Piye

Kushite king and Egyptian pharaoh (r. 742-716 b.c.e.)

• Born: c. 769 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: 716 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Unknown

A dynamic and forceful king of Kush, Piye invaded a divided Egypt, conquered it, and initiated an almost century-long Kushite rule over the entire Nile Valley.

Early Life

Nothing is known of the early life of Piye (Pi). He was the son of Kashta (r. c. 783-747/746 b.c.e.), the Kushite chieftain who controlled northern Nubia, the land immediately south of Egypt. Relatively early in its history, the kingdom of Egypt was attracted to this neighboring territory up the Nile; gold, incense, and slaves, among other things, were obtained there. Nubia also was the corridor for Egyptian trade with the lands farther south in inner Africa, Nubian middlemen being essential in this commerce. Beginning in the Old Kingdom (c. 2687-c. 2125 b.c.e.), Egypt’s rulers thought it necessary to control northern Nubia and therefore established permanent bases there. Gradually, as the Egyptian hold weakened through the centuries, local leadership produced a state known as the Kingdom of Kush. The nature of its relationship with the greater power to the north depended on the latter’s internal stability and the successive pharaohs’ ability periodically to reassert firm imperial control over this outlying territory.

By the seventeenth century b.c.e., Kush’s rulers had their capital at Kerma, just south of the Third Cataract on the Nile River. While they looked to Egypt’s impressive culture for inspiration and imported luxury goods, these presumably black kings of Kush enjoyed political independence for long periods. Inevitably, however, the Egyptians took back northern areas near the Egyptian border and sometimes absorbed all of Kush. During the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1570 b.c.e.), Egypt itself was invaded for the first time, and much of its territory was conquered by a chariot army of the Hyksos, a people from western Asia. They ruled the country for more than one hundred years and recognized Kush, independent once again, as an equally great power whose rule extended as far north as Elephantine (opposite Aswān).

Kush clearly was under heavy Egyptian cultural influence from early times, borrowing religious beliefs, architectural styles, and writing from the long-established northern civilization. Not only Egyptian soldiers and merchants worked there; many craftsmen, builders, and priests are also believed to have ventured up the Nile for employment under rich Kushite kings.

Life’s Work

By the time Piye ascended the throne in 742 b.c.e., Kush’s royal capital was Napata, just north of the Fourth Cataract on the Nile. He inherited a strong kingship, one that had replaced an Egyptian viceroyalty lasting about four hundred years that had been imposed on Kush by pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (c. 1570-1186). The Kushites, partly emulating Egypt’s institution of divine monarchy, believed their king was the adopted son of several deities. A council composed of high priests, the queen mother, clan chiefs, and military commanders determined the royal succession, usually selecting one of the dead king’s brothers. Piye is an obvious exception, since he followed his father to the throne.

More than a political capital, Napata also was an important religious center. The seat of Egyptian royal power long had been the city of Thebes in Upper Egypt, which in addition was the principal center for the worship of the sun god, Amen. In the Twenty-second Dynasty, Egyptian kings moved their capital downstream to the delta region and emphasized dedication to the god Ptah rather than Amen. This alienated Amen’s priests, who consequently shifted their religious headquarters to Napata, already the site of major temples erected by the Egyptians to honor Amen. The extensively Egyptianized Kushite population—or at least its leaders—thus became even more zealous devotees of Amen. It is likely that these newly moved religious authorities, in need of strong support in their new base, established an alliance with local chieftains who in time became the new Kushite monarchs from whom Piye descended. It cannot be determined, however, if this new dynasty could trace its bloodline back to the original royal lineage of Kerma.

As Kush became an increasingly centralized state under native rulers by the eighth century b.c.e., Egypt, in contrast, was experiencing political division. Indeed, ever since the tenth century, Egypt had been torn by dissension. By the eighth century that country was a confusing scene of about eleven major political entities, each under its own local potentate and more or less independent of the central authority of the weak Twenty-second Dynasty (945-715). The next dynasty returned the capital to Thebes, but evidently this did not help it overcome the political turmoil that prevailed with so many regional seats of power contending with one another. Such confusion and disunity eventually would draw Kush into Egyptian politics in a very dramatic way.

A major figure aspiring to leadership in Egypt during the mid-eighth century was Tefnakht (r. 730-720 b.c.e.), lord of Saïs, a principality in the western delta. He managed to extend his rule over a large part of Lower Egypt. In addition, this aggressive prince brought all the eastern- and middle-delta rulers into an alliance system dominated by him. Tefnakht was the major power in all Lower Egypt and even a part of Middle Egypt. The man who would resist his efforts to reunify Egypt under a delta monarchy was Piye, who now reigned at Napata. This situation was not only one of political rivalry; Piye considered the northern Egyptians religiously and culturally inferior and thus unfit to govern Egypt.

When Tefnakht sent his army south to besiege Heracleopolis, a center in Middle Egypt that had held out successfully against him earlier, the king of Kush recognized that this expanding force might be a potential threat to his own position. Still, he did not yet move against Tefnakht. Ultimately, however, other Egyptian princes, seeing fellow rulers forced to submit to Tefnakht’s control, appealed to Piye to interfere. Piye dispatched one of his armies, already in Egypt, to liberate the city of Hermopolis. Another force was sent to assist in that task but, having passed slightly north of Thebes, it encountered Tefnakht’s river fleet carrying many troops. The Kushites won a furious battle, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy and taking many prisoners.

When Piye’s two contingents joined farther northward, they fell on Tefnakht’s forces besieging Heracleopolis. Again the men from the south were successful, and the losers were driven out of the area. The victorious Kushites then pushed on to Hermopolis, where they began their own siege of that city. When informed of his army’s triumphs, King Piye, still in Napata, naturally was pleased. Satisfaction turned to rage, however, when he heard that his antagonist’s surviving forces had been allowed to escape toward the delta. Deciding to take personal command of the campaign, Piye left for Egypt.

The Kushite ruler was slow to overtake his army. When he arrived in Thebes he spent some time engaged in elaborate ceremonials dedicated to Amen in the great temple complex of Karnak. This monarch was nothing if not a pious servant of his favorite god. It has been suggested that such ostentatious worship also was intended to convince Egyptians that this foreign leader enjoyed divine sanction for his impending conquest of the country. In any case, on the completion of his devotions, Piye reached his army and soon ended the siege of Hermopolis by agreeing to spare its ruler’s life if he surrendered. As Piye led his army to the north, his military strength as well as his reputation for clemency toward his enemies encouraged towns in his path to capitulate.

Tefnakht, now concerned about the approaching Kushites, established his base at Memphis, the ancient city just south of the delta region. It was strongly defended, but Piye devised a shrewd plan of attack. Since the eastern side of the city was under water, its defenders thought it unnecessary to worry about an assault from that direction. Grasping the opportunity this presented, the royal commander ordered his men to seize all the enemy’s boats in the harbor, which, along with the Kushite’s own flotilla, were then utilized quickly to ferry his fighting men to the city walls. These were mounted easily before the opposition could react effectively. When the city fell, Piye characteristically gave credit to Amen.

This spectacular victory led to the submission of the surrounding country. In keeping with his religious habits, Piye celebrated each of his military successes by publicly worshiping in local sanctuaries, including, especially, those of Memphis. Ptah, the artificer god, was the major deity of that city and believed to be the creator of Amen. The bold conqueror from the distant south could now announce that Ptah had recognized him as the legitimate King of Egypt. All the princes of the delta eventually submitted to Piye’s authority, demonstrating their homage by delivering their substantial treasures to him. It is interesting that Piye, the religious puritan, refused to meet some of these leaders personally, as he considered such “fisheaters” to be unclean.

