Psusennes II [Greek: Ψουσέννης; Egyptian p3-sb3-ḫˁỉ--nỉwt Pasebakhaennuit],Throne Name Titkheperure, was the last king of the Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt.
Early life Family Psusennes II (identical with Psusennes III) was the son of High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem II, and born to Istemkheb D. His parents were siblings, children of High Priest of Amun, Menkheteperre, son of Pinedjem I and born to Duathathor-Henuttawy, daughter of Ramesses XI and born to Tentamon of the previous 20th dynasty. King Psusennes I was also a son of Pinedjem I and Henuttawy.
He married [...], daughter of [...] and born to [...]. His daughter Maatkare B was the Great Royal Wife of Osorkon I of the next 22nd dynasty.Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3 Another daughter may have been Tentsepeh B who became the wife of High Priest of Ptah, Shedsu-nefertum.Kitchen 1996
Career In Year 10 of Siamun, Pinedjem II died and was succeeded by Psusennes III (thought to be identical with Psusennes II). At Thebes, he succeeded his father as High Priest of Amun becoming the de facto ruler of Upper Egypt.
Reign Accession In the order of succession, Psusennes II was neither a son of Psusennes I or Siamun. Instead he succeeded his cousin Siamun under uncertain circumstances.
His royal name means "Image of the transformations of Re" in Egyptian.Peter Clayton, Chronology of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. p.178 Psusennes II is often considered the same person as the High-Priest of Amun known as Psusennes III.Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss & David Warburton (editors), Ancient Egyptian Chronology (Handbook of Oriental Studies), Brill: 2006, p.221 Karl Jansen-Winkeln in his treatment for the 'Dynasty 21' chapter of this book writes that "the evidence weighs heavily in favour of his (ie. Psusennes III) being one and the same man, who was first HP and then successor to King Siamun in Tanis, without giving up his Theban office." The Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln notes that an important graffito from the Temple of Abydos contains the complete titles of a king Tyetkheperre Setepenre Pasebakhaenniut Meryamun "who is simultaneously called the HPA (i.e., High Priest of Amun) and supreme military commander."Jansen-Winkeln in Hornung, Krauss & Warburton, p.222 This suggests that Psusennes was both king at Tanis and the High Priest in Thebes at the same time, meaning he did not resign his office as High Priest of Amun during his reign.Jansen-Winkeln in Hornung, Krauss & Warburton, p.223 The few contemporary attestations from his reign include the aforementioned graffito in Seti I's Abydos temple, an ostracon from Umm el-Qa'ab, an affiliation at Karnak and his presumed burial – which consists of a gilded coffin with a royal uraeus and a mummy, found in an antechamber of Psusennes I's tomb at Tanis.
Reign length Items which can be added to the list of secure attestations of Psusennes II include a Year 5 Mummy linen that was written with the High Priest Psusennes III's name. It is generally assumed that a Year 13 III Peret 10+X date in fragment 3B, line 6 of the Karnak Priestly Annals belongs to his reign.K.A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC) 3rd ed., Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd, p.423 Unfortunately, however, the king's name is not stated and the only thing which is certain is that the fragment must be dated after Siamun's reign whose Year 17 is mentioned in lines 3–5.Kitchen, p.423 Hence, it belongs to either Psusennes II or possibly Shoshenq I's reign.
Recently, the first conclusive date for king Psusennes II was revealed in a newly published priestly annal stone block. This document, which has been designated as 'Block Karnak 94, CL 2149,' records the induction of a priest named Nesankhefenmaat into the chapel of Amun-Re within the Karnak precinct in Year 11 the first month of Shemu day 13 of a king named Psusennes according to Frederic Payraudeau.Frederic Payraudeau, De nouvelles annales sacerdotales de Siamon, Psousennès II et Osorkon Ier., BIFAO 108 (2008), p.294 The preceding line of this document recorded the induction of Nesankhefenmaat's father, a certain Nesamun, into the priesthood of Amun-Re in king Siamun's reign.Payraudeau, BIFAO 108, p.294 Siamun was the predecessor of Psusennes II at Tanis. The identification of the aforementioned Psusennes with Psusennes II is certain since the same fragmentary annal document next records—in the following line—the induction of Hor, the son of Nesankhefenmaat, into the priesthood of the chapel of Amun-Re at Karnak in Year 3 the second month of Akhet day 14 of king Osorkon I's reign just one generation later.—with Shoshenq I's 21-year reign being skipped over. This would not be unexpected since most Egyptologists believe that a generation in Egyptian society lasted a minimum of 25 years and a maximum of 30 years.Karl Jansen-Winkeln, The Relevance of Genealogical Information for Egyptian Chronology, Äegypte und Levante 16, (2006), pp.266-271 Therefore, the Year 11 date can only be assigned to Psusennes II and constitutes the first securely attested date for this pharaoh's reign.
