Egypt - Inter-Occupation Period

  General Description   The Inter-Occupation Dynasties (Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Dynasties, 404‒343/2 BCE) ^{[1] [2]} refers to the last period during which Egypt was governed by indigenous rulers, at a time when Egypt’s external relationships with Greeks and Persians overshadowed attempts to maintain internal political stability. Forming part of the the ’Late Period’ of Egyptian history, it spanned only about six decades in between phases of Persian domination. ^[3]
The Twenty-eighth Dynasty was established after a number of revolts against Persian rule in 404 BCE, and Amyrtaeus II, who ruled from Memphis, may have adopted the regnal name of Psamtik (after the first Saite king) to lend his rule legitimacy. ^[4] Although Amyrtaeus succeeded in extending his control as far south as Aswan in 400 BCE, where his rule was accepted by the Jewish community at Elephantine, ^[5] his reign was challenged and overthrown by one of his generals. An Aramaic papyrus at the Brooklyn museum describes a violent coup that unseated Amyrtaeus; according to the document, Nepherites I captured Amyrtaeus and executed him at Memphis. ^[6]
Nepherites I is considered the founder of a new dynasty (the Twenty-ninth). His new capital was probably at Mendes, where he carried out building projects, as revealed by excavations in the 1980s by the Brooklyn Museum and the University of New York. ^[6] Nectanebo I, founder of the Thirtieth and final native Egyptian pharaonic Dynasty, seems to have overthrown the last ruler of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty with the assistance of a Greek general called Chabrias, whose mercenaries are known to have subsequently helped prevent a Persian invasion of Egypt. ^[1]
Population and political organization
The most powerful elements in Egyptian society in this period were members of the the warrior class and priesthood. ^[2] The men who established the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Dynasties ‒ Nepherites I and Nectanebo I respectively ‒ were both generals, while Amyrtaeus II was most likely the grandson of another Amyrtaeus from Sais, who had rebelled against the Achaemenid occupation. ^[7] One of the first priorities of Nectanebo II when he came to power was to control the Egyptian army; to achieve this end he promoted his oldest son to the position of ’First Generalissimo of His Majesty’. ^[8] The 340s BCE were a time of insurrection, when Egyptians were fomenting rebellions against Persian authority across the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. ^[9]
There are few sources to tell us of the workings of the Egyptian administration of this time, but historians agree that when the Persian Achaemenids conquered territories - including Egypt - they were generally happy to leave indigenous governance structures intact and did not seek to make wholesale changes to them. Egypt was made a satrapy, and the main task of the satrap in Memphis was to keep up the regular shipment of tribute to Persia. ^[10] It therefore seems likely that the Inter-Occupation Dynasties retained the administrative structures of the preceding Saite Period: a centralized court government with a warrior pharaoh and a vizier who ran his civil administration. This was the last period in which regional rulers called nomarchs formed part of the provincial administration.
The Late Period of Egypt saw an elaboration of debt and credit structures, to the extent that merchants could issue loans to individuals. ^[11] Though Persian coins were used under the Achaemenids, an innovation of the post-Achaemenid period of rule was the state minting of silver coins, ^[12] perhaps from the reign of Teos onwards. Priests were required to pay a tax in silver in order to secure donations to their temples; temples were forced to drastically reduce their expenses and use the savings to make loans to the king, who used it to mint coins to pay his armies. ^[13] Pharaoh Teos evidently had enough resources to launch an attack on the Persians in the late 360s BCE. ^[14]
Egypt at this time was a diverse, cosmopolitan state. Foreign mercenary forces recruited to defend the Egyptian homeland, a practice popular since the Third Intermediate Period, brought great ethnic and cultural diversity. The presence of garrisoned Greeks, Carians, Phoenicians, Cypriots, Aramaeans and Jews had been an important influence on Egypt since the Saite Dynasty and these groups had retained the languages and culture of their home communities. ^[15]
A significant innovation of the period was the widespread adoption of the qanat water supply technology, brought in by the occupying Persians in the 5th century BCE. ^[16] Qanats were sloping subterranean tunnels that conducted groundwater over long distances, creating a reliable supply of water for drinking, bathing and irrigation. ^[16] In about 400 BCE, the Egyptian population is likely to have risen to slightly over three million. ^[17]

[1]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 17) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2]: (Lloyd 2000, 377) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Late Period (664-332 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 364-87. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[3]: (Lichtheim [1980] 2006, ix-x) Miriam Lichtheim. [1980] 2006. Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume III: The Late Period. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

[4]: (Perdu 2010, 152-53) Olivier Perdu. 2010. ’Saites and Persians (664‒332)’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 140-58. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[5]: (Grimal 1994, 371) N. Grimal. 1994. A History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

[6]: (Grimal 1994, 372) N. Grimal. 1994. A History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

[7]: (Perdu 2010, 152) Olivier Perdu. 2010. ’Saites and Persians (664‒332)’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 140-58. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[8]: (Perdu 2010, 156) Olivier Perdu. 2010. ’Saites and Persians (664‒332)’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 140-58. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[9]: (Ruzicka 2012) Stephen Ruzicka. 2012. Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525-332 BCE. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[10]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 16-17) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11]: (Allam 1990, 2) S. Allam. 1990. ’Women as Holders of Rights in Ancient Egypt (During the Late Period)’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 33 (1): 1-34.

[12]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 25) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[13]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 25) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.

[14]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 24) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[15]: (Kaplan 2003) Philip Kaplan. 2003. ’Cross-Cultural Contacts among Mercenary Communities in Saite and Persian Egypt’. Mediterranean Historical Review 18 (1): 1-31.

[16]: (Van de Mieroop 2011, 307) Marc Van De Mieroop. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[17]: (McEvedy and Jones 1978, 227) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Allen Lane.