* The name and the figure of Khûniatonû are met with on the gate of the temple of Soleb, and he received in his XIIth year the tributes of Kûsh, as well as those of Syria.
The sudden degradation of Amon had not brought about any coldness between the Pharaoh and his princely allies in Asia. The aged Amenôthes had, towards the end of his reign, asked the hand of Dushrattas daughter in marriage, and the Mitannian king, highly flattered by the request, saw his opportunity and took advantage of it in the interest of his treasury. He discussed the amount of the dowry, demanded a considerable sum of gold, and when the affair had been finally arranged to his satisfaction, he despatched the princess to the banks of the Nile. On her arrival she found her affianced husband was dead, or, at all events, dying. Amenôthes IV., however, stepped into his fathers place, and inherited his bride with his crown.
[Illustration: 100.jpg THE DOOR OF A TOMB AT TEL EL-AMARNA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
The new kings relations with other foreign princes were no less friendly; the chief of the Khâti (Hittites) complimented him on his accession, the King of Alasia wrote to him to express his earnest desire for a continuance of peace between the two states. Burnaburiash of Babylon had, it is true, hoped to obtain an Egyptian princess in marriage for his son, and being disappointed, had endeavoured to pick a quarrel over the value of the presents which had been sent him, together with the notice of the accession of the new sovereign. But his kingdom lay too far away to make his ill-will of much consequence, and his complaints passed unheeded. In Coele-Syria and Phoenicia the situation remained unchanged. The vassal cities were in a perpetual state of disturbance, though not more so than in the past. Azîru, son of Abdashirti, chief of the country of the Amorites, had always, even during the lifetime of Amenôthes III., been the most turbulent of vassals. The smaller states of the Orontes and of the coast about Arvad had been laid waste by his repeated incursions and troubled by his intrigues. He had taken and pillaged twenty towns, among which were Simyra, Sini, Irqata, and Qodshû, and he was already threatening Byblos, Berytus, and Sidon. It was useless to complain of him, for he always managed to exculpate himself to the royal messengers. Khaî, Dûdû, Amenemaûpît had in turn all pronounced him innocent. Pharaoh himself, after citing him to appear in Egypt to give an explanation of his conduct, had allowed himself to be won over by his fair speaking, and had dismissed him uncondemned. Other princes, who lacked his cleverness and power, tried to imitate him, and from north to south the whole of Syria could only be compared to some great arena, in which fighting was continually carried on between one tribe or town and another--Tyre against Sidon, Sidon against Byblos, Jerusalem against Lachish. All of them appealed to Khûniatonû, and endeavoured to enlist him on their side. Their despatches arrived by scores, and the perusal of them at the present day would lead us to imagine that Egypt had all but lost her supremacy. The Egyptian ministers, however, were entirely unmoved by them, and continued to refuse material support to any of the numerous rivals, except in a few rare cases, where a too prolonged indifference would have provoked an open revolt in some part of the country.