The Nouvel Empire is the most prosperous period of all the Egyptian history.

It is one period of refinement and evolutions which is spread out over a little more than five centuries.

The initiator is Iâh-mosis (“born from the moon”), first king of this time. Hunter of the Hyksôs (Indo-Europeans), it will set up the foundations of the New Empire in company of his/her mother Iâhhotep (“the moon is in wisdom”) and of his wife Ahmès-Néfertary (“the beautiful one between the beautiful ones”).

The New Empire covers one period active from approximately -1500 to -1000, and is made of three dynasties:

• (- 1552 to -1292);

• (- 1292 to -1186);
• (- 1186 to -1069);

Among the famous characters of this time, it is necessary to retain the names of:

• Amenhotep ;
• Thoutmôsis ;
• Hatchepsout ;
• Akhénaton ;
• Toutânkhamon ;
• Horemheb ;
• Ramsès ;
• Séthi ;
• Taousert ;
• Sethnakht .

It is one very open period towards the outside world, like the Crete, Hatti (enemy a certain time), etc

It is of this time that we come most beautiful architectural testimonys (Temple of Louxor, falls from Séthi {{Ier}}, Ramesséum, Abou Simbel, etc)

It is for us the most known period of the Egyptian history: territorial expansion, and especially much of known personalities.

This period started with the end of the reign Hyksôs which occupied the Low-Egypt. Towards -1570, the king Hyksôs controlled nothing any more but the north of the Egypt since Avaris, his capital. They are the revolts of the princes thébains who reflect fine with the occupation of the Hyksôs in Egypt. Initially under Kamosis which pushed back them towards north, their fascinating territories of Egypt Average. The king Hyksôs in vain tried to be combined with Nubian sovereigns of Kerma, but its messenger was made prisoner on the road of the Oases.

Ahmosis, future king thébain took the town of Memphis at the time of one second attack and placed its troops in front of the town of Avaris which they took. After three years of seat, the last fortified town of the Hyksôs (Sharouhen, in the south of Palestine) was taken by the Egyptians. It was finished by it Hyksôs, Egyptian in the past territories had been given under control.

It is by the expulsion of the Hyksôs out of Egypt and by the unification of the High and Low-Egypt by Ahmosis that the New Empire according to the Egyptologists starts. At the beginning of the New Empire, one notes especially great expansions (in particular towards Asia Mineure and the Nubie) which brought the borders of Egypt of the heart of current Sudan (close to Abou Hamed, in the north of the fifth cataract) to a country called Naharina (close to the Euphrate, in the North-East of the country).

Thus, Egypt had acquired a kind of world reputation. However, the territories beyond the valley of the the Nile was not well controlled (in particular Palestinian principalities which, although controlled by an Egyptian adviser, remained under the domination of the populations autochtones). Many testimonys show that Egypt wished nevertheless to dominate the world “until its limits”, that remaining utopian, especially when it is known that Egypt forever known to pacify the area of septentrional Syria and power station where it competed initially with the princes of the kingdom of Mitanni then with Hittites.

The interior policy at the beginning of the New Empire

Ahmosis, then Amenhotep {{Ier}} (in Greek: Aménophis) imposed the unification of the Two Grounds, essential to the prosperity of the country. For that, they engaged of the reforms such as the homogeneity of the administration, the legislation, the calendar and the worship. Amenhotep 1st was high with the row of god to his death for these acts.

At that time, one reinforced the importance of the royal family within the divine worship. For example, it was with a princess of the royal family that returned the title of Wife of the god Amon, with Thèbes. This function was very important because it was likely to politically bring much influence (because of the oracle of Amon). This time saw also Amon, god in the beginning only local, high with the dynastic row of god (constructions of temples in all the country).

Hatchepsout and Thoutmôsis

With died of Thoutmôsis {{II}}, it is the son of a secondary wife, Thoutmôsis {{III}}, which goes up on the throne. Because of its young age, regency returned to his/her aunt and mother-in-law, Hatchepsout, girl of Thoutmôsis 1st and marries of Thoutmôsis.

