Thutmose III

Egypt reached the widest extent of its power under Thutmose III, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom. Nominally king for almost 54 years, from 1479 to 1425 BCE on the conventional chronology, he spent his first two decades in the shadow of his stepmother Hatshepsut, then led a long series of campaigns that carried Egyptian armies across the Euphrates and deep into Nubia. Modern historians have nicknamed him the "Napoleon of Egypt".

Thutmose was the son of Thutmose II and a secondary wife, Iset. When his father died he was still a child, perhaps as young as two or as old as thirteen; estimates vary. His father's chief wife, Hatshepsut, acted as regent and within a few years took the full titles of a pharaoh herself. The two were formally co-rulers, but she held real power. As he grew up she gave him command of the army, so that when she died, around 1458 BCE, he was ready to govern alone.

The exact dates depend on which Egyptian chronology is used; an older scheme places his reign some 25 years earlier. His death, however, is fixed within the reign to the day by the tomb biography of an army officer, Amenemheb, which records that he ruled for 53 years, 10 months and 26 days.

Soon after Hatshepsut's death, a coalition led by the king of Kadesh gathered at Megiddo in northern Canaan. Thutmose marched out of Egypt and, according to his own inscriptions, overruled his officers by leading the army through the narrow Aruna pass rather than taking a safer road around the hills. The Egyptians surprised the enemy and routed them, probably in May 1457 BCE, but stopped to plunder, letting the defeated escape into the city. Megiddo fell only after a siege of seven or eight months. Estimates of the armies are rough; one scholar suggests about 10,000 men on each side. The victory gave Egypt control of Canaan and brought gifts from distant kings, which Egyptian records presented as tribute.

Over the next twenty years Thutmose campaigned almost annually; his annals, carved at the temple of Amun at Karnak, record at least sixteen expeditions, and counts run to seventeen or more. He garrisoned the Syrian coast, shipped troops by sea and took hostages from the families of local princes to keep their cities loyal. His main rival was Mitanni, a Hurrian kingdom that lay beyond the Euphrates. In his 33rd year he had boats carried overland from the coast, crossed the Euphrates and raided Mitannian territory, setting up a victory stela beside one left by his grandfather Thutmose I. Later fighting around Aleppo and Kadesh was less decisive than the official records claim. In his 50th year he campaigned in Nubia as far as the Fourth Cataract of the Nile.

Thutmose built or enlarged more than fifty temples. At Karnak he added a festival hall laid out like a later basilica, new pylons, a sacred lake and obelisks; one of these, the tallest ever successfully cut, was set up by a successor and later shipped to Rome, where it stands as the Lateran Obelisk.

Many of Hatshepsut's images were later hacked out, and earlier scholars blamed a vengeful Thutmose. The erasures, however, came at least 25 years after her death, while he was co-ruling with his son Amenhotep II. Many historians now think the aim was to secure the succession of Amenhotep, whose claim was not beyond challenge.

Thutmose died in March 1425 BCE and was buried in tomb KV34 in the Valley of the Kings, which contains the earliest complete copy of the Amduat, a guide to the underworld. His mummy, damaged by ancient robbers, was found in 1881 in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari.

Our 1500 BCE map shows the New Kingdom of Egypt shortly before his reign, with the Hittites, Assyria and Babylonia to the north-east and the Kingdom of Kush to the south. See also Hatshepsut and the Battle of Megiddo.