Piye (Piankhi)
747 BCE–716 BCE · Third-Intermediate
Piye (also rendered Piankhi) was a Kushite king from Napata in Nubia who conquered Egypt and founded the Kushite Dynasty 25, conventionally dated to around 747-716 BCE in the Third Intermediate Period. He recorded his northward campaign on a magnificent Victory Stele, one of the great literary-historical monuments of ancient Egypt, in which he presents himself not as a foreign conqueror but as a pious restorer of Egyptian tradition and a devotee of Amun. His conquest brought the whole Nile valley, from the Sudan to the Mediterranean, under Kushite rule.
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The king from the south who conquered Egypt
Around 727 BCE Piye, a king based at Napata in Nubia (in what is now Sudan), marched north and brought Egypt under his control, founding its 25th Dynasty. His campaign is recorded in vivid detail on a large granite victory stela, and kings from the south went on to rule Egypt for the better part of a century.
How we know
Piye succeeded Kashta c. 747 BCE; his conquest campaign (20th regnal year) dates c. 727 BCE, recorded on his Gebel Barkal Victory Stela; 25th (Kushite) Dynasty c. 747/727–656 BCE.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Piye (Piankhi)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Jewish world
Mesopotamian world
Graeco-Roman world
Works
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