| Rudamun | |
|---|---|
 A small glass vase with the cartouches of Rudamun | |
| Pharaoh | |
| Reign | 2–3 years (23rd Dynasty) |
| Predecessor | Takelot III |
| Successor | Ini |
| Children | Irbastudjanefu |
| Father | Osorkon III |
| Died | 739 BC |
Rudamun was the final pharaoh of the Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt. His titulary simply reads as Usermaatre Setepenamun, Rudamun Meryamun, and excludes the Si-Ese or Netjer-Heqawaset epithets employed by his father and brother.
He was the younger son of Osorkon III, and the brother of Takelot III. He is a poorly attested pharaoh of this dynasty according to Kenneth Kitchen, who credits him with a brief reign of about two to three years due to the few contemporary documents known for him. These include a small amount of decorative work done on the Temple of Osiris Heqadjet, several stone blocks from Medinet Habu, and a vase. In recent years, two fragments of a faience statuette bearing Rudamun's name from Hermopolis have been discovered. [2] This recent discovery suggests that Radamun managed to preserve the unity of his father's large kingdom in Upper Egypt ranging from at least Herakleopolis Magna to Thebes during his brief reign.
Some Egyptologists such as David Aston have argued that Rudamun was the anonymous Year 19 king attested at Wadi Gasus. However, new evidence on the Wadi Gasus graffito published by Claus Jurman in 2006 has now redated the graffito to the 25th dynastic Nubian period entirely (rather than to the Libyan era) and demonstrates that they pertain to Amenirdis I and Shepenupet II based on paleographic and other evidence at Karnak rather than the Libyan Shepenupet I and the Nubian Amenirdis I. [3] Jurman notes that no monumental evidence from the Temple of Osiris Heqadjet or Karnak depict Shepenupet I associated with Piye's daughter, Amenirdis I. [4] Another alternative that the Year 19 Wadi Gasus ruler was a certain Shoshenq VII, a new unknown ruler, was proposed by G. Broekman in a paper based on Nile Level Text No. 3 which is dated to Year 5 of a Theban king who ruled after Osorkon III. [5] However, there are serious doubts among scholars as to whether Nile Level Text No. 3 contained the nomen Shoshenq rather than Takelot. Georges Legrain, who had the first opportunity to survey the Karnak Quay Texts, did not, in his 1898 publication of the Quay Texts, read any royal nomen in this inscription since the stone had already been badly eroded. The stone would have been in even worse condition when Von Beckerath inspected the document in 1953 and assumed the surviving traces on the Text No. 3 referred to a king Shoshenq, rather than a Takelot. [6]
Soon after Rudamun's death, his kingdom quickly fragmented into several minor city states under the control of various local kings such as Peftjaubast of Herakleopolis Magna, Nimlot at Hermopolis, and Ini at Thebes. Peftjaubast married Irbastudjanefu, Rudamun's daughter, and was, therefore, Rudamun's son-in-law. [5] Nothing is known about Rudamun's final burial place. The surviving contemporary information from his reign suggests that it was quite brief.
The Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt began with the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI in 1070 BC, which ended the New Kingdom, and was eventually followed by the Late Period. Various points are offered as the beginning for the latter era, though it is most often regarded as dating from the foundation of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty by Psamtik I in 664 BC, following the departure of the Nubian Kushite rulers of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty by the Assyrians under King Ashurbanipal. The concept of a "Third Intermediate Period" was coined in 1978 by British Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen.
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.
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 king of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Ancient Egypt and the son of King Takelot I and Queen Kapes. He ruled Egypt from approximately 872 BC to 837 BC from Tanis, the capital of that dynasty.
Sekhemkheperre Osorkon I was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty. Osorkon's territory included much of the Levant.
The Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt is usually classified as the third dynasty of the ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period. This dynasty consisted of a number of Meshwesh ancient Libyan (Berber) kings, who ruled either as pharaohs or independent kings of parts of Upper Egypt from 880 BC to 720 BC, and pharaohs from 837 BC to 728 BC.
