Napatan Temples: a case Study from Gebel Barkal

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VIII. The Coronation Complex at Gebel Barkal: A Napatan Revival of a New Kingdom Original.
The most complete account of the Napatan coronation at Barkal derives from the highly propagandistic Coronation Stele of Aspelta (FHN I 232-244). Here the king states that after the unexpected death of Anlamani, his predecessor (and brother), the army and all the great officials gathered at Gebel Barkal to ask the priests to solicit the god to signify his choice for successor. The priests, army commanders and officials then went into the temple and, prostrating themselves before the god, asked him to select the new king, who, it is clear, had been serving in the army with many of the other brothers of the former king. When these men were paraded before Amun, he declined to choose any of them initially and then selected Aspelta. When the god said to the officials, "This is your king," they immediately fell down "on their bellies" and worshiped him, "giving praise to this god because of the mighty thing he (Amun) did to his son whom he loves" (FHN I 241). The new king had suddenly been transformed from familiar comrade to "god", and he had obviously united with Amun to become his ka. At this point, we are told, Aspelta entered the sanctuary. There he found the crowns and scepters of the former kings of Kush. And after conversing with the god, he put on the crown of Anlamani and stepped forth into the open again, where he appeared to the assembled throngs "as Re shines in heaven."
A few more details about the choreography of the coronation are supplied by Irike-amanote, who informs us that his selection to the throne was finalized at Meroe upon the death of his predecessor Talakhamani. As the time of the New Year ceremony approached, he proceeded to Napata so that his arrival coincided with it (FHN II 406-407). Once at Napata he made his way to the "king's residence" - "so that he might be given the crown of Nubia" (FHN II 406). He next went to the temple and conversed with his father Amun "who is in Pure Mountain." Perhaps, as I will explain below, he went "inside the mountain".
If these documents keep the details of the Napatan coronation somewhat obscure, we gain a better picture of a coronation from the accounts of Horemheb's ceremony at Thebes (Gardiner 1953; Murnane 1995, 230-234). According to these documents, the king-to-be first went to Karnak "in the embrace of Horus," so that the latter could bequeath to him his throne in the presence the great god. Next Horus took Horemheb to Luxor, where the king-to-be greeted the Luxor Amun in the temple. After the king took leave of this god, he went to his nearby palace, where the Luxor god then visited him and escorted him to a shrine called Pr-wr ("Great House"). There the king met the crown goddess Weret-Hekau, who put the crown on his head. Once crowned, the king was ushered to another temple called Pr-nsr ("House of Flame"), where he received formal approval in his office by "Neith, Nekhbet, Wadjet, Isis, Nephthys, Horus and Seth, and the Great Ennead." We know that "Pr-wr" and "Pr-nsr" were the names of the main temples of the royal uraeus goddesses, Nekhbet at El-Kab and Wadjet at Buto respectively (Arnold 1981; Redford 1984, 124-130). From texts like Horemheb's we also know that smaller versions of these temples existed at Luxor and elsewhere and played significant roles in coronations and Heb-Sed festivals (Ibid, 125-126; cf. also Schiff Giorgini et al. 1998, pls. 74, 75, 78, 79).
Since 1996, our team at Gebel Barkal has been probing the large unexcavated area, about 90 m square, southwest ("north") of B 500 and 800, between the Napatan Palace B 1200 and the Barkal cliff. Here we have identified remains of a Napatan and Meroitic coronation complex not only identical to that described by Horemheb, but also built directly on top of a New Kingdom original probably built by Horemheb. We found a block there inscribed with his name (fig. 40). This confirms, what the texts already imply, that, long before the Napatans, the Egyptians considered Gebel Barkal an important source of kingship and built coronation temples there that had exact parallels at Thebes. This also indicates that the pharaohs occasionally visited Gebel Barkal - how often we cannot say - to celebrate or re-enact coronation rituals and possibly Heb-Seds like those held at Thebes and/or Memphis. Three or four centuries after the complex ceased to be used at Barkal, the Napatan kings restored all the same buildings and revived the same ceremonies, believing that they had had their origins there. These buildings and rituals continued to be used well into the Meroitic period - as if the kingship of the pharaohs was and had always been uniquely Kushite!
The mud brick palace B 1200 was partially investigated by Reisner in 1919 and 1920; it was then again partly re-excavated by our team in 1996. In previous reports, I suggested that it had at least four superimposed Napatan levels (Kendall 1991, 303-309; 1997b, 322-323). Under these, Reisner recovered loose blocks (still unpublished) inscribed for Ramses II (Reisner Photo Register, neg. C 8587). Since B 1200 was situated to the left of and perpendicular to Ramses' original entrance to B 500 (through the second pylon fronting B 502), it appears that Napatan B 1200 ("Level I") must have been built directly on top of an original palace of Ramses II.
I have noted above (Section II) that Egyptian palaces were always built on the "starboard side" of the entrances of Amun temples. When one of these temples was enlarged and its entrance moved forward, the related palace was torn down and a new one built in the correct relationship to its entrance. During the Napatan Period, however, B 1200 remained stationary, despite the enlargement of B 500 with court B 501, perhaps because the building was so sanctified by Ramesside tradition. On the other hand we should note that it always remained in the correct relationship to the entrance of the "northern" Amun temple B 800/900. Only when B 1200 was finally replaced in the early Meroitic Period was the new palace (B 100) built in the correct relationship to the entrance of B 500.

