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Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, (1479–1425 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He is regarded as one of the greatest warriors, military commanders, and military strategists of all time; as Egypt's preeminent warrior pharaoh and conqueror; (1975). 9780521086912, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521086912 and as a dominant figure in the New Kingdom period.
Officially, Thutmose III ruled Ancient Egypt from his coronation on 28 April 1479 BC at the age of two until his death on 11 March 1425 BC. But for the first 22 years of his reign, he was coregency with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh.Partridge, R., 2002. Fighting Pharaohs: Weapons and warfare in ancient Egypt. Manchester: Peartree. pp. 202–203 He became sole ruler after Hatshepsut's death in 1458.
Thutmose III conducted between 17 and 20 military campaigns, all victorious, which brought ancient Egypt's empire to its zenith. They are detailed in the inscriptions known as the Annals of Thutmose III. He also created the ancient Egyptian navy, the first navy in the ancient world. Historian Richard A. Gabriel called him the "Napoleon of Egypt".
Two years before his own death, and after the death of his firstborn son and heir Amenemhat, Thutmose III appointed a later son, Amenhotep II, as junior co-regent and successor-in-waiting.
When Thutmose II died, Thutmose III was too young to rule. Hatshepsut became his regent and ultimately declared herself pharaoh, while never denying kingship to Thutmose III. During his childhood, Hatshepsut ruled Egypt in practice and name, achieving prosperity and success. While Thutmose is depicted as the first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other.
When Thutmose III reached a suitable age and demonstrated his capacity, Hatshepsut appointed him to head her armies, and at her death in 1458, he was ready to rule.
Some Egyptologists speculate that Thutmose married his half-sister, Neferure,. but there is no conclusive evidence. Neferure may have been the mother of Thutmose's firstborn son, Amenemhat, or alternatively his mother might have been the Great Royal Wife Satiah. Amenemhat predeceased his father.Dodson, Aidan. Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames and Hudson. p. 132. 2004.
Surviving records attest to several other wives of Thutmose. He is known to have at least three foreign wives, Menhet, Menwi and Merti, who were buried together. At least one other wife, Nebtu, is known from a pillar in Thutmose's tomb. Following the death of Satiah, a woman named Merytre-Hatshepsut became the Great Royal Wife. She was the mother of several of his children, including the future king Amenhotep II and another son, Menkheperre, and at least four daughters: Nebetiunet, Meritamen C and D and Iset..
Much is known about Thutmose III as a warrior and ruler, through the writings of his royal scribe and army commander Thanuny. The pharoah was able to conquer so many lands because of revolutionary developments in military technology. The Hyksos may have brought advanced weaponry, such as horse-drawn chariots, around 1650 BC, which the Egyptians adopted in the process of driving them out. Thutmose III encountered little resistance from neighbouring kingdoms, allowing him to expand his realm easily. His army also portaged boats over dry land.
The ensuing Battle of Megiddo was likely the largest battle of Thutmose's 17 campaigns. A ridge of mountains jutting inland from Mount Carmel stood between Thutmose and Megiddo and he had three attack routes to choose from.Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. p. 157. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1992. The northern and southern routes around the mountain were judged by his generals to be safest, but Thutmose (as he boasted in an inscription) called them cowards and took the dangerous route through the Wadi Ara mountain pass,Steindorff, George; and Seele, Keith. When Egypt Ruled the East. p. 54. University of Chicago, 1947. which he said was only wide enough for single-file "horse after horse and man after man." Such a pass does exist, although it is not as narrow as Thutmose claims.Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. p. 192 Oxford University Press, 1964 The army emerged on the plain of Esdraelon, brilliantly cutting between the rear of the Canaanite forces and Megiddo city. According to Thutmose III's Hall of Annals in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the battle occurred on "Year 23, I Shemu day 21, the exact day of the feast of the new moon",Urkunden der 18. Dynastie 657.2 a lunar date. This date corresponds to 9 May 1457 BC, based on Thutmose III's accession in 1479 BC. In the battle, Thutmose routed the Canaanite forces, but allowed many to escape into Megiddo while his troops stopped to plunder.Steindorff, George; and Seele, Keith. When Egypt Ruled the East. p. 55. University of Chicago, 1942. Thutmose was forced to besiege the city, and finally took it after a siege of seven or eight months.
The size of the two forces is difficult to determine. Most scholars believe that the Egyptian army was more numerous. Redford uses the time to march the army through the pass estimate the Egyptian numbers, and the number of sheep and goats captured in the battle to estimate the Canaanite force, concluding both armies were around 10,000 men..
