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Generations of Ahmose
New - 28 January 2010
Generations 41 - 47 Generations of Ahmose The 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt
Generation No. 42 Ahmose I (Nebpehtyre) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat /Absu [1]
Two of Ahmose’s children may have been the parents of Mutnofret, who would become the wife of Amenhotep I’s successor Thutmose I. Ahmose-ankh was Ahmose's heir apparent, but he preceded his father in death sometime between Ahmose's 17th and 22nd regnal year. Ahmose was succeeded instead by his eldest surviving son, Amenhotep I, with whom he might have shared a short co-regency.
Ahmose I (Amosis I, "Amenes") ("The Moon is Born" or "Blue Moon") was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Eighteenth dynasty. He was a member of the Theban royal house, the son of pharaoh Tao II Seqenenre and brother of the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth dynasty, Kamose. Ahmose’s grandparents, Tao I and Tetisheri, had at least twelve children, including Tao II and Ahhotep. The brother and sister, according to the tradition of Egyptian queens, married; their children were Kamose, Ahmose I and several daughters. Sometime during the reign of his father or grandfather, Thebes rebelled against the Hyksos, the rulers of Lower Egypt [located in the north of Egypt]. When he was seven his father was killed, and he was about ten when his brother died of unknown causes, after reigning only three years. Ahmose I assumed the throne after the death of his brother, and upon coronation became known as Neb-Pehty-Re (The Lord of Strength is Re). During his reign, he completed the conquest and expulsion of the Hyksos from the delta region, restored Theban rule over the whole of Egypt and successfully reasserted Egyptian power in its formerly subject territories of Nubia and Canaan. He then reorganized the administration of the country, reopened quarries, mines and trade routes and began massive construction projects of a type that had not been undertaken since the time of the Middle Kingdom. This building program culminated in the construction of the last pyramid built by native Egyptian rulers. Ahmose's reign laid the foundations for the New Kingdom, under which Egyptian power reached its peak. His reign is usually dated to about 1550–1525 BC (Wikipedia), or 1570-1550 BC (Gardner). The conflict between the local kings of Thebes and the Hyksos king Apepi Awoserre had started sometime during the reign of Tao II Seqenenre and would be concluded, after almost 30 years of intermittent conflict and war, under the reign of Ahmose I. Tao II was possibly killed in a battle against the Hyksos, as his much-wounded mummy gruesomely suggests, and his successor Kamose (likely Ahmose's elder brother) is known to have attacked and raided the lands around the Hyksos capital, Avaris (modern Tell el-Dab'a). Ahmose ascended the throne when he was still a child, so his mother, Ahhotep, reigned as regent until he was of age. Judging by some of the descriptions of her regal roles while in power, including the general honorific "carer for Egypt", she effectively consolidated the Theban power base in the years prior to Ahmose assuming full control. [Once again, a strong female steps in.] With the re-unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Ahmose, a renewal of royal support for the arts and monumental construction occurred. Ahmose reportedly devoted a tenth of all the productive output towards the service of the traditional gods, reviving massive monumental constructions as well as the arts. With the Delta and Nubia under Egyptian control once more, access was gained to resources not available in Upper Egypt. Gold and silver were received from Nubia, Lapis Lazuli from distant parts of central Asia, cedar from Byblos, and in the Sinai the Serabit el-Khadim turquoise mines were reopened. Although the exact nature of the relationship between Egypt and Crete is uncertain, at least some Minoan designs have been found on objects from this period, and Egypt considered the Aegean to be part of its empire. According to an inscription at Tura, Ahmose used white limestone to build a temple to Ptah and the southern harem of Amun, but did not finish either project. [Ptah is likely the Egyptian name for Enki.] Under Ahmose's reign, the city of Thebes became the capital for the whole of Egypt, as it had been in the previous Middle Kingdom. It also became the center for a newly established professional civil service, where there was a greater demand for scribes and the literate as the royal archives began to fill with accounts and reports. Having Thebes as the capital was probably a strategic choice as it was located at the center of the country, the logical conclusion from having had to fight the Hyksos in the north as well as the Nubians to the south. Any future opposition at either border could be met easily. Perhaps the most important shift was a religious one: Thebes effectively became the religious as well as the political center of the country, its local god Amun credited with inspiring Ahmose in his victories over the Hyksos. The importance of the temple complex at Karnak (on the east bank of the Nile north of Thebes) grew and the importance of the previous cult of Ra based in Heliopolis diminished. Ahmose’s pyramid was the last pyramid ever built as part of a mortuary complex in Egypt. The pyramid form would be abandoned by subsequent pharaohs of the New Kingdom, for both practical and religious reasons. The Giza plateau offered plenty of room for building pyramids; but this was not the case with the confined, cliff-bound geography of Thebes and any burials in the surrounding desert were vulnerable to flooding. The pyramid form was associated with the sun god Re, who had been overshadowed by Amun in importance. One of the meanings of Amun's name was the hidden one, which meant that it was now theologically permissible to hide the Pharaoh's tomb by fully separating the mortuary template from the actual burial place. This provided the added advantage that the resting place of the pharaoh could be kept hidden from necropolis robbers. All subsequent pharaohs of the New Kingdom would be buried in rock-cut shaft tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Ahmose I was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep I. A minority of scholars have argued that Ahmose had a short co-regency with Amenhotep, potentially lasting up to six years. If there was a co-regency, Amenhotep could not have been made king before Ahmose's 18th regnal year, the earliest year in which Ahmose-ankh, the heir apparent, could have died. There is circumstantial evidence indicating a co-regency may have occurred, although definitive evidence is lacking.
