Shabako

King 716-702 BC.

    The brother of the great Ethiopian warrior, *Piankhy, Shabako returned to Egypt in 715 BC and established the Kushite or Ethiopian Twenty-fifth Dynasty. He deposed and took captive Bochchoris (Bakenrenef), the ruler of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty and a successor of Tefnakht, against whom *Piankhy had fought previously. By 711 BC, Shabako had established himself as the first *Nubian pharaoh and ruled Egypt in its entirety. He built and possibly established his capital at Thebes, although he was buried far to the south, in a pyramid at Kurru in his native land of Kush.

    Shabako avoided intriguing with the states of Judah and Philistia against the new northern power, *Assyria, although his successors pursued an interventionist policy in this area which brought *Assyria to attack Egypt. He ruled for at least fourteen years; few monuments have survived from his reign, and he is not mentioned in contemporary Hebrew or *Assyrian sources, although *Herodotus (ii, 137) refers to an Egyptian king Sabacos. Shabako was succeeded by Shebitku, and his reign was followed by that of *Taharka, the greatest ruler of this dynasty.

BIBL. Kitchen, K.A. 3rd Int. pp 378-83; Dunham, D. El Kurru in The Royal Cemeteries of Kush. Vol. 1. Boston, Mass. 1950, pp 55-8.

Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt by Rosalie and Antony E. David