Amenhotep II

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Persondata
NAME	Amenhotep II
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Amenophis II
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Pharaoh of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH	{{{Birth}}}
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ancient Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	{{{Death}}}
PLACE OF DEATH	Ancient Egypt

Preceded by: Thutmose III	Pharaoh of Egypt 18th Dynasty	Succeeded by: Thutmose IV
Amenhotep II
Amenophis II
A large statue head of Amenhotep II ondisplay at the Brooklyn Museum.
Reign	1427 BC to 1401 BC or 1427–1397 BC
Praenomen	Aakheperure Great are the Manifestations of Re[1]
Nomen	Amenhotep Heka Iunu Amun is Satisfied, Ruler of Heliopolis
Horus name	Ka Nakht Wer Pekhty Strong Bull, Great of Power
Nebty name	User Fau Sekha Em Wast Powerful of Splendour, Appearing in Thebes
Golden Horus	Ity Sekhemef em Tau Neb Who seizes by his strength in all lands
Consort(s)	Tiaa
Issues	Thutmose IV, Amenhotep, Webensenu Amenemopet, Nedjem, Amenemhat? Khaemwaset? Aakheperure? Iaret?
Father	Thutmose III
Mother	Merytre-Hatshepsut
Died	1401 BC or 1397 BC
Burial	KV35

Amenhotep II (sometimes read as Amenophis II and meaning Amun is Satisfied) was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria, however he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cesassion of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1400 BC.

Contents 1 Family and early life 2 Dates and length of reign 3 Foreign Affairs 4 Construction projects 4.1 Reliefs and Statues 4.2 Tomb 5 Later life 6 See also 7 Footnotes 8 References

[edit] Family and early life

Amenhotep II was the son of Thutmose III and a minor wife, Hatshepsut-Meryetre.He was not the firstborn, however his elder brother preceeded his father in death and Amenhotep was left as the heir apparent.^[2] He was born and raised in Memphis in the north, instead of in Thebes, the traditional capital.^[3] While a prince, he oversaw deliveries of wood sent to the dockyard of Peru-nūfe in Memphis, and was made the Setem, the high priest over Lower Egypt.^[3] Amenhotep has left several inscriptions touting his athletic skills while he was a leader of the army before his crowning. He claims to have been able to shoot an arrow through a copper target one palm thick, and that he was able to row his ship faster than further than two hundred members of the navy could row theirs.^[3] Accordingly some skepticism concerning the truth of his claims has been expressed among Egyptologists.^[3]

Amenhotep acceded to the throne on the first day of the fourth month of Akhet, but his father died on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret.^[4] If an Egyptian crown prince was proclaimed king but did not take the throne on the day after his father's death, it meant that he served as the junior coregent during his father's reign. A coregency is believed to have lasted for two Years and four Months between Thutmose III and Amenhotep II.^[5]

After he took the throne, Amenhotep married a woman of uncertain parentage named Tiaa.^[6] As many as ten sons and one daughter have been attributed to him. Amenhotep's most important son was Thutmose IV, who suceeded him, however there is signficant evidence for him having many more children. Princes Amenhotep, Webensenu, Amenemopet, and Nedjem are all clearly attested, and Amenemhat, Khaemwaset, and Aakheperure as well as a daughter, Iaret, are also possible children.

Papyrus B.M. 10056, which dates to sometime after Amenhotep II's tenth year, refers to a king's son and setem-priest Amenhotep.^[7] This Amenhotep might also be attested in a stele from Amenhotep II's temple at Giza,^[8] however the stele's name has been defaced so that positive identification is impossible.^[9] Stele B may belong to another son, Webensenu.^[9] Webensenu's name is otherwise attested on a statue of Amenhotep's chief archetect, Minmose, and his canopic jars and a funerary statue have been found in Amenhotep II's tomb.^[10] Another Giza stele, stele C, records the name of a Prince Amenemopet, whose name is otherwise unattested.^[9] The same statue with the name Webensenu on it is also inscribed with the name of prince Nedjem, who is otherwise unattested.^[10]

