# Thutmose III Source: https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/thutmose-iii Language: en # Thutmose III Seventeen campaigns, and an empire that outlasted him by two hundred years. **Reign**: c.1479–1425 BCE **Dynasty**: 18th Dynasty **Period**: New Kingdom **Also written**: Tuthmosis III · Menkheperre · Djehutymes III · تحوتمس الثالث · من خبر رع ## Who they were Thutmose III became king as a child and shared rule with Hatshepsut before ruling alone. His campaigns and building projects are recorded at Karnak, where royal inscriptions present the successes of his reign from the king’s point of view. ## Why they matter At Karnak, his campaign annals and Festival Hall show two sides of kingship: military achievement and religious building. In KV34, the Amduat follows the sun god’s nightly journey. Later royal tombs used this and other funerary compositions in different combinations. ## What happened In his twenty-second year, immediately after Hatshepsut disappears from the record, he marched north against a coalition of Syrian and Canaanite rulers assembled at Megiddo, took the narrow route through the hills against his officers’ advice, won the battle and then spent seven months besieging the town. Sixteen further campaigns followed over twenty years, reaching the Euphrates, where he set up his own boundary stela beside his grandfather’s. In the south he pushed the frontier to the Fourth Cataract. Conquered rulers’ sons were brought to Egypt to be raised at court and sent home to govern — an administration rather than a raid. At home he cleared and rebuilt in the older parts of Karnak, took down Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel and replaced it, and built the Akh-menu, a pillared hall whose columns imitate a tent pole, with a small side room carved with plants and animals that were said to have been brought back from Syria. Late in the reign the removal of Hatshepsut’s names began. ## What they built in Luxor At Karnak: the Akh-menu Festival Hall at the eastern end, the Sixth and Seventh Pylons (a monumental gateway formed by two massive towers), the Annals cut on the walls around the sanctuary, the sanctuary itself, and obelisks — one of which now stands in Rome. A small temple squeezed into the bay at Deir el-Bahari between Mentuhotep II’s complex and Hatshepsut’s. The small Amun temple at Medinet Habu, with Hatshepsut. And KV34 in the Valley of the Kings. ## Where to meet them Walk the main axis at Karnak all the way east, past the sanctuary, to the Festival Hall: a hall with two rows of tall columns down the middle that swell towards the top like an inverted tent pole, and lower square pillars around the sides. Find the small room off its north-east corner — the walls are covered with plants and birds, and there is nothing else like it. His tomb, KV34, is at the head of the valley up a metal stair against the cliff, and it is the one that makes every later tomb make sense. How we label claims ## What is disputed Each claim below carries its evidence class. A claim marked interpretation or uncertain is not a weaker version of a fact — it is a different kind of statement, and the note says why. - Uncertain That he ordered the erasure of Hatshepsut, and why. The erasure is fact; that it happened during his sole reign is well supported; that he personally ordered it is a reasonable inference rather than a documented one. The motive is genuinely open, and the late dating of the work counts against the familiar personal explanation. See the same note on Hatshepsut’s record — this site states the disagreement rather than resolving it. - Interpretation That the Annals at Karnak are a straightforward campaign record. They are the fullest military text from the period and much of their detail — routes, tribute lists, numbers of captured horses — is treated as usable evidence. They are also a monumental inscription on a temple wall, composed to present the king as victorious, and they say so about every campaign. Historians read them as a source and as a display at the same time. Who added what ## Before and after [18th Dynasty **Thutmose I** c.1504–1492 BCE The soldier king usually named as the first buried in the Valley of the Kings. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/thutmose-i) [18th Dynasty **Thutmose III** c.1479–1425 BCE Seventeen campaigns, and an empire that outlasted him by two hundred years. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/thutmose-iii) [18th Dynasty **Hatshepsut** c.1473–1458 BCE A king who was a woman, and whose name was later cut out of her own walls. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/hatshepsut) [18th Dynasty **Amenhotep III** c.1390–1352 BCE A king whose monumental building programme reshaped Thebes. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/amenhotep-iii) Tomb ## Their tomb - [KV34 — KV34 — Tomb of Thutmose III](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/tombs#tomb-kv34) [Tomb directory](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/tombs) Continue reading ## Explore the connections 1–1 / 8 [Temple complex · East bank ### Karnak Temple Complex Two thousand years of building, rebuilding and royal ambition, gathered around the temples of Amun. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/karnak)[Necropolis · West bank ### Valley of the Kings The royal burial landscape of the New Kingdom: rock-cut tombs tucked into a desert valley, separate from the kings’ major commemorative temples. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/valley-of-the-kings)[Temple · West bank ### Temple of Hatshepsut Terraces set straight into the cliff at Deir el-Bahari — and a reign that was later chiselled off its own walls. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/temple-of-hatshepsut)[Temple · West bank ### Medinet Habu Colour survives here wherever the roof did — on a temple built by a king fighting to hold Egypt together. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/medinet-habu)[God ### Amun The hidden god of Thebes, who became king of the gods and the state god of an empire. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/amun)[God ### Ra The sun — and the night journey that every royal tomb in the valley is a map of. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/ra)[God ### Osiris Ruler of the dead, associated with restoration and renewal. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/gods/osiris)[History ### Karnak: Finding Your Way Through the Layers Karnak grew through additions, rebuilding and reuse. Compare the western pylons, central obelisks and eastern Festival Hall; walking east does not follow a simple newest-to-oldest sequence. ](https://luxor101.com/journal/karnak-in-the-order-it-was-built) Sources & further reading 4 Tier 2 The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw Oxford University Press Tier 2 The Complete Valley of the Kings, Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson Thames & Hudson Tier 1 [Survey, excavation and restoration in the temples of Karnak](https://www.cfeetk.cnrs.fr/accueil/programmes-scientifiques/projet-karnak/) Centre franco-égyptien d’étude des temples de Karnak (CFEETK) Official page indexed · checked 2026-09-19 Tier 2 The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Erik Hornung Cornell University Press Source review is incomplete. Consultation dates are shown only for checked references. Published works and institutional references for further reading. [Sources and review status](mailto:corrections@egyptmore.com?subject=Luxor101%20correction) [Pharaohs](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs)