The highest preserved year date for the reign of Thutmose II is his first, and scholarship in the 1980s and 1990s suggests that his reign lasted for no more than three years. Hatshepsut, the half-sister of Thutmose, served as his great royal wife and was also god’s wife of Amun. Like Ahmose-Nefertari, from whom she inherited her religious role, Hatshepsut was frequently featured in the reliefs decorating the Theban monuments of her husband, most commonly in the guise of god’s wife. Thutmose ITs brief tenure has left few records of external activities, but the Egyptian army continued to quell uprisings in Nubia and brought about the final demise of the kingdom of Kush at Kerma.
The nearly ephemeral nature of Thutmose ITs rule is underlined by the paucity of his monuments generally, and their absence in the north of Egypt. Thutmose II left no identifiable tomb (not unusual in the early i8th Dynasty) or any completed funerary temple. There are indications that the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri was originally begun in the reign of Thutmose II, perhaps even then under the queen’s direction. However, it may have been intended as his (and her) funerary cult location. A small temple near Medinet Habu was erected for him by Thutmose III, perhaps carrying out a plan already contemplated by Thutmose II.
Thutmose II’s only major monuments are from Karnak: a pylonshaped limestone gateway was erected at the front of the Fourth Pylon’s forecourt. Both the gate and another limestone structure of unknown type were later dismantled and the blocks placed in the Third Pylon foundations. The gateway has been reconstructed in the
Kamak ‘Open Air Museum’. The structure with raised relief scenes contained a preponderance of scenes of the king, some showing him with Hatshepsut, and some depicting Hatshepsut alone. This building was completed in the first years ofThutmose III (during the Hatshepsut regency); following her accession, the queen’s agents actually replaced the small boy-king’s name in a few places with her own cartouches. On one face of a four-sided pillar fragment Thutmose II is shown receiving crowns, while two other sides bear reliefs of Nefrura (his daughter) and Hatshepsut receiving life from the god. This monument may have been created after Thutmose II had died, but it is undeniable that Hatshepsut was already an important influence on the monarchy before her brother’s death.
Other constructions in the name ofThutmose II are known from Napata, where Thutmose I may already have left building remains. At Semna and Kumma, as well as at Elephantine, there are surviving blocks from buildings ofThutmose II. In addition, recent exavations at Elephantine have revealed a statue that was dedicated by another ruler (presumably Hatshepsut) in the name of her ‘brother’; Vandersleyen notes that there is also an identical uninscribed royal torso in the Elephantine Museum.
The only known military expedition of Thutmose II’s reign is recorded on a rock-cut stele at Sehel, south of Aswan. It is dated to the flrst year of his reign and describes a local uprising in Kush that was punished with the death of all involved, except for one son of the ruler of Kush, who was brought back as a hostage, evidently resulting in the restoration of peace. Clearly this was a minor rebellion, but the family of the local Kerma king was still active, so the action was brutal and swift. This effectively ended Egypt’s major problems with Kush. Inhabitants of the region were pursued through the desert from near an Egyptian fortress on the river.
Ahmose Pennekhbet notes in his funerary inscriptions that numerous Shasu were brought away as prisoners for Thutmose II during an otherwise unattested campaign. Since the ethnic term Shasu could refer to peoples of either Palestine or Nubia, this brief entry probably referred to the year i Nubian expedition. It is important to note again, however, that these autobiographies were carved on the wall several decades after the events they describe. The effects of creating a single narrative may have made any single entry somewhat less than complete.
Thutmose IPs mother, Mutnefret, was alive in his reign, to judge from the statue dedicated for her in the Wadjmose chapel at Thebes mentioned above. Although the king’s age at accession (and death) is unknown, it is quite possible that he was younger than his sister and wife Hatshepsut. She was the offspring of Thutmose I and Ahmose, the queen officially recognized in the previous reign. A stele of Thutmose Il’s reign shows the king followed by Ahmose and Hatshepsut. Apparently the latter was already ‘god’s wife of Amun’ in the reign of Thutmose I, following Ahmose-Nefertari’s death. Thutmose II was not so young that he could not father a child, however, since Nefrura is portrayed at Kamak with him and Hatshepsut.
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