History of Ancient Egypt: Dynasty XVIII - Egypt's Golden Age and the Start of the New Kingdom

and now we come to the point in our story that I'm sure many of you have been waiting for since this series first began the era of Egyptian history known today as the New Kingdom and in this episode specifically the 18th Dynasty no other period of ancient Egyptian history has been documented in such detail both by Scholars today as well as in ancient times while I won't be able to cover every topic of Interest I'll do my best to give you a synopsis of some of the key political events as well as highlights of the lives of the most influential personalities who helped to shape this exciting era in ancient Egyptian history so without further Ado let's get right into it the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt in the last installment of this series we saw that second enri Tau of the 17th Dynasty from Thebes had gone to war with the hixos King API but he was killed in battle successor camos also went to war with the Pepe and had a great deal of success in seizing territory all the way up to the hiksos capital of avares though he ultimately failed to take the city and died a few months later in themes the throne then passed to his younger brother ahmos who may have been only 10 at the time because of this his influential mother ahotep is believed to have presided over his kingdom as Regent until he was considered fit to rule on his own which was probably around his 16th birthday in reality the 17th and 18th Dynasty were really the same family and so technically they should be the same Dynasty minito though often separated groups of Egyptian kings into different dynasties with the logic that doesn't always align with our modern definition of the word for minuto the start of a new dynasty of Kings did not necessarily have to be due to one Royal House replacing another but could occur when a new phase of Egyptian history started as we'll soon see was the case with Atmos one of the best contemporary military sources with regard to the Reigns of the early 18th Dynasty Kings is the autobiography of f modes son of Ibana not to be confused with the King ehmos a loyal Soldier to the new king ethmo sanabibana outlines in an inscription on the walls of his tomb his role in the conquest of the hiksos capital of avarus and its aftermath he States I followed the Sovereign on foot when he wrote about on his chariot when the town of a virus was besieged I fought bravely on foot in his Majesty's presence thereupon I was appointed to the ship rising in Memphis then there was fighting on the water Empires I made a seizure and carried off a hand when it was reported to the Royal Herald the gold of Valor award was given to me then they fought again in this place I again made a seizure there and carried off a hand then I was given the gold of Valor once again then there was fighting in Egypt to the south of this town and I carried off a man as a living captive I went down into the water for he was captured on the city side and crossed the water carrying him when it was reported to the Royal Herald I was rewarded with gold once more then a virus was despoiled and I brought spoiled from there one man three women total four persons his majesty gave them to me as slaves the phrase making a seizure means that he killed an enemy soldier after which the hand of the Dead combatant was cut off and brought back to his officers as proof while later Egyptian kings would attempt to colonize parts of Canaan on at least this campaign ethmus was there to strike Terror into the hearts of the local population punished towns were people suspected of collaborating with the exos and to pillage the land so that no future Army could use it to re-enter Egypt from the East the expulsion of the hexos and the reunification of Egypt ushered in a glorious period that we call the New Kingdom which at least according to the most popular chronology used today started around 1550 BC a quick note with regard to the dates used in this program and throughout this series history is not always clear-cut with historical texts inscriptions and evidence obtained from radiocarbon dating often contradicting each other the reality is we don't know the exact date when camos died in battle or when Atmos defeated the lastixos king and took a varus different egyptologists have various opinions on these and other dates so keep in mind that 1550 BC and the dates that follow are by no means exact or infallible but at least for the moment they're the best that we have or at least currently the most commonly cited by egyptologists today for our purposes here I'm going to use 1550 to Mark the end of the second intermediate period and the start of the New Kingdom let's continue kicking out the last tixos king from Egypt was just the beginning it wasn't enough to refortify Egypt's traditional borders and go back to the way things were in centuries past the world had changed and for the security of his people ethmos could no longer allow Egypt to remain the insular Kingdom that it had traditionally been for most of its history the hexos interlude had proven that the country was very vulnerable to attacks from the East and so Atmos would have to devise and Implement a new foreign policy that took this into account not just for the lands of Canaan and the Levant to the Northeast but also Nubia and the kingdom of kush to the South in his autobiography Emos son of Ibana tells us what happened after the sack of avarus as well as about his Majesty's new campaign in Nubia no one is Majesty had slain the nomads of Asia he sailed South to Canada to destroy the Nubian Bowman his majesty made a great Slaughter among them and I brought spoiled from there two living men and three hands then I was rewarded with gold once again and two female slaves were given to me his majesty journeyed North his heart rejoicing in Valor and victory he had conquered Southerners Northerners controlling Nubia was important for two reasons one was for Egyptian security as during the second intermediate period Nubian raids into Southern Egypt were common and quite destructive the other was for gold nubia's best Minds were south of the second Cataract and controlling them ensured access to a continued supply of wealth that would be crucial to fund the expansion of Egypt's budding Empire using the great Fortress of buhin as a base ehmos pushed further south to the island of shat which was halfway between the second and third cataracts and smack Into the Heart of Gold Country here he built a Sandstone Fortress with walls 15 feet thick and commanding views of the surrounding Countryside to help solidify his hold on the region Egypt's Independence now secure and its borders expanded ethmos turned some of his Focus to domestic issues during his Reign a great natural disaster occurred in the form of an unusually violent rainstorm which is recorded on a monument known as The Tempest Stila though badly damaged some of the text that is still legible tells us the following about this cataclysmic event and atmos's response to it the gods made the sky come with a tempest of rain it caused darkness in the western region the sky was Unleashed on the mountains more than the turbulence of the Cataract which is at elephanti his majesty set about to strengthen the two lands to cause the water to evacuate to provide them with silver with gold with copper with oil with clothing with all the products they desired after which his majesty rested in the palace Life Health strength it was then that his majesty was informed that the funerary concessions had been invaded by the water that the sepulchrol chambers had been damaged that the structures of funerary enclosures had been undermined that the pyramids had collapsed all that had existed had been annihilated his majesty then ordered the repair of the Chapels which had fallen in ruins in all the country restoration of the monuments of the Gods the re-election of their precincts the replacement of the Sacred objects in the room of appearances the augmentation of the revenues of the Personnel the restoration of the country to its former State They carried out everything as the king had ordered it one aspect of the 18th Dynasty that has intrigued many in the Modern Age deals with let's say they're very close family relations I'm referring specifically to brother sister marriage in the case of Atmos he was married to his sister Atmos nefertari not his adopted sister or half-sister but actual sibling this though may have been nothing new within their immediate family as it appears that his parents second Henry Tau and his wife ahotep were also brother and sister interestingly there's little to no evidence that such a practice was common amongst the people of Egypt in fact there's more evidence to indicate that such marriages were repulsive to the average Egyptian so then why were such marriages acceptable amongst members of the 17th and 18th dynasties egyptologists have given two main explanations one is that it was an imitation of the Gods for example Osiris and his sister Isis were also husband and wife as the kings and queens of Egypt were the closest thing to gods and goddesses on Earth such marriages may have been considered acceptable for them but the second and more practical reason was simply to keep power and wealth within the family marriages between siblings ensured that power and wealth would be held within the immediate family and not shared with another house in fact preserving his family's power seems to have been a concern for ethmos along with the monarchy the other Great and Powerful institution within Egypt was the priesthood especially of the god Amun who emos's 17th Dynasty ancestors had elevated to the status of their personal Patron deity while ethmos continued this tradition he also started a new one the position of God's wife of Amun which was the female counterpart to the chief priest of Amun he gave this brand new position to his own sister and wife ethmos nefertari which accomplished two things the first is that it gave ethmos and his family including his future descendants control over the temples of a moon and their vast network of wealthy estates the second was that it established an even stronger link between the royal family and the cult of a moon which by this time had become a sort of national religion and increasingly popular amongst the general population at least in Upper Egypt most egyptologists today are of the opinion and ethmos died in 1525 BC when he was in his mid-30s he left his Heir and been hooked up the first a unified and independent country that was now in a position to dominate the peoples and lands that less than three decades before had ruled over much of Egypt Amin hotep was not amos's original heir to the throne not even his second choice Eman hotep had two Elder Brothers but both died before their father this made him the next in line but he was too young to rule on his own and so his powerful and influential mother ehmos nefertari ruled for several years as Regent [Music] when he did assume full responsibility as king of Egypt Eman hotep continued the policies of his father by expanding the country's borders through military means he marched his armies further to the Northeast than any Egyptian ruler had ever done before though to what end is uncertain other campaigns were launched against the libyans to the West in order to safeguard the borders of the Delta Region and Lower Egypt however amenhotep's primary concern with regard to Foreign Affairs was to further bring Nubia into Egypt's orbit since before the dawn of History the land of Nubia had been intertwined with Egypt the relationship was often a commercial one but sometimes the kings of Egypt would conduct military campaigns into the region in order to protect trade routes or deal with Marauders harassing Egypt's Southern border the Egyptians usually had the upper hand as they were historically the greater power and could wield influence over nubia's many divided tribes and the few Petty kingdoms that had existed in centuries past however during the past two centuries Nubian wealth and influence outside of Egypt had grown and was now primarily centered around the kingdom of kush whose seat of power was the city of kerma just south of the Niles third cataract feeling pressure from Egyptian expansion to their North the cushites launched raids into Egyptian controlled Nubia with mixed results in fact such raids may have only convinced Eman hotep that he needed to personally come South and smash anyone who challenged Egyptian Authority once again the career Soldier ehmos son of Ibana who we saw also campaigned with the Dynasty's founder King ethmos tells us a bit about his own experiences during eminhotep's campaign against the cushites then I conveyed to King amanhotep the Justified when he sailed South to Kush to enlarge the borders of Egypt his majesty smote the Nubian Bowman in the midst of his army they were carried off in fetas none missing the fleeing destroyed as if they had never been now I was in the van of our troops and I fought really well his majesty saw my Valor I carried off two hands and presented them to his majesty then his people and his cattle were pursued and I carried off a living captive and presented him to his majesty as far as we know I'm in hotep the first was successful in all of his military campaigns but is known less