Daniel Chapter two

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2) Amenhotep I

Ahmose’s son and successor, Amenhotep I (ruled c. 1514–1493 bce), pushed the Egyptian frontier southward to the Third Cataract, near the capital of the Karmah (Kerma) state, while also gathering tribute from his Asiatic possessions and perhaps campaigning in Syria. The emerging kingdom of Mitanni in northern Syria, which is first mentioned on a stela of one of Amenhotep’s soldiers and was also known by the name of Nahrin, may have threatened Egypt’s conquests to the north.

The New Kingdom was a time of increased devotion to the state god Amon-Re, whose cult largely benefited as Egypt was enriched by the spoils of war. Riches were turned over to the god’s treasuries, and as a sign of filial piety the king had sacred monuments constructed at Thebes. Under Amenhotep I the pyramidal form of royal tomb was abandoned in favour of a rock-cut tomb, and, except for Akhenaton, all subsequent New Kingdom rulers were buried in concealed tombs in the famous Valley of the Kings in western Thebes. Separated from the tombs, royal mortuary temples were erected at the edge of the desert. Perhaps because of this innovation, Amenhotep I later became the patron deity of the workmen who excavated and decorated the royal tombs. The location of his own tomb is unknown.

Thutmose I and Thutmose II

Lacking a surviving heir, Amenhotep I was succeeded by one of his generals, Thutmose I (ruled 1493–c. 1482 bce), who married his own full sister Ahmose. In the south Thutmose destroyed the Karmah state. He inscribed a rock as a boundary marker, later confirmed by Thutmose III, near Kanisa-Kurgus, north of the Fifth Cataract. He then executed a brilliant campaign into Syria and across the Euphrates River, where he erected a victory stela near Carchemish.

Thus, in the reign of Thutmose I, Egyptian conquests in the Middle East and Africa reached their greatest extent, but they may not yet have been firmly held. His little-known successor, Thutmose II (c. 1482–79 bce), apparently continued his policies.

Hatshepsut and Thutmose III

At Thutmose II’s death his queen and sister, Hatshepsut, had only a young daughter; but a minor wife had borne him a boy, who was apparently very young at his accession. This son, Thutmose III (ruled 1479–26 bce), later reconquered Egypt’s Asian empire and became an outstanding ruler. During his first few regnal years, Thutmose III theoretically controlled the land, but Hatshepsut governed as regent. Sometime between Thutmose III’s second and seventh regnal years, she assumed the kingship herself. According to one version of the event, the oracle of Amon proclaimed her king at Karnak, where she was crowned. A more propagandistic account, preserved in texts and reliefs of her splendid mortuary temple at Dayr al-Baḥrī, ignores the reign of Thutmose II and asserts that her father, Thutmose I, proclaimed her his successor. Upon becoming king, Hatshepsut became the dominant partner in a joint rule that lasted until her death in about 1458 bce; there are monuments dedicated by Hatshepsut that depict both kings. She had the support of various powerful personalities; the most notable among them was Senenmut, the steward and tutor of her daughter Neferure. In styling herself king, Hatshepsut adopted the royal titulary but avoided the epithet “mighty bull,” regularly employed by other kings. Although in her reliefs she was depicted as a male, pronominal references in the texts usually reflect her womanhood. Similarly, much of her statuary shows her in male form, but there are rarer examples that render her as a woman. In less formal documents she was referred to as “King’s Great Wife”—that is, “Queen”—while Thutmose III was “King.” There is thus a certain ambiguity in the treatment of Hatshepsut as king.

Her temple reliefs depict pacific enterprises, such as the transporting of obelisks for Amon’s temple and a commercial expedition to Punt; her art style looked back to Middle Kingdom ideals. Some warlike scenes are depicted, however, and she may have waged a campaign in Nubia. In one inscription she blamed the Hyksos for the supposedly poor state of the land before her rule, even though they had been expelled from the region more than a generation earlier.

During Hatshepsut’s ascendancy Egypt’s position in Asia may have deteriorated because of the expansion of Mitannian power in Syria. Shortly after her death, the prince of the Syrian city of Kadesh, stood with troops of 330 princes of a Syro-Palestinian coalition at Megiddo; such a force was more than merely defensive, and the intention may have been to advance against Egypt. The 330 must have represented all the places of any size in the region that were not subject to Egyptian rule and may be a schematic figure derived from a list of place-names. It is noteworthy that Mitanni itself was not directly involved.

 

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3) Thutmose III proceeded to Gaza with his army and then to Yehem, subjugating rebellious Palestinian towns along the way. His annals relate how, at a consultation concerning the best route over the Mount Carmel ridge, the king overruled his officers and selected a shorter but more dangerous route through the ʿArūnah Pass and then led the troops himself. The march went smoothly, and, when the Egyptians attacked at dawn, they prevailed over the enemy troops and besieged Megiddo.

Thutmose III meanwhile coordinated the landing of other army divisions on the Syro-Palestinian littoral, whence they proceeded inland, so that the strategy resembled a pincer technique. The siege ended in a treaty by which Syrian princes swore an oath of submission to the king. As was normal in ancient diplomacy and in Egyptian practice, the oath was binding only upon those who swore it, not upon future generations.

By the end of the first campaign, Egyptian domination extended northward to a line linking Byblos and Damascus. Although the prince of Kadesh remained to be vanquished, Assyria sent lapis lazuli as tribute; Asian princes surrendered their weapons, including a large number of horses and chariots. Thutmose III took only a limited number of captives. He appointed Asian princes to govern the towns and took their brothers and sons to Egypt, where they were educated at the court. Most eventually returned home to serve as loyal vassals, though some remained in Egypt at court. In order to ensure the loyalty of Asian city-states, Egypt maintained garrisons that could quell insurrection and supervise the delivery of tribute. There never was an elaborate Egyptian imperial administration in Asia.

Thutmose III conducted numerous subsequent campaigns in Asia. The submission of Kadesh was finally achieved, but Thutmose III’s ultimate aim was the defeat of Mitanni. He used the navy to transport troops to Asian coastal towns, avoiding arduous overland marches from Egypt. His great eighth campaign led him across the Euphrates; although the countryside around Carchemish was ravaged, the city was not taken, and the Mitannian prince was able to flee. The psychological gain of this campaign was perhaps greater than its military success, for Babylonia, Assyria, and the Hittites all sent tribute in recognition of Egyptian dominance. Although Thutmose III never subjugated Mitanni, he placed Egypt’s conquests on a firm footing by constant campaigning that contrasts with the forays of his predecessors. Thutmose III’s annals inscribed in the temple of Karnak are remarkably succinct and accurate, but his other texts, particularly one set in his newly founded Nubian capital of Napata, are more conventional in their rhetoric. He seems to have married three Syrian wives, which may represent diplomatic unions, marking Egypt’s entry into the realm of international affairs of the ancient Middle East.

Thutmose III initiated a truly imperial Egyptian rule in Nubia. Much of the land became estates of institutions in Egypt, while local cultural traits disappear from the archaeological record. Sons of chiefs were educated at the Egyptian court; a few returned to Nubia to serve as administrators, and some were buried there in Egyptian fashion. Nubian fortresses lost their strategic value and became administrative centres. Open towns developed around them, and, in several temples outside their walls, the cult of the divine king was established. Lower Nubia supplied gold from the desert and hard and semiprecious stones. From farther south came tropical African woods, perfumes, oil, ivory, animal skins, and ostrich plumes. There is scarcely any trace of local population from the later New Kingdom, when many more temples were built in Nubia; by the end of the 20th dynasty, the region had almost no prosperous settled population.

