More Important Topics of Cylinder

The Hyksos (Egyptian heka khasewet) were an ethnically mixed group of Western Asiatic people who appeared in the eastern Nile Delta during the Second Intermediate Period.

They overthrew the weak Egyptian Thirteenth Dynasty, whose capital was near Memphis, and formed the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Dynasties of Egypt, (ca. 1674-1548 B.C.E.

Traditionally, only the six Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are called "Hyksos". The Tanach refers to them as Canaanites, and decendents of Ham, son of Noah.

The Hyksos had names that bear strong similarities to Canaanite names, and archaeologists think of the Canaanites as being indistinguishable from the Phoenicians. The Hyksos introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow, the horse, and the horse-drawn chariot.

The numerous Sixteenth Dynasty princes are believed to be a mixed collection of "Hyksos", other Asiatic Semites, and local native Egyptian princes who had no choice but to support their new overlords.

The names of the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos are known from Egyptian monuments, scarabs and other small objects, and Manetho's history of Egypt, written during the time of Ptolemy II.

Who Were the Hyksos?

Unsolved problems in Egyptology: What was the origin of the Hyksos? Who were their first leaders?The term "Hyksos" derives from the expression heka khasewet (Rulers of Foreign Lands), used in Egyptian texts like the Turin King List to describe the rulers of neighboring lands.

This expression begins to appear as early as the late Old Kingdom in Egypt referring to various Nubian chieftains and as early as the Middle Kingdom referring to the bedouin chieftains of Syria-Palestine.

It is generally accepted that only the six kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty are to properly be called "Hyksos", because not only do they bear Egyptian royal titles, but they are specifically called Hyksos by Manetho. It is generally agreed that these six Hyksos kings of Egypt ruled a total of about 108 years.

Wolfgang Helck argued that the Hyksos were part of massive and widespread Hurrian and Indo-Aryan migrations into the Near East.

According to Helck, the Hyksos were Hurrians and part of a Hurrian empire that, he claimed, extended over much of Western Asia at this period. However, today the Hurrian hypothesis finds few if any supporters, and the Hyksos are widely regarded as Semitic.

The names, the order, and even the total number of the Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are not known with any certainty. The names appear in hieroglyphs on monuments and small objects such as jar lids and scarabs.

In those instances in which Prenomen and Nomen do not occur together on the same object, there is no certainty that the names belong together as the two names of a single person. This period of Egyptian history is a chronological nightmare that only additional datable archaeological material can resolve.

Manetho's history of Egypt is known only through the works of others, such as Flavius Josephus. These sources do not list the names of the six rulers in the same order.

To complicate matters further, the spellings are so distorted that they are useless for chronological purposes; there is no close or obvious connection between the bulk of these names — Salitis, Beon/Bnon, Apachnan/Pachnan, annas/Staan, Apophis, Assis/Archles — and the Egyptian names that appear on scarabs and other objects.

The hieroglyphic names of the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos rulers as they are known from monuments, scarabs, and other objects are:

1. Sa-kha-en-ra Shalik (Each name is only found separately.)

2. Ma-ib-ra Sheshy (?) (Each name is only found separately.)

3. Mer-woser-ra Yaqob-her (Both names are found together on one scarab.)

4. Se-woser-en-ra Khayan (Both names are found together.)

5. Apopi (Three different Prenomens: Aawoserra, Aaqenenra, and Nebkhepeshra)

6. Aa-sech-ra Khamudy (Each name is only found separately.)

Although the Semitic name "Jacob" appears in the form Yaqob-her as possibly that of the third Hyksos ruler, it is probably best to exercise more caution than Gardiner did when, in Egypt of the Pharaohs, he wrote that "it is difficult to reject the accepted view that the patriarch Jacob is commemorated" in this name. Popular names are known to recur again and again over long periods of time.

In the case of ruler 5 on the list above, the Prenomen and Nomen are normally found written together. It is not clear whether they represent a single king who changed his Prenomen or three separate rulers.

In the Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), "Aweserra" Apophis is said to have been succeeded by a second "Apophis", who bore the Prenomen Aa-qenen-re. Ruler 1 on the list above is not recognized by CAH (Hayes suggests he may have been identical to Ruler 2 on the list), and Apophis II is added near the end instead.

This maintains the total of six Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos rulers. CAH follows Josephus’ Greek text of Manetho in using the older distorted form "Apophis". Gardiner, on the other hand, writes that there were in fact three kings with the Nomen Apopi.

The matter is still being discussed, and any final answer as to whether there were three, two, or only one Apopi, who modified his Prenomen at various times during his reign (a good Egyptian practice which is attested frequently) remains for future discoveries to resolve.

Was There a Hyksos Invasion?

Manetho's account of the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt calls it an armed invasion by a horde of foreign barbarians who met little resistance and who subdued the country by military force. It has been claimed that new revolutionary methods of warfare insured the Hyksos the ascendancy in their invasion.

Herbert Winlock in his book The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes describes new military hardware, such as the composite bow and most importantly the horse-drawn war chariot, as well as improved arrowheads, various kinds of swords and daggers, a new type of shield, mailed shirts, and the metal helmet.

To say that even some of this military hardware had been brought into Egypt by the Hyksos and was not the result of a native Egyptian development does not necessarily point to a violent armed invasion by Asiatic hordes.

Simply put, they had superior military hardware, so when military moves were called for, the Hyksos had the preponderance of military might on their side.

Helck supported the idea of an invasion, because it was part of his Hurrian hypothesis. However, the generally accepted view today is reflected as a peaceful infiltration of several different groups of Western Asiatic peoples, mainly Semites, into the eastern Nile Delta during the closing decades of the Middle Kingdom -- in some cases as slaves of the victorious Egyptians.

Von Beckerath adds that to suppose any armed invasion of Egypt by Semites from southern Palestine and the Sinai desert is out of the question because the tribes there simply were not strong enough. Furthermore there was no consolidated state in the region from which such a supposed invasion could have been launched.

The Hyksos' realm was not the southern extension of a great Hurrian empire, as Helck thought, for the simple reason that there was never any Hurrian empire. Over the years, then, the numbers of these Asiatics in the eastern Delta increased, and gradually they extended their political control over the local Egyptian towns and princedoms there.

Finally a point was reached when one group of leaders came to the same conclusion as Pepin the Short did in the Merovingian kingdom so many centuries later when he posed the question whether it was right that one of royal race and who bore the title king but who exercised no effective power in the kingdom should continue to bear the title of king.

These Hyksos leaders thereupon took matters into their own hands, attacked and overran the administrative capital at Memphis, and proceeded to make themselves pharaohs.

Nor was there any great Hyksos empire extending over hither Asia, as was once thought. The chief evidence for such a Hyksos empire in Asia consists of a mass of Hyksos scarabs from southwest Palestine, an alabaster jar-lid from Knossos on Crete, and a small granite lion from Baghdad.

Scarabs with Hyksos names have even been found as far south as Kerma in the Sudan. All these items have been satisfactorily explained as items of trade, not as indicators of direct political and military control.

Extent and Nature of Hyksos Rule

The Hyksos kingdom, then, was centered in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt and remained limited in size, never extending south into Upper Egypt, which was under the evidently firm control of the Theban dynasts.

Hyksos relations with the south seem to have been mainly of a commercial nature, although the Theban princes do seem to have recognized the Hyksos rulers and may possibly have submitted for a time to the payment of tribute. The Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty rulers established their capital and seat of government at Memphis and their summer Residence at Avaris.

Many writers have taken the increasing use of scarabs by the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos kings and their wide distribution as an indication of their expanding literacy as they became progressively Egyptianized. Even von Beckerath commented on their writing their names in hieroglyphs, their assuming Egyptian titles associated with traditional Egyptian kingship, and their adopting the Egyptian god Seth to represent their own titulary deity as examples of the Egyptianization of the Hyksos dynasts.

Indeed, so far from being the bearers of a distinctive Hyksos "culture", they seem to have borrowed freely and extensively from the Egyptian, as Hayes notes. In fact, it would appear as though Hyksos administration was accepted in most quarters, if not actually supported by many of their Egyptian subjects.

The flip side is that in spite of the prosperity that the stable political situation brought to the land, the native Egyptians continued to view the Hyksos as hated "Asiatics". When they eventually were driven out of Egypt all traces of their occupation were erased.

History is written by the victors, and in this case the victors were the rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a native dynasty, the direct successor of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. It was the latter which started and led a sustained war against the Hyksos.

These native kings from Thebes had the incentive to demonize the Asiatic rulers in the North, thus accounting for the ruthless destruction of their monuments. This note of warning tells us that the historical situation most probably lay somewhere between these two extreme positions: The Hyksos dynasties represented superficially Egyptianized foreigners who were tolerated, but not truly accepted, by their Egyptian subjects.

The independent native rulers in Thebes do seem, however, to have reached a practical modus vivendi with the later Hyksos rulers. This included transit rights through Hyksos-controlled Middle and Lower Egypt and pasturage rights in the fertile Delta.

One text, Carnarvon Tablet I, relates the misgivings of the Theban ruler’s council of advisors when Kamose proposed moving against the Hyksos, whom he claimed were a humiliating stain upon the holy land of Egypt.

The councillors clearly did not wish to disturb the status quo: "[…] we are at ease in our (part of) Egypt. Elephantine (at the First Cataract) is strong, and the middle (of the land) is with us as far as Cusae [near modern Asyut]. The sleekest of their fields are plowed for us, and our cattle are pastured in the Delta.

Emmer is sent for our pigs. Our cattle have not been taken away... He holds the land of the Asiatics; we hold Egypt..." (This and other texts in English translation may be found in Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), pp. 232f.)

The Thebean Offensive

Under Sekenenra Tao (II)

The war against the Hyksos began in the closing years of the Seventeenth Dynasty at Thebes. Later New Kingdom literary tradition has brought one of these Theban kings, Seqenenra Tao (II), into contact with his Hyksos contemporary in the north, Aauserra Apopi. Seqenenra is the father of the ruler above whose advisors counselled against disturbing the accommodation that had been reached with the Asiatics.

The tradition took the form of a tale in which the Hyksos king Apopi sent a messenger to Seqenenra in Thebes to demand that the Theban hippopotamus pool be done away with, for the noise of these beasts was such that he was unable to sleep in far-away Avaris. Perhaps the only historical information that can be gleaned from the tale is that Egypt was a divided land, the area of direct Hyksos control being in the north, but the whole of Egypt possibly paying tribute to the Hyksos kings.

Seqenenra participated in active diplomatic posturing, which probably consisted of more than simply exchanging of insults with the Asiatic ruler in the North. He seems to have led military skirmishes against the Hyksos, and judging from the vicious head wound on his mummy in the Cairo Museum, he may have died during one of them.

His son and successor, Wadjkheperra Kamose, the last ruler of the Seventeenth Dynasty at Thebes, is credited with the opening campaigns of the Theban war against the Hyksos.

Under Kamose

There is no evidence to support Montet's assertion in his book Eternal Egypt (1964) that Kamose's war of liberation was sponsored by the priesthood of Amun as an attack against the Seth-worshipers in the north (i.e. a religious motive).

The Carnarvon Tablet I, does state that Kamose went north to attack the Asiatics by the command of Amun, the titulary deity of his dynasty, but this is simple hyperbole common to virtually all Egyptian royal inscriptions at all periods and should not be understood as the god’s having specifically commanded the attack for specifically religious reasons.

Kamose's reason for launching his attack on the Hyksos was nationalistic pride, for in this same text he complains that he is sandwiched at Thebes between the Asiatics in the north and the Nubians (Sudanese) in the south, each holding “his slice of Egypt, dividing up the land with me…My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics!” So it was that in his 3rd year on the throne Kamose, he embarked and sailed north from Thebes at the head of his army.

He surprised and overran the southernmost garrison of the Hyksos at Nefrusy, just north of Cusae [near modern Asyut], and Kamose then led his army as far north as the neighborhood of Avaris itself. Though the city was not taken, the fields around it were devastated by the Thebans.

A stele discovered at Thebes continues the account of the war broken off on the Carnarvon Tablet I, telling of the interception and capturing of a courier bearing a message from the Hyksos king Aa-woser-ra Apopi at Avaris to his ally the ruler of Kush (modern Sudan), requesting his urgent support.

Kamose promptly ordered a detachment of his troops to occupy the Bahriya Oasis in the Western Desert, controlling and blocking the desert route to the south. Kamose, called "the Strong",then sailed back up the Nile to Thebes for a joyous victory celebration after what was probably not much more than a surprise spoiling raid in force which caught the Hyksos off guard. This Year 3 is the only one attested for Kamose.

By the end of the reign of Aawoserra Apopi, one of the last Hyksos kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty, Hyksos forces had been routed from Middle Egypt and had been pulled back northward and regrouped in the vicinity of the entrance of the Fayyum at Atfih.

This great Hyksos king had outlived his first Egyptian contemporary, Sekenenra Tao II, and was still on the throne (albeit of a much reduced kingdom) at the end of Kamose's reign. The last Hyksos ruler(s) of the Fifteenth Dynasty undoubtedly had (a) relatively short reign(s) falling sometime within the first half of that of Ahmose, Kamose's successor and the founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Under Ahmose

Ahmose, the first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, may have been on the Theban throne for some time before he resumed the war against the Hyksos.

The details of his military campaigns are taken from the account on the walls of the tomb of another Ahmose, a soldier from El-Kab, a town in southern Upper Egypt, whose father had served under Seqenenra Tao II, and whose family had long been nomarchs of the district. It seems that several campaigns against the stronghold at Avaris were needed before the Hyksos were finally dislodged and driven from Lower Egypt.

When this occurred is not known with certainty. Some authorities place the expulsion as early as Ahmose's fourth year, while Donald Redford, whose chronological structure has been adopted here, places it as late as the king's fifteenth year. The soldier Ahmose specifically states that he followed on foot as King Ahmose rode to war in his chariot.

This is the first mention of the use of the horse and chariot by the Egyptians. In the repeated fighting around Avaris, the soldier captured prisoners and carried off several hands, which when reported to the royal herald resulted in his being awarded the "Gold of Valor" on three separate occasions.

The actual fall of Avaris is only briefly mentioned: "Then Avaris was despoiled. Then I carried off spoil from there: one man, three women, a total of four persons. Then his majesty gave them to me to be slaves" (ANET, pp.233f).

After the fall of Avaris, the fleeing Hyksos were pursued by the Egyptian army across northern Sinai and into southern Palestine. Here, in the Negev desert between Raphia and Gaza, the fortified town of Sharuhen was reduced after, according to the soldier from El-Kab, a long three-year siege operation.

How soon after the sack of Avaris this Asiatic campaign took place is uncertain. One can reasonably conclude that the thrust into southern Palestine probably followed the Hyksos’ eviction from Avaris fairly closely, but, given a period of protracted struggle before Avaris fell and possibly more than one season of campaigning before the Hyksos were shut up in Sharuhen, the chronological sequence must remain uncertain.

Summary

The Hyksos were Semitic-speaking Asiatics who filtered into the eastern Egyptian Delta around the middle of the Thirteenth Dynasty during a period of internal Egyptian weakness. The Thirteenth Dynasty rulers had moved the capital of the country north to a centrally located town called Itjtawy near Memphis, near the apex of the Delta. Seizing the kingship, the Hyksos ruled Egypt for over one hundred years, composing the Fifteenth Dynasty.

The heterogeneous Sixteenth Dynasty was partly Hyksos, but also composed of local Egyptian rulers who had no choice but to go along with their new overlords. This general period of Egyptian weakness and foreign occupation is called the Second Intermediate Period, or more popularly, the Hyksos Period. The local princes in Thebes in the south formed the Seventeenth Dynasty when the Hyksos overran It-tawy and forced the ephemeral rulers there into subservience.

These vigorous Theban rulers kept the flame of Egyptian independence alive and finally were able to lead a war of liberation that expelled the Asiatics. The Hyksos rulers and their military forces were driven from Egypt. Egypt was free, and Ahmose and his successors of the Eighteenth Dynasty could turn to the task of reconstruction. Some historians have linked the biblical story of Joseph with the Hyksos regime. As they too were Semitic, it is plausible that a Hyksos ruler could employ a Semitic minister at a high level.

Sea Peoples

Is the term used in ancient Egyptian records of a race of ship-faring raiders who drifted into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and attempted to enter Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty, and especially year 5 of Rameses III of the 20th Dynasty.

Historic records

The earliest mention of the Sea Peoples proper is in an inscription of the Egyptian king Merneptah, whose rule is usually dated from 1213 BC to 1204 BC. Merneptah states that in the fifth year of his reign (1208 BC) he defeated an invasion of an allied force of Libyans and the Sea People, killing 6,000 soldiers and taking 9,000 prisoners.

About 20 years later the Egyptian king Ramses III was forced to deal with another invasion of the Sea Peoples, this time allied with the Philistines. In the mortuary temple he built in Thebes Ramses describes how, despite the fact "no land could stand before" the forces of the Sea People and that they swept through "Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya" destroying their cities, he defeated them in a sea battle.

He gives the names of the tribes of the Sea People as including: the Peleset, the Tjeker, the Shekelesh, the Denyen, and the Weshesh. However, because this list is identical to the one Merneptah included in his victory inscription and because Ramses also describes several fictitious victories on his temple walls, some Egyptologists believe that he never actually fought the Sea Peoples, but only claimed the victories of Merneptah as his own - a common ancient Egyptian practice.

A Sea People appear in another set of records problematically dated around the early 12th century BC. Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit (c.1191 BC - 1182 BC) received a letter from the Hittite king Suppliluliuma II warning him about the "Shikalayu who live on boats" who are perhaps the same people as the Shekelesh mentioned in Merneptah's list. It may be relevant that shortly after he received this communication, Ammurapi was overthrown and the city of Ugarit sacked, never to be inhabited again.

Hypotheses about the Sea Peoples

The abrupt end of several civilizations in the decades traditionally dated around 1200 BC have caused many ancient historians to hypothesize that the Sea People caused the collapse of the Hittite, Mycenaean and Mittani kingdoms. However, Marc Van De Mieroop and others have argued against this theory on several points.

Grimal argues that the kingdoms of the Mittani, Assyria, and Babylon were more likely destroyed by a group who dwelled on the edges of the settled lands called by the Akkadian word Habiru.

Another argument Grimal makes is that the attempted Sea People invasion of Egypt that Ramses III foiled is now seen as nothing more than a minor skirmish, the records of his victories on his temple walls being greatly exaggerated. Though it is clear from the archeological excavations that Ugarit, Ashkelon and Hazor were destroyed about this time, Carchemish was not and other cities in the area such as Byblos and Sidon survived unscathed.

Another hypothesis concerning the Sea People, based on their recorded names, is that they may have been formed of people involved in the Greek migrations of this period, either the Greek-speaking invaders (identifying the "Ekwesh" with the Achaeans and the "Denyen" with the Dananoi, an ancient name for the Greek people).

This theory implies that the Philistines were part of this Greek-speaking confederacy. This theory was recently revived by the archeologist Eberhard Zangger in 2001 (earlier in German) that the Sea Peoples were the early semi-literate city states of the Greek Mycenaean civilisations, who destroyed each other in a disastrous series of conflicts lasting several decades. There would have been few or no external invaders and just a few excursions outside the Greek speaking part of the Aegean civilization.

