Thutmose III

"[1][12] Manetho in his Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt) written in Greek and paraphrased by Eusebius called him Miphrês (Μίφρης) and Misphragmuthôsis (Μισφραγμούθωσις.

When Thutmose III reached a suitable age and demonstrated his capacity, she appointed him to head her armies, and at her death, he was ready to rule.

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.

This document has no note of the place of observation,[citation needed] but it can safely be assumed that it was taken in either a Delta city, such as Memphis or Heliopolis, or in Thebes.

[14][25] Thutmose III is recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule and conquered much of the Near East from the Euphrates to Nubia during seventeen known military campaigns.

He transformed Egypt into an international superpower by creating an empire that stretched from the Asian regions of Syria to the North, to Upper Nubia to the south.

[27] When Hatshepsut died on the 10th day of the sixth month of Thutmose III's 21st year, according to information from a single stela from Armant, the king of Kadesh advanced his army to Megiddo.

[28] Thutmose III mustered his own army and departed Egypt, passing through the border fortress of Tjaru (Sile) on the 25th day of the eighth month.

Thutmose marched his troops through the coastal plain as far as Jamnia, then inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo, which he reached in the middle of the ninth month of the same year.

"[29] Such a pass does indeed exist, although not as narrow as Thutmose claims,[32] and emerges on the plain of Esdraelon, brilliantly cutting between the rear of the Canaanite forces and Megiddo city.

By taking Megiddo, Thutmose gained control of all of northern Canaan, forcing the Syrian princes to send tribute and their own sons as hostages to Egypt.

[42] No record remains of Thutmose's fourth campaign,[43] but at some point a fort was built in lower Lebanon and timber was cut for construction of a processional barque, and this probably fits best during this time frame.

Unlike previous plundering raids, Thutmose III garrisoned Djahy, a name which probably refers to southern Syria.

The policy of these cities was driven by their nobles, aligned to Mitanni and typically consisting of a king and a small number of foreign Maryannu.

[49] After Thutmose III had taken control of the Syrian cities, the obvious target for his eighth campaign was the state of Mitanni, a Hurrian country with an Indo-Aryan ruling class.

[53] He continued north through the territory belonging to the still unconquered cities of Aleppo and Carchemish and quickly crossed the Euphrates in his boats, taking the Mitannian king entirely by surprise.

[52] Thutmose III returned to Syria for his ninth campaign in his 34th year, but this appears to have been just a raid of the area called Nukhashshe, a region populated by semi-nomadic people.

As usual for any Egyptian king, Thutmose boasted a total crushing victory, but this statement is suspect due to the very small amount of plunder taken.

Thutmose's architects and artisans showed great continuity with the formal style of previous kings, but several developments set him apart from his predecessors.

[68] Although not directly pertaining to his monuments, it appears that Thutmose's artisans had learned glass making skills, developed in the early 18th Dynasty, to create drinking vessels by the core-formed method.

[75] Some time after her death, many of Hatshepsut's monuments and depictions were defaced or destroyed, including those in her famous mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri.

These were interpreted by early modern scholars as damnatio memoriae (erasure from recorded existence) by Thutmose III in a fit of vengeful rage shortly after his accession.

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 (c. 1433/2  BC).

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.

The colouring is similarly muted, executed in simple black figures accompanied by text on a cream background with highlights in red and pink.

It was unwrapped soon after its arrival in the Boulak Museum while Maspero was away in France, and the Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service ordered the mummy re-wrapped.

[81] 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.

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.

[81] 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.

A wall block fragment inscribed with the birth name of Thutmose III. Now in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
Upper part of a statue of Thutmose III
Annals of Thutmose III at Karnak depicting him standing before the offerings made to him after his foreign campaigns
Thutmose III smiting his enemies. Relief on the seventh pylon in Karnak
Thutmose's tekhen waty , today standing in Rome as the Lateran obelisk . The move from Egypt to Rome was initiated by Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor, 324–337) in 326, though he died before it could be shipped out of Alexandria. His son, the Emperor Constantius II completed the transfer in 357. An account of the shipment was written by contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus .
Painted relief depicting Thutmose III, Luxor Museum
Crown of Thutmose III's Asiatic Princesses Menhet, Menwi and Merti .
Glass making advanced during the reign of Thutmose III and this cup bears his name.
Depiction of Tuthmose III at Karnak holding a Hedj Club and a Sekhem Scepter standing before two obelisks he had erected there
A scene from the Amduat on the walls of the tomb of Thutmose III, KV34 , in the Valley of the Kings .
Sarcophagus of Thutmose III
Mummy of Thutmose III before unwrapping, showing damage by tomb robbers
Mummified head of Thutmose III following unwrapping
Beads and Scarab finger rings of Thutmose III in the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
Narmer Palette
Narmer Palette
Pharaoh Ahmose I slaying a Hyksos
Pharaoh Ahmose I slaying a Hyksos
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Taharqa
Taharqa
Seleukos I Nikator Tetradrachm from Babylon
Seleukos I Nikator Tetradrachm from Babylon
Coin of Ardashir I, Hamadan mint.
Coin of Ardashir I, Hamadan mint.