Siamun
Siamun | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Psinaches (Manetho)? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pharaoh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reign | 986–967 BC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Predecessor | Osorkon the Elder | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Successor | Psusennes II | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Consort | 21st Dynasty |
Neterkheperre or Netjerkheperre-Setepenamun Siamun was the sixth
Family
Very little is known of the family relationships of Siamun. In 1999, Chris Bennett made a case for a Queen
Manetho
Siamun is often identified with the last king of Manetho's 21st Dynasty, "Psinaches". This king is credited with a reign of only nine years, which subsequently had to be amended to [1]9 years on the basis of an inscription from the Karnak Priestly Annals mentioning a Year 17 of king Siamun. However, there is no real basis for interpreting the name "Psinaches" as a corruption of the name Netjerkheperre-setepenamun Siamun. Recently, it has been suggested that Manetho's "Psinaches" might rather be a reference to king
Reign length
The highest attested year for Siamun is a Year 17 the first month of Shemu day [lost], mentioned in fragment 3B, lines 3-5 from the Karnak Priestly Annals.[5] It records the induction of Hori, son of Nespaneferhor into the Priesthood at Karnak.[6] This date was a lunar Tepi Shemu feast day. Based on the calculation of this lunar Tepi Shemu feast, Year 17 of Siamun has been shown by the German Egyptologist Rolf Krauss to be equivalent to 970 BC.[7] Hence, Siamun would have taken the throne about 16 years earlier in 986 BC.[8] A stela dated to Siamun's Year 16 records a land-sale between some minor priests of Ptah at Memphis.[9]
The Year 17 inscription is an important palaeographical development because it is the first time in Egyptian recorded history that the word pharaoh was employed as a title and linked directly to a king's royal name: as in Pharaoh Siamun here.[10] Henceforth, references to Pharaoh Psusennes II (Siamun's successor), Pharaoh Shoshenq I, Pharaoh Osorkon I, and so forth become commonplace. Prior to Siamun's reign and all throughout the Middle and New Kingdom, the word pharaoh referred only to the office of the king.
Monuments and campaign in Canaan
According to the French
One fragmentary but well known surviving triumphal relief scene from the Temple of Amun at Tanis depicts an Egyptian pharaoh smiting his enemies with a mace. The king's name is explicitly given as [(Neterkheperre Setepenamun) Siamun, beloved of Am(un)] in the relief and there can be no doubt that this person was Siamun as the eminent British Egyptologist
Aside from the Egyptian reliefs, excavations from Gezer have revealed evidence of the Egyptian destruction of the city in the 10th century BC, concurrent with the period of Siamun's reign. [17]
Burial
Although Siamun's original royal tomb has never been located, it has been proposed that he is one of "two completely decayed mummies in the antechamber of NRT-III (Psusennes I's tomb)" on the basis of ushabtis found on them which bore this king's name. Siamun's original tomb may have been inundated by the Nile which compelled a reburial of this king in Psusennes I's tomb.[18]
Siamun and Solomon
It has been suggested that Siamun was the unnamed pharaoh of the Bible who gave in marriage
Dever, however, challenges these positions, arguing that Siamun reigned from 978 to 959 BCE, coinciding with Solomon's early years of reign and that such diplomatic marriages are well attested in the ancient Near East; he also states that archaeological excavations in Gezer show that the site had been refortified in 950 BCE, during Solomon's reign, only to be later destroyed by Shoshenq I, during his raid against Israel.[20]
Moreover, according to Kenneth Kitchen, the occupation of Gezer by Pharaoh Siamun is attested by a triumphal relief scene from the Temple of Amun at Tanis depicts an Egyptian pharaoh smiting his enemies with a mace. The king's name is explicitly given as [(Neterkheperre Setepenamun) Siamun, beloved of Am(un)] in the relief and there can be no doubt that this person was Siamun. Siamun appears here "in typical pose brandishing a mace to strike down prisoners(?) now lost at the right except for two arms and hands, one of which grasps a remarkable double-bladed ax by its socket."
However, Paul S. Ash has challenged this theory, stating that Siamun's relief portrays a fictitious battle. He points out that in Egyptian reliefs Philistines are never shown holding an axe, and that there is no archaeological evidence for Philistines using axes. He also argues that there is nothing in the relief to connect it with Philistia or the Levant.[16]
References
- ^ Peter Clayton, Chronology of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. p.174
- ^ [1] 21st Dynasty
- ^ a b Chris Bennett, Queen Karimala, Daughter of Osochor? GM 173 (1999), pp.7-8
- ^ Norbert Dautzenberg, On the identity of King Psinaches, GM 240 (2014), 115-118
- ^ K.A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt [TIPE] (1100–650 BC) 3rd ed., Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd, p.423
- ^ Kitchen, TIPE, p.278
- ^ Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss & David Warburton (editors), Handbook of Ancient Egyptian Chronology (Handbook of Oriental Studies), Brill: 2006, p.474
- ^ Hornung, Krauss & Warburton, op. cit., p.493
- ^ Kitchen, TIPE, p.279
- ^ J-M Kruchten, Les annales des prêtres de Karnak (XXI-XXIIImes dynasties) et autres textes contemporains relatifs à l'initiation des prêtres d'Amon, (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 32), 1989. pp.47-48
- ^ a b Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell Books: 1992, pp.318
- ^ Kitchen, TIPE, pp.422-423
- ^ K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament [OROT], William B. Erdmans Publishing, 2003. p.109
- ^ a b Kitchen, OROT, pp.109 & p.526
- ^ a b Kitchen, OROT, pp.109-110
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84127-021-0.
- S2CID 166198868.
- ^ Bill Manley (ed.), "The missing tombs of Tanis" in The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson Ltd. p.97
- ^ Kitchen, OROT, p. 108.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4674-5949-5.
- JSTOR 3268603.
- ISBN 978-90-429-1798-9.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-0396-2.
- ISBN 978-1-000-77324-8.