Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

CHAP. XIV.]

POSITION OF SHESHANQ.

247

The first king of the dynasty is Sheshanq. His
grandfather, another Sheshanq, had married into
the royal line of Thebes, and the king further
strengthened his position by marrying his son to a
royal daughter of the last king of the 21st dynasty.

On another side too they were not backward to
strengthen their position. In a paper in the
'Recueil,'* M. Daressy has traced the alliance
between the Bubastite kings and the priests of
Memphis, showing that the latter emphasise the
alliance by a succession of names parallel to those
of the royal house.

It is indeed this "moral support" of the priest-
hood of Memphis that, according to M. Daressy
was decisive in the rise of the Bubastites.

As they stood, racial princes of the mercenary
troops allied by marriage to the Theban and the
Memphite priesthood, the position seemed strong.
But there were elements of weakness. The dynasty
was not Egyptian nor bound by long course of time
to the people, and with the move of the seat of
government to the north the hierarchy of Thebes
tended to become independent, thus splitting the
kingdom in two.

That their kings did not wholly relinquish the
southern capital is evident; although the great
buildings of the dynasty are in the Delta, Sheshanq
and his successors added to the temple at Karnak

* ' Recueil,' vol. xviii., pp. 46 ff. " Inscriptions Inedites de la
XXIP Dynastie." G. Daressy.