Several Upper Egyptian individuals, including the High Priests of Amun Amenhotep and Herihor at the end of the New Kingdom and Pinudjem I during the Twenty-first Dynasty, adopted elements of the royal insignia, though they were not ‘‘kings’’ as such. Similarly, early in the Twenty-second Dynasty, the High Priest Shoshenq (C), enclosed his name in a cartouche and added to it the royal epithet ‘‘Meryamun’’ (‘‘beloved of Amun’’), and subsequently, during the reign of Osorkon II, there appears a ‘‘king’’ Harsiesi A who is known exclusively from Upper Egyptian sources. The latter appears to have been a son of Smendes (III), another High Priest and brother of Shoshenq (C), (Jansen-Winkeln 2006: 241, n. 64), and, therefore, a grandson of Osorkon I. This tendency of the Theban High Priests and their offspring to declare themselves king is a feature ofthe period. The transition to royal status seems to have been a natural step for the High Priests, and this was precisely the situation that obtained after the cessation of hostilities in Thebes, when the High Priest ‘‘Prince’’ Osorkon (B) became king User-maatre Setepenamun Osorkon (III). The authority of the High Priests was based not only on their influence within the cult of Amun but on their tenure of non-religious posts, most importantly, that which gave them charge ofthe armies ofthe region, a post which Prince Osorkon had held. The position of these individuals had, however, also been strengthened by inheritance and kinship with others in authority which allowed them the same kind of security that Pharaoh had enjoyed for centuries.
As noted above, during and after the period in which Thebes came under the rule of Upper Egyptian ‘‘kings’’ Egypt as a whole seems to have become further fragmented. The lunette of the victory stela of Piyi graphically represents both the political situation only a few years later and the status of the individuals claiming kingship at this time. In the center of the scene Piyi stands facing right with Amun and Mut behind him. In front of Piyi stands Nimlot, the ‘‘king’’ of Hermopolis, and in a separate register beneath Nimlot three further ‘‘kings’’ - Osorkon (IV) of Bubastis (the ‘‘Osortho’’/‘‘Osorthon’’ of Manetho’s Twenty-third Dynasty, which seems to have been little more than a continuation of the Twenty-second Dynasty (Jansen-Winkeln 2006: 247)), Iuput (II) of Leontopolis and Peftjauawybast of Herakleopolis - are kneeling in a gesture of obeisance before the Kushite Pharaoh. Behind Amun and Mut are five further rulers of Delta provinces, among them two Great Chiefs of the Meshwesh, an important Libyan ethnic group. In addition to this further rulers are mentioned in the text of the stela.
Clearly, the concept of kingship had altered fundamentally by this point. Pharaoh’s title, the ‘‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt,’’ implies a unity in the country which had not existed since the New Kingdom, and yet the title, along with the other elements of royal insignia, was used by all the various kings throughout Egypt during this period. The multiplicity of kings at this time contradicts the traditional notion of Pharaoh as sole ruler of the country, and most significantly of all, the equivalence of the ‘‘kings’’ to the other rulers reveals that by this point the title ‘‘king’’ had become simply one among several that were used to designate the pre-eminent individual in a given region. The sporadic appearance of Upper Egyptian ‘‘kings’’ throughout the period should be understood in this context. Essentially, the appearance of tradition had been maintained, but kingship had lost much of it meaning, as is also reflected in the repeated use of New Kingdom throne names by the Libyan kings who brought little originality to the process of formulating royal names. This loss of meaning has been interpreted as another manifestation of Libyan influence, the result of the adoption of the insignia of kingship by a people unaccustomed to the political system that went with it. The situation at the time of Piyi’s invasion reveals that migrant populations of Libyans had retained their socio-political structure and were headed, effectively, by chiefs, some of whom retained Libyan titles while others had adopted Egyptian protocols. Once settled, these tribes had established their own local authority, further contributing to decentralization. Such a situation precisely reflects the tribal structure of society that scholars believe characterized the populations of Libyan migrants who entered Egypt during the last years of the New Kingdom. The fragmentation of the country was the result of the Libyans’ retention of their own way of doing things: they were unaccustomed to centralized rule, preferring to organize themselves as a confederation of principalities, loosely allied to one another through marriage and the appointment of family members to important posts (Leahy 1985:59).
One of the great problems for historians of the period lies in distinguishing that which is ideologically important from that which was of practical significance. The use of the title ‘‘High Priest of Amun’’ for the pre-eminent governmental individual in Thebes is a case in point: the connection with the most important deity of the times provided legitimation and an ideological basis for their authority, but, in practice, their authority derived from their control of other, nonreligious/ideological areas of state such as the military, the administration, and the (temple) economy. Furthermore several other titles such as that of‘‘vizier’’ which, in earlier times of centralized government, had signified specific roles, had lost much of their meaning. The continued use of these titles suggests that the old structures and hierarchies of government remained in place, but the reality was quite different since the country had become a loose confederation of towns and principalities governed on a local/regional basis; the titles no longer had any value as descriptors of the role and responsibilities of the individuals concerned.
World History
