Piankh or Payankh was a High Priest of Amun during the 21st Dynasty. Piankh has been assumed to be a son of Herihor and the heir to the Theban office, however recent studies have shown that Piankh was actually Herihor's Predecessor. Piankh also held positions as the King's scribe, King's son of Kush, Overseer of the granaries, and commander of the archers of Upper Egypt. Piankh in his position as Viceroy of Kush, would lead an army into Nubia where he would confront a Pinehesy of the former Viceroy of Kush. There is a debate because Piankh would have been living in Nubia, if he wanted to meet them in battle or secretly negotiate with Pinehesy. Piankh may have not been a loyal servant of Ramesses XI because of the negotiations that were taking place between Piankh and Pinhesy. While it is not known as to what Piankh's motivations were he would reunify the viceroyalty and the High priesthood in Kush after defeating Pinehesy. However, this reunification would only last until his death when Pinehesy would take back his position of power.
Piankh in his campaigns against Pinhesy, Piankh would finance his campaign through the sacking of Necropolis. Sacking of Necropolis would become a policy viceroyalty made by Piankh that would be continued under the priesthood after his death.
Background While the High Priest of Amun Piankh (or Payankh) has been assumed to be a son-in-law of Herihor and his heir to the Theban office of the High Priest of Amun, recent studies by Karl Jansen-Winkeln of the surviving temple inscriptions and monumental works by Herihor and Piankh in Upper Egypt imply that Piankh was actually Herihor's predecessor.Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Das Ende des Neuen Reiches, ZAS 119 (1992), pp.22-37Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, p.309
Piankh held a number of official positions including High Priest of Amun,Petrie, A History of Egypt, Part Three, p. 203 King's scribe, King's son of Kush, Overseer of the foreign countries to the South, overseer of the granaries and commander of the archers of the whole of [Upper] Egypt.Cerny, Ostraca Hier. CGC, pp. 75-76 He was succeeded in office by either Herihor or his son Pinedjem.
Family The identity of Piankh's wife has not been established beyond doubt. In the Temple of Luxor there is a graffito of which only rudimentary traces of the beginning of her name have survived. These have been interpreted as either an "h" (Gardiner's Sign List V28, supporting Hrere) or as "ndjm" (Gardiner's Sign List M29).Taylor, in: Eyre (ed.), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of Egyptologists, 1149. The latter solution would favour a model in which Piankh was married to a lady Nodjmet. Recently it has been argued that there were actually two ladies called Nodjmet: the first one, Nodjmet A, the wife of Piankh and mother of Herihor; the second one, Nodjmet B, the wife of Herihor.Ad Thijs, Nodjmet A, Daughter of Amenhotep, Wife of Piankh and Mother of Herihor, ZÄS 140 (2013), 54-69 Whereas the identity of his wife remains uncertain, it is beyond doubt that he had a son called Pinedjem.Michael Rice, Who's Who in Ancient Egypt, Routledge 1999, pp.153f.
Military activity
In year 10 of the Whm Mswt Piankh, in his position as Viceroy of Kush, led an army into Nubia with the apparent aim to 'meet' a certain Pinehesy, probably the former Viceroy of Kush. Some ten years earlier, just before the start of the Whm mswt, Pinehesy had been chased out of the Thebaid, following his role in suppressing the High Priest of Amun Amenhotep. It is believed that since then he lived in Nubia as an enemy of the state. Although it is often postulated that it was the aim of this expedition to fight Pinehesy,László Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization, Brill Academic Publishers 1997 this is by no means certain.
The sources are actually ambiguous on this point and the political climate may well have changed over the years. There is some evidence that at this time Piankh may no longer have been a loyal servant of Ramesses XI, which allows for the possibility that he was secretly negotiating with Pinehesy,A. Niwiński, in: I. Gamer-Wallert & W. Helck (eds), Gegengabe (Festschrift Emma Brunner-Traut), Tübingen 1992, 257-258 Ad Thijs, "I was thrown out from my city" -Fecht's views on Pap. Pushkin 127 in a new light, SAK 35 (2006), 323-324, this is a paragraph which erroneously got dropped from SAK 31 (2003), 299 possibly even plotting against the reigning king.
