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Ahmose I's name in hieroglyphs: the king who drove out the Hyksos
17 October 2026
Ahmose I wrote his birth name with three signs: a crescent moon, three fox skins tied together and a folded cloth. Read iꜥḥ-ms, said "ah-MO-seh" or "YAH-mes", it means "The moon is born" or "Iah is born", Iah being the moon god.
He reigned from about 1550 to 1525 BC in the dating the site follows. Other books shift those years by a decade or two. He finished the war against the Hyksos, the foreign kings who held the north, and his reign opens the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom.
Three signs spell Ahmose
The crescent moon (N12) writes iꜥḥ, the word for the moon and the name of its god. In many cartouches the crescent lies on its back, horns up, at the top of the oval. The three fox skins (F31) write ms, "to be born", the same sign that sits in Thutmose and Ramesses.
The folded cloth (S29) is the sound s. It repeats the last consonant of ms so the reader cannot miss it, a habit Egyptologists call a phonetic complement. Some monuments leave it out. Others add an epithet after the name, such as nḫt, "the victorious".
His throne name calls Ra the lord of strength
At his crowning Ahmose took a second cartouche name, nb-pḥtj-rꜥ, Nebpehtyre: "Lord of strength is Ra". The sun disc (N5) for Ra goes at the top, as it does in most throne names, though it is read last. The basket (V30) is nb, "lord".
Strength, pḥtj, is written with the head of a leopard, once or doubled: two heads side by side. Look for it on the monuments themselves.
Moon names ran in his family
Ahmose was the son of King Seqenenre Tao and Queen Ahhotep, whose own name means "the moon is content". His brother Kamose, probably the elder, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, fought the Hyksos in a short reign of at least three years. Ahmose came to the throne as a boy, perhaps about ten years old.
The war is told in an officer's own words. Ahmose son of Ebana, a soldier from Elkab, had his career carved in his tomb: several attacks on the Hyksos capital Avaris in the Delta before it fell, then a siege of Sharuhen in southern Canaan. The officer shares the king's name, a sign of how common it was.
A ceremonial axe from the burial of a Queen Ahhotep at Dra Abu el-Naga, probably his mother, shows the king striking down an enemy, with his cartouches at the top of the blade. It is usually shown at Luxor Museum.
His queen's name opens with his
His chief wife was his sister Ahmose-Nefertari, iꜥḥ-ms-nfrt-iry, "The moon is born, beautiful companion". Her name starts with the same three signs as his. The heart and windpipe (F35) and the loaf (X1) then write nfrt, "beautiful", and the reed leaf (M17), the mouth (D21) and the double stroke (Z4) write iry, "companion".
A stela set up at Karnak records how the king endowed the office of Second Prophet of Amun with land and goods, and how that office passed to her and her heirs. She was one of the first, and the most prominent, holders of the title God's Wife of Amun. After her death the tomb builders of Deir el-Medina worshipped her with her son Amenhotep I as patrons of their village.
The Tempest Stela describes a great storm
Ahmose also left one of the strangest texts of his age. The Tempest Stela, a calcite block over 1.8 metres tall, was found in pieces in the third pylon at Karnak between 1947 and 1951. Its 40 lines describe rain, darkness and "the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses", with tombs and temples damaged across the Theban region.
Robert Ritner and Nadine Moeller linked it in 2014 to the eruption of Thera, modern Santorini, which would move his reign decades earlier. Others read the text as a picture of the Hyksos war.
Luxor Museum holds his axe
Luxor Museum holds his ceremonial axe and has shown a mummy identified as his, found in 1881 in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari. A 1980 study questioned whether it is really Ahmose, and the case is not always on display. Ahmose-Nefertari's mummy is in Cairo, at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.
On the West Bank, the tombs of Deir el-Medina still show the queen as a goddess, often with black skin, the colour of fertile earth. At Abydos he built one of the last royal pyramids in Egypt. Only a low mound of rubble is left.
Three shapes write his name
Draw the oval and lay the crescent across the top, horns up. The three fox skins hang below it like a tassel of three tails, and the folded cloth closes the name. It is one of the shortest royal names to learn.
Once you know the crescent at the top, you will spot the same opening in the names of his wife, his mother's family and the officer who fought for him.
Questions
Who were the Hyksos that Ahmose I fought?
Rulers of west Asian origin who controlled northern Egypt from Avaris for about a century. Ahmose took Avaris and pushed them back into Canaan.
Is Ahmose I the same as Amasis?
Amasis and Amosis are Greek forms of the same Egyptian name. Amasis usually means Ahmose II, a king of the 26th Dynasty, nearly a thousand years later.
Where is Ahmose I buried?
His tomb has never been found for certain. The pyramid at Abydos may have been a cenotaph, and his first burial may have been at Dra Abu el-Naga in Thebes, before priests moved his mummy to the Deir el-Bahari cache.
Glossary
- birth name
- The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- epithet
- A title or phrase added to a name, such as "beloved of Amun" after a king's name or "true of voice" after the name of someone who has died.
- God's Wife of Amun
- A title of royal women who served the god Amun at Thebes. In the Late Period the God's Wife ran Amun's great estate there.
- New Kingdom
- Egypt's age of empire, about 1550 to 1069 BC, the time of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
- phonetic complement
- An alphabet sign written beside a sign for two or three sounds, spelling part of its sound again as a help to the reader.
- pylon
- The huge gateway of a temple: two sloping towers with a door between them, carved with scenes of the king.
- stela
- An upright stone slab carved with words and pictures, set up in tombs and temples or to mark a border.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Luxor Museum museum
- Karnak Temple site
- Deir el-Medina site
- Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari) site
- National Museum of Egyptian Civilization museum
- Abydos site
Sources
More to read
- Nefertiti's name in hieroglyphs: how to read it and where to see it Nefertiti's name in hieroglyphics: Nefertiti and her longer name Neferneferuaten read sign by sign, her place beside Akhenaten, and where to see them.
- Narmer in hieroglyphs: the first pharaoh's name and where to see it Narmer's name in hieroglyphics: the catfish and chisel of the first pharaoh's serekh, the Menes question, and the objects that carry his name.
- Usermaatre: the throne name of Ramesses II and the kings who copied it User maat ra, Usermaatre: 'the justice of Ra is strong', the throne name of Ramesses II, read sign by sign, and the later kings who took it.