EGYPTIAN
Aidan Dodson, Afterglow of Empire. Egypt from the Fall of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance. AUC Press 2012 (ISBN 978 977 416 5313). Price: £19.95. This book is a distillation of Aidan Dodson’s research going back several decades, along with the inclusion of several new theories taken over from his contemporaries. The result is a very readable, excellent study of one of the more complicated periods of Egyptian history, and moreover, is the first synthesis of the Third Intermediate Period to appear in book form since Kitchen’s seminal Third Intermediate Period, first published four decades ago. Dodson begins with the last years of the Twentieth Dynasty, more specifically the reigns of Ramesses IX-XI. He is a supporter of Ad Thijs’ controversial proposal that the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI overlap. This theory is rejected by most Egyptologists, but the crucial starting point is hard to ignore. The Tomb Robbery Papyri refer to various trials which took place during the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI. In Year 16 of Ramesses IX, papyrus BM 10054 refers to a group of thieves who were ferried across the river by the fisherman Panakhtemopet, who was given a share of the spoils. In other papyri, dated to the early years of the wHm-mswt era, which began in Year 19 of Ramesses XI, the same fisherman appears ferrying the same thieves across the river. Conventionally these two attestations would thus be 25 years apart. Either the later papyri refer back to an event which happened a quarter of a century earlier, or the same group of thieves, allied with the same fisherman, were still active twenty-five years later, or, as Thijs maintains, Year 19 of Ramesses XI closely follows Year 16 of Ramesses IX. In this scenario Ramesses XI would be a northern king ruling contemporaneously with Ramesses IX and X, and the wHm-mswt era would then be a new dating system adopted by Ramesses XI once the old line of Ramesses IX-X had died out, leaving Ramesses XI in control of the whole country. Chapters Two and Three deal with the Twenty-First Dynasty and the TwentySecond Dynasty down to the reign of Osorkon II. These sections call for little comment. Dodson emphasizes the dichotomy between Tanis, home of the Twenty-First Dynasty, and a quasi-independent Thebes, with its own line of priest-kings, and a de facto reunification of the country under Sheshonq I. With Chapter Four, however, we are again back in the realms of controversy. Dodson endorses the view that Takeloth II was not a Tanite king and therefore does not belong in the Twenty-Second Dynasty, a position vehemently denied by Kitchen but generally accepted in most recent articles. The upshot of this is that the reign of Sheshonq III follows immediately after that of Osorkon II. During these reigns it seems that Egypt fragmented into a series of multiple chiefdoms, based on a loose confederation of peers, which might equate with Libyan tribal associations. This is a theory proposed by Ritner and, as Dodson writes, whilst ‘one remains nervous
ARCHAEOLOGY
Bookshelf
at accepting this model as the cause of the gradual breakdown of the centralised state, which gathers pace following Osorkon II’s death, it certainly eases understanding of how fragmentation accelerated once the dam had been cracked.’ (p.114). Chapter Five deals with the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty down to the reign of Taharqo. Starting with an overview of Nubia during the Third Intermediate Period, Dodson discusses the el-Kurru cemetery, siding with those who believe the necropolis spans the entire Third Intermediate Period. Dodson accepts that northern expansion into Egypt started during the reign of Kashta, but a recent discovery by the German Archaeological Institute has shown that a monumental building was erected at Elephantine during the reign of Iny - a probable Theban/Heracleopolite king. Dodson suggests that Piye first intervened in Egypt on the demise of Takeloth III, whose death may have been followed by internal troubles, since he was not succeeded by any of his sons, but by his brother, Rudamun. However, this scenario might need to be revised in the light of the recent discovery of Iny’s monumental building. Nevertheless it is clear from the Piye stela that before his conquest of Egypt he was indeed in control of a number of fortresses in southern Egypt. As is well known, Piye came into contact with a number of local chieftains and four kings, including Osorkon (IV) of Bubastis, whom Dodson, quite rightly, equates with the king Usermaatre Osorkonu depicted on a series of reused blocks at Tanis. The final chapter deals with the Assyrian invasions under Tanutamun and a thumb nail sketch of the history of Egypt during the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. The book is rounded off by a number of appendices, the first three of which are concerned with the absolute chronology of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. As Dodson points out the earliest ‘fixed’ absolute date is the accession of Taharqo in 690 BC, 42
whilst everything earlier is dependent on astronomical observations and correlations with the Assyrian and Israelite King Lists. These suggest that Rehoboam’s year 5, in which Shishak, king of Egypt, conquered Jerusalem, fell in 925 BC. This Shishak is generally equated with Sheshonq I, whom Dodson believes - accepting Kraus’ argument (DE 62, 2005, 43-48) - began to reign in 943 BC. As Dodson strongly favours Thijs’ reconstruction of the overlap of Ramesses XI with the reigns of Ramesses IX and X, he suggests that Ramesses II came to the throne in 1265 BC. This, however, seems unlikely, since Gernot Wilhelm, as the result of joining Hittite texts KBo 50.24 + KUB 19.15, has plausibly equated Year 1 of Horemheb with Year 8/9 of Mursilis II, making Horemheb accede to the throne in 1314/1313 BC. (G. Wilhelm, ‘Mursilis II. Konflikt mit Ägypten und Haremhabs Thronbesteigung’, in WdO 39, 2009, 108-116). If, as is now generally agreed, Horemheb ruled for only fifteen years he would have died in 1300/1299 BC, with the implication that Ramesses II must have come to the throne around 1290 BC. Nevertheless this should not detract from an excellent book, well researched, well written and well illustrated throughout. It is a book I would thoroughly recommend to any student interested in the Third Intermediate Period. Every now and again there comes a book which one should buy - this is such a book. DAVID ASTON David Gange, Dialogues with the Dead: Egyptology in British Culture and Religion, 1822-1922. Oxford University Press, 2013 (ISBN 978 0 19 965310 2). Price £75. This is a multi-faceted and far-reaching study into British Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Within this book David Gange plots the changing relationship between Britain and ancient Egypt, building the layers of context that framed British understanding and interpretations of the ancient civilization and, in turn, of contemporary Egypt. He demonstrates how transformations in British cultural life shaped Egyptology and explores the wider impact Egyptology had upon the society within which it developed. In addressing how ancient Egypt became entangled in so many aspects of British society, this study encompasses a wide range of subjects from religion, politics, education, art, literature, classical studies, and the changing media, to the latest anthropological and scientific theories. As Gange notes, the ‘very nature of the debates with which Egyptology intersected meant it could never operate in isolation’. The book is structured chronologically and divided into six sections, with the title of each drawing on parallels with ancient Egyptian chronology. Beginning with ‘The Accession of Menes’, Gange guides the reader through the ‘Old Kingdom’, ‘First Intermediate Period’, ‘Middle Kingdom’, ‘Second Intermediate Period’ and ‘New Kingdom’ of British Egyptology. The introduction also includes an