Of the levels of B 1200 excavated thus far, the second Napatan level, has proven to be the best preserved, for it was heavily burned, and the builders of Level III (mid-sixth century BC) simply filled in its rooms with earth and built over them. Among the most interesting features of Level II are numerous stone architectural elements bearing inscriptions of Anlamani and Aspelta. One large room (under the Level III rooms B 1213-15, 1221-22) contained four inscribed fallen columns, whose texts reveal that the ruler used this chamber to perform rituals connected with the New Year ceremony and to ensure the pacification of Sekhmet and the other goddesses embodied in the pinnacle (Kendall 1997a, 324-334). The ritual was probably a regular part of the coronation ceremony and its annual re-enactment. Another room (B 1233) seems to have been the throne room (Dunham 1970, pl. 60B). This room connected with a larger room (B 1234), which in turn connected with a corridor (B 1237-39) that led out of the palace through a rear door. If one stands today where this corridor was, he will see that it and probably the rear door (now disappeared) were aimed directly at the Gebel Barkal pinnacle (fig. 32).

Between the throne room and the corridor there was a doorway with inscribed stone jambs (Ibid, pl. 62). One of the jambs preserves the words: wd3wt.tw r pr wr sw(?) thns.tw pr nsr (wd3wt.tw r he New Year ceremony,e found aor the smooth pate of Ptah, and the crown may have symbolized also a priestly kingship "…. One goes out to the Pr-wr… one enters the Pr-nsr") (fig. 33). It is clear from this text that these two shrines - the same coronation temples mentioned by Horemheb - must have existed there also in Napatan times beyond the rear door of the palace in the direction of the pinnacle. The throne room, thus, was doubtless the place where the Napatan king sat in his palace, like Horemheb, to await the arrival of the god before proceeding with him to the two named shrines, where he received his crown and confirmation. Irike-amanote, it will be remembered, claimed to have gone "to the palace" at Barkal to receive his crowns (FHN II 406).
If one wanders the rolling rubble field behind B 1200, he will observe the remains of at least two unexcavated temples there (Map, fig. 2). One, which we designated B 1100, is easier to see than the other; it is located directly under the Barkal pinnacle at the cliff's edge. The other, designated B 1150, is more indistinct. It lies in front of B 1100 and was probably built on the same axis. Both temples have been so badly plundered by stone scavengers as to have nearly disappeared. We naturally hypothesized that these structures were the Pr-wr and Pr-nsr, the temples of the royal uraeus goddes⁴⁷es
Preliminary excavations undertaken in B 1150 in February 2002 yielded little information about that structure. (48) Although the site is a vast rolling rubble heap of Meroitic baked bricks, cut stones and column drums, this building was so destroyed that a week'⁴⁸ work on the site was unable to produce a single intact vestige of it. A geophysical survey conducted by us in 2000 ("48"=49) suggests the building may have been roughly 40 x 40 m square, l⁴⁹rge enough certainly to have housed shrines for the thirteen(?) gods stated by Horemheb to have occupied the Pr-nsr (49)^⁵⁰
B 1100, on the other hand, was better preserved. Its ruins emerge from the rubble directly in front of the pinnacle. The temple appears to have been a hemispeos, partly rock cut into the base of the pinnacle, with a forward part built of sandstone masonry, just like B 200 and 300. It appeared to penetrate the mountain in the same stratum and at the same level as B 300, which lies about 30 m to the left of it. The original form of B 1100, however, is hard to determine, for its forward part has been so stripped of stone that its plan has disappeared, and its rear part is buried under a pile of gigantic boulders. These are the obvious remains of a catastrophic ancient rock fall caused by the collapse of the front face of the pinnacle, which dropped a number of huge stones directly on top of the temple. These stones are still lying exactly where they fell (fig. 34). They seem to have crushed and sealed the temple's inner chambers, and probably also destroyed its outer structure with their forward momentum. Today not enough of B 1100 survives to permit us to visualize it, but it is clear, based on the position of its surviving foundation stones, that its axis was perpendicular to the cliff, just like all the other Barkal temples (fig. 35). It is also clear that it had at least three building phases: Egyptian, Napatan, and Meroitic.
The best preserved fragments of B 1100 are from its Meroitic phase; it is these that provide the only clues to its cult, but the clues are decisive. In our excavations of 1997, we recovered about 30 fragmentary carved sandstone blocks, which could be dated by the presence, on some, of the cartouches of Natakamani and Amanitore (fig. 36). Most of these blocks had been part a small vaulted chamber, and nearly all were carved with raised relief depicting flying vultures in a starry sky (fig. 37). Where the vault had joined the vertical side walls, pairs of standing vultures appeared in horizontal registers of relief. Here the vultures could be identified as Nekhbet and Wadjet by their special crowns. In repeating patterns, they were pictured facing each other, framing pairs of royal cartouches, pairs of small squatting figures of Amun, and a unique Hathoric fetish wearing the Double Crown (fig. 38). This strange motif combined the characteristics of Hathor-Bat and Mut while emphasizing the feature of the Double Crown. Since this fetish is the evident focus of the uraeus-vultures, we can only assume that it was intended to personify the crown goddess Weret-Hekau, mistress of the Pr-wr. In the Kawa reliefs we see Taharqa being led by Horus and Thoth to a Pr-wr, before which stands Weret-Hekau to greet him. Once inside the temple, the king is crowned by the two gods (Macadam 1955, 95, pl. 22).
Egyptian religious texts, as we have seen, reveal that all the goddesses were thought to combine within the being of Weret-Hekau - as they did within the pinnacle - to symbolize either the great god's uraeus (the "Eye of Re") or the king's uraeus (the "Eye of Horus"), or both together, or both Nekhbet and Wadjet together, or both the crowns together (see notes 32-36). Since B 1100 lay directly beneath the pinnacle, and since the pinnacle was anciently identified as a uraeus,there seems little doubt that B 1100 was indeed the Pr-wr, the temple of Weret-Hekau, into which the king went to get his crown. By its name, however, the Pr-wr was especially identified with the uraeus goddess Nekhbet (Arnold 1981). This probably explains why both royal uraei are depicted inside B 1100 as vultures. Wa⁵¹jet is taking on the attributes of Nekhbet, and both, as we shall see, merge with Mut - all symbolized by vultures.(51) The pinnacle was undoubtedly conceived as both royal uraei combined. The god of Gebel Barkal, thus, rendered to the king a complete kingship; yet the de facto meaning of the site seems to have been as a source of Upper Egyptian kingship.
