Nimlot A

Nimlot A
Nimlot A; Great Chief of the Ma
	The inscription which Shoshenq dedicated to his father Nimlot A at Abydos
Predecessor	Shoshenq A
Successor	Shoshenq B (= Shoshenq I)
Dynasty	21st Dynasty
Pharaoh	Osorkon the Elder, Siamun, Psusennes II
Father	Shoshenq A
Mother	Mehtenweskhet A
Wife	Tentsepeh A
Children	Shoshenq I, Mehtenweskhet B?

Last updated April 27, 2019

Nimlot A was a Great Chief of the Ma during the late 21st Dynasty of ancient Egypt. He is mainly known for being the father of the founder of the 22nd Dynasty, pharaoh Shoshenq I.

The Meshwesh were an ancient Libyan tribe of Berber origin from beyond Cyrenaica. According to Egyptian hieroglyphs, this area is where the Libu and Tehenu inhabited.

Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in the place that is now the country Egypt. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes. The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.

Pharaoh is the common title of the monarchs of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty until the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Empire in 30 BCE, although the actual term "Pharaoh" was not used contemporaneously for a ruler until Merneptah, c. 1200 BCE. In the early dynasty, ancient Egyptian kings used to have up to three titles, the Horus, the Sedge and Bee (nswt-bjtj) name, and the Two Ladies (nbtj) name. The Golden Horus and nomen and prenomen titles were later added.

Biography

Nimlot A was a son of the Great Chief of the Ma Shoshenq A and of the King's mother Mehtenweskhet A, and thus a full-brother of the 21st Dynasty pharaoh Osorkon the Elder. His wife was Tentsepeh A by whom he had a son, Shoshenq B who later became pharaoh (Shoshenq I): for this reason Nimlot and Tentsepeh were posthumously called God's father and God's mother. It is probable that the couple also had a daughter, Mehtenweskhet B, who married the High Priest of Ptah Shedsu-nefertum.^[1]

Shoshenq A, sometimes also called Shoshenq the Elder, was a Great Chief of the Ma during the 21st Dynasty of ancient Egypt. He is mainly known for being an ancestor of the 22nd Dynasty pharaohs.

Aakheperre Setepenre Osorkon the Elder was the fifth king of the 21st Dynasty of Ancient Egypt and was the first Pharaoh of Meshwesh origin. He is also sometimes known as Osochor, following Manetho's Aegyptiaca.

The High Priest of Ptah was sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship" (wr-ḫrp-ḥmwt). This title refers to Ptah as the patron god of the craftsmen.

When Nimlot A died, his son Shoshenq inherited the title of Great Chief of the Ma; Shoshenq obtained by pharaoh Psusennes II the permission to build at Abydos a great dedicatory inscription in honor of his father. Nimlot A and Tentsepeh A are also mentioned in the genealogy reported on the stela of Pasenhor.^[1]

Titkheperure or Tyetkheperre Psusennes II [Greek Ψουσέννης] or Hor-Pasebakhaenniut II [Egyptian ḥr-p3-sb3-ḫˁỉ-<n>-nỉwt], was the last king of the Twenty-first dynasty of Egypt. His royal name means "Image of the transformations of Re" in Egyptian. Psusennes II is often considered the same person as the High-Priest of Amun known as Psusennes III. The Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln notes that an important graffito from the Temple of Abydos contains the complete titles of a king Tyetkheperre Setepenre Pasebakhaenniut Meryamun "who is simultaneously called the HPA and supreme military commander." This suggests that Psusennes was both king at Tanis and the High Priest in Thebes at the same time, meaning he did not resign his office as High Priest of Amun during his reign. The few contemporary attestations from his reign include the aforementioned graffito in Seti I's Abydos temple, an ostracon from Umm el-Qa'ab, an affiliation at Karnak and his presumed burial – which consists of a gilded coffin with a royal uraeus and a Mummy, found in an antechamber of Psusennes I's tomb at Tanis. He was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes and the son of Pinedjem II and Istemkheb. His daughter Maatkare B was the Great Royal Wife of Osorkon I.

Abydos is one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, and also of the eighth nome in Upper Egypt, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana. In the ancient Egyptian language, the city was called Abdju. The English name Abydos comes from the Greek Ἄβυδος, a name borrowed by Greek geographers from the unrelated city of Abydos on the Hellespont.

