The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 143
Consequently, these contemporary death stelae conclusively
establish the lengths of reign of the first four kings of the twentysixth
dynasty of Egypt as follows:
Psammetichus I
Necho II
Psammetichus II
Apries (= Hophra)
54 years
15 years
6 years
19 years
For the last two kings of the twenty-sixth dynasty, Amasis and
Psammetichus III, material of this kind unfortunately is lacking.
However, both Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE.) and
the Graeco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho (active c. 300
B.C.E.) give forty-four years to Amasis and six months to
Psammetichus III. 104 And these lengths of reign have been
confirmed by modem discoveries, as follows:
In the papyrus Rylands IX (also called “Petition of Petiese”)
dating from the time of Darius I (521–486 B.C.E.), the forty-fourth
year of Amasis is mentioned in a context indicating it was his last
full year. Each year, a prophet of Amun of Teuzoi
(Psammetkmenempe by name) who lived in the Nile Delta, used to
send a representative to fetch his stipend. This he did until the fortyfourth
year of Amasis. This, in itself, is not decisive. But in the
“Demotic Chronicle,” a report on the compilation of Egyptian
laws written under Darius I, there are also two mentions of the
forty-fourth year of Amasis as some sort of terminal point. Finally,
the same figure is given in an inscription from Wâdi Hammâmât. 105
The figure given by Herodotus and Manetho, therefore, is strongly
supported by this combination of inscriptions.
104 Manetho’s Egyptian History, which was written in Greek and probably was based
on the temple archives, is preserved only in extracts by Flavius Josephus and
Christian chronographers, especially by Julius Africanus in his Chronographia (c.
221 C.E.) and by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Chronicon (c. 303 C.E.). Africanus,
who transmits Manetho’s data in a more accurate form, gives forty-four years to
Amasis and six months to Psammetichus III. This agrees with Herodotus’s
figures.—W. G. Waddell, Manetho (London: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp.
xvi–xx, 169–174.
105 W. Spiegelberg, Die Sogenannte Demotische Chronik (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche
Buchhandlung, 1914), p. 31; Kienitz, op. cit., p. 156; and Richard A. Parker, “The
Length of Reign of Amasis and the Beginning of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty,”
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Kairo Abteilung, XV, 1957,
p. 210. For some time it was held that Amasis died in his forty-fourth regnal
year, and because of the Egyptian nonaccession year system, whereby a king’s
accession year was reckoned as his first regnal year, they gave Amasis only fortythree
full years. But in 1957, in the article referred to above, R. A. Parker
demonstrated conclusively that Amasis reigned for forty-four full years. This, of
course, moved the reigns of the earlier kings of the Saite dynasty one year
backwards. The beginning of the dynasty, therefore, was re-dated to 664 instead
of 663 B.C.E., as had been held previously. (R. A. Parker, op. cit., 1957, pp. 208–
212.) Since 1957, Parker’s conclusions have obtained general acceptance among
scholars.—For additional information on the nonaccession year reckoning, see
Appendix For Chapter Two: “Methods of reckoning regnal years.”