In his twenty-ninth year he made his fifth expedition to the Syrian hill-country, Tunep, Arvad, and Phoenicia, from which latter district much spoil was obtained. The two following years found him in the same region. In his thirty-third year he set up a tablet on the boundaries of Naharaina. The next year he made a campaign to, and received tribute from Syria, Phoenicia, and Cyprus. In his thirty-fifth year he went to Phoenicia, and received tribute from Naharaina. The year following this he received tribute from Cyprus. After this he again went to Phoenicia, and he is supposed to have received tribute from Cyprus, Syria, and the Hittites in the fortieth and forty-first years of his reign. In his forty-second year there was an expedition to Tunep, Kadesh, etc. Besides the above, he either made himself, or dispatched, under his generals, during his long reign (fifty-four years) many expeditions into other lands than those mentioned above, and also took part in numerous works and public functions in his own country.
The expeditions in Syria made by this king are told very graphically and at great length. The march to Megiddo, the council of war, and the dispositions for the attack, are given in full, and the king claims to have himself protected his army when going through a narrow defile in which all might have been lost had the enemy against whom they were marching made an onslaught. Representations of the spoil taken accompany the lists enumerating the amount, and show that the ancient Syrians had attained to a skill, in the arts as then known, equal, if not superior, to that of the Egyptians. Among the places mentioned are Arvad, Kadesh, Gaza, Yemma, etc. Besides Thothmes III.'s own annals, there is an inscription of one of his officers, Amen-em-heb, who gives his version, which, however, is not divided into different years. This text mentions the Negeb, where he took some captives; Carchemish, from which place he obtained spoil, and other places. He speaks also of Thothmes III. having hunted elephants in the land of Niy, one hundred and twenty in number, for their tusks. This agrees with what has been stated from the Assyrian inscriptions (pp. 200, 201) concerning the existence of these animals in the Lebanon and around Haran.