Authorities agree that the Twenty-second Dynasty made Bubastis its principal city, and seem to have been descended from a race of great chiefs. Shashanq or Sheshenk I, the Sesonchis of the Greeks, and Shishak of I Kings, was the first king of the dynasty, a Libyan, son of the chief Namareth, who was buried at Abydos, and of whom there are statues in Florence, as well as gold bracelets with his name in the British Museum. Also the grandson of Shashanq, the “great prince of Mashauasha,” and the Egyptian princess, Mehtet-en-usekht. Shashanq I married a Rammeside princess, and through her, probably, or possibly through his Egyptian grandmother, laid claim to the throne. His reign seems to have begun before the death of Paseb-khanut II, last king of the Twenty-first, Tanite Dynasty. One author says his wife’s rank was shown by the prefix Sutem-sat, or others claim that this belonged to the Egyptian grandmother.

Shashanq I married Karama, or Karamat, called “a morning star of Amen,” daughter of the last Tanite king. She had been despoiled of her inheritance and was restored to all her rights by this marriage. The custom of taking more than one wife often enables the student to reconcile apparent discrepancies.

Brugsch says the ordinance relating to this marriage was engraved on the north side of a pylon, near the temple of Amon in Karnak. “Thus spake Amon, the king of the gods,” “with regard to any object of any kind, which Karamat, the daughter of the king of Upper Egypt, Miamun Pisebkhan, has brought with her as the hereditary possession which had descended to her in the Southern district of the country, and with regard to each object of any kind whatever which the people of the land have presented to her, which they have at any time taken from the (royal) lady, we hereby restore it to her. Any object of any kind. Any object of any kind whatsoever (which) belongs (as an inheritance to the children) that (we hereby restore) to her children for all time. Thus speaks Amon-Ra, the king of the gods, the great king of the beginning of all being, Mut, Khonsu and the great gods,” etc., etc., at great length and with much repetition, closing with a number of threats, if this command is not complied with, and ending with “we will sink their noses in the earth,” and an unfinished, “we will.”

Josephus says that Jeraboam, the son of Nebat, who revolted against Solomon, took refuge with Shashanq I, until Solomon’s death, and married a daughter of the king of Egypt. Later Shashanq I made an expedition against Rehoboam, son of Solomon, who governed the two tribes, and was proud of the victory by which he recovered the Egyptian hold on Palestine. The dates of the Twenty-second Dynasty are given by Budge as 966 to 750 B. C. Shashanq I also repaired the temples and caused his son, the viceroy of a part of Egypt, to remove to a place of greater safety various royal mummies, who perhaps travelled more after death than during life. Shashanq reigned twenty-one years, called himself “Prince, doubly mighty, subduer of the nine Bows, greatest of the mighty ones of all lands,” thus falling not a whit behind his Rammeside predecessors in his estimate of himself.

He was succeeded by his son Osorkon, or Usarkon I, who, according to Manetho, reigned fifteen years. There is a head of Osorkon in the British Museum, of a Mongolian type, once thought to be one of the Hyksos kings. He appears to have had two wives, Ta-shet-Kensu, whose son Thekeleth succeeded to the throne, and Maat-Ka-Ra, daughter of a Tanite king, whose son Shashanq became high priest and commander of the forces. He is, by some, credited with a third wife, but she was perhaps merely a concubine, and the two others evidently occupy a first place.

Takelut or The-keleth I followed, with a wife named Shepes, daughter of Neter-mer-Heru, probably a priest, or one of the Egyptian nobles, and they had two sons; the eldest, Namareth became a priest, while a second, Osorkon, succeeded. Manetho says Thekeleth I reigned twenty-three years, but there are few authentic records remaining either of him or his queens.

Usarkon or Osorkon II had three wives, and according to the same authority reigned twenty-nine years. One queen’s name was Karama, or Kareama, and she had a son called Shashanq, a name which seems frequently handed down in this race. A second queen, Mat-ketch-ankh-s, or, as she is elsewhere called, Mut-hat-ankhes, whose son Namareth was again high priest, and a third, Ast-em-khebit, daughter of the princess Thes-bast-peru, who gave to her daughter her mother’s name. During the reign of these sovereigns the goddess Bast, who had formerly been a mere local deity, rose to first importance, and Bubastis superseded Memphis and Thebes as the principal city. The king held magnificent festivals in honor of Amen and as a tribute of respect to the queen, who not only inherited sovereign rights over the principality of Thebes, but was also high priestess of Amen. Pontifical rights were sometimes inherited in the female line, and this gave her husband claims at Thebes, Bubastis being the chief seat of his government.

A colossal Hathor-headed capitol, in the museum in Boston, bears this inscription: “In the year 22, in the first day of Choriak (October 8th of our reckoning) the appearing of his majesty in the Hall of Festival. He reposes on the throne, and the consecration is begun, the consecration of the harem of the house of Amon” (the priestesses of Amon were designated as the wives of the god) “and the consecration of all the women who have dwelt as priestesses therein since the day of his fathers.”

There is a bas-relief showing a procession, first the king, then the queen and her daughters, followed by many priests and women, these last slender and graceful, carrying water jars, said to be of electrum, others bearing sheafs of flowers, some the ankh or life sign, and still others in single file, clapping their hands in measured time.

Queen Karama is followed by her or the king’s daughters, and little dwarfs, like the god Bes, are also included in the procession. The princesses are called Tasbakeper, Karoma and Meri-Amen. The queen assists the king in making offerings in the great festival hall, built especially for the purpose. A sculptured bas-relief of King Osorkon II and Queen Karama, at full length, is in the British Museum. Scarabs of these and later periods are in the New York Museum and in many other places. An inscription remains telling of a great flood which occurred in this reign, so that in order to enter the temples the priests had to wade through water several feet deep, and it is said to have been the highest rise of the Nile ever known.

Of Shashanq II, who succeeded, or of his wife, almost nothing is recorded; he was probably a peaceful king and did little towards building or repairing temples.

Queen Karemama was the wife of the next king, Takelut or Theke-leth II, who reigned fifteen years, and is described as the “Great chief of Mashanasha”; the queen is called “great royal wife” and “beloved of Mut.” Brugsch speaks of her as a daughter of Nimrod, and gives her a very lengthy name, which we can only hope that the lady was of sufficient size to carry. Another wife is called Mut-em-hat-sat-Amen. The former was the mother of the high priest Uarsarken. The queen was descended from one of the royal families of Thebes, and, perhaps in deference to her wishes, they dwelt for a while in Thebes, with a view also, no doubt, of propitiating the priests. The queen is also called “princess, great lady and mistress of the South.”

Shashanq III turned the huge statue of Rameses II into a pylon, having no more respect for his predecessors than did Rameses II himself, and his exploits are inscribed and described after those of Rameses II and Seti I. He adopted the pre-nomen of Rameses II. An Apis bull, a tablet records, was born in the twenty-eighth year of his reign; but, though it lasted fifty-two years, there seem to be no memorials remaining, which was also the case with his successor, Pamai. Nor in the reign of his son Shashanq or Shishak IV do we find mention of the queen. The former seems to have reigned only two, the latter thirty-seven years.

All this time Egypt was in more or less of a turmoil, with a divided or disputed succession, “Such a condition of things,” says one writer, “was of course fatal to literature and art,” which latter “did not so much decline as disappear,” and after Shashanq I no monarch of the line left any building or sculpture of the slightest importance. In this period of doubt and disorder we have the names of a king, Peta-Bast, Auuth-meri-Amen and Uasar-ken or Osorkon III, whose mother and wife are probably mentioned as “Royal mother, royal wife, Tata-Bast, and son of the sun, Nasaek (en) living forever” in a golden aegis of the goddess Sekhet, in the Louvre.

Named as one of the Twenty-third Dynasty, we have Pi-ankhi, who descended on Egypt from Ethiopia, whither the priests had retired, who made his capital at Napata and who, probably through his wife was connected with the old royal families of Egypt. Pi-ankhi called himself “King of Kush,” and the mother, sister and daughter of the king bore each a title of honor as “Queen of Kush.” In inscriptions the king is spoken of as being “like a panther,” and we further read that “Then Nimrod sent forth his wife, the queen and daughter of a king, Nes-thent-nes,” or, as she elsewhere is called, Nes-thent-meh to supplicate the queens and royal king’s daughters and sisters. And they threw themselves prostrate in the women’s house before the queens (saying), “Pray come to me, ye queens, king’s daughters and king’s sisters! Appease Horus, the ruler of the palace. Exalted is his person, great his triumphs. Cause his anger to be appeased before my (prayer), else he will give over to death the king, my husband (but) he is brought low”; when they had finished her majesty was moved in her heart at the supplication of the queen. This comes from a closely written memorial stone set up by the king. It is spoken of as “The Inscription of Pi-ankhi Mer-Amen, king of Egypt, in the eighth century B. C.,” and the Nimrod mentioned was probably Nemareth, one of the petty rulers of Egypt before referred to. The stone was discovered at Mont Barkal, the place where it was originally set up, and the words in brackets are those half obliterated and restored to make out the sense.

