Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Champollion.
Free transit on the main road which ran diagonally through Kharû was ensured by fortresses constructed at strategic points,* and from this time forward Thûtmosis was able to bring the whole force of his army to bear upon both Coele-Syria and Naharaim.** He encamped, in the year XXVII., on the table-land separating the Afrîn and the Orontes from the Euphrates, and from that centre devastated the district of Ûânît,*** which lay to the west of Aleppo; then crossing “the water of Naharaim” in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, he penetrated into the heart of Mitanni.
* The castle, for instance, near Megiddo, previously
referred to, which, after having contributed to the siege of
the town, probably served to keep it in subjection.
** The accounts of the campaigns of Thûtmosis III. have been
preserved in the Annals in a very mutilated condition, the
fragments of which were discovered at different times. They
are nothing but extracts from an official account, made for
Amon and his priests.
*** The province of the Tree Ûanû; cf. with this designation
the epithet “Shad Erini,” “mountain of the cedar tree,”
which the Assyrians bestowed on the Amanus.
The following year he reappeared in the same region. Tunipa, which had made an obstinate resistance, was taken, together with its king, and 329 of his nobles were forced to yield themselves prisoners. Thûtmosis “with a joyous heart” was carrying them away captive, when it occurred to him that the district of Zahi, which lay away for the most part from the great military highroads, was a tempting prey teeming with spoil. The barns were stored with wheat and barley, the cellars were filled with wine, the harvest was not yet gathered in, and the trees bent under the weight of their fruit. Having pillaged Senzaûrû on the Orontes,* he made his way to the westwards through the ravine formed by the Ishahr el-Kebîr, and descended suddenly on the territory of Arvad. The towns once more escaped pillage, but Thutmosis destroyed the harvests, plundered the orchards, carried off the cattle, and pitilessly wasted the whole of the maritime plain.
* Senzaûrû was thought by Ebers to be “the double Tyre.”
Brugsch considered it to be Tyre itself. It is, I believe,
the Sizara of classical writers, the Shaizar of the Arabs,
and is mentioned in one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets in
connection with Nîi.
There was such abundance within the camp that the men were continually getting drunk, and spent their time in anointing themselves with oil, which they could do only in Egypt at the most solemn festivals. They returned to Syria in the year XXX., and their good fortune again favoured them. The stubborn Qodshû was harshly dealt with; Simyra and Arvad, which hitherto had held their own, now opened their gates to him; the lords of Upper Lotanû poured in their contributions without delay, and gave up their sons and brothers as hostages. In the year XXXI., the city of Anamut in Tikhisa, on the shores of Lake Msrana, yielded in its turn;* on the 3rd of Pakhons, the anniversary of his coronation, the Lotanû renewed their homage to him in person.
* The site of the Tikhisa country is imperfectly defined.
Nisrana was seemingly applied to the marshy lake into which
the Koweik flows, and it is perhaps to be found in the name
Kin-nesrîn. In this case Tikhisa would be the country near
the lake; the district of the Grseco-Roruan Chalkis is
situated on the right of the military road.
The return of the expedition was a sort of triumphal procession. At every halting-place the troops found quarters and provisions prepared for them, bread and cakes, perfumes, oil, wine, and honey being provided in such quantities that they were obliged on their departure to leave the greater part behind them. The scribes took advantage of this peaceful state of affairs to draw up minute accounts of the products of Lotanû—corn, barley, millet, fruits, and various kinds of oil—prompted doubtless by the desire to arrive at a fairly just apportionment of the tribute. Indeed, the results of the expedition were considered so satisfactory that they were recorded on a special monument dedicated in the palace at Thebes. The names of the towns and peoples might change with every war, but the spoils suffered no diminution. In the year XXXIII., the kingdoms situated to the west of the Euphrates were so far pacified that Thutmosis was able without risk to carry his arms to Mesopotamia. He entered the country by the fords of Carchemish, near to the spot where his grandfather, Thutmosis I., had erected his stele half a century previously. He placed another beside this, and a third to the eastward to mark the point to which he had extended the frontier of his empire.. The Mitanni, who exercised a sort of hegemony over the whole of Naharaim, were this time the objects of his attack. Thirty-two of their towns fell one after another, their kings were taken captive and the walls of their cities were razed, without any serious resistance. The battalions of the enemy were dispersed at the first shock, and Pharaoh “pursued them for the space of a mile, without one of them daring to look behind him, for they thought only of escape, and fled before him like a flock of goats.” Thutmosis pushed forward as far certainly as the Balikh, and perhaps on to the Khabur or even to the Hermus; and as he approached the frontier, the king of Singar, a vassal of Assyria, sent him presents of lapis-lazuli.