Thutmose III

During Hatshepsut’s ascendancy Egypt’s position in Asia may have deteriorated because of the expansion of Mitannian power in Syria. Shortly after her death, the prince of the Syrian city of Kadesh, stood with troops of 330 princes of a Syro-Palestinian coalition at Megiddo; such a force was more than merely defensive, and the intention may have been to advance against Egypt. The 330 must have represented all the places of any size in the region that were not subject to Egyptian rule and may be a schematic figure derived from a list of place-names. It is noteworthy that Mitanni itself was not directly involved.

Thutmose III proceeded to Gaza with his army and then to Yehem, subjugating rebellious Palestinian towns along the way. His annals relate how, at a consultation concerning the best route over the Mount Carmel ridge, the king overruled his officers and selected a shorter but more dangerous route through the ‘Arunah Pass and then led the troops himself. The march went smoothly, and, when the Egyptians attacked at dawn, they prevailed over the enemy troops and besieged Megiddo.

Thutmose III meanwhile coordinated the landing of other army divisions on the Syro-Palestinian littoral, whence they proceeded inland, so that the strategy resembled a pincer technique. The siege ended in a treaty by which Syrian princes swore an oath of submission to the king. As was normal in ancient diplomacy and in Egyptian practice, the oath was binding only upon those who swore it, not upon future generations.

By the end of the first campaign, Egyptian domination extended northward to a line linking Byblos and Damascus. Although the prince of Kadesh remained to be vanquished, Assyria sent lapis lazuli as tribute; Asian princes surrendered their weapons, including a large number of horses and chariots. Thutmose III took only a limited number of captives. He appointed Asian princes to govern the towns and took their brothers and sons to Egypt, where they were educated at the court. Most eventually returned home to serve as loyal vassals, though some remained in Egypt at court. In order to ensure the loyalty of Asian city-states, Egypt maintained garrisons that could quell insurrection and supervise the delivery of tribute. There never was an elaborate Egyptian imperial administration in Asia.

Thutmose III conducted numerous subsequent campaigns in Asia. The submission of Kadesh was finally achieved, but Thutmose III’s ultimate aim was the defeat of Mitanni. He used the navy to transport troops to Asian coastal towns, avoiding arduous overland marches from Egypt. His great eighth campaign led him across the Euphrates; although the countryside around Carchemish was ravaged, the city was not taken, and the Mitannian prince was able to flee. The psychological gain of this campaign was perhaps greater than its military success, for Babylonia, Assyria, and the Hittites all sent tribute in recognition of Egyptian dominance. Although Thutmose III never subjugated Mitanni, he placed Egypt’s conquests on a firm footing by constant campaigning that contrasts with the forays of his predecessors. Thutmose III’s annals inscribed in the temple of Karnak are remarkably succinct and accurate, but his other texts, particularly one set in his newly founded Nubian capital of Napata, are more conventional in their rhetoric. He seems to have married three Syrian wives, which may represent diplomatic unions, marking Egypt’s entry into the realm of international affairs of the ancient Middle East.

Thutmose III initiated a truly imperial Egyptian rule in Nubia. Much of the land became estates of institutions in Egypt, while local cultural traits disappear from the archaeological record. Sons of chiefs were educated at the Egyptian court; a few returned to Nubia to serve as administrators, and some were buried there in Egyptian fashion. Nubian fortresses lost their strategic value and became administrative centres. Open towns developed around them, and, in several temples outside their walls, the cult of the divine king was established. Lower Nubia supplied gold from the desert and hard and semiprecious stones. From farther south came tropical African woods, perfumes, oil, ivory, animal skins, and ostrich plumes. There is scarcely any trace of local population from the later New Kingdom, when many more temples were built in Nubia; by the end of the 20th dynasty, the region had almost no prosperous settled population.

Under Thutmose III the wealth of empire became apparent in Egypt. Many temples were built, and vast sums were donated to the estate of Amon-Re. There are many tombs of his high officials at Thebes. The capital had been moved to Memphis, but Thebes remained the religious centre.

The campaigns of kings such as Thutmose III required a large military establishment, including a hierarchy of officers and an expensive chariotry. The king grew up with military companions whose close connection with him enabled them to participate increasingly in government. Military officers were appointed to high civil and religious positions, and by the Ramesside period the influence of such people had come to outweigh that of the traditional bureaucracy.

Senwosret I (Kheperkaré) (d. 1926 B.C.E.)

The 12th Dynasty Pyramid of Senwosret I at Lisht is one of best preserved funerary complexes of the Middle Kingdom. Excavations by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and others have uncovered the remains of a central pyramid, ka pyramid, pyramid temple, nine subsidiary pyramids, a causeway, and a finely carved enclosure wall. In 2001 The Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned computer reconstructions of the site for exhibition in its gallery of artwork from the pyramid of Senwosret I. The Supervising Archaeologist was Dr. Dieter Arnold, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s excavations at Lisht. David Johnson of The Museum of Reconstructions was the Digital Architect. This reconstruction is based primarily on drawings and data from Dieter Arnold’s The Pyramid of Senwosret I and The Pyramid Complex of Senwosret I, volumes 22 and 25 in the Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition.


Second ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty He reigned from 1971 B.C.E. until his death. The son of AMENEMHET I and Queen NEFRU-TOTENEN, he served as coregent with his father for 10 years before ascending the throne. As a prince, Senwosret I began his Nubian and Libyan campaigns. Amenemhet I was assassinated while Senwosret I was campaigning in Libya, beyond the WADI NATRUN. The event is an element of the popular tale known as SINUHE THE SAILOR, as the character Sinuhe was supposedly a servant of Senwosret I’s consort, Queen NEFRUSHERI, daughter of Amenemhet I. Senwosret I raced back to Egypt to crush the HAREM conspiracy responsible for the murder and to punish the intended usurpers. The capital at the time was at ITJ-TAWY, a site on the border between Upper and Lower Egypt.

Militarily active, Senwosret I campaigned in NUBIA (modern Sudan) all the way to the third cataract and also founded the great fortress of BUHEN. He used quarries and mines and controlled the oases of the LIBYAN DESERT and the resources in the SINAI. He built KERMEH fortress in Nubia and regulated operations at the mines of WADI HALFA as well as regional diorite quarries. Copper was mined in Wadi Hudi, and red granite was taken from a quarry south of ASWAN.

Senwosret I was not interested in wholesale conquest and limited his campaigns to the defense of Egypt’s borders and to the exploitation of available resources. He also promoted trade with Crete and other Aegean isles and with Palestine and Syria. Within Egypt, he was a prolific builder, refurbishing the temple of RÉ-Atum in HELIOPOLIS. The famed WHITE CHAPEL dates to his reign, and he is credited with establishing the core of the KARNAK complex itself. He also erected two obelisks there.

Senwosret I was active in restoring the FAIYUM region, adding to the irrigational monuments there. He founded a temple to SEKHMET-Hathor at IMU, now called Kom el-Hisn, the Mound of the Fort, in the Delta. The temple was rectangular and contained a bark chapel and pillars. He is also credited with building 35 separate religious structures from the Faiyum to the Delta.

A stone stela made for a temple in Heliopolis and dating to Senwosret I’s reign was copied by a scribe serving AMENHOTEP III (r. 1391–1353 B.C.E.). Five hundred years old when copied, the stela vanished. The copy indicates a text in the form of a poem, actually serving as a temple inscription commemorating an addition built by Senwosret I, given with other elaborate donations.

The INSTRUCTIONS OF AMENEMHET I date also to his reign. His father was supposed to have dictated the instructions, a text that warns of the perils of a weak monarch. This work is also called Amenemhet’s Instructions or the Testament of Amenemhet.

Senwosret I’s son and heir was AMENEMHET II, who served as his coregent. His daughters were ITEKUYET, NEFRU-SOBEK (2), NEFERU-PTAH (2), and Nenseddjedet. They were buried with Senwosret I and Queen NEFRUSHERI in el-LISHT, where a pyramidal complex was constructed. The pyramid was filled with rubble with a limestone covering. Smaller pyramids served as gravesites for the family members. The great pyramid was called “Senwosret Surveys the Two Lands.”

Zoser

Zoser (active ca. 2686 B.C.) was the first king of the Third Dynasty, which ushered in Egypt’s first golden age, the Old Kingdom. Zoser is always described on his monuments as the ‘‘Horus Neteryerkhet.’’ In the so-called Turin Canon of Kings, a hieratic papyrus dating from about the reign of Ramses II, his importance as the founder of a new epoch (Third Dynasty, 2686-2613 B.C.) is noted by the exceptional use of red ink in writing his name. According to the Turin list, he reigned for 19 years, but this period seems much too short for the erection of his vast monument, the Step Pyramid. The Ptolemaic historian Manetho allots him a reign of 29 years.

Zoser’s main claim to fame is his Step Pyramid at Saqqara, overlooking the ancient capital city of Memphis. The man responsible for its conception and construction was Zoser’s architect Imhotep. Known to the Greeks as Imouthes, he became a legendary figure to later generations of Egyptians, who looked upon him not only as an architect but also as a learned physician and astronomer. In the Saite period (663-525 B.C.) he was deified and he was identified by the Greeks with their own god of medicine, Asklepios (Aesculapius).

The Step Pyramid was the dominant edifice of a large complex of stone buildings and courtyards which were intended for various ceremonies in connection with the afterlife of Zoser. Its base measurements were approximately 411 feet from east to west and 358 feet from north to south. In its final form it rose in six unequal stages to a height of 204 feet. The substructure of the pyramid consists of a deep shaft which gives access to a maze of corridors and rooms without parallel in other pyramids of the Old Kingdom.

The pyramid and the related complex of buildings were enclosed by a massive stone wall, covering an area approximately 597 yards from north to south and 304 yards from east to west. Limestone from the Tura quarries on the east side of the Nile was used for the outer facing of the buildings, and local stone for the inner cores.

A large brick mastaba at Bêt Khallâf in Upper Egypt may also have been constructed for Zoser, possibly as a cenotaph. At Wadi Maghâra in the Sinai Peninsula is a relief depicting Zoser smiting the Bedouin of the region. A lengthy rock inscription of Ptolemaic date on the island of Sehêl in the First Cataract of the Nile recounts how, through the counsel of Imhotep, Zoser brought to an end a seven-year famine which had afflicted Egypt by presenting to the ram-headed god Khnum of Elephantine, who controlled the Nile inundation, the stretch of territory in Lower Nubia known in Greek as the Dodekaschoinos. The historical accuracy of this inscription is a matter of debate.

Further Reading The development and main features of the Step Pyramid complex are discussed by Earl Baldwin Smith, Egyptian Architecture as Cultural Expression (1938). On Imhotep and his career see Jamieson B. Hurry, Imhotep: The Vizier and Physician of King Zoser (1928). The mastaba at Bêt Khallâf is described by the excavator, John Garstang, Mahasna and Bêt Khallâf (1903).

Seti I

Temple of Abidos, Egypt. 19th. Dynasty 1317 B.C. This relief shows King Seti I on his throne at his coronation carrying the crook and flail scepters symbols of kingship, wearing the Atef crown and supported on one side by Edjo, the cobra Goddess of Upper Egypt and by Nekhbet, the vulture Goddess of Lower Egypt in the missing part of the relief, both in the guise of elegant Queens. A capable ruler, excellent field commander and energetic builder, Seti I embarked on a series of military campaigns in an effort to secure the boundaries of Egypt, echoing the achievement of Kings of the XVIII dynasty before Akhenaten. The sculpted reliefs of this reign attained a degree of refinement rarely excelled, particularly in the colorful scenes of the Abydos temple and his royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb, the deepest and longest in the valley, established an entirely new type of layout, an extended tunnel decorated with elaborate representations of the journey of the sun, incorporating the king, through the night sky and the mysteries of solar rebirth. Seti I was succeeded by his son, the famous Ramses II The Great.

Kingly Cutaway

Illustration by Christopher Klein, National Geographic
Ancient Egyptian workers carve out and embellish the tomb of Seti I in a cutaway illustration.
Painstakingly chipped into high limestone cliffs above the Valley of the Kings, also home to the tomb of King Tut, Seti I's tomb is among the hardest to reach but most rewarding. The tomb is the most ornate and largest in the valley—and it's growing.
The newly excavated stairway beneath the tomb isn't the only tunnel to surprise archaeologists and expand the tomb's square footage in recent years. In 2008 experts announced they'd found a new tunnel in the tomb proper, which expanded the crypt's length from 328 feet (100 meters) to 446 feet (136 meters).

Seti I (ruled 1290–79 bc) was a successful military leader who reasserted authority over Egypt’s weakened empire in the Middle East. The Mitanni state had been dismembered, and the Hittites had become the dominant Asian power. Before tackling them, Seti laid the groundwork for military operations in Syria by fighting farther south against nomads and Palestinian city-states. Then, following the strategy of Thutmose III, he secured the coastal cities and gained Kadesh. Although his engagement with the Hittites was successful, Egypt acquired only temporary control of part of the north Syrian plain. A treaty was concluded with the Hittites, who, however, subsequently pushed farther southward and regained Kadesh by the time of Ramses II. Seti I ended a new threat to Egyptian security when he defeated Libyans attempting to enter the delta. He also mounted a southern campaign, probably to the Fifth Cataract region.

Seti I’s reign looked for its model to the mid-18th dynasty and was a time of considerable prosperity. Seti I restored countless monuments that had been defaced in the Amarna period, and the refined decoration of his monuments, particularly his temple at Abydos, shows a classicizing tendency. He also commissioned striking and novel reliefs showing stages of his campaigns, which are preserved notably on the north wall of the great hypostyle hall at Karnak. This diversity of artistic approach is characteristic of the Ramesside period, which was culturally and ethnically pluralistic. Well before his death, Seti I appointed his son Ramses II, sometimes called Ramses the Great, as crown prince.

Feature Website: The Upuaut Project

A REPORT BY RUDOLF GANTENBRINK

This web site contains a complete scientific report about the investigation of the so-called "air shafts"
inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and all related additional information.
It includes a set of 4 extremely detailed CAD drawings,
27 explanatory graphics and 61 original photos.
(So take your time studying this site.)

This huge amount of data would have remained unpublished to this date
without the support of my sponsors.

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WEBSITE: http://emhotep.net/

http://emhotep.net/

This website started with a simple question:  What should I do with all of the pictures I took while in Egypt?  The plan had always been to put them on the internet in some format, even as I was taking them.  This was before the era of blogs, but even then I knew I was doing something that I wanted to share.

I spent a month in Egypt in May/June, 1997, as part of a summer study course on the development of religious thought in the Mediterranean region.  My interests originally revolved around the roots of Judeo-Christian religious ideas, and how deeply these roots reached into Ancient Egypt.  While I still think there is some fertile ground to be explored in this line of pursuit, my interests shifted into more general directions, and so the original web project was postponed.

So 1000+ pictures languished while life went on.  Every now and again I would come across a few that had found their way out of their boxes, or I might be cleaning the dust off of the frame of one of my favorites that actually made it to the wall, and a pang of guilt would surface.  I really need to do something with these.

Robot to explore mysterious tunnels in Great Pyramid

For 4,500 years, no one has known what lies beyond two stone doors deep inside the monument

By Andrew Johnson

For 4,500 years, the Great Pyramid at Giza has enthralled, fascinated and ultimately frustrated everyone who has attempted to penetrate its secrets.

Now a robotics team from Leeds University, working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is preparing a machine which they hope will solve one of its enduring mysteries.

The pyramid, known as the Pyramid of Khufu after the king who built it around 2,560BC, is the only wonder of the ancient world still standing. At its heart are two rooms known as the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King's Chamber at 45-degree angles and lead to the exterior of the monument. They are believed to be a passageway designed to fire the king's spirit into the firmament so that he can take his place among the stars.

In the Queen's Chamber, there are two further shafts, discovered in 1872. Unlike those in the King's Chamber, these do not lead to the outer face of the pyramid

No one knows what the shafts are for. In 1992, a camera sent up the shaft leading from the south wall of the Queen's Chamber discovered it was blocked after 60 metres by a limestone door with two copper handles. In 2002, a further expedition drilled through this door and revealed, 20 centimetres behind it, a second door.

"The second door is unlike the first. It looks as if it is screening or covering something," said Dr Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council who is in charge of the expedition. The north shaft bends by 45 degrees after 18 metres but, after 60 metres, is also blocked by a limestone door.

Now technicians at Leeds University are putting the finishing touches to a robot which, they hope, will follow the shaft to its end. Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom Khufu consulted when planning the pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through the second set of doors to see what lies beyond.

Dr Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, said they would continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts.

"We have been working on the project for five years," he said. "We have no preconceptions. We are trying to gain evidence for other people to draw conclusions. There are two shafts. The north shaft is blocked by a limestone door and nothing has penetrated that door. With the south shaft a previous team has measured the thickness of the stone, drilled through it and put a camera through it and found there was another surface. We are going to determine how thick that is and we could drill through it. We are preparing the robot now and expect to send it up before the end of the year. It's a big question, and it's very important not to cause unnecessary damage. We will carry on until we find the answer. We hope to get all the data possible which will be sufficient to answer the questions."

The Djedi Project: The Next Generation in Robotic Archaeology