Tanis and Thebes: kings beside high priests

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the essay says

According to the essay "Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period" by Marsha Hill and James P. Allen on the website of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the death of Ramesses XI in the early eleventh century BCE the throne passed to Smendes, "a northern relative of the High Priest of Amun". In the essay's words, Smendes' reign "initiated some 400 years of politically divided rule and diffused power", known as the Third Intermediate Period. Source 1.

Two centers

The essay divides the period into four general stages, noting that "its details are still not fully clear" and that many questions remain to be answered. In the first, Dynasty 21, "conventionally ca. 1070-945 B.C.", Egypt was governed by pharaohs ruling from Tanis in the eastern Delta and by the High Priests of Amun ruling from Thebes. On relations between them the essay has one sentence: "Relations between the two centers of power were generally good." Source 1.

How does a divided kingdom work?

The question is natural, but the source read answers it only in part. It says who ruled and from where, and that relations were generally good. It does not say, in the text read, where the line between the two domains ran, how taxes, armies or appointments were shared, or what the standing of the high priests was towards the pharaoh at Tanis. The family link the essay mentions, Smendes as a northern relative of the High Priest, is one detail, not an explanation of the whole arrangement. Anyone who wants to know how the division worked in practice needs inscriptions and documents of the period and the research literature, which were not read here.

Tanis afterwards

Tanis does not disappear at the end of Dynasty 21. The essay notes that "certain kings of Dynasty 22 were buried at Tanis with famously rich coffins and equipment", while elaborately decorated private tombs, well known from the New Kingdom, recurred only in Dynasty 25. It does not name those kings here or describe the tombs themselves. Source 1.

Where this sits on the timeline

The range "conventionally ca. 1070-945 B.C." lies entirely within the site's Third Intermediate Period, which ends at 712 BCE in the site's navigation and at 664 in the essay itself, so the article is placed there. The word "conventionally" marks accepted limits, not exact years: the essay also ties the start of the period to the death of Ramesses XI "in the early eleventh century", not to a particular year. Source 1.

Scope of reading: the essay "Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070-664 B.C.)" on the Met's website (published October 2004, revised March 2018) was read on 24 October 2026. Inscriptions and documents of the period, excavation reports from Tanis and Thebes and the research literature were not read, so this page gives no names of high priests, regnal years or finds from the sites themselves.