Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign.

• Author: Wente, Edward F.
• Position: Review

Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign. Edited by DAVID O'CONNOR and ERIC 14. CLINE. Ann Arbor: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 1998. Pp. xvi + 393, maps, illustrations $59.50.

This book is a collection of essays treating various facets of Amenhotep III's reign. Although it was conceived independently of the superb Cleveland exhibition catalogue (Arielle Kozloff and Betsy M. Bryan, with Lawrence M. Berman, Egypt's Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and His World [Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992]), the chapters by Berman and Kozloff are in fact modified versions of their contributions to the earlier publication. Since there are frequent references to the Cleveland volume throughout much of the book under review, it might be advisable, especially for non-specialists, to have this copiously illustrated work at hand to appreciate more fully the legacy of the reign.

Berman's chapter one is a straightforward account of the reign of Amenhotep III with due attention paid to the solar aspects of his titulary and jubilees. Bryan's chapter two is considerably more complex in its attempt to cover both the reigns of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV and to trace internal and external developments relating to Egypt's transition from a military machine to a powerful state enjoying generally peaceful relations with her neighbors and prosperity at home. The undertaking of vast domestic projects led to the king's being viewed as a creative divinity rather than as a military victor.

Following Bryan, W. R. Johnson's chapter three suggests that Amenhotep III took on the creative role of Ptah, perhaps as part of the jubilee. After delineating four styles characterizing relief and sculpture under Amenhotep III, Johnson links these stylistic variations to ideological developments, culminating in the theology of the union of the king with the sun god in the jubilee. There is some validity to the proposition that Amenhotep III was indeed Akhenaten's living Aten, an identification that Johnson believes supports a long co-regency. The existence of a long co-regency, however, depends upon acceptance of a strict chronology in the evolution of artistic styles, which J. Baines questions in the final chapter, in noting the possibility that diverse styles existed contemporaneously.

In chapter four Kozloff, going beyond such positivistic approaches, breaks new ground in interpreting symbolically various objects, such as cosmetic spoons, which were not mere pretty objects but...