Egypt - New Kingdom Thutmosid Period

  General Description   During the New Kingdom, the Egyptian king acquired the title of ’pharaoh’, meaning ’great house’. In the Thutmosid Period, or Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1293 BCE), the pharaohs turned the Egyptian ’home’ into a great empire stretching from Kush in northern Sudan (conquered by Thutmose I) to the south to Palestine and Syria in the northeast (taken by Thutmose III). ^{[1] [2]} For the first time, the capital of a great Egyptian state was in Upper Egypt, at Thebes (although in 1373 BCE Akhenaten briefly had the capital moved to El Amarna in Middle Egypt).
Population and political organization
The pharaoh, a living god-king, was also the chief priest, highest judge and top military commander; he usually fought in battle, as Thutmose III apparently did at the famous Bronze Age battle of Megiddo in the 15th century BCE. ^[3] The professional army was augmented by troops from conquered places such as Nubia and Libya. ^[4]
During the New Kingdom, labyrinthine networks of imperial power and wage-earning agents we know as scribes ^[5] were overseen by two viziers: one for the north and one for the south of Egypt. ^[6] The Egyptian vizier was the second-highest judge; ^[7] he supervised the activities of the state bureaucracy and served as a representative of the pharaoh’s interests. ^[8] Most of the viziers’ duties seem to have been judicial, involving dispute settlement, answering petitions, and authorizing transfers of property. ^[8] For most of the two to three million people who occupied New Kingdom Egypt, however, the law was usually administered at the local level, ^[7] under chiefs of towns (the capitals of nomes) and mayors of villages.
The resources commanded by the New Kingdom Egyptian state enabled the pharaohs to carry out grand architectural and tomb-building projects. ^[9] The most prolific builder of the Thutmosid Period was a female pharaoh called Hatshepsut. ^[10] At Deir el-Medina, in the Valley of the Kings, opposite Thebes, a workers’ village was created at the start of the Eighteenth Dynasty to house craftsmen dedicated to building royal tombs. ^[11] The community was managed by a palace scribe appointed by the vizier. The scribe oversaw supervisors, who managed two teams of five workers on ten-day shifts. ^[12] In the village, oracle statues attended by priests served as the ’highest local voice of authority’. ^[13]
Although not a typical town, documents written by skilled workers at Deir el-Medina reveal that writing was not confined to the elite, but had become important in wider society. ^[14] Major temples across Egypt included libraries and archives, most likely managed by scribes educated in local schools. ^[15] Documents attesting to the sophistication of this Late Bronze Age state include government archives, wills, title deeds, census lists, conscription lists, orders, memos, tax lists, letters, journals, inventories, regulations, and transcripts of trials. ^[7]

[1]: (Sherif 1981, 265) N. M. Sherif. 1981. ’Nubia before Napata (-3100 to -750)’, in General History of Africa, Vol II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa, edited by G. Mokhtar, 245-77. Paris: UNESCO.

[2]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007, 5) R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy. 2007. The Collins Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present. 4th ed. London: BCA.

[3]: (Morenz and Popko 2010, 111) Ludwig D. Morenz and Lutz Popko. 2010. ’The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 101-19. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[4]: (Spalinger 2005, 6-7) Anthony J. Spalinger. 2005. War in Ancient Egypt: The New Kingdom. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

[5]: (Van Dijk 2000, 298-99) Jacobus Van Dijk. 2003. ’The Amarna Period and the Later New Kingdom’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 265-307. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[6]: (O’Connor 1983, 208) David O’Connor. 1983. ’Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c. 2686-1552 BC’, in Ancient Egypt: A Social History, edited by Bruce G. Trigger, Barry J. Kemp, David O’Connor and Alan B. Lloyd, 183-278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[7]: (Brewer and Teeter 1999, 73) Douglas J. Brewer and Emily Teeter. 1999. Egypt and the Egyptians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[8]: (Van De Mieroop 2011, 180) Marc Van De Mieroop. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[9]: (Van De Mieroop 2011, 182) Marc Van De Mieroop. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[10]: (Bryan 2000, 229) Betsy M. Bryan. 2000. ’The 18th Dynasty before The Amarna Period (c. 1550-1352 BC)’ in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 207-64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[11]: (Bryan 2000, 213) Betsy M. Bryan. 2000. ’The 18th Dynasty before The Amarna Period (c. 1550-1352 BC)’ in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 207-64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[12]: (Ziskind and Halioua 2007) Bernard Ziskind and Bruno Halioua. 2007. ’Occupational Medicine in Ancient Egypt’. Medical Hypotheses 69 (4): 942-45.

[13]: (Van De Mieroop 2011, 235) Marc Van De Mieroop. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[14]: (Van De Mieroop 2011, 156) Marc Van De Mieroop. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[15]: (Lazaridis 2016) Nikolaos Lazaridis. 2016. ’Education and Apprenticeship’, in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Accessible online at https://uee.cdh.ucla.edu/articles/education_and_apprenticeship/?x=87&y=5.