Under Thutmose III the wealth of empire became apparent in Egypt. Many temples were built, and vast sums were donated to the estate of Amon-Re. There are many tombs of his high officials at Thebes. The capital had been moved to Memphis, but Thebes remained the religious centre.

The campaigns of kings such as Thutmose III required a large military establishment, including a hierarchy of officers and an expensive chariotry. The king grew up with military companions whose close connection with him enabled them to participate increasingly in government. Military officers were appointed to high civil and religious positions, and by the Ramesside period the influence of such people had come to outweigh that of the traditional bureaucracy.

Amenhotep II

About two years before his death, Thutmose III appointed his 18-year-old son, Amenhotep II (ruled c. 1426–1400 bce), as coregent. Just prior to his father’s death, Amenhotep II set out on a campaign to an area in Syria near Kadesh, whose city-states were now caught up in the power struggle between Egypt and Mitanni; Amenhotep II killed seven princes and shipped their bodies back to Egypt to be suspended from the ramparts of Thebes and Napata. In his seventh and ninth years, Amenhotep II made further campaigns into Asia, where the Mitannian king pursued a more vigorous policy. The revolt of the important coastal city of Ugarit was a serious matter, because Egyptian control over Syria required bases along the littoral for inland operations and the provisioning of the army. Ugarit was pacified, and the fealty of Syrian cities, including Kadesh, was reconfirmed.

Thutmose IV

Amenhotep II’s son Thutmose IV (ruled 1400–1390 bce) sought to establish peaceful relations with the Mitannian king Artatama, who had been successful against the Hittites. Artatama gave his daughter in marriage, the prerequisite for which was probably the Egyptian cession of some Syrian city-states to the Mitannian sphere of influence.

 

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4) Foreign influences during the early 18th dynasty

During the empire period Egypt maintained commercial ties with Phoenicia, Crete, and the Aegean islands. The Egyptians portrayed goods obtained through trade as foreign tribute. In the Theban tombs there are representations of Syrians bearing Aegean products and of Aegeans carrying Syrian bowls and amphorae—indicative of close commercial interconnections between Mediterranean lands. Egyptian ships trading with Phoenicia and Syria journeyed beyond to Crete and the Aegean, a route that explains the occasional confusion of products and ethnic types in Egyptian representations. The most prized raw material from the Aegean world was silver, which was lacking in Egypt, where gold was relatively abundant.

One result of the expansion of the empire was a new appreciation of foreign culture. Not only were foreign objets d’art imported into Egypt, but Egyptian artisans imitated Aegean wares as well. Imported textiles inspired the ceiling patterns of Theban tomb chapels, and Aegean art with its spiral motifs influenced Egyptian artists. Under Amenhotep II, Asian gods are found in Egypt: Astarte and Resheph became revered for their reputed potency in warfare, and Astarte was honoured also in connection with medicine, love, and fertility. Some Asian gods were eventually identified with similar Egyptian deities; thus, Astarte was associated with Sekhmet, the goddess of pestilence, and Resheph with Mont, the war god. Just as Asians resident in Egypt were incorporated into Egyptian society and could rise to important positions, so their gods, though represented as foreign, were worshiped according to Egyptian cult practices. The breakdown of Egyptian isolationism and an increased cosmopolitanism in religion are also reflected in hymns that praise Amon-Re’s concern for the welfare of Asians.
Amenhotep III

Thutmose IV’s son Amenhotep III (ruled 1390–53 bce) acceded to the throne at about the age of 12. He soon wed Tiy, who became his queen. Earlier in the dynasty military men had served as royal tutors, but Tiy’s father was a commander of the chariotry, and through this link the royal line became even more directly influenced by the military. In his fifth year Amenhotep III claimed a victory over Cushite rebels, but the viceroy of Cush, the southern portion of Nubia, probably actually led the troops. The campaign may have led into the Butāna, west of the ʿAṭbarah River, farther south than any previous Egyptian military expedition had gone. Several temples erected under Amenhotep III in Upper Nubia between the Second and Third cataracts attest to the importance of the region.

Peaceful relations prevailed with Asia, where control of Egypt’s vassals was successfully maintained. A commemorative scarab from the king’s 10th year announced the arrival in Egypt of the Mitannian princess Gilukhepa, along with 317 women; thus, another diplomatic marriage helped maintain friendly relations between Egypt and its former foe. Another Mitannian princess was later received into Amenhotep III’s harem, and during his final illness the Hurrian goddess Ishtar of Nineveh was sent to his aid. At the expense of older bureaucratic families and the principle of inheritance of office, military men acquired high posts in the civil administration. Most influential was the aged scribe and commander of the elite troops, Amenhotep, son of Hapu, whose reputation as a sage survived into the Ptolemaic period.

Amenhotep III sponsored building on a colossal scale, especially in the Theban area. At Karnak he erected the huge third pylon, and at Luxor he dedicated a magnificent new temple to Amon. The king’s own mortuary temple in western Thebes was unrivaled in its size; little remains of it today, but its famous Colossi of Memnon testify to its proportions. He also built a huge harbour and palace complex nearby. Some colossal statues served as objects of public veneration, before which men could appeal to the king’s ka, which represented the transcendent aspect of kingship. In Karnak, statues of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, were placed to act as intermediaries between supplicants and the gods.

Among the highest-ranking officials at Thebes were men of Lower Egyptian background, who constructed large tombs with highly refined decoration. An eclectic quality is visible in the tombs, certain scenes of which were inspired by Old Kingdom reliefs. The earliest preserved important New Kingdom monuments from Memphis also date from this reign. Antiquarianism is evidenced in Amenhotep III’s celebration of his sed festivals (rituals of renewal celebrated after 30 years of rule), which were performed at his Theban palace in accordance, it was claimed, with ancient writings. Tiy, whose role was much more prominent than that of earlier queens, participated in these ceremonies.

Amenhotep III’s last years were spent in ill health. To judge from his mummy and less formal representations of him from Amarna, he was obese when, in his 38th regnal year, he died and was succeeded by his son Amenhotep IV (ruled 1353–36 bce), the most controversial of all the kings of Egypt.

 

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5) Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton)

The earliest monuments of Amenhotep IV, who in his fifth regnal year changed his name to Akhenaton (“One Useful to Aton”), are conventional in their iconography and style, but from the first he gave the sun god a didactic title naming Aton, the solar disk. This title was later written inside a pair of cartouches, as a king’s name would be. The king declared his religious allegiance by the unprecedented use of “high priest of the sun god” as one of his own titles. The term Aton had long been in use, but under Thutmose IV the Aton had been referred to as a god, and under Amenhotep III those references became more frequent. Thus, Akhenaton did not create a new god but rather singled out this aspect of the sun god from among others. He also carried further radical tendencies that had recently developed in solar religion, in which the sun god was freed from his traditional mythological context and presented as the sole beneficent provider for the entire world. The king’s own divinity was emphasized: the Aton was said to be his father, of whom he alone had knowledge, and they shared the status of king and celebrated jubilees together.

In his first five regnal years, Akhenaton built many temples to the Aton, of which the most important were in the precinct of the temple of Amon-Re at Karnak. In these open-air structures was developed a new, highly stylized form of relief and sculpture in the round. The Aton was depicted not in anthropomorphic form but as a solar disk from which radiating arms extend the hieroglyph for “life” to the noses of the king and his family. During the construction of these temples, the cult of Amon and other gods was suspended, and the worship of the Aton in an open-air sanctuary superseded that of Amon, who had dwelt in a dark shrine of the Karnak temple. The king’s wife Nefertiti, whom he had married before his accession, was prominent in the reliefs and had a complete shrine dedicated to her that included no images of the king. Her prestige continued to grow for much of the reign.