Kashta was an 8th century BC king of the Kushite Dynasty in ancient Nubia and the successor of Alara. His nomen k3š-t3 "of the land of Kush" is often translated directly as "The Kushite". He was succeeded by Piye, who would go on to conquer ancient Egypt and establish the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty there.
Hedjkheperre Setepenre Takelot I was an ancient Libyan ruler who was pharaoh during the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt.
Jürgen von Beckerath was a German Egyptologist. He was a prolific writer who published countless articles in journals such as Orientalia, Göttinger Miszellen (GM), Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (JARCE), Archiv für Orientforschung (AfO), and Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur (SAK) among others. Together with Kenneth Kitchen, he is viewed as one of the foremost scholars on the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt.
Harsiese B was a High Priest of Amun in 874 BC. Earlier Egyptologists assumed he was both the High Priest of Amun (HPA) and son of the High Priest Shoshenq C, who may have become a king at Thebes. However, recent research by Karl Jansen-Winkeln shows that all the monuments of the first (King) Harsiese A demonstrate that he was never Theban High Priest of Amun in his own right, merely a regular Priest of Amun. While the earlier Harsiese was certainly a king at Thebes, he is clearly a different person from the later Harsiese, Harsiese B, who is attested as a High Priest of Amun. Jansen-Winkeln further shows that Harsiese A's son, [...du], was only an ordinary Priest of Amun.
Shoshenq VI is known to be Pedubast I's immediate successor at Thebes based upon the career of the Letter Writer to Pharaoh Hor IX, who served under Osorkon II and Pedubast I. Since Shoshenq VI's prenomen is inscribed on Hor IX's funerary cones, this indicates that Hor IX outlived Pedubast I and made his funeral arrangements under Shoshenq VI instead. His prenomen or royal name was "Usermaatre Meryamun Shoshenq" which is unusual because it is the only known example where the epithet "Meryamun" appears within a king's cartouche. Shoshenq VI's High Priest of Amun was a certain Takelot who first appears in office in Year 23 of Pedubast I.
King Hedjkheperre Setepenamun Harsiese, or Harsiese A, is viewed by the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen in his Third Intermediate Period of Egypt to be both a High Priest of Amun and the son of the High Priest of Amun, Shoshenq C. The archaeological evidence does suggest that he was indeed Shoshenq C's son. However, recent published studies by the German Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln in JEA 81 (1995) have demonstrated that all the monuments of the first (king) Harsiese show that he was never a High Priest of Amun in his own right. Rather both Harsiese A and his son [...du] – whose existence is known from inscriptions on the latter's funerary objects at Coptos – are only attested as Ordinary Priests of Amun. Instead, while Harsiese A was certainly an independent king at Thebes during the first decade of Osorkon II's kingship, he was a different person from a second person who was also called Harsiese: Harsiese B. Harsiese B was the genuine High Priest of Amun, who is attested in office late in Osorkon II's reign, in the regnal year 6 of Shoshenq III and in regnal years 18 and 19 of Pedubast I, according to Jansen-Winkeln.
Pedubastis I or Pedubast I was an Upper Egyptian Pharaoh of ancient Egypt during the 9th century BC.
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.
Usermaatre Setepenamun Takelot III Si-Ese was Osorkon III's eldest son and successor. Takelot III ruled the first five years of his reign in a coregency with his father, according to the evidence from Nile Quay Text No.13, and succeeded his father as king the following year. He served previously as the High Priest of Amun at Thebes. He was previously thought to have ruled Egypt for only 7 years until his 13th Year was found on a stela from Ahmeida in the Dakhla Oasis in 2005.
Shepenupet I or Shapenewpet I was God's Wife of Amun during the Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt.
Karomama II was an ancient Egyptian queen, Great Royal Wife of pharaoh Takelot II of the 23rd Dynasty of Egypt.
Peftjauawybast or Peftjaubast was an ancient Egyptian ruler ("king") of Herakleopolis Magna during the 25th Dynasty.
Iuwelot or Iuwlot was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes and military commander during the reign of pharaohs Osorkon I and Takelot I of the 22nd Dynasty.
Smendes III was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes during the reign of pharaoh Takelot I of the 22nd Dynasty.
