Legends of the Pharaohs | Episode 3: Amenhotep III, The Great Builder | FD Ancient History

He holds a special place in the history of the 18th dynasty. Amenhotep III had inherited a prosperous kingdom and turned it into an immensely powerful empire. From the Nuxar Temple to the Colossae of Memnon, he constructed some of the most remarkable monuments and largest statues of his time. Egypt reached the peak of its influence under his reign. Discover this exceptional pharaoh, who deserves to be better known as he was the greatest builder in Egyptian history. On the 26th of November 1922, British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered Pharaoh Tutankhamen's intact tomb, unearthing one of the most tremendous archaeological treasures of all time. Tutankhamen was but a child when he assumed the throne of the Kingdom of Egypt over 3,300 years ago. This final heir of a family that ruled over Egypt for eight generations was a descendant of some of the most fascinating characters of the whole of antiquity. The pharaoh queen Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, the master builder, and the mysterious Hakenaten. For Egyptologists, this family constitutes the 18th dynasty, which saw Egypt become the richest and most powerful kingdom in the world. Here's the story of this incredible golden age, the story of the founders of the new empire. In his palace, the future pharaoh, Amenhotep III, was growing up carefree. Egypt had regained its power from the time of the pyramids and was experiencing a period of peace and opulence. This main commercial power of the ancient world even extended its historical borders. Egypt was really at the peak of its power. It was no longer a kingdom, but an empire. An empire that extended from Nubia, which is now in North Sudan, to the Syrian border. It was a very vast and extremely rich empire. The population of Egypt had reached 2 million inhabitants. People paid annual tax to the pharaohs. The Nubians especially sent gold and ivory. And populations, the vassal princes from the Near East, sent weapons, slaves, men, women, and livestock. No one dared to challenge such a powerful kingdom. But Thutmose IV, Amenhotep's father, died suddenly in 1390 BCE, causing all eyes to turn towards this new pharaoh, who was still but a child. We don't know exactly how old he was when his father passed away, but most people feel like that he would have been somewhere around 11 or 12 years old. Nevertheless, despite his young age when he came to the throne, Amenhotep III very quickly showed that he was ready to govern. The power that Egypt already had only grew stronger during his reign. He would lead it to its peak, becoming the greatest pharaoh builder of the 18th dynasty. Amenhotep III's reign is really quite dazzling. He was called Egypt's dazzling son. It really was the Golden Age, the largest expansion, the greatest wealth, the high point of Egyptian civilization. He would soon be the most feared and respected sovereign of the Near East. But appetites were whetted when he ascended to the throne at 11 years old. Large kingdoms developed in the region. Babylon to the south of current-day Iraq, Mitanni to the north of the country, and Hatti and Arzawa in Anatolia. Although Egypt was the most powerful of them all, it would suffer a sign of weakness which may cause its neighbors attracted by its wealth to attack. But how would so young a king manage to contain their appetites? A visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is in order to better understand the exceptional strategy that Amenhotep III developed. Egyptologist Salima Ikram has her ideas about the way in which the pharaoh very intelligently managed to stave off the threat. Amenhotep III was a very clever PR person, and one of the things that he used for publicity for himself was commemorated scarabs. These engraved scarabs allowed him to forge the legend of the king and keep the other great sovereigns of the time at bay. When there was something that he wanted people to know about, he would create these scarabs with a text on the back telling us whatever was important. An efficient way to prove his power. To this end, Amenhotep III engraved a scarab in the second year of his reign to tell of how he had led his army to slaughter a herd of wild bulls. Bulls were the symbol of kingship. The king wears a bull's tail, he is called the mighty bull. So they were very significant animals in the iconography of royalty. So Amenhotep III decided that he was going to go and hunt them and vanquish them to show the power of the king because of course one of the tropes in ancient Egypt was the king must be a great warrior, a great hunter. A great hunter who engraved the details of his brilliant strategy. His majesty ordered that these bulls be put in a pen with a ditch. So the first day Amenhotep III went all by himself and he managed to kill 56 bulls solo. And these are great mighty creatures so this was a great triumph. And then according to the scarab he goes back the next