Taharqa

Taharqa
Statue of Taharqa. His name appears on the center of his belt: 𓇿𓉔𓃭𓈎 (tꜣ-h-rw-q, "Taharqa"). The statue is 2.7 meters tall. Taharqa has a striding pose, the arms held tight, and holds the mekes staff. He wears a shendyt or pleated kilt and on his head is a double-uraeus skullcap, possibly signifying his rule over Nubia and Egypt.[1] (Louvre Museum, color reconstruction of the jewelry through pigment analysis).[2]
Statue of Taharqa. His name appears on the center of his belt: 𓇿𓉔𓃭𓈎 (tꜣ-h-rw-q, "Taharqa"). The statue is 2.7 meters tall. Taharqa has a striding pose, the arms held tight, and holds the mekes staff. He wears a shendyt or pleated kilt and on his head is a double-uraeus skullcap, possibly signifying his rule over Nubia and Egypt.[1] (Louvre Museum, color reconstruction of the jewelry through pigment analysis).[2]
Pharaoh
Reign690–664 BC
PredecessorShabaka
SuccessorTantamani
Royal titulary
Horus name
Qekhau
G5
q
N28		 w
Nebty name
Qekhau
G16
q
N28		 w
Golden Horus
Khutawy
Protector of the Two Lands
G8
xwtA
tA
Prenomen  (Praenomen)
Nefertemkhure
Nefertum is his Protector[3]
M23L2
ranfrU15xw
Nomen
Taharqa
Taharqa
G39N5
N17
h		 rw
q
ConsortGreat Queen Takahatenamun, Atakhebasken, Naparaye, Tabekenamun[4]
ChildrenAmenirdis II, Ushankhuru, Nesishutefnut
FatherPiye
MotherAbar
Died664 BC
Dynasty25th dynasty
N17
O4		 E23
N29
nomen or birth name
t h r ḳ (Taharqo)
in hieroglyphs

Taharqa, also spelled Taharka or Taharqo (Ancient Egyptian: 𓇿𓉔𓃭𓈎, romanized: tꜣhrwq, Akkadian: Tar-qu-ú, Hebrew: תִּרְהָקָה, romanized: Tīrhāqā, Manetho's Tarakos, Strabo's Tearco), was a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and qore (king) of the Kingdom of Kush (present day Sudan) from 690 to 664 BC. He was one of the "Black Pharaohs" who ruled over Egypt for nearly a century,[5][6] or one of the Nubian (or Kushite) Pharaohs of Egypt, since the traditional representation of the 25th dynasty as "Black Pharaohs" has drawn criticism from scholars, specifically because the term suggests that other dynasties did not share similar southern origins.[7] (see Ancient Egyptian race controversy). They also argue that the term ignores the genetic continuum that linked ancient Nubians and Egyptians.[8][9]

  1. ^ Bianchi, Robert Steven (2004). Daily Life of the Nubians. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 207. ISBN 978-0-313-32501-4.
  2. ^ Elshazly, Hesham. "Kerma and the royal cache". Archived from the original on 3 April 2021. Retrieved 17 June 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ Clayton, Peter A. (2006). Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. Thames&Hudson. p. 190. ISBN 0-500-28628-0.
  4. ^ Dodson, Aidan; Hilton, Dyan (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05128-3., pp.234-6
  5. ^ Burrell, Kevin (2020). Cushites in the Hebrew Bible: Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Past and Present. BRILL. p. 79. ISBN 978-90-04-41876-9. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  6. ^ "Pharaoh Taharqa ruled from 690 to 664 BCE and in all likelihood was the last black pharaoh to rule over all of Egypt" in Dijk, Lutz van (2006). A History of Africa. Tafelberg. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-624-04257-0. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  7. ^ Logan, Jim (21 September 2020). "The African Egypt". The Current / UC Santa Barbara. Smith, who has been excavating the ancient site of Tombos in modern Sudan (Nubia) since 2000, has focused his research on questions of identity, especially ethnicity, and intercultural interaction between ancient Egypt and Nubia. In the 8th century BCE, he noted, Kushite rulers were crowned as Kings of Egypt, ruling a combined Nubian and Egyptian kingdom as pharaohs of Egypt's 25th Dynasty. Those Kushite kings are commonly referred to as the 'Black Pharaohs' in both scholarly and popular publications. That terminology, Smith said, is often presented as a celebration of black African civilization. But it also reflects a longstanding bias that holds the Egyptian pharaohs and their people weren't African — that is, not Black. It's a trope that feeds into a long history of racism that traces back to the some of the founding figures of Egyptology and their role in the creation of "scientific" racism in the U.S. [...] 'It has always struck me as odd that Egyptologists have been reluctant to admit that the ancient (and modern) Egyptians were rather dark-skinned Africans, especially the farther south one goes," Smith continued.
  8. ^ "One of the other problems with the "Black Pharaohs" monikor is that it implies that none of the other Predynastic, Protodynastic, or dynastic Egyptian rulers could be called "black" - in the sense of the Kushites - which, while not particularly interesting, is not true. Even Sir Flinders Petrie, father of the Asiatic "Dynastic Race" theory of dynastic Egypt's foundation, stated that various other dynasties were of "Sudany" origin or had connections there, based on phenotype; which implies [incorrectly] that particular traits could not have been Egyptian i.e. been a part of its ancestral biological variation".Keita, S. O. Y. (September 2022). "Ideas about "Race" in Nile Valley Histories: A Consideration of "Racial" Paradigms in Recent Presentations on Nile Valley Africa, from "Black Pharaohs" to Mummy Genomest". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections.
  9. ^ Crawford, Keith W. (2021). "Critique of the "Black Pharaohs" Theme: Racist Perspectives of Egyptian and Kushite/Nubian Interactions in Popular Media". African Archaeological Review. 38 (4): 695–712. doi:10.1007/s10437-021-09453-7. ISSN 0263-0338. S2CID 238718279.