Yesebokheamani (or Amaniyesebokhe) was the king (qore) of Kush in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD.[1][2] He seems to have been the king who took control of the Dodecaschoenus after the Roman withdrawal in 298.[3][4][5][6] This enabled him to make a personal visit to the temple of Isis at Philae.[7]
The second element in the name Yesebokheamani refers to the god Amun. The meaning of Yesebokhe, which stands alone in other inscriptions, is unknown. The sources sometimes place the Amun-element first.[8] There are many variant renderings of the name in English (Yesbokheamani,[8] Yesbekheamani,[9] Yesboẖe-Amni,[1] Amani-Yeshbêhe[10]).
Yesebokheamani is known from four Meroitic inscriptions.[4] He raised a sandstone dedication stela in the temple of Apedemak in Meroë with an inscription in cursive Meroitic script.[4][11] This stela was discovered by John Garstang in 1909, but is now lost. The untranslated inscription appears to be a hymn to Apedemak. Several other cults are mentioned in the inscription, including those of Isis at Philae, Sedeinga and Thebes, those of Horus at Philae and Thebes and that of Amun at Napata.[4]
The three other inscriptions are evidence of Yesebokheamani's rule in the Dodecaschoenus. A monumental lion statue was erected at Qasr Ibrim in his honour. It bears an inscription in hieroglyphic Meroitic describing the king as "beloved of Amun of Luxor".[4][8][12]Jack Plumley dated it to between 286 and 306.[13] There are two Meroitic graffiti at Philae, on the north and south walls of the passage between Hadrian's Gate (where pilgrims arrived) and the hypostyle. The graffiti are proskynemata to the goddess Isis and were almost certainly carved when the king was there in person as a means of continuing his presence after he left.[4] Below each is "a relief of a king presenting the hieroglyphsekhet," a symbol of the sekhet fields and a traditional representation of the king handing over the Dodecaschoenus to Isis.[14] The image, however, is an earlier Egyptian one "usurped" by Yesebokheamani.[15]
Yesebokheamani's visit to Philae probably took place after the Kushite occupation of the Dodecaschoenus, which affected all the land south of Philae and may have left Philae itself in an ambiguous position for a time.[4] There is archaeological evidence for the Kushite fortification of Kalabsha, presumably as a defence against the raiding Blemmyes.[4][10]
Török, László (1997). The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan–Meroitic Civilization. Brill.
Török, László (1998). "276. Yesebokheamani; 277. Meroitic Dedication of Yesebokheamani". In Tormod Eide; Tomas Hägg; Richard Holton Pierce; László Török (eds.). Fontes Historiae Nubiorum. Textual Sources for the History of the Middle Nile Region between the Eighth Century BC and the Sixth Century AD. Vol III: From the First to the Sixth Century AD. Bergen: Institutt for klassisk filologi. pp.1049–1051.
Török, László (2009). Between Two Worlds: The Frontier Region Between Ancient Nubia and Egypt, 3700 BC–AD 500. Brill.
Zibelius-Chen, Karola (2006). "Nubian Kingdoms, Dyn. 25 through the Kingdom of Meroe". In Erik Hornung; Rolf Krauss; David A. Warburton (eds.). Ancient Egyptian Chronology. Brill. pp.284–303.
Kashta was an 8th century BCE 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.
Apedemak or Apademak was a major deity in the ancient Nubian and Kushite pantheon. Often depicted as a figure with a male human torso and a lion head, Apedemak was a war god worshiped by the Meroitic peoples inhabiting Kush. He has no Egyptian counterpart. As a war god, Apedemak came to symbolize martial power, military conquest, and empire. Apedemak is also closely associated with Amun, the state-sponsored Egyptian deity during the preceding Napatan period, and is assumed to hold an equal level of importance.
Nobatia or Nobadia was a late antique kingdom in Lower Nubia. Together with the two other Nubian kingdoms, Makuria and Alodia, it succeeded the kingdom of Kush. After its establishment in around 400, Nobadia gradually expanded by defeating the Blemmyes in the north and incorporating the territory between the second and third Nile cataract in the south. In 543, it converted to Coptic Christianity. It would then be annexed by Makuria, under unknown circumstances, during the 7th century.
Natakamani, also called Aqrakamani, was a king of Kush who reigned from Meroë in the middle of the 1st century CE. He ruled as co-regent together with his mother Amanitore. Natakamani is the best attested ruler of the Meroitic period. He and Amanitore may have been contemporaries of the Roman emperor Nero.
Amanishakheto was a queen regnant (kandake) of Kush who reigned in the early 1st century AD. In Meroitic hieroglyphs her name is written "Amanikasheto". In Meroitic cursive she is referred to as Amaniskheto qor kd(ke) which means Amanishakheto, Qore and Kandake.
