29 Facts About Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.

Amenhotep II inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria.

Amenhotep II's reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC.

Amenhotep II's consort was Tiaa, who was barred from any prestige until Amenhotep's son, Thutmose IV, came into power.

Amenhotep II was born to Thutmose III and a minor wife of the king: Merytre-Hatshepsut.

Amenhotep II would bear Thutmose III a number of children including the future Amenhotep II.

Amenhotep II was born and raised in Memphis in the north, instead of in Thebes, the traditional capital.

Amenhotep II acceded to the throne on the first day of the fourth month of Akhet, but his father died on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret.

When he assumed power, Amenhotep II was 18 years old according to an inscription from his Great Sphinx stela:.

Thutmose died after 54 years of reign, at which time Amenhotep II would have acceded to the throne.

In particular, this would mean Amenhotep II died when he was 52, but an X-ray analysis of his mummy has shown him to have been about 40 when he died.

Accordingly, Amenhotep II is usually given a reign of 26 years and said to have reigned from 1427 to 1401 BC.

The only date that can indirectly be fitted into this large time gap to Amenhotep II is a Year 18 or possible Year 19 date based on Papyrus Leningrad 1116A that lists grain allotments for a coming psdntyw feast and other occasion.

The Jewish historian Josephus, in his book Contra Apionem which translated Manetho's Aegyptiaca, assigns Amenhotep II, a certain Amenophis a reign of 30 years and 10 months.

Therefore, it is eminently possible that Amenhotep II could have reigned for 5 years more after his Year 26 date given that Amenhotep II ruled unattested for more than a decade between his 9th and 23rd regnal years.

However, since Amenhotep II has a Year 26 inferred from a wine amphora, this pharaoh only had to rule for another 5 years or 8 years after his Year 26 to have a reign of 31 or 34 years which is quite possible since he ruled unattested in the historical records for 14 years between his 9th and 23rd regnal years.

Amenhotep II called this campaign his first in a Stele from Amada, however he called his second campaign his first, causing some confusion.

Alternatively, it appears that the two weeks when Amenhotep II would have been closest to Mitanni are omitted from the stele, thus it is possible that his army was defeated on this campaign.

Thereafter, Amenhotep II concentrated on domestic matters, with one possible exception.

Since Thutmose III had devoted so much energy to expanding Karnak, Amenhotep II's building projects were largely focused on enlarging smaller temples all over Egypt.

Amenhotep II commissioned a column to stand in the courtyard between the fourth and fifth pylons commemorating the reception of tribute from Mitanni.

In Nubia, Amenhotep II built at Qasr Ibrim and Semna, and ordered the decoration of the Temple at Kalabsha.

Amenhotep II completed it and put in it the record of his year 3 campaign on a stele, which was until 1942 the source of most information about Amenhotep II's wars.

Amenhotep II had a mortuary temple constructed at the edge of the cultivation in the Theban Necropolis, close to where the Ramesseum was later built, but it was destroyed in ancient times.

The document, which dates to "Year 23 IV Akhet [day] 1, the day of the festival" of Amenhotep II's accession to power, is a copy of a personal letter which the king composed himself to Usersatet, his viceroy of Kush.

Amenhotep II did not openly record the names of his queens; some Egyptologists theorize that he felt that women had become too powerful under titles such as God's Wife of Amun.

Amenhotep II adopted a large number of Canaanite gods into the Egyptian pantheon, including Resheph, Hauron, Baal, Astarte, Qetesh, and a few others.

Amenhotep II was interred in his KV35 tomb in the Valley of the Kings; his mummy was found there within his original sarcophagus when the tomb was discovered in March 1898 by Victor Loret.

Amenhotep II found the body to be 1.67 metres tall and noted a strong facial resemblance to his son, Thutmose IV.