/ TAHARQA IN WESTERN ASIA AND LIBYA

Author(s): DONALD B. Redford and '

Source:
Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies /
:-
Vol. AVRAHAM MALAMAT VOLUME / (1993 / pp. 188*-191* ,) "
Published by: Israel Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23624631
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TAHARQA IN WESTERN ASIA

AND LIBYA
DONALD B. Redford
University of Toronto

The purpose ofthe paper* is to present new textual

which proclaim it to have been another of the

evidence on the reign of Pharaoh Taharqa. Since

we must rely for a good deal of information con
cerning this fascinating Sudanese ruler on sources

Divine Worshipper's shrines, this one dedicated to

in Akkadian, it is always welcome to turn up

material of native Egyptian origin.

Throughout Egypt as a whole, but especially at

Amenirdis I and Shepenwepet II, and centering

upon the worship of Khons-pa-khrod."
Of the three reigns which span the half century

between 711 and 664 BC, textual preservation

yields an imbalanced view. Royal statements of the

Thebes, the 25th Dynasty was responsible for a

hmst-nsw variety, prayers or even dedicatory build

renewal in all facets of life which has left an indel

ing texts are noticeably sparse in the repertoire of

ible mark in the surviving monumental and archae

inscriptions from the reigns of Sabaco and Shab

taka, while Taharqa's floruit is relatively rich in

ological record.1 The great 'House of Amun', in

economic decline to a certain extent during the
22nd and 23rd Dynasties, experienced a revival
which witnessed the embellishment of the Karnak

texts, both stereotyped formulaic genres and more

personal statements.5 Whatever the reason for this

pers.2 Excavation has revealed that the shrinkage in

the haphazard of preservation or royal predilec

tion it has ensured the survival of a Taharqa
Triumphans into classical times;6 while Sabaco and
Shabtaka have been completely transmogrified in

Thebes of domestic occupation and the shift of

folk-memory into tribal eponyms.7

temple with temenos walls, pavilions, porches

(h3yt) and shrines dedicated to the Divine Worship

population to the safety of the temenoi which had

Taharqa's foreign activity, military of otherwise,

has over the past two decades fallen into much

begun in Dynasty 21 was dramatically reversed

after 700 BC: probably due to the Kushite renais
sance, the houses of the middle class began to

only to the analysis of long known texts, but also to

spread far to the east of the Amun temple over land

the publication of fresh material.8 In particular a

sharper focus than theretofore, and this is due not

unoccupied for four centuries, as the population of

judicious use of the Kawa Inventories9 has made it

the city suddenly increased.3 Providing in part the

virtually certain that the first decade of the reign,

focus for the eastward aggrandizement of the city

i.e. 690/89 to 680 BC,10 witnessed military activity

was the shrine today known as 'Temple C'. Al

across Egypt's borders: a campaign of unknown

though the present temple is of 3rd century BC

date, it replaced an earlier building, the blocks of

destination in year 6, action against the Libyans in

year 8, and a campaign somewhere along the Le

vantine coast in year 10." The success of this policy

* The present paper was delivered at the International

Conference of Asian and North-African Studies in Toronto,
August, 1990. It is a pleasure to offer it to Professor Malamat
whose own work has shed so much light on the history of the

Judaean kingdom in the 7th century.

of involvement by force in foreign affairs during

the reign is the gauge against which must be mea

sured Taharqa's dominance of the Philistine and
Phoenician cities on the morrow of Esarhaddon's

accession.12

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TAHARQA IN WESTERN ASIA AND LIBYA 189*

n.

ria rnMMM

TH1

111. 1

A hitherto unpublished stela of Taharqa from

fragments. The content of the lowest line in frag

Karnak was noted by the author in 1990. The stela,

ment A suggests that this line was either the end of

of Aswan granite, is preserved in part in three large

the inscription or quite close to it. Twenty-one lines

chunks, which today reside in the Sheikh Labib

storeroom.13 Two of the chunks fit together, yield

each 5.5 cm in width are extant in part and, de

pending on the placement of fragment C, this

ing a maximum height of 1.20 m, and a preserved

number might be confidently increased by no more

width of 1.25 m; the third cannot be directly fitted,

than 6. The carving of the glyphs is superior, and

but must be placed lower down in the original

format. Only the left side and margin is now pre
served: the right hand side, the stela's top with
vignette (if any) and an unknown number of lines
at the beginning of the text are now lost. Most of
the center has been damaged in the re-use of the

recalls the best work of the Late Period. The defi

nite article is freely used, the possessive article

alternates with the suffixes, 3rd personal plural -w
alternates with sn, and the participial form employs

the periphrasis with ir, found in Late Egyptian

but much more common in Demotic. Although

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190* DONALD B. REDFORD

Taharqa's name occurs nowhere in the preserved

and 'this city' presumably refers to Thebes. Rt.-8

text, the statement in line 14 can only point to him:

refers to 'sailing south' (hnti), and Rt-9 may con

'the Inundation came as a cattle-thief, although for

tain the word 'oasis' (although I am very diffident

many years in abeyance'.14

The beginning of the preserved part of the text is

concerned, apparently, with the desuetude and vio

about the reading). Whoever the enemy are, they

can get at the speaker 'overland', possess cattle and

allies, possibly excel in honey-production (LI 1-13)

lation of the cult of an un-named god: cf. the

and once defeated are to be settled in special

references to (2) someone 'who had fallen into the

quarters and villages in Egypt (R-l 1).

