Memories of the New Kingdom Collection

By Scriptural Research Institute

The New Kingdom era of Egyptian history emerged from the darkness of the Second Intermediate Period, when the Theban dynasty drove out the Hyksos from Egypt, and went on the conquer Canaan, and Nubia. The Hyksos dynasty appears to have been largely as a result of the Minoan eruption in Greece, which darkened the sky of Egypt and blanketed northe

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
• Release date: Oct 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852712

Book preview

Memories of the New Kingdom Collection

SCRIPTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Published by Digital Ink Productions, 2023

COPYRIGHT

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Memories of the New Kingdom Collection

Digital edition. September 16, 2023

Copyright © 2023 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-989852-71-2

These English translations were created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020, primarily from the Hieratic and Hieroglyphic copies of the texts published in the past century, or when possible, high resolution photographs of the steles. Additionally, the following translations and commentaries were consulted for comparison: K. Sethe’s Urkunden der 18. Dynastie (1914), E. A. Wallis Budge’s The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (1914), and James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (1906).

The image used for the cover is an artistic reinterpretation of ‘The description of Egypt’ by Charles Louis Fleury Panckoucke, painted in 1824.

Note: The notes for this book include multiple ancient scripts. For your convenience, fonts correctly depicting these scripts are embedded in the ebook. If your reader does not support embedded fonts, you will need to install Unicode fonts that cover the ranges for Akkadian cuneiform, Arabic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek, Hebrew, Linear B, Old Italic, Phoenician, Tifinagh, and Ugaritic on your reader manually, or you may see blank areas, question marks, or squares where the scripts are used. The Noto fonts from Google cover most of the scripts used, however, will not depict Egyptian hieroglyphs or Libyo-Berber, Neo-Babylonian cuneiform, or Neshite (Hittite) cuneiform correctly due to current limitations in Unicode.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Forward

Introduction to Ahmose pen-Ebana

Autobiography of Ahmose pen-Ebana

Introduction to Ahmose pen-Nekhbet

Autobiography of Ahmose pen-Nekhbet

Introduction to Thutmose II

Inscription of Thutmose II

Introduction to Thoth the Nobleman

Autobiography of Thoth the Nobleman

Introduction to Thutmose III

Biography of Thutmose III

Siege of Megiddo

Capture of Jaffa

Introduction to Thutmose IV

Dream Stele of Thutmose IV

Introduction to Ramesses III

Biography of Ramesses III

Available Digitally

Available in Print

FORWARD

The New Kingdom era of Egyptian history emerged from the darkness of the Second Intermediate Period, when the Theban dynasty drove the Hyksos out of Egypt, and went on to conquer Canaan, and Nubia. The fall of the Hyksos dynasty appears to have been largely as a result of the Minoan eruption in Greece, which darkened the sky of Egypt and blanketed northern Egypt with up to two meters of ash. The Tempest Stele from Karnak described the effects of the storm reaching all the way to southern Egypt during the era of Ahmose I, the Pharaoh that ultimately drove the Hyksos from Egypt. The sections of the Tempest Stele that describe the effects of the eruption are damaged, however, the lines that survive read:

"...the gods expressed their discontent. The gods of the sky come with a tempest and it darkened the West. The sky was unleashed without [...damaged text...] more than the roar of the crowd [...damaged text...] was powerful [...damaged text...] on the highlands more than the waterfall at the cataract of Elephantine. Each house [...damaged text...] each shelter that they reached [...damaged text...] were floating in the water like the barks of papyrus by the royal residence for [...damaged text...] days [...damaged text...] with no one able to light the torch anywhere.

Then His Majesty said ‘This surpasses even the power of the great god and the wills of the divinities!’

His Majesty descended in his boat, with his council following. The east and the west were silent, as they were naked [...damaged text...] after the power of the god was manifested. Then His Majesty arrived in Thebes [...damaged text...] this statue, and it received what it had desired. His majesty set out to strengthen Egypt and stop the rain around him, and he provided them with silver, gold, copper, oil, clothing, and all the other goods they desired. Then His Majesty returned to the palace (life, health, strength).

