PSAMTIK II

died 589 BC also spelled Psamatik king (reigned 595589 BC) of the 26th dynasty of Egypt, who conducted an important expedition against the kingdom of Cush, Egypt's southern neighbour. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, refers briefly to an Ethiopian war of Psamtik, an expedition that contemporary records prove to have been of great importance. Perhaps suspecting a Cushite threat to Egypt, Psamtik sent a large force against it. The army consisted of native Egyptians led by Ahmose, who later became pharaoh, and mercenaries (Greeks, Phoenicians, and Jews) led by another general. A contemporary stela from Thebes dates the venture to the third year of his reign and refers to a great defeat that was inflicted on a Cushite force. The expedition advanced at least as far south as the Third Cataract of the Nile; Greek participants in the expedition left graffiti on the colossuses at Abu Simbel, the temple of Ramses II, claiming to have advanced beyond Kerkis (perhaps modern Korkos) near the Fifth Cataract of the Nile, which stood well within the Cushite Kingdom. Psamtik initiated destruction of the memorials of the 25th (Cushite) dynasty in Egypt by hacking out their names and the emblems of royalty from their statues and reliefs. Toward Palestine he apparently remained neutral. He paid a peaceful visit to Phoenicia in 591, after the Cushite campaign.