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Persondata
NAME	Senusret III
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sesostris III or Senwosret III
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Pharaoh of Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH	{{{Birth}}}
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ancient Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	{{{Death}}}
PLACE OF DEATH	Ancient Egypt

Preceded by: Senusret II	Pharaoh of Egypt Twelfth Dynasty	Succeeded by: Amenemhat III
Senusret III
Sesostris III or Senwosret III
Fragment of a statue of Senusret III on display at the Metropolitan Museum
Reign	1878 – 1839 BC
Praenomen	Khakhaure (The king of the two lands, The ka's of Ra have appeared)
Horus name	Netcher Kheperu (Horus, divine of form)
Nebty name	Netcher Mesut (The two ladies, divine of birth)
Golden Horus	Kheper (The golden Horus has been created)
Consort(s)	Meretseger, Neferhenut Khnemetneferhedjet II
Major Monuments	Buhen and Toshka

Khakhaure Senusret III (also written as Senwosret III or Sesostris III) was a pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC, and was the fifth monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. He was a Great Pharaoh of the twelfth Dynasty and is supposed to be the most powerful Egyptian ruler of this time. For this, he is regarded as one of the sources for the legend about Sesostris.

Senusret III relentlessly pushed his kingdom's expansion deep into Nubia (from 1866 to 1863 BC) where he erected massive river forts including Buhen, Semna and Toshka at Uronarti. He carried out at least 4 large campaigns deep into Nubia in his Year 8, 10, 16 and 19 respectively. His Year 8 stela documents his victories against the Nubians where he remarks "I carried off their women, I carried off their subjects, went forth to their wells, smote their bulls; I reaped their grain, and set fire thereto."^[1] Another great stela from Semna mentions his military activities against both Nubia and Palestine. in it, he admonished his future successors to maintain the new border which he had created:

"Now as for every son of mine who shall establish this boundary, which my Majesty has made, he is my son, he is born of his Majesty, the likeness of a son who is the champion of his father, who maintains the boundary of him who begat him. Now as for him who shall relax it, and shall not fight for it; he is not my son, he is not born to me."^[2]

His final Year 19 was less succesful because the king's forces were trapped by a low Nile current and had to retreat and abandon their campaign to avoid being trapped in hostile Nubian territory.

Such was his forceful nature and immense influence that Senusret III was worshipped as a god in Nubia by later generations.^[3] Jacques Morgan, in 1894, found rock inscriptions near Sehel Island documenting his digging of a canal under the king. Senusret III erected a temple and town in Abydos, and another temple in Medamud ^[4].

His pyramid was constructed at Dahshur. A papyrus in the Berlin Museum shows Year 20 of his reign is equivalent to Year 1 of his son Amenemhat III. This means that he initiated a coregency with his son in this year. According to Josef Wegner, a Year 39 hieratic control note was recovered on a white limestone block from

"a securely defined deposit of construction debris produced from the building of the Senwosret III mortuary temple. The fragment itself is part of the remnants of the temple construction. This deposit provides evidence for the date of construction of the mortuary temple of Senwosret III at Abydos." ^[5]

Wegner stresses that it is unlikely that Amenemhet III, Senusret's son and successor would still be working on his father's temple nearly 4 decades into his own reign and notes that the only possible solution for the block's existence here is that Senusret III had a 39 Year reign, with the final 20 years in coregency with his son Amenemhet III. Since the project was associated with a project of Senusret III, his Regnal Year was presumably used to date the block, rather than Year 20 of Amenemhet III. This implies that Senusret was still alive in the first 2 decades of his son's reign prior to his death.

Visually, Senusret III is known for his strikingly somber sculptures in which he appears careworn and grave.

• W. Grajetzki, The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt: History,Archaeology and Society, Duckworth, London 2006 ISBN 0-7156-3435-6, 51-58
• Josef Wegner, The Nature and Chronology of the Senwosret III–Amenemhat III Regnal Succession: Some Considerations based on new evidence from the Mortuary Temple of Senwosret III at Abydos, JNES 55, Vol.4, (1996), pp.249-279

• Stela of Senusret III from Deir el-Bahri (hieroglyphic text in russian web-site)