The city states were semi-literate in the sense that very few individuals could master the complex Syllabary used to write in Linear B and other written forms of the early Greek language, and thus relatively few documents were produced in daily life to bear witness to the fratricidal nature of the wars.

In contrast, the completely alphabetic writing system which started to appear with the rise of Ancient Greece around 800 BC was relatively easy to learn and use, thus giving rise to the production of documents, fiction and non fiction in vast quantities.

In contradistinction to the foregoing interpretation of relevant textual records, the archaeological record provides a substantial basis to believe that peoples from central Europe and the Italian peninsula area may have contributed to the Sea Peoples phenomenon.

Pottery and bronze weapons of a distinctly Italic type have been found in quantity at excavations of structures built atop the charred ruins of cities believed to have been burnt to the ground by the Sea Peoples. Attempts have been made to identify certain Sea Peoples with Italian peoples; for example, some scholars have speculated that the Shekelesh can be identified with the ancient people of Sicily.

Additionally, brooches of a plainly Central European type, and amber beads, have also been found at some of the sites. None of these items appear in the archaeological record of the area prior to the Sea Peoples period. Also worth noting is that some of the knives and cups of an Italic design bear a strong resemblance to knives and cups unearthed in Hungary and central Germany, dating to the period 1800 - 1600 BC.

One thing about the Sea Peoples is beyond doubt: following violent conquest the Sea Peoples always burnt rich cities to the ground. They made no attempt to retain this wealth, but instead built new settlements of a lower cultural and economic level atop the ruins.

This demonstrates a deep scorn and contempt for what these cities represented. It is unlikely that the traditional Helladic warrior classes would have so discarded the spoils of victory, if the writings of Homer are to be considered a guide.

This leads us to look elsewhere for an explanation of who the Sea Peoples were. Textual and archaeological records show that Greek and Egyptian state structures utilized mercenaries from the north and west. It is possible that these mercenary groups eventually allied themselves with indigenous slave classes to bring down a number of complex but ossified state structures in Greece and the Near East.

Curiously, and in contrast to most theories of their origin, the Egyptians depicted them as being circumcised, and having semitic names. As a consequence, more radical, and less accepted, theories of their origin have been proposed, suggesting that the Sea Peoples represent a group of people from Canaan. In these theories, the group of 5 sea peoples mentioned together are identified as the 5 groups with coastal lands during the era of Solomon:

The Peleset are the Philistines

The Danua are the Tribe of Dan

The Shekelesh are the Tribe of Issachar (Shekelesh being understood to translate as men of Sheker, a corruption of men of Sachar)

The Weshesh are the Tribe of Asher (technically the name is equivalent to Uashesh, and so in the theories is a corruption of Asher)

The Tjekker are the Tribe of Manassah (an Egyptian tale Wenamun explicitely mentions that Dor is a Tjekker town, and Dor is the name of a place in the Manassah region)

Since these place the Philistines on the same side as the tribe of Dan, this suggests that the Tribe of Dan, and the others, later joined a different confederacy, historic Israel, of which they were not originally part, resulting in great enmity (as recorded in the Bible) with the Philistines, whom they had thus betrayed.

Also, Tjekker itself is understood, in the theory, to translate as of Aker, a town in Asher's dominion whose original inhabitants were allowed to remain. This requires, in the theory, that Aker was originally part of the land of Manassah, and Asher invaded the area, indeed, as the tale of Wenamun recounts, Beder (a name not mentioned in any other Egyptian text) was the prince of Dor, and the closest name mentioned in the bible is Bezer, a prince of Asher, implying Manasseh was the vassal of Asher.

Kenneth Kitchen in On the Reliability of the Old Testament rejects these views as contradicting the Bible, which as an Evangelical Christian, he believes to be inerrantly true under all situations.

Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, but was offset by the difficulty of raising large forces and by the inability of horses (then mostly small) to carry heavy

armor.

The chariot was first adopted by nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples on the boundaries of civilization in conflicts with civilized peoples. The chariot was quickly adopted by settled peoples both as a military technology and an object of ceremonial status.

Pharaoh rides a chariot into battle in the Egyptian New Kingdom, just as the Sun rides a chariot over the sky in Egyptian mythology.

Chariots were probably used as mobile archer platforms.

Chariots were quickly superseded by horses when selective breeding resulted in horses able to carry the weight of a fighting man.

Some nations continued to use them in battle, but they were mostly for ceremonial uses, for instance carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The first cavalry consisted of pairs of men, one using a bow while the other guided both of their horses.

While useful in the Middle East, chariots were not used everywhere. In some areas, most notably Egypt, chariots were used to transport nobles, but the army's core was still the infantry.

The Nile allowed for easy transportation of massed infantry by ship, making chariots' speed far less of an advantage. Egypt's main enemies were the Saharan nomads and the

southern Nubians, who could be repulsed by the superior numbers of the Egyptians. By abandoning chariots Egypt made itself vulnerable to any outside invaders, such as the Hyksos or Persians, who did reach them.

Were we to take the depictions and reliefs of Ramesses II, Seti I, there successors and their predecessors at face value, it might lead us to sometimes believe that their contact with neighbors was always on the field of battle.

Many of these reliefs on the exterior of temple walls portray war as both thrilling and glamorous, having also religious undertones.

On these walls we are, repeatedly, almost like the high budget advertisements of our modern society, treated to scenes of the king vanquishing the enemy and thus fulfilling his duty to defeat the forces of chaos and preserve ma'at.

Again and again, we see the brave pharaoh driving his chariot behind fiery steeds as he fearlessly leads his nervous troops into the fray.

He stands single handedly sometimes in his two man chariot alone, firing arrows as he charges ahead, or at other times, beats his cringing enemies to death with a club.

The message is clear. Pharaoh triumphant sacrifices his enemies to the greater glory of Egypt and her gods. The Defeated enemy invariably adopts an attitude of total submission, for he knows that it would be futile to struggle against his fate.

These enemies very often included the Nubians to the south of Egypt, the Libyans to Egypt's west and the Asiatics to the east. They appear again and again to suffer at the hands of pharaohs, as depicted on temple walls, even when they were not a threat.

These, of course, all depicted Ramesses II victorious, but few of these accounts conform to our modern standards of historic reporting. In fact, some battles depicted by later pharaohs, were actually campaigns of earlier kings whom the current pharaoh wished to emulate, while others depicted kings such as Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaten smiting enemies when in fact they probably never personally participated in military actions at all.

An examination of Ramesses II's campaigns, as depicted on the walls of his various temples, seems to show that his military leadership was not overly impressive, if stripped of their hyperbole.

If the Battle of Kadesh, his most documented campaign, is any indication, he was almost certainly an unimaginative strategist who was better as a front line warrior than as a military leader. We must give him credit for his personal involvement in a number of campaigns, as well as his good intentions, and he did expand Egypt's territory, even in southern Syria.

Because of the peace treaty with the Hittites, he was also able to use these possessions to increase the wealth of Egypt.

Just as the Egyptian temple walls were a fortress against the chaos of the secular world protecting the peace, or ma'at within, so too were Egypt's borders. The Two Lands (Egypt) might also be viewed in a certain way as a temple to the Egyptian gods, for pharaoh ruled the world.

He had an religious duty to protect its borders from the corrupt and vile foreigners. So from a fairly early age, Ramesses, as the future pharaoh, was trained in the art of warfare. We know that he probably accompanied his father, Seti I on some of his campaigns, and as he grew older, was placed in charge of various military actions.

In fact, when Egypt's ships and northernmost towns suddenly found themselves under serious threat by pirates (Sherden), it was Ramesses II, while still co-regent in one of his earliest actions as a commander, who was placed in charge of their elimination.

Posting soldiers and ships at strategic points along the coast, Ramesses II waited patiently until the Sherden appeared. He surprised and captured them, inducting many of their survivors into the Egyptian army.

While the Battle of Kadesh often dominates the scholarly view of Ramesses II's military prowess, he nevertheless did enjoy more than a few outright victories over the enemies of Egypt.

Ramesses II must be applauded for his protection of Egypt proper's borders.

After all, this was one of pharaoh's prime directives.

Not long after he neutralized the threat posed by Sherden pirates, he established a defensive line along Egypt's northwestern frontier.

Archaeologists have identified at least three of these forts to the west of the modern city of Alexandria, and another two in the western Delta at Tell Abqa'in and Kom el-Hisn.

These were probably only a part of an extensive chain of forts protecting Egypt's northwestern regions.

While not a new innovation, these forts which were often built near water holes in order to deny access to Libyans infiltrating the prosperous Delta, probably became very useful when, during the reigns of several of his successors (Merenptah and Ramesses III), Libyans attempted a larger scale invasion into the region.

Yet, Ramesses II's military aspirations were to the east, and for good reason. Since Nubia was virtually a province of Egypt during his reign, and there was little to be gained to Egypt's west, imperial gains could really only be realized in southern Syria.

During the Old and Middle Kingdoms there were occasional campaigns against specific fortified Canaanite towns, but Egypt's real involvement with the region was in trade.

In fact, so important was this trade to the Canaanites, that after the collapse of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the Canaanite economy failed as well.

However, it was not until the New Kingdom, following Ahmose's expulsion of the Hyksos, that Egypt's military attention became focused on southern Syria. By the time of Tuthmosis III, Egypt would see its greatest expansion into southern Syria.

However, Egypt never seems to have been very committed to this expansion, or perhaps more correctly, their strategy for holding the region was faulty.

There was never a sizable, permanent Egyptian military presence committed to the region. Instead, Egypt depended on the loyalty of local chiefs to oversee their interests, which soon became an undependable means of controlling the region.

Egypt would be repeatedly required to mount military campaigns into southern Syria in order to hold, or as often as not, prevent the total collapse of these holdings.

This weakness in Egypt's strategic goals were never clearer than in the reign of Ramesses II's father, Seti I. He seems to have had considerable military success in the region, probably for a brief time, increasing Egypt's expansion almost to the extent of his early 18th Dynasty predecessors.

This may have included most of southern Syria, as far north as Kadesh. Yet, by the time of his death, much of that territory was lost, and there is no doubt that Ramesses II sought to return it to Egyptian hands.

As early as the forth year of Ramesses II's rule, the important kingdom of Amurru was returned to Egyptian hands, but this also signaled a great battle to come, for it would ultimately result in the Battle of Kadesh, an action that Ramesses II claimed as a victory, but which most Egyptologists see, at best, as a draw between the Hittites and Egypt.

It resulted in a peace treaty that, while excluding the city state of Kadesh which Ramesses II had sought to control, nevertheless allowed a measure of peace and prosperity throughout the remainder of Ramesses II's reign.

He was the third king of the 19th dynasty, and the son of Seti I and his Queen Tuya. The most memorable of Ramses' wives was Nefertari. Anothers of his wives was Istnofret and Maetnefrure, Princess of Khatti.

It is said that Ramses II had over 200 children. Some of his children were Bintah (Bintanath) (Princess and her father's wife), Setakht (Sethnakhte), the Pharaoh Merenptah, and Kha'emweset (Prince).

Mummy of Ramses IIRamses led several expeditions north into the lands east of the Mediterranean (the location of the modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria). At the Battle of Qadesh in the fourth year of his reign (1286 BC), Egyptian forces under Rameses II engaged the forces of Muwatallis, king of the Hittites.

Over the following years, neither power could effectively defeat the other, so in the 21st year of his reign (1269 BC), Ramses concluded an agreement with Hattusilis III, the earliest known surviving peace treaty.

Ramses also campaigned south of the first cataract into Nubia. He constructed many impressive monuments, and more statues of him exist than of any other Egyptian Pharaoh. Ramses was indeed a strong believer in the work of those living in Deir el Medina.

At least as early as Eusebius of Caesarea, he was identified with the Pharaoh of whom the biblical figure Moses is popularly believed to have demanded that his people be released from slavery.

His mummy was found at Deir-al-Bahari in 1881 and placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo 5 years later, where it is still exhibited with pride by the Egyptian people.

December, 70 BC or January, 69 BC–August 12?, 30 BC) was queen of ancient Egypt. She was the last member of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty and hence the last Greek ruler of Egypt. Her father was Ptolemy XII Auletes.

The name "Cleopatra" is Greek for "father's glory"; her full name, "Cleopatra Thea Philopator" means "the Goddess Cleopatra, Beloved of Her Father."

Today she is probably the most famous of all of ancient Egypt's rulers, and is usually known as simply Cleopatra, all of her similarly-named predecessors having been largely forgotten. Cleopatra was never in fact the sole ruler of

Egypt; she only co-ruled with her father, brother, brother-husband, and son.

However, in all these cases, her co-rulers were king in title only, with her keeping the true authority.

Biography

Cleopatra VII, a Greek born in Alexandria, Egypt, took the throne alone at the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in spring 51 BC. She was at the time the oldest child of Auletes, since two older sisters had died. She also had one younger sister whose name was Arsinoë.

She was first briefly co-ruler with her father. She was subsequently co-ruler with two of her brothers, Ptolemy XIII, who opposed the Roman domination, and Ptolemy XIV.

Since the Ptolemaic throne was transmited in matrilinear fashion, the Kings had to marry their sisters in order to be qualified to rule. Following the deaths of her brothers she named her eldest son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion (44–30 BC).

In 48 BC, the advisors of Ptolemy XIII, led by the eunuch Pothinus, removed Cleopatra's power and forced her to flee Egypt. Her sister Arsinoë accompanied her. Later that year, however, Ptolemy imperiled his own power by injudiciously meddling in the affairs of Rome.

When Pompey, fleeing the victorious Julius Caesar, arrived in Alexandria seeking sanctuary, Ptolemy had him murdered in order to ingratiate himself with Caesar.

Caesar was so repelled by this treachery that he seized the Egyptian capital and imposed himself as arbiter between the rival claims of Ptolemy and Cleopatra. (It should be noted that Pompey had been married to Caesar's daughter, who died giving birth to their son).

After a short war, Ptolemy XIII was killed and Caesar restored Cleopatra to her throne, with Ptolemy XIV as new co-ruler.

Caesar wintered in Egypt in 48 BC–47 BC, and Cleopatra shored up her political advantage by becoming his lover. Egypt remained independent, but three Roman legions were left to protect it.

Cleopatra's winter liaison with Caesar produced a son whom they named Ptolemy Caesar (nicknamed Caesarion, little Caesar). However, Caesar refused to make the boy his heir, naming his grand-nephew Octavian instead.

Cleopatra and Caesarion visited Rome between 46 BC and 44 BC and were present when Caesar was assassinated. Before or just after she returned to Egypt, Ptolemy XIV died mysteriously. Cleopatra then made Caesarion her co-regent. She may have poisoned her brother.

In 42 BC, Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs who ruled Rome in the power vacuum following Caesar's death, summoned Cleopatra to meet him in Tarsus to answer questions about her loyalty.

Cleopatra arrived in great state, and so charmed Antony that he chose to spend the winter of 42 BC–41 BC with her in Alexandria. During the winter, she became pregnant with twins, who were named Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios.

Four years later, in 37 BC, Antony visited Alexandria again while en route to make war with the Parthians. He renewed his relationship with Cleopatra, and from this point on Alexandria would be his home.

He may have married Cleopatra according to the Egyptian rite (a letter quoted in Suetonius suggests this), although he was at the time married to Octavia, sister of his fellow triumvir Octavian. He and Cleopatra had another child, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

At the Donations of Alexandria in late 34 BC, following Antony's conquest of Armenia, Cleopatra and Caesarion were crowned co-rulers of Egypt and Cyprus; Alexander Helios was crowned ruler of Armenia, Media, and Parthia; Cleopatra Selene was crowned ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya; and Ptolemy Philadelphus was crowned ruler of Phoenicia, Syria, and Cilicia.

Cleopatra also took the title of Queen of Kings.

There are a number of unverifiable but famous stories about Cleopatra, of which one of the best known is that, at one of the lavish dinners she shared with Antony, she playfully bet him that she could spend ten million sesterces on a dinner.

He accepted the bet. The next night, she had a conventional, unspectacular meal served; he was ridiculing this, when she ordered the second course — only a cup of strong vinegar. She then removed one of her priceless pearl earrings, dropped it into the vinegar, allowed it to dissolve, and drank the mixture.

Antony's behavior was considered outrageous by the Romans, and Octavian convinced the Senate to levy war against Egypt. In 31 BC Antony's forces faced the Romans in a naval action off the coast of Actium.

Cleopatra was present with a fleet of her own, but when she saw that Antony's poorly equipped and manned ships were losing to the Romans' superior vessels, she took flight. Antony abandoned the battle to follow her.

The Death of Cleopatra by Reginald ArthurFollowing the Battle of Actium, Octavian invaded Egypt. As he approached Alexandria, Antony's armies deserted to Octavian. Cleopatra and Antony both committed suicide, Cleopatra by using a snake to poison herself on August 12, 30 BC.

Cleopatra's son by Caesar, Caesarion was executed by Octavian. The three children of Cleopatra with Antony were spared and taken back to Rome where they were reared by Antony's wife, Octavia.

It is often said that Cleopatra used an asp to kill herself. "Asp" technically refers to a variety of venomous snakes, but here, it refers to the Egyptian cobra, which was sometimes used to execute criminals.

There is also a story that Cleopatra asked several of her servants to test out various forms of suicide, before choosing the method which she believed to be most effective.

A Graeco-Macedonian by language and culture, Cleopatra is reputed to have been the first member of her family in their 300-year reign in Egypt to have learnt the Egyptian language.

The race debate

There is often a debate between Egyptologists and Afrocentric historians as to what race Cleopatra belonged to. Egyptologists say that Cleopatra was descended from the Ptolemies, a Greek family, whose patriach was once a general for Alexander the Great.

They say the Ptolemies' family tree indicates that there was a great deal of interbreeding in the family, and that because Cleopatra was the first monarch to learn Egyptian, that Cleopatra was white. Ancient busts and coins of Cleopatra also appear to point to her Caucasian ancestry.

Afrocentric historians, however, claim that ancient Egypt was a predominately black civilization and that most ancient Egyptians were black people.

Even though they acknowledge Ptolemy was white, they believe there must have been sexual liaisons between the monarchs and the people of Egypt. Since Cleopatra's mother is not known (not identified on the Ptolemiac family tree), many believe she was a black concubine.

However a version that her mother was Auletes's sister, Cleopatra V Tryphaena (it was commonplace for members of the Ptolemaic dynasty to marry their siblings) exists.

Egyptologists say that belief in Cleopatra's being black is Afrocentric revisionism, designed to stir up pride amongst black youth. Afrocentric historians say the belief that Cleopatra was white is just another example of white people stealing black culture.

Nefertari (1292-1225 BC) was the Great Wife of Rameses II (Rameses the Great). She carried the title of God's Wife of Amun, which conferred on her great independent wealth and power.

She was deeply loved by her husband, the most powerful evidence of which is her tomb, QV66, arguably the most spectacular in the Valley of the Queens. Rameses referred to his beloved wife as, "The one for whom the sun shines."

Nefertari was often referred to as Nefertari Meri-en-Mut, meaning ‘the Lovely One, Beloved of Mut’, Mut being the

goddess married to Amun. It is believed that she was married to Ramesses the Great before he ascended the throne, when he was only fifteen and remained the most important of his eight wives in Upper Egypt, although Istnofret, whose tomb remains uncovered appears to have been the most important of Ramesses’ wives in Lower Egypt.

