Tlie decisive strokes in the war of liberation irere fought under the first king of the 18th
Dynasty, F hms- Amoais, who seems to have been the lineal descendant of his predecessors. The relationships and sequence of the kings and queens — the latter, heiresses in their own right — who followed him are much disputed. His son and successor, /mnA/ln-Amenophis I., was a king of no great political importance, though popularly re- vered, as we see from his special deification in later times. His chief occupation was the re- organization of the Nubian dependencies. He was foUowed by his son, Dhwtims-Thutmosis I., though this prince's succession was only legitimized by marriage with a half-sister, the direct heiress. Whether he was the father of his three successors Th. II., Th. III., and queen JTtipstot (Hatasu) or only of Th. II. and tlie queen, Th. lU. being a generation farther off, it is difficult to decide. The queen, though certainly daughter and heiress to Th. I. and wife of her brother Th. II., may have been either half-sister or aunt (and step- mother) to Th. ni. She was, at any rate, a princess of strong character, and a very important factor in the politics of the time, acting at least once as co - regent and, during the minority of Th. III., rulin" on his behalf. We have evidence, however, in the successive erasure of these royal names upon the monuments, that, whatever was the sequence of the changes of rule amon<; them, such changes were not made in any spirit of niendly acquiescence. Queen Iftipswt never really reigned alone, though for years, whether owing to the insignificance or youth of the king, the fortunes of the country were in her hands. Beyond the proofs of her activity recorded at Deir el-Bahri (Thebes), we know little of the direction her energies took. The Hyksos were no doubt not yet completely expelled, and there is again mention of a Nubian campaign. The event of which we know most, however, is her expedition to Pwnt, i.e. the Somali coast. Her fleet had, like its predecessors from the Gth Dynasty onwards, solely a commercial object. Pwnt (Punt), the ' Land of the Gods,' the home of the 'bearded' people,* w.as rich in frankincense, and a market for ebony, ivory, and panther skins. Beyond the vast temple, on whose walls tlie ex- peclition is depicted, tlie queen found opjiortunity to build also in other quarters of Thebes, and erected at Kamak the loftiest (with one exception) of extant Egyptian obelisks.
Left free liy the death or final retirement of H'tSpsivt, Thutmosis III., who had already reached the age of thirty, at once set about a campaign in Syria wliicli culminated in a great defeat at Megiddo of the confederated Syrian princes, who fortliwith recognized the Pharaoh as overlord, and professed themselves, Avith more or less sincerity, the vassals of Egypt. Not, however, that one campaign sufficed to ensure this condition of things. During twenty years Thutmosis III. himself led some fifteen expeditions into Syria, where the witlidrawal of his armies was repeatedly the signal for a rising among the subjugated states. His most distant vassals at the time of his death were in the neighbourhood of Mt. Amanus and the upper Euphrates; lie was suzerain of the Canaanite plain antl coasts and of the Amorite hill-country, while Egypt's 'sphere of influence' en) braced, more- over, ' the isles of the Great Sea,' i.e. the yEgean islands, as well as Cyprus, the nearer parts of Asia Minor, and the Hittite territory around Kadesli (on the Orontes). 'Tribute' is recorded from Assyria, though here, as often elsewhere, the annalist probably refers but to propitiatory gifts, which indicated a desire to stand well wnth the powerful invader. The Nubian dependencies were
* So W. Max Uiiller, Z. Au. zL 82, and not c«»Ju>. Abys
siniana.
EGYPT
EGYPT
661
ftlao extended in this reign as far sonth as Gebel Baikal and probably far across the Soudan, wbile we hear, too, of campaigns against the Libyan nomads. Thutmosis III. wa.s not less active as a boilder than as a warrior ; his architecture meets nfl on all hands. In every considerable town he built or enlarged a temple, as at Thebes, wliere he surrounded the central shrine of Amon with extensive halls and corridors. His name, engraved on scarabs, etc., is more frequent than that of any other king, and seems, in later ages, to have been regarded as a talisman.
He was succeeded peacefully by his son, Amen- ophis n., whose long reign is not remarkable. His father's enerjn- had secured, for the time, the Syrian conquests. Nubia seems to have occupied him somewhat more, and from his reign date the most southerly of Egyptian monuments (Ben-Naga). The reign of the next king, Thutmosis IV., was ■hort and still less remarkable. There were occa- sional demonstrations of supremacy to be made in Syria and Nubia, and tributes of respect to be paid to the gods by some additions to their temples. That the contact with Asia was already of influ- ence is shown by this king's marriage with a princess of J/fn-Klitanni, the then leading power oeyond the Euphrates.
Amenophis III. sat for thirty-five years on liis father's throne. He seems to nave been still able without much exertion to maintain abroad the position he inherited, for we hear nothing of Asiatic and but once of Nubian campaigns. Extensive building and much observance of religious cere- mr<nies are — for us, at least — the characteristics ol the reign. At tliis period of the 18th Dynasty the royal marriages are among the most significant and infiuentiol in Egj-ptian history. Amenophis III., himself possibly the son of his father's foreign wife, took into his harem Kirgip' (cuneif. GUu- hipa), another daughter of the house of Mitanni, while we know that among his wives was al.so a Babylonian princess. He had, moreover, already married a lady named Tiji, who may or may not have been of foreign parentage, but who, at an^ rat«, took a prominent share in the public life both of her husband and son. It is thought, in- deed, that Amenophis IV. was influenced by his mother towards those reforms in the state religion, initiated a few years after his accession, which have left to his name a peculiar interest. (See below.)