Amenhotep III: Encyclopedia - Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Nebmaatre Amenhotep III (called Nibmu(`w)areya in the Amarna letters) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors he ruled ca. 1389 BC-1351 BC, or 1391 BC-1353 BC, following on from his father Thutmose IV. With his Chief Queen Tiy, he fathered his second son, Akhenaten, who succeeded him on the throne.

Amenhotep appears to have been crowned while still a child, perhaps between the ages of 6 and 12. His lengthy reign was a period of great peace, prosperity, and artistic splendour. He built extensively at the temple of Karnak, including at least two pylons, a colonnade behind the new entrance, and a new temple to the goddess Ma'at. He oversaw construction of another temple to her at Luxor and virtually covered Nubia with numerous monuments "including a small temple with a colonnade (dedicted to Thutmose III) at Elephantine, a rock temple dedicted to Amun 'Lord of the Ways' at Wadi es-Sebuam, and the temple of Horus of Miam at Aniba...[as well as founding] additional temples at Kawa and Sesebi." (Grimal, p.223)

In Year 11 of this reign, he seems to have started a move to Luxor, and began construction of a huge palace there, now called Malkata on the west bank.

His mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile was, in its day, the largest religious complex in Thebes but, unfortunately, he chose to build too close to the floodplain and less than 200 years later, it stood in ruins. Much of the masonry was purloined by later pharaohs for their own construction projects. The Colossi of Memnon — two massive 18-metre stone statues of Amenhotep that stood at the gateway of his mortuary temple — are the only elements of the complex that remained standing.

Amenhotep's names are shown in Egyptian hieroglyphs to the right. The etymology of the name Amenhotep can be interpreted as "Amun is pleased". His nomen is transliterated as ỉmn-ḥtp ḥḳ3-w3st, which is usually realised as Amenhotep Hekawaset. His epithet, Hekawaset, means "ruler of Thebes". In Greek, Amenhotep was called Amenophis. Upon his ascension to the throne, Anenhotep took the praenomen Nebmaatre. This is transliterated as nb-m3‘t-r‘, and is the name written Nibmu(`w)areya in the Amarna letters. He celebrated three Jubilee Festivals in his Year 30, Year 34 and Year 37 respectively. His Highest attested Year dates are a pair of Year 38 Wine dockets from his summer palace at Malkata. His reign was remembered in later eras as a time of unprecedented prosperity and splendour when Egypt reached the very heights of her artistic and international power. Proof of this is shown by the diplomatic correspondence from the rulers of Assyria, Mitanni, Babylon and Hatti which is preserved in the archive of Amarna Letters found in 1887. They cover the period from Year 30 of Amenhotep III until the end of Akhenaten's reign. In one well-known letter, king Tushratta of Mitanni famously requests that Amenhotep "my brother [must] send me gold in very great quantity without measure. For in my brother's land, gold is as plentiful as dust."

Amenhotep III - Death

Amenhotep III was buried in the Western Valley of the Valley of the Kings, in Tomb WV22 A forensic examination of his mummy reveals that he suffered from horribly worn and cavity pitted teeth and was in constant pain during his final years. According to Nicolas Grimal, reliefs from the wall of the temple of Soleb in Nubia and scenes from the Theban tomb of Kheruef, Stewart of the King's Great Wife (TT192) depict Amenhotep as a visible weak and sick figure. Amenhotep once even requested and took possession of a statue of Ishtar, Goddess of War to cure him but nothing helped. There is no conclusive evidence of a co-regency between him and his son, Akhenaten. A letter dated to Year 2 of Akhenaten's reign from the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, congratulates the former on his accession to power and wishes that the peaceful relations which existed between Egypt and Hatti during Amenhotep III's reign would continue into his son's rule. This correspondence implies that if any co-regency occured between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, it would not have lasted for more than a Year at the most.

Amenhotep III - Bibliography

• Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Books: 1992, p.225
• William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, (1992)
• David O'Connor & Eric Cline, Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign, University of Michigan Press, (1998)

Categories: 14th century BC deaths | Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt

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