Thutmose IV may be Thutmose III procrusteanised, cut off really short

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

  

Added to this, Brian Alm has noted that reliefs of Thutmose IV actually

refer to his Heb Sed festival (“Thutmose IV: Placeholder or Pivot?”).

This usually indicated that the King of Egypt had attained to

three decades of reign.

 

 

 

In the ancient king lists we find kings and pharaohs, duplicated and even triplicated.

This comment applies to e.g. the Egyptian dynastic lists, the Assyro-Babylonian (Chaldean) king lists, and to the Medo-Persian lists. 

 

Archaeological data just cannot support so many kings as arise from these chaotic lists. On this, see e.g. my article:

 

Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology

 

(6) Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology

 

A most significant instance of duplication arises, so I would suggest, in the middle part of Egypt’s famous Eighteenth Dynasty:

 

Has Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty succession, Thutmose to Amenhotep, been duplicated?

 

(7) Has Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty succession, Thutmose to Amenhotep, been duplicated?

 

THUTMOSE III, IV  

 

Having, as according to the above article, a double set of the pharaonic combination: Thutmose – Amenhotep, in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt:

 

Tuthmosis III
Amenhotep II

Tuthmosis IV
Amenhotep III

inevitably makes me wonder, suspiciously, if, as in the case of Egypt’s Old-Middle Kingdoms, some duplications may have occurred, thereby unwarrantedly extending the already lengthy dynastic history of ancient Egypt:

 

Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms far closer in time than conventionally thought

 

(8) Egypt's Old and Middle Kingdoms far closer in time than conventionally thought

 

I have greatly streamlined those Old-Middle Kingdom dynasties in earlier articles, wherein there occur such repetitive combinations as: Pepi – Merenre (so-called Sixth Dynasty) and Amenemhet – Sesostris (so-called Twelfth Dynasty).

 

 

What makes me wonder even more in the case of the above Eighteenth Dynasty repetitions is that Thutmose III and so-called IV, as well as bearing the same nomen (Thutmose, “Born of the god Thoth”), also had the same praenomen, Menkheperre (“Lasting are the Manifestations of Re”).

 

As well as that ‘they’ shared the Horus name, Kanakht.

 

Thutmose III had Syrian wives, Menhet, Menwi and Merti.

Thutmose IV had, amongst several, Merytra (Merti?).

 

The plot thickens.

 

Thutmose IV was also married to a (Syro-) Mitannian woman, Mutemwiya, a name of which I would suggest that the above, Menwi (M-ut-emwi-ya), was a hypocoristicon:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/historyofancientegypt/queens-of-egypt/mutemwia-wife-of-tuthmosis-iv

Queen Mutemwia is of unknown parentage. One theory identifies her with a daughter of King Artatama of Mitanni who is known to have married Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV. …. There is however no evidence for this theory. Others have suggested that she may have been related to Yuya, the father of Queen Tiye. This theory seems to date back to C. Aldred. He suggested that Mutemwia was a daughter of the Master of the Horse named Yey. This scenario would have Mutemwia as a secondary royal wife, who gives birth to a son and heir. During the early reign of her son Amenhotep III, she and her brother Yuya marry Amenhotep to his niece Tiye. This is a nice theory, but again, no firm evidence exists to validate any of these ideas.

 

Queen Mutemwia was likely a minor wife of Tuthmosis IV. During the reign of Tuthmosis IV we first see him accompanied by a Queen Nefertari and later by Queen Iaret. Mutemwia must have given birth to Prince Amenhotep failry early in the reign, and it seems that Prince Amenhotep was recognized by the king and may have even been designated crown prince.

 

Mutemwia becomes more important during the reign of her son Amenhotep III. Amenhotep came to the throne at a fairly young age (some suggest ca 8-10 years old). Mutemwia never takes on the official role of regent for her son, but she is depicted on several of his monuments.

[End of quote]

 

The ‘Syrian’ element may become most significant when (if) I continue to trace the origins and identification of Thutmose III and his son, Amenhotep.

