Who they were
Amenhotep III was a king of the 18th Dynasty, ruling c. 1390–c. 1352 BC. His wife, Queen Tiye, held unusual prominence at his side.
What they did
His statecraft rested on diplomacy: royal marriages with foreign princesses and gold-based gift exchange with the other great powers, dealings vividly documented in the Amarna Letters — diplomatic tablets found at Amarna, many of them from his era and his son’s. A prolific builder, he raised much of Luxor Temple, a vast mortuary temple, and the palace complex of Malqata. He also issued large commemorative scarabs announcing royal events such as marriages and hunts — an early form of royal publicity.
Legacy
In Nubia, in some temples, he was worshipped as a deified form of himself during his own lifetime. Of his mortuary temple, the two Colossi of Memnon still remain, and hundreds of statues of the goddess Sekhmet survive from his reign. His son Amenhotep IV was the future Akhenaten.