Generation No. 43 Amenhotep I (Djeserkare) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Amenhotep I (Amenophis I) ("Amun is satisfied" or "Amun is Tickled Pink") was the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was born to Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two elder brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne. However, sometime in the eight years between Ahmose I's 17th regnal year and his death, his elder brothers, the crown prince Ahmose Sapair and Ahmose-ankh, died before him, thus clearing the way for his ascension to the throne, after which Amenhotep became crown prince. He then acceded to the throne and ruled for about 21 years. Amenhotep probably came to power while he was still young himself, and his mother, Ahmose-Nefertari, appears to have been regent for him for at least a short time. Ahhotep II is usually called his wife and sister despite an alternate theory that she was his grandmother. He is thought to have had one son by Ahhotep II, Amenemhet, who died while still very young. With no living heirs, Amenhotep was succeeded by Thutmose I, whom he married to his daughter, Aahmes. [For a patriarchal society, it is particularly noteworthy how the women keep taking the reins and keeping the royal line intact.] Amenhotep I inherited the kingdom formed by his father's military conquests and maintained dominance over Nubia and the Nile Delta, but probably did not attempt to keep power in Syrio-Palestine. Amenhotep I's Horus and Two Ladies names, "Bull who conquers the lands" and "He who inspires great terror," are generally interpreted to mean that Amenhotep I intended upon dominating the surrounding nations. He sought to expand Egypt's border southward into Nubia and he led an invasion force which defeated the Nubian army. There are no recorded campaigns in Syrio-Palestine during Amenhotep I's reign. However, when Thutmose I led a campaign into Asia all the way to the Euphrates, he found no one who fought against him. If Thutmose did not lead a campaign which has not been recorded into Asia before this recorded one, it would mean that the preceding pharaoh would have had to pacify Syria instead, which would indicate a possible Asiatic campaign of Amenhotep I. Two important pieces of literature were developed during this period. First, the Book of What is in the Underworld, an important funerary text used in the New Kingdom, is believed to have come into its final form during Amenhotep's reign, since it first appears in the tomb of Thutmose I. The Ebers papyrus, which is the main source for information on ancient Egyptian medicine, seems to date to this time (the mention of the Heliacal rise of Sothis by which the early New Kingdom chronology is usually calculated was found on the back of this document). It appears that during Amenhotep I's reign the first water clock was invented. Amenhotep's court astronomer Amenemheb took credit for creating this device in his tomb biography, although the oldest surviving mechanism dates to the reign of Amenhotep III. This invention was of great benefit for timekeeping, because the Egyptian hour was not a fixed amount of time, but was measured as 1/12th of the night. When the nights were shorter in the summer, these water clocks could be adjusted to measure the shorter hours accurately. Amenhotep I's mortuary temple was located where Hatshepsut intended to build her mortuary temple. Hatshepsut's first plan may have spared the temple, however when she added the lower terrace it was torn down, and only a few bricks inscribed with Amenhotep's name remain. Bummer.