Hatchepsout was essential at the political level. She drew up many obelisks in the temple of Karnak and built a splendid funerary temple on Western bank of Thèbes, with the locality Deir el-Bahari. In this temple, one can see scenes of Théogamie, where the divine birth of the Pharaon is reported.

The history will retain peaceful Hatchepsout and quarrelsome Thoutmôsis and sometimes even a little too energetic: during a hunting of one hundred twenty elephants in a plain of the Oronte, the king had made a personal demonstration of his audacity, but an officer had had to intervene to draw it from a perilous situation.

Campaigns of Syria and Palestine

Thoutmôsis and Hatchepsout had already left under the assets Thoutmôsis 1st which had conquered the South of the Palestine, and had imposed the Egyptian authority on Syria to the king of the Mitanni. During the reign of Hatchepsout, the prince of Qadesh benefitted from his pacifism to bring together detractors with the Egyptian capacity; moreover, the especially commercial conflicts did not cease growing. With died of the woman Pharaon, the troops of Thoutmôsis reached Gaza. After a seven month old seat, the town of Megiddo went, followed many principalities which recognized the Egyptian supremacy (for example, the sovereign of Assour, enemy of Mitanni, which establishes bonds with the Pharaon). The scores of following years were occupied by campaigns aiming at sitting the Egyptian influence on central Syria. To intervene quickly against a possible rebellion with Qadesh, two bases were established, with the mouth of the Oronte, Gaza and can be also with Damas.

Campaigns towards the South

As of the end of the occupation of Hyksôs, one hastened to reconquer the territories of the South. In particular in the Elephantine area of and into Low Nubie where the princes of some cities had concluded from the agreements with the sovereign of Kerma. Thoutmôsis 1st, like Ahmosis before him, tackled the center of the capacity of Kerma; the city was besieged and the destroyed enemy kingdom (towards -1500).

To continue to control these territories, the area was put under control of an Egyptian viceroy named Fils royal of Koush and whose capacity extended until proximity from El Kab, in the area of the Eastern desert. Just like those of princes d' Asie of North, the wire of the Nubian princes were taken along to the Egyptian court, and were raised among the young Egyptian princes in order to preserve their future honesty. The received tribute of the South was managed by the temple of Amon with Thèbes.

One introduced the worship of the king and his ancestors into the areas of the South by building new temples in the south of Kerma (in particular with Know, Soleb and Napata). One thus dedicated worships with Amon, Ptah and Horus. To protect the massive arrivals of gold Nubians, if invaluable with the eyes of Egypt which for of required to consolidate its prestige, of the fortresses were built at the exit of Ouadi Allaqi.

With the tributes of North added to those of the South, deposited with the royal treasure of Thèbes, the economic influence of Egypt had become undeniable. With the end of the Minoan maritime monopoly in Crete (surely of with the irruption of a volcano on the island of Santorin), and the takeover by Mycènes, Egypt on the occasion to practice more amply of the commercial exchanges with the other kingdoms.

The Egyptian products (of which gold was very appreciated foreign kingdoms) did not have evil to spread in all the Égée. But Egypt imported also many end products, as well as raw materials and labor: Syrian craftsmen, from Minor Asia and Crete came to work on the royal shipyards of the port of Memphis.

Iron came from Lebanon, close to Koumidou and turquoises, of the mines of Sérabit el-Khadim, in the the Sinai. This opening on the Mediterranean world deeply modified the modes and the tastes. The ascending one of the advisers foreigner near the king did not cease growing and of many words of Semitic origin were introduced into the Egyptian language.

Amenhotep and Thoutmôsis V

Amenhotep {{II}}, wire of Thoutmôsis continued the campaigns in Syria and Thoutmôsis V, its grandson imposed his policy with the support of the army, because it had received a military formation. The sovereign of Mitanni, which feared a new threat of a great power hittite aspired to bringings together with Egypt, and allowed Thoutmôsis V to install its characteristic directing on the throne of the country of Noukhassé, in the south of Alleppo.

