Piye - Reign Length

Reign Length

Piye adopted two throne names: Usimare and Sneferre during his reign and was much more passionate (in common with many kings of Nubia) about the worship of the god Amun. He revitalised the moribund Great Temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal, which was first built under Thutmose III of the New Kingdom by employing numerous sculptors and stonemasons from Egypt to renew the temple. He was once thought to have also used the throne name 'Menkheperre' ("the Manifestation of Ra abides") but this prenomen has now been recognised as belonging to a local Theban king named Ini instead who was a contemporary of Piye. Piye's Highest known Date was long thought to be the Year 24 III Akhet day 10 date mentioned in the "Smaller Dakhla Stela" (Ashmolean Museum No.1894) from his reign. This sandstone stela measures 81.5 cm by 39.5 cm and was discovered from the Sutekh temple at Mut al-Kharib in the Western Desert Oasis town of Dakhla, according to a JEA 54(1968) article by Jac Janssen. However, in early 2006, the Tomb of the Southern Vizier Padiamonet, son of Pamiu, was discovered in the third Upper Terrace of Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary Temple at Deir El-Bahari by the Polish Mission for the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology. It was carved approximately 8 metres into the rock face of the temple cliff in an area where several other Third Intermediate Period and Late Period burials have also been discovered. According to this article in the Polish news site Nauka w Polsce (Science & Scholarship in Poland), Padiamonet's tomb contains a burial inscription which is dated to Year 27 of Piye. Dr. Zbigniew Szafrański, Director of the Polish Mission, states regarding the find:

Szafrański further notes that the Mummy cartonnage (a cover in which the mummy is placed) found in Padiamonet's burial chamber featured "beautiful, ornate, colourful pictures you can read in hieroglyphs the name of the Vizier. It is also visible on the fragments of the bandages."

The Great Temple at Gebel Barkal contains carved relief scenes depicting Piye celebrating a Heb Sed Festival but there is some doubt among scholars as to whether it portrayed a genuine Sed Feast or was merely Anticipatory. Under the latter scenario, Piye would have planned to hold a Jubilee Festival in this Temple in his 30th Year—hence his recruitment of Egypt's Artisans to decorate it—but died before this event took place.

While Piye's precise reign length is still unknown, this new find and his subsequently higher Year 27 date affirms the traditional view that Piye lived into his Year 30 and celebrated his Jubilee that year. Kenneth Kitchen in his book, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, has suggested a reign of 31 years for Piye based on the Year 7 donation stela of a certain Shepsesre Tefnakht whom he viewed as Piye's opponent. However, this stela is now believed to refer instead to a second later Saite king called Tefnakht II from the late Nubian era because it is almost similar in style and format to a newly revealed donation stela—from a private collection—which is dated to Year 2 of Necho I's reign. (This new document was analysed by Olivier Perdu in CRAIBL 2002) Hence, no reliance can be placed on the Year 8 stela of Shepsesre Tefnakht to determine Piye's reign length. However, Dr Szafrański's recent discovery suggests that the Gebel Barkal Heb Sed scenes are genuine and supports the conventional view that Piye enjoyed a reign of roughly three full decades. More recently, in the February 2008 issue of National Geographic, Robert Draper wrote that Piye ruled for 35 years and invaded all of Egypt in his 20th regnal year in about 730 BC; however, no archaeological source gives Piye a reign of more than 31 years at present.

Piye was buried east of his Pyramid, down a stairway of 19 steps opened to the east leading to the burial chamber cut into the bedrock as an open trench and covered with a corbelled masonry roof. Piankhi's body had been placed on a bed which rested in the middle of the chamber on a stone bench with its four corners cut away to receive the legs of the bed, so that the bed platform lay directly on the bench. Beside the pyramid (the first pharaoh to receive such an entombment in more than 500 years) were also buried his four favorite horses at el-Kurru near Gebel Barkal in what is now Northern Sudan. This site would be also occupied by the tombs of several later members of the dynasty.

The Sudanese people consider Piye and Taharqa as historical figures and regarded more than the other pharaohs from the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt.