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When Ramesses XI died, Smendes, a relative of the Theban priests, became king in the north and founded the Twenty-first Dynasty.
The Third Intermediate Period
This period covers Dynasties 21 through 25, spanning 419 years from 1075 B.C.E. to 664 B.C.E.. Smendes moved his capital from Piramesse to Tanis, in the eastern Delta. The Tanite kings (who ruled only the Delta) and the Theban kings recognized each other’s separate rights of succession, respected one another’s power, and cemented ties between their families with royal marriages. Both ruling families had strong Libyan roots, and both kings were considered legitimate. But Egypt, with a population approaching 3 million, suffered from the lack of strong central government.
For most of the Twenty-first Dynasty, the Tanite kings in the Delta and the Theban soldier-priest-kings in the rest of Egypt were closely related. Sometimes they were brothers. The Theban king Pinedjem married one of the daughters of Ramesses XI. One of Pinedjem’s sons, Psusennes I, became the third king of the Tanis Dynasty. Two other sons became priest-kings, ruling from Thebes. The daughter of Psusennes I married the high priest of Amun-Re, further linking the ruling families. A great temple at Tanis was dedicated to the Theban gods Amun-Re, Mut, and Khonsu.
During his 25-year reign at Tanis (coinciding with the Biblical era of David and Goliath), King Siamun built extensively at both Tanis and Piramesse. Also during that time, Egyptian princesses started marrying foreign princes and kings, reversing a long-held pattern.
The Theban priest-kings, well aware of tomb robberies in the Valley of the Kings, worried that the great pharaohs buried there were losing out on eternal life. They removed many royal mummies from their original tombs (many had already been looted) and stashed them in large groups in well-hidden, better-secured tombs. They also removed just about all the gold, valuables, and grave goods they found, “recycling” the loot into their temple treasuries, or saving it for their own tombs.
Two of these caches of royal mummies were discovered in the late 1800s by European explorers. One cache was discovered in 1881 in a tomb at Deir el-Bahari near Thebes, another in 1898 in the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings. Dozens of royal mummies—including most of Egypt’s great imperial pharaohs—had been packed into small chambers, side by side, with only the linen on their backs.
Some of their recycled funeral goods showed up in the tomb of Psusennes I—the only completely intact royal tomb ever found in Egypt. Psusennes had a solid silver coffin trimmed with gold, and a solid gold face mask. His sarcophagus, coffins, and other burial equipment had clearly belonged to other kings. The borrowed finery did his mummy little good; poor conditions in his tomb destroyed it.
Little is known about Psusennes II, last king of the Twenty-first Dynasty. His son, Shoshenq I, founded the Twenty-second Dynasty, also known as the Libyan or Bubastite Dynasty because the kings of the Twenty-second Dynasty were descended from Libyan raiders who had invaded Egypt during the reigns of Meneptah and Ramesses III and settled in the eastern Delta at Bubastis. They ruled Egypt for 233 years.
Shoshenq I took the title great chief of the Meshwesh Libyans. He led a campaign against Palestine (he is the ruler Shishak mentioned in the Bible), plundering Solomon’s temple and looting everything but the Ark of the Covenant. This bold raid restored some of Egypt’s old prestige. A strong leader, Shoshenq I reunited Upper and Lower Egypt, and kept them together for nearly 100 years.
Despite this, there was plenty of internal conflict. The power of the Tanis faction weakened, and the north splintered in many hereditary fiefdoms that paid little attention to the king. In the south, a patchwork of small kingdoms arose. By the time Shoshenq III took the throne, Egypt had entered the most confusing period in her long history. During the Twenty-third Dynasty, Upper and Lower Egypt split apart. Factions fought over control of the Delta. During this so-called “Libyan anarchy,” nine major kingdoms (collectively called the Twenty-third Dynasty) coexisted. This fragmentation seriously weakened Egypt, leaving it unable to defend itself from the Nubians, who swept north. By the end of the dynasty, at least three or four rulers claimed to be king of Egypt. Too late, they saw the threat from Nubia.
One self-proclaimed king, Tefnakhte, ruling from Sais in the Delta (the Twenty-fourth Dynasty), tried to organize a coalition of Upper and Lower Egyptian rulers to fight the Nubian invasion. The forces of the north met the Nubian forces at Herakleopolis. The northerners were forced to surrender, but Nubian king Piankhy allowed them to remain as governors of their cities. A second Sais king, Bakenrenef (Bocchoris) rebelled. The Nubians killed him.
