READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII

THE ECLIPSE OF EGYPT

I.

THE XXIst DYNASTY

LEAVING the history of the Assyrian empire and of the contemporary Hittite, Syrian and Armenian states, and the vicissitudes of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian rule, we turn westward to Egypt. This land no longer holds the premier place that it held in the periods which the earlier volumes surveyed; the story that we have to tell is of an Egypt the shadow of a mighty past. We are now no longer dealing with the land of mighty kings and statesmen, great builders and warriors: with the close of the imperial period the glamour of Egyptian history has departed. The authority of Thebes and her imperial god is no longer respected beyond the confines of Egypt, her ambassadors are kept prisoners in Syrian dungeons and rot there with none to rescue them. No Syrian tribute comes any more into the coffers of Amon, and when the temple of Khonsu is completed no more great fanes rise within the temenos of Karnak. For over a century Egypt lies torpid and inactive within her own borders, till a new dynasty of kings, who at least at first were warriors for a moment, shows a flash of the old energy and tries to reassert Egyptian authority in Palestine, in alliance with disaffected elements in that country. The attempt fails, but the dynasty (the XXIInd, Bubastites, from c. 947) shows more energy at home than the preceding XXIst, which had fallen heir to the shrunken empire of the Ramessids. Temples once more arise, but their architecture and decoration are poor in comparison with those of old days, and though the Bubastite Osorkon could do fairly well at Bubastis, when Tirhakah the Ethiopian (c. 689—664) tries to erect a hypostyle hall at Karnak that will rival that of Seti, he fails egregiously; from want of money or want of skill his architects abandon the attempt. The Bubastites in their turn had abandoned themselves to torpor, from which only the advent of the Ethiopian kings—half-negro, half-Libyan—from the south and the shock of imminent Assyrian attack awaken degenerate Egypt to reality. For the first time for a thousand years foreigners invade her soil, and traverse it from end to end (675—663). It is a second Hyksos invasion. Asiatics carry fire and death throughout the land and desecrate the temples with their unclean presence.

Only the exhaustion of Assyria herself will save Egypt from complete destruction, and the poor respite of a century is allowed her in which to build up her culture anew in the Saite renascence before the Persian in his turn seizes upon her and establishes his alien rule where Assyria had only ravished and burned (525 BC). She struggles vainly against the foreign domination with the occasional help that the Greek enemies of Persia give her, till Alexander absorbs both Persia and her into the new Greek empire of the Near East (332—1 BC.). Then for two centuries under Greek kings and with Greek inspiration she seems as an inde­pendent kingdom to rival the old glories of the Ramessids, foreign empire comes once more to her, wealth flows into her coffers, great and new temples arise. And at last Rome swallows up all the world, Egypt becoming the imperial province and granary of Italy, while her ancient glories and her religion become the theme of wonderment and jest to tourists from the metropolis on the Tiber. So Egypt expires, a driveller and a show.

It is no inspiring theme, yet an absorbing one, that the chronicler of the decadence of Egypt has to deal with, a history of growing impotence and degeneracy, until in the eighth century BC the Greek first appears in the land, and the extremely interesting drama of the gradual growth of Greek influence begins that ended with Greek domination under the Ptolemies. The tale is even less inspiring in the earlier period than in the later. For three centuries and a half, till the days of Piankhi (270) and the Ethiopians, not a single figure, with the momentary exception of Shishak, attracts much attention. The details of what we know of the internal history of Egypt during this period are trivial. This king makes some feeble addition to a temple: that king puts a pompous inscription somewhere about nothing that matters in particular. Under the XXIst Dynasty we shall be reduced to the chronicling of little but royal marriages and deaths, and the various removals of the ancient royal mummies, which the priest-kings seem always to have been carrying about from one place to another in an aimless manner as ants do their larvae, in the vain hope of securing them from outrage at the hands of the covetous and now unruly fellahin. Poverty and indiscipline pervaded the land; its destinies were in enfeebled and despondent hands. A great contrast, this, to the brave days of old. Egypt was now no longer the arbitress of Asia, but the broken reed, ‘upon which if a man lean it shall pierce his hand’.

We have seen the decadence fast approaching under the successors of Ramses III, till the last fainéant Ramessid ends his life as the puppet of his mayor of the palace—the high-priest Hrihor. It is Hrihor who then takes his place at Thebes as king and completes the temple of Khonsu, which he had begun as the minister of Ramses XI, with whom he appears as the king’s equal on the temple walls. The Theban priest-king was, however, although probably of royal blood, and perhaps a descendant of Ramses VI, not recognized as the rightful Pharaoh in the north. There for many years a viceroy had ruled, whose wife Tentamon was probably the daughter of the last Ramessid, and she with her husband (or he alone, if she were already dead) succeeded in the north. This king, Nesubenebded (in Greek ‘Smendes’) by name, ruled in the seat of his vice­royalty, Tanis in the Delta, the city that the Delta-loving kings of the XIXth Dynasty had made their northern capital (c. 1100—1090). Smendes alone was regarded as the rightful Pharaoh by the Egyptian annalists, and Manetho chronicles him and his Tanite successors alone as the kings of the XXIst Dynasty.

The Theban priest was an usurper. But though Hrihor soon died or had to surrender his royalty to Smendes, his family were all-powerful at Thebes, and from time to time they reasserted their claim to the kingship: his grandson actually ruled the whole land for many years as king between two of the Tanites and probably in agreement with the Tanite family. In fact we can perhaps assume a regular ‘rotativist’ arrangement made by the son of Smendes with the Thebans by which he was to be succeeded by the Theban high-priest, Paiankh, son of Hrihor, and he again by a Tanite. If made, the arrangement broke down, and at the close of the dynasty a Tanite and a Theban reigned side by side, both bearing the same name: the land was officially split in two, as it had been in reality from time to time before under this dynasty. Unity, indeed, was not restored until Shishak, the half-Libyan warrior-prince of Bubastis in the Delta, seized the throne—whether legitimized or not by marriage with a Tanite princess.

At Hrihor’s death, or resignation of his usurped crown, a very few years after his accession, Smendes ruled the whole country for a time till his death, and Paiankh, the son of Hrihor, was nothing more than high-priest, though his wife Henttoui, daughter of Smendes and Tentamon, bore the queenly title. When Psibkhenno or Psousennes I, the son of Smendes, died after a reign of probably about twenty years (c. 1090—1070; Manetho gives him forty-one, but this is probably an annalistic confusion with the historical forty years of his successor), his son-in-law and nephew, the Theban high-priest Painozem, the son of Paiankh, succeeded as king in right of his wife Makere-Mutemhet, and reigned for at least forty years (c. 1070—1030).

In his twenty-fifth year, probably (c. 1045), a curious event occurred. The king, although a Theban, had in all probability continued the royal residence at Memphis and Tanis, his sons Zedkhonsefankh, Masaherti and Menkheperre, who apparently succeeded each other as high-priests of Amon, being responsible for Thebes. In this year some sort of revolt seems to have occurred at Thebes, during the absence of Menkheperre, now high-priest; it looks as if some other person had usurped the high-priesthood in his absence. He accordingly returned to Thebes with ships and troops, restored order, and by his prayers obtained an oracle from Amon that the ‘servants,’ against whom the god was wroth, and whom he (Amon) had banished to the Oasis (of Khargah), were pardoned by the god, and should be brought back to Egypt; further, that in future none should ever be banished to the Oasis, but that all murderers should be executed. Possibly Menkheperre had previously banished armed rebels to the Oasis, with the result of further trouble, and this, now quelled, he sought to obviate in the future—and probably to placate public opinion—by pardoning the exiles with a threat of capital punishment should any more murderous émeutes occur: a case of ‘not guilty but don’t do it again.’ The episode throws a curious light on the methods of government of the XXIst Dynasty.

Menkheperre seems to have been a person of some energy, and at his father’s death (c. 1030) he made himself king, a proceeding probably by no means viewed with favour by the Tanite prince Amenemopet, who considered himself now in turn to be the rightful monarch. Not long after his accession— probably in 1020—Amenemopet seems to have imposed his authority on Menkheperre, who records the sixth and seventh years of a king who is probably Amenemopet. Later on, however, the Theban again became semi-independent, and about the tenth year of Amenemopet talks of his forty-eighth year, but as high-priest not king. Then he died, and his sons, Nesubenebded and Painozem, who followed him in succession—the first only ephemerally—acknowledged the royalty of Amenemopet and were nothing more than high-priests. Amenemopet was also long-lived, for his forty-ninth year is recorded, and this would make his reign last from c. 1020 to c. 970. He was followed by Situm or Siamon, a Pharaoh of some moderate force of character, apparently, against whom the Theban high-priest made no attempt to assert any claims to royalty. Painozem died in the sixteenth year of Siamon (who probably reigned about twenty years, 970—950), and was succeeded, c. 950, by the ephemeral Hor-Psibkhenno, who was supplanted two or three years later by Shishak, the founder of the XXIInd Dynasty (c. 947).

Meanwhile Painozem, the high-priest (i.e. Painozem II), had been succeeded, c. 954 BC, by his son Psibkhenno II, who assumed royal titles, and seems to have reigned about twelve years, till about 942 he either died or was deposed by Shishak, who placed his son Iuput in the vacant high-priesthood, the line of Hrihor thus ceasing to enjoy the Theban papacy. Iuput records his high-priesthood in the fifth year of his father, c. 942, probably immediately after his succession to Psibkhenno II. It was, therefore, apparently about five years after his accession that Shishak was able to enforce his will on Thebes and secure his recognition as king of both Upper and Lower Egypt.

