two parts, one to intercept Tefnakhte’s fl eet before it reached
Th ebes and the other to take Hermopolis from Tefnakhte.
While he had managed to take Hermopolis, Tefnakhte
had problems to his rear, because the city of Heracleopo-
lis, south of the river delta, was holding out against a siege
by Tefnakhte’s forces. Piankhi’s army met Tefnakhte’s fl eet
north of Th ebes. A little of the battle that followed can be
reconstructed. Th e Kushites were accomplished sailors on
the Nile, and they could transport infantry quickly on their
boats. Th e Egyptians’ principal weapon was the bow and ar-
row. Th eir other weapons, which were bronze, were mostly
superior to those of the Kushites. Overall, in a fi ght on a
river, the Egyptians should have had the upper hand. Th e
Kushites were daring fi ghters, however, noted for their feroc-
ity in combat. If their spearmen could press the Egyptians
into close-quarters fi ghting, they could overwhelm their en-
emy. Even at this late date, neither side’s troops wore much
armor. Th at the Egyptian fl eet was decisively defeated sug-
gests that the Kushites managed to board the Egyptian boats
and force both sailors and archers into a confrontation best
suited to Kush’s infantry.
Piankhi then journeyed to Th ebes, where he celebrated
the Festival of Opet. It may have been at this time that he
proclaimed himself pharaoh, thereby establishing the
Tw e n t y- fi ft h Dynasty of Egypt. He then joined his army at
Hermopolis, where he directed the siege that resulted in the
city’s surrender. Th e wife of Nimlot asked one of Piankhi’s
wives to persuade him to spare Nimlot’s life, which he did.
Th ereaft er Piankhi’s army sped to Heracleopolis, which was
near surrender. Th e advantages of Tefnakhte’s forces were
their superior knowledge of the terrain and their bronze
technology. Piankhi’s forces had elephants, some warriors
equipped with bronze or copper weapons, and a clear chain
of command. Tefnakhte had allies and petty princes to super-
vise, whereas Piankhi was the undisputed commander of his
troops, with a clear hierarchy of offi cers.
Tefnakhte’s forces were driven from the fi eld, and Her-
acleopolis was saved. Its people were starving. Piankhi was
said to have been furious at what he saw. Th e starving of the
city’s horses especially galled him, perhaps because the horse
was his emblem. Tefnakhte and his allies made a stand at the
city of Memphis. For the battle Piankhi brought both his fl eet
and his army to the city. Instead of laying siege, which would
have been the accepted military practice for Egyptians, Pi-
ankhi led an assault on the city’s defenses. Apparently, at-
tacks from both land and river overwhelmed the defenders.
Again, Piankhi arrived as a savior of Egyptian culture, not as
a conqueror, and it seems that civilians were not harmed.
Piankhi continued fi rst to Heliopolis and then to Ath-
ribis, where he defeated allies of Tefnakhte. Th e chiefs of the
cities of the Nile Delta, including Tefnakhte, then paid him
homage. Piankhi was content to allow the chiefs to continue
to rule their cities as long as they paid him tribute, and he
returned to Napata. Th is made Piankhi the ruler of one of
the largest empires of the ancient world, extending morethan 1,400 miles north to south, eastward to the Red Sea, and
westward to oases in the desert.
What happened militarily over the next several years is
unclear. It seems that Nimlot rebelled against Piankhi. Tef-
nakhte declared himself ruler of Lower Egypt; he died in
717 b.c.e., but his son Bekenrenef succeeded him. Piankhi
died in 712 b.c.e. and was succeeded by his brother Shabaka
(r. 712–698 b.c.e.), who was a less forgiving conqueror. His
army of spearmen, chariots, and elephants ruthlessly crushed
the enemy army, and Bekenrenef was burned alive. Shabaka
brought a shift in attitude to his rule of Egypt; whereas Pi-
ankhi viewed himself as a savior of Egypt, Shabaka viewed
himself as the one and only rightful ruler of Egypt. Th us, he
took power away from Egypt’s chiefs and established a central
government bureaucracy led by Kushites to run the empire,
and he moved his seat of government about 500 miles north
of Napata, to Th ebes.
Th e pharaohs of the Twenty-fi ft h Dynasty seem to have
seen it as their duty to return Egypt to the power and glory it
had held during the New Kingdom (ca. 1550–ca. 1070 b.c.e.),
a period marked by great public works and Egyptian control
of much of Palestine. Th ey rebuilt decaying monuments and
temples and built many new ones, and Egypt returned to
some of the prosperity it had once known, but Palestine was
to be their undoing.
Shabaka and his successor, Shabatka (r. 698–690 b.c.e.),
had maintained an alliance with Assyria, but in about 701
b.c.e. the kingdom of Judah, led by Hezekiah (r. ca. 715–ca.
686 b.c.e.), rebelled against Assyrian rule and asked Shabaka
for aid. Shabaka responded as a New Kingdom pharaoh might
have; he sent assistance. Th e Kushite-Egyptian army met the
Assyrian army at Eltekeh in Judah. Th e Assyrians lived for
war; their society was geared toward waging war. Th eir army
was better equipped with armor and weapons than the Kush-
ite-Egyptian army, and it was better organized into combat
units. It was more mobile and more experienced. Even so, the
Kushite-Egyptian army infl icted heavy losses on the Assyr-
ian army before having to withdraw. Some Assyrian vassals
took this as a good sign, and they rebelled. Th e Assyrian army
became affl icted with a disease that killed more than 15,000
troops, and it was unable to fi nish the war.
Th e Assyrian rulers regarded the Kushite pharaohs as ir-
ritating upstarts, but they had their hands full quelling rebel-
lions in Palestine, delaying their eventual attack on Egypt. In
674 b.c.e. an Assyrian army met a Kushite-Egyptian army in
northern Palestine and was decisively defeated. In 671 b.c.e.
King Esarhaddon (r. 680–669 b.c.e.) of Assyria led an army
to Egypt using camels as pack animals to transport goods
through the hot, dry Sinai. His army infl icted a series of de-
feats on Kushite-Egyptian forces. Th e decisive factor may have
been Assyrian armor, which was made of resilient iron and
was mass-produced so that every soldier had armor and iron
weapons. Th e Kushite-Egyptians could not supply all their
troops with metal weaponry and armor, and they were still
living in a Bronze Age military world, whereas the Assyrians1124 war and conquest: Africa0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1124 1124 10/10/07 2:31:10 PM