The most distant of the victims of Assyria was Egypt. After the death of Rameses XI, 1069 BC, Egypt underwent a period of increasing fragmentation (the so-called Third Intermediate Period, c.1070-664) as provincial families and, above all, the priests of Thebes strengthened their local bases against the power of the central ruler. At the same time, a Twenty-First Dynasty emerged at a new capital city in the Delta, Tanis, built a few kilometres from Per-Rameses (whose water courses may have silted up.) The two centres of power coexisted but their proclamations of power concealed the fragmentation of Egypt. In the north Libyan immigrants became important and one leader, Osorkon, married into the royal family at Tanis and founded a new dynasty, the Twenty-Second. The Libyans were more tolerant of sharing power and so subsidiary rulers emerged across Egypt. At times in the ninth and eighth centuries BC there were as many as eleven of them competing for power.
This fragmented state could not last. A revived Nubian dynasty, the Kushites, who had grown wealthy on trading, now emerged and expanded northwards. They used Napata, the furthest point of Egyptian control in the New Kingdom, as their Nubian capital. The Kushites were well aware of the cultural and political heritage of Egypt, and their rulers sensed how they could exploit it for their own ends. In 727 bc their most ambitious king, Piankhi (or Piye), marched against the rulers of the north, claiming that he was leading a campaign on behalf of Amun against rebels to the god. When he reached the Delta he shrewdly declared his allegiance to the sun god Ra, always stronger in the north than Amun, by ritually purifying himself at the temple at Heliopolis. He was then acclaimed ruler of all Egypt and so founded a new dynasty, the Twenty-Fifth. His victory stele at Napata shows eight rulers grovelling before him. Piankhi proved adept at manipulating the traditions of the past. He even built a pyramid tomb for himself and his family at Napata (although in a form different from those at Memphis) and appointed his sister as the Amun’s ‘Wife’ in Thebes in a tradition now centuries old. This search for roots in the Egyptian past as far back as the Old and Middle Kingdom continued under Piankhi’s successors who went a step further by formally including Egypt into their kingdom. They built at all the ancient religious sites of Egypt, including Memphis and Thebes, used traditional royal titles, and decorated their temples with themes from the Old Kingdom. They even expanded into Asia again.
It was just at this time of relative unity that Assyria struck. A conquest of Egypt had long been among its ambitions, and Egyptian incursions into Palestine provoked the empire further. In the early seventh century the Assyrian king Esarhad-don was able to invade Egypt across the Sinai desert. Memphis was ravaged in 671, and the Nubian ruler, Taharqo, was forced to retreat south. In 664/663 the Assyrians attacked again, and this time reached as far as Thebes. The religious capital of Egypt, sacred and inviolate for so many long centuries, was sacked. This was a humiliating blow to the Kushites and they were forced out of Egypt to Nubia (where they maintained a kingdom around the city of Meroe for several hundred more years).
The Assyrians were too far from their homeland to be able to maintain permanent control of Egypt and they were forced to rule through collaborators. They chose one Psamtek (in Greek Psammetichus), ruler of a small Delta kingdom based on the town of Sais, as their instrument of control. Psamtek was as adept in his manipulation of the Egyptian past as the Nubian kings had been. He sent his daughter Nitocris to Thebes and installed her as the ‘wife’ of Amun-Ra, thus ensuring his own control over the south. Artistic styles were modelled on those of the Old and Middle Kingdoms and Memphis was confirmed as the country’s capital.
Through a mixture of diplomacy and force Psamtek eventually established his rule over the whole of Egypt, founding a new dynasty in his turn, the Twenty-Sixth (also known as the Saite Dynasty, after Sais, its capital). Luckily for him, the power of Assyria was waning and Psamtek remained unchallenged by his nominal overlords. He was to rule for over fifty years, and he and his immediate successors saw a period of unity, wealth, and cultural renaissance. Nobles were buried in magnificent tombs
And once again temples were built on a colossal scale. For the first time Egypt created a navy (probably as an aid to defending its interests in Palestine—it was equipped with Greek-style war galleys) and was able to compete on equal terms with other trading nations of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The dynasty was also highly receptive to foreigners. About 620 bc Greek traders were allowed by Psamtek I to set up a trading centre at Naucratis on a branch of the Nile near Sais. Greek mercenaries soon formed part of the Egyptian army (together with Phoenicians, Syrians, and Jews, many of whom were refugees from the Assyrian conquests). A thousand kilometres up the Nile some of their signatures have been found inscribed on the leg of a colossal statue of Rameses II. As was noted earlier Greeks began visiting the country as tourists and were so overawed by what they saw that some came to believe that their own civilization was descended from Egypt’s.
World History