We know most of the regnal years mentioned above from the records inscribed on the wrappings of the royal mummies (found at Der el-Bahri in 1881), noting the dates in the various reigns of this dynasty when the mummies were taken out of their tombs and removed to secret resting-places for safety from robbers. The date is always carefully written on the wrappings. And but for the discovery of the mummies and these records we should know little of the ‘priest-kings’ but their names. As it is we possess the actual bodies of Painozem’s mother (?) Henttoui and his wife Makere-Mutemhet, the princess of Tanis; of Masaherti his son, and of Isimkheb his daughter, the queen of her brother Menkheperre; of Nesikhonsu the wife of Painozem II (the high-priest), and of Nesitanebishru their daughter. We look on the broad peasant-woman’s face of Henttoui, we observe the adipose geniality of Masaherti—he took after his grand­mother—and we can mark the pathetic youth of Nesitanebishru; but we do not know these people’s lives as we know those of their royal predecessors of the Imperial Age.

Of the Tanite kings we know practically nothing but their names. They were probably wealthier than the Thebans. Amon no longer drew tribute from his towns in Syria, Cyprus and Cilicia (Alashiya?), but we hear of great Phoenician merchants, like him of Tanis, who traded to Phoenicia with many ships, and we may be sure that the Tanite Pharaohs derived wealth from shares in these undertakings, even if they were not merchants as well as princes themselves, as possibly some of the Delta-princes of later days were. There was peace on the borders of Egypt at this time, and the traffickers flourished who exchanged the linen-yarn and the trained chariot­horses of Egypt for the valued wood of Lebanon, the spices of Araby, or what not. This was the period, first of the domination of the Philistines over Canaan (c. 1080—1000), and then of the kingdom of David and Solomon (c. 1000—933). While the Philistine domination continued, the hardy peasants of Mount Ephraim were kept under; and later under the settled and civilized Israelite kingdom peaceful commerce was safe, for Solomon, like the Nabataeans of later days, derived much of the power that made him able to talk as an equal to Egypt from his control of the trade-routes from Egypt to Babylonia and from the Red Sea to Syria—the lord of Gaza, of Eziongeber, and of Damascus was a powerful guarantor of peace and commerce.

Whether the tyrants or serens of the Philistine cities acknowledged any political overlordship of the Tanite Pharaohs we do not know, but it would seem unlikely that they did so in the days of their pride. When, however, they had been abased by David the case would be different; they now seem to have turned to Egypt for aid against Israel, nor was it denied them. The Pharaohs Amenemopet and Siamon then reigned (c. 1020—950), and there is evidence that they extended their protection to the people of the Shephelah or Low-land. No tribute was paid to David by the Philistine cities, and there is no evidence that either he or Solomon regarded them as subjects, though they employed Philistine warriors as mercenary guards, as the Pharaohs had done before them. But an Egyptian suzerainty, previously non-existent, now becomes apparent; and the Israelite monarchs would sufficiently respect the still imposing panache of Egypt to shrink from challenging her will. Nay, rather they were desirous of marriage-alliance with her, which would give prestige to their new royalty. Evidently they abandoned Philistia to her, and so we read that in the reign of Solomon Gezer was chastised by Pharaoh with fire and sword as his own vassal who had revolted from him, and afterwards was given by him to Solomon, his son-in-law, who had married an Egyptian princess. Gaza, which is traditionally assigned to Solomon’s kingdom, may similarly have been presented by the Egyptian king, perhaps as the dowry of his daughter. Who the Pharaoh concerned was is disputed in both cases. In all probability he was neither Hor-Psibk- henno nor Shishak—as has been thought—but Siamon. Possibly the Egyptian, knowing his real military weakness, was not sorry to hand over these vassals to Solomon in a dignified manner.

II

THE XXIInd DYNASTY

The general Egyptian suzerainty in Philistia continued, however, and was maintained by the Bubastites. Egypt’s civilization was one to be admired and aped, her court was the school of polite manners, the refuge of dispossessed princes from Palestine, the daughters of her kings were given in marriage to enslave with their beauty, their ancient refinement, and the equally ancient political wiles of their preceptors at home, the minds of the Syrian kings and chiefs. The king of Edom, Hadad II, who was overthrown by David, had taken refuge at Tanis from the conquering Israelite, and married Pharaoh’s wife’s sister. Their son, who was born in Egypt, bore what may possibly be an Egyptian name, Genubath. Jeroboam, too, fled to Egypt, and from this fact we can easily suspect the hand of Egyptian intrigue in his revolt against Rehoboam.

Shishak, who was now on the throne of Egypt, was an ambitious soldier, who as the founder of a new dynasty was desirous of acquiring prestige. The Egyptian suzerainty in Philistia gave him the opportunity of doing this by an attack on Solomon’s kingdom: he had his foot, so to speak, in the door of Palestine. But the prestige and power of Solomon, now in his old age, were still, probably, too great for an attack to be made upon Israel while he lived. When he died, probably about twelve years after the accession of Shishak, and Rehoboam his son alienated his subjects by his tyranny, the way was clear. Jeroboam divided the kingdom by his opportune and no doubt collusory secession; and Shishak came up against Jerusalem in the seventeenth year of his reign (c. 930 BC) and took it. Then he returned to Egypt with the spoil of Solomon’s Temple, with the golden shields and golden lavers, and all the rest of the glorious treasures that Hiram’s workmen had wrought for Zion, and he poured them all into the coffers of Amon of Thebes, who once more for a moment seemed to have regained his ancient power and wealth.

