Page 290 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1440-137° B-c-] The Fall of the Sea Kings 237

succession of his son by his official divine wife and sister Muten-
wiya. The son was another Amenhotep and for once fully legiti­
mate on both sides. His accession was therefore peaceful, neces­
sitating little more than a show of force in the Sudan and a state
visit—with troops—to Syria. And another Mitanni princess disap­

peared into the harem of the new pharaoh.
Amenhotep III, and his energetic queen Teie, began a whole
series of magnificent buildings at Thebes, the most imposing of
them being a new temple to Amon. The correspondents, from

lower Egypt, added to the news the rather disgruntled comment
that it looked as though the rivalry between Amon and Ra had
been settled in favor of the god of upper Egypt, though pharaoh
appeared to be catholic in his worship and his wife had built a
subsidiary chapel to a rather obscure aspect of the sun’s divinity,

Aten, the god of the sun’s disc. But then Teie was rather a scan­
dal in many ways. She had been proclaimed divine consort al­
though she was not Amenhotep’s sister, or even related to him
at all. Some even said that she was of Syrian origin. The old

order was indeed changing.
But it was all good for trade, and the Cretan merchantmen
were profitably busy sailing Lebanese cedar south for the build­
ing program. The coastal towns of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine

were rapidly regaining their prosperity in these years. For the
thaw in the relations between the two great powers of Egypt and
Mitanni had given peace to the small principalities between
Sinai and the Euphrates. No longer forced by geography to ally

themselves to one sphere of influence, and to suffer retaliatory
campaigns from the other, they could now devote themselves to
their natural pursuit of trade. The following years of peace, with
an artistic and luxury-loving pharaoh setting the fashion for his
country, were compared favorably even with the prosperous days

of Queen Hatshepsut eighty years before.
In this prosperity the Cretans had their share, as always. In
Cyprus, along the Levant coast, and in Egypt itself they opened

new branches of their trading houses or expanded those already
in existence. And from them wealth flowed back to the metropolis
of Knossos. Never had the palace and the city contained so much
wealth. Never had the festivals been more magnificent. And for-

R