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
7 - The Spoils of War
(Reign of Amenhotep III, Years 6–9, ca. 1386–1383 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
Hundred-Gated Thebes: “The Like Had Never Been Made”
Thanks to the countless captives and heaps of gold Amenhotep III hauled back from his Nubian campaign, Karnak Temple received a grand new gateway facing the Nile (Figures 14 and 15). Part of the text carved on a stela from his mortuary temple acknowledges the source of the structure's construction funds: “His Majesty brought the gold for it out of the country of Karoy on the first campaign of victory of massacring the wretched Kush.” This new gateway, called a “pylon” in Egyptian architecture, has two wide wings with broad bases and walls slanting inward to narrower tops. Between them, an enormous bivalve, richly decorated cedar door once swung on bronze hinges pinned into granite sockets.
Amenhotep himself described the pylon on a stela in his memorial temple and now in the Cairo museum:
The king made a monument for Amun, making for him a very great gateway before Amun-Re lord of the thrones of the two lands, sheathed entirely in gold, a divine image according to respect, filled with turquoise [one-half ton], sheathed in gold and numerous precious stones [two-thirds ton of jasper]. The like had never been made.…Its pavement was made with pure silver, its front portal inset with stelae of lapis lazuli, one on each side. Its twin towers approach heaven, like the four supports of the sky. Its flagpoles shine skyward sheathed in electrum.
Drill holes for securing the silver flooring sheets are still visible on the passageway. Its original finished height is unknown since its top has obviously broken away, but it must have been huge because it was said to have had eight flagpoles, each 130 feet tall, their pennants waving only slightly above the walls, according to near-contemporary representations.
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- Amenhotep IIIEgypt's Radiant Pharaoh, pp. 82 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012