Amenhotep IV

“ Unfortunately the international tensions of the day were such that Egypt needed a warrior rather than a philosopher king. The idealism of Amenhotep IV was largely lost on his own generation, and entirely lost on the generation that followed him.
Nofretete was devoted both to her husband and to the religious reforms to which he dedicated his life. She bore him six daughters and appears to have been her husband’s constant companion and confidant. Nofretete was, understandably, a favored subject in Amarna art. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that the great mass of Alexander’s subjects, whether Asiatics, Egyptians or Greeks, would require something more than the sublime theorizing of the philosophers before their religious ideas could be turned in the direction of monotheism. Nine hundred years before, Amenhotep IV of Egypt had indeed been led by his adoration of the material sun to put forward a religious reform which had as its principal feature the proclaiming abroad that there was only one God, in whose sight all mankind was equal ”

“ So far, Queen Taia succeeded in introducing her religion into Egypt while her husband was alive. At his death she found herself regent for her son, or, at any rate, associated with him upon the throne, and saw that a fresh opportunity for pushing her religious views offered itself. Amenhotep IV. was of a most extraordinary physique and physiognomy. His appearance was rather that of a woman than of a man; he had a slanting forehead, a long aquiline nose, a flexible projecting mouth, and a strongly developed chin. ”

“ The primacy of Ra is illustrated by the fact that Amon was identified with him. Amon, originally the local god of Thebes,1253 became great in the South as Ra became great in the North, rising with the growth of the Theban kingdom. His hold on the people, and particularly (as was natural) on the priests, is shown in a noteworthy way by the episode of Amenhotep IV's attempt to supplant him by establishing a substantially monotheistic cult of the sun-god Aton ”

“ Both Amenhotep and Mohammed were so placed by the circumstances of their birth that, for each to rise to a higher degree of sovereignty than his father, it was necessary to appeal to the super-human. Although Mohammed was not, like Amenhotep, the son of a king, there was nothing, humanly speaking, greater for him than bis tribe, the Coreish, at the pinnacle of whose aristocratic eminence reigned the venerable patriarch, his grandfather, Abd-ul- Muttalib. What better replacement figure of his grandfather could be found than the god of the Hebrews, of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Moses? ”

“ But the permanent political ascendancy of Amon of Thebes really followed upon the expulsion of the Hyksos military aristocracy about 1580 B.C. By this time the northern sun cult's influence had become sufficiently strong to have Ra blended with the Theban deity who was subsequently known as Amon-Ra. Before the close of the eighteenth dynasty (c. 1350 B.C.) a royal sun cult, promoted by Pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) , exalted Aton, the sun-disc, as sole god of Egypt and the rest of the world. The Amon-Ra cult regained its political ascendancy with the rise of the nineteenth dynasty. ”

“ The rulers of the larger states of the Amarna Age, and particularly Tushratta of Mitanni, sent their daughters to grace the harems of Amenhotep III and Akhenaton. A scarab of Amenhotep III commemorates the arrival of Giluhepa, a Mitannian princess with a retinue of three hundred seventeen maidens. [71] That Amenhotep III was actively building his harem is shown in a letter which he addressed to Milk-ili of Gezer which says, in part:
I have sent Hania, the commander of the archers, to you with all sorts of things, to bring the beautiful women.... ”

“ Amenhotep iii., successor of Thothmes iv., maintained with vigour the supremacy of Egypt both in the north and in the south. He must have been no ordinary sportsman if he speared, as he is said to have done, 102 lions with his own hand in the forest lands of Mesopotamia. ”

“ Two and a half hours of happiness unalloyed did I spend at that shiny, leather-clad desk, guiding my nimble pen across the pages of the notebook. It introduced me to a new world—a world in which love and learning, sweet intimacy and crusted archeology, were mingled into the oddest, most whimsical and most delicious confection that the mind of man can conceive. Hitherto, these recondite histories had been far beyond my ken. Of the wonderful heretic, Amenhotep the Fourth, I had already heard—at the most he had been a mere name; the Hittites a mythical race of undetermined habitat ”

