Third Intermediate Period
Bakenranef (Bocchoris)
24th Dynasty (Saite) · 727-715 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Bakenranef's brief, violently ended reign left behind two sharply contradictory legacies: a Greek tradition praising him as Egypt's wisest lawgiver, and another claiming the Kushites burned him alive, and modern historians doubt significant parts of both stories. Further detail: UCL Digital Egypt.
Dating: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
A brief reign and a brutal end
Bakenranef succeeded his father Tefnakht, becoming the second and final ruler of the 24th Dynasty. He ruled for only five or six years. The Kushite kings, refusing to tolerate an independent dynasty in the delta any longer, marched north and decisively crushed his regime. According to the later Greek historian Manetho, the Kushites executed Bakenranef by burning him alive, permanently ending the Saite opposition of that era.
Wise lawgiver or later invention?
Centuries later, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus described Bakenranef, known to the Greeks as Bocchoris, as physically unimpressive but wiser than any king before him, crediting him with codifying Egyptian law and, in particular, abolishing debt slavery by allowing debts to be discharged without a signed bond. Diodorus ranked him among Egypt's six greatest lawgivers. Modern historians treat this tradition with real skepticism, however, since it rests almost entirely on a now-lost account by Hecataeus of Abdera, surviving Egyptian legal documents do not confirm it and sometimes contradict it, and the whole story may have been shaped by political propaganda from the later 26th Dynasty seeking a heroic Saite ancestor.
Sources for this profile
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
- Leprohon, R. J. (2013). The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary. Society of Biblical Literature.
- UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Chronology. UCLA.
- University College London. Digital Egypt for Universities.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.