Nefertari also had at least three sons and two daughters, Prince Amun-her-khepseshef, Prince Prehirwonmef, Prince Amonhirwonmef, Princess Mertatum and Princess Merytamon although none of these children succeeded the throne, Ramesses’ heir was Prince Merneptah, a son of Istnofret.

Ramesses’ obvious affection for his wife, as written on her tombs walls shows clearly that Egyptian queens were not simply marriages of convenience or marriages designed to accumulate greater power and alliances, but, in some cases at least, were actually based around some kind of emotional attachment.

Also poetry written by Ramesses about his dead wife is featured on some of the walls of her burial chamber. ("My love is unique - no one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive. Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart.")

Nefertari’s origins are unknown except that is thought that she was a member of the nobility, although while she was queen her brother, Amenmose held the position of Mayor of Thebes.

Nefertari’s status is confirmed by the fact that she is always depicted as part of her husband’s entourage, even during important voyages like a trip to Nubia in order to commission a new temple built at Abu Simbel in honour of the goddess Hathor and Nefertari herself.

Also on paintings at both her tomb and temple at Abu Simbel Nefertari is depicted as being equal in size to Ramesses, a rarity because most wives were depicted as being somewhere in the region of the height of their pharaoh’s knee, indicating her importance to the Pharaoh.

She was made famous by her bust, now in Berlin's Egyptian Museum The bust is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt. It was attributed to the sculptor Djhutmose, and was found in his workshop.

Family

Nefertiti's parentage is not known, but it has been conjectured that she may have been a daughter of later Pharaoh Ay and his wife Tey. Another theory that has gained some support identifies Nefertiti with the Mitanni princess Tadukhipa.

Depending on which reconstruction of the genealogy of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs is followed, her husband Akhenaten may have been the father or half-brother of the Pharaoh Tutankhaten (later called Tutankhamun).

The exact dates of when Nefertiti was married to Amenhotep IV and later, promoted to his Queen are uncertain. However, the couple had six known daughters. This is a list with suggested years of birth:

Meritaten - year 2 (1348 BC).

Meketaten - year 3 (1347 BC).

Neferneferuaten Tasherit - year 6 (1344 BC).

Neferneferure - year 9 (1341 BC).

Setepenre - year 11 (1339 BC).

In year 4 of his reign (1346 BC) Amenhotep IV started his famous worship of Aten. This year is also believed to mark the beginning of his construction of a new capital, Akhetaten, at what is known today as Amarna. In year 5 of his reign (1345 BC), Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten as evidence of his new worship.

The date given for the event has been estimated to fall around January 2 of that year. In year 7 of his reign (1343 BC) the capital was moved from Thebes to Amarna, though construction of the city seems to have continued for two more years (till 1341 BC). The new city was dedicated to the royal couple's new religion. Nefertiti's famous bust is also thought to have been created around this year.

In an inscription estimated to November 21 of year 12 of the reign (1338 BC), her daughter Meketaten is mentioned for the last time; she is thought to have died shortly after that date. A relief in Akhenaten's tomb in the Royal Wadi at Amarna appears to show her funeral.

In year 14 of Akhenaten's reign (1336 BC), Nefertiti herself vanishes from the historical record, and there is no word of her after that date. Theories include a sudden death that was so emotionally painful to her husband that he forbade her being mentioned, or a fall from favor and subsequent replacement that led to its being politically incorrect to discuss her. Regardless, the verifiable knowledge of this episode has been completely lost to history.

Her disappearance coincides with the rise of co-ruler Smenkhkare to the throne and the mention of Akhenaten's new Queen Kiya. Smenkhkare is thought to have been married to her daughter Meritaten. It has been suggested that Smenkhkare replaced Nefertiti as Akhenaten's chief consort and that the two Pharaohs were lovers.

In any case both Smenkhkare and Akhenaten died in 1334 BC/1333 BC. Akhenaten died after at least 29 years of life, and seventeen years of reign. Smenkhkare had been his co-ruler for four years. There are also theories that identify Nefertiti with Smenkhkare.

They were succeeded by Tutankhaten, who is thought to have been a son of either Amenhotep III or Akhenaten, and was probably a younger brother of Smenkhkare. He married Nefertiti's daughter Ankhesenpaaten. The royal couple were young and inexperienced, by any estimation of their age.

Some theories believe that Nefertiti was still alive and had an influence on them. If this is the case that influence and presumably her own life would have ended by year 3 of Tutankhaten's reign (1331 BC). In that year, Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun, as evidence of his worship of Ammon, and abandoned Amarna to return the capital to Thebes. If Nefertiti was Tadukhipa she would be about thirty-five years old at the time.

As can be seen by the suggested identifications between Tadukhipa, Nefertiti, Smenkhkare and Kiya, the records of their time and their lives are largely incomplete, and the findings of both archaelogists and historians may develop new theories vis-à-vis Nefertiti and her precipitous exit from the public stage.

The mummy discovered?

As Nefertiti's tomb was never completed and no mummy was ever found, the location of Nefertiti's body has long been a subject of curiosity and speculation.

On June 9, 2003, archaeologist Joann Fletcher, a specialist in ancient hair, from the University of York in England, announced that Nefertiti's mummy may have been one found in the famous cache of mummies in tomb KV35 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Ms. Fletcher led an expedition, funded by the Discovery Channel, that examined what is believed to have been Nefertiti's mummy. Furthermore, it suggests that Nefertiti was in fact the Pharaoh Smenkhkare.

The mummy that was examined by the team was discovered damaged in a way that suggested the body had been desecrated either at the time of death or shortly after. Mummification techniques, such as the use of embalming fluid and the presence of an intact brain suggest an eighteenth dynasty royal mummy.

Among the most suggestive features are the age of the body, the presence of embedded nefer beads, the fact that the arm had been buried in the position reserved for pharaohs and had been snapped off by vandals and replaced with another arm in a normal position, and a wig of a rare style worn by Nefertiti.

On June 12, 2003, Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, dismissed the claim, citing insufficient evidence.

On August 30, 2003, Reuters quoted Dr. Hawass as saying, "I'm sure that this mummy is not a female." He is also quoted as saying "Dr Fletcher has broken the rules and therefore, at least until we have reviewed the situation with her university, she must be banned from working in Egypt."

Immortality

Nefertiti's place as an icon in popular culture is secure: she has become a celebrity, the second most famous "Queen" of Egypt in the European imagination and influenced through photographs the changed standards of feminine beauty of the 20th century.

Rahotep was a high official who lived at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th Dynasty. According to his titulary, he was the physical son of the king.

Although not accepted by all Egyptologists, it is generally assumed that, based on the placement of his mastaba at Meidum, Rahotep's father was Snofru, the founder of the 4th Dynasty. It is, however, sometimes argued that Rahotep's father was Huni, the last king of the 3rd Dynasty, or that the title 'physical son of the king' was purely honorific and does not imply that Rahotep's father was a king at all.

There have indeed been examples of the title 'son of the king' being honorific, but the addition of 'physical' in Rahotep's case does seem to suggest that Rahotep was a prince. The name of Rahotep's mother is not known.

He was also the 'great priest of Heliopolis' and a 'general', as well as the 'lord of Pe', one of the holy cities in Ancient Egypt. He was married to Nofret, who bore the title 'known to the king', which indicates that she was part of the royal entourage.

The parents of Nofret are not known and neither is any offspring of Rahotep and Nofret.

During his long tenure, Egypt was beset by foreign invaders (including the so-called Sea Peoples and the Libyans)and experienced the beginnings of increasing economic difficulties and internal strife which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Twentieth Dynasty. In Year 8 of his reign, the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt by land and sea. Although Ramesses III defeated them in 2 great land and sea battles, he was unable to stop the creation of several new states by these people especially Philistia.

The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypt's treasury and contributed to the gradual decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. The severity of these difficulties is witnessed by the fact that the first labor strike in recorded history occurred during Ramesses' reign, when the food rations upon which the favoured royal tomb-builders in the village of Set Maat her imenty Waset (now known as Deir el Medina) depended for their survival, could not be provisioned.

These realities are completely ignored by the images of continuity and stability presented in Ramesses' official monuments – most of which seek to emulate his more famous predecessor, Ramesses II.

He built important additions to the temples at Luxor and Karnak, and his funerary temple and administrative complex at Medinet-Habu is amongst the largest and best preserved in Egypt – however the uncertainty of Ramesses' times is apparent from the massive fortifications which were built to enclose the latter. No Egyptian temple in the heart of Egypt prior to Ramesses' reign had ever needed to be protected in such a manner.

nomen or birth name

They are normally realised as Wesermaatre-meryamun Ramesse-hekaiunu, meaning "Powerful one of Maàt and Ra, Beloved of Amun, Ra bore him, Ruler of Heliopolis".

Thanks to the recent discovery of papyrus trial transcripts, it is now known that there was a plot against his life as a result of a harem conspiracy.

The conspiracy was instigated by one of his two principal wives who was motivated by the desire to secure the throne for her son. It is not known if the plot succeeded because the body of Ramesses III shows no obvious wounds and Ramesses III may have initiated the trials himself to capture the perpretators of the conspiracy late in his life.

The Great Harris Papyrus or Papyrus Harris I, which was created by his son and chosen successor Ramesses IV, chronicles this king's massive donations of land, gold statues and monumental construction to Egypt's many temples and the dispatch of an expedition to the Land of Punt in his reign. Ramesses III died after a reign of 31 Years, 1 Month and 17 days.

The mummy of Ramesses III was discovered by antiquarians in 1886. His tomb (KV11) is one of the largest in the Valley of the Kings.

Imhotep also served as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. He was said to be a son of Ptah, his mother being a mortal named Khredu-ankh. He was revered as a genius and showered with titles.

The full list of titles is: Chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt, First after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary nobleman, High Priest of Heliopolis, Builder, Sculptor and Maker of Vases in Chief.

Imhotep is credited as the founder of Egyptian medicine, and as author of the Edwin Smith papyrus, detailing cures, ailments and anatomical observations. The Edwin Smith Papyrus was probably written around 1700 BC but may perhaps go back to texts written around 1000 years earlier.

Two thousand years after his death, his status was raised to that of a god. Imhotep became the god of medicine and healing. He was linked to Asclepius by the Greeks. As the son of Ptah, his mother was sometimes said to be Sekhmet, who was often said to be married to Ptah, since she was the patron of Upper Egypt.

As he was thought of as the inventor of healing, he was also sometimes said to be the one who held Nuit (deification of the sky) up, as the seperation of Nuit and Geb (deification of the earth) was said to be what held chaos back. Due to the position this would have placed him in, he was also sometimes said to be Nuit's son. In artwork he is also linked with Hathor, who was the wife of Ra, Maat, which was the concept of truth and justice, and Amenhotep son of Hapu, who was another deified architect.

The location for Imhotep's tomb is still unknown. Many egyptologists have tried locating it but so far haven't succeeded. The general concensus is that his tomb is located at Saqqara.

Gaius Julius Caesar. b. July 13, ca. 100 BC; d. March 15, 44 BC) was a Roman military and political leader.

He was instrumental in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. His conquest of Gallia Comata extended the Roman world all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, introducing Roman influence into what has become modern France, an accomplishment of which direct consequences are visible to this day. In 55 BC Caesar launched the first Roman invasion of Britain.

Caesar fought and won a civil war which left him undisputed master of the Roman world, and began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He was proclaimed dictator for life, and heavily centralized the already faltering government of the weak Republic.

Caesar's friend Marcus Brutus conspired with others to assassinate Caesar in hopes of saving the Republic. The dramatic assassination on the Ides of March was the catalyst for a second set of civil wars, which marked the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire under Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted son Octavian, later known as Caesar Augustus.

Caesar's military campaigns are known in detail from his own written Commentaries (Commentarii), and many details of his life are recorded by later historians such as Suetonius, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio.

Early Life

Caesar was born in Rome to a well-known patrician family (gens Julia), which supposedly traced its ancestry to Julus, the son of the Trojan prince Aeneas, who according to myth was the son of Venus.

According to legend, Caesar was born by Caesarian section and is its namesake, though this is unlikely because it was only performed on dead women, and his mother lived long after he was born. Caesar was raised in a modest apartment building (insula) in the Subura, a lower-class neighborhood of Rome.

The Julii Caesares, although of impeccable aristocratic patrician stock, were not rich by the standards of the Roman nobility. Thus, no member of his family had achieved any outstanding prominence in recent times, though in his father's generation there was a renaissance of their fortunes.

His paternal aunt, Julia, married Gaius Marius, a talented general and reformer of the Roman army. Marius became one of the richest men in Rome at the time and while he gained political influence, the Caesar family gained the wealth.

Towards the end of Marius' life in 86 BC, internal politics reached a breaking point. Several disputes of the Marius faction against Lucius Cornelius Sulla led to civil war and eventually opened the way to Sulla's dictatorship. Caesar was tied to the Marius party through family connections.

Not only was he Marius' nephew, he was also married to Cornelia Cinnilla, the youngest daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Marius' greatest supporter and Sulla's enemy. To make matters worse, in the year 85 BC, just after Caesar turned 15, his father grew ill and soon died. Both Marius and his father had left Caesar much of their property and wealth in their wills.

Thus, when Sulla emerged as the winner of this civil war and began his program of proscriptions, Caesar, not yet 20 years old, was in a bad position. Sulla ordered Caesar to divorce Cornelia in 82 BC, but Caesar refused and prudently left Rome to hide. Sulla pardoned Caesar and his family and allowed him to return to Rome.

In a prophetic moment, Sulla was said to comment on the dangers of letting Caesar live. According to Suetonius, the dictator in relenting on Caesar's proscription said, "He whose life you so much desire will one day be the overthrow of the part of nobles, whose cause you have sustained with me; for in this one Caesar, you will find many a Marius."

Despite Sulla's pardon, Caesar did not remain in Rome and left for military service in Asia and Cilicia. While still in Asia Minor, Caesar was involved in several military operations. In 80 BC, while still serving under Thermus, he played a pivotal role in the siege of Miletus.

During the course of the battle Caesar showed such personal bravery in saving the lives of legionaries, that he was later awarded the corona civica (oak crown). The award was of the highest honor given to a non-commander, and when worn in public, even in the presence of the Roman Senate, all were forced to stand and applaud his presence.

Back in Rome in 78 BC, when Sulla died, Caesar began his political career in the Forum at Rome as an advocate, known for his oratory and ruthless prosecution of former governors notorious for extortion and corruption. The great orator Cicero even commented, "Does anyone have the ability to speak better than Caesar?" Aiming at rhetorical perfection, Caesar traveled to Rhodes in 75 BC for philosophical and oratorical studies with the famous teacher Apollonius Molo.

On the way, Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. When they demanded a ransom of twenty talents, he laughed at them, saying they did not know whom they had captured. Instead, he ordered them to ask for fifty. They accepted, and Caesar sent his followers to various cities to collect the ransom money.

In all he was held for thirty-eight days and would often laughingly threaten to have them all crucified. True to his word, as soon as he was ransomed and released, he organized a naval force, captured the pirates and their island stronghold and put them to death by crucifixion as a warning to other pirates. However, since they had treated him well, he had their legs broken before they were crucified to lessen their suffering.

After returning to Rome in 73 BC, Caesar was elected to the College of Pontiffs. Unfortunately, Caesar returned to Rome in the middle of the slave rebellion under the ex-gladiator Spartacus. The Senate sent legion after legion to handle the rebellion, but each time Spartacus was victorious. In 72 BC, Caesar was elected a military tribune by the Roman assemblies, his first step in political life.

Finally, in the year 71 BC, Marcus Crassus rose to the challenge presented by Spartacus. Caesar was one of the few men to lobby for Crassus in trying to establish his command. The Senate appointed Crassus to the cause, and Crassus personally levied six brand new legions, and recruited the young Caesar to serve as one of his tribunes for his work as an advocate.

After a series of defeats, Crassus finally overcame Spartacus in 71 BC. During their time together, Caesar and Crassus would form a friendship that would later advance both of their careers in the years to come. But Caesar's triumph soon turned to disaster.

In 69 BC, Caesar became a widower after Cornelia's death trying to deliver a stillborn son. In the same year, he lost his aunt Julia, to whom he was very attached. These two deaths left Caesar very much alone to raise a still infant daughter, Julia Caesaris. It was untraditional for Roman women to have great public funerals, but Caesar broke tradition and gave them both fine funerals.

During the funerals, Caesar delivered eulogy speeches from the Rostra. Julia's funeral was filled with political connotations, since Caesar insisted on parading Marius's funeral mask. Although Caesar was very fond of both women (according to Suetonius), these speeches were interpreted by his political opponents as propaganda for his upcoming election for the office of quaestor.

Caesar's Cursus Honorum

Julius Caesar, depicted from the bust in the British Museum, in Cassell's History of England (1902)Caesar was elected quaestor by the Assembly of the People in 69 BC, at the age of thirty, as stipulated in the Roman cursus honorum. He drew the lots and was assigned a quaestorship in Lusitania, a Roman province roughly situated in modern Portugal and part of southern Spain.

As an administrative and financial officer, the trip was largely uneventful, but it was while in Hispania that he had the famous encounter with a statue of Alexander the Great.

At the temple of Hercules in Gades, it was said that he broke down and cried. When asked why he would have such a reaction, his simple response was: "Do you think I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable."

Caesar was released early from his office as quaestor, and allowed to return to Rome early. Despite any personal grief over the loss of his wife, of who all accounts suggest he loved dearly, Caesar was set to remarry in 67 BC for political gain. This time, however, he chose an odd alliance.

The granddaughter of Sulla, and daughter of Quintus Pompey, Pompeia Sulla, was to be his next wife. Now as a member of the Senate, thanks to his election earlier as quaestor, Caesar supported laws which were designed to grant Pompey the Great unlimited powers in dealing with Cilician pirates in the Mediterranean. Obviously building a relationship with Rome's great general would play into his hands later.

Between the support of the laws regarding Pompey's command, Caesar served as the curator of the Appian Way. The maintenance of this road, which stretched from Rome to Cumae and beyond to the heel of Italy's boot, was an important and high profile position.

While it was enormously expensive on a personal basis, it gave a great deal of prestige to a young Senator, and Crassus' support certainly made it an achievable task for Caesar. All the while, Caesar continued to pursue his judicial career until his election as curule aedile in 65 BC, along with a young rival and member of the Optimates faction by the name of Bibulus.

This magistrate position was the next step in the Roman cursus honorum and was a grand opportunity for the master of the public spectacle. The curule aediles were responsible for such public duties as the construction and care of temples, maintenance of public buildings, traffic, and other aspects of Rome's daily life; perhaps most important of all, the staging of public games on state holidays and management of the Circus Maximus.

Caesar indebted himself to the point of near financial ruin during this time, but enhanced his image irreversibly with the common people. Caesar ended his year as aedile in glory but in bankruptcy. His debts reached several hundred gold talents (millions of euros in today's currency) and threatened to be an obstacle for his future career. His co-aedile Bibulus was so unspectacular in comparison that he later commented in frustration that the entire year's aedileship was credited to Caesar alone, instead of both.

His success as aedile was, however, an enormous help for his election as Pontifex Maximus (high priest) in 63 BC, following the death of the previous holder Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. This office meant a new house — the Domus Publica (public house) — in the Forum, the responsibility of all Roman religious affairs and the custody of the Vestal virgins under his roof.

