Study Guide Day 14: The Tuthmosids

Important names, terms, and concepts

King Ahmose
"God's Wife of Amun"
Re
Osiris
Hatshepsut (more next time)
Queen Ahmose-Nefertari
Queen Ahhotep
Queen Tiye
Amenhotep I
Thutmose III (more later in the unit)
Amenhotep III (more later in the unit)

Major themes of the NK:

• Foreign policy
• Royal women
• Pharaoh’s divinity
• Popular culture and religion
• Monumental building (esp. temples)
• Funerary practices

Discussion Questions and Study Tips

Read Mieroop for a basic sense of the context of the beginning of the New Kingdom. As we did with the Middle Kingdom, we will brainstorm in class key features of the early New Kingdom. Note the major trends and also the role of religion in these trends.

What is the role of royal women in the New Kingdom? (FYI, we will spend an entire day on Hatshepsut next time.) We will spend much of our time in class working through the primary texts in Lichtheim.

In the autobiography of Ahmose:

• What do we learn about Egyptian history?
• How does Ahmose define himself? What does he say about his religiosity and funerary expectations? What does he say about his relationship to the pharaohs?
• Compare his autobiography in all these respects (and any others you can think of) to the OK and MK autobiographies.

The stelae in Lichtheim II:29-48 are all royal inscriptions.

• What does each of them tell us about the figure of the pharaoh?
• What does the context of each tell us? (Where was each inscription located? Is the location significant?)
• What is the role of religion in each of them? Is there anything new? (New gods, new concepts, new relationships?) Are there continuities with the past? Are there old things reconceived?

What does the Osiris hymn tell us about devotion to Osiris and beliefs about Osiris? (Remember, the text we read about Horus and Seth at the beginning of the semester was a LATE text -- later than this one.) What does the context of the hymn (where it was found) tell us?

What does the hymn to Re tell us about devotion to the sun god? See if you can figure out the symbolism of most of the references as you read. Who is this sun god, and what does he do? Note continuities and innovations from the past. Also consider the context of the hymn (where it was found) in deciphering its significance.