After having driven out Hyksos, Thébains founded the XVIIIe dynasty, inaugurating the most prestigious period of ancient Egypt, the New Empire (1580-1080 av. J. - C.).  This first dynasty, that of Thoutmosis and Aménophis, knew three distorsions with the order of the royal successions.

The first is the reign of a queen, Hatshepsout, which exerted regency during the childhood of its nephew, the future Thoutmosis III; she proclaimed Pharaon and controlled about twenty years. After its death, Thoutmosis was baited to erase all the traces of its reign, making cut down obelisks and disfigure its monuments; it went until destroying one of the most beautiful temples of all the Egyptian history, that which Hatshepsout had made build in Deir el-Bahari. The second distorsion was the short reign of the Toutankhamon young person; the third was, with the death of this last, the usurpation of the Pharaonic power by Horemheb, a simple general. Its reign put a term at the dynasty.

XIXe and XXe dynasties, those of Seti and Ramessides, yield it of nothing, as regards military glory and the cultural radiation, with the XVIIIe dynasty.

Mycenaean Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites and maintained close diplomatic relations and commercial with Egypt. In the same way Pount (current Somalia), countered producing of incense of the littoral of the Red Sea, which east depicts with a wealth of details in the temple of Deir el-Bahari. Very aggressive in its interventions, Thoutmosis III led seventeen campaigns to the Middle East and organized in Syria-Palestine of Egyptian protectorates.  

A centralized power
The transformation of the old system of vassalage of Hyksos into a centralized autocracy was of a greater range. The royal large armies, which had been raised for the wars against the foreign countries, intimidated the rival powers; the administration was rationalized, and a Prime Minister named in charge of each part of the Empire. In the absence of council and from Parliament, all the nominations and the revocations emanated directly from the Pharaons, who often undertook voyages of inspection.  

This period is also characterized by the increasing prosperity of the sacerdotal groups, on which the Pharaons lavished grounds, servants and gifts: they held until one the third of the arable lands of Egypt. It was however difficult for them to compete with the Pharaon, because their dignitaries were directly named by him. In addition, the Pharaon was still equipped of a double nature, human and divine, this last aspect then being very developed. The imperial dogma taught that each Pharaon was had by the divine ka, which indicates vital energies in their functions creative and preserving; Horus was, according to mythology, the last god to have controlled the ground in the mists of time, and which one identified with Amon-Re. This god, who appeared the alliance of the divinity thebaine with the solar god, was the guardian divinity of the Empire.  

Royal absolutism
The religious reformer Akhenaton (Aménophis IV, 1372-1354 av. J. - C.) reinforced to the extreme the royal absolutism. During its reign the worship of a single god was instituted, Aton, the solar disk, demonstration of a Pharaon reigning on cosmos. Akhenaton made build in the town of Akhet-Aton (current Such Al-Amarna), in Average-Egypt, a pertaining to worship center for Aton and establishes the new capital of the Empire there. With his wife, the Nefertiti queen, and her children, it constituted a crowned family, insofar as it seemed the virtual demonstration of Aton on ground. Although he is suspected of psychological instability, Akhenaton was a powerful and skilful sovereign. The government was composed loyal supporters and Akhenaton followed an aggressive foreign politics. Its armies made countryside in Sudan and gave their support for the allies and dependant on Egypt vis-a-vis the Hittite ones, parties with the conquest of the territories under Egyptian domination. As the files of Such Al-Amarna indicate it, Akhenaton maintained the relationships to the great powers and was attentive with the competitions and the revolts which were born at its vassal.  

The successors of Akhenaton gave up the monotheism atonien, regained Thèbes and reconsidered its innovations. The tomb of the one of them, Toutankhamon, is richest which was preserved.  

The divine nature of the king
At one later time, the sovereigns of a new royal line, the XIX E dynasty (1320-1200), ordered the destruction of the monuments in honor of Akhenaton, but preserved the same judiciously centralized government and reconquered the grounds lost in Palestine. Seti I and Ramsès II conducted several campaigns against the Hittite ones, concluded by a peace treaty. Whereas the control of Palestine and Nubie was ensured, of new threats were done day: the son of Ramsès II, Mineptah, had to push back an invasion of great width by enemies hitherto secondary, the seminomads of Libya, who profited from the support of the People of the Sea, warriors of Anatolia Western and the Aegean world. On the internal plan, the XIX E dynasty continued to emphasize the divine nature of the king and distributes with skill competences and the resources between Amon-Re and the gods Ptah de Memphis and Re of Héliopolis. The risk which a sacerdotal caste did not become unduly powerful found some decreased.  

