Who is Amenhotep III?
Amenhotep III is Son of Thutmose IV and his little wife Mutemwia, Amenhotep became king at the age of 12, with his mother as regent. At the beginning of his reign, he chose the daughter of a provincial civil servant as his great royal wife and, during the rest of the reign, Queen Tiy was represented in an important position alongside the king.
Amenhotep III in his early years enjoyed hunting in the tradition of his father, Thutmose IV. And his grandfather, Amenhotep II.
In the fifth year of his reign, Amenhotep conducted campaigns against a territory called Akuyata in Nubia. From then on, his reign was peaceful, except for some disturbances in the Nile River Delta. Amenhotep, the king’s most prominent official, carefully regulated access to Egypt by land and sea.
At the beginning of his reign, he married Tiye, a commoner and a clever and capable woman. She became the chief queen and was the mother of the reformist king Akhenaton.
Amenhotep III’s Opulent Reign
The reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III marked the zenith of ancient Egyptian civilization, both in terms of political power and cultural achievements.
Amenhotep maintained Egypt’s position largely through diplomacy and marriage to the royal families of Mitanni (Syria), Babylon and Arzawa (Anatolia). He was the first pharaoh to publish royal news about his marriages, hunting trips and construction projects, with written information about large stone beetles sent to the entire empire.
Amenhotep III the king participated in a major construction program. This included his own burial temple in West Thebes, the Colossi of Memnon still being the highlight. And an important temple in Soleb in Nubia.
Amenhotep had lively diplomatic exchanges with the other great contemporary powers. This was confirmed by the Letters of Amara (diplomatic archives of Amenhotep III and Akhenaton). These reveal that Egyptian gold was exchanged for horses, copper and lapis lazuli from Asia.
He contracted political marriages with the sisters and daughters of the kings of Mitanni. A powerful empire on the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Babylon to consolidate alliances, and also tried to marry a Hittite princess.
Although Amenhotep greatly embellished Karnak as part of his nation-building program, the growing power of Amen’s clergy was skillfully countered by the promotion of the former Sun God Ra. The sun was also worshipped as the solar disc of Aten, with which the king identified himself with the epithet “Dazzling Aten”.
In the imperial city of Thebes, the king’s vast palace in Malkata was located near his funeral temple, the largest ever built, in its original location, marked by the two statues of the
Colossians of Memnon. An extensive network of ports and canals connected these buildings to the Nile, giving direct access to the King’s new temple in Luxor and the great national temple of Amen in Karnak.