This campaign drastically changed the political situation in the ancient Near East. By taking Megiddo, Thutmose gained control of all of northern Canaan, forcing the Syrian princes to send tribute and noble hostages to Egypt.Steindorff, George; and Seele, Keith. When Egypt Ruled the East. p. 56. University of Chicago, 1942. Beyond the Euphrates, the , Kassites and Hittites kings honored Thutmose with gifts, which he claimed as "tribute" on the walls of Karnak.Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. p. 193 Oxford University Press, 1964 The only notable absence was Mitanni, which would bear the brunt of subsequent Egyptian campaigns into Western Asia.
The details about his next two campaigns are unknown. His 11th is presumed to have happened in his 36th regnal year and his 12th is presumed to have happened in his 37th year since his 13th is mentioned at Karnak as happening in his 38th regnal year.. Part of the tribute list for his 12th campaign remains immediately before his 13th begins, and the contents recorded, specifically wild game and certain minerals of uncertain identification, might indicate that it took place on the steppe around Nukhashshe, but this remains mere speculation..
In Year 38, Thutmose III conducted his 13th military campaign returning to Nuhašše for a very minor campaign.
His 14th campaign, waged during his 39th year, was against the Shasu. The location of this campaign is impossible to determine since the Shasu were nomads who could have lived anywhere from Lebanon to the Transjordan to Edom.. After this campaign, the numbers given by Thutmose's scribes to his campaigns all fall in lacunae, so they can only be counted by date.
In his 40th year, tribute was collected from foreign powers, but it is unknown if this was considered a campaign (i.e. if the king went with it or if it was led by an official)..
Only the tribute list remains from Thutmose's next campaign,. and nothing may be deduced about it except that it was probably another raid to the frontiers around Niy..
His final Asian campaign is better documented. Sometime before Thutmose's 42nd year, Mitanni apparently began spreading revolt among all the major cities in Syria. Thutmose moved his troops by land up the coastal road and put down rebellions in the Arka plain ("Arkantu" in Thutmose's chronicle) and moved on Tunip. After taking Tunip, his attention turned to Kadesh again. He engaged and destroyed three surrounding Mitannian garrisons and returned to Egypt in victory.. His victory in this final campaign was neither complete nor permanent since he did not take Kadesh, and Tunip could not have remained aligned to him for very long, certainly not beyond his own death.. This victory however, must have had quite an impact, for the next tribute lists include Adana, a Cilician city.
East of the Iput-Isut, he erected another temple to Aten, where he was depicted as being supported by Amun.Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p. 303. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988. It was inside this temple that Thutmose planned on erecting his tekhen waty, or "unique obelisk." The tekhen waty was designed to stand alone instead as part of a pair and is the tallest obelisk ever successfully cut. It was not, however, erected until Thutmose IV raised it 35 years later.Breasted, James Henry. Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. II. p. 330. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1906. It was later moved to Rome by Emperor Constantius II and is now known as the Lateran Obelisk.
In 390 AD, Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I re-erected another obelisk from the Temple of Karnak in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, now known as the Obelisk of Theodosius.
Thutmose also undertook building projects to the south of the main temple between the sanctuary of Amun and the temple of Mut. Immediately to the south of the main temple, he built the seventh pylon on the north–south road which entered the temple between the fourth and fifth pylons. It was built for use during his jubilee and was covered with scenes of defeated enemies. He set royal colossi on both sides of the pylon and put two more obelisks on the south face in front of the gateway. The eastern obelisk's base remains in place, but the western obelisk was transported to the Hippodrome in Constantinople. Farther south along the road, he put up Pylon VIII, which Hatshepsut had begun. East of the road, he dug a sacred lake of 250 by 400 feet and placed another alabaster bark shrine near it. He commissioned royal artists to depict his extensive collections of fauna and flora in the Botanical garden of Thutmosis III.
However, recent research casts serious doubt upon the popular theory of Thutmose III's vengeance. Scholars such as Charles Nims and Peter Dorman have re-examined the erasures and found that those which could be dated only began during year 46 or 47, toward the end of Thutmose's reign ().Shaw, Ian. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. p. 241. Oxford University Press. 2000. Also the monuments of Hatshepsut's chief steward, Senenmut, closely associated with her rule, were similarly defaced where they were found.Russman, Edna R. (ed) Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum. pp. 120–121. University of California Press. 2001. . Furthermore, it is known that Hatshepsut trusted Thutmose III to command her armies. No strong evidence has been found that Thutmose III sought to claim the throne, and after her death he kept her religious and administrative leaders. He even built his mortuary temple directly next to Hatshepsut's, showing no grudge against her.
By the time the monuments of Hatshepsut were damaged, at least 25 years after her death, the elderly Thutmose III was in a coregency with his son Amenhotep II. Currently, the purposeful destruction of the memory of Hatshepsut is seen as an attempt to ensure a smooth succession for Amenhotep II, as opposed to any of the surviving relatives of Hatshepsut with an equal or better claim to the throne. Amenhotep II would have had a motive because his position in the royal lineage was not so strong as to assure his elevation to pharaoh. Later, Amenhotep II even claimed that he had built the structures he defaced.. It may also be that the attack on Hatshepsut's memory could not be taken until the death of powerful religious and administrative officials who had served under both Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.
