Twenty Third Egyptian Dynasty 880 - 724 BCE, Shoshenq VI, Osorkon III

The kings of the Twenty-Second Dynasty of Egypt were a series of Meshwesh Libyans also previously Known as "The Ekwesh" and identified with the original (Black) Greeks, from The confederation of the people of the Mediterranean countries, "The Sea People," who ruled from 943 BCE until 720 BCE. They had settled in Egypt since the Twentieth Dynasty. Manetho states that the dynasty originated at Bubastis, but the kings almost certainly ruled from Tanis, which was their capital and the city where their tombs have been excavated. Another king who belongs to this group is Tutkheperre Shoshenq, whose precise position within this dynasty is currently uncertain although he is now thought to have ruled Egypt early in the 9th century BC for a short time.

Harsiese A/Hedjkheperre-Septenamun 880 - 860 B.C.E.
Takelot II/Hedjkheperre-Setpenre 840 - 815 B.C.E
Pedubastis I/Usermaatre-Septenamun 829 - 804 B.C.E.
Iuput I 829 - 804 B.C.E.?
Shosheng VI/Usermaatre-Meryamun 804 - 798 B.C.E.
Osorkon III/Usermaatre-Septenamun 798 - 769 B.C.E.
Takelot III/Usermaatre 774 - 759 B.C.E.
Rudamun/Usermaatre-Septenamun 759 - 739 B.C.E.
Ini 739 - 734 B.C.E.
Peftjauawybast/Neferkare 734- 724 B.C.E.

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 . Since Shoshenq VI's prenomen is inscribed on Hor IX's funerary cones, this indicates that Hor IX outlived Pedubast I and made his funeral arrangements under Shoshenq VI instead. His prenomen or royal name was 'Usermaatre Meryamun Shoshenq' which is unusual because it is the only known example where the epithet Meryamun (Beloved of Amun) appears within a king's cartouche. Shoshenq VI's High Priest of Amun was a certain Takelot who first appears in office in Year 23 of Pedubast I.

Shoshenq VI's Year 4 and Year 6 are attested in an inscription carved on the roof of the Temple of Monthu at Karnak by a certain Djedioh and in Nile Quay Text No.25 respectively.
Shoshenq VI was presumably Crown Prince Osorkon B's chief rival at Thebes after the death of Pedubast I. He was defeated and ousted from power at Thebes in Year 39 of Shoshenq III by Prince Osorkon. In this decisive Year, Osorkon B explicitly states in Nile Quay Text No.7 that he and his brother, General Bakenptah of Herakleopolis, conquered Thebes and "overthrew everyone who had fought against them." Thereafter, Shoshenq VI is never heard from again.

Osorkon III

Usermaatre Setepenamun Osorkon III Si-Ese was Pharaoh of Egypt in the 8th Century BC. He is the same person as the Crown Prince and High Priest of Amun Osorkon B, son of Takelot II by his Great Royal Wife Karomama II. Prince Osorkon B is best attested by his Chronicle - which consists of a series of texts documenting his activities at Thebes-on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak.

He later reigned as king Osorkon III in Upper Egypt for twenty-eight years after defeating the rival forces of Pedubast I/Shoshenq VI who had apparently resisted the authority of his father here. Osorkon ruled the last five years of his reign in coregency with his son, Takelot III, according to Karnak Nile Level Text No. 13. Osorkon III's formal titulary was long and elaborate:

Usermaatre Setepenamun, Osorkon Si-Ese Meryamun, Netjer-Heqa-waset. Osorkon III's precise accession date is unknown. Various Egyptologists have suggested it may have been from around the mid-790s BC to as late as 787 BC. The issue is complicated by the fact that Prince Osorkon B did not immediately declare himself king after his successful conquest of Thebes and defeat of Shoshenq VI. This is evidenced by the fact that he dated this seminal event to Year 39 of Shoshenq III rather than Year 1 of his reign.