for these and more as a great Builder administrative documents from the time record the reopening and renovation of quarries and mines all over Egypt Nubia and the Sinai several of which hadn't been in use since the days of the Middle Kingdom over 250 years prior though seemingly no part of Egypt was neglected the Royal City of Thebes certainly benefited the most from Eman hotep's generosity when it came to Temple restoration and Palace Construction during the years of the second intermediate period deeps had suffered tremendously from the economic isolation that was forced upon the City by its neighbors both to the North and the South not only did trade between the hexos and the Delta and the cushites in southern Nubia bypass themes but its inhabitants were also constantly on the defensive as their enemies attacked thebin territory while things got a bit better during the Reigns of the 17th Dynasty's rulers Decades of unintended neglect had taken its toll on the city's once great buildings and infrastructure now that stability had returned and new revenue from trade taxes and Egyptian raids abroad seemed Limitless Eman hotep could rebuild the parts of Egypt that had fallen into disrepair no site though received more attention and funding than the holy Precinct known as epit isot just outside of Thebes rulers from both the 11th and 12th dynasties themselves both theben had already built temples there dedicated to the gods especially Amun the name epet isot means something like the most sacred of places it's better known today as Karnak though considered to have been an important place of worship the buildings around Karnak were relatively small however the architects who constructed the later New Kingdom temples and monuments clearly took inspiration from them and in some cases created exact replicas of the older structures for example a nearly perfect replica of sanusret the first Jubilee Pavilion was constructed during the reign of eminhotep the First with the only noticeable difference being that sunusrat's name was replaced with that of emman hotep other Middle Kingdom buildings were expanded so that their facades eventually became the interior walls of new constructions while still relatively modest in Eman hotep's day the future pharaohs of the 18th and 19th dynasties would greatly expand upon the complex by adding larger and more ornate temples to the extent that today most of the well-known buildings at Karnak date to the New Kingdom era thank you while emanho chapter first may have sought to emulate the great buildings of his predecessors there was one type of building or set of buildings that he sought to completely do away with colossal tombs this might seem strange to some since Egypt's Kings in past centuries especially during times of great Prosperity generally had built for themselves gigantic Monumental tombs such as pyramids as well as large funerary complexes to accompany them the problem with these though was that they were magnets for Tomb robbers and looters time had proved over the centuries that even the most secure of tombs were eventually violated by thieves who would not only steal anything of value inside but often damaged the sarcophagus of the mummy and search his remains for gold jewelry and gems in popular Egyptian religion robbing the contents of the Tomb essentially meant that the deceased would not be able to enjoy these things in their afterlife no matter how revered a person might have been during their lifetime in death his or her possessions became fair game thus a giant tomb or burial pyramid was a great liability for its occupant and so I mean hotep chose not to be buried in a place visible to the public eye but rather one that was hidden away in the mountains near Thebes the first mummy though was not found in its original tomb but another one that it was taken to for safekeeping during the reign of ramazis the ninth this is an interesting story in and of itself but best left for another time the tomb that eminhotep's mummy was originally taken from has so far not been confirmed with many egyptologists believing that it may have been one of the currently unidentified tombs in the place that we today know as the Valley of the Kings other egyptologists believe emanhotep's successor tutmos the first was the Valley of the King's first Royal occupant regardless it's clear that emanhotep the first set the trend of splitting the Royal funerary complex into two a mortuary Temple which would act as a public and permanent Memorial site for the king and a separate tomb hidden away from the world and perhaps more importantly those who would attempt to rob it amenhotep's life and death into the next World seemed to both have passed smoothly but there was a problem when it came to his successor his sister and great Royal wife Queen ethmos Mary midmoon or simply Mary mitmoon was unable to have a child many suspect that this may have been the result of what had been by now a few generations of brother-sister marriages within the Royal Family the one who ended up succeeding emman hotep the first was a man named tutmos the first of his name his relation to his predecessor is still debated among Scholars and while some have speculated that he may have been amenhotep's son from another wife others believe that he was a trusted military officer who may have been related to or formally adopted into the ruling family unlike ethmos and Eman hotep the first thutmos was not a child when he took the throne but a full-grown adult who had already amassed a lot of experience in the military he also seems to have had the support of the now old but still highly influential ethmus nefertari the wife of ethmos and the mother of eminhotep the first these and other factors may have made tutmos the best candidate to succeed Eman hotep the first who died in 1504 BC rebels in Nubia thought otherwise and launched insurrections to test the new king and so tutmos's second year was spent brutally putting down revolts throughout Nubia but he didn't stop there and vowed not just to deal with the symptoms but the disease itself since the days of the Middle Kingdom politically the Egyptian Nubian Frontier had been roughly between the first and second cataracts there were times such as during the reign of sanusrat III that Egyptian armies ventured to the third cataract but these were mainly for punitive raids intended to yield short-term results what laid beyond the tumultuous third cataract was the great city of kerma the capital of various cushite kingdoms throughout the ages as far as thudmos was concerned the cushite capital of kerma was the ultimate source of all anti-egyptian activities in Nubia therefore he sought to annihilate it once and for all from the Egyptian base on what's today Psy Island between the second and third cataracts tutmos ordered his men to drag their ships on land to avoid the rough Rapids of the third Cataract and then regroup just outside the city of karma the only sources for what happened next are Egyptian including tutmos's own words which tell of how he and his men desecrated and destroyed Karma without Mercy the veteran Atmos son of Ibana who was also in the armies of King ethmos and Eman hotep was there as inscriptions on the walls of his tomb tell us then I convey to King thotmos the Justified when he sailed South to Canton Affair to crush Rebellion throughout the lands to repel The Intruders from the desert region I was Brave in his presence in the bad water in the towing of the ship over the cataract thereupon I was married crew Commander his majesty became enraged like a leopard his majesty shot and his first arrow appears the chest of that foe then those enemies turned to flee helpless a Slaughter was made among them their dependents were carried off as living captives his majesty journeyed North All Foreign lands in his grasp foreign the archaeological remains of karma from around the time of tudno's campaign also seemed to confirm the depth and destruction with Karma subdued tutmos ventured further into Nubia than any Egyptian king ever had before him however instead of following the Nile as one would expect he took a desert route directly from kerma and deep into cushite territory beyond the Niles fourth Cataract and ended up at a large quartz rock that today is known as Hagar El mirwa there tutmos carved his own inscriptions over those of the locals who deemed The Rock to be a holy site it was now the new southern boundary of the Egyptian Empire there was no one in Nubia powerful enough to oppose tutmos as the Egyptian king made clear in an inscription that he left just outside the shattered city of kerma there is not a single one of them left the Nubian Bowman have fallen to the slaughter and are laid low throughout their lands their entrails drenched their valleys go from their mouths Paws down in tolerance carry anitas swarmed down upon them and the birds carry their trophies away to another place thudmos was brutal but he ultimately got the result he wanted a pacified Nubia that was subservient to Egypt he divided up the conquered territory into five districts and appointed Governors to each one who answered directly to him also under their command were new fortified towns to support the Egyptian garrisons that would now become a permanent presence throughout Kush and Nubia as for the sons of the Rebel Nubian Chiefs who had survived they were forcibly taken to Egypt as hostages who during their captivity would be indoctrinated in Egyptian customs and political culture The Hope was that when they eventually returned home and became local Lords of their respective areas their familiarity with Egypt and the pharaoh's way of doing things would Inspire them to loyally serve the Egyptian crown the next major military Venture was deeper into the near East since the expulsion of the hexos Egyptian policy towards the east had changed from the time since Egypt's first recorded Dynasty the country's kings were content to formally stay out of the Lands Beyond the cyanide while they may have desired many of the Exotic Goods that came from the East most didn't seek to directly control or colonize the region however the hexos incursion into Egypt had proved that disengagement with the East was no longer an option if Egypt wished to be free of foreign rule while the hexos might have been gone new and more dangerous threats existed the closer one got to the Euphrates River the greatest of these during tutmose's time was the horian kingdom of the mitani despite the name the mitani were less of a single Kingdom and more of a confederation of hurian-speaking states that were ruled by a chariot riding Elite who spoke in Indo-European language they were also much more powerful than the hixels had ever been here in Egypt was that one day they would cross the Euphrates river and make their way into Egyptian territory footmos struck first he marched his men further north through the Levant pummeling any mitani Allied opposition and eventually made it all the way to one of the northern branches of the Euphrates River as in the past echos son of Ibana was there when his majesty reached narun his majesty found that full marshalling troops then his majesty made a great Slaughter of them countless were the living captives which his majesty brought back from his victories now I was in the van of our troops and His Majesty saw my Valor I brought a chariot its horse and him who was on it as a living captive when they were presented to his majesty I was rewarded with gold once again this show of force was essentially a warning to the mitani king not to cross the Euphrates river and Venture further south into Egypt's zone of influence or else face the Dreadful consequences utmost the first had ruled Egypt and much of the surrounding territories with an Iron Fist and had set up an Egyptian Empire that for his son and successor tutmos II extended north to south from the banks of the Euphrates river in Syria to at least the Nile's fourth cataract in modern Sudan as he States in an inscription I made the boundaries of Egypt to the extent of what the sun encircles I made strong those who were in fear for I repelled evil from them I made Egypt Superior to every land when news of thutmos the first death in 1492 BC reached that southernmost part of the Empire those cushite princes who had not been slain during the Egyptian campaign a decade earlier rose up in full Rebellion they were out for revenge and to an extent got it the rebels attacked the Fortress towns set up by thutmos the first slaughtered their garrisons and forced the Egyptian Governors to run for their lives these victories though were short-lived that most the first successor and namesake utmost the second was Swift with his own Vengeance and like his father showed no mercy by reportedly putting every Nubian male in the rebellious areas to the sword that most II was not the son of utmost the first great Royal wife ethmos with whom he had a daughter named Hatshepsut but a second wife named mud nofret along with tutmos II she bore the king other Sons but no Fritz lineage is debated among Scholars some of whom believe that she may have been a daughter of the Dynasty's founder ehmos as well as the sister of King eminhotep the first due to her respected titles of King's Daughter and King's sister II would go on to marry his half-sister Hatshepsut as a daughter of thutmos the first by his great Royal wife Atmos