In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

8 THE SUDAN INVADES EGYPT 65 n the eyes of the youthful Nubian kingdom the vista that now opened to view in the old mother country to the north was anything but comforting. Frankly it was appalling. Gone were the piety and reverence and fear of god that had characterized the traditional Egypt of the New Kingdom. Egyptians were now a bastard race, shot through with the barbarity of godless foreigners. They cared nothing for true kingship and the election of god; their ignorance of the proper way to serve god bothered them not at all. They _outed god’s law even in their daily lives: why, some of them even wore wool and ate ~sh! About 737 b.c. Kashta was succeeded on the throne at Napata by his son, whose name was Piankhy or (perhaps) Piya.1 If Alara and Kashta are but faceless names to us, Piankhy suddenly confronts us with a fully developed personality, at least for the purposes of rhetorical propaganda, thanks to the lengthy and most important records he has left behind.2 THE TWENTY-THIRD DYNASTY AND THE DIVINE WORSHIPER Despite its rebellion, Thebes and the cult of Amun remained a force to be reckoned with in the body politic of the eighth century. Unable to throw off the Libyan yoke, Thebes had nonetheless, by its supreme efforts, crippled the Twenty-second Dynasty and indirectly contributed to the breakup of Middle Egypt and the Delta. It had to be courted, and the chiefs and kinglets of the north did not fail to do so. It became customary, in imitation of an earlier practice of the Twenty-second Dynasty, for northern dynasts to dedicate a daughter to the priesthood of Amun, as a songstress or hierodule.3 Along with the little girl—for the daughters who were dedicated were undoubtedly of young age—went monetary considerations and concessions of other sorts, designed to win favor with a I southland that had brought itself to everyone’s attention. Ironically, the staff of the Temple of Amun, especially the upper echelons of the priesthood , had suffered a serious diminution of power, yet it was these individuals who now found themselves privileged to choose which northern nonentity they would memorialize. So now it was the contemporary Twenty-second Dynasty monarch, or now an ephemeral king of Letopolis, who graced the records of the height of the inundation with his regnal years4 or king Thotemhat of Hermopolis or a Harsiese (of no ~xed address) whom a local notable chose to mention on his statue.5 As the eighth century wore on, there was one northern dynasty, no less worthy of oblivion than the rest, which Thebes took to its heart more than the others—that of King Pedibast and his descendants. Pedibast was probably of Bubastite origin,6 as the name implies, but the territorial jurisdiction of his regime and even his principal seat of residence remain problematical, at least on the basis of present evidence. Manetho, the priest-historian of the third century b.c., claims Tanis to have been the seat of origin of the dynasty (which he labels Twenty-third),7 but the excavations at the site have revealed few traces of a Pedibast8 and none of his successors.9 On the basis of a passage in the Piankhy stela, the residence of the dynasty has been postulated as Bubastis, with a bailiwick extending north-northeast to Ranofer west of Tanis; but even if that be the case around 717 b.c., we cannot say for certain that the same situation obtained three generations earlier. The burial of a queen mother alleged to be of Twenty-third Dynasty date at Tel Moqdam10 has diverted attention to that site (ancient Leontopolis), and it is very tempting to view Bubastis and Tel Moqdam as constituting a political axis in the eighth century. Pedibast is in fact attested at Bubastis, but so is the late Twenty-second Dynasty in the persons of Pemiu and Sheshonq IV,11 and the stela on which Pedibast is mentioned might be construed as an equivocal acceptance of his authority.12 Pedibast and his descendants are slightly better attested at Thebes.13 Shortly after his accession Pedibast was recognized by the Amun priests, and his regnal years were used in lieu of those of the Twenty-second Dynasty to date events.14 Pedibast restored the tenth pylon on the south, “making for him (Amun) a great gate of sandstone, after he found it...

Share