Читать книгу The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt онлайн

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Amonhotep-son-of-Hapu, the “wise man” of the Court of Amonhotep III.

At the time of which we write Egypt still remained at that height of power to which the military skill of Thothmes III. had raised her. The Kings of Palestine and Syria were tributaries to the young Pharaoh; the princes of the sea-coast cities sent their yearly impost to Thebes; Cyprus, Crete, and even the Greek islands, were Egyptianised; Sinai and the Red Sea coast as far south as Somaliland were included in the Pharaoh’s dominions; and the negro tribes of the Sudan were his slaves. Egypt was indeed the greatest state in the world, and Thebes was a metropolis at which the ambassadors, the merchants, and the artisans from these various countries met together. Here they could look upon buildings undreamed of in their own lands, and could participate in luxuries unknown even in Babylon. The wealth of Egypt was so enormous that a foreign sovereign who wrote to the Pharaoh asking for gold mentioned that it could not be considered as anything more valuable than so much dust by an Egyptian. Golden vases in vast quantities adorned the tables of the king and his nobles, and hundreds of golden vessels of different kinds were used in the temples.