Shabaka

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Shabaka (or Shabaka Neferkare meaning 'Beautiful is the Soul of Re') was a Kushite pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt, between (721 BC – 707/706 BC). He succeeded his brother Piye on the throne. Shabaka has traditionally been dated from 716 BC to 702 BC by Kenneth Kitchen. However, new evidence appears to indicate that Shabaka died around 707 or 706 BC because Sargon II (722-705 BC) of Assyria states in an inscription at Tang-i Var (in Northwest Iran) that it was Shebitku, Shabaka's successor, who extradited Iamanni of Ashdod to him as king of Egypt. (Dan'el Kahn, Orientalia 70) This view has been accepted by many Egyptologists today such as Aidan Dodson--in JEA 88(2002) p.182, Rolf Krauss, David Aston, and Karl Jansen-Winkeln among others because there is no concrete evidence for coregencies or internal political/regional divisions in the Nubian kingdom during the 25th Dynasty. All contemporary records suggest that the Nubian Pharaohs ruled Egypt with only a single king on the throne, while Taharqa states explicitly one of his Kawa stelas that he assumed power only after the death of his uncle, Shebitku.

Shabaka's reign is significant because he consolidated the Nubian Kingdom's control over all of Egypt from Nubia down to the Delta region. It also saw an enormous amount of building work undertaken throughout Egypt, especially at the city of Thebes. Shabaka succeeded in preserving Egypt's independence from outside foreign powers especially the Assyrian empire under Sargon II. The most famous relic from Shabaka's reign is the Shabaka stone which records several Old Kingdom documents that the king ordered preserved. Despite being relative newcomers to Egypt, Shabaka and his family were immensely interested in Egypt's past and the art of the period reflects their tastes which harked back to earlier periods. Shabaka would grant refuge to king Iamanni of Ashdod after the latter fled to Egypt following the brutal suppression of his revolt by Assyria in 712 BC.

Shabaka is assumed to have died in his 15th Regnal Year after a reign of approximately 14 years. This evidence is based on BM cube statue 24429 of a man named Ity which is dated to Year 15, II Shemu day 11 of Shabaka's reign. (Kitchen, TIPE, pp.153-54) He was buried in a pyramid at el-Kurru and was succeeded by his nephew Shebitku, Piye's son, following the Kushite tradition of succession from brother to brother, to son of the first brother.

[edit] External reading

Dan'el Kahn, "The Inscription of Sargon II at Tang-i Var and the Chronology of Dynasty 25," Orientalia 70(2001), pp.1-18
Kitchen, Kenneth A. (1996). The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC), 3rd edition, Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd.