important positions across the administration had been given to mem-
bers of the royal family, reflecting the Libyans’ interest in kinship – their inscriptions sometimes include genealogies reaching back generations. But these same individuals now regarded themselves as powerful enough to call themselves kings. And by 735 BCE, contemporary with Shoshenk V of the
22nd Dynasty, yet another prominent family line had emerged: the 24th
Dynasty, ruling from the city of Sais in the western Delta. These were of Libu-Libyan descent and slowly expanded their territory to take over most of the Delta. As a result of all this, the 22nd and 23rd Dynasties overlap for much of their existence, with the 24th Dynasty then overlapping too from around 735 BCE. By now you’re probably thinking: this is a mess. And you’d be right. The concept of a singular king of Upper and Lower Egypt was
increasingly nothing more than a memory. If Egypt were to once again unify as a kingdom, it was time for a change.
The Origins of the Kings of Kush
During the early Third Intermediate Period, there’s little information
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perhaps as far south as the Second Cataract. Some New Kingdom Egyptian
temple towns were abandoned. Others continued to serve as major local centres. The same local elite probably remained in power either side of the fall of the New Kingdom. The office of king’s son of Kush continued to exist, with each king’s son simultaneously (and curiously) holding an office in the cult of Khnum at Elephantine. One of these individuals is the only woman known to have become king’s son of Kush: Nesikhons.
But around 850 BCE (or earlier, in around 1000 BCE, depending on
the chronology used), a new ruling elite emerged between the Third
and Fourth Cataracts of the Nile, their graves at el-Kurru, near Gebel
Barkal. Their descendants, the kings of Kush, would later become the 25th Dynasty pharaohs of Egypt, a royal line with a particular devotion to the god Amun and Egyptian tradition. Given these strong Egyptian associ-ations, what is interesting about this new line of Kushite rulers is that, at first, beyond the presence of Egyptian imports, their burials show no Egyptian influence at all. Each burial is of a type typical in Upper Nubia –
a pit with a side chamber – topped by a circular mound with a cylindrical stone wall (similar in style to those used by the C-Group). Later burials at el-Kurru then start to show increased signs of Egyptian contact: for example, wedjat-eye amulets, and a gold nugget bearing an inscription in honour of Amun (perhaps indicative of contact with the high priests of
Amun at Thebes). There’s also smashed red pots, used in Egyptian execration rituals. Shortly afterwards, a tomb with a mud-brick chapel was built (also with smashed red pots), and tombs surmounted by small pyramids.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are then found, as the burials become increasingly Egyptianized. Given the speed and extent of Egyptianization witnessed
at el-Kurru, this new ruling family may have used Egyptian religion to
associate themselves with Nubia’s New Kingdom past, perhaps to provide
a sense of continuity and legitimacy.
The kings of Kush traded widely: their graves at el-Kurru contained
lapis lazuli, Red Sea shells, ivory goods, and obsidian; at Hillat el-Arab, close to el-Kurru, Egyptian vessels used for transporting wine and oil show that trade with Egypt continued; and items from Sudan are mentioned
in Assyrian accounts, such as ebony, ivory, and elephant skins, brought to Nineveh via the Levantine city-states and Egypt. Horses may also have been sent to Nineveh. To protect the northward movement of these goods, the
Kushites seem to have built fortifications at Qasr Ibrim, north-east of Abu Simbel. Such trade connections may explain how this new dynasty managed to become so powerful so quickly.
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The Kushite dynasty’s first steps north towards Egypt may be reflected in a text at Semna West. This is the earliest preserved Kushite royal inscription.
