New Kingdom Egypt
The New Kingdom was Egypt's imperial age, when warrior pharaohs such as Thutmose III and Ramesses II projected power into the Levant and Nubia and built monuments at Thebes and Abu Simbel.
Definition
The imperial phase of Pharaonic Egypt, c. 1550–1069 BC, marked by territorial expansion into the Near East and Nubia, monumental temple building, and a powerful Amun priesthood.
Scope
This topic covers Egypt from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Dynasties, including the expulsion of the Hyksos, the conquests that created an empire, the religious upheaval of Akhenaten's Amarna period, the reign of Ramesses II and the Battle of Kadesh, and the gradual decline into the Third Intermediate Period.
Core questions
- How did Egypt become an imperial power after expelling the Hyksos?
- What was the significance of Akhenaten's religious revolution at Amarna?
- How did the great Ramesside building programs and wars shape the period?
- Why did the New Kingdom decline into renewed fragmentation?
Key theories
- Amarna monotheism debate
- Erik Hornung's analysis of whether Akhenaten's exclusive worship of the Aten constituted true monotheism, a revolutionary 'religion of light', or a politically driven royal cult.
- Temple-state and the rise of Amun
- The interpretation that the accumulation of land and resources by the temple of Amun at Karnak progressively constrained royal power and contributed to the New Kingdom's decline.
History
The New Kingdom is exceptionally well documented through temple inscriptions, royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the Amarna letters of international diplomacy, and the workers' village of Deir el-Medina. The 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and ongoing excavation at Amarna and Thebes have made it the most intensively studied era of Egyptian history.
Debates
- Character of the Amarna revolution
- Scholars debate whether Akhenaten's reforms were a genuine theological transformation, a political assertion of royal authority over the priesthood, or both, and how completely they were reversed after his death.
Key figures
- Jacobus van Dijk
- Erik Hornung
- Barry Kemp
- Ian Shaw
Related topics
Seminal works
- shaw2000
- hornung1999
- kemp2006
Frequently asked questions
- Which pharaohs are most famous from the New Kingdom?
- Famous New Kingdom rulers include Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramesses II.
- What was the Amarna period?
- It was the reign of Akhenaten, who moved the capital to Amarna and promoted exclusive worship of the sun-disc Aten, an episode largely reversed by his successors.