Amenhotep had only to continue the military policy installed already well in Syria and had to make only some campaigns in Nubie. It Maria with a girl of officer are influenced in the court of the area of Achmim. At ten eight years, it had a secondary wife, Giloukhépa, girl of a sovereign of Mitanni, with in dowry, of important syro-Palestinian territories. Other political marriages took place thus, in particular with the girls of the kings of Babylon, Assour and Arzawa in Anatolia.

The finished military campaigns, the king could devote himself to his country, and made great decisions at the time of his Festival-Sed (royal ceremony in the thirty years honor of reign of the sovereign). Initially, it built an immense palatial unit in Malqata, on left bank of the Nile, which had its own port. He was then venerated daily at the court like the incarnation of the sun. Amenhotep wire of Hapou, set up for the king an imposing funerary temple.

This time is also that of the birth of the worship of Aton, whose name is usually given to the solar disk. According to the ideology, the king and the god mix the night so that in the morning, the king appears under the incarnation of a divine human form. Aton made shade with Amon which was disputed by the court, and thus was born an argument between this one and the Egyptian big families.

Akhénaton, the heretic

Amenhotep V, wire of Amenhotep and Tiyi, married Néfertiti, probably of foreign origin. It undoubtedly bathed since its more tender childhood in the discussions on the dynastic worship of the king and his Amon god. Thus, one can suppose that it for a long time prepared the replacement of the worship of Amon by that of the solar god, which it did indeed, six years after its crowning: it removed the worship of Amon with Karnak, but, instead of removing the temple, it used it with the profit of its god. Its wife, Néfertiti, and his/her daughter, Mérytaton, exerted the sacerdotal function of the former wives of the god. Gradually, one removed the name of Amon in the places of Egyptian worships, and the property of Amon changed worship.

It is as from the year of the reign of Amenhotep V/Akhénaton that the queen mother as well as the complete court moved for the palate of current the Such el-Amarna, in Average-Egypt. Akhetaton (“horizon of Aton”) was the name of this city, intended for the capital function of . While changing capital, it changed its name to be more known under the name of Akhénaton, probably by provocation with the preceding religious rules; it centralized the solar worship with the royal palace with the temple of the palate of Aton and a funerary temple, and its tomb was voluntarily built far from those of the civils servant of the court in the Eastern desert. Often one represents Akhénaton by relatively ugly statues on the level of the expression, this being due to the modification of the artistic guns, and not inevitably physical reality.

In architecture as in sculpture one notes deep modifications, in particular on the level of the cut of the blocks of stones (probably of the new modules used to cut the stone). Popular expressions make their appearances in official documents, one speaks then about néo-Egyptian. Representations of the Pharaon and his family replaced also the representations of the local gods in all the country.

This radicalism softens about the year of its reign, because Akhénaton was to face in Hittites again which tried to exert influence on Qadesh. This threat was not taken with light by the Egyptians as proves it on this subject the various correspondences in wedge-shaped writing found, and the various warning statements given to Egypt by king de Byblos against the sovereign of Qadesh. To mitigate this problem, the Pharaon sent initially Nubian troops in Palestine to ensure the safety of the Egyptian administration, but it ends up regulating the situation by a diplomatic marriage by marrying a girl of the king kassite of Babylon.

It is supposed that Kiya, a queen represented on the monuments of the time, would be a girl of the king of Mitanni. At the time of his death and that of Néfertiti, one supposes that it is Mérytaton, the girl of Akhénaton, which would have replaced Grande royal wife.

Akhénaton died without successor, one abrogea quickly his reforms and Amon found its place with Karnak. The government returned to Memphis, leaving Akhetaton, and fall it from the successor of Akhénaton was built as with the practice with Thèbes.

The widow of Ânkhkhéperourê (or Semenkhkarê), requested after the death of her husband - what put an end to its short reign - from the king hittite a prince intended to become her husband. After multiple checks to make sure of the authenticity of the request, the king made send a prince who was assassinated at the Egyptian border, giving to the hittites a valid reason to walk on Syria of North.

It is under the influence of Aÿ that Ânkhésenpaamon, one of the girls of Akhénaton and Néfertiti, married the young person Toutânkhamon. Its reign was short, and there however remains one of the most known characters of old Egypt. Why? Quite simply parce its tomb remained by inviolate chance. With its death, it is the Aÿ old man who went up on the throne, but he died very little of time afterwards.