Beneath the Meroitic blocks of B 1100 we found many disturbed Napatan blocks, and these lay upon the remains of an even older foundation wall, made with talatat (fig. 39) Incredibly, not more than 10 m from this wall we recovered a red sandstone block preserving the cartouche of Horemheb ("nb t3wy Dsr-h[prw]-r'") (fig. 40). Obviously Horemheb, and probably Seti I and Ramses II after him, had all used (or at least prepared for their possible use) this temple for coronation ceremonies, mirroring those held at Luxor.
IX. B 1100: The Pr-wr or Coronation Temple at Gebel Barkal; its Destruction by Cliff Collapse in the Late New Kingdom; its Restoration in the Napatan Period.
During February 2002, our main objective was to try to c⁵²nfirm whether B 1100 had indeed been a hemispeos and to determine the relative date of the temple's destruction. (52) Since huge fallen stones, piled on top of one another, lay over the supposed rock-cut rear of the temple, we needed to find an area for exploratory excavation that would not undermine them. We saw that one large stone was resting alone on the slope and that it could be removed without affecting the others, so we had our men break it up with sledgehammers. This cleared an area about 3 x 4 m that we could safely dig. Here we expected to find more buried architectural fragments, but, to our surprise, none appeared. Instead, we found, down to natural bedrock, only loose rubble, layered with hundreds of sherds of broken pottery vessels, broken bread molds, charcoal, cracked and charred animal bones and cattle teeth. A preliminary analysis of the pottery indicated that these layers were not earlier than the early Napatan Period. Since no such refuse layers could have accumulated if a temple had stood here, we had to conclude - against our visual judgement - that B 1100 had not been rock-cut after all and had stood entirely in front of the mountain.
Within days, however, we gained a rather different impression when we began working several meters to the right. As we made shallow excavations around the edges of some of the largest boulders resting over the supposed temple axis, we found that some seemed to be resting directly on natural gebel. This meant that, unlike the stone we had removed, the others had fallen when the gebel surface was relatively clear of debris and before the Napatan trash layers had accumulated. This also indicated that the large stone we had broken up and removed had fallen later than the main pile. We soon discovered that one of the largest stones rested directly upon a horizontal row of six talatat blocks, bonded with cement (fig. 41). This revealed that the Eighteenth Dynasty temple had indeed continued under the rocks and had almost certainly penetrated the mountain. We could now conclude that it was the New Kingdom temple - and not the later versions - that had been destroyed by the pinnacle collapse. The Napatan and Meroitic versions of B 1100, while restorations of the first, were not rock-cut. These had been free-standing structures built in front of the cliff.
Since Egyptian B 1100 was built of talatat blocks, and since a block inscribed for Horemheb was recovered nearby, we could assume that this temple had built (or restored) by Horemheb. Since Ramses II built heavily at the site, and since in reliefs at Abu Simbel he actually depicts himself performing ceremonies at Gebel Barkal before the "uraeus" (fig.17), we can safely assume that B 1100 was still intact at the time of his visit(s) in the early or mid-thirteenth century BC. The rock fall that destroyed the temple, therefore, must have taken place after Ramses' reign but before the advent of the Napatan Period.
When the Napatan rulers began to restore the site in the early eighth century BC, they would have found B 1100 in ruins and the mountain so fractured here that they could not rebuild the temple as a rock cut shrine. They had no choice but to rebuild it as a free-standing shrine. Prior to this construction, while leaving the fallen rocks in situ, they must have cleaned the site and removed all visible remains of the old temple - except for the talatat trapped under the largest fallen rock. Only after the new Napatan temple was erected and went into service, probably in early Dynasty 25, did rubbish begin to pile up behind it. This temple must have continued in use until the first century AD, when Natakamani and Amanitore undertook its final restoration. Since the large fallen rock that we removed lay over Napatan remains, it is apparent that there were rock falls later than the first that may have damaged or destroyed the Napatan temple and probably prompted its renewal.
All evidence suggests that the inner chambers of the New Kingdom Pr-wr were cut into the base of the pinnacle so that the kings, during their coronations here, could physically enter the mountain. Here symbolically they would have "united with the god" (i.e. the mountain) and received from Weret-Hekau their crowns, which, after all, were supposed to have originated from the mountain, the "ka-crown." This, I believe, was the idea behind the temple during the New Kingdom. If the Napatan kings found the temple destroyed and sealed and the mountain no longer accessible, we must wonder how they managed to revive the authentic New Kingdom coronation. Fortunately other observations we made this year made the answer quite clear.
Today, the only true rock-cut temple at Barkal is the Mut temple (B 300), about 30 m west of B 1100. Taharqa built this temple over a New Kingdom original (FHN I 132), whose remains are still plainly visible within the later forecourt (B 301) (fig. 5). These remains, we see, are composed entirely of talatat blocks and reveal that the New Kingdom temple had been a free-standing structure with triple sanctuary, much like B 200 (which was sacred to three goddesses or three separate aspects of Hathor in three parallel sanctuaries). If the Egyptians originally built B 1100 as a rock-cut shrine and B 300 as a free-standing shrine, we see that Taharqa (?) rebuilt B 1100 as a free-standing shrine and converted B 300 into a rock-cut shrine (fig. 42). The Kushites would now have used the latter as their means of accessing the mountain.
