After the 11th century BCE, a kingdom developed around the city of Napata in Sudan. In the 8th century BCE, by launching a holy war in the name of the god Amon, Piankhy, one of the kings of Napata, elevated this state from a regional power to an international power by conquering Egypt and establishing the dynasty of the so-called “Black Pharaohs.”
Origins and early reign
The pronunciation and origin of Piankhy’s name are not known to scholars, not even approximately. The famous Egyptian historian Manetho, for example, begins the 25th Egyptian dynasty with Shabaka, whom he calls Sabacon, rather than with Piankhy. No other foreign text mentions his name, so it is unclear whether it was purely Egyptian or a Kushite name resembling the Egyptian name Piankhy, which itself means “the living.” Many of his successors appear to have had genuinely Kushite names. When their names were transcribed in Egyptian writing, they were adapted to Egyptian words or phrases resembling their original names. It has thus been suggested that his name could indeed have been Piankhy, an Egyptian name; Peye or Piye, a Kushite name; or more recently Bu(n)xw(e), his original Kushite name, which would have resembled Piankhy.
Piankhy was the son of Kashta, king of Napata and heir to a chiefdom based at el Kourrou in present-day Sudan. This chiefdom, formed after a long period of Egyptian colonization, was influenced in its expression of kingship by the Egypt of the pharaohs. Piankhy ascended the throne of Napata after Kashta’s death, around 755 BCE. In the meantime, his sister Amenirdis I had been appointed Divine Adoratrice of the god Amon. This priestly title also implied religious and political authority for Kashta and the kings of Napata over the region of Thebes, the capital of Egypt.
Upon taking the throne, Piankhy adopted an Egyptian titulary comprising five names. One of these names had been used by three rulers of the 23rd dynasty: Pedubast I, Takelot III, and Osorkon III. Two other names were the same as those of the famous Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, Thutmose III. It is very likely that Piankhy knew these kings’ names. According to the Hungarian Egyptologist Laszlo Török, Piankhy chose them hoping to emulate their reigns as restorers of traditional order and conquerors in Asia and Sudan.
Piankhy’s reign is known primarily from three documents: a fragmentary sandstone stele, a fragmentary granite stele, and a triumphal stele erected after his conquest of Egypt. In the first, he expresses his duty to expand the territory of Kush, along with his plan to reunify Egypt and the Kushite kingdom while leaving political autonomy to the chiefs he would defeat. The kingdom of the Pharaohs was then fragmented among petty rulers and local chiefs in the northern part of the country. Piankhy considered his legitimacy superior to theirs, a divine right granted by the god Amon, worshiped by both Kushites and Nubians.
On the fragmentary sandstone stele, he declares, proud and confident in his predestination:
“Amon of Napata has made me ruler of all nations. (…) Amon of Thebes has made me ruler of Egypt. (…) The gods can make kings, men can make kings, but it is Amon who made me!”
The casus belli
At the start of his reign, Piankhy seems to have been involved in conflict with one or more armies from northern Egypt. Only later does he report having entered into conflict with the northern powers of Egypt. Tefnakht, a leader of the Libyan Meshwesh and Libu ethnic groups, reacted to a potential Assyrian invasion of Egypt by uniting several domains in the North and Middle Egypt—including Memphis and Hermopolis, previously allied with Piankhy—around his base in the city of Sais. He advanced south into Egypt and laid siege to the city of Herakleopolis, allied with Piankhy. Likely due to the presence of Piankhy’s sister Amenirdis as Divine Adoratrice of Amon, holding major spiritual authority in the Theban region, Piankhy had troops stationed there. He decided to send forces from Thebes and Napata to conquer northern Egypt and won a few victories.
Piankhy’s invasion
After his troops were initially defeated, Piankhy decided to personally lead an army north into Egypt. Around 735 BCE, he arrived in Thebes to celebrate the Opet Festival of the god Amon. There, he obtained the official support of the Thebans for the campaign he planned against the “rebels.” But this war was not merely political; it was also a holy war against the “infidel” Libyans who ignored the proper rituals of Amon’s cult. After lifting the siege of Hermopolis, he gained the favor of many local rulers and captured the holy cities of Memphis and Heliopolis, where he received official recognition of his kingship over Egypt from their clergy. Isolated, Tefnakht, the mastermind of the northern coalition, fled Memphis to return to his stronghold in Sais. Piankhy then sent a delegation to obtain his rival’s surrender. He returned triumphantly to Napata, leaving the administration of the northern territories to the defeated local rulers.
This, however, was a strategic error, as Tefnakht retained the title of King of Egypt and preserved Libyan authority over northern Egypt until the rise of Shabaka, his brother and successor, whom many historians—including Manetho—consider the true founder of the 25th Egyptian dynasty. The last ten years of Piankhy’s reign in Napata were dedicated to religious constructions, notably to honor Amon, the god who, he claimed, had promised him while still in his mother’s womb that he would become king of Egypt.
