Thutmose IV

Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV and meaning Thoth is Born) was the eighth Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century BCE. His prenomen or royal name, Menkheperure, means "Established in forms is Ra."Clayton, Peter. Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1994. p.112
==Dates and length of reign==
Dating the beginning of the reign of Thutmose IV is difficult to do with certainty because he is several generations removed from the astronomical dates which are usually used to calculate Egyptian chronologies, and the debate over the proper interpretation of these observances has not been settled. Thutmose's grandfather Thutmose III almost certainly acceded the throne in either 1504 or 1479 BCE, based upon two lunar observances during his reign.Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.14. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991 After ruling for nearly fifty-four years,Peter Der Manuelian. Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II. p.20. Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge(HÄB) Verlag: 1987 Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV's father, took the throne and ruled for at least twenty-six years,Donald B. Redford. The Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty. p.119. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1966) but has been assigned up to thirty-five years in some chronological reconstructions.Charles C. Van Siclen. "Amenhotep II", The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Ed. Donald Redford. Vol. 1, p.71. Oxford University Press, 2001. The currently preferred reconstruction, after analyzing all this evidence, usually comes to an accession date around 1401 BCEJürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, (1997) p.190 or 1400 BCEShaw, Ian; and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. p.290. The British Museum Press, 1995. for the beginning of Thutmose IV's reign.
The length of his reign is not as clear as one would wish. He is usually given about nine or ten years of reign. Manetho credits him a reign of nine years and eight months.Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.4. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991 However, Manetho's other figures for the 18th dynasty are frequently assigned to the wrong kings or simply incorrect, so monumental evidence is also used to determine his reign length.Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.5. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991 Of all of Thutmose IV's dated monuments, three date to his first regnal year, one to his fourth, possibly one to his fifth, one to his sixth, two to his seventh, and one to his eighth.Bryan, Betsy. The Reign of Thutmose IV. p.6. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1991 Two possible other dated objects, one dated to a Year 19 and another year 20, have been suggested as belonging to him, but neither have been accepted as dating to his reign. The reading of the king in these dates are today accepted as referring to the prenomen of Thutmose III--Menkheperre—and not Menkhepe[ru]re Thutmose IV himself. Due to the absence of higher dates for Thutmose IV after his Year 8 Konosso stela,BAR II, 823-829 Manetho's figures here are usually accepted. There were once chronological reconstructions which gave him a reign as long as thirty-four or thirty-five years.Wente, E.F.; and Van Siclen, C. "A Chronology of the New Kingdom." SAOC 39 Today, however, most scholars ascribe give him a ten year reign from 1401 to 1391 BCE, within a small margin of error.
==Life==
Thutmose IV was born to Amenhotep II and Tiaa but was not actually the crown prince and Amenhotep II's chosen successor to the throne. Some scholars speculate that Thutmose ousted his older brother in order to usurp power and then commissioned the Dream Stele in order to justify his unexpected kingship. Thutmose's most celebrated accomplishment was the restoration of the Sphinx at Giza and subsequent commission of the Dream Stele. According to Thutmose's account on the Dream Stele, while the young prince was out on a hunting trip, he stopped to rest under the head of the Sphinx, which was buried up to the neck in sand. He soon fell asleep and had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared away the sand and restored it he would become the next Pharaoh. After completing the restoration of the Sphinx, he placed a carved stone tablet, now known as the Dream Stele, between the two paws of the Sphinx.The restoration of the Sphinx and the text of the Dream Stele would then be a piece of propaganda on Thutmose's part, meant to bestow legitimacy upon his unexpected kingship.Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. pp.113-114 Little is known about his brief ten-year rule. He suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year (attested in his Konosso stela) around 1393 BCE and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria,Clayton, p.114 but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan who penned a biography of Thutmose IV stresses that Thutmose IV's Konosso stela appears to refer to a minor desert patrol action on the part of the king's forces to protect certain gold-mine routes in Egypt's Eastern Desert from occasional attacks by the Nubians.Bryan, p.335 Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he was the New Kingdom pharaoh who established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Thutmose IV's role in initiating contact with Egypt's former rival, Mitanni, is documented by Amarna letter EA 29 composed decades later by Tushratta, a Mittanian king who ruled during the reign of Akhenaten, Thutmose IV's grandson. Tushratta states to Akhenaten that:
==Monuments==
Like most of the Thutmoside kings, he built on a grand scale. Thutmose IV completed the eastern obelisk first started by Thutmose III, which, at 32 m (105 ft), was the tallest obelisk ever erected in Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak. Thutmose IV called it the tekhen waty or 'unique obelisk.' It was transported to the grounds of the Circus Maximus in Rome by Emperor Constantius II in 357 CE and, later, "re-erected by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 at the Piazza San Giovanni" in the Vatican where it is today known as the 'Lateran Obelisk."Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Books, 1992. p.303
Thutmose IV also built a unique chapel and peristyle hall against the back or eastern walls of the main Karnak temple building.Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt:Anatomy of a Civilization, Routledge, 1989. p.202 The chapel was intended "for people "who had no right of access to the main [Karnak] temple. It was a 'place of the ear' for the god Amun where the god could hear the prayers of the townspeople."Kemp, p.303 This small alabaster chapel of Thutmose IV has today been carefully restored by French scholars from the Centre Franco-Egyptien D'Étude des Temple de Karnak (CFEETK) mission in Karnak.Al-Ahram, Fruitful seasons, 21-27 November 2002, Issue No.613
== Burial ==
Thutmose IV was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV43, but his body was later moved to the mummy cache in KV35, where it was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898. An examination of his body shows that he was very ill and had been wasting away for the final months of his life prior to his death. He was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep III.
== Footnotes ==
Category:Ancient Egypt
Category:Rulers