The Stela of Pasenhor, also known as Stela of Harpeson in older literature, is an ancient Egyptian limestone stela dating back to the Year 37 of pharaoh Shoshenq V of the 22nd Dynasty. It was found in the Serapeum of Saqqara by Auguste Mariette and later moved to The Louvre, where it is still.

             Shoshenq A = Mehtenweskhet A          unknown chief                         |                               |                +--------+--------+           +----------+                |                 |           |         Osorkon the Elder      Nimlot A = Tentsepeh A                                        |                                 +-------------+                                 |             |                            Shoshenq I    Mehtenweskhet B = Shedsu-nefertum

Related Research Articles

Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I, —also known as Sheshonk or Sheshonq I —was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt. Of Meshwesh ancestry, Shoshenq I was the son of Nimlot A, Great Chief of the Ma, and his wife Tentshepeh A, a daughter of a Great Chief of the Ma herself. He is presumed to be the Shishak mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and his exploits are carved on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak.

Hedjkheperre Setepenre Takelot II Si-Ese was a pharaoh of the Twenty-third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt in Middle and Upper Egypt. He has been identified as the High Priest of Amun Takelot F, son of the High Priest of Amun Nimlot C at Thebes and, thus, the son of Nimlot C and grandson of king Osorkon II according to the latest academic research. Based on two lunar dates belonging to Takelot II, this Upper Egyptian pharaoh is today believed to have ascended to the throne of a divided Egypt in either 845 BC or 834 BC. Most Egyptologists today, including Aidan Dodson, Gerard Broekman, Jürgen von Beckerath, M.A. Leahy and Karl Jansen-Winkeln, also accept David Aston's hypothesis that Shoshenq III was Osorkon II's actual successor at Tanis, rather than Takelot II. As Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton write in their comprehensive book on the royal families of Ancient Egypt:

Takelot II is likely to have been identical with the High Priest Takelot F, who is stated in [the] Karnak inscriptions to have been a son of Nimlot C, and whose likely period of office falls neatly just before Takelot II's appearance.

Usermaatre Setepenamun Osorkon II was the fifth pharaoh of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Ancient Egypt and the son of Takelot I and Queen Kapes. He ruled Egypt around 872 BC to 837 BC from Tanis, the capital of this Dynasty.

The son of Shoshenq I and his chief consort, Karomat A, Osorkon I was the second king of Egypt's 22nd Dynasty and ruled around 922 BC – 887 BC. He succeeded his father Shoshenq I who probably died within a year of his successful 923 BC campaign against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Osorkon I's reign is known for many temple building projects and was a long and prosperous period of Egypt's History. His highest known date is a "Year 33" date found on the bandage of Nakhtefmut's Mummy which held a menat-tab necklace inscribed with Osorkon I's nomen and praenomen: Osorkon Sekhemkheperre. This date can only belong to Osorkon I since no other early Dynasty 22 king ruled for close to 30 years until the time of Osorkon II. Other mummy linens which belong to his reign include three separate bandages dating to his Regnal Years 11, 12, and 23 on the mummy of Khonsmaakheru in Berlin. The bandages are anonymously dated but definitely belong to his reign because Khonsmaakheru wore leather bands that contained a menat-tab naming Osorkon I. Secondly, no other king who ruled around Osorkon I's reign had a 23rd Regnal Year including Shoshenq I who died just before the beginning of his Year 22.

Heqakheperre Shoshenq II or Shoshenq IIa was a pharaoh of the 22nd dynasty of Egypt. He was the only ruler of this Dynasty whose tomb was not plundered by tomb robbers. His final resting place was discovered within an antechamber of Psusennes I's tomb at Tanis by Pierre Montet in 1939. Montet removed the coffin lid of Shoshenq II on March 20, 1939, in the presence of king Farouk of Egypt himself. It proved to contain a large number of jewel-encrusted bracelets and pectorals, along with a beautiful hawkheaded silver coffin and a gold funerary mask. The gold facemask had been placed upon the head of the king. Montet later discovered the intact tombs of two Dynasty 21 kings—Psusennes I and Amenemope a year later in February and April 1940 respectively. Shoshenq II's prenomen, Heqakheperre Setepenre, means "The manifestation of Ra rules, the chosen one of Ra."

