Tefnakht I

Tefnakht
Tefnakht on his year 8 stela
Pharaoh
Reign	732–725 BC (24th Dynasty)
Predecessor	Interregnum (as a pharaoh) Osorkon C (as a Great Chief of the Ma) Ankhhor (as a Great Chief of the West)
Successor	Bakenranef
Royal titulary
Children	Bakenranef
Father	Gemnefsutkapu

Shepsesre Tefnakht (in Greek known as Tnephachthos) was a prince of Sais and founder of the relatively short Twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt; he rose to become a Chief of the Ma in his home city. He is thought to have reigned roughly 732 BCE to 725 BCE, or 7 years. Tefnakht I first began his career as the "Great Chief of the West" and Prince of Sais and was a late contemporary of the last ruler of the 22nd dynasty: Shoshenq V. Tefnakht I was actually the second ruler of Sais; he was preceded by Osorkon C, who is attested by several documents mentioning him as this city's Chief of the Ma and Army Leader, according to Kenneth Kitchen, while his predecessor as Great Chief of the West was a man named Ankhhor. A recently discovered statue, dedicated by Tefnakht I to Amun-Re, reveals important details about his personal origins. The statue's text states that Tefnakht was the son of a certain Gemnefsutkapu and the grandson of Basa, a priest of Amun near Sais. Consequently, Tefnakht was not actually descended from a line of Chiefs of the Ma and Libu tribes as traditionally believed but rather came from a family of priests.

Tefnakht erected two donation stelas in Years 36 and 38 of Shoshenq V as a Prince at Saïs. His Year 38 stela from Buto is significant not only because Tefnakht employs the rather boastful epithet of "Great Chief of the entire land" but due to its list of his religious titles as prophet of Neith, Edjo and the Lady of Imay. This reflects his control over Sais, Buto to the north and Kom el-Hish to the southwest even prior to the end of the 22nd Dynasty—with the death of Shoshenq V—and reflects Tefnakht's political base in the Western Delta region of Egypt. The 22nd Dynasty was politically fragmenting even prior to the death of Shoshenq V. Tefnakht established his capital at Sais, and formed an alliance with other minor kings of the Delta region in order to conquer Middle and Upper Egypt, which was under the sway of the Nubian king Piye. He was able to capture and unify many of the cities of the Delta region, thus making Tefnakht considerably more powerful than any of his predecessors in either the 22nd or 23rd dynasties.