Our story today is with King Thutmose I, who succeeded Amenhotep I on the throne of the king, and the information indicates that he is not his son, as some sometimes claim, as Thutmose explicitly declared in the decree issued on his accession to the king, that he was given birth to by his mother, Senesneb, and from that we know. That his mother was not a legitimate king’s wife, or a legitimate king’s daughter.
Stories and secrets revealed by the ancient Egyptian through his great civilization, which extends back thousands of years, and still fascinates the world until now. Every now and then, one of the mysteries of that history that extends over several centuries is solved. Some of them were recorded on the walls of temples in the time of ancient Egyptian writing, and others have not yet been recorded. But it is revealed by archaeological treasures emerging from the ground. Learn with us about King Thutmose I.
About King Thutmose I
The original name is Aheperkare, and the royal name is: Thutmose I. He died in 1492 BC. He is the third pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He ruled Egypt from 1504 BC until 1492 BC.
He was crowned king of the country immediately after the death of Amenhotep I, and he bears the title of the Strong Bull, and this title applies to him and to the acts of courage he performed.
He was tall and broad-shouldered. All Sudanese countries, up to the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile, were the property of the Pharaoh, and the Egyptian gods were worshiped in Nabata, as they were worshiped in Thebes.
He succeeded his father, King Amenhotep I, and gave birth to two pharaohs: Thutmose II and Hatshepsut. The problem of inheriting a throne arose, and his policy was known as the policy of armed peace.
He was considered the first of the great pharaohs in the New Kingdom to be a warrior. He assumed power after marrying his sister, Ahmose, to gain legitimacy, and he gave birth to Queen Hatshepsut.
In the second year of his rule, he led a Nile campaign in Sudan, crossed the Fourth Cataract, and expanded Egypt’s borders in the south.
Gold mines were one of the reasons for his incursion into the south, and the second reason was the threats to the borders of Egypt from the era of the Seventeenth Dynasty of the Kushite Kingdom, which was located next to the third waterfall.
After he finished expanding in southern Egypt, he left with the Egyptian army on the east side and penetrated into Syria to the Euphrates to chase the remnants of the Hyksos.
He declared that the Euphrates was the border of Egypt and left a monument on the bank of the Euphrates River.
Inside Egypt, King Thutmose I renovated the Temple of Amun in Thebes from the Middle Kingdom, expanded it, and placed two obelisks in front of the entrance.
He was the first king to build a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes and built a village for cemetery workers in Deir el-Medina in western Thebes.
Specifications and information about King Tuthmosis
“King Thutmose I” speaks about himself in some inscriptions that he is the son of a king, and that his father is the son of a king, and this indicates that his father and grandfather were kings, and since he was not the son of “Amenhotep I,” then he must be the son of “Ahmose I” and the grandson of “Sekenre.”
Whatever the case, the issue is still surrounded by both doubt and ambiguity, according to what Dr. Salim Hassan said in his encyclopedia of ancient Egypt.
King Thutmose I also had qualities that testify to his military competence, strategic vision, great inclination for acts of heroism and valor in war.
And continuing the struggle of the Egyptian kings who preceded him in defending Egypt and expanding its borders to the furthest reaches of the sun’s rays in the ancient Near East.
This king was inclined toward reconstruction, peaceful works, and the renaissance of the state and pushing it to the utmost goals of development and prosperity.
The dynasty of King Tuthmosis continued
Thutmose’s father is believed to be Amenhotep I. His mother, Senseb, was of non-royal parentage and may have been the non-principal or secret wife.
Ahmose, who held the title of royal wife (queen) of Thutmose, was probably the daughter of Ahmose I and sister of Amenhotep I; However, she was never called “the king’s daughter.”
So there is some doubt about this topic, and some historians believe that she was Thutmose’s sister.
Assuming that she was a relative of Amenhotep, her marriage to Thutmose was in order to ensure the inheritance of the throne. However, this will not be the case for two reasons.
First, the Amenhotep building in Karnak shares the name Amenhotep with the name Thutmose as well, and this was before the death of Amenhotep.