There are other references to king's sons from this period who may or may not be sons of Amenhotep II. Two graffitti from Sahel mention a king's son and stablemaster named Khaemwaset, but specifically which king is his father is unknown.^[9] A figure with the name Amenemhet is recorded behind a prince Amenhotep in Theban tomb 64, and assuming this Amenhotep is indeed the king's son from B.M. 10056, Amenemhat would also be Amenhotep II's son.^[11] Also, there is a prince Aakheperure mentioned in a Konosso graffito alongside a prince Amenhotep, and once again assuming this Amenhotep to be the same as the one in B.M. 10056, Aakheperure would also be Amenhotep II's son. However, in both these cases the figure identified as Amenhotep has been identifed by some as possible references to the later King Amenhotep III, which would make these two princes sons Thutmose IV.^[7] In addition to sons, Amenhotep II may have had a daughter named Iaret, but she could have also been the daughter of Thutmose IV.^[9]

Two more sons had been attributed to Amenhotep II in the past, however they have since been proven to be of other parentage. Gauthier catalogued one Usersatet, the "King's son of Kush," as a son of Amenhotep II, as well as one Re, however both are now known to be unrelated to the royal family.^[12]

[edit] Dates and length of reign

Amenhotep's coronation can be dated without much difficulty because of a number of lunar dates in the reign of his father, Thutmose III. These sightings limit the date of Thutmose's accession to either 1504 or 1479 BC.^[13] Thutmose died after 54 years of reign,^[14] at which time Amenhotep would have acceded to the throne. Amenhotep's short coregency with his father would then move his acession two years and four months eariler,^[5] dating his acession to either 1427 BC in the low chronology,^[15] or in 1454 BC in the high chronology. The length of his reign is indicated by a wine jar inscribed with the king's prenomen found in Amenhotep II's funerary temple at Thebes; it is dated to this king's highest known date--his Year 26--and lists the name of the pharaoh's vintner, Panehsy.^[16] Mortuary temples were usually not stocked until the king was near death, Amenhotep could not have lived much later beyond his 26th year.^[17] There are alternate theories which attempt to give him up to 35 years, which is the absolute maximum length he could have reigned. In this chronology, he reigned from 1454 to 1419.^[5] However, there are problems facing these theories which they have yet to solve.^[18] In particular, this would mean Amenhotep died when he was 52, but an X-ray analysis of his mummy has shown him to have been about 40 when he died.^[19] Accordingly, Amenhotep II is usually given a reign of 26 years and said to have reigned from 1427 to 1400 BC.^[15]

[edit] Foreign Affairs

Amenhotep's first campaign took place in his third regnal year.^[20] The king was well known for his physical prowess and is said to have singlehandedly killed 7 rebel Princes at Kadesh which successfully terminated his first Syrian campaign on a victorious note.^[21] After the campaign, the king ordered the bodies of the seven princes to be hung upside down on the prow of his ship.^[22] Upon reaching Thebes all but one of the princes were mounted on the city walls.^[23] The other was taken to the often rebellious territory of Nubia and hung on the city wall of Napata, as an example of the consequence of rising against Pharaoh and to demoralise any Nubian opponents of Egyptian authority there.^[24] Amenhotep called this campaign his first in a Stele from Amada, however he also called his second campaign his first, causing some confusion.^[20] The most common solution for this, although not universally accepted, is that his truly first campaign was fought before the death of his father and thus before he was the sole king of Egypt, and he counted his second campaign as his first because it was the first that was his and his alone.^[25] Amenhotep's first campaign so succesful that Amenhotep is recorded to have captured a vast amount of warbooty "consisting of 6,800 deben of gold and 500,000 deben of copper (about 1,643 and 120,833 pounds respectively), as well as 550 mariannu captives, 210 horses and 300 chariots."^[26]