and later becoming the great Royal wife of thutmos II Hatshepsut was the woman with the highest status in Egypt her name also reflects this as Hatshepsut means for most of noble women she also seems to have been the favorite Child of her father and even accompanied him on his military campaigns including the most brutal ones in Nubia had she been born a man at shepsut status would have clearly superseded that of tutmos II but she was not and though she may have been an influential member of court at Thebes she was not the king and ultimately her thoughts and opinions carried little weight but when tutmos iI died around 1479 BC at shepsut got her chance to wield considerable power third most II's Aaron's successor was thutmos III who was a boy at the time of his father's death he though was not a son of hachepsut but rather another woman named iset as iset was not the king's great Royal wife she did not become the Regent for her son a position that ultimately went to hotshepsut tutmos III's stepmother and Aunt as we've seen earlier Royal women in ancient Egypt could hold considerable power and influence as was the case with ahotep and ehmus nefertari who both looked after Affairs of State while their respective children came of age however the tone said with hatshepsut's Regency was seemingly different at least in the inscriptions that have since survived one of them while recognizing the young tutmos III as the legitimate King clearly states that Hatshepsut was the country's de facto ruler when he thought most II died he joined the Gods his son thutmos III stood in his place as king of the two lands assuming rulership on the throne of the one who begot him while his sister the God's wife had shepsut took charge of the Affairs of the country in that she took care of the two lands Egypt served her with bowed head The Beneficial seed of the god which came from him everyone at court and in Egypt though would have known that regardless of what hatshepsut's status may have been she would one day be forced to relinquish whatever power she held to tutmost III once he was considered old enough to rule the Regency relationship seemed to work as planned in the beginning but after seven years around 1473 BC had Shepstone adopted royal names and titles for herself officially becoming utmost III's co-ruler and not Regent though she at least acknowledged utmost III as king and often depicted him on her monuments he was always positioned clearly behind her to illustrate that she was the co-ruler with more Authority there was a huge problem though and it was not that she had just claimed more power for herself the issue was that she was a woman claiming to be a legitimate ruler of Egypt while in the past Egypt had been governed by female rulers such as Sobek nephru of the 12th Dynasty this had been due to desperate times when there was no male Heir left and the country was politically on the verge of collapse other powerful women may have also ruled as queen regent for their sons until they came of age however no woman had claimed and in this case practically usurped the top job in Egypt during times of peace and prosperity to help her gain wider acceptance both amongst the nobility as well as the rather conservative general population had Shepstone and her followers tried to find ways to neutralize the fact that she was a woman on one hand statues sculptures and reliefs began to depict her with a more masculine physique and wearing more traditional Male clothing while on the other she applied female epithets to past male rulers supposedly to somewhat feminize them so that her own occupation of the throne would seem less unorthodox than it really was it's probably also during the reign of had shepsut that the word Pera meaning great house started to come into more widespread use it's from this term that we get the title pharaoh instead of just referring to a particular great house Pera began to be applied specifically to the ruler of Egypt regardless of gender today though the term Pharaoh is commonly used to describe any king or ruler of ancient Egypt aesthetic changes in wordplay were all well and good but to really gain widespread acceptance hotshepsut ultimately needed an ideological justification to defend her position as Egypt's legitimate ruler here too she made changes specifically with regard to her family history which she claimed was not of this world on the walls of her Mortuary Temple at the site of der al-bari she claimed that she was not really the daughter of tutmos the first but the god Amun other inscriptions on various monuments go in even more detail such as one found on the base of an obelisk at Karnak informing posterity that it was none other than a moon who had commanded her to build it than this with a loving heart for my father Amun initiated in his secret of the beginning acquainted with his beneficent might I did not forget whatever he had ordained my Majesty knows his divinity I acted under his command it was he who led me I did not plan a work without his doing it was he who gave directions I did not sleep because of his Temple I did not stray from what he commanded on a more practical and Earthly level achepsut was a good ruler who presided over a prosperous and confident country that was respected by both its allies and enemies abroad though there were a few armed conflicts with Egypt's neighbors military expansion wasn't the focus of her reign instead achepsut launched trade expeditions to Faraway lands the most famous being the Land of Punt whose precise location hasn't been determined but is believed by many scholars to have been southeast of Egypt along the coast of the Red Sea near the Gulf of Aden the raw materials and other sources of wealth acquired from such Expeditions were poured into massive construction projects especially at Karnak all of this economic and construction activity was going on at the same time at utmost III was technically co-ruler even when it was obvious that he was of age to assume his Birthright as the sole king of Egypt the throne and real power still resided with Hatshepsut until her presumed death in 1458 BC presumed because it hasn't actually been confirmed in any known Egyptian document or inscription when exactly she died let alone how mention of hotshepsut disappears from the historical record during the 22nd regular year aftermos III when he assumed full control over Egypt there's no firm evidence that stepmother and stepson were openly hostile towards one another during hotshepsut's rule but as soon as tutmos III assumed his position as the sole ruler of Egypt in 1458 BC he systematically had her name chiseled out of The Monuments she'd created as well as smashed images and statues of her including those at her own funerary Temple at der al-bari where their broken pieces were deposited in a nearby stone quarry future generations of Kings also seem to have sought to a race or at least minimize her role in Egyptian history as her name doesn't appear on later kingless despite such campaigns to delete her from the historical record plenty of artifacts have been uncovered with hapshitsu's name on them many being obtained from the tombs of those who served during her lifetime and strangely enough over a thousand years later Manito also mentions her stating that she ruled for 21 years and 9 months this means that at least in the 4th Century BC when he compiled his history of Egypt there was some Source mentioning her that he was able to refer to at shepstone's accomplishments and influence ultimately made it difficult for her to be completely erased from history that said had shepsut had her flaws especially when it came to foreign policy her focus on domestic affairs whether it was commissioning massive building projects in honor of a moon or sending commercial expeditions to the Far Corners of the known world did little to pacify the restlessness and resentment of Egypt's subject peoples whose resources and wealth were financing the Empire at their expense this was especially true to the Northeast in Canaan and the Levant hotshepsut's father took most the first and expanded Egyptian sovereignty to the Euphrates river in northern Syria effectively keeping the kingdom of the mittani in check however the 20-plus years that saw had shepsut as Regent and ruler had done little to solidify her father's gains in time the petty Kings of Egypt's Canaanite client states saw no reason as to why they should be forced to pay tribute and swear allegiance to an Egyptian ruler in Far Away themes the mitani Kings must have also heard the Rumblings of discontent to their Southwest and though they may not have sought a direct engagement with Egypt it's practically a given that they provided at least some financial and moral support to the discontented Canaanite Kings to make matters worse tutmost III was relatively young and untested on the international stage and given his Stepmother's apparent neglect of Egypt's Frontier territories many must have assumed that he would follow the same course while Egypt and to a large extent the kingdom of the mittani were cohesive states that oversaw large swaths of territory the land of Canaan was mostly a patchwork of petty States whose Kings and Chieftains were constantly squabbling with each other seeing though that their best chance to shake off Egypt's yoke and achieve independence would be through a united front the king of the Canaanite city of Kadesh formed a coalition of like-minded rulers that together controlled around 300 cities and towns within the region such organization and preparations must have been going on well into hachepsut's Reign for shortly after tutmos III replaced her as Egypt's ruler the Canaanite Coalition went into full Rebellion almost overnight tutmos III faced several problems not only did the Rebellion bring an end to large sources of revenue and resources that were either obtained from or passed through Canaan but it also made Egypt much more vulnerable to an attack from the mitani or other group coming from the East the king of Kardashian as allies mustered together a large army at the city of megiddo which was important because it blocked Egypt's access to the main trade route between Egypt Anatolia and Mesopotamia known today as the Via Morris up until then tutmos III had not been tested in such a volatile situation this though doesn't mean that he was unprepared he personally commanded large segments of the army and had gained the respect of his men he may have even welcomed the Canaanite challenge for after years of living under hotshepsut's Shadow the most now had the opportunity to prove himself as a commander and earn his right to be the sole ruler of Egypt in the spring of 1457 BC tutmos assembled a large army at The Fortress of tajaru in the Eastern Delta not far from Egypt's border with Canaan Scholars put the number of soldiers in putmos's Force at between 10 to 20 000 men most of these would have been infantry men armed with swords axes and shields there would also have been contingents of archers as well as Chariot units from tajaru thudmos and his men marched for 10 days to Gaza which given the size of his army and the supply and logistical challenges that came with it was extremely impressive from there the Egyptians marched another 10 days to the town of yehem where tutmos waited for reports from his Scouts about the situation in megiddo along with the Army were scribes to document the details of the campaign a synopsis of which was later inscribed onto the walls of the Temple of Karnak it's from this account the first of its kind in history that we today have a relatively detailed explanation of the war of course it's the Egyptian version of events but without it we would know practically nothing about what took place at megiddo in the spring and summer of 1457 BC upon their arrival tutmos was presented with three possibilities as to how to proceed towards megiddo one was through a windy route that led to a plane several kilometers north of the city another ran South through the valley of Dotan that ended just southeast of megiddo near the town of Tanakh both of these were considered to be safe routes because they allowed greater maneuverability for a large army the third and most direct route was through the Aruna pass also known as the muzmus pass it led to a plane directly in front of the city of megiddo the danger here though was that the pass was extremely narrow and more susceptible to an enemy ambush utmost III met with his war council most of whom suggested that he take one of the first two options but not the third and most direct route since it was clearly the more dangerous one according to inscriptions that were later inscribed onto the walls of thutmos's Great temple at Karnak the king's military advisors are recorded to have told him the following how will it be to go on this road which becomes narrow when it is reported that the enemies are waiting out there and they are numerous will not host go behind horse and soldiers and people too with our Vanguard be fighting while our rear guard is waiting here in Aruna and unable to fight their advice was clear the Army should not go through the Aruna pass but utmost rejected his council's advice and according to the same inscription told them I shall proceed on this Aruna Road the reason for this is that tutmos believed that the king of Kadesh and his Canaanite allies would come to the same