In the great inscription commemorating the exploit which Shishak set up at Karnak, we identify with ease a number of places in Palestine whose names are well known to us in the Bible: Rabbith, Taanach, Shunem, Beth-Shan, Rehob, Hapharaim, Mahanaim, Gibeon, Beth-Horon, Aijalon, the river Jordan, Megiddo, Socoh, Beth-Anoth, Sharuhen, Ain Paran, and ‘the field of Abram’, Phekel-Abram, a name of great interest. Whether all the places, with others, such as Aruna and Yeraza, which are mentioned by Thutmose III, in reality submitted to Shishak we do not know: something must be allowed for official pomp. Oddly enough Jerusalem itself is not mentioned in the list of towns, unless it is meant by the enigmatical ‘Yudhmelek.’ This, however, may stand for Tod-hammelek ‘the King’s Hand,’ although in this inscription the definite article is never given in its Semitic form, but is always translated into Egyptian, as in the case of ‘the field of Abram,’ above. But as the inscription is in­complete the name of Jerusalem may have been destroyed. In any case this list is of much value in that it shows us that all these well-known places existed as fortified towns in the days of Solomon and Shishak.

The Egyptian king made no attempt to rivet his authority on Israel and Judah: such a course would have been too expensive. He left the two kingdoms to their mutual rivalries, satisfied that in the interests of Egypt the empire of Solomon had been broken up. And in fact Shishak had secured his main object, the prestige and permanence of his dynasty. The Bubastites could now strut in the clothes of the Ramessids with an air impossible to the Tanites or the priest-kings. Nevertheless Egypt, but for a temporary increase of wealth obtained by what was frankly nothing but a piratical raid on another’s goods, was no stronger, and the decadence pursued its way unchecked.

Shishak, as the Hebrew chronicler calls him, was a local prince of Libyan descent, and, like his ancestors and descendants, bore a Libyan name. In Egyptian it is spelt Sha-sha-n-k, which the Assyrians vocalized as ‘Shushinku,’ and we conventionally call Sheshenk or Sheshonk. A stele found at Sakkarah by Mariette, now in the Louvre, gives us his genealogy. We have seen how in the days of Merneptah and Ramses III there had been great movements of Libyans into Egypt, which the Pharaohs claim to have repelled with loss. But as a matter of fact there is no doubt that, whether defeated or disarmed or not, a large number of the undesired immigrants remained in Egypt, and their chiefs seem to have been persons of some wealth and power, who, acknowledging fealty to the king of the land, soon took an important place in his kingdom and at his court. Some actually carved out lordships for themselves or gained them by marriage. Now, among others, a certain Buiuwawa some time during the XXth Dynasty had become possessed of Hininsu (Heracleopolis Magna, the modern Ehnasya) in Middle Egypt. Here his descendants remained its chiefs, and filled in succession the office of priest of the local god Harshafi, his son Mauasan being the first to do so. Mauasan’s great-grandson, Sheshonk, married a royal princess, the king’s mother Mehetnuskhet; his son Namilt, the princess Thentsepeh. Their son was the great Sheshonk.

Sheshonk, the grandfather, and Namilt, the father of the king, were very important personages indeed. Allied directly by marriage with the Tanite or the Theban house (more probably with the former, though possibly with both), they were among the greatest princes of the realm, and this, coupled with their evident possession of great wealth, gave them commanding authority and influence. Although by now almost wholly Egyptian in blood, and legitimate chiefs of an important Egyptian canton, they still kept up their ancestral barbaric state, and continued to be known as ‘the great chiefs of Mashauasha’ (or ‘Meshwesh,’ commonly shortened simply to ‘Ma’), the tribal name that survived in classical times as that of the Libyan tribe of the Maxyes. When thieves plundered the divine offerings of the tomb of Namilt, the father of king Sheshonk, at Abydos, this serious outrage on so great a noble was solemnly brought to the notice of Amon by the king himself at Thebes. As no mention is made of the high-priest, in all probability the high-priest Painozem II was now dead, and the king in question was Psibkhenno II, the son of Painozem, who assumed royal honours, either on his father’s death or after that of Siamon. Otherwise Painozem would certainly have appeared. Amon graciously delivered his oracle, by the nodding of the head of his miraculous image, as usual, condemning to death the perpetrators of the outrage, and the king sent a statue of ‘Osiris, the Great Chief of Ma, the Great Chief of Chiefs, Namilt, deceased,’ northward to Abydos, with a great army in order to protect it, ‘having ships without number, and the apparitors of the Great Chief of Ma, in order to deposit it in the august palace. Thus was established the offering-table of Osiris, the Great Chief of Ma, Namilt, justified, son of Mehetnuskhet, who is in Abydos.’ There follows a statement of the mortuary endowment of Namilt’s tomb, with its total of lands, slaves, garden, and treasure in silver, which is of much interest as showing the funerary state of a great chief of this period. The king takes great credit for the handsome manner in which he carried out these arrangements to the honour and glory, not only of Namilt, but of his father Sheshonk, who had also been buried in great state at Abydos, and is described as deceased in the inscription; and from it we gain a good idea of the importance of these ‘Great Chiefs of Ma,’ who so shortly were to become kings of Egypt.