For Caesar, it also meant a relief of his debts. The election put Caesar in a position of considerable power, with opportunity for income. The Pontifex was elected to a lifetime term and while technically not a political office, still provided considerable advantages in dealing with the Senate and legislation.

Caesar's debut as Pontifex was however marked by a scandal. Following the death of his wife Cornelia, he had married Pompeia, a granddaughter of Sulla, in 67 BC. As the wife of the Pontifex and an important matrona (Latin: married woman), Pompeia was responsible for the organization of the Bona Dea festival in December. These rites were exclusive to women and considered very sacred.

However, Publius Clodius Pulcher managed to get in the house disguised as a woman. This was absolute sacrilege and Pompeia received a letter of divorce. Caesar himself admitted that she could be innocent in the plot, but, as he said: "Caesar's wife, like the rest of Caesar's family, must be above suspicion."

63 BC was an especially difficult year, not only for Caesar, but for the Roman Republic itself. Caesar ran for, and won, the office of Praetor Urbanus for the year 62 BC. Before he could even take office, however, the Catiline Conspiracy erupted putting Caesar in direct conflict with the Optimates once again.

The result was the conviction to death of five notable Roman men, Catiline's allies, without a trial. The only other option open was banishment, as imprisonment before trial was unheard of; if banished the men would simply have gone to take command of Catiline's armies in Etruria. The Senate deliberated on the matter, with Caesar one of the few men to speak up against the death penalty.

Towards the end of his praetorship, Caesar was again in serious jeopardy of prosecution for his debts. Crassus came to the rescue again, paying off a quarter of his 20 million denarii balance. Eventually, by 61 BC, Caesar was finally assigned to serve as the Propraetor governor of Lusitania, the province he served in as a quaestor. With this appointment, his creditors backed off, allowing that this position could be quite profitable. Leaving Rome even before he was officially to take over, Caesar was not taking chances.

Arriving in Hispania, Caesar developed a remarkable reputation as a military commander. Between 61 BC and 60 BC, he won considerable victories over the local Gallaecian and Lusitanian tribes. During one of his victories, his men hailed him as Imperator in the field, which was a vital consideration in being eligible for a triumph back in Rome.

Caesar was now faced with a terrible dilemma, though. He wanted to run for consul for 59 BC and would have to be present within the city of Rome to do so, but he also wanted to receive the honor of a triumph. The Optimates surely would use this against him, forcing him to wait outside the city, as was the custom, until they confirmed his triumph. The delay would force Caesar to miss his chance to run for consul and he made a fateful decision. In the summer of 60 BC, Caesar entered Rome to run for the highest political office in the Roman Republic.

First Triumvirate

In 60 BC, Caesar's decision to forego a chance at a triumph for his achievements in Spain put him in a position to run for consul. Even though Caesar had overwhelming popularity within the citizen assemblies, he had to manipulate formidable alliances within the Senate itself in order to secure his election.

Already maintaining a solid friendship with the fabulously wealthy Marcus Crassus, he approached Crassus' rival Pompey the Great with the concept of a coalition. Pompey had already been considerably frustrated by the inability to get land reform for his eastern veterans and Caesar brilliantly patched up any differences between the two powerful leaders.

The alliance (known today as the First Triumvirate) was formed in late 60 BC, and remarkably remained a secret for some time. Pompey and Crassus agreed to use their wealth and clout to secure Caesar's consulship, and in return Caesar would lobby for both Pompey's and Crassus's political agenda.

Caesar and Crassus were already the best of friends from a decade back, and he solidified his alliance with Pompey by giving him his own daughter Julia Caesaris in marriage.

The alliance combined Caesar's enormous popularity with the plebians and legal reputation with Crassus's fantastic wealth and influence within the plutocratic Equestrian order and Pompey's equally spectacular wealth, military reputation, and Senatorial influence. With their help, Caesar won the election easily enough, but the Optimates managed to get Caesar's former co-aedile Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus elected as the junior consul.

Once in office in 59 BC, Caesar's first order of business was to pass a law that required the public release of all debates and procedures of the Senate. Next on the agenda was the appeasement of Pompey. Unused land in parts of Italy would be restored and offered to Pompey's veterans.

Doing so would not only alleviate the problem of the unemployed mob in Rome but would satisfy Pompey and his legions. Still Cato the Younger and the Optimate faction opposed the concept simply because it was Caesar's idea. Caesar rebuked the Senate and took it directly to the people.

While speaking before the citizen assemblies, Caesar asked his co-consul Bibulus his feelings on the bill, as it was important to have the support of both standing consuls. His reply was simply to say that the bill would not be passed even if everyone else wanted it. At this point the so-called first triumvirate was made publicly known with both Pompey and Crassus voicing public approval of the measure in turn.

The law carried with overwhelming public support and Bibulus retired to his home in disgrace. Bibulus spent the remainder of his consular year trying to use religious omens to declare Caesar's laws as null and void, in an attempt to bog down the political system. Instead, however, he simply gave Caesar complete autonomy to pass almost any proposal he wanted to. After Bibulus' withdrawal, the year of the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus was often referred to jokingly thereafter as the year of "Julius and Caesar".

Already secure with Crassus, by marrying the daughter of his client Piso, Caesar next strengthened his alliance with Pompey. Pompey was married to Caesar's daughter Julia. In what seemed to be a mere political edge, the marriage blossomed into romance by all accounts.

Caesar was given the proconsulship of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, granting him the opportunity to match political victories with military glory. This five-year term, unprecedented for an area that was relatively secure, was an obvious sign of Caesar's ambition for external conquests. Caesar's future campaigns would all be conducted at his own discretion. In an additional stroke of luck, the current governor of Gallia Narbonensis died, and this province was assigned to Caesar as well.

As 59 BC came to a close, Caesar had the support of the people, along with the two most powerful men in Rome (aside from himself), and the opportunity for infinite glory in Gaul. At the age of forty, while already holding the highest office in Rome and defeating his enemies at every turn, the true greatness of his career was yet to come. Marching quickly to the relative safety of his provinces, to invoke his five year imperium and avoid prosecution, Caesar was about to alter the geopolitical landscape of the ancient world.

Gallic Wars

Caesar took official command of his provinces of Illyricum, Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul in 59 BC. Beyond the province of Transalpine Gaul was a vast land comprising modern France, called Gallia Comata, where loose confederations of Celtic tribes maintained varying relationships with Rome. However, as soon as he took office, a Celtic tribe living in modern day Switzerland, the Helvetii, had planned a move from the Alpine region to the west of modern France.

In order to make such a move, however, the Helvetii would have to march not only through Roman-controlled territory, but that of the Roman allied Aedui tribe as well. Other Gallic Celts and people within the province of Gallia Narbonensis feared that the Helvetii would not just move through as they proposed, but would plunder everything in their path as they went. Without question, Caesar opposed the idea and hastily recruited two more fresh legions in preparation.

Several other local tribes joined the Helvetti in lesser numbers making the entire force among the largest and most powerful in all of Gaul. In total, according to Caesar, nearly 370,000 tribesmen were gathered, of which about 260,000 were women, children and other non-combatants. After setting off, and disregarding Caesar's objection, the two forces inevitably met.

After several skirmishes, Caesar occupied the high ground with his six legions, and lured the enemy into a poorly matched battle. Near the Aeduan capital, Caesar crushed the Helvetii, slaughtering the enemy wholesale with little regard for combat status. According to Caesar himself, of the 370,000 enemy present, only 130,000 survived the battle. In the next few days following the battle while chasing down the fleeing enemy, it seems that at least another 20,000 were killed.

Around the same time, in late 59 BC, the Germanic leader Ariovistus, chieftain of the Germanic Suebi, lead an invasion of Gaul and raided the border regions, but Caesar quelled the situation at that point by arranging an alliance with the Germans in early 58 BC. He forced the Germans back east across the Rhine, and used the "defense of Roman allies" as his cause to continue north in conquest.

In the spring of 57 BC, Caesar was in Cisalpine Gaul attending to the administration of his governorship. Despite cries of great thanks from various Gallic tribes, discontent was growing. Word came to Caesar that a confederation of northern Gallic tribes under the Belgae was building to confront the Roman presence in Gaul. Caesar hurried back to his legions, raising two new legions of mainly Gallic "citizens" in the meantime, bringing his total to eight.

As Caesar arrived, likely in July 57 BC, the rumors of Gallic opposition proved true. Caesar moved quickly, surprising Gallic tribes before they could join the opposition, and made fast allies of them. The Belgae, in reprisal against this, began to attack. With eight legions the Romans crushed the attack in a hard fought affair.

The victory was two fold for Caesar. It not only was a victory in the field, but a political and propaganda win as well. By defending his "allies" from external aggression, he could now easily secure the necessary legalities to continue aggression against the Belgae. Though it would be another difficult campaign, this was exactly the sort of fortune that Caesar wanted. Caesar continued north, conquering all in his path, either through politics or by force.

As the campaign year of 56 BC opened, Caesar found that Gaul still was not quite ready for Roman occupation. Caesar sent his generals to every corner of Gaul, quelling any Gallic resistance in their way. Publius Crassus, son of Marcus Crassus, was sent to Aquitania with twelve legionary cohorts to subdue the tribes there.

With the help of Gallic auxilia, Crassus quickly brought Roman control to the westernmost portion of Gaul. Decimus Brutus, the young future assassin of Caesar, was sent north to modern day Brittany to build a fleet amongst the Veneti.

The Veneti controlled the waterways with a formidable fleet of their own and were augmented by British Celts. At first the Gallic vessels outmatched the Romans, and Brutus could do little to hamper Venetian operations. Roman ingenuity took over, however, and they began using hooks launched by archers to grapple the Venetian ships to their own. Before long, the Veneti were completely defeated, and like many tribes before them, sold into slavery.

In all, dozens of tribes were forced to surrender to Roman domination and hundreds of thousands of prisoners were sent back to Rome as slaves. With the defeat of the Gallic resistance, Caesar next began to focus his attention across the channel. Still, the conquest was not quite as complete as it seemed.

First Caesar would have to deal with more Germanic incursions before he could cross to Britain. And despite his confidence, the Gallic tribes were not nearly as subdued as he thought. For now, though, Caesar returned to Cisalpine Gaul to attend to political matters in Rome.

Germania, Britain, and Vercingetorix

By 56 BC, as Caesar was pushing Roman control throughout the entire Gallic province, the political situation in Rome was dangerously falling apart. In the midst of planning his next steps in Gaul, Britain and Germania, Caesar returned to Cisalpine Gaul and knew he had to reaffirm support within the Senate.

Pompey was in northern Italy attending to his duties with the grain commission, and Crassus went to Ravenna to meet with Caesar. He instead, called them both to Lucca for a conference, and the three triumvirs were joined by up to 200 Senators.

Though support in Rome was unravelling, this meeting showed the scope and size of the ‘triumvirate’ as being a much larger coalition than just three men. However, Caesar needed Crassus and Pompey to get along in order to hold the whole thing together. Caesar had to have his command extended in order to ensure safety from recall and prosecution.

An agreement was reached in which Caesar would have his extension while granting Pompey and Crassus a balance of power opportunity. Pompey and Crassus were to be elected as joint consuls for 55 BC, with Pompey receiving Hispania as his province and Crassus to get Syria. Pompey, jealous over Caesar’s growing army, wanted the security of a provincial command with legions, and Crassus wanted the opportunity for military glory and plunder to the east in Parthia.

With the matter resolved, Crassus and Pompey returned to Rome to stand for the elections of 55 BC. Despite bitter resistance from the Optimates, including a delay in the election, the two were eventually confirmed as consuls. Caesar took no chances however, and sent his legate, Publius Crassus, back to Rome with 1,000 men to "keep order". The presence of these men, along with the popularity of Crassus and Pompey went a long way to stabilize the situation. Caesar quickly returned to Gaul set into motion the first Roman invasion of Britain.

Before Caesar could focus on Britain, a German invasion across the Rhine into Ubian territory forced his attention on Germania. The invaders sent ambassadors to Caesar saying they only desired peace, but Caesar demanded their removal from Gaul and marched his legions against them. Before Caesar attacked, his cavalry was attacked by surprise and seventy-eight Romans were killed.

A full-scale assault was then launched on the German camp and according to Caesar, 430,000 leaderless German men, women and children were assembled. The Romans butchered indiscriminately, sending the mass of people fleeing to the Rhine, where many more succumbed to the river. In the end, there is no account of how many were killed, but Caesar also claims to have not lost a single man.

With the situation secure on the Gallic side of the river, Caesar decided it was time to settle the matter with the aggressive Germans once and for all, lest they invade again. It was decided, in order to impress the Germans and the Roman people that bridging the Rhine would have the most significant effect.

By June of 56 BC, Caesar became the first Roman to cross the Rhine into Germanic territory. In so doing, a monstrous wooden bridge was built in only ten days, stretching over 300 feet across the great river. This alone assuredly, impressed the Germans and Gauls, who had little comparative capability in bridge building. Within a short time of his crossing, nearly all tribes within the region sent hostages along with messages of peace.

Only one tribe resisted, fleeing their towns rather than submit to Caesar. The Romans made an example of them by burning their stores and their villages before receiving word that the Suevi were beginning to assemble in opposition. Caesar, rather than risk this glorious achievement in a pitched battle with a fierce foe, decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

After spending only eighteen days in Germanic territory, the Romans returned across the Rhine, burning their bridge in the process. With that short diversion, Caesar secured peace among the Germans, as the Suevi remained relatively peaceful for some time after, and secured a crucial alliance with the Ubii. His rear secured, Caesar looked for another glorious Roman ‘first’ and moved his body north to prepare for the invasion of Britain.

Even after an unsuccessful first invasion, Caesar succeeded in invading a second time with the largest naval invasion in history until the Invasion of Normandy, nearly 2,000 years later. At year's end in 55 BC, Caesar had traveled to the farthest point in the known world and held most of Gaul firmly in his hands. But not all was going Caesar's way. In 54 BC, his only daughter, Julia Caesaris, died in childbirth, leaving both Pompey and Caesar heartbroken. And to make matters worse, Crassus had been killed in 53 BC during his ill-fated campaign in Parthia.

Without Crassus or Julia, Pompey began to drift towards the Optimates faction, and relations with Caesar withered. Still away in Gaul, Caesar tried to secure Pompey's support by offering him one of his nieces in marriage, but Pompey refused. Instead, Pompey married Cornelia Metella, the daughter of Metallus Scipio, one of Caesar's greatest enemies.

New discontent was brewing among the tribes of south-central Gaul. Among those tribes were the Arverni. Initially hesitant, a young chieftan, Vercingetorix, came to the forefront to rally the Gauls.

Other neighboring tribes soon joined the growing revolt, especially in the absence of the legions who occupied the northern and eastern portions of Gaul. Caesar had to make haste from Cisalpine Gaul and joined his army in the late winter/early spring of 52 BC. Caesar had no choice but to consolidate his forces against the formidable revolt.

Caesar followed Vercingetorix's retreating army to the fortified town of Alesia. With an alleged army of some 80,000 men, Vercingetorix and his Gauls were in shock from Caesar's Germanic cavalry allies and were in no condition to meet the 60,000 Romans legionaries on the battlefield.

Caesar ordered the complete circumvallation of the Alesian plateau, which would not only enclose the Gauls, but keep his large army occupied during the siege. Walls, ditches and forts of various sizes stretched the entire circle for a total length of ten miles.

In one of the most brilliant siege tactics in the history of warfare, and a testament to the skill of Roman engineering, Caesar ordered a second wall to be built on the outside of the first. This wall, nearly identical to the first in construction and type, extended as much as fifteen miles around the inner wall and left enough of a gap in between to fortify the entire Roman army. The first wall was designed to keep Vercingetorix in, and the second wall to keep his allies out.

A massive army was raised to defend Vercingetorix. According to Caesar, nearly 250,000 Gauls came in support of their besieged king. This force marched from the territory of the Aedui to crush the Romans between two forces larger than that of their target. Inside Alesia, however, conditions were terrible, with an estimated 180,000 people (including non-combatant women and children) running out of food and supplies.

By the time the relief force arrived, Vercingetorix and his army were in dire straits, with many of his men likely on the verge of surrender. October 2 would prove to be the final battle of Alesia. The Gauls on both sides hammered the weakness in the Roman wall. Overall, the Romans may have been outnumbered as many as six to one.

The battle that was once very close to the possible end of Caesar, turned into an all out rout and the Gauls outside the Roman walls were slaughtered. By the end of the battle, the Germanic cavalry would virtually wipe out the retreating Gauls, leaving only Vercingetorix on the inside. Forced back into Alesia after the defeat of his relief force, with no hope of additional reinforcements, and only with the starving remnants of his own army, Vercingetorix was forced to surrender.

The defeat of Vercingetorix lead to an effective end of the Gallic Wars. The whole campaign resulted in 800 conquered cities, 300 subdued tribes, one million men sold into slavery and another three million dead in battle.

Civil war

Painting of Gaius Julius CaesarThe Optimates despised Caesar and his conquests and looked for every opportunity to strip him of his command. Prosecuting Caesar, whether the goal was death, exile or just a symbolic limitation of his power, would prevent his re-establishment of the populares agenda that he so masterfully instituted previously.

The years 50 BC and 49 BC were pivotal because during this time frame, Caesar's imperium, namely safety from prosecution, was set to expire. Caesar badly desired the ability to run for the consulship in absentia, thereby allowing him the safe transfer of protection from his proconsular imperium, granted by his command in Gaul, to that of the actual consulship once again.

By this time, however, Pompey, likely the only man able to smooth things over, had clearly sided with the Optimates. His jealously over Caesar's success and his ultimate goal of acceptance and power within the Senate took him ever further from the alliance with Caesar. Laws were passed while Pompey was consul without colleague that forced a candidate to be present in Rome to run for office.

Caesar's only options throughout were either to surrender willingly and face certain prosecution along with the end of his career or life, or go to war. On January 1, 49 BC and the days immediately following, the Senate rejected Caesar's final peace proposal and declared him a public enemy.

Around the January 10 49 BC, word reached Caesar and he marched south with the Thirteenth Legion from Ravenna towards the southern limit of Cisalpine Gaul's border. He likely arrived around January 11, and stopped on the northern bank of the small river border, the Rubicon.

Caesar seemed to contemplate the situation understandably for some time before making his final fateful decision. He is then reported to have muttered the now famous phrase, from the work of the poet Menander, Alea iacta est, usually translated as "The die is cast." The Rubicon was crossed and Caesar officially invaded the legal border from his province into Italy, thus starting the civil war.

Despite having two legions to Caesar's one, Caesar's Gallic legions were on the move to join him so Pompey and the rest of Caesar's opposition had little choice but to leave Rome immediately and abandon Italy to Caesar. When Caesar entered Rome, he was elected Dictator, but only served for eleven days when he left office and served as consul instead.

He was soon joined by legions from Gaul, and set off for Spain with nine legions. He is said to have boasted "I'm off to meet an army without a leader, then I will meet a leader without an army." Caesar meant that Pompey had left seven legions in Spain while he fled to Greece. Caesar's army marched into Spain and defeated the Pompeiian forces at Ilierda. While marching back through southern Gaul, he took the city of Massila (present day Marseille) from Pompeiian forces.