At about the time that he altered his name to conform with the new religion, the king transferred the capital to a virgin site at Amarna (Tell el-Amarna; Al-ʿAmārinah) in Middle Egypt. There he constructed a well-planned city—Akhetaton (“the Horizon of Aton”)—comprising temples to the Aton, palaces, official buildings, villas for the high ranking, and extensive residential quarters. In the Eastern Desert cliffs surrounding the city, tombs were excavated for the courtiers, and deep within a secluded wadi the royal sepulchre was prepared. Reliefs in these tombs have been invaluable for reconstructing life at Amarna. The tomb reliefs and stelae portray the life of the royal family with an unprecedented degree of intimacy.

In Akhenaton’s ninth year a more monotheistic didactic name was given to the Aton, and an intense persecution of the older gods, especially Amon, was undertaken. Amon’s name was excised from many older monuments throughout the land, and occasionally the word gods was expunged.

Akhenaton’s religious and cultural revolution was highly personal in that he seems to have had a direct hand in devising the precepts of the Aton religion and the conventions of Amarna art. In religion the accent was upon the sun’s life-sustaining power, and naturalistic scenes adorned the walls and even the floors of Amarna buildings. The king’s role in determining the composition of the court is expressed in epithets given to officials he selected from the lesser ranks of society, including the military. Few officials had any connection with the old ruling elite, and some courtiers who had been accepted at the beginning of the reign were purged. Even at Amarna the new religion was not widely accepted below the level of the elite; numerous small objects relating to traditional beliefs have been found at the site.

Akhenaton’s revolutionary intent is visible in all of his actions. In representational art, many existing conventions were revised to emphasize the break with the past. Such a procedure is comprehensible because traditional values were consistently incorporated in cultural expression as a whole; in order to change one part, it was necessary to change the whole.

A vital innovation was the introduction of vernacular forms into the written language. This led in later decades to the appearance of current verbal forms in monumental inscriptions. The vernacular form of the New Kingdom, which is now known as Late Egyptian, appears fully developed in letters of the later 19th and 20th dynasties.

Akhenaton’s foreign policy and use of force abroad are less well understood. He mounted one minor campaign in Nubia. In the Middle East, Egypt’s hold on its possessions was not as secure as earlier, but the cuneiform tablets found at Amarna recording his diplomacy are difficult to interpret because the vassals who requested aid from him exaggerated their plight. One reason for unrest in the region was the decline of Mitanni and the resurgence of the Hittites. Between the reign of Akhenaton and the end of the 18th dynasty, Egypt lost control of much territory in Syria.

The aftermath of Amarna

Akhenaton had six daughters by Nefertiti and possibly a son, perhaps by a secondary wife Kiya. Either Nefertiti or the widow of Tutankhamun called on the Hittite king Suppiluliumas to supply a consort because she could find none in Egypt; a prince was sent, but he was murdered as he reached Egypt. Thus, Egypt never had a diplomatic marriage in which a foreign man was received into the country.

After the brief rule of Smenkhkare (1335–32 bce), possibly a son of Akhenaton, Tutankhaten, a nine-year-old child, succeeded and was married to the much older Ankhesenpaaten, Akhenaton’s third daughter. Around his third regnal year, the king moved his capital to Memphis, abandoned the Aton cult, and changed his and the queen’s names to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamen. In an inscription recording Tutankhamun’s actions for the gods, the Amarna period is described as one of misery and of the withdrawal of the gods from Egypt. This change, made in the name of the young king, was probably the work of high officials. The most influential were Ay, known by the title God’s Father, who served as vizier and regent (his title indicates a close relationship to the royal family), and the general Horemheb, who functioned as royal deputy and whose tomb at Ṣaqqārah contains remarkable scenes of Asiatic captives being presented to the King.

 

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6) Just as Akhenaton had adapted and transformed the religious thinking that was current in his time, the reaction to the religion of Amarna was influenced by the rejected doctrine. In the new doctrine, all gods were in essence three: Amon, Re, and Ptah (to whom Seth was later added), and in some ultimate sense they too were one. The earliest evidence of this triad is on a trumpet of Tutankhamun and is related to the naming of the three chief army divisions after these gods; religious life and secular life were not separate. This concentration on a small number of essential deities may possibly be related to the piety of the succeeding Ramesside period, because both viewed the cosmos as being thoroughly permeated with the divine.

Under Tutankhamun a considerable amount of building was accomplished in Thebes. His Luxor colonnade bears detailed reliefs of the traditional beautiful festival of Opet; he decorated another structure (now only a series of disconnected blocks) with warlike scenes. He affirmed his legitimacy by referring back to Amenhotep III, whom he called his father. Tutankhamun’s modern fame comes from the discovery of his rich burial in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb equipment was superior in quality to the fragments known from other royal burials, and the opulent display—of varying aesthetic value—represents Egyptian wealth at the peak of the country’s power.

Ay and Horemheb

Tutankhamun’s funeral in about 1323 bce was conducted by his successor, the aged Ay (ruled 1323–19 bce), who in turn was succeeded by Horemheb. The latter probably ruled from 1319 to c. 1292 bce, but the length of his poorly attested reign is not certain. Horemheb dismantled many monuments erected by Akhenaton and his successors and used the blocks as fill for huge pylons at Karnak. At Karnak and Luxor he appropriated Tutankhamun’s reliefs by surcharging the latter’s cartouches with his own. Horemheb appointed new officials and priests not from established families but from the army. His policies concentrated on domestic problems. He issued police regulations dealing with the misbehaviour of palace officials and personnel, and he reformed the judicial system, reorganizing the courts and selecting new judges.

The Ramesside period (19th and 20th dynasties) (1292–1075 bce)

Horemheb was the first post-Amarna king to be considered legitimate in the 19th dynasty, which looked to him as the founder of an epoch. The reigns of the Amarna pharaohs were eventually to be subsumed into his own, leaving no official record of what posterity deemed to be an unorthodox and distasteful interlude. Having no son, he selected his general and vizier, Ramses, to succeed him.

Ramses I and Seti I

Ramses I (ruled 1292–90 bce) hailed from the eastern Nile River delta, and with the 19th dynasty there was a political shift into the delta. Ramses I was succeeded by his son and coregent, Seti I, who buried his father and provided him with mortuary buildings at Thebes and Abydos.

Seti I (ruled 1290–79 bce) was a successful military leader who reasserted authority over Egypt’s weakened empire in the Middle East. The Mitanni state had been dismembered, and the Hittites had become the dominant Asian power. Before tackling them, Seti laid the groundwork for military operations in Syria by fighting farther south against nomads and Palestinian city-states; then, following the strategy of Thutmose III, he secured the coastal cities and gained Kadesh. Although his engagement with the Hittites was successful, Egypt acquired only temporary control of part of the north Syrian plain. A treaty was concluded with the Hittites, who, however, subsequently pushed farther southward and regained Kadesh by the time of Ramses II. Seti I ended a new threat to Egyptian security when he defeated Libyans attempting to enter the delta. He also mounted a southern campaign, probably to the Fifth Cataract region.