conclusion as his war council and expect the Egyptians to take either the Northern or Southern route two days later putmos and his army left yehem and marched to the Aruna pass where they set up camp for the night leaving early the next morning the Egyptian Army began their perilous March through the past towards the city of megiddo the pass was so narrow only 30 feet wide at some points that the Army's chariots and supplies often had to be unloaded and carried through the unforgiving terrain Scholars estimate that at its longest stretch the length of the line formed by the troops as they squeezed through the pass may have been 20 kilometers with utmost III at its head however by Nightfall most of the troops had made it through without any real resistance there was reportedly only a small Detachment of Canaanite soldiers guarding the mouth of the pass and this was easily dealt with setting up camp by the Kina Brook tutmos and his men rested for the night tutmos had been right the king of Kadesh and his allies had not expected them to take the Aruna pass which gave the Egyptians the element of surprise early the next morning the Egyptians crossed the Kina Brook and attacked megiddo though we only have one account of the battle that of tutmos himself were told that the Pharaoh personally led the attack that sliced through the Canaanite Left Flank breaking up their lines and forcing many of them to retreat and flee for the safety of megiddo's high defensive walls the inscription at Karnak tells us that the Canaanites saw his majesty prevailing over them and they fled headlong to megido with faces of fear they abandoned their horses and their Chariots of gold and silver the battle would have ended there and then in a decisive victory for the Egyptians had thought Moses usually disciplined troops not given into temptation instead of pursuing the king of Kadesh and the remnants of the Canaanite Army as they fled towards the gates of megiddo many of the Egyptians halted their pursuit in order to plunder the enemy's hastily abandoned camp among the spoils were fine horses elaborately decorated chariots gold prisoners and the grand tent of the king of Kadesh this distraction bought time for what was left of the Canaanite Army and allowed many enemy soldiers including their officers to pass through megiddo's Gates and hide behind the safety of the city's defensive walls those who couldn't make it before the gates were closed or pulled over the Walls by the city's inhabitants who created makeshift ropes out of Twisted clothes what could have been a resounding victory for tutmos III soon turned into a long Siege after several months megiddo's inhabitants had all but run out of food and in desperation several of them came out to surrender third most pardon them and when word got to the other residents of megiddo that the Pharaoh would grant them amnesty if they put down their arms the city soon surrendered by then though many of the Canaanite Kings including the king of Kadesh had escaped however megiddo's fall had demonstrated to the world that the new Pharaoh would not take any Defiance lightly nor was he an armchair General this resulted in many other rebel Canaanite cities willfully coming back into the fold or else risk the wrath of Egypt's new pharaoh monetarily the campaign against the king of Kadesh had been a profitable one and Tut Moses Karnak inscriptions also tell us that the spoils included a Chariot made of gold belonging to the prince of megiddo 892 regular chariots bronze armor 502 bows over 2 000 horses and Colts and at least twenty thousand cattle while the citizens of megiddo were spared many of the princes that evaded capture were sent to Egypt as hostages though for the next 20 years utmost III would participate in at least another 16 Military campaigns the Egyptian victory at megiddo was by far his most important Triumph and marked the Resurgence of Egyptian power in Western Asia stood Moses stature grew the rulers of the Hittites Babylonians and perhaps even those from Mycenaean Greece sent gifts containing Gold Silver and precious stones to the pharaoh that Moses goal was not to Simply terrorize local populations into submission but to gain security for Egypt he knew that if Egypt wanted to possess Canaan Nubia and other lands for the long term then it would be important to invest into the cities ports and towns that he'd conquered or reconquered in order to help make them even more prosperous ultimately this is what he did showing his subjects that the Egyptians were not just passing through but were there to stay and integrate them into their growing Empire for generations to come the effects of flute Moses campaigns were not just felt in the Levant but all over Egypt many of the Egyptian soldiers who fought in the pharaoh's nearly annual campaigns returned home with foreign wives as well as a taste for all things Eastern even tutmost III may have had not one but several foreign wives text on one Egyptian vessel now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City reads given as a blessing of the king to the King's wife manuwai other objects such as bracelets and fine jewelry with similar inscriptions were given to women named manhatta and maruta the names of these three women suggest that they were not of Egyptian origin but from a place where a Semitic language such as Canaanite or Acadian was spoken they may have been the daughters of Kings or Chieftains from the East whom thutmos had married as part of a peace deal thank you as powerful as futmos III was he of course couldn't do everything on his own while they may have been an absolute monarch in every sense supporting him were a small but highly trusted and capable group of officials who ran the domestic affairs of the Empire on his behalf especially when he was away from the capital expanding it these included Royal viziers Regional Governors important scribes the chief priest of the Temple of Amun internal security Chiefs and the like [Music] after a reign of technically 54 years as king part of which he shared as co-ruler with hotshepsut utmost III passed away in 1425 BC due to all that he had accomplished during his Reign many egyptologists have considered him to be one of if not the greatest King to ever have ruled over Egypt Atmos the third son and successor emman hotep II followed in the footsteps of his father and continued most of his foreign and domestic policies though he ruled for a much shorter period of time and didn't launch nearly as many foreign campaigns which as we'll soon see may not have been necessary growing up mostly in the old capital of Memphis the prince who would become Eman hotep II was not originally destined for the throne in fact it was his elder brother Emma nenhot who was the original Heir but he predeceased his father tutmost III most egyptologists identify eminent's mother as stutmos's great Royal wife Satya but she had also died in the 24th year of his reign and so the throne fell to another son of thudmos III from his second wife a commoner named Mary ritray Hatshepsut no relation to the famous hotshepsut who ruled just a few decades before to help Shore up his succession emanhotep ruled as a Junior co-regent with his father for two years before striking it out on his own at the age of 18. soon afterward he married a woman named Tia Who Bore him at least 10 sons and several daughters but for some reason was never given the title of great Royal wife she also never appears in any of his inscriptions or in depictions with the King which was extremely odd in fact the only reason we know about her is because her son and Eman hotep II's successor utmost IV did mention and depict her in his monuments no one knows the real reason for this but that doesn't mean there aren't many theories as to why amenhotep II never mentioned his Queen the most popular one is that though emman hotep was the Pharaoh and the most powerful person in Egypt he still may have been a bit insecure since his mother was a commoner and only the second wife of his father not the great Royal wife though Tia's parentage isn't known it's been speculated that she may have been of a more noble birth than his mother and so Eman hotep may have feared that one day she might overshadow and become more influential than him as was the case with hotshepsut and his father tutmos III despite efforts to erase her from history the memory of Hatshepsut was still fresh in the minds of Egyptians and emman hotep II may have felt that it was better to keep his own consort and even his daughters by his great Royal wife out of the public eye footmost III had already done most of the hard work when it came to increasing stability and expanding the Egyptian Empire and so there was not much for emman hotep II to do on that front his main job would be to preserve all that his father had built the transition period between one king to another was often seen as an opportunity for discontented subjects to test the medal of the new ruler in the early years of emanhotep II's Reign were no exception one such challenge was a massive Revolt in an area called taxi in what's today Northern Syria here emman hotep II personally LED his troops to Victory but the aftermath was especially bloody we're told from his inscriptions that the bodies of seven of Taxi's Rebel leaders were hung from the mass of amenhotep's Flagship six of whom after arriving at Thebes were hung up on the walls of the temple at Karnak the seventh corpse was sent to the city of Napata in southern Nubia as a warning to would-be Rebels there but that wasn't all along with a staggering amount of Taxi's gold and horses I mean hotep reportedly deported 90 000 prisoners of War including thousands of entire families though Scholars have no way of verifying this the message had been made crystal clear would not tolerate any descent to Egyptian Authority in any of its territories this hard-handed policy against any opposition was meant to be a warning to the mitani and other Regional Rivals of what would happen should they defy the pharaoh if that was indeed the case then the message had been received for around the ninth year of emman hotep II's Reign the mitani formally made peace with Egypt and the two states officially established diplomatic relations the piece seems to have held because afterward there were no more Egyptian Military campaigns in the near East for decades to come the same was true for Nubia though that wasn't due to any sort of treaty but more to the fact that most of its Rebel leaders had either already been killed off or were too afraid to start any new trouble the stability gained from peace allowed him in hotep II to focus on new building projects throughout Egypt as well as to complete work on older ones unlike his 18th Dynasty predecessors who had focused their efforts primarily around the family's ancestral home of Thebes many of the buildings and monuments commissioned by emen hotep were constructed around Memphis and also various parts of Lower Egypt including a new Temple near the Great Sphinx the area was frequented by amenhotep as a young prince and perhaps to commemorate the fact he commissioned a relatively large Stila on the northeastern side of the Sphinx extolling his virtues as an Archer and his fondness for horses parts of the inscription inscribed on it read he drew his bow while holding four arrows together in his fist thus he rode northward shooting at them each Arrow coming out at the back of its Target while he attacked the next post it was indeed never yet done never yet heard reported shooting an arrow at a target of copper so that it came out of it and dropped to the ground now when he was still a youth he loved his horses and rejoiced in them he was stout-hearted in working them learning their Natures skilled in training them and understanding their ways when it was heard in the palace by his father the Horus strong bull a reason in Thebes his Majesty's heart was glad to hear it rejoicing at what was said of his eldest son he said in his heart you will make a ruler of the whole land who no one can attack he is eager to Excel and rejoices in strength while as yet a Charming Youth Without wisdom though not yet at the age to do the work of Mont he ignores The Thirst of the body and loves strength it is The God Who inspires him to act so as to become the protector of Egypt the ruler of the land though the Great Sphinx is believed by most egyptologists to have been built by the fourth Dynasty King cafre whose face it supposedly depicts by emman hotep II's Reign well over a thousand years later it had come to be seen as one of the many manifestations of the Sun God Ra specifically as horimaket meaning Horus of the horizon at the time emman hotep II's construction of a relatively simple mud brick Temple dedicated to the sun god may have seemed inconsequential Amun was still the king of the Gods in the Egyptian Pantheon and most of the new Monumental temples that had been constructed throughout the country were built in his honor but in retrospect a great religious transformation may have been budding with the foundation of such a temple at a very significant and already ancient site whose prominence Rose to a whole new level during the reign of emanhotep II son and successor tutmos IV footmost IV is one of the more controversial pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty for several reasons but most notably because many