One of the best known Pharaohs was Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, whose exclusive worship of the Aten is often interpreted as the first instance of monotheism. His religious fervor is cited as the reason why he was written out of Egyptian history. Under his reign, (around 1500 BC) the art of the Egyptians flourished and was more realistic than before.
The New Kingdom saw Egypt's greatest territorial extent. It expanded far into Nubia in the south, and held wide territories in the Near East. Egyptian armies fought with Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria.
The other well-known Pharaoh was Ramesses II, who attempted to recover the territories in modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria that had been held in the Eighteenth dynasty. His reconquest led to the Battle of Qadesh, where he led the Egyptian armies against the army of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. He was famed for the number of children he sired, and the tomb he built for his sons in the Valley of the Kings has proved to be the largest funerary complex in Egypt.
Two other very important Pharoahs were Queen Hapshetsut, and Tutmose the third. Queen Hapshetsut concentrated on expanding Egypt's trade with other areas. Tutmose expanded Egypt's army.
The NewKingdom is the period in Egyptian history between the 16th century BCE and the 11th century BCE, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt.
It followed the Middle Kingdom, and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period.
One of the best-known NewKingdompharaohs was Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten in honor of the Aten and whose exclusive worship of the Aten is often interpreted as history's first instance of monotheism (and was argued in Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism to have been the ultimate origin of Jewish monotheism).
Ahmose's aggresive policy against Asia and Nubia was followed by his successors, especially by Thutmosis I and Thutmosis III, who expanded the boundaries of the new empire as far as the 4th cataract to the south and as far as the Euphrates river near the modern-day Turkish border in the north.
Egypt’s stability was briefly ruptured when the late 18th Dynasty king Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten, changed the Egyptian religion and had most temples closed, favouring one new god, the solar-deity Aton.
Thutmosis III was the greatest conqueror of the NewKingdom.
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