E. Wente wrote: "One has the impression that the viceroy and his Nubian troops were loyalists, for the remarks made by his opponent Piankh in letter No. 301 are quite disparaging of the pharaoh, Ramesses XI."E. Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt, Atlanta 1990, 171; the number 301 is only given to this letter in this particular publication In this letter, better known as LRL no. 21, Piankh remarks:E. Wente, Late Ramesside Letters, SAOC 33, 1967, 53.
In the same letter and two others (LRL no. 34 and no. 35) Piankh gives the order to the Scribe of the Necropolis Tjaroy (=Dhutmose), Nodjmet and a certain Payshuuben to secretly arrest and question two Medjay policemen about certain things they had apparently said:E. Wente, Late Ramesside Letters, SAOC 33, 1967, 53.
It has been argued that, given Piankh's prominent position at the time, the secrecy can only have concerned the king.Ad Thijs, The Troubled Careers of Amenhotep and Panehsy: The High Priest of Amun and the Viceroy of Kush under the Last Ramessides, SAK 31 (2003), 301-302Jennifer Palmer, Birmingham Egyptology Journal 2014.2, 10-11 If this is correct, it follows that the political situation of the time must have been very complex. Unfortunately, due to the very limited nature of the sources, the exact relationships between the three main protagonists, Piankh, Pinehesy and Ramesses XI remain far from clear. Some scholars believe that the Nubian campaign was part of an ongoing power struggle between the High Priest of Amun and the Viceroy of Kush.e.g. Jennifer Palmer, Birmingham Egyptology Journal 2014.2, 11 However, it is equally possible that Piankh came to the rescue of Pinehesy against some common enemy. The verb often translated as "to attack" only means "to meet/ to go to".E. Wente, Late Ramesside Letters, SAOC 33, 1967, 24, 25 In fact, neither the aim of the expedition nor its outcome are beyond doubt.
While there is still debate about whether or not Piankh was working or at war with Pinehesy, Piankh's war would bring Pinehesy career to an end. While Piankh would combine Pinehesy's viceroyalty and high priesthood, after defeating Pinehesy, Piankhs death would lead to the re-separation of the viceroyalty in Nubia.
Piankh and Sacking of Necropolis To finance his military campaigns, Piankh put in place a policy of locating old tombs to sack their treasures. The priests of Amun scoured the Valley of Kings and the Theban hills to find tombs, which were stripped of valuables, rewrapped and placed in group graves (caches). This policy was continued under the priesthoods of Herihor and Pinedjem I.Nicholas Reeves and Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings, Thames & Hudson, p. 205
References
Further reading Morris L. Bierbrier, Hrere, Wife of the High Priest Paiankh, JNES 32 (1973), 311 Gerard P.F. Broekman, The founders of the twenty-first dynasty and their family relationships, GM 191 (2002), 11-18 Arno Egberts, Piankh, Herihor, Dhutmose and Butehamun: a fresh look at O. Cairo CG 25744 and 25745, GM 160 (1997), 23-25 Jeremy Goldberg, Was Piankh the Son of Herihor After All?, GM 174 (2000), 49-58 Steven R.W. Gregory, Piankh and Herihor: Art, Ostraca, and Accession in Perspective, Birmingham Egyptology Journal 2013, 1: 5-18 Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Das Ende des Neuen Reiches, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde ZÄS 119 (1992), 22-37 Jennifer Palmer, The High Priests of Amun at the End of the Twentieth Dynasty, Birmingham Egyptology Journal 2014.2, 1-22 V. Poláček, Quelques remarques sur les <<Procès Secrets>> en Ancienne Égypte, CdÉ 37 (1962), 23-30 Ursula Rößler-Köhler, Piankh - Nedjemet - Anchefenmut - eine Kleinigkeit, GM 167 (1998), 7-8 Ramadan El-Sayed, Piankh, Fils de Hérihor, BIFAO 78 (1978), 199-218 John Taylor, Nodjmet, Payankh and Herihor: The end of the New Kingdom reconsidered, in Christopher J. Eyre (ed), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists, Leuven 1998, 1143-1155 Ad Thijs, The Troubled Careers of Amenhotep and Panehsy: The High Priest of Amun and the Viceroy of Kush under the Last Ramessides, SAK 31 (2003), 289-306