When the victor entered the conquered city we are told that “then came to him the king’s wives, and the king’s daughters, and they praised his majesty, after the manner of women; but his majesty did not turn his countenance upon them.” Ungallant majesty, who was hastening on to further conquests and had no time for social amenities! To Nemareth, however, who finally came, leading “a horse with his right hand, and holding a sistrum made of gold and lapis-lazuli in his left,” Pi-ankhi was more condescending—nobly forgave him, like some other nations we have heard of, for defending his own territory, and accompanied him to the temples, and then to Nemareth’s stables, where he, with further condescension, actually scolded the grooms for giving the horses too short rations during the siege.

Elsewhere the queen Pi-anchi, or the next monarch, is spoken of as “sister and wife, the queen of Kekmi (Egypt) Ge-ro-a-ro-pi.” The stone from which this was taken has two pictures, the other showing also the Ethiopian queen. Says Brugsch, “While this sister of the king is designated as Queen of Nubia, another, who was also a wife of Miamun-Mut, is called Queen of Egypt.” His majesty seems to have spent a great deal of time sailing up and down the river, yet conquering wherever he went. And it is probable, after the weak rulers had all submitted to him, he returned to Ethiopia, where he died.

According to Manetho there was but one king of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty, of the old line, named Barkenrenef, who reigned for six years only, at Sais, and there is no mention of his wife. But meanwhile an Ethiopian, possibly the son of Pi-ankhi, held authority at Thebes, and is called “King of the South, Kasta.” He seems to have married a priestess of Amon, called “divine adorer” or “morning star,” a daughter of Osorken III by the name of Shep-en-apt, and Sabaka, who became king, and Amenartas, a priestess, who held the rank of “Neter tuat,” which her mother had also borne.

This Sabaka, or Sabaco, became king of the Nubian Twenty-fifth Dynasty and reigned about twelve years. He called himself “king of the South and North” and “son of the sun.” He appears to have made repairs on various temples and was a contemporary of Sargon and Sennacherib, kings of Assyria, with which country, as well as with Palestine, the confused history of Egypt, through all this period, is much associated.

Queen Amenartas, or, as she is elsewhere called, Ameneritis, married Pi-ankhi, a Nubian prince, and styled herself “royal daughter, royal sister, royal wife.” Her husband called himself “Uniter of two lands” and “multiplier of mighty men.” The queen was a zealous restorer of the temples, and added chambers and small sanctuaries at Karnak, in one of which a fine limestone statue of her was found. We know that she was considered beautiful, and Brugsch says, “sweet peace seems to hover about the features; even the flower in her hand suggests her high mission as reconciler of the long feud.” A part of the inscription at her feet, on the base of the statue at Gizeh, from which the names of her father and mother are erased, reads: “May he (the god Amen) grant everything that is good and pure by which the divine nature lives, all that the heaven bestows and the earth brings forth, to the princess, the most pleasant, the most gracious, the kindest and most amiable queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, the sister of the king (Sabaco), the ever-living, the daughter of the deceased king (Khasta), the wife of the divine one, Amenisitis. May she live!” Of herself she says, “I was the wife of the divine one, a benefactress to her city (Thebes), a bounteous giver for her land. I gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked.” So we may judge that she was good, beautiful and beloved.

There is an ivory plaque of Queen Ameneritis in the New York Museum bearing a figure and a cartouch of “the divine wife, Ameneritis, daughter of Ra Khasta,” the sister, and it says also, the wife of Sabaco of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The queen is shown on the plaque kneeling on the right, holding a lotus in each extended hand, with a necklace and short hair, like a man’s, and on her head a crescent and disk. There is an alabaster statue of Queen Ameneritis on a base of gray granite in the Gizeh Museum, which has a rather long but slim and delicate figure; but the head is overweighted with the wig of a god and she has a gloomy expression—possibly brought on by the discomfort of her wig in particular, and her experiences of life in general. Numerous monuments and scarabs bear her name and titles, and Budge says that within the last few years the British Museum has secured a remarkable object once belonging to her. It is of glazed steatite, with the cartouch and a short prayer cut in hieroglyphics upon it; at one end a perforated projection by which it was probably hung, and on the other a sign; its use is unknown.

