ong ago Henry Breasted termed the evidence of Thutmose’s Nubian campaign as “very meagre” (1906: 257). He campaigned in Nubia in his fiftieth year and claimed, on several pylons, the capture of from a black granite stela at Karnak also names the Nubian conquest: “I have bound the Nubian wretches by tens of thousands and thousands” and later tells of smiting them. The tomb of Ineni refers to spoils of the Nubian campaign and the inscription of Nehi, viceroy of Kush, seems to refer to the pharaoh repairing the temple of Semneh. Another inscription of Nehi from the fiftysecond year of Thutmose names the “tribute of the south countries” of gold, ivory and ebony. Unfortunately, we don’t know enough about any of the names mentioned in Nubia to identify how far down the Nile Thutmose got although his son, Amenhotep II, reached Napata on the fourth cataract of the Nile. Some contend the town was founded by Thutmose III. On Thutmose’s death both the Levant and (presumably) Nubia rebelled and we find Amenhotep campaigning in both. He also completed the temples begun by his father at Elephantine and Amâda. He mentions the seven princes of the district of Tikhsi (on the Orontes) who he defeated and also tells us that he hung six of the seven princes from the walls of Thebes, the seventh from the walls of Napata, perhaps marking the southern-most boundary of the empire.
