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Amenhotep III
(heqawaset)
Nubmaatre
Dynasty 18
1386-1349 BC
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| Colossal granite head of Amenhotep III, British Museum |
Amenhotep III Pharaoh Biography 1386-1349 BC Amenhotep Ill’s long reign of almost 40 years was one of the most prosperous and stable in Egyptian history. His great-grandfather, Tuthmosis III, had laid the foundations of the Egyptian empire by his campaigns into Syria, Nubia and Libya. Hardly any military activity was called for under Amenhotep, and such little as there was, in Nubia, was directed by his son and viceroy of Kush, Merymose. Amenhotep III was the son of Tuthmosis IV by one of his chief wives, Queen Mutemwiya. It is possible (though now doubted by some) that she was the daughter of the Mitannian king, Artatama, sent to the Egyptian court as part of a diplomatic arrangement to cement the alliance between the strong militarist state of Mitanni in Syria and Egypt. The king’s royal birth is depicted in a series of reliefs in a room on the east side of the temple of Luxor which Amenhotep built for Amun. The creator god, the ram-headed Khnum of Elephantine, is seen fashioning the young king and his ka (spirit double) on a potter’s wheel, watched by the goddess Isis. The god Amun is then led to his meeting with the queen by ibis-headed Thoth, god of wisdom. Subsequently, Amun is shown standing in the presence of the goddesses Hathor and Mut and nursing the child created by Khnum.
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| Amenhotep III and Sobek, from Dahamsha, now in the Luxor Museum |
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