of Retenu will not rebel again on another occasion,” and, “We will never again act evilly against Men-kheper-Re (Thutmose III)—who lives forever, our good lord—in our lifetime” (Pritchard, ANET, 238; Hoffmeier, “Memphis and Karnak Stelae,” in Context of Scripture, vol. 2, 16). Since city-states throughout Syro-Palestine were involved in this rebellion, the territory of the kings of Retenu who pledged perpetual loyalty to Thutmose III must have comprised both Syria and Palestine. 92. Redford, “Coregency of Tuthmosis III,” 119. 93. Pritchard, ANET, 245. 94. Eitienne Drioton and Jacques Vandier, L’Egypte (Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1938), 406, 663. 95. Redford, “Coregency of Tuthmosis III,” 120. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid., 121. 98. Rainey, “Amenhotep II’s Campaign to Takhsi,” 71. 99. Pritchard, ANET, 245. 100. Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 324. Rainey affirms the activity of later restoration on the Memphis Stele, remarking that its opening lines are difficult to read due to faulty restoration by a later scribe (Rainey, “Amenhotep II’s Campaign to Takhsi,” 72). 101. Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 325. Shea correctly asserts that “the identification of the campaign of Year 7 is not a scribal error because the campaign of Year 9 is identified as ‘his second campaign of victory’ in the same text” (Shea, “Amenhotep II as Pharaoh,” 46), but he fails to account for the possibility that while the original scribe etched the year of the pharaoh’s first campaign onto the stele correctly, it was subject to damage by alteration and subsequently faulty reparation. 102. Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 323, 324. 103. Critics of the two-campaign theory argue that “Takhsi,” a region in Syria already known as such at the time of Thutmose III, does not appear on the Memphis and Karnak Stelae, where another “first campaign” is discussed, thus suggesting a variance in destinations. For one, Shea objects that while the Year-3 campaign identifies Takhsi as the region of the campaigning, this term is never mentioned in the account of the Year-7 campaign, thus implying that these two accounts cannot describe the same campaign (Shea, “Amenhotep II as Pharaoh,” 46), despite both of them documenting a campaign that was waged in Syria. This objection is weak, however, since the purpose of the Amada Stele was not to boast of military exploits, but rather to commemorate the work completed on the Amada temple in Nubia. Its brief allusion to the expedition in Syria is included to note that Amenhotep II captured seven rulers of Takhsi, executed them by his own hand to make an example of them, and had six of them hanged upside down for public exhibition on the walls at Thebes, while the seventh was to be hanged similarly at Napata, just downstream from the Fourth Cataract in Nubia. This graphic display functioned to remind the Nubians that pharaoh was to be revered and obeyed. The Memphis and Karnak Stelae had only one goal in mind: to boast of pharaoh’s military victories in Asia (Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 323–324; Hallo and Simpson, Ancient Near East, 261–262). Since the commissioners of these stelae had no need to mention the capture of the rulers of Takhsi, which was only one of the regions on the campaign’s itinerary, they simply chose not to include the term. 104. Redford, “Coregency of Tuthmosis III,” 119–120. 105. Wolfgang Helck, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, no. 18 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1956), 1448; Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 324.106. The view that A1 was launched in response to an Asiatic revolt is held by Breasted and most modern Egyptologists (Breasted, Ancient Records, vol. 2, 304; Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel, 163; Grimal, History of Ancient Egypt, 218). 107. Dennis Forbes, “Menkheperre Djehutymes: Thutmose III, A Pharaoh’s Pharaoh,” KMT 9:4 (Win 1998–1999), 65. 108. Breasted, Ancient
Records, vol. 2, 304. Curiously, the universally
Accepted location of Syria as the site of the rebellion is in stark contrast to the opinion of Vandersleyen, who states that “the first campaign, instead of reaching Ugarit and the middle of the Orontes Valley, hardly crossed the latitudinal equivalent of Lake Hula and the city of Tyre; as a result, it was no more significant than the second campaign” (Vandersleyen, L’Egypte, vol. 2, 328). On the contrary, A1 was far more significant, especially considering the post-victory celebration, the post-campaign executions at Thebes, and the erecting of the Elephantine Stele in Year 4. Moreover, during A1, the Egyptians passed so far up the Western Levant that they probably reached the border of Mitannian territory, which is known from The Annals of Amenhotep II. Aharoni even infers an unsuccessful Egyptian invasion of Mitanni, relying on the passage, “His majesty, going south, reached Niy (in the Northern Orontes Valley)” (Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Atlas, 34). The Egyptians later encountered a Mitannian spy during the concluding phase of A1, making Aharoni’s conclusion quite believable. When Amenhotep II was passing through the Sharon Plain, a messenger of the King of Mitanni, called the “Prince of Naharin” here, was captured by the Egyptians. This messenger was carrying with him a letter in the form of a clay tablet that hung from his neck like a necklace, which undoubtedly dealt with matters that concerned the Mitanni-inspired rebellion (Ibid.). All of this demonstrates the great importance of this vassal-rebellion, both to Egypt and to Mitanni, as Mitanni was seeking to usurp Egypt’s stranglehold on the prestigious position of the ANE’s dominant super-power. In contrast to all of this international intrigue revolving around A1, A2 was far less significant on an international level and far less illustrious, as will be seen momentarily. 109. Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Atlas, 34. 110. Grimal, History of Ancient Egypt, 219. 111. Pritchard, ANET, 246. 112. Examples of campaigns launched in spring are plentiful: (1) Thutmose III’s first Asiatic campaign, as he arrived at his first destination (the border fortress of Tjel) on ca. 20 April 1484 BC; (2) Amenhotep II’s first Asiatic campaign, as he arrived at his first destination (Shamash-Edom) on ca. 15 May 1452 BC; (3) Raamses II and his battalions of infantry and squads of chariotry, who departed for Kadesh in late April of ca. 1274 BC (Kenneth A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II [Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips, 1982], 53); (4) Nabopolassar’s expedition against mountain tribes in the month of Sivan, or ca. May/June of 607 BC (D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings [London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1961], 65); and (5) Nebuchadnezzar’s expedition to Syria in Sivan of the first full year of his reign, or ca. 604 BC (Ibid., 28, 69). 113. Der Manuelian, Amenophis II, 59. As proven above, “seventh year” should be correctRosetta Stone Arabic
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