The Hurrians, having established several commercial centers…

Hatshepsut had at first appeared to be patterning herself after the powerful female regents of Egypt's then-recent history, but as Thutmose III approaches maturity it becomes apparent that her model is Sobekneferu, the last monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty, who ruled in her own right.

Taking one step further than Sobekneferu, Hatshepsut has herself crowned pharaoh around 1473, taking the throne name Maatkare, meaning "Truth in the soul of the sun."

After she ascends the throne, she changes her name from the feminine Hatshepsut to the male Hatshepsu.

The erection of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, or Hanigalbat, a feudal state led by a warrior nobility of Indo-Aryan descent, has prompted a rejuvenated Egypt to war over Syria.

Thutmose III, whose reign is usually dated from April 24, 1479 to March 11, 1425 BCE, appears to have first led two military excursions while reigning as co-king under his stepmother Hatshepsut; these are not considered part of his seventeen campaigns, and predate his first campaign.

One appears to have been to Syria and the other apparently to Nubia.

These would have been late in Hatshepsut's reign, when Thutmose is apparently growing restless.

 

Deir el-Bahari or Deir el-Bahri is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt.

The mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh dynasty was the first monument built at the site.

Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut also build extensively at the site during the Eighteenth dynasty.

Hatshepsut’s vast rock-cut mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri is composed of two terraces surrounded by decorated colonnades; lush gardens front the entire edifice.

Egypt assumes control of the Canaanite seaport of Jaffa, whose natural harbor has been occupied since the Bronze Age.

It is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1470 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Thutmose III two years earlier, who had hidden armed warriors in large baskets and given the baskets as a present to the city's governor.

Thutmose has made the city a provincial capital.

Telepinu had been able to recover a little ground from the Hurrians of Mitanni, by forming an alliance with the Hurrians of Kizzuwatna; however, with the end of his reign after about 1460, the Hittite Empire has entered a temporary "Dark Ages", the Middle Kingdom, lasting around thirty to seventy years, when records become too scanty to draw many conclusions.

The Middle Kingdom of the Hittites is not so much an independent phase of Hittite history as a period of transition between the Old and New Kingdoms.

Almost nothing is known about the Hittites in this period.

Telepinu I, who seizes power around 1460 BCE, reestablishes stability in the Hittite kingdom.

King Barattarna of Mitanni has expanded the kingdom west to Halab (Aleppo) and made a vassal of Idrimi, the vigorous ruler of the city-state of Alalakh.

The Luwian-Hurrian state of Kizzuwatna in the west, whose king, Pilliya, had signed a treaty with Idrimi, has also shifted its allegiance to Mitanni.

Local rulers in Syria take Hatshepsut’s death as an opportunity to throw off Egyptian hegemony, a revolt with which Thutmose must deal immediately.

The Canaanites unite and ally with the Kingdom of Mitanni.

The driving force behind this revolt is the King of Kadesh, which city’s powerful fortress offers protection to him and the city.

The King of Megiddo, a geographically important city with an equally strong fortress, joins the alliance.

Megiddo, located along the southwestern edge of Jezreel Valley just beyond the Mount Carmel ridge and the Mediterranean, controls the main trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia.

A Canaanite-Syrian coalition of some three hundred and thirty rebellious princes opposes Thutmose, who gathers an army of chariots and infantry that numbers as many as ten thousand men, large for this time.

Thutmose, after his victory at Megiddo, devastates southeastern Mitanni, particularly in the region around Carchemish, where his grandfather Thutmose I had erected a nearby stela to celebrate his conquest of Syria and other lands beyond the Euphrates, but fails to subdue the kingdom.

Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt maintains strong diplomatic and commercial links with Punt, Babylonia, Assyria, the Hittites, and the Mycenaeans.

Hatshepsut, the first (and only) woman to rule Egypt as a pharaoh, has encouraged commercial expansion and sponsored a major building program.

She dies around 1458, having lost influence toward the end of her reign to her nephew Thutmose III.

The enormously wealthy and powerful Senemut, Hatshepsut’s chief advisor, minister of public works, architect, and possible lover, having risen from undistinguished origins through the priesthood of Amon to eventually hold about twenty different offices, dies around the same time.