Seti I’s reign looked for its model to the mid-18th dynasty and was a time of considerable prosperity. Seti I restored countless monuments that had been defaced in the Amarna period, and the refined decoration of his monuments, particularly his temple at Abydos, shows a classicizing tendency. He also commissioned striking and novel reliefs showing stages of his campaigns, which are preserved notably on the north wall of the great hypostyle hall at Karnak. This diversity of artistic approach is characteristic of the Ramesside period, which was culturally and ethnically pluralistic.

Ramses II

Well before his death, Seti I appointed his son Ramses II, sometimes called Ramses the Great, as crown prince. During the long reign of Ramses II (1279–13 bce), there was a prodigious amount of building, ranging from religious edifices throughout Egypt and Nubia to a new cosmopolitan capital, Pi Ramesse, in the eastern delta; his cartouches were carved ubiquitously, often on earlier monuments. Ramses II’s penchant for decorating vast temple walls with battle scenes gives the impression of a mighty warrior king. His campaigns were, however, relatively few, and after the first decade his reign was peaceful. The most famous scenes record the battle of Kadesh, fought in his fifth regnal year. These and extensive accompanying texts present the battle as an Egyptian victory, but in fact the opposing Hittite coalition fared at least as well as the Egyptians. After this inconclusive struggle, his officers advised him to make peace, saying, “There is no reproach in reconciliation when you make it.” In succeeding years Ramses II campaigned in Syria; after a decade of stalemate, a treaty in his 21st year was concluded with Hattusilis III, the Hittite king.

The rise of Assyria and unrest in western Anatolia encouraged the Hittites to accept this treaty, while Ramses II may have feared a new Libyan threat to the western delta. Egyptian and Hittite versions of the treaty survive. It contained a renunciation of further hostilities, a mutual alliance against outside attack and internal rebellion, and the extradition of fugitives. The gods of both lands were invoked as witnesses. The treaty was further cemented 13 years later by Ramses II’s marriage to a Hittite princess.

 

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7)
The king had an immense family by his numerous wives, among whom he especially honoured Nefertari. He dedicated a temple to her at Abū Simbel, in Nubia, and built a magnificent tomb for her in the Valley of the Queens.

For the first time in more than a millennium, princes were prominently represented on the monuments. Ramses II’s fourth surviving son, Khaemwese, was famous as high priest of Ptah at Memphis. He restored many monuments in the Memphite area, including pyramids and pyramid temples of the Old Kingdom, and had buildings constructed near the Sarapeum at Ṣaqqārah. He was celebrated into Roman times as a sage and magician and became the hero of a cycle of stories.

Merneptah

Ramses II’s 13th son, Merneptah (ruled 1213–04 bce), was his successor. Several of Merneptah’s inscriptions, of unusual literary style, treat an invasion of the western delta in his fifth year by Libyans, supported by groups of Sea Peoples who had traveled from Anatolia to Libya in search of new homes. The Egyptians defeated this confederation and settled captives in military camps to serve as Egyptian mercenaries.

One of the inscriptions concludes with a poem of victory (written about another battle), famous for its words “Israel is desolated and has no seed.” This is the earliest documented mention of Israel; it is generally assumed that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt took place under Ramses II.

Merneptah was able to hold most of Egypt’s possessions, although early in his reign he had to reassert Egyptian suzerainty in Palestine, destroying Gezer in the process. Peaceful relations with the Hittites and respect for the treaty of Ramses II are indicated by Merneptah’s dispatch of grain to them during a famine and by Egyptian military aid in the protection of Hittite possessions in Syria.

Last years of the 19th dynasty

Upon the death of Merneptah, competing factions within the royal family contended for the succession. Merneptah’s son Seti II (ruled 1204–1198 bce) had to face a usurper, Amenmeses, who rebelled in Nubia and was accepted in Upper Egypt. His successor, Siptah, was installed on the throne by a Syrian royal butler, Bay, who had become chancellor of Egypt. Siptah was succeeded by Seti II’s widow Tausert, who ruled as king from 1193 to 1190 bce, counting her regnal years from the death of Seti II, whose name she restored over that of Siptah. A description in a later papyrus of the end of the dynasty alludes to a Syrian usurper, probably Bay, who subjected the land to harsh taxation and treated the gods as mortals with no offerings in their temples.

The early 20th dynasty: Setnakht and Ramses III

Order was restored by a man of obscure origin, Setnakht (ruled 1190–87 bce), the founder of the 20th dynasty, who appropriated Tausert’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. An inscription of Setnakht recounts his struggle to pacify the land, which ended in the second of his three regnal years.

Setnakht’s son Ramses III (ruled 1187–56 bce) was the last great king of the New Kingdom. There are problems in evaluating his achievements because he emulated Ramses II and copied numerous scenes and texts of Ramses II in his mortuary temple at Madīnat Habu, one of the best-preserved temples of the empire period. Thus, the historicity of certain Nubian and Syrian wars depicted as his accomplishments is subject to doubt. He did, however, fight battles that were more decisive than any fought by Ramses II. In his fifth year Ramses III defeated a large-scale Libyan invasion of the delta in a battle in which thousands of the enemy perished.

A greater menace lay to the north, where a confederation of Sea Peoples was progressing by land and sea toward Egypt. This alliance of obscure tribes traveled south in the aftermath of the destruction of the Hittite empire. In his eighth regnal year Ramses III engaged them successfully on two frontiers—a land battle in Palestine and a naval engagement in one of the mouths of the delta. Because of these two victories, Egypt did not undergo the political turmoil or experience the rapid technical advance of the early Iron Age in the Near East. Forced away from the borders of Egypt, the Sea Peoples sailed farther westward, and some of their groups may have given their names to the Sicilians, Sardinians, and Etruscans. The Philistine and Tjekker peoples, who had come by land, were established in the southern Palestinian coastal district in an area where the overland trade route to Syria was threatened by attacks by nomads. Initially settled to protect Egyptian interests, these groups later became independent of Egypt. Ramses III used some of these peoples as mercenaries, even in battle against their own kinfolk. In his 11th year he successfully repulsed another great Libyan invasion by the Meshwesh tribes. Meshwesh prisoners of war, branded with the king’s name, were settled in military camps in Egypt, and in later centuries their descendants became politically important because of their ethnic cohesiveness and their military role.

 

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8)
The economic resources of Egypt were in decline at that time. Under Ramses III the estate of Amon received only one-fifth as much gold as in Thutmose III’s time. Even at the great temple of Madīnat Habu, the quality of the masonry betrays a decline. Toward the end of his reign, administrative inefficiency and the deteriorating economic situation resulted in the government’s failure to deliver grain rations on time to necropolis workers, whose dissatisfaction was expressed in demonstrations and in the first recorded strikes in history. Such demonstrations continued sporadically throughout the dynasty. A different sort of internal trouble originated in the royal harem, where a minor queen plotted unsuccessfully to murder Ramses III so that her son might become king. Involved in the plot were palace and harem personnel, government officials, and army officers. A special court of 12 judges was formed to try the accused, who received the death sentence.

Many literary works date to the Ramesside period. Earlier works in Middle Egyptian were copied in schools and in good papyrus copies, and new texts were composed in Late Egyptian. Notable among the latter are stories, several with mythological or allegorical content, that look to folk models rather than to the elaborate written literary types of the Middle Kingdom.