habit of damaging the the daily menu (?) of

In spite of this meager evidence it is tempting to

the god's-offering, the eternal endowment' and to

identify Taharqa's adversaries in this pericope with

the neglect (3) 'of their customary ritual. There was

some Libyan enclave. The Kawa inventories ap

no initiation of [ ] before me in order to per

prise us of the fact that, in year 8, the following

form it'.

significant dedications were made: 'one bronze

statue of the king smiting foreign countries'

The speaker next launches into a description of

measures taken against some adversary: 'I [...] to

this city in order to provide horses, charfiots

(111,15), 'every kind of timber, acacia, cedar, and

persea' (111,21), and 'the children of the chiefs of

and...] more than anything', the enemy 'did all

the Tjehenu' (111,22). A geographic text at Sanam

this in marching against me (7)', but the speaker set

includes the 'oasis', and the Tjehenu appear in a list

forth 'hastening to the place where they were (7)',

of conquered places at the same site.16 It is not

unreasonable to postulate an altercation with some

'they were destined for a severe and grievous blow,

the work of my hands... I had no compassion on

Libyan group the obsolete 'Tjehenu' was often

the least of them nor (10) [on the most influential of

pressed into service in the 1st millennium but tells

them(?).. .]';and soon they were 'fleeing before me

us nothing in the Dakhleh or Bahriya just before

with fear pulsating through their limbs... (11)... I

year 8.

forced(?) his confederates to the ground all at once'.

The banal references to 'extending the frontiers

Next comes the settlement after the victory: (11)'[I

of Egypt]' and the universality of the statement

placed the...] in quarters, I settled them in villages,

regarding the treasuries of all states, brings us to

and [their] cattle [in... (13)the.. .came their bene

volences] in their hands; and I had brought the
mellifers of the levy [and I put them in the...] of

the Asiatic theatre wherein Taharqa sought to

emulate his New Kingdom predecessors. Assyrian

the House of Amun and made them responsible for

given indication of the figure Taharqa cut in the

politics of Western Asia.17 His image and that of

the divine income of honey'.

The preserved text concludes with an appeal to

Amun:'(15)... O thou lord of the gods! May years

be granted me [(16).. .thou(?) hast] been in my

heart since I was a youth. It was thy 'Great

sources and the passage in 2 Kings have long since

the Egypt over which he ruled is now significantly

enhanced by the publications of the past 13 years.

In 680, when Esarhaddon came to the throne,

Name'...(17)[.. .1 gave] thee the valuables of every

Egypt was in the ascendancy in the Levant, able to

retrieve the wealth of the treasuries of subverted

land, and bore (the contents of) their treasuries to

states, and expected to meet any invader from the

thee to Karnak; and see! [I] gave (18)[...].. .be

north on a Levantine battlefield.18 The army of the

hold, thou art here forever to return answer for

25 th Dynasty was made up of redoubtable war

riors, endowed with an elan vital and a swiftness
in battle.19 In the early 670s, on the eve of the

thyself!.. .'15
If any specific references, toponyms or personal

names, to the enemy were once contained in the

stela, they are now either lost or in one of the

clash between two riverine empires, a Nilotic

heavily abraded sections. The 'children of the

and a Mesopotamian, it may well have looked to

contemporaries an even match, if not 'advantage

chiefs' are mentioned in a broken passage (rt.-3),

Nubia'!

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TAHARQA IN WESTERN ASIA AND LIBYA 191*

NOTES

' See J. Leclant, Recherches sur les monuments thebains

de la XXVe dynastie dite ethiopienne, Cairo 1965, Passim;

idem, Annuaire du College de France, 198182, pp. 499ff;
1982-83, pp. 527ff.

2 J. Leclant, BIFAO 53 (1953), pp. 112ff; P. Barguet, Le

temple d'Amon-re Karnak, Cairo, 1962, pp. 5, 10, 13, 16ff

Mountain, at the "Horns-of-the-earth",' S. Gitin, BAR 16, 2

(1990), p. 41, On the 'Holy Mountain' (dw w'b), see C.

