page_title: Thutmose II
section_title: Argument for a short reign
hierarchical_section_title: Thutmose II / Dates and length of reign / Argument for a short reign
caption_attribution_description: English: Hieroglyphs – the throne name of Thutmose II (Aakheperenre) on an column on the last floor of the Temple of Hatshepsut, on Luxor's west bank, Egypt.Egyptian language hieroglyph name: Aa-kheper-n-ra.-(see: Ancient Egyptian royal titulary-Throne Name) Čeština: Trůnní jméno Thutmose II.; chrám královny Hatšepsut, Dér el-Bahrí
context_page_description: Thutmose II was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1493 to 1479 BC. His body was found in the Deir el-Bahri Cache above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut and can be viewed today in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
context_section_description: Ineni, who was already aged by the start of Thutmose II's reign, lived through this ruler's entire reign into that of Hatshepsut. In addition, Thutmose II is poorly attested in the monumental record and in the contemporary tomb autobiographies of New Kingdom officials. A clear count of monuments from his rule, which is the principal tool for estimating a king's reign when dated documents are not available, is nearly impossible because Hatshepsut usurped most of his monuments, and Thutmose III in turn reinscribed Thutmose II's name indiscriminately over other monuments. However, apart from several surviving blocks of buildings erected by the king at Semna, Kumma, and Elephantine, Thutmose II's only major monument consists of a limestone gateway at Karnak that once lay at the front of the Fourth Pylon's forecourt. Even this monument was not completed in Thutmose II's reign but in the reign of his son Thutmose III, which hints at "the nearly ephemeral nature of Thutmose II's reign". The gateway was later dismantled and its building blocks incorporated into the foundation of the Third Pylon by Amenhotep III.
  In 1987, Luc Gabolde published an important study that statistically compared the number of surviving scarabs found under Thutmose I, Thutmose II and Hatshepsut. While monuments can be usurped, scarabs are so small and comparatively insignificant that altering their names would be impractical and without profit; hence, they provide a far better insight into this period. Hatshepsut's reign is believed to have lasted for 21 years and 9 months. Gabolde highlighted, in his analysis, the consistently small number of surviving scarabs known for Thutmose II compared to Thutmose I and Hatshepsut respectively; for instance, Flinders Petrie's older study of scarab seals noted 86 seals for Thutmose I, 19 seals for Thutmose II and 149 seals for Hatshepsut while more recent studies by Jaeger estimate a total of 241 seals for Thutmose I, 463 seals for Hatshepsut and only 65 seals for Thutmose II. Hence, unless there was an abnormally low number of scarabs produced under Thutmose II, this would indicate that the king's reign was rather short-lived. On this basis, Gabolde estimated Thutmose I and II's reigns to be approximately 11 and 3 full years, respectively. Consequently, the reign length of Thutmose II has been a much debated subject among Egyptologists with little consensus given the small number of surviving documents for his reign.
caption: Aakheperenre, the praenomen of Thutmose II, temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor.
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