Ramses IV

Ramses III was succeeded by his son Ramses IV (ruled 1156–50 bce). In an act of piety that also reinforced his legitimacy, Ramses IV saw to the compilation of a long papyrus in which the deceased Ramses III confirmed the temple holdings throughout Egypt; Ramses III had provided the largest benefactions to the Theban temples, in terms of donations of both land and personnel. Most of these probably endorsed earlier donations, to which each king added his own gifts. Of the annual income to temples, 86 percent of the silver and 62 percent of the grain was awarded to Amon. The document demonstrates the economic power of the Theban temples, for the tremendous landholdings of Amon’s estate throughout Egypt involved the labour of a considerable portion of the population; but the ratio of temple to state income is not known, and the two were not administratively separate. In addition, the temple of Amon, which figures prominently in the papyrus, included within its estates the king’s own mortuary temple, for Ramses III was himself deified as a form of Amon-Re, known as Imbued with Eternity.

The later Ramesside kings

The Ramesside period saw a tendency toward the formation of high-priestly families, which kings sometimes tried to counter by appointing outside men to the high priesthood. One such family had developed at Thebes in the second half of the 19th dynasty, and Ramses IV tried to control it by installing Ramessesnakht, the son of a royal steward, as Theban high priest. Ramessesnakht participated in administrative as well as priestly affairs; he personally led an expedition to the Wadi Ḥammāmāt (present-day Wādī Rawḍ ʿĀʾid) quarries in the Eastern Desert, and at Thebes he supervised the distribution of rations to the workmen decorating the royal tomb. Under Ramses V (ruled 1150–45 bce), Ramessesnakht’s son not only served as steward of Amon but also held the post of administrator of royal lands and chief taxing master. Thus, this family acquired extensive authority over the wealth of Amon and over state finances, but to what extent this threatened royal authority is uncertain. Part of the problem in evaluating the evidence is that Ramesside history is viewed from a Theban bias, because Thebes is the major source of information. Evidence from Lower Egypt, where the king normally resided, is meagre because conditions there were unfavourable for preserving monuments or papyri.

A long papyrus from the reign of Ramses V contains valuable information on the ownership of land and taxation. In Ramesside Egypt most of the land belonged to the state and the temples, while most peasants served as tenant farmers. Some scholars interpret this document as indicating that the state retained its right to tax temple property, at an estimated one-tenth of the crop.

Ramses VI (ruled 1145–37 bce), probably a son of Ramses III, usurped much of his two predecessors’ work, including the tomb of Ramses V; a papyrus refers to a possible civil war at Thebes. Following the death of Ramses III and the disrupted migrations of the late Bronze Age, the Asian empire had rapidly withered away, and Ramses VI is the last king whose name appears at the Sinai turquoise mines. The next two Ramses (ruled 1137–26 bce) were obscure rulers, whose sequence has been questioned. During the reigns of Ramses IX (ruled 1126–08 bce) and Ramses X (1108–04 bce), there are frequent references in the papyri to the disruptions of marauding Libyans near the Theban necropolis.

By the time of Ramses IX the Theban high priest had attained great local influence, though he was still outranked by the king. By Ramses XI’s 19th regnal year the new high priest of Amon, Herihor—who seems to have had a military background and also claimed the vizierate and the office of viceroy of Cush—controlled the Theban area. In reliefs at the temple of Khons at Karnak, Herihor was represented as high priest of Amon in scenes adjoining those of Ramses XI. This in itself was unusual, but subsequently he took an even bolder step in having himself depicted as king to the exclusion of the still-reigning Ramses XI. Herihor’s limited kingship was restricted only to Thebes, where those years were referred to as a “repeating of [royal] manifestations,” which lasted a decade.

 

[JLG]

9)


With the shrinkage of the empire, the supply of silver and copper was cut off, and the amount of gold entering the economy was reduced considerably. During the reign of Ramses IX the inhabitants of western Thebes were found to have pillaged the tombs of kings and nobles (already a common practice in the latter case); the despoiling continued into the reign of Ramses XI, and even the royal mortuary temples were stripped of their valuable furnishings. Nubian troops, called in to restore order at Thebes, themselves contributed to the depredation of monuments. This pillaging brought fresh gold and silver into the economy, and the price of copper rose. The price of grain, which had become inflated, dropped.


The Ramesside growth of priestly power was matched by increasingly overt religiosity. Private tombs, the decoration of which had been mostly secular until then, came to include only religious scenes; oracles were invoked in many kinds of decisions; and private letters contain frequent references to prayer and to regular visits to small temples to perform rituals or consult oracles. The common expression used in letters, “I am all right today; tomorrow is in the hands of god,” reflects the ethos of the age. This fatalism, which emphasizes that the god may be capricious and that his wishes cannot be known, is also typical of late New Kingdom Instruction Texts, which show a marked change from their Middle Kingdom forerunners by moving toward a passivity and quietism that suits a less expensive age.


Some of the religious material of the Ramesside period exhibits changes in conventions of display, and some categories have no parallel in the less abundant earlier record, but the shift is real as well as apparent. In its later periods, Egyptian society, the values of which had previously tended to be centralized, secular, and political, became more locally based and more thoroughly pervaded by religion, looking to the temple as the chief institution.


While Ramses XI was still king, Herihor died and was succeeded as high priest by Piankh, a man of similar military background. A series of letters from Thebes tell of Piankh’s military venture in Nubia against the former viceroy of Cush while Egypt was on the verge of losing control of the south. With the death of Ramses XI, the governor of Tanis, Smendes, became king, founding the 21st dynasty (known as the Tanite).

 

[JLG]

10)
Egypt from 1075 bce to the Macedonian invasion
The Third Intermediate period (1075–656 bce)
The 21st dynasty

At the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt was divided. The north was inherited by the Tanite 21st dynasty (1075–c. 950 bce), and although much of the southern Nile River valley came under the control of the Theban priests (the northern frontier of their domain was the fortress town of Al-Hība), there is no indication of conflict between the priests and the Tanite kings. Indeed, the dating of documents, even at Thebes, was in terms of the Tanite reigns, and apparently there were close family ties between the kings and the Thebans. Piankh’s son, Pinudjem I, who relinquished the office of high priest and assumed the kingship at Thebes, was probably the father of the Tanite king Psusennes I. Some members of both the Theban priestly and the Tanite royal lines had Libyan names. With the coming of the new dynasty, and possibly a little earlier, the Meshwesh Libyan military elite, which had been settled mainly in the north by Ramses III, penetrated the ruling group, although it did not become dominant until the 22nd dynasty.


Beginning with Herihor and continuing through the 21st dynasty, the high priests’ activities included the pious rewrapping and reburial of New Kingdom royal mummies. The systematic removal of such goods from the royal tombs by royal order during the 20th dynasty necessitated the transfer of the royal remains in stages to two caches—the tomb of Amenhotep II and a cliff tomb at Dayr al-Baḥrī—where they remained undisturbed until modern times. Dockets pertaining to the reburial of these mummies contain important chronological data from the 21st dynasty.


The burials of King Psusennes I (ruled c. 1045–c. 997 bce) and his successor, Amenemope (ruled c. 998–c. 989 bce), were discovered at Tanis, but little is known of their reigns. This was a period when statuary was usurped and the material of earlier periods was reused. At Karnak, Pinudjem I, who decorated the facade of the Khons temple, usurped a colossal statue of Ramses II, and Psusennes I’s splendid sarcophagus from Tanis had originally been carved for Merneptah at Thebes. Much of the remains from Tanis consists of material transported from other sites, notably from Pi Ramesse.


After the demise of Egypt’s Asian empire, the kingdom of Israel eventually developed under the kings David and Solomon. During David’s reign, Philistia served as a buffer between Egypt and Israel; but after David’s death the next to the last king of the 21st dynasty, Siamon, invaded Philistia and captured Gezer. If Egypt had any intention of attacking Israel, Solomon’s power forestalled Siamon, who presented Gezer to Israel as a dowry in the diplomatic marriage of his daughter to Solomon. This is indicative of the reversal of Egypt’s status in foreign affairs since the time of Amenhotep III, who had written the Babylonian king, “From of old, a daughter of the king of Egypt has not been given to anyone.”

Libyan rule: the 22nd and 23rd dynasties

The fifth king of the 21st dynasty, Osorkon I (ruled c. 979–c. 973 bce), was of Libyan descent and probably was an ancestor of the 22nd dynasty, which followed a generation later. From Osorkon’s time to the 26th dynasty, leading Libyans in Egypt kept their Libyan names and ethnic identity, but in a spirit of ethnicity rather than cultural separatism. Although political institutions were different from those of the New Kingdom, the Libyans were culturally Egyptian, retaining only their group identity, names, and perhaps a military ethos. Toward the end of the 21st dynasty the Libyan leader of Bubastis, the great Meshwesh chief Sheshonk I (the biblical Shishak), secured special privileges from King Psusennes II (ruled c. 964–c. 950 bce) and the oracle of Amon for the mortuary cult of his father at Abydos. The oracle proffered good wishes not only for Sheshonk and his family but, significantly, also for his army. With a strong military backing, Sheshonk eventually took the throne. His reign (c. 950–929 bce) marks the founding of the 22nd dynasty (c. 950–c. 730 bce). Military controls were established, with garrisons under Libyan commandants serving to quell local insurrections, so that the structure of the state became more feudalistic. The dynasty tried to cement relations with Thebes through political marriages with priestly families. King Sheshonk’s son Osorkon married Psusennes II’s daughter, and their son eventually became high priest at Karnak. By installing their sons as high priests and promoting such marriages, kings strove to overcome the administrative division of the country. But frequent conflicts arose over the direct appointment of the Theban high priest from among the sons of Libyan kings and over the inheritance of the post by men of mixed Theban and Libyan descent. This tension took place against a background of Theban resentment of the northern dynasty. During the reign of Takelot II, strife concerning the high priestship led to civil war at Thebes. The king’s son Osorkon was appointed high priest, and he achieved some semblance of order during his visits to Thebes, but he was driven from the post several times.


The initially successful 22nd dynasty revived Egyptian influence in Palestine. After Solomon’s death (c. 936), Sheshonk I entered Palestine and plundered Jerusalem. Prestige from this exploit may have lasted through the reign of Osorkon II (ruled c. 929–c. 914 bce). In the reign of Osorkon III (ruled c. 888–c. 860 bce), Peywed Libyans posed a threat to the western delta, perhaps necessitating a withdrawal from Palestine.


The latter part of the dynasty was marked by fragmentation of the land: Libyan great chiefs ruled numerous local areas, and there were as many as six local rulers in the land at a time. Increased urbanization accompanied this fragmentation, which was most intense in the delta. Meanwhile, in Thebes, a separate 23rd dynasty was recognized.


From the 9th century bce a local Cushite state, which looked to Egyptian traditions from the colonial period of the New Kingdom, arose in the Sudan and developed around the old regional capital of Napata. The earliest ruler of the state known by name was Alara, whose piety toward Amon is mentioned in several inscriptions. His successor, Kashta, proceeded into Upper Egypt, forcing Osorkon IV (ruled c. 777–c. 750 bce) to retire to the delta. Kashta assumed the title of king and compelled Osorkon IV’s daughter Shepenwepe I, the God’s Wife of Amon at Thebes, to adopt his own daughter Amonirdis I as her successor. The Cushites stressed the role of the God’s Wife of Amon, who was virtually the consecrated partner of Amon, and sought to bypass the high priests.

 

[JLG]

11)

The 24th and 25th dynasties

Meanwhile, the eastern capital in the Nile River delta, Tanis, lost its importance to Sais in the western delta. A Libyan prince of Sais, Tefnakhte, attempting to gain control over all Egypt, proceeded southward to Heracleopolis after acquiring Memphis. This advance was met by the Cushite ruler Piye (now the accepted reading of “Piankhi," ruled c. 750–c. 719 bce), who executed a raid as far north as Memphis and received the submission of the northern rulers (in about 730 bce). In his victory stela, Piye is portrayed as conforming strictly to Egyptian norms and reasserting traditional values against contemporary decay.


After Piye returned to Cush, Tefnakhte reasserted his authority in the north, where, according to Manetho, he was eventually succeeded by his son Bocchoris as the sole king of the 24th dynasty (c. 722–c. 715 bce). Piye’s brother Shabaka meanwhile founded the rival 25th dynasty and brought all Egypt under his rule (c. 719–703 bce). He had Bocchoris burned alive and removed all other claimants to the kingship.


In this period Egypt’s internal politics were affected by the growth of the Assyrian Empire. In Palestine and Syria frequent revolts against Assyria were aided by Egyptian forces. Against the power of Assyria, the Egyptian and Nubian forces met with little success, partly because of their own fragmented politics and divided loyalties.


Although the earlier years of King Taharqa (ruled 690–664 bce), who as second son of Shabaka had succeeded his brother Shebitku (ruled 703–690 bce), were prosperous, the confrontation with Assyria became acute. In 671 bce the Assyrian king Esarhaddon entered Egypt and drove Taharqa into Upper Egypt. Two years later Taharqa regained a battered Memphis, but in 667 bce Esarhaddon’s successor, Ashurbanipal, forced Taharqa to Thebes, where the Cushites held ground. Taharqa’s successor, Tanutamon, defeated at Memphis a coalition of delta princes who supported Assyria, but Ashurbanipal’s reaction to this was to humiliate Thebes, which the Assyrians plundered. By 656 the Cushites had withdrawn from the Egyptian political scene, although Cushite culture survived in the Sudanese Napatan and Meroitic kingdom for another millennium.

The Late period (664–332 bce)

Assyria, unable to maintain a large force in Egypt, supported several delta vassal princes, including the powerful Psamtik I of Sais. But the Assyrians faced serious problems closer to home, and Psamtik (or Psammetichus I, ruled 664–610 bce) was able to assert his independence and extend his authority as king over all Egypt without extensive use of arms, inaugurating the Saite 26th dynasty. In 656 Psamtik I compelled Thebes to submit. He allowed its most powerful man, who was Montemhat, the mayor and the fourth prophet of Amon, to retain his post, and, in order to accommodate pro-Cushite sentiments, he allowed the God’s Wife of Amon and the Votaress of Amon (the sister and daughter of the late king Taharqa) to remain. Psamtik I’s own daughter Nitocris was adopted by the Votaress of Amon and thus became heiress to the position of God’s Wife. Essential to the settling of internal conflicts was the Saite dynasty’s superior army, composed of Libyan soldiers, whom the Greeks called Machimoi (“Warriors”), and Greek and Carian mercenaries, who formed part of the great emigration from the Aegean in the 7th and 6th centuries bce. Greek pirates raiding the Nile delta coast were induced by Psamtik I to serve in his army and were settled like the Machimoi in colonies at the delta’s strategically important northeastern border. Trade developed between Egypt and Greece, and more Greeks settled in Egypt.


