukheppa) went to the pharaoh. Amenhotep sent out an official message:
Tushratta writes to Amenhotep III:
King Tushratta II also offered his daughter Tada-hebe (Tadukheppa). He wrote to Amenhotep:
Each time Tushratta II ended the letters:
Correspondence with King Kadashman-Enlil I of BabyloniaBut not everyone agreed to give their daughters to the pharaoh. For example, the Babylonian king Kadashman-Enlila responded rudely:
Pharaoh answers the king:
Finally, the king of Babylonia, Kadashman-Enlila, agreed to give up his daughter:
When the king of Babylonia set out to marry the daughter of the pharaoh, he received a categorical refusal. Kadashman-Enlila: “Why not? Are you a pharaoh and can do whatever you want? Amenhotep:
The king of Babylonia was very interested in the gold of Egypt. He wrote:
Pharaoh replied: “It is foolish to give your daughters for a piece of gold.” (Source Joan Fletcher In Search of Nefertiti.) International situationTrek to NubiaAt the beginning of Amenhotep's reign, Egypt was at the height of its power. There were friendly relations with the kings of Mitanni, Babylonia, and Cyprus, so Amenhotep’s reign was extremely peaceful. Only once did Amenhotep undertake a campaign in Nubia to suppress the uprising that broke out there. The campaign of the 5th year, known from numerous sources, is described in most detail in a text carved on a rock between Aswan and the island of Philae. Despite the claims - “In the fifth year the king returned. He triumphed this year in his first campaign, made through the despicable land of Kush. He set the boundaries according to his own will. No king did anything like this, except for him, a brave pharaoh relying on his own strength (that is, Amenhotep III)."- the king, apparently, participated only symbolically: traditionally, such campaigns were carried out under the leadership of a person with experience of military operations in the region, most often, the “Tsar’s son Kush”. Below the inscription are the names of the six defeated peoples of the south, including the land of Kush. It seems that the same campaign is narrated by a poorly preserved inscription in Bubastis and a stele of the king’s son Kush Merimos, which he installed in Semna, at the 2 rapids, in the name of the king. It all started with an uprising "the despicable hostile Kush" under the leadership of a certain chief Iheni, “a braggart surrounded by his army; he did not know the lion that was in front of him. This is Nebmaatra (throne name of Amenhotep III), a terrible lion, who grabbed the despicable Kush with his claw, tearing all its leaders in their valleys, lying in blood one on top of the other.". Despite the destroyed upper part, the text of the Merimose stele is more meaningful than the royal one and is replete with details. Merimos recruited an army from among the Nubians of Northern Nubia. This army was supposed to act together with the army of the pharaoh, which proves to what extent Lower Nubia had managed to become Egyptian. On the anniversary of the celebration of the 5th year of Amenhotep’s accession to the throne, a battle with rebels took place in the country of Ibheta, which lies above the 2 cataracts. The latter were destroyed. The Egyptians killed 312 and captured 740 Nubians. After punishing the inhabitants of the surrounding areas, in order to prevent further cases of disobedience, Amenhotep went south. The Bubastis Inscription reports that the Egyptian troops reached the "heights of Hua" (the location is unknown, but these heights appear in the lists near Punt and were probably far to the south), where they encamped in the country of Uneshei, south of Hua. This was the extreme point of Amenhotep's movement to the south. Having erected his boundary slab at certain “waters of Horus,” which none of his predecessors supposedly did, and having collected a large amount of gold in the country of Karai, Amenhotep returned to Egypt. This “first victorious campaign” of Amenhotep was, apparently, the only one in which he participated. And it is not entirely clear who actually led the campaign, himself or the Royal son of Kush Merimos. Diplomatic marriagesIn Asia, Amenhotep's rule was generally recognized. The kings of such great powers as Mitanni and the Kingdom of Babylon curried favor with the pharaoh and sent their sisters and daughters to his harem. So, Amenhotep was married to the sister and daughter of the Babylonian king Kadashman-Harbe I, the daughter of the Babylonian king Kurigalzu I, the daughter of the Babylonian king Kadashman-Elil I. Amenhotep was also married twice to Mitannian princesses. In the 10th year of his reign, he married the daughter of King Shuttarna I of Mitanni, Kelu-hebe (Gilukheppa), and in the 36th year, he married the granddaughter of Shuttarna I, daughter of Tushratta, Tadu-hebe (Tadukheppa). The great influence of Amenhotep is also evidenced by the fact that the Babylonian king Kurigalzu I, when the Syrian kings tried to involve him in an alliance against the pharaoh, sent them a categorical refusal on the grounds that he was in an alliance with the pharaoh, and even threatened them with war if if their union comes true. The king of Cyprus was a vassal of Amenhotep and regularly sent him large quantities of copper, with the exception of one time, when, as he himself says in his own defense, a plague visited his country. More than twenty objects bearing the names of Amenhotep III and Teye discovered on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate a short-term renewal of Egypt's ties with the region. Construction activities
Temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor Amenhotep's reign was marked by grandiose construction. In front of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Amenhotep erected another pylon, and built next door, near a horseshoe-shaped lake, a temple to the wife of Amun - the goddess Mut. It is possible that the middle passage of the so-called Hypostyle Hall in Karnak, between two rows of gigantic columns 24 m high, dates back to Amenhotep III, and only later was expanded into a huge palace. In the south of Thebes, the temple of Ipet-Res (Luxor Temple) was built - one of the most exquisite creations of Egyptian architects. A majestic passage between two rows of stone columns 16 m high also led to it. Similar passages were erected by him in front of the neighboring Mut temple, and in front of the temple in Sulba (between the 2nd and 3rd thresholds). All construction work in Karnak, Luxor and Thebes as a whole was supervised by two architects - the twin brothers Hori and Suti. Amenhotep's country palace was built on the western bank of the Nile near the capital. It was a huge one-story building made of raw brick, with excellent paintings on the ceilings, walls and floors. The palace complex also included houses of courtiers, workshops, and houses of artisans. The construction of this palace, called the “House of Rejoicing,” is not without reason associated with the celebration of the “thirtieth anniversary of the reign” ( heb-sed). Somewhat north of the palace, a magnificent funeral temple for Amenhotep was built. Unfortunately, little has survived from this building. Near this temple an alley of sphinxes sculpted from pink granite was created, and in front of its pylons two huge statues of the pharaoh, the famous “Colossi of Memnon”, each made of a single block of stone 21 m high and weighing more than 700 tons, were erected. The construction of this temple was supervised by the architect Amenhotep, son of Hapu. The same Amenhotep from the quarries near Heliopolis delivered two huge statues of his master to Thebes for the national temple at Karnak. At least one of them was 24 m high. Wealth of the StateThe source of such extensive construction activity of Amenhotep was the untold wealth coming to Egypt from conquered and dependent countries. These riches of Egypt were so great that Amenhotep could send large quantities of gold as gifts to his faithful allies - the kings of Mitanni and Babylon, and the latter were sure that there was as much gold in Egypt as sand in the desert. During the reign of Amenhotep, trade flourished, also bringing huge income to the state, for Amenhotep in every possible way encouraged legal trade and taxed it properly. The art of Amenhotep's time combined the desire for the colossal (giant columns and buildings) with strict harmony. And the images on the plane were given the outlines of unprecedented softness and smoothness. During the reign of Amenhotep III, Egypt also maintained contacts with Punt. The tomb of Amenmes (TT89), the mayor of Thebes and a very high-ranking nobleman, preserves the image of the typical gifts of Punt, accompanied by local leaders. Another Amenmes, a simple scribe, also reported the arrival of a flotilla from Punt to Egypt in the period before the 36th year of the king's reign. Deification of the kingAmenhotep, reveling in his dominion over the “world,” reached the point of self-deification to the cult of his own idols. True, this worship of the pharaoh was implanted mainly in Nubia, where, together with Amun, a magnificent temple in Sulba was dedicated to the king, but also in Memphis, divine honors were given to the royal idol. In Nubia, in Sedenga, neighboring Sulba, a temple was built in which the pharaoh’s beloved wife, Queen Teye, was honored as a goddess. The dignitary builder Amenhotep, son of Hapu, who died, most likely, after the 30th year of the reign of the pharaoh, had a funeral temple built in the west of Thebes, as if for a king. Centuries later, he was numbered among the pantheon of Egyptian gods, and the Greeks introduced him as “Amenophis, son of Paanias” into the host of their sages. From ancient times, pharaohs were compared to the sun and called them “sons of Ra (the sun),” but no one before Amenhotep called himself as persistently as he did - the visible Sun. This idea of oneself as the bright Sun was echoed by the persistent emphasis on one’s commitment to “truth” (Maat). Of the five royal names, three were dedicated to her: in the first name the king styled himself “Shining in Truth”, in the second - “Establisher of Laws”, the fourth, usually the state name, “Neb-Maat-Ra” meant “Lord of Truth, the Sun”. Near the main temple of the capital in Karnak, the pharaoh erected a special temple, still to the same “Truth,” “daughter of the Sun” Maat. Unrest in the Asian dominionsAt the end of the reign of Amenhotep, unrest began in the Asian possessions of Egypt, the so-called popular movement of hapiru - outcasts who retired to the steppe and formed detachments of freemen. The Hapiru opposed royal power in general and pharaonic power in particular. At this time, a new state, Amurru, arose in the mountains between Phenicia and Syria, the main population of which was Hapiru. The creator of this kingdom, Abdi-Ashirt, out of caution, pretended to be loyal to the pharaoh, but at the same time, through his agents, systematically called on the population to join the hapir and kill their city leaders, loyal to the pharaoh, which happened here and there throughout Phenicia and Palestine. In some places it came to the protests of individual armed groups of slaves. The Egyptian governors of Amurru did not immediately discover the hostile nature of Abdi-Ashirta’s activities, as a result of which he was able to significantly expand his possessions. Hittite threatHis mummy, discovered along with the remains of many other kings and queens in the secret tomb of his grandfather Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings, made it possible to establish that he was between 40 and 50 years old at the time of his death; It was not possible to determine the age more precisely. Photos of the mummy:
NotesSources of quotes
Bibliography
| ||||||
