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have? Did they carry some of the royal prestige—and if so, for how many generations? Maybe Yuya was distantly related to Amenhotep III. Maybe he had enough personal influence with the king and the party in power to push the claim of his daughter. Such suggestions abound, and there is absolutely no proof of any of them. Yuya and Thuya had at least one other child—a son, Anen, who was second prophet of Amon. This is not a neglible title, but it is not on the same level as vizier or high priest. Unlike his parents, who were honored by a tomb in the royal valley, Anen was buried elsewhere. It’s all very confusing, but I just don’t get the impression that the king’s in-laws necessarily had much power at court.

We don’t know how old Amenhotep III was when he inherited the throne. The mummy that has been identified as his probably isn’t. In the earliest reliefs from his reign he is accompanied by his mother, which has led scholars to suppose that he was a minor when he became king. The marriage scarab is dated to his second year, and if he was hunting lions during his first years of rule, he can’t have been a toddler.

One of his first projects, perhaps, was the great colonnaded hall that stands on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the modern Winter Palace hotel. (The original structure was added onto by a later king, Ramses II.) It dominates the view of modern Luxor from the riverbank. At Karnak Amenhotep built a huge new pylon, the third, by today’s reckoning.

Though Amenhotep, like most Egyptian kings, had royal residences all over the place, his principal palace was at Thebes, on the West Bank across from modern Luxor. There’s not much left of it today, but originally it was a great sprawling structure that covered almost eighty acres and included several subsidiary palaces, presumably for his queen and his heir. Next to it the king excavated a huge harbor connected to the Nile; the resultant earth mounds are still visible, though only an informed eye would recognize them for what they are. The modern name of the site is Malkata. Amenhotep called it “The Mansion of Nebmaatre Is the Dazzling Aten.”

Nebmaatre was Amenhotep’s throne name. But who, one might ask, was the dazzling Aten?

This is our first encounter with a name—a god—who was to loom large in succeeding years. Originally aton was a common noun that referred to the sun itself. Later on the word acquired a “god” determinative and became personified during the reign of Amenhotep’s father, Thutmose IV. Just how far his prominence extended under Amenhotep III is open to question. So far as we know, Amenhotep built no temples for him and raised no statues.

Unless, as recent theories propose, he didn’t need them because Amenhotep himself was the “Dazzling Aton.”

Every Egyptian pharaoh was a god—sort of. He was the Horus while he lived and Osiris after he died. He was called “the good god,” and “Son of Re,” and like Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III carved a series of reliefs showing his mother being impregnated by none other than Amon-Re. But was Amenhotep III more of a god than other kings?

After he had been on the throne for thirty years Amenhotep III celebrated his first Heb-Sed, or Sed festival (also referred to as “jubilee.”) The ritual goes back to the earliest dynasties and was a complex performance involving a number of activities such as making offerings to the gods and receiving offerings, and running races. One can’t help wondering whether this originated as an actual test of the ruler’s vigor, which was identified with that of the tribe or city. Such procedures are known, not only from Africa, but from other parts of the world; failure could be fatal. It makes a certain amount of sense, really, if one believes in magic. A weak ruler could weaken an entire people and was replaced for the good of the group.

Be that as it may, the Egyptian version was one of rejuvenation. The king was restored, by dogma if not in actuality, to full strength. In theory the first jubilee took place after the king had ruled for thirty years and was repeated at three-year intervals