Desroches-Noblecourt, Le Petit Temple d'Abou Simbel,
Cairo, 1968, p.203f. n. 342; S. Wenig, LdA II (1977),
pp. 434 ff.; for the 'Horns-of-the-Earth' see R.A. Caminos,

50f, 90, 123f; R.A. Parker et al., The Edifice ofTaharqa by

The Shrines and Rock Inscriptions of Ibrim, London, 1968,

p. 41, n. 4; A.J. Spalinger, JNES 37 (1978), p. 37 n. b. This

the Sacred Lake at Karnak, Providence, 1977; J. Lauffray,

KARNAK V, 1975, pp. 77 ff; on the Kushite proclivity to

patron deity of the 25th Dynasty, and constitutes prima facie

Napatan avatar of Amunre points unequivocally to the

restore temenos walls, see Leclant, op.cit. (n. 1), pp.221,

337ff 347; on the Divine Worshippers, see idem, Enquetes
sur les sacerdoces et les sanctuaires egyptiens... Cairo,
1954; E. Graefe, Untersuchungen zur Verwaltung und Ges

evidence of Taharqa's hegemony. The attempt by the exca

chichte der Institution der Gottesgemahlin des Amun, Wies

Levant under Psammetichos I between 640 and 635, but the

baden, 1981; Leclant, Ld VI (1986), pp. 156-84.

3 D. Redford, JARCE 14 (1977), pp. 12-16; idem, JSSEA
11 (1981), p. 260; idem, JARCE 28 (1991), pp. 75-83; the

present object is not proof of that: the 26th Dynasty reviled

vator to use the item as proof of Egyptian control under the

26th Dynasty, from 630 BC, is wrong-headed. There was

indeed an extension of Egypt's control into the southern

the 25th, and made every effort to efface their memory. It

would be totally unexpected, to say the least, for Psammeti

expansion was a concomitant of the proliferation of Osirian

chos to 'export' a sistrum from the reign of the hated

installations in Northeast Karnak: idem, Orientalia 55

(1986), pp. Iff

Taharqa!

4 D. Redford, 'Three Seasons in Egypt, I. The Excavations

of Temple C at Karnak,' JSSEA 18 (1992), forthcoming.

5 Cf. among others, M.F. Laming Macadam, The Temples

' I am indebted to the late Professor Sayed Tawfik,

erstwhile chairman of the Egyptian Antiquities Organiza
tion, and to the late Sayed Abdul Hamid, chief inspector for
Karnak, for permission to publish this stela. Thanks are also

of Kawa I, Oxford, 1949; P. Vernus, BIFAO 75 (1975),

due to Dr. Sayed Hegazi, present inspector, for permission to

pp. 1 ff; E. Graefe, M. Wassef, MDAIK 35 (1979), pp. 103ff;

photograph the text. The stela will be published in due course

in the JSSEA.

D. Meeks, Hommages Sauneron, Cairo, 1979, pp. 22 Iff;

A.M. Moussa, MDAIK 37 (1981), pp. 331 ff
6 Strabo i.3.21, xv. 1.6; G. Goossens, CdE 22 (1947),

14 MacAdam, Kawa I, p. 30 n. 31.

" This supplication sounds like, and is in the same vein as,

pp. 239ff; J. Janssen, Biblica 34 (1953), p. 34.

the long prayer of Taharqa addressed to Amun on the south

7 M.C. Astour, JBL 84 (1965), pp. 422-25.

A. Spalinger, Orientalia 43 (1974), pp. 295 ff; idem, CdE

wall of Chamber VI at Karnak. See B. Porter, R. Moss,

Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hiero

53 (1978), pp. 22ff; D. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, Israel(Prin

glyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings II, Oxford, 1972, p. 92,

ceton, 1992), pp. 354-364. See also the sources quoted above

(264); see also Vernus, op. cit. (n. 5).

in n. 5.

16 J. Garstang, AAAL 9 (1922), Pis. 23a, 41; cf. also Cairo

' MacAdam, Kawa I, pp. 5ff, 33 ff

10 On Taharqa's accession, see R.A. Parker, Kush 8 (1960),

770 (J. Simons, Egyptian Topographical Lists Relating to

Western Asia, Leiden 1937, p. 187).

" The reference in 2 Kings 19:9 is almost certainly an

p.267 f.

" Redford, op. cit. (n. 8), p. 354f; J. Lauffray, MUS J 46

anachronism. By far the best treatment now of this biblical

(1970), p. 153 ff The regnal years given are the dates of the

material is P. Dion, in the Bulletin of the Canadian Society of

donations: the military activity which occasioned them may

Biblical Studies 48 (1988), pp. 3-25.

date from the year before in each case.

12 Redford, op. cit. (n. 8), p. 356f. In connexion with Ta

18 Cf. J. A. Knudtzon, Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott

note the recent discovery at Miqne of a fragment of faience

II, 1893, Nos. 69-70; R. Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhad

dons, Knig von Assyrien, Graz, 1956, p. 102; H. Tadmor,
BA 29 (1966), p. 100; M. Elat, JAOS 98 (1978), p. 33;

with a hieroglyphic text commemorating 'Amun-re, Lord of

Redford, op. cit.. (n. 8), pp. 355f.

the Thrones of the Two Lands, preeminent in the Holy

" See Moussa, loc. cit. (n. 5).

harqa's subversion of the Philistine plain, it is interesting to

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