Amenhotep II was born to Thutmose III and a minor wife of the king: Merytre-Hatshepsut. He married Queen Tiye, who was the mother of the next king, Thutmose IV (circa 1400-1390 BC). He ruled for twenty-six years, during which Egypt was prosperous and mostly at peace.
Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria.
His principal activities as king were to preserve the hegemony over most of Nubia and the Levant that the military campaigns of Thutmose III had established.
Amenhotep’s first campaign was against uprisings in northern Syria, during which he extracted loyalty oaths from other Asiatic princes. Returning from Asia, he forwarded the body of a rebel Asiatic chief to the Nubian capital, where it was hung on the town wall as an example.
Amenhotep II (Circa 1426-1400 BC)
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