Thutmose IV

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Thutmose IV
Granite bust of Thutmose IV
Granite bust of Thutmose IV
Pharaoh of Egypt
Reign 1401 – 1391 BC or 1397 – 1388 BC,  18th Dynasty
Predecessor Amenhotep II
Successor Amenhotep III
Royal titulary
Consort(s) Nefertari, Iaret, Mutemwiya
Children Amenhotep III, Siatum (?), Amenemhat, Tiaa, Amenemopet, Petepihu, Tentamun
Father Amenhotep II
Mother Tiaa
Died 1391 or 1388 BC
Burial KV43

Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV and meaning Thoth is Born) was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His prenomen or royal name was Menkheperure.

Contents

[edit] Dates and length of reign

Dating the beginning of the reign of Thutmose IV is difficult to do with certainty because he is several generations removed from the astronomical dates which are usually used to calculate Egyptian chronologies, and the debate over the proper interpretation of these observances has not been settled. Thutmose's grandfather Thutmose III almost certainly acceded the throne in either 1504 or 1479, based upon two lunar observances during his reign.[1] After ruling for nearly 54 years,[2] Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV's father, took the throne and ruled for at least 26 years,[3] but has been assigned up to 35 years in some chronological reconstructions.[4] The currently preferred reconstruction, after analyzing all this evidence, usually comes to an accession date around 1401 BC[5] or 1400 BC[6] for the beginning of Thutmose IV's reign.

The length of his reign is not as clear as one would wish. He is usually given about nine or ten years of reign. Manetho credits him a reign of 9 Years and 8 Months.[7] However, Manetho's other figures for the 18th dynasty are frequently assigned to the wrong kings or simply incorrect, so monumental evidence is also used to determine his reign length.[8] Of all of Thutmose IV's dated monuments, three date to his first regnal year, one to his fourth, possibly one to his fifth, one to his sixth, two to his seventh, and one to his eighth.[9] Two possible other dated objects, one dated to a Year 19 and another year 20, have been suggested as belong to him, but neither have been accepted as dating to his reign.[9] The reading of the king in these dates are today accepted as referring to the prenomen of Thutmose III--Menkheperre--and not Menkhepe[ru]re Thutmose IV himself. Due to the absence of higher dates for Thutmose IV after his Year 8 Konosso stela,[10] Manetho's figures here are usually accepted.[7] There were once chronological reconstructions which gave him a reign as long as 34-35 years.[7][11] Today, however, most scholars ascribe give him a 10 year reign from 1401 to 1391 BC, within a small margin of error.

[edit] Life

Close-up of a scene from the Dream Stele depicting Thutmose IV giving offerings to the Great Sphinx of Giza. From a full-sized reproduction on display at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose.
Close-up of a scene from the Dream Stele depicting Thutmose IV giving offerings to the Great Sphinx of Giza. From a full-sized reproduction on display at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose.

Thutmose IV was born to Amenhotep II and Tiaa but was not actually the crown prince and Amenhotep II's chosen successor to the throne. Some scholars speculate that Thutmose ousted his older brother in order to usurp power and then commissioned the Dream Stele in order to justify his unexpected kingship. Thutmose's most celebrated accomplishment was the restoration of the Sphinx at Giza and subsequent commission of the Dream Stele. According to Thutmose's account on the Dream Stele, while the young prince was out on a hunting trip, he stopped to rest under the head of the Sphinx, which was buried up to the neck in sand. He soon fell asleep and had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared away the sand and restored it he would become the next Pharaoh. After completing the restoration of the Sphinx, he placed a carved stone tablet, now known as the Dream Stele, between the two paws of the Sphinx.The restoration of the Sphinx and the text of the Dream Stele would then be a piece of propaganda on Thutmose's part, meant to bestow legitimacy upon his unexpected kingship.[12]. 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 and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria,[13] but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan who penned a biography of Thutmose IV stresses 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.[14] Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he was the New Kingdom pharaoh who established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Thutmose IV's role in initiating contact with Egypt's former rival, Mitanni, is documented by Amarna letter EA 29 composed decades later by Tushratta, a Mittanian king who ruled during the reign of Akhenaten, Thutmose IV's grandson. Tushratta states to Akhenaten that:

When [Menkheperure], the father of Nimmureya (ie. Amenhotep III) wrote to Artatama, my grandfather, he asked for the daughter of my grandfather, the sister of my father. He wrote 5, 6 times, but he did not give her. When he wrote my grandfather 7 times, then only under such pressure, did he give her. (EA 29)[15]

Like most Thutmosids, he built on a large scale. Thutmose IV completed an obelisk first started by Thutmose III, which, at 32 m (105 feet), was the tallest obelisk ever erected in Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak.[16] It was transported to Rome by a later Roman Emperor and today stands at Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican.

[edit] Burial

Thutmose IV was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV43, but his body was moved to the mummy cache in KV35, where it was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898. An examination of his body shows that he was very ill and had been wasting away for the final months of his life prior to his death. He was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep III.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.14. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991
  2. ^ Peter Der Manuelian. Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II. p.20. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge(HÄB) Verlag: 1987
  3. ^ Donald B. Redford. The Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty. p.119. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1966)
  4. ^ Charles C. Van Siclen. "Amenhotep II", The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Ed. Donald Redford. Vol. 1, p.71. Oxford University Press, 2001.
  5. ^ Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, (1997) p.190
  6. ^ Shaw, Ian; and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. p.290. The British Museum Press, 1995.
  7. ^ a b c Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.4. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991
  8. ^ Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.5. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991
  9. ^ a b Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.6. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991
  10. ^ BAR II, 823-829
  11. ^ Wente, E.F.; and Van Siclen, C. "A Chronology of the New Kingdom." SAOC 39
  12. ^ Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. pp.113-114
  13. ^ Clayton, op. cit., p.114
  14. ^ Bryan, op. cit., p.335
  15. ^ William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. p.93
  16. ^ Clayton, op. cit., p.114

[edit] See also