Ashurbanipal's Second Campaign

         Following the aborted coup attempt in 666 B.C. Tarqu was never heard from again.  We can assume he died early in 665 B.C. since later that same year the antagonist of Ashurbanipal is another Cushite king named Urdamanie.  Oppenheim translates from the Rassam cylinder:

Afterwards URdamane, son of Shabaku  (var.: son of his sister), sat down on the throne of his kingdom.  He made Thebes and Heliopolis (U-nu) his fortresses and assembled his (armed) might.  He called up his battle (-experienced soldiers) to attack my troops, (and) the Assyrians stationed in Memphis.  He surrounded these men and seized (all) their communications (lit. exits).  An express messenger came to Nineveh and told me about this.  In my second campaign I marched directly against Egypt (Musur) and Nubia.  URdamane heard of the approach of my expedition (only when) I had (already) set foot on Egyptian territory.  He left Memphis and fled into Thebes to save his life.  The kings, governors, and regents whom I had installed in Egypt came to meet me and kissed my feet.  I followed URdamane (and) went as far as Thebes, his fortress.  He saw my mighty battle array approaching, left Thebes and fled to Kipkipi.   Upon a trust (-inspiring) oracle of Ashur and Ishtar I, myself, conquered this town completely.  From Thebes I carried away booty, heavy and beyond counting: silver, gold, precious stones, his entire personal possessions, linen garments with multicolored trimmings, fine horses, (certain) inhabitants, male and female.  I pulled two high obelisks, cast of shining zahalu-bronze, the weight of which was 2,500 talents, standing at the door of the temple, out of their bases and took (them) to Assyria.  (Thus) I carried off from Thebes heavy booty, beyond counting.  I made Egypt (Musur) and Nubia feel my weapons bitterly and celebrated my triumph.  'With full hands and safely, I returned to Nineveh, the city (where I exercise) my rule.  (ANET 295)

Rudamon

        In 1866 Edward Hincks in a journal article informed the general public of the recent finds from Assyria.  "It will appear strange to many readers of this journal," he writes, "that an Assyrian army should at one time have penetrated to Thebes and sacked it."  He goes on to identify several key names in the annals.  From the outset Tarqu was identified with Taharka.  The established history was already written; all subsequent evidence must conform to it.   But URdamanie was not part of the established history.  We thus receive an unbiased interpretation.

As to the name Urdamani, I first observe that Ursa, who was king of Armenia in the reign of Sargon, is also called Rusa.  The Assyrians seem to have disliked an initial r, and to have prefixed an (aleph or glottal stop depicted) with the vowel that should follow the r before it.  Rudamani may, therefore, have been the true form of the Egyptian name represented.  This is the (cartouche of Rudamen produced) of the hieroglyphics, a name borne by a king mentioned by M. de Rouge in his "Inscription Historique" p. 18, who is named in a Gurna inscription there cited.  This, however, was not the king with whom we have now to do.  He must have lived more than a century earlier.  M. de Rouge also cites royal names, which he reads Ra-user-ma setep-en-Amon Amenrut-meri-Amen, as occurring on a vase of rock-crystal at the Louvre.  I think it likely that this belonged to the step-son of Taharqa.[26]

        Oppenheim corrects Hincks on at least one point.   Interpreting the Sumerian ideogram NIN as "sister" rather than "wife", he refers to Urdamanie instead as a son of Tarqu's sister.   Most scholars agree.  Urdamanie was Tarqu's nephew rather than his step-son.  Leaving aside for the moment the questionable reference to his being "son of Shabaka", we look for Urdamanie in our revised history.

