Kamose

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Persondata
NAME Kamose
ALTERNATIVE NAMES {{{Alt}}}
SHORT DESCRIPTION Pharaoh of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH {{{Birth}}}
PLACE OF BIRTH Ancient Egypt
DATE OF DEATH {{{Death}}}
PLACE OF DEATH Ancient Egypt
Preceded by:
Tao II the Brave		 Pharaoh of Egypt
17th Dynasty		 Succeeded by:
Ahmose I
Kamose
Reign 1554 BC to 1549 BC
Praenomen
M23 L2
<
N5 M13 M40 L1
>

Wadjkheperre[1]
Nomen
G39 N5
<
kA Z1 ms s
>

Kamose[1]
Horus name Khahernesetef[1]
Nebty name Wehemmenu[1]
Golden Horus Sehertawy[1]
Father Tao II Seqenenre
Mother Ahhotep I
Died 1549 BC

Kamose was the last king of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. He was probably the son of Sekenenra Tao II and the brother of Ahmose I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty. His reign fell at the very end of the Second Intermediate Period. Kamose is usually ascribed a reign of three years (his highest attested regnal year), though some scholars now favor giving him a longer reign of around five years.[2] His reign is important for the decisive military initiatives he took against the Hyksos, who had come to rule much of Ancient Egypt.[2]

Contents

[edit] Campaigns

[edit] Casus Belli

Kamose was the final king in a succession of kings of increasing power. The Theban Seventeenth Dynasty was originally probably just a group of local govenors or Nomarchs, but after the reign of Intef VII and Seqenenre Tao II, Thebes had become dominant over Upper Egypt[3] and ruled Middle Egypt as far as Cusae.[4] Kamose sought to extend his rule over all of Lower Egypt. This was apparently met with much opposition by his courtiers. It appears that at some point, these princes in Thebes had achieved a practical modus vivendi with the later Hyksos rulers, which included transit rights through Hyksos-controlled Middle and Lower Egypt and pasturage rights in the fertile Delta.[5] His records on the Carnarvon Tablet relate the misgivings of Kamose's council to the prospect of losing all that:

"See, all are loyal as far as Cusae. We are tranquil in our part of Egypt. Elephantine [at the First Cataract] is strong, and the middle part (of the land) is with us as far as Cusae. Men till for us the finest of their lands. Our cattle pasture in the Papyrus marshes. Corn is sent for our swine. Our cattle are not taken away...He holds the land of the Asiatics; we hold Egypt..."[6]

Kamose appears to be much more concerned with prestige than with economics, and sought to regain by force what he thought was his by right namely the kingship of Lower and Upper Egypt.[7] The king thus responds: "I should like to know what serves this strength of mine, when a chieftain in Avaris, and another in Cush, and I sit united with an Asiatic and a Nubian, each in possession of his slice of Egypt, and I cannot pass by him as far as Memphis."[8]

There is no evidence to support Pierre Montet's assertion that Kamose's move against the Hyksos was sponsored by the priesthood of Amun as an attack against the Seth-worshippers in the North (i.e., a religious motive for the war of liberation). The Carnarvon Tablet does state that Kamose went north to attack the Hyksos by the command of Amun, but this is simple hyperbole common to virtually all royal inscriptions of Egyptian history, and should not be understood as the specific command from this god. Kamose states his reasons for an attack on the Hyksos was nationalistic pride. He may also have merely continued carrying out the aggressive military policies of his immediate predecessor, Seqenenre, who had apparently died in battle against the Hyksos.

[edit] Northern Campaign

In Kamose's third year, he embarked on his military campaign against the Hyksos by sailing north out of Thebes. He first reached Nefrusy, which was just north of Cusae and was manned by an Egyptian garrison loyal to the Hyksos.[9] A detachment of Medjay troops attacked the garrison and overran it.[9]. The Carnavon Tablet recounted this much of the campaign, but breaks off here. Nonetheless, Kamose's stratagey can probably be inferred. As Kamose moved north, he could easily take small villages and wipe out small garrisons, but if a city resisted, he could cut it off from the rest of the Hyksos kingdom simply by taking over the city directly to the north. This kind of tactic probably allowed him to travel very quickly up the nile.[10] A second stele found in Thebes picks up again with an attack on Avaris. Because it does not mention Memphis or other major cities to the north, it has long been suspected that Kamose never actually attacked Avaris, but instead recorded what he intended to do.[9] Kim Ryholt has recently argued that Kamose probably never advanced farther than the Cynopolite Nome in Middle Egypt (around the Faiyum and the city of Sako) and did not enter the Nile Delta or Lower Egypt proper.[11]

According to this second stele, after moving north of Nefrusy, Kamose's soldiers captured a courier bearing a message from the Hyksos king Awoserre Apopi at Avaris to his ally the ruler of Kush, requesting the latter's urgent support aaginst Kamose. Kamose promptly ordered a detachment of his troops to occupy and destroy the Bahariya Oasis in the Western Desert, which controlled the north-south desert route. Kamose, called "the Strong" in this text, ordered this event to protect his rearguard. Kamose then sailed back up the Nile to Thebes for a joyous victory celebration after his military success against the Hyksos in pushing the boundaries of his kingdom northward from Cusae past Hermopolis through to Sako which now formed the new frontier between 17th Dynasty Thebes and the 15th Dynasty Hyksos state.[12] Ryholt notes that Kamose never claims, in his second stela to attack anything in Avaris itself, only "anything belonging to Avaris (nkt hwt-w'rt, direct genetive) ie: the spoil [of war] which his army has carried off" as lines 7-8 and 15 of Kamose's stela--the only references to Avaris here--demonstrate:

Line 7-8: I placed the brave guard-flotilla to patrol as far as the desert-edge with the remainder (of the fleet) behind it, as if a kite were preying upon the territory of Avaris.