day and kills 40 more bringing the grand total to 96 and decimating the herd. Proud of his feat, the young king brandished a bull's tail and hastened to tell of his achievement. Other kings before him had already used such commemorative scarabs but never had they been used to such a scale. Amenhotep III, however, turned them into true sources of propaganda. He used the scarabs to replace today's tweets. They were the chosen way to spread propaganda of this young king who we consider to be a heroic sovereign. It almost acted as a fake little news bulletin. I am tweeting this to you. All the scarabs measured under 10 centimeters. The pharaoh's strategy was to ensure that they were easy to transport. These scarabs were sent more or less all over Egypt and even beyond as they have been found in Nubia, so in current-day Sudan, and even in the Aegean Sea regions. Amenhotep III did not choose this insect by chance. The scarab beetle was an important symbol because it was the sun god Khepri. That is the sun god who rose in the east each morning. This young, strong star represented the barely-adolescent king. It's a baby sun who rises, and that is the message that was coming with this. The pharaoh therefore sent his contemporaries a very strong sign with his bull-hunting tale. I might be young and I might be new, but I am strong, I am fierce, I am a great killer, and look at me and tremble. His message was perfectly received as no kingdoms dared to attack Egypt during his reign. The young king was able to enjoy the peace and soon grew up into a self-assured man. Amenhotep III had many scarabs made to his glory in an attempt to maintain his image both with his contemporaries and over the coming centuries. One of them was particularly important, the one depicting his marriage. The pharaoh married one of the most intelligent and powerful women in Egyptian history. Her name was Ti. The one thing we do know is that already in his second year of reign he was married to Queen Ti. And that meant that Queen Ti and he probably almost grew up together in a sense, creating a joint kingship. An impressive queen. We have that small little face or sculptural head of Queen Ti. She looked like a woman of energy and a very strong woman. Ti was the daughter of two Egyptian nobles, Yuya and Tuya. Yuya was a very powerful dignitary in the region of Akhmim in Middle Egypt, serving both military and religious functions. His wife, Tuya, was a priestess of Amun. They were a very, very powerful clan that supported the power of the pharaoh. But this marriage was not just the union of a king and a great family of nobles. DNA studies carried out on the mummies of Amenhotep III and Ti's father bring an even closer link to light. When you or I meet our future wife, we should not usually have a genetic link with our new father-in-law. Nevertheless, the pharaoh and his wife's father shared 30% of their genes. That shows an uncle-nephew relation. And what does that mean? We're forced to come to the conclusion that Queen Ti was, in fact, queen of Egypt's cousin. As the king's cousin, Ti held a place of honor with him. No queen before her had ever reached such a position. We have several representations of Ti, which really means that she was put in the spotlight. Pharaonic art reflects the official ideology. You were more or less important depending on your status in society. She was sometimes depicted at exactly the same level as the king. From a hierarchical point of view, that is the very equivalent of a pharaoh, which is quite extraordinary. Her power came, in part, from her privileged status as the mother of the future pharaoh. Ti gave Amenhotep III six children, of which two were sons. Prince Thutmose and the youngest, Amenhotep, the future Akhenaten. But that was not the only reason why she was in the spotlight. Ti was a wife, an ally, and in all likelihood a counselor for her husband Amenhotep III. We can imagine that she had some knowledge of foreign languages, and in any case, a good knowledge of the geopolitics of the time. She was so influential that foreign kings knew of her and called on her. For example, the king of Mitanni addressed Queen Ti. That very clearly shows that she was able to participate in negotiations between the kingdoms of her time. She therefore played a diplomatic role, which is completely unique and completely new. Ti thus played an essential role by Amenhotep III's side. She took part in his political decisions. But how did the couple go about keeping the peace? We have found precious clues about their strategy in a town in the center of Egypt, known now as Amarna. There, Egyptologists have found clay tablets, which were used to assist discussions between the sovereigns of the new empire. Now known as the Amarna Letters, these writings enlighten us about the workings of the international relations of the time. If we read the records, we understand that Amenhotep and Ti used matrimonial politics to secure the empire, which worked very well. In fact, Ti kept her indisputable