principal city, and seem to have been descended from a race of great
chiefs. Shashanq or Sheshenk I, the Sesonchis of the Greeks, and
Shishak of I Kings, was the first king of the dynasty, a Libyan, son
of the chief Namareth, who was buried at Abydos, and of whom there are
statues in Florence, as well as gold bracelets with his name in the
British Museum. Also the grandson of Shashanq, the “great prince of
Mashauasha,” and the Egyptian princess, Mehtet-en-usekht. Shashanq I
married a Rammeside princess, and through her, probably, or possibly
through his Egyptian grandmother, laid claim to the throne. His reign
seems to have begun before the death of Paseb-khanut II, last king of
the Twenty-first, Tanite Dynasty. One author says his wife’s rank was
shown by the prefix Sutem-sat, or others claim that this belonged to
the Egyptian grandmother.
Shashanq I married Karama, or Karamat, called “a morning star of
Amen,” daughter of the last Tanite king. She had been despoiled of
her inheritance and was restored to all her rights by this marriage.
The custom of taking more than one wife often enables the student to
reconcile apparent discrepancies.
Brugsch says the ordinance relating to this marriage was engraved on
the north side of a pylon, near the temple of Amon in Karnak. “Thus
spake Amon, the king of the gods,” “with regard to any object of any
kind, which Karamat, the daughter of the king of Upper Egypt, Miamun
Pisebkhan, has brought with her as the hereditary possession which had
descended to her in the Southern district of the country, and with
regard to each object of any kind whatever which the people of the
land have presented to her, which they have at any time taken from the
(royal) lady, we hereby restore it to her. Any object of any kind. Any
object of any kind whatsoever (which) belongs (as an inheritance to the
children) that (we hereby restore) to her children for all time. Thus
speaks Amon-Ra, the king of the gods, the great king of the beginning
of all being, Mut, Khonsu and the great gods,” etc., etc., at great
length and with much repetition, closing with a number of threats, if
this command is not complied with, and ending with “we will sink their
noses in the earth,” and an unfinished, “we will.”
Josephus says that Jeraboam, the son of Nebat, who revolted against
Solomon, took refuge with Shashanq I, until Solomon’s death, and
married a daughter of the king of Egypt. Later Shashanq I made an
expedition against Rehoboam, son of Solomon, who governed the two
tribes, and was proud of the victory by which he recovered the Egyptian
hold on Palestine. The dates of the Twenty-second Dynasty are given
by Budge as 966 to 750 B. C. Shashanq I also repaired the temples and
caused his son, the viceroy of a part of Egypt, to remove to a place
of greater safety various royal mummies, who perhaps travelled more
after death than during life. Shashanq reigned twenty-one years, called
himself “Prince, doubly mighty, subduer of the nine Bows, greatest
of the mighty ones of all lands,” thus falling not a whit behind his
Rammeside predecessors in his estimate of himself.
He was succeeded by his son Osorkon, or Usarkon I, who, according to
Manetho, reigned fifteen years. There is a head of Osorkon in the
British Museum, of a Mongolian type, once thought to be one of the
Hyksos kings. He appears to have had two wives, Ta-shet-Kensu, whose
son Thekeleth succeeded to the throne, and Maat-Ka-Ra, daughter of a
Tanite king, whose son Shashanq became high priest and commander of the
forces. He is, by some, credited with a third wife, but she was perhaps
merely a concubine, and the two others evidently occupy a first place.
Takelut or The-keleth I followed, with a wife named Shepes, daughter
of Neter-mer-Heru, probably a priest, or one of the Egyptian nobles,
and they had two sons; the eldest, Namareth became a priest, while
a second, Osorkon, succeeded. Manetho says Thekeleth I reigned
twenty-three years, but there are few authentic records remaining
either of him or his queens.
Usarkon or Osorkon II had three wives, and according to the same
authority reigned twenty-nine years. One queen’s name was Karama,
or Kareama, and she had a son called Shashanq, a name which seems
frequently handed down in this race. A second queen, Mat-ketch-ankh-s,
or, as she is elsewhere called, Mut-hat-ankhes, whose son Namareth was
again high priest, and a third, Ast-em-khebit, daughter of the princess
Thes-bast-peru, who gave to her daughter her mother’s name. During the
reign of these sovereigns the goddess Bast, who had formerly been a
mere local deity, rose to first importance, and Bubastis superseded
Memphis and Thebes as the principal city. The king held magnificent
festivals in honor of Amen and as a tribute of respect to the queen,
who not only inherited sovereign rights over the principality of
Thebes, but was also high priestess of Amen. Pontifical rights were
sometimes inherited in the female line, and this gave her husband
claims at Thebes, Bubastis being the chief seat of his government.
