The first succession of the i8th Dynasty that did not descend from father to son did not result in a lengthy reign. In 1987 Luc Gabolde published a study of the chronology of the reigns of Thutmose I and II, estimating eleven years for the former and three for the latter. The short duration of Thutmose I’s rule was in inverse proportion to its impact on the character of later i8th-Dynasty kingship. Thutmose’s interest in the military and economic exploitation of Nubia may have built upon the efforts of Amenhotep 1, but his expedition to Syria opened new horizons that led later to Egypt’s important role in the trade and diplomacy of the Late Bronze Age Near East. The effect of Thutmose’s efforts on cultural material generally is most visible today in Thebes and Nubia, but the importance of Memphis, and regions further north, is also evident.
Thutmose Ts father is unknown, but his mother was named Seniseneb, a rather common name of the Second Intermediate Period and early i8th Dynasty. The families of both Ineni and Hapuseneb (high priest of Amun under Hatshepsut) contained female members with this name. Seniseneb appeared behind Thutmose I and in front of Ahmose-Nefertari on the Wadi Haifa copy of the coronation stele of Thutmose’s first regnal year. Seniseneb’s parentage is equally unknown, but she had no title during her son’s reign other than ‘king’s mother’. Thutmose’s principal wife was Ahmose, who had the titles ‘king’s sister, great royal wife’. Claude Vandersleyen has assumed that she was Thutmose’s own sister, primarily because she lacked the title ‘king’s daughter’. The king would then have been attempting to recreate the situation of the two preceding reigns, with brother and sister rulers. Her name may suggest, however, that Ahmose was a member of Amenhotep I’s family, perhaps by Prince Ahmose-ankh, and that it was her important connection to the Ahmosid family that facilitated Thutmose’s accession to the throne. At present Ahmose’s origins and the succession of Thutmose cannot be better explicated.
It was by Ahmose that Thutmose 1 fathered the future Queen Hatshepsut and probably also a princess called Nefrubity, to judge from the latter’s appearance with them in scenes from the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri. The ‘god’s wife of Amun’, Ahmose-Nefertari, died in the reign of Thutmose 1 and was replaced by Hatshepsut. By a non-royal wife, Mutnefret, the king fathered the future King Thutmose 11 (1492-1479 bc); the female parentage of his two other sons, Amenmose and Wadjmose, is uncertain, but the latter was honoured along with Thutmose 1 on a statue of Mutnefret dedicated by Thutmose II in the chapel on the south side of the Rames-seum. Indeed, it has been suggested that this chapel was a family funerary temple; it would have been, therefore, more specifically a family temple for Thutmose Ts heirs by Mutnefret.
World History