Then His Majesty was informed that the tombs had been flooded, that the sepulchral chambers had been damaged, that the structures of funerary enclosures had been undermined, that the pyramids had collapsed, and all that existed had been annihilated. His Majesty then ordered the repair of the shrines which had collapsed all over the country and the restoration of the..."

This period of destruction was shortly before Ahmose I launched his successful invasion of Northern Egypt and captured the Hyksos capital of Avaris. The reference to the collapse of the pyramids is likely a reference to the adobe pyramids of the Middle Kingdom, which all collapsed at some point, even though the only thing that would normally cause adobe to collapse is intense rain. The adobe pyramids of the Kushite Empire are still standing after around 3000 years, however, are in the desert.

The Autobiography of Ahmose pen-Ebana covers many of the early battles that forged the Egyptian New Kingdom, including the Battle of Avaris, and the subsequent Battle of Sharuhen a few years later, which resulted in Egypt taking control over the entire former Hyksos dominion. Ahmose pen-Ebana is often described as an Egyptian Admiral, however, his career in the Egyptian navy encompassed decades under the service of a series of Pharaohs, including Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, and Thutmose I, spanning more than 50 years from circa 1550 to the 1490s BC. As he described himself as a youth at the Battle of Avaris, where he served as his father’s replacement in the fleet, it is likely that he did not retire until he was over 60. He listed extensive campaigns throughout his life, mostly in northern Sudan along the Nile and Yellow Nile, before the pharaoh turned his attention to the north, and sent them to occupy Syria.

The herald Ahmose pen-Nekhbet’s biography covers much of the same era, however, his viewpoint was that of a pharaoh’s herald instead of a soldier, therefore, he only mentions the battles that the pharaoh was present at. The first battle that pen-Nekhbet partook in was the battle in Djahy under Amenhotep I, which may have been the Battle of Sharuhen, or a later battle in southern Canaan. He only reported being present at one battle in Nubia, unlike the extensive campaigns that pen-Ebana fought in, however, also reported battles against the Libyans of the Saharan oases and a major invasion of Syria. Pen-Nekhbet served much longer than pen-Ebana, serving the Pharaohs Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, and Hatshepsut, spanning approximately 70 years between 1540 through the 1470s BC. He reported being an old man during Hatshepsut’s lifetime and carrying the infant princess Neferure, which would have been in around 1480 BC.

The decades covered by pen-Ebana’s and pen-Nekhbet’s biographies describe an Egypt that recovered from the foreign occupation of the Hyksos era and reached out in all directions, conquering Canaan and Syria to the north, Nubia to the south, and the Libyan oases to the west. They are two perspectives of how the New Kingdom came into existence, the last great age of Egyptian history. The Inscription of Thutmose II describes one of the campaigns of this age of conquest. It was erected along the road from Aswan to Thebes by the soldiers returning from the campaign against Nubia in Thutmose’s first year, and describes campaigns through the Yellow and Black Niles. The inscription begins with the list of titles of the pharaoh, which includes a list of lands that the king rules. This list of countries includes the expected lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, the lands of the Haunebu in the Nile Delta and Sinai, the Lands of Phoenicians in Canaan and Syria, and the lands of the Nubians in Kush and the Eastern Desert. This description of Egypt implies that the southern frontier at the time was somewhere north of the sixth cataract.

When Thutmose II died, his favorite wife Queen Hatshepsut seized the throne in the name of his 2-year-old son Thutmose III, her sister Iset’s son. Her reign appears to have been one of discontent in Egypt, as demonstrated by the graffiti found in an abandoned temple near her Mortuary Temple, which showed her as a hermaphrodite king, having sex with a man who is generally assumed to have been Senenmut the architect of her Mortuary Temple. Her reign was