Amunhotep II (Part 5)
1460 – 1455 BCE. After the brilliant campaign of regnal year 33, Thutmose enjoyed a period of peace and plenty. Foreign powers began to seek relations with Egypt, and the power of the Pharaoh appeared supreme. This manifested in the appearance of three unusual princesses…
Bibliography
- Peter der Manuelian, Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II, 1987.
- M. Eaton-Krauss, “The Fate of Sennefer and Senetnay at Karnak and in the Valley of the Kings,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 1999.
- JJ Shirley, “Crisis and Restructuring of the State: From the End of the Middle Kingdom to the Advent of the Ramesses,” in Ancient Egyptian Administration, 2013.
- JJ Shirley, The Culture of Officialdom: An examination of the acquisition of offices during the mid-18th Dynasty, PhD Thesis, 2005.
- Osiris.net – the Tomb of Sen-nefer (TT96)
Another interesting episode.
The fall of Rekh-mi-Re is quite a shock to me, as I imagine it was to him also. Are there any signs of trouble in Thebes or the south after it happened, alienating such a key economic player as that is surely quite risky.
It’s also interesting his temples were attacked, this feels like its going beyond the purpose of removing someone who had consolidated too much power into his person, and towards a more personal crime?
The rise of his tutors son and nephew is also wild to me, though I don’t really see how it accomplishes a distribution of power, as they’re close relatives who work tightly together, if they wanted to coordinate their forces politically they’d surely be just as able to?
Honestly to me their rise to the Vizierate is far more of a political upset than Senenmut’s was under Hatshepsut. He worked his way up through the administration over years, proving his competency, before peaking out below the Vizierate.
Meanwhile these fellas were shot straight to the very top it seems! I can quite imagine that sabotaging the ability of the government to function for at least a few years.
The inclusion of the Vizier in the valley of the kings is particularly curious to me, have any Egyptologists ever suggested that he and Amenhotep were maybe, ‘more than friends’ so to speak, because that’s a bizarrely high privilege.
Unrelated but you wrote ‘Thutmose (sic) experienced period of peace and prosperity’ by mistake 🙂