To these observations, I can add another fascinating detail. At the base of the hillside, about halfway between B 1100 and B 300, one can see a rock outcrop that has anciently been cut vertically across its back side (fig. 43). It also appears to have been cut to support fitted masonry blocks. The line formed by the vertical cut is perpendicular to the axes of both B 300 and B 1100. This suggests that there was once a partly rock-cut, partly masonry-built corridor connecting the two temples from their respective side doors: one on the southwest ("N") side of B 1100, which led to a door on the northeast ("S") side of B 300 (court B 301). Both of these doors were independent of the main entrances of the temples. This allows us to suppose that in Napatan times and later, the king during his coronation first went into B 1100, just as he had done in the New Kingdom, and there received his crown. Instead of entering the mountain there, however, he passed through the special pas⁵³age to B 300, and, through it, into the mountain, as the goddess Nekhbet-Weret-Hekau transformed into Mut.(53) Once inside the temple of Mut, the king could commune with his "Mother" and finally exit the temple as her child, "Ka-mut-ef", the ka (the "Bull") reborn.
X. Kingship Lost and Regained: The Historical Implications of the Pr-wr at Gebel Barkal.
In his stele, Harsiotef reports that he became "afraid" when he received news at Meroë that the temple of Amun of Napata had "collapsed in the court of the north" (FHN II 442). His fear, he says, was allayed only after being assured by a seer that the god had no ill regard for him and that Amun had simply given him an opportunity to restore the temple. Archaeological evidence recovered at Barkal by our team this year suggests that B 1100, the New Kingdom Pr-wr - the temple into which the king went to receive his crown - was destroyed by a rock fall when the front face of the pinnacle collapsed and fell on it. Since the pinnacle was thought to be a living statue of the god in all his forms as well as that of the royal uraeus in all of hers, the sudden destruction of the temple by the "gods" must have filled those on the scene with terror and anxiety - that is, if the site was still operational at the time. It is difficult to imagine the priesthood interpreting this event in any other way than as a sign that Amun was angry at the ⁵⁴eigning king or dynasty and that he wished to revoke indefinitely the king's authority to rule his (Amun's) southern domains.(54)
Since the destruction of B 1100 seems to have occurred sometime after the reign of Ramses II but before the beginning of the Napatan Period, one might suspect that it actually occurred near the end of Dynasty 20. This was the moment when history records the unprecedented crisis in the Egyptian kingship that marked the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period. At that time, for reasons never understood, the High Priests of Amun at Karnak usurped the king's authority in Upper Egypt and Nubia, even while respecting and honoring his northern authority. Although for three centuries the kings of the Third Intermediate Period made a show of maintaining royal traditions and even wearing the White Crown (eg. Mysliwiec 1988, pls. 16, 20b, 23d, 24a), a full southern kingship was not established again until early Dynasty 25, when it was restored by the Kushites. Is it a coincidence that the Nubian kings were also the first since the New Kingdom to restore Gebel Barkal and to lavish attentions on Luxor Temple? Could it be that the natural destruction of the "coronation temple" at Ba⁵⁵kal was one of the events leading to the Egyptian withdrawal from Upper Nubia near the end of Dynasty 20? (55) Although our excavation results are still very preliminary and although much remains to be proved, there are tempting reasons to consider that there might be a linkage between the natural destruction of this temple and the contemporary diminution and loss of Upper Egyptian kingship. Not only does it explain the strange politics of the Third Intermediate Period, when multiple kings emerged simultaneously without universal recognition, it also offers for the first time a convincing explanation for the sudden emergence and success of an Egyptianized Nubian dynasty in the Sudan that advertised itself as a direct successor to the kings of the New Kingdom.
It should be clear from the data presented above that by early Dynasty 18 the pharaohs recognized and accepted Gebel Barkal the source of Upper Egyptian kingship. As long as Gebel Barkal and its "uraeus" in the form of Nekhbet remained under their political control, they would probably have believed that the kingship of the South and the domain of the White Crown were comfortably theirs. Since in their worldview Gebel Barkal and Luxor were simply southern and northern aspects of each other, they must have assumed that coronations celebrated at one site were automatically validated at the other. A coronation at either site would have confirmed a king's rule over an Upper Egypt that combined the Thebaid and Nubia and their respective religious poles, Thebes and Napata. On the other hand, when the Pr-wr at Barkal was destroyed by the rock fall, the priesthood may have concluded that an opposite effect took place. Since the coronation temple at Barkal was suddenly and violently closed to the king, they may have concluded that a coronation ritual could no longer take place at Luxor. The king, unable to unite with his ka or to receive his crown at Gebel Barkal or Luxor, could not be considered divine. His kingship, thus, could have no standing with the god at Thebes and would not be recognized by the priesthood. If this were the case, we would imagine the Amun clergy moving very quickly to usurp the king's authority in all areas over which "the god" had juridiction. In the absence of a legitimate king, the "god's domains", in their view, would have to be ruled in Amun's behalf by his High Priest - until the "true" kingship of the South could be re-established. The High Priesthood then became a "virtual kingship", for it became hereditary. Meanwhile the king, dwelling in the north, retained his full Red Crown authority there, even while continuing to use all the age-old royal trappings and dignities, including the now fictive White Crown. The sentiments of the Theban establishment of the time were probably exactly those uttered so many years later by Piye. To paraphrase his words: gods and men can make a king (in the North) but only Amun (of Thebes and Gebel Barkal) can make a true king (FHN I 57-58).
The events at the end of Dynasty 20 have never been fully explained, since their causes are nowhere expressed. There are only allusions to ambiguous events. Initially a High Priest of Amun at Karnak had to be "suppressed" and at least some faction of the priesthood rose in revolt against the authority of the reigning king, doubtless Ramses XI (ca. 1100-1070 BC), who was resident at Memphis (Kitchen 1973, 247-254; Wente 1966, 73-87). This king's alienation from Amun is suggested by his unprecedented throne name "Setep-en-Ptah." A later text refers to this tumultuous episode as the "war of the High Priest," which implies that it was no small affair. The troubles also involved Nubia, for the Viceroy of Kush Panehsy apparently came to the aid of the king by invading the Thebaid with his Nubian troops and warring against the priestly establishment, which was heavily armed (Kitchen 1973, 247; Wente 1966, 84-85). Neither side prevailed, although the struggle went on intermittently for years.