        We have no problem identifying him as Rudamon, whose name occurs in Table 3 immediately after Takeloth III.  He was the immediate successor of that king in the 23rd dynasty.   He is of course the same as the first king cited by M. de Rouge in Hincks' article, but with the lowering of the dates of the dynasty in this revision he is no longer a century too early.   He is also the king named on the rock crystal vase cited by de Rouge, which does not date to the time of Taharka  as Hincks seems to think.  According to Petrie the Rudamen on this vase is "said to be a son of a king Uasarkon, probably the IIIrd (Rec. xix.20), and to be the father of king Pef-dudu-bast of Henensuten (L.D. iii. 284 a)" (HE III 265)

        There are two problems with our identification of Urdamanie and Rudamon.    The first is the reference to Rudamon as the son of Osorkon III mentioned by Flinders Petrie.   The second is the reference to Rudamon as "son of Shabaka" in the Rassam cylinder annals.  We treat these two problems in order.

Rudamon grandson of Osorkon III

        The vase inscription itself contains only the cartouche names of Rudamon.    The identification of Rudamon as son of Osorkon III derives instead from a block inscription found at Thebes.

On a large reused block found at Medinet Habu, the 'Lord of the Two Lands Rudamun' is called 'King's Son of the Lord of the Two Lands, Osorkon, justified, possessing reverence'. [27] The Osorkon concerned must be Osorkon III, for the cartouches of Usimare Rudamun Meryamun occur in the temple of Osiris which had been built and largely decorated by Osorkon III and Takeloth III.  The latter king would thus have been succeeded by his brother. (TIP 101)

        If we accept Kitchen's translation of the Medinet Habu block inscription then Rudamon and Takeloth III were brothers, both sons of Osorkon III.   But according to the cylinder A version of the Assyrian annals,  Urdamanie (Rudamon) was the son of the sister of Tarqu (Takeloth III).   How do we reconcile the annals and the block inscription?

        There is a simple answer to the dilemna.  If  "son" means "grandson", as often in Egyptian,  then Rudamen becomes a grandson of  Osorkon III.   His mother was a daughter of Osorkon III and therefore a sister of Takeloth III.   There is no longer a problem.  The relationship is diagrammed below in Table 5.

        There is, however, no need to assume that "son" means "grandson".  Kitchen, following others, has mistranslated the text.  The Medinet Habu block actually says:  "Lord of the Two Lands Rudamon, justified, king's daughter of the Lord of the Two Lands, Osorkon, justified, possessing reverence'.    There is clearly an error in the text.  In fact, Gauthier assumes two errors: he corrects "king's daughter" to "king's son" and he assumes an incorrect gender for the epithet "possessing reverence".  It is more likely that the artisan has committed a single error.  He appears to have omitted a sign for "son" [egg hieroglyph] preceding the signs for king's "daughter" [egg and t hieroglyphs].[28]  The error would result naturally as an haplography or deliberately due to confusion on the part of the artisan, who misunderstood this unusual double construct.    The text as originally intended referred to Rudamon as the "son of the king's daughter of Osorkon".

                                                                        Table 5

Tanuatamon

        The search for Rudamon in the traditional history was difficult.   The only possible candidate was Tanuatamon, a Nubian king associated with Taharka on a few monuments.  A stela inscription of this king describes his attack on Lower Egypt.  It mentions a Pakruru.  But no other details of the inscription remotely resemble the Assyrian context.  Besides, was not Pakruru among the rebel kings removed to Nineveh with Niku?  And was not Niku the only king returned alive?  Undaunted, the scholars persisted with the identification of Urdamanie and Tanuatamon.  The lack of correspondence of name was troublesome, but Assyriologists, after several igenious though somewhat contrived attempts, and a century of effort, finally determined that the UR sign might be read as Tan and the name might be read Tandamani. [TIP 120 n.276]  Close enough for the critics.

        But Tanuatamon or Tandamani is not Urdamanie.   He did not invade a Nile delta heavily defended by an Assyrian army.  In the next chapter we will set the record straight.

Rudamon son of Shabaka?

