Thutmose III
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Menkheperre Thutmose III (also written as Tuthmosis III; called Manahpi(r)ya in the Amarna letters) (d. 1426 BC), was the sixth Pharaoh of Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty. He ruled from 1479 BC to 1425 BC, according to the Middle Chronology of Ancient Egypt.
Thutmose III was the son of Pharaoh Thutmose II and Isis, a minor wife. When Thutmose II died in 1479 BC, Thutmose III became ruler. However, he shared power from the beginning of his reign with Hatshepsut, his father's wife, who acted as regent and eventually as the dominant co-ruler. For approximately 22 Years Thutmose III had little power over the empire. He married Hatshepsut's youngest daughter, Meritre, with whom he had a son named Amenhotep II. With the death of Hatshepsut, Thutmose III ruled by himself until his death in 1425 BC (some sources list his death ranging from 1430 BC to 1425 BC).
Upon his accession to the throne, Thutmose took the praenomen Menkeperre, which is represented in the Amarna letters as Manahpi(r)ya. His praenomen and nomen in Egyptian hieroglyphs can be seen to the right. These are technically transliterated as mn-ḫpr-r‘ dḥwty-ms, which is usually realised to Menkheperre Djehutymes, meaning "Establisher of the form of Ra, Thoth bore him". Due to the influence of Greek transcriptions, Djehutymes is rendered as Thutmose, Thutmoses, or Thutmosis.
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Thutmose's military campaigns
Widely considered a military genius by historians, he was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes referred to as the Napoleon of Egypt, because he was recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule, conquering much of the Near East, from the Euphrates to Nubia. He was the first Pharaoh to cross the Euphrates, during his campaign against the Hanilgalbat.
Thutmose III made a total of 17 known military campaigns. He defeated a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh in the Battle of Megiddo. After victory in battle, he conquered Megiddo after a siege of 7 or 8 Months (see Siege of Megiddo). Thutmose III is consistently regarded as one of Egypt's greatest Warrior Pharaohs and he made his country into an internationally respected World Superpower in the Ancient World. He was also a prolific builder of Temples throughout Egypt.
Controversy about relationship with Hatshepsut
After the death of her husband Thutmose II, Hatshepsut usurped the throne from Thutmose III and held it until her death. Although Thutmose III was a co-regent during this time, historians have speculated that Thutmose III never forgave his step-mother for denying him access to the throne for the first 2 decades of his reign.
After her death, many of Hatshepsut's monuments and depictions were subsequently defaced or destroyed, including those in her famous mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. These have traditionally been held to be evidence of acts of damnatio memoriae (condemning a person by erasing him or her from recorded existence) by Thutmose III. However, recent research by scholars such as that of Charles Nims and Peter Dorman have examined these erasures and found that those acts which could be dated occured after the Forty-second year of Thutmose's reign. This casts serious doubt upon the popular theory that Thutmose III ordered their destruction in a fit of vengeful rage shortly after his accession. Rather, it is more widely accepted today that Thutmose III may have simply decided to erase the memory of Hatshepsut's from Egypt's Historical records because under his country's deeply conservative and hierarchical political system, only Men were supposed to rule the state while women were expected to remain loyal to their husbands and nourish their households. Indeed, prior to Hatshepsut's reign only two other Egyptian Pharaohs were known to exist: Nitocris and Sobekneferu. Unlike Hatshesput however, both these Queens enjoyed very brief reign.
Death and burial
Thutmose III's tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV34) is the first one in which Egyptologists find the complete Amduat, an important New Kingdom funerary text. A statement in a tomb biography of a state official named Amenemheb proves that Thutmose III died after a reign of precisely 53 Years 10 Months and 26 Days, or nearly 54 Years.
Further reading
- Redford, Donald B., The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III, [Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 16], Leiden: Brill, 2003. ISBN 9004129898
External Links
Tuthomosis III (Egyptology Online)
| Preceded by: Hatshepsut | Pharaoh of Egypt Eighteenth Dynasty | Succeeded by: Amenhotep II |
| Image:Ankh.png | Notable Ancient Egyptians edit | Image:Ankh.png | |
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| Old Kingdom Rulers: Narmer | Menes | Djoser | Sneferu | Khufu | Khafra | Menkaura | Pepi II | |||
| Middle Kingdom Rulers:Mentuhotep II | Mentuhotep IV | Senusret III | Amenemhat III | Sobekneferu | |||
| New Kingdom Rulers: Hatshepsut | Thutmose III | Amenhotep III | Akhenaten | Tutankhamun | Ramesses I | Ramesses II | |||
| Other Rulers: Psammetichus I | Shoshenq I | Piye | Taharqa | Ptolemy I | Cleopatra VII | |||
| Consorts: Tetisheri | Ahmose-Nefertari | Ahmose | Tiy | Nefertiti | Ankhesenpaaten | Nefertari | Mark Antony | |||
| Court officials: Imhotep | Weni | Ahmose, son of Ebana | Ineni | Senemut | Yuya | Maya | Yuny | Manetho | Pothinus | |||