By Year 19 of Ramses XI (ca. 1080 BC), Herihor, the supreme military commander of the Theban forces, declared himself High Priest of Amun and Viceroy of Kush in opposition to Panehsy, who still retained control of Nubia and who must still have been loyal to the king (Kitchen 1973, 248). Herihor's move indicates a Theban attempt to wrest control of Kush from a royal official and to bring it squarely under the rule of "the god". At this same time, Herihor announced the dawn of a new dating era, called the whm mswt ("Repeating Births"="Renaissance"), which was to be used for dating in the South while the regnal years of the king were used concurrently for dating in the North (Ibid, 248).
Why would a "Renaissance" be declared? In the Egyptian mind, this would only have been a recognition that Creation - and kingship - must begin again. From the looks of Herihor's seizure of power, it appears that he aspired to reunite Nubia and the Thebaid and to re-establish the lost kingship under his persona as High Priest. Besides calling himself High Priest, Viceroy of Kush, and Generalissimo, Herihor, in the reliefs in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak, calls himself King and adopts royal titles, although his throne name is nothing more than his title "First Prophet of Amun." Herihor's kingship, in other words, was only tentative and ceremonial, used only within the sacred precinct of Karnak to perform the vital rituals traditionally performed by the king, who was no longer active or present (Kitchen 1974, 248-252). In the reliefs he normally appears wearing only a cap crown with uraeus (fig. 44). This crown, it will be seen, is practically indistinguishable from that later worn by Piye (fig. 45). The meaning of the latter, as suggested above, apparently signified the royal authority granted by the primeval Amun over his united domains of Nubia and the Thebaid through Gebel Barkal, whose shape the crown imitated. We must wonder if Herihor's crown signified the same thing.
Herihor predeceased Ramses XI, but his place was filled by his son Paiankh/Piankh, who assumed all of his father's titles except that of King (Kitchen 1974, 252-253). By Year 10 of the "Renaissance" (ca. 1070 BC), the year that Ramses died, Paiankh was still fighting Panehsy for control of Nubia, probably to regain the "crown of Amun" that his father had fought for and aspired to. If the Theban priest-commanders managed to wrest control of the Thebaid from Ramses XI, they met only reversals in Nubia. There the Viceroy Panehsy retained control and blocked further Theban access to the south. It would be an attractive theory to suppose that it was Panehsy's prolonged conflict with the Amun priesthood that caused the demise of the Amun cult in Nubia and brought about the neglect and abandonment of the god's temples. These establishments, which had always been managed by the Theban priesthood, would probably have been identifed by Panehsy as strongholds of the enemy. The temples, in this scenario, would have been forcibly closed by the Viceroy's troops, and their priests, either expelled or executed. The hoped-for "Renaissance" did not come about, and this dating system was soon abandoned.
For the next three centuries, Egypt was divided into two semi-independent polities: Lower Egypt, which was the restricted realm of the king, and Upper Egypt, the better part of the country, which was controlled by the Amun theocracy. Nubia, the contested battleground of the king and clergy, was now totally beyond the control of either, now in the hands of Panehsy's successors and/or one or more small rising Nubian chiefdoms. Karnak of the north was now cut off from "Karnak of the south." The glorious kingship of the imperial age was now only a memory. Gebel Barkal, the once powerfully symbolic source of southern kingship, was inaccessible - but not forgotten, as the contemporary "Nubian Chapters" of the Book of the Dead reveal.
It is not my intention here to analyze the history of the Third Intermediate Period in detail but merely to point out that when it is considered in light of the hypothesis outlined above, a seductive pattern of circumstantial evidence emerges that may allow us to make better sense of this confused period.
The kings that arose at Tanis in Dynasty 21 were duly honored at Thebes, even though they had no authority there. What we notice at once about Smendes I, the founder of the dynasty, is his unusual throne name Hedjkheperre ("The manifestation of Re is the White Crown") (Kitchen 1974, 255). This suggests that the king identified his ka as the personification of the southern crown, the very thing that neither he nor his dynasty would ever possess in reality! Despite the intermarriage and apparent mutually supportive relationship of the Tanite and Theban ruling houses in Dynasty 21, the institution of the kingship of Upper Egypt seemed to be accepted as a polite fiction by both sides, even though it is clear that some unspoken thing was terribly wrong. Even after High Priest Pinudjem, son of Paiankh, assumed kingship late in his tenure, none of his own three sons who succeeded him as High Priest followed him in the practice (Ibid, 258-261). There seemed to be a recognition that the title of "King", as understood in the New Kingdom, carried with it meaning that no politician in this period, either royal or priestly, could entirely fulfill, justify or bequeath.

The title "Viceroy of Kush" had lapsed under under Paiankh, but was revived in a curious way under High Priest Pinudjem II (ca. 990-969 BC). One of his two wives, Nesikhons, held a remarkab⁵⁶e series of titles, revealing that her official duties involved almost exclusive devotion to Amun of Western Thebes, the goddesses who were involved with his sexual appeasement, and Khnum of Elephantine. She was also called "Superintendent of Southern Foreign Lands and Viceroy of Kush" (Ibid, 275-276; Török 1997, 108, n.190, 127). One suspects that her responsibilities as Viceroy in Nubia were no longer political or military but purely magical (Kendall 1999, 62-63). Perhaps her duties involved ritually stimulating a phallic image of the god in the Theban area, whose "pacification" was then thought to be magically transferred to the deity in Nubia. Such activities on the part of a "royal" woman, herself the alter-ego of Hathor "Mistress of the Vulva" and perhaps, too, the "pacified Eye of Re," might have been thought to satisfy the god at the Source, not only to ensure the inundation but perhaps even to provide magical protection to any would-be Egyptian king or prelate seeking to regain the White Crown. The Semna inscription of Karimala/Katimala, a probable daughter of Osochor (ca. 984-978 BC) and probable wife of Siamun (978-959 BC) (Bennet 1999), also fits into this period and seems to be the record of a futile Dynasty 21 Nubian campaign in Year 14 of Siamun, possibly to re-connect the two Karnaks (FHN I, 35-39; Kendall 1999a, 59-63).