Sheshonk, the son, can have showed little gratitude to Psib­khenno for what was practically an enforced service, and in a few years he sat in the stead of both Tanite and Theban. We know nothing of the details of his revolution except that probably it was not until his fifth year that he could act as king in Thebes, and appoint his son, Iuput, high-priest. Iuput kept up the tradition of semi-independence to some extent, and it may be pointed out that this tradition remained active for two or three centuries, so that, later, we find a Theban dynasty, the XXIIIrd, rivalling the Bubastites of the XXIInd towards the end of their rule, even as the priest-kings had rivalled the Tanites. Further, under the Ethiopians and Saites we shall see that the priestly ruler of Thebes, then usually a woman, the ‘Adorer of the God,’ as she was called, has a semi-papal position; and although no doubt much of the temporal power was exercised through ministers or stewards, yet, being a member of the actual royal house, the ruler could be controlled by the Saite king, whose authority was never set aside at Thebes as it had been under the Tanites. But in this later time the old tradition of Theban greatness had entirely disappeared, since the destruction of Thebes by the Assyrians in 663. Moreover, in Saite days, we hear no more of the ‘Royal Sons of Ramses,’ the title given to the numerous collateral descendants of the kings of the XIXth and XXth Dynasties, who under the XXIInd formed an important aristocracy rivalling in dignity, though not in power, the ‘Great Chiefs of Ma.’ In the welter of the struggle between the Ethiopians and the Assyrians, they had disappeared, and Thebes thus lost her old nobility.

Of the reign of Sheshonk, the one great event after its beginning was the taking of Jerusalem, which has already been described, with the great inscription at Karnak that records the campaign. The only other interesting inscription of his reign is one found in the Oasis of Dakhlah which records the settlement of a dispute about a well which, it seems, had agitated the Oasis so seriously that the king sent a high official of Libyan origin, ‘the son of the Chief of Ma and prophet of Hathor of Diospolis Parva,’ Waiuheset (a Libyan name), to settle the matter, which he did by a trial before the god Sutekh, Lord of the Oasis, and an appeal to his oracle. The Oases appear prominently at this time; they seem to have become a part of Egypt, and were used, as we have seen, as places of exile for political prisoners. Under the XXIInd Dynasty they are regularly mentioned as ordinary Egyptian territories. They may first have been so regarded after the Libyan immigration, and the Libyan connection of this dynasty may have caused special interest to be taken in them.

Sheshonk had married the princess Karoma, possibly a Tanite. He died c. 925, after a reign of about twenty-two years, five years after the capture of Jerusalem, and was succeeded by his son Osorkon I (c. 925—889), who married the daughter of Hor-Psibkhenno. In this reign the only event that interests us is one that for obvious reasons is not recorded in Egyptian inscriptions, namely the defeat, about 895, of ‘Zerah, the Ethiopian,’ by Asa of Judah. In the opinion of the present writer, there is little doubt that this ‘Zerah’ was Osorkon, the name having been corrupted from ‘Oserakhon’. Egypt made no further attack on the Palestinian kingdoms, but sank into an apathetic sloth, which, however, was wealthy and comfortable enough, to judge from this Osorkon’s list of the magnificent gifts which he bestowed on the gods, chronicled by him in the temple of Bubastis.

Osorkon married Makere, daughter of Hor-Psibkhenno, the last Tanite, and was succeeded by his son, Takeloti I (c. 889—865), who, about 880 revived the ancient custom, characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty, of associating his son with himself on the throne. Osorkon II, his son, now began his reign, which terminated thirty years later, about 850. He is notable in Egypt only from the great festival-hall which he erected at Bubastis in honour of his first Sed-festival, which he celebrated in his twenty-second year (c. 859). But the most remarkable event that occurred during his reign happened outside Egypt; the great battle of Karkar in 853, when the confederated kings Ahab of Israel, Irkhuleni of Hamath, and Ben-Hadad of Damascus fought at Karkar in the Orontes valley with Shalmaneser III of Assyria. And it may be that Osorkon of Egypt also took part in this fight, since a thousand men of ‘Musri’ are mentioned by the Assyrians as assisting the confederates, and excavations at Samaria have revealed traces of relations between Osorkon and Ahab; though it is otherwise supposed that they were from Musri in the Taurus.

In any case this was a portent, the first appearance of the conquering Assyrian on the borders of Palestine. Already in the reign of the first Osorkon Assyria had begun to stir, and in 892 the starting of the new list of limmu-officials had inaugurated the accurately dated history of the later period. It was the first sign of a new age, the first sign of a new organized power: the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, had arisen on the eastern horizon, but none had marked it. And then, while the Bubastites slumbered on, Assyria burst into the west under the leadership of the cruel conqueror Ashur-Nasir-Pal (884—859), who reached the Orontes valley and the sea about the year 875, but did not attack Israel and Judah. Twenty years later, his son Shalmaneser III signalized his accession to the throne by again carrying war into the west, and the battle of Karkar followed (853). It may be that Egypt was stirred by the tales of Ashur-Nasir-Pal’s ferocious conquests, and that some fear of the possible consequences to Egypt, should his son extend the brutal Assyrian’s conquests yet farther, impelled Osorkon to send his small contingent to the aid of Ben-Hadad and Ahab.

