he second and third cataracts he built a
temple to his own deified self, and engraved upon its columns the names
of his vassal states. Among them are Tunip and Kadesh, Carchemish and
Apphadana on the Khabur. Sangar, Assyria, Naharaim, and the Hittites
also appear among them, but this must be on the strength of the tribute
or presents which had been received from them. The Pharaoh filled his
harim with Asiatic princesses. His queen Teie, who exercised an
important influence upon both religion and politics, came from Asia, and
among his wives were the sisters and daughters of the kings of Babylonia
and Mitanni, while one of his own daughters was married to Burna-buryas
the Babylonian sovereign. His marriage with Gilu-khipa, the daughter of
Sutarna, king of Aram-Naharaim, was celebrated on a scarab, where it is
further related that she was accompanied to Egypt by three hundred and
seventeen "maids of honour." Besides allying himself in marriage to the
royal houses of Asia, Amenophis III. passed a good deal of his time in
Syria and Mesopotamia, amusing himself with hunting lions. During the
first ten years of his reign he boasts of having killed no less than one
hundred and two of them. It was in the last of these years that he
married queen Teie, who is said on scarabs to have been the daughter of
"Yua and Tua." Possibly these are contracted forms of Tusratta and Yuni,
who were at the time king and queen of Mitanni. But if so, it is curious
that no royal titles are given to her parents; moreover, the author of
the scarabs has made Yua the father of the queen and Tua her mother.
Tuya is the name of an Amorite in one of the Tel el-Amarna letters,
while from another of them it would seem as if Teie had been the
daughter of the Babylonian king. One of the daughters of Tusratta,
Tadu-khipa, was indeed married to Amenophis, but she did not rank as
chief queen. In the reign of Meneptah of the nineteenth dynasty the
vizier was a native of Bashan, Ben-Mazana by name, whose father was
called Yu the elder. Yua may therefore be a word of Amorite origin; and
a connection has been suggested between it and the Hebrew Yahveh. This,
however, though possible, cannot be proved.

When Amenophis III. died his son Amenophis IV. seems to have been still
a minor. At all events the queen-mother Teie became all-powerful in the
government of the state. Her son, the new Pharaoh, had been brought up
in the religious beliefs of his mother, and had inher