Thutmose's tomb (KV34) was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898 in the Valley of the Kings. Its plan is typical of 18th Dynasty tombs, with a sharp turn at the vestibule preceding the burial chamber. Two stairways and two corridors provide access to the vestibule, which is preceded by a quadrangular shaft or "well".
A complete version of Amduat, an important New Kingdom funerary text, is in the vestibule, making it the first tomb where the complete text was found. The burial chamber, supported by two pillars, is oval-shaped and its ceiling decorated with stars, symbolizing the cave of the deity Sokar. In the middle lies a large red quartzite sarcophagus in the shape of a cartouche. On the two pillars in the middle of the chamber are passages from the Litanies of Re celebrating the later sun deity, who was identified with the pharaoh at this time. On the other pillar is a unique image depicting Thutmosis III being suckled by the goddess Isis in the guise of the tree.
The wall decorations are executed in a simple "diagrammatic" way, imitating the manner of the cursive script of a funerary papyrus rather than the more lavish wall decorations typical of most other royal tombs. The colouring is similarly muted, executed in simple black figures accompanied by text on a cream background with highlights in red and pink. The decorations depict the pharaoh aiding the deities in defeating Apep, the serpent of chaos, thereby helping to ensure the daily rebirth of the sun as well as the pharaoh's own resurrection.Pemberton, Delia and Fletcher, Joann. Treasures of the Pharaohs. p. 61. Chronicle Books LLC. 2004. .
While it is popularly thought that his mummy originally was unwrapped by Gaston Maspero in 1886, it was in fact first unwrapped by Émile Brugsch, the Egyptologist who supervised the evacuation of the mummies from the Deir el-Bahri Cache in 1881. It was unwrapped soon after its arrival in the Egyptian Museum while Maspero was away in France, and the Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service ordered the mummy re-wrapped. So when it was "officially" unwrapped by Maspero in 1886, he almost certainly knew it was in relatively poor condition.Forbes, Dennis C. Tombs, Treasures, Mummies: Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology, pp. 43–44. KMT Communications, Inc. 1998.
The mummy had been damaged extensively in antiquity by tomb robbers and its wrappings subsequently cut into and torn by the Rassul family, who had rediscovered the tomb and its contents only a few years before.Romer, John. The Valley of the Kings. p. 182. Castle Books, 2003. Maspero's description of the body provides an idea as to the severity of the damage:
His mummy was not securely hidden away, for towards the close of the 20th dynasty it was torn out of the coffin by robbers, who stripped it and rifled it of the jewels with which it was covered, injuring it in their haste to carry away the spoil. It was subsequently re-interred, and has remained undisturbed until the present day; but before re-burial some renovation of the wrappings was necessary, and as portions of the body had become loose, the restorers, in order to give the mummy the necessary firmness, compressed it between four oar-shaped slips of wood, painted white, and placed, three inside the wrappings and one outside, under the bands which confined the winding-sheet.Maspero, Gaston. , Project Gutenberg EBook, Release Date: 16 December 2005. EBook #17325.
Of the face, which was undamaged, Maspero says the following:
Happily the face, which had been plastered over with pitch at the time of embalming, did not suffer at all from this rough treatment, and appeared intact when the protecting mask was removed. Its appearance does not answer to our ideal of the conqueror. His statues, though not representing him as a type of manly beauty, yet give him refined, intelligent features, but a comparison with the mummy shows that the artists have idealised their model. The forehead is abnormally low, the eyes deeply sunk, the jaw heavy, the lips thick, and the cheek-bones extremely prominent; the whole recalling the physiognomy of Thûtmosis II, though with a greater show of energy.
Maspero was so disheartened at the state of the mummy and the prospect that all of the other mummies were similarly damaged (as it turned out, few were in so poor a state) that he would not unwrap another for several years.
Unlike many other examples from the Deir el-Bahri Cache, the wooden mummiform coffin that contained the body was original to the pharaoh, though any gilding or decoration it might have had had been hacked off in antiquity.
In his examination of the mummy, the anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith stated the height of Thutmose III's mummy to be ,Smith, G Elliot. The Royal Mummies, p. 34. Duckworth, 2000 (reprint) but the mummy was missing its feet, so Thutmose III was undoubtedly taller than the figure given by Smith.Forbes, Dennis C. Tombs, Treasures, Mummies: Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology, p. 631. KMT Communications, Inc. 1998. It resided in the Royal Mummies Hall of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, catalog number CG 61068, until April 2021 when the mummy was moved to National Museum of Egyptian Civilization along with those of 17 other kings and four queens in the Pharaohs' Golden Parade.
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