"Great Nurse" (and perhaps father) to the royal princess Nefrure, Senemut was also the architect of Hatshepsut's obelisks at Karnak, her vast rock-cut mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, and worked at Thebes.

Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri is to serve for her posthumous worship and to honor the glory of Amun and the other gods

Constructed just north of the temple of Mentuhotep II, the ninety-seven-foot tall Djeser-Djeseru or "the Sublime of the Sublimes" is composed of two terraces surrounded by decorated colonnades; lush gardens front the entire edifice.

This colonnaded structure of perfect harmony is built nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon.

On the interior walls, a series of vividly detailed reliefs, now famous, includes scenes of Hatshepsut's trading expedition to the land of Punt, an incense-producing region on the Red Sea.

Senemut had two tombs constructed for him, one in the Tombs of the Nobles, and another near the temple at Deir el-Bahri, near Hatshepsut's mortuary temple

They will both be heavily vandalized during the reign of Thutmose III, perhaps during the latter's campaign to eradicate all trace of Hatshepsut's memory.

 

The Mitanni king of Kadesh leads a Palestinian-Syrian coalition of some three hundred and thirty rebellious Canaanite princes to oppose the Egyptians in Syria-Palestine.

The Egyptian army assembles at the border fortress Tjaru (called Sile in Greek) and arrives ten days later at the Egyptian-loyal city of Gaza.

It leaves after one day's rest for the small city of Yehem, near Megiddo, which is reached after eleven days.

Megiddo, situated northeast of Carmel and about eighteen miles (twenty-nine kilometers) southeast of the modern city of Haifa,  stands along the northwest-southeast route that connects the Phoenician cities with Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley, controlling a commonly used pass on the trading route between Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Here, Thutmose sends out scouts.

To continue north, they must pass the Mount Carmel ridge.

Behind it lies the city and fortress of Megiddo, where the rebel forces have gathered.

Of three possible routes from Yehem to Megiddo, both the northern route, via Zefti, and the southern route, by way of Taanach, give safe access to the Jezreel Valley.

The middle route, via Aruna, is risky, following a narrow ravine that the troops can only travel single-file.

If the enemy waits at the end of the ravine, the Egyptian forces risk being cut down piecemeal.

The army leaders plead therefore to take either of the two easier roads.

Thutmose III, with information from the scouts, decides instead to take the direct path to Megiddo.

Thutmose himself leads his men on a forced march to the lightly guarded city of Aruna; a quick assault scatters the rebels and his army enters the valley unopposed.

The rebels have left large infantry detachments guarding the two more likely paths, and have all but ignored the middle path.

With large parts of the rebel army far away to the north and south, the Egyptian army now has a clear path to Megiddo.

Thutmose, seizing the opportunity, sets up camp, arrays his forces close to the enemy during the night, and attacks at dawn.

The rebels are on high ground adjacent to the fortress; the Egyptian line is arranged in a concave formation that threatens both rebel flanks.

The Pharaoh leads the attack from the center.

The combination of position and numbers, along with an early, bold attack, breaks the enemy's will; their line immediately collapses.

Those near the city flee into it, closing the gates behind them.

As the Egyptian soldiers fall to plundering the enemy camp, the scattered rebel forces, including the kings of Kadesh and Megiddo, are able to rejoin the defenders inside the city.

Those inside lower clothing to the men and chariots and actually pull them up over the walls.

The opportunity of a quick capture of the city following the battle is thus lost.

The Egyptians besiege the city, sending forces throughout the rebel lands, all of which readily recognize Egyptian sovereignty, but the city holds out for as much as seven months until the Egyptians wins the decisive Battle of Qinnah Brook.

The victorious army takes home three hundred and forty prisoners, twenty thousand and forty-one mares, one hundred and ninety-one foals, six stallions, nine hundred and twenty-four chariots, two hundred suits of armor, five hundred and two bows, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine cattle, twenty-two thousand five hundred sheep, and the royal armor, chariot and tent-poles of the King of Megiddo.

Thutmose spares the city and citizens but requires of the defeated kings that they each send a son to the Egyptian court.

The Egyptians after this victory devastate southeastern Mitanni, particularly in the region around Carchemish, but fail to subdue the kingdom.

Egypt later crushes a Syrian rebellion and demands oaths of fealty from local rulers, then allies with the Hittites to drive the Mitannians out of Syria.