Smendes seems quickly to have come to an agreement with his successive southern counterparts Herihor, Piankh, and the latter’s son Pinudjem (I). The relationship appears to have been based on each party’s need for the other’s endorsement: the High Priest, on behalf of Amun, provided recognition of the legitimacy of the northern Pharaoh, who in turn would confirm the High Priest in charge of the Amun clergy and the armies of Upper Egypt (Kitchen 1986: 256). This concordat would characterize the balance of power in Egypt throughout the Twenty-first Dynasty.
By the period of wehem mesut it was no longer the Pharaoh who was the ruler of Egypt but Amun himself (Jansen-Winkeln 2001: 154). Amun was praised as such in hymns and eulogies of the period, and the Tale of Wenamun tells us that by this time messages from Egypt were despatched not by the king but by Amun himself. The will of the god was communicated to his subjects through oracles, the use of which had increased through the New Kingdom and reached a new peak during the Twenty-first Dynasty (Jansen-Winkeln 2001: 158-9, 175). Furthermore, the name of Smendes’ successor as Pharaoh, Amenemnisu, means, literally, ‘‘Amun as (the) king.’’ In recognition of Amun’s importance to the kings of the north a new cult center devoted to his worship was established at Tanis. The concordat between north and south was strengthened by marriage alliances, and each line derived legitimacy from its ancestors. Smendes probably married a daughter of Ramesses XI, his southern counterpart, Pinudjem, was a son of Piankh, and married Henttawy (A), who was a daughter of Smendes and Tentamun, and thus probably a granddaughter of Ramesses XI.
In the 15 Year of Smendes, the High Priest Pinudjem, began to adopt the style and status of a king and passed the office of High Priest to his son, Masaharta. When the latter predeceased his father, the office passed to another of Pinudjem’s sons, Men-kheperre. Smendes died not long into the Menkheperre’s tenure as High Priest and was succeeded briefly by Amenemnisu, who reigned only for four years. He was, in turn, succeeded by a third son of Pinudjem: Psusennes (I). At this point therefore, both halves of the country were controlled by the sons of Pinudjem I, and this would remain the situation until Psusennes’ death in his 49th year in approximately 994 bc (Kitchen 1986: 271). Cordial relations between the northern and southern rulers appear to have been maintained and were perhaps strengthened by family relations between the main players, although this cannot be demonstrated as the ancestry of the successors of Psusennes I as Pharaoh (Amenemhet, Osochor (also known as Osorkon ‘‘the Elder’’), Siamun and Psusennes II) is unclear. Menkheperre was succeeded as High Priest by his sons Smendes (II) and Pinudjem (II). They, in turn, were succeeded by another Psusennes during the reign of Siamun. After the end of the reign of Siamun he too was succeeded by an individual named Psusennes, a fact which suggests that the High Priest and the Pharaoh of this name were one and the same individual, although this cannot, as yet, be proved. In any case, very little is known of the High Priest, and that lends weight to the theory that he left Thebes after his first decade at Karnak to succeed the throne in Tanis. Pharaoh Psusennes II appears to have reigned for approximately fourteen years and left no male heir.
With no claimant from his own line and none forthcoming from Thebes, the throne passed to a new line, and thus the Twenty-second Dynasty was inaugurated, in the person of Shoshenq I.
World History