Twelve years later, in 841, Shalmaneser received the tribute of Jehu, which he commemorated on the ‘Black Obelisk’ from Calah, now in the British Museum; but Syria still resisted, and it was not till the end of the century that regular tribute was imposed on both Syria and Israel by Adad-Nirari III. In Egypt Osorkon II might well pray, as he did in a statue-inscription at Tanis, that his descendants, ‘the hereditary princes, the high-priests of Amon-re, king of the gods, the Great Chiefs of Ma and Kehak, the prophets of Harshafi, might continue to rule Egypt in peace and safety. The omens were not favourable for his country, or for his family, though that was fated to perish through inanition and internal dissension rather than at the hand of a foreign enemy.

It has generally been supposed that Osorkon associated with him on the throne a son named Sheshonk, who is usually known as Sheshonk II, and who died before his father; and that after the death of this son he associated with himself another, the king Takeloti II. Now, however, it is thought that the latter king reigned somewhat later, and that the Osorkon who was his father, and with whom he was associated, was Osorkon III. Takeloti, second son of Osorkon II, will then not be he. The eldest son, Sheshonk, may, however, very well have died during his father’s reign, as in all probability he is not identical with the real Sheshonk II, Si-Baste Setep-en-Amon, who succeeded him (with­out any co-regency), and reigned some twenty-five years (c. 850— 825). His reign was marked by a new division of the kingdom into two parts, as under the priest-kings. The natural tendency of Upper and Lower Egypt to separate politically, while still regarding themselves as one in race and religion, could never be checked for long, and weak government at the seat of power, whether in the Thebaid or in the Delta, meant the temporary secession, at least, of the other half of the nation. Takeloti I was the last powerful king of the Bubastite dynasty: after his time civil dissensions began. Sheshonk I, as we have seen, left Thebes in the hands of his son Iuput, as high-priest. The Theban pontiff was now usually a royal prince: often the son of the reigning king. Inevitably there grew up a Theban cadet branch of the royal house, connected by marriage with the ‘Royal Sons of Ramses’, and no doubt with local descendants of the priest-kings, which soon showed separatist tendencies, like those of the priest-kings. This led to a fierce feud with the ‘Great Chiefs of Ma’ at Heracleopolis who maintained the royalty of Bubastis

III

THE XXIIIrd DYNASTY

At the end of the reign of Osorkon II, and possibly as a repercussion of the battle of Karkar, the high-priest Harsiesi, already associated on the throne with Osorkon, made himself king at Thebes, and was succeeded there by Pedubaste, the Petoubastis of Manetho and founder of the XXIIIrd Dynasty. This dynasty, then, will not have followed the XXIInd, but must have been contemporary with it. Pedubaste was evidently contemporary with Sheshonk II; his sixth year was the same as the twentieth of another king, who can only have been the successor of Osorkon II. He, therefore, succeeded Harsiesi about 838. He certainly was contemporary with a king Iuput, who must have followed Sheshonk II for a short time (c. 825—821). We know nothing of these monarchs but their names inscribed upon statues of priests and nobles dedicated in the temple of Karnak, or in the records of the height of the Nile at Thebes in various years during their reigns. From the way in which the royal names are mentioned it would seem that the two royal houses were not inimical to one another in spite of the feud between Thebes and Heracleopolis, or, at least, that the Thebans deemed it politic to commemorate the senior line at Bubastis as well as their own.

Probably about 821 Sheshonk III, Si-Baste Setepenre Nuter-Hikon, ascended the Bubastite throne and reigned for fifty-two years till about 769, his successor being Pimai. We know the true relation between Sheshonk III and Pimai from the inscription at the Serapeum of Memphis of a certain Pediesi, a great-grandson of Osorkon II, who records the burial in the second year of Pimai of an Apis-bull, then twenty-six years old, which was born in the twenty-eighth year of Sheshonk III. It was probably about 763 that Pimai was succeeded by ‘O-kheper-re Sheshonk IV, the last or penultimate Bubastite, who reigned at least thirty-seven years, and probably died or was deposed about 725.

Meanwhile, at Thebes Pedubaste was probably succeeded about 815 by the high-priest Takeloti (his son?), as king Takeloti II, Hez-kheper-re Setepenre Si-Esi Nuter-Hikuas. He reigned at least twenty-five years, and was followed by his son, Osorkon III, Si-Esi Nuter-Hikuas, who is probably the same person as Takeloti’s son the ‘Royal Son of Ramses’ and high-priest Osorkon, who was in office in the thirty-ninth year of Sheshonk III (c. 782) as high-priest, and probably therefore did not become king till about 780. Takeloti II was still living in Sheshonk’s thirty­ninth year, as the inscription of Osorkon shows. From the fact that, as we shall see later, the twenty-second year of Sheshonk III was probably not more than two or three years later than the fifteenth of Takeloti II, we may assume that the latter king actually reigned about thirty-five years, from 815; and as Osorkon became high-priest in his father’s eleventh year, the date of his inauguration will have been about 804 BC.

