Episode 6: Senusret I and Military Campaigns

Ali Abu Dashish

Crown Prince Senusret was on a military campaign in Libya, when he received the news of his father, King Amenemhat I's assassination.

In his book "Warrior Pharaohs, Dimplmats and Military", Dr. Hussein Abdul-Bassir said that King Amenemhat I sent an army led by his son Senusert to Libya's Tamhu, to seize it and capture its residents.

During Senusert's return, along with thousands of prisoners and all kinds of livestock, in countless numbers from this country, a number of loyal Royal Palace men were sent to him to inform him about his father's death.

Amenemhat I was a very intelligent military man; fluent in reading events and predicting the future. He initiated the tradition in which a pharaoh appointed his son co-regent (a sort of co-ruler) to help ensure a smooth transition of power when the father died. Thus, the crown prince, Senusret became a co-regent when he was twelve years.

Senusert was one of the strongest pharaoh of the twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He continued his father's aggressive expansionist policies against Nubia by initiating two expeditions into this region in his 10th and 18th years and established Egypt's formal southern border near the second cataract where he placed a garrison and a victory stele.

He also organized an expedition to a Western Desert oasis. Senusret I established diplomatic relations with some rulers of towns in Syria and Canaan.

He was an active military king who used military force to carry out his massive and ambitious architectural program across Egypt. He dispatched several quarrying expeditions to the Sinai and Wadi Hammamat and built numerous shrines and temples throughout Egypt and Nubia during his long reign.

Senusret I is attested to be the builder of a number of major temples in Ancient Egypt, including the temple of Min at Koptos, the Temple of Satet located on the Nile Valley island of Elephantine, the Month-temple at Armant and the Month-temple at El-Tod, where a long inscription of the king is preserved.

Moreover, a shrine (known as the White Chapel or Jubilee Chapel) with fine, high-quality reliefs of Senusret I, was built at Karnak to commemorate his Year 30 jubilee. Finally, Senusret remodeled the Temple of Khenti-Amentiu Osiris at Abydos, among his other major building projects.