position as a great royal wife, but with her support, Amenhotep III multiplied his unions with foreign princesses. We sometimes call him the pharaoh of a thousand wives. He did indeed have several hundreds of wives in his palace. The king combined business and pleasure as he chose his secondary wives. He extended his harem and ensured the fidelity of his neighbors, who would be little inclined to attack such a powerful member of their family. It was a kind of international marriage politics, like we had in Europe many, many centuries. Part of the Amarna Letters tells of the marriage negotiations between Amenhotep III and the daughter of Kadashman Enlil, the new king of Babylon. The pharaoh desired to marry her, but one obstacle stood in the way of his plans. Kadashman Enlil called for Amenhotep III. Here you are asking for my daughter's hand, but my father already gave you my sister's. She is with you, but no one else has seen her since the wedding to say whether she is alive or dead. To which Amenhotep replied, I have been unable to give you news of your sister because the ambassadors that you sent me were but common keepers of livestock and not worthy of my status of pharaoh. Amenhotep III then reassured the sovereign that his sister was safe and sound. But the story does not end there. It was the turn of the king of Babylon to make a proposition. In exchange for the marriage with his daughter, he desired the hand of one of the pharaoh's daughters. This time, the refusal was unequivocal. The daughter of a king of Egypt has never been given to anyone since the dawn of time. Kadashman Enlil replied, Well, okay, no problem. I completely understand. But in that case, send me any beautiful Egyptian girl, but make her look like your daughter. And the Egyptian king very sternly responded, No, Egyptian women do not go abroad. So basically, he wanted to make sure that no, not a drop of Egyptian royal blood went into any foreign territory because that would give those people the idea of legitimacy to come into Egypt. And it shows how clever the Egyptian kings were at using diplomacy sometimes rather than warfare to further their interests all throughout the Near East. Amenhotep III was undeniably the person with the most power. He knew that and imposed his conditions. When you read the Amarna letters from the other great kings of Mitanni or of Babylon, they have to acknowledge that he has more gold than anyone in the world, that he is the richest king. They treat him with incredible deference. Amenhotep III appears without any question as a man who can sit back and let people come to him. But getting on well with men was not enough to keep the peace in ancient Egypt. The king must imperatively gain the support of the gods. In order to earn their favor, Amenhotep III erected and renovated temples of colossal dimensions throughout his entire empire, such as this one in Soleb at the southernmost point of his kingdom, now in present-day Sudan. But despite this construction fever, paradoxically, almost nothing remains of these splendid monuments. And this is the cause of an enormous misunderstanding. Amenhotep III's name is barely known. When he was the greatest of the greats of his time and an example that his successors always tried their hardest to follow and imitate. Thankfully, of his masterpieces that remain standing, one in particular proves his creative genius and power. It is known today as Luxor Temple. Archaeologist Betsy Bryan has been studying the site for over 40 years. The Luxor Temple was probably started in his second decade of reign. And already had Shepsut had had a temple here. The king completely transformed and, more importantly, extended this small temple. This temple has the uniqueness of being really the work from that colonnade all the way to the back of a single ruler. And for a temple this size, that's really unusual. Amenhotep III is the really dominant presence in this temple. This sanctuary is one of the most emblematic constructed by the pharaoh. His architects actually designed a new model of temple architecture. So for the next 1500 years, temples were built in Egypt using this exact same model. Luxor was located just 3 kilometers from Karnak and was the home of Amun, the main god of Thebes, associated with royalty and the sun. Its geographical proximity made it possible to organize large processions between the two sides. It gave people a chance to try to catch a glimpse of the divine statue, see the pharaoh and celebrate. It certainly made Amenhotep III very popular. We are now in the main gathering court. So it forms a type of entrance at the end of the colonnade. It is certainly, in this case, one of the largest ones ever designed. Some people call it a sun court because it's so wide open. But it's really a gathering place. In the olden days, gloomy and narrow temples were reserved for priests and a small elite. Amenhotep III began a double revolution with this large space open to both the public and the sun. He wanted to have spots where