Caesar briefly returned to Italy before marching into Thessaly with eight legions. He quickly incorporated the towns of the region under his control. His exhausted and poorly supplied army was able to secure new sources of food and essentially become re-energized for the continuing campaign.

Caesar first faced Pompey on July 10, 48 BC at Dyrrhacium. Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat. Caesar lured Pompey into Greece where he decisively defeated Pompey's numerically superior army — Pompey had nearly twice the number of infantry and considerably more cavalry — at the Battle of Pharsalus in an exceedingly short engagement in 48 BC.

As the battle closed, Caesar reviewed the field and was likely shaken by the effects of civil war. He claimed that 15,000 enemy soldiers were killed, including 6,000 Romans, and 25,000 were captured, while losing only 200 of his own men, though both numbers are likely either over- or under-exaggerated. Still, the sight of the field apparently had a profound effect on the new master of the Roman world. In surveying the carnage, Caesar supposedly said, "They would have it so, I, Gaius Caesar, after so much success, would be condemned had I dismissed my army."

Caesar in the East

Following the defeat at Pharsalus, the majority of the remaining Pompeian forces surrendered to Caesar, and the major part of the war was essentially over. Pompey himself fled to Egypt, where his own horrible fate awaited him. Respected as the conqueror of the East, Pompey certainly felt comfortable heading into Egypt. While waiting off-shore to receive word from the boy-king, Ptolemy XIII, Pompey was betrayed and assassinated.

Stabbed in the back and decapitated, his body was burned on the shore and his head was brought to the king in order to present as a gift to Caesar. On July 24, 48 BC, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was dead, just short of 58 years old.

When Caesar arrived in pursuit of Pompey, to certainly, by all accounts, grant him a pardon and welcome him back to Rome, Ptolemy presented Caesar with Pompey's head and his signet ring. Caesar, despite realizing Pompey's death made him the master of Rome, was overcome with grief. Turning away from the slave who presented Pompey's head, Caesar burst into tears at the sight of his rival, former friend, and son-in-law.

When Caesar arrived with just 4,000 men, or just under one full legion, he immediately took over the palace and presumed to secure his authority. He had two goals while in Egypt, secure grain and repayment of Egyptian debts, and also to settle the matter of who should rule the country: Cleopatra or Ptolemy. Caesar privately requested a meeting with Cleopatra in order to take stock of her before making a decision.

Cleopatra was slipped into some bed coverings and presented to Caesar as a gift. Though little is known of the actual meeting, it is quite clear that the young queen made an enormous impression on Caesar. She was elegant and charismatic, but most of all, she had power and money, and Caesar supposed she was susceptible to manipulation. Caesar, at 52 years old and 35 years her elder, easily withstood her seduction attempts, and seduced her. He would place Cleopatra on the throne of Egypt and use her as the key to controlling the vast wealth of Egypt.

By January of 47 BC, Caesar secured the reign of Cleopatra by enforcing the will of her father Ptolemy XII with both military and political force, and married her to her younger brother Ptolemy XIV. Over the next several months, Caesar and Cleopatra went on what seemed like a honeymoon vacation along the Nile. Traveling on Cleopatra's barge as far south as his men would let him, they toured the entire country all the way to the border of Ethiopia.

While Caesar and Cleopatra enjoyed their love affair in earnest, however, Republican forces in Spain and Africa continued to be a threat. Making matters worse, though, Pharnaces II of Pontus, son of the great Roman enemy Mithridates the Great was making incursions against neighboring provinces in the Roman East. Once again Caesar gathered his forces and marched off to face another threat.

The End of the Civil War

By the campaign season of 47 BC, Caesar left Egypt and began an overland march through the far eastern provinces. Heading towards the trouble with Pharnaces, Caesar traveled through Judaea and Syria, accepting apologies and granting pardons to those foreign kings and Roman governors who had supported Pompey. In so doing, he was also able to rebuild his war chest through the various tributes paid to him. Caesar met King Pharnaces in the Battle of Zela. His victory was so swift and so complete that he commemorated it in his triumph with the words: Veni Vidi Vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered").

Thence, in 46 BC, he proceeded to Africa to deal with the remnants of Pompey's Senatorial supporters under Cato the Younger. He quickly gained a significant victory at Thapsus over the forces of Metellus Scipio, who was killed in battle, and Cato. After Cato saw that his forces were defeated by Caesar, in traditional Roman fashion, he fell on his sword and committed suicide.

Despite this great loss for the Senatorial faction, Pompey's sons Gnaeus Pompeius and Sextus Pompeius, together with Titus Labienus, Caesar's former propraetorian legate (legatus propraetore) and second in command in the Gallic War, escaped to Spain, where they continued to resist Caesar's dominance of the Roman world. Caesar arrived in Spain in late November or early December of 46 BC, with eight legions and 8,000 cavalry of his own. Caesar's arrival was completely unexpected by the enemy, and the surprise gave him an early advantage.

In March of 45 BC, the two armies faced off in the Battle of Munda with Gnaeus Pompey holding the high ground. Caesar was forced to march uphill against the strong enemy position, but he was never one to shirk from a chance at open battle. As his army marched to meet Pompey, and the battle was joined, it soon became clear that this would be among the most ferociously fought battles of Caesar's career.

The exhausting battle was taking its toll and both commanders left their strategic overview positions to join their men in the ranks. Caesar himself later told friends that he had fought many times for victory, but Munda was the first time he had fought for his life. Finally after an epic struggle, Caesar's Tenth Legion, under his nephew Octavian, began to make the difference.

Positioned on Caesar's right wing, the Tenth started to push back Gnaeus Pompey's wing. Labienus, in command of Pompey's cavalry, recognized the threat and broke off from the main battle with his cavalry to secure the camp, but this seemed to have dire consequences. Pompey's men seemed to have viewed this as a general retreat by the one man who knew Caesar so well, and panic was the result.

Caesar's army overwhelmed the retreating enemy and was merciless in its zeal to end the war. Up to 30,000 men were slaughtered in the carnage, including Labienus, but Gnaeus Pompey managed to escape. Still, it would turn out to be the final major battle and victory of Caesar's career, and one that effectively ended land-based resistance.

After the Civil War

Over the next few months, Caesar mopped up in Hispania and brutally punished the people for their disloyalty. Gnaeus Pompey was later killed and his brother Sextus who garrisoned Corduba managed to flee Spain entirely. Caesar was joined by his nephew Octavian just prior to the battle of Munda, and the young man secured himself as Caesar's heir during the campaign in Spain. He certainly learned a great deal about provincial administration from his now all-powerful uncle. It was after the battle of Munda that Caesar stopped referring to Octavian as his nephew and called him his son.

Caesar returned to Italy in September, 45 BC, and among his first tasks was to file his will, naming Octavian as his sole heir. While away, the Senate had already begun bestowing honors on Caesar. Even though Caesar had not proscribed his enemies, instead pardoning nearly every one of them, there seemed to be little open resistance to Caesar, at least publicly.

Great games and celebrations were to be held on April 21 to honor Caesar's great victory. Along with the games, Caesar was honored with the right to wear triumphal clothing, including a purple robe (reminiscent of the kings of Rome) and laurel crown, on all public occasions. A large estate was being built at Rome's expense, and on state property, for Caesar's exclusive use. The title of Imperator also became a legal title that he could use in his name for the rest of his life.

A statue of Caesar was placed in the temple of Quirinus with the inscription To the Invincible God. Since Quirinus was the deified likeness of the city and its founder and first king, Romulus, this act identified Caesar not only on equal terms with the gods, but with the ancient kings as well. In yet more scandalous behavior, Caesar had coins minted bearing his likeness. This was the first time in Roman history that a living Roman was featured on a coin, clearly placing him above the Roman state, and tradition.

When Caesar actually returned to Rome in October of 45 BC, he gave up his fourth consulship (which he had held without colleague) and placed Quintus Fabius Maximus and Gaius Trebonius as suffect consuls in his stead. He celebrated a fifth triumph, this time to honor his victory in Spain. The Senate continued to encourage more honors. A temple to Libertas was to be built in his honor, and he was granted the title Liberator.

They elected him consul for life, and allowed him to hold any office he wanted, including those generally reserved for plebeians, like the tribunate. He also was given the power to appoint magistrates to all provincial duties, a process previously done by drawing of lots or through the approval of the Senate.

The month of his birth, Quintilis, was renamed July (Latin Julius) in his honor and his birthday, July 13, was recognized as a national holiday. Even a tribe of the people's assembly was to be named for him. A temple and priesthood, the Flamen maior, was established and dedicated in honor of his family.

Caesar, however, did have a reform agenda and took on various social ills. He passed a law that prohibited citizens between the ages of 20 and 40 from leaving Italy for more than three years unless on military assignment. This theoretically would help preserve the continued operation of local farms and businesses and prevent corruption abroad. If a member of the social elite did harm or killed a member of the lower class, then all the wealth of the perpetrator was to be confiscated. A general cancellation of one-fourth of all debt also greatly relieved the public and helped to endear him even further to the common population.

Caesar tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidized grain and forbade those who could afford privately supplied grain from purchasing from the grain dole. He made plans for the distribution of land to his veterans and for the establishment of veteran colonies throughout the Roman world.

Caesar ordered a complete overhaul of the Roman calendar in 46 BC, establishing a 365-day year with a leap year every fourth year (this Julian Calendar was subsequently modified by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 into the modern calendar). As a result of this reform, the year 46 BC was in fact 445 days long to bring the calendar into line.

Plutarch records that at one point, Caesar informed the Senate that he felt his honours were more in need of reduction than augmentation, but withdrew this position so as not to appear ungrateful. He was given the title Pater Patriae ("Father of the Fatherland"). He was appointed dictator a third time, and then nominated for nine consecutive one-year terms as dictator, effectively making him dictator for ten years. He was also given censorial authority as prefect of morals (praefectus morum) for three years.

At the onset of 44 BC, the honors bestowed upon Caesar continued and the subsequent rift between him and the aristocrats deepened. He had been named Dictator Perpetuus, making him dictator for the remainder of his life. This title even began to show up on coinage bearing Caesar's likeness, placing him above all others in Rome. Some among the population even began to refer to him as Rex (Latin for king), but Caesar refused to accept the title. But the seeds of conspiracy were beginning to grow within the Senate.

Assassination

The fear of Caesar becoming king continued when someone placed a diadem on the statue of Caesar on the Rostra. Not long after the incident with the diadem, two tribunes had citizens arrested after they called out the title Rex to Caesar as he passed by on the streets of Rome. Caesar acted harshly. He ordered those arrested to be released, and instead took the tribunes before the Senate and had them stripped of their positions.

At the coming festival of the Lupercalia, the biggest test of the Roman people for their willingness to accept Caesar as king was to take place. On February 15, 44 BC, Caesar sat upon his gilded chair on the Rostra and watched the race. When Mark Antony ran into the Forum and was raised to the Rostra by the priests attending the event, Antony produced a diadem and attempted to place it on Caesar's head, saying "the people offer this the title of king to you through me."

Caesar quickly refused being sure that the diadem did not touch his head. The crowd roared with approval, but Antony, undeterred, attempted to place it on Caesar's head again. Still there was no voice of support from the crowd, and Caesar rose from his chair and refused Antony again, saying, "I will not be king of Rome!" The crowd wildly endorsed Caesar's actions.

Caesar planned to leave in April of 44 BC for campaigns in Parthia, and a secret opposition that was steadily building had to act fast. Made up mostly of men that Caesar had pardoned already, they knew their only chance to rid Rome of Caesar was to prevent him ever leaving for Parthia.

Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in the Theatrum Pompeium (built by Pompey) on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BC. A few days before, a soothsayer had said to Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March." As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of Senators who called themselves the Liberators (Liberatores); the Liberators justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar's alleged monarchical ambitions.

Among the assassins who locked themselves in the Temple of Jupiter were Gaius Trebonius, Decimus Junius Brutus, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Caesar had personally pardoned most of his murderers or personally advanced their careers. Caesar sustained twenty-three (as many as thirty-five by some accounts) stab wounds, which ranged from superficial to mortal, and ironically fell at the feet of a statue of his best friend and greatest rival, Pompey the Great.

Pompey had recently been deified by the Senate, some accounts report that Caesar prayed to Pompey as he lay dying. In antiquity, however, his last words were generally thought to be those reported by Suetonius (Jul. 82.2) as: Et tu, Brute? (Latin, "And (even) you, Brutus?") – in the play, Julius Caesar, are without ancient authority.

Caesar's death also marked, ironically, the end of the Roman Republic, for which the assassins had struck him down. The Roman middle and lower classes, with whom Caesar was immensely popular, and had been since Gaul and before, were enraged that a small group of high-browed aristocrats had killed their champion. Antony, who had been as of late drifting from Caesar, capitalized on the grief of the Roman mob and threatened to unleash them on the Optimates, perhaps with the intent of taking control of Rome himself.

But Caesar named his grand-nephew Gaius Octavius (Octavian) sole heir of his vast fortune, giving Octavius both the immensely powerful Caesar name and control of one of the largest amounts of money in the Republic. In addition, Gaius Octavius was also, for all intents and purposes, the son of the great Caesar, and consequently the loyalty of the Roman populace shifted from the dead Caesar to the living Octavius.

Octavius, only aged nineteen at the time of Caesar's death, proved to be ruthless and lethal, and while Antony dealt with Decius Brutus in the first round of the new civil wars, Octavius consolidated his position. A new triumvirate was found — the Second and final one — with Octavian, Antony, and Caesar's loyal cavalry commander Lepidus as the third member.

This triumvirate deified Caesar as Divus Julius and – seeing that Caesar's clemency had resulted in his murder – brought back the horror of proscription, abandoned since Sulla, and proscribed its enemies in large numbers in order to seize even more funds for the second civil war against Brutus and Cassius, whom Antony and Octavian defeated at Philippi.

A third civil war then broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This final civil war, culminating in Antony and Cleopatra's defeat at Actium, resulted in the ascendancy of Octavian, who became the first Roman Emperor, under the name Caesar Augustus. In 42 BC, Julius Caesar was formally deified as "the Divine Julius" (Divus Iulius), and Caesar Augustus henceforth became Divi filius ("Son of a God").

Cicero says that "the virginity of this son of Venus was lost in Bithynia" with King Nicomedes. Licinius Calvus was quoted as "whate’er Bithynia had, and Caesar’s paramour (predicator, active partner in anal sex)". Dollabella said that Caesar is "the queen’s rival, the inner partner of the royal couch" and Curio called him "the brothel of Nicomedes and the stew of Bithynia".

Bibulus named Caesar the "queen of Bithynia" saying that "of yore he was enamoured of a king, but now of a king’s estate". Gaius Memmius made analogy to Ganymede by stating that Caesar was the "cupbearer to Nicomedes with the rest of his wantons". It was said that soldiers sang mockingly that "Caesar conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar".

In ancient Rome male homosexuality was common and widespread throughout society, but it was thought to be improper for a freeborn boy or man to be penetrated anally as Caesar was in his youth. For a man or boy to participate in the passive role during anal sex it generally indicated that they were a slave or one that had earned his freedom. Under Roman law emancipated slaves may still be required to render certain services, including sexual ones, to their former master.

Mark Antony charged that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors. Suetonius while saying that Caesar's affair with Nicomedes is true described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. The boy would become the first Roman Emperor following Caesar's death.

Female lovers

Affair with Cleopatra VII

Wives

First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla

Second marriage to Pompeia Sulla

Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis

Children

Julia Caesaris with Cornelia Cinnilla

Ptolemy XV Caesar (Caesarion) with Cleopatra VII, he would become an Egyptian pharaoh

Grandchildren

a grandson from Julia Caesaris and Pompey, dead at several days, unnamed

[edit]

Chronology

July 13, 100 BC – Birth in Rome; Alternatively, July 12, 102 BC

84 BC – First marriage to Cornelia Cinnilla

82 BC – Escapes the Sullan persecutions

81/79 BC – Military service in Asia and Cilicia; tryst with Nicomedes of Bithynia

70s – Career as an advocate

69 BC – Death of Cornelia, Quaestor in Hispania Ulterior

65 BC – Curule aedile

63 BC – Second marriage to Pompeia Sulla,

December, Divorces Pompeia

Elected pontifex maximus and praetor urbanus

the Catilinarian conspiracy

61 BC – Serves of Propraetor in Hispania Ulterior

59 BC – First consulship with Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, beginning of the First Triumvirate

Third marriage to Calpurnia Pisonis

58 BC/53 BC – First term as Proconsul of Gaul

54 BC – Death of Julia

53 BC – Death of Crassus: end of the First Triumvirate

53 BC/48 BC — Second term as Proconsul of Gaul

52 BC – Battle of Alesia

49 BC – Crossing of the Rubicon, the civil war starts

48 BC – Defeats Pompey in Greece at Battle of Pharsalus, made dictator (serves for 11 days)

Second consulship with Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus

47 BC – Campaign in Egypt; meets Cleopatra VII

46 BC – Defeats Cato and Metellus Scipio in northern Africa, third consulship with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

Second dictatorship

Introduces the Julian Calendar and adoptes Octavian as heir

45 BC – Defeats the last opposition in Hispania

Returns to Rome; fourth consulship (without colleague)

Named Pater Patriae by the Senate and third dictatorship

44 BC –

Fifth consulship with Marc Antony

Appointed perpetual dictator

February, Refuses the diadem offered by Antony

March 15, Assassinated

42 BC Formally deified as "the Divine Julius" (Divus Julius)

(23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), known earlier in his life as Gaius Octavius or Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, was the first Roman Emperor and is traditionally considered the greatest.

Although he preserved the outward form of the Roman Republic, he ruled as an autocrat for more than 40 years. He ended a century of civil wars and gave Rome an era of peace, prosperity, and imperial greatness.

He is generally known to historians by the title "Augustus" (revered one), which he acquired in 27 BC and as "Octavian" before then.

Augustus's rise to power

Augustus was born at Rome with the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus. His father, also Gaius Octavius, came from a respectable but undistinguished family of the equestrian order and was governor of Macedonia before his death in 58 BC. More importantly, his mother Atia was the niece of Rome's greatest general and de facto ruler, Julius Caesar.

In 46 BC Caesar, who had no legitimate children, took his grand-nephew soldiering in Hispania, and adopted him by testament as his heir (see also adoption in Rome). Mark Antony charged that Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors. The Roman historian Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavianus as political slander. By virtue of his adoption, following Roman custom, Octavius then assumed the name C. Julius Caesar Octavianus (hereafter "Octavian").

When Caesar was assassinated in March 44 BC, his young heir was with the army at Apollonia, in what is now Albania. At the time, he was only eighteen years old, and was consistently underestimated by his rivals for power. However, he culled support by emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar and took the name Gaius Julius Caesar (probably omitting the customary Octavianus; he is called "Octavian" by historians nonetheless).

He crossed over to Italy and recruited an army from among Caesar's veterans. At Rome, he found Caesar's republican assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius, in control. After a tense standoff, he formed an uneasy alliance with Marcus Antonius and Marcus Lepidus, Caesar's principal colleagues. The three formed a junta called the Second Triumvirate which unlike the First Triumvate was a grant of special powers lasting five years and backed by a law.

They then set in motion the proscriptions in which 300 senators and 2000 Equites were deprived of their property and, for those who failed to escape, their lives. This went beyond a simply purge of those allied with the assassins and so the main motive was probably to raise money to pay their troops.

