THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HISTORY - NEW KINGDOM

NEW KINGDOM

  NEW KINGDOM: 1570-1070 BC Dynasties XVIII-XX

  

The New Kingdom's first king was Ahmose who reunified Upper and Lower Egypt. This was another Golden Age for Egypt as it expanded its empire. Memphis was the administrative capital again. The term pharaoh began being applied to the king

 

Queen Hatshepsut became pharaoh by default while acting as regent for a young Tuthmosis III  

 

 

 

 

Tuthmosis III eventually came to power and became the "Napoleon" of ancient Egypt. The empire spread far to the south into ancient Nubia (south of modern Aswan and into northern Sudan), while in the north the territory under control was expanded well into the Near East

Tuthmosis III fought with considerable nerve and cunning.  On one campaign, he marched to Gaza in ten days and from Yehem, planned the battle to take take Megiddo which was held by a rebellious prince named Kadesh.  There were three possible approaches to Megiddo, two of which were fairly open, straightforward routes while the third was through a narrow pass that soldiers would only be able to march through in single file 

It was in the New Kingdom that most of the pharaohs' tombs were located in the Valley of the Kings and their mortuary temples were separately located.

Egypt became incredibly wealthy through trade and foreign conquests. The country's religious orders also benefited - particularly that of the state god Amun-Re with its powerful clergy and vast temples and estates

The existing religious orders were deposed for a while during the 14th century B.C

 

 

when the heretic king Akhenaten established a new religious order - that of the sun god Aten. The old temples were abandoned and a new capital, Akhetaten, was established to the north. Attention to international affairs waned.

Soon after the death of Akhenaten, his probable son - Tutankhaten - became pharaoh at about the age of nine. His was a short reign, but the old religious orders rose again and Akhenaten's city was destroyed. Tutankhaten's name was changed to Tutankhamun, but his reign was only about nine years. He was followed as pharaoh by the elderly Ay

 

 

 

 

Several years later, a general by the name of Horemheb came to power and started a campaign to eliminate evidence of his immediate predecessors for whom he had served.  His successor was Ramesses I who was the first in a long line of Ramesside kings in the 19th and 20th Dynasties.  (Note that some Egyptologists list Horemheb as

the first king of the 19th Dynasty.) Ramesses I's grandson, Ramesses II, is often referred to as Ramesses the Great. He became one of Egypt's greatest builders and signed the first recorded peace treaty in history.

By the 20th Dynasty the power of the pharaohs had waned and there were battles with invaders called the Sea Peoples under Ramesses III, the last significant pharaoh of the New Kingdom. Egypt would never rule again with the same power. Ramesses XI was the last of the rulers of the New Kingdom.

The Theban priesthood virtually controlled Upper Egypt by the end of the New Kingdom, while the pharaoh had ruled from the Delta