Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PROLOGUE The Birthplace of Amenhotep III
- 1 An Heir Unapparent
- 2 The Making of an Heir Apparent
- 3 Thutmose IV and King's Son Amenhotep in Nubia
- 4 Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!
- 5 Establishing Divine Might and Divine Right
- 6 “The First Campaign of Victory”: Amenhotep III's River War
- 7 The Spoils of War
- 8 The King's First Two Wives
- 9 The Lost Years
- 10 Bringing Heaven to Earth to See the Living Gods: Building the King's Religious Monuments at Thebes
- 11 Per Hai (“The House of Rejoicing”) at Malkata
- 12 Beneath The Divine Falcon's Wings a New World Takes Shape
- 13 The First Jubilee Festival (Heb-Sed)
- 14 Raising Up Old Officials and Buying a New Bride
- 15 International Trade in Princesses and Other Goods
- 16 A Mixed Forecast: Dazzling Sun and Dark Clouds
- 17 The Last Hurrah
- 18 Whose Heaven Is It? The Reign of Akhenaten and Beyond
- EPILOGUE One God Left Standing
- Notes and References
- Glossary of Ancient Personal Names
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Making of an Heir Apparent
(Reign of Thutmose IV, Years 1–5, ca. 1400–1396 B.C.)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PROLOGUE The Birthplace of Amenhotep III
- 1 An Heir Unapparent
- 2 The Making of an Heir Apparent
- 3 Thutmose IV and King's Son Amenhotep in Nubia
- 4 Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!
- 5 Establishing Divine Might and Divine Right
- 6 “The First Campaign of Victory”: Amenhotep III's River War
- 7 The Spoils of War
- 8 The King's First Two Wives
- 9 The Lost Years
- 10 Bringing Heaven to Earth to See the Living Gods: Building the King's Religious Monuments at Thebes
- 11 Per Hai (“The House of Rejoicing”) at Malkata
- 12 Beneath The Divine Falcon's Wings a New World Takes Shape
- 13 The First Jubilee Festival (Heb-Sed)
- 14 Raising Up Old Officials and Buying a New Bride
- 15 International Trade in Princesses and Other Goods
- 16 A Mixed Forecast: Dazzling Sun and Dark Clouds
- 17 The Last Hurrah
- 18 Whose Heaven Is It? The Reign of Akhenaten and Beyond
- EPILOGUE One God Left Standing
- Notes and References
- Glossary of Ancient Personal Names
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Promise of the Great Sphinx
Around 1400 B.C., Prince Amenhotep's father became King Thutmose IV. How the four princes standing between him and the throne disappeared is not clear, but many Egyptologists suspect the worst: murder by Thutmose's own hand. The evidence is circumstantial but compelling. Stelae set up by the elder brothers at the temple of Giza's Great Sphinx in the days when they had royal aspirations of their own were found hammered into pieces in a context suggesting Thutmose's handiwork. The violence and simultaneity imply brutal premeditation.
The new king had the perfect alibi, however: the Sphinx itself. This was the huge, pharaoh-headed lion carved from a knoll of Giza's living rock. It guarded the desert edge leading up to the grand pyramid of Dynasty 4's Khaefra. The Sphinx was an avatar of Pharaoh, and by Dynasty 18, it was considered a god in its own right: Hor-em-akhet, “Horus on His Horizon,” or Harmakhis, as he was eventually known to the Greeks. Thutmose IV recorded his version of events in hieroglyphs on a large stone plinth – today called the Dream Stela – dated it Year 1, month 3 of Inundation, day 19 (around mid-September); and installed it between the lion's paws.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Amenhotep IIIEgypt's Radiant Pharaoh, pp. 32 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012