Shoshenq C was the eldest son of the 22nd Dynasty pharaoh Osorkon I and queen Maatkare, the daughter of Psusennes II, and served as the High Priest of Amun at Thebes during his father's reign. Consequently, he was the most important official in Upper Egypt after the king himself. He has generally been equated with Heqakheperre Shoshenq II by the English Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen and viewed as a short-lived co-regent to his father based on the Nile God British Museum statue 8 which identifies him as the son of Osorkon I and Queen Maatkare, daughter of Hor-Psusennes but this assumption is unproven. In the statue, Shoshenq C is called "the Master of the Two Lands" and the formula "beloved of Amun" is enclosed within a royal cartouche. However, in the text of the statue, he is not given a specific throne name or prenomen, the use of a cartouche by a royal prince is attested in other periods of Egyptian history such as that of Amenmes, son of Thutmose I, and the documents depicts Shoshenq C as a simple High Priest of Amun on the side of the legs of the Nile God, rather than a king.

Usermaatre Setepenamun Osorkon III Si-Ese was Pharaoh of Egypt in the 8th Century BC. He is the same person as the Crown Prince and High Priest of Amun Osorkon B, son of Takelot II by his Great Royal Wife Karomama II. Prince Osorkon B is best attested by his Chronicle—which consists of a series of texts documenting his activities at Thebes—on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak. He later reigned as king Osorkon III in Upper Egypt for twenty-eight years after defeating the rival forces of Pedubast I/Shoshenq VI who had apparently resisted the authority of his father here. Osorkon ruled the last five years of his reign in coregency with his son, Takelot III, according to Karnak Nile Level Text No. 13. Osorkon III's formal titulary was long and elaborate: Usermaatre Setepenamun, Osorkon Si-Ese Meryamun, Netjer-Heqa-waset.

King Usermaatre Setepenre/SetepenamunShoshenq III ruled Egypt's 22nd Dynasty for 39 years according to contemporary historical records. Two Apis Bulls were buried in the fourth and 28th years of his reign and he celebrated his Heb Sed Jubilee in his regnal year 30. Little is known of the precise basis for his successful claim to the throne since he was not a son of Osorkon II and Shoshenq's parentage and family ties are unknown.

While not regarded as a dynasty, the High Priests of Amun at Thebes were nevertheless of such power and influence that they were effectively the rulers of Upper Egypt from 1080 to c. 943 BC, after which their influence declined. By the time Herihor was proclaimed as the first ruling High Priest of Amun in 1080 BC—in the 19th Year of Ramesses XI—the Amun priesthood exercised an effective stranglehold on Egypt's economy. The Amun priests owned two-thirds of all the temple lands in Egypt and 90 percent of her ships plus many other resources. Consequently, the Amun priests were as powerful as the Pharaoh, if not more so. One of the sons of the High Priest Pinedjem I would eventually assume the throne and rule Egypt for almost half a decade as pharaoh Psusennes I, while the Theban High Priest Psusennes III would take the throne as king Psusennes II, the final ruler of the Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt.

Nimlot C was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes during the reign of pharaoh Osorkon II of the 22nd Dynasty.

Shedsu-nefertum was a High Priest of Ptah at the end of the 21st dynasty and beginning of the 22nd dynasty. Shedsunefertem was the son of the High Priest Ankhefensekhmet and the lady Tapeshenese, who was First Chief of the Harem of Ptah and Prophetess of Mut.

Karomama is a name for several women from Ancient Egypt most dating to the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt:

Karomama II was an ancient Egyptian queen, Great Royal Wife of pharaoh Takelot II of the 23rd Dynasty of Egypt.

Nimlot was the name of many ancient Egyptians with Libyan ancestry. It is the name of:

Nimlot B, also Nemareth was an ancient Egyptian prince, general and governor during the early 22nd Dynasty.

Osorkon C was a Great Chief of the Ma and a governor of Sais in Lower Egypt, during the 22nd Dynasty.

References

1 2 Kenneth Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC), 1996, Aris & Phillips Limited, Warminster, ISBN 0-85668-298-5, §§ 85, 88, 90, 239, 437.

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[tip-1] 1 2 Kenneth Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC), 1996, Aris & Phillips Limited, Warminster, ISBN 0-85668-298-5, §§ 85, 88, 90, 239, 437.