Written in Egyptian using hieroglyphs, it mentions a rebellion against an un-named Kushite king – possibly one of the rulers buried at el-Kurru – and was made by a queen named Katimala, who is depicted in an Egyptian style: a tight linen dress, holding a flail, with a broad collar around her neck. On her head, she wears a wig, with a vulture crown, its wings hanging over her ears. Above the vulture is a solar disc and double plumes. At about the same time, at Debeira East, just north of the Second Cataract, Nubians were constructing graves similar to those at el-Kurru. Among the grave goods were Egyptian imports, showing continuing trade interactions with their northern neighbours. The influence of the Kushite dynasty at el-Kurru thus reached far north of their home, even at this early stage in the Third Intermediate Period.
The first named king of the Kushite line is Alara, who was probably buried in one of the tombs at el-Kurru and ruled from around 780–760 BCE.
When mentioning Alara, his successors placed his name in a royal cartouche, normally reserved for a pharaoh, and describe him as a ‘son of Re’ and ‘king.’
He is also depicted on a stele offering to Amun. Alara was succeeded by Kashta, the first of the Kushite kings to enter Egypt. Kashta expanded
Kushite influence to Thebes, and installed his daughter, Amenirdis I, as successor to the god’s wife of Amun at the Temple of Amun at Karnak – by this time, the god’s wife was a position normally held by the king’s daughter, and had become one of the most important roles in the temple. Kashta erected a stele at Elephantine proclaiming himself ‘king of Upper and Lower Egypt’
and showing him worshipping the god Khnum. The last known king’s son
of Kush, Pamiu, held office at this time. The disappearance of this position, after nearly 800 years of existence, probably marks the moment that the 23rd Dynasty – the Thebans, ruling Upper Egypt – lost control of Lower Nubia; with the death of the 23rd Dynasty King Rudamun in around 739 BCE, this dynasty’s power base shifted further north into Middle Egypt. The Kushites now controlled, or at least had strong influence over, southern Egypt. Thebes had fallen without a single drop of blood being spilled.
The Wars of King Piye
Kashta was succeeded by Piye, a son-in-law of Alara. His reign was far less peaceful. On a stele, probably dated to his third year as king, Piye says that Amun of Napata had made him ruler of every foreign country, and Amun
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of Thebes had made him king of Egypt. He emphasizes that he is above all kings and chiefs in these lands, promoting his supremacy over the Delta rulers. To prove his case, in his fourth year on the throne, Piye travelled to Thebes with his army for the Opet Festival, before heading north to engage in battle with one or more of the Delta rulers. This began his push to control the whole of Egypt.
Years later, due to the expanding influence of Tefnakht of Sais (of the 24th Dynasty) – who had by now seized half of the Delta for himself and was threatening Herakleopolis – Piye again despatched his army north, led by two generals. He gave them specific instructions on how to behave during the campaign: ‘Do not attack by night in the manner of draughts-playing; fight when one can see. Challenge him to battle from afar. If he proposes to await the infantry and chariotry of another town, then sit still until his troops come. Fight when he proposes. Also if he has allies in another town, let them be awaited.’1 Piye added that upon arrival at Karnak Temple, they should wash themselves in the river, put on their finest linen, and place down their weapons, before kissing the ground in fro
nt of Amun. After following the king’s commands, the army sailed north of Thebes. They fought their first successful battle on the river, against a Delta coalition heading south, after which they faced another army further north. This time, many of the leaders of the coalition were killed, but some managed to flee to Lower Egypt.
Piye, angered that his enemies had escaped, decided to travel north himself. With the king present on campaign (after he’d stopped at Thebes to celebrate the Opet Festival), success arrived too. His army seized Hermopolis, saved Herakleopolis from a siege, and after enjoying further victories even captured Memphis (Tefnakht had apparently fled on horseback before Piye’s army arrived). Throughout the campaign, Piye was careful to show himself as a true king: he wanted to ensure the safety of innocent people, protected the temples from pillage, and did not take into his harem the female family members of defeated enemies. Finally, at Athribis, the Delta rulers (and everyone else around) submitted to Piye, although Tefnakht, fearful apparently, just sent a messenger. Piye then sent two officials to receive Tefnakht’s submission in person. Successful in his mission, Piye returned south, leaving the chastised Delta rulers in their positions. As far as we’re aware, he never returned to Egypt. Before his campaign, Piye had spent his time expanding the Temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal – he even brought the statuary of earlier kings from across Nubia to its sacred domain – and he seems to have returned to this project after arriving back home. After twenty-six years as king, Piye was buried at el-Kurru.
