Scope: For twenty-two years Tuthmosis III was second fiddle to his Aunt Hatshepsut, who ruled as a king although she was a woman. When she died and he ruled by himself, he became one of the greatest military pharaohs Egypt had ever known. By tracing the major events in the reign of “the Napoleon of Ancient Egypt,” we will see what it meant to be a great king.
Outline
I. Tuthmosis was considered king at an early age, although his Aunt Hatshepsut ruled as the regent, and the young boy doesn’t appear in the historical record for years.
A. One theory holds that Hatshepsut thrust him aside in order to rule.
B. A more plausible premise holds that he was simply off training with the military. Tuthmosis, after all, would be the greatest military pharaoh of Egypt.
II. At the Battle of Megiddo—year 2 of Tuthmosis’s reign—the king demonstrated his bravery.
A. Warfare was big business in ancient Egypt. Peace wasn’t an ancient Egyptian virtue.
1. Chariot corps were the elite. Chariots were light, to be maneuverable, and pulled by two horses. They were made of three different kinds of wood. Chariots were platforms for archers and were the main weapon of battle. Each carried a driver and an archer. Unfortunately, they broke down frequently.
2. The infantry, the largest body of the army, set the pace of campaigning, marching about fifteen miles a day. Each man had a round-topped shield (a piece of wood with an animal hide over it) and a sword or spear. The men were of the lower classes and usually illiterate.
3. Archers, the third component of the army, were also an elite corps.
4. The king rode in front of all of them in a chariot.
B. Palestine and Syria had been slipping away from Egyptian control during the reign of Hatshepsut, and Tuthmosis III planned to do something about it soon after he became king.
C. Of three possible routes of attack, Tuthmosis chose a narrow valley, “man behind man, horse behind horse,” disregarding the advice of his generals.
D. He surprised the enemy, but looting soldiers let many of them escape, forcing a seven-month siege of Megiddo, a walled city.
1. During the siege, the Egyptians deployed a kind of “tank” that used a covered battering ram.
2. When Megiddo fell, Tuthmosis’s reputation was secured.
III. Tuthmosis didn’t rest there. He waged campaigns in Syria for the next eighteen years.
A. The Egyptians were resurrectionists who believed that to live outside Egypt (and die there) might endanger their chances for immortality. Egypt’s own religious beliefs prevented it from colonizing, which made regular plunder necessary. In a sense, Egypt’s religion created a constant state of war.
B. Tuthmosis’s statues reveal him as refined. (He has the same prominent nose as Hatshepsut.)
C. At Karnak Temple, Tuthmosis carved a botanical “book” of plants he saw during his campaigns in Syria. On the temple, he recorded his victories.
IV. Late in his reign, Tuthmosis erased Hatshepsut’s name from all records.
A. This probably wasn’t done from malice but from the fact that Egyptian tradition demanded that kings be male.
B. Some of his own wives have interesting stories. Early in the twentieth century, robbers found the tomb of three Syrian princesses of Tuthmosis’s harem (the gold headdresses are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
C. While he was doing battle with the Syrians, then, Tuthmosis was also making diplomatic marriages.
V. The tomb of Tuthmosis III, in the rear of the Valley of the Kings, is unique.
A. The tomb is in a high, remote place, probably to avoid grave-robbers.
B. The workmen chiseled a descending passageway hundreds of feet into the mountain.
C. The burial chamber is carved in the oval shape of a cartouche. The magic of the circle protected Tuthmosis.
D. The sarcophagus is also in the shape of a cartouche.
E. The wall paintings are religious texts, drawn as if on papyrus, with stick figures. Tuthmosis III is the first to have his own Book of the Dead painted on his tomb walls.
F. Afterward, the steps of his tomb were carved away, denying access to any robbers.
Essential Reading:
Cyril Aldred, The Egyptians, Chapter 12.
Supplementary Reading:
Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, pp. 108-111.
Questions to Consider:
1. What was Tuthmosis III doing while Hatshepsut was king?
2. Why did Tuthmosis delay in erasing Hatshepsut’s name from monuments?