Takelot III
| Takelot III | |
|---|---|
Relief of Takelot III from Karnak temple
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| Pharaoh | |
| Reign | 13 years (23rd Dynasty) |
| Predecessor | Osorkon III |
| Successor | Rudamun |
| Consorts | Irtiubast, Kakat, Betjet |
| Father | Osorkon III |
| Mother | Tentsai |
Usimare Setepenamun Takelot III Si-Ese was Osorkon III's eldest son and successor. Takelot III ruled the first five years of his reign in a coregency with his father, according to the evidence from Nile Quay Text No.14 (which equates Year 28 of Osorkon III to Year 5 of Takelot III), and succeeded his father as king the following year. He served previously as the High Priest of Amun at Thebes. He was previously thought to have ruled Egypt for only 7 years until his 13th Year was found on a stela from Ahmeida in the Dakhla Oasis in 2005. Takelot is attested by several documents: a donation stela from Gurob which calls him "The First Prophet of Amun-Re, General and Commander Takelot," a stone block from Herakleopolis which calls him 'the Chief of Per-Sekhemkheperre' and king's son by Tentsai, Quay Text No.13, as noted above, and Quay Text No.4 which records his Year 6.
A graffito on the roof of the Temple of Khonsu which records his Year 7, was long believed to be his Highest Year date. However, in February 2005, a hieratic stela from Year 13 of his reign was discovered by a Columbia University archaeological expedition in the ruins of a Temple at the Dakhla Oasis. Their subsequent analysis of this dated document conclusively established this king's identity as Takelot III. This document—which measures "between 42-48 cm wide; between 47-51 cm high; [and] between 10-16 cm thick"—has now been published in JEOL 39 (2006) by Dr. Olaf Kaper and Robert Demarée. Part of the abstract for their article is given below:
The governor mentioned here is Nes-Djehuti or Esdhuti who appears as the Chief of the Shamin Libyans in both the aforementioned Year 13 stela of Takelot III and also in the Smaller Dakhla Stela. The smaller Dakla stela dates to Year 24 of the Nubian king Piye. This could mean that Takelot III and Piye were near contemporaries during their respective reigns. It suggested that an important graffito at Wadi Gasus—which apparently links the God's Wife Amenirdis I (hence Shabaka here) to Year 19 of a God's Wife Shepenupet—is a syncronysm between a Nubian ruler and an Upper Egyptian Libyan king thereby equating Year 12 of Shabaka to Takelot III (rather than the short-lived Rudamun). This graffito would have been carved prior to Piye's Nubian conquest of Egypt in his 20th Year—by which time both Takelot III and Rudamun had already died. However, new evidence on the Wadi Gasus graffito published by Claus Jurman in 2006 has now redated the carving to the 25th dynastic Nubian period entirely—to Year 12 of Shabaka and Year 19 of Taharqa rather than to the 23rd dynastic Libyan era—and demonstrates that they instead pertain to Amenirdis I and Shepenupet II respectively based on palaegraphic and other evidence collated by Jurman at Karnak rather than the Nubian Amenirdis I and the Libyan Shepenupet I, daughter of Osorkon III. The God's Wife Shepenupet II was Piye's daughter and Taharqa's sister. Jurman notes that no evidence from the innermost sanctuary of the chapel of Osiris Heqadjet at Karnak shows Shepenupet I associated with Piye's daughter, Amenirdis I. The Wadi Gasus graffiti were written in 2 separate handstyles and the year date formulas for '12' and '19' were also written differently which suggests that they are unlikely to have been composed at the same time. This means that the Year 19 date cannot be assigned to Takelot III and likely belongs to the Nubian king Taharqa instead.
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