The Kushite’s principal target, however, eluded him. Even though Tefnakht’s army was destroyed, that ambitious and determined leader defied his adversary, ultimately taking refuge on an island in the northern delta. Piye settled for Tefnakht’s pledge of allegiance rather than continuing pursuit in the difficult, unfamiliar swampland. Thus, when the few other notable rulers of outlying territories swore obedience to him, Piye, the prince of a longtime colony of Egypt, was now the lord of that great imperial nation by the Nile.

Having achieved such success, the man from Napata packed his accumulated prize wealth aboard his riverboats and made his way up the river to his own desert land. Although it was short-lived, political unity had been restored to Egypt by a foreign conqueror. Nevertheless, Tefnakht soon resumed his efforts to acquire control of Egypt himself and enjoyed considerable success in the north. Kushite dominance in Upper Egypt was secure, however, during the remainder of Piye’s reign. That king evidently was content to have imposed his nominal authority over the entire Nile Valley without troubling to remain in Egypt in order to enforce his sovereignty over the long term. As long as Upper Egypt, particularly the holy city of Thebes, was not threatened by the “unclean” northerners, he rested easily.

Piye’s last known accomplishment, which seems fitting for a king so obsessed with pleasing the gods, was his reconstruction of and addition to the great temple of Amen at Napata. It remained for his brother and successor, Shabaka (r. 716-c. 702/698 b.c.e.), to return to Egypt and firmly establish his dynasty’s rule by residing there as pharaoh.

Significance

Piye’s extended military effort in Egypt was the foundation for Kushite control of that country for almost a century. His control of Egypt from Kush paved the way for Shabaka’s foundation of the Twenty-fifth (Kushite) Dynasty, which reigned from c. 742 to c. 656 b.c.e. His achievement, consequently, established Kush as a major power in the ancient world. If the other important states of the time had not noticed inner Africa before, they did after Piye’s conquest.

The Kushites’ appearance in force in Egypt undoubtedly was feared by the proud Egyptians as the coming of barbarian hordes, but it was not the calamity they expected. Piye and his men represented a culture that was heavily Egyptianized. Admittedly, Kush was an African kingdom and never completely lost its unique identity under the Egyptian façade. Yet the influence of Egypt’s long-established and admired civilization had brought Kush within the northern cultural orbit to a considerable extent. These were not savage barbarians but fellow residents of the Nile Valley whose leaders were literate worshipers of Egyptian gods and who expressed themselves in cultivated Egyptian terms.

Piye, in the twenty-first year of his reign, erected a stela in Napata that recounts his Egyptian expedition. It is acknowledged as one of the most interesting and revealing documents in Egyptian and Kushite history, vividly describing the military exploits of the king and his army as well as clearly communicating details about the fiery temperament, religious piety, and generosity of Piye. Now exhibited in the Cairo Museum, it is a fitting memorial to one of the great figures in African history.

Bibliography

Adams, William Y. Nubia: Corridor to Africa. 1977. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Comprehensive account of the region from prehistoric times to the nineteenth century. Provides excellent coverage of the “heroic age” of the Nabatan kings and their rule in Egypt. Extensive end notes and chapter bibliographies are included.

Breasted, James Henry. The Twentieth to the Twenty-sixth Dynasties. Vol. 4 in Ancient Records of Egypt. 1906-1907. Reprint. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Contains a translation of the Piye stela as well as the editor’s excellent scholarly summary of it. An essential source.

Miyasliwiec, Karol. The Twilight of Ancient Egypt: The First Millennium b.c.e. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000. Contains substantial coverage of Piye’s reign and of his successors. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, and index.

O’Connor, David. Ancient Nubia: Egypt’s Rival in Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. Compiled as a catalog for an archaeology exhibit, this volume has numerous illustrations. The text covers Nubia’s politics, religious beliefs, society, culture, and history from the Bronze Age to the Napatan-Meroitic period.

Torok, Lazlo. The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization. New York: Brill Academic Publishers, 1998. A guide to Kushite history and culture. Bibliograpy.