The Saite dynasty generally pursued a foreign policy that avoided territorial expansion and tried to preserve the status quo. Assyria’s power was waning. In 655 bce Psamtik I marched into Philistia in pursuit of the Assyrians, and in 620 bce he apparently repulsed Scythians from the Egyptian frontier. During the reign of his son Necho II (610–595 bce), Egypt supported Assyria as a buffer against the potential threat of the Medes and the Babylonians. Necho was successful in Palestine and Syria until 605 bce, when the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar inflicted a severe defeat on Egyptian forces at Carchemish. After withdrawing his troops from Asia, Necho concentrated on developing Egyptian commerce; the grain that was delivered to Greece was paid for in silver. He also built up the navy and began a canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea. Under Psamtik II (ruled 595–589 bce) there was a campaign through the Napatan kingdom involving the use of Greek and Carian mercenaries who left their inscriptions at Abu Simbel; at the same time, the names of the long-dead Cushite rulers were erased from their monuments in Egypt. Psamtik II also made an expedition to Phoenicia accompanied by priests; whether it was a military or a goodwill mission is unknown.


The next king, Apries (ruled 589–570 bce), tried unsuccessfully to end Babylonian domination of Palestine and Syria. With the withdrawal of Egyptian forces, Nebuchadrezzar destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 586 bc. In the aftermath of his conquest, many Jews fled to Egypt, where some were enlisted as soldiers in the Persian army of occupation. Apries’ army was then defeated in Libya when it attacked the Greek colony at Cyrene, some 620 miles (1,000 km) west of the Nile delta; this led to an army mutiny and to civil war in the delta. A new Saite king, Amasis (or Ahmose II; ruled 570–526 bce), usurped the throne and drove Apries into exile. Two years later Apries invaded Egypt with Babylonian support, but he was defeated and killed by Amasis, who nonetheless buried him with full honours. Amasis returned to a more conservative foreign policy in a long, prosperous reign. To reduce friction between Greeks and Egyptians, especially in the army, Amasis withdrew the Greeks from the military colonies and transferred them to Memphis, where they formed a sort of royal bodyguard. He limited Greek trade in Egypt to Sais, Memphis, and Naukratis, the latter becoming the only port to which Greek wares could be taken, so that taxes on imports and on business could be enforced. Naukratis prospered, and Amasis was seen by the Greeks as a benefactor. In foreign policy he supported a waning Babylonia, now threatened by Persia; but six months after his death in 526 bce the Persian Cambyses II (ruled as pharaoh 525–522 bce) penetrated Egypt, reaching Nubia in 525.

 

[JLG]

12)

As was common in the Middle East in that period, the Saite kings used foreigners as mercenaries to prevent foreign invasions. An element within Egyptian culture, however, resisted any influence of the resident foreigners and gave rise to a nationalism that provided psychological security in times of political uncertainty. A cultural revival was initiated in the 25th dynasty and continued throughout the 26th. Temples and the priesthood were overtly dominant. In their inscriptions the elite displayed their priestly titles but did not mention the administrative roles that they probably also performed. Throughout the country, people of substance dedicated land to temple endowments that supplemented royal donations. The god Seth, who had been an antithetic element in Egyptian religion, came gradually to be proscribed as the god of foreign lands.

The revival of this period was both economic and cultural, but there is less archaeological evidence preserved than for earlier times because the economic centre of the country was now the delta, where conditions for the preservation of ancient sites were unfavourable. Prosperity increased throughout the 26th dynasty, reaching a high point in the reign of Amasis. Temples throughout the land were enhanced and expanded, often in hard stones carved with great skill. The chief memorials of private individuals were often temple statues, of which many fine examples were dedicated, again mostly in hard stones. In temple and tomb decoration and in statuary, the Late period rejected its immediate predecessors and looked to the great periods of the past for models. There was, however, also significant innovation. In writing, the demotic script, the new cursive form, was introduced from the north and spread gradually through the country. Demotic was used to write a contemporary form of the language, and administrative Late Egyptian disappeared. Hieratic was, however, retained for literary and religious texts, among which very ancient material, such as the Pyramid Texts, was revived and inscribed in tombs and on coffins and sarcophagi.

The Late period was the time of the greatest development of animal worship in Egypt. This feature of religion, which was the subject of much interest and scorn among classical writers, had always existed but had been of minor importance. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods, it became one of the principal forms of popular religion in an intensely religious society. Many species of animals were mummified and buried, and towns sprang up in the necropolises to cater for the needs of dead animals and their worshipers. At Ṣaqqārah the Apis bull, which had been worshiped since the 1st dynasty, was buried in a huge granite sarcophagus in ceremonies in which royalty might take part. At least 10 species—from ibises, buried by the million, to dogs—were interred by the heterogeneous population of Memphis, Egypt’s largest city.

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 251 :

- Temples and the priesthood were overtly dominant !

- In their inscriptions the elite displayed their priestly titles but did not mention the administrative roles that they probably also performed. Throughout the country, people of substance dedicated land to temple endowments that supplemented royal donations.

- Another example of the power of religion !

- Yes, the priests were part of the elite and they were looking for their own interests, they didn’t care about their gods and about the people !

- A lot of money was spent on temples !

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 250 :

- He allowed its most powerful man, who was Montemhat, the mayor and the fourth prophet of Amon

- Another example of the power of religion !

- Nebuchadrezzar destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 586 bc

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 249 :

- Egypt was divided into two parts : The north was inherited by the Tanite 21st dynasty, the southern Nile River valley came under the control of the Theban priests !

- It has always been a tradition among priests to mix political power and religious power !

- We are told about kings David and Solomon !

- Philistia served as a buffer between Egypt and Israel !

- But after David’s death the next to the last king of the 21st dynasty, Siamon, invaded Philistia and captured Gezer. If Egypt had any intention of attacking Israel, Solomon’s power forestalled Siamon, who presented Gezer to Israel as a dowry in the diplomatic marriage of his daughter to Solomon. This is indicative of the reversal of Egypt’s status in foreign affairs since the time of Amenhotep III, who had written the Babylonian king, “From of old, a daughter of the king of Egypt has not been given to anyone.”

- The dynasty tried to cement relations with Thebes through political marriages with priestly families. King Sheshonk’s son Osorkon married Psusennes II’s daughter, and their son eventually became high priest at Karnak. By installing their sons as high priests and promoting such marriages, kings strove to overcome the administrative division of the country. But frequent conflicts arose over the direct appointment of the Theban high priest from among the sons of Libyan kings and over the inheritance of the post by men of mixed Theban and Libyan descent. This tension took place against a background of Theban resentment of the northern dynasty. During the reign of Takelot II, strife concerning the high priestship led to civil war at Thebes. The king’s son Osorkon was appointed high priest, and he achieved some semblance of order during his visits to Thebes, but he was driven from the post several times.

- Another example of religious leaders’ interests !

- After Solomon’s death (c. 936), Sheshonk I entered Palestine and plundered Jerusalem. Prestige from this exploit may have lasted through the reign of Osorkon II (ruled c. 929–c. 914 bce).

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 248 :

- The Ramesside growth of priestly power was matched by increasingly overt religiosity.

- In its later periods, Egyptian society, the values of which had previously tended to be centralized, secular, and political, became more locally based and more thoroughly pervaded by religion, looking to the temple as the chief institution.

- While Ramses XI was still king, Herihor died and was succeeded as high priest by Piankh, a man of similar military background. A series of letters from Thebes tell of Piankh’s military venture in Nubia against the former viceroy of Cush while Egypt was on the verge of losing control of the south.

