This thesis centres on the ideology of Egypt’s Kushite 25th dynasty (753-656) and onhow Tanutamani (664-656), king of Kush, portrays his relations to Kush, Egypt, and other lands (among them Assyria?) in the texts and images on his Dream Stela. On this stela,Tanutamani narrates that he in a dream was promised dominion over the whole of Egypt, and that he, proceeding from Kush, conducted a military campaign northwards that fulfilled this dream.
In the first half of the seventh century BCE, Egypt was politically weak and fragmented, caught between the two great powers of the day – Kush and Assyria – that competed for domination over Egypt. The Kushite ruler Piy (753-721) partly incorporated Egypt into his Kushite state, thus introducing Egypt’s 25th dynasty. The Kushite kingdom later came into conflict with the expansionist Neo-Assyrian empire, and Assyrian troops under Esarhaddon (680-669) finally managed to conquer Egypt in 671 BCE. When Tanutamani, who was a son of Shabaqo (721-707/6) and/or a son of a sister of Taharqo (690-664), took the throne in 664 BCE, Lower Egypt was controlled by Assyria. Upper Egypt was at least partly allied with the Kushite state, not the least due to the Kushite control over the powerful office of God’s Wife of Amun in Thebes (occupied by a Kushite princess) and the alliance with the influential official
Mentuemhat of the same city. Upon coronation, Tanutamani with his army sailed northwards and managed to take control of much of Lower Egypt, probably killing Nekau I (672-664), Assyria’s main vassal, in the process. This campaign triggered a response from Ashurbanipal (668-631), king of Assyria. In the same year, the Assyrians conquered Egypt, going as far south as Thebes which was sacked.
Tanutamani fled to Kush. The Kushite state probably did not try to reconquer Lower Egypt again, although it kept some influence in Upper Egypt due to the God’s Wife of Amun in Thebes. The son of Nekau I, Psamtek I (664-610), took the initiative and subsequently made himself king of all Egypt as well as distanced himself from Assyria by 656 BCE.