Shoshenq (also commonly spelled Sheshonq, Sheshonk, Shoshenk) was the name of many Ancient Egyptians with

Libu The Libu ( egy, rbw; also transcribed Rebu, Lebu, Lbou, Libou) were an Ancient Libyan tribe of Berber origin, from which the name ''Libya'' derives. Early history Their occupation of Ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language texts ...

ancestry since the

Third Intermediate Period The Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt began with the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI in 1077 BC, which ended the New Kingdom, and was eventually followed by the Late Period. Various points are offered as the beginning for the latt ...

People named Shoshenq

Several pharaohs with this name are known, as well as many important state officials:

Pharaohs

* Shoshenq I, founder of the

22nd Dynasty The Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt is also known as the Bubastite Dynasty, since the pharaohs originally ruled from the city of Bubastis. It was founded by Shoshenq I. The Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-f ...

, often identified as the ''

Shishaq Shishak, Shishaq or Susac (, Tiberian: , ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.Troy Leiland Sagrillo. 2015.Shoshenq I and bib ...

'' of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Shoshenq II Heqakheperre Shoshenq II or Shoshenq IIa was a pharaoh of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt. He was the only ruler of this dynasty whose tomb was not plundered by tomb robbers. His final resting place was discovered within an antechamber of Psu ...

, of the 22nd Dynasty *Shoshenq IIb or Tutkheperre Shoshenq, of the 22nd Dynasty *

Shoshenq III King Usermaatre Setepenre Shoshenq III of the 22nd Dynasty ruled for 39 years according to contemporary historical records. Two Apis Bulls were buried in the fourth and 28th years of his reign and he celebrated his Heb Sed Jubilee in his regnal ...

, of the 22nd Dynasty *

Shoshenq IV Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq IV was an ancient Egyptian ruler of the 22nd Dynasty, between the reigns of Shoshenq III and Pami. In 1986, David Rohl proposed that there were two king Shoshenqs bearing the prenomen Hedjkheperre – (i) the well ...

, of the 22nd Dynasty *

Shoshenq V Aakheperre Shoshenq V was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the late 22nd Dynasty. Despite having enjoyed one of the longest reigns of the entire dynasty – 38 years – and having left a fair amount of attestations, little is known about Shoshenq ...

, of the 22nd Dynasty *

Shoshenq VI Shoshenq VI is known to be Pedubast I's immediate successor at Thebes based upon the career of the ''Letter Writer to Pharaoh'' Hor IX, who served under Osorkon II and Pedubast I (see Hor IX's statue—CGC 42226—which is explicitly dated to ...

, of the

23rd Dynasty The Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXIII, alternatively 23rd Dynasty or Dynasty 23) is usually classified as the third dynasty of the ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period. This dynasty consisted of a number of Meshwesh ki ...

* Shoshenq VII (existence doubtful)

Officials

Shoshenq A Shoshenq A, sometimes also called Shoshenq the Elder, was a ''Great Chief of the Ma'' during the 21st Dynasty of ancient Egypt. He is mainly known for being an ancestor of the 22nd Dynasty pharaohs. Biography His wife was the ''King's mother'' M ...

, grandfather of Shoshenq I *

Shoshenq C Shoshenq C was the eldest son of the 22nd Dynasty pharaoh Osorkon I and queen Maatkare, and served as the High Priest of Amun at Thebes during his father's reign. Consequently, he was the most important official in Upper Egypt after the king him ...

, a Theban High Priest of Amun, son of pharaoh

Osorkon I Sekhemkheperre Osorkon I was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty. Osorkon's territory included much of the Levant. The Osorkon Bust found at Byblos is one of the five Byblian royal inscriptions. Biography The son of Shoshenq I and ...

* Shoshenq D, a

High Priest of Ptah The High Priest of Ptah was sometimes referred to as "the Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship" ('' wr-ḫrp-ḥmwt''). This title refers to Ptah as the patron god of the craftsmen.Dodson and Hilton, ''The Complete Royal Families of Ancie ...