the connection between the king and the god could be made very openly to the public. But beyond the courtyard, only the divine statue, the pharaoh and priests were allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. The sovereign undertook secret rituals in this hidden area. Once he had finished, he would return to present himself to the people in a purpose-built space. The last room in this temple design is called the appearance hall. So that the appearance is that of the god actually coming out of his Holy of Holies and the king, in this case, also. So both of them come out as deities. Amenhotep III fervently desired this divine status. But how could he become a god? He took up an idea of his ancestor Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh, to achieve this. She had depicted a scene showing her mother receiving the divine seed of the god Amun on the walls of one of her temples in order to prove her legitimacy. Amenhotep III commissioned an almost identical bas-relief. This scene, which appears to be very innocent, just showing the god Amun next to Queen Mudemwia, is really meant to evoke the act of sexual union. So here, the kings were searching to guarantee that they have divine spirit in them. And there is no better way to guarantee that you have the divine ka than to be the direct offspring of the god himself. Amenhotep III established himself as a god during his lifetime with this fresco. But that was not enough for him, as he also wanted to ensure that he would remain divine after his death. He began to actively prepare his afterlife so he could be certain. Archaeologist Meredith Brand is taking us to the heart of a strategic place in the new empire. This preserved natural space is dominated by high and inhospitable cliffs. Wow, it's beautiful here. It's quiet and peaceful. It feels really remote and almost sheltered by these big rocks. It's beautiful. We are in the Valley of the Kings. This spot is very isolated. It's surrounded by cliffs on all sides with only one entrance in the front. So it's an ideal place for secrecy and protection. It was a major concern for New Kingdom kings to keep their tombs secure and hidden. Tomb robbery was a real risk for the pharaohs. The most dangerous part was having the mummy desecrated. That was the body of the king, and it was important as a vessel for the soul of the king to enter in order to enjoy the afterlife. So chief among the concerns was preserving the mummy. Gone are the days of huge pyramids. Now kings carefully conceal their tombs with entrances that are simply holes lost in the cliff edge. We were granted exceptional authorization to visit the tomb of Amenhotep III, which is buried 23 meters underground. Discovered more than 200 years ago, this unique site is relatively unknown as it is completely closed to the public. Going inside is a rare honor. Oh, this is beautiful. The entire tomb is built as a resurrection machine. This is the beginning part of his tomb, and I can see clearly Amenhotep III shown in a very youthful way. He has this eternal young face, and he's wearing his nemesis headdress and the regalia of kingship. In this scene, Amenhotep III is receiving life from the god Osiris. This is one of the fundamental aspects of ancient Egyptian funerary belief. Osiris was a god who was also a king, and he died and was successfully reborn into the afterlife. So this became the model for kings to be like Osiris. He also chose to include Anubis, the jackal-headed deity, who was responsible for guarding the mummy, and he was a central figure in mummification. The gods here are the ones that would help Amenhotep III make his successful transition into the afterlife. Amenhotep III needed this help. In times gone by, kings were supposed to join their peers in heaven, but a second role was given to deceased pharaohs during the 18th dynasty. So the king had a secondary role that was joining the sun god Ra on his nightly journey, fighting off all the demons and the enemies to help the sun be reborn in the morning. So on the one hand, the king ascends to the stars, and on the other hand, he descends into the underworld. The sovereign must imperatively vanquish the underworld, else the sun would never rise again over Egypt, so he put every possibility on his side. To do that, the king had inscribed on the wall of his tomb a series of instructions and guides. This is the amduat, and that means what is in the underworld. And this comprises of two things. First is a series of spells that we can see over here. A long list of texts that he would read in order to fight all the chaotic demons in the underworld. But the texts weren't enough. He also included an image behind me. If the pharaoh needed all that, it was because the god Ra had several enemies, 12 in total. He would face one every hour throughout the night. It shows the king going through the journey, and every hour there was a gate, and there was a series of demigods and demons. There's human figures with no heads. There's a whole host of