A colossal Hathor-headed capitol, in the museum in Boston, bears this
inscription: “In the year 22, in the first day of Choriak (October
8th of our reckoning) the appearing of his majesty in the Hall of
Festival. He reposes on the throne, and the consecration is begun, the
consecration of the harem of the house of Amon” (the priestesses of
Amon were designated as the wives of the god) “and the consecration of
all the women who have dwelt as priestesses therein since the day of
his fathers.”
There is a bas-relief showing a procession, first the king, then the
queen and her daughters, followed by many priests and women, these last
slender and graceful, carrying water jars, said to be of electrum,
others bearing sheafs of flowers, some the ankh or life sign, and still
others in single file, clapping their hands in measured time.
Queen Karama is followed by her or the king’s daughters, and little
dwarfs, like the god Bes, are also included in the procession. The
princesses are called Tasbakeper, Karoma and Meri-Amen. The queen
assists the king in making offerings in the great festival hall, built
especially for the purpose. A sculptured bas-relief of King Osorkon II
and Queen Karama, at full length, is in the British Museum. Scarabs of
these and later periods are in the New York Museum and in many other
places. An inscription remains telling of a great flood which occurred
in this reign, so that in order to enter the temples the priests had to
wade through water several feet deep, and it is said to have been the
highest rise of the Nile ever known.
Of Shashanq II, who succeeded, or of his wife, almost nothing is
recorded; he was probably a peaceful king and did little towards
building or repairing temples.
Queen Karemama was the wife of the next king, Takelut or Theke-leth
II, who reigned fifteen years, and is described as the “Great chief
of Mashanasha”; the queen is called “great royal wife” and “beloved
of Mut.” Brugsch speaks of her as a daughter of Nimrod, and gives
her a very lengthy name, which we can only hope that the lady was of
sufficient size to carry. Another wife is called Mut-em-hat-sat-Amen.
The former was the mother of the high priest Uarsarken. The queen was
descended from one of the royal families of Thebes, and, perhaps in
deference to her wishes, they dwelt for a while in Thebes, with a view
also, no doubt, of propitiating the priests. The queen is also called
“princess, great lady and mistress of the South.”
Shashanq III turned the huge statue of Rameses II into a pylon, having
no more respect for his predecessors than did Rameses II himself, and
his exploits are inscribed and described after those of Rameses II and
Seti I. He adopted the pre-nomen of Rameses II. An Apis bull, a tablet
records, was born in the twenty-eighth year of his reign; but, though
it lasted fifty-two years, there seem to be no memorials remaining,
which was also the case with his successor, Pamai. Nor in the reign of
his son Shashanq or Shishak IV do we find mention of the queen. The
former seems to have reigned only two, the latter thirty-seven years.
All this time Egypt was in more or less of a turmoil, with a divided
or disputed succession, “Such a condition of things,” says one writer,
“was of course fatal to literature and art,” which latter “did not so
much decline as disappear,” and after Shashanq I no monarch of the line
left any building or sculpture of the slightest importance. In this
period of doubt and disorder we have the names of a king, Peta-Bast,
Auuth-meri-Amen and Uasar-ken or Osorkon III, whose mother and wife are
probably mentioned as “Royal mother, royal wife, Tata-Bast, and son of
the sun, Nasaek (en) living forever” in a golden aegis of the goddess
Sekhet, in the Louvre.
