mentioned on the canopic jars1 of her daughter Tasbastperu, who was also attached to the service of Amen.

SHEPENAPT I. was the great heiress of this family. She was the daughter of Uasarkon II., and of his queen Ka-ra-ma. When the old king Takeleth I. associated his son Uasarkon II. on the throne, the young princess Shepenapt seems to have been officially included in the regency, and appears in the temple of Osiris at Karnak with the two kings.3

crown.

Her position must, for some reason, have been an extraordinary one, since she was honoured by her father and grandfather even during the lifetime of her mother Queen Ka-ra-ma, from whom she must have inherited her That the queen Ka-ra-ma was still living at this time, seems certain from the sculptures at Bubastis, where she accompanies the king Uasarkon when he officiates as sole ruler, after the death of his father Takeleth; whereas it was before Takeleth died that the official rights of the young princess Shepenapt were apparently recognized.

A curious feature of her history is that, although the chief heiress, she is not mentioned as having married either one of her father's heirs. These were Sheshenq II. and Takeleth II.; but neither appears in connection with Shepenapt. Perhaps an Perhaps an early death accounts for her sudden disappearance.

The place in which one might have expected to find her is occupied by

NESI-NEB-ASHERU, the

Shepenapt's brother and co-heir.

queen of Sheshenq II.,

The wife of Sheshenq is named with their son Horsiast,

on a figure of the god Bes.

One other queen appears at the close of the XXIInd dynasty,

THENT-AMEN-APT, the wife of Sheshenq III. The base

1 L., D., iii, 255 e, h.

• Rec., xxii, 131.

2 P., H.E., iii, 245.

A., B. Cat., 33.

of a diorite statue is inscribed by an official who was "keeper of the house of the queen, . . . doing the things of "the great chief queen of his Majesty, Thent-amen-apt.”1

XXIIIRD DYNASTY.

Bubastis. About 750 B.C.

Two or three kings of a new family form a short dynasty of only about thirty years' duration, which intervened between the close of the XXIInd and the Ethiopian conquest of all Egypt. The kings of the XXIIIrd dynasty were from Bubastis, and have left few records. Among them only one queen appears,

TA-DU-BAST. From her name, she may be supposed a Bubastite princess, probably the wife of Pedubast, first king of the dynasty.

She was the royal mother of a king Uasarkon, a relationship named on a silver-gilt ægis of the goddess Bast, which was found at Bubastis. As the mothers of the other two kings of this name are known, Ta-du-bast's son must have been Uasarkon III.

F.P. Coll. ; P., H.E., iii, 256.

2 Louvre. P., C.E., 314.

CHAPTER XV.

QUEENS OF THE ETHIOPIAN DYNASTY.

From about 748 to 664 B.C.1

EGYPT had now arrived at a period when the united kingdom of the North and South, was practically dissolved. The land was split up into many small principalities, each governed by a petty ruler. "The divisions of the Delta "were many. We find two kings, one at Bubastis, and "the other perhaps at the Bitter Lakes; four Libyan Chiefs "who wear feathers, at Mendes, Sebennytos, Pasopd and "Busiris; two of whom had split off Hermopolis and Xoïs "for their sons; a royal heir at Athribis; and chiefs at Leontopolis, Letopolis and Saïs; also two others without "districts named. Besides all these, the latest branch of "Westerners who came in held all the Libyan side under "a chief. Thus there were 16 rulers in the Delta. In Upper Egypt, there was a king at Hermopolis, a heq prince at Herakleopolis, and a prince ruling from the "Fayûm down to Cairo." ("Babylon.")

Under such conditions, the country would have fallen an easy prey to the first energetic prince who had chosen to attack it. The danger of a foreign conquest was averted by Pankhy, an Ethiopian chief.

The kingdom of Ethiopia is supposed to have been originally founded by one of the princes of the priestly

■ These dates reckon from the rise of the Ethiopians, whose first generation overlapped the XXIIlrd. The Ethiopian Dominion is usually known as the XXVth dynasty, the XXIVth having included a single king only.

2 PETRIE, H.E., vol. iii, 269–70.

dynasty, a descendant of Herhor.1 Pankhy, coming from this stock, would have had a more legitimate claim to the crown of Egypt than most of the petty rulers who divided the sovereignty. He subdued the whole country without much difficulty, many of the towns welcoming him as their deliverer, while others submitted to the force of his arms.

To those chiefs who made no opposition, Pankhy accorded easy enough terms, while to those holding out against him he said, “If a moment passeth without opening "to me, behold ye are reckoned as conquered, and this is painful to the king. Close not the gates of your life. . . . "Behold ye, there are two ways before you, choose as ye "will; open, and ye live; close, and ye die. His Majesty "loveth that Memphis be safe and sound, and that even the 66 children weep not."

The Ethiopian Dominion of Egypt, founded by Pankhy I., lasted for over eighty years. A curious family arrangement appears at this time. Pankhy and his successors had each two great queens, who were apparently of equal rank and importance, one of whom lived at Napata, the capital of Ethiopia, while the other held her court at Thebes. Both were royal heiresses, and exercised a regal authority as representatives of the sovereign power in their respective cities.

The practice of sister-marriages still prevailed, and the succession continued to be strictly in the female line.

A stela, from about the year 625 B.C., gives a series of eight Ethiopian queens in direct descent, called "Mistresses of Kush." Each princess has the cartouche, and is called the "sister" of the king. These were the high priestess rulers of Napata; where one appears in connection with a sister queen of Thebes, she is called "Mistress of Nubia," while the Theban priestess bears the title, "Mistress of Egypt." 1 BRUGSCH, E.P., 387 ; MASPERO, P.E., 169.

2 Commemorative Stela of Pankhy, erected at Napata, now Gebel Barkal. In Cairo Mus. Published by BRUGSCH, Hist., ii, 231; Mon. Div., 1-6 ; R.P., ii, 81 ; GRIFFITH, Egyptian Literature, 5275. ' Mon. Div., 9; R.P., vi, 76 ; P., H.E., iii, 309.