Generation No. 44 Tuthmosis I (Akheperkare) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Tuthmosis I (Thutmosis or Tuthmosis I) was the third Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. He was given the throne after the death of the previous king Amenhotep I. During his reign, he campaigned deep into the Levant and Nubia, pushing the borders of Egypt further than ever before. He also built many temples in Egypt and built a tomb for himself in the Valley of the Kings. He was succeeded by his son Thutmose II, who in turn was succeeded by Thutmose II's half-sister, Hatshepsut. His reign is generally dated from 1506 to 1493 BCE. Thutmose's father was a military man whose name is unknown, while his mother, Senseneb, was believed to have been a commoner. Assuming Queen Ahmose was related to Amenhotep, it could be thought that she was married to him in order to guarantee succession. The year of Amenhotep's death and Thutmose's subsequent coronation is dated to 1506 BC or 1526 BC by most modern scholars. Upon Thutmose's coronation, Nubia rebelled against Egyptian rule. Thutmose traveled down the Nile and fought in the battle, personally killing the Nubian king. Upon victory, he had the Nubian king's body hung from the prow of his ship, before he returned to Thebes. After that campaign, he led a second expedition against Nubia in his third year in the course of which he ordered the canal at the first cataract--which had been built under Sesostris III of the 12th Dynasty -- to be dredged in order to facilitate easier travel upstream from Egypt to Nubia, thus integrating Nubia into the Egyptian empire. Thutmose's campaign into Syria was the farthest north any Egyptian ruler had ever campaigned. Thutmose celebrated his victories with an elephant hunt in the area of Niy, near Apamea in Syria, and returned to Egypt with strange tales of the Euphrates, "that inverted water which flows upstream when it ought to be flowing downstream." The Euphrates was the first major river which the Egyptians had ever encountered which flowed from the north, which was downstream on the Nile, to the south, which was upstream on the Nile. Thus the river became known in Egypt as simply, "inverted water.” Thutmose I was the first king who definitely was buried in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb has been identified as KV32. In it was found a yellow quartzite sarcophagus bearing the name of Thutmose I. His body, however, may have been moved by Thutmose III into the tomb of Hatshepsut, KV20, which also contains a sarcophagus with the name of Thutmose I on it. [Thutmose I's tomb is a bear to get to (up and down steep stairs), but is probably worth the trip.]
Generation No. 45 1. Tuthmosis II (Akhoperenre) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Tuthmosis II (Thutmosis, or Tuthmosis II - "Thoth is Born") was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. Thutmose II was the son of Thutmose I by a minor wife, Mutnofret. He was, therefore, a lesser son of Thutmose I and was forced to marry his fully royal half-sister, Hatshepsut, in order to secure his kingship. Furthermore, Thutmose II was apparently still a minor at his accession. But he still fathered Neferure with Hatshepsut. He also managed a male heir, the famous Thutmose III, by a lesser wife named Iset before his death.He built some minor monuments and initiated at least two minor campaigns but did little else during his rule and this relatively sedentary behavior was probably strongly influenced by his wife, Hatshepsut.
In fact, some archaeologists believe that Hatshepsut was the real power behind the throne during Thutmose II’s rule because of the similar domestic and foreign policies which were later pursued under her reign and because of her claim that she was her father’s intended heir. She had herself crowned Pharaoh several years into the rule of her husband's young successor Thutmose III; this is confirmed by the fact that "the queen's agents actually replaced the boy king's name in a few places with her own cartouches" on the gateway. Thutmose II's reign was likely from 1493 BC to 1479 BC. A clear indication of his reign is nearly impossible because Hatshepsut usurped most of his monuments, and Thutmose III in turn reinscribed Thutmose II's name indiscriminately over other monuments. Upon Thutmose's coronation, Kush rebelled, as it had the habit of doing upon the transition of Egyptian kingship. The Nubian state had been completely subjugated by Thutmose I, but some rebels from Khenthennofer rose up, and the Egyptian colonists retreated into a fortress built by Thutmose I. On account of his relative youth at the time, Thutmose II dispatched an army into Nubia rather than leading it himself, but he seems to have easily crushed this revolt with the aid of his father's military generals.
2. Queen Hatshepsut [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Queen Hatshepsut ("Foremost of Noble Ladies") was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty. Today it is generally recognized that Hatshepsut assumed the position of pharaoh and the length of her reign usually is given as twenty-two years, since she was assigned a reign of twenty-one years and nine months by the third-century B.C. historian, Manetho, who had access to many records that now are lost. Her death is known to have occurred in 1458 B.C., which implies that she became pharaoh circa 1479 B.C.