, son of pharaoh

Osorkon II Usermaatre Setepenamun Osorkon II was the fifth king of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Ancient Egypt and the son of King Takelot I and Queen Kapes. He ruled Egypt from approximately 872 BC to 837 BC from Tanis, the capital of that dynasty. After ...

*Shoshenq,

Chief steward of the God's Wife The high steward (also called chief steward or great overseer of the house; Egyptian: ''imi-r pr wr'') was an important official at the royal court in Ancient Egypt in the Middle Kingdom and in the New Kingdom. He was the main person in charge o ...

of Amun

Ankhnesneferibre Ankhnesneferibre was an ancient Egyptian princess and priestess during the 26th Dynasty, daughter of pharaoh Psamtik II and his queen Takhuit. She held the positions of Divine Adoratrice of Amun and later God's Wife of Amun between 595 and 525 ...

, buried in

TT27 The Theban Tomb TT27 is located in El-Assasif. It forms part of the Theban Necropolis, situated on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. The tomb is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian official, Sheshonk. Sheshonk was the chief stewa ...

Renderings of ''Shoshenq'' in English

Because vowels are not generally written in the ancient

Egyptian language The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipher ...

, the exact pronunciation of this name has caused some amount of controversy, and it is common to see both ''Shoshenq'' and ''Sheshonq'' used in English-language publications. There is, however, some evidence indicating that ''Shoshenq'' is preferable. First of all, it must be stated that the name "Shoshenq" originates in an ancient

Libyco-Berber The Libyco-Berber alphabet or the Libyc alphabet (modern Berber name: ''Agemmay Alibu-Maziɣ'') is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write anci ...

language, perhaps related to the Numidian Berber language used during the time of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

. Unfortunately, unlike some other Libyan rulers of Ancient Egypt, there is no name in the corpus of Old Libyco-Berber text that might be an equivalent to the Egyptian rendering of the name.

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

s conventionally

transliterate Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

the name in hieroglyphs as ''ššnq''. In ancient Egyptian texts, writings without the and/or (less commonly) the are not uncommon. For example, the name is recorded in the Neo-Assyrian dialect of

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...

as ''šusanqu'' and ''susinqu'', indicating an initial rounded vowel. It is generally considered that the evidence suggests rendering it as "Sheshonq" should be avoided, in favour of "Shoshenq".

Kenneth Kitchen Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (born 1932) is a British biblical scholar, Ancient Near Eastern historian, and Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, Univ ...

(1996). ''The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC).'' 3rd ed. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Limited. , § 58, note 356 The writings of Manetho, as recorded by the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

historians

Sextus Julius Africanus Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240; Greek: Σέξτος Ἰούλιος ὁ Ἀφρικανός or ὁ Λίβυς) was a Christian traveler and historian of the late second and early third centuries. He is important chiefly because o ...

, Eusebius of Caesarea, and

George Syncellus George Syncellus ( el, Γεώργιος Σύγκελλος, ''Georgios Synkellos''; died after 810) was a Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastic. He had lived many years in Palestine (probably in the Old Lavra of Saint Chariton or Souka, near Tekoa ...

use two general forms (with variations depending on the manuscript). Africanus spells the name Σεσωγχις 'Sesōnkhis'' while Eusebius (as quoted by George Syncellus) uses Σεσογχωσις 'Sesonkhōsis'' The alteration in the vowels and is probably due to metathesis.

References

{{reflist

Sources

*Aidan Dodson (1995). “Rise & Fall of The House of Shoshenq: The Libyan Centuries of Egyptian History.” ''KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt'' 6 (3):52–67. *

Jürgen von Beckerath Jürgen von Beckerath (19 February 1920, Hanover – 26 June 2016, Schlehdorf) was a German Egyptologist. He was a prolific writer who published countless articles in journals such as '' Orientalia'', ''Göttinger Miszellen'' (GM), '' Journal of ...

(1997). ''Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten'', Mainz: Philip Von Zabern. Ancient Egyptian given names Berber words and phrases