by
Damien F. Mackey
“Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush,
was marching out to fight against him”.
2 Kings 19:9
As part of my effort to reform the later Egyptian dynastic history in my postgraduate thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah
I had identified the long-reigning 25th (Kushite) dynasty pharaoh, Piankhi (or Piye) (c. 744-714 BC, conventional dating) with the biblical Tirhakah (or Taharko) (hopelessly mis-dated to c. 690-664 BC, conventional dating).
There is a scarab that seems to attest to this identification directly:
It is discussed in a most interesting article entitled by R. Clover, entitled “The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle”, section Tirhakah Piankhi (commencing on p. 118):
I wrote about this on p. 384 of my thesis (Volume One):
Now Piye [Piankhi], conventionally considered to have been the first major 25th dynasty pharaoh, and whose beginning of reign (revised) must have been very close to 730 BC (given that he reigned for 31 years), and whose 21st year (Stele) fell during the reign of Tefnakht - had also adopted the name of Usermaatre. Thus Grimal: … “[Piankhy] identified himself with the two great rulers who were most represented in the Nubian monuments, Tuthmosis III and Ramesses II, and adopted each of their coronation names: Menkheperre and Usermaatra respectively”. In other words, Piye was an eclectic in regard to early Egyptian history; and this fact may provide us with a certain opportunity for manoeuvring, alter ego wise.
Fortunately we do not need to guess who Piye was, because there is a scarab that tells us
precisely that Snefer-Ra Piankhi was Tirhakah, much to the puzzlement of Petrie. …. It reads:
“King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Tirhakah, Son of Ra, Piankhi”.
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