In April of his seventh year, Amenhotep was faced with a major rebellion in Syria by the vassal states of Naharin and dispatched his Army to the Levant to suppress it. This rebellion was likely instigated by Egypt's chief Near Eastern rival, Mitanni.^[27] His stele of victory carved after this campaign records no major battles, which has been read a number of ways. It may be that this campaign was more like one of the tours of Syria which his father had fought, and he only engaged minor garrisons in battle and forced cities to swear allegance to him – oaths immediatly broken after his departure.^[28] Alternatly, it appears that the two weeks when Amenhotep would have been closest to Mitanni are omitted from the stele, thus it is possible that his army was in fact defeated on this campaign.^[29] Amenhotep's last campaign took place in his ninth year, however it apparently did not proceed further north than the Sea of Galilee.^[30] According to the list of plunder from this campaign, Amenhotep took 101,128 slaves, which is an obviously exaggerated figure.^[31] Some of these slaves may have been recounted from the year 7 campaign, such as 15,070 citizens of Nukhash, since Amenhotep did not campaign anywhere near Nukhash on his year 9 campaign.^[32] However, even accounting for this recounting, the numbers are still too high to be realistic, and are probably just exaggerated.^[33]

After Amenhotep's ninth campaign, Egyptian and Mitannian armies never fought again, and the two kingdoms seem to have reached some sort of peace. Amenhotep records that the kings of Babylon, the Hittites, and Mitanni came to make peace and pay tribute to him after his ninth year, although this may be mere propoganda.^[34] However, a second passage appears on the walls of Karnak, saying that the princes of Mitanni came to seek peace with Amenhotep, and this cannot be so easily explained away.^[34] The rising power of the Hittites eventually persuaded Mitanni to seek an ally, and there was definitely a treaty of some sort between Egypt and Mitanni by the time of Amenhotep's successor, but it may be that it was enacted after Amenhotep's campaigns, to try to prevent any more of campaigns of mass deportations.^[34] Whenever formal peace was in fact enacted, an informal peace was maintained between Amenhotep and the king of Mitanni. Thereafter, Amenhotep concentrated on domestic matters, with one possible exception. A shrine of Amenhotep's Nubian viceroy shows Amenhotep recieving tribute after a Nubian campaign, but it is not possible to date when this happened.^[35]

[edit] Construction projects

Since Thutmose III had devoted so much energy to expanding Karnak, Amenhotep's building projects were largely focused on enlarging smaller temples all over Egypt. In the Delta, his father's Overseer of Works, Minmose, is attested from an inscription at Tura as overseeing construction of more temples.^[3] He also built a temple to Horemakhet near the Great Sphinx at Giza.^{[citation needed]} In upper Egypt, small shrines are attested at Medamud, el-Tod, and Armant. Karnak, despite not recieving the attention given it by his father, was also not totally neglected.^[36] He commissioned a column to stand in the courtyard between the fourth and fifth pylons commemorating the the reception of tribute from Mitanni.^{[citation needed]} In Nubia, Amenhotep built at Qasr Ibrim and Semna, and ordered the decoration of the Temple at Kalabsha.^[37] However, his most famous Nubian temple was at Amada.^[38] Thutmose III had begun constructing a temple which was technically dedicated to Horus there, although the presence of Re-Harakhti and Amun-Re is easily observed.^[39] Amenhotep completed it and put in it the record of his year 3 campaign on a stele, which was until 1942 the source of most information about Amenhotep's wars.^[40]

[edit] Reliefs and Statues

Amenhotep II, like kings before him, placed statues of himself both in front of and inside his temples.^{[citation needed]} One shows him as an offering king in kneeling position with an altar (Cairo CG 42073). His statuary can be grouped on the basis of physiognomy and iconography. One can see a development from the statuary of Hatshepsut, Thutmoses III, Amenhotep II, Thutmoses IV up to Amenhotep III. So the faces of the statues are not so much portraiture as an idealized face expressing artistic tradition and the contemporary ideal of beauty.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Tomb