Osorkon III may, therefore, have waited for a minimum of one or two years before proclaiming himself as a Pharaoh of the Theban-based 23rd Dynasty. Osorkon may also have been motivated to defeat or pacify any remaining supporters of the Pedubast I/Shoshenq VI rival faction in other regions of Upper Egypt whether they were in Elephantine, the Western Desert Oasis region - where Pedubast I is monumentally attested - or elsewhere in order to consolidate his position. Hence, Year 1 of Osorkon III is likely equivalent to Year 1 or Year 2 of Shoshenq IV instead, rather than Year 39 of Shoshenq III.

Osorkon III is attested by numerous impressive donation stelae and stone blocks from Herakleopolis Magna through to Thebes. He is generally thought to have been a contemporary of the Lower Egyptian 22nd Dynasty kings, Shoshenq IV, Pami, and the first decade of Shoshenq V's reign. Osorkon III's chief wife was Queen Karoadjet but his second wife was named Tentsai. A stela of Prince Osorkon B calls his spouse Tent ... with part of the name being lost. The latter name can be rendered as either Tentsai or Tentamun. Significantly, however, both men have a daughter called Shepenupet.

Twenty Third Egyptian Dynasty 880 - 724 BCE, Harsiese, Takelot II, Pedubast I, Iuput I

The kings of the Twenty-Third Dynasty of Egypt were a series of Meshwesh Libyans also previously Known as "The Ekwesh" and identified with the original (Black) Greeks, from The confederation of the people of the Mediterranean countries, "The Sea People," who ruled from 943 BCE until 720 BCE. They had settled in Egypt since the Twentieth Dynasty. Manetho states that the dynasty originated at Bubastis, but the kings almost certainly ruled from Tanis, which was their capital and the city where their tombs have been excavated.

Sarcophagus of king Harsiese

 Another king who belongs to this group is Tutkheperre Shoshenq, whose precise position within this dynasty is currently uncertain although he is now thought to have ruled Egypt early in the 9th century BC for a short time.

Harsiese A/Hedjkheperre-Septenamun 880 - 860 B.C.E.
Takelot II/Hedjkheperre-Setpenre 840 - 815 B.C.E
Pedubastis I/Usermaatre-Septenamun 829 - 804 B.C.E.
Iuput I 829 - 804 B.C.E.?
Shosheng VI/Usermaatre-Meryamun 804 - 798 B.C.E.
Osorkon III/Usermaatre-Septenamun 798 - 769 B.C.E.
Takelot III/Usermaatre 774 - 759 B.C.E.
Rudamun/Usermaatre-Septenamun 759 - 739 B.C.E.
Ini 739 - 734 B.C.E.
Peftjauawybast/Neferkare 734- 724 B.C.E.

King Hedjkheperre Setepenamun Harsiese or Harsiese A, is viewed by the Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen in his Third Intermediate Period in Egypt, to be both a "High Priest of Amun" and the son of the High Priest of Amun Shoshenq C. The archaeological evidence does suggest that he was indeed Shoshenq C's son. However, recent published studies by the German Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln in JEA 81(1995) have demonstrated that all the monuments of the first (king) Harsiese show that he was never a High Priest of Amun in his own right. Rather both Harsiese A and his son [...du] - whose existence is known from inscriptions on the latter's funerary objects at Coptos - are only attested as Ordinary Priests of Amun.

Instead, while Harsiese A was certainly an independent king at Thebes during the first decade of Osorkon II's kingship, he was a different person from a second person who was also called Harsiese: Harsiese B. Harsiese B was the genuine High Priest of Amun who is attested in office late in Osorkon II's reign, in the regnal year 6 of Shoshenq III and in regnal years 18 and 19 of Pedubast I, according to Jansen-Winkeln. While Harsiese A may have become king at Thebes prior to Year 4 of Osorkon II, contra Kitchen, he certainly ruled Thebes during the first decade of Osorkon II's reign as Kitchen notes. Osorkon II's control over this great city is only first documented by 2 separate Year 12 Quay Texts which means that Harsiese had died by this time.

