New Kingdom Egypt
Egypt in the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1077 BCE), the 18th to 20th Dynasties: the Amarna age, Ramesses II and III, and the end of Egyptian power in the Levant.
Category: States
- c. 1360 BCEThe Amarna letters
About 350 letters, mostly in Akkadian, record Egypt's mid-1300s BCE dealings with Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, the Hittites, Cyprus and Syrian and Canaanite vassals. Local diggers found them at Amarna around 1887. They contain the first mention of the Habiru.
- c. 1350 BCESherden and Lukka appear in Egyptian records
Some names later grouped as Sea Peoples appear well before 1200 BCE. The Amarna letters mention the Lukka, Denyen and Sherden; Ramesses II claims to repel a Sherden attack on the Delta in his second year, then fields captured Sherden at Kadesh.
- c. 1349 BCEAkhenaten founds Akhetaten (Amarna)
About his fifth year Akhenaten decrees a new capital, Akhetaten, now Amarna, midway between Thebes and Memphis. His reign is dated c. 1353-1336 or 1351-1334 BCE. He favours the Aten; whether his religion was monotheistic is debated. His monuments were dismantled after his death.
- c. 1334 BCEAn Egyptian queen asks Hatti for a prince
The widow of an Egyptian king called NipαΈ«ururia, probably Tutankhamun or Akhenaten, asks Suppiluliuma I for a son to marry. His son Zannanza is killed on the road. Later Hittite prayers link a plague among Egyptian captives to the affair.
- May 1274 BCEThe Battle of Kadesh
In May 1274 BCE, on the usual chronology, Ramesses II and Muwatalli II fight near Kadesh on the Orontes. Ramesses proclaims a rout of his enemies, while Hittite records say he was forced to withdraw. Modern historians generally see a draw.
- 1258 BCEEgypt and Hatti sign a peace treaty
In Ramesses II's 21st year (c. 1258 BCE), about fifteen years after Kadesh, Egypt and Hattusili III's Hatti agree a treaty, one of the oldest to survive nearly complete. It was inscribed on a silver tablet; a clay copy found at Hattusa is now in Istanbul.
- c. 1208 BCEMerneptah repels the Libyans and their allies
In his fifth year (c. 1208 BCE; his reign is dated c. 1213-1203) Merneptah defeats Libyans backed by Sea Peoples in a six-hour battle at Perire, in the western Delta. He claims 6,000 enemy dead and 9,000 prisoners. The Great Karnak Inscription and the Athribis Stele record it.
- c. 1208 BCEThe Merneptah Stele names Israel
A stele of Merneptah records the Libyan and Sea Peoples attacks and a Canaanite revolt. It holds the earliest known mention of Israel ("Israel has been wiped out"), which it treats as a people or tribe, not a city or country.
- c. 1191 BCETausret rules; the 19th Dynasty ends
Tausret rules c. 1191-1188 BCE, first beside Siptah, whose court executed the West Asian chancellor Bay, then alone. Her reign ends in civil war, most likely with Setnakhte, who founds the 20th Dynasty and takes over her tomb.
- c. 1178 BCERamesses III records victories over invaders by land and sea
In his eighth year (c. 1178-1175 BCE) Ramesses III records an invasion by land and sea. He claims victory at Djahy on Egypt's eastern frontier and in the Battle of the Delta, where archers and ships trap the enemy fleet at the Nile mouth. His reign is dated 1186-1155.
- c. 1174 BCERamesses III's temple at Medinet Habu
Ramesses III's mortuary temple, finished around his twelfth year, carries the main Egyptian pictorial record of the Sea Peoples. Its reliefs show the land and sea battles and name foes such as the Peleset.
- c. 1157 BCETomb workers strike at Deir el-Medina
In Ramesses III's 29th year the workmen who build the royal tombs go unpaid when food rations fail to arrive. It is recorded as the first known labour strike in history.
- c. 1155 BCEA conspiracy against Ramesses III
A plot by the queen Tiye to put her son Pentawere on the throne is set for a festival around 1155 BCE. The Turin Judicial Papyrus records the trials, with 38 death sentences. Ramesses III dies in 1154; a 2012 study found a deep throat cut on his mummy.
- c. 1154 BCEThe Great Harris Papyrus
Commissioned by Ramesses IV, the Great Harris Papyrus lists Ramesses III's temple gifts and expeditions, including copper mining at Timna. An undated passage says he killed Denyen "in their isles", burned Tjeker and Peleset, and settled captured Sherden and Weshesh in Egypt.
- c. 1145 BCEEgypt's hold on Canaan fades
Egypt's territorial and economic strength recedes under the later Ramessides, notably Ramesses VI (1145-1137 BCE). The Egyptian gate complex at Jaffa is destroyed between 1134 and 1115 by radiocarbon. The withdrawal from the Levant is tied to internal turmoil, not one event.
- c. 1077 BCEThe New Kingdom ends
Ramesses XI dies in 1077 BCE (1069 in some chronologies), ending the New Kingdom. Smendes I rules mainly Lower Egypt from Tanis while the High Priests of Amun govern Middle and Upper Egypt in all but name. The Third Intermediate Period begins.