The Chronicle

        When last we looked at the Chronicle, Nebuchadrezzar had sieged and captured the city of Ashkelon near the border of Egypt.

He marched to the city of Askelon and captured it in the month of Kislev.
He captured its king and plundered it and carried off [spoil from it ...] (lines 17,18)

During Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years..... The king of Egypt did not march out from his own country again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates River. 2 Kings 24:1,7

        In his 2nd year Nebuchadrezzar "gathered together a powerful army and [marched to the land of Hatti] where he "marched about unopposed." In his 3rd year "the king of Akkad mustered his troops and [marched] to the Hatti-land and brought (back) much [spoil] from the Hatti-land into Akkad". Both comments are innocuous, but they are at least consistent with the testimony of the Hebrew Bible. It is rather in the 4th year that the two documents demonstrate their remarkable correspondence.

In the fourth year the king of Akkad mustered his army and marched to the Hatti-land. In the Hatti-land they marched unopposed.
In the month of Kislev he took the lead of his army and marched to Egypt. The king of Egypt heard (it) and mustered his army.
In open battle they smote the breast (of) each other and inflicted great havoc on each other. The king of Akkad and his troops turned back and returned to Babylon. (lines 5-7)

        Jehoiakim was thus freed from the suzerainty of Babylon precisely three years after it began. Egypt likewise regained its freedom of access by land to its former Syrian territories. It was December/January 601/600 B.C.

        It remains to be seen how the Annals will comport with this data.
 

The Annals

        These three years correspond to the 36th, 37th, and 38th years of Menkheperre, during which took place his 11th, 12th, and 13th campaigns. According to Breasted the Annals for the first two years are lost. We suspect they were not written. Menkheperre had little to boast about. If we are correct in our revised history of his reign he had no ready access to Zahi where his campaigns typically began. The land corridor leading from Egypt was denied him. His Mediterranean fleet was ill equipped to move tens of thousands of troops, not to speak of supplies, the considerable distance involved. At least not in the time frame given. We expect that Menkheperre spent these two years fortifying the Phoenician ports and otherwise preparing for the inevitable confrontation with Babylon. But this is all conjecture. Our only opportunity to compare the Annals and the Chronicle rests with the account of his 13th campaign.

        As we expected, there is no mention of Retenu during the 13th campaign, the only year that tribute from this region has been omitted from the existing Annals since 609 B.C.[1] He certainly did not visit the region. Instead Menkheperre campaigned on the Phoenician coast south of Zahi, an area known as Nuges. We suspect, as we have just argued, that he has been preparing for this campaign for several years and has amassed by degrees an army sufficient for the task at hand. By moving south from Zahi he could regain the Lebanon in a pincer movement which would isolate the Babylonian garrison in the Palestinian region. Breasted summarizes the event:

The king directs his attention to the southern Lebanon region of Nuges again, where he is obliged to subjugate the local princes, who controlled the road northward between the two Lebanons at the seaward bend of the Litany River. BAR II 506

[Year 38. Behold, his majesty was in --] on the thirteenth victorious expedition. Behold, his majesty was overthrowing -- [in] the district of Nuges.
List of booty which the army of his majesty brought away from the district of Nuges: ... (there follows a list of booty and tribute) BAR II 507-509

Behold, every harbor was supplied with every good thing according to their agreement of each year, in going [northward or] southward; the impost of Lebanon (RA-mn-n) likewise; the harvest of Zahi, consisting of clean grain, green oil, incense, [win]e. BAR II 510

        Thus far the Annals and the Chronicle are in perfect agreement. If the critic is wondering why the Babylonian assault on Egypt is not mentioned in Annals for Menkheperre's 38th year there is a ready answer. The 13th campaign was completed by October/November, as were all campaigns of Menkheperre. The attack by Babylon took place in December/January, in the interim between the 13th and 14th campaigns.

        One or two months after Menkheperre left Zahi the anticipated reaction by Nebuchadrezzar began. In the month Kislev (December/January - 601/600 B.C.) the Babylonian king "took the lead of his army and marched to Egypt." Piankhi was  ready. It was apparently a bloody battle, with extensive losses on both sides. Only in respect of the renewed access to Syria could this be deemed a victory for Egypt. We expect that if it were to be mentioned at all by the Egyptian king, its account would be brief. We cannot repeat too often that Menkheperre was loathe to publicize his losses. His attention was centered on the tribute gained from the battles waged. And the encounter with Babylon at the eastern border of Egypt resulted in extensive loss of life for the army of Menkheperre, and absolutely no tribute. In spite of these mitigating factors the battle is documented.  Predictably it is mentioned in the Annals for the next year.
 

The Fallen Ones of Shasu

        We are here still concerned with Piankhi's 38th year. But since the encounter with Babylon is mentioned in the Annals for his 39th year, we produce the beginning of the entry for that year.