      Only one question remains.   We have argued the case that Urdamanie, the successor of Tarqu in the annals of Ashurbanipal, is none other than Rudamon, the successor of Takelot III of the Libyan 22nd dynasty.  We postponed comment on the problematic reference in the Rassam cylinder to "Urdamanie son of Shabaka".   Scholars typically identify this Shabaka with either Shabataka or Shabaka of the 25th dynasty, kings intermediate between Piankhi and Taharka.  If true, then this genealogical construct is a problem for the current revision.   According to the revised chronology, the entire 25th dynasty followed the Assyrian invasion.  Shabaka's dates will soon be established as c.a. 635-585 B.C.  He can hardly be identified as the father of a king who invaded the Egyptian delta in 665 B.C.  But is it true that the Rassam cylinder refers to "Urdamanie son of Shabaka”?

        Who is Shabaku, father of Urdamane in the Assyrian annals, if he is not Shabaka or Shabataka of the 25th dynasty?  Two possible explanations are readily available.

Shabaka = Ankhpakarud

        According to one version of the Assyrian annals Urdamanie was the son of a princess, the sister of the late king Tarqu.  The scribe of the Rassam stela completes the genealogical picture, providing us with the name of the other parent, who must be a commoner.  If Shabaka was truly a king, we can legitimately wonder why the first scribe would ignore Rudamon's royal father and connect Rudamon with a princess.   But if not a king, Shabaka must certainly have been a man of some status, to have married a princess and fathered a king.

        To identify the father of Rudamen we need first correct the transcription and transliteration of the name in the Rassam stela.  We have already noted how Assyriologists, in their haste to establish synchronisms between Assyrian and Egyptian chronologies, have tortured the cuneiform script to turn Urdamanie into Tanuatamon.   They have also too readily accepted the transcription of the Rassam stela as a reference to Shabaka.  The name is inscribed on the cylinder using four cuneiform signs which are transcribed as šá-ba-ku-u.  But we must remember that Assyrian cureiform signs, on the principle of polyphony, have multiple possible sound values.  The sign which is transcribed as ba could also be given the value  pá, and the initial sign transcribed šá could equally be assigned any of the common values ník, níq, nig, or gar (or any of sever lesser used values).  The selection of values, as one authority reminds the beginning student in Akkadian, “can be determined only by the context of the word or sentence”.[29]  For the translators of the Rassam stela, the context was an Egyptian 25th dynasty, for which Shabaka was a perfectly natural selection.   For the present revision, the context is the Libyan 22nd dynasty.  In this case the Rassam stela might be referring to  ník-pá-ku-u. rather than  šá-ba-ku-u.  The ník sign will immediately be recognized as Egyptian ‘ankh, and if we accept that ku-u can represent Egyptian ka or kha, we can enquire as to the identity of Ankhpakha, the father of Rudamen and husband of the sister of Takeloth III of the 23nd dynasty.  We do not have to look long and hard.   Several applicants immediately line up with the proper credentials.

        Thus far we have ignored the administrative sub-culture of the 23rd dynasty in Thebes.  Kitchen discusses in excruciating detail the important family connections of the vizier Nakhtefmut and his relatives Ankhpakhered.TIP 180,181.   Kitchen's genealogy is not without its critics ( TIP 480) but it is clear that there did exist an Ankhpakhered i whose wife DjedMutesankh. might  well qualify as a sister of Takeloth III.   She is a generation removed from Takeloth II. and thus she and Ankhpakhered lived at the time of the Assyrian invasion.[30]  The identification is inviting, if not certain.    In its defense we can cite the genealogy previously argued ( Table 5), in which the father of Rudamen is ignored in the Medinet Habu block inscription  while his claim to the throne is traced through his mother to his grandfather Osorkon III.    The argument is reasonable, but there is a more viable alternative.

Shabaka, son of Rudamon?

        The proposal that šá-ba-ku-u should be retranscribed nik-pa-ku-u  solves one problem but raises a question.  The so-called Rassam Cylinder which records this information "is dated in the eponymy of Shamash-daninanni (to be placed somewhere between 644 and 636 B.C.)." (LAR II 290)   It was inscribed and set up in commemoration of the completion of the rebuilding of the royal palace at Nineveh.    How did the scribes at this late date know the intricate family connections of Rudamon, a 23rd dynasty king of apparently little consequence whom the Assyrian army encountered in a brief battle some 20 years earlier?  This criticism applies equally to the traditional identification of Urdamanie with Tanuatamon who is barely known within Egypt.  How would the Assyrian scribes know about or even care about the parentage of this nondescript king.   Any reference to the genealogy of a subject king in Assyrian annals is highly unusual.  It seems more likely that Shabaka is mentioned by the Assyrian annalist because Shabaka is a significant figure at the time the Rassam cylinder annals were written.  A word of explanation is in order.