For Egypt to be ruled by a woman, the situation was not unprecedented. As a regent Hatshepsut was preceded by Merneith of the first dynasty, who was buried with the full honors of a pharaoh and may have ruled in her own right. Nimaethap of the third dynasty may have been the dowager of Khasekhemwy, but certainly acted as regent for her son, Djoser, and may have reigned as pharaoh in her own right. Queen Sobeknefru of the Twelfth Dynasty is known to have assumed formal power as ruler of "Upper and Lower Egypt" three centuries earlier than Hatshepsut. Ahhotep I, lauded as a warrior queen, may have been a regent between the reigns of two of her sons, Kamose and Ahmose I, at the end of the seventeenth dynasty and the beginning of Hatshepsut's own eighteenth dynasty. Amenhotep I, also preceding Hatshepsut in the eighteenth dynasty, probably came to power while a young child and his mother, Ahmose-Nefertari, is thought to have been a regent for him. Other women whose possible reigns as pharaohs are under study include Akhenaten's possible female co-regent/successor (usually identified as either Nefertiti or Meritaten) and Twosret. Among the later, non-indigenous Egyptian dynasties, the most notable example of another woman who became pharaoh was Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. [Note: Akhenaten, according to Laurence Gardner (Genesis of the Grail Kings), is also assumed to be Amenhotep IV and/or Moses... and thus Moses’ second (out of three) wives, Miriam, may have acted as co-regent.] In comparison with other female pharaohs, Hatshepsut's reign was long and prosperous. She was successful in warfare early in her reign, but is considered to be a pharaoh who inaugurated a long peaceful era. She re-established trading relationships lost during a foreign occupation and brought great wealth to Egypt. That wealth enabled Hatshepsut to initiate building projects that raised the caliber of Ancient Egyptian architecture to a standard, comparable to classical architecture, that would not be rivaled by any other culture for a thousand years. Royal women also played a pivotal role in the religion of ancient Egypt. Often a queen officiated at the rites in the temples, as priestess, in a culture where religion was inexorably interwoven with the roles of the rulers. In Hatshepsut's time the royal daughter, Neferure, acted in such a role as the god's Wife, which is a sacred. Her mother may have groomed Neferure as the heir apparent, commissioning official portraits of the daughter wearing the false beard of royalty and the sidelock of youth as seen in remaining sculptures, reliefs, and drawings. There are many images of her with her nurse and tutors in museums. Hatshepsut was the elder daughter of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose, the first king and queen of the Thutmoside clan of the eighteenth dynasty. Upon the death of her father in 1493 B.C., Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II, and assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. When Thutmose II died, he left behind only one son, a young Thutmose III to succeed him. The latter was born as the son of Iset, a lesser wife of Thutmose II, rather than of the Great Royal Wife, Hatshepsut, as Neferure was. Due to the relative youth of Thutmose III, he was not eligible to assume the expected tasks of a pharaoh. Instead, Hatshepsut became the regent of Egypt at this time, assumed the responsibilities of state, and was recognized by the leadership in the temple. Thus, while Thutmose III was designated as a co-regent of Egypt, the royal court recognized Hatshepsut as the pharaoh on the throne until she died. Thutmose III ruled as pharaoh for more than thirty years after the death of Hatshepsut. Neferure may have still been alive in the first few years of the rule by Thutmose III as pharaoh, and that consequently, his eldest son, Amenemhet, may have been Neferure’s child. The person of Neferure seems to be distinct from one Hatshepsut-Meryetre, but if the two are the same, then Hatshepsut would have a male heir in Amenhotep II, and continuation of her line to the present day. Hatshepsut established the trade networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building the wealth of the eighteenth dynasty. She oversaw the preparations and funding for a mission to the Land of Punt. The expedition set out in her name with five ships, each measuring 70 feet (21 m) long, bearing several sails and accommodating 210 men that included sailors and 30 rowers. Many trade goods were bought in Punt, notably myrrh [and/or mirth]. Most notably the Egyptians returned from the voyage bearing thirty-one live frankincense trees, the roots of which were carefully kept in baskets for the duration of the voyage. This was the first recorded attempt to transplant foreign trees. It is reported that Hatshepsut had these trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahri mortuary temple complex. Egyptians also returned with living Puntites (people of Punt). This trading expedition to Punt was roughly during Hatshepsut's nineteenth year of reign. Hatshepsut was one of the most prolific builders in ancient Egypt, commissioning hundreds of construction projects throughout both Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, that