Dynasty 22 was founded by the energetic Libyan king Sheshonq I (ca. 945-924 BC), who, like Smendes, chose as his throne name "Hedjkheperre", as though his major aim, too, was to regain and embody the White Crown. By his Year 5, he had established complete domination over Thebes by taking away the four highest clerical sinecures from the old Theban families and giving them to members of his own family (Kitchen 1974, 288-289). As if in recognition that the way to recovery of full Upper Egyptian kingship lay in reconquering Nubia, Sheshonq mounted a major Nubian campaign, which ultimately returned rich offerings to Amun of Karnak (Ibid, 293, 295; Zibelius-Chen 1989, 335-337), even though it failed to reach Gebel Barkal.
As the ninth century wore on, there was increased friction between Thebes and Tanis. Osorkon II (ca. 874-850 BC) appointed one Harsiese, not his own son, to the High Priestship of Amun at Karnak (Kitchen 1974, 314-316). This man soon claimed kingship for himself, and chose again the throne name "Hedjkheperre", as if to announce his own aspirations to the White Crown. After Harsiese's death and burial (directly beside the temple of Amun Kamutef at Medinet Habu: Hölscher 1939, 52-53), Osorkon replaced him with his own son Nimlot. Nimlot's real residence as High Priest of Amun, however, was nowhere near Thebes but at Herakleopolis in Middle Egypt, the northern frontier of the Thebaid (Kitchen, 328-329, 331; O'Connor 1982, 884).
Whether Takelot II (also "Hedjkheperre") was the son of the Tanite king Osorkon II or king of a new "Theban 23^rd Dynasty" (surely based at Herakleopolis) remains unclear (cf. Kitchen 1974; Aston 1989). In any case the High Priest Nimlot, the new king's brother or brother-in-law, died in Takelot's Year 11 (ca. 839 BC, according to Kitchen, or ca. 827/822 BC according to Aston). This resulted in Takelot's appointing his own son Osorkon to the High Priestship, an act that was extremely unpopular and triggered an armed uprising in Thebes (Caminos 1958). With the arrival at Thebes of Osorkon and his forces from Herakleopolis, the revolt was put down, but it flared up again in Year 15, resulting in a brutal suppression of the rebels, in which the ringleaders were tried, executed, and their bodies burnt, thus preventing them an afterlife (Ibid., 161, no. 261; Kitchen 1974, 330-331). Further troubles continued intermittently for nine more years, until Takelot's year 24 (ca. 823 BC according to Kitchen, 803/ 798 BC, according to Aston).
Although these disturbances at Thebes have no obvious relationship to Nubia, we note with considerable interest that they occurred at virtually the same time that the ancestral graves of the Napatan rulers at el-Kurru began to exhibit a surge in Egyptian cultural influences (Kendall 1999a, 1999b). We also note that among Osorkon's gifts to Amun are two separate amounts of gold "from Henethennefer," revealing contemporary Theban ties with the region of Napata (Caminos 1958, 274; Goedicke 1965).
Of the chiefs buried at el-Kurru, probably none ever set foot in Egypt. Nor is it likely that they were influenced in their habits and beliefs by any old Egyptian community or priestly group still surviving in Nubia from the New Kingdom. There seems no way to account for their rapid "Egyptianization" than to assume that in the last quarter of the ninth century BC they received at their court one or more waves of influential Egyptian visitors who probably came to stay. Since the Kurru chiefs ultimately adopted the Amun cult with an unusual devotion, it must be assumed that their Egyptian visitors were Theban and belonged to the priestly class. Who they were and why they came we can only guess. They could have been high-level political refugees, members of the old disenfranchised priestly families and their followers, who came, fleeing persecution by the Takelot faction, to establish a base in exile - remaining fiercely devoted to Amun of Karnak but bitterly opposed to the king and his family. The senior members of the group were no doubt highly learned in religious matters, and, putting themselves in the service of the Kurru chiefs and gaining their confidence, they would soon have exercised considerable influence over them in both religious and political matters. On the other hand, the visitors could have been members of repeated official delegations from Thebes seeking to establish closer ties and regular communication with the Kurru chiefs in order to re-establish the Amun cult in Nubia. This, too, would probably have resulted in the dispatch of numerous resident missionaries and other support personnel, who would have settled there. In either case, these contacts would probably have been prompted by acute Theban unhappiness with the political situation in Egypt.
It is clear from the historical record that the Amun priesthood at this point was in a very weakened position in Egypt and had little or no influence over any of the several kings claiming the title. The old symbiotic and mutually supportive relationship between the king and "the god" no longer existed in any meaningful way and certainly did not translate into power for either. By the late ninth and early eighth century BC, the relationship between the priesthood and the Tanite or Herakleopolitan kingship had become openly hostile. By opening communications with the Kurru chiefs, the Thebans - at least some faction - made a decisive move to re-establish the Amun cult at remote Napata, to restore the ancient kingship of Upper Egypt at its source, and to unite the god's domain from "Karnak to Karnak" just as it had been centuries before. Theban interest in Gebel Barkal was almost certainly the primary reason that these groups came to el-Kurru in the first place. The proximity of this Nubian court to Napata may have been the reason why its chiefs, among all others in Nubia, became the ultimate beneficiaries of "the god's" patronage and support.
To begin restoration of the Barkal sanctuary and cult, the new priesthood in Kush would have needed to enlist the aid of the local rulers in the project and to spark their political ambitions. They would have had to school them in the meaning and history of the site, to show them its visible "archaeological" record, and to read and translate for them the texts still exposed there. They would have recounted for them the god's great "miracles" done for the kings of centuries past, and would have convinced them that the same favors awaited them, if they dedicated themselves wholly to Amun's service, rebuilt and furnished his temples, implemented his cult and ancient rituals, served and supplied the needs of his priests, waged war in his name and dedicated to him the spoils. Only then would the god instruct the rulers in his "secrets" and grant his kingship to them and their descendants.
