In the Late Period the nature of our sources changes, and in some ways for the better. The usual sources of hieroglyphic inscriptions still exist, but they are supplemented by a large number of papyri and ostraka written in demotic, a shorthand form of the earlier hieratic script. The range of demotic texts is considerable (Depauw 1997), and there are many still awaiting publication in museums or as a result of excavation. Demotic originated in the Delta, but it spread south into Upper Egypt in the sixth century, and this is the part of the country where most texts survive. In addition, Greek sources start to appear, notably the detailed description found in Herodotus Book II (A. Lloyd 1975-88). Herodotus’s account is so valuable that it is a matter of regret that nothing like it exists from earlier periods. Here, Egypt is being seen through the eyes of an intelligent outsider. Documentary and literary texts in Greek begin in the early fourth century, and increase sharply following the conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 bc. The account by the historian Manetho, which survives only in later summaries, is the basis of modern work on dynastic history, and for the Late Period it enables us to produce an absolute chronology where in earlier dynasties approximations are still needed (Waddell 1940).
The Late Period is often singled out as the time when mass immigration into Egypt altered the character of the country. It is true that inscriptions and papyri written in most of the languages of the Aegean and the Near East are found in later Egypt, but the New Kingdom is now recognized to have had a similar attraction to economic migrants, and the same may be true of earlier periods as well.
The principal dynasty of the period is the Twenty-sixth, founded by Psammetichus I in the years after 664 bc, following a long period of domination by the Napatans from the Sudan (Welsby 1996). The dynasty faced major powers on its northeastern frontier, first the Assyrians and later the Neo-Babylonians, and its foreign policy oscillated between defensive consolidation and sudden offensive campaigns inspired by changes of rulers. In 570 Pharaoh Apries was deposed in favor of Amasis, and a remarkable stele describes the events following this upheaval, including an opportunistic raid by the Babylonians (Leahy 1988; Lloyd in I. Shaw 2000: 369-94).
In 525 Egypt was incorporated into the Achaemenid empire. This brought technical improvements in agriculture, and also the use of Aramaic as a lingua franca (Grelot 1972), but the later decades of Persian rule were restless, leading to liberation in 404 (Ray 1987). One of the most informative texts of this or any period is the petition of Petiese (P. Ryl. IX), which is a rambling account of a feud over temple revenues which had lasted for generations and ruined a small town (Ray 2001: 10112). It contains some cynical advice given to the narrator’s ancestor:
“There is nothing to be gained in going to the house of judgment. Your opponent in the case is richer than you. If there were a hundred pieces of silver in your hand, he would still defeat you.” So they persuaded Petiese not to go to the house of judgment.
It also records the sort of distinctly provincial incident which other sources would rather we did not know:
On the 13 Mekhir [10 June 512 BC], the festival of Shu, every one who was in Teudjoy was drinking beer, and the warders who were guarding us drank beer and fell asleep. Then Djebastefankh [the disgraced temple president] absconded. The warders awoke, but could not find him, and the warders who were guarding us also absconded.
The fourth century bc was haunted by the prospect that the Achaemenids would reinvade, and several attempts to do this needed to be repulsed. This is the period of the Demotic Chronicle, a historical survey which interprets oracles about kingship, and which connects a ruler’s piety with the length of his reign (Johnson 1974). The quality put into comparatively mundane inscriptions can be gauged from the magnificently produced customs decree from Naukratis (text in Lichtheim 1973-80 III: 86-89; a submerged duplicate has now been excavated under the sea near Alexandria). A raid on the Phoenician coast in 361 led to the deposition of the ruler Teos and his replacement by his nephew Nectanebo II. There survives part of the autobiography of a doctor who accompanied the expedition, only to find himself falsely denounced by means of a forged letter (von Kaenel 1980). Nectanebo II was the last purely native Pharaoh, who was forced to flee the country in 343, but found a posthumous role in folklore as the tutor of Alexander, and even his father (Ray 2001: 117-29; for the last short-lived Persian reconquest in 343, see fig. 5.2).
The more detailed sources which survive from the Late Period allow us greater insight into the political structure of ancient Egypt. Pharaohs can be sidelined or deposed (a fact which we may suspect earlier but can rarely if ever document), and dynasties turn out to vary in their character. Dynasty XXIX (399-380) is revealed as a series of competing freedom fighters, with a perpetual eye on the threat from Persia, while the succeeding Dynasty XXX appears more as a military junta, keeping itself assiduously in power. God-kings the last Pharaohs may still have been, but their human frailties are more exposed to the gaze of the historian than their earlier counterparts.
World History