The Twenty-fifth Dynasty was the Nubian Dynasty. Nubia was a stable, prosperous, completely Egyptianized state. Long a colony of Egypt, the Nubians treasured ancient Egyptian culture. Believing that Egypt had lost her way, they did not see themselves as invaders, but as restorers of the old order. They took the titles of great New Kingdom pharaohs, and maintained traditional Egyptian religion and culture. For 104 years, they ruled Egypt from Memphis and Thebes. They worshiped Amun-Re, rebuilt and refurbished neglected temples and monuments, and built many new temples. Imitating the ancient pharaohs, the Nubian kings built pyramid tombs (much smaller and steeper than those at Giza) in their homeland.
When the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa meddled in Palestine, though, it angered the Assyrians, a powerful empire in the Near East that had control of the region. During a half-century of power struggles and open warfare, the Assyrians sacked Memphis and Thebes, looting the fabulous treasuries of the Amun-Re temples. The Nubians were driven back to their historical borders south of the first cataract. Thereafter, their contacts with Egypt were limited to trade.
Nubian Renaissance
Nubia has long been closely linked with Egypt. Ancient Egypt subdued Nubia, sometimes cruelly, in order to keep gold mines and southern trade routes open. Nubians and others (sometimes convicted criminals) worked the mines under horrendous, near-slavery conditions. Over long years as a colony of Egypt, though, the Nubians came to admire and imitate Egyptian culture. For about 100 years, during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, Nubian kings ruled Egypt.
Nubia also maintained strong cultural ties with Sub-Saharan Africa. After the Aswan High Dam was built in 1965, the Nile’s annual flood built up behind the dam. By 1971, much of ancient Nubia was flooded, drowned forever beneath Lake Nasser. Anthropologists sadly proclaimed the end of Nubian culture.
However, instead of fading into history, the Nubians migrated into Cairo, bringing their culture, language, dress, and music with them. Nubian music, modernized with electric instruments added to traditional ones, has taken Egyptian pop music culture by storm. Anthropologists learned that it is a mistake to count out people who once transformed themselves from mine slaves into pharaohs.
The Twenty-sixth Dynasty
Aided by Greek mercenaries, Psamtik I of Sais took the throne, founding the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. For the next 139 years, the Saites presided over a relatively orderly, prosperous Egypt, consisting of (according to Herodotus) more than 20,000 towns. They used a combination of force and diplomacy to reunite Upper and Lower Egypt. They hired Greek mercenaries for the army, and oversaw the development of Egyptian naval power. The Assyrians had their own problems and left Egypt alone. Most of Egypt’s eastern allies were being conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great.
The Saites carried on a vast trade around the Mediterranean. King Necho II preceded the modern Suez Canal (connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas) by 2,500 years by building a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea. They welcomed foreign traders, building towns where foreigners could live as national communities. They allowed the Greeks to colonize Naukratis in the Delta as a “free trade zone,” where Greek traders enjoyed many privileges and rights.
The Saite Dynasty was an era of nostalgia. Saite kings revived ancient religious, artistic, and cultural traditions. They resurrected the Pyramid and Coffin Texts. They built tombs at Giza and Saqqara, to be near the ancient kings. Animal cults became extremely popular.
The Saite kings were well aware of the wealth and power of the Theban priests of Amun-Re, and of their history of proclaiming themselves kings. To secure their power over these powerful priests, the Saite kings revived a New Kingdom custom of naming the king’s eldest daughter God’s Wife of Amun. The old title had been largely honorary, but the new one packed real power. The princess lived at the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak. Revered as a near-goddess, she performed religious rituals and controlled vast wealth and great estates. She was not allowed to marry, but she could adopt an heir. Holding this post gave the king’s daughter enormous personal wealth, power, and influence—and kept the throne safer for her father, because the Amun-Re priests all answered to her.
But once again, winds of change were blowing around the Mediterranean. The Babylonian Empire came to regard Egypt as its enemy. Babylon defeated Egyptian forces in the Near East and seized Egypt’s foreign territories. Then, the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians. In 525 B.C.E., the inexperienced king Psamtik III faced the Persian army of Cambyses at Pelusium on the eastern frontier. Defeated, he fled back to Memphis, but was hauled off in chains to the Persian capital. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty collapsed in confusion.