were grander and more numerous than those of any of her Middle Kingdom predecessors. Not unexpectedly, later pharaohs attempted to claim some of her projects as theirs. She employed the great architect Ineni, who also had worked for her father, her husband, and for the royal steward Senemut. In the tradition of most pharaohs, Hatshepsut had monuments constructed at the Temple of Karnak. She also restored the original Precinct of Mut, the ancient great goddess of Egypt, at Karnak that had been ravaged by the foreign rulers during the Hyksos occupation. She had twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world, erected at the entrance to the temple. One still stands, as the tallest surviving ancient obelisk on Earth; the other has broken and toppled. Hyperbole is common to all royal inscriptions of Egyptian history. While all ancient leaders used it to laud their achievements, Hatshepsut has been called the most accomplished pharaoh at promoting her accomplishments. This may have resulted from the extensive building executed during her time as pharaoh, in comparison to many others. It afforded her with many opportunities to laud herself, but it also reflects the wealth that her policies and administration brought to Egypt, enabling her to finance such projects. There is no indication of challenges to Hatshepsut's leadership and, until her death, her co-regent remained in a secondary role, quite amicably heading her powerful army -- which would have given him the power necessary to overthrow a usurper of his rightful place, if that had been the case. A few generations later, Nefertiti -- wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten, aka Moses) -- also appears to have ruled in her own right... as part of the follies occasioned by the ending of the 18th Dynasty. Most of the official statues commissioned of Hatshepsut show her less symbolically and more naturally, as a woman in typical dresses of the nobility of her day. Notably, even after assuming the formal regalia, Hatshepsut still described herself as a beautiful woman, often as the most beautiful of women. Although she assumed almost all of her father's titles, she declined to take the title "The Strong Bull" (the full title being, The Strong Bull of his Mother). The title was intended to tie the pharaoh to the goddesses Isis, the throne, and Hathor, (the cow who gave birth to and protected the pharaohs) -- as if the male pharaoh was her son sitting on her throne. Hatshepsut, however, considered this an unnecessary title for her, since she had become allied with the goddesses in a way no male pharaoh could. Rather than the strong bull, Hatshepsut, having served as a very successful warrior during the early portion of her reign as pharaoh, associated herself with the lioness image of Sekhmet, the major war deity in the Egyptian pantheon. One of the most famous legends about Hatshepsut is about her birth. In this myth, Amun goes to Queen Ahmose in the form of Thutmose I and awakens her with pleasant odors. At this point Amun places the ankh, a symbol of life, to Ahmose's nose, and Hatshepsut is conceived by Ahmose. Khnum, the god who forms the bodies of human children, is then instructed to create a body and ka, or corporal presence and life force, for Hatshepsut. Heket, the goddess of life and fertility, and Khnum then lead Ahmose along to a lioness bed where she gives birth to Hatshepsut. Reliefs depicting each step in these events are at Karnak and in her mortuary temple.
American humorist Will Cuppy wrote an essay on Hatshepsut which was published after his death in the book The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody. Regarding one of her wall inscriptions, he wrote,
Toward the end of the reign of Thutmose III and into the reign of his son, an attempt was made to remove Hatshepsut from certain historical and pharaonic records. This elimination was carried out in the most literal way possible. Her cartouches and images were chiseled off some stone walls, leaving very obvious Hatshepsut-shaped gaps in the artwork. At the Deir el-Bahri temple, Hatshepsut's numerous statues were torn down and in many cases, smashed or disfigured before being buried in a pit. At Karnak, there even was an attempt to wall up her obelisks. While it is clear that much of this rewriting of Hatshepsut's history occurred only during the close of Thutmose III's reign, it is not clear why it happened, other than the typical pattern of self-promotion that existed among the pharaohs and their administrators, or perhaps saving money by not building new monuments for the burial of Thutmose III and instead, using the grand structures built by Hatshepsut. Amenhotep II, who became a co-regent of Thutmose III before his death, however, would have had a motive because his position in the royal lineage was not so strong to assure his elevation to pharaoh. He is suspected by some as being the defacer during the end of the reign of a very old pharaoh. He is documented, further, as having usurped many of Hatshepsut's accomplishments during his own reign. His reign is marked with attempts to break the royal lineage as well, not recording the names of his queens and eliminating the powerful titles and official roles of royal women such as, God's Wife of Amun.
Another reason for Hatshepsut's legacy being partially erased was possibly a rational attempt to extinguish the memory of an "unconventional female king whose reign might possibly be interpreted by future generations as a grave offence against Ma'at, and whose unorthodox co-regency" could "cast serious doubt upon the legitimacy of a current male pharaoh's own right to rule. Hatshepsut's crime need not be anything more than the fact that she was a woman." Thutmose III and/or Amenhotep II may have considered the possibility that the example of a successful female king in Egyptian history could set a dangerous precedent since it demonstrated that a woman was as capable [or more capable] at governing Egypt as a traditional male king. This event could, theoretically, persuade "future generations of potentially strong female kings" to not "remain content with their traditional lot as wife, sister and eventual mother of a king", and instead assume the crown. While Queen Sobeknefru of Egypt's Middle Kingdom had enjoyed a short c.4 year reign, she ruled "at the very end of a fading [12th dynasty] Dynasty, and from the very start of her reign the odds had been stacked against her. She was, therefore, acceptable to conservative Egyptians as a patriotic 'Warrior Queen' who had failed" to rejuvenate Egypt's fortunes -- a result which underlined the traditional Egyptian view that a woman was incapable of holding the throne in her own right. Hence, few Egyptians would desire to repeat the experiment of a female monarch. In contrast, Hatshepsut's glorious reign was a completely different case: she demonstrated that women were as capable as men of ruling the two lands since she successfully presided over a prosperous Egypt for more than two decades. If the intent here was to forestall the possibility of a woman assuming the throne, he or they failed since Twosret and Neferneferuaten (possibly), a female co-regent or successor of Akhenaten, assumed the throne during the New Kingdom after his reign. However, these later rulers enjoyed only brief and short-lived reigns. The erasure of Hatshepsut's name almost caused her to disappear from Egypt's archaeological and written records. When nineteenth-century Egyptologists started to interpret the texts on the Deir el-Bahri temple walls (which were illustrated with two seemingly male kings) their translations made no sense. Jean-Francois Champollion, the French decoder of hieroglyphs, was not alone in feeling confused by the obvious conflict between words and pictures: Records of her reign, documented in diverse ancient sources, failed to generate much research about this pharaoh by early modern Egyptologists and Hatshepsut went from being one of the most obscure leaders of Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century -- to one of its most famous, by the century's end. Archaeological discoveries of the early twentieth century provided information that had been missing from those records and, technical advances later in the century, enabled better identifications to make contemporary historical records more complete. In the twenty-first century, DNA analysis confirmed the identity of her remains and her genetic relationship to those of her great-grandmother.
Generation No. 46 Tuthmosis III (Menkheperre) [46] Tuthmosis II (=Iset) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
Tuthmosis III (Thutmosis or Tuthmosis III; “Son of Thoth” [i.e. Ham... and thus descended from Cain]) was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh. 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 Niy in north Syria to the fourth cataract 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 to March 11, 1425 BCE; however, the first twenty-two years of his reign was as the co-regent to Hatshepsut. During the last two years of his reign he became a co-regent again, with his son, Amenhotep II, who would eventually succeed him. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife, Iset. Because he was the pharaoh's only son, he would have become the first in line for the throne when Thutmosis II died. However, because he was not the son of his father's royal queen, his "degree" of royalty was less than ideal. To bolster his qualifications, he may have married a daughter of Thutmose II and Hatshepsut, i.e., Merytre-Hatshepsut (Neferure?). Such would have been typical behavior. Thutmosis III had little formal power over the empire while Hatshepsut exercised the formal titulary of kingship, complete with a royal prenomen -- Maatkare. When he reached a suitable age and demonstrated the capability, she appointed him to head her armies. Widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypt's greatest conqueror or "the Napoleon of Egypt." 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. [Obviously, he could devote himself to such military exploits because of Hatshepsut holding down the pharaoh fort back at home... and by the way, keeping the economic pot boiling in order to finance the campaigns. They made a good team.] Thutmose III was the first Pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates, doing so during his campaign against Mitanni. He is consistently regarded as one who transformed Egypt into an international superpower by creating an empire that stretched from southern Syria through to Canaan and Nubia. 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. One of the prime reasons why Thutmosis was able to conquer such a large number of lands, was because of the revolution and improvement in army weapons. [This may have included chariots and other war weapons from Troy.] He encountered only little resistance from neighboring kingdoms, allowing him to expand his realm of influence easily. His army also had carried boats on dry land. Then when Hatshepsut died, the king of Kadesh advanced his army to Megiddo. Thutmose III mustered his own army and departed Egypt, heading inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo. The ensuing Battle of Megiddo probably was the largest battle in any of Thutmose's seventeen campaigns.