mythical beings that are composite, human and animal, or different animals together. And as ever, Amenhotep III was leaving nothing to chance. What we see here is a successful journey. We see the sun, personified by the scarab beetle, pushing the sun out to be reborn in the morning. So just by painting it here, Amenhotep III made sure that this would have happened. He would have ensured the success. But the tomb alone was not enough to live in the afterlife and keep his godly status for eternity. The dead king must also regularly receive offerings and prayers. He needed a dedicated place for this eternal adoration. In the 18th dynasty, the place of worship, the funerary temple, was separate from the tomb, which was discreet and hidden in the Valley of the Kings. Although the funerary temple was far off, it was intimately connected with the tomb. Accompanied by his head architect, Amenhotep III monitored the work very closely. His eternal life was at stake, after all, so the builder king wanted this essential monument for him to be magnificent. Dr. Urig Sururzian has been unearthing the remains of this temple for over 20 years. Located in Qom el-Hattan, almost opposite Thebes, this site that was so essential for the deceased pharaoh also served him during his lifetime. We are at the north door of Amenhotep III's vast funerary complex. What remains of it are the giants and the main temple. During his lifetime, the king took part in ceremonies and paid tribute to the gods. But after the king's death, he was buried behind this mountain, this Theban peak. He was completely closed in his sarcophagus and the tomb was sealed. No one could go there. So where did the funerary worship go? To the funerary temple that we call the Temple of a Million Years because Amenhotep III would live forever, for millions of years if he received offerings. At least, that was what the king hoped. In fact, eternity did not last for nearly as long. Some 150 years after the temple was completed, there was an enormous earthquake. Everything was taken after the temple had been destroyed, the pile and bricks, the wood, the precious materials, and it was all used for other temples. Only two giants remain standing after the earthquake. Now, one of the symbols of Egypt, they are called the Colossi of Memnon. But surprisingly, this name is not Egyptian. In the Roman times, visitors heard a certain sound coming out of the stone at dawn. For the Romans, dawn was incarnated by the goddess Eos, mother of Memnon, a Trojan hero. When they heard that sound made by the wind, they said Memnon is greeting his mother Eos. So they called it Memnon, but it represents Amenhotep III wearing a nemes headcloth and with a royal beard sitting on a throne in the traditional way, with his hands flat on his knees. These Colossi, which are an effigy of the king, stand at more than 18 meters tall. They were forged from two monoliths of red quartzite, a rock that came from a sacred quarry located in El Gabal el Amar. These giant blocks of stone, weighing over 1,300 tons each, had to travel more than 650 kilometers along the Nile to reach the temple of a million years. But why did Amenhotep III go to so much trouble to erect these giants? These giants were deities. They acted as intermediaries between man and the gods. You could whisper in the giant's ear to ask for good health, a long life, prosperity and everything. We can't show the god outside because that isn't allowed. It's hidden in a sanctuary. So the king gave his appearance to the gods as a receptacle. But he didn't do it out of pride or to say, I have done better. He did it out of piety. This piety led Amenhotep III to have over 1,000 monumental life-size statues sculpted as the pharaoh wished to highlight his link with the gods. He may have presented himself as the son of Amun at Luxor, but he went even further in his funerary temple, installing a stone on which the god talked with him and called him by name. My earthly son whom I love, my living image, creation of my flesh. Before congratulating Amenhotep III for the temples that he had constructed in his honor. The heart of the gods is satisfied with these monuments. May you be blessed with life, stability and power, like Ra eternally. The king affirmed this power through each of his constructions. Like his statues, he was not satisfied with his temple just being large. It was immense, the greatest in Egypt. The temple was one of extraordinary richness. Imagine the Karnak temple. It was of that same scope. There were administrative buildings and accommodation for the priests. There were gardens, ponds and workshops somewhere. It was like a city inside a city. It was swarming with people. There were a few thousand people in all, from the high priest to the person sweeping the floor. It was wonderful. This wonder represented the opulence of Amenhotep III's reign. His reign really was the golden age of Egyptian civilization. It was a real high point. Many of the traces of this pharaoh builder had been lost. Apart