Amenhotep's mummy was discovered in March 1898 by Victor Loret in his KV35 tomb in the Valley of the Kings within his original sarcophagus. He had a mortuary temple constructed at the edge of the cultivation in the Theban Necropolis, close to where the Ramesseum was later built, but it was destroyed in ancient times. Amenhotep II's KV35 tomb also proved to contain a mummy cache containing several New Kingdom Pharaohs including Thutmose IV, Seti II, Ramesses III, Ramesses IV and Ramesses VI. They had been re-buried in Amenhotep II's tomb by the 21st Dynasty High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem II during Siamun's reign, to protect them from tomb robbers. The most detailed and balanced discussion on the chronology, events and impact of Amenhotep II's reign was published by Peter Der Manuelian, in a 1987 book on this king.

[edit] Later life

Amenhotep did not record the names of his queens; some Egyptologists theorise that he felt that women had become too powerful under titles such as God's Wife of Amun. They point to the fact that he participated in his father's removal of Hatshepsut's name from her monuments and the destruction of her image.

[edit] See also

• History of Ancient Egypt
• Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree
• Digital Egypt for Universities

• Description, plans & pictures of all tombs in the Valley of the Kings, including extensive information on Tomb KV35 of Amenhotep II

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Clayton, Peter. Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1994. p.112
2. ^ Lipińska, Jadwiga. "Thutmose III," p.403. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Ed. Donald Redford. Vol. 3, pp.401-403. Oxford University Press, 2001.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. p. 198. Oxford University Press, 1964.
4. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.21. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
5. ^ ^{a b c} Charles C. Van Siclen. "Amenhotep II," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Ed. Donald Redford. Vol. 1, p.71. Oxford University Press, 2001.
6. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.171. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
7. ^ ^{a b} Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.174. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
8. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.175. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
9. ^ ^{a b c d e} Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.176. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
10. ^ ^{a b} Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.177. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
11. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.178. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
12. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.181. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
13. ^ Edward F. Wente, Thutmose III's Accession and the Beginning of the New Kingdom, p.267. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, The University of Chicago Press, 1975.
14. ^ Breasted, James Henry. Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. II p. 234. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1906.
15. ^ ^{a b} Shaw, Ian; and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. p.28. The British Museum Press, 1995.
16. ^ Der Manuelian, op. cit., pp.42-43
17. ^ Redford, JNES Chronology, p.119
18. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.43. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
19. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.44. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
20. ^ ^{a b} Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. p. 200. Oxford University Press, 1964.
21. ^ Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, p.218
22. ^ Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.218. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
23. ^ Grimal, op. cit., p.218
24. ^ Grimal, op. cit., p.218
25. ^ Gardiner, op. cit., p.200
26. ^ Amenhotep II by J. Dunn
27. ^ Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. p. 162. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1992.
28. ^ Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. p. 163. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1992.
29. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.62. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
30. ^ Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. p.202. Oxford University Press, 1964.
31. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.76. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
32. ^ Gardiner, Alan. op. cit., p. 203. Oxford University Press, 1964.
33. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.77. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
34. ^ ^{a b c} Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. p. 164. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1992.
35. ^ Peter Der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, p.92. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 26, Gerstenbeg Verlag, Hildesheim, 1987.
36. ^ Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.220. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
37. ^ Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.219. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
38. ^ Gardiner, op. cit., p. 199
39. ^ Gardiner, op. cit., p.199
40. ^ Gardiner, op. cit., p.200

[edit] References

• Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Books: 1992, pp.218-220
• Peter der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge(HÄB) Verlag: 1987
• Reisinger, Magnus, Entwicklung der ägyptischen Königsplastik in der frühen und hohen 18. Dynastie, Agnus-Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-00-015864-2

Preceded by Thutmose III

Pharaoh of Egypt Eighteenth Dynasty

Succeeded by Thutmose IV