This, of course, the above is mere speculation, but the archaeological and historical record strongly suggests that some very similar scenario actually took place. In my recent reappraisal of Reisner's records from el-Kurru, I suggested that the sequence of the ancestral tombs probably began sometime within the period ca. 885-835 BC (Kendall 1999a; 1999b). Because of the probability that the Kurru chiefs were buried next to their wives, and because of the tendancy of the historical succession for the throne to pass from brother to brother, I supposed that the earliest ten tombs belonged to five royal couples, which may have belonged to no more than three generations. During this period, the tombs passed from simple tumuli of traditional Nubian type, in which the dead were laid flexed on beds in pits, to square tombs, probably surmounted by small pyramids, in which the dead were laid on their backs and eventually mummified and coffined in the Egyptian manner. Chapels on the sides of the tombs suggested an emerging cult of Osiris. Egyptian trade goods and luxury stone and faience vessels appear in the tomb furnishings from the very beginning. Also early in the sequence we even find the earliest evidence for the use of stone masonry, a skill, too, that seems to have been imported from Egypt (Kendall 1999a, 20).
The apparent sixth ruler, belonging perhaps to the fourth generation, was Alara, the first known by name, whose accession I placed at approximately 785 BC. According to Aston, the Theben revolt in the reign of Takelot II took place within the period 827-798 BC, so the rise of a pro-Theban, anti-Tanite or Herakleopolitan Napatan dynasty seems very likely to have been a direct result of this civil war. Connected history of the Napatan dynasty begins with Alara, who is the first of his line known by name and the first reported to have "put his trust in Amun" (Vinogradov 1999). He is almost certainly the author of the "Ary-mi-Amun" stele from Kawa, which means that he was also the first to use Egyptian writing for his own ⁵⁷nscriptions and the first to use pharaonic titles (Macadam 1949, pls. 32-33; FHN II 521-528; Kendall 1999a, 58-65).(57) Almost certainly it was he who began restoration of the Amun temples at Kawa and Gebel Barkal (see Section II). His grand-nephew Taharqa, in the latter's Year 8-10 Stele from Kawa, reveals that Alara's succession to the throne was disputed, possibly by an anti-Egyptian, anti-Amun faction (FHN I, 174). This "evil-plotter" was said to have been defeated with Amun's help, which resulted in the supremacy of Alara, who then put himself completely under the authority of "the god". At this point the myth of divine conception was revived so that Alara and his sisters were identified as having the god's paternity. They and their descendants now joined the ranks of the kings going back "to the time of Re."
The new Nubian priesthood, working with their allies at Thebes, would have groomed the new rulers for full pharaonic kingship and would have planned with them the reunification of the Thebaid and Nubia, which was surely the agenda of the united priesthood. If the official state-sponsored Amun cult of Kush was founded at "southern Karnak" by Alara, the reunification of the "two Karnaks" began with Kashta, who traveled at least as far as Elephantine and probably to Thebes to claim full pharaonic titles. His assumption of power in the Thebaid, superseding the authority of the "Theban" rulers, who probably actually resided at Herakleopolis, seems to have been completely peaceful (Török 1997, 144-153).
With the accession of Piye, we have our first clear image of this new southern order, and we can measure just how far the conversion and the acculturation of the Kushites had come in just a few decades. Perhaps a consciously reconstructed "rebirth" of history can be traced in the king's own public persona, with the clock now set back to the "Renaissance". We notice, for example, that he shares all the important characteristics with the early independent High Priests of Amun of Dynasty 21. In a relief in B 502, for example, he appears as High Priest of Amun (Kendall 1999a, 116, fig. 19). This makes us suddenly cognizant of the fact that the position of High Priest had disappeared at Thebes one or two generations before, having given way to a "God's Wife of Amun" in the person of a king's virgin daughter (Doxey 2001, 72-73). By this time, the High Priesthood of Amun seems to have migrated south to Gebel Barkal! The king is also the virtual Viceroy of Kush, although he would never have used this title officially because he was no "'King's Son". Likewise, as revealed in his Victory Stele (FHN I 62-112), he was supreme commander of the army of the South, who gave orders to his generals from Napata before taking the field himself. His army and navy, at the opening of his famous chronicle, were deployed just south of Herakleopolis defending the northern border of the Theba⁵⁸d ("Hen-Nekhen": FHN I 68).
The king's crown, appearing faintly in a photograph of a relief (destroyed after 1906) (60) on the "S" wall of court B 501 (fig. 46) is strikingly similar to that worn by Herihor in his reliefs in the Khonsu Temple (The Epigraphic Survey 1979, passim) (fig. 44). The same crown is clearly pictured in Piye's Year 3 Stele and is held out to him by Amun of Gebel Barkal (Reisner 1931, pl. 6) (fig. 45). In both cases the crown has only one uraeus. Obviously in the stele the cap crown doubles for the White Crown in symbolizing royal authority over Upper Egypt, which now means the united Thebaid and Nubia, which was the very same territory to which Herihor and Paiankh aspired. Although the White Crown was believed now to come from Gebel Barkal, the cap crown was an explicit expression that it derived from the crown-shaped mountain.
