New Kingdom Egypt from Amenhotep III to the Death of Ramesses II

New Kingdom Egypt from Amenhotep III to the Death of Ramesses II is one of the Historical Periods options in Section IV (25 marks). You write one extended response (one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words. Study the period through the archaeological and written evidence, organised around:

• Historical context: Egypt and the Near East around 1390 BC; the international system of the ‘great kings’.
• The nature of power and authority: the pharaoh, kingship and religion; royal women; the army and officials; the change of dynasty.
• Significant developments: the reign of Amenhotep III; Akhenaten and Amarna; the restoration under Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb; Ramesses I and Seti I; Ramesses II.
• Foreign relations: diplomacy, Mitanni and the Hittites, Kadesh and the treaty, Nubia and Libya.
• Evidence and interpretations: the Amarna letters, royal inscriptions, temples and tombs, Hittite texts and modern interpretations.

Dates follow a common chronology and are approximate (BC).

• Peace and wealth: only one recorded campaign (Nubia, year 5); gold from Nubia.
• Diplomacy: letters with Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria, Arzawa, Alashiya and Hatti in Akkadian (the Amarna letters); gift exchange — ‘gold as plentiful as dust’ (Tushratta); marriages to foreign princesses (Gilukhepa with 317 women, year 10; Tadukhepa); Egypt refused to send its own princesses abroad.
• Tiye: non-royal (daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu), highly prominent; temple at Sedeinga; corresponded with foreign kings.
• Building: Luxor temple; Karnak (Third Pylon); mortuary temple with the Colossi of Memnon; Malkata palace and harbour; Soleb temple in Nubia where he was worshipped.
• Kingship: sed festivals (years 30, 34, 37); growing emphasis on the king's divinity and on the sun disk (the Aten already appears).
• Commemorative scarabs announced royal news (marriage to Tiye, lion hunts, Gilukhepa).

• Akhenaten: worship of the Aten as the sole focus of the state cult; the king and royal family as the only intermediaries; new art style; Akhetaten founded about year 5; Amun's name and images attacked. (See the Akhenaten option for detail.)
• Foreign affairs: the Amarna letters show vassals such as Rib-Hadda of Byblos asking for help and Aziru of Amurru turning to the Hittites; Suppiluliuma I of Hatti destroys Mitanni's power.
• Tutankhamun's Restoration Stela: temples ‘from Elephantine to the Delta’ ruined, the gods had ‘turned their backs’, armies in Djahy failed. The king changed his name from Tutankhaten; traditional cults restored.
• The Zannanza affair: a Hittite text says an Egyptian queen (probably Ankhesenamun — debated) asked for a Hittite prince to marry; Prince Zannanza died on the way, and war followed.
• Horemheb's Edict: punishes abuses by soldiers and officials (e.g. nose cut off and exile to Sile); appoints judges; presents the king as restorer of maat. Amarna kings later omitted from king lists.

• A new dynasty of military, non-royal origin (from the Delta, devoted to Seth as well as Amun).
• Seti I: campaigns (Beth Shean stelae; Kadesh and Amurru taken, then lost; Libyans) shown at Karnak; the Great Hypostyle Hall; the temple at Abydos with its king list omitting Hatshepsut and the Amarna kings; gold-mining expeditions; preparing Ramesses as heir.

War and peace

• Kadesh (about 1274): misled by Hittite spies, Ramesses was ambushed by Muwatalli II's chariots; he rallied his troops and reinforcements arrived. Stalemate: Kadesh and Amurru stayed Hittite. The ‘Poem’ and ‘Bulletin’ on temple walls present a personal triumph.
• Later campaigns in Syria and Moab; forts against the Libyans in the western Delta (e.g. Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham); Sherden raiders defeated.
• The treaty (about 1259) with Hattusili III: Egyptian copies at Karnak and the Ramesseum; an Akkadian version from Hattusa; mutual defence, return of fugitives, support for each king's heir. Each side says the other asked for peace.
• Marriage to a Hittite princess (about 1245); peace lasted for the rest of the reign.

Building and kingship

• Abu Simbel (Great and Small Temples, the latter for Nefertari and Hathor); the Ramesseum; completion of the Hypostyle Hall; Luxor court and pylon; Pi-Ramesses in the Delta.
• Reinscribed many earlier monuments with his own name.
• Deified in his own lifetime, especially in Nubia; many sed festivals from year 30.
• Queens Nefertari (tomb QV66) and Isetnofret; many children; succeeded by his thirteenth son Merenptah.

• Amarna letters: about 380 tablets found from 1887; diplomacy with great kings and vassals.
• Royal inscriptions (Restoration Stela, Edict of Horemheb, Kadesh texts): propaganda that must be compared with other evidence.
• Hittite texts (the Deeds of Suppiluliuma, Mursili II's plague prayers, the treaty tablets) give the other side.
• Modern views (credited if used): debates over Akhenaten's foreign policy, the identity of the queen in the Zannanza affair, the length of Horemheb's reign, and how ‘great’ Ramesses II really was (e.g. K. A. Kitchen's admiring biography, Pharaoh Triumphant, 1982, compared with more critical modern views).

1. Unpack the question: the command verb and the focus (a ruler, foreign relations, the restoration, kingship).
2. Thesis: a clear judgement at the start.
3. Paragraphs by argument, with dated evidence from several reigns where relevant.
4. Sources: compare Egyptian propaganda with Hittite or diplomatic evidence.
5. Conclusion: answer the question.

• Treating the Kadesh inscriptions as an accurate account of an Egyptian victory.
• Confusing the Amarna letters (diplomatic tablets) with religious texts such as the Hymn to the Aten.
• Forgetting the period between Akhenaten and Ramesses II (Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, Seti I).
• Calling the treaty ‘the first treaty in history’.
• Going beyond the death of Ramesses II (Merenptah, the Sea Peoples).

• Anchor dates: about 1390, 1352, 1336, 1323, 1295, 1279, 1274, 1259, 1213.
• Use terms accurately: great king, vassal, brotherhood, diplomatic marriage, maat, sed festival, Restoration Stela, Edict, Poem and Bulletin.
• For essays on Ramesses II, separate his image from his achievements.

• Akhenaten (Personalities): the Amarna period in depth.
• New Kingdom Egypt society during the Ramesside period (Ancient Societies): Deir el-Medina and society in the same era.
• New Kingdom Egypt to the death of Thutmose IV: the earlier empire.