Named as one of the Twenty-third Dynasty, we have Pi-ankhi, who
descended on Egypt from Ethiopia, whither the priests had retired,
who made his capital at Napata and who, probably through his wife
was connected with the old royal families of Egypt. Pi-ankhi called
himself “King of Kush,” and the mother, sister and daughter of the
king bore each a title of honor as “Queen of Kush.” In inscriptions
the king is spoken of as being “like a panther,” and we further read
that “Then Nimrod sent forth his wife, the queen and daughter of a
king, Nes-thent-nes,” or, as she elsewhere is called, Nes-thent-meh
to supplicate the queens and royal king’s daughters and sisters. And
they threw themselves prostrate in the women’s house before the queens
(saying), “Pray come to me, ye queens, king’s daughters and king’s
sisters! Appease Horus, the ruler of the palace. Exalted is his person,
great his triumphs. Cause his anger to be appeased before my (prayer),
else he will give over to death the king, my husband (but) he is
brought low”; when they had finished her majesty was moved in her heart
at the supplication of the queen. This comes from a closely written
memorial stone set up by the king. It is spoken of as “The Inscription
of Pi-ankhi Mer-Amen, king of Egypt, in the eighth century B. C.,” and
the Nimrod mentioned was probably Nemareth, one of the petty rulers of
Egypt before referred to. The stone was discovered at Mont Barkal, the
place where it was originally set up, and the words in brackets are
those half obliterated and restored to make out the sense.
When the victor entered the conquered city we are told that “then came
to him the king’s wives, and the king’s daughters, and they praised
his majesty, after the manner of women; but his majesty did not turn
his countenance upon them.” Ungallant majesty, who was hastening on to
further conquests and had no time for social amenities! To Nemareth,
however, who finally came, leading “a horse with his right hand, and
holding a sistrum made of gold and lapis-lazuli in his left,” Pi-ankhi
was more condescending—nobly forgave him, like some other nations we
have heard of, for defending his own territory, and accompanied him to
the temples, and then to Nemareth’s stables, where he, with further
condescension, actually scolded the grooms for giving the horses too
short rations during the siege.
Elsewhere the queen Pi-anchi, or the next monarch, is spoken of as
“sister and wife, the queen of Kekmi (Egypt) Ge-ro-a-ro-pi.” The
stone from which this was taken has two pictures, the other showing
also the Ethiopian queen. Says Brugsch, “While this sister of the
king is designated as Queen of Nubia, another, who was also a wife of
Miamun-Mut, is called Queen of Egypt.” His majesty seems to have spent
a great deal of time sailing up and down the river, yet conquering
wherever he went. And it is probable, after the weak rulers had all
submitted to him, he returned to Ethiopia, where he died.
According to Manetho there was but one king of the Twenty-fourth
Dynasty, of the old line, named Barkenrenef, who reigned for six years
only, at Sais, and there is no mention of his wife. But meanwhile an
Ethiopian, possibly the son of Pi-ankhi, held authority at Thebes,
and is called “King of the South, Kasta.” He seems to have married a
priestess of Amon, called “divine adorer” or “morning star,” a daughter
of Osorken III by the name of Shep-en-apt, and Sabaka, who became king,
and Amenartas, a priestess, who held the rank of “Neter tuat,” which
her mother had also borne.
This Sabaka, or Sabaco, became king of the Nubian Twenty-fifth Dynasty
and reigned about twelve years. He called himself “king of the South
and North” and “son of the sun.” He appears to have made repairs on
various temples and was a contemporary of Sargon and Sennacherib, kings
of Assyria, with which country, as well as with Palestine, the confused
history of Egypt, through all this period, is much associated.
Queen Amenartas, or, as she is elsewhere called, Ameneritis, married
Pi-ankhi, a Nubian prince, and styled herself “royal daughter, royal
sister, royal wife.” Her husband called himself “Uniter of two lands”
and “multiplier of mighty men.” The queen was a zealous restorer of
the temples, and added chambers and small sanctuaries at Karnak, in
one of which a fine limestone statue of her was found. We know that
she was considered beautiful, and Brugsch says, “sweet peace seems to
hover about the features; even the flower in her hand suggests her high
mission as reconciler of the long feud.” A part of the inscription at
her feet, on the base of the statue at Gizeh, from which the names of
her father and mother are erased, reads: “May he (the god Amen) grant
everything that is good and pure by which the divine nature lives, all
that the heaven bestows and the earth brings forth, to the princess,
the most pleasant, the most gracious, the kindest and most amiable
queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, the sister of the king (Sabaco), the
ever-living, the daughter of the deceased king (Khasta), the wife of
the divine one, Amenisitis. May she live!” Of herself she says, “I
was the wife of the divine one, a benefactress to her city (Thebes),
a bounteous giver for her land. I gave food to the hungry, drink to
the thirsty, clothes to the naked.” So we may judge that she was good,
beautiful and beloved.