egyptologists believe that he was a usurper his elder brother had originally been designated as Eman hotep II's successor but he either pre-deceased his father or as many believe was ousted by the one who became utmost IV as evidence of the latter several egyptologists have cited passages from the so-called dream Stila of thutmos IV which he purposely placed in between the paws of the Great Sphinx both father and son had a particular fondness for this Monumental structure but utmost IV went Way Beyond them in hotep II with his reverence for the Sphinx in the dreams dealer thudmos states that Jorge Market was his personal guardian and that the deity came to him in a dream when he was still a prince and promised that he would become Pharaoh if he removed the large deposits of sand and it accumulated up to the neck of the Great Sphinx over the centuries the relevant passage from the dream stealer goes as follows one of those days it so happened that Prince tutmos came passing by at the time of midday and he sat down in the shadow of this great God sleep seized him asleep at the time when the sun was at the Zenith and he found the Majesty of this Noble God speaking with his own mouth like the words of a father for his son saying look at me see me my son footmost I am your father and I shall give you the kingship on Earth in front of all the living ones you shall wear the white and the red crowns upon the throne of Geb the hereditary Prince the Earth shall be yours in its length and with all that the eye of the Lord of all illuminates the food of the two lands shall be yours and the great tributes of every foreign land your lifetime will be a time great in years my face is yours my heart is yours as you are a protector to me for my present condition is like one that is in need all my limbs are dismembered as the Sands of the desert upon which I lie have reached me so run to me to have that done which I desire knowing that you are my son and my protector come forth and I shall be with you I shall be your leader [Music] that most IV claims to have done as instructed clearing away the sand and restoring the damaged parts of the Sphinx and as his reward it was made pharaoh of Egypt of course many egyptologists don't buy it and believe that the story was simply Royal propaganda that had been concocted by tutmos to cover up seizing the throne from his brother but there may have been another reason as to why thutmos may have commissioned this Stila claiming Jorge Market as his father and protector meant that he was not beholden to the almighty God Amun and probably more importantly his priesthood which by his Reign had become extremely influential in the politics of the country in fact a moon isn't even mentioned within the text of the dream Stila which in hindsight appears to have been a precursor to the religious Revolution that was on the horizon when they're truly legitimate or not that most the fourth time on the throne was short just 10 years but his was a calm and prosperous rain thanks to all that his predecessors had done to create a strong and stable state with the exception of a few minor rebellions there were no large-scale military campaigns recorded and gold continued to flow from the minds of Nubia the pharaoh's loyal military made sure to keep dissent amongst Egypt's subject territories and client kingdoms to a minimum and so that most IV wasn't required to lead his troops into battle [Music] the continued piece with the mitani also allowed for the free flow of gold and goods from the East copper tin wine lapis lazuli wood textiles and all sorts of exotic items from the East found their way into the markets of Memphis and thieves like his forebearers took most IV also had his fair share of construction projects at Karnak and other places one of these being the completion of what's today the world's tallest standing Obelisk which currently resides not in Egypt but in Rome known today as the latter in Obelisk it was started by thutmos III but finally completed during the reign of thutmos IV about 14 centuries later the great Obelisk was transported to Rome on the orders of Emperor constantius II where it's been ever since though his Reign had been relatively short utmost IV Left Behind for emman hotep III his son and successor in Egyptian state that was the wealthiest and most powerful that it had ever been in history it was an Empire at peace with its neighbors in fact there is not one Egyptian military campaign recorded in Asia during Eman hotep III's entire reign of 38 years and the brief uprisings that did occur in Nubia were quickly put down by the pharaoh's Viceroy of kush due to his father's short time on the throne emman hotep III was quite Young when he became pharaoh and it's possible that his mother acted as Regent until he came of age as she was a commoner there seems to have been no threat of her pulling a stunt like had shepsut and anointing herself as pharaoh she seems to have had some influence though in choosing his first wife a woman named ta who was from a noble family from the Nile Delta she became emman hotep III's great Royal wife and bore him at least two sons and four daughters though was not his only wife in addition to her Heaven hotep had several other wives and concubines many of them being foreign princesses who were the result of diplomatic marriages two of the best known of these were the mitani princesses gilu kepa and tarukepa but there were also several others from Babylon the Levant and even the arzawa region of Anatolia as Eman hotep III ended up living for nearly four decades the list of women who occupied the Royal Harem constantly expanded [Music] in contrast to his dynastic ancestors such as ethmos utmost the first and the most III em in hotep III lived a relatively easy life though he would have had some mandatory military training he had little if any real Combat experience instead he spent much of his time as a young Pharaoh participating in various Sports such as hunting large animals one Scarab commemorating such a hunt reads as follows one came to his majesty saying there are wild bulls in the desert in the region of shitep his majesty sailed Downstream making good time arriving in peace at the region of chateep in the morning his majesty appeared in his Chariot with his entire Army behind him then his majesty ordered a ditch to be dug to enclose these wild wolves and His Majesty went forth against all these wild bulls the number thereof 170 wild bulls the number the king took in hunting on this first day 56 wild wolves his majesty waited four days to give his horses a rest his majesty appeared in The Chariot again the number of wild bulls he took in hunting 40 wild bulls total number of wild wolves killed 96. it was not necessarily the most challenging hunt especially when the Bulls were confined to a set area and he had his private Army to assist him but what else can one do to prove their skills as a Warrior when there are literally no Wars to be fought since the days of Narmer and the country's earliest known dynasties Egypt's rulers had ventured East into the Sinai and Canaan or South to Nubia in order to obtain gold and the natural resources that Their Kingdoms needed to prosper but by the reign of emanhotep III Egypt already controlled a vast Empire that exceeded anything the kings of the old and middle kingdoms could have ever imagined there was now no need to fight Wars for resources Egypt had plenty of gold sailing Down River from Nubia turquoise from mines in the cyanide and good stone for a building being quarried in all parts of the country and its northern ports were also bringing in wealth from trade with the other civilizations of the Mediterranean and Beyond with the country's coffers overflowing with gold and silver and its Resource storehouses as well as granaries filled to the brim amenhotep III probably decided that his legacy would not be as one of Egypt's greatest warriors but its greatest Builder and then hotep's long stable and peaceful rain along with the Staggering amounts of wealth that Egypt possessed allowed him to fund construction and art projects on an unprecedented scale in fact no one saved for perhaps Ramses II who was Pharaoh over a century later and reigned for 67 years left behind more architectural wonders though it should be noted that many of the works attributed to him were recycled or perhaps a better term would be stolen from Eman hotep III's own monuments the skills of Egypt's Architects sculptors painters Craftsmen and Jewelers all reached new heights of expertise during eminhotep's reign due to this year's size and number of the pharaoh's building campaigns emman hotep welcomed many Artisans and laborers from abroad to come work in Egypt all gods and goddesses were welcome too while the earlier rulers of the dynasty had focused their devotion primarily on a moon amenhotep III while not abandoning his Dynasty's Patron deity was definitely fond of other Immortal beings and sought Their Blessings by constructing temples for them some were dedicated to kanum While others to Pitta but the deity to receive the most attention was the great ancient Sun God Ra who was glorified and worshiped in several of his many manifestations including amunra his most popular form during the New Kingdom perhaps the most iconic set of monuments associated with amenhotep III are what's known today as the colossi of memnon on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes the name is a misnomer and comes from Greek and later Roman Travelers who saw it and believed that these two colossal statues were representations of the Ethiopian King memnon who in Homer's epic The Iliad had fought alongside the Trojans at Troy at about 60 feet high these statues of emenhotep III once guarded the entrance to the pharaoh's great Mortuary Temple which covered over 93 acres and was even larger than the main Temple of a moon at Karnak in the 11th year of his Reign amenhotep started a palace at the site today known as malkata it wasn't complete until 18 years later which was just in time for the extravagant Jubilee festivals dating to his 30th 34th and 37th year as king such jubilees were rare in Egyptian history as only one in eight rulers ever reached 30 years on the throne the malkata palace also contained a special Temple dedicated to amenhotep's Great Royal wife ta by the 1370s BC I'm in hotep III had been living the good life for well over a decade inaugurating new construction projects dabbling in unorthodox religious ideas and spending considerable time in his harem he was the most powerful man in the near East with more wealth than Manpower than any of his neighbors and yet tensions could easily flare up between the egotistical rulers of Empires who were often more than willing to go to war for a simple perceived insult as Eman hotep III was busy in Thebes with his domestic agenda it was up to Egypt's skilled diplomats and Statesmen to keep the peace in the ancient near East which they did by facilitating the exchange of ambassadors and lavish gifts on the pharaoh's behalf specifically with his counterparts in the Kingdom of the mitani Babylon and later on the hittite empire much of what we know about Egypt's Foreign Relations from this time period comes from a casual diplomatic correspondence that we today know as the amarna letters discovered in 1887 at the site of telelamarna whose real significance will get to shortly the amarna letters are actually kuneiform tablets written in the Babylonian dialect of Acadian which was the lingua Franca of the day the contents of these documents tell of the relations between Egypt and its neighbors including its vassals in Western Asia the letters received from foreign heads of state show a degree of camaraderie that comes with being in an exclusive fraternity of near equals each ruler regularly referred to the other as my brother and sent their good wishes and gifts an example of one such greeting can be found in a letter from the mittani King to shrata to Eman hotep III for you may all go well for your household for your wives for your sons for your Nobles for your Warriors for your horses for your chariots and in your country may all go very well such pleasantries were usually a Prelude to special requests or favors that the sender often expected to receive to shrata's letter then continues may my brother send me unworked gold in very great quantities and much more gold than he sent to my father in my brother's Country Gold is as plentiful as dirt there was some truth to his words for thanks to Egypt's solid control over the gold-producing regions of Nubia Eman hotep had plenty of the precious metal to spare and probably sent a decent amount to his so-called brother tushrata who at the time was facing pressure from Rivals within the mitani nobility as well as a resurgent hittite Empire to the north what Eman hotep III and other pharaohs would not send to their foreign brothers were Egyptian women to be their wives in one of his previous letters the Babylonian King kadashman and Lil had requested emman hotep III to send one of his daughters to him for marriage after all amenhotep had a Babylonian princess in his Harem so why should he not return the favor to his kaside comrade in Babylon after the Pharaoh sent a letter to him rebuffing his initial request and explaining that Egyptian princesses did not marry foreigners a rather frustrated and insulted kadashman