rned with splendid buildings, and all the wealth and luxury of Asia
was poured into it. Thothmes established zoological and botanical
gardens, where the strange plants, birds, and animals he had collected
in his campaigns could be preserved. His immediate predecessor, Queen
Hatshepsu, had already revived the exploring expeditions of earlier
centuries. An exploring fleet had been sent by her to Punt, the land of
frankincense, and it returned home with rarities of all kinds, including
apes and giraffes. The history of the expedition and the treasures it
brought back were depicted on the walls of the temple built by the queen
at Der el-Bahari, after the design of the architect Sen-Mut.

The authority of Egypt was not extended to the Euphrates only. Cyprus
sent tribute to the Pharaoh, the coasts of Asia Minor, perhaps also of
Greece, were harried, and the Sudan was conquered as far south as
Berber, if not Khartum. Under Amen-hotep III., the grandson of Thothmes
III., the empire underwent still farther extension. Egyptian temples
were erected on the banks of the Upper Nile, and Napata, the future
capital of Ethiopia, was built at Gebel Barkal, beyond Dongola.

In Asia, Mitanni was the first neighbour of Egypt that had maintained
its independence. Assyria and the Mesopotamian prince of Singar or
Shinar had paid tribute to Thothmes III.; so, too, had the Hittite king,
and even Babylonia had been forced to acquiesce sullenly in the
annexation by Egypt of her old province of Canaan, and to beg for gifts
of gold from the Egyptian mines. But Mitanni was too powerful to be
attacked. Her royal family accordingly married into the Solar race of
Egypt. One of her princesses was the mother of Amen-hotep III.; another
was probably the mother of his son and successor, Amen-hotep IV.

Amen-hotep IV. was one of the most remarkable monarchs that have ever
sat upon a throne. His father died while he was still a boy, and he was
brought up under the Asiatic influences of his mother Teie. But he was a
philosopher by nature rather than a king. The purpose of his life was to
reform the religion of Egypt, to replace it, in fact, by a pantheistic
monotheism, the visible symbol of which was the solar disk. For the
first time in history a religious persecution was entered on; the
worship of Amon, the god of Thebes, was proscribed, and his very name
erased from the monuments. Amen-hotep changed his own name to
Khu-n-Aten, "the glory of the solar disk,