New Kingdom of Egypt

• 1. Introduction

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  The New Kingdom of Egypt rose from a wound. For generations, a foreign dynasty called the Hyksos had ruled the northern stretches of Egypt, controlling the Delta and disrupting the trade routes that kept the kingdom alive. When a pharaoh named Ahmose I finally expelled them, he did not simply restore the old Egypt. He built something larger and more ambitious than anything that had come before. What followed, from roughly 1570 BC to 1069 BC, became the most prosperous era in ancient Egyptian history. Scholars would eventually call it the peak of Egypt's power. The concept of the "New Kingdom" as a distinct golden age was not even named until 1845, when a German scholar, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen, gave it that label. What had Egypt become during those five centuries? Who were the rulers who expanded it, transformed its religion, fought its wars, and ultimately could not hold it together? The answers reach from the Euphrates River to the deserts of Nubia, from the temples of Karnak to a village of royal tomb-builders who ran out of food and put down their tools.

• 2. Dynasty Eighteen Rises

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  Ahmose I did not start fresh; he inherited a war. His father Seqenenre Tao and his predecessor Kamose had both campaigned against the Hyksos before him, and Ahmose finished what they began, reunifying Egypt under a single ruler. He then pressed north into the Levant, the Hyksos homeland, to ensure no future invasion could take root. His successor Amenhotep I continued campaigning in Nubia, and the ruler after him, Thutmose I, pushed so far into the Levant that he reached the Euphrates and crossed it, a feat no pharaoh had achieved before. Syrian princes declared allegiance to Thutmose during that campaign but abandoned their tribute once he turned back home.

  Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I and royal wife of Thutmose II, came to power under unusual circumstances. Her husband died leaving a son, Thutmose III, who had ascended to the throne as a child of roughly two years of age. Hatshepsut ruled jointly with the boy at first, but eventually governed in her own right. She built extensively in the Karnak temple in Luxor and across Egypt, and she restored the trade networks the Hyksos had severed during their occupation of Lower Egypt. One of her most celebrated initiatives was overseeing preparations and funding for an expedition to the Land of Punt.

  After Hatshepsut died, Thutmose III assumed full command. He had been heading up military operations for her, and the experience showed. Historians widely regard him as a military genius. He conducted at least sixteen campaigns in twenty years, captured an estimated 350 cities, and conquered a vast stretch of the Near East running from the Euphrates to Nubia across seventeen known military campaigns. During one of those campaigns, he became the first pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates, crossing during an operation against the Mitanni kingdom. He moved quickly through territory belonging to Aleppo and Carchemish and took the Mitannian king entirely by surprise. The wealth that followed these conquests reached its zenith under his successor, Amenhotep III, who built the Luxor Temple, the Precinct of Monthu at Karnak, his Mortuary Temple, and the Malkata palace, the largest palace constructed in Egypt.

• 3. Akhenaten's Revolution

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  Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten in honour of the Aten, a representation of the god Ra, and in doing so set off one of the most dramatic religious ruptures in the ancient world. His personal devotion to the Aten is often interpreted as history's first instance of monotheism. His wife, Nefertiti, was a bold participant in this new direction; she performed rituals to the Aten herself, a striking departure from established priestly roles. Egyptian art flourished in a distinctly new style during the fourteenth century BC, under what scholars call the Amarna Period.

  The consequences of Akhenaten's religious focus were political as well as spiritual. While he turned his attention inward, the Hittites expanded their reach steadily into the Levant and became a major force in international politics. This shift would create the central foreign-policy crisis of the dynasty that followed. Akhenaten and Nefertiti were subsequently erased from official Egyptian historical records, an act of systematic damnation.

  The dynasty closed with two rulers drawn from the court bureaucracy rather than royal bloodlines. Ay, who may have been Akhenaten's maternal uncle and a descendant of figures named Yuya and Tjuyu, possibly married the young Ankhesenamun, the widowed Great Royal Wife and half-sister of Tutankhamun, to secure his claim. Ankhesenamun did not outlive that marriage long. Ay then married Tey, who had originally served as Nefertiti's wet-nurse. His reign was brief. His successor Horemheb, a general under Tutankhamun, may have seized the throne in a coup after Ay's named successor, Nakhtmin, appears to have died during Ay's reign. Horemheb himself died without an heir, and he appointed his vizier Pa-ra-mes-su to follow him. That vizier took the throne in 1292 BC as Ramesses I, and with him, the Nineteenth Dynasty began.