enlil wrote yet again to emen hotep with the same request and asked why he had still not sent anyone moreover you my brother when I wrote to you about marrying your daughter you wrote to me saying never has a daughter of the king of Egypt been given to anyone why is she not given you are King you do as you please if you were to give her who would say anything when they told me this I wrote to my brother thus saying surely beautiful women adult daughters are available send me one beautiful woman as if she were your daughter who would say she's not the King's Daughter but you in accord with your refusal did not send me anyone did you not seek Brotherhood and friendship when you wrote to me about marriage that we might become close relations to each other and I myself for this very same reason for Brotherhood and friendship wrote to you about marriage in order that we might become close relations to each other why has my brother not sent me one woman as far as we know Eman hotep refused kadashman enlil's request the Pharaoh though is reported to have taken a second Babylonian wife along with the princess from arzawa he at times also demanded women from his vassals as well one letter to his Canaanite Clan King of the city of geyser requested 40 female Cabarrus 40 shekels of silver being the price of a female coppera send extremely beautiful female cop bearers in whom there is no defect so the king your Lord will say to you this is excellent in accordance with the order I gave you around 1360 BC his 30th year on the throne emman hotep III prepared for the age-old Jubilee known as the said Festival which not only reaffirmed an Egyptian King's rulership over the country but was also meant to celebrate his life and rejuvenate his spirit said festivals were very special but also relatively rare occasions as few Kings ruled for 30 or more years a long-raning ruler in Egypt was also a sign of political stability and prosperity and emman hotep III's Reign continued to have plenty of both unlike most members of his dynasty who exalted and devoted themselves to the god Amun amenhotep III made no secret of his rather unusual Fascination and personal connection with the Sun God Ra he often referred to himself as Ra's Chosen One the heir of RA and the Eye of Ra many years before the said Festival he had personally ordered the construction of solar courts also associated with ra at all of the major places of worship throughout Egypt and Nubia but during his said Festival which lasted several months amen hotep may have taken things much further by possibly becoming the first Egyptian king to be deified during his lifetime this is something that is not totally agreed upon by all egyptologists but those arguing in favor of it cite several aspects of the latter years of the king's reign one is that he claimed to be the living Otten which was a manifestation of the Sun God Ra represented by a solar disk or orb I'm in hotep not only Associated himself with the aten but also used to refer to himself as the dazzling arten but greater proof of him becoming a living God during his lifetime is due to a ritual or reenactment that emanhotep and his wife tie partukin where the King was United with the sun god which according to Egyptian belief only happened after the ruler had already died egyptologist Toby Wilkinson describes how this may have occurred during the said Festival on the morning of the main celebrations the courtiers high officials Royal acquaintances and other dignitaries were ushered into the palace there the king showered them with gifts of gold necklaces golden ornaments in the shapes of ducks and fish and as a special Jubilee decoration ribbons of green linen the guests shared in a great breakfast banquet with their Sovereign before being directed to leave the palace and proceed to the artificial Harbors then in a spectacular set-piece display of royal power and divine kingship amenhotep III and Tai appeared at the Waterside dectrum head to foot in Gold dazzling like the sun itself at the Eastern Harbor they boarded a replica of the sun God's morning bark The Waiting courtiers picked up the prowl robes and pulled the ship gently along acting out the daily Miracle by which the Sun God was towed into the heavens at dawn the scene then shifted to the Western Harbor where King and consort appeared once again but this time in a replica of the sun God's evening bark dignitaries grasped the toll ropes and the scene was repeated symbolizing the sun God's descent into the underworld at dusk the fact that Eman hotep identified so strongly with the Sun God and the aten as well as carried out the reenactment of this post-death ritual while still alive has been interpreted by many that the Pharaoh had essentially deified himself by merging with the Sun during his lifetime as arguably the most powerful and definitely the richest man on earth it's not hard to see that Eman hotep may have indeed thought he was already divine or it simply could have been for the entertainment for all of those in attendance amenhotep III was not one to spare any expense when it came to his own self-promotion and so his several month said Festival possibly the greatest party that the world up until then had ever seen had to outdo any other event that had ever occurred in history I'm in hotep III would go on to celebrate a second Jubilee during his 34th year on the throne and another during his 37th it's from documents related to amenhotep's jubilees and other large projects that we've learned quite a bit about the people closest to him both at court and in the field many of these people became extremely influential during the latter years of emanhotep's Reign one of these was emen hotep son of hapu who though he was never a royal vizier was one of the pharaoh's most trusted men an older government official who had served in past administrations as a scribe priest and eventually an architect amen hotep son of hapu's many important tasks included quarrying and transporting the stone used in the construction of some of the pharaoh's most Monumental and iconic structures including the so-called colossae of memnon this extremely prestigious position paved the way for him to play a more prominent role in the said Festival as well as become the chief steward for the pharaoh's daughter princess Sita Moon when he died at the age of 80 during Eman hotep's 34th regnal year the Pharaoh had a mortuary temple built for him near his own and created an endowment for its upkeep that was still functioning over three centuries later other officials were also honored with lavish tombs most of them in and around Thebes but some also around the great necropolis of Sakara near the step pyramid of King joser as for amenhotep III he died in 1352 BC just a year after his third said Festival his cause of death isn't known but he was in his late 40s when he took his last breath and his body was soon Laid to Rest In the Valley of the Kings near the remains of his ancestors as we've seen emman hotep III had many wives and concubines so it's no surprise that he also had many children not all of whom are known to us the one who initially became his crowned Prince was named tutmos who was his eldest son from his great Royal wife ta however in the 30th year of emen hotep's Reign around the same time as he was celebrating his first said Festival tutmos unexpectedly died and his younger brother also named emman hotep like his father became the new Crown Prince and possibly Junior co-ruler when emman hotep III died eight years later his son and successor became amenhotep IV very little is known about emenhotep IV before he became king some egyptologists believe that he was born in Thebes While others contend that his birthplace was Memphis the woman who would become emman hotep IV's great Royal wife was Nefertiti whose name means a beautiful woman has come due to this some have speculated that she may have been a foreign princess but there's no strong evidence for this it's likely that she came from a noble to non-royal family some have even theorized that her father may have been the age troyal vizier I who eventually went on to become Pharaoh himself but more on that later though IV would eventually take other wives surviving texts inscriptions and especially artwork indicate that he and Nefertiti had an extremely close relationship she would give him six daughters but no Sons initially amenhotep IV followed in the footsteps of his father by commissioning new Monumental buildings and Thebes and the Great temple complex at Karnak outside of that Temple's Eastern walls so that it could face the sunrise Edmond hotep started the construction of a new Sanctuary dedicated to the aten which as mentioned earlier was an aspect of the Sun God Ra and represented by a solar disk or an orb by his grandfather thutmos the fourth time but probably also before that the aten was worshiped as if it were itself an independent deity the largest temple within this new Sanctuary was the gempa atten meaning the aten is found it was a ruthless building with an offering table towards its Center that was directly exposed to the Rising Sun whether emanhotep IV had thought to build such a grand temple on his own or was simply continuing a project devised by his father isn't known but the sanctuary became his crowning achievement at Karnak Amun status as the patron god of the Pharaoh and his family drastically changed during the reign of emenhotep III who clearly Associated himself with and worshiped the aten however even after he supposedly deified himself a manhotep III still acknowledged and maintained the sanctuaries of the other gods within Egypt's vast Pantheon his son and successor emman hotep IV would go much further and very clearly promote the worship of the aten above all others by the third year of Israel the new king had already celebrated at least one said Festival dedicated to the aten some have speculated that this may have been to honor his own father and manhotep III the dazzlingatan who was now a god perhaps but what is known is that from roughly that point onward Eman hotep IV focused his worship primarily if not entirely on the aten and treated it like some Heavenly Pharaoh with its own royal names and cartouches going forward we'll refer to the cult centered around the aten as autonism the most radical changes though were still to come during the fifth year of his Reign amenhotep IV officially changed his name to akanatan which can be translated in different ways including servant of the aten or beneficial to the aten now for TT also added the title nefer nephru watten before her name which according to one scholar translates as the most perfect is the aten in addition the aten would no longer appear atop the head of a falcon as had generally been the case in popular depictions but was now represented as a simple solar orb whose Rays ended with human hands religious makeovers aside emman hotep IV now akanatan had inherited a stable extremely prosperous and highly bureaucratic state with a formidable military that had up until then enabled Egypt to keep its position as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the ancient world at that time this was of course due to the reforms and Innovations not to mention the sheer tenacity of his ancestors such as thutmos the first Hatshepsut tutmos III and even his own father Eman hotep III under whose Reign Egypt had arguably reached the Pinnacle of its civilization they had all done their part to bequeath to Akhenaten an Empire that ran like a well-oiled machine and that possessed seemingly unlimited resources at its disposal thus Akhenaten could more or less rule as he liked but there was one being and specifically one institution blocking Akhenaten from building his aten centered Utopia Amun and his powerful priesthood ever since the days of ethmus the first when the cult of a moon had become the national one Royal patronage of its temples and priesthood had made it the most important and prestigious religious organization in the country over the past two centuries the religious establishment devoted to a moon and become extremely wealthy and influential in Egyptian politics they also benefited tremendously from their strong ties to the country's more conservative Elites and combined these two forces could even rival the absolute power of the Pharaoh Akhenaten must have known that he would encounter stiff resistance against his religious radicalism and so he decided to build a new capital city that was far away from the priesthood and those from the Egyptian nobility who might oppose him such a city would also be away from the Colossal Temple of a moon and any other religious institution that could interfere with the worship of the aten the sight he chose for it was up until then an unused part of the Eastern Bank of the Nile roughly equidistant from Egypt's two historical power centers of Memphis and Thebes he called it akitatan meaning the Horizon of the aten in an inscription akenaten stated that he took advice from the aten with regard to its construction setting out on the good road to architatin on the first anniversary of visiting it which his majesty had done so as to found it as a monument to the arten according to the command of his father who rejoices in light land who gives life forever to make for him a monument in its midst today most people refer to the site by its local Arabic name telelamarna or