Psamtik I

Egyptian pharaoh (r. c. 664-610 b.c.e.)

• Born: c. 684 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: 610 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Unknown

Psamtik carved out political independence for Egypt after almost a century of foreign rule, inaugurating a renewal of its society and culture.

Early Life

Little is known about the early life of Psamtik I (SAHM-tihk); even the date of his birth is based on conjecture. He was the son of Necho I, a local Egyptian ruler in the western Delta region. For nearly a century, after the kingdom of Egypt had fragmented into several small principalities, Kushite invaders had held the Nile Valley, calling themselves the Twenty-fifth (Kushite) Dynasty (c. 742-c. 656). Assyria was beginning to expand westward; under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (c. 685-627 b.c.e.), it vied for control of the valley, which led to confrontations with the Kushites.

Psamtik’s ancestors, especially his great-grandfather Tefnakht, had unsuccessfully tried to reunite the land. Necho, his father, pursued a precarious course between the Assyrians and Kushites, trying to carve out a maximum of independence for himself and the principality of Saïs, which he controlled. This political game would prove fatal: He later died on the battlefield in 664 b.c.e.

Life’s Work

A year earlier, Psamtik had participated in a mission to Nineveh together with his father; at that time, Ashurbanipal appointed the two his vassals in Egypt. Necho became king of Memphis and Saïs, while Psamtik (in the Assyrian records called Nabu-shezibanni) was to rule Athribis in the central Delta. On the death of his father, Psamtik became ruler of Memphis and Saïs. An invasion of the Delta by the Kushites forced him to flee to the Assyrians.

He returned in 664 b.c.e. when Ashurbanipal conducted a campaign against Tanutamuni (r. 664-656), a Kushite ruler, which led to the expulsion of the latter and the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians. Psamtik was reinstated and had to pay tribute to his Assyrian overlord. With both great powers removed, Psamtik craftily worked to consolidate his position and to expand his rule. A major step toward this goal was the reorganization of his army; with the help of Gyges of Lydia (c. 705-c. 645 b.c.e.), he hired Carian and Ionian mercenaries—the “bronze men who would make their appearance from the sea” in the romantic account of the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425 b.c.e.). For these soldiers, the first coins were struck in Egypt.

By 657 b.c.e., Psamtik had gained full control over the various principalities of the Delta and Middle Egypt. How he accomplished this is not known in detail. Herodotus relates a fictitious tradition: An oracle had foretold that the one who would perform the divine libation from a bronze helmet would become king of all Egypt. At a ceremony in the temple of Ptah-Hepaistos—so the story goes—the golden cups for the ritual libation were one short and Psamtik quickly took his helmet to perform for the god.

The final unification of Egypt under Psamtik was completed in 656 b.c.e., when Thebes peacefully accepted him. This development was negotiated for Thebes by a local dignitary named Mentuemhat and was formalized by the appointment of Psamtik’s daughter Nitocris as “Wife of Amen,” the priestess who controlled the economic resources of the temple of the Theban god Amen at this time. With great pomp and lavish gifts, the young Nitocris, probably in her teens at the time, sailed to Thebes. Since Psamtik refrained from any interference in prevailing political situations, he did not stir up any opposition; Thebes remained an integral part of Egypt for the next 130 years.

Following the expansion into Thebes, Psamtik was faced with an attack from Libya; some of the invaders were former Delta princes who had fled there. In 655 b.c.e. he repelled this last challenge to his rule. To prevent any recurrence of outside attacks, he set up garrisons at Egypt’s borders, such as Elephantine in the south and Daphne in the northeast. The troops stationed there were foreign mercenaries, including Greeks, Hebrews, and Carians.

