Osorkon IV

Osorkon IV
Shilkanni, So
Relief thought to depict Osorkon IV, from Tanis
Pharaoh
Reign	730 – 715/13 BC (22nd or 23rd Dynasty)
Predecessor	Shoshenq V or Pedubast II
Successor	end of the dynasty
Royal titulary
Mother	Tadibast III
Died	before 712 BC

Usermaatre Osorkon IV was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh during the late Third Intermediate Period. Traditionally considered the very last king of the 22nd Dynasty, he was de facto little more than ruler in Tanis and Bubastis, in Lower Egypt. He is generally – though not universally – identified with the King Shilkanni mentioned by Assyrian sources, and with the biblical So, King of Egypt from the Books of Kings.

Osorkon ruled during one of the most chaotic and politically fragmented periods of ancient Egypt, in which the Nile Delta was dotted with small Libyan kingdoms and principalities and Meshwesh dominions; as the last heir of the Tanite rulers, he inherited the easternmost parts of these kingdoms, the most involved in all the political and military upheavals that soon would afflict the Near East. During his reign, he had to face the power, and ultimately submit himself—to the Kushite King Piye during Piye's conquest of Egypt. Osorkon IV also had to deal with the threatening Neo-Assyrian Empire outside his eastern borders.

Osorkon IV ascended to the throne of Tanis in c. 730 BC, at the end of the long reign of his predecessor Shoshenq V of the 22nd Dynasty, who was possibly also his father. However, this somewhat traditional collocation was first challenged in 1970 by Karl-Heinz Priese who preferred to place Osorkon IV in a lower–Egyptian branch of the 23rd Dynasty, right after the reign of the shadowy pharaoh Pedubast II; this placement found the support of a certain number of scholars. Osorkon's mother, named on a electrum aegis of Sekhmet now in the Louvre, was Tadibast III. Osorkon IV's realm was restricted only to the district of Tanis (Rˁ-nfr) and the territory of Bubastis, both in the eastern Nile Delta. His neighbors were Libyan princes and Meshwesh chiefs who ruled their small realms outside of his authority.