The Eighteenth dynasty founded an Egyptian empire.  Its kings carried the war into Asia, and planted the boundaries of Egyptian dominion on the banks of the Euphrates.  Thothmes III. (B.C. 1503-1449) made Canaan an Egyptian province, dividing it into districts, each under a governor or a vassal prince, who was visited from time to time by a royal commissioner.  Carriage roads were constructed, with posting inns at intervals along them where food and lodging could be procured.  The country east of the Jordan equally obeyed Egyptian rule.  The plateau of Bashan was governed by a single prefect; Ammon and Moab were tributary; Edom alone retained its independence, thanks to its barren mountains, and inaccessible ravines.  Thebes, the capital of the dynasty, was adorned 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