This new arrangement of the kings does not therefore necessitate the assumption that Takeloti was the high-priest for at least fifty-four years, as was the case when Takeloti II was assumed to have been the son and successor of Osorkon II. The inscription on which this belief was founded commemorates rather the co­regency of Osorkon III and his son Takeloti III. From it it appears that the twenty-eighth year of Osorkon III was also the fifth of Takeloti III Si-Esi Nuter-Hikuas, who will then have become king about 757. Osorkon probably died about 750. Takeloti III built at Karnak a temple of Osiris Hik-zet, ‘prince of eternity’, in concert with a fourth Osorkon and another king named Rudamon. The latter probably was the brother of Takeloti III and the last of his line (750—740?). Osorkon IV Si-Esi Nuter-Hikon, possibly a son of Takeloti, either assumed the title Hikon, ‘Prince of Heliopolis’, in opposition to the northern king Sheshonk IV, or was associated with Sheshonk IV and actually crowned at Heliopolis; though if so it is curious that Sheshonk was not commemorated also in the temple of Osiris Hik-zet. He may well have survived Sheshonk, and was probably the ‘king Osorkon’ mentioned by the Ethiopian conqueror Piankhi who about 721 subdued Egypt and founded the next dynasty. He certainly reigned then at Bubastis, not at Thebes. Here we seem to have an association of the two royal families.

We gain some information as to the condition of Egypt at the beginning of the eighth century BC from the important inscriptions of the high-priest Osorkon (afterwards Osorkon III) at Karnak. From these it would appear that Osorkon only became high-priest after he had defeated an enemy (no doubt Heracleopolite) near Heracleopolis and Hermopolis, and had expelled a rival priest from Thebes, or, possibly, even burnt him alive in the temple: the description is not clear on the point. Then, in the fifteenth year of Takeloti II (801) there was another ‘rebellion’. It was associated with an eclipse of the moon: ‘when heaven had not yet devoured the moon, a disaster from heaven came to pass in this land; likewise the sons of rebels threw disorder into south and north: there was no rest from fighting against them ... and those who followed his father (i.e. Takeloti II): years passed when none ceased from attacking his fellow, and no father took thought to protect his offspring’. The attack of the ‘rebels’ came from the north—we see from the rest of the inscription that Osorkon was obliged to retreat southwards—and Thebes was occupied by the enemy ‘of his father’ king Takeloti. How long the exile in the south continued we do not know, but it was evidently brought to an end by the diplomacy of the high-priest, who persuaded ‘the followers of his father’ to some act of conciliation of the northern forces which brought him and his father’s court and his family and retainers back in peace and state to Thebes.

It is significant that in addressing the court the high-priest is made to attribute the disaster to the wrath of the northern god Re, who is therefore to be appeased with offerings. We can hardly doubt that Takeloti’s enemy was either the Chief of Heracleopolis, or the king Sheshonk III, or both, perhaps in alliance with a rebellious noble family, or combination of noble families, in Thebes itself. One condition of the return may be deduced from the fact that Osorkon’s inscriptions are henceforward dated with the regnal years of Sheshonk III, from the twenty-second year (probably about 799) onwards, so that the fifteenth year of Takeloti II, when the revolt broke out (and Takeloti’s years cease to be quoted), may probably be placed only a year or two earlier. The regnal years of Takeloti II seem now to have been used only for purely family matters, such as the inscription dated in his twenty-fifth year (BC 796?), containing a confirmation by her brother the Theban high-priest, Osorkon, of a grant of certain lands to the king’s daughter, Karoma.

An inscription of the thirty-ninth year of Sheshonk III, recording the installation of Hemisi, priest of Harshafi and nomarch of Heracleopolis, at Thebes, is interesting as showing that then the high-priest’s brother, Bekneptah, was chief commander of the army of Heracleopolis, and that the two brothers had ‘overthrown all who had fought against them.’ As we know from the genealogy of Horpasen, the high-priest of Harshafi and commander of troops in the time of Sheshonk IV, that his ancestors had held this position rightfully for six generations since the time of his forefather, king Osorkon II, it is evident that Hemisi and Bekneptah were interlopers. Accordingly it is clear that the Theban high-priest had now obtained temporary control of Heracleopolis itself, but still recorded his acts in the name of the Bubastite king, not in that of his father. After the (probably nearly contemporary) deaths of the two old kings, he assumed the royal dignity, threw off the nominal dependence on Bubastis, shown by the using of Sheshonk III’s regnal years, and used his own regnal years, associating Takeloti III with him on the throne. For the remainder of the period before the coming of Piankhi, the two halves of the kingdom remained separate; Thebes still recognized the primacy of the north, and Heracleopolis was recovered by the northerners, as we see from the inscription of Horpasen.

