Tudhaliya I flourishes around in the early…

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.

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

Suppiluliuma I (Shuppiluliuma), king of the Hittites from around 1358 BCE, had begun his career as advisor and general to Tudhaliya III, then based at Samuha.

In this capacity he had defeated the Hittites' enemies among the Hayasa and the Kaskas.

Both enemies then united around charismatic leaders to counter him; of these Karanni founded a semblance of a royal court in Hayasa, and Piyapili failed to do likewise for the Kaska.

Suppiluliuma and Tudhaliya defeated these threats in turn, to the extent that the Hittite court could settle in Hattusa again.

At some point, Suppiluliuma deposed and probably murdered his liege.

Some of the priests would later report this to Suppiluliumas's son, successor, and biographer Mursili II, holding it as an outstanding crime of the whole dynasty.