Ahmose I - Art and Monumental Constructions

Art and Monumental Constructions

With the re-unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Ahmose, a renewal of royal support for the arts and monumental construction occurred. Ahmose reportedly devoted a tenth of all the productive output towards the service of the traditional gods, reviving massive monumental constructions as well as the arts. However, as the defeat of the Hyksos occurred relatively late in Ahmose's reign, his subsequent building program likely lasted no more than seven years, and much of what was started was probably finished by his son and successor Amenhotep I.

Work from Ahmose's reign is made of much finer material than anything from the Second Intermediate Period, though the craftsmanship from his reign does not always match the best work from either the Old or Middle Kingdoms. With the Delta and Nubia under Egyptian control once more, access was gained to resources not available in Upper Egypt. Gold and silver were received from Nubia, Lapis Lazuli from distant parts of central Asia, cedar from Byblos, and in the Sinai the Serabit el-Khadim turquoise mines were reopened. Although the exact nature of the relationship between Egypt and Crete is uncertain, at least some Minoan designs have been found on objects from this period, and Egypt considered the Aegean to be part of its empire. Ahmose reopened the Tura limestone quarries to provide stone for monuments and used Asiatic cattle from Phoenicia to haul the stone, according to his quarry inscription.

The art during Ahmose I's reign was similar to the Middle Kingdom royal Theban style, and stelae from this period were once more of the same quality. This reflects a possibly natural conservative tendency to revive fashions from the pre-Hyksos era. Despite this, only three positively identified statuary images of Ahmose I survive: a single shabti kept at the British Museum, presumably from his tomb (which has never been positively located), and two life-size statues; one of which resides in the New York Metropolitan Museum, the other in the Khartoum Museum. All display slightly bulging eyes, a feature also present on selected stelae depicting the pharaoh. Based on style, a small limestone sphinx that resides at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, has also been tentatively identified as representing Ahmose I.

The art of glass making is thought to have developed during Ahmose's reign. The oldest samples of glass appear to have been defective pieces of faience, but intentional crafting of glass did not occur until the beginning of the 18th dynasty. One of the earliest glass beads found contains the names of both Ahmose and Amenhotep I, written in a style dated to about the time of their reigns. If glassmaking was developed no earlier than Ahmose's reign and the first objects are dated to no later than his successor’s reign, it is quite likely that it was one of his subjects who developed the craft.

Ahmose resumed large construction projects like those before the second intermediate period. In the south of the country he began constructing temples mostly built of brick, one of them in the Nubian town of Buhen. In Upper Egypt he made additions to the existing temple of Amun at Karnak and to the temple of Montu at Armant. According to an inscription at Tura, he used white limestone to build a temple to Ptah and the southern harem of Amun, but did not finish either project. He built a cenotaph for his grandmother, Queen Tetisheri, at Abydos.

Excavations at the site of Avaris by Manfred Bietak have shown that Ahmose had a palace constructed on the site of the former Hyksos capital city's fortifications. Bietak found fragmentary Minoan-style remains of the frescoes that once covered the walls of the palace; there has subsequently been much speculation as to what role this Aegean civilization may have played in terms of trade and in the arts.

Under Ahmose's reign, the city of Thebes became the capital for the whole of Egypt, as it had been in the previous Middle Kingdom. It also became the center for a newly established professional civil service, where there was a greater demand for scribes and the literate as the royal archives began to fill with accounts and reports. Having Thebes as the capital was probably a strategic choice as it was located at the center of the country, the logical conclusion from having had to fight the Hyksos in the north as well as the Nubians to the south. Any future opposition at either border could be met easily.

Perhaps the most important shift was a religious one: Thebes effectively became the religious as well as the political center of the country, its local god Amun credited with inspiring Ahmose in his victories over the Hyksos. The importance of the temple complex at Karnak (on the east bank of the Nile north of Thebes) grew and the importance of the previous cult of Ra based in Heliopolis diminished.

Several stelae detailing the work done by Ahmose were found at Karnak, two of which depict him as a benefactor to the temple. In one of these stelae, known as the "Tempest Stele", he claims to have rebuilt the pyramids of his predecessors at Thebes that had been destroyed by a major storm. The Thera eruption in the Aegean has been implicated by some scholars as the source of this damage, but similar claims are common in the propagandistic writings of other pharaohs, showing them overcoming the powers of darkness. Due to a lack of evidence, no definitive conclusion can be reached.