The middle-class, which understood many craftsmen, was easy, as testifies some the prosperous village to Deir el-Medineh, which sheltered during 400 years the craftsmen who cut and decorated the royal tombs. The justice, which remained among principal attributions of the government of the Pharaons, was well organized and probably codified. Many magistrates were with his service and one relied sometimes on a divine effigy, carried triumphs over it in a public procession. The women enjoyed a high legal status: they had and bequeathed goods, brought divorce procedures; the wives of the civils servant shared sometimes the responsibilities for their husband. The land and buildings remained the base of the richness; if trade, as well external as interior, was competence of the Pharaon and government institutions, the sales between private individuals, whose written texts often make state, were of a current practice.

Art and architecture

The art and the architecture of the New Empire are diversified and characteristic. Certain temples remained in their entirety; built out of stone, they could reach colossal dimensions. The Amon-Re temple with Thèbes (Karnak) occupied a surface of 3.2 ha. Each temple was designed to religiously integrate Egypt in cosmos. The scenes of victories gained by the Pharaon, appearing outside, protected the effigy from the god preserved inside, while the interior walls of the courses and the rooms were decorated representations of public festivals and the ritual ones hidden. Their cosmological significance was given by the shape of the temple: the sanctuary evoked the original rise on which creation had taken place.  

The painting of the ceilings, which supported of the columns appearing a giant vegetation, simulated ciels; the two pylons of the entry symbolized the breach in the horizon by which the solar god emerged to make reappear the Universe. Although using brick as construction material, the architecture of the royal palaces was deliberately copied on that of the temples in order to underline the divine nature of the Pharaon; the frescos on the ground appeared the revival of nature.  

Domestic architecture
Such Al-Amarna and Deir el-Medineh delivered more a large number of elements on domestic architecture. Such Al-Amarna, one released from the residences of patricians equipped with many parts, workshops and gardens; on these two sites, the other end of the social scale shows through in small dwellings with five parts and, generally, flat roof. Generally, the residences were not sumptuously decorated with murals and carpet, which was compensated by a high degree of development of the minor arts. Carved in exotic wood and encrusted with superb precious stones, the thrones and the head offices of Toutankhamon are of a beautiful invoice, and the containers out of stone, metal or other materials were common objects. Even in this field, art filled of the precise functions; furniture, for example, often comprised representations of Bès, genius moving away the evil spirits. In certain precise cases, funerary objects, such as the sarcophagi and the Book of Deaths (compilation of texts and magic representations consigned on papyrus), could also be works of Article.  

Temples and burials
The hypogean royal ones were the object of a radical change. One gave up the pyramid to take it again on a smaller scale in private funerary architecture. Hypogean with the walls decorated with paintings to the bright colors representing of the hells getting a move on gods and demons, the royal burials of the New Empire are, in their near total, of the tunnels dug in the walls of remote Vallée of the Kings. The religious rites related to the royal funeral were accomplished in temples located away from the tombs, at the bottom of cliffs overhanging the Valley.  

The art and the architecture of Such Al-Amarna are strange in many connections. Akhenaton modified the traditional model of the temple by stripping it of its roofs and its lintels, so that the interior is flooded by clearness of the day, and by removing the sanctuary, considered to be useless. The royal burial, currently in fort bad condition, was with Such Al-Amarna, just like the tombs of the noble ones. In the latter, the painting of the offerings and traditional scenes of the daily life move back with the profit of that of the royal ceremonies and the city, with a single wealth of details in the Egyptian art. The style of Such Al-Amarna testifies to more flexibility and to realism in painting to the men and the animals, while remaining attached to a large number of old traditions: the important characters are of bigger size, and the visual prospect remains deliberately been unaware of.  

From a historical point of view, the XX E dynasty is placed under the sign of decline. One of the first kings, Ramsès III, pushed back the invasions of great width of the Libyans and the People of the Sea and made build a splendid funerary temple, but, in the years which followed, the borders of the Empire were tightened and the prestigious royal architectural programs did not have a continuation. The government was paralyzed by the increasing independence of the civils servant, as the loads became hereditary and that corruption and the incompetence progressed. The New Empire ended in a civil war under Ramsès XI.