New Kingdom Egypt Society to the Death of Amenhotep III

New Kingdom Egypt society to the death of Amenhotep III is one of the Ancient Societies options in Section II (25 marks). You answer one question on your option, with three or four parts; one part is worth 10–15 marks and the others are short answers, often based on a source. The syllabus asks you to study the society through its archaeological and written evidence:

• Historical and geographical context: the Nile, its resources and the sites (Thebes, Karnak and Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, Deir el-Medina, Malkata, Memphis).
• Social structure and political organisation: the pharaoh's roles and image, maat, the vizier and the bureaucracy, the army, priests, scribes, artisans and farmers, the role and status of women.
• The economy: the inundation and agriculture, taxation and exchange, the effects of empire (tribute and trade), crafts and technology.
• Religion, death and burial: the gods (especially Amun-Ra), festivals, myths, temples, tombs and funerary customs.
• Cultural and everyday life: art and architecture, writing and literature, leisure, health and family life.

Dates are BC and approximate; Egyptologists' dates differ by a decade or two. The period runs from the expulsion of the Hyksos by Ahmose (about 1550) to the death of Amenhotep III (about 1352), almost all of the 18th Dynasty.

The setting

Egypt was the narrow, fertile valley of the Nile and the wide Delta in the north, surrounded by desert. Egyptians called the black soil of the valley Kemet, the ‘black land’, and the desert Deshret, the ‘red land’. Each year the inundation (the annual flood, roughly July to October) covered the fields with fresh silt. The river was also Egypt's highway, linking Upper Egypt (the south) and Lower Egypt (the north). Deserts gave stone, gold and protection; Nubia to the south had gold, ivory and ebony; the Levant (Syria–Palestine) to the north-east had timber, metals and trade routes.

The historical frame

• Ahmose completed the war against the Hyksos, foreign rulers in the Delta, and founded the 18th Dynasty.
• Thutmose I campaigned as far as the Euphrates and into Nubia.
• Hatshepsut ruled as king (about 1473–1458), sent an expedition to Punt and built her temple at Deir el-Bahri.
• Thutmose III won at Megiddo (about 1457) and campaigned in the Levant some seventeen times.
• Amenhotep III (about 1390–1352) ruled a rich, largely peaceful empire, run through diplomacy and gifts.

Key sites

• Karnak: the vast temple of Amun-Ra at Thebes, enlarged by almost every king.
• Luxor temple: linked to Karnak by a processional way (the sphinx avenue visible today is later); destination of the Opet Festival; largely rebuilt by Amenhotep III.
• The west bank at Thebes: the Valley of the Kings, mortuary temples (Deir el-Bahri; Amenhotep III's temple, fronted by the Colossi of Memnon), nobles' tombs (Rekhmire, Ramose, Nakht, Menna), the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina and Amenhotep III's palace at Malkata.

The pharaoh

The king stood at the top of society, between the gods and humanity. He was the son of Amun-Ra and the living Horus, and his duty was to uphold maat (truth, justice and cosmic order) against isfet (chaos). His roles were:

• Religious: in theory high priest of every god; made offerings and built temples.
• Military: led the army in person and defeated Egypt's enemies.
• Political and judicial: appointed officials, issued decrees, and was the source of justice.

Royal images were idealised and repeated: smiting enemies, offering to gods, hunting. Hatshepsut's reliefs of her divine birth show how a ruler could use religion to justify unusual power.

Officials and the elite

• Viziers: usually two (for the north and the south), heads of the administration and the courts. The ‘Duties of the Vizier’, best preserved in Rekhmire's tomb, show them hearing petitions and supervising taxes, land records and works.
• Viceroy of Kush (‘King's Son of Kush’): governed Nubia and its gold.
• High priest of Amun and other priests: ran rich temple estates.
• Army officers: a career that grew in importance with the empire; Ahmose son of Ebana's autobiography lists his rewards.
• Scribes: literate officials who kept records; writing was the way up in society.

Below the elite

Artisans (painters, sculptors, metal-workers), most of them attached to temples or the state; the farmers who made up most of the population and paid taxes in grain and labour; servants; and prisoners of war, who worked on temple estates.

Women

Egyptian women could own, inherit and sell property, make contracts and go to court. Most were ‘mistress of the house’; some were chantresses in temples. Royal women could be very powerful: Ahmose-Nefertari, God's Wife of Amun; Hatshepsut, who ruled as king; Tiye, Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III, named on his commemorative scarabs and addressed directly by the king of Mitanni. Women rarely held office, and in tomb art they usually appear beside their husbands.