from the earthquakes, the looting and constructions destroyed with the passing of time, another king born 100 years later also contributed to making some of these works disappear. That's largely the fault of Ramses II, who decided that Amenhotep III had left an awful lot of really beautiful things and so perhaps he could just take them and put his own name on them. It's just when you start looking at the faces and the body types that you can say, oh, that's not really Ramses, that was Amenhotep III. But Amenhotep III did leave a lot more statuary than we immediately attribute to him. Everyone thinks that Ramses II is the builder. No! The builder of Egypt and the builder of the great statues is really Amenhotep III. It was thanks to the length of his reign over 30 years that he was able to construct such masterpieces. This long period also allowed him to celebrate a jubilee called Assad Festival. Egyptologist Stephen Harvey is taking us to discover the tomb of the man in charge of organizing this extraordinary anniversary. Known as Kerouaf, he was Queen T's steward. This is an extraordinary scene because we stand in the presence of the pharaoh Amenhotep III and his wife Queen T. So it's an extraordinary mark of privilege that Kerouaf would be allowed to represent the king and the queen and not just their cartouches, and we know that Kerouaf shows 3 said festivals in this tomb. The jubilee that celebrates 30 years of rule and is celebrated then periodically thereafter. These exceptional jubilees showed that the pharaoh was still able to govern the country and refreshed his power as they rejuvenated him. This was so essential that he spent lavishly. We know that immense festival palaces were built at Thebes for the said festival. You see here entire boats that are so heavily laden with meat and vegetables that they could almost be thought to be sinking here. There's so many details to notice, and down here we see female singers who are hitting the tambourine and clapping, and then we see women, rows of women, dancing. This man doing a ritual kind of dance, sort of like fencing or sword fighting, and this kind of stick dancing is still done in Southern Egypt today at weddings and festivals, and we can almost hear the music when we look at these scenes. On the upper part of the wall here, we're seeing a very important part of the said festival called the raising of the Jed Pillar. What is the Jed Pillar? It's the backbone of the god Osiris. The god who is connected to divine kingship. And what we get here is actually the Jed being put upright on its base by both Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. And so with the raising of this symbol, we have the reinforcing of the reign of the pharaoh, of his strength. With his increased power, the ruler could now go back in time. If we look at the face of Amenhotep III, he looks almost like a child. He's got big, wide-open eyes, kind of a youthful face, so time goes in a way backward for the pharaoh. He gets younger as he gets older. Still keen on proving his divine nature, Amenhotep III also created new rituals. He organized a sailing ceremony with Queen Tiye, who stood next to him. So why this sailing? Because Amenhotep III identifies as the sun god. He sails on a boat in the same way that the sun is supposed to cross the sky, also on a boat. In order to ensure that the link with the sun was completely clear to everyone, the royal couple appeared dressed in gold to shine like the star itself. And so we are witnessing what Egyptologists sometimes call a solarization of power of the pharaoh. He tried to present himself as a form of the sun god. Some people have gone so far as to say that he was deified at the time of his Heb Sed festival. I am not a believer that that was exactly the case, but I certainly think it was his hope and intention. That's what he wanted people to believe. And it worked. That belief was so widespread that it was a real shock for the Egyptians when Amenhotep III died after 38 years of his reign. He left a rich and powerful empire to his son. The gods had been honored, the neighboring kingdoms were at peace with Egypt, and the pharaoh was more powerful than ever. The great of the greatest is really one of the greatest kings of his time. But his successor would soon call all that into question. Christened Amenhotep IV, he is now famous by another name, Pharaoh Akhenaten. Today, his name represents a dark yet fascinating period for Egypt. In a kingdom that had always worshipped several deities, Akhenaten chose to devote himself to only one god. To honor him, he ordered that the court be moved and implemented a decidedly innovative artistic and architectural style. But events soon seemed to prove him wrong as the problems and setbacks piled up. What if Akhenaten had provoked the wrath of the gods over Egypt when he had changed tradition? The later kings hated Akhenaten to the extent that they couldn't even say his name. They called him the rebel because saying his name brought him to life.