king Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III (sometimes read as Amenophis III; meaning Amun is Satisfied) was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1391 BC-December 1353 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died. Amenhotep III was the son of Thutmose by Mutemwia, a minor wife of Amenhotep’s father.
Amenhotep III fathered two sons with his Great Royal Wife Tiye, a great queen known as the progenetor of monotheism via the Crown Prince Tuthmose who predeceased his father, and his second son, Akhenaten, who ultimately succeeded him to the throne. Amenhotep also may be the father of a third child—called Smenkhkare, who later would succeed Akhenaten, briefly rule Egypt as pharaoh, and who is depicted as a woman.
Amenhotep III and Tiye may also have had four daughters: Sitamun, Henuttaneb, Isis or Iset, and Nebetah.They appear frequently on statues and reliefs during the reign of their father and also are represented by smaller objects—with the exception of Nebetah.Nebetah is attested only once in the known historical records on a colossal limestone group of statues from Medinet Habu. This huge sculpture, that is seven meters high, shows Amenhotep III and Tiye seated side by side, “with three of their daughters standing in front of the throne–Henuttaneb, the largest and best preserved, in the centre; Nebetah on the right; and another, whose name is destroyed, on the left.”
Amenhotep III elevated two of his four daughters–Sitamun and Isis–to the office of “great royal wife” during the last decade of his reign. Evidence that Sitamun already was promoted to this office by Year 30 of his reign, is known from jar-label inscriptions uncovered from the royal palace at Malkata.The lineage of the royal line of Egypt was traced through its women and the religion of Ancient Egypt was interwoven inexorably with the right to rule. It must be stressed that Egypt’s theological paradigm, therefore, encouraged a male pharaoh to accept royal women from several different generations as wives to strengthen the chances of his offspring to succeed him.The goddess Hathor herself was related as first the mother, and later wife and daughter of Ra when he rose to prominence in the pantheon of the Ancient Egyptian religion.[14] Hence, Amenhotep III’s marriage to his two daughters should not be considered as incest in our contemporary conception of marriage. Sitamun may have actually been the youngest daughter of Amenhotep III’s father Thutmose IV, making her the half-sister of Amenhotep III and not his daughter.
Amenhotep III is known to have married Gilukhepa, the first of a series of diplomatic brides and the daughter of Shuttarna II of Mitanni, in the tenth year of his reign.[15] Around Year 36 of his reign, he also married Tadukhepa, the daughter of his ally Tushratta of Mitanni.