Second, Thutmose’s first son with Ahmose, Amunmes, was apparently born long before Thutmose’s coronation.
He can be seen on a stela from his fourth year in power hunting near Memphis, and became “commander of his father’s army” sometime before his death, which may not have been later than the death of King Thutmose I in his twelfth year in power.
Thutmose and Queen Ahmose had another son, Wajmes, and two daughters, Hatshepsut and Nephropti.
Waj Mas died before his father, and Neferupti died as an infant. Thutmose had one son by the other wife, Mut-Neferet.
This son succeeded him and was known as Thutmose II, who married King Thutmose I to his daughter, Hatshepsut.
Hatshepsut later recorded that Thutmose passed the throne to both Thutmose II and Hatshepsut. This is considered propaganda by Hatshepsut’s supporters to legitimize her claim to the throne when she later took power.
King Thutmose I: Military achievements
After King Thutmose I assumed the throne, Nubia rebelled against Egyptian rule. According to his autobiography from the tomb of Ahmose ibn Ebana, Thutmose traveled up the Nile River and personally fought in the battle, killing the Nubian king.
After the victory, he hung the body of the Nubian king on the prow of his boat, before returning to Thebes.
After that campaign, he led a second campaign against Nubia in his third year, during which he ordered the dredging of the canal at the first gondola
It was built during the reign of Sesostris III of the Twelfth Dynasty in order to facilitate the flow of water traveling against the current from Egypt to Nubia.
This helped Nubia’s integration into the Egyptian Empire and this campaign was recorded on two separate inscriptions by his son Ture.
Thutmose faced the military threat of another Nubian rebellion in his fourth year. His influence expanded to the far south. An inscription was found dating back to his reign as far south as Karagos, south of the Fourth Cataract.
During his reign, he initiated a number of projects that effectively ended Nubia’s independence for the next 500 years.
Expanded the temple of Senusret III and Khnum, on the opposite side of the Nile from Semna. He also appointed a man named Al-Tiri to the position of Viceroy of Kush, also known as “The King’s Son of Kush.”
With the king’s civilian representative permanently in Nubia itself, Nubia never revolted and was easily controlled by future Egyptian kings.
Acts and monuments of King Thutmose I
After the borders of King Thutmose I expanded, he celebrated the victories he had achieved by building a spacious hall in the Temple of Amun after renovating and rebuilding the temple in Thebes.
He erected two obelisks in front of the fourth gate in the Temple of Amun, one of which is still standing in the Karnak Temple.
They were made of granite that Thutmose brought from Upper Egypt, loaded on a boat about 60 meters long.
It is about 22 meters wide and carries two huge blocks of granite, each about 22 meters long and two meters around the base, weighing about 143 tons. The fourth and fifth pylons were also built in the Karnak Temple.
From the Abydos painting, it appears that Thutmose added to the Temple of Osiris, and he has monuments in Giza, Elephantine, Arment, Memphis, and in Sinai in the Sharabat al-Khadim area.
The family of King Tuthmosis I
King Thutmose I gave birth to Queen Ahmose, his daughter Hatshepsut, and his two sons, Amun-mes and Wasmose, who died at a young age.
He also had a son, Thutmose II, from his second wife, Mut-Neferet. He also had many children by other wives. His male children died during his lifetime, and only Tuthmosis II, who married his sister to his father, Hatshepsut, lived.
Tomb and death of King Tuthmosis I
Thutmose I died at the age of approximately fifty and was buried in the Valley of the Kings.
He is considered the first king to be buried in this place in the tomb that I, his business manager, prepared for him.
It is covered with plaster and inscribed with a short, colorful text entitled (Messages of the Secret Chamber) and is famous for its subtitle (The Book of What Exists in the Underworld).
It is written in cursive hieroglyphic signs, and the scenes are in schematic forms. Only a few fragments remain of this tomb.
Then his body was transferred a few years later to the tomb of his daughter Hatshepsut, which was prepared for her and her father, and his mummy is now located in the Egyptian Museum.
Examinations conducted on his mummy show that he was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and that at some point in his life he suffered a pelvic fracture.