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. 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. The only noticeable absence in the list of gift givers was Mitanni, which would, accordingly, bear the brunt of the following Egyptian campaigns into Asia. Later campaigns of Thutmose III were directed against the Phoenician cities in Syria and against Kadesh on the Orontes. Then in Thutmose's sixth campaign, he used a naval transportation of troops directly into to Byblos, bypassing Canaan entirely. After the troops arrived in Syria by whatever means, they proceeded into the Jordan river valley and moved north from there, pillaging Kadesh's lands. To stop various rebellions, Thutmose began taking hostages from the cities in Syria. Thutmose III found that by taking family members of these key people (i.e., the nobles) and sending them to Egypt as hostages, he could drastically increase the loyalty of the aristocracy to him. [Isn't it amazing how loyalty will follow the threat against blood kin.] However, Syria did rebel yet again and he returned to Syria. He took the port city of Ullaza and the smaller Phoenician ports, where all the excess grain produced in Syria was stored in the harbor. Thutmose used these stores for the support of the military and civilian Egyptian presence ruling Syria. This left the cities in Syria desperately impoverished, and with their economies in ruins, they had no means of funding a rebellion. [Fighting wars has always been an expensive endeavor.] After Thutmose III had taken control of the Syrian cities, the obvious target for his eighth campaign was the state of Mitanni, a Hurrian country with an Indo-Aryan ruling class. However, to reach Mitanni, he had to cross the Euphrates river. Therefore, Thutmose III enacted the following strategy. He sailed directly to Byblos and then made boats which he took with him over land on what appeared to otherwise be just another tour of Syria, and he proceeded with the usual raiding and pillaging as he moved north through the lands he had already taken. However, here he continued north through the territory belonging to the still unconquered cities of Aleppo and Carchemish, and then quickly crossed the Euphrates in his boats, taking the Mitannian king entirely by surprise. It appears that Mitanni was not expecting an invasion, so they had no army of any kind ready to defend against Thutmose, although their ships on the Euphrates did try to defend against the Egyptian crossing. Thutmose III then went freely from city to city and pillaged them while the nobles hid in caves (or at least this is the typically ignoble way Egyptian records chose to record it). During this period of no opposition, Thutmose put up a second stele commemorating his crossing of the Euphrates, next to the one his grandfather Thutmose I had put up several decades earlier. Eventually a militia was raised to fight the invaders, but it fared very poorly. Thutmose III then returned to Syria, where he records that he engaged in an elephant hunt (also a commemoration of his grandfather's victory celebration). He then collected tribute from foreign powers and returned to Egypt in victory. Thutmose's tekhen waty, today stands in Rome as the Lateran obelisk. The move of the obelisk from Egypt to Rome had been initiated by Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor, 324-337 CE) in 326. However, he died before it could be shipped out of Alexandria. His son, the Emperor Constantius II completed the transfer in 357.
East of the Iput-Isut, he erected another temple to Aten where he was depicted as being supported by Amun. It was inside this temple that Thutmose planned on erecting his tekhen waty, or "unique obelisk." The tekhen waty was designed to stand alone, instead as part of a pair, and is the tallest obelisk ever successfully cut. It was not, however, erected until Thutmose IV raised it, thirty five years later... and then still (much) later moved to Rome by Constantine. Another Christian Roman Emperor, Theodosius I, re-erected another obelisk from the Temple of Karnak in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, in 390 CE. Thus, two obelisks of Tuthmosis III's Karnak temple stand in Papal Rome and in Caesaropapist Constantinople, the two main historical capitals of the Roman Empire. [It should be noted that obelisks are considered to be of profound religious significance, and thus making/transporting them is an important event. The fact that these Holy Roman Emperors are putting such stock in the value of these obelisks... is an intriguing aside.]
