at first thought that Mutemuau was an Ethiopian,
afterwards that she was a Syrian, who had changed her name
on arriving at the court of her husband. The manner in which
she is represented at Luxor, and in all the texts where she
figures, proves not only that she was of Egyptian race, but
that she was the daughter of Amenothes II., and born of the
marriage of that prince with one of his sisters, who was
herself an hereditary princess.

Like Queen Ahmasis in the bas-reliefs of Deir el-Bahari, Mutemuau
is shown on those of Luxor in the arms of her divine lover, and
subsequently greeted by him with the title of mother; in another
bas-relief we see the queen led to her couch by the goddesses who
preside over the birth of children; her son Amenothes, on coming into
the world with his double, is placed in the hands of the two Niles, to
receive the nourishment and the education meet for the children of the
gods. He profited fully by them, for he remained in power forty years,
and his reign was one of the most prosperous ever witnessed by Egypt
during the Theban dynasties.

[Illustration: 052.jpg QUEEN MUTEMUAU.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Daniel Heron.

Amenothes 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 Abhait, near Semneh, which
he devastated at the head of the troops collected by Mari-ifi mosu, the
Prince of Kush; 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 Khati,
of Mitanni, of Singar,* of Assyria, and of Babylon did not dare to
provoke so powerful a neighbour.**

* Amenothes entitles himself on a scarabaeus "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 Amenothes 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 e