Amenhotep II, the seventh ruler of Egypt’s…

The Amarna letters refer to Artatama, a Mittanian king, as an ancestor who established an alliance with Thutmose IV of Egypt.

According to modern interpretation of scarce available sources, Artatama had come to power when the Mitanni kingdom was severely weakened by the Hittite invasion.

Facing the perils of fighting a war on two fronts, the Hittites in the north and Egypt in the south, Artatama had approached Amenhotep II with an offer of peaceful division of contested lands in Syria.

A peaceful resolution of an old conflict could grow into a political and military alliance, but the Egyptians suspected foul play and would deny a definite answer for years.

Little is known of Artatama, who left no inscriptions.

At one point during the reign of Thutmose IV, the Egyptians propose a marriage between Thutmose and Artatama's daughter, but for unknown reasons Artatama rejects the offer.

The Egyptians have to make seven consecutive marriage proposals before Artatama finally agree.

Thus, Artatama may be the father of Queen Mutemwiya and the maternal grandfather of Amenhotep III.

Artatama is succeeded by his son Shuttarna II.

Tudhaliya I flourishes around in the early fourteenth century as an early ruler in the Hittite Empire period.

Proper numbering of the Hittite rulers who bore the name Tudhaliya is problematical.

There was a Hattian era figure who bore the name Tudhaliya who may or may not have ruled as king.

Other reconstructions insert a Tudhaliya directly after Muwatalli I, but before the Tudhaliya discussed here.

Some scholars call Tudhaliya I the first king of the New Kingdom, or Empire.

Others give this honor to Suppiluliuma I. Tudhaliya may have been the grandson of the Middle Kingdom ruler Huzziya II.

He may have been the direct successor of Muwatalli I, having overthrown him.

The exact sequence of succession at the beginning of the New Kingdom is uncertain, however, because of the difficulty of placing Hattusili II.

Tudhaliya I's reign includes a period of co-regency with Arnuwanda I, his son-in-law and adopted son.

The most famous event of Tudhaliya's reign is his conquest of the Assuwa league, a confederation of states in western Anatolia formed to oppose the Hittite empire.

The list of its members contains twenty-two names, including [...]uqqa, Warsiya, Taruisa, Wilusiya and Karkija (Caria).

Assuwa is believed to be the origin of Asia.

Of the many component territories within Assuwa, Wilusiya is commonly identified with Ilion (Troy) and Taruisa with the surrounding Troad, and Warsiya may be associated with Lukka (Lycia).

However, identification of [..]uqqa with later-attested Lukka (Lycia) is problematic, because that would put the Assuwa league both north and south of Arzawa in southwestern Anatolia.

Assuwa appears to lie north of Arzawa, covering the northwestern corner of Anatolia.

Tudhaliya I temporarily opens the southeastern routes to Syria by defeating Aleppo and halting the expansion of the Hurrian state of Mitanni.

He also campaigns against enemies in the Anatolian west and southwest in an attempt to reconquer previously held territories, but with only temporary success.

Arnuwanda, who succeeds Tudhaliya, proves unable to defend even the core of the revived Hittite kingdom against continuing attack from all sides. (His successors—Hattusilis II, Tudhaliya II, and Arnuwanda II—will be no more successful.)

Thebes, capital of Egypt, has become the largest city of the world, taking the lead from Memphis.

Amenhotep II's reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1400 BCE; he is buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Amenhotep's most important son, Thutmose IV, a possible usurper who in any case who succeeds his father, and whose most celebrated accomplishment is the restoration of the Sphinx at Giza and subsequent commission of the Dream Stele.

According to Thutmose's account on the Dream Stele, while the young prince was out on a hunting trip, he stopped to rest under the head of the Sphinx, which was buried up to the neck in sand.

He soon fell asleep and had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared away the sand and restored it he would become the next Pharaoh.

After completing the restoration of the Sphinx, he placed a carved stone tablet, now known as the Dream Stele, between the two paws of the Sphinx.

The restoration of the Sphinx and the text of the Dream Stele would then be a piece of propaganda on Thutmose's part, meant to bestow legitimacy upon his unexpected kingship.

Little is known about his brief ten-year rule.

He suppressed an uprising in Nubia in his Eighth Year around 1393 and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria, but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits.

His rule is significant because he was the New Kingdom pharaoh who established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance.

The first defenses at Tiryns are constructed around 1400 BCE.

Shuttarna, a descendant and probably a son of the great Mitannian king Artatama I, is an ally of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III; the diplomatic dealings of the kings are briefly recorded in the Amarna letters.

Shuttarna's daughter Kilu-Hepa (sometimes spelled Gilukhepa) is given to Amenhotep III in marriage to seal the alliance between the two royal houses in the Pharaoh's tenth regnal year, taking with her a great dowry.

Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt marries Tiy, his Chief Queen.

Amenhotep attempts to connect the Nile and the Red Sea with a canal, this however will not be done successfully until almost a thousand years later with the opening of the Canal of the Pharaohs.

The Egyptians under Amenhotep III, until now allied with the Hittites, change sides and become Mitannian allies with the marriage of the pharaoh to Gilukhepa (the first of a series of diplomatic brides), daughter of Shuttarna II of Mitanni in the tenth year of his reign, around 1378.

The kingdom of Mitanni reaches its height of power and prosperity during the reign of Shuttarna.

From Alalakh in the west, Mitanni shares its border with Egypt in northern Syria approximately by the river Orontes.

The heart of the kingdom is in the Khabur River basin where the capital Washshukanni is situated.

Assyria as well as Arrapha in the east are vassal kingdoms of Mitanni.

The Hittites attempt to invade the northern border lands of Mitanni but Shuttarna defeats them.

Temple construction continues at Karnak, Deir el-Bahri and Thebes.

Construction begins at Luxor on the second great Theban temple complex, built, like the temple at Karnak, on the east side of the Nile.

Amenhotep III builds, near Thebes, the temple of Amun and the so-called Colossus of Memnon (the name given to the statue by the Greeks, because it emitted strange musical tones that were thought to be the greeting of the legendary immortal Ethiopian king and Trojan War hero Memnon to his mother Eos, goddess of the dawn).

The Mycenaean Greeks have established control of their peninsula, and spread through the Aegean to Ionia, taking the Cretan kingdom of Minos along the way.

Tablets on Crete are written by 1375 BCE not in Linear A but in Linear B, evincing a dynastic shift from Minoans to Mycenaeans.

Tablets from this era forward record both Mycenaean and non-Hellenic names, suggesting intermarriage between the two cultures.