Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt: A Visual History

The 26th (Saite) Dynasty ruled a reunified Egypt from Sais in the delta from 664 to 525 BC. Psamtik I, installed by the Assyrians, threw off their overlordship using Greek and Carian mercenaries; Necho II built a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea and sent Phoenicians to sail round Africa; Amasis presided over prosperity and close ties with the Greek world at Naucratis. Art and religion deliberately revived Old Kingdom models. Cambyses of Persia defeated Psamtik III at Pelusium in 525 BC and made Egypt a satrapy.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period). The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Saite Egypt's territory

Timeline of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period)

1. 664 BC
   Psamtik I at Sais
2. 656 BC
   Egypt reunified
3. 610 BC
   Necho II
4. 605 BC
   CarchemishDefeat by Babylon.
5. 600 BC
   Phoenician voyage round AfricaTraditional date.
6. 570 BC
   Amasis takes the throne
7. 525 BC
   PelusiumPersian conquest.

Psamtik I

Ashurbanipal's Assyrians drove the Kushite 25th Dynasty from Egypt in 663 and left local princes in charge, among them Psamtik of Sais. As Assyria weakened, Psamtik hired Ionian and Carian 'bronze men' and reunited Egypt by 656, when his daughter was adopted as God's Wife of Amun at Thebes. His 54-year reign restored central government and began the Saite renaissance.

Necho and Amasis

Necho II (610-595) marched to help the last Assyrians, killed Josiah of Judah at Megiddo, and was crushed by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish in 605. He began a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea and, Herodotus says, commissioned a Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa. Apries lost a Libyan war and his throne to the general Amasis (570-526), who befriended the Greeks, granted them Naucratis and married a Greek princess; Herodotus called his reign Egypt's most prosperous.

Pelusium

Amasis died in 526 as Cambyses prepared to invade. His son Psamtik III was defeated at Pelusium in 525 BC after, legend says, the Persians drove cats before them; Cambyses is said to have desecrated Amasis's mummy. Egypt became a Persian satrapy for over a century, with revolts, and though native dynasties returned briefly (404-343 BC) the Saite period was the last extended era of Egyptian independence until 1922.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite) (744 BC to 656 BC)
• Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 609 BC)
• Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC to 539 BC)
• Achaemenid Empire (550 BC to 330 BC)
• Lydia (680 BC to 546 BC)
• Ancient Carthage (814 BC to 146 BC)

8 surprising things about the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period)

1. Herodotus says Necho's Phoenician sailors reported the sun on their right as they rounded Africa, which he disbelieved and which proves they did it.
2. The Saite kings copied Old Kingdom art so closely that scholars sometimes cannot date statues 2,000 years apart.
3. Greek mercenaries carved graffiti on the colossus of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel in 593 BC, among the earliest Greek inscriptions.
4. Naucratis was the first Greek settlement in Egypt and the only port where Greeks were allowed to trade.
5. The 26th Dynasty's Serapeum burials of Apis bulls at Saqqara were among Egypt's grandest.
6. Cambyses' Persians allegedly won at Pelusium by carrying cats, sacred to Bastet, so the Egyptians would not shoot.
7. Psamtik I supposedly raised two children in isolation to discover the original language; their first word was Phrygian, according to Herodotus.
8. The Saite period is named after Sais, whose goddess Neith the Greeks identified with Athena.

Sources

• Ancient Egypt: The Late Period Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt Wikipedia
• Late Period of Ancient Egypt World History Encyclopedia
• Toby Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt (2010) Bloomsbury

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