“ On the right side the incised inscription (restored) states "Restoring of the monument made by the son of Ra Sety Merenptah (Sety I) for his father Amen." The restored parts are the figures of Amen, the names of Amen, the cartouches of Amenhotep in the lower scenes, and the restoration inscription. The names of offerings before the king are probably original.
Right Side. Above the king is "The good god, lord of the two lands, Neb-maat-ra son of Ra, his beloved [Amenhotep, prince of Thebes] gifted with life like Ra." Below is "Offering of wine to Amen; may he give the gift of life." ”

“ Grandson of General Amenemheb, fellow-soldier of the great Tutmose the Third, the Conqueror, he had covered himself with glory in the different campaigns he led against the wild tribes of Kush and the Sinai nomads. He had been promoted to the rank of Vizier under King Amenhotep the Third, Akhnaton's father, and the people were fond of him and called him 'a just man.' He would have given his life for the king, but he regarded the new faith in Aton and the betrayal of the old gods as madness and disaster. ”

“ Merira led Tuta by the hand to the armchair and making him sit in it, said:
"The high priest of God on high, Amon-Ra, the king over all other gods, the prophet of all the gods of the south and the north, the great seer of the sky, Urma Ptamose, commanded me, on his death-bed, to elect king of all the earth Tutankhamon, the son of King Nebmaar Amenhotep, the son of Horus. Do you all agree, men and brethren?"
"We agree. Long live Tutankhamon, King of Egypt!" ”

“ Amenhotep, like all the other Pharaohs, was anxious to protect his treasure from thieves, and he commanded his cleverest architects to design a palace in which people who went inside without permission might wander for ever without finding their way out again. ”

“ Amenhotep II. succeeded to an empire which extended from the Sudan to the Euphrates and to the Greek Islands; and when he died he [190] left these great possessions almost intact to his son, Thutmosis IV., the grandfather of Akhnaton. It is important to notice the chronology of this period. The mummy of Thutmosis IV. has been shown by Dr Elliot Smith to be that of a man of not more than twenty-six years of age; but we know that his son Amenhotep III. was old enough to hunt lions at about the time of his father's death, and that he was already married to Queen Tiy a year later. ”

“ The three hollows at the top are apparently for two ears, and perhaps the sign of a hide; it seems as if some inlaid objects had been inserted, of glass or metal.
A portion of an altar (Pl. I, 4) of sandstone dedicated by a chief priest of Tahutmes III named Ra, was found in the temple ruins of Amenhotep II. This priest was the husband of the nurse of Amenhotep II, and his tomb is one of the finest in Qurneh, published partly in Lepsius "Denkmaler" III, 62, and Prisse "Art," where the glass and stone vases are figured. ”

“ Fielding brought Mustapha Kali to Abdallah in time to die there, and buried him with his fathers; and Dicky stayed behind to cleanse Kalamoun with perchloride and limewash.
The story went abroad and travelled fast, and the words of Mustapha Kali, oft repeated, became as the speech of a holy man; and the people no longer hid their dead, but brought them to the Amenhotep. ”

“ As Amenhotep cast out Amon, the god of his father, and transferred his reverence to Aton on whom he conferred a might and majesty hitherto unknown to the gods of Egypt, so Mohammed cast out the gods of his father, Al-lat, Al-Uzza and Manah, who were worshipped as angels under femalenames, and preached the worship of the Jevohah of the Hebrews, modified to fit the demands of his phantasy. Thus:
"They do not call besides Him on any thing but inanimate objects, and they do not call on any thing but a devil devoid of all good," (Koran, Chapter IV, v. 117) and again ”

“ B.C. 1500.Amenhotep II, son of Thothmes III, again overran Nubia on a large scale, and his successor, Amenhotep III, extended the Egyptian frontier to the 4th Cataract and possibly to the Atbara, building a large temple to Ammon at Napata, which lay close to Jebel Barkal (the present Merowe) near the foot of the 4th Cataract. ”

“ Fig 197.--Bas-relief head of Seti I.
The avenues of sphinxes which this Pharaoh marshalled before the temples of Luxor and Karnak do not come to an end at fifty or a hundred yards from the gateway, but are prolonged for great distances. In one avenue, they have the human head upon the lion's body; in another, they are fashioned in the semblance of kneeling rams. Khûenaten, the revolutionary successor of Amenhotep III., far from discouraging this movement, did what he could to promote it. Never, perhaps, were Egyptian sculptors more unrestricted than by him at Tell el Amarna. ”

