Note 167 — Chapter III

I have already been able to fix the end of the Ramessids, the date of the Tanites and Bubastites, by the date of the accession of Shishak in the Hebrew reckoning; the length of the dynasty of the Tanites in Manetho; and the length of the Bubastites as corrected by the monuments, and the synchronism of the first Olympiad for Petubastis. For the period from the end of the Bubastites to the accession of Sabakon, the important points are the seventh Olympiad for Bocchoris, and the sarcophagus of the Apis of Bokenranef. If Bocchoris came to the throne in the year 753 B.C., Ssheshonk IV. died in the year 780 B.C.; if this was the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth of his reign, the successor of the Apis buried in the thirty-seventh year of Ssheshonk might certainly live to the year 748, the sixth year of Bocchoris according to my reckoning. It is decisive for Sabakon's accession in Egypt that Hoshea of Israel undoubtedly ascended the throne in 734 B.C. (p. 16, note; 48). Shalmanesar IV. of Assyria marched against Israel in the year 726 B.C., when he had discovered the conspiracy of Hoshea with Seveh (Sabakon, p. 69). Hoshea must, therefore, have negotiated with Seveh in 727 B.C. at the latest, and probably earlier. Sabakon must have been previously established on the throne of Egypt. He cannot, therefore, have conquered Egypt later than 730 B.C. Bocchoris therefore reigned 23 years (753-730 B.C.); the time which Manetho allots to Bocchoris, six years, is too short for the completion of his legislation and the attainment of that fame as a legislator which he left behind him, according to the account of the Greeks. That Tirhaka reigned over Meroe and Egypt in the year 702 at the latest, is proved by the battle of Eltekeh, which was fought in 701 B.C. (p. 125). If Seveh, who negotiated with Hoshea, is supposed to be Sabataka, the conquest of Egypt by Sabakon must be put in the year 739. The Apis discovered in the twenty-sixth year of Tirhaka and buried in the twentieth year of Psammetichus, shows that according to the chronology of that period, Psammetichus was regarded as the immediate successor of Tirhaka. According to the reign of 54 years allotted to him by Herodotus and Manetho, Psammetichus begins in 664 B.C., since his death is fixed with certainty in 610 B.C. If Tirhaka's reign over Egypt began in the year 703 B.C., the year 678 would be the twenty-sixth of his reign; the Apis lived down to the twentieth year of the reign of Psammetichus, i. e. down to the year 645 B.C.—consequently 30 years, an age (the number on the inscription is illegible), which even a less carefully tended bull might attain. Tirhaka reigned from 703 to 664 B.C., i. e. 39 years. If the lists of Manetho, according to our excerpts, allow him only 18 years (Syncellus gives 20), this is obviously due to the fact that the reigns of Stephinates, Nechepsus, and Necho, who ought to stand side by side with Tirhaka, with seven, six, and eight years, i. e. with 21 years in all, are deducted from the reign of Tirhaka, in order to place these three princes after him. To the predecessors of Tirhaka, Sabakon and Sebichus, Manetho allows eight and fourteen years. The monuments of Egypt show that Sabakon reigned at least 12 years; Sabakon must, therefore, according to these dates, have begun to reign in Egypt not later than 729 B.C. (664 + 39 + 26). The Assyrian monuments show that Sabakon fought with Sargon at Raphia in the year 720 B.C., and his successor negotiated with him; that Tirhaka fought with Sennacherib in Syria in 701 B.C., and that he was at war with Assurbanipal about the year 666 B.C.