Agriculture and taxation

Farming followed three seasons: akhet (inundation), peret (growing) and shemu (harvest). The main crops were emmer wheat and barley (for bread and beer) and flax (for linen); the shaduf, a counterweighted pole for lifting water, helped irrigate gardens. Officials measured fields and assessed the harvest; tax was paid in produce and in labour (corvée).

Exchange and redistribution

There were no coins. Goods were bartered, with their value expressed in units such as the copper deben. The state and the temples collected, stored and redistributed grain, paying their workers in rations.

The effects of empire

Conquest brought booty, tribute and captives; Nubia supplied gold; and Levantine cities paid tribute. Much of the wealth went to the temples, especially Amun at Karnak, which became a major landowner. By the time of Amenhotep III, Egypt's gold made it a power in diplomacy: the Amarna Letters (clay tablets in Akkadian, the diplomatic language) include letters from the kings of Mitanni and Babylon asking him for gold.

Crafts and technology

Fine work in stone, gold, faience and glass (glass-making developed in this period); chariots and the composite bow, adopted from western Asia; boats for river transport and expeditions such as Hatshepsut's to Punt.

Gods and temples

The great state god was Amun-Ra of Thebes, with his consort Mut and son Khonsu. Other gods included Osiris (the dead and rebirth), Isis, Horus, Hathor, Ptah of Memphis and Ra of Heliopolis. Temples were the houses of the gods, served by priests who washed, clothed and fed the cult statue daily. Ordinary people worshipped at household shrines and at festivals.

Festivals

• Opet: Amun's barque travelled from Karnak to Luxor, renewing the king's divine power.
• Beautiful Festival of the Valley: Amun crossed to the west bank to visit the mortuary temples and the tombs; families feasted at the tombs of their dead.

Death and burial

Egyptians believed the dead could live on if the body was preserved, the name remembered and offerings made. Mummification, coffins, shabtis (figurines to work for the dead) and the Book of the Dead (spells to pass the judgement before Osiris, where the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat) helped the deceased. Kings were buried in rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings, separate from their mortuary temples, which faced the river. Nobles' tombs had painted chapels showing daily life, banquets and offerings.

Art and architecture

Art followed conventions: figures in composite view (head and legs in profile, shoulders frontal), scale showing importance, and calm idealised faces. The tomb paintings of Nebamun, Nakht, Menna and Rekhmire show banquets, hunting in the marshes, farming and crafts. Under Amenhotep III art became more refined and his portraits more youthful. Temples grew in scale, with pylons, columned halls and obelisks.

Writing and literature

Hieroglyphs were used on monuments, hieratic (a cursive script) for daily documents. Texts include royal annals, tomb autobiographies, the Book of the Dead, hymns to Amun and teaching texts copied in scribal schools.

Everyday life and leisure

Houses were mudbrick; families ate bread, beer, vegetables and fish, with meat for the wealthy. Leisure included the board game senet, music, dancing, hunting and fishing. Medical papyri show doctors treating wounds and illnesses with a mix of practical remedies and spells. The village of Deir el-Medina, founded early in the dynasty, gives much of our evidence for non-royal life.

• Mixing up the dynasties: Hatshepsut, Thutmose III and Amenhotep III are 18th Dynasty; Ramesses II is 19th (a different option).
• Treating royal inscriptions as fact. Annals, scarabs and battle reliefs are propaganda; say so and still use them.
• Confusing Opet (Karnak to Luxor) with the Beautiful Festival of the Valley (to the west bank).
• Saying the pharaoh owned everything and everyone else was a slave. Most people were free farmers who paid taxes.
• Writing about Akhenaten. His reign comes after this option ends.

• Short answers (3–5 marks) reward precise, named evidence: a site, a tomb, a text, a king.
• For a source, use what it says, then add own knowledge, and comment on its origin and purpose when the question asks about usefulness or reliability.
• In the 10–15 mark answer, begin with a clear judgement and keep returning to the question's key words. ‘Explain’ needs cause and effect; ‘assess’ needs a weighed judgement.
• Historians' views are credited if used accurately, but they are not required.

• Personalities in their Times — Hatshepsut and Akhenaten: both build on this society.
• ANC-RAM (Ramesside period): compare how kingship, the economy and religion changed under the 19th and 20th Dynasties.