The only other inscription of interest at this period is that of the chief caravaneer of Pharaoh, a Libyan, named Ueshtihet, son of Neustilkeniu (or some such barbarous name), who in the nineteenth year of Sheshonk IV presents 5 stat of land to a temple of Hathor as a votive offering for his own life and health and happiness under the favour of the lord, the great chief of Libya, the Great Chief of Ma, Hetihenker. Hetihenker no doubt governed the western Delta and probably also the Oases. It will be noticed how all-pervading Libyan names are, from the Pharaohs with the names of Sheshonk, Takeloti, and Osorkon, to the humble caravan-leader Ueshtihet. The Great Chiefs of Ma and their crowds of retainers and adherents form the aristocracy of the country and still keep their Libyan names and titles, although by now they must have been almost entirely egyptianized. The dynasty reminds us of that of the foreign Kassites in Babylonia, long before.

The Libyan infiltration did not stop short at the frontier of Egypt proper. It penetrated also into Nubia and the Sudan, where we now find another subsidiary royal house of Libyan- Bubastite origin, like that of Pedubaste and his successors at Thebes. Under the XXIInd Dynasty we hear nothing of it, unless the high-priest Osorkon took refuge with it on his retreat from Thebes about 801 b.c. We have no evidence for its existence until somewhat later, when the general Pashed-nebast, son of Sheshonk III, is found ruling in Nubia about 780. His relationship to the Bubastite king is significant, as it already points to opposition between Nubia and Thebes

A chief named Kashta, possibly his grandson rather than his son, attacked and conquered Thebes, probably about 745, no doubt bringing the reign of Takeloti III to an end, and enforced the adoption of his daughter, the Ethiopian princess Amonirdis, upon Shepenopet, the ‘adoratrix of the god’ or high-priestess of Amon, a daughter of Osorkon III. This act gave the family of Kashta stronger claims to royalty after the speedy disappearance of Rudamon, the nominal successor of Takeloti, and ensured the succession of Amonirdis to Shepenopet as high-priestess.

It is noteworthy that the Hem-Nuter-Tepi or High-priest of Amon now disappears in favour of the Teinute (Duait-nuter) or ‘Adoratrix of the God’, who henceforth takes his place at Thebes. This rank of chief-priestess had existed before, but now we find the holder exalted to the position hitherto held by the High-priest. It is thought that this change was brought about by the masterful Osorkon III when he became king. He did not propose to allow one of his sons or any other man to hold the extremely powerful position of the High-priest of Amon, who could and constantly did reduce the king to a position of subservience, and finally himself assume the crown; accordingly, he abolished the High-priesthood and inaugurated the series of royal High-priestesses with his daughter Shepenopet, whom Kashta afterwards compelled to adopt Amonirdis, so that the Theban power should pass from the royal family of Osorkon to his own. In this way it passed to his son-in-law, Shabaka, and so on, giving the Ethiopians valid-claims to the throne.

Kashta probably had no time before his death to conquer the north-land; but after the death of Rudamon the Thebaid as far north as Siut became directly subject to his successor or associate Shabaka. These princes of Napata in far-off Nubia were prob­ably as much Nubian in blood as Libyan. A new factor was thus introduced into Egyptian politics. Nubia, it must be remembered, was wealthy. Since the loss of the Asiatic empire, the treasury of Amon at Thebes had drawn most of its wealth from the gold-mines of Nubia. Now that Napata, which for seven hundred years had been the capital of the Egyptian dominion of Nubia, had become the seat of a royal dynasty, much of this wealth, which during the last century or two had no doubt been exported to Thebes in ever-lessening quantities, would now remain in the country. The Ethiopian kings had money, while the Egyptian dynasts of the north were penniless: Osorkon II being the last king of the Bubastites who had wealth enough to build a great temple. To their wealth the Ethiopians owed much of the power of resistance they showed to the Assyrians. Whether they were ‘blameless’ or not, they at least received the adherence to which gold-masters are accustomed, even if they are black or, at any rate, chocolate­coloured.

In the north anarchy reigned. The last active king of the XXIInd Dynasty, Sheshonk IV, died, as we have seen, about 725., leaving the throne perhaps to an associate(?), Osorkon IV, who reigned at Bubastis. The various chiefs of the Delta, most of them of Libyan origin, were practically independent, and some of them actually about this time assumed royal dignity, like ‘the Chief of Ma’, Tefnakhte of Sais, who also held the northern capital, Memphis. Moreover, south of Memphis the other descendants of the ‘Great Chiefs of Ma,’ Namilt of Hermopolis and Pefnefdidibast of Heracleopolis, also proclaimed themselves kings, as did a certain Iuput in the Delta east of Bubastis. Of these kings the most important was Tefnakhte. And he was no doubt the wealthiest. His importance and wealth were owing to the geographical position of his principality of Sais on the Canopic branch of the Nile, where had now been established the entrepot of the new Greek trade with Egypt; it was the source of the prosperity and power of Sais, whose princes both enriched themselves with the dues on Greek merchandise, and controlled the further path of this commerce to Memphis. Tefnakhte was probably the first Saite to hold Memphis; and henceforward the two are connected as one principality in the hands of his family, which afterwards gave the XXVIth Dynasty to Egypt.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ETHIOPIANS AND ASSYRIANS IN EGYPT