Antony and Octavian then marched against Brutus and Cassius, who had fled to the east. At Philippi in Macedonia the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide (42 BC). Octavian then returned to Rome, while Antony went to Egypt, where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra, the ex-lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son Caesarion. The Roman dominions were then divided between Octavian in the west and Antony in the east.

Antony occupied himself with military campaigns in the east and a romantic affair with Cleopatra; Octavian built a network of allies in Rome, consolidated his power, and spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because of his preoccupation with Egyptian affairs and traditions. The situation grew more and more tense, and finally, in 32 BC, Octavian declared war.

It was quickly decided: in the bay of Actium on the western coast of Greece, the fleets met in a great battle in which many ships burned and thousands on both sides lost their lives. Octavian defeated his rivals, who then fled to Egypt. He pursued them there, and after another defeat, Antony commited suicide. Cleopatra also commited suicide after her coming role in Octavian's triumph was "carefully explained to her" and Caesarion, the son of Julius Ceasar by Cleopatra, was "butchered without compunction".

Octavian becomes Augustus

Augustus as a magistrateAfter Actium, Octavian had his work cut out for him; years of civil war had left Rome in a state of near-lawlessness. Moreover, Rome was not prepared to accept the control of a despot. Octavian was clever. First, he disbanded his armies, and held elections. Octavian was chosen for the powerful position of consul, the highest executive office of the Republic.

In 27 BC, he officially returned power to the Senate of Rome, and offered to relinquish his own military supremacy and hegemony over Egypt. Not only did the Senate turn him down, he was also given control of Hispania, Gaul, and Syria – the provinces with the greatest number of troops. Shortly thereafter, the Senate gave him the name "Augustus". The title was associated with a religious ring in antiquity and is believed to be derived from auctoritas and the practises of augurs.

In the mindset of contemporary religious beliefs, it would have cleverly symbolized a stamp of authority over humanity that went beyond any constitutional definition of his status. Additionally, the harsh methods employed in consolidating his control meant that the change in name would also serve to separate his benign reign as emperor from his reign of terror as Octavian.

These actions were highly abnormal from the Roman Senate, but this was not the same body of patricians that had murdered Caesar. Both Antony and Octavian had purged the Senate of suspect elements and planted it with their loyal partisans. How free a hand the Senate had in these transactions, and what backroom deals were made, remain unknown.

Augustus knew that the power he needed to rule absolutely could not be derived from his Consulship, however. In 23 BC, he renounced this office in favor of two other powers. First, he was granted the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas), which allowed him to convene the Senate at will and lay business before it. Since the tribuneship was an office traditionally associated with the common people, this consolidated his power further.

Second, he received new authority in the form of an "Imperial" power (imperium proconsulare maius, or power greater than any governor), which gave him supreme authority in all matters pertaining to territorial governance. 23 BC is the date on which Augustus is usually said to have assumed the mantle of Emperor of Rome. He more typically used a civilian title, however, Princeps, or "First Citizen". After the death of Lepidus in 13 BC he added the title of pontifex maximus.

Reign

Having gained power by means of great audacity, Augustus ruled with great prudence. In exchange for near absolute power, he gave Rome 40 years of civic peace and increasing prosperity, celebrated in history as the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. He created Rome's first permanent army and navy and stationed the legions along the Empire's borders, where they could not meddle in politics. A special unit, the Praetorian Guard, garrisoned Rome and protected the Emperor's person. He also reformed Rome's finance and tax systems.

Augustus waged no major wars. A war in the mountains of northern Spain from 26 BC to 19 BC finally resulted in that territory's conquest. After Gallic raids, the Alpine territories were conquered. Rome's borders were advanced to the natural frontier of the Danube, and the province of Galatia was occupied. Further west, an attempt to advance into Germany ended in defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9. Thereafter he accepted the Rhine as the Empire's permanent border. In the east, he satisfied himself with establishing Roman control over Armenia and the Transcaucasus. He left the Parthian Empire alone.

In domestic matters, Augustus channeled the enormous wealth brought in from the Empire to keeping the army happy with generous payments, and keeping the Romans happy by beautifying the capital and staging magnificent games. He famously boasted that he "found Rome brick and left it marble". He built the Senate a new home, the Curia, and built temples to Apollo and to the Divine Julius. He also built a shrine near the Circus Maximus.

It is recorded that he built both the Capitoline Temple and the Theater of Pompey without putting his name on them. He founded a ministry of transport, which built an extensive network of roads - enabling improved communication, trade, and mail. Augustus also founded the world's first fire brigade, and created a regular police force for Rome.

Bronze statue of Augustus, Archaeological Museum, AthensRoman rulers understood little about economics, and Augustus was no exception. Like all the Emperors, he over-taxed agriculture and spent the revenue on armies, temples, and games. Once the Empire stopped expanding, and had no more loot coming in from conquests, its economy began to stagnate and eventually decline. The reign of Augustus is thus seen in some ways as the high point of Rome's power and prosperity. Augustus settled retired soldiers on the land in an effort to revive agriculture, but the capital remained dependent on grain imports from Egypt.

Augustus also strongly supported worship of Roman gods, especially Apollo, and depicted Roman defeat of Egypt as Roman gods defeating Egypt's. He sponsored Vergil's Aeneid in the hopes that it would increase pride in Roman heritage. Augustus also launched a morality crusade, promoting marriage, family, and childbirth while discouraging luxury, "interbreeding", unrestrained sex (including prostitution and homosexuality), and adultery. It was largely unsuccessful (indeed, his own daughter was banished and subsequently perished due to it).

A patron of the arts, Augustus showered favors on poets, artists, sculptors, and architects, and his reign is considered the Golden Age of Roman literature. Horace, Livy, Ovid, and Vergil flourished under his protection, but in return, they had to pay due tribute to his genius and adhere to his standards. (Ovid was banished from Rome for violating Augustus's morality codes.)

He eventually won over most of the Roman intellectual class, although many still pined in private for the Republic. His use of games and special events to celebrate himself and his family cemented his popularity. However, by the time Augustus died, it was impossible to imagine a return to the old system. The only question was who would succeed him as sole ruler.

Succession

Augustus' control of power throughout the Empire was so absolute that it allowed him to name his successor, a custom that had been abandoned and derided in Rome since the foundation of the Republic. At first, indications pointed toward his sister's son Marcellus, who had been married to Augustus' daughter Julia Caesaris. However, Marcellus died of food poisoning in 23 BC. Reports of later historians that this poisoning, and other later deaths, were caused by Augustus' wife Livia Drusilla are inconclusive at best.

After the death of Marcellus, Augustus married his daughter to his right hand man, Marcus Agrippa. This union produced five children, three sons and two daughters: Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Vipsania Julia, Agrippina the Elder, and Postumus Agrippa, so named because he was born after Marcus Agrippa died.

Augustus' intent to make the first two children his heirs was apparent when he adopted them as his own children. Augustus also showed favor to his stepsons, Livia's children from her first marriage, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus and Tiberius Claudius, after they had conquered a large portion of Germany.

After Agrippa died in 12 BC, Livia's son Tiberius divorced his own wife and married Agrippa's widow. Tiberius shared in Augustus' tribune powers, but shortly thereafter went into retirement. After the early deaths of both Gaius and Lucius in AD 4 and AD 2 respectively, and the earlier death of his brother Drusus (9 BC), Tiberius was recalled to Rome, where he was adopted by Augustus.

On August 19, AD 14, Augustus died. Postumus Agrippa and Tiberius had been named co-heirs. However, Postumus had been banished, and was put to death around the same time. Who ordered his death is unknown, but the way was clear for Tiberius to assume the same powers that his stepfather had.

Augustus's legacy

Portrait drawing of Caesar Augustus.Augustus was deified soon after his death, and both his borrowed surname, Caesar, and his title, Augustus, became the permanent titles of the rulers of Rome for the next 400 years, and were still in use at Constantinople fourteen centuries after his death, (and the derived titles "Kaiser" and "Tsar" would be used until the early part of the 20th century).

The cult of the Divine Augustus continued until Constantine the Great converted the State Religion of the Empire to Christianity in the 4th century. Consequently we have many excellent statues and busts of the first, and in some ways the greatest, of the Emperors. Augustus' mausoleum also originally contained bronze pillars inscribed with a record of his life, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti.

Many consider Augustus as Rome's greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the empire's life span and initiated the celebrated "Pax Romana" or "Pax Augusta". He was handsome, intelligent, decisive, and a very shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as the earlier Caesar or his rival Antony; as a result, Augustus is not as renowned as either man, and is often confused with Julius Caesar. Nevertheless, his legacy has proved more enduring.

The month of August (Latin Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis.

In looking back on the reign of Augustus and its legacy to the Roman world, its longevity ought not to be overlooked as a key factor in its success. People had been born and reached middle age without knowing any form of government other than the Principate. Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 BC, for instance), matters may have turned out very differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican oligarchy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the transformation of the Roman state into a monarchy in these years.

Augustus's own experience, his patience, his tact, and his great political acumen also played their part. He directed the future of the empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense.

Augustus's ultimate legacy, however, was the peace and prosperity the empire was to enjoy for the next two centuries under the system he initiated. His memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor; although every emperor adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, only a handful earned genuine comparison with him (Fagan).

A fragmentary titulary found in the tomb of Meritates, may indicate that Meritates was the mother of Hetepheres II. At the latest during the reign of Khufu, she married her brother Kawab, with whom she had at least one child, a daughter named Meresankh III.

After the death of her first husband, she married another of her brothers, Djedefra. When Djedefra succeeded to the throne, after Khufu' death, Hetepheres II became a queen.

She was widowed again when Djedefre died. She then married Ankhhaf, another member of the 4th Dynasty royal family.

The marriage of her daughter, Meresankh III, to her late second husband's successor Khafra made Hetepheres II the mother-in-law of the new king. She also out-lived her third husband and her daughter, Meresankh III. A mark of

her affection for Meresankh may perhaps be seen in the fact that Hetepheres II had her own mastaba in the eastern cemetery of Giza converted into a tomb for her daughter.

She finally died early in the reign of Shepseskaf, the son and successor of Menkaura and had thus witnessed the reigns of 5 (perhaps 6, if she was born during the reign of Sneferu) kings of the 4th Dynasty.

He was the son of pharaoh Neferirkare Kakai by queen Khentkaus II and brother of pharaoh Nyuserre Ini. He has been assigned a reign of seven years in the Turin King List, and twenty in Manetho's list of kings, but both seem to be overestimations.

He probably did not rule more than 2 or 3 years. Because of the premature death of the king Neferefre, his successor

hastily completed work on Neferefre's pyramid at Abusir, which eventually acquired the form of a mastaba. All the other buildings of Neferefre's mortuary complex were also erected under Nyuserre Ini's rule.

While exploring ruins of the mortuary complex, a Czech archaeological expedition discovered papyri of temple accounts, statues of the king, decorated plates and many seal prints. Pieces of mummy wrappings and bones were also found, which were discovered to be those of a man in his early twenties, which would fit well for a king who died relatively soon into his reign.

Instead, increased focus was put on the mortuary temple, which became more richly decorated than had been usual before. In the temple courtyard, a colossal statue of the king was raised.

It is believed that he was father of pharaohs Sahure and Neferirkare Kakai, who succeeded him on the throne.

Another view, being in concordance with a story of the Westcar Papyrus is that first three rulers of the Fifth

dynasty were brothers, sons of queen Khentkaus I.

Second king of the Twelfth Dynasty. Senusret is thought to have reigned for the first ten years in a coregency with his father Amenemhat I: if so, the start of his reign (and of the coregency) seems to be the point at which a new Residence city was founded at Lisht, and the pyramid of Amenemhat I was begun.

Senusret I is responsible for a building programme in which many temples all over the country were for the first time rebuilt in stone or at least decorated with stone elements, with inscriptions and images of the king. The pyramid of the king in Lisht follows the plan of the late Old Kingdom

pyramid.

Several military campaigns against Nubia are attested, with the foundation of fortresses, for example at Buhen, demonstrating expanding Egyptian control.

Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. He is thought to have been born to Amenhotep III and his Chief Queen Tiy in the year 26 of their reign (1379 BC or 1362 BC).

Amenhotep IV succeeded his father after Amenhotep III's death at the end of his 38-year reign, possibly after a co-regency between the two of up to 12 years. Suggested dates for Akhenaten's reign (subject to the debates surrounding Egyptian chronology) are from 1367 BC to

1350 BC or from 1350 BC/1349 BC to 1334 BC/ 1333 BC. Akhenaten's chief wife was Nefertiti, who has been made famous by her bust in the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin.

other names:

Amenhotep (IV), (Personal name)

Amenophis (Greek variant of personal name)

Nefer-cheperu-Rê (Throne name)

Naphu(`)rureya (Variant of throne name found in the Amarna letters)

Alternative spellings of Akhenaten (Name taken on conversion to Atenism)

- Akhnaten', Akhenaton, Akhnaton, Ankhenaten, Ankhenaton, Ikhnaton

Atenist revolution

Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family adoring the AtenA religious revolutionary, Amenhotep IV introduced Atenism in Year 4 of his reign, raising the previously obscure god Aten to the position of supreme deity.

Aten was the name for the sun-disk itself (hence the fact that it is often referred to in English in the impersonal form "the Aten"). The Aten was by this point in Egyptian history considered to be an aspect of the composite deity Ra-Amun-Horus. These previously separate deities had been merged with each other. Amun was identified with Ra, who was also identified with Horus.

Akhenaten simplified this syncretism by proclaiming the visible sun itself to be the deity, introducing monotheism. Some commentators interpret this as a proto-scientific naturalism, based on the observation that the sun's energy is the ultimate source of all life. Others consider it to be a way of cutting through the previously ritualistic emphasis of Egyptian religion to allow for a new "personal relationship" with God.

This religious reformation appears to have begun with his decision to proclaim a Sed-festival - a highly unusual step, since a Sed-festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship, was traditionally held in the thirtieth year of the Pharaoh's reign.

Year 4 is also believed to mark the beginning of his construction of a new capital, Akhetaten ('Horizon of the Aten'), at the site known today as Amarna. In Year 5 of his reign Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten ('Glorious Spirit of the Aten') as evidence of his new worship.

The date given for the event has been estimated to fall around January 2 of that year. In Year 7 of his reign the capital was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten (near modern Amarna) in the western desert, though construction of the city seems to have continued for two more years.

In honor of Aten, he also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak and one at Thebes, close to the old temple of Amun. In these new temples, the Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as the old gods had been. Akhenaten is also believed to have composed the Great Hymn to the Aten.

Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Ra (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar Egyptian religious context.

However in Year 9 of his reign Akhenaten declared a more radical version of his new religion by declaring Aten not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, was the only intermediary between the Aten and his people. He even staged the ritual regicide of Amun and ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt. This was a frontal attack on the priesthood of Amun, which had held great political and economic power.

Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9, to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime, which included a ban on idols and other images of the Aten, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity.

The early stage of Atenism appears to be a kind of henotheism familiar in Egyptian religion, but the later form suggests a proto-monotheism. The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of monotheistic religion was promoted by Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychoanalysis), in his book Moses and Monotheism and thereby entered popular consciousness.

Recently Ahmed Osman has even claimed that Moses and Akhenaten to be the same person, supporting his belief by interpreting aspects of biblical and Egyptian history. This would mesh with possibility that Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph.

Depictions of the Pharaoh and his family

a portrait of Akhenaten in the naturalistic style of the late-Amarna period, associated with the sculptor ThutmoseStyles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art, bearing a variety of affectations, from elongated heads to protruding stomachs, exaggerated ugliness and the beauty of Nefertiti.

Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaten's family was depicted in a decidedly naturalistic manner, and they are clearly shown displaying affection for each other. Nefertiti also appears beside the king in actions usually reserved for the Pharaoh, suggesting that she reached an unusual power for a queen.

Artistic representations of Akhenaten give him a strikingly feminine appearance, with slender limbs, a protruding belly and wide hips, giving rise to controversial theories such that he may have actually been a woman masquerading as a man, which had been known to happen in Egyptian politics once or twice, or that he was a hermaphrodite or had some other intersex condition. The fact that Akhenaten is recorded as having had several children argues against these suggestions.

However, it is also suggested by Bob Brier, in his book "The Murder of Tutankhamen", that the family suffered from Marfan's syndrome, which is known to cause elongated features. Brier speculates that this may explain Akhenaten's appearance, and perhaps his fascination with the sun - since Marfan's sufferers often feel cold easily.

It is possible that the history of the royal family inbreeding could have finally taken a physical toll. This claim is countered by the by the fact that Akhenaten's mother Tiy was not from within the royal family, and may have been of foreign origin.

It is also possible that he suffered from acromegaly, a thyroid disorder that can cause longer and thicker bones, oversized jaw, dolicephaly, and altered sex characteristics. However, other leading figures of the Amarna period, both royal and otherwise, are shown with some of these features, suggesting a possible religious connotation – though its also possible that his family and court were depicted as similarly formed to Akhenaten as a compliment to him.

In addition, in Akhenaten's later reign, art becomes less idiosyncratic. Under the new chief sculptor Thutmose, Akhenaten is depicted as more normal-looking, although some claim that his earliest portraits appear the most normal, with a progression towards more elongated and feminine features later in life, suggesting an endocrine disorder of post-pubertal onset. But these earliest images of the pharaoh are in the conventional pre-Amarna style.

Unless Akhenaten's mummy is located and identified, these proposals are likely to remain speculative.

Problems of the reign

Crucial evidence about the latter stages of Akhenaten's reign was furnished by discovery of the so-called "Amarna Letters". Believed to have been thrown away by scribes after being transferred to papyrus, the letters comprise a priceless cache of incoming clay message tablets sent from imperial outposts and foreign allies.

The letters suggest that Akhenaten was obsessed with his new religion, and that his neglect of matters of state was causing disorder across the massive Egyptian empire. The governors and kings of subject domains wrote to beg for gold, and also complained of being snubbed and cheated.

Early on in his reign, Akhenaten fell out with the king of Mitanni, and, against that king's advice, signed a treaty with the Hittites, who then attacked Mitanni and attempted to carve out their own empire. A group of Egypt's other allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote begging Akhenaten for troops; he evidently did not respond to their pleas.

Family

The dates of Amenhotep IV's marriage to Nefertiti are uncertain. However the couple had six known daughters. This is a list with suggested years of birth:

Meritaten - year 2.

Meketaten - year 3.

Ankhesenpaaten, later Queen of Tutankhamun - year 4.

Neferneferuaten Tasherit - year 6.

Neferneferure - year 9.

Setepenre - year 11.

His known lovers are:

Nefertiti, his Chief Queen.

Kiya, his second queen.

Ankhesenpaaten, his third daughter and last known wife, married during the last year of his life. Akhenaten is thought to have fathered a daughter through her, Ankhesenpaaten-te-sherit. After his death, Ankhesenpaaten married Akhenaten's successor Tutankhamun.

Two other lovers have been suggested, but are not widely accepted:

Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's successor and/or co-ruler for the last years of his reign. Smenkhare is thought to have been a half-brother or a son to Akhenaten. Some have suggested that Smenkhkare was actually an alias of Nefertiti or Kiya, and therefore one of Akhenaten's wives. The evidence of Smenkhare being the lover of Akhenaten rests on a single, ambiguous statue.