simply amarna the name also refers to the span of time that included the Reigns of Akhenaten and his short-lived successors which we call the amarna period building cities in any age required natural resources Manpower and time the first two Akhenaten had in abundance time though was limited and so the pharaoh's Architects and Builders avoided the use of massive blocks of stone which were both more expensive and extremely difficult to transport instead they used much smaller blocks and mud bricks that weighed on average 50 kilograms known today as talatads the bricks were easy to handle and could be assembled in various layouts rather quickly after a building or even a wall had been erected reliefs were often carved onto the bricks which were then painted in bright colors the use of such blocks allowed for the construction of a functioning City in just two years the most important building was the house of the aten which was a great ruthless Temple dedicated to the aten that stood at the Heart of the City inside there were no Idols just a large Courtyard at the center with an open Altar for offerings nearby where administrative buildings were the King's top government officials and advisors worked the Royal Family's Palace complex was located at the Northwestern part between the Nile and the surrounding Cliffs that protected the city not too far away were large Mansions were the pharaoh's most trusted advisors lived the city also had beautiful gardens that were irrigated by a network of canals just south of the city was land used for farming and cattle grazing running through akitatin was what some have called The Royal Road surrounded by his guards Akhenaten would ride every day on his golden Chariot from the Royal Palace to the house of the aten as well as the nearby government buildings where he would first worship and then work akitaten was just as much a religious Center as it was the political and administrative capital of akinaten's New Egypt buildings temples and monuments in akitatin were decorated and embellished with a particularly new and unique style of art said to have been devised by Akhenaten himself the art of the period was Innovative for its day in that it combined a sort of realism with distorted facial and bodily features for example there were many scenes that depicted daily life in Vivid detail including a level of intimacy between the king his wife and their children that had never before been seen in Egyptian art at the same time they are portrayed with elongated faces stretched necks thick lips unusually wide hips and bulging bellies that make one wonder if they all had some sort of deformity or disease the vast majority of egyptologists though have ruled this out more than likely such art was intended to highlight Akhenaten and his family's other worldliness and special place in the universe due to being the Earthly representatives of the aten Visual Arts were not the only way to convey atanism the ideas of the religion and the Royal Family's role within it could be communicated through poetry one of the greatest works of Egyptian literature ever to come out of the New Kingdom era is what's known as the great hymn to the aten it tells of how the Sun God created the world and watches everything within it excerpts from the hymn read as follows it's plenty two rise in Heaven's lightland o living at an creator of life when you have done in eastern light and you fill every land with your beauty you are beauteous great radiant High over every land your rays embrace the lands to the limit of all that you made being ra you reach their limits you bend them for the son whom you love though you are far your rays are on earth though one sees you your strides are unseen Earth brightens when you're done in light land when you shine a satin of daytime as you dispel the dark as you cast your rays the two lands are in festivity awake they stand on their feet you have roused Them Bodies cleansed clothed their arms adore your appearance the entire Land sets out to work all beasts browse on their abs foreign Scholars of religion have made comparisons between the great hymn to the aten and Psalm 104 of the Hebrew Bible whether akanatan Nefertiti or someone else composed of him is unknown but the text does break with tradition in that it's written in the vernacular of the day and not the standard middle Egyptian that was generally used for literary works though on the surface everything may have seemed joyful and bright the city of akitatan had a dark side [Music] the rush to build the city from scratch in honor of a God took its toll on the workers involved in its construction the common people who lived and worked in akhenaten's New City of light lived extremely difficult and rather short lives autopsies on the remains of workers found in nearby shallow Graves indicate that most died in their late teens with very few living until the age of 40. further analysis showed that most were malnourished due to their poor diets and many were physically stunted from doing hard labor the supposed Paradise of akitatin that they'd been brought over to build was in reality a labor camp from which countless people never left alive as the years went by Akhenaten and the doctrines of atanism became more extreme the faith went from the aten being the greatest of the Gods to being the only God permitted to be worshiped Akhenaten ordered his followers to erase the names of other deities with the exception of the aten and ra from all monuments and temples across Egypt this of course was much easier said than done and as we can still see today there are countless monuments and old temples predating Akhenaten with the names of other deities in their inscriptions that are still very much intact the pharaoh's edict though did make one thing clear the worship of any other deity especially a moon was now officially banned this has brought up a fierce debate among Scholars as to whether or not atanism was a true monotheism meaning a religion that believed solely in the existence of only one God or a Manola tree where devotees worshiped only one God but believed in the existence of others many egyptologists scholars of religion and even philosophers state that akhenaten's zealous worship of only the aten efforts to rid Egypt of the influence of other deities and persecution of all other Egyptian Cults is all clear evidence that autonism eventually did become a monotheistic religion in the abrahamic understanding of the term however there are those who make the case that autonism didn't necessarily deny the existence of other deities besides the aten but rather just held them in contempt this would then make artemism a monolatory where its followers believed that the aten was the Supreme and most powerful or correct God but not necessarily the only God another interesting question is how many people in Egypt actually gave up their old traditional religion for atonism according to egyptologists not that many other than Akhenaten and the royal family it seems that the only real adherence of atanism were the elites who followed their pharaoh to akitatan a good number of these may have only been paying lip service to the new religion in order to win the king's favor and Advance their own political careers or at least keep the one they had the priesthood of Amun and supporters of the old religious establishment were the biggest losers in the new regime since they were all effectively out of a job however the archaeological record indicates that many of the common people even the workers at akitatin still clung to their own popular religion and rituals in fact other than closing or repurposing some of the temples life went on as usual for most Egyptians while some kept the religious practices a secret and even changed their names the lives of most especially in rural areas changed little if at all Farmers went on farming Weavers continued to weave fishermen fished in the Nile and government officials continued to run the state as they'd always done before since Akhenaten spent most if not all of his time after the first half of his reign in akitatin few outside of the capital ever saw or heard from their King akenaten's obsession with the aten as well as his role as prophet and priest of his new state religion diverted much of his attention from governing the Empire at a time when it was facing new threats in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment by the second half of akhenaten's Reign the balance of power had shifted in the near East to favor a resurgent hittite empire under their great king shupillu liuma whose home base was in central Anatolia a cunning Warrior as well as shrewd Statesman shupilu lyuma took advantage of Divisions within the mitani ruling Elite to play one side against the other and then sees territory in the Levant edging him ever closer towards Egypt's fear of influence but that wasn't all as there were also threats to stability from within the Egyptian Empire's borders in perhaps as many as 50 letters addressed directly to Akhenaten or his vizier ribhada the vassal ruler of the Strategic Port of biblos implored the pharaoh to send him military aid in order to ward off threats to his City from nearby rivals these included the warlord abdiyashirta and his son aziru who ruled over the Border region of amuru that was at least officially a protectorate of Egypt part of one of ribhada's many letters to Akhenaten stressing the urgency of the situation reads as follows May the king my Lord be a prize that the city of biblos the faithful handmaiden of the King has been at peace since the days of his fathers but now the King has forsaken his Loyal City May the king examine the tablets of his father's Palace whether the man who is in biblos has not been a loyal servant do not be silent concerning your servant since great is the hostility of the apiru troops against him and as the gods of your land live used up are our sons and our daughters and the wood of our houses for payment to the land of yarimuta to preserve Our Lives several of ribhadas other letters also illustrate akenaten and his government's apparent neglect of Egypt's Canaanite possessions now thus I have written to the Palace but you do not return a word to me was it not in the past regarding all the lands of the king that yearly the regular troops were coming forth to inspect the lands but now the lands of the king in the city of sumur your garrison city I've gone over to the apiruman and you keep silent send a large regular army and you can drive out the enemies of the king from within his land and all the lands will be joined to the king furthermore you are the great Lord you must not ignore this message why do you not send back word to me so that I may know the thing that I should do furthermore I have been writing for Garrison troops and for horses but they are not being given just send me the word and I myself will make a treaty with Abdi ashirita like yapa Hadi and zimreda and I will stay alive there are many such letters from ribhada but in the end he received no support from his King and was eventually ousted from his post and possibly killed in sidon by men loyal to a zero of amulu many of the more capable Statesmen and bureaucrats who are running the government must have realized that the status quo couldn't go on for much longer those well-versed in their country's most recent history knew that previous pharaohs such as thutmos III who were devoted to a moon and the old gods would not have let such a plea for help from a loyal vassal go unanswered if anything they would have personally led a Grand Army to deal with the transgressors and restore order akhenaten's religious Revolution was becoming a big problem that if left unchecked could lead to not only the destruction of the Egyptian Empire and a breakdown of the state but even the end of Egyptian civilization as it had existed for nearly two millennia but it was not easy to overthrow a pharaoh especially one as powerful as Akhenaten surrounded by bodyguards sycophants and loyalists akanatan self-isolation in the city of the aten protected him somewhat from Aku and as far as we know the Army was still not only behind him but also enforcing many of his edicts to promote atanism throughout the country the last five years of akhenaten's life are full of intrigue and mystery very little written evidence survives from that time but it's believed that he may have had problems stemming from poor health and the lack of a male successor Nefertiti had given akhenaten's six daughters but no sons and after the pharaoh's 12th regnal year she essentially disappears from the historical record or perhaps not soon after her disappearance Akhenaten ruled with a co-regent named semen kakare who most scholars believe was married to his daughter mariaten though he died within a year afterwards a person named nephrinephru watten is believed to have become his co-regent recall that this was the name that Nefertiti had simultaneously adopted when Eman hotep IV changed his name to akhanatan because of this many egyptologists have come to the conclusion that this particular nephrine for ruatan was none other than the pharaoh's beloved wife Nefertiti others have speculated that nefer nephruatan may have been akhenaten's daughter mariaten who again was believed to be the wife of smencakare the basic facts regarding these years are very sketchy in large part due to the