Shabataka, “son of the sun,” is accounted the second king of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and was probably associated with his father in the government. A stele now in Turin represents Shap-en-apt with her mother, Amenar, her husband, Pi-ankhi, and Shabataka, showing them to be contemporaries. Brugsch says that Pi-ma or Pi-mai means the “male cat.” King Shabataka or Shabata-k, the son of Sabaco, is in the Barabra language Sab-ato-ki, “the male cat’s son,” just as a Barabran word, Kash-ato, “horse’s son,” lies at the base of the name Kash-ta, which is an interesting little piece of philology. An ancient tradition, it is said, affirms that at the end of twelve years Shabataka was taken prisoner and put to death at Tirhakah, who became the last king of the dynasty, and reigned, some say eighteen, some twenty-five years. He married the princess Amen-tak-het, “the chief wife, the royal sister, the royal wife.” The name of his mother is thought to be “Akalouka,” though it is mutilated in the inscriptions, and as she appears to have been related to the priest-kings, it was probably through her that Tirhakah laid claim to the throne. It is said that when he was about twenty years old he was proclaimed king of Napata, and leaving his mother behind, who had doubtless used her influence to produce this result, he hastened to Egypt, overthrew and perhaps slew Shabataka, who was then reigning. A stele which he set up at Tanis gives the further information that he was the younger but favorite son of his father, and certainly a youth of ability, to accomplish what he did at the early age of twenty. He called himself, Son of Amen, and was crowned with royal honors according to the customs of the ancient Egyptian kings. He sent for his mother and saluted her as the spouse of Amen, while she, says Brugsch, “looked upon him with the same pride which Isis felt as she gazed upon her son Horus.” And, leaving out any moral aspect of the question, a mother might well be proud of such an able and energetic son. Some believe the Taket-Amen, whom he married, was the widow of Shabaka, first king of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, as he was the last king of the same, and upon both mother and wife he bestowed high titles and many honors. 693 or 691 B. C. is the period given as that on which he ascended the throne. The priests had, so far as in them lay, made Napata a duplicate of Thebes, but not its equal in fineness of architectural work. Tirhakah added materially to the building and repairing of the temples. He built one at Napata or Gebel Barkal, subsequently destroyed by the fall of overhanging rocks, and added to and restored many in Egypt, in all of which no doubt his mother, if not his wife, took great interest, as did Queen Thi, in the work of her son Khu-en-aten. The early part of his reign was peaceful; then Seracherib, king of Assyria, seems to have defeated the king of Egypt and others in battle and caused him to flee, returning temporarily to overthrow the governors appointed by the Assyrian king, when Esarhaddon, the son, succeeded, only to be again overthrown. Before the king’s death, which is spoken of as going to his “dark doom,” he associated with him Tannath-Amen or Tanut-Amen. The last appearance mentioned of the women is on a stele at Gebel Barkal, where the king is making an offering to the god Amen and his sister, Quelhetat, a tiny figure, is pouring out a libation and shaking a sistrum. Behind the king stands his wife, Kerearhenti, and while the king has on sandals of a peculiar shape, the two ladies are in bare feet. Still another king is called Tandamanie, son of the sister of Tishakah, yet the former seems accounted the final ruler of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.

Of the time from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, says Budge: “With this period the New Empire comes to an end, and we are on the threshold of the Renaissance of the Egyptian kingdom, with all its ancient arts and sciences brought into connection with the Greece of the Seventh Century before Christ.” Under Shashanq a slight revival took place, and he ruled the whole land, putting an end to the weak dynasties of Tanis and Thebes. But with the close of the priestly dynasty the glory of Thebes, which had lasted two thousand years, had departed, and by the time of the Ptolemies the city was almost in ruins, and Bubastis, in the Delta, of whose festivals Herodotus has given us an account, rose to the first place.

During this time, to quote again from Budge. “Much of the spirit of the old art had undoubtedly been lost, the hieroglyphic script had become chiefly an official and sacred code of writing used for funeral prayers, historical inscriptions, etc. And the decay of the written language, begun as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty, was followed by the decay of the writing, which became more conventional and abbreviated, and the hierotic, supplemented by the newly developed script, is now known as Enchorial or Demotic, the peoples’ or common writing.” It is also said that the Eighteenth Dynasty was much more elaborate and luxurious in costume than the earlier ages, but that the severe simplicity of the former commended itself to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, which we now consider.