The British Egyptologist Aidan Dodson also accepts this new evidence from Frederic Payraudeau's discovery of this new unknown fragment of the Karnak priestly annals and has now discarded his previously published the late 1980s theory that Psusennes II's reign lay entirely within the reign of Shoshenq I.Aidan Dodson, "The Transition between the 21st and 22nd Dynasties Revisited" in The Libyan Period in Egypt, Historical and Cultural Studies into the 21st-24th Dynasties: Proceedings of a Conference at Leiden University, 25–27 October 2007, GPF Broekman, R.J. Demaree & O.E. Kaper (eds.) Peeters, Leuven, 2009. p.103 Dodson notes the recently found annal block document establishes that Psusennes II "was indeed a 'real' king, with a reign that was recognized at Thebes."Dodson, p.103 Dodson also writes that Psusennes II's royal status was confirmed when Jean Yoyotte realized "that a batch of crude faience shabtis bearing the name of a [king] Pasebkhanut (i.e., Psusennes) found in the antechamber of Tanis [Tomb] NRT-III did not belong to the tomb's original owner, Pasebkhanut I, as had originally been assumed, but to the later king of the [same] name."Jean Yoyotte, L'Or des pharaons, Paris, 1987, 136-7 Dodson, pp.103-104 This means that Psusennes II's long-decayed coffin and mummy is located in the debris of this antechamber of Psusennes I's Tanis tomb where Heqakheperre Shoshenq II's coffin and mummy mask was also discovered.Dodson, p.104
Unlike his immediate predecessor and successor – Siamun and Shoshenq I respectively– Psusennes II is generally less well attested in contemporary historical records even though various versions of Manetho's Epitome credit him with either a 14- or a 35-year reign (generally amended to 15 years by most scholars including the British Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen).K.A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (c.1100–650 BC), Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1996. p.531
The German scholar Rolf Krauss has recently argued that Psusennes II's reign was 24 years rather than Manetho's original figure of 14 years.Rolf Krauss, Das wrŝ-Datum aus Jahr 5 von Shoshenq [I], Discussions in Egyptology 62 (2005), pp.43-48 This is based on personal information recorded in the Large Dakhla stela which dates to Year 5 of Shoshenq I; the stela preserves a reference to a land-register from Year 19 of a 'Pharaoh Psusennes'. However, since this document was composed under Shoshenq I, the use of the title Pharaoh before Psusennes here cannot establish whether the king was Psusennes I. The use of Pharaoh as title (as in Pharaoh Shoshenq or Pharaoh Psusennes I) is first attested in the historical records under Siamun.K.A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt [TIPE] (1100–650 BC) 3rd ed., Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd, p.423
Moreover, Frederic Payraudeau has observed—in his BIFAO 108 paper which first document the first secure attestation of Psusennes II in the historical record—that the annal document is a genealogical document recording the induction of Nesankhefenmaat into the chapel of Amun-Re in Year 11 of Psusennes II followed by Hor, Nesankhefenmaat's son, in Year 3 of Osorkon II. Since a generation was close to 25 to 30 years in Ancient Egypt and the 21-year reign of Shoshenq I—the successor of Psusennes II and predecessor of Osorkon II—was already skipped over, this strongly suggests that Psusennes II's reign was much closer to 14 years rather than 24 years for a father (Nesankhefenmaat) to be succeeded by his son (Hor) within a short 25-30 year period argues Payraudeau.F. Payraudeau, ‘De nouvelles annales sacerdotales de Siamon Psousennès II et Osorkon Ier’, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 108 (2008), 293-308
In Year 5 of Shoshenq I, this king and the founder of the 22nd Dynasty, dispatched a certain Ma (i.e., Libyan) subordinate named Wayheset to the desert oasis town of Dakhla in order to restore Shoshenq I's authority over the western oasis region of Upper Egypt. Wayheset's titles include Prince and Governor of the Oasis. His activities are recorded in the Large Dakhla stela.Kitchen, p.290 This stela states that Wayheset adjudicated in a certain water dispute by consulting a land-register which is explicitly dated to Year 19 of a "Pharaoh Psusennes" in order to determine the water rights of a man named Nysu-Bastet.Alan H. Gardiner, The Large Dakhla stela, JEA 19 (1930), pp.19-30 Kitchen notes that this individual made an appeal to the Year 19 cadastral land-register of king Psusennes belonging to his mother, which historians assumed was made some "80 years" before during the reign of Psusennes I. The land register recorded that certain water rights were formerly owned by Nysu-Bastet's mother Tewhunet in Year 19 of a king Psusennes. This ruler was generally assumed by Egyptologists to be Psusennes I rather than Psusennes II since the latter's reign was believed to have lasted only 14–15 years. Based on the land register evidence, Wayheset ordered that these watering rights should now be granted to Nysu-Bastet himself. However, if the oracle dated to Year 19 of Psusennes I as many scholars traditionally assumed, Nysu-Bastet would have been separated from his mother by a total of 80 years from this date into Year 5 of Shoshenq I—a figure which is highly unlikely since Nysu-Bastet would not have waited until extreme old age to uphold his mother's watering rights. This implies that the aforementioned king Psusennes here must be identified with Psusennes II instead—Shoshenq I's immediate predecessor and, more significantly, that Psusennes II enjoyed a minimum reign of 19 years.
The term "mother" in ancient Egypt could also be an allusion to an ancestress, the matriarch of a lineage whereby Nysu-Bastet may have been petitioning for his hereditary water rights that belonged to his grandmother, whose family name was Tewhunet. However, this argument does not account for the use of Pharaoh as a title in the Dakhla stela—a literary device which first occurs late during the reign of Siamun, an Egyptian king who ruled between 45 and 64 years after Year 19 of Psusennes I.