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Ahmose I

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Ahmose I

Ahmose I (Amosis, Aahmes; meaning "Iah (the Moon) is born") was a pharaoh and founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt in the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. His reign is usually dated to the mid-16th century BC at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age.

During his reign, Ahmose completed the conquest and expulsion of the Hyksos, restored Theban rule over Lower- and Upper Egypt, and successfully reasserted Egyptian power in its formerly subject territories of Nubia and Canaan. He then reorganized the administration of the country, reopened quarries, mines and trade routes and began massive construction projects of a type that had not been undertaken since the time of the Middle Kingdom. This building program culminated in the construction of the last pyramid built by native Egyptian rulers. Ahmose's reign laid the foundations for the New Kingdom, under which Egyptian power reached its peak.

He was a member of the Theban royal house, the son of pharaoh Seqenenre Tao and brother of the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth Dynasty, Kamose. During the reign of his father or grandfather, Thebes rebelled against the Hyksos, the rulers of Lower Egypt. When he was seven years old, his father was killed, and he was about ten when his brother died of unknown causes after reigning only three years. Ahmose I assumed the throne after the death of his brother, and upon coronation became known as Nebpehtyre, nb-pḥtj-rꜥ "The Lord of Strength is Ra".

Ahmose descended from the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. His grandfather and grandmother, Senakhtenre Ahmose and Tetisheri, had at least twelve children, including Seqenenre Tao and Ahhotep I. The brother and sister, according to the tradition of Egyptian queens, married, and had sons Kamose and Ahmose I, as well as several daughters. Ahmose I followed in the tradition of his father and married several of his sisters, making Ahmose-Nefertari his chief wife. They had several children including daughters Meritamun B, Sitamun A and sons Siamun A, Ahmose-ankh, Amenhotep I and Ramose A (the "A" and "B" designations after the names are a convention used by Egyptologists to distinguish between royal children and wives that otherwise have the same name). They may also have been the parents of Mutnofret, who would become the wife of later successor Thutmose I. Ahmose-ankh was Ahmose's heir apparent, but he preceded his father in death sometime between Ahmose's 17th and 22nd regnal year. Ahmose was succeeded instead by his eldest surviving son, Amenhotep I, with whom he might have shared a short coregency.

There was no distinct break in the line of the royal family between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth dynasties. The priest and historian Manetho author of a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II (283 – 246 BC), the now lost Aegyptiaca (Αἰγυπτιακά), considered the final expulsion of the Hyksos after nearly a century and the restoration of native Egyptian rule over the whole country a significant enough event to warrant the start of a new dynasty.

Ahmose I ascended the throne as a "boy king" at the age of 10. He went on to rule about 25 regnal years before he died around the age of 35. The beginning of his reign would have been under a regency until his coming of age. During his reign he successfully defeated the Hyksos in Lower Egypt, reuniting the Two Lands, becoming the "patriarch" of the New Kingdom. He also started military raids into the Levant pursuing the Hyksos.

Ahmose ascended the throne when he was still a child, so his mother, Ahhotep, reigned as regent until he was of age. Judging by some of the descriptions of her regal roles while in power, including the general honorific "carer for Egypt", she effectively consolidated the Theban power base in the years before Ahmose assumed full control. If in fact Apepi II was a successor to Apepi I, then he is thought to have remained bottled up in the delta during Ahhotep's regency, because his name does not appear on any monuments or objects south of Bubastis.

The conflict between the local kings of Thebes and the Hyksos king Apepi had started during the reign of Ahmose's father, Seqenenre Tao, and would be concluded, after almost 30 years of intermittent conflict and war, during his own reign. Seqenenre Tao was possibly killed in a battle against the Hyksos, as his much-wounded mummy gruesomely suggests, and his successor Kamose (likely Ahmose's elder brother) is known to have attacked and raided the lands around the Hyksos capital, Avaris (modern Tell el-Dab'a). Kamose evidently had a short reign, as his highest attested regnal year is year 3, and was succeeded by Ahmose I. Apepi died around a decade later.

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