Ramessides

The top ordering Horemheb, chief of the army with Memphis, seized the power after the discussed reign of Aÿ, and was made confirm this takeover by an oracle of Amon to Thèbes. Ramsès, its substitute military was designated as his successor, and of its reign second half of the New Empire will start, named time ramesside (and S).

Horemheb, then Ramsès {{Ier}} and its son Séthi {{Ier}} carried out multiple reforms inside the country. Séthi rehabilitated the name of Amon and the old sanctuaries and made declare Akhénaton king heretic. Outside he undertook the consolidation of the borders reducing the hearths of rebelled in Nubie and at the Eastern borders. He managed to take again the territories lost and restored the zone of influence of Egypt to banks of the Euphrate.

Strategically, the capital was moved with pi-Ramsès, in the Eastern delta, near to the old capital Hyksôs, allowing by its water points and its fortresses a sure starting point towards the Palestine. The city had an eclectic imposing size and activities like palates, installations military, various temples intended for the large gods of the empire, stables and munitions factories. These last manufactured shields hittites for auxiliary troops thanks to copper drawn from the mines of Timna in Israel. pi-Ramsès was also a strategic military point, allowing a fast action of the Egyptian troops in the event of revolts in Palestine or Syria for example. There were many wandering tribes, like the Shasou S or the Apirou S (which one brought closer to the current name “Hebrew”), which obstructed the trade by their ceaseless wars. To finish, an military intervention in the country of Amourou (of which the center is Qadesh) had become inevitable since they had passed openly from with dimensions the hittite.

It is what did Ramsès {{II}}, the successor of Séthi {{Ier}} by engaging an important war against the Hittites. At the time of the battles of Qadesh, the Egyptian troops were attracted in a trap. The Egyptian army was likely to be able to flee at the time of a ambush. The army hittite was indeed dispersed by plunderings. Egypt lost then the country of Amourou, and although the battle of Qadesh was gained by nobody, the walls of the Egyptian temples are covered with the inscriptions allotting the victory to the Egyptians. This battle however marks a turning in the history of the relations between Egypt and the Middle East: the king hittite, having problems of internal policy, famines and epidemics, agreed with the Pharaon that a total victory was not possible and signed an peace agreement. This first peace treaty between two States which one has a tangible trace will then be sealed later by the marriage of Ramsès {{II}} with a princess hittite. Not only the treaty which one found versions in the two camps, defined a formal alliance between the two kingdoms, it also fixed the borders and envisaged the extradition of the traitors and condemned by the justice of the two countries.

Ramsès died in ninety years, after a long quite occupied reign. Except its military and diplomatic victories, it made build or rebuild many sanctuaries, bearing its name, in all the principal centers of dwelling of the country. Thanks to the gold obtained by the intensive exploitation of the Nubian mines it ensured a permanent income the cases of the Egyptian State. The flourishing commercial relations since peace reigned between the two great powers of the area supported a new prosperous era.

Among his/her ninety children, Khâemouaset, one of its sons, had the task to restore the old worships of which those of the ancestors royal and certain of its daughters occupied the function of Large royal Wife. However in spite of this apparent apogee, the construction of the temples, the successive victories hide an entry in a major economic crisis for Egypt.

In the west of the country, the Libyens are combined to the “People Sea” and under the reign of Mérenptah, which succeeds Ramsès {{II}}, attack the delta… In vain, because Mérenptah manages to push back them at the conclusion of a total victory by ground and sea.

After the reign of this one, the royal family was torn by a war of succession that the too great number of descendants of Ramsès {{II}} made foreseeable threatening the country of anarchy.

The scenario which had seen the resumption of the kingdom by a military family rejoua then and it is Sethnakht, then probably vizier of the north, which restores the order on its account installing his/her Ramsès son the future Ramsès {{III}} as corégent as of its accession with the throne.

The kingdom hittite had fallen under the blows from the Peuples from the Sea, devastating on their passage the cities of Asia Mineure and Cyprus, the cities of the country of Alalakh, Ougarit and Karkemish. According to the sources whose in particular texts reporting the exploits of the king on his large temple of Médinet-Habou, Egypt was besieged of any share: by Shardanes (which one brought closer to the Sardes), of Lyciens, Touresh, Akhiyaouas (which one believes being the Achaens), of Péléset (brought closer them to the Philistins), etc In spite of triple attacks by the west, is and the sea, carried out once again by the Libyans, it was pushed back by the Egyptians at the time of a bright victory which put a final term at the progression of this first barbarian invasion .

Thanks to this victory and its spoils corresponding, Ramsès {{III}} could undertake the construction of the temple of Médinet-Habou which, sign of times, was also a fortress from its imposing walls and its gate of access in form of Migdol (kind of reinforced strengthened door of two crenelated towers).

The overcome enemies will then be incorporated in the troops of Pharaon and accepted the authorization to be established in certain areas of the delta. The Libyans were integrated quickly and little by little during the levels of the army crossed keeping the Western and Eastern borders in particular country. Later it will form true chefferies which will make the foundations of future the dynasties of the {{intermediate IIIe}} period.

However this invasion had deeply modified the geopolitical environment of the Average East renewing the involved forces and breaking old alliances of disappeared kingdoms. The commercial exchanges and the tributes ceased little by little, and it is from this moment that settled the Philistins with Gaza and Ashdod, with the doors of Egypt.

With the loss of the tributes and the constant request of the maintenance of troops of mercenaries (and perhaps also a fall of the output of Nubian gold) Egypt was inserted in an economic decline which resulted in a destabilization of the system on which the economy of the empire was based. The disorganization of the administration and probably an increased corruption of the elites of the company the whole associated with famines caused by insufficient risings started the reserves of the State durably. Great lawsuits sanctioned scandals which splashed Thèbes at the end with the dynasty. They give a report on true plots including against the royal person. Ramsès {{III}}, at the end of its reign was victim of a conspiracy of the harem which will mortally reach the king and who will be punished by his legitimate son and successor Ramsès {{IV}}.

To crown the whole, the labor of the Place of Truth working with the royal tombs was put in strike for lack of regular provisioning.

The successors of Ramsès {{III}} could not that to observe the fall of the influence of Egypt which reigns after reign lost its principal conquests and were only the witnesses of the internal bursting of the country.

Always with Thèbes, of true criminal conspiracies did not hesitate certainly to plunder the tombs of their ancestors indicating an unthinkable moral transgression with the preceding dynasties but corresponding to an economic reality more catastrophic especially than let it imagine the philosopher's stones of the reign which are summarized sometimes with hypogean royal ordered by sovereigns increasingly isolated in their kingly function and who did not have really any more the means of completing them.

Libyan tribes benefitted from the Egyptian decline to infiltrate in the country developing the insecurity of trade route and plundering the temples thébains.

In front of growing anarchy and the incapacity of the local administrators to guarantee the integrity of the kingdom, Ramsès {{XI}} called upon the viceroy of Nubie, Panéhésy to restore the order. This one started then a civil war against Amenhotep, the Grand priest of Amon to Thèbes which it relieved, made imprison and off-set in the Western desert. It was without taking into account the ambitions of the vizier and general Hérihor, probably wire or relative of Amenhotep, which begun again the top and pushed back Panéhésy beyond the traditional border in the south of Assouan. The price of this victory was the final loss of the Egyptian influence on the Nubie and the Sudan which from now on will form an independent kingdom.

A new balance seemed to be recovered and, full with hope, the festival of the Renewal of the births of Ramsès {{XI}}, the purpose of which is to lay down a new political orientation and to found a stable situation, did not have real repercussions and the Pharaon had to attend the collapse of his capacity on Thèbes. Indeed, at this point in time Hérihor-Siamon which had succeeded Amenhotep in the load of Grand priest of Amon assumed the royal capacities on Thébaïde and founded a parallel dynasty founded on a Théocratie defined by the oracle of Amon-Re. The clergy of Amon, become a true dynasty, seizes the power in High-Egypt. It is the end of the New Empire.