Thoutmôsis III

Thoutmôsis or Djehoutymès was the fifth Pharaon of. Manéthon calls it Misphragmuthosis.

The opinions are divided on the dates of its reign; it only reigned only starting from -1458/-1457.

Genealogy

Djehoutymès, whose Thoutmôsis (Θουτμωσις) is the hellenized form, was the son of Thoutmôsis {{II}} and of Iset (or Aset), one of the secondary wives of its father. With its advent, he was still an young child, and regency was exerted by “the wife of the god”, his aunt Hatchepsout, who adopted the royal titulature and attributes about year 2 or 3 of the reign. During a score of years, Thoutmôsis was kept away. After the disappearance of Hatchepsout in the year 21 or 22 of the reign, in unknown circumstances, it obtained finally full sovereignty and directed Egypt until its death.

He married Sitiah (or Satiah), Mérytrê-Hatchepsout, both Large royal wives, Nébétou and perhaps Néférourê, a girl of Hatchepsout. He had two children with Mérytrê-Hatchepsout: a son, the future Amenhotep {{II}}, and a girl, Meritamon (or Merytamon).

Titulature

Obs. - In the vertically divided inscriptions, the name of Horus was regularly included in a Serekh.

Reign

At the end of its life, it shared probably the capacity, of full sound liking this time, with the Amenhotep future, wire of the Grande royal wife Mérytrê-Hatchepsout.

The warlike king

Thoutmôsis, that the American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted called “Napoleon of Egypt”, took again the policy of conquests of his/her father and carried the Nouvel Empire to its apogee. It conducted campaigns in Nubie, where it exceeded the 4th cataract, and in Syro-Palestine, where the battles and the head office of Megiddo are the most known episode. During its sixteen (or eighteen) military forwardings in Asia, it would have captured 350 cities, subjecting the majority of the territories to the west of the Euphrate, which it crosses during a campaign against the kingdom of Mitanni. The event was commemorated by a stele-border that the king made set up on Western bank of the river, beside that of his/her grandfather Thoutmôsis {{Ier}}.

The first Asian countryside, that it led to the head of ten thousand soldiers, was undertaken to draw aside the threat which a coalition of princes around the king of Qadesh represented, vassal of the king of Mitanni. Thoutmôsis carried it with the Bataille of Megiddo (14 May 15th -1458); the city went after a seven month old seat. The king continued then towards north and fixes the country until the Litani.

Syria was conquered during the 6th countryside, with the catch of Qadesh. The ports Phénicie NS were subjected one year later, during the 7th countryside.

In year 33 of the reign, the wars of Asia led to a direct confrontation with the Mitanni. The army transported inland waterway vessels built to Byblos through the desert in order to cross the barrier consisted Euphrate. It reached the country of Qatna, close to the modern city of Homs, devastated the area of Karkemish, then crossed the “large river of Naharina”, while the enemy mitannien fled “like the herds of goats of the mountain”.

The following campaigns were used to stabilize the borders of Egypt on Euphrate, stopping by there the expansion of Mitanni. The syro-Palestinian cities, controlled from now on by princes whose children had been taken along as an hostage, preserved a certain autonomy, but they were subjected to the tribute by an Egyptian administration reinforced by troops stationed at the strategic places.

In Nubie, the king went beyond the 4th cataract and made engrave with Kenissa another stele-border, beside that of his famous grandfather Thoutmôsis 1st.

The consequences of this policy of conquests were an enormous surge of wealths of Egypt, in the form of annual delivery or spoils of war. Palestine and Syria sent Vin, Huile, bovines and sheep, Chevaux, money, copper, invaluable stones, weapons, tanks, servants and princesses for the royal harem. The Phénicie delivered Blé, Cuivre and tin; it lent also its fleet for military operations. From Africa arrived the Or, the Ivoire and the ebony.

The Assyrie provided Lapis-lazuli as “tribute of homage” (C. Lalouette), and the Hatti of the invaluable stones. The area of Pount sent the Encens and the Myrrhe.

During its reign, Thoutmôsis placed Egypt in the center of a vast empire including the country of Koush and the syro-Palestinian corridor. The contributions of the conquered territories - inou (“what one brings”) and Bakou (“products of work”) - allowed a vast program of construction all the glory of Amon and of its royal protected.

The king builder

This warlike king was also a large builder, following the example his predecessors. With Karnak, it continued the alterations of the temple of Amon-Re, which was richly equipped.

“The taxes perceived like annual tributes”, had decided the king, “will be intended for the divine offerings of my father Amon. My Majesty offers to him in the same way all kinds of wealths of Or, money, Lapis-lazuli, turquoise, of black copper, the Bronze, the Cuivre and the tin, of the colors in very great quantities”.

It replaced the brick sanctuaries of the Average Empire by stone temples, “the material of eternity”. Its architectural work was immense: the king built in Nubie until Gebel Barkal and with Kôm Ombo, with Erment, Deir el-Bahari and Medinet Habou in the west of Thèbes, with Esna and Dendera, inter alia. He as made arrange in the south of the island of Pharos a seaport, as Ramsès {{II}} will finish.

Burial

Thoutmôsis died the last day of the seventh month of its fifty-third year of reign. It was buried in the Vallée of the kings. Its tomb (KV34) is one of vastest of the necropolis: it is inserted on nearly three hundred meters in cliff.

The superb sarcophagus of Quartzite of the king always occupies the funerary room. The parietal decoration of the tomb is made up mainly of scenes and texts extracted the Book from the Amdouat, the Book of what is in the Other World .

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