Amarna Period

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Amarna Period

The first recorded formal relations of Egypt with foreign countries were under Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1391 BC-December 1353 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died....
. Under his reign, Egypt enjoyed an economic boom. He built many temples and monuments across Egypt to honor his favorite deity, Sobek

Sobek

Sobek was the deification of crocodiles, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River. Egyptians who worked or travelled on the Nile hoped that if they prayed to Sobek, the crocodile god, he would protect them from being attacked by crocodiles....
, who always was depicted as a crocodile. Some records of his relations were included in the el Amarna letters

Amarna letters

The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Ancient Egypt administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom....
many of which were scattered before they could be protected properly.

Akhenaten

Akhenaten

Akhenaten , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who died 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheism worship of Aten, although there are doubts as to how successful he was at this....
instigated the earliest verified expression of monotheism

Monotheism

In theology, monotheism is the belief that only one god exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Neoplatonism concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite....
, (although the origins of a pure monotheism are the subject of continuing debate within the academic community and some state that Akhenaten restored monotheisim while others point out that he merely suppressed a dominant solar cult by the assertion of another, while he never completely abandoned several other traditional deities).

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The first recorded formal relations of Egypt with foreign countries were under Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Sobek

Amarna letters

Akhenaten

Monotheism

Aten

Aten was the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. He became the deity of the monotheism ? in fact, monism ? religion Atenism of Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaten....
, offended many in power below him, which contributed to the end of this dynasty; he later suffered damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae

Damnatio memoriae is the Latin language literally meaning "damnation of memory", in the sense of removed from the remembrance. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon treachery or others who brought discredit to the Roman State....
. Although modern students of Egyptology

Egyptology

Egyptology is a major field of archaeology, the study of ancient Egyptian History of Egypt, Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian literature, Ancient Egyptian religion, and Art of ancient Egypt from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century....
consider the monotheism of Akhenaten the most important event of this period, the later Egyptians

Egyptians

Egyptians is the name of the nationality and Mediterranean North African ethnic group native to Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to the Geography of Egypt, dominated by the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the Cataracts of the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea and enclosed by desert both to the Easte...
considered the so-called Amarna period an unfortunate aberration.

The events following Akhenaten's death are unclear and the identity and policies of his co-regent and immediate successor

Smenkhkare

Smenkhkare is an ephemeral Pharaoh of the late Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt of whom very little is know for certain. Traditionally he is seen as Akhenaten's co-regent and immediate successor and predecessor of Tutankhamun and is assumed to be a close, male relative of those two kings ....
are the matter of ongoing scholarly debate.

Tutankhamun and the Amarna Succession

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun , Egyptian language was an Ancient Egypt Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt , during the period of History of Egypt known as the New Kingdom....
who died before he was twenty years old, and the dynasty's final years, clearly, were shaky. The royal line of the dynasty died out with Tutankhamun, two foetuses found buried in his tomb

KV62

Tomb KV62 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings is the Tomb of Tutankhamun, which became famous for the wealth of treasure it contained. The tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter , underneath the remains of workmen's huts built during the Ramesside Period; this explains why it was spared from the worst of the tomb depredations of that t...
may have been his twin daughters who would have continued the royal lineage, according to a 2008 investigation. An unidentified Egyptian queen Dakhamunzu

Dakhamunzu

Dakhamunzu is the name of an Ancient Egypt queen known from the Hittite annals The Deeds of Suppiluliuma, which were composed by Suppiluliuma I's son Mursili II....
, widow of "King Nibhururiya" is known from Hittite annals. She is often identified as Ankhesenamun, royal wife of Tutankhamun, although Nefertiti

Nefertiti

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for changing Egypt's religion from a polytheistic religion to a monotheistic religion....
and Meritaten

Meritaten

Meritaten also spelled Merytaten or Meryetaten was an Ancient Egypt queen of the 18th dynasty, who held the position of Great Royal Wife to Pharaoh Smenkhkare, who may have been a brother or son of Akhenaten....
have also been suggested as possible candidates. This queen wrote to Suppiluliuma I

Suppiluliuma I

Suppiluliuma I was king of the Hittites . He achieved fame as a great warrior and statesman, successfully challenging the then-dominant New Kingdom for control of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates....
, king of the Hittites

Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
, asking him to send one of his sons to become her husband and king of Egypt. In her letters she expressed fear and a reluctance to take as husband one of her servants. Suppiluliumas sent an ambassador to investigate, and after further negotiations agreed to send one of his sons to Egypt. This prince, named Zannanza was however murdered, probably en route to Egypt. Suppiluliumas reacted with rage at the news of his son's death and accusing the Egyptians he retaliated by going to war against Egypt's vassal states in Syria and Northern Canaan

Canaan

Canaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt....
and captured the city of Amki

Amqu

The Amqu is a region , equivalent to the "Beqaa Valley region", named in the 1350 BC-1335 BC Amarna letters Text corpus.In the Amarna letters, two other associated regions appear to be east and north , and are often mentioned in association with Amqu, namely Nuha??e, and Niya -Niye ....
. Unfortunately, Egyptian prisoners of war from Amki carried a plague which eventually, would ravage the Hittite Empire and kill both Suppiluliumas I and his direct successor.

The last two members of the eighteenth dynasty - Ay

Ay was the penultimate Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period , although he was a close advisor to two and perhaps three of the pharaohs who ruled before him and was the power behind the throne during Tutankhamun's reign....
and Horemheb

Horemheb

Horemheb was the last Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt from 1319 BC to late 1292 BC, although he was not related to the preceding royal family and is believed to have been of common birth....
- became rulers from the ranks of officials in the royal court, although Ay may have married the widow of Tutankhamun in order to obtain power and she did not live long afterward. Ay's reign was short. His successor was Horemheb, who had been a diplomat in the administration of Tutankhamun and may have been intended as his successor by the childless Tutankhamun. Horemheb may have taken the throne away from Ay in a coup. He also died childless and appointed his successor, Paramessu, who under the name Ramesses I

Ramesses I

Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the time-line of late 1290s BC is frequently cited as well as 1290s BC....
ascended the throne in 1292 BC and was the first pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty

Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom....
.