Tiy, his mother. Twelve years after the death of Amenhotep III, she is still mentioned in inscriptions as Queen and beloved of the King. It has been suggested that Akhenaten and his mother acted as consorts to each other until her death.

This would have been considered incest at the time. Supporters of this theory (notably Immanuel Velikovsky) consider Akhenaten to be the historical model of legendary King Oedipus of Thebes, Greece and Tiy the model for his mother/wife Jocasta.

Burial

Akhenaten planned to start a relocated Valley of the Kings, in the Royal Wadi in Akhetaten. His body was probably removed after the court returned to Thebes, and reburied someone in the Valley of the Kings. His sarcophagus was destroyed and has since been reconstructed and now sits in the car park of the Cairo Museum.

Succession

There is some debate around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, Amenhotep III, or whether there was a co-regency (of as much as 11 or 12 years according to some Egyptologists).

Similarly, although it is accepted that both Smenkhkare and Akhenaten himself died in year 17 of Akhenaten's reign, the question of whether Smenkhare became co-regent perhaps 2 or 3 years earlier is still unclear, as is whether Smenkhare survived Akhenaten. If Smenkhare outlived Akhenaten, becoming sole Pharaoh, it was for less than a year.

The next successor was certainly Tutankhaten (later, Tutankhamun), at the age of 8, with the country being run by the chief vizier (and next Pharaoh), Ay. Tutankhamun is believed to be a younger brother of Smenkhkare and a son of either Amenhotep III or Akhenaten.

With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded almost immediately fell out of favor. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in year 3 of his reign (1348 BC or 1331 BC) and abandoned Akhetaten, the city falling into ruin.

Temples Akhenaten had built, including the temple at Thebes, were disassembled by his successors Ay and Horemheb, reused as a source of easily available building materials and decorations for their own temples, and inscriptions to Aten defaced.

Finally, Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay were excised from the official lists of Pharaohs, which instead reported that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. This is thought to be part of an attempt by Horemheb to delete all trace of Atenism and the pharaohs associated with it from the historical record.

Akhenaten's name never appeared on any of the king lists compiled by later Pharaohs and it was not until the late 19th century that his identity was re-discovered and the surviving traces of his reign were unearthed by archaeolologists.

Sahure was the second king of ancient Egypt's 5th Dynasty. He was a son of queen Khentkaus I, who, in her tomb at Giza, is said to have been the "mother of two kings". His father probably was Userkaf.

There are no wives or children known to him and at least no children of his seem to have outlived him, since he was succeeded by his brother, Neferirkare, the first king known to have used separate names.

His birth name means "He who is Close to Ra". His Horus name was Nebkhau, and it is believed he ruled Egypt from around 2487 BC to 2475 BC. The Turin King List gives him a reign of twelve years. The Palermo stone notes seven cattle counts, which indicates a reign of at least 13 years if the cattle counts were held every two years.

It is probable that Khentkaus I was the character of Redjedet in the Papyrus Westcar, who according to the

magician Djedi, was destined to give birth to the children of Ra and the first kings of the 5th Dynasty. But if Khentkaus I was his mother, a scene in her tomb at Giza showing her with the royal uraeus and beard might indicate that she may have acted as a regent for Sahure.

Pyramid

His pyramid complex was the first built at the new royal burial ground at Abusir a few kilometres north of Saqqara (though Userkaf had probably already built his solar temple there) and marks the decline of pyramid building, both in the size and quality, though many of the reliefs are very well done.

His pyramid provides us most of the information we know of this king. The reliefs in his mortuary and valley temple depict a counting of foreigners by or in front of the goddess Seshat and the return of a fleet from Asia, perhaps Byblos.

This may indicate a military interest in the Near East, but the contacts may have been diplomatic and commercial as well. As part of the contacts with the Near East, the reliefs from his funerary monuments also hold the oldest known representation of a Syrian bear.

When it was excavated in the first years of the 1900s, a great amount of fine reliefs were found to an extent and quality superior to those from the dynasty before. Some of the low relief-cuttings in red granite are masterpieces of their kind and still in place at the site.

The construction of the pyramid was on the other hand (like the others from this dynasty) made with an inner core of roughly hewn stones in a step construction held together in many sections with a mortar of mud.

While this was under construction a corridor was left into the shaft where the grave chamber was erected separately and later covered by leftover stone blocks and debris.

This working strategy is clearly visible from two unfinished pyramids and was the old style from the Third dynasty now coming back after being temporary abandoned by the builders of the five great pyramids at Dahshur and Giza during the Fourth dynasty.

Few depictions of the king are known, but in a sculpture he is shown sitting on his throne with a local nome deity by his side.

Today only the inner construction remains partly visible in a pile of rubble originating from the crude filling of debris and mortar behind the casing stones taken away a thousand years ago. The whole inner construction is badly damaged and not possible to access today.

The entrance at the north side is a short descending corridor lined with red granite followed by a passageway ending at the burial chamber. It has a gabled roof made of big limestone layers and fragments of the sarcophagus were found here when it was entered in the early 1800s.

History

Most foreign relations during the reign of Sahure were economic, rather then combative. In one scene in his pyramid, we find great ships with Egyptians and Asiatics on board. It is believed they are returning from the port of Byblos in Lebanon with huge cedar trees.

For this, we have corraborating evidence in the form of his name on a piece of thin gold stamped to a chair, as well as other evidence of Fifth dynasty king's cartouches found in Lebanon on stone vessels. Other scenes in his temple depict what we are told are Syrian bears.

We also have the first documented expedition to the land of Punt, which apparently yielded a quantity of myrrh, along with malachite and electrum, and because of this, Sahure is often credited with establishing an Egyptian [[navy]. There are also scenes of a raid into Libya which yielded various livestock and showed the king smiting the local chieftains. The Palermo stone also corroborates some of these events and also mentions expeditions to the Sinai and to the exotic land of Punt, as well as to the diorite quarries northwest of Abu Simbel, thus, far into Nubia.

However, this same scene of the Libyan attack was used two thousand years later in the mortuary temple of Pepi II and in a Kawa temple of Taharqa. The same names are quoted for the local chieftain. Therefore, we become somewhat suspicious of the possibility that Sahure was also copying an even earlier representation of this scene.

He apparently built a sun temple, as did most of the 5th Dynasty kings. Its name was Sekhet-re, meaning "the Field of Re", but so far its location is unknown. We know of his palace, called Uetjesneferusahure ("Sahure's splendor soars up to heaven"), from an inscription on ordinary tallow containers recently found in Neferefre's mortuary temple. It may have been located at Abusir as well. We also know that under Sahure, the turquoise quarries in the Sinai were worked (probably at Wadi Maghara and Wadi Kharit), along with the diorite quarries in Nubia.

Sahure was further attested to by a statue now located in New York's Museum of Modern Art, in a biography found in the tombs of Perisen at Saqqara and on a false door of Niankhsakhment at Saqqara, and is also mentioned in the tombs of Sekhemkare and Nisutpunetjer, kings of the Twelfth dynasty at their tombs in Giza.

The Pyramid of Menkaure, GizaSome authors date his rule between 2532 BC–2504 BC, but no accurate date is actually given for his reign. His name means "Last long (Men) the vital forces (Kau) of Ra." He was the successor of Khafra (Chephren).

According to Herodotus, Menkaura was the son of Khufu

(Greek Cheops), and alleviated the suffering his father's reign had caused the inhabitants of ancient Egypt.

Herodotus adds that he suffered much misfortune: his only daughter died before him (having allegedly committed suicide), whose corpse was interred in a wooden bull (which Herodotus claims survived to his lifetime); and that the oracle at Buto predicted he would only rule six years, but through cleverness.

In historical terms, Tutankhamun is of only moderate significance, primarily as a figure managing the beginning of the transition from the heretical Atenism of his predecessor Akhenaten back to the familiar Egyptian religion. As Tutankhamun began his reign at age 9, a considerable responsibility for his reign must also be assigned to his vizier and eventual successor, Ay.

Nonetheless, Tutankhamun is in modern times the most famous of the Pharaohs, and the only one to have a nickname in popular culture ("King Tut"). The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of his (nearly) intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in Ancient Egypt, which Tutankhamun remains the popular face of.

Family

Tutankamun's parentage is uncertain. An inscription calls him a king's son, but it is debated which king was meant. Most scholars think that he was probably a son either of Amenhotep III (though probably not by his Great Royal Wife Tiye), or of Amenhotep III's son Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten), perhaps with his enigmatic second queen, Kiya.

It should be noted that when Tutankhaten succeeded Akhenaten to the throne, Amenhotep III had been dead for some time; the duration is thought by some Egyptologists to have been seventeen years, although on this, as on so many questions about the Amarna period, there is no scholarly consensus. Tutankhamun ruled Egypt for eight to ten years; examinations of his mummy show that he was a young adult when he died. Recent CT scans place Tut at age 19.

This conclusion was reached after images of Tut's teeth were examined, and were found to be consistent with the teeth of a 19 year old. That would place his birth around 1342 BC-1340 BC, and would make it less likely that Amenhotep III was his father.

Tutankhamun was married to Ankhesenpaaten, a daughter of Akhenaten. Ankhesenpaaten also changed her name from the -aten endings to the -amun ending, becoming Ankhesenamun. They had two known children, both stillborn – their mummies were discovered in his tomb.

Reign

During Tutankhamun's reign, Akhenaten's Amarna revolution (Atenism) began to be reversed. Akhenaten had attempted to supplant the existing priesthood and gods with a god who was until then considered minor, Aten. In year 3 of Tutankhamun's reign (1331 BC), when he was still a boy of about 11 and probably under the influence of two older advisors (notably Akhenaten's vizier Ay), the ban on the old pantheon of gods and their temples was lifted, the traditional privileges restored to their priesthoods, and the capital moved back to Thebes.

The young pharaoh also adopted the name Tutankhamun, changing it from his birth name Tutankhaten. Because of his age at the time these decisions were made, it is generally thought that most if not all the responsibility for them falls on his vizier Ay and perhaps other advisors.

Events after his death

A now-famous letter to the Hittite king Suppiluliumas I from a widowed queen of Egypt, explaining her problems and asking for one of his sons as a husband, has been attributed to Ankhesenamun (among others). Suspicious of this good fortune, Suppiluliumas I first sent a messenger to make inquiries on the truth of the young queen's story.

After reporting her plight back to Suppilulumas I, he sent his son, Zannanza, accepting her offer. However, he got no further than the border before he died, perhaps murdered. If Ankhesenamun were the queen in question, and his death a murder, it was probably at the orders of Horemheb or Ay, who both had the opportunity and the motive.

In any event, after Tutankhamun's death, Ankhesenamun married Ay (a signet ring, with both Ay and Ankehesenamun's name was found), possibly under coercion, and shortly afterwards disappeared from recorded history.

Tutankhamun was briefly succeeded by the elder of his two advisors, Ay, and then by the other, Horemheb, who obliterated most of the evidence of the reigns of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay.

nomen or birth name

Under Atenism, Tutankhamun was named Tutankhaten, at the reintroduction of the old pantheon, his name was changed and often realised as Tutankhamun Hekaiunushema, meaning "Living image of Amun, ruler of Southern Heliopolis". On his ascension to the throne, Tutankhamun took a praenomen. This is transliterated as as Nebkheperure, meaning "Lord of the forms of Re". The name Nibhurrereya in the Amarna letters may be a variation of this praenomen.

Cause of death

For a long time the cause of Tutankhamun's death was unknown, and was the root of much speculation. How old was the king when he died? Did he suffer from any physical abnormalities? Had he been murdered? Many of these questions were finally answered in early 2005 when the results of a set of CT scans on the mummy were released.

The body was originally inspected by Howard Carter’s team in the early 1920s, though they were primarily interested in recovering the jewelry and amulets from the body. To remove the objects from the body, which in many cases were stuck fast by the hardened embalming resins used, Carter's team cut up the mummy into various pieces: the arms and legs were detached, the torso cut in half and the head was severed, and the removed from the golden mask to which it was cemented by means of hot knives.

Since the body was placed back in its sarcophagus in 1926, the mummy has subsequently been X-rayed three times: first in 1968 by a group from the University of Liverpool, then in 1978 by a group from the University of Michigan and finally, with a CT scan, in 2005 by Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Early (pre-2005) X-rays of his mummy had revealed a dense spot at the lower back of the skull. This had been interpreted as a chronic subdural hematoma, which would have been caused by a blow. Such an injury could have been the result of an accident, but it had also been suggested that the young pharaoh was murdered.

If this is the case, there are a number of theories as to who was responsible: one popular candidate was his immediate successor Ay. Interestingly, there are seemingly signs of calcification within the supposed injury, which if true meant Tutankhamun lived for a fairly extensive period of time (on the order of several months) after the injury was inflicted.

Much confusion had been caused by a small loose sliver of bone within the upper cranial cavity, which was discovered from the same X-ray analysis. Some people have mistaken this visible bone fragment for the supposed head injury.

In fact, since Tutankhamun's brain was removed post mortem in the mummification process, and considerable quantities of now-hardened resin introduced into the skull on at least two separate occasions after that, had the fragment resulted from a pre-mortem injury, it almost certainly would not still be loose in the cranial cavity. It therefore almost certainly represented post-mummification damage.

2005 research

Alabaster bust of King Tut from one of the canopic jars that contained his internal organsOn March 8, 2005, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass revealed the results of a CT scan performed on the pharaoh's mummy. The scan uncovered no evidence for a blow to the back of the head as well as no evidence suggesting foul play. There was a hole in the head, but it appeared to have been drilled, presumably by embalmers.

A fracture to Tutankhamun's left thighbone was interpreted as evidence that suggests the pharaoh badly broke his leg before he died, and his leg became infected; however, members of the Egyptian-led research team recognized as a less likely possibility that the fracture was caused by the embalmers. 1,700 images were produced of Tutankhamun's mummy during the 15-minute CT scan.

Much was learned about the young king's life. His age at death was estimated at 19 years, based on physical developments that set upper and lower limits to his age. The king had been in general good health, and there were no signs of any major infectious disease or malnutrition during childhood. He was slight of build, and was roughly 170 cm (5½ ft) tall. He had large front incisor teeth and the overbite characteristic of the rest of the Thutmosid line of kings to which he belonged.

He also had a pronounced dolichocephalic (elongated) skull, though it was within normal bounds and highly unlikely to have been pathologic in cause. Given the fact that many of the royal depictions of Akhenaten (possibly his father, certainly a relation), often featured an elongated head, it is likely an exaggeration of a family trait, rather than a distinct abnormality more typical of a condition like Marfan's syndrome, as had been suggested.

A slight bend to his spine was also found, but the scientists agreed that that there was no associated evidence to suggest that it was pathological in nature, and that it was much more likely to have been caused during the embalming process. This ended speculation based on the previous X-rays that Tutanhkamun had suffered from scoliosis.

The 2005 conclusion by a team of Egyptian scientists, based on the CT scan findings, confirmed that Tutankhamun died of a swift attack of gangrene after breaking his leg. After consultations with Italian and Swiss experts, the Egyptian scientists found that the fracture in Tutankhamun's left leg most likely occurred only days before his death, which had then become gangrenous and led directly to his death.

The fracture was not sustained during the mummification process or as a result of some damage to the mummy as claimed by Howard Carter. The Egyptian scientists have also found no evidence that he had been struck in the head and no other indication he was killed, as had been previously speculated.

Despite the relatively poor condition of the mummy, the Egyptian team found evidence that great care had been given to the body of Tutankhamun during the embalming process. They found five distinct embalming materials, which were applied to the body at various stages of the mummification process. This counters previous assertions that the king’s body had been prepared carelessly and in a hurry.

Tutankhamun in popular culture

Tutankhamun is the world's best known pharaoh, partly because his tomb is among the best preserved, and his image and associated artefacts the most-exhibited. He has also entered popular culture - he has, for example, been commemorated in the whimsical song "King Tut" by comedian Steve Martin, and in a series of historical novels by Lynda Robinson. As Jon Manchip White writes, in his forward to the 1977 edition of Carter's The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, "The pharaoh who in life was one of the least esteemed of Egypt's kings has become in death the most renowned."

Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

The wall decorations in KV62's burial chamber are modest in comparison to other tombs in the ValleyTutankhamun's existence is believed to have been mostly forgotten at some point not too long after his death, until the 20th century. It has been suggested that his tomb was never opened, by either grave robbers or priests, exactly because he and it had been forgotten.

The Egyptologist Howard Carter (employed by Lord Carnarvon) discovered Tutankhamun's tomb (since designated KV62) in The Valley of The Kings on November 4, 1922 near the entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI, thereby setting off a renewed interest in all things Egyptian in the modern world.

Carter contacted his patron, and on November 26 that year both men became the first people to enter Tutankhamun's tomb in over 3000 years. After many weeks of careful excavation, on February 16, 1923 Carter opened the inner chamber and first saw the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.

For many years, rumors of a "curse" (probably fueled by newspapers at the time of the discovery) persisted, emphasizing the early death of some of those who had first entered the tomb. However, a recent study of journals and death records indicates no statistical difference between the age of death of those who entered the tomb and those on the expedition who did not. Indeed, most lived past 70.

.Tutankhamun's appearance

National Geographic's June 2005 issue, The New Face of King Tut, featuring a photograph of the CT-informed bust.In 2005, three teams of scientists (Egyptian, French and American), in partnership with the National Geographic Society, developed a new facial likeness of Tutankhamun. The Egyptian team worked from 1,700 three-dimensional CT scans of the Pharaoh's skull.

The French and American teams worked plastic molds created from these -- but the Americans were never told whom they were reconstructing.[2] All three teams created silicon molds bearing what decades of archaeological and forensic research show to be the most accurate replications of Tutankhamun's features since his royal artisans prepared the splendors of his tomb. As expected, the Americans -- uninfluenced by foreknowledge -- produced the most "natural" of the three busts, with the other two expressing subtle but perceptible prominences.

Skin tone

Although modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy based on his mummy, correctly identifying his skin tone is more of a problem, as this must be based largely on Egyptian artefacts. The problem is not the Ancient Egyptians' lack of skill; they are generally regarded as master portraitists, especially in sculpture (see Nefertiti).

They distinguished accurately between different races, but represented them in a variety of media (such as alabaster and gold) for a variety of reasons, which together with the ravages of time makes a precise identification of skin tone from Egyptian artefacts difficult. Archaeologists, Egyptologists and paleophysiologists agree that absolute determination of skin tone is further complicated by the fact that North Africans of the era varied widely in skin color.

Their is a debate on whether to list the Ancient Egyptian people as North Africans or East Africans with a growing body of evidence that links the Ancient Egyptians to East Africa.Most of this debate is also centered around the Ancient Egyptians claim that they came from the south. The color of Egyptians will always be up for debate and guessing until scientists make better use of the melanin dosage test on the mummies.

"The big variable is skin tone. North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.' We'll never know for sure what his exact skin tone was or the color of his eyes with 100 percent certainty. ... "Maybe in the future, people will come to a different conclusion."

The Egyptian team's "Caucasoid" reconstruction, which has been exhibited prominently as the "real" image of King Tutankhamun, has sparked considerable criticism. Afrocentrists have criticized the Egyptian team's decision to arbitrarily assign pale skin and hazel eyes to the young king based on modern-day, highly miscegenated, Arabized Egyptians of present-day Egypt, features which they contend do not properly reflect the eye or skin color of the average citizen of ancient dynastic Egypt, or of today's rural Egypt.

