The Ahmosian FamilyAmenhotep IV would mark out his territory in the
history of the period as if he knew precisely what
he had to do to establish a singular personality in
the impressive lineage of Ahmose, Amenhotep I,
Amenhotep III, Queen Tiye, Tuthmoses I,
Tuthmoses II, Hatshepsut (Maat Ka Ra), and
Tuthmoses III. Already by the time of his acces-
sion to the throne, he would be in the company of
men and women who were larger than life. They
had been the sponsors of God Amen, and their
victories had been the victories of Amen. The
Ahmosian family of the 18th dynasty was every
bit the family of Amen as the Windsors are the
family of the Christian God or the Saudis are the
family of Allah.
Ahmose the Liberator had opened a new era in
the Nile Valley when, in 1560 BC, he expelled the
Hekar Khasut, usually called Hyksos, from all
positions of power and reestablished an indige-
nous Egyptian dynasty over the entire country.
Ahmose and his successors created at Waset,
called Thebes by the Greeks, one of the greatest
cities in antiquity. Here the shrine to Amen, in the
holy of holies, erected by Senursert I (1971–1925
BC) and called Ipet sut, most select of places,
stood as the centerpiece of a spiritual and archi-
tectural revival coinciding with the liberation of
the land. To the south was the shrine of Ipet-rs’it,
the southern select place, also dedicated to Amen.
Across the Nile River to the west was the massive
mortuary temple of Mentuhotep I (2061–2011
BC) adjacent to the spot where Hatshepsut’s
temple would later be built. To the north lay the
tombs of the Antefs, ancestors of Mentuhotep.
Waset, the city, took its place alongside the city,
Men-nefer, called Memphis by the Greeks, and the
city ofOn, named by the Greeks Heliopolis, as
one of the ruling cities of Egypt.
The Wasetian kings went about their business
increasing the importance of their native city.
Today, the evidence remains quite clear of the
grandeur of the ancient city as more than one
third of all of the existing major monuments from
the antiquity are within 40 miles of the city, now
called Luxor.
But the glory of the 18th dynasty was not
achieved without effort. The modeling of the 18th
dynasty was in many ways the work of Tuthmoses I
(1525–1514 BC), Tuthmoses III (1504–1451 BC),
Hatshepsut (1502–1483 BC), and Amenhotep II.
The first of these personalities conceived an empire,
the second made the conquest to create the empire,
the third established imperial diplomacy, and the
fourth nearly lost the empire. But even so,
Amenhotep II (1453–1426 BC) was perhaps the
first king in African history born with an empire
ready for his use. He exhibited a flamboyantly impe-
rialistic attitude toward his neighbors, often ridicul-
ing those he defeated in battle.Amenhotep II
Comparing himself to his father Tuthmoses III,
perhaps the greatest conquering leader of the
ancient world, Amenhotep II claimed to have
“entered his northern garden” and took his bow
and shot four targets of Asiatic copper while rid-
ing in his chariot. The text says that he appeared
on his chariot like Montu in his power. He took
his bow, grabbed a fistful of arrows, and drove
north, shooting at each one of the targets like the
bold Montu in his regalia. He hit every one of the
targets. Supposedly, “It was a deed never seen
before.” In reality, his father Tuthmoses III is said
to have done deeds so marvelous and numerous
that they are too many to be mentioned.
According to a text, Tuthmoses III shot seven lions
in the space of a moment and bagged 12 wild bulls
in 1 hour. That his son would compare himself
with his father demonstrates the level of
Amenhotep II’s confidence in his own reign.
Although Men-nefer remained a place where
the kings held residence, by the third year of his
reign, Amenhotep II had already begun to turn his
face toward permanently establishing Waset as the
seat of his power. This was the source of the best
soldiers in the Egyptian army, a convenient place
for recruiting Nubian archers, the famed Ta-Seti
fighters. Furthermore, Waset was deeper into
Egypt than Men-nefer and could more easily be
protected from outsiders.Amenhotep III
By the time of Amenhotep III, the legacy of his
conquering ancestors had spread throughout the
known world. He created a court proverbial for
its elegance and luxury. Amenhotep III was truly
the Dazzling Sun Disk, the Sun-King, as he calledAkhenaten 29