34 Facts About Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III's reign was a period of unprecedented prosperity and splendour, when Egypt reached the peak of its artistic and international power, and as such he is considered one of ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Amenhotep III was the son of Thutmose IV and his minor wife Mutemwiya.

Later in his life, Amenhotep III commissioned the depiction of his divine birth to be displayed at Luxor Temple.

Amenhotep III claimed that his true father was the god Amun, who had taken the form of Thutmose IV to father a child with Mutemwiya.

In Regnal Year 2, Amenhotep III married Tiye, the daughter of Yuya and Thuya.

Amenhotep III is sometimes credited as the father of Smenkhkare or Tutankhamun, with varying proposals for their mothers, but these theories are not as accepted as his other, known children.

In Regnal Year 10, Amenhotep III married Gilukhepa, the daughter of Shuttarna II of Mitanni.

Amenhotep III later married Tadukhepa, daughter of Tushratta of Mitanni, in or around Regnal Year 36 of his reign.

Amenhotep III probably became pharaoh when he was between the ages of 6 and 12.

In Regnal Year 11, Amenhotep III commanded the construction of an artificial lake at Tiye's hometown of Djakaru.

Amenhotep III then celebrated a Festival of Opening the Lake in the third month of Inundation, day sixteen, and rowed the royal barge Aten-tjehen on the lake.

From other scarabs, Amenhotep III is known to have killed either 102 or 110 lions in the first ten years of his reign.

Amenhotep III celebrated three Sed festivals in Regnal Years 30,34, and 37, each at Malkata palace in Western Thebes.

Amenhotep III wanted his Sed Festivals to be far more spectacular than those of the past.

Amenhotep III appointed Amenhotep, son of Hapu to plan the ceremony, potentially because he was one of the few courtiers still alive to have served at the last Sed Festival, held for Amenhotep II.

Amenhotep III directed Amenhotep to use his mace to knock on the temple doors.

Beside him, Amenhotep III-Hapu mirrored his effort like a royal shadow.

Amenhotep III was enthroned separately for Upper and Lower Egypt.

For Upper Egypt, Amenhotep III wore the white crown but changed to the red crown for the Lower Egypt coronation.

Diplomatic correspondence from Amenhotep III's reign are partially preserved in the Amarna Letters, a collection of documents found near the city of Amarna.

Amenhotep III was ultimately succeeded by his second son, who ascended the throne as Amenhotep III IV and later took the name Akhenaten.

However, in February 2014, Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced that findings from the tomb of Vizier Amenhotep III-Huy gave "conclusive evidence" of a coregency that lasted at least eight years.

Amenhotep III's greatest attested regnal date is Year 38, which appears on wine jar-label dockets from Malkata.

Amenhotep III was survived by at least one child, his successor Amenhotep IV.

Amenhotep III was buried in tomb WV22 in the Western Valley of the Valley of the Kings outside of Thebes.

Amenhotep III has the distinction of having the most surviving statues of any Egyptian pharaoh, with over 250 identified.

Amenhotep III built extensively at the temple of Karnak, including the Luxor temple with two pylons, a colonnade behind the new temple entrance, and a new temple to the goddess Ma'at.

Amenhotep III built the Third Pylon at Karnak and erected 600 statues of the goddess Sekhmet in the Temple of Mut to the south.

Several black granite seated statues of Amenhotep III wearing the nemes headress have come from excavations behind the Colossi of Memnon as well as from Tanis in the Delta.

In 2014, two giant statues of Amenhotep III toppled by an earthquake in 1200 BC were reconstructed from more than 200 fragments and re-erected at the northern gate of the king's funerary temple.

Front view: The god Heh, representing the number one million, holds notched palm leaves signifying years and the cartouche of Amenhotep III, symbolically raising the pharaoh for a million years.

Amenhotep III was the first of many such princesses who would enter the pharaoh's family.

Genetic analysis has confirmed that Amenhotep III is the father of both the KV55 mummy, identified in the study as Akhenaten, and "The Younger Lady", sibling parents of his grandson, Tutankhamun.

The mitochondrial haplogroup of Amenhotep III was found to be H2b, which is associated with migrations from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to South Asia and the spread of Indo-Iranian languages.