Third Intermediate Period
Osorkon II (Usermaatre)
22nd Dynasty (Bubastite/Libyan) · 945-715 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Osorkon II combined lavish temple-building at home with a rare moment of direct Egyptian involvement in Near Eastern power politics, even as his passive response to a rival kingship in Thebes let Egypt's north-south political split become permanent. Supporting detail: UCL Digital Egypt.
Dates from: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
The Jubilee King
Osorkon II ruled for anywhere from 20 to 40 years. He was fiercely devoted to his ancestral city of Bubastis and the cat goddess Bastet. To celebrate his Jubilee (Sed festival), he constructed a magnificent temple hall specifically for the occasion.
A tolerant pharaoh
Despite his grand building projects in the north, his influence over the south completely evaporated. When his cousin Harsiese declared himself an independent king in Thebes, Osorkon II took no military action against him. This passive tolerance ultimately laid the groundwork for the permanent political fracturing of Egypt.
Egyptian troops on a Syrian battlefield
Osorkon II's reign coincided with one of the few clearly documented instances of Egyptian military involvement in the wider Near East during this period: the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE, where a coalition of Levantine states, including Israel under King Ahab, faced down the expanding Assyrian empire under Shalmaneser III. Assyrian royal inscriptions describing the battle record a contingent from Egypt fighting alongside the coalition, though the surviving sources do not spell out the size of the Egyptian force or how directly Osorkon II himself was involved in sending it.
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.