this time to the end of his reign the Egyptian viceroys collected the tribute from Kash and the countries to the south and transmitted it yearly to Thebes. Amenḥetep III made several expeditions into Western Asia, but these were to all intents and purposes "royal progresses." The great kings of Babylon, Mitanni, and Assyria, and the chiefs of Palestine and Syria, and even Cyprus, were on the most cordial terms with him, and it is clear from the evidence of the letters in cuneiform found at Tall al-'Amârnah1 that many of them regarded him not only as their overlord but also as their friend. Vassal states paid their tribute regularly and, with the riches of Western Asia and the Sûdân pouring into her coffers, Egypt became the most wealthy and prosperous country in the world. All the Mesopotamian peoples remembered that the blood of a Mitannian princess ran in the veins of Amenḥetep III, and that he was their kinsman, and not a foreigner. The pleasure that he took in their lion hunts endeared him to the Euphratean shêkhs, and he strengthened the tie between them and himself by marrying one, if not two, of the daughters of Kadashman Harbe, king of Babylon, and the Mitannian princesses Tatumkhipa, daughter of Tushratta, and Gilukhipa, daughter of Shutarna. His "great chief wife" was Queen TI, 442 11 the Te-i-e of the Tall al-'Amârnah Tablets, daughter of Iuȧa and Thuȧa, who appear to have been people of good position in life, and he coupled her name with his own in all documents. It is clear that she was an able woman, and maintained her influence over the king all his life. Amenḥetep III was a great builder. All the great quarries were worked actively in his reign, and he built :—the oldest part of the Serapeum at Şakkârah, a great pylon, etc., at Karnak, the Temple of Luxor, the great temple on the west bank of the Nile, with the famous "Colossi of Memnon," a temple at Al-Kâb, a temple at Elephantine, a temple at Sadêngah in the Sûdân in honour of Ti, his great Queen, and the magnificent sandstone temple at Şulb, before which were placed the granite lions now in the British Museum. He joined the Temples of Karnak and Luxor by an avenue with rows of kriosphinxes on each side, and to please Ti he made a great ornamental lake, 3,700 cubits long and 700 cubits broad, on the west bank of the Nile, which is now probably represented by the Birkat Habû. As the official son of Amen he made splendid gifts to the temple of the god at Karnak, and in this capacity was actually worshipped as a god at Ṣulb in the Sûdân. But he supported the cult of Åten, of whom his wife Ti was a votary, as we see from the 1 The story of the finding of these tablets is told in my Nile and Tigris, Vol. I, p. 140. The texts are published by Bezold and Budge, The Tell el-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, London, 1892, and Winckler and Abel, Der Thontafelfund, Berlin, 1889, 1890; the best translations are those of Knudtzon, Die el Amarna-Tafeln, Leipzig, 1907. great scarab1 commemorating the making of her lake. The wealth of Egypt in his reign was incalculable, for Egypt was then the trading centre of the known world, and Amenḥetep III spent the royal revenue right royally on magnificent buildings, sculpture and statuary, and on beautiful things of every kind; he was the Roi Soleil of all craftsmen, designers and artists. He was a liberal and tolerant ruler, fond of pomp and ceremony, and pleasure and excitement, but bold and courageous withal. The Asiatics loved Thothmes III, the slayer of 120 elephants, and Amenḥetep III, the slayer of 102 lions during the first ten years of his reign and of 96 wild cattle out of a herd of 190 in the second year of his reign, was a man entirely after their own heart. During the last half of his reign Amenḥetep III made no journey into Western Asia, and the Hittites took the opportunity of seizing some of Egypt's possessions there. They were helped by a number of nomad tribes, and at length Amenḥetep III was obliged to send troops to drive out the invaders. The mistake he made was in not going himself. The revolt was put down, and peace restored, but the decay of Egypt's power in Western Asia had begun, and the rebels only waited for the king's death to declare their independence. Amenḥetep IV was the son of Amenḥetep III by Queen Ti; he reigned about 17 years and died probably before he was 30,2 though the same authority who says that his mummy is that of a man of 25 or 26 also says that he may have lived until he was 36 !3 Thus the anatomical evidence about his age is neither conclusive nor definite. At what age Amenḥetep IV began to reign is not known, but it was before he was fifteen; his wife Nefertiti was his half-sister, being the daughter of his father by a Mesopotamian woman. He also inherited his father's wife Tatumkhipa, NEA, the daughter of Tushratta, king of Mitanni.♦ As a child he imbibed religious ideas and beliefs which were not in accordance with native Egyptian theology, and under the tuition of Ai, the husband of his nurse, and the influence of his mother Ti, who seems to have been the de facto ruler of the country during the last years of her husband's life and the early years of her widowhood, he adopted the cult of Åten. It is clear that he was clever and unusually precocious, and fearless and courageous in giving effect to his convictions at all costs, and the monuments show that his obstinacy was great. In the early years of his reign he built a Benben House, , i.e., a solar sanctuary in his temple of Gem-Åten at Thebes, and this provoked the enmity of the priests , 1 On the five classes of great scarabs made to commemorate great events in the king's life see the section SCARABS in this book. 2 See Dr. Elliot Smith's remarks in Davis, The Tomb of Queen Tiyi, London, 1910. Elliot Smith, Tutankhamen, London, 1923, P. 84. • See Budge, History of