Thutmose III in Wikipedia

Thutmose III (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis III and meaning Son of Thoth) was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh. While she is shown first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other.[3] He served as the head of her armies. After her death and his later rise to being the pharaoh of the kingdom, he created the largest empire Egypt had ever seen; no fewer than seventeen campaigns were conducted, and he conquered from Niya in north Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia. Officially, Thutmose III ruled Egypt for almost fifty-four years, and his reign is usually dated from April 24, 1479 BC to March 11, 1425 BC; however, this includes the twenty-two years he was co-regent to Hatshepsut-his stepmother and aunt. During the final two years of his reign, he appointed his son-and successor--Amenhotep II, as his junior co-regent. When Thutmose III died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings as were the rest of the kings from this period in Egypt. Family Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife, Iset.[4] Because he was the pharaoh's only son, he would have become the first in line for the throne when Thutmose II died. However, because he was not the son of his father's royal queen, his "degree" of royalty was less than ideal[5] . To bolster his qualifications, he may have married a daughter of Thutmose II and Hatshepsut. It has been suggested that the daughter in question may have been Merytre-Hatshepsut, however, she is now proven not to have been a daughter of Hatshepsut. Regardless of this, when Thutmose II died Thutmose III was too young to rule, so Hatshepsut became his regent, soon his coregent, and shortly thereafter, she was declared to be the pharaoh. Thutmosis III had little power over the empire while Hatshepsut exercised the formal titulary of kingship, complete with a royal praenomen-Maatkare. Her rule was quite prosperous and marked by great advancements. When he reached a suitable age and demonstrated the capability, she appointed him to head her armies. After the death of Hatshepsut, Thutmosis III ruled Egypt on his own for thirty years, until the last two years of his reign, when his son became a coregent for two years. He died in his fifty-fourth regal year. Thutmosis III had two known wives: Satiah and Merytre-Hatshepsut. Satiah bore him his firstborn son, Amenemhat, but the child predeceased his father. His successor, the crown prince and future king Amenhotep II, was born to Merytre-Hatshepsut. Dates and length of reign Thutmose III reigned from 1479 BC to 1425 BC according to the Low Chronology of Ancient Egypt. This has been the conventional Egyptian chronology in academic circles since the 1960s,[6] though in some circles the older dates 1504 BC to 1450 BC are preferred from the High Chronology of Egypt.[7] These dates, just as all the dates of the Eighteenth Dynasty, are open to dispute because of uncertainty about the circumstances surrounding the recording of a Heliacal Rise of Sothis in the reign of Amenhotep I.[8] A papyrus from Amenhotep I's reign records this astronomical observation which, theoretically, could be used to perfectly correlate the Egyptian chronology with the modern calendar; however, to do this the latitude where the observation was taken must also be known. This document has no note of the place of observation, but it can safely be assumed that it was taken in either a Delta city such as Memphis or Heliopolis, or in Thebes. These two latitudes give dates twenty years apart, the High and Low chronologies, respectively. The length of Thutmose III's reign is known to the day thanks to information found in the tomb of the court official Amenemheb.[9] Amenemheb records Thutmose III's death to his master's fifty-fourth regnal year,[10] on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret.[11] The day of Thutmose III's accession is known to be I Shemu day 4, and astronomical observations can be used to establish the exact dates of the beginning and end of the king's reign (assuming the low chronology) from April 24, 1479 BC to March 11, 1425 BC respectively.[12] Thutmose's military campaigns Further information: Djehuty (general) and The Taking of Joppa Widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III made 16 raids in 20 years. He was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypt's greatest conqueror or "the Napoleon of Egypt."[13] He 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 was the first Pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates, doing so during his campaign against Mitanni. His campaign records were transcribed onto the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak, and are now transcribed into Urkunden IV. He is consistently regarded as one of the greatest of Egypt's warrior pharaohs, who transformed Egypt into an international superpower by creating an empire that stretched from southern Syria through to Canaan and Nubia.[14] In most of his campaigns his enemies were defeated town by town, until being beaten into submission. The preferred tactic was to subdue a much weaker city or state one at a time resulting in surrender of each fraction until complete domination was achieved. Much is known about Thutmosis "the warrior", not only because of his military achievements, but also because of his royal scribe and army commander, Thanuny, who wrote about his conquests and reign. The prime reason why Thutmosis was able to conquer such a large number of lands, is because of the revolution and improvement in army weapons. He encountered only little resistance from neighbouring kingdoms, allowing him to expand his realm of influence easily. His army also had carried boats on dry land. First Campaign When Hatshepsut died on the tenth day of the sixth month of Thutmose III's twenty second year - according to information from a single stela from Armant - the king of Kadesh advanced his army to Megiddo.[15] Thutmose III mustered his own army and departed Egypt, passing through the border fortress of Tjaru (Sile) on the twenty-fifth day of the eighth month.[16] 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.[16] The ensuing Battle of Megiddo probably was the largest battle in any of Thutmose's seventeen campaigns.[17] A ridge of mountains jutting inland from Mount Carmel stood between Thutmose and Megiddo, and he had three potential routes to take.[17] The northern route and the southern route, both of which went around the mountain, were judged by his council of war to be the safest, but Thutmose, in an act of great bravery (or so he boasts, but such self-praise is normal in Egyptian texts), accused the council of cowardice and took a dangerous route[18] through a mountain pass which he alleged was only wide enough for the army to pass "horse after horse and man after man."[16] Despite the laudatory nature of Thutmose's annals, such a pass does indeed exist (although it is not quite so narrow as Thutmose indicates)[19] and taking it was a brilliant strategic move, since when his army emerged from the pass they were situated on the plain of Esdraelon, directly between the rear of the Canaanite forces and Megiddo itself.[17] For some reason, the Canaanite forces did not attack him as his army emerged,[18] and his army routed them decisively.[17] The size of the two forces is difficult to determine, but if, as Redford suggests, the amount of time it took to move the army through the pass may be used to determine the size of the Egyptian force, and if the number of sheep and goats captured may be used to determine the size of the Canaanite force, then both armies were around 10,000 men.[20] However most scholars do believe that the Egyptian army was more numerous. 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"[21] – a lunar date. This date corresponds to May 9, 1457 BC based on Thutmose III's accession in 1479 BC. After victory in battle, however, his troops stopped to plunder the enemy and the enemy was able to escape into Megiddo.[22]. Thutmose was forced to besiege the city instead, but he finally succeeded in conquering it after a siege of seven or eight months (see Siege of Megiddo).[22] This campaign drastically changed the political situation in the ancient Near East. By taking Megiddo, Thutmose gained control of all of northern Canaan, and the Syrian princes were obligated to send tribute and their own sons as hostages to Egypt.[23] Beyond the Euphrates, the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hittite kings all gave Thutmose gifts, which he alleged to be "tribute" when he recorded it on the walls of Karnak.[24] The only noticeable absence is Mitanni, which would bear the brunt of the following Egyptian campaigns into Asia...