Taharqa (Khunefertemre)
690 BCE–664 BCE · Third-Intermediate · Napata / Jebel Barkal
Taharqa (throne-name Khunefertemre) was the greatest of the Kushite pharaohs of Dynasty 25, reigning in the Late Period around 690-664 BCE (Shaw's conventional dates). He was a vigorous builder, leaving major monuments at Karnak in Egypt and at sites across his Nubian homeland, and his early reign was a period of prosperity and ambitious construction. His later years were dominated by the climactic wars with the rising Assyrian empire: the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and then Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt and sacked Memphis, driving the Kushites south. He is widely identified with 'Tirhakah king of Cush' named in the biblical account of Sennacherib's campaign; this cross-stream identification is broadly accepted but is offered here as a scholarly proposal rather than a settled fact. His reign marks both the height and the beginning of the end of Kushite power in Egypt.
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Napata / Jebel Barkal
What they did here
The Kushite homeland and royal-religious centre in Nubia.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Taharqa (Khunefertemre)’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Taharqa (Khunefertemre)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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