Shebitku

Shebitku (also Shabataka or Shebitqo) was the third king of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt who ruled from 707/706 BC-690 BC, according to Dan'el Kahn's most recent academic research of the Tang-i Var inscription. Shebitku was the nephew and successor of Shabaka. He was a son of Piye, the founder of this dynasty. Shebitku's prenomen or throne name, Djedkare, means "Enduring is the Soul of Re."

Timeline

In 1999, an Egypt-Assyrian synchronism from the Great Inscription of Tang-i Var in Iran was re-discovered and re-analysed. Carved by Sargon II of Assyria (722-705 BC), the inscription dates to the period around 707/706 BC and reveals that it was Shebitku, king of Egypt, who extradited the rebel king Iamanni of Ashdod into Sargon's hands, rather than Shabaka as previously thought. The pertinent section of the inscription by Sargon II reads:

The Tang-i Var inscription dates to Sargon's 15th year between Nisan 707 BC to Adar 706 BC. This shows that Shebitku was ruling in Egypt by April 706 BC at the very latest, and perhaps as early as November 707 BC to allow some time for Iamanni's extradition and the recording of this deed in Sargon's inscription. A suggestion that Shebitku served as Shabaka's viceroy in Nubia and that Shebitku extradited Iamanni to Sargon II during the reign of king Shabaka has been rejected by the Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln in Ancient Egyptian Chronology (Handbook of Oriental Studies), which is the most updated publication on Egyptian chronology. As Jansen-Winkeln writes: