Tuthmosis I

King 1525-1512 BC

    A middle-aged soldier when he came to the throne, Tuthmosis I may have been co-regent with his predecessor, *Amenophis I. His mother, Senisonb, had no royal blood, and his claim to rule came probably through his wife, Princess Ahmose. It is likely that she was the sister of *Amenophis I and the daughter of the previous king, *Amosis I, and his queen, *Ahmose-Nefertari.

    Tuthmosis I was the first of the great military pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty who carried forward plans for expansion which could be based on the achievements of the Theban princes of the Seventeenth Dynasty. For many years, only Tuthmosis I's grandson, *Tuthmosis III, was able to emulate his military successes abroad.

    His accession to the throne is proclaimed on two stelae from Wadi Halfa and Quban which preserve the text of a letter to Turi, the Viceroy of Nubia. In Year 2, Tuthmosis I campaigned in *Nubia; this is recalled in an inscription which is engraved on the rock near the island of Tombos above the Third Cataract, and in the biographical inscription of his commander, Ahmose of El Kab, who relates how he navigated the king's fleet to *Nubia. Tuthmosis I ultimately advanced Egypt's control in *Nubia to a considerable degree, campaigning as far south as the region of the Fourth Cataract and constructing fortresses in the new territory.

    His northern campaigns were even more impressive. An expedition in which Ahmose of El Kab and his younger relative, Ahmose Pennekheb, again took part thrust across the River Euphrates into Nahrin, which was ruled by the king of *Mitanni. Here, a commemorative stela was set up: many of the enemy were slaughtered or taken captive and, on his return home, Tuthmosis I celebrated his victory with an elephant hunt in the region of Niy in Syria. His campaigns displayed military genius and extended Egyptian power as far as it was destined to reach—to the River Euphrates in the north and towards the region of the Fifth Cataract in *Nubia.

    Tuthmosis I apparently built extensively at Karnak, but little else is known of his relatively short reign. His eldest sons, Amenmose and Wadjmose, did not live to succeed him, and *Tuthmosis II, his son by the secondary queen, Mutnefer, became his heir. His Great Royal Wife, Ahmose, gave him a daughter, *Hatshepsut, who later emphasised her royal pedigree and her father's support, to justify her seizure of the throne.

    Tuthmosis I was the first king to prepare a tomb in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes; quarried by the important official Ineni, its location in a remote and lonely valley was probably chosen in an attempt to deter tomb-robbers. Although it was of modest construction, this tomb established the pattern for later burials in the Valley. The king's mummy may have been amongst those discovered in the cache at Deir el Bahri.

    His funerary temple, which established the precedent of separating the temple from the tomb, was probably built on the edge of the Theban cultivated plain, but it has never been uncovered. This king also founded the village at Deir el Medina that housed the royal necropolis workmen and their families, but it was his predecessor, *Amenophis I, who became the patron of the community and received a cult there as a dead, deified ruler.

BIBL. Bruyere, B. Rapportsurlesfouilles deDeir elMedineh. (sixteen vols) Cairo: 1924-53; Winlock, H.E. Notes on the reburial of Tuthmosis I. JEA 15 (1929) pp. 56-68.

Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt by Rosalie and Antony E. David