Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria. He fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC. His consort was Tiaa, who was barred from any prestige until Amenhotep’s son, Thutmose IV, came into power. Amenhotep II was born and raised in Memphis in the north, instead of in Thebes, the traditional capital. While a prince, he oversaw deliveries of wood sent to the dockyard of Peru-nūfe in Memphis, and was made the Setem, the high priest over Lower Egypt. Amenhotep has left several inscriptions touting his athletic skills while he was a leader of the army before his crowning. He claims to have been able to shoot an arrow through a copper target one palm thick, and that he was able to row his ship faster and farther than two hundred members of the navy could row theirs. Some scepticism concerning the truth of these claims has been expressed among Egyptologists. Amenhotep acceded to the throne on the first day of the fourth month of Akhet, but his father died on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret. His first campaign was against uprisings in northern Syria, during which he extracted loyalty oaths from other Asiatic princes. Returning from Asia, he forwarded the body of a rebel Asiatic chief to the Nubian capital, where it was hung on the town wall as an example. His second campaign was less ambitious, reaching only to the Sea of Galilee, but after it Amenhotep received gifts from Mitanni, Babylon, and the Hittites. No further northern wars occurred, which suggests that a balance of power had been achieved. Within Egypt, many of his father’s administrators continued to serve Amenhotep, and the king completed some buildings begun by Thutmose III. He also built a number of new sanctuaries in Upper Egypt and Nubia and added his mortuary temple in western Thebes. Amenhotep’s mummy was discovered in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, in his fine well-preserved tomb, which had been used as one of the caches for the safekeeping of royal mummies that had been reembalmed in the 21st dynasty following the closure of the Valley of the Kings.