Pasebkhanut II added Heru to his name, thus distinguishing himself from Pasebkhanut I. He was the last king of the Tanite, Twenty-first Dynasty, and his daughter is said to have married Solomon. We read in I Kings: “And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David.” Thus, in the so usual fashion, he strengthened his political connection by marriage. And the Bible further says: “Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up and taken Gezer and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon’s wife.” Pasebkhanut II reigned, it is said, twelve years, and another daughter married Osorkon I, the first king of the Twenty-second Dynasty.
We now turn again to the priest-kings in Thebes, also called the Twenty-first Dynasty. Of the first of them, Her-Heru, or Her-Hor, we have already spoken. A common title of his was “Living, beautiful god, son of Amen, lord of the two lands, lord of diadems,” and he wore the royal uraeus on his forehead. Queen Notem-Mut, Notimit, or Netchemet, was either mother or wife of King Her-Hor—authorities differ as to which relation she held to him. By some she was believed to be a princess of Rammeside blood, as her name is found encircled by a royal cartouch, while that of the king was not so decorated until the fifth year of his reign. Another says she was called “great royal consort,” but not king’s daughter or princess. There is a finely executed but dilapidated statue of this queen, inlaid with glass, and her head is also on a sphinx. A papyrus belonging to her, illustrated with medallion heads, or portrait vignettes of her husband, or son, Her-Hor, still exists, part being in the Louvre, part in the British Museum, and part in the possession of a lady in Berlin. It was the sale of some of these fragments that led to the discovery of the royal mummies at Deir-el-Bahari. The canopic boxes of Queen Notem-Mut represented, according to custom, a little chapel, placed on a sledge, a small jackal in black wood, mounted on the cover. Many were found, like the mummies themselves, in coffins not belonging to them, but their inscriptions tell who were the rightful owners. Miss Edwards discovers a likeness between one of the carved masks of Rameses II and the vignettes of Her-Hor, and thinks the mummy case may have been made in the time of the Twenty-first Dynasty and given the likeness of the reigning king, rather than the person for whom it was intended. Her-Hor repaired and preserved many of the mummies of the more ancient kings.
He was succeeded, apparently, not by his son Piankhi, or Pianchi (who perhaps died before him or whose reign was too short or insignificant to be dwelt upon), but by his grandson, Pinotem, Pinozem, or Pai-netchem I, who is said to have married a princess of the old line, a daughter of Pa-seb-kha-nut I, king of Tanis, and who is variously termed Maat-ka-Ra, Ra-ma-ka, or Rahama. He was both high priest and king, which has caused some confusion to the chronologists. His Horus name was “he who satisfieth the gods, he who performeth glorious things for their doubles.” He had a long reign, some say twenty-one years. Queen Maat-ka-Ra is called on one of her coffins, “divine wife, a priestess of Amen, in the Apts, lady of the two lands.” In the same coffin was the tiny mummy of her infant daughter, Mutem-hat. Mother and child evidently died soon after the birth of the latter. A box with two compartments accompanied them, filled with funeral statuettes for the two queens, for the baby, though she died and was embalmed in infancy, is called Queen Maut-em-hat. An accompanying papyrus gives the royal cartouch, around the name of Maat-ka-Ra, but to the child also, strangely enough, the title of “Royal Wife,” etc. Another wife of the same king was called Henttaui, daughter of Nebseni, and Thent-Amen, and mother of the high priest of Amen, Men-keper-Ra. Her mummy, with double coffin, was found at Deir-el-Bahari. Great efforts had been made to preserve the lifelike aspect, red was put on the lips and cheeks, and the eyes were treated with eye-paint. She wore a much becurled wig, and even the furrows made by mummification were filled with paste. Pai-netchem I had also been removed to Deir-el-Bahari, and the upper part of the body was found rifled of amulets, but the lower part was intact, the Book of the Dead between the legs. He had repaired and found places of safety for royal mummies, Amen-hetep II, Thothmes II, Rameses II and Rameses III.
The priest kings made Thebes their residence while the old line dwelt at Tanis or San. One writer says that the papyri of the princes and princesses of the family of Pai-netchem or Pi-nozem show the best traditions of art to have been yet in force in the time of the Twenty-first Dynasty. The ushabti, little figures which so often were placed in the tombs with the mummies, came into general use in the Eighteenth Dynasty. They were made of painted limestone, hard stone, steatite, wood, etc. At the end of the dynasty they began to be made of porcelain, and were glazed with such colors as mauve, yellow, chocolate and blue. In the Nineteenth Dynasty blue was the universal color, and figures were made like living people, in every-day clothes, rather than, as previously, to resemble mummies. This continued through the Twentieth Dynasty and is found sporadically under the Twenty-second, while in the Twenty-first, as a general rule, they had returned to the mummy form and had a brilliant blue glaze with black inscriptions. In the “Book of the Dead,” in the Eighteenth Dynasty, the vignettes were sometimes colored, sometimes plain, later coarser and more representative of modern things.
Masaherth and Men-kheper-Ra, sons of Pai-netchem I, seem to have been priests rather than kings. The latter married Ast-em-khebit, and became the father of Pai-netchem II, Hent-taui, and others. Ast-em-khebit or Ist-em-khebit is sometimes spoken of as queen, and probably belonged to the royal line. Authorities differ much as to this period, and it is difficult to give a perfectly clear account of the succession. Many of this lady’s belongings were found among those of the royal mummies so often referred to. That she died before her husband is proved by his seals remaining unbroken upon the hamper of mummified food accompanying the body. She was evidently much beloved, and buried, like others of her family, with special care, in three coffins, elaborately decorated and swathed in the finest of linen, in long plaits. The usual shabti, or “little servants,” accompanied her, as well as beautiful vases in blue glass, inscribed with funerary legends. Baskets of food, boxes with wigs, and many other articles, the reproductions of those used in daily life, were included in her burial outfit. A pet gazelle was also mummified and buried with her, a pathetic suggestion of her tenderness of heart. While crumbled and cast aside was her funeral tent, with an inscription wishing her “a happy repose,” among the first articles found when the modern discoverers entered these long hidden places of sepulture.
Pai-netchem II, son of Ast-em-Khebit, married Nes-su-Khensu, who seems sometimes to be regarded as a queen, and is the last of the line of whom we have record. Her husband, too, appears rather as a high priest and commander of soldiers than a king, and again the claim to higher descent may have been on the lady’s side. There were several children of this marriage, but they are not specially noteworthy.
The priests apparently did little for the enlargement or aggrandizement of Egypt. They ruled about a hundred and twenty-five years, preserved generally friendly relations with the more ancient royal line, seem to have been less oppressive and despotic than some of the earlier kings, and contented themselves with repairing the temples and the royal mummies, and have left behind many interesting funeral remains and papyri, said to form a highly important class of literature.