The Coregencies Of The Ancient Egypt In New Kingdom

Coregency is the situation where two or more person are contemporaneously recognized as legitimate monarchs in a single sovereignity.The startpoint of the reign of an ancient Egyptian king is the coronation,the application of a new titulary and the record the year in the name of the king.Studying the New Kingdom,this dissertation is analysis the coregency cases and discusses the mechanism of coregency.The main purpose of coregency is to keep the ruling power within a specific family,but the distribution of the relavente cases among the three dynasties of the New Kingdom is not in balance,so,the following chapters are not divided according to the three dynasties,but according to the tradition of the royal bloodline.Chapter One focuses on the coregency issues of the early-Eighteenth Dynasty.The involved period is from the accession of Ahmose I to the death of Hatshepsut,a timespan of 90 years(c.1550 B.C.– 1458 B.C.).At that time,the power of Egypt state was ascending,but the monarchs always died in youth or nearly mature,the tradition of the royal bloodline was always in the rims of break.As the founder of a new dynasty,Ahmose I doubtlessly handed over the kingship to his son in the way of coregency,and the purpose must be keep the ruling power in his family.However,the following several kings all died young,Thutmose III ascended the throne in his childhood,and Hatshepsut took the opportunity and began a rear and odd coregency,it was a development that occasional but also inevitable.Chapter Two focuses on the issues of the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty,from the beginning of sole reign of Thutmose III to the middle of reign of Amenhotep III,a timespan of nearly 100 years(c.1558 B.C.– 1360 B.C.).In the first two decades of this period,Thutmose III waged yearly wars in Syria,but after that,a long-term stable peace was formed among Egypt,Mitanni and Babylon.The royal house also enjoyed plentful of offsprings,there were no urgent threats in and outside Egypt.In that case,only Thutmose III chose to hand over the kingship in the way of corency,the reasonshould be his special experience during his early reign.Chapter Three focuses on the issues of the late-Eighteenth Dynasty.The involved period is from the later part of the reign of Amenhotep III to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty,a timespan of nearly 70 years(c.1360 B.C.– 1291 B.C.).The reformation of Akhenaten and the reaction are the main theme of this period,the occupants of the throne changed rapidly.Those cases could be well studied if the evidence is enough,but because of the continuous political turmoil and the intense social change at that time,the remaining evidence is very scanty and ambigious.So,most the issues of this chapter are still regrettably hanging.Chapter Four focuses on the issues of the Nineteenth and Twentith Dynasties.The involved period is from the accession of Ramesses I to that of Ramesses III,a timespan of nearly 110 years(c.1292 B.C.– 1182 B.C.),because only the first two kings of the Twentith Dynasty are involed in the coregency issue.Witnessing the chaos of post-Amarna period,the first kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty prefer the coregency again.However,the ideology of kingship changed during the reign of Ramesses II.From then on,cases of coregency are very rear.The last part attempts to make an overview of foregoing issues,to discuss the mechanism of coregency of the Ancient Egypt.The Egypt kings always pragmatic determined the manner of coregency according the the reality,but never designed conceptual doctrines.