Late Period
Necho II (Wehemibre)
26th Dynasty (Saite) · 664-525 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Necho II pushed Egyptian power deep into the Levant, sponsored one of the most audacious exploratory voyages of the ancient world, and along the way killed a king of Judah in an encounter that the Hebrew Bible would remember for centuries. Research: UCL Digital Egypt; Biblical Archaeology Society.
Reign dates: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
Ambition in the Levant
Necho II succeeded his father and aggressively pushed Egyptian influence into the Near East. He led a military campaign into the Levant to assist the remnants of the Assyrian Empire against the rising power of Babylon, clashing with Babylonian forces at Carchemish. Beyond military maneuvers, he was an ambitious builder and organizer, reportedly initiating a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea and commissioning a three-year circumnavigation of Africa by Phoenician sailors.
The death of King Josiah
On his way north to reinforce the Assyrians in 609 BCE, Necho II's march through the Levant intersected with King Josiah of Judah, who according to the Second Book of Kings rode out to intercept him at Megiddo and was killed there, apparently on sight, an event 2 Chronicles instead frames as a pitched battle. Josiah's death, coming just decades before Judah's fall to Babylon, is remembered in the Hebrew Bible as a hinge point in the kingdom's decline. Archaeological excavations at Megiddo have since uncovered large quantities of Egyptian and Greek pottery dating to exactly this period, confirming that an Egyptian force with Greek mercenaries in its ranks really was stationed there as the biblical account describes.
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.