Line 15: I have not overlooked anything belonging to Avaris, because it (the area which Kamose was plundering) is empty.[13]

The Second Stela of Kamose is well known for recounting that a messenger of Apophis was captured with a letter from Apophis while travelling through the western desert roads to Nubia. The final evidence that this king's military activities affected only the Cynopolite nome and not the city of Avaris itself is the fact that when Kamose returned the letter to Apophis, he dispatched it to Atfih which is about a hundred miles south of Avaris. Atfih, hence, fomed either the new border or a no-man's land between the now shrunken Hyksos kingdom and Kamose's expanding 17th Dynasty state. Furthermore, Kamose states in his second stele that his intention in returning the letter was for the Hyksos messenger to inform Apophis of the Theban king's victories "in the area of Cynopolis which used to be in his possession."[14] This information confirms that Kamose confined his activities to this Egyptian nome and never approached the city of Avaris itself in his Year 3.

[edit] First Nubian Campaign

Kamose is known to have campaigned against the Kushites prior to his third Year since the Hyksos king directly appeals to his Kushite counterpart to attack his Theban rival and avenge the damage which Kamose had inflicted upon both their states. It is unlikely that Kamose had the resources to simultaneously defeat the Kushites to the south and then inflict a serious setback on the Hyksos to the north in just one year over a front-line which extended over several hundred kilometres.[15]

[edit] Reign Length

His Year 3 is the only attested date for Kamose and was once thought to mark the length of his reign. However, it now appears certain that Kamose reigned for one or two more years beyond this date because he initiated a second campaign against the Nubians. That Kamose had started a first campaign against the Kushites is affirmed by the contents of Apophis' letter which Kamose's men had captured. Apophis' plea for aid from the Nubian king to counter Kamose's attacks is recounted in Kamose's Year 3 Second stela:

Do you see what Egypt has done to me? The ruler who is in it, Kamose-the-Brave, given life, is attacking me on my soil although I have not attacked him in the manner of all he has done against you. He is choosing these two lands to bring affliction upon them, my land and yours, and he has ravaged them."[16]

Two separate rock-inscriptions found at Arminna and Toshka deep in Nubia give the prenomen and nomen of Kamose and Ahmose side by side and were inscribed at the same time—likely by the same draughtsman—according to epigraphic data.[17] Ryholt observes that in both inscriptions "the names of Ahmose follow directly below those of Kamose and each king is given the epithet di'nh which was normally used only of ruling kings. This indicates that both Kamose and Ahmose were ruling when the inscription were cut and consequently that they were coregents."[18] Since Kamose's name was recorded first, he would have been the senior coregent. However, no mention or reference to Ahmose as king appears in Kamose's Year 3 stela which indirectly records Kamose's first campaign against the Nubians; this can only mean that Kamose appointed the young Ahmose as his junior coregent sometime after his third year prior to launching a second military campaign against the Nubians.[19] Consequently, Kamose's second Nubian campaign must have occured in his Year 4 or 5. The target of Kamose's second Nubian campaign may have been the fortress at Buhen which the Nubians had recaptured from Kamose's forces since a stela bearing his cartouche was deliberately erased and there is fire damage in the fort itself.[20]

Redford notes that Kamose's burial was very modest, in an ungilded coffin lacking even the royal uraeus. Ryholt estimates a reign of 5 years for Kamose in his 1997 book on the Second Intermediate Period and dates this king's time-line at 1554 BC to 1549 BC.[21]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Kamose accessed October 6, 2006
  2. ^ a b Ryholt, Kim SB. The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. p.273 Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997. ISBN 87-7289-421-0
  3. ^ Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.189. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
  4. ^ James, T.G.H. Egypt: From the Expulsion of the Hyksos to Amenophis I. in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2, part 1, ed. Edwards, I.E.S, et al. p. 290. Cambridge University Press, 1965.
  5. ^ "Cambridge 2:1 290"
  6. ^ Gardiner, Sir Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford: University Press, (1961), p.166"
  7. ^ "Cambridge 2:1 290"
  8. ^ Gardiner, Sir Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs, 1961, reprint Oxford University Press, 1979, p.166
  9. ^ a b c James, T.G.H. Egypt: From the Expulsion of the Hyksos to Amenophis I. in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2, part 1, ed. Edwards, I.E.S, et al. p. 291. Cambridge University Press, 1965.
  10. ^ Spalinger, Anthony J. War in Ancient Egypt. p. 3. Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
  11. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op.cit., pp.172-175
  12. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., pp.173-175
  13. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., pp.173-174
  14. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.172
  15. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., pp.182-83
  16. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.181
  17. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.273
  18. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.273
  19. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.274
  20. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., pp.181-182
  21. ^ Ryholt, Kim SB. op. cit., p.204

[edit] Bibliography

  • Gardiner, Sir Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. Oxford: University Press, 1964, 1961.
  • Montet, Pierre. Eternal Egypt, translated from the French by Doreen Weightman. London, 1964
  • Pritchard, James B. (Editor). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd edition). Princeton, 1969.
  • Redford, Donald B. History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies. Toronto, 1967.
  • Ryholt, Kim SB, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications, Copenhagen, (Museum Tusculanum Press:1997) ISBN 87-7289-421-0
Preceded by:
Tao II the Brave		 Pharaoh of Egypt
Seventeenth Dynasty		 Succeeded by:
Ahmose I
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../k/a/m/Kamose.html"