Shoshenq C

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Shoshenq C was the eldest son of Osorkon I 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 himself. He has generally been equated with Heqakheperre Shoshenq II by the English Egyptologist KA Kitchen and viewed as a short-lived coregent to his father based on the Nile God statue British Museum 8 which identifies him as the son of Osorkon I and Queen Maatkare, daughter of Hor-Psusennes but this assumption remains to be proven. In the statue, Shoshenq C is called "the Master of the Two Lands" and the formula "beloved of Amun" is enclosed within a royal cartouche. However, in the text of the statue:

• he is not given a specific throne name or prenomen,
• the use of a cartouche by a royal prince is attested in other periods of Egyptian history such as that of Amenmes, son of Thutmose I,
• the documents depicts Shoshenq C as a simple High Priest of Amun on the side of the legs of the Nile God, rather than a king.

In addition, none of Shoshenq C's three Wives used the title "King's Wife" in any of their artifacts. More significantly, none of his 3 children ever gave their father a Royal title on their own funerary objects swuch as a Priest Osorkon whose funerary papyri is now in the St Petersburg Museum, or the God's Wife Karomama-Merytmut. Finally, as Helen Jacquet-Gordon perceptively notes in her Bi Or 32(1975) Book Review of Kenneth Kitchen's TIPE book, Shoshenq C's third child--the Priest (and future king) Harsiese A does not assign royal titles to his father on a Bes-statue in Durham Museum which he dedicated to his father's memory. Instead, Shoshenq C is only "designated the 1st Prophet of Amun without other [royal] titles." Hence, Jacquet Gordon's observation: if Shoshenq C had even "the slightest pretensions to royal rank, his son [Harsiese] would not have omitted to mention...[this] fact. We must therefore conclude that he(ie: Shoshenq C) had no such pretensions."(p.359) All this evidence taken together suggest that the High Priest Shoshenq C was not a king in his own right and is not Shoshenq II, whose Royal tomb was found intact in Tanis.

As an aside, Shoshenq II did not include any momentoes or objects which mention Osorkon I within his own tomb. This is an improbable situation if he was truly a son of this king who predeceased--and thus was buried by--his father, Osorkon I. The only other king mentioned by artifacts in Shoshenq II's tomb was Shoshenq I. Other Dynasty 22 kings such as Takelot I, employed funerary goods naming their parents, in their own tombs. The High Priest Shoshenq C was probably succeeded in office by Iuwelot, who was also another son of Osorkon I. Shoshenq C's son, Harsiese, later ruled over Thebes and Middle Egypt as king Harsiese A.

[edit] References

• Helen Jacquet-Gordon, Review of 'K.A. Kitchen's "The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt(1100-=650 BC), Warminster:1973' in Bibliotheca Orientalis 32 No.5/6 (September-November 1975), pp.358-360