If Harsiese was already ruling at Thebes earlier under Takelot I, it might help explain why Takelot I's own Year 5, Year 8, and Year 14 Nile Quay Texts, which mention the serving High Priests Iuwelot and Smendes III - who were all brothers of Takelot I - consistently omit any mention of Takelot's name, as Gerard Broekman aptly notes in a JEA 88(2002) article. Takelot I's name is left deliberately blank here. This might indicate a possible rivalry between Takelot I and Harsiese A at Thebes. The Amun Priests may have chosen not to involve themselves in this dispute by omitting any mention of the reigning king's name.

Hedjkheperre Setepenre Takelot II Si-Ese was a pharaoh of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Ancient Egypt in Middle and Upper Egypt. He has been identified as the High Priest of Amun Takelot F, son of the High Priest of Amun Nimlot C at Thebes and, thus, the son of Nimlot C and grandson of king Osorkon II according to the latest academic research. Based on two lunar dates belonging to Takelot II, this Upper Egyptian pharaoh is today believed to have ascended to the throne of a divided Egypt in either 845 BC or 834 BC. Most Egyptologists today including Aidan Dodson, Gerard Broekman, Jurgen von Beckerath, M.A. Leahy and Karl Jansen-Winkeln also accept David Aston's hypothesis that Shoshenq III was Osorkon II's actual successor at Tanis, rather than Takelot II.

Takelot II rather ruled a separate kingdom that embraced Middle and Upper Egypt, distinct from the Tanite Twenty-second Dynasty who only controlled Lower Egypt. Takelot F, the son and successor of the High Priest of Amun Nimlot C, served for a period of time under Osorkon II as a High Priest of Amun before he proclaimed himself as king Takelot II in the final three regnal years of Osorkon II.

This situation is attested by the relief scenes on the walls of Temple J at Karnak which was dedicated by Takelot F - in his position as High Priest - to Osorkon II, who is depicted as the celebrant and king. All the documents which mention Takelot II Si-Ese and his son, Osorkon B, originate from either Middle or Upper Egypt (none from Lower Egypt) and a royal tomb at Tanis which named a king Hedjkheperre Setepenre Takelot along with a Year 9 stela from Bubastis are now recognised as belonging exclusively to Takelot I. While both Takelot I and II used the same prenomen, Takelot II added the epithet Si-Ese ("Son of Isis") to his royal titulary both to affiliate himself with Thebes and to distinguish his name from Takelot I

Pedubastis Torso

Pedubastis I or Pedubast I was an Upper Egyptian Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt during the 9th century BC. Based on lunar dates which are known to belong to the reign of his rival in Upper Egypt Takelot II and the fact that Pedubast I first appeared as a local king at Thebes around Year 11 of Takelot II's rule, Pedubast I is today believed to have had his accession date in either 835 BC or 824 BC.
This local Pharaoh is recorded as being of Libyan ancestry and ruled Egypt for 25 years according to the redaction of Manetho done by Eusebius. He first became king at Thebes in Year 8 of Shoshenq III and his highest dated Year is his 23rd Year according to Nile Level Text No. 29.

This year is equivalent to Year 31 of Shoshenq III of the Tanis based 22nd Dynasty of Egypt; however, since Shoshenq II only controlled Lower Egypt in Memphis and the Delta region, Pedubast and Shoshenq III were not political rivals and may even have established a relationship. Indeed, Shoshenq III's son, the general and army leader Pashedbast B "built a vestibule door to Pylon X at Karnak, and in one and the same commemorative text thereon named his father as king Sheshonq III" but dated his actions here to Pedubast I. This may show some tacit support for the Pedubast faction by the Tanite based 22nd dynasty king Shoshenq III.