There is an ivory plaque of Queen Ameneritis in the New York Museum
bearing a figure and a cartouch of “the divine wife, Ameneritis,
daughter of Ra Khasta,” the sister, and it says also, the wife of
Sabaco of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The queen is shown on the plaque
kneeling on the right, holding a lotus in each extended hand, with a
necklace and short hair, like a man’s, and on her head a crescent and
disk. There is an alabaster statue of Queen Ameneritis on a base of
gray granite in the Gizeh Museum, which has a rather long but slim and
delicate figure; but the head is overweighted with the wig of a god and
she has a gloomy expression—possibly brought on by the discomfort of
her wig in particular, and her experiences of life in general. Numerous
monuments and scarabs bear her name and titles, and Budge says that
within the last few years the British Museum has secured a remarkable
object once belonging to her. It is of glazed steatite, with the
cartouch and a short prayer cut in hieroglyphics upon it; at one end a
perforated projection by which it was probably hung, and on the other a
sign; its use is unknown.
Shabataka, “son of the sun,” is accounted the second king of the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and was probably associated with his father in
the government. A stele now in Turin represents Shap-en-apt with her
mother, Amenar, her husband, Pi-ankhi, and Shabataka, showing them to
be contemporaries. Brugsch says that Pi-ma or Pi-mai means the “male
cat.” King Shabataka or Shabata-k, the son of Sabaco, is in the Barabra
language Sab-ato-ki, “the male cat’s son,” just as a Barabran word,
Kash-ato, “horse’s son,” lies at the base of the name Kash-ta, which
is an interesting little piece of philology. An ancient tradition, it
is said, affirms that at the end of twelve years Shabataka was taken
prisoner and put to death at Tirhakah, who became the last king of the
dynasty, and reigned, some say eighteen, some twenty-five years. He
married the princess Amen-tak-het, “the chief wife, the royal sister,
the royal wife.” The name of his mother is thought to be “Akalouka,”
though it is mutilated in the inscriptions, and as she appears to have
been related to the priest-kings, it was probably through her that
Tirhakah laid claim to the throne. It is said that when he was about
twenty years old he was proclaimed king of Napata, and leaving his
mother behind, who had doubtless used her influence to produce this
result, he hastened to Egypt, overthrew and perhaps slew Shabataka, who
was then reigning. A stele which he set up at Tanis gives the further
information that he was the younger but favorite son of his father, and
certainly a youth of ability, to accomplish what he did at the early
age of twenty. He called himself, Son of Amen, and was crowned with
royal honors according to the customs of the ancient Egyptian kings.
He sent for his mother and saluted her as the spouse of Amen, while
she, says Brugsch, “looked upon him with the same pride which Isis felt
as she gazed upon her son Horus.” And, leaving out any moral aspect
of the question, a mother might well be proud of such an able and
energetic son. Some believe the Taket-Amen, whom he married, was the
widow of Shabaka, first king of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, as he was the
last king of the same, and upon both mother and wife he bestowed high
titles and many honors. 693 or 691 B. C. is the period given as that
on which he ascended the throne. The priests had, so far as in them
lay, made Napata a duplicate of Thebes, but not its equal in fineness
of architectural work. Tirhakah added materially to the building and
repairing of the temples. He built one at Napata or Gebel Barkal,
subsequently destroyed by the fall of overhanging rocks, and added to
and restored many in Egypt, in all of which no doubt his mother, if not
his wife, took great interest, as did Queen Thi, in the work of her son
Khu-en-aten. The early part of his reign was peaceful; then Seracherib,
king of Assyria, seems to have defeated the king of Egypt and others
in battle and caused him to flee, returning temporarily to overthrow
the governors appointed by the Assyrian king, when Esarhaddon, the
son, succeeded, only to be again overthrown. Before the king’s death,
which is spoken of as going to his “dark doom,” he associated with him
Tannath-Amen or Tanut-Amen. The last appearance mentioned of the women
is on a stele at Gebel Barkal, where the king is making an offering
to the god Amen and his sister, Quelhetat, a tiny figure, is pouring
out a libation and shaking a sistrum. Behind the king stands his wife,
Kerearhenti, and while the king has on sandals of a peculiar shape, the
two ladies are in bare feet. Still another king is called Tandamanie,
son of the sister of Tishakah, yet the former seems accounted the final
ruler of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.