Other Afrocentrists have argued that even mummy portraits of presumably highly miscegenated Egyptian subjects of the Roman era nearly 1,500 years after Tutankhamun's death reflect a blacker, more Afro-Semitic-looking Egyptian populace than is represented by the Egyptian reconstruction.

Apparently, the "Caucasoid North African" terminology has emanated from only Hawass, who has been accused by some of orchestrating a campaign to Arabize ancient dynastic Egypt. In an SCA press release dated May 10, 2005, the agency reported, "Based on this skull, the American and French teams both concluded that the subject was Caucasoid (the type of human typically found, for example, in North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East)."

However, in the words of Susan Anton, a member of the American team, "Our group did not, in fact, find Tut to be a 'Caucasoid North African.' We classified him as African based on many of the [skull's facio-cranial] features...." Anton noted that this was done regardless of the fact that the nasal cavity was relatively narrow, because the metrics were within the range of probability for the Nilotic peoples of the region.

With regard to any finding of European origins, Anton commented that, in light of the cumulative evidence, she "determined the statistical association [with Europeans] was very low and, therefore, based on the nonmetric characters, was not likely to be accurate." "... it would have been less confusing," Ant?n added, "if that terminology ['Caucasoid North African'] had not been used." "I think his features are consistent with him being African."

Anton refused, however, to assign a specific racial designation to the specimen, citing inherent problems with the concept of race. Neither did the Americans— or the French, for that matter— assign skin or eye color.

Referring to the skull's pronounced dolichocephalism, alveolar prognathism, "large teeth," receding chin and sloping cranium, Anton stated she was "in general agreement that, based on the cranial skeleton, an estimate of African is appropriate.

What that implies in terms of skin color," she added, referring to the Egyptian team's reconstruction, "is an inference."

The head been inspired by that of Kefrén, takes the nemes, the royal veil with the ureus on the front and the false beard in the chin, beard that has disappeared as the nose and that a statue of Kefrén of píe, which was showing in front of the breast.

His pure dimensions should have transmitted a tremendous importance and spirituality. Nevertheless, in his union with the body of the lion there is according to Henry Fisher, " an

indication of change of form, of metamorphosis, which is adapted for the king, who is the only one that constitutes the tie between the humanity and the gods and is constantly on the threshold of both worlds ".

Reconstruction of the profile of the Sphinx, and of the temple of the Sphinx.

A. Sanctum East. B. Statues about the open court. C. Sanctum West. D. Top patio of the Sphinx. E. Temple of the Vale on the South. F. Walls of the Avenue of Kefrén along the South face of the pit of the Sphinx.

It goes back to the dynasty XII, to the reign of Amenemhat.

It was discovered in Hawara, next to the pyramid of Neferuptah..

The sema-tauy appears in the wings of the thrones, it is an emblematic or heraldic unit that symbolizes the Union of Two Earths for the lotus and the low papyrus.

It represents the power.

The official titulary of the king by the New Kingdom consisted of five names; for some rulers, we know only one or two of them

Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as Upper and Lower Egypt. The Pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Kingdoms, viz. upper and lower Egypt. While the labelling of "upper" and "lower" might seem counterintuitive, with Upper Egypt in the south and Lower Egypt in the north, the terminology derives from the flow of the Nile from the highlands of East Africa (upstream) to the Mediterranean Sea (downstream).

Lower Egypt is to the north and is that part where the Nile Delta drains into the Mediterranean Sea. Upper Egypt is to the south from the Libyan desert down to just past Abu Simbel.

Today there are two principal channels that the Nile takes through the river's delta: one in the west at Rashid and one in the east at Damietta. In ancient times, Pliny the Elder (N.H. 5.11) said that upon reaching the delta the Nile split into seven branches (from east to west): the Pelusiac, the Tanitic, the Mendesian, the Phatnitic, the Sebennytic, the Bolbitine, and the Canopic.

Upper Egypt was known as Shemau and was divided into twenty-two areas called nomes. The first nome was roughly where modern Aswan is and the twenty-second was at modern Atfih, just to the south of Cairo.

The capital of the Middle Kingdom was at a place known as The Fayyum. This is an area of about 850 mile² (2,200 km²) of land that are wartered by an offshoot of the Nile called the Bahr Yusuf.

Crown of Upper and Lower EgyptLower Egypt was known to the Pharaohs as To-Mehu. This part of the country was also divided into nomes; however, as the place was mostly undeveloped scrubland, the organisation of the nomes underwent several changes. Ultimately there were twenty nomes and the first of these was at Memphis.

Taken together, the Two Kingdoms formed Kemet ("the black"), the name for the dark soil deposited by the Nile floodwaters. The desert was called Deshret ("the red"), c.f. Herodotus "Egypt is a land of black soil...We know that Libya is a redder earth." (Histories, 2:12). But Herodotus also says "the Colchians are Egyptians...on the fact that they are black-skinned and have wooly hair."

(Histories Book 2:104), and Champollion the Younger (who deciphered the Rosetta Stone) in Expressions et Termes Particuliers (Expression of Particular Terms) claims that Kmt does not actually refer to the soil, but to a negroid population in the sense of "Black Nation". Egyptian history is divided into periods that reflect the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under one king. Intermediate periods of Egyptian history were times when Upper and Lower Egypt were not unified under one king.

Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt stretching from just south of modern-day Cairo to the Nile Delta at Alexandria. Lower Egypt's landscape is dominated by the Nile delta at Alexandria. The deltal region is well watered, crisscrossed by channels and canals. There are marshy areas and the mosquitoes can be very annoying.

The climate is milder than the climate in Upper Egypt. Temperatures are less extreme and there is more rainfall in this area.

The Lower Egyptians' dialect and customs historically varied from those of the Upper Egyptians. Even in modern times, Lower Egypt is much more industrialized, and influenced by trade and commerce with the rest of the world. The patron goddess of the Ancient Lower Egypt is Wadjet.

Upper Egypt

Upper Egypt is a narrow strip of land that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan to the area south of modern-day Cairo. Historically, Upper Egypt's land was more isolated from activities to the north. From around 800 BC to 525 BC, this area was ruled by the High Priestess of Amon and Wife of God (often, these two positions were held by the same woman).

There were a number of differences between Upper and Lower Egyptians in the ancient world. They spoke different dialects, and had different customs, needs and interests. Many differences and the tensions they create still exist in modern times.

The patron goddess of the Ancient Upper Egypt is Nekhbet.

The Valley of the Kings, or Wadi el-Muluk in Arabic, is a valley in Egypt where tombs were built for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom, the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt.

The valley is located at 25°44'N 32°36'E. It stands on the west bank of the Nile, across from Thebes (modern Luxor),

under the peak of the pyramid-shaped mountain Al-Qurn. It is separated into the East and West Valleys, with most of the important tombs in the East Valley. The West Valley has only one tomb open to the public: the tomb of Ay, Tutankhamun's successor. There are a number of other important burials there, including that of Amenhotep III, but these are still being excavated and are not publicly accessible.

The official name for the site was The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the

Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes, or more usually, Ta-sekhet-ma'at (the Great Field).

The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains some 64 tombs, starting with Thutmose I and ending with Ramesses X or XI.

The Valley of the Kings also had tombs for the favourite nobles and the wives and children of both the nobles and pharaohs. Around the time of Ramesses I (ca. 1300 BC) the Valley of the Queens was begun, although some wives were still buried with their husbands.

Important tombs

See also: List of burials in the Valley of the Kings for full list of burials

The tombs are numbered in the order of 'discovery' from Ramesses VII (KV1) to the recently discovered KV63, although some of the tombs have been open since antiquity, and KV5 has only recently been rediscovered. The abbreviation "KV" stands for "Kings' Valley". A number of the tombs are unoccupied, the owners of others remain unknown, and some are merely pits used for storage. Only the principal tombs are noted here (these are the publicly accessible or best known tombs).

East Valley

Most of the open tombs in the Valley of the Kings are located in the East Valley, and this is where most tourists can be found.

KV2 – Tomb of Ramesses IV

Main article: KV2

KV4 – Tomb of Ramesses XI

Main article: KV4

KV5 – Tomb of Sons of Ramesses II

Main article: KV5

The recently rediscovered tomb of some of the sons of Ramesses II. With 120 known rooms and excavation work still underway, it is probably the largest tomb in the valley. It is not currently open to the public.

KV6 – Tomb of Ramesses IX

Main article: KV6

KV7 – bored of the Kings Ramesses II

Main article: KV7

The ruined tomb of Ramesses the Great is not open to the public, and due to its condition (largely uncleared and still in danger of collapse) it may never be.

KV8 – Tomb of Merenptah

Main article: KV8

The tomb of Merenptah is one of the tombs that can be viewed by the public, although in 2005 it was not open.

KV9 – Tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI

Main article: KV9

Also known as the Tomb of Memnon or La Tombe de la Métempsychose, this is the tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI.

KV11 – Tomb of Ramesses III

Main article: KV11

The tomb of Ramesses III (or Bruce's Tomb, The Harper's Tomb) is one of the largest tombs in the valley, and is open to the public, it is located close to the central 'rest–area', and is usually one of the tombs visited by tourists.

KV14 – Tomb of Twosret, later reused by Setnakhte

Main article: KV14

KV15 – Tomb of Seti II

Main article: KV15

KV16 – Tomb of Ramesses I

Main article: KV16

KV17 – Tomb of Seti I

Main article: KV17

The tomb of Seti I and is also known as Belzoni's tomb, the tomb of Apis, or the tomb of Psammis, son of Necho.

KV34 – Tomb of Thutmose III

Main article: KV34

KV35 – Tomb of Amenhotep II

Main article: KV35

This tomb was originally the tomb of Amenhotep II. Over a dozen mummies, many of them royal, were later relocated here (see list).

KV39 – Tomb of Amenhotep I

Main article: KV39

KV43 – Tomb of Thutmose IV

Main article: KV43

KV46 – Tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu

Main article: KV46

The tomb of the nobles Yuya and Tjuyu, who were possibly the parents of Queen Tiy. Until the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was the best preserved tomb to be found in the Valley.

KV47 – Tomb of Siptah

Main article: KV47

KV55 – Possible Amarna Period Mummy cache

Main article: KV55

The tomb maybe another mummy cache, and has the possible burials of several Amarna Period royals – Tiy and Smenkhkare/Akhenaten.

KV57 – Tomb of Horemheb

Main article: KV57

KV62 – Tomb of Tutankhamun

Main article: KV62

Perhaps the most famous discovery of modern Western archaeology was made here by Howard Carter on November 4, 1922, with clearance and conservation work continuing until 1932. King Tutankhamun's tomb was the first royal tomb to be discovered that was still largely intact (although tomb robbers had entered it), and was, until the excavation of KV63 in 2006, considered the last major discovery in the valley.

The opulence of his grave goods notwithstanding, Tutankhamun was a rather minor king and other burials probably had more numerous treasures. Some members of the archaeological teams led by Carter and later archaeologists contracted local lethal viruses through food or animals (particularly insects), resulting in the infamous "Curse of the Pharaohs" modern legend.

KV63 – Unknown tomb discovered on 10 March 2005[2].

Main article: KV63

KV64 – Radar anomaly believed to be a tomb or chamber announced on 28 July 2006

Main article: KV64

West Valley

The numbering the West Valley follows in sequence to that of the East Valley, and there are only four known tombs and several pits in this branch of the valley.

WV22 – Tomb of Amenhotep III

Main article: WV22

This is the tomb of one the greatest rulers of the Egyptian New Kingdom, Amenhotep III. It has recently been re–investigated, but is not open to the public.

WV23 – Tomb of Ay

Main article: WV23

The reconstructed tomb of Ay is the only tomb that is open to the public in the West Valley.

WV25 – Possible Theban tomb of Akhenaten

Main article: WV25

This tomb may have been started as the Theban burial of Akhenaten, but it was never finished.

Deir el-Bahri

Royal mummy cache

Main article: DB320

While this tomb is not strictly in the Valley of the Kings, it contained an astounding mummy cache. It is located in the cliffs overlooking Hatshepsut's famous temple at Deir el-Bahri, was found to contain many of Egypt's most famous pharaohs. They were found in a great state of disorder, many placed in other people's coffins, and several are still unidentified.

Decline of the Royal Necropolis

By the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt had entered a long period of political and economic decline. The priests at Thebes grew in power and effectively administered Upper Egypt, while kings ruling from Tanis controlled Lower Egypt.

The Valley began to be heavily plundered, so during the 21st Dynasty the priests of Amen opened most of the tombs and moved the mummies into three tombs in order to better protect them, even removing most of their treasure in order to further protect the bodies from robbers. Later most of these were moved to a single cache near Deir el-Bari (see below). During the later Third Intermediate Period and later periods, intrusive burials were introduced into many of the open tombs.

Grave robbers

Almost all of the tombs have been ransacked, including Tutankhamun's, though in his case, it seems that the robbers were interrupted, so very little was removed.

The valley was surrounded by steep cliffs and heavily guarded. In 1090 BC, or the year of the Hyena, there was a collapse in Egypt's economy leading to the emergence of tomb robbers. Because of this, it was also the last year that the valley was used for burial.

The valley also seems to have suffered an official plundering during the virtual civil war which started in the reign of Ramesses XI. The tombs were opened, all the valuables removed, and the mummies collected into two large caches. One, the so-called Deir el-Bahri cache, contained no less than forty royal mummies and their coffins; the other, in the tomb of Amenhotep II, contained a further sixteen.

Exploration of the Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings has been a major area of modern Egyptological exploration for the last two centuries. Before this the area was a site for tourism in antiquity (especially during Roman times). This areas illustrates the changes in the study of ancient Egypt, starting as antiquity hunting, and ending as scientific excavation of the whole Theban Necropolis. Despite the exploration and investigation noted below, only eleven of the tombs have actually been completely recorded.

Antiquity

The Greek writers Strabo and Diodorus Siculus were able to report that the total number of Theban royal tombs was 47, of which at the time only 17 were believed to be undestroyed. Pausanias and others wrote of the pipe-like corridors of the Valley – i.e. the tombs.

Clearly others also visited the valley in these times, as many of the tombs have graffiti written by these ancient tourists. Jules Baillet located over 2000 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages.

Eighteenth Century

Before the nineteenth century, travel from Europe to Thebes (and indeed anywhere in Egypt) was difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and only the hardiest of European travelers visited – before the travels of Father Claude Sicard in 1726, it was unclear just where Thebes really was. It was known to be on the Nile, but it was often confused with Memphis and several other sites. One of the first travelers to record what he saw at Thebes was Frederic Louis Norden, a Danish adventurer and artist. He was followed by Richard Pococke, who published the first modern map of the valley itself, in 1743.

French Expedition

In 1799, Napoleon's expedition drew maps and plans of the known tombs, and for the first time noted the Western Valley (where Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage located the tomb of Amenhotep III, WV22). The Description de l'Égypte contains two volumes (out a total of 19) on the area around Thebes.

Nineteenth Century

European exploration continued in the area around Thebes during the Nineteenth Century, boosted by Champollion's translation of hieroglyphs early in the century. Early in the century, the area was visited by Belzoni, working for Henry Salt, who discovered several tombs, including that of those of Ay in the West Valley (WV23) in 1816 and Seti I (KV17) the next year. At the end of his visits, Belzoni declared that all of the tombs had been found and nothing of note remained to be found.

In 1827 John Gardiner Wilkinson was assigned to paint the entry of every tomb, giving them each a designation that is still in use today – they were numbered from KV1 to KV21 (although the maps show 28 entrances, some of which were unexplored). These paintings and maps were later published in The Topography of Thebes and General Survey of Egypt, in 1830. At the same time James Burton explored the valley. His works included making KV17 safer from flooding, but he is more well known for entering KV5.

In 1829, Champollion himself visited the valley, along with Ippolito Rosellini. The expedition spent two months studying the open tombs, visiting about 16 of them. They copied the inscriptions and identfied the original tomb owners. In tomb KV17, they removed some wall decorations, which are now on display in the Louvre in Paris.

In 1845 – 1846 the valley was explored by Karl Richard Lepsius's expedition, they explored and documented 25 in the main valley and four in the west.

The later half of the century saw a more concerted effort to preserve rather than simply gathering antiquities. Auguste Mariette's Egyptian Antiqities Service started to explore the valley, first with Eugéne Lefébre in 1883, then Jules Baillet and Georges Bénédite in early 1888 and finally Victor Loret in 1898 to 1899. During this time Georges Daressy explored KV9 and KV6.

Loret added a further 16 tombs to the list of tombs, and explored several tombs that had already been discovered.

When Gaston Maspero was reappointed to head the Egyptian Antiquities Service, the nature of the exploration of the valley changed again, Maspero appointed Howard Carter as the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt, and the young man discovered several new tombs and explored several others, clearing KV42 and KV20.

Twentieth century

Around the turn of the Twentieth Century, the American Theodore M. Davis had the excavation permit in the valley, and his team (led mostly by Edward R. Ayrton) discovered several royal and non-royal tombs (KV43, KV46 & KV57 being the most important). In 1907 they discovered the possible Amarna Period cache in KV55. After finding what they thought was the burial of Tutankhamun (KV61), it was announced that the valley was completely explored and no further burials were to be found.

Howard Carter then acquired the right to explore the valley and after a systematic search discovered the actual tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in November 1922.

At the end of the century, the Theban Mapping Project re-discovered and explored tomb KV5, which has since been discovered to be probably the largest in the valley, and was either a cenotaph or real burial for the sons of Ramesses II. Elsewhere in the eastern and western branches of the valley several other expeditions cleared and studied other tombs. Recently (up until 2002) the Amarna Royal Tombs Project has been exploring the area around KV55 and KV62, the Amarna Period tombs in the main valley.

Twenty-first century

Various expeditions have continued to explore the valley, adding greatly to the knowledge of the area. In 2001 the Theban Mapping Project designed new signs for the tombs, providing information and plans of the open tombs. A new visitors' centre is currently being planned.

On February 8, 2006, an American team led by the University of Memphis uncovered a pharaonic-era tomb (KV63), the first uncovered there since King Tutankhamun's in 1922. The 18th Dynasty tomb included five mummies in intact sarcophagi with coloured funerary masks along with more than 20 large storage jars, sealed with pharaonic seals.

On 31st July 2006, Nicholas Reeves announced that analysis of ground penetrating radar for the autumn of 2000 showed a sub-surface anomaly in the area of KV62 and KV63 [3][4].

Miscellaneous

Pets were also buried here. There is a group of three animal tombs.

The largest tomb, known as KV5, was built for the sons of Ramesses II. It contains at least 67 burial chambers.

Graffiti on the walls of some of the tombs indicate that this was an attraction during time of the ancient Greeks and in Roman times.

There the god Amón was venerated by sumptuous ceremonies in triad by Mut and Khonsu. To every victory, new and grand temples were erected in honor of the god.

The ancient Egyptian capital was divided by a channel, to the south of which Luxor arose, while to the north the people of Karnak was spreading.

The temple of Luxor, sanctum of ka, measures 260 meters long and it was begun by Amenofis III and finished by Ramsés II. Is joined to the temple of Karnak by a long avenue adorned with sphinxes with head of ram, replaced by sphinxes with human head during the dynasty XXX.