Volta
Politicsc. 1550 – c. 1070 BC

New Kingdom Egypt and the Campaigns of Thutmose III

Also called: Egyptian Empire

Having expelled the Hyksos, Egypt entered the New Kingdom. Thutmose III campaigned through Syria and Palestine to the Euphrates, carrying Egyptian power to its widest extent.

Statue of Thutmose III from the Karnak temple — Luxor Museum
Statue of Thutmose III from the Karnak temple — Luxor Museum

Marsupium · CC BY 4.0 · Source

Late in the Middle Kingdom the Hyksos from western Asia, with horses and chariots, came to rule Lower Egypt. Around 1550 BC Ahmose of Thebes drove them out and began the New Kingdom. Egypt no longer kept within the Nile valley but became an empire whose chariot armies conquered abroad.

Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty (r. 1479–1425 BC) led more than sixteen campaigns, beginning with the Battle of Megiddo, subdued Syria and Palestine, reached the Euphrates and took Nubia in the south. In the capital Thebes the Karnak temple of Amun grew ever larger, and the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings. The Book of the Dead came into wide use in this period.

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The map in 1550 BC

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States at the time
New Kingdom of Egypt · founded
Places
Thebes

People

  • Thutmose III1425 BC

    monarch · Eighteenth-Dynasty pharaoh of New Kingdom Egypt (r. 1479–1425 BC) whose campaigns extended Egyptian power through Syria to the Euphrates

Before and after

Earlier
2334 BC Rise of the Akkadian Empire
Later
1353 BC Religious Reform of Amenhotep IV

Themes that include this event

  • Early Civilizations and Empires3500 BC – 486 BC

    From the first civilizations in the great river valleys to the first empires of the Near East, India and China — comparing their writing, law, religion and rule