By 655 b.c.e. Psamtik not only had consolidated his rule over Egypt but also was able to shed his dependence on an Assyria exhausted from years of incessant warfare and growing internal tensions. A period of peace and economic renewal was inaugurated for Egypt. Memories of Egypt’s former greatness were carefully cultivated, leading to a conscious antiquarianism that found its most visible expression in the arts, where the style of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Age, served as model. This interest in the past also had its impact on the administration of the country, as indicated by the reappearance of official titles after an absence of fifteen hundred years. The motive seems to have been a desire to emulate the achievements of the past, an illusion sustained by the prosperity following half a millennium of internal strife, political insignificance, and economic stagnation. Despite the antiquarian mold, there were numerous intellectual impulses. The traditional way of writing became increasingly replaced by a smoother, more cursive script called demotic. Medicine flourished, especially in Saïs. There was religious fervor, and the cults of Isis and Amen, among others, profited.

The long reign of Psamtik coincided with major shifts in the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean basin. Assyria, which at the beginning of his reign had been the dominant nation, was losing its importance. Following years of external and internal strife, it was no longer able to exercise influence in Syria and Palestine. In return for military assistance to Assyria, Psamtik was able to expand Egypt’s political might northward, filling the vacuum that developed in the Levant as a result of Assyria’s withdrawal. By 612 b.c.e. Egypt’s control over parts of Lebanon and Palestine was reestablished, while Psamtik joined the Assyrians in their fight against the Babylonians under Nabopalassar (r. c. 626-605) in 616 and 610 b.c.e. Ashdod was seized by Psamtik, but the Egyptian did not concern himself with the affairs of Judah, which under Josiah (c. 648-609 b.c.e.) was concentrating on religious reforms. Being landlocked at the time, Judah did not fall into the overall political plan Psamtik followed at this time in the Levant.

Unlike any of his predecessors on the throne, Psamtik was interested in making Egypt into a naval power on the Mediterranean and later also on the Red Sea. It is not clear from where the technical expertise came, but some Greek participation is feasible. These naval plans coincided with the political expansion into Palestine. Psamtik prepared the basis for Egypt’s subsequent role as a truly international power, not only in its traditional land-based form but also as a naval force, culminating in the construction of a canal linking the Mediterranean—via the Nile system—to the Red Sea and the first known circumnavigation of Africa, which took place under his son and successor Necho II (r. 610-595 b.c.e.).

Significance

When Psamtik I died in 610, he left an entirely different Egypt from the one with which he began his reign fifty-four years earlier. Caught between the Kushites and the Assyrians, the political ambitions of the local ruler of Memphis and Saïs faced considerable odds, which were overcome. Since the unification of Egypt was achieved peacefully, however, it did not generate new tensions; instead, it marked the beginning of a period of political, cultural, and economic flowering, known as the Saite Renaissance, which lasted until the Persian invasion in 525 b.c.e. Marked by a reawakened national spirit, which took the glorious past, especially the Pyramid Age, as its model, Egypt’s last fully indigenous period was a time when the land of the pharaohs exerted considerable cultural influence, on the Greeks especially. Egypt developed its Hellenic contacts, in the process entering the Mediterranean theater. A void in the international political structure not only gave Egypt the opportunity to consolidate its newly attained national identity but also offered the country the chance to become once more a major power, bringing the coastal regions of part of Syria and Palestine under Egyptian authority.

Bibliography

Assmann, Jan. The Mind of Egypt. Translated by Andrew Jenkins. New York: Henry Holt, 2002. This rather dense book discusses the antiquarianism of the late period dynasties in looking backward to and modeling themselves on the Old Kingdom.

Clayton, Peter A. Chronicle of the Pharaohs. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994. This brief overview of Egyptian chronology provides a reign-by-reign account of all known pharaohs of Egypt. Psamtik is covered in the section on the Late Period. Includes a very useful section on the five royal names of the pharaohs, helping to clarify one of the more confusing aspects of Egyptian history.

Gardiner, Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. This volume is a fine general account of the history of ancient Egypt. Includes a short bibliography, some illustrations, and an index.

Kitchen, K. A. The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, 1100-650 B.C. Warminster, Pa.: Aris and Phillips, 1973. A well-documented, authoritative study; discusses the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, beginning with Psamtik, extensively. General bibliography.

Spanlinger, Anthony. “Psammetichus, King of Egypt: I.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 13 (1976): 133-147. The only scholarly treatment of Psamtik written in English. Includes citations.