Of the time from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, says
Budge: “With this period the New Empire comes to an end, and we are
on the threshold of the Renaissance of the Egyptian kingdom, with all
its ancient arts and sciences brought into connection with the Greece
of the Seventh Century before Christ.” Under Shashanq a slight revival
took place, and he ruled the whole land, putting an end to the weak
dynasties of Tanis and Thebes. But with the close of the priestly
dynasty the glory of Thebes, which had lasted two thousand years, had
departed, and by the time of the Ptolemies the city was almost in
ruins, and Bubastis, in the Delta, of whose festivals Herodotus has
given us an account, rose to the first place.
During this time, to quote again from Budge. “Much of the spirit of
the old art had undoubtedly been lost, the hieroglyphic script had
become chiefly an official and sacred code of writing used for funeral
prayers, historical inscriptions, etc. And the decay of the written
language, begun as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty, was followed by the
decay of the writing, which became more conventional and abbreviated,
and the hierotic, supplemented by the newly developed script, is
now known as Enchorial or Demotic, the peoples’ or common writing.”
It is also said that the Eighteenth Dynasty was much more elaborate
and luxurious in costume than the earlier ages, but that the severe
simplicity of the former commended itself to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
which we now consider.
The first queen seems to have been Shep-en-apt II, a descendant of
Queen Ameneritis. Her cartouch was found on a cornice, and she probably
was of higher birth than her husband, Psamthek I or Psammetichus
I, who is thought to have been merely the son of a governor, while
she was of the blood royal. The queen was a priestess of the grade
“neter tuat,” and through her doubtless her husband laid claim to the
throne. Psammetichus I made Sais his capital; he was, after he was
once established on the throne, less fond of war than many of his
predecessors, was a patron of the arts and sciences, and turned his
attention to the building of temples. A distinct Renaissance of art
took place at this period, with high finish and elaboration of detail,
a certain elegance suggestive of Greek influences. He added a large
gallery, with side chambers, to the Serapeum at Sakkarah, and the stele
found here by Mariette are of the greatest chronological importance. We
learn from them that Psammetichus I immediately succeeded Tirhakah, by
the records of the birth and death of the Apis bull. His name is found
in various places, Philæ and elsewhere, and an obelisk belonging to his
reign was brought by the Emperor Augustus to Rome. He was, some say, of
Nubian, some of Lidyan origin; and there is a glazed porcelain ushabti
figure in the British Museum, supposed to be a likeness of him, which
is very fat and jolly-looking. He had a long reign of fifty-four years,
and both Herodotus and Diodorus give accounts of him. The daughter of
this marriage was named Nitocris, or Nit-a-quert, and an inscription
says, Psammetichus has made a gift to his father Amon: he “has given
him his eldest daughter Nitaquit-Shapen-apit, to be his divine spouse,
that she may shake the sistrum before him.” This princess traveled
from one part of the kingdom to another and was received with great
honor. Sometimes the queens adopted daughters and associated them in
the governing power. One stele found at Karnak states that the king
caused his daughter to be adopted by the lady Shep-en-apt, the sister
of Tirhakah, who had inherited property from her father and mother,
and had previously adopted a daughter of Tirhakah’s, Amenartas (II).
Says Budge: “The stele, which is dated in the ninth year of the reign
of Psammetichus I, proves that Tirhakah’s sister was ruling at Thebes,
as a priestess of Amen, while Psammetichus I was reigning at Sais,
and that when Nit-aquert had been adopted by her, the daughter of the
king of Sais (Nit-aquert) took her name also. The stele was set up to
commemorate her journey to Thebes, where she was welcomed with the
greatest joy as the heiress of Tirhakah’s sister, and where she no
doubt received not only the property, but also the rank and position
of her whose name she took, Shap-en-apt, the daughter of Pi-anchi and
Amen-artis I, and grand-daughter of Khasta and Shep-en-apt I, the
last named lady being a daughter of Osorkon.” The distinction between
Shep-en-apt, the wife of the king, and the adopted mother of her
daughter, does not seem to be very clear. Nitocris bore the same name
as the last ruler of the Sixth Dynasty, and a rose-colored sarcophagus
inscribed with this, and having a granite cover, is in one of the
museums.
All this period is to some extent still a matter of dispute among
authorities as to the exact titles and order of succession of the
kings, and as to their importance in the line; compared to their
predecessors, and even to their successors, they were but petty rulers,
holding control over but a portion of the country, and in many cases
more like governors than chief authorities.