Shabaka

Confronting Sennacherib

Shabaka succeeded Shabataka and soon found himself drawn into a direct military conflict with the Assyrian Empire. When the Assyrian king Sennacherib invaded the Levant in 701 BCE to crush a rebellion led by King Hezekiah of Judah, Shabaka dispatched an Egyptian-Kushite army to intervene. The forces clashed at the Battle of Eltekeh. While Assyrian records claim a decisive victory over the Kushite charioteers, archaeological evidence—including a seal impression of Shabaka found in Nineveh—suggests a diplomatic settlement or tribute arrangement was eventually reached between the two empires.

A reign out of order?

Older reference works, including this site's own chronological ordering, place Shabaka immediately after Piye and before Shabataka (Shebitku). Since the 2010s, however, Egyptologists Frédéric Payraudeau and Gerard Broekman have independently argued the two kings' order should be reversed. Their case rests partly on the royal pyramids at El-Kurru: Piye's and Shebitku's burial chambers share an older, open-cut architectural style, while Shabaka's is a more advanced fully tunneled design matching those of Taharqa and every king after him, implying Shabaka's tomb was built later. A carved quay inscription at Karnak dated to Shabaka's own second regnal year was also found physically overlapping, and partly overwriting, one of Shebitku's inscriptions, further suggesting Shebitku reigned first. The question remains actively debated rather than settled.