Generation No. 47 Amenhotep II (Akheperure) [47] Tuthmosis III (=Merytre-Hatshepsut) [46] Tuthmosis II (=Iset) [45] Tuthmosis I (=Mutnofret) [44] Amenhotep I (=Ahmose-Meritamon) [43] Ahmose I (=Ahmose-Nefertari) [42] Muddled Generations [33 - 41] Amenemhet IV (=Sobeknefru, d. of Igrath) [32] Amenemhet III (=Aat) [31] Senusret III (=Mereret) [30] Senusret II (=Nofret) [29] Amenemhet II (=Keminebu) [28] Senusret I (=Nefru) [27] Tohwait (=Amenemhet I) [26] Nefert (=Senusret of Elephantine) [25] Missing Generations [15-24] Ham (=Neelata-mek) [14] Tubal Cain (=Nin-banda) [13] Lamech (=Zillah) [12] Methusael (=Edna?) [11] Mehujael (=?) [10] Irad (=Baraka?) [9] Enoch (=Edna?) [8] Cain (=Luluwa) [7] Enki and Eve [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu (OR Ki) [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat / Absu [1]
Amenhotep II (Amenophis II -- “Amun is Satisfied”... as opposed to "Amun is One Unhappy Camper") was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt [who apparently married in the true politically correct fashion... a female with an exceptional bloodline]. Amenhotep also inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of only a few military campaigns in Syria. He fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the two major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1400 BC. [Meanwhile, Mitanni's time in the sun was roughly 1500 to 1300 BCE.] Amenhotep II has left several inscriptions touting his athletic skills while he was a leader of the army before his crowning. He claims to have been able to shoot an arrow through a copper target one palm thick, and that he was able to row his ship faster and farther than two hundred members of the navy could row theirs. Accordingly some skepticism concerning the truth of his claims has been expressed among Egyptologists. In his first campaign, the king was said to have single handedly killed 7 rebel Princes at Kadesh which successfully terminated his first Syrian campaign on a victorious note. Amenhotep's first campaign was so successful that he is recorded as having captured a vast amount of war booty "consisting of 6,800 deben of gold and 500,000 deben of copper (about 1,643 and 120,833 pounds respectively), as well as 550 mariannu captives, 210 horses and 300 chariots." Amenhotep's last campaign took place in his ninth year, however it apparently did not proceed farther north than the Sea of Galilee. According to the list of plunder from this campaign, Amenhotep took 101,128 slaves, which is an obviously exaggerated figure. Some of these slaves may have been recounted from the year 7 campaign, such as 15,070 citizens of Nukhash, since Amenhotep did not campaign anywhere near Nukhash on his year 9 campaign. Even accounting for this recounting, the numbers still are too high to be realistic, and are probably just exaggerated.
After the campaign in Amenhotep's ninth year, Egyptian and Mitannian armies never fought again, and the two kingdoms seem to have reached some sort of peace. Amenhotep records that the kings of Babylon, the Hittites, and Mitanni came to make peace and pay tribute to him after his ninth year, although this may be outlandish boasting. [Duh!] However, a second passage appears on the walls of Karnak, saying that the princes of Mitanni came to seek peace with Amenhotep, and this cannot be so easily explained away. The rising power of the Hittites eventually persuaded Mitanni to seek an ally, and there was definitely a treaty of some sort between Egypt and Mitanni by the time of Amenhotep's successor. Whenever formal peace was enacted, an informal peace was maintained between Amenhotep and the king of Mitanni. Since Thutmose III had devoted so much energy to expanding Karnak, Amenhotep's building projects were largely focused on enlarging smaller temples all over Egypt. A stela from Amenhotep's final years highlights his openly contemptuous attitude towards non-Egyptians. In one case, Amenhotep II reminded Usersatet of their military exploits together in Syria and proceeded to criticize the way this official conducted his office as Viceroy. Amenhotep writes about people from Byblos, Alalakh, Arapkha:
The recipient of this message was so impressed (or fearful) of Amenhotep's message that he ordered a copy of it to be engraved on a stela "that was once [located] at the Second Cataract [in Nubia] and is now in Boston. [An additional point to be made is that of Amenhotep II’s clear distinction between what a royal and a commoner can be allowed to do... unless of course, there is simply no one of noble blood available who is capable of doing the necessary work.] Amenhotep II did not openly record the names of his queens; some Egyptologists theorize that he felt that women had become too powerful under titles such as God's Wife of Amun, an opinion typical of arrogant males. It might also have become apparent that there were women on the scene at the time that were not the shy, retiring types. It is, after all, all in the blood.
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