Pharaohs after Akhenaten doing all that they could to destroy his legacy and essentially erase him from history died in 1336 BC the 17th year of his reign though he wished to be buried in a special tomb just outside of akitatin a mummy believed to be his was uncovered in the Valley of the Kings specifically tomb KV 5 5. though its identity could not be determined from the evidence found within the tomb DNA analysis conducted in 2010 indicated that the mummy contained the remains of a man who was the son of Eman hotep III and the father of Egypt's most recognizable Pharaoh in modern times Moon this has led many egyptologists today to conclude that the mummified remains from tomb kv-55 are indeed those of Akhenaten as there are more questions than answers with regard to the final years of akhenaten's Reign and its immediate aftermath a great number of egyptologists have put the start date of Tutankhamun's Reign at 1336 BC which may have overlapped with nepher nepheruatan's Reign or possible Regency known by many today as the boy King Tutankhamun was only nine years old when he became pharaoh his original name was tudank atan meaning the living image of the aten the exact identity of his mother isn't clear but a mummy found in Tomb kv-35 was identified through DNA testing as being both the mother of Tutankhamun and the daughter of Eman hotep III and his wife Tia which would also make her the sister of akhanatan as her real name isn't known archaeologists refer to her as the younger lady [Music] Tutankhamun's wife who was also his half-sister was called meaning she who lives for the aten she was the third of the six daughters born to Akhenaten and Nefertiti the young tudank aten proved to be a godsend for those who wish to steer Egypt back to its traditional polytheistic religion not only did he have the right bloodline but the boy King was also impressionable and with his father dead and most likely his mother too tudankatan had few if any close Elder relatives upon whom he could rely on for the guidance that he needed to rule while nephrineferuatan may or may not have acted as Regent during his early years the one who ultimately stepped into this role was I a man who had took atan's coronation may have already been in his late 60s at the urging of I and other advisors changed his name to kudan kamun meaning the living image of a moon while his wife became ankassen Amun or she who lives for a moon soon the new Pharaoh left akitatin and went to the old capital of Memphis where he issued a decree that re-established Egypt's traditional polytheistic religion and declared his Devotion to a moon when his majesty appeared as king the temples and the cities of the gods and goddesses starting from elephantine and down to the Delta marshes had fallen into Decay and their shrines were in ruin becoming mounds of rubble overgrown with weeds their sanctuaries were like something that had not existed and their temples were a footpath for the land was wrecked and ruined but after time passed his majesty appeared upon the throne of his father and he ruled over the shores of Horus the black land and the Red Land were under his supervision and every land was bowing to his might then his majesty took counsel with his heart investigating every excellent deed seeking benefactions for his father the god Amun and fashioning his Noble image out of genuine electrum he gave more than had given before he fashioned an image of his father the god Armon his sacred image being of electrum lapis lazuli turquoise and every precious stone Moon's Reign seems to have gotten off to a good start however the young Pharaoh was plagued with many health problems that may have included sickle cell anemia and also suffering from severe bouts of malaria a CT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy also showed that the king had a compound fracture in his left leg which may have come from a fall and complications from this may have led to an early death at the age of just 19. the discovery of Tutankhamun's small but lavish tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by Howard Carter is perhaps the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century this is because it's perhaps the only tomb of a pharaoh ever to have been uncovered that also managed to escape looting by grave robbers what was left behind was a whole host of funerary objects that included gold jewelry chariots Furniture cups and utensils made out of precious metals and Stones statues fine clothing textiles at least 100 pairs of sandals including some made of gold walking canes lots of artwork musical instruments such as trumpets ornate jars and of course his elaborate sarcophagus consisting of three coffins the innermost being made of solid gold within this was the king's iconic Gold Funeral mask and his mummy which due to its poor condition shows that the embalming process had been hastily done altogether over 5000 different objects were uncovered from his burial chamber which makes one wonder that if so much were found in trudan kamun's relatively small tomb then what Treasures must have been in the burial places of other more powerful and significant Kings since the boy King had left no air the untimely death of Tutankhamun created a major problem with regard to his successor the two most influential people at the time the vizier I and horam HEB the supreme commander of the Armed Forces were also the two greatest contenders for the throne of Egypt as hormeb was likely with the Army in the Levant fending off hittite attacks the Aged eye took advantage of his absence and crowned himself to be the next pharaoh some have speculated that he may have been chosen to succeed Tutankhamun because he was the father of Nefertiti but this has never been proven other evidence seems to point to the notion that Turan kamun a designated horam HEB to be his successor but as he was away tending to military matters like a vulture I swooped in and grabbed the throne that or he himself might have had Turan kamun killed while horum HEB was away the theories of what happened immediately after Turan kamun's death are many but also inconclusive I though didn't have the right bloodline and so to make his claim to the throne more legitimate he may have married Tutankhamun's Widow on kasenamun who at the time was also perhaps the last surviving descendant abakinatin and hotep III and the whole tutmosian line of pharaohs the main evidence for such an arrangement comes from a series of letters that the hittite king shupilu lyuma apparently received from an unnamed Egyptian queen with the bizarre request of asking him for one of his sons to marry successor was shili II would later recount the story when my father was done in the country of kharghamish he sent lupaki and tarkunt zalma into the country of amka and when the people of Egypt heard about the attack on amka they were frightened and since besides their lord nimkhoruria had died the Queen of Egypt sent a messenger to my father with this message my husband has died I have no Sons they say that you have many sons if you were to give me one of your sons he would become my husband I will never take a servant of mine and make him my husband I am afraid it was an extremely odd request but it aligns well with the known facts nib kururiya is the cuneiform rendition of neb kepperura the throne name of Tutankhamun who also died without an heir his Widow on kasenamun who at the time was in her 20s would have also loathed to be forced to marry in aged commoner such as I a man over three times her age and in this case would have probably preferred the prince of a rival Nation in the end we know that nothing became of the proposed Egyptian hittite Union because merci II tells us that when one of shupillu liyuma's sons was finally sent he died along the way to Egypt possibly killed by the Agents of I or other xenophobic Egyptians who would not have approved of a foreign Prince becoming the new ruler of the Egyptian Empire we also don't have any real evidence that ankasenamun Mary Dai at just four years eyes Reign was very short and in his tomb which originally may have been for Turan kamun is depicted with his only known wife Tay there's no depiction or even a mention of Anka cinnamon after the death of I General hormeb also a commoner succeeded him not a fan of his predecessor who he may have believed stole the kingship from him while he was away hormeb removed I's name from all public monuments and then did the same for akhanatan and Tutankhamun basically putting the final nail in the coffin of the amarna era in the king list that would follow the Pharaohs from Akhenaten to I were never mentioned the line went straight from Eman hotep III to horam HEB being a soldier at heart horam HEB felt that the decadence and excess of akhenaten's Reign not to mention his repudiation of the country's traditional gods and religion had made Egypt weak and so he took firm measures to re-establish what he thought was Law and Order as well as to reinstate or at least reorganize many of the country's institutions that had suffered during the past two decades horm was extremely distrustful of the old nobility especially those who had followed akenaten and he used whatever means at his disposal to curb their power the temples that had been neglected During the amarna period were refurbished and repopulated with priests loyal to both the old gods and to himself the houses of worship built by Akhenaten and staffed by atanus were torn down or repurposed he also sent workers to akatatan to erase all traces of the heretic King and his wife Nefertiti their statues were smashed and tossed into a heap of rubble near what had once been the Great temple known as The House of the aten Hub then focused on weeding out corruption that had been rampant at all levels of Egyptian Society in an inscription from Karnak that has come to be known as the great Edict of horam HEB were told that he at least claimed to do the following his majesty took counsel with his heart how he might expel evil and suppress lying the plans of his majesty were an excellent Refuge repelling violence and delivering the Egyptians from the oppressions which were among them behold his majesty spent the whole time seeking the welfare of Egypt and searching out instances of Oppression in the land of the document's 10 Clauses four of them specifically deal with punishments for corrupt government and Palace officials which depending on the offense could include anything from exile to facial mutilation such as cutting off one's nose to enforce his laws were new judges that hormeb approved himself they too were not above the law for if found guilty of corruption themselves they could be sentenced to death horam had presented himself as a champion of the poor and since he himself came from a modest background many viewed him to be one however others saw his stuffing the courts and temples with loyalists as just another one of his tactics to consolidate more power for himself but he was a hero for traditionalists Because by the end of hormeb's Reign in 1295 BC atonism had been completely purged from the corridors of power and replaced by the priests of a moon who were now free to Proclaim their gods greatness perhaps the only thing of importance that hormeheb had failed to procure during his 28-year Reign was a son to be his heir and so hormip selected one of his generals named paramisu to follow him as Pharaoh upon his death paramisu is better known to us today by the name ramazis and having already a son and a grandson he would go on to start a new line of kings that we today refer to as the 19th dynasty of Egypt but the start of a new dynasty was not the end of the New Kingdom far from it in fact some of its best years and most celebrated rulers were yet to come we'll learn more about all this in the next installment of ancient Egypt Dynasty by Dynasty stay tuned thanks for watching I'd like to thank both Danny Hussein and Irina of the ancient sites girl channel for reading the quotes and bringing many of these characters to life check out irina's channel to explore many of ancient Egypt's historical sites especially the ones that most tourists never visit and of course I'd like to really thank the Channel's patrons including grandkid 69 Yap de Graf pastafrola Michael Lewis Daniel Allen Danny van Eck Linux TV Robert Morgan Frank Tim Lane Sebastian entado Korea Michael trudell leader Titan Micah G John scarberry Andrew Bowmer Monty Grimes Franz Robbins Cyrus Mir dianastra Nimrod nir Brendan Redmond faredundarachanji Jimmy darawala anahida debut kulistandebu Sher cam Farhad Kama and all of the Channel's patrons on patreon for helping to support this and all future content check out the benefits to being a patreon member and if you'd like to join feel free to click the link in the video description you can also follow history with Psy on Instagram Facebook and Twitter as well as continue to listen to special audio programs on the history with Psy podcast thanks again and stay safe

Channel: History with Cy

Views: 347,601

Keywords: ancient Egypt, Ahmose, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut, Bronze Age, Akhenaten, Thutmose IV, Tutankhamun, king Tut, Ay, Horemheb, Amenhotep III, Dynasty 18, 18th Dynasty of Egypt, ancient history, Valley of the Kings, Amenhotep I

Id: jTpkX0ECNV4

Length: 136min 46sec (8206 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2023