New Kingdom Egypt: Ramses, Tutankhamun and the Valley of the Kings

If you asked a hundred travellers to name an Egyptian pharaoh, ninety would name one from the New Kingdom. Hatshepsut. Tuthmosis III. Akhenaten. Nefertiti. Tutankhamun. Ramses II. All of them lived within a 500-year window, and all of them are buried within walking distance of each other on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor.

This is Egypt’s empire age. It is when the country stops being an isolated Nile valley and becomes a Mediterranean superpower. For the wider context see our complete history of ancient Egypt; for the practical trip see the Egypt travel guide.

How the New Kingdom started

Around 1650 BC, a foreign dynasty called the Hyksos — probably Semitic peoples from the Levant — took over the Nile Delta and ruled northern Egypt for a century. The southern city of Thebes eventually pushed back. In about 1550 BC, Pharaoh Ahmose finally expelled them and reunited Egypt.

Ahmose’s successors decided they would never let another foreign army near Egypt again. So they invaded first. Under Tuthmosis I and Tuthmosis III, Egyptian armies pushed north into modern Syria and south into Nubia (Sudan). At its peak around 1450 BC, the Egyptian empire ran from the Euphrates in the north to the Fifth Cataract of the Nile in the south. This is why New Kingdom pharaohs had so much gold to bury with their tombs — they were collecting tribute from twenty vassal states.

Hatshepsut: the woman who ruled as king

Hatshepsut (reigned c. 1479-1458 BC) is one of only a handful of confirmed female pharaohs. She was married to her half-brother Tuthmosis II (standard practice), and when he died young she became regent for his son Tuthmosis III. Then she promoted herself to full pharaoh and ruled for 22 years, presenting herself in statues with the traditional false beard.

Her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, cut into the cliffs on the west bank of Luxor, is one of the most striking pieces of architecture in the ancient world. Three colonnaded terraces stacked into a natural amphitheatre. Twenty years after her death, Tuthmosis III (finally in power) had her images systematically chiselled out of monuments — nobody is sure why, though the timing suggests it was less personal spite than a legitimacy tidy-up before his heir took the throne.

Akhenaten and the failed revolution

Skip forward a century. Around 1350 BC, a pharaoh named Amenhotep IV decides that all the traditional gods are wrong and that only the Aten (sun disc) deserves worship. He renames himself Akhenaten, moves the capital to a new city he builds from scratch in the desert (Amarna), and orders temples across Egypt closed.

His wife is Nefertiti, whose painted limestone bust in Berlin’s Neues Museum is probably the most famous portrait from the ancient world. His art breaks every rule — pharaohs shown with pot bellies, elongated faces, family scenes with children on their laps. Historians have argued for a century about whether Akhenaten was a mystic, a religious fanatic, or trying to break the political power of the Amun priesthood at Karnak. Probably all three.

The revolution died with him. His successors abandoned Amarna within a decade, tore down his temples, and scratched his name off every list of kings. His son took the throne as Tutankhaten — “living image of Aten” — and quickly changed his name to Tutankhamun — “living image of Amun”. The old gods came back.

Tutankhamun: the small pharaoh who became a legend

Tutankhamun ruled for about nine years, from age 9 to 18, and did almost nothing of political consequence. He reversed his father’s reforms and died young — possibly from complications of a broken leg and malaria, according to a 2010 DNA and CT study of his mummy. For 3,244 years his tomb sat in the Valley of the Kings, undisturbed and forgotten.

In 1922 Howard Carter, a British archaeologist working with money from Lord Carnarvon, found it. Nearly intact. Small by pharaonic standards but crammed with gold, chariots, thrones, weapons, jewellery, board games and 5,398 individual objects. It is the only royal Egyptian tomb ever found before looters got to it. The gold death mask is the icon everybody knows.

All of it now lives in the new Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza — for the first time, the complete tomb assembly is displayed together.

Ramses II: the last great pharaoh

Ramses II (reigned 1279-1213 BC) is the pharaoh who put his name on absolutely everything. Sixty-six years on the throne. Around 100 children by his 200 or so wives and consorts. Personally led military campaigns against the Hittite Empire in Syria — the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC) is the earliest battle in history for which we have detailed accounts from both sides, and the world’s first documented peace treaty was signed after it.

He built (or usurped and re-inscribed) the Ramesseum on the west bank of Luxor, the hypostyle hall at Karnak, and the two rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel in Nubia. His mummy is remarkably well preserved and now lives in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.

Ramses died at about 90 years old. Almost every Egyptian alive at the time had known no other pharaoh. Egypt never recovered his prestige — the New Kingdom limps on for another 150 years before collapsing in famine, civil war and the raids of the mysterious “Sea Peoples”.

Where to see the New Kingdom today

Luxor and Aswan hold almost everything. A five-day base in Luxor gets you:

• Karnak temple complex: the largest religious building ever constructed, mostly New Kingdom work
• Luxor temple: inside the modern city, especially good at night
• Valley of the Kings: tombs of Ramses IV, Merenptah, Tuthmosis III, and (extra ticket) Tutankhamun’s original tomb
• Valley of the Queens: Nefertari’s tomb is the finest painted tomb in Egypt
• Deir el-Bahari: Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple
• Ramesseum, Medinet Habu, Colossi of Memnon: Ramses II and Ramses III temples

For Nubia: Abu Simbel is a day trip from Aswan, and Aswan itself has the temple of Philae. Read the Egypt Nile cruise guide for how to string it all together, and the best time to visit Egypt to plan dates.

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