• 4. The Ramesside Empire

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  Seti I, son of Ramesses I, waged wars across western Asia, Libya, and Nubia in the first decade of his rule. His battle scenes are carved on the north exterior wall of the Karnak Hypostyle Hall, alongside royal stelas recording victories in Canaan and Nubia. His greatest foreign-policy achievement was capturing the Syrian town of Kadesh and the neighboring territory of Amurru from the Hittite Empire, territory Egypt had not held since the reign of Akhenaten. A Hittite army tried to defend Kadesh; Seti defeated them and erected a victory stela. The town reverted to Hittite control nonetheless, because the Egyptians could not maintain a permanent occupation so close to the Hittite homelands.

  Ramesses II, Seti's son, confronted the Hittites on an even larger stage. In his second year of rule, before turning his attention north, he defeated a raiding force of Sherden sea people and folded them into his own army. His campaigns against the Hittites culminated at the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian forces against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. Ramesses was caught in what is recorded as history's first military ambush, but managed to rally his troops. Reinforcements known as the Ne'arin, possibly mercenaries, arrived and helped turn the tide. The battle ended without a clear victor; both sides declared victory at home, and the two states eventually concluded a peace treaty. Ramesses later captured Edom and Moab, and Egyptian stelae from this period have been found in Jordan.

• 5. Civil War and Sea Peoples

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  After Ramesses II died, the succession grew troubled. His son Merneptah and then Merneptah's son Seti II each took the throne, but Seti II's claim was challenged by his half-brother Amenmesse, who may have briefly ruled from Thebes. When Seti II died, a chancellor named Bay, a West Asian commoner who wielded power as vizier, placed Siptah on the throne. Siptah, who may have suffered from poliomyelitis, died early. The throne then passed to Twosret, Seti II's royal wife. A period of anarchy at the end of her short reign led to the rise of Setnakhte, who established the Twentieth Dynasty.

  Ramesses III, widely regarded as the last great pharaoh of the New Kingdom, faced the most severe external threats the empire had encountered. In the eighth year of his reign, the Sea Peoples invaded by both land and sea. Ramesses defeated them in two major battles, the Battle of Djahy and the Battle of the Delta, and incorporated the survivors as subject peoples. He is thought to have settled them in Southern Canaan, though evidence suggests some forced their way in; their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the emergence of states including the Philistian pentapolis after the empire's eventual collapse. Ramesses also fought Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns, in his sixth year and his eleventh year respectively.

  The cost of constant warfare drained the treasury steadily. In the twenty-ninth year of Ramesses III's reign, the royal tomb-builders and artisans living in the village of Deir el Medina ran out of food rations. They stopped work, an event recorded as the first known labour strike in history. Around the same time, air pollution reduced sunlight reaching the earth's surface, affecting agriculture and halting tree growth for nearly two full decades, until 1140 BC. One proposed cause is the eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland, an event known as the Hekla 3 eruption, though its precise dating remains disputed.

• 6. Conspiracy and Collapse

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  Near the end of Ramesses III's reign, a plot formed inside the palace. One of his secondary wives organized a conspiracy to kill the king and place her son on the throne. Palace personnel, harem members, government officials, and army officers all took part. A special court of twelve judges was formed to try the accused; all were sentenced to death. Written sources confirm the coup failed and that the conspirators were convicted. Whether Ramesses survived the attempt was unclear for centuries. His mummy showed no visible wounds. Then in 2012, researchers announced that a CT scan had revealed a deep knife wound in the throat of his mummy, indicating that he was in fact killed. He died in Thebes in the thirty-second year of his reign and was succeeded by Crown Prince Ramesses IV.

  What followed was rapid unraveling. Three of Ramesses III's sons took the throne in succession as Ramesses IV, Ramesses VI, and Ramesses VIII. Droughts arrived, Nile flood levels fell below normal, famine spread, civil unrest mounted, and officials became increasingly corrupt. Raids by Libyans and Sea Peoples, more dangerous than those Ramesses III had repelled, continued to weaken the state. The influence of the priests of Amun grew as pharaonic authority shrank. By the time the last pharaoh of the dynasty, Ramesses XI, reached the end of his reign, the High Priests of Amun at Thebes governed Upper Egypt in all but name. In the north, a man named Smendes controlled Lower Egypt. Smendes eventually founded the Twenty-First Dynasty at Tanis, and the New Kingdom was over. The title "Egyptian Empire" had outlasted the empire itself, but the label Bunsen had given it in 1845 preserved something true: for five centuries, Egypt had been something the ancient world had never seen before.