        The 22nd and 23rd dynasties provided in tables 3 and 4 are incomplete.  They are based on the assumption that only two major dynastic divisions existed within Egypt in the years following Takeloth III and preceding the arrival of Piankhi.  But in the adjusted chronology Egypt during this period was fragmented into a dozen or more political units by the Assyrians, and these divisions were maintained at least through the reign of Ashurbanipal, thus till 626 B.C.   In this time frame we must place the rise of the 25th dynasty.   The invasion of Piankhi can be dated with some certainty and on independent grounds to around 618 B.C.(f.n.). a date we could have obtained otherwise by subtracting 120 years from the traditional  invasion date of ca. 738 B.C..    Since this invasion occurred in Piankhi's  21st year he must have begun his reign around 638 B.C.    We will argue briefly in the next chapter of this book that Shabaka, whose sole reign followed Piankhi briefly, was jointly a king with Piankhi during much of his reign.  Herodotus credits Shabaka with a reign of 50 years. As Assyrian power waned in the final years of Ashurbanipal and the early years of Sinsharishkun Egypt became more and more an independent state, linked to Assyria as an ally rather than a vassal.   This explains how Egypt came to be allied with Assyria against Nabopolassar in the final years of the Assyrian kingdom.

        With this aside we return to the problem of Shabaka and suggest an alternative solution.   Does the Rassam inscription say that Rudamon was the son of Shabaka or that Shabaka was the son of Rudamon?    If  the text is transcribed in the typical way it reads "URdamanie DUMU Sha-ba-ku-u"  (lit. Rudamon son Shabaka).  The ideogram DUMU, borrowed from the Sumerians,  represents among other concepts, a "son"  for which the Assyrians had their own word "marum".  The scribe chose to use the ideogram instead of the Assyrian word, with unfortunate loss of clarity.  He was attempting to condense lengthy annals on a relatively small cylinder.  DUMU can refer to a "son" in any one of several relationships to the surrounding words other than a construct case "son of".  Offtimes an ideogram is supplied with a "phoenetic complement" to clarify the syntax.  Here there is none.   It is possible that the scribal  intention was to identify the relatively unknown Rudamon as the father of the currently better known Shabaka, who at the time of writing is representing Egypt in diplomatic relations with Assyria.   His referrence to Rudamon (whose) son (is) Shabaka was intended to clarify the relationship; it ended up confusing the scholars.   The annalist could never have guessed the confusion his remarks would cause for twentieth century historians.[31]

Shabaka's Treaty with Assyria

    That Shabaka was a representative of an Egyptian confederacy in league with Assyria has independent confirmation.  In his excavations of the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh in the mid 19th century,  Layard stumbled on the remains of a small cache of official documents:[32]

"in a chamber, or passage, in the south-west corner of this edifice, were found a large number of pieces of fine clay bearing the impressions of seals which, there is no doubt, had been affixed, like modern official seals of wax, to documents written on leather, papyrus, or parchment.  ...  The writings themselves had been consumed by fire which destroyed the building or had perished from decay.  In the stamped clay, however, may still be seen the holes for the string, or strips of skin, by which the seal was fastened; in some instances the ashes of the string itself remain, with the marks of the fingers and thumb. (Discoveries 153-4)

But the most remarkable and important of the Egyptian seals are two impressions of a royal signet, which, though imperfect, retain the cartouche, with the name of the king, so as to be perfectly legible.  It is one well known to Egyptian scholars, as that of the second Sabaco the Ethiopian, of the twenty-fifth dynasty.  On the same piece of clay is impressed an Assyrian seal, with a device representing a priest ministering before the king, probably a royal signet (Discoveries 156)

