Aryamani was a

Nubia Nubia () ( Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sud ...

n king.

Titles

Horus name The Horus name is the oldest known and used crest of ancient Egyptian rulers. It belongs to the " great five names" of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, modern Egyptologists and linguists are starting to prefer the more neutral term: the "serekh na ...

: Kanakht Meryre ("Mighty Bull, beloved of Re") *

Prenomen The ''praenomen'' (; plural: ''praenomina'') was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birt ...

: Usermaatre Setepenre ("Re is one whose equity is mighty, chosen one of Re") * Nomen: Son of Amun Aryamani (''Sa-en-Amun Iry-Amun'') with epithet Meryamun ("Beloved of Amun") László Török, The kingdom of Kush: handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization

Monuments and inscriptions

He is attested by one

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

found at Kawa. The stela provides a text in poor Egyptian language and is, therefore, for the most part, not fully understandable. However, it provides a Year 9 date from his reign. At Kawa, a second stela was also found dated to Year 24 of a king whose name is destroyed. On stylistical grounds, it has been assumed that this stela also belongs to Aryamani who, therefore, must have reigned in Nubia for at least 23 years. The main stela, now in Copenhagen, shows the king at the top in front of

Amun-Re Amun (; also ''Amon'', ''Ammon'', ''Amen''; egy, jmn, reconstructed as (Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian) → (later Middle Egyptian) → (Late Egyptian), cop, Ⲁⲙⲟⲩⲛ, Amoun) romanized: ʾmn) was a major ancient Egyptian ...

Mut Mut, also known as Maut and Mout, was a mother goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush in present-day North Sudan. In Meroitic, her name was pronounced mata): 𐦨𐦴. Her name means ''mother'' in the ancient Egyptian l ...

and Khons. In the lower part there is the text, partly destroyed and therefore increasing the problems of understanding the poor Egyptian. The text starts with the year 3 and the partly lost titulary of the king. It follows a prayer to Amun-Re and in the remaining lines donations of the king to the god seems to be listed. They are arranged in an annal style, year 8 and year 9 of the king are also preserved. Furthermore, there appears a year 21 but it remains doubtful whether it relates to Aryamani. The two fragments of the second stela relate to similar donations between year 9 and 23 of an unknown king. A year 24 can be reconstructed but its meaning or context is now lost. The text might be the follow-up of the first stela.

Date of reign

The position and dating of the king is highly problematic. The style of Aryamani's stela, his throne and Horus names show Ramesside influences. Therefore, he was placed at the beginning of the third century BC when there were also Ramesside influences visible in Ptolemaic Egypt and when Nubian kings, such as Aktisanes also copied Ramesside patterns. The poor Egyptian language seems to place him around or after

Nastasen Nastasen was a king of Kush (335 – 315/310 BC). According to a stela from Dongola his mother was named Queen Pelkha and his father may have been King Harsiotef. His successor was Aryamani. He is known from three types of objects. There is ...

. Laszlo Török maintains that :"the Ramessid-style names and the monuments of Aryamani and some other ubianrulers with similar names (Aktisanes, Irike-Piye-qo, Sabrakamani) are to be dated to the end of the 4th and the first half of the 3rd century BC." Other researchers, such as

Robert Morkot Robert George Morkot, FSA (born 1957) is an archaeologist and academic, specialising in Ancient Egypt. He is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Exeter. His current research is focused on the external relations of Ancient Eg ...

regard the Ramesside style as an indication that the king ruled shortly after the Ramesside period. Morkot identifies him with

Alara ''Alara'' may refer to: People * Alara of Ilara-Mokin, the king of Ilara-Mokin land in Nigeria * Alara of Nubia, a king of Kush * Āḷāra Kālāma, a hermit saint, a teacher of yogic meditation and teacher of Gautama Buddha * Luis Alberto Fernán ...

.R. Morkot: ''The Black Pharaohs, Egypt's Nubian Rulers'', London 2000, 147-49

Burial

Aryamani is thought to have been buried at

Jebel Barkal Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal ( ar, جبل بركل) is a mesa or large rock outcrop located 400 km north of Khartoum, next to Karima in Northern State in Sudan, on the Nile River, in the region that is sometimes called Nubia. The jebel is 1 ...

. Pyramid 11 or 14 may belong to this king.

References

Literature

* Laszlo Török, in: ''Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, Vol. II'', Bergen 1996, 521-532, {{ISBN, 82-91626-01-4 3rd-century BC monarchs of Kush