Year 39. Behold, his majesty was in the land of Retenu on the fourteenth victorious expedition, after [his] going [to defeat] the fallen ones of Shasu. BAR II 517

        Breasted, and virtually all scholars following him, considers that this Annals entry refers to "an excursion to punish the raiding  Bedouin on the northeastern frontier of Egypt."   There is certainly some warrant for this interpretation. There did exist late in the 20th dynasty a semi-nomadic ethnic group called the Shasu inhabiting a region near the eastern border of Egypt. The relevant inscriptions have been examined by Raphael Giveon. They describe incursions by the Shasu into the wadi Hammamat region of upper Egypt east of Thebes. Inscriptions found in the Sinai suggest that they inhabited that area. [2]  According to Giveon

The last Egyptian documents dealing with the Shosu as an active factor in history are from the time of Ramses III. In his temple at Medinet Habu there are several reliefs showing them as prisoners of war, and as soldiers in the Egyptian army. Shosu, living in the region of Seir, in southern Transjordan, are mentioned as enemies of Egypt in the historical part of the Great Papyrus Harris. Papyrus Wilbour mentions allotment of land in a region not far from Oxyrhynchos, on a road connecting the Southern Oasis with he Nile Valley. ... It seems that the Shosu, along with other foreigners, were established in the region by the Egyptian administration at the end of the XIXth or the beginning of the XXth dynasty. [3]

Other documents of the Late Period, like the "Oracular amuletic decrees" of the XXIst to the XXIIIrd Dynasties, and the Sanam list of toponyms from the time of Taharqa (XXVth Dynasty), use the term "Shosu" merely for "East".(emphasis mine) [4]

        We could rest our case here but we choose not to do so. If we did the critic would no doubt argue that the interpretation provided by Breasted is equally possible, if not preferable. But that is not the case. It is improbable, if not impossible, that Egypt fought a battle against the Shosu in the 15th century B.C.. We raise the following objections.

        Initially we wonder why Menkheperre would even mention a battle against such an inconsequential group of migrants.  Remember that this king is loathe to detail significant battles with the great nations of the Near East. Why preserve the memory of this otherwise nondescript band of marauders. Egypt must have endured hundreds of petty conflicts with marginal tribal groups on its borders. Why mention only this soletary encounter? And why does this mention occur as a preface to Menkheperre's entry into the land of Retenu, as if it were a necessary prelude to that event? But there is an even more fundamental objection. It can be argued that the Shasu did not exist in the 15th century.

        In no other document linked to the 18th dynasty of Egypt, with two exceptions, is there any reference to "the Shasu". That alone should introduce a note of caution.  If the Shasu lived in proximity to Egypt and were a group sufficiently prominent to warrant mention by Menkheperre as a worth adversary, then why are they ignored elsewhere in Egyptian inscriptions from the 15th century B.C.?  Why do they emerge as a distinct ethnic group in Egyptian documents of the 20th dynasty and not before?

        One of the two exceptional references to Shasu is contained in the list of conquests inscribed on the chariot of Menkheperrure Thutmose (IV), a king identified by historians as the grandson of the 18th dynasty Menkheperre Thutmose.  In this list Thutmose (IV) boasts of having conquered Naharin, Babylon, Tunip, Shasu, Kadesh and Takhsy.   Needless to say the Shasu, interpreted as a reference to a migratory bedouin tribal group, do not belong in this list and the inscription has, accordingly, received considerable attention.[5]  The only reasonable explanation for its inclusion according to various interpreters, is to understand the term as a reference to a  country lying immediately "east" of Egypt, either Syria or Palestine. The first hypothesis derives from Giveon in various later articles [6]; the second explanation was proposed by Lorton in response to Giveon.  Betsy Bryan, author of the classic treatment on the reign of Thutmose IV [7], entirely side steps the issue by referring the matter to an endnote:

See Giveon (op.cit, 56) on this list, where he pointed out the northern emphasis - even Shasu at this time referred to Syria, according to Giveon - as a symbol of Egypt's northern frontier versus her southern one in Kush. This is also shown on the chariot. D. Lorton, reviewing Givon's book on Shasu, in JARCE 9 (1971-72) 148 has suggested that in this context Sh'sw = Palestine; for Lorton believed such a short list must have represented major nations + Egypt's Asian empire. There is no way to determine which interpretation is correct.[8]

        But if Shasu is a regional or directional reference in the the inscriptions of Thutmose IV and Amenhotep II, and if either or both of these documents is contemporary with the Annals (a fact we will argue later) then this all but demands that the identical name in the Annals be interpreted likewise.   With that we rest our case.

        The battle with the Shasu was in fact a battle with the Babylonians, the Easterners.  There remains for us to discuss the sequel to this conflict with "the fallen ones from the east".