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But Piye’s campaign didn’t put a stop to Tefnakht’s royal aspirations.
Afterwards, Tefnakht simply continued as before, and even awarded himself royal titles. He then passed his ‘crown’ to his son, Bakenrenef (a famous law-maker according to the first century BCE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus), making him the second king of the 24th Dynasty. Bakenrenef continued his father’s expansionist policy, provoking Piye’s successor, Shabaka, to move his base of operations from Nubia to Memphis. According to the Ptolemaic Period writer Manetho, Shabaka then captured Bakenrenef and burnt him
alive, allowing the Kushite king to take full control of Sais’ extensive domain.
A commemorative scarab tells us that Shabaka also slaughtered rebels in the north and south of Egypt, and that the foreigners and ‘sand-dwellers’
(those living on the coastal shore of the Levant or Sinai) were weak. It’s probable that he strengthened Egypt’s control of the eastern border. Under Shabaka, the Libyan ‘mini-kings’ of the Delta remained in their positions, but were overseen by the Kushite pharaoh. Egypt, now fully controlled by the Kushites, was once again united under a single strong ruler. For this reason, most scholars begin Egypt’s 25th Dynasty with Shabaka.
The 25th Dynasty and Assyria
While Piye and Tefnakht were fighting over control of Egypt, the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pilaser III (ruling from roughly 745–727 BCE) was aggressively expanding his empire. Famously brutal to conquered states, he slaughtered people in their thousands and deported others from their homelands to reduce the risk of rebellions. Any territory seized by the Assyrians became a province of the empire, and large provinces were divided into more man-ageable pieces. Slowly, the Assyrians were redrawing the political map of the Near East.
Tiglath-Pilaser’s army took Gaza in 734 BCE, pushing Assyrian con-
trol right up to the Egyptian border. Hanun, king of Gaza, fled to Egypt, but eventually returned home to take his place as an Assyrian vassal. The Assyrian king then erected a stele, marking his border at the ‘Brook of Egypt,’ and established a customs base for any trade between the two powers. He next appointed a man named Idibi’ilu as ‘gatekeeper,’ to monitor the movement of people and goods from Egypt into Assyrian territory. Sinai
became a buffer zone. The scene was set for conflict.
Which brings us back to Shabaka. In 720 BCE, a year after Shabaka had
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against Assyria, itself now under King Sargon II. To support them, the
Egyptians/Kushites sent a military force, led by a general called Re’e (in Akkadian, Raia in Egyptian). It was another failure. The Assyrians crushed part of the rebellion at Qarqar (modern Tell Qarqur), and then defeated the Egyptians at Raphia. Afterwards, in 716 BCE, an Egyptian king (either the pharaoh or one of the Delta ‘mini-kings’) sent tribute to Sargon II, and Osorkon IV (one of these ‘mini-kings’) sent twelve horses as a diplomatic gift. Intriguingly, a seal found at Nineveh, once attached to correspondence sent from Shabaka to Sargon II, shows that the two kings were in contact with each other. Was this an attempt to improve diplomatic relations between the two great powers?
In 712 BCE, relations between Egypt and Assyria were further strained.
Iamani, king of Ashdod, led a revolt against Sargon II. It failed, and with his city plundered by the Assyrians, Iamani fled to Egypt. Sympathizing with the king’s plight, Shabaka granted him asylum. Things were looking up for Iamani – that is until Shabaka died and Shabataka ascended Egypt’s throne.