The first queen seems to have been Shep-en-apt II, a descendant of Queen Ameneritis. Her cartouch was found on a cornice, and she probably was of higher birth than her husband, Psamthek I or Psammetichus I, who is thought to have been merely the son of a governor, while she was of the blood royal. The queen was a priestess of the grade “neter tuat,” and through her doubtless her husband laid claim to the throne. Psammetichus I made Sais his capital; he was, after he was once established on the throne, less fond of war than many of his predecessors, was a patron of the arts and sciences, and turned his attention to the building of temples. A distinct Renaissance of art took place at this period, with high finish and elaboration of detail, a certain elegance suggestive of Greek influences. He added a large gallery, with side chambers, to the Serapeum at Sakkarah, and the stele found here by Mariette are of the greatest chronological importance. We learn from them that Psammetichus I immediately succeeded Tirhakah, by the records of the birth and death of the Apis bull. His name is found in various places, PhilÆ and elsewhere, and an obelisk belonging to his reign was brought by the Emperor Augustus to Rome. He was, some say, of Nubian, some of Lidyan origin; and there is a glazed porcelain ushabti figure in the British Museum, supposed to be a likeness of him, which is very fat and jolly-looking. He had a long reign of fifty-four years, and both Herodotus and Diodorus give accounts of him. The daughter of this marriage was named Nitocris, or Nit-a-quert, and an inscription says, Psammetichus has made a gift to his father Amon: he “has given him his eldest daughter Nitaquit-Shapen-apit, to be his divine spouse, that she may shake the sistrum before him.” This princess traveled from one part of the kingdom to another and was received with great honor. Sometimes the queens adopted daughters and associated them in the governing power. One stele found at Karnak states that the king caused his daughter to be adopted by the lady Shep-en-apt, the sister of Tirhakah, who had inherited property from her father and mother, and had previously adopted a daughter of Tirhakah’s, Amenartas (II). Says Budge: “The stele, which is dated in the ninth year of the reign of Psammetichus I, proves that Tirhakah’s sister was ruling at Thebes, as a priestess of Amen, while Psammetichus I was reigning at Sais, and that when Nit-aquert had been adopted by her, the daughter of the king of Sais (Nit-aquert) took her name also. The stele was set up to commemorate her journey to Thebes, where she was welcomed with the greatest joy as the heiress of Tirhakah’s sister, and where she no doubt received not only the property, but also the rank and position of her whose name she took, Shap-en-apt, the daughter of Pi-anchi and Amen-artis I, and grand-daughter of Khasta and Shep-en-apt I, the last named lady being a daughter of Osorkon.” The distinction between Shep-en-apt, the wife of the king, and the adopted mother of her daughter, does not seem to be very clear. Nitocris bore the same name as the last ruler of the Sixth Dynasty, and a rose-colored sarcophagus inscribed with this, and having a granite cover, is in one of the museums.

All this period is to some extent still a matter of dispute among authorities as to the exact titles and order of succession of the kings, and as to their importance in the line; compared to their predecessors, and even to their successors, they were but petty rulers, holding control over but a portion of the country, and in many cases more like governors than chief authorities.

According to Professor Budge, Apries was the next king. His Horus name was U-ah-ab-Ra, and he is spoken of as Pharaoh Hophra in the Bible, of whom, though he reigned from nineteen to twenty-five years, we know little, and his wife is not mentioned. He was overthrown by his own general, Amasis, or Aames II, who became king, and apparently lived in peace with his predecessor for some years, but slew him, or permitted him to be slain, when Apries endeavored to regain his lost authority. Amasis II took unto himself several wives, and welcomed and favored the settlement of Greek colonies in Egypt. He took the Horus name of Smen-Maat, “Stablisher of Law,” and was apparently good-natured and affable when not fighting. His wives are given as the lady Shent-kheta, daughter of Peta-Nit, and the queen, Takanath, daughter of Psammetichus I. She had been chosen heiress of Nitocris or Nit-a-quert, and it was doubtless to legalize his claim to the throne that Amasis II contracted the marriage. The female pieces in this regal game of chess were of immense value. What share the ladies had in the disposal of their hands we do not learn, but in most cases it could hardly have been an important one. Amasis II was a builder and restorer of temples, and his name is found in many places. At the end of his forty-fourth year to power he died and was buried at Sais. Queens Shep-an-apt and Nitocris, who were priestesses of Amen, were buried at el Aso-fif, and laid, as were other ladies of royal blood, in tombs with finely worked ante-chambers and inscriptions, and with false doors.

Psamthek or Psammetichus III, who reigned only six months, succeeded to Amasis II, and is sometimes omitted from the list of kings. He was the son of the Lady Thent-kheta, and some reliefs of him are found in a small temple near the temple of Amasis II and Nitocris, where there are pictures of these queens; and with him ends the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and we come to the consideration of the Persian rule, numbered, though of entirely different blood, as the Twenty-seventh Dynasty.