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 247 :

- Ramses III was succeeded by his son Ramses IV (ruled 1156–50 bce). In an act of piety that also reinforced his legitimacy, Ramses IV saw to the compilation of a long papyrus in which the deceased Ramses III confirmed the temple holdings throughout Egypt; Ramses III had provided the largest benefactions to the Theban temples, in terms of donations of both land and personnel. Most of these probably endorsed earlier donations, to which each king added his own gifts. Of the annual income to temples, 86 percent of the silver and 62 percent of the grain was awarded to Amon. The document demonstrates the economic power of the Theban temples, for the tremendous landholdings of Amon’s estate throughout Egypt involved the labour of a considerable portion of the population; but the ratio of temple to state income is not known, and the two were not administratively separate. In addition, the temple of Amon, which figures prominently in the papyrus, included within its estates the king’s own mortuary temple, for Ramses III was himself deified as a form of Amon-Re, known as Imbued with Eternity.

- Religion was rich and powerful !

- Does it remind you something ?

- The Ramesside period saw a tendency toward the formation of high-priestly families, which kings sometimes tried to counter by appointing outside men to the high priesthood. One such family had developed at Thebes in the second half of the 19th dynasty, and Ramses IV tried to control it by installing Ramessesnakht, the son of a royal steward, as Theban high priest. Ramessesnakht participated in administrative as well as priestly affairs; he personally led an expedition to the Wadi Ḥammāmāt (present-day Wādī Rawḍ ʿĀʾid) quarries in the Eastern Desert, and at Thebes he supervised the distribution of rations to the workmen decorating the royal tomb. Under Ramses V (ruled 1150–45 bce), Ramessesnakht’s son not only served as steward of Amon but also held the post of administrator of royal lands and chief taxing master. Thus, this family acquired extensive authority over the wealth of Amon and over state finances, but to what extent this threatened royal authority is uncertain. Part of the problem in evaluating the evidence is that Ramesside history is viewed from a Theban bias, because Thebes is the major source of information. Evidence from Lower Egypt, where the king normally resided, is meagre because conditions there were unfavourable for preserving monuments or papyri.

- Religion and political power working together as usual !

- By the time of Ramses IX the Theban high priest had attained great local influence, though he was still outranked by the king. By Ramses XI’s 19th regnal year the new high priest of Amon, Herihor—who seems to have had a military background and also claimed the vizierate and the office of viceroy of Cush—controlled the Theban area. In reliefs at the temple of Khons at Karnak, Herihor was represented as high priest of Amon in scenes adjoining those of Ramses XI. This in itself was unusual, but subsequently he took an even bolder step in having himself depicted as king to the exclusion of the still-reigning Ramses XI. Herihor’s limited kingship was restricted only to Thebes, where those years were referred to as a “repeating of [royal] manifestations,” which lasted a decade.

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 246 :

- Ramses II’s fourth surviving son, Khaemwese, was famous as high priest of Ptah at Memphis. He restored many monuments in the Memphite area, including pyramids and pyramid temples of the Old Kingdom, and had buildings constructed near the Sarapeum at Ṣaqqārah. He was celebrated into Roman times as a sage and magician and became the hero of a cycle of stories.

- political power and religion working together for power !

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 2 thread 245 :

- Just as Akhenaton had adapted and transformed the religious thinking that was current in his time, the reaction to the religion of Amarna was influenced by the rejected doctrine. In the new doctrine, all gods were in essence three: Amon, Re, and Ptah (to whom Seth was later added), and in some ultimate sense they too were one. The earliest evidence of this triad is on a trumpet of Tutankhamun and is related to the naming of the three chief army divisions after these gods; religious life and secular life were not separate. This concentration on a small number of essential deities may possibly be related to the piety of the succeeding Ramesside period, because both viewed the cosmos as being thoroughly permeated with the divine.

https://slife.org/the-trinity-in-world-religions/

- Within the Hindu religion there is Brahman. Brahman is considered to be the only One and True God, from which all other manifestations arise and are merely faces, much akin to the idea of emanationism. Brahman is One God in Three Persons. These are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Together, these make Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer. Brahma is the aspect of God that continually creates the universe and all within it. Vishnu is the aspect of God that is incarnate upon earth many times in order to save the world and sustain it. Shiva is the Destroyer of the old that the new may arise. Once again, the Second Member of the Trinity is God made Man. It is also notable that Vishnu, under the incarnation of Krishna was brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts when He was born, also being crucified to a tree with arrows piercing His hands and feet. Many Hindus believe that Krishna, and Buddha were all incarnations of Vishnu. Vishnu is merely the name that Hindus give to the aspect of God that is born among men.

- Quite similar to the Creator-Sustainer-Destroyer ideology of Hinduism, the Neo-Pagan faith of Wicca also has a Triple Divinity. This is called the Maiden, Mother, and the Crone. Wiccans see the Divine as manifesting as Male and Female, id est a Goddess and God. To them, creation is the reflection of the Divine. All things within Nature. Thus, the passage of the seasons, the phases of the moon, even the path a salmon takes within a pool are all reflections into the mind of God. Within the universe is found divine Order and knowledge of Nature’s laws leads to divine contemplation and understanding. The Goddess, or Female Principle of God, is the Maiden, Mother, and the Crone. Being an older Pagan faith, this Goddess is worshipped under the symbol of the moon. As the moon grows, the Wiccae see the Maiden. This is the Aspect of Diety that is Creator, symbolized by the image of a young girl. this is new beginnings and innocence. The full moon reveals the Mother. She is Nurturer and Sustainer, caring for Her children. When the moon wanes and when it is dark reveals the Destroyer aspect of the Goddess. This is symbolized by an old woman, representing the forces of decay and death in the universe. The moon is revered as the symbol of the Goddess because the moon’s cycle is akin to the menstrual cycle within women, which encompasses the Female Principle of creation. Most Christian holidays were borrowed from Paganism, including Easter and Christmas.

- As one may clearly see, the concept of a Trinity is a commonality found within various world religions. The study of comparative religion reveals many things that show how Man has, throughout 2 million years of human history, reached out and conceptualized the Creator and Sustainer of our world. Man is, by His very nature, a spiritual creature. Since the dawning of His conscousness Man has always worshipped things as representative of the One Unknowable Thing, concerning which He can learn basically nothing, being beyond mortal comprehension.

 

[JLG]

- Comingt back to Daniel 2 thread 242 :

- The campaigns of kings such as Thutmose III required a large military establishment, including a hierarchy of officers and an expensive chariotry. The king grew up with military companions whose close connection with him enabled them to participate increasingly in government. Military officers were appointed to high civil and religious positions, and by the Ramesside period the influence of such people had come to outweigh that of the traditional bureaucracy.

₋ So once again we see the mixing of politics and religion !

 

[JLG]

28) God and Job / Job and God

Job 30
God has thrown me down into the mud;
I am reduced to dust and ashes.
I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me;
I stand up, but you just look at me.
You have cruelly turned against me;
With the full might of your hand, you assault
me.
You pick me up and carry me off with the wind;
Then you toss me about in the storm.
For I know that you will bring me down to death,
To the house where everyone living will meet.

- Once again, God is his only reference!

- He only knows him!

- So he thinks God is responsible forv his bad situation!

- But he keeps crying to God for his help!

- Even if he doesn’t understand what’s on, he knows his situation can only improve with God’s help!

- And thinking that God is against him is unbearable for him!

- If God doesn’t help him, he will die!

- He doesn’t see any other option!