In 706 BCE, close to the start of his reign, Shabataka agreed to send Iamani to Sargon II, leading to the ex-king of Ashdod being bound and despatched into his enemy’s presence. It isn’t clear why Shabataka suddenly decided to expel Iamani, but perhaps it was another attempt to improve Egypt’s relations with the Assyrians. Shabataka also sent a diplomatic mission to the Assyrian court.
Sargon II died in battle in 705 BCE, leaving the throne to his son
Sennacherib. Irrespective of the diplomatic progress Shabataka may have made, this signalled another violent turn in Egypt’s relations with Assyria.
Revolts were breaking out across the Assyrian Empire and, in 701 BCE,
a coalition of Levantine city-states requested Egypt’s help in a planned rebellion against Sennacherib. Shabataka duly summoned his brother
Taharka – aged only twenty – from Nubia, asking that he bring his army.
The ensuing battle was fought at Eltekeh, probably north of Ashdod.
From Sennacherib’s account, we’re told that the Egyptians were defeated, and that many of the Kushite and Egyptian charioteers were killed by the Assyrian army, but this may not be the whole truth. In fact, the Assyrian campaign probably ended in a stalemate: Taharka promoted the campaign
on one of his monuments, something that we wouldn’t expect if it had been a total defeat; and the Assyrians failed to take Jerusalem, seemingly due to plague breaking out among their soldiers (this was lucky for the people of Jerusalem, because Taharka seems to have abandoned his attempt to save
the city).
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Taharka succeeded his brother on the throne in 690 BCE. During the
first decade of his reign, there was an increase in trade with the Levant: high-quality wood and Asiatic bronze was sent to Taharka’s temple at Kawa, and Asiatic gardeners went to work at the vineyards of the Temple of Amun.
The Temple of Mut at Karnak also received wood from Lebanon (signif-
icant because a few decades earlier, in the 730s BCE, the Assyrians had banned the sale of timber from the Phoenician cities to Egypt). This may show that the Egyptians were re-asserting their claim over the Levantine territory, particularly as in a later inscription, Taharka laments the loss of tribute from the Levant. Meanwhile, the king also reoccupied some of the Middle Kingdom fortresses in Nubia, such as Buhen and Semna, probably
to protect transport vessels. He also built for the gods in various locations. At K
awa, Taharka constructed a temple following New Kingdom architectural
styles: a rectangular building with a pylon-gateway, courtyard, hypostyle hall, and sanctuary. On its walls, his artisans carved a scene of Libyan defeat copied from the Old Kingdom pyramid complex of Sahure at Abu Sir, to the extent that the captured Libyans shown even have the same names as those in the already ancient original. The temple also had Tjehenu-Libyan staff and gardeners from Bahariya Oasis.
Taharka had a good relationship with his army. A stele records that his troops ran daily as training, and that the king was so impressed by them, he decided to organize a competition: they would run from Memphis to
the Faiyum Oasis, about 50 km, and the first to finish would dine with the royal bodyguard as reward (though the runners-up received rewards too).
Apparently, so the text says, Taharka accompanied the runners on his chariot, inspiring them, but ran part of the way on foot too.
All in all, it was a period of surprising calm and prosperity. But everything changed again in 681 BCE when the brutal (yet frequently ill) Esarhaddon became king of Assyria. Marching west with his army, he brought the
Levant firmly back under Assyrian control (beheading a couple of its kings along the way). Then, in 673 BCE, he launched the Assyrians’ first invasion of Egypt. The Egyptians successfully fought off the invaders, but it would only buy them a couple more years of freedom.
The Assyrian Occupation
After consulting their oracles about the best time to attack (the god’s response interpreted through the condition of sacrificed rams’ livers), in the summer of 671 BCE, the Assyrians returned to Egypt. Three pitched
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battles were fought over the course of fifteen days, culminating with the sack of Memphis, the corpses of its inhabitants piled up in the streets.
The Egyptians were no match for the Assyrians’ stronger iron weaponry
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