A Golden Wave in Egypt’s Vast Ocean of History: The New Kingdom

Iris C. Meijer holds a Master’s Degree in International Law and a deep love for Ancient Egypt in her heart. When her career was cut short by chronic illnesses, she decided to do what she had planned for eventual retirement and moved to Egypt almost 19 years ago. She now lives in Luxor, ruled by 17 rescued Fluffy creatures.

As anyone who has ever dipped even the tiniest toe into the vast waters of Ancient Egyptian history will know, it is an enormous expanse of time that is almost impossible to truly wrap one’s mind around as a phenomenal, single culture. Luckily, the current course of the Egypt Centre, taught with great aplomb by Dr Ken Griffin and moderated with fabulous finesse by Sam Powell, takes on an incredible period of 4700 years (4400 BCE–300 CE; from the Badarian Period to the end of the Graeco-Roman Period) and breaks it down for us into delectable bite-sized pieces—because even though we tend to speak of Ancient Egyptian history as one block, it is of course nowhere near as straightforward as that. There were fluctuations, changes in culture, adaptations of style and religion, periods of high glory and periods of great struggle and fragmentation, periods of expansion and periods of reduction in size, and so on. And yet, through it all, it remains unmistakably identifiable as Ancient Egyptian, in basic concepts, art, outlook, religion, stratification of society, and more.

The golden ages when Ancient Egypt was united and strong are referred to as the Old, the Middle, and the New Kingdom, while the times in between when the unity fell apart and the control over the country was fragmented are called Intermediate Periods—earlier and later periods go by other names yet. Each period has its own specific traits—and is important to note that all these monikers are modern inventions in an effort to divide up that vast expanse of time into periods that can be handled—the ancients themselves never used these terms. Most Egyptophiles I know have very specific periods that they are particularly drawn to. I certainly do. It was this period of the New kingdom that stole my heart at 10 years old, when I first clapped eyes on its stunningly elegant statuary (fig. 1) at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands, and was shaken to my core and gripped for the rest of my life.

Fig. 1: New Kingdom statues in Leiden
(https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/secrets-of-saqqara/)

The New Kingdom is known as the Age of Empire, a golden age during which through conquest by intrepid kings, Egypt reached the largest borders it ever had. It spans a phenomenal heyday from around 1550–1069 BCE when the might of Egypt could not be denied and stretched from the Levant all the way down into the Sudan. Next to campaigns of war, enormous building projects were undertaken (granted, no pyramids any longer, but I defy anyone to walk through the Temple of Karnak (fig. 2), for instance, and not be overwhelmed by the soaring columns, the impressive pylons, the delicate reliefs, immaculate hieroglyphs, and gorgeous chapels and smaller temples in that precinct, which all taken together is arguably the largest temple complex in the world to this day!), stunning statuary was commissioned, giant tombs were dug in the Valley of the Kings and decorated with all kinds of magical spells to see the pharaohs through the journey of the afterlife, as well as smaller ones close to that sacred place, for the elite full of charming scenes of daily life with ‘lower’ level magic spells to get them to the Field of Reeds, an ancient Egyptian’s view of paradise, and everywhere was the glow of gold—just think about the treasures of Tutankhamun!

Fig. 2: The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak

And the history of the New Kingdom! It has everything one could possibly desire in a good fictional yarn even though it is not fiction: strong heroes and heroines, dastardly foes, palace intrigue, heresy, vindication, plots, revenge, exploration of foreign lands, treasure being brought home (fig. 3), treasures stolen, you name it. And the Ancient Egyptians very kindly left us just enough sources to build a narrative, but also just enough holes to leave room for speculation and discussion.

