Egypt in Syria 1425–1418 BCE

The father of Amenhotep II, Thutmose III was perhaps the greatest military conqueror of all the pharaohs, hailed for ‘making his boundaries as far as the Horn of the Earth, the marshes of Naharin’. The marshes of Naharin were the borderlands of Egypt’s northern rivals, the Mittani, who probably were instrumental in triggering the rebellion in Takhsy, prompting Amenhotep’s first independent campaign. The rebellion was crushed, and the seven ringleaders were transported back to Thebes: six were hung from the city walls and the seventh taken to Napata in Nubia and similarly displayed as a graphic form of deterrence. The campaign was also highly lucrative, with vast quantities of gold, silver and slaves ferried back to Egypt. Two years later, Amenhotep again marched north, this time to ruthlessly quell an uprising by a local warlord Qaqa in the Megiddo region of Palestine, the site of his father’s most famous victory.