Teqorideamani was the King of Kush who was ruling in AD 253. His reign may be dated from 245/246 to sometime after 265/266. His throne name, attested in Egyptian hieroglyphics, was Ḫpr-kꜣ-Rꜥ, meaning "Ra is one whose ka came into being". Rendered in Meroitic, it is Natakamani or Ariteñyesebokhe. His given name, Teqorideamani, is attested in Meroitic hieroglyphs in his tomb inscription.
Kandake, kadake or kentake, often Latinised as Candace, was the Meroitic term for the sister of the king of Kush who, due to the matrilineal succession, would bear the next heir, making her a queen mother. She had her own court, probably acted as a landholder and held a prominent secular role as regent. Contemporary Greek and Roman sources treated it, incorrectly, as a name. The name Candace is derived from the way the word is used in the New Testament.
Amanirenas, was queen regnant of the Kingdom of Kush from the end of the 1st century BCE to beginning of the 1st century CE. She is known for halting the Roman expansion into Kush in present-day Sudan.
Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, or more strictly, Al Dabbah. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BC until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BC, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years. Nubia was home to several empires, most prominently the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its 25th Dynasty.
The Kingdom of Kush, also known as the Kushite Empire, or simply Kush, was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
Naqa or Naga'a is a ruined ancient city of the Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. The ancient city lies about 170 km (110 mi) north-east of Khartoum, and about 50 km (31 mi) east of the Nile River located at approximately MGRS 36QWC290629877. Here smaller wadis meet the Wadi Awateib coming from the center of the Butana plateau region, and further north at Wad ban Naqa from where it joins the Nile. Naqa was only a camel or donkey's journey from the Nile, and could serve as a trading station on the way to the east; thus it had strategic importance.
Phonen was king of Blemmyes, known from a letter which was found in Qasr Ibrim, Lower Nubia, in 1976. The papyrus letter comes perhaps from some royal archive and dates the rule of Phonen to around 450 AD.
Arqamani was a Kushite King of Meroë dating from the late 3rd to early 2nd century BCE.
The Triakontaschoinos, Latinized as Triacontaschoenus, was a geographical and administrative term used in the Greco-Roman world for the part of Lower Nubia between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile, which formed a buffer zone between Egypt and later Rome on the one hand and Meroë on the other hand. The northern part of this area, stretching from the First Cataract south to Maharraqa, was known as the Dodekaschoinos or Dodecaschoenus. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods the Dodekaschoinos was often annexed to Egypt or controlled from it, and the rest of the Triakontaschoinos sometimes was as well.
Amesemi is a Kushite protective goddess and wife of Apedemak, the lion-god. She was represented with a crown shaped as a falcon, or with a crescent moon on her head on top of which a falcon was standing. The clothing that Amesemi is seen wearing is a robe that is made from cloth and is worn over her undergarments. She is often seen wearing a short necklace with large beads. She is also depicted holding a second set of hands with her.
Maloqorebar was an ancient Kushite prince.
The Wayekiye family was a Nubian priestly family that was influential in the Dodekaschoinos between Upper Egypt and Nubia in the second and third centuries CE, named after two of its members. They are attested by mostly Demotic temple inscriptions. Although the Roman government directed the taxes of the Dodekaschoinos to the Egyptian temple cults of Isis of Philae and Thoth of Dakka, most of the population was not ethnically Egyptian but Nubian, as were local elites like the Wayekiye. The family eventually came to serve the Nubian Kushite court of Meroë and may have acted as a "vehicle for the penetration of Meroitic royal authority" into the area, culminating in Kush's annexation of the area in the third century.
Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile as well as the confluence of the blue and white Niles or, more strictly, Al Dabbah. Nubia was the seat of several civilizations of ancient Africa, including the Kerma culture, the kingdom of Kush, Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia.
The reign of Amanitore was considered one of the most prosperous times of the Meroitic period. She ruled alongside Natakamani, who was either her husband or her son. The success of the two rulers is evident through their work towards the building, restoration, and expansion of many temples throughout Nubia. The temples that can be accredited to the work of the two include: the Temple of Apedemak, the Amun temple B500 at Napata, the Amun temple at Meroe, the Amun Temples of Naqa and Amara, the Isis temple at Wad ben Naqa, and the Meroitic palace B1500 at Napata.
Talakhidamani was the king of Kush in the mid or late 3rd century AD, perhaps into the 4th century. He is known from two Meroitic inscriptions, one of which commemorates a diplomatic mission he sent to the Roman Empire.
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