Necho II

{{see also|Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt family tree}}

Necho II was the son of Psammetichus I by his Great Royal Wife Mehtenweskhet. His prenomen or royal name Wahem-Ib-Re means "Carrying out [the] Heart (i.e., Wish) [of] Re."Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson, 1994. p.195 Upon his ascension, Necho was faced with the chaos created by the raids of the Cimmerians and the Scythians, who had not only ravaged Asia west of the Euphrates, but had also helped the Babylonians shatter the Assyrian Empire. That once mighty empire was now reduced to the troops, officials, and nobles who had gathered around a general holding out at Harran, who had taken the throne name of Ashur-uballit II. Necho attempted to assist this remnant immediately upon his coronation, but the force he sent proved to be too small, and the combined armies were forced to retreat west across the Euphrates.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

In the spring of 609 BC, Necho personally led a sizable force to help the Assyrians. At the head of a large army, consisting mainly of his mercenaries, Necho took the coast route Via Maris into Syria, supported by his Mediterranean fleet along the shore, and proceeded through the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon. At Megiddo (according to 2 Kings 23) he engaged the Judean king, Josiah, and had the Judean king killed Bernd Schipper, 2010, Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah under Josiah and Jehoiakim, p. 218 (an alternative version, in 2 Chronicles 35, of a battle in Megiddo also exists.)

Herodotus reports the campaign of the pharaoh in his Histories, Book 2:159:

{{cquote|Necos, then, stopped work on the canal and turned to war; some of his triremes were constructed by the northern sea, and some in the Arabian Gulf (Red Sea), by the coast of the Sea of Erythrias. The windlasses for beaching the ships can still be seen. He deployed these ships as needed, while he also engaged in a pitched battle at Magdolos with the Syrians, and conquered them; and after this he took Cadytis (Kadesh), which is a great city of Syria. He sent the clothes he had worn in these battles to the Branchidae of Miletus and dedicated them to Apollo.}}

Necho soon captured Kadesh on the Orontes and moved forward, joining forces with Ashur-uballit and together they crossed the Euphrates and laid siege to Harran. Although Necho became the first pharaoh to cross the Euphrates since Thutmose III, he failed to capture Harran, and retreated back to northern Syria. At this point, Ashur-uballit vanished from history, and the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Babylonians.

File:Tel megido.JPG site of the battle of Megiddo in 609 BC.]]

Leaving a sizable force behind, Necho returned to Egypt. On his return march, he found that the Judeans had selected Jehoahaz to succeed his father Josiah, whom Necho deposed and replaced with Jehoiakim.II. Chronicles by Philip Chapman Barker. [https://books.google.com/books?id=p84UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA447 p447]–448 He brought Jehoahaz back to Egypt as his prisoner, where Jehoahaz ended his days (2 Kings 23:31-34; 2 Chronicles 36:1–4).

File:Battle of Carchemish.png, helped by the remnants of the army of the former Assyria, but this was met with defeat.]]

The Babylonian king was planning on reasserting his power in Syria. In 609 BC, King Nabopolassar captured Kumukh, which cut off the Egyptian army, then based at Carchemish. Necho responded the following year by retaking Kumukh after a four-month siege, and executed the Babylonian garrison. Nabopolassar gathered another army, which camped at Qurumati on the Euphrates. However, Nabopolassar's poor health forced him to return to Babylon in 605 BC. In response, in 606 BC the Egyptians attacked the leaderless Babylonians (probably then led by the crown prince Nebuchadnezzar) who fled their position.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

At this point, the aged Nabopolassar passed command of the army to his son Nebuchadnezzar II, who led them to a decisive victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 BC, and pursued the fleeing survivors to Hamath. Necho's dream of restoring the Egyptian Empire in the Middle East as had occurred under the New Kingdom was destroyed as Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egyptian territory from the Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt (Jeremiah 46:2; 2 Kings 23:29) down to Judea. Although Nebuchadnezzar spent many years in his new conquests on continuous pacification campaigns, Necho was unable to recover any significant part of his lost territories. For example, when Ashkalon rose in revolt, despite repeated pleas the Egyptians sent no help, and were barely able to repel a Babylonian attack on their eastern border in 601 BC. When he did repel the Babylonian attack, Necho managed to capture Gaza while pursuing the enemy. Necho turned his attention in his remaining years to forging relationships with new allies: the Carians, and further to the west, the Greeks.{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

{{See also|Suez Canal#History}}

At some point during his Syrian campaign, Necho II initiated but never completed the ambitious project of cutting a navigable canal from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to the Red Sea. Necho's Canal was the earliest precursor of the Suez Canal.Redmount, Carol A. "The Wadi Tumilat and the "Canal of the Pharaohs"" Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 54, No. 2 (April , 1995), pp. 127-135 It was in connection with a new activity that Necho founded a new city of Per-Temu Tjeku which translates as 'The House of Atum of Tjeku' at the site now known as Tell el-Maskhuta,Shaw, Ian; and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. The British Museum Press, 1995. p.201 about 15 km west of Ismailia. The waterway was intended to facilitate trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Necho also formed an Egyptian navy by recruiting displaced Ionian Greeks. This was an unprecedented act by the pharaoh since most Egyptians had traditionally harboured an inherent distaste for and fear of the sea.Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson, 1994, p.196 The navy which Necho created operated along both the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.Herodotus 2.158; Pliny N.H. 6.165ff; Diodorus Siculus 3.43 Necho II constructed warships,The Cambridge Ancient History. Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond. p49 including questionably triremes.Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization. By Richard Miles. Penguin, Jul 21, 2011. p1781

File:Herodotus5m1.jpg, 440 BC]]

File:PtolemyWorldMap.jpg

At some point between 610 and before 594 BC, Necho reputedly commissioned an expedition of Phoenicians,Unlikely with the intent of circumnavigating Africa, but for finding an alternative route to Asia than through the area near the Levant. Also, such voyages were undertaken for trading with more southern African cities; thereafter being blown off-course, if not tasked to sail around the lands. who it is said in three years sailed from the Red Sea around Africa back to the mouth of the Nile; and would thereby be the first completion of the Cape Route.Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia. Edited by Henry Smith Williams. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vPULAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA118 p118]Anthony Tony Browder, Nile valley contributions to civilization,Volume 1. 1992 (cf. In the Twenty Fifth Dynasty, during the reign of Necho II, navigational technology had advanced to the point where sailors from Kemet successfully circumnavigated Africa and drew an extremely accurate map of the continent.) Herodotus' account was handed down to him by oral tradition,M. J. Cary. The Ancient Explorers. Penguin Books, 1963. Page 114 but is seen as potentially credible because he stated with disbelief that the Phoenicians "as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right"—to northward of them (The Histories 4.42).As for Libya, we know it to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Necos, the Egyptian king, who on desisting from the canal which he had begun between the Nile and the Arabian gulf (referring to the Red Sea), sent to sea a number of ships manned by Phoenicians, with orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to Egypt through them, and by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they again set sail; and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their voyage home. On their return, they declared—I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may—that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered. {{cite wikisource |chapter=Book 4 |wslink=History of Herodotus |plaintitle=History of Herodotus}} Pliny reported that Hanno had circumnavigated Africa, which may have been a conflation with Necho's voyage, while Strabo, Polybius, and Ptolemy doubted the description;The Geographical system of Herodotus by James Rennel. [https://books.google.com/books?id=6C0waiOScrEC&pg=PA348 p348]+ at the time it was not generally known that Africa was surrounded by an ocean (with the southern part of Africa being thought connected to Asia).Die umsegelung Asiens und Europas auf der Vega. Volume 2. By Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8-SfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA148 p148] F. C. H. Wendel, writing in 1890, concurred with HerodotusHistory of Egypt. By F. C. H. Wendel. American Book Co., 1890. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9MsXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA127 p127] (cf. Herodotus relates a story of a great maritime enterprise undertaken at this time which seems quite credible. He states that Nekau sent out Phoenician ships from the Red Sea to circumnavigate Africa, and that in the third year of their journey they returned to the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar.) as did James Baikie.{{Cite book |last=Baikie |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TSswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA316 |title=The Story of the Pharaohs |date=1908 |publisher=A. and C. Black |language=en}} Egyptologist A. B. Lloyd disputed in 1977 that an Egyptian Pharaoh would authorize such an expedition,{{Cite journal |last=Lloyd |first=Alan B. |date=1977 |title=Necho and the Red Sea: Some Considerations |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3856314 |journal=The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology |volume=63 |pages=142–155 |doi=10.2307/3856314 |jstor=3856314 |issn=0307-5133}}Lloyd is to hold the position that geographical knowledge at the time of Herodutus was such that Greeks would know that such a voyage would entail the sun being on their right but did not believe Africa could extend far enough for this to happen. He suggests that the Greeks at this time understood that anyone going south far enough and then turning west would have the sun on their right but found it unbelievable that Africa reached so far south. He wrote: "Given the context of Egyptian thought, economic life, and military interests, it is impossible for one to imagine what stimulus could have motivated Necho in such a scheme and if we cannot provide a reason which is sound within Egyptian terms of reference, then we have good reason to doubt the historicity of the entire episode." Alan B. Lloyd, "Necho and the Red Sea: Some Considerations", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 63 (1977) p.149. except for the reasons of Asiatic conquestTwentieth Century. Twentieth century, 1908. [https://books.google.com/books?id=bnDME1BzBEoC&pg=PA816 p816]'The Historians' History of the World. Edited by Henry Smith Williams. [https://books.google.com/books?id=BKQ-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA286 p286] (cf. Syria seems to have submitted to him, as far as the countries bordering the Euphrates. Gaza offered resistance, but was taken. But it was only for a short time that Neku II could feel himself a conqueror.) and trade in the ancient maritime routes.Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe. By Alexander von Humboldt. [https://books.google.com/books?id=M_W_AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA489 p489]The Cambridge History of the British Empire''. CUP Archive, 1963. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ISg9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA56 p56]

Necho II died in 595 BC and was succeeded by his son, Psamtik II, as the next pharaoh of Egypt. Psamtik II, however, apparently removed Necho's name from almost all of his father's monuments for unknown reasons. However, some scholars, such as Roberto Gozzoli, express doubt that this actually happened, arguing that the evidence for this is fragmentary and rather contradictory.Gozzoli, R. B. (2000), [https://www.academia.edu/353991/The_Statue_BM_EA_37891_and_the_Erasure_of_Necho_IIs_Names The Statue BM EA 37891 and the Erasure of Necho II's Names] Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 86: 67–80

;Pre-1900s

• Encyclopædia, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=8Pzg8T5RkGQC&pg=PA785 Necho]". Thomas Dobson, at the Stone house, no. 41, South Second street, 1798. p785.
• Pantologia, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=akIKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT372 Necho]". J. Walker, 1819. p372.
• Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 15. [https://books.google.com/books?id=z_kAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA430 p430].
• Essay on the Hieroglyphic System of M. Champollion, Jun., and on the Advantages which it Offers to Sacred Criticism. By J. G. Honoré Greppo. [https://books.google.com/books?id=LYkBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA128 p128]–129.
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=9_ULAAAAYAAJ Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia]. Edited by Henry Smith Williams.

;Post-1900s

• Petrie 1905. W.M. Flinders Petrie. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076207016;view=1up;seq=7 A History of Egypt.] From the XIXth to the XXXth Dynasties. London. See: [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076207016;view=1up;seq=361 Nekau II, pp. 335–339.]
• Max Cary, Eric Herbert Warmington. The Ancient Explorers. Methuen & Company, Limited, 1929.
• Peter Clayton (1994). Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson.
• Arnold 1999. Dieter Arnold. Temples of the Last Pharaos. New York/Oxford

• Necho (crater)
• Hanno the Navigator
• List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources
• Ancient Egyptian trade
• Bible and history
• Land of Punt

;General information

• Budge, E. A. W. (1894). [https://books.google.com/books?id=J0tCAAAAIAAJ The mummy: Chapters on Egyptian funereal archaeology]. Cambridge [England]: University Press. [https://books.google.com/books?id=J0tCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA56 page 56+].
• Budge, E. A. W. (1904). [https://books.google.com/books?id=U9ajVYHEpi4C A history of Egypt from the end of the Neolithic period to the death of Cleopatra VII, B.C. 30]. Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, v. 9-16. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. [https://books.google.com/books?id=U9ajVYHEpi4C&pg=PA218 Page218+].
• [http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/artshumanities/oth/lloydalan/ Alan B. Lloyd], "Necho and the Red Sea: Some Considerations", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 63 (1977).
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=8DiTX_EsWasC Herodotus] By Alan B. Lloyd. BRILL, 1988.

;Footnotes

{{Reflist|2}}

;Expedition

• [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nechoafrica.htm Necho II's African Circumnavigation]
• [http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/economy/ Ancient Egyptian economy]. www.reshafim.org.il (Maritime economy)

;Other

• [http://formerthings.com/necho.htm Necho Pharaoh of Egypt]. Egyptian History Archaeology and the Bible.
• [http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/chronology/nekauii.html Nekau (II) Wehemibre]., digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk

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Category:7th-century BC births

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Category:7th-century BC pharaohs

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Category:Pharaohs of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt

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Category:Exploration of Africa

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