Thutmose I Conquers Kush and Destroys Kerma

Date

c. 1500 BCE

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Nubia (Sudan)

Era

Ancient Civilizations

Significance

Early in the Egyptian New Kingdom, the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Thutmose I (reigned c.

1504–1492 BCE) led a riverborne campaign deep into Nubia, overthrowing the independent Kingdom of Kush, sacking the city of Kerma, and pushing the frontier past the Fourth Cataract to Kurgus, with a fortress and boundary stela erected at Tombos near the Third Cataract. The conquest ended Kerma's long independence and brought Nubia under direct Egyptian colonial administration for some four centuries, governed by a viceroy titled 'King's Son of Kush.' A principal motive was control of Nubia's rich gold deposits, intensively exploited during the Eighteenth Dynasty, which made Egypt the dominant gold supplier of the ancient Near East. The episode reshaped the political map of northeast Africa, spread Egyptian language, religion and 'Egyptianising' culture through the Middle Nile, and set the stage for the later Napatan resurgence of an indigenous Kushite kingdom.

Empires active in c. 1500 BCE

• New Kingdom of Egypt
  1550 BCE – 1077 BCE
• Hittite Empire
  1650 BCE – 1178 BCE
• Shang Dynasty
  1600 BCE – 1046 BCE
• Elamite Kingdom
  2700 BCE – 539 BCE

Related military & conflict events

• Battle of Megiddo under Thutmose III
  c. 1457 BCE
• Hittite sack of Babylon ends the Old Babylonian dynasty
  c. 1595 BCE
• Battle of Mingtiao and the Founding of the Shang Dynasty
  c. 1600 BCE
• Late Bronze-Age Collapse and the Sea Peoples
  c. 1177 BCE
• Battle of Kadesh between Egypt and the Hittites
  c. 1274 BCE
• Battle of Muye and the Zhou Conquest of Shang
  c. 1046 BCE

Further reading

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

The wider story

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

Toby Wilkinson

Sweeping, readable narrative of the whole pharaonic era, New Kingdom included.

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