Pedubast I was the main opponent to Takelot II and later, Osorkon B, of the 23rd Dynasty of Libyan kings of Upper Egypt at Thebes. His accession to power plunged Thebes into a protracted civil war which lasted for nearly three decades between these two competing factions. Each faction had a rival line of High Priests of Amun with Pedubast's being Harsiese B who is attested in office as early as Year 6 of Shoshenq III and then Takelot E who appears in office from Year 23 of Pedubast I. Osorkon B was Pedubast I and Harsiese's chief rival. This conflict is obliquely mentioned in the famous Chronicle of Prince Osorkon at Karnak. Recent excavations by the University of Columbia in 2005 reveal that Pedubast I's authority was recognised both at Thebes and in the western desert oases of Egypt - at the Great Temple of Dakhla where his cartouche has been found. He was succeeded in power by Shoshenq VI.

Iuput I was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, who was a co-regent with his father, Pedubast I, near the beginning of the 23rd dynasty. The exact dates of his reign are unknown. It started possibly around 815 BC, or alternatively in the final couple of years of his father's reign; one authority provides the dates ca 816-800 BC.

Map of Ancient Africa & Europe

Orunmila, Olorun and Obatala Creation Myth, not Oduduwa

The following statement are nothing but fabricated fallacy: "The third Ife was founded with the arrival of Oduduwa and his groups. Prominent among those people he met at Ile-Ife were Oreluere, a very powerful wiseman and Orunmila." 

Orunmila Depiction

The person who wrote this article has got his facts spectacularly wrong. First, Orunmila and Oduduwa did not exist in the same time-line. Second, Orunmila predated Oduduwa's existence by at least 10,000 years. Third, Orunmila (Olori-Ipin meaning a witness to creation), was a God and an Immortal in his own right, only second in command to Olodumare (The Supreme Architect) himself. Fourth, Oduduwa was a mere mortal whose father Lamurudu, was killed in Mecca during the wars of religion pertaining to polytheism and monotheism.

In the Beginning, Olodumare (God) gave the Orisa Orunmila a flawless method of communication between himself and the Orisa called Ifa. Ifa is linked to destiny through the symbolism of the number sixteen. Sixteen is the number of cosmos; it represents the primal order that issued from the unity of Olodumare. 

(Sixteen is also a significant number in the world of computers.) When the world was first created, it spread out from an original palm tree that stood at the centre of the world at Ile-Ife. The palm tree had sixteen branches, which formed the four cardinal points and the sixteen original quarters of Ile-Ife.

In political terms, Odudua, the first oni of Ife, fathered sixteen sons who founded the sixteen original kingdoms of the Yoruba. On a deeper level still, Orunmila taught the art of divination to his sixteen sons; they, in turn, passed it down to the Babalawos who practice it today, through the linked concepts of order, creation, and destiny, the number sixteen represents the variables of the human condition, the sixteen possible situations of human life. The Ogham lines on the face of Obatala (Eshin in Igboland) are transliterated into: R - Ra/Ora = Sun, Y - Iyi = Sea, N - Ana = Earth, Kw - Kwa = Tribes, Kw - Akwu = Alter/Temple, Ch - Chi = God/Spirit, P - Opa = Moon and so on.

Obatala Depiction

Orunmila! Witness of fate Second to Oludumare (GOD or The Supreme Architect)) Thou are far more efficacious than medicine, Thou are the Immense Orbit that averts the day of Death. My Lord, Almighty that saved mysterious Spirit that fought death. To Thee salutation is first due in the morning. Thou are the Equilibrium that adjusts World Forces. 

Thou art the One whose exertion it is to reconstruct the creature of bad lot. Repairer of bad-luck, He who knows thee becomes immortal Lord, the undisputable king, Perfect in the House of Wisdom! My Lord! Infinite in knowledge! For not knowing thee in full, we are futile, Oh, if we could but know thee in full, all would be well with us. Ase o, Amen, Amun or Amen-Re.

Furthermore, Orunmila, in order to make access to the retrieval of the Divine Message (Ifa) easy, devised the computer compatible binary coding system, thousands of years before the emergence of computer consciousness in so-called modern man! So, Ifa is preserved in binary coded format and is output Parable - Format. According to many indigenous African legends "their gods once existed as humans and had their way of communicating. Prior to their disappearance, they left with the people a means to communicate with them in the outer realm (Oracle Divination Systems)."

"Ifa Oracle divination is based on the square of 16=16x16=26 = 2^8 corresponding to the vertices of an 8-dimensional hypercube and to the binary 2-choice Clifford algebra C1(8) and so to related ones such as C1(8)xC1(8) = C1(16) [7]. Since the number of sub-hypercubes in an 8-dimensional hypercube is 6,561 =81x81=3^8, the Ifa Oracle has N=8 ternary 3-structure as well as binary 2-structure."  

And the following statement confirmed my assertion about how inaccurate this article is: "It is believed that Oduduwa, the founder of the Yoruba raced emerged after the deluge, he (Oduduwa) and his followers descended on to dry land by means of chain ropes from their life boat." Fifth, here this person has got Obatala exploits wrongly mixed up with Oduduwa's because Obatala was the creator God of the Yoruba myth and an Immortal in his own right, not Oduduwa. In addition, Obatala also predated Oduduwa's existence by at least 3,000 years.

The following paragraphs are the true and correct myth pertaining to Obatala from Yoruba and Igbo land. "In the beginning, there was only the sky above, water and marshland below. The chief god Olorun ruled the sky, and the goddess Olokun ruled what was below. Obatala, another god, reflected upon this situation, then went to Olorun for permission to create dry land for all kinds of living creatures to inhabit. He was given permission, so he sought advice from Orunmila, the oldest son of Olorun and the god of prophecy. " 

"He was told he would need a gold chain long enough to reach below, a snail's shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut, all of which he was to carry in a bag. All the gods contributed what gold they had, and Orunmila supplied the articles for the bag. 

When all was ready, Obatala hung the chain from a corner of the sky, placed the bag over his shoulder, and started the downward climb. When he reached the end of the chain he saw he still had some distance to go. From above he heard Orunmila instruct him to pour the sand from the snail's shell, and to immediately release the white hen."

"He did as he was told, whereupon the hen landing on the sand began scratching and scattering it about. Wherever the sand landed it formed dry land, the bigger piles becoming hills and the smaller piles valleys. Obatala jumped to a hill and named the place Ife. Obatala soon found clay with which to mould figures like him and started his task, but he soon grew tired and decided to take a break. He made wine from a nearby palm tree, and drank bowl after bowl." 

Oduduwa's Statue in Ile-Ife

Not realizing he was drunk, Obatala returned to his task of fashioning the new beings; because of his condition he fashioned many imperfect figures. Without realizing this, he called out to Olorun to breathe life into his creatures. The next day he realized what he had done and swore never to drink again, and to take care of those who were deformed, thus becoming Patron Saint of the Disabled and Protector of the Deformed. 

Sixth, we have been able to transliterate the Ogham lines on the face of Obatala (Eshin in Igboland), and it does not equates to the same thing when transliterating the lines on Oduduwa's face. Seventh, Obatala existed during the fourth and fifth replenishing of the earth, while Oduduwa only existed during fifth replenishing of the earth. Yoruba mythology also shed light on the pre-Oduduwa era in the IIe-Ife, when 'Obatala' and Oreluere were the ruling chieftains of the indigenous Ife-speaking community.

'Awo' Ogboni (Freemason), among so many other 'Awos'(i.e cults) in Ife then, became so prominent and relevant, more as a pressure group to protest the unceremonious arrival of the great colonial master in history, (i.e.) Oduduwa. The Word "Osirica" taken from the Mystery of Osirica and derived from the name of the Egyptian God Osiris. The affinity this word has with the Yoruba word "Oriṣa," derived from the word Oriṣi, which means Gods or Deities who numbered 499 + 1, is quite remarkable. 