Egypt, Vol. IV, p. 128. A of Amen. In the sixth year of his reign he publicly declared his adhesion to the cult of Åten, i.e., of the actual physical sun, and in his religious madness he rejected all the non-solar gods of his country, among them being the god Amen. Utterly regardless of the fact that the whole social life of his capital was bound up in the cult of Åmen, he disbanded the priests of Amen and confiscated the revenues of their god, thereby bringing chaos into his country. He had the name of Amen and the word for "gods,"¦, cut out from the monuments. There was no god but Åten, he said, and though this divine name was a very old one in Egypt, his dogmas concerning his Åten were wholly abominable to the Egyptians generally. Finding life unbearable at Thebes, he departed to a place about 300 miles to the north, and on the plain on the east bank of the Nile, which measures about 3 miles by 5 miles, he founded his City of God and new capital, which he called "Aakhutenåten," i.e., the "Horizon of Åten." The plain on the west bank was also made a part of his capital, and he set up fourteen stelae, or "boundary stones," to mark its limits. And he gave himself a new name, "Aakhunȧten," which may mean something like "Aten is content." This done he made himself high priest of Aten, with the ancient title of Ur-maa, 004 "the Great Seer," and set to work to promulgate his views among his adherents, whom from time to time he rewarded lavishly. He built Åten temples in Nubia, Hermonthis, Thebes, Memphis, and one in Syria, and a certain number of interested officials imbibed his "Teaching," which is set forth in the well-known hymn to Åten. Satisfied with his religion and happy in his domestic circle," he passed several years in playing the priest and directing the choral services in his temple, and the religious dances, and the acrobatic performances in which his followers delighted. Meanwhile the power of Egypt was waning rapidly in Western Asia, for the kings of Mitanni and Babylon and Assyria realized quickly that the king of Egypt was only a fanatical priest and no warrior, and before the death of Amenḥetep IV Western Asia was lost to Egypt. Of the last years of his reign we know nothing, but he appointed Sākarā, who married his eldest daughter, Merit-Amen, co-regent, and soon after died and was buried in a rock-hewn tomb on the east bank of the Nile. His character and religion have formed the subjects of extravagant eulogies by some and of sharp criticism by others, but if anatomical authority be correct he is entitled to our sympathy. For "The peculiar features of Akhenaton's head and face, the grotesque form assumed by his legs and body, no less than the eccentricities of his behaviour 1 Within a few years after its founder's death this city fell into decay, and its ruins are now known generally as "Tall al-'Amârnah.” 2 His family consisted of seven daughters. and his pathetic failure as a statesman, will probably be shown to be due to his being the subject of a rare disorder, only recently recognized by physicians, who have given it the cumbrous name of Dystocia adiposo-genitalis. One of the effects of this condition is to delay the process of the consolidation of the bones."1 The reign of Sakarā, the successor of Amenḥetep IV, was short and unimportant, and he was followed by Tutankhåten, who had married Ankhesenpaaten, the third daughter of Amenḥetep IV. His genealogy is uncertain, but he calls Amenḥetep III his father in his inscription on the granite lion from Șulb, and it is probable that his statement is literally true. As soon as he became king he changed his name to Tutānkhåmen (his wife also changed hers to Ankhesenpa-Amen) and relinquished the feeble attempt which he had made to perpetuate his father-in-law's religion. He re-established the worship of Amen, re-appointed his priests, made good what was ruined, and restored the name of Amen in every important building from Memphis to Napata. He had a gold figure of Amen cast for the sanctuary, and figures of Amen and Ptaḥ made of gold and inlaid with precious stones, and new figures of the other gods were made for him and placed in their ruined shrines. In other words he restored to the priests of Amen the property which his father-in-law had stolen from them and their god. The singing men and women and dancers and acrobats who were employed in the services of Åten were brought by him to Thebes, and when he had "purified" them he made them servants in the House of Åmen and in his own palace. This act of clemency was greatly appreciated by the Egyptians. During his short reign of five or six years he received the tribute of the Sûdân, and his faithful servant Hui2 would have us believe that the Syrians also sent him gifts and tribute.3 Of the circumstances of the death of Tutankhamen nothing is known, but he was probably still a young man when he died. And, judging by the state of confusion in which Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Carter found his funerary furniture in the tomb which they opened in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings in Western Thebes, his death was untimely and unexpected. He seems to have been succeeded by the “divine father” Ai, 49, who had married Tī, the "chief nurse who had reared the god," i.e., Amenḥetep IV, 18. His reign was very short and no 1 Elliot Smith, Tutankhamen, p. 84. 2 See the reproductions of the scenes in his tomb in Lepsius, Denkmäler, Abth. III, Bll. 115-118 and 301-306, and the texts in Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 1133 ff. 3 The sole trustworthy authority for the acts of Tutankhamen is the great stele which he set up at Karnak, and which was discovered by Legrain in 1905. For the text see Recueil de Travaux, Vol. XXIX, 1907, pp. 162–173. A summary of its contents is given in my Tutankhamen, London, 1923, p. 3 ff. |