Fig. 3: Seti I presenting tribute to Amun

 

A case in point is my own favourite king: Hatshepsut (fig. 4), who reigned from about 1479–1458 BCE. Originally not a king but a king’s wife (and half-sister!), when the king died and his heir by another wife was too young to rule, she took over the reins of the country as his regent. This all went very well for a few years, but then, in an unprecedented move and with the rightful king still alive and doing well, she decided to declare herself king as well! Egypt was a very patriarchal land, so this was a move that must have been shocking to many but she did it—and ruled for about 20 very prosperous and peaceful years as the true king, even taking on male form and the full five-fold titulary of a proper pharaoh on her monuments. She even claimed to be a direct daughter of the supreme god of the time, Amun-Ra, who in the guise of her father had sown the seed for her in her mother, thus marking herself as his chosen one. She did quite often also depict the younger pharaoh (who later became Thutmose III), but always in a position behind herself, sending a clear message as to who was really in charge: she herself, King Ma’atkare (her throne name).

Fig. 4: Hatshepsut "stretching the cord" with Seshat

After the end of her reign, Thutmose III (fig. 5) took over seamlessly and just incorporated her years of rule to his own—he had still also been king during that time, after all. But what to do with such a predecessor, what to do with her ascendancy that might give other female royals ideas beyond their station? Her memory must be obliterated, of course. And so it was done, she was erased from history for Ancient Egyptian civilisation. But here something interesting happens, which also shows that history is always a matter of new discoveries and of interpretation, coloured by the ‘glasses’ of the times that are regarding that long-ago time now.

Fig. 5: Statue of Thutmose III

With the modern rediscovery of ancient Egypt, slowly, slowly her story, monuments and art did come to light again in the nineteenth century CE. The erasure had not been complete—it could be pieced together again (fig. 6). As clues to her story began to emerge, the belief was at first that Thutmose III must have hated his aunt for stealing his throne, and in revenge chiselled out all her representations and names. However, it later came to light that this erasure did not happen until the end of his own very long solo rule. How could he have curtailed his hate so long? Why should he? More thought led to the current belief that this damnatio memoriae probably only started after Thutmose III had appointed his chosen successor, later to become Amenhotep II, as co-regent, and it was quite likely that it was he, not Thutmose III, who ordered the memory of Hatshepsut removed (luckily rather unsuccessfully in the end). It is very probable that Thutmose III and Hatshepsut had rubbed along quite happily together—she taking care of the tiresome business of actually ruling, whilst he was honing his skills off with the army to later become the greatest general of Egypt (sometimes dubbed “the Napoleon of Ancient Egypt” by later historians). We do not know this for truth, of course, as the intricacies of their mutual relationship was never commented on as such—no paparazzi in those ages! We also do not know exactly why the later Amenhotep II (we think) all of a sudden tried to erase her from history, decades after the end of her reign. Remember those holes that leave room for delicious speculation and delightful discussion that I mentioned earlier? Well, this is definitely one of them! A tale that many books can and have been written about—scholarly ones as well as novels, with the holes filled in with whatever version the author thought most likely. Juicy, right? And that is just one example of one reign (or two intertwined ones, actually) inside one dynasty (the Eighteenth) of the fascinating 500 years or so of the New Kingdom.

Fig. 6: Erased image of Hatshepsut at Karnak

I’ve already remarked on the enormous expanse of history that Dr Ken Griffin is audaciously taking on in this fantastic 10-week course. I should also mention that each session is only half pure history. The other half is illustrating that history through objects of the Swansea Egypt Centre’s lovely collection. This is a special treat as thanks to Zoom, those of us who may not have the chance to visit that charming museum in real life, get to peek inside its collection with fascinating objects that each have their own intriguing history. One of the most beautiful objects (but I am biased, as I love Eighteenth Dynasty art above all other Ancient Egyptian art) is comprised of a beautiful fragment of relief, most likely depicting Neferure, Hatshepsut’s only daughter (fig. 7). This relief has a tale of its own that shows that studying Ancient Egypt is still a treasure hunt, a search through even the most minute of clues to find the truth of an object, a period in history, an occurrence, a belief, a link to that a-ha moment. It is, and will remain, endlessly intriguing. For the story of this relief, see this wonderful 30-minute lecture by Dr Ken Griffin on how an object he himself had never seen before, through a handling session of object-centred learning, suddenly changed from a possibly Eleventh Dynasty piece that no one knew anything about, to a revelatory piece of this amazing part of Eighteenth Dynasty history: The Princess Who Never Became King: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYhm1C6AX4c.

Fig. 7: Relief depicting Neferure