Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Amenhotep III all appointed their own loyal followers to the position of High Priest in an attempt to maintain a degree of royal control over the priesthood, while Amenhotep III also started to pay more attention to the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon, partially reverting back to Old Kingdom theology by re-allying the monarchy with the sun god, Re of Heliopolis. His son, Amenhotep IV (now known as the heretic King Akhenaten, ‘Serviceable to the Aten’), took this policy to extremes by completely rejecting the traditional polytheistic religion and imposing a new monotheistic cult based on the worship of the sun disc, or Aten, on his people. This radical change, which included the establishment of a new capital in the desert of Middle Egypt, was too extreme for the conservative Egyptians, and far too much of a threat to the power of Amen. It was doomed to failure. By Year 3 of his successor's reign, the old gods, including Amen, had been reinstated and the new king had changed his name from Tutankhaten, ‘Living Image of the Aten’, to Tutankhamen, ‘Living Image of Amen’.
    ... all the wealth that goes into Thebes of Egypt, where treasures in greatest store are laid up in men's houses. Thebes, which is the city of an hundred gates and from each issue forth to do battle two hundred doughty warriors with horses and chariots. 17
    The early 18th Dynasty rulers broke with tradition when they established their capital at their home-city of Thebes. Thebes, or Thebai, is the Greek name for the southern city which the Egyptians officially knew as Waset but which they referred to simply as ‘The City’ (literally Niwt ), and which modern Egyptians now call Luxor. The new capital lay on the east bank of the Nile in the 4th Upper Egyptian province, close enough to both Nubia and the Eastern Desert to be able to benefit from the lucrative trade routes, and far enough away from the northern capital Memphis to have always maintained semi-independent status. Thebes had been an unimportant provincial town throughout the Old Kingdom, and it was not until the civil unrest of the First Intermediate Period that the local Theban rulers started to gain in power and influence. By the time of Ahmose, Thebes had expanded to become an extensive city, and the Theban necropolis on the west bank of the Nile had become the main burial ground for the pharaohs, their families and the higher-ranking court officials. During the 18th Dynasty, however, the old city mound was completely flattened to allow the redevelopment of the Karnak temple, and the residential area was rebuilt on relatively low-lying ground which now lies below the water-table and which is consequently lost from the archaeological record.
    Living conditions within Thebes must have been, for all but the most wealthy, somewhat unpleasant during the hot summer months. There was a permanent shortage of building land, made much worse by the extension of the Karnak and Luxor temples, and there was no formal planning policy so that, as the city expanded, the houses were packed more and more closely together, blocking the light from the crowded and twisting streets. The lack of any form of official sanitation combined with the habit of keeping animals within the home to create an undesirable, vermin-ridden environment that must have been highly unhealthy for the unfortunate citizens. However, although many were forced by the nature of their employment to live in the overcrowded towns and cities, Egypt was still a predominantly rural country and themajority of Egyptians lived relatively healthy lives working as peasant farmers in small and politically insignificant agricultural communities. Throughout the New Kingdom it was fashionable to despise city life as a necessary evil while rural life strongly – romanticized – was considered to be ideal. Just as modern city dwellers dream of owning a cottage in the country, so Egyptian officials yearned for a spacious single-storey villa set