 

Obviously the reign lengths, as conventionally assigned to Thutmose III, IV, differ greatly, with Thutmose III reigning for 54 years and Thutmose IV for only about a decade or less.

 

However, one finds some entirely new possible perspectives arising when one reads articles such as Betsy Bryan’s “The Reign of Thutmose IV” (1991):

https://www.academia.edu/37751598/The_Reign_of_Thutmose_IV telling of historians Wente and Van Siclen even allowing for the possibility of “a figure quadrupling the reign” of Thutmose IV.

 

CHRONOLOGY

 

For those most interested in interpretive history, the problem of chronology often delays discussion. For those, however, who recognize the pitfalls and rewards of examining chronological evidence, this introductory chapter will be expected and, I hope, appreciated--if not completely agreed to. How long did Thutmose IV reign? The traditional answer to this question has been about eight years, a figure corresponding both to the attested year dates and the Manethonian king lists. Recently, however, the chronology for the New Kingdom proposed by Wente and Van Siclen used a figure quadrupling the reign. …. Such a dramatic extension of Thutmose's years as ruler warrants full discussion before it is embraced or rejected. The discussion below, therefore, before passing on to the events, characters, and monuments of the period, will examine the evidence for Thutmose IV's length of rule and weigh the arguments bearing on his reign contained in the new chronology. ….

[End of quote]

 

Added to this, Brian Alm has noted that reliefs of pharaoh Thutmose IV actually refer to his Heb Sed festival (“Thutmose IV: Placeholder or Pivot?”).

 

This usually indicated that the King of Egypt had attained to three decades of reign: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Heb-Sed

“Heb-Sed, also called Sed Festival, one of the oldest feasts of ancient Egypt, celebrated by the king after 30 years of rule and repeated every 3 years thereafter. The festival was in the nature of a jubilee, and it is believed that the ceremonies represented a ritual reenactment of the unification of Egypt, traditionally accomplished by Menes”.

 

Brian Alm writes, imagining that this must have been “fake news”, however, on the part of the Pharaoh:

https://www.academia.edu/37751598/The_Reign_of_Thutmose_IV

 

[Thutmose IV] had reliefs put up at Amada, in Nubia, referring to his heb-sed Jubilee — even though he ruled only eight or ten years and had no sed observance, which technically was to commemorate a king’s 30th year of rule — “Jubilee by proxy,” Reeves calls it …. Yes, it’s true that kings did jump the gun and held the heb-sed early, while they were still fresh and able to assert their right to rule with youthful vigor, but it was still a bit too early for a king who had ruled at most ten years and was dead by the age of 25. It is also possible that the heb-sed was being expressed not as an event but as a wish for longevity. Nevertheless, real or imagined, the rite had been recorded and recognized, so it was “fact.” Today it might be called fake news, but it was an Egyptian convention to create truth by writing it, stamped with the magical di ankh, “given life,” to make it so. ….

 

If, however, Thutmose IV is to be merged with III, then “fake news” was not involved.

For Thutmose III certainly did celebrate a Heb Sed festival:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_Hall_of_Thutmose_III

“The Festival Hall of Thutmose III is situated at the end of the Middle Kingdom court, with its axis at right-angles to the main east–west axis of the temple. It was originally built to celebrate the jubilee (Heb-Sed) of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh, Thutmose III, and later became used as part of the annual Opet Festival.”

 

This all suggests to me that Thutmose so-called IV has been procrusteanised by over-zealous Egyptologists, lopped off too short, limbs truncated.

 

For a pharaoh who is thought to have reigned for approximately only 8 years, Thutmose IV was an incredibly prolific builder. Though, as is further thought: “Most of his work was adding to the temples of his father and grandfather …”: https://www.crystalinks.com/Thutmose_IV.html

“Like most of the Thutmoside kings, he built on a grand scale. Thutmose IV completed the eastern obelisk first started by Thutmose III, which, at 32 m (105 ft), was the tallest obelisk ever erected in Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak. Thutmose IV called it the tekhen waty or 'unique obelisk.' It was transported to the grounds of the Circus Maximus in Rome by Emperor Constantius II in 357 AD and, later, "re-erected by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 at the Piazza San Giovanni" in the Vatican where it is today known as the 'Lateran Obelisk."

….

Thutmose IV also built a unique chapel and peristyle hall against the back or eastern walls of the main Karnak temple building. The chapel was intended "for people "who had no right of access to the main Karnak temple.

 

It was a 'place of the ear' for the god Amun where the god could hear the prayers of the townspeople." This small alabaster chapel of Thutmose IV has today been carefully restored by French scholars from the Centre Franco-Egyptien D'Etude des Temple de Karnak (CFEETK) mission in Karnak.

 

He also began work at most of Egypt’s major temple sites and four sites in Nubia, but almost all of this was simply adding to existing monuments. Most of his work was adding to the temples of his father and grandfather [sic], and perhaps suggesting new sites and monuments to his son.

 

Minor building projects [Thutmose IV]:

 

·       The Delta at Alexandria

·       Seriakus

·       Heliopolis

·       Giza

·       Abusir

·       Saqqara

·       Memphis

·       Crocodilopos in the Fayoum

·       Hermopolis

·       Amarna

·       Abydos (a chapel)

·       Dendera

·       Medamu

·       Karna

·       Luxor

·       The West Bank at Luxor (his tomb and mortuary temple)

·       Armant

·       Edfu

·       Elephantine

·       Konosso

 

Thutmose IV is like a microcosm of the great Thutmose III.

He is, in fact, Thutmose III procrusteanised, vertically challenged.   

 

Suspiciously, “little is known” about him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_IV

“Little is known about his brief ten-year rule. He suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year (attested in his Konosso stela) around 1393 BC [sic] and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria … but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan, who penned a biography of Thutmose IV, says that Thutmose IV's Konosso stela appears to refer to a minor desert patrol action on the part of the king's forces to protect certain gold-mine routes in Egypt's Eastern Desert from occasional attacks by the Nubians. …. Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance”.

 

Numerous instances of Syro-Mitannian campaigning and booty collecting can be gleaned from a reading of Betsy Bryan’s article, “The Reign of Thutmose IV” - although the tendency is, again, as with Brian Alm’s article, to understate the likelihood of its being hard reality.    

 

Thutmose III was indeed a Conqueror of Syria:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III#Conquest_of_Syria

 

“The fifth, sixth and seventh campaigns of Thutmose III were directed against the Phoenician cities in Syria and against Kadesh on the Orontes. In Thutmose's 29th year, he began his fifth campaign, where he first took an unknown city (the name falls in a lacuna) which had been garrisoned by Tunip. …. He then moved inland and took the city and territory around Ardata … the town was pillaged and the wheatfields burned. Unlike previous plundering raids, Thutmose III garrisoned the area known as Djahy, which is probably a reference to southern Syria. …. This permitted him to ship supplies and troops between Syria and Egypt. Although there is no direct evidence for it, it is for this reason that some have supposed that Thutmose's sixth campaign, in his thirtieth year, commenced with a naval transportation of troops directly to Byblos, bypassing Canaan entirely. …. After the troops arrived in Syria by whatever means, they proceeded into the Jordan River valley and moved north, pillaging Kadesh's lands. ….

Turning west again, Thutmose took Simyra and quelled a rebellion in Ardata, which apparently had rebelled again. …. To stop such rebellions, Thutmose began taking hostages from the cities in Syria. The cities in Syria were not guided by the popular sentiment of the people so much as they were by the small number of nobles who were aligned to Mitanni: a king and a small number of foreign Maryannu.

 

Thutmose III found that by taking family members of these key people to Egypt as hostages, he could drastically increase their loyalty to him. …. Syria rebelled again in Thutmose's 31st year and he returned to Syria for his seventh campaign, took the port city of Ullaza … and the smaller Phoenician ports … and took more measures to prevent further rebellions. …. All the excess grain which was produced in Syria was stored in the harbors he had recently conquered and was used for the support of the military and civilian Egyptian presence ruling Syria. …. This left the cities in Syria desperately impoverished. With their economies in ruins, they had no means of funding a rebellion. …”.