“ The trade of slave hunting was so lucrative that even a Great King could not resist the temptation of having a share in its profits.
When Amenhotep was not engaged in hunting men his favourite recreation was to indulge in the chase of the lion. On one of his scarabæi he states that between his first and his tenth year he slew with his own hand one hundred and ten of these ferocious beasts. Later on in his reign he presented to the priests who had the charge of the ancient temple of Karnak a number of live lions, which he had probably caught in traps. ”

“ The worship of Aton appears as early as the reign of Thutmose IV (ca. 1414-1406 B.C.) , who issued a commemorative scarab stating that the Pharaoh fought “with the Aton before him,” and that he campaigned abroad, “to make the foreigners to be like the (Egyptian) people, in order to serve the Aton forever.” [8]
Aton occupied an important place in the Egyptian pantheon during the reign of Akhenaton’s father, Amenhotep III. A stele of the king’s architects, Hori and Suti, describes the sun god as the deity who holds sway over all peoples and lands. ”

“ The black races have always been especially sought for this purpose, and were in great demand in the Egyptian slave-market: ladies of rank were pleased to have for their attendants negro boys, whom they dressed in a fanciful manner; and the court probably indulged in a similar taste. Amenhotep's aim was certainly rather to capture than to kill. ”

“ It is named in another inscription between Arinath and Akerith, as, all three, cities of Naharain or Northern Mesopotamia, captured by Amenhotep II., the son of Thotmes III. Might not Ni be Nisibis? We shall find that Assyrian inscriptions of later date have been interpreted as placing elephant-hunts in the land of Harran and in the vicinity of the Chaboras. ”

“ He was one of the most renowned of the Egyptian monarchs, who extended his conquests far into Western Asia, and foimded the stupendous temple of Kamak at Thebes, covering its walls with inscriptions commemorating his mighty deeds, and giving long lists of the lands and peoples overcome by him. No other name occurs so frequently on monuments and remains of every kind throughout Egypt. B. 1600. Amenhotep II. B. 1566. Thothmes IY. B. 1533. Amenhotep III. Another great conqueror, who appears to have advanced the frontiers of the empire far into Ethiopia towards the equatorial regions. ”

“ It is recorded of him that he smote down and slew seven of the Canaanitish chiefs with his battle-axe, and brought them back with him to Egypt. ‘Six of these enemies,’ says the story, ‘were hung upon the walls of Thebes, and their hands were hung up in the same way;’ the other enemy was brought up the river to Nubia, and hung upon the walls of the town of Napata ‘to show to the people of the land of the negroes for all time the victories of the king over his enemies.’ This is the chief event recorded of the reign of Amenhotep ii., who was succeeded by Thothmes iv. ”

“ The temple of Luxor, or El-Uksur, on the eastern bank of the river, about a mile and a half to the south of the great temple of Karnak, is a magnificent edifice to this day; and though some portions of it, and some of its most remarkable features, must be assigned to Rameses II., yet still it is, in the main, a construction of Amenhotep's, and must be regarded as being, even if it stood alone, sufficient proof of his eminence as a builder. The length of the entire building is about eight hundred feet, the breadth varying from about one hundred feet to two hundred. ”

“ Allah has not sent for them any authority. They follow naught but conjecture and the low desires which (their) souls incline to; and certainly the guidance has come to them from their Lord.
"Or shall man have what he wishes?" (Koran, Chapter LIII, v. 19-24) .
But in spite of the strength of the revolutionary tendencies of Amenhotep and Mohammed, we can observe in both a willingness to compromise on certain points, an attitude of mind that [4] is frequently a feature of the behaviour of psychoneurotics. ”

“ Shafts are sunk, false passages that lead nowhere are constructed. Everything is done that human ingenuity can suggest, if only the body hidden there might never be seen or handled again. [59] [Pg 189] Nor is the silent city of the dead without its stately palaces and temples. The two colossal twin statues of Amenhotep III. sit there upon the plain, and behind them is his magnificent temple. A little farther is the Ramesseum, a great temple erected by Rameses ‘to his name,’ and to the memory of his ancestors, marvellous for size and splendour. ”