If we apply the word "Oriṣa" it equates to the Mystery of "Oriṣica." If we swap the "R" with the "S" in the word "Oriṣica," It eqates to the Mystery of Oṣirica. Left: These are ancient "Marks" not just a tribal mark and can be transliterate using Ogham lines and Iberian Script. A few Transliteration of the "Marks" There are a few letters Z/F at least twice, and the letters T twice as well as Letters OI, letters EA/CH/KH and AE/X/Xi, and the words Past, God/Spirit, Tribe and so on.

One of the stranger ancient scripts one might come across, Ogham is also known as the 'Celtic Tree Alphabet' and Iberian 'Script'. Estimated to have been used from the fourth to the tenth century BCE, it is believed to have been possibly named after the Irish god Ogma but this is debated widely. Ogham actually refers to the characters themselves, the script as a whole is more appropriately named Beith-luis-nin after the order of alphabet letters BLFSN.

The script originally contained twenty letters grouped into four groups of five. Five more letters were later added creating a fifth group. Each of these groups was named after its first letter. There are some four to five hundred surviving ogham inscriptions throughout Britain and Ireland with the largest number appearing in Pembrokeshire. The rest of the inscriptions were located around south-eastern Ireland, Scotland, Orkney, the Isle of Man and around the border of Devon and Cornwall. Ogham was used to write in Archaic Irish, Old Welsh and Latin mostly on wood and stone and is based on a high medieval Briatharogam tradition of ascribing the name of trees to individual characters. The inscriptions containing Ogham are almost exclusively made up of personal names and marks of land ownership.

There are four popular theories discussing the origin of Ogham. The differing theories are unsurprising considering that the script has similarities to ciphers in Germanic runes, Latin, elder futhark and the Greek alphabet. The first theory is based on the work of scholars such as Carney and MacNeill who suggest that Ogham was first created as a cryptic alphabet designed by the Irish. They assert that the Irish designed it in response to political, military and/or religious reasons so that those with knowledge of just Latin could not read it. 

The second theory is held by McManus who argues that Ogham was invented by the first Christians in early Ireland in a quest for uniqueness. The argument maintains that the sounds of the primitive Irish language were too difficult to transcribe into Latin. The third theory states that the Ogham script from invented in West Wales in the fourth century BCE to intertwine the Latin alphabet with the Irish language in response to the intermarriage between the Romans and the Romanized Britons. This would account for the fact that some of the Ogham inscriptions are bilingual; spelling out Irish and Brythonic-Latin.

The fourth theory is supported by MacAlister and used to be popular before other theories began to overtake it. It states that Ogham was invented in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BCE by Gaulish Druids who created it as a hand signal and oral language. MacAliser suggests that it was transmitted orally until it was finally put into writing in early Christian Ireland. He argues that the lines incorporated into Ogham represent the hand by being based on four groups of five letters with a sequence of strokes from one to five. However, there is no evidence for MacAlisters theory that Ogham’s language and system originated in Gaul. 

Olojo Festival

Mythical theories for the origin of Ogham also appear in texts from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. The eleventh-century Lebor Gabala Erenn tells that Ogham was invented soon after the fall of the tower of Babel, as does the fifteenth-century Auraicept na n-eces text. The Book of Babymote also includes ninety-two recorded secret modes of writing Ogham written in 1390-91 CE.

OLOJO FESTIVAL: It is the biggest annual festival of the IIe-Ife. On this occasion, Ooni (King) appears after about seven days of seclusion, completed, not communicating with anyone except the"spirits." He wears the special beaded Oduduwas original crown called “Aare” only once a year during this Olojo festival as he leads the crowd to Okemogun shrine.

The LOKOLOKOs are his bodyguards during the Olojo Festival. The time for the festival is indicated by the sun’s movement in about the month of October from the West to the East. Only the Olojo chief priest identifies the particular day to celebrate the festival.