It would seem that a peace having been concluded between the Egyptians and one of the Assyrian monarchs, probably Sennacherib, the royal signets of the two kings, thus found together, were attached to the treaty, which was deposited amongst the archives of the kingdom.  Whilst the document itself, written upon parchment or papyri, has completely perished, this singular proof of the alliance, if not actual meeting , of the two monarchs is still preserved amidst the remains of the state papers of the Assyrian empire; furnishing one of the most remarkable instances of confirmatory evidence on record. (Discoveries 159)

         On the assumption that Shabaka was the son of Rudamon we can extend the genealogy of Table 5 by one generation.   The result is noted below in Table 6.
 

                                                                           Table 6

 

        Manetho refers to the three kings Sabacon (Shabaka), Sebichos (Shabataka), and Tarcos/Taracos (Taharka) as his 25th dynasty.  If we are correct, they were merely an extension of the 23rd.  But it is understandable that Manetho would discount the rule of Rudamon and begin anew with Shabaka.  Rudamon was driven from Egypt by Ashurbanipal.  He lived much of the balance of his life Nubia.   He was a Nubian, not an Egyptian king for the duration of his reign.   This explains the shortage of monuments bearing his name.  It also explains why Rudamon is not listed is Manetho's list of 23rd dynasty kings.

        This concludes our discussion of the 22nd-23rd dynasties.  We have argued our case.   The 25th dynasty has been dislodged from its errant position preceding the Assyrian invasion.   The 22nd/23rd dynasties have filled the void.  Taharka has been removed from the early 7th century where he does not belong.   There remains the problem of identifying in the next chapter his true historical context.  But first we pause to reflect on the accuracy of our revision thus far.

Pause for Reflection

        The seemingly arbitrary reduction of 22nd/23rd dynasty dates by 121 years has fared remarkably well.    Its immediate consequence was the lowering of dates for Osorkon II, Takeloth II, Sheshonk III and Pedubast I, positioning these kings in the late 8th and early 7th centuries, precisely where they belong according to an abundance of inscriptional evidence from well dated Phonician sites.   The resulting dates for Takeloth II, Takeloth III, and Rudamon place these kings precisely opposite their biblical and Assyrian namesakes, Tirhakah, Tarqu, and Urdamanie.   In the case of Takeloth III/Tarqu and Rudamon/Urdamanie the correspondence was so remarkable that it could not be improved were we given liberty to emend dates at will.

        The revision also supplies answers to a wide assortment of problems which have occupied the attention of scholars for centuries.  It confirms the identity of pharoah So,  explains why Tirhakah could be called "king of Cush" in 701 B.C.,  and supplies the date and probable cause of the extermination of Sennacherib's army.  We now know the meaning of the sky not devouring the moon in the annals of prince Osorkon, why Ashurbanipal encountered 22nd dynasty kings administering the Assyrian province of Egypt, why Esarhaddon treasured a vase inscribed with the name of the 22nd dynasty prince Takeloth son of Tentsa,  and why Egyptologists are unable to find the tomb of the 22nd dynasty prince Wasneterra Sheshonk, nor any inscriptional evidence proving the existence of a 25th dynasty prince Ushanahuru.    The origins of the fragmented kingdom in the days of Piankhi can now be traced to the division of administrative power under Esarhaddon.  The absence of any Assyrian reference to the loss of Egypt in that same time period is equally comprehensible.  Egypt remained a vassal state of Assyria.

        Seemingly trivial details of 23rd dynasty history suddenly become significant - why Takeloth III reigned such a short time, why he was not succeeded by a son, why there are so few monumental remains from the reign of Rudamon, and why Rudamon's genealogy is traced through his royal mother to his grandfather Osorkon III.

        The seemingly arbitrary displacement of dynasty 22/23 chronology by 121 years should have resulted immediately in multiple unresolvable conflicts.   Is it mere coincidence that it does precisely the opposite?   We are at least encouraged to continue.