d on a vast scale to Karnak. He married a
certain Taia, who, though apparently of humble parentage, was held in
great honour by her husband as afterwards by her son. Amenophis III.
warred in Ethiopia, but his sway was long unquestioned from Napata to
the Euphrates. Small objects with his name and that of Taia are found on
the mainland and in the islands of Greece. Through the fortunate
discovery of cuneiform tablets deposited by his successor in the
archives at Tell el-Amarna, we can see how the rulers of the great
kingdoms beyond the river, Mitanni, Assyria and even Babylonia,
corresponded with Amenophis, gave their daughters to him in marriage,
and congratulated themselves on having his friendship. The king of
Cyprus too courted him; while within the empire the descendants of the
Syrian dynasts conquered by his father, having been educated in Egypt,
ruled their paternal possessions as the abject slaves of Pharaoh. A
constant stream of tribute poured into Egypt, sufficient to defray the
cost of all the splendid works that were executed. Amenophis caused a
series of large scarabs unique in their kind to be engraved with the
name and parentage of his queen Taia, followed by varying texts
commemorating like medals the boundaries of his kingdom, his secondary
marriage with Gilukhipa, daughter of the king of Mitanni, the formation
of a sacred lake at Thebes, a great hunt of wild cattle, and the number
of lions the king slew in the first ten years of his reign. The colossi
known to the Greeks by the name of the Homeric hero Memnon, which look
over the western plain of Thebes, represent this king and were placed
before the entrance of his funerary temple, the rest of which has
disappeared. His palace lay farther south on the west bank, built of
crude brick covered with painted stucco. Towards the end of his reign of
thirty-six years, Syria was invaded by the Hittites from the north and
the people called the Khabiri from the eastern desert; some of the
kinglets conspired with the invaders to overthrow the Egyptian power,
while those who remained loyal sent alarming reports to their sovereign.

Amenophis IV.

Amenophis IV., son of Amenophis III. and Taia, was perhaps the most
remarkable character in the long line of the Pharaohs. He was a
religious fanatic, who had probably been high priest of the sun-god at
Heliopolis, and had come to view the sun as the visible source of life,
creation, growth and activity, whose power w