personality, and of unusual administrative force. She was for many years
joint ruler with her son, Amenhotep I, who succeeded his father.[11]

The new empire was a period of foreign conquest and internal splendor and
finally of religious dispute and overthrow. Syria was conquered in these
reigns and Asiatic civilization and influences poured in upon Egypt. The
great Tahutmes III, whose reign was "one of the grandest and most eventful
in Egyptian history,"[12] had a strong Negroid countenance, as had also
Queen Hatshepsut, who sent the celebrated expedition to reopen ancient
trade with the Hottentots of Punt. A new strain of Negro blood came to the
royal line through Queen Mutemua about 1420 B.C., whose son, Amenhotep
III, built a great temple at Luqsor and the Colossi at Memnon.

The whole of the period in a sense culminated in the great Ramessu II, the
oppressor of the Hebrews, who with his Egyptian, Libyan, and Negro armies
fought half the world. His reign, however, was the beginning of decline,
and foes began to press Egypt from the white north and the black south.
The priests transferred their power at Thebes, while the Assyrians under
Nimrod overran Lower Egypt. The center of interest is now transferred to
Ethiopia, and we pass to the more shadowy history of that land.

The most perfect example of Egyptian poetry left to us is a celebration of
the prowess of Usertesen III in confining the turbulent Negro tribes to
the territory below the Second Cataract of the Nile. The Egyptians called
this territory Kush, and in the farthest confines of Kush lay Punt, the
cradle of their race. To the ancient Mediterranean world Ethiopia (i.e.,
the Land of the Black-faced) was a region of gods and fairies. Zeus and
Poseidon feasted each year among the "blameless Ethiopians," and Black
Memnon, King of Ethiopia, was one of the greatest of heroes.