Dynasty XXVI: Egypt Expels Assyrians, Takes on Babylon in Palestine

Episode 39 The Saite Period

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

The first two pharaohs of Dynasty XXVI (66t-564 BC) were puppet kings of the Assyrian empire ruling from Sais:

• Necho I (665-664 BC) – placed on Egyptian throne after the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who succeeded him, killed the entire Egyptian nobility except for him.
• Psamtik I (664-610 BC) – son of Necho I, appointed his daughter Nitocres the Divine Adoratrice of Amun in Thebes and recruited a substantial number of Greek mercenaries from Nekratis* into the Egyptian army. While the Assyrian army was distracted with their war with Babylonia, he marched north and drove all remaining Assyrian troops from Egypt.

Rebuilding Egypt following independence:

• Necho II (610-595 BC) – freed from Assyrian control, Psamtiki I’s son resumed international trading expeditions, started a navy and conquered Palestine.
• Psamtik II (595-589 BC) – Necho II’s son led military campaign into Nubia as far as the third cataract, leaving an inscription on Ramses the Great’s leg at the great temple at Abu Sindel. Allowing minor princes to run their own principalities in northern Egypt, he led troops* into Palestine to support Israel against the Babylonian king Nebbakanezzer II. Their defeat (described in the Bible’s second book of Kings), resulted in the Babylonian exile of the Jews. Taking captive the entire literate class of Jerusalem as slaves, they only left behind the poorest Jews.** A third of the population escaped to Egypt.

Massive identical statues of Ramses the Great at Abu Sindel

• Apries (589-570 BC) – son of Psamtik II, continued to battle the Assyrians to prevent their re-invasion of Egypt. Following the Greek invasion of Libya, he went to the assistance of the Libyans, and one of his generals (Amais) launched a coup, killing Apries and making himself king of Egypt.
• Amais (570-526 BC) – tried to reconcile with the Greeks by sending them money to rebuild the temple of Delphi after it burned down. Around 30,000 Greeks (seafaring people who like trading) settled in Naukratis* near Memphis. There they built an iron works and a massive scarab factory. Using molds they fill with quarzite paste and kiln dry, they manufactured scarabs by the hundreds of thousands

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*There are so many foreigners in the Egyptian army that Greeks, Jews, Libyans and Nubians, each have their own divisions.

**Who Brier believes are likely ancestors of modern day Palestinian.

***Nekratis was a majority Greek city in northern Egypt. There was also a similar Jewish community on Elephantini Island near Aswan.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492877