Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
Amenôthes III. had spent but little of his time in war. He had undertaken the usual raids in the South against the negroes and the tribes of the Upper Nile. In his fifth year, a general defection of the sheikhs obliged him to invade the province of Abhaît, near Semneh, which he devastated at the head of the troops collected by Mari-ifi mosû, the Prince of Kûsh; the punishment was salutary, the booty considerable, and a lengthy peace was re-established. The object of his rare expeditions into Naharaim was not so much to add new provinces to his empire, as to prevent disturbances in the old ones. The kings of Alasia, of the Khâti, of Mitanni, of Singar,* of Assyria, and of Babylon did not dare to provoke so powerful a neighbour.
* Amenôthes entitles himself on a scarabæus he who takes prisoner the country of Singar; no other document has yet been discovered to show whether this is hyperbole, or whether he really reached this distant region.
** The lists of the time of Amenôthes III. contain the names of Phoenicia, Naharaim, Singar, Qodshu, Tunipa, Patina, Carchomish, and Assur; that is to say, of all the subject or allied nations mentioned in the correspondence of Tel el- Amarna. Certain episodes of these expeditions had been engraved on the exterior face of the pylon constructed by the king for the temple of Amon at Karnak; at the present time they are concealed by the wall at the lower end of the Hypostyle Hall. The tribute of the Lotanû was represented on the tomb of Hûi, at Sheîkh-Abd-el-Qûrneh.
[Illustration: 052b.jpg Amenothes III. Colossal Head in the British Museum]
The remembrance of the victories of Thûtmosis III. was still fresh in their memories, and, even had their hands been free, would have made them cautious in dealing with his great-grandson; but they were incessantly engaged in internecine quarrels, and had recourse to Pharaoh merely to enlist his support, or at any rate make sure of his neutrality, and prevent him from joining their adversaries.
[Illustration: 053.jpg AMENOTHES III. FROM THE TOMB OF KHAMHAIT]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Daniel Héron.
Whatever might have been the nature of their private sentiments, they professed to be anxious to maintain, for their mutual interests, the relations with Egypt entered on half a century before, and as the surest method of attaining their object was by a good marriage, they would each seek an Egyptian wife for himself, or would offer Amenôthes a princess of one of their own royal families. The Egyptian king was, however, firm in refusing to bestow a princess of the solar blood even on the most powerful of the foreign kings; his pride rebelled at the thought that she might one day be consigned to a place among the inferior wives or concubines, but he gladly accepted, and even sought for wives for himself, from among the Syrian and Chaldæan princesses. Kallimmasin of Babylon gave Amenôthes first his sister, and when age had deprived this princess of her beauty, then his daughter Irtabi in marriage.
*