Even the king's name: "Piye/Pi(ankh)y" is spelled nearly identically to that of Paiankh/Piankh, the son of Herihor, almost as if it were chosen to present the Kushite king as that man's reincarnation or vindication. While the High Priest Paiankh, in his wars with Panehsy, failed to recapture Kush and Gebel Barkal, Piye's early reign may have been seen as the belated successful replay of those events, which resulted in the Theban priesthood's ultimate victory in Nubia, which had eluded them for three centuries. Once having united Gebel Barkal and Karnak, Piye could "reincarnate" as king - but no ordinary king. His royal names reflect the "rebirth" of both Thutmose III and Ramses II within him⁵⁹elf. He was now "Pa/Pi-ankh," the "Living One," which was the name of the Eternal King, within whom were all kings. (60-2) As such, he was the new child of Amun, bodily son of the god, heir to the kingship "of Re", "Strong Bull (ka) Arising (i.e. "crowned") in both Thebes and Napata" (FHN I 48-49). He was perhaps the first king in centuries to celebrate coronations and Opet Festivals in Thebes (FHN I 79). Diodorus' tradition of "priests" choosing from among themselves who should be "king of the Aithiopians" may have had a basis in historical fact (FHN II 646).
The Kushite restoration of the Barkal sanctuary and the Kushite "recovery" therein of the uraeus and the royal ka seems to have resulted in the full restoration, by Piye's reign, of the old-style kingship of the New Kingdom, the reunification of Thebes and Napata, and the reactivation of Luxor Temple. It is not surprising that the king also made offerings at Hermopolis and Heliopolis, for he would have considered both of these sites northern manifestations of Gebel Barkal. Hermopolis, after all, was the ancient city⁶⁰of Thoth and the Primeval Ogdoad, one member of whom was Amun in his most ancient aspect (Rundle-Clark 1991, 55-58).(60-3) Heliopolis was the ancient northern site of the sun cult, and had been identified with Karnak and Gebel Barkal since the early New Kingdom.
If the majority of the reliefs in the newly restored B 500 illustrate Piye's military conquests in Egypt (Kendall 1986, 7-20), his ritual scenes are just as interesting for what they show of his knowledge of ancient royal traditions. These scenes appear on the two halves of the "south" wall of B 501, while the surrender of Lower Egypt appears on the "north" wall (Wildung 1997, 164, fig. 28). This means that the ritual scenes portray events that occurred in Napata.
The "east" section of the wall, left of the central doorway, pictures the king's construction projects at Barkal (fig. 46). Although the walls are poorly preserved, we discern (from right) a figure of the king accompanied by an Iwn.mut.ef priest, and a text that refers to "his ka". The king appear⁶¹ again beside his serekh "[Strong Bull arising] in Thebes" and another figure, who is perhaps "stretchin⁶² the cord" (Isler 1989, 203-204). The next tableau shows king grasping a huge hoe and preparing to dig the first earth (cf. FHN II 412). (62) The accompanying text speaks about some action to be conducted "four times". Next he runs with a young bull, symbolizing his ka, before a Meret goddess, who twice says "Come and bring!" Finally the king, followed by his ka in human form, stands with a wand before five completed temples shown as Lower Egyptian tent shrines. The fragmentary text identifies the architectural ensemble as hnm.f ("his abode⁶³), followed by its double name, only one of which is partially legible: Dw-w'b n nhh.("Pure Mountain of Eternity").(63)
On the "western" half of the wall, to the right of the door, Piye has represented himself celebrating his Heb-Sed and coronation (fig. 47). At the extreme right, he enters the temple followed by his ka, and he is led by Montu (Cf. Schwaller de Lubicz 1977, 317-318). He wears the ancient Heb-Sed robes that can be traced back to archaic times. The king and god encounter a vertical row of southern shrines, which probably lay below a row of northern shrines, now lost. These were the shrines set up to house the statues of the gods brought from the south and north to witness the ceremony ( cf. Naville 1892, pls. 7, 8, 12). Further to the left the king appears seated in his kiosk, where a servant brings food offer⁶⁴ngs. The scene is of a very ancient type (Cf. Schwaller de Lubicz 1977, fig. 77; Bisson de la Rocque 1931, pls. 8, 10; Naville 1892, 19-21, 23). Next the king is led forward hand in hand by Montu and Atum (Schwaller de lubicz 1977, 146, fig. 20), while an Iunmutef priest stands by a serekh reading "[Strong Bull arising in?] Napata." The king, now wearing a royal kilt, stands close beside a god. The preserved sign "wr" may suggest that this is a scene of Piye being led into the "[Pr]-wr" to receive his crowns. The remainder of the original wall surface, some 5-6 meters, is concealed by later masonry.
Piye was interested in celebrating a Heb-Sed, as can be understood from a reference in his Victory Stele (FHN I 84). The fact that he moved so many divine statues from Soleb to Gebel Barkal suggests that these were among the "convocation of gods" bought to the capital for the ceremony. This may imply that he really did rule at least thirty years (but cf. Redford 1985; Morkot 2000, 170). Piye, in any case, was probably not the first to celebrate a Heb-Sed at Napata, although he may have been the first in over three centuries. Some sort of a Heb-Sed was probably celebrated here throughout the New Kingdom, even if it may only have been a magical substitute, performed simultaneously to the real one at Thebes, with the king physically absent. The statue of Thutmose III found at Barkal, for example, depicts the king in his Heb-Sed robes (Dunham 1970, 17, pl. 3). Akhenaten also may have developed a Heb-Sed complex at Barkal that mirrored the one built for his Year 3 Heb-Sed at East Karnak in the complex called the Gm-p3-Itn (Redford 1984, 122-130; see above, Section III)..
If B 1100 remained closed at the dawn of the Napatan era, it is not clear exactly how Piye managed to recover the "lost" kingship. His Year 3 Stele, however, invokes the crown goddess Weret-Hekau in a most interesting way (FHN I 58), suggesting that the problem had been solved. Weret-Hekau, as I have shown, was the crown goddess resident in both the Pr-wr (B 1100) and the pinnacle. The broken text is interesting because the context suggests a threat: "Whoever of these princes (in Egypt) does not pay tribute to me, Weret-Hekau [i.e. 'will do something terrible']." He is obviously referring to his deified crown and uraeus, derived from Gebel Barkal and the pinnacle.

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