The new Reign
The new Reign
| With the unification of the country and the foundation of the XVIII
dynasty, the New Reign (1580-1085 Bc) or second Teban empire began, maybe the
most prosper period of the egyptian history. The borders and the structures of
the Middle Reign were established again, taking up even the land reclamation
program, and the authority over the local governors was kept thanks to the
control by the army. The capital was moved once more to Tebe, native city of the
XVII dynasty, where there was god Ammone’s cult, that would become during the
new reign, the most important in all Egypt. Something new in the new reign was
the importance gained by women, illustrated by the high titles and by the
positions given to the sovereigns’ wives and mothers. The Egyptian borders expanded in Nubia and in Palestine and the work on the great buildings in Karnak began; the pyramid shape was abandoned for the burials, and the pharaohs began to be buried in tombs with chambers excavated in the rocky walls of a valley near Tebe (later called Valley of the Kings). Syria and Palestine were conquered again, which in the meantime had become independent ì, and later a series of military expeditions were made (told in the animals of time, found in the temple in Karnak) to try to expand the borders of the state and to affirm the Egyptian hegemony in the east. The expansion of the Egyptian territory, which reached in the south the fourth cataract of the Nile, had never been so great , but it grew with the threat of new wars with the ittiti and by the Mitanni State. In fact in the near Orient the situation, because of new empires, was always harder for Egypt; the increasing diplomatic relations are a proof of it, as the marriage between Tutmosi IV and the Mitanni King’s daughter, even Amenofi III, Tutmosi’s IV son, married the King’s in Babylon sister and the relations with the nearby reigns were kept solidly. The son, and heir, Amenofi IV (1372 – 1354 BC) is remembered above all for the religions reform, which had the purpose to contrast Ammone’s priest’s authority. In fact, since the beginning of the dynasty, the teban clergy had an excessive importance, often conditioning the pharaohìs work. So Amenofi IV made a revolutionary act: he abolished Ammone’s cult, closed his temples and dispersed his priests. He then imposed a new monotheist cult, Aton’s one, the god of the sun, and he also changed his name in Akhenaton (“he who Aton Likes”). He abandoned Tebe for a new capital, Akhenaton (today tell el-Amama), built along the Nile, 300 km north of Tebe, in honor to Aton. The cult of the new god had more democratic characteristics, as it foresaw more egalitarianism among men and was based upon sacred text less incomprehensible than the previous ones. Nevertheless the situation was getting more complicated for Akhenaton: the ittiti in fact taking advantage of the inner difficulties coused by a revolt provoked by the siro-palestine vassalli. Syria rebelled, the Amorrai conquered the phoenix ports previously occupied by the Egyptians and the Mitanni reign was submitted by the ittiti and the assiri. Akhenaton’s religious reform ended with his reign; in fact his young son in law Tutankhamon succeded him, he brought back the capital to tebe and abandoned god Amonìs cult, restoring ammone’s one. About Tutankhamon’s reign almost nothing is Knows; he is know mostly for the beautiful funeral outfit found in his tomb by two British archaeologists Howard Carter and George Carnarrron in 1922. To the founder of the XIX dynasty, Ramses I (who reigned from 1293 to 1291 BC) succeded his son Seti I (1291 – 1279 BC), who led military campaigns against Syria, Palestine, Libya and the ittiti power. He ordered to build a sanctuary in Abido, and – as his father – he chose Pi – Ramesse (today Qantir) as the capital. Ramses II succeded him, one of his sons: to him is owed the construction and the enlargement of the best past of the monuments in Luxor and in Karnak, of the temples in Abu Simbel and of the sanctuaries in Abido and in Menfi. Ramses II faced the ittiti in the battle of Qadesh (in Syria, on the Oronte river) in the very first years of the XIII century BC, but it ended with no winners, about twenty years later, he established with Khattushili III the ittiti King, a peace treaty in Egyptian version as it foresaw a mutual help in case of an external aggression. The danger was in fact represented by the assiri, who became always more powerful and who governed an empire that expanded up to the Eufrate. Ramses’s son, Merneptah, defeated the so-called people of the sea, the invasors who cam from the Egeo who spread in the Middle East in the XIII century BC; It’s probable that right under his reign there was the jewish exodus grom Egypt and that Moses lived in Ramses’s II coust. The following pharaohs had to face revolutions by the many submitted people. The second sovereign of the XX dynasty, Ramses III, was able to drive back the second incursion by the “people of the sea” who were allied with the Libyan: he then let his military victories be represented on the walls of the funeral complex built in Madinat Habu, near Luxor. After his death, Egypt had a period of decadence, caused mainly to the concentration of the power in the Ammone priests’ hands, in the head of the army (who always grasped more privileges) and in important bureaucrats. |
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